#i can actually read/understand a lot of french very well apparently!

[frostedpuffs]

guys i. i caved

i watched the movie

[fragiledewdrop]

WHERE NOW THE HORSE AND THE RIDER-Aka how I just had a Tolkien related freak out on the train

I can't believe what just happened to me. As in, it's such a weird chain of events that it has left me a little dizzy.

I was reading "Les Nourritures Terrestres" by Gide, and I got to a point he cites parts of a poem which I liked very much. The notes informed me that it's a French translation of "an 8th century saxon elegy called 'The Wanderer' "

That intrigued me, and, being on a train with a lot of time to pass (plus being a little tired of reading in French), I took out my phone and searched for the poem.

I found it here. It's the lament of a warrior in exile who has lost his lord and mourns the joy and glory of a world that has now disappeared. I was enjoying it a lot.

And then I got to this point:

And my mouth actually dropped open, because what?

Are you telling me that the Lament for the Rohirrim, one of my favourite poems in LOTR, which I learnt by heart at 13 and later took care to learn in the original English, which I sing when I do the dishes and which routinely makes me cry, is Tolkien's translation of an 8th century Saxon elegy?

Well, the notes at the end of the page confirmed it:

"Tolkien's rendition is hard to resist" I bet it is. I love that professional philologists add notes to their work saying "yeah, by the way, this bit here? It's in your favourite fantasy novel, and I am kinda jealous of how well it was translated, but it's Tolkien, the man spoke Old English, what can you do? Carry on, xoxo"

I mean, I had gathered that the Tolkien poem played on themes used in medieval literature, but I had no idea it was based on an actual, specific text. That makes it a hundred times cooler!

Maybe it's common knowledge, but it was a delicious tidbit of good news to me. Especially since I wasn't expecting it in the least, so I was blindsided by it.

Cherry on top? I had ignored the Old English text, since I don't understand it, but at the end I gave it a cursory read , and the line "Alas for the splendor of the prince"? "Eala þeodnes þrym!"

Now, I have never studied Old English, but I know roughly how to pronounce it (what kind of Silmarillion fan would I be if I didn’t recognize the thorn?). þeodnes has to be where "Theoden" comes from, right?

Apparently yes. I googled the "Lament for the Rohirrim", and Tolkien Gathaway has a nice little parapraph in which they explain all this. I don't know why I had never read it before, but it was a lot more fun learning it as an unexpected detour from my French practice, not gonna lie.

Bottom line: Tolkien was a both a nerd and a genius and continues to make my life brighter, and this is one of those moments in which I am very happy I have spent years of my life learning languages.

Thanks for coming to my impromptu TedTalk.

[historia-vitae-magistras]

some big brother Alfred comforting sad little brother. i imagine there's a great difference between how Alfred would comfort Matthew in colonial times vs the present. 'what's wrong? is there anything i can do? please don't be sad! I love you! do you need me to talk to Lord Father?' vs 'you look like shit. go take a fucking a shower while I make you some pancakes and then you're taking a fucking nap you dickhead. i love you. and comb your fucking hair'

When Matt's young, absolutely. Alfred is very sympathetic to his half-mad baby brother; his personality flaws are understandable and forgivable given that he was a castaway marooned from the French Empire and landed suddenly into Britishness. A lot of genuine distress on Alfred's part about the fact Matt's seeing shit and is often too anxious to eat. He puts Matt on his shoulder when the snow gets too deep and nudges him to eat more and spend more time closer to the fire. It's also pre-industrialization when Americans, as individualistic as they were back then, had a communalist streak. The mad and the various other types of issues are taken care of at home. A burden shared is a burden halved. It's nice to have a baby brother eager to snuggle and read, too, even if he is a little off his rocker from those dark things men do in the dark of the Northwoods.

Older... Older is a little different. It's not cute or sympathetic when Matt occasionally falls off the bandwagon when they're adults. He's peaceful; he's got no real issues by Alfred's metric. He's literally not doing anything useful most of the time, either. He won't meet NATO spending, can't get Quebec under control, and falls apart economically if the US so much looks at the border. There's no 'reason' Alfred can see to excuse Matt's unshowered, unfed, unrested state when he's in a funk. Society has changed, too. What was a healthy respect for individual responsibility is now the only metric by which one's merit is judged. A lot of "well, I don't get to go feral in the woods, or there are actually consequences. Get your shit together." He parrots a lot of bootstrap rhetoric. "Get it together, you have nothing to be upset about." "I'm the superpower, and I live my entire life on an acutely observed high wire act, and I handle that better than you handle having literally no responsibility." But then, when it's obvious, when he can see Matt's made an effort at least, or there's a 'reason' he's downright tender. Kind of goes back to that Calvinist thing of the "deserving needy."

But if Matt or anyone else ever pointed any of this out, Alfred would insist none was happening. Of course they love each other, of course Matt is the exception to his grumbling and that should be obvious. But all too often, unless Alfred is put directly in the path of apparent suffering in a way that doesn't feel burdensome, it can feel like just another task between him and the bottom of his to-do list. One that Matt is supposed to take care of himself because that's their deal. Sometimes it's a reset, though. Like, oh, Matt accidentally drove himself into the ground to keep up with Alfred's batshit lifestyle? That's a bit endearing, and making breakfast, tossing him some ibuprofen, and taking a day are spiritually human things Alfred needs as much as Matt does the physical rest.

[demi-shoggoth]

2023 Reading Log pt 7

31. Rare Trees by Sara Oldfield and Malin Rivers. OK, so apparently that whole “less books about plants” pledge didn’t take. In my defense, this book is really pretty. It’s also very good; it’s about efforts for tree conservation around the world, and is published both as a public report and a fundraiser for the Global Trees Campaign. If you want to know what boots on the ground conservation work is like, its successes and its challenges, this is an excellent resource. And, like I said, the photographs are very pretty. The first chapter is about the overall history of forest conservation, and then future chapters discuss trees categorized by uses and by phylogeny. Honestly, I kind of wish they had picked one or the other of those organization schemes instead of splitting the difference, but that’s a quibble.

32. How To Survive History by Cody Cassidy. I’ve recommended some of Cassidy’s other books before (Who Ate the First Oyster? and …And Then You’re Dead), so I’m happy to report that this is his best yet. The theme is, what does science and the historical record tell us about how you could survive various catastrophes, or just hostile environments? I knew I was going to like it from the first chapter, How to Outrun a T. rex, which treats dinosaurs as just animals rather than kill crazy monsters. It also does an excellent job of summarizing Very Bad Times like the Donner Party expedition and the Magellan circumnavigation, and I learned a lot (like about how Magellan’s slave Enrique was the first person to actually circle the globe, having been captured by slavers in the Philippines and then being brought back around… and getting his revenge when he wasn’t freed as Magellan’s will proclaimed).

33. Snakes in American Culture: A Hisstory by Jesse C. Donahue and Conor Shaw-Draves. I didn’t expect this to be a searing indictment of the American medical profession of the early 20th century when I started the book, so that was a pleasant surprise. The first half or so is the story of how (white, upper class, male) “experts” denied that venomous snakes in the USA were really all that dangerous, while people (mostly poor, ethnic minorities and children) were dying in large numbers. Antivenin was only developed in this country as a side effect of the United Fruit Company’s desire to keep laborers from dying in the fields from snakebite, and the development of said antivenin was mostly done by volunteer labor and then marked up for tremendous profit by pharmaceutical companies! The back half, unfortunately, isn’t nearly as good, although it doesn’t go full conversion with its fairly sympathetic portrayal of snake handlers (which is something I’ve run into before). My biggest complaint is that this was written by humanities professors, and they needed a trained biologist to go over their draft. For example, they can’t format scientific names correctly, and don’t know enough about the history of science to understand that “virus” and “venom” were used interchangeably by some authors in the 19th century.

34. Marvelous Microfossils by Patrick De Wever, translated by Alison Duncan. Worst book I’ve finished this year? I think so. This book was originally written in French, but I can’t blame its problems on translation issues. It’s about plankton and other microfossils, what they can tell us about geology and how they’ve influenced art and culture. To start with the good, the book is gorgeous; each page is well organized, and it has lots of electron micrographs, photos and engravings by Ernst Haeckel. And that’s the first problem. The author seems to be a modern devotee of Haeckel’s science and philosophy, when both were full of garbage (Haeckel is the “ontogeny recapitulated phylogeny” guy, and one of the codifiers of scientific racism). His use of terminology is stuck firmly in the 19th century, and he doesn’t seem to care about modern cladistic phylogeny at all. And he has lengthy quotes from architects and philosophers instead of, you know, modern scientists, including lines specifically about how “we understand all there is to know” about plankton from like 1910. So I get huge “reject modernity, embrace tradition” vibes from this author, and that makes my skin crawl.

35. Nicole Angemi’s Anatomy Book by Nicole Angemi. Another “searing indictment of the American medical system”, only this one is more modern. The book is a loosely A-Z collection of pathologies, with case histories and photos. So this one is super gross, just a head’s up. Why I say it’s a searing indictment is that about 1/3 of the case studies talk about how the patient was ignored by their doctors initially, and had to spend time seeking second opinions taking them seriously, and how a number of things that could have been fixed more easily turned into huge, life altering (or ending) problems. The book is written by a pathologist’s assistant, and the introduction/biography would make a good “see, you can follow your dreams and get a career that you love later in life” inspirational story. I’m keeping a copy of this for my classroom, because I have plenty of students who are interested in medicine but not necessarily medical school, and because teenagers love gross pictures. Seriously, some of the descriptions of cysts and tumors made even my stomach turn.

[sothischickshe]

I was tagged by @bourbon-ontherocks (ty! 💛💛💛) to answer 20 questions for writers:

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

21!

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

278,245

3. What fandoms do you write for?

The only fandom I've ever published fic for is good girls

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Bringing down the neighbourhood

waiting for someone who needs me🧞

What a sight to see🧛🏻

(a) time to kill

yourself and others

I'm not sure the middle 3 would def be there were it not for the anon kudos bombing but w/e it's nice having some single chapter fics in the top 5 🤘

5. Do you respond to comments?

Yes! 🥺🥺🥺

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

A time to refrain (from embracing) methinks!

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Both installments of the Are you afraid or is it true series are pretty fluffy. Maybe the second part (Through the park and by the tree) wins out? 🤔

8. Do you get hate on fics?

Not generally. There was someone in the gg fandom leaving mean bookmark notes tho 🙄🗑️

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

Yes. What are the kinds? 👀

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written?

I haven't, and I don't imagine I would?

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I'm aware of.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

No, not that I'm aware of. It could be interesting to see how it would go!

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Yes actually, as kids me and a friend co-wrote a tortall 'verse crackfic.

14. What’s your all time favourite ship?

Ooof. Maybe spuffy? That met me at a very formative time of my life, and I didn't expect it to become so canon (as opposed to like under a spell etc) and I think that experience really reshaped my brain 🤯🤯🤯 but fundamentally faves questions are immoral thus this is a very rude question.

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

I hope I'll finish all of them, and do intend to! I'm not sure I'll ever write the hilarious abortion fic tho.

16. What are your writing strengths?

Mm, a love of language/interesting prose. A love of brevity/somewhat chiselled sentences. A love of editing/willingness to improve. Interesting stories. Dialogue, tho brio get little bc theyre annoying. Characterisation!

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Well I violently dislike plot. I don't feel super strong on creating original characters. I'm slow! I'd rather let things be confusing than beat readers over the head with info, which I think can be detrimental. I wouldnt say my descriptions are super strong, though I think they've improved a lil. Sometimes there's too much internal monologue at a go which breaks up the pacing of an eg dialogue scene (though again think that's improved somewhat). My love of planning and love of pantsing are at constant war lol, I get grumpiest abt stuff not having been established earlier and thus needing to state things which couldve been well demonstrated. Blocking, sometimes. I love short stories and oneshots but I'm apparently prone to writing long fics & continuing things into series which I consider a real weakness, lol.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

I'm not against it in principle, I've read a lot of books which contain a lot of eg French or Spanish (often untranslated). We've got access to Google translate or w/e right? I do appreciate it when translations are provided bc lazy (and I think Ao3 does poss let you do hyperlinked superscript?). I feel the same way abt it in fic as in other media I think -- if you're happy for it to be a bonus to those that understand and everyone else needs to work to figure it out, I concur. If you think it needs to be understood, then providing translations (even if just as notes @ the end) makes sense.

But I also think pls don't write it via Google translate... If u don't speak the language/don't have someone who can help u translate it, don't write dodgy shite Spanish or w/e 🙈 not everything needs to be literal dialogue u can just say 'he explained to his grandmother abt the change in plans' or w/e I swear

...o wait I'm guessing the q meant me as a writer not reader 🤦 I don't think I've done much of it? Altho I do always seem to imply that every character speaks French, a language I don't really speak so who the hell knows 🤷🏼‍♀️🤷🏼‍♀️🤷🏼‍♀️

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Published for: good girls. Wrote for hmmm I guess tortall books maybe? 🧓🤷🏼‍♀️

20. Favourite fic you’ve written?

Ooof, immoral question! Let's say upon your ignorance (and the gray despair) of your ugly life tho bc every time I remember I wrote a fic where rio & Dean swap bodies I giggle 😂 there's so much abt this fic which is very funny to specifically me teehee

Tagging🔖🔖🔖🔖🔖: @hereliesbb @nakedmonkey @nottonyharrison @inyoursheets @bensonstablers @blizabrth @delicatelingon & U right in the middle of your forehead if u wanna play 😚🎯

[terminallycapricious76]

There's some of my Crack ships and headcanons.

First of all.

Naomi x gamzee makara (even if Naomi hit gamzee on the head with her paper fan. It doesn't affect him and instead he become honking machine. Even if she harden the paper fan. Naomi genuinely thought that gamzee enjoy pain but it turns out that her paper fan doesn't affect the highblood and it's harmless.)

Cupid Valentine x sollux captor (cupid genuinely thought all yellow-blood trolls smell like chicken noodle but it turns out sollux doesn't know how to cook and would burn the kitchen and only eat chicken noodle. Also her biblical accurate Seraphim form doesn't look intimidating to him and he described it as ju2t giiant floating eyeball wiith two much wiing2)

Equius Zahhak x Sagittarius Ellyn (Ellyn is tan woman who's heavy alcoholic from germany Soo she sounds very angry when speak German which lead Equius to think she's angry or scolded him but in reality she just drunkly tease him. Call him Mann mit Eselsohren or man with donkey ears in German. Wonder who give him the rights to look this cute and promise to take him to farm to see horses. (I hc him to have ears that looks like donkey ears😼.)

Riku Kuroi x Eridan Ampora. (Riku is french so she loves to tease him about his high-blood status, often calling him “mon poisson noble” (my noble fish) whenever he’s being overly dramatic. Riku finds Eridan's flair for the dramatic both amusing and charming and would often softly bite his fins know how sensitive they are just to get a reaction out of him.

Dj clover x Terezi.

(DJ Clover has a serious, no-nonsense personality when she's on the job, especially when it comes to her dj duties, Terezi, with her flirty and playful demeanor, often finds herself playfully teasing Clover about being “4ll work 4nd no pl4y” Clover rolls her eyes but secretly enjoys the challenge Terezi presents. The Flirtation Game: Terezi loves to tease Clover about her serious nature, often saying things like, “You n33d To l1ght3n up, or you m1ght just turn 1nto 4 st4tu3!” Clover can’t help but smirk at Terezi’s antics, knowing that the flirty troll somehow manages to bring a smile to her face even if it annoys her.)

Lady Luck x Kanaya: (both enjoy Fashion and gardening.. Mea act as model for Kanaya whenever nobody wants to modeling for Kanaya. They're creative, motherly and caring, willing to care and being shoulder to cry on for others. taking a particular interest in fashion and colorful patterns. As well as being avid reader of horror and romance novels and enjoy hosting tea parties.)

Dice x Vriska (dice doesn't like Vriska because of her antagonistic, bitchy, manipulative behaviors where consequences matter to him they don't matter to her and he dislike when she blame the bad things that happen to her on her bad luck instead of her behaviors. Him cares deeply for people and consequences was influenced by his parents who raise him in strict household so he doesn't turned out to be spoiled and dependent child that depend on them. He doesn't mind put her in her place and call her out for terrible behaviors. however she still flirt with him due to the fact that they're both Enjoy dice and has apparent skill in gambling. Dice can come off as gruff, standoffish, sarcastic, reasonable, but surprisingly patient and able to take a lot of outlandish events in his stride, He is very observant, having the ability to read people and understand their problems well (even when they don't themselves), which makes him quick to notice when someone isn't being genuine with him, something he doesn't enjoy. He values authenticity. Also his name isn't dice and it's just nickname. It's actually Faust de Valois.)

Undine x feferi (feferi and Undine like to watch Ariel or any cartoons with mermaids in it. Undine is mermaid and she can turn into human whenever she wants. However her fins and gills still exist so they often go on water-related dates :3 While sea dwellers are not qualified mermaids but rather a sub-race of troll distinct from the commoners by mutation and habitat, a caste which rules over the entire species. They still have fins as ears and gills on side of their necks and some of them live in sea while small part of them don't and live in cities. Undine is just nickname. her actually name is Amphitrite bc I'm obsessed with Greek mythology.)

Archangel meep x Dirk strider

(once Ezekiel left a portal that lead to heaven and stuff open. So dirk (being guy with deep fascination and curiosity) went in the while angels were having a meeting While Ezekiel was genuinely surprise like Sera when Sir Pentious proved redemption was possible. while cupid Valentine (Ezekiel little sister) and god were like "oh you have boyfriend who is human that's cool anyway show him around the place and being nice to him." So Ezekiel show him around and once they reach to Ezekiel room's. Dirk get attracted to angelic horse named Sleipnir and start begging Ezekiel to let him ride the horse even though Ezekiel didn't want to interrupt the horse who was sleeping and ended up wake up the horse bc dirk won't stop giving him the sad puppy eyes and ended up flying around the heaven on Sleipnir. )

[conspiracyofequals]

tagged by @kommunarde to talk about five things i like. i can definitely do that :-)

1. i like history and recently i've been focusing on the nineteenth century for some reason because it's a time period we tend to not study a lot in schools anymore. and when we do study it i start having amnesia because of unrelated factors (in quatrième i was suicidal and in première i was too busy getting brain damage from supernatural. i only started really killing it in history class in my last year of high school when we talked about economy and politics as factors all the time). it has been crazy to realize specifically the articulation between the french revolution the empire the other revolutions in france the second empire the commune the first world war and so on and so on. like to me until recently there was a huge hole between 1794 and 1914 and i knew about the events that happened in between obviously but i wasn't really connecting them well. and right now i am making the connections it's actually maddening. for example victor hugo author of les misérables french poet novelist playwright politician and overall legend lived at the same time as karl marx which somehow never occured to me. but now it has and i feel like i've unlocked a secret of the universe. & we'll be studying a time period from the late nineteenth century to the 30s next year. i fr can't wait to go back to history class in september it's going to be so awesome!!!

2. dark netflix is one of my favorite tv shows of all time it's basically about becoming your own worst enemy and how fate might or might not be inescapable. it's a circular narrative spanning multiple generations and decades and universes. it's awesome it has everything important namely philosophy failed marriages and killing people with rocks. it's a crime tv show slash horror slash mystery except then it becomes something else i can't tell you about but fleabag voice this is a love story. it's like stranger things if stranger things was better and about something else entirely. it's incredibly smart and it's the only tv show i've rewatched so far in my life because it's just so well made i don't think i'll ever see something like that again. i can't tell you about it without spoiling it and it's definitely necessary to not look at anything online before finishing the show but please watch it please please please

3. i love falling into wikipedia rabbit holes!! everyone makes fun of me for it because apparently that's not a "reliable source" (some students don't go to the source section and look up the sources listed, and instead they mindlessly copy what the page says instead of going deeper in research or at least rephrasing it a little or just. at least at the very least deleting the hyperlinks. that could not be me! wikipedia is a great tool when you know how to use it and when you use it to its full potentialities. i could never hate wikipedia my beautiful website. it's just that some people are really not smart when it comes to plagiarism). and also because reading stuff for fun and remembering all of it forever is not "something everyone does" and i need to "get diagnosed with autism". WHATEVER. i'll remain cool and knowledgeable about many fun facts and you'll do nothing about it. what i have open right now: prépa as a system, the far left in france, a bunch of pages about the weimar republic, republican calendar, pierre-sur-haute military radio station, les cloches de bâle, rené girard, lycurgus, junge welt, sdaj (i've been looking up far left looking stuff i see stickers for as a desperate attempt to understand the political landscape of this country but alas it's something that wikipedia cannot bring me i think), harmodius and aristogeiton, maquis du limousin, acéphale. also chronology of social movements in france (i am cooking something)

4. okay bear with me for this one because it's going to sound insane and parasocial but i'm aware that it is so it's basically fine. maybe. it's not that i "like" him he's just extremely entertaining and something is wrong with him in a way that is also wrong with me. so there's this guy who used to be in charge of the social media strategy for arguably the most famous french left-wing politician (jean-luc mélenchon, our bernie sanders, even though that's not an adequate comparison because france is a pays finito as i like to call it but not as finito as the united states of america. anyway) and said politician is like 70 but every once in a while during the presidential campaign he made this really funny social media post and every jeune con dépolitisé was like oh mr mélenchon you know memes you're so cool i'm going to vote for you. not me because i'm a critical thinker and i can't even vote but i do love myself a good reformist grandpa post i'm sorry. the first half of 2022 was a weird time. and we knew the guy behind that it was the guy i'm going to be talking about next. so we did not win that presidential election obviously (insert image of me crying tears of blood) (it's fine haha reformism is a dead end) and we have this second round between margaret thatcher and a fascist. but since we do not have a loser mindset and need to bounce back (this country is rotten to the core and we are never going to win electorally or otherwise unless a biblical level miracle happens. when i talk to my neighbors and my family members and my classmates i realize how fucked we are and how truly awful it could get and how easy it would be for a lot of us to look away. it makes me a little sick to think about. but there is much pain in the world but not in this room right?) they said hey! vote for us in the legislative elections! and in france we have a constituency system basically you have a local mp. so our social media guy became a candidate! and he was elected! and then inexplicably (i've followed him for several years and can confirm it came out of the blue) the man turned into a hardcore robespierrist like a month into it. i got really into the french revolution in may to cope with well everything so i was like oh okay interesting that's cool. it's cringe because he's a grown man with a job but it's also sort of funny, in an absurd way. it's a waste of taxpayer money but he's a good mp as far as mps go and i don't pay taxes so i don't care. and at first it was just like a few tweets here and there, he also invited a ya author who makes educational tiktoks about the terror to the national assembly in robespierre cosplay, but recently well uh. he quotes either robespierre or the 1793 constitution literally every intervention. he wore a wig. we're technically in the same political movement because i was peer pressured into joining and in my city the choice is between them or maoists (which way modern man). but i don't have the time to be that invested unfortunately since i have to go to my beautiful torture labyrinth (prépa) every day. during the pension reform protests (don't even talk to me about it.......) a few videos of him surfaced going to face the police in order to well i don't know intimidate them with his écharpe de député into not being violent anymore. it didn't work he got hit tear gassed multiple times but then he had proof of police violence and he could say look at this it's not normal and it didn't achieve much because this country may be beyond hope but it's very brave of him i think. or in another video he was being kettled with a colleague and said colleague was like hey antoine can you quote an article of the declaration of the rights of man and of the citizen at this policeman? and he did. like overall he's a really cool mp he's just also very dedicated to rehabilitating robespierre for some kind of reason. and the real life embodiment of this emoji combination 🤓☝️. and he has a child i think. and we're twitter mutuals

5. i like this poem i think about it so often i have bits of it memorized bouncing around in my head like a dvd screensaver. the way i want you has its own climate like how storms are magnetic. shortest war on earth. every room i enter is empty and i wake searching for you still. and so on and so on i actually want to chew on the poem a little it's like a really comfortable mattress but for my brain if that makes sense

okay this got long!! tagging @isaidilovedu2death @brutalistarchitecture2 @vassyflorence @sotiriabellou and anyone else who wants to do it really. please tell me about things you like!! i haven't written most of this tonight but tonight i am sad and there is a chance i'll be sad for a little while so tell me about you. i care. i love to hear about the things you all are passionate about. if not in public send me a dm. actually you can send me a dm about virtually anything

[threadsun]

JDA Asks: "OH FUN FACT !! Completely off topic ask btw just random convo—

-JDA here sorry for the random conv LMFOA-

Spanish is actually one of the fastest languages alongside Japanese I think, apparently it’s words can have many syllables it makes the whole language sound fast, ok idk if that makes sense—

Also THIRD language??? Fancy oooo, I’m also learning my third language (the other two being English and Spanish obv) it’s French and I have very basic knowledge of how to speak but it’s fun and sounds nice !!

I thought it would be easier tbh, cuz I was understanding pretty well how to connect words and how to mush them into a sentence,,, then I decided to look a mini movie in French to practice my listening and never understood what it was about—"

Oooooh that's really cool!! And yeah, it's always so much harder to understand shows and movies in a new language for some reason. Something about the way actors talk make it much harder than language learning apps and stuff. I guess it's more natural to how native speakers talk though?

French is a fun one! The spelling is a lot to process at first, but once you figure out what sounds things make, it becomes more intuitive from what I've heard.

My first language is uhhhh... Yinglish, which is a mix of English and Yiddish. I grew up in an immigrant community that included a lot of Jewish USSR refugees who only spoke Yiddish (and sometimes Russian) as a common language, so a lot of their kids generally spoke Yiddish and English interchangeably until it meshed into one language and that a lot of us speak now. My grandparents and their whole families were fluent in Yiddish, but my immediate family only know Yinglish now.

So like my primary language is probably about... 90% English? But then a solid 5% is Yiddish words thrown into English sentences and another 5% is direct translations of Yiddish phrases into English in a way native English speakers don't usually do. And no one ever taught me which words weren't English, so I can't separate the two languages from my speech now. So Yinglish it is! Though I make a conscious effort to keep my writing as fully English as possible.

Then I've also been speaking/learning Hebrew (ancient and modern :3c) since kindergarten, so that's my second language. I can speak and understand it pretty fluently, but my reading and writing isn't great. If you've ever seen the Hebrew alphabet, especially the script, you'll see why lmao

My mum is fluent in French and German, so I have a very basic knowledge of both of those. As I said, I grew up around lots of Russian speakers, so I've got a bit of that... But nothing really fluently. It's fun though, knowing bits and pieces of different languages!

I'm trying very hard to learn Spanish so I can talk to my partner's family in their native language, but I've got dyslexia and aphasia so... yeah, the Spanish learning ain't going great, unfortunately 😔 But we stay silly! I'm gonna keep trying!

[pjo-tvs-version]

90, 42 and 23 for the ask game!

90. What makes you angry? : Oh the list is endless!! I can go on on actually but to mention a few things would include hypocrisy, denying freedom, the feeling of helplessness, one of my best friends who broke our friendship off last year for no apparent reason because she never told me, treatment towards child actors (the inappropriate remarks), a very very heinous crime took place here in the city I live which had me choking on my words, EXAMS AND STRESS AND PHYSICS AND SCHOOL sometimes yeah I guess I'll stop here.

42. Are you a good judge of character? : I'll be honest when I say that I do think that I can judge people's characters pretty well. From a few interactions, I can tell a person's nature and I am accurate most of the times. This applies for me in especially school because I have shifted schools pretty often in my earlier classes so I know how to read a person's character fairly well. Its one of the things on the basis of which I decide whether I want to be friends with a person I don't know.

43. Can you do any other accents other than your own? : I have been told by many people that my Indian English accent is very good, like that of news anchors on NDTV (if you know it then you will understand). But I actually watch a lot of British shows so I can speak with that accent too and when I want to show that I am sophisticated, I usually do that.😁I can do the American accent too if I like but I'll probably be scolded by my mother if I do that. I have learnt French since I was in class 1 so I could do the French accent too! Yeah I think the answer is 4 then.

Thank you for the ask Help! I had soo much fun answering this question😍😍😍😍

[jeramewrites2]

March 16 23

Good morning internet. This will be the start of something. I feel like I keep starting time and time and time again. My problem is finishing anything. I guess that is most people's problems but this is special because it is mine. I was watching a YouTube video yesterday and the topic of burr grinders came up. I have had the oxo one for I think about 3 or 4 years at this point. I make decent coffee. I don't go crazy. I have not bought a moka pot yet nor do I have an espresso arm. But this both look interesting. Anyway there was a fair amount of discussion about the fact that you should really clean your coffee grinder once a month. Or at the very least quarterly. This has not been the case for me. I think I have cleaned it maybe once in the 4 years I have had it. So this morning was the day to do it. Honestly it only took about 15 mins. There are not a lot of parts to pull off and clean and it is a rather simple machine. I am looking forward to the next grind.

Another topic of discussion is the slander of a French press coffee maker. Apparently that method is shit and I don't even need a 100 dollar coffee grinder if I am going to make my coffee that way. Well to that I will say. I am going to do what I like how I like and I don't care what the internet says. See I was raised baptist and the one thing that I learned from my time in the church is that you don't take everything that is said as gospel. Only take the parts of a philosophy that you like. The other parts you don't really even need to listen to or even understand.

I am standing at a crossroads now. I have Saturday off and I can read or I could try and write but I also need to study for my next exam in my Logic class. Which if I am being completely honest I can't believe I am doing as well in it as I am. But that is beside the point. I think that the Teaching Assistants are grading very easily right now. So I am hoping I can still pull out an A. I don't know just yet. The information is not that difficult it's just like learning a new way of thinking and writing. I will do at the very least some of the practice problems and see what goes from there.

I don't know if this is really something I just want to have out in the world. After all this is more of a journal entry but then again do I think anyone is ever really going to read this? No. Absolutely not. Not when you can think of everything else you can do and read on the internet. Ok I have been able to write for 10 mins without even really stopping which is a lot better than I have been able to do in a while.

Ace and Shadow's deaths have hit me hard and has made writing difficult. I am not over their deaths but I think I am getting ready to process them through my writing. I have had a few relations die in the last 3 years or so and well they didn't really effect me at all. My grandfather died but I had not been close to him since I was a kid. The same goes true for my uncle Matt. Once he had a wife and kids I was not a priority or even an after thought. Then again upon looking back isn't that the way that it should have been? Why would he hang out with his nephew when he had a new kid to take care of. I just wish that I had... I don't know if I actually wish things had been different. Both Helen and James are dead as well. I believe Covid got them both. Again I had not seen or spoken to them in 20 years probably. I remember talking to James as a kind but short of him buying me a subscription to National Geographic that I never read I don't know how close we really were even when I was a kid.

I did always like his truck though. That one I can say. As a kid I always got the feeling that I was someone to put up with and not someone that my family wanted around. That feeling still holds to this day. That is most likely low self esteem and I can say that all day but no one is calling me to come hang out. Everyone has their own lives and I am not to be involved in them. So here I sit and here I will stay. I am getting better and better with being alone.

[prettyboypucey]

Weird ~ G.W.

Summary: George is gorgeous. Charlie is a meddler. The snow is cold. (this summary sucks...just read it) 

Pairing: George Weasley x Y/N 

Word Count: 2,404 (who do I think I am?) 

Warnings: mentions of bullying. mentions of food/eating. george is unknowingly triggering? reader cries. idk? let me know if i missed something. 

A/N: part 2? maybe? translations are for romanian via google translate. do not come for me if they are hella wrong. 

Translations: draga - darling; dragoste - love; tampit - stupid 

     I had never been normal. From the time I was a toddler I had stars in my eyes and dirt on my knees. While the other kids in my grade were playing with dolls and dressing respectably, I was riding imaginary dragons and wearing mismatched socks with dungarees and a butterfly headband. Normalcy evaded me even further when at 11 years old, I got a letter declaring me a witch.

     When I first came to Hogwarts I spent the majority of my time alone. It appeared that even children who could wave a stick around and makes things fly wanted nothing to do with the colorful little girl. Meeting Luna Lovegood in my second year was the best thing that had ever happened to me. Here was a girl who allowed me to be exactly who I was with no judgments. And then she introduced me to Neville Longbottom and Ginny Weasley, and suddenly that little girl who thought her only friends would always be the rocks she painted faces on, had found her people.

     Of course, being friends with Ginny Weasley meant knowing her many brothers. So after graduation when I went off to Romania to work with dragons it made me feel slightly better knowing Charlie Weasley would be there. He quickly took me under his wing and became the older brother figure I had never had. After working together for three years, and electing to stay at the sanctuary for the last two over the holidays, he had finally convinced me to come home with him. I was reluctant to leave the sanctuary - the one place I truly feel safe (despite the massive fire breathing creatures).

     Charlie had warned me that being with one or two of the Weasleys was very different from being with the entire Weasley clan. Obviously I knew Charlie and Ginny, Ron had always been nice to me, and I had met Molly a handful of times in passing. However, Bill was known to be quite intimidating, Percy was supposedly very no-nonsense, and the twins (albeit never cruel) had a reputation of being hell-raisers.

     Apparating to the edge of a marsh with Charlie by my side I could see the rising structure haphazardly balanced slightly ahead.

     Pausing, I glanced at the back of the familiar red covered head, “I don’t know Charles, maybe I should just go back. I really don’t want to be a burden.”

     Charlie very quickly rounded behind me to continue guiding me towards his home, “No, no, no, no, no. No. You’re not a burden to anyone draga. Keep your head up and if any of them give you grief - remind them of the giant, winged beasts you can feed them to.”

     Quickly placing a kiss to the side of my head Charlie bounded ahead again to open the door and announce your arrival. Before I could toe off the first boot to leave next to the dozen other pairs in the entryway, a pair of arms had flung around my neck.

     “Y/N! I missed you so much!”, Ginny pulled back, keeping her grip on my shoulders, to inspect for any major injuries.

     I held onto her elbows, keeping her close, “Hi Gin, I missed you too. A lot. I’m loving this new look by the way.”

     She reached up to brush the now short locks behind her ears. A grin on her face as the two of us looked the other over for the first time in months. Ginny was wrapped in a pretty baby pink sweater with shades of red and white running through it. The material was soft against my palm as I hooked it around her crooked elbow to follow her into the living area.

     “You know”, she started, “I was starting to think maybe Charlie had let you get eaten or burnt to a crisp in the land of dragons. It’s been so long since you’ve come to see me or left the sanctuary.”

     “I’m sorry Ginny. It’s just that after everything, I had to keep myself busy.”

     Ginny’s smile softened into one of understanding. The war had taken a part of all of us. Although Fred had recovered after many months, that fear of almost losing such a vital part of their family had rocked the entire Weasley family to its core.

     “I get it, I do, but I worry about you. I just want you to know you’re not alone Y/N.”

     I pulled the girl into another tight hug, “I know.”

     Ginny pulled away first, clearing her throat, “Okay! Now that’s out of the way - it’s time to introduce the one and only Y/N L/N to the Weasley’s.”

     I hummed, “Hmmm and which of us should be more scared?”

     “Oh definitely the Weasleys.”

 ~~~~~~~~~~~

     Meeting the Weasley family had gone much better than expected.

     Molly had opened her arms and home to me as if I was one of her own children. By the time the night was over she had me stuffed full of warm food and drink and donning my very own coveted Weasley sweater, the lavender initial in the middle marking it as my own. Arthur had been very interested in my muggle parents and upbringing, questioning me about the functions of a rubber duck. Bill and his wife Fleur were the most stunning couple I have ever seen, and not nearly as intimidating as people portrayed them. Fleur was pleased when she found out I spoke a bit of conversational French and promised to have me over to Shell Cottage (apparently they have an amazing collection of wind chimes that I am dying to see). Percy was a bit more refined. Completely polite and friendly but he seemed reserved. Ginny had explained in one of her letters how much guilt Percy carried after the Battle of Hogwarts over how he had behaved in the years leading up to that day.

     The twins were much different than I remembered them being from the few times we were around each other in school. The physical differences were clear - George’s missing ear and Fred’s dragging limp were both signs of the prices they paid in the war. More than that however, they had matured greatly. They were still happy and made sure to pull at least two pranks over the night, poor Molly nearly lost her voice after they blew up the turkey. However, there was something in their eyes that had been dimmed. Especially in George.

     His twin almost died that night, and it reflected in George’s eyes each time he looked at his older brother. It was clear that he was still afraid because whenever Fred left a room George followed, never letting his brother out of his sight, and if he happened to lose track of him a panic began to swirl in his brown orbs.

     I was in the middle of watching as George yet again made his way to Fred’s side, clapping a large hand on his twins shoulder and throwing his head back in laughter.

     “So which one are you staring at dragoste?”, Charlie whispered as he appeared out of nowhere.

     I ignored the burning in my cheeks as I looked away from the scene in front of me.

     “I am not staring at either of them tampit.”

     “Mhmm, sure, absolutely, I believe you.”, after a quick pause he said, “It’s George isn’t it?”

     I turned and scoffed at him, “No!… How did you know?”

     Charlie let out a chuckle, “Because I know you my little dragon. I also know my brother, and just between us, he definitely likes you as well.”

     At this I let out an incredulous laugh and glanced back to where George was now telling a story, his hands moving animatedly. There was no way that George Weasley had even a remote attraction to me. He was kind, strong, clever, and so bloody gorgeous it truly was a privilege to look at him. And I am…me. Nothing special. Just a girl who had more dragon friends than human ones and whose hands were covered in scars and callouses and whose socks never matched and had never even kissed a man before. So no, there was no way that George Weasley would ever like me.

     “Hey. I know that look Y/N. Stop those thoughts right this bloody second.”

     “Charles it really is annoying when you read me like that.”

     Throwing his arm over my shoulder he began to lead me towards the twins, “Yes I know and I am sorry in advance but this needs to be done. Fred!”

     Charlie’s voice had gone from a rushed whisper to a jovial shout when we reached George, Fred, and Ron by the fireplace. George’s smile as he turned to look at us sent a million butterflies off in my tummy.

     “So Freddy, I was hoping you could help me out with a top secret project tomorrow for mum and maybe show me around the joke shop. I heard you added some new displays that I want to check out.”

     “Sure Charlie”, Fred glanced at George as he spoke, “I’m sure we can make some time for our favorite brother.”

     Ignoring Rons protest, Charlie gripped my shoulders and pushed me in front of him, “Actually George I was thinking you could stay here and show Y/N around the area. She mentioned wanting to talk a walk tomorrow and I would hate to disappoint her on her first Christmas out of the sanctuary.”

     “Um-”

     I interrupted the rejection coming from George, “No please, I would hate to be a bother and make you be stuck with me all day. I’m sure Ginny can take me.”

     George smiled and shook his head, “No it’s completely fine Y/N. I would be happy to show you around.”

     “Okay great! It’s settled then!”, Charlie looked rather too pleased with himself and obviously missed the look exchanged by his identical younger brothers.

~~~~~~~~~~

     The next morning the Burrow was a flurry of movement as everyone began their day. Apparently Charlie and Fred weren’t the only ones on their way out. The others still had some last minute gift shopping to do and Ron was spending the day with Hermione’s muggle family. After breakfast, a quick wink from Charlie, and a slam of the front door - George and I were alone in the house.

     The two of us stood facing one another in the living room for a few awkward moments before George spoke, “Well, um, did you want to head out as well?”

     “Oh sure! Yes, let me just grab my boots really quickly.”

     George led me out the door and onto the snow covered path towards the small, iced over river. Nothing was said for a while, the only sound was the crunch of snow under our boots and the occasional sniffle from one of our red noses. I was mentally imagining all the ways I was going to kick Charlie’s ass when he got back for suggesting a walk in the middle of winter when we came to the top of a hill and stopped.

     Everything as far as the eye could see was blanketed in sheets of white. Stomping my boots down into the fresh snow, I couldn’t help the giggle that escaped as the snow gave way underfoot. Feeling a pair of eyes on me I remembered that I wasn’t alone and turned to see George watching me with an unidentifiable look on his face.

     “Sorry, sorry. That was - I don’t know why I did that. I liked the feeling of the crunch of the snow I guess. Sorry.”

     George grinned, “You don’t have to apologize. It was cute.”

     I could feel my face flush at his words. His smile grew even wider at the sight of my heated face. My gaze dropped from his pretty face down to my boots. I could feel the thick socks I had on beginning to grow cold and wet from how long we’d been outside. Looking back up I could see George’s deep eyes glaze over. Assuming it was because he had been apart from Fred so long I glanced out at the view one last time before turning back the way we came.

     “We should probably get back. We’ve been gone a while and my toes are getting wet. I feel bad enough that Charlie forced you to do this anyways without you getting frostbite or something. I’ve had frostbite, it’s not fun. And now I’m rambling. I’m sorry. Sorry”

     George was shaking his head at me and said, “You are so weird.”

     Ouch. My chest tightened and the small smile I had been wearing dropped from my face. If I had been able to see past the tears forming in my eyes that were making my sight blurry, I would have seen George’s face do the same. Unfortunately, all I could focus on was that word. Weird. Strange. Abnormal. Freak. 

     Weird weird weird.

     The walk back was silent. A thick tension surrounded you both as thick snow flurries began to swirl down in the midmorning air. Just as thick was the lump forming in my throat as I fought back tears. I know I shouldn’t let his words affect me. He’s just some guy. But deep down I also know that he’s not just some guy. This is George fricking Weasley. With his stupid perfect face and gorgeous eyes and his loyalty to his family. I couldn’t help but be enamored with him from the moment I walked in the Weasley’s front door. So it hurt to hear the man I liked call me that nasty word that has haunted me my entire life.

     When we finally reached the Burrow, George tried to reach for my arm but I pulled away and ran into the house. I could hear that some of the others had returned and really wanted to avoid a confrontation. Once again, luck wasn’t on my side. Charlie came walking out of the kitchen and saw me in the entryway. His face immediately became concerned at the sight of me and he lowered the sandwich he had from his mouth.

     “Draga?”, Charlie’s voice followed me as I finally reached the stairs and launched upstairs.

     As I reached the first landing I heard him speak again, his voice rough and hard.

     “What did you do?”  

[spanishskulduggery]

Hi! I'm studying B1.2/B2 level Spanish and I want to learn * words to express things more*...(recently I learned,, conectores del discurso,, and some ,,frases hechas,,)

I'm sorry if you already posted something like this, I'm a new follower and I just saw that you have this account since 2013! (P.S.between it's hard for me to study words for any language; I have to write 1 word 10 times to memorize it,and others just read it once)

Have a great day!🌸

So I'm going to attach some of the (what I call) academic connectors. They're just words that I find really helpful for explaining things or especially in oral exams or written exams to sound more coherent and link your sentences together.

I suppose the more correct term is something like particles of speech or something along those lines, but they're the kinds of phrases you will want to know if you have any intention of writing in Spanish and especially if it's in an academic setting:

de hecho = in fact, as a matter of fact

no obstante = nevertheless, regardless

de todas formas = in any event, regardless

sin embargo = however, nevertheless

con respecto a (algo/alguien) = regarding (something/someone), with regards to (something/someone)

en cuanto a (algo/alguien) = regarding, with regards to

por lo general = in general generalmente/normalmente = generally / normally

mayormente = for the most part, mostly, mainly en su mayoría = mainly, in its majority, for the most part

en realidad = actually, in reality

actualmente = currently, nowadays hoy en día = currently, nowadays, today

antiguamente = formerly, in the past, previously

por lo tanto = therefore, as such

a su paso = “in its wake”, “in its path”

a medida que = "as", "while (something is/was happening)"

ya que... = since, given that...

así = like that, that way

así que... = so..., that being the case...

pues... = then / since..., that being the case...

entonces = then [in a sequence of events] / then, consequently

por consiguiente / consiguientemente = consequently, as a consequence

de una vez = for once de una vez por todas = once and for all

por enésima vez = "for the umpteenth time", "for the hundredth/millionth time" [hyperbolic]

al principio = in the beginning, at the start

al fin = at the end, in the end, at last, finally

lo primero es lo primero = “first things first”

por último, finalmente = lastly, finally, ultimately

dicho eso... = that being said...

susodicho/a = aforementioned

de antemano = beforehand

a lo largo de (periodo de tiempo) = throughout (time period)

durante = during / for

últimamente = lately, recently

según (algo/alguien) = according to (something/someone) / as per

de acuerdo con (algo) = as per (something), in accordance with

por lo visto = apparently, "it would seem..."

desde luego (que) = of course, surely

en absoluto = absolutely not, in no way

a pesar de (algo/alguien) = despite, in spite of (something/someone) pese a (algo/alguien), despite, in spite of (something/someone)

a partir de = starting (at a point), since, from a partir de hoy = starting today, from today on a partir de aquí = from here on out a partir de ahora = starting now, from now on a partir de entonces = from that point on, from then on a partir de mañana = as of tomorrow, starting tomorrow

de ahora/hoy en adelante = from now on, from this point on

en tal caso... = in that case...

por defecto = by default

principalmente = for the most part, mainly, mostly

además = furthermore, in addition

por casualidad = by chance, coincidentally

al azar = at random, randomly

al menos / por lo menos = at least

al contrario = on the contrary

por el contrario = by contrast

en cambio = in contrast, by contrast, conversely

al revés = upside-down, inside-out, topsy-turvy

(todo) patas arriba = “upside-down”, “everything in chaos”, “turned on its ear/head”

de igual manera = in the same way de igual forma = in the same way del mismo modo = in the same way igualmente = likewise, in the same way

de manera diferente = differently de otra manera = differently, in a different way de otro modo = differently

tal y como = just like, exactly tal y como es = exactly how it is

de/en cierto modo = in some way / in a sense de cierta manera = in some way / in a sense

en algún sentido = in a sense en cierto sentido = in a sense

de una manera u otra = one way or another de una forma u otra = one way or another

apenas = hardly, barely a duras penas = hardly, barely

a secas = plainly, simply

en lugar de, en vez de = instead (of) [you’d phrase this as en lugar de algo “instead of something”, or en su lugar “in its stead” or “in its place”; it takes some getting used to]

por accidente, accidentalmente = accidentally, by mistake

todavía = still

de vez en cuando = “from time to time”

a la vez = at the same time, simultaneously

en promedio, como media = on average

por las buenas = “the easy way”

por las malas = “the hard way”

de corto plazo = short-term

de largo plazo = long-term

a cambio (de) = in exchange (for)

a propósito = on purpose, not an accident

por cierto = by the way

a/en todos los efectos = for all intents and purposes en todo sentido = for all intents and purposes

mientras tanto = meanwhile

hasta = until, up to / even, including hasta que + subjuntivo = until (something happens; subjunctive)

incluso = even, including

al pie de la letra = “to a T”, exactly, precisely, “by the book” tomar al pie de la letra = to be very precise and methodical

(tomar algo) a la ligera = (to take something) lightly

por dondequiera / por doquier = “everywhere”, “every which way”, “all over the place”

de cabo a rabo = completely, through and through

al fin y al cabo = “at the end of the day”

por (el) otro lado = “on the other hand”

que yo sepa = as far as I know que tú sepas = as far as you know que nosotros sepamos = as far as we know [follows conjugation rules for subjunctive saber]

es decir (que)... = that is to say..., in other words...

o sea... = in other words...

And obviously por and para which are their own issue but they come up a lot. Which is understandable but they’re a big hurdle even for people in the C levels

There are others that are better understood with examples because it’s not enough to just write it. So:

aun vs. aún -aun with no accent is “even” and is synonymous with hasta or incluso -aún with the accent is “yet” and is synonymous with todavía

o sea -The expression o sea is used as “in other words”; do not confuse it with óseo/a which is “osseous” or “bone-related”, an adjectival form of hueso “bone”. Some people do write it as one word “osea” but it really should be separate... and sea is technically subjunctive ser

certain expressions with femenino de indeterminación -a solas “one-on-one” or “privately” -a sabiendas “knowing full well” -a ciegas “blindly” or “in the dark” -a escondidas “secretly”  And many others, some of which were in the longer vocab list above

subjunctive phrases [use with care] -There are many phrases with subjunctive that you eventually need to know and they can be helpful in essays, though again this is its own topic. Things like para que “so that (something will happen)” or con tal (de) que “as long as (something happens)” are sort of subjunctive phrases of unmet conditions... things like “unless” or “until” things happen are subjunctive in many cases. Some like aunque become “although” with indicative and “even though / even if” in subjunctive... I say use with care because this is more of a functional vocab list not a grammar lesson.

solo, sólo, y solamente -solo/a as an adjective means “only/single/a single person” or it means “alone” -solo as an adverb is synonymous with sólo. The accent mark there is a vocal inflection so it’s like “ONLY”. You use either as “only” or “just”. Since it’s an adverb, solo will not change for gender/plural -solamente is “solely” and is synonymous with solo/sólo

pero vs. sino -pero is “but” when you’re changing the topic or providing different information; no es de Alemania pero habla alemán “he’s not German but he speaks German” -sino is “but rather” when you’re correcting someone’s statement; no es alemán sino francés “he’s not German (but rather), he’s French”

I would also say it’s worth understanding how ya works because it’s got a lot of uses

I’m also going to attach some links to my tags that will help you navigate and find more of what you might be interested in:

Vocabulary

Idiomatic Expressions (especially the older entries tend to be more universal; the newer ones are expressions I tend to find and am interested in sharing so if you go into my archive and look for the tag “idiomatic expressions” or “expresiones idiomaticas”

Grammar ...which is probably not what you need right at this moment, but in case you want to peruse my stuff on different grammatical concepts I have everything from present tense to imperfect subjunctive

[lavenderbexlatte]

holding you like this

stray kids  13.4k words female reader insert Reader x DILF!Hwang Hyunjin  EXPLICIT/NSFW

🖤 warnings: original characters (adult f and child f), single father, unhealthy family dynamics, relationship insecurity, oral sex (f receiving), vaginal sex, creampie, breeding/impregnation kink 🖤

🚨🚨 the unhealthy family dynamic warning applies to hyunjin and his parents, NOT hyunjin and his child! there are elements of emotional manipulation and emotional neglect of an adult child by his parents. please don’t read if you would find this content triggering!

connect with me! / masterlist

You prepare yourself for a lot of social what-ifs when you go to the grocery store, but a three-year-old almost taking you out with a headbutt to the knee isn’t usually one of them.

On this particular day, you’re standing in the coffee aisle, scanning the rows of beans, trying to pick between a new roast for your French press, or a new flavor for the automatic drip. You’re not having an easy time of it, either. They all look the same to you. And really, is a French vanilla that different from a caramel swirl? Why are some of these so expensive? They’re all just beans, aren’t they?

The coffee dilemma is taking up all of your conscious focus, so you don’t even hear the tiny footsteps clicking against the industrial tile floor. You don’t see the head of bouncing dark hair, barreling toward you. You don’t notice anything until a tiny body slams right into your leg, and little arms wrap around your knees.

You look down in shock, rocking back to steady yourself so that you don’t topple right over. Your phone nearly slips out of your hand, right onto the head of the very small human peering up at you with big round eyes.

It’s a little girl.

She has glitter extensions and a floor-brushing gown, looking royal and in control right down to the tiny Mary Janes on her feet. She doesn’t look confused or perturbed at all, not even bothered by clinging to a stranger like this. Well, that makes one of you.

“Hello,” the little girl says, her voice high but confident. “What’s your name?”

You tell her, and she nods wisely, in a way that looks incredibly bizarre for someone so young.

“Okay. I’m Minnie,” she says.

“Minnie,” your repeat.

The girl nods, her arms still clamped around your knees. “Like the mouse.”

She points at one of the barrettes clipped into her meticulously styled hair. It’s a flat metal cameo pin of Minnie Mouse, smudged with tiny fingerprints as if she touches it often.

“Cool,” you say awkwardly.

You reach down and gently unwind her arm from around you, freeing yourself, and you kneel down so that you’re at her height. She just looks directly at you, and you can feel the judgmental intelligence behind her gaze. It’s kind of scary.

“I’m three and three-quarters,” she tells you proudly.

“Where’s your grown up?” you ask her.

You don’t really think you’d be much help to this child. You certainly don’t want to have to be responsible for her for too long. Where are her parents, or whoever she came here with?

“My grown up?” she mulls it over, “You mean Daddy. He’s lookin’ at juice.”

“Why aren’t you with him?” you ask.

“Ran away,” she shrugs, “If I run, Daddy chases me.”

“Do you think Daddy likes chasing you?” you ask.

You immediately curse yourself inwardly for asking a preschooler a half-sarcastic question like that. You don’t know this kid from Eden, you can’t just mouth off at her. But Minnie is sharp, and she just smiles at you winningly.

“I dunno. Prob’ly not,” she shrugs again, and you marvel at the big attitude in this small person.

“What if he’s worried about you?”

“Then he should find me,” she answers.

And with that, the kid sits down cross-legged on top of your feet, settling her gown neatly around herself. You’re floored. Apparently, you’ve become the shade tree that this kid is gonna sit under until her poor father finds her. Are all little kids this weird?

You’re not sure what to do. If you move, if you take her and go searching, you could spend all day missing her father at every turn. That means you should probably just stay here and wait for her dad to come to you. At least this way you know the kid’s safe and not running around to meet strangers more dangerous than you.

You get back to your coffee dilemma, as Minnie just sits primly on your feet. It’s not like you could walk away without dislodging her, anyway. And as you pick out a package of coarse-ground beans for your French press, you hear it.

“Minnie!”

An exasperated voice, from the end of the aisle. You turn toward the sound, and the person that you see takes your breath away.

It’s a man, tall and slim, long legs in wide-legged denim. His hair is shoulder-length and blonde, the top half of it held back in a small ponytail at the crown of his head. His face is equal parts angry and relieved, dark thick brows furrowing. The guy is incredibly, distractingly beautiful. You kind of can’t believe it.

“Daddy,” Minnie pipes up, as if confirming it to you.

She leans back against your shins like you’re her personal throne. You look down at her, and then back up at the man as he approaches, dragging a half-full shopping cart behind him.

“I am so sorry,” the man is saying, “She has a mind of her own and sometimes-”

“I made a friend!” Minnie interrupts her father.

The man leans down and scoops his daughter off your feet, plunking her into the basket of his shopping cart.

“You’re in jail, princess,” he tells her curtly.

“I’ll get out,” she replies.

You’re sure that your jaw is actually hanging open several inches as the man turns back to you to continue his rambling apology.

“I really am sorry, um…” he pauses.

“(Y/N),” you fill in for him.

“Right. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” you dismiss, “She just wanted to talk. And I wanted to make sure she didn’t get lost. More lost.”

The man grins at you sheepishly. “I’m Hyunjin, by the way.”

“Nice to meet you,” you say.

“I like her,” Minnie calls from her shopping-cart jail cell, “She’s funny.”

“That’s a high honor,” Hyunjin tells you soberly.

“I’m glad to finally hear that someone thinks I’m funny,” you say.

Hyunjin laughs. He has a nice laugh, sharper and shriller than you would have thought, but full and honest. He looks just like Minnie when he smiles. You’re thoroughly charmed.

“Well,” you say, tugging yourself back to reality, “I have some more shopping to do, so…”

“We’re friends now!” Minnie announces.

Hyunjin glances at his daughter. “You two are friends now?”

“Yes!” the girl insists.

Hyunjin returns his gaze to you. “I guess you’re friends now. Any chance you’re up to see us again sometime?”

“See you again?” you repeat, nonplussed.

“Just for coffee, maybe. A playdate?” Hyunjin’s grin is teasing.

“Doesn’t she have other friends?” you ask, “Friends who are more…three years old?”

“Oh, sure. but Min is an equal-opportunity befriender,” Hyunjin says, “She likes everyone.”

You really don’t know what to make of this precocious little girl who’s just declared you her new friend and her very indulgent but admittedly very attractive father. You might consider that he was hitting on you, except that he’s clearly just bending to the will of his very willful child, and that he’s way, way, way out of your league.

“Sure,” you say, finally.

“Cool.”

Hyunjin pulls out his phone and offers it to you with the keypad open. You enter your number and call yourself, and you save each other’s data into your phones. ‘Hyunjin (Minnie’s Dad)’ goes in as your newest contact.

“We’ll text you to make plans!” Hyunjin promises, as he wheels his cart away.

“See you later!” Minnie calls.

She waves furiously at you until the two of them round the corner to the left, toward the checkout counters. You’re left standing there with your package of coffee and butterflies in your stomach.

Just like that, you have a new friend.

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

When you do eventually get a text from the number saved as ‘Hyunjin (Minnie’s Dad),’ it’s abundantly clear which of the two is doing the texting.

‘hello!!!!!!’ ‘yo u have to wear’ ‘princess dress!!!!!’

It’s a Thursday afternoon, and you’re at work, sat at your desk overlooking the production floor. Your lunch is just about to end, the boys in assembly below are already getting back to it, and you need to make this quick before your next meeting.

Hyunjin must have helped with the spelling, but that is definitely a message direct from Minnie. You’re debating how exactly to respond to this message, when a call comes in, instead. You answer it.

“Hello?”

“Hi!” The voice on the other end is unmistakable.

“Hi, Minnie,” you say patiently.

“Did you get my text?”

“Of course,” you answer.

“Good. Wear your princess dress,” she says decisively. “Talk to Daddy now.”

The phone clatters loudly like it’s been dropped right on the floor, and you hear a shout in the background. You wince at the noise, but keep the phone pressed to your ear until Hyunjin’s voice replaces his daughter’s.

“Hey, sorry,” he says, “She decided that PJ Masks are more important than this phone call that she DEMANDED I make to invite you for coffee on Saturday.”  

“Coffee, huh?” you repeat.

“Yeah, if that’s okay,” Hyunjin says.

You can hear real hesitation in his voice, and you’re quick to reassure him, “No, no, I think it’s cute. It’s okay.”

“She just never takes to strangers this fast,” Hyunjin explains, and you can’t quite fathom why that piece of knowledge makes your stomach swoop. “I wanna encourage her to see the world as kind of…safe and fun, y’know? Is that stupid? Like, she shouldn’t just run around with strangers, but she shouldn’t be afraid of the world, either.”

“That makes sense,” you assure him.

“We had a talk about it, I think she understands the difference.”

He’s kind of rambling at you. You wonder how often Hyunjin gets a chance to talk parenting with someone.

“No, really, I understand,” you say, “I’d love to do coffee.”

“Great,” he says, “You can meet us at this café…I’ll send you the address. It’s called Mama Dining.”

You’ve never heard of it, but you trust Minnie’s taste. Hyunjin, you can’t say for sure. But you trust that little girl with more blind conviction than is probably necessary.

“Okay, see you then,” you say.

“Cool.” You can hear Hyunjin’s smile in his voice. “Bye, (Y/N).”

“Bye!” comes Minnie’s voice, far away but loud, and you know that she must be screaming as loud as she can.

You laugh, and you hang up.

--------------- Mama Dining is a small glass-front piece of realty across from a folk medicine shop and underneath a square brick apartment building, a few metro stops away from the area where you live. It’s so stuffed full of potted plants and flowers in vases that there’s barely any surface area for anything else, but it’s clean and bright inside. The tables are mismatched with their chairs, and the whole place smells like coffee and sharp herbs and fresh bread.

It’s homey, that’s the word for it. Cozy, and homey.

You’d taken your pint-sized new friend’s advice to the letter, busting out one of the nice dresses that you save for special occasions. The last time you wore it was to a coworker’s wedding; it’s light and floaty and floral, a long floor-length skirt over a tighter inner slip. It’s the closest thing you have to a princess dress. But it’ll have to do.

You check your reflection in the glass as you pull the door open, bells tinkling above your head. As soon as you step into the café, a little voice shrieks at you.

“YES!”

Minnie is sitting at a table in the corner, in a different gown, her hair in an elaborate braided style, half-up and half-down. She’s looking at you with the utmost approval, and even though she’s a three-year-old, you still feel proud that you’re passing her test.

“A princess dress,” she says, satisfied.

“I tried my best,” you say.

You give a silly little spin on the spot, so that your skirt stands out for her, and behind you, someone laughs. You freeze, cheeks heating up.

“You look nice.”

It’s Hyunjin, because of course it is. You turn around to see him in casual jeans and a long sleeve tee, an apron tied around his waist. His hair is pulled back again, off his face. He’s gorgeous. But it kind of looks like…

“Do you work here?” you ask.

Hyunjin nods. “Easiest place to meet up is here, while I’m on shift. Hope that’s okay.”

“It’s fine,” you assure him.

“I’ll get you a coffee,” he says, “What do you like?”

You tell him your regular order, and he heads to the espresso machine to start it up.

“Oh,” he calls, over the sound of the grinder, “And if Judy comes in while you’re here, I’m sorry in advance.”

Judy? Your stomach does an awkward flip at the idea of him inviting you here if he has a girlfriend, or a wife. You don’t think you’ve seen a wedding ring on him, but…

Oh, well. Nothing you can do, at this point. You’re here for the kid, anyway, aren’t you?

You go over to the table where Minnie has set up camp, propped in a booster seat to reach the tabletop. She has a coloring book and a pack of glitter crayons in front of her, and you pull up the second chair to join her. Minnie stares at you for second, her cute upturned eyes so much like her father’s, and then she opens up her coloring book, flipping the pages as carefully as she can.

When she finds what she wants, she sets the book down and rips the page out. It’s a picture of a teacup and saucer on a table, with a pitcher of flowers behind it.

“This is yours,” she says, with the utmost seriousness.

“Okay,” you say, matching her tone, “Can I use your crayons? I didn’t bring mine.”

You kind of expect a kid as serious and assertive as her to be careful about her possessions, but Minnie just upends the crayon box onto the table.

“Yep,” she says.

She grabs a lilac color and dives right into her own coloring page: a dressing table covered in cosmetics and trinkets. You select a red crayon from the pile and join her, filling in the delicate pattern on your teacup.

You can’t explain why it doesn’t feel like babysitting, but it doesn’t. It feels more like…coexisting. Like this preschooler really is just happy to have your company.

What a weird kid.

Hyunjin comes over after a moment with your coffee. The café is empty aside from you three, so he sits down at the table with you, placing the cup with your drink down beside the precarious pile of crayons.

“Daddy can’t color,” the kid tells you.

“Really?” you ask, looking up at Hyunjin wryly.

Hyunjin raises his hands as if in defeat, “My talents lie in performing arts, not studio arts. Unlike this renaissance child, who can do it all.”

It’s obvious that Hyunjin adores his daughter. You can see it in his eyes as he watches her scrub her crayons across the picture, in the way he talks about her. You’re not around kids a lot, but you can tell that this little girl has a lot of love in her life. That’s probably why she’s so bold; outgoing, kind, and well-adjusted kids are usually well-loved kids.

You smile to yourself as you keep coloring, switching the red for a grey. And after a while, you’re aware of Hyunjin’s watching gaze focused not on his daughter, but on you.

Embarrassed by the attention, you look up and meet his eye. He’s just watching you, with a lopsided smile that shows all of his teeth and crinkly smiling eyes that emphasize the little mole under his bottom eyelid on one side.

“What?” you ask.

He gives himself a little shake.

“Sorry,” he says.

It seems like all he does is apologize to you when he’s done nothing wrong at all.

“I was just thinking, it’s really sweet that you’re here,” he admits.

“Sweet?” you ask.

He tilts his head. “Yeah. How many people do you know who would come across town just to hang out with a little kid?”

You take a sip of the coffee. It’s perfect. Maybe the best you’ve ever had. Is he even real?

“Well, she’s like the coolest person I’ve ever met,” you say, “Regardless of age.”

“Yeah, she is,” Hyunjin says fondly.

“I’m cool,” Minnie agrees.

The doors of the café open softly, and you and Hyunjin turn around simultaneously to see a young couple, maybe college students, seating themselves and talking softly. Hyunjin excuses himself to go help them, and you let out a breath that you didn’t know you were holding.

What are you even doing here?

Did you agree to come on this very strange playdate because you were so taken by a strange child that you felt the need to keep a promise you made to her? Or, on some level, did you just want to see Hyunjin again? Neither answer is particularly good. Or sane.

“You and Daddy can be friends, too.”

Your head snaps up when you realize you’d being addressed, and you regard Minnie. “What?”

“You and Daddy can be friends. You’re my friend, but Daddy, too.”

You hum, as if you’re really puzzling it over, when in reality you’re about to collapse from the embarrassment of this child inadvertently setting you up with her dad. Or maybe advertently. You have no idea how smart she actually is.

“How does it look?” you ask instead, holding up your drawing.

Minnie puts down her crayon and scrutinizes your picture as if she’s a museum collections pro scouting for art.

“Do pink flowers,” she says eventually, and she returns to her own drawing with the same intensity.

“Good idea,” you say.

You pick out a rosy pink color and try to will all your nerves about Hyunjin away. He’s just a new friend. The father of you new littlest friend. You can’t make this weird just because he’s good-looking. Hyunjin himself has vanished into the back kitchen, tucked away to prepare something. You can hear a stove going, cutlery clattering.

The café door opens again as you’re idly listening to the sounds of the kitchen. This time, it’s a middle-aged woman with a long black ponytail and a practical, motherly outfit. She greets the young couple cheerfully, and then she sets her eyes on you.

“My Min!” the lady coos, and Minnie looks up from her drawing.

“Hi. I’m coloring.”

“I can see that,” the lady says, coming up closer to lean on the table next to your casually, “And who is this?”

“(Y/N),” Minnie answers.

“I see.”

The woman is smiling, but her eyes are regarding you coolly, as if she’s sizing you up. You just offer her a nervous smile, unsure who this is or why she knows the kid.

Hyunjin emerges from the kitchen then, timing perfect, a plate holding a large grilled sandwich in hand.

“Oh, hey, Judy,” he says, on his way past to give the couple their lunch.

Judy? This is the Judy that he mentioned earlier? Not to be ageist, you think, but she seems too old to be Hyunjin’s partner. But romantic relationship or not, you can understand why he apologized on her behalf; she’s already giving you incredibly intense vibes.

“(Y/N)’s picture goes on the wall with mine, okay, Judy?” Minnie says suddenly.

“Sounds like a plan,” Judy agrees, “Now, is someone going to tell me who this young lady is?”

Moving very quickly and pretending that he’s not, Hyunjin rejoins the three of you over in your corner, setting a comforting hand on Judy’s shoulder. You can’t help but wonder if he’s doing it as a means of subtly holding her back.

“Min made friends with her at the store the other day after one of her famous mad dashes,” Hyunjin says. “And we figured the polite thing to do after that would be to invite her for a cup of coffee.”

“I see,” Judy says.

Her face softens at Hyunjin’s words, even though she’s still looking you over quizzically, like she can’t decide how to feel about you being there.

“Well, welcome,” she says, finally, “I’m Judy. This is my café.”

She extends her hand to shake, and you take it. Her hand is slim and pretty, heavy with a few jeweled rings and slightly roughened on the fingertips from hard work.

“She takes care of us,” Minnie pipes up.

“I try to,” Judy agrees. “They need all the help they can get.”

“I resent that!” Hyunjin says.

“But really, I just use this pretty face to attract customers,” Judy continues, waving a hand at Hyunjin.

He squawks his outrage, and you can’t help the smile that creeps over your face.

“The teens see this face and they come right in. It’s like magic,” Judy says, as if she’s being purposefully oblivious to how much she’s embarrassing him.

“Well, it’s nice to meet you,” you say.

And you mean it, too. Hyunjin obviously has an unconventional support system going on, with this woman who he introduced by her first name and not by her relation to him. It leads you to believe they’re not blood-related or anything. It doesn’t really matter, though. She seems nice, if not a little protective.  

“Nice to meet you, too,” Judy says, with such heavy finality that you feel as though you’ve just cleared a hurdle.

And from the way Hyunjin’s whole body perks up at her words, maybe you have. Why do you get the feeling that this was the equivalent of a meeting-the-parents moment?

As quickly as the atmosphere had heightened, it settles back to the lazy calm it was before. Judy pats Minnie’s head fondly and disappears into the back of the café, not to reappear. Hyunjin returns to his work, and you take back up the task of neatly filling in the coloring page, careful not to upstage your tiny host and her not-quite-developed motor skills.

It’s a slow afternoon.

The young couple eats their lunch across the room, adding only a quiet hum of activity to your surroundings. Minnie tells you stories while you work, regaling you with the deep inner workings of preschooler life.

“Their names are Sage and Ginger!” she’s saying happily.

You haven’t been listening closely enough, clearly, because you’re stumped. “Whose names?”

“The babies!”

“What babies?”

“From Blue’s Clues & You,” she huffs.

Oh. You vaguely remember the original Blue’s Clues show, but you can’t say you know exactly what she’s talking about. Is she talking about…the sentient salt and pepper shakers? Do they have babies? Why do they have babies?!

“That’s cool,” you say, with level enthusiasm.

Minnie looks at you flatly, but accepts your words with a nod. “They’re cute. So little!”

It goes on like that, bits of kids’ programming trivia and input on your crayon color choices. The couple leaves, and you can see Hyunjin zeroing back in on you as he lets them out with a wave and a call to come back soon.

“How’s it going?” he asks.

You pick up your drawing, for him to see. You’ve been finished with it for a while now (it’s a children’s coloring book, so it’s not all that intricate) but you don’t want to appear unengaged, so you’ve been going over your lines and blurring out the crayon marks. His eyes crinkle up with joy at the sight of it.

“Done!” Minnie announces.

She brandishes her own drawing, too, and Hyunjin beams at the two of you with equal pride.

“Can I put these up?” he asks.

“Together,” says Minnie.

“You got it.”

He takes both rough-edged pages and whisks them away to the counter. Behind the register, on an expanse of wall, there’s a collection of doodles and coloring pages that you hadn’t noticed when you walked in. They must all be Minnie’s; the bold coloring strokes are all the same, her heavy hand immortalized in wax and marker and glitter pen.

Hyunjin tacks up the pictures side by side on the wall.

It’s the tiniest gesture in the world, really. You can’t even count how many scraps of paper, how many school notebooks and work memos that you’ve scribbled on over the course of your life. You’ve colored kids’ menus at restaurants, done detailed adult coloring books at mixers. Somehow, this one ragged coloring page tacked to the wall of a café seems like a turning point in your life.

You wonder when you got so sentimental. It’s silly, but it’s there; warm happiness in your chest.

When Minnie begins to wilt, saying in not so many words that she’s getting tired, you know that your playdate time is coming to an end. It’s only been an hour and a half, maybe two, but that’s an awful long time to keep such a young kid occupied on one activity. You’re proud of yourself, honestly.

“She’ll go down for a nap soon, before dinner,” Hyunjin tells you softly, “You can head out if you want. I don’t wanna monopolize your day.”

“I think I will,” you agree.

It’s been a nice time, but you’re not one to overstay your welcome.

You say goodbye to Minnie, who insists on giving you another crushing full-body hug, and you make it all the way to the door before you realize Hyunjin is following you.

“What are you doing?” you ask.

“Walking you out,” he replies.

“I’m just going to my subway stop.”

“Then let me walk you to it,” he says.

You struggle to hold back your smile at his easy grace. “Okay, sure.”

The two of you set out into the afternoon, side by side, for the short walk from this inner part of the neighborhood to the metro stop that will take you back home. The breeze tugs at your skirt and ruffles Hyunjin’s apron, and you can’t help but sneak sidelong peeks at him as you walk.

“I hope Judy didn’t scare you too much,” he says.

“She’s intense. But I can tell that it’s out of love,” you reply.

He laughs at that, and you continue your slow meander down the unlined streets.

“She’s like an adoptive mom to me,” Hyunjin tells you. “I’m lucky to have her.”

“Oh,” you say, curious but knowing that you shouldn’t ask.

The two of you walk a while longer in your quiet bubble, but eventually, Hyunjin sighs.

“I don’t talk to my parents,” he says, “It’s not that crazy. Just how it is.”

“You don’t have to tell me more if you don’t want, I understand.”

“And now I’m oversharing. Sorry,” he winces.

You shake your head, “It’s not a bother, I just won’t pry.”

Hyunjin considers this, and nods. “It’s just me and Min, so Judy’s been a livesaver. Mom and auntie and grandma all in one.”

Just him and Min, which means no wife and no serious girlfriend. That makes you feel a bit better. You’d hate to get in the way of a serious relationship, even indirectly. Minnie is a nice kid, and you like her, but you’re not her nanny or her babysitter or anything. You’d hate to be that kind of person, shoving yourself into a family where you have no business being.

“But…I wanted to know…would you wanna hang out again?” Hyunjin asks.

You laugh gently. “For Min? I’d walk into traffic. Yes, I’ll hang out again.”

“Not with Min,” Hyunjin says, voice soft and hesitant. “With me.”

The word that falls out of your mouth before you can stop it is, “Why?”

Hyunjin snorts, and then breaks out laughing, harder than you’ve ever heard him laugh.

“Because I think you’re cool?” he says eventually. “You’re cute and you like my kid, which is more than I can say about ninety percent of the people I meet.”

This was not part of the plan. Not that you had a plan, but come on. You were here to hang out with a super weird toddler, to entertain a precocious little girl because it’s cute and fun, not to be asked out by her dad. Her gorgeous dad, who’s so out of your league that it makes your head spin.

You spare a thought to wonder if he’s playing a prank on you.

“Unless…” Hyunjin draws away from you (when did he get so close?), “Unless you’re already seeing someone? God, I didn’t even think – I’m sorry, I just-”

“No, you cut in quickly, “No, I’m not-”

“Am I being weird? I’m being weird,” he laughs, and he almost sounds…nervous?

“You’re not being weird,” you assure him, “You just surprised me. I didn’t think…” 

“Then you’ll go out with me?” he asks.

“Yeah,” you say, surprising yourself, “Yeah. I will.”

Hyunjin’s smile is the fucking sun coming up. It warms you right down to your toes.  

“I’ll call you,” he promises, “I’ll call and we can make plans.”

“Okay,” you agree.

The dimly-glowing sign marking the subway entrance looms ahead, and Hyunjin falls back, as you approach the down escalator.

“I’ll call you!” he says, again.

You wave as you go down the escalator, and once he’s out of sight, you practically melt. You have no idea why life is throwing you this curveball, but you’re not complaining.

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

True to form, it’s Minnie who calls you some days later. Not Hyunjin, the adult who presumably has control over the phone and has to dial the call. No, it’s the toddler whose voice filters over the line, the toddler who is undeniably and ultimately in control of her father’s whole world.

“Hi, (Y/N)!”

“Are you supposed to be making calls?” you tease.

“It’s okay, I have a mission,” she tells you.

“A secret mission?”

“Maybe…” Minnie’s voice pulls away from the phone, and you can hear her shout, “Daddy! Is it a secret mission?!”

Hyunjin’s voice calls something in reply, and then Minnie returns.

“Yeah, a secret mission,” she says.

“What’s your mission?”

“We gotta know, do you like Japan food or Italy food better?”

“Hmmm,” you think out loud, “I think I just like food.”

“Me too,” Minnie agrees, “I just like food.”

There’s another shout from Hyunjin that you can’t make out.

“Daddy says it’s gonna be a s’prise, then,” Minnie reports.

“Surprises are fun,” you say.

“It’s okay?” she asks.

“It’s okay,” you confirm.

“Okay! I gotta go. Talk to you later!”

Minnie hangs up, and you burst out laughing so hard that tears pool at the corners of your eyes. She manages to make it sound like she has a high-powered meeting that you’re keeping her from. How does she hide all of that thirty-five-year-old boss energy in her cute little self?

But more important than the absurd circumstance of the call is the outcome. You’re going on a real date. With Hyunjin. You try to pretend that a whole swarm of butterflies haven’t hatched in your gut.

You have a date with Hyunjin.

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

The date goes well.

It goes incredibly well, in fact. If you thought Hyunjin was pretty and charming when he was in more domestic setting, with his kid and at his job, that was nothing compared to fully-focused-grownup Hyunjin on a date.

He dresses well, he’s funny and he’s gentle, he nearly cries because the dish you order to share is too spicy for him. He’s got all the puppylike charm of the young man that he is, and this underlying tired seriousness of the doting single father that he is.

You argue with him until he lets you split the bill for the meal, and he gives you a gentle kiss on the lips when he leaves you at your subway stop. It’s like a fairytale.

So you go out again, and again, and again, still. Sometimes it’s barbeque in your neighborhood, at an outdoor restaurant with great side dishes handmade by the older couple who own the place. Sometimes it’s just coffee and a long chat at a 24-hour café. You haven’t been to his home, yet, and he hasn’t been to yours, but it’s refreshing to just take things slowly with him, when the rest of life moves so fast.

Underneath the fun of being with Hyunjin, though, is the doubt.

Everything you see makes you more and more certain that he’s not a real person. He’s a dating sim come to life. He’s so good-looking that teenage girls stop to whisper and giggle about him, and passing aunties give him bold compliments. Dogs like him, service staff like him, little kids like him. And you understand it; you like him tremendously.

You’re not entirely sure why he likes you, though. Compared to him, you’re kind of reserved, kind of plain. It’s not that you don’t like yourself, but you’re a cottage to Hyunjin’s skyscraper, a woodwick candle to his disco ball. Just different realms entirely.

It doesn’t matter, you suppose, because regardless of his motivation or your understanding, you’re spending more and more time with Hyunjin, and Minnie.

You learn that it’s Hyunjin who does her hair every day, creating looks with pins and braids and tiny ponytails. He grew out his own hair to the length it is now to practice on, he tells you one day. You learn that Minnie only likes crunchy vegetables, raw carrots and the stems of lettuce, and that she can inexplicably eat much spicier food that her father can.

You’re comfortable being part of the mundane. But Hyunjin seems to have different aspirations for the two of you, in your casual and fluid relationship, still without titles or formalities.

“I want to take you somewhere nice.”

You glance up from your laptop, blinking to get the fuzziness out of your vision at you look at Hyunjin where he leans over the prep counter. It’s a weekend, but you have a pile of leftover work to get through before Monday, so you’ve set up camp at the café for the afternoon. Hyunjin is on shift, and he’s been slinging you snacks and coffees between customers. It’s been just the two of you, work obligations notwithstanding, and it’s been…domestic.

“This isn’t nice enough?” you quip.

“You know what I mean,” he rolls his eyes, “Like a real date.”

“Oh, so now you’re saying the first half dozen dates weren’t real?”

Hyunjin sticks out his thick lower lip in a pout. “What happened to the shy awkward person I met at the store? Bring her back, please, this (Y/N) is mean to me!”

You laugh. “Where did you want to go?”

“There’s this place I haven’t been to in years. It’s really nice, my aunt used to take us back when family outings were more my thing,” he says.

“Sounds okay,” you decide.

“You’d have to dress up,” he warns, “Like, for real. I’ll have to dig out a suit.”

“That’s fine.”

You turn your attention back to your laptop, trying to hide your flustered face at the idea of Hyunjin cleaning up extra nice for you, Hyunjin in a fitted suit and shined shoes. He might notice it anyway, though, if the smile that lights up his face as he turns back to the kitchen is any hint.

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

It’s decided that Hyunjin will pick you up from work and drive the two of you to your first fancy date. So that morning, you hitched a ride with a coworker so as not to strand your car at the office overnight, carrying your change of clothes in a bag. The downside of that was having to explain to your coworker what necessitated the change, and your team quickly found out that you have a date. The teasing hasn’t stopped all day, good-natured ribbing all during your shift, about stoic, shy supervisor (Y/N) going on a hot date with a mystery man.

You stand in front of the full-length mirror in your office’s nice bathroom, the one reserved for visitors who can’t pee with the staff. The one with potpourri on the counters and immaculate tile floors. You’ve gone for a menswear look yourself, wide-legged slacks and a silky blouse, and heels. Hyunjin’s already seen you in a nice dress, you figure, and besides, clinging to the businesswear that you already don at work gives you just a bit more nerve.

Somehow, a date at a nice restaurant that holds some sentimental value for him is more serious than anything you’ve ever done, more intimate than splitting cakes at the café and watching Minnie force the other kids to take turns on the slide at the playground.

You adjust your French tuck just a bit, make sure that your necklace hangs neatly, and deem yourself as good as you’re gonna get. You walk out of the bathroom, bag now holding your work clothes tucked under your arm, only to see a whole group of your production team boys waiting for you.

The company where you work is a decently large tech manufacturing plant, and as a production manager, you oversee a team of techs and assembly workers who tend to be on the younger side, and much more often are young men close to your age. They’re all nice boys who you’re quite close to, but they’ve already been on your case all day. Several of them are right here in the hall, now, ready to make fun of you the way that annoying little brothers are meant to do.

“Jeez, (Y/N), out for blood,” says Taehyun, his silica filter mask hanging off one ear.

“Don’t be gross,” you say, rolling your eyes.

“It’s true, you’re really going all out for this date, huh?” adds Jeongin.

“Quit it before I vom and then report you all to HR,” you say.

“Oh, come on,” says Taehyun, “I’ve worked for you for like two years and I’ve never seen you have fun on purpose before.”

“That can’t be true,” you argue, walking toward the front of the building with your little line of assembly-boy ducklings following behind.

“On your birthday, you asked us to get you a firm handshake and a new set of pages for your planner,” Jeongin deadpans.

“You’re Ron Swanson with tits,” Jaemin says.

“Charming,” you glance at him, and he shrugs.

“It’s true.”

Car headlights shine in the picture windows that span the front of your building, and you can make out a small red car sitting in the visitor’s parking right by the door.

“Please don’t embarrass me,” you implore the boys, as you haul open the heavy glass door to let yourself out.

“We would never do that,” Jeongin says, defensive.

“Maybe we should talk to your date, though,” Jaemin suggests, “Rough him up a little.”

“Yeah, please don’t ever do that,” you say, “I’m leaving now.”

The driver’s side window is rolled down, and you can see Hyunjin leaning out, waving to you. You walk around to the passenger’s side of the car as fast as you can, giving your stupid underlings as little time as possible to ruin things.

You slide into the seat and slam the door behind you right as you hear one of the boys yell, “GET HER HOME SAFE. BY TEN.”

“Oh my God, go, drive away,” you groan.

“Who are they?” Hyunjin asks, amused, as he backs out of the parking spot.

“They work for me,” you say. “They wanna intimidate you, I don’t want to talk about it.”

“They must really like you,” he says.

“No, they just really like being annoying.”

Hyunjin laughs, glancing at you as he maneuvers onto the main road.

“You look really great,” he says, sounding a little bit shy.

“Thanks.”

“The restaurant isn’t far,” Hyunjin says, “But I wanted to look cool and drive you.”

“I already think you’re cool,” you tease.

“Well if you’d told me that before, we could have called a cab,” he says.

“Nah, I wanted to see your car,” you say, turning around in your seat to get a full view of the interior, “Big pink carseat and all.”

“Min’s constantly telling me to just get a pink car to match,” Hyunjin says, “I don’t know if I could pull that off, though.”

“With your good looks and princess hair? I think you could.”

“Good to know. Next car, pink,” he says.

Hyunjin wasn’t lying about the restaurant being close by, because the whole drive is less than fifteen minutes. You’ve barely relaxed when he pulls up to the street parking outside a modest building with a pretty marquee and rough brick siding.

“This is it?” you ask, peeking out at the building.

“Yep.”

You scrutinize the restaurant as two of you get out of the car, and you can tell instantly that it’s an upscale place. Everything from the valet in front to the fabric of the curtains reeks of steaks that cost a paycheck and truffles in every possible dish. You’re kind of excited for it.

The maître-d greets you warmly, and brings you to a table against the window, with a view into a small back garden full of lanterns and lit trellises. The table itself is a delicate wooden thing, with full-course silverware and origami napkins. Candles dance on the tabletop, a single red rose in a vase brightening the whites and silvers of it all.

Hyunjin must know a thing or two about romance, because you’re properly wowed. It’s so stereotypically wonderful, it makes for a great sixth-or-seventh date. You’ve known him long enough that you know he’s not trying to blindly impress you, but just to treat you.

You wonder what kind of family he has, that they would bring him to a place like this as a kid or a teenager.

When the waitress, a pretty young woman in server’s blacks, comes over, the two of you order from the set menu and argue only a little about what dishes to taste and what wine to have.

“They’re barely Brussels sprouts,” you’re saying, “They’re covered in oil and bacon and shit.”

“They’re green vegetables,” he counters.

“They’re gourmet, don’t be a baby.”

Starters come and quickly disappear.

The main course comes, and by this point, you’re a glass or so of wine deep, and Hyunjin is only looking more and more handsome, as your stomach starts to be comfortably filled and the drinks warm you up from the inside.

Hyunjin’s gazing at you between bites of his dinner, expression so soft that you wonder if he’s gonna lean right across the table to kiss you. It’s tender, it’s lovely, and it’s unlike any other date you’ve ever had.

But a woman’s shrill, furious voice shatters the entire atmosphere with a single sharpened word.

“Hyunjin?!”

It’s almost comical, the way Hyunjin freezes with his fork halfway to his mouth, eyes wide and startled. It’s only almost comical, because this emotion seems to be very real fear on his part. He keeps his eyes on his plate, but you look toward the sound.

There’s a woman approaching your table, thin and elegant and beautiful. She’s got only the faintest age lines on her perfectly made-up face, and her clothes are designer, a plum-colored dress that brushes her knees and a handbag worth more than your whole closet. She doesn’t even spare you a glance, zeroing in on Hyunjin as she comes to stand right beside the table, puffed up in self-righteous anger like a provoked bird.

“Hwang Hyunjin!” she barks.

Hyunjin turns his head so slowly that you wonder if he’s even moving at all, until finally he’s looking at her.

“Of all the places – what on EARTH are you doing?!” she asks him, tone stiff and angry.

It’s the kind of tone that you can imagine her using to yell at waitstaff, or berate the hotel bellhop.  She’s that kind of wealthy, you can just tell. You’ve been dodging people like this your whole adult life, working your way up in the tech field, littered with its new and old money. You glance at Hyunjin, but the urgency in his face tells you to hold your tongue.

“I’m eating,” he says finally.

“Your aunt told me you were still in the city,” she says, “I can’t IMAGINE what you’ve been up to that you haven’t had time to even call, the nerve-”

“Mother,” Hyunjin says evenly, “You’re interrupting a nice time.

Mother. This is Hyunjin’s mother?

As if she’s just noticed that you’re there, she rounds on you. “And who is this?”

The disgust in her voice makes your stomach twist unpleasantly. It’s been a long while since someone has been so openly dismissive of you. Not since you were a student, you think, but God does it hurt.

“This is my date,” Hyunjin answers.

His words are clipped, like he really doesn’t want to say more.

“Well, obviously,” his mother sniffs, condescending, “What is her NAME?”

“You don’t get to know that,” Hyunjin says.

You know that Hyunjin is distant with his parents. He’s mentioned that they don’t talk anymore, and that they don’t really know his daughter at all. But it speaks volumes that he doesn’t even want his mother to know your name.

“And where did you meet this shining example of gilt wood pretending to be gold?” she asks, “The community center? The food bank?”

“There’s no need to be mean,” Hyunjin says, much more calmly than you would be able to, “We’re trying to have dinner. You should leave.”

“I’ve finished my meal. I’m on my way out,” his mother says haughtily, “But I saw you and I needed to come say something.

“No, don’t let us keep you,” Hyunjin says, gesturing toward the exit with his still-full fork.

“Hyunjin, when are you going to give up this ridiculous act and come back to make things right?” she asks, and though the tone is sincere, there’s no warmth behind it.

“Never,” he replies, “Things are just the way I want them.”

This woman, in her all finery and dignified air, stamps her foot on the ground like a child having a tantrum.

“You’re making a mockery of our family, you know that, yes?” she asks.

“You’re the one yelling at me and embarrassing yourself in a restaurant full of people,” Hyunjin points out.

“You are an aggravating and ungrateful child,” his mother hisses.

“Maybe,” Hyunjin agrees, “But I’m happy.”

Perhaps sensing that she’s starting to make a scene, his mother glances around at the other patrons, who are trying to hide the way they’re listening in with varying levels of success. Your waitress is lingering by the edge of the service floor, eyes glued on the scene.

“You’ll come to your senses,” she promises darkly. “And you’ll come begging for my help. We’ll see if I take pity on you then.”

And with that, she turns around and stalks toward the exit, not even pausing as she barks at the valet to bring her ride around. You watch until she’s outside and out of sight, and then you focus on Hyunjin.

His hands are shaking so badly that his fork clatters against his plate. You reach out and cover his hand with yours, easing the fork out of his grip and laying it down. You feel horrible, and kind of sick, but you know that between the two of you, Hyunjin is worse, so you have to push that discomfort down, just for a while.

“Let’s finish our dinner, okay?” you say, “And then we can talk about this.”

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

The rest of the date isn’t agonizing, but it is uncomfortable. You chat, and joke, albeit without the same easy grace as before. Seeing his mother, and having her speak to both of you that way has really seemed to rattle Hyunjin more than a confrontation usually would.

You settle the tab, splitting it like you always do, and then you find yourselves on a bench outside the restaurant, set away from the main road. It’s dark, and it’s chilly, but it’s comfortable with the gentle atmospheric music from the restaurant marquee and the sounds of traffic.

“Min’s mom wasn’t ready for a baby.”

You glance at Hyunjin at the sound of his voice. He’s fiddling with the cuffs of his blazer, still looking distinctly unsettled.

“Neither of us were,” he amends.

“Was she a hookup?” you ask.

“A girlfriend,” he says, “But not…she was just a girl from a good family. Someone my parents thought would be a good match, so we dated for a long time.”

“A good match,” you repeat, “A good match for you?”

“A good match for the family,” he says bitterly.

“What does that matter?”

“Oh, it matters. Way more than what I want,” he says.

“They’re really rich, aren’t they?” you ask, thinking about his mother’s clothes, and her attitude, and pretty much everything about her, “Your parents, I mean.”

“Disgustingly rich.”

“Oh.”

“She’s a really nice girl, a good person. But she really didn’t want to be with me forever, and she certainly didn’t want a kid,” Hyunjin says.

“So what happened?” you ask.

“She broke things off when she got pregnant, which made both of our families pissed beyond belief. The proper thing to do would have been to get married, right? But instead she ended the relationship, and moved home,” Hyunjin says, “They took care of Min for like a year and a half, her parents and a nanny.”

“Not the mom?”

Hyunjin shakes his head. “She just didn’t want a kid. Which is okay, more than okay. Our parents were the ones who wanted to keep the pregnancy, not her. I just wanted everyone to stop fighting.”

You just nod. Hyunjin is keeping this story so purposefully vague, not dropping names or placing blame or really showing any anger. You wonder how much time he’s spent thinking about this story, or telling it in different ways. He seems almost desensitized to it all.

“When Min was almost two, her mom asked if I would take on full custody so she could sign away her parental rights and be out of the picture for good. And I figured,” Hyunjin laughs bitterly, “I figured, better to have one parent that loves you the most than two while one is half-assing it.”

“No, I can see that,” you say.

“Minnie lived with me at my parents’ house until they realized that my ex was never coming back. They always figured we’d get back together.”

“Why?!” you ask, incredulous.

Hyunjin looks at you. “Because that would be the dutiful thing to do. Get married, stay together for the kid, avoid any embarrassing attention on the families.”

“Even if that meant you were both miserable forever?”

Hyunjin turns his gaze back at the ground, sighing. “My parents said they wouldn’t support me if I couldn’t even do that one thing right and convince my ex to do right by the families and marry me. But I wasn’t gonna force her. She’s a good person. just in over her head, and scared. And I can’t blame her for that. I can’t forgive her. But I understand.”

“So, what, they kicked you out?”

“Kicked me out, cut me off,” Hyunjin nods. “I used to be set for life, with their money to back me up. I could have fucked around forever, lived comfy. They took it all away because I wouldn’t marry a girl who didn’t love me and just wanted to live her own life.”

“You’re a good person,” you say.

“It was an easy choice,” he quips, some of his usual humor returning now that he’s gotten the stress of his story out of his mind, “Either my parents, who only love me conditionally, or my daughter, who loves the biggest and best out of anyone ever.”

You laugh, but you can’t shake the new strange feeling that has settled over you, now that you know all of this about him. Knowing that Hyunjin is the rejected son of a wealthy family, a silver-spoon kid with a heart of gold. It only validates some of those nagging feelings that in some unavoidable way, Hyunjin is far, far too good for you.

He’s given up a life of luxury and security for his daughter, and his freedom. You’re not about to make him compromise on anything else, ever. At all.

“Min doesn’t even miss any of them,” Hyunjin says thoughtfully, “Doesn’t even ask.”

“That’s good, I guess,” you say.

He shrugs. “Means that she’s not too fucked up from bouncing around like that as a baby, which is a fuckin’ blessing.”

“She’s safe and happy with you now, though,” you say.

Hyunjin grins at you. “But you know who’s been a great parent influence on her?”

“Who?”

“You.”

You laugh. “I’m no parent, trust me.”

“I dunno, you’re pretty great with her,” he says airily, “I don’t trust my kid with just anyone.”

“You gotta stop being so nice to me,” you say. “You’re gonna give me ideas.”

“Ideas like what? Afraid I’ll wanna take you out on a date? Introduce you to my kid? Oh wait-”

“Shut up!” you whine, nudging him. “I just…can’t believe you like me, sometimes. Like, that you really like me, like this.”

“Of course, I like you,” Hyunjin says, dumbfounded, “We’ve been going out for weeks.”

“Yeah, and that only started because Min told you that she wanted to be friends with me.”

“Did you really think that I got your number that day because I wanted you to be friends with my three-year-old?” Hyunjin asks.

“Yes!” you answer, totally honest, “Yes, I did. I think that you would do anything in the world for that kid, even something stupid like inviting me out.”

You stand up, suddenly needing some space, some air that isn’t warm from Hyunjin’s presence by your side or scented with his soft cologne. He just watches as you pace a few short steps away from the bench.

“It was maybe twenty percent because she was being so cute with you,” he says desperately, “But the other eighty percent was for me.”

You can’t believe that. Sure, part of you hoped for it, because it’s truly so insane to just let your preschooler make friends with random women in public. It makes sense for him to have an ulterior motive. You’d hoped that it was really him who was interested, even if he just intended to hook up with you and then cut it off.

It’s beyond obvious to you that you’ve fallen hard for Hyunjin, even in just this short time. The idea of him feeling anything like that for you is much harder to fathom.

“I know you care about me, at least a little,” Hyunjin says, standing up to join you, “At least, I hope you do. Something, some chance that you like me as more than a friend, or a casual date…”

“I do,” you say, voice strangled and tiny, “But you…you’re-”

“I’m what? I’m a father already? I have too much baggage for you?”

Your heart breaks a little bit more as he says that, as you imagine other people in the past dumping him with those exact words. The conviction in his voice is all that you need to picture it; a different person, a different night, the same outcome.

“No!” you insist.

“Then what?”

You bite the bullet, and you say it. “Because you’re beautiful, Hyunjin. You’re perfect. You have a wonderful kid and a nice life that you’ve built for her and yourself after all of that shit you went through. You…you’re too good for me.”

Hyunjin recoils like he’s been slapped. “How can you think that?”

“I just look at your life, and I can’t possibly picture you moving things around just to fit me in,” you say.

“How can you think that there’s not already space for you?! Can’t you see that you’re the best thing that’s happened to me in a long, long time?” he asks.

“Because I’m…” you struggle, “I’m boring, Hyunjin, I don’t know! I’m not worth changing for.”

“That’s bullshit,” he scoffs. “You’re letting my mother get to you, which is just what she wants.”

“Then I’m just not right for you,” you say, trying to ignore his comment about his mother and how absolutely right it is. “You have this cute little picturesque life, and I have my normal job and my hobbies and my family and friends and I would just…be in the way.”

“You’re not in the way now,” Hyunjin says.

“We’re not a serious couple now!”

“Why can’t you just let me like you?!”

He’s practically yelling now, keeping his distance and nearly folding in on himself as he looks at you with eyes that are far too shiny. It’s not the yelling that gets to you, but what he’s saying.

“Because it’s scary!” you yell back. “I don’t want to lose you, or your kid, but I know that-”

“I can show you,” he pleads.

He draws in a little closer, like he’s afraid he’s going to spook you. Against your stubborn brain’s protests, you reach out to thread your fingers with his.

You don’t want to lose him.

But as disgusting and cliché and self-deprecating as it is, you just can’t fathom someone like him wanting to be with someone like you.

Hyunjin leans more fully into your gentle grasp, pulls you right up close to him so that the two of you are toe to toe, there on the street outside the restaurant, as cars pass by and streetlights cast their dim yellow light over it all. He’s looking right into your eyes, expression firm and warm and so, so Hyunjin. You can feel your heart fluttering in your chest as you scan his face for nervousness or insincerity, and find none.

He’s looking at you the way he looks at Minnie when she falls asleep on the couch watching Frozen 2 for the millionth time. The way he looks at Judy when her back is turned in the café.

“I’ll show you that I mean it,” he says again, “I’ll be here for you. I’ll support you the way that you’ve supported us. I’ll love-”

He can’t get to the end of that sentence, because you wrench your free arm around his neck and pull him down to kiss you. He startles, lets go of your hand, and you freeze, thinking you’ve miscalculated the situation and gone too far. But he recovers quickly, wrapping both arms around your waist. He adjusts you so that you’re flush against him, and kisses back, harder.

His plush lips are wine-sour and soft, and he molds them against yours like he’s starving for it.

“My place,” he says, pulling back just the slightest bit so he can speak, “My place.”

“But-”

“Min is at Judy’s for the night,” he says, “Please.”

You want to. You want to so badly that your head is spinning, that your heart is beating out a rhythm against your ribcage. He’s here in front of you, wrapped up in you, so handsome and so unattainable…

Well. You think that Hyunjin is making a mistake. But if he’s gonna make it, you’re gonna enjoy every minute of it.

“Okay,” you breathe.

“Okay, or yes?” Hyunjin says, “I need a real yes.”

You hesitate. You decide. You say it.

“Yes.”

Just like that, he’s pulling you down the road to his car and opening the passenger’s side door for you. His place is across the city from here, so you settle in for what’s sure to be the most impatient car ride of your life. Anticipation drags out the minutes, as the energy between you grows so tense that you’re sure one of you is going to snap and start things up before you even get there.

But you’re spilling out onto the sidewalk in front of his building before you know it, Hyunjin’s hand on the small of your back, guiding you.

You’ve been to his place before, to meet him outside for dates, but you’ve never gone inside before. It’s a regular villa building, boxy and painted a demure white, and he leads you up the metal stairs to the third floor.

“I’m not trying to pressure you into anything,” Hyunjin says uncertainly, as he unlocks the door.

“I know,” you say, “I wouldn’t have come up if I didn’t want…well…”

Hyunjin grins his understanding, and you follow him into the apartment, taking his lead as he kicks off his shoes. You peek around when he flips on the lights.

His home looks about the way you’d expect: modest-sized and full of plain, sturdy furniture that looks like it could take a few hits. The décor is understated, intending to be an atmosphere of minimalist modernism, except that a girly, demanding preschooler definitely lives here. Drawings cover the fridge, the corkboard on the wall, the dining table with its one normal chair and one pink booster seat. Toys, hair accessories, and art supplies sit on shelves, in baskets, on end tables.

“It’s cute,” you say.

“Hm?”

Hyunjin pops his head out of the kitchen, now sans blazer, where he’s switching on more lights. He obviously has a just-gotten-home routine, and he’s not about to abandon it just because you’re here.

“This place. It’s cute,” you repeat. “It suits you.”

“It’s small,” he says with a shrug, tossing his blazer onto the back of the couch, “But we each have a bedroom and that’s really all that I can ask for. You ever shared a bedroom with a toddler? Not cool.”

“I’d like to see your room,” you tease, cringing at yourself instantly for making the dumbest of the dumb jokes.

But Hyunjin’s expression is just dangerously joyful, like he’s really taking it to heart.

“I’ll give you the grand tour,” he says.

“Sounds like you’re plotting.”

“I did tell you that I would prove it to you,” he says, drawing in close to you again, “How much I care about you.”

“The only way you know how to do that is with sex?” you ask playfully, “That’s sad. Maybe expand your vocabulary, first.”

He looks down at you, amused and just slightly frustrated. “Why can’t you make this easy for me?”

“Nothing with me is easy,” you say, “You should get used to that.”

“I dunno. You’re kind of easy to love.”

There he goes again, with that word. You can feel your cheeks burning, unable to process such casual affection from someone you like so much.

“Can I kiss you?” you ask.

“As much as you want,” he promises.

You slot yourself comfortably into his arms and lean up to kiss him. He’s got such ridiculous plush lips, soft and sliding against yours, and he holds you like you’re something precious. It’s an overwhelming amount of attention, but you let yourself bask in it.

“C’mon,” he says, “I’ll give you that tour.”

He winks, and then he releases you, walking across the small living space toward the doors on the far wall. Following him is second nature, at this point, and you pad after him.

“This is Min’s room,” he tells you.

He cracks the door on the right, so that you can see a peek of the pink explosion on the other side.

“She picked all her own décor,” he says.

“I’m starting to think that pink is just your favorite color, and you’re using the kid as an excuse,” you say.

“You’ll never get me to admit it,” he grins.

He opens the door on the left, and this room is soft woods and earth tones. Definitely an adult’s room, almost stark in its lack of personal effects. It’s dark except for city lights filtering between the open curtains, casting the room into a seductive kind of shadow. You follow him into the room, grinning to yourself.

“Bed looks comfy,” you say.

Hyunjin sits down on the edge of the bed, strong thighs in dress pants drawing your eye shamefully quickly, and fixes you with a look.

“Come find out,” he offers.

You can’t keep being so self-conscious about this. It’s Hyunjin, it’s only Hyunjin, your friend. One of your dearest friends. With his supermodel face, and his long blonde hair falling out of its ponytail in wisps around his cheekbones, and the outline of his cock against his thigh-

Fuck.

Something in you snaps. You climb into his lap, settling yours knees on either side of his hips, winding your arms around his neck to pull his mouth back against yours. He laughs into the kiss, his hands landing on your hips and pulling you down harder into him.

“See?” he says, voice low, “It’s not so hard to open up to me, is it?”

“I think you’re making a mistake,” you mutter.

“You’re so mean to yourself,” Hyunjin chides.

You cock an eyebrow at him. “I can be mean to you instead.”

He just laughs again, grinding his hips up into you briefly. You can feel him getting hard beneath you, distinct even through the layers of clothes that separate the two of you.

“Can this come off?” he asks, plucking at the collar of your nice silky blouse.

“Yeah.”

His answering smile is dark and satisfied, conniving in a way that makes your pulse jump. Hyunjin is so calm and sweet most of the time, cheerful in a way that suggests naivety. You almost worry about him, sometimes, worry that to other he’ll come across as just pretty and dim. Why are you getting the feeling that you’ve stumbled across a very different part of him, tonight?

“D’you know how long I’ve wanted to do this?” he asks, against your collarbone, as he unbuttons your blouse down your chest, down your stomach.

“How long?”

“Too long. Way too long.

He’s pushing your shirt off your shoulders before you know it, reaching around to unhook your bra. His hands are firm and certain, the stumbling hesitation that he’d shown while asking you out nowhere to be found. Here, apparently, he’s absolutely comfortable.

Your shirt and bra are discarded carelessly, and you’re surprised that you feel no shyness at all when Hyunjin cups your breasts in his hands and thumbs over your nipples.

“Knew you’d be pretty,” he says.

“Shut up,” you mumble.

He gives you another one of those feline grins.

“Watch it,” he warns.

Hyunjin hooks one arm around your back and flips the two of you over so that he’s on top, all but dragging you up to the middle of the bed. You’re sprawled on your back under him now, bouncing gently on the mattress with the force that he’d used to move you.

“You’re even prettier like this,” he smirks, “I like the slacks, by the way, very professional. I didn’t tell you that earlier.”

“Thanks,” you reply, breathing heavy, unsure how to handle this new Hyunjin and his blinding confidence.

“Can those come off, too?”

“What about your clothes?” you whine.

“We’ll get to that,” he promises.

He only needs one hand to unbutton, unzip, and tug your slacks down to your knees in one fluid motion, and he move aside so you can kick them off all the way.

“These are so you,” Hyunjin says.

You’re confused, until you look down yourself to see the panties you’d put on that morning: light blue with a pattern of tiny white running llamas. They’re not all that sexy, but they’re comfy, and it’s not like you’d explicitly planned on anyone seeing them, date or no date.

“I wasn’t expecting to get fucked tonight,” you say bluntly, “Give me a break.”

“Should have at least hoped for it,” he grins.

“I try to keep my expectations realistic.”

“You need to give yourself more credit,” Hyunjin says.

To punctuate it, he leans down over you fully, caging you in, and kisses you breathless again. He trails his mouth and hands down your front lazily, scraping his teeth against your hipbone where it peeks from the waistband of your underwear. He lets one long finger trace over your panties, across your covered pussy, and you can’t help how you twitch.

“Bet you’re fuckin’ delicious, too. Am I gonna get to taste?” he asks.

“Jesus Christ,” you groan.

The mouth on him…you’ve never had someone talk to you like this before, so tender and affectionate but also so obscene. It sends arousal pealing through you, the idea that he can be so into this, into you.

“Use your words,” he says, “Come on, can I taste you?”

“Yes,” you say, “God, Hyunjin…”

“Oh, I like how my name sounds, like that, listen to you,” he purrs.

He hooks his fingers into your waistband and pulls your panties off smoothly. Those are abandoned over the edge of the bed, too, and Hyunjin has his face between your legs seemingly as fast as he can.

“Tell me if anything doesn’t feel good,” he says, warm breath fanning over your inner thighs.

“I will,” you say, “Don’t worry.”

“Fuckin’ gorgeous,” he mutters, and he licks into you indulgently.

He’s got one hand bracing himself against your leg, one hand holding your folds open for him so he can dip his tongue into your opening, drag it slow across your clit.

“Fuck,” he says, and you swear you can feel the word against you, “Can’t wait to feel this sweet pussy around my dick.”

You moan. You can’t help it, can’t help the way you’re leaking your arousal against his tongue, the way his words and his gorgeous mouth are working you over. He pulls away from your core much too quickly, and he smiles when you whine.

“Just a taste, I said,” he placates.

He sits back on his heels between your legs to strip off his own clothes, but you haul yourself up to meet him.

“Let me do it,” you say.

“Be my guest.”

So it’s your turn to undo his buttons and give yourself an unencumbered look at his body for the first time. He’s slim, working muscle like a dancer, gorgeous skin under your hands. You kind of want to take your time, leave marks all over him and get to know every inch. But it does seem like he has an agenda tonight, as he impatiently shrugs off his shirt and undoes his own belt.

He rids himself of his pants and underwear quickly, and you really should have expected him to have a cock like THAT. He’s tall, and pretty, and of course, this part of him matches perfectly, long and thick and beautifully flushed.

“I’m clean,” you find yourself saying, “And on birth control, so if you want…we can…”

Hyunjin grins at you. “You just want me to fuck you raw.”

“I do,” you agree, “Fuck, I do.”

“I’m clean, too,” he tells you.

He nudges your legs apart to make room for him as he crawls back up your body, giving you a gentle playful shove so that you lay flat on your back for him again.

“Is that what you want? Want me to fill you up, just like this?”

He’s looming over you, propping himself up with his hands planted on either side of your head. You can feel the tip of his cock nudging between your folds.

“That’s what I want,” you agree desperately. “Please.”

You don’t know why you’re begging him like this. Are you that easy to break?

But you can’t bring yourself to care how ridiculous you sound, because Hyunjin rocks his hips forward to dip the head of his cock into you, and you keen.

“What do you want?” he asks, with a knowing smirk.

“You know exactly what!”

“I can’t give you anything unless you tell me,” he says.

“I want,” you struggle, “I want you to fill me up. Please.”

“That’s a good girl,” he praises gently.

He rewards you with another thrust, a little deeper, sending a fantastic thrill through your body but still nowhere near enough. He works himself into you slowly, just a bit at a time, pulling completely out in between just to be able to sink all the way back in.

After what seems like an eternity, he slides in completely, hips flush against yours. You squirm, needing him to do SOMETHING, after taking his sweet time to get to this point, but Hyunjin seems content to just sit like this for a moment.

“I was right,” he tells you, “Feels fuckin’ heavenly.”

“Move, please,” you beg.

“Be patient. Maybe I just want you to cockwarm me for the rest of the night,” he teases.

“I would go home,” you say.

He laughs. “Okay, okay, you got me, that’s not what I want.”

So slowly that you know he’s doing it on purpose to torture you, Hyunjin draws back and fucks into you, hard and deep. It coaxes a punched-out moan from your throat, already so strung out though you’ve just begun.

He’s stronger than you would have imagined, driving into you with those narrow dancer’s hips and leaning down to press kisses to your cheeks, your mouth, the sides of your throat. His hands roam like he wants to be touching all of you at once: kneading into your breast, smoothing back your hair, bending your legs up farther so he can fuck you deeper, better.

“Look how well you take me,” he says.

You do look. You crane your neck up to look down the narrow space between you, as Hyunjin props up his body above you, and you can just barely see his thick cock working into you, disappearing with an obscene squelch that leaves no question about how much you’re enjoying yourself.

“So messy,” he teases.

“’m not messy,” you mumble, feeling sex-stupid but indignant.

“No?” he grins, “Not dripping wet for me?”

You want to argue, but he’s right; you can feel exactly how wet you are for him. You can’t remember the last time someone had you so desperate, so ready and eager to take what you’re given. Hyunjin falls forward to let your bodies press together, covering you and pressing a kiss to the shell of your ear.

“Sweet girl,” Hyunjin murmurs, voice soft and fond and dangerous, “So good for me. So good with my kid. We could give her a sibling, you know.”

It sounds like something that just slipped out, the way that it’s so honest and the way that Hyunjin nearly gasps at himself. But your mind has gone one hundred percent completely blank. You let out a moan that’s mostly silent, as you let the implication of that wash over you.

You didn’t think you had a thing for, well…this.

But Hyunjin, looking at you like this, talking like this, honest and filthy, right in your ear. You know that it’s just dirty talk, that he doesn’t mean it, not right this instant. You both know that you’re on birth control. But the game of it, the idea of it…

“Yes,” you gasp, “Oh my God-”

“Oh, you REALLY like that,” he purrs, “I can feel you squeezing around me.”

“Hyunjin!” you moan.

“Is that what you want, baby? You just wanna be filled up with my cum, is that it?”

You can’t believe the words coming out of his mouth, and you doubly can’t believe how much you fucking love them, how you’re nodding and clawing your fingernails down his back at the picture he’s painting for you.

“Please,” you gasp, “I want – I want-”

Hyunjin draws up so that he can look into your eyes. “Baby wants me to give her a baby. Hm.”

Never in your life have you been brought right to the point of cumming just from someone’s words, but that’s exactly what’s happening. You can feel that perfect fuzzy electricity in your toes, building up. If you cum untouched, just from this, you’re gonna have some real soul-searching to do.

He seems to be at a similar place, fucking into you at a breakneck pace, still murmuring at you mindlessly.

“Want to fill up this sweet pussy, put a baby in you…Jesus fucking Christ, so good,” Hyunjin moans.

“Inside,” you agree, “Please – I need you, I just-”

As if he couldn’t be more perfect, Hyunjin slips his hand between you, presumably to bring you over the peak with him. The instant his finger presses against your clit, starts to rub a messy circle in the wetness spreading across your folds and your inner thighs, you cum.

You feel like screaming, but your voice is strangled, constricted with arousal, “Oh-”

“Fuck!” Hyunjin moans, like he’s agreeing with you.

One, two, three, four deep strokes, and Hyunjin bottoms out, pressing into you as he cums. Your hips buck into him on their own accord as he paints your walls with his cum, and you can’t help the newly-awakened corner of your mind that thinks about what could happen, if you weren’t on your birth control, if you did this again…

Goddamn. You really have some journaling to do later, or something.

“So perfect,” Hyunjin mutters, letting his head fall, burying his face in your shoulder, “So fucking perfect, how did I get so lucky?”

You’re the lucky one, you think to yourself. Your brain is simultaneously too full and too empty to say anything coherent, so you just lay there, wrap your limbs around Hyunjin as well as you can. He gets the message, you think, because he snuggles more firmly into you and turns his head to press a kiss to your jaw.

He’s warm, and kind of heavy, but you don’t want him to move, or to pull out of you. Just let this minute last a little longer, you think. Just a little longer, before you have to talk about what all of this means.

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

You only know you’ve fallen asleep when you wake up.

There’s a weight on your chest, pressing you into the mattress. For a second you think you have sleep paralysis, until you get a face-full of blonde hair and realize that it’s just Hyunjin, fast asleep on top of you.

“Get up,” you say, pushing on him gently, “And, ew, let me clean up.”

You can feel his cum drying on the inside of your thighs, where it trickled out around his softened cock while you slept. It’s kind of nasty, but the memory of all the hazy lust-filled things you said to each other makes you not mind so much.

Hyunjin yawns audibly, right next to your head, and then he peels himself off you.

“Sorry,” he grins. “Are your arms asleep?”

“No. Doesn’t your neck hurt from laying like that?”

He presses a smacking kiss to your forehead. “No. You’re a good pillow.”

Hyunjin pulls out of you and climbs gingerly off the bed. You squint around the room until your eyes find a glowing digital clock on his bedside; it’s only just past midnight.

“Shower and then sleep?” Hyunjin offers.

“Sounds good.”

He helps you to your feet, laughing as your knees threaten to buckle despite the cooldown period you’ve had.

“I hope I didn’t cross any lines,” he says tentatively, “I took a risk with all that baby talk and-”

“I liked it,” you admit, shy.

“Really?”

You nod. “I mean, we shouldn’t do anything stupid. Not right now. But just to play with, in the bedroom…”

Grinning, you fan yourself dramatically with your hand, like you’re a proper lady being overwhelmed with the saucy behavior of your male paramour.

Hyunjin laughs again. “Good to know.”

He shows you across the hall to the bathroom, men’s hair and skin and shaving products lined up next to rainbow-packaged kiddie shampoo and a small bin full of bath toys. As the shower is warming up, steam and the sound of rushing water filling the bathroom, he nudges you with his elbow.

“I knew all along that you were just into me because I have a kid,” he says.

You consider it, as you pull back the shower curtain and test the water. It’s warm, so you draw the curtain fully back and step under the spray. Peeking out at him, water starting to run down your back and warm your skin the way that Hyunjin’s presence warms you on the inside, you smile.

“Guess you’re just a DILF.” 

💕💕💕💕

[teyvattherapist]

Tea Prompts!

Link to the prompts here :)

Tags: Kaeya, Albedo, Diluc, Dainsleif, Tartaglia x gn!reader(separate), fluff mostly, angst if you s q u i n t, Diluc/Kaeya story spoilers

milk tea; what are their kisses like?

Kaeya Kaeya kisses like an avalanche, sudden and passionate and heavy. He’s not coy, he’s not slow, he knows what he wants and his kisses reflect that. Pulls you in by the waist or cups your cheeks and tilts your face to his. He tastes faintly like wine, which is funny, because his kisses leave you breathless and intoxicated, wanting more.

Dainsleif Slow and meaningful, every kiss has a place and a time. A reason behind it. He’s touch starved and afraid and that shows in the way he grips your jaw and holds you close as he kisses you like it’ll be the last time every time. He doesn’t know the meaning of soft, there’s only you, and him, and his never ending quest to defeat the Abyss. He tastes like the mixed drinks he consumes at night and during the day he tastes faintly of something you couldn’t begin to explain.

Tartaglia His kisses are suffocating and are never short or without some sort of battle for dominance. He kisses like the ocean, pulling you down and washing over you with his essence. He tastes like how you imagine victory would taste, it's all very interesting. He’s a lot of tongue and teeth and gripping you tight no matter who is watching, he doesn’t care, he just wants to show you how he feels, and oh boy do his kisses somehow always convey how he feels.

Diluc Heated and needy, so so needy. He’s touch starved but in a really different way than Dainsleif. Away from prying eyes he’s touchy and needy, hands roaming your body, your hair, you. He’s so warm and he tastes like cinnamon hearts. Diluc insists one hand must be in his hair at all times when he’s kissing you, and his hair is so soft and fluffy it’s hard not to indulge. In public he prefers chaste kisses but he’s not above pulling you away for a proper kiss.

Albedo Experimental, curious, it changes every time. He always tastes of chalk and the lollipops he steals from his fellow captain’s desk. A surprising amount of less lip on lip action, he likes to roam with his mouth, find out what makes you tick, where to kiss to get certain reactions. Sometimes he’ll reenact a scene he read in one of Lisa’s romance novels. He’s just curious and his kisses and their always changing nature certainly reflects that.

peppermint tea; what do they get excited about?

Kaeya Kaeya is versed in a lot of things. Perfume making, hand to hand combat, horse training, how to read body language, wine in food, wine in drink form, wine in general. But nothing quite gets him excited like a good chat about the wine making process. He learned from his adopted father what goes into making a good wine, and perhaps he’s not part of that family anymore.. But he still remembers how they do it and the intricacies always excite him. So much goes into a fine wine you would not believe- And look at that, he’s been talking for the last hour and for once Diluc isn’t annoyed. You win :)

Dainsleif History, ohhhh my archons. He can talk about history all night if you let him. He talks with his hands when he’s excited about something, drops whatever he’s holding to start gesturing wildly like how the French do? It's cute. Besides history though, he knows, much like Kaeya, quite a bit about alcohol and has no qualms discussing what makes a fine drink. And beyond those two facets of his personality. You’ll find he gets quite excited over.. Flower crowns? Make him one and his eyes light up, star pupils widening as he puts it on. You swear the stars became hearts for a second there..

Tartaglia Man loves fishing like all the chads do. Can talk about fishing all day. Can talk about battle strategy all day, too. And how fishing is good battle practice- Focus, Ajax. Right! He likes dogs, feeling their soft fur between his fingers. He also gets really excited when you ask about his family. He’s pulling out his wallet where he has at least two dozen photos of his siblings and parents. He’s got a massive family, you realise very quickly as he lists their names and little things about them. It’s the only time you’ve ever seen his dull eyes shine, even though it's just a smidge. There’s a shine when he talks about his family.

Diluc Tell him you’re thinking of learning the piano and watch how quickly he pulls his gloves off and leads you to the grand piano in the winery. Invites you to sit beside him so he can teach you the basics. He’s incredibly skilled at piano, and wants you to share in his hobby. Can talk about pianos all day, apparently he knows how to fix them too? Even if pianos are dull to you, indulge him. The way he lights up is to die for, he’s not one for idle chit chat, but pianos?? Man won’t shut the fuck up. Truly, it’s nice. To hear him talk so much

Albedo Another one for the mundane shit tbh. Flowers, light sweet foods, science, dusty old tomes, the truth of the universe- His curiosity is his ‘excitement’. He doesn’t show excitement like the others but you can tell he’s excited when he’s talking about a species of flower and his words sort of slur together as he talks at a fast monotonous pace. Or when he finishes an experiment and you’re the first person he runs to with the results like he just uncovered some great big thing(everything is a great big thing in pursuit of the truth!) You’ll notice that he actually really wants to share his curiosity with you. You. You make him excited, his favourite lab partner.

pomegranate tea; at what point did they know they loved their s/o?

Kaeya When he realised you saw past his lies. The “I’m fine, dove! What? Want my attention?” sort of lies. The moment you began to see past them, you started to hold him, but you never really pushed beyond letting him know you were there. That’s when he realised he had done the unthinkable. Kaeya Alberich had fallen in love, with you. And honestly? Screw the ancient plot. With you by his side, he could conquer the world, but he’d much rather wake up to your kisses instead.

Dainsleif Dainsleif hates to admit it, but he is the kind of man who falls in love with everything around him. The flowers that bloomed despite the harshest conditions, the comforting breeze, water against his skin, the stranger on the street he just passed. So he had always loved you in the way he loved everything. But he realised he really loved you when you traced the leylines on his arm, no fear, no hesitation, just adoration in your eyes. Watching you, he realised that while he loved everyone and everything in the way a guardian does. There was nobody he wanted to protect more than you.

Tartaglia Some may say it's when you bandage his wounds with worry and panic, when you show him that you love him. But really it's when you listen to him talk about his family, talk about how he actually didn’t like his job but he had to do it, for them, he says. And you never judge him. Running your fingers through his hair as he recounts his regrets, when the bloodthirsty warrior persona is gone and it's just Ajax, the boy who liked to fish and listen to stories. When you’re just you, the person who cares about him underneath his title. Love is such a strong word, such a strong feeling, but every time you look at him when he talks.. He loves you.

Diluc Another one for team loves too much, truly. He’s so scared all of the time. His family is gone, and he blames himself for it, he pushed Kaeya away, he couldn’t save his father in time. So accepting that he loved you was not something done easily. But watching you interact with his brother, being kind to someone he still loves who he knows is suffering. Your kindness as Kaeya’s smile falters just a little bit. It's then that he realises he loves you. And the moment the last patron is gone he doesn’t hesitate to bury his face in the crook of your neck and tell you how he feels, no matter how scared he is.

Albedo Love? What is love but a chemical reaction? Albedo doesn’t understand relationships let alone love. All he knows is his heart ticks faster when it sees you, the pulsating grows louder in his ears and it confuses him more than anything else. Watching you interact with Klee, smile on your face as the young girl shows you something or another. Albedo wishes to study this feeling, understand his diagnosis. Is he dying? Contagious, perhaps? Book after book and his answer lies in commitment and he wonders if he can commit. But then you look at him as he rambles on and on about a topic he’s well aware you don’t care about and he decides. Yes. He can commit.

[thomaslightwood]

“What if Paris was the first time we’d met?” || Thomastair University AU

I wrote this because 1) anxiety and 2) the idea of what would happen if Thomas and Alastair had met for the first time in Paris is killing my soul so here you go

•

Thomas closed his notebook with a sigh.

“I know you want to say it,” Thomas grounded.

Lucie looked at him with big innocent eyes. “Say what?”

Thomas rolled his eyes.

Lucie smiled at him and while they both stood up, she said with a grin, “Okay, I will say it. I told you not to drink last night. I told you.”

Thomas signed again. “Yeah, you did. In my defense, that guy was cute and I was nervous!”

“No excuses!”

“Mr. Lightwood.”

Thomas stopped on the exit and looked at the professor. “Yes, Mrs. Jahanshah?”

Sona Jahanshah handed him a list. “Your paper. I wished to give it to you yesterday but well.” You weren't here was left unsaid but they both knew what she meant.

Thomas felt ashamed. His Farsi class was his favorite and Mrs. Jahanshah was an awesome woman. Strict and rarely allowing compromises but amazing teacher. Thomas didn't want to let her down by missing her classes to get drunk. Especially on the second day of the new semester.

He hesitatingly took the paper and looked at it. A small smile appeared on his face.

“Thank you Mrs. Jahanshah,” he said. He hurried to Lucie who was waiting for him at the door.

“Well?” she raised an eyebrow.

Thomas grinned but only said, “Nothing.”

“Come on, let me see!”

“Nope.”

Lucie tried to grab it from him but she was too small compared to him. And in general. In the end she gave up but said this wasn't the end.

“One day I will read your work, Thomas Alexander Lightwood, remember my words.”

“Yeah, of course,” he said with a smile.

Together they left the university and went to the near coffee shop where they were supposed to meet with Lucie's friend, Cordelia.

Thomas was a little jealous how Lucie could find a soulmate so fast. It has never been so easy to Thomas. It will never be. Maybe he was just too awkward. Sometimes he felt like his insecurities were written all over his face.

Lucie's smile widened. “There she is. It seems her brother is also here.”

•

“I have work,” Alastair said.

“We all have,” Cordelia said.

“Okay, I have a lot of work.”

“Come on,” Cordelia arched an eyebrow. “You should take a rest from time to time. Or else your brain would explode.”

“Sure,” Alastair said sarcastically. “Tell me again, why am I here? To rest? By meeting people?”

“It's just Lucie! And one of her friends, Thomas, who is a really adorable guy. It would be fine!”

Alastair wasn't convinced but didn't say anything. Cordelia was determined to make him talk with people for some reason.

“Oh, I see Lucie. She's right there.”

Alastair followed his sister's look. He spotted her friend, Lucie Herondale, a small but lively girl. They have spoken a few times but Alastair didn't really know anything about her except the things Cordelia told him.

Next to Lucie was a tall, broad-shouldered guy with a shy smile that was laughing at something Lucie said.

Alastair felt like someone kicked him in the stomach.

“Fuck,” he breathed. “You didn't tell me your friend is so cute.”

Cordelia blinked at him and smiled playfully. “I didn't know he is your type.”

“He is now,” Alastair stated.

Cordelia couldn't help but grin.

“Fuck,” Alastair said again looking at Thomas.

•

Thomas and Lucie sat on the table with Cordelia and Alastair. He was introduced to the Cordelia's brother and Thomas got worried he'd do something stupid and would make fool of himself in front of the beautiful guy next to him and-

Thomas forced himself not to space out too much but to listen to what the rest were talking about. He did his best to join the conversation but it wasn't easy to concentrate.

At some point Alastair said he's going to the bathroom and Cordelia went to ask for more coffee. Thomas breathed out and turned to Lucie.

“Why didn't you tell me your friend's brother is so cute? You know I don't know how to act around cute guys!”

“You are doing just fine,” Lucie said, trying to calm him down.

“Well, I was drowning in anxiety. But... I think it was sort of... the normal anxiety?”

“You mean...”

At this moment Cordelia returned to the table and Lucie didn't finish her sentence. Thomas was grateful. He was diagnosed with social anxiety and didn't feel comfortable talking about it in front of strangers. Only a few close to him people knew and Thomas did not want too many people to find out about it. It made him, well, anxious.

When Alastair got back he said he should hurry up for his next lecture and said goodbye. Thomas was a little disappointed.

Cordelia, Lucie and he had almost an hour until their next class so they remained in the cafe. Thomas wanted to know more about Alastair Carstairs but he thought asking Cordelia may look creepy and out of place. He may ask Lucie to do it. Or he himself to ask. Some day.

•

Thomas was nervous. It was his first time in a new class where he didn't know anyone (he didn't know many people in the university as a whole but still).

As he entered the room he tried to calm down. Took a deep breath. His anxiety was still there but after Thomas took his seat he felt like he wouldn't get an anxiety attack in front of the whole class and will survive this. Probably.

He prepared to take notes, took out a few pens (just in case) and tried to breath normally. He reminded himself no one was paying attention to him. There were a lot of people in the room, he was just another guy in it. It was going to be fine.

“Hey, can I sit here?”

Thomas turned to the person talking to him and blinked. Alastair Carstrais.

“Sure,” Thomas said after a second.

Alastair smiled a little and Thomas couldn't help it - he returned the smile.

“The room is just so full. I was worried there weren't any left seats.”

The room was indeed full. Thomas was happy he got here early so he could sit at a place he liked.

“Cordelia didn't mention you like history.”

“Cordelia is awesome but I'm not very close with her,” Thomas said. “And I'm a little bit of history buff,” he admitted.

“Enough history buff to take a class for it, it seems,” Alastair said with a small smile.

Thomas laughed. “Yes, apparently.”

The professor walked into the room and it got quiet.

Thomas listened with interest to the lecture, taking detailed notes. But he was also excited because of the person sitting next to him.

•

Thomas wasn't sure how much time had passed but he knew he was hungry.

“Hey,” Thomas turned to Alastair who had a little strange expression as he said this. “Wanna, like- I mean if you're not busy, to have lunch with me? Or even just coffee if you don't have a lot of time?”

Thomas' stomach did a flip but it was a good kind of flip, nervous and excited.

“I would be happy to have lunch together.”

Alastair smiled. It was a real, warm smile. “Okay.”

They went out of the university and Alastair said he knew a good place in the area. Thomas followed, careful to remember the way to it. He may need to come here again, hopefully.

As they sat, menus appeared in front of them almost immediately. Thomas ordered tea, Alastair - coffee until they waited for the food.

They talked about the lecture. It was about the history of the Ancient Near East. Alastair was half Persian and Thomas was fascinated to hear a few curious history facts about the Persian culture from him.

“I admit,” Alastair said. “My love of the Persian stories and songs is influenced by my mother. Sometimes she says it's her duty as a teacher to tell us, Cordelia and I, as much as she could about our heritage. Which of course has nothing to do with her profession but we don't say anything," Alastair laughed a little.

“Your mother is a teacher?” Thomas said curiously.

“Yes, for a few years now. She's a professor here.”

Thomas' eyes widened. “Wait, your mother is Sona Jahanshah?”

“The same,” Alastair said before drinking from his coffee.

“Whoa,” Thomas said with a smile. “I should have thought about it earlier. You have the same eyes.”

Alastair's eyes sparkled at this. He looked amused. “Most people would say we share the same temper not eyes.”

“This too,” Thomas laughed.

The conversation went in different directions a few times. They found out they share a great love for music. That Alastair's favorite book is The Prince by Machiavelli. Thomas in returned said his is Rubaíyat́ of Omar Khayyaḿ. They promised to read each other's favorite books because they haven't read it before. Thomas found out Alastair can play a piano and sing. Thomas wanted to hear him.

“What made you choose to come to France?” Thomas asked at some point.

“It's mainly because me and Cordelia wanted to study here. Paris is one of the cities where we were the happiest. So we moved here.”

Thomas wanted to ask about his father but he knew from Lucie Cordelia and Alastair's father was a sensitive topic so Thomas decides to leave it alone.

“How about you? Are you a big fan of France?”

“Not exactly,” Thomas laughed nervously. “Actually, coming to France doesn't seem very wise. My father wanted me to go study in Spain or Wales. Which would be logical because I know Spanish and Welsh. My father has connections in Spain and Lucie's father is Welsh. I started to learn French only a year ago. But...” Thomas tried his best to explained it. When he was saying it out aloud it sounded like a stupid decision but it makes sense Thomas' head. “It's about the university. The history of this city. I admire it. Lucie and I talked about it and our parents let us study here only because they know we're together.”

The waiter came to serve them the food and Thomas paused. He even didn't remember ordering a second time.

“You probably think I'm silly," Thomas said, feeling stupid.

“No, no," Alastair shook his head. “Not at all. I think I understand.”

Thomas looked at his eyes. He believed him.

“Also, you speak Spanish, Welsh and learn Farsi and French? I'm impressed.”

Thomas smiled a little shyly at that. He didn't mind compliments but coming from Alastair felt different.

The time was passing and they barely noticed. They both missed their lectures but as much as it was unusual for Thomas he barely cared. He did not regret the time spent with Alastair.

They exchanged numbers and social media. Alastair promised to send him more book recommendations. Thomas kept smiling the whole day.

•

the tree: sorry luce i can't have lunch with you today

small bean: ooooh, and why is this, little john?

the tree: i'm just not hungry

small bean: yeah yeah and i'm cinderella

small bean: are you seeing someone? someone dark haired maybe?? 👀

Thomas blushed a little and put his phone back into the pocket without answering.

“Ready to go?”

“Yep,” Thomas followed Alastair through the exit and together left the university.

They sat in the same place as the last time. Even on the same table. Thomas liked that.

“Okay, I suggest not to miss our lecturers this time,” Alastair said.

“Agreed,” Thomas said, laughing. “I can't survive this class only on Lucie's notes.”

They talked about books. They both have read each other's favorite book now and had thoughts to share. Alastair passionately talked about one quatrains of Rubaíyat́ of Omar Khayyaḿ while Thomas was eating from his toast. Since he left London he has forgotten the pleasure of talking about books with someone who was as much investigated in it as Thomas.

Same as the last time the conversation went in different directions. They talked a little about themselves.

“I miss my friends and family,” Thomas admitted. “We were always together, very close to each other. It was weird at first when I came here, without them being around.”

“Tell me about them.”

With almost every other person Thomas would think they were trying to make small talk. Alastair though, Thomas knew, didn't speak things he doesn't mean.

So Thomas told him. He told him about his sisters but not much about Barbara who had passed away because he felt like this was too personal. About the Merry Thieves and a little bit about how they're families were friends.

In return Alastair told him about the cities he had traveled to and what he likes about them, which places were beautiful, the history of them. After his parents' divorce when Alastair was almost 18, he, Cordelia and Sona moved to Paris because the siblings wanted to study here.

They could talk for many more hours but an alarm sharply interrupted them. It was Alastair's phone. He shut it down.

“This is for me. My lecture starts after ten minutes.”

“Oh,” Thomas couldn't hide his disappointment. “Okay.”

“Hey, do you want... to meet tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow is Saturday?” Thomas said, confused. “We don't have classes.”

“I know,” a strange look appeared on Alastair's face. Thomas in shock realized it was nervousness. “Actually, I... I’m asking you to go on a date with me.”

Thomas' heart skipped a beat. It was impossible to stop the smile on his face.

“Okay.”

•

“You're nervous.”

“I am not,” Alastair said defensively. Cordelia arched an eyebrow. “Okay, maybe a little bit.”

“Try not to freak out too much. He's just a guy.”

“A guy with a cute smile.”

“Yeah,” Cordelia laughed. “But you're cute too.”

Alastair frowned at her. “Don't you have homework?”

“I have,” she admitted. “But I also have a brother who has a date.”

Alastair sighed. “He is far from the first guy I have a date with.”

“But he's the first after you-know-who.”

Alastair shook his head. “His name is not a trigger. You can say it. And it doesn't matter. It was a long time ago.”

It wasn't too long ago and Alastair maybe wasn't too happy about his situation with Charles but Cordelia didn't need to know this.

Alastair out on his shoes and coat. The weather wasn't too chilly.

“Actually, I meant... Doesn't matter,” Cordelia said. “Just have fun, remember he is just a guy as nervous as you and don't break his heart because he's Lucie's friend and I like her.”

Alastair couldn't help it but smile. He kissed his sister's forehead and went out.

•

Thomas saw Alastair coming and tried not to look too anxious or look if his clothes were okay. 

And he tried his best not to stare at the gorgeous view Alastair was.

Alastair led them on the way to the place he had in mind. It was far from the center, in a small alley that had one beautiful fountain. As they entered the small restaurant Alastair said a few words to the staff member and she immediately led them to their table.

It wasn't what Thomas imagined. They went upstairs. This floor was definitely emptier than the first one - the tables were farther from one another, with only a couple of people on them.

Their table was on the balcony. Thomas' breath stopped when he saw the view. He barely noticed as they sat and the waiter put menus in front of them.

Paris was beautiful during the night. The city of lights. The Eiffel Tower stood gold and sparkling.

“It's beautiful,” Thomas said and turned to Alastair. He caught him staring at Thomas with a smile on his lips. 

“It really is,” Alastair said and also looked at the view before opening his menu. “I got lucky to reserve a table here. Part of which was that my mother and the owner are good friends,” Alastair laughed.

Thomas smiled and also opened his menu. “So. What do you recommend?”

Alastair carefully scanned the page he was on. “The toast is awesome. And the desserts are unique. Here is the best tiramisu in Paris.”

“You really like coffee, don't you?” Thomas said with a smile.

“Yes,” Alastair said. “I admit, I do love coffee a hella lot.”

Soon the waiter came to take their orders. After he left, Thomas said, “I'm curious about something. How did you come out? Wait, are you out to your family? Is this a sensitive topic? Oh god, I'm so-”

“It's okay,” Alastair laughed. “Do you always ask every guy such questions on the first date?” he teased.

Thomas blushed a little. “Well. Sometimes,” he cleared throat. “Anyway! Answer my question. Or don't if you don't want to.”

“I'll answer,” Alastair said, trying to hide a smile.“I came out to Cordelia first, a few years ago. Then she convinced me that coming out to Mâmân wouldn't be a disaster. And she was right. It was difficult at first. But it's mostly fine right now.”

The waiter came with their drinks - ginger beer for Thomas and black decaffeinated coffee for Alastair. 

“How about you?” Alastair asked after they were alone again. “Are you out?”

“I am kind of out to my family and friends too, yes.”

“Kind of?” Alastair arched the eyebrow.

“It's a funny story actually,” Thomas said. “At first, one of my cousins, Anna, came out as non-binary lesbian. Not long after this Matthew, one of my best friends, came out as bi. And you see, in some way they cleared the path for me. When I came out no one was even surprised. I think they kind of expected everyone to come out as gay at some point,” Thomas laughed.

He didn't mention how sickly anxious he was to come out because he was worried his parents would react bad. Or how he worried his friends and sisters won't understand. Or the irrational, freezing fear to let even one person know something so personal about him. 

They talked more about London. Alastair said he was there only once but would like to visit again. They joked that Lucie would drag Cordelia there for the first holiday that appears.

At some point they started to talk about Paris. Which museums they have visited so far. Alastair was scandalized Thomas hasn't visited the Louvre yet. They agreed they should go to one museum together some day.

It was a beautiful night, warm, with a nice breeze. They talked for long, so long they were the only ones left in the restaurant. In another time, in another life the same was happening. They were both different people, with different pasts and so different memories, unsaid words and broken hearts. But as the city of light was watching over them tonight they had this sweet memory, echoing through the centuries.

[littlemisslipbalm]

Little Border Town Pt. II

Summary: Harry starts to find himself more and more drawn to the bookshop owner. She’s maybe not as annoying as he first thought. And maybe Harry isn’t the worst like she thought either. A little notebook, drinks, shoes, and a boat begin to show each other that. 

AKA: Harry and Y/N are neighbors that fight all the time, the whole town wants to know when they’ll just fuck. 

ello loves,  part 2 is finally here pls let me know what you think!! barely proofread sorry... also i think theres gonna be quite a few parts to this because i keep not getting all i want to say said in each part. and im trying to keep the chunks relatively short. — also I made one direction lowkey exist bahaha

Word Count: 9.2k | Warnings: flirty fighting/banter, slowburn 

Part 1

-

The next day Harry found himself walking into the bookshop next door without really thinking about it. He hadn’t seen Y/N again for his early morning run and he had his list for her of the Paul Simon albums he already had. They hadn’t had their windows or shades open last night either so it was the first night he didn’t give her a salute and she didn’t flip him off. The jostle in routine seemed a little weird to him so as he walked through the shop's door and the bell sounded, he thought the smile on his face was because he was well rested and unbothered by anything.

Y/N had slept in this morning. She couldn’t put her finger on it, but the beginning of Fall always put her in a cozy sleepy mood. She wanted to go to a pumpkin patch and watch a fire burn out in a fireplace. She wanted to listen to her halloween playlist and plan out an intricate costume with her friends. All of this was a wistful dream though. She had quickly learned that the little border town didn’t celebrate Halloween how they did in the States or any major cities. It was okay, at the end of the day, even if she was a little bummed about it. This was her new life and she would have to adapt to the new customs.

After she walked downstairs and unlocked the door, she went back over to her front counter. Yesterday, right when Harry had come in, she had found a booklet of Marie’s. It was leafed over to the point that all the pages were crinkled and dirtied from hand debris. Each page was filled with her loopy handwriting, all of it in French. She must have only liked blue pens because even if the type changed over different pages, the color was always blue. Each page was headed with a name, a customer’s name Y/N was starting to realize as she leafed through the pages. She sat back on the wooden stool she had gotten for behind the counter and propped the book in her hand. After the name of the customer there were extensive details on them. Not their purchases specifically, but their preferences, their personality, and just tidbits about any quirks they had or interesting things Marie had decided were of note.

She found many names that were now familiar to her after her few months of living in the little border town. There really weren't that many people to get to know and the tourists were starting to die down now that the school year was getting back in. After a few minutes of pouring over Monsieur Friedfrickson’s page, who lives across the street from her and runs the flower and gardening supplies shop, she flips to an even more familiar name’s page.

“Harry Styles.” The page had the name written out in strong tall letters. Marie had used a blue inky pen for his page, not a ballpoint. “Likes Music. Poetry. Love stories. Romance with a happy ending, but also likes the practical love too.” The interests are laid out plain and she purses her lips at the idea that Harry is interested in romance novels. She wondered what type of poetry he liked since Marie didn’t seem to think that had to be elaborated on. “He’s a special one,” it reads and Y/N scoffs to herself, really Marie? She reads on, “His heart is in the right place, but he’s got a mouth on him. Quick-witted and charming, but kind-hearted and sincere.” She pauses, and flicks the page back and forth, checking that it still reads Harry’s name when she gets back to it. Was she really the only one who found Harry vapid and annoying? Sure she had softened a little towards him since she had arrived, but they were by no means friends. “While seemingly perfect in every way, Harry is actually-” it reads and she mutters to herself, “Ok, now we’re getting somewhere.” “While seemingly perfect in every way, Harry is actually scared of his own shadow.” “This can’t be real!” She once again scoffs at the book and looks up to the ceiling like Marie is going to talk back to her from beyond. “His exterior persona is very strong, both physically and in his personality, but it seems like he’s just waiting for that right person that he can really be vulnerable with and let them into what he’s really thinking. He’s looking for his Angie.” Now she’s just confused. Who the fuck is Angie? She almost doesn’t finish reading the page because honestly it’s just making her mad, but there’s only a few more lines. “Lots of tattoos, why so many tattoos? Thinks he’s funnier than he is. Flamboyant Harry is best.” And beside that last sentence is a star. She tries to hold in her laughter. At least it wasn’t a complete page of praise for Harry.

Thinking back to her knowledge of Harry, she realizes that Marie must have known him for about three years. Maybe more if he had come to visit before moving there officially. She agreed with Marie that Harry had a lot of tattoos and that he thinks he’s funnier than he truly is, but she was yet to see flamboyant Harry. She knew he painted his nails and wore rings, as well as interesting clothes, but she wouldn’t say he was particularly flamboyant for any of that. That comment definitely piqued her interest. When would Marie have seen Harry where he was being flamboyant?

Her eyes scan over the page once more and realize that this book is only for the most current year. Marie re-did the customers' outlines every year. So this was this past year before Marie died. She wondered where the other books might be and if Harry’s outline had changed over time and also if her name was in the one from when she had visited. That would be interesting to read. It’s strange to read a dead person’s private musings. To her knowledge, no one else alive knew the contents of these pages and these pages seemed especially personal since they spoke of people’s lives and who they were at their core. Maybe that’s why she didn’t hear the chime of the door this morning when the first customer arrived.

Her eyes don’t shoot up from the page until two ringed hands enter her eye line on the counter. The tanned skin, with the gold and silver dazzling rings on each finger and the cross tattoo all register in her mind as her eyes go wide. She snaps the book shut when her eyes meet Harry’s almost ivy green eyes - they’re darker in the foggy fall light streaming through the window today. She hadn’t even turned on the lights yet in the store, the natural light being enough for her this morning. The book is clutched in her hands as Harry’s smile widens to a grin of amusement.

“What have you got there?”

There’s no cover on the book so he can’t make anything out about it. He assumes it’s some novel she’s embarrassed of and has chosen to slip the cover off of to keep anonymity of it. This assumption is why his tone is so teasing and why she grimaces at him in response. Her cheeks have also tinted themselves, she’s flustered that the man she had just been conversing about with the book was now in the store.

“None of your business.”

“I guess not.” He replies easily when she responds curtly and places the book out of sight somewhere under the countertop.

“Why are you here again?” She’s avoiding his eye contact now, feeling like she’s been caught doing something she shouldn’t have been even though it was perfectly within her right to read something that now belonged to her.

Harry’s smile falters with her followed curt reply. Annoyance settling in, Harry straightens up and removes his hands from the counter. The familiar feeling doesn’t exactly feel nice, but familiarity is better than discomfort. “You wanted a list of my Paul Simon records? So you could order me one I didn’t already have?”

She looks at him curiously as the conversation comes back to her from yesterday morning and she nods. That conversation was real. “Oh yeah, I said that.” She replies, still not looking at him. “Okay,” she says when he doesn’t move or do anything. Her eyes widen, silently asking him to get on with it.

His hands shove into his pockets, searching around for a list he apparently had made. They come out empty. He pats over his jacket pockets and feels nothing but his phone and wallet, no list. “Fuck,” he mutters beneath his breath. She scratches at her eyebrow and sits back on her stool, seeming like she might be waiting awhile. After a few more minutes and no produced list, she sighs. “Do you just want to go next door and grab it since you obviously forgot it?”

“I didn’t forget it…” His voice is low and he shoots a glare at her, the annoyance that had come back had now doubled.

“You did, but it’s okay if you can’t admit that-”

“It must have fallen out of my pocket!” He insists.

She rolls her eyes and stands up. Walking to the front door, she looks on the ground and then a little ways outside. “I don’t see it, just go back and get it. You probably left it in your boudoir, it’s fine.” Her tone is a little less condescending now and more understanding. She forgets stuff all the time and she really wasn’t trying to be rude when he first came in. He had just startled her is all.

He turns around to face her. Her body is now completely out in the open area of the front of the store. His head tilts and one of his loose curls flops over his forehead while he takes in her appearance. “Why do you do that?”

She wets her lips and steps closer to him, more on her way back to the counter than anything. “Do what?” She’s oblivious to what he’s taken note of.

“When you have a conversation in English you’ll swap in some words that are French. They’re easy words to figure out and you don’t do it a lot, but you’ve done it enough times for me to notice.”

“Oh...I don’t know. I prefer French to English. It’s so much sexier.” She walks closer to him and utters her next sentence as she brushes past his shoulder. His gaze follows her every movement. “Would you prefer a girl to whisper in your ear, “let’s go back to my bedroom” or “let’s go back to my boudoir.”?” Her French accent hangs in the air with the word and compared to the hard American accent she had employed for ‘bedroom’, ‘boudoir’ sounds far more dirty this time than before.

A shiver rolls down Harry’s spine, but he doesn’t let it show. She shrugs her shoulders, “I think the answer is clear.” He clears his throat in response and a smile grows on her face. “Don’t you agree, monsieur?” She leans her head into her hand now that she’s behind the counter and looks up at him sweetly. He knows she’s teasing him now, her smile more of a sultry smirk.

“Piccola diavola,” his Italian rolls off his tongue and she squints at his words. She knows “devil” but the first word troubles her - it just means little. Her Italian really wasn’t strong and it hadn’t improved that much since she’d been in the little border town. But she also wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of asking what he had said. Harry chuckles at her confusion and relaxes now that he feels the playing field has leveled once again.

“So your list… Do you want to go grab it? Or if you can just list it off the top of your head? As enthralling as your conversation skills are, I actually don’t have all day.” She trails off again, her questions lilting from her mouth after regaining some composure.

“I wasn’t the one teasing about taking someone up to their bedroom,” he huffs. Her face colors with crimson. While she had been teasing him, she didn’t want to be called out for it.

“Wasn’t teasing…”

“So it was a serious offer?” He inquires with a lop-sided grin, changing the meaning behind her words in one fellow swoop.

“That’s not what I was saying! Shut up and give me your list.” Now her blush was all over her face and neck, and she was totally and completely flustered by Harry.  She glanced down at her hands that were fiddling with a pen and paper, ready to write his words down.

“I can either shut up or tell you my list. But it’s sadly one or the other, love.”

She groans and takes her free hand to run it over her face. “Just tell me what you already have, Harry. Please.”

“Okay, okay,” he chuckles and spreads out his hands in front of them both. He crosses back to the counter and leans on it once more. They are in close proximity once again, only the counter between them now and she can feel his hot breath fan over her softly. Smells of wintergreen gum, her favorite.

She glances up at him and their eyes hook together for a moment before she tears hers away to look back at the paper. He rattles off a good amount of Paul Simon’s albums and she nods approvingly as she scribbles the names down. She would have to look through his discography to find the ones Harry didn’t have and she probably could’ve made Harry do that and then give her that list, but she didn’t. It was too late now to do that as well, so she’d just have to live with her decision.

When he finishes, she glances at him once again. His eyes are very large. A detail that isn’t really important about him is seared in her mind. They’re big and they’re staring right at her. His pupils are almost as big as his irises, it was interesting. Her eyes shift under his gaze after a beat and she straightens up again. While they went over his list, she had indulged in the close proximity, the mingling of warm breath and brushed hands as she scribbled and he pondered. She nods a farewell, “I’ll let you know when I order next, but I won’t say what album you’ll get. It will be a surprise.”

“I wouldn’t expect anything else from you,” his smile snaps back to his face and he scratches absentmindedly at his side. He hesitates before exiting the store. “I have a question.”

“Don’t need my permission.”

He emits a half-laugh, half-scoff from his parted lips. “Wasn’t asking for it...How come you never go out?”

She stares at him curiously, her head tilting to the right. “How would you know I don’t get out?” She challenges him.

“There’s only one pub in this little town and I’m your next door neighbor. I know.” He’s insistent on being right.

She scoffs, but only in an attempt to cover up her embarrassment. Her skin had finally cooled from all the excitement that had happened earlier and she wasn’t in the mood to grow red once again. Today was the first day she had ever felt flustered by Harry. It was annoying, it made her feel out of control. She liked to go out well enough, maybe more than the average person. But she’d only been in the little border town for a few months and going out hadn’t been on the top of her list of things to do. Sure, it would be nice to go get a drink out in the town, but she didn’t really have anyone to go with. Meeting people wasn’t hard in the town, but there weren't many people who were her age and she hadn’t particularly clicked with anyone where she would want to go out on the town with them. It was embarrassing to face the fact that she wasn’t flourishing as much as she had hoped. She was happy, but being confronted with the truth that she hadn’t gone out yet dampened her belief in her success in the little border town.

“I - It’s not at the top of my list of priorities,” she stutters, her chin raising a little in indignance.

One of his shoulders shrugs and Harry makes a little face as if he was indifferent to her answer, even though she knew much better than that. Harry always wanted to get a reaction out of her, maybe that was all he gained from their interactions - entertainment. She didn’t know, but she didn’t feel like giving him the satisfaction and left it at that. His eyes meet hers again, his stare far more intense now. “Ciao, diavola.” He simpers, repeating the little nickname. It was far more sultry of a nickname than ‘Shrimp’ but she wasn’t going to complain. She rolls her eyes in response, the only correct one at that.

-

That night, she found herself feeling pulled to journey down to the pub. It was on the Italian side and like she had acknowledged to Harry, she hadn’t been. She wouldn’t admit to anyone, especially not Harry, that his question had been what had pushed her towards the establishment when night fell. Yet, here she was. Her pants were dark red silk that matched the black tank top with red embellishments that she wore over her chest - the only part of her it really covered. Her boots were a matching black with gold metal bits, they were knock-off horsebit Gucci shoes, the closest she could get to the real thing with her modest budget. She was having to be more frugal lately, after buying her car here in September, she had really seen how little money she truly had.

The heels of her boots clicked against the cobblestones as she stalked up to the front of the bar. There was happy chatter seeping out the open door, the warm but dimmed light also flooding out along with the sounds of people within. Taking a deep breath and fiddling with the waistband of her pants for a second, she made her way into the bar. Stepping off the deep end and making the plunge. She knew there was nothing to be afraid of, but after months of not going there, she felt a little sense of apprehension now.

The warmth was the most surprising bit of the bar that she felt when she stepped past the threshold. Some Italian song was buzzing below the words of the patrons and she smiled at the automatic welcome she felt upon entering.

At the tables, there was a mix of younger and older patrons. At the bar, there wasn’t much of anyone. The young bartender leans across the bar to talk to another man, who had dark brown wavy hair and a dark linen shirt on. He’s seated at the bar and his back is to her so she can’t make out anymore than that. She doesn’t notice the myriad of tattoos gracing the patron’s arm that rests casually on the bar as he laughs at something the bartender had said, just for him.

She smiles, thinking it’s a cute little flirtation between the two and hates that she has to go over to break it up. Her movement gets the bartender’s attention easily and has the patron glancing her way as well. The smile she had once had falters off of her face and her eyes go wide at the realization of who she has settled herself beside. She had left a seat open between her and the man, but now she wished she had chosen a spot across the bar and simply flagged down the bartender. Better yet, she wished she had stayed home. As her smile falls away, Harry’s only grows wider. He’s grinning down at her as he moves his whole body to face her.

“Ciao!” The bartender starters, not noticing her discomfort at seeing Harry. He begins to ask what she would like in Italian, but her eyes widen even further. He’s speaking far too fast for her and she blushed in embarrassment. In her fluster, she forgets to even try French and she just stares dumbfoundedly at the handsome man behind the bar, who’s now looking at her with great curiosity. Harry has watched the entire thing and chuckles behind his glass. She has no attention span left to allow her to even try and guess what he’s drinking.

He interjects for her, actually saving her any more embarrassment, surprisingly. “She doesn’t speak Italian. She’s from the French side and new in town, so she hasn’t been able to refine her Italian.” The bartender gives a smile and nod of understanding in her way and she wishes she knew what Harry had just said. Whatever it is makes the bartender switch to French for her and her jaw goes from being dropped back into a normal position.

“What can I get for you, mademoiselle?” He transitions smoothly and she smiles, his French accent sounding practically perfect. She’s recomposed herself, but Harry is still watching her intently, like a reality television show that he can’t wait for the trainwreck finale to occur on.

After she orders, the bartender gives her a wink and then walks off to get what he needs to begin preparing her drink. Harry slides over, eliminating the courteous one seat between them. Her eyes watch the movement and she refrains from the letting out the sigh festering in her chest. She really had hoped he would not be here tonight, at least that’s what she believed. She truly felt embarrassed that the night after Harry had accused her of never going out, he had seen her out. But it also was nice not to be sitting in the bar alone. It seemed that Harry had been sitting alone at the bar before she had come in,  but she also wasn’t Harry and didn’t know how much enjoyment she would have  gotten out of being alone.

“I see my words had some effect on you.” He says out of the corner of his mouth after running his tongue over the bottom of his lip. Her scoff once again dies in her throat because she knows he’s right and he knows it too. There is no being proud right now. He essentially caught her red handed.

“Thought I’d come out and see what all the fuss was about. I see you’re alone tonight, but I assume that’s how most nights go.”

“You should know by now that is simply not true.”

“Just because you leave with someone doesn’t mean you come with someone.”

“I guess…” He trails off.

She picks up when he doesn’t seem to have any more of a response. “How do you even meet people here? Isn’t it all locals?”

“Not always. Not all of the people here are locals tonight,” He scans the crowd. “She’s visiting...So is she...that whole group actually. Look French. So we’ve got a group from Nice tonight…” He looks a bit more. “Eh, that looks like it tonight, but still. It’s plenty.” He finishes with a smirk and she grimaces, understanding the meaning behind his words.

The bartender returns with her White Russian, which Harry had cocked his head at, but had kept his opinion to himself for once. Expecting Roman to return to their conversation, Harry turns his attention back to him, but he is only greeted with the side of his head because Roman is still staring at Y/N. He coos something to her in French, that Harry can’t pick up and his nostrils flare when she emits a giggle following their exchange. The two people he was last talking to were now ignoring him to talk to each other. How rude.

After another moment without their attention, he huffs loudly. Roman seems too entranced in Y/N to notice, but her eyes slide over to him. “Yes?” She inquires, albeit disdainfully.

Harry isn’t sure what to say to her now that he’s gained her attention. He was on his second drink and her stare has made his mind go blank. All he had wanted was for her to stop flirting with Roman so that she’d pay attention to him. But he hadn’t thought of his next step yet. He takes a sip of his beer to grant him a little more time and she rolls her eyes at his action. His mind rattles through possible things to say, but every single one is coming up as not good enough.

“I used to be in a band.”

Her head tilts and she swivels more to Harry. His comment is unexpected and rather intriguing. She had expected something annoying or rude. Truly she had just expected him to say “Nothing” once he had swallowed his drink so he could distract her from enjoying her night.

“You were in a band?” She asks incredulously, her voice pitching slightly higher than normal. While Harry was many things, including handsome, she just didn’t think he had the right persona to be in a band. He dressed like a grandfather most days and he tended to a little shoe shop, he didn’t come off as a guy who would enjoy traveling around performing. The constant praise would be on brand though, she conceded.

Harry nods and bites back his smile, knowing he had struck the perfect chord. “I was...it only took off in the UK but we were pretty popular.” He boasts.

“So what do you play?”

Harry’s eyes widen, expecting more of a question about the name of the band or something. “Well, it was, like, a boy band…” He says.

She was taking a sip of her drink and she contained her little laugh behind her glass. Another hum as she swallows the liquid that burns her throat a bit. “Oh. Interesting. So no instruments.”

“Well I can play a bit of guitar and piano!” He adds quickly, seeing her eyes shift away from him, like she thinks the conversation is over. “I was thinking of trying a solo thing, but then plans changed...”

“And now you’re here?”

He echoes her, affirming the question. “Now I’m here and I’m not leaving.”

“You don’t miss it then?”

“Didn’t say that. I miss it at times, but this is where my life took me and I’m happy to be here. Maybe happier than I ever was in the band.” His eyes stare at the liquid in his glass and he swirls it lightly, determined to study the way it moves as he ponders something quite personal to him. He never really talked about his past with anyone here. Saying he was in a band and retrospecting that time are two very different things to share with someone. She’s just watching him now, not trying to make a quip or bug him. His demeanor shows that’s not something he’s very interested in hearing right now.

She experimentally puts a finger on his knee when it seems that he’ll never raise his gaze from his glass. His eyes move down to the tiny pressure he feels and sees her painted nail poking in to him. His tongue darts across his lower lip as he raises his head to meet her eyes. He notices the sparkle in them, she finds amusement in the childish gesture and so does he.

“I do miss the stage though,” he admits, smiling more now. “Performing. It was like nothing else.” Instead of a sad state of mind, his look is far more wistful now and she actually feels the smile growing on her face.

“You’ll have to sing for me sometime, then.” She says resolutely after taking the last bit of her drink and then pushing the glass across the bar. Roman had wandered off, much to Harry’s pleasure, but now they both needed another round so she was looking for him.

Harry slides over a chair so that they’re sat side by side. He had originally done it to reach across her for a napkin, but then hadn’t retreated to his original seat after he was successful. They talk as they drink, but most of it seems to be flirtatious teasing even if neither of them recognize that fully. Harry just wanted her attention earlier and now he found that he wanted to keep talking to her all night. It was a Friday and usually he would be looking for someone to take home. The group of women at a table that he had observed were visitors would be a perfect place to start his quest, but that wasn’t on his mind. He liked watching the different shades of blush Y/N’s face kept turning as she drank more and how silly she was getting with each passing drink.

She was enjoying her time out, she had only gotten wine drunk in the confines of her little home since she’d been in the little border town. And that endeavour was all by herself. It was much more fun when you had someone to talk to, so joking around with Harry was a nice surprise. She no longer felt embarrassed about showing up after he had teased her for never going out earlier today. Now she felt empowered, like she could come to the bar whenever she pleased. He was nicer than she had realized. His hand was quick to encircle her back respectfully when she laughed a little too hard at a joke and began to tip off her stool. His smile was genuine and his eyes didn’t flit over her body more than once. His jokes were funnier than she had first thought or maybe that was just the alcohol clouding her mind, that one she wasn’t sure about. But, truthfully, Harry was exceeding expectations tonight and being a stand up human being for once, in her eyes.

A couple at the end of the bar, locals, watched on as the shoemaker and the bookkeeper threw back their heads in boisterous laughter and placed their hands on each other chastely. The older women smiled to themselves as Y/N smacked Harry’s bicep after an especially cheeky joke he told her. They were going to have a field day with this interaction once they told their friends tomorrow morning.

After drink three, she definitely felt drunk. Not completely out of it and can’t walk drunk, but I haven’t drank anything stronger than wine in months so three cocktails are kind of hitting me drunk. And because of that buzz that’s enclosed her mind and body, it makes perfect sense to her that Harry’s hand is resting casually on her knee as they talk. It also makes perfect sense to her to cross her legs, causing two things to happen. Harry’s hand shifts up further on her thigh and her boot is now dangling right next to Harry’s shin. The fabric of his cream linen trousers look especially soft and so the next logical move in her mind is to rub her foot against the fabric. She hooks around her foot easily and the patent leather of her shoe slips softly against the pant leg that flows over Harry’s calf.

He hums lowly at the feeling, but makes no other notion to acknowledge what she is doing. After the hum he gets back to the story he’s telling her about his boat. She had been extremely interested in the boat initially, but not she was transfixed on the feeling of the fabric slipping past her boot. When he shifts his leg, absentmindedly or not, she almost squeaks because this movement has Harry’s foot brushing around her ankle. The footsy was occurring without any acknowledgement of it besides small sounds the two had made in their chests. No knowing looks, just the presence of each other’s bodies against one another.

He had switched to a Manhattan after his second beer for some reason that she didn’t ask, but he was enjoying it nonetheless. When she slipped her foot against his calf, it had sent a spark of electricity from the point of contact up to his alcohol muddled head. It felt nice so he went with it.

Around midnight the two of them were practically in each other’s laps, nursing their fourth round. Brains a million miles away while their glassy eyes stared at each other. Harry’s arm nestled around her waist while hers played with the stir stick in his glass. Their heads inches away, closer than they’d ever been before.

Somehow they decided they should walk home about then. Maybe Harry had checked his phone and decided he was done. Maybe she had glanced at the clock above the bar and realized she needed to go to bed. Either way, they slammed down the last bits of their drinks and stumbled into the street. With only each other to hold them up, they had some trouble gaining their balance. They could walk just fine if they wanted to be serious, but Harry kept trying to step literally on her toes and she kept throwing all her weight into his side. Both of their actions would cause them to stumble one way or another along the empty streets. Their blurred minds thankfully didn’t get them lost, but the travel time back to their places was far greater than the travel time to the bar initially.

Finally arriving at the border of Italy and France, their shops and homes, she stared up at Harry under the glow of the streetlamp across the street. His hair looked more dark brown than his usual caramel chestnut in the light. His linen outfit billowed across his pectorals that were exposed. A tan golden color that he seemed to maintain from his frequent runs and trips on his boat. His jaw had a bit more stubble on it now, his morning shave no longer sleek on his skin. His mustache was still the most prominent bit of facial hair he had and she wondered what he might look like without it. She also thought if she’d ever kissed a man with a mustache, her mind was pretty sure she hadn’t.

As she stared, she moved from his side and took a step closer to her door. His hand reached out and grabbed her wrist, stopping her and bringing her attention to his eyes. He dropped her hand and stepped closer to her. They had been laughing about some weird encounter she had in Nice the other week. But now their laughter had faded out, the conversation all but forgotten.

“Hi.” She says meekly.

“Hi,” Harry laughs.

“I had fun tonight,” she muses and takes a step forward. She began swinging her arms back and forth, rocking on her feet. She felt antsy now that it was so quiet. The silence made her realize it was really just her and Harry together right now. Which wasn’t unusual, they had been alone together plenty of times. Maybe it was the time of night, but it felt far more intimate to her this time which made her squirm a little. Why was she nervous with Harry right now?

Harry nods and laughs again at her actions. “Yeah, you’re not so bad.”

Neither of them realized the proximity of their bodies until her hand swung a little higher and hit Harry’s hip bone. “Oh! Sorry!” She moves to take a step back, but Harry grabs her hand once again and tugs her even closer. Bringing them chest to chest under the lamp light. Her eyes flicker between where their bodies touch and Harry’s face. He’s looking down at her sweetly, gently. She feels safe with the way he’s looking at her. The warmth radiating from him was a nice contrast to the dark cold of night. The open expanse of skin that lived between the two sides of his mostly unbuttoned shirt seemed to have the most heat coming off of it. He had a jade cross that hung between the two muscles and she almost reached out to play with it. If it hadn’t been so dark and she hadn’t been so inebriated she would have realized the color matched his eyes almost exactly.

He’s not quite sure what he’s doing, but for some reason it feels like he might kiss her. The mood that was set by their surroundings made it sound right. Romantic even. Her lips look precious too, plump and puckered, flushed from alcohol and the brisk night air. They look a little glossy too from the last time she had wet them. He wanted to feel them for himself. His head ducks to move his lips to touch hers.

Upon registering his movement, she moves her hand from his grasp and places it on his chest, causing him to take a small step back.

“I think...I think this should be goodnight, Harry.” She breathes out. She’s trying to clear her mind enough to have conviction in her decision.

After a little intake of air, less than a gasp, Harry agrees, running a hand through his hair, “Yeah, you’re probably right.”

Her hand slips from his warm chest, immediately curling in on itself to maintain the warmth his body had just provided. She watches her tendons in her hand ripple before looking back at Harry with heavy eyes. He doesn’t seem to want to make eye contact with her, but she’s determined to leave on a good note.

“Thank you, Harry.” He looks up from beneath his lashes at his name, like a shy toddler. “You gave me the push to face a fear of mine.” With her final words she crosses the little distance between them once again and places a chaste kiss to his cheek. Immediately, his cheek flushes and she can feel the heat beneath her lips, as well as the light prickle of his stubble. Harry swallows, causing his Adam's apple to bob quickly, at the contact. His senses get overloaded with the sweet kiss and the smell of her perfume. It all swims through his consciousness.

She smiles as she pulls away and then turns to let herself into her place without another word. Once unlocked, she gives one last glance to Harry who’s also busying himself with opening his door. She doesn’t see that his free hand is caressing over his cheek where her lips had just been.

-

The next day, she woke up and groaned feeling the stiffness in her body. Especially her head. Oh god, her head. It was like she was back in college, but worse because she wasn’t as young. At least she didn’t have to roll out of bed for an 8 am lecture. For that, she was thankful. Still, the pounding needed to stop or subside at least. Grumbling, she threw her legs off the side of her bed, the fuzzy socks she had slipped on in her drunken stupor settled on the hardwood. She dragged her body to her window and raised the shade. Her window was fogged from the difference in temperature outside and in her room. Kneeling down, she began to pull open the window, in need of the cool fresh air on her clammy skin. Three drinks, or was it four? She couldn’t remember, either way, it was too many.

Her eyes glanced around the view of the window. It wasn’t much since it was so close to the building right next door. Peaking up, she could see the already clouded sky. To the left she could see the street and to the right was more buildings. The scene most easily accessible was the window right across from her. The shade was mostly closed, a little bit of the floor could be seen where Harry hadn’t lowered it completely. It was just the same hardwood as what she sat on staring back at her. She sat there, breathing in the crisp morning air. After a night of drinking, she usually woke up rather early, today was no different.

It dawned on her, far too slowly, that a pair of feet had entered the plain hardwood scene she had been staring at outside her window. A tiny stage now filled with two matching characters. The pair of feet were tanned and large. Little tattoos seemed to be sprinkled both on the toes and the ankles of the feet. She couldn’t read them even if she tried. But upon realizing what these feet might be doing, she had been discouraged from staring any longer. Still, her brain was foggy and her body was not nearly quick enough to hide her from view as the owner of the feet did something to open his shade as well. Then, once again, like deja vu, she was staring at her naked neighbor. Thankfully, this time, he had briefs adorning his hips to keep covering the part of him that would keep her up for weeks trying to forget again. The briefs were, just that. Brief. Low on the hips and barely touching his thighs, it seemed they really only existed to keep that one appendage covered. Still, she had to tear her eyes away from the lower half of his body and let the embarrassment wash over her when she met his eyes.

The knowing smirk of his has him nibbling at the inside of his cheek. She had been checking him out. It was a nice confidence boost after last night. The awkwardness of her stopping him from kissing her had him spiraling in his mind when he went to bed. He didn’t know why he had even tried to kiss her in the first place, probably just because he was drunk. Yeah, he was drunk and feeling needy on a friday night. That’s what it was and she had been there.

He’d have to thank her today for putting a stop to that colossal mistake. They were barely just friends, he hated to think what would happen if he’d done something so reckless as to kiss her out of the blue. Still, he couldn’t shake the thought in the back of his mind that he had gotten the vibe from somewhere. Why else would his drunken mind tell him to kiss her under the glow of the lamp light. He thought back to the bar and what they had talked about. He wouldn’t categorize it as overly flirty. He thought back to their physical interactions at the bar, okay, maybe his hand on her thigh and her playing with his drink was a little flirtatious. But that could be boiled down to him being close to hear her in the bar and her idle fingers wanting something to do while she was drunk. The footsy, though. He wasn’t sure if he could explain that one away. Instead, he would choose to ignore it. If he didn’t think about it, did it actually happen? Was it something he had to worry about? Not in his mind.

Returning his focus to the girl in the window across from him, his smirk was now fully fleshed out on his face. She was still sitting on her knees as Harry looked down at her and if they were in the same room this might have seemed like a rather compromising position. Her cheeks were still red, noticing the difference in height, she clambered to her feet.

“G’morning,” Harry’s voice is groggy and deep. Scratchy almost from the alcohol he had drank last night. It rings through her ears lowly and seems to have her blushing even more. It’s a different feeling than how his voice used to make her feel.

“Hey,” She clears her throat before responding, not wanting her morning voice to crack in front of Harry. Usually she would talk to herself a bit or sing along to her music before going downstairs, not wanting her first customers to hear her as if she just woke up. For some reason, she makes a little wave along with her greeting, feeling especially awkward at this moment. Harry chuckles and repeats her motion. His large hands mimicking the same daunting motion makes her laugh and releases some of the nervous energy she had been holding in her body.

“Fancy seeing you here,” he openly flirts, placing one hand on his naked torso and the other against the frame of the window, leaning towards her. His movement flexes just about every muscle in his body and she keeps her eyes trained on his face, determined not to be caught gawking once more.

A roll of her eyes and she’s back to staring straight into his green ones that he’s still blinking awake. “It’s almost like we’re neighbors.”

He scrunches his nose at her deadpan. “You’re no fun,” he mutters.

She sighs, “I’m fucking hungover after last night…” and runs a hand through her tousled hair.

Her foot rests itself over her other, causing her hip to just out slightly. The movement of her body that accentuated her curves and her words have Harry blushing now. The red flowers at the center of his chest and begins to spread up his neck and cheeks. He’s once again presented with the almost kiss last night.

“Big night out for you,” he laughs, “I’ll admit I don’t usually drink that much, bit of a lightweight myself.”

She only hums in response, her fingers beginning to twiddle with the hem of her t-shirt. It reminds her of what she is precisely dressed in. The big t-shirt and tiny pajama shorts that Harry can’t even see are the only things on her body besides the socks on her feet. She glances down at her legs and takes in the expanse of fleshy skin that is showing just below the shirt. Harry’s eyes follow hers and admires the skin there, wondering what it would feel like underneath his big hands.

“I should probably start getting ready for the day,” She says finally, shaking herself from the random thoughts flitting around her mind about bare thighs and the man across from her. “Are you open today?”

Harry emits a noise from the back of his throat at her question. He draws his arm back from the window and stands up straight. His head tilts as he thinks about her question, his mind still muddled this morning.

“Er..no, actually. I was planning on going out on the boat today, switching my closed day to today instead of tomorrow. Why?”

“I’m in need of shoe repair,” she smiles, her eyes catching the glimmer of the sun starting to peak out. Harry swears it’s her eyes genuinely sparkling on their own accord. “But if you’re out today, it can wait.” She begins to walk away from the window to go to another room in her apartment.

“No!” Harry steps forward, but is restricted by the screen, which keeps him from falling out of his window. She swivels around, looking at him curiously. “I can - you can just come over. I’ll fix it up for you before I head out.”

“Really?” She’s truly surprised that Harry would do such a nice thing for her. She knew they were getting along better, but for him to open shop just for her repair seemed overly nice.

“I mean,” and Harry’s once again blushing under her gaze and he’s hoping she can’t see it. “What are neighbors for?”

“I guess,” she’s still unsure. He seems like he’s nervous, his body tenses and one of his hands twisted in his curls. Harry’s so weird. “Thanks.”

-

She jogs the short distance from her front door to Harry’s once she’s ready. The pair of deep teal almost navy loafers she needed new soles in - she was pretty sure - in hand. A red pinstripe blouse half buttoned falling over her figure perfectly, hugging the right spots and flowing over the others. She’s in white jeans today that are flared slightly but also cropped. As it gets closer to Halloween she keeps having to remind herself not to dress festive and it’s a struggle everyday.

When she reaches the door, it doesn’t open. The cream door doesn’t budge as she tempts the handle with her free hand. She looks between the handle and the inside of the shop. Her eyes search for Harry’s figure. She had been inside his shop only a handful of times, never for a repair before. Maybe less than a handful, once to check it out and once again when she thought she needed a new pair of shoes and then decided against it. Oh, and that one time she went over to yell at him about something. Maybe the planters, maybe the shade, she couldn’t remember anymore.

Now that she thought about it, she had been in the bookshop once more. Two and a half years ago when she had visited the little border town for the first time. It was a little fuzzy for a memory, but she was sure she had at least peaked into the shoe shop after her lengthy visit with Marie the second day there. It looked just as it did now, maybe it used to be a little more vibrant, but she couldn’t be sure. She remembered an older man in the shop greeting her in Italian and her offering her sad ‘Ciao’. Back then she was even worse at Italian. He had looked at her with kind eyes and a sweet smile. It was a similar lopsided grin that she had now grown accustomed to on another man’s face. After beckoning her over to him the old man had turned away from her and shouted into the back of the store in quick Italian. It blew over her head completely. There must have been someone in the back of the shop who he had talked to. She was sure of it, because after she had perused the cute boots and shoes he kept, she saw a swish of hair coming around the counter. It was just as she was turning around to exit the shop, after she had bid farewell to the man she now connected as Joe. Whoever it was had long hair and was tall, slinking out into the main shop floor. The mysterious stranger was whoever Joe had shouted to in the back.

Y/N wasn’t the quickest when it came to timelines and how people could change over time. She didn’t connect the year she had visited with the year of someone else's arrival or the same chestnut waves cascading around someone’s face, just now much shorter. It made perfect sense who would be in the back of the store, but for some reason the idea of time and hair length were standing in this girl’s way. Oh well, maybe Harry would spell it out to her someday.

Harry finally rounds the counter that separated the back room to the front. The shoe shop was set up a little different from the bookstore. Her counter was right when you came in while Harry’s was about halfway through the shop. He shakes his head and laughs at her expression. The sound brings her out of her memory as well as a grimace on her face.

“Sorry, I was a million years away.”

“I’m pretty sure it’s ‘a million miles away’, love.” Harry continues chuckling while correcting the girl in front of him.

She holds up her pair of shoes, ignoring his teasing. “Fix my shoes, shoe man.”  

His smile drops and he walks back from the door. His feet taking back steps as he beckons her into the interior of the shop. When they reach the corner, he takes the shoes from her hands and places them between their bodies. The teal loafers stare up at them. Harry inspects them, a serious expression falling over his features. His brows scrunch together slightly, the wrinkles in his forehead growing more prominent as he examines the shoes. Large hands reach out and begin to finger over the patent leather on the top and the leather soles. After a few minutes of silent deliberation, he places down one of the shoes and then holds the other up as if to showcase it.

“These,” he juts out the shoe in his hand, “need new soles. What did you do to ‘em?”

“I wear them a lot.” She insists while Harry looks on quizzically.

“I’ve never seen you wear these.”

Her brow quirks at his comment. “I wore them a lot before I got here,” she corrects. “They’ve been feeling wonky every time I try to wear them, must be because they need new soles.”

Harry nods, now satisfied with her answer. He hums, regarding the teal shoe in his hand once again. “Alright.”

She looks at him confused once again. “Alright what? Can you fix them?” What does he mean by ‘Alright’? “I’ve honestly missed wearing them these past few months.”  

Harry bites his tongue, a quip ready to be voiced. He’d gotten so used to fighting with her, he was confused how it had slipped away all so easily. His fear of them not talking if they stopped fighting didn’t seem to come to fruition so he could rest easy on that front. But now he was going to have to retrain his brain not to be rude after every comment Y/N made.

“Yeah, of course.” He sighs, placing the shoe next to its mate and then turning his face to her. She had been chewing on her bottom lip, actually worried for her shoes. They really were her favorites. She’d had them forever and it would be heartbreaking if they had to be thrown out. If she couldn’t wear them though she was almost sure she’d just let them collect dust in her closet rather than dispose of them if it really came down to it.

“But it’s like a good amount of my day to replace soles…”

Her face falls, but she tries to hide it. She knew Harry was doing a favor by taking a look right now. If he could fix them it didn’t matter when he did it. What he says next though truly throws her off. No normal enemy-ship turned somewhat friendship overnight would engage in what Harry was about to propose. If any such relationship other than her and Harry actually existed.

“Do you want to come out on my boat today?” His brow arches, his lips in a soft smile, he’s being genuine.

“Why would I do that?” Her brows raise along with her voice, taken off guard by his suggestion.

“More fun waiting for me to fix your shoes on a boat than in your shop.” He says simply before taking the shoes and placing them in a little cubby hole behind the counter for safe keeping. “Trust me, you’ll love it.” Her expression doesn’t change. “Just say yes,” He pleads now.

She sighs, “Fine.” All of the reasons not to go out on Harry’s boat are at the forefront of her mind, but she still finds herself saying yes easily. His pleading really wasn’t necessary to get her to agree. The bookstore could live with being closed today, it wasn’t going to hurt anyone.