#my laptop shows me different colors so if it's really bright that's why

[satuguro]

⠀⠀ ⠀ཾ ༚ 20/20 VISION

lalala! ethan landry x okokok! reader

#SYNOPSIS— based off of see you again by tyler the creater & kali uchis; you have no gag reflex, ethan tells a sex joke, and ethan takes a leap of faith.

#CONTAINS— best friends to lovers, mutual pining, jealousy, emetophobia, fluff

#AUTHORSNOTE— i've been wanting to write fluff lately so.. here you go xx

your unofficial designated spot in the carpenter sisters' apartment was their armchair in their living room.

you had a list of reasons why; one, it meant more space. you could stretch your legs, not worry about feeling someone's feet near your legs, and you could have your own blanket. all somewhat selfish reasons, but you loved your space. two, it had the perfect angle towards the t.v. that gave you the best spot in the living room to watch it without worrying about discomfort.

which was why you would've been mildly perturbed that someone was standing between you and the t.v. the only difference was that it wasn't just someone; it was someone who rambled too often, who had no sense of personal space while also being hyper aware of it, and who was a flurry of random facts (which wouldn't help him at all, unless someone held a gun to his head and told him to name and point at every country’s capital in the world).

"i've done it," ethan announced to you, his signature toothy smile seemingly more victorious as he looked down at where you were snuggled up on the couch. his well manicured nails (he asked you to do them once, and who were you to deny your best friend?) held his laptop, the screen facing his chest.

"aren't you supposed to be studying?" you asked him with a small tilt of your head, glancing at where the rest of the group was. finals week was beating everyone up, and you could briefly see mindy and chad chugging a redbull at the same time while tara timed them, before you turned back to your best friend.

"i gave up."

"you need to study."

"you gave up, too!" ethan looked down at the huge blanket that you hogged for yourself, not even thinking twice before he was climbing in next to you.

"ow— ethan!" you groaned, feeling him step on your leg.

"'scuse me!" ethan forced himself under the blanket you were snuggled under, making you share your beloved armchair with him before he sighed contentedly. "this is comfortable! maybe i should share this seat with you more often!" he said with a bright grin, making you sigh reluctantly. "i mean if you don't want to then it's fine too!" ethan added hurriedly with wide eyes.

"i was just saying that i wouldn't mind sharing with you because usually you sit alone— which i know you prefer, you've told me so many times and i get it! i really do! but i wouldn't mind sitting with you to keep you company because i really like being with you— around you. your presence. yeah, that." ethan rambled, finishing his string of words with a sheepish smile, cheeks flaring a bit red. "i'm sorry for rambling." he added quietly.

your usually tired eyes softened at that. he had always been insecure of how much he talked, you knew that better than anyone. "i've told you before, e, i don't mind. i like listening to you," you hummed, a downturned smile on your lips. "i like your presence too. and i guess i don't mind sharing my seat with you."

ethan's cheeks flared red at your casual words. you had a way of speaking so calmly, as though all your words were chosen well. in a way, he was a bit jealous.

"you had something to tell me, yeah?" you asked him softly, bringing him back on track.

"oh, right!" ethan showed you his laptop, setting it up on your legs. it was a notion list, color coordinated and everything, with an entire list of shows and movies you remember only briefly mentioning to him. "i made this list—"

"just now? instead of studying?"

"yes! so basically, it has a section where we can rate it after we watch it, and it's all organized by what we want to watch the most and what we need to finish!" ethan scrolled down the list, practically buzzing with excitement (and the cold brew he drank earlier).

"see? i know that i have a whole essay to do but i can do it later—" ethan said, waving it off with his hand. "because i know you said you would do it but i got impatient and did it instead! and look—" he showed you the wide variety of colors for every row. "they're color coordinated! and here's how i think the rating system should go—"

you had watched ethan talk the entire time he rambled, your usually tired and indifferent eyes softening when you listened to him speak. he talked fast— too fast for some people, but you liked that about him—but the way he rambled showed how passionate he was about different topics, because ethan only rambled when he cared.

it showed how much he appreciated what he was talking about. and ever time his cadence picked up and his words became jumbled and he began interrupting himself, you could see how ethan's brown eyes would shine with excitement. you could see how he began incorporating his hands to his words, how his lips tilted up when he talked.

you were so engrossed in ethan's explanation of the movie and t.v. show list that you failed to notice your friends staring at you from the dining table.

"they are disgustingly cute," tara said with a sigh.

"and disgustingly oblivious," mindy grumbled, clicking her pen over and over. "with how smart the both of them are, i'm surprised they haven't picked up on the clues." she turned to chad, who was sulking after losing the redbull chugging competition against her. "have you asked ethan about it yet? you're our in on this, chad!"

chad groaned as mindy nudged him with her shoulder. "i did. he didn't even respond. it's crazy how he can avoid conversations, you know."

you didn't like parties. not as much as your friends did— you were usually the designated driver or the friend that was always sober enough to take care of their friends, which you didn't mind. it was the socializing part that you minded.

you socialized okay, but you often just ended up listening to other people rather than talking. listening was more your style, but you were only a little awkward when it came to talking to complete (and possibly intoxicated) strangers at parties. you stuck with your group of friends and very rarely strayed away.

but ethan was the designated sober friend this time around, so maybe that would change.

three loud knocks to your dorm room made you go and open it, coming eye to eye with ethan. "you're walking me there?" you asked with a knowing smile, making the boy nod eagerly.

"yup! chad's walking with tara and mindy's going with anika, so that leaves you and me." ethan grinned at you teasingly. "why, you're getting tired of me already?"

"no," you hummed, closing your dorm room behind you as the both of you began to walk down the hall. "you're really not drinking tonight, huh?"

"nope!" ethan replied, popping the 'p'. "after i threw up all over sam that one time we drank at the apartment, and then i threw up on you right after, i told myself that i'd hold back on it."

you wrinkled your nose at the memory. "how responsible of you."

"i know, right?" ethan said with a proud smile. "but because i threw up on you that time, i give you full permission to throw up on me this time."

"i'm not gonna be that drunk."

that was a lie.

to say that your friends were shocked to see you become a more extraverted person after drinking would be an understatement. they were used to you observing the group and contributing to conversations with sarcastic comments, dry humor, and dark jokes that are often made much too soon. so to see you take a shot with tara and squeal happily with her (true friend solidarity; she was as drunk as you were) was completely out of the ordinary.

"i'm gonna go find chad!" tara yelled over the music, making you nod happily and watch her leave. adrenaline and excitement began to thrum through your body stronger, and your first thought was to share it with your favorite person. you began to walk around, searching for ethan, before you bumped into a chest.

"oh, shit! i'm so sorry," the guy laughed, making you send him an apologetic smile.

"it's okay!" you said, taking in his black hair and his brown eyes (that only reminded you of ethan). "i'm y/n!"

the guy smiled at you, offering his hand out. "jaden!" he seemed to be as intoxicated as you were, his steps wobbling slightly as you shook his hand. "do you, uh, wanna dance?"

"hey, where's y/n?" ethan asked tara as she passed him, making her look back towards the drinks table.

"she should just be around where the drinks are.." tara's voice trailed off when her eyes landed on you not too far away. your arms were around a guy's neck— was that jaden from her philosophy lecture? —as you swayed with him to the music. you seemed to be having a good time, the alcohol making you lighthearted as you sang with whatever song was playing through the speakers. "there she is!"

when ethan saw you, his heart fell. you looked so beautiful under the multicolored lights, your hair perfectly styled and your clothes fitting you perfectly as you danced with someone who wasn't him. your smile— your genuine one, ethan noted with his chest aching, the one that made your eyes crinkle and your smile lopsided —was pointed towards someone who wasn't him.

jealousy brewed in his chest along with the heartache, ethan's jaw clenching as he stared at you and the random guy. but he didn't step in. he didn't pull you away and declare his feelings for you, because at the end of the night, you were happy. content as you danced with someone who wasn't ethan at all.

chad came up next to tara, his arm over her shoulders as he steadied her. "hey man, where's y/n?" he asked, still fairly sober than everyone as he had only taken one shot.

"she's doing fine," ethan said, his voice monotone as he continued staring at you. it was unfair how beautiful you looked while you unknowingly broke his heart with every laugh and every flirtatious smile you sent towards your dance partner.

"what?" chad looked in the direction ethan was staring, his face falling when he saw you and jaden. easily connecting the dots, he looked at ethan empathetically. "fuck. dude, i'm sorry."

"it's okay, really," ethan said with a tight lipped smile. but he couldn't keep his eyes off of you and him, the fact that you looked so happy pulling at his chest because he wanted you to be happy with him. he wanted you to look at him the way you looked at that random stranger.

and finally, as you did a twirl into jaden’s arms, you made eye contact with ethan. oblivious to the way his jaw clenched and his eyes lost the spark they usually had, you gently pulled yourself out of jaden's arms. your steps were wobbly, and you nearly crashed into ethan's chest when you finally walked up to him. ethan's arms went to steady you easily.

"ethan, i feel like throwing up," you murmured, and ethan nodded in understanding, worry taking over his jealousy.

"okay, let's get you to the bathroom, okay?" ethan said softly, pulling you close to him as he guided you to the bathroom. he knocked on the door, thankful no one responded, before he opened it for you. he locked the door behind the both of you as you made a beeline for the toilet, grabbing the side of it as you readied yourself to throw up.

but nothing came out.

“go on!” ethan encouraged you, motioning to the toilet. but instead, you looked up at him warily.

“do i have to?”

“yes?” ethan gaped at you, motioning to the toilet again. “just go ahead! nothing to fear!”

“i don’t want to.”

“c’mon, y/n, why not?” ethan whined, making you groan as you stopped yourself from throwing up yet again.

“i have emetophobia, asshole,” you muttered, gently pushing his arm. “fear of throwing up? and,” you messily pushed some of your hair away from your face. “i have no gag reflex.”

“what the hell?” ethan crinkled his nose, blushing furiously as he looked at you in shock. you were honest, sure but never this honest. “i could’ve gone my whole life without knowing that.”

“are you sure?”

“what?” ethan said quickly, eyes wider than ever as he stared at you as you snorted in amusement. “you’re kidding.”

“maybe.”

“maybe?” he swallowed thickly, shutting his eyes and pinching his nose bridge. “oh god, you definitely have to throw up now.”

“watch this.” you took two of your fingers and stuffed them all the way to the back of your throat, smiling triumphantly as you showed ethan your lack of a gag reflex.

ethan could only watch in horror and exasperation. “y/n, i didn’t need proof. i already believed you.” he took some squares of toilet paper before offering it to you.

“i told you so,” you hummed, pulling your saliva covered finger out of your mouth and wiping them on the toilet paper. there was a beat of silence before ethan coughed, his cheeks and ears still burning red.

“can i make a joke?”

“of course you can.”

“it’s a, uh,” ethan cleared his throat, avoiding your intent gaze, “sex joke.”

“even better.” you situated yourself next to the toilet, still very much feeling like you were gonna hurl at any given moment.

ethan sat next to you, clearing his throat again. “i know one way we can test your gag reflex,” he stated, almost ashamed at his own joke.

you chuckled at that, the horrible joke making a you sway a bit with laughter before the sudden motion sickness got to you. without another word, you threw up into the toilet. all thanks to ethan’s horrible sex joke.

he immediately reached over to move some of your hair. you continued retching into the toilet, his hand rubbing soothing circles on your back. "i hate drinking," you grumbled as you laid your forehead on your arm, eyes watery from throwing up. immediately as you got the words out, you threw up again.

"i know, i know.. but i know you're gonna end up drinking again," ethan teased softly, making your back heave as you managed a laugh, only for it to be interrupted by you throwing up again. "it's okay, let it all out." he couldn’t help the small laugh that escaped his lips. “i can’t believe a sex joke made you throw up.”

and you almost laughed again if you didn’t throw up even more.

the sound of the party died into the background as ethan sat next to you on the ground. your head was laying on your arm, which was on the toilet seat. you were still intoxicated, and the world was still spinning, but you could see the obvious turmoil on ethan's face. you poked his arm. "what's wrong?"

"what?" ethan said, snapping out of his daze to send you a tight lipped smile. "nothing's wrong."

"liar."

"i'm not!"

"i know you better than that, e," you murmured, half lidded eyes staring at him. you had thrown up most of your alcohol, and while you were still inebriated, you felt a lot more clear headed than earlier. “what's wrong?"

ethan looked at you, eyes flashing with hurt as he pictured you again dancing with someone else. "do you really want to know?" he asked you, and you nodded. even while drunk, you opted to listen.

"you looked beautiful when you were dancing," ethan began, managing a soft smile, "i don't think i've ever seen you like that. it's not a bad thing or a good thing, but it's a new thing, y'know?" he sighed. "you dance really well, i'm surprised you haven't told me," a genuine smile appeared on his face when he heard you laugh quietly. "and your laugh.. i swear i would listen to it over whatever horrible music is playing right now."

ethan looked at you, taking in your obviously roughed up and intoxicated form. but somehow, even with slightly messy hair and most of your make-up rubbed off and with your breath smelling only a little bit like puke, you still looked beautiful. it was enough to make someone who talked as much as him to go quiet in awe.

"but when you laughed, and when you smiled,” ethan said slowly, taking in heavy breaths with every word. fear thrummed through his body, mingling with the nervousness as he twiddled with his fingers anxiously. to continue on would be to admit everything. to admit how he felt, the thoughts he had been having about you, everything. and to admit it to you would be to risk losing a friendship and one of the most important people in his life.

“.. you weren’t smiling or laughing at me. and i hated that.”

confusion spread over your face before realization hit your eyes. “oh.” and oh, it suddenly all made sense. why ethan was so bothered, why you were so willing to listen to one person speak for forever as long as it was them, why even as you danced with another, something was off because he wasn’t ethan. he wasn’t your best friend.

“you don’t have to say anything,” ethan mumbled, completely misinterpreting your realization for rejection. his eyes watered slightly as he avoided your gaze. “it’s been going on for a while now, and i get it if you don’t feel the same! i really do, it’s just,” he sighed shakily, “i don’t want to lose you—”

“ethan—”

“i was completely willing to just shut up about how i felt as long as that meant i could still have you in my life, y/n,” ethan said, looking into your eyes earnestly. “and i thought i could keep it under wraps but i have to tell you at least once because—”

“i love you.”

“what?” ethan blinked, making you smile, your head still resting on your arm.

“i love you, ethan.”

a toothy smile spread over his face at that, his shoulders relaxing as he searched your face for any doubt. “are you— are you sure?”

“i wouldn’t say it if i wasn’t,” you murmured softly as you raised your head, making ethan laugh in relief.

“holy shit— i love you too.” ethan said, leaning forward, only for you to stop him.

“e, i might throw up on you if you kiss me.”

“do you think i care?”

[archivalofsins]

Gunsli as a Mikoto enjoyer you must be losing your shit now that his second trial is drawing closer and closer! You're going to avidly defend him, right?

Meanwhile

Me *carrying a large stick around the panopticon*: FUTA, MU I JUST WANT TO TALK COME OUT! GET THE FUCK OUT HERE!

Futa & Mu: We're not on trial anymore-

Me: The phones...

Them: Huh?

Me: WHOSE FUCKING PHONES ARE THESE?!

Them: ?!

Me:

Well?! Any answers?

Mu: You already did this with me during my trial?!

Yeah, it wasn't really about you it was just for the bit-

So, huh Futa?! Huh whose phone, is it?! Because I know this isn't your phone for several reasons!

So, let's run this down from the beginning-

Question 1

Which cellphone is Futa's?

Sorry, to disappoint but in the battle between iPhone and Android Futa is firmly on the side of Android.

This is made abundantly clear by the fact that unlike Yuno who owns wireless earbuds, Futa's owns wired ones. Something not supported on Apple devices since 2016.

So, why did someone who owns an android phone have what appears to be an Apple charger plugged into his laptop near that flash drive? Well chances are he hooked up that iPhone to his computer to get some information off the phone, erase that information, then move it from his laptop to that flash drive.

We also know this iPhone isn't Futa's because he displays the UI of his actual phone while looking through the color inverted version of twitter-

At which point we can see his UI is completely different from the phone we see breaking at the end of Bring It On.

Futa's phone is also put on full display at the beginning of Bring It On and in other instances showing multiple physical discrepancies between it and the phone that breaks at the end.

From camera placement to general make of the phone and the brightness on the red of the phone case. All things that have remained consistent over the course of Milgram. Making it more apparent which phone is his.

Question two,

Why would Futa take someone else's phone and what information could he need?

He states what he needs and what he's using the phone for at the beginning of Bring It On,

"Found one…! Countdown till I make you say sorry. Let’s go! A victory march! Dan-Da-Dan. Eat this! Don’t act like you have no idea! We won’t forgive you. You’re the crazy one! Ban-Ba-Bang." - "All evil hypocrites should disappear. I won’t stop until you say “sorry”. Now let’s begin to hunt down the liars."

He's using it to get information on the people involved in the incident and track them down.

The rest of the members of the party he was working with for a time. That ended up putting all the blame for that incident on him. This is probably why he's not hanging out with them when he goes to the arcade and is instead watching from a distance.

Using the situation to get rid of two people at once since the hat girl was possibly involved with the group as well hence the line,

"Flames closing in, are both sides losers?"

"Fuck it! You won’t be forgiven; it was stupid licking each other’s wounds." - "You can’t escape, how do you like the taste of punishment." - "You gotta be kidding, I’m an undead hero!"

I've already speculated that Futa's murder was the result of him reacting to the outcome of the hat girl situation and that Futa and this other victim were a part of the same group before.

(I have made way too many posts on Futa: X, X, X, X, X, X, X and many more. Back to the topic at hand though.)

However, the hat girl could have been uninvolved with the group as well. Yet, taking into consideration the very targeted and extreme harassment the group is depicted doing in Backdraft while Futa is looking on in shock and terror I think it's hard for me to not consider this being personal in some way.

That display perfectly calls back to these lines of Futa's in Bring It On,

"I won’t stop until you say “sorry”." - "Now, let’s be reasonable. We are the ones that blow the horn for justice. We will punish you down, this is a warning."

Futa has made it abundantly clear he only does this until the other party apologizes or backs down. Something the hat girl was already doing while the others continued to attack her anyway.

In Backdraft, Futa also spray paints the ones who did this in black as they were doing it. Then we see their tags on the image of the victims have been spray painted over on the wall with black as well once it cuts to the girl.

Black is used as the color to highlight the words on Futa's second trial CD as well,

I believe this color is being used to highlight Futa's version of justice. Just as he says in the voice drama that Es and him are no different, both simply stating that something was bad and things going out of control.

Adding to this Es (and the audiences) judgement of Futa is represented with the same color at the end. As if visually stating the judgement the audience gave to Futa should actually be given to these people instead and reiterating the little difference Futa sees between what he did and what Es and the audience is doing now.

Backdraft even going as far as to have the eyes behind Es be the same color as the spray paint, the people in the group are portrayed using to harass that girl. Making it seem as though by punishing Futa we're supporting the people who did this instead of the other way around.

This makes Futa's question of,

"Should I succumb, make your wish come true?"

Come off as though he's not only speaking about Milgram (Es, and the audience), but the others involved in the harassment of that girl who may have begun doing the same to Futa hoping he'd react in a similar way to their previous victim.

Something alluded to through this image and messages at the end of Bring It On.

QRT Storm Pazuzu　（＝Futa）            I think I’ve got all her details now. Based on her previous tweets I’ve worked out her school. The fact she lives so close is hilarious lol Judgement☨Onizuka You’re the worst offender of all.

"Full of yourselves, are you?" - "Bye bye idiots and devils with the faces of angels." - "You gotta be kidding! I’m the real hero!" - "You gotta be kidding, I’m an undead hero!" - "You’re the crazy one! Ban-Ba-Bang!"

Also we see in Bring It On through Futa's inverted colored phone screen that his icon looks like blue fire or mirrors JudgementOnizuka's normal colored one and vice versa. Implying some sort of connection between the two of them.

It's also telling that Futa is represented by fire and Onizuka water especially given the repeated line of,

"Can't douse this fire."

Within Backdraft.

The lyrics,

"Don’t get cocky, you in that cypher!"- "Holler-holler from safety, so worthless."

These lines can not only refer to the audience or Es but the people he used to hang out with or individuals getting overzealous/too confident with their harassment online. Something the group he used to be in did.

Backdraft also shows off Futa's willingness to just fight head-to-head about it through the line.

"The fight’s up here! Come up to the ring and face me!"

"You won’t be forgiven, a coward, never!"

Question 3

How did he get the phone? Whose is it?

"Are both sides losers?" - "The fact she lives so close is hilarious lol."

It's more than likely the hat girl's phone. Just like the phone we see get smashed in After Pain appears to have belonged to Mu's victim and former friend. Once again, making this another way Futa and Mu parallel each other and why they were paired up.

If the hat girl were also in the group or followers of these people before she began getting harassed, Futa would have an easier time looking over, keeping up with, and figuring out who was responsible for the harassment. That is if he did get her phone after she died.

It would also be similar to how Mu's victim seems to have been involved with Mu or the friend group Mu was in before she passed away as well. However, the phone could belong to Futa's actual victim then when we see it falling to the ground and breaking in Bring It On could be during the altercation portrayed in Undercover.

One thing is for sure Futa and Mu both use breaking phones as imagery for silencing others-

That and they both have a very firm grasp of framing.

Futa would still be able to look over old interactions he was in from his own phone. So, like with Mu in After Pain and It's Not My Fault there may be some playing around with time. In fact, I think there may be playing around with time present in all the prisoner's music videos that becomes more overt depending on the prisoner's personality.

In Futa's case, this is probably why the interactions on his own phone have those inverted colors while the interactions on the one we see break later does not. This coloring choice could denote that these interactions happened before what we are witnessing now. You know how flash backs are usually put in grey or muted colors.

Just as it's implied through After Pain that the messages on Mu's phone happened before her bullying. Futa just goes about displaying this in a vaguer manner.

There are also these things from Bring It On as well that I covered elsewhere before, but I believe it was in reply to someone else's post or something because I can't find it in my archive.

These read,

WARNING [FUTA'S TWITTER ICON] "CONGRATULATIONS [REDACTED]! YOU BROUGHT JUSTICE TO THE WORLD!!! CONGRATULATIONS [REDACTED]? YOU BROUGHT JUSTICE TO THE WORLD???" WARNING [FUTA'S TWITTER ICON] CONGRATULATIONS [REDACTED] YOU BROUGHT [REDACTED] TO THE WORLD!!! CONGRATULATIONS [REDACTED]? YOUR BROUGHT [REDACTED] TO THE WORLD???

I also mentioned this before with this but again can't find it but on the map during the final fight we can see Futa's indicator moving away while appearing to spawn back in.

Also the D in world is styled after his twitter icon-

And at the beginning of Bring It On his phone switches between the Bring It On screen and his twitter feed each time the video glitches before he heads out-

So, yeah- Some credit for all the work Futa did trial one trying to cover up the truth is long overdue.

Whelp that's it. Fuck you Futa for pulling one over on me though really thought that was his phone he dropped.

[monarchisms]

oh yeah, now that it's closed, here's the post i wanted to make about that rt rebrand poll i made last week. this will be pretty long and kinda rambly, so feel free to just blacklist the "long post" tag :)

so like, i made the poll because of 2 main reasons: 1. because of a mix of comments i saw on other sites from people who also didn't know what color it was supposed to be, and 2. because of myself confidently believing it was some shade of orange until i switched from looking at it from my laptop screen to my phone screen.

it being a godawful shade of red/red-orange was mentioned in the article itself, which is why my question was phrased "what color do you guys think it is?" since either red or orange is both technically correct. going more into the specifics of the poll numbers:

tumblr doesn't show the specific number of people who voted for any given poll option by default, just the percentage, so i went digging and followed this tutorial to get the raw data using firefox's inspect tool. the final results are, with 934 votes total, red at 551 votes (59%), orange at 303 votes (~32.4%), and other/a secret third thing at 80 votes (~8.6%).

red winning wasn't a surprise, really, but i was pleasantly surprised at how many people didn't have a definite answer or switched between answers like i did. i can't exactly pin down why that is, but if i had to wager some guesses...

the color scheme has a high chance of being a callback to rooster teeth's Popular Web Series Red Versus Blue™:

and with a want/need for rt to rebrand, the idea of keeping the color scheme while also making it modern and pop out is really cool, but its execution is uh...

i couldn't fit everyone's tags, but you get the gist. it fucking sucks, man.

as @god-of-arts-and-crafts has pointed out:

orange and blue are complementary colors, with them being opposite each other on a color wheel except the people who made the rebrand chose a deeper shade of blue??? they couldn't even get that right, oh my fucking god, so while its technical color is red-orange, it can be overwhelmingly orange when paired with a similarly bright shade of blue, which is what's causing many people eyestrain. hell, the first time i looked at the picture when the news dropped, it literally gave me a headache lol

finally, as i've said in the tags of a different post about this eyesore, this is an accessibility nightmare. with the worst color combination possible, the colors used for the new font and logo are definitely not ada-compliant. there are free sites out there to test images for general accessibility issues. contrastchecker is what i use sometimes, and below is what i got using red-orange as the background and blue as the foreground, and vice versa:

(both versions had the same ratio and color difference lmao)

the americans with disabilities act recommends that the contrast ratio be 7 at the lowest, but should ideally be higher than that, if possible. this is objectively and subjectively a very bad corporate rebrand, and i really, really want rt to break their "no jokes on april 1st because that's our anniversary" rule this year. if for nothing else, then just so that people who haven't read the variety article and/or the reactions on social media aren't jumpscared once the new intros/endcards/whatever else start rolling in.

[itzpris15634]

Helping Out (ft. Penny and Minka)

MinkaMakingherMark: can you come over to my place? with your camera. i need your help for smth!!!

-

Not too long after Penny pressed the doorbell, the door swung open, revealing a very excited Minka.

"Penny? Penny! PENNY!" Minka practically jumped at her friend. Penny stumbled back, almost falling. She's glad all that ribbon dancing helped out with her balance.

"Minka! It's good to see you too!" Penny laughed, hearing Minka's squealing in her ear.

"You actually came! YOU ACTUALLY CAME!! I was worried for a moment you were just ignoring me or something when you weren't answering that text! Hmph, how dare you?" Minka playfully crossed her arms and stuck out her tongue. Penny laughed.

"My apartment is literally one floor away from yours. I didn't think I'd have to text you a response if I could arrive in such a short time."

"Well, it still would be nice to know! Responses are reassuring."

"Is that why your text conversations with people last so long?"

"Eeeeeeeyeaaaaaaaah…"

"Aww, okay! Next time, I'll be sure of that."

"Thanks, Penns!"

“No problem! Anyway, I have my camera. Pictures and all. You said you wanted me here with it?"

"Oh, yeah, that! Come on, I'm working on a little something."

-

"What's this, Minka? It looks like a spider's web."

Penny and Minka found themselves in Minka's studio, staring at a blank corkboard. It was like those scenes in crime movies where a character is at a corkboard, and pinned to it was evidence and documents, a red string to connect it all. Except there was no evidence and documents, and the string was clear rather than red. And it even exceeded the barriers of the corkboard- little nails that stuck out of the wall had the string hooked, forming a chaotic zig-zaggy pattern.

"Oh, that's just nylon! I'm planning to use all these little clothespins to hang pictures by the string!"

"Pictures?"

"That scratch-off map you showed us a few days ago inspired me! I wanna dedicate this corkboard to well.. us. All of us. Featuring pictures of our wacky little adventures in many different places."

"I… I inspired you?" Penny’s eyes sparkled.

"Yes! So, what do you think of the idea?"

"I love it! How can I help out? If I can."

"That's why you and your camera are here, isn't it? I just realized… I don't take a lot of pictures when I travel! My phone storage would be bursting if I did, and I need somewhere easy and convenient to keep all my art ideas. But then I remembered that you're always taking pictures whenever we travel somewhere! With the camera you always bring around! I have my printer and laptop over here. We can connect your camera to it, get the photos, and print 'em out!"

"Oh, I see!"

-

"That's a lot of photos…" Minka scrolled through the thumbnails of files obtained from the camera.

"Most of them are just multiple takes, really. They're all very similar. So just pick any!" Penny looked over Minka's shoulder.

"Hmm, I dunno… Like, take a look at these. Here, Vinnie is blinking. And here's a better one where everyone actually has their eyes open. But then the thing is, in the first one where Vinnie is blinking, there's a flock of birds in the background! Which looks really good. And by the time everyone actually has open eyes, the birds have flown away.

"Don't you have some experience in photo editing? Maybe you could edit the birds into the everyone's-eyes-are-open picture."

"Oh yeahhh, why didn't I think of that?"

-

After sifting through all of those pictures, Minka finally decided on the good ones and prepared them for printing.

Printing took a little while, but it did eventually finish. The pictures came out bright and colorful.

"Alright, so you'll notice I left some space at the bottom of each picture, right?" Minka pointed.

"Right." Penny nodded.

"And here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna cut out the pictures, but leave just a bit of white at the borders- and a lot more white at the bottom- so they can look like polaroids! How about that?

"Sounds good!"

Minka took out two pairs of scissors from her front pocket, snipping them.

"Then let's cut these out!"

Both of them took their seats on the floor, scissors in one hand, printed pictures in the other.

-

"Aghhh, my back hurts…" Minka groaned as she let herself topple backwards to the floor.

"Oh my… And my hands hurt," Penny finally put down the scissors. She noticed the red marks on her skin from holding them a bit too tightly… "I guess doing things for too long does stuff to you…"

"Tell that to me next time I accidentally end up spending 5 hours on art without water breaks. Or breaks at all."

"I don't think that's good for you, Minka."

"I'm aware."

Penny was a little concerned, but decided not to press it further. Instead, she held up a picture to show Minka.

"But uh… look! We got all these nice photos! All our hard work has paid off, and now we have these! Faux polaroids, if you will! Faux polaroids? Hmm… yeah."

"Yep. Nice. We'll clip them to the string later.

"Okay… Let me clean up for us, then."

"Ohhh man. I love you so much, Penny."

"I love you too, Minka."

Penny gathered up all the pictures, straightening them into a neat and clean pile. She also picked up the little scraps and excess paper they cut off from the images.

Penny got up and placed the pictures on the nearby desk. She started making her way to the little bin in the corner of the room, the scraps in hand…

"WAIT! DON'T THROW THOSE!" Minka jolted upwards again, waving her hands in a panic.

Penny turned back to her friend, "…Huh?"

"I wanna do a paper mache thing after this! I'd rather much use old scraps than ruin perfectly good paper, y'know?"

"Oh, uh, okay then! Makes sense."

"You can just put them in that box over there. That's where I keep all my scrap papers. Ahem, uh, anyway. Let's put those pictures up!"

-

"I've always wanted to go to France. Man, Zoe is so lucky! She goes there every other week!" Minka sighed as she let the clothespin pinch the image of Zoe and Blythe at the Eiffel tower.

Penny, standing at the bottom of the chair Minka was standing on, pressed another clothespin into Minka's waiting hand, "Well, there's a difference with lifestyle and all. Her parents are rich, she's rich, she has financial security and… well, money. What do you expect?"

"Yeah, yeah. Which is why she's so lucky! The jealousy creeps in quite easily, I must say."

"I can understand that. But don't let it bother you too much."

"I guess I can try… Ope, I'm out of pictures. Hand me more, please!"

Penny did as Minka asked.

"Thanks," Minka examined the first picture at the top of the stack, "Ooh, that's me and Russell in Rio de Janeiro!"

-

"Thanks so much, Penny?"

"Hm?"

"For everything… this looks wonderful so far!"

Penny and Minka stood a few feet away from the wall, admiring their work. Many pictures were already hanging by the nylon string. Other pictures were stuck to the corkboard.

Penny, however, noticed something…

"There's still plenty of empty spaces Minka. What are your plans for those?"

"Oh. Well, tomorrow, I could decorate more of the wall with stickers and little drawings! It'd really add more to the vibe. And maybe even fairy lights? Those look really popular and aesthetic, I'll have to try that at some point! Also, whenever we go on more adventures with more pictures, I can add them here too!"

"More adventures? I think I'd like that! Though, you gotta promise me one thing…"

"…Huh?"

"Next time, take your breaks! I don't want you overworking yourself."

"Really? Oh, uh, sorry about that. It's just, I get so focused and excited! It really is just- all attention on current task, no stopping until it's done or I can't do it anymore."

"Hmm… would me sending you reminder texts help? Like 'Hey, be sure to drink your water!' or 'It's been a couple hours, how about you stop for a bit and rest?'"

"Would really appreciate it. Thanks, Penny."

===

Day 15: photographs

Minka is so me whenever I do a task I'm really into

[jodilin65]

sighs with frustration The news is still racism, Roe, and Trump. Starting to think we’ll never stop seeing that face even long after it’s dead.

It’s truly mind-boggling how a country can start a war with another country, and then the country that is being victimized is condemned for fighting back. It’s like if someone punches you in the face, and then you get in trouble for punching them back. It doesn’t make any sense.

We set up the new desk and the cup holder I added to it. Love the cut-out along the side for when I’m drinking from mugs. The desk is not much bigger than the other one because space is limited but it’s L-shaped and has room for both my desktop and laptop. I got it in white because I like bright colors better and dust shows up easier on darker colors. It clashes a bit with the rest of the furniture in the room, but that’s okay. The furniture that was in here when we bought the place is maple and it’s a medium shade of brown.

We also got an airflow deflector for the vent so I won’t be as chilly with air blowing on me.

He was lightheaded from giving plasma and I was tired from the Shingrix vaccine yesterday yet the bidet in my bathroom just had to start leaking. I sat down on the toilet and I heard drip-drip-drip and thought maybe I didn’t turn the shower off all the way until I realized where it was coming from. So now the newer and more stylish one is back on that works better but tends to leave my booty a little less dry. Guess I’ll just go through more toilet paper.

They gave him a little Valentine’s treat at the plasma place. A pink and red plastic cup with cute designs, a pen, and some of those heart candies that are just so-so.

He had to take breaks here and there while working on the toilet and desk but we managed to get it done. While I do like this desk for the space that I have, I don’t like the idea of spending the rest of our lives in a tiny house even though I’m sure we will. I just miss having a full-size place and it would be nice to have an office area that wasn’t in the bedroom. The little alcove off the kitchen was fine except for the fact that I can hear more outside noise from there and it’s colder in the winter while warmer in the summer. I also like to be in a room where I can shut the door so Tom’s movements don’t distract me if I want to work on certain projects.

So it’s good that all I had was fatigue. Never got the chills or body aches but my arm is red and sore at the injection site.

I forgot to say that Rhonda said not to do keto because I’ll lose 20 lbs fast but it’ll come right back. I guess keto restricts carbs even more as does Atkins. This is supposed to be a healthier balance of protein and carbs. Personally, I don’t think I’ll get under 160 but little by little I’m switching over to the new diet. I still have some food to finish up that I’m not going to be getting on this diet so it’s not something I’m going to start overnight. I’m going to ease into it over the next few weeks.

I have no idea why but it occurred to me that for about a week or so I’ve heard very few commercial planes. It’s been wonderful! Still hear some annoying small planes and helicopters but it’s been much better even though I don’t expect it to last. A few a day I can handle but when it was every 5 to 10 minutes it really got old.

Not sure I’m happy about the upcoming changes coming to PB. I appreciate that Josh finally admitted that while he’s invested in the community he’s not invested in managing the site and got someone else to do it. However, I don’t like the idea of the new features they hinted at over the next couple of years because I know that new features really means new bugs and kissing old features goodbye that I might actually like and not want to give up. I hate when sites make radical changes but I’m actually surprised it stayed the same this long. This is part of why I like to keep my stuff on different platforms, though, as you just never know.

In reading back on some of my 2010 journals, I came across a section where Maliheh said, “I never pranked you. The police confirmed that from the records the phone company provided, this was necessary before a wire tap could be put on my line.”

But I wasn’t talking about before court. When I accused her of being behind the calls I got, this was after the case got tossed out of court. I assumed it was in retaliation for my pranking her. I don’t think she was the one who did the actual calling, and the pigs should have been smart enough to know that her phone wasn’t the only available phone in the world. She could have called me from someone else’s phone.

In the end, I don’t believe she wasn’t behind the calls any more than I’ll ever believe Termite Tammy didn’t have anything to do with what I went through in Arizona. Of course, she was behind the calls. Sorry, but I just don’t believe in coincidences. Especially ones of that significance.

Also, upon reading back, I don’t think she dumped me after agreeing to be friends with me just to keep her name out of my book. I think she dumped me because I liked her too much for her comfort. Too bad I wasn’t post-menopausal then but you know what? I also wasn’t as smart. Smart enough to stay away from people like her in the first place.

I realized another ridiculous thing about Andy and again, it amazes me how acutely unaware he is of his own stupidity. You know, the things he calls “beliefs” and “opinions” that are actually false facts?

“Ignore what the doctors say,” he told me as far as losing weight with Hashimoto’s goes because he was able to lose weight with edema and hey, so what if they’re two totally different things?

But in 2010, he said he’d only believe I had a sleep disorder if a real doctor said so, not Dr. Jodi.

So they know what they’re talking about or they don’t? Well, docs aren’t perfect but sometimes they really do know what they’re talking about. Also, sometimes our symptoms are pretty obvious and it doesn’t take much research to confirm our suspicions before they’re formally diagnosed.

[killianglyndon]

SCHAFER’S GIFFING TUTORIAL

hello guys! since im doing followers celebration and i think “why not make a gif tutorial too?” i started making gifs around this time last year, and here’s my giffing tutorial!

this tutorial will have basic giffing + coloring tutorials!

BEFORE YOU START:

make sure your video is at least 1080p, i always use 1080p video for my gifs, i think mkv works better than mp4, but it works either way.

filesize can be really big like almost 30gb if you’re giffing from a movie, so it’d be better if you have an external drive to save your files.

i use potplayer to screencap, pls download it from their official site, you dont want to get virus on your laptop.

i use photoshop cc 2019

STEP 1: LOAD YOUR SCREENCAPS IN

go to File > Scripts > Load Files Into Stack then a window will show up tell you to choose your files

STEP 2: CONVERT VIDEO TIMELINE

click “Convert video timeline” then click three little boxes on the left corner in the pic.

STEP 3: REVERSE YOUR SCREENCAPS

once you converted to video timeline, 

1. click three little lines highlighted by red box, then click “make frames from layers”

2. click three little lines again then click “select all frames”

3. click three little lines again then click “reverse frames” (cause when you converted your screencaps to video timeline, it’s reverse, so you need to do this step to reverse it back)

STEP 4: CHANGE YOUR GIF SPEED

i think .05 works the best since .04 is too fast and .06 is too slow.

STEP 5: CROP AND RESIZE

most of my gifs are 540x610px or 540x400px, but sometimes i do 540x540px too. whatever you choose, pls make sure that width is 540px. in this tutorial, i go with 540x400px.

once you cropped your gif, go to Image > Image size > set width to 540 pixels and height to 400pixels, it should change to 400px automatically when you typed 540 into width but if not type 400px manually.

then click okay and click three little boxes on the left corner.

STEP 6: SHARPENING

go to Select > All Layers, and click three little lines on the right > convert to smart object.

after you converted your gif to smart object, go to Filter > Sharpen > Smart sharpen.

my personal sharpening setting has six layers in total, we’ll be adding two smart sharpen layers first.

layer one: amount: 500%, radius: 0.4px, remove: gaussian blur 

then click okay and add another smart sharpen layer.

layer two: amount: 10%, radius: 10px, remove: gaussian blur

then click okay

next, go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur > set radius to: 0.3px then click okay.

then add two more smart sharpen layers and one more gaussian blur layer

layer 3: amount: 500%, radius: 0.3px, remove: gaussian blur

layer 4: amount: 5%, radius: 5px, remove: gaussian blur

blur layer 2: radius: 0.3px

i ususally do step 1 to 6 with action so it saves me a lot of time since once you made an action, you only need to click play action.

STEP 7: COLORING

before we start, i wanted to say that there is no correct way to color gifs, so my coloring process may not be suitable for everyone. and i dont use psd, i color every single gif by hand since every gif has different lightning.

i ususally go from 1 to 5

1. Brightness/Contrast

i usually only adjust contrast unless the gif is super dark, my contrast is usually around 20-40 depending on the gifs.

2. Levels

levels is basically lifesaver and where you make most dramatic change here, like if the gifs is super dark or yellow, this is where you fix them.

i use black dropper to click on the darkest part in the gif and white dropper to click on the lightest part in the gif.

and remember that some scenes are just really dark, don’t over do it, it’ll make your gif look terrible.

before/after Levels:

you can see that we remove the ugly yellow and brighten it.

3. Vibrance

i only adjust Vibrance, usually around 20-35, sometimes i’d adjust saturation too. and pls DO NOT OVER SATURATE IT, over-saturated gif will look lousy and terrible if youre not making smaller gifs like 268x268px

4. Color balance

i like my gifs look white/blue/cold ish, and here is where i cast the spell i mean make adjustment.

5. Seletive color

most of the time i only mess around with color black and white here, black: to add more contrast, white: to make white even brighter. sometimes i’d adjust color red too, if a charater’s face is too red, adjust color red’ cyan.

STEP 8: EXPORT YOUR GIF 

go to File > Export > Save for Web (legacy)

make sure your gif is under 10mb since 10mb it’s tumblr’s gif size limit, and you can only post ten gifs in a post.

my save settings is usually Selective and Diffusion, and make sure transparency is checked. 

here’s the result:

that’s all! if you have any question pls don’t hesitate to send me an ask!!

[erodasfishtacos]

Not Your Charity Case

prompt: Harry is a frat boy - who doesn’t need sympathy from anyone. He makes Y/N feel a sense of home when they’re together. But is Harry just like every stereotypical frat boy?

word count: 6.2k 

warnings: minor violence, language, deaf!harry, smutttt

other: when Harry is talking to Y/N or any other characters - it is to be noted that he is signing. When Y/N talks to Harry - she is also always signing

Let me know if you’d want to see anything else from this verse:)

+++

You were rushed - you really shouldn’t stop at the local coffee shop for a sugary, delicious mocha chip frappuccino.

Despite what people say, professors are much more lax and carefree in college.

It was about two weeks into the new semester, - your third here- and the seasons were changing - becoming autumn.

Chilled breezes, falling leaves, and vivid colors of nature made you happy.

When you arrive in line, there are two people ahead of you. A girl currently in front of the cashier and a tall male with a red and black flannel on behind her- typing away on his phone.

When she moves to the left, the broad man steps forward. His snapback facing backwards, brown curls dancing around his neck. You can’t help but notice how tall and lean he is, shoulders broad and straight.

You definitely haven’t seen him before on campus. You’d remember.

From what you can see, he shows the young girl behind the counter the screen of his phone without saying anything at all.

The raven-haired girl’s face pinches in annoyance. “We don’t accept orders like that. You need to tell me what you want.”

You’re a little surprised by both the rude cashier but also the man who doesn’t respond right away.

He attempts to show her his phone again but she shakes her head - annoyed.

You become interested in the situation when I watch him sign, a few gestures before pointing to his ears. In the most obvious form of saying “I can’t hear.”

The clueless girl gives him a blank look, “Listen, there’s a line. I don’t have time for this.”

You hoped you weren’t overstepping your boundaries when you slide up next to him, tapping him on his shoulder to get his attention.

It is a bit startling how gorgeous the boy is. He was tanned with bright green-eyes and a defined jawline that was currently clenched in frustration.

You sign, “What are you trying to order?”

He studies you for a second with hesitance before his long slim fingers begin to move, slowly as if he thinks you may be inexperienced in the form of language.

He replies, “Large coffee with a little cream and two sugars.”

You squeeze in front of him, “It is not only rude but illegal to not serve based on disabilities. Refusing an order from a deaf person isn’t moral or acceptable.”

The girl has enough decency to mumble an apology and turned bright pink, “Sorry, he doesn’t look deaf. “You roll your eyes - how can you tell that someone is deaf based on solely appearance? This girls a fucking idiot, you think.

You repeat his order to her, along with yours - sliding your debit card towards her and give her your name for the order.

The man trails behind you to the small waiting area. “Thank you,” he signs simply. You nod and return the pleasantry. The. hand him his steaming hot coffee.

“Thank you again. I’m going to be late to class, so I have to go,” he tells me, seeming a little out of place signing with a stranger.

“Go ahead, I’ll see you around.” It was the first time in a long time you’ve signed to anyone outside your family.

+++

Sipping your drink as you are only five minutes late and the class hasn’t even started yet. The man you just helped was sat in the back of the classroom, unloading his laptop.

With a little bravery, you wriggle your way through and plop into the wooden chair easily. Letting your backpack fall to the ground. Curly looks over at you with a frown, he signs, “Why are you sitting next to me?”

You blush, “I don’t know? Thought it’d be good to have someone to talk to.”

His hands are tense as he replies, “I’m not a charity case, so you can leave me alone.”

“Never said you were,” you huff when you tell him. Not appreciating how rude he was being. Signing had its own tones and expressions so to speak. For example, when someone is happy their signs and movements are different than when they’re sad or frustrated.

Harry seems to be the latter. You wrestle out your laptop to the PowerPoint that was going to be discussed today in class. You noticed Harry stared very intently at the professor to read his lips and expression.

You was surprised he didn’t have an interpreter with him but you’re sure he got special accommodations elsewhere. Even though that was absolutely none of your business.

His shoulders are tensed and he makes sure your arms don’t brush like you have cooties for the entire two hours. The nameless boy is up and out of his seat as soon as the professor shuts off the projector and turns on the lights - signaling class to be over.

Well fuck him then.

***

You don’t make the mistake to sit next him again. But that doesn’t mean you could ogle his strong muscular back and big hands.

It wasn’t your place to care but you felt twinges in your tummy when you noticed him struggling to keep up with the fast-speed class on certain days.

You were in the large, rustic library that smelled of old books and damp wallpaper. It was dead silent as people furiously studied or worked on papers due.

As you paced the shelves, you could not find the book you needed for your American Literature class. Fuck the Dewey Decimal System.

Part-time uni students probably just stuffed returned books in any open space they saw fit. But you need this book in particular, a discussion board post due by midnight and it was currently eight-thirty. They had ran out of copies at the on-campus bookstore.

After a valiant effort, you trudge up to the checkout counter. A little sign reads, “ring me if no ones here!”

You impatiently ring the silver bell. But no one comes. You give whoever is working a minute or two but nothing. Another ring it is.

Silence. No one. Of fucking course, luck is not on your side tonight.

You dramatically clunk your head onto the high counter top in front of you - groaning at the fact you may fail the assignment.

A tentative pat on your shoulder makes you snap your head up. To see the boy you’ve been constantly avoiding standing behind the checkout desk.

“Are you okay?” He asks. He had a name-tag on - Harry. He honestly looked a bit out of place. Harry appeared to be a frat boy. He was still had a boyish air about him but an intensity that was unmatchable.

He didn’t look like he would work in the library. He looked like...well he looked like he would be a beer pong referee or something.

You couldn’t see below his torso but he had a plain black snapback on and a vintage Elton John concert tee. A cross necklace dangling over the worn shirt.

You smile, embarrassed, but reply, “Just being dramatic. I can’t find a book and I was waiting here.”

There’s mirth in his eyes when he points to the bell,”Did you ring the bell?”

Your brows furrow, “I did.”

“Well I can’t hear it, I’m deaf,” he deadpans with a straight face and a dry sense of humor.

You roll your eyes, laughing nervously, “I didn’t know you were working!”

“What do you need?”

He helps you locate the book in two minutes flat before checking you out and you rushing home to finish the homework.

You felt bad ignoring your little sister’s FaceTime calls but you promised to call her back tomorrow. 

***

Though once again, you hadn’t interacted with Harry since last week - you constantly found yourself studying his stoic profile or fast moving fingers.

You would never befriend Harry because you feel bad for him - like he presumed. You enjoyed American Sign Language and it actually made you feel back at home.

You’re little sister was born completely deaf. She was much younger than you - eight years old. Fifteen years apart to be exact. You learned the language along with her and your parents.

When you were at home and your sister was there - you guys tried to only sign so she didn’t feel left out. So Harry felt like home - a little despite his completely off-putting demeanor. It made you a little bit more persistent than with any other frat boy.

***

The bulletin board in your advisor’s office caught your eyes. None of the little tabs ripped off in interest.

‘Student with ASL experience and above a 3.5 GPA needed for tutoring sessions - twice weekly. $16 dollars an hour.’

After your meeting, you tugged the little scrap of paper off and tuck it into your pocket. You couldn’t know for sure if it was Harry but you didn’t know of any other deaf students in the program.

You say ‘fuck it’ and type out an email to the advisor of academic affairs and accommodations to throw your hat in the ring.

***

You don’t hear back for three days - nearly forgetting about it in the mean time. Your eyes scan quickly over the email to grant you the position. They include contact information for no other than Harry Styles.

After psyching yourself out a little and a few paces across your kitchen tiles - you text him.

Hey! I’m your new assigned tutor. Would you like to set up a time and place? As well as what kind of help you’re looking for.

The reply text comes shortly after

Hello, thank you very much. I am just in need of hearing ears. I am deaf and have a hard time keeping up with the my professor. I have begun recording the lectures in hope that you can sign then to me.

Sure thing. That won’t be a problem!

I live in Alpha Sigma on 3rd street. I have my own room. I’d rather not have the tutoring session in public. However, if that makes you uncomfortable - we can figure something out.

You take a minute to debate. You understand why this would be a task too loud for the library and why he’d want privacy. You didn’t feel like I’d be uncomfortable with him.

I saw twice a week so does Tuesday and Thursday at seven work?

Sounds great. Thank you again x

Did he know it was me? Was he expecting it to me?

***

He was definitely not expecting you. You automatically knew that by the way his friendly smile dissipated into a frown when he opened the door for you.

You attempted to look nice today without trying too hard. A loose crop top with the university’s name, a pair of tight black leggings, bulky white socks bunched at your ankles, and white sneakers. Very 80’s.

You try to keep your composure, “Hi Harry, I’m going to be your tutor.”

He slowly nods at you, huffing out a breathe of irritation before inviting you into the frat house.

You’d only been here once or twice for a party so you had no idea what the house actually looked like when there weren’t bodies and booze everywhere.

He’s walking you past a group of boys playing FIFA on the flatscreen in the living room, white claws open everywhere.

“Y/N! Hey babe!” You look over to see Niall - one of your good friends from your part-time job at the bookstore - trotting over to you guys.

The blonde pulls you into an overexcited hug. He reminded you of a cuddly, soft puppy dog most of the time.

“Are you Harry’s little tutor?” Niall coos, leaning over to pinch Harry’s cheek. 

Harry- who was observing the conversation, focusing in on our lips, immediately bats his friend away. A small scowl forming on his face.

It automatically turns into a playful brawl where Niall tugs Harry into headlock. But he has no strength on the brunette.

Harry turns out of it quickly and pushes Niall to the ground. He straddles his stomach and begins to jokingly pinch and slap at him.

Niall hisses, “Ouch! You motherfucker! Big oaf!”

Then you don’t know why you find this endearing but Niall signs the word, “uncle” a few times to signal he’s accepted his lost.

The fact that they wrestle so much that Niall learned to sign how to give up made you giggle more than it should.

Harry crawls off of him, running a hand through his messy curls, his face a little flushed.

“I’ll talk to you later!” You tell Niall as your trailing behind Harry up a flight of stairs.

His room is extremely neat. A fluffy navy comfort decorated his bed with a few photos of flowers and nature on his wall. A tidy desk tucked away in the corner that had all of his school work loaded on top of it.

He chooses to sit in his desk chair, motioning for you to perch on his bed. You look at him expectantly when he pulls out the tape recorder and sets it on the surface.

He pulls his laptop into his lap and begins signing, “I need you to transcribe the lecture for me so I can follow it. We can skip through the bits where he is rambling or off topic.”

You nod, letting him know to begin whenever he’s ready. He presses the side button and the recording starts but it super unclear and garbled.

“Did you record this from your seat?” You ask, the professors words nearly inaudible and fuzzy.

“Yes.”

“You need to bring it to the front of the room. Ask Dr. Morrison  to lay it on his desk before class. I can’t hear anything but static and mumbles,” You tell him.

He laughs and shakes his head. His movements rough and angry, “Of course its fucked up. I get you as my tutor and then the recorder is shit.”

You glare at him, offended as you haven’t done anything to this boy. “Excuse me? I’ve literally been trying to help since I’ve meet you. What is your fucking issue?”

“I’m not a charity case! I don’t need you to feel bad for me. I’m not helpless! You’re probably just a silly little girl who took ASL in high school because it was cool and trendy. Go back to focusing on psych.”

“Fuck you, Harry,” Your gestures getting sharper and your face sour, “You know nothing about me so don’t act like you do. I don’t feel bad for you or think that you’re helpless.” You put up a hand and tell him to not talk.

“I was just being nice because I thought you were handsome and at first, seemed friendly. It turns out you’re just like every douchebag frat boy I’ve met. What a disappointment,” You chuckle, swinging your bag on your shoulder and storm out of the room without another look.

***

The cafe was jammed packed - it was Waffle Wednesday. You had said waffles in your tray and were about to plop down on a stool when you hear your name being called.

“C’mere, come sit with us!” He hollers over the commotion of the crowd. Niall.

You’re about to decline when some dude slips behind you and snags the stool. Shit.

A bit unwillingly you slide into the booth next to Niall, cracking open your sparkling water. “Mates, this is Y/N, we work at the store together and she’s Harry’s tutor,” he tells them. “Y/N, this is Liam and Louis.”

“Hello,” you try your best to come off as friendly even though you can feel Harry’s glare on the side of your face. You ended up falling to easy conversation with the boys. Niall has a very limited ASL vocabulary but tries.

The boys are also trying to talk slower and more pronounced so Harry can watch and understand. A couple of times he taps Niall on the wrist to repeat what was going on.

Your phone begins buzzing and you apologize for the interruption. It’s your little sister, Mazie, FaceTiming.

You answer the phone with a frown, signing “Aren’t you suppose to be in school?”

Mazie looks upset, eyes a little watery. She gestures back, “I left early. I’m sick.”

“Are you really sick or where you getting bullied again?” You asks her.

Your sister hesitates before sniffling, “You already know. I hate my school.” 

Mazie has had other children bully her for her disability since she started preschool and it as still happening in fourth grade.

“What can I do to help?” You frown, never wanting to see your baby sister cry.

You chat for a few minutes to help her calm down. When the phone call ends, you don’t realize that all the boys were watching you in interest. Harry in particular, keeps his focus on you with a wrinkled forehead.

“My sister’s deaf,” You tell them. The whole time you’ve been sitting with them you’ve been signing and verbally speaking to help everyone be able to be included in the conversation.

“That’s sick!” Louis says, smacking Harry’s arm. “Just like our lad Harry.” 

Harry grumbles when Louis shakes him a little. It seems like the boys loved to physically interact with Harry which was endearing.

Harry allows him to for a moment before he flicks his cheek hard and laughs when Louis flinches. The conversation goes back to normal.

***

Harry jogs up to you after your group shares farewells and a few punches. You pointedly ignore him as you trek to the class you two have together so it’s not like he can’t walk this way too.

“Please, wait,” Harry asks. He walks in front of you.

“What do you want?” You huff, keeping my glare firm and directed alley at him.

“I’m sorry. I made the wrong assumption.”

“You made a lot of wrong assumptions. The fact that you think of me so lowly is sad. I’ve been nothing but nice,” You try not to focus on his large palms that curve over the caps of your shoulders.

“I’m not very trusting of people.”

You snort rather unattractively, “No kidding”

“Can we please start over?” He asks, stepping back to give you space. He didn’t realize how close he’d been standing to you until your hair wisps across his nose.

“One more chance, Styles.”

Harry lays a hand on your upper arm and squeeze lightly before signing the simple gesture of ‘thank you.’

***

It turns out Harry is very handsy and physically affectionate. It wasn’t creepy though or something that ever made you feel uncomfortable.

You were still tutoring him but you hung around the frat with Harry nearly everyday. The days you just wanted to lay in bed resulted in a grumpy FaceTime from Harry.

Harry once stated during a tutoring session, “It is easier for me to show how I’m feeling with touch than words. If I ever make you uncomfortable - please tell me and I will stop.”

You smile slyly at his words that sounded more like a question, asking if he can touch you. “I guess I’ll let you feel me up every now in again.”

He giggles and looks down wolfishly - like an entertaining thought is dancing around in his mind.

You tuck your finger under his chin to gaze at you. “In all seriousness, I give you my consent to show your feelings with physical touch. I trust you and know you won’t do anything to make me uncomfortable.”

The curly-haired brunette smiles happily, his hand cupping the side of your neck and brushing over your pulse point.

He hadn’t touched you here before and it seems like it was his first goal to do so once he got permission. You can’t help but take in a deep gasp of air. You prayed he didn’t notice but by the small lift of his lips he did.

The simple touch made a flame of arousal swirl in your lower stomach. You felt like you were about to start sweating.

“Anyways,” You clear your throat and snatch back up the recorder. It now had better quality after Harry listened to you about placement.

***

The frat house was ridiculously full of drunk college students. Everybody on the dance floor was sweaty and sticky with a variety of different substances.

Niall had invited you - so you were searching about for him. Pushing through the crowd and nobody was able to hear you say ‘excuse me.’

You finally found fresh air in the backyard where beer pong and cornhole were set up. Niall was tossing his ball across the table, trying to splash in Liam’s red solo cups.

Harry was sitting on a cushioned patio chair, watching the game commence. Maybe he was a beer pong referee after all. 

He looked so fucking good tonight. He had a yellow snapback taming his curls - backwards of course. A black Rage Against the Machine shirt and his signature black skinny jeans. **

You made eye contact and were about to wave when a girl plopped down in the seat across from him.

Awkwardly you turn away, greeting the other boys and taking a seat in a lawn chair to watch them start their third round of the game.

Your eyes keep darting over to Harry who is staring blankly at the girl. She starts stroking his biceps and tracing across the tattoos like they belong to her.

Harry is attempting to let her know he’s not interested. His signs uselessly as she’s staring at his lips and not hands.

You’re moving before you know it, without another thought, you squeeze in between the two - separating them. You dramatically slide into his lap, funnily enough one strong arm wrapping happily around your middle.

The pretty blonde pouts out her lips, “Is he your boyfriend?”

Before you’re able to reply, Harry signs the obvious signal for ‘yes’ to the girl. Then rudely makes the shooing gesture. She’s up with a huff and stomping back towards the house.

Harry turns you sideways on his lap so that you two can see each other’s hands, “You saved me.”

“You’re just such a stud, have to protect you,” You joke - but not really.

He raising his eyebrows and smiles, “You were jealous.” It was a statement not a question.

You blush wildly, avoiding eye contact which you know he hates. He hates anytime you cut off ways of communication.

Harry taps your lips until you look up at him, “it’s really fucking sexy when you are.” A perk of sign language. He could dirty talk just about anywhere and mostly no one would ever know.

His thumb drags on your full bottom lip, signing clumsily with one hand so you had to use context clues to piece it together “Don’t think I forgot when you called me handsome a few months ago.”

“I don’t remember, doesn’t sound like me,” You boldly lie, snickering and nipping at the top of his thumb

His eyes become a shade darker when your teeth meet his skin. He presses his thumb further in until it’s in-between your teeth. The moment is broken when Niall screams, “Styles! You’re up next!”

**

You and Harry become separated after you spent nearly two hours watching all these drunk boys play beer pong. Harry was ridiculously good at the game and only had to drink two cups from the table.

You had wandered back into the house where the party had died down. There were only a handful of stragglers left but mostly just the fraternity brothers and their close friends.

With a fresh alcoholic seltzer in your hand - you didn’t trust open bottles at parties like this - you gaze at Harry through the back window.

Harry was being jumped by Liam and Niall. He was snarling playfully as Liam toppled them all over into the grass. Niall tries to stand up but Harry’s hand wraps around his ankle and makes him fall right back on his bum with a girlish squeal.

Niall leans over to give Harry a wet-willy but Liam manages to throw a plastic cup directly at Niall’s forehead. Harry and the other boys dissolve in childish giggles. Faces red from laughter and liquor. You feel a smile painted fondly on your lips from watching them.

“Hey, Y/N right?” A voice interrupts from behind.

You spin to face a guy you barely recognize from a previous class you shared. You smile nonetheless, “Hi...”

“Jake, Jake from Social Constructs and Society last semester.”

“Oh yeah, that’s right,” You smile and allow him to talk your ear off because you struggle to say ‘no.’ He was fine, nothing special, typical business major who thought he was hot shit because his daddy owned a golf course he wanted to take you to.

It was a normal conversation until his voice gets lower as if he’s trying to be more seductive, “Want to head to a room with me?” He nods towards the staircase.

You chuckle in disbelief at his bold and forward question. “No thank you, I’m good.” You really had eyes for one person right now and he was currently cussing out Niall in sign language in the backyard before tackling him once again to the ground.

“C’mon, I can really show you a good time,” He persuades persistently, stepping into your space - causing your nervousness to spike.

“I said - no thank you,”You bite out, starting to feel scared when he blocks your way out of the kitchen and presses himself against you and the counter.

“You’re really something gorgeous, you know?” He asks, ignoring my struggles to get away from him.

“Stop touching me!” You scream, hoping Niall or one of the boys would hear your wail. He puts a hand up to your mouth to muffle you but that only results in you biting him.

“Fucking bitch!” He cries out, pulling his hand back and winding up to either punch or slap you right in the face. You prepare for the impact.

Then in a blink off an eye, it becomes a blur, a muscular figure is crashing into Jake with full force and knocking him straight into the linoleum floor with a loud crash.

It’s Harry. Broad shoulders and thick but lean tattooed biceps. He’s standing over the harasser and drops on top of him. It shouldn’t look as graceful and tactful as it does.

You’d never seen anything like this from Harry before. Once you really got to know him - he was a gentle giant who liked romantic comedies, soft blankets, and vanilla cupcakes with rainbow sprinkles.

Harry’s fist is repeatedly connecting with the dark-haired boy’s jaw with full force. The only noise is from Jake as Harry is dead silent but his eyes zeroed in on the target.

When blood begins gushing from the man’s nose - Niall and Liam decide it times to physically pull Harry up. Harry had a slight red mark on his jaw when Jake had managed one punch before being defeated quickly.

Harry signs to Niall, “Tell him.”

Niall places his foot on the dude’s chest to keep him down, “My mate wants to let you know if you touch her again we’re not going to pull him off and he’ll gladly beat you to a fucking pulp.”

Jake groans, clutching his nose to stop the bleeding, “Fuckin’ asshole.” 

You were still blown away as you watch Harry’s heaving chest as he glares down at the boy. His fist clenched and knuckle bloody and swollen. Harry’s attention turns towards you. His furious expression melts into worry. You can read his face so clearly. He’s afraid he’s scared you off.

It was hard to believe you had this drop dead gorgeous frat boy defending you past midnight on a Friday night. A boy who didn’t need to hear but just to see you needed help to step in.

All your desires and lusts after the man in front of you burst like a rubber-band and the urge to have him felt uncontrollable. “Take me upstairs,” you demand quickly, arousal creeping up your spine.

He doesn’t understand you’re extremely turned on. Instead he looks like a kicked dog who’s about to get in trouble again.

Nevertheless, he takes your hand and maneuvers out of the kitchen and up the stairs until his bedroom door is closed.

Harry lips are turned down unhappily as he begins, “I’m sorry, love. I...” he pauses a moment before continuing. “I just wanted to make sure you were safe. I hope you don’t think less of me.”

You look him dead in the eye and sign, “Kiss me.”

He blinks slowly at you like he just hallucinate the gestures.

So you repeat your motions, slow and with intent, “Kiss me, touch me, do something.” No more time is wasted as he is stepping in front of you and cupping your face in his hands.

Without any hesitation now, he pressing a bruising kiss to your lips - taking your bottom one between his and sucking.

Your hands are immediately tugging at the hem of his vintage shirt, pulling apart to bring it over his head. Dark ink decorates his torso, for some reason something you weren’t expecting. A butterfly on his abdomen, two fern branches, tattoos on his side.

Harry chuckles, “This is new to me.”

Your eyes go wide and you sign, “You’re a virgin?”

Harry snorts and rolls his eyes before telling you, “God no. I mean I’ve never been able to really communicate during sex.”

Then before You can speak, he cuts in a bit frantically, “I’ve always gotten consent - not like that. I mean-“ You cut him off with a kiss - knowing he would never do anything you didn’t want.

You wanted everything from him.

“If you’d believe it, I like a bit of dirty talk when I fuck - but no one understands what I’m saying,” He tries to crack a joke but for some reason seems insecure and nervous.

“Hey,” You take his chin so he shyly meets your eye, “I can’t wait to hear it - you’ve already made me so wet.” His eyes light up like a kid on Christmas.

“You’re such a good girl,” he signs before tugging off your shirt and instantly finding your lips again. His hands are skillful as they unclasp your bra without any struggle and tosses it.

You tugs a bit as his hair to show your enjoyment as his tongue finds your nipple - lapping before taking it between his teeth. As good as it feels, you want him to feel even better.

You push him back until he’s sitting in the edge of the bed, legs spread and hands behind him on either side holding him up. Jaw clenched with arousal and restraint.

He’s pressed against the zipper of his jeans. And all you wanted to do was see him in all of his glory. You’re quick to undo the button and determined to get the finicky zipper down as well.

His fingers come beneath your chin until you’re looking at his sparkling eyes, a look of lust made his lids a little droopier and his mouth slack from heavy-breathing.

“Are you sure you want to? You don’t have to - I want to eat your pussy either way, pet,” He signs, leaning in for a slow, wet kiss.

You sign back with a pout, “Shut the fuck up.” He huffs out a laugh, letting go of your chin and wrapping a hand in your hair to keep it out of your face.

As soon as he’s helping you wriggle his briefs and jeans down his narrow hips, you’re met with the prettiest cock you’ve ever seen.

When you make eye contact with Harry, he raises a eyebrow and grins cockily, “Is it nice enough for your liking, love?”

You nod breathlessly - wasting no more time before ducking down to take him to your mouth, a slight burning in your throat from how big he is.

His hands keep ahold of your hair, thumbs pressed against your temples as you bob down his length with sloppy, warm licks.

Harry’s moaning as you pop off to kiss and suck at the underside of him, hands coming to cup and roll his balls. It is a few moments later when he taps your cheek to get your attention, one hand leaving his hair to sign that he’s close.

Your mouth speeds up, wanting to give him all the pleasure you could. Your hand coming to stroke at what couldn’t fit in your mouth, pumping quickly.

Before you know it, Harry’s rutting his hips upwards and coming with a long, deep moan from the rumbles of his chest. He’s pulling you up into his lap, pressing appreciative kisses to your cheeks and jawline.

Big hands palming at your breasts before slipping down into your leggings, brushing softly over your mound. 

You whine and hitch forward to grind against his palm as soon as he cups you. He smiles widely at your desperation, pressing the heel of his palm harder against you to create more pressure.

You were already so wet and turned on that it wasn’t going to take much. The ball of your climax was burning low in your tummy. However, you wanted him to taste you like he said he would.

You sign, “I’m close. Please, I want your mouth on me.”

With that, he’s flipping you until you’re laid out on the bed. His hands tugging off your leggings and underwear with no further ado. “Holy shit,” He gestures, gazing all over your body and not stopping on one spot for too long.

“What?” You ask, fishing for the compliments you know he’s about to shower you in.

“You’ve got such a pretty pussy,” he signs, dimples popping in his cheeks and a curious finger traces your entrance before dipping in.

You lightly kick at his stomach, “Get on me.” He pouts, crooking his finger against your spot before pulling it out. Fucking tease.

Then his face is disappearing between your spread thighs and a strong lick is delivered from your clit all the way down to your bum.

Since he can’t hear you, you grabs handfuls off his hair. Tugging at the roots, scratching your nails into his scalp to let him know how good he is. So fucking good.

When you accidentally buck your hips hard against his mouth, you curse and run a apologetic hand through the locks. He doesn’t look up at you but lift a hand and signs, “Again.”

You absolutely whine, begging to ride him with determination - climax on the brink. He hums causing vibrations on the sensitive nerves. With that, your hips are meeting his tongue and you’re coming. His face dampening with your release - happy as a clam when he pops back up.

You can’t remember the sign for condom, so you sign, “Protection?” Harry understands right away, rustling through the drawer until he finds a stray packets, “It’s been awhile.”

“Same,” You gestures - watching as he slides it down his length and crawls overtop of you. He was pink and swollen - having to be a bit sensitive from just coming a little while ago.

“Ready, love?” He asks, pressing soft kisses to your jawline. You nod, reaching down to guide him in.

And you weren’t lying, it had been a while and he was big. The stretch wasn’t uncomfortable, just a lot. But his wet, open-mouth kisses made you stay grounded.

Harry’s moans were absolutely obscene as he slide all the way in before stopping to give you a moment. His arms strong, holding himself over you. The cold metal of his necklaces brushing against your tight nipples.

When you have him the okay, he begin giving you deep, hard strokes on each thrust. His noises so loud they had to be able to hear them downstairs. They were deep and low - rumbling in his chest with pleasure.

Then his hand is coming to your throat. For a wild moment you thought he was going to choke you but instead he rest it lightly, palm flat.

It takes you a moment - then it hits you.

Holy fuck. He is feeling the vibrations of your moans - erupting from your vocal cords. Feeling out the movement from your throat so he can feel how much you’re enjoying it.

You should be embarrassed but you can’t find it in you when you come again right on the spot. His fingertips nudging into the skin to feel the intensity as it wracks through you.

When you’re done riding out your orgasm, he reaches for the headboard behind you with his other hand, gripping it tightly as he begins to pound in with all his strength.

The bedframe is hitting the wall so loud that the whole house must be able to hear it. Hitting with every directed thrust until his mouth is dropping down into a long, timbred moan and he’s coming.

---

Later, when the two are you have settled for the night in the warmth of his bed. Harry seems a little nervous, once again. It takes him a moment to meet your eyes and brushes a strand of hair off your forehead.

“What is it?” You ask, tucked into his side. His body so solid and comforting.

“It’s corny,” Harry frowns, eyebrows furrowing as his eyes flash across your face.

“Tell me,” You insist, bringing his hand to your lips to kiss his fingertips.

“I feel like you were made for me. Like...we were meant to be together,” Harry signs, hesitant to share his thoughts. But it doesn’t scare you away. You can’t help but agree.

“I think so too,” You reply before pressing another kiss to his puffy pink lips.

[taechaos]

A Thriller Film

pairing: director!Jungkook x fem!Reader

genre: oneshot, yandere, smut

synopsis: Jungkook's life is his movies, but people don't know his movies are his life. As an anonymous director, no one can suspect him as the villain in a story, but he leaves a clue in his movie about you.

warnings: smoking, stalking, murder, solo masturbation, public fingering

word count: 5.4k

a/n: i don't know why i put so much effort into this but we love to see it flop 🥰

Smoking is bad, but there are worse things in life.

Jungkook noticed you for the first time when a cigarette was hanging off his lips, exhaling the stress from the process of organizing a new thriller film with a less than cooperative crew. Fresh out of high school, you were bright and skipping on the sidewalk in the early hours of the morning. What would such a young woman, applying for colleges left and right, be so happy about?

He didn't know you at the time, but looking at you was like a breath of fresh air. While he survived off of coffee and nicotine, you seemed to have a lot of happiness to share. Your smile was incompatible with his frown.

So he ignored you when you passed him with your earphones blasting a song so loud, he involuntarily caught the lyrics.

Fall... back... in... to... place.

The second time he saw you, he was smoking again and you were just as happy as the day before. How can someone be so in tune with themselves, with life? The same song played from your earphones, the one he listened to on repeat after searching up the lyrics: Space Song. An urge to approach you surged up in him, but he only watched you as you walked past him. A single glance from you was all it took to anticipate tomorrow.

Today, when he recognizes you from your clothing first; colorful, silky, gorgeous. So much personality in one outfit, a polar opposite to his casual black outfit in jeans and a plain shirt. Even your bag is eye-catching, and he flicked the ash off of his cigarette before nodding at you as you passed the bus stop, reaching the front of his studio.

Why did your eyes just widen? You acknowledge him with a friendly smile, and go on your merry way. That is until he lightly taps your shoulder, and you turn instantly.

"Hey," he greets before you can utter a word, "where are you always rushing off to?"

Your lips part in surprise; the man you secretly - guiltily - side-eyed for the past few days noticed you when you weren't looking? "I have an interview. Well, a few," you chuckle.

"For what?" he tilts his head curiously and takes another drag from his stick.

"Career counseling," you plainly reply, but it sounds enthused. "I'm a clueless graduate." Your hands clutch your tote bag before you discreetly check the time on your wrist. You're going to be running late soon.

"You interested in cinematography?" Smoke follows his words, but you aren't fazed.

"I'm interested in all forms of art, why?"

He notices you checking your watch again. "I'm a film director. This is my studio," he cranes his neck behind him. "You can apply for an internship here. Maybe for a stylist even," he points at your floral romper with his chin as his eyes trail.

You shift your weight on your left foot when his stare flusters you, and you consider his flattering suggestion for only a second before saying, "thank you for the offer, but I need to go now," you grimace sheepishly, "can I think about it?"

"Take your time," he reassures with a sly smile and inhales from his stick, filling his lungs with the sweet scent of your perfume alongside.

He doesn't look away when you walk off with a shy wave, entranced by your struts until he's called back in. It's with newfound inspiration that he's inside of his studio.

The storyboard of his upcoming project needs a few tweaks, and he doesn't fail in enhancing his crew with a different idea.

It’s been a week. Okay, it might’ve been shorter, but Jungkook is impatient. Besides, it didn’t help when he saw you holding hands with someone... so less than. It really baffled him to see you with a guy who wore such shabby clothes. He looks like the type that Jungkook would cast for a flop character.

The two of you are like a toy display across his studio in that cutesy, obnoxious café with a smoothie in the middle of your booth. He chuckles as he lights up another stick when he notices the two straws in the single cup. Cliché, cheesy, but cute in a childish sense. Your age shines through the amateur romance between you and that loser.

It especially shows when you look to the side with a laugh and lock eyes with him; so flustered that you gasp and focus back on your date. What makes you so shy about seeing him? You seemed so confident during your conversation two days ago.

He whistles when he notices a stray dog in an alleyway. You look at him as well but don't hear anything beyond the glass wall, but it catches his attention regardless. He whistles again before saying in a hushed voice, "come here girl." It's difficult to suppress a smile when you gaze at him questioningly, as if trying to decipher his words. "Naive little girl," he mouths as he smokes, "what are you doing with that boy?"

He almost chokes when you take out your wallet in front of a waiter; are you paying for him? That's why you ordered one drink - so you could share? Jungkook isn't cruel but, he finds it laughable that your boyfriend is so... unappealing. He can't help but wonder why you're with him; maybe his face? The boy is somewhat handsome, but he only has his facial features to go by. It's rather strange for Jungkook to think about this in the first place, so he gets back inside his workplace after harshly shooing the stray dog away with a stomp of his foot.

"I'd like to start my internship today."

Jungkook runs his eyes up and down your body while leaning against a brick wall. "Paid?"

"I-I'll do it for free. Besides, I don't know if I'll even work in this industry," you twiddle your fingers while smiling up at him. He intimidates you, but this morning you decided you did enough thinking and here you are, an aspiring stylist all of a sudden.

"Get inside," he nods at the door before stubbing his cigarette and following you to his studio. "You know what you're going to do?"

"I'm going to decide the outfits, right?" The place looks cozy to you, with its minimalistic interior design and blunt switch between the stories. The first floor is strictly for business, with lined up cameras, lights and a microphone. There is even a green screen! And the second floor seems to be more of a resting area with its couches and open laptops, but you can't make out much from the entrance. Jungkook starts walking ahead of you, making a beeline for the black stairs. You tail behind him and smile at anyone who notices you, which isn't a lot of people. It's not crowded.

"Right. We're still working on a storyline, haven't finished it yet so it's possible this project might not be published. You with me so far?" he glances at you, and at your firm nod, continues, "when we finish planning, scripting and shit, you come to play."

"So what do I do now?" you innocently inquire and watch him plop down on the red velvet couch. He clicks on the space of his keyboard to light up his screen.

"I have an idea for a character, and I want to know how you would design her," he vaguely explains as he scrolls through his document.

"You want me to sketch it or explain?"

"Let's hear you out first. Irene," he suddenly calls out loudly.

"Yes?" a female responds from downstairs. You see a woman with a grey cap look up at him, her attire nothing short of casual.

"Come here."

She skips a few steps while climbing up the stairs at his command. You're not awkward when you greet her, and she offers a coy smile.

"This girl - what did you say your name was?" he asks you. You tell him and he continues, "she's going to be our intern. I want you to critique her with me."

"What's she in for?" Irene asks before sitting across from him.

"Wardrobe stylist."

Her eyes widen as she takes a second look at you. Your style is definitely unique, but... immature. She has half the mind to not question Jungkook about his choice.

"Okay..." she trails. "I'm Irene, by the way. I'm going to be an executive producer for the upcoming film."

"Nice to meet you," you brightly chirp. "Sir?"

Jungkook smirks at your addressing of him. "Yes?"

"What is your name, if I may ask?"

"I'm Jeon Jungkook, but you may know me for my pen name Shin Dong-hyuk."

Your mouth falls open when you instantly recognize the name. "Wait, what? You directed My Time?" you incredulously wonder aloud.

My Time is a movie that took the world by a storm; it brought recognition to the whole country for its popularity and clever writing. You never knew the name was a pseudonym, however. It's a suspense genre, about the life of a crazed fanboy who is obsessed with a foreign celebrity. He stalks her on the internet, has a fanpage of her and pays a hefty amount of money to strangers to update him on her whereabouts. He's portrayed as a young college student in the story, and inevitably runs out of cash from reckless spending. When she gets into a dating scandal, he goes on a theft spree and flies out to meet and confront her. It ends with her murder when he finds her with another man in a hotel room, and he stabs himself in the heart afterwards. There are a bunch of clues that foreshadow his ending, from his family life to his friendships. It's an amazing thriller, and you researched his name in the credits to find more of his works after seeing the movie but to no avail; there is only one listed.

"That's me," he nonchalantly reveals as if he didn't just give you the shock of your life. "Don't tell anyone though, will you?"

You whimsically put on an imagery zipper over your mouth while trying to recover from your racing heart.

"I don't have a clear outline, but the female lead is going to be naive but charming. She has to stand out, alright? Happy, extraordinary, special."

"We didn't decide on that," Irene butts in with a displeased expression.

"I forgot to tell you, I deleted our previous plan."

"You did wh-"

"What do you think?" he turns to you as he ignores Irene's shrieks. "What color are you imagining?"

You feel nervous when he puts you on the spotlight after revealing his identity. You close your eyes with a deep inhale before answering, "I'm thinking red and green, like Christmas. There should be a hint of white as well."

Jungkook drinks in your outfit before grinning mischievously. "Perfect." All of your colors.

Stalking is bad, but there are worse things in life.

Is it such a bad idea to follow you home when it's dark out? He kept you for a long time in the studio, allowing you to dress up a mannequin with all sorts of costumes you had in mind in the backroom. He's certain you had fun with him when you left with a permanent grin on your face.

You live with your parents, and he knows for sure he's at least 5 years older than you. You look about 19, so he's assuming he's only 8 years older.

A small villa with windows all around, he observes, before glancing back at your bedroom. The lights are on and you're swinging your legs with excitement on your bed after you face planted on the mattress. He didn't see you greet your parents before running off to your room, and he can't help the smile growing on his face at your hyperactivity. It was like an instinct to walk you home in secret and he isn't sure why he is still watching you. He should look away when you get off of your bed and heave your shirt over your chest, but instead he steps away from the lamp post to hide from the light.

You're changing, and he can't take his eyes off of you. As if that wasn't enough, you unclasp your bra without even pulling the curtains. Do you know he's there? The thought excites him, and his pants begin to tighten around his crotch. He lowly whistles at you, but you don't hear him again. You do look outside for a few seconds while stretching your arms, however, and he's certain you have a connection to him.

He leaves when you put on your pajamas with the image of your bare tits imprinted on his mind. He doesn't head home first, as the studio is only a few minutes away from your home and he wants to leave you a gift.

When the familiar building enters his vision, he doesn't waste time in unlocking the door and switching on a single dim light. He rushes to the backroom after locking the entrance for a second time and unzips his jeans as he goes. You were here not too long ago, and he can pinpoint exactly where you stood while striding to each corner with purpose. Bending, crouching, leaning, doing just about anything to tease him.

Now that he can imagine your perky nipples realistically, he immediately takes out his length from his restraints and picks up a random handkerchief to pump himself with. He doesn't stop to think over his actions; he's acting on urges, on impulse. Never has he ever done something like this.

He's rather relaxed as he sits down on an idle stool to close his eyes and run his hand up and down his shaft. What he would do to press your tits against his cock while he slides it up and down, smearing his cum all over your lips while you sleep. You would swallow it without a second thought once he finishes in your gaping mouth, and wonder why there's a dull ache in your breasts the next morning.

His breaths grow shallow the faster he strokes himself, the more he thinks about using every part of you for his pleasure while you're knocked out cold. He involuntarily thrusts into the air while quiet moans slip out of his open mouth. Something about how taboo it would be to fuck you while you're unconscious turns him on so much. Would that be something you're into?

The handkerchief is so soft, so silky against his length, he can almost imagine it to be your hand. He starts twisting his hand around his cock, from the base to the tip as his other hand palms his balls before he begins to reach climax. Strings of cusses fall out of his mouth when he quickens his pace, the fabric against his skin resounding in his ears before he finally spurts out his cum into the cloth.

"Fuck," he exhales as he coats his makeshift glove with his release. White on white doesn't make much of a difference, and he's panting as he folds the handkerchief to rub it evenly so it sinks in completely.

He leaves it on the stool after zipping his pants, and his eyes twinkle under the moonlight on his journey home.

You aren't alone when you walk to work. Jungkook is taking his usual smoke break while watching you swing your interlocked hands back and forth with the guy next to you. Your smiles exude the same aura, and Jungkook sarcastically notes how compatible the two of you are. The boxy grin shines with the sun, but it doesn't hide the boy's worn out clothes.

"Good morning, Jungkook," you greet before introducing your boyfriend. "This is Taehyung, Taehyung meet Jungkook. I'm going to be under his wing until I decide my major."

"Hello, Taehyung," Jungkook coldly says before blowing smoke in his face.

Taehyung scrunches his nose before chirping, "hi!" He then turns to you and whispers, "I thought you wanted to study medicine."

You shake your head dismissively with a light laugh before responding, "it's just an internship." You let go of his hand and bid farewell with a peck on his cheek before going inside the studio.

"Well, have a good day," Taehyung smiles as he's about to leave before Jungkook holds out his hand to block the way.

"Taehyung, who is your girlfriend?"

"Um," he furrows his brows before saying your name.

"And who are you?"

At Jungkook's blunt question, Taehyung pauses and takes a step back. "What do you mean? Like my full name?"

"No, who the fuck are you? What is your contribution to society? What do you do for a living? What are you wearing?"

"Sir, I-" Taehyung's stammering is cut short when Jungkook asks, "how much money for you to stop leeching off of her?"

He scoffs, "excuse me? I'm not leeching off of anyone, and I'm sure as hell not breaking up with her for your money." Taehyung's face heats up from the shameless confrontation, and he starts walking in the opposite direction.

"So you're not going to leave her?"

Taehyung doesn't turn to look at him as he emphasizes, "no."

"Good."

He abruptly stops in his tracks. "What?"

"Your dedication is admirable," Jungkook comments with a shrug. "I'm satisfied with your answer."

"Were you testing me?"

"Bingo."

He starts chuckling before shaking his head. "I always knew directors were crazy; you scared me for a second."

"Where you headed now?" Jungkook smoothly switches the subject, but notes the fact that you've spoken about him to your boyfriend.

"I have a farm two blocks away." When Jungkook raises a brow, he explains, "I stayed the night with her, so I decided to drop her off before leaving."

"Want me to drop you off?"

It's a kind offer, really, but Taehyung is still put off by the insults thrown his way just a minute ago. Doesn't he have work to do anyway? "That's alright, thank you, but I'll just take the bus. Have a good one, Jungkook."

Jungkook doesn't stop him as they both wave goodbye. He doesn't bother putting out his cigarette before going inside.

Where would be a farm only two blocks away from the city center? It has to be a lie.

You're wandering around the place as to not awkwardly wait for Jungkook who sharply inhales at the sight. He calls your name.

"Yes?"

"What do you want to become?"

"I," you look at him funny with a laugh, "I still don't know."

"Then take a gap year."

Your brows shoot up to your hairline. "Why?"

"I want you to be invested in this project completely. Once the planning is finished, I'll give you a salary. What do you think?"

He's asking you to work full-time for him. Not as an intern, but an employee and you are beyond willing after only being here for two days. He's a famous director; how can one pass up this opportunity?

"I'd love that."

You noticed that Jungkook has a very unique way of working. You've heard that he's been keeping his crew until late at night, already having an outline for his plot and he's moved onto screenwriting. He apparently disappears randomly throughout the evening after you leave, and you've had some different experiences with him of your own.

He asked you to steal from the wardrobe of his backroom. "Take everything that you'd wear," he said before stepping out of the room.

When you confusedly compiled all of the clothes that caught your eye under your arm, he took them from you and brought them upstairs with a huge grin. "Keep that one," he pointed at the handkerchief you thought about lacing your neck with.

Taehyung's quiet with you. He doesn't respond to your texts, doesn't call you, doesn't come over. You're too busy spending time with Jungkook to check up on him, and it serves as a well distraction when you keep glancing at your notifications. It hurts, especially when your wallpaper is a picture of you and him. It hurts because he isn't with you in your proudest moments when you were with him even at his parents' funeral.

The only thing keeping you happy is casting. Jungkook asked you to make a list of all the actors that would suit his characters after giving you a vague description of their traits. The budget isn't an issue, and you're having so much fun. He makes you forget your worries without even trying.

Jungkook intimidates you, but he's so lovely.

A mere "aspiring" stylist is casting actors for a movie. How many people can brag about that? You almost stumble on the stairs as you quickly climb up with Jungkook's laptop in your hands. He gave it to you for research purposes as he drew a rough storyboard with Irene.

"I made a list," you exclaim brightly. Heads shoot in your direction and you sheepishly grin at your volume. Jungkook's eyes linger on your covered neck; it's almost like a collar.

He whistles and beckons you to sit next to him. You obey and anxiously present your list to the professionals; you have no idea how to go on about this task, and no one guided you. You're certain you look utterly amateur in front of them.

Irene is inspecting your list without hinting her thoughts as Jungkook asks, "who are your favorites?"

"Well, I think Kim Namjoon is um, suitable for the male lead's role and Joy-"

"It's decided then," he claps his hands twice without hearing out Irene who scowls at him.

"You're not cooperating with us," she voices in a complaint, "why are you always calling the shots on your own? These are major decisions-"

"Ms. Bae, don't take any offence now. I'm taking your opinions into accounts when I make these decisions. Unless you have an issue with something, let's not dwell on this, hm?"

She sighs as you stand there awkwardly. She's upset, but stays silent.

"The two leads are Kim Namjoon and Park Soo-young. The team will decide the rest of the cast, thank you," he informs you with a ghost of a smile.

"Of course," you breathe.

You don't know how long it is supposed to take to shoot a film, but surely it's not this fast paced. Jungkook is relentless with his production; there are hardly any breaks in between takes. There are bags under his eyes from pulling all nighters to work on his scripts.

He is a perfectionist and a hard worker, as you've come to find out. You feel bad for the amount of times the actors recited their lines when they didn't capture a scene right in Jungkook's eyes. It was an honor for you to meet these famous people beyond a screen, and you were strictly ordered to do Joy's makeup only. You are her stylist, but the professional one does help you after she's finished with Namjoon's.

"Cut," Jungkook says into the speaker. You're located in a rented mansion outside of the city, but you can't enjoy it when everyone is so stressed. "Start over from line "he's leeching off of you"."

Even actors can't hide their annoyance from having to do a 25th take of one scene. Jungkook pays them enough to go on with this torture however, so they have no room to complain.

They start over and you force yourself to watch them again and again.

"Oh my god, cut!" You can hardly resist groaning yourself. Everyone on set is overworked, and you know the director has it the worst, but it's overwhelming you too at this point. You flinch when your name is called. "Act Joy's lines, will you?"

"Me?" you point at yourself in surprise.

"Go ahead," he urges with a nod.

You have no idea how to act, and it's nervewracking having to do it in front of A-listers. You pick up the script handed to you from another woman and start reading:

"He's not leeching off of me," you pause to inhale shakily; your hands tremble from the heavy stares on you.

"I'm his family, the only one he has left. No one would know if he was gone, and he trusts me to look after him without having to dangle a dollar bill over his head."

This goes on until the final scene, and the retakes cut down to half.

A few months pass, and it is time for the premiere. The movie, simply titled Pretty Girl, easily got a green light for display in theatres, and it's been heavily promoted on YouTube and TV. You are excited to your core, and watching the celebrities walk the red carpet was a first for you. Jungkook easily blends in with the crowd as he once again didn't reveal his real name in the credits, but his pen name is gaining more and more recognition. You have never seen the movie throughout the editing procedure, but you can't wait to see everyone's efforts show on the big screen.

You're dressed fancily because Jungkook asked you to go with him, and the two of you are sitting in the crowded theatre with not a single empty seat to be seen. Even the entrance is decorated in retro style to fit in with the movie's theme! The jazz music playing in the halls reaches your ears, and your knees are bouncing in anticipation of the movie. Jungkook is smiling as he listens to you ramble.

"I can't believe I played a part in this whole project!" you gush with shaking fists. "I met the best director I know, and I worked for him! This all feels like a dream... No one even likes my style, and yet I became a stylist!"

"I love your style," he denies, "even now you have all the attention in the room."

"Pfft," you roll your eyes playfully, "they all think I must look weird. I tried to wear something classy so I don't stand out, but it hasn't been working out."

"Keep it that way, you're beautiful like this."

Heat creeps up to your cheeks at his compliment and you squeak, "thank you."

He doesn't get to relish your flustered state as everyone goes quiet once the movie starts.

The time period is unclear, as the language is modern but the filter is black and white. The first scene is in a bar, a man in a suit eyeing a woman with a date who is an outcast with his clothes. They're washed out and ugly, but he looks handsome with his dazzling smile at the woman.

An involuntary grin spreads across your face when you hear their dialogue.

"I want to touch someone's shoulder to see how they react. Did you see how they looked at me when I walked in here? I think they think I'm your sugar baby or something," Jimin's character jokes with a laugh.

"I know! They're all so boujee, but I'm willing to be your mommy without sugar," Joy winks. They have fun until Jimin leaves to the bathroom and Namjoon's character approaches her, who has been staring at her ever since they walked in. Joy is offered a modeling career, and she accepts after she's told that her fashion only works with her because of how beautiful she is. She's bashful when Namjoon gives her a business card.

Jungkook's film is only over an hour long, but everything is timed so perfectly. His directory is straightforward, and you admire his work until a song comes on.

"That's my favorite song!" you whisper into his ear. It's Space Song by Beach House.

"Mine too," he whispers back.

There are montages of photo shoots, Joy's rise to fame in the modeling industry, but the trouble is Jimin, her boyfriend. Namjoon confronts him one day when Jimin drops her off to her new workplace.

"How can someone so poor be able to court a woman like her?" he asks rhetorically.

"Excuse me, Sir?" Jimin is offended until Namjoon laughs it off and reveals it was a joke. The audience sighs in relief, and all is fun and games until Jimin is brutally murdered next to a dumpster. You gasp at the gore scene and glance at Jungkook, until something dawns on you.

The story is starting to sound familiar. Was this movie inspired by your encounters? Your eyes light up as you give your utmost attention to the movie. The line between reality and fiction is beginning to blur.

Joy goes to Namjoon's house, where the dialogue you first reenacted comes to play. The shots are gorgeous, the script filled with metaphors on poverty and currency, and the romance is sickly sweet. There is a sex scene not long after... Joy forgets all about her boyfriend in the snap of Namjoon's fingers.

You tilt your head when you remember Taehyung. Where is he? How come your boyfriend didn't even show up to this life-changing experience?

Jungkook's hand slides over your thigh out of nowhere, as he murmurs, "do you mind?"

You stammer when his fingers reach under your dress to poke at your panties. "S-Sorry?"

"I said," he grazes your folds as you tense at the feather light touch, "do you mind if I touch you, pretty girl?"

Your chest heaves as your lashes flutter in a daze, but you nod nonetheless. His low raspy voice already has you clenching your thighs, unintentionally trapping his hand against your pussy. He's gentle, almost curious with the way he runs his fingers over your silky underwear before he moves it to the side. You're shivering with delight and thrill, and you don't take your eyes off of each other as he begins to flick your clit carelessly.

"Looks so pretty on you," he compliments the makeshift choker on your neck. It's his handkerchief you wore for the occasion, unaware that it's dried with cum. He pulls on the knot like it's a collar, and you're entranced. Your pants fan his lips at the close proximity, and he doesn't shy away from slotting his mouth against yours. You quietly moan into the kiss when his thumb starts to rub your clit, and his long finger pokes at your entrance.

"You mind?" he murmurs against your lips, his words slightly slurred as he doesn't stop kissing you. The wet noises are drowned out by the loud volume of the movie, but you can't focus on what's going on.

"I don't," you breathe before he slips in two fingers, exploring your walls with precision. He's multitasking as he circles your sensitive clit, and you're not very experienced in regards to sexual encounters but your hand lands on his hard-on anyway.

"Don't be shy," he chuckles into your neck, "touch it."

You don't know what you're doing when you slip your hand under his pants and palm him over his briefs, but his sigh is encouraging you. You're touching each other in a room of 100 people.

It's embarrassing when his free hand joins yours to help you touch him while simultaneously fingering you. He must have sensed your lack of confidence, because he starts to stroke his erection over your hand. You start to imagine his fingers as the real thing, and with your particularly low stamina, have a hard time suppressing your whines.

"Kiss my neck," he suggests as a solution to your nibbling. You didn't even realize your nether lip is bleeding from how hard you were biting on it. You bury your head in his shoulder and start pecking his neck. He holds back a laugh at how shy you're being, and he feels proud for predicting this moment perfectly in the movie. Joy is having the time of her life with Namjoon, unaware of Jimin decaying in the attic.

He quickens his pace in your cunt, and you bite him rather harshly at the sensation. He hisses with a chuckle; he likes it when you're impulsive. He can pick up the squelches from his thrusts because of how wet you are, and you climax all over his fingers in a matter of seconds with a whimper. You're twitching in your seat, and your hand strokes him faster but he stops you.

"In my studio," he says and you nod tiredly against his shoulder. The issue isn't that he doesn't want to cum in his pants, but the movie needs to become reality. He wants to fuck you on that one stool, with Taehyung's corpse decomposing in the backroom.

Jungkook always adds a pinch of fiction to his stories, but they're mostly based on true events. If you paid attention to the ending, maybe you would've realized that.

Lying is bad, but there are worse things in life.

[kimnjss]

just hanging out | jjk

⤑  series: cherry pickers

⤑ pairing: gamer(fuckboi)!jungkook x video vixen(virgin)!reader

⤑ genre: fluff!... some angst at the end if you squint.

⤑ rating: pg13

⤑ word count: 3.9K // unedited.

⤑ warnings: lmao second hand embarrassment probably.

⤑ A/N: hey :( love you all who have been enjoying this story nd sending your thoughts in - they really make my day. so thank youu! let me know what you think x 

FEBRUARY 22ND, 2020 | 16:49

Casual. You're constantly reminding yourself the entire time you're getting ready. This was supposed to be casual. This was not a date. So there was no reason for you to go through the process of getting ready for a date. You didn't shave, just took a regular shower with the regular soaps. 

Spent very little time in the mirror when getting dressed, there was no need for frilly shirts or form-fitting pants. Instead, you settled for a pair of ripped jeans and a hoodie that Taehyung had lost a little while back. Minimum makeup, hair up, and out of your face.

Needed to cement it in your mind that this was not a date. Steal away any reason for you to act like it was one. No matter how much you knew you'd enjoy the whole shebang, candlelit dinner, romantic walk admiring the night sky, kiss on the doorstep – you had to ignore that.

Bottle it up and stuff it down because there were many things you didn't know about Jungkook and the bits you did know weren't great. His shitty friends being at the top of the list. So, until you were sure he wasn't like the lot of them... not dates were what you'd settle for. Because at the end of the day, you wanted to see him.

It's a thirty-minute drive from your house to Jungkook's and you spend the entire car ride agonizing on how this 'not date' was going to turn out. And then immediately scolding yourself for freaking out over something that shouldn't matter as much as you were making it out to be.

For all you knew, he probably was just waking up... barely remembering that he had plans with you. Most likely hopping in the shower just minutes before you were said to arrive. Mmh, Jungkook in the shower. Droplets of water rolling over his tone skin, following the dips and ridges until...

It's hard to shake the image of Jungkook showering out of your head once you've got it there. Even with his insistent need to wear baggy clothes, it didn't take a detective to see that the kid was ripped. No doubt spent hours in the gym working on his arms, his abs, his thighs...

Nope. Not going there. No reason to go there when you were on your way to hang out, innocently hang out with a guy that you were just barely friends with. That's all it was. Two people getting to know each other after clicking the first time they talked. God, the way you clicked with Jungkook was unbelievable. 

He made you laugh. And it was weird because you don't remember ever feeling this comfortable around someone this quickly. Jungkook was different. At least you hoped he was. Instantly, you're shushing your thoughts. Refusing to mentally put so much pressure on something that more than likely become nothing.

Getting your hopes up too early was the reason why people got hurt in the first place. So this wasn't a date. And you weren't going to expect him to treat it as such. Just hanging out to get to know each other. That was it.

That was it. Your new mantra as you shove your car into park, heading up the walkway to his front door. Knocking while repeating those four words to yourself. Casual. That was it.

You're not even waiting a full minute before the front door is being pulled open, revealing a fresh-looking Jungkook. Dark hair falling in pretty waves, on either side of his pretty face. He seems to be glowing and you feel it throughout your entire body when he smiles.

A baggy pink sweatshirt swallows his figure, paired with equally loose gray sweatpants. His house is spotless when he lets you in, obvious that he spent the duration of the morning cleaning. The smell of Lysol still lingered in the air. Even the white socks on his feet seemed oddly clean.

You can't help but smile at the effort, allowing yourself to believe that all the trouble was for you.

Once he's setting your shoes in his extremely organized coat closet, he's leading you through the house. Smiling big as he gives you a mini-tour of the first floor and you swear you're paying attention. You're trying your best at least, but it's hard to concentrate on anything that wasn't how cute he looked.

“And this is the arcade,” He's showing off both rows of teeth with his broad gesture into the room located at the end of the hall. Obviously proud of this part of the tour.

As he should be. When the kid said arcade, that's exactly what he meant. Old school game machines lined the walls, ones that you'd actually find in an arcade. Some games that you've never heard of before. All with the high score name: 'Koo'. A dramatic two-person car racing game tucked in the corner.

There's a curved 90 inch TV mounted on the wall, in front of it on a stand is every game console ever made. He has his laptop set up in the room, with two monitors and two gaming chairs in front of it. In the middle of the room is the most comfortable L shaped couch.

All you can say is, “Whoa.” And he's laughing at your reaction.

“It's my favorite room in the house. Well... aside from,” His eyes shift up, obviously gesturing to upstairs where his bedroom is.

The insinuation has a blush darkening your cheeks, but you choose to ignore it, stepping further into the room with a tiny gasp. “You have Skee-ball!?” He's right behind you as you rush across to the room to where the game is set up. A manicured nail pressing against the start button, grinning wide up at him as the balls roll down.

Bright red numbers flash on the screen, the high score followed by his name: 310...Koo. A smirk instantly settling onto your features as you reach for one of the bright-colored balls. “I'm gonna beat that,” Lifting a finger to point at the numbers on the screen.

Jungkook is letting a loud laugh leave his lips, a pretty smile settling on his features as the sound dies down. “That took me two weeks... good luck,” Drawing your hand back, you release the ball on the swing. Watching as it travels upward toward the slots, dropping right into the gutter.

It takes four throws before you're getting it right, the ball traveling up the slope and directly into the 40 point slot. You're letting out a loud whoop, arms lifting in slight victory.

Eyes wide, you're turning your head to face him. “You saw that!?” You're shocked that he's already looking at you. With this soft lovey look that you were the one to hang the stars in the sky. And it makes you wish that this was a date because if it were you'd be able to let yourself enjoy the feeling that comes with the way that he's looking at you.

But it's not a date. So you don't. Shove the fuzzy feeling away with a shake of your head, reaching for another ball from the rack and thrusting it forward. 

FEBRUARY 22ND, 2020 | 18:08

Jungkook is scary good at games. Like scary good. If he wasn't matching your score, he was doubling it. Didn't even graze his high score in Skee-ball and every game after that was his domain. And he was having fun beating you, the smile growing on his face each time you were crossing your arms with a pout – claiming the game had to be rigged.

Foosball to Car Racing to Dance Dance Revolution (he had way more rhythm than you'd expect). You've settled down quite a bit since you first showed up at his house, finding it easy to relax around him. He was cute when he got competitive, not like you were much of a competition in these games... but it was nice to see him like this.

The scrunch of his nose as he focused on the screen. The cute dimples that popped out whenever he won. And how he mindlessly sat close to you, engulfing you in his sweet scent. There was just something about being with Jungkook that made you feel at ease, could someone who made you that comfortable really be as bad as his trash friends?

His shoulder brushes against yours as he settles further into the comfort of his couch, his thumbs moving over the controller quickly. Implementing combo after to defeat your character. In the fourth round of Mortal Kombat and you've only one once.

“Hey! You said you'd let me win,” He's laughing, not even letting your character get up before the large K.O. letters appear on the screen and his person is giving their little victory remark. A dramatic huff leaves your lips, the controller being tossed to the side to cross your arms over your chest.

All he wants to do is lean in and kiss that pout off your lips. Has wanted to kiss you since he beat you in table tennis. You're so pretty and he can't hold back from moving closer to you, guiding your movements just so he can have an excuse to touch you. And he doesn't miss the way you blush. The cute giggles that you let out when he flirts with you. Making him want to flirt with you more just so he can hear the sound.

“I tried,” He speaks through a laugh, taking in the skeptical look on your face. “I did! You're just so bad,” His eyes watch your fingers move around the controller, switching the screen to the character choice.

Gasping when his words sink in, landing dainty punches onto his shoulder. “You're mean! Rematch. I'm not bad,” Jungkook's pressing start on the game as soon as you both have picked your characters, leaning back against the couch as he instantly starts trying out combos on you.

Your whines and protests are cute. It's all he can focus on when he's supposed to be paying attention to the game. And the shout of triumph you let out when you're managing to knock his character down squeezes at his heart, he can't help but turn to look at the smile on your face.

“Look at you losing!” He's sure his health bar is at the end by now, but he can't tear his eyes away from you. In awe, because how could someone actually look like that? So effortlessly... beautiful? 

The tip of your tongue poked out the corner of your lips, brows furrowed as you work hard to take him down. So wrapped in the game, you don't even realize that he had stopped playing. It's his luck too, no telling how embarrassed he'd be if he was caught staring. Yet, he can't bring himself to look away.

Not until you're jumping up excited, clapping for yourself and your win. “Did you see that?” Your body is whipping around, forcing a surprised look on his face. Worried that you might've caught the way he had been looking at you. “I just fucking destroyed you! You can't even say that was beginners luck, either.”

You're lifting your hand for a high five, which he's happily giving to you. His smile matching yours as you flop down on the couch beside him, thighs grazing over each other and he feels it in his chest. “Do you want a chance to redeem yourself?”

Not even a minute is spared for him to answer because you're already starting up a new round. He's got his game face on now, shaking himself out of the daze. “Can you believe I just kicked your butt?” There's this taunting look on your face and all he wants to do is lean over and kiss you.

He takes for teasing you instead. Noticing your ridge posture that he had commented on in your picture. “I don't know how,” A large hand reaches over to touch your back, your body automatically leaning into his touch. “Your form is all off, it had to be luck.” Just a bit of pressure is applying to your back and you're slouching forward.

With a laugh, you're rolling your eyes – reaching a hand back to swat his away. “Watch me beat you like this too. I'll even let you pick my character,” You've been using the same girl since you started playing while he's surfed through the entire catalog. He's taking you up on the offer, picking one of the bulkier characters that don't do all the jump moves you seem to love so much.

And you still beat him.

This time distracted by the frustrated rants from you whenever your guy doesn't do what you tell him to. Time runs out and he ends up having less on his health bar and you're taking that as a proper win, lifting your hand for another high five.

Jungkook congratulates you quietly, more so trying to figure out just what was going on inside his chest. He's had girls over before. In much more intimate settings than this... but never has he felt like his heart was about to burst through his chest. This unbearable feeling to be close to you and it's quickly becoming all he can think about.

You're just so pretty. And you look oddly sexy in your sweats. But it's not just that. There's something else that he can't really place that's pulling him to you. Making it hard for him to stop thinking about stupid things like holding your hand or kissing your cheek. Imagining if days like today were the norm and after he'd grow tired of playing games, you'd let him stretch out his head in your lap – playing with his hair.

And it has to be crazy because this was only the first time the two of you were alone. The late-night texts being all he had to back up knowing you, but at the same time, he felt like he knew you. Like he's known you well. He can't describe it either, but he's almost positive that you feel the same.

“Are you hungry? Should we order a pizza?” You've already whipped your phone out, reluctantly putting a bit of space between the two of you as you scroll through your phone. Jungkook is quick to agree, fingers moving over the buttons on the controller to switch the TV.

No idea why he all of a sudden feels so nervous. “Sure,” He's managing to mumble out, but you're not listening. Already putting together a pizza for both of you. “Do you, uhm... do you wanna watch a movie? Something on Netflix?” Your thumb is stilling on the screen at the mention of Netflix.

Yoongi's playful warning ringing loudly in your mind. 'Playing video games was just Netflix and Chill with more steps,'. But there was the chance that he was actually tired of playing games and wanted to watch a movie with you. It didn't have to be that serious, you had been going at it for hours.

“Yeah, go ahead. Pick something.” His body slouches back on the cushions, scanning through the movies halfheartedly before choosing a random one with a really long title. After tapping his fingers against the screen, the neon orange lights in the room are dimming. A comfortable warmth settling around you.

Jungkook watches as you take your time putting the order together. The beginning credits playing on the screen and he's not even paying attention, too busy with his eyes glued to you. “I got meat lovers, you like that, right?” Setting your phone aside, you allow yourself to sink into the comfort of the cushions. 

“Mmh, my favorite.” Not a lie. It really was. And the fact that you had chose it without knowing just added to everything about you that made him want to kiss you. A small smile spreads across your lips as you nod, turning your attention to the screen in front of you.

The two of you sit side by side, watching the characters on the screen, but you're not listening. It's hard to hear over the pounding in your chest. The nervous bounce of his leg as if he was waiting for something. And you have no idea what because the pizza is no where near being on its way.

A pretty girl is in an argument with her male lead, something about debt and you're trying your hardest to follow the storyline. Although, you have no idea what this movie is and why he picked it. 

It's the thick yawn from beside you that catches your attention, Jungkook's arms lifting over his head in a stretch. You don't think much of it, other than the fact that he's being a little dramatic with his stretch. Until the arm closest to you is dropping down, not at his side like it had been before but around your shoulders – gently tugging your body into his side.

“Did you just do the yawn move on me?” You can't help but laugh. Even through the darkness, you can see the pink tint on his cheeks. “Shh, this is my favorite part.” You're actually positive that he's never seen this movie before, but don't put up a fight. Instead, you let yourself lean into his chest.

He's warm. And smells like flowers. His eyes don't move from the screen as he's reaching down, soft hands reaching for the outside of your knee. Slowly, he's lifting your legs onto his lap, only glancing in your direction briefly to gauge your reaction. Leaning back when there's no sign of you wanting to move.

“Your feet are so small,” Toes curling at the random attention, you're leaning over to reach for his face attempting to pull his focus. “Don't make fun of them! What the heck?” He's laughing loudly at you, allowing you to move his head. Shifting his focus from your feet to his face.

Your fingers are cold against his warm skin, but he can't keep himself from leaning into your touch. “They're cute.” Big eyes scan over your face, smiling softly when they're landing on yours. “You're cute.”

Almost instantly, the atmosphere in the room seems to shift. And you're not sure how he did it, but the way he was looking at you, the soft whisper in his voice... you can't but melt in his strong arms. Basically sat in his lap and it's nice. Jungkook takes his time with inching forward, entering your space which has your hand falling from his face.

He's quick to replace your hand with his one your cheek, tilting your head up toward his. You're sure he's going to kiss you. It's obvious with the slight pucker of his lips, the droop of his eyes, he's tapping a rhythmic beat against your knee ten times faster than the rush of your heart. He was going to kiss you.

Jungkook was going to kiss you and it felt like you couldn't breathe. Nerves on a ten because this wasn't even supposed to be a date. And now you were in this situation and you weren't the least bit unhappy about it. You wanted him to kiss you and it's a new feeling that you don't fully understand. It freaks you out.

Just inches from your lips and your face is twisting up, head jerking back before he can reach you. “What are you doing?” Instantly hating yourself for the embarrassed look on his features that slowly morphs into a puppy dog pout.

“I was going to kiss you...” Jungkook mumbles out sheepishly, dropping his arm from your body to push his hair back. Making an effort to put some space between the two of you, trying to figure out where he had gone wrong.

Because in his mind he had done everything right. Had been making you laugh all night, set some type of mood, told you that you were cute. And you seemed to be enjoying yourself... so what was he missing?

“Why would you do that? This isn't a date, Jungkook.” The mantra that you thought you had worked into your head seemed to be slipping. Not sure when you had forgotten what this was supposed to be, but now it was all rushing back to you.

The reasons you had rejected going on an actual date with him in the first place. And the realization of how stupid you were to think that this was a proper substitute for it. No matter what you decided to call it, it didn't erase the fact that this... tonight, with him... felt like a date.

And it wasn't supposed to.

“Do you kiss all the people you just hang out with?” It's wrong to put the blame on him and only him, but you can't help it. You're a mess in your head for a plethora of reasons, because it had been obvious. How he was looking at you, his arm around you, your legs in his lap... everything that you decided to ignore.

But in the same breath, he told you this wasn't a date... so why bother with all sweet shit. Turning movies on for one reason. Maybe you were reading too deep into all of this? Maybe you were overreacting. Jungkook didn't act like his friends when he was with you, maybe he was really different.

“Oh, come on, Yn... are you being serious?” He doesn't look all too embarrassed anymore, just a little bit sad from the rejection. It's fine, though. He'll live. “Dead serious, Jungkook. You got me here saying this wasn't a date. You need to stick to that,” You felt strongly on that part.

You had told him you didn't want to go on a date with him and even though this 'not date' was literally the same thing, he shouldn't act as if you had said yes to a date. Right? He should keep his word, that way things wouldn't get messy. Like right now.

Jungkook seems to put it together in his head, nodding his head in agreement – yet, the pout doesn't leave his lips. “Alright, alright. Fine. My bad,” He's tugging at the rolls of fabric on his sweats, avoiding eye contact with you. Dark hair covering his eyes, all you can really see is the pink of his lower lip.

And you feel bad, even though you know you shouldn't. It's not like you would've hated kissing him. It was just too nerve-racking to think of doing right now. You didn't quite understand it yourself, so there was no way you could go and explain it to him.

Instead, you're extending a finger. Poking the tip of your nail into his knee. “Don't pout. Come on, you'll miss the best part.” Referring to the movie that you're both watching for the first time, but it has a smile pushing onto his lips. His head lifting and gaze shifting onto the TV screen.

“Sorry,” He mumbles out after a moment, but you're not sure if he's apologizing for the almost-kiss or something else. Either way, you're flashing a genuine smile in his direction, lifting a hand to playfully shove at his shoulder. “Don't worry about it. It's fine,”

It really was.

— known for your body and surrounded by rumors about your sex life… rumors that he doesn’t think to doubt. until he’s meeting you… forced to realize there’s much more to you then the thonged shorts and lacy costumes.

⤪ masterlist ⤨

⇝ taglist: @randomkoalablog @smoljams @jaiuneamesolitaiire @hehehehahahohohuhu @houseofarmanto @preciouschimine @chocobetterknot @kookiesjoonies @ashleyjoyx @thia-aep @jinhitwhore @silentlyimpractical @acc3ssdenied @triviasjms @joonies-babyy @bangtansonyeondayyyum @bangtan-noona @mipetronella @lilacdreams-00 @strawberryforever25 @tae165 @jikooksgirl19 @dee-ehn @butterflylion @alterlovess @joontopia @my-odd-mix @yeontanie21 @sw33tnight​ @kookiesdoe @daydreambrliever​ @elliemeetsevil​ @hellotherehoneybee​ @bangtansbun​ @taefect94​ @tricethecharm​ @pjmcth​ @0xmysticx0​ @samros95​ @codeinebelle​ @vmin-soulmate​ @bluewhale52​ @thecityrain​ @rageyoudamnednerd​ @kookoo-kachoo​ @diminieshoe​ @kelitt​ @soulstaes​ @ayyyocee​ @betysotelo18​

⇝ taglist: @elephantdoors​ @ratking101​ @amour-quinn​ @gemad08​ @yoooonie​ @ughtear​ @ambersaesthetics​ @peachy-tata​ @moonlitmyg​ @trinityxsope​ @diorhobii​ @miagracegrande​ @tom-hollands-wife​ @loveyoongles​ @seokjinslittledumpling​ @kerikaaria​ @ggukkieland​ @gwsyoongi​ @salty-for-suga​ @beeeb05​ @dionysusrage​ @jungkookspromise​ @princecalpal​ @agustneeds​ @neverthefirstchoice​  @agustdakasuga​ @veronawrites​ @omot7​ @agirlintheparkjimin​ @wildly-lost-lantern​ @goldenkookietae​ @ephyraaaa​ @take-u-2-an0ther-w0r1d​ @sungieshines​ @embrace-themagic​ @kim-ji-hyeons-world​  @mrksmrks​ @hyunjinhasmyheart​ @paddingtonrue​ @itsrapmonstanotdancemonsta​ @veryuniquenamegoeshere​ @niieceyy​ @lowlifeoeuvre​ @lee-karliah​ @angiexyoung​ @marifujioka​ @softlyjins​ @mochibabycakes​ @producerjk​ @hqtetsurou​ 

⇝ taglist: @heyitsbreeeeee​ @munkey888​ @bbyjoonies​ @prdshobi​ @myworldisgone11​ @kthvol6​ @soloikeadates​ @illwritetomorrow​  @jiminbabyluv​ @parkjammys​ @mypurplelamp​ @namjinsbbyj​ @hansolsrightnut​ @vanillabrightlightning​ @huhuehuey​ @jiminshibaby​ @rjsmochii​ @certifiedcrazycatlady​ @jayyayyy17​ @my-current-mood-is​ @bangpink123​ @btsbed​ @definitely-not-tina​ @jeonsbae01​ @metaethically​ @kb-bangtanenthusiast​ @ardenlovesyou​ @simplymemyself​ @jin-from-the-block​ @janieooo​ @xxstrangegirlxxx​ @pastelbleuet​ @pxjiminsi​ @ruinsofangels​ @ladyarmanto​ @bloopkook​ @hopiebabie​ @bigimpression​ @xinyourdreamsx​ @hisunshiine​ @uxwi​ @yayo-kittty​ @taejinminsu​ @miss-jupiter​ @btsbangtanbois​ @sugalou​ @pjminmin​ @lukeofmine​ @94ser0da​ @kim-jias-den​

⇝ taglist: @imezz @itookallthejamsbruh @kimsouthjoon @ephyra1230​ @telepathylftv @awhnamjoon @jkismyasmr @eyereen @gldnrecs​ @jiminddaeng​ @morndas​

⇝ taglist: @squirrelandcrafts @sweetnight @kooafraid @trynavibewhileicry @eatjeanjin @nightapple4jk @localjisung @aureumjeon @kooknova @ardoren @diamonddia-mond @dammit-jjk @jwlmnbt @jiminsreads @poisoneveyyy @girlontheblock @bunny-on-crack @sweetestdreamssuga @tommasauras @cecedrake2217 @bangtan-ology @hobiismyhopeu @subtlepjiminie @bangtangrl @kooks3uphoria @vampgguk @alpaca1612 @gukkiecuddles @hazefilter @nochujjk97 @smol1 @mama-m0chi @blue1928 @babelleerr @awhnamjoon @rlynotme @jaywalksalloverme @bansheehunteremissary @kai1697jeon @giadalin @ladyartemesia @xxunmeixsenpaixx @ot7always-main @msunnsstuff @tew-atx @lierr007 @bishuthot @jaebeomsblackgf @taexmichi @lovingele @patpus @anothershorthuman @izzyexe @clouds-of-my-breathe @okaysoplshelpme​ @chogiyeol-utopia​​ @iforgotthemelody​​ @kookiepout​​ @sunshine-ybba​​ @lovelyseomin​​ @super-btstrash-posts​ @calikoocat​  @richkookie​ @yoong-i​ 

A/N: timestamps make sense throughout the fic. if u want to be added to the tag list, send me an ask! + if you’ve asked to be on my permanent taglist, you do not need to ask to be added to this one !!

[jlalafics]

"Photograph"-a Royal!Everlark story

This was inspired by this prompt from @writing-prompt-s:

When you were seven, you held a fake wedding by the swings with a kid you met at the park. You never saw your childhood “spouse” again after that day. Today you received a letter summoning you to a foreign country… where your wedding to the heir to the throne twenty years ago is seen as valid.

This is totally unedited. Thank you to @sparklingdust4612 for bringing this prompt to my attention. Looking forward to everyone else's interpretations along with this one and the story by @jhsgf82!

I actually have more of this but I thought I'd show y'all a little bit of my interpretation of the above prompt.

****

We keep this love in a photograph

We made these memories for ourselves

Where our eyes are never closing

Hearts are never broken

And time's forever frozen, still…

-Ed Sheeran

Photograph

Katniss Everdeen loved building castles.

In the massive sandbox, she packed another bunch of sand into her bucket before placing it upside down to set. While waiting, Katniss imagined how she would decorate the inside of her palace, a delighted smile growing on her face as she thought of the possibilities.

First, the walls would all be yellow. Not the ugly yellow that looked like snot—but yellow like Prim’s, her baby sister, golden locks.

Yellow meant hope: that’s what Daddy always said.

Knocking on the sides of the bucket to loosen the sand like Mommy showed her, Katniss slowly lifted it revealing a perfect tower for her castle.

“Yes!” she hollered, jumping up in excitement.

Her eyes went to Mommy who was sitting on the bench across the way. She was talking to a pretty, yellow-haired woman with a big tummy. Prim was asleep in her stroller, her binky hanging from her mouth.

“Mommy!” Katniss rushed over, stopping just a scant from toppling over on the concrete. “Look! I’ve made the perfect tower!”

Her mother smiled proudly.

“That’s wonderful, Katniss.” She turned to the woman next to her. “My Katniss is always building and dreaming on how to make her perfect home. Her teachers tell me that she has such a creative mind for a seven-year-old.”

“How absolutely charming,” the woman responded kindly, a smile on her pink lips.

Katniss tilted her head at the sound of her voice. There was something different about the way the lady talked—the dips of it sounded strange—but still nice.

“Why do you sound like that?” she asked bluntly.

Her Mommy frowned. “Katniss Everdeen! Please apologize!” She looked to the woman once more. “I’m so sorry—”

“That’s perfectly alright,” the lady assured her. The pretty woman turned to Katniss. “I have a little bit of an accent because of where I’m from, that’s why my voice sounds different.”

Katniss nodded. “Okay, but it does sound nice…like a song!” She smiled. “What’s your name?”

The woman glowed like an angel. “My name is Marguerite.”

“Hello Miss Marguerite.” Katniss looked to where her sandcastle waited. “I better go before someone takes my stuff! Bye!”

Throwing a wave at the woman, she plopped back down onto her space in the sandbox ready to add some detailing to her newest tower—

The foot crushing her tower landed straight in the middle of it creating a space between each side.

Katniss fumed and her eyes went up to the blond-haired boy with the snooty face.

She stood, her hand slamming into his chest. “Hey! You destroyed my castle!”

The boy stared at her in shock. “No one ever touches me!”

“Until now—”

Katniss was suddenly blocked by another boy, tall and dark-skinned.

“No one touches his royal highness,” he declared, and the blond boy stuck his tongue at her.

Another boy, this one dark-haired and sharp-eyed, approached.

“Prince Peeta has decided that you will be his bride,” he stated with a scowl.

Katniss made a face, crossing her arms to show them how disgusting that sounded. “Gross.”

The so-called Prince Peeta walked over to her.

“As my bride, you can make as many sandcastles as you want,” he explained. “I’ll build a bigger sandbox than this for you!”

Something inside zinged at the thought. “Really?”

The boy shrugged. “Sure. Why not?”

Katniss eyed him suspiciously. “Why would you want to marry me anyway?”

Peeta shifted in his stance, the confidence in his blue eyes suddenly wavering. “I like your eyes.”

“My eyes?”

A rise of pink colored his cheeks. “They’re soft…and pretty.”

That had been it for her.

On that warm afternoon, by the swings of District 12’s only playground, Katniss Everdeen married the so-called Prince Peeta.

“You may now kiss the bride,” Gale, the dark-haired boy, said. He looked at Peeta, a teasing smile on his face. “Go on—kiss her!”

“Close your eyes,” Peeta told her.

Katniss, wearing her paper towel veil courtesy of the park’s public bathroom, did what he said and closed her eyes.

SPLAT!

She barely registered being shoved down into the muddy puddle.

Katniss looked up at the sneering boy, feeling the rise of anger in her body.

“That’s what you get for pushing me.”

++++++

Twenty years later…

“Katniss.” She looked up from laptop to find Prim at her open doorway. Her sister held out a Fed-Ex envelope. “This just came for you.”

Without even glancing at it, Katniss tossed the envelope on her bed, going back to the open page on her screen.

“Don’t you want to open it?” Prim stepped into the room and plopped onto the bed, picking the post up to examine it. “It looks important.”

“Probably one of those things saying that I’m eligible for another credit card.” Katniss frowned, sitting back, and staring at the blinking cursor. “I’m so stuck on this blog post!”

“Is this the one about kitchen flowers?” her sister asked, and she nodded. “You got some great pictures from Madge’s shop.”

“I know but my writing inspiration is zilch,” Katniss explained. “I need to get this done if I want to post by Mother’s Day.”

“Speaking of Mother’s Day, mom is wondering if you’re bringing anyone to Sunday dinner,” Prim informed her.

“I love our mother but lately every conversation we’ve had is either about my lack of a dating life or my withering eggs,” Katniss said. “Right now, I need to focus on getting more attention on the blog. It’s just gaining momentum!” She rested back and turned to her sister. “This is important to me.”

“I know,” Prim replied. “And you are good at it. I mean, look at what you’ve done to our apartment! To this room!”

Her sister’s bright blue eyes looked around the buttercream room, beautifully decorated with white-washed furniture. The console that her television sat atop was bought at a nearby thrift shop and refurbished by her. Katniss had sanded it down before putting a whitewash over it and adding lacquer to give it a more modern look.

In fact, most of the furniture in her and Prim’s apartment was completely refurbished by her. She had always had an eye for decorating and instead of going to a four-year college, Katniss had opted to go to design school.

Creating something new from what people considered junk gave her a special kind of thrill—almost akin to being in love.

At least that’s what she thought it might feel like.

“Whoa!”

Katniss whipped over to her sister—who was holding an unfolded paper in her hands.

She stood from her seat and went to Prim. “What?”

Wordlessly, Prim handed the piece to her—it was a letter.

The letter was on marbled paper, an elegant insignia atop it, and she could see that the elegant calligraphy was done by hand:

Dear Miss Everdeen,

You are hereby summoned to the kingdom of Panem to present yourself to His Royal Highness, King Peeta.

Photo documentation has validified that you are the Queen Consort to His Royal Highness.

Attached is my business card, please contact me to arrange your travel to Panem.

Respectfully,

The Rt. Hon. Effie Trinket

Private Secretary to His Royal Highness

“This is a joke!” Katniss tossed the letter onto her desk and laughed. “Photo documentation? There is no such thing—”

The laugh fell from her lips as Prim turned the FedEx envelope upside down and a single photo fell onto her bedspread.

“There’s a business card in here, too,” Prim told her carefully.

Walking over, Katniss could see that the photo was facedown.

Trembling, she picked the print up and read the elegant cursive atop it:

‘Peeta and his new bride, Katniss Everdeen!’

Next to the caption was a happy face; it was obvious that this statement was made in jest.

Turning the photograph, a wave of nausea hit seeing the image of her seven-year-old self, a paper towel veil atop her head, joining hands with a blond boy—

Prince Peeta.

Or to be more precise, His Royal Highness King Peeta of Panem.

[kerasines]

GIF Tutorial for Beginners

People keep asking me to teach them how to make gifs and I end up writing them long confusing messages, so I figured maybe it’s time to just write up an actual clean tutorial instead! This is supposed to be for total beginners! (Or people who want to switch to a new process that I’ve curated and streamlined over 8 years of making gifs.) I’ll try to keep this as barebones as possible, and won’t include all the advanced stuff I usually add. I hope it’s easy enough to follow, and I’ll include some links at the end for more stuff. I really do think it’s better to make a few simple gifs before doing more complicated stuff though, just to get used to it!

There will be three sections in this tutorial: #1 Basics - How to make a gif in PS at all #2 Sharpen - How to use sharpen/denoise filters in an easy way #3 Colouring - Just a few very basic adjustment layers

What you need:

A video (most common formats should work, although .mkv doesn’t always)

Photoshop (I use PS CC 2018 - this one because I'm morally opposed to Adobe’s subscription model - but versions aren’t super different from each other)

In the end, you should hopefully be able to make something like this:

This is gonna be so long. Sorry. You can make a gif with just part #1! The rest is just to make it look better.

#1 Basics

If any of the tools/functions aren’t where they should be for you, your best bet is googling it, you might need to change something in your preferences!

Make sure to save your PS file... often. PS has a tendency to crash, especially on laptops.

First, you need to get the video file. I recommend a shorter video, a few minutes long, if it’s longer you might want to cut it into shorter parts beforehand. This is just because PS’s video import tool sucks.

I chose the Butter MV, specifically Jungkook’s body roll at 1:24 because that’s what I want to look at for the duration of this tutorial. No further questions, thanks.

1. Open PS, go to File > Import > Video Frames to Layers

2. In the little pop-up, choose the part of the video that you want to gif. This will import every frame of the video into PS as a layer, so it has to be a relatively short part, or it’ll take ages (and gifs can’t be that big anyway). Now you can also see why it’s almost impossible to select the correct part if the video is too long.

The little controls at the bottom are for trimming, the one in the middle just for the preview. Make sure “Make Frame Animation” is selected! Then click OK.

3. Now you have your layers, and you have a frame animation! On the right are your layers, that’s where we’ll apply the colouring etc. later on. On the bottom, that’s your timeline or frame animation - that’s what the gif will be in the end! So if you delete frames, the layers will still be there, but they won’t show up in the gif. If you click on a frame, you can see the little eye checkmark on the layer that’s currently visible.

4. The timeline controls at the bottom that are relevant right now: set to “forever” so the gif will loop, you can play the animation with the play button, and you can delete the selected frame(s). The number on each frame is the speed of the gif, depending on the video I usually set it to 0.05 or 0.06 (photoshop lies to you when you play the animation, the only way to test this is to open the finished gif, preferably on tumblr or wherever you want to upload it).

5. As you can see, the animation starts a bit before the actual part that I want, so go ahead and delete all the frames in the animation that you don’t want! You can delete the corresponding layers too if you want, to make the PS file smaller, but it has no influence on the gif. (Hold Shift to select multiple frames as usual)

6. Next, we’re gonna crop the gif however we want! You can do this with the crop tool in the left sidebar, but with gifs like this where there’s a lot of moving parts, I sometimes just use the selection tool in the left sidebar, like so:

When you click on different frames, the selection stays, and you can check to make sure Jungkook doesn’t suddenly go out of frame if you crop it like that!

At this point, make sure the selection/crop isn’t smaller than you want the gif to be! For tumblr, what matters is the width (in pixels) of gifs. In the end, the width dimensions on tumblr should be 540px (1 gif per row), 268px (2 gifs per row), or 177/178px (3 gifs per row). Anything else will lead to very shitty resizing!

For this gif I’m going full sized, meaning 540px wide, so I made sure my selection isn’t smaller than that.

Then just go to Image > Crop, and it’s done!

7. Check to see if this is what you want, then resize: go to Image > Image Size to resize the picture. Make sure the little “link” between Width and Height is active (to keep the same aspect ratio), then set the width to 540px or whatever you chose. I always set the resample option to Bicubic.

Once that’s done, set the zoom to 100% right above the timeline, to see what it really looks like.

Almost done! A little note about the sizing: width is the important part for tumblr, but if you want to make a whole gif set (especially with more than 1 gif per row!!!) make sure to make all the gifs the same height, otherwise they won’t line up and tumblr will do whatever it wants.

I ended up making mine 540 x 400 and ended up with this:

8. Time to save the gif!! Go to File > Export > Save for Web (OR just use the shortcut Ctrl + Shift + Alt + S) (or whatever it is on Mac).

In the pop-up, you can change things about the gif, but most things should already be the way you want it (Image size, Looping option forever). Selective should be the default, just like the rest.

You can choose between Pattern and Diffusion, some gif makers swear on one or the other, I go back and forth.

On the bottom left, you can see the size of your gif. Keep an eye on that! I believe Tumblr allows every single gif to be up to 10mb, but I try to keep mine under 5mb or close to it, because I think tumblr adds compression if it gets closer to 10mb?? Anyway back in my day you couldn’t upload anything over 1mb. You’ll never know our struggles.

Then just save it, and that’s it, you made a gif! Well done!! Here’s the end result:

:)

#2 Sharpen

There are countless ways out there to make gifs as smooth and clean as possible! Here I’ll show you the easiest way, but it also provides a good basis for other methods. The main difficulty is that you you need to sharpen the layers, but you don’t want to 100 layers one by one. So what we’re gonna do is convert the layers into a Smart Object, which functions as one layer!

1. Convert the frame animation timeline to a video timeline with the little button right underneath on the left:

It should look like this, and I’m sorry but I can’t explain this one because I’m not an expert here, but you can just ignore it:

2. Select all layers: Select > All Layers, or just manually. 

Then right click on the layers > Convert to Smart Object. Now there’s only one layer left, but don’t worry, the frames are still there!

3. De-noise! It reduces noise, takes away some of that grain. More necessary in some videos. It also makes it less sharp, so I do this one first. Filter > Noise > Reduce Noise

My default settings are, Strength: 6, Preserve Details: 60, Reduce Color Noise: 45, Sharpen Details: 25, Remove JPEG Artifact: No. But you can play around, especially with the strength, and see how the little preview looks. Don’t apply too much of it! Or it will look weirdly smooth with no details in the end.

4. File > Sharpen > Smart Sharpen. 

Settings: I usually have mine at Amount: 500, Reduce Noise: 5, and Radius at either 0.2 or 0.3, depending on the video. I’ll actually do 0.3 here, because I find it a bit blurry otherwise. If you sharpen more, it can quickly get grainy.

The difference isn’t huge, but here’s a little before and after denoise & sharpen:

5. Technically you can just save it as a gif (save for web) as shown above now, or you can convert it back to a frame animation, which I’d recommend especially if you use certain other sharpening methods (I’ll show you how to convert it back at the end of the colouring part), but for now, let’s go straight to the next part:

#3 Colouring

Now, you CAN do this part right after part #1, still in frame animation, without a smart object. I prefer it like this because sometimes PS acts weird, but if you want to skip the smart object stuff: select all frames, and add the adjustment layers at the very top, above all the other layers. (It only affects selected frames; and it only affects the layers under it.)

The adjustment layers should be above the layer tray, and these are the ones we’ll use today: Brightness/Contrast, Curves, Vibrance, Color Balance, Selective Color.

All of these are optional! You can do one, or all, or any combination. This is just the very most basic for me to get a gif to a point that I like. I’d recommend sticking to these for a start, but once you get the hang of it, definitely feel free to play around! It’s fun! Every gif maker has different preferences here, too, so there’s tutorials for everything.

1. Curves: Just click Auto, tbh. You can play around, but Auto works fine for me as a start, just to brighten or darken some parts as a base.

2. Brightness/Contrast: Usually videos are a bit dark, and contrast can help to make it seem sharper AND cut down on gif size, so I usually just up both of them a bit (but not too much! Or it’ll look cheap). Here I put them at B: 19, C: 23

3. Vibrance: I love very vibrant and colourful gifs, so I usually up the vibrance (and sometimes the saturation). This one is already very vibrant, so I only put +5, but if you try to colour, say, a very moody tv show, this can help wonders, especially if you want to work with the colours more later.

If you prefer less vibrant gifs, you can also lower the values here!

4. Color Balance: getting a bit more complicated now. Often, videos will have a slight yellow or green or blue tint, and this is where you can correct that. This video is a bit yellow, so I added +17 Blue. It was still too warm, so i added -11 Cyan as well. This neutralized the yellow tint, but I wanted some of the reddish tone back, so I added -5 Magenta. I usually do a similar process like that, depending on the tone. 

Instead of Midtones, you can also do this for Shadows and Highlights individually.

5. Selective Color: now this is the most complicated, but also the most fun to play around in my opinion! Be careful here, if you do something too extreme it’ll look like shit or make the gif super grainy. I some rough goals in mind here: make the blue hair as blue as possible, make their skin tone a bit less pale, and enhance the black and white (which I always do).

You choose a colour at the top, and then add or subtract cyan/magenta/yellow/black values for that colour.

Skin tone: yellow and red. For this gif, I just added black to both, making them darker. Sometimes, if you change one or both those colours for a different part of the gif (for example, if I wanted to make the background less yellow, I’d subtract yellow from the yellows - but then I’d add yellow to the reds, to make the skin tone natural again.)

Blue hair: Just ramp up the cyan for the blues. Be careful with putting anything to +100, but here it’s already so bright that it should be fine. His roots are more purple, so I changed the magentas by adding cyan and black, and subtracting magenta and yellow. It’s not super clean, but fine for our purposes.

Black/white: depending on the gif, I often either add or subtract black to the whites. Adding makes the highlights less blinding, a bit darker, and flatter (I like to do that if one side of the face is bright white in the sunlight, for example). Subtracting creates contrast, makes it brighter, can wash it out. It can also lessen the gif size, and here it’s mostly just the tracksuit instead of important details, so I subtracted black. For the blacks, I almost always just add a bit of black, to make it more intense. Just like adding contrast, this can make the gif seem sharper and less grainy.

And done! 

6. You could just save it as gif now, but as I said, I prefer to convert it back to frame animation timeline first, if only because I like to let it play through before I save it, and it works better for me there than in the video timeline.

Select all frames, then click the little menu on the top right of the video timeline > Convert Frames > Flatten Frames into Clips

7. When you scroll down to the bottom of the layers now, the old smart object + adjustment layers should be at the bottom, under all the new layers. Delete the old ones, we don’t need them anymore.

8. Convert the timeline back to frame animation, by clicking the little button at the bottom left of the video timeline:

9. Click on the menu top right of the timeline again > Make Frames from Layers

10. Now, just some potential cleaning left to do. Sometimes, there’s a doubled or empty frame or layer at the beginning or end, just delete those as necessary. The timing of the frames is probably off, too, just select all frames and set the delay time to 0.05 (or whatever).

Now your done! Save as gif, and you should get this:

I included some bonus links and tips after this but tumblr ate that whole part so I guess it’s going into a separate post. (Here is is)

Anyway, I tried to make this as easy to follow as possible for beginners, but feel free to send me an ask for clarification anytime. Hope this helps, now go make gifs and have fun!!

[blackradandmad]

why blippi is rotting yr children's brains

preface: i literally expect no one to read this. it is an essay length, strong opinion piece critiquing a niche youtube-based children's show that i don't expect most of y'all to even have knowledge of lol. but like, i promise that even if you know nothing about what i'm talking about, in my incredibly, super humble opinion, it's a good piece of writing and interesting nonetheless. anyway if you read this whole thing for some reason yr really hot and we should kiss.

i thoroughly vet everything my child watches before he watches it, episode by episode. and we rarely watch youtube for entertainment; we usually just look up educational videos when he has a question about something and wants more detail than i can provide him. and that's mainly because children's content on youtube is so fucking troubling and distressing. i don't judge parents who give their children a tablet at a restaurant at all bc i've been there and sometimes it's easier on everyone to just put on a video and avoid a giant scene, but i do judge parents who just leave their children alone with youtube kids on autoplay.

take stevin john, a literal millionaire who got famous from dressing up as a silly character called blippi and going on tours of places like aquariums, zoos, construction sites, etc and posting it on youtube. this has branched into a whole empire of blippi videos, hulu shows and specials, live shows and tours (that he outsources to another character actor), merchandise and so on. this 30-something year old man cites his main influence as being mr. rogers, but i question if he's ever even seen an episode of that program.

mr. rogers had no background in early childhood development or media production, but he revolutionized the world of children's media, because he respected his audience and didn't shy away from real world situations, all while creating a show with an enormous heart. mr. rogers begins his episodes by inviting the viewer in, literally changing his attire to be more comfortable, and talking about/doing things he genuinely cares about. whereas mr. rogers calmly and maturely addresses the viewer, blippi puts on a high pitched, contrived voice, interjecting every other sentence with a forced exclamation such as, "teehee! we're having so much fun!"

i don't find it a coincidence that john (blippi) is a veteran, either. his videos are completely devoid of the absurd, abstract, childlike thinking that makes children's media fun, creative, and entertaining. his thinking and process is methodical, devoid of emotion, and very superficial. this line of thinking clearly shows the kind of creative sterilization and emphasis on sameness and conformity instilled in the military. blippi simply observes things and interacts with them in a stale, matter-of-fact way. "this ball is purple! this ball is pink! anyway... what's over there? teehee! a car! vroom, vroom!" objects are colors, toy cars don't do anything but drive, curiosity is simply not encouraged.

he uses the "it's educational!" excuse to hide the fact that his show lacks everything that makes media a valuable resource for children to consume in the first place. further than identifying colors, numbers, and the occasional letter or shape, there is just this total lack of children's need for social and emotional development. when mr. rogers breaks the fourth wall to address the viewer and let them know they're special, it feels authentic and natural, because we've spent the last half hour building whole worlds with diverse characters and unique stories in a pretend neighborhood, learning about and enjoying different musical instruments, being exposed to and making friends with (even if parasocially, it is still a real bond to children when done properly) children who are similar to us in character regardless of physical or environmental differences, feeding the fish, making art together, and so on. when blippi tells the viewer, "you are very special, and i enjoy spending time with you!" it falls completely flat and feels unearned, because the last half hour was spent running around a soft play center pointing at bright, colorful objects, visiting interesting locations like farms or fruit production factories while failing to acknowledge the humanity of the humans actually working there (everything is machine or product focused; the human workers are simply an extension of the machine), learning "fun facts" about elephants that just list attributes of elephants, not taking the opportunity to inform the viewers of elephants' intelligence, or diet, or matriarchal society. it is a loud, sensory overwhelming display of a man so disconnected from the social and emotional needs and desires of children that he assumes they're stupid, easily entertained idiots who only need some silly dances and fast-moving cartoon graphics to give their attention (meaning time and desire to purchase products meaning $$$). john clearly views his audience as a means to gaming the algorithm and ultimately a paycheck by the hollow way he addresses them.

the show is so narcissistic, so focused on all the fun blippi is supposedly having, but he lacks any of the character traits that make individual children's show hosts memorable, so much so that he was able to have someone else who doesn't even vaguely resemble him dress as blippi and impersonate him and host the show or appear at live shows, and it went unnoticed by most of his toddler and child audience. the show is so formulaic and the character of blippi is so unmemorable that instead of taking the blue's clues route of developing a story of the host leaving for college and his brother now stepping in, or making some sort of believable excuse for the change in actors, they can simply swap him out with some random guy and not acknowledge it at all. although a comedy show for older children, the amanda show in no way could or would try to replicate the show with the same name but swapping out amanda bynes with a random teenage girl who is clearly not amanda bynes. it's weird and nonsensical and shows that his character is so much of a farce put on for a paycheck that not even his dedicated audience is affected or even cares when he is replaced by a random, unknown person.

this is completely garbage content made by an opportunist with no experience with children who saw his nephew watching children's youtube content, took it at complete surface level and still hasn't realized that while children's content only looks and feels so easy, entertaining, and enriching because it is so hard to do well. even with outsourcing his music, that aspect of the show still sucks. famous and successful children's musician, raffi, is known for his song describing the life of a little white whale, called "baby beluga." it opens with a calm strumming of his guitar, followed by the lyrics, "baby beluga in the deep blue sea/swim so wild and you swim so free/heaven above/sea below/and a little white whale on the go." is it silly and kind of pointless? yes, but the point is that he is captivating children and showing them the fun of listening to music, dancing, singing, and appreciating art. the "excavator song" featured in an episode of blippi about construction vehicles opens with what sounds like a default garageband loop and the flatly sung lyrics, "i'm an excavator/i'm an excavator/hey dirt, see you later/i'm an excavator." i don't feel i have to meticulously analyze the aforementioned lyrics; the stark contrast should speak for itself.

i have a million more criticisms about both blippi specifically and youtube children's content as a whole, but this is already so long and i doubt many people will get this far anyway. it's an issue i was completely apathetic towards until i had my own child and had to wean him off these kinds of junk food shows because i realized the fast-paced visuals and bright colors and repetitive songs/lyrics were putting him in this spaced-out, fugue state, and he thought he could demand this show or that show whenever he wanted. the moment he started regularly yelling things like, "watch! cars!" or "no! click it!" i knew i had to be a lot more invested in the things he watched even if just for entertainment or as a soothing message. i showed him an episode of mr. rogers yesterday and feared it would be too slow to hold his attention, but he was mesmerized, greeting and interacting with mr. rogers verbally, asking me, "what's that?" to different objects on the screen. since purging this low-brow children's entertainment, he has had a noticeable increase in attention span and concentration, can focus on a task for longer amounts of times, is more likely to "read"/look through books without me initiating it, and doesn't throw a fit when the tv/my laptop is off.

i just know that for me, growing up with so much unsupervised internet access definitely led me to real-world pain and consequences, and it seems like now children are born with an iphone as an extension of their arm. if my child is going to be consuming videos, i'm definitely supervising every second and am going to be highly critical of the videos and the credentials (or lack thereof) of the creators and team behind it. but i also know, from pure observation admittedly, that parents letting youtube kids autoplay parent their children for hours at a time is not an uncommon occurrence. and it worries me that a generation of children are being raised on videos that rely on being as loud and bright and superficially enjoyable as possible. what's the use of a child knowing their colors and alphabet if they don't know how to treat people with kindness and empathy and respect? there is something wrong for a children's show host to plug the spelling of his name at the end of his videos ("well, that's the end of this video. but if you wanna watch more of my videos, just type in my name! can you spell my name with me? b-l-i-p-p-i!") after essentially rotting his audiences' brains for a half hour. there's something so insidious about the prioritization of naming different parts of construction vehicles over honest depictions of and conversations about dealing with feelings, or why someone with autism may act differently than you, or what to do when you feel lonely, or ways to make art and express yrself creatively. also, not to mention the blatant police propaganda and outright worship is seriously jarring; as a black mother to a visibly non-white child, i cannot sit there and watch blippi show kids how to be a bootlicker for the shittiest profession on earth, but that could be a whole essay in and of itself.

anyway, thanks for reading, if yr looking for quality children's content, i recommend, in no specific order: mr. rogers, sesame street, the electric company, molly of denali, daniel tiger, bluey!, blue's clues, the odd squad, word party, trash truck, puffin rock, uhh... that's definitely not an extensive list but that's just off the dome!!! ok bye y'all <333

[kreidewaltz]

skyblue + thorns + tsukishima <3 congrats sm on 200 luv ily

COTTAGECORE DREAM | T.K.

about. he knows you're exhausted from all the work you're doing. he decided to bring you to a flower field and he thought he might fall in love all over again.

word count. 1.6k

genre & warnings. fluff, timeskip, comedy, established relationship, mentions of overworking, teeny tiny suggestive.

author's note. i was abt to make this angst but changed the last minute >< sorry for getting to this vv late pls enjoy this bc he's done w all the angst we're giving him he says <3 not prfr as usual okay

“be careful, dumbass.” he expected you to frown at his choice of words, instead you give him a wide smile before doing dances in the middle of the flower field. he pushes his glasses up to his nose to distract himself since he hears the wild beating of his heart. a gasp leaves your lips when your hand touches the different kinds of flowers and you get enchanted when you look at them closely. the azaleas are your favorite because of the bright color it brings to the field and it blends in beautifully. when your boyfriend mentions you’re going here, the hitachi seaside park, it felt like the worries and problems stacking up in your life disappeared for a moment.

you grabbed your blue instax camera and took pictures of the flowers dancing with the wind and took a picture of your boyfriend under the bright sun. you move the polaroid for a few minutes before hiding it in your tote bag before running through the field and imagine as if you were on a music video. he shoved his hands in his pockets, watching you get exhilarated with a smile dancing on his lips. he trails behind you and glance at the tulips few meters from him. he thinks of picking it but he didn't want to cause worry in the field that's suppose to distract you from work. he recalls the trouble he's forced to go through with you since you became a little reckless but he has no regrets, he's done those things with you after all.

"kei! come here!" you wave your hands while he chuckles to himself before taking large strides towards you. you loop your arms together, walking around the field which looks amazing when you're in it. we should come here again, you noted. 

a part of you is relieved that he thought of going here with you to unwind from everything. you recall the time he carried you in bridal style and covered you with blankets, with that you learned that you have no one to blame but yourself. his preposition began when you keep doing that one thing he tells you not to—overworking then excuse it as a way to be productive.

-

he wasn’t supposed to find you like this.

he wasn’t supposed to see papers and pens scattered around your desk, the cup of coffee in your coaster that he never saw empty in the time he checked up on you. “kei, ten minutes!” you pleaded with a pout on your lips and look at him, your voice laced with desperation because you really needed to finish this email tonight or as your friend quotes, you’re damned. you rub your hands together and shut your eyes, hoping that he wouldn’t protest or flick you in the forehead. your boyfriend sighs in defeat before going back to your shared bedroom, a joyful aura surrounding your face when he didn’t react violently. 

your co-worker messaged you earlier asking about the client’s response about the presentation he did a few days prior. he spams you with messages asking why it is taking so long to hear about the response and while you’re typing, you remembered your conversation with him last friday. you were supposed to email the client and provide him basic information about the presentation and add the link so he can thoroughly look at it. for once, oikawa wasn’t the irresponsible one between the two of you and you swear he’s not going to let you forget about this. damn oikawa, you curse in your head before stretching your arms.

you shoot him a text saying i’ll send it tonight and add emoticons even though it contradicts on what you’re feeling right now. you went through your emails and drafted what you wanted to say, the link, and double checked if there are grammatical mistakes and whatnot. when you’re sending an email to a client without checking the message and the information, it lacks decency and poor time management, that’s what you tell yourself. 

luckily when you overwork you don’t do it for weeks but you force your work and deadlines on a day. when he heard you saying this, you hear his caring boyfriend scolding as you call it and flicks your forehead with a frown on his face but you got a glimpse of his lips twitching afterwards. while you’re mentally panicking on how to finish the email that reaches your standards, tsukishima is laying down, staring at the ceiling with his hand running on the (your) empty side of the bed, looking for your warmth. he misses your gentle touch when you draw miscellaneous shapes on his back.

he hopes you get yourself together and actually takes care of you but he doubts you’ll do that, you’re stubborn and prioritize work over yourself. he slowly sits up and grabs a pillow to put in between his legs before opening his phone, thinking of what to say that’ll get you out of your desk. he tries to remember an activity or a place that you’ve mentioned because he misses seeing you being happy without worrying about deadlines or your co-workers. after looking around the room he sees the tulips he gave a month ago, looking bright and healthy since you insisted on not letting the flowers die. ah i’ve got it she’ll like this, he thought of a place he knows you’ll enjoy and begins to search on his phone, knowing he’s got you wrapped around his finger.

-

“hey, c’mere for a second.” your boyfriend rests his hands around your shoulders while you hum, your eyes going back and forth to your laptop and the papers around your desk. he knows you wouldn’t budge so he propped his chin on your shoulder, wrapping his long arms around you. “don’t be a brat.” he whispers too close to your ear which makes you pause on typing and look away because now you’re only thinking about how close he is and the way his voice gets low. 

“consider this as your break, you dork.” he lightly flick your forehead before leading you to the room and the way his face turned to a serious one after locking the door raised suspicions in your head. he grabs the wooden stool and sat there while you’re on the edge of the bed, wanting to know his intentions for locking the two of you. “i’m thinking of going out tomorrow,” he started off gently, and right now he waits for your—

“what about my work?” 

“ah ah, stop talking about work, idiot.” he effectively shuts you up when he rests his finger above your lips and when your shoulders slump and let out a sigh, he knows he’s got your full attention. he pushes his glasses up to his nose to focus himself and clears his throat to continue. he’s getting distracted with the way you look adorable with lounge wear.

“we’ll go to the hitachi seaside park, to get your mind off work and stuff…” you couldn’t hide your enthusiasm and squeal repeatedly while moving your feet around the air. the fondness you have for him never decreases but it grew more and more, but you don’t mind at all. your first reaction was to jump at him and wrap your arms around him but seeing the stool he’s sitting on, you didn’t want to risk having injuries. he remembered, you thought while he looks to the side and act nonchalant about it, but the faint redness to his ears going to his neck failed his cover. you opted to grab the dinosaur plush sitting quietly on the bed and lightly hit him with it, convincing him to let loose. the two of you made eye contact and mouthed thanks and your eyes full of sincerity is more than enough for him. he holds your hand and gives it two squeezes, his way of saying no problem, i got you. 

-

and we ended up here. 

“babe, i know i’m great and i’m flattered but,” you couldn’t continue to talk as laughter bubbles up your chest and clutch your stomach to laugh out loud. he looks like a long stick a few meters away and you walk back to him, twirling so your dress can spin gracefully. he quickly looks at you when he realized what he did, one is stare at you for too long, and two he got caught. you bat your eyelashes to tease him while he curses under his breath. 

you take a quick glance at your bag to see if the polaroid showed the picture already and your mouth parted seeing the result. the picture looks ethereal, the left side too bright because of the sun, the colors of nature and your boyfriend tying everything together. after hiding it in your bag, you offer your hand. 

“let’s go! don’t leave me there.” a pout coming to your lips before intertwining your fingers together and walking around the field in silence. this is what he needed after the games he had, a day to indulge in whatever he wanted, what you wanted. earlier, you're on your favorite restaurant and got a box of desserts to enjoy when you got home. you’re pulling him where the narcissuses flowers are gathered. 

“mhm, hey give me your camera.” you hum to his question, completely focused on the narcissuses. he presses the button beside the camera and tries to find the angle he’s looking for, he also wears the strap to prevent it from falling. it’s his gift to you in the first place. he takes a few steps to the side and angles the camera to his chest and when he takes a look at it, he wants that scene imprinted on his memory forever. your hands almost cupping the white petals, and pretend to blow it and giggles slip from your lips, thinking you look hilarious. the sky behind you creates a happy yet calming atmosphere to the picture, and there’s one thing left to do—

click. 

[gukyi]

good luck charm | kth

summary: kim taehyung has nearly everything he’s ever dreamed of: an apartment in new york city, a lead role in an off-broadway play, and a best friend to share it with. but even still, there’s one thing missing—love. and when he goes on the hunt for it, he dots every i and crosses every t, leaves no stone unturned, but forgets to look at the person who could ever love him the most: you.

{friends to lovers!au, roommates!au, actor!au}

pairing: kim taehyung x female reader genre: fluff, angst, unrequited love word count: 11k a/n: a huge thank you to MK for commissioning me for this piece–i hope it’s everything you dreamed of!!!! these are tough times, but i hope this can serve as a distraction to everyone!! please stay safe and wash your hands! if you’re interested in commissioning me, check out this post! also, if the pictures are unclear, click on them for higher resolution!

“Well, if it isn’t my favorite customer.”

You see a tuft of purple hair sticking out behind a basket of orange pansies, two nimble hands with long fingers fiddling with the stems. 

“I bet you say that to everyone,” you tease, as Namjoon peers out from where he’s hiding behind a shelf of flowers, greeting you with the same warm grin he always wears. 

Namjoon pauses, gaze tilting upwards as he corrects himself, “my favorite customer who’s about to confess to her best friend of four years with a bouquet arranged by yours truly?”

You roll your eyes, thankful that there’s nobody else inside this little flower shop. Not that you seem to have an issue exposing your entire life story to certain strangers, especially if they’ve got dimples and colored hair to match. Namjoon has always been something of an exception—perhaps he is one of the closest friends you have here in the city, where everything moves so quickly you barely have time to say hello to a new acquaintance. Namjoon and his flower shop are a respite, a safe haven in a bustling world, where time always seems to move slower than it does outside. 

“Don’t remind me, I’m sweating just thinking about it,” you tell him, trying to cover your nervousness with a laugh. 

“Ah, well how could I forget, when you came to me to arrange the perfect bouquet for tonight?” Namjoon says. He chops a wilting flower from its stem and places it behind his ear. Even though it’s a little sadder, a little less lively than its comrades, the bright yellow of the primrose complements his hair nicely, making him look even more ethereal, magical, than he already does. 

“Who else would I ask besides the best bouquet-maker in town?” You ask as Namjoon leads you to the counter, where various bouquets have been laid out in vases, ready for pick-up. It’s a secret garden here, all green and fresh and calm, a sharp contrast to the industrial machine outside. 

Namjoon heads to the back, a room behind a little wooden door that’s the slightest bit too short for him, so he has to bend down to avoid hitting his head (he still hits his head rather frequently, though), as you breathe in the scents of the flowers surrounding you, the roses and the daisies and everything in between. It’s not much, but it does calm the thick beating of your heart ever so slightly, and that’s enough. 

He emerges a minute or so later, banging his head on the way out. In his hands is one of the biggest bouquets you’ve ever laid eyes on, thick with some flowers you recognize but more you don’t. It’s breathtaking and gorgeous and impressive, all at once. 

“Namjoon, you know that I didn’t ask for this many flowers,” you chide as he plops the bouquet down onto the counter, clicking away at the ancient cash register to his left. 

“Consider it a good luck gift,” Namjoon tells you with a wink. 

You sigh, pulling out your card to pay him. “I could use all of the luck I could get.” The likelihood of tonight going more right than wrong is miniscule. But what else can you do, besides try? “What do they all mean?”

“Well, the daffodils represent honesty and truth. The red carnations mean love, obviously. So do the chrysanthemums. The baby’s breath is just for decoration, but it also means everlasting love. The gardenias are for secret love. And the freesia is just because I thought it went well with the bouquet,” Namjoon says expertly, pointing to each one as he tells you what it means. “I don’t know if Taehyung’s super up with his flower meanings, but I think that even the gesture will say more than enough. But if he is, this is just a bonus.”

“I feel like it’s going to go really badly, is that wrong?” You say, the nerves overtaking you. You were hoping to just act calm and collected, thank Namjoon for the bouquet and be on with your lives, but even you can’t help but seek advice from him. 

Namjoon lets out a laugh. “If you think it’s going to go so badly, why have you planned so much?” He poses. “It’s normal to be nervous about this sort of thing—what if I mess up, what if he doesn’t feel the same way, what if he rejects me—but I think that, deep down inside of you, there’s a part that thinks that it will all be worth it. And I don’t know, maybe I’m just a sucker for happy endings, but I think that that’s the most important. The part of you that doesn’t want to spend the rest of its life thinking about what might have been.” Namjoon’s phone lights up next to him, his lockscreen a picture of him and another boy, shorter, but with the same dyed hair. The two look so happy together. He gazes down at it, exhales, and shuts his phone off. “Just my two cents.”

“You’re wise beyond your years, Kim Namjoon,” you tell him with a smile. Maybe you are nervous about the what ifs, nervous that this whole thing could blow up in your face, but is it so naive of you to listen to that whisper in your heart? The one that says, maybe he feels the same? “I wish you’d take your own advice, sometimes.”

“It’s different,” Namjoon murmurs to himself. “He and I… this is all we’ll ever be.”

“You don’t know unless you try,” you tell him. You know the feeling. Perhaps, if tonight goes well, it will encourage him to give it a shot himself. “You never know.” Namjoon looks up at you, smile wide but eyes sad. There’s clearly something more that he isn’t mentioning, but you won’t push it. You get it. How could you not? “What if he does feel the same?”

The bell above the door rings on your way out, fingers clenching onto a bouquet, praying and wishing and dreaming that maybe this will all be worth it, in the end.

Something is up with Kim Taehyung. 

When you return to your apartment, Kim Taehyung is slouched on your dinky loveseat, arm deep inside a six-month-old box of Frosted Flakes, as an episode of Jeopardy! plays on his laptop, his eyes empty and glazed over as he stares at Alex Trebek, wordless.

You nearly jump in shock, terrified that he’ll spot you and the enormous bouquet in your hands, terrified that he’ll ask you about it, terrified that your entire plan for tonight will get flushed down the toilet the moment you and him lock eyes. But it doesn’t, because Kim Taehyung doesn’t even acknowledge you when you walk in, for better or for worse, and you manage to stash the bouquet into a vase in your bedroom before rounding on your roommate, because something is up with Kim Taehyung. 

Kim Taehyung hates Frosted Flakes. The only reason they’re in your apartment to begin with is because Jungkook had brought them over one time when he was visiting, and even then they were stale. Now they’re extra stale. So stale that they make a hollow sound on your countertop when you tap them against the laminate. 

Kim Taehyung normally shuffles through Jeopardy! like it’s nobody’s business. He gets at least a quarter, if not half of the questions correct, and always earns more points than you. But he doesn’t even open his mouth when Alex Trebek says, “This Renaissance artist left Florence to serve as principal engineer for the Duke of Milan’s army” and you know that he knows it’s Leonardo Da Vinci. 

Kim Taehyung normally has plenty to say, especially to Sawyer the Suspicious Floor Dip, who currently resides in your living room. Sawyer the Suspicious Floor Dip has been your honorary second roommate ever since the two of you moved into this apartment four months ago. Taehyung made him a little museum placard that is framed and hanging on the wall above him, and he has an account on every social media website under the sun. Sawyer the Suspicious Floor Dip has more followers on Instagram than you do. But today, both he and Sawyer are silent and unmoving. 

“Tae?” You ask, treading over to the couch as he empties the box of Frosted Flakes into his stomach, finishing up the episode. “Is everything alright?”

“Mmrph,” he mumbles in response. You suppose that means he said fine, which means that no, everything is not alright. 

“What’s going on? You’re normally really excited the day of your shows,” you ask. At least he hasn’t entirely turned into a soulless hermit, and he moves his legs off of the couch so you can sit beside him. “Is something wrong?”

“No,” Taehyung says, louder. “I don’t know. I feel like it’s going to go really badly, is that wrong?”

You smile softly, shaking your head as you reach a hand out, letting it rest in his lap before he takes your hand in his. “No, it’s not. Tonight’s a big deal, isn’t it? You must be under a lot of pressure to do well.”

“I’m just so worried that I’ll fuck it up and everyone will hate me forever,” Taehyung says, exasperated. It’s almost as if he’s tired with himself for being so negative. 

“You’re not gonna fuck it up and nobody is going to hate you. I’ll always love you, you know that,” you assure him. 

“Yeah, I know,” Taehyung says, but the worst part is that you’re not sure if he really does. 

“It’s okay to be nervous, and to worry. Tonight is really important. But you’re an incredible actor, and you’ve always been so good at what you do,” you tell him, thumb rubbing against the back of his hand softly. “I can’t tell you how proud I am of you.”

Taehyung lets his head rest on your own and the two of you sit together on the couch in silence, watching as the minutes on his laptop clock tick by. You can hear his heartbeat, steady and soft, firm underneath his chest. You wonder if he can hear yours. Hear how it’s picking up speed, hear how it beats only for him. 

“You always know what to say,” Taehyung tells you. “I wish I knew how to do that.”

You grin sadly to yourself, happy that the two of you are side by side so he doesn’t have to see your face. How could Taehyung tell you something like that? How could he, when every time you’re near him, you’re speechless?

You never really considered yourself to be a theater person when you were younger. You would fall asleep when you went to see plays with your parents or on a school field trip. You never made an effort to go see the performances that your school put on. You were one-hundred percent confident that you would go through all four years of university without seeing one of the fifteen different theater groups’ shows, not because you hated them, but because they never crossed your mind in the first place. 

And then, you met Kim Taehyung. 

You met Kim Taehyung halfway through your freshman year because the two of you were in the same Cinematography in the 1900’s class. And then, suddenly, you were eating the same shitty food in the dining hall after class ended at seven in the evening. And then, suddenly, you were studying together, spending nights watching Jeopardy! on his laptop when you didn’t feel like doing any work. And then, suddenly, Kim Taehyung mentioned in passing one day that he had a show that Friday, and would you like to come, it would really mean a lot to him, he thinks you’ll really like it. 

And then, suddenly, you were a theater person. 

That night was the first night Kim Taehyung had ever taken your breath away. And every performance, every night, every fucking moment after that, he never stopped.

Tonight is no exception. You can’t say that you’re super well-versed in theater fame and its technicalities, but you think that this may just be Taehyung’s best performance yet. Here, in this theater off of Sixth Avenue, to a crowd of two, perhaps three hundred people, Taehyung is nothing short of amazing. He never is. From the moment he steps on stage in a raggedy old flannel and jeans, eyes wide with dreams, he reels you in and makes sure that you won’t leave this theater, won’t leave here unscathed. But the fatal blow is halfway through, when he finally spots you in the third row, sees you staring up at him in wonder, and he smiles. 

There is so much that you wish you could tell him. 

After the show, you race back to your apartment, desperate to finish up the last of the preparations before he arrives, after taking off all of his makeup and his costumes, saying goodbye to all of his co-stars. Normally, you’d hang around, let him introduce you, but tonight is different. Special. 

[September 8th, 9:35PM]

You: Had to go home bc I’m planning a special something for the star of the night! Sorry I missed all of the fun afterwards You: Something very important to tell you

Taehyung: ohoho Taehyung: I wonder who that could be Taehyung: Coming soon. I have something to tell you too! ^^

You stare at the text as you grab the vase of flowers from your room, setting it up at your very unimpressive kitchen table. What could Taehyung possibly have to tell you? Other than perhaps a thanks for showing up (as if you weren’t going to). 

What if, that voice whispers. The part deep in your heart, the one that you wish would shut up sometimes. 

“No,” you say aloud, perhaps more for yourself than anyone else. “No. I have something to tell him. I have to tell him this.”

You never know, she says. He might. What are you waiting for?

You pull out all of the scented candles in the apartment, setting them up on the coffee table and on the windowsills. There’s a plate of macarons that you had purchased from the fancy bakery in Midtown sitting by the vase, a little treat for the two of you since your diets usually consist of premade Costco pasta and takeout. 

There is so much you want to tell him. So much to say, and no way to do it. It seems impossible. As the minutes tick by, as he gets closer and closer, you wonder if you even have the courage to open your mouth. It’s not as if this is life-changing news. It would be so easy, so easy to just pretend that this is nothing but a celebration of Taehyung’s very first major off-Broadway show, to push down the ache in your heart and tell that voice to stay quiet, if only for a little longer. You’ve lived like this for so long already. Who’s to say you can’t live like this forever?

Taehyung comes home as you’re flicking through late-night television show reruns and fiddling with a Rubix cube, anything to keep your mind occupied and your fingers busy. You hear as he fumbles with the lock—his key has always been a little bit off—and scramble to get everything ready, shutting your laptop and putting the Rubix cube on your designated Weird Stuff Shelf. The apartment smells like a hodgepodge of vanilla, flowers, cinnamon, and champagne, and the flowers are already starting to wilt slightly. But it’s now or never, really. 

Taehyung swings the door open with a grin and gasps in excitement when he sees you, standing in the hazy, flickering yellow light of the kitchen, surrounded by candles, with a plate of macarons and a vase of flowers on the table. 

“Oh my God!” He says, overjoyed, high off of the adrenaline from a successful show, eyes still sparking from the spotlight. “Y/N! What is all of this?”

“Just a little something from me to you,” you say awkwardly. You have no idea how to tell him. You’re not sure if you even will. “To celebrate.”

“Dare I say, this apartment has never looked better,” he tells you, beaming. He walks over to where you’re hovering by the kitchen table, knee deep in it all, admiring the sight before him. He leans over you, ever so slightly, as he takes in the scent of the flowers, the macarons sitting before him. And then he turns to you, the glow from the candles making his eyes warm and caramel-y, almost as if they’re shimmering in the light, and he says, “You did all of this for me?”

“Of course,” you tell him, because you would do this again and again if it means you could see him like this. If you could watch him burst through the front door for the rest of your goddamn life, watch as he comes home to you. “Tonight’s special.”

“It wouldn’t be without you,” he tells you honestly, candidly. He tells you that because he means it. You wish you could say the same things to him. “You’re my best friend, Y/N.”

It’s now or never. If he takes one step closer, turns to look at you one more time, you don’t know if you’ll still have the courage. You don’t know if you even have it right now, but tomorrow, when you wake up, you don’t want to regret this night. You don’t want to wonder what if, what might have been. You’ve been friends for so long. Who’s to say you can’t be more than that?

“I have something to tell you,” you breathe out, words heavy on your tongue. You can feel your heart seize up, almost like it’s holding its breath with you. 

“Right, you said that,” Taehyung says with a nod, stuffing a cherry macaron into his mouth. “I have something to tell you, too.”

“Do you want to go first?” You ask him. You just need a little more time. You just want to hear his voice once more. 

“Okay,” Taehyung says happily. “I got a girlfriend!” 

Oh. 

Oh. 

Well. 

Okay. 

“Really?” You ask, trying to make it sound more like a Really? That’s great! and not a Really? I thought that we had something special. You don’t think that you’re doing a very good job.

“Yeah!” Taehyung says. He’s ecstatic. It tears your heart in two. “I mean, I know I’m just… a super, hopeless romantic and I fall in love with people when they hold the door open for me, but I’m really happy with her. It’s Ariel, actually, she played Lucy! Isn’t it funny how even though our characters never even officially met, we still found something there?”

“Yeah,” you say, emotionless. Taehyung is far too excited, far too joyous to notice. 

“I just—I wanted to tell you, because you’re my best friend and you deserve to know,” he says, breaking off half of the raspberry macaron and holding it out to you. “What did you want to tell me? Did you say it was important?”

“Oh, uh…” you fumble, shaking your head at the macaron. Your stomach has never felt smaller. It’s like there’s nothing left to say to him. “I think I’m getting transferred to another office.” It’s not news. Your job told you that last week. But it’s something, and it’s better than being honest. Anything is, at this point. “They might pay a little more.”

“Yay!” Taehyung says. “That’s great! Now, maybe we can fix up the lights in the kitchen. So they don’t read horror movie every time I try to make pasta at 2AM. I’m happy for you, you deserve it!”

You smile, putting on a brave face, just for him. “Me too.” You can’t muster up the strength to say anything else. 

Taehyung spends the rest of the night gobbling down the macarons and telling you all about Ariel, as you try desperately to tune him out. Even the sound of your own thoughts would be better than this. Anything. Anything. Eventually, after it’s long past midnight and Taehyung realizes he’ll need his sleep for the show tomorrow night, he bids you goodbye and sets off to his room, a bounce in his step.

You stand in the middle of your apartment. Even though it’s small, and even though you have him, it’s never felt emptier.

Namjoon always says that flowers don’t just need food and water to stay happy. They need love, they need to be surrounded by happiness. He says that they can feel it, that they react to it. That’s why he always tries to be happy when he’s working. Because he hates seeing the flowers so sad. He says they remind him of himself.

It’s no wonder why the flowers in the vase look even more wilted than before.

Here’s the thing: You had pretty much always known that it was going to hurt like this. There had always been that part of you, deep down inside, that knew that there was no way it wasn’t going to hurt like this. That knew that there was nothing you could do to stop it from hurting like this. 

And still, foolishly so, you allowed yourself to believe that maybe, just maybe, telling him would make it stop. You gave into this fantasy that, even if he didn’t feel the same, even if he let you down easy, even if he told you that he just wanted to be friends, it would be better. 

That’s the worst part of it all, really. The fact that you never even told him. Couldn’t. Wouldn’t. Didn’t. You never told him, and now, somehow, everything is even worse than before. 

The flowers have long been thrown out by now, tossed out after hardly a week, unable to stand the tension in the air, the emptiness that lingered far beyond that night. Still, you remembered to keep one, plucking it from the vase before it died of secondary sadness. Because even if they hurt you, even if they tear at your heartstrings one by one, you’ve always had this terrible habit of never letting go of what you love. You pressed the flower with an old college textbook, placed it into a thin little vase, meant for one flower only. A red carnation, to remind you of what you could have had. What might have been. 

Kim Taehyung is significantly less worried this time around as he prepares for the opening night of his latest play. He wakes up early and does some yoga in the living room, pushing all of the furniture to the walls so he has enough space to Downward Dog in peace. He watches a couple episodes of Jeopardy! as he eats the Pad Thai he Doordashed to your apartment, and gets half of the questions correct. Even from your bedroom, you can hear him talking to Sawyer. 

“I’m excited for tonight, Sawyer,” he says to him. “I don’t know, last time I did Shakespeare was sophomore year in college, I think? I was Mercutio. It was fun and I got to use a sword. Y/N came to that show, too. I annoyed her so much that night that she told me that she was glad Tybalt killed me, but we had a good time anyway.”

Sawyer doesn’t say anything back, because he is a Suspicious Floor Dip in your living room. But it’s so lovely to hear Taehyung’s voice again. 

“Do you think that Y/N’s been acting weird, lately?” Taehyung asks. “I just feel like—I feel like she and I aren’t as close these days. She works in her room a lot more and some days I don’t see her at all. Which is crazy, because we live together. My ex always said it was a little weird how I lived with my best friend who is also a girl. But I don’t think it is. Do you think I did something wrong?”

No, you wish you could say, leaning against your thin bedroom door as you hear Taehyung wonder aloud. Never, in a million years. It was me, you want to tell him. I got my hopes up and now I’m paying the price. It’s not you. It’s never you. 

“Yeah, I guess she’s just busier these days,” Taehyung says with a sigh. “She did get transferred to that new office a couple of months ago. But she’s still my best friend. I’ll never stop telling her that—she deserves to know that no matter what, she always has me.”

“Sawyer the Suspicious Floor Therapist, huh?” You interrupt, finally getting the nerve to open your door. Taehyung’s on his way out, all dressed, backpack on his shoulder. He has to be at the theater a few hours before the show begins, anyway. 

“He’s just so easy to talk to,” Taehyung jokes. “Did you… uh… did you hear that?”

“The part about being your best friend?” You ask with an eyebrow raise, making Taehyung smile. You don’t mention the other things you heard. You don’t think that would make things better. 

(You’re not sure what will, at this point. Telling him is off the table. You distantly wonder if it was ever on the table to begin with.)

“Just making sure you knew,” Taehyung says with a grin. “Don’t want you forgetting about that.”

“How could I?” You muse, and it makes him smile something fierce and makes you wish that things were different. 

“You’re coming tonight, right?” Taehyung says. He must know the answer, already. 

“Of course I am,” you tell him. “Who do you take me for?”

“I’ll look for you in the crowd, okay?” Taehyung says, a hand on the doorknob as he gets ready to leave. “Keep an eye out for me. Promise?”

It’s always been so hard to say no to him. 

“Promise,” you tell him. 

That night, you sit a little further back, shadowed by the mezzanine above you, but Taehyung finds you anyway. As he schmoozes his way through the storyline on stage, he sends a wink your way, a couple of the girls in the row in front of you giggling to each other when he does. You sort of wish he was really winking at them. That way, it would hurt a little less. 

Afterwards, you linger around in the lobby, waiting for him like you always have, like you always do, like you always will. You don’t have anything special waiting for him back at your apartment. There’s nothing left to tell him. 

You spot his head of soft, wavy brown hair far before he spots you, can make it out in a sea of cast members as they cheer for themselves, celebrating another successful opening show. Your face lights up when you see him, when you see that he sees you. This is how it has always been. This is how it should be—you find each other in the crowd, grinning as you congratulate him, as he introduces you to his cast members and then invites you to the afterparty. You spend the night together, high off of the adrenaline and just a little tipsy, before stumbling back to your apartment, basking in the afterglow. 

You want nothing more than for things to go back to the way they were. 

And then, you see her. 

“Y/N!” Taehyung shouts excitedly, and it takes all of your strength to not let your face fall as she comes into view, hand interlaced with Taehyung’s. “I knew you’d be here!”

“How could I not be?” You say, letting Taehyung wrap you in a one-armed hug rather than two. “You know me.”

“This is my girlfriend,” Taehyung introduces proudly, motioning to the pretty girl beside him as she waves at you good-naturedly. “Madison, this is my roommate and college best friend, Y/N.”

“Taehyung talks about you non-stop,” Madison says with a smile. “It’s nice to finally meet you.”

“All good things, I hope,” you say, because what else are you supposed to say to the love of your life’s new girlfriend? How else can you salvage this conversation when you already see it going terribly? “You both were really good tonight. I’m happy that I came.”

“Me too!” Taehyung grins. “Did you see me wink at you? I promised you I would.”

You nod, eyes desperately scanning the rest of the room, the rest of the people, the floor, anything to keep from watching as Madison drapes herself over Taehyung, intertwines their hands as she leans against him, like she can’t get enough of him. 

“Hey, do you want to come to the afterparty? It’s at Alex’s house, apparently he has this brownstone in Brooklyn all to himself, I’ve heard it’s gorgeous—”

“No, actually, I have a lot of work that I need to catch up on,” you interrupt. You don’t think you’d last five minutes there, where the only person you know is Taehyung, where he’s got a girlfriend on his arm the entire time. You aren’t even sure how you’re faring now, if you’re even  breathing, standing before him and his equally-gorgeous new partner. 

You just wish everything could go back to normal.

Taehyung’s brows furrow, disappointed. “Oh, you do? But—”

“Yeah, I’m just—I’m really sorry, Tae, you know I want to. But I should get going. It was really nice meeting you, Madison, I hope we can see each other again sometime—” You spew out a few more goodbyes and even more apologies as you rush towards the exit, turning away so you don’t have to see Taehyung calling after you. 

On the way back, you bump into Namjoon, who’s closing up shop for the day. He looks positively exhausted, always working diligently from morning to far past sunset every day, but he smiles when he sees you, setting aside his tired eyes to say hello. 

“Hey, Y/N, fancy seeing you here,” he greets. “How are you? How’d it go?” He gives you a sort of grin that means that he thinks it went super well. 

“Not great,” you tell him truthfully, because it’s late and you don’t feel like hiding things anymore. 

“Oh,” Namjoon says. He opens his mouth to say something else, but you can see the hesitation in his eyes, the way he thinks that none of the things he has to say will go down very well. You know the feeling. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

“It’s alright,” you assure him, even though it’s not. “It’s not that big of a deal.”

“Isn’t it, though?” Namjoon asks solemnly. 

You frown. “Do you really think we should both be having this conversation?” Namjoon has his own secrets, his dreams of a short boy with colored hair by his side. “You aren’t much better.”

“No, I’m not,” he muses to himself. “But it is a big deal, Y/N. Please don’t act like it isn’t. You love him, don’t you? Even if he doesn’t love you back.”

You love him. 

It’s not a secret anymore. 

You love him like the stars love the moon, surrounding her in their light, making sure she never gets lonely. You love him like an old Hollywood movie, film faded and worn, getting played once in a while to make sure you never forget where you started. You love him like a flower, carnations, daffodils, chrysanthemums, perking up when you’re around him and wilting when you’re not. 

“It doesn’t matter,” you say with a sigh. Certainly, there are more important things to dwell on. You’re looking for a new job because being an office temp isn’t exactly what you were envisioning for your life. You want to start fixing up the bathroom, because the grout by the shower is starting to disintegrate. Sawyer the Suspicious Floor Dip is a fire hazard. “I’m okay with just being friends.”

Namjoon smiles, and it’s so sad, but not with pity. It’s sad with I know, and sad with feeling, because he gets it, and that must be why you’re here, standing on the sidewalk at ten on a Friday night, underneath the street lamps as the city begins to open its eyes. “But when you have him the way you do, how can you be okay with any of it?”

Taehyung comes home late that night, and you only know because you’re running to the bathroom at the same time he fumbles with the door. He takes longer than usual, which means he’s drunk, and you can only hope and pray that he’s alone. You watch as he finally manages to unlock the door, stumbling inside, managing to turn on the main overhead lights in your apartment as he does. From where you’re peering at him from the darkness of the hallway, you can make out dark red, purple spots all along his skin. 

You pull the bathroom door almost shut, leaving it a little ajar so you can gaze out at him, watch as he pours himself a glass of water and downs the entire thing before he makes his way to the hallway, heading for his bedroom. From here, you see the way his hair is mussed, all fucked up from someone’s hands in it, see the marks up close, the way they line his neck, his jaw, his collarbones. He finds his way to his bedroom and shuts the door behind him as you stand, trapped in the bathroom, mad at him for not knowing but furious at yourself for being so ridiculous.

Love was never supposed to hurt like this. 

The next time that you attend one of Taehyung’s opening nights, you don’t stick around long afterwards. 

You were planning on it, of course, like you always do, because ever since college you’ve made a point to see him after a show, tell him all of the things you wish you could say to him all of the time, you were amazing, you were brilliant, you were perfect in every way. You even have a small bouquet of flowers in your hands, arranged by none other than Namjoon—a pity bouquet, an I hope that you two can still be friends bouquet—ready to give to him, ready to see them sitting on your kitchen table as a reminder. 

And then, you see the way he kisses her, overcome with joy, running on that post-show high. You see the way he pulls her into him and plants one on her, arms wrapped around each other as they celebrate, in their own special way. 

Suddenly, the flowers feel like dead weight in your hands. 

You manage to catch one of the few co-stars of Taehyung’s that you recognize, one who was in Our Lives with him. His name is Seokjin, and he’s gorgeous. Broadway material. Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, Tony material. He stops to say hello to you, and you ask if he could give the bouquet to Taehyung, tell him it was from you. 

Seokjin’s nice. He doesn’t ask why, he just nods. It saves you the trouble of telling him. Nobody wants to listen to your sob story. He says goodbye to you, and that he hopes to see you again soon. You hope so too. 

You spend the night curled up in your room pretending that everything is fine. You don’t see Taehyung when he comes home, and you don’t see him the next day, either. 

It’s not as if you’ve started to avoid Taehyung entirely. You live together—it would be downright impressive if you didn’t see each other for a whole day. It’s just, sometimes he still—

“Y/N? Wanna order Pad Thai?”

“Hey, Y/N, they’re playing The Devil Wears Prada on Freeform, do you want to come watch with me?”

“Central Park is having a Dog Festival, do you wanna go together?”

And sometimes, you just can’t. The thought of spending time with him makes your heart ache, whether it be from not wanting to be too close, or from missing him terribly. Either way, you don’t know if you’ll ever be able to muster up the same courage you once had. 

Turning to look at the pressed carnation in the vase atop your dresser, you laugh to yourself. It’s hard to believe that just a few months ago you thought that you would finally be able to tell him, to open up your heart and let him look into it like a kaleidoscope. Hard to believe that there was once a time when you thought that maybe, just maybe, he loved you back. It feels like it was eons ago. Like it was another universe entirely. 

You know that it’s not right for you to do this to Taehyung. He’s still your best friend. He always will be. He has no idea. He’ll never know. 

But sometimes—

Sometimes he comes home love drunk, wasted on kisses, splotches of pink lip gloss decorating his skin. 

Sometimes he spends dinner telling you all about the date he went on, the amazing vodka shrimp linguine he had, as the two of you eat Kirkland spaghetti in your dinky apartment. 

Sometimes he tells you that you’re his best friend, and that he misses you. 

Being in love with Taehyung had always been easy. It was being best friends, and making sure to keep the feelings a secret, that was hard. 

Taehyung isn’t home tonight. You hadn’t asked him where he’d be. You didn’t think that it mattered. 

And you tell yourself, over and over again, that it doesn’t matter. That you don’t need to know where he is every second of every day. He’s got a life outside of what exists in your stuffy apartment, a whole world of people craning to see him. He has reviews written about him in  The New York Times and people lining up outside the theater for his autograph on their Playbill. There’s so much more to his life than what he has with you. 

It’s better this way, you tell yourself, even if it’s not. Even if every time you step into your apartment, glance over at the vase on the kitchen table, you are reminded that it’s worse. Every time you see a damn carnation, daffodil, chrysanthemum, you can’t help but wish that things were different. You’re even starting to avoid Namjoon. 

That night finds you at a small Italian restaurant in a tiny alley off of Ninth Street. You’ve never been, but it had good reviews on Yelp and you could do with spending some time alone, wallowing in your feelings somewhere other than your bedroom. You’re starting to feel suffocated just being there. It would be good for you to get out. 

It would be good for you to get out, because the apartment reeks of what ifs, of what could have beens, and you can’t spend more than five minutes inside without throwing yourself your own personal pity party. You hardly see Taehyung nowadays because you can’t bear looking into his eyes anymore. Everything is awful, and you wish that it wasn’t, but you don’t know what to do to fix it. 

But Fate seems to love doing that thing where it’s out to get you. From the moment you met Kim Taehyung, Fate decided that you would be her next target. That no moment with him would leave you unscathed. And tonight is no exception. 

It’s just your luck that, ten minutes after you’re seated, the bell above the door rings to signal another customer, and you look up to see Taehyung and his girlfriend strolling in, glowing under the warm yellow light. You’ve never been more thankful, in that moment, to be seated right beside the bathroom, just out of sight of the booth that the hostess leads them to. It’s terrible, and it’s terrible, and it’s terrible. You watch as they order two glasses of a fancy rosé and giggle as they cheers to their show, to their lives, and to themselves. They spend the evening in the light of a single exposed bulb above their head, laughing and smiling and talking. 

The craziest part is that once upon a time, that would have been you. You and Taehyung would have decided that the night was a restaurant day and not a stay-at-home-and-cook-meal day. You would have found a quaint little place on Yelp and gotten the cheapest food on the menu. Once upon a time, you looked like that. 

[April 17th, 7:34PM]

Taehyung: [image sent] Taehyung: MMMMM look at this yummy yummy fish that I had tonight!! Taehyung: We should go here sometime!! I think you’d like it hehe

You look down at your plate. The food in front of you tastes like ash. 

“Congrats,” you say when you hear Taehyung leaving his bedroom, feet padding against the hardwood floor as he makes his way to the kitchen. 

“Huh?” Taehyung asks, eyes wide. It’s almost as if he’s surprised to see you out here, sitting on the couch, answering emails. Like he can’t believe you’re in your own home. You can’t blame him. “What are you talking about?”

“The review on The New York Times,” you tell him distantly, switching over to the tab on your computer where you read it. There’s a picture at the top of Taehyung and his co-star, front and center, holding hands as they look off into the distance, staring into an unknown future. “It’s your first five star review, isn’t it? They even listed it as the Critic’s Pick.”

“Oh, I… uh,” he begins, “I haven’t seen it yet. Been too busy.”

Bitterly, you wonder why. Even when you two are further apart than you have ever been, even when he spends all day out of the apartment and you spend all day inside, even when you barely fucking see each other, you can’t help but click on the articles that mention him, scroll through every review that mentions his name. 

Things might be different now, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t be proud of him. Of what he does. Of who he is. 

“Well, they said great things,” you tell him, sparing him the trouble of looking. “You deserve it.”

“You’re coming tonight, right? You have to, if the play is getting such good reviews,” Taehyung asks, an olive branch. You’ve spent so much time doing everything you can to keep your relationship as distant as possible, hiding in your bedroom and eating dinner at odd hours. But this is the one thing that you both can still hold onto. Taehyung’s shows, his performances, and you, in the audience, always finding his eyes. If everything else is in shambles, at least you will always have this. “I think you’d like it.”

“It sounds very Matrix-y.”

“Well,” Taehyung says, shrugging. “It sort of is. But it’s also about love. You’d like that, right?”

You suppose you’d like it a little more in another timeline.

Taehyung continues, barely giving himself time to catch his breath. “Basically, these two kids are playing this life-simulation game where every move they make directly corresponds with the actions of the characters they’re playing as. Cue me and Lancaster. And we meet, and slowly fall in love, over a series of chance encounters. You know, a coffee shop, the bank, a restaurant.”

“Really?” You ask, brows furrowed. 

“Why?” Taehyung’s eyes widen in concern, smile downturned ever so slightly as he takes in your expression. 

“I don’t know—” you begin. There’s just something about the storyline that rubs you the wrong way. “Maybe I’m just being cynical. But is it really possible for two people to find love like that? Through chance? Luck?”

Perhaps, Namjoon would say. You can hear his voice echoing in your head now. After all, wasn’t it luck that brought the two of you together?

You shake his thoughts away. Namjoon’s got his own set of problems—he’s in no position to be the wise one in this scenario.

Taehyung shrugs, as if he’d never given that a thought to begin with. “I don’t know,” he says. “I think that love can blossom anywhere. Just so long as you nurture it, water it and give it lots of sunlight. I just—I think that if you look hard enough, you can find love anywhere.”

You turn to face him, blinking up at him as you stare at each other, sitting on this damn couch in the middle of your apartment. Taehyung waxes poetic in front of you, tells you that if you just fucking look for love, you’ll find it. But he doesn’t know—and he never will. You’ve been looking for love for the past four years, you’ve been searching in all of the nooks and crannies of your body, and the only place you’ve ever found it has been in the deep pit of your heart, dusty and quiet and forgotten. Even now, staring into his eyes, scanning every bit of his irises for even a sliver of it, a spark, you come up empty. 

How could he say something like that, when he lives with you? When he looks at you while you’re eating takeout or sitting and watching a movie together. Does he just not see it? Or worse—does he know, and just refuse to say anything?

Suddenly, your body turns cold. It’s hard to believe that someone as hopelessly romantic can’t see what’s right in front of him. 

“I wish that was how it worked,” you say sourly, the words leaving a bitter taste on your tongue. You snatch your laptop from the table and head into your room, leaving Taehyung alone on the couch, speechless.

He may be the one with flowers blooming in his heart, but you have been drowning for the past four years, and never have you felt further from the surface than right now. 

You don’t go to Taehyung’s opening show that night. 

Taehyung leaves to get ready at the theater at three in the afternoon, and you bid him goodbye before holing yourself up in your bedroom and keeping yourself busy. You start watching the newest season of Stranger Things and tidy up the knick knacks you have scattered all over the place. Anything to keep your mind occupied. 

Taehyung texts you during intermission.

[June 3rd, 8:55PM]

Taehyung: Hey are you here?

You don’t respond. 

By ten at night, you end up with the cleanest room you’ve had in years and half of the season left to watch. It’s not a great kind of busy. The red carnation atop your dresser stares into your soul and you nearly throw it out three different times. But it’s an okay kind of busy, because you don’t know if you could have beared to see Taehyung on stage tonight. See him dancing around with a beautiful girl on his arm, confessing his love for her and pulling her in for a kiss. 

Over the years, you have seen Taehyung kiss so many people. From the shy freshman boy cast next to him in a student-written play in college to the model-esque women on stage in an off-Broadway play with him. And it never used to hurt—not like this. You saw him lock lips with another and you supposed that that was just show business. 

But it’s not show business anymore. It stopped being show business that night, when he came home to an apartment lit up with candles, the sweet scent of macarons wafting through the air, and told you he had found someone. It hasn’t been show business since, not when Taehyung is looking for love and finds it everywhere except where you wish he would look most. 

Maybe you’re just being selfish. Taehyung doesn’t have to love you for you to love him. You knew that. You lived with that. He’s your best friend. He always will be. You can’t do anything to force him to love you back. You had always been fine with just being friends. 

But just—knowing that he doesn’t feel the same. Having that certainty rooted deep within you. That’s the part that hurts the most. 

Taehyung comes home earlier than he normally would on a day like this, catching you in the kitchen as you brew some chamomile tea, hoping that it will calm the waves that crash against the pier inside you. You turn to meet his eyes, and suddenly, you feel like you can’t see anything in them at all. 

“Why didn’t you come tonight?” He demands. “I looked for you and you weren’t there. Where were you?”

“Here,” you tell him. “I was thinking maybe I would go tomorrow.”

“But you’re always at my opening show,” Taehyung says, like you don’t know that already. “Why didn’t you come? Did I do something wrong?”

“No, you didn’t,” you tell him. You don’t think you’re drunk or tired enough for this conversation. At ten at night, you’re still cognizant, aware of what consequences this conversation might have when you wake up in the morning. 

“Then why weren’t you there? You know I need you there,” Taehyung pleads, coming up to you as you stand in your kitchen, waiting for the kettle to boil.

“No, I didn’t know that,” you tell him firmly. You went to his opening shows because it was tradition. Not because it was necessary. 

“You’re my good luck charm, for god’s sake, Y/N,” Taehyung says, fists curled up at his sides. You can tell that he’s trying hard not to burst at the seams, like there are so many things he’s holding at the tip of his tongue. “I did such a shit job tonight without you there. I spent the entire first half of the show looking out into the crowd so much that Lancaster asked me if I had taken anything before we started.”

“That’s not my fault,” you tell him. “I didn’t know that you thought I was your good luck charm, or whatever.” And, because you’re bitter and petty and heartbroken, you add, “I would have thought that would be something your girlfriend is.”

Taehyung loses it. “What’s been going on with you, Y/N? Why are you being like this? Ever since my first show, I feel like we’re drifting further and further apart. You never want to spend time with me, you never want to come to my afterparties, you barely spare a glance at my girlfriends when I introduce them to you, and now, you’ve stopped coming to my shows. All of these things that I thought that we shared, ever since college. Tell me, Y/N, am I doing something wrong? Is there something that I’ve missed? Because it feels like we’re fucking strangers.”

The water finishes boiling, the kettle whistling on the stovetop as steam billows from the spout. “I’m not obligated to do any of those things, Taehyung,” you tell him harshly. “Just because we did them in college doesn’t mean I have to keep doing them now. What, did you think we’d still be doing that sort of stuff when we’re thirty? Forty, fifty? They were just college traditions.”

“‘College traditions’?” Taehyung asks, astounded. “Were all of those nights that we spent together just college traditions, too? Are we not allowed to do those things anymore? I miss you, Y/N. I hate not having you around and tonight was the worst it’s ever been. I don’t know what to do or say, I don’t know how to fix this, I don’t even fucking know what’s broken.”

“I just need space, Taehyung,” you tell him, hands gripping the edge of the countertop as you stare at the laminate, eyes tracing the lines to keep you from meeting his own. “I just need some time to myself, that’s all.”

“But why, Y/N?” Taehyung pleads, He reaches over to grab your hand, holds it in between the two of you like a lifeline. 

“‘Why?’” You echo angrily. “You don’t know? You can’t tell? We’ve known each other for four years and you haven’t realized?” You tug your hand from his grasp. It’s clear you’re beating a dead horse. You wonder why you even tried in the first place. How naive you were, standing in the kitchen surrounded by scented candles and flowers and macarons, dreaming of a life with him by your side. Foolish. 

“Realized what?” 

“That I’m in love with you!” You shout, and the world goes silent. The kettle stops whistling, the water having evaporated into nothing, the packet of chamomile tea left, forgotten on the countertop. You stand there, breaths heavy, chest heaving, as you look at Taehyung, angry and mad and in love, all at once. 

“You’re what?”

“Don’t make me say it again,” you hiss. “I already know that you don’t feel the same.”

“Y/N, wait—”

“Goodnight, Taehyung.” You turn on your heels, storming into your bedroom and collapsing against the door. Finally, finally, finally, you let the tears wrack your body, sending shivers down your spine. There’s salt on your tongue and smudged liner beneath your eyes. 

You thought pressing flowers makes them last forever. But even the red carnation is starting to shrivel. 

Subject Title: New Project????

From Park, Seojoon, to me

Hi Taehyung,

You did a great job last night in Chance Card! Really proud of you for accomplishing so much. Pretty soon you’ll be on Broadway and be too big for a small manager like me. You’ll need an agent, and a publicist, and a stylist, and a dog-walker…

Anyway, just emailing to let you know that Hugo Cleveland reached out to me to see if you were interested in auditioning for his next play. He personally wanted to see if you liked the part, and would give you preference if you did want to audition. It’s called Cupid, and it’s another one of those modern-day retellings of an old tale. I thought you might like it. Attached is the script and a short description of the play. Let me know if you’d like to give it a shot! I think this might be the project that gets you onto Broadway!!

As always, contact me if you need anything at all.

Park

Taehyung, still in bed despite it being nearly noon, taps around on his phone, pulling up the description of the play. He hates reading PDFs on his phone, so he’ll check out the script on his laptop later. 

Cupid by Hugo Cleveland

Cupid chronicles the tale of the world’s most well known hopeless romantic—Cupid himself. Set in a world of magical realism, Cupid has the power to make two people fall in love with a single shot of his arrow, and spends his life walking around the city of New York, bow and arrow by his side. 

The only problem is that Cupid has no way to make people fall in love with him, because his magic operates under the assumption of soulmates—a single person meant for another. And as the years have gone by, he has searched and searched and searched over millennia, desperate to find love, but it’s almost as if everyone has soulmates except for him. 

Little does he know, he need look no further to find the person he shall spend the rest of his life with—not when his best friend has always been by his side. 

Taehyung glares at the description like it’s personally offended him. He knows that it’s just a coincidence that he happens to receive this email the morning after his fight with you, but he can’t help but feel like God is playing the world’s worst practical joke on him. 

Cursed with the memory of an actor, he replays last night in his head over and over and over again, looping the feed back and forth as your words echo in his mind. 

You don’t know? You can’t tell? We’ve known each other for four years and you haven’t realized?

He never knew what he was supposed to be looking for. You were just friends, you had always been just friends. But then he looked out in the crowd and couldn’t see you anywhere, couldn’t make out your eyes even in a sea of hundreds like he always does, and it felt like there was more than just another audience member missing. He spent the rest of the evening getting his hopes up, thinking that maybe you’re just sitting somewhere else, maybe you put in colored contacts, maybe you’re hidden by some really buff guy in front of you. 

He missed you, last night. He’s been missing you a lot recently, missing the way the days you spent together would bleed into nights. Missing the way you wrap your arms around him and smother him in cuddles, missing the way you always remember his takeout order for the fifteen different restaurants you frequent. Missing the way he once thought that you could spend your whole lives together. 

Realized what?

He supposes that he has always been a bit foolish. All of his ex-girlfriends broke up with him, never the other way around. And while they all ended on good terms, they all said the same thing to him: it always seemed like his heart belonged to someone else. But he misread that, too. He just thought that he hadn’t found the right person, yet. He would keep searching until he did. 

That I’m in love with you!

The craziest thing about it all is that your confession didn’t even shock him that much. After the initial surprise wore off, it was almost as if the dust settled around you, the storm finally calming. Like finding the last puzzle piece after thinking it had been lost for days. Like feeling everything click into place.

Taehyung has been thinking a lot about last night, but his least favorite part is always this:

I already know that you don’t feel the same.

He wishes that he could have told you. He wishes that he could have been strong enough, could have realized what he had before it slipped through his fingertips. Wishes that he could have reached out and grabbed onto you and never let go. There’s nothing more that he wants to do than see you again. You live in the same tiny New York apartment, and you’ve never felt further away from him. 

Taehyung wills himself out of bed and washes his face, clearing away the leftover makeup and the sleep in his eyes. It’s a fresh start. It’s a new day. 

He sees you standing in the kitchen, making that tea that you had left forgotten last night. He catches your eyes for just a second before he loses them again, watches as you turn your back to him in a desperate attempt to avoid contact. 

“I got a new potential show to audition for,” he says loudly, breaking the silence. 

“That’s cool,” you say, emotionless. 

“Do you want to know what it’s about?”

You don’t respond. Taehyung takes this as a cue to continue. 

“It’s about a boy on a search for love,” Taehyung begins, rallying himself despite only being able to see your back. “And he goes out and sees all of these people falling in love and wants that for himself. And he wonders why nothing is sticking, why he can’t seem to fall in love with anybody. And then he realizes that the reason he can’t seem to fall in love with anyone else is because he’s already found his person.” A pause. He’s just summarizing a story, but this feels like a confession. “His best friend.”

You turn around sharply, tea sloshing in the cup in your hand. Taehyung inhales, then exhales. It’s now or never. You’ve been friends for so long. Who’s to say you can’t be more than that?

“Don’t you think I’d play this part well?” He asks. 

You shrug, closing your eyes and breathing heavy. He can tell that you’re holding something back, trying not to burst at the seams. “I’m not sure, Tae.”

“I think I would,” Taehyung tells you confidently. He takes a step closer to you, reaches over to take the cup of tea from your hands, placing it on the counter. “Because I’ve been doing it for so long, already.”

You gasp when he kisses you, a gust of air escaping your lips and immediately mixing with his, seize up at the feeling of his lips on yours. Immediately, Taehyung wonders if he’s overstepped a boundary, or two, or five, but then he feels you relax under his touch, feels you reach your hands up to cup his cheeks as you press against him insistently, drunk on the taste of his lips on your own. 

Taehyung’s kissed a lot of people in his day, but this one is different. He’s felt sparks, seen fireworks, but with you, it’s as if he’s sinking into a warm bath after a cold day. As if he’s returning to an apartment filled with the things he loves after a long day out. As if he’s coming home. 

All of these emotions, all of the little things tucked away in the corners of his soul, in the dark attic of his heart, come bubbling up to the surface, and all he can do is hope that you can feel them, swallow them up like wine, as you press your lips against his, grinning. 

Finally, you pull yourself away, almost as if you think you’ll get drunk if you keep going. 

“How long?” You ask. 

Taehyung shrugs. “I don’t know. A while now, definitely.”

“Really?”

“I think so,” Taehyung says. “I guess that I was wrong, what I said before about looking for love. I looked everywhere, I wanted to see it in every spark that was set my way, but I forgot the most important place. I should have known.” You curl into his touch, resting your head against his chest as his arms wrap around your waist. “How about you?”

“Forever,” you breathe out. “It started and it never stopped.”

Taehyung beams. The flowerbud in his heart had been shuttered for so long, hardly watered and never in the sun. And then suddenly, the curtains opened up and the clouds began to cry, and everything blossomed. You make him feel like he’s always home. You make him feel safe. 

You make him feel like a red carnation in bloom.

↳ links are broken, but don’t forget to message me with any thoughts or feedback!

[thevirgodoll]

hi! i was wondering if you have any tips to stay organized and stay on task? i’ve been doing a short online course this year and have really struggled to ACTUALLY bring myself to do the work, as assignments and lessons are not under any time constraints i just don’t do it. i also have adhd so get bored or distracted easily. do you have any tips for me?

This is really close to me because I also have ADHD. I have both inattentive and hyperactive type. *As a result, this academic tip guide will be a guide for people with ADHD and not neurotypical people, without disability. There is a difference.*

I am doing online as well this semester.

1. I create a schedule. If I do not create a schedule, I will be unproductive the entire day. So, what will help you is to do things in orderly fashion.

For example, at 12p - I will do this assignment/watch this lecture. You have to dictate what time you’re doing everything. Then, you also have to block out technology distractions while you are working. 

-> Even if you’ve gotten halfway through the day with no schedule, write down or block off times on your digital calendar for what you are going to do at each time. ADHD is easier to tackle if you break things down into smaller tasks.

*Pro tip that I almost forgot: before you do anything, wear your day clothes. Don’t wear pajamas. Actually getting dressed or even doing hair/makeup changes things.

2. Download the Forest app after you have created your schedule. I consistently recommend this because it works in increasing productivity. It allows you to set it for however long you’re doing this task, say 30 minutes.

-> Why?: It will block all apps on your phone for (insert time here) to plant a tree, and if you leave the app your “tree” will die. Eventually, the more sessions you do, the more points you will gain to plant different plants, and eventually plant real trees around the world.

3. Have a list (& a planner) as well. Not only is the schedule creating structure, but the list creates even more structure so you know what you need to get done for the day. It also helps you not fall victim to the classic symptom of forgetting. Each day, you should write down what you WANT to get done and create your own times to look at lecture and assignments. Have goals for the day.

For example: complete assignment 2.

If you do not have expectations with yourself before the day begins, your ADHD will kind of take over and do something else. I have structure to my day. I set a timer to wake up at the same time. I take my ADHD medicine 90 minutes before my final wake up time, and I do my morning routine once it kicks in. Having the same routine helps.

-> Focus on your goals. Don’t be super harsh about the times.

-> Don’t overwhelm with how many things on to do list. Again, break it up into small tasks. For example, one part being: Wash dishes or fold laundry. It makes it less overwhelming to your brain and gives you a choice of which task. Typical non ADHD people just tell you to prioritize tasks but that doesn’t work for us. Do it in a random order and it gets the job done.

4. TAKE BREAKS! The other side to this is making sure that you give yourself adequate breaks.

*For hyperfocus, wait til your hyperfocus has started to wear off. Use it to your advantage for peak productivity. It is no joke.*

-> The misconception is that some people with ADHD are lazy and as a result, some ADHDers won’t take breaks. You can take a break. Healthy, long breaks do more for you long term.

-> Have a timer set. For example, after a 45 minute session or an hour session, I will take a break to do another task that has nothing to do with studying, like laundry, eating a snack, or stretching. Then after that task is done, I will go back to studying.

5. Have a workspace. Only do work at this space. I do schoolwork at my living room table and it is perfect. I do not study in my room because that is my sanctuary for relaxation and rest, not productivity. Make an effort to make the workspace clean, with your supplies - laptop, notebooks, pens, etc - readily available.

-> Once I get to my workspace, everything for the morning is already done. I’ve done my morning routine, so all there is left to do is hydrate while I study.

6. Recognize if you have adequate energy to do the task. Sometimes, with ADHD you may neglect your needs. If you are not getting enough rest, here are some tips:

•Bed should be for rest only.

•Blackout curtains

•Lavender essential oil, I have a diffuser but you can also put it on your pillow

•Background noise: pick what you want, lo fi music, rain sounds, binaural beats, singing bowls

•If all else fails, ADHD is often comorbid with other illnesses, meaning you could have a form of depression causing insomnia for example. This should be considered if you are having long term issues and symptoms.

7. Don’t overdo it. We are not neurotypical. Executive dysfunction is real - meaning our brains actually shut down when it perceives a task to be mundane.

-> You do not have to fit everything into one schedule for the sake of being “productive”. Each day should be what you know you can do, and there are different days to tackle different goals.

-> When you feel like you cannot continue, which is literally a symptom of ADHD, sit still for a few minutes.

8. Have a “What I Did Today” List. Because of how ADHD actually makes us feel, we don’t realize how much work we have put in. ADHD actually can be explained easily, we have about 2 dopamine workers showing up to work while most people are at maximum capacity. We are working overtime to do our best, even on medicine. So, acknowledging what we did today is good and encouraging, or at least reflecting in a journal.

9. Play music. It’s recommended to play study music without words because with ADHD we will submerge ourselves into the playlist of nostalgic 90s R&B. I recommend lo fi hip hop on YouTube, video game instrumentals, classical music, or jazz instrumentals. Whatever gets you going just do it!

General ADHD tips:

•Rewrite lecture notes and type the lecture notes.

•Color code with bright colors and pretty drawings or calligraphy

•Instead of telling yourself “I need to take notes” which usually leads to procrastination say “Rewrite lecture notes and emphasize main points” ... this is useful in your to do list but in everyday goals

•Generally try to get your assignments done ahead of time if there is structure to certain courses, if not, again, stick to the schedule. If you slip one day off your schedule then don’t beat yourself up. Breathe!!!

•Side effect of most ADHD meds is that you’re not hungry so buy easy things to eat like muscle milk or yogurt and granola or smoothies so you can sustain yourself

•Get a dry erase board to show what you need to do for the day and put it on the fridge with command strips

•To avoid forgetting things, put them at a table near the door where you leave your apartment/dorm/house.

•Don’t overthink the time it takes to get ready, often that’s why ADHDers are late. Better to be super early than late though - have a routine set so you know how long each task takes - for example “I know a shower takes me 15 mins, washing my face takes 60 seconds and a few more including sunscreen/moisturizer, etc...”

•In that same grain, set timers for going to the bathroom, showering, etc just in case you one day hyperfocus and push yourself too far

•Open the blinds!!!!

•Clean your room and tidy up your space. A cluttered space impacts your mental health in a really negative way. Your space reflects your mental state at times as well, so check in with yourself. Have a specific day where you know you’re going to clean, but ADHD sometimes gives us bursts of cleaning so take advantage of that as well.

•Anytime your water bottle empties refill it. Have your water bottle or mason jar next to your workspace, and drink 5-10 gulps. Seriously. ADHD depends a lot on hydration, especially if you are on medicine which naturally dehydrates you. If you do not stay hydrated, you’ll get that massive headache mid day and crash sooner. A lot of times, lack of productivity can be due to not drinking enough water.

•If you don’t take medication, then sometimes you may notice you love coffee, and that’s because it’s a stimulant. Too much of anything is not good, but balance it with water. If you’re going to use coffee to kinda “medicate” then do it close to when you’re going to be productive.

•Setting yourself up to do a task rather than envisioning the overwhelming act of doing the entire action. “Okay, lets just get up and get the first step down, such as opening the laptop or wetting the toothbrush.” Baby steps.

•Take advantage of accommodations! Your college more than likely has an Office of Disability Services. Also, email your professors...they’re actually just as stressed as you about classes being online.

•Remember that you’re already trying as hard as you can, so don’t listen to the narrative of “try harder”, “you’re *r word*”, “you’re cheating by using medication”, “just do it,” “it’s easy,” “what’s so hard about it?” or “you’re lazy”. Anyone telling you that, even yourself, is wrong. And DO NOT allow anyone to be ableist, even yourself.

•Validate yourself. Don’t let anyone to do the “I experience that too”/“I know what you mean”/“we ALL have trouble with this!” and they don’t have ADHD. No. It’s our experience, it’s valid, and unlike anything on the planet. If you’re reading this and you don’t have ADHD - no, you do not experience any of the things in my next bullet point.

•Don’t be hard on yourself if you stumble along the way getting this right. ADHD completely changes your executive functioning.

We see the task, but our brain blocks it.

We have something marked down as “important” but our brain tosses it out in the “trash”.

We watch an entire episode of a show, but our brain ignored the entire thing. Our brain picks and chooses what is stimulating, our brain changes our interests.

We have sensory overload, we have no dopamine, we have bursts of curiosity that cannot be contained (often inconvenient) and if interrupted, our brains cannot take it.

People often discount how many things ADHD actually changes because it’s widely misunderstood. I want to take the time to acknowledge that ADHD, formerly known as simply ADD, has different types: primarily inattentive, primarily hyperactive-impulsive, or combined which is what I have. So it’s not “hyper” and “relatable”. It is also not a buzzword to use to describe things. I must put stereotypes and misrepresentations of ADHD to rest.

It impacts us emotionally as well, which most people don’t know... such as rejection dysphoria — extreme sensitivity to being criticized to where our brains self destruct. Our brains don’t regulate emotions well.

ADHDers - do not fall victim to how everyone else operates and call yourself a failure. We have to work twice as hard and the results actually come out brilliant especially with our determination and imaginative ideas that are also seen in autistic individuals, honorable mention!

There’s good days and bad days. There’s literal changes in thinking that other people do not experience. We all collectively know wouldn’t be who we are without ADHD, but we all recognize the challenges. However, it makes me happy to see messages like this so that I can make a difference and hopefully help one person with ADHD, especially of color, at a time stop being so hard on themselves. 💗

[youvebeenlivingfictional]

The Logical Epilogue

Epilogue to The Logical Progression

Pairing: Nathan Bateman x Reader Rating: Mature Warnings: Cursing; sexual innuendo; Nathan being Nathan Notes: Honestly was kinda stunned that so many people asked for an epilogue 🥺 Sorry it took so long!  Just as a note, the painter mentioned in this piece is entirely fictional Summary: At first, it was exciting.

Berlin worked.

Berlin worked for a while.

You settled into your new position, your new office. Your new boss, Mark’s replacement, was out in California, and the time difference was a little bit of a bitch, but you made it work.

You made it work for a while.

You saw Nathan most weekends, at first. Most, because he got consumed with his work so often, and so did you, sometimes. Truth be told, you couldn’t always take the time out of your schedule to take the two hour flight from Berlin to Oslo, and then the hour long helicopter ride from the airport to the drop zone near the estate, and then the forty five minute hike from the drop zone to Nathan’s house.

At first, you did.

At first, it was exciting. At first you were optimistic, and in love, and brimming with hope because this was a compromise—and sure, it wasn’t something that the two of you had come up with together; it had been your idea, but he had said yes. Yes to your idea, yes to Berlin, yes to your new title – in his company. You had carved out your own place in his company, gotten to where you were by your own merits. You were happy. He was happy.

It worked at first.

After the first few months, though, the bloom was off the rose.

It started with the travel. 

Four hours was a lot one way – and that was four hours if everything was running on time and the weather permitted. It was eight hours all told, round trip. Eight hours every weekend, back and forth, was a bit much. So after a few months, every weekend became every other weekend – and it was still a lot. Of course, any time you mentioned that to Nathan, he was unapologetic at best.

“If you’d just moved in with me like I’d planned, you wouldn’t be tired.”

The first couple of times, you’d laughed. The fifteenth time, it wasn’t so funny anymore. You finally stopped mentioning it to him.

Then, it was the work.

It took you four hours to get to his house. Four. Three flying and an hour of a hike – sometimes through the snow. Silly you, you’d thought the man might stop for more than a kiss and a, “Hey, honey,” when you got there.

At first, the two of you were fucking like rabbits. And then your visits became more infrequent, and even when you were there, Nathan was sometimes too locked in to whatever it was that he was doing to give you the time of day, so much so that you felt like his damn Jackson Pollack: you were around to be looked at occasionally, contemplated, and then left to your own devices.

You’d made the mistake of mentioning that to him, too.

“I’d have more time for you if you were here, honey.”

That had started as a tease, too, but you knew Nathan. Every little joke and jab had a thin layer of saccharine shielding the spike he really wanted to stick you with.

And it stuck.

It didn’t help that your work had felt stagnant since you’d moved. Blue Book was still flourishing; your performance reviews were all positive; the Berlin office was thriving, but… But ever since you moved, you just felt so disconnected.

-- 

“You’re not coming this weekend?”

Nathan’s voice didn’t manage to lose any of its petulance despite how tinny it sounded through your headphones.

“I can’t, we’re going through tissue sessions for the pitch on Monday,” You told him.

“I haven’t seen you in, like, a month.”

“Oh, you noticed that?” There was a pause on Nathan’s end before he dryly asked, “You driving at something, sweetheart?” “Look Nate, I’ve got work to do,” You retorted, “I’ll call you later and try to make it out next weekend, alright?” Nathan let out a scoffed laugh and hung up. No ‘goodbye’, no ‘sure’, no ‘noon will be fine’. Looking back, that should’ve been a warning. With Nathan, there wouldn’t be a goodbye. There would be a drift. The time between your trips to see him became longer and longer, and your countenance in one another’s company became more and more icy, more static. The trips stopped, the calls stopped, and then a box with the things that you left at Nathan’s place showed up at your door. No note, no letter from him, nothing. His Maya console was right at the bottom. He’d finally ripped it out of the fuckin’ wall. Mommy and Daddy had broken up and you got full custody. -- 

The decision to leave Blue Book wasn’t a result of the break up. You’d had other job offers before - Nathan knew that-- No. No, you told yourself to take Nathan out of the equation as you handwrote your resignation letter. Handwrote, because you were still under NDA, and you didn’t want the drafts of this to be caught in one of the regular data audits that Blue Book did. 

You weren’t leaving to join Google, Apple, or IBM, or any of the other companies that had offered you positions with them over the years.  One of the reasons that you had moved up in Blue Book as quickly as you had was your ability to look at a product release and translate the jargon-heavy language into something the average person could understand. You’d done it for a few friends in the tech industry on the side now and again, when they were getting started with their own companies. And as much as you liked Blue Book, you liked the idea of being your own boss more. -- Your last night at Blue Book was no less than a fiasco - you’d been there a long time, so they made an effort, a fuss. They threw a party at a swanky art gallery in Berlin. People had come up to you all evening, asked you what your plans were, if you were excited, what you would miss. You’d told them - you were going to become a freelance writer, focus on technical writing. You already had a number of jobs lined up. You were incredibly excited, but a little nervous. Blue Book had been one big cyber safety net. You’d be alone.

“You hear Bateman was here?” It was a whisper behind you - from one member of the sales team to another, but loud enough for you to hear, loud enough to distract you from the conversation that you’d been in the middle of. There was no way. You hadn’t heard from the man in months - four of them, if you were going to be precise. There was no way he would turn up at your going away party - to do what? Make a fucking splash? All eyes on him? You wondered exactly how much shit you’d get for leaving your own party. You heard the ping of Blue Book’s messaging system on your phone and you pulled it out of your pocket, going cold when you saw the message. N. Bateman: Ferrar room.

No. No, you wouldn’t let him do this. This motherfucker wouldn’t get the chance to just swan back in and sweep you back off of your fucking feet after he was such a shit. -- “So you haven’t plugged Maya in yet.” “...Well between my phone, laptop and the NDA, I’ve kinda already got enough of your spyware in my apartment.”

Nathan chuckled, still wandering around the little back room of the gallery. You’d had to ask an attendant where the Ferrar room even was - but it was full of some of the most vibrant work you’d ever seen. So maybe, for that reason, you’d briefly forgiven Nathan for not even turning to look at you since you’d walked in. And yeah, it had stung, but considering everything that had happened and-- and not happened -- considering the things that the two of you had never said and the fights that you’d never had, and the compromises that he’d never made and every single compromise that you had made, it was no wonder that the man didn’t bother to turn and look at you when there was canvas after canvas after canvas of life in vivid color all around him. “Armel Ferrar,” Nathan said, “French painter, born in Peillon in 1868. Moved to Paris in 1885. Heavily influenced by Seurat and Cézanne -- more Cézanne than Seurat. You can see it in the color use, but… the way he plays with light, that’s all Seurat.” You weren’t looking at the painting that Nathan was looking at. Hell, you weren’t even looking at the paintings. You were just looking at him - at the back of his fucking head. At the back of his fucking head, and the slight tapering that you could see of his beard; at the way his shoulders sloped, and where his hands were tucked into his pockets. Your eyes drifted up his back again, over his neck, his head. The painting he was looking at, whatever painting it was, had bursts of yellow - wheat, maybe, or stars, or the sun, it was difficult for you to tell at that distance. From where you stood, it was as though the man was haloed and framed. Bright and shining and on display, this man that liked to keep to himself and spent his days underground in his office. “Stayed in Paris, too--” He was still talking, of course he was still talking, “Most of his life, or what was left of it. Never married, had one kid outta wedlock… Died in 1891, same year as Seurat. His daughter, Marie-Thérèse, married a military man that moved her to Berlin after the second World War. She brought his paintings with her, that’s how they wound up here.” 

Nathan went quiet for a few moments before, “What do you think?” “...I’m wondering why you had me come back here when you very well could’ve given that TED talk to an empty room. Or better yet to any one of the people out there that are utterly fascinated with you. Either would suit, considering how much you love your own voice.” You had already turned yourself to look at a painting, made yourself distracted by the time you answered, because you’d known that that would get a look from him. You were right, too; you saw him turn to look at you out of your periphery. “Can we skip this part?” That bored tone was back. You dug your nails into the palms of your hands, letting your eyes hone in on the vivid splashes of red on the painting in front of you - petunias. “Which part would that be?” You asked. “The part where you tell me what I did wrong and I pretend that you’re right so that I can say sorry and we can get back to what we were doing.”

You laughed. You actually laughed. Not a fake one, not a haughty one, but a real peal of laughter left you in shock. “Wow,” You sighed once it had passed, “I forgot what a dick you are, you know that? I actually kinda managed to forget.” “Look--” “No,” You turned to face him, holding a hand up to stop whatever he was about to say, “If you came to fake some sincere bullshit, or to tell me that everything would’ve worked if we had done things your way--” “They would’ve--” “Shut the fuck up, Bateman,” You snapped, “You don’t know that, alright? You don’t. I don’t care if you have it in your head that it would’ve all been perfect because you said so.” 

“You really think my way would’ve been worse?” “Well, we’ll never know,” You shrugged, folding your arms over your chest. Nathan was quiet for a single, blessed moment. Then-- “Why are you leaving Blue Book?” “I don’t wanna sound egotistical here, but I kinda refuse to believe that you didn’t read my resignation letter.” “I did.” “Then you know the answer.” “Were those the only reasons?” You looked over his face for a few moments. “... It wasn’t you,” You shook your head, “I don’t know if you wanted it to be, or didn’t, but it wasn’t you.” “Why the fuck would I want it to be?” “Because you think the universe revolves around your beard.” 

He seemed to fight a smile for a moment, and your stomach twisted. You’d seen that look - the way he had to work to pull down the corners of his mouth - in the first video he’d ever sent you, yelling at Maya to remove you as an admin. Maya, which was still sitting in a box in your apartment, because you couldn’t bring yourself to get rid of the damn console. You didn’t want to plug it in, but you couldn’t just fucking throw it out. “...So, this new job,” He approached you slowly, and you were careful to hold your ground - not just because backing or turning away felt like weakness, but because stepping backward would mean knocking into the work of a French artist whose life sounded pretty fucking tragic. “Yes?” “You staying in Berlin?” You were quiet for a few moments before you shook your head. “I don’t know. I can do it from anywhere, so I haven’t really decided what my next move is going to be.” “Anywhere?” Nathan repeated. “Whatever you’re thinking, un-think it.” “Can’t unscramble an egg, honey.” “Don’t.” “Don’t what?” “Bateman, I’m serious. You think I’m just gonna crawl back to you?” “Who the fuck is doing the crawling? I’m here!” He snapped. “Oh, look. Nathan did one thing,” You cooed mockingly, “Nathan put on something other than sweatpants and left his estate--” “It’s a four hour trip--” “Oh, you cannot fucking tell me about the travel, Bateman, don’t you dare. I did that for months and you acted like it was nothing, you acted like I was nothing!” 

And then Nathan stopped. Nathan stopped and lowered his chin to his chest for a moment. “You’re not,” He spoke softly - so softly you almost didn’t hear, “You’re not-- You know that. That's your insecurities talking--” “Knowing and feeling are two different things. I’m not a console, I don’t run an OS, I can’t just go in and fix the buggy code that tells me differently,” You had to work to keep your voice steady and get the words out, “What you just did once to get here? I did that for months, Bateman. And that’s after I pulled my whole life up and moved to a new country. That trip, two days a week, every week, and half the time I was there, you acted like I wasn’t. I may as well have not been, so I stopped going.”  “You could’ve talked to me.” “...You know what, I’m not even going near that one, because I really don’t want to yell in here,” You managed through gritted teeth, eyes diverted to another painting. Nathan lifted his head then, looking you over before he stepped forward, muttering, “Stop that.” “What?” “That.” He reached out, taking hold of your hands from where they were crossed under your arms. He ‘tsk’ed softly as he uncrossed your arms and unfolded your hands, running his thumbs over the small half-moon dents that your nails had left in your palms. “... Alright, maybe gatecrashing wasn’t my best idea,” He glanced toward the door to the room before his eyes scanned your face. “I don’t think it even breaks your top five.” “Would you care to list that top five now?” “I would not, at the risk of puffing up your beard.” You heard him chuckle, felt his thumbs continue to smooth over your palms. “...You remember that first Rise of AI, when I told you why I’d pulled you up on stage to give that presentation?” He asked. You frowned, turning to look at him again. He was watching you closely over the top of his glasses, eyes knowing and dark. “You wanted to see what I'd do if you threw me in the deep end.” He nodded. “That was Blue Book, something we both knew. This…” He wrapped his hands around your, gave them a gentle squeeze, “This is new for the both of us. We jumped into the deep end and uh…Starting in the kiddy pool might’ve been better.”  “Did Nathan Bateman just admit defeat?” “No. No,” His gaze went stern, then, “Because kiddy pool or not, you’re still in the fuckin’ water.” You looked down at where his hands were holding yours still. “I want to try again,” Nathan crowded closer to you, “And I know-- I know that I am an asshole and that I fucked up, and you know what, I’m probably going to fuck up again,” He raised one hand to cup your chin, raising your head to meet his eyes, “But I wanna give it another shot. I just… I just need to know if that’s even an option here.” When the box of your things had arrived at your place, you’d told yourself that it wasn’t. You’d told yourself that Nathan was an asshole, and a shitstain, and a dickwad, and a douchecanoe, and a host of other derogatory names that you’d dreamt up in your most frustrated moments. Because, yeah, he could be those things. But that didn’t change the fact that you still had feelings for him. It didn’t change the fact that you’d made mistakes in that relationship, too. “So?” He prompted you as you looked at one another, “How do you think we’d do in the kiddy pool?” You gave him a small smile and murmured, “Swimmingly.” The force of Nathan’s kiss nearly knocked you off of your feet - your head would’ve hit a Ferrar if his hand hadn’t come up to cup the back and cushion it. (The gallery owner saw the two of you and was horrified.) (But Nathan bought that painting and like five others, so they got over it.)

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