#i emailed my references as well to check in w them......

[nohkalikai]

i'm bummed out. it was a volunteer position but it would have been such a good opportunity to gain both clinical and outreach experience in the NHS....IN MENTAL HEALTH

[anqelically]

IKIGAI | OSAMU DAZAI X FEM!READER

002. FLIGHT JA815S

CHAPTER SUMMARY: An airplane is in need of saving because of the Azure Apostle, so the agency saves the passengers with the help of a young girl on the flight

CHAPTER WARNINGS: None

WORD COUNT: 1.7K words

SERIES INTRODUCTION | CH1 | CH3

FOR THE NEXT HALF HOUR, Y/N was working as if it were a normal day, even though there was seldom a normal day at the agency. An ideal day, one would say. She sorted through some paperwork and checked any e-mails as they came in.

She noticed how a few of them were insulting the agency for their previously failed rescue of four innocent people. That incident is what led Kunikida to be in the headlines of the local newspaper.

After people recognized him as an Armed Detective Agency member, some took time out of their day to stand outside of the agency to yell or throw things at members. Y/N could recall how her eye almost got hit by a small rock. She was glad that Ranpo was there to block her face and catch the rock with his hat.

All the hate e-mails were immediately trashed, but the senders remained unblocked. Even if they insulted the agency, they were still people of Japan. And as long as they were, the agency would try to help them if they needed it.

Y/N thought they received another complaint when her laptop dinged. She checked the e-mail to see that it was not a complaint, but a message from the Azure Apostle himself.

She was quick to call over the closest worker, "Oneesan, look!"

Dear Sir,

I am contacting you to discuss a third request. Passenger airline flight JA815S is currently midflight. I have taken the liberty of sending an interference signal to the aircraft's engine and yoke that will disable their functions. I would like for you to remove the device from the aircraft and save the passengers. Thank you for your understanding.

Yours sincerely,

The Azure Apostle

Yosano looked over Y/N's shoulder to read the message that seemed to be directed to Kunikida, considering that he was leading the case and neither of them would be referred to as "Sir".

"More? You have got to be kidding," the woman groaned. She pulled out her phone to contact Kunikida. "Y/N, can you trace the email to the sender's location?"

"I can try," she began to type, "but you know I'm not good at stuff like that."

As the woman predicted, she failed to trace the location from where the e-mail was sent. She was able to send the message to Kunikida, but that was something anyone at the agency could do easily. However, setting up a three-way call between three completely different devices from her computer seemed to be something Y/N could do, and the others couldn't.

A video call from a passenger on the targeted airplane made it through to the police. Since the Armed Detective Agency was in charge of the case and not Yokohama's police, they transferred the call over to Y/N's computer. From there, she was able to talk to the little girl on the screen.

She had to be no older than 9 years old. Her brown hair was cut into a short bob, and her teary eyes peeked out from underneath her bangs.

Yosano and Ranpo sat nearby as Y/N talked with the little girl. The group of detectives watched her tremble as she stared into the camera. Although they could see her, she could not see them.

"Hi, I'm someone from the Armed Detective Agency. My name's Y/N, what's yours?" Y/N began the process of adding Kunikida's phone to the call on a separate monitor.

"Ch-Chiyo," the girl responded.

"Here, let me turn my camera on so you can see me," Y/N's face appeared on the screen beside Chiyo's. She gave the young one a soft smile, "Chiyo-chan, I need you to tell me what's happening. Can you do that?"

"O-Okay... Well, um, Mommy w-wasn't feeling well, so I'm talking f-for her. The p-plane is falling... s-so fast... Everybody's screaming-" a feminine-sounding yell cut her off. Chiyo jumped, "I-I'm scared. Please help!"

"Help is on its way, I promise. Just continue talking with me, okay? The more I know about what's happening there, the faster we can make things better for your mommy."

While Chiyo continued to describe what was going on, Kunikida's phone joined the call. A box with his name popped up on the screen, indicating that he and Dazai could listen and see both Natsuo and Chiyo.

"Did the pilots, the people in charge of the airplane, say anything else?" Y/N interrogated.

"They s-said the engine stopped moving, and th-the steering wheel d-doesn't work anymore, either."

"You hear that, Kunikida?"

"Yes," he spoke, "I heard. Doesn't sound good, obviously."

"Are we gonna d-die? E-everyone says we're gonna die... I'm scared. Mommy's not moving or a-answering me. P-please, please help us.." Chiyo cried further.

Y/N was going to try to comfort her, but all the words she wanted to say died in her throat. She was never good at comforting others, especially since she couldn't even recall the feeling of being comforted as she grew up. The warmth of comfort was something she felt only after she joined the Armed Detective Agency. But even so, she still wasn't good at providing it to others. "You'll be okay" and "It will get better" can only work so much.

Unexpectedly to Y/N, another voice joined the call, "Hello, little one. Can you hear me?"

"Y-yes."

Dazai then continued, "We here are airplane experts. There's nothing to worry about anymore. We're going to fix the plane. What's your name, little miss?"

"Chiyo."

"Chiyo, everything's going to be okay. Got any snacks with you?"

"Mommy g-gave me this piece of candy."

"Candy, huh? I love candy, too. It's so sweet, and it really helps you relax, doesn't it?"

"Dazai-" Kunikida's voice was cut off.

"I've got this..." Dazai sounded confident. "Chiyo, first, I want you to really take your time enjoying that piece of candy. After that, I'm going to need you to take that device you're talking into and bring it to the captain's room. Do you know where the captain's room is?" Chiyo wiped away her tears and nodded. "Don't worry. There's nobody screaming in there, and I bet your mommy will be feeling better in no time."

"B-but I... I can't go alone. I can't leave Mommy behind."

"Hey, Chiyo-chan, do you remember what I said earlier? We're here to help you, your mommy, and everyone else. I just need you to bring what you're talking on to the pilot of the plane. Can you go there and give it to them for us?"

The brown-haired girl stared at the side for a few moments before she took out the candy she said she had. She shakily placed it in her mouth, her hands still trembling as she picked up the communication device. Chiyo began to walk towards the cockpit.

While she walked, Y/N spoke to the other two on the line, "Do you want me to stay on, or do you think you guys can handle it?"

"Oh, we can definitely handle it," Dazai spoke. "But once this is all over, I never wanna partner with Kunikida again. Wanna pair up with me instead?"

"Enough with the unrelated talk! The case always comes first," Kunikida scolded.

"Oh, come on~ I'm trying to lighten up the mood."

"The mood is the way it is for a reason."

Y/N chuckled, never responding to Dazai's question, "Well then, I'll turn off now. Just ring me if you need anything from us here. Please stay safe, okay?"

"Of course."

"See you later, Y/N-chan."

Letting out a breath she unintentionally withheld, Y/N leaned back in her chair. Although most people would overlook it, she did not. After meeting Dazai earlier, Y/N didn't expect him to talk to Chiyo so easily. He was able to comfort her and have her bring the communication device to the pilot in one go. It was common for someone to comfort another, yet Y/N felt embarrassed that it was difficult for her to do so.

"Don't think about it," Yosano's voice reached Y/N's ears. She looked at the older woman, who continued, "Not everyone is good at everything. There is always a multitude of weaknesses within a person. There's no need to be embarrassed."

"You're reading my mind again," Y/N whined, her hands covering her face.

"You're easy to read," Ranpo cut in, a lollipop in hand. "You make all these facial expressions every time you feel something new. Your eyes soften when you're happy, you furrow your brows when you're sad, and you tilt your head when you're confused. You're very animated in general."

"Don't worry, we'll work on your poker face," the doctor rested her hands on Y/N's shoulder. "Otherwise, we can't ever play, and that's just a shame."

"Even if I don't know how to play, isn't it bad to gamble in the first place?" Y/N raised a brow.

"We gamble paperwork and, rarely, drinks. It's harmless."

"But I've never seen Oniisan lay a finger on any paperwork..."

Ranpo smirked, "That's because the greatest detective never loses."

"For now," Yosano challenged. "I'll beat ya in a game when you least expect it."

"Is that so? I might retire when the time comes."

"Isn't Dazai-san really smart too? What he manages to beat you, Oniisan?" Y/N questioned.

"No way."

"Long shot."

The youngest murmured, "That was fast."

Some time passed before Ranpo suggested, "Let's go bother the president. Hello~! We're here!"

Y/N and Yosano deadpanned when the detective slammed the door to Fukuzawa's office open with no shame. They briefly glanced at each other before they sighed, following the man inside. If Ranpo wasn't bothered to talk about the Azure Apostle, they were sure the problem would be resolved.

"Fukuzawa-sama!" Y/N greeted the man.

"Y/N," he acknowledged.

The young woman smiled before she sat down next to Ranpo. Yosano sat down too, and they fell into a conversation that lasted until Kunikida and Dazai returned.

They had a couple of bruises and scratches, but they succeeded in preventing the plane from crashing.

WRITTEN: 01/21/2023

AUTHOR'S NOTE:

i wanted to get this over with asap so i can start writing an original case that y/n and dazai are going to be taking care of. let's hope it turns out well 👍🏻

@seneon @chuuyrr @kentopedia @cloudwisp @aureatchi

[daedalusdavinci]

Eridave Fic Recs

im 99% sure ive already offered my fic recs for eridave but im going to do it again. i havent gone through the tag in a couple of years and it seems like its gotten more popular than it was back in the day, but heres my list of top fics

Lee Shore

by JumpingJackFlash (@jumpingjacktrash on tumblr i think?)

"I asked Egbert to ask you if you have Ampora's new contact information." "No, man, I didn't even know the old info was old. How can you not have a contact for him? It's not like he changed his chumhandle, email, and phone number all at once." "As a matter of fact, that is apparently exactly what he did. And deleted his Facebook and his photo blog." "Dramariffic." In the years after the game, the twelve trolls and eight humans have tried to stick together, because no one else would understand. When Eridan misses one of their yearly reunions, Dave makes an impulsive decision to go find him.

starting off so strong with THE eridave fic. i have reread this one very recently actually so i can tell you w complete confidence that this is the best one. this is THE one. if you only ever read one eridave fic make it this one. and then come back and read mine no but like im being so real rn its so good. eridans pretentious and a dickwipe and juuust whiny enough and daves complete no bullshit attitude with him works so well. their dynamic is peak in this, like. its everything.

Prince Unicorn (If There's Anything More Important Than My Ego Around, I Want It Caught And Shot Now)

by spritezee

After years spent mastering his job-hopping skills on the interplanetary level, a combination of chance and fortunate family ties lands one Dave Strider a job as a personal bodyguard to Eridan Ampora, prince and heir to an almost unparalleled fiscal empire. He assumes it’ll be just another job he’ll be able to leave behind when the time comes, another story to tell on slow nights where the man with the most tales is the king of the universe, but as all things in life, nothing is ever quite that simple.

spritezee writes some of the best eridave fics out there. this one in particular is my favorite. its not only a space au but its really a love letter to the scifi genre and you can tell just reading through it that a lot of care went into the worldbuilding. dave and bros relationship is a total mess in a way thats honestly really interesting, and zee always writes a great dynamic for eridan and dave. plus, you HAVE to admit thats a great fucking title

Little Brother

by spritezee

When John asked you if you were feeling any better yet earlier you told him you were fucking lonely as balls and considering changing your occupation to prostitute so you could find your own personal Edward Lewis to pay you loads of money for standing around and looking pretty. Then you told him you’d always wanted to have sex on a piano, so it’d all work out fine. The reference went straight over his head, which in hindsight should not have surprised you in the least because Pretty Woman isn’t really John’s usual genre, and even if it had been it’s not anywhere near obscure and shitty enough to catch his eye. When Rose asked you the same thing a few minutes later you told her you discovered the small store at the far side of your street carries penis-shaped candles and that you now swore by watching them slowly burn down right to the waxen ballsack as a therapeutic relaxation technique.

again, always a great eridan and dave dynamic w this author. if it wasnt really clear by the summary, this fic in particular is fucking hilarious and dave and his wandering metaphors are a lot of fun in it.

other than that, tho, all of my recommendations are just going to be more of spritezees fics, so i REALLY recommend that you just save me the time and go check out their stuff yourself. if i ever delve back into the eridave tag ill make sure to let yall know if i find any bangers

[asknarashikari]

Sorry, I might have accidentally ventured into your mainblog while looking at some Rider tags... and have read some of your latest posts... If you want some catharsis, i'd like to refer you to search on youtube 'toodaloo" and her videos makes me wish I could also do that to my workmates.

in another note here's some, admittedly, unsolicited question

Does reporting her to HR not wield any results?

Long rant ahead

At this point I'm pretty sure HR getting involved will do nothing because this person (let's call her W) been getting away with stuff like this for as long as any of us can remember.

Not only does W get in much later than everyone else, she also takes long lunch breaks and is away from her workstation for long stretches of time, often without telling us where she's going, how long she'd be gone or even checking if she'd done everything she needs to do before she goes. It's gotten to the point that nearly all of us on the team joke about how W being present for work or not changes nothing because she never does the daily tasks that she's supposed to in a timely manner.

W's unprofessional behavior is well-known not only in our department but also in other departments (the ones we work closely with), because when they can't find her for something they need, all we can say is "sorry, we don't know where W is".

Worst of all, W does this all knowing that everyone including our bosses know. Honestly, I'm starting to believe my dad's (unfounded) theory that she has connections with someone high up in the company, because there's no other way she can get away with such brazen behavior without fear of getting fired.

One time, W not doing her daily tasks and/or passing them off to others prompted our team head to write a very pointed email reminding everyone exactly what officers like her should do by what time. I've had to shove that in W's face several times already just to get her cooperation.

Oh, and turns out, some of the stuff W passed on to us assistants, we don't actually have clearance to do.

One time I did this, our boss caught it early, and reprimanded me for it. When I explained why I did it (it was required for a document we needed to give a client), she taught me to do it properly- which ironically, was also W's job, since part of an officer's job was to train assistants to eventually become officers themselves.

And even simple stuff like telling us that she'll be on leave she can't even be bothered to do properly. Earlier today even our team head took a jab at her by announcing to us that she was on leave (again) by loudly wondering what she meant by 'not feeling well' (her excuse for not being at work). Honestly, we're not even supposed to go on leave in December since it's our busiest season, but every year I've worked as her assistant she took several weeks off, if not the whole month.

So yeah... if I have to involve HR in this, it's because I'm filing my resignation and handing in my exit paperwork. And you can bet I won't make it a secret that she's the reason I'm leaving.

[ghostlyvelvetheart]

Idea 3: Pizzaplex is an engineering disaster waiting to happen.

An idea that I don't see brought up that often, is the idea that the Pizzaplex is not constructed well.

Remember in FNAF 6 when the tutorial unit said this?

"There may be times when you purchase something of questionable quality, and we don't blame you. Cutting corners is just good business."

Keep this statement in mind while I bring up my next point. As someone who's taken an engineering class, when you are constructing a building, there are a VERY large number of codes (rules) that you need to follow for every conceivable part of it.

Fazbear Entertainment would probably find it a lot cheaper just to pay off the people inspecting the plex than to actually put money into making sure everything is up to code.

They would also try to construct the building as cheaply as possible, trying to "cut corners" wherever they could. They use substandard materials and contractors that don't double-check their work. They built the mall itself over the subterranean remains of their old restaurant, despite this making the ground very unstable.

This all works in my mind because Fazbear Entertainment has been proven to follow the "be as cheap as possible" and "maximize profits by any means necessary" approaches many times in the past.

Here is just one example of a code being violated, according to Section 1006.2.1.1 of Utah Building Codes, "Three exits or exit access doorways shall be provided from any space with an occupant load of 501 to 1,000. Four exits or exit access doorways shall be provided from any space with an occupant load greater than 1,000." We only see 2 public exits in the game, and the Pizzaplex likely holds well over a thousand people at any one time. What's worse is that one of the exits, the only one designated for emergencies, requires a VIP pass in order to be used.

The building also doesn't appear to have ANY fire extinguishing systems, or at least not enough of them considering the pizzaplex burns down in 2 of the endings. In one of those endings the entire place is destroyed after Glamrock Freddy sets some plushies on fire in some random gift shop. This just shouldn't happen, at least not that easily.

If Fazbear Entertainment is willing to do this to cut costs, who knows what else they have done?

It's why, in my mind, I don't have Gregory live at the pizzaplex after the 3-star ending. Freddy would calculate that it is statistically safer for Gregory to live in his box than at the plex. He instead lives with Vanessa, creating opportunities for them to grow closer.

BTW This has happened in real life, even down to the shoddy construction and profit maximization. It was the Sampoong Department store collapse. Link

Some things I want to consider beforehand: how long had Ness even been stuck at the megaplex for? Did William let her go home ever or even pay rent? Did she have roommates, or perhaps, a lover who she stayed with (yeah, I'm referring to Luis here.)?

Assuming the last one so that she has a place to stay, because otherwise, Ness and Gregory may both wind up in a cardboard box (hey that's a new idea).

Taking Gregory as far away from the disaster waiting to happen as possible and Gregory getting not only a mother, but also a father in the process, is what that kid needs. Sure, he has Freddy already, but the shilling of overpriced junk food is not good for a child's health in the long run, and sometimes rules (specifically shady company policies, which Fazbear Entertainment is notorious for) need to be broken, and Freddy isn't a fan of breaking rules. (Assuming Luis is the guy behind the arcade conspiracy message, but also based on his emails in AR) Luis on the other hand is fine with bending and breaking rules if it's for the safely of others or generally for the better. Besides, an orphan getting three new legal guardians is better than one, and Luis being one of them it makes Gregory's parent-teacher evenings a bit less awkward.

Gregory's new parents would probably do everything they can to keep him from having to interact with Fazbear Entertainment again, because thankfully, somehow Gregory managed to get away with the property damage, and flukes don't happen twice. Ness and Luis would definitely pour a LOT of support into any Arts careers or anything not related to robots that Gregroy may think of pursuing. If or when Gregory does pursue something coding or robotics related (Arts and Technology intermingle a LOT. You can't have one without the other), they'd support him just as much, but also do everything they can to make sure nothing bad happens to him like with what happened to them.

[eepybubble]

OKAY PART TWO

i think then julie leaves?? WAIT SHE KICKS THEM OUT THEN LEAVES YEAH and goes back to her room? then she thinks bout texting flynn "what would you say if there were theee ghosts living in my moms old studio" before deleting it saying she would think she's insane

that might've been earlier sorry i don't remember-

then the molinas are having dinner, with a place set for rose. carlos says thank you for the meal, and they start eating before they hear tia coming so they quickly remove roses dinner place to hide it from her. tia comes in and says "oh spaghetti, again. well i brought a casserole for you i cant let you have leftovers every night but you can just have it tomorrow" julie says thank you to tia, who then walks over to julie saying "aw look at this see it's getting better, just gotta rip off that bandaid" referring to roses empty table place. ray says julie has been cleaning out roses studio, but then the boys show up through a wall shocking julie so she screams shocking her family to which she responds "that's me aha ripping off that bandaid....ahhh" she whispers "you shouldn't be here" which tia takes towards herself saying she's only trying to help.

julie responds saying she should be at pilates, which tia says she "just wanted to be here for them, and now that you're (julie) out of the music program you can focus on classes that really matter" after no one responds she asks ray "you got the email from the school didn't you?" to which he says "yeah, we're still discussing it" then tia says something else and leaves

carlos asks julie if she wants to hear about sports but ray catches him saying "you're a good brother but that's not gonna work" causing carlos to leave so ray and julie are alone. ray then asks julie "so, why didn't you tell me" and she says "i was going to after dinner, really" and he says like "well you still like music don't you" and she says "i don't know, maybe?"

music begins playing from roses studio (the garage) and julie startled says she must've left the stereo on and goes to turn it off

she finds the boys in the garage playing with their instruments. she angrily stomps in front of them yelling to get them to stop playing. once they stop she says her family could here them, and the boys are excited that people can still here them even though they are ghosts. ray walks in saying he was just checking in on her, says what she was playing was pretty good. luke days "hey he likes our stuff, we're sunset curve" then reggie's iconic "tell your friends!" julie whispers "shut upp!" between her teeth and ray says hey i'll just trying help and make sure you're okay"

he sees the instruments and goes "heyy are these the old junk that was in the loft? we could maybe sell these, make a couple bucks" he touches them and alex says to stop touching his drums but bc they're ghosts ray cannot hear them

smth happens? ray leaves and julie says to the guys they can't play when she's not there, starts to leave outside the garage the guys show up, luke says they found a cool song her mom wrote, julie tells them her mom passed away, they apologize that they didn't know. they talk more, the boys have nowhere to go, julie says they can stay there for now. julie goes inside to bed

the next day julie goes out to the garage and finds the song her mom wrote on the piano, she spread it out sits down and starts playing it. ray, walking outside the garage hears her playing and singing; as well as carlos on the porch. by the end of the song the boys are standing behind julie without her knowledge. they poof out instead of trying to talk to her bc alex knew she needs space.

i just realized i accidentally went into the second episode here but im gonna leave it anyway

the boys talk about how amazing she was and wonder why she lied about playing piano. like thinks about asking her to join the band but then flynn walks past then crying. reggie - "was she crying too??" luke - "yes!! and nothings more scary than one girl crying than TWO girls crying!"

cuts tk flynn w julie next to the piano, flynn - "i've been up all night thinking about what i was gonna say and i might've drunken seven sodas to stay awake but i need to say this" julie - "flynn wait-" flynn "no. it's my turn to talk. you CANT give up on music, if you have up music that would be a curse on the world!! my life will be SO sad" etc smth along those lines then julie - "can i talk now?" flynn nods "i played the piano and sang for the first time this morning" flynn - "WHY DIDNT UOU SAY SO THATS AMAZING" julie - "your seven sodas kept interrupting /lh" flynn - "WE HAVE TI TELL MS HARRISON SO MH LIFE WONT BE THE SAD PICTUR EI JUST PAINTED FOR YOU" julie laughs a lil, flynn - "what made you play again?" julie - "i found this song my mom wrote for me" they leave~

[tipsylorie]

Dream Project Pt. 2 {title in progress}

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

A/N: Hello guys! Here is the second part of the story I have been working on. My friend @w-h-i-t-e-mochi had read this already and she commented that it might feel a bit dragging. So, Im sorry about that but I just tried to emphasise on how Jayceon Stone acts as her assistant. This is not yet proof read tho so, sorry again. But I came to realisation on how Lee Da Hee would make a great Liviana and to be paired with Lee Jun Ho as Jayceon. Therefore, if you want, they can be your character reference. 

Word Count: 2,300

Before Liviana got to her office, she was greeted by her employees with good mornings, and she greeted them all back with a smile and nod of acknowledgement. Once she arrived at her office, she was welcomed with the young man once again with a smile on his face. “Good morning Liv, I hope you had a goodnight sleep and your first schedule for today is supposedly with the Finance Department of the entertainment, but it seems like you should prioritise the meeting with your potential investor, Mr. Stone.”

Liv can’t help but chuckle with how blunt his assistant was as he immediately stated her schedule for today, so she just replies with, “Woah, what’s the rush Jer? Slowly. I agree on meeting with the investor first so maybe update them that after 45 minutes we are good to see each other at the Casa Royale Hotel. I just need to look through the contract again and see area for negotiation.”

Jayceon is a bit flustered with Liviana’s remark of him seems to be in a rush because this is the first time of him doing such job and he just copied what Dexter usually do as his assistant. So, his response went, “Sorry about that Liv. I just tried to be productive by not stalling any tasks that could’ve already been done. The contract is already sent to your email so just check that and I will call his assistant now. So please excuse me.” After saying the last line, Jayceon exited the office and sat on his desk just outside of it.

~30 minutes later~

“Would you like to come with me Jer?” Liv asked the young man as she exited her office.

“Sure, no problem. I already notified the Financial Department of the meeting being moved an hour later.” Jayceon replied with ease.

“Good job!” She said and high fived him. “Now let’s go.” She continued as she led the way to the parking lot where her driver and car awaits.

~At the Casa Royale Hotel~

“Over here Ms. Voss!” Dexter exclaimed as he waves Liv and Jayce to go to his direction. “Thank you for arranging this meeting Ms. Voss and please do have a seat.” Dexter said as he gestured to the seats vacant for the two and they sat as Dexter continues, “Unfortunately Mr. Stone won’t be able to be here as he is in a 1 week leave due to the transitioning of company rights. I hope that is okay as I am given the Power of Attorney as his proxy for today. He had trusted me that whatever agreements we will be having for today is as good to be his as well. So, no need to be concerned.”  He said the last line with a reassuring voice.

Liviana was taken back a little bit as she was expecting to meet the CEO himself, so she answers, “Oh, alright then. I can say by re-reading the contract before coming here is that it was really detailed and somehow stringent.” Liv’s remarks made the vibe feel tense as Jayceon starts to worry and his secretary noticed the faint change of his facial expression. Fortunately, the young woman who has no idea on what caused the sudden change of vibe smiles and continues to say, “But there is need to worry because I like it that way. It will help us keep things black and white and lessen misunderstandings so, I say we seal the deal right away!” She said the last line with enthusiasm and grabs a pen to sign the document. This made the young CEO relax his tense shoulders and gives a smile of recognition to his assistant that he is satisfied with how the meeting turned out.

The partnership was sealed with the final handshake between Liviana and Dexter. Then all of them bid their goodbyes with a last reminder from the older man that after a week, they will meet again to announce publicly about the merger. Liviana and Jayceon conclusively thanked Dexter and took their leave.

Once they arrived back the LV Entertainment building, Jayceon reminded Liviana of her meeting that will take place in 15 minutes.

“Thanks Jer, I will just grab the needed materials in my office. Oh, you can seat this one out because I don’t think I will need an assistant there. So, you can just grab an early lunch or Brunch if you still haven’t eaten your breakfast.” Liviana informed her assistant.

“But I can totally accompany you since it is my job, and maybe… I can give some inputs if you want.” Jayceon tried to reason because she can feel how Liv is being lenient towards him.

She can sense what her assistant is trying to do, and this made her smile, so she replies, “Do not worry Jer, I am not taking it easy towards you but I really don’t find the need to have you there. I can just message you when I need something or when there is something worth noting. But for now, you can just grab your lunch. Okay?”

Jayceon was satisfied with her reply, so he responded, “Sure Liv. Thanks. I will also just arrange the meetings for later to keep everything smooth sailing.”

This made Liviana say, “That would be amazing. Thank you.” She took her leave to proceed to the conference room.

**Jayceon’s Phone**

Message from Liviana: Check Break Even Analysis

Reply sent: Should I check it Liv, right now?

Liviana forgot to put her phone on mute so everyone in the room heard the chime of notification. This made her say, “Sorry guys, please continue.” Then she sent her assistant another message.

**Jayceon’s Phone**

Message from Liviana: No, I will just spam you of the things I need to do. So there’s no need for you to reply.

Reply sent: Oh, okay. Sorry.

Message from Liviana: I said, do not replyyy 😭

Message from Liviana: TLA each branch financial report last month in conjunction of the Entertainment

Message from Liviana: Bake some Choco Moist Cake for Julie

~After many messages later~

“Thank you so much everyone. We need to find solutions soon to add more income without jeopardising the operating expenses. So, I will be all open with suggestions in my email. Okay guys?” Liv informed her staff and all of them agreed then she ended the meeting.

~Back to her office~

“Why is there food on my table? I didn’t order anything.” Liv thought to herself when her secretary enters her office.

“I bought you some lunch in case you’re hungry. I am not sure what to but so I just bought sandwich and Iced Americano to play it safe. I hope it is fine.” Jayceon told her boss.

“It’s actually great! I totally forgot that I haven’t eaten my lunch yet. Thanks. This is actually my go-to food when I am having hard time to think what to eat. So really, thank you Jer.” Liviana told her secretary with genuinely.

Jayceon replies enthusiastically, “No problem, boss. Just doing my job!” He is about to leave then he suddenly remembers something, “May I ask something Liv?”

“Sure.” Live replied as she took a bite of her sandwich.

“With everything you sent me earlier, from the meeting’s notes to your friend’s cake, why did you still forget your own food?” Jayceon asked curiously.

“Yes, I think so. Are you planning on checking up the Academy’s different branches afterwards?” Jayceon asked his boss to confirm and inform that the schedule in the iPad seems incomplete.

It took a while for Liviana to think of an answer so she manages to say is, “Well, all I could think of once I get home is food, maybe that’s why.” She smiled to her assistant with face shows confusion with the lack of answer she replied so she just says, “It’s easier that way. Anyways, what’s next to our schedule?”

While Liviana is taking a sip of her Iced Americano, Jayceon enumerated the meetings that are lined up and this is followed by a question from Liv, “After all these meetings for today, does that end all of the Entertainment’s agendas for the week?”

“Yeah, why? Is there something wrong?” Liviana asked worriedly.

“It’s just that your ex-assistant seemed to forget to update the calendar since what I have now is relatively blank.” Jayceon stated as he looked through the tablet’s screen.

This made Liv ponder for a few minutes and came to a realisation, so she replies, “I believe it was purposely left that way since that is what I instructed her before she left. Hence, we can just leave it like that and have some sort of business trip tomorrow. I will message you the information once I got home because we need to go to the meeting now.”

Jayceon was relieved to know that there was no missing schedule, so he answered, “Sure, I’ll be right behind you Liv.”

After Liviana and Jayceon finished attending all the meetings for the day, she asked him to her office even though it was already passed his clock.

The young man took a seat adjacent to Liviana’s table and she remarks, “Hey, I think I will need your opinion about making the partnership with Stone Corp. public sooner instead of a week. Because I made some thinking the whole day and concluded that it would create traction for the Entertainment. I am not sure if you’ve already seen our latest financial reports that we are close to be in red – and barely breaking even.” Her face is contoured in full worries and anxiousness, she continues, “So I just want to know your opinion if I were to propose this to Mr. Stone, would it be alright or not?” She asked and nervously waiting for Jayceon’s reply.

“Honestly Liv, I don’t think you should rush this. Because one week is not a long time. The best advice I could give you is focus on the events that will happen, both in TLA and the Entertainment. Do not worry too much.” This response from Mr. Stone might come out quite manipulative but as Liv asked him with sincerity, this is the best answer he has based on his judgement with the overall situation.

The young woman took some time to weigh what her secretary just told her, and her reply goes, “Yes. Yeah, I think you’re right. I agree. Maybe let’s conclude for the day and meet tomorrow at the usual time here in the building to gather last minute things.” She informed her assistant, and both bid their goodbyes.

~At Liviana’s House~

“Let’s make the cake first and then eat dinner afterwards before checking all the reports for tomorrow’s trip.” Liv said as she tries to reason with herself.

Her closest friend Julie is having her 27th birthday tomorrow and she is currently supervising the branch of TLA where the Scholarship Audition Programme is going to be held, which is the Municipality of Paradigmia.  It is like the second main branch after the one in the City of Pneumarê. The main branch is the only one located in a city, however due to the development of the Tree of Life Academy the municipalities and provinces where other branches are located, it is becoming a progressive community which at a very near future can make them a city. If you are wondering on why the Final Audition is not going to take place in the city, well… It is because of how it was agreed upon on where annual inter-branch events will take place – and it is through spinning wheel where the names of the branches are written in random order. Therefore, she must make sure to visit Paradigmia at all costs tomorrow.

Going back to Liv’s closest friend, Julie Andews is also her longest friend who also supported her while she was busy integrating an Entertainment company to her family’s Academy. Ever since it was Anne who was more focused on handling the academics aspects, so it took quite a while for Julie to find a place where she truly suitable. Heck, she even attempted to do the financial aspect, but it took a toll on her. Then, one time strolling through the city’s academy branch, she saw the need to develop the extra-curricular activities not just for students who do it for grades but also those who wants to experience it. Especially when she realised that it would be vital for the integration of a Korean Entertainment Company. So, she drew up a proposal on how she plans to execute such developments and it was immediately approved by Liv. Liviana also doubled check it with her parents if such change would be okay and even though it took a week for them to agree, Julie was able to perform her plan without a hitch.

Okay, going back to the cake. After she baked the 3 layers of the heart-shaped cake for Julie she realised that she mixed a hell a lot of batter. So, she just took some of her leftover cupcake cups and make the rest of the red velvet mix into cupcakes. To Liv’s surprise she was still able to great 2 dozen of cupcakes, so she plans to give half of it to Anne as she also promised her a visit yesterday. Liviana successfully iced and decorated the cake and all the cupcakes after several hours, so she proceeds on putting it on her refrigerator to finally have her dinner.

Liviana freshen up before heading to her bed since it was a tedious work and cleaning earlier in the kitchen that made her sweat a lot. Before having her eyes closed, she remembers the reports she must re-evaluate this made her say, “For fuck’s sake.” After another 2 hours she finally got her sleep.

[End of Part 2]

[saebyeog-i]

bitter brews (i) | syh

“Johnny laughed again, eyes crinkling at the sides. Your mind wandered briefly to a half formed thought about how endearing that was. “Maybe so, but despite your efforts to make me an enemy, I think you’re actually a really good person. You even guessed my favorite coffee drink, so that has to count for something.””

genre | not quite a coffeeshop!au, (mild)slow burn, this thought about being an adversaries to lovers fic for six minutes

rating/warnings | a stupid amount of exposition about coffee plants, catch me throwing in the random recipes that have been my go-to for cooking during quarantine, is this angsty?, discussions of mental health issues {see tags for details}, overall mature content/themes {foul language, alcohol consumption, references & discussion of masturbation, awkward boners, future smut}, some soft moments, and some good ol’ tooth rotting waxing poetic nonsense fluff. Don’t expect too much out of this I just got tired of editing this part so I’m finally posting it.

word count | 19.6k (I meant for this to be a super long one-shot but it’s turning into a story in parts for the sake of ratings w h o o p s)

pairing | Johnny Seo x fem reader

writing playlist | Egotistic - Mamamoo, Black Swan - BTS, Sober - HYO, I Blame On You - Taeyeon, Heartbeat - BTS, Close to Me (Red Velvet Remix) - Ellie Goulding feat. Red Velvet

—

“So, what you mean to say is… you’re not coming? Like, at all?”

The bright yellow plastic of the rotary phone was slightly cool against your overheating skin, which was constantly veiled in a thin layer of sweat whenever you stayed on the farm property instead of the main house on the opposite side of the island. It was the first week of May, which meant it was already humid again. If it wasn’t the time for the daily afternoon rain showers, it might as well have felt like it was raining with how saturated the air was.

“I’m sorry, Bean, I just can’t get on a plane right now. I thought it would be fine it we stretched out the time between flights, but all my doctors are saying I need to just stay here between now and the birth, so…”

Your sister’s voice trailed off and you had to wait for a moment to be sure it wasn’t the poor reception for the phone call running across the four thousand miles that separated you— the four thousand miles that would continue to separate you for the rest of the summer.

You exhaled and twirled the aged spiral phone cord that could barely hold its shape around your index finger, staring at the concrete floor and scrunching your toes. “Well, I’m already here, obviously… do you… you want me to stay here then? Take care of stuff?” You asked hesitantly, already having a feeling of what the answer would be.

A crackly sigh of relief came through the other line. “Little Bean, you are the best, Yunho was worried about asking you to stay and man the farm for the summer harvest but I knew you would just offer! You’re the best like that, you know?” You gritted your teeth and forced a smile through, even though no one was there to witness it. “Okay, so we’ll ship out the supplies in the next few days. Yunho is gonna email you a list of delivery dates of materials for the projects he had planned for the summer and a few contractor contacts…”

Her voice warbled on, and you could only nod your head and vocalize an ‘mhmm’ every so often, listening to her rattle off instructions and information that you knew would be sent in an email too. You’d been looking forward to spending the summer with her— you hadn’t gotten a proper chance to visit for more than a weekend since she and Yunho had gotten married about two years ago— but it turned out this wouldn’t be it. You couldn’t blame her though; she was approaching the third trimester of her pregnancy. You’d do anything for her, even this, even isolating yourself on a farm for four months. Alone.

Not exactly the leave of absence you’d been hoping for from work, but it would have to do.

✧ ✧ ✧

This was supposed to be a vacation. A break. Some much needed time off, away from your job, your career, and your “normal” life. You told yourself over and over again you were looking forward to it. And besides, it would all be worth it, because of all the time you’d get to spend with your sister after so long.

And then she had to betray you by going and getting fucking knocked up, with twins no less.

Fucking happily married couples with their god damn healthy ass sex lives and family planning and wanting to raise children. What the fuck was that all about?

It had been so long since your last vacation. Years, in fact. So long, you had over two months of paid time off accrued at work, and back at New Years you’d made the preliminary plans to spend a month on the farm in Hawaii with her, bonding and just relaxing. Sure, it would require some manual labor for the business here and there, but mostly just to rest.

What a joke that turned out to be.

The farm in Hawaii. You know, the coffee farm your brother in law bought four years ago on a dare from your sister, because he said he could totally pull it off as a side hustle, and she said he wouldn’t be able to? Yeah, that one. Fast forward to today and the side hustle became a full fledged passion that roped in a good amount of the family into the business. Siblings, cousins, parents, all involved in different aspects of package design, social media marketing, distribution and wholesale— everyone except you, who stuck with your soul sucking job in advertising, the same industry your brother in law had since left behind.

The farm and roasting wasn’t an overnight success by any means, but in the last year the brand had really taken off in the craft coffee scene. After all, Kona coffee was well sought after, and one could only claim the name ‘Kona’ if it was grown on the same two thousand or so acres of land on Hawaii’s big island. You know, the same area of land you were living on for the remainder of the summer?

Right. The whole summer.

It was just supposed to be the month of May. And then it turned into May and some of June, when you’d asked your sister to make more concrete plans, and she kept brushing it off. And then the week before you actually got off the plane, you hadn’t booked the return ticket, because you were still waiting for her answer. And then the phone call, and now, this was… indefinite? No, that was being too dramatic; if anything, it would be up through the birth. Based on the number of projects Yunho had planned for the farm, through the remainder of the summer was how long everything would take. Just you and a little over five acres of land and the summer heat. The thought of an extended isolation had your breath catching in your throat, but the last thing you wanted to do was complain or call for help. Stubborn and proud, you wouldn’t have made the offer to stay if you didn’t mean it, if you didn’t think you could handle it. There was no way you were backing out now.

When Yunho had first bought the farm, it had been a rough first few years of refining the coffee plants that had been on the land and uncared for for a number of years, but the last two summers had provided a steady increase in the harvest yield. There was a small farmhouse on the property, with two small bedrooms, a shower, and a small kitchen and living area. A few miles down the coast was the nicer, newer condo that the business had bought, a multi-bedroom unit with some better amenities for when more of your family wanted to visit. It felt weird spending time there— it was too nice, too clean, and quite frankly you had enough to keep yourself busy with on the farm property, you’d rather not have to spend time driving back and forth every day. So you opted to spend most of your nights sleeping here, even though it meant only ceiling fans and no air conditioning.

The farmhouse had very shitty, very limited wifi and a grand total of three electrical outlets outside of what was used to power the oven and refrigerator. One of those outlets was, of course, dedicated to an espresso machine on the kitchen counter, which you had gotten acquainted with over the last two weeks. It was an older model and a little temperamental (the one at the condo was much nicer), but it was still from a decent manufacturer, and you could still use it to pulled a decent shot.

Most of the time you worked in silence, and most of the time you were never too aware of how much time had passed, other than when the sun went down and it was suddenly dark out. You weren’t always this absent minded, you swore— maybe it was a byproduct of being alone for so long—

A loud, high pitched whine filled your ears, followed by some scratching at the door that lead to the lanai outside. You sighed, standing up from the kitchen table and walking over to face the monster that had made it.

“What? What do you want now?”

Staring back at you from the the other side of the screen door was what you’d affectionally referred to as The Thirty-Three Pound Menace— the medium sized stray dog that your brother-in-law so conveniently forgot to mention had been living on the farm for the last few months. It had been waiting outside the farmhouse when you first arrived, and you’d learned from the neighbors that Yunho had taken a liking to the stray and had arranged for them to feed it in his absence. But now that you were here, taking care of the dog was added to your list of daily chores. It seemed to not want to leave the farm property unless actively accompanied by you, with the assurance that you’d be bringing it back with you.

With a roll of your eyes you hip checked the door open just enough to let the dog inside the house. It circled you several times, sniffing at your knees before sitting and panting, staring up at you expectantly. In the two weeks you’d been here, the majority of your conversations were between you and this, a being that couldn’t talk back. Maybe you liked it that way. “What, dinner? Fine, fine,” you grumbled, shuffling to the cabinet and pulling out a can of wet food.

Your meals had consisted of relatively simple dishes, but today you were cranky at the confirmation that your summer was not going to go as planned. Tonight’s dinner featured a bowl of cereal and a coffee mug full of cold white wine.

You ate in silence. You drank in silence. The only noise came from the hum of the ceiling fan overhead, and the occasional sound of the dog, cleaning its paws and laying by your feet protectively. Why it seemed so determined to win over your affection, you had no idea.

After sitting in silence with only your thoughts and the now sleeping dog to keep you company for what felt like hours and downing a second mug full of wine, you found yourself letting out a loud yell, startling the dog and waking it. In a fury, you pulled out the laptop you had for the sole purpose of checking once a day for emails from Yunho and connected it to the shitty, sub-par wifi with just enough patience to navigate to an airline’s website and search flights back to the states. You were looking for the cheapest, most reasonable one you could find. After all of five minutes of research and a quick round on mental math, you clicked on a date and hit the ‘book now’ button before you could second guess yourself, slamming the computer shut once the payment went through and shoving it away from you across the table.

“September 10th,” you grumbled out loud for only you and the dog to hear. Standing from the chair, the legs scraping loudly against the floor, you crossed the room and stopped in front of the wall calendar your sister had put up the last time she’d visited the farm just after New Years. You lifted a few pages and flipped forward to the month of September. Red marker in hand, you found the date and circled it rather aggressively, several times over. You looked down at the dog, watching you patiently with its head tilted. “You got that? I’m getting off this fucking island on September 10th.”

✧ ✧ ✧

The day your life fell apart came twelve days later just before nine in the morning.

Mondays were the delivery day, that’s what Yunho had laid out in his instructional emails to you. Your only source of personal transportation was an older jeep, one you didn’t enjoy driving, given that it had no top and needed some mechanical work done. So you’d made arrangements and had your groceries delivered on Monday mornings, buying mostly direct from another farm on the other side of the island, and they were always kind enough to act as the courier for whatever additional miscellaneous supplies you’d request, regardless of where they’d have to go to procure them.

There was a winding driveway that lead up to the house from the main road, and a larger, wider drive up a less steep hillside for larger vehicles for delivery. You were fully expecting the truck that lumbered up the delivery road and came to a stop just outside the barn which housed the massive coffee roaster and stored most of the processed green beans from harvest. Even though it had only been three weeks, there was a routine that had slowly been settling into place: the sound of the truck coming to a stop riled up the dog, the dog came running from wherever and started barking, you’d get your groceries and any other assorted items, the dog would get a treat because your delivery boy had a soft spot for the creature, and you’d pay for your goods. “Hey Jin,” you called out over the barking from the front of the barn, hands currently full with a sack of processed coffee beans you’d hoisted over your shoulder. “You can just leave the groceries on the porch, I’ll put them inside in a few. Did you manage to get me the bags of fertilizer and some wood stakes?” A loud thud sounded as you dropped the bag to its resting place on the concrete floor.

“I mean, I can go put these inside if that’s easier. And yeah, there’s ten bags to get us started, we can have more delivered next week if you still need ‘em.”

You whipped around to face whoever had just spoken, because that voice was most certainly not Jin.

He was tall like Jin, had wide shoulders like Jin, and his hair was kept just a bit long and looked ridiculously shiny and soft and like you could run your fingers through it like Jin’s. It was a lighter brown with some honeyed highlights running through it, compared to the dark brown almost black of Jin’s. You tensed, seeing him carrying a brown paper bag with a loaf of bread and the leafy green tops of carrots sticking out the top. He wasn’t looking at you, rather, he was far too occupied with bending down slightly and scratching behind the ear of the dog who was currently whining and wagging its tail at his feet. Some guard dog it was.

Without a second thought, you reached for the first sharp object you could find, which happened to be the box cutter you used to cut open the burlap bags the beans came back from the processing plant in. “You’re not Jin,” you said tersely, holding the utility knife by your hip defensively.

“Chill out killer, he’s harmless,” a more familiar voice called. Seokjin, your regular delivery driver whose family owned the farm you bought directly from, came into view carrying another two bags of produce and a small pile of envelopes. “Picked up your mail on my way up, the box was practically overflowing. Do you ever check that thing?” You’d first met Jin two years ago when you’d come to visit your sister and Yunho for a long weekend. He’d become a good friend of Yunho’s and was one of the people who would take turns feeding the dog when no one else was here.

Ignoring the unknown man, you relaxed your shoulders slightly and placed the knife down on the table behind you. “Thanks,” you grumbled, taking the small pile of letters from him. Admittedly, you hadn’t checked the mailbox since the day after you’d arrived on the farm, mostly out of sloth and spite. You sifted through the letters— mostly junk mail, with a few bills and notices relating to the business. You put those in front so you could look through them later, when you’d finished the physical work for the day. You tore one envelope open in particular when you noticed it was addressed directly to you and had your sister and Yunho’s Illinois address in the upper corner. It was a letter postmarked from two weeks ago, which struck you as odd, because what the hell would he bother writing in a letter that he couldn’t just send you in an email or a text or a phone call? You started reading aloud softly to yourself.

“‘My Dearest Bean… First of all I want to apologize for the change in plans, but with your sister’s condition her doctors just don’t recommend her traveling,’ God, he’s so dramatic she’s not terminally ill she’s just pregnant. Blah blah blah, I don’t care, you’re full of absolute shite, Yunho,” you began skimming through his lengthy pre amble, looking for the purpose behind the note. Without reading the middle you flipped the stationary paper over to see his handwriting covered the entire back of the page, too. “God, he’s so long winded. Oh, here we go, the very end— ‘I promise we’ll make it up to you, thank you for running the farm and taking care of Puppy, please be nice to Johnny and treat him well, he seems like a good kid.” You stared at the words written on the paper and looked up at Jin. “Who the fuck is Johnny?”

The man next to him cleared his throat and held his hand up. “Johnny! I’m uh, that’s me. You must be _____— I’ve heard a lot about you from Yunho! I’m Johnny Seo, it’s nice to meet you,” he said with a smile, reaching a hand out.

You eyed it but made no move to reciprocate the action. “Cool. You know Yunho. Lots of people know Yunho, he’s a huge fucking flirt, social butterfly of the century, the man never shuts up. Why should I be nice to you?”

He shifted on his feet and his outstretched hand retreated. “Oh. Uh. I’m uh, here for the summer,” he explained, sounding almost confused. “Didn’t— didn’t Yunho tell you?”

Your eyes bugged out and you looked over to Jin. “Jin who the fuck is this and why is he on my farm?” You whispered.

Your friend laughed. “You read the end of Yunho’s letter. I’m sure if you read the whole thing it would explain more. This is Johnny, and he’s here for the summer. He’s gonna help you out! I know the list of all the projects you need to finish this summer is lengthy, and plus look at the guy, he’s jacked! You could use the muscle for manual labor. More work for him, less for you, right? And look, the poor dog you refuse to give a name to even likes him!” Jin gestured comically at Johnny. You looked over, sizing him up some— Jin wasn’t wrong. The stranger was muscular on top of being tall, and under the capped sleeves of his tee shirt you saw his arms that looked the size of your head. The dog was still circling him, sniffing and begging for attention.

Johnny tried smiling again. “Yunho mentioned there was a lot of construction type work to do. I uh, had nothing else planned so he said I could stay on the farm for the summer and work in exchange for food and a place to sleep. I take it he uh, didn’t run that by you first, did he?”

Your grip on the papers in hand tightened and you felt your jaw tense involuntarily. “No, he managed to not mention that once to me. How did you even get here?” You hissed back.

“I picked him up at the airport this morning,” Jin answered calmly, “Yunho gave me a buzz a few days ago to ask if I could bring him here with this week’s groceries.”

“So he managed to arrange for him to get on a plane and secure transportation to the farm but couldn’t be bothered to call me and let me know?”

Jin only laughed, his eyes crinkling. “I’m pretty sure he knows you well enough by now to know that this would have been your reaction whatever way he told you.” Despite the kinship you’d felt growing between the two of you, Jin was Yunho’s friend first, and it only made sense that his allegiance would be to him first. Of course he’d side with Yunho on this matter. “And yes, like Johnny said I did bring a bundle of plant stakes and ten bags of fertilizer— they’re in the back of the truck bed.”

“Oh, I could get those—” Johnny started, moving to step towards the truck.

You could barely think straight. First they bailed on you unexpectedly to spend the summer on the farm alone. That was fine— you’d gotten that through your head, and had come to terms with that. But suddenly springing a plus one on you, without your consent? Absolutely the fuck not.

“Yeah. Don’t need help. Thanks,” you spat, grabbing the bags of groceries from him and brushing past, stomping your way back to the farmhouse.

Johnny stood frozen for a moment before stammering, looking from Jin to your retreating figure and back again. “I should— I should talk to her, right? Or do I—”

“Whoa, don’t think too hard there handsome, I can smell wood burning. Don’t stress about it. She’s just a little… touchy. Let me talk to her,” Jin patted Johnny on the back before heading up the path to the farmhouse after you.

You’d stormed into the house and slammed the groceries down on the counter and let out a screech of rage before picking up the receiver of the yellow rotary phone and dialing. Tapping you foot incessantly, you waited as it rang.

“He-llo~?” The singsong voice that came through the other end was far too amused with itself, more so than usual, and that’s how you knew he knew why you were calling.

“Jung Yunho you better be thankful you knocked up my sister because if it weren’t for the babies in her womb I would fly myself across the Pacific and flay you alive,” you seethed through gritted teeth.

In true unbothered fashion, your brother in law only laughed at your threat. “Ah, so I take it your employee has arrived safely! I’ll have to thank Seokjin for getting him from the airport. Can you give the Kims a pound of the special medium roast as a token of my gratitude?”

“No!” You yelled back, “No! I will not! I’m already beyond frustrated that I’m on this island alone for the entire summer, I’m doing this as a favor because we’re family! I’m not your slave, Yunho! Where was my warning, huh? When were you going to ask if I was okay with you sending some stranger to live in the same house as me, huh?!”

The familiar ache in your chest started to swell, and breathing became difficult. ‘Not now,’ you thought bitterly, ‘Please not right now-’

You curled your free hand into a fist and pressed your nails into your palm, hard, grounding yourself. Yunho’s voice on the phone blurred out and by the time his words started making sense again, you’d already missed what he’d been saying. “I’m not saying you have to like the kid, just show him some hospitality, yeah? You just said it yourself, you didn’t want to be alone this summer, and now you won’t be. I know you’re a good cook so that’s why I told him food would be included. Don’t worry, I’ve already sent some pre-payments to the Kims, so your grocery orders are doubled for the rest of the summer.” His voice went quiet for a second. You rubbed at your temple in frustration, squinting your eyes shut and forcing the mere thought of tears deep back into the recesses of your brain. “Bean? You still there?”

“Don’t get all pretend concerned, Yunho. And stop using my childhood nickname any time you want something from me.” Your voice was quieter now, the intensity of your emotions subsiding, but the betrayal you felt still running strong. “Fine. I’ll tolerate him. But there better be a case of wine in next week’s groceries to make this bearable.”

“Done and done! You’re gonna love him Bean, he’s really great. He’ll be good company.” The continued use of your childhood nickname from anyone other than your sister always gave you pause.

“I said tolerate not befriend. There’s a difference,” you clarified quickly. A knock at the door startled you, and you jumped and looked to see Jin standing by the front door, a roll of wooden stakes under his arm. You rolled your eyes and waved your arm to shoo him away, pointing at the phone pressed to your ear. “Look, Yunho, I don’t know what you’re hoping to see me get out of this, but if he drives me insane I can’t promise that he’ll walk away from this unscathed.”

His laugh echoed through the receiver and reverberated against your skin. “I just think it would do you some good to have some human interaction, that’s all. Your sister too. She says hi, by the way,” he added softly, “And so do the little ones.”

You scoffed. Yunho always brought up your sister as a way of diffusing your temper. He knew it would always work. “They’re still in embryonic fluid, they can’t talk and they certainly don’t have cognitive function.” Sometimes you wondered if even Yunho had that with the wild ideas that went through his mind.

“Ever the romantic, you are. You know, soon they’ll be able to think! And they’ll be thinking of their favorite auntie, and how much they can’t wait to meet her! So she can’t be arrested for murder between now and when they’re born, because babies can’t go to prison!”

“I’m telling your sister you said that,” you challenged. With an exhale, you did your best to let go of the frustration and tension inside and politely ended the phone call. You were trying to clear your head and collect yourself before heading back outside when you heard a yell that sounded all too much like Jin’s voice.

“What fresh hell—” you started, shuffling back outside in the direction of the commotion where you saw Jin, somewhat struggling under the weight of two bags of fertilizer, and Johnny, now with a baseball cap turned backwards on his head, easily hoisting a stack of four bags without slouching.  

Your eyebrow ticked up upon the realization that it was almost seventy pounds that he was slinging around like it was nothing. “Anywhere specific you want these?” He asked innocently, looking up at where you stood on the lanai just outside the door. You almost cursed him out when he blinked at you twice.

You pointed your left arm down the hill, the opposite direction of the way to the barn. “Shed. Next to the vegetable garden.” You wrinkled your nose at him. “And lose the hat. Or at least don’t wear it backwards. Makes you look like an ass.”

Johnny’s mouth hung open for a moment before he hummed and winked. “You got it, Boss! Come on handsome, if you can carry those good looks you can carry some dirt,” he called back to Jin, who was currently grumbling about how manual labor wasn’t a part of his delivery arrangement.

The hairs on your arm stood up on edge as you watched Johnny laugh deeply as he ambled his way in the direction you’d pointed. The thirty three pound menace next to you whined and wagged its tail, panting as it went from watching you to watching Johnny’s retreating figure. You looked down and made eye contact. “If I survive this, I’m going to kill Yunho.”

✧ ✧ ✧

There was no case of wine in the grocery deliveries the following week. The reasoning Yunho gave was that per Jin’s investigation, the liquor stores were all out of your favorite wine, so there was no point in sending you a sub par alternative. It was absolute crap, but you had better things to do than chew out your brother in law over the phone. Took way more energy than it was worth.

So far, Johnny was making good on his word and earning his keep. At first, you’d tried avoiding him as much as possible, intentionally waking up hours ahead of him and starting your day when the sun rose. You never made much noise in the mornings, the loudest thing you did was make coffee, and lately you’d opted for a pour over versus pulling shots of espresso. You weren’t personally one for breakfast, choosing just coffee and maybe a piece of fruit instead. This morning you felt a little hungrier than usual, so you thought you’d get yourself a bowl of cereal. Peering into your pantry, you saw that on the shelf where there had been a stash of cereal boxes, there was now nothing.

“Where the fuck are my cocoa pebbles?” You swore in shock, not realizing you weren’t alone in the kitchen.

“Shit sorry, I ate the last of those yesterday.”

You whirled around to see Johnny, still seemingly half asleep and with some gnarly bedhead, yawning and rubbing at his eyes. His lips were so perfectly pouty, one small part of your brain almost thought he looked cute like this.

But no, he wasn’t cute, he was a thief— he’d stolen all of your cereal stash. “Did you seriously eat through four boxes in a week?” You asked incredulously.

“It was three and a quarter! And yeah I don’t know, I’m always hungry and just one bowl of cereal isn’t filling enough, so I usually have two, or three...” He mumbled, voice trailing off as he rubbed a hand behind his head sheepishly.

You snorted. And then a thought came across you. “Johnny,” you said calmly, the feeling of his name on your tongue foreign and strange. Was this the first time you’d addressed him by name since his arrival? You couldn’t remember. “Do you not know how to cook?”

He hummed thoughtfully for a second. “No-pe!” He popped the p sound in the word. How was he this cheerful, even first thing in the morning? “I mean, I can like, boil water and cook pasta and stuff like that. I think I successfully grilled pork belly once, though it was probably doused in too much oil and too many spices. My college experience was funded almost exclusively on instant dinners and takeout for two years, and then for the second half one of my roommates was an actual chef, so, no one was allowed in the kitchen ‘cept for him.”

“Honestly, I am shocked that you haven’t perished in some tragically strange idiotic accident yet,” you sighed and shuffled to the fridge, pulling out a carton of eggs and a pack of bacon. You grabbed a frying pan from the cabinet under the stove and clicked the burner on, reaching for the oil bottle that lived on the counter top and drizzling some in the pan.

Johnny shuffled closer to inspect what you were doing and let out a gasp of appreciation. “You’re making me eggs and bacon?”

“I’m making me eggs and bacon,” you corrected, “But I guess I’ll make enough for you too,” you said as you peeled the strips off the packaging and placed them into the pan with a sizzle. You reached for a few eggs and cracked four into the pan directly, cocked your head at the amount of food, and then grabbed two more eggs and added them in before taking a fork and scrambling them all together, adding salt and white pepper to the bubbling liquid. You glanced up at Johnny, still watching you, slightly curious. “I don’t trust you. You say you’re an adult but you eat like a teenage boy still. There’s never any leftovers.” After a few minutes you flipped the strips of bacon over and then quickly chopped up a green onion and scraped it onto the scramble just before the eggs finished cooking.

Johnny watched you the whole time, and you felt only slightly uneasy under his gaze. When you turned off the stove after plated your food and stepping away to pour yourself some coffee and he didn’t move, you gestured at the pan in a fashion as if to silently ask him ‘What?’

“Oh!” He gasped out lightly, springing into action and plating the food for himself. You hadn’t bothered to sit down at the table, instead holding the plate in front of you as you leaned against the counter and ate. Johnny followed your lead, taking a bite and groaning audibly in enjoyment at he chewed. He smiled and his eyes shone, almost sparkling. You watched him curiously for a moment before he mumbled out “Your cooking is really good! It uh, reminds me of my mom’s. She’s a great cook.”

You kept your lips tightly shut at the apparent compliment. “It’s just eggs, you weirdo. Finish up and do the dishes. When you’re done meet me by the shed. Today you’re stripping off the old paint and removing any of the rotting boards and disposing of them,” you instructed while placing your empty plate in the sink. His tasks for the day were the next phase in slowly rebuilding the dilapidated shed on the west side of the property to make it useful for storage of all the tools you used to tend to the fruit trees and vegetable garden nearby.

He flashed a smile at you and gave a mock salute. “Aye-aye, captain, I am at your service.”

“Oh shut up,” you grumbled, downing more of your coffee before trudging off.

It was going to be a long summer.

✧ ✧ ✧

“I’m telling you Wendy, I’m going to need an alibi, I really am going to murder my brother in law.”

“What, for giving you live-in eye candy for the summer and hinting that he thinks you need to get laid?”

“Ugh, no, that’s not— hold up, you don’t agree with him, do you?”

The sound of your best friend’s laughter through the phone had you dragging your hands over your face and pulling down at your eyelids dramatically, as if she could see your reaction.

On Thursdays, you finished up your work for the day around 4pm so you could pull up a chair next to the rotary phone and make time for the weekly scheduled phone call with Wendy. She’d insisted on the arrangement after you went six days without texting her, which you’d insisted was because service was spotty, but she’d accurately called you out on being cranky and stewing by yourself.

You and Wendy had met during your freshman year of college. By graduation, you’d lived together for three years, and made a vow to move to the same city together post grad, hence why she was still your roommate now— or was, seeing as you were on the island instead of back in the two bedroom apartment you shared. There was a five hour timezone difference between Hawaii and Chicago, so you’d figured out a schedule that worked for both of you. The calls had a tendency to last for several hours, and depending on how much wine you’d drink while on the phone with her would include bathroom breaks and you inevitably swearing at whatever you were cooking for dinner than night.

“Honey, please. I love you. Dearly, and against all other advice, you’re my best friend— but you need to get laid. You haven’t been this tense since our last finals week of senior year. And clearly you’re not opposed to the idea of Eye Candy banging your brains out, otherwise you wouldn’t have described him as, and I quote, ‘dumb hot and stupidly ripped’. When are you gonna send me a photo so I have something better to work with?”  

“Okay but are you sure you’re not the sexually frustrated one here and you’re just trying to live vicariously through me?”

Wendy’s hum sounded through the line. “I mean, can’t we both be desperately horny and in need of getting some? It’s not ideal but it is possible. Plus, I’m not the one that didn’t pack her vibrator—”

You let out a whine interrupting her as you leaned back in your chair, swirling the wine in your glass a few times as you held the phone to your ear with your shoulder. “Shut up stop reminding me! I regret it but no I’m not letting you send me a new one, especially not with a guy living with me. Come on, my stories are boring, it’s the same thing every day. I wake up, I feed the dog, I tell him what to do and then I hide away doing my own chores. When are you gonna tell me more about that girl you were seeing— what was her name, Joo-something?”

“Nice try, we’re not changing the subject with my dating life. Seriously, babe, you should just think about it.”

“And what, make it awkward for the rest of the summer? No thanks,” you shot her idea down quickly.

“I’m willing to bet money you’ll cave before the end of the summer. Plus, who doesn’t love a good ol’ summer fling? And who says you ever have to see him again once it’s all over?”

As much as you’d loathe to admit it, Wendy had a bit of a point there. “Cute, but you and I both know I’m too high strung for a temporary fling. Plus, I’m not in the mood to catch feelings right now.”

“If I find a way to replenish your wine supply, would that help?”

You groaned dramatically once more. “Not with the sexual frustration, but with my overall wellbeing, yes, yes it would.”

Wendy squealed on the other end of the phone. “Ha! So you admit it, you are sexually frustrated!”

“Woman, when in the years that you’ve known me have I not been at least some kind of frustrated?” You acknowledged.

Your best friend laughed in agreement, understanding she wasn’t going to get much more out of you about Johnny, and began a lengthy and detailed story about her last three dates with a girl she’d met through a friend of a friend. As you listened to how her voice held a dreamlike quality to it when she talked about her, you couldn’t help the pang of jealousy you felt and a sinking feeling in your gut that you’d been lying through your teeth earlier, and that maybe, subconsciously, you did want to catch feelings.

Maybe.

✧ ✧ ✧

“So… is there a story or a reason why you’re here instead of Yunho?”

You lifted your head from your focused task of sorting out the peaberry beans from the regular beans. It was tedious, time consuming, annoying as all hell, and made you want a drink stiffer than the coffee that you were certain made up more of your body fluids than blood or water did at this point. “Yes,” you said curtly after studying his face for a minute, not providing any further explanation. Johnny had his hands in his pockets and pursed his lips, nodding for a moment where he stood in the entrance to the barn.

You had set up your mad scientist level organization for the process all across the concrete floor of the refinished barn. Over the last week, Johnny had finished replacing the boards on the siding of the shed, stained the wood, and sealed it with a protective coat. He even managed to remove all the broken glass from the windows without sustaining any injuries, which you hadn’t thought possible for him. This morning you had him weed the vegetable garden, prune back the hedges along the back side of the house, and clean the deck of the lanai. How did he possibly still have any energy left? He was definitely a harder worker than you’d first given him credit for— you shook your head, not wanting to continue a spiral on Johnny and any detailed thoughts about him.

Back to your task at hand.

The harvest had been divided into several metal basins of five pounds of beans each, and in front of each basin you’d placed two dishes on either side. The point was to be able to weigh how many beans ended up being peaberry from each five pounds of harvest, and to see if you could leverage a steady average from the yield and better plan for how many pounds of the limited roast you could advertise for and set the price per pound accordingly. You wore a face mask and nylon disposable gloves while sorting, and despite being an annoying task, after a while it became a way for you to zone out and let the hours pass by. When the dishes were empty and you first started sorting them, there was a distinct echo of the small beans hitting the metal dish over and over again, until enough beans were lining the bottom that it started to dull the noise.

“Sigh.”

A slight puff of air washed over you. Did he just say the word ‘sigh’ out loud? And was he hovering over your shoulder?

“Can I help you?” You asked, pausing your sorting for only a moment.

“Isn’t it my job to ask you that question? I’m not some layabout, I am trying to earn my keep, you know,” Johnny said in response, rubbing his hands together and eyeing the basin of beans in front of him. You were almost inclined to hand it to him. Over the last four weeks, you’d gotten a lot of decent work out of him, even if you did feel somewhat micro-manage-y half the time with the tasks you did give him. “Okay, how does this work?”

You groaned exaggeratedly and excessively, rolling your eyes. When you didn’t answer, he reached forward and plucked a single coffee bean from the basin and examined it closely. “Hey, this one’s funny looking!”

“Don’t touch them with your bare hands, that’s just going to waste them.” You swatted the bean out of his hand and then looked at your own gloves and sighed. “If you’re insisting on helping, fine. But you need sanitary gear to handle them. Go wash your hands, there’s masks and gloves by the sink,” you grumbled, standing up and taking off your own gloves to dispose of them and replace them with a fresh pair.

Johnny followed obediently, trailing behind you a little too innocently for someone of his size. “Yes, the beans still need to be roasted and that’ll kill any bacteria, but I just like to be extra cautious, okay? Because it’s a mutation there’s no rule to how much of a yield I’ll get with each harvest so I don’t like wasting even a single bean,” you reasoned, settling back down and folding your legs back at the now half-sorted metal bowl.

“So, we’re just sorting the weird ones from the normal ones?” He asked while picking up another peaberry bean, this time with gloved hands and a mask over his mouth and nose.

You took a quick glance and nodded to confirm that yes, the bean in his hand was one of the weird ones he should be looking for. “They’re called peaberry. Normally, a coffee cherry has two seeds in it, or beans. Those two seeds mature in the center of the cherry and you get one flat side and one side touching it. Sometimes people call them ‘flat beans’ but those are the ‘normal’ beans, as you said,” you explained, sifting through your bowl rather quickly. “But the peaberry ones only have one bean inside. The bean is round, so that’s where the name ‘peaberry’ comes from, because—“

“Because it’s round so it looks like a pea, oh I get it! That’s funny,” he laughed, examining the rounded bean in front of him. “Okay, got it, so we’re sorting the peaberry from the flat beans?”

“You proud of your new vocab words?” You snorted, listening for the well known tink of a bean hitting the empty metal bowls. He giggled in acknowledgement.

You worked in relative silence, a small rhythm growing between the two of you. Johnny worked at about half the speed you did, but you couldn’t knock him for it, as it had taken you a while to pick up the pace when you first started hand sorting like this.

“How do you even know Yunho?” You finally asked. Four weeks since he’d arrived, and you’d never bothered to get to know him well enough to listen to the full story of how he’d ended up here.

Johnny shifted in his seated position, clearly a little taken aback that you’d bothered to ask him anything, given your track record. “Oh. Met him in Chicago when I was home visiting. At a local coffee shop, where my buddy Jaehyun is the manager. I went to go bother Jaehyun at work and he was just, shootin’ the shit with one of his coffee suppliers who was doing a visit. That supplier was Yunho. Started talking about how he owned the farm where the beans were grown, and that he wasn’t going to be able to spend the summer out there like he’d planned, so he was looking for some reliable help to uh, take care of things. Mentioned someone else would be on site and in charge, but offered the whole ‘room and board in exchange for copious amounts of physical labor’.”

“And you said yes? Just like that, no questions asked?” It seemed a little too easy, but then again, Johnny had proved to be a little too easygoing.

He shrugged. “Well, yeah. That’s kinda the point of my whole year. Just, go with the flow.” You glanced over, but Johnny was looking down, focused on the task at hand.

You nodded and hummed and turned back to your own basin to continue sorting. A few beats passed by before you couldn’t help yourself— “You’ve said that before. ‘Go with the flow’, or that you ‘had nothing else going on’. What do you mean by that?”

Out of the corner of your eye you saw Johnny’s ears perk up, followed by movement of his cheeks implying the curve of a slight smile. “I’m on a gap year, I guess is what the kids would say. Or maybe sabbatical? Though it’s not like I have any tenure enough to qualify for the real meaning of the term. But yeah, anyways— year off from work. Not getting paid or anything, but, when it’s over if I want it, my old job is waiting for me.”

“How come? That seems so—”

“Impulsive?”

You frowned. “Yeah, exactly.”

“Yeah, exactly,” he repeated, but not in a mocking manner— it was in agreement. “I guess the best way to explain it is this: I was a huge workaholic. I’ve only had my one job post grad after studying business, and I woke up one morning a month before my twenty-fifth birthday and realized it was sucking the soul out of me. It was all I ate, slept, breathed, and it wasn’t even what I wanted to be doing with my life, I realized.”

His pain started sounding all too familiar. “What is it you wanted to do instead, then?”

Even under the mask covering the lower half of his face, his smile reached his eyes. “Photography. I got into an art school when I was applying to colleges, but it just seemed so… risky. I would’ve had to take out loans and instead I got almost a full ride for a bigger university, so I went for that instead. Studied business, managed to grind through undergrad and grad school in four years and walked out with a combined BS and MBA. Took classes every summer to make it happen. I think after graduation, I went back to my parents house and passed out and slept for twenty-three hours straight,” he laughed, clearly recalling a specific memory. “I felt really accomplished when it was over, and even had the job offer already lined up. But I wish I had had more courage to study what I was truly passionate about.

“So after an almost three year long stint at the company and a vested 401k, I decided to take a year off to just, travel the world a bit. I grinded so hard through college I never got the chance to do study abroad, so I guess I wanted to make up for that? I never used to act on impulse or follow my heart, so, that was the goal for this year. To do only that.”

His words struck you differently. This was a whole new side to Johnny that you really weren’t expecting— not that you had a particularly three dimensional view of him to begin with. “And your heart lead you here… to my brother-in-law’s coffee farm?”

He laughed again, trying to hide just how thrilled he was that you were actually engaging in a full on conversation with him. “Well, sort of. My year off started back in February, day before my birthday. Got on a plane and did a few months backpack trip around Asia. I had no clue what would be next, thought maybe Australia, maybe Europe, but when I got off the plane in Chicago to see my mom and regroup on my packing, I decided to go straight from the airport to surprise and bother Jaehyun at his coffee shop. That day I met Yunho. That was a little over six weeks ago. And now I’m here, with you.”

There was something about the way he said that that didn’t sit well in your stomach— with you, like it was a good thing, like he liked it. You didn’t deign him with a response to the end of his story. Like an extension of the current state of your mind, your hands were reaching, feeling around for something, but you were only met with the flat surface of the bottom of the basin.

You looked down to see the last of the metal bowls was empty. Somehow, you’d managed to sort through all twenty pounds of coffee beans. You pulled the face mask down under your chin as you stared at the metal surface for a moment before standing abruptly and turning on your heels.

Confused, Johnny called your name out after you questioningly. “It’s getting late and I’m hungry. You uh, bag up the peaberry and set it aside and then wash out all the metal trays,” you gave him his next set of tasks quickly to make your escape back to the farmhouse to put some distance between the two of you.

A little over an hour later, you’d put together a curry on the stove with some stew meat and a base that included apples, carrots, potatoes, and melted dark chocolate for a more mellow sweet taste to balance it out. You thought about the first time Johnny complimented your cooking when it was just eggs, and how he’d continued to compliment it with every new meal you’d make. You wouldn’t call yourself a chef by any means, thinking that enjoying your go-to recipes would be a more acquired taste, and were in the midst of serving yourself when Johnny came inside with the dog trailing behind him. You didn’t bother saying much, you never did when you’d finished cooking a meal; just a grunt acknowledging his presence and a head nod at the food before you took your bowl and went through the door to go sit on the lanai by yourself. Absent-mindedly, you whistled for the dog to follow you.

Johnny kept to himself that night, eating at the kitchen table, content with looking up out the bay window to see you hand feeding small chunks of meat from your bowl to the dog, even going so far as to pet its head. He shook his head to himself thinking about how you pretended to be so opposed to the dog, and how you still hadn’t given it a name, and smiled as he took another bite.

✧ ✧ ✧

At five weeks, you stopped watching Johnny like a hawk, and started giving him more lengthy tasks that you, quite frankly, just didn’t want to do yourself. Though, if you were being honest, every task you gave him was one you didn’t want to do yourself.

Such as his current one, which was to prep the ground for a new row of sapling fruit trees. You’d walked down from the farmhouse over the hill to the open area next to a row of lemon and guava trees where you’d set him to the task of digging a row of four foot wide, four foot deep holes. The week after next, Jin’s delivery would be a much larger one, and include a number of sapling fruit trees from his family’s farm— rambutans, limes, and mangos, to name a few. You wanted to make sure the holes got dug and the irrigation system set in place properly well in advance.

When you came to a stop at the end of the row of freshly dug holes in the ground you blinked once. Twice. A third time. The sight before you was impossible to comprehend. Because not only was Johnny finishing digging the last of ten massive holes having taken less than three hours to do so, but he had been digging them shirtless.

“What. What?” You asked, staring, eyes wide and brow furrowed.

“Huh?” He asked, looking up from the bottom of the last hole and swishing his head to get his bangs, matted with sweat against his forehead, out of his face. The sun had crested over to this side of the hill now and it was blisteringly hot out. Standing in direct sunlight, doing physical labor, obviously he’d worked up a sweat.

You had to tear your eyes away from the shine on his torso and return them to just his face. “Where the fuck is your shirt?”

He pointed to where a lump of fabric was off to the side next to a water bottle. “It’s fucking hot out, I was dying,” he reasoned.

“You’re hot,” you mumbled under your breath, turning on your heel to give yourself reprieve from the onslaught that was Johnny’s unexpected number of defined abdominal muscles that were usually covered by cotton t shirts.

“What was that?” He called, squinting up into the sun from the bottom of the hole.

“I said, put a god damn shirt on before you come back in my house,” you called back, already wrapping your arms around yourself and heading back to the farmhouse. “And dinner’ll be ready in twenty, so finish up,” you added, trudging off before he could respond.

What you would have seen if you’d turned back around was an open mouthed smile curl across his face, as Johnny hummed to himself at the joy he felt for this, the first time you’d bothered to warn him when dinner would be ready.

✧ ✧ ✧

Ever since you’d seen Johnny shirtless, you’d be restless.

Well, restless was the polite word. The word to better describe what you’d been feeling was… frustrated?

Distracted? Peeved? Worked up?

Horny.

The word you were avoiding was horny.

Wendy had been the one to get you to admit it during your last weekly phone call. You told her about the shirtless incident and the first thing she asked was if you had plans to throw out the washing machine and instead start doing your laundry on Johnny’s abs, which did not help your predicament any further. It was also Wendy who had pointed out that you’d been alone on this farm for almost two months with a dog and a man too pretty for his own good, and despite how he represented everything you were annoyed at in life at the moment, after seeing his half naked figure, it would only be natural for you to have been a little turned on. And a little turned on was exactly where you were— for the last week, you had been going on runs every night to release the excess pent up energy you suddenly had.

The last time you exercised this much you were still in college. Back then you went on hour long runs through the city with your phone on ‘Do Not Disturb’ because it was the only way you weren’t constantly bombarded with an on onslaught of messages from classmates, friends, family, or your on campus job that took up way too much of your time. And now, you found yourself returning to old habits, this time because what, you were too proud to just rub one out like the rest of humanity? (That phrasing, too, was courtesy of your best friend, when she again reminded you of your failure to pack your vibrator.)

After another eight miles up and down the road outside the farm that ran along the island’s coast your legs felt like absolute jello when you finished, but your head was empty enough that you were able to return to the property and exist near Johnny in peace. You walked by the barn on your way up to the farmhouse, sticking your head inside briefly to look for him. You didn’t hear any noise, and didn’t find him at first glance, but didn’t think much of it as you went back inside.

The dog was already in the kitchen, so that should have been your first clue. You opened the fridge and peered inside, pulling out a number of assorted ingredients to make a lemon cream sauce for pasta with chicken.

You set a pot of water to boil, turned the oven on to preheat, and began melting butter, garlic, oil, and a variety of herbs in a sauce pan. That plus the low hum of the overhead fan meant just enough noise that you couldn’t hear the water running from the small shower on the other side of the house, and you didn’t think twice as the heat cast off by the appliances made you feel even stuffier post-run, and you peeled your shirt off your body and rolled the waistband of your shorts down an inch, pressing your bare feet flat against the hardwood flooring to try and get some semblance of cooling relief.

It was only a few moments later, with the water boiling and pasta cooking inside and the chicken already seasoned and in the oven, when you peered over the bubbling sauce pan and dipped the edge of your pinky into the mixture to bring just a taste up to your mouth. Just like you’d hoped, it was light and had a kick of citrus to it from the lemon, but not so much that it was overpowering. You closed your eyes and hummed in appreciation as you licked the sauce off, which, in retrospect, probably sounded far too much like a moan for your own good.

“Jesus fuck—”

And suddenly, you realized you weren’t alone inside the house.

You screamed at first from the shock of being startled by the noise, and then again when it registered in your brain that Johnny was standing in the kitchen, hair dripping wet, chest bare and abdominal muscles just as defined as the last time you’d seen them, face flushed in some sort of embarrassment with a bath towel wrapped around his hips.

Johnny was fresh out of the shower, nearly naked in your kitchen, clutching his clothes balled up in his left hand.

You scream again.

“What are you doing?!” You shrieked out, raising your voice over the dog’s excited barking at the commotion the two of you had begun making.

He stammered for a moment, clearly frozen in place. “I was just! You were gone, and I was done for the day, so I took a shower but I— I forgot my change of clothes in my room and these towels are small and just— Jesus why are you wearing so little clothing?!”

Your fury returned full force at the comment. “Why am I wearing so little clothing? You’re in a towel for fuck’s sake! This is my house, I live here! I should be the one asking you where your clothes are!”

“They’re here, in my hand!” He yelled back, waving the bundle around frantically. “I just said I forgot them when I went to shower!”

Your eyes bugged out of you head as your gaze traveled down, taking in the entirety of the figure before you and— oh.

“Are you… are you hard right now?” You asked in bewilderment.

The way the color drained out of Johnny’s face and the speed with which he moved the bundle of clothing to hold it over the space between his legs answered your question.

“Oh, my god.” Exasperated, you slammed your eyes shut and held your hands up by your sides. “What the fuck, John.”

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry, I didn’t mean— fuck, shit I made it weird— please don’t get mad, I can totally fix this,” he started spewing apologies, and you heard him take two steps closer to you. “Wait, were you looking at my dick?”

“Ah!” You spat out, turning away from him. His question was valid but you had no intention of acknowledging it. “Out! Get out of my house, go… somewhere else until that goes away or you can, I don’t know, take care of it!” You instantly thought of the implication of your words and then yelled again. “No— don’t— fuck, don’t do that! Jesus for the love of god don’t take care of it while I’m standing here—” you were stammering and beyond flustered. How the fuck were you supposed to talk to someone who had just gotten a fucking boner by looking at you, sweaty in a sports bra, while sucking a cream colored substance off the tip of your pinky?

You exhaled deeply, eyes still closed. “Here’s what’s going to happen. You are going to go to your room. I am going to finish cooking my dinner. You will be absolutely silent until you hear me leave. I will be staying at the condo for the next week. You will either ration the leftovers or fend for yourself, I do not care. Got it?” You signed out again, eyes flicking open. Johnny held his bundle of clothes in front of his legs and nodded his head once, not bothering with any comeback before he shuffled to the guest room and shut the door quietly.

It took another twenty minutes for the meat to finish cooking and the dish to be full prepared. How you managed to keep your head empty and shut off your internal monologue during that time, you’ll never know, but you were thankful for it nonetheless. You packed two servings into a Tupperware container for yourself before shoving some clothes in a duffle bag and grabbing the keys to the jeep you hated driving. It was only about ten minutes down the road to the condo, but it was almost fifteen miles, so you figured this was the lesser of two evils. You whistled for the dog to follow you, and it was all too excited to jump in the passenger seat of the car. The farmhouse was now dry of liquor, what with Yunho not making good on his promise a month ago and your weekly wine dates with Wendy, but you knew the condo definitely had some spirits stashed somewhere in a cabinet. You were going to need that and a nice hot bath to destress after that encounter.

Meanwhile, Johnny sunk down on to the floor inside the guest room, his back pressed against the door. When he heard the sound of the jeep’s engine turning over, he sighed in relief and ran a hand through his hair. There were no better words to describe it: he was truly and utterly fucked.

✧ ✧ ✧

You stayed at the condo only for three days, and did little other than sleep, binge watch some TV since there was better electricity and internet here, and eat your way through slightly stale bags of chips and frost bitten freezer dinners that were months old. Because you couldn’t just open the door and let the dog out to run through the property for whatever exercise or bathroom needs it had, you had to actually walk it with a leash and everything. You paid less attention to how domestic the action of clipping the leash on to the collar you’d found in an unopened delivery package on the kitchen table was, and thought more about how slothful you’d felt over the last 60-odd hours of self isolation, especially after two months of working outdoors every day.

It was childish to keep hiding from Johnny. It’s not like you could prove that he’d gotten hard looking at you, and really, shouldn’t you take it as sort of a compliment? (Well, maybe you wouldn’t go that far.)

It was Monday when you returned to the farm, parking the jeep back by the barn and hip checking the door shut after the dog went running off in search of Johnny. It found him carrying pruned branches of trees down to the area where you burned excess brush, and you could hear the excited sound of his voice at the return of the creature as you walked slowly down the hill towards him.

“I missed you! It’s been so lonely without you, but I guess I’m glad your mommy had you with her, huh?” He cooed at the dog, rubbing its face in his hands after dropping the bundle of branches and flopping its ears from side to side. Hearing Johnny refer to you as a mother, even of the animal, had you grimacing.

“Ew,” you said, making your presence known. He stood up suddenly, possibly just a little embarrassed.

“Oh! You’re uh, you’re back.” You nodded, lips pressed together in a flat line. Your hands were full, carrying two takeout coffees from a shop down near the condo you’d stopped at on the way back. You’d forgotten how much the farm felt like a different planet, a different space in time almost, because of how isolated it felt. The act of ordering a coffee to go rather than making it yourself in the morning was equal parts bewildering and soothing.

You had no idea what compelled you to order an iced americano along with the cortado you’d gotten for yourself. You didn’t really know much about Johnny beyond the one conversation you’d had about how he ended up meeting your brother in law and crashing on the farm with you in the first place. But somehow, ordering the drink had felt right, and you thought of it as a potential peace offering to cut the tension.

“This is yours,” you said plainly after some thought, trying to remove any and all emotion from your tone.

He blinked a few times before taking three steps towards you and reaching his hand out to take the drink. He mumbled a soft thank you and sipped without bothering to ask what was inside.

“You’re just going to take the drink a stranger offers you, no questions asked?”

“Ooh!” His eyes perked up when he tasted the coffee. “I mean, I’ve never questioned any of the food you’ve made me so far, why start now? Besides,” he shrugged, taking another sip, “I trust you.”

You snorted. “That’s a stupid thing to do.”

Johnny laughed again, eyes crinkling at the sides. Your mind wandered briefly to a half formed thought about how endearing that was. “Maybe so, but despite your efforts to make me an enemy, I think you’re actually a really good person. You even guessed my favorite coffee drink, so that has to count for something.” He nodded to the paper cup in your hand. “What’s your poison?”

“Cortado,” responded curtly, ignoring his comments that were cutting a bit too deep for ten in the morning.

“Ah, a strong espresso pull with a balance of steam milk and a touch of foam. Nice choice. I can definitely appreciate one, but I’m a little too impatient and drink them too quickly— I think that’s why I love americanos so much, because it lasts a little longer.”

You tilted you head to the side, puzzled. “Wait. You… actually know things about coffee?”

“I mean, yeah,” he laughed, “What do you think I spent three hours talking with Yunho about the day we met? I did my time as a barista in college. Free coffee every shift was hard to pass up when you’re doing almost a double course load every other semester. I’ve always been curious about the growing and roasting process, and I know a lot of people do home roasting as a hobby but I just never made the time to explore it.”

Well, duh, you thought, that actually made sense. “Oh god, and here I’ve been making my lame ass bitter pour over all summer— you know how to pull a shot of espresso then I take it? You’ve seen the La Marzocco on the counter, how come you’ve never used it?”

He pouted his lips out in a flat line and shrugged comically. “Dunno. I mean, I’m a guest and a worker first, and it’s not mine, so, I didn’t wanna make any assumptions. But if this is an open invitation to use it, I’m more than happy to accept.”

You chewed on the inside of your mouth for a moment. You could feel it in the air as the hairs on your arms stood up slightly, goosebumps running down your skin. You hoped in wasn’t too noticeable. Maybe this was it— maybe it really was time to extend an olive branch and have more than half a conversation with him every four days. “It’s a little older and sort of temperamental, but it’s still a good machine. I’ll… show you the quirks tomorrow morning, or whenever you want something to drink,” you offered.

It was then that you discovered this: Johnny was not a great actor. He wore his heart on his sleeve. You figured this to be true because he could barely contain the smile that spread across his face, and the energetic nod he gave, and the mild soft exhale (squeal?) of excitement. You rolled your eyes gently and turned away, drink in hand. “When it cools down later after dinner, I’m roasting tonight. You’re welcome to join.”

You gave him the benefit of not bearing witness to the fist pump he made as you walked away.

Dinner that night was stir fried ground pork with carrots and zucchini from the garden served over rice. It was one of your comfort dishes, easy to make and easy to clean up after, since it used only two pans. As soon as you’d finished eating, this time sitting at the table together with Johnny, he’d cleared the dishes and got to cleaning up right away. You stretched your arms overhead and leaned back in your chair far enough to crack your back slightly with a loud pop.

“Oof, that sounded like it felt good,” he laughed from the sink. You hummed in agreement. “So what’d you do before this? Desk job hunched over a computer like the rest of us?”

“Mmm something like that. You may have been bored out of your mind in business, but I sold my soul years ago to work in advertising.”

“Why does that like, fit?” He asked, turning the water off and drying the pan you’d used for cooking by hand.

“You saying I have no soul?” You challenged.

He shrugged. “Hey, you said it, not me. We’re both just cogs in the machine that is late stage capitalism, I guess.”

You didn’t know how deeply you wanted to get into it with Johnny just yet. Maybe eventually, but, not right now. “Yeah, well, I was just a Project Manager, not like a Copywriter or anything. Did you know Yunho was a staff Art Director before he switched to the coffee business full time? We used to work at the same agency a few years back.”

Johnny snapped his fingers and pointed at you. “Ah, that’s right! I remember him saying something about that, made the same jokes about having no soul. You two are a lot alike for not being related by blood.”

Well, he wasn’t wrong; sometimes you wondered if you’d become closer with Yunho that you were with your sister at this point. “Enough about that. If you’re done follow me, it’s probably cool enough to fire up the roaster. I just want to do a test batch of like, five pounds with the regular beans to see how this year’s harvest takes to our standard roast,” you explained, heading to the door and slipping on your sneakers. “Don’t let the dog out, it gets scared from the loud noises and I don’t need it freaking out.”

Johnny dried his hands and followed after you to the barn. You flicked on the lights and went straight for the sink to pull your hair out of your face, wash your hands, and put on a pair of gloves and a mask. Johnny followed your lead, even going so far as to tie up the top layer of his hair on top of his head. “Hey look! It’s like an apple,” he bobbed his head from side to side to make the tiny ponytail move back and forth, and you couldn’t help but snort as you tried to suppress your laughter.

“Dork,” was all you said. You went to the storage racks to pick up one of the sorted burlap bags of beans and hoisted it over your shoulder to carry it to a metal prep table where you carefully opened it and began scooping out the green beans and pouring them into a bowl on a metal scale that had been zeroed out. “So  obviously you know that coffee is counted by weight in pounds. That monstrosity,” you jerked your head in the direction of the massive eight foot tall machine in the corner of the room, “Can handle up to twenty-five pounds of beans in the barrel at a time. Because it’s so big, it’s best to not do super small batches, otherwise you risk burning the beans. Since I’m going for five pounds, it’ll be okay, but if I was doing any less I’d use one of the table top roasters, since they have a smaller barrel.” You finished weighing out five pounds and handed the container to him to carry.

You continued explaining the full process of roasting and science behind it as you flipped switches, checked that the exhaust was hooked up properly, and set the dials for the heat and time on the industrial roaster before pulling the door to the funnel open and having Johnny slowly pour the beans inside. “God you’re a fucking giant, I always need a step stool to reach that high,” you commented as he made the reach with ease.

You weren’t kidding when you said the roaster was loud when it was running. Thankfully with the size of the machine and this batch, it was only eleven minutes of the two of you standing just a few feet away in case anything went wrong and you had to hit the emergency stop, holding your hands over your ears to block the sound. Johnny began jokingly exaggerating mouthing something out, and you felt almost like friends as you laughed at his antics. You were never the best at reading lips. Especially not Johnny’s, they were too full and distracting on their own for you to make sense of the mouth shapes. When the machine came to a grinding halt and the noise suddenly stopped, he was still shouting words and his voice echoed around the space in the absence of the noise, “I said, I think you’re— oh, wow, that was fast,” he quickly diverted, catching himself from finishing whatever it was he was about to say.

Your heart skipped a beat at the thought of trying to pry out of him what he was in the process of saying under the protection of the loud noises. You shook it off mentally and showed him how to remove the beans from the roasting chamber. “So you take them out like this, and then they’re still going to be warm for a while, so it’s best to let them rest for a bit. If you were to brew them right away, the flavor might not be what you’re expecting, so if you wait for them to sit for a few days, you’ll notice a considerable difference in the flavor profile—”

You stopped suddenly, a sound in the distance suddenly registering to you. You left Johnny standing there with the roasted coffee in hand and trailed to the edge of the barn and then you heard it more clearly— the sound of the old rotary phone ringing. “Oh, shit,” you swore and took off running back up to the house. The only person who had the number for the landline other than Wendy were Yunho and your sister. Wendy didn’t call you outside of your Thursday night appointments. You did the math in your head— it was the end of June, your sister’s due date wasn’t til the end of August, but early labor was always something you’d heard about, especially with more than one baby.

Hands shaking, you got to the phone on what could have been the last ring and panted out a greeting of Yunho’s name, already knowing it was him.

“Oh thank god you answered, I’ve been calling for the last twenty minutes, where were you?” He chastised immediately. You felt uneasy at the tone in his voice.

You stammered in response. “I— we were in the barn, I was roasting so I couldn’t hear the phone— what’s wrong? Is she okay?”

Yunho sighed out heavily and was quiet. “She’s going to be okay, but there was a… scare,” you could tell he was choosing his words carefully. “I don’t want to freak you out, but I don’t want to not tell you either. She slipped getting out of the shower, landed on her hip. Started having lower abdominal pain right after. We thought maybe it was going to be now, but, she’s fine. The doctors think they were phantom contractions? Whatever they were they’re gone now. The babies are fine, but she’ll most likely be in the hospital until the due date. If she starts experiencing any kind of contractions between now and then, though, they’ll want to induce labor.” You could tell he was still stressed and worried, but you nodded and listened as he explained some of the medical details a bit further. “Anyways, all this to say, the next time I call, it could be to tell you that you’re an auntie.”

From the moment you heard the phone ringing this late at night and calculated that it was almost two in the morning in Chicago, the tightness in your chest had been building. Listening to Yunho speak delicately about your sister’s condition was one thing— you thought it was a sigh of relief when he said that everything was fine, but then it was most certainly not fine when the gravity of his last words really hit you.

“Little Bean are you listening? Is the signal bad? I know the connection isn’t always great—”

You inhaled sharply as the pressure inside came to a head. “Yunho I gotta go,” you gasped out, barely able to make sense of thoughts to get the words out.

Before you could hear his rebuttal you slammed the phone on to the receiver to end the call and covered your face with your hands still in their nylon gloves. Despite standing in an open space, you suddenly felt like the room was spinning and the walls were closing in on you. Out, out, you had to get out—

“Hey, everything okay in here?”

Fuck.

Johnny was standing in the door, a look of concern on his face. You heaved into your hands and choked out a sob, feeling the wetness in your eyes building. No no no, everything was most certainly not okay in here. You shouldn’t have made eye contact, you should have known better, because looking at his face, his stupid perfect face and his genuine care for your wellbeing, it set you free falling over the precipice.

You were spiraling, and hard, and needed to land. It was instinctual, the way you cried out and ran pushing past him before breaking into an all out sprint down the hill to the fruit trees. Your legs barely kept up with the velocity of running at a decline, stopping short of tumbling and falling forward. The only thing that you knew to help this, the thing that had worked for you in the past, and you raced through the grove of trees for the larger one at the very end. It was one of the older trees, well mature and established with its root system, so you could always expect it to produce fruit.

But you’d harvested a large amount of the fruit in the last few weeks from the lower branches, and the only remaining fruit that would be ripe enough for your purposes was on the higher branches just out of reach. Over the sound of your pained sobs, you couldn’t hear Johnny’s approach or him asking what was wrong, your one track mind just trying desperately to jump and reach, fingertips barely brushing on the fruit you were reaching for.

“Hey hey, calm down, what are you—” he started.

“Shut up! Just shut— don’t tell— don’t tell me calm— calm—” you couldn’t make the words make sense, in your head you were screaming don’t tell me to calm down, but the act of translating that into words on your tongue was downright Herculean right now, it just wasn’t happening. Your knees began wobbling and standing too started feeling impossible. The tightness in your chest had expanded to reach your back, and though you were clearly still getting air by the fact that you hadn’t passed out yet, you felt like you weren’t breathing at all. You were crying outright now, tears wet and hot and painful as the sobs escaped your throat.

It didn’t take a genius to figure that you were trying to reach a fruit on a branch just above your wingspan. Johnny placed one large hand against your back gently and reached all the way up, fingers wrapping around what he assumed was the object of your fixation, before twisting and pulling to release it from the tree. “Hey,” he said softly, “This what you need?”

As soon as you made sense of the object in front of you you seized it from his hands, biting directly through the rind of the lemon. A muffled sob came out as your knees buckled and you sank to the ground. The bitter rush of citrus did part of its job, and brought your consciousness back down to earth. But your breathing didn’t steady, and your heart was still pounding, and the tears were still falling.

It wasn’t working, your grounding technique; not like it had the previous times, like the night you’d first gotten the phone call from Yunho saying they weren’t coming, and not like the time you bit into a lemon in the kitchen at work after first getting the phone call that your sister was pregnant, and even the time before that when she told you she and Yunho were moving, or when Yunho had asked you if he could marry your sister. If you were more with it, you would have thought for a moment longer about how all of your largest panic attacks of the last several years seemed to be linked to things about Yunho and your sister. Biting into a whole lemon had been your go-to for years, and suddenly, it wasn’t working.

“Fuck!” You cried out, spitting the lemon into your palms, “Fuck fuck fuck! Why isn’t it— why isn’t it working?!” Your words were absolutely frantic, and you were yelling at yourself more than your companion who, quite frankly, you’d forgotten was even there.

Until you felt a shadow pass over you in the moonlight and a pair of arms enveloping you in an embrace.

The top of your head was pressed against his chest and his hands found their way to the planes of your back and began rubbing soft circles. Softly he tutted out a shushing noise, voice barely above a whisper, steady. “Come on, let it out, I’m right here. I’ve got you, you’re not alone,” he said calmly, “You’re gonna get through it. Try to take a deep breath, that’s good now hold it as long as you can— okay, that’s okay, try again, try to hold on to it and let it out slowly this time.”

You’d never had anyone physically with you and help you through a panic attack before. You’d had them around people in the past, but no one had ever made a move to help you through it— not like this, not like him, not like he was doing right now by attempting to guide your breathing. The one time you had one in front on Wendy, you’d locked yourself in the bathroom and refused to answer her while you came down, and she never pressed you about it afterwards.

You had no idea how much time passed as Johnny held you in his arms, keeping a steady rhythm of his palms on your back and letting you cry it out into the fabric of his shirt, your hands wringing the material so strongly you thought you’d tear holes where your nails were.

One hand traveled to the back of your head and he stroked that too. “I’ve got you, I’m right here,” he said again.

After a longer period of silence, your ears stopped ringing and you could finally make out the chirping of the crickets in the night. You sniffled and rubbed the last of the trails the tears had left on your cheeks into his shirt, mumbling an apology into it.

“Don’t do that,” he said softly, keeping his voice low, almost as if he was afraid he’d scare you off if he raised it any higher. “I mean— haha, don’t apologize. It’s okay, whatever it is, it’ll wash out. If it doesn’t, it’s just a tee shirt, I can always buy another.” His tone was even paced and calm, and in pressing your ear against his chest you could hear the reverberations as he spoke.

The humid summer air was heavy as usual, even this late at night. You don’t know how long you sat there in silence, wrapped in Johnny’s arms listening to his heartbeat, but eventually you acknowledged that your heart was beating in time with his. Whether you liked it or not, he had been the thing to ground you, and not a stupid fucking lemon.

You shifted slightly, making a move to stand, but Johnny stopped you. “Whoa whoa, hang on lemme get ready— okay, hold on to my shoulders, that’s it.” Your fingers dug into his arms as he adjusted his legs and hooked one arm under your knees and the other around your back and stood up, taking you with him.

“Shit,” you mumbled out, head rushing at the quick movement and the realization that your legs were still bent over his arm, and Johnny was now carrying you. “Hey, heavy,” your words were still soft.

“Mmm, nah, nothing I can’t handle,” his response was easy, dismissive of your complaint, but not in a bad way. “You don’t have to answer this if you don’t want to but— anxiety? Panic attack?” You sucked in a breath at the word. You hated that word. That word made you feel weak, even if it was exactly what this was. You dug your nails into his skin slightly on a reflex of bracing yourself, not with this intention of inflicting damage. “Got it. I get it,” he had approached the house and walked to the door, reaching for the handle with the hand under your knees. “I’ve had a few myself. Not recently, but back in college, maybe two or three? Don’t think they were ever as strong as that, though. I tried the lemon trick once, it actually worked pretty well for me. Didn’t make the next time I did a tequila shot all that fun though, couldn’t enjoy citrus for at least a month after that.” His soft laughter shook his chest and you leaned in further. Listening to his voice was comforting. It was keeping you steady. It made you feel safe, and in this moment, you were too tired to think about how you probably should have hated that. “Think you could swallow some water? Rehydrating is important.”

Your head nodded. “Okay, I’m gonna put you down now.” He used his foot to push one of the chairs away from the table and set you down on to the seat gently. The dog was immediately at your knees, whining lowly and attempting to give as many kisses as you’d accept. “Here,” he said gently, crouching down in front of you and holding a glass out. “Drink what can, but not too fast. There you go, that’s it,” his large hand clasped over your knee, thumb rubbing circles on the side. “Feeling any better?”

“Yeah,” you rasped out, voice raw from all the crying earlier.

Johnny smiled softly. “Good, that’s good. Okay, I think you need to get to bed, yeah? Or do you wanna take a shower or something first?” You shook your head. “Okay, just washed your face then?” You nodded. Your conscious monologue was returning, but bringing words from your mind to your mouth was still proving difficult. Johnny didn’t seem to mind. Instead, he offered you his hand. “Need help getting up?”

You answered by gripping on to his hand and using his shoulders to help you stand up. Johnny walked you to your room, holding his arm out for you as a guide. You were able to bear weight on your feet now, and though your steps were slow, you made it to the bathroom to wash your face and and change into sleepwear. Johnny waited by the door, averting his eyes for privacy for you, and returned to your side to help you into bed.

When he leaned over you to pull the sheets up, you reached for his wrist and asked, “Why are you being so nice to me?”

His face went blank before it softened into a smile. “Because. I told you earlier, didn’t I? You’re a good person. Should be simple as that, yeah?”

You didn’t have a response for him, only shifting deeper into the pillows. He turned off the light and retreated to the door frame. “Try and get some rest. Call me if you need me, okay?”

Your head managed a nod, and Johnny finally left, leaving the door to your room slightly ajar. You listened for the sounds of him milling about the house, his footsteps softly shuffling against the floorboards, a few mumbled words to the dog that followed at his heels, until you finally fell asleep.

When you dreamed that night, you dreamt of him, the sound of his voice, and the way your blood felt on fire whenever he looked at you and smiled.

✧ ✧ ✧

Johnny never asked you about the panic attack.

He didn’t bring it up, he didn’t ask what caused it, he didn’t even allude to it in any conversation over the next week. The next day he was just a little bit more gentle with you with the tone and volume of his speaking voice, but when you showed no signs of still be affected from the previous night, he let it go and didn’t bother you about it.

You couldn’t tell if you loved him or hated him for it.

Confusion on your feelings aside, as June came to a close and the morning of July 3rd came, you woke up to the sound of the espresso machine running. Johnny had very quickly proven that he was worth his salt as a barista, even though it had been several years, and had a very nice shot pull. He even figured out the steamer, which was the most finicky part of the machine, and had been making you cortados every morning. That’s what you were sipping now from a metal camper mug, as you walked with him to the shed.

“I think that all that’s left is nailing down that last sheet of roofing and then we’re done,” he hummed cheerfully, inspecting the building. It looked brand new, a marked improvement from the broken windows and bleached paint job it had sported two months ago.

Two months. Was that really how long he’d been here? You didn’t want to think too much about it, about how those two months gone meant you had reached the half way point, and that there were about two months left.

Two months…

“We should celebrate,” he said suddenly, and you looked up puzzled.

“We?”

“Sure!” He exclaimed, “I had no idea what I was doing. I just did what you told me to. This was one of the biggest projects for the summer, right? And plus, not that I care too much for the holiday, but won’t there be fireworks and stuff for the Fourth? Come on, this house has been dry for weeks, let’s go get some booze and live a little, huh?” He prodded your side with his elbow and began needling at you, saying huh, huh, huh over and over until you groaned and relented.

“Fiiiiiine, let’s go before the stores get crowded when everyone realizes everything’s gonna be closed tomorrow.”

The dog was less than pleased that you’d sent it back into the house when you picked up the keys to the jeep. Usually you took it with you, but this time you decided against it, since you weren’t sure how the liquor store would feel with you bringing the stray dog off leash into the store with you.

“All you, big guy,” you said to Johnny as you tossed the car keys at him.

“Aren’t you gonna ask if I know how to drive first?” He quipped back quickly while walking to the driver’s side.

“Nah,” you shrugged comically, hoisting yourself up by the frame of the car. You buckled yourself in and watched as he did the same and adjusted the mirrors for his height. “Besides,” you looked down to inspect your fingernails as if they were the most fascinating thing on the planet, “I trust you, or whatever.”

“Bit of a stupid thing to do, but alright,” he smiled, echoing your words back at you. “Kidding, I’m an excellent driver. Alright, co-pilot! You have the most sacred duty bestowed upon you—”

“Navigation?”

“No, music selection, duh,” he scoffed and handed you the aux cord and pulled out a cell phone you’d never seen him hold before. You stared at the device as he unlocked it and pulled up his music library. Johnny noticed your surprised expression out of the corner of his eye. “What, it’s not like I have a use for it out here. Your wifi sucks and I’m not about to rack up a huge cell phone bill, so it stays off in my duffle bag most of the time. Anyways, this is a test! Pick whatever your heart desires.” The smirk on his face was beyond mischievous as he handed it to you.

You sighed and settled into the seat and began scrolling. What to pick, what to pick…

Surprisingly, there was a decent number of songs you recognized, and one album in particular you were a fan of. You scrolled down the track listing to about the half way point and pressed play.

The sounds of The Killers and the familiar guitar chords that were practically sewn into your DNA began to filter through the speakers. Johnny smiled and started clapping as the car reached the bottom of the driveway and he flipped on the turn signal. “Oh my god, Mr. Brightside, excellent choice! Okay, you passed the first test. But do you know the words?” He teased.

You gasped in feigned offense as the lyrics came to the chorus, and as he accelerated up to speed you began to belt the words out as loud as you could manage. For once you weren’t thinking about how you hated that the jeep had no top while the wind whipped past you on all sides as Johnny sped down the highway. As the song played, the magic high of belting the words to something fifteen years old that were still imprinted in your brain didn’t seem to wear off like you’d expected it to.

“Alright, chop chop what’s next maestro!” He called over the sound of the wind as the song came to a close. You already had something queued up, something a little more recent, and you smiled as the words to the next song began filtering through the speakers, letting the music carry the drive and not belting along with it this time. You tried to not think too deeply about the lyrics of the chorus as it played.  

'Cause you're the last of a dying breed Write our names in the wet concrete I wonder if your therapist knows everything about me? I'm here in search of your glory There's been a million before me That ultra-kind of love You never walk away from You're just the last of the real ones

As the bridge played and you neared your destination, Johnny tilted his head towards you while keeping his eyes on the road. “Growing up, it was like, a badge of honor as a Chicago kid to have gone to a Fall Out Boy show when they still played the smaller clubs. I snuck into one when I was 16— it was an 18 and over show— felt like I was hot shit when I got away with it.”

“Don’t know why, but you don’t strike me as a Fall Out Boy fan,” you admitted. From your scroll through his music library, you saw most of their discography saved to his phone.

“Hey, I had my embarrassing wannabe emo phase too.”

“Had?” You couldn’t stop yourself from teasing. Johnny didn’t give a response to that one, and as another Fall Out Boy song played through the speakers you let yourself rest in a comfortable lack of conversation, instead sharing the music with him as he drove. It only took to the end of that third song to reach your destination and based on how he handled the drive and parking, true to his word Johnny was an excellent driver.

Johnny followed you closely once inside, his eyes scanning up and down the shelves of the tiny liquor store before he reaches and picks up a six pack of pilsner. “You ever try this one?”

Your nose wrinkles in disgust. “I don’t do beer.”

Johnny blinks twice in response and plops the six pack back down on the shelf. “Noted. What do you drink?”

“If I’m picking?” He nods. “I’m a slut for rosé or champagne. Any sparkling wine, really, it makes me feel fancy and you get to turn basic days into little celebrations.” You follow him as he walks down the aisle to where the selection of wine was shelved and starts looking through the options. “Hang on, you’re not gonna grill me about the beer thing?”

“You say that like your friends usually give you shit for it.”

You crossed your arms and shuffle your feet underneath you. “Well, yeah. Usually.”

“Then I would say,” he trails off for a moment, bending and squatting to see a label on a lower shelf before picking up two bottles of the same brand, “You need new friends. Or that your current ones need to learn boundaries, take your pick. How’s this look for one option? Since this is a celebration and all,” he says with a wink.

Leaning forward, you study the label on the bottle for a moment before nodding in approval. You agree to his point that since they were 15% off if you bought six or more bottles, it only made sense to buy more, and besides, “It’s not like you won’t drink them eventually when you’re on the phone with Wendy.”

Your eyebrows shot up at that. “How do you know her name?”

“I’m quiet not deaf, and you’re louder than you think you are,” he says matter-of-factly before heading to the cashier to pay for your selection. You bite your tongue then, hoping to whatever deity was watching you (and probably laughing) that he’d overheard one of the conversations that wasn’t about Wendy insisting you should bone him.

Johnny picks the music on the way back, opting for some Bleachers and Paramore now that he knew at least part of your music taste and how it aligned with his.

Your new selection of wine goes into the fridge as soon as you get home, and Johnny heads to the shed with a ladder in hand to climb on top and finish nailing down the roofing. You opt to help with this task, spotting from the ground and continuously yelling for him to ‘be careful’ and ‘you better not fall and break your neck while I’m watching’. It takes a little over an hour, and it’s late afternoon when he finishes, but when you climb the ladder yourself as he holds it steady from the ground to inspect his handiwork you have to say you’re impressed.

“You sure you never did construction work before? You’ve got shockingly good craftsmanship for a newbie.”

“My dad’s pretty self sufficient so he was always doing the handiwork around the house. Picked stuff up here and there from him growing up, but anything I didn’t know I could just look up on the internet.” You shoot him a pointed look. “What! I said your wifi was shitty not that I didn’t use it every now and again. There’s a YouTube tutorial for everything these days.”

Johnny insisted on cleaning up the last of the debris on his own while you worked on dinner— another pasta dish, orecchiette broccoli rabe, and while that was cooking you boil a pint of blackberries with water and sugar to make a flavored simple syrup. Since you were celebrating tonight, it only felt right to put in a little extra effort even to the drinks of choice. Kir Royales were typically made with a blackcurrant liquor, but it was a niche product you hadn’t found in the store, so the syrup and a slice of lemon for garnish would have to do.

While you waited for Johnny to finish up and take his shower (after the last time, you gave him plenty of space out of an abundance of caution whenever he showered), you started rummaging through the pantry cabinets and making sense of the dry ingredients you had on hand. You had time to kill, why not make a dessert with it?

You hadn’t talked about it much with Johnny, but you actually did enjoy cooking and baking. Something about spending time and energy making something and having someone consume it and tell you they liked made you feel good. You still remember the first time you made breakfast for a hungover Wendy in college and she raved about it for days, though you were pretty sure back then it was because the carbs soaked up the remaining alcohol in her system and stopped her from puking.

Dinner was finished when Johnny finally came out of the shower, this time fully clothed and his hair more dry. You explained that you’d gotten bored and made cookie dough but the oven hadn’t finished pre-heating yet so nothing was baked.

“Fuck it, cookie dough is always better than the cookies themselves,” he shrugged.

“But salmonella—”

Johnny held up a hand jokingly as he stopped your interjection and turned off the oven. “Still convinced that’s a myth parents made up to stop kids from actually enjoying childhood. Plus it’s hot as balls, chill the dough while we eat and then it’ll be even better after. Plus, you haven’t poisoned either of us yet, I think your track record is pretty good so far.” (There he went again, referring to you and him as an ‘us’.)

So you did just that, putting the cookie dough into the fridge and taking your dinner outside with the cocktails you’d made. You didn’t have any wine glasses here at the farm house— after breaking one stemmed glass during your first phone call with Wendy you’d moved the rest to the condo and replaced the drink ware with mason jars because the clean up was too annoying. Plus, you didn’t want to risk the dog stepping on stray shards of thin glass and getting them stuck in the pads of its paws. (You were still decidedly apathetic towards it, but that didn’t mean you were cruel).

So it was in the wide mouth Kerr jars that you poured your blackberry syrup and a half a bottle of champagne, after a comical exchange of Johnny insisting he wasn’t scared of the pop! that corks made coming out of pressurized bottles and the yelp he let out anyways when it happened as expected. The lemon slice garnish was more of an aesthetic touch than anything but you liked it nonetheless.When Johnny pulls out his phone for the second time that day and insists on playing music and making a dramatic toast before you could drink, you could only laugh and agree.

“To the best Boss I’ve ever had,” he said with a raised glass, “Even though you used me for cheap labor and to do all the hard shit.”

“Rude! I cook every day, look at all the chances I’ve had to poison you and how many times have I done it? Absolutely none because I am a saint and you know it.”

You weren’t sure if it was the alcohol, the music, the low hum of crickets, the starry night sky, or the summer heat that did it, but time flowed so easily, and so did the conversation and teasing banter. Over the course of one meal you’d exchanged more words with Johnny than you had in the whole two months you’d known each other. Two hours later and you’d finished all the dinner (of course there were no leftovers, Johnny was still Johnny, but the amount of manual labor he did in a day made sense of how much he usually ate, you’d come to realize). The bowl of cookie dough was now sitting on the step of the lanai and you and Johnny were side by side on the deck, looking out over the farm and taking the occasional spoonful of dough into your mouths. He was right— the dough did taste better than the baked cookies probably would have, especially after it had chilled for a bit. With the way the stars and moon were hung in the cloudless sky, you could see the soft glow of their reflection in the water beyond the highway and the cliff leading to the beach.

“You ever go down to the shore?” He asks suddenly, and it feels out of nowhere and like he’s inside your head because how else would he have known you were just thinking about the ocean? But then you register that Andrew McMahon’s voice has just crooned something about Venice Beach and the California summer in the music that had still been playing through the speakers of Johnny’s phone.

You hummed for a moment before answering. “Not really. I should make more time for it, but I rarely ever leave the farm, as you probably noticed. I know this place is paradise for so many people, the vacation destination on a lot of bucket lists, but I think my… circumstances made me bitter towards the island, conceptually speaking anyways.” You watched the water with a bit more focus as a few waves crested, but you couldn’t see enough of the shore to see them actually crash. “I know I don’t talk about it much but, I needed a break from my work too. That’s… part of the reason I’m here, why I was waiting for my sister and Yunho to come out. It’s a much less interesting story than yours, so I won’t bore you with the details,” you wanted to reroute the subject before any questions started getting asked, but deep down you knew Johnny wasn’t going to press you for anything you weren’t ready to share. He’d figured that much out about you anyways.

“Anyways, maybe you’re on to something, Seo. Maybe I should take some time to actually relax a bit, seeing as now that I’ve tricked you into finishing the most difficult and time consuming of the summer projects Yunho had planned,” you stuck your tongue out between your teeth jokingly in an effort to mask the vulnerability you’d briefly shown.

Johnny took the hint and changed the subject. “The Killers, Bleachers, Paramore, Fall Out Boy… not saying I don’t like your taste in music, but I’m surprised it’s your picks were so astoundingly pop-punk-rock. Woulda taken you for a—”

“If you finish that sentence by saying ‘country kinda girl’ I’m locking you out tonight and taking the cookie dough with me,” you warned.

He laughed and shook his head. “No, you strike me as too high strung to enjoy country. Like it’s typically too slow for your tastes, or something like that.”

“Oh I’m obnoxious about my taste in media, if you couldn’t already tell. I’ve listened to mostly the same artists for the last ten years. In high school I was that kid that thought making it known that I ‘didn’t listen to the radio pop main stream’ was a personality trait, whatever that meant.”

“Oooh, so edgy and mysterious, did she used to cut her own bangs too?” He giggled into his mason jar, taking another sip.

“Nooo, that was only one time and I swear it was on a dare and not because of a break up!” You jokingly wailed out, throwing your head back in exaggeration. “Although I do regularly trim Wendy’s bangs for her because she can’t be trusted with sharp objects. Knives, needles, scissors, none of it, girl’s a total klutz,” you took another sip and uncorked the bottle again to refill your jar. You held the remainder up for Johnny to see, silently asking if he wanted a top off to finish the last of the second bottle you’d opened.

Johnny was a big guy— tall and muscular, you were sure it would take him a bit more than a bottle or two of shared champagne to get him tipsy. That’s why you didn’t think too much of it as he stared into the reinvigorated fizzing bubbles as he quietly said, “I’d like to meet her someday. Wendy, I mean— you talk about her so fondly, she seems like a great person. Like she’s good for you in your life.”

Why did you feel a little uneasy at the way he spoke about Wendy? He had no idea what she looked like, it was only from the stories you’d been telling that he knew anything about her. And it wasn’t even the real her, it was just her as she existed to you, so what was there to be uneasy about? You were overthinking again, so you had to come up with an answer to fill the silence you’d created— “Yeah well, Wendy’s sick of dick, she’s very bisexual and I’m pretty sure she’s head over heels in love with this Joohyun she started seeing recently, she’s just too much of a chicken shit to tell her how she feels,” you hid behind you glass and drank deeply, not minding as the floating slice of alcohol soaked lemon rested against your nose.

“Sounds familiar,” Johnny said quietly. “I… can relate, I think,” he mumbled out, and you glanced over in time to see him place his now-empty cup on the wood beside him. “Sometimes you just feel the way you do and you don’t really have a reason for why, but you can’t even put it to words to the person it matters to.”

This time when your breath caught in your throat, it wasn’t because of a mounting attack, but in anticipation of what Johnny would do next. The space between you had slowly waned as you’d been drinking, your bodies inching closer to each other without you even realizing it, almost like the way the moon pulled the tide to the shore over and over again. When your eyes traveled from where his hand was pressed into the deck flooring up to meet his hooded gaze, you don’t really know what you were expecting, but Johnny’s parted lips shining slightly (probably from that last drink of wine) was not it.

You knew this feeling. This was when you were supposed to lean in, right? That’s how this usually went. Your hand shifted closer towards his for a moment and then pulled back, and the end joint of Johnny’s fingers flexed as he pressed his fingertips into the deck.

You didn’t lean in. Your heart was hammering in your chest far too loud for you to be able to do so; instead, you look away, his eye and his lips and his face and his everything suddenly too much, and your turned your cheek to him instead.

Instead, he leaned in, and for just a brief moment the crickets stopped chirping, the distant ocean stopped moving, the music stopped playing, and your heart stopped beating as Johnny’s perfectly pouty lips pressed against your cheek, and then your temple, and then your throat. And then his head tilted down and his nose brushed against your skin delicately, leaving a trial of burning in its wake, and time didn’t start turning again until the snort of his laughter broke the silence and he fell into your shoulder in a giggle fit.

It took all of your patience and self control to make your lungs continue to function as you listened to Johnny giggle so much he stopped making sounds until he was spewing out between fits of laughter ‘The bubbles make everything funny, why is everything funny with bubbles?’

‘Why indeed’, you wondered silently, letting the clearly tipsy Johnny rest his head on your shoulder as he continued his giggle fits, stroking the palm of your hand against his back as he’d first done for you under far different circumstances, trying to not think about how much faster your heart was beating while doing so, and how if your accelerated heart rate was from his proximity to you, you didn’t mind.

How long did you stay like that, in such a familiar embrace with Johnny? Long enough, it seemed, for the playlist on his phone to come to an end and for him to start dozing off while resting against you, his light snores the thing that finally made you disturb him so you could go back inside. It was late anyways, nearing midnight you said softly and you tried to wake him gently—

A surprisingly loud boom shook the sky followed by a burst of light and color. Immediately the dog inside woke up and started barking, and Johnny bolted upright, eyes darting around in search of the source of the noise that had disturbed his snoozing.

“Fireworks,” you breathed out, more to yourself than to him. “Guess it’s midnight already.” Johnny didn’t say much, but his eyes twinkled as he watched in earnest as a few more went off before you tugged on his sleeve and insisted that he needed to make his way to bed and sleep. There were sure to be more tomorrow, and he could watch them then.

You didn’t sleep for hours that night. After helping the mildly intoxicated Johnny to his bed, you sat on the floor of your room, knees pulled into your chest and a hand laying flat against your cheek where he’d planted his trail of kisses. “He was just drunk, he’s just a flirty drunk, that didn’t mean anything,” you repeated to yourself over and over again.

But something about the way Johnny’s lips felt against the apples of your cheek and the hollow of your throat when he’d been nuzzling against you stayed with you all night long, sending a shiver down your spine and igniting a flame where your heart lived. You pressed the heels of your palms into your eyes and inhaled deeply, breath shuddering on the exhale.

Against all your hopes and intensions, Johnny Seo had slowly chipped his way through your armor and into your heart.

You had to get him out. Fast.

tbc.

—

author’s note | Me: this first part is gonna be like, I dunno, 5k? 6k? Also me: writes 19,000 words. We call this ✨processing your own trauma through writing as an outlet✨ Originally this was going to be one really long one shot and then I decided to split it up for ratings purposes because I am a thirsty whore for Youngho. The ending is rushed but honestly I was so sick of editing and overthinking this lmaooo. No I have not spent a summer living in Kona working on a coffee farm. Most of my coffee knowledge is second hand from the time my brother in law bought a coffee farm and started a roasting business because my sister dared him to by saying “do it you won’t” (an exact quote I shit you not). There’s more to this story and uh I dunno I’ll maybe post it eventually if people don’t hate this one *shrugs*

[kakashionmain]

Tips for College Applications I’ve Amassed Throughout My Process

Hi! I’m Main and I applied to 10 different colleges. As of right now I’ve heard back from 5/10 — four acceptances and one wait list! I’ve learned a lot throughout the entire process and I didn’t really have anyone to guide me, so I’m writing them down here in hopes that they’ll help you!

For Freshies and Sophomores:

Your grades DO count these years! They count towards your GPA and overall class rank, so don’t think you can fool around now and not have it bite you in the ass

Same goes for behavior! If you have major behavioral issues / reprimands on your record you’re going to have to explain it

Start volunteering now! Online or in person doesn’t matter — just be SURE you can verify your service hours and try and make sure you get at least one person who can act as a supervisor / reference for you to write a letter (preferably on official letterhead with their contact info)

Cycle through clubs and hobbies. U rlly wont have time later. Either too much work or too tired.

Keep a note on ur phone or computer of all the awards u get from school, all the start and end dates of jobs, and all the start and end dates and total hours of volunteer activities.

MAKE NICE WITH SOME OF UR TEACHERS NOW — THIS GOES DOUBLE FOR TEACHERS UMAY HAVE MORE THAN ONCE! Rec letters do NOT come from senior year teachers! And some junior year teachers get so swamped they can’t do everyone! So go to a sophomore / freshman year teacher! It can serve to show your consistency OR your overall improvement.

ALSO MAKE NICE W UR GUIDANCE COUNSELOR — ESP IF UR IN A BIG SCHOOL! For high school, being on good terms w ur counselor is important. It can mean the difference between getting the schedule you want, getting recognized for an achievement, having a dependable reference, or being nominated for an award. For college apps it’s even more important! Because if your counselor doesn’t know you they may not have enough material to write a counselor recommendation beyond the generic or put in extra time for you. I have friends who didn’t know their counselor before this year and it really bit them in the ass. I made nice with my counselor sophomore and freshman year and we’ve literally had phones calls and extensive emails. She’s been with me EVERY step of the way, and has even said she’d love to stay in touch with me AFTER graduation.

For Juniors:

TAKE UR PSAT SERIOUSLY! HOLY SHIT! I am one of the unlucky people whose SAT got canceled — three fucking times. I never got to take it and I had to apply everywhere test optional. Because I did well on my PSAT, however, I was recognized for high achievement by college board. This opened me up to a LOT of merit scholarships that would have been otherwise closed AND showed that I would have scored well on the SAT had I been able to take it. When I took the PSAT I had no idea it would be so helpful and I didn’t even study. This was just dumb luck on my part. don’t let it be dumb luck on yours. Take it seriously. If you don’t do well, there’s always time to improve for your SAT

Ask teachers for college rec letters at the END of junior year and then confirm with them at the BEGINNING of senior. Be polite and make sure to say thank you — they’re doing you a favor!

Sign up for interviews! A lot of colleges, especially after this year, have online interview options for juniors, rising seniors (that’s summer before senior year), and seniors! Which means you can interview!

Start looking for scholarships! Some are locked to senior year, yes, but others are locked to junior year

This year suuuucks and I’m sorry

For Seniors:

Sign up for interviews if you can! It demonstrates interest in a school AND can give you a feel for the Vibes

DONT apply early decision if you’re not certain of a school. Seriously I have a friend who applied early decision to Cornell — great school, Ivy League, wooo — got accepted and HATED it. He literally had to go through the transfer app process this year

There’s NO shame in community college or local state schools that “everyone goes to 🙄.” You know why so many people go to them? Because they set u up to make a living. Because they are more affordable. Because they WANT to. Not everyone is going to the Ivy League and, quite frankly, this makes up the vast majority of people. What’s more embarrassing: repping Harvard for four years and then getting rejected or going to a college where u basically know everyone already?

DONT EVERY COMMENT ON SOMEONES AFTER GRADUATION PLANS! It’s rude asf and none of ur business and ppl WILL shit talk u for being a jerk

Apply to LOCAL scholarships bc you’re more likely to win them. Apply to BIG scholarships but don’t be upset if and when you don’t get them

FILE FAFSA AND CSS PROFILE EARLY AND AROUND THE SAME TIME

You’re probably going to have send a copy of ur taxes or a student non-filer form and ur parents taxes to at least ONE college, either directly or through IDOCs. Letting u know now

DONT be afraid to ask for fee waivers

CHECK UR EMAIL! Sometimes schools just fucking send u waivers and if u miss it u miss it

[writerofthecourt]

fuyu no hanashi

pairing: semi eita x reader

summary: semi sings a song dedicated to you. a story of loss, anguish, and regrets

warning: slight time skip spoilers, character death, grief and mourning, subtle reference to alcoholism

a/n: i’ve been wanting to write something like this for a very long time, and i’m really happy with how it turned out. this story was inspired by the anime/manga given, specifically a scene from episode 9 of the anime. here’s the particular scene that i’m referencing (beware, the clip does contain plot spoilers for given). i’ve never written for semi before, so i hope i did him justice

Cheers erupted from all around the bar as the band’s leader and vocalist hit the final note of the song, signalling the end of the show. However, this did very little to kill off the enthusiasm of the fans, as they all chanted in unison for one more song.

“One more song, one more song!”

Semi gasped for breath, feeling his body almost running on empty after nearly two hours of intense guitar playing. He looked to his band’s leader to see if he would go through with the crowd’s request.

After catching his breath, the leader turned to Semi, eyeing him seriously as if to ask him if he could really do it. Semi bit his lip, tightening the grip around the neck of his guitar in anxiousness.

Could he do it? He had never once sung on stage since the band’s inception, settling instead to blend into the background and jam out on his guitar. It wasn’t like he couldn’t sing, but there was only ever one person that he sang for, and well…

“I love hearing you sing, Eita. You have a lovely voice.”

Releasing a sigh of nerves, Semi nodded his head. The leader grinned and shot him a subtle thumbs up before grabbing the microphone to address the audience. “If another song’s what you want, then another song’s what you’ll get!”

Once again, the crowd erupted into whoops and hollers as their excitement reverberated all throughout the walls of the bar.

“But,” everyone quickly turned to silence after that, “the one who’ll be singing is Semi over here.”

Hushed noises of confusion soon rang out as the leader grabbed Semi by the arm and gently pushed him towards the front of the stage where the microphone stood. Rushing backstage, the leader quickly grabbed his own guitar, which he had hidden away in its case. While he enjoyed the spotlight that came with being the band’s lead vocalist, he didn’t mind playing back-up guitar every now and then.

Once everyone was in position, Semi nervously glanced into the darkness of the bar. Although he couldn’t see their stares, Semi could feel the looks of judgement, anticipation, and curiosity all directed on him as he took a hold of the microphone stand.

“Ehhh, did Sato strain his throat or something?”

“I’ve never heard Semi sing before, I’m so excited!”

“Can Semi even sing?”

Of course I can sing, Semi internally scoffed. I wouldn’t be up here if I couldn’t.

Tapping the microphone to quiet everyone down, Semi opened his mouth to speak. “Uh, hey. I know I’m usually not up here, but I wanted to sing you guys a song that’s close to my heart.”

Pausing for a moment to collect himself, Semi took a deep breath before continuing. “I wrote this song for someone close to me. She’s not here to listen to it now, but I hope it still reaches her.”

Turning to his bandmates to indicate that he was ready, every one of them shot him an encouraging smile. He wobbly returned their smiles and turned his attention back on to the audience.

“This song is called ‘Winter’s Story.’ I hope you all like it.”

Tapping his drumsticks together, the band’s drummer counted down to the song.

One, two, three-

“Wow, Eita, that was great!” Clapping your hands together, you smiled at your boyfriend as he came to the end of his impromptu performance.

Semi chuckled at the pure joy and adoration shining from your eyes as he set his guitar down back into its case and made himself comfortable onto the chair next to your bed.

In the small and quaint confines of your hospital room, the only noises that could be heard were the monotonous beeps of your heart monitor and the light footsteps of nurses quietly patrolling the hallways outside of your door.

The glow of the setting sun indicated that the dark winter night was fast approaching, and with it, visiting hours would soon be over. Although Semi hated this fact, he couldn’t deny how beautiful you looked as the casting rays of the sun gave your face an angelic shimmer to it.

Even though you denied his claims of beauty on most days, with your skin being reduced to an abnormally sickly tone and needles and wires prodding away at your arm, Semi was always quick to rebuttal all of this. Even in this state, you were still an absolute goddess to him. From the first day he had met you, Semi always thought you were the most beautiful girl he knew.

“So, how long did it take you to write that song?” you asked after a moment of silence.

“Hmmm,” he paused to think about it, “a few days? I just thought about you, and it all came to me.”

Laughing at his poor attempt at flirting, you gave your boyfriend a playful push on the shoulder. “Well, aren’t you a smooth one, Mr. Musician.”

“Only for you, pretty lady,” Semi quipped back with a smirk.

You both chuckled as your conversation soon fell into a quiet and comfortable lull. Semi took to gently holding your hand, while you simply stared out at the large single window that occupied your room, watching in awe as the previously orange sky painted itself black and snowflakes began to fall.

“So-” “I-”

Both you and Semi stared at each other in surprise and amusement before you prompted for him to go first.

“I have some really exciting news about the band,” he informed you.

Seeing you curiously tilt your head, Semi took this as a sign to tell you the news. “There’s this really popular bar, Submariner. It’s located downtown next to all of these other trendy bars and clubs.”

Letting out a hum to indicate that you were listening, Semi said, “Well, the owner of the place saw one of our videos online and sent us an email to ask if we wanted to play a show at the bar next week!”

Pausing for a second to process this new information, you almost jumped out of your bed once you had registered Semi’s words. You let out a cry of joy as you reached up to wrap your arms around your boyfriend’s neck. You almost felt yourself burst into tears at his accomplishment. You were so proud of him.

“Eita, that’s amazing! It’s what you and the guys have always wanted!” you exclaimed. “This is your dream!”

Semi laughed, wrapping his arms around you as he felt tears in his own eyes at your genuine happiness and reaction. He pulled you close, finding comfort in the beating of your heart and the warmth of your body. They were all reminders that you were here, that you were alive.

“Yeah, it’s our first live gig, so everyone’s really excited,” he said while tracing the curve of your back. “We’re even working on a new song right now to play as our opening act.”

“When are you guys playing?” you peeked out from his chest.

“Hmm, next Friday night on the eighteenth,” he responded. “Why?”

He didn’t notice how your body stilled. “O-oh, um, just asking. I wanted to tell my parents so that they could go down there and record you guys.”

Semi hummed. “Even if you’re not there, I’ll always be thinking about you, okay?”

“You’re so lame,” you teased, giving him a peck on the cheek as you made yourself comfortable again on the bed.

“Yeah, whatever,” he conceded as a blush coloured his face. “Anyways, what about you, [Y/N]? Didn’t you want to tell me something too?”

“Y-yeah. I just wanted to tell you that the surgery date hasn’t been decided yet,” you nervously chewed on your lips, “I-I’m a little bit scared just thinking about it, if I’m being honest.”

“[Y/N],” Semi began seriously, taking a hold of your hand. “You’re the strongest person I know. Your doctor said that you’re getting better every day, so you have a high chance of surviving the operation. You’ll make it through this, and I’ll be beside you every step of the way.”

Stunned by his words, your mind was quickly put at ease by Semi’s reassurance. Showing your appreciation, you sent him a sincere smile, the one that got his heart pumping and his mind racing. The one that made him fall in love with you all over again. The one he wanted to wake up every morning to, and the one that he couldn’t live without.

“I know, Eita,” you whispered emotionally. “I love you.”

He smiled back at you. “I love you too.”

The sweet moment was soon interrupted by a soft knock at your door. The nurse in charge of your care sheepishly smiled as she entered into your room with a cart full of medical equipment and pills.

“[L/N]-san, visiting hours are over,” she announced. “I’m also here to check your vitals and administer your medicine.”

Semi sighed, disappointed and knowing that this moment would come sooner or later. Packing up his things, Semi hitched his guitar case onto his shoulder and went over to place a tender kiss on your forehead.

“I’ll see you tomorrow. Call me, all right?” he warned, though there was no real seriousness behind his eyes.

Heading for the door, he bowed to the nurse and thanked her for taking such good care of you. The nurse simply brushed him off, saying that it was her job to take care of you and that you were one of the more delightful patients she had to deal with.

Turning around to look at you one more time, Semi shot you a smile that he had reserved only for your eyes. The kind of smile that came from the bottom of his heart and was filled with adoration.

“I love you,” he repeated again.

“I love you too,” you huffed in playful exasperation. “Now go before the snow starts affecting traffic.”

Semi chuckled and waved goodbye, and as he headed towards the elevators, he couldn’t help but overhear your conversation with the nurse.

“I heard he wrote you a new song? Some of the other nurses were talking about it in the breakroom.”

“Yeah, he did! It was really sweet.”

He heard the nurse sigh fondly. “It must be nice having a boyfriend as caring and loving as Semi-san, right?”

You giggled. “Yeah, he’s the best!”

As the lyrics poured out of Semi’s mouth, the memories of you all came rushing back to him—memories that he had long since tried to forget and had buried deep within the depths of his heart.

From your first date to the day you finally moved in together. From your first major fight to the day you were read your diagnosis. These were all moments that Semi had cherished with you, but now-

“W-what do you mean the operation was yesterday?!” Semi shouted, ignoring the uneasy looks some of the passing nurses gave him.

“S-she didn’t want us to tell you, Eita-kun,” your mother cried, holding back her tears. Your father stood beside her, doing his best to support his wife as he dealt with his own grief and loss. “It was on the same day as your show. She didn’t want to burden you. She wanted you to play!”

It was your mother’s next words that broke his heart forever. “S-she…she didn’t make it.”

“Ahhh-ahhhhh!!” Semi screamed out in time with the bridge’s commencement. It was a guttural noise, one full of anger, sadness, and betrayal, all of which he had bottled away this entire time.

Semi always regretted that day. He would have gladly given up his dream of becoming a musician if it meant that he could have said goodbye to you one last time. Unfortunately, fate was far too cruel.

No matter where I go, you’re there, he thought to himself as he continued to sing. You’re always in my head. You’re in everything I see.

Feeling the hot tears pouring from his eyes, Semi strummed away at his guitar.

No matter where I go, I can still see you there…

Images of dates, anniversaries, and all the times you two had spent together began appearing in his mind. Semi could never forget the joy in your eyes whenever you smiled at him or the happiness in your laughter whenever he told a stupid joke. All of those images and sounds came crashing back to him, striking like a tsunami.

“It was her choice not to tell you,” Tendou said, warily glancing at all the empty bottles of alcohol strewn around the apartment. “She wanted you to chase after your dream.”

“What the hell’s the point of my dream if she isn’t here for it?!” Semi lashed out, not caring for the tears rolling down his face. “I only got into music because I wanted to make her happy! I wanted to see her smile! But now-”

The audience stared in total awe and focus as Semi poured his heart out into his singing and playing. All the bitterness, resentment, sadness, and regret that he had ever felt about that day were now being put into his performance.

I can’t forgive you for lying, he thought bitterly. I can’t forgive myself for not being there. But most of all…I miss you.

Striking the final chord of the song, Semi ended the show in spectacular fashion. The crowd looked on in stunned silence and wide eyes before exploding into loud praises and cheers. Although his lungs were on fire and his fingers twitched with every slight movement he made, Semi never felt more happy. The weight around his heart was now beginning to feel lighter, and with it, a chance to finally start moving forward.

Rubbing away at his eyes to get rid of the remaining tears, Semi weakly chuckled to himself. He quietly thanked the fans and wished them all a good night before exiting the stage with his bandmates. As they each congratulated him on his amazing performance, Semi couldn’t help but let his mind wander off to you one more time.

[Y/N], no matter where you are, I hope you know I’m happy. I’ve chased after my dream, just like you wanted me to. I made it, [Y/N].

…I love you.

taglist: @kkoalaworld​ (you said you wanted to be tagged)

[punksarahreese]

"You left your shirt at my house. It’s mine now." for reekser 👉👈

also i hope you're having a good day :)

Thank you!! I hope you had a good day too 🥺

Mine | A Chance Meeting (Twice Over)

Ava comes to work one day wearing something that clearly isn’t hers

***

“No, I definitely saw her wearing it,” Doris was saying from across the nurse’s station, gossiping with the other nurses as she often did. Sarah had to roll her eyes at that, as if there wasn’t enough drama within the hospital as is, especially in the ED. She decided to tune them out, occupying herself with reading a chart over Natalie’s shoulder instead.

“Did you order a contrast CT?”

“Yeah, I-”

Natalie’s answer was interrupted when April came over, an apology preceding her explanation that she needed to steal the resident for a moment. Sarah’s forehead scrunched a bit in confusion but she still let her friend lead her off to a quieter part of the ED.

“What’s going on with you and Doctor Bekker?” April cut to the chase right away, eyebrow arching as she looked at Sarah pointedly. She didn’t miss the way her cheeks turned pink and she stumbled over her answer, making her response redundant.

“I- nothing! W-we’re on Robin’s case together?”

“Uh-huh,” April rolled her eyes, “Sarah, the nurses are already talking about it.”

“About what?” She genuinely didn’t know what that meant. Her and Ava had spent a fair amount of time together since reuniting, they did have ten years of catching up to do after all. Still, at work they kept their distance for comfort’s sake; Sarah worried that people would make a big deal. They weren’t dating, not yet anyway, because Sarah had said she had some things to work through first. Ava didn’t mind, though she had made it clear she would be open to a relationship whenever Sarah was comfortable.

“Your sweater?” April looked at her incredulously, “Doris said she saw Doctor Bekker wearing your work fleece today.”

“April, that’s-” Sarah stopped herself, trying to think of how she could even get around that. She wanted to say that Doris was probably lying, since she didn’t even recall seeing Ava with that particular sweater ever, but then she realized. She had been wearing it when they were together that weekend and she must have forgotten the thing at Ava’s place. She definitely didn’t expect the surgeon to decide to wear it, much less to work, but maybe she had. It was a bit upsetting, since she had said she didn’t want people at work knowing about them before they had actually made things official, but that would be a later issue. At this point, Sarah was just trying to figure out how to dodge the endless questions she could tell April had. It was times like these she actually wished Doctor Charles would come to interrupt him as he so often did but the universe didn’t seem to be in her favour that day.

“Can I-” she sighed, “I’ll tell you later, okay? I would prefer if you didn’t… let Doris gossip about me or Ava, though.”

That seemed to placate April, though her knowing smile only grew when Sarah referred to the new fellow by first name. The resident just rolled her eyes again, shooing her friend away by reminding her she needed to get back to work. Sarah, however, checked the time and realized she could take her lunch at that point. Which was a relief, especially since she had to go confirm something about a certain cardio surgeon.

***

“You didn’t strike me as a thief, Ava,” Connor’s tone was playful, something she was still getting used to. In the three weeks since she started working at Gaffney, the other cardiothoracic fellow had slowly lowered his guard and stopped being so hostile towards her. She knew it was the principle of the thing, since this was all a big competition to be the best for Connor, but it was relieving to know he didn’t hate her. Not that she really cared about what Connor Rhodes of all people thought of her, but him being friendly certainly made her life easier.

“How do you mean?” she asked, not looking up from her computer. She was trying to finish typing up an email to an old colleague from Groote Schuur, wanting to ask her about a technique she used in a surgery for HPLHS when Ava was a resident.

“Well, that’s certainly not your sweater,” he replied with a pointed look, “Unless you changed your name and speciality overnight. Identity theft is no joke, Doctor Bekker.”

Ava looked up at that, sighing, “You think you’re so funny, don’t you? I’m just borrowing it.”

“Since when are you and Reese close enough to share clothes?”

Ava didn’t have the energy to even begin to explain the situation to Connor, not that it was any of his business anyway. She was saved, though, when a quiet voice called her name from across the hall. As if the mention of her name had summoned her, the psychiatry resident had just stepped off the elevator and was making her way over to where Ava sat at the main desk in CT. Connor’s curiosity was obviously killing him, as he looked between the two women waiting for his explanation.

“Hey,” Ava smiled at Sarah, pretending she didn’t notice the way Sarah looked vaguely upset. She could guess why and she did feel a bit bad about it, but they weren’t going to have this conversation around Connor. That would only make things worse, of course, so she just finished typing her sentence and then closed the tab she had open on the computer.

“Lunch time?” Ava asked, letting Sarah know they could go somewhere to talk, away from Connor who was amused with the way Ava’s tone had immediately changed around Sarah. The resident just nodded, waiting patiently for Ava to collect her things. They left the desk in silence, knowing the other surgeon would have lots of questions for her when she came back; most of which would go unanswered. Ava didn’t owe him anything, of course, despite what Connor seemed to think.

Sarah led the way to the stairwell instead of the elevator, making Ava aware that they would actually be talking instead of going to the cafeteria. She leaned against the wall when the other woman stopped walking, looking at her apologetically.

“What happened to being subtle?”

“You left your sweater at my house,” Ava replied coolly, “It’s mine now.”

“Ava…”

“It’s not that big of a deal, Sar,” she promised, “All I’ve said was that I borrowed it. I don’t have my own fleece yet, and the CT floor is cold, you know.”

“Doris is talking about it,” she rolled her eyes but also was clearly anxious about it, “They’ve all been talking.”

Ava reached out to grab her wrist gently, tugging the brunette a bit closer. Sarah huffed but she wasn’t actually that mad, knowing it really wasn’t the biggest deal. She knew Ava really didn’t mean anything of it, she was just already used to borrowing Sarah’s sweaters whenever she was over at her place.

“Let them talk then,” she suggested softly, “I will take it off if it bugs you, though.”

Sarah looked at her, unable to hide her smile when Ava looked at her with a tiny pout. She certainly knew how to get on her good side, she thought ruefully, the other woman still proving to be her weakness ten years later.

“It's okay.”

“Are you sure?” Ava asked seriously, watching as she reached out to fiddle with the zipper that the blonde had only done up ¾ of the way. The little gesture made her feel better, glad she hadn’t actually made her angry. She didn’t mean to at all, of course, she just loved Sarah’s sweaters. They were warm and smelled of her perfume, a faint vanilla scent that reminded her of their past. It was reassuring when Sarah nodded absently, hesitating for a moment before responding.

“Let them talk,” she echoed, “I like seeing you in my sweater, anyway.”

The wide grin she received from Ava made everything seem better, her own smile growing when the older woman took her hand and gave it an appreciative squeeze. It was enough for both of them and maybe it made Ava really happy when Sarah let her hold her hand until they reached the downstairs hallway. It was a big step, she knew that, and she was grateful that Sarah trusted her like this.

[hollypastl]

the disappearance of [REDACTED] ch.2

miya atsumu/reader

Summary: "MISSING: MIYA Y/N" It reads. Underneath is a picture of yourself. Age, height, weight. Everything important is listed. How embarrassing.

Genre: angst/mystery

Warnings: missing persons, time skip spoilers

Notes: crossposted on ao3 https://archiveofourown.org/works/28726002/chapters/70468146#workskin

chapter two: you will live and die for them because that’s your way

Osamu is still as a statue as he processes what his brother’s just told him.

It doesn’t seem real.

“That doesn’t make any— No. I know you’re you and she’s her, but you two are…” He trails off and starts wiping down the bar again. It’s a nervous habit Osamu picked up sometime when he wasn’t watching. “I mean... last week she didn’t act like anything was—”

Atsumu is busy reeling from his brother almost(?) complimenting his relationship that he almost misses it. “Last week?”

He nods. “Yeah, the stall was packed at the Friday game… She jumped in and manned the register so the rest of us could work on finishing orders.”

“Last week, though? You’re positive?”

He nodded.

“You saw her?”

From your usual court side seats, you could hear shoes squeaking and players panting. The thirty second row just wasn’t the same. At the same time, watching the game from a birds eye view gave you a new perspective and appreciation.

You leaned forward and locked on to Sakusa for the serve that would start the set. Your cheek sunk into your hand as his serve shot almost straight into the floor if not for a quick save by Komori that he bounced with only a single arm.

Someone across the way whooped and your eyes darted side to side as the ball hopped in the air and the setter shot a quick toss through the air. Your eyes landed on the spiker it was hurtling towards. From this far away, it was impossible to see, but you knew Suna well enough. Right now he was probably thinking something like, ‘There’s a three man block in front of me, is there really any use in jumping? I’m not gonna land a point anyway, so I might as well conserve my energy.” Still, he leaped for all he was worth and dinked it with his freakishly long fingers at the last second.

“Woohoo!” You screeched. Ignoring the fans who turned around to frown at you. Understandable. Why were you sitting in the MSBY Black Jackals section and dressed in black and gold merch if you were gonna cheer for the other damn team? You glare right back at them and slurp on your empty drink. The action only reminds you that you’re kind of hungry.

Inunaki bumps it back up all the same. Not surprising considering how slow and weak dinks are, but you gasp and groan aloud with the rest of the fans when Atsumu immediately tries to dump the ball back over the net. The play is messy and his hands are easy to read. Suna springs back up and spikes it down before the two even have a chance to tussle over it.

The buzzer rings and the EJP Raijin are awarded the point.

“Now that’s a failure of a setter dump if I ever saw one. Not what you usually expect from a player like Miya.”

“He does seem to be off his game today— oh, and there it is. Coach Foster is subbing in another player.”

“It’s only the second set, and the Jackals did take the first. There’s plenty of time for him to cool off and get back on the court to show us some of his monster serves.”

The commentators switch to talking about the serving skills of the various players at today’s game, which you don’t bother to stick around for. You did come to see Atsumu, after all. No point in staying if he’s not on the court.

You gather your hair in a low ponytail and tie it back, put your jacket back on, and make sure you have your wallet and phone still. All secure.

The stadium isn’t one you’re used to, so you refer to the map in the concrete hallway. The exit closest to the station is the north one and you’re at the southeast. It’s only when you turn to go that you realize you don’t know whether to go left or right.

“Well, it is just a giant circle,” You mutter. “Doesn’t really matter which way.”

From further inside, you can hear the buzzer go off one, two three times, signaling the end of the set. “That was quick.” The halls flood immediately and you’re forced to slow down and trudge through, rather than hyperwalk like you usually would. This whole trip is turning out to be one inconvenience after another. Atsumu is off his game. You’re hungry. People in this crowd keep bumping into you.

“Hey lady, get in line like the rest of us.” One asshole grunts and you reflexively scowl at him and the five brats he’s with. It drops from your face. If you had to deal with five kids under the age of ten all by yourself, you’d be grumpy too.

“Sorry, m’bad.” Curious, (and still hungry) you check what it is they’re in line for. Immediately, you’re in a better mood. Skirting the line, you hop over the gate and swipe some onigiri right out of the display box.

“Oi! What the hell are you— Oh, [y/n].”

“Hey there, stranger! Fancy meeting you here.” In two massive, disgusting, and arguably impressive bites, you swallow the onigiri (which is in no way, bite sized) and pluck the baseball cap off his head.

“Hiii, welcome to Onigiri Miya, what can I get for you today?” You ask, pulling your ponytail through the hat and bumping your hip with Osamu’s. The old man isn’t all that disturbed by the abrupt change in cashier and prattles on a list of items long enough to feed a battalion. You’re quick to click it into the POS and nod your head to the order printer that’s situated further back in their makeshift workstation. “I’ve got this. Go do your thing.” He rubs his hat hair sheepishly. He wasn’t planning on taking it off today. "Here's your receipt, sir. Please pick up your order at the station to your left. Good afternoon, it’s lovely to have ya here at Onigiri Miya, whatcha cravin’?”

“That’s it? What else did she say? Where’d she go after? When did she leave?” Atsumu’s hands buried themselves in his hair, practically pulling it out by the roots.

“I don’t know! Um… The rush came after the second set, I think? N’she left right after. I assumed she just went back in ta watch the game!”

“But she didn’t say anything weird?”

“No! We were so busy I barely said two words to ‘er!” Osamu had never seen his brother look so frantic.

“I’m going back to the police.” He rasped out.

— — —

At the station, Detective Kano looks over your file.

CASE: Missing Persons

FULL NAME: Miya [y/n]

BIRTHPLACE: Sapporo

CURRENT RESIDENCE: Osaka

Looking at it plainly, the answer is clear. As much as his subordinate and your husband don’t want to believe it, you’ve left. Nobody took you or forced you. The reason could be anything. You got bored or felt stifled in your marriage, (it did say you two had gotten married at twenty. That’s awfully young to make a lifelong commitment) you met another man, (always a possibility) or it could be that you were running for your life from an abusive piece of shit. Your case wouldn’t be the first like that and nor would it be the last. He didn’t care how ‘worried’ your husband appeared to be. For all he knew, the bastard could just be worried about people finding out and it ending his career.

"Oi, Tanigashi.” He barked. The rookie’s head shot up. “We find any bodies in the past couple days?”

“Time frame?” She asked, already typing away.

“Last seen on Tuesday, the fourteenth”

“Male? Female? What else, ya gotta help me out here.”

“Twenty two year old female.”

She hummed. “Tourist?”

He shook his head.

“Is she a short emo meets Harajuku model typa person?” She sighed, turned the monitor in his direction.

He sighed. “Nope. Sorry fer wastin’ your time. Get back to work.”

“Detective?” The office secretary popped his head in the door. “The statements you ordered just came in. Should I print them out for you?”

“Yeah, thanks kid.” Kano heaved himself out of his seat and cracked his bones. Years on the force and keeping up with full contact Karate were starting to get to him. Maybe he should take his daughters advice and take up Tai Chi or Yoga.

He crinkles open a wrapper and pops the gum in his mouth, reading the evidence as it’s freshly warm off the machine.

The bank statements aren’t anything out of the ordinary. You’ve withdrawn everything from your personal account. The joint account has been left alone. He jots down a note. ‘Set financial alert for suspicious activity.’

This way he’ll know if one of you tries to remove the other from the account. Again, he noted that you hadn’t withdrawn anything from the joint. As his spouse, you were legally entitled to it. And with Atsumu’s fat check from three seasons of pro sports under his belt, it wasn’t like he would miss a little bit all that much.

If anything, it told the detective that you didn’t hate him. Had you wanted him to suffer, it would be easy to empty the accounts and leave him broke.

“Rule’s out abuse.” He mumbles. Unless you were afraid of retribution should he find you. Though with how thorough you were being, (phone left behind. bank account empty. social media untouched) something told him you didn’t have any plans to be found.

Kano sighs, flipping through more pages and organizing them as he goes.

“This just gets more and more complicated.” He stops. “Hey, kid. Where’s the health report?”

He paled, worried he had missed something. “Ummmmmmmmm.” His fingers click across his email. “Looks like the hospital needs a formal report before releasing any information. Sorry, I’ll get right on that.”

— — —

Tucked away behind more wealthy and more flashy neighborhoods, hidden and huddled by a ring of trees, the only way you could ever know the Miya household was there was if you had been there before.

Which you had.

Ducked below a hill off the main road, it’s a modest split level house which seemed a lot smaller when you were younger. Then again, it had been inhabited by both the boys, their mom, and all the people they attracted. Which happened to be a lot. Despite being more than a little rude, Atsumu and Osamu were always surrounded by people wanting to be their friend.

You park in the driveway and enter through the back door on the porch, which has been unlocked since you first started visiting when you were fifteen.

“Toyo! It’s [y/n]. You here?” You called, walking through the door. No answer.

You walked through the kitchen and down the six steps to the main level.

“Toyo? You in there?” Politely soft, but loud enough to be heard, you knocked on her door. Still nothing.

You swung the door open.

“To—” Surrounded by tissues, old bowls of food, and shivering, was Miya Toyo in all her glory. “Gosh.” You whispered. “I knew you were sick, but this is ridiculous.”

Quietly, you grabbed the heating pad in her nightstand drawer and plugged it in, setting it next to her on the bed. Then, gently pulling the covers up and smoothing them out. Not that it mattered. The woman slept like a rock. You wondered if she had always dealt with being sick like this: alone, with no one to care for her.

Then you were headed back towards the kitchen. The door to Toyo’s room was carefully shut. You didn’t want your noise to wake her up. On the way back, you shuddered. No wonder she was sick, she kept the house colder than an icebox.

You made a pit stop at the boy’s room, sliding open a closet door, grabbing a hoodie, and smelling it.

“Hmm… Yeah, that’s Atsumu.” You recognized and quickly pulled it on. The man threw a fit anytime you wore Osamu’s clothes, so you had learned to differentiate the two. You chuckled. That was one of the ways you had figured out he had a thing for you.

A second pair of socks was also stolen. Yours were much too thin to keep your toes from falling off. “Hmm hmmm. Hmm hm, hmmm hm.” You hummed absentmindedly as you switched on the kettle and searched through the pantry and fridge for ideas on what to make.

[softestsaddestbitch]

December TC Challenge

stole this from @elder-edda (sorry for creeping! just, given the usual demographic of the tc community I was excited to find another 20-smthg)

1) what color is your tc’s hair?

He has just, simple brown hair but he’s starting to go grey which, no lie, is 100% doing it for me.

2) is your tc married?

Yes? He doesn’t wear a ring and I believe she kept her last name which makes me think it’s more of a civil partnership since they’ve been together since the early 2000s at least. But he also will refer to her as “my wife” and was telling me once that they waited until “after they got married” before moving in together.

3) if yes, do you care? would you do something with them regardless of their marriage?

I know these questions are general but I do take offense at the idea of being a homewrecker/other woman. I’ve met his wife, she’s really nice.

4) what’s your worst memory with your tc?

I put my foot in my mouth SO OFTEN. Good lord. Especially my last semester at that school? He was acting weird and I had just realized after fucking ... four years?? that I romantically liked him. So I kept bringing up my weird age fixation and other bs bc I have adhd and am possibly autistic?? and can’t read a room to save my life.

5) what’s your best memory with your tc?

One year we had a really bad snowstorm, so bad in fact that I had my first-ever snow day. The college that I used to go to has four campuses across as many cities, and C has to drive in twice a week to my (old) town from his. Now, morning classes had been canceled but afternoon classes had been given the go-ahead. C, who does not check his emails until he arrives at campus, evidently did not get this message until he was already in town and therefore didn’t have a morning class, but did have an afternoon class. On this day I had a late morning class that had been reinstated, but my prof didn’t get that memo so I also was on campus but didn’t have a class. So I went to visit his office, which I had been doing throughout the semester (I didn’t have a class with him at the time) and we just ... hung out for like 2 hours. It was so nice and one of the anecdotes he told me still haunts me lol.

sidenote: at the time, I hadn’t yet realized that I liked him, but I still went out of my way to visit him. Damn I was a dumbass.

6) does anyone in your school know how you feel?

ish? I told a classmate but in a “haha joking” kinda way. And a friend who went to that school knows. No one at my current school knows.

7) does your tc know how you feel?

I think he might? might have a lil inkling which would explain why he started acting so weird my last semester. Or at the very least was told/realized how bad it could look that he was getting so chummy w/ a student.

8) do you think there’s any chance your tc reciprocates your feelings?

He and his wife have been together for around 20 years now. No. No, I don’t think so. Maybe in an alternate universe.

9) are you getting your tc a christmas present? if so, what is it?

I have in the past! Specifically like, a tin of cookies lol. I’ve also given him an actual present when I left. I do intend to send him a Christmas card every year but not this year because ... you know ... the apocalypse.

10) have you ever flirted with your tc?

Flirtation inherently has intent. So, no. How he interpreted our interactions I don’t know.

11) how long have you had a crush on them? what began it all?

SO! TIMELINE!

I was at my old school from September 2014-April 2019, I had C for the first time in September 2015. Like I mentioned above, I did not realize I had a crush on him until literally the middle of my final exam of my class with him December 2018, so I’ve only consciously had a crush for about two years now. However, as I also mentioned, I went out of my way to stop by his office, even when I didn’t have a class with him. And my relationship with/feelings towards him are complicated so I’m not going to say I did so solely because I like him, but I would put it maybe closer to somewhere in 2017. You don’t plan your schedule around someone you don’t feel strong feelings for.

12) do you believe you’ll get over them shortly after you stop taking their class/have the chance to spend time with them?

As of today, it has been been exactly a year and a half since I last him in person. In the time since, I have cried over missing him, routinely gone back to keep up with his current research projects, and made his picture a part of my home screen. I almost exclusively listen to the playlist I made for him -  so much so my Spotify Wrapped is pretty much that playlist with a few extras.

13) what kind of grades do you get in their class?

Haaaaaa pre-supension I was failing his classes. My first semester back I got .... a mid/high 70? and I finished my last class with him with an A+ and the essay I had written for his class had the highest grade between the two classes so..

14) does your tc ever do any tiny, little things that you adore?

When he puts a hand in his pocket and leans against the wall. When he tucks his hair behind his ear because he keeps falling in his face (he has long hair, a little past his shoulders). When he can’t stop himself from googling something even if its in the middle of class. How you can ask him anything at any time. The way he would chuckle at my jokes. How his handwriting hasn’t improved in decades. How easily he brushes off toxic masculinity. His candidness and willingness to share little anecdotes. The way he used to always smile whenever he saw me. That he goes home everyday to have lunch with his wife.

15) are you their favorite student?

I was! And it was obvious to other students that we had a friendly, casual relationship too. For a time, if his other students had questions about him they would ask me, and I usually had the answer. I didn’t matter in the long run, but I was. 

16) do you two share any tastes? movies, books, music, etc.

He’s a legal historian, I’m a baby legal/political historian. We also like the same historical cooking youtube channel.

17) is your teacher religious?

I doubt he would say he’s religious, but I feel like we have a similar relationship to religion which is to say no formal association, but had profound effects on our childhoods and subsequently, presumably, how we view things as adults.

18) do you masturbate to them?

Yes.

19) do you communicate with them outside of school?

I sent him a meme once. And asked about the socialist uprising scandal he was apart of. I also almost emailed him while at a museum exhibition with my history friend. These are all through email.

20) do you have any tc songs or songs you relate to your tc? what are they?

SO my number one song this year was “You are the Reason” by Calum Scott because, you guessed it, of him. But also:

I Lost a Friend - Finneas When You’re Ready - Shawn Mendes You Are in Love - Taylor Swift Break My Heart Right - James

& given the season, especially w/ what transpired last year, Last Christmas by Wham!

21) what’s your favorite thing your tc has said/memory you have with them?

One time he kinda trailed off in the middle of lecture after stating that he thought of xyz a particular way which contrasted one of the popular schools of thought, and the way he plainly said, “well, yeah, which I guess ... is I’m arguing it” almost like he was semi-surprised with himself has always stuck with me. 

But also, in addition the memory I shared earlier, we spent an hour and a half talking about grad school and what to expect and how to get there. 

22) do you plan to continue a relationship with them after you leave school?

I trid, I really did. But he doesn’t “socialize with students part or present” so I can’t exactly see him. But I did get some academic-related from him at the beginning of the year.

23) how will you deal during the summer? will you see him/her?

He’s a hermit who used my last vacation before I moved to go on all the vacations he had to postpone because he was working on his last book. And this past summer ... Covid. This question is obviously directed at high school students, but in general, he lives in the back of head always, and when I’m in my hometown for the summer my heart aches because theres a none-zero chance I’ll see him, but I know I won’t.

24) does your tc support gay rights?

Yes. He’s never been put in a position that I know of where he had to outright condemn homophobia, but in one of his classes, he actively made the choice to make the very first reading of the semester about how women in ancient times had more agency than assumed, and also how the woman in the case study was a lesbian.

25) what class do you have with them? And what period? Do you have them every day?

History classes. I won’t get into specifics because it’s kind of an eclectic mix and I’m paranoid someone from the area could come across this. But I had him twice a week every semester that I had him. Again this kind of question is more so applicable to high school students, not so much university students.

26) have you ever drifted out during a lecture thinking about them and missed information?

No. In his classes he is too enthralling, and I’m a good student otherwise.

27) have you stalked them online? what did you find out?

In theory. He’s a fifty-year-old history professor whose reaction to a description of the big lipped/tiny face filter on snapchat was “that sounds disgusting.” The man doesn’t have social media, and if he does those privacy settings are on so students can’t find him he thinks he’s very professional. I do visit his mini-bio section on the college website fairly often tho.

28) have you ever run into them outside of schools? what happened?

I did once. He introduced me to his wife, who said “oh you’re E! C has talked about you” and it apparently he had done so positively, and blew my mind because this was back when I was failing classes and also, as a person, I don’t believe that people think about me when I’m not there. They gave me a restaurant recommendation and afterwards his wife surprised me a they were leaving the restaurant because ... we had listened to them, and they also went there for lunch that day.

29) has your tc ever spoken of teacher-student relationships? what did they say?

It had recently come out that it had been found out that another professor had been in a relationship with a student and he’s the one that brought it up before class one day (with all of us not just me). He didn’t say anything for or against it, just that it was generally discouraged, but that most schools did have policies in place to handle the situation.

30) do you regret telling anyone about your tc? if you’ve kept it a secret, why have you done so?

Absolutely not. I can’t tell my best friends because they’d do nothing but give me shit for it and it would call every time I mention him into question. But the friends that I have told ... its been so freeing, and like a weight has been lifted from my heart. One friend in particular I unloaded on her all my emotional shit pertaining to him this past summer and she was so understanding it legit since then I’ve been less distraught when thinking about him. It still hurts, but it feels less like I’m suffocating now.

[makenna-made-this]

~Commission Info Masterlist~

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[mayhembunnywrites]

How to Break, part 2

This is part 2 of How to Break, it’s not nearly as angsty since the story will be more about healing than anything from this chapter forwards. Thank you so much for even considering reading this and please leave feedback!

A few months had passed since your break-up with Jay, the sudden discovery causing you to move out the day after you had found out. Your friends had quickly become your support system in Jay’s absence, helping you hunt for an apartment whenever they got a chance. You had packed up only what you needed on the evening of the discovery, taking a taxi and showing up at Chaerin’s house.

She had taken a look at your expression and invited you in, seeing your puffy eyes and recognizing that something was wrong after five years of friendship. She felt angry from the first moment that you had told her the reason for your break-up with Jay, his clear rejection of your pregnancy making her even more upset.

Youngwoo had come over on his motorcycle quickly once Chaerin called him, anger obvious in her tone and your sobs in the background of the call all the while. He was as enraged as Chaerin, but while her anger was easily vented verbally, his was more a primal rage. His fists had clenched, the tall and muscular man protective over his friends despite his intimidating stature. 

It had, in fact, been Youngwoo and a few of his dancer friends who went to the apartment a few days later, gathering the things you had left behind and listed for them to pick up. He had run into Jay while his friends had scattered, quickly collecting the things you had left behind and closing the door, leaving Youngwoo and Jay alone.

“How’s she doing?” Jay hesitantly asks, wincing at the cold look he receives from the other man who was once his friend and now appears as his enemy. 

A chill runs down Jay’s spine as Youngwoo gazes at him, a predator who obviously considers him prey. “Oh,” Youngwoo speaks, deep voice rasping, “now you care about how she is? Interesting.” Jay seems to withdraw into himself as Youngwoo stares at him.

“W-well, after how everything…happened…the other day,” Jay begins hesitantly, nervous as the other man raises an eyebrow at him.

“‘Everything happened’, you say? Are you referring to the knowledge of her pregnancy or the fact that she caught you with another woman?” Youngwoo questions, his gaze turning to anger as he stares at the person who had broken his beautiful friend, the woman he thinks of as his sister, without a second glance. “The only reason you’re not lying unconscious on your lovely wood floors,” he purrs smoothly, “is because the woman you harmed warned me off of my prior plan. Luckily for you, I’ve chosen to respect her opinion in this matter.”

Youngwoo seems to stalk towards the door, pausing by Jay to turn to him with an icy look, “I won’t tell you to stay away from her, since you know that well enough. Just be aware that my lawyers will contact you soon to arrange for you to sign away your parental rights.” Youngwoo continues moving past Jay, quietly walking out of the apartment door and closing it behind him.

With the closing of the apartment door came a finality, leaving Jay alone in the quiet, clean  apartment. Even while the sun still shines on him, he can’t help but to wonder why he feels so cold.

A few days had passed and you were now the proud occupant of a three bedroom apartment, certainly a downgrade from your former apartment that you had shared with Jay for over a year but so full of life already. You now had flower pots decorating the place, the sweet scent of fresh flowers filling the air and making the small apartment seem brighter. 

“Thank you,” you say as Chaerin places a bowl of food in front of you, gladly digging into the meal with a happy smile. 

Your friends had been almost hovering in their protectiveness, your true friends having been revealed in the course of the ugly split between you and Jay. Chaerin and Youngwoo had quickly shown themselves to be loyal to you, unable to look at Jay with anything other than disgust at his actions.

In the past five months you had grown under their watchful eyes, the beautiful woman and handsome man had looked forward to spoiling their new niece or nephew from the first moment that they knew about your pregnancy. Both of their artistic skills had come to life with the new possibilities of the apartment you had rented, its cream colored walls calling to them as they bought brightly colored paint and painted designs around the place and making it feel more alive. 

The small apartment was brightly lit, the three bedrooms were the size of a shoebox, but it was perfect for you, your baby, and a guest room for your friends to stay in. As the months creep by you can feel yourself becoming more excited, buying new clothes with Chaerin and watching as Youngwoo assembles a crib he had found online for you. Both of your friends were incredibly excited about the baby, happy to be there for every moment of your pregnancy.

Although you have been blissfully happy with the way things have been going for you during your pregnancy, you still feel Jay’s absence keenly. Even though you wish to cast him out of your mind and memories, Jay was weaved into the fabric of your heart surely over the course of two years. You know that he will never be around to feel your baby kick inside of your womb, he will never be at the birth, and he will never sign the birth certificate. 

You know the facts, but still your scarred heart aches for Jay, the man who helped to conceive your little jellybean despite his rejection of you both. You are now heavily pregnant at seven months along, thankfully able to stop working due to Jay’s money that he had given you as a settlement when he had officially signed his parental rights away two months ago. 

At the meeting, lawyers and Chaerin surrounding you, you had faced him and been shocked at how much the man you once loved had changed. He had faced you and, although tinged with sadness, his gaze was as cold as ice. The only time he had let down his guard was when you had stood next to him to walk out of the room, the documents signed quickly in order to cause the least amount of stress possible to you and the baby. You had stumbled into him on accident with your sudden dizzy spell, recovering as quickly as possible before leaning on Chaerin instead. 

You were wearing a flowing dress that emphasized your belly, since pants were uncomfortable to you beforehand and it was now easier to just throw on a dress every morning and call it a day. He had only conveyed a small amount of worry as you leaned on Chaerin before letting the emotionless mask he had worn the entire meeting fall back into place after you quickly apologized. 

And then you watched him move away from you, surrounded by lawyers that seemed to haunt his every step as you were left with Chaerin. She wrapped an arm around your waist, silently supporting you as you falter for a moment and you simply stand there, the image of his flawless face etching itself into your memories against your will. 

You gather yourself, a bitter smile settling onto your face as you take Chaerin’s hand in yours and squeeze affectionately. “I’ll be fine, let’s head out,” you say before moving towards the elevator.

The rest of the way home feels like you’re walking through a dream, the world seeming hazey and distant, time passing by in a second and an hour in the same instance. Before you knew it you were home, a concerned Youngwoo helped you out of the car as Chaerin gathered the paperwork from earlier. 

You had walked into your apartment and had felt your blood run cold at the sight of the check that Jay had given you as reparation, enough to support both you and your baby for the rest of your life. You simply broke at the sight of the note attached to the check, “I’m sorry,” it reads, the familiar handwriting seeming so foreign after months apart.

Every day after that final meeting with Jay you have grown stronger, resolve strengthening with the help of Youngwoo and Chaerin by your side. They helped to break you out of your daze, your focus now directed towards the child that grows within you, choosing to leave the thoughts of the man who abandoned you and your baby in your old apartment. You had chosen to be surprised at the birth by your baby’s gender, having already decided that your baby would take your own last name instead of Jay’s, and you know that Youngwoo and Chaerin will be in the delivery room with you instead of him.

You had also decided to have a small, private baby shower with some friends of yours, the email invitation was automatically sent to everyone on your contact list that you hadn’t bothered to update since the break-up between you and Jay. It had been five months and since then the thought had been left in the wake of the chaos of preparations for your new baby, you had eventually forgotten completely.

You just never realized how much your world would be shaken up because of it.

Back                                                                                                              Forth

[beca-mitchell]

we are the wild youth (3/5)

chapter 3: it's been so damn hard on my own

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5

Chapter summary: In an extremely shocking twist, Beca realizes that she had been falling for Chloe all this time.

Again, rated M/E for depictions and references to coitus. Chapter also has references to deaths of family members.

Chapter title is from A R I Z O N A’s “Let Me Know”.

Now there’s an “EP”/playlist!

Word count: 5,574

Read below or on AO3.

It is the morning that follows, a sleepy, cold morning, that Beca gets that long-awaited email from her boss. It is an email telling her that his contact in New York pulled through.

Beca is wide awake.

Sammy ended up sending his contact some of Beca’s original stuff, finally deeming it ‘good enough’ to be viable, and well—

A job opportunity—no, better. A job offer at a record label as a junior producer.

She finally gets to leave. She’s going to leave once she graduates and she’s going to finally pursue her dreams.

She drops her arm back onto the bed, suddenly more conscious and aware of her other arm, trapped beneath Chloe’s body as she snoozes next to her. Beca ends up lying awake until Chloe slowly awakens as well, stretching contentedly like a cat in sunshine against Beca’s side. There is a distinct youthfulness to Chloe’s features this early in the morning, Beca thinks—like for once Chloe isn’t plagued by her past, her present, or future.

“What?” Beca asks when Chloe stares at her with a content, sleepy expression on her face. It makes Beca nervous, but she can’t pinpoint why.

“Nothing,” Chloe says finally and instead surges up to press a deep, wanting kiss against Beca’s lips, eviscerating all other wake-up calls Beca has ever received in her life.

  — — x — —

 “I have a question,” Chloe says as they mull over formulas, proofs, and endless all-day breakfast at Carl’s later that day.

Without looking up, Beca sighs. “Chloe we just went over basic derivatives and you definitely—”

Chloe’s hand comes up to still Beca’s hand. Beca freezes.

“Do you and um,” Chloe hesitates. It’s the first time, really, that Beca has seen Choe somewhat flustered or nervous. Chloe seems to steel herself. “Do you and that uh, Jesse kid have like...a thing going on?”

It’s clear that this has been bothering Chloe to some extent, if the furrow in her brow and the questioning tilt in her eyes are anything to go by. If Beca weren’t mulling over how cute Chloe looked right then, she’d have burst out laughing right away. That being said, her laugh comes out short and delayed and entirely too awkward for her to really save anything about the situation.

Chloe is evidently taken aback and she leans back in the booth and crosses her arms, their homework forgotten. “I’m serious,” Chloe says, verging very close to a pout.

“I’m serious too,” Beca says, still laughing. “Where the fuck did you get that from?”

“I don’t know, you guys just seem…” Chloe bites her lip, looking more attractive than she has any right to be. “Close.”

“That’s what you get when a guy like Jesse forces his way into your life and somehow sticks around for three and a half years.”

“Is that what I did?” Chloe asks, her tone decidedly different from just a few moments ago. “Force my way into your life.”

"No," Beca says immediately. 

It's something closer to fate. Maybe destiny.

But it's not like those things are real anyway, so Beca can't really do much than meet Chloe's questioning gaze head-on.

  — — x — —

 Chloe just checking that we’re ok Bec?

A part of Beca threatens to burst—like she could really just spill everything she’s been feeling to Chloe right then and there. Her fingers long to type out an excessively long message, just to get her point across and just to expunge all of the emotions she currently feels.

Like the emotions dangerously resembling a dumb, gross crush on Chloe Beale.

She's sure Chloe knows by now. Chloe is the kind of girl who knows these things, likely from experience. Even more likely that she just has a better grasp on other people's emotions compared to Beca's own emotional bandwidth.

Beca Yeah, we’re ok

 "God, she definitely knows," Beca mumbles.

Chloe and you’re still coming for dinner w/ my parents?

There it is.

Beca swallows, having momentarily forgotten about it. She isn’t sure why the nerves seem to bubble up in her more than they normally would.

Beca Yeah

It isn’t like Chloe is her girlfriend and she’s meeting her parents for the first time. Just her tutoring subject. Beca is a tutor first and foremost.

Nothing wrong with that.

She’ll just make sure to maintain some distance between now and then.

  — — x — —

 So it turns out that distance is good, but Beca hadn’t thought about how distance would be completely eviscerated considering she is quite literally at Chloe’s parents’ house. Distance should be good. Or it would be if Beca weren’t such a chump and ringing the doorbell to Chloe’s massive house. Her father’s massive house.

Beca always thought her own father had a big house, but she supposes when Chloe’s father is a doctor-doctor, there’s a little bit more money than an English professor. Like a literal real doctor who has probably saved lives. That’s more than Beca can say about her father and his books.

She’s never going to give her father trouble for the size of his house again.

Chloe greets her at the door with a relieved expression. “I’m glad you came!” Chloe exclaims. She reaches out for Beca’s hand and laces their fingers together. The shock of holding Chloe’s hand makes Beca’s reply come in a lame, delayed fashion.

“You were the one who invited me,” Beca says quickly. “Of course I was going to come.”

“I know you were thinking of standing me up,” Chloe singsongs, still holding on to Beca’s hand as she drags her through a massive foyer and into the kitchen.

Beca can’t really say anything to that because it’s kind of true. She had been thinking about that, even though each instance of that thought sent sweeping guilt through her chest.

Chloe’s hand is soft and warm, unlike Beca’s cold, clammy hand. It feels nice. That’s kind of true, too.

“I’m glad you came,” Chloe repeats, more sincere than she had been at the door, not that Beca thought that was even possible. “I just...my dad’s been a lot recently. The lab is kind of struggling with funding so...yay,” she drawls. “And um,” Chloe’s eyebrows draw together. “Nothing, nevermind.”

Beca, knowing only vague things about Chloe’s father’s business, shrugs. “I’m sure it’s...it’s not as bad as you think and there isn’t anything to worry about.” She nudges Chloe. “And you’re set to take over eventually, aren’t you?”

Chloe’s expression shifts marginally before she composes herself and she shrugs. “I guess so, it’s just—” Chloe cuts herself off and sighs, shaking her head. “It’s nothing.”

Before Beca can inquire more into that, soft footsteps sound behind her. “Oh,” a woman’s voice sounds from behind them. “I didn’t realize we had a guest.”

Chloe sighs and turns to face who Beca assumes to be her mother. “Mom, I told you I was inviting Beca over for dinner because dad wanted to meet her.”

Her mother smiles faintly. “That’s nice, dear. Nice to meet you, Becky.” She reaches for a wine glass from the cupboard. “I hope you like steak.”

“I do,” Beca says as pleasantly as she can, not bothering to correct her.

“Chloe, if you can, dear, please run and buy a couple bottles of red before dinner. We’re running low. You’ll indulge, won’t you, Becky?”

Before Beca can fully nod or respond, Chloe’s hand comes to grip her wrist again. Beca clamps her mouth shut and instead watches on silently as Chloe’s mother shuffles away again, humming to herself.

A million questions run through Beca’s mind. She had been under the assumption that Chloe’s mother was a researcher of some kind—another powerful figure in the medical field. It was essentially a well-known fact that Chloe had been born into all kinds of privilege, intelligence and money being only two of them.

It seemed that a stable family life was not on the table.

“Are you okay?” Beca asks instead of the million other questions she wants to ask. It comes out softer than she intends. More delicate.

Chloe nods, but otherwise doesn’t respond before turning to face Beca again.

“It’s just hard being twenty-five and all of…” she gestures vaguely around the kitchen. “This.”

“Are we going to go to the store?” Beca asks hesitantly.

Chloe bites her lip. “You think I shouldn’t,” she assesses. Correctly, too.

“Chloe, it’s—” none of my business “—up to you. I’ll just do whatever you want me to do.”

The more serious conversation that needs to be had likely doesn’t involve Beca at all, if Chloe’s mother has an alcoholism problem. She feels badly enough that Chloe has to go through this on top of likely being embarrassed that Beca saw anything at all.

“Is it weird that I kind of wish we were studying right now instead of this?” Chloe asks, sounding more cheerful than the expression on her face belies.

It isn’t weird at all, Beca thinks. “Show me your room,” Beca suggests instead of the thousands of more appropriate things she could possibly say at that moment.

It seems to do the trick however because Chloe smiles.

  — — x — —

 “How is tutoring going, Beca?”

Beca struggles to swallow the huge gulp of water she had just taken while maintaining eye contact with Chloe’s intimidating father. “It’s…” she clears her throat. “It’s going well.”

“And Chloe isn’t giving you any trouble?’

Beca glances at Chloe who has gone rather still. “No, she’s been a model student.”

To Beca’s surprise, he scoffs. Chloe continues to say nothing, but begins to push her food around her plate. “Can you believe that she’s been in school for seven years and she still doesn’t have a degree to show for it? And to think that she graduated high school early. All that potential...”

It’s the beginning of a rant if Beca’s ever heard one. Beca blinks back the sudden sharp sting she feels behind her eyes, the hurt she suddenly feels on Chloe’s behalf. “That really doesn’t mean anything,” she says before she can stop herself. She glances at Chloe’s mother who has not said a word. She merely swirls her wine glass and gazes despondently at her own plate.

Dr. Beale’s gaze cuts to her and she quickly looks back down, feeling chastised. “Your father is a professor, is he not?”

“Yes,” Beca says to her plate.

“He worked hard to get to where he is, didn’t he?”

“I’m sure he did, but—”

“And I guess he doesn’t want you wasting your time. He doesn’t want you wasting your life. You’re set to graduate aren’t you?”

“Uh, I—”

“Wish I could say the same for Chloe here,” he says lightly like he’s sharing a splendid joke. Beca clenches her fist in her lap.

Chloe sighs loudly.

“You know, Chloe,” Chloe’s father says, swirling his glass. Whiskey, probably, Beca notes. “If you tried a little more, maybe you wouldn’t be such a fucking disappointment.”

Beca startles at that, not expecting such harsh words in such a calm tone. She looks up hesitantly, eyes flicking back and forth between Chloe and her father. It almost feels like she had imagined the moment because Chloe continues to move food around on her plate and her father continues to hold his gaze intently on the side of his daughter’s head, arched eyebrow and a precariously-held glass of amber liquid to the side.

It’s surreal to say the least. Beca would have never imagined this moment happening.

“It’s literally just two classes, Chloe,” her father continues. “Two classes and you can stop sucking money out of us like a damn leech and actually do something worthwhile with your life. You already have a damn job ready for you, but you refuse to step up to just take it.”

It’s hard to imagine that these words are coming from the mouth of the man who had been such a generous giver to their school—the same that many students aspired to be. Atlanta, while not small or tucked away by any measure, was still no New York or Los Angeles. Yet thousands of students still flocked to their school and city for this very reason. This man, berating his daughter in full view of his daughter’s tutor.

Beca swallows.

Beca tries not to think about Chloe’s bright smile, helping children through dance steps at the studio.

She tries not to think about it because this isn’t any of her business. She tries not to think about it because she’s just a tutor.

A friend, maybe. A tutor, definitely.

“I’m sorry,” Chloe says quietly, a far cry from every version of Chloe Beale that Beca has been privy to thus far.

Chloe’s mother sniffs at her glass—white wine—and sighs before taking a long drink.

Beca isn’t supposed to be privy to this at all, she’s sure of it. She isn’t supposed to feel so fiercely protective over a student she’s meant to take money from so she can finally get out of this town. So she can finally move to New York. So she can finally make music which people care about.

She isn’t meant to care about what Chloe thinks of her music—isn’t meant to feel guilty for taking money for a job she does well.

This is all temporary.

  — — x — —

 When Chloe texts her to meet her at the diner, Beca heaves a breath. She thought Chloe was hellbent on ignoring her after that episode at Chloe’s house—horribly awkward and horribly tense. Chloe hadn’t spoken to her the rest of the time in her bedroom while they worked through a calculus assignment...except when she had quietly asked Beca if she wanted to have sex.

Beca had politely declined, not really feeling like taking advantage of Chloe in her state, but Chloe’s lackluster response, her quiet acquiescence, had been enough for Beca to quickly pack her things up.

Before she left, she hovered awkwardly by Chloe’s shoulder and felt like she ought to kiss her on the head or hug her.

Instead of doing either of those things, she had squeezed Chloe’s shoulder and half-heartedly murmured a goodbye with the promise to text her to set up another session.

And it ended up being Chloe who texted first anyway.

Now, sitting in front of Chloe, Beca realizes that she had missed her over the past few days. The past few days of not seeing Chloe’s infuriatingly innocent smile (a smile usually paired with something suggestive—suggestive enough to make Beca balk and completely fumble with her pen) had taken more of a toll on Beca than she expected.

It was because she was invested in Chloe as her student. Her tutor-subject-person. That was it.

“Hi,” Beca greets when Chloe takes out a novel and her notebook. “Are we...what are we doing today?”

“I thought we could just have breakfast for dinner,” Chloe says simply. “Then you can pretend like you enjoy tutoring me.”

It’s said so lightly and casually that Beca almost doesn’t catch it. “Hey,” she says finally. “That’s not true. I don’t pretend like I enjoy doing anything.”

Chloe relaxes and giggles. “Sorry, I just…” she sighs and shrugs off her leather jacket. Beca tries not to look at her bare shoulders. “It’s been a lot. With...you know. Especially around this time of year.”

“We don’t have to talk about it,” Beca says.

And with that, they don’t speak, at least for a little while. Beca orders a burger and coke because it amuses her to see Chloe’s furrowed brow when she chastises Beca for not ordering breakfast as per ‘tradition’ at the diner. Chloe orders a stack of pancakes bigger than her head.

It is not until Chloe is halfway through the pancakes and Beca is halfway through looking at Chloe’s recent homework assignment that Chloe speaks again.

“I had an older brother,” Chloe says quietly.

It is absolutely not what Beca expected to hear. The word choice isn’t lost on Beca. She slowly puts down her pencil and watches Chloe from across the booth.

“Okay,” she murmurs, gently as to not scare Chloe off.

“I...his name was James, but I called him Jamie. I guess most people did, except dad. And mom when she was mad at him.” A thought seems to bring a smile to Chloe’s face. A fond memory, Beca hopes.

A part of her wants to reach out to hold Chloe’s hand, but the more rational part tells her that Chloe would more than likely shut down if she did that. She sits on her hands to resist the temptation.

“I...we were close,” Chloe continues before clearing her throat. “I don’t know, I guess he kind of accepted that he would always work for dad’s clinic. He was in his second year of med school when he…” Chloe hums, looking thoroughly embarrassed at her own tears and hastily averts eye contact with Beca. “It was an accident. I was almost done with my last year here. I’ve felt stuck this whole time.”

What did you want to do? Beca longs to ask, she doesn’t get the chance. The words die in her throat when Chloe looks back up at her.

“I don’t want to work for my father,” Chloe murmurs. “He’s not the best person but I know he’s still family. I just...I can’t do it. I can’t see myself giving up my life like that. But not doing what Jamie was working towards feels like cheating his memory a little. Even though I know he wouldn’t have wanted that for me either.” Chloe laughs hollowly. “With how many extra years I’ve taken on here, I could have two degrees. But I just don’t…” Her voice cracks. “I don’t know how to leave.”

“I’m sorry,” Beca says when she realizes Chloe is spent. “I...don’t know what to say. I didn’t know about your brother. I’m so sorry.”

“I don’t really talk about it,” Chloe admits. “Aubrey knew because we were best friends when it happened, then she graduated and I guess I just...didn’t. It’s been a few years, but I still think about it. I guess I can’t forget about things as easily as my parents can.”

“I’m sure they didn’t forget about him,” Beca tries to say, but her voice feels weak and unused.

“Well, they’re doing a good job of making it seem that way.” She smiles wryly. “Didn’t see any family photos in my house, did you?”

Beca shakes her head, mouth too dry to speak. She wants to do nothing more than to slide into the seat next to Chloe and hold her—to at least sap some hurt away for the time being even if temporary solutions are barely sufficient for something like this.

Beca conceptually understands that people deal with grief differently, but the cold air in the Beale house had been unmistakable and immediately-apparent. She doesn’t say as much however because Chloe is right and nothing more needs to be said.

“Chloe,” Beca murmurs instead. She has no words, not really. It’s clear that Chloe is hurting—or had been at least. This impromptu study session in the dingy 24-hour diner just off-campus isn’t quite turning out how Beca initially expected.

Chloe shrugs. “I don’t...expect you to say anything. I know I’ve been kind of sucky the past few weeks and...I didn’t want you to think that it was…” Chloe licks her lips nervously, finally meeting Beca’s eyes. “Well...nothing that you did.”

Beca smiles at Chloe’s attempt to comfort her when it definitely ought to be the other way around. How are you real? She thinks to herself in wonder. “Want to know a secret?” Chloe nods, a curious look finding its way across her face. “I totally know you’ve been faking it, you know.” At Chloe’s incredibly confused expression, Beca fumbles with her napkin. “Not—not like that. I know you’re uh. Not. Faking that.”

“All those smarts and you can’t even say sex.”

“I meant,” Beca continues, pushing through the hot flush that burns across her cheeks. “That I know you’re faking this whole...not knowing calculus thing.”

Chloe smirks. “What gave it away?” she asks, the air between them losing some of the heavy feeling and tension.

Beca relaxes. Grades and homework, she knows more about. How to deal with Chloe flirting with her? Not so much. “Just...the blatantly wrong way you go about writing out some proofs. It really takes somebody who knows what’s going on to get every step wrong. Or, you know, getting all the steps right but getting the final answer wrong.”

Chloe casually leans up to flick some hair out of her eyes, taking the opportunity to swipe at her own eyes as discreetly as possible. Beca pretends not to notice and looks intently into her glass of Coke as the moment passes.

“Okay, fine,” Chloe concedes. Beca glances up to see that Chloe looks entirely too pleased with herself. “But the sex is still good, right?”

  — — x — —

 Yes, the sex is still good, Beca thinks. If thoughts could breathless, that’s exactly what’s happening in Beca’s mind as Chloe’s tongue does sinful things between her legs.

If somebody were to tell Beca when she entered college that she would thoroughly enjoy having a girl’s tongue between her legs, flicking incessantly at her aching clit, she would have run away screaming. Or at least blushed furiously to the point of passing out.

Now, she still feels on the verge of passing out, but for entirely different reasons. Better reasons. Now, she can’t imagine doing anything but tightening her grip in Chloe’s hair and keeping a steady enough hold so that Chloe can’t stop.

Not that it seems like Chloe has any plans on stopping. Her hands grip Beca’s hips with near-bruising force as she presses Beca’s hips down into the mattress.

“So good,” Beca chokes out, trying to loosen some of the pressure in her chest. Another moan escapes her and as if the sound pleases Chloe, she hums, circling Beca’s clit once with a precise tongue before latching on with her lips and sucking.

Beca cries out, arching her back against the pressure and comes hard against Chloe’s lips, tongue—her wonderful, wonderful mouth.

When she regains some semblance of sanity, she opens her eyes to Chloe smiling at her, glistening chin and all.

“You’re so good at that,” Beca murmurs lazily. “I want to be good at that for you,” she says before she can stop herself. Words keep slipping out of her mouth at an alarming frequency these days.

“Oh, don’t worry. I’ll teach you,” Chloe promises. “Later,” she murmurs, leaning down to capture Beca’s mouth in a lazy kiss. Her hand skates down the flat planes of Beca’s stomach, taking its time.

Later, Beca thinks when Chloe pushes two fingers into her. Later sounds perfect.

  — — x — —

 Somewhere down the line, Beca realizes the devastating truth that Chloe might actually be one of her closest friends. Jesse’s still there, sure, but everybody’s gearing up to leave. Beca wants to go to New York. Jesse wants to go to Los Angeles.

Everybody leaves eventually.

But somehow time feels like it doesn’t quite exist when she’s lying in her cramped bed with Chloe by her side, calculus all but forgotten.

“My mom died when I was a kid,” Beca murmurs, leaning up on her elbow so she can see the invisible figures she’s tracing on Chloe’s back.

Chloe’s eye cracks open, visible just barely beneath a mess of tangled, red curls. She sucks in a breath, but says nothing more, so Beca continues.

“I don’t really remember her. I mean, I guess I do. I have these memories of my favorite hugs. A soothing voice. But it never really feels tangible.”

Chloe rolls over slowly, breathing steadily as she continues listening intently. Beca feels nervous suddenly. “I’m not...I guess I was just thinking about what you told me about your brother. And I’m not trying to say I know exactly how you feel, but it’s just...I do get it.”

“You do get it,” Chloe whispers in agreement. Her eyes look softer than usual. “I...thank you for telling me. I’m sorry that you lost your mom.”

“I don’t think we ever really know how to deal with grief,” Beca explains quickly. But it helps having other people to share it with. “But I just thought I’d share that too. Not to, um, take away from your...pain, but just...”

As always, it seems like Chloe fares better with words than Beca does. “We don’t have to talk about her if you don’t want to,” Chloe says gently. “But I don’t mind hearing more about her.”

Beca sucks in a breath. Chloe looks incredibly young then. Like all the world’s traumas have lifted from her shoulders in that moment—that moment of her extending her hand to Beca in a show of support. It makes Beca giddy with a kind of childlike delight, but also sweeping pain. As the two emotions war within her, she can do nothing more than to reach out and hold Chloe’s hand—figuratively, but she does reach out to brush an errant strand of hair from Chloe’s face.

“I know talking helps,” Chloe continues when she realizes Beca is yet to speak. “Not letting their memories fade away. I don’t...want that to happen to me. And I don’t want that to happen to you.”

I wish I knew you back then, Beca thinks forlornly. Three years ago. Two years ago. Any time but now, when their time is so limited.

“Okay,” Beca agrees quietly, already slipping into a sleeping state.

You are so much more than you know.

“You make me better,” Chloe murmurs. “I hope you know that.”

  — — x — —

 Jesse Movie night w/ Amy? Benji had to bail

Beca Ugh fine

Jesse Bring your girlfriend

Beca My what?????

Jesse Chloe?

Beca What the fuck, she’s not my gf

Beca Shut up, i can hear your smirk But shes really not, jesse i swear

Beca ok i can literally hear you laughing across the library idiot

  — — x — —

 Fat Amy Bumper told me tell you that jesse told him that you have a gf and you’re not sharing her with the rest of us

Fat Amy Is she that super hot chick you’ve been tutoring and totally-not-at-all sleeping with?

Fat Amy Beca???

  — — x — —

 Maybe they are kind of dating—kind of, sort of dating. Beca’s sure unlabeled things are all the rage these days.

(“All the rage?” Beca asks. “Who says that?”

Chloe scowls at her, somehow making the unpleasant expression more pleasant than it ought to be on anybody’s face. “Shut up, I’m studying.”)

But, the fact of the matter is: They’re not dating. They’re not dating, which is why Beca agrees to go with Chloe to an end-of-semester party. Exams are almost entirely over and Beca’s confident Chloe passed this time around.

The shift between them and in Chloe’s general attitude are stark changes. Beca would have to be blind not to notice.

But the fact is, she isn’t blind. She can’t be, not when Chloe makes her want to pay more attention than ever.

Though sometimes she kind of loses track of Chloe - where Chloe loses herself in her own her head, or loses herself to the masses. It’s hard, crushing on Chloe Beale, only daughter of Doctor Richard Beale, an incredibly intelligent and powerful medical researcher with his own medical research corporation to boot.

It’s hard, knowing all of that weighs on Chloe’s shoulders and Chloe seems to want no part of it.

But tonight, Beca loses Chloe at a literal party, which would be funny if Beca’s own heart weren’t doing that super weird pounding thing.

She’s nervous.

Beca finds Chloe outside of all places. It is odd considering Chloe was the one who asked her to attend the party and then she had essentially hidden herself away.

“I’ve been looking for you.”

Chloe, still leaning against the railing of the balcony, tilts her head back towards Beca. “I’ve been waiting for you to come find me.” She grins. “Gotcha.”

“Oh,” Beca drawls, feeling bold. It’s the alcohol coursing through her veins. It’s the brisk chill. It’s the high she gets from being near her crush. “So you planned this,” she continues, moving so she can stand just behind Chloe. She leans forward, letting her lips ghost the side of Chloe’s neck.

Chloe sighs, a happy little sound with only a tinge of melancholy. Beca draws back immediately, embarrassed.

“Sorry,” she murmurs. She drops to sit against the railing opposite Chloe. “I’ll just…”

“Don’t be.” Chloe twists to face her. “It’s really dumb, but I had a big crush on you for like...the entirety of my second senior year.”

Beca freezes. She gazes up at Chloe’s silhouette in the darkness. “You what?”

“I had a crush on you,” Chloe says simply.

“But why? And how?” And you had a crush on me? Past tense?

Chloe sighs. “I don’t know, I guess I had seen you around when you were a freshman, but I knew you better because we had the same Advanced Topics in Philosophy seminar that year. You did not strike me as a philosophy major.”

“I’m not,” Beca replies distractedly. Her brow furrows as she combs through her memory for some kind of enlightening flash of red in her mind’s eye. A memory of sorts.

“I sat like right at the back,” Chloe clarifies.

Beca scoffs. “So did I. I would have remembered you.”

Chloe looks exceptionally pleased at that. “You would have?”

“Obviously, I mean…” Beca gestures at her. She feels nervous suddenly, like the ground is shifting beneath her feet. “Look at you,” she mumbles quickly. “You’re gorgeous. And like...super hot.”

Chloe’s smile dims a little. “Haven’t I heard that before,” she mutters, turning away from Beca.

Beca scrambles from her seat, moving to where Chloe is standing by the railing. She feels numb, suddenly, like she’s missing something crucial. It’s hard to think with the budding headache she feels, the rush from standing up too fast, and the incessant music from the party going on behind them.

She reaches out to touch Chloe’s elbow before she really knows what she’s going to say. Chloe turns her head slightly to face her.

“You’re so pretty,” Beca murmurs, keeping her eyes trained on Chloe’s expression. “But—but—” she quickly reaches up with a trembling hand to cup Chloe’s jaw, the tender movement stunning Chloe into silence as she opens her mouth to protest. “You’re so much more than that. You’re kind and you’re special and I know you’re insanely smart even though you feel like you’re stuck in this…” Beca shrugs. “I would have remembered you.”

She isn’t sure how she gets through all that because her body feels kind of numb afterwards. She doesn’t have much of a chance to say anything more however because Chloe is turning and swiftly pulling her in for a soft, tender kiss. The way her lips brush against Beca’s so gently and slowly, despite the urgency Beca feels in the grip Chloe has on her waist.

“You drive me crazy,” Chloe murmurs, breath hot against her mouth. “You make me feel all these stupid things that I shouldn’t—not now when we’re—”

“Shh,” Beca shushes, pulling Chloe in again for another kiss. She is addicted to this woman, all professionalism be damned. “I just want to be with you.”

Beca has no idea where any of this is coming from, like all the unwritten lyrics she has to the songs that remind her of Chloe Beale. They well up inside her like the best and worst emotions, quickly spilling out into the world; quickly spilling into the minuscule spaces left between her and Chloe’s body.

Chloe whimpers into her mouth at that, immediately ramping up the intensity of her kisses. Tilting her head, her tongue glides delicately over Beca’s lower lip like a gentle request for entry. Beca can’t deny her, not once.

“I saw you once,” Beca murmurs, pushing back against Chloe’s chest slightly. Their breathing, labored, is loud and deafening against the ringing in Beca’s ears. “In my freshman year, at the activities fair.”

Chloe laughs, a sad, hollow laugh, and presses her forehead against Beca’s. “You should have said hello. I feel like you would have somehow made collegiate a cappella fun.”

“I was too intimidated. I’m still intimidated.”

“Don’t be,” Chloe urges, voice low and hoarse. “I...want you so much that it scares me. And I feel like such an idiot for not telling you sooner. I’ve never felt like this about anybody before.”

Beca inhales sharply, struck by the sudden force of Chloe’s words and the emotion behind them.

“Somewhere along the line I—”

Beca knows what Chloe will say. It unlocks a world of possibilities, each more uncalculated than the last. The possibilities, with Chloe, seem endless, but they are unexplored and untested. Unproven.

“Don’t,” Beca chokes out, cutting Chloe off before she can finish. “I can’t, not now.”

Chloe pulls her close, into a hug that Beca immediately sinks into. She sighs, head tucked against the crook of Chloe’s neck, feeling all kinds of warmth for the first time since December started.

“We’ll figure this out in the morning,” Chloe promises, voice thick with emotion.

Right, Beca muses as Chloe’s lips meet hers again. Because we have all the time in the world.

She really believes it.

/end ch. 3