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neoneun-au · 3 months

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CAN'T HELP MYSELF; CHAPTER IV: HEAR ME OUT

―PAIRING: wonwoo x fem!reader, mingyu x fem!reader ―GENRE: love triangle au, fluff, mild angst, romantic comedy, suggestive, smut ―CHAPTER WORD COUNT: 11.2k ―CHAPTER WARNINGS: angst, mild language, alcohol consumption, therapy, 18+ only ―STATUS: ongoing

―AUTHOR’S NOTE: i cant link them here, but please find the series masterlist and other chapters on my blog. i would love to know your thoughts on the story so far, this is really only fun with interaction and it helps keep me motivation to finish !

iv: hear me out

The morning dawns bright and bleary-eyed and you starfish out in bed, stretching your limbs and feeling more relaxed than you’ve felt in months. You take your time getting ready–a leisurely shower, a lengthy scroll through social media, closing and re-opening the same work email five separate times to reassure yourself that this recent project was in fact not due first thing Monday morning. A weekend of peace and freedom–no looming threat of work obligations and marginally less sexual frustration than usual. Pure bliss.

Sounds of life start to filter in through your door from the hallway about an hour after you first wake up; the rest of condo inhabitants up and about after their own late Friday night escapades. You had heard a few of them coming in around 2:00am or so as you began to drift off to sleep but otherwise what time everyone got in and got to bed was a mystery to you. After a few minutes lingering at the edge of your mattress listening to your stomach rumble, you drop your feet to the ground and step out into the hallway in search of breakfast.

Mingyu, it seems, had the exact same plan as you. His door clicks shut behind him just as you close your own and you stand facing each other like you had just run into your long lost lover at a train station someplace far from home.

“Good morning,” he says after a beat, the hint of a smile beginning to creep in at the corners of his mouth.

“Morning,” you reply, feeling the fog of contentment settle back down to reality as you stand opposite him–your hand tugs gingerly at the hem of your old floral nightshirt.

“How did you sleep?” he asks and you can’t tell if there’s an edge of conspiracy in his voice, an ‘I know what you did last night’ gleam in his eye. You’re probably imagining it. You hope to god you’re imagining it.

“Quite well,” you respond, shaking off the thought and stubbornly refusing to give in to the fear that he had heard you in the midst of your fantasies. You cross your arms over your chest in defense–warding off any further psychic connection. “You?”

“Good,” he replies and you nod in acknowledgement. His gaze flitters from yours to the hallway behind you, pointedly avoiding drifting lower than your face and you realise after a second that he has a fairly decent top down view of your cleavage. You let your arms fall back down. “Got any plans today?”

“Meeting up with some friends later, but aside from that nothing, thankfully,” you reply with a shrug. “How about yourself?”

“Not much,” he mirrors your shrug and you worry for a second that you are going to be left repeating yet another stunted hallway conversation. Thankfully he opens his mouth after a breath to continue, “Though, I think Seungcheol is trying to recruit me for some promotional video for his gym. I told him to ask Vernon since Vernon is the actor.”

“But he still wants you to do it?” you ask, closing the shutter on the mental image of Mingyu lifting weights before it can imbed itself in your subconscious alongside his bare nipples.

“Yeah, he told me Vernon has the body of a wet noodle.”

You laugh, the veil of tension that had descended on the pair of you relaxes back into normalcy at the comment and you’re glad for the distraction. “I would say I’m surprised but that tie-dye is pretty baggy…” you trail off with a grin and Mingyu tosses his head back in laughter before turning with you to head down the hallway.

The kitchen is abuzz with activity when you enter, Seungcheol is deep in a lecture aimed directly at Vernon who appears to not fully be listening despite the occasional cursory nod. The distinctive scent of eggs permeates the air and you notice an array of food already laid out on the table in front of Jeonghan.

“Morning you two,” he greets, one eyebrow raised. As usual, seeking out some sort of intrigue. “Late night?”

“Not really,” you reply, shaking your head and refusing to take the bait. You sit down at the table and swipe a slice of bread from the side of his plate; sinking your teeth into it before he can admonish the theft. “I’ve been awake for an hour already, just hanging out in my room before joining you animals.”

“Is that so?” he asks, unwilling to give up the narrative he has built in his head. You knew confessing to him about your micro-crush (if you could even call it that) on Mingyu was a bad idea, but you thought that after the stern warning and lecture he had given you that he might actually be normal about something for once in his life. No such luck.

You open your mouth to reply, more than ready to raise your own sword in this duel, but you’re cut off before you can begin as the rest of the household takes a seat at the table to join you.

“Mingyu, how did that date go last night?” Seungcheol asks, relieving Vernon of his lecture for now. An apparent relief as Vernon immediately gathers up a small plate of food before retreating from the kitchen completely.

Date? The word shoots through the room like a lightning bolt. Jeonghan glances at you, fox-like features alight with malicious curiosity. You stare wide-eyed at Mingyu as he opens and closes his mouth like a trout caught in a net. “Oh uh…I cancelled it, actually,” he carefully avoids your gaze, instead burying his face in his mug of coffee.

“Cancelled it? Why? I thought you said she was cute?” Seungcheol asks, blissfully ignorant to the relay of glances darting around him. He waits happily for Mingyu to respond, grabbing a few slices of fruit from Jeonghan’s plate before he can swat his hand away.

“She was yeah,” Mingyu concedes with a small laugh. You see a faint hint of red starting to colour the tips of ears as all three sets of eyes around the table fix their attention fully on him, all for different reasons. He rubs at the back of his neck and feigns a nonchalant shrug, though it’s plain to see that he could not be feeling more chalant. “I just didn’t think it was really going to go anywhere, so I cancelled it.”

Seungcheol laughs, taking a bite of his prize apple, “since when have you ever cared about it going somewhere before?”

Mingyu bristles, hackles raised at the implication in the question. An uncharacteristic frown deepens in the corners of his mouth, marring his handsome features. “Contrary to popular belief, I’m not just a slut. I do actually want a relationship.”

You’re so caught up in listening to the exchange that you don’t notice his eyes darting to meet yours before it’s too late to avoid them. You find yourself locked in his gaze again, a beat too long to go unnoticed by Jeonghan as he chuckles next to you.

You feel the air around you thicken and scramble to your feet to beat a hasty retreat, following in Vernon’s footsteps. With slightly trembling hands you collect a mug and grasp for the box of assorted teas from the top shelf.

Seungcheol, it seems, has given up on ribbing Mingyu about his dating life and instead turns his attention towards you just as you try and make yourself invisible in the corner while you wait for the kettle to boil. “Ready for another jog tonight?”

“Oh, no I uh–” you stutter, “I actually have plans tonight so I won’t be able to.”

He frowns, wide brown eyes shimmering with disappointment and you feel like you just let your parents down. “This isn’t an excuse to get out of training, is it?” he asks and you shake your head, frantic to dispel the thought.

“No, not at all, one of my friend’s is back in the country, she lives in England and she’s only here–”

Seungcheol holds up a hand–flat, open palm halting your excuses. “Say no more,” he says, “we can reschedule for tomorrow night. Friendship is worth the sacrifice.”

“Oh…okay thanks,” you reply, unsure of what else to do with the proverb. The kettle whistles and you pour the hot water into your mug–careful to avoid sloshing it over the sides.

Tea in hand you turn to rush back towards the safety of your bedroom as Seungcheol and Mingyu strike up a conversation about the national soccer team’s prospects. Jeonghan keeps you locked in his sights as you walk by, fixing you with an evaluating look that would be withering if it weren’t mostly just irritating. You snatch his last slice of toast without looking back.

The hum of the sports bar fills your senses, dulling your thoughts (a not unwelcome intrusion).

It’s the sound of pool balls smashing against each other as they shoot across the beer-stained green top of the billiards table. The faint scent of chlorine bleach mixed with body odor and stale cigarettes. The round robin of songs floating out from the made-to-look-old jukebox in the corner. It was as familiar as it was revolting and you found yourself lost in your surroundings, half expecting an old college fling to rear his ugly head up from behind the bar.

It had been Yerim’s idea to visit a few of your old haunts from before she moved away. Some burst of nostalgia propelling her on a mission to hunt down every decrepit pub and restaurant that you had all graced with your presence–pockets lined with scholarship and loan money intended for tuition and books but all too often spent on cold coffee and hot street food.

Most of them had since closed for business (much to her vocal distress), but the few that she did manage to remember and locate had now become items on her itinerary during her visit.

Thankfully work obligations had kept you busy through half of it and she was mostly content with dragging her English friend around with her, but you knew you weren’t going to be able to avoid it forever. And despite the chaos that usually followed her around like a shadow, you did want to see her before she left again.

So now you’re sitting across from Seulgi and Yerim in some sports bar in Itaewon that you barely remember the name of having been unceremoniously thrust upon arrival into the booth next to Yerim’s friend Sam.

He’s tall, lightly moustached, and smells faintly of bargain bin cologne. He greeted you with an appraising nod that made you somehow both appalled and flattered and now he’s talking at a steady monotone into your ear about some observation on the local food or another while you sip on your lukewarm pint of ale. You’re nodding at the appropriate intervals, giving little hums of approval where needed, but your mind is occupied watching the game of darts across the bar and not actually hearing a single coherent word come out of his mouth.

“It’s a rather tepid way to play, I always thought–”

His voice drones on in the background, roughly the same decibel as the ambient noise of the room so it was easy to ignore. You flick your eyes from his face down to the table and back over to the group of men playing darts. You used to be good at darts. You recall the weight of the slim bolt of metal as it would rest in your palm, waiting for your turn while you were already half-cut on happy hour brews and whatever the guy of the moment was buying for you.

“You know, I’ve always admired a woman’s natural ability to–”

One of the darts group strolls over to the bar, trying to catch the bartender’s attention as he leans against the back wall and chats with the sole waitress in the place. She looks young, maybe 21 or 22. She’s probably in college, working to pay her way through school or just for some extra spending money. That ash blonde balayage can’t be cheap to maintain…

“Don’t you think so?”

Isn’t that Wonwoo’s friend? Or boss? Or whatever? That short guy with the black ponytail throwing darts? You vaguely recall him from a work dinner years ago at their company, but according to Wonwoo he was a big homebody so you rarely ever saw him.

“Hello, is anyone alive in there?” Seulgi’s voice cuts through your mental fog and you snap back to attention, blinking the focus back into your eyes as you notice everyone at the table staring at you.

“What? Sorry, I thought I saw someone I knew, what were we talking about?”

“Who?” Yerim asks, craning her neck to try and spot a familiar face. None appear in her immediate line of sight and the disappointment is evident on her expression as soon as she turns back around. You’re not sure what her intention was in dragging everyone back here but you wouldn’t put it out of the realm of possibilities that she had brewed up some fantasy of running into a washed up ex-boyfriend and getting the chance to flaunt how successful and worldly she has become over the years. Not that you could blame her for the fantasy, you would probably be doing the same in her position.

She excuses herself to the bathroom and you watch as she slips out of her seat and saunters across the room, head bobbing side to side to make sure that there was no one there that she knew before disappearing around the corner.

“You’re so distracted tonight,” Seulgi states, pulling your attention back to her. She’s eyeing you with suspicion, one eyebrow slightly raised, as she sets her empty pint glass down onto the table.

“It’s just been a long time since I’ve been back here, it’s kind of weird.” You shrug off her suspicion, pointedly ignoring her amused scoff. Someone clears his throat beside you and you’re forced to remember Yerim’s gangly British friend.

When you first met up for dinner earlier, Yerim had pulled you aside while he and Seulgi were discussing the cost of beef in Korea vs the UK to gauge your interest in him and through a series of frantic hand signals you were sure you had successfully communicated that you had absolutely zero interest in this cardigan-wearing man even if he was mostly polite and non-threatening. Yerim pouted for a minute, as she was wont to do, before shrugging and reaching for another slice of pork belly and dropping the matter.

Afterwards, it felt like someone had let the steam vent off on a pressure cooker. You were able to relax and Yerim mostly stopped trying to force conversation between yourself and Sam.

Without Yerim around now, though, you realise how out of his element he must feel. A twinge of guilt for how quickly you had written him off started to creep up inside you. Maybe you didn’t want anything romantic with him but did that mean you couldn’t get to know him a bit? Maybe he wasn’t all that boring. Maybe you could get lost in a nice, simple conversation with someone who didn’t have the full documented history of you or your many neuroses.

“So, did you grow up in London?” you ask and he startles, taken off guard by the sudden attention.

“No, uhh–” he stammers and you watch a slight layer of breath fog up his glasses as he snorts a small laugh, “it’s a funny story actually, I–”

“Oh my god!” Yerim’s voice breaks through his sentence as she rushes back towards the table–cutting him off before you have the time to decide whether it actually is a funny story or not.

“Guys, red alert,” she stage-whispers, crashing back into her seat. She’s panting, eyes wide as saucers–for a split second you wonder if she had done a lap outside in the cold. “I just went to the bathroom and you’re never going to guess who–”

Her voice fades into the background as your vision narrows to a point. Wonwoo’s eyes catch yours from the hallway Yeri had just run back from and you feel your heart plummet to its assured death in the pit of your stomach.

When had he gotten here? He’s half a foot taller than most of the people in here, how had you not noticed him earlier? Were you that painfully oblivious or had he crawled in under your nose?

You sit transfixed–frozen solid at the sight of him–and judging by the expression on his face he’s just as shocked to find you here. You’re sure he hadn’t anticipated running into the girl who broke his heart in a random sports bar in Itaewon.

Everything slows to a stop, like one of those scenes in a rom com where the main characters see each other across the room and everything else goes blurry. It’s just them, their feelings, and whatever indie love song was chosen for the soundtrack. You wonder if the actors in those scenes feel it as strongly as you do now. It would be hard to act when you feel like your stomach is going to fall directly out of your ass.

In the span of a breath, as abruptly as it had begun, the spell is over. The director calls cut, the background actors return to normal, the sounds and sights of the bar rush back into your periphery and you’re stuck frozen in your seat, staring at Wonwoo with your jaw slightly unhinged while your friends exchange knowing glances.

“What’s happening?” Sam asks, his voice pinging off the side of your attention like an errant tennis ball.

“I swear I had no clue he was going to be here,” Yerim starts, an edge of panic coating her words as they spill out of her mouth. You barely hear her. You’re too busy watching in horror as Wonwoo seems to also snap back to reality. You see his eyes flit from you to Sam and back again–he seems to be hovering on the precipice of a decision, wheels turning in his mind as he considers all exit strategies. Or at least, that’s what you would be doing in his shoes.

The horror rises higher and higher in your throat as he starts to grow bigger in your vision. A trick of the mind. The object of so many of your thoughts and anxieties exploding into IMAX sized pixels right in front of your naked eyes, expanding over the whole screen of your view until he seems to loom over you like an omnipresent being. It isn’t until he’s about a foot away from you that you realise this is just because he was walking in your direction.

“Hey,” he greets, caution clear in his voice.

You gape at him, open mouthed and floundering, and Seulgi (blessedly) takes over the interaction in your stead before it gets too awkward and everyone explodes in the wake of your embarrassment. “Hello,” she supplies, “did you just get here? I’m surprised we didn’t see you earlier.”

“Yeah,” he nods, a slight awkward laugh cushioning the word as he speaks. “I’m here with some colleagues from work, one of them is a huge Arsenal fan so he wanted to catch the game down here.”

“That’s cool,” she nods and you feel her nudge your shin with the toe of her boot under the table, forcing you out of your slack-jacked state. You snap your mouth shut and take a sip of your drink, averting your eyes from Wonwoo as you feel heat creep up your neck.

Seulgi, uncharacteristically polite, continues, “do you remember Yerim?” the woman in question smiles at him as her name is said and he nods his acknowledgement, “she’s back in Seoul with her friend here. We’re just catching up. How have you been?”

“Good, good,” he starts and then, thinking better of it, clears his throat to retry, “well, not bad. Work and…everything, you know? How are you?”

“Oh, I’m just great,” Seulgi smiles and boots you again. You take the hint and finally lift your gaze, catching Wonwoo’s eyes as they flicker over your face.

“How are you?” he asks again, voice softer. The question is directed at you and you feel the weight of it sink in as you try and sort through your scrambled thoughts for any semblance of a coherent response.

“Fine uh, yeah,” you nod, head bobbing on your neck like a loose spring. “Good. Long time no–umm…Jihoon, is that? How’s every–? You’re? He’s–work good?”

Wonwoo is silent for a second, processing the tangle of words that had just spilled free from your mouth, before you see him connect the dots. “Yeah, he’s doing well. Work is…well the same as always, really. Not much changes there.”

“Right, yeah,” you nod, a pained half smile stretching over your face. You’re sure you look horrific–terrified or terrifying. The heat continues to rise up your neck and into your head, further suppressing any hope for conscious, articulate thought as you buckle under the weight of Wonwoo’s gaze. Seulgi kicks you under the table a third time and you think you might scream.

“I was uh,” he pauses, chuckling lightly. You can see his fingers clutching at the edges of his sleeves, worrying a loose thread as he collects himself. You watch as he wraps and unwraps the thread around his index finger, twisting the rest of the fabric up in his fist. He’s anxious.

You remember making fun of him once–early in your relationship–for this habit. He was even more shy and reserved back then, unable or unwilling to tell you what he was thinking half the time, and unsure the other half. But you could always tell, once he started tugging his sleeves further and further down his arms–hiding his wrists, then hands–that he had something he needed to say. Something he had been worrying about for a while. Truthfully you found it cute, a grown man with sweater paws like a child in his dad’s clothing, but you couldn’t help but tease him anyway. He looked so sweet when he blushed about it, continuing to tug at the ends of his sleeves. And you just wanted him to tell you. You wanted to know, whatever it was on his mind, fraying the ends of his sleeves.

Wonwoo clears his throat and you refocus your gaze on him, heat slowly draining back down through your neck as you do. The feeling of being hunted for sport subsides as you come to your senses finally. “I was actually going to text you, but I just…” he trails off and you nod, encouraging him to continue. You’re sure the three extra sets of eyes boring holes into him with the laser beams of their curiosity is not helping his anxiety. Your own dangerous cocktail of anxious curiosity was a second away from implosion itself.

“There’s some stuff…at the apartment. Mail and…a few things you left behind. I thought you might want to come and pick them up, but I wasn’t sure if…” he gestures vaguely and you nod again. A strange swell of disappointment starts to creep in. That’s it?

“Oh yeah, of course,” you say, swallowing the disappointment down as quickly as it comes. What else could you have been expecting? “I’ll come and take those off your hands. Just um…text me when you’re free?”

He nods and, after a quick wave goodbye, heads back towards the small group of men that had been watching from across the bar. Your eyes follow his retreating back, watching his hands clasp and unclasp the fabric of his sweater as he does, before turning your attention back to your own group.

“Oh my god,” Yerim exclaims in a stage whisper, eyes saucer wide with glee. “He wants you to come over!”

You frown, the intrusive feeling of disappointment returning, “just to pick up some stuff, don’t be so dramatic.”

“Oh who cares about a bit of old mail, I would have just thrown it out if I were him,” she huffs, blowing a strand of hair out of her line of sight.

“Isn’t that a crime?” Sam asks but the question falls on deaf ears against the wall of possibilities that Yerim is now crafting in her labyrinthine mind of reality tv plots.

“Listen,” she starts, pointing an accusatory finger in your direction and you wonder why you’re being lectured to all of a sudden. You haven’t even fully processed running into Wonwoo in the first place. You aren’t even sure you’re inhabiting a corporeal form right now. “Clearly he’s still in love with you.”

“Oh please,” you start but she shakes her head, resolute.

“Don’t fool yourself, what scorned ex-boyfriend goes out of his way to run into the love of his life in a sports bar accidentally.” She throws heavy air quotes around the word ‘accidentally’ and you just roll your eyes.

“I’m pretty sure it was just accidental,” Seulgi chimes in, the voice of reason.

“Yes, thank you, Seulgi. This is just a weird coincidence,” you sigh, spinning your glass around on its coaster.

“Or fate,” she beams and you want to laugh but the feeling dies before the sound can materialize. It feels too pathetic.

“Strange thing for fate to do, months after I’ve already broken up with him.”

“Wait, you broke up with him?” Sam asks, now invested in the drama despite all lack of knowledge surrounding the people and situations involved. You envy his ignorance.

You sigh and nod, “yes. I broke his heart and then left some reminders of it around the apartment we used to share so he’s asking me to come and take them so he doesn’t have to deal with it anymore.” Yerim opens her mouth to speak but you stop her with a glare, “it is not his way of somehow getting me back into his life, he’s just too nice to throw my stuff out without warning.”

“But what if–”

“No, there is no ‘if’. This is it. I’m going to go there, pick up my mail, say goodbye and that will be it. We’ll never have any reason to see each other again and he can move on and date someone else and I–”

I can too, you think–swallowing the words.

“I’m sorry, I’m confused,” Sam says, breaking the spell of silence that had descended on the table. “You broke up with him but…you want him back? Or he wants you back? How long have you guys been broken up?”

“I’ll explain later,” Yerim whispers.

“No, no you won’t, because I don’t think you know completely either,” you sigh, angling to face Sam but aiming the bulk of the speech right towards Yerim herself. You glance across the room briefly–a cautionary look to make sure Wonwoo isn’t in earshot.

He’s leaning up against the far wall, pool cue in hand, watching as Jihoon leans over the table to line up a shot. The old Wonwoo would have left the second he saw you here, but there he is. Standing within 15 feet of you without breaking out into a cold sweat (as far as you can tell).

Maybe he has changed, you think. He must have felt you watching him because his eyes meet yours for a split second before you tear your gaze away from him–stare burning a hole into the table next to your hands.

You sigh again, feeling like you’ve aged 10 years in the past hour. “I broke up with him because I didn’t think either of us could give the other person what they needed. It was hard, and I still,” you blink back the threat of tears as they start to form in your eyes. Whether tears of frustration or otherwise you didn’t exactly feel like crying in a bar in front of your ex-boyfriend and some random British dude. “I still love him but I’m not in love with him. I’m moving on and…so is he.” You conclude, remembering the last time you ran into him. The girl he was with. The cold shock of ice water in your veins.

“I still don’t–” Sam starts but Seulgi cuts him off, her radar detecting the potential torrential downpour of anxiety and stress that is clouding your current emotional landscape.

“It doesn’t matter,” she waves the topic away with a swing of her hand, dismissing all further comments on the matter and releasing you of the risk of overexplaining yourself once again. “What’s done is done and whatever will happen will happen and it’s not up to us to decide what the best decision is when we’re not actually involved. So, are we getting another round or should I call a taxi?”

“Ooh, I was hoping we could go get some food now actually, there’s this super cute toast place a few blocks from here that I’ve been following on Insta and I need to get a pic with their neon displays.” Yerim, whether consciously or not, pivots immediately into a spiel about the rest of her plans for her vacation. You exhale slowly, relief sinking into your bones, and mouth a ‘thank you’ to Seulgi before she gets up to pay.

You sit silent, alone with your thoughts for a moment, and trace idle patterns over the wood grain of the table; listening to Yerim ramble as she takes Sam on an Instagram-based tour of all the places she intends on dragging him to for the next few days. Seulgi returns after closing out the tab and everyone starts gathering their things to leave, Yerim excitedly narrating the toast menu as you do.

Before you step out onto the night, you chance a final look across the bar towards Wonwoo to find him in the same position he was when you last dared to look at him. His eyes, slightly obscured by his glasses, were still fixed on you and you wonder if he had looked away at all over the past few minutes. He nods once, a minute tilt of the head, barely registerable unless you were paying as close of attention as you were, and you return it in kind before falling in line behind Seulgi and turning away from him.

It’s not until the cold air hits you that you start to feel the heat of his eyes dissipate into the night.

Minghao sits across from you, glasses perched delicately at the tip of his nose. His brown eyes evaluate you in silence as you adjust your posture in the brown leather wingback chair in his office–simultaneously too aware of your body and not aware enough to find a comfortable position. You finally give up fidgeting and decide to just tuck your wayward hands under your thighs to trap them there, offering him a small apologetic smile which he does not return, but he does nod and that is something isn’t it?

It’s been years since you saw a therapist. The last one was at university, just before the start of the second term in your second year. Right at the cusp of a break up and a full blown anxiety induced existential crisis. The persistent thoughts of ‘oh god I’m ruining my life I need to drop out or change majors or move to Australia and work with the Wildlife Warriors Foundation’ had devoured every sane idea you had until you found yourself in shambles in the Students’ Union all but begging for help.

The counsellor you had seen then had listened to you ramble in near silence before printing out some worksheets on deep belly breathing and anxiety management and sent you on your merry way to figure it out for yourself. So you did, eventually (though your GPA took a bit of a hit that semester), with some help from Seulgi and a TA that had taken pity on you and two years later you were graduating with a Bachelor of Design with a Minor in Print Media and those worksheets were buried somewhere deep in the recesses of your room, unread save a cursory glance.

This time felt different.

Instead of the wildfire of desperation and despair that had propelled you into the office in University all those years ago, you had (of mostly sound mind) reached out to Minghao with a formal request for an appointment and scheduled a time to sit down. For a few days leading up to the appointment you tried to collect your thoughts, formulate a plan for what you wanted to get out of these sessions, and corral your myriad of feelings into a neat script to recite to him—carefully crafted to best convey your current dilemma and also avoid a lot of those little things you did not feel quite ready to face yet.

“So,” he starts, offering you a small smile to ease the tension that always fills the office during first appointments, “let’s start with what you’re hoping to achieve from this session, and any going forward. What are your goals?”

Despite all your careful preparation, your mind goes as white as a sheet of paper. Goals? You ponder the word. Unsure now if you’ve ever had any goals at all or if you’d just been floating along aimlessly this whole time, somehow still alive through mere circumstance.

To be less of an anxious wreck? Sure, maybe that was one. But was it a goal or just a product of your neuroses? Were you even really that anxious or did you just overthink everything too much? Is that the same thing? Did you want to tell him that?

You chastise yourself silently, steering your errant thoughts away from the cliff they always careened off of and trying to remember the lists you had scribbled down prior to this appointment.

“I think,” you start, wincing at the weakness of the verb. How unsure you must appear to him. You glance at his face briefly. It’s carefully composed–no hint of the impatience you’re sure he must be feeling. “I mean, I was hoping we would be able to work on my trust issues and um…anxieties in relationships, find out the roots of those,” you start again, following the script you had mentally prepared, “and maybe come up with some strategies to heal from past relationships and maybe make future ones…easier?”

Good, good, you breathe a sigh of relief. These were not insane things to say. You are a normal person and these are normal goals.

“Okay,” he says, “that’s a good place to start as far as an end goal.” You smile, being careful not to let it grow too big to appear too pleased at the validation. Minghao continues, “when you say ‘relationships’, I’m assuming you are meaning mostly romantic relationships, correct?”

You fool, how could you forget to clarify that!

You feel a rush of mild panic swell up in your esophagus but you stave it off. You nod, clearing your throat, “yes, romantic relationships, exactly.”

“They all tend to overlap in a lot of ways but I just want to make sure we’re on the same page,” he smiles again, that same soft smile, and you worry he noticed you were starting to panic. “Why don’t you tell me about your last relationship?”

An open-ended question, okay okay. We were prepared for this, you coach yourself in silence, flipping through the mental pages of notes. Thankfully this one was easy. You had turned the problem of ‘me and Wonwoo’ in your mind over and over like a rotisserie chicken. You knew it inside and out. Every juicy morsel, every dry bone.

“We were together for three, almost four, years before we broke up, lived together for two. We met through mutual friends at a party and just…it was just us from there. Me and Wonwoo, Wonwoo and I, always together in the same sentence and the same places. It was a good relationship, but I just…I don’t know if we were compatible, really.”

“Well, you were together for 3 years, it’s hard to spend that much time with someone you’re entirely incompatible with,” Minghao interjects and you grimace in spite of yourself. “Is there anything specific that makes you feel like that was the case?”

“Specific…” you hum the word out loud. Despite all of the sleepless nights spent wondering this exact same thing alone, you were having a hard time summoning up any examples. “No, nothing…I don’t know,” you feel your house of cards start to lose its balance, the cracks begin to show.

“Let’s reframe, then,” Minghao suggests, noting the distress beginning to creep into your voice. “What attracted you to him in the first place? What made you think ‘yeah, I do want to date this guy’?”

“He was hot,” you shrug then when Minghao doesn’t laugh at the flippant comment, you backpedal. Embarrassment creeping in at the edges. Clearly your tactic of deflecting with humour had no power here. “I mean, obviously I was physically attracted to him, and since we met at a party that was sort of initially the only thing I cared about. But as I got to know him I think he was just…different.”

“Different in what way? From your usual type?”

“Yeah,” you nod, extending the hands of your memory into the past. Trying to grasp at the Wonwoo you fell in love with in the first place. “He was quiet, and he listened–listens really well. He’s smart, too. Could have been a doctor or professor but he said the amount of school needed for that wasn’t worth it. Which I guess I sort of agree with, it was just a shame.”

You glance at Minghao, who is still watching you from under the rim of his wire-frame glasses. You wonder briefly how he and Mingyu met. Whether or not it had been a good idea to book in with a therapist that was a good friend of your roommate/budding romantic interest. He wouldn’t tell him any of this…would he?

Minghao’s expression betrays no answer to these questions, just a silent cue for you to continue.

You sigh, releasing the thoughts, and do so, “before him, I had always dated really active guys. Guys that liked to be the life of the party, that always had something to say and never second guessed themselves. I was attracted to that confidence. I thought it was nice to be with someone brash and loud. It made me feel less alone in my own loudness and chaos. They never lasted, but they were always fun. Everything was so exciting and I was never bored. Even when it was bad it felt…dramatic. Like a movie. And it was college so I didn’t really ever feel like I had to sit down and ponder why the relationships didn’t last, only that they didn’t. We fought too much, partied too often, the whole relationship was just some drunk fling, whatever. It didn’t matter.”

“But Wonwoo was so…not any of that. He would come out to parties if I asked him to, but he usually spent them in the corner talking about books or petting a cat or following me around. He always wanted to leave early. He was always so eager to be at home.”

“And you weren’t?” Minghao asks and you barely register the question before you’re hurrying along to answer it.

“No, yes. I don’t know. At first I found it quite sweet–like he just wanted to spend a lot of alone time with me. And it was so novel and different that I never stopped to think it might be something I didn’t like.”

“At first?” Minghao clarifies and you nod.

“After a little while, I started to feel like I was forcing him to go out when he didn’t want to. I was being the overbearing, annoying girlfriend dragging him to these parties against his will. So I stopped going to a lot of them, and the ones that I did go to I said I could just go alone.”

“Did you ever ask him whether he felt the same way?” The question brings your thought train to a dead stop. Minghao can see the confusion twisting your brows so he continues, “you stopped going to parties because you thought you were being annoying by dragging him along but did you ever ask if he felt like he was being burdened by these outings?”

“No, I just…he never…he didn’t look like he was having a good time,” you flounder for an explanation, trying to remember what it was that had brought you to this conclusion in the first place. Had you ever talked to him about it? Were you just making all of this up?

“I’m not saying you’re wrong, maybe he really didn’t enjoy them. From what you’re telling me, he definitely does seem like more of a homebody,” he says, but you take little comfort in the words. “I am wondering, though, what brought you to this assumption without him mentioning anything about it. Did he ever say that he didn’t want to go? Or that he wished you wouldn’t?”

“I don’t…I can’t remember…” you say slowly, mind fogging up. A cloud of confusion overcrowding your thoughts.

“That’s okay,” he says but you do not feel like it is okay, actually. Had you ruined everything years ago without even realising? Was scheduling this appointment a mistake? “I don’t want you to overanalyze the specifics, those are often the least important part especially when something is in the past. We can’t change those things, only learn from them. It’s just helpful to know whether or not these trust issues have manifested more internally or because of external situations. To find out where they tend to stem from.”

You nod, the clock on the wall ticks as your thoughts wind through time. You want, so desperately, for there to be some solid memory to tie this all back to. Something from your past or your childhood to point to and say ‘look, there it is!’ A magical moment to blame all your issues on so that you can be born from this session a new person. But sadly nothing was ever that simple, and you couldn’t ever remember not being this way. Were you just…like this? Some untenable part of you broken at birth, barring you from ever developing a healthy, functioning relationship without feeling like you’re sacrificing some integral part of yourself while you do so? Or without feeling like it was all some illusion bound to disperse into smoke and mirrors with the snap of someone’s fingers?

“What are you thinking?” Minghao asks, clearly taking note of the darkening of your expression. The tension creeping into your brow. You don’t want to tell him. Don’t want the confirmation of being beyond help.

Or maybe that’s not it. Maybe it’s the opposite that you’re afraid of. That this image of self as someone floundering through life with all these worries and struggles, someone broken beyond measure, has just been that–an image. Something you made up to keep yourself safe somewhere along the way and really you could just change it all if you felt like that. If you threw off your cape of comfort and accepted the help you’ve so long denied.

“I just,” you start, rubbing at a sore spot developing on your temple. You try to push through the sudden urge to bolt out of his office right now and not look back. “I don’t know, maybe it’s stupid but I feel like I fucked everythig up. Like it’s my fault, and maybe if I could have just talked to him or trusted that he lo–loved me despite our differences…maybe everything would have been okay.” The distinct prickling of tears starts to burn behind your eyes but you blink them away, not willing to give into them so easily.

“Maybe,” he starts and you feel a pang of icy shock at the acceptance of this self-blame. You had expected the same pity and denial you get from Seulgi. You keep your gaze fixed on a small scuff on the top of his nice brown leather shoe, unable to meet his eyes as he continues. “Maybe if you had been able to accept that you are worthy of love from someone, regardless of your perceived flaws, or if you had been able to communicate more openly to be able to meet both of your needs within the relationship, maybe things would have been different.”

He pauses, whether for dramatic effect or to let you process what he’s saying, you’re not sure. You suspect the latter, but considering he’s a friend of Mingyu’s you can’t be completely certain.

“Maybe, or maybe not. Maybe even if you had done everything perfectly and nothing had ever gone wrong you still would have broken up. A break up is not a failure–not of the relationship and not of the individuals within it. There is always the chance that you had just outgrown each other without either of you fully realising it, and that’s okay. We don’t examine our past to further deepen self-blame and pity, we do it so we can learn what we need from them and accept these lessons so we can carry them forward into our future. And that doesn’t mean that we won’t have more break ups or more perceived failures, it just hopefully means we will be able to accept them as part of the process instead of a barrier to it.”

The speech slots itself into your brain, wiggling between long believed ideas and perspectives that had lived in there for years. Forcing its way in between them all. You feel it nestle in, planting its seeds until you can fully appreciate the thoughts he’s offering you. For now, you try to just fend off the part of you that resists everything he’s saying and listen to the (slightly quieter) part that knows you need to hear it.

“Do you–” you start, pausing to clear your throat of the lump that had built up while he spoke. “Do you think I will be able to get to…to that point?”

“Yes,” he nods, decisive. “How long it takes, though, will depend entirely on how willing you are to change. The fact that you’re here meeting with me shows you are at least ready, in part, to begin the process of releasing these old thought patterns. But there is no magic pill, and it takes time and effort. I am here to help, but ultimately it’s only you that can make this change.”

“And if I can’t change?”

“You can,” he says, shutting down the doubt immediately, “if you choose to.” Sensing your next question he continues, “and if you don’t then you continue life as you are and it changes you. The self is an adaptive state–always transforming. With or without my help or your conscious effort, change will happen. It’s just smoother a lot of the time if you can work with it instead of waiting for it to happen to you.”

“This is really too much, Mingyu.”

A plume of steam bursts out of the pot on the stovetop as Mingyu lifts the lid off to taste the sauce. He rears his head back to avoid the heat but still plunges his spoon-wielding hand into the steamy abyss to stir at the bottom of the liquid.

You watch, leaning against the counter behind him, in a state of concerned bemusement as he takes a few minutes to adjust the heat on his various pots and pans.

“What do you mean?” he asks, turning around and mopping the sweat off his brow with the dish towel he had draped over his shoulder. A few stray rivulets of steam trace their way down his neck and disappear into the collar of shirt. You try (unsuccessfully) to avoid thinking about the sheen on his skin as it glints in the light of the kitchen.

“All this,” you gesture vaguely to the arranged on the table, the splatters of food on his well-worn “Kiss The Cook” apron (a gag gift from Jeonghan, apparently). ”I figured we would just…I don’t know, order some fried chicken or something,” you explain but his expression remains puzzled. “You know, just casual. It’s just Seulgi.”

“Does she not like Italian?” he asks, a look of mild panic starting to etch into the corners of his eyes. “I knew I should have asked but I thought Italian would be the safest, most people like pasta but if she doesn’t–”

“No, no,” you cut him off before he can spiral further, “she likes Italian food, I’m pretty sure it’s one of her favourites actually, but I mean like…it’s just Seulgi.”

“But she’s your friend,” he states the fact like it should explain the fresh baked focaccia cooling on the counter behind him or the ludacris wine bill you got a look at earlier in the day. “Do you not like Italian food? If you really want fried chicken we can order some.”

One of the pot lids sputters with the force of steam it’s holding back and you choke back a laugh as Mingyu whips around to stir it back into submission.

“No, no, I love pasta I–” you pause, words dangling on the precipice of your lips, ready to say more, but you think better of it, remembering what Minghao had said at the end of your session about controlling outcomes. “Thank you for doing all this, I’m sure she’ll love it.”

He grins wide, relieved, and you pack away your lingering worries before leaving him to battle the remains of dinner alone.

The living room has transformed over the space of a few hours–soft lighting and soft blankets adorn the area and you’re greeted by the faint scent of grapefruit as Vernon moves around the room lighting a series of candles.

“Are we proposing to her?” you ask, taken aback by the effort put forth by all of your roommates.

“Do you think she’d say yes?” Vernon quips, turning around with a half-smile, and you roll your eyes.

When you had told them you were thinking of inviting Seulgi over for dinner (ostensibly to meet everyone, but more so to have a night with her where you didn’t have to bother leaving the comfort of your own home) they had reacted…minimally. Mingyu seemed excited at the prospect of hosting a dinner party and apparently had run wild with the power of doing so, but you didn’t think the other three had much cared beyond a vague curiosity about your friend. But even Jeonghan, who already knew Seulgi well, had gone to the trouble of purchasing flowers to liven up the living space.

“I just don’t know why everyone is treating this like we’re having an idol over or something,” you shake your head, flopping down on the couch and letting your head fall back against the cushion.

“Well,” Vernon says, taking a seat next to you, “to be honest, it’s mostly Mingyu that insisted on all of it.”

“Why?” Curiosity bubbles up and you take a cursory glance back towards the kitchen where Mingyu is still standing, glistening over the stove top as he maneuvers various dishes and pots around. You knew he was prone to overdoing things like this if your first big meal with the household was anything to judge from, but why would he bother to go to such lengths just to impress your friend that honestly would have been more than happy with a plate of fried chicken and a cold beer.

Vernon just shrugs before pushing himself off the couch into a full body stretch. “Well,” he says, “you know Mingyu.”

I guess I do, you think, curiosity unsatisfied by the lack of answers. You know Jeonghan might give you more insight but whether it was truthful or if you wanted to bear the brunt of his scrutiny for even asking was another question. Instead, you try to just let it go and text Seulgi an inquiry into her ETA while you listen to the clamour of dishes in the kitchen as Mingyu finishes assembling his feast.

Fifteen minutes and three introductions later, you’re all seated around the candlelit table passing around a dish of tajarin al tartufo.

“Where did you even get white truffles at this time of year?” Seulgi asks, sipping gingerly from her glass of Chardonnay (specially chosen for the occasion).

“I know some people in the industry,” Mingyu replies, tone casual–you can still see the glimmer of pride shimmering his eyes in the dim lighting however.

“Oh, do you work in the culinary sector?”

“No, not at all,” he shakes his head, “but I did a bit during school so I kept in touch with some people that way. Plus some of the people I graduated with ended up in the acquisitions side of the restaurant business.”

“Well,” she nods, setting down her glass, “I’m surprised honestly, this is like restaurant quality food. I wouldn’t have been shocked if you told me you were a chef.”

Mingyu brushes off the compliment with another laugh, but his smile again betrays how pleased he is by the validation. “It’s just a hobby, really. I like cooking for people.”

“And we’re happy to benefit from it,” Jeonghan chimes in, “we’d surely be starving if it wasn’t for our private cook.”

“Hey, I can cook,” Seungcheol grumbles, reaching for another slice of focaccia.

Jeonghan pats his arm with a solemn nod, acknowledging his skillset. “You’d get by fine, but these other two?” he gestures vaguely in yours and Vernon’s directions with a shake of his head, “hopeless.”

“Who needs to cook in this golden age of delivery?” Vernon asks, and you nod your agreement.

“Someone on a broke actor’s wage, maybe.”

“Touché,” Vernon shrugs, uninterested in defending himself further. “Won’t be broke much longer though, I booked a gig for next week so get ready for riches beyond our wildest imaginations.”

“Oh congratulations, what’s this one? Another commercial for a dog grooming spa?”

“Nope,” Vernon says, brushing off the light dig at his resume, “a bit part in a drama on KBS. I’ve got a name and a line and everything.”

“Riches beyond our wildest imaginations, hey?” Mingyu jokes, a grin tugging at the corner of his lips.

“Yeah, well, I don’t know what your imagination is like. It does pay though,” he shrugs, content to inhale another forkful of pasta.

“That’s actually great, Vernon,” you say, diverting the round of teasing towards something more supportive. “Congratulations.”

“Thanks,” he replies, casual as always, “it's something at least. Saves me from having to go work retail for a bit anyway.”

“Well, if you do need a job at any point after this my cafe is hiring, I just had to fire my last guy,” Seulgi says, setting her fork down at the side of her plate.

“What happened this time?” you ask. You’ve been out of the loop of cafe drama for far too long. You were having trouble remembering if this was the same guy as the one that kept mixing up decaf and blonde roast.

“He got in a fist fight with a customer.”

“What? Like…at work?”

“Yeah,” she replies, dabbing at her mouth with the edge of a napkin. “To be fair the customer he beat up was sleeping with his girlfriend and he hadn’t exactly expected to see him there after finding out but still…it looks bad on me if I let it slide.”

“Still working at the cafe?” Jeonghan asks, “what happened to the start up?”

Seulgi grimaces and you can feel the annoyance seeping through her pores at the mention of her old job, the bitterness from the whole fiasco still running deep in her veins. “It went tits up, and turns out the CEO was embezzling money from the company so there weren’t even any severance packages. Haven’t been able to find anything since then, it’s a nightmare.”

“You work in tech?” Mingyu asks, leaning over to refill Seulgi and your wine glasses, finishing off the last of the bottle.

“Software development,” she replies with a nod of thanks for the wine.

“I might know someone hiring for Samsung, I could ask around for you if you want?” he offers, sitting back down in his chair across from you.

“You know someone that works at Samsung?” she balks and you watch her expression shift to open excitement at the possibility.

“I do,” he nods, “he was a nepotism hire, honestly, his dad is head of logistics but he owes me a huge favour so I could ask.”

“Mingyu,” she says, eyes narrowed to fine points as she stares at him from across the table, “I will give you my first born child in payment.”

“Oh, uh–” he laughs, a tinge of colour reddening the tips of his ears. “It’s no big deal, really. Just happy to help a friend.”

His eyes flicker towards yours in the candlelight and you offer him a soft smile of approval. The look does not go unnoticed by Jeonghan, a slow, sly grin spreading over his features as he drains the last of his wine. Conversation drifts, continuing to flow throughout the hour, as time melts away with the candle wax dripping onto the table cloth.

Once the food is polished off the group moves into the living room to play some games and to no one’s surprise, Seungcheol ends up winning most of the rounds of Jenga through sheer intimidation alone. Seulgi, however, does manage to best him at Uno which immediately results in a half-pouted plea for a one-on-one rematch. Vernon excuses himself to head to bed early for an audition in the morning and Jeonghan lingers behind to watch the match, betting on Seunghceol’s downfall much to the man’s chagrin.

You stay for a minute, watching the cards fly across the table with a vengeance, before your attention shifts to the sounds of running water and clinking of dishes coming from the kitchen. Mingyu took the revenge match as an opportunity to clean up from dinner and a pang of guilt bounds through you at the thought of him doing both the cooking and cleaning for the night entirely alone.

“Do you want a hand?” He’s hunched over the sink as you enter the kitchen and walk towards him–tall frame bending to accommodate the height of the counter, scrubbing at a stubborn spot on a pot.

“You don’t have to,” he replies, glancing over his shoulder, “I can handle it.”

“Mingyu, you already cooked for everyone, the least you can do is let me dry them or something.”

He evaluates you for a moment, confirming that your offer isn’t born purely from pity, before nodding, “alright, these pots are clean already if you want to start there.”

You nod and grab a clean tea towel from the drawer next to the stove, moving to stand hip to hip with him at the sink. You work in companionable silence, nothing but the squeak of soap on porcelain and the distant complaints of Seungcheol as Seulgi hits him with another pick up 4 card.

You had never hosted any gatherings at your apartment with Wonwoo. Not that it was ever something he said he didn’t want, it just never came up. He tended to use his home as a retreat from the world and while you loved a good get together, you weren’t much of a host yourself, preferring instead to just join in when invited. Tonight was your first real, adult dinner party and while you hadn’t actually been much of an active participant in the planning of said party, it still felt like you had some ownership over it.

Now, standing here in tandem with Mingyu, cleaning up while your guest and other roommates were occupied with each other, you had to admit that there was something so comfortably domestic about the whole thing. You were surprised at how natural it felt, and you knew that if you let your mind amble down the path of no return, you would find yourself in this same position over and over again in your imagination. Scrubbing pots next to the man that had just fed you and your friends pasta.

“Did you have a good time?” Mingyu asks, sensing your thoughts and cutting them off at the head before they can get the best of you again.

You pick up the last pot in the stack, letting your hands continue working as you nod, a soft smile gracing your lips, “I did, yeah. It was really nice.”

“Good,” he sighs, letting a soft laugh out with his breath, “I’m glad. Wasn’t too much in the end, then?”

“No,” you reply, soothing the hint of insecurity in his question. “It was perfect. Sounds like Seulgi had a good time as well.”

“That’s a relief,” he says, dipping his hands back into the sink to finish wiping off the last few plates.

“Were you worried she wouldn’t?” you laugh, slightly incredulous at the lack of confidence coming from a man who just cooked you a Michelin star worthy dinner.

“No, I just,” he laughs again, hesitation creeping back into his voice. “I wanted to make a good impression.”

“I don’t think you could have made a bad one,” you mumble, wiping your hands off on the tea towel before hanging it on the cupboard hook to dry out.

“Well, that’s good,” Mingyu says, angling his body towards yours after pulling the plug in the sink drain, “because I…” he pauses, hesitant. You turn to face him, watching as he tugs the hot pink kitchen gloves off his hands and sets them down at the side of the sink. A faint blush is spreading out over his cheeks and for a second you wonder if he might not be feeling well.

“Mingyu–” you start–unsure whether to inquire about his well being or just to prompt him to continue. He raises his gaze to meet yours and you get the distinct feeling that he just made some sort of decision, come to some resolution within himself.

“Listen, I…” he starts and you maintain his gaze, heart picking up pace in your chest as your thoughts fly at a mile a minute trying to guess what he’s about to say. “I’m sorry if this is too forward or something, but the whole reason I went to all of this trouble tonight was for you.”

“Me?”

“I like you,” he blurts the words out without ceremony, stumbling over them as they tumble from his mouth. You stand still, a few feet away from him, in shock as the laughter from the living room fades to a distant murmur. “I think you’re beautiful, and funny, and smart and I would like to get to know you more and I know you’re still getting over a break up so I’m not trying to…pressure you or anything. And I know that maybe this is super awkward given that we live together and everything, but I just needed to tell you before I start to feel like I’m losing my mind.”

“Oh.” It’s the only word you can manage. You feel like your brain is stuck on a loading screen as your mouth frantically tries to hit refresh. Nothing happens. You’ve lost connection.

“And if you don’t feel the same now, or ever, that’s okay. But I just needed to tell you that,” he sighs, “that I like you. And I’m very interested in you, and I get the feeling that you are also interested in me but if I’m wrong or it’s too soon then that’s okay. I can wait. Or not. Up to you. But…I like you.”

“I, umm…” You try. Try to form a coherent thought or sentence but nothing comes to you. Internally, you’re screaming at yourself. Isn’t this what you wanted? Haven’t you been pining after this man since you moved in here? What’s the hold up now?

All these questions, self chastisements, and more come spilling forward in your brain. A flood of confusion clouding all your judgement as you stand frozen in the middle of the kitchen in front of a man that is still waiting for you to reply to him. A man that has just laid all his cards out on the table for you to see. No tricks, no reversals, just ‘I like you’ in plain language. No guesswork. And still, all of your fears and worries and anxieties overwhelm you anyway.

“You don’t have to say anything now,” he says, finally, giving up on waiting for your brain to kick in. “But, if you do…feel the same…you know where to find me. And if not then,” he laughs, attempting to clear away some of the awkwardness lingering in the air as a result of your inability to speak, “then I hope we can still be friends and I haven’t…made this too weird or anything.”

A loud uproar booms out from the living room–Jeonghan’s victorious laughter accompanied by Seungcheol’s cries of devastation. Another win for Seulgi. Mingyu glances behind you towards the sound before smiling and brushing past you, leaving you to pick up your jaw from the tile floor.

“I really have to go now,” you hear Seulgi say–closer behind you now as the games draw to a close. You snap to attention, shaking off your temporary paralysis, and turn to rejoin the group feeling like an entirely different person than when you had left them barely 30 minutes ago.

“One more game, all or nothing,” Seungcheol urges, but she shakes her head.

“I don’t think you can afford to lose another one,” she says with a smile, “and I really need to get back home, I’m opening in the morning. Thank you for the dinner, Mingyu, it was great. And I look forward to hearing from you friend.”

“Of course,” he replies, the picture of a good host. He hands her her coat from the hallway closet before wishing her a good night and disappearing towards his bedroom. After some prompting Jeonghan and Seungcheol follow suit.

Seulgi turns to you with a smile, but it falls from her face the second she sees the slightly dumbfounded expression still plastered on your own. “Are you ok?”

“M-me? Yeah, fine, I just…” you pause, wavering on the option of telling her what just happened but the second you get close to the confession you stall. You don’t want to. Not yet. Not until you’ve reckoned with it on your own. “I think I’m just coming down with a cold.”

“You have a terrible immune system,” she says, shaking her head. “Well, good night then. Call me tomorrow, hopefully you feel better after some rest.”

“I will, I will,” you nod, opening the door for her as she slips into her shoes. “Text me when you get home.”

She waves a final goodbye and you watch her walk towards the elevator before closing the door and twisting the lock. With a sigh you lean against the solid wood, grateful for the support as you continue to try to regather your wits. Mingyu’s confession replays, over and over like a highlight reel in your mind.

This is a good thing, isn’t it?

―AUTHOR’S NOTE: i cant link them here, but please find the series masterlist and other chapters on my blog. i would love to know your thoughts on the story so far !

#caratlibrary #svthub #mingyu x reader #wonwoo x reader #mingyu smut #wonwoo smut #seventeen smut #svt x reader #seventeen scenarios #mingyu fluff #mingyu angst #wonwoo fluff #wonwoo angst #chm updates

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bebebelll · 11 months

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Pretty girls and flowers | lando norris smau

pairing: lando norris x student!reader warning: cursing, unrealistic if lando did this in real life the girl would absolutely get doxxed

yn_phd good morning by best pals! this month's episode will be out this tuesday. my lovely amazing talented so pretty best friend got two tickets to silverstone so if you're there come say hello👋! the podcast guest will be my old professor from freshman year so put down any questions you have about mary i of england! stay healthy and hydrated ❤️❤️

liked by bestie_n and 8 475

bestie_n omg dont praise me like that im blushing

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scuderiaferrari it's been a lovely weekend with charles_leclerc and carlossaiz55! P4 and P7 💪 Here is the first taste of the silverstone photo dump!

liked by charles_leclerc, landonorris and 193 847 others

username CHARLES IN P4 CHARLES IN P4 CHARLES IN P4 I REPEAT CHARLIE CHUCK IS IN P4

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carlossainz55 its me landonorris no the pretty one charles_leclerc me? landonorris ew no the PRETTY one charles_leclerc ew? i will drive you to the wall

username not charles threatening to send lando into the wall in the comments

username you just fucking know he'd do it too just ask max

username is lando trying to hook up with the girl in the photo?

yn_phd i put on a little bow so i could be the prettiest girl at the bookstore ❤️today i wrote a page, went on a reading binge about chariot racing in ancient rome, had a breakdown and ate pasta.

liked by bestie_n, carlossainz55 and 11 264 others

username is this the girl @ landonorris

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username i mean he'll miss but its gonna be funny username no one trusts the rizz of this man with a shit beard

bestie_n who is lando? where have you people come from?

carlossainz55 i think this is the girl we were with

carlossainz55 she got lost around the track so we took a photo and got a staff member to help her. she was prettier in real life. good luck mr no rizz you need it username NOT CARLOS COMING FOR LANDO

username LANDO NORRIS

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landonorris haha okay people lets not do this haha its not that funny it is a bit embarrasing hah (my dms are open for pretty girls always)

alex_albon well youre talented in the car at least

landonorris my dad scolded me for getting drunk on twitter so i went to eat their fridge empty. love being home

liked by carlossainz55, yn_phd and 385 749 others

username is he trying to look extra cute and soft to seduce the pretty girl?

username you just googled boyfriend material and tried your best huh

georgerussel63 i though youd chosen to go with the shirtless gym photos?

alex_albon you sent like fifteen different gym pics to the groupchat and then dont choose even one? fuck our help then i guess landonorris shut up shut up shut up

username i can see the pretty girl in the likes though 👀

yn_phd me and the gang went to a lecture about lord byron's sex life on thursday. i had a pretty cute visitor this weekend and even our lord and king aragorn the cat liked him!!

liked by landonorris, bestie_n and 9 736 others

bestie_n it was a lecture about lord byron's reputation and fame and how it effected the romance genre?

yn_phd exactly!

username are we gonna get an episode about THE george gordon byron please say yes

yn_phd my best pal i will rant about the whole geneva squad

username did lando norris actually do it

username did landonorris attend the lecture too?

landonorris ive never been happier that i chose karting and skipped school

yn_phd i have discovered hidden depths in myself. i can cry about essay structures and then drive bumper cars an hour later

liked by landonorris, alex_albon and 11 379 others

landonorris it was just karting babe they were not bumper cars

yn_phd but i crashed so much? landonorris you were great!! i was so proud!! 🧡

username okay but how does this relationship even work? if she doesnt know anything about racing?

yn_phd i tell him everything about the tudor dynasty and he explains to me how the drs works

landonorris use date night to play uno and see whos more competitive (me, i won)

liked by yn_phd, alex_albon and 385 739 others

yn_phd the way i screamed after you gave me those cards

username lando really be gambling with a new relationship

alex_albon poor girl

georgerussell63 remember when we played uno and lando got a +4 card from all of us and he got a mental breakdown alex_albon yeahh we had to take 10min break cause he left for a drive around the block maxverstappen1 the neighbours made a noise complaint too

yn_phd i got him flowers and later we both crash landed on the bowling alley floor

liked by landonorris, bestie_n and 13 847 others

alex_albon oh so this why you called me crying your tits off

maxverstappen1 he called you too?

landonorris pretty girl🧡🧡

yn_phd pretty guy❤️❤️

#lando norris #lando norris x reader #formula 1 x reader #lando norris insta au #f1 social media au #lando norris imagine

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cultofdixon · 8 months

Text

Strong, Healthy, that’s all that matters

Daryl Dixon • She/Her Pronouns • Part 2 to “You do what you can” • Alexandria is a wonderful luxury the group was given. Even with the ups and downs • ANGST/SFW/NSFW - Nudity • TW: Miscarriage Mentioned / Pregnancy / Vomiting & Excessive Nausea / Canon Violence

Requested by: Anon

“Why are you out here and not inside with Y/N?” Carol asked her best friend from her porch while he sat on the fence fiddling with his crossbow.

“Doc gave her a sedative. She’s safe, don’t gotta watch her”

“Then why are you biting your thumb every now and then?” She comments on his anxious habit resulting in Daryl stopping himself from continuing.

“She’s weak, can barely stand weak. I’m tryin’ to think of what to do for her when the best thing for her right now is sleep and the IV that doc put in her. He comes by every hour to give us a new one and take the old one to refill. Rick or I change it but I don’t know what else I could do”

“Well, how about I make something that I ate during my pregnancy that I knew I kept down…see if Y/N can handle it. If not, I’ll keep making things pregnancy friendly with what we’ve got.”

“I heard what yea said when they took her to the infirmary.” Daryl hung his head low to avoid her shocked expression. “You wished she’d lost it, then she wouldn’t be useless when we take this place if people fuck with us enough.”

“Daryl—-“

“If yea mean it, then do that shit for my partner and our baby. Otherwise I’ve got it.”

“Yet you’re siting out here and not being with her. Doesn’t matter if you can’t do anything but watch her sleep or hell, sleep with her why not. That’s doing something” Carol states walking past to go to the pantry.

“You look ridiculous by the way!” He had to make one last comment which got a laugh out of the woman.

After a bit more time sitting on the porch to think of anything else he could do for his partner, he decided it was best to listen to his best friend. But when he entered the bedroom Y/N took, she wasn’t in bed and her IV bag was unhooked from her and clamped to keep it from continuing to dispense. Daryl was about to let his anxiety take over when he heard splashing of water.

The second he peaked his head into the bathroom, Y/N quickly turned to him.

“Hi…”

“Hi…how are yea…” His face distorted to the mixture of smells happening in the room. “feeling? What is—-“

“Vomit. I didn’t…make it to the toilet or the trash can at least and puked all over my clothes” Y/N frowns feeling awful about it as she quickly turned away to avoid her tears being noticeable. It’s small potatoes but she’s crying anyway…and again.

Daryl brought himself to kneel by the bath gently taking her chin bringing her attention onto him. He then took care of wiping away the tears bringing out that smile of hers as he leans against the edge of the tub.

“I’ll get you clean clothes. There’s sweats I saw….uhm. Did you take your IV out? Do I have to get—-“

“No it was uhm. The IV tubing was one like a screw in and not a needle piercing the plastic” Y/N showed him that she taped the excess tubing to her arm and did her best to keep it dry. “It’s honestly hard to explain and just easier to show you when I put it back in”

“Puttin’ your old nursing days to use”

“Surprised you even remember that…and it was just a clinic” Y/N laughs softly sinking a bit into the water that was starting to lose its warmth.

“Everythin’ you’ve said to me, I’ve kept to memory. You’re my girl.” Daryl gave her a soft smile which she will take to memory as she brought her hand to rest on his cheek watching him kiss the inside of her palm.

“You know you don’t have to be calm with me…” Y/N reassures even when he gave her a confused look. “I have gotten pretty good at reading your expressions, especially your infamous blank ones…I know you don’t like it here. It’s…scary and I’m not gonna get used to it instantly either or like the others”

“All I want is to keep my family safe. Something doesn’t feel right here but all I gotta do is keep y’all safe”

Y/N smiles bringing herself to the edge pressing a kiss to his lips as he happily returns the gesture.

“Need help out?” Daryl asks when Y/N pulled the stopper out to let the water drain. She nods watching him stand up holding his hands out for her to take carefully.

The second Daryl helped her stand to her feet his eyes fixated on something that anxiously took Y/N’s attention.

“What happened?”

“Nothin’. Nothin’ bad” Daryl states still staring as he helps her out of the tub and reaching for the towel on the sink she set out for herself. “You’re showin’” he says while gently wrapping her in the towel and finding the opportunity to rest his hand on her belly after giving her a quick glance for any signs from her of not wanting him to do such.

But his large hands make it look like nothing in comparison to Y/N keeping the towel from covering her belly a moment so she could rest her hand on her small but growing bump. She couldn’t help the tears that started to form at her waterline when looking at the small bump as she was worried ever since she found out she was pregnant and had this 1 in a million case of intense nausea that the baby wouldn’t grow.

Yet here they were admiring the small thing as Daryl rest his forehead against hers a moment while they both looked before he wrapped her entirely in the towel and picking her up bridal style carrying her back to the rest of bedroom.

Once she dressed in the sweats and long sleeve Daryl had gotten out for her, it felt like a cue for Rick to step in without knocking but Y/N was used to that. She grew up with the guy.

“How are yea feeling?”

“I’m doing okay” Y/N gave him a tired smile while showing Daryl how to reconnect the IV bag. “Did you need something?”

“Yeah you remember Deanna coming in to introduce herself to you?”

“Yeah?” The confusion grew on her partner’s face to what he was getting at.

“She’s throwing a welcoming party or whatever they’re called for our infusion to the place. She wants you to come if you’re feeling well enough”

“I could just lie—-“

“Yeah I know but I have to go and so are the kids. I’d just. Like it if you came” Rick says on his way out before Y/N could say anymore on the matter. She turned to Daryl and before he could share his concerns on why he doesn’t exactly feel welcomed…

“You don’t have to come if you don’t want to. Frankly I don’t…really want to either. I never fit in with this kind of crowd” Y/N rest her head on Daryl’s shoulder feeling his arm snake around her bringing her close. “You just be safe with whatever you do and I promise you I will be safe.”

“You just know what to say huh?” Daryl chuckles lightly pressing a kiss to the top of her head. “I’ll uh…well, I wanna check out the place when there’s not a lot of people ‘round”

“Can you make sure the wall is actually secure?”

“That what you’re really worried about?”

“I’m pregnant, Dar. I’m worried about a lot of things”

The night of the party came and Rick quietly approaches Y/N’s bedroom knocking on the door frame watching her attention go from the full body mirror to him. She was wearing a dress that was more on the fitted side and showed off her bump, the dress was given to her by Deanna. As if she wanted to show everyone who the pregnant newcomer was.

“You look miserable”

“Yeah but not in that sense. The doc came by to check me out…as per request by—-“

“Jesus fucking Christ”

“And he said I should be fine to go. So I can’t really stand up this party…especially since she also dropped this dress off and it’s like. She wants everyone to know I’m the pregnant one”

“Yeah I don’t quite understand this whole “reliving the old life” Alexandria’s got going for it. But I’ve found a sweater in my closet that I think you’d like to wear over the dress.” Rick tossed his sister the grey sweater that she instantly put on. “Well don’t we clean up nice”

“You miss it?” Y/N questions as she sits on the edge of the bed slipping her untied converse with ease as Rick instantly knelt down to help her by tying them. “The old world?”

“Honest? I don’t”

“Why?”

“I missed my sister, now I see her everyday” Rick stood to his feet once he tied her shoes and helped her up. “I don’t ever want to go back to rarely ever seeing you”

The first thirty minutes of the party, Y/N was approached by those simply introducing themselves to the newcomers and the occasional woman that was too curious about her pregnancy. She even had to swat someone from touching her belly. It seemed to only get worse when one of Deanna’s sons, Aiden walked over trying to do his usual shtick.

“Come here often?”

Gross. “Nope” Y/N tried to brush him off but he kept his place.

“I saw yea come in on a stretcher. Thank god a bombshell like yourself pulled through”

“I wasn’t dying”

“Ah well. Still”

“Still what? Did you not see the man glued to my side or the smallest but obvious reason why I had to be rolled into this shithole?” Y/N glared at the man while holding her belly as Aiden cleared his throat.

“I uh. Just thought you were fat—-“

“EXCUSE ME?!” Y/N scoffs about to break this man in half when Maggie cut in and physically shoved the guy back.

“Woah watch it. I was having a conversa—-“

“Yeah and it’s done, unless you want me to let her beat you to a pulp”

“Like her weak ass can even land a punch”

And without another word, Maggie moved out of Y/N’s way and she didn’t hesitate to land a good one right in the kisser. Aiden instantly fumbled back about to fight back when Reg instantly pulled his son away letting Deanna take care of the situation. But Y/N had enough of being there.

“Come on Rocky, let’s get you home before the ref realizes what happened to her bitch of a son” Maggie quickly wrapped an arm around her friend’s shoulders walking out of the house and heading toward the Grimes’s residence.

“Hope Daryl is having a better time than I am.” Y/N frowns feeling the sick feeling return.

Meanwhile Daryl was checking out the bike frame Aaron had shown him and while he was making a plate for the archer’s partner…Eric wobbled in.

“Hey you never told us your wife’s name”

“She’s not my—-Y/N—We ain’t married.” Daryl fumbled a bit as he had that strange old world feeling when it came to their “situation”.

Y/N Grimes is the love of Daryl Dixon’s life. Neither of them like labels.

Daryl calls her sunshine, darling, and lovely.

Y/N calls him my love, babe, and the occasional Darbear for the fun of it.

The archer calls her his partner to others and some part of him would love to use my wife.

So what’s stopping me? Daryl thought as Eric gave him a confused look after his scrambling.

“I know we just met but do you mind if I push?”

“Why do yea want to?”

“Because I feel like it. I talked to Y/N when we were both in the infirmary” Eric leaned against the door frame with his arms crossed. “She’s a catch, and fate brought you two together…you don’t need a fancy wedding for a union anymore. I get some don’t like labels or whatever, but honestly, those labels are sometimes not for you…besides” He reached into his pocket tossing a ring box at the archer. “She loved that”

Such little time in the infirmary lead to a lot of unanswered questions. But Daryl found himself heading back to the Grimes’s residence with a wrapped plate of spaghetti and a ring in a velvet box. Nothing too fancy. Nothing like what the brides have in the old movies. It suited them. That’s how perfect it was.

“Hey Dixon!” Pete calls out to Daryl carrying a few things in his hands as he stalls by the steps. “Got a few things for your woman after doing a bit of research and what happened tonight”

“The fuck happen tonight?”

Pete gave him about the same level of blank staring before handing him one of those instant ice packs. “She punched the Monroe boy. Should help with the bruising. Plus found one of these pregnancy books in what we are suppose to call a library? Anyway and some nausea meds”

“Thanks…” Daryl accepted everything as he watches him leave before quickly picking up where he left off heading inside.

The archer quickly dropped the plate off on the kitchen island before making his way upstairs and into their shared room finding her still awake. Y/N still wearing the sweater her brother gave her but was finally out of that stupid dress. When she locked eyes with her partner, some part of her wished she still wore it for him to see but she was more focused on everything he carried.

“You were busy tonight”

“Uh. I guess.” Daryl brought himself to sit beside Y/N feeling her lips instantly press onto his cheek the moment he sat before resting her cheek against his shoulder. “Heard about your right hook”

“Dumbass deserved it…”

“Gotta point him out for me, so I know who to fucking show who’s boss”

“I sort of already did, but I will” Y/N laughs lightly against him, taking the offered instant ice pack to crack it and hold it on her dominant hand. “What else you’ve got?”

“I’ve got yea a plate in the kitchen. Had dinner with Aaron and his partner Eric. It was…nice. I wish you were there with me” Daryl kissed the top of her head as she snuggled up into him humming in response. “The doc also gave me meds for yea to try when it comes to your vomiting”

“I can take down fluids so I don’t need the IV anymore. That’s one good thing happening”

“That’s great” Daryl repeated the phrase once more before carefully pulling away from Y/N setting down the nausea meds along with the pregnancy book that peaked her interest—-for only a short moment.

Because the archer getting down on one knee instantly brought her attention away.

“Daryl Dixon. What are you doing?”

“Something…something stupid? I…I know about what we think of labels and shit but I can’t shake this”

“Daryl…” Y/N softens bringing herself entirely to the edge of the bed.

“I’ve been wanting to call you my wife since the last month of peace back at the prison. I want and am gonna spend the rest of my life with you…and this peanut is just. Our overflowing love onto another human being…”

“So poetic of you, Daryl Dixon…” Y/N laughs softly bringing his face into her hands as the tears instantly fell from her touch.

“I love you so much, sunshine”

“I love you so much more Darbear” She smirks hearing his annoyed laugh escape his lips as she gently wipes away his tears. “Now are you going to ask me? Because I don’t need a ring to tell the world how much I love being your wife”

Daryl gently pulls away to take the ring box out of a pocket in his vest as it surprised Y/N slightly when he opened it. It brought out a small tearful laugh to the silver arrow wrapped into a ring. It was a little cheesy but it was for them.

“Will you be my wife, Y/N Grimes?”

“I do, Daryl Dixon. I sure as fucking hell do”

It’s been about two months since then. Y/N was now six months pregnant and Alexandria went through…a lot.

The wall collapsing

The herd

Carl losing an eye

Maggie’s pregnancy announcement

Losing a lot of Alexandrians

It took about a month to fix the wall and collect themselves, slowly bringing themselves back to a sense of normal.

The morning came slowly, or slower than usual…

Y/N shifted slightly in the bed feeling the discomfort truly grow in her back once she opened her eyes. A soft groan escaped her lips which stirred Daryl awake as he lifted his head to check her face for anything but kept his hand secured on her belly.

“The baby isn’t going to kick every time your hand is there”

“She does. Sometimes”

“She huh? What happened to strong and healthy…that’s all that matters?”

“That’s still fact. Don’t mean I can wish for somethin’ on the side” Daryl whispers as he pressed a kiss to her belly which resulted in a laugh from his wife but also a kick hitting his hand. “That’s my girl”

“Rick caught me up on your supply run just the two of you…promise you’ll be safe?”

“I always do don’t I?”

“Yeah but last time you came home with a knife wound in your shoulder”

“Alright, fair enough” Daryl brought himself to sit up and help his wife do the same as Y/N gently caressed his cheek worried about him. “I promise”

“Good…”

Because I have a weird feeling about today

#cultofdixon #the walking dead #daryl dixon #daryl dixon x reader #daryl dixon fanfiction

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crazylittlejester · 2 months

Note

HI HI HI

You should yell about the blorbo. I'd love to hear about some warriors HC's you have.

I also have a HC and I'd love to hear what you think about it.

I've always HC'ed Warriors as having an adoptive son/daughter. And I low-key see him as a princess dad. The man is totally dressing up for his daughter's tea parties in the castle with her best friend the queen.

Please yell about your blorbo, I want to hear about him. :DDDD

HI HI HI IVE BEEN GIVEN PERMISSION TO YELL AND YAP I SHALL!!!!

First of all: Yes absolutely. I headcanon Wars as on the ace spectrum, I don’t think that man is having biological children. I kinda see him as someone who would decide to NOT have children, because he doesn’t think it’d be fair of him to raise a child because he thinks he’s too mentally messed up for that (despite the fact that Time and Wind both turned out FINE), but one day he just ✨Acquires✨ a child and that’s just the end of it he’s a father now.

The specific headcanon I have for him regarding having kids is after the war, he does his best to help the areas of Hyrule that were just DESTROYED, and so many civilians lost their lives and orphanages were just overflowing, and he does his best to put money into those places to help out and he visits and tells the kids stories and makes sure they’re actually being treated well and helps them get families, and one day he just comes across this little girl who’s not counted for at any of the orphanages and her parents are gone, and he tries to get her set up in one but she’s just too attached to him and he’s got such a soft spot for kids he just adopts her because she was just so miserable there and kept begging the people at the orphanage to make him come back. And that’s his little girl now, she’s his princess he’d fight the entire war again in a heartbeat just for her. He absolutely dresses up for tea parties with her, he lets her do his hair and makeup, he’ll walk down the halls holding her hand while she skips and Zelda has never in her LIFE seen him so genuinely happy. He’s an absolutely WONDERFUL father, despite his own doubts in himself, and that little girl grows up with “Aunt Zel” and “Aunt Impa” teaching her how to kick ASS (plus Aunt Linkle, who’s her actual aunt being Link’s brother and all, and Linkle helps her befriend the cuckoos)

Other Wars headcanons I have!!:

- He has a significant amount of gray hair but you can’t see it because he bleaches and dyes his hair (I HC it’s naturally a very dark brown and also curly, but he straightens it)

- Writes his journals in his first language because it’s not a common one in Castle Town and it makes him feel better to know that if anyone DID get their hands on it, they’d at least be slowed down because they’d have to translate it

- His left hand shakes sometimes because of old injuries and overuse, and it’s not as strong as his right. Sometimes it’s hard for him to use his sword and shield because of it, so he’ll either use his sword with two hands for support or just use his fire rod

- He has quite a few scars on his face but he can either cover them COMPLETELY with makeup or make them look light enough to not be super jarring (depending on how deep the scars are)

- I HC he doesn’t like things up against his neck, so he’ll wear only tunics/shirts that are very low cut in the front and his scarf is pinned so securely in place that it is IMPOSSIBLE for him to be strangled with it unless the end was grabbed and THEN wrapped around his neck

- Not the world’s best cook. He can make comfort dishes from home his mom used to make for him, but not a whole lot of other things. He has memorized recipes and hasn’t tried too much with experimenting and making new ones

- High spice tolerance, but mentally he can’t handle it because it makes his tongue buzz and he’ll freak out and panic because he can’t tell if it’s spice or poison

- Autistic with lower support needs. He masks incredibly well but that doesn’t make him any less autistic and that doesn’t mean he still doesn’t struggle

#jes talks #jes ask #linked universe #linkeduniverse #lu warriors #lu wars #warriors linked universe #linked universe warriors #lu headcanons #jes headcanons

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tannieastrology · 7 months

Text

Capricorn Venus-Learning To Love, Love🤎🧸

☕️ How I imagine a love for Capricorn Venuses one day- Something REAL. Something that warms your heart. Someone to just come home to.

Kinda a personal story<3

☕️🧸First off people who have Capricorn Venus or Venus aspecting Saturn how did yall meet yalls partner and how would you describe your experience in dating? Let me know your experiences down in the comments!

☕️🧸Some common themes- unrequited love, being unable to catch feelings, work/school focused, unsatisfying relationships, liking people for years, low self worth, having to go through many obstacles, strong souls, gracefully age.

☕️🧸My Venus is in Capricorn in the 3rd house conjunct Jupiter, Pluto, and POF and trines my Virgo Saturn in the 11th. All of my friends are older and I actually met my friendgroup because of my older sister and find it difficult to make friends regularly. I also mostly hangout with older people but when it comes down to dating I am very inexperienced even though I know im only 16.

☕️🧸Like ive never talked to anyone and when I like someone ive had a pattern of liking them for like 2-3 years( my venus being in the 8th degree of scorpio). I also dont get approached alot and while I do have guys approaching me here and there theyre never my type.

☕️🧸Like I LOVE classy men but guys my age just arent like that it kinda bums me out. Watching people easily get into relationships ever since I was a kid and being able to attract anything they want in love matters made me really think I was ugly for the longest time.

☕️🧸For one I literally was a ugly duckling from elementary to middle school and I didnt really go to a school where indian features were appreciated(a majority of my school is hispanic and black). I always kept quiet about my crushes because I always thought no way they could like me?

☕️🧸It wasnt really until this year(my sophmore year) where I realized I have grown sooo much as a person. Beauty wise and personality wise. The way my Venus has impacted me the most was friends because of the relationship of my 3rd and 11th house. I lost friends, was lied to, and backstabbed and eventually made me realize that I wasnt the problem. The people around me are just vain. This made me go into depression for a while but also made me reflect on my relationships.

☕️🧸Eventually I thought why do I deserve any less? And yall dont understand this was such a turning point for me because it made me cut off so many unnecessary people in my life along with raising my standards within my relationships which is EXACTLY what Capricorn Venus should learn to do if they feel theyre relationships arent satisfying. Not just friends but in romantic interests too. Like I actually have boundries for myself but I will say that I lost alot of my innocence when it comes to love. The biggest thing for me personally is that I grew into myself but it took a longer time for that to happen for me compared to my peers but man sometimes people be hyping me up and I just dont know how to deal with it because I grew up ugly LMFAO.

☕️🧸Saturn here will force you to be patient and learn alot of valuable lessons for not only romantic love, but also friendships and familial relationships. Because one thing ive noticed is that these people are very sweet, soft hearted, and always wanted to fall in love, but as they got older they had unsatisfactory in those experiences and come to take the stereotype of being “cold” when in reality you just come to realize that people are disappointing. With time ive noticed we age well and we meet more serious people as we get older but you just have to deal with immaturity for a little while until that happens. All in all Capricorn Venuses will get what they deserve and I PROMISE you will be fine asf when u get old so hang in there.😘

If I were to give you a love based on a movie itd be this one<3

I really hope yall enjoyed this I wanted to give my insight on it so here I came🥰

#capricorn #venus square saturn #saturn #capricorn venus #astrology #my observations #astrology observations

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mara-and-its-the-same · 1 year

Text

yeah,,,, sad boy,,,,, anyway

I got this request in like february and then i lost it but it was on anon so i hope it finds whoever requested it even though i bet they don't remember, hey lovely! i LOVED your last post so i was wondering if i could submit a post? ive had this idea for awhile…. A JJ Maybank x kook!reader where JJ just keeps bringing up the fact that the reader and rafe used to have a fling and the reader just breaks down and asks JJ why he keeps bringing it up and JJ tells her its because he saw that Rafe still texts the reader and JJ like demands that the reader blocks Rafe. you can end it however you like! i just like a lot of angst lmao ❤️💋 It should be stated that i did get carried away and forgot a few things but I hope you enjoy <3 WC: 5k, not beta'd

“You’re staring.” You saw JJ looking at you from the other side of the small living room in the chateau. You’d been texting in your group chat with your friends from your old school, since some of them had switched to boarding schools and whatnot, but you caught him out of the corner of your eye.

“I’m not.”

“What are you doing then?”

“Admiring.”

You moved closer to the edge of the couch and made room for him. He jumped on next to you, nearly landing right on top of you. “You’re typing pretty fast. Who’re you talkin’ to?”

You learned in the last few months that you’d been together now that JJ was not the terribly jealous type in public. He was the first guy you’ve dated that understood that if you’re dating a hot girl, there’s no reason she should stop being a hot girl. If anything, he liked it more. He liked that everyone would look at you but you’d always be looking at him. The problem came whenever you took a second to look away. You both knew what it was like to feel insecure, like someone was leading you on for no reason, like there was no trust.

“Just my friends from school.”

“What about?”

“They’re trying to plan something next Saturday.”

He made a face you couldn’t see but you could feel it from his cheek moving on your shoulder. “What?”

When you looked at him he tried to take a neutral expression. “We’re going out Saturday.”

“I know.” Your voice didn’t match his. He sounded rough and salty, you were smooth and sweet. “That’s why I said ‘they’re’ trying to. My Saturdays are yours.”

“Good.” He pushed up to kiss you then went out to see what Pope and John B were doing outside.

Kiara had been watching from the kitchen with a curled lip and a raised brow, holding her cold bottle to her chest. She got you one before she came and sat where JJ had just been. “Possessive much?”

“It’s fine.” You dropped the sweetness and just sounded bored.

“You see him every Saturday?”

“I see him every day. And I guess that includes the days my friends I haven’t seen in 6 months are back in.” You shrugged and rolled your head to the back of the couch after taking a drink. “It’s fine.”

“Why don’t you tell him you want to see them?”

Another shrug, “He’ll ask why I want to go out with some Kooks when I can be with you guys.”

“That’s ridiculous.” She stood up like she was going to walk right out and tell him you’re going, but you pulled her back by the elbow. “What?”

“I’ll talk to him later.”

“Promise?”

You nodded and locked your pinky with hers before going outside.

***

As Saturday approached, your phone buzzed more and JJ got more…territorial. You put it back on do not disturb and set it down by your leg, the one he wasn’t next to, and went back to watching your feet dangle with the tide slowly rising and the wake of a boat every so often splashing your toes. Adding an occasional kick to watch the way it rippled. The sun was settling behind you like an over-ripe peach. Big and bleeding towards orange, it spilled into the water, sending little arcs of light swimming with every roll of water.

“Who’s going Saturday?”

“Hmm?”

“You’re friends are going out Saturday, which ones?”

“Oh, yeah. Um I don’t think you’d know most of them but like Sarah Cameron, maybe her brother, I don’t know though. Lizzie Callaghan, Riley, Jack. I forget who else.”

“You wanted to go out with Rafe Cameron?” It sounded ugly when he said it like that.

“I wanted to go out with my friends whether or not he was there. I told you I wasn’t going to go since we already made plans that day. It’s fine, we’re both happy with it, don’t worry about it.”

“You don’t seem very happy about it.” He pulled his legs up from the water and his heels left the almost grey old wood of the dock dark with salt water. He pulled his arms around his shins.You thought you’d get through without it being brought up, having spent another day together in the cut. He hated going to your house. Not that he hated your house, he hated how far it was from his, how it was further than distance, it was tax brackets away, worlds away.

“I haven’t seen them in a while, I’d like to see them soon. I have plans that day, they’ll be back. It’s fine.” Your posture went to shit after you grabbed your phone. Not that it was the best before, when you were looking at the water, but now your arms weren’t holding you up so your back was curled like a shell. Just to check the time and if Sarah or Kie texted you.

“Yeah, cus I’m sure you never get to see Rafe.”

“Jesus Christ, Jay. I told you that we went on 3 dates four years ago,” you slammed the face of your phone on the dock next to you, not the best idea. “He is in college in Massachusetts! So yes, we “dated” when I was 14, and we stayed friendly because his sister is one of my best friends.” You stood up and grabbed your bag on the way, he hardly even moved, just craned his neck and let his view of you be blurred by the sun behind you. “Yes, I would like to see him, but he, and all my other friends, will be here for the whole summer, there’s more than enough time for me to see them any other non-Saturday.”

“So you still talk?”

“Holy fuck.” You put a hand to your head and turned away for a second.

“I’m just saying like, you’re my girlfriend. It’s not impossible to think that maybe I don’t want you hanging around with that kind of asshole.”

“What is ‘that kind of asshole’?”

“You know what I mean.”

“I feel like I don’t.”

“I mean he was a classist prick to me and all my friends my whole life,” he finally stood up now, and moved so that he blocked the sun from your eyes.

“When he was fucking 12!”

“What about last year when he crashed me and John B’s party at the boneyard? You remember that right? You and him and all your little kooks came, flocking like fuckin– fucking vultures.”

“Fuck this,” you remembered that night, the two of them got into a fight over a keg, and yes Rafe did make some low blows about him being a pogue from the Cut, but that was a year ago, when he was still using and while he was drunk, he’s still accountable, but he’s not that person anymore.

You tried to get past him but he made a lame attempt at blocking your way. “I just want to go home, Jay. I don’t want to do this anymore.” You looked at him now and saw the way his face went from annoyed to apologetic.

“That’s ok, hey, that’s fine. We don’t have to talk about it anymore.” He tried smoothing your hair back and letting his hand coast down to your neck but you moved away. “Just let me drive you home.”

“I don’t want– I’m fine, I’ll call Sarah. Just– Please.”

“Please what? I don’t know what you want.”

“I want you to stop. I want this to stop.”

“I don– honey, what do you mean?”

“I mean I can’t even breathe around you like this. It’s– It’s suffocating, Jay. I love you, you know that. I don’t know why you can’t just believe it too.” He let you walk away after that. What more was there to say.

***Saturday***

Since you got together, the last 3 days have been the longest JJ’s gone without seeing you. He was laying on the pull out sofa backwards, his head dropped down over the foot of the bed, not caring that the mattress has sunk over the years and the black metal bar was digging into the back of his neck. He knew he shouldn’t let his pen go upside down, but he needed the distraction, he blew it down trying to fight the cloud from going up before it evaporated.

Kiara was cross legged on the other couch, tapping through her friends’ snap stories. She still had some of the people you went to school with added. “Hey J,” she said.

“Hmm?”

“Have you seen Sarah’s story?”

“Why would I see Sarah’s story?”

“I don’t know. You want to?”

“Not really.” He flipped over so the front of his throat was on the bar and he let out a long groan before he fixed his position.

“She’s lookin awfully comfy up with Sarah.” He knew who she ment by “she.”

“Lemme see.”

“I’m not moving, you come here.”

He groaned again when he flipped off over the couch, like an old man.

Kie swiped it back to the beginning and he saw the progression of you and some other girls in the back of one of their brand new broncos. The roof was off and the next one was a boomerang of your big smiles and hair blowing wild. Then another of you all at lunch, the waiter must have taken it of you. Some of your food, then the sky with your hand pointing to a cloud and your voice saying “That one looks like a chameleon. I’m telling you, look at it.” “What are you talking about?” It sounded like Rafe but Sarah kept it pointed at the sky. “You’re looking at it wrong.” It panned down to you standing behind Rafe, taking him by the shoulders and turning him in the right direction. “That looks like a dog.” It ended with you slapping him on the arm.

The next story was Riley’s, Sarah’s cousin, after the few Kiara skipped through of just the restaurant, there was one of you and Sarah dancing in the street. It looked like it you were still just outside the restaurant, one with an overt theme of a European café. There was a street performer with his open guitar case in front of his stool, his instagram handle on a piece of cardboard tapped to the back of it. In the background, behind you two spinning each other around, it looked like Rafe threw some money in there and then said something to the busker. The next video was of Rafe playing a song that had you all laughing and spinning together. He looked away when he saw you turn your head to look at him.

He looked different than the last time he saw him, healthier, he lost that faraway look he used to have in his eyes. He looked good, and you looked like you liked it.

Kiara turned off her phone and shifted to look at him better. “Doesn’t matter.” She put her hand over his, “She’s just happy he’s doing better, that has nothing to do with how she feels about you.”

“I know that, I know. I just– fuck, I ruined it.”

“You didn’t ruin anything, you fucked it up a little bit, but not ruined.”

“I don’t want her to hate me.”

“I don’t think she has it in her to hate anyone, especially you.”

***The Cameron House***

Your day ended with a backyard camp out just like you used to do as kids. After all the tents were set up and Riley and Sarah kicked the boys out, you made your 9 person tent into a 5 girl paradise. There was an honest fear in all of you that all your sunset lamps and starry night projectors would overwhelm even the industrial powerstrips, but Sarah assured you, as she plugged in the fourth fan, that it’d all be fine. It was like sitting in a sunset. Pinks and peaches and bubbly orange colors everywhere you looked. Fluffy duvets lined every inch of the floor and there was no escape from all the pillows. Memoryfoam, down, throw, body, king size, every kind of pillow you could imagine stolen from every room in the house. You were between Lizzie and Sarah with Riley and Wheezie across from you.

You always used to have a camp fire before you went back to your tents, and by the time you noticed that the sun was beginning to set from your captured sky in the tent, Rafe and the three other boys had gotten it started.

Lizzie was handing you everyother s’more she made, which really meant that she messed every other one up and gave it to you when she didn’t want it. You were on your second when Rafe noticed you looking cold and holding your hands in front of the fire and elbowed Sarah to go get you a sweater or something. She came back and apologized if it was the wrong size, it was Rafe’s that he grew out of 4 years ago and she never grew into length-wise. “Have another, have another.” Lizzie was trying to bring another s’more to your lips.

“I can’t, I’ll be sick if I have any more.”

“Ugh, you’re no fun.” You knew she was joking when she knocked her shoulder into yours.

“No, you’re the one trying to kill me.”

“Death by s’mores?”

“It’s an epidemic.” Wheezie said as she popped another perfectly goldened marshmallow into her mouth.

You gave Lizzie a look then moved to the bench at the side of the fire where the smoke wasn’t blowing. The only open seat was between Rafe and Jack. Let’s just hope that no one posts anything else tonight.

“Sick of the s’mores?” Jack asked you.

“Yeah, the perfect goop in the middle can only make the charred black shell on the outside worth it so many times before it’s just not.”

“Pull it off then,” Rafe suggested.

“And lose the exhilarating crunch? Never.”

Rafe shrugged, knowing you were just going to keep going in circles, just for fun, and reached over the arm of the bench to offer you something from the cooler. “Surprise me.”

“Close your eyes then.”

“Why?”

“It needs to be a real surprise. If I got something you don’t like you’d just have me put it away and get you something else. Where’s the surprise in that?”

“Hmph.” You closed your eyes and opened your hand to accept the can, the condensation was dripping into the place where your thumb meets your hand and whatever he gave you tasted like fizzy lemon and basil. You hummed trying to figure it out without opening your eyes, in the end you gave up and read the label anyway. “I’m not gonna get high off of this, right?”

“It’s CBD.”

“I don’t know what you’re giving me.”

“I gave you a seltzer.”

“With CBD.”

“Would you be making as big a deal as this if I gave you a beer or something?”

You shrugged and he went to take your can away and replace it with a corona. “Wooah, woah, woah, who said I was done with that?”

“You.”

“No. It was good.”

“Good.” He let go and you took another sip. You took another look around at the fire and everyone around it then brought one leg up to hug against yourself. “So how’ve you been?”

“I’m alright. You?”

“Better than I’ve been in a while.”

“That’s good, I’m really happy for you.”

“Thanks…yeah.” He cracked open another can of seltzer, just a regular one. “So I hear you’re going out with that Maybank kid.”

“Don’t call him that, you know his name.”

“Sorry, JJ. How long?”

“A few months. 6 actually.”

“And he let you come out with me?”

“He didn’t let me. I dom’t need anyone to let me do anything.”

“I’m sorry, I just meant–”

“It’s fine, sorry. It’s fine.”

“Should I apologize to him?” He was looking at you but you were just looking at the fire, Jack had left you by then to put out a flaming marshmallow.

“For what?”

“I don’t know, being a dick to him for however long.”

“Probably.” You looked at him now and he looked sincere enough for you to want to continue the conversation.

“You know that I was really in a bad place then, right? Like using every chance I got, just being a dick and having no idea what I was doing?”

“I know. Doesn’t excuse it though.”

“I know that, I do. Which is why I want to apologize. And I’m not just gonna blame my dad either though, like I should have known better than to just regurgitate all the shit he was telling be about the Cut and pogues and whatever, all that shit that doesn’t matter.”

“Yeah, I get that.” You turned so you could face him too, your leg was still up on the bench between you two.

“And I wanted to apologize to you too. I was a complete asshole to you that whole time too. I was so stupid and I shouldn’t have been messing with you when you were like 14.”

You took a deep breath before you said anything. You never really had any strong feelings about when you “dated” before, whenever you thought back to it you thought it was all just because you were young and didn’t know any better. Now that he’s saying this though, it just floods your memory of all the times he tried manipulating you into things you weren’t ready for. You never gave in and eventually he gave up and found some other girl that’d fall for the flash of an amex faster than a smile, but you never actually fell that hard to feel any overwhelming feelings about it. “Can I hug you?”

“Really?” Obviously not the reaction he was expecting.

“Mhm.” He leaned in and you rubbed one hand up and down his back a few times. “I forgive you.”

“For real?”

“You’re trying to be better, I believe it.”

***The Chateau***

“JJ, no!” Kiara tried to go after him before John B blocked his way out the front door.

Clearly, someone was posting more videos than you knew about. Kie and JJ were just watching baby sensory videos, the ones with the bouncing vegetables, when she got a post notification. “You wanna look at it?”

He shrugged for the thousandth time that night. “Sure.”

And there was the flaming marshmallow melting on the stone and one of them trying to stomp it out with their $50 flip flop… and you in the background, first with you looking into Rafe’s eyes. Next with your arms around him and his face turned into your neck. Whether he was talking or anything else meant nothing to JJ.

John B was enough to stop him even if he kept trying to push him out of the way. “The fuck is wrong with you, man?”

“She’s supposed to be with me, ok?” He was angry but they heard the hurt underneath. “She’s supposed to be with me and I keep– I keep fucking it up.” He beat a weak fist on John B’s chest before he took him into his arms.

“You didn’t. You didn’t. Listen, listen, hey,” JJ finally pulled back to let John B look at him. “We’ll have her over tomorrow, yeah? Have her over, you guys can talk and figure it out?” JJ was shaking his head. “What? What is it?”

“She doesn’t want me. I fucked it all up and she doesn’t want me anymore.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Kie, show him the thing.”

“What thing?”

“Jay, I don’t think–”

“Just show him the video.”

She went through it and showed John B, she pointed out you and Rafe. “See?” JJ was about to cry again, so John B pulled him back in like a little kid.

“We’ll have her over tomorrow.”

***The Cameron House***

The fire was dying out and you and Sarah were the last ones out. Everyone else was sleeping, or at least laying down in their tents.

“You’re still with JJ?”

“Mhm,” You nodded and took another sip from your sprite. “Actually, I don’t know. It’s been weird.”

“What do you mean?” She moved closer to your side.

“He didn’t want me coming, first because we had a date set, then because he’s still banged up about Rafe and the stuff he used to do. Also because of the 4 dates we went on when I was like 12.” She knew you meant 14, semantics. She hated those 4 weeks, they were miserable.

“But you still came?”

“Mhm, I haven’t seen him since Tuesday.”

“But–”

“He hates your brother.”

“He’s not the only one. But he’s gotten better.”

“I know he has, he apologized to me earlier tonight.”

“So he–”

“He want’s to apologize to JJ too. Sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt you, I just…”

“It’s ok, I get it.”

“Thank you. I don’t want to mess it up with him. It’s been going so well, and he’s so wonderful when he wants to be. He’s just…he’s everything and I love it but I just can’t stand it when he gets all weird about coming to my house, he never wants to meet any of you guys or come anywhere near figure 8. I don’t feel bad about what I have, and I don’t pity him for what he has, but I just wish it didn’t matter. Like I wish no one ever told him that he’s just a ‘dirt broke pogue’ or that he’s gonna end up like his dad. He could do so so much if he wanted and I just want him to know that. I don’t want anything to hold him back and I just want to give him the whole world and make him happy but I know he won’t take it,” She put an arm around you and rubbed your shoulder that was against her chest with her other hand. You hiccuped a sob before you realized it and took a breath to collect yourself. “I don’t know if he thinks he isn’t worth it, or he doesn’t deserve it because he isn’t worth it, but I– Fuckin christ, I just want him to be ok.” Your cry became a whine like a little kid’s that doesn’t know how to get their feelings out any other way. Sarah was holding you as close as she could and rocking you side to side as you tried to decide if it would be better to just let it all out now, or try to breathe again.

“You wanna go see him?”

“What?” You pulled back and wiped the few streaks of tears from her cheeks, you didn’t feel like you were worth crying for at the moment.

“Do you want to go see him?” She pulled the cuff of her sweater up to wipe over your cheeks then under your nose.

“What do you–Like right now?”

“Yes, come on,” she shook your shoulder just a bit. “We’ll take the car, go to his house.”

“Not his house. John B’s.”

“John B’s then. You want to?”

You let her pull you up from the bench and towards your shoes before you gave yourself a second to think about it.

***

The streets were nearly dead besides the few college kids speeding by you or a few pick up trucks on their way to work in the other direction.

You caught your face in the sideview mirror, tear stained and puffy but weirdly ethereal with the way the watery tracks sparkled in the street lights you were passing at lightning speed. You looked at yourself a little too hard before you realized how ridiculous this whole thing was.

“What the fuck are we doing?”

“What? No, no, hey, come on, don’t back out now!”

“Sarah, it’s past 2 am, this is just, god it’s so desperate.”

“I am not turning this car around.”

“I’ll jump out the window.”

“You will not!”

You looked back at where you came from, woods, long, straight, not worth the walk in any direction. “Fine.”

“Prepare yourself, we’ll be there in like 5 minutes.” With her driving, 5 became 2 and you were barely halfway though your imagined version of how this would go.

She parked but didn’t turn the car off yet. “The lights,” you hissed at her. “You’ll wake them up.”

“And who do you want to answer the door then?” She pulled the key out and went to the front door before you could get out of your seatbelt.

Knock Knock Knock Knock Knock

“Jesus christ, Sarah,” You pulled her arm down. “You want them to think we’re a SWAT team?”

****

They ran out of drinks 4 hours ago so Kie and John B were playing an embarrassing game of cup pong with some probably a little bit expired sprite they found at the back of the fridge. Pope was showing JJ a nature he hoped would be a good enough distraction, he was getting very invested in the baby elephant’s journey, which they thought was a good sign.

Knock Knock Knock Knock Knock

All their heads shot up from whatever they were doing, it could really be anyone. Too many people trying to find them, not enough with any boundaries or respect for their circadian rhythms.

John B took a step to the door, “Wait,” JJ said, “It could be Luke.” John B nodded and JJ went into the bathroom and locked the door.

Pope walked behind John B and nearly jumped out of his skin when another round of loud knocks came, followed by a harsh “Sarah!”

They looked at each other in confusion then opened the door.

You were there holding Sarah by the wrist, she had her fist raised to knock again, “Hi,” she said before she remembered to put his arm down. He stood to his full height and she was nothing short of stunned. I thought this was about me?! You rolled your still teary eyes and stepped forward just a little. “Can I see him?” you asked gently, knowing you were in no position to be making any demands.

“Do you really think–” –that’s a good idea, is what he was going to say in that careful tone, not wanting to hurt you or JJ, or over step on your relationship but still trying to protect his friend, doing too much at once.

“Yes.”

There was really no room for any more arguments, he stood back to the side to let you past and you went to the bathroom door. Two gentle knocks, “JJ, I– Can we– I–” you were half a second from turning back to Sarah, crying again saying ‘I can’t do it’ but he opened the door and pulled you inside; and maybe you shouldn’t have, but you grabbed both his hands, holding them in a way that his forearms were close against your chest, maybe the weight would calm your heart down.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.” He moved his hands to the sides of your neck, his thumbs in the space under your ear, just under your jaw. Your hands held his wrists instead. “I don’t want to fight, I saw you and Rafe and I fucking– I saw my whole life without you and I didn’t want it.”

“No, no, don’t be sorry. I don’t want you sorry, don’t be sorry.” You brushed his hair away from his sticky forehead, “I should have listened better, I should thought about what you wanted. I just want to give you everything and the feeling that I couldn’t even give you a Saturday, I–”

“It’s not your fault, I shouldn’t have asked you to chose, I don’t want you to chose between my life or yours, ok? Pick yours everytime, don’t drag yourself down for me.”

“No, no. There’s no my life or your life. Not to me, right? There’s just ours.”

‘Our life.’

“I love you,” he had to say.

“I love you too, and I never want to do that again.”

“Do what?”

“I don’t want to not see you or hear from you for 3 days, and I don’t want to have to decipher your feelings, I want you to tell me the truth. Even if you think I won’t like it.”

“I can do that, I can do all of that.” He was trying to talk fast, the faster he talked the faster he could kiss you, kiss all the feelings he didn’t know how to tell you into you.

He moved in but you moved your head back before his lips reached yours, “Wait.”

“What? What is it?”

“I need to know that you’re not gonna do that again, I need to really know.”

“I promise, I promise you, babe, anything you want.”

“But how do I know you’ll keep it?”

“I mean it.” He took your hands again.

“But can you–”

“Every day, I’ll prove it every day.”

“You swear?”

“On my honor as a Pogue.”

“Hmm,” you leaned into his humor now that you knew he meant it.

“What? You doubt my honor?”

“Only a little.”

“Then I swear on John B’s life. If I ever ever make you feel like I don’t care about you or like you’re doing something wrong, I will personally deliver you his heart in my hand.”

“Ugh, so graphic!”

“How else will you know I mean it?”

You moved your hand up his arm and wrapped your arms around his neck, “I love you.”

“I love you too.”

#jj maybank #jj mayback x reader #obx #jj maybank x kook!reader #jj maybank x reader #jj maybank x you #jj maybank x y/n #jj x reader #obx fic #obx x reader #obx fanfiction #jj maybank imagine #jj maybank angst #angst #x reader angst #mara's fics

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scoobysnakz · 10 months

Text

Hard Luck

Chap iv

It’s hard finding love when your sole reason to live is your daughter, but when her best friends dad is annoyingly attractive and might have something to do with your rent randomly getting paid, who can blame you for being a little curious?

||* mostly fluff, Raya being an undiagnosed autistic child bc I'm plotting something evil, domestic Miguel if you squint, slightly pervy reader, mentions of oral reader receiving, reader being a silly fan-girl, cliff hanger bc why not.

Guilt. It's an overwhelming feeling that sits in the pit of his stomach in a way he's far too familiar with.

Miguel can name all the good and bad things about guilt. The way it allows you to be held accountable for your actions makes, your mind fray with culpability. How it can prevent someone- him- from doing something that will drive them- him- insane and remind them- him- that they have to have morals that keep them- him- grounded. Or else… or else.

There have been plenty of times Miguel has felt culpability and they have all been about something much more drastic than this. He's lost people, a family, so, so many versions of his family.

He needs to get this universe right. The thought of losing Gabi again makes his gut clench and that ticking in his jaw form again.

The first time it had happened, people had been upset for him, Peter had left him alone without being asked more than once and Jess was just the right amount of critical and loving. They were his guilt.

Then it happened again. And again. And again. And then people were becoming concerned for him, but the kind where they scolded and questioned him so he stopped telling people each time he found a universe he could live in. That first universe was the only one he destroyed he's made sure of that.

And yet he's feeling so intensely guilty for his stalker-like tendencies when he's done much worse.

He knows he shouldn't have followed you, waited for you to enter the shop and prayed to anyone above that your card would cancel. But he needed to get your number- for parental reasons of course. And now he has it.

“I can't do that again,” Miguel groans, hand sliding down his face as he slumps into his chair.

Lyla snickers at him, hands covering her face while her legs kick in the air. Miguel looks over at her, expression unamused.

“It was a complete betrayal of her trust,” his fingers drum on the smooth wood of his desk.

“Don’t think the two of you had a trusting relationship, considering you only just got her number.” her teasing earns her a wave of dismissal.

“I’m this close,” he holds his hand in the air, thumb and index finger millimetres away, “from replacing you.” His leg bounces up and down, jaw tightened and lips pursed.

She scoffs at him and waves a blurred-out finger at him before slumping down on his desk. “But if you replace me how will you watch your girlfriend?”

“You aren't funny. I was watching her because I needed… her daughter is Gabi’s friend I can't have her being some scumbag.” his tone is harsh, fed up, and irritated, but he can't bite back the grin that forms at her teasing.

“She isn't a scumbag…”

Lyla hums in feigned disagreement, her minute pixelated frame now perched on his shoulder as she smirks up at him.

“She’s nice… to me, and old people.”

He glances out the window, dark clouds threatening rain as they swarm the grey sky. He sighs and looks back over at Lyla. He came to this universe for Gabi.

But he can't stop himself from thinking back to the way you smelt. The faint coconut and the mellowness of your washing powder settled gently against his skin like a thin, taunting mist, teasing his stiffening cock.

He relishes the way you let him pull you near. How easily you submitted to the man who hasn't even had a proper conversation with you and pretended to be his partner- his wife. How you put up such a lazy fight against it that it felt almost playful. How your eyes softened the moment you saw him. How you allowed him to help you despite the embarrassment that followed it.

“When you’ve finished being hopeless lover boy,” Lyla chirps, “you might want to y’know be Spiderman.”

***

Miguel didn't expect his offer to go so well. He just assumed that being stuck with two nine-year-old girls for a few hours would be hell but it's surprisingly entertaining.

He knows Gabi inside and out, yet when she's with Raya she's different. And it doesn't feel forced.

The two of them spent ages trying to figure out a flavour because they obviously had to have the same one. They both ended up choosing chocolate, much to Miguel’s distaste. And then when Gabi wanted a sprinkle cone but Raya wanted a plain one they ended up getting tubs.

“It's because she's my best friend, papá,” Gabi had stated as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. Which had made him chuckle.

“How was school?” he asks, feeling a little left out of the conversation.

Raya’d attention is immediately diverted towards him, wide eyes following each movement of his face. “It was fun,” she says quietly- shyly, making sure to swallow before speaking. It’s good table manners

“Papá, we’re talking!” Gabi whines with a pout, “Raya doesn't want to tell you about her day because you're boring.”

So he sits there, practically spilling out of the tiny metal chair, watching them laugh at him and whatever else makes girls their age giggle the way they are. He keeps a smile on his face and his phone on vibrate, waiting for you to reply to his text, or read it at least.

***

Your back arches with ecstasy, hips jolting upwards towards the source of your pleasure. You can feel your gummy walls clenching and when you look down to see what it is that's sliding inside your cunt, you’re met with the sight of the top of someone's head.

Thick, brown curls, all unfurled as you slide your fingers away. They look familiar in a way that makes you feel giddy.

Desperate to see who’s providing this bliss, you push their head away. You’re left with an achy, empty feeling as they pull their fingers out of you and drag their tongue off your puffy folds but you'll have to push past it. Maybe whine a little, but you'll manage.

You look down, brain too fuzzy with arousal to even process Miguel’s deep, chocolatey eyes gazing up at you. He's smiling boyishly, fangs poking over the tops of his perfectly formed, lips that are coated in a deliciously thick layer of your arousal.

“Can I keep going, Hermosa?” his velvety voice rumbles, sending chills down your spine.

Before you get a chance to beg for more than his skilled fingers and soft tongue, the sound of a traumatic radar sound blares and you’re forced awake.

You lie there for a moment, one hand lazily slung across your forehead while the other grips your mouth.

You can't tell if it's guilt or arousal but you can't think straight. All you know is that you just had a painfully realistic dream of a man you barely know eating you out. Part of you wishes it lasted longer but that's beside the point.

There's an uncomfortable slickness between your thighs and you're slightly tempted to do something about it but the constant ringing of your alarm reminds you that you do, in fact, have some form of common sense.

Ignoring the guilt that's swimming in your gut, you sit upright, legs dangling over the edge of the sofa. You sit there for a moment, trying to figure out if you should be feeling that guilt or if it's your brain’s fault. You settle for the latter.

Yawning, you pick up your phone, scanning for notifications you know aren't there. A few from the weather app, another from a period tracking app that says your ovulating (that explains the dream- hopefully) and then… a text from Miguel.

It's one of those texts that you don't know how to reply to, it's got a simple answer but that's rude and all of the emojis are far too informal for someone you have saved as ‘Gabi’s dad’

You stare at Miguel’s text. Let the letter jumble up and scramble into unintelligible blobs as your eyes start to sting with tears before you allow yourself to blink.

I’ve got the girls. Could you text me your address so I can drop Raya off later?

He’s got the girls and now he wants your address. That's the part that makes it so hard to reply.

You don't live in the nicest of areas, graffiti in the stairwell that you have to use because the lift stinks of piss, loud neighbours and a possibly dead cat stuffed into one of the bins at the entrance.

It's embarrassing.

Miguel’s a tailored man, with slicked-back hair and freshly ironed clothes. You contemplated lying about your address, tell him it's some random house, meet him outside before quickly running off with Raya to get the bus.

But you don't want her growing up ashamed of not having money. You can't have her becoming a pompous brat who whines about not getting things. Because that's not who is she now, nor will she ever be.

You tap the smooth glass of your phone screen over and over again with your thumb before forcing yourself to reply. And almost immediately you get a reply

‘👍’

You can't stop the smile that forms on your lips at how fast his response is, he was probably on his phone or coincidentally looking checking his notifications when you sent the text.

But now you have nothing to do. You couldn't pick up an extra shift because- thanks to your stupidity- you somehow forgot that you can't randomly change your hours as a carer. And apparently, you can't even sleep without being a pervert.

Sleep sounds nice though. Your eyes are heavy with countless nights of single-digited hours of sleep. It's pulling at your brain in a way that makes your thoughts fuzzy and your body slowly sinks back into the sofa again.

A loud thudding noise startles you from your sleep. It's repetitive and loud so your first instinct is to slam off your alarm but when you see a blank screen you divert your fatigued brain to the front door.

Completely forgetting about Raya being out with Miguel and Gabi, you pull the door open. You look a mess, mascara smudged and eyes heavier than the weights he probably lifts with those delicious arms…

“Mum,” Raya mumbles, her face buried in her chest as pulls you close.

You stumble back, fighting back a yawn, and nearly fall onto the sofa but Raya pulls you forward. “Hey, baby,” you smile down at her, laughing awkwardly at nearly making a complete fool of yourself.

You drag your gaze up to Miguel, his board shoulders filling out the doorway while his hand clutches onto Gabi’s.

“Miguel,” your voice is groggy but cute and it makes him feel safe on the inside, “Thank you for having her.” You go to playfully nudge Raya but she's no longer next to you, now shyly hidden behind you, clutching into your shirt.

“She has beautiful manners,” his voice is like velvet that's been melted by a log fire and poured on top of Valentine's chocolates.

He looks down at you, eyes briefly tearing away from you to discreetly inspect your apartment. It's cute, homely, you. Lots of blankets and cushions, picture frames dotted around, and a random coat stand that stands bare.

“Would you like to come in?” you offer, attempting to stifle another yawn, failing to succeed as pleasantly the last time.

Miguel opens his mouth, pretty lips parted so perfectly that your half-awake brain might just fall for him on the spot.

“Please, papá! Raya said she has a bunch of teddies!” Gabi pleads, her accent bearing a striking resemblance to Miguel’s.

Before he gets a chance to decline, she pushes past him and skips over to Raya. She grabs her hand and almost immediately her awkwardness melts away as they run into her room.

“Sorry, she's really-”

“Bold?” you offer, head cocked to the side.

“Yeah... Let's go with that version.”

The two of you share an awkwardly dry chuckle before you both look away.

“Coffee?” you break the silence.

“Would be nice,” he finishes for you.

Nervously, you lead him to your minute kitchen island, kicking random toys out of the way before he gets a chance to see them.

As he walks through your apartment, your home, Miguel can't help but feel at ease. It's messy but not in an unhygienic way, you can just tell it's lived in happily.

The waterrings on the countertops, a random bag of bouncy balls left on the floor for someone to trip on. Miguel can imagine himself here, not living, but staying.

Maybe his shoes lazily kicked off in a slobbish pile on the sofa, Gabi’s coat slung on the unused coat rack next to Raya’s and yours.

“Sorry it's a mess, I was going to tidy up but I got… sidetracked. But I promise it's not normally this messy, just today. Which is strangely coincidental but it really isn't. And-”

“It's nice in here,” he cuts you off as if he couldn't hear what you'd just said.

His small slither of praise makes you smile. That toothrottingly sweet smile that makes every fibre of his being burn with arousal.

“Thanks.”

You turn your back to him, searching for your coffee before you grab a small glass jar that has instant coffee in it.

“Fuck,” you grumble, “its empty. So… no coffee for us,” you laugh.

He shrugs his shoulders and takes the jar from you.

“Bin?” he asks.

“There,” you point, “left side is recyclable and right is the other stuff.”

He opens the bin and drops the jar, smiling in satisfaction as it lands with a soft third. He lifts his foot from the pedal before catching a glimpse of red. Curious, he presses down on the pedal again and reads the block writing.

EVICTION NOTICE

#atsv miguel #miguel o'hara #miguel spiderman #miguel spiderverse #miguel x reader #miguel x you #spider man 2099 #spiderman 2099 #miguel fluff #fluff #hard luck #miguel o’hara x reader #miguel o'hara smut

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youremyheaven · 2 months

Note

with that Venusian man 👨 hmm 👀👀 spill the tea girl

Not the 33yr old, this is the friend from a few nights ago 😜 whose arms I liked 🤭😩

They're both Bharani Moon tho 😌 which is my favourite among the Venus naks 😌😌😌 so I do feel like God's favourite rn lmao 🤪

Idk why I never felt this way about him before but looking at his pictures and talking to him, didn't make me feel much , like he's objectively good looking, a veryyyy handsome man, 6'2 😩😩 (the 33yr old is 5'7 max 😔) BROAD ASF SHOULDERS, BIG ARMS, but I was never attracted to him. He has a very sweetie personality too, he has Mercury in Purvabhadrapada atmakaraka and lots of Jupiter in his navamsa chart and he feels veryyy Jupiterean, which according to Claire's video is the nice guy you friendzone etc which is what I did too 😜🤭🤭but OH MY GODDDDDD THE MAN IS DEMONICCCC IN BED 😩😩😩😩😩

He has a veryyyy masculine presence and I love love love love LOVE his body 😩😩😩 he's so bulky and so big, I just get butterflies looking at him 😍😍

So we agreed to book a hotel room that you can rent for a couple of hours??? BEST DECISION IVE EVER MADE 😩😩😩

and from the minute he picked me up, I just had to have him inside me one way or another like 😭😭😭 he's SOOO manly, that I just WANT to get on my knees for him 😭😭😭 I can't believe I'm saying this out loud 😭😭

He's so affectionate and SOOOO gentlemanly, like DAMN he was raised right ✨ he prioritizes foreplay and spends a lot of time on my body, just kissing me all over, I remember when we were friends, he'd casually point to the moles on my arms and say shit like "would be nice playing connect the dots with these 😏" but I just saw him as a friend and I flirt with all my friends male and female and vice versa so i didn't think too much of it but tonight 😩😩😭 as he took my pants off, he saw the mole on my upper thigh and he was like "here's one I haven't seen before 😈" (and all of today, his voice has been deeper and more 🥵🥵 usually he sounds all 😃😊😃☀️🌸 but today he sounded so 😈🥵😈 even tho he was just talking about normal shit) and then he kissed it and licked it 🥵🥵down until he reached yk where 🙈 and BOYS' GOT THAT TONGUE TECHNOLOGY 😩😩😩I was shook 😳😳😳too stunned to speak 🙊😳😳😳😳I was physically glitching 😭 i literally had to beg him to just put it in because I cannot take it anymore 😭😭 and the wayyyy he grabbed my legs closer to him 😩😩😩we fcked thrice 🙈🙈🙈🙈 he only had one condom 💀💀💀 and y'all should always use protection when you have sex but when he pulled out and jizzed on my stomach, I lost my mind, idk it was so hot 🙈🥵

And just the way he holds me, touches me etc it makes me feel 😩😩😩

I'm sorry to share such filth detail with y'all but I don't have friends I can share any of this with (so instead I'm telling thousands of strangers lmao 😭) idk why I'm giving such a blow by blow account of this but honestly it was suchhh a good experience 🙈🙈🙈

We were just lying down talking between rounds and we have such a good bond y'all it's so funny 😭😭 like we're talking about random shit, he was asking me about stuff and I was telling him and he was smiling kissing my body as he's listening and then he holds my face and says "you know this is pillow talk right" and idk we're both blushing 🙈 and he's like "I love listening to this, don't stop, keep talking" 😩😩 (fastest way to my heart lol)

Anyways, we leave the hotel (super cute place btw) and when we're by the reception the staff (just two dudes) look at us like 😏but tryna remain professional and I feel so accomplished like ??? I just had sex with this tall handsome man ??? 😩😩And everytime others looked at us, I was just like 😌😌hehe this hottie was inside me 😌hehe 🤪😜🤭 and ngl we look reallyyy good together 🥵🤭🙈but anyways although he pulled out in time, he did cum outside my yk what and I told him I'm taking the pill just to be safe and he parked a little bit away from the pharmacy and went and bought it for me???? Like that's well raised right there 🥹🥹 (he didn't want them to see me bc this is India and women are judged heavily for having sex and he bought it bc he came inside me so that's the least he could do 💀but just the fact that all of it was so unspoken and he just did all of it intuitively was sooo hot to me, like I said I'm turned on by gentlemanliness) you should have seen the way he looked when he walked back to me 🥹🥹🥹🥹 just the finest man alive 😍🥵😩 idk how someone can go from being some guy to THE guy in a couple of days but it's happened 😭😭😭

he texted me asking if I reached home and then asked me a little later if I took the pill 😭😭 I never ever EVER thought that him and I would be at a point where we fuck raw and he reminds me to take the pill 😭life works in mysterious ways 😭

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jeanboyjean · 8 months

Text

PART 1: First Impressions

a/n: guys doing a chaptered fic is so hard bc u have to plan everything. ive outlined this one + written some of the next parts so this is part 1/10 (I think). see masterlist for synopsis + each part as they get updated. wc: 4.5k MASTERLIST | AO3

A warm breeze tickles your skin as you step onto campus, the atmosphere thick with the restless buzz of first day jitters. The sun is well and truly shining today, clear blue skies with not a cloud in sight. You have to admit, it’s a gorgeous day.

Of course, it hadn’t started out that way. The first thing you had heard in the morning had been the unwelcome sound of your alarm, jolting you awake at the pleasant hour of six o’clock. It had taken all of your willpower to drag yourself out of bed after giving yourself a half hour leeway to snooze. It’d been two months since summer break first started and you really had gotten used to having the free time to laze around and relax, going to bed late at night and waking up whenever you pleased. Now, it’s the first day back at Uni, back to reality and it’s like being splashed by a bucket of ice cold water over your head.

The morning is a blur as you rush to get ready and leave on time after staying in bed a few minutes too long. This year you’re living with your childhood friend Mikasa again. The two of you had moved together from your hometown of Shiganshina for University two years ago, along with Eren and Armin, the other two in your tight knit friend group. You’ve managed to snag a small two bedroom townhouse close enough to Uni that you’ll be in close proximity to everything you need for the year. Even better, you’re lucky enough that Eren and Armin have managed to sign a lease for another unit right next door. It just feels right that all of you stick together, their presence a slice of home that you hold near and dear to your heart. Unlike you, Mikasa is a morning person. A note on your kitchen bench tells you she's already up at the gym and she'll be home later for dinner. You shake your head and make a face - that could never be you.

You decide to take a detour on your walk to campus and the first thing you do when you leave your place is stop by your favourite coffee shop. There’s just no way to avoid it. You're going to need some caffeine today, something to breathe the life back into you. Honestly, you had been dreading this day since the start of your break, a persistent doomsday countdown always nagging in the back of your head. At this very moment, there’s nothing you want more than to be still in bed, dreaming away the morning with no responsibilities or stress.

You have fifteen minutes until your first class starts by the time you make it to campus. Although the sprawling buildings are a familiar sight, a small knot of dread ties itself in your gut. You always forget how much you associate with a place until you’re back. Now that you're here again, you can't help but relive the past trauma. You pass by a bench you remember you sat on when you got your grades back for that one assignment you spent hours and lost years of your lifespan for, only to be rewarded with a sad B minus. A shiver rolls over your body at the memory - that was not a good day at all. The old faithful library where you’ve spent countless nights staring at your notes, willing the information to absorb into your brain, is ever present in your peripheral vision as you make your way across the great lawn.

Laughter erupts from a group of students sitting on the grass a few metres away from you and tinny pop music blares from a small speaker next to them. Reunions are happening around you, arms being thrown around shoulders and chatter bubbling away as your peers catch up with each other after the weeks apart. Despite the apprehension of being back at Uni, you're also excited to finally reunite with some friends yourself. You glance down at your phone lock screen - five minutes to go. A light breeze rustles your hair as you hurry your pace towards your destination, the science building.

You’re out of breath by the time you make it up the steps and push open the doors to the building. It’s your third year of being a biomedical science student at the University of Mitras and it never ceases to amaze you how large the campus can feel sometimes. There are always moments where you start getting used to the expansive grounds and then you’ll be caught off guard by a towering building with grand architecture and you’re reminded not to take things for granted.

You bring your phone up to your face again to quickly check your room in your timetable. Room 201. A sigh of relief escapes you; you’ve had classes there before. Despite almost having lived in this area of campus for the past couple years with the number of hours you'd spent here, it’s still a maze of corridors and you know from experience it’s not hard at all to find yourself getting lost. You race up the stairs to the second floor and, always a creature of habit, you take your seat in the same spot as you always had - third row, furthest to the left.

Voices chatter away in the room and your fellow students gradually pour in in a steady stream, taking their own seats. You exchange smiles and waves with the faces you recognise. Most of you have shared multiple classes with each other since by this point in your degree, you’re all pretty much on a similar track.

A warm smile, bright as sunshine, greets you across the room and you straighten in your seat, waving enthusiastically. Your friend, Historia, who you had met as lab partners last year hurries over to you. Grinning, she stops short in front of your desk, dropping her bag down on the seat next to you.

“Oh my God! I missed you!” She squeals, arms flinging open wide to capture you in a hug.

You get up and squeeze her tight in a warm hug. “It’s so good to see you again! How was your summer?”

“It was great,” she sighs wistfully. “I wish it wasn’t over yet. How about you?”

She pulls her bag off her shoulder and sets it down on the desk next to yours. Sitting down, she begins pulling her laptop and iPad out of her bag to get ready for class. The two of you jabber away, catching up on the events of the past few months. Every summer since you moved to Mitras, you’ve gone back to your hometown to stay with your parents. Meanwhile, Historia had stayed in Mitras with her girlfriend Ymir and they’ve finally moved in together.

“Ymir let me decorate the whole place,” She giggles. “Even the bedding and couch cushions.”

“I bet it looks amazing,” You say sincerely.

“You should come over and visit! We were thinking of doing a housewarming party now that everyone’s back in town.”

Excited by the idea, you eagerly nod in agreement. A party sounds like a great way to start off the new year. The lecture room looks like it’s finally filled with students and when you look towards the front, you see the short stature of your lecturer Levi Ackermann as he finishes getting set up for class. Silence falls across the room when he gently taps on the microphone, signalling for attention.

“Alright class. This is Biology 310. It’s 9:00 am now so we’re going to get started. Anyone who’s not supposed to be in this class please leave now.”

Levi carries on, outlining the content the course would be covering for the rest of semester. It all sounds pretty standard to you, having been in his classes before, but it's a definite step up in terms of course load. You’re already dreading the amount of study you’re going to need to do to make sure you don’t drown in stress by the time exams roll around. Straightening up, you make sure to pay extra attention when he starts explaining the grading structure, starting with a weekly pop quiz, followed by four tests spread out throughout the term.

“You will be pleased to hear there is no final exam for this course,” Levi’s low, gravelly voice travels across the room.

Your eyebrows raise in surprise and you turn to Historia. No final exam? You mouth at her and she shrugs.

“Instead, you will have a final project that will be comprised of findings from your labs over the next few months and a final presentation. This will be a group project in pairs of my choosing.”

Dread fills your body at his words and you try not to sigh as you slump down in your chair. Group projects have got to be the worst thing ever, a torture form created by the gods of education just in case you weren’t already struggling enough in your academic pursuits. Even better is the fact that you won’t even be able to choose who to partner with. In every piece of collaborative work you’ve ever done, there’s always been that one asshole that refuses to do their part and you’ve always been the one to pick up the slack. 40% of your grade , you hear Levi say and you groan inwardly, already fearing for the worst.

At the podium, Levi presses a button on his laptop and the projector screen lights up with a chart filled with names, grouped together in twos.

“This is who you will be partnered with for the rest of the semester. I don’t want to hear any whinging and moaning about this because I’ve planned everything deliberately. I’m going to call out your names, put your hand up when you hear yours so you know where they are. When I’m done you can move over to sit together.”

He starts listing off the names with haste, barely looking up to confirm the pairings have identified each other before moving on to the next. You’re tense with anticipation as you wait for him to call out your name, eager to find out who you would be working with. Finally, you hear him say your name into the microphone and you perk up.

“... you will be with Jean Kirstein.”

Hand in the air, you turn around searching for his location. Your eyes fall on a man with light brown hair in a shaggy mullet, sitting a few rows behind you in the middle. His eyes meet yours and his hand lifts to give a small wave. You point your finger at yourself then around to him, signalling that you would move back to him.

Quietly, you pack up your things into your bag and wait. When Levi finishes rattling off the names, you push back and scurry over to Jean’s desk, plopping down next to him.

“Hey,” you begin, smiling warmly. You introduce yourself to him, holding out your hand for him to shake.

He just blinks at you blankly before the edges of his lips lift in what honestly looks like a small grimace. “I’m Jean.”

“Nice to meet you, Jean,” you reply, smile a little strained now with his chilly reception. You drop your hand awkwardly and wipe your clammy palms on your thighs. “How exciting that we’re going to be partners, huh?”

Ice runs through your veins when Jean winces at your words, actually groaning out loud. “Yeah, great. We’re partners.”

What the hell? Although his reaction stings a little, you try to shake it off. You're a natural people pleaser and one of your fatal flaws is that you always want to give off a good impression and give people the benefit of the doubt. You clear your throat and reach for your phone. “Guess we’re going to be spending a lot of time together now. How about we swap numbers so we can get in contact with each other?”

Jean gives a small nod and accepts the phone you’re offering to him. As he enters in his digits, you shift in your chair, a little uncomfortable with his cold demeanour.

"So, what’s your major?” You ask, cautiously.

“Biomed.”

“Oh, cool! Me too.”

His eyes flicker up to meet you and he wordlessly hands back your phone.

“You also pre-med?” You ask him.

He just nods in response. Your fingers tap a restless rhythm onto the desk surface, about ready to take flight. The low hum of voices fill the room as your fellow classmates get to know each other and prepare for the upcoming semester. The silence between you and Jean, however, is thick and unrelenting. You wonder what could possibly be his problem. Sure, you’ve seen him in classes before but you've never had the chance to interact. There’s no reason why he should be acting like such a dick towards you. It’s just your luck to be paired with the one person who seems to have something against you. Fuck group projects.

You sneak another glance at Jean sitting next to you. He’s leaning back in his chair, legs extended in front of him between his desk and the seat in front, taking up the walking space as if it belongs to him. He’s tapping away at his laptop keyboard and curiosity gets the better of you as you lean in a little closer to see his screen.

“What are you doing?” You ask, leaning your weight half off your seat as you crane your neck towards him.

At your words, his head snaps to you and your eyes meet. Your breath catches in your throat. Somehow, you’ve ended up face to face with him and up close you feel like you’re really seeing him for the first time. His eyes are locked on yours - amber with flecks of light honey. The world seems to slow for a moment as you stare at him, all of a sudden a deer trapped in headlights. You blink and clear your throat, leaning further away from him until you feel safe enough from the magnetism of his presence.

“Jean?”

He straightens. The faintest hint of pink tinges the tips of his ears. “W-what?”

“I asked you what you’re doing?”

“Oh.” He turns back to his laptop, shifting the screen slightly so it’s easier for you to see. “I was just making an outline for this class … so I know what assignments we have and when they’re due and stuff.”

A quick glance reveals a tidy table with colour coded headings and columns, half filled with empty spaces yet to be filled. You can’t help but feel a little taken aback. True, you don’t know anything about him but from first glance with his worn jeans and scruffy shoes, table empty except for his laptop, no notebooks or stationery in sight, he doesn’t really seem like the organised, neat freak type to you. He must be able to read the surprise on your face because his lips tug down and he lets out a scoff.

“What? Didn’t think I would be someone to take my studies seriously?”

Huh, the fuck?

You recoil. In an instant your body becomes as rigid as ice while your wide eyes snap to him in shock. “No! Why would you say that?” you question him, completely flabbergasted.

He just shakes his head, the displeased expression remaining on his face. “Whatever.”

You just sit there dumbstruck, completely lost by what’s just happened. Did you miss something? Did you do something? Why does he hate you so much? Possible scenarios race through your mind of potential ways you could have offended him, but nothing sticks. There’s honestly nothing you can think of to warrant this reaction from him.

In your head you try to hype yourself up (It’s just one project - you can do it!) but the unease remains as you slump into your chair and groan internally when you remember that yes it’s one project, but it's worth 40% of your grade. As a pre-med student, you feel the weight of every percent and you’re barely holding on as it is. A memory of your father lecturing you about the importance of your grades flashes in your mind and you wince. If your grades drop even slightly this year it's going to be all over for you. This predicament had the potential to well and truly be the straw that broke the camel’s back.

At the front of the room, you watch as Levi leans forward into the microphone again. Your peers quieten around you when he speaks, his amplified voice booming from the speakers.

“Alright guys. That’s all the time we have for today. First lab’s on Wednesday. Any problems, just email me.”

At that, the tables around you burst in a flurry of movement as you all pack your things and get ready to move to your next classes. You shove your laptop into your tote bag and sling the straps over your shoulder. You’re about to get up when you pause, remembering Jean sitting next to you. Stiffly, you turn towards him and open your mouth, unsure of what to say to him.

“Well … I’ll see you in the lab,” you manage awkwardly.

Jean shoots a quick glance at you and nods once. “Yeah, see you.”

Alright then. You turn away with a grimace. A gut feeling tells you this semester is going to be a real shitshow. As you walk away, you try to conjure up happy thoughts in an effort to erase the dark cloud currently hanging over you. Ahead of you, Historia waves to get your attention as you make your way to the doorway and she waits patiently for you to catch up.

“Bio 320 next?” She asks, linking arms with you and leaning her head onto your shoulder.

“Yup. We’re lucky it’s just down the hall. Let’s go,”

As you start walking, the phantom weight of a pair of eyes on the back of your head urges you to turn around. When you glance over your shoulder, you catch Jean staring at you. From the distance, you can't make out his expression, but he has his head resting in his hand with his arm leaning on his desk. His eyes lock on yours and you can tell there’s no smile on his face. Your legs root to the ground as you both freeze momentarily, eyes wide. He's the first to break, quickly snapping his head away to look down at his phone. You watch the way his hair falls to hang in front of his eyes and his leg bounces restlessly as he feigns interest in whatever is on his screen.

Historia tugs your arm, shaking you from where you stand frozen with your head pointed towards his direction. There’s a slight pinch when she pokes a sharp nail hard into your shoulder. You reach up to rub at the sore spot and shoot her a look.

“Ow, what the hell?” You yelp, glaring daggers at her.

She rolls her eyes and pulls your arm again. It causes you to stumble a little in her direction. “Quit staring and let’s go.”

“I wasn't staring,” you grumble, but your feet finally unroot themselves and you follow her lead towards the next room.

“Yes you were … and I don't blame you. You got so lucky getting paired with Jean Kirstein. He's so smart, you’re going to have such an easy time with this project.” Her eyes light up and there’s a cheeky lift to her lips when she speaks her next words. “Plus he's not bad on the eyes right?”

You make a face at her. “I don't feel very lucky right now. I think the guy has it out for me or something. What’s the point in being smart if you’re a righteous dick”

Historia snickers. A hand comes up to cover her mouth when she sees your disgruntled look but it’s to no avail because she can’t stop giggling. “Trust you to get on his bad side already,” she says between her tittering. “I talked to him last year once in a lab and he seemed really nice.”

You huff and pull away from her, crossing your arms in front of your chest. Great, so it’s personal then. For some reason, this Jean guy must actually genuinely dislike you. Whatever. It doesn't phase you. He can glare as much as he wants and do his best to intimidate you or whatever it is he seems to be trying but it won't matter. At the end of the day, you're here to do the work and get the grades and he can continue being his miserable self if he pleases.

The two of you walk into your next class and take your seats. You sigh as you pull out your laptop again, settling in for another lecture. It's only the first day but you're already counting down the hours until you get to go home.

By the time you get home after your first day, you’re exhausted. It always takes some time for you to adjust to the routine of sitting in hours of classes and labs when you first get back from break. You kick off your shoes and drop your bag down on the floor as you shut the door behind you. The aroma of cooking spices wafts around you, getting stronger and stronger until you see Mikasa standing in the kitchen. A pot filled with a thick liquid bubbles in front of her as she slowly stirs it with a wooden spoon.

“It smells delicious in here,” you tell her enthusiastically, waving your hands towards your nose as you do an exaggerated inhale. “Whatcha making?”

Mikasa looks over her shoulder and smiles. “Japanese curry and rice. Is that okay?”

“Of course! I’ll eat whatever you make, Chef.” You lean next to her and peer into the pot. “That looks good. Need any help?”

She nudges your shoulder and slaps your hand away playfully when you reach for the spoon. She waves her hands, as if shooing away a fly hovering over a plate of food. “No, I’m fine. I’m pretty much done - just need to plate this up.”

You put your hands up in mock surrender and back away. Reaching into the cupboards above you, you grab a couple plates and pass them to Mikasa. She accepts them gratefully and begins scooping enough food to satisfy your appetites.

“How was your day?” You ask her as you both sit and dig in. Steam wafts from the curry, fresh off the stove and you’re careful to not let the hot food burn your mouth. “Mmm, this is really good Mikasa,” you say between mouthfuls.

She smiles. “Thanks. It was okay. Nothing exciting.”

Like you, Mikasa had started off as a science student too, but had soon realised halfway through her first semester that it just wasn’t for her. With her natural talents in athletics and martial arts, she had chosen to change to physical education instead. A part of you always feels a little jealous when you think about how easily she had made the change and stuck to it once she had made up her mind. If only you could change your major too, or drop out altogether. The dark cloud is back as you think back to the day you've had today. Without meaning to, your shoulders slump and you sag a little as you pick at your food. A bit of curry splashes out of your bowl when you scoop a little too forcefully.

Mikasa cocks her head to the side, looking at you with mild concern. “How about you?”

You roll your eyes and groan. “Where do I start … Got to my first class only to be told we have to do a stupid paired project and then of course my partner turns out to be a fucking weirdo who hates me for some reason.”

“Yikes … What do you mean by "hates you”?” She asks, fingers coming up to form air quotes.

“I don’t know!” You exclaim. “I’ve literally never met the guy before but he was acting like I killed his cat or something. I’ve never had someone be so hostile towards me before.”

“Would he be anyone that I know?”

“No, I doubt it. His name’s Jean and he’s a biomed major like me. I don’t think you would have ever met him.”

Mikasa shovels another spoonful into her mouth and hums in thought as she chews. Her eyebrows furrow slightly and her chewing pauses momentarily. “Jean … kind of sounds familiar” she mutters. “But you’re probably right, I doubt I would have met him.”

You shrug and pull a face. There’s a clang of metal as your spoon scrapes the bottom of the bowl. “He’s an asshole that’s for sure,” you grumble.

You finish off the last of your food and sit back, folding your arms over your chest. Across the table, Mikasa scrunches her nose at you as she eats. She’s scolded you in the past for eating too fast but it’s a bad habit picked up from having to fit in feeding yourself between cramming for exams. Her eyes study your sour face with humour as she swallows her mouthful.

“Wanna watch something? I can ask Eren and Armin what they’re up to. Would that cheer you up?”

Despite feeling a little like a child being given a new toy to distract from throwing a tantrum, you can’t help but brighten up a little at her proposal. A smile forms on your face and you nod enthusiastically.

“Yes! Might as well since we have nothing to study yet anyway.”

She claps her hands. “Okay then. Let me send a text to the group. I'm sure they're free.”

new notification in the 3 musketeers + eren

mama mika: where are you guys rn eren 😎: Just got done at the gym. Armin ☀️: How was your first day guys? mama mika: come over? movie marathon Armin ☀️: Oh no bad day? You: im stuck with an asshole all semester :/// i’ll tell you more later You: only a binge session with my faves will save me Eren 😎: K we’ll come. Eren 😎: Do you have food though I'm starving You: yeah mikasa made curry and it's chef's kiss Eren 😎: oh sweeeeet that sounds good Eren 😎: When are you cooking again? You: tomorrow :D why? Eren 😎: Cool. Remind me to eat before I come over tomorrow You: what the hell You: my food is great wtf you would be lucky to eat it Eren 😎: [sent a photo] Eren 😎: Why you lyin you: i hate you so much You: not like i offered anyway 🙄 you have changed the group name to eren hate club Eren 😎: why eren has changed the group name to eren fan club you have changed the group name to eren hate club Armin ☀️: Guys don't fight. We'll be there in 15 You: he started it You: yayyyy :)))) can you bring snacks? Eren 😎: We don’t have any You: :(((( you: wasn't asking u, dickhead Armin ☀️: We’ll grab some on the way! You: :DDD you: ok then see you soon 😘 you: i wanna watch fast and furious

Eren sent a photo of a pot with spaghetti on fire from when you last cooked for the team. It's only happened once in your life but he won't let it go.

Why does jean hate reader so much? 🤔 Surely he’s not someone that would intentionally be a dick for no reason. Stay tuned!!!

taglist: @honeybleed @cptnleviackerman @310802 @milky-aeons

#jean kirstein #attack on titan #jean x reader #jean kirschstein #jean kirstein x reader #aot x reader #✎ . chloe wrote smth

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thatfreshi · 10 months

Text

"Quit" (Uni AU P. 17)

GUYS IT'S BEEN SO LONG BUT FRESHIAU IS BACK! Sorry for the hell of a cliffhanger I gave you, whoopsies :)

tw - mentions of abuse, hospitalization

The next half-hour is a blur unlike any you've known before. You, Gale, and Karlach pile into the art student's shitty mini-van.

"I'm sure he's okay Tav."

Karlach tries to give you an assuring hand on the shoulder, but you think back to the phone call, the way the nurse wouldn't tell you anything, how you yelled in the middle of a damn cafe. It would be embarrassing if you didn't know the stakes that were in this trip to the hospital, that Astarion isn't the type for medical assistance unless it's absolutely necessary.

Other than Karlach's comment and the occasional flick of a blinker, the car is almost entirely silent. Gale drops you off at the front before leaving to park, and your tall friend stays by your side as you enter the sterile, sad building. When you get to the desk, she speaks on your behalf.

"We got a call that Astarion Ancunín was admitted here?"

"What's your relation to the patient?"

Karlach hesitates, before pushing you forward slightly.

"Well I'm just his friend, but my pal Tav here is his spouse!"

You give her a slightly concerned look, but soften when you know she just wants you to be able to see him.

"You can come back this way Tav."

It's all so quick and without feeling. Truthfully, you know medical professionals deal with this kind of thing on the daily, but the lack of concern for him makes you a little sick to your stomach. The words of your guide fall on deaf ears when you make it to his room, rushing in before she can even finish her sentence. She closes the door behind you as you're met with Astarion, your dear Aster, who looks far more beat down than usual.

"How in the hell did you manage to get back here?"

He asks with a slight smirk, the bags under his eyes far more noticeable than before. You can't help but smile at his charm, but replace it with a bitter expression soon after.

"That's not important right now. What happened?"

The urge to yell and scream is kept at a simmer, and instead your voice is kept soft, like plush moments of reading law papers, like falling asleep with your best friend, like cheap espresso and designer fabrics.

"Severe dehydration I suppose. I passed out, and Petras called an ambulance, which I'm sure got him beat to no end. Stupid decision if you ask me."

"Oh, so you quite literally pass out, and your first reaction is to think about Petras?"

He ponders your words for a moment as you finally sit at the edge of the bed.

"Trust me... I've already had plenty of time to think about just how bad this was. Thankfully when I lost consciousness I only bruised my poor arm, but the doctor said it could've been much worse. Heat stroke, seizures-"

"Okay, let's maybe not talk about all of that."

You start to cry, finally, after a panic-induced state of adrenaline begins to wear off. You get a notification from the group chat. Gale says Lae'zel, Shadowheart, and Wyll Ubered over. You show your phone to him.

"Look, everyone showed up."

You smile softly, feeling a trail of tears hit your lip. It tastes salty.

"Of course they did. You all are far too sappy."

"Oh shut it Aster. We were worried."

"Well it's fine now, right? The issue is resolved, so everyone can go home, including you Tav."

You scoff.

"Fat chance. Besides, Karlach kind of told the nurse that I'm your spouse, so it looks weird if I leave now."

"She did what?"

"Yeah, trust me, it was weird."

He gets a little nervous, showing his age for once, that deep down he's still a 20-something-year-old kid. It stays silent for a little bit, and you listen to the monitors in the room, the almost silent IV drip, the steps of people walking up and down the halls. Your listening is interrupted by a tapping on the bed, Astarion trying to get your attention.

"Yeah?"

"I know I struggle to say it sometimes, well, most times, but I do rather appreciate that you came... that all of you came, but you in particular."

You want to be able to appreciate his words, but the fear that lingers beneath doesn't let you rest.

"I don't want to do it again. I don't know if my heart can handle doing all of this again."

"What else would you have me do darling?"

You know what you want to say, and you know what his response will be, but the words leave your mouth anyways.

"Quit. I want you to quit."

He goes to interrupt you, but you put a finger up to shush him, and he obliges.

"I know it feels impossible. I know you've signed how many documents and that you need the money, but you six incredible friends now that can help you through this. Think about it: if you blackout all your socials, stop showing up, what can he really do about it? Cazador can't get on campus. You'd be safe there, and it will look so bad for his image if you suddenly disappear that he'll be scrambling for PR anyways! I think you can do this, that we can do this."

"And what about the money?"

"Student loans? And we can all pitch in when we have extra. And you could pick up a job on campus, maybe something in the law library?"

You're trying to be inspiring, but looking at him like this makes it hard.

"Why do you keep trying so much for me? Truly, you've wasted so much breath on me, even in this moment."

Somehow those sad questions still catch you off-guard. You put a hand on his.

"I don't think I can even word it right Aster. Even if I tried, I don't think the words would make sense, that any of it would make sense to either of us. Just accept that I'm here, trying for you, okay?"

"Okay... then I'll try too. I'll try your ridiculous plan Tav."

#astarion x tav #astarion x reader #angst #comfort #astarion #baldur's gate 3 #baldurs gate astarion #freshiau

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nyxi-pixie · 5 months

Text

me when im supposed to be studying but instead im thinking abt mori and dazai again

let me go absolutely insane for a second (not a second. this is so long. i just checked mfer its over 2000 words. i need to be sedated. imprisoned. restrained. examined. smthn)

'a young man with a death wish once came to me and i wanted to rescue him but i couldnt' and like yeah. beast mori couldnt rescue him. but to a certain extent, canon mori sort of has (touch wood for long term but as it is, dazai is so much less intent on dying than he was in dark era).

and it just. i always wonder about the actual intentions of the mimic situation. because on the surface, it looks like what dazai calls it, then deeper than that, it looks like a very calculated long term strategy, and deeper than that, its just. kinda sad.

i just think its interesting that he plans the mimic thing the way he does knowing dazai will leave despite the fact that he doesnt want him to. and dazai himself reasons this as mori being afraid of him, that mori doesnt want dazai to kill him the way mori killed the old boss. but thats? not true? mori seems unbothered at worst and downright proud at best when he tells oda that dazai will probably kill him one day.

so. Why. did he do it knowing dazai would leave? it wasnt his only option; he could have set skk on mimic. like 5 second future vision isnt gonna do much when the danger is alr there (as oda says). and in the face of a massive black hole coming right at u or a building being dropped on you, five seconds really isnt gonna do much. so mimic cld have been removed without a casualty and the mafia could still have got the permit, and not lost dazai. (who is Objectively an asset to the organisation.) But thats not how it happens. Mori plans it exactly as he does knowing oda will die and dazai will leave. he also then makes it continually obvious that dazai would be welcomed back.

and ive been trying to think of other reasons for it, but across canon and insight from beast mori the only thing i can think of comes back to the fact that mori wants dazai alive. alive and aware that the pm is the best place for him, but alive more than anything else.

i think he wants dazai as his heir bc he knows dazai is enough like him to manage it, but i wonder if it also comes back to the fact that mori is trying to rescue him, and i imagine his own reason to live (and lord knows he suggests he needs a strong one in fifteen) is probably tied down to legacy and responsibility for the city. mori devotes his life to the mafia because he wants peace and appreciates that control (rather than eradication) of the worst of yokohama is the way to keep that peace. and thats enough of a reason to live for him. but it isnt for dazai.

dazai doesnt give a fuck about the mafia as a concept bc his motivations dont rest on ideals the way moris do. dazai only ever does anything because of the people he cares about. everything we see him do, EVEN in pm era where people claim he was some emotionless rockman, come back to his friends.

its why hes never at the centre of the plot. he cant be, because he never does anything for himself. fifteen, in which he is a titular character, is a plot that rests vastly on chuuyas back story. dazais original motivation prior to meeting him is just to khs, and only upon meeting chuuya and them having their whole weird Thing and dazai deciding to be an obsessive freak, does he actually have personal stakes in the job. then in stormbringer, its all abt chuuya again, and dazai is only involved bc he cares about him (whatever he actually says aside). tdipud is driven by odas storyline, and so is dark era. dazai is only active in them bc he cares abt oda.

even when he has more idealistic motivations come canon era, they come back to the fact that hes doing it for oda. anything Above And Beyond that promise is bc hes acting to save the agency, who are his Friends. his motivations are deeply personal in complete contrast to moris, and it is perhaps the only place they really differ.

now ironically, it seems to be that the only decisions mori makes influenced by personal feelings are because of dazai. which takes me to the fact that i think he let dazai leave because he recognises thats whats best for him (at least in the short term - and we'll get to That in a second). and its not really a loss for the organisation because dazais too practical to ever dismiss the mafia, and he still gut responds with their methods. so its an easy sacrifice, a justifiable one.

then theres the contrast with the kouyou&kyouka thing. kouyou doesnt want kyouka to taste the light only to have it sour on her tongue when she realises she cant actually have it because of what she is. because kouyou believes anyone tainted by darkness the way they are can never be free of it. (because she couldnt get out herself).

i wouldnt be surprised if mori thinks the same way, certainly in regards to someone like dazai who Is naturally built for the mafia in a way kyouka really isnt. mori at least believes dazais blood is mafia black and whether or not this is true is irrelevant. he Does have to actively fight his impulses in order to do the Right Thing even now. And even doing that, he still falls into their methods when its practical, or when he's paranoid or unsettled enough to need the comfort of habit, hence the way he treats aku even four years removed from the mafia. hence the way he treats atsushi immediately after Q appears (the way he so instantly latches onto his older self literally slapping the self pity he detests in himself and in his former kouhai out of his current one). hence the way the parallels to mori spring up most when dazai has just been shaken by something.

so i wonder if mori let dazai walk into the light knowing (or believing) he wouldnt fit there, and would come back with a stronger commitment to the mafia as a whole because it may be a concept of sorts, but its one that embraces him in a way the light doesnt, and while dazai does things for the people He cares about, its a mutual thing - he feels responsibility for the people that care about Him too (which probably ties in to the desire for a quiet suicide without bothering anyone, and also to the disgust he has w the sheep - because it Isnt a mutual exchange there).

i think it was always intended as a temporary thing (five years away from the mafia maybe. the 'five years' right before dazai comes to take moris place). give him a taste of the light and let him come to his own conclusion that he doesnt belong there, and eventually turn back to the mafia where he does belong.

(despite suggestions that dazai Doesnt really belong there - smthn smthn cat/dog symbolism - though people suggest this implies he belongs w the ada and i dont think thats true either esp given the way hes omitted from the group so often. i think the cat symbolism w dazai likens him more to natsume than atsushi&fukuzawa esp given the way theyre shown tgthr so often. dazai doesnt belong to any organisation or rigid group, he just fits in line w whoever he cares abt and wherever he decides hes content to stay. v much like a cat actually.).

anyway, moris idea seems to be that dazai wld realise the mafia is somewhere he is cared for, and he cares for the people within it in return. though it doesnt seem to have really turned out that way (maybe mori j underestimated the power of the ada's one specialty: forced integration into its found family. lmao)

so you could see it from a practical perspective: mori sending dazai out to show him he really belongs w the mafia and shld come back to them when the time is right, thus mori secures his legacy by leaving the pm to dazai and the mafia is led forward by someone who could handle it the way mori has.

but. hes never pushy abt dazai coming back. hes downright polite abt it (contrasting to the way he treats yosano), and he puts an awful lot of effort into saving dazais life. (kinda funny that he sends chuuya to pick dazais ass up every five seconds with no reward for either of them - chuuya post dead apple literally asks and moris just like ? uh the safety of the city?? bragging rights😁👍? - but when he sends chuuya to save the agency as a whole the price is Heavy like. exchange of a member is crazyyy.)

dazai is always very much considered One Of Their Own. his seat is still empty waiting for him to come back, he and mori post guild are Always cooperating (despite the kinda petty way dazai talks to him during the reunion - the whole 'i burnt the coat' thing - its almost childish, spiteful in a way that speaks to personal hurt that undermines any control he might have had of their kind of distant passive aggressive exchange. but. im too insane abt that interaction that my interpretation cld be entirely bs.)

they communicate through this ridiculous game of chess, and rely on each other to keep both their organisations afloat. when anyone else from the ada tries to pull the same thing, mori pulls out contracts for their damn souls but when its dazai hes just like ? oh ur bf needs to save you again? of course i can spare him to go pick you up from european prison yeah not a problem! ill even glue his vampire cosplay teeth in!!

in connection with that, even with dazais commitment to Doing The Right Thing, he does not do it in the right way. hes perfectly content to use mori-typical underhanded methods to get the ada to the right place. he sends aku To His Death Knowingly for the sake of saving atsushi and by extension the rest of the agency (and he may have known that the vampirism wld sorta bring him back?? but he still sends him to die), and its sorta similar to mori sending aku out to deal with hawthorne and mitchell while hes in rlly bad shape.

anyway dazais methods always make me think of that cunty exchange sskk have in dead apple 'thats not the way we do things in the detective agency' 'was that a bad joke😘 ur too much weretiger🌈✨💖'. but like. dazai Doesnt work the way the ada does. at least not when things get tense enough to drive him back to habit.

i think people like to interpret dazai as being a better person now, and i think in some ways he is. because hes always influenced by the people hes around most. but also, his motivations havent really changed from pm era. he still does what he does for his friends, they just happen to be on the right side now.

anyway. mori puts more work into keeping dazai alive than any other character (bar perhaps chuuya - but thats because mori saving dazai runs hand in hand with chuuya doing it given hes the one sending him) which is. aurgh.

mori and the wish to save people is just interesting in general. the fact that he became a doctor in the first place is telling on its own plus the unhinged way he deals with yosano - of course someone obsessed with saving people would want a cheat card for sending Death packing - but maybe i could believe it was just a power thing, more to his sense of control. playing with life and death so that he can play god. and i think that probably is just a little bit part of it, esp during the war.

but theres also the way he treats doctors within the pm (sb calls it respect for his former position but it may also be knowledge that the better treated they are the more people they will save). And the only reason he works w the tripartite agreement is bc he loves yokohama, wants its people, including its underground, alive and all that (honestly it probably links back to war stuff - hes really intent on peace).

so hes already someone that is intent on saving people (and beast mori makes this obvious w the way he treats atsushi) but theres a personal edge to it w dazai, possibly bc dazai is so much like him, and asgr is kind of obsessed w the saving your mirrors bc you cldnt save yourself thing (sskk. atsushi&lucy. chuuya with his clone. beast akutagawa siblings. beast atsushi&kyouka. i could continue).

im frothing at the mouth but basically, mori does everything for practical reasons in line with his ideals, his grand vision for the PM, but that doesnt mean he isnt making any emotionally charged decisions. its just that theyre always justified by their practical outcomes. (Especially where dazai is concerned). so he can pretend that theyre not driven by personal feelings but IM WATCHING U MORI U CANT HIDE FROM ME.

yk i sometimes wonder if i see him too sympathetically for a guy thats as so sucks as he is but someone has to counterbalance the 75% of the fandom that thinks hes pure evil for no reason and has no thoughts outside of Being Terrible so. here you go have this from the depths of my brain.

#i appreciate most of this sounds completely unhinged u just have to roll with it #god the fact that dazai rlly doesnt. know. at all. makes me insane #he knows moris reluctant to let him die obviously bc he trusts him to save his ass all the time but the extent of it is lost on him #he knows everything and yet he thinks mori forced him out if the mafia bc he was scared of him #meanwhile real image of mori talking abt dazai killing him one day:🤩🤩🤩🤩🤩🤩👍👍👍👍👍👍👍#im sorry guys im actually not normal about them #i think abt mori&dazai more than i think abt skk. which is. completely bizarre for me #i dont think ive ever given more attention to a non romantic duo before bc im so ship brained but. lord.#dazai osamu #mori ougai #bsd #bungou stray dogs #analysis #also.#nyxis hate posts #<- posted this in the first place cos i was filled w rage by how tt talks abt mori lol

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