#it’s selfish of me to continue its time she could spend with someone who’s actually worth something

[chibelial]

.

[yakool-foolio]

2 am brainrot message!!!!!

I'm kinda basic i don't have any strong ships for rain code which is honestly a first in a hot minute since i've been hyper fixating on Sonadow and Komahina but i feel as if i'm more interested in the odd and peculiar somewhat flirty but not really a relationship of Yuma and Shinigami their dynamic is so fun! The death god makes an uncomfy joke and Yuma goes "what.." dynamic is so funny to me not to mention them actually caring about each other to a degree and it's just so sweet and odd and silly !!!!!!!! i wish we got to see Yuma on his adventures traveling i'd kill for anything like a spinoff mangas or somethiingnggggg,,,,, im just hungry for more mangas probably because of how well the nagito mangas fed me ages ago lmao

It helps that Yuma and Shinigami spend the most time together throughout the game, so there's a good bit to love about their dynamic! Despite all of Shinigami's teasing, she really does grow to care about Yuma and supports him when he's at his lowest. I think it's a nice touch that she still tries to joke around to try to get him to leave through the emergency exit because she doesn't want their departure to sting as much as it does.

And although Yuma can get pretty tired of her insults, he can't deny that she's someone he can confide in about his inner struggles when nobody else knows him as well. Shinigami has the hindsight of understanding who Yuma really is as Number One. Honestly, she kinda has a reason to tease him because he gave away all of his memories to solve a mystery for the sake of his ego. Yuma may not know why, but she can't help but jab at his past self for his ultimately selfish desires when forming the pact. Thankfully, Yuma grew beyond the heartless motto he followed as the head detective of the WDO and changed it for the better as his final order.

As for spin-off mangas, I think there are three for Rain Code that already exist, though they are exclusive to Japan as of now. If I remember correctly, one of them is a recap of chapter 0 (which seems to be ongoing and could actually be about Rain Code in its entirety), one is a small collection of 'what if the train gang survived?' stories (as far as I know only two have released so far, unsure if its continuing), and one is a romantic comedy sorta thing (this is the one I know the least about cause I've only seen the covers, none of the actual pages). Crossing my fingers that more's on the way and will be localized someday! I'm still anticipating the day the limited time Yakou n Vivia story is translated. I yearn for the gays...

[anashins]

The Right Kind of Wrong

Title: The Right Kind of Wrong

Pairing: Jaehyun x You

Genre: hate to love, cheating, college!au, friendship, romance, smut

Warnings: smut, cheating, cursing, toxicity

Word Count: 8.454

Summary: There are many reasons for you to hate Jung Jaehyun. Aside from being cocky and selfish, the fact that he is dating your best friend is another one of them. But his mesmerizing smile - to hell with it - just isn't.

____

There were at least a hundred things you hated about Jung Jaehyun.

The fact that he was dating your best friend was just one of them.

Not a single day had passed by in the last year in which she hadn’t complained about her boyfriend having flirted with another woman, having ditched her again, going to a party and ignoring her all night, or simply dragging her mood down by one of his unpredictable and hurtful actions.

Aside from being cocky, selfish, arrogant and reckless, Jung Jaehyun was absolutely incapable of being a decent human being for more than ten seconds, and you were wondering why he was so damn popular despite all his faults.

When you went out with your friend group, he mocked the boys trying to hit on you, telling you they were so desperate for that move. When you were attending the same class, he purposely sat down next to you to distract you from the lesson. When he was at your dorm, he kept moving your things onto high shelves, knowing you couldn’t reach them.

And his smirk everytime he did so… his smirk every time he mocked you was so annoying. But also so hot.

Fuck, you thought whenever his mischievious eyes met yours again, and you had to turn away, at a loss for words and afraid he’d caught you flushing. You were so ashamed, because you actually wanted to hate him.

There were many reasons for you to hate Jung Jaehyun, but his mesmerizing smile wasn't one of them.

You hadn’t hated him from the first moment that you two had officially met as you had gotten introduced to each other through your best friend who was also your dorm mate, though. She had found him on a dating app, and you had found him sitting in your class two days later, talking back to the professor.

Back then, you had started admiring his intelligence and courage. But those were the only two positive things you had spotted so far as you only tried to stay as far away from him as possible, emphasizing his negative character traits over and over again.

But the truth was that staying away from him was a very hard thing to do, and you fought every day for your sanity, trying to be a good friend and suppressing your controversial feelings for a man who was absolutely forbidden to you.

“He went drinking last night and I saw an instagram story of him grinding against another girl on the dancefloor!” your best friend complained in your arms, tears on the verge of flowing. “Who’s doing that even?!”

A few pairs of eyes turned into your direction, but when you threw fierce glances at the people staring at you, they passed by very quickly.

When you had been invited to your friend Johnny’s house party, you hadn’t expected to be spending the evening comforting your best friend, even though that had been your daily routine for the past three weeks.

It had grown toxicly usual for Jaehyun and her to fight in a two to three day rhythm over the smallest things, and although their wonky relationship or whatever it was hadn’t been very steady before with them breaking up nearly monthly, lately it had grown almost obnoxious.

“Why don’t you just break up with him?” you suggested again and immediately felt your heart sink.

It wasn’t like you wanted them to break up because you wanted Jaehyun for yourself. You’d never do that to her.

Your best friend was just constantly hurting, and it hurt you just as much when you saw her suffering so greatly. Jung Jaehyun wasn’t a good guy, and you both knew. Yet, she couldn’t let go of him. You knew exactly how that felt.

Even if they were to break up, he wouldn’t belong to you. Because a friend’s ex was a taboo. So having Jaehyun gone entirely from your lives would kill two birds with one stone.

“Not that again!” your friend whined and retreated from you, sinking into the couch with her arms crossed and no signs of tears anymore. “I can’t! I mean… look at him! He’s so hot, and don’t get me even started about his skills in bed. That’s where we usually make up, you know, so-”

“I’m going to get you something to drink!” you interrupted her and jumped up. “You totally need a cocktail now! To come to your senses!”

You loved your best friend dearly, but you didn’t want to hear about Jaehyun’s skills by all means. At some times, your friend didn’t have a filter, and then, it only spiraled downhill from there. You heard them often enough in the dorm, that was already pushing you to your limits.

When you entered the kitchen, you reached up to get a glass from the shelf, but like most of the times, you were too short for the remaining ones at the very top.

“Here, let me help you.”

A soft voice echoed from behind you, but before you could turn around to follow the tone, the guy had already heaved up his arm and reached over you to the very top of the shelf to get you a glass.

Shifting around, you faced the mischievous expression of the young man you had wanted to avoid and who your best friend was currently crying over.

Without a “thank you”, you reached out your hand to grab the glass from Jaehyun, but he immediately shot his arm up to bring the glass high over his head and far out of your reach.

“You think a simple ‘thank you’ is too much for you?”

“Fuck off, Jaehyun.” You crunched with your teeth and narrowed your eyes. “I’d rather die of thirst!”

“What did I do again?” He rolled his eyes in an annoyed manner as though his high spirits got ruined. “What did she tell you?”

“She told me everything she saw from last night!” you defended your friend. “That’s enough for me to get the picture!”

“Okay, and did the picture somehow include me pushing the girl away after she had grinded on me?”

You gulped.

“Just as I thought.”

He placed the glass on the counter, but somehow, this hadn’t got your both’s attention anymore.

“There are two sides of the same coin, yet all you've ever done was looking only at one.”

He approached you, and the rising hotness in your cheeks made you withdraw until your hips bumped into the kitchen counter.

Jaehyun leaned in and propped his arm against the same spot right next to your hip as he asked, “I know you’re her best friend, but being a friend doesn’t mean supporting your friends delusional, one sided thoughts into oblivion. Being a friend sure means to support, I’m not denying that. But being a true friend means to tell someone when they’re wrong. And I am not the one at fault here, y/n.”

“You were doing many stupid things to hurt her in the past!” you started blabbering just to bridge over the silence you’d get when you would stare at his mesmerizing eyes for a little longer. “How am I supposed to believe you?”

“You aren’t supposed to believe me.” He retreated, with the glass in his hand. “All I’m asking for is a chance to explain myself.”

Again, you were flabbergasted by the way he expressed his thoughts that stood in contrast to his questionable behavior. One of the main things that fascinated you. But you quickly turned this feeling into hate by recalling his wrongdoings from the night before.

Looking at the glass, Jaehyun continued, “Yes, there were many things I did wrong in the past. And I’m not going to pinpoint my finger at my girlfriend to tell that she was doing just as many questionable things as me. But people have reasons for doing the things they do. That’s probably why we’re such a good match.”

You didn’t understand a word. In your eyes, and you only knew about their relationship by what your friend told you and what you observed when you were hanging out, the two weren’t a good match at all.

He was the one constantly hurting her feelings, and she was the one to always get hurt.

Or... wasn’t it?

Jaehyun then thrusted the glass into your hand. “You’re lucky, y/n, you know that? It must be so great, living that freely, without any burdens… So oblivious to everything.”

With these words, he disappeared from the kitchen, leaving you behind all alone with the glass in your hand.

You looked at the item, your face getting reflected in the crystals to unrecognizability while Jaehyun’s words still kept you occupied. They had such an impact on you that you suddenly started to question whether your hate against him was actually valid.

When you stepped out of the kitchen yourself with a full glass of your best friend’s favorite cocktail in your hand, you found her in Jaehyun’s arms again, wildly kissing, his kind words suddenly vanished from your mind upon spotting them.

Instead, there was a little monster called jealousy sitting right inside your chest.

___

“8am in the morning! Who even places classes that early?!”

With a groan, Jaehyun flopped down in the seat next to you.

“Shut up, class is about to start.”

“Man, you must be really fun at parties,” he replied. “The professor is not even here yet.”

“You’re annoying, Jung Jaehyun, and if you weren’t dating my friend, I wouldn’t actually talk to you at all.”

“What are the odds we’re still connected to each other, huh! Tell me, y/n, what did I ever do to you? How did I ever hurt you? We’ve never even really spoken with each other ever since we’ve gotten introduced.”

“And I am grateful for this every single day.”

“What is it that you hate about me so much?” he questioned further, his eyes challenging.

But with your eyes straight ahead and no words on your lips, you ignored him as the professor entered the room only a short moment after, announcing the class’ start.

Your pen flew over the sheet, noting down the professor’s words when suddenly, goose bumps spread all over your arm.

When your eyes followed the trail to its source, your right elbow touched Jaehyun’s left one as a result of your hectic writing motions as you had moved too far to the side. The spot on your skin was so warm and so…

You withdrew your arm right away, placing it back to where it usually belonged, but Jaehyun’s own limb had moved so far to the left that you had no place to rest it next to your notes anymore without having his skin barely one inch apart from you. You weren’t touching anymore, but he was so close that you still felt him somehow.

Of course you could drop your arm and place it on your lap as the professor had stopped presenting the most important points of this lesson. Of course you could just move further away with your entire belongings, but the fact was that you didn’t. That you couldn’t.

Instead, you were fixating your eyes on the board right in front of you, listening to your professor’s words but not actually understanding a single syllable that he uttered as your heart beat fast against your chest.

You hoped that Jaehyun didn’t notice how desperate you were for him not to shift away right now. That you actually enjoyed it, but felt so much hatred at the same time. Not against him, but against you - for feeling this way.

“Can you answer my question, Miss y/n?”

Your eyes widened in shock as you got addressed by the professor by your surname. You were actually a good student who was always paying attention in class. Under normal circumstances, this wouldn’t have happened. But now you got caught red handed not listening to him, and he was a very strict lecturer.

“I… um…” you stuttered.

“The answer to my question, Miss.”

“Yes… the answer…” You gulped as you didn’t even know the question. “The answer is…”

From the corner of your eyes, you perceived how a sheet was slowly moving into your direction from Jaehyun’s place. His finger was pointed at a paragraph that you had also noted down only shortly before.

Suddenly, you knew what the question was about and answered formally to the professor’s task.

With your heart having calmed down after the shock, you let yourself sink down on your seat again. You had gotten distracted only once by something that shouldn’t bother you at all.

This wouldn’t happen again, you swore to yourself.

____

“No ‘thank you’ again from you?”

You turned around to Jaehyun who had rosen a brow at you. “Is this becoming your thing now? Asking for ‘thank yous’?”

“Is this becoming your thing now?” he returned. “Not saying ‘thank you’? I saved your ass in class.”

“Well, I haven’t asked for that, so go beg somewhere else for attention.”

You made your way through the crowded club, feelling the bass under your feet and the techno music in your ears. Jaehyun was following suit.

“Do you want some kind of reward from me? Because you’re not going to get it.”

“I don’t want a reward. Hey.”

He reached out and grabbed you by your arm, right there on the dancefloor. The feeling from this morning returned, but in a higher intensity as it spread all over your body.

“All I’m asking for is respect.”

You snorted. “Respect? Do you respect my friend when you destroy her weekend plans to go drinking with your friends instead? Do you respect my friend when you dance ass on ass with another girl? Do you respect my friend when you hurt her feelings with your rude words? I don’t like you, Jung Jaehyun, because you’re a bad person, and respect is the last thing you’ll ever get from me!”

You yanked yourself out from his grip and disappeared in the mass. What was up with him? Why was he bothering so much lately and evoking all these controversial feelings inside you by acting like this? He should just stay away.

With your eyes closed, you started to move with the music, all by yourself there on the dancefloor. You wanted to collect your thoughts, but as the music flooded through your body, you realized that thinking about nothing was probably the best way to cope with your inner struggles right now.

You opened your eyes widely when you suddenly felt a hand on your bum.

Turning around with much anger reflected in your mien, you stared at a boy around your age who grinned at you seductively. Your fierce gaze was probably mistaken for an invitation when he approached you further, grabbed you by your hips from the front and pressed you against him.

With his lips on your ear, he whispered, “I like what I see.”

And you wanted to scream. You probably did, but it got drowned out by the loud music, and his grip was way too hard for you to free yourself that easily as you shuffled in his arms.

“Let me go!”

Yet, his hands roamed around your private areas like they owned it.

“HEY!”

Before you could scream once more, the guy got dragged away from you by the last person you had expected it from.

“She said let go of her, you asshole!”

Jaehyun grabbed him by his collar, and his height and angry expression alone were probably enough for the other guy to nearly piss his pants as he hastily mouthed,

“I’m so sorry!”

When Jaehyun let go of him, he slipped off silently and wasn’t seen again.

You stood there awkwardly with your arms hugging your chest, still digesting the happenings.

“Did he hurt you?” Jaehyun asked when he leaned in for you to understand better.

You shook your head.

“Do you want to go outside?”

You nodded.

Jaehyun took you by your hand to lead you through the dancing crowd, and you didn’t protest.

This gesture was the total opposite to the disgusting one from the guy who had harassed you shortly before. This touch was raw and chaste. Nothing to be ashamed of and fight against, but something you wanted to accept wholeheartedly.

When you stood outside of the club, Jaehyun let go of your hand, and you finally whispered the words that he had been longing to hear for quite a time,

“Thank you.”

Against your expectations, he didn’t mock you or return witty words. With his eyes locked with yours, he sincerely told you,

“You’re welcome.”

That was the moment it dawned on you that Jung Jaehyun had more positive sides to him that you had always wanted to blend out. But perhaps, you had reached a point in which this wasn’t possible anymore.

You couldn’t continue keeping your eyes closed to all the kind sides of him. Because the more he showed you, the more you’d open your heart for him.

To you, Jung Jaehyun had to remain a bad person, otherwise you’d fall for him, and falling for your best friend’s boyfriend was a taboo.

“Hey, what are you two doing outside?!” Speaking of the devil, your best friend jumped out of the club’s door and into your direction. “Isn’t the music fun?”

Jaehyun looked at you, waiting for your reaction. You knew that if you wanted to go home, he’d follow. If you wanted to stay, he’d stay too, not letting you out of his sight. Because - and you couldn’t repeat this often enough - Jaehyun was actually a good person.

“I want to go home,” you decided. “You can stay, though! Please just let me be the party pooper all alone, I don’t want to spoil your night.”

“Oh, what a pity!” your friend said with a pout. “You always leave when the party is about to start!”

You shrugged with a weak smile, tired of fighting. “Yeah, I guess so. But I still have a lot of pages to revise.”

“Shall we take you back to the dorm?” Jaehyun offered in a caring voice that you apparently encountered for the first time, and your friend immediately shot a reproachful glare at him.

“Are you being serious right now?” she complained. “She’s a grown ass woman who can go home alone!”

His eyes hadn’t left yours. “I’m talking to her, not you.”

Had it always been like this? Her caring about herself more than about you? If it were the other way around, you wouldn’t let her go home alone in the middle of the night, no matter if you knew something had happened before or not.

Suddenly, you saw your best friend from a whole other perspective. Suddenly, she was the one having Jaehyun on a leash, and he was the one fighting back for his rights, not against her.

Two sides of the same coin… If you were to flip it, would your entire world view change?

For a moment, you hesitated. But not wanting to disturb your friend’s evening, you gave in with a, “It’s okay, I can go alone. Have a nice night!”

But Jaehyun held you back when he insisted on calling you an uber for which he even paid while your best friend continued pouting on the side.

____

“FUCK YOU, JAEHYUN!” you heard your best friend scream later that night from her room, every syllable of hers clearly to hear in your own room while you laid in bed later that night.

The hours before had passed by in a trance as you had only fallen onto your mattress face forward after having quickly changed into your pj’s, that was how much of a toll the day had taken on you.

You just wanted to forget what had happened in the club, but also the thoughts that had constantly been in your mind all the way home that only revolved around Jaehyun. So sleep was the best solution, and you would have gladly continued doing so if there weren’t your best friend and Jaehyun arguing loudly next to you for an hour already.

Then, Jaehyun seemed to return something to which she screamed again, “I DON’T FUCKING CARE!”

Stomping followed the brief silence, a door getting opened, then shut again, and footsteps moved into the direction of the entry door before it fell close behind Jaehyun.

This was a nearly weekly experience for you lately, and usually, you’d just miss hearing their arguments, but this time you couldn’t help but to wonder what they had been yelling about. You just hoped it wasn’t because of you and what had happened to you earlier, because in your eyes, Jaehyun had done nothing wrong.

He had been so incredibly nice and thoughtful that you started to doubt their relationship.

You turned in your bed, wanting to fight those thoughts so badly. Jaehyun was your best friend’s boyfriend, and hence, forbidden fruit for you. But you just couldn’t stop your imagination from running now.

What it would be like in your best friend’s place and get treated like this every day, and the worst part was that you didn’t even feel bad about betraying her in your mind.

Fuck, you only thought and sat straight up in bed, now surely not being able to grasp a light thought to accompaby you back to lseep anymore.

Feeling safe to leave your room ten minutes later as your roommate must have fallen asleep by now, you didn’t think about sleep anymore but wanted to get a glass of water from the kitchen to calm yourself down.

Perhaps, tomorrow, you’d have another look at the entire situation, you tried to convince yourself. After a few more hours of sleep, all these confusing thoughts and feelings might have already been forgotten.

“Cannot sleep yet?”

You turned around and found a half naked Jaehyun only dressed in boxers right in front of you. The empty glass of water in your hands got placed back on the counter with shaky fingers.

“What are you doing here?” you contered.

“Well… she suddenly left.” He shrugged. “We’ve been arguing. You sure haven’t missed that one.”

“I didn’t.”

Still, you were wondering what that was all about, but didn’t want to ask. He lifted the weight off your shoulders himself though.

“It was about you.”

“Oh…?” You gulped.

“When you were gone, I went back to that guy and didn’t let him go that easily. They threw me out of the club and your friend thought I'd ruined the night for her.”

“You shouldn’t have done that.”

You wanted to make your way around him, but he blocked your way as he didn’t move to make space for you to pass by the door.

“What’s making me a bad person, y/n?” Jaehyun suddenly asked. “ The way I saved you in class? In the club? Tell me.”

“You cannot be serious right now. It’s 5am, draw a number for another day.”

You wanted to slip under his stretched out arm, but he moved his body to block you again. “Number one. Now tell me.”

“Because those have been the only times you were nice to me, Jung Jaehyun!” You clenched your fists, breathing in deeply. “When we go out with our friend group, you mock the boys trying to hit on me, telling them they’re so desperate for that move!”

“Because I heard them speaking about you before,” he declared. “They were not looking for something serious but only fun, one had even placed a bet. I tried to spare you from this embarrassment and eventual lovesickness. Go on.”

“When we’re in the same class, you purposely sit down next to me to distract me from the lesson!”

This one let him smirk. “Because I always saw you sitting there alone. You have no friends in that class, and I thought you might need some company. Besides… I knew you couldn’t afford that book we needed, and I purposely always shoved it into your direction when the professor read from it. Have you never noticed?”

Now you have. And you were flabbergasted.

“Wh… when,” you stuttered, “you’re over here, you always move my stuff onto high shelves, knowing I cannot reach them!”

“Because I love to see the defeated look on your face and your cute pout when you have to ask me to get the things for you.”

You didn’t know what to say further as you stood there, frozen on the spot. You hadn’t seen this answer coming.

“Anything else?”

Yes, there were many things you hated him for, and you wanted to throw them all into his face, but as he was standing there in front of you, not even one more came into your mind.

“I just hate you to the core!” you hissed.

But with calmness in his voice, he only turned, “No, you don’t.”

And then, it was all only a blur.

You wanted to push him away, but instead, you found yourself nudging against his body. You wanted to free yourself from his grip, but instead, you wrapped your arms around him. You wanted to escape from his kiss, but instead, you kissed him back in the same passionate manner he kissed you.

Jaehyun’s hands roamed all over your lightly covered body while his lips moved against yours, touching every spot he had missed out on during the entire time he knew you, because you had always pushed him away.

But now that you had opened up to him, you were scared the time window was about to close very soon, so you had to work fast.

You jumped on him, hooking your thighs around his waist while his hands instantly clung around your buttocks to give you the support he needed to carry you to your bedroom. Your hands remained interlaced on the back of his neck when he placed you onto your bed and laid himself between your legs.

Thrown overboard were all your morals, priorities, and the friendship to the person that meant the world to you. You didn’t want to think about all that, but were longing for him so desperately that you wondered for how long you had been suppressing that desire already.

Jung Jaehyun was hot. But he was a bad person.

Or… wasn’t he?

You desperately ground upwards against him, feeling him growing between your legs, and you brought your hands down to massage his length. Jaehyun interrupted your kiss as he hadn’t expected this move to come, and groaned into your ear.

You smirked triumphantly, your hands kneading muscles until he was pressed hard against your palms. Tucking your fingers into the waistband of his boxers, you slid the garment from his hips, revealing his bum. Your hands glided along his curvy, soft mounds, grabbing into them like you were testing ripe peaches.

Jaehyun was pecking your lips as you slid your hands under his body again and closed around his entire girth. He stopped for a moment, but the second he continued on, you started moving your hands, top on top, along his length.

Not being able to concentrate on the feeling down there and kissing you simultaneously anymore, you perceived how Jaehyun got weak with supporting his body on his own arms that he had rested to the left and right of your head. So you decided to take the lead from here on.

Sitting up yourself, you put your palms on Jaehyun’s chest and pushed him backwards onto the mattress. He watched you with surprised eyes, but didn’t protest as you sat on his thighs, eyeing his member with much anticipation.

You slid further down his legs, nearly close to his ankles, and bowed down. With your fingers wrapped around the base of his dick, you led him to your mouth. First letting the tip pass by your lips, then his entire length up until the very middle.

You only heard him swearing, “fucking shit,” before Jaehyun covered his face with his arm placed over his eyes and his other clasping the sheet by his side. Your hair grazed over the area around his navel while you moved your head up and down, cautiously slow at first to give yourself time to adapt to his length.

Then, you started bobbing your head, increasing the speed with every time you came up and nearly let him slip out, your fingers that had closed around him sliding in the same rhythm, adding to the pleasure. The slurping noises that came along with this act filled the room until they got drowned out by Jaehyun’s moans.

He directed his hand towards your head and grabbed it by the back, ruffling your hair between his fingers while he started to thrust upwards, meeting you halfway in the fast motions. Like this, he was able to reach deep within you, but still not far enough so that he could hurt you.

When you witnessed him twitching his legs, you stopped, held him still by the base and decided to tease him further a bit before you allowed him to release himself. With the tip of your tongue, you touched his glans, trailed along the slip and then circled around the entire top part.

Jaehyun’s swearing words came in a never ending trail like a waterfall that you couldn’t really understand all syllables from, but you were sure you did a good job and rewarded him for being patient with the motions from before again, but this time with added pressure and passion.

Suddenly, he grabbed you by your arm, urging you to stop.

“Or else I’m gonna cum,” he said and sat himself up, flipping you around so that you laid under him again.

Hastily, you got rid of your top while Jaehyun worked on your sleeping shorts until shortly after, you were both lying naked on top of each other. You wanted him desperately inside you, because you just didn’t know when you’ve had had sex the last time, but instead of wanting to get through this fast, Jaehyun took his time.

That was when you realized that this entire joining was probably more to him than just sex to get it off. You had thought that because he hadn’t been able to get it tonight from your best friend, he’d take it from you. But the way he touched you insisted otherwise.

If it wasn’t more than just sex, he wouldn’t trail his fingers over your ribcage in feathery-light motions, admiring every inch of your body. If it wasn’t more than a body-focused act, he wouldn’t place soft kisses not only on your mouth, but also onto your forehead, your cheek, your neck… If it wasn’t more, Jaehyun wouldn’t be so damn thoughtful and tender.

He remained his tenderness and his gaze didn’t leave your eyes as well when he finally nudged between your thighs, pushing forward until he filled you up to the brim.

Restraining himself from starting to move right away, Jaehyun took his time to ask you whether you were okay at first when you let out a quiet “oh” that alarmed him. But you were eager to calm him down when you explained that it was only because you hadn’t been with a man in so long, and somehow, after speaking it out, it made you feel embarrassed.

As the boyfriend of your best friend, he’d surely know when you had been in contact with a man the last time, and you hated yourself for being so pressured by society to feel ashamed of who you were and how you lived your life.

But instead of judging you, Jaehyun only nodded and tucked a strand of your hair behind your ear, and suddenly, you were flooded with such a warm feeling towards him that you nearly cried. Rarely had you encountered a man so considerate and caring.

“Tell me when I can go on.”

You bit your lip and felt the uncomfortable pressure in your nether regions getting replaced by a feeling that you hadn’t encountered in so long. A feeling that made you want more, want him.

Holding onto his shoulders with both of your hands, you nodded back at him with a smile which he then returned. When Jaehyun started thrusting in and out of you, your eye contact didn’t break, and you were sure that right now, you were looking at the real Jaehyun at this very moment.

Not the guy you hated. Not the guy your best friend was dating. But instead the person who wanted to protect you from guys that only wanted to use you. A person who offered you company in class and shared his equipment with you. And a person whose cheekiness and affection he showed through childish acts because he didn’t know how to express his feelings otherwise.

This was not the person you were sure of knowing all along. Probably because you hadn’t even gotten to know him in the first place.

One arm now clung around his neck while with the other, you grabbed the pillow beside you. You threw your head back in excitement, his pushes coming in short intervals one after another, and he was hitting all the right spots with them.

Jaehyun propped his arms up to the left and right of him, lifting his upper body to gather all his strength in his groin area and stopped for a brief moment before he thrusted inside you with such force that it nearly knocked all air out of your lungs, and you couldn’t respond with anything else than moaning.

It felt so good, so… right. But how could something so wrong still feel so right?

Right now, you didn’t hate Jaehyun or your best friend the most, but yourself and the fact that you continued on and on. That you brought your hips up to meet his thrusts with hazy thoughts and his lips all over yours when he slowed down with his movements to dedicate himself to caressing your breasts.

You felt Jaehyun’s hot tongue swirling over your buds, and you shook under him. Not because it felt cold, but because his tender caresses just felt so good. You didn’t have the feeling that he could do anything wrong with whatever he carried out, that was your impression about how well your bodies meshed together.

No, you didn’t hate Jaehyun. You had always only hated how he had presented himself to you. But there was so much more to him.

Sweat droplets showed on his forehead when he continued with the hard thrusts again, the sound of you both breathing heavily mixing together with the sloppy noises of your bodies moving against each other filling the room, but no matter how messy sex was, it was the most romantic thing you had experienced in a long time.

Your eye contact also didn’t break when Jaehyun arose above you, his sweaty chest glistening in the dim light that shone through your windows, and increased his pace even more. When he dropped his head and bit his lip in the process, you wrapped your arms around him and added pressure to your nether regions as you felt him approaching his heights.

It felt very good to you too, but you were by any means not as far as him yet, so you didn’t blame him when he came only a short moment after with a groan that sounded sexy as hell to you.

You held him tightly when he fell limply onto your chest, still breathing heavily from the orgasm that slowly faded. Staring at the ceiling, you smiled with him in your arms, just enjoying the moment when Jaehyun moved away from you.

“We’re not done here yet,” you saw him grin as he laid himself next to you, rolled onto the side and placed his head in his palms as he propped his elbow against the mattress.

You wondered what was to come when you felt his finger tips dragging from your thighs to your navel, then lower again and stopped right at your most sensitive spot.

“Oh!” you let out as he placed two fingers on your folds and started moving them up and down with your remaining juices as lube that made the intense feeling kick in almost immediately.

You screamed when he added pressure and now directed circling motions around the sensitive bundle of nerves. From your half-closed eyes, you witnessed him looking at you with such admiration but also cheekiness as you writhed and wreathed under him, yet spread your legs even wider as release was so close.

Jaehyun leaned in to you, his fingers not letting go of the continuity as he half covered your body with his and just kissed you passionately. Like this, he encountered first hand how the orgasm took over you, and you moaned into his mouth, riding it out against his hand.

It felt like the most natural thing in the world when he wrapped his arms around you right after and pulled you onto his chest, and you drifted off into a slumber shortly after.

Even though the first tendencies of your bad consciousness set in before you closed your eyes, you decided that this would be the problem of tomorrow.

No, you didn’t hate Jung Jaehyun.

If anything, you should probably hate yourself.

___

“YES… YES… YESYESYES, OHMYGOD!”

You heard your friend from the other side of the wall, having rudely awakened you in the early morning hours. At least you thought so. But a glimpse at your phone through sleepy eyes told you that it was past 11am already.

Within a second, you were wide awake.

You were still naked, but the clothes on your floor only belonged to you, and the spot next to you in the bed was empty.

“OH!MY!GOD!.... YES! OH… OH.... AAAAH… OHOHOH… YES!!”

Jaehyun was gone. At least from your room.

Your best friend’s headboard constantly bumped against the wall, and you grabbed your pillow to cover your ears with it. You didn’t want to hear the sounds. Not because they stole your sleep, but because somehow, for the first time, you didn’t feel disturbed by the noise, but actually hurt.

In your mind, you imagined Jaehyun’s mesmerizing smile, the witty expression he was constantly wearing and his deep voice that had showed you for the first time last night that there was a certain softness within it.

You felt hurt, because you knew all the things from last night had been real between you two, yet he was still fucking your best friend mere hours later. What you had shared and felt had been special, yet he was still with her.

And suddenly, you felt hate again. But towards yourself. For betraying your best friend with him. But first and foremost, for betraying yourself.

You had never hated Jung Jaehyun.

You had always felt some certain kind of attraction towards him, but kept telling yourself you hated him to push him as far away from you as possible. If this wouldn’t be so wrong under these circumstances, this attraction would feel right and could blossom. But like this, you could never come to enjoy this feeling entirely.

Your relationship had been doomed from the very start, because given the wicked circumstances, you would never be able to form a healthy relationship. It was like a stain that would never vanish on a white sheet.

So you just decided to continue as usual. To keep this a secret between the both of you and just to carry on with your life.

And to hate Jung Jaehyun just a little more.

You just didn’t know how to feel and act towards your best friend without feeling so much… regret.

“Good morning.”

But the young man stepping out of your best friend’s room wasn’t Jaehyun. But Johnny.

You sat there in the kitchen with a cup of coffee, your mouth agape. And then it started to rattle in your head.

Lately, there were times when your best friend had screamed the name “Jaehyun!” loudly during the act. Those were the times you had actually seen him the next morning. But the nights she hadn’t screamed a certain name, no one had ever come out. And those times, you had counted more than the ones with Jaehyun in the past weeks, just when their loud arguments started on a nearly daily basis.

“Where’s Jaehyun?” you asked without greeting her good morning as you walked into her room.

“Oh, we had a fight last night,” she explained to you while getting herself dressed casually. “And then we broke up. I went away to be with Johnny after throwing him out, and we’ve only gotten back this morning. I hope he left last night already and didn’t stay here.”

“What?” you wondered.

“Yeah.” She shrugged. “I’ll get over it.”

“You actually already got over it as I’ve seen!”

“Oh, Johnny?”

“You’ve been fucking him for weeks already?” you provoked.

She shrugged again. “Perhaps a month… So what?”

You stood there, totally lost for words. “You’ve been crying about Jaehyun to me ever since you got together! That he flirted with other women, ditched you, went to parties and ignored you! And now you’re telling me you’ve been cheating on him for quite a while?! And this instagram story drama from last week?”

She sighed and flopped down onto the bed. “Okay, admittedly, I’m not an angel in this story, but he is by far neither! He was not. There were many things he has done wrong in the past. But then he actually started… doing nothing wrong. Being the picture perfect boyfriend without all these flaws and drama. And perhaps, this is not something that I want, so I started to look around elsewhere.”

“So…” You paused, still processing the shock. “Was it all an act? All the times you’ve cried to me over him lately while cheating behind his back?”

“Not an act, precisely,” she said reluctantly. “Yes, he explained every situation to me. And I was being dramatic over it for nothing, perhaps. I don’t know… I still enjoyed being with him though, but it just didn’t feel right anymore. I want to have men just… telling me I’m right, always coming back to me… what’s a relationship without fire? But Jaehyun didn’t want to do this anymore.”

In your head, you recalled everything that Jaehyun had told you. About there being two sides of the same coin, about you being so oblivious. All this time, he knew that she had cheated on him. He knew what you thought of him, yet he had never made a move to ever explain it to you.

But why?

“As he should,” you then stated. “How you treated him was awful!”

“Only because I cheated on him a few times?” she chuckled. “Come on!”

“I’m your best friend, and yet you lied to me! You twisted and turned stories so that you’d always be the one at right! But the truth is, you’re the bad person here. Not him.”

“Now what? He’s gone from our lives. Don’t care about him.”

But the truth was, you did. Now more than about her.

That was why, an hour later, you found yourself in front of his dorm. When he opened shortly after you had knocked, you stared at him, still gasping for air as you had run the entire way here, with all the memories from last night coming back with each step.

“She’s been cheating on you,” were the only words you brought out.

“I know.”

“For how long?” you asked.

“I assume for just as long.”

You breathed in heavily, not understanding a word. “But why did you stay with her?”

Jaehyun smiled meekly. “Because I don’t think I deserve a good person like you are.”

It ran hot and cold down your back. “I… I don’t understand.”

He leaned against the door frame with crossed arms, and even though he seemed uncomfortable talking about his feelings, he still did.

“I haven’t been the best boyfriend for her most times in this relationship, I admit this openly. We weren’t really good for each other and it destroyed me to the point that I wanted to change. But when I started being the boyfriend she had wished for, it wasn’t right either and she started cheating. So I just settled with it. Because I thought I screwed up to that point where I won’t be able to make anyone happy anymore and also don’t deserve the same in return. Even though I only wanted you...”

“You douche!” You stomped with your feet on the ground.

“What?” he returned perplexed with furrowed brows.

“Everyone deserves love and to love! And you’re not different from anyone else!”

His confusion got replaced with a mild smile. “You’re so kind, y/n. That’s one of the things I like the most about you. But you’re also oblivious.”

Jaehyun pulled out his phone, scrolled through his messenger and started playing a voice message from a very familiar person.

“Why do you even care about this bitch, Jaehyun?!” In the background, you heard music and other people talking. “She’s a stupid nerd, and I’ve only befriended her because she helps me studying and listens to my complains since we’re dorm mates, so don’t even waste a single thought about this party pooper!”

You stood there as though you had been rendered motionless. Your heart had dropped to your feet.

“This is from last night when I quickly went outside again to check whether you rode away safely with your uber and she couldn’t find me directly. That’s why we argued and broke up. No, it’s not the first time she’s talked about you like this.” He put his phone away. “I thought letting you hate me would make it easier for a kind person like you to keep their distance from someone like me. Because, in the end, I will only hurt you too. But the more I started to genuinely like you, the more I felt protective towards you. I couldn’t see her speaking about you like this anymore.”

Your breathing came in hitches as your whole world suddenly crashed over you. Your best friend wasn’t your best friend. She had probably never been.

You stumbled backwards, and Jaehyun stepped forward to grab you by your arm, but you pulled it away.

“I…. I just…” you stuttered. “I have to… talk to her.”

“Sure.”

The whole way home, you only cried.

Not over Jaehyun, but over the betrayal of someone you had considered your best friend, yet had hurt you in the most painful way like no man ever could. And the fact that you had been an asshole to her to the same extent after having slept with her boyfriend the same night they had broken up was probably the final straw.

You were no saint here. You had added to your both’s downfall just as much. And it hurt much more than any heartbreak you had experienced so far.

You had to sort your life out and right now, and amongst this chaos there was no place for Jaehyun in your life.

____

You put the last vase with dried flowers on your shelf, stepped backwards to your room’s door and inspected the final set up.

“Finished!” you praised yourself.

It had taken you three months to move to a new dorm, but this was your last step to a new chapter in your life.

You hadn’t had contact with your former best friend ever since your final conversation in which you had handed the keys over to her. The many conversations before had only consisted of screams, accusations and tears.

She had admitted to saying all those things about you, but also to genuinely have come like you. You weren’t so sure whether that was real or one of her lies again. You had admitted to sleeping with Jaehyun, and she would have forgiven you for that as she hadn’t been really in love with him anymore at this point, but you were sure you didn’t want either in your life anymore.

Your best friend because she had hurt you deeply, and Jaehyun because of your burdensome history. All of you had done so many wrong things, and you were only a bundle of toxic people together, so chaotic that you were better off apart from each other.

But you didn’t want to be this toxic kind of person anymore. So you moved out and left your old life behind.

You didn’t go to that class with Jaehyun anymore, and although you missed him, the touches of your joint night still present on your skin sometimes, you wanted to move on from even the mere imaginations of him as well. You were sure that you’d find a guy just like him, but you missed him wherever you went and couldn’t help but ask yourself “what if?”

The fact that he hadn’t reached out to you either made it easier, and as summer break came and passed, and the new semester started, you had kissed two news guys already, made a new friend group and were just overall happy.

But you still missed Jaehyun dearly and all the possibilities of what could have happened if only your timing had been right in life. Even if he wasn’t the right one for you.

“Is this seat taken?”

And then, one day, there he was again. Taking the seat next to you as though no time had ever passed between the two of you, smiling that mesmerizing smile you didn’t hate.

You only stared at him, and his kind expression didn’t break. When you moved your head to the front again where the professor introduced himself, you couldn’t help but to smile too. Because this wasn’t the expression of a bad person.

People changed, and just like good traits could turn into bad traits, a bad person could turn into a good one also. And they all deserved a second chance.

You had only known the Jaehyun from your best friend’s perspective, and then also his body. But even though you had gotten a glimpse of the real Jaehyun here and there, you didn’t quite know him entirely yet.

But you wanted to. The good, the bad, the real. Jaehyun wasn’t the right one for you, but such a thing didn’t exist. What mattered were only your feelings.

Because in fact, you didn’t hate Jung Jaehyun. At all.

[angstysebfan]

The Past Can Break You - 1

Pairing: Bucky x Reader

AU: Avengers

Summary: You and Bucky have been dating for aa few years. As far as you’re concerned he is the one. But what happens when a blast from the actual past shows up?

A/N: Ive seen a lot stories of Bucky getting his first love from the 40′s back. And I’ve always wondered... what would happen if he was dating someone already? Reader is from this time. Not proofread.

--

If someone asked you what you loved about being an Avenger, you would definitely say the people. Not even the people you save, but the other members of your team who have become your family. See, you didn’t have a family growing up, and when Tony brought you into the Avengers you had no idea that he was also bringing you into the family.

Sam, Steve, and Thor were your big brothers, always protective. Natasha and Wanda were your best friends and sisters. Tony was definitely a father figure to you as well as one of your favorite people in the world. Bruce and Vision were two very good friends that you knew you could always count on. And Scott was the funniest person on the planet and always made you laugh.

But none of them compared to Bucky. When you first joined the avengers Bucky was new too. You guys became very close friends and eventually developed a very loving relationship. He was nervous at first to ask you out because it had been so long since he dated anyone. When he was back in the 40s he was definitely a ladies man but now he was more reserved and shy, which you didn’t mind.

Before you started dating he did tell you about his first love, Dot. You knew that she was his first love and tried not to be jealous of a woman from the 40s, and you tried not to compare his love to her to his love for you. You knew he missed her, but hopefully now that he was dating you, not as much, as selfish as that sounds.

You now have been dating Bucky for 2 1/2 years, and it’s safe to say that he is the love of your life. You both moved into the same room and spend as much time together as possible when you’re not on missions. In fact you’re out with Natasha and Wanda right now getting a special gift to wear tonight with Bucky.

“What’s the occasion for this again?” Natasha asked.

“Oh nothing, just feel like making him feel special,“ you say with a wink. Both girls rolled her eyes at you and continue searching for the perfect lingerie for you to wear for him.

When you got back to the compound you walk to the common room with your new purchase super excited to show your soldier later.  you see everyone standing around staring at this big contraption that’s now in the middle of the common room. You walk up and stand next to your boyfriend staring at both the contraption and Tony who looks super excited.

“What the hell is this?“ you ask. 

Tony looks at you and see the excitement in his eyes like a kid on Christmas. “I’m not sure. I found it in the archives when I was looking for something. I thought we could all open it up together,” her says.

You look at your boyfriend who gives you a shrug of his shoulders and a smirk, “He has been like this for a half hour,” he says as he wraps his arm around your waist and pulls you closer, kissing the top of your head.

“Where were you off to?” He asks, ignoring the commotion for a moment.

“Oh just picking up something for you… for me to wear… in bed.. tonight,” you say.

You see Bucky’s eyes darken as he leans closer to you, “well can’t wait to see it and rip it off of you then, Doll,” he whispers in your ear before placing his lips on yours.

You giggle as you then lean your head toward Tony and the contraption. You see Tony pressing a few buttons before some air or steam come out the top and the door opens. When the steam clears you all see there is a woman inside who appears to still be alive.

“It’s a cryogenic chamber!” Tony shouted in excitement.

Everyone stepped back to give whoever was in the chamber a few moments to awaken and come out slowly. After they clambered out you realized it was a red headed woman. You hear Bucky’s breath hitch as you all get a look at her face. Suddenly the woman looks at Bucky.

“Jamie?!” She asked.

You look at your boyfriend who is in shock looking at the woman before him. His hand around your waist falls away from you as he starts to step toward her.

“Dot? Is… is that really you?” He asks in amazement.

Suddenly your own breath hitches as you realize that your boyfriend is looking at his first love. The woman you felt you had to compare to. The one you thought he would never see again. She was now in your living room staring at Bucky in disbelief.

“I thought you were dead! How are you alive?” She asks.

“It’s a long story,Doll. One I’ll have to tell you later,” he says as he smirks at her.

She reaches out and pulls him toward her in a strong hug. Your heart slowly begins to break as you feel completely helpless, and selfish at the same time. You see all your friends, Steve included, are giving looks of sympathy.

You start taking slow steps back, not wanting to draw any more attention to yourself. You stumble and stop though when you see her kiss him. Your heart is officially obliterated. No way will you stand a chance next to Dot.

Bucky had his first love back. He didn’t need you anymore. You quickly turned away and leave the room: no one calls for you, letting you go. Bucky and Dot don’t even notice.

Bucky pulls away from Dot, “I’m sorry, I can’t. There is so much we need to talk about, but I can’t…”

He trails off as he finally turns toward the room and sees that you are gone. He feels terrible and steps away from Dot.

“You should go down and see Bruce. Get checked out. I’ll meet you down there. I just have to check on something first,” Bucky says.

Dot grabs his hand, “Please don’t leave me. I don’t want to be alone,” she begs.

Steve steps up, “I’ll go with you Dot. Bucky will meet us down there,” he says.

Bucky gives his best friend a thankful smile before nodding at Dot and turning toward your shared room. He didn’t know what to say. He didn’t even know what to think. All he knew is that he was at a crossroads where one or all of the participants will get hurt.

He was terrified.

- -

Chapter 2

Ok so as I said up top, I always wondered what would happen if Bucky’s 40s gf came back while he was dating someone else. I feel for both reader and Bucky in this situation because this is a tough situation. Looking forward to writing it! Feedback is appreciated!

Permanent Taglist:  @hailmary-yramliah @tuiccim @comedictragedy @cap-n-stuff @thefridgeismybestie @swiftmind @aleaisntcreative @lookimtrying @pinknerdpanda @morganclaire4 @iamvalentinaconstanza @verygraphicink @im-squished @joannie95 @peace-love-hobbitness @connie326 @amandamdiehl @harrysthiccthighss @its-izzys @roserose26 @rebekahdawkins @elegantobservationstudentsblog @broco8 @shinykoalacat @white-wolf1940 @jessyballet

[belphies-cuhm-sluht]

Hello! I saw your asks open and i wanted to request some angst headcanons with dad!Asmo. I just read Luci's and oh man that sure hurt my heart, you write angst so well!

Unwanted (Dad!Asmo x F!Reader) ANGST

A/N : Mammon plays a really big part in this, just as Beel played a big role in the dad!Lucifer fic. It's never hinted whether they're together or not, it's kind of up to the imagination... but if you'd like, I can write a part two to this??? (I will also, to anyone who might want it, write a part two to the dad!Lucifer fic)

Word Count : 2.3K Warnings : pregnancy ; children ; maternity ; babies ; hinted abortion ; angst ;

He never wanted children, he didn’t want anything that would actually tie him down to anything or anyone. It wasn’t his “thing”, and you both had done everything to prevent it from happening. Up until now, everything had worked, there had never been one mistake, but the both of you got sloppy. There was a party, and… well, you loved him, and he had said that he loved you, and precautions weren’t a “thing” at that moment. One slip up, one mistake, and now everything was falling apart.

“I didn’t want this. I don’t want that.” He spat the words at you, pointing towards your stomach. He had only stopped pacing long enough to say it before starting again, walking the length of his room as he gnawed at his perfectly manicured fingers. You hadn’t expected anything different from him, but it still hurt that he was blaming the whole thing on you, as if it didn’t take 50/50 participation to make something like this happen. “It’ll completely ruin my image. A child with a human! It’ll be all over the tabloids, in every magazine… I can’t have that.” His behavior shouldn’t have been that shocking to you, but to hear just how selfish he really was, to know that he thought so little of you, it hurt way worse than you ever thought it would. One moment he was professing his love to you, and now he’s disgusted with you. It could have been that your emotions were running high from the situation, or maybe the hormones had just taken over completely, but you wanted to scream, you wanted to cry, and you wanted to fight him. “Your image?! This thing could kill me and all you care about is your stupid public persona… Screw you! I wish I never fell in love with you.” His eyes went soft, and for a moment you thought that maybe he’d apologize, maybe he was rethinking his own words, his actions, that maybe you’d be able to be a team to work through this mess. You were wrong, you were so wrong. “Wish all you want, we both know you’d have never been able to resist me.” Narcissistic, selfish, he was just awful. You closed your eyes tightly, trying to fight back the tears as you walked past him. He didn’t deserve your last words, he didn’t deserve anything. He didn’t deserve you.

The twelfth week was supposed to be the most exciting. It was when most couples would finally make their announcements, happily tell family and friends that they were expecting. Your twelfth week was a nightmare. You were trapped in the Devildom, human doctors wouldn’t know what the hell was going on if they delivered a child with horns, a child so angelically demonic that they’d probably call the hospital priest to your room as soon as they saw it. The only place where you’d be able to safely deliver a child like this and live through it would be in the Devildom. It’s not like you hadn’t tried to relieve yourself of the problem. You had gone to Lucifer, Satan, Barbatos, even Lord Diavolo, asking them if there was any way that they could just… get rid of it. Sadly, Asmodeus wasn’t just a narcissistic, selfish prick, he was also sadistic. None of them could do anything without Asmodeus’ approval since it was his child too. Every time one of them asked him, he would refuse. He didn’t even give a reason, he just wanted to see you suffer. Strangely, you had found comfort and solace in Mammon. You were pretty sure he was only helping because he still had a crush on you, but he became your emotional, mental, and physical support throughout everything. You had told him many times that he didn’t have to basically “fill in” for Asmo, but he insisted that it was the least he could do considering his little brother was being a dick. He wasn’t just your support at the house, he was… invested in the child that Asmo hadn’t wanted. He took you to doctors appointments, sometimes even getting in the way of the doctor as he pointed to the ultrasound screen. He was so excited that most people just assumed it was his kid, and he never denied it either. It was just easier that way, to go along with whatever the other demons said because he knew that any mention of Asmo would upset you and that was the last thing he wanted to do. Some days the both of you would sit on the couch in the living room, flipping through the pages of maternity books. He’d really try to understand the diagrams on the pages, but you could tell that he was confused and sometimes he’d even look up at you from the pages, and then down at your stomach, and then up at you, before looking back down at the pages. It was cute, and you’d giggle lightly, resting your head on his shoulder as you continued flipping through the pages. He had become the only person in the house that you felt like you could fully trust and rely on. Everyone else wanted to stay out of the drama, nobody wanted to get involved, but Mammon wasn’t there for the drama, he was only there for you, he was there when you needed him.

“Can you believe him? Can you believe both of them? We haven’t even broken up and they’re sleeping together, she’s even wearing his clothes. It’s ridiculous, and Mammon is out there playing dad with my kid.” Asmo sat on the edge of the counter, voicing his complaints to anyone who would listen. Sadly it was Beel’s turn since he was the only one in the kitchen right now. Most of the time the other brothers would just hide themselves away, not wanting to deal with Asmo right now, but Beel had gotten hungry and he really thought he’d be lucky enough to avoid his brother. “I don’t know what the big deal is… You didn’t want the kid anyway.” He wasn’t going to walk on eggshells around Asmo, he wasn’t going to lie to make anyone feel better. In Beel’s eyes, Asmo was completely in the wrong. “If Y/N is finding some sort of happiness in spending time with Mammon, who are you to complain? It stopped being your place when you said you didn’t want it.” He shrugged before grabbing his plate and going straight back to his room. He wasn’t going to continue listening to it, but he hoped that he had left Asmo with something to really think about. He walked up the stairs, going straight to the bedroom door, knocking loudly. He wasn’t going to stop until someone opened the door either. Mammon got up from the bed that you both had been propped up on, rolling his eyes as he walked over to his door, groaning loudly when he saw Asmo standing there. “Whaddaya want? We don’t need ya here… yer just gonna stress ‘er out.” He was trying to talk quietly, not wanting you to hear him or even know who was there. He was so protective of you, he wouldn’t let anyone else serve your food during meals, he’d even stand outside the bathroom door whenever you were in there just to make sure you didn’t fall or hurt yourself. Asmo pushed his way into the room much to Mammon’s annoyance. “I don’t care, Mammon. Y/N isn’t yours, and neither is the child. They’re both mine, and I’d like to have a word with her.” He said snidely, but Mammon wasn’t going to have it. Brother or not, he cared too much about you, he had worked so hard to help you get over what Asmo had done, and he wasn’t going to let him waltz back in and ruin everything. Mammon wasn’t weak, he was way stronger than he looked, and right now he was showing his strength, grabbing Asmo’s arm and practically throwing him out of the room. His teeth were barred and the growl that was coming from him sounded feral, animalistic, it was terrifying. “Neither of them are yers! I’ve been there fer everything, every doctor visit, I even bought a damn room fer the kid and she’s sleepin’ in my room, next ta me, and a next ta Y/N. Ya know why?! ‘Cause ya don’t jus’ get ta come back when ya fine’ly realize that ya fucked up! Now… leave us alone. We don’t need ya here.” He left Asmo out in the hallway, crumpled against the wall as he walked back into the room. “She…” Asmo kept repeating the word as he pushed himself up off the floor. He was having a daughter, and he hadn’t even known about it, he wouldn’t have known about it if Mammon hadn’t screamed at him. It was strange how knowing made things more real, it made him care more, and the worst part was that he knew it wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair to you. He didn’t know how to fix what he had done, but he knew that he had to try at least. “Lucifer…” “I don’t want things to be like this when she gets here. It’s not going to be long either.” You sighed, finally relaxing once more in the bed once Mammon got in next to you. “Why was he here anyway?” Mammon shrugged, focusing all of his attention on your stomach trying to calm himself. He liked watching it move, he thought it was neat.

The delivery was smoother than you thought it would be, and Mammon only fainted twice during the whole thing, so he did pretty good. Delivering a child in the Devildom had its perks, the main one being that you didn’t have to stay more than one day in the hospital to recover. They did some spell and you were completely fine. It was strange, but you appreciated it greatly. The only issue with the perk was that it meant you were going back home and that meant you’d have to face Asmo. She looked so much like him, and you could tell that Mammon was upset by it. Even though he knew she wasn’t actually his, he wished that she didn’t look so much like her father. Her eyes were his exact color, and it left you speechless when she first opened them, gazing up at you with wonder and curiosity. She was precious, and she was yours. As you walked through the door you were met with balloons and streamers, and Asmo. You heard Mammon growl quietly, and you quickly held your hand out to him, silently begging him to stop. He was holding the carseat and you didn’t need him to lose his temper right now. “I just wanted to welcome her home, welcome you home. I bought some things for her, they’re outside of Mammon’s door.” Asmo said nervously, and for once he was terrified of being rejected. “We don’t need noth-” Mammon had started, but you quickly shook your head, pleading to him with your eyes to just stay calm. He groaned loudly, eyeing Asmo angrily before walking past him to the stairs. “Fine. She’s prob’ly hungry… I’m gonna feed ‘er. Ya comin’ up?” You nodded quickly, making sure he got up the stairs alright before turning back to Asmo. “What are you doing, Asmo?”

He moved into the living room, waiting for you to sit down before he did, and he looked scared, he looked sad. Of course you didn’t like seeing him like this, but it was his fault, he had caused all of this. “I don’t want to be alone. I know that sounds selfish, that I’m making this about myself again, but I’m not trying to. When Mammon told me… he said she… It's a girl?” You nodded slowly and you saw his face light up for only a second before it left once more. “I was scared, I am scared… I didn’t know if I’d be a good… father. I never saw myself as one, but seeing Mammon, and he’s doing so well… I never saw him as a father either… I thought that maybe, since he could… that maybe I could too.” He sighed, bringing his hand back up to his lips to chew at his fingers again, his orange eyes glistening with the tears that hadn’t fallen yet. “I know that what I said was wrong… I was rude. I didn’t think I’d have a problem finding someone to take my mind off of everything, but I was wrong. I love you, and nobody else is going to take your place, nobody else can take your place.” You both sat on the couch in silence, his tears finally falling as he waited for you to say something, and yours building up as you tried to think of something to say. “This isn’t fair… You know this isn’t fair. You can’t… you can’t pick and choose when you want to be a dad. You weren’t there… and you made it very clear that you didn’t want her. I… I can’t do this Asmo… I’m sorry… They’re waiting for me… I-I have to go.” You took a deep breath as you stood from the couch, wiping your tears with the back of your hands as you started walking to the stairs. “Y/N…” He walked up behind you, grabbing your hand to stop you. You didn’t turn around to face him, you couldn’t bring yourself to do it, but he didn’t mind. He was actually thankful that you didn’t look at him, because what he was about to say was the hardest thing he’d ever have to say in his life. “I know that I’m unwanted… But… If I may… Can I meet her? Just once? Please?”

[souichieatr]

hiluuu! can i request a scenario/drabble for tsukishima, kuroo, oikawa, and akaashi where they're in a heated argument with their fem!s/o, then she suddenly faints? turns out she had a fever since the morning and hid it from them but got worse during their fight?

their s/o faints during a heated argument

with tsukishima k, kuroo t, oikawa t, akaashi k

a/n: thank you for requesting i hope you enjoy, im sorry this took forever?????? they get longer each one omg

tsukishima k

you don't even remember why you both are fighting, as he sips another insult your headache gets worse. as you don't say anything just raise your hand to your head he gets even more frustrated. "can you at least act like your age, ignoring me isn't going to resolve the issue." he says not noticing how your body starts to shuffle as you try and keep your balance. rolling his eyes turning to the door, "im not going to deal with this today-" before he can finish he hears a loud thud, turning around he sees your body on the floor. rushing to the floor next to you, "y/n?" bringing his hands up to your head, biting his lip cursing at himself in his head. picking up and lays you down in the bed as he gets water and a towel. when you wake up again you notice youre in bed, trying to sit up youre pushed back down. “don't do that, that wasn't cool” he says in a low tone, handing you a glass and some medicine. taking them both with a nod, “thank you kei and im sorry” you say handing the glass back to him, setting it down on the table he takes your hand. gently kissing the back of it and resting his head on your hand. “why are you on the floor?” you softly smile at him hearing a small ‘shut up.’

kuroo t

the fight started because he started to prioritize the volleyball team more than you. it didnt bother you that he stayed late, went early to practice, it didnt bother you until he started canceling plans with you. he told you repeatedly he would spend more time with you, today not being any different waiting in the rain in front of the cafe you both decided to eat at. not until 10 minutes had passed you went back to the school, walking to the gym with angry steps you opened the door roughly. the whole team looking at you soaking wet, frozen for a second he walks over to you. “y/n what are you doing here?” he says in an annoyed tone. “don't give me that bullshit tetsurō, we had plans today i waited for you to only be stood up again, are you even serious about this? us?” you say motioning your hand between him and you. rolling his eyes and he huffs, “can you stop being dramatic? im a captain this team needs me i didnt know you could be so selfish” widening your eyes at him, trying to catch your breath you close your eyes. “selfish? me selfish? you have some nerve i'll be leaving since i dont wanna bother the captain and his team” you say sarcastically, stepping back outside you start coughing. kuroo following behind you, “this conversation isn't done yet” he says grabbing your wrist, turning you around and his eyes widen. “y/n? you look pale are you okay?” he says as he does your eyes roll back and your legs give out. taking you in his arms he rushed inside asking the guys to grab towels to dry you off. sitting down on the floor with you in between his legs, he holds you close feeling guilty. feeling you stir awake he kisses your cheek, “im so sorry babe this is my fault, if i had just been there you wouldnt have been waiting in the rain” he says hugging you tighter. “im serious about us more than anything. i'll try harder to put more effort into our relationship. “i trust you tetsu and do you have any medicine? my heads killing me” you say smiling, he smiles and hands you a bottle of pills and a water.

oikawa t

sitting on the couch, rubbing your temples. “tooru can we please talk about this? youve been ignoring me all day” you say looking at him as he paces the room. “oh now you wanna talk? i thought you were too busy with iwa to notice me” he said stopping to look at you. “wow why are you so mad? what does iwaizumi have to do with this?” you say giving him a confused face as you rest your hand on the back of the couch. “y/n why dont you just date him huh? you obviously like him so much, why are you even with me?” he says getting louder each word. “literally what?” you saying this getting him more frustrated. sighing at those words he runs his hands through his hair, “i saw you both hugging if i knew you were just jumping my friends maybe i what've listened to all those girls.” “okay now what the actual fuck tooru? i can't hug a friend all of a sudden? did you just imply that i am cheating? i cannot believe you” you say feeling your anger bubble up, he opens his mouth to say something. “no no! because how dare you, you have girls all over you everywhere trying to take pictures and give you gifts, you expect me to worship the ground like they do dont you? guess what im not, you dont get to accuse me of cheating because i hugged someone that someone being your closest friend just what person do you take me as huh?” you say getting up fast, maybe too fast as the pounding in your head gets louder. leaning your weight on the couch as you continue, “me and iwaizumi share one simple goal and thats to keep your ass in line, all those late nights and you overworking yourself, you not coming to anyone for help and your bratty ass attitude hes the only one who'll help me deal with you, im not gonna let you blame him because all hes done is help you.” you say getting the strength to get closer to him as you try and take a step your legs falter. his initial reaction to everything you said had his eyes widened and mouth agape, seeing you almost fall sent him over to you trying to help. “no i can do i-” you say as you start to fall and everything goes black. opening your eyes slowly you feel something cool on your head, “hey youre up” a voice says softly. looking over to see tooru next to you as he grabs your hand, before you could say anything else he speaks up. “let me talk for a bit yeah?” he asks as he looks at your joined hands, whispering a soft “okay” he continues. “im sorry, im sorry for not noticing you weren't feeling good, im sorry for saying you cheated, im sorry for yelling, i just got insecure after i heard some girls talk about how cute you and iwa look and seeing you both hug like that just set me off” he says lifting your hands and kisses your knuckles. “i like how you dont worship the ground i step on, i like how you fight back but when i need you most youre always there. i appreciate everything you and iwa do, i love you y/n.” he finishes and looks at you with teary eyes, pulling him down into a hug you whisper “i love you too.”

akaashi k

now arguing with him isnt a normal thing, usually you both can speak calmly and work it out. he gets frustrated because you're not listening and he's been having a stressed week and just kinda blows up. sighing as he runs his hands through his hair, breathing in and out slowly trying to calm himself down. you roll your eyes, “keiji im fine can you just leave me alone, you dont have to treat me like a baby- '' before you could finish he lets out a small mocking laugh. “i wouldnt treat you like one if you didnt act like one, y/n grow up and take some responsibility so /i/ dont have to be the bad guy, the stressed one, the one who has to take care of you.” staring at him with wide eyes he continues, “you wanted me to stop treating you like a baby stop looking so shocked.” you feel a tickle in your throat, trying to hold it in hoping if youre quiet enough you could sneak away. ultimately failing and having a coughing fit you feel your legs get wobbly. “were you trying to hold it in? so childish” he says looking away about to walk off, turning his head to look at you before he walks away he sees your eyes roll back. you wake up on the couch with a wet towel and a blanket on you, slowly sitting up and looking towards the kitchen you see akaashi quietly making you food. looking back at the table you see a glass and some medicine. taking the items and washing them down alerted akaashi to you being awake, rushing to you he looks down at his hands as he picks at them. “how are you feeling?” he asks quietly, you answer with a quick “fine.” sitting on the side of the couch he faces you, “im sorry theres really no excuse for the way i acted i just i hate seeing you trying to be okay when youre not.” scooting closer you rest your head on his shoulder, “if what its worth i like when you baby me” smiling at you he kisses your forehead. “i'll remember that.”

not proofread

[robininthelabyrinth]

Spilled Pearls

- Chapter 23 - ao3 -

Lan Qiren woke with a start at the sound of something slamming to the point of cracking – a door thrown too hard, perhaps, or the shattering of a piece of furniture under the strength of a powerful cultivator.

Dazed at having been woken so abruptly at such a late hour, he at first thought that the sound was an aberration of some sort, someone making too much noise by mistake, even some cultivation maniac doing exercises in the middle of the night that had briefly lost control, but then the sounds continued, crashing and slamming and even indistinct shouting.

Indistinct, and unfamiliar, but still recognizable – that was Wen Ruohan’s voice.

Lan Qiren had never heard him shout before.

He stood up, instinctively checking over his clothing and fixing his forehead ribbon, and padded out towards the door to the hallway. The array used to create enough silence to let him sleep was glowing faintly, doing its work against overwhelming odds, but Lan Qiren didn’t hesitate to dismiss it and pull open the door, poking his head out to see what was going on.

“ – what use are you?” Wen Ruohan was shouting, some distance down the hall. “Good-for-nothing bitch! What do you think I got you for in the first place?”

He was standing outside his wife’s door.

Lan Qiren had not seen Madame Wen on this visit, other than in passing. He’d been relieved to discover that he had heard accurately and that she had not suffered on account of what she had done, except perhaps as a result of her husband making clear that he would give her exactly what he had promised her out of their marriage and nothing more. Despite that, every time she saw him, she generally had an expression that resembled smelling something bad, and he didn’t especially want to deal with her irrational jealousy. 

(Lan Qiren could understand and even appreciate the truth that she had shown him, but it didn’t mean he appreciated the reasoning behind her actions - just as Wen Ruohan might appreciate the cunning and ambition demonstrated by her actions, and begrudgingly acknowledge that the real fault for their divide was his own actions, but not feel any more inclined to her as a result.)

Lan Qiren thought he might have to deal with her more, particularly on the few times he had visited little Wen Xu, who was already a size or two larger than he’d started out – it was simply shocking in terms of how much time had passed since he’d had his argument with Wen Ruohan – but he found that the child was largely being watched by servants, not the Madame, who was busy ruling the social scene of the Nightless City. Whether that was true or merely an excuse, by now it was clear that they were in mutual agreement that they did not want to spend any time in each other’s presence.

She was also, very clearly, refusing to let Wen Ruohan into her bedroom.

Lan Qiren couldn’t blame her: he’d never seen Wen Ruohan in a state like this. His clothing was mussed up, his hands clenched, his face red, his aura frighteningly strong and overwhelming, his monstrously powerful qi roiling the air in the hallway into an incipient storm – and even from the distance he was standing, Lan Qiren could smell the distinct odor of strong liquor, suggesting that Wen Ruohan had overindulged in alcohol at some point after Lan Qiren had gone to sleep. Based on casual mentions in prior conversation, Lan Qiren knew that Wen Ruohan’s cultivation level was so high as to render him largely unaffected even by significant drinking, but the fact that he had bothered to try to seek solace in the wine jar suggested that there was something incredibly wrong with his mental state. 

It wasn’t a qi deviation - the violent emanations were unsettled, but not distorted - but it wasn’t good, either.

Wisdom would counsel that Lan Qiren keep back and not get in Wen Ruohan’s way.

Righteousness, on the other hand…

Anyway, Wen Ruohan was his sworn brother. What sort of brother would Lan Qiren be if he took only the good and not the bad?

“Da-ge?” he called, stepping out into the hallway. “Da-ge, come away from there.”

Wen Ruohan turned to him, and his expression was frightening. “Fine. You’ll do,” he growled, and it was only because Lan Qiren had grown wiser and stronger that he realized what was about to happen and dodged before Wen Ruohan could grab him, darting back into his room.

Wen Ruohan followed him in.

“What happened?” Lan Qiren asked, still backing away. “You were fine at dinner – what happened since then?”

For some reason, that set Wen Ruohan off again, turning his attention away from Lan Qiren, and he grabbed the table and threw it into the wall, smashing it all to pieces. 

“That fucker,” he snarled, his eyes blank and distant. He wasn’t angry at Lan Qiren, that much was clear, but he was filled with ceaseless rage, and he was taking it out on everything around him. “That fucker got married! He’s got a son!”

Lan Qiren blinked. “…what?”

Smash went the cabinet, and all the various things on it. At least Wen Ruohan hadn’t started in on the paintings, which were the only aspect of the room Lan Qiren actually cared or worried about.

“Who got married and had a son?” Lan Qiren asked, even though he knew it would only inflame Wen Ruohan further. At this point, it was clear that Wen Ruohan’s had gotten stuck in his chest, like black blood that needed to be coughed; he needed to vent his anger or else it would curdle within him and he would suffer. “Normally that’s a good thing, a cause for celebration. Why is it bad here?”

“Because it’s Lao Nie!” Wen Ruohan burst out, and Lan Qiren rocked back on his heels in shock.

It wasn’t that he hadn’t known that Lao Nie had been unusually distracted these past few months, even most of a year – the way he’d ignored or disregarded Lan Qiren’s letters about the situation with He Kexin, the breezy and almost manic tone of his replies to Lan Qiren’s brother, which Lan Qiren had seen, it all spoke of distraction and carelessness, all typical of Lao Nie, albeit of far greater severity than usual.

Nor was it truly a surprise that none of them had been informed: the Qinghe Nie had always been idiosyncratic about their personal details, unusually secretive and fiercely proud of it. They did not share their birth date or even year, other than for arranging a marriage. If Lan Qiren had thought about it, he wouldn’t have been at all surprised to find out that Lao Nie would have married and had a child all without having shared any information on the subject until afterwards.

Only…

“But aren’t you – with him?” he asked, and knew immediately that he had asked the wrong question.

Wen Ruohan roared and smashed yet another thing, sending a palm strike through a dresser and denting the stone wall with the power of it. “He’s mine,” he spat. His eyes were even redder than usual, the sclera becoming red alongside the iris; it made him look almost possessed, almost as if he really were having some sort of qi deviation. “He’s mine, damn it! Who is he to give himself to another? And he didn’t even tell me…!”

They were definitely in a relationship, Lan Qiren confirmed to himself. His guess had been right. There could be no doubt about it. And yet, despite it all, Lao Nie had –

No, he couldn’t even express surprise. Lan Qiren knew Lao Nie, knew what he valued and how he valued it: Lao Nie had always been passionate and powerful, strong and superior, friendly and often kind, and yet at his core he was ruthless, careless, and selfish, just like Wen Ruohan was so often selfish. He did not concern himself overmuch with questions of righteousness, other than to the degree necessary to win glory to his sect as one on the righteous path. After his sect, which he valued most of all, he was an indolent pleasure-seeker, with terrible taste in partners, the more dangerous the better; Lan Qiren had seen him flirting with people left and right long after he’d concluded that he’d entered into a relationship with Wen Ruohan.

In the past, Wen Ruohan hadn’t seemed to mind. If anything, he’d even encouraged him, looking smug and amused by the flirtations, taking the other man’s victories as his own; during one incident that Lan Qiren could recall, he’d all but applauded when Lao Nie had successfully wooed some rogue cultivator and taken her back to his bed, turning instead to his own separate amusements after.

Then again, that wasn’t a marriage.

(Of course, Wen Ruohan himself had also gotten married…)

“How dare he,” Wen Ruohan said, panting a little from his own exertion, clearly more moved by the feelings raging within him than any type of physical exhaustion. “How dare he – does he think I’m desperate? Pathetic? Does he think I’d run after him, begging and humiliating myself..? I don’t need him at all!”

He turned once more, and this time his gaze focused on Lan Qiren.

“I have something of my own already,” he murmured, and this time Lan Qiren wasn’t fast enough to stop him as he caught him up in his arms, slamming his back against the wall.

Lan Qiren tensed, suddenly for a moment back in his rooms in the Cloud Recesses, looking up at a different brother who wanted to hurt him – but no, Wen Ruohan wasn’t the same, Wen Ruohan liked him. He was acting out of fury, not malice; there was no He Kexin here to goad him on, nothing like that.

Even the force of being pushed against the wall hadn’t actually hurt – Wen Ruohan had been careful even in his mindless rage, making sure that any impact was cushioned by his own arms rather than Lan Qiren’s back; Lan Qiren hadn’t even had the breath knocked out of him.

“Da-ge…!”

Wen Ruohan didn’t want to hear him. He put his hand on Lan Qiren’s mouth and pressed down, cutting off speech at once. They were pressed together so closely that the movement inadvertently dragged his sleeve onto Lan Qiren’s throat, almost making him gag, and he instinctively tried futilely to kick his way out – it didn’t work, of course.

Wen Ruohan pressed up against him, the front of his body burning like flame against Lan Qiren.

“You’re mine,” he said, reaching in to nuzzle the side of Lan Qiren’s head with his cheek. “My blood brother, bound by oath and blood; my shining pearl, untouched by the world. All good things should belong to me.”

Lan Qiren reached up to try to push away the hand at this mouth, wanting to speak even though he did not know what he would say, and at first he thought he’d done it. But then suddenly he was in motion, his back landing hard on the bed he’d been given, the impact softened by the blanket Wen Ruohan had wrapped around him when he’d brought him back to the Nightless City from the Cloud Recesses. Shocked by the unexpectedness of the abrupt movement, he gasped, a wordless inhale rather than any coherent words.

Less than a heartbeat, and Wen Ruohan was on top of him, pressing him down. His body seemed even hotter than usual, as if his whole spirit were aflame, his qi boiling in the air around them until Lan Qiren had the impression as though he ought to be able to see steam; his hands were hot where they pressed down on Lan Qiren’s shoulders, his lips burning as they pressed against his collarbone, and between his legs there was something hot pressing against him, too.

And still, Lan Qiren – was not afraid.

He wasn’t sure why. He’d been terrified when it had been his brother who had stood against him, disgusted when it had been He Kexin pawing at him in ways he did not and had never wanted, but Wen Ruohan, who was bound to him through nothing but a tricked oath…

“Da-ge,” he whispered. “Please stop.”

Wen Ruohan stilled. He didn’t get up or pull away, but he didn’t make any further movements.

“Please let me go.”

Wen Ruohan’s breathing was harsh in his ear. “You, too, little Lan?” he asked. “Just like him, making me think – don’t you like me?”

“I do,” Lan Qiren admitted. He might be stupid when it came to social interactions, might be slow and miss things that were obvious, but even he could figure out what Wen Ruohan meant, with his confession of how Lan Qiren lingered in his thoughts and in pressing him down on the bed like this while mourning the loss of Lao Nie, his lover. And maybe sometimes he needed Cangse Sanren to point things out to him, but most of the time he knew himself. This past week had made clear enough that he enjoyed Wen Ruohan’s endless indulgences in a spirit that was more than just pure brotherhood. “I do like you. But I don’t like – this.”

Wen Ruohan was silent for a long moment.

“Not this, with me,” he finally said. “Or not – at all?”

“At all,” Lan Qiren said. He had thought when he was younger that he might change, but he was increasingly sure that he wouldn’t, that this was just what he was like. “I was never like the others my age. Even Yueheng-xiong, who I would’ve thought loved nothing but mathematics and explosions, has found himself distracted by the shape of the one he likes. But not me. I don’t yearn the way they do. I can love a person’s spirit, but I never much cared for the flesh.”

“Love,” Wen Ruohan echoed, his voice oddly uneven. “You speak of - love?”

“…isn’t that what we’re talking about?”

Wen Ruohan laughed, a jagged and choked up thing, and then he pulled away, letting Lan Qiren go, sitting up on the bed and burying his face in his hands. The qi around him was still too-hot, overwhelming, pulsing with his feelings, even as his shoulders shook and he stared blankly at the wall; any other man, and Lan Qiren might think he was crying, but he could see Wen Ruohan’s face through his fingers, and there were no tears there.

Perhaps he’d forgotten how.

Lan Qiren slowly sat up himself.

He could still feel the mild stiffness of old healing injuries, but he ignored them and got up off the bed, going to the one side table that had yet to be destroyed – the one where he’d laid his guqin to rest. It turned out that Wen Ruohan had only destroyed the things he himself had put into the room; he hadn’t touched anything of Lan Qiren’s.

Lan Qiren settled in front of his guqin and began to play.

Out of all the compositions he had created, his favorite was the one he had first created at the Nightless City, that strange hypnotic melody that brought to mind spilled pearls, but unlike some of the others he’d worked on, it had never felt fully completed. The music wrapped itself around the listener, at first intimate and then oppressive, a heavy stone in their chest and pressure on their skull, growing darker and darker, just as he’d written it – but now he played onwards, elaborating on the theme in ways he hadn’t planned or expected, letting the solemn notes brighten, the overwhelming pressure turning from suffocating into safe as it became clear that it would cause no harm, the storm passing by overhead and leaving things clean and clear and better, the lingering euphoria of finding oneself supported, rather than alone.

When his fingers finally stilled, Lan Qiren looked up and saw Wen Ruohan sitting there with his back straight again, hands resting gently in his lap, eyes closed as if in meditation and face calm once more. His qi no longer coiled around him, lashing out; it had settled once more.

“You will,” Wen Ruohan said without opening his eyes, “be an excellent traveling musician, little Lan. People will fight for the right to hear you, and you will never go without an audience.”

Lan Qiren hesitated, not sure what to make of such a compliment, or what Wen Ruohan meant by it. He’d only intended to play something to help him settle his qi and soothe his rage, which he’d clearly accomplished. He hadn’t even meant to play that particular song, other than in the way that he tended to default to it when he had nothing else specific in mind. It had always been unsatisfying, like an itch, but now it finally felt complete.

“Da-ge –” he started to say, not knowing what he would say next, but at any rate he never had the chance to continue.

“When you do finally go to fulfill your dreams, leaving the dust of the world behind you, I hope that you visit the Nightless City often,” Wen Ruohan said. His tone was still calm, settled, but not, Lan Qiren observed, peaceful: there were all sorts of seething emotions underneath it. “But for the moment, I think it is better if you return to the Cloud Recesses.”

Lan Qiren hesitated once again, this time feeling a little hurt. “You don’t want me here?”

“I do,” Wen Ruohan said, and his lips curved into something that was not a smile; it seemed almost painful a shape to contort into, and his eyes reflected no humor at all when he opened them. “Very much. Ah, little Lan, if only you knew…despite that, I would still have you go. Having made my views on you clear to your brother, it should be safe, and I do not want you to see what beast I make of myself when I am denied.”

Lan Qiren bowed his head a little. “About Lao Nie…”

“I know what he’s like,” Wen Ruohan said. “I’ve always known, from the start. If you had asked me a few days ago, I would have said that I did not have any illusions…”

He smiled bitterly.

“It seems that I misjudged myself.”

“I’ll go,” Lan Qiren said. He didn’t especially want to, but Wen Ruohan wasn’t in a rage, nor lashing out unthinkingly. To refuse him would be to deny him, to treat him as if he could not make his own decisions, and that, he thought, would be worse. “If you want me to, I’ll go, and later, I’ll return.”

Wen Ruohan said nothing, but he watched as Lan Qiren pulled on some more clothing, not caring which one it was, and did his hair back up in the simplest style, favoring speed over substance; he packed away his guqin and his sword and one of the paintings that he had liked best, but took nothing else – after all, it wasn’t as if he were going away for good.

He made it to the door before hesitating, then turned back to look at Wen Ruohan, who was still watching him.

“Is there anything…?” he asked haltingly. “Something I can get you…?”

“Send one of the maids to me,” Wen Ruohan said. “Any of them, it doesn’t matter which. If they’re still hanging around in the family quarters after an eruption like that, it can be seen that their ambition has overcome their good sense, making them a perfect match for me. It would be a shame to deny them the fruits of their victory.”

Lan Qiren didn’t quite understand, but he knew enough to get the gist; he felt his cheeks and ears go hot. Still, he had offered, and it wasn’t something he was willing to do himself, so there was really no basis for refusing to pass along the request. He nodded and slipped out – as Wen Ruohan predicted, there was one of the maids lingering at the far corner, looking around in blatant curiosity. She was pretty enough, Lan Qiren supposed, with an upturned nose and a slightly arrogant air, her clothing carefully arranged to be just a little mussed in a way that Lan Qiren understood most men to find attractive.

“Your sect leader is in my room,” he told her, and she blinked at him. “If you go to him now, he’d probably accept. Up to you, though.”

She stared at him for a moment, then nodded. He left, his head held high; when he glanced back anyway, he saw her going into his room, hair patted down and clothing even more carefully arranged – Wen Ruohan hadn’t been wrong when he speculated as to her ambitions. The life of a powerful sect leader, Lan Qiren supposed: desired but never known, as distant from those around him as Lan Qiren but as a consequence of his position rather than his inclination.  

He would definitely return, Lan Qiren decided. Perhaps he would even make the Nightless City the first destination on his travels. After all, why should he not? Was Wen Ruohan not his sworn brother, too?

Yes, Lan Qiren thought. That was right.

Wen Ruohan deserved to have someone possess him as he longed to possess others.

[xtodorcki]

This is my 2nd time I'm sending a request I'm sorry this'll be my last ansjsj

Can you do a Hanji x reader where the reader and Hanji are best friends in the scouts and the reader has feelings for Hanji so they tend to act a little flirty? But the reader is actually Levi's sister and Levi finds it so obvious how much the reader loves Hanji so he just teases for her it? Hanji then overhears the reader talking about her feelings and boom! Confession! ^^

“Confessions,” Hange x Reader

Girrrrl send as many requests as you like, I don’t mind at allllllllll. Hanji Hanji, I love her and I know I spell it how it is in the dub its a habit. my apologiesssssss.

Summary: Levi’s younger sister has a crush on Hange and he finds it real obvious, teasing you until you end up confessing.

Warnings: none

.

.

.

Growing up wasnt easy. You and Levi were left to starve and then trained to be full on machines, learning how to fight and defend before you were even ten years old.

Levi had tried his best to protect you, he still does to this day as the both of you worked in the scout regiment and were each made Captains.

The more time went on and days were spent all together in the room, drinking and eating. You found yourself having a big crush on Hange, you liked her confidence and the way she’s driven to the Titans and wanting to learn about them. It was crazy but you liked it.

You would even admit that you were in love with her. You would spend your days off with her, learning about her discoveries, her theories and even spent time with her when she had caught two Titans and did research on them up close.

The way she was in love with her work, the way she dedicated herself to the two Titans and was absolutely fascinated with them, even if it almost killed her on numerous occasions- it just all made you fall in love with her more.

You were in deep.

It wasn’t long till Levi had caught on, he knew you better than anyone and the way you stared at her from across the room or the way you listened to every word she said as she rambled on about pointless stuff that you knew nothing about.

He knew you had a big crush on her and he teased you about it for months on end. He made sure to be the annoying big brother that bullies his sister with jokes about how you’re soft for her, how you practically drool over her when she speaks to you.

“Just shut up, Levi.” You groaned, sitting inside his office as he laughed, shooting more playful jokes your way.

It had made you grow frustrated with your brother, he was a pain in the ass to deal with and now that he knew that you liked your fellow comrade, he couldn’t help but bug you about it.

It was entertaining to him, this was the only time he got a good laugh during the awful times of working and risking your lives to protect others.

“C’mon, it’s funny.” He rolled his eyes at your attitude but laughed about it shortly afterwards.

“It’s only funny to you, dumb ass. Why don’t you stop being a lonely old man and go find someone.” You said sarcastically, making his eyebrows furrow and shoot you a dirty look.

“I don’t need anyone. All I need is myself and you, remember that.” He simply said but you knew why he was never interested in finding someone for himself.

Levi holds up this giant wall that is three times bigger than him. He acts cold, he acts like he isn’t phased by anything but deep down, everything hits him like bricks. He convinced himself that being alone was a better option as a Scout instead of setting himself up for heartbreak and risk loving someone just to lose them to Titans.

He convinced himself that nothing was more important than family. Than you, as his little sister. He didn’t need anything else but you, losing you would be losing himself entirely.

“I’m grown, I can watch myself.” You scoffed, crossing your arms over your chest and he shrugged his shoulders.

“Eh, you still remind me of the five year who cried all the time.. You still cry all the time.” He joked, making you roll your eyes.

“So, are you going to tell Hange or should I?” Levi spoke up again, bringing the topic right back on the table and you groaned dramatically.

You didn’t want to talk about it any longer, the fact that a simple crush was being held over your head was annoying enough especially it being done by Levi. You wanted to punch him in the face and you were tempted to do it at this very moment.

You knew you couldn’t bring yourself to tell Hange your feelings, in the back of your head you were convinced she didn’t go in that direction, that she didn’t like women but some times it was questionable but the paranoia had lingered over you which prevented you from even thinking about telling her.

While you argued with your brother, Hange had walked down the hallway to actually look for you to help her with some theories she had in mind. She wanted to run them by you because you were the only person that showed interest and actually gave her good advice.

As she walked by Levi’s office, she overheard your voice and stopped in her tracks when her name was brought up in the conversation.

“Are you going to tell Hange or should I?”

She raised her eyebrow, tell her what? She was confused as she stood by the door, her ear up to the crack to listen to more. She hated to be nosey but she couldn’t help it when she was brought up.

“How am I supposed to tell her? It’s not as easy as you make it sound, Levi. This could either ruin our friendship or not.” You hated this, you hated the topic and you wanted to move on.

But Levi being the annoying asshole he was, he edged on and on just to watch the pure irritation on your face just for his amusement.

“C’mon, it’s not that hard. Just open your mouth up and speak.” He smirked, resting his arms on the desk as he leaned forward.

“You’re just a scary chicken.” He teased, making Hange almost giggle under her breath at the childish nickname he gave you.

But the more she stood there, the more she was intrigued with the conversation and wanting to listen to more. She had glanced down each side of the hallway to make sure no one was near or walking down to blow her cover as she continued the sneaky act.

“God, you’re so irritating. It’s not that easy for me to walk up to her and say I’m in love with you. Keep teasing me about it and I’ll kick your short ass.” You threatened him, making his laugh only grow louder.

Her eyes widen at the confession you let out. You were in love with her? She couldn’t process it or think clearly but it had definitely made her heart pound inside her chest and adrenaline run through her veins.

As you got up from the other side of the desk, telling your brother that you were leaving as he continued to giggle like a school girl. Once she heard your footsteps come closer to the door, she had practically ran down the hallway and go around the corner.

She didn’t really know what to do, should she bring this up to you? Should she just get this over with and confront you? She didn’t know and all that thinking she did, she didn’t realize you walking down the hallway in her direction until you startled her by turning the corner.

“Oh shit!” You jumped, making her jump and drop the files she was holding in her hands.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t see you.” You admitted shyly, your cheeks growing hot as you kneeled down to scatter up the files and hand them back to her.

“It’s okay, actually- I was looking for you.” Hange abruptly said then quickly shut her mouth, that’s not what she wanted to say- now the topic was at the front of her mind.

“Oh? What about?”

“Uh, I had some theories but first I kind of wanted to get something off my chest.” She said, fixing her glasses and met your gaze with a almost worried look that made you become paranoid.

“I didn’t mean to um, listen in but I heard you and Levi talking.” She finished, making your eyes go wide and suddenly your cheeks were as red as a tomato.

“Ahh, um.” You didn’t know what to say, you started to stutter and started to look around the empty hallway to avoid her stare.

This is not what you had in mind about confessing to Hange. You couldn’t help but think if Levi was behind this sick plan, it wouldn’t be surprising if he did- he’s a selfish asshole after all.

As you stood there quietly, Hange had began to worry and clung tighter onto the files in her hands. She didn’t really know what to say and that’s coming from someone who is always talking and rambling about something.

But as she stood in front of you, watching you get all flustered up, it gave her a bit of a confidence boost to lean down and press her lips on yours, catching you by surprise completely.

You weren’t expecting this, your anxiety made you think of the worst in every situation but here she was, kissing your lips and it made your heart skip a beat at the small kiss.

When she pulled back, both of your faces flustered up and red- she had given you a cute smile and gestured you to follow her.

“C’mon, I have some theories to tell you.”

You were confused, thrown back but you followed her back to her office and she noticed how you were still quiet, probably even overthinking the small kiss you two shared.

“I hope you know that me kissing you meant that I like you too.”

.

.

.

Soft soft soft🥺

• Main Masterlist •

• AOT Masterlist •

[shihalyfie]

The paradox of the relationship between Takeru and Hikari

The issue of the relationship between Takeru and Hikari has been a question of interest since the series first aired, and especially after 02, which prominently depicted them constantly hanging out together and clearly having some kind of relation to each other...and yet, strangely, very rarely having a real heart-to-heart or even talking to each other much at all. The constant juxtapositions of them standing next to each other all of the time in both the series and in external media, combined with the fact they’re so associated with each other in terms of being Adventure returnees and with Digimon partners with similar evolutions, makes one almost mentally geared to associate them with each other, and yet we never really get to hear what they think about each other in the entirety of Adventure or 02′s running.

Part of this is because Takeru and Hikari are the two most “difficult to read” characters in the 02 team -- Hikari because she compulsively suppresses any selfish or negative feeling she has, and Takeru because he covers up his problems with a smile and pretends everything is okay, until it’s not. And, as it turns out, that “gap in communication” exists between the two of them as well; in the web of 02′s relationships, it’s a strange mix between being “comfortable around” each other, and yet not truly knowing each other...

Disclaimer before we continue: With some exceptions related to unambiguous canon depictions, I try to write my meta about relationships between characters in such a way that both shipping readings and non-shipping readings are possible in most cases, and my main reason for this is that I very strongly believe that even if you do ship the pair in question, it’s rather reductive (and not very fun) to stop an analysis at “anyway it’s because they’re in love” or something and not go any further. If you don’t care for Takeru/Hikari as a ship, I hope you can take this analysis as-is, and if you do happen to ship it, I hope you can take my analysis of the gaps in their relationship as “things they would have to consider and overcome for such a relationship to be possible” (i.e. a possible fanfic prompt?) and not me trying to dismiss the ship as inherently possible or impossible.

A second disclaimer: A lot of the important key points below are heavily dependent on how they were presented in the Japanese version of 02, especially in regards to the key 02 episode 13. The American English dub took a very large number of liberties with a lot of the below aspects, so if you are reading this with only that version as a reference, please be aware that there may be significant differences for the sake of avoiding confusion.

Hikari didn’t get to spend much of the series with the rest of the Adventure group, having been a “latecomer”, but once she enters, it’s rather interesting how much Takeru doesn’t socialize much with her. Granted, part of this was because of the circumstances -- there was a lot to be done, and Hikari had a cold relapse not long after they’d entered the Digital World -- but you’d really think Takeru would be interested in at least socializing with someone who’s actually his age, and yet we don’t get any real depiction of doing so outside of discussing important matters. It’s not to say that they never had any kind of conversation offscreen, but by the time we get to the end of Adventure, we have zero scope of what they actually think of each other.

By the time we get to 02, it turns out that this is probably by design.

First of all, we very quickly learn that the two of them did not keep up between Adventure and 02 -- they’re meeting each other again for the first time in a long time, and the last time they did meet was when they were much younger (probably their last meeting being the one depicted in the flashback in 02 episode 27). This is understandable considering that, up until the beginning of 02, Takeru lived in Sangenjaya and not Odaiba, meaning that it wasn’t like they’d have opportunities to meet up much in real life either, but the point is that this is how little contact and how little involvement they’d had in each other’s lives up until this point.

So, once the plot of 02 kicks off and the two of them become active as Chosen Children again, the two of them end up hanging out a lot. So much that Daisuke starts accusing them of having something between them. And the two of them never say anything to really firmly deny him, which of course only makes him more confused and upset, until 02 episode 17, when the concrete connection between them is established to the rest of the 02 team, and it’s properly disclosed that they were part of a whole adventure back in 1999 together.

Takeru knew Hikari before, and she’s still the one he knows the best out of this team, and on Hikari’s part, Takeru understands the nature of “being a Chosen Child” in ways the others don’t, and both of them had that formative experience that the others don’t understand. But 02 is a series that’s not only about relationships, but also about the differing nature of relationships -- it’s true that, having known each other well beforehand and also being all-around decent people, the two of them would certainly have an extra level of investment in each other’s welfare, but...

In 02 episode 13, we learn that as much as Takeru knows Hikari, he doesn’t really know her, and on Hikari’s part, she’s still incapable of communicating the extent of her thoughts so that he can.

The conversation between Takeru and Hikari behind the school in this episode is the first time we get to really see an opportunity for the two of them to bare their actual emotions, but nothing that can be called a "conversation" is had between them. Hikari is still plagued by a compulsive desire to not be a burden to others, including the idea of “burdening” her brother, and, when Takeru finally prompts her on what’s going on, she says nothing that properly clarifies what she’s going through, nothing but a cryptic mention of the “sea”, a statement that she "might be going away”, and a reference to her brother having always protected her beforehand. Takeru takes it as a sign that Hikari’s become overly dependent on Taichi, and snaps at her angrily -- a persistent symptom of him being unable to regulate his emotions properly -- and, unable to handle it, runs off awkwardly, leaving her alone to eventually be taken away. Later in the episode, Takeru reflects that he’d basically just doomed Hikari by his own actions, and with his last words to her having been something awful.

Ultimately, some degree of progress is made in that Hikari realizes that Takeru reaching out to her earlier makes him someone she should be reaching out to for help -- in the end, nobody in the 02 group had yet been able to reach out to her emotionally because of how closed-in she was, and the only people she truly trusted with her feelings up until that point were Taichi and Tailmon. So in other words, Takeru is another person she can finally “trust” with her feelings and welfare. But while Takeru is finally able to connect to her in some sense with this, when the two finally close off the episode and return to the real world, everything ends in complete silence. They do not say a single word to each other. They’re getting by with a sense of “inherent trust”, and their disconnect was resolved with that alone this time, but this problem hasn’t been fully solved yet and will be rearing its ugly head again by the time we get around to the Jogress arcs.

And so the two of them return back to their “comfortable with each other” status quo -- but, again, 02 is a series that portrays relationships in a very multi-layered and multifaceted form, and being comfortable around someone still doesn’t necessarily merit emotional closeness (for instance, Ken was pretty clearly indicated as being “comfortable” and straightforward in terms of working with Miyako in 02 episodes 25 and 33, but there’s no doubt that Daisuke’s the one who was more properly addressing the things he emotionally needed most at the time, which could arguably be said to be exactly why Ken was having a hard time adjusting to him at first). We see them “go off together” to do...completely mundane and practical things, like discussing why they’re still able to come to the Digital World in 02 episode 22, or trying to have their Digimon partners evolve on their own in 02 episode 24 -- they’re not having any kind of emotional heart-to-heart, they’re just there.

When you look at the wider picture, you can see that Hikari and Takeru’s relative comfort around each other at this point is largely because they’re still not comfortable being alone with anyone else yet. So far, they kind of had a bonding (not really bonding) session back in 02 episode 13, and they hadn’t had anything of the sort with anyone else, and they’re still the only people who understand certain things relevant to the adventure in 1999 that the others don’t. They’re both still ridiculously closed-in and guarded, and not trusting anyone with their feelings -- they can’t even trust each other with their feelings -- so they’re getting by on hanging out with each other because it’s either that or go off to be completely alone. As the two most “emotionally isolated” people in this group, there’s a wall between them and the others, and that wall is only slightly thinner between each other -- and you can even imagine that they’re willing to hang out with each other because they won’t be bothering that wall and causing intimidation.

And by the time we roll around to 02 episode 31, we learn that, this whole time, nothing has improved. Takeru sees that something is going on with Hikari, but does and says nothing -- perhaps because he’s not sure what to say, perhaps because he’s afraid of lashing out at her again, whatever it is -- but he can’t and won’t speak to her nor address her feelings.

In the end, the person who does establish that ability to “communicate” with Hikari is not Takeru but Miyako -- an aggressive, in-your-face, overly honest person who gets straight to the point and refuses to hold back, whose messy personality causes Hikari to become assertive in handling her and allows Hikari to finally vocalize one of her truly sensitive feelings, and who’s able to use her immense emotional sensitivity to identify what Hikari needs and break through to her.

But just because Miyako ended up being the person Hikari needs to move on past this issue does not mean Takeru’s role wasn’t important, nor that Miyako coming into Hikari’s life means that all of her relationships are inferior or pointless -- rather, a recurring element of 02′s portrayal of relationships is that everything has a ripple effect, and that “opening up” one person’s heart allows them to open up to others as well (see how Daisuke reaching out to Ken eventually helped him reach out to the others in the group, how even in this very same episode Miyako expresses that this experience helped her understand Ken better as well, how Daisuke’s experiences end up giving him a healthier relationship with the rest of the group, how Iori and Takeru’s Jogress ordeal helps them both become better at reaching out to Ken...). Unlike how they’d both closed off 02 episode 13, Hikari and Takeru end this one by talking -- with Hikari’s newfound confidence from her dealings with Miyako allowing her to more openly speak what she’s thinking with Takeru.

One thing you might notice is that after 02 episode 31, Takeru and Hikari are never seen going off on their own together for the rest of the series -- because, again, their “latching” onto hanging out with each other at the exclusion of anyone else was because they were that isolated from everyone else, but not anymore! Hikari starts to hang out more with Miyako as the two of them become more comfortable hanging out after the events of said episode; after all, Miyako had come to understand the real reason why Hikari “keeps so much inside” and that she needs to actively reach out to her, and Hikari is able to properly trust Miyako with her feelings, meaning that now that Hikari is starting to open up, she doesn’t need to fall back on her “truce” with Takeru to get by. Which ends up leaving Takeru rather alone for the following set of episodes. Well, seemingly alone, but...

...he’s not truly alone, because this is also where Iori realizes that there’s a lot more going on with Takeru and that he needs to make a proactive effort to understand him, and it doesn’t take long for Takeru to realize what Iori’s doing (especially when Yamato tips him off that Iori asked about him in 02 episode 35). Once again, very much unlike Hikari, Iori is straightforward and to-the-point, and is much better at cutting through all of the complicated layers Takeru puts up in an attempt to cover up his emotions.

The rest of the series has them in significantly more emotionally tense situations than before, and while the fact they end up spending the rest of the series with their respective Jogress partners instead of each other is partially sheer pragmatics, it’s also how the two of them start taking a more active role in actually checking on the others’ emotions and communicating with them in regards to their feelings. This is a huge deal -- compare this to back in 02 episode 13 when they were practically the only people willing to have this kind of serious, emotional conversation with each other -- and said attempt at a serious conversation exploded in their faces. (The other time one of them had made an attempt at something vaguely resembling a heart-to-heart during that time was 02 episode 11, which also resulted in Takeru blowing up explosively.) But here they’re capable of communicating clearly and openly and making their positions known in a way that gets through to their respective Jogress partners’ issues, without being stifled by anything.

But, again: just because they don’t “go off together” anymore doesn’t mean they stopped being important people to each other or comfortable around each other -- it’s just that now they’ve stopped wandering off together for the sake of blocking themselves away from others, and no longer trapped in this strange, paradoxical relationship of knowing-but-not-truly-knowing each other they had all the way back in 02 episode 13. The relationship they had back then was something built off of coping mechanisms, and not something you could truly say was healthy, not when their communication was stilted and Takeru had snapped at her so badly -- but both of them learning to open up more and be more honest with their feelings means that they may well have an actual healthy dynamic going forward.

And for all it’s worth, we learn that they’re still on very good terms by the time of Kizuna, getting breakfast together in the opening -- but it’s left ambiguous if their reason for doing so like this was because they still have a penchant for particularly hanging out together, or whether it was just circumstance because they were free to get breakfast after the Digimon incident (they act independently for the rest of the movie). Moreover, their relationships with the others in the 02 group are still going strong, because as per the drama CD, Takeru’s happy to hang out with Daisuke like it’s nothing and actively join in to reach out to Iori (it’s said Daisuke was approaching Iori “first” despite Takeru being there, so both of them were hanging out independently and decided to pick up Iori together), and Hikari comes in with Miyako, expressing a very firm intent to hang out with her for their trip, and ultimately it’s established that them not being with the rest of the group at the time of the movie was sheer scheduling circumstance and not necessarily them going out of their way to operate away from them.

So in other words, whatever relation you can say they have at this point, or their ability to get along, is not based on them falling back on each other as an unhealthy coping mechanism of silence, but one carried out in a more genuine manner.

[yandere-daydreams]

Title: The Right Direction.

Commission for the lovely @99shadowcat99.

Work Count: 1.8k

Pairing: Yandere!Hawks/Reader

Synopsis: Keigo’s never been one for routine. His life is too hectic, for that, and he just doesn’t have time for a real schedule. But, you do, and he likes that about you. Enough to keep nudging you in the right direction, at least.

TW: Death, Descriptions of Murder, Stalking, Breaking and Entering, Blood, Emotional Manipulation, Financial Manipulation, Gaslighting, Delusional Mindsets, and Unhealthy Dependancy.

It probably didn’t help that he hadn’t been in the best state of mind, when he first found you.

His industry could be stressful, sometimes, and Keigo’d already seen plenty of good heroes fall apart and shatter under the pressure. He tried to take it in stride. He was good at it, too, keeping the sparse remains of his decimated personal life separate from the constantly growing behemoth that was his career. Still, he had his moments of weakness, just like everyone else. Moments of weakness that led him to the threshold of a coworker's bedroom before he found an excuse to leave, to the highest rooftop he could find just to escape the noise of the city below, or in your case, the darkest corner of a well-worn dive bar, his vision blurring and his words slurring together before you saw fit to cut him off with a hand on his shoulder and a concerned smile.

Keigo didn’t have a reason to be as grateful as he was. He’d been drunk, but your call had been a precautious one, your jokes about avoiding a lawsuit from his manager too genuine to be completely disregarded. It’d been human decency to let him sleep it off in your backroom, and he couldn’t call you a saint for not turning him away when he came back the next day, and the night after that, and at least once a week for the month that followed. He was willing to accept that you’d been easy to latch onto. He liked your eyes, the way they crinkled at the edges as you laughed. Your voice was nice, easy on the ears, and he’d never been able to pin down your scent, like flowers and smoke and cheap liquor, all at the same time. It didn’t really matter why, though, and he didn’t like to think about it. He just liked you, a lot.

You were always there, always excatly where he needed you to be, and he appreciated that. He wasn’t going to tell himself there was another reason why he liked you so much. You were where you were supposed to be, always where you were supposed to be, and Keigo was close to loving you for it. Speaking off…

“Hey there, stranger.”

You were always right on time, too.

He pushed himself away from the cement wall just in time to feel you nudge against his side, your shoulder barely colliding with his. He knew your routine, by now. You always worked the closing shift, kicking out the last of your patrons and locking up a few hours after midnight before heading home, you route alresdy permanently engrained in his memory. It wasn’t uncommon for Keigo to wait for you, but you always sent him the same glance over your shoulder, the same teasing grin. You were a creature of habit, and he couldn’t say he minded. “For a busy man, you seem to have an awful lot of time on your hands,” You started, already turning away from him. “Our beloved Hawks doesn’t have any other adoring fans to grace with his presence?”

“None I like as much as you, sweetheart.” He didn’t miss a beat, but he let himself stumble as he followed your lead, earning a laugh and an excuse to hook his arm around your elbow, his hand finding yours soon after. It was a common gesture of affection between the two of you, but Keigo’s heart still beat a little faster, his face flushing and making him thankful for the flickering streetlights. “Let me walk you home,” He went on, if only for the sake of ritual. You’d stopped trying to politely refuse weeks ago, and it’d been months since he’d taken ‘no’ for an answer. “Patrol might be over, but I can still make sure nothing happens to my favorite civilian.”

“Oh, really?” Another mocking tone, a playful squeeze to his hand. You were the one to intertwine your fingers with his, this time, and Keigo forced himself to keep his eyes on the sidewalk. “And what, prey tell, are you afraid the world’s going to throw at me in the block between my bar and the train station?”

It was actually three blocks, three and a half if he counted the range he combed through meticulously every night before meeting you, but Keigo didn’t bother verbalizing the correction. “I’ve seen all kinds of things happen in a block,” He admitted, shrugging, trying to sound casual enough to come off as genuine. “A villain could go on rampage, someone could lose control of their quirk… Hell, a waitress with a vendetta could be burning your bar to the ground, as we speak.”

There was a slight pause, then a humourless chuckle. Just as he’d expected. “It’d be a good night to try. My boss might beat them to it, otherwise.”

Keigo hummed, slowing his pace down as yours began to falter. “I’m guessing there’s trouble in paradise?”

“Nothing I didn’t expect,” You sighed. He recognized your expression, the slight glare, the effortful frown of someone frustrated with their situation, but resigned to the inevitability of it. “I never thought I’d spend the rest of my life working at some sketchy, second-rate bar, I just… We’ve been losing business, and the place is falling apart, and he just seems so... so alright with it. It’s like someone’s paying him to run the place into the ground.”

Someone was. Someone was giving your greasy, gutless, greedy employer enough to last him well into retirement to do just that, to sit back and make sure you wouldn’t have to spend another day serving leering customers with irresponsible coworkers, but you wouldn’t want to hear it from him. You wouldn't understand why he was doing it. It’d break your routine, and you’d be thrown out of your little, familiar world too quickly. 

You didn’t need to know, so Keigo didn’t need to tell you.

“It’s not the only sketchy bar in the world,” He tried. “We could always use another warm body at the agency, if you’re interested. Just as something to tide you over, obviously, I… I wouldn’t want to overstep my boundaries.”

Like he’d said, you were a creature of habit. It took you half a second to shake your head, and another to relax, your next sigh one of fondness, rather than irritation. He glanced in your direction just in time to meet your eyes. Just in time to watch your gaze drift over his shoulder, towards the narrow, cramped sidestreet behind him, the one he'd almost been worried you wouldn't reach. Just in time to notice your smile fade, your mouth fall open, and just in time to catch you, as your knees buckled and anything you might’ve said was drowned out by a long, wordless scream.

He might’ve been a little over-zealous, in hindsight. The body would’ve probably been enough on its own, slumped over and bloodied, but she’d been yelling so loudly, thrashing and kicking and fighting long past the point of stubborn futility, and Keigo must’ve lost his temper somewhere between pinning her down and wrapping his hands around her neck. He’d put so much thought into it, too, using a knife rather than one of his feathers and letting her drag herself just far enough to be visible from the sidewalk before serving the killing blow. But, leaving her sprawled across the pavement, the wounds in her back still and the blood still pooling beneath her chest...

It might’ve been overkill. That was on Keigo, but he was sure you'd find a way to forgive him.

“She’s not.” It was short, blunt, straight to the point. You didn’t try to protest, and Keigo took to unlocking his phone. One of his sidekicks should’ve still been on-duty, and he wanted his agency on this before the police could get involved. It’d be easier, that way. Usually, a hero would only be called in after the crime’s already solved and a suspect’s been found, but no one questions the guy trying to solve the case. “But, we’re not going to let the same thing happen to you, alright? Some of my guys are already on their way, and I’m going to find the psycho who did this.”

Still, the carnage served its purpose. He could already feel you going limp, falling against him as you stared at the grisly scene, barely making half an attempt to push him away before digging your nails into his shirt, instead. “That’s… That’s my roommate,” You gasped, your voice shaking, all jagged fear and sudden terror. Momentarily, he wondered if he should’ve been more subtle. “She shouldn’t-- She’s supposed to be at home, I don’t know why she’d--” There was an abrupt pause, a hasty, choked silence. You slumped against him, letting Keigo wrap his arm around your waist, your earlier anxiety gone and replaced with numb, festering shock. You were trembling, by the time you continued, but for whatever reason, Keigo couldn’t bring himself to feel guilty. “I… I should check on her. She might be--”

There was a stilted nod, an uneven breath. “T-thank you, Takami.”

“That’s what I’m here for, right?” He allowed himself a small smile, a light tap to your side. “You’re going to have to stick around for a little while. I’ll try to make it quick, but if that really is your roommate, we’ll have to ask a few questions. Then you’ll be free to head home.”

Keigo could’ve laughed as you went stiff, your relief dissolving as swiftly as it’d appeared. “I… I don’t know if I should….” You were quick to trail off, to avert your eyes as your thoughts turned towards self-preservation. Keigo could already hear sirens in the distance, but he wanted to be selfish for just a little longer. Just a few more seconds, before he went back to being your concerned friend. Just your concerned friend, unfortunately. “Would that be safe?”

Of course not. He’d wrecked the place, breaking every window and decimating every lock, but you didn’t know that yet, so neither did he.

Rather than giving you a reassuring answer, Keigo only pulled away, moving to cup your cheek. “I mean, I should check it out first. That might take all night, though, and there’s something wrong, we’ll be lucky to finish this week,” He explained, watching your expression darken, clouding over with something between blind fear and impending dread. “But, I don’t know if I’d be able to focus with you in some shitty, unguarded hotel, either. And…” He let himself trail off before breaking into a small smile. Not disarming, but soothing. Just softened enough to encourage you to do the same. “You know I always have room for you back at my place. Only if you trust me to take care of you, of course.”

You barely hesitated before falling into him, wrapping your arm around his neck as you buried your face in his chest, words of appreciation mixing with cracked, half-choked sobs. Keigo welcomed it. Why wouldn’t he?

He was your knight in shining armor, your valiant protector. And you were his rock, his routine, the one thing that kept him sane. He deserved a little praise every now and then, didn’t he? And besides, he had to take advantage of his oh-so-heroic image while he could.

He doubted you'll be so grateful, once you find out just how much he’s done to keep you by his side.

[thepapergirlandthespiegelman]

Castlevania Season 4: I’m not mad, just disappointed

Season 4 is poorly written fanfiction, which is...better than a lot of things could be, I guess.

Spoilers below the cut.

Content warning: trauma, sexual assault, psychological manipulation

The Gods Have Had a Change of Heart

Or, “Season 3 Blocked and Ignored”

Season 3 felt like the fabric of the universe had been twisted just to inflict additional pain. Season 4 overcompensates in the other direction; trauma evaporates, and good things happen for no other reason than to make our favorite characters happy.

The Season 3 finale left two characters in particular totally devastated: Alucard and Hector. Alucard is violently betrayed in a horrifying sexual assault by the first two people he’s spoken to since Trevor and Sypha left. He ends up killing them in self-defense and puts their bodies on stakes outside the castle, alluding to his father’s habit of doing so and potentially hinting at a turn toward evil. Hector is seduced by Lenore and then enslaved using a magic ring.

Yet at the start of Season 4, it’s as if these things never happened. Alucard is troubled, but not totally devastated, certainly not evil. Taka and Sumi are referenced in exactly one conversation with new character, Greta, in which she says the rather tactless throwaway line, “I had a boyfriend and girlfriend at the same time once. But they never tried to kill me.” Hector is nominally imprisoned, but immediately seems highly agentic, perhaps even more so than before. He studies, lays traps, and makes secret plans with other people. Furthermore, his relationship with Lenore is completely transformed. From falling to his knees in abject horror and despair at being enslaved, he suddenly switches to light banter, in what is apparently a basically okay, mutually enjoyed romantic/sexual relationship. Manipulative, selfish Lenore is now a sympathetic character struggling to reconcile her own role and feelings with Carmilla’s plans.

The events of season 3 happened, remaining canon in the most basic, literal sense. But the emotional weight attached to them has disappeared into thin air.

Not gonna lie, I did breathe a sigh of relief when I saw that Alucard and Hector were okay. I’m soft-hearted! I don’t like seeing characters I like suffer! I mean, conflict is important, and I can deal with (or even enjoy in a certain sense) seeing characters suffer if it makes sense and serves a narrative purpose. But as far as I can tell, the season 3 finale was nothing more than lurid, meaningless violence. I probably wouldn’t have continued watching the show if it devolved into nothing more than finding novel ways to torture the characters.

Still, it doesn’t feel quite right to pretend like nothing happened either. Or, really, not that nothing happened, but that those things didn’t matter, didn’t hurt, didn’t leave lasting scars. That’s...almost kind of worse.

But, I thought, I can sort of forgive this sudden shift in the stars, given that there may have been some sort of change in creative direction relating to Ellis’ decreased involvement with the show.* Plus, season 3 was insanity. It’s not like it was full of great writing choices, so if we quietly ignore some of them, maybe that’s for the best.

*I only later learned that Netflix actually chose to continue with Ellis’ season 4 scripts. It is not lost on me that maybe Ellis doesn’t know how to write about the lasting effects of traumatic sexual experiences or how power dynamics can make a sexual relationship problematic because he doesn’t understand that those things exist.

Characters Being Nobody and Nothing Happening

Pretty Pictures, Not Much Else

Unfortunately, the disconnect between seasons 3 and 4 isn’t the only problem with this season. Although I felt that season 4 was a bit less boring than season 3 (I particularly enjoyed some of the earlier episodes of season 4), it suffers from the same basic problems of Characters Being Nobody and Nothing Happening.

None of the characters experience any significant development, let alone any sort of coherent arc. Sypha has changed slightly, becoming more rough and jaded. I did really like the scene where she talks about becoming the kind of person who says “shit.” I think it really speaks to how entering into a relationship with someone means taking on aspects of their lifestyle, and how that can change you in ways that you can’t predict and therefore can’t exactly “agree” to. Sometimes those changes are good, sometimes they’re bad, sometimes they’re neutral, and sometimes it’s difficult to know. But you have to accept that you’re sacrificing some aspects of the person that you could have been if you chose to live completely independently, or with someone else.

Trevor really hasn’t changed since season 1 when he first decided to take up the mantle of hero again. Likewise with Alucard. Hector and Lenore change, as previously noted, but that change is sudden, jarring, and occurs completely off screen in between seasons 3 and 4. Carmilla dies as exactly as she lived: bitter, angry, and violent. Saint Germain just kind of...gets fucked over in a nonsensical subplot, which is its own whole can of worms.

We also get several new characters in season 4, none of whom have developed personalities or motives, nor do they develop any of those things over the course of the season: Greta, Zamfir, Varney, Ratko.

And nobody. Does. Anything.

Trevor and Sypha spend the entire season trying to explore and aid Targoviste, which comes to absolutely nothing. They’re unable to help anyone, Zamfir dies, and they end up just jumping through a magic portal to the actually relevant subplot in the finale. Carmilla literally does little more than draw maps until she’s ultimately killed. Hector plays a minor role in Saint Germain’s extraction of Dracula from Hell; otherwise, he and Lenore basically just exchange banter. Saint Germain does sort of do some stuff? But it’s often unclear how he’s made his connections, who the people who are helping him are, or what exactly he’s doing in terms of his magic beyond “whatever it takes to get back to his lover.”

Sure, there are fight scenes, but they feel meaningless. There’s no context, no stakes. There’s also a LOT of dialogue, and it is. Not well written. Exposition is embarrassingly clumsy at times, and the philosophical musings are cliche at best, muddled and confusing at worst. There’s just not all that much going on.

That is, except for Isaac. But more on him in a second.

What Kind of Show Is This?

When the plot line adapted from Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse ended with season 2, the show struggled to establish a new identity.

Despite nominally dealing with themes like whether humanity is inherently good or evil and how to cope with wrongdoing and loss, seasons 1 and 2 ultimately boiled down to a pretty generic action-adventure/fantasy plot with found family/power of friendship elements. Main characters Trevor, Sypha, and Alucard don’t really wrestle with big philosophical questions or suffer any major defeats. They know that they have to take down Dracula for the good of the world, and they work together as a team to do it, with a little character development relating to their various backstories sprinkled in.

Then season 3 happened, and things got weird. The trio is broken up for what feels like a pretty trivial reason—Alucard has to protect the castle and Belmont hold, I guess? And the result of that decision is that the dynamics for the three main characters are completely unbalanced.

Ellis openly admits that he basically went feral with the writing of season 3, and it shows. The messaging in seasons 1 and 2 was cliche, but consistent. The message of season 3? Anyone’s guess.

Season 4 reversed the darkening of tone from season 3, but shares its inability to pick a story and tell it.

Isaac is the Main Character

Always has been.

While I can’t say that his character or arc are perfect, I can say that he actually has a character and an arc. He starts off motivated by his fierce loyalty to Dracula, then has to struggle to find his purpose once Dracula is gone. He goes from subservient to agentic. He goes from fully endorsing the genocide of humanity and not caring about his own life to seeing some worth in humans and genuinely wanting to live. He has an interesting moment that deepens our understanding of what night creatures are, while also serving as an exploration of the meaning of one’s fundamental nature. Most importantly, these changes happen naturally over the course of the show. They never feel forced or out of the blue, and while I feel like even more could have been done with Isaac’s character, there’s a lot to appreciate about what is there.

If there’s any thread holding Castlevania as a single, coherent work together, it’s Isaac. Not only is his character the best executed and the most coherent over the course of the show, his character explores themes that are larger than himself and relevant to the show as a whole, like those mentioned earlier: misanthropy versus a belief in the value of humanity; the ability to go beyond one’s “nature” or initial circumstances; and how to respond to being wronged or losing something important to you. Exploring the individual lives of characters is great, but really good writing usually requires going beyond that to reflect on broader questions and ideas. Isaac is the only character here that serves that larger purpose.

Sorry...I Just Don’t Buy It

The season 4 finale is crazy, although in a different way from season 3′s.

Varney being Death makes no sense on several different levels. I’m not going to spend a lot of time picking that particular plot twist apart, but I will talk about why I think it doesn’t work at the largest scale, and how I think season 4 might have been done better.

Last minute twists with zero foreshadowing are rarely a good idea, and this is no exception. Why introduce this “Death” entity at the last minute to be the most important battle of the season? The finale of the entire show, even? Besides the lack of logic or emotional buildup, this robs the show of the opportunity to make use of the antagonists that it already has. Since Dracula died, Carmilla has been the obvious choice for a new big bad. Why hasn’t she done more?

Season 4 feels crowded with characters and plot lines that amount to nothing. Why not bring some of these characters together? If Carmilla is the main antagonist, how come she never meets any of the protagonists (except Hector, who is a pretty minor player in this ecosystem) or even affects them in any way?

Season 4 feels like maybe it was trying to make something out of season 3 and the model that it presented, but it ultimately fails to do so. The writers throw the trio back together at the end anyway, so why not have them rejoin sooner and work together? Maybe Sypha and Trevor’s past experience with Saint Germain could have helped Alucard and Greta piece together what he was plotting sooner, rather than all four of them being completely blindsided by it in the penultimate episode. (Sypha and Trevor know that someone is trying to resurrect Dracula, but they fail to find out any actual detail about the plans, despite their supposed attempts.) Have characters actually do stuff, figure stuff out, advance the plot!

Likewise, maybe Carmilla becomes aware of Saint Germain’s scheming, sees it as a threat, and tries to take him down. Maybe she tries to get involved and somehow use alchemy or the Infinite Corridor to her own benefit. What does it look like when power-hungry Carmilla, who wants to rule the world, finds out there’s an entire multiverse out there? That could easily set her up to be a foil to Saint Germain, causing him to realize that what he’s doing is wrong.

What actually ended up happening in the show feels disjointed and often empty. In particular, most of the events that happen in the last two episodes just don’t really work for me. I didn’t like Trevor suddenly sacrificing himself to this random, new, super powerful enemy, or how the gems and dagger that he found just happened to be the perfect weapon to kill this new enemy, or how he inexplicably returns from the dead.

This kind of thing is what I mean when I say that this season feels like fanfiction. Trevor comes back from the dead for no discernible reason other than that it would really suck if he died. Greta as a character seems to literally only exist to be Alucard’s girlfriend and support him so that he doesn’t have to continue to be alone and potentially turn evil. Alucard’s trauma from Taka and Sumi and Hector’s trauma from Lenore are both conveniently erased. Even Dracula and Lisa are resurrected somehow and get their happy ending. And it’s like, I guess I prefer deus ex machina to the opposite (Does that have a name? When everything is going well but then something terrible happens for no reason other than to make things worse for the characters?), but they’re both bad writing.

God. This isn’t even getting into what happened with the Council of Sisters. And I don’t even really like those characters, but that doesn’t mean I want to see their characters handled poorly.

I’m not sorry that I watched until the end, but I can’t in good faith recommend the show as a whole. If you’ve yet to watch Castlevania, just stop at the end of season 2. While there are some shining moments in seasons 3 and 4 (4 more than 3), it’s just really not worth it.

[artemqi]

What is Happiness

》 Luke Pearce x Reader

》 "What is happiness?" A question that has been asked by someone on Twitter, you begin your journey to find the answer

》 2k words

》 mhy pls let luke be happy it hurts seeing him in pain :(((( enjoy<3!

"What is happiness?"

It's a question that not everyone can answer, many people have different answers, many people think they are right. 

What is the right answer though?

Throughout our lifetime, we either get asked or ask ourselves this question. We live to find the answer to the question, many of us think we found the answer but end up at the beginning. 

Some may give up along the path to happiness, some still strive till this day to find the answer they want. Some people may say that reality is the happiness that they want, but is this actually the true answer that they want to achieve?

While you were scrolling through Twitter this morning before going to work, you saw the question posted by someone you follow. 

This got your mind to ponder.

You successfully graduated from med school and scored a job as a nurse at one of Stellis's best hospitals, you have helped heal many people and put a smile on them for the rest of their life. 

Then why do you still feel this isnt the happiness you are looking for?

"(y/n), there's a new patient that just arrived. He used to be under the care of a friend of mine and he got moved to the hospital today, you will be his personal nurse during his stay here." Dr. Grenn, the one who opened the hospital, said with a soft smile. You looked at her as she gave you the tablet that contained information about the patient.

"He's staying in room 209, help him around until I prepare the medication course for him." She said, giving you a pat on the shoulder.

You nodded and walked out of her office, making your way towards the room. You decided to look down at the documents to know a bit about the patient.

Luke Pearce, a private detective. Its rare for people like him to show up at the hospital, he looks quite handsome in the picture that's on the tablet.

Something about him got you hooked to know more about him, that's the first time a patient made you feel this way.

Entering the room, you were quite shocked at the sight before you. Most people who stayed at the hospital always had a sorrowful look on their faces, they always had negative thoughts and were on the verge of giving into their sickness.

He is different.

"Noooo! I was so close." He said, lips turning to a cute pout as he stared helplessly at his tablet. He looked like a sad puppy who didn't get a treat.

Is he playing a matching game?

"Good afternoon." You greeted, closing the door behind you. The man looked up at you and his coral eyes lit up, as if he didn't lose a level in a matching game.

"My name's (y/n), I'll be your nurse throughout your stay here. If you need anything just press the button next to your bed and I'll come immediately." You said, giving him a polite smile.

He stood up from his bed and walked over to you, giving you his hand and a wide grin.

"Let's be friends."

》—■—■—▪︎♤▪︎—■—■—《

Since that day, Luke has been calling you to his room to chat most of the time, other times he would have questions about his medication and require some assistance.

You would talk about a lot of things, and in a short amount of time you two became close friends. Luke is a very fun and optimistic person, he is a person who you can easily strike conversations with and talk about anything without feeling awkward or the conversation turning to be awkward. 

"So, why do you look like you just lost in a matching game 5 times in a row?" Luke asked, munching on some grapes as he looked at your dejected form.

"Another date ruined." You sighed, "I went out on multiple dates before, trying to find my 'soulmate' but all I got so far are disappointments." 

Luke hummed, staring at the ceiling then tossed a grape in the air and caught it in his mouth. 

"How about you just take it slow? Rushing into a relationship won't do you any good. Start off as friends first and start from there, once you get to know the person well enough then you can see whether it will work out or not, whether you will be happy or not." 

His words made you see things in a different view, these words are accurate. A relationship will take a while to develop, you just have to take things slow and go with the flow. You have to think of your happiness. 

"Luke, what is happiness?" You blurted out the question, the ginger haired male looked at you with his coral eyes staring at you with shock.

He pondered the question for a bit, his eyes glancing at the window.

"Happiness… It depends on the life of each person. For me, isn't being alive more than enough of a reason to be happy?" Luke answered, his coral eyes filled with warmth as he started at the window. 

Being alive is more than enough reason to be happy. This sentence made you realise that people's dreams can be so simple and happiness can be very simple to the point that being alive is simply a reason to be happy.

"Why did you say that?" You asked, your eyes staring at his coral ones, which looked back at you.

"Life is the best thing to ever happen to anyone, no matter how harsh life is to you. Being alive is a chance for you to learn new things, experience things you want to experience, build your own future, and do many more things that will make you happy. All that happiness you experience in your life is because you are still alive."

That evening, you learned many things. Firstly, love will come along the way so just take things slow. Secondly, being alive is a beautiful reason to be alive. Thirdly, You started seeing Luke in a different light.

Luke Pearce is not just a patient here who wants to heal from his disease, he is not just a private detective who is determined to do his job. He is a simple soul who cherishes the gift of life.

》—■—■—▪︎♤▪︎—■—■—《

A few months have passed after this chat, you and Luke have been chatting all the while he was taking his medications and getting better each day.

You started to learn a lot about him, and about his childhood friend.

"Yknow, I made a ring for her. To propose." He muttered, taking something from his bag and showing it to you, the ring he made.

"That's very pretty, and the fact that you made it holds a very special meaning." You commented, admiring the ring between his fingers. Luke sighed and dropped his hand on the bed.

"That is until I found out about my condition and that I don't have much to live. So I decided to come back to Stellis and spend some time with her before disappearing, that time is more than-"

"Are you serious?"

Luke looked at you, shock in his eyes as you muttered these words while glaring at him.

"Weren't you the one who talked about how life is so precious and it is the main reason why we are happy?" You continued, standing up and grabbing the ring from his hand.

"Let me tell you something. Stop thinking about the day you will die, stop saying that you will die anyway and be selfish in that way. You will break her heart that way if you just came and left like that. You got a chance to live without thinking about that disease anymore!" You said, raising the ring to him.

"Hold onto that chance, hold onto your life and fight whatever's is trying to take it away from you, hold onto your happiness." 

You then gave him the ring again and stormed out of the room, tears forming in your eyes. 

Rushing into the bathroom, you let go of the tears, letting them stream down your eyes. 

The sight of Luke not caring about his own life despite telling you how precious life is a few months ago broke you. Seeing someone give up on life so easily despite being a cheerful person is a sight that hurts the soul. 

After that day, the relationship with you and Luke was put on hold. You would only come in to check on his body, give him his medicine and serve him food. 

You didn't want to talk to him for the time being, and he seems to have the same thought.

In reality, Luke was thinking of the words you said and the words Aaron told him. He thought of Rosa, he thought of his childhood, he thought of you. 

"You're right, I am an idiot. Life is too precious to easily give it up."

》—■—■—▪︎♤▪︎—■—■—《

"Great news! You are free to go!" 

All Luke could do is stare idly at Dr. Grenn, who flashed him a big smile while holding her tablet.

"I did some checkups on you and found out that you are no longer infected. You are as free as a Falcon, now you can live your life without worrying about the three years." She finished, staring at Luke and giving him a thumbs up.

"Next time, don't go giving up on life like that."

"How did you know?" Luke immediately asked, Dr. Grenn just laughed and sat down on the bed next to him.

"Kid, Aaron told me everything. You remind me of a patient who was here 2 years ago, he was diagonised with Cancer and was supposed to die after 2 years. He used to think the same way, until he got a reason to live for and he made it. He was estimated to die 2 months ago, he is currently living his life to the fullest." She replied, giving Luke a soft smile.

"And you?"

"What about me?"

"What made you hold onto life?"

Luke stayed silent for a while, looking at his feet.

"(y/n)"

"Then go get them. I believe in you kid." She replied, standing up and walking towards the door.

"Stop calling me kid! I'm not a kid yknow?" Luke said, turning to look at Dr. Grenn.

She just chuckled and looked back at him.

"You remind me of the kid I just talked to you about. Lets meet again sometime, not here though!" She saluted, leaving his room. 

Throughout his stay here, he learned many things and met people who he cherishes a lot. 

Dr. Grenn, who gave him a new hope in life and was like a mother figure for him.

And you, the person who made him see life in a new way, and the person he trully loves.

As the days go by, Luke became acustomed to his life without worrying about any diseases, he started focusing on his own happiness. He started to focus on you.

Day by day, you two would talk, whether its by chat or calls, he would never miss a day without talking to you. Soon enough, you two started going out.

"Hey (y/n), I just had a memory." Luke started, you two were sitting on a bench in a park.

"What kind of memory?"

"When you yelled at me in the hospital."

You groaned, placing your face into your palms. 

"Stop I feel embarrassed, but you did deserve it though."

"You're right, that's why." He stood up, walking up in front of you then kneeling down.

You stared at him as he knelt down, taking your hand in his and holding it close to him.

"(y/n), you gave me a new vision in life. You made me realize how precious life is, how we should never let it go. I'm in love with you, will you be mine?" Luke confessed, his hands slightly trembling and waiting for your reply.

"Luke, I feel the same way too. You gave me a new view about happiness and I will forever be grateful."

That night, you went back to the tweet you saw and replied to it.

"Happiness is life, cherishing life and living it is happiness. Life is the source of happiness that we are all looking for. Never let life go so easily."

[dialovers-translations]

Diabolik Lovers DARK FATE ー Reiji Dark [Prologue]

ー The scene starts in the underground waterway

Yui: ( I’m sure Reiji-san will be upset with me if I follow after him. But even so, I... )

Uu...

ー She pushes open the portal

*Creaaaak*

*THUD*

ー The scene shifts to the forest in the Demon World

Yui: ーー I’m here...

( This is the Demon World...It’s as dark as ever. Even more so right now, with the lunar eclipse still ongoing... )

( Oh no. I don’t know the way...It’s pitch-black, I can barely see a thing. )

( Which direction should I go? )

( I want to meet up with Reiji-san as soon as I can... )

*HOOOOOOWL*

Yui: ...!!

( The howling of wolves...Don’t tell me, they’re nearby? )

( Those wolves which attacked Ayato-kun... )

ー A flashback ensues

Yui: Ayato-kun!!!!

Ayato: Fuck…That hurt! The fuck’s your problem!!?

ー The wolf continues its assault

Ayato: Guh…Chichinashi, don’t you dare move from underneath me…!!

Yui: B-But…!

Ayato: Shut up…Guah…!!

*RIIIIIIP*

Ayato: …Guh…Uu…!!

ー The flashback ends

Yui: Ugh...

( Oh no...I remembered, and now my body won’t stop shaking. )

( Perhaps I made a mistake by coming here all by myself... )

*HOOOOOOWL*

Yui: ...! Again...

( Also, I feel like they’ve gotten closer than before... )

( Either way, staying here is dangerous. I should look for a place to hide. )

*TIMESKIP*

ー The scene shifts to inside the abandoned building

Yui: ーー There’s a house all the way out here...

( The building seems to be quite old and there doesn’t appear to be anyone living here right now... )

( Perfect. I’ll use this as my hiding spot. )

*Rustle*

Yui: ...Phew.

( I finally got to catch my breath... )

( However, I can’t stay here forever. Perhaps it isn’t too late to turn back after all... )

*Thud*

Yui: ...!!

( I heard a noise coming from outside right now...Don’t tell me, there’s someone here? )

( What should I do? Where can I hide...? )

( Ah! I can hide behind those curtains! )

ー Yui moves behind the curtains

??? 1: The noise was coming from here, right?

??? 2: Yes. I am positive.

??? 1: ...You’re right, it definitely reeks of something in here. Oi, search the room.

??? 2: Yes, sir!

Yui: ( ...Who could those guys be? Are they perhaps Vampires...? )

( Oh no. Who knows what they’ll do to me if they find me. )

( Please, don’t let them check here...! )

??? 2: ーー There doesn’t seem to be anyone around. Should we turn back?

??? 1: Hm...

Yui: ( Thank god. Seems like they’re leaving already. If I just stay hidden like this, I should be able to go unnoticed somehow... )

??? 1: ...?

??? 2: Is something the matter?

ー He opens the curtains

Yui: ...!!!

??? 1: So this is where you’ve been hiding. Hah, how naive.

*Rustle*

Yui: Ow! No, let me go...!

??? 1: A woman, huh? And a human, on top of that. Where did you come from?

Yui: F-From the human world...

??? 1: Why did you come here? Did you come with a specific reason in mind? Or perhapsーー

...Hm?

Yui: Eh...?

??? 1: What is this scent? For a human, it’s somewhat...

Oi, woman! Are you truly a human?

Yui: I am...

??? 1: Suspicious. Seems like we need to investigate you more thoroughly.

ーー Oi, take this woman to our castle.

??? 2: Roger!

Yui: No way...! Stop, please! I have somewhere I need to go immediately, so...!

??? 1: Keep quiet and follow us!

*Rustle*

Yui: Kyah...!

( At this rate, I’ll get taken with them...However, I’m no match for these people... )

( No...I’m scared...Save me, Reiji-san...! )

???: May I ask what you are going to do with her?

Yui: Eh...?

Reiji-san...!!

( This is the real one, right? I didn’t think he’d actually come for me...! )

??? 1: ...! You are Karlheinz-sama’s...

Reiji: Long time no see, Zweig-sama. I suppose it must have been since the last evening party.

Yui: ( Reiji-san knows this person...? )

Reiji: By the way, would you kindly let go of the lady?

Zweig: My sincere apologies! I was unaware of the fact that she is your prey...

Reiji: No. She is my lover.

Yui: Eh...?

( He said that like it was nothing... )

( But I’m happy. He’s willing to refer to me as his lover in front of others. )

Zweig: ...I see. In that case, I should return her to you.

Reiji: Thank you very much.

Zweig: However, what was she doing here?

This is the Demon World and on top of that, the lunar eclipse is still ongoing. It is extremely dangerous for a human woman to be wandering around the woods by herself.

Reiji: You are absolutely correct. This was a blunder on my part. ...I am extremely ashamed.

Zweig: No, I was not blaming you or anything...

Well, let us move on from that. In the end, nothing happened after all.

Reiji: Once again, my sincere apologies.

Well then, we shall take our leave now. ーー We are leaving, Yui.

Yui: Y-Yes.

ー The scene shifts back to the forest

Yui: ーー I’m so sorry, Reiji-san. I caused you trouble.

Reiji: Is that all? Nothing else you should say?

Yui: Well...I acted recklessly despite my promise to remain in the human world...

Reiji: My thoughts exactly. Good grief...I was right sending a Familiar down there to check just in case.

Who knows what could have happened if I arrived just mere seconds later.

Yui: ( He’s upset... )

( Of course he is. I caused him trouble because of my own selfish acts. )

Reiji: I doubt you are aware, but those men were part of the Snake Clan, also known as Vibora.

Yui: Snake...? So they’re not Vampires?

Reiji: Yes. However, that does not make them any less dangerous. After all, they are highly territorial.

They were patrolling around the abandoned building to keep an eye on possible intruders wishing to enter their territory which lies just past that area...

If one were to set foot inside their territory, not even a fellow Demon would make it through unscathed.

You were truly playing with fire.

Yui: ( I see... )

I really am sorry...

Reiji: Haah...Well, I suppose I can let it slide. Nothing happened this time after all.

Please use this as a lesson and refrain from being so reckless in the future.

Yui: ( Huh? He only scolded me. In the past, I would have received a severe punishment... )

Reiji: What is the matter? Making such an odd expression.

Yui: Uhm, I was just thinking you’ve kind of changed.

Reiji: Why would you say that all of a sudden...?

However, if I have truly changed, then that would be...because of you.

Yui: Eh?

Reiji: Well then, let us head home.

ー He offers his hand

*Rustle*

On certain CGs, little black roses will appear on the screen. If you click on them, you get an extra line of dialogue.

“Look at those flushed cheeks...Seems like my lover is quite the shy one per usual. Although that is part of what makes you so adorable.”

“You honestly are hopeless without me. I suppose I would be able to rest at ease if you were constantly connected to me like this.”

Yui: Ah...

( He grabbed hold of my hand... )

( His hand is so big...His fingers are long too, it really feels like a man’s hand. )

( I wonder why? This isn’t the first time he has touched me, but my heartbeat’s going crazy... )

Reiji: Why do you avert your gaze?

Yui: I-It’s nothing...

Reiji: I shall not allow you to keep any secrets from me. Answer me, Yui.

Yui: Well...I feel somewhat embarrassed...

Reiji: Embarrassed?

Heh. Why are you still flustered over this? We are lovers. Therefore, it is only normal for us to hold hands.

Or would you perhaps prefer another method?

Yui: Another method...?

Reiji: I will tell you if you so wish...But when I do, I assume your cheeks may turn an even brighter shade of red.

Yui: Uu...

Reiji: Fufu...You truly are a straightforward person.

Yui: ( ...I wonder if he’s teasing me? )

( However, even that makes me happy. )

( His voice is so gentle, therefore I can tell that he cares for meーー )

*TIMESKIP*

ー The scene shifts to the entrance of the Sakamaki castle

Reiji: Well then, we have arrived.

You are dirty, so you should take a shower first.

Yui: Yes. Uhm...Is Ayato-kun alright? If possible, I’d like to see him...

Reiji: Ayato has yet to regain consciousness. There is nothing you can do even if you go see him.

Yui: I see...

( Vampires usually have a speedy recovery. Yet, he still hasn’t woken up... )

( I wonder if he’ll be okay...? )

Reiji: ...Well, would you like to go take a quick look?

Yui: Eh? I can?

Reiji: It is written all over your face that you are worried sick.

I doubt you can relax and take a shower in your current state.

Yui: Thank you very much!

ー The scene shifts to one of the bedrooms

Yui: ...

Ayato: ...

Yui: ( He really won’t even budge. ) 

( I don’t want to think this way, but it’s almost as if he’s dead... )

Reiji-san, how’s his condition...?

Reiji: The wound on his left arm is the only physical injury. It is recovering quite well, but to this day, he has not shown any signs of awakening.

He might have hit his head hard on something.

However, I am not a medical specialist, so I cannot say for sure...

Yui: I see...

Uhm, do doctors not exist here in the Demon World?

Reiji: I believe I have mentioned this in the past as well, but the profession of ‘doctor’ does not exist here.

Aah, however...

Yui: Does something come to mind?

Reiji: Yes. There is one thing.

Father’s pharmaceutical department. If we go there, they could examine Ayato’s symptoms.

Yui: Really?

Reiji: Yes.

Well then, we have been here long enough, no? Let us leave.

I doubt you can relax in those dirty clothes.

Yui: Ah, just a little longer...Ayato-kun has some sweat on his forehead, so I’d like to wipe it off.

Reiji: I shall do that.

Yui: But...

Reiji: ...You are rather dense.

Yui: Eh? What do you mean?

Reiji: You wish to remain by Ayato’s side that badly? More so than spending time with me?

Yui: Eh...?

( Don’t tell me, is Reiji-san jealous...? )

ー Reiji steps closer

Reiji: Good grief. To think you would make me go this far...I assume you are prepared to get punished?

Yui: N-No way...I was simply worried about Ayato-kun, that’s all...

Reiji: Are we talking back now? In that case, I assume those defiant lips should be first to receive a penalty.

Nn...

*Smooch*

Yui: ...

Y-You can’t...Reiji-san...Ayato-kun’s right there...

Reiji: He cannot tell since he is asleep. Come on, keep still.

Nn...Haah...

Yui: ( They’re only light kisses, yet it’s making my head spin... )

( At this rate, I’ll... )

Reiji: Fufu...You look as if you are about to melt any second now. It would be troublesome if you were to collapse on me as well, so I will leave the follow-up for some other time.

ー Reiji walks away

Yui: ( Geez, Reiji-san...! )

ーー TO BE CONTINUED ーー

→  LIKE MY TRANSLATIONS? SUPPORT ME ON KO-FI!

<- [ Sakamaki Prologue ] [ Dark 01 ] ->

[give-seconds]

Sweet Lies

Summary: Sungchan wants to tell you something but is scared to do it face to face. So, he decides to write you letters telling you everything he wants to say.

Paring: Sungchan x female reader

Genre: Angst 

Warnings: cheating

Word count: 2.3K

---

Hi y/n,

I don’t know if you’re ever going to get these. I mean, as of right now, my intention isn’t to give you them. I guess these letters, like the reason they even exist, are for me. Through these letters, I hope to tell you everything I wish I had the guts to say to your face. I wish I could say this was all a mistake and that I could man up and beg for your forgiveness. But it isn’t a mistake. This is a conscious decision I made once and am continuing to make again.

Maybe you’ll even forgive me.

Love,

Sungchan

----

Good morning y/n,

You were gone when I woke up this morning. You wrote me this cute little note about how you had some special surprise planned for me today. I’m sorry, I’ll have to cancel. I already have plans today. I already know what I’ll say to you. I’ll say something about how my work assigned me to a special project and that I have to work late to help design the framework or something like that. Really though, it’s her birthday today, and I promised I’d spend it with her.

I wish I hated myself enough to stop.

Love,

Sungchan.

---

Hi y/n,

It’s kind of funny, actually. Today, you were telling me about a song you found that “is making its way” to becoming your favorite song. It’s a song from the cheater’s point of view. After you played it for me, you said you didn’t know if you could ever forgive someone who cheated on you. That you should be enough for someone, and if the person you’re dating doesn’t realize that, then they’re not someone you would miss.

After that, I was so stressed, I called her as soon as I got home. Her voice is the only thing that can calm me down when things like this happen between me and you.

I’m sorry,

Sungchan

—

Hi y/n,

Today the guilt I felt was too heavy. I called into work sick and spent the day stuffing everything you’ve ever given me into a box. It was too loud. One of the last things I put into the box was our undergrad graduation photo. It’s only been two years since then, but we look so young. Maybe it’s because I look at that photo and think how soon after that, we started our relationship. Back then, you were the only person I could see myself with.

Five months ago, I met someone who made me feel like that again. Those feelings are still there for you—I hope you never think I lost them. I just found someone who holds an equal part in my heart as you do.

Know I love you,

Sungchan

—-

My Dearest,

You showed up at our front door crying. Judging from the frantic knocks on my door from Jungwoo, you scared him pretty bad. Not many can scare Jungwoo like that; he must really like you.

Anyways, after a cup of hot chocolate, you told me what was wrong. You said your dad had another kid with another woman and that he’d never told you about it. That when you were young, he used to have “conference meetings” with the other higher-ups that lasted a few days.

He was really visiting his other family. Your mom even knew about it; you were the only one who didn’t know. You said that you’ve never been hurt by a lie before. While drying your eyes, you decided lies were the worst thing. That from here on out, you are going to live as honestly as you could. You then asked me if I was hiding anything from you and begged me to tell you if I was. “I can’t handle any more secrets, Sungchan. So if you have anything you’re hiding from me, please, please just tell me. I need to get it all over with now.”

I almost cried when you said that, and I’m thankful you couldn’t hear the lie in my voice when I said I wasn’t keeping anything from you. There have only been a few times the bracelet she’s given me felt like it was burning my skin. At that moment, when you begged me to tell you anything I was hiding, it felt like my wrist was on fire. As soon as you left, I practically ripped it off.

I love you, and I’m so sorry,

Sungchan

---

Hey love,

I was looking through these letters today before I went to bed (I’m writing this one as a spur-of-the-moment thing before I go to sleep), and I realized I’ve only been writing about how I hate what I’m doing. And while that is true, I don’t want you thinking that’s the only emotion I feel. I know what I’m doing is wrong, and I don’t deserve to be anything close to the good guy. With that being said, I owe you the truth. But if hearing me talk about my relationship with her is too painful, I suggest skipping this letter.

I met her about six months ago at a flower shop. It’s the shop I bought the flowers I got you for your birthday. She helped me pick them out. Now I don’t know what came over me, but when she asked me who I was getting flowers for, I told her they were for my mom. Before I left, she gave me her number. I almost threw it away, but right before I let go, something stopped me.

I felt something for her, and I still do. It felt like what I felt for you when I first started realizing I liked you. The immediate feeling of comfort that comes when I hear her voice, the blinding smile, the beautiful personality. It was all the same as when I met you.

I’m not trying to say she’s you; she’s more emotional when it comes to watching movies (I still want to find one that’ll make you cry, I know there’s one out there), and she’s a bit more hyper than you are. But the point I want to make is, the things I feel for you, I feel for her. I don’t know how much that’ll mean to you when (if) you read these, but know I feel so much for you. You were the light of my college years, and you continue to brighten my day.

But so does she. She knows things I don’t and can open my mind to a whole new world. She’s unlike anyone I’ve ever met, and it’s frankly amazing.

I’m trying hard not to talk too much about her in this—I don’t want you to think she’s better than you. I just want you to understand that no matter how many times I talk about how much I hate myself or the guilt I feel, I continue to tell you and her lies. As long as I have you two by my side, I’ll continue telling lies.

You both mean so much to me,

Sungchan.

---

Hey y/n,

This letter will be pretty short; I just wanted to tell you what a good day it was today. We spent the whole day together, which always feels therapeutic. I bought us lunch, we went go-carting (I beat you because you were too scared to go fast, it was great), and we looked around at different shops before we went back to my apartment to have dinner with Jungwoo.

It just feels right being with you, and I can’t thank you enough for being in my life. I think we’re a good fit, and so do you. It’s nice to be with someone who thinks so similarly to me, and I can’t get over how well we fit together. I mean, when you left, Jungwoo couldn’t stop talking about how lucky I am to have found someone who fits me so well.

I’m kind of rambling at this point, but I feel so much love for you right now that I wanted to put it down somewhere.

Thank you for being the person you are and loving me like I love you,

Sungchan

---

I’m so sorry,

I thought it was important I let you know right off the bat that I am sorry. Yesterday, I forgot about a date we arranged. We were out looking for a birthday present for her younger brother and got distracted looking at all the different shops. I never even heard the phone ring when you called. You called me five times before you texted and told me you were leaving. You had even tried to make a joke sending me a text that said: “at least we didn’t make reservations.”

Then today, I bought you flowers and told you that I was busy showing the intern around. That I had to do it on a Saturday because he’s from our office in Japan and takes Korean lessons on the weekdays. We do have an intern from our office in Japan here, but I’m not the one showing him around. You told me it was okay and that you understood, but I could tell you were still really hurt.

I feel like an idiot. I know cheating is bad, but I told myself that when I got into another relationship, I would never forget a date with either of you. That was the only standard I was trying to hold myself to, and I failed.

I’ll try harder to never forget a date again,

Sungchan

---

Hey y/n,

I think this is the last letter I’ll get to write to you. Well, I don’t think, I know.

You came to me today, asking what I was doing last night. I lied and told you I was at home watching TV. If there’s anything I will never forget about that conversation, it’s how you looked at me. You had smiled, nodding your head as you looked at me with teary eyes. You looked heartbroken.

When I tried to hug you and ask what was wrong, you shook your head no and backed away from me. Now that truly broke me. So I asked you what happened and you told me about how someone you knew saw me at the movie theater with a girl. You asked me to tell you who the girl was, and I begged you not to do this. I said that if you did this, it wouldn’t end well. That all the memories we had made together would be tainted.

You laughed and told me it wasn’t your fault the memories would be tainted; it was mine. You then asked me again to tell you who the girl was, and I told you what I had done.

I’m not sure when I started crying, and I’m still crying as I write you this letter. You were crying too as you told me we were over. I asked you to listen to me, and you just shook your head. As you walked to the door, you told me you would come by tomorrow to give me the stuff I keep at your house that I should pack up everything of yours. That’s how I’m going to give you these letters.

You also told me that if I’m still a decent person, I would tell the other girl about you. Believe me, after seeing your reaction I want to. But I can’t lose you both. Maybe soon, the guilt I feel when I look at her will make me strong enough to tell her.

Believe me, I know how selfish that is. I just can’t bring myself to do it.

I’m so sorry, and I love you,

Sungchan

---

Sungchan,

I couldn’t even bring myself to say something like “hi” or “dear,” you’re not dear to me anymore. That’s not to say this doesn’t hurt; I still can’t believe you did this to me. I mean, I thought I knew who you were.

I’m not writing this to tell you it’s okay or that I understand you through these letters. I’m mostly writing this because I don’t think I can face you right now. Again, I will never understand how you could do this. I thought I knew you. We’ve known each other for four years, two of which we were dating, and I still can’t believe I don’t know who you are. So while I don’t blame myself for this, I can’t help but wonder. If I knew you better, would you have been able to lie to me for so long?

I hope you know you’re not the hero here. You wrote that one letter about how you didn’t think you deserved to be the good guy, but you wouldn’t be writing these letters if you didn’t think you were justified in some way. You were in no way a decent person, and I hope you remember that.

You also tried to say you loved me throughout your affair. If you loved me, we wouldn’t even be having whatever this is right now. If you loved me, you would have told me about her when I asked you to tell me if you were hiding anything. If you loved me, it would have been you who told me about your cheating and not a coworker. Do you have any idea how embarrassing that was for me? This lady who I only talk to on occasion now knows my boyfriend didn’t value me enough to be committed to our relationship. She only knew what you looked like because she happens to follow me on Instagram and saw all the photos of us I had posted. You don’t love me, and I hope you can stop lying to yourself.

And you’re right—you are being completely selfish by not telling her. So I decided I had to be the bigger person, once again, and tell her myself. I swallowed my pride and asked my coworker to look through your followers with me until she found the girl she saw you out with. I sent a message to her explaining the situation, and guess what? She believed me. You should be hearing from her soon—that is if you haven’t already.

Goodbye cheater,

Y/n

---

Thank you all for reading! I’ve been listening to Sweet Lies by EXO a lot lately, so I decided to write this. Thank you to @jiwvnie and @pastelsicheng for proofreading this for me! 

I would love to know what you thought about this, and I hope you all have a great day/night!

Masterlist

[echoisfailing]

RPWS- The Aftermath

A/N- I apparently like the word aftermath anyway the really sweet part in the movie about you wearing my future was cut out I am so sorry if you wanted that but it was just for the garage scene. 

Warnings: Cussing and so much self doubt

Word Count: 1165

Date Posted: 3/11/2022

I looked up at her not really wanting to hear how great her date with Moony was do just as I started to shake my head no she sighed out and said “Well then can you please just listen because even if you hate me after I just need you to hear it please?” She begged so I nodded my head and motioned for her to continue just going to choke down whatever was about to be said. “Listen and if you hate me it is totally fine I completely understand I don’t mean to make you uncomfortable but I was talking to Remus and he convinced me that if I don’t do this now I will literally never do it and I don’t want this type of regret on my mind. So basically I really like you I know you are probably weirded out I’m sorry but I have been having this on my mind and the kiss with you and the date with Remus basically right after just made me realize that I can’t just ignore these feelings.” I tried to interrupt but she wouldn’t let me “and I also wanted to say that I’m sorry for the kiss it was wrong of me coming to you knowing how I feel not only about you but how I feel about Remus; well don’t feel I guess I’m so sorry for it all.” She said and you could see the guilt in her face but it was finally my turn to talk. “(Y/N) you have nothing to be sorry for. I have the same sort of feelings towards you too and I was selfish enough to take something that you needed for someone else for myself. That’s why I never said anything about my feelings because I am not good enough for you or for anyone at this point.” I explained and she pulled me into a hug mummering something along the lines of you are good enough but my mind was racing just knowing she feels the same. 

 We didn’t say much after that I finished my project and we went to our own rooms. When I walked in everyone was already asleep except for Remus who I guess was waiting up because when I walked in the room he said “So how did it go?” I just shook my head basically saying don’t want to talk about it because that was the truth. So he dropped it thankfully and even though I had just been handed the entire world I couldn’t convince myself to be happy about it. Don’t get me wrong I’m elated that she feels something for me but at the same time all I can think about is how this morning it was so easy for me to fall back into old playboy habits that make me feel like a shit person. I’m not the one to be able to have this type of happiness. I have never done anything unselfish ever. I try my hardest but my parents hate me even Reg. Its hard to accept the fact that anyone can tolerate me let alone want to spend their time with me, everyone that was supposed to love me can’t and the only denominator I can find is me. And I know for whatever reason people, well my friends see the best in me but I can't see what they see. I rebelled against my parents and don’t get me wrong I do not regret that but they are my parents they should have loved me through it but no I got disowned and abused. On top of that my brother chose their side and even more on top of that when I got to Hogwarts my first escape I started treating people like actual shit. Pranking innocent people making them feel bad about themselves and then started using women whichever way would get me the most satisfaction. There is no one that deserves me because at least death eaters can find common ground within each other even the biggest pieces of shits. I went to bed feeling worthless even though I just got the best news of my life which made me feel even worse because if that can’t make me happy than nothing can and I am truly fucked.

 All throughout the next day I was avoiding everyone I was going to classes and keeping my head down. During meals I sat at the edge of the table alone and would leave after I was finished eating. Everyone tried to come up to me to see what was the matter but it was nothing. There is nothing wrong with me except the fact that I am bad for them. I have nothing to give to them and I doubt I am a healthy person in their lives. When I told them that I didn’t want to talk to anyone today they said see you tomorrow even though they won’t I plan to phase out and it’ll be tough on me but they won’t even notice by time I am gone. They’ll move on and I can’t ruin them. But they are persistent nonetheless (Y/N) stopped me on the way to my room. “Can you please just sit with me for an hour or so please?” She pleaded and I couldn’t say no to her so I sat and true to her word there was nothing said, it was a comfortable silence regardless of our unresolved confessions and my current feelings. That lasted about an hour before she finally broke. “I know this is probably out of line its just Remus said something and it has been on my mind since so I just want to say, you are such a good person Siri, you deserve good things in life. You have had one of the hardest lives of anyone I have ever met but not only because of that but because you are one of the person you have become. You are so kind and loving I am sure you would take any hex for the people you love. You deserve anything you want because no matter what you think and what bad things your brain has convinced you of you are a good person. Okay, love?” She finished out what she had to say. I felt very emotional that I pulled her into a hug and buried my face into her neck. Anytime I tried to rebut she was able to immediately negate my points. It is exactly what I needed to hear she always makes me feel good about myself not only that she made me realize that friends are what I need in this very moment, except for her I couldn’t deny myself of the luxury of her so before we went to bed that night I pulled her in by her arm and I kissed her for the second time ever but the first one of many that actually counted. 

[becomewings]

The Most Beautiful Moment in Life <I’M FINE>

  BTS Universe Story Highlights, pt. 4 / 4

« pt. 3  |  start at the beginning

Introduction

The final sections for TaeHyung’s arc and the Epilogue are 4.3k and 4.4k, respectively. As with earlier parts of the series, I have included “tl;dr commentary” at the bottom of the post after a section of additional thoughts (specifically devoted to an interesting MV location parallel!). This commentary summarizes the parenthetical asides I made throughout the summaries and may be of interest as standalone reading to those who have already played the game yet would like to review its connections to the BU texts and MVs.

Content warning: contains references to death, suicide, suicidal ideation, child abuse, domestic violence, blood, homicide, depression, trauma, PTSD

This guide contains major spoilers and includes references to other BU media

Do not repost, copy, or quote without permission

Heart’s Distance

TaeHyung’s story opens with a short cutscene. In his apartment (with the calendar on the wall open to May), TaeHyung smiles at a photo of his father holding him as a baby. (The image looks similar to the photograph he holds at 1’48” in the HYYH On Stage: Prologue short film.) Remembering his father’s drinking and violence, he crumples the photo with a sigh. SeokJin then narrates over a series of shots explaining the latest developments in the loops. By this 15 May Year 22, he has saved NamJoon, ensured that JungKook and YoonGi saved each other, prevented HoSeok’s accident in the hospital, and borrowed everyone’s help to free JiMin. Everyone is gathered outside NamJoon’s container that night, smiling and giddy from saving JiMin. “How long has it been since we’ve all laughed together?” SeokJin asks. (This is a reference to the recurring phrase “we can laugh when we’re together” present throughout the Notes and occasionally this game.) He wants to relax and enjoy the moment too but knows this isn’t over yet. TaeHyung is laughing radiantly next to JiMin. “What drives this happy and innocent TaeHyung to commit such an unspeakable act?” he wonders.

SeokJin’s reflections on the coming days in previous loops present the crux of his challenge and this story: on 19 May, TaeHyung is arrested for vandalism while painting graffiti on the streets. (The bus stop depicted in the shot is the same as the one in Highlight Reel.) One thing SeokJin has learned through the loops is that TaeHyung and his sister live under the constant threat of domestic violence. On 20 May, TaeHyung goes home after spending the night at the police station. The situation gets especially bad for his older sister, and TaeHyung makes a choice that he can’t take back. (In the shot in the game, TaeHyung approaches his father from behind and the sound of glass occurs on a cut to black. We know from the I Need U MV and Save Me webtoon that he fatally stabs his father.) SeokJin’s inner thoughts relate that he has tried to stop this event by preventing TaeHyung from going home this day or even involving NamJoon—but all of his attempts have ended in failure.

While SeokJin is mulling over this challenge during their gathering on the night of 15 May, HoSeok approaches and asks what he’s thinking about by himself. “Oh, nothing much,” SeokJin dismisses. HoSeok remarks that it’s nice to be there with everyone. “It makes me think of the old days…” While HoSeok happily chats, SeokJin’s attention stays on TaeHyung as he approaches NamJoon. The player is given the choice to “get closer to eavesdrop” or “listen to what HoSeok has to say.” In the first path, SeokJin excuses himself to make a phone call and only pretends to pick up the phone as he nears TaeHyung and NamJoon. In the second path, HoSeok jokes about eating too many snacks in high school thanks to SeokJin. SeokJin is a little distracted, but HoSeok notices that TaeHyung has snacks. “Huh? What’s that? I want some too!” SeokJin uses this opportunity to follow HoSeok and join their two friends. The paths converge with SeokJin overhearing TaeHyung and NamJoon’s conversation. TaeHyung says he doesn’t want to go home and asks if he can spend the night at the container. SeokJin remembers that TaeHyung often mentioned not wanting to go home in high school. Back then, they thought it was because he enjoyed being with the group, but now SeokJin knows that he was probably avoiding his father. He wonders why TaeHyung insists on going home on the 20th since he hates it there so much. Maybe learning the reason will be the key to stopping—and saving—TaeHyung. “Do whatever you want. You can sleep over,” NamJoon replies. TaeHyung brightens visibly at this answer. “Do you want to stay up doing something? We can play a card game, or…” HoSeok chimes in too that it sounds like a fun idea, but NamJoon says he has work tomorrow and can’t stay up late. “Let’s play until I have to go to bed.” TaeHyung’s phone vibrates. His face is already grim when he peers at it. “Actually, I think I have to go home.” Surprised, NamJoon asks why, but TaeHyung leaves without answering.

SeokJin leaves the gathering and follows TaeHyung, shadowing him carefully to avoid detection. He wonders what was in the text that changed TaeHyung’s mind and notices that they’re heading in the opposite direction of his home. After purchasing snacks at a nearby store, TaeHyung stands at a bus stop. SeokJin wonders if he’s waiting for someone since he lets several buses pass by. Eventually, a disembarking figure approaches TaeHyung. SeokJin recognizes her as Kim Eunhye, TaeHyung’s older sister. She asks why he is waiting for her since he said he’d be home late. “I was about to head in, so I thought I’d wait for you,” TaeHyung replies. “You should’ve gone ahead. Dad probably hasn’t had dinner yet…” she trails off. TaeHyung says he ordered delivery to the house for their dad. “Did you eat yet? Here.” He hands her a hot dog. SeokJin follows at a distance when they begin walking home. “Do you think dad will be drinking?” Eunhye wonders. “Is that even a question?” TaeHyung returns. They go back and forth about how he has been drinking less these days, goes to work every day, and doesn’t get as angry. “I hope things stay like this,” Eunhye finishes. “...It won’t last,” says TaeHyung. From his sigh, SeokJin senses how little TaeHyung trusts his father. He is surprised to hear that his father goes to work every day. In previous loops, he wondered if the cause for TaeHyung’s accident was an external force and went to observe his father’s workplace, but the man was not at the construction site and apparently hadn’t shown up for several days.

“I better check it out,” SeokJin decides. He calls Uncle JunHo, his father’s assistant, to ask for a favor. The two meet later in SeokJin’s bedroom. “You wanted to go on-site for practical training, right? This is the form you need,” says JunHo. He dismisses SeokJin’s thanks. “The Assemblyman seemed to be interested, too. He said he’ll be keeping an eye on things.” “Father said that?” SeokJin checks. “Make sure to use this opportunity to take a thorough look around. It’ll all be helpful to you later,” JunHo advises. (It’s helpful to know that Kim ChangJun is involved in some shady business with a construction company—this is revealed in The Notes 2.)

On 17 May, SeokJin visits the construction site. The foreman tells him that they’re busy and won’t have time to pay any special attention to him. SeokJin is glad for the lack of watchful eyes because it gives him the opportunity to observe TaeHyung’s father, Kim SungHoon. He is working silently, and SeokJin can’t see anything wrong on the surface. “Why does he get so violent at home?” he wonders. The foreman has apparently been watching too and yells at him. “Oi, you! Why aren’t you working?” Kim SungHoon points out that there isn’t any scaffolding. The foreman orders him to use a ladder instead. “You can’t get any work done being all careful.” Kim SungHoon tries to protest, but the foreman won’t hear it. “Are you going to pay for it if the schedule gets delayed, Mr. Kim? Hurry it up!” A look appears on Kim SungHoon’s face as though he’s been wronged, but he uses the ladder to begin working. SeokJin’s concern must be visible, for the foreman makes conversation with him. “Ahem. Don’t get the wrong idea. You might not be well aware of it yet, but it’s hard to always follow the rules on site. We can’t stay on schedule if we’re not flexible.” “I see…” murmurs SeokJin.

Another laborer shouts, drawing their attention: Kim SungHoon has fallen from the ladder and lies groaning on the ground. The foreman curses and rushes over, demanding how he could be so careless and shifting the blame to him for not paying attention. With a hurt back, Kim SungHoon cannot continue working. Trying to downplay the accident, the foreman gives him a few bills and advises him to stop by the hospital. TaeHyung’s father seems to have something to say, but he withers under the foreman’s stare and accepts the money in resignation. The foreman then assures SeokJin that this happens occasionally on a rough worksite and hands him money too. “You’ve worked hard, so here’s a little something for you to get a nice snack. Forget about everything that happened today. You know what I mean, right?” His brazen, selfish attitude angers SeokJin, but he smiles and leaves to follow Kim SungHoon. He is shocked to witness TaeHyung’s father purchase alcohol at a convenience store rather than go to a hospital. Worried about what will happen if he drinks while injured, SeokJin tries to call TaeHyung, but he doesn’t pick up. The episode ends with a small scene of TaeHyung finishing graffiti on a wall. He doesn’t know why he painted what he did, but the “dumb, ugly-looking graffiti” represents how he feels. He rubs the still-wet paint, yet it doesn’t go away. Picking a new color, TaeHyung sprays over the existing layers like he’s pouring and emptying out all of himself.

On 18 May, TaeHyung deals with his third rude customer of the day at the convenience store. The man demands why he must pay for a bag, even though the law has changed so they can no longer be given freely. TaeHyung either relents and gives him the bag without charge or stands firm. In the first path, he gives in, knowing that he probably won’t restrain his anger if they argue further and that he’ll have to cover the cost with his own paycheck. In the second path, the customer flings the money at him before leaving. TaeHyung clenches his fists and holds in his anger. The paths rejoin with him reflecting that this isn’t a good day. He greets the next customer and realizes that it’s SeokJin. “How come you’ve been stopping by so often these days?” TaeHyung asks while ringing up his bottled coffee. “Huh? Just. I have some things to take care of around here,” SeokJin answers. TaeHyung doesn’t know whether or not to believe him. SeokJin keeps asking how he’s doing, and it makes him a little uncomfortable. Today, SeokJin asks more meaningless questions as always, until: “How’s your father?” TaeHyung can’t stop himself from responding sharply. “Why do you ask about him?” Taken aback, SeokJin stammers, “N-No reason, really. I was just wondering if he was well… Uh… Never mind.”

A rich-looking father and son enter the store, interrupting the awkward silence. The way the father looks after his son and buys him what he wants to eat plunges TaeHyung into memories—he once felt the same as the boy about his own father. He remembers asking his dad who the baby is in the photograph we see at the beginning of the story. Kim SungHoon said it was him. “Don’t you think you look just like dad, TaeHyung?” An incoming phone call shakes TaeHyung out of his memories. The food deliverer informs him that no one is home to accept the order of hangover soup. “Huh? My father should be there…” TaeHyung confirms that the deliverer can leave the food outside the door, but he worries about his dad, who was passed out drunk and groaning in his sleep when he left for work. “SeokJin. I need to run home really quickly. Do you think you can watch the store for me?” TaeHyung leaves as soon as SeokJin gives a startled affirmative. The episode ends in SeokJin’s perspective. He’s curious and concerned about what is going on with TaeHyung, as he couldn’t overhear the phone call. Since leaving the store alone to follow TaeHyung may just create more trouble for him, SeokJin decides to stay put and look for clues.

Arriving home, TaeHyung brings the hangover soup inside and finds his father slouched in the corner. More soju bottles are lying out than when he left this morning. “Your lunch is here.” TaeHyung shakes him when there’s no response. “Wake up and eat.” Kim SungHoon mumbles something unintelligible, so TaeHyung nudges him again. His father shudders and cries out. “You bastard! I’d just gotten comfortable!” “Oh… I just wanted you to eat before the soup gets cold…” says TaeHyung. Kim SungHoon calls him a bastard for not listening. “I just told you to leave that damn thing here!” “Hah… Anyway, eat your lunch.” TaeHyung touches his shoulder again, and his father shoves him away. “The pain is killing me. Get lost, bastard!” TaeHyung yelps. The back of his neck burns from something he hit, but he doesn’t feel the pain over the rage brewing inside him. He can’t stand to look at his father for another second and kicks the door open to rush outside. “But of course. Why did I run over here to make sure that miserable geezer ate something?” he thinks bitterly. TaeHyung’s temper cools as he walks back to the store, and he remembers the pain in his neck. His fingers come away with blood when he touches the spot. He trudges onward, planning to bandage it at work. The memory of the rich father-son duo comes to mind: the man holding his son’s hand so tenderly, and the kid smiling brightly up at him. It makes TaeHyung even more miserable, and he fights to suppress the feelings that threaten to overflow.

Alone in the convenience store, SeokJin feels anxious not knowing when TaeHyung will return but decides to poke around, hoping to learn something like he did when observing NamJoon’s room at the gas station. He either looks through TaeHyung’s backpack or a full box near the register. The box is only a makeshift lost-and-found with customers’ forgotten items. Despite his discomfort at rooting through someone’s belongings, SeokJin finds the crumpled photograph of TaeHyung as a baby with his father in the bag. “He wouldn’t be carrying it around if he truly hated his father. But it wouldn’t be crumpled if he liked him, either. Is it… love and hate?” SeokJin wonders. He also finds a post-it stuck on the counter with a note left by HoSeok: “I packed this for myself but Auntie invited me over for dinner. There are two patties inside. Make sure to enjoy it and write me a full review at least one page long!” SeokJin realizes they’ve spent all this time looking out for each other. He’s glad to see the signs of HoSeok taking care of TaeHyung and TaeHyung being grateful enough to keep the note.

When TaeHyung returns, SeokJin is concerned to see blood from a cut on his neck. “Are you okay, TaeHyung? What happened to your neck?” But TaeHyung avoids looking at him and doesn’t answer, instead putting on a bandage and continuing work. SeokJin ignores a call from Uncle JunHo, deciding it’s more important to look after TaeHyung. “Are you sure you can stay here all day like this, SeokJin? Aren’t there people at home wondering where you are?” TaeHyung speaks up at that moment. SeokJin smiles sheepishly. But with the incident looming ahead on the 20th and no solutions yet to avert it, he has no choice but to stick close to him. After TaeHyung’s shift ends, SeokJin asks what he’s doing now. The red seeping through the bandage worries him. “I’m just… gonna go paint some graffiti,” says TaeHyung. He reluctantly agrees to allow SeokJin to tag along. His phone vibrates before they leave. “Sis? What’s going on? What? The emergency room? Why is Dad there? Hold on. I’ll be right there!” TaeHyung runs out. SeokJin catches up to offer him a ride, which he accepts after a moment’s hesitation.

The perspective switches to TaeHyung when they arrive at the hospital and find his sister waiting with an uneasy expression. She thinks that their father was injured at work. When she tapped him lightly to wake him up for dinner, it caused him a lot of pain. TaeHyung remembers the incident at lunchtime and wonders if he felt like that earlier, too. Eunhye notices SeokJin, and TaeHyung introduces them, noticing that her hand seems to make her uncomfortable. “Did you hurt yourself, sis? What happened to your hand?” “Oh, it’s nothing. I… tripped before we came to the hospital.” TaeHyung knows she’s lying but doesn’t argue. He pretends not to see her injuries, and she pretends not to see the one on his neck—like they always do. Eunhye voices concern about the high bill, which the hospital wants them to pay before discharging their father tomorrow. “The company will take care of it if he was injured at work,” SeokJin assures. TaeHyung finds the construction foreman’s number in his dad’s cell phone and calls him. Reporting the situation, he asks if his father’s injured back can be processed as an industrial accident. The foreman denies that they can help. “How can we cover an accident where Kim SungHoon was drunk on the job and failed to follow safety protocol?” The foreman informs him that he already gave Kim SungHoon money to see a doctor. “There’s nothing else to say, so I’m going to go. And I’m telling you—don’t try to pull anything.” TaeHyung swears when the call ends. Eunhye wonders if the foreman is mistaken because she doesn’t think their father drank that day. TaeHyung purses his lips shut instead of replying, filled with rage at the patronizing foreman and their incompetent father. He hates that he can’t say his dad isn’t the kind of person to drink on the job, and his body shakes with indescribable emotion.

“They won’t cover it as a workplace accident?” SeokJin asks, the perspective shifting to him. He knows the foreman is lying but is unsure how to help TaeHyung and his despairing sister. He could pay the hospital fee himself, but that was counterproductive when he tried it for NamJoon in an earlier loop. Noticing a text from Uncle JunHo asking where he is, SeokJin postpones his decision for later and bids TaeHyung a quick farewell. “I’m sure there’s a way to take care of all of this. Don’t worry too much. Take care of your dad. I’ll be back tomorrow.”

On 19 May, TaeHyung and his sister exit the hospital room with twin sighs. Their father called the foreman back after hearing about the first conversation and let loose, only hanging up when his supervisor agreed to speak in person at the hospital. He also demanded alcohol all night and only recently fell asleep. TaeHyung notices that Eunhye looks exhausted and suggests that they take a nap before the foreman arrives that evening. Later, the foreman arrives with some workers and a box of drinks. TaeHyung stands in the corner, not wanting to butt in since this is his father’s business. The foreman asks how Kim SungHoon is doing, advises him to rest, and then adds, “We’re here to say that you shouldn’t bring up compensation since it’s your fault you were injured.” The foreman accuses him of drinking on the job, and the coworkers Kang and Seo nervously agree. Kim SungHoon argues back about being denied the scaffolding and drops the box of drinks, a “token of their sincerity,” on the floor. While the other works avert their gaze, the foreman looks down on him and clucks his tongue. “You bastard! You call yourself a man?!” Kim SungHoon roars. The foreman bristles. “What? Bastard? Watch your mouth punk!”

Eunhye tries to intervene, pleading for her father to calm down and apologizing on his behalf. The foreman accepts her actions like it’s the obvious thing for her to do. His arrogant attitude reminds TaeHyung of how he probably deals with his underlings. “Sir. My father wasn’t drunk,” he speaks up. The foreman’s arrogant air dissipates. “What are you saying? I have witnesses here.” TaeHyung explains that his dad did not drink that day or the previous one. The foreman scoffs. “Look at this kid. Where’d you learn your manners? He probably drank on the way to work even if he didn’t at home! Who do you think you are, raising your voice like that?” TaeHyung’s hands tremble with rage at the injustice, but he has nothing to retort. Suddenly, SeokJin appears. “I also saw everything. Remember me? I was there on site for practical training that day. I watched him work and he definitely wasn’t drunk.” The foreman grows flustered as SeokJin reveals the truth of the site’s dangerous work process and makes it clear that he coerced Kim SungHoon into not following the correct procedure. He glares between SeokJin and TaeHyung. “I don’t know how you both are putting up this united front… But you think it’s going to change things? We already paid him. It’s a done deal. Understood?” Fuming, the foreman leaves with the other workers in tow. “It’s alright now, TaeHyung.” SeokJin gently taps his shoulder. TaeHyung realizes how tense he has been when he loosens his grip and sees little crescents of his fingernails cut into his palms. (His wounded palms are a recurring motif.)

The perspective shifts to SeokJin while TaeHyung stares blankly at his hands. He decides to come clean about his payment of Kim SungHoon’s hospital bill, since the problem with NamJoon was that he paid it secretly. “You can think of it as borrowing—” “Thanks, SeokJin,” TaeHyung interrupts. “I’ll pay back all of it. Thank you.” SeokJin is a little shocked by his response—it is the first time he’s heard “thank you” from TaeHyung. He hopes that this is the beginning of solving TaeHyung’s problems and bids farewell for the day. Outside the hospital, SeokJin runs into HoSeok, who correctly guesses that he came to visit TaeHyung. “How’d you know?” “I stopped by TaeHyung’s work and didn’t see him, so I called him right away,” HoSeok explains. SeokJin expects him to ask about Kim SungHoon, but instead HoSeok worries about his friend first. “Is TaeHyung alright? He must’ve been so shocked. He cares a lot about his dad…” “TaeHyung does?” SeokJin checks. “Yeah. Even though he says that he doesn’t want to go home all the time, he always makes sure his dad gets a real meal every day. Even if he just eats convenience store snacks himself.” This is new information to SeokJin, who wonders if this is why TaeHyung is determined to go home on the 20th. HoSeok seems more familiar with TaeHyung’s sincerity than anyone else. SeokJin is still braced to explain how he knew about Kim SungHoon’s injury, but HoSeok is more focused on contacting TaeHyung and continues on towards the hospital. Overcome with exhaustion as his tension ebbs, SeokJin trudges home to plan his next move.

Later on 19 May, TaeHyung helps his father walk home after he is discharged from the hospital. He is grateful that SeokJin paid the bill but even more so that he intervened to verify Kim SungHoon’s unjust treatment. “SeokJin might be a better person than I thought.” No words are exchanged as TaeHyung supports his father. His arm is thin, but the weight that presses down on him is burdensome. “It’s the weight of the wheel that I can’t escape. The weight of reality—that I’m always going to be responsible for my father. A person that I wish I could let go, but can’t, and the contradictory feelings of hating my father but wanting to protect him.” In a perspective switch, SeokJin watches at a distance with bated breath. Even though TaeHyung seems accustomed to helping his father walk, Kim SungHoon raises his voice every time he almost falls. SeokJin guesses that TaeHyung is adamant about going home on the 20th because he is worried about his father, who is just out of the hospital, but all he sees is violence against his sister when he arrives. “I’m going to stop it this time, no matter what,” he vows.

On 20 May, SeokJin stands at the bus stop and touches the graffiti for which TaeHyung was arrested the previous night. (It’s the “I’m Fine” message depicted at the same location in the Highlight Reel.) He wonders what TaeHyung felt when he painted it and feels uneasy that he may not be handling this sequence correctly. SeokJin shakes away this premature doubt. There’s one thing that has changed from the previous loop: him. He has protected Kim SungHoon after his injury, paid the hospital bill, and built up enough credibility with TaeHyung to earn his thanks. This time, he reassures himself, his words will get through to his friend. Later, SeokJin follows TaeHyung when he leaves the police station. They walk in silence, but TaeHyung does not push him away or ask why he’s following. “Thanks for walking me here, SeokJin,” he speaks up when they arrive at his house. SeokJin waits a few moments before heading inside after him, entering a familiar situation he has seen far too many times: TaeHyung lunging toward his father, who looms near Eunhye. “TaeHyung! No!” SeokJin dashes to grab his arm. “Let go!” TaeHyung snarls and flails. SeokJin holds tighter, pleading for him to calm down. TaeHyung yells and shoves him away. SeokJin slams into something and falls, pain blooming in his skull. TaeHyung spins around with an expression of shock. The voices calling SeokJin grow fainter, and his vision blurs. “Tae… Hyung…” The glass shatters, marking another failed loop and concluding the story. (This is not the first time TaeHyung has caused SeokJin grave or mortal injury during his intervention: in the Save Me webtoon, he accidentally stabbed SeokJin with the broken bottle instead of his father.)

Nightmare: Epilogue

Throughout the <I’M FINE> series, we have witnessed SeokJin’s trials and failures in the earlier time loops. These experiences culminate in the Epilogue, titled “Nightmare,” as in The Notes 1. This arc spans his efforts to save each of his friends between 11 April and 22 May rather than focusing on one or two characters. SeokJin’s decisions and their consequences here closely follow The Notes 1, so now we have a more detailed picture of his journey between the Save Me webtoon and the first book. The Epilogue fills in some gaps and provides greater depth to these events. For the sake of clearer context, I have still summarized the moments that parallel The Notes 1.

On 11 April Year 22, SeokJin opens his eyes to the familiar bedroom ceiling, the events of the previous loop replaying in his mind. Will he be able to save his friends this time? Uncertainty, horror, and the fresh pain of failure plague him, but he looks at the photo of his friends by the sea. Once, he believed that saving them would be straightforward. But while obsessing over only the problems that he could see, SeokJin lost his way and had to learn from his mistakes. The “signal fires” that helped guide him back were the times spent with his friends, the moments they began to truly understand each other, and the memories he wants to treasure. As he leaves his room, he reflects: “We’re all connected together by a single string, and we’re fated to save one another. And the person to finally put an end to all of this… has to be me.”

In his car, SeokJin encounters a scene at the school crosswalk that he always runs into around this time. He sees a downcast-looking JungKook crossing the street among a group of students. The player is given an option to get out of the car to greet him or pass him by. Regardless of the decision, SeokJin knows that he can’t let his emotions steer his actions. In a previous loop (depicted in JungKook’s arc), he brought JungKook to see the cherry blossoms blooming on the university campus. SeokJin wonders if the JungKook from that loop enjoyed it at least a little. But ultimately, it was just a day and JungKook ended up alone with nothing changed. Not wanting to repeat his past mistakes, SeokJin drives by without stopping.

Later that night, SeokJin pulls into Naeri gas station. NamJoon greets him with a now-familiar look of surprise. “Oh. SeokJin?” “It’s been a while.” SeokJin is determined to make this the last time they repeat this conversation. (As mentioned in part 1, this sequence parallels their moment at the end of the Blood Sweat & Tears Japanese version MV.) As they move to a corner of the station to continue their conversation, the perspective shifts to NamJoon. Something seems a little weird to him, and SeokJin looks like he has a lot to say, but he manages to gloss over it. NamJoon is about to invite him to the meetup with the other guys after work, but his boss yells for him to do his job. An expensive foreign car pulls up to the gas pump, and the customer drops the money on the ground when NamJoon reaches for it. “Ah, butterfingers. What are you doing? Not gonna pick that up?” the man sneers. The player is presented the choice to pick up the money or not. In both paths, NamJoon unconsciously clenches his fists. “You don’t want it?” asks the customer. The paths converge with SeokJin easily picking up the bills and handing them back to the driver. “You dropped this.” Hands shaking, NamJoon is mortified by the situation that caused SeokJin to react, yet his friend continues to stand there between him and the customer. The man demands who he is, but SeokJin advises, “You must be busy… So you should leave.” Out of steam, the customer drives off. NamJoon thanks SeokJin. “It’s nothing. What were you going to tell me earlier?” NamJoon forces his mouth to move. “Ah. I’m meeting up with TaeHyung and HoSeok today after work. Do you want to come with me?”

Back in SeokJin’s perspective, these are the words he’s been waiting for. Nerves dry his mouth, but he tries to speak naturally and inquires about the others. NamJoon doesn’t really keep in touch with them, but offers to call HoSeok, who still talks to YoonGi. SeokJin knows that YoonGi will call JungKook after hearing from HoSeok—this is how he saves JungKook tonight. His phone buzzes with a call from his father. “Oh, I’m sorry… But I need to leave.” NamJoon’s expression reflects disappointment yet understanding. “That’s too bad. Let’s hang out another time.” “Yeah. Tell the guys hello for me.” SeokJin turns back as he arrives at his car. “NamJoon. If we can get everyone together… Let’s all go to the ocean.” NamJoon looks puzzled by the suggestion. “The ocean?” SeokJin smiles in lieu of an explanation.

The third episode begins with JungKook fighting a group of thugs in a covered alley. (The date is unspecified, but this is a continuation of the night of 11 April.) They kick his stomach and spit on the ground as they walk away, a sight that reinvigorates him even though he can barely sit up. He either says something to provoke them or hurls his bag at them. Riled up, they beat him again as he laughs, vision blurring. They’re gone by the time everything comes back into focus. JungKook got what he wanted: he deliberately provoked them, and when he laughed, they called him crazy and hit him harder. He watches a breeze flatten a tuft of grass in the pavement, just like him. JungKook forces himself to laugh again because he’s afraid he may cry. Where does he go now? He feels like a ghost at home: he’s never a priority for his mom, and dealing with his stepfather is a pain. JungKook closes his eyes, hoping that when he opens them, he won’t be here.

The scene that follows appears to be a memory of 7 April, although it is not specified as such and is written in present tense. (This encounter occurs in The Notes 1 as well as episode 4 of JungKook’s story.) While wandering the streets at night, JungKook is drawn by a familiar piano tune to a music shop with broken showroom windows. He sees YoonGi, for the first time in two years, playing within and looking like he will crumble at any moment. JungKook can’t muster up the courage to follow when he leaves and instead sits at the piano. The keys feel cold like no one has touched them. By memory, he stumbles through the song that YoonGi played this night and back in the classroom hideout. YoonGi appears beside him and corrects the notes like he did in their school days.

The story cuts to YoonGi in the present, possibly in the classroom. He ignores his ringing phone partly because of his drunken stupor and partly because he doesn’t want to talk, but he finally relents and answers. HoSeok offers that NamJoon wants to hang out later. “I’m not going,” YoonGi says immediately. “Hey, don’t be like that. SeokJin’s here, too. Do you want to talk to JungKook? I called him earlier, but he didn’t pick up.” HoSeok encourages YoonGi to call instead because JungKook may pick up for him. YoonGi hangs up, thoughts complicated as he remembers a time when he watched JungKook play piano. “Looking back, that kid was my shadow. I couldn’t ignore him, even if he wasn’t speaking to me. And I kept looking out for him… because it seemed like he’d fall apart if he was ignored.” He considers leaving it be, but his fingers are already dialing.

The perspective switches again: on a rooftop overlooking Songju, JungKook grows dizzy and stumbles. Darkness grasps his ankles, and his mind empties. “I don’t want to leave anything behind. This will just be the end.” At that moment, his phone rings. He sees YoonGi’s name, and everything sharpens, as though he’s awoken from a dream. “What took you so long to pick up?” asks YoonGi. When JungKook doesn’t answer, he continues, “Everyone’s meeting up later. Do you want to go?” After a pause, JungKook says, “YoonGi. Please come get me.” (From the thug beating to the rooftop, this is how his 11 April entry plays out in The Notes 1, but it ends before their phone conversation.) Waiting for YoonGi down on the street, JungKook recalls when they all used to hang out in the classroom. “I have a place to go. People to be with. Right now, that’s enough.”

On 2 May, SeokJin sneaks into YoonGi’s workroom, which is filled with oil-soaked papers as though he intended to set it on fire. (It’s dark, so as the later part of the episode occurs in the daytime, it must be past midnight or in the early morning.) There is no foolproof way to save YoonGi since he acts unpredictably between the loops, but SeokJin has determined that YoonGi needs someone who can tie him to the world—someone whom he won’t push away. Once, NamJoon told SeokJin that JungKook still carried the photo they took at the beach. (The photo depicted in the game is the one of the boys on the wall by the sea.) While NamJoon probably relayed this to show that JungKook hasn’t forgotten about SeokJin, it stirs a different memory for him. In high school when they ditched and went to the beach, hunting for a boulder that supposedly made dreams come true, SeokJin noticed JungKook ask YoonGi an important question while their voices were drowned out by construction noise. He has now realized that both JungKook and YoonGi have the same desperation in their eyes. JungKook knows that YoonGi is like him: a person who needs a string to hold him here. Therefore, JungKook is the key to saving YoonGi.

SeokJin places his copy of the photograph next to the mirror in the workroom, hoping it will lead to saving them both. Before he can leave, footsteps grow closer. Flustered, he chooses to either explain himself honestly or hide. In both paths, YoonGi stumbles inside and collapses on the sofa, too drunk to notice that someone else is in the room. In the second path, some extra information is presented when SeokJin notices a little water dish and paper cup with breadcrumbs as he hides beside the piano. “He must’ve looked after it again.” In another loop, SeokJin saw a small, weak bird that got mistakenly trapped in the workroom. YoonGi looked after it, most likely thinking of JungKook. (This particular episode is called Small Bird, so the title may only be meaningful to players who choose this path or are familiar with the bird from The Notes 1.)

SeokJin escapes undetected while YoonGi sleeps. Later in the day, he watches the workroom from his car. The most difficult part starts now: JungKook must follow the hints SeokJin has left to save YoonGi. After staring up at the second floor for a while with an unhappy expression, JungKook seems to make up his mind and enters the building. The story cuts briefly to YoonGi’s perspective. In the workroom, the mirror shatters. (The reason is unspecified, so we are left to wonder if a confrontation unfolded like the one depicted in the Run MV and implied in The Notes 1, or if something else occurred.) Dizzy, YoonGi falters but manages to stand up. (Again, standing up from what? Possibly because JungKook hit him.) “YoonGi…” JungKook is rooted to the spot in surprise. YoonGi runs, leaving him behind. Back in his perspective, SeokJin starts the car as soon as he sees JungKook dash out of the building. He hopes that leaving “a sign” will guide JungKook to the correct motel. (In The Notes 1, it is a bloody tissue that SeokJin drops by the entrance gate because YoonGi fled his workroom with busted lips. The game episode closely follows how this scenario proceeds in Notes 1, so I’m not sure why it is so cryptic around the details implying that a fight occurred between YoonGi and JungKook.) Inside the motel (once again matching the I Need U MV), YoonGi lights the bedsheets on fire. He regrets having JungKook by his side because the people close to him get hurt. The memories of his childhood burn along with the flames: fragments of the day he arrived home and found it collapsing in a fire. YoonGi hears JungKook shouting. “I’m sure… He’ll be sad because of me. But he won’t be unhappy anymore,” he thinks. JungKook shouts for him to get up, and YoonGi finally looks at him. His last view of the room encompasses the red flames, the air wavy with heat, and JungKook’s crumpled face. The episode ends with sirens playing over a black screen.

Episode 5, “Connecting Threads,” picks up on 12 May with SeokJin preparing to set events in motion for saving his next pair of friends. At the hospital, he waits for JiMin to show up and overhears a conversation between a nurse and doctor. If SeokJin stays where he is, they notice him and postpone their discussion, but if he steps out of sight, they continue. The nurse mentions “patient Park JiMin” who has “transferred down from the 9th floor.” She reports that he keeps roaming the hallways at night and wonders if they should stop him “just in case.” “He’ll be headed back up in about three days or so. Just leave him be. If it really bothers you, check with them,” advises the doctor. SeokJin moves to his precalculated spot when they leave, planning to lead JiMin to the stairs so that he’ll run into HoSeok on his way down. In his perspective, JiMin is troubled by his stiff wrist as he waits for the elevator. A familiar voice suddenly calling his name draws him to the stairwell, but the light makes it difficult to see its owner.

The story cuts to HoSeok wrapping up a consultation with the same doctor from earlier. The doctor states that they haven’t noticed any huge issues and that he’ll be discharged soon. “Do you have any discomfort still?” “Nope, I’m fine!” HoSeok answers energetically and even strikes an exaggerated pose, feeling that he needs to. “Please take care to avoid any future collapses,” the doctor adds. This comment makes HoSeok either recall the last time he collapses or the last moment he spent with his mom. In the first memory, he collapses on the bridge as he thinks about his sick Auntie leaving him alone after she has always been at his side. In the second, he stands at the merry-go-round and wonders if his mom will be standing there when he finishes counting. “Sir… Sir? Are you alright?” The doctor’s questioning shakes HoSeok out of the past. He wants to say hello to JiMin before he leaves the hospital, but JiMin’s bed has been empty for a while. Worried, HoSeok heads to the elevator to look for him. A woman dressed in a long skirt and hat passes by with her child. “Mom!” Convinced that she’s his mother, HoSeok chases after her. He shoves past people, breathing ragged and heart pounding. Afraid to lose her, he either yells out again or goes to the stairs. The results are ultimately the same because she doesn’t respond to his shouts and disappears into the stairwell. HoSeok skips steps down the stairs in his haste. “Mom!” His foot suddenly slips, throwing his weight forward. He flails, but there’s nothing to grab onto—and suddenly, his fall is arrested by someone grabbing his arm. “HoSeok?” “JiMin? How are you here…?” JiMin looks equally surprised. HoSeok realizes it’s obvious that the woman isn’t his mom. Though he can’t remember her face anymore, he still can’t let her go. “Are you alright, HoSeok?” JiMin asks. HoSeok figures that JiMin doesn’t inquire about what he was doing or why because he already knows. “I wonder if JiMin is like me… living trapped in the past. If he’s unable to get better and move on, stuck inside the memories that bind him…” “JiMin,” HoSeok says aloud. “Let’s get out of here.”

From JiMin’s perspective now, he notices that everything about HoSeok in this moment is different from normal. “Get out of here?” JiMin echoes. Outside is unfamiliar and scary, and he knows that even if he escapes the hospital, he will still have to return some day. “JiMin, I’ll come back for you.” HoSeok leaves without waiting for an answer. Not wanting to say goodbye, JiMin follows him secretly as he’s discharged from the hospital. He stops at the line where the hallway ends up on the ninth floor, watching the bright sunlight filter in through the open door. JiMin turns away, believing that the place to which he needs to return isn’t outside but the ninth floor. “Because… I’m a patient.” The rest of episode 6 follows the events in his 15 May Year 22 entry of The Notes 1, with only minor dialogue changes. HoSeok pulls JiMin out of his hospital bed the night before he is scheduled to return to the psychiatric ward. SeokJin and NamJoon meet them in the elevator, while JungKook, TaeHyung, and YoonGi are waiting for them in the first floor lobby. A nurse finds them and sees through YoonGi’s flimsy excuse that they’re having a birthday party. Throwing snack bags and plastic bottles, they all run toward the exit. (This sequence is likely the one depicted in the Euphoria MV, although in the video it’s staged during the daytime instead of at night.) JiMin unconsciously slows as he nears the invisible boundary in the hallway, but HoSeok’s urging grants him the courage to cross the line. Passing through the door, he draws in a breath of fresh air and feels on the verge of crying.

The beginning of episode 7 follows SeokJin’s preparations to prevent TaeHyung’s incident on 20 May in the same fashion as The Notes 1. He waits at the park on the hill behind TaeHyung’s apartment building until HoSeok escorts TaeHyung home from his night at the police station. With careful timing, SeokJin calls HoSeok after he sees the two part ways and asks him to invite TaeHyung to their beach trip in two days. HoSeok turns around toward TaeHyung’s apartment.

The next sequence provides more details of the confrontation (and notably unfolds a little differently than what is depicted in the I Need U MV). TaeHyung arrives home to a familiar stale odor of mold and stench of alcohol. “Where the hell have you been all night?!” TaeHyung turns to see his father’s bloodshot eyes and his sister standing behind him, face swollen. Defiance surges through him, but the desperation in Eunhye’s eyes roots him to the spot. “TaeHyung, tell Dad you’re sorry and go to your room.” TaeHyung either apologizes, holding his anger in, or tries to go straight to his room. In both paths, Kim SungHoon yells that a beating should set him straight. He seizes TaeHyung by the collar. Something bursts and rages inside him. “What have I done wrong?! You’re the one who needs to get things straight!” His father stammers in shock, “W-what did you say?!” while his sister calls his name in warning. TaeHyung chooses to shake him off or hold still. In the first path, he shoves his father to the floor. “Why are you doing this? How long? How long do we have to keep doing this?!” In the second path, Kim SungHoon snarls that he has a lot of nerve to look him in the eye and strikes his cheek. “Why do I need a beating?” TaeHyung thinks.

The paths converge with Eunhye begging their father to stop. The voice continues thundering in TaeHyung’s head: “Why does my sister need a beating? How long are you going to do this?” “You two are a double dose of pain in my ass today!” Kim SungHoon swings at Eunhye, who has thrown herself between them, and she sways at the rough blow. The injustice of it all stokes TaeHyung’s rage. “What have we done wrong? Why do we have to live in fear like this?” Heart pounding, he notices that the cold bottle he’s somehow picked up grows warmer from the heat of his hand. He roars and charges forward. A shattering sound plays over a black screen, and someone cries, “No—! TaeHyung, stop!” TaeHyung comes to his senses. HoSeok is hugging his midsection, his sister is crying, and his father is nowhere to be seen. He wonders whose blood is on his hand. HoSeok stands there silently, looking like he has a lot to say but holding back. “I’m sorry, HoSeok. I’m okay… So you can go now,” TaeHyung says, calm voice belying his inner turmoil. “I want to cry, to scream, to kick, break, shatter everything. I want to fall apart, but I can’t do any of the things I want.” The world spins as he closes his eyes. Mind blank, TaeHyung craves NamJoon’s presence and wants to talk to him—to tell him that he almost killed his father.

The eighth and final episode, “The Pier,” closely follows the version of 22 May in The Notes 1, with the addition of SeokJin’s perspective providing greater depth to the events. The boys make it to the same beach they visited in high school. The observation platform strikes TaeHyung as familiar. As the sun sets, he remembers this all occurring in a dream, except that SeokJin climbs the platform instead of him. Atop the platform, SeokJin is fearful and full of emotions. Memories flash by of their suffering and loneliness, his failures and desire to give up as the misfortunes repeated. He is relieved that TaeHyung does not follow him. At nightfall, they head to where they’re staying. (In The Notes 1, this location is simply called their lodging, and in The Notes 2 it is referred to as a lodge by the beach that SeokJin reserved under his name. In the game, the room appears like the one in the Run MV party scenes (0’57”, 3’00”, etc.), down to the same string lights and sconces—more on this in the Additional Commentary section below.) As the others dance and laugh, SeokJin realizes that this is the first time they’ve made it this far. “It’s something I hoped so desperately for… and a day I thought would never come. We were all lonely once. We hid our own scars and lived through it alone. But it’s different now. We’re all by each other’s sides. We’ll never be alone again.” Despite these thoughts, he has a nagging feeling because he hasn’t told them the truth. SeokJin is afraid of their reactions, but this will be the only way “to really see them properly.” He announces, “I have something to say.” Only TaeHyung turns to look at him through the chaos.

TaeHyung balls up his prickling hand, wondering if this is about the dream he asked SeokJin about several days earlier. (The location of this conversation is unspecified in The Notes 1, but the game provides a flashback shot of it at the bus stop.) His frustration grows when SeokJin begins to mention high school instead. TaeHyung interrupts sharply, believing that SeokJin is still cowardly avoiding the truth. “Are you talking about when you spied for the principal in high school and told him everything we were up to? Or were you going to mention how, because of that… YoonGi got expelled?!” The mood in the room chills. “I’m sorry.” SeokJin drops his head, while the others look away or stare in surprise. But TaeHyung doesn’t want to be unhappy without knowing why, even if the truth is worse than the nightmare. “Is that all? Or are you hiding more from us?”

The perspective switches back to SeokJin. He guesses that TaeHyung is asking about the dream but can’t reveal that the tragedies he experienced were real, believing that no one else should have to suffer with that knowledge. NamJoon approaches and tries to calm TaeHyung, but TaeHyung pushes him away. “Stay out of this, NamJoon. Why does it matter to you? You’re not my brother.” (In the album Note from Her and as a flashback in The Notes 1, TaeHyung overheard NamJoon talking on the phone while they walked to their lodging. NamJoon was speaking to his parents about his younger brother being old enough to take care of himself, but TaeHyung apparently took this to heart as something about himself. It hurt and angered him deeply.) “TaeHyung, I’m sorry,” SeokJin attempts to plead with him. “Stop it, Kim TaeHyung!” NamJoon warns. TaeHyung demands again that SeokJin explain everything. The interrogation unleashes all the memories of his friends’ tragedies that he has tried to forget. SeokJin feels like his nightmares are going to become reality, and his mind goes blank as TaeHyung and NamJoon continue to argue. “I repeated so many moments of suffering… for you… Why are you doing this to me?! I only wanted to be able to laugh together.” A little flame grows within SeokJin, an indescribable feeling cresting like a wave. This is what his countless attempts have led to? “What’s so great about being together?” Shaking off NamJoon’s arm, TaeHyung yells, “Who are we to one another? We’re all alone in the end!” “Alone…” The thing SeokJin has desperately been holding onto breaks away, and the shaking in his hands now consumes his entire body.

SeokJin hits TaeHyung. He remembers TaeHyung’s sudden jump off the seaside platform—a time he thought he saved them all. “I even kept that from happening—and he says we’re all alone in the end? The hopes I had for all of us to be happy, and for us to face coming days together… It all feels like it was for nothing. I thought I left my repeating misfortunes behind me, but I now see them again, taunting me from just ahead.” This concludes the Epilogue and the <I’M FINE> series. Notably, the glass does not break, suggesting that this loop continues from this event (as it does in The Notes 1) without yet resetting.

Additional Commentary

The only point I want to touch on here is the depiction of the boys’ lodging on 22 May after their beach trip and its potential implications. In The Notes 1, this location is simply called their lodging, and in The Notes 2 it is referred to as a lodge by the beach that SeokJin reserved under his name. In the game, the room appears like the one in the Run MV party scenes (0’57”, 3’00”, etc.), down to the same string lights and sconces.

As a standalone MV set, this location felt (to me) more metaphorical than concrete. It’s introduced after NamJoon opens the door of a train’s shipping container, a little film editing trick as though it’s a world inside—and it does feel like a space away from the real world where the boys are free to let loose, revel in their youth, and be themselves. While it seemed to serve as a more glamorous substitute for NamJoon’s shipping container where they often gathered, this location also appeared to stand in for the location of JungKook and YoonGi’s confrontation (2’24”-2’55”). An altercation between them is heavily implied in SeokJin’s 2 May entry from The Notes 1, but it occurs in YoonGi’s workroom. Since Run is an MV rather than one of the short films, which always present BU events and locations more literally than their song counterparts, it doesn’t seem too unusual that these sets are condensed to one in this video. YoonGi’s workroom isn’t portrayed until Highlight Reel, so we can kind of excuse one of the earliest MVs for artistic license.

However… the inclusion of this location in the game considerably changes the circumstances! Since it is both canon and animated, the creators had the ability to design the settings as they are truly intended to appear (within the general limitations of the game’s engine and visual style). It must have been a very deliberate choice that led to the reuse of the Run MV’s set for the 22 May beach lodging. (For what it’s worth, I have always interpreted SeokJin’s and TaeHyung’s fight in the Japanese MV for Blood Sweat & Tears to represent the fallout of that night, and that is staged in a different set.)

To further complicate matters, a date has been explicitly attached to one of the scenes in Run because it is matched shot-for-shot in the BU Story trailer Map of the Soul—and it is neither 2 or 22 May.

24 July Year 22 is not reached in <I’M FINE>, but in the Notes, this is the date the boys plan to gather at NamJoon’s container to celebrate JungKook’s discharge from the hospital. So far in The Notes 1 and 2 (and various album-accompanying Notes from MotS: Persona and 7), this event has hardly manifested as the celebration it is intended to be. This particular shot maps a little better to the circumstances in Notes 2, as not all of them even show up in Notes 1. But again, this gathering occurs at the container—so what, and where, is this shot really depicting? How is it linked to the beach lodging they visit in some loops on 22 May?

BU has been in development for years now, so I believe there is intentionality behind this location’s depiction in the game, even if it raises more questions than it answers. Perhaps it is foreshadowing a very different version of 24 July in which they return again to the beach lodging. This is my best guess for now, and it’s exciting to think that there are still hints embedded in the older MVs for aspects of the plot that have yet to be fully revealed in The Notes.

What do you think? Did you notice the location parallels if you played the game, and did they inspire any new theories for you?

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

As mentioned above, the following “tl;dr” commentary summarizes the parenthetical notes I provided in the summaries in case you want to review them on their own.

Heart’s Distance — tl;dr commentary

In the opening cutscene, TaeHyung’s photograph of his father holding him as a baby looks similar to the one he holds at 1’48” in the HYYH On Stage: Prologue short film.

During the gathering at NamJoon’s container after everyone freed JiMin from the hospital, SeokJin asks, “How long has it been since we’ve all laughed together?” This is a reference to the recurring phrase “we can laugh when we’re together” present throughout the Notes and occasionally this game.

On 19 May, TaeHyung is arrested for vandalism while painting graffiti on the streets. The bus stop depicted in the shot is the same as the one in Highlight Reel.

In the shot in the game illustrating TaeHyung’s choice on 20 May that he “can’t take back,” he approaches his father from behind and the sound of glass occurs on a cut to black. We know from the I Need U MV and Save Me webtoon that he fatally stabs his father.

When SeokJin asks Uncle JunHo for a favor to visit a construction site for practical training, JunHo expresses that SeokJin’s father seems to be interested, too. “Make sure to use this opportunity to take a thorough look around. It’ll all be helpful to you later,” JunHo advises. It’s helpful to know that Assemblyman Kim ChangJun is involved in some shady business with a construction company—this is revealed in The Notes 2.

After the foreman leaves his father’s hospital room, TaeHyung realizes how tense he has been when he loosens his grip and sees little crescents of his fingernails cut into his palms. His wounded palms are a recurring motif.

On 20 May, SeokJin stands at the bus stop and touches the graffiti for which TaeHyung was arrested the previous night. It’s the “I’m Fine” message depicted at the same location in the Highlight Reel.

The story ends with SeokJin losing consciousness after TaeHyung shoved him away and he slammed into something, marking another failed attempt while preventing the homicide. This is not the first time TaeHyung has caused SeokJin grave or mortal injury during his intervention: in the Save Me webtoon, he accidentally stabbed SeokJin with the broken bottle instead of his father.

Nightmare: Epilogue — tl;dr commentary

SeokJin and NamJoon’s conversation when they reunite at the gas station on the night of 11 April begins with 2 familiar phrases: “Oh. SeokJin?” “It’s been a while.” As mentioned in part 1, this sequence parallels their moment at the end of the Blood Sweat & Tears Japanese version MV.

In episode 3, the scene of JungKook finding YoonGi playing piano at the music shop appears to be a memory of 7 April, although it is not explicitly stated as such. This encounter occurs in The Notes 1 as well as episode 4 of JungKook’s story.

From JungKook’s beating at the hands of thugs to the rooftop, this is how his 11 April entry plays out in The Notes 1, but it ends before his phone conversation with YoonGi.

SeokJin reflects on a time NamJoon told him that JungKook still carried the photo they took at the beach. The photo depicted in the game is the one of the boys on the wall by the sea.

Episode 4 is called “Small Bird,” yet the bird is only referenced in one of the choice’s paths (SeokJin hides behind the piano in YoonGi’s workroom). The title may be more meaningful to players who choose this path or are familiar with the bird from The Notes 1.

The game is even more cryptic than The Notes 1 about JungKook and YoonGi’s apparent altercation on 2 May in his workroom. When the perspective cuts to YoonGi, the mirror has already been shattered. The reason is unspecified, so we are left to wonder if a confrontation unfolded like the one depicted in the Run MV and implied in The Notes 1, or if something else occurred. The “sign” that SeokJin leaves to guide JungKook to the correct motel is also unspecified, but in The Notes 1, it is a bloody tissue because YoonGi fled his workroom with busted lips.

The motel room that YoonGi sets on fire in this loop once again matches the I Need U MV.

JiMin’s escape sequence from the hospital is likely the one depicted in the Euphoria MV, although in the video it’s staged during the daytime instead of at night.

TaeHyung’s confrontation with his father on 20 May unfolds a little differently than what is depicted in the I Need U MV.

Some notes/thoughts on the 22 May post-beach trip lodging are included in the Additional Commentary section above.

TaeHyung has a flashback to several days prior to 22 May when he asked SeokJin about his recurring dreams. The location of this conversation is unspecified in The Notes 1, but it’s depicted at the bus stop in the game.

TaeHyung pushes NamJoon away physically and verbally when he tries to interrupt his interrogation of SeokJin at the lodging. “Stay out of this, NamJoon. Why does it matter to you? You’re not my brother.” In the album Note from Her and as a flashback in The Notes 1, TaeHyung overheard NamJoon talking on the phone while they walked to their lodging. NamJoon was speaking to his parents about his younger brother being old enough to take care of himself, but TaeHyung apparently took this to heart as something about himself. It hurt and angered him deeply.

Notably, the glass does not break at the end of the Epilogue, suggesting that this loop continues from this event (as it does in The Notes 1) without yet resetting.

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

This brings us to the end of the BTS Universe Story <I’M FINE> highlights! This series turned out a little different than I originally envisioned, but I hope you found these summaries helpful and worthwhile to read. If you have any questions, important details that you felt I overlooked, or theories of your own that you would like to share, feel free to send me an ask!

For more informational storyline content, please check out the Timeline project, currently in development!