#how hard is it to meet a three week deadline on a project that should take no more than 8 hrs max!!!!

[dteamain]

.

[foone]

I see a lot of people joking about the adhd thing of "I have a appointment/phone call at 3pm, guess I won't do anything all day!"

But no one seems to make the connection that it's a time blindness thing. One of the symptoms of ADHD is not having a good and accurate sense of time. And not doing stuff prior to an event with a hard deadline is an obvious coping mechanism for that.

Can I go to the store? It's 10am and the appointment is at 3pm. How long does going to the store take? An hour? Three hours? Five hours? I DON'T KNOW!

I get anxious trying to do things before appointments because I'm aware that I don't know how long those things take, and that if I think I do, I may be very wrong. Too often I've been like "hey I can walk to the corner store and grab a drink, that'll take like 15 minutes!" and then an hour later I get back and whoops my rice has burnt.

Plus there's also the fact that ADHD people know that motivation and focus is a two-edged sword.

Like, let's say you decide to play a video game. You've got time, you can pause/save whenever, so this should be a perfect fit to make good use of your waiting-time. So you start playing and WHOOPS you get really focused for some reason today (because people with ADHD do not get to pick when their brain decides to focus) and the next time you look at the clock it's 2:49 and you haven't showered or dressed and the appointment is 30 minutes away. Fuck. (you could have set an alarm, but now you're asking people with the forgetting-things-and-time-ignoring condition to remember it set alarms)

And with motivation, it can be almost worse. Instead of playing a game, you so something useful or creative. You clean your room or fix your plumbing or write a story or draw a picture. And suddenly it's great. Your brain is firing on all cylinders. You've got all the motivation you can ask for, and you are FLYING. the ideas are brilliant, your hands are nimble, you're getting stuff done you've been putting off for weeks or months. And then the alarm goes off. Time to go to your appointment. Fuck.

You drive there, your brain still full of ideas and plans. But by the time you get back, the motivation is gone. You may still have the ideas but you don't have the drive to write them down. You can't force yourself to do it. Your sink is still in pieces. Your room is half-cleaned, and you have to shove all the sorted clothes into one big bin just so you have somewhere to sleep. You've left things half finished again, in a cycle that has been repeating your whole fucking life. It seems sometimes that nothing ever gets finished.

So next time you don't even start. There's not time. You've been burnt too many times. Why add another half-completed project to your pile of shame?

My point is that people seem to be going "lol I can't do anything all day if I have an appointment at 3pm" like this is a quirky "oh I'm so scatterbrained!" weirdness they alone have, and not a major complication of a disabling mental illness.

(and that's not even getting into the secondary effects. If you know that having an appointment ruins your whole damn day, you're going to avoid them. Even when it's things like "going to that party" or "meeting your friends for a drink/game" or "going to a movie with that cute girl from your math class". Things you should enjoy. Things that'd help you be social. Things that make you feel human.)

[heerocks]

CURIOUS CAT — the butterflies on y/n's stomach

SYNOPSIS! Curious Cat is an app that peaked three years ago where people use it to flirt with their crush anonymously and then suddenly forgot about it.

or wherein, Y/N was devastated when her crush, Lee Heeseung indirectly rejecting her in high school. Three years later, both of them have this unknown beef between them that even their friends don't know the real reason behind. One day, Y/N suddenly remembered and opened her C.C. account, and saw that someone by the name 'Ethan' confessed to her three years ago.

'It's way too early for this' heeseung thought rolling his eyes as he hid his phone on his right pocket while doing the best he can to ignore the fact that you've been staring at him for like 30 minutes straight now.

What did I do? That's the question that plague his mind. Are you angry at him? Did he do something wrong? There's gotta be an acceptable reason for you to stare at him like that, right? He tried to play it cool by sending soft smiles on your way but nothing fazed you. As a matter of fact, you didn't even tried to hide the fact that you're practically gawking at him.

Should I be nervous? He thought again, shifting his weight from left to right obviously in discomfort and overthinking things. This morning, instead of sitting behind you like he did last time, Heeseung sat a few rows on the right side, positioning himself diagonally away from you.

Jay thought it would be best to block all the 'distractions' (and that includes you) while he receive cooking lessons from him. And, heeseung couldn't agree more knowing he's a complete fool and a nervous wreck.

Not to mention, he'll willingly bend in front of you if that's what you want. Just think if it. What if, god forbid, he suddenly spill his plan on confessing to you using food as an excuse? That would wreck all his dreams and hard work to confess in the most perfect way the world would ever allow him to do.

If it's another scenario, maybe heeseung don't mind that you're indeed staring at him. Maybe he'll stare back, using the 'staring contest' as an excuse to study your features. Writing mental notes about what shaped your eyes are, how soft your lips looked and must've felt like, how cute you nose. Heck, he'll even note how you softly bite your lips whenever you're focus doing something. Bet he can keep the list going. That's how bad heeseung is down for you, so if it is a simple day, maybe heeseung wouldn't mind.

But no, right now? he do mind it. How can he not when you're looking at him, not with a loving eyes as he hope so but a look that can be called nothing but judgemental?

Another scrutinizing ten minutes of his life passed just by waiting for the class to start, and with you still gawking at him, heeseung can't help but to dramatically gasped for the much needed breathe of relief when he felt your eyes leaving him when the door finally opened that made all the people inside the room look in one direction. But, instead of a man in his late 50s like y'all expected to see, Ryujin was the one who invade your visions.

She quietly go inside, walking directly in front of the teacher's table ensuring everyone's attention is on her.

"Listen, they had teacher's meeting so no class for today—" The tuition-driven students erupt in series of excited shouts but Ryujin was adamant to stop it. "BUT!" the whole room fell into silent, "... but, mr. choi said that we should all go to our respective partners assigned for the midterm project and use the remaining time to finish it. The deadline was still due later this week, no exceptions."

Groaned was heard all across the room, but despite the complains, people started to stand and walked to their partners anyways. Whilst heeseung was the only one to froze on his seat, he doesn't know why he's so nervous to face you. Maybe it's because there's something on the way you give the 'look' that screams danger for him. Maybe he'll just run?

Though, before the man can even come up with an answer. He heard your voice, calling his name softly. "Heeseung..." Nevermind, he loves you anyways. Nothing's going to change about that.

He took time to calm down before turning his head to look at you who was now signalling for him to come. Heeseung did exactly what he was told. Taking the seat beside you with such amenable behavior. Fear not, you wouldn't need to say it twice and heeseung would definitely do it nonetheless.

The man in question awkwardly shifted his weight away from you though keeping his smile intact in hopes to distract your doubts. It was a failed endeavour, by the way as heeseung distinctively saw your eyes squinting on how weird he's acting right now.

Shit.

"So, i guess it's safe to say that procrastination didn't win?" Heeseung nodded, avoiding your eyes under the guise of observing his surroundings. "Chilling feels good knowing you finished the task early while seeing your classmates still doing something" He added, as heeseung felt himself slowly calming down. His instinct took over and the next thing he knew, his body automatically scoot closer to you. Funny how his eyes want to run away from yours though his body said otherwise.

"By the way, I need to ask you something, heeseung..." Nope. False hope. The nerves are back. He was busy panicking inside that he didn't even noticed how careful you choose your words, scared that one wrong word was enough to scare him away.

"Ask away" Heeseung's voice came out normal but it didn't came unnoticed on how it trailed off specially on the last part. You didn't replied or fired the question immediately just like what he hoped so. It was more like, you weren't so sure what you'll ask... or, if you still want to ask the question running amock through mind.

After a few seconds, you brave to finally start "Do you like someone?" Now, it's his time to think. Not that heeseung was doubting his feelings. He's just torn between saying yes or just denying it until he finally and officially confess. Ah, whatever. Whatever happens, happens.

"I do"

"Do you love giving them gifts?" You ask again, now, chasing after his eyes. Heeseung nervously gulped before silently nodding, afraid that his voice would betray him. "I'm not really good with words..." Of course, he isn't. If he did, he should've said that he like you a long time ago. It was long overdue.

"So, I tend to give them gifts to uh— make them feel special"

"Like flowers?" The bell rang, cutting you off. Heeseung was now celebrating mentally. He need to be away from you, asap. "Oh, look at the time!" Heeseung proclaimed frantically looking at his wrist, not even realizing he doesn't wear a watch.

"I... uh— I have to go, y/n! I still have something to do." He immediately grabbed his things from the chair. Heeseung was about to walk away when your hand caught the hem of his shirt. You didn't need to speak, he knew what goes on in your mind.

And, before heeseung realize words came out like falls, nothing beats your innocent face looking up to him. It makes him want to do everything you want even without saying it.

"I have cook—" You raised your brow waiting for heeseung to continue by laughing dead ass awkward. Somehow, he sounds like a crow.

"I mean, I still have to cook layla's dog food. And, cook coffee... comb my hair, as well as, jake's and hoon's. So... I'll see you around, okay?" By the time, heeseung said the last reminder, his voice became soft. His hands gently and affectionately pat your head. Surely, he's the father to the butterflies fluttering inside your stomach.

"Be careful on your way home, hm?" Heeseung finally walked away, leaving you a blushing mess.

What the hell are you doing to me, Lee Heeseung?!

chapter 46 — the butterflies on y/n's stomach

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GENRE! smau + written, on crack, slow burn, mutual pinning or past pinning, university au, kinda enemies to lovers troupe, heeseung is a simp, reader is kind of dumb, friends bullying friends

𖥻 notes! : updates might get delayed since i have upcoming exams this week >< but i'll see what i can do. And, this chapter is not yet edited so i apologize if y'all came with wrong grammar, spelling, and such.

𖥻𖥻 taglist! : @ckline35 @meinapricity @gugudone @xoxodinaryheroes @lov3niki @ahnneyong @raikea10 @bigtoewinwin @tlnyjoong @sungookie @uwudaizy @jeongintwt @paragonofroyalty @captivq @lavisha7 @prdxinvade @lockburn-castle @chaemmie @xtra-cheese @mimikittysblog @zhaixiaowen @pb-n-juju @luvkait @myjaeyunn @redm4ri @oceanyocean @diestheticu @liliansun @yenqa @xiaoderrrr @flower-lise @mymeloem19 @jungwon-kitten @hoonieluv @vantxx95 @asherbl @alexayoonlee @georgi-salva @mdavt @kyexvly @would-bee @jhopesucker @tiramis-hoon @noascats @beomibeom

likes, reblogs, and comments are appreciated! ❤️

[troublebrewing-if]

Progress update (chapter 5... again)

Hello again. Trying to get better at least with publishing monthly updates so no one thinks we're dead lol.

Due to life being busy, progress ground to a halt for a while. However, there were a few days off, due to the recent holiday, and Doug and I had some time (and inspiration) to write a few scenes and plan for some future scenes that we're very excited with. We were also able to meet with Maudine for planning and a little writing as well. This first week of July has been busy, with just over 5000 words being completed. The rest of the month is not likely to be so productive, as we have some project deadlines coming up. Fingers crossed there'll be more time -- nothing like being able to write again to remind you how much you missed it!

Anyway, we wanted to give y'all a sneak peek for next chapter, but it was a hard pick! There are too many moments that really should be experienced as they were written to be. Here's a quick one that we thought was fun :) Hope you enjoy!

Quinn is, of course, referring to when you had a massive crush on Arian, one of the stablehands, when you were fourteen. You asked Tarquin, Clem’s husband, to help you woo her. The resulting poem was three pages long, filled with metaphors about her sun-dappled skin and azure orbs. It was a work of art. But then disaster struck – you slipped it into the wrong apron pocket! A few days later you overheard a group of servants reading it aloud and mocking your vocabulary, while your dear, lovely, sweet Arian sat in the corner, face in her hands, blushing furiously. Woe betide you for having signed the damn thing!

demo link

[six-of-ravens]

also not to keep vaguing about work, but I was starting this rant this morning before I went to get mom and I'm so pissed at my coworker I'm retyping it now lol

Basically, this one dev has a task that my Trusted Fellow Dev/kind-of manager estimates would take roughly 10 days to do. It's a larger task, and there's a hard deadline next week that he cannot miss on pain of death (read: firing), and he was given basically a month, maybe 5 weeks to do it. What has he done?

Week before last: had it on his list but never did it, did other tasks instead despite being told to focus on The Big Task

Last week: put off working on it by dragging a "2 hour" task out for multiple days (he always does this, either under-quotes the amount of time something would take to make people happy, or quotes the right time but procrastinates wildly, either way he has a reputation as being Slow As Fuck now that drives everyone insane)

Got so hysterical even though he had 3 weeks left at this point that I gently told him to ask the bosses for an extension, if only to get some peace. A bad move on my part bc I didn't realize at the time that a) the scope of the task was perfectly doable if he just sat down and did it and b) there is a Hard Deadline that you should Absolutely Not ask to change (he did not convey that in his frantic ranting). so unfortunately I made him look bad to the bosses, even though I thought I was encouraging him to ask for help (which he's always reluctant to do). For once in my life I should've said "suck it up, buttercup." That's the last time I ever try and be nice :/

This week: was given 4 helpers, but lost them due to spending over an hour in a meeting to "show them what to do" going off on unrelated tangents, causing my boss to intervene and yell at him for wasting everyone's time when he couldn't even explain what needs to be done to the boss. (Note: they are still available to him but he has to gather his thoughts and explain things properly and so far he has not taken the initiative to do so. Also this is BASIC SHIT it's like "change the text here to this" "change this colour to that" the helpers just need to be shown what and where.

Attempted multiple times to write scripts to automate the manual work (also tried to drag the programming team into this, they declined to help and said it was faster to do manually. It is absolutely faster to do it manually than to write complex scripts to automate a thing you have to do for one client once)

This brings us to about Wednesday afternoon.

Has gone on multiple hysterical rants about how awful this client is and how they're terrible assholes and we're not charging enough etc etc.

Also, the PM has been asking him to do a small 5 minute task for this project (the client wants it updated first for some reason) for THREE DAYS and he keeps getting distracted and not doing it.

YESTERDAY AFTERNOON, finally admitted what Fellow Trusted Dev has been telling him and I for weeks, "oh, I don't think this is as bad as I thought it was."

SO THAT'S 3.5/5 WEEKS WASTED.

Oh, and he's also not eating or sleeping correctly, because his parents went on an extended vacation out of the country and...christ, why must I work with multiple 30 year old men who still rely on their mommies to cook and clean and fucking...give them bedtimes??? Then they all wonder why they can't get girlfriends. It's not the fucking 50s, jesus christ. you are a dying breed. your ineptitude will ensure you never reproduce!

Anyway, at this point we're torn between genuine concern for his mental health and placing bets on whether he'll get fired next week, and also debating calling in sick and working from home until this project is over because the atmosphere in the office is oppressively Bad.

One of the PMs got smart and sat beside him Wednesday afternoon to watch him make a 15 minute update, which miraculously ensured it got done in time with no distraction. I joked to Trusted Fellow Dev that he and the PM might have to do that in order to get the Big Task done and he very seriously just said "well if that's what we have to do we'll do it." So that's the confidence level with this guy.

[thej320]

Week 3: Group Reflection

As our project progresses, we must improve our time management when we can meet about the project. As only some people are present during class, it can be hard to develop ideas for the weekly blog posts when not everyone is present in class. We all have different schedules, and things can get in the way of class time. However, it cannot continue to be an occurrence that happens every week as it can sometimes hold us all back from quicker progression. Excluding that, communication continues to be our biggest strength as we solve and navigate technical issues we have faced in the past. Everyone contributed different ideas relating to the class lectures to develop in our weekly blog posts while holding each other accountable for the workload to meet deadlines. When everyone is present in class, we can produce ideas quickly and agree on what we want to see in our blog post because everyone is present. It also makes navigating any technical problems easier since we can all discuss alternatives that would work for everyone.  

The roles contributed this week took a different approach from last week: The Content Developers (Jack and Summer) have both had ease developing the content for the blog posts and want to find an alternative where both can contribute equal effort and responsibility to the weekly blog posts. With that, both developed the blog posts, implementing and formatting class lecture content into the blog post. The Planner and Editor (Sandro) wrote the group reflection post while analyzing the final blog post to see if there were any changes before the content developers submitted it. Creative Lead (Tracy) searched for images relating to our topic and the class lecture themes, which were incorporated into the blog post. Research Coordinator (Taten) gained and shared credible sources relating to our topics and themes with the content developers. Along with helping them write about the sources of our topic and the class themes. We continued to contact each other to stay on track with deadlines and themes presented in our blog and class lectures and support one another when we needed clarification. 

For week three’s themes, we enjoyed and interacted with gender in advertisements along with gender & the gaze in film media. How advertisements and film media use gender displays, enforce stereotypes and disciplinary practices through their discourse. Gender displays women being gentle, elegant, and submissive, while men are manipulating and dominant, which sexualizes both men and women. Along with diverse gender gazes that interpret how individuals of different genders, sexualities, and ethnicities are modeled or presented in film media, they uphold disciplinary practices we’ve seen in advertisements. Enforcing disciplinary practices regarding how one should act, and look can degrade individuals who don’t follow those practices. This relates to our topic of how the media uses advertisements in sports to create divisions among athletes. We should be able to identify these themes in advertisements and films so as not to compare ourselves or other individuals with them, allowing us to degrade ourselves. 

As we continue to learn and engage with more themes about sex, gender, and race, we will adapt and incorporate these innovative ideas into our weekly blog posts. We must remain open-minded and second-guess what media and society present to us when it involves representing individuals. That’s why we’ve taken this course and created these blog posts: to create content that doesn’t make any stereotypes, gazes, or disciplinary practices that could marginalize individuals. To ensure that everyone is included and knows that they belong. That way, our audiences can keep learning new things, which can spread awareness of these problems. Our project will continue to expand as we learn to incorporate current ideas, concepts, and themes from each lesson to understand media and blog posts quickly and effectively.  

[deliasamed]

Preposition - "Within"

      Preposition “Within”

The preposition within has several meanings, Examples for each of these meanings:       Inside or In the Interior of: The treasure chest was hidden within the cave.   Please place the documents within the folder.         Before a Particular Period of Time or Deadline:   You must complete the assignment within one week.   The package will be delivered within 48 hours.             During a Particular Period of Time:   The movie will start within the next 15 minutes.   She'll arrive within the hour.           Inside the Bounds or Limits of:   The town is located within the national park.   The store is within walking distance.           Less than or Not Exceeding a Particular Quantity or Amount:   The cost of the repairs is within our budget.   The project can be completed within three months.             In the Scope or Influence of:   The decision falls within the authority of the manager.   Her actions were within the rules of the game.               Expressing a Short Period of Time Before Something Happens:   Within seconds, the alarm went off.   Within moments, the rain began to fall.             Inside One's Thoughts or Feelings:   Within himself, he knew the truth.   She found strength within her to overcome the obstacles.           Inherent or Existing as a Natural Part:   There is a sense of beauty within the simplicity of the design.   Within every challenge, there is an opportunity for growth.             Used to Show a More Precise Location or Time:   The key is within the top drawer of the desk.   The meeting is scheduled within the first week of July.     The meaning of within can vary based on context, so it's important to consider the surrounding words and the overall context when interpreting its meaning in a sentence.              

Within as an adverb:

  Here are some examples of how within, used as an adverb in the meaning of inside, indoors, internally, or inwardly, can be used in sentences:         Inside a Building (Indoors):   She felt safe and warm within, in her cozy home during the snowstorm.   Please wait within, in the lobby until your name is called.           Internally or Inwardly:   Despite her outward composure, she was struggling within, battling her anxiety.   The decision was made after much debate within, by the company's board of directors.           Inside an Object or Entity:   The treasure was hidden in the ancient chest, within.   The answer to the puzzle lies within, in the text of the riddle.            

Preposition within in word expressions:

Here are some common word expressions and idiomatic phrases that use the preposition within:   Within Reach: Refers to something that is easily accessible or attainable. Success is within reach if you work hard.     Within Sight: Indicates that something is visible or able to be seen. The mountain peak is within sight now.     Within Earshot: Means something can be heard from a specific distance. I overheard their conversation; they were within earshot.      Within Arm's Reach: Signifies that something is very close and can be grabbed easily. Keep the emergency phone within arm's reach.     Within Limits: Refers to staying within certain boundaries or constraints. We must operate within the budget's limits.     Within the Realm of Possibility: Suggests that something is conceivable or achievable. Winning the lottery is within the realm of possibility, but it's unlikely.     Within One's Control: Indicates that something can be managed or influenced by a person. Your attitude is within your control; choose to be positive.     Within Reason: Refers to something that is sensible or logical. I can help you move, but it should be within reason, not a cross-country trip.     Within a Stone's Throw: Means something is very close in proximity. The nearest coffee shop is within a stone's throw from here.     Within the Hour: Refers to something happening soon, typically within the next 60 minutes. The repairman will arrive within the hour.     Within the Vicinity: Signifies something is nearby or in the surrounding area. There are several restaurants within the vicinity of the hotel.     Within the Framework: Refers to working within the established guidelines or structure. We need to complete the project within the framework of company policies.     Within the Confines: Indicates being restricted or limited by certain boundaries. Creativity often thrives within the confines of constraints.     Within a Hair's Breadth: Suggests something is extremely close or narrowly avoided. He missed the target by within a hair's breadth.     Within the Realm of Science: Refers to something that is scientifically explainable or understood. The phenomenon can be explained within the realm of science.       These expressions and idioms can add depth and nuance to your language use when incorporating the preposition within into your conversations and writing.                 Preposition – “Within” Prepositions “With” and “By” to compare Preposition – “With” Preposition – “To” Prepositions – “Till” and “Until” Preposition – “Through” Prepositions – “Round” and Around” Read the full article

[comradesbooks]

5 Handy Dandy Little Tricks I Use to Get My Head Out of My Butt When Writing

1. Don’t work on an empty canvas. A blank page on Google docs is intimidating. Scrawl down a summary of the chapter you’re writing before you even start, then just go off of it as you write. It’ll keep you on track. And don’t just copy and paste something out of your outline. Write it out as something paraphrased from your outline. Get those juices flowing with some easy stuff and get your feet wet. 

2. Set reasonable goals for yourself. Whether it’s setting a small deadline to get a chapter done on a week by week basis, or a daily word count goal, try setting a goal for yourself. It’ll break your project down into bite sized pieces and make it more manageable, ergo less intimidating. And don’t beat up on yourself if you don’t always meet your goal. Of course, you should do your best to meet your goal to stay on track, but if you were aiming for three hundred words today, and you only got to 250, it’s okay. 250 words is better than 249. It’s not a hard and fast rule. 

3. It might be specific to me, but I can really get my creative juices flowing by writing ideas, outlines, and whole scenes on paper. It just brings me back to how it was for me back before I had a computer and wrote all my short stories down back in middle school. For some reason, it just really works for me. Organizing a web of sticky notes and legal pad paper on a board (even if it’s just a big piece of cardboard, like the board I use) can help you if you’re a more tactile-visual learner. Feel free to experiment. 

4. Sometimes certain things can unglue writer’s block like nothing else, but they’re unique to different individuals. My editor, who is also an author, finds that binging the Hobbit trilogy does the trick for her. For me, the original The Lady and the Tramp is what does it. Find something that inspires you, whether it’s a playlist, a movie, or a particular episode of a show you like, and give it a chance. It might just work. 

5. You can’t beat the classics. When all else fails, sometimes the only way to cure writer’s block is to simply get over it and write. Just write something. Anything. I don’t care if it’s a “skeleton draft” as my mortician cousin calls it, or just flat out, choppy, cliche-worded garbage. You can edit garbage. You can’t edit nothing. 

[strawhatsoraya]

Hello, thank you for your writing! Could I request a fluff Law fic with AU December/Winter Love with July prompt Deadlines? Thank you!

Hello! It's been idk 1.5 weeks lmao since you asked for this. I am so sorry for the long wait. I am also sorry to myself because idk why I can't focus more. Such is my life. You asked for a Winter Love Fluffy thing with Deadlines prompt and it made me want to write like an Office Job AU type thing. I hope you enjoy it! Thanks for stopping by to request.

Marigold

LAW X READER | SFW Word Count: 1.2k CONTENT WARNING: none, unless you hate fluff SUMMARY: Y/N has had a crush on Law for as long as she can remember, but he is difficult to approach, Law has a distinct memory of Y/N he refuses to acknowledge or address.

It was snowing on the first day he met you.

A dark cloudy gray sky was above you, as you stood wrapped up in your coat, marigold yellow scarf around your neck. Tender tufts of snow melted into your hair, and kissed your cheeks and nose until they were red; a color similar to a Fuji apple, and probably just as sweet.

You were too preoccupied with the stray cat to notice him, as you debated while on your haunches whether to leave your scarf behind or not. He didn’t see you make your decision as he walked away into the building. Later that same Winter, he saw you several times in front of the office building but never with the same scarf.

A year had gone by, and you rarely crossed his mind. He was diligent, almost to a fault, constantly agreeing to overtime. You had wanted to approach him, coming up with schemes as to take up his time. Should you thank him for his hard work and bring him coffee? Should you ask him to review your report and look for mistakes? All of them fell to the side when you looked at him. He’d look back with a steely expression in his eyes, a thin line drawn between his lips; the line you couldn’t cross.

A year had gone by, and you rarely crossed his mind, but he’d see you look at him every now and then. 

A year had gone by, but sometimes he’d wonder about you, the cat and the scarf.

The line you couldn’t cross seemed to grow thinner, flimsier, sometime at the beginning of December. Your department’s manager had tasked you both to team up for a project on Christmas cakes. You saw it as a win-win situation. You could indulge in cakes, and somehow try to get closer to Trafalgar Law. It was a golden opportunity slipped on your desk inside a manila folder. 

You grasped it with sweaty eager hands. This was your chance to cross the uncrossable line. You just had to do it. You had to.

You met on and off for the next three days, taking over any empty meeting room available to discuss on how to approach the research. You each brought a list of places to visit for tasting. A schedule had been decided as well as a budget. It went as expected. He was strictly business, and you struggled to keep your head from floating above the clouds. In the instances he’d stare at you, and ask you to repeat what he last said, you'd grasp your cup of coffee, its warmth grounding you. It didn’t provide you with the answer to his question. Something he didn’t let you forget, every time, for the remainder of the meeting.

Every day you met, you clocked out of work feeling dejected, shoulders so low it pulled you down to the ground, steps struggling to lift the weight of your regrets. You’d shower, eat mechanically, and go to sleep but you always felt refreshed the next morning.

This was a golden opportunity, after all, you couldn’t just give up.

The day had come for the field expedition. The forecast had predicted snow, so you did your best to dress warmly which was frustrating. You were looking forward to showing your cute side to Law, in hopes of catching his attention long enough outside the subject of work. After forty five minutes of tossing clothes on your bed, to the floor, and only stopping to have a good cry for five minutes, you were ready to meet him outside the office building. 

You ran from the station to the front of the building, keeping an eye on the watch on your wrist. The cold made it harder to run, your knees feeling stiff and frigid. Your breaths came in icy, leaving a sharp ache inside your chest. 

He sees you running towards him, the bangs of your hair splitting to reveal your forehead. He blinks away a snowflake clinging to his dark lashes. As you approach, the lower half of your face is buried behind a marigold yellow muffler. He can’t stop himself from reaching out. He slips an inked finger, between your cheek and scarf to pull it down.

“I thought you gave this away,” he says, forgetting his manners. You are surprised. He usually greeted you very stiffly, very formally, always careful to keep the line drawn between you. Now you had felt the warmth of his finger against your cheek. He was folding your muffler down as you struggled to regulate your breathing. Your breath was warm against his knuckles as he finished one more roll of your muffler. He felt the tips of his ears heating.

“What are you talking about?” you ask him, confusion evident in how your brows knitted together. You tilt your head, trying to see if there was an opening in his head you could slip into. He mirrors you, head tilting as well. 

“The cat, last year,” he said very simply, his frown now matching yours. “I thought you gave it to the cat.”

You have no idea what he is talking about and it is killing you. You desperately want to remember. Here was a moment to have a conversation that did not involve your current project or small chit chat about having slept well or not, and you couldn’t understand what he was talking about. 

“Ohhh, that!” you say, feigning acknowledgement. You had no idea, still, but maybe you could play along. “No, I didn’t.” It was the closest to the truth you could get without truly remembering what he meant. “You remember me from last year?” you ask, with a small smirk, finally gathering your bearings to understand the implications of his question.

He blushes, and you watch him try to sink into his shoulders and his black and white scarf. “Not really,” he mumbled, averting his eyes to the passing salary workers. “I just never saw you wear it again so I assumed.”

You humm, mischief dancing in your eyes. He watched with apprehension, wishing he could take back the words. He shoves his hands deep inside the pockets of his coat. 

“It’s so nice of you to remember all this time!” you chirp, slipping an arm around his. He freezes in his spot. You feel his body stiffen and bite down on your lower lip to keep from laughing.

“I didn’t! I said that already,” he says resolutely, a scowl twisting his mouth. You ignore it, and start dragging him along, snowflakes covering the path you walk on. You change the subject, suddenly very preoccupied with reaching the first bakery. He grunts as a response, letting you continue, as he watches fluffy snowflake after snowflake land on the crown of your head, on your nose and eyelashes, on that marigold yellow muffler.

A year had gone by, and he still wasn’t sure about you, the cat and the marigold yellow muffler.

But maybe, if he didn’t mess up, he could find out more about you soon.

[uncloseted]

What are some effective waya to become more productive?

what are some effective ways 2 be productive?

First things first, figure out what the problem actually is. Why are you struggling to be productive? Is it because you're a perfectionist and the idea of not doing the task perfectly stresses you out? Is it because you're lacking the motivation to do anything? Is it because you're struggling to concentrate, or because you're overwhelmed by the task, or because you don't know where to begin? There are tons of reasons why you might be struggling with productivity, and figuring out what the roadblocks you're encountering are can help you to find ways around them. Since I can't read your mind, I'm going to try and give advice that will work for most of the roadblocks you might encounter.

When it comes to big things, I recommend using the SMARTER & WOOP methods. SMARTER and WOOP are two tools that are really useful for behavior modification and other long-term goals you might have.

SMART(ER) is a tool to help you set the right goals for you.  Too often, we set goals like “I’m going to start exercising” or “I’m going to quit going on my phone”.  Those are great in theory, but without an action plan, it’s easy to not follow through.

SMARTER goals are ones that are:

Specific (simple, sensible, significant).

If your goal isn’t specific, you won’t be able to focus your efforts or feel motivated to achieve it.

Try to answer: what do I want to accomplish? Why is this goal important? Who is involved? Where is it located? Which resources or limits are involved?

Measurable (meaningful, motivating).

Having measurable goals is important because it allows you to track your progress and stay motivated by seeing how far you’ve come.

A measurable goal should be one that answers “how much”, “how many” and “how will I know when it’s accomplished”?

Achievable (agreed, attainable).

Your goal needs to be realistic in order for you to stay motivated and be successful.  If you’re aiming too high, you’ll become demotivated quickly because it doesn’t feel like you’re making progress.

An achievable goal requires you to ask “how can I accomplish this goal” and “how realistic is this goal based on other constraints?”

Relevant (reasonable, realistic and resourced, results-based).

Relevant goals are ones that matter to you.  Make sure that these goals are ones that are important to you, not ones that you think you should be pursuing.

A relevant goal is one that can answer “yes” to the following questions: “does this seem worthwhile?”, “is this the right time?”, “does this match my other efforts/needs?”, “is it applicable in my current socio-economic environment?”

Time bound (time-based, time limited, time/cost limited, timely, time-sensitive).

Every goal needs a target date so that you have a deadline you can focus on and work toward.

A time sensitive goal is one that answers “when?”, “what can I do six months from now?”, “what can I do six weeks from now?”, and “what can I do today?”

Evaluate

Every day, evaluate how you’re doing on your goals.  Long term goals can be easily ignored if they’re not evaluated every day, and if you don’t evaluate how you’re doing on your goals regularly, you might miss the things that are preventing you from achieving them.

Readjust

If you find that your approach isn’t working, you may need to readjust your goals.  That doesn’t mean that you’re failing at your goals or that you should quit; it just means you have to rethink the approach you’re taking.  Maybe the goal isn’t as relevant to you as you thought it would be, or it’s not as realistic as you expected, or your timeline is too short.  Identify which part of your SMARTER goal is tripping you up and readjust it.

The best goals are ones that include trying new things instead of quitting old ones.  Quitting things is hard; learning something new is easier and more exciting.  If you’re looking to quit something, replace it by establishing a new habit that takes its place.  For example, “I’m going to stop going on my phone,” is hard, but “when I feel like going on my phone, I’ll read a book for ten minutes instead” might be easier to maintain.

After you’ve figured out your SMARTER goal, it’s time to WOOP.  WOOP is something like the scientifically proven cousin of “manifesting”.  Just visualizing our goals or positive thinking on its own can be counterproductive, because it fools our lizard brains into believing that we’ve already achieved the goal.  By using the WOOP method, you can prevent that from happening and actually achieve what you want to achieve.

WOOP stands for:

Wish: Identify a wish that is challenging, yet attainable.  This should be your SMARTER goal.

Outcome: Imagine the best outcome as a result of your wish (as vividly as possible).  Really daydream about what your life would be like if you achieved your goal.

Ask yourself, what is the biggest benefit you could receive from achieving this goal?

Obstacle: Identify and imagine what obstacles will get in the way of your wish.

What might get in the way?  Thoughts, feelings, beliefs, old behavior patterns, bad habits, social pressure… identify as many as you can, then prioritize their likely they are to happen and how significant they would be if they did happen.

Plan: Create an if-then plan to overcome the obstacles you identified- “if [obstacle occurs] then I will [plan A].”  Do your best to pick the most effective path you can for each obstacle, and identify a few different plans in case your first plan doesn’t work.

For example, if you wanted to start exercising, your WOOP might look like this:

Wish: Go on a run 3x/week after school/work for a month.

Outcome: Better energy, confidence, and health.

Obstacle: Feeling tired and hungry at the end of the day…Not wanting to go.

Plan: Pack a snack for the end of the day, and put on gym clothes right when you get home.

Or if you wanted to stop watching TV and read more:

Wish: Watch only 5 episodes of TV per week, and read when I feel the urge to watch TV for a month.

Outcome: Learn a lot. Get smarter. Feel better. Enjoy the great ideas. Feel like I’m spending my time wisely.

Obstacle: Not feeling like it. Preferring to watch TV.

P: If I catch myself watching TV, then I turn it off and start reading a book instead.

The last thing you can do to increase the chances that you’ll achieve your goal is to get someone else involved.  Either find a friend who’s setting the same goal that you are, or tell someone about your goal and ask them to help you achieve it by checking up on you.  It can also be helpful to put money on the line- give money to a friend with the understanding that you’ll get it back on a set date if you’ve achieved your goal.  If you really want to ensure that you reach your goal, tell your friend that if you fail, they should donate the money to a group or cause that you really hate.

For smaller, more day to day tasks:

Make a list of everything you need to do. Sort them into four categories- tasks that are Urgent & Important, tasks that are Not Urgent & Important tasks that are Not Important but Urgent, and tasks that are neither Urgent nor Important. Focus first on the tasks that are Urgent & Important. This can help you prioritize which things to work on first.

From there, take a look at each individual task and break it down into very small steps that you can't fuck up. These can be as small as "open laptop", "open Google Docs", "write name at top of the page", etc. If it helps, you can assign each one of these steps a point count, and then give yourself a treat once you collect enough points (10 points, 20 points, 50 points, and so on).

Once you have your list and have identified all of the steps, just do the first step. It can be daunting to start a big project or task; it's way easier to just do one thing. And once you do one thing, it feels easier to do just one more thing, and just one more thing, and so on until the task is complete.

Once you build up some momentum, I would recommend using the Pomodoro technique. Work for 20-25 minutes (or as long as you can really focus) and then take a 5-10 minute break. Stand up, get a drink, get a snack, watch a short TV episode or a YouTube video, look up that thing that was on your mind, whatever will give your brain a break. Then, set another 20-25 minute timer and get back to work. After three or four cycles of working and taking a short break, take a longer break.

A few other things that I think it's important to remember when it comes to productivity.

Anything worth doing is worth doing badly. You don't need to finish things, and you don't need to do them perfectly. If it's a choice between doing something badly or not doing it at all, it's always better to do it badly.

You don't need to do things the way other people would do them- do it how it works for you. Sometimes that won't make sense to other people, but that's all right. The only person it has to work for is you. If bouncing back and forth between different tasks works better for you than focusing on one task until it's done, then bounce back and forth between tasks. That's okay.

It's okay to ask for help. If you have trouble doing things, that's okay- find someone who can assist you. Maybe you're bad at projects that don't have someone to be accountable to. Find a friend who will hold you accountable. Maybe you're bad at projects without deadlines. Set deadlines for yourself and get someone to make sure you meet them. Sometimes you don't need to work through your shortcomings- you just need to find a way around them.

[tojisveryown]

𝙸𝚗 𝚈𝚘𝚞𝚛 𝙴𝚢𝚎𝚜 | 𝟶𝟻

© 𝙰𝚕𝚕 𝚠𝚘𝚛𝚔𝚜 𝚋𝚢 𝚝𝚘𝚓𝚒𝚜𝚋𝚋𝚢𝚐 𝚘𝚗 𝚝𝚞𝚖𝚋𝚕𝚛

𝙰𝚌: 𝚠𝚃𝟼𝙸𝙳𝟸𝚀𝟺𝙰𝙺𝚄𝟿𝚏𝚛 𝚘𝚗 𝚝𝚠𝚝

𝚂𝚢𝚗𝚘𝚙𝚜𝚒𝚜: 𝚃𝚑𝚛𝚘𝚞𝚐𝚑𝚘𝚞𝚝 𝚢𝚘𝚞𝚛 𝚕𝚒𝚏𝚎 𝚢𝚘𝚞'𝚟𝚎 𝚗𝚎𝚟𝚎𝚛 𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚕𝚕𝚢 𝚋𝚎𝚎𝚗 𝚟𝚒𝚜𝚒𝚋𝚕𝚎 𝚝𝚘 𝚊𝚗𝚢𝚘𝚗𝚎, 𝚢𝚘𝚞'𝚟𝚎 𝚊𝚕𝚠𝚊𝚢𝚜 𝚜𝚊𝚝 𝚒𝚗 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚋𝚊𝚌𝚔 𝚘𝚏 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚌𝚕𝚊𝚜𝚜 𝚗𝚘𝚝 𝚙𝚊𝚢𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚊𝚝𝚝𝚎𝚗𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗 𝚝𝚘 𝚊𝚗𝚢𝚘𝚗𝚎, 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚋𝚕𝚎𝚗𝚍𝚎𝚍 𝚒𝚗 𝚠𝚒𝚝𝚑 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚌𝚛𝚘𝚠𝚍 𝚘𝚗𝚕𝚢 𝚞𝚗𝚝𝚒𝚕 𝚢𝚘𝚞'𝚟𝚎 𝚋𝚎𝚎𝚗 𝚙𝚊𝚒𝚛𝚎𝚍 𝚠𝚒𝚝𝚑 𝚜𝚘𝚖𝚎𝚘𝚗𝚎 𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚛𝚎𝚜𝚎𝚖𝚋𝚕𝚎𝚜 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚌𝚘𝚖𝚙𝚕𝚎𝚝𝚎 𝚘𝚙𝚙𝚘𝚜𝚒𝚝𝚎 𝚘𝚏 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚏𝚘𝚛 𝚊 𝚙𝚛𝚘𝚓𝚎𝚌𝚝.

𝚆𝚊𝚛𝚗𝚒𝚗𝚐𝚜: 𝚖𝚎𝚗𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗𝚜 𝚘𝚏 𝚊𝚕𝚌𝚘𝚑𝚘𝚕, 𝚖𝚎𝚗𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗𝚜 𝚘𝚏 𝚜𝚎𝚡, 𝚖𝚎𝚗𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗𝚜 𝚘𝚏 𝚍𝚛𝚞𝚐 𝚞𝚜𝚊𝚐𝚎𝚜

𝚆𝚘𝚛𝚍 𝚌𝚘𝚞𝚗𝚝: 𝟸.𝟸𝙺

𝚃𝚊𝚐𝚜: 𝙲𝚘𝚕𝚕𝚎𝚐𝚎 𝙰𝚄, 𝚛𝚒𝚐𝚑𝚝 𝚙𝚎𝚛𝚜𝚘𝚗 𝚝𝚘𝚘 𝚕𝚒𝚝𝚝𝚕𝚎 𝚝𝚒𝚖𝚎, 𝚏𝚕𝚞𝚏𝚏 𝚖𝚒𝚡𝚎𝚍 𝚠𝚒𝚝𝚑 𝚊𝚗𝚐𝚜𝚝

𝙽𝚘𝚝𝚎: 𝚃𝚑𝚒𝚜 𝚌𝚑𝚊𝚙𝚝𝚎𝚛 𝚋𝚊𝚛𝚎𝚕𝚢 𝚒𝚗𝚌𝚕𝚞𝚍𝚎𝚜 𝚒𝚗𝚝𝚎𝚛𝚊𝚌𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗 𝚠𝚒𝚝𝚑 𝙶𝚘𝚓𝚘 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚒𝚝'𝚜 𝚖𝚘𝚜𝚝𝚕𝚢 𝚊𝚋𝚘𝚞𝚝 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚍𝚎𝚛, 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚑𝚘𝚠 𝚜𝚑𝚎 𝚏𝚎𝚎𝚕𝚜. 𝙸 𝚐𝚞𝚎𝚜𝚜 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚌𝚘𝚞𝚕𝚍 𝚜𝚊𝚢 𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚜 𝚒𝚜 𝚑𝚎𝚛 "𝚍𝚎𝚟𝚎𝚕𝚘𝚙𝚖𝚎𝚗𝚝" 𝚌𝚑𝚊𝚙𝚝𝚎𝚛. (𝚛𝚎𝚖𝚎𝚖𝚋𝚎𝚛 𝙸 𝚘𝚗𝚕𝚢 𝚠𝚛𝚒𝚝𝚎 𝚏𝚎𝚖!𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚍𝚎𝚛, 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚌𝚊𝚗 𝚛𝚎𝚚𝚞𝚎𝚜𝚝 𝚏𝚘𝚛 𝚊 𝚐𝚗!𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚍𝚎𝚛 𝚋𝚞𝚝 𝙸 𝚍𝚘 𝚗𝚘𝚝 𝚠𝚛𝚒𝚝𝚎 𝚖𝚊𝚕𝚎!𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚍𝚎𝚛, 𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚗𝚔 𝚢𝚘𝚞.)

𝙿𝚛𝚎𝚟𝚒𝚘𝚞𝚜 | 𝙿𝚊𝚛𝚝 𝟶𝟻 | 𝙼𝚊𝚜𝚝𝚎𝚛𝚕𝚒𝚜𝚝

(𝚄𝚗𝚎𝚍𝚒𝚝𝚎𝚍)

⋆ 💌 ⋆

The next morning you were greeted with a hangover thanks to everything you consumed. Your head was pounding and your body felt gross. The faint memory of waking up next to Gojo popped in your head. “Damn I wish I woke up to him everyday.” 

“Woke up next to who everyday?” Utahime asked as she was in the middle of brushing her hair, “You know Y/N I never imagined you to be such a lightweight, it was so hard to bring you back here without you rambling about such nonsense.” 

“Huh? Wasn’t I sober when I went to go look for you?” The memory of you waking up and giving Gojo a kiss on the cheek before looking for Utahime popped in your head, you and sworn you woke up sober. 

“Yeah, barely.” She sat down at the edge of your bed giving you a stern look “Do you know how many times I had to keep you from falling over? You almost fell down the stairs, twice. You’re lucky Gojo was upstairs, without him you wouldn’t have made it out alive.” 

Huh, so he helped you after ignoring you and treating you like an outcast? What a bastard. “You know Y/N you should really be careful. Next time make sure you watch over your drinks.” 

“What are you talking about? Did I do something wrong?” 

“Well no.. it’s just that someone spiked your drink. If Nanami hadn’t taken care of you someone probably would’ve taken advantage of you so please for the love of god watch what you drink, for me?” you gave her a smile, she was worried about you and you were glad you had someone like her by your side, it’s not everyday you’re blessed with a good roommate like Utahime. 

⋆ 💌 ⋆

The up coming week was the last week before spring break came around, which meant you only had two months before the deadline for the project came to an end, that same project where you had shitty partner that abandoned you.

As the morning came around you were able to wake up in a pretty good mood. Today was the last day before break and you were glad to be getting some rest. Unlike the other students on campus you weren’t able to go back home due to the money it costs to get a ticket. You weren’t financially stable during your high school years which led you into the mindset that since you weren’t able to afford the newest items everyone was getting that you didn’t deserve to socialize. You were that weird kid who sat in the back drowning yourself in music or getting lost in a good book. You will never forget the first time you had an interaction with Gojo. 

You were seated at the very back of the class, eyes darting from left and right as the book you were indulged in sat in front of you. The loud noises of the students coming into first period had no effect in the way you enjoyed the book. You were getting to the climax of the story, getting so lost into the plot that you didn’t even notice him come in. 

“Hey, whatcha reading?” The tall white haired boy slipped the book out of your hand to take a look at it. “No Longer Human, huh?” 

You wanted to die, you hated how you got his attention, you didn’t want it, you didn’t want the kids in your class analyzing you too much. You didn’t want them to find out you were struggling with money, they’d treat you different. They already do.

“Mmm mind if I keep this?” he stuck his face in your personal bubble, his sunglasses at the edge of his nose, eyes piercing yours as he awaited your answer.

“Um.. yes, please give it back.” a small voice escaped your lips. 

“Why? It’s just some book you can buy again, is it because someone special gave it to you?” he was teasing you, the book was in your face as he began to sway it from side to side, leaving it in your reach and taking it out.

“No I’m just not done with it.”

“Mmm, too bad. ‘m keeping it.” Your face dropped and you allowed him to take your belonging. You watched as he sat down in his seat flipping through the pages of the book that once belonged to you.

Your mother struggled to earn the money needed for the textbooks your school wanted you to obtain, you hated seeing your mom bend herself backwards. You’ve always offered to get a job to financially support her but your mother wouldn’t allow it. She wanted you to have a normal childhood. You never saw her much but due to the amount of jobs she took on but you knew the love she held for you was greater than the father that left you. 

You and your father weren’t the absolute closest ever since he decided to leave but he still tried to have somewhat of a bond with you, he’d send you books and your mother would write back to him saying how much you loved reading them, the book Gojo had taken from you was the last book your dad had sent your before staring another family with another woman. 

The last thing he’s ever left you now lies in the hands of a stranger. Of course it didn’t bother you as much as it should but you couldn’t help but long for the moment of having the book back in your hands.

It was a fresh new semester and your mother couldn’t afford the textbooks that you needed. You knew that you had to drop out and attend a much cheaper school. 

You awaited the day you’d talk to your councilor along with your head teacher, during that day you wished you could get that damn book back, it was just a book but part of you saw it as something more because it was gifted to you from your dad. 

“Hello, good after noon Ms. Kalaber, Mr. Henderson.” you walked into the office and took a seat in one of the vacant chairs.

“Hello Y/N, are you hear to talk about your transfer?”

“Yes, I’m sorry to do so. I really enjoy coming here but it’s been hard on my mother and I to financially keep up and I think it’d be better for us if we made a switch.” 

“Yes of course I understand..” The three of you spent the next few minutes talking about schools that would accept you in open arms, the meeting ended up earlier than expected and you were on your way out but a certain somebody bumped into you causing the transfer papers along with school recommendations to slip from your hands.

Your second interaction with him. 

“Oh shit, I’m sorry I didn’t see you there.” Of course you couldn’t you’re 6′4. He crouched down helping you collect that papers, slowly noticing what the papers were. “Hey, you’re transferring?” 

“Yeah.” 

“Oh.. why?” you stayed silent and began dusting off the papers from any dirt since they did fall on a school floor. “Ah, never mind you don’t have to answer that. Well see you, I guess?”

You and Gojo parted ways.

The next morning would be your last at the high school you spent almost four years at. Your heart felt heavy knowing no one would realize you left, after all you were just one of the kids that no one really paid any attention to. 

In the middle of your first period you were summoned to the office, your mother was seated in the chair you sat in the pervious day. “Y/N, good morning. We have some news!” Long story short someone paid off the expenses for your textbooks and any financial contract you were under while attending the school. 

You didn’t really care. It’s not like you were thrilled to stay, you weren’t exactly thrilled to attend a brand school either. You just accepted whatever was given to you. Even if you wanted to know who suddenly paid off the financial fees you couldn’t since they decided to remain anonymous. You were grateful however you couldn’t help but feel as if they looked down on you. Although their intentions were very different from what you thought.

Your senior year flashed before your eyes, the amount of days left before graduation were alarming to you, you knew what college you were going to, you applied for a scholarship and with the grades you had you were able to easily get it. After all you didn’t have any friends to hang out with so you mostly studied instead of getting yourself caught in things you knew weren’t good for you.

You’ve only had two encounters with the guy who stole your book, and yet you were hoping to see him again. To get the book back of course.

During the going away party for all the seniors a tall figure waited for you to show in hopes that he’d be able to return what was once yours. He wanted a chance to talk to you again. He wanted the message he left inside one of the pages to reach you, but it never did since you believed no one wanted you there.

You imprinted in your mind that everyone would judge you for having money struggles, you gave yourself the thought that they’d judge you for the kind of clothes you wore, or the kind of person you were. 

You failed to realize that your first friend was never Utahime, but the boy who sought for your arrival 

⋆ 💌 ⋆

During the last Friday of your first semester you had decided to be productive, you were in a great mood. You started the day off by going to the cafe to read a bit, you were reading a book that Nanami had recommended to you. 

The two of you had slowly gotten closer over a short period of time, you were glad to have someone timid and reasonable by your side. He was also reliable. Unlike stupid Satoru Gojo. 

Before class started you got yourself along with Nanami a cup of coffee,  “This is what you like right?” He pulled his glasses down to sit at the tip of his nose. “What, is this not what you get?” 

“No it is, thank you Y/N.” His hand reached out to grab the cup of black coffee in your hand, his fingertips brushed against yours, so warm. “I just didn’t expect you to get me one is all.”

“Mhm, why not? Didn’t I tell you that I owed you? I owe you even more after what you did at that stupid party.” 

“Ah, that.” you watched as he took a sip of his coffee, “It’s nothing, I’d rather not let a girl like you be used.” 

A girl like you, What the hell is that supposed to mean. “What do you mean a girl like me?” You couldn’t help but think negatively about what he said, would it have been better to not make friends and remain the quiet kid whose face was always buried in a book? 

“Relax, I didn’t mean it like that. You’re a sweet girl is all, you shouldn’t have to go through anything more than what you’ve already gone through.” 

“Like you know what I’ve gone through.”

“I know more than you think.” 

“Shut up you sick asshole, who even drinks black coffee?” 

“What does my coffee have to do with trauma?”

“Shut up Nanamin.”

Nanami smiled into his cup before taking a sip. “You’re a lot like him..” he whispered.

“Huh? What did you say?” 

“Nothing.”

“’nami tell me.” 

“Enough with the nicknames.”

“’nami.”

⋆ 💌 ⋆

The day was almost over, as you were exciting the main building you caught a glimpse of all the people leaving campus. “Must be nice to go home to your family..” you sighed and followed the staircase the led to the exit closest to your dorm 

“What are you doing? Why are you making this so complicated?” Oh man a fight, this’ll be awkward. You prepared to take another step down the stairs until a very familiar voice spoke out. 

“I don’t have a choice.” you stopped your tracks as the familiar voice rung through your ears, you wanted more than anything to leave but your body wouldn’t move. 

“Bullshit. You did the same thing to me and Suguru.” another familiar voice rung in your ear, it was Utahime. “You can’t keep doing this Gojo.” 

“I know but it’s just a little while longer and th-”

“She really is right you know, you really are a stupid Satoru.” 

You didn’t mean to eavesdrop, you swore you were gonna leave as soon as your body was able to move but the next few things you heard made you freeze. If it was quiet enough you’d be able to hear the sound of your heart beating, you head felt light and your body felt limp but you knew that you had to get out of there. 

You knew this wasn’t something you were supposed to know.

⋆ 💌 ⋆

𝙿𝚛𝚎𝚟𝚒𝚘𝚞𝚜 | 𝙽𝚎𝚡𝚝 | 𝙼𝚊𝚜𝚝𝚎𝚛𝚕𝚒𝚜𝚝

𝙽𝚘𝚝𝚎: 𝚢𝚔 𝚠𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚏𝚞𝚌𝚔 𝚐𝚘𝚓𝚘 𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚜 𝚒𝚜 𝚊 𝚗𝚊𝚗𝚊𝚖𝚒 𝚏𝚒𝚌 𝚗𝚘𝚠 𝚃𝚑𝚊𝚗𝚔 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚏𝚘𝚛 𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚍𝚒𝚗𝚐! 𝚂𝚘𝚛𝚛𝚢 𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚜 𝚑𝚊𝚍 𝚊 𝚕𝚊𝚝𝚎 𝚞𝚙𝚍𝚊𝚝𝚎 𝙸 𝚠𝚊𝚜 𝚏𝚎𝚎𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚞𝚗𝚖𝚘𝚝𝚒𝚟𝚊𝚝𝚎𝚍 𝚝𝚘 𝚠𝚛𝚒𝚝𝚎 𝚏𝚘𝚛 𝚊 𝚋𝚒𝚝. 𝙰𝚜 𝚊𝚕𝚠𝚊𝚢𝚜 𝚜𝚎𝚗𝚍 𝚊𝚗 𝚊𝚜𝚔 𝚒𝚏 𝚢��𝚞'𝚍 𝚕𝚒𝚔𝚎 𝚝𝚘 𝚋𝚎 𝚊𝚍𝚍𝚎𝚍 𝚝𝚘 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚝𝚊𝚐𝚕𝚒𝚜𝚝 𝚏𝚘𝚛 𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚜 𝚏𝚒𝚌! 𝚃𝚑𝚒𝚜 𝚌𝚑𝚊𝚙𝚝𝚎𝚛 𝚜𝚎𝚎𝚖𝚜 𝚕𝚒𝚔𝚎 𝚊 𝚏𝚊𝚝 𝚏𝚞𝚌𝚔𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚖𝚎𝚜𝚜 𝚘𝚖𝚐, 𝚋𝚞𝚝 𝚒𝚝'𝚕𝚕 𝚊𝚕𝚕 𝚖𝚊𝚔𝚎 𝚜𝚎𝚗𝚜𝚎 𝚜𝚘𝚘𝚗? 𝙸 𝚑𝚘𝚙𝚎 𝚕𝚘𝚕. 𝙰𝚕𝚜𝚘 𝙸 𝚔𝚗𝚘𝚠 𝚒𝚝'𝚜 𝚌𝚊𝚗𝚘𝚗 𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚄𝚝𝚊𝚑𝚒𝚖𝚎 𝚊𝚋𝚜𝚘𝚕𝚞𝚝𝚎𝚕𝚢 𝚑𝚊𝚝𝚎𝚜 𝙶𝚘𝚓𝚘 𝚋𝚞𝚝 𝚏𝚘𝚛 𝚗𝚘𝚠 𝚠𝚎'𝚕𝚕 𝚓𝚞𝚜𝚝 𝚊𝚌𝚝 𝚕𝚒𝚔𝚎 𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚢'𝚛𝚎 𝚏𝚛𝚒𝚎𝚗𝚍𝚜 𝚕𝚘𝚕. 𝚆𝚎'𝚛𝚎 𝚑𝚊𝚕𝚏𝚠𝚊𝚢 𝚍𝚘𝚗𝚎 𝚠𝚒𝚝𝚑 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚜𝚎𝚛𝚒𝚎𝚜 𝚆𝙾𝙾𝙾𝙾!! 𝙷𝚘𝚙𝚎 𝚢'𝚊𝚕𝚕 𝚎𝚗𝚓𝚘𝚢𝚎𝚍(っ◔◡◔)っ ♥

⋆ 💌 ⋆

𝚃𝚊𝚐𝚕𝚒𝚜𝚝: @peppytine @enesitamor @fairyblue-alchemist @diluczs @honouredsatoru @thankuary @sookyshima

𝙽𝚎𝚡𝚝 𝚌𝚑𝚊𝚙𝚝𝚎𝚛 𝚘𝚗 𝚃𝚑𝚞𝚛𝚜. (𝟺/𝟸𝟿)

© 𝙰𝚕𝚕 𝚠𝚘𝚛𝚔𝚜 𝚋𝚢 𝚝𝚘𝚓𝚒𝚜𝚟𝚎𝚛𝚢𝚘𝚠𝚗 𝚘𝚗 𝚝𝚞𝚖𝚋𝚕𝚛

⋆ 💌⋆

[nugnthopkns]

For blurb weekend! I don’t have a prompt so anything you want to write is cool, but it’s just this daydream scenario I have about Matthew Tkachuk and how cool it would be to see him date a female engineer!! A young professional who graduated a few years ago, who works 45+ hours a week and is in grad school for her master’s degree, but still makes time to watch/attend all of his games because she knows how important it is to him. And he just really appreciates how she understands what it takes to be dedicated to your career. And he’s also super excited because like “Noah, Noah listen man - she’s basically a genius and can do math in her head!” Anyway Matty being a supportive boyfriend because he knows it can be hard to be successful in a male dominated industry.

okay but this is adorable!! 🥰 please be forewarned that i’m an arts student to the letter and know nothing about eng but i tried!

If Matthew isn’t scheduled into your calendar it’s very hard to see him. 

It isn’t that you don’t want to spend time with him, because you do, but your life is so hectic that every moment needs to be meticulously planned. You’re back in school after a few years, gaining a master’s so you move up the corporate ladder at your firm. Despite being a student you’re still putting in full-time hours and playing the role of supportive girlfriend. Games have their own special colour in your planner, and you make sure never to miss one. You attend as many home games as possible, sitting in the better halves box with the rest of the family members, but when you have to stay late at the office you split your screen and pay more attention to Sportsnet than the task at hand. 

Matthew takes it all in stride. He knows your career means so much to you, and he appreciates your dedication. Completing a project is your version of winning the Stanley Cup so he does whatever he can to help. Most of the time that means he schedules dates two to three days in advance and letting you stay at his place before big meetings because it’s closer to work. So when he shows up randomly on your doorstep one Saturday afternoon you’re surprised. 

“Matty,” you say breathlessly as you open the door. “What are you doing here? Oh my god, did we have something planned before you’re supposed to be at the rink? I didn’t put it on the calendar, I’m so sorry.”

He chuckles lightly, pressing a kiss to your temple. “You didn’t forget anything babe, I just thought I’d leave early and come see you. It’s been a while and I miss you.”

As Matthew takes off his shoes and hangs up his jacket you feel a twinge in your heart. Work and school have kept you incredibly busy the past week and you feel terrible. You hadn’t thought about the effect it was having on your boyfriend. 

“I’m sorry,” you apologize once again. “If I work really hard for the next couple of hours I can probably go back to yours after the game and we can spend some time together. I just have to get these drafts off the Gerry by Monday morning and there’s a midterm coming up next week in my advanced steel structures course. There’s so much to do but I’ll make it work. We’ll spend the night together.”

You slide back into the chair you were previously occupying at your dining table, and Matthew sits across from you. He lets you work for a bit, reading the proposals filled with so much technical jargon he gets a headache trying to figure out what the words mean and resting his knee against yours. You feel bad for not engaging with him, but with your plans suddenly changing you need to focus. 

“What if you don’t come to the game tonight?”

The question stings more than you thought it would. “What do you mean?” you inquire. “You don’t want me there?”

Matthew is quick to reassure you. “No, no, of course I do,” he insists, “But you’re working yourself to the bone just to be there and support me. Maybe you should skip tonight’s game, focus on your work, and I’ll swing by and pick you up afterwards and we can order pizza or something.”

His suggestion would ease your stress levels significantly. You’ve been working all day with the deadline of six o’clock, and even though you’re doing your best there’s no way you’ll get everything in time. “You won’t be upset I’m going to miss it?”

“Of course not. It isn’t up to you to accommodate your schedule and mine. You do so much to support me, and I need to do a better job at supporting you. Stay home tonight.”

That’s all it takes to convince you. You really need the extra time, and knowing Matthew’s okay with it makes your absence and easier pill to swallow. It’s also okay because he promises to score a goal in your honour and pick up your favourite pizza on the way home. Having a partner who understands how important work is to you is a blessing. It’s one of the many reasons you never plan on letting Matthew go.

☼☼☼☼

it’s blurb weekend :))

[pars-ley]

VOID

Pairing: Jackson x female reader ft Yugyeom x female reader

Summary: Jackson ending it with you was supposed to be for the best, but instead it spirals you into a pit of unhappiness and bad luck. What happens when meeting someone new can't compare to what you've already had?

Genre: Angst / break up au / established relationship au / marriage au / fluff

Rating: 16+ (SFW)

Warnings: Heavy Angst / swearing / some depression and depressive thoughts

Word count: 6.1k

A/N: This is for the flight log project with @got7writerscollective​ the prompt was ‘The Journey’. This is also unedited because as last minute Ley strikes again I didn’t have time. Thank you to everyone from the net who read this and wrote their reactions to this in the channel, you guys made my heart super happy.

Meeting Jackson wasn't planned but it happened.

A shy glance from the table across from you and you knew he was interested. All it took was one smile and he was at your table asking to join you.

Your conversation, free and absorbed and never ending.

The late night dates for dinner or to the movies, with walks in the park watching the sunset fade and the inky sky take over as you stroll in the moonlight hand in hand.

The early morning coffee stops that made you smile as soon as your eyes opened and you wiped the sleep from them. Just knowing you would see his handsome face and be on the mercy of his playful banter.

Every moment you were together felt like home.

Falling for him wasn't your intention but it happened.

The silly things he would do to try and cheer you up when you were sad, even if he made himself look like a fool, he didn't care as long as you smiled.

The long, hot nights of steamy love making that always took your breath away, as he explored your body until he knew it better than you. Prying his name from your lips more than once during those pleasure filled nights. Never tiresome or boring.

The quick lunch dates when he made it to the top of his career, bringing him lunch when you knew he had no time to eat but he still made time for you, no matter how busy he was.

Something had clicked fairly early on and you knew he was the one you wanted to spend your life with.

You fell hard and fast, your feelings never fading in four years, your love and lust for him still in abundance and only growing day by day.

Now suddenly, everything you've built together so solidly, so secure, has come crumbling down in front of you from six words...

"I think we should end this."

They echo like a distant voice concaved in a tunnel of stone desperate to escape, like you are. You struggle to find the end, to see the light, to feel the relief of being out of that darkness.

You feel like your drowning, gasping for air, fighting your way to the surface. But which was it? How can you get there when his words are the ocean, smothering you with its liquid jaws.

"Why?" You squeak out, fighting the tears that desperately fight their way out.

His eyebrows knit together as he watches your face. "Because I cannot give you what you want."

You shake your head, lower lip trembling fiercely. "I can wait, it's ok, I'll wait." You hear the desperation in your voice and the sound makes you sick.

"Baby, I don't know when I'll be ready, I'm finally where I want to be in my career and I've got to work hard, long hours to stay here. There's no place for children. It's not fair to ask you to wait."

"Y-your not asking. I'm t-telling you, I'll wait." You whimper, tears spilling from your eyes.

He sighs and wipes your tears away, his own eyes glassy and bloodshot. "And what if I'm never ready? You have always told me how important being a mother is to you. I will not be the one to take that away from you. I can't. I need to let you go. To let you find someone who can give you the things I can't."

Your tears fall freely now, feeling hot on your cheeks but the trails quickly turning cold in the air. Your body shivers uncontrollably, blood feeling like ice in your veins.

"But I-I don't want anyone else." You argue, the sound is petty, hardly audible.

You're losing, you know it. He's slipping through your fingers no matter how much you try to grasp at him.

"I don't either, but I think this will be better for you in the long run. I don't want to lead you on a road of disappointment because of my selfishness." He plants a long, lingering kiss on your forehead. "I'm sorry. I love you."

Before walking away and out of the door.

You crumple, your cheek finding semblance against the cold, hard floor. That's it. He's gone. You're alone.

6 months later…

The letters on the newspaper practically fly out and slap you in the face. The gaping hole he left in your chest when he took your heart with him begins pulsing with fresh agony.

Your emotions rush at you all at once, coming up and escaping from your mouth and into the kitchen sink.

The emptiness of your stomach feeling heavy as a rock, weighing you down, urging you to greet the floor. Your legs wobble under your weight as silent tears fall, leaving clear splashes on the mahogany wood under your feet.

Why is this happening? How?

So many questions, so many thoughts swirl in your mind, deafening you.

You get up from your chair and shuffle weakly back to bed, unable to face anything today.

Your phone rings wildly but you ignore it, the sound growing more distant the more your thoughts and woes consume you. Your friends have probably seen the news, they'll be worrying. Let them.

Climbing under the duvet and hoping to forget the world as your tears fall, staining your pillow, you see the print inked on the back of your eyelids. Everytime you close your eyes, it's there mocking and tormenting you.

"Millionaire CEO Jackson Wang expecting first child with Swedish actress and model, Scarlett Borgsson."

The blanket of sadness you pull over yourself, reminding you how much you still love him. Meaning he's never truly gone and you will never be truly free.

He's moved on. You should too.

But right now all you can envision is his hands on her swollen belly.

A child with his smile and her eyes.

Your chest aches agonizingly beyond belief for one that’s so empty and useless.

For three weeks you stay locked away, ignoring the world, hardly sleeping and then sleeping too much. Hardly eating but then binging late at night, when you eat in an attempt to ignore the screaming inside your head and the pain piercing your ribcage.

You remember real life. Your job, money, bills, friends. And you pull yourself out of the dark void. The thick shadow that clings to you, constantly pulling you back, giving you the easy and very tempting option. But you fight it.

You shower and wash your hair. You attempt to eat normally but food doesn’t interest you, everything has lost its flavour, everything is bland, tasteless and black and white without him.

You sleep during the day and lie awake at night, attempting work on your sculptures, everything you create shows heartbreak, devastation and sadness. But it'll have to do.

A deadline for an exhibition is rapidly approaching and you need to get back to some semblance of normality. To think about something other than him. To be productive and to work.

3 months later…

You stroll around the room, watching as people critique and fathom your artwork, listening to the theories and stories they invent. This is the best part.

No one knows you created these pieces. You can go undiscovered and walk among people, no fake niceties or pleasantries, just honesty.

You feel happiness creeping into you, filling your empty places with a new fulfilment, one you haven't felt in so long.

It's the moment you hear a familiar voice that every part of you freezes.

Any emotion other than dread or heartbreak leaves your body instantly, running away leaving you empty again. Your blood turns to ice in your veins. GET OUT OF HERE! You scream to yourself, willing your feet to move but suddenly, they feel chained to the spot, your body betraying you.

You manage to turn towards your escape, his face entering your view and masking everything else.

Just as handsome, just as perfect as he was when he was yours. Dark hair swept back not a strand out of place, a flawless fitted suit that shows off every muscle and curve of his chiseled body.

You take a step to the doors with the bright red ‘EXIT’ above them but as soon as you move it's almost as if he senses it. His head snapping in your direction following your movement. His eyes lighting up for a moment the way they used to, a small glimmer of hope flares inside you, maybe he still loves you, maybe he realises this has all been a mistake.

Until, a swollen belly makes its way into your eyeline and it all comes crashing down like a thousand shards of glass, as a reminder where you belong. Wounded and bleeding with unreciprocated love.

You finally tear your eyes away from his to look at her. All slim legs and breasts, nipples braless and pointing aggressively at Jackson.

Her small, pregnant stomach is perfect; the envy of every expectant mother. A perfect set of teeth behind full lips smile at all of those around her.

Long blonde hair shimmering, strands reflecting the light as if purposefully trying to blind you.

You’re not good enough to even be looking at her, they tell you.

Something else glinting catches your attention and your eyes immediately travel to her left hand. On her boney ring finger sat a rock the size of a baby's fist, glaring at you, teasing you. Of course. The cherry on top of a fantastic year.

Jackson follows your gaze and when you meet his eyes again he stares at you with wide eyes and a sorrow brow. A hand outreached towards you.

A bitter taste in your mouth at his pity sends your feet pulling you away and out of the room. You’re out of those doors before you know it, cold air whipping at your face but you barely feel it. You’re numb, unable to form the energy to feel and yet feeling everything so deeply, all at once. You want to scream into the night sky. Wondering what it is you’ve done in a past life that was so awful to deserve this.

8 months later…

Meeting yugyeom wasn't planned but it happened.

An aspiring artist featured alongside you in one of your exhibitions. You got along instantly.

The first time in a long time holding a conversation or getting to know someone didn't feel like hard work.

You both ran in the same creators circle, you had a lot in common so naturally you become fast friends.

You weren't sure when it changed for you, when it became something slightly more, but you did know he was the sweetest, purest soul you'd met and you couldn't let him slip through your fingers.

Jackson still ran through your mind constantly of course, using you as his own personal treadmill. His face still haunting your dreams, memories still sneaking up on you when you least expect it.

You'd caught headlines about his baby or wedding but most of the time you avoided everything about him completely. Not wishing to know anything about his life, for fear the pain would return and your chest would open up and become the gaping,  black hole it used to be.

Yugyeom deserves your full attention and your whole heart, what was salvaged of it at least.

After he moves in with you it's all late nights cuddling on the sofa, early morning runs through the local park, dinner parties with friends and holidays to new destinations having adventures.

Yugyeom being with you means having your best friend around. He makes you feel safe and comforted, the wall of heat when you get home after a long day out in the cold. The blanket around you when watching your favourite movie. The bubbles that surround you in the bathtub when having a relaxing soak. He is your solace.

"Marry me." He whispers in your ear with his arms wrapped around your stomach.

You freeze, stirring the vegetables in the pan no longer matters once you hear those words.

A million thoughts race through your mind, one jumps out.

I thought it would be Jackson saying those words to me.

You catch it and toss it out the open window allowing it to be carried in the breeze. Jackson is married and has a child, he is gone.

Yugyeom stands behind you, cradling you and offers you his heart on a silver platter with all the trinkets.

No matter what expectation you had for your life before, you're on a new path now. A path that deserves a chance.

You turn in his arms, wrapping yours around his neck and bringing your lips to his, dancing in a mellow kiss.

"Is that a yes?" His mouth smiles against you, hands either side of your face, tucking hair behind your ears.

"Yes."

He beams at you, pulling a ring box out of his pocket and presenting it to you.

A large, gaudy diamond wrapped in a thin, gold band. None of your jewellery is gold, in fact, you detest it but this man has given you his heart, the least you can do is wear the ring he's bought.

He slides it on your finger. Looking down at your hand, you don't recognise it, it looks alien like it belongs to someone else. But you smile and kiss him until you're a tangled mess on the kitchen floor, dinner long burnt and forgotten.

9 months later…

You stand central to everyone, rows of packed seating behind you, eyes focused just on the two of you as you both recite your vows.

Looking around at the decorations you never would have picked, it's far too showy and glitzy for your taste but Yugyeom's mother had insisted, including what type of dress you should wear.

Not wanting to start a new life with atmosphere and anger, you opt with keeping your mouth shut and hoping for a quiet life.

She practically planned it all, even told you who your bridesmaids would be.

You sat there watching everyone around you move at a different speed, as if you were stuck in syrup and unable to catch up.

All you could do is watch, watch as your wedding and life was planned for you.

An alarm bell sounded in your head, screaming at you 'it's not right' but Yugyeom would come into view and give you a smile that would cloud all your fears and ease your worry.

Now the second alarm bell sounds as you stand here, on your wedding day, in a dress you hate, with Jackson's sweet smiling face staring back at you instead.

Somehow having replaced Yugyeom.

You look around frantically but no one else seems bothered by the silent exchange. Panic seizes your heart. This should not be what you're thinking of on this day. You blink furiously, shoving him out of your mind, willing him to disappear.

Yugyeom's face returns and you breathe a sigh of relief.

***

The ceremony is over. Husband and wife.

You greet everyone with their grins and cheers, finding yourself smiling with too much teeth, too much enthusiasm you don't feel inside.

Shouldn't you feel happier than this? You finally have a husband. You're finally somebody's wife. Why don't you have that instant feeling of completion? You should be jumping for joy right now. Instead you feel...normal, like you do on any other day. Maybe it just hasn't set in yet, maybe you just need a few days. So you wait. And wait. And wait.

That feeling doesn't come, not after your honeymoon in which you became restless, quickly realizing there is nothing else to do apart from lay on a beach and have sex.

Your busy mind grows louder, screaming at you, but you ignore it and swallow it down into the pit where it belongs.

Upon returning from your week in the sun, you settle quickly into a mundane routine together. Easy, calm and comforting. Some might say boring, some might even say mind numbingly dull.

But you continue on day to day…

"I want one." He says nodding towards the screen.

"What? A new tv?"

He laughs and points. "No, a baby."

You look up at the advert for nappies, a baby grinning with two little teeth protruding from his gum, big cheeks and a bald head.

Your heart stops, stutters then slams into your ribcage repeatedly. A baby. That's all you've wanted, a little version of yourself. A little bundle of joy to love unconditionally.

But is now the right time?

"Are you sure you don't want to wait a little while?"

"Wait for what? We're married, why waste time?" He clings to your hands enveloped in his.

He makes a good point. What are you waiting for?

You've already wasted enough time being with Jackson, hoping one day he'd be having this exact conversation with you.

Then spending your days after him wallowing in heartbreak and self pity.

You have the opportunity to live out your dreams with someone giving you the chance to, literally holding his hand out ready for you to take and walk the path with.

"Let's do it." You nod.

1 year later…

Your period is a week late.

You have been regular as clockwork since the day you started trying for a baby. Every month, the disappointment is undeniable when you see the crimson shade in your underwear. And every month you have to will yourself not to give up, to keep trying. Another month of ovulating tests, scheduled sex on precise days and times and legs in the air after, an attempt to help mother nature as much as you can.

Needless to say the excitement radiates off you in waves.

You rush home from work, pregnancy test in your bag, hardly able to contain yourself.

Yugyeom at the door, as excited as you, waiting and ready.

"Are you going to do it now?" He asks following your every footstep to the bathroom.

"Yes."

You shut the door and open the package, reading the instructions carefully. You'd drunk about a litre of water on the way home, your legs clenched together to stop you wetting yourself.

You sit down on the toilet and take a deep breath.

Once it's done you open the door for Yugyeom. Both of you sitting on the tiled floor staring up at the bright white stick resting on the sink. Gazing up at it like it holds all your answers, like suddenly life would make sense seeing those two red lines.

You've never realised how long two minutes is, you wring your hands nervously in your lap until he cups them in his, squeezing you reassuringly.

Your alarm goes off on your phone signalling the end of waiting and your heart pounds frantically in your chest.

He leans over and grabs the test.

"You ready?" He asks.

You take a breath and nod. Ready to see those two red lines. Ready to call your doctors and set up your appointments and scans. Ready to make a list of baby names and shop for all the necessities.

One line. Yugyeom shows you the test, with its mocking one line and your smile drops, so does your stomach. How? How could this be negative?

"Wait a minute, it says on here 'for the most accurate result use the first urine sample of the day as there will be a higher concentration of hCG.'" He looks over at you, a hesitant, optimistic smile plays across his mouth.

Yes. That's true. You cling onto that with every fibre of your being and agree to do the other test first thing in the morning.

***

As soon as your eyes open your mind is there, on that test in the bathroom. You climb enthusiastically out of bed, all traces of drowsiness vanish, as you tiptoe quietly to the bathroom.

If you do the test, then while you wait you can wake Yugyeom and you can both look at it together.

You quietly close the door and prepare the test, your fingers fumbling with excitement as you tear open the packet.

As you pull your underwear down, stick poised and ready, red catches your eye in your otherwise white bathroom. You look down, only to be greeted with your monthly agony, here to haunt you once more.

The test falls to the floor. It's useless now anyway. You're not pregnant, never was and likely never will be.

You let your head fall into your hands and let your misery wash over you. Tears stream down your face as dismay feels like it infects your soul with a never ending sadness.

A heavy cloud smothers you in a blanket of sorrow, choking the air from your lungs...you have no idea how long you stay in that bathroom before Yugyeom finds you. But you feel no better when he does and cradles you in his arms.

5 months later...

"When are you going to admit to yourself that it's not me you want?" His voice sounds into the silence and you resist the urge to roll your eyes.

The weekly fights he starts are almost timed like clockwork.

"What are you talking about?" You reply, continuing to type your ideas for your new art show.

"I've seen the way you look at Mark when you're working on your art pieces." He spits, slamming his drink down on the table.

This catches your attention. You close your laptop and swing your feet off the couch, heading over to the cupboard to pour yourself a Gin.

If you were going down this path, you needed a drink.

"Mark at the gallery?"

"Yes 'Mark at the gallery.'" He mocks you and you fight the urge to laugh.

"Dear, Mark is gay. I can assure you I look at him the same way I do all my other colleagues." You take a sip of your drink, eyes fixed on him.

He frowns for a moment then waves a hand in the air dismissing your statement. "I don't care about Mark."

"Then what do you care about Yugyeom, aside from starting fights with me?"

He stands abruptly from his seat, the wooden chair legs screeching across your wooden flooring making you wince.

"Do you ever ask yourself why I start these fights?" He shouts, a vein bulging in his neck.

"You start them because you like to get drunk on Friday's, and when you get drunk, you get mean." You say matter-of-factly, recalling all of the horrible things he's said to you lately, things you never thought could have come from his sweet mouth, things you won't forget.

His eyes pop in surprise as he's taken aback by your answer. "N-no," he sighs, returning to his chair, suddenly looking drunker than he seems. "I start fights because it feels like the only time I have your attention lately."

Guilt pangs inside you, pulling at your chest. You take a seat next to him and place your hand gently on top of his, the action feeling alien nowadays.

"I've had a hard time since we stopped trying for a baby." You admit.

"I never wanted to stop in the first place!" He yells, snatching his hand from yours. "That was your choice and you made it alone!"

"Because I can't keep putting myself through it! Can't you understand that?" You snap back, finally being open about your feelings, knowing it will only fall on deaf ears.

"I want children!"

"And you think I don't? I can't handle this pressure you put on me! You know my ovulation schedule more than I do."

"Because you never want to have sex anymore!"

"Because you've taken the fun out of it, it feels like a fucking chore! I'm not here for you to enter at your leisure to deposit your seed. What happened to spontaneity, romance, foreplay for god's sake? You're like a man possessed!" Your hands grip around the glass to stop them from trembling with anger. Finally being able to release the words that have been pent up inside you for the last five months.

Without a word he stands and walks to the front door, snatching his jacket up along the way. "I understand Jackson more now."

Hearing Yugyeom say his name, you freeze.

"Maybe he just knew you couldn't give him what he wanted." He says, looking over at you with watery, hate filled eyes before leaving, slamming the door behind him.

Your glass follows in an instant, smashing against the closed door, clear liquid and glass decorating the entrance to your apartment. Maybe you'll leave it there for him to step on when he comes home even drunker later.

An angry tear escapes as you sit here feeling trapped in your own home, wanting to be anywhere but here, anywhere but have to deal with your husband anymore tonight.

The word 'husband' feels foreign in your mind and on your tongue.

Nothing has felt right for the better part of eight months. You hardly talk to each other and when you do it's mostly fights and angry words spat or slurred in the other's direction. This is no way to live.

What you had given him of your damaged, used heart has slowly come back to you. With every alarm bell you hear ringing, every hurtful word sprayed in your direction, your heart has winced its way back to you. Putting up its own defense, from every barb that's thrown your way is turned into a wire fence, wrapping it in a sharp, pointed cage of protection.

***

Yugyeom doesn't show his face until the next afternoon, coming home looking rather sheepish.

"We need to talk." He says quietly.

The four words everyone dreads to hear.

You know what's coming, you've felt it for a while, it still doesn't ease the pain in your chest as you listen to his every word.

As you both apologise for your part in the break down of your short marriage, admitting maybe it was rushed from the start and accepting the fact that maybe you're not right for each other.

Two hours later and countless tears from the two of you, you both decide to call it a day. Even though you care deeply for each other, it's time to admit defeat. You have tried and given it your best shot.

"The worst part about this…" you say, wiping at your constant stream of tears. "I feel like i'm losing my best friend."

He pulls you into a tight, warm embrace, "hey, you are not losing me, I will always be here for you. We'll still see each other plenty at work events too. You can't get rid of me that easily."

You laugh, feeling thankful that you met him and thankful that you gave him a part of yourself, you had meant every word of your vows when you said them and you too would always be here for him. He'll always have a part of your heart to take with him, not that there's much left for yourself now.

2 months later….

A cup of morning coffee and reading the Sunday paper has become a routine you rather enjoy. You relax with your feet up on the dining table, crossed ankles.

You flick through anything that doesn't interest you, when a name catches your eye, drawing you to the headline.

"Jackson Wang scandal: Millionaire files for divorce from Scarlett Borgsson."

Your eyes pop. Scandal? What scandal?

You grab your phone and type his name into your search engine. You click on the first link and skim through.

"Model Scarlett Borgsson reportedly had an affair early on in the couple's relationship. An insider reveals she is now demanding a DNA test for their two year old little boy."

Your stomach drops as you click the next link.

"Jackson Wang revealed not to be Father of Scarlett Borgsson's son."

You read through story after story saying the same thing. How had you missed this?

You pick up your phone and dial the number to his office without even thinking.

You can't imagine how he feels right now, all you want to do is reach out and let him know he has someone he can talk to.

When the receptionist's voice sounds in your ear, you now doubt if he'd want that person to be you. You lose your nerve and hang up.

Your heart aches for him. Maybe it shouldn't but it does. No matter what he's done or how he's upset you, he does not deserve this.

You feel severe hate for that woman, thinking back to the last time you saw them both in the flesh.

The way she smiled arrogantly at everyone, as if they should all bend to her will with a flick of her hair or a swish of her hips.

Your stomach churns.

For the next few nights, your thoughts are consumed of Jackson as you toss and turn restlessly in bed. Maybe you'll gather the courage to speak to him…maybe not.

7 months later…

"You look good." Yugyeom says as you smooth down your pale blue dress.

"Thank you, so do you." You smile at him, looking at his impeccably tailored suit.

"It's nice to see you."

"Yes, it's been a while." You agree.

You do the usual catch up chit-chat until it dies down, he even introduces you to his date who seems like a very sweet and pleasant lady.

The newly wed couple enter the hall and cheers erupt all around, echoes bouncing off the wall. You cannot stop the grin that stretches across your face as you watch them take the centre of the floor for their first dance.

You'd known Jasmine since you were children, you'd always been inseparable. Your mothers were best friends growing up so naturally you spent a lot of time together.

Seeing her in the intricate, elegant wedding gown smiling up at her groom, elation in her eyes makes your heart smile. The joy you feel for her is stronger than most happiness you've felt for yourself.

Watching the sheer adoration in Jinyoung's eyes warms the deepest, darkest pit of your heart. They are so right for each other it's sickening.

You wonder briefly if you ever looked at Yugyeom like that and can collectively say 'no'. You two are the perfect example of two people almost forcing yourselves to be more than friends. You wouldn't change the time with him and you definitely learnt a lot from your marriage.

Jinyoung twirls her before bringing her back in close. You know him through Jackson, they had met at uni and become fast friends. As far as you were aware they remain that way.

But you haven't seen him here, not that you were hopeful he'd come.

The evening continues on, through dinner, speeches and finally opens up to the party.

The loud music pounds through you, realising you've had a little too much to drink you decide to step outside on the balcony and get some fresh air.

The gentle breeze skates across your skin leaving a delicate trail of goosebumps across your skin.

A jacket drapes your shoulders, an all too familiar scent intoxicating your senses, as your head snaps to the side to see him.

Jackson.

All this time you've thought about him and pictured him, your memory had not done him justice. He looks flawless, his hair swept back perfectly as usual, his smooth skin and unguarded eyes welcoming you. His soft lips stretch into a hesitant smile.

"I was hoping I'd see you."

Your heart flutters wildly in your chest making you feel light headed suddenly, although you don't show it. You take a breath and compose yourself.

"I wasn't sure if you'd come." You reply.

He takes his position next to you, shoulder brushing lightly against yours. How this man can still feel like home to you after all these years is mind boggling.

"I almost didn't. But Jinyoung told me you would be here as a bridesmaid and I couldn't stay away."

Your stomach flips dramatically at his words, large butterflies caged and desperate to escape.

"I'm sorry about your marriage." You say quickly.

He shrugs. "Thank you but I'm not."

You turn, raising a questioning eyebrow to him.

"She was not the person for me, let's put it that way."

"Why did you marry her then? 10 months after telling me that's not what you wanted." You jibe. You couldn't help it, anger threatening in the pit of your stomach at your same old reaction to him.

He sighs, hanging his head and rubbing his eyes. He looks tired, you hadn't noticed the dark circles under his eyes.

"I know, I know. That wasn't my plan. I meant what I said to you that day, every word." He looks behind you. "Can we sit?"

You follow his eyes to the ornate metal table and two chairs and nod.

Taking your seat with his jacket still draped around your shoulders stare out at the sunset, pinks and oranges streaming across the sky. When you look back at Jackson he's already watching you, his eyes soft but pained.

"I'm so sorry. For everything."

He means it, that much you can tell.

"It's in the past now."

"But I don't want it to be." He reaches across for your hands, holding them so tight his knuckles start going white. "There hasn't been a day that's gone by that I haven't thought about you, that I haven't obsessed about that moment I let you go. I'd give anything to change it you know, anything, but I can't. I truly wanted you to find happiness and I thought I was doing the right thing by you, giving you a chance without me holding you back."

You laugh, the sound almost bitter. "And yet, happiness still eludes me."

His eyebrows knit together in sorrow. "When I met my ex wife, it was a casual thing, nothing more. When she told me she was pregnant my world changed overnight. I didn't know what to do. All I could think about was you. It was supposed to be you having my babies one day, not this woman. I wanted to run to you then but how would you ever want me?"

He brings your hands up to his face and rubs his cheek along your fingers.

"My mother pressured me into marrying her, told me how it would look for someone in my position, said I'd lose everything. So I proposed, the words tasted like ash in my mouth but it was done. Then when I saw you at your art show, I almost came over and ended it all right then and there. But when I saw the tears in your eyes I couldn't bear the thought I'd done that to you. I felt so ashamed and I knew it was over."

You want to comfort him, to reach out and cup his cheek but you resist, letting him finish what he's so desperate to say.

"Then I heard you got married and I was happy for you, truly, I thought maybe I had done the right thing by you after all. Then all this shit came out about the affair and everything collapsed around me. All I wanted was to talk to you, like we used to, those late night talks where we would really open up. God, I craved that."

You squeeze his hand and he straightens a little, seeming a bit less dejected.

"When Jinyoung told me you'd gotten a divorce I was shocked and felt responsible somehow. He seems like a good guy by the way, he gave me one hell of a lecture about not hurting you as soon as I walked in."

You laugh and look through the double doors to see Yugyeom watching the two of you intently as he moves side to side on the dance floor with his date.

"He is a good man. Just not the right one for me."

The hope in Jackson's eyes could not be more obvious.

"I have to ask you something." He says leaning forward on the table, the action creaking the old iron underneath the weight on his elbows. "Could we start again? I know I don't deserve your forgiveness but I would like to try and earn it."

Mulling it over in your mind, you feel yourself nodding before your thoughts are even processed. But the resulting smile that lights up his face has you knowing your decision is not a mistake.

He leans in and strokes your face. "It's always been you."

Those words reiterating how you feel are like music to your soul. You feel at ease for the first time in a long time, your broken pieces mending and your heart more hopeful than it has been in a long time.

[mira--mira]

Question from an aspiring writer:

How do you stay motivated on one project for such a long time?

I personally have the attention span of a goldfish, and whenever I have an idea I either have to write down everything my brain can spew immediately or have it be lost in the void for eternity.

Never mind going back and turning my outline into a fic or gasp editing.

Do you have any tips and/or tricks you use?

Ok, I got completely carried away with this just fyi, but hopefully I ended up answering your actual question 😂 tl;dr at the bottom.

To be honest, staying motivated is a tricky thing, one that I feel I'm still learning how to do even now and varies a bit between shortfics/oneshots and multi-chaptered fics/longfics. For a bit of background, I've been writing fanfic for about a year and a half, but I've been writing original fiction since I was seven, over a decade and a half, and I still wrestle with it. It's definitely a learning process.

One thing I wish someone would have told me when I was starting out was the power of ~scenes~ in either multi-chapters or one-shots. All writing is ultimately made up of scenes, but if you're struggling to put things together, focusing on an individual scene, or multiple short scenes, might help you focus on getting something completed, and it's something that eventually can be applied to longer works as well. Writing has been a snowball process for me and once I started getting anything completed, I felt more secure in knowing what I could write comfortably and what was out of my comfort zone, eventually getting to the point where I felt comfortable tackling bigger and longer projects and knowing I could stay with them.

OoT's interlude chapters and the snippet series are both good examples of scenes because I wrote them with that intention...even if most of them are actually two or three scenes combined. "Gai meets Hashirama and Madara", "Hashirama gets revenge on Kakashi", "Tatsuki and Hashirama pick flowers for Madara, then give them to him" etc. were all my starting points.

If you're first starting out and feel comfortable with outlines of some sort before you start writing I would encourage you to try and write down a bullet point list of your scene(s) and what you know you want to happen in it.

"Gai meets Hashirama and Madara"

* Hashirama meets Gai first, mistakes him for Lee.

* Madara is shopping for a gift for Hashirama

* Madara finds Gai and Hashirama, they spar, Gai kicks his ass, both of them love him.

This is how my initial outline looked for the first interlude chapter, technically each one of these "points" are their own scenes stuck together. Outlining is different for everyone, some people like super specific points, others even less detail than this. For me this is a nice middle that gives me a roadmap for the chapter, but allows plenty of room to naturally diverge and add detail. Play around with outlines and see what you're comfortable with/what gives you the best results.

I'm not sure of your individual situation, but if you're struggling to put together fics in general something like this might help. Doing this process again and again personally helps me stay on track and gives me a sense of progress.

This sense of progress is ultimately key and why I think motivation differs slightly between one-shots/short fics and longfics. If you confine the individual scene to a one-shot, that might give you the motivation to complete it. Even if you start writing and you get interrupted/can't finish having in one setting, bullet points sometimes help inspire me to finish because I'm not starting from scratch when I return to writing. The whole "eat an elephant one piece at a time" thing was difficult for me to learn, but ultimately proved true. Learning to chip away at something bit by bit is going to be the only (healthy) way to write longer projects you can't complete in one sitting.

For longer projects, it's a similar beast just on bigger levels and with an added dimension. I would actually suggest something similar to OoT for a starting project because it is ultimately broken up into arcs that you know and can reference, instead of making a lot of og content for a fan setting. Maybe not go into it thinking, 'I'll do a complete rewrite' but once you feel like you're ready for a longer project 30K+ or so, the rough outline method and the ability to follow arcs was what got me started when I eventually decided to make the fic multi-chaptered. Try writing one arc and keep yourself contained in that. Now the added dimension aspect in general for longfics is that you eventually want to plot individual chapters in a multi-chaptered longfic and individual arcs (character, plot, etc). This comes with practice. I honestly don't think there's a way to get around that. It's something that I'm still trying to work on and I can look back at my early work and see how I've improved, how I can recognize where things didn't go well in certain places, and how I would change them if I was writing today. That's a good thing to be able to do, it means you've grown! The other thing I find that helps with staying motivated week after week for longer projects is to roughly know where you're going and to try to be excited about a plot point/scene/chapter/etc that you're going to write. Really try to hype yourself up. For me, it's a moment that comes at the very end of the chunin arc and I start grinning even thinking about it because I know it's going to be awesome. It's always what gets me through the rough days, imagining the moment I'll get to actually write that scene in its entirety (it's definitely already outlined and I mentally play it out at least twice a week lol) and is a big motivating drive.

So far I think this is pretty standard stuff if you're an outliner and you've been writing for a few years, but the other thing motivational-wise for me is having a schedule. From reading this message alone, I would not suggest it for you right away. Get comfortable finishing small things and feeling confident that if you let an idea sit for a week or two, you can pick it back up and continue. But if you eventually dip your toes into longfics (and don't plan to pre-write everything before you publish) that routine and rhythm really helps keep me going. I've made a commitment, I've posted it online, I'm going to stick to it. No one is going to jump down my throat if I fail to keep it (this is still a hobby and having fun is the most important thing) but in my mind I should commit to it unless something irl prevents me from doing so. Don't put a tight deadline on yourself, I'd start with once a month or if you write shorter chapters every three weeks. This also would help you build up and get a readership, interaction being another big motivational key.

Also, it's important to accept that sometimes you bite off more than you can chew, and when you feel completely demotivated from a fanfic project...it's okay to drop it. It's okay to take a step back and work on something else. Maybe you'll come back to it, maybe you won't. If you can, try to pinpoint what it was about that project that made you demotivated, were you pushing yourself too much and you got burnt out, was it an ongoing series and your interest for canon lagged and so did the fic, was it just too stressful to keep juggling plotpoints, etc. and keep that in mind moving forward. Every experience can be a learning one and eventually make you a better writer that can eventually tackle those bigger projects. Don't be afraid to take on big aspirational projects, but don't walk into them blind either. Above all, and this is repeated a lot because it's true, enjoy what you write. Some days you might not. That's true with anything, but any project you take on the good should outweigh the bad.

This is my wrap up of the motivational section but I also wanted to throw my two-cents in about editing because "oh no editing" is a perspective I've seen from a lot of writers, and used to have myself, but I think is going to stifle your progress in the long run.

Here's the thing: you need to look forward to editing.

You don't have to be jumping for joy, but editing, imo, should be a positive thing. You have all these great ideas, you made it into a fic, something you wrote, and now you get to go back and make it even better! This is a tough attitude to adopt. I'm not going to pretend otherwise. It took me a long time to unlearn the negative attitude and even then sometimes I still wish the editing was already done once I type in the last period. But I've learned to at least appreciate what editing does and I try to think to myself as I'm going through and making changes things like "wow, this suddenly became so much better. X plot point that I thought of ten pages from now is suddenly being hinted at and doesn't come out of left field. The transition points are a lot cleaner, it's not so jarring anymore. I bet the readers are going to love this little detail. Here's some foreshadowing that I hope someone picks up bc it's going to come back in like 5 chapters from now" it's hard, especially when you start, but this is something you made, and now are actively making better and that's something to celebrate.

I hope this helps anon! I know it's a lot and I'm by no means an expert but I've been doing this for more than a decade because I love it and I want to help others get into writing to! I have no problem answering any writing questions you may have if you find this helpful!

tl;dr

-motivation is slightly different between short/long fics.

-starting out, learn to outline by scenes and focus on finishing small projects and getting to a point where you feel like you can put something down and come back and pick it up again in a week. Completion is key and will help you feel satisfied/know your limits.

-long projects also can work on the scene-to-scene outline but now with individual chapters and individual arcs. It's tough to balance both but comes with practice. Bit-by-bit is key, as is having 'one moment you can't wait to write', possibly a schedule if it works for you, and reader feedback are all huge long-term motivational points.

-editing is tough but learn to look forward to it instead of dreading it.

edited: added a bit more/few typos fixed

[sweeter-fantasy]

Because I Like You

The Quiett (Shin Dong Gab) X Reader

genre: a little angst, fluff

synopsis: I just love him and I’m slightly projecting in here, a little shitty mental health and he is the sweetest man ever

warning: a mention of bad mental health, anxiety, depression, but nothing serious

word count: 2330

a/n: it took me a while because life, and mental health, but I worked really hard on it and I hope you guys will like it

You never liked leaving your house, you always feared people were looking at you, judging you, big crowds made you uneasy, and having to look presentable at all times was just too much for you, so working from home was the perfect solution for you, and your ability to work with words turned you into a great freelancer.

You were basically the opposite of your neighbor tho, he was a famous rapper in Korea, you had seen him on TV every once in a while, he was always surrounded by people and seemed so comfortable being the center of attention. Even on those rare days when he stayed in, his friends would come over, and although sometimes they were a bit too noisy for your liking, especially when you were working, you enjoyed it, you were happy for him and his friends, and their laughter was a great white noise for you at times. 

The only contact between the two of you was a silent “hey” at the rare times he saw you leaving the house, usually, to get groceries, the note he would slip under your door, informing you that his friends would be coming over and apologizing for the noise, and the baked goods you would leave outside his door as you were stress baking and didn’t want to eat everything alone, usually also leaving a note with a nice message, wishing he was well. 

***

You were scrolling through social media as you were waiting in line at the grocery store, and amongst all the random posts you saw that Jay Park posted a photo with The Quiett, wishing him happy birthday. You looked at the picture, although he wasn’t really your type you had to admit there was something quite attractive about him. 

While you were checking out your groceries you decided to bake him a cake and to try and get out of your comfort zone, and give him the cake yourself instead of leaving it outside his door.

On the way to your apartment building, you noticed a small group of men standing outside, smoking. As you passed by them you could feel that they were looking at you, and when you walked inside you could see they were slightly looking at you and talking about something, your anxiety telling you that you were the subject of the conversation. 

You pushed this thought to the back of your head, and got up to your apartment, looking for a recipe on your phone. 

Around three hours later you finished making the cake, with a nice “happy birthday” written and chocolate-covered fresh fruit decorating it. You quickly changed into more presentable clothes, that weren’t covered in flour and chocolate. 

You looked at the mirror, making sure you were clean, grabbed the cake, and left your apartment. You stood outside his door, and you could hear the faint music and loud talking from inside. You took a deep breath and rang the doorbell. 

Seconds later he opened the door, surprised to see you standing there. You could see through the open door the same men you saw downstairs and quickly looked back at him. 

“y/n! Hey! I didn’t expect to see you here,” he smiled at you. 

“I just came to wish you a happy birthday,” you said shyly, holding out the cake. 

“aw thank you! The cake looks great! You shouldn’t have…”

“yeah but I felt like I should,” you looked down, “you should get back to your friends now." 

"do you want to come in? We’re having a little birthday party." 

"thank you but I should get going, happy birthday!" 

"thank you!” he smiled at you, only closing the door after you entered your house, and walked back to the living room, placing the cake on the table. 

***

“Hyung who was that?” Jinyoung asked as all of them were curious about you after seeing you twice the same day. 

“oh, that was my neighbor, y/n, she baked me a cake,” he smiled, his ears slightly red, thinking about your smile. 

“she’s the same neighbor who usually brings you baked goods? The one you always talk about?” Sungbin asked, “why don’t you just invite her for coffee or something? You obviously want to spend time with her…" 

"I don’t know… She’s not really the type to spend time with people, but I’d need to return the plate, so maybe then, I’ll see…" 

Donggab went to the kitchen to bring spoons and plates, and to avoid the kids’ eyes, still thinking about your cute smile and good heart. 

***

A couple of days later, after they finished the cake and Donggab did the dishes, he tried to muster up the courage to ask you out for coffee. It’s not that you were an intimidating person, he was just amazed by the amount of time you could spend alone, with only music as your company, how you were so nice yet always looked like you wanted to be left alone, he just didn’t want to intrude, to make you feel uncomfortable. 

He took a deep breath, before finally ringing the doorbell. After what he felt like forever you opened the door, he noticed your hair was all perked up in different directions, and how you rubbed your puffy eyes, and how you were still beautiful in his eyes, yet he couldn’t shake the feeling that your eyes weren’t puffy and red from only sleeping, he could swear there was a trail from a tear on your cheek before you rubbed it.

“Is everything okay?” you yawned while tiredly looking at him, you had so many deadlines lately you barely had time to sleep, you fell asleep the second you submitted your last work.

“Oh um yeah, everything is great, I just, I just wanted to return your plate, I had no idea I’d wake you up, I’m so sorry,” 

“That’s okay, people don’t usually sleep at this time of the day,” you weakly smiled as he handed you the plate, “thanks for returning it.”

“Are you okay?” 

“Um, yeah, I just had a really busy week, that’s all,” you yawned again, “I’m gonna go back to sleep now, thanks again for the plate!”

“Y/n!” he quickly called your name, using his hand to stop you from closing the door. He had to ask you, it was now or never.

“Yeah?”

“I-I was wondering,” he was too nervous to look at your face so he decided to focus on your ear instead, so it would at least look like he looks at you, “um, I’m going over to my parents for a couple of days, and I was wondering if you… if you would like to come over for coffee or tea or something when I come back on Friday?”

“Sure, sounds great! Have fun with your parents!” you smiled at him, before closing the door. When you placed the plate in the kitchen you noticed your reflection in the microwave, and shook your head, he was just being friendly.

“Or was he being more than just friendly?” you questioned yourself as you lay in bed, “could he possibly be into me? No way, I mean, we’re so different, it was just a friendly offer,” you convinced yourself, not wanting to build your expectations, so you wouldn’t get hurt and disappointed.

***

The days passed fast, and before you could even notice it was already Friday. Although you were excited about having coffee with Donggab, you were overworked and your mental state has taken its toll on you, everything was a little too much. You fell asleep in the morning, telling yourself you will wake up by the time you and Donggab agreed upon.

Donggab returned earlier than he thought and texted you the second he walked into his apartment. As he went to put his things away he mentioned how messy his apartment is. He glanced at the clock, seeing he still had around two hours until you were supposed to come over, he decided to clean up a little bit.

Time passed quickly, and when he finished cleaning and organizing he noticed you were supposed to come over any minute now, but before he could get changed he checked his phone only to see that you didn’t text him back, you haven’t even seen his message. He decided not to overthink it and went to get changed. But as the minutes were passing by, and soon turned into half an hour, forty minutes, fifty minutes, an hour, he began to feel worried. He texted you again, and called you, and then texted and called again, he was getting more worried by the minute. He put his shoes on and crossed the hallway to your apartment, ringing the doorbell.

He had to ring the doorbell five times until you woke up and opened the door, wearing a large hoodie and a pair of sweatpants, hair messy, and your eyes all puffy and red again, but this time Donggab could see the trail from your dried tears, you were too tired to even notice that.

“Donggab? What are you doing here?” you asked, your mind still clouded from sleep.

“We were supposed to meet up an hour ago, you didn’t show up and I got worried,” he sighed, relieved you weren’t hurt, but still extremely worried about you, “can I come in?”

“What? Why?”

“I don’t want to talk in the hallway,” you went to the living room, and he closed the door behind him as he followed you, sitting on the couch, facing each other.

“Listen, I’m so sorry, I… I just fell asleep and didn’t notice the time,” you said, looking at his face, feeling like you screwed up your friendship with him, “it really was an accident, I was actually looking forward to that.”

“y/n, is anything wrong?”

“What do you mean?”

"look, I know we don’t know each other that well, but I’m still worried about you. No one deserves to be alone,” he looked you in the eyes, seeing something break in them, he understood he hit a sensitive spot.

“So what? You were nice to me only because you pitied me?” you looked at him sternly, your suspicions were true, he didn’t care, “I don’t need your pity.”

“What? No,” he sighed, “I don’t pity you, I honestly admire the fact that you don’t depend on other people for your happiness. What I meant to say is, something is definitely wrong, you can’t deny it.”

“What do you mean, definitely wrong?”

“Your eyes, they’re always red and puffy, at least when I see you, sometimes, when you don’t have the time to wash your face, I can see the dried tears,” he stopped for a second, trying to read your face, “I heard you cry a couple of times, I just didn’t know what to do… that’s why I’m trying so hard to befriend you, so you could trust me. You’re nice and sweet and genuinely kind, this isn’t right for you to suffer, and I want to be there for you, I want you to be able to count on me.”

“Why?” 

“Because I like you,” he whispered.

The room was so quiet you could hear a pin drop, you didn’t know what to say. So many thoughts were running through your head, you wanted to scream. Deep down you knew he was right, you didn’t deserve to suffer, to be alone your entire life, you didn’t want to lose him.

“Being around people makes me nervous,” you said quietly, looking down at your hands, you couldn’t bring yourself to meet his eyes, “I’m so scared about people trying to hurt me that I don’t even want to try and make friends, but here you are, telling me that you want to be my friend?” the last part came out as a question, you still couldn’t believe it.

“I really do care about you, you know?” he put one hand on yours, using the other to gently cup your face, wiping the tears with his thumb, “but you’re wrong, I don’t want to be your friend.”

Your heart dropped hearing him say that.

“I probably shouldn’t have stopped talking after that,” he chuckled, “I meant to say, that by inviting you for coffee I wanted to ask you out on a date, I just didn’t know how. I mean, your eyes, they’re so beautiful that when you look at me I forget what I want to say, your smile just lights up the room, and I always want to be around you and talk to you, so maybe… I like you even more than I thought?”

“I-I don’t know what to say…”

“You don’t have to say anything,” he looked down suddenly as if he was ashamed of his confession, “I mean, we’re pretty different, and I’m quite older than you, and-”

“I would love to go on a date with you,” you interrupted him, you didn’t want to hear reasons as to why you shouldn’t be with him, “I was just surprised, but I think I like you too, and going on a date with you would be great.”

He smiled hearing you say that, relieved after he asked you out.

“If you’re already here, you can stay for dinner…” you looked at him hopefully, you wanted him to stay.

“Only if you agree to call this our first date,” he smirked at you, not wanting to leave either.

“Fine,” you jokingly scoffed, “we’ll call it a date.”

“Great! I’ll order take out.”

“Sounds good,” you smiled, and got up to go and wash your face, “I’ll be back in a minute.”

You looked at yourself in the bathroom mirror, you couldn’t believe how the night turned out, but you were happy. You smiled to yourself as you washed your face and brushed your hair, having a good feeling about you and Donggab. You finally had your shot at happiness.

[ledenews]

ARCHIVED: Rust and Rebar – Scenes Under I-70

Publisher’s Note: As Swank Construction was preparing to begin the enormous, $214 million project involving 26 bridges and ramps along the 14.5 miles of Interstate 70 in late 2019, local residents began taking hard looks beneath the infrastructure that had been in place for more than 60 years. The freeway had become the one and only way local motorists knew to navigate to destinations within Wheeling’s and Ohio County’s borders, and that meant new paths would have to be learned But how did the State of West Virginia allow for the piers, bridges, and ramps to decay so badly that rebar was exposed, bridge joints were uneven, and see-through holes were repaired using concrete and plywood? While Swank employees are expected to continue working in some areas well passed the October 27 deadline, the majority of the replacements and repairs have been completed so the time has arrived to begin remembering just how dilapidated the federal roadway was before it was finally addressed in November 2019. Ohio County Sheriff Tom Howard believes the work being performed along the westbound lanes of Interstate 70 is an “about-time-positive,” but he admits concern about the eastbound side now that he’s examined the infrastructure near Fulton. Motorists traveling westbound on I-70 must depart the freeway at Exit 2A because the three westbound bridge systems leading to Wheeling Tunnel are set for complete demolition during the next nine months. The eastbound lanes will meet the same fate in 2021, according to the construction schedule released by the state Division of Highways. At this time, the demolition of the westbound lanes is underway, and the same is planned for the eastbound lanes in 2021. “We know how long these bridges have been a topic with the state people, and anyone who lives in this area should be happy that it’s finally getting done,” Howard said. “For a long time, I think we all took the interstate for granted, but this work is long overdue and that’s why they have to take those bridges down. They’re that bad. “And if they’re that bad, the eastbound bridges have to be, too. That’s why they will be taken down hopefully next year,” the sheriff said. “But after what I have seen, I just hope it lasts that long because it looks really bad underneath. I don’t think anyone knew just how bad these bridges have been for a lot of years.” Scenes like this one under the eastbound lanes of Interstate 70 in the Fulton area have Ohio County Sheriff Tom Howard concerned for the condition of the bridges. The Scope A total of 26 bridges and ramps will be addressed during the “Road to Prosperity” project, and that means the $215 million, three-year project is funded by West Virginians with zero federal dollars involved. The bond proposal was passed by Mountain State voters in 2017, but the Ohio County freeway project was delayed a year because initial bid proposals arrived nearly $100 million above DOH projections. The scope, or project plan, was reduced by state officials by eliminating 20-year paving and removing two bridge systems. “The last two are the ones that are closest to the state line, and I guess they determined them to be OK for now,” Howard said. “All of this infrastructure was constructed in the 1950s, and nothing close to what’s taking place now has ever taken place. That’s 60 year’s worth of wear and tear. “That’s why I worry about the eastbound side in the Fulton area. I’ve been down there checking up on the crews and making sure everything is OK, but you can’t help but look up at those bridges,” he said. “I’m not an engineer, but there’s a lot that doesn’t look right. The decay is really incredible. Visible rebar can’t be good.” The bad news is that this pier continues to support the eastbound lanes of I-70, but the good news is that it will be replaced in 2021. Removing the decking on the westbound lanes began in the Fulton area more than a week ago, and, weather permitting, even overnight. Once concrete removal is complete, the steel can be removed, and the concrete piers can be smashed. “When most of the westbound side is gone, it’ll be something many folks in this area have never seen, including me,” Howard said. “I think people have been taking their time on the detours, and that’s a very good thing, but with the flash flood warnings for (today,) it makes me worry about Wheeling Hill. “We’re saturated, that’s for sure, and usually bad things happen along our roads in this area when that’s the case. We’ve seen what has happened in Brooke County along W.Va. Route 2, and what took place (Monday) in Morgantown with the falling boulders,” he said. “The top of Wheeling Hill has come down before, and those debris walls along the west side are there for a reason. But if there is a big slide, those walls aren’t going to stop it and we’ll lose that detour.” The decay is obvious on the original piers for the eastbound side of Interstate 70. Hey Speed Racer Speed limits have been reduced along Ohio County’s 14.5-mile stretch of Interstate 70, and the Sheriff confirmed his deputies have issued a plethora of citations the past two months. The most violations in the county-long construction zone, have involved speeding. “We have ticketed people who were going over 100 mph,” Howard said. “I would estimate the average violation to be around 70 mph, but those limits were lowered to try and keep people safe. That’s what all of this is about. “There are just a lot of things about this interstate project that concerns me, and I guess that’s natural. I think we all have to be hopeful that it goes as planned,” he added. “The sooner I see those Fulton bridges replaced in both directions, though, the better I will feel about the safety of the motorists driving on them.” A pothole actually ate through the interstate in the Elm Grove area. Read the full article