#did i make almost the exact same post exactly a year ago down to the same skirt? yes

[merry-death]

Happy first day of Pride to all of you gay people living in my phone!!

From me, my bisexual hair, and my 100% @mayakern outfit.

they/them

[lunalockley]

The Limo Driver (part one)

Jake Lockley x Fem!Reader

Warnings: SMUT. Very NSFW which is funny cause reader is in her workplace. Fingers exactly where you want them.

Summary: Jake has issues, yet has the audacity to be possessive.

Words: 4700+

Notes: Hiii! I wasn't posting for a while because I wasn't satisfied with my writing, but now save yourselves I'm backkkk

Masterlist

gif credit

Truth is… you’ve missed him. All this time you’ve missed him.

You have realized he never told you how old he is, where he is from, or what he does. You don’t have any substantial information about his personality, about who he is as a person. All you know is he answers to the name of Jake and you think he drives a limo for a living.

That’s it. That’s all you have on him. And half of it it’s guessed.

Yet, you’ve missed him. A lot. Which is pretty stupid. And annoying.

Because if you already have to deal with mornings you suddenly wake up breathing hard and sweaty just by the infuriatingly vivid idea of his warm mouth making his way down on your neck, or the roughness of his hands grabbing your hips to pull you closer, deeper, harder… ugly, disgusting ideas you’re determined to call nightmares. At work, everything gets worse. 

There are days when the restaurant is full, no matter how late it is. So you move around on a nonstop cycle greeting, serving, and cleaning until your shift is over and you don’t have energy left to think about anything else than your soft, comfy bed. But there are also days when almost no one comes. Days when no one wants breakfast at 1 am, for some reason, so you don’t have anyone to reassure there’s still bacon and eggs available—even when the ‘24-hour breakfast’ slogan plagues pretty much every inch of the restaurant. Nothing to serve, nothing to clean, no repetition to follow. Nothing to concentrate on.

So all that are you left with it’s the constant hum of the ceiling fan, your thoughts and the fact that his usual seat pulls your attention like a gravitational force, taking over you against all your fucking will. Whether it’s being used by a stranger and you can’t escape how wrong it feels having someone else where it should be him, or when its emptiness seems to mock how you haven’t been able to forget him despite how long it’s been since the last time you saw him.

So of course it’s stupid and annoying… and stupid.

Because if he’s not sitting there frowning at his coffee and flirting with you whenever you got closer enough, as he did for weeks on end all these months ago, it’s because he doesn’t want to, right? It’s been nearly a half-year for fuck’s sake. Of course he doesn’t want to.

You know that. You do. Yet the kiss gets replayed on your mind all the fucking time. Because that’s the exact same spot where you felt his lips against yours for real, not like the not-good-enough vanished version of your drea—nightmares.

Even though you’d prefer those horrible nightmares than staying behind the counter with nothing to do but alternate your eyes between a smooching couple in one corner and an old melancholic man observing the night sky in the other, the only customers in the restaurant. No one else has entered the place in a torturously slow hour and a half. And there's still another hour left until your shift ends.

It’s embarrassing how all your life you had been proud of yourself for not letting anyone take over your mind as you’ve seen in cheesy movies and listened to in corny songs. You were fine, taking care of your well-being, working on as many jobs as physically possible, patiently increasing your savings, doing everything in your hands to follow your slightly unrealistic dreams. But this? This is straight-out dumb.

You think about him as soon as you wake up, you get distracted on your daily life, on your work. And the fact that any little silly thing has the power to make you think of him, to wonder what he might be doing, may have he eaten, might he be okay—it’s infuriating.

You just never had someone on your mind… all the fucking time. 

And now it’s getting to a point you’re just mad about it. About how silly you were to open up to him, to share your dreams and fears when he didn’t even tell you his last name. About how naive you were to let him be part of your life so easily. About the stupid kiss, too. About how you still care, how you’re still hoping he’s okay. About everything. Even the soft buzzing of the coffee machine is getting on your nerves. 

You just have to… forget him. Somehow.

While you channel all of your frustration into cleaning the bar table for the eighty-sixth time you go through it again. You need a plan, you have to get over him. You need to go out, have a social life, get some new air. You’ll fucking do fifty push-ups every time he comes to mind if you need to. You won’t spend not even one more second thinking of him or his stupid lips, nor the lopsided almost-smiles he would give you every time you—

“Always working so hard, preciosa.”

A beat, and then you feel how your heart starts to race in your chest as all the oxygen seems to leave your lungs, getting replaced with too many emotions and thoughts you can’t process all at once. Everything feels like too much for a second. Too alive, too fast, too hot. And as if your body had a mind of its own, while you’re still trying to regain control of it, your head lifts and you’re certain you’ll finally find out you have lost your fucking mind. 

But you haven't. Because he’s right there, in his usual chair. 

Jake.

His brown eyes are the first thing that catches your attention, his gaze always having the power to somehow make you feel safe and exposed at the same time. Just like the first time you saw him, you weren’t able to look away even when he was drenched, limping, and bleeding. Another thing he never explained. 

The memory makes you examine the rest of his body. He’s wearing a t-shirt and a shirt and his chest is moving hard underneath, almost like he had run here. At least he doesn’t seem hurt this time. You also notice he’s not wearing his usual hat and you think this might be the first time you’ve ever seen his hair in full glory. Even if it’s slightly combed you can see it’s curly and fluffy and you try to bury deep down the stupid desire to lose your fingers in it. 

And you realize his whole body seems to be vibrating with some sort of energy, some sort of excitement you’ve also never seen in him before. And your own body, too susceptible to his, can almost feel it emanating out of him.

You search back for his eyes just in time to catch his slowly lifting from your body and when they make contact with yours they shine with something you rather don’t think about right now.

“It’s been a while,” he says still a little out of breath. And your heart is still in your throat while you wait for him to continue but he doesn’t. Is he expecting you to say something back to that? After all this time? Oh, it’s been a while? I haven’t noticed. At all. It’s not like I’ve been worrying to death because of you. 

But even if you wanted to say anything at all out loud you don’t think you could, you’re still frozen in place working with way less oxygen than needed. So you keep taking each other in, staring in silence like two idiots waiting for the other to say something. And to your surprise, he gives in first.

“Did you miss me?” He doesn’t smile, but his eyes are bright and there’s a teasing lilt to his voice, that flirty tone you know so well. The first thing about him that you can actually recognize because everything else feels out of place. The absence of his hat, the casual clothes, his whole weirdly happy demeanor. So you hold into it. 

Which is the worst thing you could do. Because your heart already struggling somewhere in your chest makes a mortal downfall to your stomach in response to it. And you feel it breaking a little bit more. Of the thousand if-he-ever-comes-back scenarios you had in your head you never picture him being almost… cheeky about it. He spends night after night for months bolted to that chair, talking to you, flirting with you, fighting any drunk who got too handsy, waiting for you on your late shifts to accompany your way home through dark streets, looking at you in that stupid bone-melting way he does… kissing you, just to disappear for six months and appear all of the sudden to ask if you missed him? The nerve of him.

“It’s good to see you, Jake,” you acknowledge, and you curse yourself for your slightly shaky voice. You’re still trying to gain your body back from the emotional overload. The adrenaline is still buzzing through your veins. And the way his gaze flick to your mouth once you pronounce his name doesn't make it any easier.

“Just black coffee?” You hear yourself ask, and you curse yourself once more for blurting out his usual order just like that. You shouldn’t remember those things after six months, should you? The thing is you’re not just trying to avoid answering his stupid question but you also need to have at least something to do with your hands. You can’t just stand there in front of him like an idiot, for god’s sake.

“Uh, yeah, thanks,” he answers dropping his gaze to the table and you take the opportunity to turn around away from his mesmerizing brown eyes and stupidly long eyelashes at least for a moment. “Always having fun playing with my heart, preciosa. You didn’t miss me, then?”

Again, the nerve of him.

“Clients come and go,” you toss carelessly back at him. Not facing him gives you a false sense of power. You have never been so ruthless around him, you never fully played along with his flirty comments but neither did you shut him down. Not being able to resist him. Stupid you. But no more of that.

“Mmm, just a client then,” he remarks in a meditative tone.

“Well, after all this time you’re not even that, are you?” You throwback a little too firmly, serving his cup of coffee a little too hard, almost spilling some on the counter bar. God, where is this passive aggressiveness coming from?

He doesn’t answer and you don’t expect him to. Instead he just looks at you. So you do the same, you can’t back down now.

As you observe him you notice part of his weirdly vibrating energy seems to have diminished along with his playful demeanor. He has realized you’re not playing around. And for a second you feel a stab of regret. Despite your annoyance, you enjoyed watching this new third expression his always serious face is capable of making, besides his usual grumpy, extra-grumpy murderous one you were already used to. Now all you have left are his rich brown eyes, which reveal more information than his words have ever done. Despite his will, you believe.

“How’s our cat?” Jake tries again, changing the subject. One you can’t resist.

“My cat. Just mine. And she’s fine. So big you wouldn’t recognize her.”

“Did you find her a name?”

“No. She’s still Viejita.”

Viejita. The way he called her when he brought her to you, tiny, malnourished, and full of fleas. He had found her alone in the streets. Said he had no heart to leave her, but he couldn’t take her home with him. Something about already having fish and cats not being discreet enough. So like the idiot you are you took her with you.

Not like you regretted though. You are pretty sure that tiny black-haired monster has become the love of your life.

“Viejita,” he chuckles softly. “That’s good. I approve it.”

You gasp, shocked. How dare he.

“You have no right.”

This time around he’s the one who seems shocked. After a brief moment, he says in perfect conviction: “Of course I do. I found her. I’m her father.”

“Yeah, you’ve missed half her life, that actually sounds like it.”

The silence rises again and his eyes, god, his eyes are looking at you with an intensity you’ve seen only once before: the night he kissed you. So instead of doing the grown-up thing and facing him once and for all, you do exactly the opposite. You turn around and pretend to be very busy doing literally nothing.

“And how have you been?” He asks a few moments later. Even when you can’t see him you feel his eyes pinned on you. You move things from one side to the other, pretending to organize them when you’re actually doing quite the contrary. You take a mental note to put everything back in its place before your co-worker arrives for her shift.

“I have work to do. Other customers to serve, Jake. Can’t spend the night chatting with you.”

“Yeah, sure, I see that. You’re drowning in orders,” you hear him grumble as you make your way to the table of the smooching couple that just left. They just had coffee and waffles, but you make the most of it taking as much time as you can carrying the mugs to the kitchen. Yet, it still takes too little. By the time you’re back at the counter top, there's still a half-hour of shift left. And Jake is right where you left him, his coffee untouched.

 “C’mon bonita, talk to me.”

You had forgotten the power his dark raspy voice has over you, breaking goosebumps all over your body. One more reason to hate your work dress too short everywhere, leaving your arms as exposed as your legs.

“Stop—Stop calling me… things in Spanish, please.”

“But you are bonita. Muy bonita. Preciosa.”

Fuck him, why does it sound so good? You’ll listen to Spanish ASMR tonight. Not having him in mind, of course.

“Well, I don’t like it.”

“Yeah, right. Don’t fight it. I’ve gone that way, too. But is just denial.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

He’s doing that thing where the corner of his lips is slightly raised and his eyes shine with mischief. You can’t help yourself. You fall right in.

“What were you in denial of?”

“You.”

Ok, no. Abort. Don’t go that way. Change the subject. Fast.

You fill the air with meaningless sounds until you actually find something to say. “What’s with the new style? I don’t think I’ve ever seen you so… so casual.”

He doesn’t smile but you see it in his eyes, your reaction pleased him. But then he crosses his arms and leans back in his seat a little bit, along with a subtle change in his demeanor. Almost defensive, but you’re not sure. “Borrowed.”

“Borrowed?”

“Yeah.”

“Why did you need to borrow them?”

“Circumstances.” He answers with a shrug.

“Ok. And… what have you been up to?”

“Work.”

Single-word answers. A mimic of a response but not actually giving anything away. Keeping himself clean, not exposed, not involved.

“What are you doing, Jake?”

“I’m talking t—”

“No, you are not,” you interrupt him. You see a muscle appear on his cheek. “Why are you here? Why you came back?”

“I came back—came back to you. Didn’t want to leave.”

“But you did. So what does that mean?” You ask defenseless, tired of trying to figure him out. 

He opens his mouth but doesn’t say anything at the end. All you get is a head shake and a shrug as an apology. He won’t say anything, he never does.

“Nice talk.”

There are still almost twenty minutes left but you don’t care. The old melancholic man, the only customer besides Jake, is still sipping his coffee. He doesn’t need you.

You go and take your backpack to the bathroom. You’ll change and kill the time in there until your shift ends. But as soon as you close the door it opens again. Jake storms inside, you didn’t even hear his footsteps.

“Jake, what the f—”

“What’s wrong? What changed?” He interrupts you, positioning himself against the door. Blocking any way to escape him, forcing you to face him.

What changed?!

“Please, this isn’t—just…” you pause to take a big breath, putting all your effort into channeling the remaining patience you’ve got left “just leave me alone.”

“Why?” He asks softer than you expected, taking a step closer. But despite the tone, despite the cautious way he's approaching you you can see he’s holding back. You can feel his body tense with restraint.

“Because I want to be alone. I don’t want to be near you right now.”

“Why?”

“Why?”

“Yeah, why?”

Is too fucking small here, this bathroom can barely fit two people. And he’s gotten closer. You can feel the heat emanating out of him. The audacity to come here and perform a little interrogatory when he never answers any of your questions.

“Jake, please—”

“Answer me. Why don’t you want me near you?”

“Please, stop being an—” an asshole, you want to say. A selfish idiot who just takes and doesn’t give anything back. But you don’t. “Just leave.”

“Tell me why.”

That’s it.

“I don’t wanna be near you because you’re being a fucking asshole and I hate assholes and I hate your stupid chair and I hate that you leave only when you want to and not when I ask you to, like when you kissed me and you just fucking left! I hate that you don’t answer any of my questions but you come here expecting me to answer all of yours, and I hate that you are so close to me,” you snap, trying to push him away full force but he doesn’t move an inch. “And I fucking hate you too so get the fuck off m—”

It’s so fast. His hand on the back of your neck is what silences you. He’s suddenly pulling you closer, caging you by taking over your waist with his whole fucking arm. And when you are millimeters from his face his eyes shine with something you can’t quite put your finger on but they immediately change into something primitive and dark, halfway to insane.

And then his mouth is on yours and he’s kissing you. Hard.

All you can feel is him. His scent. The low hum when his tongue invades your mouth. The hand holding the back of your head, the other moving over your back and pushing you towards his torso. All hard muscles and heat. His pulse jumping under your fingertips. His upper thigh between your legs. 

Is this how it feels when he loses control? Is this how it feels when you lose control?

It must be. Because for sure you’re not in control of your body right now. Not for the way is pushing back to fit every part of his. Nor for the way you moan when he bites your lower lip. Or for the way your fingers trail down and get into the waistband of his jeans, desperate to feel more of him. The contact makes him shudder and growl into your mouth. But you can’t go any further because he’s suddenly turning you around so fast you barely get to hold your hands into the mirror before completely losing balance. His hands grip your hips, pulling you into him, making you feel the heat of his hardness and punching another pathetic moan out of you.

In response a pleased hum rose in his throat, the sound deep and husky. He slowly raises one hand through your body and wraps it around your throat, bringing you even closer to him. The other hand travels down your thigh. The look in his eyes wild and sharp, almost black when they click back on yours through the mirror's reflection. “Not so desperate to get away from me now, are we muñequita?”

You can’t breathe. Not when his fingertips find the hem of your dress. Not when he lifts it so, so slowly up to your waist. Not when he starts playing with the elastic of your panties. Not when he leans his head over your shoulder to get a better look. Not when he briefly brushes your clit through the fabric. Fuck.

You gasp at the contact. Jake removes his hand as his eyes immediately search for yours over the reflection, the intensity of his gaze as if his life depends on your answer.

“Do you still want me to leave?”

He’s not just asking for confirmation, he’s giving you a way out. If you say yes he will leave just like you said you wanted him two minutes ago. Perhaps he won’t ever show up again and you’ll finally get a chance to get back to your normal life before him. That’s what you should do. But you know won’t. Because whatever your common sense is shouting at you gets pushed back to the background. Too caught up in the way his body feels against yours. Too absorbed in what his next move might be, what his next words might sound like right there next to your ear. But you can't get yourself to recognize any of that out loud, so all you do is shake your head, utterly defeated.

“Mmm, what you want me to do then?”

You take his hand and try to take it back to your pussy but he takes it away before you can’t get any relief. It’s not fair. Instead, he raises his hand to move your head to the side, exposing your throat.

“Too bad. I’m not giving you what you want until you act right,” he says lowly and the baritone goes straight into your core. It’s too hot. You feel too hot. Overheated. There’s a faint sheen on your neck and now he’s licking it and you feel like dying. He lets out a noise that’s halfway between a snort and a laugh. “Months waiting for a fucking chance to get here and once I do you can’t fucking behave yourself. Now how was that? You hate me you say?”

“No. Jake, please,” you whine. Unable to stop yourself.

“No?”

“No,” a mere whisper. You don’t even know what are you answering. Your body wants him so bad isn’t even processing thoughts.

“So you don’t?” 

“Jake.”

“You sound so sweet. But I need to hear more, preciosa.”

“Please, Jake, I’m so wet.”

That seems to push a bunch of air out of him. Almost like he couldn't help himself, he moves his head back over your shoulder to watch as pushes the panties to the side with his thumb. His index and middle finger beginning to collect your wetness, the touch so soft you can barely feel it. Torture. Not even close to enough.

“Just fucking touch me already please or I swea—”

The rest of the sentence is muffled as his two fingers fill your mouth, a pinch of something pungent and salty. Your own taste.

“Told you to behave yourself,” he slowly moves his fingers out to your lower lip just to get them back inside to the knuckle. The movement, the words, the tone coaxes a whimper out of you. You’re burning inside out. “Now tell me, does it taste like you hate me? Mmm?”

Before you can even try to answer he turns your head to the side and meets you halfway to kiss you. His hand on your jaw, his tongue dominating yours, his voice raspier when he speaks again. “Yeah, I don’t think so.”

He keeps kissing you as he begins to trace the outside of your slit, up and down, up and down. And you feel yourself melting against him. His touch is so smooth and the effect that it has on you is so powerful. And he knows it. 

“You just can't get enough of me, can you?”

And then when he finally starts working on your clit you lose it. God, you had no idea. If two of his fucking fingers have made this trembling, needy, overheated mess of you, you better don’t even imagine what he could of you if—No. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fucking hell, you wish you could even talk but language has left your fucking brain. All you can do is whimper as he keeps talking you through it.

“Does it feel good?”

“You’ve needed this all this time? Needed me?”

“Say it then.”

“Say it. Say that you need me.”

“Say the words, baby.”

“Would you like it better if I fuck them off of you?”

Your body makes a sudden jerk when he stops the movement, demanding an answer. But no matter the state you are in there’s still a little corner of your fogged brain fighting. Fighting for not giving him what he wants, no matter how much you want to. No matter if he’s only asking you to admit what you know is true. His hand finds your jaw and positions your head straight into the mirror, forcing you to look into his eyes through the reflection.

And you give in a little. 

“No-o one gets under my skin the way—the way you do,” you manage to say, panting and trembling. Yet, you catch it. As soon as the words leave your mouth his gaze softens. His expression doesn’t seem to change, not anyone could see it. But you can. His eyes look pleased. The storm calms down a bit.

And while you're still spellbound, immobile under his gaze and unaware of anything else but his brown deep eyes he slides two fingers in. The stretch ignites fire from the inside. Your head rolls back into his shoulder as his head falls back into yours.

“Fuck.” The words sound muffled on your neck, low and delirious. “Fuck, baby. Those pretty little noises you’re making will haunt me till my last living night.”

You can already feel it. The way your muscles tense, the way your pussy is squeezing his fingers. So close, so close, so close, so fucking close. And then—

A knock on the door. Your co-worker is calling up your name.

Jake slips his fingers out and takes a step back. The movement sinks down into your stomach. Is he regretting it? Will he disappear again just like last time?

“I–I’ll be there in a minute,” you pronounce as clearly as you can, hoping she won’t notice the tremble in your voice. 

Slowly, you come back to your senses. Your legs barely hold you up. A minute goes by and he still doesn’t say anything. You take your jeans and put them on. Deep down you already knew it. This doesn’t changes anything. He won’t let you in. And you’ve got enough of it.

“I don’t unders—All these months I’ve been so worried, and confused, and angry at you. And on top of that, I missed you so much that I even got tired of it. Physically tired of it. But you know what the worst part was? The more time you spend in my head the more I realized I don’t know anything about you. I barely know your first name. And you, somehow, managed to get any stupid little detail of me out in the clear and that makes it even—”. You finish taking off your dress and you put on your shirt. He's looked at you through the mirror throughout the whole process, his eyes dark and stormy again. You close your backpack and turn to face him. “The point is even this ridiculous little 30-second monologue of me being honest about how I feel it’s more than anything you’ve told me about you. I don’t know you, Jake. I’m not the one who needs to act right. And whatever this is,” you say pointing between the two of you, “is over.”

He’s taking deep breaths, his body tense, restrained once more. Controlled. With a last look in his eyes, you recognize what you couldn’t get your finger on earlier on. It’s vulnerability. But after a few blinks it’s deep down hidden again.

You think he might stop you once you open the door and walk away, but he doesn’t.

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Sorry if I tagged you and you only wanted to be tagged in the I wanna be yours series! I'll be posting very soon there. Please let me know if you don't want to be tagged in part two of The Limo Driver so I can remove you! <3

Also I don't remember who started calling Jake fancanon cat Viejita but please all credit to them!

[wonwoosthetic]

omg i absolutely loved the new minnie and wonwoo chapter 😔 are you planning on posting a part 2 soon? I CANT WAIT AHHHH

No Words Should Be Left Unsaid || Minnie🌷

minnie masterlist

PART ONE

warnings – a bit of angst, one quick mention of the word ‘sex’

word count – 11k

A/N: Took longer than I would've wanted, but here it finally is and I'm happy to admit, that I've definitely gotten my inspiration back ˙ᵕ˙ I hope I didn't disappoint with this chapter and that you all enjoy it ˙ᵕ˙

italics are spoken in english

The following day already started like hell. Minnie woke up with a pounding head, a scratchy throat, and burning eyes - all aftereffects from crying herself to sleep. It was a wonder she even got to fall asleep, but the exhaustion from the fight must've taken over her body. 

The fight. 

The screaming.

It all flashed back into the girl's mind as she sat up on the bed, cradling her face in her hands, running her fingers through her hair, and trying to loosen some of its knots.

 "I SWEAR TO GOD, YOU'RE PISSING ME OFF RIGHT NOW, MINNIE!"

"You've never given me reasons to not trust you before."

"I hope they send him to jail."

Wonwoo's hurtful words he shouted to her face only mere hours ago sliced through her heart like a hot knife. She couldn't exactly remember everything she had thrown at his head, but she knew they hadn't been any better.

What still echoed through her mind though was the exact scene that had her crumbling down.

"So what? You suddenly don't trust me anymore? You think I just did this... for- f- for I don't know... fun?"

"Looks like I should've questioned that a lot earlier."

The one thing she looked for in a relationship. The one thing she was always to come back to whenever she started losing herself. Trust. Loyalty. Never had she ever had to question either characteristic when it comes to Wonwoo. She thought he felt the same. But last night, he proved to her that she was in the wrong. He didn't trust her anymore. No matter what she would've done the night before, his words were already out in the world, they had already reached her ears and made her entire world fall and break into millions of pieces she so desperately wanted to hold together.

No matter how hard she wanted to cry about it again, how much her body was urging her to scream the pain out loud in hopes of saving her, nothing came out. There was nothing left in her. Not even a single teardrop could escape her eyes. She was empty.

Due to the blackout curtains, S.Coups had gotten for his room, there was no light seeping into the room, only adding to the depressing episode Minnie could feel herself falling into. Not again. Please, God, don't let me go through this again, she prayed. The darkness brought her back to the place she had been only two years ago. She couldn't let herself go back there. No, not like this.

Hastily, the girl shrugged the blanket off her body and rushed out of the room, opening the door to be met with the light walls and bright interior of the dorm her members shared. The familiar soft voices and gentle laughs rang through her ears, almost making her smile, only if there wasn't this heavyweight still pressing on her heart, not letting any emotion escape. Fuck, it was happening...

Just as Minnie was about to turn to enter the living space, Joshua's silhouette rounded the corner, stopping when he saw her form, frozen in the hallway.

"Oh, hey," he softly spoke to her. "You're awake."

Minnie nodded before realising she should probably also open her mouth. "Yeah," her voice was only a whisper, scared she would hurt her body or somebody else if she dared to speak any louder. The older member sent her a loving smile, nodding to where he had just come from,

"Come on. You should eat something." Waiting for the girl to follow him before he made his way back into the kitchen.

Did the female performer have an appetite? Absolutely not. Did she know she would have to put food into her body otherwise the others would start to worry once again? 100% yes. So there she was, walking into the kitchen, hot on Joshua's tracks, her arms crossed in front of her chest as she entered the shared room when all eyes fell on her. She met the comforting gazes of Seungcheol and, to her surprise, also Jeonghan and Seungkwan who must've joined them earlier in the day - if only she knew what the exact time was.

"Hey," she greeted them with a somewhat smile and a wave into the room, sitting down on one of the empty chairs by the table that Jeonghan pushed out for her.

"Hey," he smiled at her, "H-... how are you feeling?" The nervousness and uncertainty were clear in his voice - the members knew not to drown her in too many questions, remembering and respecting her sensitivity from the previous encounters they had with Minnie in a state like that.

The girl shrugged her shoulders, honestly not knowing what an honest answer to the question would be. Was she fine? Definitely not. Did she feel bad? Maybe a little. Was she miserable? ...Yes...

Before Jeonghan could continue a small talk, the leader beat him to it as he stood up and turned around to the cupboards.

"Is cereal fine?" He questioned her, to which she raised her head and nodded softly, followed by a quiet,

"Sure."

Seungcheol was just happy that she agreed to eat something.

As soon as she had joined the others in the kitchen, everyone could feel the tension spreading. The elephant was clear in the room with them, and she hated it. No one wanted to say what they were thinking, each one of them on edge in one way or another for the girl in the group. Joshua had left the four as he got ready in his own room. Jeonghan's hand was resting on the back of her chair, Cheol was preparing her bowl, cereal and milk, and Seungkwan was sitting in front of her, munching on his breakfast in silence - until it got too much for him.

"Wonwoo's an idiot." He suddenly blurted out, gaining the attention of the room.

"Seungkwan-" Cheol warned him in the strict voice all of them had gotten so accustomed to.

"What?" He shrugged, "It's the truth."

The leader brought the bowl to her, setting it down on the table. Minnie looked up at him,

"You told him?" He wasn't sure whether she was genuinely just curious or disappointed in the fact the other members now knew about the couple of the group having had the biggest fight they ever had. Coups sat back down in the chair next to the '98 Liner.

"Jeonghan asked why you were sleeping here, he saw you in my room, and when I explained it to him, Seungkwan came in. He overheard it," he explained.

She nodded as she held onto the spoon, moving it around in the bowl, suddenly at a complete loss of appetite. There was no way the food would make it down her throat. Suddenly, Minnie felt the soft hand of the '95 Liner next to her on her head as it brushed down the length of her hair.

"It's gonna be fine, princess." Using the name she had gained early on in their career. But all she could do was shake her head.

The female member got up to walk over to the fridge, her hand reaching out to grab a bottle of water, in the same moment, knocks from the front door echoed through the apartment.

"Got it!" Shua shouted before he opened the door, letting in whoever was behind it.

Minnie got back to her seat, now much more hydrated. Finally, her body would have enough fluid to create the tears again she so desperately wanted to let out. Jeonghan noticed the shaky deep breaths she took, still stirring her cereal, trying to suppress the sadness daring to seep out of her.

Joshua and another familiar voice got closer and closer. With one look to her left, she found the other member she shared a dorm with - Mingyu.

"Morning," he smiled into the room, only to change his facial expression once he noticed the still very tense aura in the room. "Hey," he nodded towards the girl, who sent him a nod. The concerned look in his eyes didn't go unnoticed by the second oldest who discreetly raised his hand with a nod to assure him that she was very well taken care of, even though he already knew that. Whenever she was with the members, didn't matter with whom specifically, she was in good hands.

"What do you need?" Cheol wondered why he had come to their dorm earlier than usual.

Mingyu raised his hands in synch. His right one held onto the female's phone while his left carried a bag. 

"You left this," looking at the dancer that was avoiding his eyes, he went ahead to place the phone in front of her, but before the device could touch the top of the table, she stopped him with her hand on his.

"I don't need it." She cleared her throat after noticing how scratchy her voice still was.

"You don't have to look at it, just have it by you-" he tried to reason with her, but she just pushed his hand further away.

"Keep it. I don't want it," Minnie looked up, the tears making her eyes glisten in the light coming from the window, "Please." She quietly begged him.

Her fellow '97 Liner nodded understandingly, not wanting to bring any more emotions up if they were able to keep her like this, he wasn't about to provoke her for no reason. He put her phone into his back pocket silently, nudging his head to the bag in his other hand.

"And... I brought you some things. I didn't know when you'd want to be back, so..." Mingyu wasn't sure how he wanted to finish the comment, so he decided to just not. His statement brought another wash of emotions over Minnie's body as she felt her eyes reacting and blinking rapidly, trying to push the tears back down as she kept her head low. Great... so the fight seemed as serious as she had perceived it as. Even Mingyu thought I wouldn't want to go back into their dorm... what have I done... her own voice kept repeating words in her head. Words she didn't want to hear.

The older '97 Liner took another look at her, getting nods from the other members, before retrieving back to the couch, taking the bag with him and sitting down on the side not occupied by Joshua, who was more focused on the little screen in his hand. While the four at the dining table sat in silence, eyes on the girl, Mingyu got a hold of the remote and turned on the TV on the wall. The screen lit up to show the news. Only that it was the wrong news for the current situation.

"-years probation as well as serving community service along with-" the voice of the female reporter filled the room, making all the heads turn to the living room, where they got a quick glimpse of no other than the man that was part of the reason for the fight that Minnie was still recovering from. Her gaze was fixed on the picture of Hanbin the report showed before it quickly switched to an action scene of a drama as Mingyu hastily changed the channel. He turned to the group on the table, fear in his eyes, as he was faced with the concerned look of Jeonghan, the disturbed glance on Seungkwan's face just screaming 'what the fuck is wrong with you, idiot' at him, and the warning frown forming on the leader's face.

"Sorry..." he softly apologised, immediately directing his attention to the girl, who kept a straight watch on the television, her eyes not letting them know what she was feeling because they looked empty. But that's exactly what she felt like. Empty. She was quick to lower her head again, afraid of what was to come next.

Cheol fixed his gaze on the spoon in her hand that wasn't stirring anymore, but was still tight in her grip - tighter than before. Her hair was covering the sides of her face that were getting redder as she tried to hold back the first sob of the day as hard as she possibly could, but everyone could see her shaking shoulders. Everyone's eyes were focused on her, Jeonghan had raised his hand softly, ready to brush over her back once the damn broke.

The unstable breath surprised the guys. "Good to know." Hadn't the room fallen so quiet, her whisper would've gone unnoticed. 

Before anyone could register what had happened, a loud sob escaped Minnie's lips as she pushed the bowl of cereal to the side and stood up, wanting nothing more than to leave the room and cry by herself, embarrassed by her outburst. The members were quick up on their feet, not even a second after she had gotten up, ready to go after her. The girl tried wiping away the tears that were suddenly falling uncontrollably, so she didn't notice the big stature of Mingyu, who was faster than the others and blocked her way into the hallway. She ran into him, stumbling back slightly before just coming to a halt, leaning her forehead against his chest. He didn't hesitate to raise his arms, wrapping them around her upper body, pulling her closer, making her hide her entire face in his shirt.

Mingyu let his cheek rest on her head, his right hand brushing the back of her hair, as he tried to shush her with his low voice.

"It's okay, Minnie-ya. It's okay."

She couldn't even bring herself to hug him back. All she was, was a limp body in his arms. Shaking and crying, needing to scream out into the world.

Her fellow '97 Liner could feel her mumblings something against his torso.

"What was that?" He wondered gently, giving the other guys a hand sign, letting them know he got her.

Minnie switched to lean her cheek against his chest, letting her speak more clearly. "He'll never forgive me." Followed by another crying round as she didn't even try to hold back the rush of emotions this time. Mingyu shut his eyes tightly, hating the feeling of having a weeping girl in his arms, knowing there was rarely anything he could do to make her feel better, other than just be there. He felt useless. His arms tightened around her, hoping it would do something, help her somehow. He just wanted her to stop crying. Make the pain stop. He started feeling tears welling up in his own eyes, knowing that two of his closest friends were hurting.

-

He came back into the hallway, shutting the door to S.Coups' room as quietly as he possibly could. His footsteps were soft against the hardwood floor, despite his muscular figure, as he walked back into the shared living space, where the members were now split up with Joshua and Seungkwan on the couch, while Seungcheol and Jeonghan were still at the dining table, all the dishes now gone. Even though it was an hour after Minnie had broken down in Mingyu's arms, the room was still just as tense as before.

"Did you get her to fall asleep?" The leader of the group wondered, making the tallest member sigh.

"Barely." He threw himself back onto the couch with a groan, his hand brushing over his face in frustration. Seungkwan patted his shoulder, trying to assure him of whatever he needed at the moment. You did well, he wanted to tell him, you're doing what you can.

"This is not good," Cheol stated, shaking his head, "This might be worse than I thought."

"It's not good?" The youngest in the room jumped up, "It's bad! It's really bad!"

"Seungkwan!" Jeonghan tried to shush him, but the '98 Liner didn't listen.

"Do you know how worried I am right now?! We haven't seen her like this for years, and all you're saying is 'this is not good'?!"

The leader copied his stand, "Well what do you want me to do?! I'm thinking, okay?! I'm trying to find something to help her, but I don't know what to do!"

"Guys!" The second oldest got up, holding out his hand to make both of the members shut their mouths, "Be quiet, for God's sake!"

S.Coups went back to sitting down, but Seungkwan stayed in his position, now nervously fumbling with his fingers.

"I-I'm sorry, hyung," he slightly stuttered. "I'm just really frustrated right now."

The '95 Liner nodded, "We all are." Then sighed out loud. "God... I knew this was gonna happen." All eyes turned towards him.

"What?" The youngest questioned him.

"I mean, it was bound to happen. They had to have their first fight, being so close all the time, I just didn't expect it to be... like that." The members nodded in agreement.

Seungkwan sat back down, letting out a chunk of air. "You know, for the fact that Hanbin isn't even in her life anymore, he sure makes her cry a lot."

"Well, but he still is. Kinda," Joshua spoke up, gaining the attention of the room. "Not physically, but she's still attached to him... in a way."

"Can you blame her?" Cheol asked him. "Their breakup was... not really normal. And definitely not natural. Who knows how long they would've stayed together if that scandal never happened."

"God, please don't start with that," Mingyu groaned, making the guys look at him in confusion, "I had to listen to that too much last night."

"What do you mean?" Jeonghan wondered.

The rapper got up to enter the kitchen, explaining himself on the way. "Minnie said that to Wonwoo last night, that she still cared about him because they didn't part in bad ways, but because they were kinda forced to. And then Wonwoo went on, on what if that never would've happened if they had still gotten together at some point, and obviously, she said how would she know that, because she can't, which is true. And... Wonwoo... didn't take that too well. So please," he came back into the living room, faced with stunned gazes, "Let's not wonder about that. What happened happened, and now Minnie and Wonwoo are together. And that's it."

The room fell silent for a good five seconds, the guys letting Mingyu's words sink in. He had to listen to every single word that came out of the couple's mouth, and he was probably remembering them better than the people involved since he hadn't been filled with anger in the heat of the moment. There were so many questions the members had for him, they wanted to know more. More details. More anything. But they also knew that it wouldn't be right to question him about that all too much.

Jeonghan was the first to break the stillness. "How is he?" Everyone knew who he was talking about.

"Hopefully miserable," Seungcheol sitting across from him, leaned back in his chair, his arms crossed in front of his chest as he scoffed.

"Coups..." his fellow '95 Liner spoke out his name with a slight warning tone.

"What?" The leader locked eyes with him, "You've seen the state she's in and you just heard what he asked her. I don't even want to know what other things he said to her. Do you really want him to just upstairs and not regret anything from last night?! I hope he's fucking sad, I hope he's in even more misery than her. But I know he probably isn't..." mumbling the last part.

With a deep breath, Jeonghan looked back at the other rapper, "Mingyu?" Who exchanged a quick glance with him before shrugging,

"I'm not sure, to be honest. He didn't talk to me last night, and I didn't hear him go to bed. Today I only passed his room and saw him sitting in front of the computer. But that's it."

"Did you even try talking to him?" The leader threw at him, making Mingyu roll his eyes.

"Of course. But nothing came back."

Cheol scoffed, eyeing Jeonghan again, "See! He doesn't even know what he did wrong."

"I don't know about that," the '97 Liner interrupted him.

"What?" The two oldest looked at him in confusion.

"I'm pretty sure he cried during their fight. I don't for sure, but it definitely sounded like it."

Seungkwan looked at him, his mouth slightly open. "But Wonwoo-hyung never cries."

"Exactly," Mingyu nodded, "But yesterday..."

"See." Jeonghan copied S.Coups' expression from before, showing him that both of them were somewhat right about the story. "You're just suddenly furious with him because he's quiet? As if that's surprising all of a sudden."

"I'm furious because he's not even trying to make it better."

Joshua spoke up, "Well... we don't know that. Maybe he's currently thinking about what to do as well."

Cheol scoffed as he stood up, "Is anyone here on my side?"

"There are no sides to be on, Coups!" Jeonghan tried to explain, "Both of them probably said things they regret now. We're not taking any sides, we're in the middle, and we have to figure out what we're gonna do now."

"They have to talk." Mingyu simply stated. "They have to talk like normal people, not scream at each other, because I can understand both sides, and I'm sure they can too, but they have to talk about it. Calmly."

Shua shook his head, "Not today, though. I don't even think we're gonna get her out of this apartment any time soon."

"She's supposed to be with Woozi tomorrow," S.Coups got up from his seat and started to roam the room. "But I don't know if she's still up for that. Then after that, we have practice for the live shows."

"The day after tomorrow?" Seungkwan asked, getting a nod from the leader in response.

"They're gonna talk," Jeonghan assured everyone in the room - or at least tried to. "They can't go longer than two days... right?"

Mingyu shrugged, "I wouldn't be surprised if they did, to be honest," making any bit of guarantee in the room evaporate.

-

Minnie slept for another good three hours on their free day. During that time, Jeonghan, Seungkwan, and Mingyu went back to their designated rooms after their group conversation had come to an end. They decided to not let the other guys know until the day they all had to be in the practice room together, in the hopes of the couple making up before that. It was a small spark of hope, but at least they had some. The other '97 Liner promised to try and talk to Wonwoo again, otherwise their leader would... and he wouldn't go easy on him - Jeonghan literally had to hold him back so he wouldn't sprint out of the door and ran upstairs, not afraid to let a fist or two fly. Yes, Wonwoo was his member and he loved him very dearly, but Minnie was his sister and he had promised her, his parents and her mother, to take care of her, and right now, it felt like he was failing.

After a two-hour-long phone call with his father, which his mother also quickly joined for a bit, he gained back the confidence he needed, not as a leader, but as a friend in the situation. That's who they needed. Not an annoying leader, but a trustworthy friend.

Joshua and Cheol made sure Minnie ate something after waking up, not pressuring her to talk any more than necessary and not watching her as if she was a fragile little newborn, but still keeping a protective eye on her throughout the day. The only movements she really did were from the bedroom to the kitchen, to the living room for a bit before disappearing into the bedroom again. She went to the bathroom to freshen up as well as possible but didn't even dare to think about going back to her place where she was being missed more than she could imagine.

-

The next day came quicker than the female performer would've wanted and after spending another night in Seungcheol's room, filled with some much-needed late-night deep-talk, she got herself together, ready for a day at the studio with her favourite producer. If there was one thing that could get her mood up, it was letting all of her frustration out on paper, writing lyrics and poems and whatever would come to mind before discussing each line with Woozi. She understood the other members' concern about her falling yet into another deep hole, and she, just as much as them, didn't want that. And she somewhat had the energy to fight against it.

Was she ready to face her boyfriend again? Probably not, but she also wasn't sure about how much longer she could endure the tension between the two.

The night before she almost reached for her phone to text him sorry and beg for his forgiveness, but the guys had reminded her that both parties were somewhat in the wrong and that she was in no position to give in.

'Take your time, think about it. You had a fight, that's normal. But you should still talk about everything. Don't hide what you truly think.'

'If he truly loves you, which he does, he loves all of you. Every single bit of you.'

The leader had offered to drive her, but she declined, already having called the manager, who had to visit their label's building anyway. After making sure she had everything she needed in her bag, a smaller one that Mingyu brought her, not expecting her to come upstairs to get it for herself, she exited the apartment and went down into the garage, greeting her manager with a small smile.

They fell into a somewhat comfortable small talk conversation after Minnie found more comfort in lying about how the past days had been for her. She wasn't gonna mention the fight. This was something between her and Wonwoo - she already felt bad enough that she dragged so many other members into it.

They left the car together and entered the building, their ways parting after the elevator opened for the first time, her manager exiting the small room before she went up a few more floors, already knowing the way to the producer's studio by heart.

She walked through the modern hallways, eyeing the floor the entire time, and stopping at the right door. Minnie knew to knock before entering even though there was a big chance Woozi would be wearing his headphones, not hearing a single thing, but much to her surprise, she got a muffled,

'Come in!' in return.

After opening the door, she came to sight with the producer she was expecting, as well as Bumzu standing in the room, hands in his pockets. They seemed to have been in a conversation, which ended as soon as Minnie had come in.

"Hey," she gave both men a soft smile, her hands clutching the strap of her bag on her shoulder tightly.

The older producer copied her facial expression, just much more brightly, greeting her with a wide grin.

"How are you?" Bumzu opened his left arm, inviting her for a hug she definitely needed, even though he didn't know about that. She gladly accepted it, wrapping both of her arms around the side of his torso, giving him not the usual squeeze she normally would.

"Alright," the girl mumbled before sitting down on the couch on the wall behind them, "You?"

Bumzu nodded, "All good. Was just on my out," he turned back to Woozi, discussing a few last things about their next session, then switched to Minnie, giving her a quick wave. "See ya, Min." Before seeing himself out.

A wave of silence washed over the room as the female propped her feet up on the small table in front of the sofa, getting her notebook and pen, laptop and phone out of her bag. Jihoon's eyes didn't leave her form, trying to read and see through her unusually slow movements. He let it slide, blaming his slight fatigue.

"So," he turned back around to the mixing table, "What you got for me?"

Minnie cleared her throat, "Ehm," and started flipping through her notebook, trying to find the loose piece of paper she was thinking of. "I still have this," she leaned forward as he turned to her, taking the napkin out of her hand. He chuckled with a shake of his head. Even after years of writing, this girl sometimes still used whatever was closest to her to write down what was going on in her head. Woozi remembered the time she ran over to him, showing him her arm that was covered in lyrics, around four years ago - she never changed.

"That was supposed to be for Crush, but I didn't like it in the end," she quietly explained, sitting back down comfortably on the couch.

He let her be by herself, alone with her thoughts for a few more minutes. It wasn't unusual that both of the members would work in silence next to each other. But never right from the beginning. Jihoon was used to hearing her talk about what she had seen on her way to the studio or about events from that morning, or even the evening before. Minnie would move around the room, walking back and forth as she dramatised whatever story she was telling him or even when she was just thinking. Having her sitting quietly in his studio didn't seem as natural.

"What's up?" He broke the quietness, making her hum.

"Not much," she mumbled once again. Her head was still down on her notebook, switching over to the laptop she had turned on.

Woozi turned his chair to look directly at you, "I didn't mean in general. I meant what's up with you."

Minnie looked up slowly, her eyes moving up first, followed by her head, her lips tightly pressed together as she shook her head. "Nothing."

With a sigh, he put the piece of paper back on the coffee table, sliding it over to the girl. "Then I don't want this until you tell me what's bothering you."

The '97 Liner scoffed and snatched the napkin back into her grip, throwing it onto the cushion next to her. "Then don't, Jesus Christ, your loss."

The producer raised his eyebrows, yep, something was definitely not okay with her. "Minnie, if you're gonna be like that, you can walk out and go back to the dorms, I don't need you in a bad mood here." He leaned back more comfortably, crossing his arms. "So either you tell me what's going on or you leave."

Minnie sighed in clear annoyance, "Can't I just sit here in silence and write?-"

"Not if you're gonna snap at me like that."

The girl shut her mouth, looking dead in the eyes of the '96 Liner before throwing her head back, realising there was no way out of the situation. Three days ago she was excited about spending some time with him in the studio, with no pressure of creating their next album, but just chilling and killing time, comfortably exchanging lyrics and recording demos for possible future songs. Now, she was sitting there, almost regretting her decision of coming, wanting nothing more than to just hide herself in the comfort of a bed again.

She brushed some hair behind her ear, glancing at him one more time, finding him still looking at her, waiting for an explanation.

"Wonwoo and I had a fight."

Jihoon's mouth opened and nodded 'There it is.'

"And I'm guessing it didn't end well?"

Minnie brought her legs ups, hugging her knees tightly to her body, shaking her head, already feeling her lips quivering again, only annoying her even more. She took a deep breath, hoping to contain some of the sadness.

"I haven't been to the apartment in two days."

Woozi was clearly taken aback by that statement. "Jesus..." he exclaimed, "What happened?"

"Just... stupid shit." He let her take her time, waiting patiently as she explained the events of that evening to him. She started with the moment in the practice room, all to the screaming that began in the kitchen, and the final shouting match they had in the living room, all until she left to stay in the 8th-floor dorm. Minnie surprised herself as she got through the story without crying, her body clearly dried out from all the tears she had shed throughout the past few days.

Woozi wanted to curse out loud, wanted to throw the most vile words into the room, but he knew it wouldn't make anything better and that it would in fact be the last thing the girl in front of him needed, so he did his best to stay calm. He looked around the room, forcing himself not to shake his head. "Wh-... Guys..."

"I know..." The dancer hid her face behind her knees. 

"What are you gonna do?"

He only got a shrug in response.

"You have to talk to him, Minnie."

The girl shook her head.

"Minn-"

"He said, he didn't trust me anymore!" She exclaimed.

"That was in the heat of the moment, I'm sure he didn't mean it."

"I wouldn't be too sure about that..."

Woozi sighed, "Don't say that." But she didn't answer. Another few seconds passed in which they didn't share any words before the producer got out of the question that had been bothering him ever since she finished her story. "Why do you still care so much about him?"

"Hanbin?"

Woozi nodded.

Minnie rolled her eyes. "Why is it a crime to care about people?!"

"Hey," he stopped her, "I didn't say you're not allowed to, I asked you normally and genuinely want to know." His explanation made the girl feel bad about the outburst she almost had. He was just trying to be a good friend and here she was throwing accusations at him... similar to what she and Wonwoo had done to each other.

"I..." she started but stopped. If only the answer was easy as she wanted it to be. "W-... We were forced to break up. Neither one of us truly wanted it... but it happened... because of him... and because of what happened to him. And back then, I was so scared of what was going to happen and I... I still was because... we didn't end things on bad terms, you know?" Minnie looked up, finding the caring eyes immediately gazing at her, a gentle smile decorating Jihoon's face. "Of course, I was devastated, but... he had to do it and I understand why he did it, and I'm very thankful that he did it..." She took a deep, slightly shaky, breath, "He cared so much for me back then that he broke up with me to protect me... so w- why shouldn't I now care for him? We're friends?..." Making it sound more like a question as she wasn't even sure about the statement herself.

"Are you though?" Woozi suddenly threw into the room.

She glared at him, eyebrows scrunched, "What?"

"Are you and Hanbin really friends?" She waited for him to continue, "When was the last time he texted you, or talked to you or... I don't know, had some kind of interaction with you?"

Minnie shrugged, "H-He... hasn't. Not ever since back then."

"Then that's not a friend, Minnie," he stated but before she could interfere, he continued, "I understand why you wanted to be there for him, even if it was just through Bobby, asking how he was and stuff, I truly get that. But... I'm sorry, but... you have to let him go. He broke up with you for a reason. He didn't want you involved in his shit in any way. He cared enough about you to let you go... so you should do the same."

"B-But how?" Minnie whispered, suddenly the tears in her eyes as visible as ever before when Jihoon looked at her, dragging his chair a little closer to her. "How c-can I just... let him go," she sniffled, "If I don't even know if he's okay?"

"You just have to learn how to not care too much anymore," he got up to join her on the couch, placing a comforting hand on her knee as he let his head rest on the back of the sofa, looking up at the ceiling. "Do you still love him?- And before you give me the same answer like you gave Wonwoo, think about it." He quickly added, letting the girl know, that he was there to help and understand her. He wasn't blaming her.

Minnie shook her head, sniffling once again. "No." She assured Woozi, and herself, "Not like I did before. I love him... like... a friend would, but that's it. I promise." She moved her head to look at him. Jihoon saw her from the corner of his eye, turning his head to lock eyes with her.

"I know, you don't have to defend yourself in front of me. I'm not the one who needs to hear that. But... like I said... you're not friends with him anymore. I know it hurts. And I'm sorry. But it's the truth."

The female member nodded, finally letting the tears escape from her eyes, letting her head fall onto the man's shoulder.

"You lose people all throughout your life, Minnie. He was there, he made you happy, but you have someone new who loves you more than you could ever imagine," his arm had found its way around her shoulder. "Imagine how you would've reacted if the roles were reversed. You don't think you would've been jealous if Wonwoo was still caring so much about his ex?"

"But he never lost an ex like that."

"That's true," he nodded, "I understand that, but even if he did. Imagine him ignoring you, putting you second, just because he was so focused on making sure his ex was doing alright."

Minnie moved her head in understanding. She didn't even think about that.

"You both are jealous people in one way or another, and that's healthy to an extent. It just shows that you care about each other," he lifted her head from his shoulder, making her have to look into his eyes. "He cares so much about you, that's why he reacted that way. He just wanted to know that you feel the same way. Everyone needs that assurance every now and then."

The girl nodded, "I get that."

He patted her arm one more time before getting up again and sitting back down on his beloved chair. "Just remember who you wrote To You about. Or Crush. It better not have been about Hanbin, or it's coming off the album right now."

She couldn't help but let the giggle tumble from her lips, "No," she sniffled one last time, "Not, it wasn't about Hanbin."

"Good," he grinned, "Then it can stay."

Before he could turn back around the mixing table, her voice stopped him.

"Do you think he ever asked Bobby or any of the other guys how I was doing?" She know she shouldn't wonder about that, but that was the very last thing she needed closure on.

Woozi took a deep breath, "I'm sure he did at the beginning. You don't just suddenly not care about a person, especially if you've been together for as long as you guys were. But I also hope that he has gotten over it and that he's happy. Just like you should." Sending her a strict eye, making her nod.

"I know..."

-

Before leaving the studio later that night, she had to promise the '96 Liner that she would at least go back to her own apartment. She didn't have to go back to their lives and pretend like nothing had happened, but she should try to get back to what was once their normality. The couple still had to talk about what had happened, both of them still carried some kind of baggage with them and she swore to Woozi that she would, at some point in the very near future, confront Wonwoo about it.

What she didn't know about was the confrontation her boyfriend had with the two Chinese members over Facetime, who noticed very quickly that something was going on with the rapper, immediately squeezing out every answer they wanted from him. Just like Minnie, he opened up and shared the entire story with the two, letting them in on his feelings, which he rarely ever did. He needed guidance. He needed advice. And yet, he could not get himself to face one of the members in real life and ask them for that favour - it seemed so much easier over the phone.

The '96 Liner would still need some time to get himself together enough to confront her so openly, but he wanted to, God... he really wanted to.

Wonwoo was in the living room, close to dozing off, clearly bored by what was playing on the TV, while Mingyu was already asleep in his room - it was 2AM after all. The sound of the door unlocking made the rapper perk up, trying to listen to who had entered their apartment, desperately hoping it was who he expected it to be. He concentrated on the light footsteps, listening to the person settling the bag, softly smiling once he knew for sure it was who he hoped for. 

The steps got closer and closer, once they walked through the hallway, they stopped at the entrance to the living room. Wonwoo whipped his head to the side, finding Minnie frozen in place, surprised by the fact that it was him and not her fellow '97 Liner she would've expected to sit on the sofa.

"Hey," the rapper spoke first, breathing heavier than he would've liked to admit.

"Hi," the girl tried to force a smile, but it rarely showed.

Wonwoo gulped, sitting up straighter. "You're back."

"I... am," she looked around the room nervously. God, why was this more awkward than a first date. It shouldn't be like that. Both of them hated it. Minnie didn't notice when he was about to open his mouth, ready to talk to her, unknowingly interrupting him, "I-" he raised his eyebrows expectantly at her. "I'm... I'm gonna to bed. I'm... tired."

Okay... it looked like she wasn't ready to talk about it yet.

He nodded, "Yeah, yeah," he whispered. "I... I'll take the couch." Minnie gazed at him, her mouth slightly agape. She didn't expect that.

Okay... he wasn't ready to even be in the same room with her... that hurt.

She nodded, "Yeah... okay." Without wasting another second in the uncomfortable stillness, she turned to walk towards their usually shared bedroom, when his voice made her turn back to him.

"Minnie?"

"Yeah?" Her voice was filled with hope and desperation. Hope that he might change his mind and join her like he normally would. Desperate to feel his touch again.

His eyes found hers. But he couldn't read her. He was so scared to say the wrong thing yet again, so it would just be better to not say anything at all - or at least that's what his head told him.

"Good night."

Minnie sighed. There goes the hope. "Good night." She nodded, leaving him alone in the living room, where the only light was coming from the small lamp on the end table in the corner. Only a few days ago, Wonwoo could've sworn that that girl in front of him was brighter than any light he had ever seen. Her smile could light up an entire city. But right now... she looked duller than the deepness of an ocean.

Once she had reached their room and closed the door, throwing herself to lean back at it, she took a deep breath. She repeated Woozi's words in her head, trying to calm her racing thoughts and pumping heart.

'Give him time. Give yourself some time. You both need it.'

Just some time. She silently prayed for that 'some time' to be over soon.

-

The following started quietly, the three dormmates didn't share many words in the morning, deciding on sharing breakfast in silence after Mingyu exclaimed how happy he was to have the girl back in the apartment.

In the car on the way to the practice room, each one of them entertained themselves with their phones, some with their headphones in. Mingyu hated the clear tension and tried to loosen it up by talking to their manager in the driver's seat, directing questions to Wonwoo and Minnie every now and then, hoping the older man didn't notice it all too much.

Once they arrived in the practice room, each went their own way, Wonwoo sat down on the floor, his back against the wall, Mingyu talked to the choreographer that had become a good friend of the group and Minnie lowered her body to the floor to start stretching, getting ready for the practice-choreography for their upcoming live shows where they'd be performing 'Rock With You' without Jun and Minghao.

She felt a presence next to her, and looking up into the mirror in front of her revealed Seungkwan who rounded her sitting form and crouched down in front of her.

"And?"

"And what?" Minnie switched to stretch her other side.

"Did you two talk?" The '98 Liner wondered, sipping on the coffee he had brought along.

The girl sighed, "Does it look like we've talked?"

"Jeez..." he shook his head and stood back up, "Make-up quicker, you're no fun in this mood." As he brushed past her again, she smacked his calf, getting a surprised exclaim from him before he dared to fake kick her, walking back to Vernon, who had been eyeing them in confusion. 

The other members left her to be by herself, but she could feel their eyes on her, especially the '95 Liners' and Woozi's - Seungkwan seemed to leave her alone.

The woman with the camera entering the room alarmed Mingyu who confirmed his worry. He rushed over to the girl, leaning down behind her, surprising her at the sudden closeness as he mumbled into her ear.

"They're filming for Inside today, don't forget that." She looked back at the door, where the woman was getting the camera ready and let a sigh out.

"Oh, fuck, I forgot..."

The rapper patted her back, "Just act. You're good at acting," smiling at her through the mirror as he leaned back to nudge him, making him chuckle before his facial expression slightly shifted.

"Why didn't you guys talk last night?" Minnie looked at him with raised eyebrows. He continued, "I heard you come in, but you two spoke really quietly and since you almost didn't even look at each other this morning, I'm just guessing."

The girl crossed her legs, deciding that she had finished her stretching session for the day. She shook her head and fixed her hair,

"He didn't even want to be in the same room as me, how was I supposed to talk to him?"

"What? What makes you think that?" Remembering hearing the conversation he overheard as he passed Wonwoo's room, where Jun assured him that he should make the first move and apologise and Minghao letting him know that Minnie was most definitely just as miserable as he was. Why he hadn't followed their advice was a mystery to him.

The girl leaned back against his chest as his arms rested over her shoulders. "I told him I'd go to bed, and he just said he'll take the couch. He didn't even try and follow me. He wanted to be away from me..."

"Minnie..." he sighed, "I think you understood him wrong-"

"No, he could've at least tried, and he didn't even try to stay in the same room. He doesn't want to talk, so I'm not gonna try and make him."

Her fellow '97 Liner nodded softly. "Alright..." and stood back up, patting her shoulders before walking away from her. Minnie raised her head to look at herself in the mirror when she felt another pair of eyes on her. Her gaze drifted to the right where she found her boyfriend staring at her reflection, the phone in his hands long forgotten. She was about to force a smile when she saw Mingyu getting closer to him, taking a seat right next to his best friend. With a deep huff of breath, she pushed herself to stand up and walk further away from the duo.

-

The practice was in full swing, the group taking small breaks after each part they had finished performing in front of the mirror.

"Alright, for the time being," the choreographer explained, "We agreed on Minnie being lifted up, so let's try that." It would be the first time they tried that move.

The group got into their positions, with the girl on her way to the far left where five of the members were waiting for her.

"Be careful," she heard him whisper as she passed Wonwoo, looking back, she gave him a quick nod. 

She stopped once she had reached Dino and Joshua, who each held one arm open, welcoming her and ready to steady her back once she'd get lifted up. Carefully, she took a step forward, just about to step on their feet as the choreographer let her know exactly just how she should do it. On three Dino, Joshua, Mingyu, and Jeonghan all together lifted her up, making her chuckle at the feeling while she steadied herself with a hand on the '97 Liner's strong shoulder

"You're so light!" The youngest commented, making the two oldest exchange knowing glances, but they didn't comment any further. "Even lighter than Myungho," Dino added, making the girl chuckle nervously.

"You okay with doing that move, Minnie?" Youngjoon asked her, getting a quick nod in response as she straightened the front of her pants. "Good, and just don't forget to extend your arm forward."

-

The members fell to the floor, panting, desperately trying to catch more breath than physically possible after practice had officially ended. Minnie was laying on the floor, eyes closed, with her hands on her ribs, trying to execute the breathing exercises her pilates teacher had taught her.

Suddenly, the light was blocked by something and after opening her eyes again, the figure of her boyfriend revealed itself, holding out a bottle of water down at her. She eyed him for a second before he pushed it closer to her, "Take it."

The girl sat herself up and took the bottle out of his grasp, giving him a small, "Thank you," in response, along with a nod before he disappeared again. She opened it to take a quick sip, turning her head to the side to find Woozi and Seungcheol already looking at her. Both of the leaders grinned at her, to which she just rolled her eyes and got up from the floor to get ready to leave.

-

The female performer wasn't even able to get her jacket off once they got back home when her phone started ringing. With one quick look, Minnie saw 'Mum' lighting up the screen, making her sigh softly. Their conversation started normal: the mother asking her daughter about what work was like, with her asking the same in return, but it only took a few minutes before the older woman changed the subject.

"Why didn't you tell me that Wonwoo and you had a fight?" Her mum's voice rang through her ears from the other side of the phone.

"What?" Minnie wondered, "How do you know about that?"

"Seungcheol called me. You know, he was very worried about you. He got really scared," she explained. As much as the girl appreciated the worry leader showed for her, she couldn't help the slight annoyance of him talking to every living being about her misery - yes, it was her mother, but still... but she reminded herself that it was out of love, just like the woman had told her.

"It- I don't know... I hoped to clear it up myself, I guess." Minnie's fingers brushed through her hair as she leaned back against the chair at the dining table, her feet up and knees close to her body. "I messed up, now I have to fix it-"

"I don't know, Seungcheol said something else."

"Cheol is just annoyed. And I know he cares for me, so... yeah. But I really wasn't in the right either. Trust me, I did my part in the fight as well."

"Well, there's always two parties involved."

"Exactly."

She heard her mother sigh, "I just hope you don't take it too hard on yourself. Like I said, you two were part of it, so it takes two to make up for it again. Don't think that you have to fix whatever is going on between you two on your own. Work together, as a team."

"I know, I know... I'll try. Last night, he didn't really want to talk to me... I hope it'll be different soon," Minnie explained, finding a loose thread on her sock to pull on.

"And, you know, there's always make-up sex.“

"Mum!" The girl groaned in embarrassment.

"Oh, please," the woman exclaimed, "You're an adult now, let me talk to you like one!"

"Alright, alright," she chuckled, thankful for the person on the other side of the world, suddenly missing her even more than she usually does.

"Men would never say no to that. You just have to know how to initiate it."

Minnie laughed, "Okay, yeah, thanks. But... we should probably also talk about what happened, it's not something that... will be taken care of quickly, I think."

"You know him better than I do, and I'm sure you know what to do, so I trust you. And just know, it's not only you that did something wrong, so don't blame yourself too much."

The female member was about to respond when Wonwoo came into the room, passing the dining table to walk into the kitchen.

"Alright, maman, je dois y aller," (trans.: mum, I gotta go) she quickly switched to French, knowing her boyfriend could easily understand any English she'd speak now.

"Oh, Il est là?" (trans.: Is he here?") Minnie hummed to let her know she was right, and continued humming, as well as giving her a series of 'okay, okay' as they ended their call.

She placed her phone down, letting a quiet sigh out as she put her feet back onto the floor and leaned forward to rest her elbows on top of the table.

"Your mum?" Wonwoo suddenly broke the silence, making Minnie's ears and head perk up, surprised by the sudden conversation he was trying to start.

She nodded, "Yeah..."

The rapper continued chopping up the vegetables for whatever he had planned to make. "How is she?"

"Good," the girl took a deep breath, "They found a new place to open their next restaurant."

"Oh... cool," they both nodded in silence as they could feel the tension and awkwardness growing again.

With his back to the walkthrough leading to the living room, Wonwoo didn't notice Mingyu who was about to come in, but stopped abruptly when he noticed the couple in the room, and quickly walked back, ignoring the silent pleads from Minnie not to leave them alone.

Another minute went by, neither one of them saying a thing. The sound of the knife hitting the board was the only reason the room wasn't completely quiet.

"Min-"

"Listen-"

They both started at the same time and stopped in synch as they noticed the other one wanted to start.

"Sorry," Wonwoo was quick to apologise, putting the knife down, leaning back against the counter as he motioned towards the girl. "You go first."

"No," she hastily exclaimed, "No, you go. You were first."

He took a deep breath, looking down at the floor before locking eyes with his girlfriend. "I'm sorry. Last night... I-... I didn't..." he sighed in annoyance. Annoyed at himself that he couldn't find the right words. "I wanted to talk to you, but... you said you were tired and wanted to go to bed, so I thought you didn't want to talk."

"I wanted you to join me...," Minnie shyly explained, finding her nails to pick at.

Wonwoo nodded, "I was too blind to see that."

She cleared her throat, "I thought you didn't want to talk because you said you'd sleep on the couch-"

"I did that because I didn't want to make you uncomfortable."

A light switch turned on in the girl's head. That's why...

"But," he started again, "I... I'm sorry about the other day... I- ugh... I don't know."

Minnie's eyes never left his form while he drifted all around the room, mostly focusing on the floor. She looked at her destroyed nails, quickly brushing off the nervosity and speaking up.

"I-I'm sorry too... but... I mean... I'm sorry for what I said... to you," she looked up and was thankful to find his gaze on her. "I shouldn't have said some of those things... but... I'm- I'm not sorry for caring about him." Her voice was soft and quiet, scared of the reaction she might get, knowing he would probably disagree with her. To her surprise, Wonwoo nodded.

"I can't help it."

"But why?" He wondered gently, "Why do you still care about him so much? Am I not enough for you?"

"Wha- no, no no no," she quickly stopped him, "That has nothing to do with you." Minnie took a quick breath, reminding herself of what Woozi had told her, and to not repeat the exact words she had thrown at her boyfriend a few days ago. "He cared enough about me to end things," she could see Wonwoo's body tensing up, "So... I guess, it just feels right that I should also still care about him."

"But after two years, Minnie? Two years."

"I know," the girl whispered, hiding her face behind her hands, "God, I know... I'm sorry."

"What do I have to do?" He questioned, getting a confused look in return. "What do you need me to do, so you can finally keep him in the past."

"I-I don't know... I'm trying... I promise..." she stuttered, her breaths feeling heavier with each second.

Wonwoo crossed his arms in front of his chest, taking a quick glance into the living room. "You know I'd do anything for you. And I mean... anything."

Great, he just had to say something that would get Minnie's emotions to come back up again. His words reached her ears, sending a gentle chill down her spine, making her heart speed up just a bit. She hadn't lost him.

"I know," he almost overheard her shaky whisper as she brought her hands up to her face once again

"Then just tell me, and I'll do it. I'm sorry if I ever made you feel like I don't care enough about you, that he was the better boyfriend or whatever. Just tell me, and I'll prove to you-"

"No, God, please, it's not that-"

"Then, what is it?"

"I don't know!" She revealed her now red face and glassy eyes, taking him back to the night he wished never had happened. If he could take back the way he confronted her, he would. And here he finally had the chance to make everything right again.

Wonwoo rushed over to the weeping girl on the chair, "Hey, hey, don't cry," getting down on his knees right in front of her, "Please don't cry, jagi." He raised his hand to brush over the side of her head, pressing it down to make her lean into his body.

"I'm so sorry," she cried into his shoulder, "I love you, I promise-"

"Shh, I know," he comforted her, his hands on her body, pulling her close, "It's okay-"

She raised her head, "No, it's not okay-," she sniffled, "I love you, Wonwoo. I only love you."

"I know, it's okay, I shouldn't have questioned that."

"I don't love him anymore, I swear," Minnie steadied herself on his shoulders, "I-I don't, I'm sorry that I didn't tell you that. But I promise."

His fingers grazed over her forehead and left eyebrow, down the side of her face, down to her jaw and chin.

"I know, babe. It's okay. I'm so sorry for not believing you."

"I'm sorry that I still care about him, I-I know I shouldn't, but... I can't help it-"

"No, I...," he sighed, "I understand it, I just... I got jealous... and I took it out on you, I'm sorry."

With a pained facial expression, Minnie let her head rest back on his shoulder, leaving the chair and letting herself fall into his arms, wrapping hers around his shoulders. His hands rubbed up and down her back, as he hid his face in her neck, breathing in the familiar scent of her perfume and shampoo he had so desperately been missing. Wonwoo could still feel her slightly shaking against his body, hoping his hug was comforting her. If he only knew how much it was helping Minnie, but that it was also the reason why she couldn't hold back her tears. The girl had been almost convinced of the fact that she was going to lose him and lose a part of her along with him.

"I'm sorry for making you feel like you couldn't trust me," she mumbled against his clothes, making him shake his head immediately.

"Don't say that. I've never not trusted you." His hands cradled her face to make her look at him again. "I promise." Her fingers wrapped around his wrists as she leaned her forehead against his.

"I can't lose you," she quietly admitted, the pain still clear in her voice.

The '96 Liner leaned back slightly to lift his head and place a loving kiss against her forehead, making sure to stay in that position for a few seconds before doing the same to her left cheek.

"You're not gonna lose me," he whispered back, his thumbs brushing over her cheeks. "I couldn't live with myself if I ever let go of the best thing that ever happened to me."

The girl sent him a sad smile, her eyes still glassy and her cheeks stained red.

"If I ever make you cry again, slap me, okay? I don't want to ever be the reason that you feel like this." His first sentence made Minnie chuckle, before she hugged him tightly again, needing to make up for the lost days when she couldn't hold him like this.

"I'm so sorry," she told him one last time as his hand found its way underneath her shirt, placing his palm on the naked skin of her back.

Another kiss was placed on the side of her head, "I'm sorry too." He let a few seconds pass, just enjoying the warmth of their bodies together before he spoke up again. "He's not going to jail, by the way."

She relieved him of the hug, leaning back while his hands stayed on her back, "I know. But I don't care," and shook her head, "I shouldn't care."

His right pointer finger came up to move away some of the hairs that had stuck to her forehead, "No, it's okay to care. Just shows that you have too big of a heart."

Minnie grinned, locking eyes with her boyfriend once again, relieved to feel no suspense and no awkward tension between them anymore.

"I love you," she let the words roll off her tongue easily, just like she normally would.

It didn't matter that it was probably the 400th time Wonwoo had heard the words, he'd never get enough of it, and them coming from her would never not make him smile.

"I love you too." Not hesitating to lean in and finally get the kiss both of them have been craving for for the past few days. To finally feel his lips move against hers again, let Minnie feel the ecstasy rushing through her body, making her only smile even more.

A few seconds later, they separated again, gazing into each other's eyes, still engulfed in their arms.

"You know what's in a week?" Wonwoo grinned up at her.

"Hm?" She tilted her head gently to the side as she let her fingers run along the side of his face, admiring his beauty like she sometimes did whenever they shared a bed.

"One year." Then it hit her.

She gasped softly, "Oh my God... already?" Wonwoo nodded happily, making her copy his expression. "One year together... what would you rate it, Sir Jeon?" Making him chuckle as he pretended to think about it for a second before continuing to smile at her.

"Could use a few more years." To which the girl couldn't hide her smile as well. "What do you say?" He wondered, making her nod.

"I agree. A few a lot more years, I'd say."

"That sounds about right," he grinned, leaning back into her to feel the softness of her lips on his again.

Almost one year. And many more to come, Minnie prayed silently as she let herself give into the kiss, drowning in the love flowing through their bodies.

Mimiwon👀👀

Taglist: @shrynkk @chaebb @lunarxsun @hoe4wonwoo @kimhyejin3108 @soobzao @billboard-singer @cosmicwintr @zwiehe ( @alixnsuperstxr ) @angie-x3 @smooore @allthings-fandoms

How are we after the comeback? Everyone still here? Currently posting this in a trance from the mv🥹

[grapenehifics]

Countdown to Chapter One!

My fellow Obikins: I am very, VERY excited to share my next fic with you. Some of you may remember a fic of mine called An Uncivil War, the first chapter of which I posted on AO3 almost exactly a year ago, in May of 2023, and wrapped up that July. At the time, I mentioned to a number of people in the comments that I was already partway through the sequel (An Uncivil War is listed as part one of a three-part series, Can't Stop the Suns), and that I hoped to have Part II ready to go by end of 2023.

Well, that obviously didn't happen. I started looking at February 2024. That didn't happen either. I pushed it to April. April has come and gone. May, though! May I am going to make happen! May 27th, 2024, to be exact. Chapter one of Pick Up the Pieces, a.k.a. part 2 of Can't Stop the Suns, a.k.a. the sequel to An Uncivil War, a.k.a. the thing I have been writing on and off for more than three years now, is going up on AO3. (Excerpt and way more ramblings below the cut.)

A) I wanted to make this announcement in advance because I'm just really excited to share this fic. Parts of it I've posted on Tumblr as WIP Wednesdays, but most of it I've tried to keep under wraps until it's ready and, frankly, I really want to talk about it!

B) @palfriendpatine66 specifically asked for a heads-up before I started posting, but I figured I'd share publicly in case anyone else has the same desire to read (or re-read) part one before starting part two. May 27th is the day!

I do want to say, though - prior knowledge of An Uncivil War is NOT required to understand or enjoy this fic. If you haven't read An Uncivil War, I would really love it if you did! I'm enormously proud of it and love, love, love talking about it. But I also don't want anyone to not give Pick Up the Pieces a try, assuming they were otherwise interested, because they're worried they won't understand what's going on. If you want to jump in, make sure you read the tags and the summary, and by the time you get to chapter three you should have a pretty good grounding in what happened previously. Obviously there are some little details here and there you'll miss but for the most part you should be okay. I did try to make it as accessible as possible.

C) Thirdly - mostly as a reward for reading this far - I thought it would be fun, over the next three Wednesdays, to give a sneak peek of one of the later chapters, because I've really missed doing regular WIP Wednesdays for this fic (for the aforementioned secrecy reasons).

The main part of the fic is set during what would have been the final year of the Clone Wars, except we take a departure from canon during the season 5 episode The Wrong Jedi and diverge off-course from there. Mixed in with that, though, are flashback chapters, covering some portion of Anakin's years as Obi-Wan's Padawan, which have just been a blast to write. They go in roughly chronological order, and this one in particular is set when Anakin is 17. I'll post a little bit today, the next part a week from today, the final section the week after that, and then you'll get the rest of it when chapter ten goes up in the actual fic :)

Chapter Ten preview starts below:

“Uh…” Anakin looked down at his cards and bit his lip. “Hit me?” he asked tentatively. The three other players around the table blinked slowly back at him. He reached out and flipped the top card of the table deck over, letting the rest of the players see it. “Damnit,” he hissed through his teeth.

“Tough luck, boy,” boomed the Besalisk on Anakin’s right, the one he was most worried about getting a peek at his cards. “That makes twenty-two.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” Anakin snapped, frustrated. He tossed his cards face-down in front of him. “Don’t remind me.”

Anakin was losing, and quite badly at that. He really needed to slow down and stop the bleeding or Obi-Wan was going to catch him not only gambling, but totally out of credits, too, and he would not be happy about it.

“I’m going to take a break,” Anakin said suddenly, standing up so quickly his chair squeaked. “I’ll sit out this round. Be right back.” He scooped the (very meager) pile of credits he had left to his name into his hand and pocketed them before walking away. What he really wanted to do was take a quick minute to check the chronometer strapped to his wrist without any of them seeing him do it, but needing to take a walk was as good an excuse as any.

He didn’t leave the Castle (Takodana was a little too humid for Anakin’s liking), just took a slow lap around the edges of it, checking out the other gambling tables, the billiards games, the tourists, the regulars, the spacers, the spice runners, the spice addicts, the smugglers. The people who, if he hadn’t become a Jedi, probably would have been his friends and his enemies, his rivals, his contemporaries. His lovers, maybe.

The lower levels of Takodana Castle had once been an ancient Jedi temple, a fact Obi-Wan had mentioned rather a few more times than strictly necessary on their trip over from Coruscant. It had been built on the site of an even more ancient battleground, where Jedi and Sith had fought one another centuries – maybe a millennia – ago. The Jedi had won, that time, and built the original Takodana Temple as a kind of memorial. Anakin let the tips of his fingers trail over the wet, warm stone walls as he walked, feeling to see if he could catch any whispers of the old voices. Old hurts, old betrayals, old war wounds…

He had started doing this thing, about a year or so back. He had discovered, largely by accident (not that Jedi were supposed to believe in accidents, just The Will of the Force, and all that), that he could, rather paradoxically, up the ante on his meditation skills by upping the ante on his distractions. He’d been filling in for Obi-Wan, who was supposed to have been taking a turn sitting in with a group of the youngest Younglings but had been called away at the last minute (or so he had said, at least; Anakin still wasn’t totally sure he believed him). Anakin had tried to keep to the Younglings’ schedule, which included a quarter of an hour of daily mandated meditation time. Younglings not being particularly good at meditation (they were worse at it than Anakin was, which was really saying something), they’d lasted only about half that time before starting to get fidgety. It had started small – a few coughs here and there, a couple of giggles, wiggling on their mats – and then had progressed from there to full-blown chaos. Anakin was supposed to be setting an example, though, and was determined to sit still, keep his eyes closed, and ignore everything that wasn’t an outright cry for medical attention until the allotted time was up.

What he had found, though, was that it was actually one of his better meditation sessions. The noisier the room got, the more relaxed Anakin got. He’d eventually opened his eyes to find one Youngling on his lap, another chewing on his Padawan braid, and a third hanging from the ceiling rafters, but had felt…calm and at peace and a little floaty, but also grounded, connected to the Force, the air, even the children. He’d asked Obi-Wan about it later that night over dinner. Obi-Wan had suggested they meditate over it, which made Anakin roll his eyes because he already had meditated today, that was the whole thing he wanted to talk to Obi-Wan about, and how much meditation did a person need every day, really? But after they ate he’d dutifully sat down across from Obi-Wan and closed his eyes anyway. Obi-Wan had reached out and taken Anakin’s hands in his, which almost made up for the double meditation session. (Almost.)

And then, just as Anakin was starting to settle into something resembling regulating his breathing, something hard and poky had slammed into the side of his head.

“Ow!” he’d said, reflexively, and opened his eyes. Obi-Wan’s datapad was lying on the floor beside him. Obi-Wan himself was still sitting serenely, holding Anakin’s hands.

“What the kriff did you do that for?” Anakin demanded.

“I’m sorry,” Obi-Wan had said, without opening his eyes, “I thought you said you liked having distractions while you meditated.”

“Not painful ones!” Anakin shot back.

“Apologies.” The holopad, from the floor, flicked on and started replaying whatever the last thing either of them had watched on it, which happened to be a nature documentary about tee-muss. “Is that better?”

Anakin grumbled about it, but he had, sort of, asked for this, and admitting defeat now would be both embarrassing and would necessitate him letting go of Obi-Wan’s hands, so he closed his eyes and tried again.

Of course, the first thing he had to do was release the pain in his head into the Force, but once he’d done that, he found that, once again, sifting through his distractions was easier when he actually had distractions to sift through. He let the migratory patterns of wild tee-muss go, and felt Obi-Wan squeeze his hands. “Good, Anakin,” he murmured softly, so quietly Anakin almost couldn’t hear him over the documentary narrator. “That’s very good.” (Anakin had replayed the moment in his head, putting that voice of Obi-Wan’s into different and much more…naked contexts, so many times since then that he could get hard just thinking about it, now.)

So Anakin had started to experiment, on and off. He turned the holoprojector on in their rooms while he was meditating. He sat in the corner of the refectory and meditated during mealtimes. Once, he tried meditating during galactic history class, but his teacher had ratted him out to Obi-Wan and Obi-Wan had told him not to do that anymore. And, now, he wanted to see if he could do it while inside Takodana Castle on a bustling summer afternoon.

To be continued next Wednesday!

[ingravinoveritas]

Hi! :) So, about posting habits and copying:

Georgia posts this screenshot of someone asking her to tell David that they're in love with him/want to marry him (not sure anymore, but I'm counting on you to remember haha), responding yeah, I'll get right to that, or something akin to that.

It's funny enough and her reply doesn't come across as anything more than humorous, in my opinion, especially since we've seen this theme for years, on Twitter and Instagram. It's on-brand-Georgia.

Her tone, albeit the sarcasm, is still pretty nice, playing the ball back by pretending that she's not telling David because then she'd have to compete with the person who wrote in. I'm sure whoever texted her this was giggling at their phone when Georgia responded. I'm not sure if the same thing will be the case with fan interaction number two, however: Cue, Anna.

Because now, a few days later, Anna posts what is pretty much the same interaction with a fan (about Michael, obv.), but all the charme is gone? Or is that just me?

Let's get something straight, though: The fan message she got was a lot less "sweet" than the one Georgia received (how many kisses does it take for a message to become either passive aggressive or just too hyper or even kind of insincere in tone?), so I won't be too harsh on her for responding in kind (xxxx). Still, had me cringe a little.

Thing is, the more or less blatant copying of Georgia's social media voice keeps fascinating me. Whilst, at most times, it's obvious but still fine as its own thing, this time the whole post really just seemed too...Georgia. Firstly, because it really is like a total replica, secondly because Georgia has worn the "playfully possessive"-badge for years now. I'm not saying that Anna is just pretending to also be that, I genuinely don't think that's true, at least not fully, but what I am saying is that she's clearly aware of this sort of humour being well-received within the fandom and also very intentional about timing. It's always... funny? Noticable? exactly when these "replica posts" appear.

Although, in this case we also have to consider that she responded at the time she got the message (or a day later, at most), so the timing isn't really on her. In fact, this might just be a fan actively going for having the same interaction with Anna that another fan had with Georgia, basically setting her up. Especially considering how the DM was worded - again, it seemed a little too intentional/over the top.

(But yeah, a couple of hours earlier: The Tennant's face sitting post (and, whew lol), so is this trying to somehow keep up with their dynamic again?)

I want to stress that I don't think that any of this is a bad thing. There's literally no harm in her trying to cater to the fandom with this tone of voice and seeming a bit unoriginal. And what do we know, maybe she and Georgia really are that similiar, it's not like Georgia's humour and interactions are that singular. But I'm still having a different response to Georgia's posts in comparison to Anna's, even though they are so similiar, and that's what it comes down to.

Maybe that's completely unfair towards Anna (to some degrees it must be, since Georgia simply has been around longer and therefore claimed her kind of tone, if that's even a thing), but maybe it also comes down to authenticity - or a lack thereoff?

(Grouping these together since they are related.) Well, I hadn't seen AL's story this morning until I got your message @wanderingsemi, so thank you for the heads up. And it is, as you said, an almost exact replica of an Insta story Georgia posted a week ago. Let's get the visual up here, so folks can see both stories:

So, the first thing I will say is that I often have difficulty with discerning people's tones online, as the lack of vocal inflection/other indicators tends to make things challenging. I appreciate you sharing that Georgia's tone came across as humorous to you, because while I definitely did get the sarcasm, I also felt a sense of contempt coming from Georgia's reply, too. I do agree, however, that her response was very much "her," in her trademark style, and is something we've come to expect over the last few years now.

It's probably worth mentioning that these are both odd/weird things to send to your fave's partners. I know social media has largely eroded a sense of boundaries in a lot of fans, but it's just an awkward thing to say overall. (I submit that it's actually more awkward/inappropriate than RPF, because RPF is fantasy and is not something any of these people would come into direct contact with unless they went looking for it.) That being said, while neither Georgia nor AL can control the things fans send to them, they can choose to respond (or not) to said comments. So thinking about your Ask, @armangelus, we have Georgia here essentially doing the same thing as AL--being possessive of David in response to a random DM--yet the results are wildly different.

Which then brings me to AL's response. Going back to our discussion on tone, I am not sure that I interpreted the message AL got as being "less sweet" than the one Georgia received, as they seem incredibly similar to me. I'm not sure the message-sender was actually being passive-aggressive, but because AL seemed to look at it that way, it is then reflected in her response (and is fitting with her past responses/personality, which has been passive-aggressive on multiple occasions).

For a little backstory (and this largely comes from @problematicwelshman, whose blog is well worth reading for a lot of tea related to Michael and AL going back to 2019): AL's social media was entirely scrubbed when her and Michael's relationship first came to light (end of June 2019). This also coincided with Michael's longtime PR person quitting, and a seeming overhaul of AL's social media presence. Initially, though, a lot of her posts were in her own voice, but they did not seem to go over well/she was not connecting with the fandom (see this post for links to examples, most of which involve belittling Michael/making fun of his weight and appearance).

Then in mid-2021, this all shifted with an event Michael appeared at for the 150th birthday of the Royal Albert Hall. Suddenly AL was praising and complimenting him in ways she never had in any of her past posts. This also happened to coincide with Georgia starting the #Shebergs hashtag (which sounds like an iceberg, a.k.a. the thing that took down the Titanic, so I'm still not sure why that was chosen as a portmanteau of AL and Michael's names), as well as AL promoting Last Train to Christmas, a movie of Michael's that she appeared in that was released at the end of 2021. So this was another social media overhaul/PR effort, seemingly perfectly timed with AL having something to promote and trying to advance her acting career.

But what this was also the start of is what you alluded to, which is that inauthenticity. I can completely understand you having a different reaction to AL's story than Georgia's, because as you said, that charm is not there, which I think is because it's Georgia's charm, not Anna's. And as much as she might copy Georgia's tone or the types of content she posts, you can't really copy charm--it's either something you have, or something you don't. I think it also ties into the other thing you referenced, which is the "playfully possessive" thing. It actually is something that Anna has copied, also on multiple occasions (see below)...but much like with this story, it doesn't come across the same way as when Georgia does it:

(Another notable thing about the response on the left is that AL was not even tagged in the original tweet, which also copies Georgia's pattern of randomly replying to fans on Twitter--usually as a result of searching David's name, which she has been known to do.)

So yes, I think we can definitely see a clear pattern here, which has seemingly only become more blatant as of late. And while I agree there is no harm on one level of trying to appeal to the fandom, I don't think it's unfair to AL at all because there is such a clear, agenda to what she is doing that becomes more obvious as you look back over the past few years. That, in my opinion, is what makes it seem so forced and not genuine, and is why one might feel a different reaction to her post versus Georgia's.

Those are pretty much my thoughts, rambling as they were. I appreciate both of you sharing yours as well so that we could have this discussion. Thanks for writing in! x

[wannabehockeygf]

Timeless - Connor Dewar

“Even if we met in the 1500s off in a foreign land,

And I was forced to marry another man,

you still would’ve been mine,

we would’ve been Timeless.”

Pairing: Connor Dewar x fem! oc

Word Count: Currently 16k Tags: dual timeline, friends to lovers, best friends to lovers, childhood friends to lovers, engaged Warnings: Depicts characters struggling with depression, eating disorders, and substance abuse. Please take care while reading. Notes: Characters are 17/18 in the past timeline, and both 24 in the present. (***) indicates chapter/timeline change, (---) indicates time skip within chapter. Originally written in first person, then third, then first again (I'm a mess) This fic is a WIP and will only get updated in this post. If you want notifications, I'd recommend following it on my Wattpad, I have it posted.

***

7 years ago, Amelia

Do you believe in meant to be? I never did. But, it seemed like everyone around me did. Growing up, I didn't hear the end of it - and what made it worse was it being directed at me.

Well, not exactly me. Me and my partner in crime, my other half, my best friend in the whole world. It seemed like ever since we moved up here from Winnipeg and into the house right next to a young family, much like ours, everyone thought we were meant to be.

I still remember it clearly. It was a summer evening in July, and I was five years old. I liked everything other little girls liked; Pink, glitter, flowers, - and when I found a particularly nice wildflower, I wanted to show someone. My mom who was supposed to be watching me, was on the phone, and growing up with busy parents, you learn when to not bother them or else they'll get mad.

So, little me looked around until her beady eyes landed on my target - two boys who lived next door playing street hockey on their driveway. I waddled over to them, clutching the flower in my small hand.

I stood there for a moment, unsure if I should interrupt, but the smaller boy who was playing goalie stopped and started glaring at me. "Um, hello?"

"Hi!" I exclaimed, beaming with excitement. I took another step towards him, holding out the flower. "Look at what I found! Isn't it pretty?"

The boy rolled his eyes at me, surveying the flower. "I don't like that girly stuff." He remarked, turning to try to avoid me. Immediately, tears started welling in my eyes. My shaky hand dropped the flower, and I quickly spun on my heels to run back to my mom.

But, just as I was about to run for it, the older boy who was shooting the ball yelled from the other side of the driveway, "Quinny! Don't be mean." He exclaimed, dropping his stick to run over and pick up the flower.

He had bright blue eyes and a grin that could light up a room, so when I turned to him, I think it healed me a little. "I think it's pretty," He said, tucking the flower behind his ear. "What's your name?"

"Amelia."

Wow, that sounded real. Almost like I'm reliving the moment in person, like I'm-

"Amelia!"

"Huh? What?" I say, whipping my head around. My mom stands at the doorway of my room. Her eyebrows are furrowed as she gestures me towards her. "Come on, Connor is waiting for you downstairs."

I nod, wiping a speck of stray glitter off my face before making my way down the stairs, after my mom. Today is the day of my highschool graduation, the day my childhood ends, virtually. I don't get how this is supposed to be one of the happiest days of my life, and yet, I still feel sort of empty.

The clack of my heels against the stairs sharply contrasts the eerie silence everyone has seemed to fall in as I walk down, but when I see him, my best friend in the whole world, my mind is instantly at peace.

Connor stands in the living room as my dad tries to adjust his tie. They were having a hushed discussion, but when Connor looked up and his eyes landed on me, his jaw dropped. Literally dropped.

When I reach the bottom of the staircase, Connor's expression has remained the exact same. Quinn is standing beside him, and he nudges Connor with his elbow and mutters something along the lines of 'Dude, say something.'

Connor blinks a few times, his expression shifting from shock to awe as he takes a step forward. "Wow, Mia," he finally manages to say, his voice barely above a whisper. "You look... beautiful."

I can't help but blush at his words. We compliment each other all the time, there's nothing special about what he just said - yet, something about it coming from him in this moment feels different.

Quinn smirks knowingly as if he's been waiting for this moment for years. Maybe he has. He's always had this uncanny ability to read both Connor and me like an open book. "Alright, lovebirds, let's get going before we miss your own graduation."

Connor grumbles lowly, "Lay off, Quinn," He says, before pulling away from me. He hesitates for a moment, looking at everyone in the room with that same bewildered expression before seeming to calm down and picking up a bouquet of flowers from the coffee table. He holds them out, his face now plastered with his signature goofy, lopsided grin. "I got these for you."

I take the bouquet from him and smile up at him. He's only an inch or two taller than me with my heels, but, nonetheless, still taller. "Thank you, they're beautiful." I remark, finding myself staring at him for a moment too long before the boys' mom, Becca, speaks.

"You know, Connor spent hours picking those out. He wanted to make sure they were perfect for you." She laughed, obviously trying to poke fun at Connor.

Connor's eyes widened, pupils wildly switching between me and his mom. "No! I didn't," He stuttered, now awkwardly adjusting his cap, "I spent a perfectly normal amount of time picking them out. Don't listen to her."

"Yeah... Okay." Quinn speaks up, taking a step to the side. "Now, push together or something so Mom can take her billion pictures before we can get going."

Connor shoots Quinn daggers with his eyes, before he carefully places his arm around my shoulders and flashes a smile for his Mom's camera. I mimic him, smiling and darting my eyes between everyone who had a phone out - which was pretty much the entirety of our families.

"Okay," I say, turning to Connor as my living room empties, "Are you ready?"

"Ready as I'll ever be." ---

I never thought I'd be sitting alone, bad party music blaring in my ears at my own graduation. I mean, seriously, when they said they're having a separate party afterward for just graduates, without their families, I thought it would be fun. Well, behold.

I can't find any of my friends. I'm sitting at a table that has a few empty glasses strewn across it, along with a few bags others haven't claimed. I would leave, trust me, but I can't drive and Connor is my ride home - and that reminds me that I haven't seen him for a while. I stand up, surveying the sea of dancing bodies trying to spot him, but after a while I give up and retreat to my seat.

Just then, I feel a tap on my shoulder. It's Connor, eyebrows creased and a frown etched on his face, "I'm so sorry, Mia, how long have you been sitting here?" He questioned, pulling out a chair to sit in front of me.

I glance up at him, surprised that he finally showed up. "Long enough," I reply with a forced smile. "Where have you been?"

Connor runs a hand through his hair, looking apologetic. "I got caught up with some of the guys. You know how it is."

The guys. Of course he got caught up with the guys, the people he plays hockey with close to every single freaking day. I nod, trying to hide my disappointment. "Yeah, I get it."

He sighs, leaning forward slightly to put his hand over mine. "Listen, Mia, I know this isn't how you imagined tonight would go..."

"It's fine, Connor," I cut in, flinching from his touch while trying to deflect any feelings of hurt that bubble up, "Can you just take me home?"

Connor's frown deepens as his hand retreats. He pauses for a moment, pursing his lips seeming to debate something. He knows me too well, he knows that it's not fine, and I'm wondering what he's about to say.

He doesn't say anything. In fact, he stands up, turning his head the other direction, and for a moment I think he's about to leave before his eyes land on me. Connor holds out his hand once more, his expression softer this time. "May I have this dance?"

My own expression hardens at his pity attempt to fix things, and I look at Connor as if he just offended me wildly. "It's not even a slow song, Con."

Surprisingly, his face contorts into a grin, taking a step closer. "Come on, Mia, let's just have some fun. We can make our own slow song." He says, extending his hand even further.

I hesitate for a moment, but when my eyes meet Connor's, the usual blue in them dark in the dim lighting, I can't say no. "Fine, but just this once," I reply, placing my hand in his and letting him lead me onto the makeshift dance floor.

Connor pulls me closer by my waist and holds me gently, as if he's scared to break something delicate. I don't even blame him, I've always had the tendency to overreact at things like this, and he always knows to tread lightly.

Feeling the warmth of his body against mine instantly brings me a sense of comfort, his arms wrapped around me giving the illusion that we're not at some sweaty grad party - but rather, in our own little bubble.

His breathing is shallow and uneven as his eyes dart nervously across my face. I cock my head slightly, taking in his expression and trying to figure out what he's thinking about - I usually have the ability to do this, but tonight I just can't seem to decipher him.

"I'm really proud of you." Connor suddenly says, his expression remaining the same while his hands tighten around my waist as if I'm about to go running at any moment. I chuckle awkwardly, the corners of my mouth curling up as I reply, "Well, that was random."

Fuck, why did I say that? We're having this fairytale moment, and that's the best I can think of? I survey Connor for his reaction, but he seems unfazed as he looks at me, like he's in a trance. He licks his lips and breathes, "I'm serious, Mia."

My breath catches in my throat at his words, my hands nervously fumbling with the hair on the nape of his neck. "I... I'm proud of you too."

Connor cracks a small smile, pulling me impossibly closer to him which sends a surge of heat through me. He cranes his head down, resting on my shoulder. "You know I love you, right? I really am sorry."

Feeling Connor lean into me like this feels weird. We hug all the time, but it's never been this touchy-feely and paired with what he just said sends about a million thoughts racing to my head. Love. It's a word we've thrown around before, but never in this context, not with such gravity.

"I love you too," I murmur softly, and I mean it."You'll always be my best friend," I add on, the familiar scent of his woody cologne now invading my nostrils as my heart pounds in my chest.

Connor pulls back, his grip on me loosening as he smiles at me, but there's a sadness in his eyes that I can't help but notice. We dance for a few songs more, but eventually, the exhaustion of the day kicks in and we head out, leaving our childhoods behind us at the school.

"I can't believe it's already over..." I remark, trailing a little behind Connor as we walk to his car.

He stands still, waiting for me to catch up before he responds, "I know, but just think, Mia, our lives have just started."

***

Present day, Amelia

"Can I get another one, please?" I ask, waving to catch the bartender's attention.

The bartender nods as he pulls another glass from under the bar, adds ice, and pours vodka with practiced precision. The amber liquid flows smoothly, refracting the dim light of the lounge. My eyes fixate on his hands, sturdy yet graceful, moving with the fluidity of a seasoned professional. He notices my gaze and cracks a smile. "Impressive, huh?"

"What? Oh, yeah, sorry," I reply, my eyes trailing up to meet his. They are a deep blue, like the ocean at midnight. He holds eye contact as he fills the rest of the glass with cranberry juice, the red contrasting vividly against the clear ice, and slides it toward me. "There ya go, ma'am."

"Thanks," I say, taking a sip of the drink. The cool, tart liquid refreshes me. The bartender doesn't look away, only glancing down for a second to grab a rag and wipe the counter. He leans an elbow against the bar, studying me for a moment longer before speaking. "So, what's a pretty lady like yourself doing here alone?"

I am sitting alone in the local nightclub's quiet lounge area. Thursday nights aren't a popular time to go out, apparently, but my friend and coworker, Willow, insisted I come with her. It took about five minutes in the sweaty, loud party area before I retreated here, leaving her to dance with whoever she wanted—she always called me 'boring,' anyway.

My eyes focus on the bartender's face. Recently, I've been grappling with a steady existential crisis about getting 'old,' and this bartender who looks fresh out of high school trying to hit on me isn't helping. I force a smile, trying to be polite. "Came with a friend. She's out there partying, I needed some quiet."

The bartender nods, glancing away for a moment before leaning a little closer. "Still looking to have some fun?" he says, with a wink.

And... there it is. I let out an awkward laugh. "How old are you?" I question, and the bartender opens his mouth to speak until a woman, probably around my age, bursts through the doors of the lounge, wearing the same uniform as the bartender in front of me.

She looks utterly bewildered, wild-eyed, as she quickly walks to the bar and stands beside me. "Evan!" she exclaims, clearly out of breath as she pauses to try to catch it. "There are some crazy older guys out there demanding the Leafs game on the TV, and I can't find my remote!"

The young bartender, who the woman called Evan, sighs, giving a slight eye roll as he crouches under the bar and returns with a remote. His eyes dart between me and the TV as he scrolls through the channels, landing on the hockey game she had requested.

"Thanks, Ev!" she says, hurrying back out into the club area. Evan focuses on me again. "As I was saying..." he starts, talking about something along the lines of '19, but I'm really mature!' But I don't pay attention. I'm now captivated by the TV in the lounge, depicting a game of ice hockey that's so familiar yet foreign.

I don't think I've watched a hockey game in... what, seven years? Which is crazy to me because I grew up on hockey, going to every local game I could and watching every Jets game on TV—not without reason, though.

I haven't talked to Connor for as long as I've been off hockey, and, surprisingly, I haven't thought of him lately. I guess I've just been so busy with... life? My job, my cats, stuff like that—I don't even have time to dwell on the past anymore.

"Kampf doing a wraparound, centers it, Dewar in front of the net, and he scores! Connor Dewar, his first as a Leaf!" the announcer exclaims, the sound initially going in one ear and out the other... before I backtrack.

"Wait, what?" I end up saying out loud, and Evan furrows his brows. "I was saying—"

"No, not you, shut up for a second," I remark, cutting Evan off before he can finish. I lean as close to the TV as I can, studying it as the players in blue pile on top of the person who just scored.

Okay, Amelia, let's be reasonable for a second. That could be a different guy. Maybe you misheard it? I mean, how many Connor Dewars exist in Toronto, anyway? It must be a few, right? It can't be him, in your city.

Then, the camera closes up on number twenty-four, and then his face, and my heart drops.

It's him. And I don't even know what to refer to him as anymore because we certainly aren't best friends anymore, even though we should be.

But I know, right then and there, I need to go, and fast. Where? I don't know, just not here. I snap out of my trance of the TV, turning back to Evan and quickly fishing in my purse for cash to pay him. I give him the first bill I pull out, which is a fifty, and slam it on the bar. "Keep the change," I say, darting up from my seat and pulling down my dress before rushing to the exit.

As I put my hand on the door handle, I turn around to face Evan one more time. "You're great, by the way, just too young. Sorry!" I announce, and with that, push open the door and rush out.

---

The bustling city below fills my otherwise silent office with ambient noise as I stare at my monitor aimlessly. Growing up, I always talked about how having a 9-5 office job was my worst nightmare, which means I'm living it now.

It could be worse. I'm working in the field I wanted to, but I rarely get to do any hands-on work, which I was looking forward to when I started here. Plus, I get my own office, and it's always good money, which, trust me, definitely helps to live in downtown Toronto, in a nice apartment nonetheless.

I'm about to respond to another email when I hear a knock at my office door. "Come in," I yell out, grateful for the good distraction; otherwise, I'd find myself procrastinating aimlessly again.

A woman with curly black hair and the biggest smile ever peeks halfway in, and I immediately find myself smiling back. "Hey there, stranger!" she exclaims, stepping all the way in and shutting the door behind her.

"Cora!" I reply, matching her energy. Cora is what I would call my 'work wife,' as well as my best friend and confidante. She's always so happy, and it's helpful to have someone like that in my life. "How's the baby?"

She's been on maternity leave for the past three months, and seeing her face back in my office is a breath of relief. "He's good!" she remarks, sitting down at the chair at the other side of my desk. "How are you, Amelia? The wedding planning going good?"

"Yep!" I quip, my voice cracking. "Great. Danny is so helpful with all of it."

Cora's grin widens as she claps her hands together excitedly. "Still aiming for the end of June?"

I nod, my smile slowly becoming more and more forced. "That's the plan."

As Cora talks about her plans for her return to work and how much she misses the office, I find myself zoning out, my mind wandering back to that night at the bar.

Connor. The realization that he's in the same city as me, pursuing his dreams, while I'm stuck in this rut of a job and planning a wedding that feels more like a chore than a celebration.

"Amelia, are you okay?" Cora's voice breaks through my thoughts, concern etched on her face.

"Yeah, sorry, just got lost in my head for a moment," I reply, plastering on a smile. "But enough about me, tell me more about little Noah."

Cora happily obliges, launching into stories about her adorable son and the joys (and challenges) of motherhood. I listen intently, genuinely happy for her, but a part of me can't shake the feeling of discontentment gnawing at the edges of my mind.

"You know what!" I suddenly burst out, interrupting Cora in the middle of her sentence. She cocks her head at me. "What?" she questions, her tone genuine.

"I..." I trail off, my eyes darting around my office for a distraction from this conversation. "I have an appointment for a possible venue!" I eventually say, my eyes landing on my wedding binder. "I have to go... Like, now!"

Cora's expression shifts slightly, her concern evident. "Oh, okay! Don't let me keep you then. We can catch up later." She stands up, gathering her things.

"Yeah, definitely! I'll call you later," I promise, relieved to have an excuse to end the conversation. Cora smiles understandingly and waves as she heads out of my office.

Once she's gone, I take a deep breath, trying to shake off the unease that's settled over me. The truth is, I'm not as excited about this wedding as I should be.

My fiancé, Danny, is great. He's smart, sweet, caring—all the things you look for in a man—but I would be lying if I said I was completely fulfilled in our relationship. He wants to settle down, start a family, all that jazz, while I still feel like I'm too young, figuring out my life.

I'm not leaving him. He doesn't deserve that. I think I just need to talk to him. Just sit down, have a long conversation, and hopefully, every doubt and lingering thought will go away.

---

"Hey, honey, how was work?" Danny says casually. He's lounging on the couch, petting one of our cats, his feet kicked up on the coffee table, engrossed in what looks like an old heist movie. The dim light from the screen casts a flickering glow over the room, illuminating the soft fur of our cat as it purrs contentedly under Danny's gentle touch.

I shrug, the weight of the day still pressing on my shoulders. "Nothing special," I say, putting my purse down on the dining room table and hanging up my jacket. The scent of home—a mix of Danny's cologne, the lingering aroma of coffee, and the faint hint of catnip—envelops me. "How was your day?"

Danny glances over at me, a warm smile spreading across his face. "Oh, you know, same old, same old. Just trying to keep this one entertained while you're at work," he chuckles, scratching behind the cat's ears. The cat stretches luxuriously, its eyes half-closed in bliss.

Danny works from home, programming or something. I honestly couldn't tell you; every time he tries to explain it to me, I almost fall asleep. The soft hum of his computer and the occasional clack of keys are the soundtrack of his day, blending seamlessly with the quiet rhythm of our home.

I walk over and join him on the couch, sinking into the cushions with a sigh. The fabric is cool against my skin, a welcome contrast to the warmth of the day. "That sounds like a full-time job in itself," I reply, reaching over to stroke the cat's fur. It's silky and smooth under my fingers, a comforting sensation.

Danny nods, a playful glint in his eyes. "Well, you know how demanding they can be," he teases, giving the cat one last scratch before setting it down and turning his attention back to me. "Mia, I've been looking into more honeymoon spots. What do you think about Jamaica?"

What did he just call me? No one's called me that since... I shake off the thought, a chill running down my spine. "Mia?" I question, furrowing my eyebrows.

Danny's smile falters slightly as he realizes his slip. "Sorry, it just slipped out," he says, somewhat embarrassed. "I mean... babe, I've been looking into more honeymoon spots. What do you think about Jamaica?"

I stare at him, feeling thoroughly confused. "Jamaica sounds nice," I reply cautiously, keeping my tone neutral. "But Danny, why did you call me Mia?"

Danny chuckles awkwardly, "I thought it could be a new thing for us... Like, a nickname?" He says, surveying my tense posture. The room feels suddenly cooler, the warmth of our home momentarily disrupted. "Um, did I do something wrong?"

"No!" I exclaim suddenly, causing Danny to eye me weirdly. I put my hand on his knee, a pitiful comforting gesture. "Just... Don't call me that. I don't like it."

Danny's expression shifts, and seeing him frown makes my heart ache a little. "Okay, I'm sorry," he says softly, his eyes searching mine for a clue. "I didn't mean to upset you."

I take a deep breath, trying to ease the tension that suddenly settled between us. The air feels heavy, charged with unspoken words. "It's fine, really. Just caught me off guard," I assure him, offering a small smile.

Danny nods slowly, then clears his throat. "So... Jamaica?" he prompts, putting a comforting arm around me. His touch is warm, a reminder of the love we share.

"Yes!" I say firmly, trying to shift the mood back to excitement. "Tell me more."

As Danny tells me about numerous luxurious resorts he found for our honeymoon, my mind is anywhere else. Where? I'm not sure. But I know that my attention shouldn't be there, it should be on my wedding. The images of pristine beaches and crystal-clear waters that Danny describes blur in my mind, overshadowed by a nagging sense of unease.

Your life, Amelia, don't let someone else dictate it.

I slip my phone out of my pocket and check my email, looking for the subject line 'Regarding our Scotiabank Arena suite,' and when I see it, I suddenly interrupt Danny. "I have a surprise for you!"

Danny furrows his eyebrows, taken aback by my interruption, but his expression eventually softens. "What is it?"

I try to maintain an air of excitement, though my mind is still clouded with doubts and confusion. "Well," I begin, tapping the screen of my phone with a deliberate grin, "I managed to secure us a suite at the Scotiabank Arena for the Leafs game on Saturday!"

Danny's face breaks into a wide smile. "No way! That's amazing!" He leans over to give me a quick kiss on the cheek. "You're the best, babe." His joy is infectious, momentarily lifting the cloud of uncertainty that hangs over me.

***

7 years ago, Amelia

Staring at the ceiling, I let my mind drift aimlessly, the cool darkness of my room cocooning me after a day like this. The soft, white plaster is speckled with tiny imperfections, each one a tiny constellation in my personal night sky. My mind races, each thought tumbling over the last, making me more anxious about the future than ever. Who am I going to be? No, who do I want to be? What's my goal?

The truthful answer is, I don't really know anything. All I do know is that I'm jetting off to Toronto in September to get my bachelor's, and that simply feels unreal. Away from my family, my friends, this house... I can't fathom it yet, but now that I've officially graduated, it's as fast approaching as ever.

Okay, I'm spiraling. I turn over in bed, the cool sheets rustling beneath me as I reach for my phone to text Connor for peace of mind. But then I hear a thud against my window.

Startled by the noise, I quickly sit up, my heart pounding in my chest. The moonlight filters through the blinds, casting eerie, elongated shadows that dance across my room like specters. Another soft thud follows, and I slowly approach the window, the floorboards creaking beneath my feet. Drawing back the curtain, I see a hand gripping the windowsill, fingers tense and white with effort.

Okay, what the fuck? Am I about to get murdered? Cautiously, I peek over it to see a head of messy brown hair, and almost simultaneously, Connor pulls himself up, his biceps flexing slightly as he tries to keep himself from falling.

"Connor? What are you doing here?" I whisper, my heart racing as I unlock the window and slide it open.

He grins sheepishly through his struggle, his breath coming out in short puffs from the effort of climbing. "Surprise," he says, his voice barely audible over the night breeze. "Can I come in?"

I step back, allowing him to swing his legs over the windowsill and clumsily land on the carpeted floor of my room. "You could've just used the front door, you know," I say, trying to hide the warmth spreading through my chest at the sight of him.

Connor stands up straight, kicking off his shoes and placing them neatly beside the window before turning to face me again. He's wearing a navy blue t-shirt and gray sweatshorts, and the height difference between us is now very much noticeable. He's not the tallest guy on earth, but I would consider myself 'short', and so would he.

"It's past midnight," he offers as reason, and when I raise a brow at him he continues, "And... wouldn't your parents get weird about me being in your room with you alone? Especially this late."

I swallow as I feel a blush creep up my neck at his words. He's not wrong; ever since we were about 15, my parents have had an 'open door' policy when he came over. We always protested, because we always made sure they knew we were just friends, but it was firm.

"True," I concede, trying to sound nonchalant. "But you scaling my window like Spider-Man isn't exactly inconspicuous."

Connor chuckles, his eyes crinkling at the corners with amusement. "Hey, I had to make it exciting, right?"

I can't help but smile back at him. It's been a rough night, feeling overlooked and forgotten at my own graduation party paired with doubts about the future, but having Connor show up like this... it's unexpectedly comforting, like a scene out of a rom-com. "So, why are you here again?" I remark, sitting down at the foot of my bed.

Connor's smile fades as he runs a hand through his tousled hair. "I couldn't sleep, I wanted to see you..." He trails off, fumbling with his fingers nervously, "I... I'm scared, Mia."

"Scared? What do you mean?" I ask, my voice softening as I look up at him. Connor rarely opens up like this, so I know whatever he's about to say must be weighing heavily on him.

Connor takes a deep breath, his gaze fixed on the floor as he begins to pace back and forth in front of me. "Everything is changing, Mia." He says plainly, and when I look at him confused he continues, "I know we've talked about this before, going our separate ways, you in Toronto for college and me in Minnesota for hockey, but now that it's actually happening... I'm terrified."

My heartbeat immediately picks up as I meet his gaze, and I can literally see the fear in his eyes now that he mentions it. "Weren't you the one who said our lives are just getting started?" I question, which causes him to stand still.

Connor looks around the room for a second before his eyes land back on mine. "I know I said that, but..."

Panic sets in on me almost immediately as I dart back up. "I thought you were supposed to be the calm one!" I exclaim, and Connor flinches at my rise in volume, glancing at my door to make sure no one woke up.

"Sorry," I mutter, taking a deep breath to calm myself as I sit back down. "It's just... I don't know what I'm doing either, Connor."

Connor's shoulders slump as he sits down next to me on the bed, his expression filled with uncertainty. "I guess we're both just trying to figure it out, huh?"

I nod in agreement, feeling a weight lift off my chest knowing that I'm not the only one feeling lost. "Yeah, I guess so."

For a moment, we sit in silence, the only sound filling the room being the soft hum of the night outside. Then, Connor clears his throat, breaking the quiet. "Do you ever think about... us?" he asks tentatively, his gaze fixed on me as if he can't bear to look anywhere else.

His question catches me off guard, and I find myself at a loss for words. Of course, I've thought about it. Connor and I have been inseparable since we were kids, and there have been moments when I've wondered if there could be something more between us. But every time the thought crosses my mind, I push it away, convincing myself that it's better to remain friends.

"Like... how we're going to stay friends when the summer's over?" I lie, forcing myself to look oblivious to the weight of the question I just asked.

Connor's gaze softens as he gives me a small smile. "Yeah... something like that." He mumbles, his voice barely above a whisper.

"I don't know," I respond softly, thankful that he took my avoidance of this inevitable conversation well. "We've been through so much together, Connor. I can't imagine us not being friends."

Connor's expression remains gentle, his eyes searching mine for a glimpse of reassurance. "Yeah, me neither," he murmurs, a faint smile tugging at his lips.

We sit like that for a while in the darkness, staring at each other, and the tension dissipates. I hope that it'll always be like this, with my best friend. I hope we never drift apart... although, when I let myself think about it for too long, it seems inevitable.

"I should go..." Connor chokes out after a prolonged silence, his voice barely audible. He stands up, putting his shoes back on before I respond.

"Wait," I blurt out before he can slip back out the window. The urgency in my voice surprises me, but it's as if something deep within me is pushing to say what needs to be said. Connor looks at me, his brows furrowed in confusion.

"What is it, Mia?" he asks softly, his eyes searching mine.

"Stay with me?" I ask, my voice unbearably shaky.

Connor's eyes widen in surprise, and for a moment, I fear I've overstepped. "Are you sure? Your parents..."

"Please..." I croak out. The desperation in my tone is more than it should be, but if there's one thing I want right now, it is to savor these moments with my favorite person in the entire world while I can.

Connor pauses for a moment, his gaze searching mine for any sign of uncertainty. Finding none, he nods slowly. "Okay, Mia. I'll stay," he says, taking off his shoes once again.

The mattress creaks under his weight as he lays down beside me on his back. It's a tight fit; contact is going to be inevitable as his body remains stiff. I turn on my side, reaching out to brush his cheek gently to try to offer a sense of comfort.

Connor's breath hitches as my skin touches his, but his body relaxes. I can tell he wants to say something, but he doesn't know what.

"Thank you..." I whisper, staring at his side profile as he takes another shallow breath. He seems to hesitate for a moment before turning on his side to face me.

Connor's eyes meet mine, and in that moment, it feels like we're the only two people in the world. His expression softens, and he reaches out to tuck a stray strand of hair behind my ear. "Anytime, Mia," he replies softly.

I can feel my heart racing in my chest as his gaze lingers on me, a warmth spreading through me that I can't quite explain. For a fleeting second, I entertain the thought of leaning in closer, closing the distance between us, feeling the warmth of his body against mine just this once. But just as quickly, I push the idea away, reminding myself of the boundaries we've always respected.

"Sleep," he presses, noticing my eyelids fluttering shut. "I'll be here."

——

The early morning sunlight filters through my blinds as I stir awake, my own hair splayed across my face. It feels far too early to be awake, so, naturally, I turn over to get my phone from my nightstand.

I almost scream when I realize Connor is still in my bed. I get a squeak out before slapping my hand over my mouth, and then realizing he has his arm wrapped around my waist.

Woah. When I asked him to stay over, I didn't expect to wake up like this. The last thing I remember is him laying next to me, stiff as a board, telling me to go to bed, but now? He's holding onto me like I'm going to run away.

Carefully, I lift myself up, barely grabbing my phone before Connor, still asleep, unknowingly pulls me back down next to him. I shift uncomfortably, but I don't want to wake him so I don't say anything or move anymore.

It's already eight, and my parents were going to take me and Connor's family to a celebratory breakfast this morning, which instantly worries me. It's far too early for a family outing for most, but my parents have always been weirdly early risers - it sucked, growing up, not being able to sleep in on weekends.

I set down my phone, surveying Connor for a second, deciding what to do. He looks calmer than I've ever seen him before, even though he's the peacemaker in most situations we've been in. Nonetheless, I don't want my parents walking in and finding us like this.

"Connor," I whisper, trying to wake him peacefully. When he doesn't respond, only letting out a soft groan, I put my hand on his shoulder and shake him slightly, "Connor."

Connor stirs slightly at the sound of his name, his eyebrows furrowing as he blinks his eyes open. It takes him a moment to register his surroundings, but when he sees me, a small smile tugs at the corners of his lips.

"Mm, morning," he mumbles, his voice raspy and deep with sleep. He doesn't move, only blinks a few more times until I can see the blue in his eyes clearly. "What time is it?"

"About eight," I reply quietly, feeling a blush creeping up my cheeks as I realize how close we still are. "Um..." I start, hoping he realizes it too.

Connor's smile fades as he slowly becomes more awake, the realization of our close proximity dawning on him. He shifts slightly, sitting up and disentangling his arm from around my waist with a sheepish look.

"Right, eight... Did we... uh... fall asleep like this?" Connor asks, pushing his tousled hair back, a light blush coloring his cheeks.

"I don't think so..." I say, trying to make it not seem like a big deal, even though I know we definitely did not fall asleep like this.

Connor is silent for a moment, pursing his lips as he seems to try to remember what happened the night before. When it hits him, his expression softens. "Mia..."

"Connor, it's fine, don't w-" I start, trying to make him feel as comfortable as possible, especially after the moment we had last night, but then my door bursts open.

My dad walks in, "Amelia, we're-" He chirps, only stopping when his eyes land on me.

In my bed.

With Connor in it with me.

There's a beat of silence where me and Connor look at each other, wide-eyed and panicked, while my dad mirrors our expressions.

"Dad!" I gasp, immediately sitting up and tugging the blanket higher over my chest, even though I'm fully clothed. Connor's reaction is more intense, as he immediately rolls over and stands up, standing with my dad face-to-face.

"Mr. Bates, I can explain..." Connor stammers out, his face burning crismon as he still looks utterly bewildered at the situation we've found ourselves in.

My dad stands there frozen in shock. He looks at me, before looking back at Connor, opens his mouth to speak, but nothing comes out. After a few more moments of his gaze flickering wildly between us, his eyes land on me and he and starts to speak, "You have a lock on your door for a reason, honey..."

"No!" I squeal, untangling myself from the comforter, "We weren't doing anything! We just..." I trail off, at a loss for words. We weren't doing anything, we were just talking, like friends, but somehow, I can't spit it out.

"How'd you get in here?" My dad diverts his attention to Connor, looking for an answer from him. His tone is still calm, although the few inches he has above Connor is rightfully enough to scare the shit out of him.

Connor swallows hard, his eyes diverting to the ceiling as he searches for the right words. When he can't, he puts his head down slightly, and in a defeated tone, says, "The window, sir..."

My dad and Connor have always been close. They've never been on such... formal terms, ever. Dad always referred to him as his 'future son-in-law' jokingly directed at me. But it's not a joke anymore – my dad actually thinks this is happening right now. Connor and I. Us.

I'm still frozen in place when my Dad replies, "Well... You guys are adults, I'm assuming you're being...safe?"

This time, it's Connor who doesn't waste a beat correcting him. "We didn't do anything! We were just... talking, and we fell asleep." He says, exasperated.

"And that's it." I declare, standing up from my bed and approaching my Dad, planting a hand on his forearm while turning him towards the door, "I'll be ready in twenty minutes, time me." I joke, trying to lighten the mood but his expression is still wide-eyed.

Once my dad leaves, I turn my head to give Connor a nod, and he mimics me, those goddamn sad blue eyes having my heart ache as he puts on his sneakers. He slips out the window once again, without another word, but never breaking my gaze.

***

Present Day, Connor

I'm proud of where I come from. It's not necessarily a sense of superiority—I don't think I'm better than people who grew up in big cities—but more like I know I have experiences other people don't. As I look around my new locker room at my new teammates, I often think, "This guy hasn't played pond hockey before."

Unbeknownst to me, many have. The Leafs are a melting pot, a blend of players from tiny hamlets and vast metropolises. But none have lived it quite like me. As a kid, the outdoor rink is my second home. Negative forty? No problem. I thrive in it.

Stretch, slice, stride, shoot. That's my ritual. Over and over. The puck ricochets off the goalpost, sailing over the netting and into the eager hands of a young boy by the glass. I set up again. Stretch, slice, stride, shoot! This time, the puck slams into the goalie's chest, a thunderous impact that makes him double over.

My eyes widen. I hurry over, concern etched on my face. "Sorry, Joe, you okay?" I ask, patting the goalie's shoulder.

Joe straightens, a strained smile visible through his mask. "Yeah, I'm fine. Just caught me off guard," he replies, his eyes betraying a flicker of pain. "Do that to the other goalie for me, yeah?"

I laugh, relief flooding through me. "Will do," I promise, giving Joe a friendly shove before skating back to the blue line. I love this game—the adrenaline rush, the thrill of each play. It's my dream come true.

Sure, Toronto is different from Minnesota. The bustling city, the traffic, the sheer scale of it all. But playing for a Canadian team? That elevates my dream to new heights. The horn buzzes, signaling the end of warmups. As I skate to the bench, I glance at the jumbotron during a TV break.

The camera focuses on a couple in one of the suites. A tall man twirls a petite, blonde woman, her face coming into view. My heart stops.

"No way..." I mumble, catching the attention of my teammate, Matthew. "You okay, Dewey?"

"Yeah... yeah. I'm fine," I reply, eyes glued to the screen. It couldn't be her. But the tightening in my chest tells me otherwise. It is her. How could I forget the face of the girl I've loved since childhood?

We drifted apart after graduation. I always told myself it was natural—we grew up, went different ways. But deep down, I knew it could have been different. If I'd handled things better, maybe...

I lived a relatively normal life in Minnesota. Hockey, friends, countless girlfriends. None lasted long. I was often labeled as 'too clingy' or 'too overprotective.' And then there were the episodes where I'd withdraw completely, not wanting to talk or even get out of bed for weeks.

I was always a little sad. Ever since I was a kid, I was always quiet, kept to myself. And no one batted an eye... until it wasn't just Connor being Connor anymore.

Depression. That's what they called it. When they told me, I laughed—it sounded absurd. I wasn't depressed, just... sleepy. Introverted. An overthinker. But I learned it wasn't normal. What I had been dealing with since the age of, maybe, sixteen, wasn't normal. It was a spectrum, and I was on it.

Seeing Mia now, here, rocks me. "Connor, what are you doing? Go! Line change!" Coach's voice snaps me out of my daze.

"Oh, shit, sorry," I mutter, leaping over the bench and into the game. ----

"Thanks, Mitchy, I'll see you tomorrow," I say, giving Mitch a friendly pat on the back as I leave the locker room. I shove my hands in the pockets of my dress pants, silently grumbling to myself as I walk to the elevator to go down to the player parking lot.

After that one instance at the beginning, the jumbotron never zooms in on that suite again. I start to think it wasn't her after all. All I want to do is sleep. Take off this uncomfortable suit, lay down, and hopefully not wake up.

As the elevator dings, signaling it's on the floor and ready to go down, I walk straight forward, unable to wait a second longer.

And then I walk straight into another person. "Sorry..." I murmur, adjusting myself before looking at the person I had just inconsiderately slammed into.

There she is.

It's Mia standing in front of me. Time seems to freeze as my eyes lock onto hers. The same eyes I remember from all those years ago, bright and curious, though now they hold a depth and maturity that hadn't been there before.

"Connor," she says, her voice soft but deliberate. Amelia takes a step back, making room for me to step into the elevator. I do so, looking right back into her eyes.

"Mia..." I breathe out her name, my heart pounding in my chest. It feels surreal, like a scene from one of those movies where the hero meets his long-lost love in the most unexpected place.

But this isn't a movie.

"What... what are you doing here?" I finally manage to ask, my voice barely above a whisper. It's a genuine question, as this is an exclusive, player and staff-only area and elevator, but I also just can't believe she's here.

Amelia's lips curl into a small, almost sad smile. "I could ask you the same thing," she replies, her voice sounding exactly the same as I remembered from our younger days. She shifts her weight from one foot to the other, clearly as uneasy as I am. "But to answer your question, I booked a suite. I work with one of the sponsors now."

My mind races. I have so many questions, so many things I want to say, but the words seem stuck in my throat. "I... just got traded." I choke out, answering her earlier question.

Amelia nods slowly, absorbing my words. The elevator doors close, and we're alone in the small space, the hum of the machinery filling the silence. "I heard," she says quietly. "I-I mean, I saw..."

"Yeah." I reply, my voice strained. I want to say so much more, to ask her about her life, what's happened since we last saw each other, but the weight of the years apart seems to press down on me.

The elevator descends in silence for a few moments before Amelia speaks again. "It's been a long time, hasn't it?"

I nod, swallowing hard. "Yeah, it has. Too long." I pause for a second, taking in her appearance. She's wearing dress pants, much like me, but she's gone out for the game and paired it with a Matthews jersey. I go to look back into her eyes, and that's when I see it.

"Who's the lucky guy?" I choke out, trying to laugh, but it just comes out as an awkward, throaty sound as I look at the ring on her finger. Amelia immediately rolls down the long sleeves of the jersey, hiding her hands.

Amelia's eyes dart to the floor, a faint blush creeping up her cheeks. "It's... um... complicated."

I take a deep breath, trying to steady myself. "I don't know what to say." I say simply, unable to find more words to describe the feeling.

"Connor... I..." She starts, fidgeting with her hands nervously. "We grew up, right? Life doesn't wait for us to figure things out."

I look down at her, my heart aching. "I get it, Mia. It's been a long time," I mumble, the gravity of the situation weighing down on me. "Just... Are you happy?"

Seeing her again after all these years is really messing with me. I know I'll be thinking about it all night and for a long time. But her being happy is truly all I care about at the moment.

Amelia's gaze softens as she meets my eyes. "I am," she replies softly. "I mean... complicated, like I said, but... happy."

My heart sinks at her words, a mix of relief and sorrow washing over me. Relief that she's happy, but sorrow that it isn't with me. I've always hoped, even throughout my numerous girlfriends and hookups, that maybe one day we would find our way back to each other. But seeing her now, with a ring on her finger, shatters that hope.

"I'm glad to hear that," I manage to say, though my voice is sad. "I really am."

Am I really happy to hear that though? I don't know.

The elevator doors open, signaling our arrival at the parking garage level. I step out, but before I can leave without a trace, Amelia speaks again.

"Connor, can we... talk?"

***

7 years ago, Amelia

The quiet buzz of crickets filled the cool air with ambient noise as Connor and I sat on the edge of a pier at our favorite lake. The sun had already dipped below the horizon, stars starting to speckle the sky.

It was quiet, except for the crickets, but the air still hung heavy between us. What was going to happen? We didn't know. And Connor definitely didn't want to think about it.

"Mia," he started, breaking the silence, "I'm sorry..."

I turned to him and raised a brow. "Sorry? For what?"

Connor paused for a moment, considering his words, "Last night. Me freaking out and making you freak out. It's not like me and I know I scared you."

I pouted slightly, moving my hand over so our pinkies touched on the worn wood. "You're okay. I mean, the worst part wasn't even the freaking out, it was my dad-"

"Yeah, I don't think I need to be reminded of that," Connor interrupted with a chuckle. I looked over at him when he wasn't looking back, captivated by the soft features of his face under the moonlight. "Hey, can I make you a deal?" he eventually said.

The skeptical look returned to my face as I nodded. "I'll need to hear the conditions first, but, sure."

"Since we're both, you know, fucking terrified, how about we make this the best summer ever?" Connor said, giving me a weary half smile.

I giggled, throwing my head back slightly. "Best summer ever? That sounds like something out of a movie."

"Uh, yeah, and don't those make for the best movies ever?" Connor scoffed, a jokey tone lying underneath it.

A smile tugged at the corners of my mouth as I looked at Connor and the hope in his eyes. I couldn't say no - one, because it actually did sound kind of fun, and, two, it was my person asking to do it with me.

"Sure, Connor. Best summer ever." I agreed with a laugh.

We didn't say anything for a moment after, and as I turned my head to look at the landscape surrounding us, I felt Connor's entire hand slide over mine. "You... wanna start now?" He suggested, a weary tone in his voice.

I looked down at our intertwined hands, a warmth spreading through my chest. I squeezed his hand lightly before looking up at him, my eyes reflecting the faint light of the stars.

"What do you have in mind?" I asked, curious.

A grin spread across Connor's face as he gestured vaguely to the lake with his free hand. "How about we go for a little midnight swim?"

I bit my lip, hesitating for just a moment. "We don't have swimsuits," I pointed out.

"I mean, do we need them? Isn't underwear basically the same thing?" Connor remarked, still smiling widely.

I felt myself flush at his words, and I was glad for the supposed darkness until Connor noticed. "Oh, come on. Aren't you the one who basically begged me to stay and cuddle you last night?" He said, feeling very strangely confident but he rolled with it.

My eyes widened, and I let out an incredulous laugh. "That was different! It was... a moment, okay? This is... well, this is pretty much skinny dipping." I crossed my arms defensively, but the hint of spontaneity in my eyes betrayed me.

Connor squeezed my hand reassuringly. "Come on, Mia. It's just us, no one else around. It'll be fun. Plus, it's the first step in making this the best summer ever, remember?"

I shook my head as I stood up, brushing off my shorts. "Fine, let's do it. But if I catch a cold, you're going to be the one taking care of me."

Connor laughed as he stood up beside me. "Deal." He said, and without another word, he took off his hoodie with one swift motion, leaving his bare skin out in the open.

I bit my lip as I watched, not because it was kind of hot, but because I was doubting agreeing even though it was only a few moments ago.

Connor was about to tug down on his own shorts, before looking up and realizing I was standing still. He crossed his arms as he stood up straight, "Do you need me to help you or something?"

My eyes widened at the thought of Connor full on undressing me. "No!" I squeaked, uncomfortable at how fast my heart was still racing, "I just..."

"You just what, Mia?" He said, rolling his shoulders back, "We're just having fun, right?"

I took a deep breath and nodded, feeling a blend of nervousness and excitement. "Right," I agreed, my voice firmer now.

I started to pull off my sweater, trying to ignore the fluttering in my stomach. One by one, clothes dropped onto the pier until the two of us were left in nothing but our underwear.

Connor glanced at the lacy bra I was wearing for a moment too long, which made me feel a little insecure before meeting my gaze. "Give me your hand," he said, reaching out slightly.

I hesitated briefly, then placed my hand in his. The warmth of his palm steadied my nerves, and I found myself smiling despite my initial apprehension.

"On three?" Connor suggested.

I nodded, squeezing his hand. "One... two... three!"

We ran to the edge of the pier and jumped into the lake together, the cool water enveloping us instantly. I gasped as I resurfaced, laughing at the thrill of the plunge. Connor's laughter echoed mine as he shook the water from his hair.

"This is insane!" I exclaimed, my voice carrying across the water.

"But it's fun, right?" Connor replied, grinning widely. He waded over to where I was, treading water as he faced me.

I nodded, my laughter dying down into a wide smile. "Yeah, it's pretty fun," I admitted, splashing him playfully.

Connor splashed back, our laughter mixing with the gentle sounds of the lake. The stars above us seemed brighter, more vivid, as if we were witnessing the birth of a new chapter in our lives. For a moment, the worries and uncertainties that had clouded our minds melted away in the cool embrace of the water.

"You know," I said after a while, my tone more thoughtful, "I've never done anything like this before."

Connor floated on his back, looking up at the starry sky. "Me neither," he confessed. "But that's the point, right? Trying new things, making memories... living a little."

I suddenly had a wave of lightheadedness wash over me, but I tried to ignore it. "Living a little," I echoed, my voice smaller than before.

Connor noticed the subtle change in my voice and turned to me, concern flickering in his eyes. "Hey, you okay?" he asked, moving closer to me.

I forced a smile, trying to shake off the feeling. "Yeah, just got a little dizzy for a second. Maybe the excitement got to me."

Connor's brow furrowed as he swam closer, studying my posture. Suddenly, something seemed to hit him as the look in his eyes softened. "Mia..."

"What, Connor? I'm... fine." I replied, desperately wanting to be exactly that but in reality I felt like I was about to pass out.

For a moment, my arms gave up on treading the water and I sunk down slightly before I came back to, but by then, Connor had wrapped an arm around my shoulders.

"Hey, hey, I got you," Connor said softly, his arm holding me steady. I clung to him, my breathing uneven as I tried to regain my composure.

"Sorry," I murmured, feeling embarrassed. "I don't know what's up with me."

"We'll figure that out, but let's get you out of here first, okay?" Connor said, his grip tightening on me.

Slowly, he guided me back, our movements gentle in the still water. When we reached the wooden edge, Connor helped me up first before hoisting himself out.

Connor was quick to help me put my hoodie back on before pulling his own over his head. He just as efficiently put his shorts back on, although the excess water was already seeping through.

He took a seat beside me on the pier, placing a comforting hand on the nape of my neck while he rummaged through his bag sitting nearby, pulling out a granola bar. "I thought I had an extra hoodie in here, but this should help too."

I was finishing sliding my shorts back on as I looked at what Connor was holding out. Immediately, my stomach grumbled slightly, but I quickly looked away. "I...I'm good, thanks," I mumbled.

Connor raised an eyebrow, concern etched on his face. "Mia, you need to eat. You probably got dizzy because you haven't eaten enough."

"I've eaten," I replied, trying to wring some of the excess water out of my hair, "Trust me, I'm fine, it was just a weird thing. Could happen to anyone, right?"

Connor's outstretched arm didn't budge as he frowned. "No, Mia, obviously you haven't eaten enough. Just take it, please."

I sighed, feeling guilty as I reluctantly took the granola bar from Connor's hand. "Thanks," I muttered, unwrapping it and taking a small bite. The simple act of eating made me feel physically better, sure, but internally, my mind was a warzone.

Connor still had a look of concern as he slid his hand off of me, standing up and offering it back to help me up. "I'll drive us home. Should be that extra hoodie in there too."

I took his hand and let him pull me up, feeling a wave of warmth at his touch. "Thanks, Connor," I said softly, giving him a small smile as we walked back to his truck.

Once there, he rummaged in the backseat for a moment for the supposed extra hoodie he had, just to sigh and pull out not a hoodie, but an extra hockey jersey. "Um... this is all I've got, apparently," He said, holding it out towards me.

I scrunched my nose at the piece of clothing. It was green and white, a memento from his time in Seattle playing for the Everett Silvertips. His last name and number were stitched on the back, as well as the 'C' on the front he had been so proud of.

It was oversized, and, honestly probably hadn't been washed in a while, but I took it, slipping it over my head. The sleeves were comically large on me, although the smell wasn't bad like I thought it would be - it was a little musky, sure, but it smelled like him, and that wasn't a scent I knew I could recognize until now.

Connor swallowed hard as his cheeks flushed. "Sorry it isn't a hoodie, but it, um... looks good on you." He murmured, his Adam's Apple bobbing with the slight movement of his head back.

I nodded, feeling a bit more at ease now that we were out of the water and away from the potential embarrassment of my earlier spell. "Definitely better than nothing. And it smells... like you," I admitted with a small laugh, surprising myself with my own honesty.

Connor's cheeks burned, but he found himself cracking a small smile. He leaned against his truck, the dim glow of the moonlight casting a gentle halo around us. "Well... that's good, I think," he replied, his voice quiet but warm. He ran a hand through his damp hair, some water droplets glistening under the soft light.

For a moment, we just gazed at each other, the only sound the soft hum of the ever persistent crickets. Eventually, Connor cleared his throat, opening the passenger door and gesturing me in. "For you, ma'am," he joked.

I chuckled softly as I climbed into the passenger seat, the oversized jersey enveloping me in a comforting warmth that was both physical and emotional. Connor closed the door behind me and jogged around to the driver's side, hopping in with a sigh of relief.

The interior of the truck was cozy, as always, filled with a mix of warmth from the heater and the lingering scent of pine air freshener. Connor started the engine, glancing over at me with a half-smile.

"Ready to head back?" he asked, his voice gentle.

I nodded, sinking into the seat. "Yeah, let's get some sleep sooner rather than later," I replied, my drowsiness starting to fall into full effect.

With a nod, Connor pulled away from the pier, the gravel crunching under the tires as we drove back along the winding road that led to town.

***

Present Day, Connor

Knock, Knock, Knock. 

The sound shattered my sleep like a rock through glass. I groaned, rubbing my stiff neck and squinting at the dashboard clock through bleary eyes. It was barely five a.m. The absurdity of being awakened at such an hour almost made me laugh.

Almost. 

Then again, sleeping in my car in a Costco parking lot came with its own set of predictable inconveniences.

My life had been a mess ever since the trade. Minnesota had been a sanctuary of sorts, a place where I had finally begun to feel a semblance of stability and happiness—or as much happiness as someone with my mental health struggles could muster. I ignored the rumours, hoping against hope that I wouldn't be the one on the chopping block. But fate, in its usual cruel fashion, had other plans.

The first blow was losing my best friend on the team, Brandon Duhaime. The farewell had been painful yet straightforward—an exchange of half-hearted promises to keep in touch and a somber pat on the back. But the very next day, the axe fell on me. Toronto. The word alone felt like a sentence, and the journey there, a pilgrimage through purgatory.

So now, it was me packing my stuff. It was me, giving awkward half-hugs to my teammates, the staff, the man who drafted me all those years ago. I threw essentials into my car—clothes, toiletries, my hockey gear, and my trusty acoustic guitar. The rest I sold off or stashed in a storage unit, a tangible testament to my uprooted life. Thirteen hours of driving northeast, the landscape changing but my dread remaining constant, like a dark cloud in my rearview mirror.

Blinking the sleep from my eyes, I pulled the blanket off the driver's side mirror and saw a young man standing outside, his breath a mist in the cold morning air. He smiled faintly, gesturing for me to roll down the window.

I obliged, my glare impassive. The young man cleared his throat. "Sorry to wake you," he began, his voice tentative, "but my manager noticed you've been parking here overnight for a few weeks now, and I've been sent to ask you to... leave."

The bright red vest made sense now—Costco employee. My lips pressed into a thin line. "Okay, I'll leave," I replied curtly, starting the car and reaching for the window button.

The man leaned forward slightly, his eyes scanning the mess of belongings in the back of the car. "Hey, man, do you have anywhere else to go?" He said, and his concern was genuine, catching me off guard.

I paused, my hand hovering over the button. "No, not really," I admitted, the words heavy with exhaustion. "It's been... rough."

The man nodded, sympathy in his eyes. He pursed his lips, glancing away at the still dark distance before looking back, "You just move? I know there's a bit of a job crisis out here."

I rubbed my eyes, nodding slowly. "Yeah, something like that. Just got here from Minneapolis. It's... different, for sure." I bit the inside of my cheek, trying to mask my vulnerability. "I'll be okay, though."

The young man studied my face as he brushed a lock of his own dirty blond hair back, a flicker of recognition dawning. "You look really familiar..."

My heart skipped a beat. I wasn't even fully accustomed to being recognized on the ice, always being a bottom six, so being recognized now caught me off guard. "I get that sometimes," I said, hoping to deflect further questions.

"No, like, really familiar," the man insisted, leaning closer. "What do you do?"

I sighed, and for a second I considered lying, just so I wouldn't have to have this conversation at all, but the fatigue I was feeling made it easier to tell the truth. "I'm a hockey player," I said quietly. "Got traded to the Leafs recently."

The young man's eyes widened. "No way. You're Connor Dewar, right? I knew I recognized you!" Excitement mingled with concern in his expression. "Man, I'm sorry to see you in this situation."

I forced a smile. Truthfully, I was sorry for myself for finding myself in this situation, and not reaching out for help. Money wasn't an issue at all, it was the lack of housing, the application processes that took so long just to get denied, and the last thing he would want to do was ask management on the Leafs for help, his teammates, or even...

"Yeah, well, life throws curveballs sometimes." I conceded, my hand hovered over the gear shifter. "Look, I should really get going..."

"Wait," the man said, scribbling on a notepad from his vest pocket. "My name's Alex. I can't say I live comfortably myself, but if you need anything—a meal or a couch to crash on—give me a ring, okay?" He handed me the slip of paper.

I stared at the hastily written number, a lump forming in my throat. I felt small. Very small. Almost pitiful, but the unexpected kindness left me momentarily speechless. "Thanks, Alex," I said quietly, folding the paper and slipping it into my sweatpants pocket. "I appreciate it."

Alex gave a reassuring smile. "No problem, man. Take care of yourself, alright?"

I nodded, meeting Alex's gaze. Genuine concern was a rare find in a city as vast as Toronto, and this interaction gave this foreign place a sense of humanity, even if it was just a little bit. "Yeah, I'll do my best," I replied, finally rolling up the window.

As the window rolled up, I watched Alex step back and wave before walking away. I took a deep breath, putting the car in gear and pulling out of my spot. It was still pitch black outside, the only source of light the fluorescent lamps that buzzed as they lit up the parking lot I was driving out of. I didn't have a destination in mind, just a need to keep moving, to find somewhere I could rest without being disturbed.

With one hand on seven o'clock on my steering wheel, I drove aimlessly through the pre-dawn streets of downtown Toronto, quiet though bright red lights still materialized from the few cars out. My thoughts swirled hectically through my head, like a storm that couldn't be tamed. No matter how hard I tried, I just couldn't shake the goddamn irony of the situation off– a professional hockey player – recently traded to a major team, in the country he grew up in, and yet, here he was, essentially homeless, trying to find refuge anywhere he could.

My car came to a halt at a red light, and I quickly fished in my pocket for the slip of paper with the phone number of the Costco employee. I held it up to my face with my free hand, and, with little hesitation, crumpled it up and threw it behind me, into the abyss of my belongings. It might have been the stubborn thing to do - but I didn't care.

Eventually, I parked my car somewhere near the harbour, looking out at the water. I shut off the car and finally had the chance to lean back, having peace of mind for no more than a few moments before squeezing my eyes tight, opening them back up to see blackened spots in my vision. It seemed that the thoughts just never stopped, the sense of impending doom never went away.

I leaned over the centre console, the shifter digging into my side as I opened up the glovebox, my hand frantically searching for something. My fingers finally brushed against the cold, plastic bottle, the weight of it all too familiar in my hand. I leaned back into my seat, the bottle's label catching the faint light from a nearby streetlamp. "Fluoxetine," it read. An anti-depressant. My lifeline, and a sorrowing reminder of the battles I fought daily. I unscrewed the cap and shook out a single pill, swallowing it dry while the bitterness lingered on my tongue. I hoped it would help at the moment, although it probably wouldn't.

I took a deep breath, exhaling shakily before running my hands through my dark hair, then down my face. My heart pounded in my chest as I harshly hit my forearm against the driver's side door, suppressing the urge to yell right then and there. "Pull it together, Dewar," I muttered to myself, "She's happy. That's all that matters."

I managed to steady my breathing, looking out at the water. The stillness it harboured mocked the chaos going on in my mind. The city was beginning to stir, the faint glow of sunrise starting to paint the horizon. I watched as a few early morning joggers passed by, the scraping of their shoes against the pavement audible in the otherwise stark silence.

I wanted to believe that was all that really mattered, I really did. But my mind never stopped telling me the opposite, screaming it at me. That this wasn't how it was supposed to be, this was the worst-case scenario and I was accepting it. I was accepting losing her, giving her away without a second look at who it was, and why it wasn't me that she was with.

Feeling slightly more centered, I reached for my phone with a sigh. I started scrolling through my contacts, and eventually found my thumb hovering over Brandon's name for what seemed like forever. We had promised to keep in touch, but as I glanced at the time and realized it was only four-thirty in Denver, where Brandon was, I decided against texting him. I had been putting it off for a while, telling myself I just wasn't ready to reach out, and this was just another excuse.

I closed out of my contacts and pocketed my phone once again. I decided to simply start my day at this point, because although fatigue consumed me, sleep seemed like a distant hope. I straightened up, pulling down the sun visor and facing my reflection in the mirror - I looked like a ghost, pale and drawn - my eyes were bloodshot and my hair greasy, standing up in all directions.

I leaned back, rummaging through the back seat to find a half-empty water bottle which I splashed the contents of on my face, the residual water soaking my worn-out hoodie. Furthermore, I grabbed a baseball cap - one with a Toronto Maple Leafs logo on it, the only one that had been sitting neatly on top since I had just received it. I brushed my hair back with my still-wet hands, and placed the hat on top, backwards.

As soon as I deemed myself presentable, I started my car again, pulling out of the desolate harbourfront. My plan: show up to team practice early, find a distraction within hockey, at least for the time being. *** 7 years ago, Connor.

Turns out, Amelia was right when she said she'd get sick from jumping into the lake. Since I agreed to take care of her, there was no way I was going to back down now.

As soon as Mom mentioned that morning that Amelia had caught a summer cold, I didn't waste another moment. I scarfed down my bowl of cereal, grabbed my car keys, and was out the door before she could get another word out. I went out and bought, in no particular order: a squishmallow, orange juice (Amelia's favorite kind), and pre-made chicken soup, because there was no way I was going to successfully cook anything.

I showed up at her front door not long after, with everything in hand, plus my guitar. Amelia's parents looked at each other as if they were wondering why I was doing so much, but they let me in, making me promise to keep her bedroom door open.

I knocked on the initially shut door, trying to balance everything in my hands before Amelia offered a weak "Come in!" from her bed.

I pushed open the door with my foot, a juggling act of items threatening to spill from my arms. Amelia looked up from her cocoon of blankets, her nose red and her eyes glassy with the telltale signs of a summer cold. Despite her condition, she managed a weak smile, then a pout when she saw me. "Connie, what are you doing here? I don't want to get you sick."

I rolled my eyes as I gently set everything down on her bedside table. "Come on, Mia. You know I can't stay away when you need me," I said, not caring about keeping a distance as I handed her the squishmallow, which was in the shape of a strawberry. "But, just for when I can't be here, I got you this guy."

Amelia's eyes widened with delight as she took the strawberry squishmallow from me. "Oh my gosh, he's adorable!" she exclaimed, hugging the plush toy tightly. "Thank you, Connie. You didn't have to do all this."

I waved off her thanks, settling into a beanbag chair by her bed. "Of course I did. You'd do the same for me. Plus, I promised I'd take care of you if you got sick."

Amelia pouted, looking at the orange juice and soup. "You really went all out, huh?"

I shrugged, a playful smile tugging at my lips. "Just wanted to make sure you had everything you need. How are you feeling, though? Any better?"

Amelia sniffled, rubbing her nose. "A little. Just really tired and achy."

"Well, that's what the soup and juice are for," I said, opening the orange juice and pouring her a glass, one that I brought. "Here, drink this."

Amelia took the glass from me, sipping the juice slowly. "You didn't have to do this, Connor. I could've managed."

I leaned back in the chair, strumming my guitar softly. "I know, but I wanted to. Besides, this gives us more time to hang out, right? Even if you're a little under the weather."

Amelia smiled at the familiar sound of my guitar, feeling a wave of warmth wash over her. "Yeah, I guess so. Thanks, Connie. You're the best."

My fingers moved deftly over the frets, playing a familiar tune. "Of course, anything," I said, my chin pointed downward as I played.

"Okay, can you play literally anything other than 'Smells Like Teen Spirit'?" Amelia groaned, setting the strawberry plushie aside as she watched me. I ran a hand through my messy hair, my eyebrows furrowing as I looked back at her. "Why? It's a classic. And besides, I thought you liked Nirvana."

Amelia sniffled and gave me a weak smile. "I do, but you play that every time," she complained, wiping her nose with a tissue. "Can you play something a little softer, maybe?"

I chuckled, adjusting my guitar in my lap. "Alright, alright," I gave in, my fingers changing position to now strum a different song, which Amelia recognized as a slow rendition of 'Iris' from The Goo Goo Dolls. I hummed slightly as I played, tapping my foot.

"Can you sing it?" Amelia suddenly blurted out, her voice raspy. My eyes widened as my hands suddenly stopped moving and cheeks flushed, caught off guard by her request. "Mia, you know I don't-"

"You don't like singing in front of people, I know," Amelia interrupted, pulling herself up slightly so her back rested on the multitude of pillows behind her. "For me? Please?"

I hesitated for a moment, my fingers frozen on the guitar strings. I glanced at Amelia, seeing the hopeful look in her eyes despite the fatigue written all over her face. Taking a deep breath, I nodded slowly.

"Okay, Mia," I said softly, my voice tinged with both reluctance and fondness. "Just this once."

I started strumming again, the familiar melody of 'Iris' filling the room with its gentle, melancholic notes. I closed my eyes briefly, letting the music guide me as I began to sing in a hushed, tender voice.

"And I'd give up forever to touch you, 

'Cause I know that you feel me somehow..."

My voice, though soft and uncertain, carried the emotion of the song beautifully. Amelia watched me intently, her heart swelling with appreciation. Despite my reluctance, I sang for her, and that meant more than she could put into words.

"You're the closest to heaven that I'll ever be,

 And I don't want to go home right now..."

As I continued, my voice grew a bit stronger, albeit still quiet. The song's familiar lyrics filled the room, wrapping around us like a comforting blanket, although my heart felt like it was aching in my chest.

"And all I can taste is this moment,

 And all I can breathe is your life.

 'Cause sooner or later it's over,

 I just don't want to miss you tonight..."

When I reached the chorus, my eyes met Amelia's. I saw her teary smile and felt a rush of warmth in my chest. Singing in front of others wasn't something I did often, but for my Mia, it felt right. My voice wavered slightly as I hit the high notes, but I trudged on.

"And I don't the world to see me, 

'Cause I don't think that they'd understand.

 When everything's made to be broken, 

I just want you to know who I am."

As the song reached its soft conclusion, I let the final notes linger in the air before slowly lowering my guitar. I looked up at Amelia, a mix of vulnerability and affection in my eyes.

"There," I said softly, my voice barely above a whisper. "Just for you."

Amelia's heart swelled with emotion as she gazed at me, my sincerity palpable in every word I sang. She reached out a hand towards me, her voice barely above a whisper. "Thank you, Connor. That was beautiful."

My cheeks flushed slightly as I set the guitar aside, sitting on the edge of her bed. "You're welcome," I replied softly, my gaze never leaving hers. "And you're beautiful, Mia, not me."

Amelia blushed, her cheeks tinged pink from both the compliment and her lingering cold. "Stop it," she protested weakly, but there was a small smile playing on her lips.

I chuckled softly, reaching out to tuck a loose strand of hair behind her ear. "I mean it," I said earnestly, my thumb brushing gently against her cheek. "You've always been beautiful to me, Mia."

Amelia's breath caught at my touch, the warmth of my hand against her skin creating a reaction that I couldn't quite put my finger on. I searched her eyes, finding an intensity there that mirrored my own feelings. "Connor..." she started, unsure of what she wanted to say, but before she could, the sound of slow clapping snapped us out of it.

My little brother, Quinn, was leaning against the doorframe, a grin on his face as he clapped. I quickly looked behind me, spotting him, and just as quickly as I saw him, a scowl formed on my face. "Oh, fuck off."

Quinn chuckled, unfazed by my reaction. "Didn't know you had it in you, bro," he teased, winking at Amelia who blushed furiously under his gaze. "I gotta say, that's one special way to admit you're in love with somebody."

"Seriously?" I huffed, running a hand through my hair in exasperation. "Can't you knock or something?"

Quinn smirked, pushing off from the doorframe and strolling into the room. "The door's open, genius. You were just too busy serenading your crush here," he teased, his grin widening.

Amelia shifted uncomfortably under Quinn's playful scrutiny, her cheeks still tinged pink. "It's not like that," she protested weakly, glancing at me for support.

My scowl deepened as I shot back, "Shut up, Quinn. What are you doing here?"

Quinn shrugged nonchalantly, crossing his arms. "Mom sent me to check on you two and make sure Amelia here wasn't on her deathbed. Looks like you've got it covered, though."

Amelia couldn't help but smile at the banter between the brothers. "I'm fine, Quinn. Connor's been taking good care of me," she reassured him, grateful for the distraction from the emotional moment just a moment earlier.

Quinn raised an eyebrow, his gaze shifting between me and Amelia. "Uh huh, sure. Well, Mom also said to remind you not to stay too late. She doesn't want you catching her cold," he added with a smirk, "Me, though, I could stay for another song," he drawled out, plopping into another beanbag chair. "You got another love ballad, Romeo?"

I rolled my eyes, clearly unamused as I pointed towards the door. "Get out, Quinn."

With a dramatic sigh, Quinn stood up and headed for the door. "Fine, fine. I'll let you two get back to... whatever this is," he said with a wink before disappearing down the hallway.

Amelia let out a nervous laugh, watching Quinn leave before turning back to me. "Your brother is something else," she remarked, shaking her head.

I groaned, falling back onto Amelia's bed. "Yeah, sorry about him. He thinks he's hilarious."

"He kind of is," Amelia admitted, her smile growing more relaxed now that Quinn was gone. She shifted in bed, feeling a bit more comfortable despite her lingering cold.

I chuckled, shaking my head as I glanced at Amelia. "Yeah, I guess he has his moments."

Amelia leaned back against her pillows, feeling a sense of ease settling between us. "You know, despite everything, today hasn't been so bad," she mused softly, looking at me with a grateful expression. "I'm assuming you have the rest of the day planned out for us?"

I grinned, propping myself up on my elbows. "Oh, you bet I do," I replied. "I was thinking, just like, a bunch of movies. And then I can play more songs for you, if you want."

Amelia smiled warmly, feeling grateful for my presence and my efforts to make her feel better, although she would've done fine without me. "Songs, yes, movies, only if they're not all 'Lord of the Rings.'"

I rolled my eyes before agreeing. "Yeah, okay," I said, my tone sarcastic as I picked up the remote for the TV in her room. "We won't watch the best franchise ever, as per your request."

I flipped through Netflix on Amelia's TV, pretending to search for a movie while secretly hoping Amelia would change her mind about 'Lord of the Rings.' "How about we start with something light?" I suggested, finally settling on a classic comedy.

Amelia chuckled softly, shaking her head at my playful persistence. "Fine, Adam Sandler it is," she agreed, settling her head on my shoulder.

Throughout the movie, we traded comments and laughs, the atmosphere cozy and comfortable despite Amelia's occasional coughs and sniffles. I made sure she had everything she needed—more tissues, another glass of orange juice, adjusting pillows for her comfort—all the while feeling a sense of contentment in being there for her.

After the movie ended, I put on some more music, softly strumming my guitar as Amelia rested beside me. The day had turned into evening, casting a warm glow through the curtains of Amelia's room. We talked about everything and nothing, sharing memories and inside jokes, the bond between us growing stronger with each passing moment.

As night settled in, I checked the time and realized it was getting late. "Hey, Mia," I started gently, setting my guitar aside, "I should probably head out soon. You need your rest, and I promised your mom I wouldn't keep you up too late."

Amelia pouted playfully, but there was a softness in her eyes that spoke volumes. "Do you have to go? I mean, you could stay a little longer, right?" She asked hopefully.

I smiled warmly, brushing a strand of hair away from her face. "I wish I could, but I don't want your mom, or mine, to come after me with a broom," I teased lightly. "Besides, I'll be back tomorrow to check on you again, okay? And maybe bring more squishmallows."

Amelia nodded, a small smile curving her lips. "Okay, deal. Thanks for today, Connor. You're the best friend anyone could ask for."

My heart skipped a beat at her words, my smile widening. "Anytime. Get some rest, okay? I'll see you tomorrow."

With a final squeeze of her hand, I gathered my things and made my way out of Amelia's room. As I walked down the hallway towards the front door, I couldn't shake the feeling of warmth and fulfillment that filled me. Taking care of Amelia, being there for her—it was more than just friendship to me, though I wasn't going to risk messing anything up. ***

Present day, Amelia.

You always like to think your wedding as one of the most important events of your life.

And, you know what? It usually is. It should be, at least, but I just can’t do it. It isn’t clicking in my brain – that I’m going to be chained to someone for the rest of my life – even though I’ve been told exactly that my entire life. ‘You’ll marry a nice man,’ they said, ‘You’ll have a family.’

“You look beautiful, Amelia,” My mom’s voice rings through my thoughts as she finishes buttoning up the back of the gown I’m trying on, straightening out the train. 

I turn around to look at myself in the mirror, and I just can’t do anything but frown. The dress is beautiful, elegant, detailed, a dream for anyone, really, but it feels foreign on me. I notice my mom smiling in the back of the reflection, along with Cora and Willow, and I feel like I have to do something, say something, anything to make them think that everything is okay.

That I don’t feel like everything is crashing down around me.

“Thanks, Mom,” I say plainly, swallowing the lump in my throat. I turn around, facing my bridesmaids (the only two that could make it) head-on. “What do you guys think?” I ask, although I don’t really care what they think. All I can think about is how much I don’t like this.

Cora claps her hands together, her eyes sparkling. "You look like a princess, Amelia! It’s perfect!"

Willow nods vigorously, a wide grin on her face. "Absolutely stunning! Danny is going to lose his mind when he sees you in this."

I force a smile, trying to match their enthusiasm. They’re happy for me, and I should be happy too, right? This is what I’ve always wanted, isn’t it? To marry a nice man, to have a family, to settle down. But as I stand here, enveloped in layers of white tulle and lace, I can’t shake the feeling that something is terribly wrong.

Do I really want this? Do I really want to spend the rest of my life with Danny? He’s a great guy—kind, supportive, loves me to bits—but is that enough? Shouldn’t I feel more excitement, more joy, more...something?

"Are you okay, Amelia?" Willow’s voice breaks through my thoughts, her brow furrowed with concern.

I nod quickly, too quickly. "Yeah, I’m fine. Just...nervous, I guess." Nervous is an understatement. I feel like I’m about to crawl out of my own skin.

Mom steps forward, placing her hands on my shoulders. "It’s natural to feel nervous, sweetheart. But remember, this is your day. You deserve to be happy."

Happy. That’s the word that keeps echoing in my mind. Am I happy? I don’t know anymore. I thought I was, but now everything feels so uncertain. The image of Connor’s face flashes in my mind, unbidden. I shake my head slightly, trying to dispel the thought. Why am I thinking about him now?

"Maybe we should try a different dress," I suggest, hoping the change will distract me from the turmoil inside.

Cora and Willow exchange glances, but they nod in agreement. "Sure, let’s see what else they have," Cora says, her voice gentle.

As I step out of the gown and into the next one, my mind drifts back to Connor. Seeing him again at the arena, doing what he loves, what he always dreamed of. The way his eyes lit up when he recognized me, and the way my heart raced even though I tried to tell myself it didn’t matter. I thought I had moved on, but seeing him brought back a flood of memories and emotions I thought I had buried.

"Amelia, what about this one?" Mom holds up another dress, this one simpler, with less embellishment.

I step into it, letting them zip me up. The fabric feels lighter, less constricting, but the weight in my chest remains. As I look in the mirror, I try to picture myself walking down the aisle, saying my vows, starting a life with Danny. But all I can see is Connor’s face, his sad eyes when he saw the ring on my finger.

"Amelia, you look amazing!" Willow’s voice breaks through again, and I nod, forcing another smile.

"Yeah, it’s nice," I say, my voice hollow.

"Nice?" Cora raises an eyebrow. "It’s more than nice! You look like you just stepped out of a fairytale."

A fairytale. That’s what this is supposed to be, isn’t it? My happily ever after. But why does it feel like I’m playing a role in someone else’s story? Why do I feel like I’m about to make a huge mistake?

Mom, oblivious to the tension, suddenly approaches me with a veil, pinning it to my hair without even asking. “I can’t believe my baby is getting married,” she pouts, adjusting it, “We always talked about it, sweetie, remember? You always said you wanted to marry–”

I cut her off, the words escaping before I can stop them. “Connor.” The name slips out, and the room falls silent, her hands stopping their movements.

I feel the color drain from my face as I realize what I’ve said. My mind races, trying to backpedal, to explain away the slip, but the silence stretches, heavy and awkward.

“Yeah,” Mom breathes out, pursing her lips as she steps down from the raised stage I’m standing on, “Connor.”

I was eight years old, sitting on the swings in the park with Connor. The sun was setting, casting a golden glow over everything. We were both pushing ourselves higher and higher, the wind whipping through our hair, our laughter filling the air.

"Hey, Connor," I called out, glancing over at him.

"Yeah?" he replied, his voice breathless from the exertion.

"Do you ever think about getting married?" I asked, my innocent curiosity getting the better of me.

Connor laughed, a sound so pure and carefree. "Not really. Why?"

I shrugged, kicking my legs to go higher. "I dunno. I just think it would be nice. To have someone who loves you forever."

Connor slowed his swing, looking thoughtful. "Yeah, I guess. But who would want to marry someone like me?"

I stopped my swing too, turning to face him. "I would," I said with all the conviction an eight-year-old could muster.

Connor's eyes widened, and a slow smile spread across his face. "Really?"

"Yeah," I nodded, grinning. "You’re my best friend, Connie. I can’t imagine my life without you."

He looked at me for a moment, and then he jumped off his swing, landing clumsily on the grass. "Come on," he said, holding out his hand. "Let’s make a promise."

I jumped off my swing too, grabbing his hand. "What kind of promise?"

He led me to the old oak tree at the edge of the park, the one with the swing tire hanging from its lowest branch. "Let’s promise that if we’re not married by the time we’re twenty-five, we’ll marry each other."

I giggled, thinking it was the silliest idea ever. But the look in Connor’s eyes was serious, so I nodded. "Okay. It’s a deal."

We shook hands, sealing our pact, and then he hugged me, a tight, warm embrace that made me feel safe and loved.

My chest tightens, and I feel a surge of panic. "Mom, I didn’t mean—"

But she interrupts me, her voice surprisingly calm. "It’s okay, Amelia. I know you loved him. We all thought you two would end up together."

Loved him. Past tense. And that just feels so incredibly wrong, even though it should be the truth. That it was just kids being kids, exploring their feelings and whatnot, but was it really just exploring? That thought beats at me so hard that it feels like my head is about to explode, and I just want to scream, cry, and run away.

But I can’t.

I’m in too fucking deep.

I look at my reflection in the mirror again, my bloodshot eyes searching for something—anything—that might tell me I’m making the right choice. The woman staring back at me looks like a bride, but she sure as hell doesn’t feel like one.

“I talked to Kim the other day,” Mom blurts out, her eyes wide at me.

Connor's had been a constant presence in my life during my childhood and teenage years, always warm, welcoming, and like a second mother to me. I hadn’t spoken to her in years, not since everything had changed. And now, to hear that my mother had talked to her mere months before my wedding felt like a cruel twist of fate.

“What did you and Kim talk about?” I managed to ask, though my voice trembled. The simple act of voicing the question felt like exposing a raw wound that had barely healed.

Mom’s fingers hesitated on the veil, her expression softening as she met my gaze in the mirror. “Oh, nothing too significant. Just catching up. Quinn’s doing good, but she mentioned something about how hard it’s been for Connor lately. She’s worried about him. She said he’s been struggling with the move, and—” Mom paused, her eyes narrowing slightly. “And she asked about you.”

The weight of her words sinks in, each syllable pressing down on me. Connor’s struggle, Kim’s concern, and the fact that she even thought to ask about me—it all hits me like a ton of bricks. I can’t believe this is happening now, while I’m supposed to be getting excited about my wedding.

The veil feels suffocating, a symbol of something I can’t quite grasp. The image of him struggling makes me want to crawl into a hole and fucking die, and I don’t know how I’m supposed to move on. Not when a huge part of my heart is in the past, tangled with Connor’s.

Kim knew everything. She knew how it was between us, how we were both helplessly in love, unable to say anything, but imagined a future together secretly nontheless. She was always a part of that dream. And now, hearing about Connor, the grown man, not the boy, it’s like she’s reminding me of something I’ve been desperately trying to forget.

I glance at Mom in the mirror, my face flushed and eyes wide. “Mom, do you think I’m making a mistake?” The words slip out before I can stop them, a desperate plea for clarity.

It’s all I can do now. Beg that it’ll go away.

to be continued!

[aranarumei]

bonus hanzawa to tashiro (ft. the anomalous agate)

have you read the anomalous agate? yes? if so, this is the bonus I was talking about—if not, as long as you know what I mean by hanzawa to tashiro, this should still make sense. if you were introduced to hanzawa and tashiro as characters through the anomalous agate and that alone, consider reading this post where I explain little but talk a lot.

this bonus scene takes place between the two scenes in ch 4 of the anomalous agate. specifically, it takes place around two weeks after the first scene in ch 4 / a week before the last scene in ch 4, during tashiro's cultural festival as a third-year.

and since this exists within the context of the anomalous agate, which is written first-person and trying to emulate seigi's pov, this bonus is written in tashiro's pov, and attempts to blend my style with tashiro's first-person narration in love & passion.

ok I think I've spent enough time talking. fun stuff is below the cut!

bonus: hanzawa to tashiro, ft. the anomalous agate

Tashiro Gonzaburou, third-year. At the moment, I was experiencing a horrible case of déjà vu.

Two years ago, I’d lost so badly at a ping pong match that I’d stumbled my way into being the captain of the ping pong club. And as much as I liked the club, and had even gotten pretty good at ping pong, I was still pretty annoyed about having been tricked into joining. 

Though the former captain of the ping pong club who’d tricked me then wasn’t the former captain in front of me now, I couldn’t help but feel the way I had then—cornered. 

It was hard to pinpoint the exact reason. Maybe it was the black and red sailor uniform I was wearing. But Kuresawa had worn it just fine the year before, so even though I hadn’t shaved my leg hair, I couldn’t have looked too bad. I’d also worn this specific outfit quite a few times—we’d needed to adjust the fit, and I’d needed to practice my lines. Maybe it was the makeup I was getting done. But I’d tried some of that before, too. Getting blush dusted on my cheeks had gone almost exactly as the same as it had last time.

Almost, except for one thing: it was way too quiet. The guy sitting in front of me, Hanzawa Masato, was probably used to that kind of thing. In fact, he was the type to take a normal silence, extend it until I felt awkward, and then mercilessly tease me whenever I blurted out something to fill the space.

“Weird to see you with earrings on,” I said. …And here I was, falling for it again. 

Hanzawa-senpai didn’t seem fazed at all by what I’d just said, but he was an annoying guy who looked the same whether he was angry or not. “You’ve seen me wear them before, though?” 

“Not in school,” I pointed out. Hanzawa-senpai had been a terrible sadist of a president, but he was squeaky-clean about the way he did it. Even now, with his earrings clearly visible, he was the perfect picture of a model student working in quiet concentration. 

Hanzawa-senpai hummed in thought, his hands rummaging through the bag of makeup products he’d left on a nearby desk. “Well, I’m not a student anymore,” he said with a shrug. “Even so, aren’t they fairly hidden?” 

As if—they were small, and a plain steel color, but it was Hanzawa-senpai. Of course I couldn’t stop staring.

“Trying to hide your delinquent ways?” I asked, not expecting a serious answer. Hanzawa-senpai’s secrets probably had secrets. He’d passed over his title of captain to me, so I knew his caginess wasn’t completely because I was unreliable, but it still bothered me.

“If you’re looking for a delinquent, look in the mirror,” Hanzawa-senpai teased, and then produced some kind of torture contraption from his bag. “Now don’t move, okay?” 

I yelped and threw my hands up in self-defense. “You can’t put that thing near my face!” 

Hanzawa-senpai just laughed at me, close enough that I could feel his breath on my face. Sadist!

 “It’s just an eyelash curler, Tashiro-kun,” he drawled. “Calm down, would you?” 

I shook my head furiously. “No way,” I said, ready to fight for my life. When we’d gone over the basics, this guy hadn’t mentioned this step—I’d bet anything it was purposeful! “How can—” 

A warm hand curled around my wrists, and I froze. Hanzawa-senpai pulled my hands away from my face, pressing in close, and made an order: “Sit still, would you?”

I’d barely listened when he was captain of the ping pong club, but something about his voice held me in place. I’d never really thought about it before, but Hanzawa-senpai had one of those storybook-narrator voices—the kind that made even simple things sound weirdly compelling. And then he had to go be one of the most eloquent people I’d met, too.

So, my eyes, which I thought would never hold still, obediently refrained from twitching as Hanzawa-senpai slowly curled my lashes.

The process was less painful than I thought, but it was still freaky—my vision was half metal, and so even though I knew that Hanzawa-senpai was right in front of me, the only real cue for that was the way he kept murmuring instructions into my ears. Once he’d curled my eyelashes, he carefully applied mascara, and then leaned back to survey his work. 

I could finally breathe again. My eyes felt… different?

“Blink a few times,” Hanzawa-senpai suggested. 

After taking his advice, I got a bit more used to the feeling. “Huh.”

“Eyeshadow next.” After that announcement, Hanzawa-senpai started digging through his bag again. 

“Right,” I suddenly remembered, “Were you planning on buying something fancy?” At Hanzawa-senpai’s blank stare, I elaborated, “Fancy earrings. Since there’s that jeweler guy you’re friends with.” 

“Not friends,” Hanzawa-senpai corrected after a beat. “I’ve met him a total of four times.”

You’re counting? 

For two people who weren’t friends, they sure had talked to each other like they were. And now Hanzawa-senpai was looking through his stuff with a strange look in his eyes, so I’d clearly touched some kind of nerve. 

I sighed. “Do you have to overthink everything?”

He didn’t even pause his search. “Maybe you could stand to think more?”

“Hey!” I crossed my arms. I think about you all the time, don’t I?

“…Okay, that was a little rude,” Hanzawa-senpai admitted. “Forgive me?” When he smiled, his eyes would always curve in a way that made it impossible to be angry.

“…We’re doing eyeshadow next, right?”

Instead of answering, he pressed an eyeshadow palette in my hand. Palette wasn’t the right word—what did you call something that was just one eyeshadow? Before I could think too hard about it, I got distracted by the eyeshadow’s color. “…You’re not colorblind, are you?”

“I can tell that’s green,” Hanzawa-senpai said, clearly amused. “No, that’s just for you.” He gestured to the eyeshadow palette in his hands, which was way more color-appropriate. “Close your eyes.”

I did close them, but I couldn’t stop thinking—what did “just for you” mean?

After I’d faced an eyelash curler, the eyeshadow and eyeliner didn’t seem so bad. The hardest part was staying still—how did some girls do this daily?

Once Hanzawa-senpai was done, he tugged me to a standing position, and moved a few steps away to check the result. Judging by the irritating smugness radiating from his expression, he’d done a good job.

“Where’d you get this eyeshadow?” I asked, holding up the one still clutched in my hand. I couldn’t bring myself to ask why. 

“…When I was helping Seigi cover his bruise, I happened to find it, and—” He shrugged, deliberately casual. “You like that shade of green.”

I did. It was my favorite color, and I wore it all the time. But I still didn’t understand why Hanzawa-senpai had gotten this eyeshadow for me. And I didn’t understand why my chest felt so weird when I heard him talk about Seigi. 

“…Is that everything, then?” I asked.

“There’s lip gloss,” Hanzawa-senpai said, handing me a tube of the stuff, “but that’s easy enough for you to do. Sit down, but turn to the side—I’ll do your hair.” 

I had a faint memory of Shirahama saying he didn’t trust anyone else with hairstyling, but I figured he’d accept Hanzawa-senpai’s skills, so I didn’t protest.

In this new setup, I was stuck staring at a random classroom wall. Though I couldn’t see Hanzawa-senpai standing behind me, I could feel the brush he was carefully pulling through my hair, working through the tangles with a steady hand.

“You know,” I said, “why didn’t you ever do the contest yourself? You’d be so good at it.” 

“I prefer to be on the sidelines for this kind of thing, I think.”

“Makes sense,” I said. “But if you did—oh, you’d have to pick out a name!” 

“A name?” 

“It’s a conversation I had with Kuresawa. Like, his girl name would be Tasuko. And I could just shorten my first name to be something like Gon-chan. For you, maybe… Masako?”

I thought he’d laugh at my lack of naming sense, but instead, Hanzawa-senpai just shook his head. “That one’s out—it’s my sister’s name.” 

“Ah—that’s right, you have a few siblings, don’t you?” 

“I do. And you’re quite obviously an only child.”

“How do you know that?”

He simply smiled. “It’s impossible not to.” 

“...Sure,” I said. 

I didn’t have an immediate reply, so I unscrewed the tube of lip gloss. It was easy enough to apply, even without a mirror, so once that was over, my thoughts wandered.

What kind of magical, mystical quality did having siblings give to someone? Maybe even thinking that was what made me an only child, but really… 

I stole a glance up at Hanzawa-senpai. If this guy was my brother, I don’t know if I would cry or laugh. 

As it turned out, you couldn’t unnoticeably look upwards when you had someone’s hands fiddling with your hair. Our gazes met, and Hanzawa-senpai smiled—like a cat who’d gotten the canary. I stayed frozen in place as he leaned down.

“Alright, Gon-chan,” Hanzawa-senpai purred. “It looks like you’re all set.” 

My face turned instantly, abruptly red. No wonder Miyano had said I’d been way too casual about accepting the name. It definitely, definitely, without a doubt, definitely, definitively, couldn’t be used casually! 

Hanzawa-senpai straightened back up. “...Tashiro-kun?” 

“I—” My voice came out way too high. “I’m going to ask Shirahama to help with my hair!” 

Then I ran as fast as my legs could carry me. 

(...Running in a skirt wasn’t that hard—it was actually kind of fun—but that was the last thing on my mind, then.) 

[ramblingromance]

A Reckless Match: Book Review

A family that's been at odds for centuries, secret caves, and a smugglers' plot! There's all this and more in A Reckless Match by Kate Bateman, so read along for some of my thoughts, feelings, and rambles on...

Meet the Davies and Montgomery families - two households locked in an ancient feud, destined to be on opposing sides forever. Until now... CAN LIFELONG HATE Madeline Montgomery grew up despising––and secretly loving––the roguish Gryffud “Gryff” Davies. Their families have been bitter rivals for hundreds of years, but even if her feelings once crossed the line between love and hate, she’s certain Gryff never felt the same. Now, she’s too busy saving her family from ruin to think about Gryff and the other “devilish” Davies siblings. Since he’s off being scandalous in London, it’s not like she’ll ever see him again... TURN TO TRUE LOVE As the new Earl of Powys, Gryff Davies planned on spending his post-war life enjoying the pleasures of London. But when an illegal duel forces him to retreat to his family’s Welsh castle, he realizes the only exciting thing in the dull countryside will be seeing the fiery Maddie Montgomery. Thoughts of his nemesis sustained Gryff throughout the war; but the girl he loved to tease has grown into a gorgeous, headstrong woman – who loathes him just as much as she ever did. Will secret tunnels, dangerous smugglers, and meddling from their feuding families be enough to make Maddie and Gryff realize that their animosity is really attraction...and maybe even love.

_________________________________________________

If you're looking for an enemies to lovers in the same vein as Darcy and Elizabeth, you'll probably find that this isn't quite an exact match. There's definitely witty teasing to be found, but despite the fact that Maddie and Gryff's families have been at odds for centuries, they don't exactly hold any real disdain for each other. Think of it more along the lines of the boy that tugged the pigtails of the girl that he liked.

In a way I was relieved by this, because I almost feared it was going to take on a melodramatic Romeo and Juliet sort of feel, but it never delves much past its initial genre: romantic comedy.

Thankfully this isn't a tragedy, and while I knew that there would be a happily ever after waiting for me at the end, I still worried that the melodrama of two feuding families might be a bit too much for me.

No, if anything, this family feud is much more like the Hatfields and McCoys (although certainly not quite as bloody, especially during the regency era where this is all taking place), all the way down to a supposed stolen pig which started the feud all those years ago.

This novel is charming, and takes on a tone reminiscent of Tessa Dare, I would say. There's nothing too serious about it, which is nice when you're not looking for anything that's particularly dramatic or angsty. The characters are fun, and I'm certainly interested to see what other adventures this family takes in the future. I think the second installment in the series is already out, which I'm sure I'll get to in the future.

I think a few of my only complaints would be in, one, the odd chapter lengths. They were incredibly short, usually only ranging five pages long. This in itself isn't a major issue, but it just sort of made the story feel a little disjointed at times when you're expecting a new scene in a new chapter or a different POV. With the chapters being so short, it left me wondering why some of them weren't just combined to make one longer chapter, but that's just a nitpick on my part.

And two... I know I said I didn't want anything super melodramatic, but I do wish our main characters had been fleshed out just a tiny bit more. It felt as if I was missing something about them, though I'm not sure what. I think maybe it as the fact that there was never really a moment where the focus was on any sort of past traumas or insecurities. Gryff reflects a bit about his time in the war, and the guilt he feels about leaving his friends behind when he suddenly became the new earl. Still, the surface was only just scratched there, and there wasn't even too much talk on the grief he felt about losing his father. On Maddie's part, she talks a bit about her near death experience and the literal scars that were left behind, but again, we only get a light scratch here.

Aside from that, this novel gets a few extra points for featuring a sex in one of the more unique places: a cave!

Thanks for reading this far! I've noticed that with Twitter going up in flames, a resurgence seems to be happening here on tumblr. I never left, but I did start to miss how active the romance novel community had once been on here. Let's hope we can bring it back to its heyday! Until then, happy reading!

____________________________________________________

Trigger Warnings: Mentions of death, war, and violence. Attempted blackmail, Claustrophobia (there's a cave trapped scene).

Heat Level: 3/5

[ciaossu-imagines]

Hi, this message is late but I haven’t been able to get to my computer for a few days but hope this still helps and that you’re doing much better than when you initially posted. I’ll tell you about my holidays later in the DMs but I’ll try to respond to your question of ‘what brought you here initially, what keeps you reading if you're a long-time reader’. I don’t exactly know what brought me here but I feel like it was probably a K Project post since I know I found you through a K Project blog that I follow. Then I saw that Monopoly post and sent in that request and I just love the way that you write all of my faves and even the characters I know (even if like you said, our interpretations are sometimes kind of different). I continue to love it and your writing always makes me so happy, it gives me inspiration for my own story ideas or just lets me think about certain things for a bit. Not only that but you’re an amazing and such a kind admin and I love that you love interacting with your readers in all kinds of ways (including responding to the absolutely countless messages I sent to you on the blog) and that you have no problems being honest with us. I also love your passion when it comes down to writing and that’s probably why I have no problems readings almost anything you post, since you make that I understand the character even though I have no idea who the character is and you also show that you know them so well. These are just the things I could come up with now but I hope it’s enough.

Hope the rest of the year is better and that you have an amazing 2024.

Much love

C

P.S. I have no idea how but under the ‘More like this’ on your blog there was a link to a post of an amazing moment of one of my favourite Haikyuu!! boys so that was random but nice surprise.

Don't worry at all about the message being late because I haven't had much chance to be on tumblr and active since my last post. I'm still exhausted but have a nice stretch of days off to look forward to with New Year's holidays. I'm doing my best…to be honest, I'm still not really motivated or inspired much for writing, though I'm trying my best, adding little things here and there to all my post drafts as they come, but no full answers are ready quite yet. And that's okay. I did really well putting out a bunch over the Christmas holiday so I'm not beating myself up too much for not having the ideas or motivation right now. I know I'll get it back and will be able to post again and that writing is supposed to be fun for me and you guys all so I'm allowing myself the relaxation time.

Thanks so very much for sending in this sweet message, and I'll look forward to hearing about your holidays when I get around to having the motivation and energy to properly answer my dm's! I loved hearing about what brought you to my blog and what you enjoy about it. It really made me smile and made my heart all happy. I'm so glad that you enjoy the way I write the characters, even when we have slightly different interpretations of them. That's really saying a lot and means a lot because I know how upset people can get about different interpretations of characters. And it's such an honour to hear that you get inspired by my writing or get to think of characters differently! And thank you so much for the personal compliments! I always do my best to be kind, and it's easy to do when I have such amazing, lovely, and supportive readers! I know some of my followers who have been reading since I was back on the original polycanons blog, over six years ago because this current blog is that old!! And, if I guess correctly, given that someone I used to interact regularly with on ff. net way back when I was writing for KHR (when it was still ongoing) and a tumblr that follows this blog share the exact same internet handle, I have readers going back 10+ years, which just blows my mind! Like, how can I not be so incredibly grateful for that gift? When I first started sharing my writing online, I worried everyone would hate it, and I've gotten my fair share of fandom hate over the years, but have been so incredibly lucky to always find an audience for my writing and I cannot say how lucky and fortunate I am for that.

I hope you have an amazing 2024 as well, my dear!!

[s3plan]

im on a one-week break from school now, which means its been one year since things got REALLY bad in terms of my delusion about the s3 plan/that the school i attended at the time was all a set-up or simulation. at least thats the marker ive set for when it “officially” got to such a severe point. idk what im trying to accomplish by writing this down, all it’s doing is make me feel exactly like i did a year ago, when i would spend hours writing walls and walls of textposts every night for a week that only made me spiral more and more. idk, mostly its scary to think about. for some reason i get really sad sometimes that i dont look the same as i did back then, even though my appearance was a big factor in worsening the delusion & my existential self-blaming guilt over the situation, that it was some kind of punishment for willingly turning myself into something else out of shallowness or being unable to accept reality. It’s almost like mourning a person, the same feeling i would get that my “old self” had been replaced by a boring, personality-less shell, drained of all color and lacking everything that makes you a real person. 

and It’s scary that recently I’ve had some of the same feelings of things being “off” in a way i can’t describe. and It’s scary how as soon as i started typing up this post i fell back into that exact style of writing i started using about a year ago. The overly-formal, annoyingly vague half-poetic stream of consciousness, hinting towards, referencing or even quoting the source text, but making an effort to avoid directly naming it. And it’s really, really scary what I’ve been remembering recently. and that this, too, is an attempt to further avoid thinking about it, hoping i can crawl back into that hiding place where i wont need to be myself, where those things didn’t happen to me

[dzpenumbra]

12/25/22

Today was a good day, it's nice to say that again, it feels like it's been a while. Kinda weird how when I have good, healthy social interactions, I have a good day. And when I have bad, unhealthy social interactions, I have a horrible day. Meh, probably just a coincidence...

I spent a lot of time in bed. It takes me a bit to get the engine running even normally, but catching up on sleep and when I'm low on sleep, I can be in bed for up to an hour or more sometimes before finally getting up. But I did some neck and upper back stretches while I was still clinging to bed, so that was very smart. My cat finally got me to venture downstairs and feed her.

It's cold today. 11F right now. My heat doesn't work great, to be honest, not at these temps. And I know it can get up to 20-30 degrees colder on a bad year, so... fingers crossed it doesn't get too bad. I only have one of my two baseboard heaters in the downstairs working, so if worse comes to worse, I can get someone to check it out and figure out why the second one isn't firing up.

I got some pretty cool stuff done today. I got my new rock tumbler set up and running. I have a batch of clear/smoky quartz that I salvaged from a "throwaway" rock, that's in one barrel. And I have an etc bag that came from my old rock tumbler that has like... rose quartz and amethyst and tigers eye and fluorite and sodalite and shit. So... hopefully mixing hardness on those won't cause bad results, but I already sorted them into hand-polish and tumble piles and filled up the second barrel with those. So I have a lot of stones tumbling right now, should be done in like a month or so. The flip side - it isn't exactly quiet. Now... my old tumbler was loud as fuck, like living next to a waterfall. This one is kinda like having a washing machine or dishwasher going in the next room. And I went into the hallway and I can't hear it out there at all. I have no idea if my neighbors will be able to hear it, but if they do... it would probably just sound like a bathroom fan that's always on, water running through pipes or a white noise machine. I get used to those sounds very quickly, I actually really like them, they're soothing and comforting to me. They help me sleep a lot. So I'm really excited to sleep tonight and see the difference. But there is a lingering fear that someone might be upset. If they are, they are free to come by and lodge a complaint, I will explain the situation and offer to share some of the bounty, maybe make some jewelry for them, if they're willing to tolerate the white noise. They have a doormat that says something like "The witch is in" or something, so like... I think crystals and stones and natural jewelry might appeal. But either way, it doesn't seem like much of anyone is around the building for the holidays, it's much quieter.

So the tumbler is going. Tumblr. Yeah, I see the connection. I mean, I get why a rock tumbler is called tumbler, I wonder why they call this Tumblr...

I got some packages from the package room. Gorilla glue - FINALLY. Sisal rope to rejuvenate Max's scratching post. And another bar of soap, which was like... down to the last tiny bits. I talked to my mom for another 3 hours, it went really well. We even went back to the conversation about furniture - the one we had a big fight about almost a week ago - and had the same exact snag we did last time, where she proposed movers bring furniture in and my brain went "nope" and... it didn't go bad. It stalled for a bit, but I called it out and went "yeah, we've hit this roadblock before and I'm not as emotional about it this time since I've experienced this before, but I'm still hitting a roadblock on it. A brick wall. So, could we try a different way?" And it actually led to a possible solution, one that might actually work for me. It was... hope-inspiring. So that was great.

We went over my past and stuff, a lot of the conversation was about this ADHD stuff and how I'm struggling to accept the diagnosis still. Again, even after 2 confirmed diagnoses and a brain scan which showed clear telltale indicators. This --- okay, I might as well get this out since it's clearly super important to me --- You know how sometimes you go through life and a thing happens to you and you just don't really process how big that moment was, even like 5+ years later? It's processed as like "oh yeah, that really sucked, but like... it's whatever". Like there aren't really feelings behind it, it's just a bad thing or whatever? But... it still has a profound effect on your life? I'm trying to be relatable, let me be more specific.

Getting misdiagnosed with epilepsy really fucked me up. Like... much more than I thought it did, much more than I can really tangibly feel right now, more than I'm aware of. So, let me go into the story very briefly (haha, me? brief? good one!) and then follow up with my question I have right now that I'm going to forget so fuck it I'll ask it first: "should I consider a malpractice suit?"

Here's the story. It was fall of 20...17? Maybe 2016? Hmm... I think it was 2017. What the fuck even is time, good lord. Okay. So I had come off of benzos in the spring of that year, I was on heavy daily doses of Xanax for daily "functioning" and prescribed a compound of Seroquel (a hypnotic typically prescribed for psychosis) to help with sleep. That spring, I quit my job that was bleeding my self-esteem dry, I got in a relationship with someone who moved cross-country to a house 20 minutes away from me totally not to peer pressure me into dating her... who I wasn't physically attracted to, but had some shared hobbies and a somewhat shared sense of humor. And I got off benzos. All at the same time. That summer was a complete blur as my body and mind were adjusting to... feeling feelings again, and becoming a new person. By the fall, all of the changes - I mean, my entire life changed... - started to take their toll. I was very unhappy, very depressed, very lost, struggling to find purpose and direction, didn't really have any form of guidance, I was just going day to day, hour to hour, aimlessly. I didn't recognize myself in the mirror, I dissociated regularly, I would just tune out for periods of time, I was insanely hypochondriacal. After I found myself being a dick to a neighbor about keeping their dog on a leash when I was walking my dog with my girlfriend... and then like... dissociating afterwards... I felt something was wrong, and I went to get help.

I went to a local counseling center, who got me set up with the only guy they had who was free - a snowboarder dude in his... early 40's I want to say? A bit overweight, vegetarian, with an office full of plants, an oil diffuser (lemongrass always brings me back to his office) and strong Buddhist tendencies. In hindsight, he would've been a great fit for current me. But for that incarnation of me... I dunno. Let's just say, bless his heart for putting up with me. Plus, he was a drug and alcohol counselor, so like... yeah, don't know if it was a good fit. Anyway, that's not what this story was about. On my intake, I had to get a screening kinda thing. And that means... you sit in a room with a lady who has a background in neurology who is a psychiatrist, they ask you questions for like 15-20 minutes and you try to answer the best you can. (I was much less forthcoming with information and much less trusting back then.) Then you leave the room with your diagnoses. That's just kinda, how that process worked at that specific establishment, I guess. And this woman gave me Major Depression with Psychotic Features... still don't really know why, and that psychotic stuff got dropped pretty quick later on... Generalized Anxiety... well, duh... and the coup-de-grace: Partial Complex Seizure Disorder. A form of epilepsy. And she started me on epilepsy medication, which I was on for months. My whole winter I was on carbamazepine, I remember that clearly. In the spring, I switched to other meds. I remember Depakote really fucking well, that one fucked me up REAL bad.

Around late-winter/early-spring, the woman who diagnosed me - who was the head prescriber for half the state of counseling centers - left the place to go work as an ER psychiatrist at a local hospital. And I was left in the lurch. I eventually was transferred over to another woman, who... I didn't mesh great with, but that's a different story. I got to the point where I was having more side-effects than benefits. Like... I don't know if there were any benefits. But my GI tract was getting fucked up real bad. Maybe it was the meds, maybe it was just constantly being sick and thus... sedentary... but my GI tract was fucked. I ended up having to get a colonoscopy at 32 to figure out what was going on, which of course came back negative. And a few other related GI problems that put me in urgent care. I decided enough was fucking enough and demanded an EEG to like... confirm or deny this fucking diagnosis. I had been treating this shit for like over half a year and they never even thought to try to confirm this shit with an EEG. So, I drove to a credible hospital with my girlfriend. We stayed in a hotel, we ordered mexican food. (We got fleas in the house, so... sorry hotel, we brought fleas with us, whoops.) I went early the next morning to the hospital and went into the neurology department, where there were people who were like... in car accidents and stuff. It was intense. And I got this fucking electrode cap thing installed, they gave me some little box thing, told me to press a button whenever I felt "symptoms" and log that. And wrapped my head in gauze and had me come back in 48 hours.

I remember vividly being on my porch smoking a cigarette wearing a gauze full headwrap (with a chinstrap and everything) and just being fucking completely humiliated. Like "I look fucking insane right now." And I go back to get the results, idk if my ex came with me. But I went to get them processed, and they did... and the doctor comes in and sits down with me and just right out the gate says "you don't have epilepsy." And he was not gentle or kind, his tone was very like "there are people here with real problems, dude." And he told me I had psych problems and recommended medication, and told me to get a therapist. And the only other time I walked away from a doctor's office that fast was when I was flat-out accused of drug-seeking when I blew out my shoulder when I worked in a bakery. That emotional combo of crying, feeling ashamed and being furious is a very unique blend.

So... that was like 5 years ago. And now... now I am so gun-shy. So shaken. So... insidiously, subtly traumatized by that misdiagnosis... that I am struggling to embrace the one diagnosis I have gotten multiple times from multiple diagnosticians, with the most physical evidence. There is like 4x more evidence of this diagnosis than even PTSD, and I wholeheartedly embrace my PTSD diagnosis. Why? Impostor syndrome. Well, more than that, maybe because my PTSD is like... blockading me. Same thing, I guess. I could be in support groups. I could be meeting people who are like me, who could teach me tips and relate to how hard daily life can be. I could be making friends that are like me. And I am saying a firm "no" to that until after I get screened for ADHD by a Primary Care in February (hopefully) because of that epilepsy misdiagnosis. Because I remember when I went and sat down on the couch in this woman's office at the Epilepsy Foundation with my girlfriend and we talked to this person as though I had epilepsy. Because I used to wear a medical alert necklace that warned people that I had epilepsy. And I luckily didn't get too deep into the community, because I really feel like if I did... they would be upset. Like I had lied to them. Like I had gotten their pity and compassion on false pretenses and violated their trust. Even if I didn't do it intentionally, even if I was misdiagnosed. I would be treated like someone faking alcoholism and going to AA meetings, like I'm infiltrating their inner sanctum. That part of my brain/personality is very certain that people would be upset, and that it would be disrespectful of me. And I do not want to do that again with ADHD. So... I've been avoiding it, dancing around it. Because I can wait a month, it's not that long.

And yeah, I forgot the question, but thinking about it just brought it back. Is that like... a malpractice suit? Is it even worth the trouble? I don't know what I would be getting out of it... like... compensation for time lost? Emotional damages? The massive dent to my family's wallet? I don't know if it's worth the stress, but I really feel like I should at very least find a good venue to tell this story. Unfortunately, I have a bunch. But I feel like the best thing you can do with trauma is turn it into a way for others (and hopefully yourself) to grow. Not to bury it, suppress it, or avoid it. But to share it and try to help others avoid the same fate, you know? So, I don't know if it's worth acting on that, maybe it would help me in the present with my impostor syndrome shit. I don't know.

But yeah. Huge derail there, welcome to my brain. Thanks for sharing story time. My mom has been learning a TON about not just me, but about my dad and my brothers from this discovery of ADHD stuff. Like... so much shit is starting to click into place for her now and she is loving sharing it. It's obviously conflicting for her. It's like... you treat someone like they're acting like an asshole, but they're really just... their brain works very differently and they're not explaining what's going on behind the curtain? They're not communicating well, if at all? So of course you feel like they're fucking with you or something. But the guilt can be a bit rough. But I'm super glad and super proud to see her make so much progress in her open-mindedness and personal growth. I hope it continues. It's such a great feeling to see my self-care and personal work inspire others - hell, not just "others", my own parent. As someone who has perpetually been treated as a "problem" for being different, and overlooked or even shamed or punished because of my eccentricity and verbosity... it is a very foreign and very heart-warming feeling to have someone that helped shape my world appreciate and respect my contributions, and learn from me.

Speaking of warming... it's fucking cold, my fingers are basically numb... so I'm gonna get ready for bed and cuddle up with the kitty. Merry Christmas!

[bitch-for-bo]

A Princess in Peril (Iwaizumi Hajime x Chubby reader)

POST TIME SKIP; NSFW

one of the besties asked for a part 2 to princess crybaby....and while I don't usually write part twos.... I really wanted to try and deliver.

please enjoy

pt. 1

WARNING: IWA IS A DOBERMAN BF

Iwa felt like he was experiencing deja vu.

He watched with a scowl on his face as you paraded around in your favorite skimpy bikini, interacting with the Olympic men's volleyball team members. He wondered how you’d slipped out of the house without him noticing, and he wondered just what you were trying to accomplish prancing around like that, barely covered, with that devilishly sweet smile on your face. 

Iwa couldn’t see your eyes through the tint of your heart-shaped sunglasses but there was no doubt in his mind that you were glancing over at him every once and a while, just to make sure he was watching you. 

His frown deepened when you “accidentally” spilled your beer down the front of your top, giggling about how clumsy you were as you accepted paper towels and cleaned yourself off, giving everyone in your immediate vicinity an opportunity to stare at your chest. 

The deja vu was due to the shit he was hearing from his team members as he watched you, the comments they made reminding him of how Mattsun and Maki had talked about you back before the two of you had reconciled. As if the world was also against him today, you were even wearing the exact same swimsuit that you had been wearing in that god-forsaken Instagram post that had pretty much started this whole ordeal. 

Iwa was getting more and more disgruntled by the second, but in all reality, the situation wasn’t that bad. Were a couple of guys staring? Duh! By this point in your life, you were used to people staring at you, there was nothing quiet about your appearance or personality so, of course, they stared. 

And you hadn’t actually meant to spill your drink, was it fun to see Hajime so worked up? Once again… duh… but you’d never actually TRY to make him upset with you.

That was why when you saw a certain someone was also in attendance of the little party/get together, you did your best to avoid them. 

Unfortunately for you, Rintarō had already caught sight of you and was determined to 

‘Play catch up’

You had met Rin two or so years ago, back at the tattoo parlor (the olympian was surprisingly tatted with work lining the better two-thirds of his torso as well as his shoulders and back). 

You were pretty much fresh into college, only having 1 semester under your belt, and while you’d started receiving some male attention around campus, you were still largely insecure and unsure of how to carry yourself, and that’s when you met Suna. He was never particularly sweet or overly kind to you, but he was one hell of a charmer. 

And you….. being you….. used to be a fucking sucker for the charming ones. 

Was it fun? You suppose… but it also ended with you sobbing over a bottle of wine to your friends as they tried desperately to console you after you’d assumed that a man, who definitely looked and acted like a player, wouldn’t play you. 

Anyways, long story short, flings were called flings for a reason and you were totally and completely over him. 

It just seemed really cruel of the universe to drop him into this party. But maybe he wouldn’t remember you… you had really changed since he last saw you, you’d fully come out of your shell and you liked to think that you were a completely different person than you’d been two years ago. 

And you were right…….almost. 

You had changed a lot…. But that still didn’t keep Suna from recognizing you. 

As soon as he had caught sight of you, there was an itch in his brain… he knew that he’d seen you somewhere before but he just couldn’t put his finger on where. 

But as soon as he saw you smiling at his athletic trainer, laughing at something he’d said, he knew exactly who you were. 

You were a fun one…. always pouting to get what you wanted.

He wondered if you still worked at that little shop, after ending what you’d had, he had never gone back there. It was a shame too, he really liked the work he’d gotten done there… of course, he liked the little receptionist’s ‘work’ a lot more. 

He also wondered just what you were doing here? This was a thing for the team and their families so unless you’d gotten hitched to one of his teammates in the two years (which he doubted with how young you looked), one of his teammates just so happened to be a brother to the cute crybaby receptionist he’d met. 

You weren’t nervous about Suna’s presence because you were still attracted to him. While he was tall and very good-looking, you were definitely over him. You were nervous because you’d felt his eyes on you on and off for the last 30 minutes and Hajime had just left you to go and get another beer from the cooler. 

It hadn’t even been a full two minutes since Hajime had left when you heard a,

“It’s been a while..” 

You almost couldn’t stop the wince from overtaking your face as you heard Suna’s voice from behind you, feeling his gaze burning your ass.

He chuckled at the way you tensed at his voice, now that he was finally up close, he could appreciate you in whole. 

He wasn’t even ashamed as his view settled on your hips, before sinking down to your ass. Since coming out of the water, you’d put on a cover-up, but it was almost laughable how sheer the thing was, the wrap doing nothing for your modesty, if anything it just made you look like a ditz, thinking a tiny little chiffon robe would cover you properly. 

Not that he was complaining, he’d always liked his women with a little more to offer, in fact, seeing you at that party was reminding him that you were just how he liked his women, plush and comfortable to hold, easy to get lost in, and even easier to make cry. 

Suna noticed that you’d come out of your shell quite nicely in the two years. In his opinion, this version of you was much better, much cuter… you looked so confident as you mingled with the team and their families, nothing like the person he’d known then. You held eye contact and refused to shrink in on yourself, despite the criminally revealing outfit you were sporting. 

But still, no matter how confident you now appeared, Suna knew that with girls like you, all it took was a little bit of smooth-talking to turn you back into the stumbling, flustered mess he used to have so much fun tormenting. 

You put a brave face on. The whole ‘relationship’ hadn’t ended super poorly. You hadn’t embarrassed yourself by admitting your feelings to him, the two of you (or rather mainly him) had just kind of… drifted apart. So hopefully you could play it all off in a friendly ‘haven’t seen you in forever’ type of way. Or at least keep Suna at bay until Hajime got back. 

“Suna? Is that you?” you asked, hoping your tone and smile were convincing enough for the tall hitter to believe your ‘play dumb’ plan.

He nodded as you offered him a small hug, trying to keep the contact brief and the conversation short. But Rintarō, of course, had other plans, wrapping an arm around your waist and pulling you much closer than necessary, shamelessly enjoying the feeling of your body against his. 

Your face burned as you felt his toned physique against you, he was nowhere close to as built as Hajime, but that didn’t change the fact that you were pressed up against a shirtless man that you used to sleep around with. 

“How have you been?” he asked, finally letting you go, only to stand far too close to you, making you crane your neck just to look the 6’3” asshole in the face. He just stood there grinning as (you suspected) he glanced straight down your top. 

“Ehh… you know… gettin’ by…” that was the response you usually used in situations like this, you really didn’t want this to last any longer than it had to, so you decided that you needed to be as bland as possible when it came to your answers. 

“You still work at that shop?”

“Yep.”

“I’ve been thinking about getting another piece done there….” 

“Really?” you asked, unsure about whether to believe if Rin was actually asking about a booking or if he merely wanted to bring up your past.

“Yeah, the last one I got there was nice…. you remember that one?” 

Fuck. 

You had just gotten your nerves to calm down a little bit. Now he was mentioning that fucking tattoo? 

That little fucking tattoo that sat on the right side of his hip, the one that he made you ‘kiss better’.

You nodded, hopefully, he could feel how awkward this was for you….

“-been thinking about getting a matching one on the other side..” 

Nope. 

You cleared your throat and stepped away from him. 

“That’s too bad…” you offered a half-ass frown, “the artist that worked on that one left a couple of months ago…” 

A total lie. A complete fabrication designed to get him off of the topic of his pelvic tats and hopefully away from you. 

“You still have other artists don’t you?” 

You were incredibly tempted to say no, but before you got the chance Rin was already moving on. 

“By the way,” he smirked, his eyes flitting down to your chest again before briefly landing on a point over your shoulder and then coming back to your face. “When'd ya ditch the piercings?” 

“Piercings?” 

Your eyes widened and you felt panic set in when you heard Hajime’s voice from behind you. 

You automatically knew what Suna was referring to, and to refer to it in front of Hajime was humiliation that you would never recover from if fully discussed.

“Hey man.” Suna greeted, offering his hand to Hajime for one of those weird man handshakes/hugs, keeping your eyes the entire time. 

You debated on giving him a ‘don’t you even dare’ look, but Rin was the kind of guy who you knew would do it anyway, especially if you asked him not to. 

The men exchanged brief greetings before Hajime stepped back towards you to rest a hand on your back, an action that of course didn’t go unnoticed by Rin as his eyes glinted with what you feared was a devilish interest.

Hajime turned towards you.

“I didn’t know you knew Suna? I didn’t know you had any piercings.” 

Of fucking course he remembered the ‘piercings’ thing. 

Luckily, you beat Suna to the punch and responded to your boyfriend, hoping to stop the damage before it started. 

“Yeah, he used to come into the shop to get work done.” 

“Yeah we’ve known each other for a while… ‘course she’s changed quite a bit since then” 

You barely stopped yourself from glaring at him. 

And while you prayed that, despite the suggestive tone Rin said it in, Hajime wouldn't look into his words too much, but almost as soon as he’d said it, Hajime’s fingers had pressed a bit further into your skin.

And just like that, Suna ruined everything. With that little sentence, he’d started a silent war with your doberman boyfriend. The good-natured air of their conversation quickly turned bitter as Hajime watched Suna cautiously, making the taller man’s eyes shine in a way that Hajime didn’t particularly like. 

“And the piercings?” Hajime asked. 

You shrugged as casually as you could. 

“Not my style… I got bored of them.” 

Suna scoffed. 

This time you did glare at him and luckily he didn’t say anything else on the matter, just turned his attention back towards Hajime. 

“So how do you know each other?” 

“We grew up together” 

“....funny….she never mentioned you…” 

“Same goes for you..” 

The tension between the two men was definitely palpable. It was so uncomfortable that you somehow decided that you’d be better off just letting them do what they were gonna do. 

“Hey…” you turned to Hajime, “I’m gonna go get another drink…” 

Hajime just nodded, not willing to break the maintained eye contact with Rin. You just sighed, pressing a quick kiss to his jaw before making your escape towards the coolers. 

Hajime’s cautious stare quickly turned into a glare as you walked away from them and he watched Suna glance at your retreating figure, no doubt staring at your hips as you tried your best to get away quickly.

Hajime genuinely couldn't believe the luck he’d been having. 

First, it was just a couple of off-handed comments made by his teammates, now it was an old flame who was very much looking to cause trouble? And what piercings? And what did Suna mean you changed A LOT?? You must’ve known him within the last 3 years, just how different could you get within 3 years???

It was all making Hajime quite irritable. He should’ve snatched you away from Rintarō the second he’d seen the two of you talking from where he’d been standing at the coolers. There was nothing innocent about how Suna was looking at you, and while Hajime didn’t doubt your loyalty or love for him for a single second, the last thing he wanted was for you to feel uncomfortable.

After you left, the conversation (if you could even call it that) mostly consisted of back-handed, passive-aggressive, thinly veiled statements mostly about you. And without you there to get upset or flustered, Rintarō quickly lost interest. 

You were incredibly thankful as you watched Suna leave to go join the beach volleyball match from your spot at the coolers, and as soon as you deemed him a safe distance away, you rejoined Hajime.

Neither of you talked for a good 30 seconds. 

Hajime would never judge you for your past, especially when he was the world’s biggest asshole to you for the better half of 10 years. He was just frustrated that it was with one of his teammates. One that was no doubt taller and leaner than him, one that was objectively ‘prettier’ than him. 

Hajime finally spoke up. 

“So…. tall with tattoos is your type?”

You smiled. You knew that Hajime wasn’t serious, but you also didn’t want him feeling the slightest bit insecure or like you’d EVER consider going back to Rin. 

“I only really look for one thing in my men.” 

Hajime hummed, his hand returning to its place on your back, this time hooking his thumb into the waistband of your bottoms, over your cover-up. 

“And what is that?” he mumbled, using his grip on your bottoms to coax you closer. 

You just giggled and wrapped your arms around his torso, appreciating the firmness of the muscle but also appreciating that Hajime wasn’t nearly as lean as Rin. 

“Biceps” you giggled. Earning you a scoff and a light tap on the ass. 

Hajime was about to say something else, but before the words could get out, he was being called over to the match by a couple of his teammates, and while at first, he refused, the peer pressure and your excited encouragement made him leave your side to play. 

You watched the boys play as you sat in the sand with a couple of the other family members and partners of the men that were playing, nursing a hard seltzer and hoping that Hajime had at least put a little bit of sunscreen on.

After about 15 minutes, you found yourself going back to the coolers to replenish your drink. 

You were bent over the cooler, digging through the ice to find your favorite drink, not aware that you were giving an approaching Rintarō a free show. 

“So….” he started, shocking you as you snapped straight up, letting out a noise of surprise. 

“When are you working next? Like I said, I’m thinking of getting another piece done at your shop.” 

You peered at him, obviously suspicious as to if he was being serious or once again trying to talk in some oddly perverse way. 

“I told you that your artist is gone.” you decided to drop any pleasantry you’d attempted to maintain earlier, not after he practically threw you under the bus with Hajime.

“I don’t care about the artist, as long as you're working..” 

You took a step away from Rin, rolling your eyes. 

“What??” he asked, his tone slightly berating as he took a step towards you, “since when are you against a little bit of fun?” 

He leaned closer to you, “what? You get a little boyfriend and suddenly your legs are closed to everyone else?” 

Your mouth popped open in shock. Rin had been dancing around it for the last couple of hours, but he finally came out and said it…..

“Excuse me…” you hissed, taking another step away from him. 

Suna just chuckled before reaching out and pinching your side, making you yelp as you slapped his hand away, making him laugh more. 

He took another step towards you, and you could feel the anxiety building inside of you. 

“Come on….” He teased, “I’m just kidding….. your little boyfriend can come too if he wants….”

“Stop it.” you stepped away.

“You can show him all of the tricks I taught you…” another step closer

“Suna I said stop it.” another step away

“What?.... oh ….he already knows your tricks?...tch…” he tutted, taking another step. “..what a naughty girl…” 

You couldn’t tell if it was the humiliation, the frustration, or the sheer anxiety, but something about the situation was close to putting you over the edge. 

You could feel the familiar burn behind your eyes and you knew that he needed to get away from this douchebag before he could make you cry. 

“Rintarō I said st-fuck!” you gasped as you went to take another step back but your heel got tangled up with a beach bag that you’d accidentally backed into. The fall was definitely not very graceful as you felt your legs giving out from under you. 

You tried to fix yourself, trying to fall into the least compromising position, but the shifty sand under your feet had other plans, you found yourself hitting the ground, pain shooting up your leg as you definitely managed to twist your ankle.

You winced as Suna just laughed above you, obviously thinking it was just another one of your clumsy trip-ups.

That pushed you over the edge, you felt the tears gathering in your eyes as you looked around, trying to make sure that no one else witnessed it. 

As you scanned the strip of beach that your party was occupying, your eyes somehow met Hajime’s. He had just come up from a receiving dive when he caught sight of you. You watched as the smile quickly dropped from his face, no doubt as he briefly looked at your situation. 

Anyone could tell after only a split second of observation that it wasn’t good. You were sitting in the sand, feet tangled in bag handles while Suna laughed above you. And while to the uninformed spectator it might look lighthearted and clumsy, Hajime could tell by the way that your shoulders were tensed, that you were fighting back tears. 

So he dismissed himself and headed your way, ready to raise hell and injure one of his players if necessary. 

“See..” Suna sighed, finally through with laughing, “you get yourself so worked up that-” he stopped when he saw the tears in your eyes. 

Now that took him back.

He said something under his breath that you couldn’t catch, but you didn’t care as relief flooded your body at the sight of Hajime approaching you. 

“Now let m-”

You didn’t even let him finish his sentence 

“Hajime…” 

“Hey Baby, what happened?” 

Hajime’s tone was gentle as he crouched down to untangle your feet, frowning when you winced as he moved your left ankle. 

“Fell…” you mumbled, you still weren’t able to look him or Rintarō in the face in fear you’d totally lose it if you did. You could barely mutter out the one word without wanting to break into sobs. 

And both men next to you could tell….

“It’s no biggie, she just stumbled. I can take her over to get some ice on her ankle..” Suna offered, crouching to your side, prepared to wrap your arm around his shoulders and hoist you up.

“I got it…” Iwa stopped him, a bit harshly at that.

“I am a professional.” 

Suna just shrugged as Iwa wrapped your arm around his shoulder and helped you stand. 

“Sorry about your ankle kid…I’ll come by the shop soon” Suna ‘apologized’ before throwing you a wink and sauntering back over to the volleyball game. 

You felt Hajime’s shoulders tense and saw his jaw twitch as the two of you watched as Suna finally left you alone. 

Without a word, he walked you up the beach and to his car, popping the trunk to the sport SUV and sitting you in the back, next to a backup cooler full of ice he’d brought.

God… all you wanted was to have a fun, relaxing day. Of course, this would happen to you… of course, Suna fucking Rintarō, an unforeseen and definitely unwanted surprise, would show up and ruin your and Hajime’s day. 

You couldn’t help but kick yourself and you felt tears start dripping down your face. Once again, you felt like a burden to Hajime. He was your boyfriend, not your babysitter or your bodyguard. 

You should’ve been able to handle Suna by yourself and yet here you sat, crying while your boyfriend made you an ice pack.

“Ok, here we go…. what’s wrong?” Hajime said, looking up to find you crying, “why’re you crying? This is no big deal baby… this ice is gonna make it feel better…” 

The concern in his voice as he rubbed soothing circles against the top of your thigh with one hand, holding the ice against your ankle with the other, only made you cry harder.

“ ‘m sorry Hajime…” you whimpered, refusing to meet his eyes in fear that it would only make you more of a blubbering mess. 

Iwa laughed, taking his hand off of your thigh to brush the hair out of your face, gently blowing air onto your cheeks to help you cool and calm down. 

“I’m not mad at you dummy… I shouldn’t have left you with that asshole anyway… can’t have him stealing my girl, can I?”

“It’s not your job… to babysit me…” you muttered between taking shaky breaths, trying to calm yourself down and spare any passing beach-goers from having to hear your childish sobs. 

Iwa scoffed before situating himself to stand between your thighs and wrapping his arms around you. 

You took another deep breath, planting your face in his chest.

“Yes it is,” he mumbled against the top of your head. “..always been my job…always will be…” 

You snorted against his t-shirt.

“Think about how bored I would be if I didn’t have a little crybaby to take care of... Who’s problems would I solve, huh?” he teased, laughing when you pinched him on the back in retaliation. 

You tilted your head back to look at him, your chin resting on his chest.

“Really?”

Hajime smiled down at your tear-stained cheeks, your mascara was running and your lipgloss had been smudged, but he truly wouldn’t have you any other way. 

“Really..” he placed his palm on the back of your neck, bringing your lips to his. Now that you’d calmed down and he was able to leave panic mode, he couldn’t help but admire how beautiful you were. 

He hated that Suna was the reason you were crying, even if it made him mean, he wanted to be the only reason you’d ever cry. 

You tasted like tears and hard lemonade, an… interesting combination but it was a taste that was making Hajime embarrassingly hard in his swim trunks. 

Did he feel guilty for having a hard-on at a time like this? Sure…. But did the sight of your watery eyes and wobbly bottom lip almost completely swallow that guilt? 

Definitely. 

“Hajime…” you mumbled against his mouth as the unmistakable outline of his dick pressed against your thigh. “.....really?” 

You were slightly unimpressed with your boyfriend, but you’d be lying if you said that watching him playing volleyball, sweating in the sun for that last hour hadn’t worked you up as well. 

“Mmm….can’t help it Princess….you’re just too pretty…”

You rolled your eyes as you felt your face getting warm. Hajime’s lips left yours, making their way down to your jaw. 

“Hajime… someone might see….” you whined, trying to push against his chest.

Your ankle was long forgotten, the ice-pack melting on the floor of the trunk while Iwa’s hands moved to hold your upper arms, leaning back to look at you. 

Fuck he was hot……

The freckles that sat on his nose, the beads of sweat rolling down his neck, he even made the sunburn on the tops of his ears look sexy… and somehow the devilish, shit-eating grin on his face only made you want him more. 

“I gotta make you feel better don’t I baby?” 

That’s what led to you being pressed up against the wall of a changing room about a half-mile away from the beach party. 

“Fuck- Haji-....please… go slow…” you panted, your fingers gripping into his hair as you tried as best as you could to grind against his face. 

You didn’t know how you were managing to balance in this tiny-ass room. Hajime had one of your thighs tossed over his shoulder as he used one hand to keep it in place and the other to support your standing leg as he ran his tongue against your clit again, pulling another shaky breath from you. 

“Shhh….” he mumbled, his voice muttered due to the fact he had his head squished between your thighs, “lemme take care of you Baby…” he swiped your clit once more before pushing his tongue into you, inhaling the scent of your cunt through his nose as your thighs squished against his head, cutting off his air supply even more. 

You were biting the back of your hand, trying to quiet yourself as Hajime ate you out like it was his fucking job, feeling every pant against your core as his tongue dipped in and out of you, preparing you to be fucked within an inch of your life.

If anyone came into the building the two of you were toast… you’d never get over the humiliation, you’d have to die on the spot…..

And yet the thought of getting caught with the hottest man on earth sandwiched between your thighs, groaning as if he got more pleasure from this than you did, made you impossibly wetter.

Which Hajime definitely noticed, moaning into your cunt as his hips jerked forward, his cock straining against his swim trunks as he chased after any friction he could get.

“You’re so fucking hot Princess….” he groaned, making you yelp as he surprised you with a small nip against your hood, his bottom teeth barely catching your clit. 

The pain made your torso fold over, one hand shooting out to grip the wall harder while the other dug your nails into his scalp. 

“Fuuckk…” you whined, your hips jerking as Hajime moaned against you, “Hajimee…” 

Iwa knew just what he was doing as he felt your thighs beginning to tense around his head. He needed to give you at least one high before he even thought about fucking you on his cock, he needed to make sure you were wet enough for him to slip in and fuck every thought out of your pretty little head. 

Suna had gotten under his skin, and the only way to get the annoying male out of his head was to fuck you hard enough to forget the cocky volleyball player's name.

“Come on Baby…” he cooed, using the arm wrapped around your thigh to pull you even further onto his face, “Just a little more…just a little more then I’ll stuff this pretty little pussy for you okay?”

He dove back into your cunt, making you cry against your hand, biting into it so hard you swore you must’ve drawn blood. 

“Stop!” you gasped, feeling that familiar little tug in your gut as your thighs started to shake even harder, the exhaustion setting in as you desperately rode Hajime’s face. You couldn’t even find it in yourself to be concerned as you cut off his air supply again, too busy chasing your rising high.

“Haji- stop….’m close…” 

This is how Iwa wanted to spend the rest of his life, with your thighs wrapped around his head and all of his senses flooded with you, your scent, your taste, your everything. 

Your first orgasm hit you like a freight train, you felt it wash over you just as your legs finally decided to give out. Luckily Hajime was still there to catch you, groaning as you finally put your full weight on his shoulders, something he’d been trying to get you to do the whole time. 

But Hajime didn’t have time to enjoy the feeling of your weight against him, not with the way his cock was painfully tenting his shorts, staining the fabric with pre, twitching with every pulse of your cunt he felt against his lips.

He carefully took you off of his shoulders, helping you to stand, chuckling when you glared at him as you wobbled like a newborn deer. 

You grumbled a small ‘shut up’ before once again being manhandled against the wall. 

“Are you ready baby?” Hajime asked, one hand on your hips and the other against your shoulder, pressing your tits into the wall, making your back arch in a way you knew you’d feel the next day. 

Your legs were still wobbling and you wondered if Hajime was really gonna make you stay like this. 

“Not enough room Hajime…”

You could feel the tops of your thighs still rubbing against each other, Hajime wouldn’t be able to fit, not in this position. 

Hajime just scoffed before bringing his hand down against your ass, his other hand quickly covering your mouth as a surprised yelp left your lips. He leaned in, his lips pressing against your ear.

“Not enough room?...” 

You felt his hand trail from the curve of your ass down to the bottom, sliding two fingers between your cheeks, using your cum to easily glide between the fat of your thighs. 

“Looks how wet you are princess…..” he groaned, watching his hand disappear between the plush of your thighs, feeling the soft skin pressing against him in all directions. 

“I bet I can just….fuck…..” 

You hadn’t even noticed Hajime slip his cock out of his shorts, he rubbed the tip of it against your thighs before pushing it between them, making your face burn in embarrassment as he started fucking into them. 

“Fuckkkk…..” he hissed, gripping your hips, using them as leverage to push into your thighs like his own personal toy, the slick feeling of your cum wetting his cock, daring him to slip it into your cunt. 

“Hajime….” you whimpered, feeling your cunt flutter around nothing as his mouth attached itself to your neck, licking and biting its way up your jaw. 

“Shhhh Princess…..you feel so good for me….”

You couldn’t take it much longer, the pressure you could feel against the lips was driving you crazy as you prayed that Hajime’s hips would finally slip and finally thrust up into you. 

“..please….” 

He chuckled at your desperation, grateful that you were needing him just as much as he was needing you. He knew that this wasn’t going to last a long time, not with how hard his cock was, not with how good you felt molded around him. 

“Are you ready for Daddy’s cock Princess?”

“Fuck- please…” you pleaded, nodding. 

Hajime brought a hand up to your neck, wrapping his fingers around it to pull your head back, forcing your back into a sharp arch as you brought your mouth against his, groaning when he tasted the salt on your lips. 

Were you already crying? 

Fuck…he didn’t know how much longer he could hold on. He needed to be in you…

“So pretty when you cry for me Baby…” he whispered against your lips, releasing your throat as his hands resumed their position on your hips. 

He could feel you shaking as he slid his fingers between your thighs again, making sure you were wet enough for him before taking his cock and slowly pushing into you, groaning as you sucked him in. 

“Fuck princess…. You’re so fucking tight…..” he grunted, nails digging into your skin as he willed himself to go slowly. “...don’t know how long I can hold on…” 

“..no…not slow….. Need you….” 

That was all Hajime needed. 

The pace he set was ruthless, making your mouth pop open in shock as he started to pound into your pussy at breakneck speed, bullying into it like you owed him money. 

Neither of you could even get a word out, too busy gasping for air as your whole body shook with each snap of his hips. You didn’t know if you could handle it, the feeling of his cock head ramming into your g-spot with each thrust as you practically sobbed against the wall. 

Even if you were to ask him to slow down, who knows if Hajime would even hear it. Right now, he had tunnel vision, and the only end in sight was him fucking you full of his cum as you cried. 

You were just so warm, even if his cock was to accidentally slip out of your cunt, the feeling of your thighs swallowing him was almost just as heavenly. You made him feel like a horny teenager again, and the sounds you were making for him were worse than pornographic. 

Your legs were burning while trying to hold yourself up, while the wall was helping a little, Hajime was just going too hard for you to hold on.

“Shit….” you gasped, feeling your knees slowly give, you clawed at the wall, hoping there was something to grab onto. 

But before you could fall any further, Hajime had one strong arm wrapped around your chest, his thick bicep digging into your tits as he held your weight up, still using his other hand to piston your hips against him. 

“Biceps, huh Baby?” he teased, pulling your back closer to his chest. 

You laughed, which instantly morphed into a high pitched whine as the new angle you’d created allowed Hajime to thrust even deeper into you. 

“Fuck baby….I’m close…” Hajime groaned, feeling you tighten around his cock. You cried even harder as you felt his hand leave your hip, wrapping around your stomach to push between your thighs, pressing quick circles into your clit. 

“No…”you choked out, your nails dragging across Hajimes arm, leaving angry red trails against the thick muscle, making him hiss and pinch your clit to keep you still. 

“Please…too hard….” you begged despite the feeling of your high pushing its way through your gut.

“Shit.. ‘m sorry Baby…can’t slow down…feels too good..” 

Hajime winced as his balls started to tense, 

“...’m gonna cum Baby….where do you want me?” 

You could barely process what he was asking, the burning in your stomach making you forget how to talk, all you could do was choke out wet breaths between sobs, whining about how good you felt.

Hajime waited, he waited for you to tell him but he couldn’t stop pounding into you until he finally felt his end slam into him. 

He buried himself in you with a groan, spilling into you and pulling your second orgasm from you as you cried and shook against him, fucking yourself back onto his cock, riding out your orgasm as he tried to recover from his.

When you finally came down, you realized just how sore your legs were, your thighs and calves burning as you collapsed back into Hajime, grateful for his strength as he held you up and helped you pull your bikini back up. 

“Haji-..” you whined, the feeling of his cum leaking out onto your thighs making you burn in embarrassment, “I can’t go back out like this…it’s dirty…” 

Iwa just grinned, slipping your cover-up back onto you and pinching your ass. 

“Anyone who’s looking at you that close is gonna have a lot more to worry about that cleanliness.” 

Hajime redressed himself, and after having to listen to a bit of whining he helped you clean up, mumbling the whole time about how ‘you’re a brat’ and how ‘you’re gonna pay later’ to which you replied that you were gonna be too sore to do anything for the next week (to which Hajime just laughed and teased you some more). 

Eventually the two of you ‘casually’ left the changing stall. You were praying that no one noticed the two of you’s absence or the way you were practically limping (something you could luckily blame on your ankle injury).

And luckily no one really noticed your disappearance, one person asked Hajime where you’d been but ever the smooth one, he just pointed to your slightly swollen ankle and said that he’d been tending to it. 

You were also grateful that since rejoining, you hadn’t seen Suna at all, in fact, you didn’t see him until the very end of the night, when he came up to you and Hajime, offering Iwa one last back-handed statement and tossing you a wink promising that you’d been seeing him at the shop soon.

And that was that, you and Hajime were walking back to his car, exhausted but content as you wrapped your arm in his. You were so relieved that the whole ordeal was over….or at least you thought it was. 

Iwa couldn’t get the threat of Suna out of his head. He had no doubt that the man would show up at the shop so he informed you, that unfortunately if Suna was gonna be lurking around the shop, he’d also have to hang around there more,

….for protection, ya’ know?

YAYYYYYY TYSM FOR READING!!!!!

AS ALWAYS, DON'T BE SHY!!!!! TELL ME WHAT YOU THINK BESTIE!!!!!!!!!

[no-droids]

Home

gif credit: @javier-pena

Part Eighteen of the Rough Day Series

Rating: Explicit

Word Count: 19.5K

Warnings: SMUT, religion kink (maybe?), squirting, consensual stalking/pursuing, canon-typical violence, mention of underage drinking, uhh I believe that’s it but as always, let me know if I’ve forgotten anything please!

A/N: Hey yall!!!  So I know this chapter has been a long time coming and though I’m not completely satisfied with it, I hope it brings a little happiness to you for an hour or two while you read!  School has been kicking my ass and I’ve been in a bit of an emotional slump recently, but I pulled a few all-nighters to post this on time and it’s finally finished!  Thank you to everyone who has stuck with me and sent me encouraging words over the past month or so, I hope you enjoy the end of the Sanctuary arc💕

Also like last time, part 2 of my collaboration with @followwhereshegoes will be posted after the chapter!!  As a reminder, sweet girl is a reader insert and every imagining of her will be different—this is Lisa’s interpretation of her and her artwork is absolutely gorgeous, so please go give her a follow!

Day 5–11:13am:

You zone out again in the early morning, but that happens a lot.  Din always keeps you up so late, all the time, and without any caf here, the rising sun just makes your eyes droop instead of flutter brighter and wider.  You helped a bunch of younglings find their way into their robes when it was still dark out, tying sashes and fitting masks while holding back your yawns.  The walk into Nariss is close to three hours, probably more with all these tiny little legs, and you almost forget to change into your new digs before everyone grabs breakfast.

Even though your ragtag entourage leaves for Nariss just as soon as everyone finishes eating, you don’t reach the city until nearly lunchtime.  Mostly because the kids walk about as fast as the elderly holy women chaperoning the trip.  You and Naydee lag behind the group, forcing yourself to meander slow as fuck when you nearly sprinted this same exact path just a few days ago.  On the way there, you listen to children of all sorts sing happily as they walk, chatter about their excitement for the parade, complain about wearing the fabric mask they made themselves, and more than once, somebody takes a tumble onto the ground and is left in teary sniffles and dirt stained clothes.  Likely for this reason, the robes are designed to be two pieces—a long tunic with a hood and a separate pants portion to prevent tripping instead of a draping skirt, but the smallest ones are clumsy and find a way to fall anyways.

It’s a colorful bunch—a chaotic rainbow of babies running around, and you share easy conversation with your new friend about the plans for the day until she asks something that makes you nearly trip and join the dirty robe club.

“Sister Drya said your family is meeting you in the city,” she tells you, ignoring your immediate subtle toe stub and the awkward shuffle you have to do to make up for it.  “There’s going to be lots of people downtown, I’m worried it might be hard for them to find you.”

Your heart thuds in your chest and you feel a bit short of breath at being abruptly confronted with the need to lie, but at the same time, you kind of love it.  Having a secret, hiding the truth from others, and just the reminder that you’re almost guaranteed to see Din and the baby before midnight pours warmth and tingles through your tummy.  Everything together is a hit of spice, filling you with a kind of excitement that used to be foreign to you.  Having fun, experiencing new things isn’t quite over yet, but home is calling and you miss it with every fiber of your being.

“I don’t think so,” you eventually respond, hoping she can see your kind smile and the sentiment it carries even as light, shimmery fabric wraps right around your mouth.  “If I disappear, you’ll know why.”

Naydee’s eyes crinkle in the corners to match yours.  “Hopefully you’ll be able to see the fireworks first,” she nudges you, her skin glowing against the pale cream fabric she has wrapped around her own mouth and the hood laying delicately over her braids.  “They start at eight.”

The fireworks, you almost forgot.  You know what?  Today is a good day.  You hear yourself think the full sentence multiple times, and the words put a spring in your step after every single one.  The road gradually becomes wider and filled with more travelers, and you feel safe in the back.  Like some kind of sheepdog bringing up the rear of this migrating cluster of children, making sure none of them drift off by themselves and start eating grass or something.

Surprisingly, the kids manage to be relatively patient and well-behaved once they’re in line at the gates.  The Sisters shuffle them along one by one as everyone moves up slowly, taking even longer to get into the city than it did a few days ago.  The entrance is packed already—so many people visiting for the festival, and they’re all dressed in costumes or robes of sorts, or at least a mask.  Most are beautifully crafted, but some manage to look slightly scary even with the soft springtime color schemes.  It’s a completely different world, a different life for each person as you pass them by.  Your stomach is starting to growl by the time you finally make it to the front, and luckily the guards just let the kids through without any ceremony.  Just you and the rest of the caretakers in light robes need to hold still for the retinal scan, matching each other perfectly except for differing shades of fabric, skin, and eye color.  Once the gates open for you and you step through, though… it’s… Maker.

Extravagant, magnificent are both words.  Floral is another.

It’s like they hung up bouquets wherever they could think to fit them, and this is just the edge of the city.  As the group moves through the streets and closer to downtown, it becomes more and more overwhelming.  The air itself is a warm fragrance wafting all around you, sunshiney and breezy and perfect, flowers of all kinds lining the modern buildings and archways like they were planted there from the very beginning and it just took this long to bloom between the cracks in the concrete.  You wish you had names for all of them so you could list them—the only thing you can offer is the color and vague descriptions of the ones that stick out to you.  Tiny yellow ones that are so small, they need to be bunched all together in massive quantities to even resemble normal flowers.  Up overhead, elaborate arrangements of enormous blue and purple and pink ones, wrapping around each other and hanging down from rooftops.  Some don’t even have petals, it’s like they’re big green cups that are big enough to hold things inside them.  You’re fascinated by every single one, wanting to stop and smell them all individually but needing to keep up with the large group and not allow any stragglers to be left behind, including yourself.

About an hour later, when you’re almost in the middle of the city and there are people everywhere, it’s time to eat lunch.  There isn’t much to it because of how expensive it is, and you’d normally feel bad for accepting the small meal each one of the children gets, but you donated all of your credits to the Keja and left absolutely zero for yourself.  Good intentions, terrible idea.  Still, you pull your mask down and snack on some deliciously fried food, trying not to eye anyone else’s platter after you finish yours.  It’s so good and it’s gone in an instant; you couldn’t even say what exactly it was besides which stall you got it at.  Whether it’s just the brilliant atmosphere or if the food on this moon is really just that good, you’re not really sure, but you’re still slightly hungry afterwards with no extra money to sneak a snack.

Soon after, the kids all line up to get their faces painted, or whatever portion of their face is visible behind the cloth masks and hoods they’ve got on, and music blares from at least four different directions and none of the songs are even in the same language.  Depending on the part of town, it seems like the celebrations are all different.  It makes sense, considering most if not all of these individuals were victims of the Empire’s wrath, spread far and wide across the galaxy.  Here, they’re free, and they want everyone to know it.  Spring festivals of some sort are likely common for most cultures, at least those from planets with seasons, not like Arvala-7 where it was arid and hot year-round, and you’re assuming there are multiple things being celebrated today depending on which street you live on.  There’s chanting in different tongues, dancing and drums, outfits and masks from different cultures every single time you look.

At some point, the children spot a crowded street with flowery rails set up all along them, and you stand behind the tiny heads while everyone waits for the parade to begin.  You think your heart has just been beating slightly faster than normal all day today, but when you finally hear the sound of sirens blaring in the distance and cheers begin to pour out from the gathered crowd, it kicks up and you feel like you’re just as wide eyed at the spectacle as the waist-high babies all huddled together up against the railing.

A flurry of people and things pass in slow succession.  First, New Republic officers with their blaring holobikes, bright orange as always.  Then come large groups of people walking behind banners in languages you can’t read, some of them waving, some of them making different sounds and songs.  Bands marching in formation, dancers in dresses and masks and gorgeous flowers in their hair like crowns, and then brilliant hovering vehicles decorated in bright colors and festive depictions.  The craftsmanship and cultural significance is stunning to witness, it’s so insanely loud, there’s so much going on, and yet…

Through it all, you think of Din.  No matter the faces, the sights you see.  There’s someone juggling.  There’s either a very tall man and woman walking together or they’re both on stilts.  There are enormous balloons being led through the air, people are riding atop an assortment of animals you’ve never seen before, there are traditional costumes and spectacular stunts being performed.  Stalls with games and prizes line the stretches of concrete on the cross streets, people are laughing and celebrating and drinking in equal parts, everything is so lively and festive and fun, and yet, though it all, you think of Din.  Him and the baby, they’re always in the forefront of your mind, occupying your thoughts and making your tummy stir more and more as the time passes like the parade in front of you.  You don’t think this environment would ever be his favorite, and in some far away galaxy, perhaps if you lived other lives together and called a beautiful moon exactly like this home, then you might have to drag him out to see all the with you and the kid every year.  You’d have to bat your eyelashes and kiss his cheek and snuggle up to him all nice and pretty like, and he’d probably grumble and complain about it while wrapping his arms around you—all the people and the noise, sweet girl—but he’d go.  For you, he’d go.

Your thoughts suddenly stop short and you blink for a second.  Why… Why was that scene so vivid?  So wistful?  You used to preoccupy yourself with fantasies about Din all the time, back before you even knew him as Din.  But in every single one, it was sexual and likely came from a place of boredom, a lack of external stimulation.  Here you are amidst bustling surroundings, and you’re daydreaming about domesticity with him.  Why?  You want to travel the galaxy, right?  You want to see things you’ve never seen before, right?

For some reason, you think of the floor, and you miss it.

***

Day 5—5:04pm:

It’s late afternoon at this point and nobody can find the teens.

More people have made their way into the city and it’s starting to get extremely fucking crowded, especially where you are downtown, and the handful of them must’ve slipped away with all the excitement happening and how difficult it is to keep the young ones together now that the parade is over.  You don’t know how long they’ve been gone—one second they were walking around just slightly detached from the rest of you, you assumed because the boisterous younglings fucked with their cool vibe, and then the next Naydee is gasping out to you that they’re gone.

“Sister Drya is going to kill me,” she hisses, her dark eyebrows furrowed in self-admonishment and stress.  So many fucking people here, you know her pain.  “I was supposed to be chaperoning them, they were just here—”

She shakes her head under the loose, cream-colored hood, groaning and then speeding up her gait to catch up with the woman in charge, but you decide to grab her wrist before she can relay the bad news.  

“I can go find them,” you offer, speaking as low as you can with the blaring noise surrounding you.  “Before anyone knows they’re missing.  Is there a way to convince everybody to stay in one spot for a little while?  You won’t get in trouble, but I need to know how to find you again.”

Naydee’s eyes widen in surprise, and even though it’s likely a bit out of character for you, you have a feeling it’ll be a deceptively easy task.  Even with the masses right now and how atrociously big this city is, you already have a general idea of where they’re likely to be.  Besides, you’re not even sure your absence will be noticed if Naydee is the only one who figured out the teens were gone—the other Sisters can thrive without you while missing anyone else would be noticeable, and you owe your new friend a thousand favors for helping you out these past few days.  The least you can do is save her from the scolding of one of the scariest old ladies you've ever met.

“Be as quick as you can,” she finally agrees.  It’s a lot of trust to put into you, but you’ve had experience in reading the most unreadable man in the entire galaxy, some teenagers shouldn’t pose too much of a problem.  “If you’re not back in thirty minutes or somebody notices, I’ll have to say something.”

You nod, silently breaking away from the group without another word.  You think you can hear her announce to everyone that it might be best to eat dinner now to skip any long lines later—smart—but you’re out of their hearing range and line of sight almost immediately.

***

Day 5–5:17pm:

“Really?”  You raise an eyebrow since they won’t be able to see the way your mouth is twisted up underneath your mask, crossing your arms and tapping your foot against the ground to further illustrate just how not fucking impressed you are.

Seven teenagers freeze, and slowly—depending on how much bravery they can individually muster—they turn around on their stools to face you.  The atmosphere in the tavern is bustling and cheery, booze being passed around a large crowd that laughs and mingles, but your vibe is stone cold and quiet.  The contrast doesn’t feel wrong on you like it normally would; the negative and disapproving energy you’re emitting makes you feel powerful, untouchable, armored and strong.

“How did you find us so fast?”  One of the twin boys squeaks out behind a light blue robe, sounding worried.

“Had a hunch,” you grumble, glaring sternly at each of them in turn.  Your tone is dry, your voice sits lower in your throat when you’re pissed off.  All you had to do was look for the closest bar that doesn’t have any orange jumpsuits poking around waiting to card underage younglings, it wasn’t that difficult.  “You’re not exactly unpredictable.”

“Are you gonna rat us out?”  The other twin asks you, in a voice that’s oddly deep compared to his brother.

“I should,” you snap, quickly reaching out to push their drinks away.  “I should let Sister Drya rain down her holy fury on your asses, got good people all twisted up over you for nothing and I’m missing dinn—”

You don’t know why, but you suddenly cut yourself off and jerk upright, spinning around.

The sounds of glasses clinking and boisterous voices fill the bar, but they seem to fade out for a second.  Your eyes fly around the crowded space, your heart lodged in your throat and looking for anything reflective.  Every flash you see is a false alarm—belt buckle, wristwatch, cocktail shaker—

He’s here… isn’t he?

Only, there’s nothing.  Nothing is out of place, nothing jumps out at you the way you’re assuming it will.  You’re braced taut and ready to bolt at the first sign of a chase, but it never comes.

It’s so… unexpected, this feeling.  It’s not like you’re being hunted anymore, but instead, you’re the hunter.  You’re feeling the weight of him from this far away and it’s like he’s calling for you to come find him, teasing the wild adrenaline rush you get from just feeling his presence, as if he absolutely knows it happens.  Whispering soft in your ear and then vanishing the second you’re able to turn around, like he’s here but he’s not.  Playing with you from so far away.

This… this is a taunt.  

The whole thing at the inn was leagues below this, that was rudimentary.  Teasing, getting even, having fun with each other, whatever you want to call that, that’s what it was.  This is scarily sophisticated.  Fluid and practiced and the best kind of frightening, stark and dangerous compared to the carefree and upbeat setting surrounding you.  You’re not making it up, it’s not just you being paranoid.  You know him with your eyes closed.  You know he’s here somewhere watching you, just like you know the starlight that streaks across the pitch black horizon of hyperspace.  Not because you can see it, not really, not directly.  But because by it, even in the vastest and darkest and emptiest of voids, you’re suddenly able to see everything else.

“You okay, Nerida?”

The volume gradually comes back up and you blink, suddenly remembering where you are, who else is with you.  The chatter becomes slightly louder than it seemed before.

“Yeah,” you eventually say, slightly airy while continuing to stare emptily at the crowded room.  He’s not here, you don’t think, not anymore at least.  But you’re not stupid, you know what this means.  You’re already caught, there’s nothing you can conceivably do that will delay the reunion for the next—you look down and pull the loose sleeve up to check your communicator—seven fucking hours, there’s no way.  He’ll pull back and follow you, keep up with you from a distance and then snatch you away right when you let your guard down.  You at least need to get the kids back to their guardians before that can happen, though.

“Let’s go,” you quietly tell the group of foundlings, grabbing elbows and hauling them out of their stools.  “Naydee was the only one who knew that you were gone when I left.  Here’s to hoping she managed to keep it that way.”

***

Day 5–5:32pm:

Against all odds, you’re able to rally the wayward teens and successfully lead them through shoulders that are beginning to move closer together as the crowd grows and grows.  You stay towards the back and don’t look behind you once—not only do you not want to give the younglings an unnecessary reason to become paranoid or to question your actions, but you can still feel Din lingering.  Moving like a shadow, probably fitting in perfectly with the masked festival-goers, nothing drawing any attention to him with all the spectacular sights and noise occurring.

Soon you return to the same spot from before, and you and the teenagers seamlessly integrate yourselves back into the rest of the group without anyone noticing a thing is out of place.  When you move to stand beside her, Naydee’s bone-deep sigh of relief is palpable even behind the concealing fabric; she squeezes your hand incredibly tight in a silent gesture of thanks, and then pulls something from the deep pockets of her robe and passes it to you sneakily.  A purple fruit.  She must’ve saved it for you.

Maker, fuck yes.  It’s not much but it’s more dinner than any of the seven troublemakers get, but Naydee quietly assures you they’ll be able to eat something once they return to the Keja around midnight, just not the tasty expensive treats they’re selling at the vendors.  As the sun goes down, you try not to stain your pretty fabric a deep maroon as you chomp and feel your lips start to curl upwards.  It sounds so fucking stupid when you put it like this, but you keep going back to Din and revelling in knowing that he’s so close, like you’re just mentally checking in on him.  You don’t get the sensation by thinking, though—more like you just focus really hard on your heart and feel him there just a second afterwards.

Is that how pure, stupid, shameless love feels when you’re completely entrenched in it?  It’s not like it’s surrounding you, it’s not suffocating you or making you float.  It’s just a thing.  Like… a thing inside your chest, a physical thing you can search for and find, something you can point to on your body and say it’s right here, this is where my love for him lives.  Right at the bottom of your heart, right where it curves and beats strong when other hearts meet flat at sharp angles.  You do it over and over again, reconfirming its existence every single time.  You don’t know what else you’d call it.  Love is the only word.  To love, to know.  To hold in the heart.

Soon, you start to notice that people are slowly moving around your stationary group.  You look up and watch the crowd begin to walk, some of them giving soft smiles to the cute children as they pass by, but all of them following the same unspoken direction.

“Where is everyone going?”  You ask Naydee, standing on your tiptoes to watch the crowd migrate like a giant system, an organism or mechanism of thousands (or tens of thousands?) of smaller moving parts all traveling in tandem.  It’s fascinating—you’ve been to crowded places, you know what it looks like when a lot of people are packed into one area, but you’ve never seen what it looks like when they all move together.  They would normally be bumping into each other, slipping in between, fighting and never really getting anywhere, interacting individually and thinking separately.  Now they’re progressing in one single direction, so many with the same mindset and understanding of what comes next.  A second parade, almost, with New Republic officers directing the flow of pedestrians as they pass.

“The eastern part of the city!”  Naydee yells over the noise and points, and beyond her extended finger, you can barely see the light of a dusky body of water in the distance beyond the buildings.  “The fireworks are going to go off over the bay, but it takes awhile to get there!”

“Is…”  You blink for a second, suddenly caught off guard, trying to think back to the holomap the concierge pulled up at the front desk of the inn.  Surely you would’ve noticed it, but your sudden childlike hope makes you ask anyway.  “Is it part of an ocean?”

Naydee shakes her head.  “A really big lake!”

Your shoulders drop just the slightest bit in disappointment but still, you ache to see it.  You can’t even imagine—the fireworks are likely going to reflect across the water, giving everyone double the view.  And luckily, after all the children and caretakers are individually accounted for, you start to behind the slow-moving crowd towards the docks you know lie beyond.  

Naydee scurries ahead to keep the kids together, ushering them forward and preventing any drunk passer-bys from accidentally stepping on them, and you quietly bring up the very rear of the entourage.  You take the time to observe more than anything, walk in the back and experience instead of trailblaze.  So many people, so many stories to be told, so many differences and diversity around you.  Your face is partially concealed and you don’t move your head too much, just your eyes.  They flick around to take in everything, the crowd thinning little by little as you make it out of the confined space downtown.  You’re able to make out full bodies and outfits again instead of just heads and shoulders, allowing you to breathe just a bit easier under your mask.

And then at one point—and it’s almost a little startling because it happens all at once—the organizers must decide that the sun has officially gone down, because the lights come on.  All of a sudden, paper lanterns and bulbs flicker into existence all around you and the world decides it wants to glow, glint and twinkle from the inside out.  They’re everywhere, draping across rooftops and tangled around street signs and stuffed into the flower bouquets overhead, raining soft colors down on everything.  You’re in complete awe, trying to keep walking but also needing to look at as much as fucking possible in the suddenly luminescent city.  It’s so colorful, so vernal and warm and you feel like you’re… Like when you took a shower on the Crest for the first time and spent a few happy moments just playing with the water and soap for your own enjoyment, it’s as if all the brilliant rainbow of colors the bubbles would make under the fluorescent light decided to surround you at the same time.  You’re inside stained glass, blinking at the flowers and wondering if Din can even smell the air or if it’s filtered, processed and reduced to nothing under the helmet.

And that’s when you see him.

But with the way your chest rapidly constricts and you can count your heart beats as they pound, blaring white noise through your ears and adrenaline through your veins, it’s like he's just allowing it to happen.  You immediately understand that you don’t have fucking anything the second your eyes land on him; this isn’t a heads up that you caught wind of early, it’s not a gift or an advantage you’ve incidentally gained over him that you should be thankful for.  Being able to see him directly like this, being able to make out all these fucking details from this far away…  This just feels like you’re being informed of the endgame right before it comes.  If you were anyone else, if you were a real bounty and this was a real hunt, his armor glinting and reflecting the lanterns overhead would feel like a knife you're about to be on the wrong side of.

You have a decision to make, very quickly.  Either keep in this same direction, head straight towards him and just pretend like you are who you’re dressed as, a random caretaker for a bunch of rowdy foundlings during a spring festival on Nariss, or disappear.  Drop back, move through the crowd and use the distance you have between you right now as your only hope of getting away in time.  Neither one gives you a particular advantage—your chances of being caught have already skyrocketed exponentially just being able to see the reflection in his armor, the hovering shield at his side with big black eyes… staring directly at you.

You almost trip over your pantlegs, gasping.  Baby.  He beams at you and you think he calls out through the passing crowd, his tiny arms extending out, and your chest feels like you’re pulling organs as if they were muscles, cramping up and seizing with emotion.  You want to run to them even though you’re meant to be running from them, call out over the noise and wave even though you’re not supposed to.  You want to hold the kid again, squish his little forehead with kisses, walk around with Din’s hand pressed against your lower back and see the fireworks with him.

Your hands clutch at the draping fabric covering your chest, pulling and twisting it uncertainly.  What do you do, what do you do?

No matter what, you know it’s over.  Keep your head down and try to move past him, or break away from your group and try to escape—both are different paths that lead to the same result.  What’s the point of running when he’s the one chasing you?  The heart-pounding thrill is the only reason you’re even considering it, but his body stands so tall amongst the crowd, not moving while people ebb and flow like a river passing around him.

Except then you can hear his voice repeat the last thing he said to you in person as if he says it directly into the comm in your ear.  When you do see me… try to outrun.

You should run—run, it’s better than just hoping he doesn’t see you when you already know he does.

Unless…

Out of a trillion different possibilities, you soon realize that there is exactly one situation in which this could turn out in your favor.  You can immediately picture the scenario in your mind, but there’s just too many variables to conceivably rely on getting them all right.  This maybe has a… two percent chance of working?  Maybe?  Everything would have to go perfectly, just fucking flawlessly, but what other choice do you have?  Two percent is better than whatever odds you’re dealing with now.

You walk silently behind the group of foundlings as you approach closer and closer, keeping your head purposefully down as they skip and giggle and dance ahead.  He knows you’re here—he has to know, you’re counting on him knowing.  Walk right in front of him, pretend like you don’t see, make sure you keep left.  Keep left, keep left, keep your head down, keep your head down—

A leather glove suddenly catches hold of your wrist hard enough to tug you backwards.

Your gasp is audible over the sound of the crowd and you spin around, jerking your head up to look at him in fear.  Your heart slams as the beskar reflects your mask and hood back at you—you’re terrified and it shows, you can see it in your eyes.

You quickly try to yank your hand away, even as your index finger stretches up towards the communicator around his wrist.

“Miss Nerida?”  A child’s voice cries, and then small hands grab at you from behind as you bury the urge to actually fight him.  Your instincts are demanding you attack when his grip is this strong, but you just whine and struggle, slapping weakly at him with your free hand and feeling more of the younglings begin to pull at you, their high pitched voices calling more and more attention to the scene.

Your gaze flicks to the side, suddenly landing on a pair of New Republic officers helping direct the thousands of moving bodies from the closest street corner.  They’re looking at you, pointing and beginning to speak into their own comm units.  Din’s helmet snaps sideways to follow your gaze, and then he’s immediately dropping your wrist and stepping back, retreating as quickly as he caught you.  Though you don’t want to—though you don’t want to give yourself away even more, you want to pretend fully that he was a complete stranger and the children were right to try to help you get away—your eyes fall to your son in the hovering crib by his side and you feel yourself crumble just a bit.

Just a few more hours, kid.  A few more hours.

Children pull you away while your pursuers both disappear into the crowd, and you quickly turn to soothe the tiny babies instead of chasing after the one you miss so terribly.

“I’m alright,” you tell them, scooting them up and encouraging them to continue walking.  Blend in, blend in, don’t let anybody think anything is wrong.  “Come on, we’re fine, come on, we have to catch up.”

They take your lead as soon as one of the caretakers turns around and sees the small group crowding around you.  You think she asks what happened, but you just tell her a man mistook you for someone else and nothing more comes of it.  She’s able to settle the chaos better than you are, and by the time you’re continuing to travel forwards once more like nothing happened, the communicator suddenly flicks on in your ear.

“What did you do?”  He breathes out, his footsteps moving fast through his voice.  He’s traveling much quicker than you expected—is he still being followed?  The officers are gone from your sight, they might be going after him right now, weaving between bodies and calling out to the perpetually vanishing glint of armor as he navigates his way out of danger.

You look down at the comm on your wrist and your heart nearly soars with victory.  It worked.  It worked.  You just have to outlast a bit longer, don’t draw any extra attention to it—he’s preoccupied and he certainly doesn’t sound happy, but you hope that’ll be enough to make him slip.  Use his frustration to your advantage, let him think the only thing you were successful at was momentarily escaping him.

“The cops weren’t part of the plan,” you admit quietly, keeping your head down as your loose hood billows in the twilight breeze.  “Don’t get caught.”

There’s a few moments of just his breathing, his footsteps, and the noise floor humming through the comm, before he finally responds.  “You look beautiful.”

You stare unseeingly down at the concrete under your feet, still feeling your hand tingle from where he caught you.  The line abruptly mutes on his end and you just keep moving forward, onward, wanting to look back but knowing he’s already long gone.

***

Day 5–5:24pm:

Din is fucking furious.

He had you.  You were right there, right in front of him, and even if he hadn’t been subtly trailing you all day, seeing the red footsteps get covered and flicker out of existence just a few moments after you make them, he would’ve recognized you anywhere.  In black and white, in the fading light, with your face covered, children calling you by a different name and attaching themselves to you like they’ve known you forever—doesn’t matter, he would’ve known you.  Your eyes have always given you away, always so expressive and starry and soft, but able to see right through solid steel whenever you look at him.

But then you slipped from his grasp, and then more guards pushed him further and further away from you.  They must all be in constant communication, because every single jumpsuit he sees immediately spots him and starts following.  It’s fucking exhausting, and he thinks of you the whole time.

He waits in a dark alley with the kid and taps the side of the helmet a few times to bring up the time on his comm, but then relaxes just slightly when he sees the hour.  It’s earlier than he thought it was, he’ll be able to find you again.

Though, something tugs at him while he’s looking at the clock ticking away in front of his eyes, counting down each second that passes.  There was… a moment.  Back in the square, when he was holding onto you again, when you were looking directly into his once more—everything in his helmet— 

No, he shakes his head while the kid looks up at him curiously, it can’t be.  It was just a split second, it was gone so fast.

But he can’t get rid of it.  Though there’s no explanation, he thinks the display screen flickered.  The sky behind you looked different for a single frame, your footsteps weren’t bright red and visible anymore, your eyes weren’t grey and he stopped wondering what shade of fabric you and your friend decided to choose for you to wear.  It was silvery, he’s almost certain.  Like his armor, it only reflected the color of everything around it.

Color.  Everywhere.  Bursting for a blink of an eye, and then gone just as quick, before he could actually figure out what it really meant.

***

Day 5–6:59pm:

This water is quiet here, but it sparkles.

It doesn’t ever really get truly dark thanks to the enormous hanging moon and ringed gas giant dancing with Sanctuary II, constantly reflecting light back onto the surface and reacting with some of the trace chemicals up above the atmosphere, and you think the sky just might be the prettiest you’ve ever seen it.  Must have something to do with the equinox, the glimmering angles of light being played with by celestial bodies in this stunning system, but it’s a dream.  The Maker apparently couldn’t decide which colors he wanted tonight so he just splashed all of them together all at once, let them run and blend like ink in the gentle water below, like the various people who call this moon home.

That view in front of you, coupled with all the flowers and lanterns lining the streets behind you, and you’ve lost track of time the exact same way you hoped Din would.  You think you’ve stood for about an hour or so in this one spot, half-listening to excited chatter from the babies, mostly just gazing across the stretch of water and being able to just barely spot the docks in the distance, but it feels like it’s only been minutes.

You check your watch—the fireworks should be starting any second now.  You don’t know what to expect, just that in your experience, explosions tend to be loud.  You've decided you’re not going to plug your ears, though.  Tummy twisting with nerves and another inexplicable feeling you can’t quite put your finger on, you resolve to experience the unknown exactly the way it’s meant to be.  Fully, without worry or fear.

Then, lacking any warning or ceremony whatsoever, a single flare launches silent and high from one of the small boats skimming the bay, and the crowd seems to hold its collective breath as the dim light disappears into thin air for a split second, before—

It’s… quite possibly the most dazzling thing you think you’ve ever seen.  So shamelessly decorative just for the sake of it, not serving any other practical purpose besides celebration and visual spectacle, and you’ll probably never know another extravagance like it.  You grew up with dust pelting against tired eyes, you never thought they’d get to reflect such gorgeous bursts of color back up at the sky, glassy and childlike amongst a group of equally wide-eyed children.

As expected, a deafening boom follows closely behind the singular display, but just witnessing it is incredible enough to make you forget to brace yourself for the sound and you jump almost violently in response.  There comes a loud cheer from the people standing around you, a few delighted gasps and children who decide now is the best time to start crying, but then more flares begin to launch from the boats and the subsequent show will sear itself into your memory to replay over and over again.

Still, you think the endless sky and dark water below would have to light on fire to stop him from coming to mind.

Din.

You click the comm on, continuing to stare in stunned awe but wanting nothing more than to hear his voice right now, feel his hand rest on your lower back and the kid’s three fingers squeezing one of yours while the stars rain down from above.  You’re only continuing to run from him because it’s expected of you, that’s the reason you’re here, but it’s becoming harder and harder to argue with yourself.  “Do you always see in black and white?”

It takes him just a few seconds to respond, but he always does.  “Only when I’m tracking someone.”

The loud booms can be heard over the earpiece, happening maybe a second after they crack and sparkle above you.  You can’t tell if the latency is due to the electronics or if he’s just that far away from the source of the sound itself, but… you don’t think he is.  He feels close again, like he could just walk up right next to you any second, or maybe that’s just how he always feels now.

“Does that mean you haven’t seen the sky here?”  You ask after a moment.  This whole time, everything has been grey for him?

“I saw it,” Din murmurs, and even though it’s quiet and explosions are thundering loud enough to deafen more sensitive ears, his quiet voice somehow breaks through it all.  “When you left the Crest, I saw it behind you.”

For some reason, you suddenly feel like crying.  Whether it’s the way he phrases it or the sentiment in the words, you’re close to tears without even knowing why, looking up at the sky illuminating spectacularly.  He says it like he wasn’t the one who parked on this moon and told you to go on without him.  “Can you… turn it off for just a second?”

He takes a second, before clarifying for you.  “I turn it off and I lose your footprints.”

So that was the ultimatum.  He doesn’t want to turn it off until you’re back with him again.  Does he not understand?  Does he not know what you know?  Maybe you just happened to feel it first, this overwhelming physical sensation inside you whenever you think about him.  It’s like the exact opposite of a hole in your chest.  And it’s so odd, so counterintuitive.  Being comforted in his absence, feeling him with you when he isn’t.  Falling in love in the dark, knowing him without ever seeing him.

“You never needed them,” you say, reaching up to pull your mask down under your jaw and chin for a moment, wanting to freely breathe the freshwater and flowers while stars explode and fracture across the sky.  It’s a truth you’re acknowledging, something you’ll carry with you, something you fundamentally own at this point.  “You’d find me without the helmet.  And I’d find you.”

The fireworks continue to bleed into the water beneath them, multicolor splashes rippling into existence and disappearing just as quick.  You could’ve never imagined a more colorful, magnificent landscape—besides your waterfall on Naboo, of course.  That was a pure product of nature though, a place hidden away and untouched by people, completely sacred.  Light refracting against mist, natural glass that would shatter under your weight.  This is a celebration of life and family.  Loud in a different way, affecting you in a different way, but just as wonderful and touching.  A cultivated paradise, designed to be beautiful and safe only because they wanted it to be.

“Think so?”  He asks softly.  He sounds so deep and warm, but… a little distant.  You’re able to hear it in his words.  You don’t know why, though.  Doesn’t he believe you?  Perhaps… perhaps this isn’t The Way.  Perhaps this is part of a completely different oath, one where knowing and loving somebody isn’t the same thing as looking at their face, not at all.  Where you can have them exist entirely separate from each other, because this is love.  This is real, enduring, bone-deep love, and you haven’t ever seen his face, so how would he explain that?  How would the Mandalorians reconcile that?  You bear the mark of the mudhorn, you’ve moved through time and space with him, you’re a mother to his son, and you’ve never seen his face.  It defies both the Mandalorian oath and traditional understandings of love, or it meets them right in the middle, depending on how you look at it.

“I know so.”  For the first time, you think you might sound more confident and certain than he does.  Maybe he doesn’t fully get it yet, but then you suppose he’ll just have to trust you.  “Will you look at the sky?”

“I see it,” Din tells you, but you know he doesn’t.  Not the way you want him to.  And stars, you just want so many things for him, don’t you?  The sky, fresh air, water, light, food, rest.  You want him to see the galaxy the way you do—have a new appreciation for the gifts that are given just because you’re alive to experience them.  All the physics and mathematics aligned perfectly for it to happen—all the chemistry, the systems, the dynamics that dictate the universe, they all got together and crafted a world where you, him, and the kid all exist together at the same time.  You want him to know the significance of that.

“With color?”  You ask, knowing his answer before he seems to.

“I…”  Din wants to argue, or at least say it again.  He can’t or he’ll lose you, he already told you he doesn’t want to turn the setting off.  It’s such an unnecessary conflict, but you want to respect it so much that you’re willing to give up things of your own to make it happen.

“How do I fix it then?”  You whisper, so desperately wanting this one thing for him, this one grandeur to behold.  How do you fix this problem?  How do you convince him to look with you?  You’d offer to just go and find him instead of continuing to run away for the next few hours, but you know the show will be over soon and you don’t have much time left.  “Do you want me to come look for you?  It’ll be too late by then, you’re too far away.  Look at the sky.”

It’s silent for a moment—truly silent, even though colorful bombs are going off above the bay.  You don’t know why you’ve attached yourself to this so strongly, but it’s almost devastating when you don’t get a response.  You look away from the spectacle for the first time in an eternity, gazing unseeingly into the crowd of onlookers with a sudden sadness taking hold of you.  He won’t look, he’s too stubborn, he holds onto things too tightly.

But then, a flurry of flares start launching in rapid succession from the distant boats, screaming and crying on their way up and then igniting into showers of light, and the abrupt increase in activity manages to catch your attention once again.  This must be the end, they saved the best for last.  Every corner of the horizon flashes and sparks, and you’re mesmerized at how bright it is, how many colors they’ve managed to fit into one single frame.

“It’s beautiful,” comes his voice, and the smile that you break into feels just right for the brilliance of the view above you.  Maker, it is, isn’t it?  Now you can hear it—he sounds like he’s looking at it too, with color, in all its breathtaking glory, and you feel like you’re flying.  Like he picked you up and let you watch up close, like you can feel his armor under your fingers right now as he carries you through the sky.

It swells up inside you, a rising wave similar to the ones you can see in the distance, and you know you probably shouldn’t say it because it’s not in your best interest to say it right now, but you have to say it anyways.  It’s an unknowable compulsion, a need to connect and communicate directly with him but for your sake, not presently, not at this exact moment in time.

Luckily, you mute your comm just in time and simply give the words to him from very far away.

“Hurry up,” you say, sending the sentiment into the sky with all your love, and the conflicting hope that he won’t take the advice until a bit later on.  “Come and find me.”

***

Day 5–7:37pm:

After the fireworks are over, people start to drift off in separate directions, clearing the traffic and congestion from the streets around you.  Someone puts their hand on your shoulder and you blink a few times, spinning around and almost stepping on a bunch of tiny little feet by accident.

Stars, that’s a lot of children.  They’re all crowded around Naydee, who pats a few heads and almost buckles under the younglings clinging to her leg.

“Figured you would be long gone by now,” she grins at you from behind her mask, and you’re reminded to pull yours up over your face just from looking at her.  “It’s late—we’re going back to the Keja.”

“Oh, shit,” you breathe in surprise, but the noise of the gradually dispersing crowd manages to cover it up.  At least from younger, more easily distracted ears, but you think Naydee hears you.  Her dark eyes roll good-naturedly, looking happy but exhausted from the long day.  You’re going to have to say goodbye now.

“What happened to your family?”  She asks after a moment, and you think she’s being careful with the way she says it, likely because family is a difficult topic to navigate in general around some of the children hanging on her and begging for her attention.  “Have you been in touch with them?  If not, I’m sure you can come back with us.  It’ll be late by the time we get there, but at least you’ll be safe.”

You open your mouth to automatically decline her offer, knowing Din is still in the crowded city looking for you and wanting to stay where there’s lots of people.

But then… well, he would expect you to do that, wouldn’t he?

There’s more people here.  More danger, but better places to hide.  It’s the obvious choice, it’s the one that makes the most logical sense.  But you’d also be completely alone and you’re assuming the only reason he hasn’t snatched you up yet—which you know he could’ve done multiple times by now, is likely because you’re with a group of innocent foundlings, moody teenagers, and very stern older women.  He probably doesn’t realize you’ve told them about him and the kid, though you were slightly vague on the details.

It’s also a little over three hours to get back, but you’re banking on it being closer to four with how whiney and tired some of the small voices sound, others sounding like they’re an enormous sugar rush contained into a tiny little capsule.  Would he have the gall to try and get you right from under their noses?  Will he even know you left the city, or will he assume you made the smartest decision possible and simply account for it ahead of time?  No, you're overthinking it, just make a decision and stick with it.

“There’s also free food,” Naydee shrugs while you’re still considering, but… well, that settles that.  Almost three days of friendship and she already knows exactly how to win you over in the end.  Sustenance for your empty tummy, an escort the entire way there, and heavily guarded walls beyond.  Din will have to get creative in response—you flaunted your imagination for days, coming up with dozens of evasion tactics to outlast him, but this one just seems… incredibly practical.  Exploiting a weakness of his—isolating it, having it be reinforced by precedent, and then taking advantage of it.  You bet he’ll catch on, but still, it’ll make it more difficult for him, and you’re grasping at straws to hang on just a little longer.

“I…”  Quick, come up with something.  You clear your throat.  “The city is too crowded, I haven’t been able to find them.  I could just… tell them where I’m headed and see if they can find me along the way?”

Naydee smiles and nods.  “Sounds perfect.”

Yet, the entire walk back… you keep thinking you’re going to feel Din trailing behind you, waiting to feel the nerves twist in your tummy and your palms to sweat, but you don’t.  You keep glancing over your shoulder and then down at your wrist, needing to talk yourself out of addressing him through the comm to let him know exactly what the plan is.  You like maintaining a sense of secrecy from the new characters you’ve met on your adventures—Naydee, Karga, Peli—almost everyone you’ve been introduced to, you found a way to find a subtle enjoyment in hiding certain things from them.  But with Din, you don’t have any walls.  They crumbled nearly a full year ago when he silently pushed a cauterizer in your hand and took his armor off for you, and you’ve felt the inexplicable need to bare yourself to him in return ever since.  It would be to your extreme detriment to do it now, but you still have to fight the urge.

Even if you don’t feel him following, you still find yourself acting like he is.  Constantly turning back to double check the road behind you, drifting off in the middle of shallow, distant conversations with tiny foundlings who can’t tell the difference, keeping towards the middle of the pack this time to avoid being picked off towards the back.  The belltower at the orphanage is loud and will ring for quite a distance, so your timing has to be utterly pristine for this to all work out.  You eye your comm the entire way there, trying to stall just the right amount to avoid any realizations or fall into any traps he may be setting for you.

You eventually leave the city walls far behind you, and now you have no clue where he is.  You lost him, and maybe that’s why you feel your heart beat insanely fast the whole time.  He could be anywhere now.  Behind you, adjacent, parallel—you can’t decide where to look, but it keeps you wide awake and focused while the group tiredly travels back to the temple.

***

Day 5–11:32pm:

You can see it in the distance, the brick buildings slowly coming into view.  One might think your stress would have worked itself out by now, been brought back to a manageable level after four hours of walking, but you’ve been on red alert for the past hour or so.  Any movement or rustle that doesn’t come from the sleepy children or exhausted caretakers, you’re on top of it, snapping your attention to the offending tree or animal and not being able to relax even after affirming it’s just nature, it’s not shiny metal bounding after you in the darkness, ready to take you down.

The infants are all likely snoozing away in the nursery, and the Sister who volunteered to stay behind and look after them comes to greet the group at the gate as you approach.  Like always, two Brothers open the iron bars to allow you inside, and you feel the anxiety dig its claws into your tummy.  If Din is going to get you, this is the very last moment to do it.  These walls are guarded and you’re nervous for him, you’re nervous for yourself—you’re just fucking nervous.  Jumpy and worried, not being able to pinpoint him anymore and feeling all the more anxious because of it.

It doesn’t feel right.  Nothing feels right about this, but you can’t figure out specifically what’s wrong.  This was the exact plan, this was a way for you to just survive these last few hours and yet, it doesn’t feel right that you actually succeeded in doing so.  It doesn’t make sense that he’d allow you to return all the way here, especially when he was close enough to touch you earlier.  Din has had so much time to snatch you up, so many opportunities to lure you away, confront you—anything to catch you, and he hasn’t done it yet.  Why?  Either you truly did escape and he has no idea where you are, which doesn’t feel right, or he’s choosing not to get you for whatever reason, which also doesn’t feel right.  What’s he waiting for?  You can’t have won.  It was all too fucking easy, you’re expecting to see him around every single corner because he should be there, he shouldn’t have allowed this to happen.

When someone gently touches your elbow, you’re so on edge that you nearly whip around in surprise.

“Sorry!”  Naydee immediately apologizes, taking her hand back to lift her hood and remove the mask covering her face.  “Didn’t mean to scare you!  I was just going to say that the commissary is still open,” she offers, and you watch the small group of hungry teenagers break off from the group to make their way there.  “It’s going to take awhile to get the children ready for bed, so we’ll be in the dormitories if you need to sleep.  Otherwise, I’m not sure I’ll see you again.”

You stare at her and blink a few times, trying to readjust your focus.  She’s your new friend, she just said this was likely the last time you’ll see each other, but you can’t stop thinking about Din.  Imagine he’s hours away in the city right now, still looking for you.  You’re trying to evaluate your priorities here, but you truthfully never expected to get this far.  Inside the gates, surrounded by brick buildings and silent guards.  You know your way around here, you know hiding spots, you know how to outlast—it’s incredibly advantageous for you to be inside these walls.  What is he doing?

Shaking your head to clear your thoughts, you give Naydee a quick hug and she happily accepts it.  “I’m sure we’ll meet again at some point.”

She smiles and nods, pulling back and letting a couple grumpy foundlings catch her robes and yank on them impatiently.  The loud group eventually disappears into the dorms, and the door shutting behind them cuts off the tired crying and chatty voices determined to stay awake, leaving you in silence that feels slightly unfamiliar after going without it for so long.

Fuck, you just need to breathe.  As soon as the dead quiet grips the air around you, you realize you need to relax.  You’re way too fucking wound up; you want to bolt at the smallest thing and the sudden silence of being alone multiplies it to the point where you have to remind yourself of its importance.  Breathe.  Focus.  There’s about fifteen minutes before the bells ring, fifteen more minutes and the chase will be all over.

Can you eat?  You thought you’d want to, but you think you’re too fucking antsy.  You can’t stay here alone, that’s for sure, but you also don’t want to be around all the children right now.  The commissary will have a handful of people wandering around, teens snacking and maybe a Brother or two standing guard.  It’s the best place to wait the clock out, so you make your way there.  The gentle breeze billows around your loose robes, your pantlegs swishing as you walk.

A few minutes later, you’ve got a plate of food in front of you but your mask is still up, and you’re just sitting there.  Towards the back of the large room, sitting by yourself at one of the tables and staring down at your communicator.  Five minutes.  You have five fucking minutes left before he finds you.  Can you feel him?  Is he closing in?

You sit up a bit straighter, taking a deep breath.  Focus on that feeling from earlier.  The presence in your chest, the weight that didn’t used to be there months ago—focus on that feeling and branch it outwards.  Can you feel him?

Something catches your eye.

Or no… it doesn’t, does it?  Nothing is out of place here, nothing is visibly wrong or amiss.  The only thing that’s changed from all the times before is how dark it is through the windows, and how there are only a few kids in here grabbing a midnight snack instead of being packed like usual.  Nothing else.

But there’s… there’s an acolyte in the far corner, standing guard with his back to the wall.  It’s not his presence that gives you pause—you expected him to be here, there’s always been at least one present whenever you’ve sat down to eat.  He doesn’t look any different from the rest of the Brothers you’ve passed by this evening or the days before—tall, silent, dark brown robes, hooded and mysterious—so why do you suddenly feel yourself break out into a cold sweat as soon as your eyes land on him?

Bubbling laughter and chatter echoes through the large room from one of the tables near the entrance—seven teenagers stuffing their faces with food and sharing animated conversation with each other now that it’s late and they’re alone—but your stomach twists and your fingers start to tremble as you slowly rise from your seat in the back.  You want to keep your head down and be casual but it’s impossible, you desperately need to keep looking at that silent guard in particular and your heart kicks up in your chest—

—and then it wrenches sideways when you’re carefully backing away from the table and the offending acolyte takes a single step forwards.

Run.  Everything in you screams for you to run, and it’s rarely done that before, but you can’t.  Not yet, you don’t want to draw attention, and the logical part of your mind rages against your gut instinct to haul ass.  He’s here—of course he is, the thought screams through your veins as you try to weave quickly in between tables, feeling light on your toes and readying yourself to run as soon as you can.  The dark figure seems to find a careful pace behind you, staying just far enough behind and walking in perfect silence, and you have so many fucking questions but you can’t even think a single thing beyond run away, run away.  Where’s the kid?  How did he get those robes?  Did he actually take his helmet off just to get to you in a room where anyone could confront him?

Your feet propel you forward as soon as you make it out of the door, you break out into a sprint—just flat out bolting because you know how fucking fast he is and you need as big a headstart as you can get.

You race down the stairs and through the courtyard, the beautiful surroundings contrasting drastically with the way you’re running for your fucking life through them.  It’s not beautiful to you right now; you feel clumsy and physically unable to move fast enough no matter how quick you go, your eyes are wide and every nerve is on fire and you can’t even tell if he’s behind you anymore with how silently he moves, but you just trust that he is and keep barreling forward.  Your breath puffs against the clinging fabric of your mask as you keep sprinting, willing your legs to pump faster.  Get to the belltower at least, get to where you have the smallest chance of being caught by the people who guard this place.

As soon as you allow yourself to even conceive the possibility, two Brothers in dark hooded robes suddenly turn the corner a little ways in front of you and your reaction time is perfect—you jerk to a halt and take a single step forward as soon as they spot you.  Since your momentum already committed you to it, you just have to walk, keep your head down, move directly past them and hope Din disappeared from behind you in time.

Step, step, step—keep going, control your breathing, you’re okay, you’re allowed to be up late tonight and they shouldn’t stop you.  Walk right by…  Stars, you feel their silent stares as you casually pass, and it just feels so cold and analytical compared to the kind of danger Din is gives off when dressed in the exact same clothing.  He’s hard and tangible and an unrelenting force, where they just feel like ghosts that haunt this place.  The threat they present is impersonal and detached, but the terror currently chasing after you is so real that he can read your mind.

You wipe the sweat from your brow as soon as you turn the corner, and your feet are already starting to speed up on their own knowing you’re out of their sight.  Run, get to the belltower before Din does, you can see it standing tall about a hundred feet away.  The stairs leading to the door come closer and closer, but you hear something behind you and it propels you faster.  It’s like you can feel him right at your heels even though you haven’t seen him, snapping at your ankles even though your footsteps are the only ones you can hear anymore.

You scramble up the stairs and close the door behind you, spinning around and facing it even as you slowly retreat backwards into the moonlit tower, trying to stay quiet.  Breathing through your nose, eyes shifting around the enclosed space, continuing to back up and away from the door.  Where is he?  There are so many windows that allow you to look outside, but why can’t you spot his movement through them?  Wasn’t he right behind you?

Behind you.

There’s no reason or logic at all to it; you just react.  Spinning around and throwing a mean punch.

Din jerks back just in time to miss it, twisting and dodging at the very last second to avoid your next few hits—but… things seem to slow down, even if they’re happening so fast.  The moonlight cascades through the dozens of windows lining the circular walls and it shines just enough to reveal small glimpses of him.  With every aggressive strike from you, you see something else—you see a flash of his chin when you try to uppercut, you aim for his chest and you see a bit of his jaw.  When you go for his jaw, he steps sideways and catches your wrist, and you see the bend of his nose catch the light this time.

But then it’s like he finally figures out that you’re actually fighting him, and now he’s coming for you.  Trained and ruthless, not weighed down by any armor and lightning quick, launching perfectly aimed attacks that you’re only able to avoid from reaction and muscle memory alone.  You block or move whenever he strikes, you attack whenever you see an opening, you sidestep at the same time he does—

Until you land a spin kick directly to the center of his chest and snap your leg to shove him back, your heel smashing into that soft spot right above his stomach with dead precision and brute force.  He exhales sharply and takes a few more steps back to steady himself while you pause to catch your breath.

Din abruptly comes back and you fall into it with him again, keeping a sharp rhythm with each other that’s faster, harder, and way more real than any sparring match you’ve ever shared.  The hours and days in hyperspace you spent practicing with him are but a fraction of what he’s throwing at you right now, the combinations so rapid and blurred that you just have to trust your knowledge of him and his movement through the dark.

But then, your downfall.  Bells begin ringing an earsplittingly familiar melody above you, and it shatters your concentration—you falter just as he grabs you and sweeps your feet out, and though you know how to get out of that, you’re not quick enough on the jump nor counterswing to prevent it.  He takes you to the ground, hard, and then your wrists are being pinned together above your head and your mask is being tugged down.

Din’s mouth on yours makes you want to cry.

The whole thing is like coming home.  You spent a week surrounded by strangers and having them call you by a name not given to you, fending for yourself, and now here he is.  Someone who knows who you really are, someone that wants to care for you.  Tears come to your eyes even as they're pressed tightly shut, and Din kisses you like he’s never known anything else.  His mouth fits to yours as if the Maker made your lips before ever considering the rest of you, his bare hand clutching your jaw and forcing you to open for him, letting him lick deep inside after going so many days without it.  It might feel dominant and overwhelming if it happened to any other person, but through it, you can also taste his desperation and weakness, how soft he is even when he’s squeezing your jaw and squishing your wrists together too tightly.

Rigid steel that bends only for your touch.

He pulls back and your heart throbs at how moonlight continues to bathe just the smallest glimpses of him under the hood—never the full thing, never the whole face, but enough.  The quiet light that brushes the arch of his nose, how it bathes the hard line of his jaw so that you can barely see his scruff when he turns his head the right way.  His eyes are hidden in near darkness but there’s the faintest glimmer where they should be, and it’s the closest you’ve ever been to looking at him without the helmet.  You can see him, you can see shadows of his chin, his neck—dear stars, his fucking neck.  You’re pinned and paralyzed under him and the ringing bells, yet you feel like you just might float if he wasn’t holding you so tight to the floor.

“Where’s the baby?”  You finally lift your chin and ask, needing to raise your voice over the melody clanging loud throughout the tower.

“Making friends,” Din pants back down at you, and… stars, then you just start giggling.  Adrenaline turning into pure joy, imagining the kid wreaking havoc with all the other babies in the nursery right now.  It feels more light and airy than anything your body should know.

“What are you so happy about?” He asks, swallowing and then continuing on with the same quick gasps.  “You lost, I caught you in time.”

“Did you?”  You drop your head to the brick floor and ask, biting your lip as he stares back down at you.  Suddenly—

—Bong—

Din holds utterly still over you while you take a quick breath and wait for the next eleven bells… 

…but then break into a slow grin up at him when nothing but utter silence follows.

There’s a moment.  Just a single moment where the cogs turn rapidly under that shadowy hood, one where the faint reflection of light in his eyes flickers down to the communicator on your wrist that says midnight and back to you, one that solidifies the longer it takes for another bell to ring.  It’s not going to.

One o’clock.

You think he puts it together.  The one moment he was never able to figure you out—when you tried reprogramming the comms just a few days ago.  The one trick up your sleeve that you resigned to throw away and almost forget about because the circumstances for pulling it off were never realistic.  Fuck with the electronics and set the clock back just one hour—all you’d need to do is reset his communicator, the timecode is synced together.  He told you before that it’s connected to his helmet, but all the buttons still work.  Rapid, panicky thinking and a wild surge of bravery in the face of certain downfall is the only reason you were able to pull it off, and you’re perfectly willing to admit you just got lucky… especially when he’s still holding dead still over you.

But then Din moves so suddenly.  You can’t account for it because there’s no build-up whatsoever—it’s so fast, you yelp while he grabs your knees and throws them both to one side.  You flop over sideways and large hands reach up under the draping length of your tunic to yank your pants down over the curve of your ass, before he’s fitting his palm up between your legs and pushing two thick fingers inside you.

Your head thunks back against brick with how unexpected and merciless it is, but his other hand is grabbing your jaw and twisting, forcing you to look up, stare right into the dark shadow under the loose cowl.  The whole thing is too overwhelming—you’re trying to keep quiet but your breathing feels like thunder crashing inside this tall, echoing chamber.  He’s touched you so many times, he knows exactly how to do it by now, but it feels like so much more than that.  Probably because you can see the way Din’s mouth silently falls open as he feels you, stretching his fingers up and hooking them tight inside.  You can tell when he closes his eyes, the smallest glint slowly disappearing into nothingness while the hand around your jaw blindly moves up.  It catches your chin and lips, and then two fingers push over the bottom edge of your teeth to slip into your mouth.

Your entire leg twitches and jerks while you lay sideways on the ground and open up for him, your neck twisted at a sharp angle to keep your eyes on him and his fingers in your mouth, giving you something to bite to stop making noise.  Din makes room for himself inside you two different ways, and you just choke on his fingers and try to stay quiet, praying he’ll go deeper.

But then you’re not expecting his whole fucking arm to start moving the way it does—oh fuck, what is that?  First you just feel jostled and displaced, but then suddenly a wicked, deep, burning pleasure starts to roar through you, radiating outwards from the rapid motion of just two fingers inside you.  It’s not in and out, it’s up and down so hard and quick against your g-spot that your eyes cross and your hands go numb.

You think you grab at him, clutch onto his arm or chest and open your mouth to moan at the new and overwhelming sensation, but his hand pushes up against your chin and closes it for you, the bend of his fingers caught hard between your teeth but you don’t think he cares.

“Quiet,” Din hisses the word down at you while his arm continues to work, your toes starting to curl as the feeling overwhelms you.  Fuck, what is happening, what is happening?  It’s like he’s just shoving unfamiliar sensation at you so forcefully that you can’t even think straight anymore, not even ten seconds in.  You can only feel the pleasure, fire blurring hot and shapeless through your entire body as your eyes clamp shut, his fingers isolating that perfect spot and stimulating it directly, relentlessly.

Something dull and white hot presses up tight against all the muscles you have down there and you’re almost afraid of how strong it is.  You gasp and choke and he has to take his fingers out of your mouth and just clamp down around your entire jaw, sealing the whole thing shut with his large hand.  And then Din’s fingers leave your pussy too—and stars, you should be embarrassed by how desperately it clamps around nothing for as long as it does.  He’s not even inside you anymore but your body is on such a delay from the hot, twisting pleasure, and he doesn’t put them back in until your muscles are finished spasming.

Everything comes back full force as soon as he starts moving again.  Noise starts to come from your throat, humming in your vocal cords to deal with the arcing, swirling build, and so Din just moves his hand there instead.  He finds where it’s vibrating from your neck and he pushes up against it, trapping the sound right at the source.  He’s fucking perfect at it for some reason… how many times must he have done this to know how to cut noise out without stopping airflow?  You clutch at his wrist and silently mouth his name, feeling his arm work between your legs—faster, faster, harder, pushing you higher, higher—

Din pulls his fingers out again and this time, one of your thighs suddenly feels warm and wet while you spasm and you hear him growl out a ragged, “Fuck yes.”  Everything is sparks zapping through you long after his touch is gone, you cry out but it’s all trapped under Din’s expert grip.  His fingers soon push back inside you and you dig your nails into his forearm, your sounds muffled and quiet enough to hear his raspy groan.  

“Let me see it again,” Din breathes, his arm starting to work up and down once more, and you don’t even know what he’s talking about anymore.  What does he want to see?  You losing your mind again?  Being reduced to an utter mess in front of his shadowy but unobstructed gaze just because you managed to pull one over on him?

Fucking… apparently.  It’s what happens, after all.  You’ve never seen him like this before; whenever he’s worked up and taking it out on you, there was always something in it for him, too.  He’d hammer into you and rock your world until his eventually shattered, and then you’d both lay exhausted afterwards, equally affected and satisfied.  This isn’t like that—this is just cruel, targeted retribution on his behalf, coaxing the molten pleasure out of you with his fingers and keeping his other hand locked around your throat.  You blink helplessly up at him, your vision starting to blur by the time he leans down to whisper to you.

“I missed you, sweet girl.  Did you miss me?”  It’s so soft and quiet compared to the strength and relentlessness of his movements.  You can’t speak even if you wanted to, but when he finally pulls away to yank his hand out and you feel all your muscles automatically flex outwards and push against the sudden emptiness inside you, his voice groans long and satisfied while your thighs get wet again  “Yeah you did,” he breathes, pushing your shaky legs to the brick with his hand and watching you struggle through the aftershocks.

Did you just cum?  You don’t even know, that’s how fucked up you are right now.  The whole thing felt like an orgasm from the very beginning, just a boiling hot tornado ripping through every single cell in your body, never really having a peak.  If you didn’t cum, then why do you feel so weak?  You feel heavy, your limbs don’t work properly, and you barely even register Din pulling at the fabric of his own robes until he fits himself up against your entrance.

When you do realize it, though… your body burns with it, wrecked already but wanting him to take what he wants from you.

“Oh, plea—” you gasp but you don’t even have enough time to get the full sentence out.  He’s already pushing his hips forward, pressing you tight into the ground and opening you up after what feels like a fucking eternity without him.  It’s the hottest, slickest welcome you could give him, you hear it in the whispered curse his lips brush up under your ear, the wet noises your body makes that get louder the longer you hold the moan in your throat and bury your head into his shoulder.  He throbs thick and perfect inside your tight, spasming cunt, stretching you and smacking the rough ground near your head with how fucking good it is to be back, finally, finally—

Your hands grab uselessly at his chest while you try to acclimate, try to breathe while you’re blind with sensation.  It’s so fitting for him, isn’t it?  That your reunion should be just as physically debilitating as it is mentally.  Din’s voice scrapes on a groan like he’s dragging it across the brick ground as quiet as he can, catching when you clamp down on him and shuddering when you clamp down harder.  That’s just it—you don’t ever loosen, you just keep tightening and tightening around him, threatening to break and cum again.

This feels different from before, though.  It’s deep, purposefully so.  His hand reaches up to push the fabric of your hood back, lifting himself up over your body and wanting to start as deep as he can.  You feel him in a place you’d never be able to reach and that’s just the beginning—that’s before he starts thrusting into you, hitting a dull sensation at the apex of each movement so hard that it becomes sharp.  His hips don’t make practically any sound smacking into you because they don’t really smack, they just rock downwards and fuck you into the floor without needing to pull out really at all.  You know he’s just trying to keep it as quiet as possible, but what he lacks in speed and agility he makes up in power.

You don’t even realize you’re making too much noise until a palm wraps tight around your mouth and the room gets a little emptier.  Din keeps you all to himself on the floor, silencing as much as he’s working you up, smothering as much as he’s freeing you.  There’s no easing up, no dragging it out, no gradual build or climb—it’s just there all of a sudden, pleasure and pain pummeling you all at once, engulfing you in flames.

You reach up to grab at the loose fabric of the hood over his face, catching a fistful of it before his hand suddenly snatches your shaky wrist and pins it back to the ground.

Maker, you forgot—oh, you completely forgot about how many people could find you right now if they ever decided to look in the right place.  You’re not in hyperspace; your body is rocking against rough brick, you’re probably going to have a lump on the back of your head from how terrible you are at trying to map out heaven while holding still.  He’s pinned down what he can with one hand; your fingers are the only things that can move besides how tight you can curl your toes, but you feel your moans turn into words against his palm.  They garble indistinctly and you’re not really even sure what you’re saying, but Din decides it’s worth hearing.

“Shh,” he whispers, slowly lifting his hand from your mouth.  “Shh, tell me—”

“W-wanna look,” you hear yourself whimper, trying your best to keep quiet but wanting to scream it while he fucks you hard and slow on the ground, “—I wanna see, I wanna look at you—”

“Fuck,” Din gasps, and though his grip tightens on your wrist and you know he can’t do it right this second, the words seem like they shatter something inside him, “Keep—oh fuck, please, k-keep saying…”

“I want to marry you,” you nearly whine for him, feeling his hips kick up rapidly and start hammering in and out, in and out, in and—“I want to see your face, I wanna be yours, I don’t want anyone else to know you the way I-I—”

You think he drops his head into your neck to muffle his own sounds.  Though they start out rough and quiet and indiscernible, but they gradually become louder as he repeats himself over and over again, growling and fucking you rough.  You only catch it on the peak, when he pulls his mouth away from your skin and gasps them raggedly one last time.

“—ve you—I l-love y—”

He kisses you to stop himself.  But it’s not really a kiss, it’s more desperate than that.  Though it’s beautiful, it’s beautiful in a different light.  It’s not rejoicing at having you back with him once again; it’s a last prayer begging you to stay by his side forever.  He loves you.  He gives it everything—it feels even more concrete and simple than taking the hood off him and revealing his face would.  You told you that you'd know him without ever seeing him, and you did.  You picked him out and found him when absolutely nothing was giving him away, and this feels like a manifestation of that.  Even if you’re not in a place where he can show you his face, his beautiful brown eyes, something still feels like it changes.  He loves you.  You gasp into his mouth and his tongue sinks deep into yours, tenacious and brave and unyielding.  

When you finally cum, you almost bite him on accident.  

Everything surges hot and molten while he pulls back and keeps fucking you through it, and you can’t tell where you’re touching him anymore, just that his skin is blazing hot under your hand and he feels like everything the armor isn’t.  He loves you.  You’re looking into his eyes right now.  You can’t see any of the details, not really, but the moonlight flickers like silent stars moving through dark depths, staring right back at you and giving you an anchor for the euphoria rocketing through you.  He loves you.  Your nails dig in sharp and slowly drag downwards, scratching hard red lines into whatever thick muscle that is—

The back of his neck, making his hips stutter and when he cums for you, he does bite.

You lift your head just in time to feel his teeth catch your chin instead of your mouth, and his entire body shakes while you keep dragging your nails down the side of his neck and his throat.  Din fucking lives for it, he releases you and arches into the pain and owns your marks like he wishes you made them deeper, stretching his neck and lifting his chin into the moonlight and—

Maker.  You can see it, with direct light, you can see more of it than ever before.  You can see his soft lips and white teeth gritting the sound of your name as quietly as he can, the dark facial hair dusting across the lower half of his face.  A fucking gorgeous jawline and throat extended long over you, flexing hard with his cock pulsing inside you.  You can just barely see the bottom of his nose from under the brown hood, the dark curls brushing up under his ears.

Stars, you still never see his eyes, the fabric of his hood acts like a blindfold draped over them, but you think you cum again.  Even if it’s on accident, it’s mean—Din tries to keep from squishing you and his hand pushes down hard against your lower tummy while he shoves his hips deep one last time, and you cum while staring at half of his face in the moonlight.  Completely lovestruck.

How can he be this beautiful when you’ve only seen fractions of him?  You have everything but the eyes now, everything but the most mysterious thing about him, the reflection into his deepest self, but you feel like you’re hypnotized by every single feature you do see.  His tongue coming out to wet his lips, the vein pulling under his sharp jaw—he’s gorgeous, he’s gorgeous, and your body agrees.  It shakes and shudders under him and eventually, Din finishes and you keep looking as his chin slowly lowers, face disappearing into the shadow once more.

Stars.  He’s so handsome and no one has ever told him, fucking dreamy and the biggest grump you’ve ever met.  Without being able to see him, you already want to reach your hands out and touch him, drag your nails through his scruff and force him to extend outwards into the moonlight again for you.  Whenever he does end up showing you his face, you know right fucking now that you’ll never be able to look away.  For the rest of your life, you’ll be staring at him, apologizing blankly for your rudeness but not feeling sorry at all.

Din leans down and gives you a slow, gentle kiss, finally relaxing into a slouch and breathing hard with the effort it took to shatter you with pleasure.

“The kid is with the other foundlings,” he whispers against your lips.  “You… you’ll have to go get him, I need to grab my armor.”

You squeeze around his cock, pulling at the fabric of his robes and ignoring him for just a second.  He fucked you in robes belonging to one of the guards and nobody has mentioned it, you need to say something.  “Where did you get this?”

“I found it,” he tells you after a moment, kissing up under your jaw.  Oh fucking Maker, he feels so good and perfect inside you, shoulders so broad and crowding you on the floor, and his lips are plush and hot, brushing and fitting your skin like it’s just an extension of his own.  “Some guy was wearing it.”

It takes you a second.

“Mando,” you suddenly gasp in quiet horror, pushing at his chest and trying your best to detach his mouth from your throat.  It’s so much more difficult than it needs to be, but you eventually succeed.  “What did you do to him?  Where is he?”

He lifts his neck up just the tiniest bit, turning his face towards yours under the hood and holding still for way too fucking long.  He’s too close to see the expression he’s making, but you know the tone of his silence.  He’s in trouble and he knows it before you do.

“Ma—”

“They’re in a closet,” he admits at the very same time, completely monotone.

You don’t know which word to emphasize.  A fucking closet?  They’re?  Plural?  Instead of stressing any particular word, you decide not to do it at all and it ends up just coming out in the same exact blank tone as him.  “They're in a closet.”

“Inside the Temple,” Din continues on when you lay still as a statue underneath him.  His head slowly dips down once more, pushing his hips against you just the slightest bit to make you remember the cock still inside you instead.  Your eyelashes flutter with it—fuck, focus—“I didn’t know there’d be more than two.”  He kisses your neck so gently.  “It was an accident.”

You don’t say anything at all, your mouth pinching down at the corners because it should but your heartbeat galloping with how… fucking sexy he is.  You shouldn’t encourage this, this horrible behavior just to get close enough to catch you, but your curiosity overtakes you and you ask a question you’ve asked yourself before.  “Did they put up a fight?”

“Mm,” he whispers noncommittally, rocking his hips down once more.  “You did.”  Your nails dig into his chest, making him falter just slightly before slowly kissing your neck again.  “Did so good.  Fought hard, outsmarted me.  Pretty fucking girl.”

And then your eyes pop open as you feel it.  His cock suddenly beginning to harden once again inside you, twitching and gradually gaining a thicker shape, and for a moment, you actually fucking consider it.  He’s the only one in this galaxy that could not only ruin you on these sacred grounds, but then coax you into doing it more than once—stars, are you actually considering it?

“We can’t,” you automatically tell him, but it’s fucking pitiful.  Zero effort, absolutely no umph behind it, leaving it entirely up to him and how much he wants it.  Your logic reminds you that the kid is probably wreaking havoc in the nursery and there are tied up guards in the fucking temple that could be discovered any second.  You shouldn’t have even let him fuck you here in the first place, but…  “Mando, we can’t—”

His mouth opens against the crook of your neck and his tongue brushes velvet hot on your skin, tasting the glistening sweat there and not moving his broad figure a single inch over you besides getting closer, deeper.  Your nails dig into his collarbone, aiming for reason one last time.  It’s apparent that you’d be better off rephrasing, knowing the challenging streak in him and how much telling him what to do doesn't help.

“It’s not a good idea,” you attempt instead, breathless and trying not to move under his mouth and lazy hips.  “Not smart.  Bad idea to fuck again.”

Din’s body stops moving, even though he keeps getting harder.  His jaw opens and then his teeth scrape softly against your flesh, making you tilt your neck back and gasp.

“Later,” he lifts his head to state aloud, committing it to truth now that it’s been spoken and heard by another person.  “Later, I’ll fuck you on the ship, in our bed, when I can get you naked and have your taste in my mouth.”

Tingles rock through your body and you squeeze around his cock just as he pulls it out and tucks it back into his pants.  Your lungs quiver when you inhale—it’s shaky, but it reminds you of how long it’s been since you’ve been able to breathe correctly.

“Later,” you finally agree, combing your fingers through your hair and glad you have this hood to cover your freshly fucked dishevelment.  He came inside you and you don’t want to be leaking and getting your nice pretty robes all wet and stained, but then of course, without any prompting, Din quickly scoots back on his knees and drops his head down to take care of it for you.

***

Commotion.

After Din helped you clean up the way he sometimes likes and then disappeared to change back into his armor, you put your mask and hood back on and tried to look as casual as possible walking to the nursery.  Your knees wobbled slightly and you couldn’t stop smiling under the mask the entire walk there, but when you arrived, you just saw a dim room with sleeping infants—not what you were expecting.  Soon, however, you hear it: down the hall, distant and coming from the dormitories, you hear a loud commotion.

Fuck, you’re nearly wincing with every step you take now, and not because you’re sore.  Well, you… are, a little bit, but in a great way.  No, you’re just dreading the ridiculous shinanigans you already know are well underway, wondering if Din actually dropped the kid off in the dorms from the beginning or if he somehow migrated his way there to cause trouble.

When you walk inside, the first thing you see is a handful of crying and shouting toddlers, and while you can’t immediately spot your favorite floppy-eared monster, you don’t have to see him to know he’s probably standing tiny directly in the middle of this tense showdown.  Automatically, you’re taking a few steps forward to rescue him, but then you stop as soon as you see what the other babies are so mad about.  A large piece of chocolate leftover from the festival levitating just beyond their pitiful little reaches.

Hm.  Who could possibly be responsible for using demon powers to steal snacks and hold them hostage from a sizeable group of hostile children.  A mystery that may never be solved.

It makes you take a second.  The sheer… the… stars, you can’t even think straight—how fucking typical it is just hits you right in the chest, sends your heart into orbit.  Of course.  Of course this is what he’s gotten himself into without immediate supervision, of course this is the shipwreck you’d walk into, and you’re holding back a chuckle before making a single move to intervene.  In the midst of everything, you can hear adults approaching distantly from behind you.

“—don’t know where it came from, I was helping the younglings into bed when I heard the ruckus and I—”

The voices gradually grow louder, and you snatch the floating piece of candy out of thin air and whip around right before Sister Drya and Naydee walk in.  Their hushed, concerned conversation is cut to an abrupt end, and you clear your throat as they take you in, standing in front of chaos central continuing to go off behind you.  Do you… look as freshly disheveled as you are?  You’re not supposed to be here, you know, but hopefully the only strange thing is your presence itself and not anything concerning your appearance.

“Nerida,” the older lady suddenly announces, the name alone holding so much expectation, and the younglings missing their candy have now turned their ire towards you and the crinkly food wrapper hidden in your fist.  “What is the meaning of this?”

“Ah, yeah,” you stand up a little straighter, letting the chocolate casually fall out of your grip behind you, and a stampede of feet suddenly kick up to recover it.  It’s fine, nobody will know, it’s fine.  “It’s just…”  Your head tips behind you to the cause of the uproar, feeling a bit sheepish yet so incredibly fond.  “My… kid.”

Sister Drya stares at you for a few seconds, before tipping sideways and staring at the culprit.  “That is your child?”

You turn around just in time to see him, now abandoned by the angry mob of children, finally notice you.  All of a sudden, his pitch black eyes light up something bright and sunshiney, and you just start beaming in return.  What an adorable little creature, apple of your eye and pain of your ass.

“Yep,” you sigh, dropping into a squat and watching him barrel towards you, catching him right before he can trip over his brown potato sack and scooping him up into your arms.  “Hiya, bug,” you murmur with a grin, lifting back up and plopping him in his favorite spot in the universe—your left hip.  “You making friends?”

He giggles and it’s like sparkles and bubbles fill the room instead, wrapping tiny arms around the largest surface area he can get and clinging.  He laughs with a tiny open mouth, bless him, clearly not understanding the sarcasm, and suddenly your eyes feel just the slightest bit wet.  No, you’re not crying, don’t be fucking ridiculous, but you missed him like hell and he’s just the cutest fucking thing—why do you feel like crying?

“Sorry about that,” you apologize to the two women while slowly turning around, brushing your thumb over one of his cheeks and smiling as it squishes.  “He’s… uh.  Not great at sharing.  We’ll work on it.”

Takes after his dad, you purposefully leave out, just a different kind of sharing.  Din hasn’t shown you his full face yet and the kid performs magic tricks to taunt a roomful of children a fraction of his age for a single piece of chocolate, completely different kind of sharing.

Sister Drya says something in response, but when you look up to address her, all you see is Din standing silently behind her and Naydee, slowly dropping his hand from his helmet to his side.  They don’t seem to notice he’s there and you automatically try your best to pay attention to the Sister speaking to you, but your eyes get caught on the silver reflecting in the dim light beyond.  Fuck, he’s a presence.  An immediate distraction, taking all your focus with a single glimpse.  Seeing him fully armored again, staring at you from the silent shadows behind everything… you melt a little bit, knowing that you’ve seen more of what’s underneath than anyone.  Your shoulders settle and your entire body burns warm, wobbly like the air around a fire, and one of the kid’s hands leaves you to reach out towards his dad.

You watch the metallic helmet tilt sideways after a moment, saying everything without saying anything.  Come on, make up an excuse, let’s get out of here.

Looking at him in the quiet shadows, you’re reminded once again about how much you love him, how much softness you have inside you for a man so hard, so guarded.  And, for the first time, a voice in your head finishes a poem you didn’t realize you were writing, adding its own verse and bringing everything back around to the beginning.  He loves you, too.  How much he lets his guard down for you, the way he’s revealed more of his face to you than not.  You love each other.  You’re family.

So, all at once, you decide to mess with him, because that’s what family does best.

“Don’t be shy, come say hello,” you suddenly urge his silent figure, taking a step forward and speaking directly to him.  “Sister Drya, Naydee, I’d like to introduce you to my—”

It’s remarkable, you see it happen in front of you.  Like he has powers of his own, Din just literally fucking disappears.  Like magic, he’s nowhere to be found within a blink of an eye.  You know he’s capable of it; he’s done it plenty of times during the chase just to fuck with your head, but you’re staring straight at him when it happens this time and it might just be the funniest fucking thing you’ve ever seen him do.

Sister Drya and Naydee both turn around to an empty hallway bathed in shadows and you laugh.  A deep, shameless, loud belly laugh.  Where the fuck did he go so quick?  You were staring straight at him and you have no fucking clue.  He’s just out, and you’re left alone with his child and the unspoken understanding that he’ll just catch up with you later.

You’re giggling even as you shake your head and give the women your genuine thanks for keeping you and feeding you these past few days, grabbing your backpack with all your belongings and eventually using three green fingers to wave goodbye to them.  The very first thing Din says when he seamlessly joins you outside the Keja later is, “That wasn’t funny,” which just makes you laugh harder.

***

About a half hour has passed, and you’re walking along a dirt road, cradling a very happy baby in your arms and giving the grown man next to you an incredibly hard time.

“You’re unbelievable,” you mutter, your back twinging slightly at the way you’re leaning about as sideways as you can get without falling over.  You think you’re basically just the hypotenuse between the ground and Din, who easily supports almost your entire weight with your backpack slung around his far shoulder and readily allows you to rest against him.

“They’re fine,” he grumbles in response, squeezing you tight to his side.  You just have to focus on moving your feet; it’s like he’s practically carrying your upper-half anyways.  “I gave them the night off.”

“You stuffed them in a closet,” you hiss, feeling his shoulder shrug under your cheek.

“I gave them the robe back,” he says, not really defending himself and more just throwing it out there to see if it helps any.  “I’m sure someone’s found them by now, they’re fine.”

Your eyes suddenly go wide, absolutely mortified at the thought.  “Wait.  What do you mean you gave the robe back?”

He shrugs once more, apparently not seeing the problem yet.  “I borrowed it, so I gave it back after I put my armor back on.”

If you could plant your feet on the dirt road and screech to a halt, you would, but all your weight is already resting on him and you’re working solely off his forward movement.  You just hope your tone holds the same amount of shocked disapproval your body language would’ve conveyed if you weren’t so completely attached to his hip like a parasite he adores.

“You fucked me wearing it, though.”  Your voice is strangely flat, so fucking confused and horrified by the mental image of him just tossing the soiled garments haphazardly somewhere in the temple behind you, or even worse, leaving them somewhere respectful, and Din soon stops in the middle of the deserted road.

“Oh,” is all he says, emotionless and blank through the modulator.  Did he not even consider this?

“I had to promise them I was a virgin just to sleep there, you know,” you admit, and you can tell that’s brand new information to him with how still he goes as you continue to lean against him.  You’re getting the feeling that he probably knows a lot more about your experiences on this moon than you think he does, but can tell that this is brand new information to him.  “And you locked three of their holy men in a closet, chased me across the temple grounds, fucked me in one of their robes, and then.  You gave it.  Back.”

Din stays perfectly silent for quite some time.  You can never go back to that place, you know this for a fact.  You’re banned forever now, it’s what you deserve.

Never one to be outdone but not actually having anything to say for himself, Din suddenly decides to just scoop you into his arms and boost up into the sky without a single word like an actual fucking maniac.

You squeal and damn near drop the baby because of it, but he cinches you tight to his chest and refuses to loosen with your struggle.  Eventually, after you realize he’s completely locked you in and you won’t fall to your death with this poor innocent child in your arms, you glance over the shiny pauldron on his shoulder and watch the kid’s crib disappear by the abandoned road as Din takes you higher and higher.

The crib—he forgot the crib—

“D-Din,” you stammer out through the whistling air, stiff as a board.  Stars, you have such a different sense of adventure than him; an explorer and a daredevil, one who gets a thrill from discovering the existence of the edge of a cliff and one who’ll take a running dive off of it without thinking twice.  He’s hit with blaster fire some days, he faces down death completely fearless like it owes him one every single time, and you’re stiff as a fucking board while he carries you through the sky.  It’s stunning up here, it’s exciting and wonderful, but you’re so scared that you can barely even look.  He’s giving you the most fantastical view, everything your budding adventurous streak could ever ask for, and your terror is crushing.  It would be different if you could hold on, but you’re responsible for not letting the baby slip through your arms and you just have to trust that he won’t let you slip through his.

You raise your voice.  “Din?!”

“I won’t drop you,” he automatically reassures, and well you sure as fuck hope not, but there’s something else.

“What about the crib?”  You call out over the wind whipping, tucking the baby tight to your chest and settling your hands over his ears to avoid them flapping and whacking you repeatedly in the chin.

“We’ll come back for it,” he responds, just as easily.  Maker, you wish decision-making came that easy to you, that commitment and choice should be so simple as to just fly away from things on the ground and promise out loud to come back for them.  You know he will, but still, his spontaneity shocks you after spending the past week thinking every decision through meticulously, and you’re taken aback by the casualness of it all while soaring through the sky, committing such spectacular feats without a single thought beyond it.

Soon—incredibly soon, which honestly kind of blows your mind—you spot Nariss glowing in the distance and then you’re flying overtop of the city, slowly dropping altitude in the middle of a quiet little side street.

Din carefully allows your feet to settle on the ground before letting go, but you still stumble a bit stupidly after flying so high without any sort of safety measure besides him, prioritizing the steadiness of the baby in your arms instead of your feet underneath you.  His gloves catch at your clumsy body and pull you along with him without another word, leading you out of the quiet alley and into the middle of a beautiful, luminescent street.

What’s he doing?  He seems slightly hurried, and you’re clueless but you go with it, clamoring along behind him to wherever he’s leading you.

Though, you suddenly remember one of the very last things you told him last night right before he steps up in front of a vendor.

“Caf,” Din grunts, sliding a few credits towards the man standing behind the counter. “The… biggest one you have.”

Okay, well.  You could just about fucking cry.

“Y’sure?” The vendor asks skeptically, jerking his head at the large thermos behind him.  He’s balding, wearing a white outfit with his eyes scrunched up and forehead sweaty, likely working all day.  “It ain’t fresh.  Closin’ up soon, was just about to trash it and go home.”

The helmet turns to gauge your response to the news, the sharp angles and contours looking so sleek and dangerous as they reflect the colorful lamplights, but just filling you with comfort beyond anything in the entire galaxy.  He’ll take that armor off for you tonight and you’ll sleep next to him.  He’ll call you by your given name, or the fond name he’s given you, and you’ll cuddle your baby on a metal floor in hyperspace with him, and all will be well.  Even if he needs to leave again soon—even if you don’t get to go with him, you’ll always have these small eternities with each other, and that’s more enough for you now.

You’re completely zoned out while staring at him, and Din turns back to the vendor before you can even remember the conflict he was attempting to defer to you.

“Yeah, just empty the whole thing in there for her,” he mutters, and you want to marry him.  It’s been a long week, and in your haze and delight of being with him in this gorgeous setting, your brain turns to cavewoman mush.  Big man, makes me happy.  Strong man, loves me, knows me.  Provider, makes me feel good, protector, loves me.

Din hands you the large cup of steaming caffeine, clueless to your grunted inner monologue but knowing better than to reach out and grab the kid from your other arm.  You’re just fine like this, hands full, the little frog snuggled up against your side and blinking up at your face instead of any of the shiny or glowing things around you.  When you look down at him, you can see the world through his eyes—quite literally, they’re reflective and gigantic—and his father’s hand quickly finds its preferred spot on your lower back.

“Try to drink it quick,” Din advises you gruffly, pulling you snug into his side and sloshing the big cupful of piping hot liquid in your hand.

“It’s a thousand degrees,” you protest, trying to balance your three favorite things in the universe all begging for your direct attention at once.  “It has to cool down.”

He gives a dismissive hm in response, and you frown even as your heart soars with how tightly he’s gripping you, how little leeway you have to even move without him.  Part of you is so thrilled at being reunited with him that you consider snarking something back at him, excitement making you brave.  He could probably chug boiling hot liquid in thirty seconds and doesn’t see the point in letting it sit any longer, and you could make some stupid joke about filtering it through his helmet or having a built in bendy straw but you decide to keep it to yourself.

So then you just stand there together, under stringed lights and flowers everywhere, and he waits.  Holding you glued to his side, completely silent and clearly just waiting for your caf to stop steaming so threateningly in your hand so you can drink it.  For some reason, the fact that he’s wanted by the New Republic doesn’t really register at this second—you’re not looking for cops, though he may be.  You’re just lost in this beautiful, fancy city that’s on the edge of finally quieting down after a long day, and you’d like to see more of it with him next to you.

“Well, do you wanna just…”  You ask, tilting your head around at all the vendors.  “Shop around for a bit?”

“Shop… around,” Din repeats slowly, sounding the words out like they’re not common Basic.  Admittedly, they do sit a bit awkward in his voice when put together like that, describing a phenomena he’s likely never even considered a thing before, but it’s so fucking pretty here and you’d like to show him something this time instead of the other way around.

“Yeah, like,” you shrug a shoulder, tipping your head in a random direction.  Anywhere, you’ll go literally anywhere with him, the three of you can go explore.  “Just wander around, and look at all the pretty things.”

From where you’re standing right now, you can already see glittering crystals and jewels being sold at the tent across the street, there’s a booth dedicated entirely to floral arrangements and crowns next to it, you can hear a distant quartet playing melodically in the distance and a couple is being painted by an artist on the corner.  Bars are in full swing at this point, as if they weren’t all day, and even though the merchandise is all different, the multicolored tents look slightly similar when they’re underlit with multicolored lights.  It’s less slightly lively than it was in the daytime, but also… more beautiful, in a sense.  Muted, softer, more romantic.

“I don’t have any more credits,” Din admits casually, finally turning to look around at everything.  You get the feeling that he’s just now seeing it, even after spending the entire day here.  “That stale caf was the last of it.”

Money well fucking spent, you can assure him of that.

“It’s okay,” you tell him automatically, gently bumping your hip into his.  “We don’t need credits, we can just look.”

So that’s what you do.  Even though it’s completely not his fucking style, for the next hour or so, you just walk around downtown with him and sip your caf, looking at anything and everything new and experiencing it with him.  At first, you think he’s just entertaining you, following you while you discover new streets and attractions, but then he points out different things and you know he's looking, too.  There are large animals harnessed up and pulling carts for people to ride, there's an enormous spinning wheel set up in the distance, its colorful lights flickering out as soon as you ask what the fuck that is and why anyone would ever get inside one.

You eventually end up finishing your caf around the time he’s leading you back through a quiet, abandoned alleyway, and you hand him the empty cup to throw away in one of the trash cans on the corner.  The conversation has faded to a comfortable quiet and you don’t really need to ask—you go willingly, not requiring anything beyond his hands on you and the baby dozing in your arms.

“Come on, sweet girl,” he murmurs, gently sweeping you up into his.  You sigh, glad he’s giving you a moment to prepare yourself this time, holding the sleeping kid securely to your chest and resting your head on his shoulder.  “Let’s go home.”

After you’re comfortable, Din rockets up from the ground and climbs high up into the canvas sky.  He disappears with you and the baby into the pastel clouds above, making it back to the Razor Crest in probably about an hour, maybe less.  You and the baby do nothing more than climb into the comfy floor blankets while Din starts up the engines, and you think you’re dozing off together by the time he makes the pit stop to collect the crib and the jump into hyperspace.

You think he might shower?  You’re not sure—you just know he moves up behind you in bed at one point without any armor, burying his face in your hair while you cuddle the sleepy kid to your chest.  It’s dark in the hull, Din’s palms are bare and warm as they slide around the front of your body and he breathes you in, and there isn’t a single place that can touch you here, not a single place you’d rather be.

Home.

***

@followwhereshegoes​ Thank you for the stunning artwork! 💕To anyone interested in possibly doing an art collab in the future, please message me!!

[zaceouiswriting]

The unknown son (First Version)

Character: Derek Hale x male reader

Universe: Teen Wolf

Warnings: Sad, Cheating

Authors note: This was a request by @arekmaximoff. I actually have a second version of this request, which I will post next week. I can't oversaturate the market, now can I? :D If any of you have a request on your own, just send me a massage. Have fun with this one! :)

Hands wet from washing dishes, after another long day with the pack. You never would've thought, to be a motherly figure to an entire pack of teenagers, but here you were. All thanks to the man you married, the love of your life.

It wasn’t always everything good between you two. Especially, when you had a long-term relationship, as you moved away to study at a prestigious university, to become a doctor. But even though, you two haven’t seen each other at points, for a long time, your relationship was always strong. The moment, you finished your studies and came back he asked you to marry him, that was now eight years ago, in a month to be exact.

A couple of the pack members, that did not live with you and Derek in the newly build Hale house, were still sitting around, playing board games, But because the sun, was already setting, it would be much longer.

Just as you thought, that the evening was at an end, the doorbell rang. Panicking, that one of the guys, most likely Stiles, had forgotten something again, you searched for a towel. At the moment, which you had found one, you already could hear someone standing up, to get to the door.

„Nope sit down again, Isaac!“ Even without supernatural powers, you exactly knew what every single one of your pack children did at all times. You could hear him mutter, asking the others, how you could know that he tried to get the door.

With the towel in your hand, drying them off, you looked for a second into the living room. „Because you know you guys. Maybe even better, than you know yourself,“ you told him teasingly. Which flashed a panicked and then embarrassed look over his face, as he understood that you just joked with him.

It felt just natural to you. Always knowing what they do, it gave you a little peace. 

As you finally get to the door and opened it, you looked surprised. Because you couldn’t see anyone. For a moment you thought that it was just a prank, until your eyes completely out of coincidence, down. There in front of you, on the porch of the house you lived in with your husband, stood a small child - Around eight, maybe nine years old.

„Can I do something for you? Have you lost your parents?“, you asked him as friendly as you could even crouching down, so he could look you directly into his eyes. At first, the small boy seemed reluctant. But something changed drastically, as you heard your husband's heavy footsteps behind you.

„Derek Hale?“, he asked in a small voice. For a while nothing came back from the man behind you, wondering what had happened, you turned around to look at him. His entire face was pale as if he had seen a ghost.

„Babe, is everything okay?“, you tried to ask him softly, but after you two had locked eyes, and he instantly averted his eyes again, you knew something was up.

„Yes, that is Derek Hale, why are you asking?“

„Mum told me he would care for me from now on. Because he is my dad!“, he excitedly exclaimed at the end, running past you, still crouching, directly to Derek, hugging him. His small arms and small statue only let him hug his middle section, but that seemed to be enough.

Derek even put his hand on the little boy's head. Even though he looked shocked, he was not that surprised about it.

„Are you hungry?“ The question almost was left unanswered, wouldn’t it be for the boy's stomach.

Derek took him with you together into the kitchen. Where the boy told you what he liked and what not, luckily he had a similar taste to your husband, so it wasn’t hard to make something for him.

He told you about his life with his mother, in a small apartment in the same city, you had studied. You needed to restrict every fiber of your being, to not lunge at your husband and rip his dick off his body.

As he told you his age, which you perfectly guessed as eight years old, you had to breathe sharply in and out. Holding your emotions in. You could preserve a perfect smile, only for a second could the sadness be seen in your eyes, before you masterfully blink the upcoming tears away.

You, on the other hand, told the small boy everything about Derek, all the great attributes he had. His strong will, his protectiveness, his big heart, and his strong sense of loyalty. Absolutely sure, that he would be a great dad. What you both wanted to be soon.

This led to you explaining the relationship you have with Derek, to his son, whom you did not know even existed. At first, the boy did not really understand, but after the second try, as he did, he didn't really care about it. In his word: „Everything is better than my mother“. This was heartbreaking to hear because you loved your mother and father, they are great people. To hear a child say something like this about their mother, was almost too much for you.

Almost an hour after the boy had finished his meal, Derek and you together brought him into bed.

As soon as the door closed, your smile faltered. But Derek hadn’t seen it, because you had your back to him. „You were great to him, I wanted to tell you, but there was never-“ Before he could finish his rant, you turned around, a scowl on your face and tears running down your cheeks. Silent crying was always a talent you had, which made it often hard to read you. Now it was on Derek to let his smile fall. He had thought that you were happy, to have a child now, after you wanting one for years.

Without him realizing, what that meant. Because you had no idea, before this day.

You only looked at him in disappointment once, before leaving him in the hallway, and getting into your shared bedroom. In absolute record time, you packed a couple of bags, which you hurriedly carried out, directly past Derek who still stood frozen in the hallway. 

But as he saw you carrying bags, he freed himself, running after you the stairs down.

Right before you could leave the house, which you had helped build up and make a home, Derek got to you, holding your arm back.

Before either of you could comprehend what had happened, your hand had colored his cheek red. You did not want to get confronted by him, because you feared that you would cave.

„You have an eight-year-old child Derek? Are you fucking serious? We are together for fifteen years! He was born one month before our wedding! Exactly one month, on the fucking day!“, you screamed at him as loud as you could.

The strong man, as you had known him your entire life, could only stand there and take it all in. „Please, don’t tell me, the woman with the baby at our wedding was-“

Before you could finish, he finally met your eyes again, horror and the realization that you would find everything now, hit him like a truck.

„You- You had sex with my roommate? Did you impregnate my roommate that had a boyfriend at that time?“ Everything began to make so much sense. The way her boyfriend had broken up with her, the pity glances he threw at you, the last couple of times you had seen him, and the cryptic message he tried to give you.

„I’m going to my brothers. Don’t call me, don’t text me, don’t show up at any of their houses.“ Just then you left the house. Not even giving Derek any chance to speak up again.

You married the love of your life. The man you are in a relationship with since both of you were fourteen. Through thick and thin. You helped him through the loss of his entire family, while you only wanted him to be patient with your studies.

Not even that was he able to do, after everything you had done for him, even risking your own future, for covering things up, when he did something dangerous and or illegal, after his family's death.

And now you had to explain to your entire family, why you left this well-liked man, with a child. Most likely not understanding why you were upset. Maybe you would paint it or something like this for them to understand. Your older brother Joey, was the best bet for someone to understand it quickly because he was in a similar situation years ago, where it came out, that his daughter wasn’t his.

Maybe you would even be able to let all these feelings out. At least you hoped so.

[Masterlist]

[nikakistos]

The Perfect Closure of EreMika

The title is pure clickbait (as always), there will be lots of tags (as always) and this post will be huge. As always. So, let’s examine and evaluate the perfect conclusion of the most important relationship in Attack on Titan. We will analyze why this is the best conclusion they could have gotten and of course we are going to talk about what their scenes meant for their relationship, their feelings for each other and the themes of the story.

First, let’s ask the question: What was the purpose of this chapter? Ending the fight obviously, but also giving closure to the relationship between Eren and Mikasa. Now, there were 3 questions that needed to be answered in order for the two of them to have closure. 

Why did Eren say to Mikasa that he hated her?

What does Eren feel for Mikasa?

What would have happened if Mikasa had given Eren a different answer back in chapter 123?

Isayama answered all 3 of them in a spectacular way. Let’s see how he did it. The chapter literally starts with Isayama, via Mikasa, setting up the closure. This was achieved by having her wonder if this really was the end for her and Eren. Could it be that their last interaction ever ended with him saying that he hated her? 

Isayama answers that with a big, fat NO.

That’s the purpose of Mikasa’s vision. Mikasa’s vision is not there to introduce us to Alternate Universes or to portray her as a delusional fangirl that can’t cope with reality. It’s purpose is to answer the above 3 questions. And that it does.

Essentially, Mikasa’s vision is a “What if” scenario. If Mikasa had chosen the ideal for her answer back in chapter 123, Eren would have abandoned everything and lived with her. This means that Eren is also in love with her.  He said that he hated Mikasa, because he wanted her to forget him. That’s why he also asked her to throw away the scarf.

Mikasa though, being the truest representation of all major, positive themes in the series says no. She chooses to remember him. That’s essentially the meaning of life. That’s what Armin taught to Zeke back in chapter 137. Memories of everyday life. That’s the meaning of life. Back in Trost, Mikasa said that she couldn’t die, because she wouldn’t be able to remember Eren. Even back then, Mikasa always knew the true meaning of life. 

Afterall, the series heavily criticizes the usage of memory manipulation. Deleting memories or altering them have been methods empoyed by the Royal Family for years, hiding the truth from the people. One of the themes of the Survey Corps is remembering their fallen comrades and carrying on the torch. Mikasa forgetting Eren would be an insult to the themes of the story. As would be if Eren was revealed to have been sending fake memories and dreams to Mikasa out of pity for her. 

Finally, Mikasa decides to kill Eren. Not because he hated her or because he didn’t have romantic feelings for her. Because she had to save the world and because that’s exactly what Eren wanted. Back in chapter 133 Reiner foreshadowed Eren’s desires. He explained that it is very hard for Eren, mentally, to handle the murder of the entire human race. Through Reiner, Isayama reveals that Eren wants someone to end it all for him. That someone was Mikasa. That’s why Mikasa knew where to find Eren. His relieved face when he saw her swinging the blade said it all. That was Eren’s design and Mikasa delivered.

And so, the chapter that starts with Mikasa thinking that the only closure she would get with Eren was the “I’ve always hated you”, ends with the first and the last kiss between the two of them that puts all of her worries to rest.

Is Mikasa delusional?

I’ve seen this being thrown around, so i have to also tackle said point. No, Mikasa is not delusional. This wasn’t a fantasy that only she experienced. This dream of hers is the same dream that Eren had back in chapter 1. Eren experienced the exact same things she did in the dream. We even see him with his titan marks. It is clear as day that they shared these moments.

Also, i have to give credits to Isayama here for his usage of “itterasshai”. The word generally means “Go and come back safely” and is usually said to people leaving the house. For Mikasa, Eren is her home, but she is also home for him, as shown in the RtS arc:

These were the perfect parting words for the two of them. Nothing else could encapsulate their relationship better. Eren of course, won’t come back, but that’s the irony of the word here.

Moving on to the next point, Mikasa’s characterization in this final arc is about her seeing Eren for the person he truly is and stop ignoring his faults. It starts from the Marley arc and it concludes with chapter 123 where she realizes that this was simply part of Eren’s nature.

He always had it in him to become the monster that he became. However, he always had a different side to him. A side that had been shown to her a few times. At first, when he wrapped the scarf around her and later when he asked her “What am i to you”. Finally, it manifested as a desire to live quietly with her in their shared dream. It would contradict her development and characterization in the final arc, to have Mikasa start seeing an incomplete Eren again, after realizing earlier who he really was. Mikasa understood who Eren truly is and she accepted him and continued to love him anyway, even though she didn’t agree with his genocide. 

It is not out of character for Eren to run away with her either. At least not in that instance. The series highlights the moment that he asked Mikasa “What am i to you” as a pivotal one. Sure, under normal circumstances, Eren would have chosen to fight, but we saw him breaking down just moments earlier. The only person that could have saved him was Mikasa. Alas, that wasn’t meant to happen.

In any instance, the biggest indicator that Mikasa is not just a delusional girl who kissed the decapitated head of the man she loved, when he never really loved her in the same way, is Ymir’s face at the end of the chapter.

Ymir, as i have mentioned in previous posts, is a girl who never knew real love during her lifetime. She didn’t understand what she was looking at, when she first say a couple kissing with their friends cheering them on. And after that she was sentenced to a cruel life, with a man who never loved her and only viewed her as a tool. This girl, remembers longinly that scene of the couple kissing for 2000 years. She was waiting for 2000 years to see real love again.

She witnessed that through Eren and Mikasa. In a scene that would have otherwise been painted in a negative light, Ymir’s warm smile at the sight of the final act of love between two people who never got to be together the way they wanted to, clears any and all doubts regarding Eren’s feelings for Mikasa and the latter’s sanity. Eren reciprocates Mikasa’s feelings and he was alive for enough time to kiss her back, before completely fading away. Eren and Mikasa replaced the married couple and Ymir replaced the crowd that was cheering at them from 2000 years ago.

Of course, one might ask, could Eren really kiss her? Didn’t she just take advantage of him? No, he did kiss her. The way the scene was directed, it shows us that the events, which take place in their dream, mirror the events in real life. Just look at Eren’s lips one moment before Mikasa kissed him and compare them to the picture above, where they kiss. They are different.

 Also, you have to remeber that decapitation doesn’t kill immediately and does not immobilize facial muscles. That was the entire reason that Eren and Zeke managed to get the Coordinate. Eren survived long enough from Gabi’s shot to make contact with Zeke. Even his facial expression changes as you can see below:

More importantly, was there really any chance that Ymir would look at Mikasa beheading and kissing Eren, while also smiling in approval, if Mikasa was a delusional girl who was unable to understand Eren’s feelings for her up to the very end? Most of all, do you think she would have allowed him to die, without experiencing real love? She died in such a way and she stayed for 2000 years in the Paths waiting for someone to show her real love. Eren was her benefactor. Would she ever allow him to die in such a way, when she was being mistreated (sexually and in many other ways) by King Fritz? I doubt it. Actually no. I don’t doubt it. I’m sure this is not the way we are meant to interprete the scene.

Eren’s relationship with Mikasa, from the very start, is an allegory for the world of AoT. The world is cruel, but is also very beautiful. Eren’s story with Mikasa starts with him murdering in cold blood her kidnappers (cruelty) and then warmly and gently welcoming her to his family by wrapping a scarf around her (beauty). Their story ends with Mikasa decapitating him (cruelty) and kissing him (beauty).

Eren’s tendency for violence has always been portrayed as going hand in hand with his better side. That side has always been represented by Mikasa. It is only fitting for them to have their most beautiful moment happening almost at the same time as their most cruel one. This is how Isayama juxtaposes this duality:

If we interprete this scene as Mikasa being delusional and Eren not being in love with her we get a very disturbing and creepy scene, between an obsessed, psychosis-suffering girl who can’t understand the feelings of Eren, a genocidal maniac who never had any chance or willingness to live a normal life, even though there are hints of that, and a 2000 year old ghost who just happily smiled at the decapitation and forceful kissing of her emancipator. I am pretty sure this is not the message Isayama wants to send. Not simply, because it is a disservice to Mikasa as a character and to her relationship with Eren, which has been one of the most prominent and consistent part of the series from the very first chapter, but because it is also a huge disrespect to Eren as a character as well. Does anyone really think that Isayama would choose to write Eren’s death like that? Not a single important person in the entire story has gotten such an exit. Not even Floch. Even Zeke, who thought that his father never loved him and only used him as a tool, got to see that his father truly did love him, before finally dying. Of course Eren and Mikasa would get the same treatment.

What i mean to say is that Eren and Mikasa’s closure won’t be recontextualized in a way that will paint their feelings for one another and their relationship in a negative light. If anyone’s expecting that, he/she will be disappointed. Eren and Mikasa were confirmed as a canonical couple in chapter 138.

On the other hand, if anyone’s expecting that this wasn’t their real closure and that they will get an even happier ending, he/she is also coping hard. Eren died here in this chapter. There won’t be a scarf rewrap (i’m here to eat my words if it happens), because Isayama gave the couple a kiss. A kiss that was in the makings ever since chapter 50 dropped. And of course, there is not going to be a baby born to Eren and Mikasa. Like, no way it’s happening. Eren is not coming back to life as that would turnish the series and it’s ending.

In conclusion, Eren’s relationship with Mikasa ended in the same way it started. Violently and Beautifully. Tragically and Happily. They acted on their romantic feelings for each other the very moment they had to part ways forever. This is how Isayama hurts us. The essence of a bittersweet conclusion.

EDIT: EATING MY WORDS AS PROMISED. EREN DID REWRAP MIKASA’S SCARF. HE KEPT HIS PROMISE.

[ingravinoveritas]

regarding MS and DT maybe having a "secret" poly relationship: never been in a poly relationship myself but the way they treat eachother is near identical to the way my mom (married to my dad) is with her bf (has a gf and kids) they arent open about it but the dont shy away from jokes on socials just like DT and MS. not only that but my dad makes the same exact jokes georgia makes regarding the relationship. just wanted to throw my experiences into this bc somethings definitely goin down

Ooh. Thank you for sharing this! I've previously heard from @radiantbaby about their experience/knowledge of polyam, so it's wonderful to hear from someone else who also has more direct experience with poly relationships than many of us here might have.

It's interesting, because I had a few people coming at me in the notes on this post for using the 'throuple' tag/referring to them having a poly relationship. How could I allude to such a thing, Georgia is "just joking," and so on. But I feel as thought the fans who get so outraged over such things are missing two key points: 1) That if you know a single thing about Michael, you know he's never been big on monogamy; and 2) The entire point is that Georgia is joking. Because there is no better way or place to disguise the truth than with a joke, especially when you know people will take it as a joke and not believe it could be real.

If Michael and David did hook up--either while filming season 1, or during the press tour, which Michael has previously said was when he and David got "very, very close"--it would make sense that Georgia wanted to avoid the potential narrative of David cheating, so decided to frame it as something she is fully aware of and agreeing to (and even encouraging). Which then also fits with the timeline I posted, as well as all the little "jokes" and things that have happened since, and how she started laying the groundwork almost two years ago (and was making allusions to a poly vibe between them even before then). So it's exactly like what you said--that balance between not being 100% open about it, but not shying away from alluding to it, either.

For me, though, it's also the little, subtle things that provide insight, almost more than the overt jokes. Like Georgia pinning an Insta story of a picture of Michael, David, and Ty (that she hashtagged #mumanddad) and making the title of the video #fam (circled in red):

So given all of this, along with the parallels to your mom and dad's situation (though of course every situation is different), it would not be at all surprising if there is some sort of arrangement/poly relationship between Michael, David, and Georgia. Something they can't be open about because the world is still so hostile to non-monogamous/non-traditional relationships, not to mention what being open about it would mean for their kids in the eyes of the press, but that is still very much there. That makes room for the clear affection and attraction between Michael and David, in addition to David and Georgia. And that works for them.

It's certainly incredibly interesting to ponder, for sure. I appreciate you sharing your thoughts and giving us all something to think about. Thanks for writing in! x