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kiyoobi · 2 years

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we all are small particles holding very tightly together in a very large universe // k.bakugou III

Rating: MA

Pairing(s): Tamaki Amajiki x fem!reader, Bakugou Katsuki x fem!reader

Warnings: hurt/comfort, heavy angst, emotional cheating, major character death, smut, body horror/graphic injuries, trauma, ptsd, sinkhole accident, medical trauma, hospital scenes

wc: 9.7k

Summary: ahaha

a/n: hello this is my third part, ive finally hit my 20k min requirement for @mybigbangacademia yay!!!!!!!!!! enjoy, like, reblog, comment, gimme a lil kudos on ao3 (link in title) and as always...

minors dni

For authorized eyes only, Level Eight Clearance and Above required.

Mission Report: Musutafu Sinkhole Incident, 02/03/2xxx

On March 2nd, 2xxx a sinkhole in the Musutafu district occurred at 17:52. There were fourteen casualties, including Pro-Hero Suneater. Forty-eight other civilians and heroes were rushed to nearby hospitals for injuries ranging from severe to devastating. Twelve had minimal injuries. Twenty-two are still missing. Numbers of victims are rising every day. Rescue efforts are still ongoing, the city blocks have been shut down and quarantined as fire and rescue fight the elements.

The sinkhole originally had been three blocks wide and three hundred twenty-seven feet deep. The original cause is still unknown, this investigation is ongoing but suspicions are that unstable water and sewages systems and years of poor foundation may be the cause. As soon as this emergency was dispatched, teams of heroes and sidekicks alongside fire and rescue had surrounded the area and began their rescued efforts. Surrounding the sinkhole, medics awaited for any survivors. The main concern was finding pedestrians and securing any unstable sections. Rescue heroes had been struggling with the amount of debris and noise made, making rescue efforts difficult. This raised the emergency level to a code black. Broken electricity lines quickly became a concern once the burst water and sewage pipes made contact. Many injuries that flooded the medic tents ranged from crush injuries, mild concussions, DOA (dead on arrival), or electrocution. Medic tents were busy and over filled for the next few days after the disaster, hospital emergency rooms flooded with drastic injuries.

Section five of the sinkhole had collapsed at 21:04, engulfing an ambulance truck, a petrol station, several civilian cars, a news station car, and two heroes: Shadow Step and Suneater. The collapsed section had sunken down an estimated one hundred more feet. Flooding, debris, collapsed vehicules and a small building had made rescue efforts all the more difficult. Investigations are ongoing to find the cause of this particular section caving in, however due to instability of the sinkhole, causes are still unknown.

Pro-hero Suneater and his sidekick Shadow Step had fallen into the collapsed section, with Tamaki Amajiki breaking his sidekick’s fall. Initial findings found that an ambulance had fallen too with them, threatening their safety as it was caught on metal piping. Reports found that the ambulance had slipped from the broken pipes due to the insecure structuring and water flooding, and the heroes were trapped underneath an ambulance for approximately sixty-seven hours. Suneater had heroically saved himself and Shadow Step under an oyster shell he had manifested. However due to his extensive injuries, his protection against the ambulance truck was fragile and weakening.

Unbeknownst to them, Suneater’s wireless earpiece had not been shattered from their initial fall and impact as he had believed. His last moments alive were recorded, lasting for an approximate four thousand five hundred and sixty minutes.

A team looking for the hero pair had been listening from a nearby zone in hopes of finding their location and saving them. Overhearing the grave condition Suneater was in, they knew they had a limited time before his quirk would cease working and both heroes would be crushed by the ambulance truck.

Said team of those heroes, all who are now currently in ongoing trauma therapy for the disaster and loss of their fellow number six hero are:

Number one hero Lemillion

Number two hero Deku

Number three hero Shouto

Number four hero Dynamite

Number five hero Hawks

Number sixteen hero Earphone Jack

The following is an excerpt of Suneater’s autopsy report:

Japanese Male, Twenty-seven years old, 179 centimeters, weighing approximately 87.9 kilograms. Pronounced dead on scene.

Traumatic cervical spine injuries had led to the extreme possibility of paralysis from these severe injuries.

Higher falls were associated with hemorrhage as well as rib fractures and various organ injuries. Organ injury patterns did not differ based on work status. The presence of equipment misuse or malfunction were not associated with more deaths upon impact. Suneater was not killed on impact.

He suffered extensive injuries, a broken arm, a broken leg and fractures of a number of ribs. Evidence of a pneumothorax was found due to a broken rib. A gash in his left thigh confirmed witness reports that a metal drainage pipe had stabbed through the upper rectus femoris muscle and shattered parts of the left femur.

Cause of death was blunt force trauma from the falling vehicle, with signs of tracheal collapse and the C2 vertebrae crushed.

End excerpt.

Due to Suneater’s broadcast from his receiver, evidence corroborated the accident reports. Shadow Step was to activate their quirk to switch positions with the ambulance that had been threatening to crush them both. After much debate Shadow Step finally agrees to Suneater’s plan, resulting in his death and their recovery.

Unfortunately, Shadow Step was not found immediately. The depression had been filling with sewage and rushing water from the broken water mains quickly flooding the area. Section Three had concaved and fallen to what experts estimate at least one hundred feet. Mud, collapsed cars, debris, had all made rescue efforts more difficult. Shadow Step was stranded at the bottom of the sinkhole for two more days without food or clean water. Dynamite, part of this rescue team, had been the one to find Shadow Step.

They were found at the scene emaciated with open cuts and wounds, a concussion, extreme exhaustion, infection in trauma fractures found in the left humerus, dislocated shoulder, broken collarbone, broken arm, broken ribs from impact, and a metal pipe in their upper left leg. Since Suneater’s transmission was the only record found, events that went underway with Shadow Step are unclear, although given the traumatic rescue, assumptions can be made about how critical and dire their situation was. Medical analysis showed they consumed gasoline, presumably from the petrol station that caved in with Section Three, and presumably because they confused it with water in all of the hysterics. Currently they are in an induced medical coma as they recover from surgery. They are not expected to return to work within the next few months. Attempts to find their soulmate are still under way.

The origins of the sinkhole are still under investigation. Villains are found to not be involved.

-(-)-

A sea of nothing. Everywhere it is dark.

You can feel the warm water underneath your back, gently rocking you back to sleep. Everything is quiet. You quite like the quiet. You float aimlessly. To be honest, you think you can live like this for the rest of your life. Are you even alive? Perhaps it’s purgatory. It’s certainly not heaven. Or maybe it is, you wonder. You really don’t care.

-(-)-

Maybe you do care. Where are you going anyway? Is this really heaven? Are you dead? You feel salt in your throat, burning your trachea and esophagus. There really isn’t anything to do here. What even is here?

You’re sick, but wasn’t there a proverb you read once that said the sick wouldn’t be sick anymore? Whatever, you supposed. You wiggle your toes in the warm water, floating aimlessly still.

-(-)-

Your mind is empty. Or maybe it’s anesthetized, so you wouldn’t feel the gaping wound it’s become. One day I’ll cry, you tell yourself with a faint smile. One day, I might care that I am dying.

-(-)-

Am I real?

-(-)-

Everything hurts. Nothing hurts at all.

You want to look, look and see where you’re going, where you are, but your eyes sting every time you even try to open your swollen lids. Instead, you settle for touch, using your fingertips to feel warm waves lapping around your floating body. You realize one of your arms is bandaged to your chest, the other in a sling. Slowly it comes back to you in flashes:

Falling.

Screaming

The force of the ground beneath you and Tamaki.

Tamaki…

You want to cry out but there’s a tube in your throat, choking you.

You want to move but your muscles won’t listen.

Bambi.

The waves under you feel softer, drier. Linen.

Bambi.

Your eyes open.

“She’s fighting the intubation,” a voice says next to you.

“Welcome back,” another says. “Relax for just a moment, babe, we are going to remove your breathing tube.” You gag as they remove the foreign object, coughing violently as soon as you’re free.

Bambi.

You struggle to speak, your voice is gone and every word feels like your vocal chords are grating against each other.

“Oh honey, shhhh.” The ICU nurse dabs your eyes, you’re crying. Why are you crying? “It’s okay, it’s okay. You’ve been under for a while, you shouldn’t push yourself to talking just yet. Your doctors will be in soon.” You look at them wildly, not understanding where you are and what’s going on. The lights are too bright, the machines next to you, too loud. You try to flail your arms but one is tied to your chest, the other manages to smack an orderly right on the cheek.

“Sedate her.” The orderly is quick to strap down your free arm while a team of medical staff moves swiftly around you. “Three milligrams of midazolam-,” Your muscles loosen and it’s harder to keep your eyes open.

Bambi.

For the next week you’re in and out of consciousness. No one tells you anything suffice for the TV in your hospital room playing the news, over and over they tell the public the horrid news. You watch Tamaki’s memorial from your bed, veins pumping with sedatives to keep you from breaking down again. You watch his parents cry, unable to yourself. Lemillion gives a beautiful speech, so do others who know your fiancé. Knew. You correct this mentally over and over, but you never seem to get it right. After the news broadcasts, you watch trashy talk show hosts gossip about you. The police told you nothing was released, and yet here they are skepulating on who your mystery soulmate is. They tell all of Japan how you’re such a monster for letting Tamaki die, and your eyes flit to the hordes of cards and flowers sent to your bedroom, the fruit baskets that you cannot stomach to eat.

You don’t cry. You can’t. You really want a cigarette. You press that little grey button for more morphine instead.

Nurses and doctors filter in and out, updating you on your recovery. A few more weeks and your collarbone will be all set to go! Your O2 sats are rising! You might be weaned off this drip in a few more days!

“Why can’t you guys use the doctors with the healing quirks?” Your voice is hoarse, barely used, words slurring. You watch your med team stiffen, not used to hearing you speak. You suppose that’s what happens when you wake up screaming every morning, only shutting up when you’re pumped full of drugs.

“What?” You snap, “What aren’t you telling me??”

“The infection in your bone is spreading, even with the antibiotics and the surgeries planned for this week… we don’t believe it’ll be the same after. You wouldn’t be able to walk or run on that leg like you did before.”

Before . Before you and your fiancé were trapped. Before he died. Before when you didn’t even have a soulmate.

“What’re you saying?” You look down to your hand and play with the blanket covering your bottom half.

“With the progression of this infection, and with your career, we believe it’s best to proceed with an above knee amputation.” Your face grows hot and your tongue is numb.

“No, I don’t give you permission.” Your jaw locks.

The surgeon hesitates, “I’m afraid that isn’t up to you. The law requires that in the current state you’re in, medical decisions aren’t up only up to you; your soulmate must also be involved in the decision.” Soulmate.

“I don’t-,” You pause, almost delivering the same four words you’ve been telling everyone for years. I don’t have a soulmate. “I don’t understand. That isn’t fair.”

“It’s the law, honey” another doctor says sympathetically. “Your soulmate has to be onboard with this decision and even then, we highly recommend amputation. This infection can spread and all of your major organs could start to fail-.”

She talks and talks. All of it just angers you.

You feel like screaming. And so you do.

You scream until your throat burns, until your lungs scream for you to stop. You throw with your one good arm what you can at the idiots, cursing them and letting out the years of anger and frustration that’s been bubbling forth underneath your skin. You hate them. You hate them so much, you hate everything. You activate your quirk, not having done that since Tamaki, throwing chairs and medical equipment at them. Satisfaction is quickly lost when they start to restrain you, giving you a dosage to knock your quirk and yourself out.

-(-)-

For the first time in a while, you see him. Blonde tufts of hair swaying with the gentle breeze, a pink sky and a calm ocean in front of you both. His hair looks soft, like it’s only gotten the saltwater and ocean air to style it today instead of the expensive ass pomade he probably uses every day. You’ve always wondered how it felt, or maybe you didn’t. You can’t really remember how things were before. Before you had a soulmate. Were you always destined for Katsuki? What changed? In any case, you wonder how long it usually takes the hero to style himself for his shifts. It used to take you an hour, on good days? Thirty minutes. You’re not gonna have that opportunity for a while now, you suppose.

When you walk, both of your legs work. You can feel the sand between your toes, sinking under your weight until it finds its way to finally support you. Fuck, you should’ve taken more vacations. You should’ve taken that time off and felt the salt for real, feel the way the sun baked it all day just for you to dip your feet in the cool seawater. The sound of the waves draws your attention out toward the sea, a warm breeze hugs your arms and wraps around your legs.

You don’t look at him, the nerves in your belly tightening conflict with the warm excitement in your chest to see him after so long. It’s been so long. You didn’t realize how long you’ve been keeping track. Instead you look down at his hands resting at his sides, relaxed. They look soft… warm. You wonder if they’d feel like the sand beneath your feet. It doesn’t take long before you’re right next to him. Butterflies. They’re squeezing around your gut. You make the mistake of glancing at him, heart skipping to see his eyes have already found you.

You don’t really know what to say to him.

“What do you put in your hair when you’re on call?” Inwardly you roll your eyes at yourself, it’s a stupid question. But it’s the first time you talk to him in your dreams. Really talk to him. It’s the first time you acknowledge him as your soulmate in a dream. Those nightmares you both had, both of you never acknowledging what they could possibly ever mean, they don’t count. You still can’t decipher the meaning of those monsters, and you’re afraid to know. You’ve never gotten a chance to thank him properly. And he, you.

Bakugou doesn’t hide his surprise well, his lips part softly in confusion and he furrows his brow. “It’s a hair pomade-” Your sudden burst of laughter cuts him off and he scowls, “ What?!” You continue to belly laugh, shaking your head, unable to stop yourself. He watches you laugh so hard that your belly aches and your smile hurts. He watches when your laughter turns to tears streaming down your cheeks, his soft smile curling downwards with concern.

Katsuki stands, towering over you. His hands grab your hips and he pulls you in as you cry, sobbing into his chest all the while. You can feel him soothing you, rubbing his hand up and down your back, his nose at the crown of your hair taking in the scent of your conditioner. Your skin smells like the hospital Irish Springs soap. He sways you both, right in his arms. His heart beats right against your ear, a reminder of his love for you. You try not to think of him, but all you can think of is how it was to lay on Tamaki’s chest and feel and hear his heart slowly fading beneath his uniform.

Tears swell in your eyes. “You haven’t come to see me,” you sob. Your fists ball by his sides and as much as you want to pull away, you lean all your weight into him. He smells like vanilla and cinnamon sugar, like the warm sugary pastry treats you ate in the States during the summer. “Why?”

Katsuki holds you, swaying and rocking you both gently. The waves lap at your toes, you wonder when the last time you stepped on a real beach was. You think about how it’s too late.

“I have,” he admits in a low voice. “I’ve been there.”

Out of surprise, you jerk back to look at him. “What? What do you mean?”

“I usually leave when the docs show up; didn’t really think you’d want me there to be honest, Bambi.”

“Why wouldn’t I?” You pull more away from him, anger flashing now. “Why do you think I would rather be alone in a godforsaken hospital room?”

His jaw tenses and he steps forward into the space you created, his hands surprisingly gentle as they squeeze your hips. “Bambi-”

“Shut up.” Your eyes narrows, “Don’t call me that. You know they’re going to take my leg?” Bakugou’s eyes glances down as you speak. “They won’t even listen to me! They refuse to, all because the fucking law says that my fucking soulmate has to give their permission too. I never have a choice. Everything is decided for me.”

“What’s so wrong about losing your leg, huh?” Katsuki snaps, “There’s nothing wrong with having one less limb. This is about your life, you idiot!”

“It’s my leg ! I cannot and will not go through with this amputation. You need to tell them that you agree with me!” With each step you move backwards, Katsuki refuses to let you get far.

“So fucking what!? Who gives a fuck if you lose your leg?”

“You’re kidding me right?” You glare at him, “You think no one would give a fuck? Tell me, Dynamite, would you still love me so fucking much if I weren’t the spectacular Shadow Step? If I weren’t able to train as much and-.”

“Oh shut the fuck up,” Bakugou groans and rolls his eyes at you. “Shut the fuck up. You think I give a shit?”

“All your life you gave a shit! You always sneered down at people who are weaker than you! Fucking bully, I don’t know why you of all people are my soulmate.” You laugh bitterly, spewing out hateful words you don’t even mean.

Bakugou doesn’t even flinch, instead he keeps stepping in that space you keep leaving between you both. “Yeah? You know me then, huh?”

“Yes,” you spit out. “Tamaki should not have been the one to have died.” Shut up, shut up, shut up.

Katsuki nods, his jaw clenched tightly as your fists pound against his chest. “And it shouldn’t have been me either. You were the one who convinced me to go back. It should have been you down there.”

“You don’t,” Katsuki catches your eyes and shakes his head gently. “You don’t know me.” Angry tears, fat and hot tears burn your cheeks now. Every step you pull back from him, you can feel the magnetism of the universe forcing you back in.

“I don’t want to get to know you,” you spew out. “I don’t want you. I wasn’t supposed to have a soulmate. You ruined that for me!”

“You can deny me all you want, sweetheart. But we are made from the same stardust, and you can’t get rid of that.”

“Oh sure, it’s meant to be.” You roll your eyes sarcastically and shove yourself away from him, “But it’s not meant to last.”

“Fuck you, you can’t tell me what this is. My love is there. It’s there and you can’t take that away from me,” Katsuki points his finger at you, accusatory. “It might not change anything and it’s definitely not gonna save anything, but it’s there.”

“Ignore it!” You swat his hands away when you slip in the sand, “If I can ignore this, so can you.”

“Bullshit,” he challenges. “You can barely ignore this, how can you ignore the stupid fucking magnetic pull between us??” Katsuki stops chasing after you for a moment, and rubs his face tiredly.

“I love you,” He says.

“It’ll pass.”

“Bullshit,” Katsuki glares back at you. “That’s how I know you don’t even know half of how any of this works. Do you know how hard it is, watching for most of my life seeing you with others? Watching you say over and over how you’re not tied to me? Denying me at every chance? Do you know what that’s like?”

You can’t reply, tears block your airway and your words and you look away towards the ocean instead.

“Ya feel alone? Imagine how I felt for the past twenty something fucking years, then you can tell me how lonely you feel right now. I am next to you, and I still feel lonely. I am next to my soulmate who finally, after seeing me in their dreams for months, is talking back to me. I’m homesick, all the time.” This time his voice cracks, and you feel your own heart doing the same. “I can go anywhere I want, except home.”

Longing for a home that doesn’t exist.

“And you’re still denying me .”

“I wouldn’t be,” you tear your eyes away from the waves and look up at his. “If you haven’t kept leaving the goddamn hospital room.” It’s a weak ass excuse, and you know it. You know the sting of your words is still hurting him, you can’t take them back.

“Well, you’ve been rejecting me your entire life. Why would you suddenly wanna see me, dummy?” His left hand caresses your cheek and thumbs away at stray tears. It’s too intimate, you don’t deserve it and all you can think about is Tamaki being crushed under that ambulance. You step back.

“I can’t, I can’t just move on. I still love him,” your voice cracks and more tears begin to spill from your eyes. God, please stop crying. I’m so sick of crying.

“I know,” he holds onto you tightly. “I’m not asking for you to stop loving him.” I just want to be the reason you choose to keep living each day.

“But you love me,” you cry into his chest. “I need you to stop loving me.” You know this isn’t how it works, you know because for the first in forever you feel whole as he caresses you tightly.

“You know I can’t, Bambi. I haven’t been in love with anybody, and never shall ,” he whispers. “ Unless it should be with you.”

“Please,” you start to push your palms against his chest and pull away. “I need time, I can’t just… I don’t know you well, Katsuki. It’s too much, my leg, the accident, you…”

“I know, I know you need time. I don’t want to push you, Bambi. But I can’t just leave you alone,” His hands caress your tear-stained cheeks, his eyes are soft as his love for you. “Let me take on your pain too, you shouldn’t have to carry it all on your own.”

You don’t wanna talk anymore about your feelings. Not with anyone and certainly not Bakugou right now, it’s too confusing. “You don’t have the compression sleeve.” You take his hand away from your cheek, and childishly you squeeze his fingers as you observe them. There aren’t any calluses on his fingers. His skin is perfectly smooth. No imperfections.

He doesn’t answer and you look up at him, he knows you’re evading. You know you’re evading. You both were just arguing, but you’re exhausted and you really just wanna stop fighting.

“Do you not know?” Katsuki asks, stepping back and searching for your expression, his left hand drums their fingers against your arm. Confusion rocks through you.

“Know what?” Your skin bristles and you feel yourself being pulled now as your consciousness starts to awaken. “Katsuki!” Panic sets in and then fear, you feel it all over again. It’s hot and makes you restless, like any second you might split. “I’m waking up, please don’t- please don’t leave me.”

You both step forward, holding tightly onto each other as you start to wake up. “You sure?” His voice is gruff in your ear.

No, you’re not.

“Yes.”

-(-)-

Your head is pounding and your mouth is dry. It’s probably been a day or two since you flipped your shit out on the medical staff. Mentally you take note to send them a fruit basket as an apology.

Everything is dim with exception for the machinery lights keeping you steady; your hand squeezes involuntarily and you feel something else. Katsuki . His hand is warm, gruff, weathered by his years in service. He’s still sound asleep, and you stare in awe with the fact the soulmates don’t wake up at the same time. Still tucked in, you don’t have to make much movement to know that the nurses have changed the bandaging on your leg again. Bakugou doesn’t stir when you adjust your hospital bed, and certainly doesn’t make it known if he’s awake when you can’t help but let out soft groans as you sit up for the first time in weeks.

Healing bruises and cuts score your arms and your ribs still ache. Instead of pressing for more morphine, your other hand tightens its grip on Katsuki’s, and in his sleep he squeezes back. A small smile starts to grow but quickly it fades away.

Grief still racks deep in your chest. A low moan slips out from deep in your lungs when you think too much about the accident and Tamaki, so you don’t think about it at all. You have to.

So you think about food instead. Fried dough, grilled meat, roasted vegetables doused in olive oil and salt, sweets that forces you to down a glass of water or milk. Your stomach growls.

You press your call button and it is a few moments before an older nurse walks in. He’s tall, with dark skin, cropped hair and kind eyes. You silently hold a finger to your lips and pointedly look at the sleeping man by your side. He nods in understanding.

“Have I missed breakfast?” You whisper.

“You missed dinner,” He whispers back with a quiet laugh. “I can sneak you some snacks. How are you feeling? An appetite is a good thing. We can remove the feeding tube then in a couple of weeks.”

“Feeding tube?”

“It’s been placed surgically in your belly. You’ve been out for a while, sweetie. Doctors asked to be reassigned after your last episode,” he smiles again. He’s just joking, you’re sure of it. He has a kind smile. “It’ll also make it harder for you to hit me.”

You don’t understand what he means, but looking at his face in the dim hospital room and you start to see the healing bruise on his jaw. It dawns on you that you did punch him, right around the first time you woke up. “Oh fuck, I’m so sorry!”

“No need,” he laughs and starts to check your vitals, the scratch of his pen soothing to your ears. “You give a mean left hook, good to know you’re one of Japan’s finest.” Not really , you think. You were a B level hero before that stepped down to be a sidekick to a high ranking hero.

Who is now, currently, dead.

“You’re lucky you’re not in psych,” he fiddles with some tubes near your belly button. “Some of the higher ranking surgeons fought for you, asking for some sympathy. Although, you are still on quirk restraints. Can’t win them all.”

You don’t respond, feeling a low weight of guilt building at your belly. “Can you get him a blanket, please?” you whisper.

“Sure thing,” the orderly nods as he checks the morphine drip. “We can try to give you some solid foods, but there’s soup and rice left, I can sneak in some orange slices if you’d like.”

“‘T’s fine,” you hear a low voice grumble beside you. “I’ll get ‘er something from the convenience store across the street.” Katsuki stretches, letting out a soft whine that you almost have to strain your ears to hear.

Your hand squeezes his tightly, and tears spring in your eyes when he squeezes back. “Hi.”

“Hi yourself,” he subtly brings you knuckles to his lips and you feel how soft they are. “I’ll be back, what do you wanna eat?”

“It’s fine you don’t have to leave-” He starts to get up again and you panic. You don’t want to be alone. Please don’t leave me alone.

“No, it’ll be better than this cold ass hospital shit.” Bakugou pointedly looks at the nurse and scowls.

Instead of being offended, he laughs. “High cholesterol and artificial sweeteners isn’t all that great either for her.”

Touché.

“Please,” you whisper to him. “Don’t go.”

You pleasingly stare into his eyes, already feeling yourself pitifully shaking at the mere thought of being alone again.

In the abyss, it was dark. Hot. No water. No food. No one. No one except for your dead fiancé underneath you and that fucking ambulance. In the abyss, you could barely walk to find help. You couldn’t even see, not even your own hand centimeters from your face. In the dark, you truly believed you might die too. And that Tamaki’s plan was all for nought. All for nothing. You’ve never been so afraid of being alone before.

He squeezes your hand three times, a promise.

-(-)-

Bakugou doesn’t allow you to eat the hospital food during your recovery, despite the glowing reviews from other patients who swing by on their walkers and wheelchairs. He cooks big batches of soup, plain and bland at first when you threw up that night you woke up. Katsuki rolls his eyes at you when you critique his skill, boldly telling you that you wouldn’t even be able to handle his best. Bakugou helps clean the vomit out of your hair as the nurses helped you clean up, though.

After a few days, your palate comes back and your stomach strengthens. You learn he’s an excellent cook, it’s a hobby of his when he’s not out on the streets fighting crime. You think about the frozen dinners and convenience store bento boxes you ate before, only cooking for Tamaki so he can be prepared for the day. You don’t remember the last time someone cooked for you.

Doctors, every day, tell you they need to operate. You’re stubborn, pretending you don’t feel the infection making you weaker and pretending that the morphine is enough to mask the white hot pain in your leg. You want them to make a plan, a better plan. You want them to do their fucking jobs.

Every time they leave, you’re angry. Angry they refuse to find the medical technology to save your leg. Angry that you are faced with this choice in the first place. Angry that Tamaki is dead and you have to be burdened with living. Angry. Angry. Angry.

“You keep scowling like that, your face is gonna get uglier.” Bakugou aggressively rubs the crease out from between your eyebrows with his thumb.

“Shut up,” you snap your head away from his touch, without any true malice towards him.

He knows this too, and laughs. “My ma used to tell me that all the time.”

“Yeah and you should’ve listened, it’s irreversible now.”

You’re not used to this side of Katsuki. The lighter part of him. You remember reading a book last summer where the main character said her best friend had two personas, the persona he showed everyone and his naked persona, the one only she saw. You suppose that calling this side of Katsuki the Naked Katsuki is awkward and too suggestive, but it’s true. He makes you smile right after bawling your eyes out. He makes you smile when you really don’t want to, teasing you when the corners of your scowl start to upturn.

You wonder where Naked Katsuki was during high school and why he had a stick up his ass for so long back then.

On the fourth day, you feel the weakest. You’re eating, you’ve even begun to drink coffee again. But the pain has gotten worse and you hear the charting nurses start to talk about your blood toxicity levels.

The doctors leave again, glancing at an unusually quiet Bakugou while you silently fume. Katsuki stays quiet, knowing better than to interrupt your oncoming rant.

“Why do you do that?” You look towards the man, scowling as he just sits there in that stupid fucking chair.

“What?” He asks, as if he doesn’t fucking know. Maybe he doesn’t, you really don’t give a shit though. You’re fucking pissed and you’re gonna let him know it.

“Not say anything,” you roll your eyes. “You know that they need my soulmate’s agreement, I’m the only one fighting for my leg! If you’re not on my side, you’re against me!” Your hands pound at the sides of your thighs and you muster up the energy to glare at him.

He takes in a deep sigh, “They’re right though. You’re not gonna make it through the night.” Katsuki looks at you plainly, and it’s written all over his face that he thinks you’re being ridiculous.

This only infuriates you more and you jerk your shoulder out from under his hand. “Don’t touch me, you’re wrong! They can heal me, they don’t want to-”

“And why do you think so, sweetheart? Because after they cut through all the necrotic bone and tissue to save that stupid leg, you think you’ll be able to stand on it? Let alone sleep with that kind of pain every night?”

“The fuck do you know?? I can take it, my leg can recover!”

“When did you get so insufferably egotistical to think that you know more than the medical professionals?” Bakugou replies sarcastically with a dry laugh. “You need to say yes. They’re just going to wait until you slip back into another fucking coma so they can cut the damned thing off anyway.”

“Not if you-”

“Not if I, what? Why do you think I should agree with you? Because you’re my soulmate? Bullshit, you’re being stupid.” Ouch.

“Me?? Stupid??”

“Yes!” He groans and gets out of the hospital chair he sleeps on at times, “What’s so goddamn awful about not having a leg? Hah?? What makes you think you’re too weak to recover from that?? What makes you think anyone is weaker for choosing amputation than living miserably for the rest of his life?!”

Silence falls between you both and you muster the courage to look at his arm again, the same compression sleeve that’s always there when he’s off duty. Every time you saw it, you felt something was off. It dawns on you slowly.

“I don’t think anyone is weak for choosing amputation,” you reply quietly.

He responds with a scoff, “Right.”

“When?” You ask softly, tears sprout again in your eyes.

“Can’t fucking believe you never noticed,” he scoffs. “It was after the War. During it actually. Near the final stretch, Shigaraki got me. That’s when I lost my arm.” No emotion in his voice, he’s moved on from this tragedy. It’s just a part of Katsuki now.

“But… your quirk…”

He sits on the edge of your bed, carefully not to pull on any of your tubes, “Right before it happened, I was able to make all of my sweat turn to nitroglycerin, not just from the palms of my hands. Fucking bad miracle, I guess.” He looks down at his hands now, thinking deeply about what had happened and where he is now. “I have a special team who made my prosthesis so I can keep working. Only a handful people know about this, Deku, old Aizawa, the idiots who make my suits, some other shitty people and now… you.”

“You hide it?”

“Management.” It’s enough of an explanation. You’ve seen how dirty and unfair the hero industry is. It breaks your heart to think of the seventeen year old kid who lost his arm and nearly had his career along with life ended. You remember hearing about his death proclamation when you were on the other side of the battlefield, and you remember the sweet relief you felt when you heard you hadn’t lost your shitty classmate after all. It’s a lot on a young man’s shoulder to have his entire world changed, for a society that tells him to not brandish his war wounds with pride.

You have more questions. More to ask him, more to know. But all of your words fall flat, they die on your tongue and you stay quiet. Shame is all you feel.

“Your… hero suit is pretty revealing though,” you finally muster up, grimacing at yourself when you hear the heart monitor beeping slightly faster. “How does no one notice?”

He smirks at you, “No more revealing than Shitty Hair. Or Goody Two Shoes, Yaoyorozu.” Bakugou slips off the compression sleeve and scooches in closer to show off his prosthetic. It’s life-like, down to the minute details that no one would bother to notice.

“So why the sleeve?” You ask, catching yourself still tracing the prosthetic before pulling yourself away. Thoughts of what your own might look if you go through with this surgery race through your mind, and only heightens your anxiety.

Bakugou is quiet, mulling over his answer. “The short answer is that it helps with the pain.”

“And the long answer?”

“The doctors fucked up my arm trying to give me a second chance, they were worried that my career might end and there was still a war to fight.”

“We were just kids though,” you whisper. You weren’t on the frontlines of the war, you were in with the third wave of heroes and students. You didn’t see what happened firsthand, but you saw the horrific aftermath. They did a good job keeping this intel a secret, you can only imagine what other horrifying injuries they kept hidden from you and the public.

“Yeah well, they nearly ended me while trying to save me. One of my surgeons finally kicked their asses and got them in line, saved what they could of my shoulder and my stump.” Before you can ask, he steps in closer and helps raise your hospital bed up so you can sit up straight. “I think his protégé is on your team now. Yours won’t look at fucked up as mine, but…”

Katuski removes the prosthetic with a click of a button you can’t see, which must be part of the seamless design from his support team. “The docs can tell you better, and more, but this is called the residual limb. Others call it a stump.” His fingers delicately show off what’s left of his arm as he opens up this new part of him to you. The scarring is an angry red, stained purple closed to the incision points. It looks painful. You tell him so.

“It ain’t always,” he admits. “It’s worse at night.”

“But the sleeve helps?” You ask. He gently takes hold of your wrist with his other hand, it’s heavy and dwarfing your own, and he holds you against him. His skin is warm, soft. You can almost feel his pain in your own arm.

“Sometimes. I don’t completely understand the tech. It’s all experimental.” He must be in pain all of the time.

“I’ll be in pain all the time then,” you say this quietly, but it sounds almost like a question. You can feel the aches he does, the sheer amount of pain that burns through muscles and skin he no longer has.

“I’ve felt your pain all my life,” he steps in closer and embraces you with his one arm. “Every night, I’ve felt it and I need you to know that as your friend, I will always help you with it. Tomorrow will be better.” As your friend. That’s enough to give you peace of mind. It’s enough to release that tension in your chest.

“And what if it isn’t?” You start to cry, wanting to wiggle your toes in a leg that won’t let you.

“Then tomorrow,” he kisses your temple. “We will say it again. And again. Until it is. Okay?”

“Okay,” you nod as the tears stream down your face. You hold onto each other tightly, silently bonding your promise as friends. You're going to lose your leg tonight.

-(-)-

The next two weeks, all you do is sleep. Sometimes Katsuki appears in your dreams, talking about his day and work. Mostly about work. You both find it hard to talk about anything else. When you’re not asleep, you stare out the window.

Not many people visit. Friends were really friends of Tamaki, and you are just a reminder that he is no longer here. Family doesn’t exist for you anymore, they haven’t for years. Tamaki was your family.

Workmates didn’t see you either, why should they? Your career in the past five years declined, if they associated with you so would their careers. All you had was Tamaki. So no, you didn’t see much except for your team of surgeons and your hospital assigned therapist that you really can’t stand because you apparently need to cry about shit now.

When you’re discharged, you weren’t expecting anyone, and yet when you saw that familiar shade of blonde awaiting you, the floodgates opened.

He takes you back to your apartment, dusty and cold from being empty for so long. You cried and cried. Katsuki, to your surprise, cried with you. It’s truly then, you understand the bond of a soulmate. Your pain is his, his pain is yours. Tears are shared, never are you truly alone. He stays with you that first night, sleeping on the floor of your living room while you sleep on the couch, refusing to be in the bed that you once shared with Tamaki.

It isn’t until you start to wake up screaming, dreaming about the ambulance crushing you, dreaming about Tamaki’s corpse laying cold underneath you, that you and Katsuki decide to sleep somewhere else.

He sets you up at Izuku Midoriya’s home, a lovely townhome smack dab in the middle of downtown. Midoriya is more than happy to help, insisting you take his bed. You think about how often he used to blush in high school, and how he didn’t even bat an eye when you mentioned you needed to be close to the bathroom at night or else you’ll piss his bed.

“All the more reason for you to take my room,” he kindly smiles at you. “The bathroom is right there.”

“Don’t argue, Bambi. It’s useless.” There’s bags under Katsuki’s eyes. He hasn’t slept much lately. Guilt settles in pretty quickly.

So you take the bed. Each night, you carefully balance your crutches against the mattress and take your opioids. The pain is all you can think about right now. And you hate that you’re so annoyed by this, but Bakugou insists on sleeping on an air mattress right at the foot of your bed. You hate how much you rely on others, you hate how much you need this, you hate that you’re angry. Angry. Angry. Angry.

He’s patient though. The man you see now, isn’t who you thought he was. Back in your school days, Katsuki was a firecracker who was set off at any small inconvenience. Now, all he does is roll his eyes if you snap at him. Sometimes he doesn’t even react, just patiently checks your bandaging and helps you stretch even when you really want to fucking sleep. He follows your surgeons’ instructions to a tee, memorizing the numbers to call if you have any concerns and memorizing your medicines and dosages when you need a prescription refill. The times that you do elicit a reaction from him are usually because he’s had a long day at work and taking care of a stubborn and bitter soulmate is just a little much for him that day. Which usually means you end up feeling guilty for being such a shitty person.

You learn a lot about Bakugou in the first six weeks after your amputation. You learn how he dealt with his phantom pain, how he learned how to ask for help, how he had to adjust to being a hero again. Another surprise was how often he called his ma and pa (and that he calls them that to their faces instead of “old man” and “ugly hag”), nearly every night if not every other night, the softness behind his gruff voice as he fights with parents over when he’s going to bring his soulmate over. You learn that he cooks a lot, and really well too, despite the bland soup he gave you initially. Deku, the up and coming number one hero, can barely handle boiling water without burning it, while Katsuki easily flies through the kitchen.

“You’re a natural,” you muse. He convinced you to eat downstairs, getting you used to moving around again.

If it were up to you, you’d probably wallow all day in Midoriya’s room and sleep. Or chain smoke shittt cigarettes in his bathroom, exhaling all of the smoke outside his small window. You’ve been caught doing that already when you nearly fell and caused a commotion. Izuku was madly apologizing with a deep blush at seeing you in a towel, even though it was clearly your fault. Katuski was not amused. You haven’t seen that damn pack of cigarettes since.

Concern furrows your brows and you bite the inside of your cheek. “How did… losing your arm affect your cooking?”

“I was shit at cutting vegetables,” he answers bluntly, smiling softly when you snort. “It took me a while to get back into it. A chef in my support group helped me out, giving me advice and all.”

“Support group? You actually did that?”

“I still do,” he feeds you another serving. The steam from the food warms your cheeks and makes your mouth water. No one, aside from your parents, has ever cooked for you.

“Why??”

He raises an eyebrow at you, “Really. You’re asking me why I, after a traumatic event in my life, attended a therapy group with individuals who went through something similar?”

Bakugou laughs when you tell him to shut the fuck up.

-(-)-

“Why did it take you guys so long to find us?” You ask on the day you get your first prosthetic leg.

Bakugou’s jaw tenses and you watch his hands squeeze his steering wheel. “There was a lot of noise, too much for Earjack. With all of the falling debris, unstable grounding, it was just… a perfect accident.” A bad miracle. “Once we lost Amajiki’s earpiece, there wasn’t any indication of your whereabouts.” You noticed this about Bakugou, the way his voice changes into something serious when work is brought up. A soldier.

You don’t remember them finding you. In your psych rotations for your final year of school, you heard about how the brain shuts down from trauma and can try to help the person heal by simply forgetting events occurred. This was corroborated by your therapist too, although you need to find a better once because she fucking sucks ass and agrees with Bakugou that you need to quit smoking.

You weren’t allowed to read the reports though, following the accident. It was a thick file, that’s all that Bakugou tells you. He doesn’t talk about that night he found you. One night you find Deku vulnerable and alone after a shift at work, sifting through paperwork that needed to be filed and faxed over the next morning. He was clearly uncomfortable with speaking on the matter too. Midoriya answers your questions though, telling you how hard it was on Bakugou. He never slept, he worked straight through. The only thing that gave him hope of your survival was that he didn’t feel your soul leaving.

“You can feel that?” You whispered. Izuku nods, not speaking more on that topic either.

“Kacchan… he never gave up. He was going to die finding you.” You’re glad he didn’t. But a significant part of you died down there. And you don’t know if you would ever get that back.

-(-)-

Bakugou takes a leave of absence after he files the soulmate forms, declaring officially and legally that you both are bonded. Of course this really isn’t true. Bonded soulmates requires sexual intercourse. And well… you both are just friends.

However to legally have you under his medical insurance, he lies for you. Your ID comes in the next week, a holographic heart next to the heart that says you’re an organ donor. Under another shadow, but instead of leaving you cold, you feel relief. Relief from the hot pain of being alone and defenseless. Relief that you can finally breathe.

He doesn’t say anything about the holographic heart next to his red one either, he doesn’t even talk to you directly when the mail comes in with your new IDs. You’re not sure if it’s embarrassment, pride, sadness, or just plain bitterness. You’re not really sure if you want to know. What you do know is that you’re grateful that he doesn’t make a big deal out of it, and cooks you a hearty pasta meal that night to celebrate your new insurance.

Six months after the amputation, you’ve been fitted with a prosthetic and you’re walking again. It used to be “walking”, managing only a few feet at a time without wobbling or needing your wheelchair again. But now you can walk. You can walk.

Some days are good. Some days are really good. Some days aren’t.

Your first fall, Bakugou stares while you laugh loudly at yourself. You forgot you didn’t have a leg, and put all your weight onto your left side as you turned the corner of the grocery aisle. It’s the first time you see him blush, and for a moment you think he’s embarrassed by the scene you’re making in the middle of this grocery store, until you realize it’s the first time you’ve laughed this loudly in months. He helps you back up again.

On your worst days, Bakugou lies with you in bed while you grieve. Grieve for your leg, grieve for your dead fiancé, grieve for your losses.

You become closer, it’s natural when he’s the one who takes you to your appointments with your prosthetist and talks about your scar tissue. It’s natural when he’s the one who coaxes you to sleep, rubbing your back with his lips pressed against your temple. You two become friends. It’s friends who bring you comfort when you feel sick, when you feel like the weight of the world is too much and you and they both know the best thing to do is just lay in bed and watch shitty movies all day. You become friends. You’re friends. Good ones at that.

When Bakugou finally goes back to work, leaving you alone, you realize how much you both talk. You text all day, updating him of the meaningless things you do. Shitty reality TV shows become a hobby of yours while you practice your core exercises, and despite Bakugou’s claims he doesn’t give a shit, he always listens to you when you talk about them. He comes for lunch every day, even when he’s across the city. Katsuki pretends to not watch your silly little shows while you eat his food.

He tells you that you need to listen to your therapist and get a real fucking hobby (his words not hers), and encourages you by sending you coffee shops and boba tea places to try. Bakugou starts with places nearby, a small ten minute walk for you at most. But as you gain more and more endurance, and the more you get used to walking on your prosthetic, the farther the recommendations go. Soon you find yourself going to the train stations again, sometimes you take a second to enjoy the parks you walk by. You can’t stand that he was right, and now you’re not napping as much anymore.

You find yourself at the tea shop where Bakugou took you from what seems like a million years ago, resting and trying to massage your leg from the walk there. Bakugou texted you cancelling to meet you there, there was an emergent situation at work and he was called to arrive on scene. This used to bother you, but now it just drives you to get back into work again. You miss it. You miss being useful. It’s here at the tea shop, reading the newspaper, that you see it. The apartment listing.

The very apartment you had shared and lived in with Tamaki, is back on the market now. It startles you to see it again, in the fucking newspaper too of all places, like it’s still the twentieth fucking century. You wonder if you keep staring at it, if you’ll cry or feel something . Instead you feel empty.

You’re not really sure what that means.

At your support groups and in therapy, you admit to thinking about Tamaki every day. All throughout the months, you talk about the nightmares you have surrounding his death. It haunts you, his ghost. You still smell his body wash sometimes, always in passing, always enough to leave you longing and never enough for you to fully remember his scent. Sometimes you swear he’s right next to you as you wake, softly snoring after a long shift. It makes you sad. That’s what you tell your therapist and your support group. In reality, you feel guilt. Guilt that you’re alive and he isn’t.

Guilty that you’re with your soulmate, like he wanted you to, but in a weird fucking platonic dance as you both struggle to maintain the facade of friendship.

“Have you been to see him?” Your therapist asks, watching you play with a squeeze toy.

“What do you mean?” His ashes are with his parents, you really don’t want to make that drive. They haven’t reached out to you since the accident. And to be honest, they really didn’t like you despite what Tamaki said. You really wish you could tell his ass that right now, you’d be so smug about it too and everything.

“Have you visited his grave?” She clarifies.

No, you haven’t. And you didn’t want to. Bakugou and you fought that night, not a serious fight but enough to make you mad and not talk to him for the rest of the night. He thinks you should go. You think you need to just move on.

It’s been almost a year anyway.

You can walk with a barely noticeable limp. He’s even helped you to train now to get back into hero work. Hero , you don’t want to be a fucking sidekick again. You’ve been working with a new support tech team and a specialist prosthetist for a leg to help you move with your quirk. The fact that you have now leveled up to having more than one prosthetic makes you proud. You’re done walking, now you can run. You don’t cry as much anymore, you don’t cringe walking down the streets of Musutafu anymore. You’ve even stopped reading the articles surrounding the sinkhole accident, knowing that obsessing over “what if’s” will not bring back Tamaki or your leg (at least, you stopped doing this in the middle of the night now. Sometimes you forget your silly little therapy tactics and dive back into the news reports and tabloids to read with your morning coffee).

You can feel yourself growing stronger.

You don’t need to do this.

It’s not gonna solve anything. He will still be dead…

“Why do you even care?” You ask him the next morning, annoyed that he’s ignoring you and didn’t make you breakfast like usual. You’ve been forced to eat a bowl of cereal like some common roommate.

“He was your fiancé,” Bakugou scoffs. “You couldn’t attend his funeral, you haven’t seen him since-”

“Since I killed him?” You angrily drop your spoon in your bowl and get up, not feeling that hungry anymore.

“Yeah, that’s exactly what I was going to say.” Katsuki rolls his eyes at you, knowing better than to follow you to your room to wallow.

You can’t visit his grave. And this makes you angry. You can’t, because it means having to be faced with the fact that you’re starting to feel something towards Katsuki. Living together has been doing that to you. It’s hard, hard to ignore the magnetic pull between you both and hard to pretend it doesn’t hurt you when he goes on dates like his friends suggest sometimes. On top of that, it’s watching him leave each morning and being so fucking scared that he might not come back. You don’t know how you can manage that. You don’t know if what you feel for Katsuki is love or something far deeper. Whatever it is or isn’t, if this is how you feel now , you cannot imagine the pain of losing him later. Shinju comes to mind, the little girl destined to be with Tamaki forever only to be ripped away from him. You’ve had dreams of losing your family and friends in horrible deaths, and you’ve woken up with absolute dread in your heart. But a soulmate’s death, you never quite understood the depth of. Not until now. And that thought scares the shit out of you.

The fight is never resolved, and you don’t visit Tamaki’s grave. Instead, you decide to find a new place to live on your own.

-(-)-

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softlystarstruck · 3 years

Text

✩ softly reading, nov 29 - dec 5 ✩

in which i list every single drarry fic i’ve read this week in hopes that you, dear reader, find a fic you like too!

✩ - a fave | 🔥 - hot | 🌼 - fluff | purple- reread

spotlight rec

✩ the in-betweens by dereckmaliknurse [T, 42k]

A tale of inter-house unity, Dirty Dancing, the various charms of certain Gryffindors and the Slytherins who fall for them, and Celestina Warbeck, in which Harry James Potter shares a room with one Draco Malfoy and despite seven years of past seething hatred, has the time of his life.

why i rec this: i’ve recently been craving a longer eighth year fic with roommates drarry and this hit the spot SO perfectly!! both draco and harry feel like theyre letting themselves just be young, and fall into each other in a way that’s inevitable but certainly not easy. i won’t spoil it but i will say that the first kiss made me breathlessly tear up, that’s how beautifully written the scene (and buildup) is!!! if you’re looking for a good eighth year fic, definitely check this one out :)

longer reads

✩ Bacchanal, Bacchanal by @calypsotempete [E, 20k]

One crisp morning in September, Harry receives a newspaper and a note. What follows is a descent into a world built by Draco Malfoy full of debauchery, glamour, and clawfoot tubs that wash away the miasma of hard-earned guilt to appease gods that may not exist but offer redemption all the same. [HD Suds Fest 2021]

✩ freely, as men strive for right by @bixgirl1 [E, 17k]

How can Harry love a man like Draco Malfoy? If only Draco would let him count the ways. (Sometimes, a happily-ever-after takes a bit longer than you expect.)

✩ Weeds or Wildflowers by @unmistakablyoatmeal & @lqtraintracks [E, 17k] 🔥

A perfect match, a romance for the ages, with a one hundred percent success rate! Magic Match claims they can give Draco all of this. So why do they keep sending him on dates with Harry Potter?

✩ Stupid Love by @the-sinking-ship [E, 16k] 🔥

Harry Potter, how does Draco Malfoy hate thee? Let me count the ways.

short & sweet (< 10k)

✩ Have Your Cake (and Eat It Too) by @goldentruth813, art by mzuul [E, 5.1k] 🔥

Draco gives Harry a birthday present he will never forget.

✩ Bubbles, Baths, and Bad Luck by @manixzen [E, 5k] 🔥

A poisonous potion covering Professor Potter nearly head-to-toe would normally be a pretty big deal. It should be as bad as his day gets. But that’s before he’s informed that the cure involves a steamy, hot bath with an unrequited crush. [HD Suds Fest 2021]

Christmas Courage by babyvfan [M, 4.8k] 🔥

Christmas is the time of miracles, and also the time for courage as a young man decides to give his crush the ultimate Christmas present. Scared but determined mercury-gray kept their eyes locked with emerald-green, watching them widen as they undid the knot of his robe and shrugged it off his shoulders, letting it fall to the floor. "Merry Christmas, Potter."

An aberration by deliciousblizzardshark [T, 3.3k]

There are whispers of a magical healer who helps muggles in the most desperate of situations, violating the statute of secrecy, and it's Auror Harry Potter's job to track them down and stop them.

You’ll Always Find Me in the Kitchen at Parties by saras_girl [T, 3k]

Harry abandons the usual Halloween festivities and stumbles across something curious.

with trembling hands by @callmegri [T, 2.1k]

Draco cannot watch anymore that his roommate is in love with someone else. [Wheel of Drarry Mini-Exchange]

You’re the Medicine and the Pain by @veelawings [E, 1.8k] 🔥

Harry can't believe he'd been roofied without the pleasure of getting a few pints in.

✩ ice cream by @phoebe-delia [G, 393 words] 🌼

Sometimes, your mother would enter the room. She was a sight for sore eyes, wearing her reading glasses, long nightgown, and plush blue robe. She would smile at you and approach you where you were sitting at your desk and set down a spoon and a small bowl of ice cream, the scoop of vanilla covered in peanut butter chocolate sauce.

art gallery

✩ Cover Me by anon [T, comic]

Headmistress McGonagall could have put the still-feuding Potter and Malfoy in detention for the entirety of eighth year. Instead, she put them in charge of the newly-created Basic All-Year Tutoring Sessions (B.A.T.S.). [H/D Erised 2021]

✩ Skater Draco by @kryptidfox [G]

Draco's covered in sharpie ink and neon pink plasters, and Harry loves him for it. (Inspired by He Was A Skater Boy by @m0srael)

previous softly reading lists

#softly reading november 2021 #softly reading #softly reading december 2021 #drarry fic recs

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duplicitywrites · 3 years

Note

Fic authors self rec! When you get this, reply with your favorite five fics that you've written, then pass on to at least five other writers. Let’s spread the self-love 💖

also tagged by the lovely @phantomato, @purplewitch156, and @cauldroncake, thank you all!

i don't think i really have favourites... i tend to write things and then forget about them. these are five of my favourites out of what i have completed thus far.

—

Break and Burn and End | M | 17.3k

i keep coming back to this one, idk, i just think it has a lot of meaning. i like the themes i explored in regards to life and immortality.

Summary:

Past and present, Harry and Voldemort are connected. A tale of two immortals and the question of what it means to have an adversary when forever is in the cards.

—

Difficulties | T | 1.8k

first person pov, this is a character study on a modern!tom and his relationship with harry. i still think about it often.

Summary:

I tap my fingers on my desk, I watch the screen of my phone for messages. I distract myself for a time with this thing or that, then return to thoughts of Harry. Is he thinking of me as I think of him? Do I haunt the darkest corner of his mind like a childhood monster? I would let Harry devour me; all that I am, all that I will be. I would let him know every hideous, vile thought that ever crossed my mind if he were to ask after them.

—

Eudaimonia | E | 15.6k

this hits that sweet spot of supremely interesting and supremely fucked up. i think if i were to rewrite this, i would give more attention to the ending. but, on the whole, i like how it is.

Summary:

Harry travels back in time to save Merope Gaunt from dying. He takes her in, heals her illness, helps her when she gives birth to her son... and then falls prey to her love potion.

Tom grows up with mother and father both, in a household that might generously be called a happy one. When Merope insists that Tom not attend Hogwarts, Harry reluctantly agrees to homeschool their son himself.

Despite his lack of exposure to the outside world, it doesn't take Tom long to realize something is off about his parents' marriage.

It takes even less time for him to decide his loving father deserves better.

—

Shining Just For You | M | 21.8k

an older work of mine. the loose concept is one i always wanted to write, and i'm glad i did. it's heavy on codependency, so in that way i kind of see it as a comfort fic.

Summary:

Smashing a mirror gives you seven years bad luck.

For an eleven-year-old Harry, it gives him seven years of Tom Riddle.

—

No Body, No Crime | M | 20k

this story is one i imagined, quite vividly, as a movie. the dark, small-town mystery vibe was fun to dabble in.

Summary:

Harry works as a car mechanic in a small town. He and Ginny are best friends, their close bond the product of a traumatic event that scarred them both as children.

Now that they are adults with separate lives, it seems inevitable that they will drift apart. That is, until Ginny confides in Harry that she thinks her husband—the charming, enigmatic Tom Riddle—is cheating on her.

A day later, Ginny goes missing. Harry is convinced that Tom is behind her disappearance, and becomes determined to exact justice by any means necessary.

—

ask me again in a month and my answer will probably change 💀

not sure who to tag who hasn't already been hit by the love bullet

@goldenzingy46 @isleoffanfiction @twelfthcenturyname @god-of-dust @keidaught if you want to!

#asks #bluesundaycake #tomarry #thanks for asking 😊💖

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violetevents · 2 years

Text

to build a home

pairing: steve/eddie chapter: 7/9 word count: 20k summary: Steve snorts and shakes his head, and it hits Eddie, suddenly, that leaving Hawkins means leaving this too.

No more Steve showing up to his trailer in the middle of the night, no more annoying Steve during his shift at Family Video, no more movie nights with the gang, no more hanging out period. No more sleep overs after gigs, sleepy mornings, lazy afternoons.

Steve seems to have come to the same conclusion, because he tilts his head towards Eddie, a sad look in his eyes. “Promise me you’ll call, sometimes?”

Eddie turns his head, too, and their noses are only inches apart. The moment feels intimate, quiet. Safe. “Every day, if you want me too.” Eddie says, and Steve does that little huff laugh he does sometimes, and god, Eddie is going to miss him so much.

This is a story about home. Or, how Eddie slowly realizes Steve Harrington is his.

READ CHAPTER SEVEN HERE

#steddie #steveddie #steve x eddie #steve harrington x eddie munson #to build a home #to build a home update #i'm so sorry it's a day late aaaah

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damselofblueroses · 3 years

Text

Bambi, Ch. 2, Ghost

You are my Bambi, girl, I am your candy, tell me what are you waiting for?

Summary: As an archaeologist who works on the Ancient Greece, you were on the verge of excavations’ session. While you have been preparing your team, you learned that your institute decided on your team has to work with another team as they wanted the outcome as a collaboration. The head of other team was your biggest rival, a scumbag in your eyes: Byun Baekhyun.

You two were supposed to work together for three months, in a Greek Island, Chios.

Could you manage to not kill Byun Baekhyun for three months?

Chapter Summary: Byun Baekhyun and the Reader remember the day they spent in UN Village together while they are heading to Chios. (Guys, this chapter, which is dedicated to the beginning of their relationship, is going to be two parts, otherwise it is going to be more than 20k lol)

Word Count: 11k

Content: AU, heavily Greek mythology, enemies to lovers.

Warnings: Well, the story contains NSFW/Smut, please minors do not continue.

Note: This story will be 7 or 8 chapters if I will not change my mind in the meantime. It is inspired by my major; however, I do not have a complete knowledge on archaeology, I am a historian. If I will make a technical mistake, please let me know. I am willing to receive any kind of feedback; you are more than welcomed to drop a message.

Series Masterlist

Chapter 2: Ghost

5 years ago, Hannam-dong

Even if I want you so much it drives me crazy

You ghost

Even if I want and call for you all night long

You came to me and left without a word

You ghost, you ghost

You want to go crazy all night, you plead

You ghost

You disappeared again without a trace

“What type of sadistic and sick person could say that we have to work here?” you cursed between your teeth, you jaw clenched because of pure anger. “How do they expect us to do our job in the middle of fucking super-ultra-rich people?”

“Get used to it.” Junmyeon flinched your forehead, but his frustration was oblivious, even though he was doing definitely better than you. “Where is Baekhyun?”

“I do not know.” you recklessly pointed to the expensive cars on the road. “Maybe he was looking for a sugar mommy.”

“As your sunbae,” Minseok hit you. “I would like to remind you to hold on your manners.”

“Someone has to give a speech on manners to him.” your eyebrows knitted together. “Not to me.”

“Both of you,” Kyungsoo nonchalantly spoke. “need a really good beaten session, since both of you have no idea on how to behave.”

You threw the book you were holding to Kyungsoo, but he was too quick and easily saved himself from your unexpected attack.

“I am here, right?” you hissed. “Where the heck is that bastard? He always disappears when it comes to work, why do you hold me in the same esteem with him?”

“Because you are definitely a copy of Baekhyun.” Chanyeol laughed at your god-fucking-damn-it-so-horrible face expression. “Let’s face with the fact, Indy. Everyone knows that Baekhyun is a disciplined student, just as you are, badmouthed, just as you are.”

“Are you talking about me?” Baekhyun popped out of nowhere. “I heard you are praising me less than the way I deserve.”

Your face could be described as disgusted, but this would be the kindest way of telling how your appearance was. Actually, you wanted to punch his narcissistic self-perspective, to shake his cage in order to give him the lesson he deserved, but you did not want to be scolded by Junmyeon again. You just walked away from him, needing to put a safe distance between yourself and Baekhyun.

God, if you could run away to space, you would do it in order to not infuse with the same air with Baekhyun.

You disliked him, you disliked the way of his well-being, you disliked his velvety voice, his lame jokes, his sharp remarks, you disliked everything about Byun Baekhyun.

And you hated yourself because of finding him very handsome. Sometimes, you caught yourself, staring at Baekhyun, forgetting how to breath properly. His face was like a gift of God himself; his body ratio made you to say oh-my-fucking-god.

Thank God, he had the most annoying character, because if he had a good personality, you knew that you would fall in love over the heels with him.

“What kind of idiot chained us here?” Baekhyun asked to Junmyeon. “Fuck’s sake, what the heck we are going to here? Digging beneath the Richie riches’ villas?”

Chanyeol bite his lips before looking at you, silently reminding your own words and his remarks about being very same with Baekhyun. You did not back off, staring at Chanyeol with all frustration went through your veins, causing Chanyeol to laugh. Baekhyun hit his head, then walked towards Junmyeon to take his own tool bag.

You hated him for this, too. He was acting like he was a superior, like he was better than any of you, and what got your nerves badly was no one scold him as they would scold you if you would do the same things.

“Yeah, I am like this scumbag who does not carry even his own stuff, huh?” you literally sizzled between your teeth, Chanyeol and Kyungsoo heard your annoyed voice, but they preferred to keep their silence. Your hate was not a secret for the team, everyone was aware of the fact that putting you and Baekhyun was a dangerous decision since he also loathed you.

But to your dismays, you were the brightest students Sejong could always play on.

“Seriously what we are going to do?” Baekhyun repeated his question because he really did not have a single clue.

“Didn’t you read the mail Sejong sent us?” Jongdae asked him, raising one eyebrow. Baekhyun shrugged his shoulder, you bit your lower lip in order keep your frustration under your control. What a bastard!

“We have to visit UN Village, there are seven neighbourhood where we have to go and collect the permissions of the residents.” Junmyeon run his hand through his hair. He was already on the verge of cracking since he was the one who had to deal with a lot of capricious upper-class members in order to complete this fucking task. He wished nothing but changing his path, he started to think like the field was not his cup of tea, but before resigning from leadership, he wanted to find a good candidate who could lead the team.

He wanted you to be that leader. You and Baekhyun. Heretofore, Junmyeon laid his eyes on both of you and your abilities persuaded him to nominate your names when he could propose an election. He did not want to be a fieldperson, he wished to stay in his office, but at the same time, he could not inherit his legacy, Godfuckingdamnit Junmyeon’s did his best in order to engrave his name as one of the most successful captains, to anyone but the best. Yet, Junmyeon had no idea how to put you in good terms, since you were like a cat and dog, and Chanyeol, that giant idiot, used every opportunity to fan the flames, even that silent Kyungsoo enjoyed watching intangible scuffles between you and Baekhyun.

Junmyeon has been sensing that the team was becoming aware of the situation and camping as two different poles. Jongdae, Shinhye and Minseok were setting off closer to you while Chanyeol, Kyungsoo and the newbie, Jongin have been shifting to Baekhyun’s side. Damn, Junmyeon could not let it to be happen. He needed all of you under the same umbrella, especially you and Baekhyun had to stay together. He was seeing a great potential of you, if you could combine your powers, you were going to be the perfect team. Period.

“Let’s split into teams.” his eyes wandered around all of you. “We are eight, if we can divide ourselves into four teams, we will finish the job easier and quicker.”

“Yeah, you are right.” Kyungsoo approved. “I am going to take Chanyeol.”

“Are you my superior, dumbass?” Chanyeol hit his shoulder, but he was laughing. “I am with Kyungsoo.”

“Good.” Junmyeon inhaled. “Shinhye, you are with Jongdae.”

You automatically stirred next to Minseok, however you shuttered after hearing Junmyeon’s next orders.

“Indy, you and Baekhyun are together, Minseok, let’s go.”

“What?!” you immediately stopped and hissed at Junmyeon. “Am I with who?”

Jongdae realized the storm before seeing the clouds, clever as always, he disappeared while dragging Shinhye with him. You even did not notice, but Chanyeol’s smile widened, Kyungsoo smirked, and they rushed to their own direction.

Only four of you were standing on the pavement, you were throwing daggers to Junmyeon with your eyes. Baekhyun was nonchalantly looking at Junmyeon, while Minseok could not find a way to break the tension.

Junmyeon was cool as a cucumber.

“You are with Baekhyun.” he repeated his words, sounding like he was condemning you with execution. “What? Do you have a rejection?”

“Yes!” you exploded without thinking. “Why shou-

“Believe me,” Baekhyun interrupted your words, he was indifferent to your frustration. “I did not beg for being in the same team with you.”

“Did I claim that?” you swiftly turned on your tiptoes. “Did I say you are eager to be with me?”

“It would be the greatest joke you could make.” Baekhyun winked to you. “But you are not so into the entertainment, right?”

“Baekhyun,” Minseok noisily cleared his throat. “I am not sur-

“What do you know about me?” you heard your own voice. “This is why we cannot work together, you always make assumptions out of your ass, instead I work as organized, with the facts and tangible proofs.”

“What do you know about me?” Baekhyun coldly smiled at you, you could not describe its impacts on you, that smile had you wanting to punch him at the same time ignited some fires in your lower stomach. “We barely talk, have you been watching me all the time?”

“You wish.” you took a deep breath. “You are not worth my time.”

“Oh,” his eyes glimmered with a menacing luminescence. “I am deeply wounded.”

“If you are done,” Junmyeon raised his hands to the air. “We have to work.”

“Jun-

“Young lady,” Baekhyun barged on. “They did not teach you this, so it’s up to me but we are not in kindergarten anymore.”

You had to admit, no one could get your nerves till now like Baekhyun did.

You had to admit, you hated being called as a kid. Junmyeon’s eyes blown up when Baekhyun labelled you as a kid, before he could open his mouth, you stared at Baekhyun.

“I can see why we could be a team.” you took the directional instructions from Junmyeon’s hand. “A kindergarten kid has to take care of a cry baby while the adults have to work.”

Baekhyun’s eyebrows furrowed, but you wholly ignored his visible annoyance, and started to walk. Junmyeon was looking at your back with a little bit concerned face, but he knew that he did what he had to do.

You were going to scold Junmyeon in the following hours of the day, however, now your job was teaching a couple of lessons on manners to this scumbag who has been walking beside you.

You spent the first hour in a total silence, talking only if the occasion called for it. The tension between you and Baekhyun was solid, someone could cut it with a knife without any problem. Baekhyun was bored to death, he never plan to have a day like this, he wanted to enjoy everything he did, he thought he could be with Chanyeol or Kyungsoo, having fun to death.

Instead, he was trapped with you.

The only girl he loathed to the bits.

He could not endure to hear your voice, even though you talked with the residents very kindly and respectfully. He had to admit that you were doing a good job, but it did not change anything he felt for you. He had been cursing Junmyeon since he put you two in the same task, however, he knew that if Junmyeon wanted something from Baekhyun, he would do it without question. Baekhyun could be many things, but he was loyal to his friends, and Junmyeon had a special place in his heart.

Also, behind the curtains of his hate, he could see why Junmyeon gave you to him. Although you were an abominable bitch, an obnoxious creature, a walking blasphemy, and a hate crime, Baekhyun did not think you could be an offspring of a lovely or healthy relationship, he was sure your parents were diabolical beasts, to his disappointment, you were reallyclever.

He wished you could be more reliable person, so he could work with you.

Baekhyun did not like to confess, yet he was aware of the fact that he desperately needed his own Evelyn O’Connor. Someone who could play the game with him, as his trustable partner in crime. He was extremely close to Chanyeol and Kyungsoo, but they were not equal to his wits and ambitions. Sometimes he was brassed off the conversations, time to time he found them boring and lame. His logic was faster than his mates, actually he was longing for nothing, but someone was equal to his high-speed brain.

You could be the one he was searching for, but you were made of poison, greed, and wickedness. Even if he would be blessed by the Heavens, he could not agree to work someone with you.

“Your Highness,” he heard your fucking voice. “We have to visit at least twelve houses more; do you mind hurrying up?”

“The only thing I mind is your fucking attitude.” he gritted his teeth. “Give the plan to me.”

“So, you can destroy everything I organized properly?” you smirked. “I do not think so.”

“Organized?” Baekhyun cocked his eyebrow. “Organized, my ass. Didn’t you lose Park Sangwan’s house? Twice?”

“Look who is talking.” the red of embarrassment slightly painted your cheeks and ears. “The one who had no idea about today’s plans.”

“At least I did not lose my fucking way and circled around the same house almost for half an hour.”

“And the award goes to Byun Baekhyun for his greatest achievements.” you gave back the wink to him, grinning like a Cheshire cat. “Oh, breaking news. No achievement no award.”

Baekhyun took it personally since you two competed to each other as the finalists of last academic year. Your project was accepted as the winner while Baekhyun received only a certificate. You hit the lotto, he had to watch you, walking to the stage with a bright smile tugged on your lips.

Still, he could vividly remember the little smirk you gave to him that night when they announced your name.

“You did it consciously.” his jaw clenched. “That night. When they called you as the winner. You immediately turned to me just to annoy me.”

“It seems, I achieve my goal.” your smirk widened, a glistening layer of fun covered your face. “Were you disappointed?”

“Yeah, of course.” he did not miss a single second. “I was disappointed of the professors, I was believing they were cleverer than me, but their choice showed me they were nothing but idiots.”

“Could you smell the air, Baekhyun?” you asked with a serious face. He was confused for a second, you never ask a question to him or call him by his name, but before he could register, you tucked the words in his throat. “Oh, jealousy, my favourite.”

“Darling,” Baekhyun swallowed hard. “There is no single living soul who can be low enough to jealous you in this universe.”

That was not quite truth, because Baekhyun not only remembered your revengeful smile but also how you were looking like that day. He could paint you on canvas by closed eyes, and he would not miss a single detail.

And he was a little bit jealous on that day. Not only because he lost over to you, but also because of the people around you. You annoyed him not only with your award, but also with your closeness to the other men.

Despite of your usual oversize clothes or no makeup policy, you chose to present yourself in a different style. Your hair was perfectly combed, your makeup highlighted your face features, and you were wearing a little light blue dress which tightly caressed your body. Baekhyun, or none of your classmates knew that you had curves for example till that night and to Baekhyun’s dismay, you had a really good body. You were a minion, your beauty was very soft and although he really hated to admit this, you were a view for the spectators. Maybe not the prettiest, but you had something had people looking at you, liking you, desiring you.

You had an aura which was enough to make your biggest enemy to silently acknowledged that you were attractive.

“Maybe, there is no one.” you shrugged your shoulder. “But youwere eager to low yourself, huh?”

You did not forget the look on Baekhyun’s face when Professor Kim called you to the stage. You were sure as fuck, he was cursing you but also there was something else, glowing in his eyes. Something you could not describe, but you could see the same emotion in your reflection when you saw Baekhyun with that crowd of girls.

Rarely.

But still you knew that feeling.

That ceremony was hard for you, of course you were over the moon because of your achievement, that project opened you some fresh opportunities and proved that despite of being a junior, you were more than a bachelor student. You proved your talents and abilities to yourself by winning the first place, you completed a step, made your first goal come true.

And you nailed Byun Baekhyun’s coffin. It was worth of every minute you spent sleepless, your tears and sweats, the hours in library, the hours in front of the plan of Gyeongbokgung Palace and search for the most logical and safest ways of conducting an excavation around the palace.

Your ideas were chosen over Baekhyun’s ideas, and you were aware of the quality of the solutions he proposed.

You were proud of yourself.

It was the bare truth that Baekhyun’s face were singing to you just as your favourite band could sing, seeing his face just like someone fed him with cucumbers was equal to being accepted into your dream field, Chios’ excavations, as the chief archaeologist.

But you were annoyed.

You could not happily taste your success. You could not feel its flavour on your tongue buds.

Because of that bastard looked fucking magnificent in that bloody black suit.

You have been told about the dress code you had to follow, however no one, not a single soul managed to catch his level of looking good in a suit.

You were annoyed because your taste in men was exactly equal to Byun Baekhyun. He had everything you could ask for, he was devilishly charming, there was even no need for words to describe him, he was beautiful.

And he was the only one you hated the most.

Every girl in the room was drooling over him, to your dismay, just like you. You felt that feeling in your stomach, a pain which was spinning, spinning, and spinning, causing a tornado inside of your stomach.

Was it jealousy?

“I already noticed your ignorance about the feelings.” Baekhyun could not control himself anymore and grabbed your shoulder, turning you to the opposite direction. “We have to follow this fucking street, or we will be lost again.”

“Have you been observing me, Baekhyunnie? That’s so cute.” you ignored the second part of his words, just starting to walk on the direction he instructed to you.

“Observing you takes a minute, baby girl, since there is nothing to see.” he answered but he found it interesting when you called him as Baekhyunnie. “You are a spoiled brat.”

“Hop, that hurts.” you pouted, pressed your fist on your chest, faking a whimper. “Would you like to tame this spoiled brat?”

You started to think that you went nuts.

“In your dreams.” Baekhyun laughed, but he literally lost himself in the fucking possibilities you could be tamed by him. “You have to wait a couple of centuries for someone who can be willing to be with you.”

You chuckled but preferred to keep your silence after his words. Damn, your sudden quietude caught Baekhyun’s attention more. Why didn’t you not attack to him? Why didn’t you give him a sharp answer as you should have?

Why you chuckled like there was a line at your door?

Was it?

Baekhyun pondered that instead of the fact that you were generally with a small group of friends, to both of your dismays your common friends, he did not see you with strangers, so there could not a queue for your hand.

Could it be?

And why the fuck he should have care if there is a crowd for you or not? No one could want someone like you if they did not lose their mind.

But he cared. Fuck, he cared more than he wanted.

Because to his disappointment, he knew that there was a real cavalcade of knightly candidates for you.

“Okey,” you checked the time. “After this one, I am going to have lunch.”

“We are going to have lunch.” Baekhyun gritted his teeth. “I hate eating alone enough to endure your presence.”

“Didn’t you tell me there is no one who could want to be with me?” you snickered. “But you have no reservations about having lunch with me?”

“Imagine the situation I am in.” he grumbled. “The day gets better and better.”

You decided to annoy him, pushing him to the edges as much as you could do. The first response that came to your mind refusing him, but the other option was funnier. You could play with Byun Baekhyun, you could take your revenge by being a pain in the ass.

He said that he could endure your presence.

You could make him regretful of his words.

There was a very little smile tugged on your lips which you were not aware of, however, to his dismay, Baekhyun realized it.

Her lips are rosy and plump, he thought to himself. Even though he called you a spoiled brat, he was not sure of if you were a brat or not. Kiddos have not the type of lips, calling people for the kisses, like you. There was something, even during your cocky performances when you tried to beat the life out of him, although you always kept that dull and bored expression and acted like Baekhyun was not worth of your time, but there was something just in you.

Baekhyun swallowed down his own vomit when he admitted it to himself, and you have caught his glare.

“What?” you purred. “Can’t you take your eyes off me?”

“Who the hell wants to watch you?” he quickly collected his thoughts and put them in a fucking trail. “I am looking for a restaurant where we can have good food.”

After a permanent mutual ignorance session for years, his next words caught you off your guard.

“You like local foods, right?” he asked. “I guess the second shop on this street is famous for jjangmyeon and tteokbokki.”

Well, you had to admit that his questions made your brain a little bit foggy. How could he know that?

“Yeah.” for the first time in history, you did not come up with any sharp answer. “How about you?”

“As long as there is no cucumber or extremely sweet cuisine,” he started to walk. “I am fine.”

You heard that Baekhyun is really not in good terms with cucumber.

“Feel you.” you murmured in your mouth because you hated cucumbers as much as you hated Baekhyun. He swiftly look at you, you accompanied him on the street.

“We should celebrate.” he teased. “I said something, you just answered, and we did not have a fight.”

“This is a privilege for cucumbers.” you shrugged your shoulder, but you also felt that he did not buy your nonchalant tone. “I cannot stand them, mum loves it too much, I mean what type of person can love a cucumber? If I need water, I prefer to drink it.”

Your observation made him tilted his head back in that rumbling laugh of his, you were unwilling to join, but the corners of your mouth turned up slightly.

“Here we go.” He, as a gentleman, opened the door for you, you responded with the most neutral expression you could muster. “Oh, no thanks?”

“Thank you.” you rolled your eyes, however, despite of your strongly negative feelings against him, you do not like rudeness. “Sorry, that was insolence of me.”

“Your apology is fully accepted.” he winked, you hated that cocky tone, you hated yourself for falling into his trap. You passed him, went to a distanced table where it placed in the corner. You did not want to be seen as having a lunch with Baekhyun by your teammates.

Corner was fine.

“Oh, no.” he grabbed your arm, manhandled you to the tables of the center. “I will not let you escape. If they see us, let them to see.”

Your eyebrows knitted, your lips pressed to each other enough to form a thick line on your face, you could almost taste your growing anger. But at the same time, you realized that feeling his hand on your skin increased your heartbeats, you wanted to scream with self-hatred, but you bite down on your tongue as his hand quickly wandered to down, to your waist. He directed you to the most visible table from outside while you were fighting yourself in order to control your fucking pace of breathing.

Please, this could not be true, I could not be excited because of his touch, you thought.

This was not happening, what the fuck was happening?

Baekhyun was not so different from you, even though his face expression was not changed for a bit. He forced himself to take control, but it was really hard for him.

Your hate was reciprocated, right? You guys could not spend even a bloody minute in peace, the only thing you had was annoyance.

So, why you perfectly fit in his embrace just like you were made just to be under his arm?

Why Baekhyun wanted to tight his arm around your waist?

Why could you not say anything even though Baekhyun was literally holding you?

Why you felt like you were in the only place where you had to be for the rest of your days?

“Hi.” you heard the waitress who was a really beautiful girl. “Welcome to Sung’s String. How can I help you?”

Even though finishing her sentence, she begun to eye Baekhyun. You rolled your eyes and reached to the menu; to be honest, this show was not funny after seeing it for the million times. Every time, Sejong Team went outside for a drink, for a gathering or even for a museum trip, girls and sometimes boys gazing the members of Sejong Team just like they were idols or actors because of their good-looking. Eh, they were not wrong, you had to say that the Sejong Team included really, really, and really handsome boys from Baekhyun to Chanyeol, from Kyungsoo to Jongdae and these boys’ superiors were Kim oh-my-godJunmyeon and Kim lord-help-us Minseok.

Well…

You were already got used to the reactions coming from all around when Sejong Team showed their faces. You knew that both of insiders and outsiders of Sejong Institute called your team members as the Flower Boys or a shitty nickname like that.

“I would like to have a jjangmyeon without cucumbers, and a tteokbokki.” you turned the menu off. “With a light coke.”

“Coke?” Baekhyun mimicked you like he could not believe his ears. “Are you kidding? Everyone knows that you have to drink jasmine tea in order to help digestion.”

“Have you been majored in nutrition?” you gave him your bitchy resting face. “Shut the fuck up.”

“No coke.” he wholly ignored you and turned to the waitress who was watching him as drooling. “Please, we want two bowls of jjangmyeon, two tteokbokki, also please we would like to have kimbap and kimchi as the garnitures and of course a pot of jasmine tea.”

“Yeah!” she sounded weaker after Baekhyun conducted all power he had in his eyes to her. “Anything else?”

“I guess we are fine for the time being.” Baekhyun smiled to her, causing a flush of redness on her cheeks.

“I will be back as soon as possible.” the girl literally purred, Baekhyun’s eyes shined after her reaction. Little bastard. You did not want to think about it, but his visible joy had your stomach churned. You inhaled and took your book out of your bag.

“What are you doing?” Baekhyun glanced up at you, reached to take the book from your hands. “Having lunch together means conversation, are you going to read?”

“Give the book to me, Byun.” you kicked his foot under the table. “I know you do not know how to read and enjoy but that’s a good habit to have.”

“Yeah, I know that habit of you gives nothing but lonely hours in library.” he had no limits of shooting his arrows. “Have you ever tried something different for a change?”

“Like what?” you tried to get back your book. “Following your great example and dedicate my life to your favourite sport? Sorry, I have no interest in running after women by lolling my tongue out of my mouth.”

“Baby girl,” Baekhyun put your book in his leather bag. “You have no idea whose tongue lolls out of the mouth.”

You could not decide on what you hated the most. Baekhyun or the girls after Baekhyun? You concluded as both of them were equally horrible in your eyes.

“I am sure your stories are incredible.” you inhaled. “But I really do not like to hear the anecdotes of miserable women. Could you give the book back before I gauge your eyes off?”

“Nope.” he grinned. “I can bet on you are still a virgin but tell me if you have an affair or not, I would like to pay my condolences to your partner.”

He was already written as the first name in your list of most-hated-people, but suddenly became the first man to be written as the first enemy of a lifetime.

“Did you finish your own list of dead partners?” you raised one eyebrow. “Thinking of its length gives me chills.”

“No dead.” his grin widened from one ear to the other. “They just had some temporary heart problems due to the performances I gave to them.”

You opened your mouth to slap his face with the words, but the waitress came back to your table with a huge tray. She was placing every bowl and plate, actually fucking Baekhyun with her eyes, you literally hardly suppressed your instincts, telling you to warn her immediately.

But you were not honest with yourself about why you wanted to warn her. In the deep of your mind, but in very deep, you had been starting to realize that you disliked when the girls threw themselves to Baekhyun because you wanted them to stop. You did not like the scene because you did not want to share Baekhyun’s gaze with another person.

You were lying to yourself without realizing what was the real problem of you.

You loved Baekhyun from the beginning, even though he was a fucking tease and a bloody smartass. There was no other man for you, if someone could cut your chest, the only thing would be seen in your heart was his name.

But that would be the heaviest self-enlightenment, and you were definitely not ready for such as a thing. That’s why you unconsciously continued to trick yourself by disguising your own feelings from your own eyes.

You got the chopsticks and decided to have your lunch instead of burying yourself in the maze of thoughts. Baekhyun realized your discomfort, but he had no idea what the real reason of your mood was, whatever made you unhappy was more than okey for him. He could be happy as long as you were sorrowful.

“You still not give an answer to the question.” he was persistent on pushing your limits. “Do you have a relationship?”

“Why are you curious?” you took a mouthful amount of jjangmyeon. How much you wanted to stuff these noodle strings into his throat, suffocating him to death. “If you want to send a bouquet, please note that I love blue roses.”

“You are really a virgin, huh?” Baekhyun diabolically grinned, you could swear on you saw the red halo over his head.

“Darling, you cannot make me angry by stating what is obvious.” you smiled back, there was no reason holding it back, you were always open on these issues, and a sick part of you wanted to tell him to see his reaction. “Yeah, I am a virgin.”

“Do you conservatively follow a church?” his chin dropped a few inches. “How could it be possible with all the boys who try to seduce you?”

Well, you did not expect to hear this.

“Come on,” Baekhyun continued. “I always see you with a bunch of men, do you really think they are following you only for friendship?”

“On the contrary of you and your limit-does-not-exist type of libido, people can build the bonds of affinity.”

“Only when they do not search for an open door to sneak in.” Baekhyun pointed his chopsticks to your face. “Telling you, I can name at least six permanent names in the waiting room.”

You did not see the hidden meaning of his words, however, Baekhyun was already became regretful, he silently prayed for your ignorance and blindness were going to keep him safe. Because he gave you the biggest clue of his interest in you by stating he could give even names.

He still did not understand how he could know everything about you or why he always put a brick on the ways of the candidates for you, but he did. Hell, he was unapologetically finding a way to prevent the boys who liked you and no one could understand it was Baekhyun. He always came up with a solution in order to intimate them, put them back off. You were not aware but Baekhyun always appeared around you when he thought a candidate was close to you more than he supposed to be.

He already put his stamina on you as his girl, but he was not aware of his own actions. He was not aware of what he has been doing, how he was persistently looking for you, searching for your face in every class or harmoniously living with your voice. It was like your breathing was singing to his ears, and he was dancing with your melody.

Baekhyun did not understand but he was yours.

“I am not sure what you think,” you sipped from jasmine tea with self-confidence. “But there is no such a fucking waiting room.”

“You are really blind.” Baekhyun chewed a rice cake, generously dipping it into the gochujang sauce. “Don’t you think Oh Seunghwan is acting like more than a friend? Or Jang Jeongbun? Jesus, even you really cannot be that much idiot.”

Baekhyun was right for the first time in history. You were nothing more than a retard because you really did not understand the behind the scenes of his words. He was unconsciously giving you the signs of his interests in you, but you were so naïve to see.

“They are my friends, Baekhyun.” you rolled your eyes back. “I know grasping the nature of different relationships is hard for you, but people can be nothing but friends. No need to add tensions or searching for hidden meanings.”

Every time you vocalized his fucking name, Baekhyun felt its impact went straight to his dick, and he hated himself for that.

You were not the type of people who could be okey with the target of teasing. You wanted to play, you wanted to be enhanced by it, sinking into the waves of the game.

And even Baekhyun did not admit it in his head, he believed you were the most attractive girl he has been known because of you always corresponded to his moves and cards.

“How about you?” you immediately played your reverse card, grinning like a Cheshire cat. “I heard that you and your gorgeous looks which made entire school swoon and fantasize about you? Are you really called as the sexiest human being on the country?”

Your voice was the strongest indicator of your disbelief, he could be the biggest moron on planet Earth, nothing more nothing less.

Also, you were aware of those comments on Baekhyun more than you wished for. You kept everything you heard about him in your head, in the safest and the most secret file of your brain, refusing to think but keeping on unconsciously think about those speculations. You found them very suspicious, but not because of Baekhyun did not deserve to be called as the sexiest human being, you found those fantasies as unlikely because of Baekhyun had not that macho man stuff people were somehow attributing to him.

You had grown so sick from all of these dreams and comments, coming from every corner of school since Baekhyun was like a star.

And now, you had him seemed quite displeased with your tease.

“Only on the country?” he raised one eyebrow. “Shit, it seems I am not doing well.”

“Baby, you are coming after Park Chanyeol.” you sighed in joy of dancing on your tiptoes. “That’s a quite achievement, when you think.”

“Chanyeol?” he sighed in annoyance; you knew that you trapped his ego in a small box. “Coming after Chanyeol?”

“Yeah.” you gave the most nonchalant look to him. “Well, I can tell that’s quite unfair since Flower Boys includes really strong names such as Kyungsoo or Junmyeon but… Poor girls, they have to be lunatic to put you after Chanyeol.”

“What do you think about these extremely distorted images of us?” Baekhyun angrily took a mouthful of jjangmyeon.

“Do you ask my list?” you crossed your hands over your chest, cooing with gleamy eyes. “I cannot believe that Byun Baekhyun, asking me, a poor peasant, for her list.”

Baekhyun’s eyes darkening, and you were not sure why your mood was changed from the pure need of mocking him to an excitement which you could not ignore. His voice was really screechy and boyish when he asked your list, and his voice giving you a different kind of pleasure. Not the pleasure of scolding him, but the delight of toying him, pushing him to the edge.

But you did not analyse your current feelings, instead, you rushed to deliver your actually-not-existent list.

“We are talking about physical features, right? But I am going to rate everyone also with their characteristics.” you smiled. “For me, the first name is Chanyeol. I mean, look at that face he has, and his body ratio is excellent, but he has a golden heart. Then, of course Kyungsoo, he is fucking handsome, therefore, he is a great guy.”

“I really pity your tastes of men.” Baekhyun’s discontent with your made-up list was palpable, and the dissatisfaction of his tone was like honey left out in the morning sun.

“The number 3 is Junmyeon as always.” you wholly ignored his comment. “No one can say anything against to Kim Junmyeon, he is the definition of aesthetic. Minseok and Jongdae shared the same number in my list, and that’s all.”

“You forgot me.” Baekhyun snorted, his voice made you lifted your head. He was so tense; you never see his jaw clenched at this expand. What’s up his ass? you silently though in your head.

“I did not.” you were cool as a cucumber. “You are not in the list.”

Till now, you guys always ate each other, digging the graves for each other, always fighting always scolding always throwing invisible daggers to each other. However, you have never ever seen those dangerous lights, dancing in the pupils of Baekhyun after your words.

It was difficult to wrap your mind around the fact that you found this Baekhyun as more attractive than his usual-self and unfortunately you already found Baekhyun very desirable. Even though you would never even let yourself to think about being intimate with him, his eyes stirred something inside of you, ignited some fires close to your lower stomach.

“I am sorry to hear that.” you also never heard this cold voice tone of Baekhyun, and you heard almost every negative version of Baekhyun’s voice which he spared only to use against you. “Let’s finish the meals, we have to be back to work.”

“Yeah.” you nod, lightly smiled. You managed to make him mad, you achieved your goal to annoy him so bad.

Why did you feel bad?

Why did you want Baekhyun to continue on the game?

Why did you feel regretful?

Why did you want to cry?

When Baekhyun’s phone started to ring, you almost completed every house in the list Junmyeon gave to you.

And you spent the last two hours in a total silence. It was eerily, Baekhyun’s lips firmly presses into each other like he sworn on not to talk again. You were not so different, but inside of your mind, something was gnawing your inner peace.

You were not happy, even you coped with the most difficult task, shutting Baekhyun’s mouth.

But you were not happy. You did not feel like you got the prize.

Instead…

You were extremely sad, and you felt like you let the trophy to slid between your fingers.

You had to feel like you hit the jackpot, but quite opposite, you were miserable.

You were especially afraid of losing Baekhyun’s attention, your own heart was aching at the way you told him off.

Still, you were lying to yourself and trying to conceal what made you afraid, you were not honest to your conscious, however despite of your efforts, you knew something was wrong with you after his transformation after you showed him the door.

You were a coward; you were not accepting the solid fact that you were in love with Byun Baekhyun and what made you afraid was nothing but losing him.

However, you were also sure on Baekhyun had a place in your head, making you shutter, had you shaking in your shoes. You could not name where to put his name, but you knew he had a place in your life.

And you were horrified by the possibility of losing the chance of hearing his voice. Even if his cocky remarks were the only words you could rip from him.

“Yeah?” Baekhyun answered to the call, for a second, you were happy to hear his voice again, but he walked towards to the last house you had to visit without waiting for you. He did not do this, even in the beginning of the day. You took a deep breath, you did not know why the heck you were really sad for his sudden coldness, godfuckingdamnit didn’t you hate and always despise each other? You mentally slapped yourself to gather yourself up, but it was pointless, you rushed to catch him.

You were aware of there was a painful squeeze in your chest, but you could not understand the reason of its presence or how you could get rid of that.

“Junmyeon told us to retreat.” Baekhyun informed you without looking at you. “After this house, we have to run back to the meeting point.”

“Okey.” you nod, hated the meek voice tone you produced but your mind was not on the case, you were questioning your own feelings and firm beliefs about Baekhyun.

Baekhyun was not better, to be honest, he was worse than you.

When you nonchalantly told him he was not in your list, he wanted to puke everything he devoured during lunch even though tteokbokki was his favourite food. He wanted to punch himself on the face when you counted the members of your fucking list, he wanted to smack his head into the table.

Chanyeol? Kyungsoo? Damnit, even Junmyeon found his way to sneak into your list, but Baekhyun was not there.

He was always sure of he would be landed in every list, but he never think that being in your fucking list was the most important for him.

Why did he care if you were not seeing him as a man or not?

This question swirling in his head had his mind shattering.

As much as he was happy to see you wiggling like a worm under the fires, he could not control his reactions against the problem. When he saw you trembling over a case, he was the first one always popped out of nowhere to fix the problem in the darkness and never let you learn that it was him. He did not let even Junmyeon to help you, putting aside Chanyeol or Kyungsoo.

Baekhyun was the one who had been saving your ass like he was your invisible rescue call.

But you did not name him in your fucking list.

It drove him into crazy. The lack of your attention. He never mean that alerting you on his helps or care for you, but at the same time, he never think that his efforts would be equal to nothing.

He hated himself as much he hated you.

While you were walking back to the meeting point, both of you were lost in your own darkest thoughts. You were carefully paying the attention in order to not to have immersed each other, however both of you wanted nothing but screaming to each other, enough to have the fiercest fight till now.

You wanted to lose yourself in Baekhyun just like he was dying to bury himself into you for his dear life. However, both of you were very good at muting the voices of your hearts and minds.

“Indy! Baekhyun!” you heard Minseok, turning to his voice. “It is going to be a blizzard; we have to find a shelter.”

“Ha?”

“The forecast was clear as fuck.” Chanyeol pointed Junmyeon who was glued to his phone. “Jun is looking for a hotel for us since we could not go back.”

“We can take the cabs?” you were puzzled, a blizzard would be bad, but it did not mean that you had to spend the night here. “I mean, we are not living in a different city.”

“Yeah, you are right.” Shinhye crossed her arms over her shoulders, trying to keep herself warm. You had to admit, although you did not feel it till now, the weather was really cold. “But the cab drivers refused to drive into the city center. They advised us to stay here.”

“How about using metro?” you asked. “It is not so hard.”

“If you want,” Junmyeon hissed at you, holding the phone over his shoulder for a second. “You can try your chance, Indy. However, we are going to spend the night here. Safe and warm.”

“He is right.” Kyungsoo smiled at you. “I prefer to be warm and dry, sorry.”

You took a look at the team, and everyone was approving Kyungsoo’s words like they were bloody zealots.

“Okey, dumbasses.” you sighed in annoyance. “But we do not have even fucking pyjamas.”

“You can always take your clothes off.” Chanyeol winked at you. “Who says you need a pair of pyjamas to sleep?”

“Shut the fuck up, Chanyeol.” a sudden blush spread over your cheekbones, Chanyeol could not help but burst into laughs.

Baekhyun was determined to ignore you, but he could not help himself.

“Yeah, number one.” he muttered between his teeth, enough to be heard only by you. “Golden heart.”

Your chin was dropped for a few inches after hearing his annoyed voice tone and vindictive comment.

Could it be the reason of his unexpected coldness?

Could he be jealous of your invalid expressions and your fake list?

No way.

He could not be.

Your heart skipped the order of beats.

“Okey,” Junmyeon interrupted your thoughts. “We are going, if we are lucky, we will be in the hotel before the bloody snow will sweep down on us.”

“Let’s go!” Shinhye grabbed your hand, dragging you beside of herself. You submissively followed her footsteps; however, your mind was distracted by Baekhyun’s last words.

Could it be?

“This is heaven.” Jongdae rubbed his tummy. “Thank you, Jun!”

“No problem.” Junmyeon smiled and looked at all of you, to be honest, after a really good and delicious dinner, everyone was knocked out over the table.

Except you and Baekhyun.

“If you want you can go to your rooms.” Junmyeon said. “Since we were fortunate to find a single room for each of us, I do not think we have to play rock-paper-scissor.”

“Ah, having a room for myself.” Minseok laughed. “I do not have to hear your snorts, Junmyeon.”

They were sharing the same flat, everyone laughed after his teasing, Junmyeon too.

“Look who is talking.” he beamed. “I am so happy that I am going to have one night without your damn showering rituals.”

“Tell us about it.” Jongdae whined. “Pleeeassse.”

While Junmyeon and Minseok had been giving details of their flatmate stories to the team, making everyone to enjoy the environment, you were deeply sink into the pool of thoughts.

What a day, you thought. And why I feel like I am desperate?

Also, Baekhyun was not enjoying the unexpected banquet, instead he was quite enough to draw attention to himself. Chanyeol was on the verge of asking what the heck was wrong with him, but Kyungsoo kicked him under the table, pointed you with his eyes. Chanyeol’s wit quickly grabbed the matter, and he devilishly grinned.

You gave a hard day to Baekhyun, and he had no intention to change a thing between you and Baekhyun.

He always believed that you were secretly liking each other, but as you were nothing but stubborn bastards, you concealed your feelings towards each other.

Chanyeol definitely had zero motive to interrupt the fight between you, if it meant you would understand your mutual feelings.

Junmyeon also sensed the tension between you and Baekhyun, but he was not the type of persons who could wait on his corner.

“Baekhyun? Baekhyun!” Junmyeon called out him, waking him up. “How was your day? Why you guys are silent as dead?”

“We completed the task.” Baekhyun answered sourly, the corner of his mouth jumping downwards faintly. “As you assigned me and her.”

Baekhyun deliberately avoided using the pronoun of us.

“And it was a hell of task.” he continued. “I am so tired.”

“Even if you are fucking tired,” Jongdae raised a rejection. “You never shut your mouth, tell us what the heck is gnawing you?”

The bloody girl who sits next to you, Baekhyun thought but he was clever enough to keep the filter between his mouth and brain as valid.

“The girl I gave a promise for this night.” he forced himself to beam. “Because of this fucking weather, I have to arrange another meeting with her.”

Your heart churned, his reply had you wanting to slap your face. Harshly.

And you thought that he could be jealous because you named Chanyeol!

You were nothing but such an idiot.

An idiot who did not know a single piece of shit but acting so superior.

You were a goddamn idiot.

Chanyeol’s eyes narrowed after hearing Baekhyun’s shitty words, Kyungsoo wanted to punch Baekhyun’s face so bad, Junmyeon’s dislike of Baekhyun was obvious but he did not say anything, just sighed in desperation.

You felt nothing but another flash of pain as someone hit your abdomen.

“Are you okey, Indy?” Jongdae leaned over to you, whispering. You shook your head positively, smiling slightly. “You did not throw yourself into even desert.”

Your love for deserts was not a secret amongst your friends as Shinhye, sharing Jongdae’s concerns, handed you a bunch of cloudy puffs, filled with lemon cream. You took one of them, although you had no appetite, you forced yourself to eat the puff in order to put your friends at ease.

He was your biggest enemy and rival, right?

Why you were so devastated, almost on the verge of being hysterical?

You were not aware of you had been hypocritical with your feelings, and you were running away from your own heart. That’s why your hands were shaking, your heart was drumming into your ribs and aching as hell.

You were not ready to face with your heart, but you were also too naïve to save yourself from the pain it caused.

“Was he really harsh on you?” Jongdae murmured, his eyes was nothing but full of worries. “I am sure you could put him in his place but still…”

“He was not.” you said. “And you know me, nothing cheers me up but kicking his ass.”

“Glad to hear that.” Jongdae inhaled but the worries did not leave his face. “So why are you so down?”

“I am really tired today.” you sighed, tucking another puff into your mouth as you mentally punched your face in order to take the fucking control of yourself. “But if I will eat enough amount of these pastries, I will be like a bomb.”

“You are already like a bomb.” Minseok joined into the chat. “You look like on the verge of exploding.”

You unwillingly laughed at his damn right assumption.

“You know what?” you sniffed. “I am dying for a good drink. Would like to join me for a soju break?”

There was no single soul who could oppose to propose of grab a drink in your team. Jongdae jumped out of his chair, Shinhye was born ready and Minseok was the strongest drunkard.

“We are heading to the bar.” Minseok happily announced. “If you guys want to join, perfect, if not, good night to all.”

You were always impressed by the eagerness of Sejong Team to jump into any opportunity for a drink. Everyone, every single soul of this team, had a strong will to consume a respectable amount of alcohol. Less than a minute, everyone gathered up and headed to the elevators in order to visit the terrace of the hotel.

You had been wondering how rich Junmyeon was, even though he was a senior in college, or which kind of relations he had under his belt.

Jesus, you could not pay your attention during the dinner, however the hotel you had been staying was nothing but a touch of luxury. You had a strong guess on the payment bill of this place, however you preferred to keep it to yourself as you knew that Junmyeon did not like talking about the wealth lies beneath his fingertips.

But the bar was intimating.

Minseok, Jongdae and Kyungsoo were having a fierce conversation about the administrative offices of Roman Empire, Shinhye were with Junmyeon as they were talking on the next project that they aimed to present for the Head of Department. Chanyeol, only God knew how the heck he found that, was playing a guitar and you, as dwelling in an extremely comfortable armchair, tucked yourself into a blanket like a sushi roll, were enjoying the sudden calmness around yourself. The dim lights, from the chandeliers dangling from the ceiling, casting mirages across the hall, showing the wooden tables scattered between the chairs and beautiful, fresh cut flowers in their elegant vases.

It is not Korean but Chinese or Japanese, you thought, however with your bad eyesight, making an observation about the porcelain and its design was impossible. Also, you were a little bit slothful at the very moment to move your butt, you wanted to indulge in the soju you were holding, not anything else.

You felt a hand on your shoulder, warm but unfamiliar, your head jerked to face the owner of touch.

Baekhyun was looking at you, however his eyes were different from his usual self. There was no intention to mock with you, his eyes were clear as the snow drops that covering the streets right now.

“May I sit?” Baekhyun asked to you, catching you off guard with an unexpected kindness. You nod, feeling a sudden increase of the level of excitement, but kept your mouth shut. “Thank you.”

Thanking you? Byun Baekhyun?

You perked up, starting to prepare yourself for the fight, despite of the considerable amount of soju flowing in your veins, you were ready to guard yourself.

His elbow brushed your forearm when he was rolling his body in order to adjust the chair next to you.

You were shocked by the reaction your body gave to the moment, the only thing he did was sitting on a fucking chair, but your cheekbones were on fire.

His hips, damn his hips your inner voice was hysterically whispering in your head.

“May I ask to which muse I owe this honour?” you searched Baekhyun’s eyes for a glint of dismissiveness, however this was the very first time you have been the target of sincere, chocolate brown and deep irises.

“I have a question for you.” Baekhyun quickly ignored your offensive joke. “Why I am not in your list?”

He may as well have tossed you inside of a volcano, kicking you into the pool of lava, the impact would be the same. Your heart prompted to your stomach, they churned together, your throat and lungs tightened so bad, enough to cut your air by yourself.

You open your mouth, but nothing come out, just a bubble.

“I do not know how to translate that.” he sneered however you were at a loss. You could expect a lot of words from Byun Baekhyun but questioning the reason of his absence in your fucking list was not one of them.

“There is—” you bite your lower lip to stop yourself, you were on the verge of confessing that there was no list, you just tried to poke his ego, but thank God, you still had a piece of sanity to hold on. “I do not understand. Why do you care my list?”

Do I look like I fucking know? Baekhyun wanted to shake your cage, he wished nothing but screaming at you with all power he had in his lungs. He had no idea why he was mad at you, but he was out of rage and the only reason was you.

“Because I am curious.” he leaned his elbows onto his knees, cocking one eyebrow to you. “And what I hate most is being ignorant to a case.”

“I know.” you spoke without thinking, your mind was delving into the current problem you had in order to find a balanced answer, so you did not realize what you exactly said.

Unfortunately for you, Byun Baekhyun did not become your biggest rival by being blind or deaf.

His lips slightly curled upwards.

But the gentleman he could be, he did not corner you for the time being.

“So?”

It did not mean he would not try to push you in order to get what he wanted.

“Is there a rule saying that every human being has to be interested in you?”

You were not aware of it, but your voice was cracking, and your breathing became heavier, quickened and there was a sheen of sweet on your forehead.

To your dismay, Byun Baekhyun did not unconsciously mark you as his girl without studying you to the bits.

“Humanity is a different topic.” he widely smiled. “I wonder about you, sweetheart.”

Your breath stuck in your lungs because of the endearment, even though you were aware of his teasing of you.

“You are not my type, Byun.” you dead serious.

“Ah, your type is Chanyeol, right?” he smirked, turning his head to the tall brunette who indulged himself into the guitar. “Should we alert him to your interest in him?”

“Goddamn, no!” you hissed at him. What kind of trouble he was aiming to knit on your head? “Do you know the definition of privacy? You are invading personal boundaries, dumbass.”

“I do not think so.” Baekhyun shrugged his shoulder. “If you like Chanyeol, Chanyeol has the right of be aware of your interest.”

“Okey, even a scoundrel like you cannot be crossing the limit of respect like this.” you moved to stand up, giving the most dangerous look to Baekhyun. “I do not have to lis-

“Hey, Chanyeol!” Baekhyun called him with a high-pitched voice. Chanyeol lifted his head, distracted by the unexpected scream of Baekhyun.

“What?”

“Nothing!” your hand immediately tugged onto Baekhyun’s knee, squeezing it tightly in order to warn him. “You are playing so good, keep going!”

Chanyeol laughed at your words.

“You do not have to scream like that, Goddamnit.”

“Tell it to your friend.” you rolled your eyes back, fuming with anger but covering your face pretty well. You turned to Baekhyun, your eyes telling him that he was in serious danger if he was not going to shut his fucking mouth up.

Baekhyun did not care your silent warning, but your hand on his knee was a real distraction for him.

“I know that he is not your type.” he murmured, watching your hand, small, pale, and soft, Baekhyun did not want to confess but he wanted to latch your fingers to his. “Is it Kyungsoo?”

“Do I interrogate your preferences of girls, damn?” you literally gritted between your teeth. “Leave it.”

“I have no intention.” Baekhyun turned to Kyungsoo, narrowing his eyes. “Let’s ask if you are Kyungsoo’s type.”

“What the fuck are you, cupid?!” you grunted, and your hands moved without your consent. You grasped Baekhyun’s jawline, your fingertips were brushing his ears. “I said, leave it.”

“If you want to shut my mouth,” Baekhyun beamed, ignoring the fact that your touch meant for a lot than he could expect, he was going to think about it later. “Tell me why I am not in your list.”

“No one can desire someone like you!” you exploded. “An arrogant, dandy, selfish boy who does not know nothing but bringing trouble to others. That’s why you can never be in my list, even I have to choose between you and an octopus. For the records, I hate octopus, but I would go for it, if it means the other option is you.”

“Oh, you hurt me.” Baekhyun’s eyes glimmered with the sparks of unnamed feelings. He leaned forward, enough you to feel his breath fanning your lips. “You know what, sweetheart? You are so aggressive only when you have a secret which have to stay only in your head.”

“W-what?”

“I am definitely in that list.” Baekhyun claimed it with confidence, but it was just the appearance. Inside him, his heart was definitely shuttering, cracking into pieces, he had no control over himself, he could not understand his sudden behaviours. “I am in your list, if there is a list.”

Your eyes widened, and pupils blown up.

“Jesus.” you snorted. “When you lost your fucking mind?”

“You are a pretty bad liar.” Baekhyun was making assumptions out of his ass in order to get a reaction from you, he was not fucking sure if he was in the list or not, but everything he said actually rang the true bells.

“And you are a lunatic.” your intense eyes pinned him down, and the frowning lips caught your attention, but you forced to came back to your senses as soon as possible. “You will never be anything more than a lunatic.”

You attempted to stand up, but he was incredibly swift to catch your wrist, pressing you back to the armchair.

“Tell me, sweetheart.” he held your wrist for his dear life, caging you and to your disappointment, coming closer to your face, causing your ability of speaking to be faded immediately.

His godfuckingdamnit lips.

“You have been having doubts on me since the day we met, your driving force is giving me hard time.” his breathing was fanning your cheekbones. "Confess now, why are you pissed at me all the time?”

“Hell, you do talk like you are so different. Aren’t you the one who always finds a way to be trouble for me?” you raised one eyebrow, letting him to realize the game was reserved for two people. “If it means liking someone, since when you have been fallen in love over heels with me?”

“You have no idea how much I want to place your heels over my shoulders.”

Your chin was dropped, his words had you turning into a mummy who was trying to register into his remarkable sentence without a single brain cell.

You had to come up with the best answer you could give. You had to find the best response to him, and it had to be a perfect balance of sharpness, cockiness, and matureness as it had to be said with the resting bitch face.

And you heard your own voice.

“Ha?”

“You heard what I said.” Baekhyun intensively gazed at you, the proximity between your bodies had your body quivering and trembling at the same time and his fucking knee slightly, almost insensibly pushed your legs apart.

“You are really nonsensical, Baekhyun.” you inhaled, doing your best in order to ignore all the jolts all over your body, numbing your mind but also setting the skin on fire. Every time you said his name, Baekhyun felt something turning in his lower stomach. “What the fuck you want from me?”

“You did not name me in your list.” You could not believe your fucking eyes, more importantly, you could not believe you were still listening his gibberish like a kindergarten kiddo. “But, I am better than everyone else here.”

His voice dropped the slightest, making you shiver.

“Would you like me to prove it to you?”

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archived-kin · 3 years

Text

obey me cast + their genshin mains

i woke up at like three in the morning and scribbled this all down

not a formal writing piece so i haven’t formatted it like one, but i thought this was a fun idea!!

lucifer: diluc

they both have Fatherly Issues (in very different ways though)

probably inwardly makes fun of diluc for not liking wine

doesn’t really have any emotional attachment??? he just keeps diluc because he does a lot of damage and helps kill enemies quick

he actually has pretty good luck with getting 5 stars before he’s even hit pity, but he has awful luck on the event banners in terms of getting the featured 5 star - he’s never once won the 50/50 when he actually reaches it

gets really good artifact and weapon drops though so all of his levelled-up characters have super overpowered kits

he’s never actually looked up any recommended character builds, he’s just smart enough to figure out what all the stats mean and build his characters accordingly

has not touched his serenitea pot since he got it

not actually great with battle strategy and elemental reaction, he just tries to hit as hard as he can at all times

all of his characters are built dps because he doesn’t know how to build supports or healers

never teleports anywhere (he still hasn’t even unlocked half the waypoints)

didn’t realise the statues of seven healed until really late into the game

doesn’t bother with the reputation quests/bounties

all of his characters are still on that black glider that amber first gives you

it took him ages to finish the archon quest in mondstadt because he didn’t want to go into the cathedral

mammon: zhongli

accidentally got zhongli on like his very first event wish and has mained him ever since

he thinks it’s really funny that zhongli never has money (even though he also often has no money)

apart from that he likes the idea of playing the character that literally makes all the mora in teyvat

was actually considering switching after he finished the liyue archon quests because he absolutely hated how zhongli handled the whole thing but he didn’t want to give up that big pp damage

still doesn’t know that you can climb up onto dvalin in the stormterror battle

mixes and matches artifacts, but the ones he does use have really good stats and sub stats though so the lack of a set bonus doesn’t make much difference

didn’t realise you could increase talent levels until ar 50

loves doing the blossoms of wealth and hasn’t let his mora drop below 100k ever since he accidentally used it all up levelling his team to lv60

immediately does a wish as soon as he gets enough primos, unless it’s an event banner for a character he doesn’t like

he also ignores the story and hangout quests for the characters he doesn’t like

dabbles in the serenitea pot but doesn’t have the patience to really commit to it

forgets to do his commissions until the very last minute and lets his resin fill up to 160 before remembering that he’s not supposed to let it get full

is terrified of spiral abyss on a molecular level

levi: barbara

he loves idols so of course barbara is his favourite

has her built dps and does more vaporise damage with her charged attacks than some people’s 5 star bursts

ended up building lisa as a dps too because she makes fighting the oceanid for the cleansing hearts much easier

somehow still gets barbara to heal enormous chunks of hp as well??

has all three of her talents crowned, she’s lv90 and so is her 5 star weapon, plus all of her artifacts are +20

he likes getting the event 5 stars even if he’s never going to build them, they just make him feel superior in his luck

has really bad artifact drops which makes him really frustrated because he knows exactly how to build his characters with the perfect stats, he just can’t get the right artifacts!!!!!

keeps getting crit dmg, crit rate and atk% sub stats on defence circlets and it makes him die a little more on the inside each time

he despises jean because of how she makes barbara feel and desperately wants mihoyo to make a moment where jean tries to fight something but fails and barbara then steps in and takes it down immediately

never gets barbara’s constellations with makes him very upset because he wants c6 so BAD

nearly cried when he got barbara’s happy birthday voiceline

somehow got his serenitea pot to adeptal energy 20k within like two weeks but it doesn’t look good?? it’s just a whole bunch of 4 star furnishings shoved wherever there’s room

is pretty much always online at any given time

has nearly every single achievement in the game (goddammit just GIVE HIM THE RELIABLE HELPER COMMISSION)

satan: diona

this is not up for debate

he saw her in the character archive and immediately decided that if he didn’t get her he was quitting the game

luckily for him it was xiao’s banner around this time and he managed to get c3 diona from that alone

much like levi with barbara, he managed to build her so that she does enormous amounts of damage but still performs her shielding/healing really well

he prioritises her over everyone else but because of this diona is still his only fully-built character

all talents crowned, all artifacts +20, etc

hates draff with all his heart and refuses to buy anything from him

will murder you if you refer to diona as a loli in front of him

i’m aware keqing also sort of looks like she has cat ears but as far as i know that’s just her hair???

if anything i feel like satan wouldn’t like her because he’s offended that people think those chunk of hair look remotely like a cat’s cute lil ears

chose all his other team members based solely on whether or not their skill set would benefit diona

refuses to use any of the characters lucifer uses and got legitimately angry when he found out lucifer had started building diona to help with spiral abyss

spends like five minutes at a time making diona jump into water because he thinks the cannon ball animation is the cutest thing in the world

if a boss he’s fighting manages to kill diona, he gets so angry that he pretty much obliterates it immediately after

asmo: lisa

partially because she’s pretty and her personality is right up his alley, and partially out of pettiness because he sees so many people slandering her

doesn’t know how to build anyone, he’s only got a good lisa build out of sheer luck

none of his other characters have remotely good builds. like, maiden’s beloved on tartaglia?? really, asmo???

squealed when lisa called traveller a cutie

talks to her while he’s running about doing quests or battles

plays pretty sparingly so his ar is relatively low and he barely has any characters outside the starters

usually gets levi to one shot the bosses for him when he needs to ascend/upgrade the talents of his characters

(levi agrees because it gives him a pretty big power trip)

he also likes kaeya and has him in his team but lisa’s magic is just so pretty to him

spends all his primos on the standard banner trying to get lisa constellations but he still only has c4

all of the solo boss battles he’s won were only won out of sheer luck

adores the concept of the serenitea pot, but he doesn’t like a lot of the furnishings available

desperately wants a character customisation function

died seven times trying to do the stormterror fight and had to have levi do it for him in the end

still doesn’t done any of the story quests that you need a key for

spends most of his free time finding some pretty landscapes, changing the time, and taking pictures of lisa doing one of her idles against the sunset

beel: xiangling

decided he liked her as soon as he did her story quest

he’s only gotten up to floor 4 of spiral abyss because he only did floor 3 to get her

still only has c2 :((((

always has to have snacks with him while he’s gaming because xiangling’s voice lines remind him of how hungry he is

desperately wishes she was real because he wants to taste how good her food is for himself

likes cooking a bunch of dishes in-game, but he also gets frustrated because they all look so GOOD and he can’t eat them

doesn’t really know how building works but he does vaguely know what stats are good and how set bonuses work

doesn’t like hu tao because she’s mean to xiangling >:( plus belphie despises her and beel rarely likes anything his twin dislikes

is low-key upset that xiangling’s story quest was so early in the game because he didn’t appreciate it enough at the time and he hasn’t seeb her in-game for ages

still doesn’t have any 5 stars apart from the traveller, but he does have literally every 4 star in the game

is the type to bring xiangling to pyro domains but luckily she does some pretty good physical dmg as well so his teammates don’t get as mad

takes some time out of every day to find every food/ingredient vendor in the game and buy out their entire stock

still has never run out of mora somehow????

belphie: qiqi

i made this choice partially because of that one halloween belphie ur where he’s dressed up in a jiangshi costume

aside from that i feel like she just sends his big brother instincts haywire

he cried a little bit when he read her backstory, not gonna lie

like satan, he will kill you if you call qiqi a loli

somehow managed to build her as a physical dps that does like 5000 per hit?????

(he has unholy artifact luck and all of qiqi’s artis have atk, crit dmg and crit rate as their stats and sub-stats, plus aquila favonia)

he started out building her as an all-around dps but then he realised that her burst and skill couldn’t do much in terms of damage since they’re healing-oriented, so he decided to build her physical since that the only type of dmg she can constantly apply

and qiqi still heals reliably because her healing is scaled off her attack, which is like monstrously high???

qiqi hates hu tao so of course belphie does too

he still refuses to do her story quest and didn’t touch her banner or character trial

really really wants a qiqi banner for constellations but is aware that that is incredibly unlikely

doesn’t trust baizhu and wants zhongli to adopt qiqi since he seems like a much more reliable dad

heard the theory that xiao is the adeptus that killed qiqi and therefore also despises him even though it hasn’t even been concerned or anything

diavolo: eula

don’t get me wrong diavolo definitely gives me pyro vibes but i feel like he’d just feel so bad for how the mondstadters misunderstand and mistreat eula in her story quest that he’d immediately go to spend all his primos on wishing for her

he’s got r2 broken pines and a full pale flame artifact set with some pretty decent stats and substats on her so she does pretty enormous damage

it’s lucky that eula’s move set doesn’t require anything too strategic because all diavolo does is button mash

all of his characters are physical damage dealers because he doesn’t really know how to do elemental reactions

(because of this though he’s awful at fighting a lot of the bosses, especially the oceanid)

his favourite boss battle is the weekly golden house trounce domain because he can always smack childe down really quickly

he’s stinking rich so he can afford to spend just about as much money as he wants to get any character he wants

like he got all the way to pity on eula’s banner and lost the 50/50 to mona but he just bought more primos and got all the way to pity again to get eula

on the other hand he got broken pines twice in two ten rolls on the weapon banner and he wasn’t anywhere near pity for that

he joined levi along with satan and asmo to have a go at doing the golden house fight in co-op and he managed to pretty much oneshot a lv90 childe in phase 1 and phase 3 with just eula’s burst

(he spent phase 2 recharging it)

barbatos: venti

this is at least 70% because venti is also called barbatos

he somehow knows pretty much everything there is to know about building characters well and he’s built venti with both attack and elemental mastery

got venti on his first banner and managed to get to c4 on his rerun

doesn’t appreciate how much venti drinks and actively buys the non-alcoholic juices from angel’s share to give him as if that’ll help????

is terrified of fighting the wolf because it’s immune to anemo

(don’t ask how he managed to get the hurricane seeds for ascending venti)

can pretty much fire off venti’s burst as soon as it’s over because his energy recharge is somehow also insane

diligently collects all the recipes and masters every single one of them

his serenitea pot is literally so perfect looking????? i don’t know how to describe it everything just fits together flawlessly

diavolo offers to buy him primos because he’s got more than enough money but barbatos doesn’t wish a whole lot so he usually refuses

(diavolo knew he mained venti and liked him though so he bought him a bunch for the rerun anyway)

he still doesn’t have any five star weapons but stringless works really well on venti anyway so he doesn’t mind

doesn’t really like co-op, prefers to just wander around in his own world

simeon: yanfei

simeon definitely gives me hydro vibes and he probably mained a hydro before yanfei, but i feel like he happened to get her on zhongli’s banner and decided he really liked her as soon as he started trying her out

he adores her little ‘boom boom!’

she also works really well doing big damage with vaporise which is good because simeon plays a lot with luke, who mains barbara

he low key identifies with how yanfei doesn’t want to focus on her identity as an immortal half-adeptus because simeon himself often wants to forget the fact that he’s a divine being and just live peacefully

often forgets that yanfei gets a lot of her dmg from charged attacks and just keeps doing normal attack combos until he registers the scarlet seals and realises he needs to hold the button down

nearly all of his characters were basically backseat-built by levi and solomon

even though his team is pretty powerful he still dies a bunch because his battle strategy is just ‘stand there and keep hitting the attack button until it dies’

keeps running off of cliffs and forgetting to plunge/glide and just dying to fall damage

back when he was like ar20 he accidentally wandered into liyue early and immediately got killed by a treasure hoarder

spent like ten minutes of his first stormterror fight just running off the end of his platform before someone told him he was meant to glide

luke: barbara as well

if you’ve seen my post about barbara and luke being siblings you’ll understand why i’ve made this choice

aside from that luke just likes barbara because she’s one of the nicest characters in the game

plus she’s a deaconess in a church and he’s an angel so

unlike levi he’s got her built purely as a healer, but she heals so MUCH

luke’s entire team is just support characters?? but their support is so good that they kind of make each other dpses in their own right??

his strategy is to keep his whole team at full hp and deal relatively small but very steady increments of damage

unfortunately this means he isn’t great at the artifact and weapon/character enhancement domains because they’ve got time limits

wants to have a pretty serenitea pot but he just can’t get it to look how he wants it to

like levi, he doesn’t like jean because of how she makes barbara feel (and also how jean just refuses to take any sort of older sister role for her)

got her to c6 on a single event banner because she just kept coming home (he wasn’t complaining though)

is contemplating building her dps because he thinks it’d be cool if she did a bunch of damage like levi’s barbara

likes to just sit and wait for her to do her dancing idle because he thinks it’s cute (will immediately make her move and cut off the other one though because it’s about jean and he doesn’t like her)

solomon: albedo

they both look sensible but they’re both just mad scientists on the inside

doesn’t really know how albedo’s burst and skill work, just keeps tapping buttons whenever they’re available

if he didn’t have albedo he’d probably main a catalyst but he relates to how curious albedo is about just about everything

(plus he does like his design)

always gets the limited time 5 star on his first ten pull on the event banners????? is he using his magic somehow??????

and also somehow gets really good weapons and artifacts????

he knows enough about artifacts to know what to put on who so all of his characters are really well built

he’s the type with eight lv90 5-stars with lv90 5-star weapons and fully upgraded artifact sets in his character showcase

his signature is ‘hack me i dare you’

constantly getting friend requests from fellow players who want an op friend to help them in domains and against bosses

but unfortunately even if solomon has a bunch of overpowered characters he is very bad at using them

gets all the elemental reactions wrong, uses the wrong element against the wrong enemy, forgets to do things like putting albedo’s skill down before his ult, and he can’t aim with any of the archers

like i said he just taps buttons and hopes for the best

because of this he’s still at floor 6 in spiral abyss

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