#i know i know i'm not the first one to make this stupid meme

[wonbineatsme]

: •̩̩͙ ໋ IN LOVE WITH SOMEONE •̩̩͙ ໋: - RI7ZE

RIIZE x fem!reader

Crack

SYNOPSIS: Boys’ reaction when you say you’re in love with someone - And that someone in question is them, but you decide to hide this part.

WARNINGS: This is just a hc, which means it doesn't match reality. I created the scenarios in my head :))

!! English is not my first language

WC! 0.8K

ᄀᄉᄀ SHOTARO: For me, Shotaro is very responsible and understandable. Even though it hurts to know that you are in love with someone else, I think Taro would react to this news in the most welcoming way possible, because above all you are his best friend. Maybe later he thinks he failed in some way, like he wasn't interesting enough for you, but he would try to push away those negative thoughts.

You both once promised that you would always be happy for each other's achievements. Shotaro will keep that promise, no matter who that person is, he will help you and make them feel welcome.

ᄀᄉᄀ EUNSEOK: There was no reaction, which made you a little upset, to say the least - Even though he is the person you like, in question.

You see, Eunseok isn't good at expressing his emotions. In fact, he never wanted to like you, he still refuses to believe that after so many years of friendship, his heart was stupid enough to fall in love. Not that the problem is you, you're perfect, but Eunseok is the rational type and to him all this shit doesn't make any sense.

He never thought that hearing from you that you are interested in someone else could cause so many feelings at once in him, so in the middle of all this confusion, Eunseok remained expressionless. Of course, your happiness is his happiness, but honestly? I think he'd be a little angry - Not at you, but at the bastard.

ᄀᄉᄀ SUNGCHAN: He would be the personification of the Lady Gaga meme “Brazil, I'm devastated”.

I know it doesn't make much sense, but for me Sungchan is the most intense of them all - Which means he reacts to situations in his life in a kind of… Dramatic way. He would be in a mix of “Tell me now the name of the son of a bitch who is stealing you from me” and “My girl is loving them for the first time, they grow up so fast :'))”

Yeah... With Sungchan it's always 8 or 80. He would be happy for you, but he couldn't help but feel jealous. He would make it clear that if you left him for the unfortunate man, he would beat the drum for the guy to leave you.

ᄀᄉᄀ WONBIN: My poor, Binnie :(( As much as he tries to pretend to be mysterious, Wonbin is sensitive. From the moment you opened your mouth, he would feel an existential void as great as if his pet had passed away.

He would literally be in mourning for a relationship that never even existed, too shaken to remember to be happy for you. Would call Anton destroyed and cry in the youngest's lap like a baby, not believing that he lost you to someone.

Would be a real show of tears and ice cream, but after a week he would apologize to you - Embarrassed - and be honest about his feelings.

I feel like Wonbin is the only one who would tell you the truth.

ᄀᄉᄀ SEUNGHAN: He would activate gossip mode, would scan all your social networks to find the bastard who wants to steal his place.

What do you mean you're in love with someone else? How bold! Well, now it's war. Seunghan only accepts losing to a guy better than him – Which is impossible, because he is perfect. He would only rest when he found the boy, all while pretending to be super calm with the news so you wouldn't suspect anything.

He would call the other boys for a debate, but would receive a lecture from Shotaro and a reality check from the others.

I love Seunghan, his reaction would definitely be the best ever.

ᄀᄉᄀ SOHEE: Wouldn't understand, like “How did this happen and I didn't even notice?”

Sohee knows ALL your friends, if you were seeing someone new, he would know. Based on this, he would start to think that you like one of the boys and classify them in order of proximity, coming to the conclusion that you might only be into Wonbin - After all, after him, Wonbin is the most intimate.

Sohee would go into crazy paranoia, looking for signs in your behavior, anything that would confirm his theory.

Behind the scenes, you would be laughing at this investigation of your best friend, knowing that it is wrong to have fun at the expense of his suffering. You swear you’ll tell him next week.

ᄀᄉᄀ ANTON: I don't know how Anton would react. At the same time that he gives off a baby vibe, the baby is also not a baby.

I feel like it would be something similar to Sungchan. He would feel a mix of emotions, between being sad that you weren't his and being jealous that you weren’t his. The only thing Anton would say is:

"But… What about me?"

You confess that Brachio's reactions still take you by surprise. You two have been best friends forever, but at this point he manages to be a mystery. Chanyoung appears to be dumb, but he knows very well what he wants and sometimes he's not afraid to express it – Like now.

Do you like another guy? Fine! But first you'll have to explain to him how you can fall in love with someone else with him there entirely for you.

You went to play and became a toy.

[lalito-gran-pito]

[studentinpursuitofclouds]

Isaac: *being mean to Victor for no good reason*

Wren: Hey, what are you doing?! Stop it, now!

Bella: Such rudeness was unnecessary. What's the point of this?

Myra: Isaac, you're not as heartless as you want to appear, I know you have a good heart...

Rain: *a stern look* Only cowards bully the helpless.

Shiro: If you don't want to communicate, just say so, why call names?

May: And why am I not surprised that he would be so tactless? You can't stop being a bitch for one day, huh?

Ziana: T-That was very rude of you, Mr. Isaac!

Elisa: How d a r e you say that to Victor!?

Julian: *with a steel voice* Is it so hard to be patient with each other? There's no need to take your negativity out on others.

Skylar: And you think this is the behavior of an adventurer? You should be ashamed of yourself!

Bo: *with a magical flame in hands* You done did it now, bitch.

Hestia: *Transforms into a dragon form, ready to vaporize Isaac*

Isaac: *realizes his fatal mistake*

Marley: Phah, you're screwed, my friend. Like, completely fucked.

[kneelingshadowsalome]

Quick! Info dump about your favorite blorbo!

König headcanons

NSFW content below the cut, 18 + only (These apply to yandere König as well, the toxic stuff is marked with a red flag 🚩)

Does like 50 crunches and 50 pushups first thing in the morning when he wakes up, as he has done since he was a teenager.

Will fix everything from cars to furniture. If the door is creaking he will oil the hinges immediately. Actually, he will treat every single thing in life as a problem... A problem he will fix.

He's great at math and physics and has vast amounts of knowledge about mechanics, thermodynamics, even things like quantum theory and other complex astronomy stuff.

He's completely clueless when it comes to following trends and memes. You have to explain every other tiktok to him. He rarely uses emojis but when he does, it's awkward and slightly intimidating because König doesn't know the hidden meanings behind them. If you send him an eggplant or peach emoji he asks if you need veggies from the store.

Loves your cooking (even if it's just microwaved mac and cheese). If you start to feed this man, you'll never get rid of him.

This is your classic mama’s boy who never had to learn how to cook and then went to the army and got used to the facility taking care of him so… yeah. Doesn't know how to cook but will try to help in any way he can! König is very excited to see you’re making food and wanders into the kitchen like “What are we making today?” You can try and give him a chopping board, an onion and a knife, but this poor man doesn't even peel the onion unless you tell him he has to remove the outer layer first...

Eats like a horse. Is secretly afraid that you run out of food. Goes to the fridge and if it's half full, he will not take the snack he was supposed to have, only comments: "The fridge looks empty." (It's not a passive aggressive statement, he's just worried.)

Also: everytime there's a crisis somewhere – he follows the news neurotically – König starts to prep. There's a month's worth of food stashed in one of the cupboards at all times. He also preps fuel, propane, medicine and the like.

Ruins all the fun when you're playing board games because he fusses about the rules so much. König holds the rulebook in his hand through the whole game and double-checks every single thing.

He's very clumsy, sometimes hits his head on the door frame when he's in a hurry or visiting a new place. He can't stay still either, always shakes his leg when he’s sitting. König needs a lot of exercise when he's not deployed to get all that energy and frustration out.

This has been discussed earlier but yeah, König even drops his mags sometimes in the field because he's too excited. He's a very capable martial artist though. Has done Savate, Escrima and Pekiti-Tirsia Kali and is very agile and precise with the double kali sticks he carries to field sometimes. Suddenly his clumsiness disappears when he has to knife someone, kick someone in the head or beat them to death with those sticks.

This is the reason König fucked up his sniper dreams too: having to control his breath, lie still for long amounts of time, then take aim and shoot a rifle vs. aiming during an adrenaline high, giving a tight spurt or two with his SMG… The latter just comes naturally to him! If you ask him how he managed to take down a human trafficking cell all alone König will say he simply "got carried away."

König goes to the gym a lot. Gets back super pumped and with an urgent need to make love. But not before he's had a cold shower! It's almost like a ritual: he has to torture himself with weights and cold water first before he can have his prize (= access to a woman)

Wakes you up in the middle of the night because he started to worry about petty, stupid things and then got a lil horny. Humps your leg or your back very, very slowly while grunting in your ear: "Hey... Hey. Are you sleeping…?" (Like. Yes, König, I was but I'm not anymore, thanks for asking)

Asks what kind of fantasies you have all of a sudden while you two are cuddling. Asks very detailed questions about them too. If you ask him what kind of fantasies he has in return, König will tense up and then say he doesn't really know, perhaps something like… a blowjob in the forest… And somehow you just know that his real fantasies are so perverse you don't even want to know more about them.

If you "nag" or yell at him, he might get a boner.

If you notice and get offended, ask: "Are you even listening to what I'm saying?!' König will freeze and look at you with a bewildered, obsessed stare and go: "Ja..?" while the boner situation in his pants gets visibly worse.

🚩 Would never go to bed before you've settled your argument. The problem is that it's very difficult for König to apologize because he always thinks he's in the right and that you simply need some time to come to that conclusion too. If you give him the silent treatment he will eventually come to you, gets all touchy and asks surprisingly demurely: "Are you still angry with me?"

🚩 The minute you forgive him or decide it was a stupid argument anyways, the demure puppy act disappears. König thinks he won and that it's time for some makeup sex ❤️

Has like the longest cock known to man. He has actual trouble finding comfortable underwear to fit that beast into. It's beautiful but intimidating, uncut, smooth and sleek. Not too thick but certainly not thin either. He likes to keep himself tidy down there too so the lack of hair makes this murder weapon look even bigger.

You two occasionally break furniture while having sex. It's mainly his fault (he gets carried away). He's very upset about it afterwards though, looks at the destruction he caused, muttering "Scheisse…" while rubbing the back of his neck. Then he tries to fix it while you're still there with your legs shaking and in need of aftercare.

If you remind him that he has other duties first, perhaps whimper his name in frustration, König will apologize and carry you to bed. He gives you that precious aftercare with unwavering passion and attention every time you ask for it ❤️ He's just a little clueless sometimes (König is also neuroatypical, either has AD/HD or falls somewhere in the autism spectrum)

🚩 Hates condoms with an intense passion. You're practically forced to take birth control pills or whatever so that he can cum inside you. This man's whining will ultimately gain a level that's absolutely ridiculous if you don't.

The first time you do it without the rubber, he sounds like he's about to cry. He tells you a hundred times how good it feels, and won't pull out until he grows soft and is kind of forced to do so. For a man who's never even heard of a breeding kink, he seems vehement about keeping his load inside you.

🚩Grunts and whispers loving but obsessive things in your ear while making love to you. You're mine, Say it, Promise that you're mine, I don't want to live without you, Why do you feel so good? at first… but as he approaches his peak, König switches to German. You have no clue what he’s saying, but from the way he spits those sentences through gritted teeth you get the feeling that it must be something desperate and that perhaps it's a blessing you don't understand his native tongue...

🚩🚩If you leave your phone on the table he tries to stalk it and check the notifications. He's so jealous it's unreal, if he sees you receive a message from some other guy König will start a circus. He needs to know all about your connection with this man. After that, he wants you to go through your contacts and show him how many guys there are and tell him what your affiliations are with them. If you're on social media König wants to go through your friends/those you follow. You have to give an account who they are and why you follow them.

🚩🚩🚩 You get a feeling he's forming a list of people he has to kill if you don't tell him they're just a cousin or something 💀

[adams-angels]

Talk to me

Adam X f!reader

🎸I hope I do you all justice. Don't be mad if this isn't very good. I generally am not very good!🎶

💖 Please send me requests! Send me your own headcanons! I will draw! I'm obsessed rn!💖

Smut below. Minors dni thx

This isn't the first time you and Adam argued. It sure as hell won't be the last but today was a little different.

It's started off fine. You were at Adams apartment for the weekend. You made him breakfast, he showered you in kissed, shared a bit of banter... And that's where it went wrong. You said something which made Adam say something unexpected and worse. So an argument ensured. It ended when Adam had been called into work.

The last thing you said was "fine, I won't say anything ever again." It was petty! You were being petty. It's not like you hadn't said it before but you always did speak again, of course you did! But no. Today was different. You were keeping to your word.

Adam got ready to leave. "Okay. I'm going now." You looked up and nodded. Not even a kiss goodbye was had. He left the apartment scowling while you stayed up and sulked.

As the day went on her texted you. "Ugh, work is so dumb. Idk y they even wanted me in 🙄" you picked up your phone and read it. You made sure to read it. So he would see that you saw it. Petty.

Now you know Adam. You know Adam needs attention 24/7. Even if you're not together you need to text him back. You need to make sure he knows you're still there. You're still his.

So of course he saw the read receipt. He knows you have your phone in your hand. "What are you ignoring me?" Read. "Don't be so pathetic." Read. "Why are you doing this?" Read. "whatever! You think I care?! I'm FUCKING ADAM! I'M THE FUCKING DICK MASTER! I DON'T NEED YOU!" Read. "ANSWER ME?!" Read. "Haha, check out this meme." Read. "Please say something." Read.

You had him reeling. His trust issues taking over his mind. What if you've left him? What if fucking Lucifer's got his tiny ass claws into you?! "NO!" His wings flare, he charges towards the nearest window and takes flight. He can't stand you ignoring him. He can't stand the thought of you leaving him.

He lands on his apartments balcony, you're not in the livingroom. His heart pounds in his chest. Opening the sliding door he enters his apartment. A very broken "hello?" Escapes his lips. No response. The silence is too much.

He explores his apartment, a bead of sweat forming on his temple. "Y/N?" He heads towards his bedroom and there you are. Lying in bed. You're not asleep, you're on your phone, still ignoring him. You could of swore you heard a sigh of relief. It doesn't take long before he's back to his arrogant self. "What up sugartits? Still not talking?" That cocky smirk fills his mask.

He hops into bed next to you. You glance up at him, that stupid smile. "What? I didn't do anything, babe. C'mon, why don't you just say something?" You respond with a glare. He sits up, his smile waivered slightly at your resistance. He brings himself close to your ear, placing a hand on your shoulder. "I know how to get you to talk."

His hand slides down your arm, to your waist then your thighs. You know where this is going. With no resistance from you he moves one of your legs, spreading them. His fingers trace along your pantie line, just to tease you. You can feel your face flushing. "You're too cute, babes." He muttered, causing you to look up at him. As soon as your eyes locked with his, he moved your underwear to the side. Sliding a finger between your folds. He can see you holding back a whimper. "Wow, you're already soaked? Thinking about my cock all day, huh? Of course you were."

He continued sliding a finger between you, gently hitting your clit cause you to twitch. But still no sounds from you. He frowns slightly. "Why don't you tell me how much you want it, Gorgeous." It was so hard not to break. How much your wanted to tell him you wanted him. But no. Then he would of won. He always wins! You hold strong. "Fine." He grunts as he gets up. He crawls between your legs whipping off her robe revealing his, always surprising, massive cock. Throbbing with anticipation.

"I'm gonna make you beg." He grumbled. He wasn't happy you were still not saying anything. At this point he missed your voice. He missed your laugh. Your tuts. Your groans. Anything. Any noise! He wanted you do make a single sound. You watched as he positioned himself and got ready for him to thrust into you. He grabbed his member and lined up with your entrance and stopped. You looked up at him confused. That smirk was back.

He began jerking him against your aching cunt. His tip brushing against your clit you can't help but whimper. You quickly cover your mouth. "What was that babe? You want me to fuck you?" He asked with that shit eating grin. You nod, looking at him with desperate eyes. "Use your words, baby." You furrowed your brow, positioning your feet you buck your hips to try and get him inside of you but he's too smart for that, pulling himself away. "Nuh-uh. Words, y/n. Use them." He purred, teasing you. He moved back, continuing rubbing himself off on you.

You whined in frustration and desperation. "Fuck 'm getting close, babe." Your eyes widen. No way was he close, but his brow twitched which told you he wasn't lying. He was going to cum soon. "Fuck me Adam! Please fuck me! I need you!" You begged. "ah, you want me now?" "Yes, please. Please Adam?" It didn't take him long before he was inside you. Feeling your walls clenched around his thick member. You moan in ecstasy. Adam, gripping your waist, pulling you as close as he can so he can get deep inside you. "Fuckin' feel so good~ such a good girl." He grunted, pounding into you.

It's hard to read his true expression with that damn mask on, uou managed to get your fingers under the chin of his mask and pull it off. You can see his flustered face, how desperate and needy his eyes are. "Sso p-pretty anh~!" "Shut up.." he burrows his head in the crook of your neck, embarrassed, small whimpers escape his lips as moans roar out from yourself.

"Fuck, y/n-!" His arms wrap themselves around your waist as he holds you down and close. Filling you with his seed. His head still pressed against the nook of your neck. "'m sorry..." He whispered into your skin. Your arms slid round to his back, gently running your fingers up and down his back. "Please don't ignore me again." He mumbled. "I won't. I'm sorry." You reply, holding each other close.

～⁠♡✧⁠｡ I really hope you enjoyed this one shot. It was fun to write! I'm not a writer by any means but I appreciate any support I receive so thank you for reading! ｡✧⁠♡～⁠

[astrobiscuits]

Astro observations part 6

🪻Individuals with Sun in Taurus degrees (2,14,26) are always thinking about money - how they can earn more money, what to spend it on. If it's in Scorpio or conjuncts Pluto, they'll often lie about how much money they actually have just to profit off of you. You'll often hear them say "I don't have any money" but secretly have stash of money hidden in their house

🪻Not only do Aquarius Suns have a lot of friends, they also befriend the shy/awkward/forgotten kid (me). I haven't noticed this with other Sun signs

🪻People with Venus in Leo/Leo degrees (5,17,29) often get complimented on their thick hair

🪻Asteroid Fraga (1105) conjuncting any of your planets/angles/nodes indicates your love for strawberries lol

🪻 Check your Moon in Webb (3041) Persona chart. It gives you more insight on the type of content you like to consume on the internet. You can also take into consideration the degree of your Moon

Aries 🌙 - *watches sports matches live*; *laughs at stupid, childish memes *

Taurus 🌙 - the one who always searches for tutorials; "how to bake lava cake", "how to remove a stripped screw"; hmm, maybe i should move *searches houses for sale*;

Gemini 🌙 - *watches memes*, doesn't care what kind of meme it is as long as it's a meme; *scrolls endlessly on r/todayilearned*

Cancer 🌙 - *watches baby videos*; the type that reads family drama posted on reddit, but also regularly checks what their own relatives post on social media

Leo 🌙 - the newest tea on their fav celebrities; they're the first to know what Zendaya ate this morning, where Tom Hanks went on vacation yesterday and if Kylie Jenner is pregnant again; awww a kitty *ends up in an endless loophole of cat videos*

Virgo 🌙 - "declutter with me" videos, "clean with me" videos; *checks their fav blog every day*; *watches workout videos while working out*; *checks e-mails 20 times a day*; ugh, i need to take a break *watches pet videos*

Libra 🌙 - "get ready with me for..." videos, "OOTD" videos, make-up tutorials; their pinterest is full of outfit inspo and aesthetic house decor; "red/green flags in a guy/girl" videos, "first date do's and don'ts" videos

Scorpio 🌙 - *watches every true crime documentary out there*; "Michael Jackson spirit box session"; time to do the deed *watches p8rn*

Sagittarius 🌙 - *saves bible verses all the time*; searches "how to manifest everything you want", obsessed with Neville Goddard content (i'm so sorry, i'm guilty of this); *decides to go on a spontaneous trip, so they end up watching travel videos*

Capricorn 🌙 - the type that doesn't use the internet for entertainment much; actually, you'd be surprised by how little they use their phone compared to the average person; probably has a daily time limit set on their phones, *reads memoirs and biographies*,

Aquarius 🌙 - twitch is their life basically; if they're not watching someone play a video game, then they're playing a video game; *follows LGBTQ+ content during pride month*

Pisces 🌙 - they're listening to music 24/7, has a playlist for every mood they're going through, *watches tangled for the 7th time in a row*; actually, they're always watching a tv series if not for a disney movie

🪻I noticed that most film directors (Hitchcock, Kubrick, Tarantino) have got Neptune in Gemini or Neptune in Gemini degrees (3,15,27). Besides Hitchcock, they also don’t have any aspect between Neptune and Mercury

[buterccup]

GEN Z READER IN TASK FORCE 141 HC

A/N: I saw a couple of these and I couldn't stop trying to find more, and I just love the concept of all these big men trying to understand the reader's humour but I also love how they try to watch over them even though they can easily take care of themselves. Also, do expect the codename to change if I make another one of these but if anyone has ideas please tell me. Anyways I hope this doesn't flop and please enjoy.

Warnings: Dark humour, Suicide jokes, simping, swearing, mentions of parents leaving the reader, basically gen z stuff, usual CoD violence

Character(s): Soap, Gaz, John, Ghost, Price x Gn! reader (And graves kinda-)

Codename: Daffodil

There is no thinking about it you are the youngest and probably the shortest in the task force.

When Laswell first told Price that he will have someone younger than he expected to join the task force he immediately said no, he wasn't going to babysit you.

Plus you looked way too young to be in the army

Little did he know, you got your codename for a reason.

But once Laswell said you were very strong and he could trust you to hold your own and that he had to, he didn't have much of a choice.

And as expected once Price and Laswell introduce you to the boys they were shocked too.

There was a literal child in front of them.

And Soap being Soap he let out a little chuckle earning a nudge and glare from Ghost and an "ahem" from Price

"This is Daffodil, your new rookie. And I warn you don't underestimate them just from their name. Treat them well."

At first you were very quiet and only spoke when spoken to, almost beating Ghost's stoic and quiet nature

To which the rest of 141 joked about quite a lot

but after a while, you started to open up to them which was a nice sign

But the boys did catch onto your humour pretty quickly which caused them to worry for your mental state.

You would start saying suicide jokes at 1 mile per second at every small inconvenience.

"If that happens again I'm going to jump in front of a car- I am going to hang myself- I cannot right now-"

"Kid...It's just paper work..."

"Exactly"

One time you and the group were going after a target and of the guys' men shot you in the arm. It wasn't as bad as you thought it would be but it still hurt.

While Soap and Gaz asked if you were okay you were completely hysterical at the moment. So much in fact that you shouted something so stupid before the guy met his inevitable end.

By Ghost too:D

Thanks Ghost<33

"Do you want this back???"

BLAM

"Oop, mans left quicker than my dad."

To say the least, your boys were concerned for you because of that

Even Ghost tried to check up on you every minute or two after they got the bullet out and patched you up.

You all eventually got the target in the end but your boys ended up forcing you to go get your wound checked since a, and I quote, "Crusty dusty" building wouldn't be the best place to pick out bullet fragments.

You came back with one of the doctor's pens because you liked it and claimed you finessed him when in reality he gave it to you because he noticed you staring and you were too scared to ask.

It was a LED cat paw pen

"Gaz what does finesse mean?"

"I don't really know..?"

"What do you mean you're supposed to know-"

One time you shouted slay during a mission once Ghost killed one of the targets.

To be honest, it did make him laugh but Price, on the other hand, didn't understand but he soon got what it meant. Kinda.

With that being said Gaz and sometimes Soap are the go-to when Price or Ghost don't understand what the hell you just said since they are the younger ones.

Which also means you got along better with them

And if they don't understand something they always try their best to find out and find more things you would laugh at.

Soap even goes that extra effort to make memes and send them to you.

But don't get me wrong you love spending time with Price and Ghost.

And speaking of memes you always end up making stupid gifs of Ghost and always end up sending them to the tf141 group chat that you made to annoy them most of the time or Ghost himself where you sometimes end up joke flirting with him

Mans is scrumdiliumcious if you did say so yourself

(Ahem basically the gif at the start of the hcs)

One time you called Ghost Mummy and Soap and Gaz wouldn't stop laughing while Price sighed at the little slip-up.

It wasn't a slip-up.

You defiantly burst into Price's office most of the time too when you have nothing to do.

Even though hearing Price drone on about his paperwork doesn't sound that fun it's nice to hear his voice.

And If you didn't have good parents or were absent most of your life he would never turn you away once he sees you at his door.

This also applies if you have good parents too

From the number of times he had to lecture you and your boys about how you can't have McDonald's after a mission and how it's bad for you is basically allowing him to adopt you.

Once you met Grave one thing kept popping into your mind.

Fix it Felix.

Which didn't really give you both a great start but he warmed up to you sooner or later.

And as much as an asshole he is most of the time he actually gets concerned when he hears one of your suicide jokes.

When he first heard one over coms he made sure to keep an eye on you every so often and even messaged you after the mission was over.

Don't get me wrong Graves is kinda...shitty but that doesn't make him that much of an asshole to not check up on a 'child' when they say something concerning.

And when all your boys are free and there is time you all have a movie night.

It's quite relaxing, it was nice to have these quiet moments with your boys considering your jobs.

Although one time it was getting really late and you all got through 2 movies and you almost looked like you were going to pass out so that's when papa Price came out.

"Papa, more movie."

"No the movie is over, we gotta go.."

"PAPA"

"Oh, Jesus Christ.." (💀)

"Me. Want. More. Movie."

"No Daffo-"

"YOU LIE"

"Kiddo the movie is-"

"Price what did you do-" (🧼)

Once you calmed down and Price realized what you said he cried internally.

Everything was okay in the end though and Gaz had that on camera so they can always look back and laugh at it.

Requests: Open

Part 2!

[carmesi-butterfly]

twitter

nishimura riki + fem! reader. word count 1,5k. not idols au/school au. warnings stalking (?) this one-shot is probably the most unserious thing i've ever written. not proofread.

"i checked your twitter account," said riki, trying to maintain a serious face and failing miserably, a few giggles came out of his mouth while he attempted to act normal.

"eh? that's not possible, my account is private" you looked at him with confusion, trying to decipher his weird laugh.

your twitter account has been a recurrent topic since both became friends, first of all because; who doesn't have twitter? it was the diary of the new generations, most of the teenagers had a profile in there! of course, you were one of them, but the way that you treated your account like confidential information made the japanese boy pretty suspicious.

it was a private account with no more than 15 followers, most of them probably were internet friends because it wasn't a novelty that you were not social by any means, on the contrary, you could be considered a loner, because of that, the apparent "state secret" hiding in your profile made ni-ki more than curious about what you could be secreting.

"i don't want you to get mad at me" pleaded, following that he proceeded to show you an interesting account that you knew well.

a profile named 'riri', with one of those famous headers with silly quotes you can find on pinterest and as an icon an orange cat with the emoji ☝️ referring to the recent meme that became viral, to finalize the bio was decorated with the phrase 'proud hater'. you got a request from that account just a few weeks ago, it followed most of the people you followed so it wasn't any suspicious to you, besides that's how you made a few of your friends! Following or being followed by oomfs of your oomfs, that's how social media works.

"that's you?" your voice raised annoyed and nervous, "you used that account to stalk me?!" with anger, you got up from your seat on the school rooftop.

"i wanted to know why you're hiding things from me!" his tone matched yours, being not loud enough to be heard by the other students who navigated through the school.

"if i hide things from you there's a reason!" your mood escalated from there, not only did your anger grow bigger but an immense urge to cry hit you.

“i-i know… I’m sorry y/n, i thought it would be something stupid, not that you like me”

riki brings your biggest secret into the conversation without any filter, dropping it like a not-warned bomb that fell into you and unloaded the last level of emotions you were hiding on a facade of pure rage.

now everything made sense, his giggly laugh without a reason while looking at you, the weird things he said that seemed like an inner joke you could not understand, the weird “i know your secret” he released randomly in your conversations... you thought it was all a joke! it's nishimura riki that we’re talking about. He enjoys pranking and tends to do and say weird stuff, it could be a completely normal behavior for him, but no, this time it wasn't.

“why did you think doing this was a good idea?” you claimed, hiding your face between the palms of your hands while a few tears slid down your face.

“sunoo once said that he knows you like me, so heeseung gave me the idea of stalking your accounts for any signal but your accounts are private… so he helped me by making a stalking account, i know it was wrong. i'm sorry, please don't cry” he begged after confessing everything, trying to get near you therefore he could calm you at least a little bit.

“sunoo and heeseung know?!” you blurted, your eyes opened as if you were trying to imitate an owl’s gaze, and your hands transitioned from covering your face to holding it, any similarity with ‘the scream’ by edvard munch is just a coincidence.

“the whole group knows” announced, opening the hell gates with a simple phrase.

“riki are you kidding me?! i don't care that you know even if you violated my privacy, because i would've told you sooner or later, but your friends?! how humiliating, i’m never coming to school again” and the catharsis started, a big flow of verbal vomit came out of your mouth going from ‘they're probably making fun of me right now’ to ‘i’m gonna delete all my social media and never use my phone again’ all of this accompanied by fat tears.

the poor boy felt hopeless, watching you practically going insane in front of him without knowing what to do to help you, or more reasonably: how to amend his mistake. luckily for him, his guardian angels appeared in the scene to help him, hiding behind the door of the rooftop heeseung (the one responsible for this mess) and jungwon (a heart warmed soul who wanted to help his friend) were hiding, their faces full of horror admiring the scene that was unloading in front of them. what happens next is worthy of a comedic movie. His friends started a physical and exaggerated demonstration of how he should calm you, hugging each other and emphasizing comfort acts such as back patting and forehead kissing. ni-ki would've burst out laughing if it wasn't for you crying like a baby.

“please don't cry, i’m sorry, you can beat me all you want if it makes you feel better” proposed completely seriously, while slowly without trying to upset you more he got closer, searching to imitate the “comforting” hug he saw his friends do, let's not lie… it was a bit awkward, but he tried and that's okay.

gradually you ended up relinquishing the embrace, starting by clinging to him delicately and finishing by squeezing his torso the strongest you could.

“beating you is not enough, i need you to die” your voice came out weird because of the amount of strength you were applying to the “hug”, but despite that, your head relied on his chest.

“you will suffer a lot without me!” a small laugh flew out of his mouth, refreshing the conversation. “are you still mad at me?” the nishimura looked down, searching for your face and any kind of reaction from it.

“yes” your response was cut and short, it could've worried your crush if it wasn't for the water dripping off your nose because of all the crying.

“u-uhm, i have something to tell you, maybe this will help you feel better” his heart started to beat faster and you could feel it through the hug, he cleared his throat in a way of trying to shake the nerves out, “the reason i did all of this stupid plan was that… i had hopes that you talked about me there, uhm…” a small pause to take a big breath after the confession interrupted the moment, but he quickly picked up the conversation, “my friends encouraged me to confess, specially sunoo, you know that he has a sixth sense with gossip” joked.

“you're telling me that… you did all of this because you like me?” you asked dumbfounded, the question got him more embarrassed than he already was, why did it make him sound so stupid?

he nodded, ignoring your attempt at visual contact while trying to hold back his smile. “then, do you feel better now?”

“no” denied, “but i know what can make me feel better” and after saying that, a naughty smile appeared on your face.

“what? i will buy you a lot of food from the cafeteria if that's what you want-”

his phrase got interrupted by you, who continued speaking, “do you remember… when i found that folder on your phone that had a ton of pictures of you trying to fake your muscles? how would you feel if i told your friends about it?” ni-ki’s smile disappeared instantly, now his face reflected nothing more than true terror.

in a matter of seconds, your bodies separated and you started running to the rooftop door. riki knew what you were trying to do, getting into the school, searching for his friends, and revealing his shameful secret! this can't be, but after being a bad friend things were not on his side, he tried following you the fast as he could but forgot a small detail, his friends hiding behind the gate. as soon as you got to the exit the spot where the two boys were hiding got exposed and both seemed nervous about that, but you couldn't care less.

“hi, guys! it's so nice to see you, i have something amazing to tell you!” your acting, so giggly and happy relaxed jungwon and heeseung who were scared of being scolded for spying. “did you know that riki-”

at that exact moment, the japanese covered his ears, not wanting to hear all the things you might be saying to his comrades who surely were going to make fun of him until the day he died. well, at least he can make fun of them because he got a girlfriend (even if you aren't his girlfriend yet) and they don't!

[beanghostprincess]

Silly goofy wild and funky idea:

Transman Crocodile who transitioned via Ivankov.

Cross Guild events and Cross Guild Poly where Buggy finally gets the nerve to come out to her two lieutenants and also boyfriends. Mihawk just blinks like "yes? Your Haki is distinctly feminine, so this makes perfect sense. Oh, dear why are you crying, stop that-" meanwhile Crocodile has to bite back every single we traded genders joke and instead just shrugs, going "I quite literally could not be paid to give a fuck. You know I'm bisexual, this changes little, Clown."

Croc does off hand offer to hook Buggy up with Iva if that's smth she's interested in, tho.

Meanwhile Sanji has come out to the Strawhats as a transwoman as well, and the reactions are much more dramatic but no less supportive - if anything, some may be too supportive /hj ((Franky calls her queen and sis and Hawt Mama, Chopper already began working on ways to synthesize estrogen Just In Case, Luffy could not be made to give a single fuck, Ussop is swooning, Zoro informs her that this changes nothing and he'll still kick her ass, Robin offers her congratulations, Nami is already mathing out adding another bed in the girls' room or making a room JUST for Sanji and Ussop to share, Brooke waits 0.006783259 seconds before asking to see undies, just everyone being supportive and stupid))

This leads to Ivankov getting two separate contacts for their services, and so they arrange to meet at a small-ish island to help both, two birds, one stone :)).

Both crews go full Spiderman meme when they come across each other, and Iva handles it with all the gentility of a bull in a china shop, whisking both ladies away while the rest are left just plain gaping and awkwardly avoiding eye contact or completely oblivious to the tension (cough cough LUFFY).

Insert your own silly ideas here, generally.

But when they come back, Mihawk, Crocodile and Ussop are all just absolutely SWOONING for different reasons, full of Respect Woman Juice and I Love My Wife energy, it's adorable and cute and funny.

((Bonus: Luffy calls Buggy auntie without hesitation, and she almost cries even as she punches him over the head))

THIS IS SO CUTE SELJKFNSFLEFNLNDFDLKNSDLK

Okay, so, my thoughts on this. Crocodile having to hold back the 'we traded genders' joke is so damn real and I laughed SO hard. Love him. So true. And transfem Buggy lives in my mind rent free so this is just perfect because I absolutely love her. She's my beloved. She'd be so anxious about it and cry and Mihawk and Crocodile are like-- So done with her because she's acting stupid and dramatic and of course they're going to still want her. And she's crying and they're rolling their eyes and patting her head at the same time. Poor thing. She needs comfort okay??

And,, Transfem Sanji coming out is always so beautiful in my head. She's been battling her gender issues for AGES and now she feels comfortable enough to come out to the crew. She's anxious but she knows she has to do this now or she never will. And it's-- It's so real to me. The way she would explain everything that happened to her back in Momoiro Island and then say that she's actually a girl. And everyone's quiet because they know she's looking at Luffy only right now, expecting an answer from her captain. And Luffy is just like "??? Okay? You're still my cook. So who cares? You seem happier now!" and that is when Sanji starts crying. Because of course she's crying. And of course, Usopp is the one to hug her first because that's his girlfriend and she needs a hug and forehead kisses right now. But they have 0 privacy because Luffy wants hugs too. I mean. Obviously.

Franky is loud af and he's SOBBING while he screams how proud he is of their cook (I've always said Franky feels like a girldad because just look at how he interacts with Nami. And he's sooooooooo loving Sanji right now). Robin would be so so proud too and would say she's happy for her and smile in the sweetest of ways (Robin please adopt me). I think Chopper would also ask a lot of questions before making estrogen, just in case, but then he'd go and try to make it right away. Nami hugs Sanji but the sweet moment doesn't last long because she's already telling Franky her ideas for a bigger, better room for the girls or!!! "Better!!!!!! A room for Sanji and Usopp so we don't have to deal with them!!!!!! But also make the girl's room bigger because I say so!!!!!!". Zoro says he doesn't give a fuck because he will still kick her ass but he's secretly happy that she looks more relaxed and comfortable in her skin. Brook is Brook and he says his Brook thing about panties but I think Sanji would kick him having the best gender affirmation moment of her fucking life. And Jinbe is just the cutest because I think he'd laugh at the chaotically sweet situation and say that strength comes from being happy with yourself and Sanji is the strongest for being so brave and true to herself (he be saying poetic and cute shit like that and he expects me not to absolutely love him. Dad behavior. I am SO sure he would beat the shit out of anybody who misgendered Sanji. But that's what any Strawhat would do, so,,,).

They go see Iva (Iva my beloved) and they're all,, So uncomfortable,, Buggy acts overconfident and says she's perfectly fine and not scared at all of what Iva's going to do to her body (liar. She's scared af and Crocodile and Mihawk know so they keep scaring her even more because it's funny to see their girlfriend crying. Look. The fact that they're soft and dating doesn't mean they're not gonna bully her). And Sanji has smoked like two fucking boxes of cigarettes already despite saying that she doesn't care about it (she has never been more excited in her entire life) and she's holding Usopp's hand so hard she's going to break it at some point. Anyway, Iva is a dramatic bitch and they make Sanji and Buggy come with them to a more private place because they want it to be a surprise for everyone (drama queen. Love them. I would do it too. Trust the process, girls, you're in good hands). So Cross Guild and the Strawhats end up alone and waiting for their girls to come back. And. Yeah. Uncomfortable. Zoro looks at Mihawk at some point and goes:

Zoro: I thought you were gay. Mihawk: I swing both ways. Usopp: Actually, you swing sword- Mihawk: Awful. Shut up. Don't ever speak to me again. Don't even look at my direction, actually. Roronoa, why is your crew like this? Zoro: It was really funny, though. Mihawk: I wish to not partake in this conversation anymore. Everyone just shut up and wait. ............. Luffy: Hey, guys, do you think Sanji's going to have bigger boobs than Zor- Nami: OH MY GOD LUFFY YOU CAN'T SAY THAT Luffy: BUT I'M CURIOUS Zoro: Yeah, she's going to ask for the biggest of boobs only to piss me off because she's annoying like that. Mihawk: Why would you even care about your breast size, Roronoa? Crocodile: Tsk. You care about mine. Usopp: OH MY GOD SJKFNSKDEWKFJNJKSFN

Okay, so Sanji and Buggy eventually come back. Finally. And they were gorgeous before but now they're even more beautiful because they actually look extremely happy with their bodies. I want to describe how I see them but just check @/vongulli's account and see their fem Buggy because she kills me every time and that's the only way I can see fem Buggy now. And Sanji to me looks like @/sibmakesart's fem Sanji. This artist made a nude fem Sanji not long ago and I loved it,, So much,, ANYWAY!!!!!! Getting carried away.. Thinking about women. It's not my fault I'm a lesbian. But they look perfect and they're comfortable and happy. And Sanji's boobs are surprisingly not huge and Zoro makes a comment about that but Sanji is like:

Sanji: WHAT????? YOU ONLY SEE ME AS A BOOB-OBSESSED GIRL OR WHAT? Literally everyone at the same time: Yes. Sanji: Well, for your information- Usopp: She likes thighs more Sanji: Usopp, don't tell them- Iva: And also, my dears, that is not how my power works Zoro: So you did ask for big boobs and you couldn't have them Sanji: I'm going to kill you and wearing heels it's going to hurt even more Usopp: Is it weird that I'm kind of turned on right now? Nami: ...Haha Usopp: Are you okay? Nami: Hey, Usopp, I- Usopp: You can't fuck her Nami: I swear I can't have anything!!! What do you have against lesbians??? Usopp: YOU WANT TO SLEEP WITH MY GIRLFRIEND WHAT DO YOU WANT ME TO SAY??? Nami: I dunno, yes??

Crocodile and Mihawk are having... A moment. They will still bully her and they're sure she's going to look extremely pretty crying and whining but right now she deserves to be worshipped because just look at her. Buggy approaches them and she's like "If you laugh I'm going to throw knives at you and then leave Cross Guild and!! And!! And I'm going to be really mad so pleasedon'tlaughireallylikethispleasedon'truinit" and they look at her with the fondest of looks (but gotta be honest, they're so horny right now it's unbearable. Like yes, happy wife happy home happy everything but also happy dick because just look at her). Crocodile is just frowning and genuinely asks "Why would we laugh? You look stunning, dear" and Mihawk follows with "I must say I'm not surprised, since you've always looked beautiful. But you look... More satisfied with yourself." And Buggy has to hold back the tears and that's why she starts saying things like "Pffft. Yeah! I knew I'd be gorgeous like this too! Now I look even flashier!" and y'know, the two men are letting her have her moment because now she looks even better and they can't stop staring at her. So maybe she's right this time when she fakes confidence.

Usopp and Nami need a second to process everything, I think. Also, they both hit Brook at the same time when he's about to ask Sanji the question™. Nami is having a lesbian moment, but of course Sanji realizes and does her Sanji thing like opening her mouth and speaking:

Sanji: Nami-swaaan!!! Do you like how I look now??? Nami, ignoring her and whispering to herself: Disgusting. I hate this. Zoro: At the end of the day it's just curly, huh? Nami: I was thinking with my dick. Zoro: Yeah. Happens. Been there.

So, Usopp and Sanji finally get their moment together because at least the Strawhats are respectful enough to give them their sweet uhhhh two minutes before they start complimenting Sanji. So that's something! Sanji is confident with her body but is a bit shy and isn't sure what Usopp will think about this. Not that she has changed much, even, but, you know. Just different. In a good way for her! But different. And Usopp approaches her slowly and smiling and he's just so so so happy. And he's like "You look gorgeous!" / "... Really? I wasn't sure whether you'd like it-" / "I will always like you! But more importantly, do you like you?" / "I mean- Weird phrasing, but yes. Yes? I think so. Yes." / "Then that's all that matters." And Sanji really, really doesn't want to cry because she has never cried in front of the whole crew. She just can't help it. But Usopp knows she doesn't like it when others see her cry so he quickly wipes her tears away and when she starts laughing (so so happy and full of love) Usopp just needs to kiss her.

Meanwhile, Luffy is there calling Buggy auntie and asking when she's going to tell Shanks about this. She keeps saying she will never tell him and if he wants to find out, he'll do it through her new wanted poster or whatever, but not from her.

[training4theapocalypse]

And they call me crazy (Adrian Chase x fem!reader)

Rating: Explicit - 18+ only

Word Count: 5.8k

Warnings: SMUT, Rough sex, Non-con elements - reader is drunk and a (very eager to fuck) hostage, Light bondage, Oral, P in V, Unprotected sex, Edging, Canon typical mentions of murder and violence

Summary: You're a new intern at Senator Goff's office. It's going great... that is until Vigilante abducts you after you've been out drinking, celebrating the end of your first week. (Based on this ask from anon.)

A/N: I'm fucking impatient as usual and I couldn't wait until Sunday to post this. I've added non-con to the warnings but honestly, reader is so desperate to fuck him she DOESN'T GIVE AF if it's morally questionable that she's a hostage.

Masterlist

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Chapter text:

Your gasp is stifled when a black glove covers your mouth and an arm wraps tight around your body. You stumble on the sidewalk, teetering back in your high heels into your assailant’s body but he holds you firmly upright.

“Don’t scream,” says a man’s muffled whisper in your ear.

Your whole body freezes up. God, you wish you were more sober. Why did you insist on walking home after those celebratory drinks? This is not the perfect ending to the first week of your internship that you’d envisioned. Is this why Senator Goff didn’t turn up for work today? They said he was sick.

“I’m not gonna hurt you if you keep quiet and get in the car.”

It’s a man’s voice. Not one you recognise. But you can barely hear it anyway over how loudly your heart is beating in your chest. Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck, it seems to say, battering frantically against your rib cage.

“Nod if you understand me.”

You jerk your head forward - his tight grip doesn’t make the movement easy. 

God, why didn’t you listen to your Mom? She told you earlier to get a cab home and stay safe, you’d just dismissed her advice as usual because you knew best.

He removes his hand and pushes you into the open passenger door of a beat-up old Chrysler Sebring. It all happens so fast that you don’t even think to check out the license plate. 

Shit.

The man shuts the passenger door after you and hops into the driver’s seat on the other side. 

It’s him. 

You’ve seen his masked face on the news, wanted for carrying out his own brand of retributive justice on criminals across Evergreen. You heard people talking about his latest crimes at work today. Hell, you’ve even made stupid memes about having a crush on him in your girlfriend’s group chat. 

It’s Vigilante.

You were ready to beg for your life a second ago. But now all you can do is stare. At the forefront of your admittedly inebriated mind is the fact that you’ve fantasised about the masked Vigilante of Evergreen before. But in your fantasies, you’d always been someone that he’d saved from a robbery gone wrong or some other sticky situation. Not his abductee.

And this is no fantasy. He’s here - he’s real. So intimidatingly tangible and human. You can hear his breathing through his mask, see his eyes darting around your dark surroundings checking for passersby, and you can even smell the sharp, fresh scent of his cologne when he gets close to you, reaching behind you to grab a length of rope from the back seat. 

“Put your hands out.” You swallow thickly, looking at his masked face. There’s no point in arguing. “If you make any indication to anyone we pass that you’re you’re here against your will, I will kill you.”

“Listen, I don’t know what you think I’ve done but I-”

“Hey - don’t make me gag you and put you in the trunk,” he says, finishing the knot around your wrists as your stomach does a little flip. Not out of fear. Something else. He turns his keys and starts the ignition. “Oooh, seatbelt! Sorry.”

You breathe in as he reaches across you to grab your seatbelt and clip you in. Your hands sit uncomfortably on your lap as the car drives out of the dark street and onto the main road.

He pulls out his cell phone as he drives to wherever you’re going and you hear the other end of the phone ringing in the silent car.

“What is it?” You strain your ears, listening as a woman answers aggressively.

“I’ve got Goff’s assistant. I’m on my way to the video store.”

Goff’s assistant? That’s a stretch. You’re an intern. And not even Goff’s intern. You’re his assistant’s intern.

“I’m not-” you start but he cuts you off.

“Quiet!”

“What?!” says the woman on the phone.

“Sorry, Harcourt. Not you.”

“No, I mean you did what?! Vigilante, you need to run this shit by me. You can’t bring her here.”

“I did you a favour! We’re way ahead of schedule now.”

You hear the unidentified woman grumble. “We’ve got Judomaster here, dumbass. Take her someplace else.”

Goff’s funny little bodyguard. Now you know that Vigilante and the woman on the phone are responsible for Goff’s absence. Shit, what’s he going to do when he realises you know nothing?

“Where am I supposed to take her?”

“That’s what happens when you go rogue, idiot. We’ll talk about this tomorrow. She’s your problem tonight.”

You hear the line beeping as the woman hangs up.

“Fuck!” says Vigilante and he does a U-turn. “Hey, close your eyes.”

“Why?”

“I’m gonna have to take you to my place. I said close your eyes or-”

“Yeah, you’ll kill me. I got it,” you say resignedly. You close your eyes feeling the car turn left, straight for a while, right, left… you lose track. You have no idea where you are or how long it takes you to get there when finally you arrive at your destination.

You hear him get out of the car and still not daring to open your eyes, you feel the cool night air when the passenger door opens.

“Can I open my eyes?”

“Nope.”

You feel him reach over you to unclip your seatbelt and he hoists you out of the car by your upper arm. He roughly steers you across what you guess is a parking lot by the way your high heels click on the asphalt.

His vice-like grip on your arm still doesn’t relent, even when you reach the stairs.

“Not so fast - I can’t see!” And you’re still kind of drunk.

“Shh! Not here,” he whispers urgently. But his hold on you becomes more gentle as he helps you up the stairs, more slowly now. A sliver of empathy. 

The sound of keys jingle as he unlocks a door and guides you inside. You hear him locking and bolting the door behind you. Great. 

“Can I-”

“Yeah, you can open ‘em.”

You open your eyes. The small apartment is sparsely furnished, obviously decorated by a single man. No artwork on his walls, a small dining table, a clean but worn leather couch without even so much as a throw pillow.

The screech of wood on laminate makes your arm hair stand up as he pulls over a hard wooden chair into the middle of the living room.

“Sit.”

You do as you’re told. He pulls another chair over and sits down opposite you, leaning back, with his arm resting on the back of the chair. Vigilante’s intimidating form relaxes casually in front of you. 

“We can do this the easy way or the hard way,” he tells you.

“I - do what the easy way?” You shift in your seat, squeezing your thighs together. What wouldn’t you want Vigilante to do you right now? Stop it, you scold yourself. 

“You’ve got information and I need it.”

“I really don’t have any sort of information.” 

He edges his seat closer to you, close enough that you can smell his cologne again. Fuck. “Hey, I get it. I was tortured for intel a few days ago and I didn’t crack either-”

“Torture?!” You panic now. “Look, I’m not lying - I’m not Goff’s assistant! If I knew anything I’d tell you.”

His eyes narrow behind the mask. He pulls out his phone, looking through it for something. “Shit.” Vigilante looks from his phone to you. “This isn’t you.” He holds up the screen and shows you a blurry picture of your boss walking out of the office. Sure you look alike - you have the same hair colour and both wear suits to work but she’s significantly older. 

You shake your head. 

“What were you doing coming out of the senator’s office?” He accuses, as if it’s your fault he’s kidnapped you.

“I’m an intern. It’s my first week.”

“So you work there? Right?” he asks desperately.

“I just get coffee and take notes, dude.”

He tilts his head back, staring at the ceiling. “Oh man, Harcourt’s gonna freak out when I tell her I fucked up again. I can’t believe I picked up the wrong hostage.”

You sit, wrists still tied together in your lap staring at him. Now what? Maybe he’ll just drop you off outside the bar where the grabbed you.

“Look, we all make mistakes. It happens to the best of us. No harm done so-”

“Stop.” He looks up at you. “You know I can’t let you go.”

You take a deep breath and look at him silently for a few seconds. “So now what? Are you gonna kill me?”

“I-”

‘I’m a Barbie girl, in the Barbie world. Life in plastic, it’s fantastic’

Vigilante looks at his phone, apparently confused that it isn’t the source of the music. 

“It’s mine,” you sigh, embarrassed by your choice of ringtone. You try to pick your phone out of your suit pocket with tied wrists. 

“Your ringtone is Barbie Girl?” 

You nod.

He pauses, giving you an unreadable look from behind his mask before reaching into your suit pocket. “I can’t let you have this.” He declines the call. Your phone pings as a message arrives. “Someone called Melanie says ‘Your boyfriend is on the news again’,” he reads.

Fuck. Your best friend Melanie knows all about your stupid crush on the man sitting in front of you right now.

“Hey- don’t read my messages!”

“I need to know if your boyfriend is gonna come looking for you.”

“I don’t have a boyfriend, I swear. She’s just making a stupid joke.” 

Your phone pings again. “She’s sent you a picture - what’s your passcode?”

“I said don’t read my messages. I’m not telling you my passcode.”

Vigilante sighs and turns your phone around to face you and your Face ID unlocks it. He freezes when he opens the image.

Oh, god.

He turns the phone back towards you again and you groan. Melanie has taken a picture of the news on her TV. Vigilante is on the screen. Shit. 

“I told you, it was just a stupid joke,” you mumble, feeling your face turning scarlet. 

“I didn’t realise you were a fan,” he says, and you can tell from the tone of his voice that he has a stupid grin under his mask. 

“Well, I’m definitely not a fan right now.” You hold up your wrists. 

“She can see you’ve opened it. What should I say back?”

“Hmm... say LOL…” He starts typing. “Call the police. I’m being held hostage.”

He deletes what he just typed and gives you a stern look. “Fine, I’ll just go through your messages and see what you said before.”

“No, wait! I was kidding!” You try to snatch the phone from his hands but his reflexes are too quick for your tied hands. He doesn’t have to scroll very far back through your messages to find what he’s looking for.

Vigilante laughs and starts reading aloud. “OMG, he is so fine… I’m just gonna say that again.” He sends the message and you hear the notification of Melanie responding almost immediately. He reads it aloud. “She says ‘Knew you’d appreciate it - wink emoji’.”

“Can you just kill me already?” you ask sarcastically.

He puts your phone in his pocket. “I’m not gonna kill you.”

“So what am I doing here then?”

“Waiting. For now.” You stare at each other for a few seconds. It’s hard not to feel like you’re in immediate danger. “Do you want a beer?”

Perhaps your life isn’t in danger.

You blink at him incredulously. He walks over to the refrigerator and returns with two beers. He opens yours and hands it to you.

“Can you untie me so I can drink it?” You ask, testing the waters.

“Are you gonna try and attack me and escape?”

You’ve never been in a fight in your entire life. There’s no way you’d be able to win in a physical altercation with him, not with his reputation for massacring criminal gangs.

“No.”

Vigilante looks you over, and you stare up at him, waiting for his assessment. “I could take you, anyway,” he says casually and puts down his beer on the coffee table so he can untie your wrists.

You feel yourself blushing again at his words. Vigilante could take you. He means in a fight. But your mind immediately thinks of him taking you in another way.

When he unties you, you rub your wrists, feeling the sweet relief of having them free again. Vigilante kicks back on the couch and gestures to the seat next to him. You move over and perch uncertainly on the cool leather. He lifts the bottle of beer, and then realising he’d need to remove his mask to drink it, puts it back down.

“You can take it off if you want,” you suggest. 

“And let you see my face? No way. I have a secret identity.”

“Well, I bet you’re handsome under there.” 

What are you doing? 

The sensible voice at the back of your mind supposes that flirting with him might convince him to free you. Another slightly louder, drunker voice in your head suggests that flirting with him might convince him to fuck you. 

He looks away, flustered. “I dunno about that...” 

“That’s why you wear that mask, right? You’re probably so good-looking you’d be easy to spot in a line-up.”

He lifts the edge of his mask - you think for a second he’s about to reveal who he is but instead, he takes a long drink of beer. You watch his sharp jaw and exposed neck as he swallows and get a brief glance at his wet lips before he pulls the fabric back down over his face again.

“That mask doesn’t do you any favours, hiding a jawline like that.”

“Stop it, okay. I know what you’re doing.” You raise your eyebrows. “You think because you’re pretty, you can seduce me into letting you go. It’s not gonna work.”

Pretty. 

You try not to smile, to keep your expression blank. You wish you could text Melanie - she’d lose her shit right now. But you’ve laid it on a bit too thick. Even though it is true - he does have a ridiculously nice lower half of his face.

“I’m just passing the time. Believe it or not, I’ve never been abducted before.” You shrug. “So what’s the plan? Stay here until your boss on the phone tells you to kill me in the morning?”

“She’s not my boss.”

“Sounds like she is.”

“I work alone. Mostly. Or with Peacemaker.”

“So let me go then. I won’t tell a soul. I promise.”

“It’s not that simple. I can’t just release a hostage.”

You think. Hard. “What if I could get you the information you need? Then I’m an accomplice. Not a hostage.”

“I thought you just got the coffee?”

“I know where my boss keeps her laptop. And her password.”

“What kind of boss tells a brand new intern her password?”

You purse your lips, wondering how much you can safely reveal to him. “She trusts me.” 

“The way you want me to trust you?”

“It’s different… I just don’t want her to get kidnapped too.”

He tilts his head. “That could work.” He hesitates. “But I’ll need to double-check with Harcourt in the morning.” He spins his bottle of beer in his hands.

“I’ll give you the laptop’s location and password if you let me see your face.”

“Uh, no. You’re giving me the location and password in exchange for letting you go.”

“This is a hostage negotiation, right?” You give him a coy smile. “Let the hostage do some negotiating.”

“No way.” He lifts the bottom of his mask up again to take another drink.

“What if I suck your dick, will you show me your face?”

Vigilante chokes on his beer.

“Jeez! I’ve already told you that you can stop coming onto me. I’ve agreed to ask Harcourt to let you go.”

“I know. I’m just shooting my shot,” you smile, resting the beer bottle on your bottom lip. “Can’t blame a girl for trying.”

“Yeah, right.” He says though you can’t help but notice the way his visor-covered eyes linger on your lips.

“Dude, you saw my messages. I’ve always wanted to bump i​​nto Vigilante. Under different circumstances, obviously.”

This intrigues him. He turns in his seat, resting on the arm of the couch to face you. “Uh, what kind of circumstances?”

“Well, if you really want to know - they’re in my texts with Melanie.”

He looks at your phone again, opens your messages and starts scrolling up. His eyes widen as he pauses, reading. “Damn…”

“Which one are you reading?”

“There’s more than one?!” His voice is higher pitched this time and you grin. “Uh… ‘I wish we’d bumped into Vigilante when those guys were harassing us leaving the club last night. He would have kicked their asses and I would have-’... Holy shit.”

He adjusts himself in his seat and you can tell he’s hard just from reading your text exchange. You tilt your beer towards him encouragingly. “You can say it.”

“...‘I would have sucked the fucking soul from his body.’ Girls say this kind of shit to each other?”

You sip your drink and say nothing.

Vigilante looks at you like you’re a piece of cake he really, really shouldn’t be thinking about eating. “It would be morally wrong for me to sleep with a hostage.” He looks into your eyes.

You edge closer to him on the couch. “Accomplice, remember? I’m not a hostage if I work with you, right?”

“Listen, you are so hot. And if I met you in real life… fuck. It would be a different story.”

“This is real life.”

“You know what I mean.”

You get on your knees and crawl over to him between his legs. He shrinks back into the corner of the couch cushions. “C’mon. I won’t tell your boss.”

He swallows nervously. “You’re making it really hard for me to say no right now.”

You run your fingers over his belt. “Say you don’t want me to and I’ll stop.” Vigilante groans. You crawl forward again and press your forehead against his masked one, looking into his visor. “Tell me you don’t want me to suck your dick,” you whisper.

“Fuck…” He breathes. “And they call me crazy.”

“Maybe you should be more careful who you let in your car.” 

His gloved hand grabs your wrist and for a second you think he’s going to make you stop but instead, he guides your hand onto the bulge through the fabric of his pants. Vigilante leans his head back, exposing a tiny glimpse of his neck between his mask and his suit. Your tongue finds the skin there, sliding across it and you feel him shiver underneath you.

It’s like he’s at your mercy now as you slowly, agonisingly slowly, undo his belt revealing the v-shape of his lower abdominal muscles covered in a smattering of brown hair. You slide your body down between his legs and kiss the trail of hair below his belly button while your hands work, unzipping his pants and pulling his boxers down.

Vigilante’s cock slaps his stomach when you release it from his boxers. Shit, you have a lot to work with. You’re already wet between your legs just from your conversation but the sight of him sprawled out in front of you - his entire body concealed with the exception of his hard cock - sends blood rushing to your pussy.

You lick your lips and the moment your tongue slides across his head, you feel his whole body tremble. 

“Holy shit,” Vigilante whispers raggedly from behind his mask. He lifts his head to watch as his length disappears into your mouth, and you look up at him with wide eyes and hollow cheeks, sucking and running your tongue along the underside of his cock. 

He grunts as you pull back to run your tongue slowly around his head again. His reaction makes your pussy ache with longing, thinking about how he’d sound with his mask off, moaning like that in your ear.

“Fuck, that’s it. Thaat’s it,” he says through gritted teeth as you find a rhythm, bobbing your head up and down. He threads his gloved hands through your hair - you think he’s going to start fucking your throat but you’re surprised when he doesn’t apply any force, letting you maintain your pace. Vigilante watches you on all fours, your ass in the air behind you as your mouth makes the wettest, sloppiest sucking sounds he’s ever heard.

Then he sees it. A glimpse of your hand under your tailored work skirt, confirming to him again that this isn’t just a ploy for early release. You’re really fucking turned on by being here, sucking his cock.

“Wait…” he whines, tugging gently at the base of your scalp. You pull back, replacing your mouth with your other hand so you can look at him. “Can I fuck you?”

You pull away and bite your lip, still pumping your hand up and down the length of his cock.

“You said you’d show me your face.” Time for your one last bargaining chip.

“I…” He hesitates, propping himself up on his elbows. “I can’t,” he pleads.

“You’ll have to cum here on your stomach then,” you grin, your wet fist picking up pace as he tenses his thighs and tries to stop his hips from jerking up into you. “If you show me your face I’ll let you cum inside me.”

“You’ve gotta be kidding me,” he groans. You stop jerking him off and watch him as he pulls his mask off, tossing it aside on the coffee table. He takes a pair of glasses out of his pocket and puts them on.

You stare at him in shock. You were mostly just teasing him earlier- you hadn’t actually expected him to be this good-looking. Sure, you knew from him drinking his beer earlier that he had a nice jawline. But even in your fantasies, he was faceless - he never had gorgeous green eyes and tousled curly hair.

“You’re hot?” You blurt out before you can stop yourself. “What the fuck!?”

He smiles. And you can see it this time. It’s beautiful. He has dimples.

The intimidation you felt before when you first saw the masked killer in front of you is nothing compared to how you feel now. You practically melt, turning into putty. Feeling lightheaded you realise you’ve been holding your breath and begin making a conscious effort to breathe again. Seconds ago you were convinced he was at your mercy but now…

“Do whatever you want to me,” you say abruptly. Your underwear is flooded thinking that this man, this ridiculously beautiful killer wants to fuck you.

“Oh… I’m gonna.” He raises his eyebrows and lunges forward, pinning you to the couch and kissing your neck. His rough exterior armour digs into your chest. Your hands wander along his shoulders, trying to find the mechanism to unclip it. He feels your movements and pushes himself off of you so he can undo them himself.

You lie back, watching him remove his suit, revealing a host of white scars and purplish-yellow welts across his toned chest and abdomen. You undo the top two buttons of your blouse. 

“Nuh-uh,” he says, tossing his under armour onto the floor. You let out a yelp of surprise when he grabs the opening of your shirt and rips it open, sending buttons scattering across his floor. He pushes your bra up, not bothering to take it off to suck on your tits. 

You run your fingers through his curly hair, feeling him sloppily run his tongue over your nipple. His teeth clamp down on your breast - hard - and you squeal and yank his hair.

“Ow! Not so rough!” 

He just gives you a mischievous smirk and you release your grip when he sucks the spot gently, in a sort of silent apology. It’s definitely going to leave a bruise tomorrow - a secret souvenir of your night with the masked man from the news all your friends know you have a crush on.

But Christ, what have you let yourself in for?

Vigilante moves down your body, kissing your stomach and pulling off your skirt and underwear in a single movement, throwing them haphazardly on the floor. You gasp when his mouth returns to your body and a soft, wet heat envelopes your pussy. He drags his tongue slowly, carefully along your slit.

“Oh fuck…” you whine, arching your back. “Vigilante, I- wait, fuck, what do I call you?”

“Vigilante,” he says between achingly slow licks. Every nerve ending seems to light up, sending blissful signals to your brain.

“No, I - I mean what’s your name?”

“Vigilante.” 

God damn.

You look down and lock eyes with him, his pupils blown so wide his green eyes almost look black as he stares up at you, swirling his tongue in wide circles against your swollen clit. The entire lower half of your body tightens up and the walls of your pussy clench, desperate for something to squeeze around. His fingers, his cock - anything. 

You reach down to find his large, gloved hand and tug at the fabric, trying to pull it off him. 

He pulls his mouth back and removes his glove with his teeth.

“Is this what you want, baby?” He asks, running a single finger through your slick, wet folds and over your clit.

You nod.

“Beg for it.”

“Please, Vigilante.” 

He sinks two fingers deep in your cunt. 

“Is this what you fantasise about?” His questioning makes you tighten around his fingers as he draws them in and out of you. Your breathing quickens in time with his fingers pressing against that sweet spot deep inside your pelvis.

He stops abruptly and the whine that escapes you is pathetic.

“Answer me.”

“Y-yes,” you moan. “Every night.” You wriggle, trying to fuck yourself on his stationary fingers.

“Finger fucking yourself like this?” He curls his fingers up into you again.

“Mhmm.”

“Use your words.”

“Yes, fuck, just like… like this.” You bring your hand to your clit and start rubbing yourself in an obscene demonstration for him as he watches from his kneeling position, one hand between your thighs.

You’re close now, you can feel your orgasm burning up inside you as your cunt starts pulsing more consistently around his digits and your breathing gets heavier. Just as your release is about to crash over you, he withdraws his hand and grabs your wrist, moving your hand away from your clit.

“Wha-?” You pant dazedly. “I was just about to-”

“I know,” he smirks. “Not yet.”

Fuck. He’s fucking edging you.

His lips meet yours for the first time and you moan softly into his mouth. His tongue rolls against yours and you can still taste your sweet and salty juices on him.

Then, without warning, he flips you over and you gasp wordlessly face down on the leather couch in stunned silence. He pulls your hips back and up towards him.

“Fuck, Vigilante,” you choke, lifting your head up and arching your back, your brain working hard to regain awareness of its surroundings. 

The weight of his body presses down on top of you as he leans down to whisper in your ear.

“I’m gonna fuck you so hard, you’re gonna forget my face in a line-up.”

Fuck.

He takes his cock and drags it over your soaking wet entrance, flushed and swollen for him and the broken sob that escapes you is desperate.

“Please,” you beg again. “Just let me cum.”

Vigilante sinks into you with a forceful jerk of his hips and your pussy seizes up tight around him as your face is forced onto the cold leather again. You try and push yourself up onto all fours.

“Nuh-uh, I like seeing you like this,” he says with another forceful thrust, knocking you off balance. “Hands behind your back.” You huff and do what he says, his still-gloved hand pinning your wrists behind you. “I shoulda just kept you tied up, huh?”

You can’t answer, you can’t move, you can’t do anything except just take him. Sparks of electricity reignite inside you, the deepest you’ve ever felt it as he pounds into you, hitting just that right spot again. You turn your head to look at him over your shoulder and when you see Vigilante biting his lip in concentration your walls start pulsing and squeezing around his cock.

“Not… yet.” He grunts. “Not ‘til I say.”

He pushes down on your wrists and it feels like all the air is being knocked from your lungs with every roll of his hips. 

“Fuck, you’re such a… pretty… little… hostage,” he groans through gritted teeth, each thrust punctuated by his praise. 

“Yes…” you whine because it’s all you can manage to say. It’s all you can think. That one singular confirmation repeating over and over again in your head - it’s all you want to be for him. Fuck, you’d happily spend the rest of your life locked in his apartment, letting him use you like this every time he came home after a night of murdering criminals.

Your eyes roll back in your head, fireworks rocketing and exploding into a million bright pieces. If there’s a heaven, it would look like this - a beaten-up leather couch in a shitty apartment in downtown Evergreen.

His other hand that’s free of his glove and not pinning you down reaches round and starts working your clit with rough, calloused fingertips. You squeeze your eyes shut, not realising they’ve been watering. Real tears leak from the corners, leaving your face a wet mess on the leather seat. You choke out a sob, not sure how much longer you can fight against your orgasm.

“Shh, shhh… it’s okay, baby. You can cum. Let it all out for me.”

And you do.

Everything goes dark and you’re lost in the pleasure that takes over your body, your climax wiping your mind blank of all thoughts except Vigilante. Your pussy clamps down hard like a vice around his cock as you squirm on his fingers. It’s only when you feel him shudder and collapse on top of you that you realise he’s come undone too.

You both lie there for a second, feeling the warmth of your combined mess leaking out and the sound of him panting, exhausted.

“Vigilante…” you say in a strained voice, breaking the silence.

“Yeah?” he exhales and takes another gulp of air.

“You’re crushing me.”

“Oh.” He hoists himself off of you. “Let me get you a towel.”

With difficulty, you sit back upright to wipe your eyes and fix your hair. Vigilante returns with a towel and you sit on it, grateful for the barrier between you and the wet, sticky couch cushion.

He throws himself back down beside you. “Whoo, I’m beat!” he says cheerfully. “What do you wanna do now?”

You look at him uncertainly and glance at your watch. “It’s one in the morning.”

“Right, cool. Do you wanna sleep on the couch or-”

‘I’m a Barbie girl, in the Barbie world. Life in plastic, it’s fantastic’

Who’s phoning you this late? 

He picks up both of your phones from the coffee table. “It’s mine,” he says and accepts the call. “Hello?”

Wait - his ringtone is Barbie Girl too?

“It’s me,” says the same voice of the woman who called him earlier. “Have you dealt with the hostage yet?”

Vigilante looks at you and hesitates. He swallows. “Yeah. It’s done.”

“So she accepted the bribe? You’ve got the laptop?”

His eyes widen. “The bribe? Oh! Yeah, sure! The bribe...”

“Vij, you didn’t kill her, did you?”

“What?” He lets out a maniacal laugh. “You’re crazy, Harcourt, of course I didn’t kill her. What’s the, uh, budget again?” He winks at you and makes an ‘ok’ sign with his thumb and forefinger. He’s insane, you think.

“I dunno, like five grand?”

“Phew! Then yes, it is all dealt with. Done and dusted. I will get that laptop.”

“You don’t have the laptop yet!? Vigilante, you need to get the laptop before you hand over the money, idiot.”

“Copy that,” he grins.

“Vigilante, what the f-”

He hangs up, cutting her off and tosses his phone aside.

“Good news. I can let you go once you give me the laptop.”

“And the five grand?” You raise your eyebrows.

“Wait, you heard that?!”

“Uh, yeah?”

“Well not until you give me the laptop.”

“I can get it tonight if you need it? We just need to swing by my boss’s house before you drop me off.”

He frowns. “Oh. Right. Yeah, of course. I need to… need to take you home.”

You tilt your head to one side and look at him fondly. You fix his messy curls and he closes his eyes at your touch. “Or… I could stay here tonight? Pick up the laptop tomorrow morning once you’ve fixed me some breakfast?”

He perks up. “I could do that! …You’re one hundred per cent sure you can get it though, right?”

You sigh and extend your hand. “Give me my phone.” He does and watches you go through your contacts.

The line rings and a familiar but slightly croaky voice answers.

“Honey, it’s one in the morning. Is everything alright? Did you get home okay?”

“Hey Mom, I’m fine. Listen, I think I forgot to send an email before I left the office and I can’t sleep worrying about it. Can I pick up your laptop first thing tomorrow?”

She yawns. “Sure thing. Don’t get stressed about it. Just go get some sleep.”

“Thanks, boss. I love you.”

“Goodnight sweetie. I love you too.”

You grin as Vigilante gapes at you.

“Goff’s assistant… she’s your-?”

“Yup. Now c’mon, show me where your bedroom is.” You stand up and reach your hands out, waiting for him to guide you. You step on one of your shirt buttons as he leads you towards the hallway. “You owe me a new shirt, by the way.”

“I just made you five grand. Use that to buy a new shirt,” he says, opening the bedroom door.

“Hey, what happened to the hostage negotiation? These are the terms of my release.”

“Oh, you’re not going anywhere,” he smirks, shutting the door behind you.

[rouiyan]

𝘞𝘌’𝘙𝘌 𝘕𝘖𝘛 𝘙𝘌𝘈𝘓𝘓𝘠 𝘚𝘛𝘙𝘈𝘕𝘎𝘌𝘙𝘚 [ 𝘭.𝘮𝘬 ]

⧏ back to teaser || redirect to playlist ⧐

marks manages to land himself in a forty-two hour drive across the country with his archaeology major ex-girlfriend in the passenger seat. but for the duration of the whole ride, the only thing he can think about is that one twitter meme that states that “a majority of archeologists are women due to their natural ability to dig up the past.”

✧ photographer!mark lee x (fem.) archaeology major!reader ✧ exes to lovers, road trip au, referenced college au ✧ genres — fluff/angst, hurt/comfort ✧ word count — 25.2k

✧ disclaimers — profanity, mentions of food, legal (u.s.) alcohol consumption, they make out like once, emotional insecurity and vulnerability (i.e. several panic attacks, social anxiety), possible terminal illness (not of mcs), generational conflict, y/n cries a lot, mark sucks at parking

✧ caveat — this fictional plot is set in present-day america and does not accurately reflect the locations referenced. furthermore, this publication is not an endorsement of the brand or the product featured. all credit is given where it is due. (sources linked upon conclusion)

✧ author’s note — happy 24th birthday to my dear mark! note that the first scene is the exact same as the teaser, so if you've read that already, feel free to skip over! also note i half-assed the proofread so please let me know of any typos, plotholes, and other stupid stuff that i forgot to adjust. as for myself, you can catch a little update on the past two years of my life at the end of this fic so for now, enjoy!

「 DAY 00, 01:42 PM 」 — CUPID DABBLES IN BURNT TOAST

"oh, come on. i thought you were nicer than that!"

it's at times like these where mark is led to think that haechan only considers him as his very best friend for three things. his toaster, his car, and then of course, how easy it is to torment him.

he’s experienced enough to know that the guilt he feels is really only a direct result of haechan's guilt-tripping antics. and so he responds sarcastically, "yeah, nice enough to save a girl from a week of being in close proximity to the person she hates most in the world."

the toaster dings and haechan catches the two pieces of toast in their flight. he sticks one in his mouth, breaking off a bite, whilst turning to toss the other onto his friend's plate. chewing roughly, he leans back onto the counter opposite of mark, watching in contempt as the latter spreads jam across the burnt slice of bread.

haechan points a finger and juts it in his direction, offhandedly commenting, "i'm starting to think that it's you who hates her," a fact that both friends know isn't true. and because of that, mark doesn't make a big deal of denying it. "i don't hate her. i'm just..." he trails off and haechan takes the opportunity to craftily stage his intervention.

"not trying to make her uncomfortable?"

"yeah, i guess."

"not wanting her to hate you more?"

"there's that too."

"not over her?"

"hey, not cool."

a passage of silence elapses as mark sets the butter knife aside in exchange for his orange juice. gulping it down, he gets through two thirds of the glass before haechan perks up again. "actually, i think she still has a thing for you."

mark sputters, barely swallowing his drink before it could hurl out his disbelieving mouth. trying to smooth over his show of defiance, mark recovers a nonchalant expression as he deadpans, "there's no way. you know better than i do that she fucking hates me."

haechan takes another bite, aware but indifferent at how the crumbs have been gathering at his feet. his eyes trail absentmindedly to the clock on the wall behind mark, but only briefly for the hands are far past where he'd expected them to be. shoving the last of the toast into his mouth, he rushes to gather his belongings whilst uttering to his bewildered company, "shit, i'm gonna be late. pack it up."

obediently downing the rest of his orange juice, mark grabs his half-eaten, jam-slathered, burnt-to-a-crisp toast in one hand as the other reaches for his car keys on the way out. the unbearably hot sun of an early summer afternoon only hurries mark further along to his car, his wishes that he had worn shorts instead of jeans already too late to come true. but once both car doors have been shut and seat belts have been strapped, haechan carries on with his agenda without missing a beat.

"just give her the ride, mark. she'll keep you company and, i don't know, make sure you're not falling asleep at the wheel. and plus, she said she'll split the toll and gas fees."

mark shoves the last bite of toast into his mouth, the charred-ness of it procuring a nice crunch. even after he swallows, it takes him a second to respond. and though his answer is still far from budging, it sounds more like a justification, as if he needs convincing of his own opinion. "tell her it's cheaper to just catch a flight. and faster too."

exasperated, haechan retorts under his breath, "that's the same thing i told you," to which mark gives a raised brow, not catching what he said. instead of repeating, haechan only says, "just take her. you guys need to make up anyways."

that renders mark quiet for the rest of the ride as he tosses the thought over in his head. it's a thought that he knows he's been pushing away for far too long, hoping one day it'll become redundant enough to simply forget about. unknowingly, mark begins to speed a little, his turns become a little tighter, and when the traffic light signals red, the nose of his car is pulled daringly close to the car in front.

mark parallel parks shoddily in front of the archeology department building four minutes earlier than google maps had estimated. his best friend looks over at him expectantly and that in itself is enough to squeeze the reluctant words right out of him. "fine, i'll think about it."

haechan's face lights with a satisfied glow as he swings his backpack over his shoulder, making his way out of the car as quickly as he can. and just before mark can think to wish him good luck on his last exam of the spring semester, haechan blurts out the one crucial detail he had neglected to bring up until now. 

"thank god, because i already told her you said yes."

「 DAY 01, 07:48 AM 」 — ALL THE TIME IN THE WORLD

the trunk of his beloved subaru crosstrek slams shut from behind. mark winces. the car door of the passenger seat slams shut shortly after. mark winces once again, but doesn't venture to comment on it. instead, he comments on something else entirely. "so why am i picking you up from the hospital?"

you roll your eyes, traces of hostility already to be found in your expression. "as if that's any of your business." you position the tote bag you brought up front by your feet and the contents inside clank against one another. mark gives you a questioning look, thus questioning, "what’s in there? rocks?"

instead of answering with what he would assume to be the same thing you said prior, you simply huff and lean back into the seat to fasten your seat belt. mark does the same, then hastens to shift the gears from park to drive. "you ready?"

lips set into a firm line, you're staring straight ahead when you say, "ready to get this over with." mark takes that as his cue to start the forty-two hour drive across the country, past barren lands and hilly roads, trading the smog of new york for the smog of los angeles.

the drive begins with a screeching hour of silence, all of which you’ve spent scrolling on your phone. and when you finally look up from your screen, the city view outside has already mellowed into sprawling countryside. mark takes this new development as a window of opportunity to spark up conversation, although you beat him to it nonetheless. “how many stops are we taking?”

he clears his throat for fear of a cracking voice and gathers his scattered thoughts to form a response. “about two or three times a day.”

“and how many days are we gonna be on the road?”

“three to four. i’m thinking we should take a few overnight stops as well. and also,” there’s a break in his sentence where he stops to scrunch his nose, “i might want to stop at random points to shoot some pictures. is that fine with you?”

you take your eyes off the road momentarily to get a good look at mark. he has a hand on the wheel and the other propped up by the window adjacent, eyes held forward all the while. looking back ahead yourself, you give in with a slight hitch of indignation in your otherwise colorless voice. “sure, why not.”

mark refers back to a time where the silent air between the two of you would sit comfortably and thinks of how he might have brought about conversation back then. he tries, as he might, to do the same with this scenario, catching the moment before the prolonged silence warrants it too late. “so what’s your business in LA?”

surprisingly, he spots less bite in your tone the more you speak. “my sister asked me to be maid of honor at her wedding next week.” mark’s automatic response comes out first as a laconic, “oh nice” but he follows up quickly after with an inquiring, “is it...is it still jaehyun? or is that a thing of the past?”

“it’s still him. they’ve been engaged for a while, remember?”

mark nods in agreement. he even remembers that exact phone call you received from your sister on the day your freshman year finals ended. sat across the couch, he can even recall the way you tried to motion the whole conversation with your hands to him while on the phone with her, your excitement on full display when you later hugged him tight since he was the only other person in the room.

he bites down on his bottom lip at the thought of the memory that’s still fresh in his mind. time seemed to pass more quickly for him now that it wasn’t divided into semesters and school years. taking a glance over at you, mark can’t help but think that while college life turned out to be unsuitable for him, it had done wonders for you in just the past year.

with little to no trace of the temper you initially harbored, your voice is about as neutral as it gets when you take your turn in questioning him. “what about you? what are you doing in LA?”

his answer is simple, really. his plan originally focused more on capturing the sights along the way to LA rather than the city itself. but seeing as how you’d expressed wanting to make the trip as curt and necessary as possible, he acquiesced for the lesser truth. “i’m just planning on taking some pictures and meeting some friends there. it’s a change of scenery too, i guess.”

the prospect of conversation eased in difficulty the more it steered in the direction of friendly small talk and catching up with one another. his career and his career-related decisions were always somewhat of a prickly topic, after all. his parents scorned him for it, calling it “easy money” that would just as easily come and go. his friends always said he just got lucky in the industry. and his old professors had shook their heads when he told them about his plans to drop out. 

to mark, you were the only one who had ever cared to really understand his relationship with the passion that was now his life’s work. and because of that, his answer comes most naturally when you ask him, “what’s still keeping you in new york, though? i mean, you’re not there for school anymore and you’re not exactly a street photographer either.”

and without a thought to spare, mark blurts out, “you.”

what a perfect way to kill a perfectly fine conversation, he thinks in the midst of the grand silence that follows. red creeps its way up from his next to his ears until he’s flushed clean with embarrassment and terrible terrible regret, the only consolation being that your eyes seemed to be glued up ahead and not at him.

although it seems you’ve since dropped the conversation — seeing as how you’ve checked your phone five times in the last five minutes — you still make it your job to clear the air for any future attempts at conversing. after all, you’re going to be stuck with him for the entirety of the next three days. and that’s at the very least.

“mark, i don’t even want to know what you meant by that, but can we just keep our distance as…” you pause when you realize there really isn’t an appropriate label to describe your relationship with him. what do you call someone that you know really well, but aren’t on talking terms with, and have a long history of romantic instances with?

at the three-second mark in your hesitation, he lends a hopeful suggestion, “as friends?” and it’s another three unsure seconds spent on your end — unease on his — until you finally give in with a sigh and a small, albeit resolute nod. “as friends.”

he’s going at almost a hundred miles per hour on the empty road when you noticeably look over at him in time to catch the quirk of his lips, before he reassesses with a nod of his own in confirmation. with the first of (what you’re sure will be) many awkward exchanges passed, you reach a hand into the backseat to draw forth a thin blanket. “alright, i’m going to continue sleeping then.”

“mhmm,” he hums, watching in the corner of his eye as you lower the seat back. the position you assume, curling into the blanket, is as familiar as it gets and mark is reminded of countless road trip memories that he has never bothered to unearth. he sighs. “go ahead, we got all the time in the world.”

and after making sure you’ve fallen fast asleep with your slowed breathing and occasional snores, mark slows the car to a cruising 70 miles per hour.

「 DAY 01, 10:33 AM 」 — MORE THAN I THOUGHT

“keep right to stay on the i-81 south.” you slit an eye open, wide enough to see that the road ahead is blanketed in a gleaming white. the sun must’ve parted from the clouds. you close your eye in an attempt to fall back asleep. but just before you do, the automated voice from mark’s phone perks up again. “keep right to stay on the i-81 south.”

annoyed and disgruntled, you shrug the blanket off of you and, this time, crack both eyes open. sitting up in your reclined seat, you rub at your eyes and realize two things. one, the car is no longer moving. and two, you’re in the car alone. suddenly alert, you jab your finger into the ‘cancel’ button on his phone just as it continues its mantra of “keep right to sta—” and grab your own phone as you make your way out of the car.

the car itself is parked haphazardly in front of what is labelled to be a colon and rectal surgery building, with half the whole vehicle outside of the designated lines. but just as you begin to question mark’s motives, you turn to see a vast expanse of water on the opposite side. there’s small islands and clumps of trees jutting out and just across you can see a rise of buildings in the distance. 

approaching the road that separates you and the riverbank, you bring a hand to shield your eyes from the light of the sun which you have yet to adjust to. and sure enough, through the blinding haze you make out a figure on the other side of the road, unruly black hair scuffed by the wind with a giant camera held at his hip. his other hand is held in the same shielding stance as you, and even his posture alone is enough to tell you that it’s mark.

both hands now cupping your mouth, you yell out a resounding, “mark!” just as a truck whizzes by but when the body of it passes, the man is revealed to be looking back at you with a silly smile plastered across his face. he holds the heavy film camera with both hands now, as he rushes up the slight grassy incline and jaywalks casually across the street.

you’re about to scold him for not even looking out for any incoming cars but up close, he only grins harder. mark is less than five feet away when he thinks to enlighten you, his beaming smile quickly growing sheepish, “google maps told me to keep right but i stayed on the right for so long, i ended up exiting the highway altogether.” his free arm gestures outwards in exclamation while he beams, “but look where we ended up!”

the sincerity of his bright eyes and bright smile puts a dampener on the tension, so much so that you even venture to joke, “the upmc pinnacle colon and rectal surgery center?” whilst pointing back to the sign. “you’ve no idea how confused i was when i woke up.”

“sorry about that. we’re in harrisburg now. so i’m guessing this is the susquehanna river.”

you shoot him a surprised look, “nice. almost halfway through pennsylvania.”

he ducks his head, a small smile adorning his nod in agreement, “yeah almost.” mark likes this new development of mood you seem to be in. chipper? not exactly. but much more pleasant than before? absolutely. he knows from personal experience that it’s the sleep. good sleep and good food do that to you. and thus he suggests, “should we get a quick brunch before getting back on the road?”

your eyes ignite a glow — rival to his — at the sound of brunch, though you have enough patience to consider, “did you get all the pictures you wanted already?”

mark nods once again, even though he isn’t even through a fourth of his first roll of film. he figures he’ll have plenty more opportunities to use it up down the line. plus, he likes the little smile on your face way too much to be the one to deny you what you want. and so he rushes to get his equipment back in their travel straps and he clambers back into the driver’s seat, all to careen his way about four blocks down to the mcdonald’s (but only after you’d shaken your head whilst he was pulling up at the wendy’s).

he orders drive through and you’re pleasantly surprised when he turns to ask, “same as usual?” and though you’re sure your usual order has changed at least once or twice in just the last year, you nod anyways. mark pays at the till and you’re handed a sausage burrito with large fries. as you’d supposed, it’s not your most up-to-date order but at this point, almost anything will get your mouth watering.

at your first bite, you sneak a glance over at mark. his head is bowed over the egg mcmuffin in his lap, hands clasped lightly together as he says grace. looking away, you give an unprompted chuckle under your breath in remembrance of his faith, new memories ringing up old habits in the back of your mind.

the next time you place a glance towards him, there’s crumbs littering the lap of his jeans and sauce smothered around the curves of his mouth. and when he looks over at you, an eyebrow raised in question at the sudden onset of attention you’re giving, you pay little mind to the fact that you have to stifle yet another chuckle in exchange for simply tossing a napkin his way. 

sitting here in the passenger seat of his car, you can’t help but think that there must be something inherently wrong about spending time with an ex. especially when the two of you parted on terms that seemed somewhat insignificant, though only at the surface of things.

for the most part, mark was a good boyfriend. and the mark that sat to your left doesn’t seem any different than the mark you knew back then. maybe he got around to shaving his stubble a little closer and cleaning up his car a bit more often, but he wears the same carhartt jeans, eats as clumsily as he always had, and still drives his car as if he had extra lives to spare.

from his nose scrunches to his dutiful faith, the mark you’re sat next to now is undeniably the same mark you fell in love with what seems like ages ago.

and as he backs out of the parking space, almost reversing straight into the car opposite, you catch the uttered “shit” that falls so casually from his lips. the same lips that you could never get enough of against yours. the song that’s blaring from the speakers is a favorite of his, you know that best, and it has him humming lightly with the same voice that once serenaded you to sleep. his fingers drum incessantly on the steering wheel as he waits for a red light to turn green, the same fingers that once struggled, but succeeded against all odds, in learning how to braid your hair.

you swallow thickly and think of how unfair this has come to be. it feels impossible to have to sit with the fact that you revoked his license as your boyfriend, but now have to regard him as just a friend. it’s the same as holding someone you once held close at arm’s distance. and it’s like trying to purposefully forget the name of your favorite show, or your beloved dog, or even your own name. 

all of a sudden, you feel like you’ve been caught in a fervid windstorm so strong that it threatens to uproot whatever reasonings had kept you grounded, amplifying whatever feelings lingered in his wake. except, the only thing you have left to hold onto is the realization that although the mark in the driver’s seat is the same mark you fell in love with way back when, he’s also the same mark that broke your heart without even a single word said.

「 DAY 02, 01:17 AM 」 — MARK LEE SMOKING?? (100% CLICKBAIT)

a bout of carsickness hits you at seven in the evening, right after sitting in at a roadside diner that served mashed potatoes that were suspiciously tinted green. but even after he pulled over so you could throw up on the side of the road, you’d implored mark to keep on driving until the two of you were at least at the outskirts of illinois. and that had happened on three separate occasions.

reluctantly, he’d kept his promise and poorly parked his car in front of relax inn, the closest and cheapest place that google maps could turn up. located in marshall, illinois with a striking two-star rating, it had everything you needed: free parking, shitty wifi, and even complimentary breakfast. or, it had everything you needed except two separate and unoccupied rooms.

you had been surprised, at first, when the man at the front counter had only charged mark $58. but that was after he had conveniently left out that the amazing deal was actually for only one room, not two. sighing, you drop your bag to the ground in resignation at the sight of the single queen-sized bed. despite the stiff sheets and musty smell, it still stands to look inviting after ten hours, give or take, of almost nonstop driving.

with only two stops taken for restroom breaks or gas fill-ups, you figure that either one of you has reason enough to claim the bed. there is a thought of mentioning how the two of you had slept side by side with no sexual implications many times before but it’s fleeting, dismissed, and gone within seconds.

instead, you begin drafting your argument, pulling out the persuasive points of your monologue about why you were more deserving of the bed. sure, he’d driven the car the whole while, his eyes must be strained and his ability to concentrate and energy have probably been rendered null. you, on the other hand, could pull the motion sickness, weak composition, nauseated passenger princess card. yeah, surely that’d do the trick.

your opening lines are right at the tip of your tongue, ready to win over a hefty opponent, when you turn to see that mark has already situated his belongings on the ground by the couch. wary of how you’d been standing there for a good two minutes completely unmoved, he looks your way and very plainly comments, “you take the bed. i’m fine with the couch.”

and suddenly you feel very supremely guilty for having even thought of going into a full-blown verbal altercation for a slightly more comfortable place to rest. you now think about thus commencing a full-blown verbal altercation over the slightly less comfortable place to rest, if not to ease your guilty conscience, then just out of politeness. but you digress because after all, mark is way too nice and you’re way too in need of a good night’s sleep. even if it’s just slightly better.

laying in bed, scrolling on your phone, you recall that this is how it’s always been with mark. that at one point, you became too tired of always trying to be the nicer person out of politeness when mark had the kind of genuineness you’d find in about one of a million persons. sometimes, a simple exchange of things like who should get the bed could blow itself out of proportion without either of you meaning for it to have gone that far. you came to the conclusion long ago that fights about who was the nicer person weren’t necessarily fights on character, but rather just fights like any other. and choosing to let mark carry through with his niceness — accepting the last french fry, taking his jacket when it was chilly, and now letting him have the couch — didn’t mean you were inconsiderate. in a way, it was a compromise of its own to allow him the opportunity to be of service to you.

you think of showering the following morning for it seems unlikely that you’d depart the comfort and looming sleep the bed provides. squirming around, you tuck yourself under the blankets but before you could fully relinquish your body to the confines of sleep, a soft rustling by the edge of the bed coaxes your eyes to open a sliver.

mark’s squatting so that you’re right at eye level with him. his hair is mussed more than the wind had done and wet at the tips, sticking up in several places that seem to defy the laws of gravity. with an elbow set on the bed, he peers at you over the screen of his phone, eyes wide and set in the frame of his black-rimmed glasses. he doesn’t whisper though his voice comes out so low, you wouldn’t be able to tell much of a difference anyways. “sorry, i know you’re tryna sleep. just wanted to ask when you’d want to wake up tomorrow.”

repositioning to face him, you smush the side of your cheek into the pillow and the unease in mark’s face ebbs away. half alseep and a good amount dehydrated, your throat is scratchy when you pass it back to him, “what do you think?”

mark scratches the back of his neck with his free hand, “i, uh well… maybe six...?” and he traces your eyes as they find the clock on the nightstand. it reads 2:02 AM and he seems to share the same thought as you. “...thirty? six-thirty?”

you close your eyes, already losing your grasp on what he just said as you mumble out the last of your thoughts, “okay, we’ll grab breakfast downstairs and leave at seven?”

whatever he responds with goes in one ear and out the other. and it isn’t until he wakes you up, bright and early at 6:20 AM, that you remember the conversation even happened. in reality, you roll around in bed, trying to find another sweet spot that will lull you back into sleep, for about ten whole minutes. by the time you’ve given up, gotten out of bed, and begun collecting your garments for the shower, it’s 6:30 on the dot. it doesn’t even register in your mind that mark had accounted for your scheduled morning bout of grogginess until you’re out of the shower with a clearer head.

you sit across from him at breakfast and he passes the black pepper when you spoon your scrambled eggs. he offers to go refill your orange juice at one point and at another he apologizes adamantly for accidentally nudging your foot under the table. it’s only after he takes your empty plate with his back to the clean-up counter that you really bother to take a good look at him.

he must’ve skipped his morning shave, for his stubble is visible though not much more than a mere shadow. there’s a silver chain at his neck, one with a dangling cross pendant, and it sits prettily atop his plain black pocket tee. mark leads the way towards the front desk to check out. you notice the way he swirls the both the room key and car key around his fingers, his straight posture when he walks depite the heavy backpack mounted on him, and even the worn-in outline of his wallet from the rear pocket of his jeans.

and when he mistakens the pristinely cleaned glass door for a wide opening, resulting in a blooming red splotch on his forehead, you take the time to consider his big endearing head, and his big boyish eyes, and his big sloppy smile. you laugh along with him, but perhaps for more of a different reason. mark may have a big head, but at least it’s filled with good and godly things. 

seconds later in the parking lot and you think to rescind those same regards. mark may be nice but there’s no way you’ll be the one to compromise on this one.

you’re fully in the seat and ready to get the car going, except mark is standing right where the door should be closing with his arms crossed and a foot hiked up on the frame of the car. his stance is a plain show of defiance, as are his firmly-stated comments. “i’m not letting you drive. you were vomiting everywhere just last night.”

“give me the keys, i need my redemption arc to happen right now.”

mark only tilts his head in disapproval, eyes boasting a look that emanates something along the lines of ‘are you kidding me?’ you press your lips thin in consideration, realizing that this has turned out to be harder than you’d bargained for. eyeing the keys hanging loosely from his left hand, you decide that your efforts were going to amount to nothing if not by way of force.

when you lunge for the keys, mark takes that you’re attacking him or something of the sort, throwing his hands out in front to block. in the three seconds the debacle had taken to unfold, the sharp end of the car key had scraped the length of your inner arm, nicking your skin clean apart. much to your chagrin and his relief, you end up in the passenger seat anyways.

mark wipes diligently at the long cut with an alcohol pad, whilst you use your unpunctured arm to search for where he’d claimed the first aid kit with the bandaids would be. you look away from the glove box to find his unimpressed disposition, and you hold the gaze until he meets it. but he only meets it for a split second before ducking his head back down to the red-stained alcohol pad, muttering low but loud enough for you to catch. “god you’re a mess, y/n.”

you return your attention to your search for bandaids, eyes rolling far into the back of your head. “i already admitted defeat. do you have to rub it in?” to which he responds with but a fleeting laugh. and by the time he can come up with a, “there we go, all clean,” you’ve conjured four bandaids for him to top it all off.

as mark busies himself with finding the most appropriate arrangement that would cover the length of the cut, you shove the first aid kit back to where you’d retrieved it in the far corner of the glove box. it’s then that the streak of red that was presumably tucked behind it catches your eye.

by the time mark returns from discarding the wipes and bandage packaging, it’s already too late for him to stop what’s to come. the red box — at first glance, what looks to be a sizable pack of cigarettes — had already found its way into your unsuspecting hands.

「 DAY 02, 07:09 AM 」 — BROCKHAMPTON SATURATION II, TRACK #16

when haechan first introduced his sophomore photography major best friend to you back in freshman year of college, he had described him as the guy with no emotional depth. and you had shaken his outstretched hand anyways, awkwardly laughing along even though you had no idea that it was an inside joke between the two of them.

you laughed again on christmas day, same year, same joke. however, you still had yet to figure out what it meant when haechan had gifted your new boyfriend the card game, cased in a brilliant red box. he had said something along the lines of “maybe this’ll get him to dig deeper” and your group of friends, most of whom had known mark since high school, seemed to find it funny and fitting.

the game itself, you knew; it was a popular drinking game among your college friends. you had played it several times yourself at more intimate gatherings, the reflective conversational prompts amounting to several instances of sob fests, tissue shortages, and long hugs. it was good for heartfelt conversations, and apparently mark wasn’t one for feelings. put two and two together and that made enough sense for you to laugh along and move on without much thought.

but well over two, almost three, years later, you wonder why it’d been shoved into the back of his glove box, the plastic wrap still intact and pristine. it’s as if mark had quite literally buried his feelings into the depths of this car, subsequently forgotten and later dug up by his girlfriend turned ex. life’s a funny thing, because only now as his ex-girlfriend do you understand what the gag gift meant in the first place.

looking out upon the barren gas station, you feel restless standing in the face of ten — bordering eleven — hours of driving beside mark of all people. but when he slips into the seat beside you, freshly washed hands wiping themselves down the length of his jeans, you begin to think of a better, or at least more interesting, way to pass the time. holding the box of cards out for him to see, your bouncing leg finally comes to a still as you suggest, “wanna play?”

mark regards the box with a joking manner, and while his casual, “yeah, why not” might prove his act of nonchalance convincing, you like to think you know him better than to look past the way his eyes had lingered, or the hesitance set in his brows, or even the readjusting of his position. he starts up the engine and moves the gear out of park as you fumble with the plastic wrapping. a small tear later and you’re peeling back the packaging, throwing small glances at mark’s way whilst he throws unsure glances at the box of cards.

two minutes back on the i-70 west, you’ve shuffled the cards until your fingers began to feel sliced through, and only then did you deem it time to begin. fanning the deck out to your left, you gesture for mark to select his first pick. he shakes his head and wordlessly gestures back at you to make the first move, a lick of his lips giving his uncertainty away.

shoving the rest of the deck into one of the cup holders on the middle console, you read along as your other hand sets forth in finding your phone. “wildcard. press shuffle on your music library. explain the first song that comes up!”

phone in hand, you look over at mark inquiringly, “me or you?” and if you had to guess his next words, there’d be no doubt that it’d be a stiff and uttered, “you.” almost taking glee in his squirmishness, you pull up spotify on your phone and click into your mess of a “liked songs” playlist. mark passes you the carplay cord and you plug it in, pressing the shuffle button apprehensively after the beep indicates it’s been connected.

heavy piano chords pan out from the speakers and a smile is slow to spread across your face as you come to a realization of what song it is. for better or for worse, mark seems to know as well, retracting his gaze from the road for less than a second to meet your eyes. there’s a sort of ‘ahh’ in them, an understanding, an underlying fondness.

in the heat of the summer…

“do i really have to explain?”

you know that you should be my boy.

“give it a go at least.”

in the heat of the summer…

“well…”

you’re so different from the rest.

you find yourself at a loss for words. amongst many other things that arise in this moment, your train of thought does its best to rationalize. why was this song still in the playlist? simple, you forgot to take it out. it’s only normal that things get buried with time. why can’t you just say that to him, then? simple, because then it’d be so easy for him to brush it off as a lame excuse, a cover-up, as to how plainly you still held onto your relationship. what the fuck are you feeling? panic. doubt. frustration. longing.

panic at the thought that he would read into it too much. doubt at the thought that there were other reasons for why you’d let this song gather dust in your playlist. frustration at the thought that there was only you to blame for this situation that you’d gotten yourself into. and longing. longing that had sat untouched for the same amount of time you’d decided to shove your feelings away instead of confronting them. longing that had since settled into your flesh and bones, going unnoticed. longing that, at the first chords of this song, had you casting your eyes downwards from the road ahead.

hastily, you grab for your water bottle, taking steady but large gulps. suddenly, your throat had become too dry. swallowing thickly, you wonder why the lump in your throat refuses to fall back. your breathing becomes noticeably haggard while the thing lodged in your throat remains. at the slightest indication of mark’s head turning your way, you snap your own in the direction of the window to avoid his questioning gaze.

biting down on your lip, your eyes fall closed even with the sprawling hills unfurling just outside. the sun is climbing to its height, as is your sudden onslaught of emotions that drowns out all noise except the sound of mark humming along to the song. you are numb, you are deaf, you are void of everything except his voice.

“do you remember?”

reverberating through you, it’s all you are able to feel.

“do you remember last summer at the lake?”

mind emptied, it’s all you know.

“it’s one of my favorite days, i’ll have you know.”

body capsized, it floods you. and it fills you to the brim until you can’t take it anymore.

“isn’t it funny that all my favorite days have been spent with you?”

and when it overflows, it comes in the form of tears.

your vision blurs and the wetness on your cheeks is quickly pulled into a pool at the edge of the seat. closing your eyes is a daunting task, even then, because you know just what you’ll see. you make the mistake of trying to blink away the tears, making them fall far faster than they had before. but for what it’s worth, it had been a favorite day of yours as well, albeit bittersweet.

the water was emerald green and the grass was knee-high. the sun rested overhead for almost fourteen hours a day and you had a tan comparable to that of a professional-grade spray. the wind was light though unrelenting, apparent in the way the clothes strewn across the clothesline were at the cusp of being carried away. everything under the sun was warm to the touch. the rocks, the grass, the water, his skin.

you snap your eyes open and only then do you notice that the car has come to a stop, pulled over to the side of the road. your hand is pressing into your forehead and the tears are still running free when you care to peer over in mark’s direction. both hands resting on the wheel, his eyes emanate in concern, lips pulled tight as if an apology was attempting to push past from within. it’s hard to pinpoint your finger directly to it, but there’s something about his expression that ticks you off so greatly that you regard him for less than a second before slipping out of the car.

the first inhale of fresh air makes the stuffiness inside the car feel like you had been breathing in water. the wind, just as it had been that day, is light though unrelenting, and it dries clean the tears in your eyes. your body sags and you give your weight into the side rails of the road, sitting against it and heaving thorough breaths to bring you some peace of mind. if you stared at your surroundings for long enough, the short grasses growing beside the road would grow long and the valleys in between the hills would carve out an emerald lake. the warmth would find its way back to you, but it’s far from pleasant and rather close to burning, scorching even. you fist and unfist your hands, recoiling from even the thought of it.

instead, you focus on the way the roughened wood of the rail nips at your skin through the thin spandex of your shorts. when you shift your position, the metal that accompanies it is hot to the touch and the uneven pavement beneath you is riddled with its fair share of pebbles and wood chips alike. taking your time, you come to pay more mind to your breathing, allowing the intakes to fill up your belly rather than your chest. the sky is a clear blue, the single cloud is pear-shaped, you can count up to seven peaks in the hills, and there are four dirt patches within your line of vision. it’s these little things that ground you.

seven minutes past. you hear a car door open you but you never hear it close. footsteps stop maybe three feet from your left but they never step any closer. he says, “whenever you’re ready,” but he never says anything more. 

and perhaps that’s what hurts the most.

「 DAY 02, 01:56 PM 」 — LITTLE CRAZY LOVE SONG, MARY OLIVER 2014

“what’d you say?”

“nothing much, really—”

“well, you obviously said something if she’s voluntarily passed out for the last six hours.”

static crinkles on the other end and mark looks around at the endless stretch of trees surrounding the lone gas station. the signal is clearly not having its best moment here in the thick of the forest, but he rejoins anyways. 

“i brought up last summer…” he trails off, hoping that just the season would provide enough context to tell of the situation without him explicitly having to name it as terrible, godawful, and no good whatsover. to be frank, mark wasn’t expecting understanding and empathy when he dialed haechan’s number. hell, he wasn’t even expecting to receive encouragement and good faith. perhaps all he wanted was recognition for the bad deed he’d committed and someone for him to bicker out his frustration with. and surely, haechan delivers just that.

“mark, you whole-hearted idiot. wh—”

“okay but in my defense, i thought we were having a momen—”

“i think only you were having a mo—”

“it just slipped out, i swear it wasn’t on purpo—”

“how the fuck did you think she’d react to your sappy bullshi—”

“—but it’s all cool now.”

the other end goes flat after mark’s statement and he thinks it’s owed to the faulty service, until haechan sputters in disbelief, breaking the quiet at an ear-splitting decible, “cool? you call that cool?!” mark furrows his brow at his friend’s overuse of emphasis whilst he busies himself with retrieving his credit card one-handedly. he knows that somewhere along the line, he fucked up. and he thinks he knows exactly where but at the same time, mark isn’t quite in the headspace to own up to it. so he retaliates.

“it’s like you set me up for failure.”

haechan justifies, “hey, it’s not like i did anything wrong. a friend needed a ride and i found someone who could give her just that.” but mark can hear the sarcasm in his voice and he decides he would rather confront his friend than question his ex. “i highly doubt she’d be down for a forty-two hour drive over a six-hour flight. what the fuck did you even say to convince her?”

the younger doesn’t waver when put in the spotlight. in fact, he gives it away as if it’s all just a fun prank on his end. and that’s not to say that isn’t at least partially the truth.

“i told her you already agreed to take her, same thing i said to you.” 

smart as ever, he hangs up before mark’s initial surprise gets translated into brute annoyance. the silence after the disconnect tone hits him almost immediately and thus, he finds himself standing in the middle of an empty gas station, in the middle of the eerily quiet city of winona, missouri, which is sat at the edge of a brimming forest where nothing but trees run on for miles and miles on end. there’s a town & county supermarket in the same plaza and a rundown dollar general down the street he’d passed to get here. 

it suddenly feels as if he’s the only person alive in this whole wide world, trapped inside his four-walled mind with no one to talk to except his regretful self. more than confronting his friends or even you, mark has known for a long time that he feels the most social anxiety whenever he’s left to confront himself. he tries to shake the thought, pocketing his wallet as he makes a beeline for the supermarket across the desolate parking lot. it’s far on foot and with each step, he descends down into the depths of despair, digging up all the times he must’ve made you uncomfortable with just his presence. for once, he doesn’t think it’s such a wonderful thing to be alone in the world with the person he loves most.

seven hours of almost straight driving is bound to make a person go at least a little insane, as mark wonders if he even remembers the last time he saw anyone other than you. he grabs a bag of popcorn, a charcuterie box, and a gallon of water at the supermarket and only at the cash register, manned by a live and tangible human, is he freed from the confines of his tortured mind. 

gas filled to the max and provisions restocked, he’s once again met with the struggle of having to close the car door as quietly and undistrubingly as humanly possible. you’re still very much asleep and the last thing he wants is to jolt you awake when your latest memory of him is how he’d insensitively instigated a panic attack at barely seven in the morning, albeit unintentionally.

after he closes the door with exemplary caution and barely a thud, mark lowers his guard with a sigh in relief in tow. though in this fleeting moment of mindlessness, the very next moment he’s dropped his keys on the center console. wincing, he watches as the clattering elicits a stir on your end, fluttering eyelids, and then — to his utter horror and dismay — you wake up.

mark plays it cool, or so he thinks, by letting out a low “oh shit” to make sure you know of his accidental mistake. rubbing your eyes, the first glance you place his way isn’t strictly a glare, but it might as well be with how you barely acknowledge his stilled presence. mark waits until you’ve had a couple sips of water in your system and a full routine of arm stretches before speaking up carefully. “how’d you sleep?”

you look his way and tiredly blink a few times before saying, “fine.”

back at square one, he thinks. mark hands you the bag of popcorn and charcuterie box and reaches over to drop the giant water jug into the back seats. you eye the bag and the box confusedly, then the blanket draped across your knees that you’re sure wasn’t there when you fell asleep, and then finally your surroundings.

“what time is it?”

“about 2:20.”

“where are we?”

“missouri. just outside the mark twain national forest.”

you eye the landscape beyond the windows where you’re met with the parking lot, a few commercial structures, and a shitload of trees. you turn back towards mark, “are we on schedule?”

he nods. “we’re actually ahead of schedule. we were supposed to be just out of illinois right now.”

you give him a tight-lipped smile that does little to ease the tension. removing the blanket, you make a move for the door and mark thinks that this must be it. you’ve had enough of him, you’re tired of tolerating his presence, and you’ve set your mind on walking the rest of the way to los angeles. it’s a rather immature thought but he entertains it for a split second regardless. the second half of the second is spent coming up with a hastened, “wait.”

you’re halfway out the door when you look back over your shoulder, a left eyebrow cocked in question. mark doesn’t have anything on hand to say, so he blurts out whatever question he had first in queue, “why… why did you agree to come?”

fully out of the car, you stand facing him with one hand resting on the car door and the other situated on your hip. in your freshly awakened state, you cock your head at the absurdity of his unprompted question. there’s a trace of thought pooling in your eyes before you answer rather nonchalantly, “i wanted to see how you’ve been.” the words hang in the air, waiting for mark to process them, and when he does it’s as if he’s had the wind knocked out of him. breathily, he recites a quiet, “oh i see,” and then you shut the door square in his face, leaving him with only an equally quiet, “i need to use the restroom, be right back.”

mark thinks back to why he himself had agreed in the first place and he’s not sure how much of a role haechan’s little ruse had played anyways. he appreciates the honesty with which you answered because it gives him the space to be honest with himself as well. he’d agreed to go because a part of him wanted to see how you’d been doing as well, but he’d also agreed to go because a part of him simply just wanted to see you. the little stunt that haechan had pulled was just the tip of the iceberg of reasons that led to this whole ordeal, and mark thinks — or at least hopes — that that had been the case for you too.

when you return, freshened up and looking more lively than you had in hours, mark’s more prepared than the last time he’d thrown a haphazard question your way. you’re fastening your seat belt when he asks, “since we’re ahead of schedule, do you wanna go for a drive around the forest?”

he sees where it starts, slow in the upturn. what looks like the beginnings of a frown blooms into an easy smile. it doesn’t reach your eyes, but it doesn’t need to for mark to know that you mean it. “around?”

he smiles too, quick with a flash of teeth and a breathy chuckle. “in, i mean. in the forest.”

you let your head retract to facing frontwards, leaning back into your seat as you nod, “sure, let’s go.” folding the maroon blanket into your lap, you follow mark’s pointed finger until your eyes set on his backpack shoved under your seat. “there should be a map in there. can you be my guide?”

for a second, he thinks he’s being too greedy with your patience but your easy smile flattens to show complacency. “i can do that,” and you salvage the map from the front pocket of the mess of his backpack. seeing about an inch-thick stack of maps in the same compartment, you look towards him with your smile now edging towards a knowing tease. “you planned for this, didn’t you?”

mark shakes his head fervently though he can’t find it in himself to audibly deny. after all, number two on his bucket list is to visit all the national parks and forests the country has to offer. how could you have expected him to resist when passing by a city that sat directly under 1.5 acres of forest land? and with the extra time to spare, it was a given.

you have the map crinkled open on your lap as you load up the top destinations with your phone in hand. mark’s excitement seems to be rubbing off on you; his giddy smile lends into your glittering eyes, his drumming fingers on the steering wheel translating to your bouncy leg. twenty-four minutes north — one right turn and one left turn — later, you’ve successfully navigated the both of you to alley spring and mill, a three-story red statement with a clear turquoise spring tucked behind.

the summer heat licks at the nape of your neck when you first open the door. you grab the blanket, the charcuterie box, the bag of popcorn and — with a thought spared in consideration — the stack of cards shoved into the cupholder after tucking your phone into the waistline of your shorts. the rush of water grows louder as you approach, the uneven pavement ebbing off into scuffed dirt and then brustling grass further down the stretch. pausing a good distance away from the decades-old structure, you hear a sigh in wonderment coming from behind.

mark’s mamiya rz67 weighs down one hand, the other raised to his brow to deflect the glare of the sun. he has a sort of satisfied look to his face, one that only grows as he makes his way to catch up to you. “good find,” he comments, tearing his gaze away from the sights to meet your eyes. pride snuggles into the corners of your smile and you duck away from his stare. 

“lemme go find somewhere for us to settle down for a bit,” you hold up the blanket in gesture and then wave him off with another smile, “you go do your thing, don’t mind me.”

there’s a few people here and there coming in and out of the mill and a few more along the skirts of the spring, but you manage to find a quiet spot along the water with some trees to offer a decent amount of shade. it’s much cooler down here, where the spray disperses itself fresh from the water and into the air, and you drape the blanket over the mildly damp grass. spreading the contents of the charcuterie box across a napkin and pouring a portion of the popcorn into the now empty box, the setting begins to look as if it were all planned and not, in fact, an impromptu day trip that fell in motion less than a half-hour ago.

slipping your shoes off, you ease into the spot, appreciating the clear air while you can. if you shield your eyes, you can see mark in the distance with his phone held up to the red building to check the light settings. he takes a shot there in that position, and you swear you can hear the ka-shink! of his shutter even from this far away. nibbling a corner of brie cheese, you watch him closely as he jogs in a zig zag across the plot to find another interesting shot to frame.

mark gets six or seven more in before he rounds upon where you’re sat, having finally found the alcove of shade you’d claimed. he’s still holding his camera with one hand, the size of his palm making the five pound camera seem small. in the back of your mind, you can still recall the weight of it from a year ago as mark demonstrated how to advance the film for your first try at a shot. you remember how difficult it was to get the hang of medium format photography, much less the bothersome large format that mark used to haul around wherever he went.

“may i join you?”

snapped out of your momentary reminiscence, you glance up at mark as if you hadn’t even seen him coming your way. at the nod of your head, he takes his spot across the blanket with his legs criss crossed. the seconds tick away while your eyes trace the lines of his hands, moving familiarly to load a new film stock into his camera. the delicacy of his movements, the steadfastness of his grip, the roughness of his knuckles, and the baby soft pads of his fingers.

there’s nothing to do with his hands when he’s done with his camera so he resorts to fiddling with the folds of the blanket and occasionally reaching for a grape. mark looks a little lost, if you are to be honest. or at least, it seems as if he’s unsure of his presence; too scared of breaching boundaries thus he shies away from interactions altogether. his patterns of behavior are nothing new to you. and though there was once a time where you’d despise having to always be the one to coax him out of his shell of insecurity, you aren’t nearly so distressed to do so when there’s no strings attached, no long withheld feelings that come with it.

“when should we get back on the road?”

mark looks up at you in surprise and relief floods his face when he realizes no sign of annoyance in your expression. as if he were taking a firm hold of the hand you’d extended, he responds kindly, “it’s best if we go before five, so we can take our time on the road.”

you check your phone and the time reads a quarter past four. scrolling down your notification screen to see if you missed any important messages, you find about four consecutive texts from haechan, sent just before you woke up from the six hour stress nap you inadvertently took. 

【 2:06 PM 】 bro u good? 【 2:06 PM 】 mark told me what happened 【 2:06 PM 】 should i beat him up for u? haha 【 2:08 PM 】 call me when u get a chance ;)

shutting off your phone, you retrace your attention back to mark. he’s the spitting image of a kid whose one and only friend didn’t show up to school today, hence he had to sit at his own table during lunch. you chuckle under your breath at the thought and he happens to hear, giving you a raise of his brow to which you only shake your head in dismissal.

so badly do you want to just clear the air — his newly uptight demeanor being a nightmare to get along with — but you know better than anyone how avidly mark avoids confrontation at all costs. to bring it right to his front steps is just asking for uncalled-for frustration. you zip your lips, and eye your surroundings, hoping for a topic of conversation to jump out at you.

sure enough, the red boldface catches your eye and it lingers. who says confrontation is the only way to subdue the tension? sometimes all you need is a little fun. and what’s better than a game to do just that? you place a hand atop the deck and wait for mark to recognize your intentions before softly suggesting, “your turn?”

the expression he dons is a bit squirmish as he reaches for the cards, but you can tell that he’s glad his careless words hadn’t ruined the game for you forever. his fingers make quick work in shuffling them neatly and, face down, he draws one from the pile at random.

“what do you think is the hardest part of what i do for a living?” 

mark glances up at you from the card expectantly and you’re thrown off guard for a moment. “i answer? i did the last one though.”

he only laughs, “yeah i know. but even if i wanted to answer, i couldn’t. you don’t have a job.”

“oh that’s right,” you smile, masking a tinge of embarrassment at your late realization,” okay, i’ll answer it then.”

you cross your legs like his and pluck a grape for your fingers to play around with. momentarily in thought, you realize that there’s not much to the question, not when pertaining to mark and not when asked to you.

“the thing is, i’ve seen a lot firsthand. and i think you know what i’m going to say.”

it’s his turn to be thrown off guard with wide eyes and a hand to his chest, “i do?”

nodding, you pop the grape into your mouth to give leeway for your thoughts to string into words. shortly after swallowing, the words follow in suit, “i mean, you love your job and from what i remember, it pays your bills. which is great, it’s really great.” careful with your next words, you approach them with caution, “but at the same time, i think — and correct me if i’m wrong — i think...it’s put a strain on some of your relationships.”

mark doesn’t look the least bit surprised. in fact, you’re sure he’d known the answer the second after he read the question. hardly disappointed, he smiles wide when your eyes brim with uncertainty. reassuring you, “you’re right on point,” and then nudging you along, “i still want you to elaborate on it though.”

“okay,” you smile back at him, mostly in relief, “i know this is pretty personal, but since you insist…”

and so you trailed on about what you knew. on how his job drove a wedge between him and his parents. on how they told him it was one thing to chase after your dreams, and a whole other to let your dreams crush you. but to him, dropping out of college didn’t make those two semesters a waste of time and money. rather, he thought that going to college in the first place made it easier for him to realize it wasn’t the path he wanted to walk. there were always going to be times where he wouldn’t be able to make ends meet but that was nothing to him if he could have the support of his friends and family to do what he loved most.

you knew very well that a “strain” was a light way to put it. his parents cut him off at nineteen when they realized he wouldn’t be returning to school. as most parents would be, they were worried but unwilling to financially support their son who they no longer believed in. his mom still brings stacks upon stacks of tupperware kimchi and side dishes each month and his dad still passes money under the table at family dinners. but for some reason, they could never look him straight in the eye.

“do you ever feel like they betrayed you?”

“no, never,” he declares almost immediately. “it’s easy to think that they did. it’s harder to really feel that way when i know how much they love me. it’s just that we value different things.” mark says it so convincingly that you nearly dismiss the suspicions behind your question. when you meet his eyes and they are dark and glossed over, you start to believe them a lot more than what he’d just said.

seeing his pain resurface as if it were there the whole time, you’re reminded of the guilt you carry for breaking up with him at perhaps the most vulnerable point in his life. knowing that mark could never blame you for it, you blame yourself in his place.

looking down from his gaze, you hold your left hand in your right, imagining it as his, and hope that just the thought of wanting to hold his hand offers him some comfort, in some sort of cosmically significant way.

「 DAY 02, 10:34 PM 」 — TOMAYTO TOMAHTO

mark drove past the ‘welcome to oklahoma’ sign at 7:30 PM. between cherokee and muscogee nation, he considered stopping at tulsa for the night instead of oklahoma city, the capital. it was around 9:00 by then and you were still fairly energized; he took from that to continue even though it was you who slept through the day, not him.

in your search, etrip.net claimed holiday inn to be $19 for a two person room, seemingly a ‘too good to be true’ deal for a four-star hotel with an indoor pool. you booked it anyways — though only after confirming that he was fine with sharing a room — and keyed in the address into google maps for mark to follow. 

when you look out the window less than a half hour to your destination, it’s near pitch black, save for the distant outlines of buildings behind large fields of what you assume to be grass. the two of you are just outside the city and when you roll down the window; the air is rather cool and crisp for a summer night. there’s a truck in front of your car with a shipment of fresh tomatoes and the scent of them wafts sweetly in the dawdling air.

basked in a comfortable silence for the first time during this whole trip, you feel that summer break has finally started. the days are long and long gone are your day-to-day worries about when this assignment is due and how much this exam will affect your grade. in hindsight, they were all passing worries, things that never irked you for long enough to be significant. and now that you had finally made peace with it all — moved on, and slowed down — the world seems much more pleasant, less frantic, and more at ease than you remembered. it’s quiet and you’re happy.

glimpsing to your left to check how mark’s holding up, the first thing you’re met with are his wide, frenzied eyes. you trace his line of sight whilst venturing to ask, “you good?” before noticing the oblong shape that’s been planted straight into the dead center of the windshield. upon further scrutiny, there’s a redish secretion that’s oozing down the glass. 

“y/n...what the fuck is that?”

the two of you are stunned in your seats, frozen at the thought of what it could possibly be. (a hockey puck! a donut! a scoop of ice cream! a bloodied body part?!) though soon enough, your conscience returns in time for you to register it as a tomato, straight from the truck ahead.

“holy shit,” mark mutters, and he begins to slow the car down and away from the alleged source. a second hits, (“fuck!”), right where your head would have been if not for the window. the third and fourth follow shortly, splatters sounding more like fist-sized rocks under the sheer force of impact. mark sees you ducking and dodging, this way and that, and his blood pressure sky rockets as a huge portion of his side becomes slathered in goop.

both of you are screaming at this point, mark has no way of knowing when the road will curve, and he’s still going seventy miles per hour, occasionally speeding faster whenever a jolt of adrenaline hits too hard and he loses fine control of his foot on the gas pedal. “roll up the damn window!” and your fingers fumble around for the button, almost opening up the whole door in the process.

you swerve your head right after the window’s safetly shut to see if anyone’s tailgating. “pull over, mark. there’s no one behind us.” and when the car comes to a stop, the two of you are panting uncontrollably, despite having barely moved for hours. there are no thoughts running through your mind — absolutely none, zero — when you turn your head to meet his eyes. and the second you do, the two of you burst into laughter, in utter disbelief at what just happened.

still breathless at the thought, your hand comes to your mouth in belated shock. the aftermath is disastrous. cautiously opening the door, you can spot remnant tomato juice dripping from the bottom edge. mark rounds the car twice in inspection, only to find that every last corner of his precious subaru crosstrek is coated in a sheen of red except for the back, bottom, and some of the top. the meager stack of napkins you saved from earlier in the day does the best they can, sweeping off most the meat but none of the juice. the scent doesn’t seem so sweet anymore when it’s all you can smell from a mile away.

you notice that mark has been standing in the same position for the last four minutes, unmoved with both hands on his hips, sweat gleaning from his brow, and a distant look in his eyes. you fear speaking up will spook him into tears. luckily, he speaks first. 

“y/n.”

“yeah?”

“can you find the nearest coin-op car wash on my phone?”

“okay.”

“i’ll…” he trails off into a breathy laugh, that kind of echoed laugh that makes you want to give him all your hopes and dreams, support and love. “...i’ll be here for a bit.”

you clamber back into the passenger seat, careful not to transfer any of the liquids indoors. his phone is mounted on a stand and you pry it off, wondering how you would get past his passcode. you key in his birthday, a reasonable first try, but the lockscreen doesn’t budge. pressing your lips thin, you try to recall what his password had been way back then. mark was never one for unnecessary changes; he held onto his possessions and habits stubbornly.

after an aha! moment comes a moment of doubt. to get the code right was one thing, but you weren’t sure how you’d feel if it was indeed unchanged. shrugging off the hesitation, you press in the four numbers anyways, and sure enough it unlocks.

dumbfounded, your hands drop into your lap and your vision stills, zoned out on the curve of the steering wheel. it’s hard to really understand what you’re feeling and it’s even harder to discern mark’s intentions behind keeping his passcode set as your birthday after all this time. the signs have been there—and you had kept to avoiding them—but now is the first time you’re facing the possibility that mark still has feelings for you. and even just the thought of how it doesn’t disturb you greatly warrants extra precaution on your end. 

mistakes are made so that they won’t be repeated.

you repeat the sentence to yourself perhaps five times over, and carry on with locating the nearest coin-operated car wash station as per his instruction. mark got in the car five minutes later with a small smile on his face. “it is what it is,” as he had put it. with only thirty minutes left, the car ride resumes in silence though this time around, there’s nothing comfortable about it. the man next to you is humming along to some john mayer song, oblivious to your disconterting mood that was induced solely by him (and partially by you, if we’re to be crystal clear).

deciding not to get too worked over it, you fixate, instead, on playing word games with haechan. time passes quickly as you win most of the rounds, half the time wondering why he’s even still awake when it’s already fairly late in his timezone. you make a mental note to call him when you get settled at the hotel, sooner the better if anything.

mark manages to hum along to every single song that comes up on the radio, sometimes even singing with a full voice and vibrato. you’re partially relieved that he’s no longer so on edge around you, also aware that now it’s you who’s way too in over your head. figuring that it wouldn’t be much of a problem once you call it a night, you move past your concerns and finally take a glance up from your phone.

marvelling at the ever-changing landscape on the other side of the window, your mouth falls agape at how the bare grasslands have since given away to streets among streets of buildings. you can peer even further down, where the city lights of oklahoma city make out a twinkling night sky, replacing the stars with their light pollution. devon tower stands the tallest and most discernable of the skyscrapers and for a second, your troubles melt away as you fall captive to The Big Friendly.

long past rush hour, the streets downtown are jam packed with both cars and pedestrians, forcing mark to brake every other second. the city night life in oklahoma feels warmer than the busy new york city had ever been. flourescent signs flash bright in invitation for you to enter, people flood the streets, swarmed with laughter and filled with good food. you keep a smile to yourself as this tedious road trip begins to feel a little more like a long-anticipated vacation.

marks pulls up at the coin wash station you’d found for him earlier. with it being a ten minute’s distance from the city’s main streets, the surrounding areas are quiet at this slow hour. when you reach over to unbuckle your seat belt, a hand comes to stop you and with a patient smile on his face, mark simply tells you, “wait here, i’ll clean it up real quick,” as he slips out of the car.

given no time to react much less disagree, he shuts the door behind him and you end up sitting in the car by yourself, watching mark as he busies around with his coins and then gets to hosing down the red streaks striping his car. presumably, they had dried in the wind. what a sight his car must have looked like, rolling through the city streets as if it’d been dunked in ketchup.

you get the idea then, while you’re idling around, to call up haechan quickly while you have the moment to yourself. if you could be curt with him, beat around the bush like the annoying little brat you are, you’ll have no problem with wrapping up the call within the next five to ten minutes it takes for mark to get the car scrubbed and shiny.

the phone rings a whopping total of seven times before he picks up. you put him on speaker and the groggy voice you’re met with is a telltale sign that you’ve freshly awoken him. “the fuck you want? i just fell asleep, you cow.” at least he went to bed, you think, whilst turning his loud ass voice off speaker and bringing your phone to your ear.

“woah, no need to be so vulgar. you’re the one who told me to call you.”

you hear a scoff coming from the other end. at his next quip, his voice is no longer groggy, now boasting a new tone of feisty. “yeah. i meant when i’m actually awake and willing to answer. bye, i’m hanging up now.”

“hey,” you whine, “you’re awake and i’m free right now so let’s just get it over with. what did you want to talk about?”

there’s a clear pause of deliberation on his end, only for less than three seconds though. “how’s it going with mark? i heard he made you cry.”

you sigh into the receiver, fingers having found the rim of your water bottle and decidedly tracing the cap around and around. “so he told you everything, i see. he just brought up some bad memories and i got overwhelmed in the moment. it’s all cool now.”

the line goes silent for while longer and the blasting hose outside just happens to shut off at the same time. you look up from your water bottle and through the shower of water, mark’s peering in with a sponge in hand, gleeful eyes greeting you hello. you give him an absentminded wave in return with your free hand.

usually, haechan had too much to say about everything but to your surprise, he only ponders with a lilt, “...it’s all cool?”

“it’s all cool,” you confirm. mark sweeps his sponge-equipped arm across the length of the windshield, the thick lather of bubbles building a wall between you and him. but just as his fingers dot two eyes and a big smile into the soap for you to see, haechan synchronizes, “so you guys are getting along?”

mark peeks into one of the holes to see you smiling as wide as the playful smiley face he’d drawn, the same one that was now at the mercy of the drooping liquids. contradicting your ear-splitting grin, you remark offhandedly, “we agreed to be friends.” and after a beat, you fill in the missing blanks, “for the sake of this trip, i mean.”

“friends…” haechan seems to have his panties in a twist today, for he’s pausing at all the weird moments, saying all the weirdest things. you can almost imagine the shake of his head as he cryptically states, “that won’t do.”

“what won’t do?”

the hose water is turned back on as mark directs it right at the windshield this time. you almost shriek in surpise, barely catching the click of his tongue that haechan gives. after dousing the windows clean, mark reaches for the snow broom to shimmy off the remaining water droplets. going row by row, he gives you a sore attempt at a wink when you meet his eyes. you supress your giggles as haechan’s dissatisfied voice soars past your ears without much thought.

“how can you be just friends with him when you still like him?”

you’re in no mood to be taking him seriously, so you end up saying the first thing that pops into your mind. “i’m pretty sure he’s the one that still likes me.”

“well you’re not wrong there.”

mark throws in another silly face — a really blown out toothed smile — and you decide then that you should probably end the call soon before haechan drags you into another discussion of who’s still hung up on who and who’s still in love with who. you decide then that, for tonight at least, you want to set aside the messy feelings and just have fun. because that’s what’s easiest when you’re with mark lee.

momentarily forgetting that you’re still on call, you hastily ramble out a quick, “hey i gotta go, something came up,” and the eye roll that haechan’s sure to give is predictable as it is true. “fine,” he deadpans, “talk to you later. or not, i don’t know maybe something will come up and i’ll forget about you for two weeks.” and with that, he hangs up right as mark reenters the car, eyes all shimmery and filled with glee.

“you have fun out there?”

he messes around with a few wet tips of his hair. “a lot of fun, actually. you should help me out next time.”

your heart races messily and mercilessly at the thought of ‘next time,’ so much so that you only have enough mindpower to muse absorbedly, “maybe i should.” he gets his seat belt buckled and you cap your water bottle after taking a long swig. 

“so…” mark starts whilst pressing the start engine button, “who was that on the phone?”

“haechan wanted to know if we were ripping each other’s hair out yet.”

mark chuckles, reversing the car out of the small lot. his eyes tell you he knows that a lot more than just that was discussed, but he resists prying to a certain extent. “so what’d you tell him?”

“well...” you take a moment to admire his side profile, his one hand resting casually on the wheel, and the gentle way his lips curve into a smile when you say, “i told him that i still have a full head of hair.”

「 DAY 03, 12:00 AM 」 — YOU ARE MY SOUVENIR, MY PROOF THAT I WAS HERE

what etrip.net forgot to mention was that the $19 you happily gave away was actually just a reservation fee, and not — as they had deceived you into thinking — the actual price of the room. you direct a sheepish smile towards mark as the bright-faced young man at the front counter charges $124 on your card. evidently, the internet is why you have trust issues.

the hotel sits right in the belly of downtown oklahoma city, with the touristy bricktown district only two blocks away. you’re given a card key to a spacious room with a queen sized bed draped in a crisp and plush duvet. from the updated appliances to the chic furniture and decor, every corner of the room smelled like fresh lemon verbena.

“i guess this is what you get when you pay top dollar.”

mark nods dazedly, but at the mention of money, he snaps out of his haze. “here,” he fishes out his phone from his back pocket, “i’ll transfer you the $62.”

you recline into the white lounge chair in the corner of the room. a ding! sounds from your bag that you’ve set on the floor besides you, signaling the transaction. eyes now closed in respite, you direct your “thanks” towards no one in particular.

there’s no couch this time, despite having paid a ridiculous amount, so mark sets himself atop the left side of the bed. he rummages through the front pocket of his backpack until he draws forth a thin booklet with a giant OKC in bolded yellow on the front. as he remembered, there’s a checklist list on the second page that covers all the must-do, must-see activities and locations that oklahoma city has to offer. 

mark looks up at you, then back down at the book, then back at you and back down at the book. he knows you well enough to see that you’ve yet to fall asleep. but give it another two or three minutes and the snores will catch up to you. but before those two or three minutes round upon him, mark decides that he has nothing to lose. if you want to come, you’ll come. if not, he still has a whole city to plow through in one night.

“hey.” there’s a hand on your shoulder and it’s shaking you lightly. distantly, you think that you’ve entered a state of lucid dreaming. a second after, the voice returns to say, “y/n, wake up,” and you’re conscious enough to recognize it as mark’s. willing your eyes to open, he’s hovering right above you with apprehensive eyes. “let’s go out.”

still not quite awake and still unsure of what you just heard, you blurt rather obtrusively, “what?”

“i mean...i mean like let’s go out out,” and he gestures to the window to make his point clearer. “we can get late dinner, or really early breakfast, or just walk around for a bit.”

not very convinced, you only frown at him. in turn, he’s prompted to ramble on further. “okay, but when’s the next time you’re visiting oklahoma?”

“like… never,” you drawl out slowly. mark nods fervidly as if there were a right answer and you were at the precipice of discovering it. impatient or in sudden fervor, he exasperates, “exactly! so you should make the most of tonight and see what it has to offer.”

he’s like an overly enthusiastic salesman and you decide that even if it’s just to please him, there’s no harm in playing tourist for a few hours; you could sleep as much as you want on the road anyways. you give in, “okay fine,” and watch as he pumps a fist not-so-covertly. “gimme like five minutes to change first though.”

by the time you meet him at the lobby, mark’s switched out his tour guide booklet for his phone, having loaded up all the destinations in preparation. the warm air outside is breezy to a fault and the wind picks up your hair and sloshes it this way and that. mark is quick to laugh but equally quick to tuck the wandering strands behind your ears. unknowingly, you blush and when you don’t break the stare, he breaks it for you. the tips of his ears are red when he looks away.

the first stop — a touristy jazz club — is closed for renovation, and the next one that you guys attempt had rebranded into a strip club. unease begins to nibble away at mark’s intial excitement, as his exhaustion and embarrassment collide to dampen his mood. the sidewalk crowd doesn’t care to part for two, so mark grabs hold of your wrist, leading you towards what he hopes is the final destination for the night.

mark finds his composure being built up and chipped away by your presence in the exact way he’d expected it to even before this whole ordeal of a trip. he can avoid your careful eyes and feign ignorance towards your attempts at civility, but he will never be one to deny to himself how much he still cares, how much he has always and will always care, about your opinion of him. it’s in the littlest ways that he hopes if not to impress you, then to make you smile at the least. mark doesn’t endeavor to lie to himself about that — that he wants you to smile and that he wants, even more so, to be the reason behind it.

he thinks he’s done a rather good job of accomplishing that tonight. from afar, “the flea” is but a green box with brick facing and a short line abutting the entrance. but upon entering, the ambiance of the bar feels rather like an old school arcade, with low ceilings and dimly colored lighting. it’s littered with games from pool to cornhole to connect four, and people are drunk and having fun. mark glances at you to gauge your liking, and supresses the urge to pump a lame and loser-ish fist at they way your eyes glisten in response to your lively surroundings.

he’s not sure if he’ll ever get the courage to apologize for the consequence of his thoughtless ramble from earlier in the day. and he knows that an apology is what you deserve. but in his own selfish and self-serving way, he hopes that this one night of drinking and games will at the very least make up for your soured impression of him.

you order two beers at the bar and amble over to mark, who’s found himself a spot at the darts corner. handing him the drink and taking a swig of your own, you query with a cocked eyebrow in the direction of the board, “wanna bet?”

taking the drink from your hands, mark deadpans, “you suck at darts.”

mouth full, you quickly swallow before laughing aloud, “maybe i got better, you never know.”

mark rolls his eyes in disbelief, but concedes nevertheless, “so what’s on the line?”

you take a quick scan around the room in consideration when a girl standing on the opposite side of the room by the pool table catches your eye. but not because she’s looking at you. feet crossed at the ankles and left hand swirling a half-emptied margarita, she has her sights set square on mark. a small smile dawns upon your face, and you turn back towards him. “you lose, you get her number.”

once glance around the room and he, too, knows who you’re talking about. maybe his heart sinks a little. and so he laughs. maybe he wishes you wouldn’t be so quick to write him off with another person other than you. mark takes a sip of his beer, and looks around the room once again. maybe he doesn’t mean what he’s about to say. “you lose, you get his number.” maybe he wants you to know that he still likes you, at least a lot more than the guy by the bar with the sleazy smile. 

you take a look at him yourself and decide that he wouldn’t be too bad of a punishment. some part of you felt the need to distinguish you and mark as two single friends who were just hanging out. the barrier needed to be defined after how it’d been ebbing between the extremes of exes and more than exes the whole day. it’s hard to say that you don’t like mark at this point. and that while any other guy could make you feel things, it would never amount close enough to what mark made you feel. 

but it’s even harder to say that you would want to get back together with him.

mark decides on a 200 point game and whilst you get off to a good start with two 20-pointers, mark beats you out by almost a hundred point margin to sum up the game. today, he feels up for admitting the truth to himself, for he knows well that he had tried his best to lose. but any further effort on that attempt would have made it obvious, as there was no conceivable way for him to out-lose your constant 1-pointers without suspicion. 

he watches as you down the rest of your beer before gesturing in the direction of the bar. he smiles back when you mouth, “i’ll be back,” over the blaring music. he knows why you’re being like this. he knows that it’s mostly his fault. he also knows that you’re doing this to protect yourself, that it’s not a means of punishing him. but mark accepts his punishment anyways, looking onwards as you approach the guy with a tap on his shoulder. he watches as the guy’s eyes rakes your figure in delight, sets a casual hand on your waist, smiles along to your cheesy pick up line.

but mark tears his eyes away before the guy can smash his greasy lips onto yours, or before you respond in kind. even seeing him lean in made mark sick to the stomach. he goes to retrieve the darts from the board and when he returns, you’ve returned too. “got it,” you show him the contact and number in your phone, “and i got a smooch on the cheek too.”

a small, “ew,” is all he can muster in his confusion of equal relief and disappointment. mark keeps you close for the rest of the night. you suggest many times that he go talk to this girl, or how that girl looks like his exact type. but you don’t seem to understand that mark only wants to talk to you and that you’re the only person in this room, or even in the world, he’d consider to be his exact type. you are nowhere near the understanding that mark has never felt this unlucky to be spending the night with a girl he wants but has lost the privilege to have.

you’re tipsy, with an arm linked with his and your head on his shoulder, as he walks the two of you back to the hotel. mark can’t tell you — at least not in this state — how he’s thought of trying again at least a million times. he’s come up with a million scenarios of how he’d somehow loop himself back into your life and slowly regain your trust for him. a million times over, he’d lost the confidence to follow through, always so sure that he would fall in the same patterns of negligence and immaturity. even so, he’s never wanted to try as much as he does right now.

he places your shoes by the bedside and slips off your dirty socks to add to the laundry. rummaging through your toiletries bag, he comes upon the micellar water and reusable cotton pads. he swipes it across your sleeping face to collect the makeup and extra debris, then washes the two pads and clips them on a hanger to dry. mark is dutiful in drawing the covers up to your chin, in pulling your hair back from your face, in everything a boyfriend would do.

mark is sober when he sets his lockscreen as the only thing he has to remember oklahoma city by: a photo of you, smiling at him.

「 DAY 03, 8:21 AM 」 —  HIS APOLOGY

“what is the hardest truth you had to face this year?”

you place the card to the back of the deck after reading the question aloud. mark takes his eyes off the road for a split second to glance at you. fiddling with a used toothpick with your fingers, mark wonders when you started flossing after years and years of ignoring your dentist’s nagging. yesterday, he noticed you were using a different chapstick brand than what he remembered as your go-to. you wear your hair up more often, and you frequent warm-toned clothing as opposed to your routine neutrals.

the more time he spends around you, the more mark realizes he’s never felt this distant from you. in barely two days time, he’s been surprised by how much you’ve changed in the relatively short duration the two of you spent apart compared to the time you had spent together. mark’s even more surprised by how little he’s changed in comparison.

the thirty seconds you’ve taken to formulate a response — to decide your terms of vulnerability in just how much to divulge — weren’t nearly enough for mark to be prepared for what you were about to share.

you don’t look at him when you speak. with your eyes set on the passing hills just outside, your voice breaches lowly into the air and across the car, right to mark’s utter confusion at the first of your words.

“i’ve learned that no amount of love goes wasted. i’ve learned that bad, unfortunate, terrible things happen to good people everyday, most of the time for no reason.” when you next blink, there’s a thin film of tears that gloss your eyes. “i’ve learned that the same bad, unfortunate, terrible things can happen to the very people that you love, and that sometimes there is nothing you can do about it.”

he thinks he can hear your breaths, or some similar rhythm pulsing in the thickened air, taut with tension and the fragility of your words. two beats pass, then four, before mark confirms it to be your now labored breathing. it stops shortly after, and you continue speaking to your best ability, which even then amounts to very little. “i’ve learned…”

mark turns to look at you for a little longer than he should, and the composure with which you held your head gives out, the weight of his gaze somehow heavier than that of your circumstances. he’s never seen you like this. he doesn’t know what’s your reality, and that this car, this trip, this moment, is your escape. 

“i’ve learned what it means to grieve for someone before they’ve even passed.”

he doesn’t know that you’re running on stolen time. he doesn’t know, wasn’t there, never saw how your mom had given your hand a squeeze, feeble but certain. how she faults her poorly-timed illness. how she struggled to sit up to give your grief-stricken, heartbroken body a hug and a kiss goodbye, regretful she might never be able to rejoice in her daughter’s marriage, and yet grateful that at least her other daughter can rejoice in her stead.

when you find it in yourself to lift your head upright, mark takes in another glance at the puffiness around your eyes and the streaks running down your cheek to your neck. he knows he should free a hand to locate the tissue box or offer that hand in support but he can hardly breathe, much less move, when you start speaking again.

“it’s my mom. her cancer, it’s relapsed.”

for a few seconds, all he can hear is the white noise of his car tires on an endless expanse of road. it’s like your words dissolve into the noise, refusing their impact on his own ears, richocheting between reality and his imagination. mark holds so still that he might as well have stopped breathing, or thinking, or being. 

it’s only when he hears a sob escape from you that his gravity returns to him out of a sense of realized necessity. a sort of certainty courses through his veins when he pulls over the car. there’s barely anyone on the road to witness him exit and circle around to your side. mark moves with conviction when he pulls your door open, unbuckles your seat belt, and embraces you whole. neither of you register the tears leaking from his eyes nor the way his hands shake ever so slightly, because his expression has been set straight, and his body sturdy for you to lean on.

forehead pressed to his chest, you’re gasping for air and making all sorts of incomprehensible sounds of anguish. you weren’t sure of where your strength had come from to confide in him like that, after you’d dutifully dedicated yourself to a trip detached fully of worries beyond your control at home. but you know it now. in the way he pats down your hair, rubs circles into your back, holds all the same grief-stricken, heartbroken pieces of your body together like glue, you know that it’s because it’s mark.

he doesn’t yet know what he’s saying but it’s coming out of him anyways. “i’m sorry. i’m so sorry.” he panics even more when you’re shaking your head in his arms, your hitched breaths unable to let forth any words of disagreement. but mark shakes his head too. you don’t know.

you don’t know how much it hurts him. from his heart, in his bones, through every fiber of his being he feels it. his apology.

“i’m sorry for not being there when you needed me most.”

you make up for your loss of words by looking up at him, finally. his mask of placidity folds, first at the seams with the furrow of his brow, but then in full as his face scrunches into what can only be described as indescribable heartache. his shirt is fisted in your hands as you sob, “how could you… how could you have known?”

mark shuts his eyes because he doesn’t think he has it in him to bear witness to the misery written across your face. his heart hammers inside his chest, unpromising of any relief any time soon. he holds you together, closely, closer, until there’s hardly a hardly a point of separation between the two of you.

your question rings in his head, because it makes no sense, because it only makes him feel worse about the last year he’s spent alone, because even without you by his side…

“i should have just known.”

only now do you realize that your trust in mark is the one thing that could possibly nullify your entire messy history. in hindsight, it was obvious. you knew that if you told him, he would make it his duty to make you feel better. you told him because maybe that’s precisely what you wanted to feel. and maybe you needed mark, more than anyone, to hug you like this and to convince you that everything was somehow going to work out. because maybe, just maybe, you would begin to believe it for yourself.

「  00:00  」 —  AMARANTH

it was something that you didn’t think was possible. to live with someone, to inhabit the same room, sleep in the same bed, and yet, to be so distanced to the point at which you were strangers.

sometimes he’d leave a mug on the kitchen counter, lukewarm coffee left idle. other times the tv would be left on when you got home from class, or the shower was wet when you stepped in. it was these small things, like traces of a ghost, that reminded you of your relationship with mark, or what was left of it.

on the off chance that the two of you would meet face-to-face, he was always reserved to himself. a few small apologies, maybe a peck to your lips, and always a search for reassurance — that you would’t leave him, that you wouldn’t understand where he was coming from, that you knew he wasn’t doing it on purpose.

the it was complicated. on the surface, the it was his absence in the physical sense. despite dropping out from college and having a suddenly abundant amount of free time, barely any of that time was spent with you. despite moving in to your apartment after being cut off financially from his parents and being forced to move out of the school dorms, the it was him rarely being at home. mark was always out on some unnamed errand, or to shoot at some far away location, hours away from anyone and anything. 

but under all that, the it was his inability to face himself and his future head on. the it was his latent realization that there were consequences to his impulsive and headstrong decisions, more than he had the foresight to think of, more than what he was capable of dealing with at the time. the it meant that he was incapable of putting any of these feelings to words, and even more so unwilling to say these words aloud to you.

mark didn’t know how to tell you he was lost without feeling like he had lost the one thing that was left of him — his dignity. he had held his head high when he’d passed word around that he would quit school, certain that it wasn’t the right path for him. he had held his head high when he had left his parents’ house, his childhood home, after his own father had gotten on his knees to beg him to just finish up his degree, to hold out for one last year. but he couldn’t even admit to himself, much less you, that he didn’t know what to do with himself after all his bravado had worn off.

it was an adulthood thing, he’d much later come to understand, his own version of a dramatic coming of age movie where he needed to lose himself in order to find himself. and it led him to the job of his dreams: somewhere between a full-time photographer and a part-time influencer, traveling the world, capturing it on film, documenting his process and growth journey for others to be inspired by. ever so passionate and devoted to his work, mark poured his whole into perfecting his craft. and only when he emerged atop the hill he had climbed all by his lone self — without a degree and without the support of his peers and parents — did mark realize that he had lost the one person that would have supported him through anything. you.

but the damage had been done. at that point, there was no such word in the english dictionary that could remediate the month and a half of unexplained absence. in response to his silence and refusal to confide in you, you had withdrawn from the relationship yourself, having given up on getting him to clue you in and having to deal with your own problems as well. 

it was too late for mark to say anything about it, far too late for any verbal apology to make up for it all. mark figured that his actions would speak louder than his words ever could.

at the height of summer, the sun couldn’t have shone brighter. it was that day where you had come to understand that mark’s place of refuge had never been the apartment you thought you’d both called home; it was the lake. the emerald lake would have a special feature in the photobook that mark would publish months after the two of you had broken up. in his captions, he’d write that it was there that he would turn to when his thoughts overwhelmed him, when he didn’t have it in himself to face the world.

and it was beautiful, in the most heartbreaking way, to see for yourself that in his most vulnerable state, he had turned to these waters and these winds. it was most beguiling, in the most earth-shattering way, to watch as he submerged himself bare in the water, to realize that he could never bare his heart to you, didn’t know how to, didn’t want to, didn’t care to.

he didn’t understand how badly you wanted to love him for everything that he was. he was too proud to let you see the worst parts of him, too proud to let you love the worst parts of him.

to him, the water was a symbol of renewal. to bring you here, where his heart lay, meant that he was opening back up to you, urging to you enter his waters. to you, it was a symbol of cleansing. to enter the water where you were beckoned meant washing off all the grief and bitterness that had accumulated towards the tail end of your relationship. you hadn’t yet figured out where you stood with him, if you still loved him, or if you even knew him well enough to say that you still loved him. 

it was ill-fated timing, really. your mom was diagnosed with hodgkin’s lymphoma, not even a week after what mark believed to be the turning point of your relationship. you had called him from the hospital, voice thick with affliction, rambling about chemotherapy and medical bills and breaking the news to your sister and everything else that had brought your world to a standstill. and yet in the midst of all your despair, mark could not for the life of him string together a single sentence.

later revealed, her cancer was at an early stage, so one round of chemotherapy was enough to quell it into remission. it wasn’t, however, easy on your family in terms of the financial burnden and emotional turmoil that steadily built over her four months of treatment.

all of this, mark would only hear of through haechan, for your relationship had ended the moment you had hung up that call.

blocking his phone number and social medias was the easy part. the hard part was convincing haechan to let mark move in with him. it was completely and utterly stupid and unreasonable, according to him, to end a fully committed relationship just because the guy couldn’t formulate a response to your trauma dump. “why?”

“because he’s emotionally constipated,” was the easy answer with an easy counter that haechan was sure to give, “but you knew that even before dating him.”

you sighed. however impossible, you could hear his impatience over the phone. it was enough to get you to be fully honest with your best friend. “he can’t talk to me. he can’t be honest with me. he can’t look me in the face and say ‘i’m sorry.’ tell me, hyuck,” your breath picks up and you’re mere seconds away from sobbing, “tell me, how am i supposed to come home from the hospital everyday and tell my sob story to a fucking wall?!”

later that day, haechan came over to your apartment to pick up all the belongings of your ex-boyfriend. you had dumped him because your life was in no state to house someone who didn’t know how to shoulder a burden. you had dumped him because, for the sake of your well being, you could no longer put up with his inability to communicate openly with you, to tell you what he was feeling, to tell you to ease your worries, or even just to tell you that he loved you.

but even now as you’re sat in the passenger seat of his car, if mark told you he didn’t love you anymore, you probably wouldn’t believe it.

you know it in the way he looks at you, with eyes so tender and attentive to your every motion, ears perked at every intonation, and heart worn bare at the foot of his sleeve. these were all made fact from the moment you first stepped in his car, when the simple idea of seeing him still made you apprehensive and guarded.

but with how low your defenses have since dropped, there’s no reason left to deny that mark wouldn’t believe you either if you told him you didn’t love him anymore.

and you can’t say it’s any sort of impulsive feeling, or an effect of loneliness that’s gotten the best of you. it’s evident to you now that the mark beside you is not the same mark you fell in love with. he is a result of your breakup, the one thing that he could not bury away with the rest of his feelings. the one thing that, if he ever turned to the lake for refuge, would only haunt him in the form of the memory of you that day. he could not run from the torment of losing you, because it had consumed him whole.

the mark beside you gave you your space when you needed it, and held you close even when you didn’t know you needed it. he still is awkward in responding to your questions, but he responds nonetheless. he apologized.

he’s not the same mark you foolishly fell in love with, overlooking his weakness until it ruined your relationship. the mark beside you is someone you have the choice of falling in love with, in full admiration for his growth and strengths, so much so that it begs the question:

what do you do when the reason you broke up with your ex no longer exists?

「 DAY 03, 12:47 PM 」 —  WILL YOU GO ON A DATE WITH ME?

“thank you.”

mark jolts in his seat, though he keeps enough of his cool only to answer somewhat lamely, “uhh… for what?”

“for comforting me.”

mark doesn’t look over at you. he can’t. he’s afraid of what you have to say, of what’s to become of your fleeting friendship, of the boundaries he’d overstepped. so he merely brushes it off, hoping you don’t read too much into his actions to feel uncomfortable about it. “oh that? it was nothing, no need to thank me.”

but you look over at him, and continue to, for seconds or even minutes on end. the profile of his face is perfect to you, round eyes, the slope of his nose, an equally boyish and nervous smile playing at his lips. you could almost cry, again; this time at the irony of how your break up was so ill-fated by time, but your reunion so auspicious.

“it was not nothing to me. it was… everything.”

now he looks over at you with curious eyes, but you just shake your head slightly. “it just meant a lot to me. that’s all.”

mark returns his gaze up front. he’s still nervous, afraid, and ever so conscious of you, but at the very least, he’s glad that he seems to have successfully communicated his care for you. in silence, you’ve spent the last three hours switching between playing sudoku on your phone and annotating a red-covered book titled all about love by bell hooks with a pink pen. 

until a few seconds ago, mark hadn’t had any insight whatsoever as to how you were feeling, whether you wanted more space to yourself, or if you wanted to just put it behind you and move on to cheerier conversations. and with bated breath has mark awaited some sort of sign that you were doing okay. now, as if given the green light, he sighs in relief and begins to speak, almost a little too eager to be able to strike conversation with you again.

“we’re almost halfway through texas now. well, the tip of it.”

the view just outside is completely flat for as far as the eye can perceive. blocked with only two colors, the vivid blue sky is completely void of any cloud, just as the dirt ground is void of any plant. seeing the landscapes change restlessly before your eyes over the past few days has felt like putting your life on double the speed, and the constant and unchanging blue and brown just outside feels like a welcome contrast. in all the flurry of this trip, you yearn for a moment to reorient yourself. and so you ask, “where are we staying tonight?”

“not sure yet, but if you want to you can look up some hotels in new mexico.”

you ponder the suggestion to yourself before suggesting an idea of your own, “how about we go camping? i saw your gear in the trunk.”

it’s gradual and awfully subtle, but you watch intently as the corners of mark’s lips upturn into a small smile. you even take note of how the sunlight from outside catches in his eyes, a small glint that gives his whole countenance a boyish radiance. he chuckles under his breath, simultaneously spotting a sign on the right side of the road. there’s almost a singing undertone in the way he says, “wanna take a break somewhere, grab some food, and plan something?”

you notice that the smile is still on his face as he sits across from you at a wendy’s in the middle of amarillo, thirty minutes later. in the same plaza there happened to be a taco bell and a denny’s, with an ihop and mcdonald’s across the street, inciting a fifteen minute heated debate as to which would make you less likely to vomit all over his car. in reality, there was no right answer. they were all wrong, but mark lee isn’t usually one to win arguments.

he has a few travel brochures splayed on top of the table, though he spends more of his attention typing into his phone and scribbling down notes on a yellow post-it. while he put himself in charge of finding a suitable camping spot somewhere in eastern new mexico, mark put you in charge of something you couldn’t mess up, and something you thought was too easy for the high paygrade of your company.

you did it begrudgingly and anyways, opening up the notes app on your phone, not all that happy to be left with the comparatively more boring job of coming up with a list of things to buy. with some on-the-go food options and a blanket on the list, you contemplated what kind of alcohol would most appropriately suit the occasion, looking up from your phone in time to catch mark as he did the same. briefly, your eyes met across the table.

he knows you both thought of the same thing. you must have. 

he’s the only one who knows he didn’t actually need to study for any of his finals that semester, with most of them being projects and the only outlier being a general education psychology course. but mark was at the library every day and night with you, knowing you were scared shitless for your first week of finals as a college student. you were in two completely different majors, with no overlapping classes or even departments, and yet he was there, quizzing you on your human anatomy or art history notes. you’d get all in your head about the answers, rethinking and doubting yourself. and then you’d look up at him, eyes meeting across the table just the same as now, and you’d say the correct answer.

and there was that one time, in the complete silence of the top floor of the main library, where mark had slipped you a post-it note, eyes attentive and lips pulled into a line as he watched you read over his penned question. and as always, you had said the correct answer. i would love to go on a date with you.

just like back then, you smile at him brightly and fondly from across the table. mark looks taken aback for a second, either reeling or pleasantly surprised by thought of the memory. he takes a bite of his burger, chews a bit, then swallows roughly. you look back down at your screen and quickly type ‘soju’ before setting your phone down, figuring something stronger than beer would be able to get more truths out of you that wouldn’t escape so easily when sober. seeing as how this trip had you revealing more than you expected, even going as far as confiding your most vulnerable self to mark, you wish he would let go of some of his own thoughts as well.

mark sets his phone down too, as you rummage through your bag to find the red box you’d taken from the car. he watches as you set it on the table and after recognizing it, quips almost incredulously, “you still wanna play? after all that?”

“well i was thinking i could use a break from answering.”

“you want me to answer?” he quirks an eyebrow up, and you pass the set of cards over to him. barely shuffling, he draws a card at random and his eyebrows move again, this time to furrow as he skims the question. mark reads aloud, “how old do you feel, emotionally?”

it’s a question that you yourself can’t answer for him, even if you wished to. there’s no way for you to tell what kind of changes had occurred between then and now, but at the very least you know that he’s years wiser than the mark that once sat across from you at the library. and that thought alone pulls at your heart incessantly.

after giving the question some thought, mark answers in all the ways you least expect him to.

“i feel like i know nothing.”

and he doesn’t bother to elaborate further.

“what?”

mark laughs a bit. it’s evident that his thought was underdeveloped, and so he develops it some more, “i feel like a newborn baby, but like… really smart.” he continues to make no sense, so you laugh at him. and then you’re both laughing. it’s sweet, really.

he had spent so long in that library with you, dutifully studying for what would be the easiest final exam of his life. mark reread his psychology notes so many times that week that they would be forever ingrained in his mind. but to you, the next thoughts he shares are completely out of the blue.

“you know like crystallized and fluid intelligence?” he pauses to laugh some more at the quizzical look you’ve thrown him. “like crystallized is like accumulated knowledge and stuff like facts, while fluid intelligence is like problem-solving and reasoning or something.”

now he really needs you to stop laughing because it’s infectious. “and what does that have to do with anything?” your laughter is especially infectious to him, because he really can’t bring himself to stop laughing despite the point he so desperately wants to make.

“just let me finish my thought, okay? and then you can laugh all you want.”

at that, you stifle your laughter by pressing your lips together, and all mark can think of is how cute you are. he pushes past that thought and does his best to sound like he’s not stupid.

“i mean like, i feel like i have a bunch of crystallized intelligence from being in the world for so long, but at the same time i have zero fluid intelligence. like i’m a newborn baby with all the knowledge in the world, and no idea what to do with it.”

and you catch on immediately, “so basically like… adulting? like facing the real world after being coddled your entire life?”

mark isn’t laughing anymore nor was anything he said that stupid, but he has this stupid dopey smile on his face. because if there’s one person that can comprehend his thoughts so completely and so easily, even as he uses the most unorthodox methods to explain them, it’s you. always you. only you.

and just like that you understood it all. the months he spent in solitude after dropping out of college weren’t spent alone, they were spent facing the real world. you had always been so bitter that he would rather endure those rough moments by himself than shoulder his worries with you, but you understand it now. and he didn’t even need to say much at all. mark had needed space to figure out himself, for himself. he needed to unlearn everything that people and society had told him about who he was, what he was good at, bad at, should or shouldn’t do, and for once, spend time to get to know himself. after all, how was he supposed to be in a relationship with you if he didn’t even have an idea of who he was?

sitting across from him now, you can see in full how mark’s grown into himself, his passions, and his work. he’s facing the world still, and will always be, but he is confident instead of prideful. he isn’t ashamed of what he doesn’t know, for he will learn in due time. he isn’t afraid of failure, because he knows he’ll only grow from it.

it’s astonishing how these past few days have brought everything into a full circle. in hindsight, the messy break up was really just what the situation called for. and this impromptu reunion turned out to be a miracle of timing, to the degree at which the both of you can’t help but think…

right person, right time.

「 DAY 03, 10:12 PM 」 —  MY DREAMS COME TRUE (WHEN I’M WITH YOU)

you found it strange, but didn’t think too much of it.

it was like there was some foggy haze over everything, like a honeyed film that made your world a little sweeter, softer, and more precious. you had spent almost a full two years juggling your classes, extracurriculars, and family and relationship issues, flitting between school and home and the hospital and then repeating it all over and over until you couldn’t even trace when you’d gone a bit insane. to you, it was something between a secret orchestration of the universe and an answered prayer to find yourself out here, surrounded by cicadas and under the scorching sun.

to him, it was everything he could have asked for, and more.

sumner lake state park had his favorite hues of greens, blues, and browns. and you were grateful, for mark frequently paused your impromptu hiking trip to shoot on his camera, leaving you moments to catch a breath and take in the views along the lakeshore.

the sun had set at half past eight. that was almost two hours ago, and two hours after the two of you had luckily scored a spot at the eastside campground. whoever made the original reservation would forever have no clue as to what they helped achieve by simply not showing up.

it was like a dream, except you were awake. it was like a movie, except you were the star. it was like a book, except it wasn’t all about love. it was all about mark lee.

he has one hand holding his mug and the other on your thigh. again, there’s the glint in his eyes, this time sourced from the small campfire he’s made. the summer night is hot enough, but mark had insisted. “for the ambiance,” he’d said, “for the memories.”

this is how the memory will go. for whenever you think back to this moment, you will always remember the glow of the fire reflected in his eyes, the buzz of cicadas, the sound of the lapping lake, and his hand on your thigh.

you take a swig of your soju, face scrunching at the initially bitter taste. setting your mug down, you lean back on the palms of your hands and look up towards the sky. it reminds you of the color pencil set you used to use as a kid, the black you’d always confuse for a dark navy and the dark navy you’d always confuse for the black. and dotted with a white color pencil were the stars, shining one by one, all too similar to the light in his eyes.

the water of the lake reminds you of him. the leaves of trees he’d dedicated countless rolls of film to reminds you of him. the singing of birds, as soft as his mindless humming, reminds you of him. the sweetness left by the soju in your mouth reminds you of him.

maybe the world felt a little lighter on your shoulders when you were with him, and everything seemed a little brighter because of his bright eyes and carefree smile. he makes you feel like you’re a kid whose imaginative color pencil drawings of her dreams spin off the paper and turn into reality. like a kid who, in her heart, only has space for hope for the future.

and you think, that must be what it means to love someone. to see everything in a different light, to see only the best of situations, of people, of the world around you. and ultimately, to love the world, everybody in it, every thing ever created, because you love him. 

and so when he draws the next card, it’s the most ridiculous question ever.

“how did you get over your first love?”

you laugh a little, then gulp down the rest of the soju in your mug. wincing at the taste, you decide that it would do no harm whatsoever to be a little more honest with mark. compared to the first day you stepped in his car, back into his life, you now have a very good idea of how mark had changed, how he knew how to handle your feelings with care this time around. it’s a newfound trust, and you plan on exercising it.

looking him straight in the eye, you cock your head a bit to the left as if considering the thing you already knew you were to say. “i don’t think i’ve ever gotten over you.”

mark has no reaction. he just stares at you for longer and longer, until you tilt your head to the other side and he seems to remember that time hasn’t stopped for him. suddenly he’s also downing the rest of his soju, throwing his head back and gulping it down thickly.

truth be told, he used to be intimidated by the honesty with which you always spoke, but he thinks he gets it now. whether it be with other people or with himself, mark feared that the truth about his feelings, his pridefulness, or the nature of his insecurities weakened him. but at the end of the day, what good has avoiding the truth done for him? it was through losing the most sincere person in his life that he realized being forthright and overcoming the fear, the uncomfortableness, and sometimes the displeasure of being honest, made him all the stronger.

and it’s with these thoughts that mark is able to muster up the courage to regain your gaze with all the softness in the world. maybe it had a little to do with the alcohol in his system, but the words seem to slip right out of him. “i don’t think i’ve ever gotten over you either.”

you hold your gaze for only a few moments longer, for shortly after processing his words you break out into a grin so wide, mark can’t help but think the alcohol’s gotten to you too. and then you’re laughing a bit — whether out of relief or bewilderment, he can’t tell — but he’s glad. mark is glad to hear your honest answer, glad to give an honest answer back. he watches as you fully recline on the air mattress in the trunk of his car, looking onwards adoringly. there’s really no way to tell if he’s feeling this giddy because he’s drunk or because for the first time, there is no need to suppress his feelings for you. mark suspects it’s both, at the same time, in full effect. 

he grabs another card, reads it for all of two seconds. mark leans over to where you’re peering up at him and, smiling fondly, he tells you to, “close your eyes for a sec.” you think of the campfire, the cicadas, and the lake, but when you recall this night in memory, this exact moment is what you remember most vividly.

it was bound to happen. you just didn’t know it’d happen like this.

the air mattress isn’t uncomfortable, per se; it’s just that it feels hot against your skin. chills run down the length of your spine, but it isn’t the doing of the wind from the half-open windows. it’s mark lee and his lips on yours. his hand comes up to your arm feverishly, barely grazing it, and more chills ripple from wherever the rings on his fingers ghost your skin. 

mark stops for a moment. takes a breath. looks back up and peers into your eyes. he kisses you again.

you don’t know what to do except kiss him back. he has both hands on you now, the one on your arm and the other one on your neck. and he keeps kissing you, lips molding to yours with slips of his tongue here and there, gentle and prodding. he’s scared. for what exactly? he doesn’t know. maybe for his life.

his life, that you seem to be holding in your hands, the same hands that are now making their way around his waist. mark can’t breathe. the skin at the back of your neck is warm and soft to the touch, but he already knew that. he’s known it for so long. everything about you is familiar to him like a well-worn book or the lines of his favorite song. the sound of your voice is so low when the briefest of groans escapes you, but to mark it’s almost predictable. this is the you that he knows, the you that he couldn’t forget, the you that he lost.

mark can’t breathe, and so he stops kissing you. he mumbles an embarrassed, “i’m sorry.” he buries his head into your shoulder. he thinks he loves you. he knows he does.

but he can’t bring himself to say it out loud.

out of fear, he can’t tell you he loves you. it’s not the same fear that held him back from sharing any vulnerable side of himself with you, but instead the fear of losing you. even as you admit your lingering feelings and kiss him back like you’d never stopped, mark is filled with the fear of how overbearing he’d be if he fully leaned into his desire for you. he can imagine himself, in this same moment but in a million different universes, and in each one he messes up.

in one, he moves too fast by saying the words but he’s got the timing all wrong, and all of a sudden his feelings are a burden to you whose own feelings lack the depth of his. in another, he never says them at all, and this night marks the last of any intimacy he’ll receive for the rest of his life. in all of these universes, he knows why he kissed you, but he doesn’t know what you meant when you kissed him back. in all these universes, he wants, more than anything, to do right by you.

“sorry for what?”

mark lifts his head up to look you in the eye, and when he still fails to say a word, you tease him a bit to lighten the suddenly dour look on his face. “for kissing me? really?”

to your delight, he chuckles at that and shakes his head lightly. 

you can tell he has a lot on his mind, but his neck and ears are flushed red and you don’t mean to use his inebriation to pry the words out of him. you pat the empty side of the bed, “lay down, we should get some sleep.”

slowly and cautiously, he moves to the spot next to you. laying down flat on his back and staring at the darkened ceiling of his car, mark wonders if this is the universe where nothing happens at all and he misses his chance completely. he sinks into this feeling and almost lets it consume him whole when he realizes he’s the only person who has the ability to change that.

the blanket the you bought earlier in the day has been discarded by your feet, the summer heat imanent even in the dead of night. you don’t know how to process what just happened, and you don’t get a chance to. a warmth is felt along your side before you realize mark’s arms have found their way around your waist, bringing you closer to him. he nuzzles his face into the sleeve of your shirt, eyes closed and humming in satisfaction.

his voice is barely discernible when he mumbles, “i’m sorry if that caught you by surprise.”

the sound of cicadas chirping just outside fills the space between his apology and your forgiveness. “it’s okay. i didn’t mind it.”

mark shifts his position a little. he places a small kiss at the base of your neck. “do you mind this, then?”

though his eyelids remain heavy and all his words are slurred together, he’s more alert than he has been all day. he doesn’t hear your small laugh so much as he feels it pulse against him, and it fills him with much joy. perhaps this has been his superpower all along, changing his universe in small and big ways, however he desires. perhaps, as long as he is true to himself and honest with his feelings, he will always find a way to have you close by his side, feeling every rise and fall of your breath. 

that night, in the brief moments before sleep overcomes him mark decides that he will create a universe where you are his, happily, rightfully, and fatefully.

「 DAY 05, 1:44 AM 」 — JUST TELL ME YOU LOVE ME

number three on mark’s bucket list — the one he made in his sophomore year of college — is to one day visit the svalbard islands. located in the arctic circle, the northernmost town in the world, called longyearbyen, goes about half a year without sunlight during its dark season. it is there that mark wishes to undergo the challenge of photographing in almost complete darkness, something he’s never quite been able to catch the hang of.

number four on his bucket list is to start a company that produces camera gear for his own needs, and for the needs of the many people he’s inspired with his work. number five on his bucket list is to buy an old ass subaru manual transmission wrx and fix it up until it’s perfectly to his liking.

out of all these ambitions listed on his bucket list that mark had told you about way back then – the previously mentioned visiting of all the national parks and forests, shooting in svalbard, starting a camera gear company, and owning a wrx — he’d neglected to tell you what tops his list at number one.

after two years, his bucket list remains unchanged, even the mystery number one: to complete everything on his list with you.

when you had asked a few days prior why mark hadn’t bothered moving out of nyc as it no longer served his needs, he had said you were the one reason he couldn’t part with the city. it had made you frustrated as to why he kept you in the equation even after your relationship came to a close, but more so confused as to why he still held you to such importance. 

you had spent the many months after the break up working hard at keeping your life together, removing all emotions, situations, and people that stood in the way of your priorities at the time, which were school and family. while that still holds true for you, mark’s priorities hadn’t changed either; you have continued to be a priority of his to this very day. and only now, when he’s right in front of you, do you realize this.

maybe it had been your insistence on moving on from him that you believed all his actions were nothing more than displays of his latent guilt. he’d send boxes of protein drinks to your front door, salves and balms for cracked skin, and woven hats for your mom who was undergoing chemotherapy at the time. and for you, there’d be the occasional uber eats ramen or chicken noodle soup that would arrive at your doorfront unprompted, and especially right at the times when you were up studying all night.

under suspicion, you had stopped complaining to haechan whenever you were feeling particularly tired or hungry, and the late night meals that were sent to your house lowered in frequency, and weren’t as punctual to your needs. mark wasn’t outright with anything, never showed up himself, or contacted you personally, but he wasn’t exactly discreet either.

only you, haechan, and mark knew your door code, for you hadn’t bothered to changed it after he moved out as there was no apparent need to. after the lightbulb in your kitchen went out and you had asked haechan a favor to buy you one at the nearest hardware store, you came home later that day to find it already fixed. knowing haechan was also busy with school and wouldn’t go to such lengths without further bribing, you had surmised it was mark and decided to put it to the test. the next time when your shower faucet started leaking, you mentioned it in passing to haechan and before the end of the week, it was good as new.

could it have counted as breaking and entering? that’s debateable. but you were aware of it and yet did nothing about it, rendering it legal at the very least. back then, you had given the vitamin supplements he had sent to your house to your mom, eaten every meal he bought you, and accepted all his covert services without a second thought, because you were firm in your belief that any form apology sent your way was useless in repairing the relationship you had put to a stop. you might as well accept it, move on, and wait until the day mark was no longer ridden with guilt, and no longer felt the need to perform such acts out as a result. 

that day never came, and it’s evident to you in retrospect that he did nothing out of guilt, but everything out of care, for your health, your well-being, and safety. his care, simply, for you.

it’s evident to you in the way mark exceled in his role as the passenger princess the entire day. after he lost another argument to you, you finally found yourself behind the wheel which, somehow, felt like the safest seat in his car. he fed you snacks, kept you entertained, put on all your favorite songs, and navigated the both of you safely to the white sands national park in new mexico.

mark kept an extra pair of sunglasses in the central console of his car. mark also had facial oil blotting papers in the glove box. in the trunk, there was an extra pair of sandals in your size, and a set of two fold-out camping chairs. the way he never stopped caring, it was as if you never broke up with him.

there is no city in the world that mark would rather live in, if you are not there. there is no national park he would ever visit, if you are not with him. he would freeze to death in the northernmost city in the world, without your warmth beside him. he would run his company to the ground without your input, and his favorite wrx becomes just another car without you in the passenger seat. all his life goals lose their meaning in your absence. this is how it’s always been for mark. this is why you are a priority to him.

even with his sunglasses on, the white sands were exceptionally bright. for the duration of 45 minutes, mark had guided you along the dunes drive, a scenic eight mile drive through the famed gypsum dunefield. the road conditions were harsher the farther you went along, and so he instructed you into the nearest parking lot, and swapped seats with you before going on. mark held your hand while driving, and he also squeezed it whenever he inevitably hit a bump here and there, as if in apology, as if it was his fault.

mark had kissed you again, with nothing but the white sands and blue skies in the backdrop. he’d taken pictures of you, using up his most expensive film stock on your priceless smile. he’d paid for the motel too, knowing you hadn’t initially wished for the trip to be more than three days, but wanting you to stay for yet another.

all of this has you wondering if you have it in you to care for him the way he cares for you.

you wonder how much importance he holds to you, how much of your heart you’d be willing to give to him, where your love for him would take you if you set it free.

as it turns out, your unanswered questions would be answered in the wee hours of the following morning. this is after mark had driven another six hours to ensure you would be able to make it to los angeles by the day after that to help with last minute preparations for your sister’s wedding.

you are in miami, a city in which — up until the last hour of your life — you had no idea existed outside of florida. you are in arizona, a state in which you would never have had a reason for visiting, if not for mark lee.

you are in a room, at the two-star rated el rey motel. and now you are in the bathroom, dimly lit by the dispersed light of a plastic water bottle placed atop your phone flashlight. you are in the bathtub, and though the water’s no longer hot, the temperature maintains its warmth from the heat emanating off your body. alongside mark lee’s.

it’s a forced darkness; the single lightbulb was out, and the early hour meant the motel staff had already retired for the night. with only one weak light source, the darkness of the room sets a tension so high that both of you are afraid to speak, much less move. but you put it upon yourself to break the tension, as it was your idea in the first place. bathing together.

the silence and the darkness combined makes it so every movement and every breath is unmistakeable and pronounced. the same applies to the sound of your voice when you start to speak, “thank you.”

all of a sudden, mark repositions himself. you can barely see it, but you hear the water sloshing and you feel it move about you. he’s sat across the tub, and you find it fascinating that even without light, his eyes still manage to shine. looking into them, you resume, “thank for everything you did, after we broke up.”

you can hear him swallow. the more you talk, the more you feel the tears pricking at your eyes, your emotions rising as you continue to speak, “and thank you driving me across the country, and for always being considerate, and for apologizing, and for…” your voice lowers to a bare whisper, “...everything. for everything you have ever done for me.”

“you don’t… you don’t have to thank me for anything.”

whereas your tears are at the precipice of falling, you notice that mark has begun crying. they’re silent, the way his tears roll down his left cheek. the water around you shifts, ebbs and flows, as you move closer to him and reach a useless wet hand to wipe his tears. you keep your hand on his cheek. and again, mark finds that he can hardly breathe, “i did it all… i did all of it, because i…”

mark breathes a sharp inhale, the air struggling to squeeze past the three words that remain lodged in his throat. he’s twenty-four now, and he’s still scared of the dark. but by no means is he scared of the monsters under his bed. without light, a camera has to resort to longer exposure times to piece together a full picture. without light, the human eye has to dilate to capture more of what is right in front of it. if his exposure is set too low and if his eyes fail to dilate, all that will remain will be a blurry image, uncertainty as to what was, nothing when there was actually everything. 

here in this bathroom, where there is nothing but you and him and a million unsaid truths, mark finds that he is terrified of losing what’s right in front of him to the darkness. again, he is most fearful of losing you.

both of your hands now cup his cheeks, bringing his face in line with your own. he has his arms around you, and you can feel his fingers pruning on the skin of your waist. you think you have an idea of what he’s about to say, was about to say, but you’re scared he won’t say it. with nothing but a thin veil of air between your noses, you decided to help him overcome his fears.

“i think we feel the same way about each other.” please say it to me.

mark blinks, breaks the stare, looks away, upwards, to the side, “we can’t possibly feel the same…”

he sounds almost exasperated, in the most diminished sense, but you push again, “even then, i don’t mind,” just tell me you love me.

“we can’t possibly feel the same…” mark returns your gaze again, and you watch as his pupils dilate, “because there’s no way you love me as much as i love you.”

the veil of air between your two noses lifts as you lean in for a kiss. a small one. one that says, i will always love you.

of all the things water could symbolize, the water in this bathtub surrounding the two of you represents life, the life that was breathed back into your relationship. this is owed to truth, which is a funny thing for it often hides in plain sight. a year ago at the lake, where the sun had touched every surface on the face of the earth, it had not bothered to dig deeper than that. it is only in the darkness that the truth has nowhere to hide. and if mark had been fearful of the dark moments ago, it is for this reason that he isn’t anymore.

「 DAY 06, 1:18 PM 」 —  LIKE WE JUST MET

the trunk of his beloved subaru crosstrek slams shut from behind. mark winces. the car door of the passenger seat slams shut shortly after. mark winces once again, and complains rather brashly, “can you not do that every time you get in my car?”

“you’re late. we’re late. can we just get going already?”

mark huffs, turning his attention to the front because the both of you are at fault. you, for not treating his baby with love and care. and him, for picking you up almost twenty minutes after he was supposed to. the wedding venue was an hour away including traffic, and now mark had only forty minutes to not jeopardize the state of his new old relationship.

he’s all but broken your neck by the time you arrive — only five minutes late — after accelerating and braking as aggressively as was necessary to get you to your destination.

while you collect your belongings, mark exits the car, straightens out his tux, and makes his way over to your side of the car, pulling the door open for you. you meet him with a glare while clambering out the car, “you’re lucky nothing’s started yet.”

with you as the maid of honor and with him as just your plus one, he spends most of the time idling around and mingling with acquaintances he hasn’t seen in ages, whilst you headed to the suites of the beachside resort to help your sister get ready. mark is shocked, more than he has been in the past week, to find out that you hadn’t told a single relative that you’d broken up with him in the first place. still, he plays his role as “boyfriend for almost three years” quite well.

throughout the rest of the day, mark notices a few things. 

1) you like the venue, a lot. a summer wedding on the beach, with pastels and flowers and the wind in everyone’s hair. and since you’d commented on these things more than once, mark made sure to commit it to memory for future reference.

2) your sister made a face at you before turning around and throwing the bouquet, which you caught. did everyone think he was supposed to propose right then and there? he doesn’t know, but something about the way your sister had regarded him the whole night makes him nervous. as in the “meeting the in-laws” kind of nervous.

3) lastly, you were more beautiful that you were yesterday. but also, yesterday you were more beautiful than you were the day before. mark had recognized this ongoing phenomena ever since you’d stepped in his car, and it doesn’t seem like there’s a cap to his admiration for you. at this point, it’s like he’s just waiting for any day now where it gets out of hand and he does propose.

it’s on the dance floor where this last point becomes very apparent to him. you’re laughing at everything he’s saying, eyes beaming up at him as he sways you this way and that. when he leans down to plant a kiss to your forehead, mark swears the smile you give in return could save lives with just how radiant it is. he feels a bit silly, like he’s gone a little crazy, but mark knows that the next wedding he’s going to will be his.

and it’s as if your minds communicated on a frequency that only the other could hear, as just the next moment you whisper in his ear.

“us next?”

✧ [ FIN. ]  copyright © 2023 rouiyan all rights reserved.  

✧ author's life update — honestly who knew i would get back into writing ff... basically i graduated from high school, got into a few t20 colleges, lost a parent to cancer, gained a parent, lost two best friends, broke up with my long term boyfriend, got my license, turned legal, AND saw the dreamies in concert. so if anyone's wondering why i left.... i'm just glad to say i'm so bored that i'm back. and yes this fic is mostly a self-indulgent account of what i wish my relationship and family life turned out to be but the moral of this story really is: if you're emotionally unstable, seek professional help before relying too much on your s/o. unless they are, of course, mark lee.

sources wnrs card game wnrs free deck (shhh) upmc pinnacle colon and rectal surgery center brockhampton saturation ii track 16 one star relax inn review little crazy love song alley spring mill the flea holiday inn at ok my fav tea that got me thru this wendy’s in amarillo sumner lake state park svalbard wikipedia things to do at white sands national park new mexico el rey motel

[braimin]

Law has the autism rizz, but that's nothing compared to Zoro's autism And ADHD rizz. Bro is unstoppable, Sanji took one look at this sword obsessed weirdo and went like "alright fine whatever I'll love this bitch for the rest of my fucking life"

Bestie you are correct ✨

Law will like, hear about the stuff you like and will be able to recite crazy shit that's somehow connected to it right off the top of his head. When he makes eye contact it's like you're the only person he's seeing (which is really because no one told him it's okay to look away when you talk to someone so he take eye contact very literally lol). He's the type to be vaugely unsettling when you first meet him and then when you get to know him he's got a very nice vibe to him. Also Law surprisingly has game when he hits on people, like he could really pull some hotties if he wanted to lol. (He doesn't, he hates people.)

Zoro, like Law, is wholly uninterested in most people. But I feel like Zoro's rizz is really niche, it takes a specific type of person to really get into him. Sanji is, unfortunately, one of those people. Which really just means he's a morosexual. Because Zoro is somehow simultaneously one of the smartest and dumbest people alive. He's so reckless he's borderline suicidal and yet he's one of their best strategists, he has never picked up a book in the entire time he's been with the crew and yet he is their human calculator.

Sanji has found himself on more than one occasion saying stuff like 'That's so fucking stupid, tell me more.' There's just something about the way Zoro says dumb shit. And it's always after saying the most profound and wise things.

He's also the perfect amount of bouncing off the walls kind of feral, like Law is, for the most part, a fairly monotone guy (unless he's around Luffy and Kid). But Zoro is ready to fight or fuck at the drop of a hat. When they first met Sanji saw him go crazy for a fight with a man who was so obviously out of his league, then almost die over it and was like 'Uh oh why was that attractive?' Every time he sees that feral smile before a fight it's like the 'oh no, he's hot!' meme plays in his head on repeat.

He's mostly hyper fixated on his swords but after spending so much time with Sanji, Zoro has accidentally learned a bunch of shit about food and the kitchen so he's incredibly helpful when it comes to shopping and cleaning. Because Zoro knows all his systems and follows them to a T (He complains every step of the way though and that pisses Sanji off.) He fits really well in his kitchen, Sanji has almost forgotten what it felt like to not have him there and he's not entirely sure he could go back to how it was before.

So yeah, Sanji goes from 'Damn, why am I into this little weirdo?' to 'Fuck, I'm in love with this freak aren't I?'

[shygirl4991]

Next Step With You Prologue High Rollers of affection

Cover mad by @lizaluvsthis do not repost! A Reboot of the next step! Next chapter Summary: SMG4 and SMG3 relationship changed after realizing their feelings in WOTFI 2023, now together the pair can take the next step together. That is until a strange gift arrives on SMG3's birthday making him face his demons from his past. 

Tags: Fluff, Boyfriends, Love Confession, Watch Wotfi 2023 before reading, first love, mention of igloo

SMG4 was giggling as he played club penguin, it was surprisingly a normal day given yesterday SMG3 snap after they failed to stop Mario from taking his notebook. Knowing Mario as long as he has there was no way he was keeping the notebook, given how peaceful it is, the notebook should be back in Three’s hand in no time.  He thought too soon as the door to his room flys open to reveal a panicked SMG3 “SMG4!! MARIO STOLE MY NOTEBOOK! I NEED YOUR HELP GETTING IT BACK!” he starts to wave a photo of the notebook at him. 

He was facing Three in his computer chair, annoyed and surprised at the fact that Mario kept his notebook “Pfft It's just a notebook, get a new one.” Four wasn’t sure what the big deal was. He knew it meant a lot to the man but losing the notebook doesn't mean the world will end. Three walks in the room visibly nervous “It’s not just any notebook it's got secrets,” he drops to his knees making Four get nervous “Including…” he looks around “Secrets about you and me, and certain events in an igloo.” SMG4's face goes pale as the hidden memory unlocks. The need for food, how they both needed warmth though Three was stubborn and rather die there then cuddle him for warmth. They both thought they were going to die, with this thought in four’s mind he looks at SMG3 he did find him attractive so why the hell not. The event that follows haunts the pair as they agreed to never talk about it again. Remember everything he screams jumping out of the chair “WE GOTTA GET THAT NOTEBOOK!” 

After that he runs out of the room to ask a casual question to Melony leaving Three to nervously sit in the room, seeing the man return he runs up to him grabbing his overall straps “What did you learn?” Slowly pulling away from the man he goes to sit on his computer chair “So Melony told me she noticed Mario taking something to some billionaire tycoon which has to be the notebook,” he points to a photo that Melony took of the location “and they both are inside this brand new casino. Its exact location? The CEO office.” SMG4 starts to type something on his computer, using the software Melony used to hack the cameras he connects to one in a safe showing them drilling into the notebook. He was warned that the place was tough to hack and not to stay on the cameras for long, shame they can't hack the cameras down would have made this situation easier.  Seeing the drills on his notebook Three chuckles “That’s right, that idiot Mario still needs my secret key to open it!”

Four nods wondering what the key could be as he starts to type in the program “Well..it's not just Mario that's behind this…he’s too stupid to do this on his own.” as he switches cameras Three could only watch in shock that Marty was the one truly behind everything.  Why a living cardboard meme that Mario made wants SMG3 notebook Four had no idea, given how badly  it wants in the notebook it has to be something huge. “MARTY!? THAT PIECE OF CARDBOARD CRAP IS BEHIND THIS?!?” glaring at the screen he takes out dynamite from his pocket. He throws the dynamite in the air and catches it with a smirk causing SMG4 to smile without noticing “Lets just break in and take it then!” after that he starts to run off only for Four to grab him “Slooow down cowboy.” he throws Three down getting a growl from the man.  SMG4 then points to another camera view on the screen “We can't just go in there guns blazing. This place is heavily guarded, I'm talking about state of the art security that will blow our asses up the moment we get detected.” he wanted this notebook back fast but they had to play their cards right. SMG3 slowly blinks looking at the picture on the screen “SMG4..this is just a picture of Mario.” 

Four nods pointing at Three “Exactly! So we’ll need to be sneaky and cunning about this! Who knows what that stupid fat Italian has up his sleeve.” After hours planning and Three fighting about Fours idea on letting his subscribers pick how to get his notebook back it was the day of the heist. SMG3 smirks, fixing his fedora and tie “Alright looking fresh!” he winks and snaps his fingers making Fours stomach flip. Something that has been happening ever since the pair became friends, he wasn't sure why it only happens around Three after days of thinking on the subject he assumed it had to do with their link and lived on ignoring the way his heart would race when being near the man. With their spy rizz outfits on they walk to the casino, SMG4 was smiling and waving at the crowd not noticing the loving look Three was giving him. You could ask Three why he was looking at the man like that and you can bet his answer will have nothing to do with how charming he found the man's outfit to be. They walk into the casino with no issue, SMG3 smiles getting ready for the mission only to hear someone humming. Turning he sees SMG4 sneaking as he hums the theme from Mission Impossible, letting out  a sigh as he walks up to the man smacking him “Dude, stop it.” four frowns and looks down agreeing to stop. 

“Hey!” the pair jumps hearing Mario’s yelling, they turn to see Mario checking everyone coming into the casino. He then pointed at his brother demanding answers, the pair watch as Mario lets Luigi in only to burn him alive for letting out a cough. They slowly turn to each other, nervous about what they just saw before Three shakes himself out of it, they had a mission no time to get cold feet.  “Alright, what the hell are we doing here?” hearing Three’s voice, Four looks at their watch to see what was voted. They both nod at the result and put on clown masks getting ready to scare the Italian man, they sneak up to him and start making loud sounds to scare him. Mario slams the table making the men nervous as he gets closer to them as he checks them both out then focuses on SMG4 “Your color schemes look awfully familiar..”

The more Mario stares at Four the more anxious Three feels, then he sees Mario start to drool and reach out to Four. He wasn't sure what was going on with Mario but he was sure it was something stupid and he had to stop him “THATS IT WERE WALKING THROUGH!” he pushes Four causing the mask to fall off. They all stay silent staring at the mask before SMG4 turns to mario “uhh i can explain..”  Mario screams, surprising the men “AHHHH A SCARY CLOWN!” SMG4 frowns seeing his best friend run from him, Three throws the mask off “Hey works for me, lets go.” he was going to walk away before four grabbed him “Am…am i really that horrific to look at?” Three felt himself blush as four looked up at him with puppy eyes. He looks away sighing “You look like how you always did, a shit head with a huge ego now can we go?” Four pouts at the comment before moving forward. 

They stand in the main lobby looking around to see the cameras in the lobby. “Great…Mario must be surveilling the place intensely, we have to shut off those security cameras.” they nod as they look at the watch. Their eyes go wide seeing the vote that won “Uh heh maybe the watch counted the votes wrong,” Four smacks the watch hoping the choice will change. SMG3 sighs seeing the panic four was going through, he looks around and smirks as he walks over to a booth asking for a song change for the lobby. Four sighs finally admitting defeat then starts to think “Do a sexy dance? How do I even pull that off? Is there a meme dance that could come off as sexy?” 

That's when Three grabs his arm pulling him close to his body, SMG4's face turns completely red seeing how close they are “T-Three?” the man moves Fours hand on his shoulder while holding the other one “Your dumb subscribers did the vote lets get this over with so we can get my notebook, follow my lead!” He then placed his hand on Fours lower back causing the man’s heart to start racing. SMG3 makes sure that Four was pressed against his body before moving, Four did his best to follow the steps that the other man was doing.Then tango music started to play making Fours eyes go wide “How is the tango a sexy dance?” SMG3 kept moving to the music then smirks “That idiot seems to get off with us being gay, so if he catches us this close dancing he will freak and knowing that idiot he will end up breaking something!” Four nods understanding where his partner was coming from. As they dance, Three picks up speed as Four attempts to keep focus on his steps, his mind starting to fill with strange thoughts. As he dances his eyes slowly drop to SMG3 lips those thoughts start to play louder in his head, he wants to kiss the man right there and the thought causes him to miss a step. 

Mario catches the dance on the camera and zooms in his eyes pops out as he sees the pair, he knows he should have hit the alarm but the close dance made him want to cheer the two in hopes they finally get together. Seeing Four missing the step Three takes the chance to do a final hit on Mario, dipping SMG4 he leans in close, pressing his forehead against the other man making it look like they kissed on the cameras. Four held his breath at how close they were, while Three was looking into Four’s eyes. A strange feeling hit them both, they were on a mission they had to get the notebook and yet Four couldn't help slowly moving his hand to the back of Three’s head. It was the perfect moment to kiss each other, something they both wanted at the moment, only to be broken out of the spell hearing Mario scream in excitement and blowing up all the cameras. SMG3 lifted up Four and smiled seeing that the mission was a success “Great! Let's go!” SMG4 watches Three walks ahead acting as nothing has happened, was he the only one that felt that spark. He follows Three, his thoughts filled with what happened. He takes out his phone and starts to search his feelings. Distracted Four agreed to a plan that Three made without knowing what it was about, his eyes widened as he read what the results showed “A deep romantic connection..me and Three?” he looks up to realize he missed what he had to do and Three was now being taken by Swag and Chris. Four panicked and was going to save Three only to feel something heavy hit him, knocking him out cold. 

He opens his eyes and look around the room confused only to see Mario pop up in front of him “Hello mother fucker!” seeing the plumber he starts to scream which woke up Three making him also scream. He turns to see Three was tied down, panic starts to build up inside of him thinking of what they could do to the man. Mario chuckles as he approaches Three “Mario?? LET US GO DUDE!” He was hoping that his call out would bring the man back to him.  Sadly the man he is growing a romantic attraction to was SMG3 “AND GIVE ME MY NOTEBOOK BACK YOU ASS!” Mario smirks at the tied up Three making Four wiggle against his restraints. “I’ve been waiting for this! We finally got them, didn't we Marty?” Marty sighs and agrees with Mario, he was annoyed that the plumber let them get away once and was lucky the spies got distracted. Mario turns his attention back to Three “Just give us the key to your notebook SMG3! We’ve tried everything but it wont open yet!” This was all Four's fault for searching on his phone, the guilt was eating him as he watched the scene play out in front of him. Three gives Four a soft look before gaining back his snarky personality “NEVER! I’ll never tell!”

Mario lets out a chilling laugh that caught both men's attention, he takes his phone out smirking, he hits play and starts showing cringe memes to Three. Their avatar knows them too well and had the perfect videos to make Three cringe, the more videos played the more he saw the man break to the point he started shedding tears “NOOO! HE CANT TAKE IT! LET HIM BE!”  Mario grins as he pulls up one last video the moment SMG3 sees it he screams. Four’s eyes flicker yellow as he looks around the room “Come on four think of something worse than what SMG3 is dealing with right now!” he focuses on all the cringe he has seen on the internet till he shrivels up from it. Now free from the rope he runs towards Mario he can hear Three about to break “Hey ass!” catching Mario’s attention he throws Eggdog out, the pup attacks the plumber while he runs to untie Three. The moment he unties Three he starts to shout “IM FREE! IM FREE!” rolling his eyes he grabs the man pulling him off the table to run out of the room with Eggdog following. 

As they leave room Three turns shaking Four “WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO YOU!?” Four frowns looking down, he starts to play with the button of his vest. “I was feeling strange so…i wanted to look up what was going on because it was distracting.” SMG3 lets four go and sighs giving him a quick look up and down before nodding “you seem fine now, just we are a team talk to me.” He didn't know what to do, Three was rarely this soft and now knowing the strange emotion he has been ignoring is he could feel his heart racing. Taking a deep breath he grabs Three's hand “If my viewers make the choices that land us in green, I have something I need to tell you.” They looked in each other's eyes, seeing how serious four looked the man nodded before they moved forward. 

The pair were losing it after being chased by Mario and ending up in a game show forcing them to watch what happened to them in the igloo. After that the pair found Depresso and used him as a distraction to get ready to fight the plumber in which Three was surprised to see Four was good at fighting the avatar out without breaking a sweat. Now they opened the door and were standing across the safe with their prize. Three was going to walk only to be stopped by Four, he then pulls out baby powder and blows it revealing lasers in the room. “Yep, just as I expected! These lasers will probably explode if we touch them.” SMG3 looked at the bottle then back at Four “Why do you have baby powder?” SMG4 sighs “I have a sensitive ass!” with awkward nods they both turn to focus on the lasers.  SMG4, seeing the results, smirks “Watch this!” SMG3 watched in awe as he watched the meme guardian front flip, avoiding all the lasers and making it to the other side. He hits the button and winks at his crush making Threes face red “What are you waiting for we got a notebook to save!” 

That moment SMG3 wished he had his notebook to doodle the moment he saw, though he was sure those flips and wink will haunt his mind all day. They cheer getting into the safe only to be stopped by Marty and Mario, together with their meme power they manage to put a stop to the pair and grab the notebook. After more attempts by Marty and Mario to stop them, the pair escape and win the day with their watches landing on green. Four smiles seeing how happy Three was, then he looks at the watch nervously knowing what he has to do soon. Hours later they announced to the subscribers that thanks to them they saved the notebook, Three was so happy to get it back he started to smooch the book making Four giggle. After teasing SMG3 about why he was building a new evil lair right next to his castle he lets out a small yawn, who knew doing a heist could take so much out of you.  “Speaking of cafes…I’m dead tired.” he gives his partner a small smile “Lets have some coffee.”  For the first time since they have known each other things felt peaceful, maybe it was them both being drained from the heist or maybe this whole event brought them closer together. He remembers back a few weeks ago how SMG1 and two told them they had to get along in order for their powers to get stronger, all that event did was give him work to tell the world how they two weren't together due them being caught holding hands thanks to Marios gum. 

SMG3 perks up hearing his words “Now we’re talkin!” walking together they sit on a pile of wood  waiting to become a part of SMG3 cafe, SMG4 smiles looking at the sunset as SMG3 starts doing their coffee. They smile at each other doing a small cheer as they clink their

cups together and drink, as SMG4 enjoys the warmth of the coffee he notices SMG3 writing in his notebook with a huge smile "What are you writing?" he knew he wasn't going to get an answer but it wasn't going to hurt him to ask you never know what mood SMG3 is in.

He smirks and turns away "I'll never tell!" SMG3 makes sure the other cant see the drawing he is doing of them both with cups of coffee.

With a giggle he nods "Don't worry i wont push it," as he looks back at the sunset his heart starts to beat faster. This would be the perfect moment wouldn't it? He had to admit the closer they got the harder it was for him to keep his feelings in check. When he hears the notebook close he decides now is the time with one last gulp of the coffee he turns to SMG3 "You know...this heist got me thinking,” 

SMG3 sips his coffee and stares at his partner "What that we should be full time spies, cause i'm not a fan of the idea of your fans telling me how to live my life," SMG4 shakes his head with a small chuckle "No, nothing like that...just we make a good team don't we?"

He keeps staring at SMG4 feeling confused on what was going on with the man next to him, seeing this SMG4 sighs feeling himself blush. "You know...people ship us together...and uh with all that's happened to us i started to wonder...." he had no idea what he was doing. Every TV show he has seen made confessions look easy, even Axol made it look sweet and easy with the manga he was making before everything.

SMG3's eyes go wide as he also starts to blush "Why are you bringing this up all of a sudden, idiot!!"

SMG4 closes his eyes "WHAT IF WE MAKE IT CANON!?"

Everything was dead silent, he was nervous to open his eyes to see how SMG3 was looking at him. Finally he hears a whisper "you....what?" Slowly he opened his eyes to see a stun SMG3, his face was as red as his eyes, it almost made SMG4 giggle for how cute it was to see him like that. "I..well i like you i figured it out today when we were on the heist, so i was wondering if maybe we can try...the next step?"

SMG4 started to get worried he broke the man for how long it took for him to move again, he watches as SMG3 stares at the floor then his notebook. His heart sank, did the guardian not feel the same as him?

SMG3 gets up and stands in front of him "Fine, i guess i...i like you too! But don't let it get to your head...Baka!"

SMG4 lights up, standing up and hugging him, ignoring the heat on his face, Three hugged his boyfriend back. They separated and gave each other a small smile before Four spoke up “Need a place to crash till the cafe is done..you can stay with me till then.” SMG3 looks at the castle then his hand thinking about the graveyard, staying here they both could figure out this new step easier then him in another location “Yeah that could work..but can we keep this thing with us on the down low not sure i'm ready for the idiots to learn about us.” with a nod they both slowly reach for each other's hand and let out nervous giggles. Now holding hands the pair walk into the castle to move SMG3 in,Little did they know a shadow was watching them from a distance growling at what they just saw. 

2/6/24 date written

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

AITA for making a stupid joke about white people names?

a group of friends and I (all 18+) were chatting, and one of them, Patty, mentioned how certain ethnic names have odd spellings that throw people off, or how some names might be spelled the familiar way but pronounced differently. that conversation eventually devolved to making jokes about obnoxious white people name, like adding 'eigh' instead of a 'y' or 'ie' etc, y'all know the meme. lakynn and other shit like that. I was under the assumption that, because we were now joking around about something similar but NOT ethnic names, the conversation topic changed.

so anyways, I made an edit of the woman with the sign and circling the weird spelling she was choosing, the blond pregnant woman wearing a blue shirt meme? I put one of the weird spellings we were talking about earlier in it, and we all had a good laugh bc imo it was genuinely funny at the time. for the record, I was not the only one making these jokes, but I was the only one who made a meme about it.

later on (like over a couple weeks, I think), we realize Patty hadn't messaged in the group for a while. I eventually find out through another friend, Greta, that Patty was super hurt by my joke about white people name spelling, saying that it was super rude and disrespectful to her and her (real, ethnic) name.

honestly, I saw where I fucked up and asked Greta if Patty was open to talking to me, as I wanted to properly apologize. I get that making a white people name joke after JUST talking about how ethnic names were disrespected was in bad taste, and I really do appreciate and value Patty as a friend. Greta then tells me that Patty refuses to talk to me, doesn't want an apology, and wants us to forget this ever happened.

I end up telling Greta that, while I regret what I said, it was hurtful that Patty, someone who I had a good relationship with previously, waited so long to say something and that I had to find out what happened through someone else. I've stated multiple times in this friend group that I'd want someone to call me out/in, rather than let me keep hurting people because of my ignorance. I always try to be receptive, and it hurt that Patty waited so long to talk to Greta to then tell me I fucked up so long after the initial conversation.

After all of this, I was pretty hurt too. not because Patty didn't decide to educate me, but because the relationship I thought we had was apparently flimsy enough that Patty would cut me off and give no chance for us to actually talk. it felt like a slap to the face, because we had known each other for years at that point, and this was the first incident between us. But then suddenly Patty was gone and refused to talk to me.

later on, after "dropping it" per Patty's request, I tried messaging them. not even to talk about what happened, but just to see how they were doing and try to rebuild our relationship. I simply got a message that Patty was busy with life and didn't have time to talk.

I realize that's a lot of information, but I guess my question actually is, AITA for trying to apologize for the stupid joke? For being hurt that I wasn't told anything until it was too late?

Other information: as far as I'm aware, I was the only one who Patty had an issue with after the joking conversation. Patty has continued to talk to other people in the group, but pointedly ignores me. I've tried a couple times to join a conversation that Patty was in, but they tend to go quiet after, so I gave up doing that and just try to keep my distance.

What are these acronyms?

[minniiaa]

Sorry if this seems repetitive but I haven't been active on social media in yearsss

Is it true that there's a lot of lawlu hate on tiktok and Twitter? I'm so confused because there used to be so much love for the ship back in 2017/2018 from my perspective (Amino era).

The short answer: yes and no. Let me start by saying I'm not the best person to answer this since I purely consume on twitter. I made my personal twitter in 2007 like it's everyone I've ever known irl and has nothing to do with shipping or hobbies and I follow approx 0 accounts related to anime, manga, or lawlu. I just looked up lawlu a few times and browsed and suddenly it's my whole fucking timeline and there’s no going back and now I have a lawlu twitter (This makes me very happy).

So if anyone else has an opinion on this that is more in the community, please feel free to comment away. Otherwise, below are my observations.

First off, there IS a ton of love for the ship. Most of what I see is beautiful art (they got the nsfw ayo), memes, fanfics, and headcanons just like tumblr. There are tons of comments of people swooning over these posts, Lawlu IS one of the most popular OP ships after all.

There's just a vocal minority that are very against the concept of shipping and in that subset there are those who are very against Lawlu. There people out there that will literally list accounts to block that ship lawlu or write lawlu DNI in their bios. The same can be said for other ships, it's not just this one it’s any they deem a ‘pro ship’ (problematic ship) and Lawlu is generally considered one of these. Below as is an example:

The biggest issues I’ve seen with Lawlu are the following 1. luffy is aroace and cant be shipped period 2. law groomed luffy and the age gap is gross. IMO I think most of these people are just infantilizing Luffy as some goofy autistic kid that doesn't know what love and sex are when in reality he's very self-aware and happy does not equal stupid. Also he's 19 he’s not underage. He met Law twice when he was 17, one of which was saving his life as a doctor and Luffy was unconscious most of this time. Let's not forget Luffy's a war criminal kicking the asses of people 4x his age in a pirate world, age doesn't really work the same as irl.

BUTTT Not that any of this matters because you can ship whoever the fuck you what because guess what? It's ~fiction~. I could rant about how people can ship whatever the hell they want all day but I'll save my breath for now. (my opinion of course)

Also there are just mentally ill people who enjoy telling others to kys if you like something they like do. Lawlu shippers are just their chosen target demographic. Creators get foul messages in their inboxes, rude comments, just general hater behavior. Twitter is just a firey cesspool and all fandoms have 'fans' who do nothing but hate. We live in an age of negativity where being a hater is the cool thing to do.

HOWEVER, I see more people posting about why those people are wrong and stupid than the actual negative tweets but maybe that's because I actually support the ship and the algorithm sees that. Not sure how twitter works, nor do I want to know about that dumpster fire there's a reason I came over to tumblr.

As for tiktok, I don't really consume a lot of tiktok so I can't speak on it besides seeing cosplayers and cute animations/art. I'll leave that to the tiktok people to look into.

For argument's sake, I went through the lawlu tag and picked some lovely tweets to share with you so you can see the toxicity for yourself. Sadly only 10 images per post but I think you get the point. Thanks for the ask hope this was informative. :)

[isa-ghost]

isa my bestie. do u have any tallulah and phil headcanons

Always famsquad

Other qPhil headcanons

Take one look at this man and tell me with your whole chest he's confident. NO HE IS NOT. He gets so insecure about being a good adoptive dad for her. He internalizes the full extent of it but oh my god is he terrified she thinks he loves her less than Chayanne or only took her in out of obligation or isn't good enough for her in general

She makes him laugh SO MUCH. Her dramatics, her comedic timing, the Mexican culture things/memes she shares with him once in a while. Even when she doesn't intend to, she makes him laugh so often. Genuinely she makes The Horrors more bearable for him.

He hates not being great at words bc he feels like he isn't the best advocate for her that he could be. Example: when she was wary of the new eggs. He didn't know how to vouch for her beyond reassurances she'd come around. He wishes he could've articulated himself better bc he Understands her but can't put it into words to other people to the degree he'd like to.

He will literally never look at flowers the same way again. Tallulah literally overwrote his association of them with Rose. Now his first thought is "peepoHappy Tallulah!!" Instead of Rose. Rose is now second.

Tallulah genuinely brings out a gentler side to him. This man is hardened by survival and bloodshed and at least one death in his past. He's a bit closed off and suspicious out of second nature. She brings him out of that shell so easily, he doesn't even realize it's happening.

She can see right through his bullshit and it's so fucking funny. "I'm doing fine m8" and she's just like "[cocks gun] Doubt. Bitch. Try again." She WILL cure this man of his emotional constipation.

I firmly believe she'll be the one to motivate Phil to finally build smth on a Hardcore Project scale one day. Somehow. He'd do it for her.

If he ever says he doesn't like when she acts like a little shit, don't listen to him. He's lying through his teeth. Tallulah being a little shit amuses him endlessly.

Tallulah doesn't swear a Ton, at least not as often as he does. He wishes she did, bc whenever she does it's super funny and usually perfectly timed.

Her wing hugs mean the fucking world to him they make him so ;-; every time

Tallulah has somewhat adopted Phil's over-caution. She's a bit more traumatized by The Nightmare than Chayanne is. The "abuel" sign haunts her

Phil will sing stupid songs along to her flute until she hits him for his goofy nonsense lyrics

Speaking of her flute, her playing Sweden unironically gives him nostalgia and kinda soothes his nerves. It's like his cue of "the kids are okay, they're safe and happy." The first time he heard it again after Purgatory & the eggs' recovery, he cried a little (I'm projecting)

One of the reasons he was most salty about The Reset was because it meant they can't go to Tallulah's botanical garden, her farm in the wall, or any of her other cool builds

Phil found her the purple striped hat she has in Phil's chat emote. She has it fr so she can be Just Like Papa :D