#dw i’ll have it back in a few months probably

[project-sekai-facts]

When the spotlights malfunction at the end of the Filament Fever 3DMV, they briefly use special spotlight effects seen in a previous WonderlandsxShowtime 3DMVs.

Namely, the flowers from Niccori Chousa-tai no Theme, the multicolored ring from Sekai wa Mada Hajimatte sura Inai, and the knives and forks from Okochama Sensou.

[crazylittlejester]

i hope this isn’t weird to say, but can i hear you yap about your fiancée? like the little things you love about them? (you don’t have to if neither of you are comfortable with it! ignore this ask if it makes you uncomfortable)

aldkfkdk dw it’s okay!

for starters, no other mother fucker would say shit like this to me and then ACTUALLY give me an explanation:

fr tho, she’s not just my fiancee she’s my best friend and i love her so so much. if no one’s got my back, i know she does, and i have hers. If i need to yap about something, I know she’ll listen and hype me up, and i absolutely do the same for her. She’s truly one of the kindest, most caring people I’ve ever met in my entire life, and I genuinely get very very sad when she goes out of state for college because i miss her 😭

I can text her about a problem or something I’m upset about and she’ll respond with “NTA, divorce” and it’s genuinely the FUNNIEST fucking thing

We have this thing that she’s not allowed to speak while I’m drinking something or have food in my mouth because she chooses the absolute worst moments to say the funniest things and having water come out your nose HURTS, and a few months ago we were getting coffee and she waited until I took a nice big sip before showing me the stupidest tiktok I’ve ever seen and everyone in the coffee shop had to watch me fight for my fucking life. And yes it is a bit annoying to choke and die every time i eat or drink around her, but I do genuinely love the way this mf looks at me like :3 before showing me a meme. istg she does it on purpose /j

every time we play bg3 together she fucking sits there and waits for me to think she wont do it, and then shoves my fucking character or hits them with a sword and then RUNS AWAY AND I CAN NEVER GET HER BACK BECAUSE SHES TOO FAST 😭

she’s also the one who OFFICIALLY got me into Zelda, so without her I probably wouldn’t have gotten into LU. I’d played the og LOZ before when I was 12, but when we were 18 the two of us when to target and she was like “hey man this seems like something you’d like” and had me play the BOTW demo and now I’m here. She gave me the final push and I’ve been yappin’ here ever since. And I think it’s funny that it was my constant yapping that was the final push for HER to get into HER current hyperfixation, bg3. we cursed each other /j

i also love that i’ll go check to see if she got home okay (because i have her location) or im just curious to see what she’s doing, and then I’ll find her in the middle of a fucking lake out of the goddamn country. It never fails to make me laugh 😭

but yeah she’s great, she’s awesome, she’s the funniest person alive, i love her, she’s my best friend, we’re gonna hang a framed photo of autism creature on our wall once we’re able to get an apartment. and there’s no one else who will continue to say “GO PISS GURL!!!” with me in 2024 🫶

[coffee-writesthings]

so like months ago me and @lonewolfinthetardis came up with a sort of collaborative thing (we both write a fic with the same prompt and then share them) and then I basically didn't touch it for however long, until now! This is gonna come in 4 parts, with this as the first one (dw they'll all be connected to the same post lol)

Spy entered the meeting room, where Sniper and Miss Pauling were already waiting for him.

“Fashionably late,” said Sniper, “like always.”

He retorted, “At least I’m fashionable. You look like you crawled out of a dumpster.”

“And you wear 10,000$ suits to the bloodiest job on the planet.”

“Boys.” Miss Pauling snapped, there wasn’t enough coffee in the damn world to deal with these two. Once satisfied that they had stopped squabbling like siblings, she spoke again, “I have a job for the two of you.”

“Why just us?” Sniper asked.

“Think about it for a few seconds. You’re both the most efficient mercs here by a long shot.”

“Well thank you, Pauling. Though I think you’re mistaken. I’m efficient in killing, but he,” he stared daggers at the other man, “is efficient at taking shots. He doesn’t kill.”

“Look at me in my eyes, Spy. Just how much do you think I care about your banal, stupid differences? Does it match up, at all, with how much I want to smack you in the face right now?”

“I can help with that part.” Sniper interjected smugly, “She doesn’t care about how it gets done, just that it does.”

“Fine. What’s our mission?”

She pulled up a map with locations of both RED and BLU bases, the various battlefields for their fights, among various other things like the town of Tuefort. However, she ignored that, in favor of taking a massive red pen to circle one location in particular, far off to the east from their base. “There’s a gala going on here, and they have something we want. I can’t be more specific, just know it’s important to the Administrator-- if you fumble this operation, it’s your head, and Respawn won’t save you.”

“Please, there’s no way you’d be able to turn off Respawn. Right?”

“Do you really want to test that theory when I have a gun pointed at your face?”

“Understood ma’am.

Spy asked the question he usually asked when it came to missions, “What are our covers?”

“I’m so glad you asked!” she actually did seem a little glad, if not like she had a plan up her sleeves. Passing out a small pile of identifications and a sheet of paper to each man, she explained, “Your name, Sniper, is going to be Michael. You’re married to Spy. His temporary name is Samuel.”

“Like hell I’m going to marry the spook!” he looked at him, “Ugh, can’t even imagine kissing you.”

“I can imagine it,” he gagged, “You probably taste like the coffee you drink all day.”

“And you probably taste like week-old cigarettes.”

Before they could descend into stupidity, she pulled out a whistle, blowing on it hard, “Get yourselves together! You’re trained killers, not toddlers who can’t share a toy.”

They shared a look of disgust.

“Listen. It’s three days. You can get over yourselves for three days. It’s only 72 hours, probably less if you get there and back faster. And, once you’re back, you can go to town on each other all you want.”

Sniper took a deep breath, gathering himself. She had a point-- he was supposed to be polite, efficient. And, well, he could just get it over with and then he’d never have to think about it again. “I’ll do it. Sorry for the… outburst.”

“Thank you, for cooperating like an adult. Spy?”

“If I leave him to die, can I collect his paychecks?”

“Spy.”

“Sorry, sorry-- I jest. I’ll do it.”

~ Scene Break ~

So as not to arouse suspicion when they’re at the gala, Sniper plans to take his van, but leave it some ways away from the venue. Getting into it brings some comfort to the fact that he has to work with Spy for this mission.

What was it he hated so much about him, though? Was it the snobbishness, the way he was just an asshole to everyone, or something else?

“This is what we’re staying in for the next several days? I think I’d prefer death by fire to this.”

Ah, it was definitely the way he was a snobbish asshole.

“Get over yourself, Spy. Like it or not, this is where we’re gonna live together, for a bit.”

“I’ll do it, but I’m going to complain the whole time.”

“Do that and I gag you with that mask of yours.” Sniper got into the driver’s seat as Spy got into the Passenger’s.

“You might as well drive a mile away and shoot out my tongue at that point. It’s so typical of you to run away from your problems.”

“Well look who’s talking! Scout’s your damn kid and he doesn’t know-- you really think you’ve got legs to stand on here? You- you get too close, Spy.”

“And you’re too far away. I get up close because that's the only way for me to kill.

“These three days better pass fast.” he growled.

“That’s one thing we can agree on.”

A few hours passed, where Spy found that he had fallen asleep. He awoke to the sounds of Sniper humming to some quiet song, a smile on his face— the sunlight shone into his beautiful brown eyes. How could someone he never really liked have such a fairytale face?

He dismissed the thought, going back to sleep after his momentary - severe - lapse in judgement.

[bullet-prooflove]

Hallmark!Series Part Seven: Baby Talk - Joe Velasco x Reader

Tagging: @plaidbooks @misscharlielulu @witches-unruly-heart @storiesofsvu @magic-multicolored-miracle @rosaliedepp @cycat4077 @deekaag @cixrosie @im-just-a-mississippi-girl @legit9thlunaticwarrior @thatesqcrush @mydarkestsecretlol @upsteadlogic @wooshwastaken @imaginecrushes @thiashazzy @kiwiithecrazybird @justreblogginfics @anime-weeb-4-life @hey-dw @alwaysachorusgirl @telepathay @weiwei0210 @spaghettificationandpretzels @nu1freakshow @resonmalvo @littleone65 @thesandbeneathmytoes @evee87 @hearthockey @whateversomethingbruh @burningpeachpuppy @legit9thlunaticwarrior @spooky-pomegranate

Hallmark!Series:

Hallmark (feat: Mike Duarte) - Joe watches you fall in love with another man.

Be With Me (feat: Mike Duarte) - Joe tells you how he feels.

Placeholder (feat: Mike Duarte)  - Mike fears he’s a placeholder.

Think About It (feat: Mike Duarte) - Joe recalls what happened the night of Fin's engagement party.

Positive - Mike finds out about what happened between you and Joe.

Five Months - You and Mike catch up.

Joe finds out you’re back with Duarte when a friend from another precinct sends a picture of the two of you in a Cuban restaurant in the Bronx. It’s an intimate setting. The two of you are sitting across from each other, there’s a candle in the middle of the table. Duarte’s hand rests on yours, that amused smile on his features as you laugh at something he says. Your free hand rests on the place where his baby resides.

Joe doesn’t know why it hurts so much. You’ve made it clear you don’t want to be with him, he accepts that, respects it, but seeing you play happy families with Duarte, it stings. He can already see his future stretching out in front of him, him left out in the cold, seeing his kid on weekends while you and Duarte raise his daughter. Christ it feels like someone’s ripped his heart right out of his chest every time he thinks about it.

“I hear you and Duarte are back together.” He says when the two of you meet up before the sonogram appointment. He’s both excited and a little nervous because today he gets to hear his baby’s heartbeat for the first time. He tears the edges off the paper sugar packet, piling the strips up in a small heap. It’s gesture you recognise from your time together as partners.

“We’re taking it slow.” You tell him as you sip from a cup of decaf tea. “We’ve had a few dates; he seems to be adapting to the situation.”

“You mean the fact you’re having my baby?” Joe asserts, his elbows coming to rest upon the surface of the table.

“And the fact we’re going to co-parent her.” You input before leaning back in your seat, palm smoothing over your stomach. “It’s a complicated situation for all of us. He’s dating the girl that got knocked up by her partner. It’s an adjustment.”

“You been catching flack for that?” Joe asks you, his eyes flickering up to meet yours.

“Not in the unit.” You tell him and he knows that while he’s getting a clap on the back for knocking you up, you’re being branded a slut, especially now your back with Duarte. “Before the baby, I probably would have given a shit about it but now…”

You smile as you cradle the bump between your hands.

“The things I used to worry about don’t really matter as much.”

Joe knows what you’re talking about. There’s so much stupid, petty shit he used to think about before the baby but now it all seems irrelevant because all he cares about is his kid and making sure she’s happy and healthy.

“I want to be a part of this.” He tells you, clasping his hands together on the surface of the table. “I want to be as involved as I can. I want time to bond with my daughter, to feed her, to sooth her. If Duarte has to be a part of that, I’ll find a way to get cool with it, but I don’t want to be shut out if the two of you decide you want to play happy families.”

“Joe…” You say reaching across the table and clasping his hand. “I’m not going to cut you out of our daughter’s life just because Mike’s back on the scene. We made this baby together and I promise we’re going to raise her together.”

You reach into your handbag and pull out an A5 notepad before flicking to the page you want and turning it around to face him.

“I tried to put a schedule together for after the baby is born, you can change whatever you want but I was thinking, you can do the afternoons or evenings. Feed her, bath her, put her down for bed, I read that’s the best way for you to bond with her. We stick to a routine, keep it consistent.”

Joe holds it between his hands, studying it intently. On paper it holds up, he thinks he should be able to stick to it when he takes paternity leave. He’s willing to pitch in at other times if you need it, he knows it’s important to be both flexible and consistent.

“We can work on it as things change.” He tells you, handing the notepad back. “But I’m happy with what you’ve got down here, it’s a lot more than I expected.”

“If you want more or less or if we need to switch something up, just tell me and we can figure it out.” You tell him. “This only works if we communicate openly with each other and that means on everything, not just scheduling. If there’s something that makes you uncomfortable, I want you to be able to discuss it with me.”

There’s a silence between the two of you before Joe gaze lowers to coffee cup.

“I don’t want Duarte to replace me.” He says quietly as his thumb chases over the porcelain.  “I’m happy for him to be in her life but I don’t want him to become her dad, I just…”

He trails off, trying to swallow hard against the ache in his chest because this baby hasn’t even been born yet and already, he has so much love for her it hurts.

“Nobody wants that.” You reassure him, dipping your head so that you can meet his gaze. “There’s going to be stuff that me and you go through that Mike won’t be able to understand, he’ll try to but…”

You shake your head.

“At the end of the day I’m her mom, you’re her dad. There is no one in this world who could love this baby more than the two of us.”

Joe looks up at you, his eyes meeting yours and you see the man that you’ve spent the past two years partnered with, the one you’ve trusted with your life, and you know that like you he will do everything in his power to make this arrangement work. Your daughter is the most important thing in the world to the two of you.

You feel a flutter in your belly, and you reach out, taking Joe’s hand in yours before pressing it to your stomach.

“She’s kicking again.” You say and Joe smiles as he feels the baby’s foot nudging against his palm. “She must recognise your voice.”

“You think?” He asks you, his entire face lighting up as he follows the baby’s movements.

“Yea Joe.” You tell him. “I think she knows her daddy.”

Like My Work? - Why Not Buy Me A Coffee

[memento-rory]

Tw: talk about Euthanization of a Cat

Hi Rory, just a small info i may read through your entire Masterlist tomorrow because we have to bring our cat Apollo to the Vet, he's not doing too well, we already thought he'd pass two days ago but he's been fighting since.

And we're suspecting that the vet is gonna tell us that we'll probably have to euthanize him.

I mean he deserves to rest he's 16, has had a wonderful life full of love and cuddles but it's still so sad because he's the last cat that i grew up along side the other two already died years back.

This is Apollo by the way, this is from a few months ago where he was still doing better.

(you can post this dw)

oh icarus i’m so sorry! the loss of a pet is always so rough. they’re just as much family as anything or anyone else. i’ll be thinking of y’all tomorrow. 🩵

[ilovebeingaturtle]

Hello! I don't mean to be rude or rush you, but I wanted to ask if you are continuing For Future Reference?

Hope you have a good day!

Not rude at all!! Thanks for asking!!

I’m definitely continuing, I know it’s probably been so frustrating seeing me promise it’s coming back so many times and it’s still been like-so long since I last updated, I’m beyond sorry about that

I can’t promise when? I do want to get the next few out before the end of the year, but yeah-it’s really just a matter of me getting my brain back onto the writing train after being off it so long. I had like…a super bad rough few months, which is why it went on hiatus in the first place, and while things are better now it’s yeah. Just a matter of me getting back in the swing of things

It’s absolutely not discontinued though!! Dw, I wouldn’t just be ghosting if that was the case, I really want to continue it and so many other writing projects I’ve had planned for so long, it’s just-aa! Yeah! Brain! And life! Aa!!! I’ll figure it out

Thank you for sticking with man, it means the world-I hope you have a good day too!

[duochromium]

thought i’d make an “ongoing projects list” for the few who are gonna go to my profile and read this so here is the december 11 2023 deer fanfic status report, ordered from highest priority to lowest priority, where for once i actually go into detail about the wip projects of mine

-

first on our list is a fanfic i started on saturday night, ‘The Ferryman’. it’s a short oneshot focusing on Eiki, Komachi, and their boss/worker dynamic and also what their life actually is like over in higan. the premise is just eiki joining komachi on break to go skip stones and talk and they eventually just start talking about how they actually view the other, friendship development heartfelt moment etc etc (it is NOT yuri. i would NEVER write about women falling in love)

it’s the first in a series of unconnected oneshots where i write about characters i’ve never studied before (credits to riguren for the idea). it’s not gonna have much going on and all of the works in the series will probably be really light hearted. i’m most likely doing Satori next since the one time i’ve written her seriously she was just Grumpy because i haven’t studied her before. anyways this oneshot series is going to contain zero romance because i want to explore more non-romantic relationships but dw more homosexuality coming soon

ferryman is currently 1,022 words

-

second in my priority list is a fic I started all the way back in late July. this one is OLD old. the title is, i shit you not,

‘You know the song by Phil Collins, "In the Air of the Night" about that guy who coulda saved that other guy from drownin' but didn't, then Phil saw it all, then at a show he found him?’

it fits in the ao3 title character limit. i’ve checked. the title has literally no connection to the story itself. it’s a line from Eminem - Stan. i’ll get to how i came up with it later.

so the actual premise is flandre is bored so sakuya takes her on a night walk, then the two creeps meet the grassroots trio (wakasagihime, sekibanki, and kagerou if yall dk) and it’s basically just flandre having no social skills and the grassroots being absolutely terrified of these two widely known and feared people in gensokyo who are actually much politer than they ever could have expected. it also contains a yukkuri joke that i am considering writing out because it didn’t land well

as for how i got to the name, here is a message i sent to my friend on discord three days after starting it:

so my thought process was basically:

“ok well maybe call it night walk”

“nah too boring. maybe something that describes a specific aspect?”

“oh I could call it ‘in the air of the night’ which is some phrase I heard somewhere”

“hey where did I hear that phrase”

“oh yeah an Eminem lyric”

“Fuck it. Title it the original Eminem lyric.”

hilarious yes i know. in the air of the night is currently 2,488 words (I ONLY PICKED IT BACK UP RECENTLY FORGIVE ME)

-

third up is that elusive “Experimental Oneshot” i’ve been talking about in my notes for the past two months. it is called “They Beat The Shit Out of Each Other at The End” for obvious reasons. it’s basically just a crackship except they’re friends instead of lovers

so our first protagonist is reimu. she’s really lonely and sad so she gets even more lonely and sad and also way too drunk and lies on her front porch all night crying because what else do you do

our second protagonist is cirno. she’s walking through the forest at like 2am alone because she wants to challenge reimu to a rematch. and also because she’s a dumbass

the two meet and through cirno’s stubbornness and reimu’s drunkenness the two are locked in a stalemate on reimu’s front porch which eventually leads to actual conversation and before you know it they’re actually starting to enjoy each other’s company

eventually day breaks and cirno still wants that fight so it happens and the entire second half of the fic, the fight, is just a really long “hmm rumia ex? what if there was cirno ex where she was just ice goku” joke and she kind of kicks reimu’s shit in. it’s gonna be great and she is not going to respect spell card rules at all

currently 2,778 words

-

numba four is uhh. actually this one is probably above the night walk one so consider it second place it’s modern technology chapter 4. sanae and reimu and marisa play a game of monopoly together and get really fucking mad. that’s the entire premise. only 701 words so far i know that is nothing but i have NOT been on my a game lately. gonna be peak though i swear it

-

and that is all, actually! i also have many unstarted ideas, i might do a sequel to this post tomorrow where i talk about those

thank you for reading (no tags this one is only 4 my loyal followers)

[lume-nosity]

never thought i’d ever make this post, but here we are. this is just an update since i haven’t been very active here (this blog specifically)

i’ve realized that i haven’t been writing anything for the course of 5+ months because i’m more focused on school, trying to adjust to young adulthood, and thinking about what other careers/hobbies i want to pursue in so it kinda drew me away from sitting down to write something. along with burnout, so that’s… yeah. sorry all.

the thing is i was really trying to get back into writing something but that’ll be once in a blue moon most likely. perhaps something not fandom related or something, but who knows? other than that i just wanted to say this for those who did follow me solely for my fics and such, so you’re free to unfollow if you fall along those lines.

as of late i haven’t been feeling like writing at all, and yet writing is the reason why i’m here via tumblr. but i’m probably going to be ia for the time being until i feel like writing again. (if that ever happens) though i’ll probably be lurking most of the time, so if you see me interact with your post or pop in your inbox then hello :3!! also mutuals if you want to get in contact with me in some way outside of tumblr you can ask for my disc or game users (via genshin, pjsk, hsr, roblox)

so what’s the takeaway? i think i need to step down from social media and not feel forced to post fics or anything. maybe that writing motivation i’ve been longing for will come back naturally, even if it takes a few months or even years. so i wouldn’t really say i’m “quitting” it’s more like a “half-vacation.” if you get what i mean. even when i say this, it’s most likely that i’m going to upload a shitpost or anything along those lines on my spam/main depending on how i feel at the moment, just saying.

if i were to really leave writing behind me, and for you guys to say that you get inspiration from me or you just enjoy my works, then thank you for giving me a chance to try to warm your hearts in the form of writing, as cheesy as that may sound. i’ve enjoyed doing it a lot! i really do. but now i need to slowly transition into adulthood and actually have that “adult” mindset. (s i g h)

so yeah! this is all i wanted to say for a long time. thanks for reading. i love each and every single one of you <3

also we’re keeping the lumine theme for some time because i’m too lazy to change it (and besides lume is very similar to lumine so it’s cool) and sorry that i haven’t been answering asks here omg

edit: sooo i decided to just leave my navigation as is just so if there’s anyone that wants to look at my old stuff via: writing, edits, etc. so they’re safe and they won’t get deleted, dw!

the only difference is that i won’t write as much or at all anymore. (burnout, boredom, thinking about what i’ll do after graduation, slowly transitioning to adulthood, etc..) i’ll try to be active on this blog more often, but it’s mostly for interactions and stuff along those lines.

also as for how active i’ll be, that’ll depend on the day/week. sometimes i’m free, sometimes i’m not, so it entirely depends. midterms/finals are when i’ll be ia no exceptions, but if i have absolutely no work/assignments then i could pop in here. if i feel as if i want to take a day or so off of tumblr then that’ll happen as well.

basically, i’m in and out, but i lurk often. that’s the best way i could put this in.

i’ll probably make a pinned for these things just so all of this is out there

[superborb]

What am I looking for in fandom?

Overly emotional late night posts are obviously always a good idea, right? A locked post on my flist was talking about bygone fannish communities; as I'm still in between fandoms and driven by the fact that I'm trying to decide if I should give Tumblr another shot or return to Twitter or whatever*, I fell back into contemplating what I'm looking for in fandom and if I can still find it in 2023. *It's totally fine to come back six months later, crossposting, right? :D? Also, I'm especially curious what people have to say and it is late and my judgement-- questionable. Because my kneejerk reaction is community, right? That's what drew me into fandom, the love for a canon but also the search for other people to talk about it and explore it with in a way largely separate from any commercial transactions. And yeah, I'll always seek out people I find interesting and who are easy to learn from, but if that was all, I'd still just be RSS feeding it up. But I feel like I do have that, so what am I doing wrong? On DW, I have a reasonably active flist, though it is nearly entirely media recs, with some personal and fandoms-I'm-not-in posts mixed in. I guess it doesn't scratch the fandom itch because even if a book is being passed around (very fun!), it's still at most one discrete post per person + comments. Mastodon is not quite active enough to feel like a community yet, just a somewhat scattered group chat. I guess the closest I have right now is Discord: I moderate a cnovel reading group where we're currently reading Little Mushroom and so chat multiple times through the week about it (unfortunately, Little Mushroom IMO is not... good enough to stand up to this treatment...)! In two separate servers, I now have weekly watch parties! And I'm reading fic and assembling a DCU recslist (tentative subtitle: 20 years of DCU), so I'm doing something concrete with fannish energy, even if it's a fandom where I chat with one other person in. I guess I have a few horrible hypotheses, some more horrible than others: 1. I miss scrolling through stuff and keeping up with a busy large group. On LJ, I would routinely be ?skip=100 daily; on Twitter I used to spend around 1.5 h daily keeping up. This would suck because it would imply that I'm superficial and primarily satisfied with parasocially looking at people's (fannish) lives lol. 2. The obvious: I'm not really emotionally invested in any fandoms right now, and idly chatting about jpop or BLs or cdramas are not the same as being all in on a single canon, thinking about and reading meta/fics. But I was (probably?) satisfied looking at fandom from afar for the decade I was out, with only sporadic commenting as engagement. 3. The most impossible to fix: displaced stress over something completely different. 4. I'm looking for something that isn't present in those existing avenues: lots of in depth meta. While I stayed subscribed to lots of authors on AO3 and found new authors to subscribe to, the meta writers slowly changed Tumblrs (which broke my RSS connection) or left fandom and I didn't search out more. Maybe fixable? Tumblr meta is so much harder to find, and also I'm older now and my standards have gone up (as I discovered when I was going through my old Pinboard links), but it... still exists somewhere I'm sure. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Maybe I'll try Tumblr again and focus on meta writers?

On DW: https://superborb.dreamwidth.org/494109.html

[absolutelydw]

“ I’d rather just fuck on my ex again” - Sza, Open Arms

For most of us, hearing the Queen herself say such a blasphemous thing was appalling and we were looking around thinking BE FOR REAL. Myself included.

I’ve even had this conversation with some of my friends and the opinion of the people is mixed.

My take on it is this - ABSOLUTELY.

Hear me out -

In the year 2023, three whole months in.. we know dating is trash. No one wants the commitment, they all want the milk without nurturing the cow. I get it. It’s a fast paced world and if I can get it now, why wait until later. The majority of the singles in 2023 are trash. The straights, the gays, the bilaterals, xyz’s and the 123s… all trash.

just typing that I can hear the few people whom I know, saying - not mine! My person is a star.. better than most, speak for yourself, you just haven’t found the right one or ma’am you’re wrong - my man, my man, my man… she/he/it’s totally different.

But let’s be fuckin forreal. You’re either a. in denial - like the river in egypt, b. still in the honeymoon phase. incapable of seeing the bright red flags c. in the phase where you’ve been together for years and would sit in the bathroom while your person takes their morning/evening poop if you wanted to OR d. you simply agree.

Choose your fighter.

if I had to choose between fuckin on my ex again OR go into the world for ONE NIGHT ONLY, you bet your bottom dollar bucko - I’d fuck on my ex again.. and I’d welcome him with open arms.

It’s controversial, I know. But for ME, dw I need to know more about you other than you were cute when I swiped or you have a tattoo of my favorite NSYNC song title. I’d like to know your hygiene habits, do you have one of those LOVE LIVE LAUGH signs in your home and whether or not you pronounce the L in salmon before I let you touch my body…. Even if it’s for one night only. if I was able to share my sexcapades on beyonces internet, I would…. Probably wouldn’t but if we need to have a few horror stories let me know and I’ll share. Knowledge is power and if I can help the people avoid their energy being shared with some of the fecal matters finest. I will.

ANYWAY. Having this conversation with the people has been a mixture of the absolutely not's and no, you’re right’s. While I understand wEr’E nOt gOiNg bAcKwArDs and time moves forward, I would rather get my back scratched by a good back scratcher I’ve used before… before using plastic, if you catch my drift… and before swiping on fuckboy central I’d pull out the plastic. However - Me being a Scorpio Sun, Pisces Moon, Scorpio Rising I’m indecisive and the way my pride, overthinking, and future trippin is set up… I’ll be in my fuckin bed with my snacks, good time tv, heater on and window cracked. All the while, scrolling on the tikkytok, Instagram and reading a book.. all at the same damn time.

but that’s just me, do you.

I have to also add, this was written at 5a on the elliptical, from my cellular phone. I feel like Rev Run in the tub writing words of wisdom... but its just meeeee, good ol' dw with her words of fuckery to keep the people goin. its provocative. we love it.

[heterho]

ahhh i'm so embarrassed i forgot to sign my last message. at least i've managed to consistently send anonymous which is another fear. action and comedy are so good though! mp100 is definitely a favorite of mine, jjk and hq are also up there! a big part of it was probably me starting on action/comedy anime. i'm wondering, what was your first anime? - secret santa (who remembered to sign off for once, go me)

hello hello !! (´• ω •`) ♡ AAA dw omg, bahaha you got it this time !! i also get so scared i’ll send an ask off anonymous lol i have to stare at it for like a solid ten seconds just to make sure i’m not hallucinating the anon icon LOL. ahh yesssss, mp100, jjk, and hq are awesome!!!

ooh this is such an interesting question !! i remember i tried getting into a few different animes growing up, like pretty cure and danganronpa, but i don’t really count them looking back because i didn’t really get invested/properly watch them. so i think my first anime i fully got into was boku no hero academia! i would have started watching it around this time exactly like, four year ago whoa haha, it’s crazy for me to look back on, since i was barely into anime at all beforehand, save for the rare attempts, and exclusively watched cartoons. i think i came across fanart of todoroki and shigaraki/toga/dabi during the summertime that year and i was like, oh this zuko looking dude looks pretty cool, and he has an azula-esque brother or something, maybe i’ll take the chance and check this out even though it’s vastly different from what i usually watch. i ended up loving it and binge watching the first three seasons in a few months !!!

it’s so weird reflecting on it now, bnha was such a big part of my life like three years ago and my doorway into anime. i haven’t kept up with it in a long time now but i hear stuff every now and then, it sounds like it got really wild (i still keep my todoroki header tho haha). it’s funny because i think that’s the same experience for a lot of people, idk if bnha is as popular as it was back in 2018-2019 but i know then for some people it was like an entrance anime. you mentioned you started on action/comedy anime, so i wonder if it was the same for you ?? (*°▽°*)

[narsicen]

Part: 1/2

Word Count:  18,101 (for both parts)

Pairing: Bang Chan (Skz) x GN! Reader

Genre: slice of life, college!au, lab partners!au, loving from afar, angst, fluff, bittersweet, Popular!Y/n, Quiet kid!Chan, first loves, meet cute,

Warnings: mentions of coffee, if there is anything triggering I missed, please tell me!

A/N: omg???? Me????? Posting?????? And writing????? Lol uhm I’m currently still in hiatus, just barely LMAOAOOA so I haven’t been able to do anything for the past months because well, I’m so burnt out with writing but i haven’t lost passion for it so dw, next I actually have some stories piled up for posting but I want to keep it that way to even out my content and because I take hELLA LONG?? To WRITE???? So kdhvkshghsdg so sorry everyone. but luckily, I already have the next few fics planned so hopefully if i can jusst follow my plan, then i should get them down with soon, btw I’m thinking of focusing on this series first before requests, becauSEEE, I’m passionate abt this LAIKAJSISO but i also rlly wanna explore how I’ll write these and I’ve planned like 3 of the other stories already so HSDLJHSdh

Part 2

Story under the cut!

A particular “ping” made Chan perk up from the pile of open books that lay on top of each other. He scrambled through the various papers of printed essays and research papers, throwing some discarded, crumpled, paper planes off the table.

“Hi, Chris! (Please tell me I got the right person) This is Y/N, your new science lab partner. I hope we can work together and cooperate :) P.S if you aren’t Chris from class - AB 3 please text me back as soon as possible thank you!”

Chan’s eyes grew with awe and he wore his signature grin as he read your text message. This must be the first- no probably the second time he’s ever been so excited to meet his new lab partner. (he hates science and he hates most of his lab partners)

“Hellooo Y/N, this is Chris, I can’t wait to work with you as well. To be honest, I was starting to get a little worried that I gave you the wrong number.”

Chan went through with his message for the third time, hoping it didn’t sound off or rude. The last thing he ever wanted to do was to give you a bad first impression on the lab partner you’d be stuck with for the next few months.

Through the countless times he’s tried to alter his words and maybe add a few emoticons and emojis to the message, he just either came off as a try-hard or some cringe dad.

He fiddled with his fingers behind his phone, thinking of some way to make up for how stiff his message came off. In the end, he settled for the “grinning face with sweat” emoji (according to Google, he had to make sure it didn’t come off weird) (he’s not weird I promise)

Pressing the little green “send’ button after a while of waiting. A hand flew to his eyes just as the messaging app made a small “whoosh” sound effect, indicating the message was successfully sent.

Ever since he set foot onto the new campus grounds of his university, ever since he caught a glimpse of the first few students that huddled at a table or two near the front gate. He’s heard your name from students left, right, behind, and above.

He’s heard all about you, not in a creepy way, of course, people just couldn’t keep their noses out of other people’s lives. Chan thought it must be hard to get so much constant attention from everyone around you, that sometimes it made him thank the heavens above for his lack of social interaction.

But even with this pet peeve, at times, he’d curiously listen to the things others say about you, it could be when he passed by some students in the cafeteria or by the lockers or even from students a chair or two away from him in class.

And you seemed like a nice person; he could see you being the protagonist of every superhero movie. Sometimes he’d wonder what it would be like to actually get to know you other than to just piece things together from a few “I heard Y/N loves dogs”.

You’ve done many admirable things that even he seemed to adore you from afar just like the rest, not in a creepy way, again. You sounded like a likable person with a lovable personality, and he wanted to get to know you as a friend.

He eventually planned to get closer to you,

but he’s just someone else in the crowd.

Sure he had friends, he’s gotten recognition for awards he’d get from swimming competitions or spelling bees’ maybe, but he’s just but in the end he wasn’t any different from the rest.

And you’re- you’re THE Y/N, who’s on the stage.

Do you know that kind of feeling?

He isn’t- crushing on you per se, he’s admiring you, he’d call it. Whenever he’d walk past your desk after finishing his paper earlier than you, or when he’d pass by you laughing with your friends, he’d just feel like he wanted to talk to you, there’s just something about you that pushes him to get closer to you.

And he was just fond of you. You can’t like someone in these types of conditions. Well, technically, it shouldn’t be possible.

He’s read and heard of love at first sight, but he’s just glanced at you, for all of his days in this pit you’d call college. There was just 0 to nothing for him to be crushing on you after hearing about you? seeing your eyes? and hearing your laugh? He knew himself, he wasn’t that easy.

He’s sure of it... At least he believes he’s sure of it.

“Oh.. haha, my bad! I really didn’t think you were waiting for my text but I guess this was my fault for making you worry.”

You seemed awfully sweet.

Chan held back a small smile at your message, it’s just as if he could hear your little voice in the back of his head.

“So.. Chris... Can I call you that? Let’s get to know each other soon! We could probably get some coffee.? Or if you’re not into that, what would you like to do? We need to be on good terms to work better together right?”

Oh my goodness.

Chan’s smile dropped almost immediately as he read your message. Oh no... Goodness no.

He set his phone down and looked at the wall in front of him, aimlessly trying to think of a reasonable answer, or even contemplating whether he should go or not, this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

I could meet with them and get to know them, they have a point, we have to be on good terms for us to work together better. But going would put them in an awkward situation of always starting up a conversation-!

His thoughts ran wild as he thought further into the question. He ran his hands into his hair, messing his curls up and aggressively ruffling them as he groaned loudly at himself.

Chan’s eyes closed in an attempt to think straight, he can’t leave you hanging for so long.

As he slowly opened his eyes, he eyed the text message of yours and with a heavy sigh, he told himself, Screw the consequences.

“You can call me Chan or Chris, whichever is comfortable for you, and sure, we can go get some coffee sometime.”

Chan mentally cursed at the haste of his fingers and as he read back his message, he did sound a little … stoic? He seemed to be a dry person on text, he is, but he doesn't want to talk about it.

“Great! There’s this new coffee shop in my district, wanna check it out together then? How’s Friday after classes?”

~

‘Um- Excuse me..? Y/N, right?’ Chan awkwardly gripped his bag strap, squeezing it tightly as he watched you turn your head to him with the warmest smile he’s ever gotten all year.

Oh my goodness

‘Oh- uh yep! That’s me, and you’re Chan right?’

Oh my goodness

Chan blinked for a few moments before nodding his head quickly, you chuckled slightly at his (very obvious) nervous reaction. You two awkwardly sat in your positions, weirdly looking at each other, waiting for the other to say something or to do something.

Maybe you two were just the same despite how different your worlds were.

‘Uhh.. h-have you ordered anything-?’ Chan scratched his neck to seem “natural” even if it wasn’t doing much anyway.

You forced a small cough into your fist just as you laughed awkwardly, breaking the weird eye contact you two just had. ‘No- uh- ye-yeah! Yeah.. I did, I didn’t know what you liked though so I just ordered you something simple.’

A small sorry smile crept to your face as you slowly looked back at the boy. ‘Sorry..’

O h. M y. G o o d n e s s.

Chan returned the smile with his own, a very very awkward, lopsided smile. ‘It’s fine- I like coffee any-‘

‘Two orders for Y/N? Please come to the counter to claim your orders!’ One of the workers from the counter yelled.

The two of you perked up to look in the direction of the counter.

‘Oh- well, I’ll go get our orders, you can go ahead and sit down. I'll be right back!’ You scrambled to pile your things together out of habit as you quickly gestured to the chair across your own to Chan.

Chan nodded timidly as he watched you get up to get to the counter. Just as you turned your back from him, he hugged his bag in front of him as he weirdly settled into his chair.

Slowly starting to feel more awkward by the second, he squeezed his bag closer to his torso, feeling eyes on his back despite no one really caring about what he or you did at all.

He fiddled with his bag strap, wrapping and unwrapping it around his finger as he waited for you to come back with your drinks.

It might have been a few minutes or even less than a minute, but to him, it just felt so different to be in this kind of setting where he thought everyone was looking at him.

How could you be in this type of environment every day and not freak out?

He thought you were amazing for that.

‘Hey! What’s got you so deep into thought? You seem bothered, is there something wrong?’ You offered him that same warm smile you gave him earlier. He realized how you were already sitting across from him.

As he looked up to meet your eyes, he could see your smile grow as you chuckled softly while you waved your hand in front of him.

He shook his head slowly, ‘No, I was just- thinking of ways to not mess up our conversation you know?’ You both laughed at his rough attempt to joke around. He’s more than glad that you think it was funny too.

~

Chan couldn’t hold back a hearty laugh as you told one of your goofy stories with the other friends of yours back at the university.

Chan thought his friend group was the wackiest but you seem to be just as wacky.

You couldn’t continue on as you laughed just as loud as Chan at your own stories. You had this side that made him adore you, even more, you were as everyone told him, probably the next best person to be living and breathing right now.

You two ended up having the weirdest stories ranging from science theories to Harry Potter books and now to embarrassing stories either you or your friends experienced.

I mean, at least the conversation didn’t end, right?

As soon as you were about to finish the story, an employee approached you two and told you that the shop was going to be closing soon so they should prepare to leave soon. You two didn’t notice how some of the people in the coffee shop had left already, there were still many for the capacity of the coffee shop, but it was calmer as compared to how it was when you two met up earlier.

Chan’s laughter calmed down as he blinked a small tear away from laughing too much, both of you following what the worker told you to do soon after. And as you two quietly packed your things away and grabbed your unfinished drinks to go with you, Chan would laugh softly at the remembrance of your story and you would accompany him with a giggle of your own.

While you two headed out of the coffee shop, Chan held the door for you to go first, he urged you to go before he did but you did the same as you joked how you two could (should) “equally” exit the coffee shop.

You were slightly embarrassed at how he held the door open for you, but in the end, you had to accept it with a laugh into your fist to ease your embarrassment.

‘Well.. that was a great story.’ Chan chuckled

You smiled softly at his little chuckle, you two awkwardly looked down at your shoes, and the surroundings around you two started to darken into a dark indigo color.

‘Uh-m I guess- this is goodbye..?’ Chan put up a small grin and a small unsure shrug.

You nodded your head timidly at his attempt to say goodbye. ‘I mean.. congratulations on not messing up our conversations today, I really had fun.’

You both giggled at your joke, referencing what Chan said earlier that afternoon.

This time, the both of you didn’t want the conversation to end, you two seemed like you wanted to keep talking and telling more stories, but unfortunately, every day had to end at some point.

‘I guess.. I’ll see you tomorrow then…? In the lab?’ You subtly asked the boy, you subconsciously played with your fingers as you held onto your notebook.

To this, he grinned.

‘I’ll.. see you tomorrow.’

~

Chan slumped into the metal chair facing the empty train tracks, he felt exhausted, not from your conversation today, but because of how much he’s been outside, talking to someone.

He felt like he had run a marathon, his eyes drooped and his legs felt like jelly.

“The train heading to _________ district 8 will be arriving in 30 minutes”

A goofy smile appeared as he thought about your little hang-out earlier, you were so nice and you just had something that made him excited.

And he wanted to tell you something funny again to hear you laugh. He thought that you had the prettiest smile as well, and in whatever you did, you were always so accommodating, it made him feel all warm and nice inside.

You were just too good to be true sometimes. He’s spent half the afternoon with you and he can conclude that you were probably the only other person he would love to talk to forever.

Okay, maybe not forever.. regardless, a long time especially for someone like him.

He couldn’t wait for tomorrow.

“Train ___ heading to _______ district 8 is arriving, please stay behind the yellow tape. Have a safe trip.”

The faint noise from the train coming from the tunnel signaled Chan to stand up, he waddled to stand right before the yellow line on the ground just as how the intercom advised.

He couldn’t wipe his smile off his face, even if his cheeks started to ache slightly, he felt excited.

Maybe this is what they meant how you’d feel when you take coffee.

Like a shot of espresso

Was it the americano you ordered him?

Or was it how you stayed and listened?

~

Maybe Chan should consider skipping lab period next time.

He dropped a flask.

Spilled someone else’s chemistry experiment on their papers.

Left the burner on for a minute too late

Possibly ruined your guys’ experiment

And bombed the first performance task he had to do with you.

Bombed as in nearly blew something in his face because he forgot to label some of the flasks.

What’s wrong with him today? He’s flunked his chances on impressing you, you'll never deem him worthy to be your lab partner now.

Well, one of the good things that happened was he didn’t end up in the infirmary after everything he’s gone through.

But you burnt your hand because you were trying to save the experiment that nearly evaporated.

For the rest of the day, he felt nothing but guilt and a load of angry judgmental stares from people all around the campus, even some of the freshmen he met gave him the stink eye!

Though it did wear off after a few hours of Chan cooping himself up in the library to avoid all the stares. He’s spent too much time hiding, he forgot why he was doing it in the first place, and he forgot to visit you in the infirmary after the class ended.

Chan’s head perked up from the book he enclosed in front of his face, his eyebrows furrowed as he tried to recall if he ever walked to the infirmary and talked to you. Chan groaned internally at the results of nothing but speed walking down the halls to the library.

But it was past after-school hours and you definitely didn’t need to stay too long for a minor burn. He dropped his head low as he hid behind the book, he bit his lip in regret and cursed himself for forgetting, today might mark the day he’s going to find a new lab partner.

‘You do know the book you’re reading is upside down right?’ You awkwardly sat beside him, you didn’t know whether you two were comfortable with this distance.

Chan’s eyes widened, he stammered and stumbled over his words with ease.

‘No- I- wh- urghm..- w-what are you doing here?’ He struggled to flip the book the other way in haste, he looked back and forth between you and the book as he did.

You couldn’t help but laugh quietly at his “misfortunes”, you raised your hand over your mouth to muffle the sounds of your giggling, the librarian at school was a nightmare to argue with, you experienced that first-hand and you’re not making that same mistake again.

‘Keep your voice down, miss Olivia is not someone you’d want to mess with.’ You jest as you leaned in closer to whisper with a thumb pointing behind you, to a fairly young woman in her 30s glaring at the two of you from the other end of the library.

‘Oh-.. yeah… no kidding, she lectured me 4 times today for trying to use her ladder to get books,’ Chan mumbled, and with a sigh, he closed the book in his hands and raised it beside his head as he faced you. ‘Especially for this book.’

With a slightly uneasy frown, he glared at Miss Olivia’s back as she was taking her sweet time using her ladder to organize a row of books.

‘The book wasn’t even interesting..’ Chan huffed, this made you laugh again, he even joined you in laughing quietly.

If someone ever came across the two of you, they’d claim how ridiculous you too looked trying to laugh without a single squeak, possibly having freaked a freshman or two from the tables across Chan’s table.

~

‘Well.. maybe Miss Olivia was right, maybe we should have thought of leaving the library if we were just going to joke about how she dressed.’ Chan guffawed, he bent forward slightly, clutching his stomach as he laughed a little too hard.

‘Goodness, who thought you had the guts to actually question Miss Olivia.’ This time you laughed.

As the laughter died slowly into a comfortable silence, at least for you. As for Chan, he thought it might have made you uncomfortable until the lingering idea at the back of his head hit him right in the face.

‘Your hand!’ Chan’s thoughts spoke, quite literally.

‘Oh geez- you scared me,’ You chuckled as you flinched to look at his sudden outburst.

‘Oh I'm sorry I- I forgot to visit you at the.. infirmary this afternoon, and I am also sorry for.. burning your hand..’ Chan’s shoulders slumped in guilt as he glanced at you now and then to gesture at your bandaged hand awkwardly.

You subtly waved his apology off, laughing softly, “Everybody makes mistakes right? Plus it wasn’t too badly of a burn, that’s possibly why they advised us to use gloves in the lab.”

“Yeah but the whole day I had to hide in the library since everyone was indirectly making me nervous” Chan hugged himself exaggeratedly to point out his joke.

You giggled as you looked towards the setting sun as you two walked towards the gates of the school. “Well.. these things are gonna happen anyway, don’t mind them, sooner or later they wouldn’t even remember this ever happened.”

“Oh really?” Chan turned to you with a slightly unconvinced reaction as he hugged himself tighter, reminding you of the joke he made earlier.

Both your laughs and ongoing jokes stopped as a big gust of wind blew by. Brings some leaves to scatter and drag on the narrow driveway you two walked on. The setting sun burned the blue skies with tints of orange and red, crunchy leaves drag themselves all around them, making a slight crinkle sound from a leaf or two, and the small pebbles that rub against both your soles, accompanied with your the small taps from either yours or Chan’s shoes, you couldn’t tell.

Chan wouldn’t admit it, but he felt like you were right. Reassurance sure is nice, even if it didn’t promise anything. Chan’s shoulders relaxed as he let his body sway ever so slightly with the wind rushing by you two.

“So.. you’re not worried anymore? You know.. that people would keep staring at you.”

“No, you told me not to worry.” Chan smiled at you.

You thought he had a unique smile, in your opinion, and in the nicest way possible, you thought he resembled a dog.

“I guess this is goodbye, my district is over there.” Chan turned to you just as he stopped at a certain convenience store just a few steps away from the school gate, he pointed his thumb behind his back to nothing in particular but at the path going off into a neighborhood.

You nodded your head as you purse your lips. “Alright... I guess it is, I’ll see you tomorrow?”

“We don’t have lab tomorrow though?” Chan raised his brow curiously, did you forget there wasn’t a laboratory period tomorrow?

“I mean- we could still meet, right? I’m pretty sure there’s no rule that forbids us to meet aside from lab periods.” You hesitate to fully say your suggestion, rejection was … quite frankly a rare thing for you, so you decided to take caution.

“Oh.. uh- yeah! Why- why not..? I mean sure we can... I just- don’t know if you’re free..?” Chan’s voice slowly turned softer as he rambled on.

You chuckled softly before nodding your head at his answer. “Technically, I would have the time since I suggested it. But we will see.”

As you two bid each other a goodnight and a pleasant goodbye, both of your minds had racing thoughts and endless pep talks. All that the sun touched that day was nothing less than happy.

~

12:34 pm

About 30 minutes before lunch break, Chan noted.

It’s been a few hours since you two said “hello, good morning, what’s your first class today?”

Well, it sort of seemed like none of your classes seemed to align today, which bummed Chan out a lot. He kind of wished you were part of his literature class so he could be your partner and he wouldn’t be counting the minutes till he gets to leave.

You can’t blame him though, and he most definitely did not hate his partner, it was Jisung, how could he hate one of his closest friends? But he certainly wished Jisung would stop his weird jokes, but aside from that, they don’t seem like a bad team for the assessment.

He convinced himself that he shouldn’t be too clingy (he thinks it’s him being a tad bit too “clingy”) and he tried to admit that there shouldn’t be any problem right now, he’s with one of his best friends and he’s doing alright in his literature class, everything was smooth.

But a small part of him asked about how you were doing in your “dreaded” calculus class.

Jisung snapped his fingers in front of Chan’s eyes that were focused on their small scattered pile of papers on their desks, but he seemed to be unresponsive to all that Jisung said or asked.

“Earth to Chan? Are you still there? Hello??? Little Chan, please tell Chan to pay attention to our project!” Jisung jokingly knocked at Chan’s forehead with the back of his index finger and middle finger.

Chan furrowed his brows in confusion and slight disgust at Jisung interrupting his thoughts. “I’m still listening, I’m just- thinking.”

“Does it have to do with our 3-page reflection paper that we need to complete by the next two weeks?” Jisung tried to put his chin up to act serious. Chan looked at Jisung in confusion as he glanced around the classroom before nodding his head reluctantly.

“If you were thinking about it, you would have at least answered my questions, I mean I was asking some interesting questions and you didn’t even bat an eye at me!” Jisung crossed his arms and shook his head disappointingly at his partner.

“Well- what was your question anyway..?”

“So you lied!”

~

Chan ruffled his hair just as he yawned. What a day.

It completely slipped Chan’s mind all about your agreement the day before. It didn’t cross his mind even if he escaped literature and he just went on with his day without realizing he forgot something.

4:35 pm

It’s been a long day.

Chan couldn’t wait to get home and faceplant into his bed. This past few weeks college has been sucking him dry, it was sort of a miracle if he remembered certain meetings around the campus.

He trudged down the stairs with his backpack hanging off his shoulder, his eyes barely stayed open, it was weird how he hadn't slipped and just slid down the stairs.

“Chan?”

“Hm?” Chan whipped his head around and looked around aimlessly trying to find someone who called his name.

“I guess your day has been eventful.” You giggled at his confused expression. He had this particularly odd-looking smile, it wasn’t big or anything as compared to a grin or a tight-lipped smile you usually give people.

“My day? Oh no, it wasn’t that bad, I’m just insanely tired from trying to write a 3-page essay for literature earlier.”

“All in one sitting?”

“Nope, I wished though.” You laughed softly as you felt a little embarrassed to laugh a little too loud with the very few students still left in the corridors.

You noticed Chan’s state as you two walked down the stairs together, he had a slight drag on his feet, and miraculously he wasn’t tripping on his other foot. He was asleep, but also awake? Your lab partner is just as interesting as your lab experiment.

“That’s weird.” You muttered with a small smile tugging at your lips.

“What’s weird?” Chan muttered back, like two friends sharing secrets.

You guffawed at his reaction and his response. You will never really understand how he works and he gets a little more unexpected the longer you sit around him.

“How about I take you up on that agreement we had yesterday?”

“Agreement-?” Chan scrunched his face up a little, trying to rack his brain of anything about the day before.

“… That we could hang out after classes? Or to just hang out again today..?” You tried to hint it out for him, you hoped he did remember it though, it was rare anyone made you do this, you know, hint it out for them to remember.

“Oh?”

“You know what? Maybe we should just go get you something to wake you up, you’re basically a zombie. How’s coffee?” You put a supporting hand on his shoulder as he was tipping a little off to the other side, you worried that he was about to faint if you kept talking and ignoring his state.

“Oh... That’s okay, I like coffee anyway.” Chan replied as he smiled, it was a little lop-sided but you thought it was one of his best features, based on how long you’ve been with him.

~

“How do you like Americano? Is it not too bitter for you?” You eyed his dark drink in his hand as you two walked around the neighborhood park in the area.

“No..? How do you like Caramel Macchiato? Is it not too sweet for you?” Chan raised a brow at your drink.

“No?? It isn’t even sweet-“ You put the back of your hand to your mouth as you laughed at his reaction, he cringed as you tried to explain why you like your choice of coffee.

“Well.. Americanos don’t seem bitter to me,” Chan added a tone into his comeback as if to sass you, but all you could do was laugh a little harder into the back of your hand, and you soon made him laugh too. “You just can’t handle it I guess.” He scoffed.

“Goodness.. you sure like to surprise me every time.” You shook your head playfully as you giggled a little.

“Surprise you? In what way?” Chan’s smile grew as he awaited your answer.

You fidget with the straw in your cup by twirling the beverage with it as you try to juggle your words around. “Well you.. have really interesting reactions, that’s one. Two, you seem to be really genuine with how you react to me.”

Chan’s smile turned into a small tight-lipped smile as he listened to you.

“At first, you seemed like you just wanted to impress me, but in the end, you just started to become someone you’d meet every day-“

Chan was about to open his mouth to thank you for saying such nice things, but coming from you felt like a weird dream he never wanted to wake up from. But he was touched and he couldn’t or he wouldn’t want to let you know that, this meant a lot to him.

“- I don’t mean that you’re like- not special or anything.. I just.. I don’t meet a lot of people like you… anymore.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“I mean- with everyone just thinking I’m like someone high and important, no one ever has their own thoughts or ideas anymore, it’s just all aligned with mine and I’m-.. not open to anyone or anything “new” or “ordinary” anymore.”

You held your hand by the cap, fingertips just slightly gripping the sides, letting that hand fall to your side as you watched your shoes kick stones along your way. Rambling on all about the burrow of problems in that head of yours.

“I’ve been around a lot of people who just constantly expect so much, even if it was indirect or when they don’t even mean it that way. You know what I mean?”

“But you wouldn’t want to be someone who’s always stuck in literature classes or someone who just won a few medals in swimming competitions.” Chan offered you the sweetest smile you’ve ever received in a while, it radiated the sun, it felt warm and welcoming, and you wished to have such a sugar-sweet smile to offer to someone.

You were so jealous. Because you know what? Maybe you did want to be someone who was always stuck in literature classes, maybe you did want to win a few medals from small local swimming competitions even if it were just bronze medals, heck! Maybe just winning a position in the runner ups or just being able to participate!

What do you have to do to get a simple.. care-free life like this? A normal life like this?

Everyone just seemed to be better and living a better life, better than yours.

“I’m so jealous of you.”

“Me?” Chan pointed to himself hesitantly, he didn’t want to make assumptions about who you referred to as “you”.

You laughed a little under your breath, “Yeah, weirdly enough, I am,” You smiled sadly at the dark asphalt beneath your shoes. “You’d think that I’d be happy, and I have everything every freshman wishes for in their Junior year.. but all I got were stares.”

“Stares? Well maybe, that’s because you’re doing so well in almost all that you do?” Chan tried to comfort you and to lift your spirits higher as you stumble over thoughts and your feelings.

What were you doing? You’re embarrassing yourself, that's what, you thought to yourself, an uncomfortable lump formed in your throat, making it hard to swallow. You feared you would probably sound stupid if you spoke right then and there.

You forced a small smile at the boy who looked at you a little concerned, you hated that look, did he pity you? Or was he faking being concerned at your little sob story.

He was just your lab partner, after all, You don’t even know each other well enough, would he care?

You shook those thoughts away, you trusted that he wouldn't be like that, you prayed and crossed your fingers that he wouldn’t ridicule you after this. You just overshared a tad bit, that shouldn’t be a problem, right?

“Y/N? Are you alright?”

“Yup, I think I’m just a little out of it today, this coffee is a little too sweet.” You chuckled into your fist, brushing off what just happened earlier.

“Oh.. I can drink it for you or I can get you a new one if you don’t want it anymore, you don’t need to drink it. I'm speaking from experience, those types of light-headedness are not fun, especially after school.” You laughed at his offer, you wanted to just take that leap of faith and trust him.

You want to consider him your best friend from that day on, he was a gem. But you can’t..

“I mean I could just drink it later, plus- you said you didn’t like sweet coffees?”

“Oh no.. Like I said before, I like coffee anyway, I just don’t prefer it too sweet.” Chan made a small pinch with his fingers as he tried to show you a measurement of his preference for preferred sugar levels in his coffees.

“Well help yourself,” You handed him your drink, you barely drank from it since you seemed too in your head rambling on to your lab partner. He reluctantly took your drink, he was a little cautious, and he didn’t think you’d actually give it to him.

Chan took a sip of your drink and cringed at the sweet taste that left a bitter aftertaste of the coffee, squeezing his eyes shut and he sucked his teeth in as he nervously eyed your drink’s cup with the logo of the cafe.

“Wow.. that is sweet.. TOO sweet.” Chan scoffed at your understatement of ‘a little too sweet’, to him, that was a little too flavorful for him, maybe caramel macchiatos are just not his thing..?

“I did warn you.” You laughed at his expression as he sipped the beverage again, he thought maybe it was just because of his bitter, plain-old americano, but no, this was way too sweet for his liking, for anyone at all!

That or Chan has a thing for bitter, plain-old fashioned Americanos more than bright, sugary sweet caramel macchiatos.

“Oh uhm.. this- this is my stop.. sorry our “hang-out” was cut short, my mom would be worried if I missed the bus home.” You awkwardly glanced at the bus station that hung around the corner of a building.

Chan waved you off followed with that same sweet smile that you thought matched really well with the overly sweetened coffee in his hand. You returned that smile to the best you could. “It’s understandable, it is getting late, get home safely.”

You nodded at his goodbye. You two waved to each other as both of you shuffled further in the opposite direction, Chan noticed the orange-tinted skies and the red sun burning through the blue sky, the red streaks mixed with orange made Chan wonder in awe, after a long day, the sun still tries to glow, how admirable.

Chan smiled as he walked back to his district.

He’s glad you.. “opened up” to him.

But Chan wanted to say he knew how you felt but no one likes being told that, he wanted to say he wouldn’t do that to you, but would you even believe that? He wanted to let you know how much you sparkled in his eyes and maybe to others too, but you probably would have just laughed it off, he wanted to tell you that being someone like him was nowhere as a good or comfortable place as you thought,

He was a coward, nobody likes a coward.

‘Did I mess it up again?’

~

You leaned your head onto the glass window of the bus you rode on, this wasn’t even your bus.

It was going in the opposite direction of your home.

You argued that no one could blame you, you wouldn’t like to bore someone all after that awkward confession of yours, you could have kept everything together like you were supposed to

But something pushed you to tell him.

Sighing quietly with your hand under your chin, you watched the shadows of the sunset turn darker as the faint reflection of the moon shone through the window. Each street lamp passing by became blurred lines mixed with the green bushes by the sidewalk.

Maybe if you just did what you were supposed to do, maybe if you controlled your emotions, maybe if you kept your mouth shut

You could call him your first real friend.

Now that’s out the window, who would take that confession so lightly, who would look at you the same once this gets out around the campus?

You frowned at your reflection on the glass pane, as you stared at it longer, you realized how you looked as if you wanted to cry.

That lump in your throat made it hard to swallow, your emotions were leaking like a broken pipe, and you couldn’t help but tear up a little. Just as you thought you could trust someone, just as you thought you could finally make a friend who you genuinely wanted to get to know.

You’re not the Y/N everyone adored and wanted to be, you weren’t the Y/N that was “friends” with everyone in every room you walked into. You weren’t the Y/N everyone loved.

You knew that, but you tried to be that person.

The same person who looked back at you in the mirror was the person you wanted to be.

And now Chan knows this.

He knows you’re not what everyone made you out to be.

He’s seen you like this

You were so jealous of him, he probably doesn't have to worry about how anyone thought of him, he could be normal. He didn’t have to worry about weird stares you felt on your back every day.

He probably didn’t have to worry about what others thought about him to make a friend or two.

What would other people think about you now?

What would Chan think of you now?

‘I should have kept quiet.’

~

Chan fiddled with the spare flasks on your guy’s shared desk at the laboratory. As he waited for the experiment to condensate, the slight clinking of glass sounded louder than the scattered chatter. To Chan, it felt like a boom, the kind of boom that you’d see in comic books, the kind of boom that you’d hear from a loud drum.

Settling the flasks he toyed with onto the desk, he buried his head into his folded arms, resting his head to the side, watching his experiment bubble and whistle.

“Did I really scare them off?” Chan muttered to himself.

“I should’ve said something..”

“I was supposed to say something else wasn’t I?”

Chan’s eyes focused on the liquid on the burner but his thoughts were far off.

Stupid. Stupid. Stupid! Chan knocked his head thrice with his fist, he knew it was really awkward but, he tried his best didn’t he?

Carefully, he put on his gloves before taking the flask off the burner to stop it from scuffing his project. You weren’t there to help him so the best he could do is follow the instructions you left in case you couldn’t assist him ever since the incident when you burnt your hand.

“They would probably feel too awkward to talk to me again.. what should I do?” Chan wrote down his report as he heard his professor drawing in the classes’ attention, indicating it was time to wrap up.

~

Chan’s phone screen lit up, showing a text message. He looked over to where his phone was, turning away from the book he borrowed from the library. His literature homework wasn’t going to read itself, which is why you would find him at the library, actually reading.

“Hey Chan, sorry about skipping lab class today, I had something important to catch up on :(( but if you don’t mind, can we meet up in a bit? It has something to do with the project.”

Oh.

Chan gulped as he read your message, you .. sounded off?

He knows no one can really tell from how you text but, his stomach’s telling him that this wasn’t going to end well for either of them.

~

“The garden?” Chan murmured as he read through another reply of yours, indicating the meeting place. He’s been circling the campus for a while in search of this “garden” you told him about.

“Chris! Over here!” You waved from a familiar fountain, Chan could have sworn your word choice was a little- misleading. There was just a patch or three of grass and shrubs with a singular rose bush in the area; he wouldn't exactly call this a garden.

“Oh- sorry, I got mixed up with which garden you meant. My bad.” Chan sheepishly walked over to you, slightly looking down, like a dog with its tail between its legs.

“Ah, yeah.. sorry I didn’t specify.. I just labeled this area the garden since freshman year.” You offered a small smile. Something Chan has seen you offer other people in class as well.

This was it. This was the sign Chan didn’t want to see.

“So.. what did you want to talk to me about?” Chan averted his gaze from yours now and then as he felt awkward staring into your eyes.

You fidgeted with your fingers, averting your eyes from his as well.

“I was thinking, since the deadline drew closer for our project, I suggest we do our experiment in parts. I've been busy with .. uhm.. other subjects these days too, I think I’ll find the setup easier to manage.”

Chan listened closely to you, your voice grew smaller as you spoke, it was as if you were forced to say this.

Chan sighed quietly, nodding his head in understanding. He shouldn’t bother you anymore if he thought hard, he knew you two hanging out after the project was a far stretch, to begin with, you both had to slowly let each other off somehow.

“It’s alright, I understand.”

“.. alright so I’ve split our jobs into two, here are the instructions and reports for your part, And uh..” You shakily handed a clear folder with paperwork and blank sheets in it to Chan, to which he accepted hesitantly.

“.. uh…”

“Uhm.. I guess I’ll see you on presentation day or something then?” Chan concluded after looking at the file you gave him. He sent you a small smile that reflected your smile earlier.

“… y-yeah, sure.” You nodded reluctantly.

After bidding each other a very awkward goodbye, you two went on your “merry” way, hoping for a miracle to happen to fix this.

~

“So.. they just… gave you the files and left?” Jisung scratched his head as he squinted his eyes at Chan trying to squeeze an answer out of Chan.

“Yeah.”

“And you’re just going to.. accept it and do your part till they say something?”

“Yep”

Jisung sighed. He took out the lollipop in his mouth that he’s been leaving to melt in his mouth.

“Chan, what are the odds that they would talk to you again? You have to make the first move, you can’t keep wishing for a miracle if you avoid everything, obviously, the opportunity will never strike you!”

Chan just slumped into his chair before pursing his lips together, glooming at the folder you gave him.

Jisung was right and Chan knew it. But what are the odds that he would do what Jisung said? Make the first move?

If anything, Chan was just good at music, he wasn't good at literature, he hated science, he doesn’t like math, he was not in the council and he was just getting by with average grades.

With what he has so far and what he does, the more he doubts about this miracle he’s hoping for.

What a waste, college was supposed to be the time of his life, but he’s here doubting when he’s only got his Junior-, no half of his junior year, and his senior year left, then who knows what’ll happen then.

Chan pondered on the thoughts that constantly re-occur, “half of my junior year and my senior year.. then who knows what’ll happen then.”

What will happen next after this stage in both of your lives? You get a job, he moves away for his job, you might get a master's, you both draw away, and - sooner or later you’re both back at square one, strangers, just like in your freshman and sophomore days.

And when he looks back, what would he see? Regrets? A load of crap he would tell himself about being able to fix this? The stuff he wished you said? The things he wanted to say? Or the things you two were supposed to be?

What a nice way to remember the prime times of your life.

Chan grumbled.

He’s been stuck in his hoodie and underneath his own shadow, hiding in his dorm room and just going on through his day like a normal person, everyday was monotonous, every day he woke up to the same tune of his alarm, he ate the same cereal, he wears the very same choice of clothes, and he goes to the same classes to do the same thing every day.

It’s time he makes college a moment for him to remember. Who wants to look back into 4-5 years of his life with the same routine, Every. Single. Day.

If he doesn’t talk to you ever again because of this, he’ll never forgive himself.

He wouldn’t be able to live with the fact that all these words were all in his head. It would suffocate him, he just knew it would just like every other unsaid thought of his.

“Shi-“ Chan muttered a curse halfway as he rolled to stand up from his bed.

These past years of his life were a blur, what was there to remember? What was there for him to look back to anyway?

Is this what they meant when they made up the saying, “It’s now or never”?

“I have nothing to lose” that’s another saying.

“Go big or go home”?

“The time is now”, that’s another.

How do you tell someone something without actually telling them that “something”?

You can’t, that’s the problem Chan has to overcome.

Chan rummaged through his desk for anything: paper, pen, correction tape, a page of his math textbook(?), anything! He wanted to hold onto something that could be useful! Useful.. Useful, anything..?

He threw onto the desktop all the junk he’s grabbed onto. Flicking the switch of his lamp aaaaaaand.. what a letdown…

A pad full of paper, a half-used pen, cut-out shapes from his math homework, and a pile of unwanted science and literature essays. Goodness, this was supposed to be his “moment”, maybe this is why he hasn’t done anything “significant” in his life?

“This- will do…” he grabbed the pad full of paper, and his half-used pen. Pushing the rest of the junk on his desk to the side to have a fresh, clean desk to write on? Or to draw maybe? He hasn’t figured out what exactly he wanted to do.

Make paper planes?

Write a letter?

~

“Write a letter?” Chan resounded his thought, cliche, every movie has done it, every cliche love story starts with letters, not all but, it was cliche. But what choice did he have?

What path could he take?

He’s in a box filled with water, with no key. He’s going to have to find a way to do anything in a box filled with water. Unrealistic comparison but this whole problem was unrealistically impossible to get out of in the first place, it was his first time to do this, he’s going to have to knock some attention to the box he’s stuck in. That was his first step.

Dear Y/N- no that sounds weird.

Hello! - erm..

Chan was making blots of inks and erasures on his first sheet. He made faces at his work every time he made something up, quick to erase the words he would write, just like this was his first time to be in this position, he’s never taken the initiative to write his first ever love letter.

Love letter? No no this was just his.. vent. That’s all.

Taking a deep breath as he closed his eyes. This won’t be shown to you. This was his deep pit to pour out his frustrations and feelings. But this is his only way to talk to you indirectly, if he finds the courage to give these to you, the moon would be blue.

Dear Y/n,

Please don’t be frightened when you read this.. or if you do read this. This really is not meant to be creepy! I would love to tell you who I am, because I don’t want to frighten you at all. Do understand this is my first time writing letters to someone. So if it gets awkward or- really weird, just know this would be weird for me too.

It’s weird writing to someone when I could just tell you the contents of this letter, you know, verbally. But I find it really hard to.. talk to you. Weird right? Maybe it’s because whenever I’m near you and I try to speak, they’re just stuck in my throat or in my head. I get really nervous but comforted and at peace at the same time.

I feel that you could make someone feel almost everything in a single blow. Weird right? But that’s how I feel. I’m sorry if that sounded really- creepy but I mean it in a good way, one second I could feel intimidated, the second- I’d feel like I fit in, the third, you’d make me feel as if we’ve known each other for 20 years instead of 20 minutes.

You’re incredible, I mean it. You are one incredible thing, you’re everything nice, Goodness that sounds so stupid, I’m no good at writing letters. I’ve never liked literature, have I told you that? I absolutely hate reading long books. I hate math, and I hate science textbooks.

I like to swim, I used to be a part of this junior swim team. You told me you liked caramel macchiato, swimming is- something like a caramel macchiato to me, it’s cringy to say but, when you take the first sip, it sort of shocks you awake, your mouth gets sour from the sweetness, and then the bitter zap from the coffee, it’s just the same when you get into the water, it's cold then warm then ticklish? I can’t explain it but no matter how weird the feeling is, it never gets old. You just can’t get enough of the feeling or you just can’t get sick of it. And the feeling never sticks long enough for you to remember, so you end up going back to it.

Sorry if I’m rambling, It’s weird for me to express these thoughts from the top of my head, much less to actually write it, I’ll probably never read this again, I do hope that- You won’t find out who I am so soon though. I’d be more than embarrassed.

If you end up finding out who I am. Please don’t tell me you know me. I’ll only cower more. I’ve had my fair share of cowering away, more than enough.

I do hope this letter will find you in good condition, and with that, I’ll see if I can write you another letter. Maybe I’ll be better at writing these? Who knows, well.. you would but..

Anyway, I’ll see you soon?

From:

—————

_____________________________

Dear Y/N

5/4/22

Hello, it’s me again. Don’t mind the dates, I feel like I have a long way to go before coming to terms with myself and actually giving these letters to you. So- I decided, that maybe these can be memory keepers? Uh- like photographs, I actually never thought of what to put in these letters, especially since I think I’m talking to you, like actually talking to you through these letters. I feel it’s unsettling to start telling you my fears or something. I could tell you all about my day but it would just be me describing how the food at the canteen never ceases to gross me out, or all about my friends, or just about me. This seems really insensitive, but what can I say? I’m talking to a piece of paper.

I think I’ll find myself forgetting about these letters after a while, and I’d end up throwing them out once I move back to my parent’s home after college. Or when I move out to a separate home that I’d be spending my days in, till I think about getting a new house.

I ran out of ideas on what to talk about, so if the correction tape starts to chip, don’t mind the erasures. I guess I should talk about my day. Today was - eventfully dull, like always, I mean what’s so special about going to class (the same classes to be exact) and doing the same things all day, everyday. I did our science project in the study cubes we have in the library. It's actually- fairly comforting to have a whole box to yourself. I feel the study cube could be one of the investments of the school that I personally enjoy the most. Have you studied there before? It was my first time if you hadn’t noticed yet. It was surprisingly .. nice to be alone for once, it was quiet, not the awkward type considering the whole front wall and door is made of glass, I think the giant, white, obnoxiously large letters that spell out “study cube” helps keep the other student’s noses out of your business, whoever designed that is brilliant, brilliantly- stupid? I mean I’m no interior designer but they could have done better. (Back me up here, you’re the one in an interior designing class.) (Well only if you want to.)

It’s currently 12:34 am, I would say good morning but...

Anyway, I’m tired, you must be tired, I’ll head to bed, I hope we can talk in person soon, so I can actually stop caving in my dorm room, writing letters like you’re gonna read this. But I can wait. Okay, that sounded weird, but I can’t even keep a yawn in right now. Good night, I can't wait to lock this in my drawer.

from: ________

__________________________________

Dear Y/N

5/5/22

It’s me again. Again, please don’t talk about the dates, I guess you can see how often I want to talk to you? Never mind, that sounded stupid and weird. Please don’t think of me that way.

Do you know Jisung? Han Jisung? He’s told me before that you guys share the same social studies classes, he’s from the literature department, and he’s also tried to sign up for the school paper once, do you remember that? It was during sophomore year I believe, we haven’t met yet, but I guess we saw each other briefly, you were the - editor in chief? Was it? Or someone important in the office, and Jisung mistook you as the person who declined his “audition” (I forgot the term, was it submission?) for the papers, you did look like someone, the someone who actually did disapprove of his work. I was the friend beside him that day that he tried to and I quote “give you a piece of his mind” I still haven’t apologized to you about that, I just felt it was a little weird for me to still remember something like that so I felt embarrassed to bring it up to you now that we’ve actually met.

I do hope that you haven’t strayed away from making friends with my friends. I admit, maybe I did do something wrong but please don’t limit yourself, they’re good friends, I shouldn’t be the reason why you’re avoiding people that I’m usually around with. If I could promise and show you that I would actually mind my own business, I would. Whether you become my friend’s best friend, I really wouldn’t mind. As long as you don’t take them away from me, I wouldn’t mind, even if we aren’t comfortable talking to each other anymore.

That was some word dump, my bad. You know if these get cringed and you did read them, burn these letters, it’s the least you can do before telling me you never want to hear from me again. Knowing me, I’ll never EVER stop thinking about the fact that these letters could be up and running around the campus.

Have you read or watched the series “To all the boys I’ve loved before”? I’ve never been so traumatized from it, which is why now that I have my own letters to keep, I’m quite literally keeping them with my life. Okay wait before you go and ask me why I watched or read the series, I have a sister. And a friend named Changbin.

Seo Changbin, he’s majoring in physical education? Something about a major in sports, I think? I’m not too sure about myself anymore, he’s been transferring and having second thoughts about his course since sophomore year, and I can’t keep track of whether he’s in economics or sports, animal care, or culinary art. This can explain my case, he’s all over the place and you can’t understand what’s going on in his brain so ask him why he thought the series was fun and asked me to join him. (To be fair, it was confusing, but I did find the series- uh- interesting. It’s not my favorite show, but I don’t think it’s as bad as people say it is? I just don’t see why there’s such a big fuss about the movie series with the book series, so I watched and read both.)

Not the stereotypical, “my sister watches said series like any other girl.” She usually isn’t into those. I can vouch for her, for the past.. 18-19 years of growing up with her, I've never ever seen her read a book with that type of genre. And she seemed interested too. So I mean adds on to reasons why I might wanna see what the show’s all about right?

It’s uh- 3:45 pm, and I’ve been stuck in the infirmary with a badly twisted ankle, and I got to pass my time icing the injury so, might as well get a letter done right? I got the injury from playing soccer with my friends, it was a hassle hopping to the infirmary with 2-3 other people dragging attention to you by sobbing and acting like you got a limb cut off.

Until the next letter then.

From:

_______

~

Chan stretched his arms, leaning back on his chair, another letter finished. He sighed in contentment, his lips formed a flat smile, it held certain contentment and a tinge of fatigue from the finals week he had to accommodate together with his ongoing letter-writing agenda.

It seemed as if he’s been writing letters to you for a while now, even if he only started a few weeks ago. Chan wondered how much his letters have accumulated now. He reached over to the other end of his desk, pulling out the drawer he stashed the letters in, the sealed envelopes were all scattered on top of each other, all with dates and entries like “Letter 4” or “To: Y/N. From: “

He sighed at the sight of the envelopes, picking up a few every now and then to read all that is on the surface of each letter; if he bothered to count, these letters would outnumber the fingers his hands had. Had he been writing every day? He scoffed at himself, knowing well enough he was- amazed that he had this much to say.

Putting the letters back into the drawer, not really caring if letter 8 was under letter 5. He refocused to the newly written letter on his desk, he folded the paper neatly before putting it into a brand new envelope, snapping a tape off the small tape dispenser he stationed on the side of his table, glancing at that little tape dispenser as he was about to reach for the drawer to let the letter in his hand join the rest of his collection, he’s going to need a new roll if this prolongs or if he plans to say any more to you.

Oh goodness.

Chan closes his eyes as he leans back into his chair, his fatigue caught up fast, it was nearing 1 in the morning.

“What did I even do today?” Chan wondered to himself. As he was recounting the events of his day. Come to think of it, his recent days were just spent in the library preparing for the finals, or doing homework in class and writing letters in his dorm room.

As he thought about how his time managing skills were average, to say the least, he couldn’t help but doze off to other topics. He thought of everything he’s done, and everything he’s written, no matter how boring his day was, he always had something to write to you about. He hasn’t talked about his feelings or anything, just about himself, like his hobbies, his friends, his day, it was like those introductions in kindergarten.

Chan glanced at this mini calendar on his desk, it had a line character on the left side of the calendar, and a few of his annotations on the right. Things like “Changbin’s birthday” and “family dinner” were the common things he’d write, just simple reminders in case he missed the notification on his phone.

He looked past the dates with big red circles, those marked the dates of his final exams, and as he looked past those, there was a small note on the last day of the month, “Christmas break”.

Chan could only imagine what Christmas break would look like after finals. He wondered,

By then, would you and him be friends again?

~

Chan cursed under his breath as he mopped up the spilt apple juice on the wooden floors of his living room. It was way past 8 in the evening, his parents asked him to clean up a little bit after the party his relatives threw for his little cousin in his house. Perfect timing as well, just the day before his graduation. Tomorrow was the big day, finally the day that will mark his completion in college and his successful years passing his course with average grades and a finished bucket list.

His parents were taking down decorations and keeping leftovers, even though the constant rustling and crumpling from the cleaning session in Chan’s kitchen, Chan felt so at home with his thoughts, it was quiet in the neighborhood weirdly enough because usually, he would hear a loud motorcycle zoom past his house at an ungodly hour or an overly enthusiastic rooster or even a party down the street with obnoxious music on the highest volume.

It was like a once-in-a-lifetime thing for Chan, one of his “must-sees” before he leaves his childhood neighborhood, it’s weird because he was against the idea of leaving when his father introduced it to him with the jobs available for Chan in the next city or in the state next to his current one. But every time he thought of everything that happened in this place, all he could think about is college and then the time he fell down his bike and rolled down the street when he was 9, the only reason he wouldn’t leave was because he was comfortable here, no one ever cared that he was wearing a sweater in the middle of summer or no one really cared that he was moving, when he gets out of this place, no one will ever know someone named Christopher Bang.

Maybe his relatives, a few friends, a couple of batch mates but what are they worth in a neighborhood the size of Jisung’s cheeks, sometimes it might not look like a lot but when you really walk around the area, it’s like a whole new place you’ve never stepped foot in yet the air seemed the same, familiar even.

As soon as his parents told Chan he could head to his room to get some rest for his “big day” tomorrow. Chan trudged to his room, he wasn’t at his dorm because the school gave an early warning that he should move out slowly as the semester closes, so now he’s stuck in his childhood room with the glow in the dark stars still stuck to his roof, and his Cars 2 bedsheets. Even if he hasn’t been away from home in a long time, his mother finds his room like some Time Capsule and refuses to change it to his liking.

Chan wouldn’t say he didn’t miss this though, he’d be lying if he did. He could just remember 8-year-old him flopping on the same bed right after doing his math homework and falling asleep almost immediately. Chan bets the sheets would smell like his childhood, something like apricots and autumn leaves, or was it lavender? Chan never appreciated that smell from his blanket that would put him to sleep almost immediately, maybe that’s why he hasn’t been getting much sleep?

As Chan closed the door behind him, he spotted a clean pack of pad paper and his funny-looking transformers and star wars pens in his pen holder. Cereal packs these days don’t give anything, Chan wonders if kids these days experience the meaning of enjoying your childhood if you didn’t collect pens from cereal packs of your favorite show.

He sat down and switched on his lamp, the light flickered now and then and the light it gave off was weak, and .. it was about to go out, maybe but Chan could care less, this was pretty bright for him, he could work his way through this. He reached over and grabbed an R2D2 pen, the pen charm had the head of R2D2 hanging off a slightly rusted chain from the top of the pen. Chan clicked the pen a few times before testing it out on a corner of the pad paper on his desk.

Surprisingly it still works, like brand new actually. This was Chan’s cue to start writing, he decided, this was one story to tell you, next, he wanted to say his final thoughts and finally reveal who he was. Even if he planned to keep this to himself, at least he could finally sign the letters with his name, admitting that all those letters were in fact, his thoughts and his emotions.

“Here goes..” Chan muttered.

~

‘Breathe in, breathe out.’ Chan tried to pat down his graduation (gown?) outfit and adjust his hat. He frantically wiped his hands on his jeans under his regalia, his hands were much sweatier than usual, not like they were always wet but he figured it was the nerves he was developing or is it excitement? I mean it’s not every day you finally get to receive your diploma and finally experience the taste of adulthood.

Looking at the mirror in his old room was.. nostalgic? He has slightly longer hair as compared to before and he swore he’s grown an inch or two since he last stood in front of the mirror. A small smile found its way onto Chan’s face as he finally saw, with his own two eyes, that not only did he grow physically but maybe he did mature over time, and now’s the result of all his hard work and of all the unnecessary pain he’s been through.

“Dear? Are you ready? You’ll be late!” Chan hurried to the muffled sound of his mother. Shoving a bunch of materials and some notebooks, he didn’t think about what he shoved into his bag, he took as much as he thought he’d need from his desk top.

His bag seemed heavy but Chan figured he can sort this out later, he can’t fix time if he was late for his graduation.

“Coming!”

~

Chan heard all kinds of boisterous noises screaming, cheering, strained laughs and sniffles. He’s taken at least 2 naps in total and he’s seen his parents and younger siblings in one of the seats behind him. It had been a good 3 hours? His behind was getting numb and his brain was empty and all he saw was nothing but gray as he clapped aimlessly every time he heard a name being called to the stage.

He doesn’t mean to be rude at all but he’s been half asleep half the time and he doesn’t even know half the students being cheered for, they were all people he’s seen but never cared to get to know or just didn’t seem like they were interested in being friends with someone like him. He never liked to talk to a lot of people so he didn’t have a problem with that.

Graduation seemed slow at first, Chan was seated beside people he barely knows of and strangers and parents of said strangers were all around him, occasionally he’d be woken up from his doze by the loud shrieks of this girl in front of him or the low obnoxious cheers from the varsity player beside him. But luckily after a while, the names started to deplete, and soon after he would get called on stage and his friends too, he heard your name but the people in front of him stood on their tippy toes and screamed at the top of their lungs.

Graduation was definitely a once-in-a-lifetime experience, a milestone, an honor that you wear around your neck. Now that everyone was flooding out the auditorium, chatters among students with things along the lines of “I can’t believe it! We’re out of this place for good!” And “Can you believe it? We’re graduates!”

And if Chan was, to be honest, he felt the same way. It's unbelievable that college just ended like that, all those years blown away in one big gust of wind, Chan could hardly recall the days he’d complain to his friends about how he would consider dropping out if a certain teacher didn’t lift the workload. (As a joke of course)

As Chan caught up with friends he forgot about “sorting” his bag out from earlier and he was pretty carried away with the jokes and diploma-shoving banter from his friends and some acquaintances from different classes. He could almost smell the tinge of sweet autumn breeze in the air, like a reward after all the grueling years of college.

He felt the slight odd-one-out item in his bag as he gripped it before slinging it over his shoulder. As Chan walked out of the auditorium he could smell a familiar scent and an “aftertaste” of a certain drink. Caramel Macchiato.

Maybe it was just his mind playing tricks on him, or a hit of nostalgia, or just a familiar feeling he missed resurfaced. He held onto his bag as he ran up to his friends waiting at the side of the auditorium to tell them he had to catch up with someone before he could miss them.

Chan ran back to the auditorium, looking all around him for a sign of you but all he saw were teachers and some staff members cleaning up the mess as well as some students who were just chatting with friends, but none of them resembled a certain Y/N.

He ran outside and went to gardens and sanctuaries students usually stayed to hangout. At this point he was losing hope, it was getting dark and each minute that passed was a moment he hoped he could catch up to you, he hoped you’d still miraculously, still be there waiting or that he could somehow catch up to you.

As the day was coming to a dark, vibrant orange, and the sun was slowly setting with each tick of his watch. Chan, with all hope lost, trudged to the front gate of the school, he tried, that’s one story for his very final letter maybe.

He thought about all the places he wanted to check, he wished he could be everywhere all at the same time in case you decided to go to a certain place, he wouldn't have missed you if it were that way.

He dragged his feet, kicking pebbles along the way and fallen pine cones in his way. Chan heard chatter from a distance and he just prayed it was his friends waiting for him, he wanted to take his mind away from you, or from this whole thing, he should be celebrating after all!

Chan couldn’t look up for some reason, scared it could be you or your friends, he wasn’t really prepared for a moment like that you know?

“Chan? Where have you been?”

What?

That doesn’t sound like Jisung at all. Chan looked up to find a certain caramel macchiato enjoyer. You.

Chan’s mouth was slightly left agape, what’s with his luck? He wouldn’t count this as luck but neither did he think this was something unfortunate. He gulped as he held onto his backpack strap, why did you ask where he’s been? Have you been looking for him?

“Hey..?” Chan answered meekly.

“Hi.. uh..” You laughed nervously as you looked at your friends and waved them off for a bit before turning back to Chan.

“Can we talk?”

“Can we talk?”

You two asked in unison, both with a similar tone in your voices, it wasn’t something like after an unresolved break up or with misunderstood feelings, more like a needed congratulations.

And an awaited goodbye.

“Uh, my bad you can go first.” Chan offered.

“You should go first.” You insisted.

Chan coughed awkwardly into his fist, averting his gaze to the side before pursing his lips. This was it, this was it, this was it. Chan encouraged himself as he unzipped his bag to get the box out of his bag.

As he handed it to you with his eyes looking off to the tree behind you.

“I wouldn’t say this is a graduation gift to you per se, but it’s something I meant to give to you for-.. awhile? I guess you could say that.”

You took the box into your hands as you furrowed your brows, but offered a small smile to him. Chan finally glanced back at your expression. He was worried you’d be sort of negative about this but to his surprise, your smile was something that resembled an overly sweetened caramel macchiato. Sweet, too sweet on that note, but enjoyable, stereotypical, an everyday thing but you could tell the barista made it with a whole lot of love and effort, in short, it was genuine and Chan longed to see that from you after a long while.

“Don’t open it!” Chan outstretched his hand as you slightly lifted the box’s lid off.

“Open it at least a week later, or-.. well when you start to miss college, yeaH! TILL YOU MISS COLLEGE! Or -.. better a week later..!” Chan rushed as he tried to push back the cover.

You chuckled at his antics just as you nodded at his request(?). You tucked the box’s lid back on properly, easing Chan’s nerves.

After a long comfortable silence and a few awkward giggles and chuckles here and then, Chan started to bring back the topic, “A-anyway.. your turn…”

“Ah right.. my bad… uhm” Now you were afraid to look at him.

“I wanted to congratulate you, we had a good score for our project, and your delivery was great. Sorry, I couldn’t have… congratulated you earlier, I- I wanted to for a while actually ! But I figured you were too busy juggling with the finals and with your swim practices..” You hugged the small bouquet of flowers in your arms.

You grinned sheepishly and laughed awkwardly to ease the tension you felt, Chan offered the same laugh before answering.

“Oh no no it’s no problem, I haven’t been able to congratulate you earlier either! So it’s no worries! Really.” Chan waved you off as he averted his gaze to look at his shoes.

“Well uhm.. this is for you by the way.” You smiled sheepishly as your voice grew small while extending the bouquet of flowers to him, the plastic’s soft crinkles seemed to fill a void of silence that you two couldn’t fill. Chan doubted either of you were bothered though, in fact it reminded him of the autumn leaves.

Chan’s eyes grew in astonishment as he was faced with a dozen roses, from the looks of it, it was just freshly picked as well. He hesitantly glanced at you, asking if this was really for him before reluctantly accepting the bouquet of roses into his own arms.

“Oh.. thank you..?” He turned from admiring the roses to thanking you with a slight confused tone, you chuckled softly. “Sorry, I’ve never gotten flowers, it’s usually just me giving them to my mom.”

“You can give these flowers to your mom as well.” You shrugged playfully as you watch Chan erupt into laughter.

“I mean, people can give others flowers right? Plus it’s graduation day, isn’t it tradition?” You offered him a smile, Chan couldn’t understand what was behind it, to be fair, he couldn’t even understand if the smile he was giving was because he was happy he got his first ever bouquet of flowers or the fact that you thought about giving it to him.

Chan exhaled, as if he were holding his breath but he was able to feel a wave of relief as he inhaled the fresh autumn air. “It is tradition but you rarely see it happen these days.”

“At least you got to see it for yourself right? Doesn’t it make it extra special?” Your smile never faded but your eyes softened at the sight of Chan, you missed this.

“It does.” Chan held the flowers close to his chest as his smile grew, the sides of his eyes crinkled slightly.

After a while of silence, the two of you laughed off the awkwardness before nodding in acknowledgment that you both are here, at this moment, you two can finally say goodbye..? It felt short-lived but this was all that Chan has been wishing for since his first letter.

“I should probably get going now.. It’s getting late and.. your friends are probably waiting for you.” Chan gestured to your friends chatting behind you, before offering you a reassuring smile. It’s time to go home, or well to go with your respective friend groups.

“Oh right.. Yeah.. I should probably get going as well.” You glanced back at your friends and chuckled softly.

“… I guess I’ll see you then?” You held onto the box Chan gifted you and you felt your fingers squeezing it, realizing the smooth, soft, feather-like texture of the box, something similar to a stationary box.

“Yeah.. Until then I guess.” Chan unconsciously gave the bouquet in his arms a squeeze, it was already impossibly close to his chest but he hugged it closer, finding uncut thorns that poked at the thick plastic wrapping and colored paper outer wrapping.

You two waved to each other as you both giggled to yourselves, you were relieved that even with the gap between you two before, something’s don’t really change. You hoped and wished maybe you had more time to say goodbye, but you can’t keep him here forever.

~

Slamming the door shut as you sighed harshly, flopping onto your bed, face planting into your pillow. Turning your head to the side just to sigh again, it was a small disagreement with your parents and it ended in you storming to your room and planning to keep to yourself until the whole thing blows over.

Closing your eyes, you squeezed them shut, your head was starting to have a slight pounding sensation at the back. Just your luck.

As you opened your eyes, you noticed a familiar box on your desk, you never noticed, and maybe it’s because the baby blue shade that was confused with white, was blending with the polka dots. You sat up on your bed, ignoring the slight headache from falling into bed.

Reaching over to grab the box from your desk, you realized there was a small tag stuck on the box, it had a small “Chan’s things :)” in a carefree, child-like handwriting, you smiled at the endearing sight, everyday it’s like you could still see bits and pieces of him.

Opening the lid your eyebrows raised in shock? Amusement? Maybe in the middle of both. Multiple letters (you assumed) were in airmail envelopes with stamps that were considered valuable were on corners of each one.

Picking the first one in the pile to inspect it, you realized that each envelope had the familiar handwriting of Chan, it wasn’t neat nor was it messy, but you found it something like a characteristic of his. With each letter that you picked up, more emerged from the bottom of the pile, you wondered how Chan was able to fit hundreds- maybe even thousands of these letters.

You put the pile in your hands back into the box before plucking a letter randomly, opening it, and finding an evenly folded paper inside and with the letter being addressed to you. You were seeing the date of each letter being from a year or two ago. Subconsciously picking another random letter up into your free hand as you read. This process continued until half the pile in the box was transferred to another pile of opened envelopes beside you.

As you finished another letter, you carefully folded it back to how it was and inserted it back into its envelope before stacking it on top of the other letters you finished. Opening a new one, and you realized it had a second page, you noticed the dim lighting from your window and realized it was late. And that you’ve spent your remaining afternoon reading letters.

This letter didn’t have a date. You figured it could be a really recent letter or a letter Chan forgot to mark.

Dear Y/N,

On this day is my little cousin’s birthday, and it’s just a day away from our graduation ceremony. I went to his birthday party and when I entered the first thing he called me was, crispy. For obvious reasons, I do hope that I don’t give off that vibe.. or get-up, and I do hope you won’t call me crispy either, Chan or Chris, that’s it, not crispy. Weirdly enough his parents and MY parents egged my little cousin on and they started to call me uncle crispy. Anyway, tomorrow is our graduation day. I have my letters in a box, only recently did I get a box for them, and you know what? I tried to count them but I sort of lost count, so I’m stuck with thinking I wrote 87 letters..? But I don’t recall writing that much though, hopefully, it isn't, I don’t want you reading 87 letters of just me talking about how much I hate mathematics class. I also forgot to ask how was your day? I hope it’s going well. I believe this will be my last and final letter to you, I doubt I’ll have time to write another one tomorrow, not with my nerves for the graduation ceremony. I’m still unsure if I want to give this box of letters that are sitting on my desk right now. If I do, and you will see this letter, I hope you won’t be creeped out or- anything.. I mean well with the letters.

Since this is my last letter to you, it might be one long one. It’s just for goodbyes, you know? I’m going to be moving out of the dorms soon. I've done some packing early in the week so I’ll be out of here faster than I estimated, which is why I concluded that this might be my last letter. I’m not sure if I’ll stay in the neighborhood either. I have plans, I guess you can say, and it involves me moving out of the country or off to another city. Honestly, from the bottom of my heart I want to stay here so in turn that if you wanted to say something to me before I go, I’d hear it. But from the pit in my stomach, I don’t think you would even stop to think about these. Throw these letters out as soon as you read them though, I really don’t see why you would keep them in the first place and I want you to promise that you will, I’ll only sleep better if I know you will.

Below this paragraph is the things I’ll finally say and mention to you, after a long while of not being able to admit these things to you, no they are not problems, or complaints, neither is it obsessions and addictions, just my feelings, not necessarily feelings as in romantic feelings, but feelings as in the things I thought and felt when we were friends, and/or when we had the chance to hang out. If you don’t want to read beyond this, feel free to just throw it out.

Do you remember when you made your first friend? I can’t really remember the feeling, but I remember the memory, but what’s a memory without feelings? A black and white picture maybe. To be fair I have made a lot of friends, in my whole life, I don’t recall meeting more than 20 people a year so.. being “friends” with a people’s person did get into my head for a while. You’re admirable as a person, I’m sure people around you have made that clear, but I think when I met you, half of me or probably more, was happy to meet someone who didn’t seem too intimidating. Maybe you were intimidating at first to me, considering your status but after sometime you seemed like the warmest, kindest being I’ve encountered. I may not know what it’s like to be in your place everyday and I may not know what you see in your eyes everyday, but from what I know, you’re going through so much, and yet you have so much compassion and kindness despite it all. That’s admirable.

Maybe I am wrong and maybe I’m just overthinking but I feel that there were some things left unsaid, and some unexpected outcomes in our friendship and I understand you need space, and you’d rather save yourself the trouble, which is why I’m writing these letters to you, in hope that when you’re ready to talk to me, and that I’ll be too late to reply, at least I’ll have some answers for you. I’ll admit, if I knew my timing, if I knew how to approach you, and if I knew how to resolve things that are left undone, maybe I would have reached out to you sooner, but sadly, I don’t, and I could barely tell time on regular days, either I’m too sleepy to care or it’s usually around dinner time by the time I get out of the building, whether it be from the dorms or from school and I don’t have the guts to even talk around new people or well.. talking to people was never really my forte, to begin with, and I’ve always hated solving math word problems, so I’m sure you could tell why I didn’t approach you sooner and I’m sure you know that I’m actually not so special, I’m a little below average actually. I’m the definition of a quiet kid that, maybe only 3 people in the whole batch knows about me, even if I wore sweatshirts and vests instead of hoodies or khaki pants instead of joggers and even if I walked around wearing clothes like that, no one would care who I was because I wasn’t going to be special or I wasn’t sticking out like a sore thumb. (Not that you are one though)

But you, on the other hand, you’re like the definition of a successful, “someone-whose-future-is-bright”, “they’re-going-places” type of student. And sometimes they forget that putting you so high on a pedestal… makes you so isolated from everyone else. I must admit, I looked at you the same way, like some otherworldly- being. Which I’m sure you didn’t know..? Or pretended to not know maybe. But after hanging out with you for a while, after you told me what you said to me that day? I realized you’re just a person, who has dreams and passions, and fears and flaws. I realized you’re just trying to fit in what others say you are because you felt like if you didn’t, you aren't Y/N anymore. I admire that you still strive to be the best. That’s something a normal person can’t do. That’s something I can’t do. This must be the other reason why I looked at you like some “otherworldly being”.

Oh gosh, that was a whole word dump. I apologize, really, it’s just what I realized and I wish I knew that early on, and I wished that I knew how to tell you that it was okay to let your guard down. And that if you need help, I’ll always be willing to lend a helping hand.. and I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you that earlier on. I also want to apologize for that day, my answers weren’t really well thought of and maybe I didn’t consider what you could have felt either and I’m sorry, I know I could have done better and maybe I wouldn't be holed up in my room on the night before we graduate, writing this letter to you. You know what? It’s funny, people would call this and my other letters “love letters” even though I doubt the rest had anything to do with me claiming I loved you or anything. I’m only using this method as an actual way to communicate, you know, like how letters were actually used before. But to say that this last one is not a love letter, might be a lie. Love letter as in me telling you these things because I care about you, be it platonically, romantically, I wouldn't know, I’ve never felt anything like this before and I doubt it’s what they call love. They say it's something like being close to the sun or on cloud 9 or talking to the moon or something, hell, what does it mean to be on “cloud 9”? Wouldn't it hurt to be close to the sun? Why would someone talk to the moon so eagerly when you’re “in love”? I talk to the moon about my science homework, would it mean I love science? Do you get what I mean? This isn’t a letter about me being in love with you romantically, it’s more like a letter of admiration? Of care maybe. A care letter(?). But if these were symptoms or bits and pieces of love, in the romantic sense. I wouldn’t know, because I guess love will come differently to everyone else. But right now, when I think of you, my lungs are alright, my heart isn’t beating abnormally and my hands aren't shaking. In the time that I can confirm this is romantic love towards you, I guess I’ll write another letter to admit that to you. I learned in my time of writing to you that having unsaid thoughts and “feelings” have a choking effect on you. If anything, I’m telling you this because half of me confides in the fact that we might never meet again, and the fact that I know I’d rather not force these thoughts and feelings down my throat. I’ll admit to you that, even if we spent maybe a week? Or half a month? Hanging out with you and thinking back on it makes me feel like we spent ages growing up together and yet I can’t even recall your favorite color. Am I just forgetting that important detail or did I never ask? Maybe you would’ve gotten awkward if I asked that before, don’t people on dates usually ask that? I hate to say that this is most likely our last conversation. And you know what? I feel like I spent a good amount of time completing my bucket list in college. I made a new friend, “fell in love” I guess, and got through the 4 years with memories. Thank you for being part of my 4 years here, it was a blast. Might be the most I’ve done in my whole life, and.. one thing I have to admit before I end the letter.

I lied. I actually dislike americanos, I mean I don’t hate it, and I do drink it, but bitter isn’t usually the option I’d go for, the reason why I stuck with it was because you ordered it for me and in time.. I didn’t really mind the bitterness anymore, I guess I was distracted talking to you. I also disliked science projects, mainly because it’s never my forte and because I was never grouped up with someone who tried to cooperate with me. That day in the cafe where we first met? I didn’t actually think about anything, I was just- scared, no I wasn’t scared of you or anything, I was scared of what others will think when they look at me with you. I still do, and I think about it a lot whenever I write a letter to you. The rest are completely true though, I hated literature classes, I never liked math and I had a small hobby for swimming and I had my cousin’s birthday party today, and that I have 2 other friends. But the truest thing about me, in my letters? Is that I “loved” you, platonically or romantically, I can’t tell, it’s just as I said before, I have never been in love with someone romantically, maybe platonically but I don’t really know that feeling either. Maybe it’s unconfirmed but the fact that I dislike americanos but in turn ended up liking it, is true, because like I said before, I like coffee. And I’ll never really know if that’s true for me, maybe liking americano will or is just a phase because of your influence (?) but I never really lied to you have I? I like science, it’s just the projects I hate, I was thinking of some things on the day when we met. I was thinking about what others would think about me sitting in the cafe with you. So.. the fact that I can admit that I “loved” you, isn’t that technically true as well? This is exactly how my thoughts are right now in my head as I write, confusing but, it’s not everyday I can put my thoughts into words like this.

I’m going to end the letter like this, I think I’ve said everything that’s been burdening my heart, I think this is all that I can say. I may be someone normal and maybe I’m someone you probably have forgotten about a long time ago, but I’ll always remember you as someone I was probably romantically and/or platonically in “love” with. As we are parting ways, you don’t need to say anything regarding this because maybe I’ve already left but because I’m afraid of what you’ll say to begin with. If you feel the same way(?) you don’t have to admit anything to me, just accept the fact that I had the odd opportunity and sudden courage to tell you this. But believe that this, and the rest of my letters, were written with my whole heart and with good intentions and with the purest emotion and thoughts a human being can put into words.

Goodbye Y/N, I hope you read this a week later as you promised. (And that you will throw this out like I told you to do)

And I hope to see you soon in the future.

Sincerely yours,

Chris.

[spiltscribbles]

Miss you and your marvelous writing!!!! Just a prompt if you’re up to it 😊 exes wolfstar staying friends but sirius gets into a new relationship and he brings his new boo to somewhere he took remus and remus gets sad 😭 but they get back together eventually

Notes: OMFG BABEY! this is so SO beyond precious of you! i adore you to bits! thank you for the sweetness and for this scrumptious angst🥺🥺 i really hope you like it😭😘😘💜

.-

SEND ME A PROMPT  |  A Reblog means SO SO much! I ADORE YOU💜💜

.-

“He can just be so… So” James pauses right then, takes off his cap with the hand that’s still clutching his baseball bat, and ruffles his hair with the other.

“Un-opinionated,” Remus offers half heartedly as they turn the block to the small coffee shop nearest school, both of them freshly showered after the required morning workouts for Tuesday and Thursdays. It’s the first semester in which Remus has actually joined in on the seven minute track, considering the fact that even despite their crazy contradictory schedules with all the sports and extra curriculars they each had, Sirius always made it a point to buy their ice coffees and drop it off to Remus, sometimes leaving them a quarter of an hour late for first period, or as just a quick drop and dash if one of them had an exam. 

It was sweet, considerate. It was Sirius showing how much he cared because he’s never been one for words, even if he would frequently print off the little texts Remus would send him about how Sirius made him feel, and hang it up on the wall besides his bed, along with photos of them and Remus by himself and a few of their other friends too.

But yeah… None of that is really a thing anymore, not the coffees or the texts or the promises of being one another’s always. Not after calling it quits in early January because they knew by August they’d be working with thousands of miles between them and a three hour difference on top of that. It just wouldn’t have been feasible in the long run, and sure— Remus was the one to broach the topic and he knows that Sirius was hesitant about the logical side of it, but sometimes Remus wishes Sirius had fought harder, had argued louder, had wanted Remus more. But that’s a ridiculous expectation, and he had only admitted as much to Lily. And at the end of the day, it was the right choice, because it’s only early May now, and Remus can’t imagine how sick he’ll feel once catching his flight to Berkeley, and they’re steadfastly back in the best friends category of things. He can’t fathom how it would’ve been if they spent all these months and the ones after being together in all those intimate ways, knowing that they’ll be so far apart soon enough.

It was the right decision for the both of them and their friendship.

“Yeah, sure. Let’s go with that,” James says, bringing Remus out of his gloomy contemplations while opening the glass door to Three Broomsticks, sporting a thin smile that he always has on when he’s trying to be kind even when he’s irritated as all get out. 

Remus snorts at him, elbow checking his side as he walks past. “Well he’s sharing that dorm with you and Sirius in New Haven, so I guess you’ve got that to look forwards to.”

James’s face pulls into a grimace and their typical barista nods their way, already receiving their orders through the app and sparing them having to wait in the queue. “Maybe Pete’ll grow his own personality in university, yeah?”

“Sure Prongsie,” Remus says, noncommittal as he checks his phone and lies against the windowpane, already exhausted by the morning. “And if he doesn’t, I’m sure Sirius is about to blow his lid any day now.”

“It’s going to be funny as fuck, and you won’t even be there to see the debris,” James counters, sounding pleasant enough even though Remus knows that he’s nearly as pissed off as Sirius is about the decision for him to go back to his home state for undergrad. 

“You’ll send pictures though.”

“Of course Moony my old friend,” James jokes, tossing him a wink as they straighten once spotting their coffees being rung up. But as Remus takes a step forwards, he notices that a familiarly tan pair of hands are reaching for them, and when Remus looks up he feels like an idiot for not noticing him sooner. Because there Sirius is, dashing as ever in their school’s maroon blazer and tan pants, and his hair is windblown and shining as it falls midway of the nape of his neck. But Remus doesn’t really have the chance to appreciate just how damn good looking his ex-boyfriend is, rather, he’s more distracted by how Sirius doesn’t even notice him or James as he pivots around and hands over the second cup to a beaming Gideon Prewett. Their heads incline while they exchange a few words that are absolutely impossible to pick up in the crowded cafe before they bump their shoulders together and walk out the opposite door.

And it feels like nothing else watching that exchange— like their was a hammer and pick chipping away at his stupid, weeping heart.

“I think they’re just doing a project together,” James says lowly in Remus’s ear, clapping him on the back in reassurance, and Remus loves him, but he’s not in the mood for false platitudes, feels like there is a ugly, burning fire festering deep in his stomach and making Remus want to hurl all over the wooden floors.

“Yeah, I’m sure,” he replies instead, mild as he discretely picks up his phone again and opens up to the last conversation he had this morning.

R: need intel 

L: Say more sexy things to me, lover 

R: sirius and Gideon

R: what’s going on there

L: I’ll take a look, dw

Buoyed by Lily’s scary levels of detective skills, Remus returns his phone to his satchel and signals James to follow him to pick up their actual drinks. “C’mon, Flitwick hates it when we’re late.”

.-

“Do you want the good news first, or the bad.” Lily asks Remus later that morning during their shared free period, dropping her bag on the tabletop that they typically commandeer towards the back of Hogwarts’s library, nearest the windows and tucked away by the shelves.

“Is there actually any good news? Or are you just saying that to make me feel better.” Remus asks, single brow cocked as he shuts his history book and tosses it to the side.

“Well your hair looks especially nice today,” she offers with a small smile, sitting besides him and ruffling his curls.

“Thanks, I suppose. But I’d rather just get to it. And don’t sigh at me like that! All long suffering and all.”

Rolling her eyes, Lily gathers her hair into a high pony before turning to Remus fully. “You’re my best friend, I love you more than just about anyone. You know that, right?” Lily asks him, stiff stance relaxing when he nods in turn. “Then understand that I’m saying this from a place of love, but you don’t get to be mad at him, okay. You’re the one who called it off Re, you’re the one who wanted you guys to go back to being friends to avoid that messiness in August. And you know I respect the decision, but also it wasn’t the only one to be had. I mean look at James and I—“

“You’re going to Columbia Lils,” Remus bristles, hates how defensive he’s getting all of a sudden. “That train ride is like two hours and some change at the very most. It’s not the same.”

“You guys could’ve made it work,” she insists, green eyes blazing in the dim light. “He’s crazy about you, and you’re in love with him— Like ass backwards in love. You can’t just cut that off like it’s nothing, damn it, Remus.”

He can feel his own ears reddening and Remus hates it, hates how today had started off so innocuous and now it’s an absolute shit show. Remus hates that Lily is always correct about everything, and hates how Sirius probably is regretting telling Remus he still fully intends to ask him out to prom, and hates how much he loves him— how whenever he looks at Sirius it’s just a deluge of wanting and adoring and regretting and needing to feel his lips against Sirius’s own again like a drug, how he’ll never forget how he tasted like coffee beans and cigarette smoke and the strawberries he ate every morning besides his breakfast. Remus hates it all and he can’t figure out how not to feel like suddenly everything is slipping out of his hands like sand drifting through his fingers.

“He’s probably not that crazy over me anymore considering he’s getting Gideon Prewett coffees now, so maybe it’s the right decision after all.” Is what Remus decides to tell Lily instead of that whirlwind of clashing feelings.

“Oh Christ,” Lily huffs, dropping her head back like she’s asking for strength from the heavens above. “Look, Dorcas tells me that they’ve only been out twice. And Marlene says that it’s nothing intense. Just a movie and then he went to go watch his nephew’s little league game.”

“Oh,” Remus intones, because, no. No he will not start crying like this is some fucking Nicholas Sparks novel, and he’s the wayward lead making all the worst decisions. He’s not going to cry damn it!

He is not a bird, and this is suppose to be happening, and none of this has any real consequence at the end of the day. He and Sirius broke up, and Sirius can go out with whoever he pleases— even if it’s good looking, ginger athletes.

Remus is fine.

“Remus,” Lily gently consoles, lacing her fingers into his own that’s resting on his lap, and squeezing for good measure. “Benjy told Mary, who told me during Calc that Gideon doesn’t expect anything. Sirius told him he’s not looking for anything long term.”

“That’s dumb,” Remus retorts, trying to hold everything in so that Lily doesn’t give him that concerned, doe eyed face of hers, like when he’s spent a week living off of protein bars and double shot espressos preparing for finals. “Gideon’s great, and there on the soccer team together, they would be perfect.”

“Remus, stop.”

“And he’s going to Dartmouth, so he’ll be super close for like weekend excursions and all of that.”

“Remus!”

“The more I think about it, Lils, the more it makes sense. They just fit.”

“Sure, those are all nice attributes,” Lily says, peering up at him disappointedly. “But he’s not you.”

Like a legion of angels singing in the distance, the bell begins to shrill for next period and Remus is spared from giving that statement any mind.

.-

He spends the rest of the week acting as if he hadn’t even seen Sirius that morning whenever around him, and internally analyzing each and every exchange between them, and comparing to them to when he sees Sirius chatting with Gideon. And it’s not fun to say the least. It’s like a flashback to when he was trying to hide his crush on Sirius back in Freshman and most of sophomore year, but somehow worse. It’s worse because Remus had him, had Sirius in all the ways someone could ever want an other. He had Sirius’s languid morning kisses, and Sirius’s bark like laughter. Remus had Sirius being nervous the first time Lyall came for his typical Christmas visit, and Sirius had to try and impress him along with Remus’s mom as more than just the friend he hung around with at school. Remus had Sirius’s gruff voice when they were in bed and getting tangled into one another, and Sirius’s dopey looks in the middle of class when he’d be gazing over at Remus instead of the board. And if Remus is being honest, he knows he still has all those things, but it’s suddenly and searingly clear that some time— sooner rather than later— they’ll all leave, abruptly disappearing and shattering Remus’s world in their wake. Because eventually all of those different facets of Sirius’s won’t be Remus’s anymore— they’ll be Gideon’s or some other boy he meets in New Haven. And Remus can’t even be upset at it, he doesn’t have a claim to any of Sirius anymore, doesn’t get to call any part of him his.

And it’s probably the worst Remus has felt since that first night after their break up, because he’s eating every moment he has with Sirius like he’s famished and Sirius is the last meal he’ll ever know. He wants to memorize every part of him before he can’t have any of it. He wants to unravel every layer of Sirius, and kiss it for the final time, and it’s like saying goodbye a thousand times over, strangling his heart and splintering something desperate deep inside of him.

Like now.

It’s edging on midnight, and they drove up to the lake front near their suburb, with Sirius lying with his head on Remus’s lap and his long, muscled body lying against the tattered blanket beneath them. And his eyes are fluttered shut while the speaker they brought croons out the indie playlist they like most from Spotify.

And Remus can’t help but feel like this is one of their last nights like this, alone and quiet and together without any other specter of some other partner. So he watches him, watches the moonlight pacing over his nose and the high bones of his cheeks and across Sirius’s eyelids too. Remus watches his ink  like lashes kissing his skin, and wants to touch the divot of his cupids bow like so many times before while his other hand cards through Sirius’s hair. 

And Remus lets himself want Sirius and wonders if he’ll ever stop wanting, craving, loving him.

“I can hear you thinking Moons,” Sirius says, fluttering his eyes open and crunching up before Remus can even respond. “What’s going on?”

“Huh? What do you mean? I’m fine.” Remus all but sputters, folding his knees against his chest and wrapping his arms around them, feeling somehow vulnerable in blistering ways. “Nothing is going on.”

“Pff,” Sirius gives him a pointed look, settles down so that they’re side by side and tries to get Remus to look at him head on. “You’ve been strange all week, Moony.” 

“That’s not—“

“And then tonight, you didn’t even tease your ma when she was telling us about that patient who puked all over her shoes.”

“Just tired is all.”

“But had enough energy to smoke half the joint I brought.” Sirius says with a snort, looking frustrated again when Remus didn’t even flinch a smile at the counter. “Remus, talk to me.”

“It’s fine Sirius,” Remus sighs, suddenly remembers how exhausting all their arguments were in the past. How Sirius tries getting him to speak everything in his mind, as if Remus could even put them into words. 

“Okay, then tell me why you rejected my offer to go to that Frank Ocean concert. You’re obsessed with him.”

“’S in July,” Remus reminds him lightly, focusses on the way they can see the North star glimmering against the horizon instead.

“And, so?” Sirius asks, sounding more than a bit scathing. “You’re not leaving for another month after that, you trying to cut me off completely by the summer or something?”

“Don’t be an idiot.”

“Don’t be condescending.”

“Sirius, just leave well enough alone. Holy shit.”

“I can leave it alone if you can actually tell me what the fuck is going on with you,” Sirius snaps, standing up now, probably because he always likes using his height advantage on most people whenever he gets all pissy.

“You can be such a prick sometimes, you know that?” Remus snarls at him, following suit and dipping his head back just slightly so that they’re eye to eye. “Not everything is on your schedule, you know that.”

“My schedule!” Sirius’s brows jump to his hairline, and he breaks into that manic laughter that springs up only when he’s so angry he can’t put his thoughts together. “I’m trying to do as much shit with you as possible before you leave, because for some stupid fucking reason I’m going to miss you when your across the fucking country! But yeah, whatever. If you’re actually just sick of me and my presence or what the fuck else, you can just—“

“I would’ve assumed you wanted to go with Gideon,” Remus blurts out, simply unable to hold it back any more, unable to pretend like he’s not suffering a thousand fresh paper cuts every time he even glances Sirius’s way these days. He can’t do this, can’t pretend to just be friends when they were— when they are— so much more than that. “To the concert I mean. I just assumed—“

“No,” Sirius says, seething as he storms up to Remus— close enough that the tips of their noses brush up against each other. 

“No? Excuse me?”

“No Remus you don’t get to do this!” Sirius repeats, voice going frayed at the edges as their glances level. “You don’t get to pretend as if I want anyone more than I want— than I’ve always wanted you. And you don’t get to float around for the rest of your life pretending as if this’ll ever change for me. As if you can’t hit me up in fifteen years when I’m married with kids, and ask to get back together, and think  that I wouldn’t drop it all for you.”

Remus’s heart begins to thud, loud and painful against his ribcage, and his lungs feel like they might collapse the instant Remus let’s the tears swimming in his eyes sprinkle out. “Sirius, I ca—“

“I’ve been in love with you since before we were suppose to mean what that meant, damn it, Remus! And you’re the one who called it off!”

“It was the right decision.” Remus croaks out, plunging his hands into his hoodie’s pockets, doesn’t want Sirius to see the way they’re shaking.

“”For you. The right decision for you.” Sirius presses, his gray eyes dark underneath the stars. “And you know I’d do anything you wanted of me, but you don’t get to be mad at the ways I cope. And you sure as fuck don’t get to be jealous of fucking Gideon Prewett, as if he can hold a match to you.”

“Oh.” Is all Remus can gather to say, peering back down at his shoes and pressing together his lips, feels the most lost he ever has while around Sirius. “I love you too, you know that. You know I love you so much that it hurts sometimes— That was never the problem.”

Sirius makes a strangled sound deep in his throat, and the next second, Remus can’t feel the warmth of his body besides him because Sirius is darting over to the cusp of the lake and kicking at a rock. “Fuck, Remus. You can’t just say that, all right! You can’t because none of this is fair, or okay. And I fucking hate it and I hate this and—“

“Maybe we can try,” Remus says, quiet but unshaken. And he watches as Sirius slowly turns back around, face scrunched up in utter confusion, but eyes glittering with something like hope. “I love you Sirius, and you love me. And Lily’s right, fucking hell she’s so right. I can’t just turn it off, okay. I’ve tried and I’ve tried, but I can’t. I can’t be around you and not want every part of you. But I also can’t let myself stay away from you. So let’s try, and it’s probably a stupid difficult decision, and we’re going to be frustrated and we’re going to miss one another but I know there’s going to be no one I want more and I think you migh— Oof.”

Remus can’t continue rattling off any of the reasons why they should get back together, because Sirius is somehow magically popping up in front of him— his large hands cupping against Remus’s jawline and his thin lips crashing against him, and Remus can only wrap his arms around Sirius’s torso and give him back all he’s pushing forwards.

And it might’ve been a minute or an hour that past, but Sirius is pulling back with a face that looks lighter in ways Remus hasn’t seen on him since the breakup all those months ago. “I’d literally agree to anything if it means we can stay together, Moony. Absolutely anything.”

Remus feels the strain against the apples of his cheeks as he beams at him at the sound of the oath. “Yeah, me too Padfoot. Always and forever, it’s you.”

.-

My Other Wolfstar FIC💜

[srirachvbi]

Sakusa and Ushijima taking care of their kids headcanons !

request:  Can I request Sakusa and Ushijima taking care of their baby when their mom!s/o isn’t here ?

a/n: yesss omi and toshi taking care of their kids when they’re babies aslfjkd i love this. tysm for the requests !! i’m really happy to be writing again since i took a break for a bit after school ended!! warnings: manga spoilers, panicking and confused fathers lol

SAKUSA KIYOOMI

why we going so fUCKING FAST DAMN WOAHHHHH

He had the week off from practices and anything else because they had just finished off the season

You, sadly, did not get the same luxury of having a whole week off because even tho your husband made enough money, you still wanted and needed a job

So you had to go to work and your guys’ nanny had called and been like “yo im sick as fuck” and Omi went “ahaha don’t come near us <3″ 

It was too last minute to hire another nanny, but he’s perfectly capable of taking care of your guys’ two month old child... right?

Wrong

It had been a few hours since you had left for work and he was having some weird staring contest with Hitoshi 

Omi knew that Toshi was going to use his diaper soon enough and he just... he was in fear

After sitting there for a few minutes, he started stress cleaning and ended up gearing up to change Toshi’s diaper

Omi: *is literally performing rituals to make sure he doesn’t get anything on him*

Hitoshi: 👁👄👁 pls clean my asscheeks i pooped <3

LMAOOO the second Omi smells the wonderful stench, he almost walks out of the house

Actually he starts to until Toshi starts sobbing and he just

“👁👄👁 they ask you how you’re doing and you have to say that you’re fine--” 

He’s wearing like an N95 mask, silicone gloves, goggles, boots (he doesn’t want to get anything on his feet if he drops it but he also struggled because who tf wears shoes in the house)

Apparently him now 

Disgrace

Toshi’s still crying and Sakusa’s really about to as well LMAO

He finally gains the courage to try and change the diaper and he begins

Even with the mask on, he can still smell the shit and he’s really about to curl up and die

Slowly he peels the dirty diaper off and internally cries as he brings it towards the trash can and realizes he just

didn’t grab another diaper

So Hitoshi’s still sobbing and Sakusa’s running across your guys’ apartment in search for the diaper box

He finds them after like three minutes and is sweating hard

Omi walks over to Hitoshi again and he’s still sniffling after crying nd he feels bad

Like yeah he hates cleaning up shit but that’s his poor son :(

So he cleans everything up and puts a new diaper on

The rest of the day actually goes pretty well unlike the half an hour where he lost probably ten years of his life

You end up coming home around 7pm and walk in on Omi cleaning the table which had food splattered everywhere

He looks so stressed and your guys’ son is just laughing so loud

You end up laughing with Hitoshi and Omi’s like “i think we need a divorce <3″

Jk

He’s actually about to cry because you’re finally home to help him with Toshi

“Never leave again” “👁👄👁 that sounds a little creepy, Yoomi” 

USHIJIMA WAKATOSHI

You were actually hanging out with your high school friends and he offered to take care of Riko instead of you dropping her off at your parents’ house 

He’ s a good dad!! it’s just... he’s a bit clueless sometimes and babies cry a lot

So there are moments where you’re not sure if he should be by himself with her

dw he’s gotten better since you guys first had her-- he no longer stares at Riko and asks her why she’s crying for five minutes

Anyways

He’s honestly kind of concerned that he’s not the most skilled father

Like, he’s used to being the best so why does he struggle with being a dad?

This;ll be an opportunity for him to learn !!

You actually left before Riko woke up again so he was just sitting in your guys’ shared room waiting for her to make noise

You guys have a baby monitor and he stares at it sometimes

The poor machine is super intimidated

When she starts crying, he literally sprints towards her nursery (it’s quite a sight) and accidentally opens the door with too must strength, which leads to it hitting the wall

Cue Riko crying even louder

He’s standing there like

👁👄👁

It takes a few seconds before he’s apologizing to her LMAO

“Ah. I’m sorry.” *crying gets louder*

He picks her up carefully and looks her dead in the eyes, making her stop crying

They’re staring at each other now

SHhhh they’re communicating

“I’ll give you food.” 

She was actually hungry

You’ve seen him do this-- yeah, you’re not sure how he does it either

So he brings her to the kitchen and she’s pulling on his hair

He do be used to it tho 👀

It takes him like ten minutes to find the milk formula thing because every second he tried to put Riko down, she’d cry

So he adjusted and has her literally in the PALM OF HIS HAND

It takes a longer than necessary to read it because he started reading the ingredients and all of the information on the back

Pls Ushijima... 

He throws that bitch (not literally) into the microwave and heats the milk up for her

Meanwhile she’s started to chew on his hands and he’s so confused

“Why are you chewing on my hand? It is not food, Riko.” *CHOMP* 

When her milks done, he struggles to figure out how to hold her but it’s okay, it works out in the end

The rest of the day is full of the same confusion and by the time you come home, you see him reading the ads in Riko’s childrens book to her and she’s passed out

“Waka-chan, you don’t have to read the ads” “But she enjoys them.” 

...

Fair enough 

[its-deputy-caleb]

hello! can i have some touch starved micah with a gentle and caring fem or gn reader?? thank you :))

omg yess anon, u can have touch starved micah any day! now ngl its like 3AM and i decided to write these after such a long day so this probs makes no sense and i didn't like the way they turned out at all so i might fix it up later

but still please enjoy this mess and a friendly reminder to anyone that reads this that my rdr requests are still open (but dw there's still more to come) i'm just really enjoying getting back into red dead!!

------------------------------------------

It had been a relatively long night for Micah, or so you’d noticed as you watched him leaning against a tree for almost the entire afternoon and long into the night, just sharpening his knife and mumbling under his breath.

You knew something was bothering him and apart of you couldn’t help but be a little worried and it wasn’t because of the robbery you have with him the next day. No, deep down you had a soft spot for him.

But Micah Bell had his walls up high even around someone like you who is one of the few people he considers a friend. Talking to him, little alone approaching him is more of a challenge than a bet in five finger fillet and you had an inkling that he’d appreciate being alone.

So with a heavy sigh you stood from your place at the campfire, bid the last few remaining members a goodnight and headed towards your tent— there needed to be one of you with at least four hours of sleep, otherwise you’d never be able to pull off this robbery.

As you turned around to close the flaps in your tent, you couldn’t help but notice Micah’s gaze directed at you and it had been since you stood to leave. When your eyes met his own and you gave a soft smile he immediately turned his attention back to the knife and whetstone in his hand, hiding how flustered he was under the brim of his hat.

You waved goodnight to him but of course he didn’t see it, he wouldn’t dare look your way until he knew for certain that you wouldn’t catch him doing so. In all the time you’ve gotten to know Micah, you’ve seen him argue, fight, yell and even flirt with the gang members and total strangers but you’ve never seen him flustered or nervous quite like the way he is with you.

The thought makes you giggle as you settle into bed, you could only guess that he likes you but to say that you hate the idea would be a lie.

-

The next morning you were walking through camp with a cup of coffee in your hand as you went to find Micah and prepare for the coach that was coming in from Annesburg. It wasn’t difficult to find him since he was still leaning against the tree, the only real point of difference was his slightly slumped posture and obvious bags under his eyes.

“Here, I thought you might want this after last night.”

He stares numbly at the cup of coffee you’re holding out for him to take. He seems almost startled out of his thoughts at the first person that’s actually approached him in hours.

“I don’t like coffee.”

“—Half of its filled with whiskey.”

One of Micah’s typical sly smirks comes to rest on his face, one that’s laced with over confidence so that he can put his walls up higher and keep everyone thinking that he’s not trying to downplay whatever’s bothering him.

“You know me too well, sweetheart.”

However, you’re not just anyone and happen to see straight through his charms. When you place the cup in his hand you instantly notice the way he seems to tense up when your hand lightly brushes his. You couldn’t help but think the soft sound that left him was, for lack of a better word...cute.

His hand instinctively reaches forward into you more before pulling away to fiddle with the cup.

“Common now, I need you feeling sharp for this robbery and its a long ride to Annesburg from here.”

The tension leaves him when he realises you’re not going to push for answers or make a scene and he’s clearly comforted by the small smile you’re giving him.

-

The robbery as a whole goes fairly smooth. The coach guards were easy to take down with there being only three of them plus a driver. The issue arrived when the law showed up and there was a hell of a lot more than three.

The coach had been flipped at this point, the horses well and truely bolted but it offered the cover you needed in order to take out the flock of lawman.

Standing beside you, you can’t help notice how Micah seems completely out of it. You’ve seen him at his best, just how well he can shoot during a gunfight. Hell at Blackwater you saw him take out at least twenty pinkertons before you all even made it off the boat. No, the Micah standing beside you could barely even aim straight.

Eventually, the coast is clear— it took a while but the shooting finally stopped and left only silence as Micah went over to crack open the safe containing the payroll.

“Oh shit—“

Before you know what you’re doing, you take three quick steps forward and push Micah as hard as you can against his side. He hits the ground with a loud thud but you don’t stop to think about it as you fire your revolver at the lawman who’d managed to sneak up on you.

You don’t take your finger off the trigger until there’s no more bullets left in the chamber and the lawman is well and truly on the floor. You holster your revolver before turning around and offering an arm out for Micah to take, who is still sitting in the dirt with a stunned look on his face.

“Are you alright?”

You gently hoist him up and squeeze at his hand in hopes that he’ll understand just how worried you are about him right now.

Micah doesn’t give you a verbal response, instead choosing to groan but you didn’t mind, you suspect that his ego took more bullets than the lawman had. That didn’t mean you didn’t miss the way his hand squeezed yours back tightly.

“Oh Jesus, you’re bleeding!”

It seems Micah himself hadn’t even noticed the vibrant red stain of blood on his already dirty white pants.

“It’s just a graze, ain’t nothing to worry about.”

Unfortunately you don’t have time to argue with him about as he’s already loading up the cash onto Baylock before saddling up himself.

“Fine, but yer letting me patch you up when he get back to camp.”

-

To your surprise Micah actually follows you to your tent so you can at least bandage and disinfect the wound but that doesn’t mean he isn’t gonna put up a fuss. It takes you a good ten minutes just to get his pants off so you could clean it and it takes you even longer to place your hands anywhere near him.

“I can wrap my own damned bullet wound!”

You stare at him with an eyebrow raised, watching as he has an internal battle with himself on whether to push you away like he does everyone else, or to cave and let you in.

“Alright then, I’ll leave you to it.”

You decide to call his bluff, placing the bandages on the crate beside your bed before dusting yourself off and standing to leave the tent, only to be stopped by a hand on your wrist. Finally, you see something snap inside him and he sighs, almost defeatedly.

“Please stay…”

You pick the bandages and the old rag back up and sit back down on the edge of the cot. He jumps slightly when your hand is placed on the outside of his upper thigh, just under where the graze has torn the skin.

“Relax Micah, it’s okay.”

Micah is staring up at you with hopeful eyes as he leans on his elbows on the cot. You give him a reassuring smile but he only starts to really relax when your hand moves in slow circles against his thigh.

After the old rag has been drenched in whiskey you, offer him an apology before placing it over the wound to disinfect it. Micah hisses through his teeth and falls flat against the cot, trying not to bite his tongue off at the sharp burning feeling that’s travelling up his leg.

-

When his wound has been properly cleaned and bandaged, you lean forward and take his chin in your hand and guide him to look at you.

“Now was that so bad?”

Your eyes stare into his icy blue ones and you notice just how tired he seems. You decide to make a decision before second guessing yourself and lay down next to him on the cot that’s too small for the two of you to really fit on it.

Nevertheless your arms come to wrap around him in a tight hug. He tenses again but only for a moment before melting into you, exhausting clearly winning out.

Your hand comes to tangle in his hair and gently massage his scalp before placing a soft kiss to his forehead.

“Is this why you’ve been acting so off recently?”

Micah nods into your shoulder, more relaxed than ever now that he’s receiving the affection and intimacy he’s been craving for months now. He’ll probably beat himself up later over a bottle of whiskey for being so needy, but right now he couldn’t care less.

“Micah, when was the last time you had a hug?”

Your question is soft, non judgemental as you gently detangle his hair from where there are small knots. This time, there’s no answer and he only sinks further into your arms around him, as if he’s trying to literally avoid the question.

It doesn’t take a genius however to guess how long its been.

“Hey its alright, it doesn’t have to be like that anymore.”

His head comes up from your shoulder instantly, a desperate and hopeful look in his eyes. Your noses are almost touching and you can feel his slightly shaky breathe as he attempts to calm his nerves.

You lean forward slowly and place a soft kiss to lips, feeling him smile against you. His moustache manages to tickle his top lip and you can’t help but giggle which only makes the two of you smile more.

-

That night, Micah finally gets a good night’s rest with his head resting upon your shoulder. He’s lulled off by your hand rubbing slow circles into the back of his neck and soft but frequent forehead kisses.

He’s just about to doze off into a peaceful sleep when he feels you whisper against his skin,

“I love you Micah, just relax and get some sleep now”

The next morning he’ll wake up from one of the best sleeps he’s had in a long time knowing you held him all night.

[nightshade-minho]

MOONSTORM [ iii ]

You know that feeling when you know you’ve made a terrible mistake?

Yes. That feeling.

It’s a feeling that never really goes away. You had to learn that the hard way.

Irrevocable actions, stupid mistakes. You were heart-wrenchingly familiar with all of it.

To err was human apparently. You...weren’t human, though.

It seems like being superhuman was insignificant, after all. At the end of the day, nothing mattered. None of your powers did.

Despite it all, you still lost him.

warnings: depressing shit (it gets better though dw) mentions of death, violence, sexual content, future smut

wc: 2.8k

moonstorm masterlist

It felt like the world had lost all color.

It had happened so many months ago, and yet it still felt like it happened just yesterday. The memories of stumbling out of his lair, covered in his blood and your tears, still fresh in your mind.

The image of his face, betrayed and yet so calm as he uttered those last words to you...it haunted you constantly.

You found yourself looking at the moon every night, dreaming about what could have been. The nightmares endlessly plagued your sleep as well, causing you to fear even your own bed.

No...even after Hyunjin's effects on you wore off, your own brain took on the responsibility of torturing you by conjuring up more heartbreaking dreams. Dreams which made you long for something you knew you’d lost forever- never to be yours again.

You never truly realized how much you’d gotten used to having him around. Life was so glaringly empty and meaningless without him. It was a complicated relationship…and yet it still left a giant hole in you. An all-encompassing despair that threatened to swallow you up.

With him gone, it just didn’t feel right to be a superhero anymore. How could you be the strong role model for everyone in the city to rely on when you knew just how weak you’d become? Even when the newspapers were covered with your heroics, even as the mayor addressed the city and expressed his desire to give you a medal for stopping yet another supervillain from roaming the streets- you stubbornly refused to don that costume ever again.

You stayed hidden through it all. You just couldn’t bring yourself to go out in public anymore. Your vigilante costume lay forgotten in the back of your closet- crumpled and sad.

It just...felt wrong. At the moment you felt nothing but pathetic. You didn’t have time to waste saving a snotty kitten stuck on a tree or stop a petty criminal from robbing a bank- all you were fit to do was eat ice cream straight from the can, and watch a soulless movie. The same routine, day in and day out. You hadn’t left your apartment in nearly a month, not even to buy groceries. Every second was spent wrapped up in blankets, pondering what you’d done.

Was that selfish of you? Probably. You were discovering new flaws by the second.

Sighing, you sat up a little, your ass almost numb from how long you’d spent lying down. Glancing up, you saw your father’s portrait looking down at you. You swallowed and slowly stood up from your bed, groaning to yourself. Why did he suddenly seem so disappointed?

Maybe a little bit of fresh air is what you needed, considering you were starting to believe the paintings were changing expressions. After all, you had work to do anyway- might as well take advantage of the nearby café’s free WiFi.

***

Here at last.

You sat down in the corner of the café, so tired you could barely move a muscle. But you had to get a move on with your life- the recovery should have happened by now.

And yet here you were, months later. Nothing seemed to be able to fill the hole he left behind, and even now you wished you could go back home as soon as possible.

Had it...had it been a mistake?

Of course it had. Your misery was evidence, and you weren’t sure how much longer you could convince yourself that you’d done it for the good of the city.

The truth was... Hwang Hyunjin scared you.

He made you feel things, made you want to be someone else entirely. Every ounce of rigidity and austerity you’d imposed in yourself disappeared every time you were with him. He made you want to give everything up- give up all the responsibilities and burdens you carried on your shoulders to be with him. To be like him- free.

It wasn’t Hyunjin who was a threat to the city. No, not directly.

It was you- or rather the lack of you.

This city needed you to survive, and if Hyunjin managed to change you...it surely wouldn’t have lasted long without your help. Hyunjin had never really been the city’s biggest threat- there were far worse villains and it was them who you really fought against.

He was more of just an inconvenience, someone you had to deal with from time to time. And then he’d struck that deal- after which the nature of your relationship had turned into something entirely different.

Every time he acted up, it was usually just a ploy to get your attention. And attention was exactly what he got. You’d reinforced his behavior like an idiot.

You told yourself it was a chore, but it wasn’t all that convincing. You’d loved spending those nights in his bed, loved the way he was an expert at making you come undone with his body and his words.

It really had seemed like a good idea at the time. The right thing to do. However, it was quickly starting to seem like anything but.

You sighed as your mind tried its best not to travel back all those months. Dipping a teabag into the liquid, you mindlessly observed the customers in the cafe. Many of them were young, teenagers who were heading out before class.

You sighed as you recalled your own high school days, the times Hyunjin and you had hung out in a cafe much like this one.

“You don’t have to help me with this project, you know.”

“Ah, shush. It’s our final year. I’m not going to leave you alone.” He smiled as he flipped through his books, taking a sip of his coffee occasionally.

“You act like you’re not sticking to me like white on rice the rest of the year.” You roll your eyes, chuckling to yourself.

“Don’t get snippy with me, missy.” He smirked, still thumbing the pages nonchalantly. “Or I’ll have to punish you.”

“You- I- what?” You wouldn’t admit it, but the thought caused a fluttering sensation in more than one place. It was a little bit of a shock, considering the two of you had done nothing more than make out and flirt, until now.

“Chill. I’m kidding.” He shook his head, looking up at you. “Unless…” He wiggled his eyebrows.

“Stop it! I’m supposed to be working right now.” You whined, swatting him with a rolled up paper.

“I don’t care.” He tapped his fingers on the table. “Hm...do you know what I’m thinking of right now, Y/n?”

“W-what?”

“Thinking about how easy it would be to slip my fingers under your skirt and play with that pretty pussy of yours. I’m pretty sure it’s soaked your underwear through by now.”

Fuck.

Your cheeks flushed as you stared at your plate. You couldn’t find it in yourself to respond properly- his mere words had already turned you to a mess.

“S-shut up.” You mumbled, reading out formulas aloud as you tried to divert your attention from it. Hyunjin let out a teasing chuckle at your lame attempt to change the topic, shaking his head as he stared at his book again, unaware you were looking over your own at him, pressing your thighs together subtly.

God, he was so...so annoying.

You snapped out of it, sighing as you looked around at the much less crowded cafe. Had it always looked so dull? So lifeless?

The thought of him was hurtful- it felt like a dull knife, screwing itself into you. Reminding you what you’d done.

You’d killed the love of your life.

And now? There was no way to bring him back.

***

“Murder is never something a superhero should resort to. A good hero always stays true to themselves- they only kill if it’s absolutely necessary.”

A cough.

“But of course...villains are exempt from that rule. Killing one villain’s life could save countless others.”

Hm. You weren’t exactly sure if your father was right. Although you were just a child, you still had some knowledge of morality.

Was he? Killing just...seemed wrong. You didn’t know if you could bring yourself to do it, no matter how evil the person was.

“Surely there are other ways to neutralize someone evil, Father?”

He narrowed his eyes at you, before shaking his head coldly. “Untrue.”

“The truth is, some lives are expendable, my dear Y/n…” Another cough, before he cleared his throat and fixed his gaze back on you.

“You must always look for the greater good.”

***

You still remembered the day you first met Hyunjin.

He was 13, and you were just a little younger. Your families were good comrades and allies, so your eventual meeting had already been planned.

The two of you were in the living room with everyone else as they talked to each other, mingling and chattering like adults usually did. Hyunjin and you made an unanimous decision to sneak out to the rooftop, and get to know each other better.

“So...our parents are allies now, hm? This means we’re going to see each other a lot more.”

“Of course we are! We’re both prodigies, like my dad and your mom...we inherited their powers, so they’re obviously going to want to cultivate those.”

“You speak pretty fancy for a 12 year old.”

“Hey, so do you! Besides, we’re gifted, aren’t we?”

“Hm.” He sighed, swinging his legs and inhaling. After a few seconds of silence, he spoke up again.

“Do you actually like having these powers?”

“Oh? Well, yeah...I do...my father tells me stories of his days as a superhero. I want to help people, just like him.”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. I’d much rather live a normal life. Get a normal job, find someone to love, and have a normal marriage in a normal town.”

You pressed your lips together. “To each their own, I guess. Personally, I just want to get rid of all the evil in the world and make my father proud.”

“Really?”

“Yep.”

“Evil…” He tapped his chin. “How does one even know the difference between good and evil?”

You raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean? I’m pretty sure it would be obvious in every situation.”

“I disagree. The distinction is blurry. No one knows for sure, and definitely not at first glance.” He sighed. “I would know.”

You brought your knees to your chest as you observed the city below. “Well, I guess you’re right…” you paused, your heart feeling a little heavy for some reason.

“Do you know?”

“The line between good and evil is thin, Y/n. I can’t say I know for sure. But do you know what will always help you remember?”

“What?”

“Your heart.” He said softly, glancing at you and offering you a small smile.

“Just do whatever feels right...trust yourself.”

***

You sighed and shut your laptop.

Home. You needed to go home, cause your heart ached too much. You definitely weren’t ready to go back to work yet. You hadn’t done anything productive today really, just drink coffee and reflect on your actions. Regretting....regretting it all.

It’d been wrong. The wrong choice, the wrong decision.

You knew that, now. There could have been another way. You shouldn’t have rushed into it like that...how could you?

You felt a surge of hatred towards yourself engulf you. It was all your fault, this pain you were feeling. You didn’t have anyone to direct this immense anger towards except yourself. You realized this little fact in horror, your heart clenching as you wished things could have been different.

Finishing off your coffee, you placed a few bills on the table as you left the café, heading home. Ready to burrow under the blankets again, wallow in your self pity and pain. There wasn’t much else to do except succumb to acceptance.

You made your way down the street, humming the saddest song you knew under your breath.

All of a sudden, you felt eyes burning into your back. Your own eyes widening slightly, you turned around quickly-

But there was no one there.

Weird. Sighing, you decided to go back to going over your plans for tonight in your mind.

Maybe watch a movie in hopes of triggering some sort of emotion in you...or maybe take a bath, light some candles and listen to depressing music- shit.

It happened again. Someone was following you- you could feel it. Uncomfortable, your breathing slowly started getting heavier as you tried to formulate some kind of plan in your head-

The next thing that happened was so sudden you barely registered it for a second.

Your hand was gripped, so tightly you felt it would bruise. Aggressive, shocking and swift as lightning- it took several seconds before you realized someone was trying to kidnap you.

“Stop! Leave me alone!”

Struggling against the person holding you, you caught a glimpse of the masked man and decided to scream, hoping to gain some attention from somebody, anybody. There was no way this was happening, not right now. Your day had already been bad enough, why was the universe so intent on rubbing salt in your wounds?!

The urge to fight had never been stronger. Yet there was no strength left in your body. You couldn’t fight back against this man- he was taller than you and somehow even matched you in strength. Unless you exposed your powers, there was no way you would get yourself out of this predicament. Somehow you managed to smack him with your arm weakly, making him hiss.

“Let me go, please!”

The coffee cup fell out of your hand, brown liquid spilling all over the ground as you were pulled into the dark alley so quickly, no one would notice. Your eyes darted about in panic, trying to work out a possible escape route when the masked man caged you in, his arms on either side of you.

A horrible sense of déjà vu enveloped you. It’s all you can do to not scream, trying to keep yourself calm so that you could escape.

It’s ok, breathe in...and concentrate.

The heat within you started to crackle, your palms beginning to burn up gradually.

Your eyes blinked as you decided to try and take a good look at the person holding you. Their head was covered with a black mask, their finger held over their mouth as they ran their eyes over your distressed expression.

Inhale. Exhale.

“What the fuck are you doing?” You hissed, staying still and pretending to give up the struggle. “Unhand me now, or you’ll regret it, trust me-“

“Shh! Y/n, please…” He shushed you, his voice shaky.

You stopped in your tracks.

Huh?

That voice…

“I’ll explain... but first we need to get out of here, fuck-” He looked from side to side quickly, scanning his surroundings.

Shit. Why does that voice sound so familiar?

“Who- who are you?!” You managed to get out, the heat fading away as deep, panicked confusion took over you instead.

There was a small sigh as your assailant stood up a little straighter, groaning. And then, his fingers deftly pulled the mask off, clutching it in his hands tightly.

Golden locks spilled out, a handsome visage coming into view. Plump lips and beautiful eyes, looking oh so familiar.

No.

No.

It couldn’t be. This wasn’t happening. What the fuck, what the fuck, what the actual fuck was going on?

It’s him.

But it can’t be.

How? It’s not possible-

You’re definitely losing your mind.

The man’s breathing got quicker as he watched your expression morph from fear into one of pure, electric shock.

“I know you’re shocked, Y/n, but please listen to-“

Your chest started heaving, quickly rising and falling as your heart pounded against your rib cage.

This...could not be happening. What was this? Was this a nightmare? Yet another sick, twisted dream? He couldn’t be standing right in front of you...it was impossible. No. No no no no no no no.

It was all too overwhelming, and your brain and body seemed to agree on that. Your mind swam, your thoughts all over the place as you felt yourself sway on your feet.

“This- I-“ You stumbled over your words, tears slipping past quickly as you tried to form words to express what you felt.

Pain. Searing pain, taking over, spreading from head to toe.

Your breathing slowed as the world suddenly went black, Hyunjin’s shouts in the background fading away...until there was nothing but silence.

Pure, unadulterated silence.