#i need to read that lecture again tbh

[forlix]

𝐚𝐜𝐞・h.h.

— volleyball superstar and your personal hell hwang hyunjin proposes a trade-off you can't refuse: his matchmaking services for a passing anthropology grade. the plan is foolproof in theory; in practice, it is something else entirely.

words・15.2k

pairing・volleyball player!hyunjin x tutor!reader (gn)

genres・college!au, sports!au, fake enemies to friends to lovers, fluff, humor, hurt/comfort, slice of life, mutual pining, slow burn. two polar opposites sharing one soul. a seungjin fic if u squint. loosely inspired by the manga/anime haikyuu!!

warnings・mentions of anxiety, fear of failure, heartbreak, loneliness, and self-image. course language and callous banter (as always) ft. suggestive flirting and one kms joke. some of the referenced players and coaches are real; this fic is not.

playlist・collision by stray kids・value by ado・waiting for us by stray kids・eternity by bang chan・dreaming by smallpools・fly high!! by burnout syndromes

a/n・writing this felt like returning to my roots tbh. i love volleyball and i love sports aus and i love, love hwang hyunjin. thank u to my sahar for bringing this fic to life with me, as always; i can no longer write for him without also writing for you. i hope u guys enjoy reading this as much as i adored writing it. happy late birthday, our jinnie, our hyunjin, our forever ace; you are so unbelievably loved ♡

“Not a word out of you,” you say, tossing your backpack onto the floor of the lecture hall with a heavy-handed flick. “I’m serious.”

Hyunjin glances up at you with a frown. “When did people stop saying good morning?”

Your lack of an immediate comeback tells him the situation is dire. He observes you for a moment, his mouth falling open, hanging still, then curving into a slow, serpentine smile.

“Look at me.”

“No.”

“Look at me.”

“No.”

“Please, angel.”

“No! Leave me alone.”

Hyunjin slumps back into his seat, thinking hard. The solution occurs to him with a poke of his tongue into his cheek. “Coffee on me for a week.”

At this, your hands stop rummaging in your bag. You cock your head, your interest piqued. Got you. 

When you finally humor him and turn around, you’re flinching like you’re in pain, eyes closed and breath held and all. He giggles and leans in for a closer look. Tendrils of your body spray reach him from here, floral and light like a tropical coastline. He could’ve counted your eyelashes if he wasn’t so flummoxed by the state of your forehead.

“What the hell did you do?”

“Tried to cut my own bangs,” you sigh. “It didn’t go very well and now I look like Rock Lee.”

Hyunjin lets out a forceful laugh. “You’ve seen Naruto?”

You open your eyes. Only then does Hyunjin remember how little distance he left between your faces, when he’s staring straight into them and all the strange, starry speckles they hold.

The air between you curdles like sour milk.

Things are awkward between you often, he’s realized recently. What’s more, he didn’t think he was capable of being awkward with anyone anymore until he met you. It was your ill-fated seat that he chose to sit next to on the first day of ANTH 111, your ill-fated lap onto which he chose to spill his Americano, and the rest was history (or, in this case, anthropology). His tongue ends up in sailor’s knots with every smart-aleck comment and pitiful laugh you’ve given him since. Maybe there’s more to it, maybe there isn’t—Hyunjin doesn’t think about it much. He doesn’t like thinking in general.

You pull away from each other in unison. You clear your throat, glancing elsewhere. 

“Of course I’ve seen Naruto,” you quip, and everything is normal again. “Why do you seem surprised?”

“Because you’re so scholarly.”

“I am not scholarly.”

He raises an eyebrow. “You go to a park to play chess with old people on weekends.”

“I need to get my steps in somehow.”

“You didn’t know what Urban Dictionary was until I told you to look up—”

“God, I learned so much about you that day."

“Your favorite social media platform is Quizlet,” he bursts, exasperated. “Quizlet.”

“It is not.” An introspective pause. “Or is it?”

“I wouldn’t be surprised.” Hyunjin throws his feet up on the chair below him, jabs in your direction with a bandaged finger. “There is no way you enjoy watching 2D men beat each other up in your free time. I don’t buy it.”

“Honestly, I thought you’d have more to say about my current appearance than my hobbies.”

He does, though. Matter of fact, he’s been curating a list since this conversation started: Vector from Despicable Me, Dora the Explorer’s hot older sibling, Spock. You face-planted into a lawnmower. You mistook a paper shredder for a hat. It goes on.

But then his head turns. Your eyes meet again. He’s reminded that it’s hard to sustain an inner monologue and look at you at the same time, Vector resemblance and all.

He reaches up, nudges a lock of your hair over a centimeter or so, and gives the patch of forehead a gentle flick.

“Watermelon,” he mumbles with a sickening smile.

You divert your attention to your lecture notes with a disappointed click of your tongue. “You’re getting soft.”

He spends the entire lecture daydreaming about tropical coastlines.

“I only get coffee from that one place on the east side of campus, by the way,” you say as you’re strolling out the building together, “and I get it a very specific way. Can you handle it?”

“Your faith gets me out of bed in the morning,” Hyunjin deadpans. “I’ll handle it, love. Text me your order.”

All of a sudden, you position your hands close to your stomach, the lapels of your jacket casting them in shadow. Your fingers begin to move in a sequence that he’d recognize anywhere.

“Body flicker jutsu,” you whisper, and then you’re scurrying off without another word—but you do glance back at him to gauge his response. Your smile is purely effulgent, your laugh but a faint sigh against the main quad’s busy thrum.

Hyunjin gapes at your retreating figure for so long that phosphenes start prancing around his field of view. Then he heads to the gym. His heart is pounding against his ribs like a battering ram.

“Hwang, I need you in my office.”

Hyunjin stops lacing up his shoes to see Coach Bang standing on the court’s sideline with a grim air about him. He glances at his captain, confused.

“Don’t look at me,” Minho says mid-stretch. “Godspeed.”

“Thanks, cap.” Useless.

Head volleyball coach Christopher Bang’s workspace reminds Hyunjin of a morgue. It’s all fluorescent lights and spotless white walls, the only decorative fixture a picture of his siblings, parents, and dog in front of the Sydney Opera House, framed and facing him atop his desk. Hyunjin once snuck the thing into the bathroom, an innocent plot to satiate his curiosity, and promptly discovered the man’s propensity for violence. He’s packing beneath those dry-cleaned polos, by the way.

Hyunjin closes the door and takes a seat. Bang taps a knuckle against the tempered glass of his monitor. “You can read, right?”

“Yes, coach,” he sighs. Everyone’s expectations for him are subterranean.

From: Park Jinyoung «asiansoul_jyp@snu.edu» To: Bang “Christopher” Chan «cb97@snu.edu» Subject: Not good See email from Hwang’s antopology professor below . He submitted the complete script of the Trolls movie instead of his mid term paper and now he’s failing the class . Not good . Sort out ASAP JP Sent from my iPad

Bang snatches up his mouse and scrolls, his ears turning scarlet. “Wrong email.”

“Yep.”

From: Kim Kyeyoung «kyeyoungkim@snu.edu» To: Park Jinyoung «asiansoul_jyp@snu.edu» Subject: Regarding Hwang Hyunjin To Director of Athletics Park, I am writing to inform you that, as of yesterday, Mr. Hwang Hyunjin has a D- (64.9%) in ANTH 111: Cultural Anthropology, due to his submission of the complete script of a kids’ movie instead of his midterm paper. It is disappointing to see Mr. Hwang trivialize and ridicule my class to such a degree. Please see to it that he reorganizes his priorities lest his Student-Athlete Participation Agreement do so for him. Regards, Kim Kyeyoung Professor of Anthropology

“That’s bullshit!”

“We’re in agreement there.” Bang folds his arms over his chest, throws his foot over his knee. “Do you know what your Student-Athlete Participation Agreement says?”

“Does anyone?” Hyunjin scoffs. Bang whips out a form and brings it to eye level, the thing covered from top to bottom in microscopic Times New Roman. “No way you just had that.”

“I had it delivered ten minutes ago,” Bang confesses, then clears his throat and begins to recite. “All student-athletes must complete the academic term with a C or higher in all courses, should they wish to continue their participation in athletics thereafter.”

Hyunjin stiffens. “What the fuck? I’ve never heard—”

“If any Department of Athletics personnel,” Bang continues, raising his voice, “have reason to believe that a student-athlete will not be able to satisfy this requirement, they are encouraged to utilize resources such as academic advising or peer tutoring in guiding said student-athlete back onto the correct path.”

He shoves the piece of paper across his desk. “Read that name aloud for me.”

Hyunjin stares at the signature at the bottom of the page, scrawled so carelessly that most of it deviates away from its designated line. There is a rare hollowness in his chest that he recognizes as anxiety. With it comes a glimpse of a life without volleyball, the question of what little of him would remain.

“Hwang Hyunjin,” he says under his breath.

The office goes silent. Bang tucks the form back into his drawer. It closes with a gentle click.

Then comes the yelling.

“The Trolls movie? Trolls?! Are you fucking with me, Hwang?”

“It was a cultural reset! The pinnacle of modern media! How’s that for anthropology?”

“BAD!” Bang explodes, gesturing to the email emphatically. “VERY, VERY BAD!”

Hyunjin slumps over, dejected.

“You’ve never had trouble with school before.” He leans over his desk imposingly. “What the hell happened this semester? What changed?”

Nothing is the first answer that comes to mind, but Hyunjin’s pulse spikes like a lie detector. Upon the inside of his eyes replays a scene of a certain someone with watermelon bangs doing teleportation jutsu at him from a few yards away, wearing a smile made of some kind of space dust that astronomists haven’t discovered yet.

He grits his teeth, annoyed. This is what happens when he thinks.

“Beats me,” he fibs. “Typical junior year stress, maybe.”

“Does any of it have to do with Piazza?” 

Hyunjin shudders.

It just might, actually.

Modesty has no place in the career he’s had: high school national champion turned ace hitter in both the South Korean U21 roster and regular rotation for Seoul National University, the best collegiate volleyball team in the country. His name has lived at the top of ranking lists and the center of gold medals since he turned old enough to qualify for them; the press believes him the instigant of South Korea’s imminent volleyball revolution. It’s a mouthful, he knows.

It was never a question that he would go professional; the question was who he should talk to and where he would go.

At the start of the school year, Bang, acting in place of the agent he was advised to find and never bothered to, gave him a list of people to reach out to. On the very top was none other than Roberto Piazza, the chairman and head coach of Allianz Milano, one of the most eminent club teams in the world—and current home to Hyunjin’s personal idol, outside hitter Ishikawa Yuki.

Hyunjin thought his poor coach had finally succumbed to his old age. The thought of stepping onto the same court as Ishikawa felt sacrilegious, let alone donning the red, white, and navy blue of Allianz Milano with him. But Bang slapped him on the back of the neck and reminded him that going professional was equal parts preparation and opportunity; he was never going to know the answers to questions he didn’t ask. Hyunjin was coerced to fire off an introductory email despite his reservations.

Piazza replied within the week.

For the last five months, Hyunjin has been fighting with tooth and nail to manage his expectations. He scrolls past the team’s social media posts like they burn his eyes. He replies to Piazza’s emails right before working out with Changbin under the assumption that whatever the shredded libero does to him will eviscerate his brain. If his world is made of dreams, this is the one at its very core, imbued with destructive potential the second it became attainable.

But that’s the last five months. The last five weeks have been you kicking him in the shin because he’s laughing (or trying to make you laugh) and the professor is staring; you listening to him rant and rave about volleyball when he knows you couldn’t care less about the sport; you relaying the contents of your class readings like hot gossip, your eyes wild and hands flying around because you can’t contain your excitement. You, you, you.

He cards a hand through his air, regaining focus. “You know how I feel about Piazza.”

“Expect the worst, hope for the best.” Bang’s chair skids backwards as he stands up. “I think it’s a good approach.”

Suddenly, he is directly in front of Hyunjin, low enough to meet his eyes. His hands rest upon his shoulders firmly.

“But hope is hungry, and it will consume you if you let it,” he says. “Do not let it, Hyunjin. I’m not asking.”

Even while being squeezed to a pulp and regarded with the cold intensity of a statue, Hyunjin can’t help but feel anchored, somehow, to the floor of this miserable office. Protected.

Bang lets go of him. “I’m not asking you to find a tutor by the end of the week, either.”

Hyunjin groans. “Yeah, yeah. I’m on it.”

A set of bandaged fingers appear in your periphery to place a paper cup onto your laptop. Accompanying the smell of fresh coffee is that of smoky rose, as decidedly douchey as ever.

“I thought you said your order was complicated.”

You look up from your phone to see Hyunjin plop into the adjacent seat. His long, caramel-colored hair is damp and unstyled in the aftermath of a morning shower, droplets of water pearling on the lapels of a navy blue windbreaker, layered over a white long sleeve. You recognize the outfit by now as game gear.

“Was it not?” You ask.

“It was an Americano, love. I walked up to the cashier and placed an order for an Americano.”

“Well, I wasn’t sure if you could handle that much.” He flips you off as you squint at the cup. “Someone wrote their number on the lid, by the way.”

“What? Really?”

“No.”

He shoves you hard enough for your upper body to drape over the opposite armrest; you’re still cackling by the time you’ve straightened up again.

“Why did you get this, anyway?” Hyunjin grumbles. “I thought you had a sweet tooth.”

“I do, but you don’t.”

Only then does the fool understand that you had no intention of charging him in coffee just for a haircut reveal. He takes back the coffee hesitantly.

“Thanks,” he says at last. “Nice of you.”

“I know, right? Hated it,” you respond, and he almost chokes on his first sip.

You almost choke on nothing when Kim Seungmin materializes in the aisle adjacent. He holds out a hand in Hyunjin’s direction. “Yo.”

Hyunjin dabs it up mid-sip. “I fully forgot you were in this class.”

“Well, I’m due for my weekly appearance.” Seungmin slips into the seat directly below you, glancing at you over his shoulder. “Hey, Y/N.”

“Hi,” you say, somehow managing to stumble over the single syllable the word has. You thank your lucky stars that you fixed your hair yesterday.

You like Kim Seungmin. Not just in the cutesy, crushy way, but in the “I would relinquish all of my rights for you” way where you spend every waking moment cursing out whatever stroke of misfortune placed Hyunjin in the seat next to you instead of him. He’s funny, gorgeous, and talented—a vocal performance major with a student-athlete contract—and you think your infatuation is more than justified. Hyunjin thinks it’s hilarious.

You side-eye your blonde adversary, prepared to see one of three things: a suppressed laugh, a dramatic eye-roll, or a mature kissy face that usually results in the first option. You’re met with something far more worrisome.

He’s thinking.

That can’t be good.

Suddenly, his phone screen lights up with a text that temporarily wipes the conspiratorial gleam from his eye. Hyunjin scans it over and groans. “Can this guy do his fucking job?”

“He wouldn’t have to if you didn’t quit,” Seungmin answers. “I’ll never forget you, Manager Hwang.”

“Shut up.” You peer at Hyunjin, silently requesting an explanation. “Our captain is forcing us to help him look for a new team manager. We need one for playoffs because of some stupid U-League rule—Seung, why do you look morose?”

“I’m mourning.” Seungmin does look morose indeed. “Hyunjin committed larceny last year and our coach punished him by making him our team manager for the rest of the season. It was so funny.”

Hyunjin slides down his seat. “It was the worst experience of my life.”

Neither man seems inclined to elaborate on the mention of larceny. You choose to digress. “Can I ask why?”

“He had to be responsible,” Seungmin whispers. “For other people.”

The top of Hyunjin’s head stops right next to your armrest. You reach over and pat his hair in faux sympathy. “Poor thing.”

“Hardass refused to do it again this year, so now we’re recruiting.” Seungmin props an elbow upon the back of his chair, looks at you contemplatively. “I don’t suppose you have four hours to spare every day.”

Hyunjin scoffs from below you. Loudly. “This one? Team manager?”

“I can see it.”

“I can see killing myself, maybe.”

The next time you reach for him is to hit his forehead. A crisp smack resounds around the barren lecture hall. Hyunjin cusses into his seat cushion.

“Seems like a great candidate to me,” Seungmin muses, and the warm smile he gives you mirrors onto your face before you can think better of it. God, it’s pretty. You wonder how it would feel pressed against your own.

Hyunjin is now completely out of sight and halfway onto the floor. “I miss when you didn’t come to class, Seungmin.”

Eighty minutes later, you’ve just emerged from the classroom when Seungmin calls out to you. You come to such a sudden halt that Hyunjin almost trips over you, but you barely notice him stumble, utterly enraptured by the hand Seungmin brings to the strands of hair by your ear, the fingers that dust your cheek as they pluck a small piece of lint from out of the tresses.

“Sorry.” He flicks it away with a sheepish smile. “I couldn’t unsee it.”

You manage to thank him just before your whole body ceases to function. Hyunjin sidesteps the two of you, yawning.

Seungmin excuses himself not too long after you reach the main quad. You also turn to leave, sparing Hyunjin a curt farewell in the process. He hooks his pointer finger around the handle at the top of your backpack and lugs you backwards with infuriating ease.

“I didn’t like that at all,” you say.

“I don’t care. I have something to tell you.”

“You have a kid, don’t you?”

“Wha—huh? Who do you think I am?”

“The one-night-stand’s poster child. The champion of the contraception industry.”

“Yeah, contraception industry. It’s right there in the name.”

You can’t argue with that. “What do you have to tell me?”

A shadow of hesitation flits across Hyunjin’s face. Your smile falters. Is it possible that you’re about to have a serious conversation with him for the first time? Maybe you should’ve saved the secret son bit for another time.

“I’m failing anthro.”

So much for a serious conversation. 

“Come again?”

He repeats the mystifying statement.

“You’re joking.” The look on his face says otherwise, though, and your eyebrows disappear into your hair. “You’re failing anthro?”

“I just said that, yes.”

“You’re failing anthropology?”

“Mhm.”

“Just so we’re clear—you’re failing Introduction to Cultural Anthropology?”

“Yes. I’m glad you’re having fun.”

This is the best day of your life. “I didn’t even know that was possible.”

“Yeah, well, our professor has no media literacy,” he mutters.

“What?”

“Nothing.” Hyunjin clears his throat. “Anyways, I was thinking—”

“Wow! Congratulations. That’s a big—oomf—”

Hyunjin puts his entire hand over your face. Your mangled noises of protest go unacknowledged.

“I was thinking,” he continues, pushing your head around like a stick shift, “you and I can work out some kind of deal.”

You shove his wrist off you with a revolted groan. “I think I just ate some athletic tape.”

“Happens. You wanna hear the deal or not?”

“Does it involve ingesting more sports equipment?”

“Do you want it to?”

“Just tell me the deal, boy.”

“Alright.” He takes a deep breath. “If you help me pass this class, I’ll set you up with Seungmin.”

Your head performs a triple-axel on your neck. You are unable to respond for what feels like multiple hours. Finally: “I’m gonna need you to elaborate.”

“On which part?”

“All of them. Everything.”

Hyunjin sighs, then scans the courtyard. His gaze settles on the student union a little ways off. “Are you hungry?”

You pick up a sandwich and a smoothie in a state of nervous stupor. One would think it’s the prime minister you’re about to have lunch with and not an imbecilic left-side hitter eating from three different entrees at the same time.

He’s chosen a table a few yards away from a planter of flowering cherry blossom trees. You feel jealous eyes on the side of your face as you take a seat across from Hyunjin, but they don’t know that his telephone pole legs still bump against yours even with them drawn as close to your body as anatomically possible. Or that he’s drawing up a literal Ponzi scheme on your sandwich wrapper. You wager you’ve had better company.

“You like anthropology. I like listening to you talk about anthropology.” He traces over the wrapper’s left corner. “And I kinda want you to boss me around. That weird?”

“Yes, definitely,” you mumble around a mouthful of bread. “Go on.”

“Conclusion one: you should be my tutor.” He taps in place as if applying a finishing touch, then swaps to the opposite side. “You also like my teammate, but he’s neck-deep in volleyball and music this semester, which makes him hard to get a hold of—for most people.”

“Let me guess. Not for you.”

“Ten points to Ravenclaw.” His British accent is nightmarish. “Seung and I live in the same building. We get dinner when we go back from practice together. Conclusion two: you should come with us.”

“To dinner or to practice?”

“To both. Which brings us to my third and final conclusion—”

He slams a fist onto the center of the wrapper.

“—you should manage our team.”

“I knew it!” You slam the table as well, your smoothie wobbling upon impact. “You’re trying to swindle me! You can’t pay for my labor with more labor. What do you take me for?”

“It’s not labor, dumbass! Ask our last manager! He didn’t do shit!”

“Yeah? Who was your last manager?”

“Me!”

Oh, right. “But you hated it!”

“I hate everything that isn’t playing volleyball. Try again.”

You fold your arms over your chest. “You said you’d kill yourself if I managed you.”

Hyunjin starts balling up your sandwich wrapper. “It’s true. I thought about you and my coach getting along and promptly got a rash. But it makes so much sense: you do whatever you want during practice, tutor me afterwards, and then you and Seung can eyefuck over ramen or something. My coach hops off my dick, you hop on Seung’s—”

“STOP!” A girl drops her receipt not too far away, startled by your outburst. “Stop right there. I get it. Stop.”

“It’s a good plan.” He slings the paper ball towards the nearest trash can. It drops into the hole without so much as a brush against the rim. “You know it is.”

You’re loath to admit that you do. “When did you even come up with all this?”

He flicks a thumb in the direction of your anthropology class. No fucking wonder he’s failing.

“What is this, mock trial?”

The owner of this voice is the third man you’ve seen today donning that navy windbreaker, white long-sleeve combo. He has a face that reminds you of your neighbor’s cat from back home, sleek and sharp and only slightly sinister. There’s a dash of humor in his expression as he approaches your table like he’s enjoying the company of a court jester.

“Slamming tables like fuckin’ tariff lawyers,” the cat-man hums, lifting a hand in Hyunjin’s direction. “I could see it from all the way inside.”

“Captain!” Hyunjin crows, dabbing him up without missing a beat. They really do that like breathing. “Just the man I was hoping to see.”

“Really? I thought you’d be avoiding me like the rest of our homunculus team.”

“I would never.”

“You did. Yesterday. When you saw me and started running in the opposite direction.” He pauses for emphasis. “As fast as possible.”

“Well, that was yesterday. Today is a new day.” Hyunjin tosses you a proud glance. “And today, I bring you a new team manager.”

You stiffen. “I haven’t—”

“Is that so!” When the stranger smiles at you, you feel the same satisfaction you did every time the cat let you scratch her on the chin. “Music to my ears. What’s your name, cutie?”

You catch Hyunjin’s eye across the table; he nods enthusiastically as if saying go on, then. You briefly picture yourself strangling him with his own athletic tape. You then picture yourself hopping on Seungmin’s—

Rigidly, you throw a hand out to the cat-man, your face aflame.

“Y/N,” you grumble. “I’m looking forward to working with you.”

He shakes on it heartily. “Likewise. I’m Minho. Welcome to the team.”

“Yes, welcome to the team,” Hyunjin parrots, looking positively jolly. You gnash your teeth together so hard your jaw throbs.

He’s lucky that his proposal holds so much water. He’s lucky that you don’t plan to strangle him until after you try that eyefucking thing.

You do kick him under the table, though.

The team has five weeks to prepare for the Korean University League, the biggest college-level volleyball tournament in the country. You have five days to learn how the hell athletic tape works. You can’t tell which is the bigger endeavor.

“I’m going to cause him irreversible skeletal damage,” you tell Changbin.

The team’s libero is twice as kind as he is talented, a full-time sweetheart working part-time at the university’s sports medicine clinic. Only your first week on the job and you’ve already decided he’s the only person on Earth you would permit to usher you through the gym at 6:45 A.M., a roll of athletic tape pressed to your back like a pistol.

“You will not,” Changbin answers. “One, because this won’t involve his skeleton, and two, because I wouldn’t ask you to help if it did.”

“You’ve misunderstood me,” you return as the two of you stop in front of an examination room. “I want to cause him irreversible skeletal damage.”

“Oh.” He opens the door with a frown. “Oh dear.”

Inside, Hyunjin is sitting cross-legged on top of a taping table, fitted in a loose gray tee and athletic shorts. He watches in pessimistic silence as you enter the room and beeline straight towards the shelf on the right. You slip a thick binder into your hands and bury your nose inside it without so much as a greeting.

“I am going to get maimed,” Hyunjin tells Changbin.

“Have some faith, both of you,” Changbin replies sternly. You find the pages you’re looking for and begin poring over them like you’re cramming for an exam. “You’ll be fine, Jinnie. Y/N studied.”

“Studied?” He repeats. “For this?”

“I’m pretty sure Quizlets were made.”

“Three, to be exact," you interject, sticking out your hand. “Now tape me.”

Hyunjin mouths the words tape me in baffled silence. The latter obliges your request with a smile. “See? What could go wrong?”

The answer to that, actually, is a lot. Especially after Changbin gets called away to help stretch out a teammate named Felix who allegedly “sprained his ass,” leaving Hyunjin to you and your binder.

You detect no smoky rose in the air around him today, just the subtle smells of cedar and cypress—laundry detergent or shampoo, maybe. Figures he doesn’t wear that insufferable cologne to practice.

“Go easy on me, yeah?”

While Hyunjin’s tone is teasing, yours is downright somber.

“I can’t promise anything.”

With that, you turn your palms face-up in a silent request for his hand.

A few strands of hair fall into your face as you lean in for a better look. It’s the first time you’ve seen his fingers untaped; they’re pretty, long and slender and surprisingly manicured, but also battered in their delicacy, the veins running over the back of his hand and forearm prominent, his bottom knuckles discolored from the healing bruises they bear. His hard work is palpable upon the smooth skin as evidently as if tattooed.

Hyunjin says your name in close proximity. You respond with an absent hum.

“You’re not nervous, are you?”

“No. Maybe a little.” You let his hand fall free and go to rummage for supplies. “Fine, yes. Very.”

“But you made Quizlets. You’re prepared for anything.”

“That’s what I’m saying!” You realize only after spotting the gentle smile on his face that he’s making fun of you. “I hate you.”

“Actually,” he hums, “I think you care about me, love. That’s why you’re nervous.”

“Nonsense—I care about disappointing Changbin. That’s it.”

“And me. And hopping on Seungmin’s dick. All these things don’t have to be mutually exclusive.”

You try to tackle him. Hyunjin catches your hands a few inches away from his face, fingers closing around your wrists with obnoxious agility.

“Have you lost your mind?” You whisper-shout, your face on fire. “Don’t bring that up here. I’ll maim you for real.”

The laugh that explodes out of him throws his entire body backwards, turns his eyes to crescent moons and his mouth into a little rectangle. You hate that you don’t hate when that happens.

“My bad, my bad. It slipped out. I won’t—”

One incremental shift of Hyunjin’s body later, you find that you’re precariously, alarmingly close to one another.

So much so that you notice the mole beneath his left eye for the first time, that you're nearly cross-eyed looking at it. That the tip of your nose actually brushes against his before you pull away with a quiet intake of breath. 

Things are awkward between you often, you’ve realized recently. You’re both professional yappers, always quick to digress, quick to find a new topic to bicker about before the awkwardness marinates. But hours later you’ll look back on the interaction and still remember how the air shifted: like a layer of dust had been blown away and something untouched and unknown was discovered just underneath.

Since you’ve met him, Hyunjin has spent more time on your nerves than on your mind. You’re not exactly losing sleep over such a circumstantial acquaintance; you know that his presence in your life will end the way it began, naturally and anticlimactically and inside the ANTH 111 lecture hall. Still, it doesn’t go unnoticed when your heart and stomach launch into an elaborate gymnastics routine in the wake of something he says or does, just as they’re doing now.

Hyunjin glances into your right eye a moment, then your left. The mole just below his left eye disappears when he smiles, the expression soft, saccharine, and sincere. How anyone casually looks the way he does is beyond your abilities of comprehension.

“Thank you,” he murmurs.

Your face continues to burn, now perhaps for different reasons. “What for?”

He lets go of your wrist, sweeps the lock of hair that keeps getting in your eyes behind the cuff of your ear.

“Caring about me.”

Then he flicks your forehead. You recoil with a quiet ow.

“Now stop stalling and tape me, dumbass.”

“Okay,” you mutter, rubbing the injury tenderly. “No need to get violent.”

It turns out the arduous taping procedure described in the instruction manual is for serious hand injuries. Hyunjin splints his fingers together for support, not rehabilitation, so it takes all of five minutes for him to talk you through his process. You finish taping both of his hands with nineteen minutes to spare. So maybe the Quizlets were overkill.

As you’re walking him down to practice, you take his hand and lift it to eye level, scanning your craftsmanship dubiously. “It’s not too tight, is it?”

“It’s perfect.” He swivels the hand around and grabs onto your entire face, the sensation by now eerily familiar. “Want another taste?”

You shove him down the stairs that remain. Unfortunately, there are only two. “You are truly grotesque.”

The gym has come to life since you arrived earlier this morning, now illuminated by shining ceiling lights in addition to the sun spilling through high, narrow windows. Most of the team has yet to step onto the court, still stretching or jogging along the sidelines: Minho and Coach Bang are talking strategy on the bench, the coach taking notes on a handheld whiteboard every now and then; Changbin is leaning over a recumbent Felix below the scoreboard, presumably trying to fix his ass.

The only one already with a ball in hand is Seungmin, setting to himself by the net. Once, twice, thrice straight up in the air, and then he glances in your direction and sends the fourth towards the left side of the court in a buoyant arc.

You only glean bits and pieces of the next few seconds. Hyunjin is at your side one moment, making a break for the net the next. His arms draw backwards in perfect synchrony. Feet hit the floor with laserlike intent. His entire body unravels like a fraying chrysalis as he rises to meet the ball, pounds it over the net and into the ground at an angle so clean that the sound of its landing resounds within your ribcage. It rebounds over the railing of the second floor and barely misses the doorway of the examination room you just emerged from.

Hyunjin drops lightly back onto his feet, following the ball’s tumultuous trajectory with proud eyes. A leftover breeze tosses a strand of hair over the bridge of your nose, and time starts moving again.

“Oi, this isn’t your backyard! Go pick that up!” Their coach booms, though his words lack their usual bitterness after what he just witnessed his ace hitter do.

Hyunjin swivels towards Seungmin first. “Crazy bitch. What the fuck was that?”

“Lower and faster. Further from the net too,” Seungmin returns. “How’d it feel?”

The grin on Hyunjin’s face reminds you of a wildfire, untamed and all-consuming and frightening in its fervor. “Like we just won everything.”

He tousles your hair as he jogs past you and back up the stairs to fetch the volleyball. Seungmin waves at you with one hand and palms another ball into his other. His face is warm and bare, his slim build flattered by his volleyball gear. You’ve witnessed few people so nice to look at and even fewer things as elegant as his setting form. But you are still thinking about Hyunjin—and you can’t move.

It is debilitating, watching somebody do the very thing they were destined for.

A little less than a week later, Hyunjin is approaching hour three of spewing hot garbage into a Word document when he decides to give up and call you. 

“Hello?” He immediately starts laughing. “Where the fuck are you?”

You poke the top of your head into the shot of your ceiling, gesturing to your headband. “My face is preoccupied at the moment.”

“Oh, you have to show me. Please.”

You flip your phone up for no more than half a second. A camera shutter goes off, followed by a shriek so loud that it peaks your mic.

“Motherfucker!”

He basically sprints to his camera roll. His prize: you with your face slathered in cleanser, hair pinned back by a Miffy headband, looking like the abominable snowman if he liked cute merchandise.

“Thank you,” he says earnestly. “I’ll treasure this forever.”

“You’ll be punished, Hwang.”

“Don’t threaten me with a good time.”

You brandish your middle finger at him in response. He props his phone up against his computer screen with a chuckle. 

“Aaanyways, I have a thesis statement to run by you.”

The first thing you did as Hyunjin’s tutor was help draft an email to Professor Kim, begging her to let him resubmit the two essays he royally botched. She replied with a lengthy quotation from her syllabus, specifically the section that talked about (and prohibited) resubmissions, but ended up making an exception for Hyunjin on account of the “truly piteous timbre” of his email. You fell out of your chair laughing when he read you her response.

“You should’ve opened with that.”

“I tried, hello? Someone distracted me!”

“Read. It. Before I change my mind.”

You spend a few minutes at most on the thesis itself, advising him to avoid passive voice, answer the prompt, establish a refutable argument, the works. Then he asks you a question about the research topic itself, allusions to the afterlife in Ancient Egyptian artwork, and the tutoring session takes a turn into what feels like a podcast episode.

You talk about the God of Death, Anubis, and his connections to the underworld; the elaborate, lavish funerary rituals intended to ensure the souls of the dead traveled safely; the vibrant murals that flanked their final resting spots as pictorial requests for divine protection. And you talk about them all with such confidence, such eloquence, that it’s as if you’re leading him through a history museum rather than talking to your phone as you do your skincare. He could listen to you for hours. He does, actually.

Around 1 A.M., Hyunjin stops typing mid-sentence when you come into frame for the first time, collapsing into your bed with a sigh of relief. Your eyes are soft and sleepy as they blink at your screen, strands of damp hair clinging to your cheeks. He feels his heart physically shift inside his ribcage when your mouth stretches into a yawn. It is the same sensation as the time you shot him a smile over your shoulder and he couldn’t move for ten minutes.

With that, his attention span has run its course.

“Baby,” he interrupts gently. “Let’s stop here, okay? You seem tired.”

You open your mouth as if to protest, only to yawn again.

“I suppose I am. Will you keep working tonight?”

“I think so. I hit my stride.”

“Text me if you have questions, then. I’ll respond when I wake up.”

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

Your lips curve into the smallest of smiles. It copies onto Hyunjin’s face incurably quickly. 

“I had my doubts about this tutoring thing, you know.”

“Why is that?”

“Well, you told me this class was the closest thing to daily naptime you’d experienced since preschool.”

“It really is.”

“You also told me you would rather slam your tongue in a car door than read more than three sentences in one sitting.”

“I really would.”

“And you once referred to academia as ‘Virgin Village.’”

“Didn’t you come up with that?”

“No, hello? I live in that village.”

He grins. “I know. I just wanted to hear you admit it.”

“Fuck you.”

“Ah, don’t threaten me with a good—”

“What I’m trying to say is that I didn’t think you would take this seriously, but I’m happy to be proven wrong.”

Hyunjin leans back. “Well, turns out I might give a fuck about anthropology after all.”

“Really?”

“No.”

You pretend to punch him through the screen. It’s so cute that he forgets to think before he opens his mouth next.

“But I do give a fuck about you.”

There’s nothing crazy about the statement. You’re friends, sort of. You manage his team. It would be strange if he didn’t. But the seconds that follow are terrible, a silent prophecy of something disastrous, like a cloud of rubble before an avalanche, the standstill during a star’s final breath. And Hyunjin’s heartbeat is hounding against his ears like a performance of traditional taiko.

He says good night in a haste. The call ends. He stares at the wall of his bedroom in a muddled haze for who knows how long.

Then he opens his texts.

Hyunjin: We have team bonding tomorrow btw Hyunjin: Don’t forget Y/N: i forgot. Y/N: pick me up at 6:45? Hyunjin: 🫡

He picks you up at 7:53.

You approach his car with your fists balled and your eyebrows knitted together like a mean old curmudgeon and he’s walking too close to your lawn.

“His fault,” Hyunjin says before you start yelling.

Minho simpers at you through his open window. “Hey, you! So glad you could join us!”

You fix the man with a judgmental glare as you slide into the backseat. “Aren’t you the captain? Why are you this late?”

“Whoa, okay. I would’ve scheduled this for earlier if I knew right now was honesty hour.”

“You did schedule it for earlier,” you say. “You scheduled it for way earlier.”

“Yeah, well, you’re fired.”

“You can’t fire me, Minho.”

“I can too. Tell ‘em, Hwang.”

“I want nothing to do with this.”

When you step through the doors of the arcade, you’re met with a surge of sensory input that you haven’t experienced in years. The air hangs thick with the smells of greasy concessions; everywhere you look are flashing screens and neon signs, stuffed animals and fading posters; clamoring against your ears are the sounds of games being won or lost, of balls being pocketed or launched, and of a horde of fully grown men spectating a match of Dance Dance Revolution so passionately (and loudly) that they’ve scared everyone away from that side of the room. You recognize the current competitors as Changbin and Jeongin.

“I’ll go pay,” Hyunjin says. “How much time do we want?”

“Infinity,” Minho answers. Hyunjin doesn’t move. “Two hours.”

He flashes him a thumbs-up. “And you?”

“I’m okay, I think.”

“No you’re not,” the two men answer in perfect unison.

You glance between them warily. “I don’t mind watching, seriously. I don’t even know how most of these games work—”

“There’s Tetris,” Hyunjin cuts in.

You purchase an hour.

One would imagine the point of the evening is to break the SNU men’s volleyball team, not to bond them. You’ve never seen so many strained blood vessels in your life. Nor have you heard of half the insults they spew at each other as the night goes on. Felix has to pay a fee for lodging an air hockey puck in the side of the MarioKart machine. Changbin loses at skee-ball and has to down an XL slushie like it’s a shot. It’s a scary amount of boyishness expressed in scary ways.

But they’re happy. You’ve picked up on it when they’re on the court, noticed the raw elation they emanate just from playing together. Yet, their closeness has never been more evident to you than tonight. The men are either laughing or making someone else laugh, arms draped over each other at all times, equally happy to celebrate victories as they’re eager to punish losses. It dawns on you at some point that you’re glad to be here with them, grateful to be a part of something so special—especially because there’s Tetris.

“Have you ever considered going pro?” Hyunjin asks over your shoulder.

You waited until most of the team was distracted to slink off to your beloved machine. Hyunjin tagged along, undoubtedly with the intention of making fun of you, only to be rendered speechless by your mastery. He’s been watching in a state of stupor, forearms propped against the back of your chair.

You don’t respond for a while, too focused on a precarious patch to even blink, let alone partake in conversation.

“I already did,” you finally answer.

“Sorry, what? You played professional Tetris?”

“In middle school. Then I got bored and switched to backgammon.” You pause. “Then I got bored again and switched to chess.”

“How do you look like this with these hobbies?”

Your run ends a few minutes later with a somber sound effect. You turn around in your seat with an anguished groan. “I think I’m washed.”

He looks at you like you’ve lost your mind. “You just set a new record by three hundred thousand points.”

“It’s a small pond,” you say, and an idea occurs to you. “Do you wanna try?”

“I get the feeling I don’t have a choice.”

“Then you’re smarter than you look.”

“Well, you look—”

His eyes move between your shoes and your face, and then his voice is an inaudible mutter as he sinks into your seat. You think you hear something along the lines of unfair.

“What was that?”

“Ugly. I said you look ugly.” He cracks his knuckles. “Now let’s break some fuckin' blocks.” 

When Hyunjin learns that the pieces can be rotated (so six or seven attempts later), a man walks into the arcade. 

He has hair the color of dark chocolate, the face of a fairy prince—and he’s with someone. The two of them appear arm in arm, laughing at something he said. He looks at this person the way astronomers do to the sky.

Something shatters inside you like old porcelain.

Your hands loosen around the back of Hyunjin’s chair. You can’t watch. You can’t think. You can only feel a void of disappointment rip open, stretch over you like an elongating shadow.

“Seung!” That’s Jisung, you think. “You made it!”

“Yo, sorry we’re late.” That’s Seungmin. That is undoubtedly Seungmin. “Dinner took longer than I thought.”

“Min, are you sure I’m allowed to be here?” You don’t know who this voice belongs to and you’re not sure you want to. “I feel like I’m intruding—”

“Hwang,” you say suddenly. “I have to go.”

He turns around, confused. An unattended block falls into a terrible spot on the screen behind him. ”Already?”

“I forgot I had an important call to make.” You turn away, training your eyes on the patterned carpet. “Sorry. I’ll see you around.”

You have touched Hyunjin’s hands many times. He’s asked you to tape his fingers every day since the first; he likes the way you cut off his circulation, says it helps him hit harder. But you never hold his hand so much as you examine it, the act stiff and unfeeling, cordoned within the professional pretense of athletic treatment. 

Now, Hyunjin catches your hand like a gardener repotting their favorite flower: delicately, careful of leaving its roots intact and petals untouched, but firmly, securely, so the flower continues to stand tall even when it’s been extracted from the soil, not even a speck of dirt slipping through the cracks between their fingers. That is the image you conjure when he slips his between yours, his metal rings cold where his fingertips are warm.

He says your name. There is a pinch of pain in the word, and you know that he knows.

“Do you want to be alone?”

You have never been asked such a thing—you have never asked to be asked such a thing—but, for some reason, the question brings tears to your eyes. 

“Yes, please,” you whisper, and you pull your hand away.

When you stalk past him, you hear Jisung notice you, call out to you, a note of worry in his question. You also count three pairs of eyes on your back: one concerned, the next confused, and the last you are wholly incapable of meeting. 

Unknown to you is the fourth pair fixed upon the top of the Tetris machine, where you’ve left your phone.

You emerge into the parking lot. The frigid air stills your mind for a fraction of a second, the last moment of mental quietude you will allow yourself that night.

Hyunjin’s right; the team manager doesn’t have to do much.

Coach Bang allows you to come to whichever practices and games you feel like, during which you might at most lug around a ballbag or fill someone’s waterbottle before holing up somewhere to do your own thing. But you like the people you work for too much to do so little for them, so you attend everything  your schedule allows. 

Last week, you could be found helping Minho put up the volleyball nets before practice, your laughter echoing throughout the spacious gym as he complained to you about his biochemistry professor’s distinct “cabbage scent.” Or running to grab materials for Changbin as he treated his teammates’ injuries like you were assisting an orthodontist giving someone a root canal. The dinner invitations you extended to Seungmin were always turned down, but his teammates were more than happy to assist you and Hyunjin in your quest to establish the best kimbap joint in the area once and for all. You even had a heart-to-heart with Coach Bang during one of the team’s water breaks, in which you managed to get half a smile out of the guy; Hyunjin was convinced that was his way of asking you to elope. You spent more time in the gymnasium those ten days than you had your entire college career.

Then came the arcade.

Five days have come and gone. You haven’t attended practice since, but you still see Hyunjin every morning at anthropology. The two of you sit in uncharacteristic silence for most of the lectures. You’ve taken the best notes of your life. He doesn’t mention the previous weekend; he doesn’t mention much of anything. 

In person, that is.

That Friday afternoon, you’re reading on the terrace of the library when you receive a text. It’s from Hyunjin, a two-minute voice note. You hesitate for a moment, stick a pencil into the gutter of your textbook to save your place, and slip your earbuds in. You listen to it.

Then you listen to it again.

And again as you wrap up your study session and go home. Again as you cook yourself dinner and load the dishwasher. Again as you shrug on a jacket and pocket your keys, setting off on the familiar trek to the gym.

As for what you plan to do there on a Friday night, long after the team has finished practice, you haven’t the slightest clue. You continue to move regardless, fueled by the feeling that there is where you need to be.

Coach Bang is leaving the building just as you’re approaching it. He halts in his footsteps and raises his eyebrows when he notices you. The man has always been difficult to read, but his face is exceptionally opaque now. Maybe it’s the shadowy landscape; more likely it’s the uneasiness that began to mount within you once you noticed the lights in the gym were still on.

“It’s been a while,” he greets.

“Coach,” you return, lowering your head. “I want to apologize for—”

“Save it,” he says, not unkindly. “There’s nothing to apologize for, alright? The team is lucky to have you.”

You manage a grateful smile. “I’ll be back starting next week.”

“I’m glad to hear it.” He starts to walk away, stops himself, and glances into the illuminated building. “I would give him some space, by the way.”

Your uneasiness morphs into anxiety as you watch his broad back retreat into the shadows. You remain outside the gym for a few minutes more, accompanied by the distant melodies of cricket chorales and the muffled squeaking of shoes against laminated hardwood, the harsh sounds of flesh meeting leather.

Briskly, you walk home, rummage around, and return to the gym ten minutes later with your textbook tucked beneath your arm. This time, you unlock and enter the building without a moment of hesitation. 

Hyunjin is positioned multiple yards behind the service line, rotating a volleyball in his hands. A high toss, two resounding steps, and a collision like the crack of a whip. The previous ball has barely landed in the furthest corner of the court when he’s picking up the next, retreating to the same spot to do it all again. His tank top is the color of charcoal over his sweaty skin, his hair auburn where it’s plastered to his neck. He’s alone.

You only catch sight of Hyunjin’s face when you descend the stairs. His expression is crystalline, hardened with concentration and fortified by courage, but fragile all at once, rendered delicate by fatigue and fear, spilling from his every seam and splintering off his person like a broken vase. You recognize it as clearly as if you were looking at a picture of yourself from the worst years of your life.

“I was told to give you space,” you call out, and Hyunjin drops the volleyball he’s holding.

His lips fall apart. Nothing comes out of them. The only sounds to follow are your footsteps as you make your way towards the bleachers, a vertical wall of plastic now that they’ve been retracted for the night. You fold your legs into a criss-cross as you take a seat at their base.

“Is this enough space?”

More silence. You gesture to the volleyball nervously.

“Don’t make me go further, please. I’m not ready to die.”

Finally, this earns you a smile. It’s not much, but it loosens the nervous coils in your heart, permits your lungs to contract once more, and it remains on his face as he swipes the ball back into his hands. You open your textbook.

The rest of the night elapses in turning pages and soaring volleyballs. You don’t care for minutes or hours; you give him all the time in the world, as he did you.

The only time you glance at the clock on the wall is around midnight, when Hyunjin hobbles to the middle of the court and collapses. You’re worried at first. Then he rolls onto his back and releases a guttural groan into his hands, and your held breath comes out a laugh. You set down your book and stand up.

There’s a lake of perspiration forming around him. You pay it no mind and flop onto the floor, your eyes instantly narrowing beneath the fluorescent lights. 

“How do you see under these things?”

“I don’t,” he returns. “I complained about it to Coach once.”

“And?”

“He made them brighter.” Sounds about right.

Hyunjin spends the next few minutes catching his breath, his chest rising and falling in your peripheral vision. You sift through your mind for phrases of consolation or gestures of support and come up empty. You wish you had Hyunjin’s way with words.

But you think about the way his smile reached his eyes as he thanked you for caring about him, the tenderness with which he caught your hand at the arcade, the I give a fuck about you he blurted before ending the study call. You think about the voice note. It’s not that Hyunjin has a way with words; it’s that he’s brave enough to break the silences that you can’t, like he perceives your anxiety for the aftermath, shouldering the responsibility so you won’t have to.

This cannot be his burden alone.

You inhale. “What’s on your mind?”

Hyunjin doesn’t answer right away. You give up on squinting and close your eyes. The lights are still bright enough to dance around the murky darkness.

“I don’t think I know how to put it into words.”

You nearly laugh; you know how that feels. “Don’t think, just talk. I’m here.”

The same advice you gave yourself seems to work on him as well.

“Do you remember Ishikawa Yuki?”

His role model.

“He’s currently playing for a club team in Italy called Allianz Milano.” He blows out a deep breath. “I’ve been talking to their coach, Roberto Piazza, for the last six months.”

The gears in your head creak in their effort to process the implications of these words. “Holy shit, Hwang.”

“He emailed again, this morning. Said he was coming to the tournament later this month, he’s excited to see me play in person, whatever. And it hit me, finally, that this is all real. Like, this is actually happening to me. I spent all of today freaking out and asked Coach to let me stay back after practice. Usually, it wears out my brain if I tire my body, but it only half-worked today. I couldn’t wrap my head around anything. I still can’t.

“I am who I am because of that man, and now…I have a shot at playing with him. I keep asking myself why I’m not—not happier. I should be bouncing off the fucking walls, no? If I told my past self that this would be happening to him one day, he—he would—”

You open your eyes, confused by the sudden silence.

Hyunjin is sitting up next to you, staring intensely into the bleachers. You first notice the tip of his tongue prodding into his cheek, then his shuddering breath. He lifts a hand to his face, pressing against his eyes.

You stop thinking after that.

You sit up with him. When you settle your fingers around his wrist, he allows you to pull his hand back to his side. But he turns away as if trying to hide from you; he squeezes his eyes shut as if that would obstruct your view of his pain.

You reach to cradle his face, bringing him back to you. The cuff of your sleeves wipe at the saltwater on his cheeks, push the hair off his forehead with gentle sweeps. The two of you are close, close enough that your lips would meet the space between his eyes if you so much as lost your balance. His gaze traverses to your face, but you resolve not to meet it. You know you will traipse into uncharted territory the moment you do.

“Don’t fight it.” You trace over the hill of his cheek. “Healing becomes easier if you let yourself hurt. Trust me, Hyunjin.”

His first name should feel foreign on your tongue, yet you suspect the syllables have accompanied you all your life.

“You don’t have to continue if you can’t.”

“S’okay.” Hyunjin lifts your hand away from his face, presses a kiss to the base of your palm. “I want to.”

You feel yourself stumble ungracefully into the uncharted territory from before; does he do the same?

“I used to play volleyball on this expanse of cracked blacktop, behind my primary school. It was pretty brutal on my feet—I blew through so many different pairs of sneakers my mom almost made me quit.” He smiles at the memory. “But every time I came close to quitting, I’d go home and rewatch the same USA vs. Poland match from the 2008 Summer Olympics I asked my dad to record, and I’d promise myself it would be me on some other kid’s screen someday.

“That kid would tell everyone who’d listen about how cool I am. That I’m a secret superhero. That I’m living proof humans can fly if they really, really try—just like I talked about the volleyball players I grew up watching on my TV.

“The other day, Coach told me that hope would consume me. I thought it was just some senile drivel at the time, but..I think I get what he means now. I would do anything and everything to make that kid proud—even if it meant losing myself.” He lowers his head, auburn strands falling into his eyes. “That’s what’s on my mind.”

Amidst the ensuing pause, a storm approaches. It does not come in the form of rain or snow, sleet or hail, no; it is a gathering of words unsaid and emotions unacknowledged, all emerging from the deepest chambers of your heart in synchrony. The same entities you used to scapegoat for all the times things were awkward between you and Hyunjin when you were the culprit all along. You and your blind cowardice.

The storm tears open the seam of your lips. You do not resist; it’s long overdue.

“Every time Changbin sees you, he turns into a smitten schoolgirl,” you say. “He is physically unable to contain how endearing he finds you. He told me so himself.”

Hyunjin looks at you with widened eyes. You think you can see your own reflection in them, and you are the spitting image of a lighter dropped into gasoline, unstoppable in your vehemence.

“Jeongin comes to you for advice before anyone else,” you continue, “even for things related to school—which I still find hard to believe, I’m not gonna lie. But you have his best interests in mind, and it shows in everything you do for him. Of course your opinion matters more than anything in the world.

“I know you think he can’t stand you, but you are the reason Coach Bang loves this job, why he loves this sport. It’s written all over his face every time he calls you something mean, every time he makes you run another lap, every time he looks at you. You’re like a son to him. Everyone sees it but you.”

“Then there’s me.” You pause to catch your breath. “When I think about what my life used to be, I remember a lot of things. I remember loneliness. Insecurity. I remember my books and my backgammon boards and the way I taught myself to disappear inside them so the world would never find me. I remember avoiding mirrors like a vampire because I didn’t like seeing my own reflection. I remember feeling like I had to put on someone else’s personality every time I left the house because nobody would want to know me for me. All I ever wanted was a place where I could be myself, love myself, without consequence. I have yet to find that place.

“But I found a person. Someone who wouldn’t know time and place if they kicked his dick into his body. Someone who thinks instant ramen is high in nutritional value because it comes with dried vegetables. Someone who sweats the same amount of rain the Sahara Desert receives yearly—your body is not normal, by the way.”

Hyunjin giggles; it is soft and short, a small, tearful huff into the quiet air that makes you feel like you’re flying.

“Don’t get me wrong,” you say. “Your sense of humor sucks and your taste in coffee is so boring and you are the one with no media literacy, not Professor Kim. But I love spending time with you. I love who I am when I’m around you. And none of that has to do with volleyball.”

The next time you blink, you discover that he’s not the only one with tears in his eyes. How long has that been going on?

“There’s so much about you to be proud of, Hyunjin.” You give him a watery smile. “That kid will be spoiled for choice.”

When Hyunjin pulls you into his arms, you fall into each other like going to bed after a long day. Your face burrows into the crook of his neck in your embarrassment; he is laughing and crying at the same time when he mumbles something into your shoulder: “I knew you cared about me.”

You are so happy for the comedic relief you could sob. It helps that you already are.

“How the fuck are you still sweaty?” You choke out, and you think you like his cologne after all.

Six days later, Hyunjin opens the door of his apartment.

A fun-sized flurry of black and white barrages into the hallway outside and almost runs headfirst into the figure waiting there. You fall to your knees like you’ve just been gravely wounded, emitting an ear-piercing wail to match. All it takes is a few good head scratches for Kkami to stop yipping bloody murder and start whining for attention instead. 

Upon minute five of watching you and his dog cuddle in the hallway directly outside his home, Hyunjin sighs.

“Can you come inside, please? My RA will think I’m doing some freaky shit again.”

You side-eye him as you walk into his apartment, Kkami perched happily in your arms. “What, exactly, does freaky shit entail?”

He smirks as the door falls shut. “You want me to tell you or show you?”

You turn to Kkami, disgusted. “Your owner’s a bit of a pervert, my dear.”

Kkami licks you on the chin. Hyunjin’s eyes narrow to slits.

“Traitor.”

Naturally, Hyunjin’s parents chose the eve of his final anthropology exam—and the week before the tournament that will determine the trajectory of his career—to ask him to look after Kkami for a few days. He nearly canceled their plane tickets himself, but his impromptu roommate is currently ransacking your face with kisses on his couch, and he thinks your laugh complements his studio better than any decoration. 

“Do you want anything to drink?” He calls from the kitchen area.

You meander over, Kkami (still) perched happily in your arms. “What do you have?” 

“Alcohol.” He opens his fridge far enough so you can peer over his shoulder. “Americanos.”

He stops speaking.

“Is that all?”

“Yes. Wait—and apple juice.”

“You are about to be a professional athlete.”

“What the Italians don’t know won’t hurt them. You want apple juice, don’t you? I can see it in your eyes.”

“Maybe. Can you open it for me? My hands are full.”

Hyunjin does so with far less reluctance than he feigns. You thank him jubilantly, popping the straw into your mouth.

“Let’s get this over with.”

At 10:32 P.M., all is calm. You are sitting on the floor, your back against the side of his mattress. Hyunjin is where the universe intended: curled up in bed, both him and his laptop lying on their sides. You have studied eight out of ten units in only two and a half hours, and the night is still young. Kkami is but a fluffy, sleepy Oreo by your waist.

At 10:33 P.M., the Oreo begins to retch.

You startle a foot into the air. Hyunjin is out of bed and on his feet in the blink of an eye, the very image of a dog dad on duty. He grabs three different things off the kitchen counter with one hand and scoops up the long-haired chihuahua with the other, and then he’s kicking open the door.

Seungmin appears out of thin air carrying two heaping bags of groceries. Hyunjin nearly knocks him and a month’s worth of fresh produce down four flights of stairs.

“Hyun—Kkami?” Seungmin swivels. “Yo, what the fuck is—”

Hyunjin is already out the door.

A few minutes later, Hyunjin squats off to the side, pouring fresh water into a portable dog bowl. A little ways away, Kkami is throwing up ebulliently; a set of footsteps approaches.

“What is this thing?” Seungmin squats down next to Hyunjin, picking up the piece of patterned fabric lying on the grass. 

“Kkami gets sad after throwing up,” he sighs. “His blanket makes him feel better.”

Seungmin watches the chihuahua for a few moments, a soft flinch crimping his features. “He ate too fast again?”

Hyunjin rakes a hand through his hair. “I don’t get it. Nobody’s gonna take his food from him.”

Seungmin laughs. “I didn’t even know he was on campus.”

“I picked him up last night. My parents are traveling for work—they say hi, by the way.”

“I say hi back. I miss your mom’s cooking.”

“Me too,” Hyunjin says, smiling. “She would love to cook for you again—she’s always saying you’re too skinny.”

“She really is.”

A beat passes; it is then that Hyunjin has an epiphany.

Seungmin was the one who put a volleyball in his hands for the first time. Back then, Hyunjin was the lesser troublemaker between the two of them—a concept that neither of them can wrap their heads around to this day. Seungmin suggested they use the clotheslines in Hyunjin’s backyard as a makeshift net, despite Hyunjin’s dissuading; half of Hyunjin’s father’s wardrobe caught on fire, Seungmin had a black eye for a week, and nobody knows what happened to that volleyball. The two of them have been attached at the hip ever since.

It is a crazy thing, having your best friend as a teammate; a singular flick of the wrist or a point of his shoe and Seungmin will know exactly Hyunjin wants the ball down to the net’s fraying fibers; Hyunjin will be exactly where Seungmin needs him down to the flecks of paint on the volleyball court. Hyunjin has always been Seungmin’s hitter—Seungmin, always Hyunjin’s setter. Nothing will ever change between them so long as that remains the case.

At least, that’s what Hyunjin used to think.

Learning that Seungmin was in a relationship was as much a wake-up call for Hyunjin as it was for you. At first, he was just fucking pissed; how could Seungmin be so stupid as to turn down someone like you, especially when Hyunjin had shot his mouth off about his wingman services? More importantly, how long had his best friend of eighteen years been in love, and why was he the last to know? 

Only now, as they wait for his nine-year-old chihuahua to finish barfing, does Hyunjin realize that he can’t remember the last time he and Seungmin talked. Not “talked” as in a brief exchange inside the locker room or the lecture hall, about a new approach he wants to try or what Seungmin got on number four or if he wants a ride to practice—“talked” as in talked, about Hyunjin, about Seungmin, about the eighteen years they shared, about all the years yet to come.

Hyunjin sees his setter every day; he stopped looking for his friend a long time ago. 

“Yeonwoo, right?”

He senses surprise in Seungmin without having to look at him. But he also senses a smile, a subtle show that Seungmin recognizes what he’s trying to do—and forgives him.

“Yeonwoo,” Seungmin affirms. “We’re in the same songwriting intensive this semester.”

“Also a singer?”

He shakes his head. “Piano player. Performed at the Carnegie Hall in the United States at, like, seven years old. I don’t think I’ve ever met someone so talented.”

“Wow, that’s—hi, old man. You done?”

Kkami walks over with his head hung low and tail between his legs, and Hyunjin hurries to drape the pup in his favorite blanket, pulling the bowl of water in front of him in tandem. Seungmin runs a hand over the top of Kkami’s head as he hydrates.

“You’ve suffered,” he tells him solemnly, and Hyunjin snorts.

“As I was saying—that’s crazy to hear, coming from the most talented person I know. You guys looked so good together.”

“Thanks. It’s weird. I’m happy.”

“You deserve it. You really do, Kim.” They exchange smiles, and Hyunjin gives Seungmin a playful nudge. “When are you introducing us?”

“The arcade wasn’t enough?”

“Don’t insult me.”

“Whenever you want, then.”

“Dinner with my mom, dinner with Yeonwoo,” Hyunjin recounts. “I’m holding you to it.”

“Bet.”

They shake on it. If Hyunjin wasn’t already reassured by Seungmin’s smile, he knows by his clasp around his hand that they’ll be okay.

“What about you?” Seungmin asks. “Are you together yet?”

Hyunjin knew this was coming. “What do you mean?”

“You know what I mean.” Seungmin strings his hands together, letting them dangle in the space between his knees. “Someone you have questions for that you’re too scared to ask. Someone who’s lived in your mind since the day you met. There’s someone like that, isn’t there?”

Hyunjin pokes his tongue into his cheek. 

Ever since that night on the gym floor, Hyunjin’s been having these dreams. By the time his alarm goes off in the morning, every detail of the dream has eluded him, leaving behind only a ghost of emotion, akin to the breeze that grazes your face moments after walking past another person.

But then he’ll get out of bed, and walk to that café on the east side of campus, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. There, he’ll order a vanilla latte with extra sweetener, then turn around to see you standing five feet away, holding an Americano and trying not to laugh. And he’ll just know, with everything in him, that you are where his head goes when he’s not keeping watch.

He still addresses you by the pet names you hate. He still finds any excuse to be close to you; he still pesters you like a child with a crush. But now, he calls you his baby like one wishes on a star; his eyes drift to your lips every time you’re within two feet of each other; he makes fun of your likes and dislikes only because he’s happy to know about them at all. Ever since that night on the gym floor.

It’s impossible for nothing and everything to change at once. Two people teetering on the precipice of something cannot withstand a gust of wind so powerful. He’s already hanging off the ledge, losing his grip; where are you?

Next to him, Seungmin lets out a soft laugh. “There is.”

Hyunjin doesn’t know what to say.

“It might’ve been me, at some point,” he hums, returning his hand to scratch the back of Kkami’s ears. “But it has always been you, Hyun.”

Four floors above them and inside Hyunjin’s place, you are pacing between his fridge and his bed, nervously awaiting his and Kkami’s return.

Something catches your eye, wide and flat and hung on the wall by his bathroom door. You approach it curiously, your lips pulling into a fond smile the moment you realize all that’s in front of you.

Many of the photographs are of Hyunjin: him in his preteens, dead asleep in bed while dressed head to toe in volleyball gear, braces visible because his mouth is open; an action shot taken at what must’ve been a U21 match, the South Korean flag stitched into the shoulder of his jersey; him with half a birthday cake in front of him and the rest smeared all over his face. There are headlines, too: Underdog team earns district’s first high school volleyball state title; Hwang Hyunjin proves himself worthy of “ace spiker” label at South Korea V. Croatia U19 match; Coach Bang “Christopher” Chan leads Seoul National University to second consecutive KUL championship. There’s one—Who is Hwang Hyunjin? Meet the twenty-year-old instigant of South Korea’s imminent volleyball revolution—beside which he’s written the singular word “mouthful.” You laugh; you agree.

But pinned to the corkboard is also a photograph of Minho, surrounded by stray cats in the alleyway outside a K-BBQ restaurant; his parents cradling Kkami in an apple costume; his high school volleyball team silhouetted against a pretty sunset. Him and Seungmin as kids, covered in grime and scrapes but beaming nonetheless; him and Seungmin at age nineteen, stadium lights on their backs, unadulterated elation on their faces as they charge towards each other, beaming still. Changbin piggybacking Felix through the hallways of the gym, neither of them wearing a shirt; Jisung offering Coach Bang a beer while the latter looks direly unamused (you make a mental note to ask about that one later); what looks like a Rock Lee cosplayer grimacing in the middle of your anthropology classroom.

You rush forward as if decreed by gravitational force. Not too far away is another picture of you, in which you boast a Miffy headband and a face full of foaming cleanser. Then another, your eyes narrowed like that of a sniper taking aim as you’re playing Tetris; you with so many volleyballs piled into your arms that you can’t see your own face; your cheeks squished by a bandaged hand after you lost a bet about pandas (they can swim); you clutching your stomach on the library floor, brought to hysterical tears by Professor Kim’s email. You, you, you.

You bring your pointer finger to this last image, tracing it over the curve of your own cheek. You see a dimple on your face you didn’t know you had. You realize it only comes out for him.

It has always been him.

The front door opens. A man with telephone poles for legs and a long-haired chihuahua in his arms appears behind it. You sense in him that something has changed since you last saw each other. The two of you lock eyes. 

It’s not awkward this time.

Multiple yards behind the service line, Hyunjin is rotating a volleyball in his hands. It feels solid and sentient, an extension of himself held in cotton-clad fingers. He knows how this story will end.

He moves his eyes to his best friend’s back. Four fingers flash back at him twice, signaling a high lob set to the left, the very play they’ve practiced tirelessly for the last five weeks. The breath Hyunjin blows out of his cheeks seems to crystallize in the air, almost solid in all its exhilaration. 

He bends low and throws high. His arms drop behind his body like a spread of feathered wings; his feet fall into place below him like a meteor shower, two consecutive strikes against the earth that fissure its mantle. The lights overhead are bright. His palm pulls taut when it slams into leather. He knows how this story will end.

The volleyball tears towards the ground. It trembles as if scared by all that it holds: the guarantee of a flawless denouement, the catalyst of a radiant future. Hyunjin’s heart is beating hard enough to crack his ribs when he lands back on the ground, when the volleyball lands in the furthest corner of the court. He’s not scared at all.

He balls his fingers into fists.

“JUST LIKE LAST YEAR, BACK TO BACK ON AN ACE—”

An arm seizes Hyunjin’s neck; another drags him onto the floor. His head thuds onto the hardwood with a sound he hears over the whole world detonating. His vision fills with the faces of the people he cares for most, some covered in tears and others rivaling the ceiling with their blinding smiles. He can’t feel most of his body; his sweat drips into his mouth. He doesn’t care. He doesn’t care.

“—DEFENDING THEIR TITLE FOR THE THIRD CONSECUTIVE YEAR—”

His eyes find Seungmin’s among the fray. Their hands clap together with such force that Hyunjin cusses at the impact. Seungmin’s gaze burns into his with a ferocity that Hyunjin plans to take to his grave. His setter. His best friend.

He says something inaudible, but Hyunjin reads the words off his lips, and his eyes fill with tears: we win everything.

“—YOUR NATIONAL CHAMPIONS: SEOUL NATIONAL UNIVERSITY!”

Hyunjin’s post-game interview is a lawless affair. He is allowed at most half an answer before a new teammate is barreling over with an animalistic screech or a new friend is screaming congratulations from out of frame.

The reporter is visibly agitated by her final question, unpursing her lips to ask: “Is there anyone you’d like to thank?”

Hyunjin exhales. “You want the short answer or the long—”

Changbin seizes him by the head. Hyunjin bursts into a peal of high-pitched laughter as the libero litters kisses all over his face, nearly crumpling to the floor in his attempt to escape.

“Love you,” he yells before hurrying off. 

“Love you too, Bin.”

Hyunjin turns a sheepish smile to the reporter.

“The short answer,” she deadpans.

He starts counting off his fingers. He thanks his family—his first and last teammates, his eternal anchors. His other family, his actual teammates, the best boys he’s ever known. His coach, who will let him call him Chris someday. His best friend and setter, Kim Seungmin, who set a clothesline on fire once and changed his life forever.

In the distance, a figure emerges from the locker rooms. There’s a navy blue SNU banner draped over your shoulders, two overflowing duffel bags in your hands. Jisung and Jeongin run over to take them from you, and the smile you give them is wide and flushed, a remnant of the elation you shared from afar. The three of you start walking out of the gym.

Hyunjin thanks you.

You didn’t ask for the position, he tells the reporter, but some idiot roped you into it, and they’re all so grateful that you decided to stick around. You know the team better than they know themselves—it’s hard to believe you’ve been with them for five weeks instead of five years.

What are you like? What aren’t you like, is the better question. You’re caring, smart, strong; you see so much goodness in the people around you, all while unaware that it is your warmth that brings it out of them. Flowers only bloom in the sun’s doting radius, and so did he.

You have the sort of soul that incurs the scorn of the stars. They are the only ones to deserve you, they'd argue; you’re wasting your potential among humans when you belong to the sky, and they’d be right.

Hyunjin pokes his tongue into his cheek, suddenly annoyed.

“Why the fuck am I still talking to you?” 

“Pardon?” The reporter returns, but Hyunjin is already vaulting over the bleachers, making a mad dash for the exit. She gives her cameraman an affronted glare. He shrugs.

He explodes onto the concrete, looking around in a frantic haze. He finds the blue banner heading toward the team bus and flanked by his teammates with ease.

He calls out to you.

You glance backwards. Your smile is purely effulgent, your laugh but a faint sigh against the area’s busy thrum. His heart is pounding against his ribs like a battering ram again, but he’s used to this feeling by now. Jeongin and Jisung make themselves scarce.

You’re beautiful. God, you’re fucking beautiful. That was the first thought to enter his mind when he spilled an iced Americano on your lap all those months ago and you looked at him like he hailed from another planet. And it is the first thought to enter his mind now, when he runs up to you and cradles your face in his hands, his touch infinitely, impossibly gentle, and you look at him like he’s everything that has ever existed, everything that ever will. 

Tendrils of your body spray reach him from here, floral and light like a tropical coastline. He could’ve counted your eyelashes—if he didn’t have something far better to do.

“Tell me now if you don’t want me to do this,” he whispers.

A stupid smile crosses the face of the smartest person he knows. “My lips are sealed.”

Hyunjin kisses you. He kisses you until the banner around your shoulders is wrinkled under his touch, until your hands are tangled in his hair and aching his scalp, until the breaths you take are breaths you share, passed between your mouths like a puff of smoke before they’re colliding again.

He kisses you until he’s crying, again, until he’s no longer tasting your lips but your grin, and he kisses you only harder when those scornful stars start to dance before him, for you are his, not theirs, and he’s really won everything, now.

“Hwang, I need you in my office.”

Six months later, Hyunjin sees Coach Bang standing a few yards away with a grim air about him. He stops in his footsteps and glances at his captain, confused.

“I know nothing,” Seungmin says, walking away. “Good luck!”

“Thanks, cap.” Hyunjin swears he’s had this exact exchange before.

Head volleyball coach Christopher Bang’s workspace still reminds Hyunjin of a morgue. But there are two picture frames on his desk now: one of his family in front of the Sydney Opera House, the other of a band of boys clad in navy blue, draped over one another in exhausted bliss. The latter lends the room a much-needed sense of vitality. Too bad it still houses a rusty cyborg.

Hyunjin closes the door and takes a seat. Bang taps a knuckle against the tempered glass of his monitor. “Read.”

From: Nicola Daldello «ndaldello@pvm.com» To: Bang “Christopher” Chan «cb97@snu.edu» Subject: Re: Allianz Milano V. Pallavolo Perugia practice game Christopher, Allow me to apologize for my delayed response as I shared your request with Chairman Piazza. It is my great pleasure to inform you that we would love for Mr. Hwang Hyunjin to participate in our practice game versus Pallavolo Perugia. The match is scheduled for Monday, October 7th, 5-7 P.M. CET in the Giurati Sports Centre in Milan. Mr. Hwang will be playing for Allianz Milano as an outside hitter alongside Mr. Matey Kaziyski, Mr. Osniel Mergarejo, and Mr. Ishikawa Yuki. Please let me know of your availability to call regarding Mr. Hwang’s travel logistics. His transportation and lodging costs will be paid for by the club. I’m looking forward to speaking with you and welcoming Mr. Hwang to Italy once and for all. Yours, Nicola Daldello Assistant Coach, Allianz Milano

“I told you, some opportunities just present themselves,” Bang says, turning his monitor back around. “As for next steps, I need a holistic calendar view of your entire month of October, including social ev—Hwang, is that foam coming out of your mo—NOT ON MY CARPET! HWANG!”

In a park about a ten minute walk away, a small crowd of elderly people are scattered across a few stone tables, hunched over the fading chess boards painted into the granite surfaces. Mrs. Choi whisks away Mrs. Baek’s king with a triumphant yelp.

“I knew it, I knew it, I knew it! That opening is unbeatable!” She swivels towards you, shaking a fist threateningly. “You! Get over here. Your reign is over.”

You are sitting cross-legged in the shade of a broad magnolia tree, clearing out your storage. You tried to take a picture of a particularly rotund pigeon to send to Hyunjin earlier and couldn’t even do that. It was then you decided you couldn't live like this anymore.

“As excited as I am to beat you again, Mrs. Choi, I need ten more minutes,” you call back. 

She presents you with an unpleasant hand gesture. You turn your attention back to your phone, grinning. Two new notifications sit at the top of your lock screen.

Hyunjin: Omw now. Sorry had to talk to Chris Hyunjin: Same park? Y/N: yes Hyunjin: Who’s our opponent today Y/N: mrs. choi Hyunjin: Not that bitch again Y/N: ?

He’ll be here in eight minutes.

You return to the task at hand. You’ve already cleared out your apps, your documents, and videos; all that’s left is the audio files. You conduct a quick mental review. Surely you’ll live without your downloaded music and accidental voice memos.

Instead of hitting the “delete” button, you extract a pair of tangled earphones from your jacket pocket.

You go back to your texts with Hyunjin, open the shared attachments tab, and scroll for a long time before you find the voice note he sent you seven months ago.

He finds you a sobbing mess.

“Hey, hey, whoa.” He’s on his knees in an instant, gathering your hands into his, a world of concern in the brown of his eyes. Your earbuds fall out and clatter onto the cement below. “Baby, what’s happening? Are you okay?”

“Yes,” you say in a flustered haste. “Yes, I’m okay. I don’t—I don’t really know what’s happening.”

“Did that hag do this to you?” He asks this question so seriously. “I’ll beat up a senior citizen, I don’t give a fuck—”

“No!” You let out an ugly laugh through your tears. “No, no. Leave Mrs. Choi alone.”

“Then what is it? What’s wrong?”

Eventually, your vision clears enough for you to look at the man kneeling in front of you. His roots grow out longer every day, his hair by now nearly equal parts gold and black. A spot of sunlight infiltrates the magnolia leaves and lands on his left eye, turning it the hue of melted bronze.

Your fingers drift to the sides of his beautiful face as you lean in close; he smells like a combination of smoky rose and tropical coastlines.

“I’ll tell you later,” you murmur, pressing a kiss to his hairline. 

He is dissatisfied with this, hooking a pointer finger beneath your chin, guiding your face back to his. He laves the saltwater from your lips, your tongue, and then you’re smiling again, barely able to remember why you cried in the first place.

You rest your foreheads together. “Have I told you that you look like a bumblebee these days?”

He smiles. “Does that make you my flower, then?”

“Because you’re irresistably drawn to me?”

“No, because I wanna put my pollen in—”

You shove him away. “You are grotesque.”

He returns in a flash. “You love me.”

You kiss him again. And again. And one more time for good measure, during which you mumble I do against his lips, and then you remember something.

“Why did Coach hold you back, by the way?” You pull away, tuck a strand of hair behind his ear. “Are you in trouble again?”

“No, no. The opposite, actually.”

Your brow furrows. “The opposite? What—”

“In this lifetime, please,” Mrs. Choi hollers from the chess tables. You roll your eyes. Hyunjin smiles helplessly.

“Duty calls, my love.”

“Tell me your thing later too?”

“Of course.”

You dust yourself off and stand up, making your way to the battleground. But not before you whisper to Hyunjin, “now watch me beat up a senior citizen.”

He laughs with his whole body, his eyes the shape of crescent moons, his mouth a little rectangle.

“Hypocrite.”

Hyunjin: [1 Audio Message]

This is my seventh take and I’m not recording an eighth. What you get is what you get. I don’t care anymore.

I understand if you don’t wanna talk about what happened at the arcade. I wouldn’t, either. I just wanted to say that you don’t have to do this tutoring thing anymore. I won’t be able to fulfill my end of our deal, so…yeah, it wouldn’t be fair to you. You’ve already done so much for us. For me.

As for team manager, you’ll have to talk to Minho and Coach Bang if you wanna quit. Doesn’t sound like a fun conversation, I know—but if that’s what you decide, I’ll have your back. They don’t scare me. Well, they do. But only sometimes.

You’ve been…distant, this week. I’ve known peace and quiet for the first time since we met, and I fucking hate it. I realized I couldn’t care less if you’re my tutor or my team manager or whatever—I just don’t want you to be a stranger. Maybe that’s selfish of me to say, but I’m tired of pretending the idea of losing you doesn’t terrify me. It does. It really fucking does.

I’m gonna end this here, because I almost just stopped recording on accident and I’ll genuinely commit homicide if I have to do all this again. Sorry that this got so long, and…I’m sorry about everything. You deserve better.

Come back to me whenever you’re ready, okay? I’ll be waiting.

🔖 (send an ask to be added)・@astraystayyh・@like-a-diamondinthesky・@fire-08・@starsandrqindrops・@txtxlz・@laylasbunbunny・@strayghibli・@nuronhe・@seungminsapuppy・@vivisoni・@moon0fthenight・@sweetpickledjins・@svintsandghosts・@nhyunn ・@ur-boyfiend・@liknws・@hotgorloikawa・@randomwimp・@automaticpersonabatpaper・@aceofvernons・@linos-kitten・@newhope8・@weedforthoughtz・@hyunverse

© 𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐱 (est. 090323) · liked this work? please consider reblogging, commenting, or sending me an ask to let me know; or, read my other writing here. thanks so much for the support ♡

[hvly]

WINDBREAKER VIRGINS YOU SAY 👀👀👀

— ⋆｡˚｡⋆ ｡˚ 𓆩𖥔𓆪 ˚｡⋆｡˚｡⋆ —

speaking : yep, you heard right 🙂‍↕️ every show/manga i read is gonna get hit with my virgin ray. "i love virgins, anon ! I LOVE VIRGIIINS !"

𓆩𖥔𓆪 — disclaimer ! these are just my opinions ! if you disagree, cool. let's keep it cute. tbh, they all could be virgins, but they’re the most pressing in my eyes.

Nirei Akihiko

Don't get me wrong, I like Nirei alot ! I think he's super cute and he's so sweet it makes my teeth hurt. But, until his confidence goes up, ain't nothing going down. i do think he has a separate notebook with sex tips that's he gathered from various sources. From friends he worked up the courage to ask, to Cosmo articles, to the pornos he watches on lonely nights. When he finally get brave enough to try though, best believe he'll be prepared for any possible scenario.

Sugishita Kyotaro

Again, I feel like perhaps because he's tall, quiet and handsome, y'all think he'd be laying pipe. I mean, the quiet ones are usually the nastiest in bed, right? extremely loud incorrect buzzer. It'd be a miracle to actually get a sentence out of him. And it'd be another miracle to convince him to come shake the sheets instead of playing Umemiya's shadow. The plants he takes care of have a better chance getting wet by him than you ever will.

Tsugeura Taiga

Straight up, he just scares away any possible suitors. Plus, he's a little slow on the uptake. Between being loud and a bit off putting, and his his inability to catch social cues, he is unfortunately stuck in perpetual virgindom. That's it, that's all.

Sakura Haruka

Now, put the torches and pitchforks down before y'all drag me to the town square. How do we as a collective think Sakura would react if he saw you naked? Stand there reveling in the majesty that is you, dick so hard he might pass out? No. He'd turn red and start yelling before you even get your shoes off. Get him more comfortable with being romantic/sexual, and i’m sure the yelling, stomping, flailing and cherry red blush will die down…in a couple years. Best of luck !

Saku Mizuki

Wannabe General Mizuki. The minute I saw him, I knew he was getting NO pussy. And that makes me sad for him, it truly does. He's too stiff. If, for some odd reason on your part, you decided to lay the moves on him, he'd probably lecture you on how it's inappropriate to shamelessly flirt with people. He'd kill the mood so bad. Plus that one dude called him ugly and he turned around..oof

Takiishi Chika

Take this one with a grain of salt, but from what I've gathered...he just would not be interested. I'm sure Endo has tried bringing it to his attention before. And I'm also sure he got the fire knocked out his ass as soon as it left his mouth. Now, if does decide to get his dick wet, I hope you're fully resigned to letting him do whatever he wants and possibly leaving unsatisfied. Utter anything that sounds like you're telling him what to do? Let's leave getting beat up to Endo, mkay?

Shuhei Suzuri

I think he finds fulfillment and joy in his hobbies and that's all he needs. Being able to cook for people and enjoy his games gives him the satisfaction he was missing when he was in extreme poverty. I'm sure he wouldn't really mind losing his virginity either way, but it's definitely not on the forefront of his mind. A consistently full belly and a couple video games is good enough for now.

Choji Tomiyama

He thinks everything is a game and plays entirely too much to just be fucking for real. And I think he's fine with that ! He's carefree and he's content knocking people's heads together. I do think you could probably get him to give losing his virginity a true shot if you compare him to Umemiya or make it a competition, though. But who's gonna do all that to nut? (I really just added him to make one specific person mad. Let me know if it worked <3)

Honorable Mention : Togame Jo & Umemiya Hajime

Just cuz I want to be the one to take their virginity. I have no real reason LMAOOO.

© 𝘈𝘭𝘭 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘣𝘦𝘭𝘰𝘯𝘨𝘴 𝘵𝘰 hvly 2024. 𝘋𝘰 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘳𝘦𝘱𝘰𝘴𝘵 𝘰𝘳 𝘮𝘰𝘥𝘪𝘧y.

[tarot-archives]

Can I get a uhhhhhh laios with a guy/gn reader who has an equally autistic special interest in general biology and ecosystems that would 100% encompass monsters as well? Asking for a friend that just happens to be me (stg idk if I wanna smooch laios or be him tbh lmao)

an: though i haven’t written for an autistic yn, i’ll try to make it realistic. if i’d done something wrong, please tell me. i focused more on general dungeon ecology for y/n.

if marcille is studying about dungeon ecosystems while laios is more interested in monsters you would be the best of both worlds.

there’s just something thrilling about dungeon ecology, how it all interacts, every thing that fall under it and so on and so forth.

you’re a tall-man researcher, using every bit of your time to find out more about dungeons, and not just the ones in melini. it would have been good to join the magic academy, but since you don’t posses any talent for magic, you can’t enter.

it made you sad since they had a dungeon making class.

nevertheless, it won’t stomp your dreams of researching! you’ve read and copied countless of books you can get your hands on. eventually you settled in meleni where a newly discovered dungeon was found.

your room was filled with countless of journals, trinkets from dungeons and volumes of books you read many time before.

and on your first dungeon party, you were very ecstatic. too bad you had to leave because they’d only go to the easier upper floors. you wanted to head to the lowest level after all!

and that’s where you meet up with the touden party!

you will love marcille’s vast dungeon knowledge. she would love to teach you new things. much to chilchuck’s dismay, you have boosted her ego. endless praises for marcille and simply doting around her because she’s filled with knowledge.

“ah, long lifespans are so great. i’d spend all my life dedicating to dungeon ecology if i could” -y/n after every lecture apparently.

then monster facts with laios will be endless. he lent you his dungeon food guide and you surprisingly have a copy too! you took notes from the things he had written in the margin. much to chilchuck’s demise (again) both you and laios keep on talking and he can’t sleep :((

“eating monsters? can’t say i have thought about it, but do you ever think about their nutritional values? the high level of mana concentration must vary from non-dungeon born same species! This needed to be compared and studied!” -y/n when laios introduced his monster eating thoughts.

toshiro will have another person to ask about his life in the east. but he likes how you keep more time to yourself writing in the journals. he finds your drawing to be artistic. after seeing your difficulties with papers, toshiro will teach you about yotsume toji—a book binding process from his country. he’s happy to see you using it after he taught you.

though you won’t talk with namari much, you admire he strength as a dwarf. she keeps her past to herself, which you at least respect. but you’d talk about the different weapons used and other things she did as a blacksmith. her knowledge on materials is very handy. you write about the different dungeon materials on your journal along with the best weapons against monsters.

chilchuck, our lock expert, and the most unknown member of your party… you admire his knowledge on traps and have written about his experiences with various dungeon traps and ways of disarming them.

falin, she joins you as you ask questions to marcille or laios. she listens to you talk about your dungeon experiences and she tells you about her’s. you let her read the journals you made along the way.

On the day falin was eaten by the dragon, your journal wasn’t transported with you. So now, you join laios to rescue his sister and to save you journals!!

Request? Open!

[kiss-me-cill-me]

oh my godddd that jonathan crane fic did SOMETHING to me 😩❤️!!! it was so good :)) i need some more professor crane in my life 🫦 maybe u could write a part 2 where they eventually start dating and she’s still his student but she keeps teasing him during his lectures and he’s trying to keep his cool but again when everyone leaves he drags her into his office to put her in her place again 😳😢😢

Aaaah, thank you so much!! I like the way you think - a little turn of the tables where reader teases him hehe... I accidentally also started writing a third part to this, so expect more Professor Crane in your life at some point soon, sweet anon <3

Oral Fixation

Pairing: Professor!Jonathan Crane x Reader

Word Count: 3.3k

Summary: It's the start of a new semester, and you're looking forward to the chance to take revenge on your professor. Crane, however, isn't about to let you have the satisfaction. At least not without putting in a little work.

Warnings: Smut, teasing, tropes galore, oral (m receiving), almost-deepthroating, brief mention of toys (but none used), degradation, dumbification, power play dynamics, office sex, established student/teacher relationship

A/N: This fic is technically a Part 2 to THIS, but tbh there is no plot here at all so I think it's also fine to read as a standalone. Enjoy!

***Please read the warnings before continuing. Minors DNI***

You sat in the front row, as usual, nervously tapping your feet. Students to the left and right of you socialized, catching up after their time off for winter break. But of course, all you could focus on was one thing.

Dr. Crane brushed into the room, and you felt your shallow breath stop for a moment. He glanced at you, smiled briefly, and your heart melted.

He made you feel something that none of these silly college boys in the seats next to you could ever hope to. He was confident, self-assured, and mature. It made you swoon just to think about him, standing at the front of the classroom as he delivered a lecture; captivating you and the rest of his students with words alone. Listening to him speak was always enough to make you forget where you were for a moment.

That, and thinking about the dozens of times he had fucked you over the desk in his office. 

You smiled to yourself, remembering the series of secret trysts that you had shared with your professor. Now, with a new semester starting, you were eager to pick back up where you’d left off. You hadn't been able to see Crane at all over the lengthy winter break, and although you had talked with him a few times, you had long ago reached the point of desperation. You needed to feel his touch. Dr. Crane felt similarly; he had assured you.

Now that Crane had taken his place at the front of the room, it was time to put your secret plan into action.

You took out a tube of chapstick, uncapping it with a loud pop. Glancing briefly up to make sure your professor was watching, you rubbed it slowly over your bottom lip, making sure to keep steady eye contact.

Crane watched, a hint of a curious look on his face. He narrowed his eyes just a fraction of an inch as you rubbed your lips together, darting your tongue out to get a taste of the subtle flavor. Then, you smiled, and put the chapstick back in your bag.

Clearing his throat, Crane called the class to attention. Conversations died down as all eyes focused on him, yours included. You subtly bit your lip, making sure to catch his eye, and Crane faltered for an almost imperceptible half-second before regaining his usual grace. 

“Welcome to Advanced Concepts in Psychopharmacology,” he said to the room. There was a brief murmur of papers as a few people opened their notebooks, before Dr. Crane continued. “I'm happy to see some familiar faces-” he glanced at you again, but continued smoothly. “And I think you'll all find this class very rewarding, but challenging.”

He looked directly at you as he said “challenging,” perhaps already guessing at what you had in store for him.

You chewed on the cap of your pen, holding his eye contact and smiling as you held the tip between your teeth. Dr. Crane shifted a little, adjusting some papers he had stacked on the podium.

“Now,” he said. “Can I ask for a volunteer to help hand out copies of the syllabus?”

You raised your hand, still slowly sucking on your pen cap, bottom lip pressed lightly into its edge. Crane called on you, even as he was still wearing that slightly funny expression that you had never seen on him before. His brows furrowed a bit more than usual as you came up to take the stack of papers.

“Thank you,” he said. And then added, a bit lower so that only you could hear, “I thought you were done volunteering in my classes.”

“Only for your ‘demonstrations’ on teasing me,” you whispered back.

You turned on your heel, walking off to hand out the syllabi. You had, very purposefully, worn a pair of tight leggings with nothing else to cover your ass, and you made sure to lean over all of the desks as you picked your way through the rows of students, giving your flustered professor a small show.

When you finally took your seat, a faint pink color had crept over Dr. Crane’s cheeks, although his lips remained in a tight line. To anyone else in the class, it would mean nothing - if they even noticed. But you were watching him intently, and you were quite pleased by the results that even a little teasing had on your professor.

You weren’t immune to its effects, either. You rubbed your legs together, thinking about what was sure to happen just as soon as Crane could get you alone. You settled back into your seat, and dug around in your bag for your chapstick.

For the rest of class, as Crane went over the syllabus and answered increasingly ridiculous questions from the other students, you subtly continued to work away at him. Every time his eyes darted over, you would be sure to stick out your tongue, just a bit to press against the tip of the pen. Twice, you reapplied chapstick - and one time you managed to make Crane trail off, utterly losing his train of thought right in the middle of a sentence. It was obvious that you were getting to him. Though only he and you could have known about it.

You glanced down to check your watch. Only five minutes were left in class. It was time to pull out your final weapon.

Crane watched incredulously as you slowly unwrapped a lollipop. You dared to give him a small wink before sticking it in your mouth. Your eyes fluttered shut as you savored the fruity taste and the feel of the candy against your tongue. You dragged it out from between your lips, letting it linger in front of your mouth for just a moment. Peeking from beneath one eyelid, you saw Crane’s gaze fixed on you. You opened your eyes fully to look at him, shamelessly watching his reaction as you stuck out your tongue and pressed it flat against the sucker.

“I'm… I'm sorry, where was I?” Crane stammered. He pinched the bridge of his nose, lifting up his glasses, and sighed. “I'm afraid I have a slight headache.”

Someone else in the front row raised their hand, helping Crane recall what he had been talking about. There were more than a few murmurs from the class, and you couldn't help but smile. You knew you'd be in for it later, and you suddenly couldn’t wait to get in trouble.

“And with that, I'll dismiss you all a few minutes early,” Crane said briskly. “My apologies, but I really need to go take care of this headache.”

He looked directly at you again, and you shifted your hips in your seat. The class packed up quickly, everyone eager to get on with the rest of their first day. You lingered, keeping the sucker lodged in your mouth as you watched Dr. Crane gather his belongings. He held his briefcase, a bit awkwardly, in front of his body as he stepped out from behind the lecturer’s podium, and made his way over to your seat.

“I need your help with something in my office.”

Most of the other students had exited the room already, and you checked around to make sure no one was within earshot.

“What do you need my help with?” you teased, feigning innocence.

You swirled the lollipop in your mouth, parting your lips as you looked up at your professor. He sighed heavily through his nose.

“I'll tell you when we get there. Let's go,” he said, impatiently.

“I have another class after this,” you protested.

“Well, now you have a very important appointment,” he countered. “You'll just have to beg your other professor to excuse your absence.”

The classroom was empty now, except for the two of you, and Crane leaned down over your desk as he lowered his voice to a menacing timbre.

“After you're done begging me.”

You jumped up, already feeling excitement swell between your legs. The smile on your lips was mirrored by Crane’s own grating, serious expression. The corners of his mouth turned down as he walked with you out of the room, his hand at your elbow to guide you as you made your way through the psychology building. Luckily, his office wasn't a very far walk.

Crane opened the door, and went through first. As soon as you’d followed him, he slammed the door shut and pushed you against it, his lips already at your neck.

“You seem to have developed a new oral fixation over winter break,” he muttered, hot breath fanning over your pulse. “Why is that, I wonder?”

His question was obviously rhetorical, so you didn't answer; instead, humming around the piece of candy still stuck in your mouth as Crane’s lips bruised against your neck.

“You're a bit bolder than I remember, too,” Crane continued. “Teasing me in the middle of class.”

You smiled.

“Nothing that you haven't done to me, too… professor,” you replied, pulling the sucker out of your mouth.

“That may be true, but I at least still have the sense to be subtle about it.” Crane backed away to look at you, and lust flared deep in his eyes. “You were lucky that no one else saw you practically fucking this thing with your tongue.”

He grabbed the sucker out of your hand, and threw it roughly into the trash. A warm thrill of feverish excitement rushed over you. Crane almost never swore; when he did, it meant he was really riled up. Your smile widened, as you leaned a little closer.

“I'm sorry. I was just looking for a way to occupy my mouth,” you laughed. “What did you call it? Oral fixation?”

Crane pinched your chin a bit too roughly, forcing you to look up at him as he cocked his head.

“It's really only cute when you play dumb if it's because you're getting fucked stupid,” he grunted. “If you want something to fixate on, get on your knees.”

You were eager to oblige. Quickly, you dropped down to kneel on the floor of his office. Delighted, you saw that Crane was already hard, the outline of his cock straining prominently against his pants. You reached up to undo his belt, but Crane slapped your hands away.

“You want to use your mouth so badly? Then use it. No hands.”

He finished loosening his belt, holding it to the side to help you along. Your nose brushed up against his shirt as you brought your mouth to the hem of his pants. The fabric was rough against your lips, and you looked up at your professor for a moment.

“Get on with it,” he sighed, clearly impatient and dying to get on with things just as much as you were.

But you wanted to make him wait for a while. Slowly, you leaned back, pulling at the fabric of his pants until it finally slipped over the button. You paused, and sighed heavily to let your breath wash over him.

“A little faster, darling,” Crane urged.

You smirked, happy to see that he was already regretting making you use your mouth when your hands would have been faster. All that was left now was his zipper. You took the little metal tab carefully between your teeth, and lowered your whole body to drag it down.

Crane was still trapped in the confines of his pants, and he reached in hastily to free himself, apparently not trusting you to take your time with that. His cock glistened, already coated with excitement. You leaned up to take him in your mouth, but Crane stopped you, bracing his thumb against your chin. Suddenly, he was the one holding you back.

“You know, oral fixations only develop when something a person needs is withheld,” Crane told you. “Is that what happened to you? You went a few weeks without sucking me off, and now it's all you can think about?”

You were about to respond, when Crane stuck his thumb in your mouth. You moaned around it; the sudden intrusion shocking, but not unwelcome.

“Look at you,” Crane scoffed, more than a bit of his usual poise and control creeping back into his voice. “So desperate for something in your mouth. Seeing you like this makes me think of that time you let me fuck you over a table in the lecture hall - remember that?”

You remembered it very well, and hummed around his finger, swirling it against your tongue as you nodded. 

“Of course you do, darling,” Crane muttered. “You’ve probably been thinking about me splitting you open like that for the last three weeks straight while you try to get off with some pathetic vibrator. Am I right?”

You looked up to see a harsh glint of fluorescent light shine off of his glasses. From behind the glare, his eyes blazed, and you felt a rush of excitement drop straight into the pit of your stomach.

“Mmm-hm,” you agreed, nodding your head as the sound was muffled by his thumb in your mouth.

“Well, if you’re good, then maybe I’ll give you what you’ve really been missing,” Crane teased. “But first, I think we need to put an end to this new ‘fixation’ of yours.”

He dragged his thumb out of your mouth, yanking it out with a forceful pop. Instantly, the head of his cock was at your lips.

“Open.”

He could have told you to choke on it, and you would have. Glady. But instead, Crane used one hand to guide just the tip of his head past your lips. The thumb that had been in your mouth was now pressed down into your chin, keeping your jaw open painfully wide as it would go, and your tongue sticking out as he let himself glide over it.

“I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t miss this, too,” Crane admitted. “You have such a pretty mouth.”

The taste of his salty, nearly-overwhelming musk made you want to close your eyes and savor it, just like you had with the candy earlier. But you fought to keep them open. Crane, looming over you, was always too good of a sight to take your eyes off of. He smiled down at you, a faint hint of wickedness playing over his face as he continued.

“Why don’t you pick up where you left off in class?”

You smiled. As much as you could under the current circumstances, anyway. Your little show had worked wonderfully; exactly how you’d wanted it to. Crane moved his hand from your chin to the back of your head, urging you on. You flattened your tongue against him and paused for a moment, letting your breath fan over his head before you drifted forward. 

Rather than taking him in your mouth, you let your tongue slide down the underside of his shaft, leaving behind a wet trail that brushed over the very tip of your nose as his cock twitched against you. You sucked at the sides gently, letting his smooth skin trail over your tongue as you kissed your way slowly back up from the base. Finally, wrapping your lips around him caused Crane to sigh deeply; the sound gradually turning into a contented hum as you sucked him into your mouth.

You brought your soft hand up to wrap around his shaft, only for Crane to swat it away.

“Did you already forget what I told you?” he growled, his mood suddenly shifting again. “Maybe you’re not just playing dumb. A few weeks off from school, and now you don’t even remember how to listen to your professor?”

You hurried to hold your hands securely behind your back, still looking up at Crane for approval.

“That’s better,” he said. 

Breaking his own rules, Crane brought a hand up to steady his length, using it to press himself a bit more forcefully onto your tongue.

“If you can’t take it all, just say so,” he told you, even as he continued to sink further into your mouth. You felt the breath catch in your throat as the sensation started to overwhelm you. “But, silly me - you can’t talk with your mouth full.”

Crane smiled wickedly as he pulled himself out of you, making you gasp with the sudden ability to breathe. You coughed, sputtering but still smiling as Crane pumped his fist up and down, coating your spit over his whole cock. His other hand came softly up to rest on your face.

“You really have forgotten a few things since last semester,” he said sympathetically. Or maybe that was just a hint of pity. “I think you’re going to have to start coming to my office hours again. Maybe even some private tutoring sessions, so I can really teach you how to do this properly.”

Still on your knees in front of him, you looked up and decided to make things even worse for yourself.

“Or maybe you could just fuck me over your desk again,” you suggested. “That might teach me a lesson.”

Crane stared back at you in disbelief. It was all you could do to stop from giggling as you wiggled your hips a little, desperate for whatever friction you could manage to get against the press of your own legs.

“You really are insistent on pushing me today,” he sighed.

For a moment, you worried that you had gone too far, and that he was really annoyed with you. That thought quickly vanished as Crane grabbed onto your arm and pulled you, yanking you up to your feet. In the next instant, you were slammed back against his office door, making a few of the framed diplomas on the wall next to it shudder. 

Your mouth opened, and Crane’s lips were suddenly and violently up against yours, the all-at-once soft-forceful feel of his tongue pushing into your mouth. His furious hand came down to your leggings, pushing into the fabric with his fingers held directly over your clit. He pressed, hard, not moving his hand at all but just holding it harshly against you.

“Mmm,” you sighed, grinding your hips down against him.

Crane stood up a little straighter to laugh - a short, barking sound that seemed to come from deep within his chest.

“Seems like you might have some other fixations, too,” he observed. “If this is what just a few weeks away from me does to you, I think we’re going to have to spend a lot of time together this semester.”

You cried out, softly; aware that you couldn’t be too loud for fear of the other professors with offices near Crane’s hearing you. Deep down, you wanted nothing more than to scream for him. But that would have to come later; maybe tonight, after the rest of the department had gone home. Crane would sometimes let you in with his spare key, then ravish you to your heart’s content in the privacy of the empty building. That would certainly stop you from teasing him, at least for a little while.

He pressed his forehead against yours, fingers still crushing into your clit but refusing to move.

“And I think you’re going to have to drop whatever class you have after this one,” he informed you. “Because I’m going to be asking you to stay late. Frequently.”

You moved your hips again, desperate for friction against Crane’s fingers. Not ready to let you have the satisfaction, he tore his hand away and then started pressing down on your shoulders, making you sink to your knees again.

“To start, let’s go over this one more time,” he suggested. “Hands on your legs, and don’t you dare touch yourself. Use your mouth for something more productive than eating in class. And maybe I’ll let you have what you want - if you can manage to listen.”

You leaned forward, eagerly wanting to taste him again. As you hollowed your cheeks, you pushed against him as deep as you could bear. Above you, Crane braced both of his elbows against the office door, and let out a strangled grunt.

This was going to be the start of an exciting semester…

[v3nusxsky]

i’m not 100% sure your requests are open or if you’ve done this before but i’ve read some of your leonora lesso fics and i’m in love

i’m was wondering whether you could maybe right a little!lesso x caregiver!reader. they’re both teachers, maybe r is an ever

but tbh maybe just some hurt comfort <3

The Little Lion

*Authors note~ ahh little Leo and Agere is my life, may be horrid I am currently in a lecture for behaviour with a massive headache but I’m determined to catch up on writing fics*

Trigger warnings~ Agere little Leonora, cg y/n first time regression star struck Leonora

Prompt~see ask^^^

Being the Dean Of Evil wasn’t ever Leonora’s plans but it’s where she ended up and appeared to be amazing at her job. But was she evil? Or maybe just hurt deep down? The world would never know the pain she’d been through and just how she dealt with her pain. While she held her scary exterior inside lay a soft gooey core that is ever so fragile and to be protected at all costs.

Being evil for so long tends to drain the red head, and with her Never students acting up more, it was worse than ever before. No one knew of the tentative relationship you and Lesso had began, but the tension between you both was simply too hard to ignore and one night with a lot of alcohol had confession’s of truth spilling from you both. Agreeing to try this out but of course no one could know, not until you both knew it would work of course.

That was a couple of months ago and things had been going rather well. You being an Ever made things slightly harder but both of you worked to find ways to meet in secrecy and have subtle changes in your daily life’s when it came to communication. That’s why it wasn’t uncommon for you to sneak into the Deans room after hours. There would be no students to catch you and should a member of staff see you, then you had a well rehearsed reason to be there.

Entering her room tonight felt different but you couldn’t put you finger on the reason why. With a quick scan of the room you could see nothing was out of its place however, Leonora was no where to be found which is odd. Normally she’s waiting with a signature look that’s just for you as her eyes room your body just drinking in your beauty.

“Nora?” You murmured in a hope she would appear but all that greeted you was silence. Moving forward into her chamber you made your way to her sleeping area. “Nora, darling?” You mumbled before knocking and pushing the heavy oak door open, never in a million years would you have expected the sight in front of you.

In the bed, Leonora was dressed in fussy orange socks with a lion onesie, colouring some pages that looked to be animal prints. Clearly she was in her own little world and you almost felt bad for intruding. Almost. The way she was currently looking at you jade you feel you were more needed than ever before. Being an ever you knew exactly what was going on here.

“Hi darling, watcha got there?” You whispered to her before settling on the edge of her bed. But Leonora said nothing just staring at you with her mouth agape like she’d seen a unicorn or something equally as magical. You couldn’t help but chuckle at her star struck expression, “close your mouth darling, you’ll be catching flys in a minute.”

“Princess” the red head stated still absolutely entranced by you. “You think I’m a princess darling?” You happily fed into her statement hoping to gain her trust. “Pretty” was slurred around the woman’s thumb that had made its way between her lips. It was so obvious what was happening here. With a gasp you responded, “well thank you little darling. I think you’re pretty too.”

Silence fell over the room again, you didn’t mind of course, clearly Leonora needed this and now wasn’t the time to talk about what this was, so you settled for giving her whatever she needed from you in this moment. “Raw!” Lesso growled as she continued to scribble in a pen that could honestly rival the woman’s hair colour. “Such a cute little lion” you murmured to her causing her to smile, not smirk but smile at you and blush. Leonora Lesso doesn’t blush… but your little lion here seemed to be the opposite.

It wasn’t long before Leonora had shoved a pen at you and instructed that you colour in certain areas, “ands no out of lines!” She firmly reprimanded after you went ever so slightly went over the lines. “I’m so sorry little cub” you feigned a pout.

“Im not use to sharing I sorry, I fix it then pretty princess happy and loves Leo lion!” A childish slur causing words to blur together and just sounding adorable. “Thank you little cub, I still love you little lion, how could I not with this cute mane on your head hmm?” You whispered before ruffling the fake mane on the hood of the lion onesie.

It wasn’t long after that small interaction you could see her little balled up fists rubbing at her eyes, a clear indication that it was in fact past midnight. “Little lion, aren’t you getting sleepy yet?” You attempted not knowing how to bring this up with her. But luckily she nodded and crawled straight into your lap, her head nestled into your neck and a hand resting above your heart. It was clear you weren’t going anywhere tonight but opted to soothe Leonora to sleep so you could move the woman without disturbing her. Although the little version of Lesso was okay with you acting like a caregiver that didn’t mean Leonora was too. Your hand gently rubbed soothing circles on her back as you swayed your legs ever so slightly in hopes to comfort her. Just when you thought she’d drifted off you caught her sleepy mumble off, “thank you for looking after me princess.”

Word count ~ 1023

[studyyblur]

day 30/100

not in the mood for a list again, but today i feel pretty frustrated with myself tbh, i feel like i'm not giving it my all, like i don't even understand why i'm slacking off, but on a good note, i went on a walk with an old old friend of mine and for those 40 minutes, i felt like i was my child self all over again, who's motive in life was to go out and play with her friends, but nevertheless i feel like i'm not doing enough with acads, given that my exam's approaching fast asf, i did say i was not in the mood for a list but my ass desperately needs some decorum for myself to function, so here we go:

lecture 2 on complex numbers + its problem sheet

readings on structure of atom + review problem sheet and previous year problems + short notes

readings on thermal properties of matter + solve previous year problems

[chlobliviate]

Wolfstar Microfic Prompt 1 - Western

Words: 410

@wolfstarmicrofic

***

Sirius was practically vibrating in his seat. It had been weeks since Remus moved to Falmouth to take up a lecturing position at the university, but Sirius had needed to work his notice period in London before joining him. All three months of it. It had been torture.

‘The train approaching Platform One is the 15:15 Great Western Railway Service to Falmouth Docks. Calling at Perranwell, Penryn, Penmere, Falmouth Town, and Falmouth Docks.’

He stood up and placed his backpack on top of his suitcase. Logically, he knew that he wouldn’t get there any quicker by doing so, but he also sensed that he was annoying the person next to him on the bench with his leg bouncing.

As the train pulled away from Truro, he pulled out his phone.

Pads

just left truro, should be with you in about 20 mins.

Moony

Can’t wait to see you, sweetheart. I feel like a fucking teenager again.

Pads

im glad its not just me tbh. I missed you so much!

Moony

I missed you too. I’m never leaving your side again.

Pads

thats probably gonna make your lectures really awkward, but I accept your terms.

Sirius double-checked their new address before putting it into Google Maps. It was a four-minute walk from the station, though Remus had warned him about the steep hill. When he got off the train he was not expecting to be greeted by cheers and shouts of “Padfoot!” “Sirius, you made it!” “Fucking finally!”, and a long banner (made from sellotaped together pieces of A4 paper) which read “Welcome Home, Sirius!”.

Sirius flew into Remus’ arms, not caring that he was almost sobbing into his shoulder. “I thought you had to work!”

“I rearranged my schedule so I could come and meet you.”

“And bring a crowd?” Sirius looked over his shoulder. Lily, James, Pete, Marlene and Dorcas were still holding the banner, grinning at him. “I can’t believe we’re all back here.”

“The difference fifteen years makes.” James laughed, “It was inevitable we’d all come back. We missed you.”

“Oh fuck, Jamie.” Sirius sniffed, “I missed you too, all of you.”

“Hope you’re not too tired, love.” Remus said quietly, “Lily has already set up a very nostalgic party at home. She’s got Ring of Fire ready to go. Marlene made a playlist and Dori’s made three different cocktails.”

“I’m never too tired for that.” Sirius wrapped his arm around Remus’ waist. “Lead the way.”

[madschiavelique]

The way you describe miquels love is pure fcking poetry 😭😭😭🤌🏻 esp in the yandere drabbles and hi!!! I’m that anon btw who rambled in your inbox the other about it lol this man just itches a part of my brain that has me go brrrr!!! I love your choice of prose tbh, it fits him oh so beautifully 😭😭😩

love me a man who has all sorts of storms brewing inside of him bc he loves and feels so deeply and violently but on the outside isn’t always so expressive through his words but shows it oh so overwhelmingly through touch and actions and sometimes to most dire and desperate lengths like damn i know you want them to be safe but does that have to include putting trackers on their phone, their car and the beautiful piece of jewellery you gifted them for their bday?! and don’t get me started when you come home a bit too late for his likings, bc you decided to get drinks with a few work friends after your shift. you’ve canceled way too many times on them already bc miguel doesn’t like you staying out too late. He gets a bit worried and overprotective and lectures you too much, so you lie and tell him you had to stay late at the office for paperwork 🥴mistake no 1 bc he already knows when you left and where you went to. And he saw with who (he has access to security cameras too). One particular coworker of yours who was present has been flirty w you on many occasions, a younger guy who is like that with everyone, according to you but of course miguel doesn’t accept this excuse. He also doesn’t understand why you felt like lying to him. He doesn’t get angry though, he could never get angry at you. He just wants to understand. And he wants you to understand. How much he loves you, how much he fears for your safety when you stay out late in the city where he knows what lurks around after dark. Everything he does, is for your own good and your own safety. He doesn’t outright confront you, bc then he’d have to confess the security measures he had to take beyond your knowledge (again, all of your own good and safety), but maybe he pulls a string or two to get you to work more from home. Of course he never tells you this (you’re too proud to accept favours and the perks that comes with his position of power, something that often frustrates him bc this man just wants to spoil you rotten🥴)

and who knows? Maybe he has to show you some extra attention, so you remember what’s yours (he is) and what is waiting for you at home (eager and willing, always and forever)

and if that doesn’t do the trick (entirely), he resorts to something else... Something he isn’t proud of, but you are giving him no other choice with being too stubborn for your own good. some lessons are apparently learned the hard way 🤷🏼‍♀️🥴 lets just say there’s a suit or two he has once developed, prototype armour to be exact and not in use, black in color so perfect to conceal him in the shadows as he follows you in the alley while you walk out of the bar to catch the subway home. He just wants to rough you up, nothing too serious. So he snatches you away before you can protest, cornering you in the darkness of the alley and trapping you in between himself and the cold wall of a building. He just wants to scare you so you have a real reason to reconsider these nights out. What he doesn’t expect is how much a part of him finds it so strangely appealing and downright arousing to see the fear and tears in your eyes though, as you struggle to get out of his grip. Huh 🤔

ANON

OMFG

O

M

F

G

DO YOU EVEN KNOW THE WAY MY JAW WAS TO THE FLOOR WHILE READING THIS ???? LIKE OMG

anon this did unspeakable things to me.

how dare you.

i need more.

anon you just

you just convinced me to write a multiple chapter fic for a good yan!miguel x reader x yan!peter b

.

.

.

with stockholm syndrom

I AM SO GOING TO WRITE THIS AFTER I’M DONE WOTH REQUESTS

[burninface]

🍉Tag Game Wednesday🍉

thank you @lingy910y @creepkinginc @deedala @em-harlsnow for tagging me and thanks @michellemisfit for the creative game!!

Name: face

Age: it's a prime number

Location (globally): lately in stardew valley

Location (physically): on the yoga mat

Favourite Food to Eat: recently fall in love with fried jiaozi(dumpling?🥟) again

Favourite Food to Cook: pretty much everything as far as i don't need to wash all the utensils and tidy up kitchen after

Will you be attending too-schoolforcool’s ☀️ Kitchen Shenanigans🍴with Cherry on the 6th July?

Will you be attending heymacy’s ☀️ Astrology 101: More Than Just Your Sun Sign ☀️ lecture on the 13th July?

unfortunately because of time difference it'll be midnight here so i can't make it

What’s Your Zodiac: ♐

Now let predictive text complete each sentence for you after the 💭

My age is 💭 just like a little dangerous people translated without permission (what)

My favourite animal is 💭 a cat and I have a cat named after him and I have to say that he is a very special cat (I name a cat after a cat?!)

I love to cook 💭 for me (yeah i do)

I love to eat 💭 him and I love to have him in my life and I love to be with her… (WHAT and it goes on and on i have to stop here)

I have a lot of ideas about 💭 the same time I don't know what I was

I have no clue 💭 what to do with my life (tbh it's kinda true)

My dream career is 💭 to be a teacher (no i don't)

My favourite character on Shameless 💭 is my favorite character (of course lol)

Debbie Gallagher is 💭 my favorite character (sorry debs but you're not)

Carl Gallagher is 💭 my favorite character (wait I see how it's going… )

Mandy Milkovich is 💭 my favorite character (i have three favorite character now)

Mickey Milkovich is 💭 my favorite character ( yeah i can have more)

Ian Gallagher is 💭 my friend (of course I'll have fiv…wait that's different! i wish i could be his friend)

To me Ian and Mickey are 💭 the best characters in the show (they are!)

Gallavich means 💭 a lot to me because I love them both (💯)

I wish anyone who reads this to 💭 me would know that I love them all (yes I love you all and you don't have to read this to me!)

sorry I'm super late and no tagging this week!! I'm going back to stardew valley now

[kawaiianimekitten]

Hey, ccould I have om boys with a Violet Baudelaire reader?

wildly intelligent, resourceful, and strong. A talented inventor and a quick thinker, Violet is good at using her smarts to get out of difficult situations.

Reader ties her hair up with a ribbon when she has an idea for an invention.

Tbh, I've never seen the show Violet is in, but I'll try my best based on your description of her.

I'mma do some headcannons, but if you want a oneshot or something, feel free to ask again

_________________________________________

Lucifer-

Would be kinda impressed

He wouldn't really show it very much, but if you get to know him and watch closely, whenever you show him an invention, his eyebrows will raise slightly and he'll have a very subtle smile

If you make a lot of noise or a mess when making something, though, be prepared for a lecture

Impressed you can hold your own until one of the brothers gets there if a demon is trying to attack you

Would get annoyed whenever you outsmart him on things, it hurts his pride

If he notices you're running low on ribbons to tie your hair up, he'll get more, but won't say anything about it unless you bring it up

If you do bring it up, he'll just shrug it off, saying something along the lines of "While under this house you are my responsibility. That means I must make sure you have everything you need, even things as small as ribbons to tie you're hair up with."

Mammon-

Will stare at you as if you're the coolest person ever

He can't believe a meer human is so smart

Will definitely use you to make money

Take you gambling with him and have you use your smarts to help

Definitely includes you in schemes

If you ask him for his help while inventing, he'll be so happy and very willing. He won't really know how to do much, but will gladly hand you tools and parts whenever you need them

Will buy you ribbons as well, but when giving them to you he'll be a flustered tsundere

"H-Here, I got this for ya. I see ya use em to put yer hair up. N-Not that I like ya or anythin! Y-Yer my responsibility, s-so gotta make sure yer on top of yer game! Just be thankful The Great Mammon is feeling generous today!"

Levi-

Will both be envious and self deprecate

A mere human is so smart! He wants to be that smart! He'd be able to beat any game if he was! Ugh, he feels so stupid when he's around you

Will ask you to make games for him or offer to try any games if you ever decide to make any

Will also gladly help you if you ask him to help with your inventions

He'll be very flustered, but will definitely be more helpful than Mammon

Inventions might not be what he's best at, but if it's ever anything electronic he'll definitely knows a thing or two

Satan-

Finally another intellectual for him to be around

He's so glad to finally have someone who's actually smart, besides him, in the house

Both of you could talk for hours about stuff

Would definitely be the most helpful when it comes to assisting you with inventions

Will ask you to invent some stuff for cats

Loves to steal you from his brothers so you two can have intellectual conversations

Also likes parallel play. He'll read while you work on your more quiet inventions.

_________________________________________

I started it awhile ago and never finished it, sorry 😞 but here's half of it at least

[yan-snowcave]

First impression gone wrong

Transcript of all the speech bubbles can be found below the "Read More"

[Phew, this took 3-4 days of non-stop drawing to finish it, tbh I'm happy with how it came out! Especially since I rarely draw humans so it was a good, fun exercise and now I can work on other stuff for my OC (and Milo's 3 other forms ;3c) & other projects! (Also taking a lil break from drawing to let my hands rest.) And thanks to everyone who drew Makura, I promise I will try and draw your OC's and others too! They all look amazing just give me some time please TwT Also my handwriting isn't the best sorry!]

Transcript;

[Page 1]

Seth: Who's this? Milo...A new boytoy? Or...

[Seth's POV]

Makura: You signed the Contract Milo <3

You're MINE

I will "eat" you~

(I'm sorry but, I have to reveal the truth)

Seth: Maku's a demon!

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

[Page 2]

Desmond: Seriously? This again? This is the third time this week...

Valli: Seth...

Makura: ...Ash will beat my ass, fuck

Milo: Huh?

Seth: You see in the book Demonolgy (volume 3) it's explained that most demons form contracts with mortals to obtain their soul to devour later on in exchange the mortal gets whatever they want.

It's also very important that the soul is that of a virgin or that they are an innocent or naive person with a pure soul like Milo. Unlike, let's say...Ryan who has a corrupted soul, which explains why he's still alive and kickin. Not to mentione that we never saw Makura without their hood-mask off. Not even during lectures and we know how the teachers are. They dont allow us to wear any hats or hoods, which means that Makura has to have some sort of demonic manipulation powers. Maybe they can even shape and change the universe to whatever they desire. And we dont even need to mentione the students who don't approach them almost out of instinct and we all know thats a clear sign of an Demonic Aura.

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

[Page 3]

Seth: I have to confess I'm a bit jealous but also very proud of Milo. As a fellow monster lover, even if he stumbled into this relationship on accident. I will give him kudos for getting such a big catch! Getting a demon partner isn't easy.

I tried and failed so many times. Some were already taken and I'm no home wrecker for fellow monster lovers. We have to stick toghether y'know? No one else would understand the struggle of dating someone thats a non-human and even those with open minds often think our partners are crazy or just playing a demon which is rather rude.

But you cant do much about it. Also if you want to start courting them then you have to be very carefull. Demonic courting isnt for the faint of heart and will often force you to get gifts that many people would see as strange or disgusting. Also be carefull if you go further in your relationship, their claws, teeth and salavia can be harmfull to us mortals, not to mentione that lu-

Desmond: Seth!! For gods sake, stop with this NONESENSE! Makura isnt a demon, they have no demonic traits. They are just a cringey furry, wanna be pastel goth! That's KNOWN for their agressive behaviour!

Seth: I'm just giving Milo some much needed advice and warnings!

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

[Page 4]

Milo: My prince!

Valli: Seth! Desmond!! Stop it right now or I WILL kick your asses!

[scp230kinnie]

may I request agent strelnikov, dr gears, dr clef, dr bright, dr glass, and dr gerald with a researcher reader that they see as their kid?

also do you have a character limit? i couldnt find one so i apologize for the long request

Hi thanks for the request 🫶🫶 no character limit !! It should probably just fit into the Media Limit so i can put photos of the characters lol

Anyways I present;

SCP Foundation Personnel with researcher! Reader they See as their kid

Characters: Agent Strelnikov, Dr Gears, Dr Clef, Dr Bright, Dr Glass, and Dr Gerald

Genre: PLATONIC FLUFF

Warnings: gn!reader, cringe, blood, death, & SCPS

NO PICTURES ARE MINE

Agent Dmitri Strelnikov

Nah cuz I love him

He’d throw things at you and say “think fast” lmao

Oh you get sick one day? No you dont

He will force feed you soup

If you don’t want to take medicine may the lord help you

Hes not a big fan of affection but if you ever need it he would give you like one of those weird side hugs

He does his best to keep an eye on you when he can

He doesn’t rlly show it that well but he does care about you deeply

If anything happened to you like you were hurt, or god forbid killed, he would go feral

Or if he catches you crying his first instinct would be to ask who he needs to kill

Changing the subject lol…

Do not tell him if you have a crush on anyone in the office

He will bully you relentlessly LMAO

He genuinely thinks of you as his child

Has introduced you to a few people accidentally saying “and this is my kid (Y/N)”

He’s got a shit music taste but he will force you to listen to it

Sure, he’s the tough guy.. but not around you

He feels a bit more comfortable around you

He sucks at board games, and is a sore loser

When he’s out on missions, separated from you, he gets a but anxious but he asked people to keep their eyes on you for him

Dr. Gears

He would be you mentor when you first come to the foundation

Being in that position made him feel like a father towards you

Not affectionate whatsoever

Will pat your shoulder if you’re upset tho

He usually keeps his phone on do not disturb, aside from anything work related, and you of course

Your contact name on his phone is “dumbfuck”

Everyone at the foundation knows he’s basically your non official dad

Very persistent in making sure you get enough sleep or drink enough water

If you got hurt, especially by an SCP he would be PISSED

He has some power at the foundation tho so he would make sure it would somehow never happen again

He never smiles or laughs or anything, but he finds it endearing when you try to get him to tho

He doesn’t listen to music.

For the first time ever, you come before his job

He lends you books because I like to think he reads if he has free time 😈

He tries to make sure you steer clear of bright or clef

Tbh he doesn’t really want you to be like them (even if you already are)

He teaches you anything and everything he knows even if its the most basic task

He’s also rlly patient with you so that makes it a bit easier for you

If he ever catches you slacking he doesn’t really yell at you, just gives you a lecture

Just like a dad would

Dr. Alto Clef

Lets say you guys met through bright

He immediately takes a liking to you (platonically of course)

He buys you lots of stuff despite him probably having no money lol

He begs other people for money just so he can buy you something nice he found the other day

He just likes to see you happy

His one and only goal is to protect you

He will go out of his way to keep watch over you

Bro even recruits bright to help him

If you ever got hurt he would have his shotgun out in seconds

He would not hurt you himself, unless you take his pen /hj (reference to my other fic lol)

He will teach you how to play guitar !!

And shoot a gun 😈

He tries to help you with your work, but he ends up getting distracted then starts distracting you

Dr. Jack Bright

My bae fr

You met because you got caught up in one of his pranks 💔

He will not let you ANYWHERE near the amulet

He’s so scared something will happen to you but he doesn’t show it very much

If someone makes you upset, he has already fed them to some SCP

He always has an eye on you, no matter what

He helps you with work and he’s actually mot that bad but about halfway through he will get distracted lol

When he’s doing some prank he wants you to join him, unless it means you or someone else is probably going to get hurt

He’ll probably try to teach you how to drive (if you don’t know how) then would hijack it lololol

If there’s a containment breach he is heading your way immediately

He needs you to be safe no matter what

He buys you stuff lolol

You get sick and he’s in full dad mode

If you were to die he wouldn’t know how to survive

Dr. Simon Glass

Constantly worried for you

He’s a psychologist lol he can tell when something is wrong

Or when you’re lying

He also just generally wants to help you with anything

He can be as manipulative as he wants, but if he uses it, its only to keep you safe

He helps you with your work and researching ❤️

He’s also memorized your order for everything so he will go get you stuff on his breaks

He does absolutely everything he can to make sure you don’t get sick or hurt

If you ever do get sick or hurt, he absolutely panics

He recruits anyone to watch over you when he cant

Or he convinces the o5 to let him look at you through your office cameras

Its not creepy he’s keeping you safe I promise

He truly does think of you as his child

Dr. Gerald

He’s so funny

He generally tries to distance himself from you because he doesn’t want his bad luck / clumsiness to get to you 😭

He does try to protect you tho

Even if its from himself

Or inanimate objects

Or anything

He loves to brag about basically being your father

He loves that you still consider him a father too despite all his issues LMAO

He is kinda scared of you

He’s very good at his work despite everything so maybe get him to look over your work when you’re done

From a distance

He doesn’t really know what to do if you get hurt or if you’re upset

He will probably think it was something to do with him aw

Same if you’re sick

He will try his best but ultimately will get someone to bring you soup

He tries his best be nice

IM SO SORRY SOME OF THESE WERENT AMAZING IM TRYING MY BEST

Still working on requests so have this while u wait 😍

[infinitenicknames]

Partially Deaf/Hard of Hearing Prefect

A/N: Purely self indulgent and based off of my own hearing loss called a cookie bite and my experiences with it. I can’t speak for everyone but this is how this stuff usually goes for me

Grim

finds out within the first day, whether you want him to or not

you thought you were alone in Ramshackle. How were you to know he’d come up from behind you and try to talk to you?

he’s PISSED when you don’t respond to his remarks and almost sets you on fire

when he finally does catch your attention he starts badgering you about why you were ignoring the Great Grim

you eventually calm him down enough to explain that you took your hearing aids off for the night so you couldn’t hear him at all

Grim is confused and you have to go into the whole speech about how you’re missing part of your hearing and need devices to help you with it or how you can read lips to understand people

Grim actually feels pretty bad about it. He’s probably never dealt with any sort of disability before so he’d probably not know how to handle it or how to help you

“No, yelling at me won’t fix the problem Grim. Use your inside voice. You’re going to wake the dead again”

He’d eventually figure out that you can still hear high stuff, he’d definitely shriek to get your attention when you don’t have your hearing aids on no matter how much it annoys you (if people didn’t think Ramshackle was haunted before, the high pitched wails coming from there occasionally throughout the night definitely has them convinced now)

Once you figure out a system however, he’d definitely become your lifeline at school. Lectures are NOT a deaf person’s friend. Whether that means repeating what somebody said to make sure you got it or mouthing along with the things people say so you can read his lips, Grim will do what he can to help his little hench human. Just make sure to feed him some tuna afterwards

Ramshackle Ghosts

Ghosts are often portrayed as messing with technology like with staticky TVs, so I’d imagine these three would be a feedback NIGHTMARE

Even if you’d normally wear your hearing aids around the house, that’d go right of the window with these three. You’d know they’re in the same room by the telltale squeal your hearing aids make

They don’t mean harm, it’s just their spectral nature

Rip to you trying to interact with any of the ghost staff actually. Lunch time is probably also a nightmare with the kitchen staff

Once they know of your hearing loss, the ghosts start helping you out with things you might not be able to hear, like someone knocking on the door for example

You eventually offer to teach them what sign language you know that way you can communicate more without you needing to rely on reading their lips so much (do ghosts even have lips???)

Grim eventually gets dragged into your lessons too and soon it becomes a Ramshackle requirement to attend these classes of yours, even if you’re just staying for a night

Sam

LITERAL LIFE SAVER

If I know ANYTHING about healthcare/disability assistance is that it’s as inconvenient and as cumbersome as possible AKA hearing aid batteries in Twisted Wonderland would definitely be under a totally different labeling system than our world I can just feel it in my bones

Sam would help you figure out what batteries you needed for your make and model of hearing aid, spending well over an hour trying out every battery type just to figure out which one fit. After that he’d start keeping them in stock just for you

He’d even help replace the maintenance stuff you need like brushes, stabilizers, wax caps, and all of those fun little goodies that you left in your own world

Like I said, literal life saver here

I feel like he’d be pretty attentive to you too, like making sure to speak slow and clearly for you any time to drop by to shop a bit

10/10 would shop here forever if I could

Deuce Spade

Probably the first of the student’s I’d open up to tbh. he seems pretty safe for this kind of stuff. You’d have to broach the topic yourself though. I’m not sure if he would notice your hearing loss at all.

It’d probably just come up naturally while you’re walking in between classes. You're both talking about things you struggle with and you slip in that you're losing your hearing so listening in class can be tough some times

He’d probably have a mini heart attack at first if he doesn’t immediately blue screen

You can’t hear him? Like at all??? Wait, no, you can hear, just not voices. Wait, you can hear some voices, just not all voices????? That’s confusing

At the same time though he knows why you were "ignoring" him the other day so that's good

He'd let you copy his notes if you missed anything in class or explains anything you couldn’t hear! Just remember they're Deuce's notes and try not to put any more academic pressure on him than he’s already doing

Tries to be more conscious about making sure you can understand him when your chatting. Might try to get loud sometimes but he'll quickly corrects himself once you tell him that doesn't really help you all that much

Tries to learn sign language for you, but studying... is not his strong suit. He'll definitely pick up a few words though so don't give up on him! Just remember to sign s l o w l y at first

If you teach him to knock/stomp to get your attention he'd probably be pretty rough about it. I'd fear for Ramshackle's floor boards cause this man can be strong when he wants to be

All in all a good egg who's doing his best

Ace Trappola

2/10, would not recommend

I like Ace but he’s a mischief creator, a problem haver, and a trouble maker

He’d probably find out that you’re deaf by making fun of the way you say something 

he'd think you're just goofing, but his words really hit a nerve

you’re not trying to be wrong. You’re trying really hard to figure it out! Could he at least give you a helping hand here instead of laughing at you?

his laughter eventually pushes you over the edge and you snap at him, saying you didn’t ask to be deaf so you’re “sorry” if your voice is a little strange! You’re trying your best here with what little hearing you have left!

Ace is definitely taken aback by your sudden out burst and even more so about this disability he knew nothing about

He checks in with Grim and Deuce before realizing how much of a jerk he was being. He’d still probably drag his feet a bit before apologizing (i mean, this is Ace we’re talking about here), but once he does apologize he’d totally change his tune

He’d still poke fun at you on occasion, but he’d know not to push you so far anymore

If anyone did make fun of you or the way you spoke, Ace would definitely rally the boys to hunt down who ever made fun of you. Only one person is allowed to tease you and that’s him

[bellysoupset]

Soup! It's 💜 anon, and let me tell you, I LOVE what you did with my silly little 2 AM thoughts.

I didn't expect you to fill this request so quickly. But you did your magic and I can't stop reading this fic. I love every single word about it.

Liv was such a smart choice for the kid because Vince had absolutely no chance to say no to her. Also, the cat face paint?? Just straight-up adorable.

Max witnessing this scene and not knowing how to feel about it is genius. Like, the whole confusion of thinking that Vin is a homophobic football star then seeing him interact with the kids like the actual teddy bear he is.

But poor Max, though. Not a single happy birthday? Soup, my mother-hen / oldest sibling instincts are screaming at me so hard. Now I just wanna throw him a big surprise party even if I know his birthday is like 2 months away.

Of course he is jealous of Vince. And Vince unknowingly hitting home with the "you were not hugged enough as a kid" comment just broke my heart. Soup what are you doing to me??

Not even talking about the whole sick and bantering part. Max trying to ignore Vince so hard but his guilt (and worry) winning is just chef's kiss. Then Mr Monacelli appearing out of nowhere to take care of and lecture his son. So sweet. I love how supportive and caring and just generally lovely Vince's dad is.

Max was such a prick until the last minute, but the poor thing doesn't know how to take care of someone properly OR how to be taken care of for that matter. You are gonna have to teach him that, Vin. Also, someone needs to give this man a god damn hug. Like, effective immediately. 

Thanks again for writing this!! 💞

- 💜

Hi 💜!

"Silly 2 AM thoughts" that was such a nice request! I could just picture it all, hence why it got done so quickly.

Vince is too much of a softie with Liv, she's gonna wind up killing him.... The cat face paint wouldn't get out of my mind! The mental image of Vince and Liv rubbing noses with whiskers painted on!!

I feel like Max is clinging to his erroneous notion tbh. Like sir, the truth is right in front of you, put some effort!! But then again, Vince is a bit of a prick, and so insufferable with his perfect life.

I wouldn't say "not a single happy birthday", but like most of Max's background they were highly unremarkable with some here and there that were downright terrible. Unlike Leo, who had it BAD, Max most had it ordinary-boringly-bad, which means less trauma, but also means his relationship with his parents is distant and aloof.

Max NEEDS someone to forcefully care for him, give him the stray cat treatment, wrap him in a blanket and ignore the hisses, shower him with cuddles.

[altocat]

Essay TW:

I am playing Crisis Core for the first time, and I think it’s very interesting how we have this story where Genesis as a person clearly looked up to Sephiroth before they met…( Angeal did too ofc)…and then when they all became friends, Angeal became more of the mentor-type friend, and Genesis clearly developed some kind of resentment and envy towards Sephiroth for always being better at the “heroic solider” role. Or just being stronger in general.

But what I find sad and endearing is how Genesis is raging, fighting, stressing out over this; to him shit is getting serious, it’s becoming a rivalry…

And yet…Sephiroth just seems to not even realize it because he’s sitting there smiling like: omg i have friends 😁♥️ (He looks so happy and at peace when they are in the training room, or when he’s reminiscing about them; like those are his fondest memories).

Even after Genesis accidentally gets hurt, he doesn’t seem to really even understand that it was borderline personal. He just wants to make sure Genesis is okay and offers to do the blood transfusion, but Angeal is the first to say no before Hollander explains.

Even the way Angeal decided to lecture *him* instead of Genesis is funny to me, because it’s like Gen and Angeal both seem to think that Sephiroth is overconfident or dangerously close to being too brash with his power.

But again, Sephiroth is just so obviously more concerned with these new friends of his, not his power or reputation. I just don’t think they get that he isn’t like them. He doesn’t hide and blur his thoughts deliberately, but I don’t think he fully knows how to express them, so his friends are suspicious of his motives.

But if they really listened, they’d see that his real wants are pretty innocent. He tells Genesis that the role of hero is “all his” and scoffs at the pettiness of the latter’s jealousy. He doesn’t care, he just wants his friends to stop bailing on him by that point.

I guess it’s just sad to me. Sephiroth doesn’t seem to understand the weird complex emotions and nuances of his friends, because they grew up outside of the lab and learned to deal with the intricacies of human nature and communication. He didn’t. They are probably used to the layers of human socialization and how rivalry, secret resentment, and mixed feelings blossom. I think they project some of this stuff onto Sephiroth, treating him as though he would grasp all that naturally.

But Sephiroth just seems to constantly miss those little “cues” and that’s why he cheerfully fights back while Gen rages without even realizing how intense things are getting, or why he doesn’t understand how Gen and Angeal could betray him.

He doesn’t understand why he can’t be the one to do the blood transfusion because to him, that’s just what he owes Genesis. He doesn’t understand why Gen is so jealous because it seems so petty. Why would someone think that way?

I just love the way he is portrayed because it really comes off like he was raised in an isolated lab with extremely limited contact with…normal people? He just can’t seem to grasp all the nonsensical human complexity that his friends express, and the only person he seems to really be able to read is Zack…who wears his emotions on his face like shiny ornaments. Even when he reads Zack, it feels like he is tilting his head like a curious cat. He is like, “Hmm. This person is acting unusual.”

He is smart and perceptive yes, but his lack of worldly wisdom is blatantly clear and I find it tragic that his friends misread this as…something else. Something Genesis was resentful of and something Angeal felt needed lectures. They just missed the glaring issue which was that Sephiroth was raised like an experiment in a lab. Of course he wasn’t going to behave in the same way they did or acknowledge their complex emotional cues.

TLDR: Crisis Core felt like this—

Gen and Angeal: He is being too smug about his power!!

Gen: Tbh I should be in his place anyway

Angeal: I need to make sure he understands HONOR

Sephiroth: Challenging my friends to duels is so fun! We trash-talk and they are so cool, especially Genesis!! Like wow, look at him gooo! This is awesome ☺️

*later*

Gen and Angeal: We are bailing out because Shinra sucks and won’t help us and wtf, why isn’t Sephiroth joining our cause??

Sephiroth: Why did you guys leave :(

*later*

Angeal, after coming back: Bro why tf did you get thinner

Sephiroth: :(

Gen, after confronting Sephiroth: Tbh, I should have been the poster boy back in the day before all this shit went down

Sephiroth: Can we just be friends again :(

Like no wonder after Angeal’s death and Gen FINALLY showing up after who knows how long of leaving them behind, only to mentally screw with his former friend and immediately demand help, Seph finally pushes him away. For most people, that reaction was waaayyyy overdue. He just always believed in his friends :(

This is a really, REALLY good analysis!

It's true though--despite Sephiroth being a violent soldier with a record for killing things, there is an innocence about him in how he reads his friends. He really gives off the impression of being this sheltered lab rat with no experience understanding complex human relationships.

[straycalamities]

Your post made me curious about Julien.... Would love to hear about him and Andrews relationship

hmm...the conundrum with that is i would like to show it one day so how much to tell...

the thing abt this is julian has ALWAYS been written in andrews life. one of the constants of his story no matter how much he changes. (he used to be named Matty) but ive uh...been a chicken to properly show it because uh its HEAVY.

so hm...i've gone over andrew's family life before so it's not meh to go over it again i think...

that's also mostly stayed the same.

readmore bc...ya boys gonna get long-winded

so andrew has a very strict mother with very high expectations of her children, but especially him. his father is more lax and easy-going, pretty carefree tbh, but bc of this its to a fault where he also just..doesnt want to confront his wife. so things kinda..go out of control in the household as far as...his mom's weird like..competition thing between andrew and his sister

so andrew has a twin sister Alana (anyone remember Jackie? yea) and she's pretty naturally good at whatever she puts her mind to. not that she doesnt bust her ass, but things just? come to her. it's just how it is. and she's very much a daddy's girl which pushes andrew into the role of momma's boy. so then it becomes andrew's dad and alana vs andrew's mom and andrew. except. it's pretty much only andrew's mom pushing this narrative, but she's a very convincing person and is the kinda person to naturally command a room

alana is also a naturally curious person so she likes to pick up hobbies and things and practice them until she's over it or good at it or both. and thus..andrew gets pushed into these things too, to not be outdone

the thing about andrew, though, is that he's got a more particular way that he needs to engage with things to actually pick things up and learn them. first of all, he's a very kinetic learner so just reading or hearing a lecture about it doesn't do anything for him. and unfortunately he doesn't have anyone in his life early on (teachers nor family) who understand this about him. they just think there's something wrong with him or off about him or that he's lazy/doesn't care.

but andrew cares. oh he cares. way too much. and he works. so hard. to try to match with the expectations weighing on him, but it just! doesn't happen! no matter how hard he tries! he can't absorb what he's reading! he can't process what he's hearing! when he DOES get the chance to just get his hands on things and figure things out, he shines

and alana tries to help because despite it all, she cares a lot about him. she tries to show him things or tell him what helped her, but it's just..different. the things that work for her, dont't work for him. and she also can't be with him a lot because she has a lot going on. she has big aspirations and she has lots of friends (more things he struggles with) how did they end up so different u_u

so andrew's daily life is very very stressful. he feels like he's always under watch, under scrutiny, every little thing is being judged, weighed, and measured. and that just makes everything much harder for him. he eventually learns over-time to perform great under pressure but that's because the pressure in his adult-life is nothing like the pressure of his childhood lmao

(and if this is a universe where he's got the necromancy thing goin on, there's THAT whole can of worms too. bc of how looked down on and oo scary necromancy is)

so its like..andrew does have his aspirations, his dreams. he wants to be an astronaut! :) and he maintains some semblance of that goal his whole life. he just likes space! he thinks its neat and would rather just spend all day learning about space than anything he's supposed to be learning. not that it's easier, but he's more motivated lmao

he's a C or low B student (idk how to translate american schooling marks into anything else sorry..american moment) and so he's not doing...too bad, but definitely not enough to his teachers or his parents. and he's "inconsistent" bc go figure sometimes lessons are more to his learning capabilities and he excels so oh no now ppl have Proof He Can Do It why cant he do it All The Time. fantastic.

being so focused on making everyone proud or proving everyone wrong in other cases (yes andrew does operate on a level of spite) has andrew finding little time for himself. especially bc his moms the type to not like uhh idle activities. everythings gotta have a Point of Growth. literally the only reprieve is that his mom works away from home a lot, but she'll definitely call or video-call often to make up for that fact. and andrew's The One she has her eye on. he's Her responsibility to better

(the thing about his mom is god she's a strict hard-ass but she does love him uh...so i'm not trying to make it all Ooo Evil Heartless Mother Time. nah she cares but boy is she awful at showing it. and that's not an excuse but..yaknow. it is how it is. her whole thing abt being such a tyrant is that she's worried about him and wants him to do better and Be better and so she's gonna force it down his throat til it takes ...rip)

ofc his family all has their bonding pleasant moments its not all hell all the time and like i said his dad and sister are more uh..better at showing they care but still not..amazing. the whole household like i said before in another post is more reserved than like..ji-hoon's for example who freely give hugs and stuff

anyways so alll of this uh..stuff is to explain: Andrew Doesn't Have Friends LMAO his entire elementary school experience is spent not having time for friends and eventually just not knowing how to Make them bc he had no practice or experience doing so. and the other kids don't think much about him because he doesn't make time for them? they've got other ppl to hang out with. and when a kid does make an attempt he fucks it up somehow or his mom scares them off with the Restrictions for how andrew is allowed to interact with other kids (if andrew wouldnt tell them tho they wouldnt have to know..smh)

by the time he's transitioning to middle school is when he meets julian. julian ALSO does not have friends (gee wonder why (youll see why)) and julian sees andrew not having friends either and thinks well! time to have this loner be MY friend. and julian is a pretty charismatic person when he wants to be. he knows how to small talk and keep conversations going and all that. i say this like a tween julian already has evil intentions but tbh..nah it DOES honestly start off innocent enough. julian has a lot going on at home too and wants someone to be his friend. simple as that. andrew doesnt already have a group, so..easy choice there. should be

the stuff that usually scares ppl away doesnt work on julian because he's a very anti-rules disobedient sort at this point already anyways. he just sees it as a challenge really so even if andrew makes things awkward by parroting his moms rules on how he can interact with other kids based on her paranoias about the typical Child and what they could teach Her Precious Baby it doesnt phase him. he gonna do it anyway

they do have interests in common, turns out! they like some of the same music. some of the same shows/movies. and things like that. the rest of it Becomes shared interests bc julians the type to go "hey i like this. now you will too" and for the most part? their shared tastes go a long way and andrew DOES end up liking most things julian introduces him to

at first julian does kinda..have no choice but to follow the Hard Rules that andrews got for hanging out so..they pretty much only see each other at school, they start picking up writing letters for each other to read only when they get home so they can write a reply and they get kinda lengthy as more topics get added lol

but eventually julian starts convincing andrew to like..shake things up a bit. asks where he lives. turns up at his window. just to chaaat ofc. theyre not gonna get in trouble psh.. its just talking. then it becomes andrew calling julian at home even tho he's not allowed to be on the phone, but if he does it at night then nobody can catch him (or if his moms away bc tbh does his dad rly care..? but andrew assumes he does)

and so julian and andrew get steadily closer and closer that way and andrew is. ecstatic. his first friend! and a really close one! they're best friends! and for julians credit, he's still just thinking "yay i have a friend. someone that makes life suck less :) even if he's a dweeb who i need to teach to live life"

and okay well anything further about them needs content warnings: very unhealthy, toxic relationship talk. manipulation

so unfortunately. julian has a very uhh extreme view on his life. he likes to exaggerate everything (usually for the worst) and jus tlike in general. not just describing it, he actually feels like his life is the worst life anyone could ever have. his parents split up when he was young and now he's being raised by his grandma who is also strict but in a way where its like..shes strict on him but lives kinda like..whatever, herself. shes very do as i say not as i do but julian hangs onto the Example she's putting off and hates her guts for having the Audacity to try to make him do different when she cant even do it herself. he also has an uncle who has his fingers in a lot of very shady pots and so julian is keen to things he rly shouldnt be at a young age

so with all that, he has a tendency to kinda lash out at the world around him. thats sorta his...uh version of coping. and with so many ppl putting him at arms length mostly because of THIS part of his behavior especially, he's only got one person at his side. loyal. always there for him.

unfortunately thats andrew

and it starts small like..playful insults. nothing rly anything at first it could just be the way he shows affection. but then the insults hit parts that sting deeper and deeper. and get more and more personal. and julian starts making almost memes? of some of andrews faults, weaknesses, and insecurities as if that's just one of their Inside Jokes they have, yknow, as best pals. so andrew feels like oh well i have to like this bc its Special and its just for me. i should appreciate that he's doing this. nobody else has this. and he's not being Mean he's just being playful

and unfortunately the more andrew lets him get away with it, the worse julian gets about it. the thing is that nobody's taught andrew self-worth yet. he's been too busy trying to be what other people want him to be. so here he is, also being what julian wants him to be: a punching bag. but he doesnt realize thats what it is. he just thinks julian wants andrew to be the type to be "playfully rude" with but, again, im saying julian goes way past that

and as julian gets older, the more he reserves what used to be how he was with everyone, being him, being genuine in all the worst and best ways, with only andrew. so everyone else gets this very like..agreeable neutral kinda personality out of julian. so then andrew also sees THAT and thinks wow..i really am special

and as years go by and they go from middle school to high school and social situations change around them, andrew feels even more lucky he's gotten somebody special to him and that he's special to because by highschool it feels like everyones already got their cliques and their partners-in-crime and he'd feel like a mega loser without julian. and julians shown him and taught him so many cool things that give him things to actually talk about with other ppl when they Engage with him?

but yeah throughout highschool julian teaches andrew more and more rulebreaking habits. they even set up ways to make money at school w stuff like..selling test answers or snacks or stuff when they can get away with it. or skipping classes or other things. vandalizing things. pranking ppl (harmless :) ofc..but maybe only physically so)

so we return to julian's uncle. liek i said he's a shady dude. well. he starts involving an older julian in his shady shit. so now julian and andrew are peddling fkn weed and prescription drugs around their school and neighborhood. eventually they're hotwiring vehicles to steal. (kinda uhh tragically this is actually where andrew figures out he's pretty good at cars and likes them a lot and even if he's having a constant crisis about Being Awful, he's also uhhh more motivated to learn how to do a new thing and Be Good At It. bc that's the thing isnt it? he's finally Good At Something) and stealing other things too

and i kinda quickened the pace here but its like..well it does escalate pretty quickly because at some point julian has andrew wrapped around his little finger and tho there are the times one or both of them get caught and andrew gets in trouble, has a crisis, and swears off doing anything like that ever again!! julian just has to warm andrew up to it again. because by highschool julian also has the upper hand in that he's become andrew's gay awakening. so now andrew has a huge crush on him and especially wants to impress him and keep him around and notice him and find him cool and worthwhile

and at first julian is sorta confused?? but diversity win! the manipulative toxic asshole best friend is also into boys! but giving andrew everything he wants wouldnt be very fun would it? he has something to dangle over his head. and he's gotten to the point where this is high risk shit. andrew could very much change his mind about everything about them and leave julian and the longer time goes on, the more paranoid julian becomes of this very thing happening. so he holds onto whatever leashes he can get twisted around andrew

he'll entertain his attraction but never clarifies anything. never gives him like..bold affection. never makes it clear how he feels or if he's even completely fine with it? which adds pressure onto andrew that he's just making all this up. or he's being the weirdo, pushing something on julian who might be straight or something

outside of julian tho, andrew's family is noticing his behavior bc i mean..also hes obviously getting caught doing some of this stuff. and his grades are even worse. and sometimes they get calls abt him missing school? and they try to intervene bc like..andrews got One friend. its gotta be this guy. so they try to ground andrew, ban julian, all kinds of stuff but they're slippery and they've got all sorts of workarounds. and ultimately, they still go to the same school. and..sadly. this, at first, just makes andrew desperate to keep julian all the more bc now he's beome this like..symbol of freedom and having Fun and living life to the fullest and anything related to home starts being associated with prison, suffocation, snuffing out his personality and everything he's learned about himself and like..even if he doesnt rly has Friends outside of julian (he's convinced julian is the only friend he rly wants/needs) he's still seen as cool! the Bad Boy, the Hookup for cool shit (snacks, drugs etc) he's a hit sometimes with the Le Popular Kids ooo... and he might even get invited to get-togethers with julian (julian is actually the introvert to andrews extravert but he Humors ppl for the image and he likes the way andrew always looks at him like a lost puppy when he's trying to figure out what to say in convos with other ppl)

but overtime, julians just gotten too comfortable with being too rough with andrews mentality and his emotions. bc he's never stopped his absolute drilling into andrews squishy parts in order to make himself feel better. or somehow blaming andrew for everything, even julians own shortcomings. and playing hot n cold with andrews emotions and etc. like there's just a lot he does that keeps andrew eternally unsure of where he's standing with julian or if he's doing things Correct or in a way that makes julian Happy. and as andrew gets older and starts Understanding things, he starts Understanding that hey...there's actually a lot about this that he doesnt like. he starts trying to...ask julian to lighten up. to consider his feelings on things. that he wants to do..things he wants to do? why do they always do things julian wants to do. why do they always get into what julian likes but never what andrew likes.

julian is...surprised and he does not Like this change. doesnt like that andrew is trying to cause problems? in their relationship? like why make this a thing? when its nothing? it was fine before? but the thing about letting andrew meet ppl, gain reasons for ppl to wanna talk to him and know him is that he gets to know how other ppl are and how they feel abt him. and though he hasnt made any other Friends, he's just learning how..Normal ppl are. and how julian with him is Not Normal. and its in a bad way bc andrew feels bad! he feels sick to his stomach sometimes. and nobody gets to him like julian does! and he thought before it was the crush but now he's starting to realize...he doesnt actually feel that way about julian anymore because he's just gotten so...Cruel

well now when andrew gets grounded/banned from julian, he doesn't fight it. he doesn't find the loopholes anymore. he lets things go and just kinda...tries to see how he feels? and he finds he...feels better. there's ways he feels worse, but there's a lot more ways he feels like he can breathe. like he's a person. and he likes it so...he starts to just ween himself off julian. and julian starts to act up more bc he doesnt have his usual ways to Cope and gets in trouble more, being at school Less and that just causes more distance

and julian is finally living with what he was most terrified of. and andrew is willingly? throwing him away? and he cant have that. he's at his wits end and panicking

new content warning: whew boy suicide mention/suicide-baiting

and thats all i rly have to say aint it

he holds the fact over his head that if andrew actually does officially cut ties with him, julian will kill himself. that he has no reason to live if he doesn't have andrew. that andrew is his everything and the light of his life, his joy, all that. and he cant't just? leave him like this?

and at first andrews like wait no this is awful dont do that..im sorry and like..tentatively keeps his ties to julian, tries to continue things the wya they were! just uh..different! bc if julian wants andrew to stay then..compromises have to happen okay? and julian says he agrees but catch things getting worse again and andrew in the same boat he was before

distancing

julian freaking out in a panic at 2am on a phone call describing what he's about to do til andrew apologizes again

rinse

repeat

but andrew eventually is just...tired. man. he's getting closer to graduating. he really does NOT need this. it's taking such a heavy toll on him bc rly! nothing else terrible in his life ever really went away, this is just an addition. it's not that his mom saw him acting out and thought oh...this is bc im too hard on him, nah, she stays hard. she gets Harder. his moms stern and affectionless and doesnt understand his plights, his sisters always so busy with her life, and his dad is out of touch. and mostly: andrew doesnt want to bother anyone with his problems. its his own fault, after all. its his mess. and he also is terrified of what anyone would think of even..half the things he'd have to admit to get them to understand. or even a fourth tbh

so one day he just..has had enough. julian threatens to tell his parents what he's done, what he's really like even if it brings julian down too. julian plans to be dead anyways after so what does it matter

and andrew just tells him to do it and hangs up

he feels sick to his stomach for days, but also is too fed up to call and apologize or take it back. he flip-flops on both so much he ends up doing nothing at all

and this is where julian is officially out of his life. i call it Schrodinger's Julian at this point bc did he? or didnt he? well what is the truth is he just does not show up again. so andrew is free but..he literally does not know at what cost. and the guilt eats him up alive for the rest of his life as well as all the damage literally going from like 12-13 to 18 with what this shit did to him

(cw: suicide stuff over)

this is where some of the stories diverge? umm..he either goes immediately to college or waits. with the college timeline Also diverging to oh he makes it somehow or oh he has to drop out

my default tho is that he does try, but he has to drop out. and makes an absolute mess of himself while he's trying. college parties and nightlife and everything else. sex drugs and rock n roll pretty much. everything he knows about connecting to other people is completely Fucked and so he thinks he's making connections but it's not real. and nothing feels like it did with julian but that should be a good thing? or should it. he misses the old julian and he misses the good parts and he feels like he'll never have that with someone again or that maybe...if he did...they'd do the same thing. maybe its dangerous to be that close to anyone. but oh he wants it. so bad.

and we'll continue with my usual story but uh (cw: drugs/drug-use)

we have to delve a bit into the fact he becomes an addict. because he very much does. with all the escapism he does in college because he's just trucking along without processing a drop of this? no therapy? not even someone to vent to or hold onto? nah man. shits rough. and he loses himself in many kinds of drugs but heroin is his Drug of Choice and also loses himself in other people but in shallow ways. he becomes a party animal but in the worst way and that becomes his "college" is just this whole social scene that he's not even engaging with in a meaningful way bc he's too terrified of earnest closeness with another human being

meanwhile his grades tank and he just...stops going. needless to say he becomes very much a disaster of a human being at the end of this. the thing is tho..its all self-internalized. he doesnt take it out on other ppl or even want to make it other ppls problems. he tries to just come off as this rly fun guy whos up for literally anything. and like yeah ppl who hang w him enough can definitely See Somethings Up but he's literally just like oh its nothing! its fine im fine! bc no if he opens up about anything everyones gonna hate and abandon him

and unfortunately this gets back to his mom and she uh...cuts him off. completely. if he wont get cleaned up. if he wont just...BE better jst DONT be this trainwreck of a son or else. dont associate with her. thinking maybe itd be a shock enough he'd just Get Better? (lmao) but lmao no. and he rly spirals bad after that but luckily his dad and his sister still sneak contact with him, doing what they can? with someone who doesnt wanna make anything anyone elses' problem and insists he's fine everythings. Fine.

what Does finally have him like?? find hope again? and cling to it and start to eventually put his life back on its feet again depends on the story im writing but something eventually always does and he always has the same Sponsor to help him :'3 darius...(his old roommate from when he was a teacher at thornville..remember that guy? yea rewrote him into here in a different way) and idk..things do look up for andrew! it's just...a very much uphill battle and that's kinda usually where i place him in like Current Events in whatever sceneario/story im thinking of is after he's gotten on his feet (shakily but he's there) and he's usually a mechanic (sometimes moonlights as a necromancer for hire as well) and he's Working himself up to trying college again but hes taking his time. and he's got some sort of support circle (darius, ji-hoon, and sometimes others)

ji-hoon he actually meets as one of his roommates in college and it takes a lot of Effort from ji-hoon but he sees andrew struggling and kinda nags his way into his life to help and is usually one of the reasons andrew gets inspired to get better bc ji-hoon is literally everything julian wasnt but like in a good way. he cares, unconditionally about ppl in general but especially andrew because idk they just Click right. and like i said in another post, ji-hoon's family basically adopts andrew as well and they're so affectionate and loving and give lots of affirmations and stuff and andrew probably cries bc he's never felt that much love tbh and then feels like shit abt it bc crying is dumb, but then everyone else cries too (happy tears) and its like oh

idk this is where i start having lot sof tangential thoughts so ill leave it here but uh! yeah! so that's the story of julian and andrew! and the damage it did! and yes! this is true in every iteration of andrew ive ever written! (the julian and childhood family stuff part, not necessarily all the rest that comes after, a lot of that's new)