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number1jeonginstan · 5 months

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A/N: Ngl, this was supposed to be a drabble… Anyway, I was listening to 2nd gen K-pop while listening to this, which is so counterintuitive because I was vibing to Gee while writing some of the craziest smut I’ve written in a while. Anyways, hope y’all enjoy <333 Answers 🥟 anon's request!

Minors don't interact, 18+

Pairing: Roomate Perv!Hyunjin x Perv!afab Reader

WC: 3k (oh!)

Warnings: Pervy reader and Jinnie, unprotected sex, m!masturbation, f!masturbation, use of vibrator, call reader names (whore, slut, good girl, ect…)

Your window cracked ever so slightly, allowing you to feel the spring breeze, but not enough to allow bugs and pollen to infiltrate your room. Your clock in the corner of your room was clicking away as the seconds passed. The only thing on your mind was what you were going to order for dinner. Before you could even shout out to your roommate, asking him what he wanted to eat, he barged into your room. The door ricocheted off the stopper causing you to look up.

“What do you want to eat Hwang?” you asked, turning around so your back was touching your bed. He knew it was your week to order food, but that wasn’t what he was here for. “Just get whatever, I’m not picky”

Before he could even continue, you cut him off, stopping him mid-sentence, his mouth hung open.

“Dude, last time you said that you threw a 45-minute tantrum of how ‘it wasn’t what you wanted’ and made me order a whole separate dish, only for you to eat mine because you were hungry and didn’t want to wait that long.”

“Hey, if you got it right the first time, we wouldn’t have been in that situation” he huffed, jumping on your bed, causing you to lift a bit.

He was wearing a black hoodie and some gray sweatpants, per usual. His new eyebrow piercing was right in your face as you turned to him. He chuckled, stealing your phone, and looking through the options to eat from.

Turning around so your breasts were pushed against your bed. They were slightly spilling out from your tanktop, but it was too warm to care. You didn’t understand how your friend wasn’t burning up in his outfit, but you didn’t care enough to ask.

“So, what are we getting to eat” you asked, trying to take your phone back from his grasp, but he stopped you.

Damn him and his weirdly long fingers that no man should have. “I was thinking, beer and chicken? It’s simple enough and we still have some cans left over so I won’t drain your bank account” he grinned.

You simply nodded, telling him to order it while you went to the bathroom. What you didn’t know was that wasn’t all Hyunjin did. A couple of weeks ago, when he asked to borrow your phone to send pictures of himself from a party the two of you attended with the rest of your friends, he saw pictures you took of yourself, in the cutest set he’s ever seen.

He knows that he constantly sees you in your short clothes all the time, but something about you wearing a pink lacy set had him weak in his knees. He came twice just thinking about it, the image burned into the back of his retinas.

He needed to see it again, so while you were doing your nighttime skincare routine, he went through your phone trying to find the photo. What he didn’t expect was there to be multiple angles and even multiple sets. He felt his cock harden in his pants, trying not to groan at the sight of you in barely anything.

He quickly took out his phone from his hoodie pocket, making sure that you weren’t out yet, and airdropped himself the photos, so there wasn’t any evidence of what he was doing.

He put his phone back in his pocket and exited out of your photos app just in time. You came out of the bathroom, your hair pushed back with a bunny hair band, whilst tossing one to him. “Come on, you know the drill” you giggled as he took off his hoodie, revealing his toned stomach and navel piercing.

He had gotten it with his eyebrow piercing after Jisung had dared him to. You were there for the entire thing, not expecting him to actually go through with it, but for some reason he did. It looked good though, so you weren’t going to complain.

He eventually put on the headband, after a minute of his dramatic sighs and protests. You knew he could never say no to you. You giggled at him, realizing how silly you both looked, but not complaining.

You pulled at him, trying to drag him off your bed so the two of you could watch a movie in the comfort of your living room.

The layout of your apartment was a bit off. Your rooms were right next to each other, and you both had your own bathrooms and walk-in closet. Which was nice, especially due to how much money the two of you spent on clothes.

Your living room was much smaller than others, connecting to your kitchen, but the two of you didn’t complain. It was homey and perfect for the two of you, and for the rest of your friends whenever they came over for your week’s movie night.

You both finally made it to the living room after Jinnie complained that “your bed is too comfortable” and “How am I supposed to leave if Sergent Bingo doesn’t want me to?”

You giggled at that, knowing how much he loved the stuffed animal that lived on your bed that he had won for you at the fair the first year of living together.

“I think he will live, plus we can bring him with us if it means so much to you!”

He just sighed as he got up, wrapping his arms around the stuffed bear and muttering about how Bingo didn’t appreciate being moved from his habitat.

“You are such a big baby” you giggled, sitting on the couch next to him, wrapping a blanket around your body as you attempted to find something for the two of you to watch.

“Am not”

“Are too”

Before he could rebuttal, the doorbell rang, causing you both to turn your heads. “Foods here” You got up, throwing the blanket at his face, laughing at his shocked expression.

You got the food from the delivery man, thanking him for walking up all the steps to your apartment. “What did you order again?” you yelled from the kitchen, getting paper plates and beer cans from the fridge.

“I got those cheese balls that you always fawn over, then just original and galbi because we both like that”

You got back to your seat, cracking open one of the cans of beer as the two of you began to watch a K-drama that Seungmin had recommended, Move To Heaven.

Two episodes in, and the two of you were sobbing, the food was gone, and the beers that were previously in your hands were splayed across the table.

“I can’t believe that happened to him, what did he do to deserve this?” you sobbed, hugged Hyunjin who was also on the verge of tears.

“I mean, who kills them off the first episode, like he did not need that happening to him” he said, hugging you back.

“I think that’s enough for today,” you said, wiping the tears off your face as you turned off the TV. Hyunjin threw away all the boxes and plates as you collected the blankets, folding them and putting them away in the storage closet next to the living room.

“Good night, sleep tight!” you said to Hyunjin as he began walking to his room. He bid you a good night as well, laughing at the way you were holding Sergent Bingo above your head as you entered your room.

Little did either of you know that you were in fact not sleeping tight.

You had taken out the vibrator your friend had gifted to you for your birthday, making sure it was fully charged before pressing it against your clit. It was small, but it did the job perfectly, always leaving you satisfied.

You usually never got off when Hyunjin was home, but you had been so pent up for the last month, that you just had to do something about it. You couldn’t wait any longer, you removed your shorts and underwear in one go and began to tease your slit.

You could feel the cool air hitting your legs and cunt, the small hairs on your legs sticking up at the sensation, but you ignored it, the only thing on your mind being Hyunjin.

The way he looked today, the way he smelt. You would think a grown man wearing a bunny headband couldn’t be hot, but you were wrong. The way he licked his fingers, trying to get the sauce off them, all you could imagine if that was how he would eat you out.

Would he suck on your clit like he did his fingers, how would they feel inside you? You thought back to his grey sweatpants, the way you could see the imprint of his dick against them, causing you to rub your thighs in front of him. You prayed that he didn’t see you, but if he did would he help you?

You could feel yourself getting wetter at every passing moment, your finger rubbing against your clit. It wasn’t enough though, you needed more stimulation or else you wouldn’t be able to get anywhere.

You turned on your vibrator, allowing the low hum of it to overtake your room. You began to slowly press it against your clit, low moans escaping your lips as you press it harder onto yourself. You tried to keep quiet, but it felt so fucking good, that you didn’t notice the moans escaping your lips.

But Hyunjin noticed, he could hear each moan escaping your lips. He was devouring each one like it was a hymn. He could feel his cock getting harder, straining against his boxers and sweats, it isn’t weird that he’s hearing you right?

If he just happens to jerk off right now, it wouldn’t be weird, right? He just happened to feel the need to get off at the same time as you. It wasn’t your moans that were making him this hard.

That’s what he kept telling himself as he pulled his cock out of his boxers and sweats. He began to languidly stroke his cock to the sounds of your moans, using the pre-cum leaking from his tip as lube.

He slowly pulled out his phone, looking at the pictures that he had airdropped himself earlier. Were you wearing the set you had in the picture, were you lying down like this, all pretty with your legs spread out just for him?

Would you be able to take his cock, or would you whine that it’s too much, how your tight little cunt couldn’t take it?

His body shivered as he could feel himself getting closer, but it all stopped when he heard another broken moan escape your lips.

“Jinnie-ah”

He couldn’t believe it, you weren’t moaning his name. It was just his imagination until he heard it again. The whimper that escaped your lips as you moaned out his name.

“Hyunjin, fuckkk”

His body went rigid, he quickly got up, dressed himself, and pressed his ear against your shared wall. He needed to hear you say his name again. He had to make sure it was his name you were moaning.

You couldn’t cum, it wasn’t enough, no matter how much you tried. You were so pent up, you needed to cum, but you just couldn’t, so you began crying. Tears streamed down your face as you tried to fuck yourself with your fingers as your vibrator was still attacking your clit, but it wasn’t enough.

That was til you heard your door creak open, there you saw Hyunjin. You tried to cover your body as fast as you could, but he didn’t let you, ripping your blanket off your body, leaving you in just your tank top.

“Such a fucking whore, moaning my name. You were just begging for me to hear you, right baby? Poor little thing can’t cum by herself, she needs my fingers, doesn’t she?”

You just nodded, no longer feeling ashamed, feeling the need to cum. “It’s okay baby, I’m here to help. Sometimes whores can’t get off by themselves, that’s why you need me”

He got on top of you, his knees pressed into your bed, trapping your thighs between them. He kissed your lips, nibbling at your bottom lip before moving his lips down to your neck, sucking at your skin.

“Who do you need baby?” he asked, removing his lips from your neck, running his finger against your slit, feeling how wet you were.

“Need you” you whined underneath him as his finger pressed against your clit. “Then why were you using this instead of coming to me?” he asked, holding up your vibrator.

“Is this better than me?” he asked, pressing his finger against your clit, causing you to moan. “Come on baby, you can’t be this dumb?” He asked you again, slapping your face slightly, sticking his thumb in your mouth, causing you to suck.

“It’s okay, I can make you cum like the whore you are” he chuckled before taking his finger out of your mouth and began to finger your hole. “Fuck you are so tight”

“Mhm, only for you Jinnie” you moaned as he began to thrust his fingers faster into you, adding another one. Your walls were clenching around him. “Look at you, so close to cumming. Can’t believe you were using this flimsy little thing. Should we see if it really works?”

Before you could even comprehend what was going on, he turned on your vibrator, pressing it against your clit.

“FUCK!” you moaned, you felt like you were so close to cumming, it only took Hyunjin another curl of his fingers in your cunt to make you cum around his fingers. Your body was convulsing around him, your thighs enclasping his hands.

“Ah ah, you are going to take my cock baby. Why do I think I prepped you? Moaning my name like the fucking slut you are. You are the one who caused this” he whispered into your ear while dragging your hand to his pants, allowing you to feel how hard his cock was for you.

He flipped you around while pulling down his own boxers and sweats, throwing them somewhere in your room. You took a look behind you to see his cock, and your jaw dropped. He was huge in length, not as much in girth, but his cock was so pretty.

His tip was pink and leaking precum while he had multiple veins running alongside his cock. “How is that going to fit?” you whimpered, “Don’t worry, I’ll make it fit baby.”

He slapped his cock on your ass before sliding the tip along your slit, causing you to moan. He lifted you by your hair, wrapping it around his hand, causing you to cry at the sharp sting. “Look at my cock baby, fuck, have never felt this fucking hard in my life. You are gonna make me feel good aren’t you baby? Going to take my cock like the good girl you are”

“Yes, gonna take your cock, gonna take it so well” you whimpered as he pushed the tip inside of you.

“Feels so good” you moaned as he let go of your hair, your head loling on the side of your pillow.

“Fuck baby, barely have the tip in and you are so fucking tight. Can’t wait til I make you mine”

He slowly began to thrust his cock into you, adding an inch at a time. But as your walls clenched around him, he lost all of his patience, thrusting his cock deep inside of you.

He slowly took his cock out of you, leaving only the tip in, only to thrust back into you with full force.

“You planned this didn’t you?” he asked, as he continued to pound into you. Your face was deep in your pillows, your voice muffled, so he yanked at your hair, causing you to moan.

“Speak when you are spoken you slut” he slapped your ass, causing you to moan. “You planned this didn’t you, the photos of you in your camera roll. You moaning my name so loud the entire floor could you”

“What if I did?” you said giggling. This only enraged him more, causing him to thrust into you faster. Your hair was still in his hand, your back arched against his chest. “Such a fucking whore, making me think I was a pervert when you orchestrated everything.”

“Just wanted you, are you that mad at me” you whimpered as he took one of his hands to rub your clit.

“I could never be mad at you baby, you know that” he kissed your neck before letting your hair go, your face falling back into the pillows. He lifted your hips a bit higher, causing you to scream out his name, which was fortunately muffled by the pillows underneath you.

“I can feel you baby,” he said, feeling the way your walls were clamping his cock “cum for me baby, cum on my cock and take my cum like you’ve always wanted to” he said, kissing your back.

That was all you needed to cum on his cock, he used one of his hands to muffle your screams, not wanting to wake everyone up. It didn’t end there though, he continued to rut into you, chasing his own high.

“Please Jinnie, too much can’t take it anymore” you whimpered underneath him, but that didn’t stop him. He needed to cum, he needed to mark you as his. “Fuck baby, you can take it, just a little more there we go”

He came with a moan, filling you up with cum and making you squirm underneath him. He kissed your lips before falling next to you, pushing the hair out of your face.

“I hope that was okay,” he said, looking at you a bit ashamed.

“Okay? That was amazing, I think that’s the hardest I’ve ever cum in my life” you said, kissing his lips. “The only thing I think is not okay is Sergent Bingo, his poor innocent eyes” which caused you both you laugh. You both wrapped your arms around one another, falling asleep in each other’s embrace.

#ju <3 answers #ju <3 writes #stray kids #stray kids smut #stray kids x reader #skz smut #skz x reader #skz hyunjin #straykids x reader #straykids smut #hyunjin skz #hyunjin smut #hyunjin x reader #hwang hyunjin #hyunjin

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killerlookz · 4 days

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hiii!!<3 if you’re thinking abt writing for joost, can u pls write some thing abt an established relationship fic based off the song birds of a feather by billie eilish if u can! love ur writing!

Hi anon! thank you sm for the request <33 this song is so sweeeet omg!!! also... technically an established relationship, but i do recap how reader and joost met :-)

Birds of a Feather | Joost Klein

description: gn!reader reflects on all the special moments in your and Joost's relationship following an unexpected proposal.

content: so insanely cheesey! sorry! pure fluff! + lots of crying (mostly happy tears) literally the most tiny smallest sexual reference

word count: 2426 (this was supposed to be under 1k words but i got soooo carried away)

/I don't know what I'm crying for / I don't think I could love you more/

Shaky fingers fiddle with the cold metal looped around your ring finger. Your hand flexes outward, watching as the light from your window reflects onto the small stone. Something warm rolls down your cheek- a solitary teardrop, caressing the skin of your face. Your hand reaches up to wipe away the tear, but it's too late, you can feel more welling up near your waterline, any sudden movement now would send tears streaming down your face. You look up, your eyelids brink rapidly in an attempt to prevent the inevitable waterworks.

You hadn't seen an engagement coming- in all the years you'd been together, it still seemed like a milestone that had felt so far away. Until Yesterday.

You and Joost had been nearly inseparable since just about the moment you had met- A nervous 20-year-old studying abroad in the Netherlands for your second to last semester of university. You sat on the stairs outside of the apartment building that stood as your temporary housing for the semester, on the brink of tears, your randomly assigned roommate had been a real piece of work. You were on your third argument that week alone, and, saying you were fed up was an understatement. You contemplated at that moment packing your things and just going back home.

"Gaat het?" (Are you ok?) A voice calls out, a goofy-looking blonde standing at the bottom of the stairs. He looks vaguely familiar, you think you may have seen him in the elevator of your apartment once or twice.

You furrow your eyebrows at him, "Ik spreek niet veel Nederlands," Using one of the few Dutch phrases you knew to tell him you don't speak Dutch. You shake your head, kind of hoping he would get lost, not wanting to be bothered.

"Ah," He nods, "Do you speak English?"

You stare at him for a moment, unsure if you should lie, after all he was a stranger but something is telling you to tell him the truth.

"Yeah," You sniffle, attempting to remove any emotion from your face.

"Are you okay?" He asks again, this time you understand.

"I'm fine," You weren't exactly searching for a deep conversation about your current struggles in someone you didn't know.

"People who are fine don't usually sit outside their apartment building crying."

You bite your lip, contemplating engaging the kind stranger in what was ailing you at the moment. You sigh, having a feeling he would probably keep pestering you if you continued to insist you were feeling in a way you actually weren't.

"It's just my roommate-"

Two months after your first encounter with the blonde man at the bottom of the stairs, you were standing in front of a mirror, doing a final check of your outfit before going on your first date. You had learned his name was Joost, he was 21, and lived in an apartment two floors above you.

He was unimaginably kind, with a wit unparalleled by anyone you'd ever met before, and truthfully, he was very cute- so when he had initially asked you out, you couldn't get a "yes" out fast enough.

It seemed a little inconvenient, given that you only had one more month left in the Netherlands- but he knew this, and didn't necessarily seem like he had been looking for anything too serious. Besides, it would be nice for you to have a good connection with someone outside of the people you saw in your classes.

There's a knock at the door, and your feet are quick to start shuffling under you, you're practically running to go open it.

You stop for a moment as you get to the door, letting a deep breath fill your lungs to capacity, before letting it out, whipping the door open as you do so.

Joost is standing behind it, a smile plastered on his face, hands behind his back. He's dressed up, now that you thought about it, you never really saw him in anything other than a sweatshirt or t-shirt and some jeans. It was a pleasant change- a white button-up shirt and some dress pants even if both articles of clothing had been obviously wrinkled.

"Hey," He greets, removing his hands from where they rest behind him, revealing a bouquet of flowers in an outstretched arm, "These are for you- I didn't know what kind of flowers you liked so I sort of just guessed." He's unsure of himself, in an entirely endearing way. He was trying.

"For me?" You grin, "Aww, Joost!" You take the flowers from his hands, "Let me go find something to put these in."

A month later you're sitting on Joost's couch after what you assumed would be your last date together. Your study abroad program was ending in three days, and you'd be returning back home.

There is an air of sadness that surrounds you, one that you hadn't expected to feel- you'd only known the man for three months, yet somehow it felt like you were leaving someone you had known your whole life.

Gentle fingers grab onto your jaw, Joost is turning your head to force you to look at him.

"You know," He starts, "I've really been enjoying our time together."

"Me too," You agree, a small smile peaking onto your face, you try not to give way to the sadness you were feeling.

"And," He says, "Y/n, I really like you, and I think if I don't ask you now, I'm never going to get the chance to ever again."

"What?" You perk up, your heart suddenly beating much faster, your breathing quickens, unsure of what he's going to say next.

"Well- I- what I'm trying to say is, do you want to go out with me? Like- officially- like dating." His voice is trembling, you'd never seen him so anxious before.

"Joost I-" You sigh, the reality of your situation crashing into you harder than it had before, "I'm leaving soon- we'll be hours away, when am I going to see y-"

You're cut off by Joost's lips crashing into yours, your thoughts suddenly disappearing the second your lips connect. You're entirely overwhelmed with emotion, every wire in your brain is fried, this move was an utter surprise, up until this point your relationship had been entirely chaste; the furthest you'd gone was sharing a hug at the end of your dates. Still, you kiss him back, your hand finding its way to his shoulder, tugging at it, begging him to come closer to you.

It had been seven and a half months since you had last seen Joost, but the two of you had talked at length each and every day during that time. By now, you had finished your degree in University and were ready to really start your life.

You could remember the cheer of excitement on the other end of the phone when you told Joost after a month of job hunting you had secured a job in the Netherlands.

"Does that mean you're coming back here?"

"Yeah, the job starts at the end of next month ."

A month and a half didn't necessarily give you much time to plan things out to the extent you would have liked, but Joost was more than ready and willing to help you out.

He had posited moving into his apartment- but the suggestion while sweet- was quickly thrown out. It wouldn't have been an ideal commute to your new job.

So the two of you got on to looking elsewhere, he had been kind enough to take the time out of his days to go to apartment showings for you near where you'd be taking your job, keeping you on Facetime as he viewed the places.

Eventually, you had found one you absolutely fell in love with, in perfect distance from the job. The problem had been- it was quite a ways out of your budget. You were heartbroken, it had basically been your dream apartment.

Joost, always swift with solving problems, suggested that the two of you move into the apartment together, that way he could cover the rest of the rent that you couldn't afford. And while you were over the moon about his offer- you worried about what living together would do to your relationship, the two of you had known each other for less than a year- would living together be such a great idea?

But as you're standing in the doorway of your bedroom on the first night being in your new apartment, staring up at Joost, who's leaning against the door frame- you just know you made the right decision.

A careful hand glides across your cheek, resting at the back of your neck,

"Thank you for coming back," Joost muses, gently massaging the spot where his hand resides. You lean into his touch,

"There was no other option" There's an undeniable twinkle in your eyes, admiring the man who stood above you, tired and messy from a long day of moving.

"I've been waiting to tell you this in person," His grip on your neck suddenly becomes still, rigid, "And- even if you don't feel the same yet, I just wanted to say that I love you." He's talking fast, simpering after he finishes his short words before resuming the gentle massaging motion of his thumb against your neck.

The breath is almost entirely knocked out of you- he loves you.

The words just about run out of your mouth, "I love you too,"

"You do?" His pupils are blown wide, "You love me too?"

You nod fervently, never having meant a statement so immensely in your life.

Joost is leaning down now, his head tilted so his lips can perfectly interlock with yours. It is possibly the hungriest kiss the two of you had ever shared, with the obvious implication of love now behind it. If Joost hadn't snaked his free arm around your back, you probably would have fallen straight to the ground, your legs tingling with excitement.

He pulls away, looking into your mostly empty bedroom, a smirk appearing on his face,

"What do you say we christen that bed I spent all day putting together?"

Five years later you're still living in that same apartment, the once-empty space now fully decorated with beautiful memories.

And now, the most crystal-clear memory sparkled in your brain, almost as bright as the ring itself. You'd been crying in intervals since then- since it happened since - You replayed it in your head.

"Do you remember when we first met?" Joost's fingers interlock with yours as the two of you walk down a familiar street- You were unsure of why Joost had insisted on taking you here, to the town where you both had lived when you met.

"How could I ever forget?" You grin, "Feels like just yesterday I was crying to some strange Dutch boy about my roommate issues."

"And how you told me, you never wanted to see the Netherlands again?" His words are slow as he looks deeply into your eyes, glimmers of adoration shining from every feature on his face.

"God, I was so dramatic- wasn't I?" You look away from him, scoffing as you look down at the pavement, thinking about your old self, looking back on it- it was a stupid decision to let one person ruin almost two months of your life, but back then it seemed like the biggest deal in the world. "Funny" You shrug, "The decision I made to talk to you on the day I was most certain I was just going to pack up and leave forever led me to making the Netherlands my home." You shake your head, "I don't know what would have happened if I hadn't met you on that day, but I don't think there's a reality that exists where we aren't together."

"Don't make me cry," He chuckles.

"I mean- I don't mean to be all sappy, but it's true- if soulmates are real, I can guarantee you're mine."

He's grinning now, you'd been so lost in your thoughts you barely noticed where the two of you had ended up, back at your old apartment, right in front of those very steps the two of you had met on.

He's pulling you up the stairs, and needless to say you're confused about this trip down memory lane.

"I think it's only appropriate that I do this here," His voice is low, and he's blinking more rapidly than usual. His hand slips from yours, and falls into his pocket- you watch anxiously for his next move. There's something in his hand now, and he's slowly bending down onto one knee.

The tears start nearly immediately, before he says a single word, you're cupping your mouth with your hand

"Y/n," He looks up at you, through the lenses of his glasses you can see there are tears in his eyes too, "Wil je met me trouwen?" (will you marry me)

"Joost," You choke out a sob- "Yes, Yes!" Your whole body is full of a tingling sensation, and your heart feels like it occupies more space in your chest than it did before, swelling with an overwhelming amount of love.

Joost grabs your trembling hand, caressing it tenderly with his thumb before slipping on the ring. You let him hold your hand for a moment more before you're pulling it away, desperate to see. You outstretch your hand in front of you, looking at the glimmering stone that sits on your finger. A visual confirmation of what had just happened.

He's barely stood all the way up before you're reaching for him, knocking into him with an embrace so energetically that it nearly knocks him over. As he catches his balance he wraps his arms right back around you, pulling you into him.

If you were to have gotten any closer, the atoms that make up each of your bodies may have actually fused together. Though you wish you could, despite how you fully braced Joost's body it doesn't feel like enough you want him closer to you.

Still, you're so warm in his tight embrace, letting out choked tears of joy against his chest.

A gentle kiss falls on the top of your head, followed by your favorite words to hear out of Joost's mouth, "Ik hou van jou." (I love you)

You shut your eyes, basking in the moment, you could absolutely get used to hearing those words every day for the rest of your life.

/I'll love you 'til the day that I die / 'Til the light leaves my eyes/

#joost klein #joost klein x reader #rpf #joost klein x you #joost klein fanfic #joost klein fic

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rrxnjun · 10 months

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where do broken hearts go? [lmk]

you know what they say about past lovers that can remain just as friends - either they're still in love with each other, or they never were in the first place.

pairing: mark lee x fem! reader

genre: exes to lovers. angst, fluff.

wc: 12k (11.926)

warnings: mention of sex, weed and alcohol, heartbreak, swearing, park jihoon of treasure is one sassy bitch and also accidentally somehow the main character of this fanfic plz dont @ me, inconsistent writing style bc i took 3 months and 3 depressive episodes to finish this fic

playlist: where do broken hearts go - one direction / too good to say goodbye - bruno mars / everytime - ariana grande / closer - waterparks / tornado warnings - sabrina carpenter / survive the night - the boyz

a/n: hey do some of you still remember me..... AHAHA tell a friend to tell a friend rrxnjun is BACK! this fic isn't the ideal vision i had in my mind but we are working on not being so hard on ourselves with our writing so! here we are. i still kind of like it :,)

When you walk up to your best friend’s apartment one day with a tub of ice cream under your arm and the biggest pout on your face, Park Jihoon makes a complete list of things you should do to get over your failed relationship with Mark Lee. And while you think your dear friend has some psychopathic tendencies sometimes, you’d say the list is actually pretty reasonable of him.

There’s something about the five simple steps that makes you wonder if it’s really as easy as Jihoon makes it sound. And while you doubt it– because the pinging pain in your heart makes it seem like the heartbreak is truly going to kill you in a few minutes if you don’t do something about it– you give it a try, because come on… you’d do anything to not feel like this ever again.

Step one – cry it out.

“He was a cunt anyway,” Jihoon mutters as he steps into the living room with two spoons in his hands, throwing one of them to you– while almost managing to hit you in the middle of your forehead in the process, adding a concussion to the mix of problems you have going on right now– and you find yourself furrowing your brows at his hateful comment.

“Why’d you say that?”

“Well, as your best friend, I’m supposed to be on your side, no?” he says as he takes a seat on the sofa next to you, watching as you wrap one of the thick blankets you got for the male around your figure– you bought it mainly for yourself, because his apartment is cold as a freezer and you knew he wouldn’t buy one for you to use in the first place– and shrugs. “Besides, he broke your heart, and any male who does that is a cunt in my eyes.”

“I broke up with him,” you mourn, “so I broke my own heart,” you snicker, despair fully filling you up from the inside– fitting everywhere into your lungs and choking you up from how bad you truly feel. Now, this isn’t your first breakup– you’ve had your fair share of boyfriends in high school (in your baddie era, as Jihoon called it), but Choi Yeonjun from Maths class and Jung Woonyoung, the guy you dated for a total of 2 months over the summer break before he moved away, weren’t exactly boys you found yourself falling in love with. Sure, you liked them, you kissed them and went on dates with them– hell, you even hooked up with Yeonjun once before you realized the relationship truly wasn’t for you– but no one managed to cave into your heart just as much as Mark Lee, your first college boyfriend did.

“But you sure had a reason for it, come on!” Jihoon huffs, taking the tub of ice cream from your hands and opening it for you, since you’ve gotten quite weak from the lack of sleep and nutritions ever since the break up, hands clammy and not cooperating. “You don’t just break up with someone to break your own heart. He did that, that’s why you said goodbye to him,” he says before sitting the enormous tub of ice cream between your two bodies, nudging you to dig into the frozen delicacy.

“Yeah, but–”

“No buts, young lady. We are here to make you forget you ever even dated Mark Lee, so open up, eat the ice cream and focus your attention on Titanic so you can finally cry it out,” he says, and by the tone of his voice, you’d think he’s angry with you. Jihoon has this aura around him that makes you think he’s always at least a little annoyed at everything– but he told you to not mind it and that it’s just his sassy bitch attitude.

He does have a point, though. You broke up with Mark because he broke your heart first– there was no other reason for it. If it was something minor, something small, you were sure you could work on it. You have, numerous of times before, brought up something and had a mature conversation about it– something you always so admired about Mark, being so cautious and understanding when navigating problems in the relationship– but when you bring up the same thing over and over, and it never gets fixed despite him telling you he’ll try harder next time, you think you’re allowed to feel a little heartbroken at his nonexistent efforts. And that’s exactly why you decided to quit the relationship– after a while, you felt like you were putting in more effort than he was, effectively making you feel like he’s not even that interested in dating you in the first place.

First, he just told you he was forgetful. He forgot he promised to pick you up from class one day– and you said that it’s okay, he is busy, after all– and it was the first time it happened, so you didn’t really mind that much, truly. Then, he forgot about the date you scheduled– but it was fine, because you didn’t have reservations anyway, you could change the day to any other day of the week, after all. He kept forgetting the stuff you told him in between the conversations you shared– and it was small things, you understand, but sometimes, you wondered if he was ever really listening to you at all.

Forgetful soon turns not interested in your eyes, and when he doesn’t call you in the evening like he promised he would, when he doesn’t show up to the party you invited him to, because he forgot it was that day, you’re one step closer to calling it quits, because each and every one of these situations sends a sharp pain into your stomach. The last straw was just last week, though– and realistically, it was an important day, as much that you thought the day is somehow gonna fix everything, but the truth is somewhere completely else as Mark Lee forgets about your one year anniversary and never shows up at your doorstep for the dinner you prepared for the two of you like he promised he would.

And it doesn’t click in him two days after either– you don’t even get a text. He got so forgetful over time that he forgot about you completely, and that’s when you took an uber to his place and broke up with him for good.

And even though the breakup was the most painful thing you’ve ever felt yourself go through, Jihoon is right– you’re not the one that broke your own heart. Mark Lee did that for you many times before, and this was just the breaking point.

“Fucking hell, you bought cookies and cream again?” Jihoon huffs when he takes another spoonful of the ice cream into his mouth, eyebrows furrowing at the sweet taste. Looking at him from the corner of your eye, you wipe your left cheek as you hum, immune to his nagging by now.

“You know I hate cookies and cream!”

“You know, Hoon, I bought this for myself. When you’re the one that’s heartbroken, we’ll share your favorite ice cream flavor instead,” you mumble, munching on the coldness on your tongue, sniffling a little when your eyes avert to the TV screen.

And after that, the teasing from your best friend’s side stops. Maybe it’s just because he hates to see you cry– and he rarely gets the chance, if you’re being honest, since you’re pretty good at handling your emotions– but you secretly know that it’s because when he looks back at the TV screen in front of the two of you, the sad part of the movie hasn’t even started yet and the tears are not the result of the movie, but of your own thoughts instead.

Step two – give him back all of his stuff and the stuff he’s given you that reminds you of him. Demand that he does the same.

Now, step two was a thing most couples do when they break up. Realistically, it makes sense– you wouldn’t want stuff that’s not yours just laying around, and also, it’s just bound to remind you of the person you lost. Naturally, you’d want to return it.

“Why does he have to return my things as well?” you mutter under your breath as Jihoon helps you fold all Mark’s hoodies into a cardboard box, alongside with wrapping the little things your ex boyfriend made out of ceramic for you in tissue paper like you asked him to– even though he complained and said that it shouldn’t matter to you if they break, because you are the heartbroken one– but you held those little things too close to your heart to let them get damaged in the first place.

“Because that’s how it works,” Jihoon hums, watching as you throw another one of Mark’s shirts onto the top of his head, shielding his vision. “What, you don’t want your stuff back?”

“I mean…” you mumble, deeply considering of the fact that the thought of getting your stuff back didn’t even cross your mind until now, before you realize your favorite pair of socks is thrown somewhere in Mark’s drawers– the blue ones with peaches on them– and you suddenly have the revelation that while you don’t necessarily need the stuff back, you’d love to wear those socks again. “I guess…” you note as you walk over to Jihoon and take a glance into the full cardboard box, looking over the stuff and chewing on the inside of your cheek.

“It’s like witchcraft, y’know,” Jihoon points out, looking at you with fierce eyes mirroring the stupid idea that just flashed through his brain, “if you don’t exchange the things, a piece of you is still kept at his apartment and you won’t be able to move on.”

And again, Park Jihoon does have psychopathic tendencies, but he may be onto something here. So you listen to him as you nod along and close the cardboard box, ready to drive over to Mark Lee’s apartment and drop off the things you’ve collected from him for the past year. The box includes all of the clothes messily scattered across your drawers and your closet, the picture frame of you two together that you always had on your night stand, the ceramic bowls and a little tiger sculpture he made for you when he took a pottery class with his friend Renjun, and the lost guitar pics you found under your bed and at the very top of your bookshelf from when he used to bring his guitar along and play you songs on rainy afternoons. The only things of Mark’s that you kept were the love letter he gave you for your birthday and the USB with his cover of Justin Bieber’s Off my face on it that he shyly gifted to you on one of your dates; but you would never tell Jihoon that in fear of him getting rid of those most precious memories for you.

It’s good to let go, but you don’t think you’re wrong for wanting to keep something to remind you of the good times. The times you still felt loved by Mark.

“Off we go,” you say, standing up and bringing the box towards your front door, your best friend at your feet. He promised to drive you to Mark’s place– you think he’s worried about you meeting your ex-boyfriend face to face for the first time since the break up, but he said it’s because you’re too broke to Uber all the time, efficiently throwing all the considerate thoughts you were accrediting him out the window– and after a few minutes of the drive, you find yourself standing on the doorstep of Mark Lee's apartment.

Taking a deep breath in and out, almost chickening out with the flood of thoughts and excuses you could say to Jihoon when you come back to his car with the box still in your hands– sayings like “he wasn’t home” or “he didn’t want those back”, the latter stupider than the first– you decide to face your problems head-on and finally knock on the mahogany door, waiting for Mark to answer. And he does– of course he does, because he’s always home, and as his ex-girlfriend of one year, you're painfully aware of the fact– but when that happens, you feel your heart falling all the way down to your stomach, crushing you and suddenly making it hard for you to breathe.

“Um… hi,” he greets you, voice a little groggy, as if he hasn’t spoken in a while– and when you meet his eyes, the deep chocolate orbs you always found yourself admiring and writing silent odes to in your head, you quickly glance away in fear of staring into them for too long and making decisions you wouldn’t like to make.

“Hi,” you awkwardly greet back, clearing your throat and moving a little in your place, shifting the weight from one foot to the other. You're surprised you're able to keep up with the conversation, thoughts running in your brain faster than you can comprehend them, heartbeat ringing in your ears from the unexpected anxiety. Maybe Jihoon was right and you should've taken a shot before coming here– at least you'd have more courage and social skills clearly needed for this kind of interaction. “I… brought you back your things,” you say, finally looking up at the male and chewing on your lips, letting out an awkward, tense laugh when he stares at you with an empty look, “figured you’d want them back,” you add, watching as the male opens his mouth and closes it in what seems to be shock before he presses his lips tightly together and nods at you.

“Uh, yeah,” he says, scratching the back of his neck awkwardly as he watches you clumsily hold up the cardboard box to him, ready to leave his stuff there with him and escape as fast as you can, not really minding how you'll get back to Jihoon's car– if jumping down the window of the entrance hall is the fastest option, you're ready to get to it. The truth is, everything is starting to get a little too hard to bear– his familiar scent filling your nose, the hoodie he wore to your first date enveloping his figure, his messy hair reminding you of the many times you brushed your fingers through it in attempts to smooth it down. It’s only been two weeks since you last saw him, but it was starting to feel as if you forgot about him already and were now relearning all the things you once fell in love with again, looking at him in the same light, yet noticing him and all the small details a little bit differently. “Thanks, I… I actually, uh… I have your stuff here too, so if you want it back I’ll– I can just–”

“Y-yeah,” you nod, almost a little too eagerly, “that would be… cool,” you say, trying hard to ignore the fact that he had your stuff packed too, intending to give it to you, and the crashing reality that comes with it, telling you he was prepared to do this before you were and how it’s making you feel kind of shitty.

Mark moves further into the apartment, the sound of him dropping the box to the floor filling your ears before he’s back at the door in no time, a similar cardboard box in his hands that he offers to you with a tense smile on his face. “Wanted to bring it around so I had an excuse to see you, but you, uh… beat me to it, I guess…”

Looking at him as you take the box out of his hands, gaze as if to tell him not to say such words to you when you’re still so fragile to his effect, you only nod and mutter out a simple “Thanks,” before you turn on your heel and intend to take the stairs back down.

“I’ll… see you around, then?” Mark calls after you as you take the first step out– something about it making you feel like it’s the first step out of his life, in a way– and you only nod, because one, you truly don’t know how else to reply to this question, and two, you really, really don’t know if you’ll ever see him again, but you can't bring yourself to say it to his face. Somehow, it would feel like torture to admit it– and you're not prepared for that reality just yet.

Rushing outside and getting into Jihoon's car, you almost feel like you’re on the verge of breaking, and when the male asks you how it went as he’s reversing out of the parking lot, you only bid him a one-word reply before you look through the box on your way home, too impatient to stay back from the memories.

And Jihoon didn’t really think this one through, because the fact that you gave Mark back the things that reminded you of him meant that he did the same, and now all the things you brought along to Mark’s apartment were in the cardboard box, all stained with countless memories and feelings attached to each and every single thing. The artwork you made for him, the little heart-shaped keychain you gave him for his birthday, the plant you gave him that was now long dead and dried out– those were once your stuff, but all in this world with the intention of love being sent out through them to your now ex-lover, and the fact that they’re in your possession again instead of his is not making letting go of Mark any easier.

And maybe Mark was right and he truly was forgetful, because as you rummage through the contains of the box, while you find out your favorite blue socks are nowhere to be seen, surely still buried somewhere in the drawers of his closet, obliterated out of his memory, there’s a gray hoodie sitting at the bottom and it’s surely not yours– it’s his and it was always your favorite, and you always used to wear it at his place when you got cold or when you just really wanted to smell his cologne, and you suddenly don't know if it's presence in the box slipped his mind or if he truly left it there on purpose.

Couldn’t he forget about that too?

Step three – block his number.

The third step comes into place after you accidentally slip out to Jihoon about the phone call you get on a Friday night– more like two hours into Saturday already– and now, most of all, you must admit that your best friend might be right about his advice.

Your phone starts ringing at 2:11 AM, and while you weren’t sleeping– you’ve been having some trouble with dozing off without being overbeared with thoughts lately– the name flashing on your screen shocks you for more reasons than one.

Mark Lee calls you, three weeks after your breakup, in the middle of the night. You haven’t spoken since the time he gave you back your stuff, and even though you’ve done quite a bit of stalking on his social media, you have no news of him or his whereabouts. Naturally, a call from him in the middle of the night startles you and shakes you to the core. He has no reason to call you, so your brain does the math and concludes there must be an emergency– and god knows that even after being hurt by him, you could never ignore him and leave him hanging in a state of need.

So you pick up– with shaky hands and a raging heartbeat, expecting the worst. Listening to the other side of the line, you take a deep breath in and out, bracing yourself for the impact of the words you’re going to hear. The voice on the other side is laced with haziness and his tone is almost a little tired– worn out, even– when he finally greets you from wherever he is.

“Hi,” Mark says, and for a second, your heartbeat steadies itself and the world stops spinning– he sounds okay, and for a moment, you’re grateful to hear his voice.

Humming, as if to collect your thoughts, you clear your throat before you offer him an answer. “Hello,” you greet, “what’s- what’s up?”

“Just wanted to hear your voice,” he says, almost a little abruptly to your question. He doesn't overthink his answer and he doesn't give himself time to think if it's a good idea or not– he just blurts it out and now it's your problem to deal with, when it's there, out in the open. Your palms get sweaty and you start to lose feeling in your fingertips, making you take a few seconds to yourself to process the situation before you decide to finally answer to the strange sentence.

“It’s late, Mark,” you mumble, and you involuntarily wonder if the sentence doesn’t have double meaning– it's too late for anyone to call at this hour, and at the same time, it’s been weeks since your ex boyfriend lost the privilege of listening to your voice when he can’t sleep in the middle of the night whenever he feels like it– and it’s now too late to do anything about it or make it any easier to deal with.

“Shit, sorry,” he chuckles to himself, and you suddenly recognise the laziness in his voice to be the effect of his and his best friend Hyuck’s Friday endeavors; the sweet coating of his voice being the effect of none other than the momentary bliss that comes with the relaxation of his body and mind when he's high. “Didn’t realize,” he concludes, making you shake your head at him in disbelief– not really mattering that he can’t see you in the act.

“‘s okay,” you mumble– and in your perfect reality, you hang up the phone now. In your perfect reality, you connect it to your charger and close your eyes, calling it a night. You fall asleep with no thoughts rummaging through your brain and wake up in the morning to a new sunny day, ready to take on the responsibilities of what’s to come, having productive days ended with smiles and a hot dinner you make for yourself just because you feel like it. In your perfect reality, you protect your own heart. This is not your perfect reality, though– and that’s why you stay on the line, listening to Mark ramble on the other side of the phone, intoxicated and slightly out of it. You wonder if he’ll remember calling you when he wakes up tomorrow. You wonder if he’ll regret it, or if he’ll just shrug his shoulders at the fact and go on with his day, not really paying you much thought when he’s sober.

“I was with Hyuck just now,” he says, and you hear the rustling of his sheets on the other side of the line, making you wonder if he’s washed up and ready for bed, “and– and I remembered how we all used to hang out together, y’know… you with us all– you always clicked with my friends and it was so cool and stuff… and I realized, right, they’re not as funny when you’re not around… but anyways… Jeno’s girlfriend asked about you, ‘cause she didn’t know…and telling her felt so silly, ‘cause they all kept looking at me and I knew they were pitying me, but it was my fault in the first place–”

“Mark–”

“No, it’s true. And it’s cool, I don’t– I don’t blame you, or anything. I just… I dunno, I guess it got me wondering…”

The line goes silent on the other side, and you settle into your own bed, giving him time to continue. When he doesn’t say anything for a long time, you wonder if he’s fallen asleep.

“Mark?”

“Hm?”

“You still there?”

“Yeah. How was your day?” he asks, tone of voice casual as ever, as if he’s forgotten about all the words he’s told you up until now– as if it’s not 2 AM and both of your hearts aren’t breaking at the sound of each other’s voice on the other side of the line.

“It… it was okay, I guess,” you say nonetheless, too hopeless to find a way to end the conversation before he does.

“That’s good to hear,” he says, sighing, “that’s… awesome. You still taking those yoga classes on Mondays?” he asks, and you snicker to yourself– because what kind of question even is that? Who asks that on a late night call, when there are more important things you two need to talk about?

“Yeah,” you lie, still. You haven’t been since the breakup.

“That’s great. Wouldn’t want you to… y’know,” he laughs to himself, “be too sad over this… ‘t was for the better, after all.”

You hear yourself hum– the noise way more stable than your actual words ever could be– and you find yourself feeling silly in the conversation, lying to your ex boyfriend through your teeth; because at the end of the day, you don’t want him to worry about you– because it seems to be the case that he is. And it’s stupid, because he hurt you and you shouldn’t care, maybe you should’ve even show him that you’re heartbroken and that he is the reason behind your pain and the way your life is falling apart, bit by bit, but you don’t find it in you to be so cold and heartless. At the end of the day, you still care about Mark and there’s nothing you could do about it. Turns out that breaking up with him doesn’t magically make the feelings go away– and you knew that, but now you have proof.

“What were you saying before, by the way? You… trailed off at the end,” you say, reminding him of his previous words.

“Oh, that,” he snickers into the microphone again, a heavy sigh escaping his lips as he twists and turns in the sheets, “don’t worry about it. It was selfish of me.”

It was selfish of him to call in the first place. But you won’t tell him that.

“What was it?”

“It’s just… I was wondering if I lost you forever, y’know… if there was a chance we could ever…” he trails off again, but this time, you don’t bug him to complete it. You’re not stupid– you know the implication of his words. You’ve known him for a long time, after all– maybe you should’ve predicted this when you picked up the call.

“I mean…” you hum, “you didn’t lose me completely, if that’s– if that’s what’s keeping you up at night. We’re still friends, aren’t we?” you say, and in the corner of your brain, you can’t even believe the words yourself– but if it was selfish of him to call, you think it’s okay for you to selfishly fill both of you with empty promises, just for the sake of not breaking your heart even further.

“Yeah,” he mumbles, “that’s– …I’m glad.”

The line’s silent after that, and you wonder if you two have used up the list of words to say to each other this time, if there’s truly no other answer at the end of this conversation. When the situation gets too much for you to bear, the heaviness finally settling on your shoulders and your chest, you finally find the courage to sniffle out a quiet goodbye.

“Good night, Mark.”

“G’night,” he drags out, mind still cloudy. “Love you,” spills out from his tongue, like a bad habit.

He ends the call before you get to say it back. Maybe that’s for the better.

And the truth is, you should’ve really listened to Park Jihoon and blocked Mark’s number after this encounter. But you didn’t– you’re too weak for Mark’s sweet words, finding yourself still hanging on to his saccharine voice and the muffled ramble he has reserved for you only every time he gets high and loses all self-control before calling you on Friday nights selfishly demanding your attention, somehow falling for him like a teenager over and over again despite promising yourself you're gonna move on for real now.

Step four – date someone new.

“So…” Jihoon starts one day, eyes glued to your skull like laser beams, the tone of his voice so incomprehensible you think he’s going to scold you for the actions of your previous days– even though you haven't told him about the midnight calls with Mark and so if he's not going through your phone, he has no way of knowing. Tense and nervous, still, knowing that the impact of his words could either heal you or cut you open like a knife– damn him for always being so brutally honest, no matter how soft his heart is for you– you smile at him with tight lips, crossing your arms on your chest in defense.

“So…?”

A nervous laugh almost escapes your throat. If Jihoon wasn’t suspicious of you before, he surely is now– or he just finds you strange by the way he furrows his brows at you and scans you up and down, taking a second for himself before he sighs and seemingly decides to drop the weird way you’re acting right now, shaking his head and focusing on the task at hand.

“I was thinking… my friend asked about you,” he says, nonchalantly looking down onto his hands and taking the dirt out from behind his nails, as if it’s not a big deal and he doesn’t even care that much. “Choi Hyunsuk from Biology, you know him– shabby haircut, kinda short, failed the class so he has to retake it this year…?”

“I think you’re forgetting the fact that the two of us have completely different majors, Hoonie,” you sweetly smile at him with irony, making him roll his eyes with a sigh before he tries again.

“The guy who ripped his pants at Xiao Dejun’s party last year?”

“Oh, that one! You should’ve said that earlier, of course I remember Choi Hyunsuk from your Biology class,” you nod hurriedly, the gears finally clicking in your brain.

“As if I wasn’t talking about him for the last few minutes–”

“Okay, and what about him?” you cut him off, already tired of his annoying tangent.

“I said he asked about you.”

“I heard that already,” you nod, looking at him with expecting eyes. “And?”

Jihoon stares at you, unblinking, as if you fell on your head and he’s trying to comprehend if you’re still here with him or if you got a concussion and need to be transferred into a hospital. When the contact of his eyes on your skin gets a bit too uncomfortable– you swear his looks could actually kill someone, if he tried enough– you furrow your brows at him in confusion and shake your head in disbelief.

“Why are you staring at me like that, Park Jihoon?”

“Just tryna see if you’re really that stupid or if you’re just pretending,” he mutters under his nose before he sighs again– his favorite activity whenever you’re around, it seems– and speaks up again, tone of voice reminding you of a kindergartener teacher trying to explain why it gets dark in the evening to a bunch of 4 year olds. “You know, when people ask about you, they are usually interested in you, as in, my friend Hyunsuk didn’t ask because you’re nice, but because you’re hot, if you know what I'm getting onto.”

“Oh,” you get out, eyes wide in concern and a little shaken-up, “well, that’s… nice of him, I guess.”

Jihoon only hums at you before he looks around himself and brings out the bag of chips that he left open by his right side only a few seconds ago, not really speaking more about the topic. It’s either he’s waiting for you to get what he’s hinting at, or he’s just waiting for you to get even more confused and ask him about it in a few seconds again– either way, he’s not the one doing more talking right now, because conversations with you, the most oblivious person he’s ever seen, are never productive if he goes too fast.

Chewing on the chips, his eyes go wide when you finally open your mouth and talk more about the topic at hand– just like he predicted. “Why are you telling me this?”

Your best friend swallows before he places the bag of chips back to its original place and turns his whole body so he’s facing you, speaking up again. “I was thinking that maybe, just maybe, you’d like to hang out with him. Like a date, before you ask– because I know you’re gonna ask– and why? – because, again, I know you’re gonna ask– because I simply think you should try to date again to get your mind off the loser you broke up with two months ago,” he says, blunt and honest, answering all of your unsaid questions at once, and before you know it, he has you snickering and shaking your head in disapproval.

“Absolutely not,” you retort, waving your hands in the air to only further show your disagreement with the proposition, “that would just be a massive catastrophe.”

“Why? Hyunsuk’s nice.”

“I didn’t say he isn’t, it’s just…”

“Just?” he probes you, eyebrows raised and questioning.

“I… don’t know,” you nervously chew on the inside of your cheek, aimlessly shrugging. “I just don’t think it’s a good idea, Jihoon.”

“Because of Mark?” he asks, and the moment his name escapes your best friend’s mouth, the whole room goes strangely quiet– you feel your heartbeat in your throat, the tips of your fingers start tingling and you swear that if you concentrate hard enough, you could feel a bead of sweat drip down your forehead with the incoming stress and nerves only the mention of your ex boyfriend brings you.

“No, that’s not it–”

“Sure,” he nods, sighing to himself– and there it is again, the judging look you so despise.

“You can’t just expect me to date other people a few weeks after my break up, Jihoon,” you exclaim, “that– that wouldn’t even be fair to your friend. You know I wouldn’t be invested,” you explain, and your friend rolls his eyes in frustration, sighing to himself.

“Oh but I know that! And Hyunsuk does too,” he shakes his head at you, “just thought the company of someone else could take your mind off things.”

“I have you,” you try.

“Yeah, but all we do when we’re together is mope about Mark Lee,” Jihoon snickers, “and don’t get me wrong, I’m more than open to bitch about your ex boyfriend and as your best friend, I don’t mind, but the fact that you’d be hanging out with someone else could take your mind off him, because you wouldn’t feel comfortable talking about him with someone else, y’know?”

You shut your eyes closed, a heavy sigh heaving out of your body as you try hard to concentrate and not lose it, and with how Jihoon’s tone gets softer and he’s not as loud with his brutal, yet logical advice, he must feel you getting overwhelmed and accommodates to your needs. “Look, it’s gonna be fun. I promise. Hang out with someone new, feel wanted and hot and pretty again, get some male attention that’s not your ex boyfriend, and you’ll see how it makes you feel. If you hate it, you hate it and you can slap me, I don’t know... If you don’t, you can keep dating around with my friends, and I swear I’ll hook you up only with the nice ones,” he takes your hand into his and waves it around in comfort, making you open your eyes and look at him again.

Seeing the softness and encouragement in your best friend’s eyes, you sigh to yourself. All this time, he’s tried to help you– what if you finally follow his advice? Who knows, it might even help.

Sighing, you squeeze his palm and hover over him to get the stranded bag of chips he’s guarding on the other side of the sofa. “Fine,” you mutter, “but let your friend know that he’s the one paying, okay?”

“Perfect. I'll text him your number, then.“

And maybe Jihoon was right and after dolling yourself up and dressing up in your favorite dress just so you would feel as comfortable as possible, you don’t feel as bad when his friend Hyunsuk picks you up in his white Volvo and chats with you on the way to the restaurant. He makes good small talk and even gets a giggle out of you, the music in his car is low and you find yourself slowly easing into the situation. You don’t remember when the last time you went out with a guy that wasn’t Mark was, but it’s surprisingly nice.

And Jihoon was right– you feel pretty. And when Hyunsuk opens the door for you after pulling up to the parking lot of the restaurant, you even feel wanted. You like the attention, just like any other girl would, and the smile you offer to your date seeps of tender shyness as you get out of the comfortable seat of his car.

The illusion, though, is soon broken as you notice the restaurant he pulled up to. Your smile freezes, your palms get sweaty and you feel your heartbeat rummaging against your ribcage as soon as the idle atmosphere of the restaurant opens up before you. And realistically, you could turn on your heel and get back to the car, tell Hyunsuk that you want to go to another restaurant– but you don’t do it, against your biggest wishes, because you worry that the boy already made a reservation and you don’t want to ruin an evening that’s going well so far.

“Everything alright?” your date checks up on you, seemingly noticing the frown on your face, and when his worried eyes meet yours, it’s sealed– you’d feel too bad for pulling out of the date now. So you only do what you always do best– you put on your best relaxed smile and nod, catching up to him and ensuring him that you’re all okay and you didn’t just talk yourself out of an anxiety attack.

Because you owe it to him and to Jihoon– both of them worked so hard to make you feel happy and help you to get over your ex boyfriend. It’s not Hyunsuk’s fault that he just managed to pick the restaurant your said ex boyfriend works at part-time. He had no way of knowing, and if you’re lucky enough, Mark wouldn’t be on today. He only works here part-time, it’s not like he’s here every day, and as far as you’re concerned, he only worked like two or three days a week when you dated. It would be a weird coincidence for him to be working the day you go there with your new date– you hope you’re not that unlucky.

Hyunsuk is a gentleman. Opening up doors for you, pulling out the chair for you, letting you talk and not interrupting you. He watches you with fond eyes and you almost try to feel bad for the fact that even if this ended well, the poor boy would just end up being a rebound. He deserves so much more, and you start to worry if this date was a good idea after all. Wasn’t it selfish of you to agree to this?

“What do you want to get?” he asks as you open up the menu, and you squint at the prices, mentally taking a note to order the cheapest thing just in case he wants to pay for you at the end of the evening.

“Spaghetti Bolognese,” you blurt out, despite it not being your favorite meal. Hyunsuk just stares at you with squinted eyes, but doesn’t disagree with you. After all, he has no way of knowing that you dislike the taste of the sauce in most restaurants– even though your conscience tells you that Mark knew that and always made sure to remind you about it before ordering for you, worried that you won’t get to eat much that evening– the only thing left to hope is that it tastes good in this particular place.

“Okay, sure,” he nods and puts the menu down, smiling at you before engaging in a comfortable conversation with you. It feels like you’ve known Hyunsuk forever– his personality oddly reminding you of Jihoon’s caused mainly by the fact that the two have grown up together. Everything flows soundly, but you still find yourself anxiously picking at your cuticles as you cautiously look around the restaurant, fearing the fact that you could catch a glimpse of your ex boyfriend at any second.

And maybe you should be a psychic, because those bad feelings were not there for nothing– when you see a waiter walking out of the back and eyeing your table, ready to get your order, the boy is a few inches taller than your current date, raven hair messy, but still a little styled, dark circles under the man’s eyes, and there he is– your ex boyfriend. Mark Lee halts in his movements, wearing his work uniform, eyes wide, a hint of something that breaks you at least in two mirroring in his orbs before he turns on his heel and disappears in the back again. When he doesn’t come back and his co-worker joins you and Hyunsuk at your table with a warm smile, you stop waiting to see the glimpse of him you selfishly desired to catch despite fearing the interaction the whole evening.

You want to fall through the floor and disappear in the depths of this earth. For some reason, you feel mortified. What would he think? And why do you even care about his feelings? A million different thoughts run through your brain and you worry that you’re being too distant from your current date, but Hyunsuk’s warm eyes reassure you that he doesn’t mind.

Piercing the food on your table with your eyes, you try to battle the noisy words running around your brain.

It’s easy to say you’re over someone when you don’t see them. To have them in front of you, meet their gaze and acknowledge their existence and still be able to nod and say that you’ve moved on, is something completely different.

Were you ever convinced that you were over Mark Lee in the first place, though?

After all of this– the months of following Jihoon’s advice, although making a few mishaps along the way as you continue to pick up Mark’s calls on Friday nights, snoop around his socials and let your mind wander to places it shouldn’t, overthinking everything and making you wish the relationship never ended in the first place– it’s time for the last step of it all. The last, most crucial part of this whole moving on process– the most important one, if you may.

Step five – avoid him at all costs.

Sounds easy, right? After the four previous steps, you’d already cried plenty about the lost months with your ex-boyfriend. You’d already given him back all of his stuff, not tying yourself to him with any material memory. You’d already gone on a date with someone new, choosing to distract yourself instead of letting yourself feel the emotions. After all the previous steps, this one’s supposed to be the easiest one. The one you’re supposed to want to do, after all. The break-up wasn’t messy, but it was still painful– it’s only natural for you to not want to see Mark ever again, right?

Wrong.

Because you never listen to the advice you’re given. That just wouldn’t be you, would it?

And so when Mark Lee calls you one day and tells you that he has a free train ticket to the Bukhansan stop, explaining that he was supposed to go hike there with Donghyuck who canceled on him last minute because of an assignment due midnight, you don’t really hesitate much before you shoot him a short text saying that you’re down and get ready for the short hike.

When you meet your ex boyfriend at the station, his figure slightly slouched up until the moment his eyes meet yours, you feel the quiet tension in the air. You’ve seen each other a few times before this meeting– on a party you went to with Jihoon, at the campus when you went to class one morning, your ex boyfriend walking you towards the Art building, hell, you’ve even met in the grocery store, all accidental and making your heart leap in your chest with tension. This time, though, you’re here completely intentionally, just to hang out with him, and something about the fact makes a dull pain shoot all through your intestines, a sensation so uncomfortable you try to hide with a tight-lipped smile.

“Ready for the hike?” he asks, adjusting the bag on his back, playing with the straps with clammy fingers. You can’t help but notice how he looks just like a little boy, in his little world, shielded from everything. He seems to have taken a protective stance, and you hate how the air between you shifted from how you two used to be when you were dating. Mark seems scared. Nervous. On top of his feet. Maybe you shouldn’t have agreed to this at all.

You’re already here, though. Turning around and leaving wouldn’t really work right now, as you take a step towards the train that’s just arrived, humming to your ex boyfriend in agreement. Taking a seat on the place Mark’s pointed to you on the train ticket, you try to loosen up your muscles and get as comfortable as you can, clearing your mind as you gaze outside of the window.

“How have you been?” he asks, clearing his throat.

Pressing your lips into a tight line, you turn to him as you search for an answer. “Better,” you nod, voice quiet. “You?”

Mark hums, chewing the inside of his cheek. “Good, good,” he lies through his teeth, “I’ve seen you at the restaurant the other day,” he hints, and you battle the sigh that’s begging to cut out of your throat. You don’t know where he’s going with the sentence. It’s not a question– only a proposition, barely even that– and you could ignore it with a nod of your head, you could pay it no mind as you see the bitterness in his gaze and the slightly self-conscious averting of his stare. You don’t know where he’s going with the conversation, but frankly, you don’t know where you are going with your answer either, as you shrug to him in a casual manner and peep under your breath.

“Yeah,” you say, “that was just… Jihoon’s friend from uni, I suppose,” you complete, and the sentence hints at nothing– it doesn’t clear out the confusion, it doesn’t outright say anything that could make Mark believe that it was just a casual hang-out with a friend, but still, you see the boy visibly relax as he nods to you and offers you a tight-lipped smile.

“Oh,” he hums, looking out of the window, past the profile of your face. The change in topic is sudden and sharp, but also welcome as he falls into a casual conversation with you, and suddenly, you’re reminded by the Mark you once knew– the guy you’ve once called not socially awkward, but so social that it’s awkward– as he talks to you about his day and rambles on about the weather. “It’s good that it won’t rain today, I bet the view will be nice.”

Locking your gaze with him for a brief second, you lick your lips and point your eyes towards the ground. It’s good that it won’t rain today, as opposed to last time you two went to the Bukhansan trail. You wonder if he remembers.

Before you have a chance to mention it– and in all reality, you won’t, no matter how bold you could be feeling at the moment– the train comes to a stop at your station and you hop out of the carriage, ready for the hike.

It’s easy to forget how messed up things have gotten between the two of you when you walk alongside with your ex boyfriend, laughing at his silly jokes and gasping at everything he shows to you with a pointed finger, finding yourself admiring the sound of his giggle when he spots a squirrel pass your path somewhere near the top of the hill. The trail is almost empty at this hour, since the two of you have decided to go in the late afternoon, and you find your soul to finally be at peace after so many weeks, you finally feel relaxed in the nature, one with the wind and the gentle sound of birds chirping lullying your running thoughts to a rest.

You realize that this is just what you needed all this time. You needed to get out and walk for some while, to tune out yourself and to accept the fact that you’re still here, for another day, and something about that is still a blessing. Watching the back of Mark’s head as he walks a step in front of you due to the narrowness of the trail in this area, you smile to yourself. It’s easy to forget just how much you were hurt by him when he heals your soul with such a simple gesture. It’s easy to forget you were hurt when he seemingly tries to put all the broken pieces back together, glue them to where they were in the first place, when things were easier and you both didn’t have so many things to worry about.

You reach the top just as the sun starts setting over the horizon, and there are only a few people scattered across the peak, sitting on their own picnic blankets and gazing into the distance. The hues of the sky paint the world in a different color, the oranges, pinks and muted purples playing with your heartstrings as you come to a halt and crouch down and feel the presence of another soul mirror your actions only a meter away to your right, his gaze glued to your side. The view is beautiful, but the feeling of being watched isn’t ignorable anymore, and so you turn to your companion and raise your eyebrows at him, wondering if he has something to say.

You don’t know how you’ll be able to come back to your life after this and pretend you still don’t want to spend every passing second with the man on your right. You don’t know how you’re supposed to ignore the ever so growing love for him– even though after being so disappointed with the past, the feelings should be decreasing, not doing the opposite– and frankly, you don’t even want to think of going back to the way it’s been for the past few months. And so you don’t– you allow yourself to indulge the moment, to ignore the pain that’s about to come, just so you could hold another beautiful memory to your heart and enjoy the moment before it hurts you to think of it tomorrow morning.

“It’s even more beautiful than the last time,” Mark hums, but his eyes never leave your figure– if you were still dating, you bet he’d come out with a cheesy line about how you’re prettier than the view, or something. “It didn’t rain this time around, thank god.”

Gazing at him, you shake your head in disbelief. Scoffing, you play with the grass between your fingers. “You remember that?”

“Yeah,” he hums, “I remember a lot of things.”

The sentence makes you bitterly chuckle. He knows why you’re reacting the way you are– and you have every right to. He claims to remember a lot of things, but the ones important to you, the ones you wanted him to remember, he failed to save into his memory. And that’s eventually what made you break up with him, at the end of it all.

At your reaction, he sighs and drags a hand across his face, seemingly realizing the weight of his own words and just how ridiculous he must have sounded to you right now.

“I- That-” he stutters, shaking his head, “that sounded stupid right now, considering… everything… Didn’t it?”

“Kind of,” you nod, not wanting to meet his eyes.

“I’m sorry,” he blurts out, voice suddenly raw and serious, so different to the tone he’s been using with you the whole afternoon, “I don’t- I can’t remember if I said that back then, when you- when you… broke up with me, but I really am sorry, Y/N. You didn’t deserve that, and I am in no way shape or form trying to make this about me, but I hate myself every day for the way things turned out and if I could go back to that day, I’d do so many things differently.”

The sky in front of you deepens in reds and you taste iron on your tongue, suddenly hyper-aware of the fact that you’ve managed to bite on your lip too hard in the midst of the conversation. Tearing out stems of grass with your clammy fingertips, you focus on the clouds running through the sky, calculating your next response.

“Okay,” you nod, not giving him much else. The answer perfectly encapsulates the way you feel on the inside right now– you don’t know if you’re ready to accept his apology, if you’re ready to let go of it and act like you weren’t hurt or that none of it ever happened, but you listened to him and you internalized his words. He is sorry. He knows he was in the wrong. And you were aware that he knew all of this before– hell, you’d even go as far as say he knew it the moment you knocked on his door that day and told him it was over– but hearing it from him surely moved something inside of you to a more comfortable place.

“I-” he starts, voice breaking making him clear his throat before he continues, “I don’t expect you to forgive me. And I know I shouldn’t have expected you to still be my friend after all of this, and that- I shouldn’t have even called you so many times and approached you at the store and stuff, but um-” he mumbles, shrugging to himself, “I guess I just couldn’t stay away from you. And again, I don’t expect you to forgive me, I don’t expect you to do anything, really. So… yeah…”

Snickering at his aimless monologue, you shake your head in disbelief. “Mark?”

“Yeah?” he stares at you, eyes a bottomless pool of emotion.

“Why did you invite me here today? What was the… point, I guess?” you ask, hugging your knees to your chest as the breeze makes goosebumps appear all over your body.

Mark offers you a sad smile, head leaned to his right as he shrugs, and this time, his eyes don’t leave yours as he spills the truth into the air. “I guess I was just feeling selfish today,” he hums, and the sentence makes you cringe with the memory of his first call to you after your break up, “wanted to spend time with you.”

“Here, of all places?”

“Yeah,” he nods, “told you. I was feeling selfish.”

Snickering, you look away, staring at the sky again. The colors are starting to blend together into a deep, dark purple– the horizon darkening as the sun starts to say its final goodbyes to the day. You sigh to yourself, yet feel no bitterness or terror at his words. Somehow, you understand. Somehow, you get him a little too well. Somehow, you think you knew the moment he texted you today, and somehow, you think you felt it in your bones when you didn’t say no, although you could have. There’s calmness in your soul when you nod at the implication of his words, leaning back on your elbows and plopping your bottom to the ground, sitting at the dusty surface.

“You said you didn’t expect anything out of me today, Mark.”

“And I don’t,” he says, voice soft.

“And you brought me here to remind me of the last time we went?” you stare at him, a hint of a bitten-back smile playing with your lips. “Because you’re selfish?”

He nods, not escaping your gaze. “To remind you of the last time we went. To show you that… I remember, I guess. And that I still care, just like the last time. If not more.”

“Mark, you can’t just say all of this and expect nothing out of me right now,” you mutter.

“Actually, I can. Because that’s what I’m doing. I’m just… laying it out in the open, and what you do with the information is completely, completely up to you,” he explains, and you find yourself chuckling at him, the atmosphere instantly lighter as you hear his voice in its usual casualness, talking to you as if he was just unpacking what went on in class today, and not the starting and the end of your one year relationship.

And he’s right. What you do with the information is completely up to you, and the next steps and the progress of your relationship with Mark Lee is also completely in your hands. You could turn away and never talk to him again, you could curse at him and tell him that it’s too late now and he missed his chance, but if that was the case, you wouldn’t be here in the first place. He wouldn’t be inviting you to this place, lying about his roommate canceling just to trick you into going, and you wouldn’t be blindly accepting the invitation, wanting to see where the afternoon brings you.

“So you still care about me?” you hum, looking at him from under your eyelashes, noticing his slouched-over pose as he looks back at you over his shoulder.

“Always have,” he admits, “never stopped. Despite not really… acting like it in the past few months.”

“Why’d you stop acting like it, then?” you ask.

A sigh escapes his lips, his head turning forward before he leans back and sits cross-legged on the ground, more comfortably now. Shrugging, he answers the question. “I guess I just got too caught up with different things. And don’t get me wrong, you were always my priority, always, but I was all over the place with everything and my mind just couldn’t… there were too many things to keep up with and I couldn’t stay up to date with everything,” he says, “and I know it’s not an excuse, but it’s an explanation, and it doesn’t make it better or undo the pain I’ve caused you, but it’s… at least you know it was never because I’d care about you any less.”

His eyes bear into yours with such honesty you think the weight of the world will crash on you any minute, and suddenly, the whole situation seems so much clearer.

And you wouldn’t take it back, you wouldn’t undo the breakup or do anything differently, because at the end of the day, you think it was needed. Perhaps the time apart was what he needed as a wake up call and what you needed to shield yourself from hurting more.

“Stop me from saying it if you… if you don’t want to hear it right now,” he hums, voice barely louder than a whisper. There seems to be a silent communication between the two of you, a connection of some sort that brings out the strange telepathy, but you just nod at him, a gentle smile playing with your lips as you understand exactly what he means, telling him that it’s okay and that you don’t mind– you welcome, you need to hear him say it again.

Licking his lips, he turns to you fully, facing you. There’s not a hint of nervousness in his body, having done this a lot of times before, and then it happens– the repeated confession, confirming what was there the whole time, never leaving even when the times were rough.

“I love you,” he says.

And isn’t that all that’s needed?

A year is a long time with someone. Somehow, you wouldn’t want the time to go to waste. At the end of the day, if love is still present, isn’t it worth trying? One more time?

“And you still don’t expect anything from me?” you ask, gazing at him softly. “You don’t expect me to say it back?”

“No,” he breathes out, shrugging. “I just needed to get it off my chest.”

“Because you’re selfish like that,” you nod, teasing him.

“Because I’m selfish like that,” he agrees, breaking out into a slight grin.

Looking at the sky, now completely dipped in dark purple, you sigh to yourself at the turmoil of the conversation. You don’t say it back– although you feel it, you know it’s in there, playing with your heartstrings and clenching the muscle in the palm of its hand– you know love is there, deep inside, for the man that’s currently staring at you as if you hung the very stars appearing on the sky there yourself, stolen them from your own eyes and gluing them there selflessly, for everyone to see. You don’t tell him you love him back, you don’t tell him you forgive him or accept his apology. You don’t worry about what tomorrow will bring you, what your brain is going to tell you when you come down from the hill and get home, lay in your bed and overthink. You let the worries escape you, letting fondness and calm envelope you in a tight hug instead.

“Okay,” you nod, watching the boy next to you look at you with curious eyes. You take his hand into yours and place it on your thigh, playing with his fingers for a heartbeat before you meet his eyes again and smile. “I won’t say it back, but for all it’s worth, Mark… I’m glad you remembered.”

And that’s all he needs– there is love, there is fondness, and there is the silent confirmation that all you need right now is just a bit more time.

Where do broken hearts go?

Somehow, you think they hold on to the place where it all started. Somehow, you think your heart never went anywhere– it stayed on this hill, waiting for you to pay it a visit and pick back up everything right from where you left it.

“It doesn’t seem like a good idea to go here today, Y/N,” Mark laughed behind you as he looked up to the sky, the dark clouds shielding the sun that had been previously shining down on your hiking figures, casting an orange glow on the strands of your hair.

“Well, there’s no turning back now,” you shrugged, turning to him and grinning as you tugged on his hand, grip strong as you dragged the boy up the trail, your sneakers fast against the dirty ground. “We have finals starting next week and it’s gonna be too cold to go after the exam season is over, so we gotta go now.”

“I kind of regret telling you that I’ve never been here before now,” Mark sighed, but followed you nonetheless, breathlessly following your excited stride. It was October, the leaves on the trees were welcoming the two of you in shining colors, and the wind kissing your skin turned a bit chilly in the evenings– courtesy of the warm hoodie Mark shyly lended you when you shivered for the first time, adoring the way you, his friend, looked in the light gray fabric. Something about you wearing his clothes made the boy a bit hopeless about the day. Maybe he’ll have enough courage to confess his feelings to you, he thought. Maybe, despite the first raindrops falling on the skin of his bare arms, this evening will have a happy ending for you and him.

“Oh, please,” you squinted at him, continuing to run up the hill– thank god it wasn’t that steep, serving both of you as the perfect hiking difficulty, “even if you wouldn’t have, I’d drag you here anyway. It’s like, my favorite place to go in Seoul, haven’t I told you before?”

You have, Mark thought. But he was okay with hearing it again.

You squealed when the raindrops got heavier and the rain started pouring faster on the two of you, and Mark found himself laughing at your running figure. He was right behind you, praying that you don’t slip on one of the rocks and break your leg on the hiking trail, but he encouraged you with sweet comments and a hand on the small of your back as he watched the tip of the hill appear right in front of his very eyes, your body coming to a satisfied halt when you reached your destination.

“Tada!” you grinned at him, twirling a little like a ballerina, showing him the place with outstretched arms. He tried hard to observe the place, but his eyes stayed glued to your excited figure, gaze bearing into yours as you looked at him, amidst a little flustered, with sparkly orbs and a bright smile on your face. Your hair was a mess, his gray hoodie enveloping your body was slowly growing darker in color from absorbing the rain, and your sneakers were getting a bit muddy from walking around the place. He wanted to remember this moment forever, he thought– this version of you, the smiley expression on your face, the carefree and excited nature of your step.

“Isn’t it beautiful?” you exclaimed, jumping around and nearing the boy, but as you went to take his hand to drag him around the top of the hill once more, your feet slipped and you fell forward, a surprised squeak battling its way out of your throat.

Your whole life flashed in front of your very eyes in that moment, embarrassment spreading down your neck at the fact that you were about to fall face first onto the ground in front of your crush of a few months, before your body collided with a soft, yet firm mass engulfing you closer. A pair of strong arms steadied you against his chest, and when you looked up at your friend, you swear all words were taken out of your dictionary, the sight leaving you speechless.

“It is,” he gaped, eyes bearing into yours. Mark was agreeing with you, but something in the back of your head was telling you that he didn’t really admire this place as much as you did– his curious gaze was always plastered somewhere completely else.

That place being your face, of course. And your eyes, your cheeks, the mess of your bangs, and occasionally– screw that, almost always– your lips. Much like in that moment, a few centimeters away from his face, so inviting he thought it would be a crime to contain the urge.

And so he didn’t– he didn’t control his feelings and the ever-so growing yearning for you, as he silently leaned towards your face and captured his lips with yours in a firm, yet short kiss.

He looked at you with a nervous tint behind his gaze when he leaned away, the sight of your wide eyes staring at him making a slight flush grow on his cheeks. You looked so beautiful in that moment– flustered, surprised, with messy hair and lips still apart– and he was relieved to not find a hint of a displeased emotion in your expression.

“Okay, so- well-” you stuttered, laughing to yourself, “this didn’t go as I planned, but I guess I’m happy as long as the final result is the same,” you hummed, standing on your tippy-toes and pressing your lips against him once more, this time letting yourself enjoy the moment fully, mouth moving against his in a careful, yet excited rhythm. He tasted like the strawberry candy you offered him on the bottom of the trail and smelled a bit like rain, the mixture always staying in the depths of your mind as his warmth enveloped you in comfort and a feeling of home.

“The final result being…?” he asked when you pulled apart once again, a dazed expression overtaking his sharp features.

“Us,” you shrugged, “like this,” you clarified.

Mark laughed at that, hugging you closer to his chest. You rested your head on his shoulder, listening to the sound of raindrops washing away the top layer of dirt off the rocks on the tip of the hill, hands sneaking around his waist and enjoying the way they wrapped around him so tightly and so comfortably. You in his hoodie, in your favorite place, standing in his arms. It was raining, but it didn’t matter.

“Mark?”

“Hm?”

“If we ever get lost, or something happens… bring me back here, okay?” you mumbled close to his ear, lips gently glazing the skin of his ear, making goosebumps appear all over your new lover. “I’m convinced that this place could fix everything.”

“Even us?”

“Don’t be ridiculous. You’re not allowed to ever leave me now, what would there be to fix between us?” you smacked his shoulder, snickering to yourself.

“You never know,” he laughed, “what if I accidentally mess up somewhere along the way?” he asked, threading his fingers through your hair, smoothing down the wet mess.

“Okay then,” you hummed, “even us.”

Staring into your eyes, letting the moment play out by itself, Mark swore he’s never felt more at peace. He wondered if it was the effect of the place, the rain, or just your sheer presence. “I’ll remember that,” he giggled before he let go of your body, petting your head as he took a hold of your hand, tugging you down from where you came from, “now let’s go home before we catch a cold.”

Nodding, following the man as you both carefully, yet fastly made it down the trail, you enjoyed the way his hand fit into yours and the way you knew that after this, you can’t ever come back to being friends with Mark Lee. He was all yours, completely, utterly yours, and you knew in the back of your head, that you were his– and nothing will ever change that.

You would always come back to the hill with him. It felt ridiculous to think about you two ever having to fix anything between the two of you back then, but even in that moment, you knew that for him, you’d keep trying. As long as he does– as long as he remembers.

Where do broken hearts go? You guess they always come right back to the place they come from– and they leave glued back together every single time.

You guess your heart never really left the hill.

1K notes · View notes

cynopcis · 1 year

Text

buy me coffee?

pairing: hq!atsumu x reader

Atsumus's eyes widen as he spots you through the window of the cafe you were supposed to meet at hours ago.

Classic atsumu, he forgot, again.

He frantically enters through the glass doors and removes his cap with shaky hands. he stands still in front of your table as you type in your laptop.

As he expected, you refuse to acknowledge his overwhelming presence, your eyes glued to your screen and your focus on him through your peripheral vision. in reality, ever since you saw his big coat briefly, you've already started typing incoherent sentences full of nonsense.

Atsumu sighs, he feels bad he does, he takes the seat in front of you and fiddles with the lid of one of the cups on your table. he takes note of its weight and how you probably ordered it for him, expecting him to come.

He tries to grab your hand but you slap it away. he flinches. you don't feel bad. he stares at you. you stare at him and sigh.

"We agreed to meet at 3:00 PM, as it was the time most agreeable for both of us, I'd be finished with classes for the day and you'd be finished with training, and you promised that you wouldn't do extra."

"I know, let me explain-"

"Shut up."

You sigh and pinch the bridge of your nose and type whatever on your laptop again. The screen is full of words made up of words stuck together to make incorrigible sentences. Somehow, it perfectly encapsulates the state that you are in at the moment.

click clack click

It takes you about 30 seconds to start talking again, Atsumu waits patiently, taking the hint that you want to express your frustrations first before hearing him out.

"My original goal was to finish this paper last night," you sigh, hitting the delete key multiple times, "but I decided that I'll finish it tomorrow since I wanted to look nice for once and not look like a walking zombie for today's date."

"You look incredible every day."

You ignore his flattery that tries to deescalate your bad mood, "And I made time because I really fucking miss you and I was actually going insane because of this stupid essay, and I spent half of my allowance on overpriced coffee for two but it went to waste because you didn't fucking show up."

"I can pay-"

You start keyboard smashing, "That's really not the point, atsumu."

click clack click

"The point is you have thrown me off the loop," your lips start to wobble, "I was supposed to finish this tomorrow but now I'm almost done with it AND we were supposed to have a nice date and take cute pictures but you decide to show up 5 hours later."

Corcodile tears start forming on your waterline. Alarmed, Atsumu stands up and kneels beside you, wiping away your tears with his handkerchief.

kendjwja delete sksjsjjajs delete owpwnsjriw delete disodbjwwj delete

"You didn't even text or call," you sniff, "didn't even inform me about this change of plans."

"I'm sorry baby," he takes your hand in his and rubs circles against your skin, "I've been so tired of training and helping Samu out in his shop that I lost track of the date and time. I know that's a shit excuse but that's what happened and all I can do now is make it up to you."

"But I'm tired too," you say softly, and it breaks his heart to see you slowly blinking, "but I still make time for you every day, I still squeeze you into my schedule. Stem is literally kicking my ass every day but I still do everything to compromise for you. Asshole."

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," he pulls you in for a hug and plants a kiss on the top of your head, "I'll do my best to make it up to you, I'm sorry for not being the best boyfriend ever."

"Well," you say through sniffles, "it's good that you're at least self-aware I guess."

Click clack click

"Mhm," Atsumu stops your hand, "Stop that you might delete something important."

"Will you stay with me until I finish this?" you aren't really asking.

"I'll stay with you until class tomorrow."

"You'll stay over?"

"If you'll have me."

You act like you're thinking about it for about five seconds. In reality, you can't help but forgive Atsumu way before he even arrived. Your brain came up with multiple excuses for him all the while you're heart was starting to hurt really badly. You just can't resist.

"Buy me a coffee?"

"Of course," he loosens his hold on you and kisses your cheek, "the usual?"

"Yes."

#i am not a coffee drinker but i've been consuming it like its water #stem girlies rise <3 #haikyuu #haikyuu x reader #hq atsumu #atsumu x reader #haikyuu fluff #haikyuu angst #atsumu angst #atsumu fluff

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teshamerkel · 2 months

Text

Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Seekers of Soul

[Chapter 54]

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AO3 Link

A mission with Team Evergreen.

Tobias wakes at dawn, his internal clock as sharp as ever despite the earthquake disrupting his night of sleep. They’re supposed to join Team Evergreen for a joint mission today, so Tobias shakes Nia awake rougher than he usually does, not wanting Andyn to hold poor punctuality over their heads the whole morning. Nia whines, somehow even more difficult to wake when she has a blanket to bury herself back under. Finally, Tobias just rips the covers off her curled body, and is almost impressed by the sleepy glare she gives him in return.

Eventually, Tobias manages to drag Nia to her paws and get the two of them get moving. They eat a quick breakfast of the berries they’d brought back from Maggie’s the day before as they head down the Lexym Tree, until they finally reach the bottom floor underground.

“Whoa,” Nia murmurs.

While this floor is pretty much always populated, Seekers clustered around the mission boards and moving out into the forest through the spiderweb of tunnels circling the room, it’s rarely this busy. A bustling crowd of Pokemon are moving in and out of the space, more Seekers than Tobias has seen active at once. Some of the higher-ranked teams, powerful and scarred and more often than not evolved, are trailing in with exhaustion on their faces, while the lower-rank teams are tagging out for their own missions in the Haven. Must be taking shifts on earthquake cleanup.

Verene and a few higher-rank guild members seem to be directing teams on where to head next, the mission board not yet updated with all of the information coming in from last night’s damages.

“Oh! Over there!” Nia says, pointing.

Tobias follows her gaze to where Ezra is waving them over, the sneasel’s claws just barely visible over the crowd. Tobias takes the lead and weaves through the throng of Pokemon until he and Nia finally reach Team Evergreen’s side.

“Good morning,” Jaz says. The little stufful looks unruffled as always by everything going on, giving them both a smile.

“Morning! Where’s Andyn?” Nia asks.

Ezra jerks a claw over his shoulder.

Tobias follows the gesture. The deerling is shoving her way through the crowd towards a servine who is doling out missions, a solosis at their side communicating information with its telepathy.

As Nia starts up a conversation with Ezra and Jaz, Tobias pushes his own way through the crowd until he’s at the deerling’s side.

“D-Rank team,” Andyn is saying. “Three members.”

“We’re doing a team-up mission, actually,” Tobias interrupts, glaring at Andyn and daring her to argue. “So five members.”

She doesn’t look happy to see Tobias, as usual, but she doesn’t contradict him.

“Species?”

“Deerling, sneasel, and stufful.”

“Charmander and riolu.”

The servine’s tongue flicks thoughtfully as they look down at the papers in their short, leafy hands. The solosis floats closer to murmur to them, and the servine nods and crosses something off their list.

“Most of the Haven has been attended to, so we’re starting to focus on the guild. One of the tunnels down here caved in after the quake. We need the next shift of hands to help remove the rubble.”

Tobias feels Andyn deflate at his side, and tries not to do the same.

“Cave cleanup?” Andyn asks, voice bordering on a whine. “Surely you could use us somewhere more important? We aren’t even ground types!”

“Ground types are handling the unstable areas out in the forest,” The servine says, raising a brow and looking a bit impatient.

Andyn straightens up immediately at the expression. “R-Right. Um. Which tunnel, then?”

The servine flicks their leafy tail towards one of the eastern tunnels, before gesturing for them to hurry out of the way for the next team.

Tobias gives Andyn a sour look once they step away. “You were really going to lie just to get out of working with us.”

Andyn scoffs, refusing to meet his eye, and marches back to their teammates. “I forgot, okay?”

“Sure.”

Ezra and Jaz are unphased by Andyn’s mood or her news that they’ll be on cave cleanup. Nia, too, just seems happy to spend some time with her friends. Tobias resigns himself to the job and prepares for a long day of monotonous, tiring work and an evening of picking dirt out from under his claws.

When they head into the tunnel they were directed to, it almost seems like nothing is wrong. The rounded, grooved walls appear sturdy as usual, the blue stones jutting from the earth intact and glowing softly.

It’s as they move deeper that the damage and cleanup effort becomes more obvious. Temporary torches line the walls to offer more light, warming up the unusual darkness of the tunnel. The walls themselves are no longer smoothed, instead a lumpy patchwork of soil as if they had to be hastily molded anew after the earthquake. Hard dirt and rubble is scattered across the floor, not yet cleaned up or tamped down by footsteps. The blue stones that usually grow from the walls and ceiling are largely destroyed, mixed in among the soil in broken, dull shards. As they walk even deeper, five sets of footsteps absorbed by the earth, brackets of wood start to appear too, lining the tunnel walls like ribs. Probably helping to add stability as they excavate, if Tobias had to guess.

Tobias registers the quiet murmur of conversation right before they finally reach the worksite. The tunnel, as expected, is blocked by fallen rocks and soil, a mountain at least three times Tobias’ height. A large cart sits heavy on its wheels nearby, a ramp leading up to its bed and a couple of metal buckets sitting around its base. More torches are jammed into the ground around the area to provide extra light, especially without the usual blue glow of the gemstones available.

Two huge Pokemon are gesturing at the cave-in as they talk. The largest is a stout, familiar-looking hippowdon, her dark gray hide nearly blending in with the darkness. The other is a tall Pokemon, its head resting atop thin but powerful tentacles—a toedscruel.

Nia steps closer, grabbing Tobias’ arm to whisper, “Tobias, we met her the first day I came to the guild! The hippo. Um. Alana, I think?”

“Abana,” Jaz corrects in a whisper of her own. “She’s typically a tunnel guard.”

The hippowdon’s little ears flick, and the conversation between the two large Pokemon cuts off as they turn to look at the newcomers.

“Guessing you’re the next batch of hands, then?” The toedscruel asks, his voice gravelly.

“Looks like it,” Abana says, moving closer with steps heavy enough to rumble the ground beneath them. Her gaze moves over each of them, then pauses on Nia.

Nia gives her a shy, hopeful wave.

“Little riolu!” The hippowdon crows, giving a big, blocky smile. “Been a while since I’ve seen you around! I was wondering if you were still at the guild. You a Seeker now?”

“Y-Yes, ma’am! It’s good to see you again.”

The hippowdon chuckles. “You as well, little one. Happy to say I recognize everyone else here, too! At least a bit. You two are Maggie’s boy and Idris and Brielle’s daughter, right?”

Tobias straightens up and nods, flushing. It feels strange, to hear others so confidently call him Maggie’s when he wasn’t nearly as certain about it until recently. But it’s…nice, too. And at least Abana doesn’t already seem to hate him like a lot of the guild does. He hasn’t ran into her much over the years.

Andyn straightens too, chest puffing with pride. “That’s right, ma’am! Ready to make them proud.”

Abana laughs, and the sound is loud in the small space of the tunnel. “Good to hear! Don’t worry, we’ll certainly put you to work. Last group left just a bit ago all tuckered out. Let’s see if we can keep you going until noon.”

Ezra salutes the hippowdon. Nia, after a panicked glance at the sneasel, does the same. Tobias snorts.

“Listen up. Here’s how this goes,” The toedscruel says, crossing one tentacle over the other. “I’m Conifer and this is Abana. We’ll be doing the digging itself to make sure the tunnel stays stable. You all are on cleanup duty.”

Andyn’s ear flicks, but she doesn’t interrupt.

The toedscruel turns to point to the top of the cave-in, where there’s a black gap of space between the rubble and the ceiling. “We’re using a benching method. We dig out the top layer first to gauge the stability of the tunnel and what materials we’re working with, then go back to dig out the layers underneath.”

“But all you five gotta worry about is moving that spoil.” Abana nods to the bottom of the heap, where broken chunks of stone and soil taper off. “Over to that cart as we work.”

Tobias follows the hippowdon’s gaze over to the large cart against the wall, humming his assent. Not exciting work, but easy enough to understand.

Andyn takes a step forward. Her voice is respectful and chipper on the surface, but Tobias can hear something more strained running underneath. “That’s it? I—we can really help more with the digging itself, if you'd like! Surely we’d be more useful actually helping out.”

“You’ll be more useful unburied,” Conifer grumbles. “If you don’t want to do the work we need done, go complain to whoever sent you down here.”

Andyn hesitates, glancing back at each of them. Her gaze lingers on Tobias, as if hoping that he'll join her in throwing a fit. He raises a brow, unimpressed.

“No,” Andyn says, stepping back. “We’ve got it.”

And with that, they get to work.

Andyn and Ezra are stationed atop the tumble of earth itself. They work on jabbing away at the discarded rock and soil with their hooves and claws, breaking it up until it’s small and loose enough to be scooped into the provided buckets. The buckets are almost as big as Jaz, so the stufful’s job is just to fill them with her blunt paws before scooting them behind her for the next ‘mon to grab. Tobias and Nia are put in charge of carrying the filled buckets up the ramp to dump into the cart before returning the empty containers to the stufful’s side. Then the cycle repeats.

“What happens when we fill up the whole cart?” Ezra asks, pausing in his digging to look over his shoulder.

Tobias grunts as he picks up his second bucket of soil—almost half his size and just as heavy. They are going to be so sore after today. “Dunno.”

“A psychic Pokemon will come grab the cart to empty outside when it’s full,” Conifer says distractedly from where he’s monitoring the hollow shelf above the cave-in.

Abana, who had squeezed inside the gap, is nowhere to be seen. Dirt and rocks occasionally come spraying out of the opening to tumble down to Andyn and Ezra, though, so she must be digging.

Tobias can’t walk normally with the heavy bucket in his arms, so he waddles carefully up the ramp to dump its contents onto the empty bed of the cart. A thin layer of dirt and rocks spill over the floorboards, wood grain still clearly visible through the soil.

Nia’s footfalls, heavier than usual, plod up the wooden ramp behind Tobias. She overturns her own bucket and watches the dirt scatter across the wood, looking just as disheartened as he feels by how little it actually seems to add. Tobias bites back a sigh and turns to go back to the pile, where Jaz is already scooping rock and dirt into a third bucket.

Grab bucket. Carry up ramp. Dump. Ignore how quickly his muscles are starting to burn. Repeat.

Nia sets down her bucket after the next drop and shakes out her arms, looking between the cart and the mountain of earth with her ears low. “We’re supposed to do this for six hours?”

“I’m sure we can take breaks to rest and get water,” Jaz soothes, nudging the next filled bucket towards them. “The guild wouldn’t want us to hurt ourselves.”

“Correct,” Conifer rumbles, making Nia jump. “We will call for breaks, but take a breather if you need one. You are here to work, not injure yourself.”

That’s good at least, but it doesn’t make the work any less grueling.

“Why do we keep ending up in tunnels, anyways?” Tobias growls, more to himself than anything, as he grabs another bucketful to carry to the cart.

“The Asra mines were kind of your fault, to be fair,” Nia says as she approaches, then pauses. “Actually, you picked out the tropius mission too, didn’t you?”

“Yeah, yeah. It was a rhetorical question,” Tobias grumbles, flicking her leg with his tail as he passes. Nia laughs, but doesn’t push the point.

The process from there is long, monotonous, and most of all exhausting. Dig, scoop, carry, dump, repeat.

Dig.

Scoop.

Carry.

Dump.

Repeat.

Tobias is steaming with sweat and his shoulders and arms are burning within the hour. From the way Nia’s playful comments and Ezra’s lighthearted chatter die down to wordless, heavy breathing, they must be feeling the strain as well.

Abana and Conifer take turns digging out the shelf and then the earth underneath, stopping to discuss the process in quiet voices between each switch. Well, until—

“Seekers,” Conifer suddenly says, startling everyone. “Take a break.”

Tobias blinks, looking between the endless mountain of soil and the barely filled cart. It doesn’t look like it’s time for a break, much as his body would appreciate one.

The toedscruel waves a dismissive tentacle. “Go on. One of you grab water for the rest of the group. Rest up for a bit, then get back to it.”

Andyn grunts, then immediately jabs away at the soil with renewed vigor.

Ezra sighs. “Anne.”

“You take a break,” Andyn huffs. “I’m fine.”

Tobias rolls his eyes. What exactly does she think she’s proving by being a stubborn brat?

One of Conifer’s yellow tentacles reaches over to wrap around the deerling’s middle. She yelps as she’s plucked from the dirt and placed down closer to the cart.

“Rest,” Conifer says with a sharp look. “Or you will burn out too quickly. That’s an order.”

Andyn ducks her head in what could be an agreeable bow, if Tobias couldn’t see her annoyed expression from his angle.

The deerling reluctantly follows Conifer’s command, though, and soon enough the two teams are sitting around the cart to rest. Jaz had put up the world’s politest fight so she could be the one to go get the canteen of water and some hydration fruit, citing that she was doing the least physically demanding labor. Other than a token protest from Nia, no one had argued, too exhausted to move.

Tobias stretches out his arms and shoulders while they wait for the stufful to return. One arm over the other, then switch.

“I hope everyone in the forest is okay,” Nia murmurs, stretching out her legs. “They would’ve sent someone to check on Hadley, right? A-And the other families we’ve helped?”

Tobias frowns. “Where did that come from?”

Nia shrugs, concerned expression staying put. “I mean…the quake wasn’t too bad here, but I’m just worried about everyone else. There are a lot of Pokemon living in the Haven. How do the Seekers know they checked on everyone who needs help?”

Tobias honestly hasn’t given it much thought. He’s always just assumed that the upper-level Seekers know what they’re doing. Although now that Nia has put the idea in his head, he can’t help thinking about all of the Pokemon he has met in the Haven over the years. Even just the ones he’s interacted with recently, partnered with Nia.

That tropius mother and her lost calf. The teddiursa who got caught in the nearby dungeon, and their roselia friend who was so desperate to save them. The elderly gloom they escorted across the Haven to her sister’s house. The caves they cleaned out for that pancham and her cubs. The torterra and turtwig family they delivered medicine to. Hadley, infuriating as the golisopod is. All of the Pokemon Tobias has met when traveling with Maggie and giving out herbs over the years. Hundreds of Pokemon.

“Yeah,” Tobias says, uncomfortable with the weight of so many lives on his mind. “But the guild said they already sent out Pokemon to make sure the civilians are all right. They must have some kind of system set up so they don’t miss anyone. August knows what he’s doing. We just need to do what we can here.”

“I guess you’re right,” Nia sighs, though she doesn’t sound convinced.

Jaz returns shortly after that conversation, stumbling under the uneven bulk of the canteen and hydration berries strapped to her back.

“Let one of us get the water next time,” Ezra snickers as he moves to help his teammate. “This thing’s bigger than you are.”

Jaz huffs an unamused noise and flops to the dirt while Nia unstraps the items, handing Tobias the berries for him to eat. He immediately pops one into his mouth and savors the juicy burst of sweetness as the others pass around the water canteen, taking long gulps to rehydrate.

All too soon, though, it’s time to get back to work.

Dig.

Scoop.

Carry.

Dump.

Repeat.

It isn’t difficult work, really, at least mentally. Hardly any thinking required. But that almost makes it worse, in Tobias’ opinion, having nothing to keep his mind busy as his body toils. Nothing to focus on but the growing fatigue in his muscles and the boredom in his brain.

Tobias is relieved when Nia speaks up as they wait for Jaz to finish scooping the next bucket. The riolu must be tiring too, but her ruby eyes are curious as she peers past Abana, to where Conifer is squeezed into the hollow above the mountain of soil and shoveling dirt down to Andyn and Ezra.

“Hey, Abana?”

The hippowdon hums, the noise a deep vibration Tobias can feel in the soles of his feet.

“Do all of the guild’s tunnels go out into the forest? Or do some of them go somewhere else?”

“Just to the forest around the Haven. Why do you ask?”

“Well…if that’s the case, why do we even have—” Nia cuts herself off, as if finding her own phrasing too rude. But then she continues, more carefully, “Why does the guild have a tunnel system in the first place? Wouldn’t a front door at the base of the tree work better?”

“It would certainly make it easier without the tunnels, wouldn’t it?” Abana chuckles. “They were originally made as a form of defense for the guild, but they do feel a bit silly nowadays.”

“Defense?” Ezra asks, pausing his digging. His feathery ear—usually a bright red hue—is dull from dust and dirt. “Defense from what?”

“The world hasn’t always been as friendly as it is nowadays,” Abana says. “When the guilds were first created, there were enough folks against the idea that they had to make sure the Tree was secure against any attacks.”

Jaz shoves the next bucket of dirt behind her. Nia grabs it, grunting as she takes small steps towards the cart. Over her shoulder, she says, “Why wouldn’t people want the guilds around? They’ve always been about helping out, right?”

“Mhm. But having the authority to say what is right and what is wrong—and the ability to dole out punishment accordingly—is a lot of power. Some ‘mon worried that those in such a position would abuse that power.”

“August would never do that!” Nia says, stopping in the middle of the ramp to give Abana an offended expression.

Abana laughs. “Agreed! But August is not the only Pokemon in the world willing to become guildmaster.”

“Still,” Nia says, frowning as she dumps the dirt bucket. “People trust the guilds. I can’t imagine what kind of jerk would take advantage of that.”

“That’s because you’re a sweetheart,” Ezra calls lightly, still digging.

Nia eeps with embarrassment, nearly tripping off the ramp. Tobias snorts a laugh as he picks up his own bucket and moves her way.

“And naïve,” Conifer grunts, head poking out from the shelf of dirt. He shakes some soil loose from his tentacles and squeezes out into the open again. “Even today, there are some guildmasters I refuse to work under.”

That has Tobias’ interest piqued, and seemingly the others’ as well, by how their ears perk. “Which ones?”

“I’m not at liberty to say.”

“Why’d you even bring it up, then?” Tobias mumbles as he climbs the ramp and dumps his own bucket. The wooden cart is filled with a thick layer of soil and rock by now, but it’s still only a fourth or so of the way full. How long have they been at it just to make this tiny dent? Two hours? Three?

There’s the quiet shifting of soil behind him, and when Tobias glances back, Abana is vanishing again into the hollow above the cave-in. Must be her turn to dig.

“So just to clarify,” Jaz says. “The tunnels were made to keep the entrances to the Lexym Tree hidden, so that Pokemon who were against the guild couldn’t easily attack?”

“Most of them, yes.”

Tobias stops as he reaches the bottom of the ramp. Most of them?

“Most of them?” Nia echoes.

Conifer, adjusting something on one of the brackets holding up the walls, says, “There are more tunnels deeper down, but they are not easily reached, wrapped in the Tree’s roots as they are. They're surrounded by a wall too thick to dig through without risk of damaging the Tree itself.”

“What were those tunnels used for?” Jaz asks, scooping dirt into Nia’s bucket and kicking everyone back into motion.

Conifer pauses to look over at the group of them, hanging on to his every word in their boredom. He sighs. “I asked one of the older diggers about it once, and he said they used to be storage bunkers before they became too inconvenient to access. They haven’t been used in decades, at least.”

“Huh,” Nia says, crouched by Jaz and helping scoop errant soil into her bucket. “Wonder what they kept down there?”

“Treasure?” Ezra suggests, glancing over his shoulder with a toothy grin.

“Don’t be dumb,” Andyn grumbles, speaking up for the first time in a while. “Probably just supplies or something.”

“Aw, you’re no fun.”

“We aren’t supposed to be having fun,” Andyn retorts.

Even Tobias rolls his eyes at that, and he knows he’s a stick in the mud.

Conversation trails off again, dampened by Andyn’s comment and their own exhaustion.

Dig.

Scoop.

Carry.

Dump.

Repeat.

Tobias isn’t sure how much time passes before they’re instructed to take a break again. They still have some water and berries left, so no one is tasked with going to grab more from the cafeteria floor.

Tobias flops onto the ground and shoves a berry into his mouth, staring up at the ceiling where a few fragments of blue crystals are still wedged into the soil, glowing faintly. Nia lies down near him, for once a normal distance apart and not leeching his warmth. Ezra and Jaz join the two of them on their own backs a moment later. It’s quieter than their first break as they all try to catch their breath. Tobias flexes his tired, cramping fingers and arms.

“What kind of gemstones are those?” Nia eventually asks, also staring up at the ceiling. “I’ve been meaning to ask.”

“The tunnel crystals?” Jaz asks.

“Yeah! They’re so pretty. Do you know what they are?”

“Can’t be any form of evolutionary stone,” Ezra says. “Would’ve been mined out of here in a heartbeat.”

"Really?" Andyn scoffs. Tobias notices for the first time that she’s the only one still standing, shifting on her hooves impatiently and watching Abana and Conifer work. “It's not like evolutionary stones are worth all that much when we can't evolve anymore.”

“Before that, Anne.”

For a moment, Tobias considers that they could be the stones used to make damp rocks, which extend the use of rain dance. The caves beneath Asra had been lined with the crystals to make smooth rocks and heat rocks, after all. But the Lexym Guild hasn’t ever been a particularly rainy place. No more than anywhere else, at least.

Nia sighs. “We should’ve asked Carnelian. I bet he would’ve loved looking at these.”

“Carnelian?” Ezra asks.

Nia sits up to meet the sneasel’s eyes. “Yeah! He’s a researcher we met on the way back from Shivergleam! Apparently he was called in to look at some weird stones at the base of the mountains north of here.”

“The Silenfroar range?” Jaz asks.

“Yup! I bet he’d know what these are.”

“Does it matter what they are?” Andyn cuts in, voice sharp. She’s now pacing lightly back and forth.

Conversation stops as everyone watches her.

Out of the corner of his eye, Tobias sees Nia’s ears lower, just a bit. “Oh. I mean…I guess not, no, but…”

“It’d be fun to know, right?” Jaz says.

Andyn doesn’t answer.

Tobias sits up to glare at the deerling, half-wishing she’d notice and pick a fight so he had an excuse to battle. Just because Andyn is in a mood doesn’t mean she can take it out on Nia and the others. Is this all because she isn’t happy with their mission today? Tobias isn’t exactly thrilled about it either, but you don’t see him throwing a fit about it.

Abana calls them back over to work soon after, and Tobias channels his irritation into dumping his heavy bucket of dirt with a bit more force than necessary.

Dig.

Scoop.

Carry.

Dump.

Repeat.

It’s quiet as they work. Just the soft shift of dirt and the occasional louder sound of hooves and claws chipping away at stone. Measured, raspy breaths and wood-heavy footsteps. Normally Nia—and probably Ezra, too, if Tobias had to guess—would never be silent for so long, but the work keeps them busy.

It’s almost too quiet, until Andyn speaks up.

“Why don’t we just use attacks to clear this out?” She pants. “My bullet seed could—"

“No moves,” Abana says, voice hard.

Andyn clamps her mouth shut. Everyone stops to give the hippowdon their full attention.

“This tunnel is unstable right now,” Abana says, meeting Andyn’s gaze until the deerling looks away. “Careless attacks will bring the whole cave down on top of us.”

“And then we will have to dig you out, and redo all of our hard work,” Conifer calls from within the shelf. “If you even survive the initial collapse.”

“That makes sense for us,” Ezra says, wiping some dirt from his cheek. “But you’re ground types, right? Couldn’t you just dig this tunnel out real quick with some of your moves?”

Abana gives the sneasel an amused look. “Can you perfectly control an avalanche, little flurry? Mold it to form a castle of ice and snow with a flick of your claw?”

Ezra tilts his head. “Oh. No, I definitely can’t do that.”

“The earth is similar,” Abana says. She scoops a divot out of the hard dirt as easily as swiping aside snow. “We could dig through it on our own in minutes, but if we want the tunnels to stand strong on their own even when we aren’t here, we must build them up more carefully than that. They must stand under their own weight without relying on our powers.”

There’s a moment of quiet as they all digest those words.

“This is the only tunnel that caved in, right?” Jaz asks. “So they must be pretty stable.”

Abana nods, red eyes trained on the gap where more dirt rains from Conifer’s digging. “This tunnel is used less often than the others so it didn't get checked as regularly. We’ll monitor it closer from now on to make sure it can withstand future quakes.”

Tobias frowns as he sets his empty bucket down in front of Jaz. He doesn’t like the way Abana said that—like future quakes are a certainty and not just a potential thing. Although with the increase in natural disasters, he guesses it makes sense that she wants to be prepared.

Everyone else must pick up on Abana’s implication too, because the silence that falls over the group feels heavier than it did before.

Dig.

Scoop.

Carry.

Dump.

Repeat.

They have to have been working for more than four hours at this point. Tobias’ arms, shoulders, and back are screaming at him, pained from the constant lift and carry of a bucket almost as heavy as he is. He notices Nia and Jaz slowing down as they lose steam, and more than once Nia trips over her own paws and has to right herself.

Tobias feels like he’s been rolling around in the desert, gritty soil coating his scales and crusting under his claws. Even with his job having the least hands-on contact with the dirt, he swears he’s tasting the stuff. The only reason Tobias hasn’t complained much—out loud, at least—is because he knows he needs to save his breath.

Andyn doesn’t seem to have the same reservations. Tobias can hear her occasionally cursing under her breath as she works on loosening the soil with Ezra. She hasn’t slowed down at all, still as fervent as she was hours earlier. It’d be admirable if Tobias wasn’t still irked at her for her earlier attitude.

Ezra had initially been snickering at some of her comments, but at some point that had stopped. Tobias doesn’t think anything of that shift until he hears the sneasel whisper something to Andyn with a concerned note in his voice. Jaz, who had been refilling Tobias’ bucket with soil, pauses and looks up at their leader as well.

“No, I’m not okay,” Andyn snaps, louder than her partner. “We should be doing something more important than digging out stupid tunnels, Ez!”

Tobias snorts. “Well we’re not, so get over it.”

Andyn whirls around, barely keeping her footing on the shifting soil. “Oh, you shut it!”

“Whoa, Anne—”

“O-Okay, maybe we should—”

Tobias curls his lip and takes a step forward, flexing his claws. “No, let her talk.”

“We are not starting a fight here,” Jaz says, stepping in front of Tobias. He glares down at the stufful, expecting her to falter, but she holds his gaze with a firm stare. Her striped tail twitches to Tobias’ left. Tobias follows the movement and glances at Conifer, whose narrowed gaze has switched from Abana’s digging over to them. Watching.

Tobias growls, backing up a step. He is not going to get in trouble just because of this stupid deerling’s attitude problem.

“Andyn,” Jaz soothes, turning around to look up at her teammate. “Deep breath.”

“No! We’re better than this, Jaz!” Andyn says, voice bordering on a shout. “Cleanup duty? That looks like a punishment!”

The deerling sounds angry, but as Tobias looks at her face, he thinks she looks…scared, almost. Brown eyes wide, a noticeable tremble to her mouth even from a distance away. Against his will, some of Tobias’ own fury drains away.

Huh.

“Andyn,” Jaz says, voice firmer than Tobias has ever heard it. “Breathe.”

Ezra steps closer to the deerling and lays a paw on her shoulder, taking an exaggerated breath. Andyn’s expression melts into something a bit more grounded at his touch, annoyance showing through instead of fear. Reluctantly, she shuts her eyes and takes a shaky breath. Then another. And another.

When Andyn has breathed for a minute, tense stance a bit more relaxed, Jaz says, “Good. Go get the next round of water for everyone, please.”

Andyn’s eyes open, dismayed. “But—"

“Andyn,” Jaz says, unyielding.

The deerling frowns down at the stufful for a moment. Two. Then she spots Conifer still watching the whole scene silently, and stiffens. Immediately, she shrugs Ezra off and springs lightly down the pile of rock and soil, slipping past Tobias, Nia and Jaz. Back down the tunnel and towards the guild.

In the silence that follows, Ezra and Jaz glance first at Conifer, who has remained pointedly silent, and then at Nia and Tobias. Ezra almost looks embarrassed, while Jaz just looks…tired.

“Is she all right?” Nia asks, paws wringing nervously.

“Yes,” Jaz sighs. “Just give her a bit.”

Tobias and Nia exchange a doubtful look, but hesitantly get back to work as Ezra and Jaz start digging and scooping as if nothing had even happened. Still, the quiet left in Andyn’s wake is somehow even more stifling than before. Tobias is just glad that Conifer didn’t say anything about the deerling’s little freakout—as much as Tobias doesn’t like her, even he doesn’t want to deal with that secondhand embarrassment.

With Andyn gone and only one ‘mon loosening the soil, unfortunately the work moves twice as slowly as it did before. So slowly that Tobias and Nia are forced to sit and wait minutes at a time for Ezra to break down the rocks and clumps of dirt enough to pass along to Jaz. While the break should feel nice, Tobias is instead annoyed with the delay in progress. Eventually, he stands and puts his bucket aside with a quiet clang.

Nia, who had also been waiting at Jaz’s side and helping her scoop, turns to him. “Tobias?”

“I’m switching for a bit,” He mumbles, moving past them and scrambling his way up the pile of soil to Ezra’s side. The dirt beneath him shifts and gives under his feet, making his ascent much less dignified than he’d like. Still, Ezra needs help in order to pick up the pace. And Tobias wants to talk to him anyways, away from Conifer and Nia’s ears.

“Oh, hey,” Ezra says, blinking at Tobias. A hesitant grin crosses his face. “Couldn’t resist the most glamorous part of the job, huh?”

Tobias snorts. “Hardly.” He immediately gets to work breaking up the soil and rock in front of him with his claws before sending it farther down the pile to Jaz and Nia. “You were being too slow. And I have a question for you.”

Ezra resumes his own digging, ears angled Tobias’ way. “Well, you’ve got me! What’s up?”

Tobias works silently for a few moments, unsure of how to start. He’d been trained on this area a little bit, apprenticed under Maggie and living in such close quarters to Fen up on the medical floor. But it’s not exactly a comfortable question. Tobias would prefer to ask Andyn directly, but he has a feeling she wouldn’t tell him the truth regardless. And Ezra would likely know.

“Andyn,” Tobias starts, hesitant. “She seemed…panicked, earlier. During her little yelling fit.”

Ezra stops digging, visibly surprised. “You noticed that?”

“I’m not blind.”

Ezra is quiet for a long moment, before he goes back to digging. “No, I guess you’re not.”

Tobias narrows his eyes at the careful non-answer. “Does this have anything to do with what you mentioned yesterday in our quarters? About her parents having high expectations?”

Ezra winces. “…Yeah. Don’t tell her I told you, but uh. She’s freaking out a bit about what her parents will think of us taking this job.”

So Tobias guessed right. He frowns, digging harder into the rocky soil to break it up into smaller chunks. “Her parents don’t hurt her, right?”

“What?” Ezra’s head snaps up. “No! Arceus, no, nothing like that. They’re just…they have really high expectations. Too high. And they kind of…ignore Andyn for a while, if she does something they don’t like. Like taking on a cave cleanup mission instead of something more, uh. Flashy.”

Tobias’ own digging stops so he can stare at Ezra, almost in disbelief. Maggie would never ignore him or Nia to punish them for a mistake, let alone for the crime of…doing their job?

“Yeah,” Ezra agrees with a weak laugh. “Her parents are harsh. But their opinions mean everything to her. Jaz and I have tried to tell her before how messed up it is when they ignore her like that, but she refuses hear it.”

“Stubborn,” Tobias says without thinking.

Ezra’s eyes twinkle at him, as if to say, You’re one to talk, before his smile drops and he turns back to their work. Tobias follows his lead. “We try to tell her she’s more than what she achieves or what she can do, but it’s…hard. She’s almost tougher on herself than they are. I honestly don’t know if she could handle it if we ever failed a mission.”

“Maybe it would do her some good to fail,” Tobias mutters. Everything he’s learned since becoming a Seeker seems to have come from him messing up in one way or another, so. It could be good for her to see that she can fail and the world won’t end. Stupid parents’ opinions aside.

Tobias wishes the consequences of he and Nia’s responsibilities were so small-scale.

Tobias shoves that bitter thought aside. It’s not Andyn’s fault that Tobias and Nia have been saddled with the impossibly large task of saving the world. Just because their problem is so big doesn’t mean that Andyn’s family situation isn't terrible, too.

Tobias had been worried that Ezra would chatter endlessly when Tobias joined him in digging, since he’s a new and exciting target to prod at, but the sneasel is blessedly quiet after their little conversation. They work side-by-side on their own portions of the soil, save for Ezra occasionally taking over on a particularly difficult chunk of rock to break apart. Sharp as Tobias’ talons are—or were, before he dulled them on all this dirt—they’re still no match for a sneasel’s massive claws.

Tobias works with the dark-type until Jaz and Nia have more than their work cut out for them below. Then he huffs and sits back, wiping a wisp of steam from his brow.

Ezra spares him a glance. “Break time?”

“Moving back to bucket duty,” Tobias answers, already turning and sliding back down to the ground.

“Actually, it's a good time for a break,” Abana says from above them, shuffling her way out of the hole she’s been digging in. Her huge head blocks the opening entirely, and Tobias isn’t actually sure how she manages to squeeze in and out of there.

“Thank goodness,” Nia groans, stumbling back against the cart and sliding to the ground. “I’m ready to drop.”

Tobias goes to stand at her side, leaning against the cart himself. He looks down at the top of Nia’s head and has the incredibly strong urge to flick one of her ears. He stuffs the impulse down as Ezra and Jaz trudge over to join them.

“Guess Anne’s not back with the water yet,” Ezra sighs, flopping down.

“Should someone go check on her?” Nia asks, clearly worried.

“Nah, let her work off some steam,” Ezra says, waving away her concerns. “She’ll be back soon.”

“After dumping her part of the work on you,” Tobias grumbles.

“Yeah, but that just means I got to work beside my new best buddy,” Ezra says with a cheeky grin. “A real warm and fuzzy fellow. Gotta love him.”

Tobias wants to flick the sneasel’s ear too, but much more violently. Too bad he’s out of reach.

After that, Jaz and Nia chat for a bit, still trying to figure out what kind of stones line the tunnels and who they could ask to find out. Ezra is lying on his back like a staryu, eyes closed, and Tobias could almost believe he was asleep if not for how his ears angle to catch the girls’ conversation.

Tobias feels his own restlessness build the longer they wait for Andyn to return, until it’s tinged with irritation. Distraught or not over her parents’ judgement, the deerling was sent out to get them water. Tobias’ throat is bone-dry and he’s sure the others are thirsty, too. Soon enough they’ll be called back to work.

“I’ll be back,” Tobias says, pushing off the cart.

Nia blinks up at him. “Where’re you going?”

“I’m gonna drag that little twig back here with our drinks.”

“What?” Nia scrambles to her paws. “Tobias, I don’t think—if anyone’s going to check up on Andyn, maybe I should. I don’t know if you two should, uh…talk right now, when she’s already upset.”

Tobias gives Nia a dry look. “And if she’s still in a mood and refuses to come back? Or tells you to leave her alone?”

Nia winces. She glances down at Jaz and Ezra as if to ask if one of them would rather go.

Tobias is half-expecting the two other members of Team Evergreen to be just as alarmed as Nia, but instead Jaz looks almost…thoughtful. Eventually, she shakes her head. “I won’t be able to say anything to her I haven’t said before. I’m all right with you going.”

Ezra has sat up again, but he’s leaning back leisurely on his hands. He smiles at Tobias with more familiarity than Tobias feels he earned in their brief time talking atop the cave-in pile. “Nah, I think Tobias has this covered. Go for it.”

Tobias is sure he and Nia are sharing identical expressions of surprise. He…didn’t actually think they’d agree so easily. He isn’t sure how to feel about the sudden show of faith.

…He’ll deal with that later.

Tobias looks back to Nia. “Satisfied?”

Nia still seems unsure. Her gaze flicks behind him, in the direction Andyn ran off to earlier. “I-I guess. Just…try not to fight, okay?”

“No promises,” Tobias says, spinning on his heel and setting off down the tunnel. Nia sputters at the answer, but doesn’t chase after him.

Tobias quickly arrives at the open area where the mission boards are stationed. There are a few Pokemon moving to or from the web of tunnels surrounding the space, but the crowd from earlier has largely cleared out.

Tobias frowns, looking around. If Andyn actually went to get them water and hydration berries, she would’ve had to go upstairs to the cafeteria floor. He walks over to the steps, but pauses when his eye catches an out-of-place form at the entrance of one of the other tunnels. He blinks, noting the large ears and long, spindly legs as the Pokemon paces back and forth in the mouth of the cave. Andyn.

Tobias takes a bracing breath and marches over to meet her. As he gets closer, he sees that she at least did get the water and berries, both packs strapped across her back and dangling with every step.

Andyn’s ears angle around as he approaches, and she turns to face him in the blue light of the tunnel. Her tense expression sours further. “Great. First today’s mission and now this. What do you want?”

Tobias opens his mouth to say that he was sent to check on her. Maybe even joke that they need the water before they die of thirst. He opens his mouth to say that her parents are horrible and that she should stop caring so much about what they think.

Instead, what he says is, “I want you to come back and do your job.”

Andyn’s eyes narrow. “I am doing my job. Don’t act so high and mighty—it's not like you’re happy to be doing this stupid mission.”

Tobias snorts. “Of course I’m not happy about it. It’s exhausting and mind-numbing and I’m gonna be picking dirt out of my scales for a week. It sucks. But it’s gotta get done.”

Andyn rolls her eyes. “Yeah, but they could’ve at least gotten the total newbies to do it instead.”

There it is again. This apparent belief Andyn holds that low-level work is beneath her. Or at least not good enough for her oh-so-important parents. Tobias has only been partnered with the deerling for a day and he’s already tired of everyone dancing around this.

“We’re helping the guild,” Tobias growls. “It’s one day of work. Do you really need to whine about it so much?”

Andyn has the gall to look offended. “I am not whining! And you’re one to talk! I didn’t see you do anything but mope around and snap at everyone for years until Nia made you a pity partner!”

Tobias' lip curls. Right for the throat, huh? Sorry Nia, but if Andyn wants a fight, she’ll get a fight. “And yet I’m not the one throwing a temper tantrum.”

“I am not throwing a tantrum!" Andyn says, stomping a hoof. “We’re better than this! Even you two are better than this! We should be doing something actually worthy of a Seeker! This just looks like—like cleaning duties!”

“And that’s not good enough for a perfect Seeker like you, is it? Arceus, it shouldn’t matter who does what! It doesn’t make you better than someone else just because you’re a higher rank!”

“I know that!” Andyn protests.

“Do you?”

“Of course!” Andyn huffs. “But my parents—"

“Entei, shut up about your parents!” Tobias shouts, throwing up his hands. “Clearly they’re awful!”

Andyn takes a threatening step forward. “Take that back. I'm tired of everyone saying that! My parents just want what’s best for me! I just need to get better!”

“You ever think that your parents getting mad about you helping the guild makes them the problem here, not you?”

Andyn’s expression twists. “Oh, that’s easy for you to say! You have Maggie as a parent. She doesn’t care if you’re a screw-up.”

Tobias scoffs, though the words hurt more than he expects. If only because no one has echoed his own thoughts so clearly before.

Andyn glares Tobias down. If she’s regretful at all about her words, it doesn’t show.

Tobias crosses his arms. “You’re right. Maggie doesn’t care that I’m a screw-up, just that I’m trying. Because she’s actually a good parent.”

For a moment, Tobias is positive that Andyn is about to launch an attack at him. She’s practically quivering with fury. “My parents are good parents! They just want me to be the best Seeker I can be!”

“And that’s worth turning you into a nervous wreck, apparently.”

“I’m fine!” Andyn shrieks.

“Oh yeah, obviously.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about! You’re lucky. No one ever expects anything from you!”

Her words are loud enough to echo down the tunnel. For a brief moment, Tobias thinks of Giratina and the whole Pokemon world, depending on him and Nia to keep it safe. Then, Tobias thinks of Vivi, of her scared little face looking up at him, latching onto him too tight with her claws. Terrified but trusting that her big brother will keep her safe.

Rage surges in Tobias’ chest like magma, and he takes a step forward to meet Andyn in the middle of the tunnel.

“I had someone who expected everything from me!” Tobias snarls. His eyes feel hot. His chest feels hot. Everything is heat. “But I let her down. And I have been trying so hard to make up for that ever since.”

Normally Tobias would be embarrassed by the way his voice cracks. But Andyn’s anger finally falters. Her breath catches as she steps back, suddenly looking unsure. So Tobias continues.

“Messing up isn’t the end of the world. It’s normal. Everyone messes up—even your stupid parents! They aren’t perfect, and you shouldn’t have to be either! And if this is all it takes to set you off? Not getting the perfect mission that you were hoping for this morning? I honestly hope you never find out what it’s like to mess up when you really, really can’t afford to.”

Andyn stares. Silence falls. Tobias’ tail flame is larger than usual thanks to his emotions, fighting with the cool blue glow of the tunnel’s gemstones.

“C’mon,” he growls. “Let’s just go already. They’ll be wondering where we are.”

“Tobias,” Andyn says, voice hushed. “I…”

“I don’t want to hear it.”

Tobias turns and heads back to the mission boards. He doesn’t hear Andyn follow, but he doesn’t make himself stop to wait. He storms past the other guild members still milling about on the ground floor. Then he continues to the tunnel with the cave-in where he left everyone else.

“There you are!” Nia says when he rounds the last bend in the tunnel. Her happy expression fades as soon as she gets a good look at his face. “Is everything okay?”

“Fine,” Tobias says, sharper than he means to.

Ezra and Jaz look worried too, quickly picking up on his mood. Their gazes move past him, probably searching for Andyn.

After an awkward moment of silence, Nia’s ears perk. Tobias watches as Andyn trots into the tunnel after him. Stubbornly refusing to meet anyone’s eyes, the deerling stops briefly at their group to bite the straps of her cargo loose. The canteen and the bundle of hydration fruits drop to the dirt. Without a word, she climbs the pile of soil and gets back to work jabbing away at rock and dirt with her tiny hooves.

“Anne?” Ezra calls, hesitant.

Andyn doesn’t answer.

Ezra and Jaz trade an uneasy, loaded look, but with the experience of someone used to the situation, simply let it lie. They both take a few gulps of water and then get back to work at their own stations. Ezra glances at Andyn when he reaches the top of the dirt pile, but seems to decide against pushing her any further.

Nia looks between them all with wide eyes, ears pinned back. “Guys..? Shouldn’t we—”

“Not now, Nia,” Tobias grunts, picking up the first full bucket Jaz scoots behind her and turning to take it to the cart. He certainly doesn’t want to talk this out right now, and he’s sure Andyn doesn’t, either. Poking at them in their current state won’t end well for anyone. He can still feel embers glowing in his flame sac, ready for a fight.

Abana, at least, doesn’t say anything about the sudden tension aside from a lifting of her brows. The diggers keep to their own business, apparently.

In choking silence, they get back to work.

Dig.

Scoop.

Carry.

Dump.

Repeat.

Tobias lets his mind blank out as much as possible, which isn’t too difficult as the exhaustion of the day truly starts to set in. He deliberately ignores Andyn’s furious digging, and avoids Nia’s concerned looks, too.

Tobias isn’t sure if they’ve actually worked as long as they were supposed to when Conifer suddenly calls for them to quit for the day, or if the toedscruel is just tired of the tension in the air.

Regardless, Tobias is relieved to finally set his bucket down by the cart and observe the fruits of all their labor. They managed to fill up most of the cart with soil, but even that is a hardly noticeable dent in the mountain of dirt left from the cave-in.

Well. Not his problem, at least for the rest of the day.

Ezra and Jaz join him and Nia by the cart. Andyn keeps working until Conifer pointedly clears his throat. Then, the deerling sighs, rough and annoyed, before turning and bounding down the soil with more energy than she should reasonably have.

“Come on,” the grass type says as she passes by, looking ahead with her gaze unwavering. “We need to tell them our shift is over.”

“Andyn—” Nia starts.

The deerling doesn’t even break her stride. She continues down the tunnel without losing pace until she's around the bend and out of sight.

Nia wilts, looking hurt. Tobias feels his own irritation with the deerling tick up a notch further.

“Will she be okay?” Nia asks.

Ezra and Jaz look first at each other, then at Tobias.

“I didn’t do anything!” He hisses, tail flame flaring defensively.

“We weren’t accusing you, dude,” Ezra says. “But…”

“You said something to her,” Jaz finishes. Tobias would bristle at her words, if her tone wasn't so calm. Thoughtful. “Something that made her think.”

Tobias shrugs, hating the feeling of their eyes probing at him.

“Hm.” Jaz looks at him for a moment longer, then nods with a small smile. “Well, thank you both for working with us today. Hopefully in the future any team-ups we do will go a bit smoother.”

And with that, the little stufful toddles off down the tunnel after her leader.

“We can just tell the servine that you finished up your shift, if you want?” Ezra offers, looking a bit awkward. “So you don’t have to, uh…”

Don’t have to bump into Andyn again.

“That’d be great, Ezra,” Nia says, giving him a smile. “Thank you.”

The sneasel nods, looking relieved, and hurries after his teammates with a wave. “See you later!”

When it’s just the two of them and they’ve stepped a safe distance away from Abana and Conifer, Nia turns to Tobias, brow furrowed. “Tobias—"

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Tobias says, barely keeping his voice even. He’s still simmering, but Nia doesn’t deserve him snapping at her. “We argued. Something came up with my family. It’s done.”

Nia doesn’t look satisfied by that answer, and opens her mouth to speak before visibly stopping herself. Then, she tilts her head. “Um. Want to grab some food and go see Maggie?”

Tobias is immeasurably relieved that Nia isn’t pushing the issue. At least not right now. But for once, Tobias hesitates at the offer. Maggie would help him feel better, but she’s probably busy right now. It’s only midday, even if it feels like it should be later.

“Or we could go back to our room and rest for a bit?”

“Our room.”

Nia offers a small smile and holds out a paw. Tobias stares at it for a moment, wrestling between embarrassment and his desire to take it. Nia laughs softly and makes the decision for him, linking their soil-rough palms together before tugging him away. She calls out a goodbye and thanks to Abana and Conifer as she goes.

Tobias does feel better after grabbing something to eat and returning to the privacy of their room. He even gives himself a light flame bath to burn away some of the dirt on his scales. Nia watches the process with a look of pure fascination (like a weirdo).

Afterwards, she laments her own lack of a shower before wondering if it’d be strange to ask Felix to use his water moves on her. Tobias pictures the wartortle accidentally hydro pumping her through a wall, and surprises himself with the loud bark of laughter that mental image prompts.

Nia’s stunned expression only eggs him on, and he can’t seem to stop laughing at the idea. Maybe it’s just the relief of getting to relax in their room after the tension of the morning, or his own exhaustion, but he laughs and laughs and laughs.

Nia joins him after a brief, awed silence. Tobias tries to explain why he’s laughing so hard and only gets halfway through the sentence before cracking up all over again. Nia seems to get the gist, though, because her delighted giggles kick up to match his own.

Nia is lying beside him on the plush red of their rug when the cycle finally stops, both of them still trying to catch their breath as they wipe away tears. Tobias marvels at how his stomach aches. He hasn’t laughed so hard in…well, probably at least a few years. It’s good. It distracts him from the long morning, and from all the regrets and worries that have been weighing on his mind.

As stressful as the day has been, Tobias is glad now more than ever that he has Nia as a partner.

#pmd #pokemon mystery dungeon #hippowdon #toedscruel #pokemon #pmd seekers of soul #tesha draws

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trashquisitor-shirozora · 4 months

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*enables you* what happened with TLJ 👃

After all these years I still can't properly find words to explain how deeply betrayed I felt after the credits rolled and I shuffled out of the movie theater with everybody else. There was a TON of hype surrounding this movie, an absolute fuckton. I only saw positive reviews about it, the cast, the director, the plot. I got excited to see where Rian Johnson & Co. would take the ST.

The only remotely negative comment I saw before watching the movie was a fandom blog saying they didn't like what happened to Poe. Since this blog was about racism in fandom, I knew something was off. That was my only warning.

And y'know, it was like, five minutes in? Ten minutes? And Poe makes a "Yo mama" joke at Hux? I used to go into movies with an open mind and spent days gathering my thoughts about them because I was always slow to react, slow to gather my thoughts into coherent strings of words. It's how I enjoyed Michael Bay productions and JJ Abrams' love affair with lens flare. I never got actively angry with a movie I was watching, and I was fucking angry by the time the movie ended. I still remember texting a friend while standing out in front of the theater because I was so confused. The response to TLJ was so positive so why did I come out of the movie so frustrated and confused and dissatisfied with the whole thing?

It's been years and we all know how this movie divided the Star Wars fandom and just... broke Fandom Spaces in a way I never expected. We all know what TLJ did and didn't do, and how TROS provided the final nail in the coffin that was the ST experiment. But back then, all I saw was positive commentary about the themes and messages of TLJ, how it portrayed failure and the dangers of putting someone like Luke Skywalker on a pedestal, how the Force was female, how... important it was to see Poe get characterized as a hotheaded hotshot who needed to be demoted, slapped around, and stunned in order to learn some kind of lesson, how important it was to see Finn lose everything he gained in TFA so that he could relearn how not to be selfish or something while starring in a fucking incredibly tone-deaf B plot, how Rey... I'm not sure exactly what because she didn't need training anyway and then spent most of her time trying to bring Ben Swolo back to the light????? Rose was so promising as someone who grew up under the FO's thumb but she and Kelly were fucking abandoned by Disney so I don't know if Rose existing was actually a good idea if it meant giving Kelly unending trauma. Mark slipped up by calling Luke "Jake" and expressing his displeasure in front of cameras, and I was so fucking baffled and alienated by his character after knowing how his story ended in ROTJ that I couldn't connect with whatever lessons I and he are supposed to be learning. JJ set up Snoke like a mystery box and Rian just yeeted him off without so much as a fucking explanation so what was the point of that? Hux was a fucking joke. Phasma was barely there. The only character that Rian cared about was fucking Kylo Ren and Adam says years later that he was never supposed to get a redemption arc anyway.

Like, this was the movie everyone hyped up? This was the movie that didn't answer any questions left unasked by TFA and didn't bother to move forward with character development for any of the known characters? I spent money watching a slow space chase that ended on a planet made of salt and killed off Luke for Reasons? Am I stupid? Am I dumb? Am I a peasant incapable of understanding the masterpiece Rian directed, this so-called Best Star Wars Movie Since ESB?

But I couldn't say anything. I couldn't be dogpiled for hating such a empowering movie for women, a diverse and inclusive movie that had the likes of John and Kelly and Oscar. I couldn't be lumped in with the Star Wars dudebros with their raging misogynistic and racist takes on the movie, the cast, Kathleen Kennedy and Lucasfilm, Disney, etc. I couldn't be seen as one of them just because I didn't like a movie that I should like, I'm supposed to like. So I sat in silence, read meta, witnessed the fucking catastrophic explosion around some wild ass AO3 fandom essays written by a racist OG member of OTW about Finn/Poe, saw hate piled on black and bipoc fans, saw r*ylo fans come for John and John clap back at them, just saw an absolute fuckton of hate, and so by the time TROS came around I just... checked out. There was no way JJ could salvage what Rian had done and I was right. TROS was a corporate-run soulless garbage end to the Sequel Trilogy, but it ended just as The Mandalorian finished its first season and regained a lot of good will with this small story about a lonely Mandalorian bounty hunter who encountered a Force-sensitive Baby Yoda.

And then TBOBF/Season 3 of the Mando Show happened, just like how TLJ happened. All the promise, all the unanswered questions of the previous movie/season, all fucking dropped or provided with the worst, most unsatisfying answer. I'm sure others have found better answers and can live with what Star Wars gave us, but I haven't been able to. TLJ came out years and years ago, and I am still so bitter today. I'm still so bitter because TFA had such an incredibly compelling setup with such promising characters, and then TLJ Did That.

I got so heated while writing this. I'm still so mad. I'm still so bitter. I bury my head so deep in the sandbox I built for myself so that I don't have to think how Disney is twisting and contorting all these Mando'verse shows so that they all eventually lead to the ST, their precious hot potato child that just... didn't have to end the way they did if they actually had a fucking plan and fucking stuck the landing. I'll give the MCU this - their Phase 1? They fucking stuck the landing. I fell off the train tracks and haven't really watched the MCU since Captain Marvel, but at least they had a fucking plan and didn't fucking derail themselves like Disney did with the Sequel Trilogy.

I could be nice to people who like this movie but I'm not going to be. They can be nice on their own blogs.

Man, I can't even watch Knives Out or Glass Onion because my blood starts boiling. Just. TLJ did a lot to ruin what I hoped would be a positive and creative connection with Star Wars, and it took the Mando Show and the 2 minutes where Din and Luke locked eyes on the Imperial light cruiser to bring me back.

I'm gonna stop before I get way too heated for sleep.

#shirozora awkwardly responds to asks #anti TLJ #this is 100% a TLJ hate post and blog #i spent so many years holding in my thoughts about this cursed movie #when I say spite fuels me this is what I mean #this is how I find comfort in 'love star wars. wish it was good'#anyway this was the movie that made me feel crazy for years because how could i hate this movie if everyone said it's good #how can a movie be good if all i got from it was confusion and betrayal #time to go art something and calm down before bed

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ajvocals43 · 1 year

Note

could you write one where dean is just having a rough day and doesn’t want to be alone when he goes to sleep but also doesn’t want to ask the reader to cuddle him because he’s dean💀 like a little fluff and comfort

This is so cute. I'm not used to writing comfort for others but I tried. It kind of took a turn from where I was going originally, but I hope you like it all the same.

What I'm Here For

Pairing: Dean Winchester x Reader

Word Count:

Warnings: Mentions of PTSD, slight swearing

A/n: This was shorter than I thought it was going to be and honestly, I got excited about a part of it that I actually ended up using for a different fic so that's another thing.

Ever since Dean’s been back he’s been off. Which is to be expected I guess, I mean… he was in hell. Believe me, Sam and I would never forgive ourselves for not being able to bring him back. I don't know how he survived as long as he did down there. It was to be expected that he’d be pretty traumatized. He tries to play it off but we can see it. The fear behind his eyes, the sadness and the anger. That last one was pretty apparent; specifically when anyone tried to get him to talk about that time. He was always on edge. He closed himself off from us. Until he snapped at Sam which was worrying; because if he wouldn't talk to Sam, he surely wouldn't talk to me.

Dean and I’s bond was strong but not as strong as his bond was with his brother. Anyone with common sense knew that the brothers’ bond was stronger than pretty much anything. Our relationship was…complicated to say the least. We both knew that there was something under the surface, there were looks and kisses and…other things… but with everything our lives entailed, we were both too scared to identify it. But even then, apparently we were not great at hiding those feelings, as we’d been told by others.

Multiple times.

Today had been a great example of that as tension surrounded the house that only the two of us occupied. Sam and Bobby had left earlier on to head to the local library, only to be caught in one of the biggest storms I’d ever seen. They’d called a little earlier to say that they were staying to help with crowd control and they’d head out when the storm passed. Which left me and Dean at Bobby’s house with not much to do. We’d busied ourselves with research on the apocalypse and whatever we could get our hands on about the angels.

Until the power went out.

Now I was sitting in the kitchen in the dark at… 12am waiting for Dean to get back from checking the main breaker panel out back. The only light came from the fire in the study and the few candles across the floor to ensure that we didn't fall on our faces. It was cold and rainy and windy and dark and he’d refused to let me go with him. It wasn’t a big deal but I didn't want to just sit here like some kind of damsel. But that was a fight I wasn't in the mood to pick tonight.

A gust of cold wind and rain blew through the house as the door swung open in front of Dean’s shadowed figure. And straight out of a movie, a bolt of lightning shot across the sky, visible through the open doorway. And Dean was just standing there.

“Is that supposed to be scaring me?” I called from my place in the entryway.

No answer.

“Would you come inside? It's freezing out there!”

Still no answer.

“Dean?” I was getting impatient. And cold.

Another lightning bolt cracked across the sky and it was then that I noticed Dean’s figure shaking. It hit me then. “Oh my g- Dean!” I rushed toward him, pulling him into the house and kicking the door shut behind him. I hadn't thought about the PTSD the storm would’ve caused for Dean. His movements were jerky and stiff as I helped him peel the drenched coat and flannel from his arms. I moved him over to the fireplace and went to the kitchen to find something hot to drink.

Sometime later I was walking back into the study with two steaming mugs. “Thankfully, Bobby has a gas stove.” I announced. Dean turned around in time for me to hand him one of the mugs. “Careful, it's hot.”

“Thanks, mom.” Dean grumbled, blowing steam off the top. I chuckled, relieved that he was getting back to normal. It was quiet for a while…well until Dean took a sip. “Ugh. What is this?”

I laughed, “it’s tea, Dean.”

“It’s gross is what it is.” He said, putting his cup down.

“It’s healthier than alcohol.” I said, taking a sip of my own only to spit it back out. “Nope, that's disgusting.” I put my mug down next to Dean’s, laughing.

I was relieved to see the tension start to ease from his frame as he joined me in my laughter. “I didn't even know Bobby had tea.”

“Yeah…probably not the best choice on my part.” I leaned back next to Dean. Because Bobby’s couch was so damn old, I sunk in further than I thought I would, but neither of us said anything. We both shifted around a little before we got comfortable.

It was quiet for a while after that. I wasn't going to prod at Dean about the elephant in the room. He would talk about it when he was ready. Plus, I was not in the mood to get into another fight with him right now. We were all the other had for the moment since there was no power and nobody nearby. There wasn't any danger nearby and it was getting late. We both should have headed to bed but I didn't say anything for a while.

Until I realized I was starting to fall asleep on the couch. And so was he. We were snuggled pretty close at this point but neither of us mentioned it. I certainly wasn't going to complain about being this close to his warm body.

"You should go to bed." I said quietly.

“What? No. I’m good.” The exhaustion was slurring his words. But no way was I leaving Dean. That storm was still raging outside. If anything, it’d gotten worse. Dean might’ve acted like he was okay but that didn't mean I had to. He was exhausted but I knew that he wouldn't sleep like this. His nightmares were bad enough and that was if he could fall asleep in the first place.

"Dean."

“I’m fine,” he insisted. More lightning lit up the sky, followed by a loud rumbling of thunder and I felt Dean stiffen beside me. I knew by this point that physical contact was the way to get through to him when he was scared. I tried grabbing his hand that rested on his leg but it didn't seem like enough. So I let go and stood up.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

“Lay down,” I said. He wasn't going to go to bed by himself. If I left him alone, he would probably just drink and wait for Bobby and Sam.

"Y/n-"

“Shut up and lay down.” I insisted. “On your side.” I corrected.

The fear was still there but now it was mostly covered with confusion. But he complied, only jumping slightly when more thunder rolled outside. I hesitated for a second but then laid down next to him. I wrapped my arms around him, hoping that he didn't push me away. Well, physically at least.

It took him a second but eventually Dean pulled me into him, tangling our limbs so I couldn't tell where exactly I ended and he began. But I felt him relax again, breathing a sigh into my hair. “Thank you.” he murmured.

“Don't worry about it.” I said back quietly. “It’s what I’m here for.” I nuzzled my face into his neck, bringing us as close as I could. All I could hope for was that this brought Dean as much comfort as it brought me. Not that I’d tell him but I cared for him more than I had for most people in my life. A lot more than I thought I would. I would do anything to help him. Always.

Masterlist

#deanwinchester #dean winchester #dean fluff #dean winchester fluff #dean winchester fanfiction #dean winchester x reader #dean winchester x you #dean x reader #dean x you #dean winchester fic #supernatural #dean winchester supernatural #dean winchester fanfic #spn

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alieinthemorning · 6 months

Text

Marry a Man Through His Stomach [Miya Atsumu]

Content: Fluff, Soft, Marriage

Pronouns: None

Header: @/tsumoos

Reblogs: Let me know that you enjoy my work and want to see more, so don't forget to like and reblog (and comment in the tags. I love seeing people’s rambles in the tags)!

This work's concepts, plot and original characters are my own which means I do not allow any sort of creative theft nor do I allow my work to be entered into any sort of A.I. bots. Thank you for respecting my space and boundaries.

"Is that what I think it is?" He barely toed his shoes off at the entrance before bounding his way into the kitchen, coming right up behind you to take a whiff of the pot you were stirring. "Hell yeah!"

You rolled your eyes, dishing him a small portion into the soy sauce plate you had been using. He leaned down, eagerly slurping.

He hummed, smacking his lips before looking down at you with bright eyes.

"Man, I'm glad I married ya."

It was a lunchtime like any other. You were sat at your desk, just finished with putting your materials away and finding a video to watch with your lunch. However, once you opened the lid to your bento, did someone decide to pester you.

"Oh lemme have some!" A hand reached for your food, which you quickly swatted at.

"I literally just opened this—can I have a bite of my food before ya start beggin'!" You huffed at him, taking a bite of gyoza.

"Fine, ya've taken a bite—lemme have some gyoza too!"

"Oh my—fine!" But just as you went to grab the gyoza to pass to him, a pair of chopsticks, that obviously weren't yours, snatched it up and dropped it right into Atsumu's open mouth.

His face went through the motions of: happy, disbelief, then finally happy again.

"Man, yer ma is a good cook."

You raised a brow, "Ma didn't cook this. I did."

"Ya made this?" He paused, taking another bite (from another piece of food he had stolen from you—the bastard) then nodded to himself. "Yeah, imma marry ya some day."

You blinked, felt the heat raising to your cheeks, then laughed.

"Yeah right!" You were sure he was just saying shit out of his ass.

"Ya laugh now, but I'm sure there'll be a ring on that finger." He tapped your left ring finger.

Then he left (making sure to swipe one last piece of food), leaving you to mull over the nonsense he had spewed.

This very quickly began to become a habit of his, pestering you for your food until you relented (which didn't take long) then commenting in someway about your alleged future marriage.

You didn't think much of it until you were making a bento for him (finally sick and tired of him stealing your food) and your mother said something to you.

"Feedin' a friend of yers?"

You nodded, "Somethin' like that..."

She hummed. "Well ya know, the way I won yer father's heart is through the stomach so—"

You whipped your head around so fast you were sure it was going to go spinning off.

She threw her head back, laughing loudly at your flustered face.

"Make sure to bring'em around soon, okay?" And she was out of the room before you could refute her.

But in the end she was right—both she and Atusmu, actually.

You had won his love through his stomach, and just like he said, you were wearing that platinum band on your left ring finger.

You fidgeted with it fondly, a small smile gracing your fingers. The smile widen as he grabbed your hand, placing a kiss right on the band.

"You know, I'm glad ya begged for that gyoza that day..."

He raised a brow, a smirk threatening to split his face. "Oh really? Yer were that eager to marry me?"

"Not then no, but later...yeah." You leaned forward, placing a kiss on the corner of his mouth. "I'm glad I said yes."

"Well, I'm happy I put the thought in yer head." He pulled you closer, "Now come're..."

I was supposed to write something else first, but then I had this thought and had to stop everything I was doing to write it.

Anyway, I've been sucked back into the Haikyuu! Hole and Atsumu has been my hyperfixation, and there simply aren't fresh fics for him so, it's time I feed myself and the people.

Ko-Fi | Commission | Masterlist

#alie ficlets #haikyuu x reader #hq x reader #miya atsumu x reader

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oftenwantedafton · 4 months

Text

Moody and Gray - William Afton x Female Reader

Chapter 5

Rating - Explicit

Warnings - sexual content

Also available on AO3

William Afton is standing on your balcony with a cigarette, the sliding door partially cracked to conserve heat. You’ve got his wool coat in your lap, the ripped pocket pulled inside out so you can mend it.

“I’m surprised you know how to sew.” He takes a drag, watching you work. He doesn’t seem to even mind being outdoors without the coat. You think about his air conditioned office and the way heat radiates off of him.

“My mom made me take lessons when I was a kid. I messed up laying out the pattern pieces for the pockets so I ended up having none. Not my finest moment. But I can manage the basics.”

The end of the cigarette flares. A cloud of smoke surrounds his face. You’re know you’re going to taste that when he kisses you goodnight.

You hope he doesn’t know you’re stalling. The truth is, you don’t really want him to leave. You’ve accidentally stabbed yourself with the needle three times doing this task for him just to keep him around a bit longer.

You knot the thread a few times and sever the end with your teeth, tucking the nylon lining back into place. “Alright, Gray. Finished.”

Your employer exhales and grinds the remains of the cigarette into the pot of dirt you’d used for flowers last summer, stepping back inside and tugging the slider closed. It’s a relief to be freed from the draft. You’re only wearing an oversized tshirt and panties.

“Thank you.” He folds the coat over the end of the couch and sits next to you.

“Fuck, you’re freezing. It’s like cuddling with an ice cube. Will!” You protest when his chilled hands slide underneath your shirt and along your spine, squirming to get away, letting him pull you closer.

You comb your hair through his errant tresses. “You’re such a pretty bastard.”

“Thank you, I think.”

“It’s a compliment.” You smirk. “Don’t let it go to your head. You’re arrogant enough as it is.”

“You’re certain you like me, right? You don’t have me confused with someone else?”

“Yeah, I’m sure.” You kiss him. “I like William,” another kiss, “fucking,” still another, “Afton.”

“Hmmm. Yes, that’s me.” He releases you, raising one arm to glance at the time on his wristwatch and frowns. “I need to get going.”

“Okay.” You try to make it sound light. You should not be this attached this early. You should not be attached at all. It’s just a fling. He’s married. It’s not like anything could ever come from this.

“Let’s do dinner another night, yes? I mean share a real, actual meal,” he adds.

You nod. That sounded promising, anyway.

“Alright, Moody. Walk me to the door.”

You watch him slide the dress coat back on as you lead him to the front door. He doesn’t bother fastening the buttons. The apartment is small. It’s only a few steps to the exit.

“I had a lot of fun,” you say.

“It wasn’t unpleasant.” You stare at him open mouthed and his lips twitch.

“You’re a jerk.” You swat his arm playfully and the gesture becomes something lingering as your hand clutches his lapel. You look up at him through your lashes.

“I’ll see you tomorrow. On time.”

“Yeah, yeah.” You tug slightly on his coat, expecting him to kiss you at any moment.

“Don’t make me chase you again, Moody.”

You sigh. So back to this again. This need to assert dominance. You suppose you’ll allow it, seeing as how he’d been on his knees for you quite a bit this evening. It was only fair. “Please kiss me goodnight, Mr. Afton.”

“So polite.”

“I can have manners when I—”

His mouth covers yours, swallowing the rest of the sentence you’re about to utter. He does taste like ash. You release his lapels and slide your arms inside of the coat, wrapping them around his waist and hugging him. You’re surprised when he hugs you back.

“Goodnight.” He presses his lips into your hair.

One step out the door, he turns to look back at you. “Don’t forget to set your alarm. No excuses.”

You aim for his shoulder and he blocks the maneuver easily, pulling you in for another kiss. And another. And still another.

So maybe it’s not easy for him to depart, either.

***

As bad as the weekdays are, the weekends at Freddy’s are a million times worse.

The place is an absolute madhouse. You’ve no sooner taken one table’s order than another family crowds through the doors. There’s always a slew of mishaps. The kitchen put the wrong toppings on the pizza or they’ve double booked a reservation for a birthday event or one of the arcade machines is busted or the claw machine jams and they’re demanding a refund. Even if they’re things that aren’t your specific department, you’re still forced to address them. After all, you’re front end. The face of the business and all that.

You’d think the time would fly by being so busy, but it still seems to drag. You finally decide mid afternoon to duck outside for an imaginary cigarette break.

You haven’t seen William much today. A brief glance over the sea of faces, once from the office, and once in the back when you’d had to go to the kitchen to find out why the order was messed up.

You slide into your jacket and push the door leading to the rear of the restaurant open, trying to brace yourself for the cold air that you know will strike as soon as you exit.

William’s outside, his back to you.

“So this is where you’ve been hiding. You should have come and got me, Will….” Your voice trails off as you realize he isn’t alone. There’s a woman on the other side of him, mostly blocked by the dress coat and your boss’ tall frame, but you can hear the voice, soft and breathy and lilting.

It’s the new hostess.

You’ve forgotten her name already. Miranda or Marissa or something similar. You didn’t really care to learn it. That position in particular tended to be a revolving door. A college student, you think she’d mentioned. You weren’t really paying attention. You doubt she’ll last more than a month.

William turns to face you. “Hi. How are you?” Just like that. As if you are just another employee, and not the woman he’d eaten out in the shower and fucked in your bed without pausing long enough to towel dry off in between the previous evening.

“Hi!” the other girl says, too bright and cheerful, like she’s still on the clock greeting patrons and ushering them to their tables. “I didn’t know you smoked, I’ve never seen you out here.”

“I don’t,” you grit through your teeth.

“Oh.” She frowns over that before her mind flits on to the next topic. “Mr. Afton, can I borrow your lighter?”

He withdraws it from his coat pocket—the one you’d fixed for him—and hands it to her. She struggles with it, the flame refusing to light until he assists her. She smiles in gratitude before taking a drag. Her nails are immaculate, like she’s just gotten them done at the salon. Everything about her is fair: light skin, light eyes, light hair. She looks so tiny beside him. So delicate. The fur lined parka—you’re willing to bet it’s real and not synthetic— hugs every curve. You think that jacket must feel like being wrapped in a cloud, so fluffy compared to your own pathetic threadbare specimen. Leggings tucked into black high heel suede boots that are strictly for fashion and have no practical use in winter. She looks like a model who’s walked straight off the runway or been pulled from the pages of a fashion magazine. Your work clothes are stained with grease and tomato sauce and ice cream and you can feel your hair falling in disorganized wisps around your cheeks, loosened over the course of the work day. You suddenly feel very, very inadequate.

You feel the weight of the owner’s stare but you choose to ignore it, glaring daggers at your oblivious coworker. You debate about just going back inside, but you’re too proud to slink away.

The new hire continues to talk to the older man beside her, prattling about how fun the day has been so far and how charming the children are, drawing your boss’ attention away. She tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. Her cheeks are flushed from the cold, pink and pretty. The cigarette is stained dark fuschia from her lipstick. You keep telling yourself you are not going to be jealous of some vapid, ass kissing, privileged college girl. Her sleeve brushes his. They’re standing entirely too close. There are moments when she clutches her bottom lip with her teeth or looks up at him through her lashes and she even touches his arm after he makes a comment and she laughs, a pleasant tinkling sound that grates on your nerves and you see red.

The minutes drag and her cigarette is finally, finally done. “I’ll see you back inside,” she says, smiling at you on her way through the door. She doesn’t even walk normally. She’s got a floaty, gliding sway that demands attention.

You decide at that moment you’re going to return indoors as well, reaching for the handle.

“Moody, wait.”

“No, I think I’m good. Break over. Wouldn’t want to steal from the company and all that.”

William’s hand closes over yours. “Look at me.”

“Nope.” You shove the door open. “Need to get back to work.”

Your employer follows, his hand closing on your arm as he drags you inside the nearby custodial closet, flicking on the light switch with his free hand. The smell of disinfectant is heavy in the air, even more choking when he shuts the door behind him.

“What the fuck?” You shrug his hand off your arm. He’s blocking the exit. “Let me out of here. This place is gross. I don’t think that mop has ever even heard of clean water, let alone seen it.” You point to the bucket of murky liquid in the corner.

“Not until you talk to me.”

“About what? You just had fifteen minutes to talk to me and you spent them with that googly eyed bimbo instead of me.”

“You don’t have any reason to be jealous.”

“I am not jealous. Come on, move out of the way.”

He leans back against the door. “No.”

“Seriously?”

“What did you want me to do? I was trying to be polite.”

“Bullshit. She was putting the moves on you and you were liking it. You barely even acknowledged I was there, too busy flirting—”

“—I was most certainly not flirting. What, did you expect me to just start making out with you?”

“It would have been preferable, yes.”

“So I should have just grabbed you then. Like this, maybe?” He tucks his hands in your pants pockets and tugs you against him.

“Yeah, that would have been a good place to start.”

“And then what? Just started kissing you?” His mouth covers yours. You struggle against him briefly, still pissed, but your body is already relaxing against him, your lips melting soft and warm. “What else did you want me to do to you?” He kisses you again. “I will bend you over my desk and fuck you right now, if that’s what you want.”

“Um…” God damn it. How were you supposed to turn that offer down? “Yes, I do. But I’m still pissed at you.”

“Rest assured you are the only person I want.”

“She’s gorgeous,” you admit grudgingly.

“She’s not you.” Something in the way he says you makes your heart stutter. He really does like you, you realize. Beyond just the sex aspect. Speaking of which…

You give him a headstart before you ascend the steel staircase at the edge of the dining room. It’s so obnoxiously loud today.

You close the office door and lock it. The blinds are shut. William’s hung his coat back on the rack tucked into the corner. You’d forgotten how cold it is in this room, the air making the hair on your bare arms rise when you shrug out of your coat, tossing it onto the office chair.

William guides you over to the edge of the desk. He unknots your apron and it falls to the floor, the weight of the order pad making it fall swiftly, then unfastens your pants and jerks them down off your hips. His breathing is going ragged, his eyes going dark.

You kiss him and your mouth worries his bottom lip. “Fuck me,” you urge, sliding a hand over the erection pushing against his trousers.

You’re shoved down onto the desk, facing the locked door. You hear his zipper parting. One hand grips your waist near the hip. The other aims his cock against your entrance.

“Fuck,” he groans as he eases inside you. You’re embarrassingly soaked. Maybe there’s something to this angry fucking after all. You push back against him, making sure he’s completely buried. The angle hits you so good. He pulls back and thrusts in again and you moan softly. You don’t know how much sound travels from this room. Given the noise downstairs you could probably get quite loud and no one would be the wiser. But you think it’s still best to err on the side of caution.

A light slap on one ass cheek. You huff another moan. He begins picking up the pace. Your bodies collide wetly together.

“Is this what you wanted? My big cock stretching that tight little pussy of yours?”

Oh God. That British accent, combined with the dirty talk…

“Well? Is it?” He presses, his hips driving him forward again.

“Yes,” you gasp. “You feel so good…”

Another slap, a little firmer this time. “That’s it. You take my cock so well.”

Your fingers curl over the edge of the desk blotter. You see some neat cursive writing filling one of the squares of the calendar. An afternoon dentist appointment for someone named Evan. One of his children, maybe.

He slams into you and your eyes lose focus. One hand snakes around your waist and his middle finger begins stroking your clit. You whimper and he pulls you back upright, continuing to fuck into you while caressing your bundle of nerve endings. You know you’re getting louder and you can’t stifle it, alternating between moans and desperate gasps for air.

“Come on, Moody.” He’s got you close and he knows it. The pressure on your arousal saturated clit is just right. You come undone against his hand and over his cock. “That’s it. That’s my girl.”

You shiver and it’s not just from the cool temperature in the office.

He guides you back down to rest the upper half of your body on the desk, bending to kiss the center of your spine. “I’m going to fill you up so good, love,” he whispers against your skin. You shiver again. He sits his hand in the space where your neck joins your shoulder and pulls. He’s as deep as he can go, hitting your cervix, your post orgasm walls still spasming around him as he cums, spraying a flood of hot seed, the fingers still clutching onto you digging deeper for a few moments before he relaxes his grip and he sighs heavily.

“Hang on, let me get…I think there’s napkins…” He’s still recovering, panting in between words. You hear a drawer slide open. He pulls out and immediately begins wiping you off. Christ he’d filled you full. You can feel a steady stream spilling back out of you. “Just to tide you over until you make it to the bathroom and…are you laughing?”

You can’t suppress it any longer. There’s just something so absurd about all of it. Getting pissed at him and then angrily fucking him and now he’s cleaning up after the load that he’s dumped inside of you with napkins that probably have the restaurant’s logo printed on them in this oddly tender gesture of aftercare.

You push yourself upright and turn to face him, still smiling. “Sorry, I’m not laughing at you, not really, it’s just…” You heave a shuddering sigh. “Oh, Will…” You gently comb back the pieces of hair that have become dislodged during your session.

“So you’re not upset with me anymore then?”

“I guess not.”

“Good.” He kisses you softly. “It’s good to see you smile. I like seeing you happy.” He clears his throat. “So, back to work then. After you go get cleaned up.”

“Yes, sir.” You bend to pick up your apron off the floor. Afton hands you your jacket, stealing another kiss before you leave his office.

***

Your feet are killing you.

You’re not sure if you’re going to make it to the shower. You might just flop in bed and call it a day, you think, trudging in from the parking lot to your apartment.

There’s a white rectangular box in front of your door. You sigh. Great. Someone delivered to the wrong address. You bend wearily to pick it up, freezing mid motion.

Your name is on the label.

You know that handwriting. An exact match for the sample you’d seen on William’s desk calendar.

“Someone dropped that off for you earlier.”

You look up to see one of your neighbors. Middle aged, kind of nosy. You’re not surprised she’d noticed. “Tall, dark, handsome. Looks like he comes from money.” She grins at you.

“What time did he come by?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Sometime late morning, maybe? Or right around noon.”

So before the mishap outside, then. You nod and insert your key in the lock.

You lay the box on the kitchen counter. There was a time when you would’ve been glad not to be scheduled to work until closing. As tired as you are, you kind of wish you could’ve stayed past close to spend a little extra time with William.

Your curiosity overwhelms you and you lift the lid of the box.

There’s a winter jacket inside.

Soft cream. A proper puffer coat, stuffed with warm filling. Hat, scarf, gloves also included, a shade darker, like oatmeal. A small card tucked into the pocket.

For my moody girl

—Gray

You give a little surprised laugh, the hand clutching the card covering your lips. Unbelievable.

Your first gift from William Afton.

#william afton x reader #william afton x you

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missmastectomy · 4 days

Note

hello, pretty freshly detrans here. i finally understand what all those ‘annoying cis people’ meant when they said gender isn’t a feeling. like, actually, i fully comprehend it now. if you unpack all those supposed ‘gender feels’ it all wraps back to stereotypes and gender roles, whether you identify as a soft boy or a big rugged stereotypical man like i did. because that’s all gender is. and holy shit, i feel duped!

you’re telling me i could’ve spent all this time being a hot hairy butch who defied the social expectations placed on women but i was so entrenched in the idea that i was somehow a man, which is DEFINITELY a real innate category of being and not a made up social class assigned to a given sex to give them more power (sarcasm) that i lost half my family to it? that i argued with people i know and love over it? that i experienced trauma in the church because of it? only to realize that gender itself isn’t even real, something i knew the whole time but hypocritically refused to apply to myself. i’ve been scammed. i dressed up my personality in a blue box and told myself it was a boy. fuck.

at least there’s freedom in sight now. sorry to rant in your inbox, i hope it’s relatable if nothing else.

I completely understand. I also used to feel annoyed when “cis” people said they don’t know what feeling gender is like. The thing is, though, trans people’s gender feelings are actually very easy to understand once you get to the bottom of what dysphoria is. Often trans people will describe their gender identity as stemming from dysphoria, a disconnect between the mind and body. The discomfort and desire to be the other sex is so strong that people transition and the vast majority of trans people describe that as the state of “being a woman/man,” instead of “hey, I’m a bio female/woman transitioning in order to cope with dysphoria.”

I talked about it before, but if you understand why women get harmful cosmetic surgeries because they cannot stand living in their bodies, or why anorexics will hurt themselves in pursuit of a perfect body, you already understand half of trans identity. People often try to reinvent themselves when they’ve been rejected or traumatized. People often try to mold themselves into someone else, someone you were “always meant to be,” but ultimately never will, because the image you’ve created in your mind is completely fictitious.

Most trans people operate like this. Ime there are vanishingly few trans people who recognize that their sex doesn’t change and that they are ultimately still men or women. Most consider gender to be innate, therefore they were always actually men or women. Few acknowledge that it is basically a lifestyle choice. Honestly, a poor one at that, considering the adverse effects it has on your body and social life.

Some transmeds cite sex dysphoria as the reason for transition, but where does it come from? They often argue that transsexuals have brains that map out the body of the opposite sex and that causes the dysphoria, but there’s poor evidence for this. Ask a trans person how they knew they were trans and they will say 1) they always felt uncomfortable in their body/didn’t connect with others of their sex or 2) I’m a boy/girl but engaged in stereotypical activities of the opposite sex. It’s really just a bunch of made up nonsense to explain the suffering a lot of gnc, gay, whatever people experience.

A lot of trans people don’t realize that everyone else also has “gender feelings,” but they just don’t describe it with the language trans people do. Because of this disconnect, trans people often take this as evidence that their gender identities are real and infallible. But if you talk to, say, a woman who was very masculine as a child and didn’t fit in with girls, you will literally hear the same feelings of discomfort that most transmen describe. The difference is that these women grew out of it or learned to cope and accept themselves. Most transmen do not.

The conditions for trans identity to form are a combination of wrong place wrong time. I have a hard time not feeling sympathetic for the old fashioned transsexual types who recognize bio sex because I understand how debilitating dysphoria can be, but the religious mumbo jumbo speak of the modern trans movement is insufferable and harming thousands, if not millions, of people. It’s time to come back down to reality.

#detrans #gender critical #detransition #mail #radblr

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shywritersblog · 7 months

Text

Here are 100 random quotes from Asmodeus!

Sourced from the OM! Wiki, chats, devilgram, screenshots I found, etc. I made this list to help with studying to write the characters in character. (Not really proofread, sorry if there are mistakes. Also, there may be spoilers. If so, they're minor spoilers)

✧༺⚜️༻✧

“Oh, my ♡ MC, you little minx! Are you trying to show off my lovely legs to the entire Devildom?”

“But the question is whether you really mean what you say. Maybe if I reach in, pull out your heart, tear it open, and have a look inside I'd know for sure?”

“Then let's stay like this. Mm... Your neck feels soft, MC…”

“I can't believe you would actually imply I was a pervert! I only wanted to give MC something pleasant to look at.”

“Anyway MC, why don't you go ahead and take off your clothes so the two of us can enjoy a nice bath together.”

“Asmo's special cutie-pie kiss! Mwah ♡”

“But now I feel alive again, sitting in here with you drinking nice, warm cocoa.”

“Yoo-hoo, little ghosties ♡ Go on, feast your eyes upon me..!”

“Ugh, it's so dark in here! I can't take it... It's just so EXCITING!”

“You must be curious to know just how wonderful a punishment can be...”

“I'd have to say I'm most afraid of... me!”

“Since you're so adorable, I'll lock you up in my own little love jail so you'll be all mine ♡ So, don't be shy. Come here, Darling.”

“Oh, be careful around my ankles, would you? Too much pressure will ruin my perfect legs.”

“I'm hopeless at this kind of stuff since I've never lifted anything heavier than a facial massager.”

“To be honest, I was hoping to drive you mad with desire! That was my eventual goal, at least...”

“Hehe. Can't move? Aww, look how good you're being! Now, you stay just like that, okay...”

“In other words, I want you to be my plaything from now on, so I'm never bored ♡”

“Ugh, I'm so dizzy..! MC’s the only one who can save frail little Princess Asmo!”

“Oh, while we're at it why not take a video? For your exclusive viewing pleasure, of course ♡”

“I mean, I suppose I could put on a little show for you...but it won't be cheap.”

“..What? Are you stupid? Is your eyesight just that bad? Do those eyes of yours even work, or are they just there for decoration?”

“You want to do whatever you can to make me happy, because I'm worth it.”

“Hehe, now look what I've done. I got so excited that I pushed you down onto your back! Sorry!”

“Help, MC! There's a demon staring at me like he's gonna eat me!”

“And that means something coming from someone as ridiculously beautiful as me. I don't really say it to anyone other than you, you know?”

“I mean, I'm adorable. Doesn't it just tickle your protective instincts?”

“You're so cute. When I look at you, I can tell what's going through your head, even if you don't actually say it. That's right.”

“I'm sorry for being so beautiful that even confinement suits me! Then again, I always knew I was fated to be the captive damsel in distress...”

“Like, first I imagine a beautiful man and a beautiful woman. And then I picture us doing ALL sorts of naughty things to each other!”

“And then they had to do the walk of shame! ♡”

“Oh, you might be right! The runny makeup look can be kind of sexy!”

“I'll go ahead and watch you. Just in case you have any trouble changing clothes.”

“Hmmm? Like what? Mammon, you'd better get your mind out of the gutter ♡”

“I mean, here I am, right next to you, still wet from my bath. You really don't feel anything?”

“I guess that means I'M GOING TO HAVE TO KILL EVERY LAST ONE OF YOU...!”

“Ugh, I'm ready to die of boredom! So, come on! Dance for me. I can't wait to see what you can do!”

“That's our sexy Solomon ♡ See, I knew you could do it if you tried!”

“Really, you're just flowers. Listen to you bragging about how beautiful you are...it's kind of embarrassing.”

“Ooh, are you trying to figure out where WE should go on a romantic getaway?! Aw, muffin! You don't need to beat around the bush for that kind of thing! You can be honest!”

“Huh? You're my little dove from earlier, aren't you? MC, was it?”

“That's probably my pheromones ♡”

“You're the best, MC! Your dazzling smile has the power to woo every demon in the Devildom ♡”

“Whaaat, you're still alive? Well that's boring...”

“But first, I want you to know exactly what it is that threatens to rend a delicate heart such as mine to ribbons. So be sure to pay attention, love. Nothing makes me angrier than being ignored. Truly.”

“All of the eyes are on me, I charmed all of them! Just look at me! It's a sin to be this perfect!”

“Mmmfm… gonna take everyone prisoner… mm...”

“When I first heard that we'd be shooting each other with squirt guns and getting wet, I found the whole thing kind of stupid. But it also involved coming up with plans to drive your opponents into a corner and anticipating their moves... which I found pretty enjoyable.”

“If I were like Lord Diavolo, I could have any demon or human I wanted.”

“Aaaah, this is where I belong. Sitting on a throne!”

“Surely, tempting humans is what demons are all about?”

“And next time, you're welcome to be even bolder. I want your scent all over my clothes.”

“Oh my gosh! Even from behind, I am such a snack!”

“Ooh, I know exactly what you mean! It's like, you can't help but want to lie down together on a bed or a sofa and do all sorts of naughty things-“

“Butlers, you see...their services extend into the night, as well.”

“Aaah, I've never tried rope play before, but I think I like it ♡”

“That's a rather...traditional approach. I would've just seduced him.”

“There's just something nice about being completely overpowered and brought to submission like that, you know?!”

“Right now, I'm totally hooked on this exercise where I blow up balloons to strengthen my facial muscles. Do you wanna give it a try?”

“Filth? You should know that eroticism is a valid form of art.”

“I mean, I wrapped him in chains like you said, but l've got such soft, beautiful, tender hands. They aren't suited for such a rough job. Really, you should've known that…”

“Hehe. Lies are like accessories, hun.”

“But, I'd sure feel better if you came and comforted me. I mean, I'm aaaaall alone in my room right now. If you don't come over, I'll probably start crying on account of how lonely I am.”

“Let's meet in my room when the party is over. We can have our very own Valentine's Day afterparty, just the two of us ♡”

“I'm in desperate need of stimulation to my senses!”

“To think that even Mister Stiff and Serious Angel here is feeling his heart skip a beat...I love it! ♡”

“What the movie lacks is sexiness! Shall we add more revealing scenes, like me in a swimsuit?”

“...Ummm, is this some sort of joke? You look like a chicken in heat.”

“Oh, but with you it's different, MC! I only want to do your nails as an excuse to flirt ♡”

“Oh, how exciting! Better get back snug under the covers and wait for my impending arousal ♡”

“Yes, I do. I love butts!”

“It would be ideal if we were both au naturel, honestly...”

“Ahh, I feel so graceful when i'm shooting ♡”

“I left a dying message with lipstick, so you better catch the culprit!”

“Guess I'll just have to come over and shake things up for you ♪”

“See, I just knew you'd say that! Because we're obviously an extra-compatible super couple!”

“I'd love to. I'll make you look so good, you'll be drooling over yourself.”

“..No one will know if I take a single muffin, right? I'll just grab one while they're not looking. Yoink! ♡”

“Oh yeah, Satan is totally the type to start with the tongue first!”

“Look out, or I'll tear you to bits with my sharp claws!”

“Apologize? Me? I'm sorry, but I'm not quite sure why you'd want me to do that. I mean, true, I suppose an entire country was destroyed in the end, but how could I have known that would happen, hm?”

“Drastic times call for drastic measures. Step aside, boys my sexy dance is about to begin...!”

“Hehe. Trying to butter me up, are you? Tell me, what are you hoping will happen when you succeed?”

“I'm the life of the party. The eye candy, the one who makes everyone else feel better. I need to work hard, too...for the sake of my brothers!”

“Now, now, I may not be as quick to anger as the Lord of Fools, but still. If you don't do what I say, I might have to punish you…”

“By the way, your costume was really cute, MC. Just thinking about it makes my heart go pitter-patter!”

“And now I'm a demon. Which means I could charm any sorcerer, no matter how evil! I'll have him dancing in the palm of my hand!”

“Oh Solomon, THANK YOU! You're so amazing I think I'm going to swoon! I love you..!”

“A scolding? Ooh, I wouldn't mind being scolded by you, sweetie ♡”

“FYI: It's super obvious what's running through your dirty little mind right now, Mammon…”

“Brother dearest ♡ I'm sooooo thirsty! Could you get me some blood, please and thanks? ♡”

“My charm is the greatest weapon of all! I'll steal your hearts right where you stand ♡”

“Ooh, MC, are you on Devilgram and Fab Snap? Because we totally need to friend each other!”

“I mean, I suppose I could put on a little show for you… but it won't be cheap, you know? Also, I charge extra for pictures and touching.”

“Nuh-uh. I'll be the one to win that right! Prepare to be slain in style, everyone ♡”

“I'm actually quite exhausted. So, I was thinking you could hold me in your arms for a little while so I can recharge ♡”

“If you want to experience this exfoliating paradise with me, don't hesitate to join in ♪ You know I always have an open-door policy in effect for you, love ♡”

“If both of us are charging, there's going to be sparks”

“I need you to put some cream on my back for me ♡ Yes, a backrub and nothing more. If you, on the other hand, are looking for a happy ending, I'm more than ready, my dear ♡”

“Oh, is my little MC scared? Come cling to my bosom, darling. I'll make you feel aaaall better ♡”

“I'm actually going out soon, and this fastener is giving me so much trouble. I can't get it up by myself. It could really use a good tug ♪ I should mention that my back is extremely sensitive. The slightest touch, and...well let's just say it will be hard to hold back. So sorry if I get you too excited ♡”

✧༺⚜️༻✧

Number 100 is my favourite, literally makes me blush

I will be doing a part 2 for Asmo, he is just so chaotic and lovely!

𝑀𝒶𝓈𝓉𝑒𝓇𝓁𝒾𝓈𝓉

𝒮𝒽𝓎 𝒲𝓇𝒾𝓉𝑒𝓇 ༝༚༝༚

#justice for asmodeus #obey me #obey me shall we date #omswd #self ship #obey me crack #obey me asmodeus #obey me asmo #obey me asmo x mc #obey me canon #canon #writing prompt

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ejzah · 3 months

Text

A/N: Happy 5th Anniversary to Kensi and Deeks! I can’t believe five years ago we were wondering if it would ever happen. We’ve got a little bit of fluff, domestic Densi, babies, Rosa, and of course, romance.

This story ignores the fact that Sam is now in Hawaii.

***

Here’s to Five and Many More

When Rosa first met Sam Hanna and G. Callen (it would be a couple months before she heard what the G stood for thanks to Sam’s teasing), she thought they seemed nice, but fairly intimidating. She never imagined that they’d ever consider her their honorary niece, or that she’d feel comfortable to have them over for dinner.

Even more surprising was that they both accepted and didn’t seem fazed when they found out Kensi and Marty wouldn’t be in attendance.

“Have you ever considered opening your own restaurant?” Callen questioned after his first bite of chicken stew.

Rosa dipped her head at the compliment, shrugging. “Thank you. I’m glad you like it. But I think I’ll keep cooking as a hobby for now.” She shifted her weight. “And thank you for coming last minute.”

“Hey, I’ll never say no to a good meal, but something tells me that you didn’t invite us over just to sample your cooking,” Sam observed.

“You’re right, I didn’t,” Rosa admitted, brushing her hair back. “I was wondering if you could help me with something.”

Callen paused with a pepper halfway to his mouth and Sam’s face instantly shifted into something darker.

“Who is he and what did he do?”

“Uncle Sam, it’s nothing like that,” Rosa assured him quickly before he could find some poor and unsuspecting boy. “Steven is still wonderful. It’s not something bad.”

“Ok, but if that changes, I’m a text away, and have no problem lightly abusing my power to make arrests.”

By now, Rosa was fairly used to such offers, so she took it in stride. “Thank you. I’ll keep that in mind.” Folding her hands together, she breathed in once, not sure why she felt so nervous. “So, Marty and Kensi’s fifth anniversary is coming soon and I want to plan something special for them,” she explained.

“Yeah, March 17th.” Callen nodded.

“Yes. It’s four weeks away.”

“I want to plan something special for them. It’s been a really exciting year, but also so much has changed, and I know it hasn’t all been easy,” Rosa continued. “Maybe a nice dinner out or even a couple days away. Although I don’t know if Kensi and Marty will want to leave the twins overnight.”

“Hm, it would take some planning to pull off, but it’s possible,” Sam mused.

And don’t worry, I’ve saved some money from my job. All I need is help with the actual scheduling and execution,” Rosa assured him.

“Kid, we’re not making you pay for anything,” Callen interrupted with a roll of his eyes. “Kensi and Deeks would kill us if they found out we let you spend all your money on them.”

“I can afford it,” Rosa said stubbornly, pride getting the better of her.

“But you don’t have to. That money is supposed to be for your needs. Like tuition, and books, and ice cream during finals week ,” Sam told her gently.

Rosa smiled reluctantly at the last part. “Ok. I’m chipping in though since it was my idea.”

“Always so stubborn.”

“Well, it’s a Deeks-Blye trait,” Rosa explained with a self-deprecating shrug. Then more added more earnestly. “Thank you for helping me.”

“Anytime kid.”

***

“Babe, have you seen my breast pump?” Kensi asked, rushing from their bedroom.

“Uh, it’s in the hallway bathroom,” Deeks told her without looking up from wrangling Sophia into a clean onesie. He finished and tucked her under his arm.

Kensi hurried out of the room, coming back with pump and a couple fo bottles.

“Alright, you’re all clean, how about some tummy time?” Sophia made a sighing sound at Deeks’ suggestion, palming at his nose. When he had her settled on her stomach in the middle of a blanket with some toys, he grabbed Caleb.

Roughly three months in, they’d found a rhythm to caring for the twins. It was an exhausting and completely insane rhythm, but it worked for the most part.

“Now we have two clean babies,” Deeks announced, setting Caleb next to his sister. “Which should last anywhere from ten minutes to an hour and a half.”

Kensi laughed wryly from the couch, head flopped back on the cushion as the pump whirred quietly.

“Did Rosa say if she’ll be home for dinner?”

“Yeah, I think so.”

“Ok, I’m going to start some chicken and broccoli. Maybe potatoes if I’m feeling ambitious,” Deeks replied. Crouching briefly, he tickled each of the twin’s tummies. “Now don’t get into any trouble while I’m out of the room.”

***

Rosa arrived shortly before six with a loaf of crusty bread and a chocolate cake in hand. Deeks accepted both, grateful to have something to round their dinner out.

“¿Cómo están mis hermosos hermanitos y hermanitas?” she asked the twins, getting down on the blanket with them. They cooed happily, Caleb lifting his head higher in excitement. “Mira lo fuerte que eres.”

“I swear Sophia almost rolled onto her side this morning,” Deeks said, responding to the one-sided conversation.

“Isn’t that really early?” Rosa asked.

“It is,” Kensi confirmed. “It’s exciting, but I’m not quite sure I’m ready for them to be mobile yet.”

“Eh, it figures given their mom’s a ninja assassin.” Deeks winked at Kensi, who rolled her eyes.

“And their dad excels at any sport that involves ice or water.”

They held each other’s gaze for several seconds, Kensi’s eyes darkening, until Rosa pointedly cleared her throat.

“Do I need to leave the room?”

“No, no we’re good. Uh, dinner will be ready in five minutes,” he said, moving back into the kitchen. Rosa followed him. “How was your day?”

“It was ok. Do you need any help?”

“Nah, I’m good.”

Leaning against the counter, Rosa watched him put everything on the stovetop and begin dishing out servings.

“My literature class and ethics are always interesting. But I’m regretting taking history more every day.”

“Still unreasonably boring and complicated?” Deeks guessed.

“Yes.” She groaned and rubbed her hands over her face. “I never want to hear about 15th century kings again.”

“Ooh yeah, that’s not fun.” He winced in sympathy. “If you want any help studying, I’m always here. I might ask for payment in the form of baby-holding, but I’m always happy to help or just commiserate.”

Rosa giggled, her entire face brightening. “Thanks, Marty.”

“Any day, Rosalita. You wanna grab the last plate and bread?”

They set everything on the table while Kensi settled the twins in their car seats. Generally one of their toys kept them busy long enough for a quick dinner.

“Before we eat, I have something for both of you,” Rosa spoke up, pulling a gift out of her bag. “Happy Anniversary.”

“Oh, thank you, Rosa.” Kensi took the package, which was about dinner plate sized and based on the way her hands dipped, heavier than anticipated. She started peeling at the tape holding the paper together. Whatever it was, Deeks knew it would be creative; he’d learned very quickly that Rosa gifted from the heart and usually with her artistic side in mind.

“I know it’s not for a couple more days, but I wanted to give it to you early. I hope you like it.”

“Oh my god, this is gorgeous,” Kensi gasped as she let the wrapping paper fall away. She ran her fingers over the smooth mahogany stained wood. Across the front surface two raccoons with their noses pressed together were engraved in the very middle, set against a backdrop of trees.

“I know it might be kind of silly—”

“No, it’s perfect,” Deeks interrupted, glancing up from the gift. He held out an arm, pulling her into his side. Kensi wrapped her free arm around Rosa too. “Thanks you so much.”

“It’s really beautiful.”

“Actually, it’s not your only gift. Did you have any specific plans for your anniversary?”

“Uh, dinner here, and then falling asleep to Titanic?” Deeks suggested. He did have a gift for Kensi, but the last few months had taught them that planning for outings were best left flexible and without too much expectation.

“Why, did you have something else in mind?” Kensi asked.

Rosa folded her hands together, looking unusually timid. “Uncle Callen and Sam and I might have orchestrated a little surprise. We made reservations for you at your favorite sushi restaurant and then booked an Air BnB nearby for two days.”

“Rosa…” Kensi shook her head, and Rosa hurried to explain,

“You don’t have to stay overnight if you don’t want to be away from Caleb and Sophia that long, but I thought it would be nice for you to get away for a little bit.”

Deeks pressed his lips together, feeling the prick of tears building behind his eyes, overwhelmed by Rosa’s love for them.

“Rosa, that is so incredibly generous of you,” Kensi said, hugging her again.

“You deserve a break,” Rosa said simply, as if it wasn’t a big deal. Her excitement growing, she dove back into her backpack, and came back with a large envelope. “This has all the plans and reservations. If you do decide to go, Sam and I will take turns watching Sophia and Caleb.”

“That’s asking an awful lot of you.”

“You didn’t ask me to do anything,” she pointed out. “I’m offering, and I want to.”

“Man, we sure are lucky. Thank you,” Deeks murmured, pressing a kiss to Rosa’s forehead.

“Like you said, any time.”

***

“That was phenomenal,” Kensi sighed, dropping onto the bed in the master bedroom of their Air BnB with a graceless flop. She’d forgotten what it was like to enjoy a meal without any interruptions, to hold a conversation that didn’t involve at least one break for a diaper change or feeding. Of course she missed Caleb and Sophia, but she couldn’t deny the reprieve was nice. “But I might die.”

She looked up at Deeks, who had come in more slowly with their few bags. He grinned, tugging the first couple buttons of his shirt open. For once, he’d dressed up, choosing a deep blue shirt that matched her dress. He looked amazing, but she knew he was probably dying to get into something more casual.

“I’m saying nothing,” he said, though his smug grin pretty much said it for him.

“I know, I know. I shouldn’t have had that last spicy California. It was just too good.” Sighing, she rolled onto her side, patting the spot next to her, and held out her hand invitingly. “Come join me.”

“I should put our stuff away while I’m up.” He didn’t sound too certain about it though.

“You don’t always have to be so responsible,” Kensi teased. “C’mon, it’ll wait for a few minutes.”

Giving in, Deeks dropped the shirt he’d just pulled out of his suitcase, and slid onto the mattress next to her. He let out a contented groan as he sank into the thick quilt.

“Just a few minutes,” he repeated. They were both asleep in thirty seconds.

***

Kensi woke up with her nose buried in Deeks’ chest, arms loosely wrapped around her back. Untangling her arms, she stretched them above her head, her spine cracking as she arched her back. She felt better rested than she had in months.

“So much for just a few minutes,” Deeks muttered, eyes still closed.

“I think that was the best nap I’ve ever had,” Kensi said. She studied Deeks’ features, brushing back the pieces of hair that had grown more unruly in sleep. He leaned into her touch, one corner of his mouth lifting when she trailed her fingers down his cheeks and neck.

Scooting closer, Kensi pressed her lips to the warm tan skin left exposed by his open shirt. His hand tightened on her back, pulling her that much closer.

“Mm. I’m suddenly wide awake,” he drawled. Kensi pulled back enough to see his eyes were now open and slightly hazed with desire rather than sleep. He cupped the back of her neck, gently guiding her mouth to his.

They’d barely had any times to themselves, let alone the energy to consider sex since the twins were born, but suddenly the desire came back in full force.

Kensi dropped her hands to the front of his shirt, fingers scrabbling over the buttons and to tug the material free from his pants.

“Woah, and here I thought I got lucky with the nap.” Deeks gasped in between kisses.

“Oh, you’re about to get a whole lot more lucky,” Kensi promised, not caring how cheesy it sounded. She rolled Deeks onto his back, crawling up the length of his body, and then settling across his thighs. Hovering over him, she stared down at his flushed face, loving everything about him. “Happy Anniversary, baby.”

Deeks pulled her back to him, and they spent the next few hours making a very enjoyable anniversary.

#ncis la fanfiction #densi #marty deeks #kensi blye #Rosa #Sam and Callen #densi twins #fluff #romance #happy fifth anniversary Kensi and Deeks #anniversary fic #ejzah fanfiction

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kanene-yaaay · 1 year

Text

Childish Fights and Loud Laughter

Kanene’s notes: For some reason I am going back to my old fandoms? dfghyygtfdf anyway I re-watched atla once again last month and finally got some time and energy to write a tickle fic for it! Yesh!!!!

Warnings: Zuko’s general grumpiness, but only that. Switch!Zuko and Switch!Aang. I have no idea when that happens but it’s before the Sozin’s Comet. Around 3500 words.

[~*~]

Aang was staring at him.

Not that being stared at was something new in his life. Zuko grew rather accustomed to it, being the first heir of the Firelord and having a gigantic scar that covers half of your face usually made you the most interesting person in a crowd.

Still, it didn't mean that Zuko had to like it. Actually, he didn’t even understand why Aang was paying such a close attention to him now. After months of being friends, he should already be used to Zuko's presence in their group. Was he having second thoughts about accepting him as his teacher? Why? Was it because of the mistake in their morning training?

It wasn’t even a gigantic thing. Aang just got a way too light hit in his side that made him lose his concentration of his firebending and flinch away from the strange, electric sensation on his side.

(If that told him something about Aang's improvement or about Zuko's own lack of skills it was unclear.)

In the end, the reason for the staring didn't matter. It wouldn't be the first time Zuko would lose everything for a single mistake. He just needed to prove to the Avatar that he was still a worthy ally and teacher.

He got up.

"Break's time is over. Come on, let's spar and then run through your katas again. From first to tenth."

As always, the authority in his voice made Aang immediately jump to his feet, although no more moves were made to follow the instructions, the boy was still watching him for something.

"What!" He bristled.

"Did you injure your side?"

"With your weak hit? You just got me off guard, that is all." Zuko readied himself in an offensive stance, beginning his attack. "Let's see if you can do it again, and no more holding back your punches. You won't have this mercy when it comes to the Firelord."

"I know, I know." But instead of the defeated look that always took over the younger's face every time he mentioned his father, Aang's expression quickly bounced back to a curious expression, dodging from his flames and attacks with fluid moves (it was both weird and interesting to see how much fo the other elements affected his actions even when he wasn't using his bending).

"Are you sure you're not injured, though? You did jump pretty high back there."

Zuko felt like there was something hidden in the other’s voice. A kind of light reflected in his eyes, a different way that he seemed not worried at all in trying to fight back, an extra bounce in his step.

And for some reason, now the Avatar keeps smiling at him. Which, when the subject was about how he possibly was or not injured, didn't make Zuko very confident about his safety.

"I am not hurt." Irritation began filling his words. "Take this seriously! Fight back!"

"I will! I will! I am just curious, why did you jump away?"

"For no reason! It doesn't matter."

"No one squeals and jumps away for no reason." Was he getting closer?

"I did not squeal!" Zuko widened his stance and with a circling gesture, moved his arms until his palms were facing the ground, ceasing the fire attacks before adjusting himself to a standing position. "And if you rather keep mocking me than really focusing on your training, then I suppose that you can continue mastering your firebending alone."

He turned away, feeling strangely out of place, before fast steps put Aang right in front of him, arms in a placating gesture and his expression full of alarm and a bit of regret.

"No, wait! I wasn't mocking you, I swear." Aang then took a respectful stance and bowed, with his thumb poking out from his closed fist resting on his open palm. "Please don’t give up from me yet, Sifu Ho-" at Zuko's glare, he bit back the 'hotman'. "Uhhhhh, Sifu Zuko."

The older one took a deep breath, wondering if his uncle also felt the same feeling of old all the times Zuko kept pushing his proper training off to complain about capturing the Avatar and restoring his honor.

Life really comes to a full cycle, doesn't it?

He bowed, as well, mirroring Aang's gesture and respect, letting his usual irritation wash away, a common pinch of guilt that always came when he let his angry outbursts control his decisions appearing once again.

His point still stands, though.

"Alright." His tune was tough, but not unkind, a soft kind of relaxation taking over his gestures. He should at least try to have the same patience as his uncle. "Let's try again. Firs-"

"I am just really curious!" Aang cut him, basically bouncing on the same place, his energetic big smile back to his face now that the misunderstanding had been cleared. "If you're not injured, does that mean you're ticklish?"

For some reason, Aang seemed about to launch himself straight to the sky with how much he was beaming. In a blink, Zuko remembered old memories of his and his mother's laughter, of Lu Ten's surprise attacks and Mai's playful touches before he threw everything away to fulfill his own destiny.

And, in another bewildered blink, abruptly, Aang's smile and actions made complete sense. Zuko looked at him with wide eyes.

"I-"

Before the prince could answer, however, the avatar jumped at him, not wasting a single second as he locked on his sides with a horrible scribbling that made he feel like there was thousands of feathers teasing his sensitive torso, following his body even when the surprise attack made him fall on his back, holding his reactions with all his will power.

"I knew it. You are!" The scribbling quickly evolved to a series of light pinches and squeezes that almost made him jump away as they traveled too much close to his stomach, giggles beginning to bubble in his throat. "I can't believe you never told us about it before!"

"W-why-" He bit back a squeal, refusing to fall for such childish play. "Why would I snkr e-ever tell you tha-ah!"

Aang beamed even more at the muffled yelp that came when he experimentally scratched at his belly, deciding that it was a perfect place to dance and wiggle his fingers freely.

"Because it is fun! And it would be nice to see your smile. I don't think we ever heard you truly laugh since you joined the group!"

"I don't need to laugh." He gritted through his firmly pressed lips, turning his face away, feeling his features getting hot at the hopeful and bright expression from Aang at the giddiness slipping through the tears in his barriers. "We need to t-t-train. Don't!"

Zuko maybe, if he wasn’t totally concentrated in not dying because anywhere - absolutely any other place - would be better than that spot, would definitely feel mortified by the honest to Agni high pitched plea that fled from his mouth when the other poked his bellybutton curiously.

Aang smiled even wider, somehow.

"You also have a ticklish bellybutton?" He poked the tickle spot again and again, giggling in delight when Zuko wiggled from one side to another with even the slightest hint of a touch. "Just like Sokka! He would go totally crazy when we tickled his belly. Katara even had this secret technique she did when..." Suddenly, he stopped.

Zuko could see the exact moment the Avatar got an evil idea.

"No.” Aang didn’t move. “Don’t you even think about it!"

He tried to roll away, legs too weak to help him in a chase. Nevertheless, the other's playful hands followed him, pulling him back and straddling his waist so he could rest his index fingers and thumbs at each side of his bellybutton, making Zuko take a wobbly gulp of oxygen.

"Aang-" He tried to push the hands away but the Avatar was as immovable as a rock, grinning at him a tad manically. "Aang, I am g-going to make you do so many katas you will keep doing them in your sleep! Don't you dare!"

The Avatar, the bridge between the spiritual world, the one responsible to bring peace and balance to the four nations, the only one in the world able to master all the elements, the agent of evil snickered and did, in fact, dare.

For Zuko's complete mortification and immediate defeat, he began squeezing.

It was horrible. It was unbearable. Each squeeze made his entire body spasm with the sheer force of keeping his laughter inside, face growing more and more red as the tickling just did not stop.

That was when Aang's voice cut through air.

"Hey, actually, this gives me an idea! Wanna see a cool trick?" Zuko shook his head and Aang laughed. "Okay, I will show you anyway! It goes like this: 'Hello, I'm Mister Bellybutton and I am supeeeeeer ticklish!"

He was squeezing said tickle spot as if it was a mouth, pretending it was speaking and even making a goofy voice for it as if they were both tiny kids and not the future firelord and the one destined to end a one hundred year war, full of responsibilities and posture to uphold and Zuko…

"Squish! Squish, squish, squish, squishsquishsquishsquish-"

Zuko exploded in a loud, boisterous laughter.

"S-SHUHUHUHUT AHAHAHAHAHAP!"

Whether it was for the sheer absurdity of it all, the awful and playful impersonation of a silly voice or the tickly shocks that filled all his nerves and senses he couldn't say. Actually, other than becoming a mess of laughter and sounds that were supposed to be words but were too lost in crackles to be understood, he wasn’t able to say much.

"Oh my god!!! Zuko, this is your laughter?! It's so nice! I can't believe we never tried to tickle you before!"

Zuko realized that he couldn’t do anything to stop the unfair tickle attack on his stomach, especially when Aang focused on using his other fingers to prod the sensitive skin and buzz on it, pulling a series of startled snorts that made the prince immediately hide his flaming face on his hands.

"Noooo, come on, not fair! You can't hide your smile, that is against the rules!"

"THEHEHEHERE'S NO RUHULES!"

"Of course there it is! Every tickle fight has rules. Like: no hiding your smile, no covering your face, and especially…"

The younger relented his attack giggling together with the other's remnant and uncontrollable titters as Zuko tried to recompose himself, feeling yet still a bit dazed with the sudden joy and adrenaline that were still running in his veins.

Wait. Why was it so quiet? Aang was saying something, wasn't he?

"Never leave a tickle spot unprotected unless you want it to be tickled!"

Suddenly fingers began kneading his ribs and Zuko's arms shot down in a too late attempt to protect them, a loud yelp announcing the comeback of an unstoppable mix of fast, airy giggles and eventual squeaks that didn’t wait to mingle in such a rare and beautiful melody.

"Here is it!" Zuko wasn't sure how, but he could swear that Aang somehow got more than two hands, because in a blink the wiggling fingers that were prodding and drawing circles on his ribcage were not only assaulting his neck and ears with a skillful spidering scratches and nimbly scribbling but also, even before he could lift his arms and try to pry them from there before another high pitched chortle came out of his mouth, were worming and digging awfully on his armpits, obliging him to clue his arms to his sides once more and starting the whole cycle started again and again.

No spot was left without a proper, tickly and tingly attention. Every squeeze on his knees, scratch on his soles, kneading on his sides and light tapping on his palms (how did he even discover about his palms-) pulled all sorts of loud crackles, bubbly giggles, bouncy titters, wobbly squirms, tired kicks and a boisterous belly laughter that left him without energy, a "stop" ready in the tip of his tongue when the younger decided that it was enough and relented the energetic tickle attack.

The prince of the Fire Nation turned around, still giggling, still blushing and still feeling the ghost feeling of dancing fingers buzzing right under his skin, leaving a permanent giant smile on his face.

He wiped the few tears that accumulated on the corner of his eyes, taking deep breaths and trying to not get embarrassed by the couple of giggles that continued to fill the air.

"See, I told you it was fun!" Aang snickered. "I didn't expect you to be so ticklish, though. You're almost as bad as meEEK!"

With a swift roll and quick reflexes Zuko jumped and pushed - not necessarily gently but also not with all his strength - the Avatar down, pinning his arms upwards with a hand.

Wide grey eyes stared at him, a drop of alarm on them.

"Uhhhh, Zuko, you're not really angry are you? It’s just that you never said to stop and-"

Zuko lifted his hand and with a gasp, the other cut his babbling.

He began wiggling his fingers.

"Almost as bad as you, you say?"

"Waitwaitwait!" Aang kicked and laughed joyfully, suddenly free of any drop of fear in his gaze as he wiggled like a madman on his hold, trying with all his might to put as much distance as he could from the offending silly fingers.

Seeing the older one loosening up was rare, but to see him loosen up, smile and be playful on the same day? Aang felt like he was the luckiest person in the world. He couldn’t wait to tell everyone else about how nice Zuko's laughter is.

I mean, if he survived the payback. Aang tried to lightly pull his arms back, but the grip was firm. He watched with trepidation the hand that was getting closer and closer to his sides, sucking his belly as much as he could.

Golden and gray eyes found each other for a moment.

Zuko stopped, his tiny smirk being overthrown by a frown and Aang felt his arms being freed.

The butterflies in his belly stopped batting their wings and the smile on his face fell. He tried to not feel too disappointed.

They would eventually get Zuko to participate in more of their shenanigans. One day. When he was ready. Even if today wasn't the day, he still got him to laugh.

An unbearable light feeling on his palm made the shorter yelp and jump away, one of his wrists being held back before he could pull it to his chest.

Golden and gray found each other again. Zuko smiled triumphantly.

"I knew it." He said, and Aang watched with a giddy feeling as blunt nails began scribbling on his palm, following the lines of his hands, drawing on the tip of fingers, contouring and spiraling across the entire sensitive skin to his wrists. Soon enough, his airy, fast and giggly snickers were filling the space, amidst his wiggles and half-heartedly attempts to pull his arm away. "I was wondering how did you discovered about my hands. It's because yours are sensitive as well."

"Yehehehes!" An 'eee' sound stretched the word and he snorted, kicking and squirming more, his other hand flapping non stop in an attempt to free himself of all the energy running in his veins. "Ihihihi realized that when I stahaharted to bend firehehe. It makes them so ticklihihish!"

"Must be rough for you."

"Hehey! But yours are ahahahalso tick- no!"

Not minding the other's protest, Zuko lifted the captured arm and attacked the unprotected armpit, being careful to tase and drum his fingers in every available inch of skin, feeling extremely smug at the shriek he got from the Avatar with the drastic change from such a soft to more playful tickle attack, his squirming getting so strong that he pushed himself back to a sitting position.

"BWAHAHAHA! NOHOHOT THERE!"

Zuko remembered something Lu Ten used to do with him all the time. It was childish and silly and not at all fitting for the future Firelord, but it used to drive Zuko over the palace’s walls all the time, and if Aang had at least half of his reaction…

He was just really glad that they went to train in a far area alone.

"What? Not here?" He made sure to focus on the weakest spot of the pit, poking and digging there for a good measure. "Not right here? Are you sure?"

"YESYESYES! IHIHIT'S TOHOHOHO BAHAHAD!"

"OK then." The tickling came to a stop.

Aang continued to laugh softly at the attack, his smile big and wobbly and eyes shining with excitement. "Wohohow, you're ruthless."

Zuko merely hummed in reply, watching him for the exact moment where he would relax and lower his guard…

Now.

"Hm, I changed my mind." He went right back at the merciless attack.

"SIFU HOHOHOHOTMAN, NOHOHO!"

"And stop calling me that! Do you like being tickled, by chance? Becoming a mess of laughter and squeals?"

"Yehehehehes!"

Zuko blinked, the tickling faltering for a bit and fishing a mess of tittering and soft squealing before resuming his quicker pace. "Really?….Why?"

"Ihihihit's fun!" Aang squealed and arched his back when Zuko got bored and decided to worm his fingers to his back ribs, spidering and stretching on the space in between each bone. For a piece of moment nothing but laughter filled his mind, thoughts and senses and all Aang could do was squeal until his mind got a bit clearer.

"You like it too!"

The shout that came out from the prince's lips was a mix of embarrassment and surprise. "I do not!"

"Do too!"

"Shut it!" The playful glint on the other's eyes only got stronger at the color flooding once again Zuko's cheeks. He grumbled in a grump protest. "If you can still tease me then I am not doing a good job. You must have a death spot somewhere, don't you?" He held the boy by his shoulder, starting to wiggle and prod his back in a search.

It was a good thing that his hand was still keeping the boy still because as soon as the sentence came out from his mouth the other began wiggling like his life was on the line.

"Wait, wait, Zuko! Not there! You can tickle my hands again or even my sides, they're pretty bad, but, wait!"

"Is your back really that ticklish or-" Zuko's teasing was cut when he pressed the highest space in between his shoulderblades (being very careful to not accidentally touch the scar) and, after a loud shout, an extremely low belly laughter filled the air.

"NOHOHOHO!"

He stopped. Aang stopped, hands flying to hide his mouth.

"That was you?"

"No, of course not!" With a muffled voice the Avatar tried to wiggle away from the touch, only the tip of his smile appearing behind his palm. "What was what? I didn't hear a thing. Ah! It’s getting so late, I think that Katara is calling meeEEEHEHEHE!"

Zuko pressed once again at the middle of his shoulder blades, thumb incessantly tasering on the same spot as he watched with drops of surprise and amusement as the youngest usual higher voice became much lower and stronger, his guffaws making his entire torso beam with the force of the laughter.

"Your voice gets rougher when someone tickles your back?" Poke, poke, poke, prod, tase, tase. "How does that even work?"

"NOHOHOHO! LEHEHEHEHEHEAVE THAT SPOT ALOHOHONE, PLEHEHEHEASE!"

Seeing that the boy seemed unable to stop bouncing in the same place with the sheer amount of ticklishness and energy running across his entire torso, Zuko decided to listen to him, stopping his tickles and eyeing his lower back with curiosity.

If just that tiny spot on his shoulder blades were so bad he wondered if his spine…

With an only one index finger, the older one ran the tip of the finger across Aang's spine.

He got exactly to the middle of it before the airbender shot straight to the sky with a high pitched, ear splitting squeal.

Zuko quickly jumped to a standing position, wide eyes searching the sky until his gaze finally found the hope of the world, the bridge between the material and the spiritual world, clutching his belly and historically giggling while kicking the air just like a kid in a tantrum, floating from a side to another, way too lost in ghost tickles and tittering snorts to control his airbending and stop spinning in the air with each laugh.

The future firelord sighed, ignoring how fond he felt for being the one responsible in making the smaller look as happy as this.

He forced his face to go back to his usual scowl, even if a playful, silly kind of feeling softened most of it and even when the entire gang already knew how to see right through it.

"Your training is not over yet, stop fooling around and come back! You still have to do katas until sunset."

Aang's remanent joyful laugh rang like a bell across the air. Somehow, Zuko felt like they wouldn’t do a lot of training today.

#I am once again looking at the prince of the darkness and the ray of sunshine and being obsessed w their friendship #you can pry a giggly silly Aang from my dead cold hands. that bean deserves so muchtickles fr <3 #Switch!Aang #Switch!Zuko #Ticklish!Zuko #Ticklish!Aang #atla tickles #atla tickling #Kanene's fic #Kanene's fanfic #Me: *uses 'airy' to describe Aang's laughter* I am the master of puns. I am unstoppable. I am silliest silly to ever silly #Also for a moment I was too worried I wrote the beginning too much dramatic then I remembered it was Zuko so that is fine #kjhgtfrfghjkjhgf #T H E M <3 <3 <3 #Zuko: this is childish >:( // Aang: We ARE children >:)

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