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shihalyfie · 2 years

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Digimon Survive’s character cast, their roles in the group, and Adventure parallels

This franchise loves to self-reference, so it’s very easy to say that a lot of things are based on Adventure, but in Survive’s case, it has been abundantly clear (to the point of having been officially stated in many interviews) the narrative and setup itself is meant to be a reimagining of Digimon Adventure, as in the 54-episode series that aired from March 1999-2000. As much as the franchise likes to use Adventure symbolism, or rough glosses of its isekai premise, you might be surprised at how few things actually have bothered to take a look at the entire series and structure to the little things, trying to figure out what made it tick, instead of just pulling its names and faces and terminology and calling it a day. Moreover, one of Survive’s core premises of “a Digimon partner is effectively a part of your own soul” is a premise that originates directly from Adventure; it’s just that this time, it’s much more explicit.

Adventure is famous for being a character narrative, to the point you can put a picture with nothing but the characters and people will consider it representative of the entire series. So if you want to go deeply into Adventure, you have to look at its characters, what their relationships were, and what roles they had. And Survive does, but with its own distinct cast of characters who are very similar in some ways...and very different in others.

As you might expect, this post spoils all four routes, so please be aware of this before reading further. (I also will be spoiling Adventure and 02, in case you haven’t seen those yet. Hey, you never know.)

Because I wasn’t able to go back through all four routes to take screenshots, the screenshots used in this post are from Anthony (Wrathful), Owl-Quest (Harmony), and BattleBunny (Moral and Truthful)’s playthroughs. Please go check them out if you want to see the game yourself!

Something very important before we begin

I think making comparisons and drawing parallels is very useful, but I have a personal policy that comparisons should only be drawn “as much as they are useful” and no more than that. There’s a difference between “thoughtfully inspecting comparisons and contrasts to analyze how things work” versus “forcing parallels so hard that you end up trying to smash a square peg into a round hole, completely losing sight of the reason you’re trying to make those comparisons in the first place”. I know it’s tempting to try and make as many parallels as you can, but there’s a point where trying to force it becomes actively detrimental to your analysis.

It is true that Survive was built from the ground up as a reimagining of Adventure of sorts, and even promoted and officially stated to be such. However, Adventure is Adventure, and Survive is Survive. Survive is a game meant to stand on its own even if you've never touched Digimon Adventure in your life; to act as if the narrative and characters are nothing more than variations on Adventure’s is, in my opinion, disrespecting Survive’s efforts to be its own story in the end. It is a game that pays tribute to and reimagines Adventure's concepts, so it can't (and shouldn’t) be disentangled completely from Adventure if you want to bring the most out of an analysis, but it’s also unfair to treat the game as if it’s just some kind of twisted, barely-modified parody of Adventure, because it’s not. It’s a game that draws heavily from its predecessors in bringing up concepts to think about while also firmly doing what it needs to do in order to be its own story.

Therefore, in making character comparisons and analyzing the characters in relevance to Adventure characters, my priority will be on making connections between “their roles and positions in the group” rather than trying to force comparisons for the sake of forcing them, or trying to claim that this character is just the Survive version of this Adventure character. In fact, in some cases, my goal is to convey that a Survive character may start off in the same rough position as their Adventure counterpart but go in a very different direction.

I also would like to reiterate that I very much disapprove of the idea of using Survive to be condescending about Adventure. Survive’s characters and plot do address territory that Adventure isn’t able to, but framing Survive with reductive things like “Adventure but darker/edgier” or “a deconstruction of Adventure” as if the game only exists to dunk on Adventure’s idealism or treat it like it’s implausible is incredibly disrespectful, not only to Adventure but also to Survive, which in fact very obviously holds its predecessor in high esteem. (I mean, it is very fun to refer to Survive as “Adventure except people die” as a joke, but the game really is more than just that.) I’m going to bring back this very well-worded tweet “a deconstruction is when I like something in a genre I disrespect”; I don’t have any patience for this kind of thing, so don’t bring it in here. I reiterate: the comparisons are going to be drawn for the sake of better analyzing what Survive is pulling from and referencing while also doing its own thing for its own story. No more, no less.

Takuma and Agumon

At this point it’s pretty much common knowledge that anyone with a name that starts with “ta-” and a pair of goggles is going to be taking Taichi’s role as protagonist, and Takuma having an Agumon only drives it in further, but if we’re actually going to talk about Taichi himself, things get a little more complicated because Taichi was actually quite unusual in many ways (I honestly would say that Taichi is a character a lot of people “know” but don’t tend to easily “understand”). But right off the bat, Takuma turns out to have a very different temperament from Taichi’s, being significantly more introspective and less impulsive. In fact, he holds the distinction of being a rare Digimon protagonist who uses the polite first-person pronoun boku (most Digimon protagonists use the more assertive ore), and for frame of reference, the other major players who do this are Takato (Tamers), Haru (Appmon), and Keisuke (Hacker’s Memory), all three of whom are associated with some kind of meta element questioning whether they should be in the protagonist position...

(Personally, between Takato, Haru, and Keisuke, I’d say Takuma is probably closest to Haru in that he’s polite but also very thoughtful and introspective. He does happen to have self-doubts much more quickly than Haru would most of the time, but he’s not prone to Keisuke’s self-esteem issues or Takato’s tendency to shrink easily.)

Some of the nuances of Takuma’s personality and how selfish or selfless he is depend on the player’s choices and what route things are in, but for the most part the general core is consistent across all four routes. Takuma doesn’t start off thinking of himself as the group’s leader, and this part is consistent with Taichi as well; Taichi didn’t have particular awareness of himself as the group’s leader until Jou confronted him with the prospect in Adventure episode 28. However, in contrast to Taichi immediately taking initiative and pulling everyone forward even if he didn’t consciously see himself as the leader, Takuma started off still having strong awareness of seniors like Aoi and Shuuji, and it only slowly becomes apparent that he’s taking charge as more and more characters start pointing it out, culminating in multiple characters pretty much unanimously considering Takuma the group’s leader even before he’s considered it; Part 9 on the Truthful route has Shuuji outright admit to Ryo that he’s using Takuma as his model for how a leader should actually be.

So how does Takuma end up becoming unanimously considered the leader in a similar way to Taichi despite having such a different temperament? The characters spell it out in clear words multiple times over the course of the game: he brings the group together by being their emotional center. That part about being their “emotional center” is important because Taichi wasn’t necessarily as good at that part (which incites a lot of conflict between him and the others during the last arc of Adventure), but the reason this is more important for Takuma is that the Survive group is significantly more prone to infighting than the Adventure group was most of the time. When the game’s producer Habu called it the “Lord of the Flies” counterpart to Adventure’s “Two Years’ Vacation”, Adventure’s director Kakudou revealed that Lord of the Flies was an inspiration for the part of the story corresponding to Pinocchimon and Yamato...which resulted in Taichi failing to keep the group together and everyone falling apart. So in other words, Takuma is pulling off the achievement of keeping the group glued together when the equivalent of the Pinocchimon arc is happening all the time. There are no Crests in this narrative, meaning the automatic filtering for “naturally good kids” was absent and the kids were dragged into the Digimon world by sheer virtue of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, leading to a lot more negativity on all fronts and composures lost much more easily -- and thus, Takuma’s ability to keep a cool head and get everyone to calm down becomes his most important asset.

Also of note is Takuma’s own relationship with Agumon. While Agumon in this game is obviously based off Taichi’s Agumon in Adventure, Takuma and Agumon end up having quite a lot of conversations together where Takuma consults with him on how to sort out his emotions and what to do next, far more so than would happen in the original Adventure. Part of this is simply because of the medium shift (being a video game, Survive is able to have much longer conversations that aren’t restricted by timeslot airtime), and it’s also not like Agumon in Adventure wasn’t also emotionally insightful when Taichi needed advice, but Takuma and his Agumon partner end up having several conversations on the vein of Adventure!Agumon’s discussions with BlackWarGreymon in 02 episodes 32 and 46. In the end, the main reason is probably just that Takuma is just that kind of introspective person who actively seeks out Agumon and talks to him honestly, allowing them to get borderline philosophical without any strings attached.

Minoru and Falcomon

The mere suggestion that Minoru is supposed to be Koushirou’s counterpart would probably make someone roll their eyes and go “oh, come on, now you’re really forcing it,” and I wouldn’t blame anyone for thinking so. Temperament-wise, Minoru couldn’t be any more different from Koushirou. Rather than anyone in the Adventure group, he comes off as a kind of mix of Daisuke (in terms of being rough but friendly and having a forward-thinking attitude) and Miyako (in terms of being a “mood maker” who tries to keep everyone’s spirits up but needs to be reined in by a more stoic partner). But trust me, hear me out, I know this sounds weird, but I’ve got more reason for this stance than you might think!

Actually, Koushirou had a pretty complex role in Adventure, to the point he seems to have two counterparts in Survive. The more well-publicized parts of Koushirou’s profile involve his intellectual curiosity (bringing him closest to the secrets behind the Digital World) and his sense of deference and politeness, and those traits correspond more to the Professor (more on that when we get to his section). However, the less well-publicized but no less important part is that Koushirou was, for all intents and purposes, Taichi’s right-hand man, and thus one of the most important figures in helping Taichi pull off what he needed to as leader.

Koushirou was one of the few kids who knew Taichi prior to the events of the series and had already established a certain sense of respect for him (he only went to camp at all because of Taichi). As a result, while Koushirou tended to avoid confrontation with the others in the group, he was open to Taichi in a way he often wasn’t with others, and Taichi likewise was comfortable asking him for assistance (culminating in the famous moment in Adventure episode 28 when Taichi uses his authority as leader to appoint Koushirou as the best person to solve the card puzzle). Later, it’s Koushirou who sticks by Taichi when the group splits up during the Dark Masters arc, Koushirou who witnesses and hears out Taichi during one of his biggest emotional breakdowns in Adventure episode 48, and Koushirou who works directly alongside Taichi in Our War Game! Taichi’s relationships with Yamato or Sora tend to be more well-publicized, so casual fans of Adventure or mainstream media reports tend to completely gloss over this, but it’s conspicuous to anyone who knows Adventure on a particularly deep level. (While this analysis sticks purely to the original Adventure and 02 for the sake of consistent scope, it says something that even stage play writer Tani Kenichi clearly also caught onto this and had the lines "I've watched you at your side all these years! Isn't that right?!" and "But I thought you could at least speak honestly with me!" come out of Koushirou’s mouth.)

So as much as Minoru isn’t really much of a counterpart to Koushirou in terms of personality, he is in terms of Koushirou’s “position in the group”: the leader’s right-hand man who avoids inciting confrontation but is vital in helping keep them together. (In fact, the part about avoiding confrontation is pointed out quite directly in his official profile.) Considering how Takuma pulling off the feat of keeping everyone together required him to have a very different temperament from Taichi, it thus follows that Minoru’s temperament needs to be different from Koushirou’s in order to achieve the same effect with the Survive group. Koushirou’s more polite and level-headed demeanor was important to keeping the rather impulsive Taichi in check, but in this case, Takuma is already plenty level-headed by himself, and Minoru being more actively sociable and trying to keep everyone’s spirits up is a more effective complement. This is helped by the fact that, in the same way Koushirou knew Taichi from the soccer club even prior to Adventure, Minoru happens to have already been Takuma’s friend from school prior to Survive, and thus by the time we get to the final chapters of the game (especially in the Truthful route), it’s made quite clear that Minoru really is Takuma’s right-hand man whom he can rely on for many things. On top of that, Minoru being so agreeable makes him the only character of the group besides Takuma to survive all four routes -- he sticks by Takuma no matter what.

Background-wise, Minoru’s is quite different from Koushirou’s in that he’s mostly used to being rather lonely at home due to a divorced father and a workaholic mother, and he also happens to be a fan of hero manga and tokusatsu to the point a lot of his personal ideal throughout the game is to become a “hero”. (Perhaps fittingly, his temperament is probably the closest to the shounen protagonist archetype among this group.) This puts him in an interesting position in that he’s the most aware of what kind of heroic character would be from a series like Digimon Adventure and personally strives to be one, even though it takes him a while to gather up the courage for it. When you have affinity-affecting choices with him, he tends to prefer the “forward-thinking” kinds of responses that would make Daisuke proud, so he clearly took the kids’ media lessons to heart. In line with that, Minoru is the only character besides Takuma to survive all four routes; while his biggest emotional turmoil happens in all four routes (it takes up the majority of Part 6), he and Falcomon weather through it quite well. But when you think about it, back in the Adventure universe, the kids who admired the Adventure kids most were...well, the 02 kids, so perhaps it’s not actually that surprising Minoru’s temperament is closer to them.

Also, here’s another fun thing to consider: Minoru’s dynamic with Falcomon takes several pages from Miyako and Hawkmon’s book...so, remember who also happened to be Koushirou’s junior who admired him the most?

Aoi and Labramon

If you wrote a rough base outline of Sora and Aoi’s characters, they’d probably be pretty similar or even identical. You’d basically get something like “the Mom Friend who tries to take care of everyone and overwhelms herself in the process, crumbling under the pressure”. But there is one key distinction that makes all the difference: Sora’s desire to help others was something that came naturally to her despite her own lack of self-awareness, whereas Aoi’s woes come from the fact she’s all too aware of the fact everyone is relying on her and bears resentment about it.

One recurring thing with Sora was that her own self-evaluation was often much harsher than she actually deserved. Initially scoffing at the idea of being responsible for someone else (Adventure episode 4), despite being unable to abandon everyone and constantly going out of her way to help everyone behind the scenes (Adventure episodes 22-25), her own self-evaluation was still that she was apparently devoid of love and didn’t care about the others at all (Adventure episode 26). Her constant desire to help everyone was effectively compulsive, and she had poor awareness of whether she was getting in over her head, with others needing to remind her that she shouldn’t see things as an obligation (Adventure episode 51). Sora was barely even aware of how much she was putting out for others because she saw it as an impulsive obligation, and the others were the ones concerned about whether she was taking enough care of herself. Moreover, although Sora bottled up quite a bit of self-imposed pressure, she wasn’t exactly shy about expressing her feelings; it’s just that they often happened to be messy, and she wasn’t sure what to make of them.

(By the way, this is also why I really don’t like the idea that Adventure is somehow more “unrealistic” or even “idealized” than Survive’s just because they’re ostensibly more put-together and selfless people, because Adventure’s characters often toed on the other extreme of being selfless to self-destructive levels; the kids would be prone to severe self-confidence issues or even self-hatred, especially going into 02. While the Survive kids may seem overall self-centered at first and thus be more prone to infighting, any self-worth issues they have or attempts at reckless self-sacrifice don’t tend to be as frequent or extreme as they were with the Adventure and 02 kids.)

In contrast, Aoi is consciously aware of what’s on her plate, what she’s dealing with, and why she’s doing what she does. Sora was the same age as Taichi and Yamato, so she was able to be comfortable in a position as their peer, but Aoi is one year older than Takuma and therefore considered one of the seniors of the group, a fact that’s alluded to multiple times over the course of the game. This means the group ends up treating her with the expectation that she has responsibility for them (especially after Ryo and Shuuji die in the main routes, thus genuinely leaving her as the oldest one there), and on top of her class president duties, she’s surrounded by expectations and responsibilities that are actually imposed on her. On top of that, people actually take advantage of her kindness and exploit her, and she knows this fact very well and hates it. (While it’s possible this might have happened with Sora, it’s unlikely she would have even realized she was being taken advantage of, much less come to resent anyone who did, because the issue was more about her own difficulty with setting boundaries and doing something for herself.)

Aoi does what she does because “she wants to be helpful”, so she suppresses all of her angry feelings and resentment to not burden anyone; for the early parts of the game, Labramon openly voices all of the snark and harsh burns that Aoi clearly wants to say but won’t. This means that meeting Saki inspires a mix of admiration and envy for the fact Saki is able to express her feelings so openly. But in the Wrathful route, when everything goes to hell and Saki (somewhat) sacrifices herself for Aoi, Aoi implodes from the resentment of everyone burdening her with responsibilities, seeing their attempts to give her space as not caring enough about her, and upset that after all of her desire to be “helpful”, everything actually just got worse. The last straw is when Piemon exploits her kindness to attempt to murder her, and the end result is Aoi completely flipping into “the ultimate selfishness” (absorbing Labramon, as in her own ego) to decide that the best solution would be to impose her way -- the way she’d never been getting all of this time -- on others and force them to agree with her.

Thankfully, Aoi fares better in the other routes where she manages to trust and rely on others a little more, and her friends do much more to make sure she knows her efforts are appreciated. Notably, during her affinity choices, Aoi reacts very well to choices that validate her right to have “shallow” interests like cute things (instead of it being considered undignified and immature of her) and choices that have other characters outright call her a Mom Friend. I’m pointing this out because for all Sora is well-known among fans for being a Mom Friend, this wasn’t actually pointed out with this kind of wording in Adventure mainly because Sora wasn’t really seeing herself as one, but here Aoi does prefer to be seen this way, presumably because it affirms the fact her friends appreciate her as a person rather than someone to dump responsibilities on.

As an aside, the Wrathful route involves a subplot about Kaito being one of the first to catch onto what’s going on with Aoi and make the most prominent attempt at reaching out to her, and while I don’t know if this was intentionally meant as a parallel, it does call back to the scene in Adventure episode 26 when Taichi and Yamato are at a loss as to how to help Sora during her emotional meltdown, and Yamato’s response (to let her cry if she needs to) is indicated as the better option until Takeru finally manages to step in with the best response. In Aoi’s case, given that she ends up resenting everyone giving her space (interpreting it as “leaving her alone”), Kaito’s attempt to get through to her by confronting her directly about her feelings was probably the closest to a step in the right direction -- it’s just that unfortunately Kaito doesn’t exactly handle it delicately enough to prevent Aoi from having a complete breakdown.

Fortunately, as if responding directly to this predicament, the Moral route contains a scene of them getting along perfectly well when going out to get food together. This is significant if you played Wrathful and Harmony before then, because both routes had one or the other fall off the deep end; Moral has Shuuji and Ryo’s deaths force them to step up to the plate, but without the exacerbating factors that drove both to to the brink in Wrathful and Harmony, it turns out they’re more than capable of stepping up to the task.

Ryo and Kunemon

While it’s generally easy to figure out at least some obvious parallels for each character in this cast, sometimes even multiple, Ryo is the one character I’ve never seen anyone really be able to get a read on regarding this question. I’ve seen suggestions that it might be Akiyama Ryou (based on the name) or even Ken (based on having a bug-type partner that he initially had a bad relationship with). Personally, my stance is “nobody, and that’s the point” -- because you’ll notice that the one thing all of these theories have in common is that none of them correspond to anyone in the original group from Digimon Adventure.

I’m not sure if this really comes across as well to anyone who hasn’t actually played the game hands-on, but one very striking thing about Ryo over the course of the beginning of Survive is that the game oftentimes feels like it’s tempting you to give up on him. The characters label him as unlikely to be cooperative right off the bat, and while they extend the minimum amount of courtesy to him, it’s also tinted with a sentiment that nobody really expects him to come along because he’s so pessimistic he’ll never cooperate. Getting his affinity level up to a significant amount in the early game actually requires you to go out of your way to seek him out and talk to him at least once (during a period the game interface doesn’t inform you that he’s available to talk like it does the other characters). And Ryo really is an uncooperative stick in the mud who doesn't look like he has any interest in helping himself anyway. They spoiled the fact he was going to be the first death before the game even released!

In other words, Ryo has no clear Adventure counterpart because “he has no place here”. He’s not a character who fits in the framework of Adventure-defined archetypes. He wasn’t made to be on a heroic adventure to begin with, and so he’s the first to be removed from it. And yet, the difference his presence or absence makes results in him being arguably one of the most important characters in this game.

In fact, even in the very, very early stages on the game, there were hints that Ryo’s behavior of being completely uncooperative and pessimistic were largely exacerbated by the stress of being brought to another world with monsters; if you closely watch him at the beginning of the game, he’s the one who enables Miu into taking them to the shrine (which he reminds us about near the end of the Truthful route). His website short story reveals that he’d actively decided to go to the extracurricular camp despite his initial misgivings because he really did want at least a little hope of making friends. But being jaded from isolation does a number on your abrasiveness level (the Frontier kids can testify to that one), and then everything went to hell when all of his stress factors and feelings of isolation were aggravated to their worst.

Depression isn’t an elegant thing, unfortunately, and Ryo’s inner desire to do better being blocked off by his initial difficulty to connect with others is perfectly exemplified by Kunemon trying really hard to take care of Ryo and communicate with others but being held back by his inability to use human language or do much with his limited physique. Note that Ryo’s initial hostile behavior towards Kunemon isn’t necessarily condescension or anything near the level of Shuuji’s initial bad relationship with Lopmon; it’s just that Ryo is afraid of Kunemon and not sure what to make of him, in the same way he’s clearly not sure what to make of himself. (Naturally, the first thing Ryo does when he comes back from the brink is start forming a proper relationship wtih Kunemon, and Ryo himself opening up more in the Truthful route correlates with Kunemon’s higher forms becoming able to speak.)

Ryo’s death in the three main routes is from a mixture of factors that even the cast in-universe isn’t sure what to make of; he doesn’t actively commit suicide per se, but his death wouldn’t have happened if not for his extreme suicidal ideation, and while Takuma regrets not having reached out to him earlier, it’s also not like he can be blamed for not doing enough when it wasn’t for lack of trying (from Takuma’s perspective, it’s not like he had any way of knowing that Ryo would die if he didn’t bond with him intimately in 3 chapters, and Ryo himself wasn’t exactly giving much of an indication that such a feat would actually be possible). Looking at the difference between the routes where he dies and the route where he doesn’t, the difference is that when Ryo dies, his pessimism about anything working out for him and him having a “place” anywhere convinces him he really doesn’t have anything to live for anymore, whereas the route where he lives has Takuma and the others so obviously risking life and limb to drag him back that he’s actually able to see, very clearly, that he did have a “place” and the ability to make friends after all.

(By the way, I should point out that one thing Survive is very good at is that a lot of the “correct” affinity choices are ones where you don’t pry too deeply into their problems and instead respect the other person’s space. In Ryo’s case, getting his affinity up quickly enough to save him requires going out of your way to check on him often, but the actual choices that raise affinity mostly involve validating his feelings and not prodding things too much, basically showing that you care but also respecting that he’ll open up when he’s ready.)

Having realized this, Ryo opens up immediately; again, he was interested in proactively making friends from the get-go, so it’s only natural that as soon as he confirmed that was a possibility for him and his initial shell was broken through, he didn’t hesitate to brighten up and actively engage with the others. Turns out, he's actually one of the most emotionally insighful people in the cast (in no part because, as someone who's seen the bottom, he's well aware of its horrors), but he also has a certain sense of grounded, to-the-point pragmatism while also not being as extremely emotionally charged as Kaito. Completely contrary to the bad first impression he gave everyone (except Saki), it turns out he’s actually a pretty great friend to have. And once Ryo is saved, the route automatically locks onto Truthful, because it creates a chain reaction where he ends up being the best person to save Shuuji, who then paves the way for the truth to be reached and the best possible ending achieved.

Remember how I said that Ryo was the character who had no place in the Adventure framework? If Ryo dies in Part 3, the “best” possible ending you can theoretically get (Moral) is the one that correlates most closely to Digimon Adventure, with the kids being booted out of the Digimon world for the time being and an uncertain future of whether the worlds can truly come together. Reaching an even better one that more closely represents what came after Adventure and allows the story to be passed onto future generations (very unsubtly represented by the Chibimon meeting new kids at the end -- note the significance because none of the 02 quartet’s Digimon are recruitable in the game) requires Ryo, the added factor who helps the story proceed.

But really, the ultimate take-home the game is making here is that you shouldn’t give up on people that easily, because they just might surprise you.

Saki and Floramon

Saki’s creed being to “go with her feelings” makes it immediately obvious off the bat that she’s the Survive counterpart for Mimi, but interestingly, Saki is simultaneously more rude and more kind than Mimi was in Adventure. Mimi had a “princess-like” demeanor based on her somewhat spoiled upbringing, meaning that on one hand she would be quick to complain and gripe about anything that even moderately annoyed her, but she also was constantly deferential and respectful to her elders, had consistent use of honorifics, and was always polite and careful not to step on anyone’s toes as long as she wasn’t emotionally overwhelmed.

On the flip side, Saki handles everyone somewhat bluntly (not even using upward-facing honorifics for most characters despite being one of the youngest in the group) and has less regard for what other people think when she says what she feels -- but she’s quite the opposite of spoiled. In fact, Takuma realizes after a fashion that she comes off as someone who’s been through hardship in the past, and she’s actually one of the most resilient in the cast; eventually, we find out that any “sheltering” she’s been through comes from the fact she wasn’t allowed to do much in light of her illness, and her emphasis on feelings and living to the fullest comes from the fact she’s not sure whether she might die soon. Moreover, the illusory versions of Saki encountered over the course of the game reveal that she’s actually afraid of being hated by others, so there is a certain aspect of her that’s self-conscious about whether she’s going too far.

In the end, Saki respects others’ feelings, but also expects to have her own feelings respected in turn. Throughout her affinity events, Takuma learns that although she initially seems flighty and difficult to predict in terms of how she wants to be treated, she’s a lot more considerate than she seems at first, and at no point does she deny anyone else’s right to feel the way they do as long as they respect her own. In addition, while she doesn’t believe in hiding how she feels, she also does take measures to try not to step on others’ toes (that is to say, she understands that she can’t just selfishly do whatever she wants without regard for others). Out of all of the deaths presented in the three main routes, Saki’s is perhaps the most purely selfless one as she knowingly accepts death in the face of her fear of it, as long as it saves others -- especially since the weight of “failing” her friends hangs so over her head that she loses all sense of self-worth.

The beginning of Part 5 of the Wrathful route reveals that Saki had been delaying a surgery out of fear of its outcome, despite the fact that it would greatly increase her chance of living longer if she takes it. It’s left ambiguous whether she does actually decide to commit to it after the events of the game, but the three endings where she survives (Harmony, Moral, and Truthful) confirm she at least lives for a year after the game’s events. One can only hope that the events of the game and her friends convinced her to have the courage to take it!

Incidentally, Adventure and 02 generally had a pattern that the characters with Digimon partners that were closest to their own personalities were the ones that usually were more straightforward -- so naturally, Saki and Floramon have the closest to identical temperaments from the very beginning.

Shuuji and Lopmon

Considering that Jou tends to be one of the most well-liked Adventure characters by adult fans, depending on how you look at it, it’s either deeply ironic or incredibly fitting (or both) that his Survive counterpart is turning out to probably be the most controversial character in the cast.

In fact, on the surface level, Shuuji’s profile is almost identical to Jou’s from temperament to backstory. He’s the oldest of the group (in this case, the only one in high school) and is therefore considered the “leader” with responsibility for everyone by default, but doesn’t really have the mettle to keep himself together for it at first. His sense of duty has roots in his family life, including a father who has high expectations of him and a shadow of an older brother looming over him. However, one factor makes all the difference here: Shuuji’s doing all of this specifically because he wants to please others and get their approval.

Jou wasn’t really all that worried about what others thought of him (other than the minimum amount of respect necessary to have faith in his ability to keep them together). The concept of “status” didn’t really play any sort of factor, and in fact, he was portrayed as even somewhat dragging his feet when it came to studies or social status. On top of that, poking into a 02 drama CD reveals that Jou’s dad wasn’t actually that controlling, and was perfectly willing to give his blessing to Jou about not becoming a doctor; it’s just that Jou knew that, emotionally speaking, he wouldn’t be very happy about it, so Jou was doing this because he just really cared about his dad’s feelings. Jou only didn't want to "disappoint" others because he happened to have a Good Samaritan nature of wanting to help others, and in fact it almost seemed he thought of himself too little to the point of having a rather recklessly self-sacrificial streak (Adventure episodes 7, 23, 36). When Jou said “because I’m the oldest”, what it meant was “because as the oldest, I take my responsibility to take care of everyone very seriously”.

In contrast, Shuuji’s fixation with being respected as the “leader” is decidedly less altruistic than Jou’s, and in contrast to Jou not really worrying that much about what others think of him, Shuuji believes he’s entitled to everyone’s respect and acts out of fear of abandonment. Of course, the beginning of Part 5 makes it clear why there’s such a huge difference here: instead of a father who was still ultimately supportive despite everything and two older brothers who looked out for him, Shuujii’s father is emotionally abusive, and while his brother doesn’t seem actively condescending per se, he seems to have a sense of resigned apathy and is only driving Shuuji’s inferiority complex in further. (While it wasn’t said in Adventure or 02 that Jou was necessarily concerned about being compared to his older brothers, there was a nuance Jou had a very intimidating “example” set by his university-aged brothers -- but that's also exactly why Shin pulled Jou aside to give him advice in Adventure episode 38.) With the fear of being "abandoned" instilled in him, Shuuji desperately tries to prove to everyone around him that he's capable of being a "leader", but his obsession with trying to force everyone's respect rather than doing anything actually worthy of it only earns him less respect, which he knows...leading to a very bad loop.

Shuuji's behavior of being a well-meaning abuse victim who ends up exhibiting abusive behavior as a maladaptive response to his trauma is unfortunately a very well-known cycle, especially in the way it manifests via his behavior towards Lopmon. In a moment of clarity at the beginning of Part 5, Shuuji does notice that Lopmon's behavior towards him mirrors his own behavior towards his father, but this only results in a slight improvement in their relationship (from “treating him like a disgusting monster” to “overworking him to uncomfortable extents”), with Shuuji treating Lopmon in the exact same way his own father treated him. If you know anything about typical maladaptive trauma behavior, it comes out most prominently when the person in question feels the safest -- when they feel threatened, they shrink under the trauma, and when they feel safe, they try to make use of the control of the situation they’d so desperately been lacking, resulting in them resorting to the only thing they know how to do. So ironically, Shuuji began behaving this way because he actually felt emotionally safer with the kids and with Lopmon than he did at home; in front of his family, he shrank and groveled at his father’s feet, but once he was in a situation he did have an opportunity for respect, he became overly controlling.

In three of the four routes, Shuuji dies a vicious and unfortunate death when his own negativity dark evolves (for lack of a better way to put it) Lopmon and symbolically results in him being destroyed by his own malice, but in the Truthful route, Ryo gives him a good smack in the face to bring him back to his senses. While it's implied that Ryo was in the best position to understand how necessary that was due to having personally experienced trauma himself, at the same time, it's also remarkable just how quickly Shuuji bounces back and completely changes his tune thereafter. In fact, it’s quite unlikely Shuuji himself wanted to be this kind of person, it’s just that this kind of behavior was the only way he knew how to respond. (Note the symbolism of Wendimon himself clearly being in anguish and effectively crying for help even after devouring Shuuji -- he was afraid of his own destructive qualities.) Even if Shuuji wasn’t necessarily dealing with a supernaturally implanted ball of darkness in the back of his neck, it is not entirely off to be making a comparison with Ichijouji Ken.

Shuuji’s role in helping achieve the Truthful outcome happens because he decides to become the Professor’s assistant, meaning that Shuuji is actually incredibly capable and intelligent to the point where his observations help the Professor reach a level of understanding he wouldn’t have been able to otherwise. Shuuji himself says that he decided to start working under the Professor because he wanted an adult’s example to follow, which is important because this is basically Shuuji realizing that the other adults in his life had failed him. For all his father gave him grief for being a bad leader, he wasn’t exactly setting a fantastic example himself about what a good leader should be, and Takuma notes that Shuuji is starting to take on some actual leadership qualities just by being more confident and being more assured of what he wants. Shuuji says that he’ll talk to his father and brother once he gets back, and it’s not entirely clear whether this will go well (personally, I’m willing to put more bets on his brother, whom I imagine is likely to be a victim of their father as much as Shuuji is), but the important part is that this will mean Shuuji asserting himself and what he wants back at his family, pursuing what he wants to do and being a leader figure in his own way, rather than doing things just because his family expects him to.

It took a much longer and much more painful way to get there, but Shuuji was able to come to a forward-thinking conclusion for himself not entirely unlike the one Jou reached at the end of Adventure, which I think is pretty neat.

Kaito and Dracmon, Miu and Syakomon

Kaito and Miu’s character stories are so intertwined that I honestly feel it would be better to combine their sections here (I also know Miu would probably hate this, so I give my deepest apologies to her). Of course, it probably goes without saying that they’re Survive’s parallels to Yamato and Takeru, in the form of an overprotective older brother and a younger sibling who wants to be more independent. However, Yamato and Takeru’s situation was heavily influenced by their family situation, which is very different from Kaito and Miu’s, resulting in some pretty significant differences.

Back in Adventure, Yamato and Takeru’s parents having divorced meant that the brothers only got to see each other once a year (Yamato jokingly compares it to Tanabata in 02 episode 17), and Takeru had gotten his parents to agree to let him join Yamato’s camp despite not even going to his school. Thus, Takeru was openly affectionate with his brother because he was happy to even have the chance to be with him at all, and Yamato was overprotective because he didn’t have very many opportunities to do much for Takeru to begin with. Both of them were still heavily hurt by the divorce and coping with it in ways that were not entirely dissimilar to each other; Yamato started judging his own self-worth by his ability to be independent and via comparisons to other people, and Takeru suppressing everything and pretending he had it together and everything was fine, even when it wasn’t. Yamato derived his self-worth from his overprotectiveness of Takeru because he was afraid of the idea of anyone providing that role better than him (such as Taichi), whereas Takeru’s insistence on independence came from his desire to avoid difficult things and to not hold everyone back.

In Kaito and Miu’s case, the two still live together, but the inciting incident that defined their current relationship was the fallout from Miu being targeted by a stalker and Kaito dealing with him violently, resulting in the family relocating to the countryside and both of them blaming themselves for it; Kaito blames himself for not sufficiently protecting Miu during the incident, whereas Miu blames herself for causing a burden on her family and everyone around her.

While Miu’s desire to be independent and tendency to retreat into escapism reflects Takeru’s, her way of reacting to it is almost the opposite; Takeru responded by trying to present himself as a responsible, mature kid who had everything together, whereas Miu shirks responsibility altogether and sinks herself into occult hobbies and mischief. (It’s for this reason that while Part 4 contains a scenario that greatly calls back to the Princess Mimi subplot from Adventure episode 25, it’s Miu who is the central character instead of Mimi’s actual counterpart Saki, who’s significantly less selfish.) On Kaito’s end, he becomes so obsessed with his role as Miu’s protector that it becomes more about him than it ever becomes about Miu. His description of her as a frail girl at the beginning of the game is horrendously off, and his hot-headedness is to the point where Miu calls him out for defaulting to solving things with violence and using her as a proxy for it. (Yamato did lose his emotional composure enough to start punching Taichi out in Adventure episode 9, but this wasn’t treated as something that would have normally happened if not for the immediate stress of the situation he was in, and his punch on Taichi in 02 episode 10 came from him knowing Taichi would understand what he was intending to do with it, but Kaito going as far as to even slap Miu in Part 9 makes it clear that it’s not really about her as much as it’s Kaito wanting his way in being her “protector”.)

Of course, Kaito’s abrasive nature masks the fact Kaito genuinely does want to be friendly and simply has a hard time expressing it, but when Miu dies in the Harmony route, the despair brings the worst out of him, and his more self-centered stake in the equation ends up taken to its logical conclusion. Having basically centered his entire life around Miu’s existence and his own relation to her, Kaito decides that the entire world can burn for all he cares despite it being very obvious Miu wouldn’t approve of that (and when everyone informs him of this fact, Kaito merely retorts that they don’t have the right to say they know what she would think, as if he would know any better). In the end, Kaito is only barely brought to his senses before being destroyed by what he helped create.

Things end up better for Kaito and Miu on the Moral and Truthful routes, although, interestingly, the problem is not completely solved over the course of the game; Kaito keeps lapsing into overprotective tendencies, but he admits to Takuma that this isn’t good and that he needs to start doing better. Even if Kaito wants to do better, this kind of habit is not going to go away overnight, so it’s important that he keep this in mind going forward, especially since the end of the Moral route has him remind his shadow that he’s not going to be a very good brother to Miu if he ignores the fact she can take care of herself. Miu, on her part, stops shirking responsibility and becomes more aware of her need to not cause more trouble for others; on top of her compassion winning out in Part 4 when she realizes how much her immaturity had been causing others pain, she also starts taking more proactive roles as each route progresses, and the Moral and Truthful routes have her be more willing to admit that she doesn’t want to have a bad relationship with her brother despite everything.

Dracumon has a much more put-together personality than Kaito and is key in getting him to chill and hold back instead of losing his temper, similar to how Kaito is aware that he needs to do better (thus, him completely succumbing to his own despair and selfishness results in him willingly throwing Dracumon out for the sake of more power). Syakomon and Miu are like-minded enough that they have the best relationship among most of the partner pairs in the game, but Syakomon is significantly more down-to-earth and pragmatic, and she serves as a reminder of the responsibility to others Miu knows she’s shirking when she goes off to do things at her own convenience.

Miyuki and Renamon (”Haru”)

Fun fact: Due to Hikari’s natural sensitivity to Digital World-related phenomena and the fact she outright channels “the one who wishes for stability” (novel name: Homeostasis) in Adventure episode 45, quite a few Japanese fans have taken to calling her a “shrine maiden” (miko), basically comparing her to a Shinto priestess who helps communicate with the gods and convey their will...so, naturally, her Survive counterpart is an actual shrine maiden.

In fact, comparing Hikari and Miyuki is a little difficult, mainly due to the fact their contexts are so different -- the more detailed nuances of Hikari’s characterization didn’t start popping up until 02, and her comparatively short time in Adventure had her with a cold, so she wasn’t exactly in her most optimal condition. Thankfully, if we do retroactively reflect Hikari’s further characterization in 02 back on Adventure (especially since Miyuki seems to be closer to 02!Hikari’s age anyway), Miyuki is actually pretty similar to Hikari’s nature of being bright, assertive, insightful, very put-together, and incredibly selfless. (Also, the scene of her immediately going right to the blackboard and drawing out the relationship between the worlds brings to mind Hikari’s Jogress mockups in 02 episode 28 and her parallel worlds diagram in 02 episode 34.)

As for Miyuki herself, she is at least significantly more willing to be vocal and outspoken about her feelings instead of clamming up to dangerous levels and risking falling into despair about her own welfare like Hikari would (Adventure episode 48, 02 episodes 13 and 31). In addition, the fact she grew up as a “responsible older sister” instead of being in the shadow of an older brother like Taichi means she grew up with the expectation of having responsibility for Akiharu, and her independent streak seems to be in line with that (it’s commented that even despite Akiharu now being much older than her in age, she still seems to have it more together than him). However, being born to the Minase family meant she was trained as a shrine maiden from the very beginning, which ends up causing much more misfortune for her than it does Hikari; Hikari’s sensitivity abilities were more of a “factor” than anything, and her ordeal with Miyako in 02 episode 31 allowed her to assert herself in spite of her special position, but Miyuki understands her role as a shrine maiden to be a duty, which includes considering it her responsibility to sacrifice herself for others and the world if need be. And while Homeostasis ultimately borrowed Hikari’s body after negotiating with her and left after courteously explaining themself, the entity that ends up taking possession of Miyuki for the last few chapters of the game is...decidedly not as benevolent.

Takuma’s initial contact with the “real” Miyuki in Part 8 is very brief (fittingly, it’s during the chapter he has contact with the real world, like with Taichi’s brief visit and meeting with Hikari in Adventure episode 21), but it’s enough to convince him that she should be considered a trusted friend worth saving, which puts him a bit at odds with the others for a short time after his return. Unfortunately, Miyuki remains somewhat of a damsel-in-distress for most of the rest of the game, and in two of the four routes (Wrathful and Harmony) she unceremoniously dies when the route’s main antagonist absorbs her. On the flip side, however, she becomes extremely instrumental in saving everyone in the Moral and Truthful routes, and is also granted a way home and a much happier future with her brother.

Interestingly, the parallel continues with Miyuki’s partner Renamon having a very “complicated” relationship with her partner and with loyalties or morality in a similar way to Hikari’s partner Tailmon-- but in an inverted sense. Other than the obvious partnership reasons, Tailmon’s absolute loyalty to Hikari came from a past lifetime of bitterness gained from blackmail and abuse on Vamdemon’s part, so it’s only natural that she jumped ship at the opportunity and took the chance to be with someone who would treat her with love. (She did initially start off on a bit more of an abrasive note with the other Digimon, most notably setting Gomamon off with her attitude in Adventure episode 45, but she eventually settled in.) Renamon is the opposite; her absolute loyalty to Miyuki and desire to be the one to make her happy (even to the point of taking the form of someone she hates) results in her stooping as low as trickery, betrayal, and submitting herself to an abusive master just for the chance to get Miyuki back (and, more selfishly, to prove that her bond with Miyuki means something, in the sense that she can’t stand the idea of anyone being more important to Miyuki than herself). It's an interesting contrast where, in both cases, the arguably most morally upright person in the group has a partner who ends up most closely associated with questionable morality, but it also goes to show you that even the best of intentions can end up with very bad results when sufficiently pointed in the wrong direction.

Professor (Akiharu)

Every Digimon series needs a designated infodump character to unpack what’s going on with the worldbuilding and all, and back in Adventure Koushirou was the main bearer of this role -- in fact, he was so important that he ended up constantly showing up in 02 despite not technically being a part of the advertised main cast. At first, it seems as if the Professor really is mostly just this, and it’s initially even questionable how helpful of one he’ll be when it seems like he’s died at the end of Part 3. But not only does the Professor return to provide more info behind what’s going on, he also ends up becoming instrumental to determining the difference between the endings, because whether he’s present or not and how much he’s learned become the biggest influencing factors on the outcome. (The Harmony route involves the gate being opened much less aggressively than in the Wrathful route, but it’s implied things still had a worse outcome than they did in the Truthful route because the Professor wasn’t able to be there anymore to give any guidance, and the Moral route has everyone seal off the gate because him never uncovering the truth behind the Master meant they destroyed it and thus the system that gave the boundary between worlds any stability.)

The Truthful route happens thanks to the chain reaction of Ryo saving Shuuji and Shuuji becoming the Professor’s assistant, allowing him to more effectively dig up the truth regarding the Four Holy Beasts, the Master, and Haruchika -- hence why it’s called the “truthful” route, not simply in terms of being a “true ending”, but also in terms of it being the ending where the truth behind it all was revealed. Through flashbacks and eventually some outright statements, we learn that as even as a kid, Akiharu actually had quite a bit in common with Koushirou, in terms of being timid and deferential yet bursting with intellectual curiosity and a desire to know more. Back in Adventure, Koushirou managed to uncover some very important things about the Digital World thanks to the fact he actively pursued anything he was interested in, and while Akiharu spending his life studying the Kemonogami might initially seem to be his way of coping with the traumatic loss of his sister and memories, he tells Garurumon in the Truthful route that it was simply his encounter with him that inspired him to learn more and teach others.

The ending of the Truthful route draws parallels between the siblings Haruchika and Yukiha with their descendants Haru and Miyuki, but their situations are reversed; Haruchika was the one “abandoned” by his sister, whereas Miyuki was “abandoned” back in the Digital World when she sent her brother back, and thus the Master attempts to claim Miyuki as someone who should sympathize with him only to find that she bears absolutely none of the malice he does. And like Yukiha, Akiharu doesn’t give up on finding his sibling again and eventually manages to do so, despite going through trauma and memory loss (and some scorn from the scientific community) to get there. On the flip side, Garurumon ends up bearing the emotional pain of being left behind, but in the Moral and Truthful routes he can’t bring himself to hold the grudge for too long once it becomes clear Akiharu really didn’t mean for that to happen. In the end, despite all the trouble that happened between Akiharu, Miyuki, Garurumon, and Renamon, none of them were able to hold onto their grudges, and that’s what eventually allows them to save Haruchika from his own.

Haruchika

You might be wondering, wait, what, this guy? Well, you see, in the Truthful route we find out that he was a sacrifice for others to have power, and he decided to take out his feelings of betrayal out on the world and bring it down with him. Now how does that correlate to anything in Adventure --

-- oh, okay.

I’m sure a lot of Adventure fans who finished the Truthful route were probably at least able to figure out the parallel overall, but inspecting it closely reveals there’s even more than you might think -- Haruchika is deliberately drawn as a parallel to Akiharu in a sort of Survive equivalent to a “fallen Chosen Child”, and his laments rather parallel Apocalymon’s “we wanted to live and speak of friendship, justice, and love!” And in the Moral route version of things, the Master forces the kids to go through trials of overcoming their darkest feelings and reaffirming how far they’ve come, quite similar to the reaffirmations in Adventure episode 53.

Fortunately for Haruchika, his much deeper contextual relation to Survive’s story and themes (and therefore sympathetic qualities) allow him to be saved and to pass on properly with Yukiha, which certainly beats going out in a failed suicide bombing. Adventure, as a sort of pioneer for Digimon works thereafter, had Apocalymon serve as the “inhibitor of evolution” compared to Adventure’s “story of evolution”, but Survive, which spends more time examining what a Digimon partner even is in the first place, thus has Haruchika represent more of a challenge to what the Survive kids learn to find and what ultimately saves Haruchika himself in the end: as the theme song says, turning hatred into love. Haruchika himself is said to be the first to have realized that bonds between humans and Digimon made each other stronger -- basically being the inventor of Digimon partnerships in this universe -- only for him to end up succmbing to his own hatred and the malice of the world.

Also, when you really think about it, the Master is the closest thing you can say to entities that “chose” the kids as the Survive equivalent of Chosen Children -- at least, in the sense that their distortions dragged the kids into the Digimon world in order to prey on them. Homeostasis and the Agents were still guilty of dragging Adventure’s Chosen Children into the Digital World and not really giving them good explanations, but Homeostasis rather courteously explains in Adventure episode 45 that they were doing it out of desperation for lack of many other options. However, Homeostasis also made it clear that they didn’t have many abilities on their own besides housekeeping, and that the kids would have to be the one to figure the rest out on their own (the novels clarify that it’s really nothing more than a security system), whereas the Master does pose himself in a deity-like position and even has the entire stability of the Digital World depend on him -- it’s just that they’re also quite the opposite of cooperative. So in both cases, regardless of the initial circumstances, the groups involved had to solve the problem on their own will.

#digimon #digimon survive #shihameta #shiha's ask box #survive spoilers

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porcelain-tongue · 1 year

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awakening | pt. 4(44)

january 14, 2023 | night of trip (no spread)

as i read back through the entries that night, i kept having to stop & take notes on what i was reading. my heart felt that it had grown and grown - until filled up the entire apartment. there was this tangible and visible energetic protection & guidance all around me in bursts of pinks and purples and blues.

every line of the notes below felt like a new revelation. it felt as though the words were coming from a place completely outside of my body. writing this now, i'm still humbled by it.:)

when i looked up from writing, the sun was rising. and i went outside to take a walk. i really haven't been the same since.

notes below

________________________________________________

me and nick have put in the work together to make our life so magical and beautiful :)

i want to attract more carefree

i want to be more carefree

🌈 <<< that’s what i want this year to look like and however i need to find it, is ok

trust my gut. trust my intuition. say yes to myself more. talk down to myself less. care for others. be nurturing.

care. for. others. be. nurturing. :)

i’ve wanted to live other peoples’ lives so much that i forgot what it means to live my own!

and my own life is so cool 😌😌😌😌

i have friends that deeply care about me, and that i can make mistakes with.

i have friends that make me laugh.

nick is the most perfect angel in the whole world and i can’t believe i get to live with him forever. he makes me smile every day.

and wig.

i get to travel so much and my lil self would have LOVED that if she’d known :)

my relationship with myself is so broken and i have much to mend. but the first step is telling myself that it’s ok, and that things take time; and that it’s completely ok to take my time.

i don’t know fully yet how to love myself but i trust that i will figure it out.

holy fucking shit. tarot is no joke.

i know myself better than anyone, and yet i don’t listen to myself. i mean i “listen” all day but what gets missed is my intuition saying… love, and be loved. give, and be given.

if i just filtered everything through that scope when it starts to bother me… eventually i’d find peace.

my anxiety ebbs and flows with my mood shifts. i can channel my anxiety because i am the master of it, just like i’m the master of my mood.

here’s what i love about me

i really do know a thing or two about music

i’m funny

i fucking love traveling dude. and traveling solo?? shut up. that’s a really cool part of me :)

i know how to find good things. good friends. good experiences. i’ve proven in my life that i’ve wanted to attract these things (maybe not always, but that’s ok)… and here they are in front of me. like i wanted that shit and went for it and now i have it.

i am nurturing. and i’ve always found ways to nurture myself no matter how disentangled i’ve become with my own heart

i love my family. i’m really proud of that

i know that this is important… and i love that about me. these are moments i’ve always wished my mom could experience. one day i want my kids to experience it. learning about yourself, and who you attract and how you love is genuinely one of the most beautiful experiences there is.

i love that i am best friends with a rabbit. like that is fucking amazing. beat that

^^ if i ever lose sight of this? that is the ONLY time that things start going wrong. life will ebb and flow. i will experience a lot of pain and right now i’m not ready for that. but i know that above all else at the end of the day… loving myself and the people in my sphere is all. that. fucking. matters.

so stop being so silly about it!

tarot is fun. enjoy it.

traveling is fun. enjoy it.

YOU ARE FUN. ENJOY IT.

(remember this when i’m back on planet earth):

my dream and the tarot and this moment were verrrry interlaced. like that was the universe preparing me for this moment. if i hadn’t been doing tarot and all that self reflecting i wouldn’t be healing in this moment. like holy shit dude. i literally said “the universe is teaching me to be more self reflective” and now here we are solving my anxiety :)

like the green grass in the dream - that’s a play on my lost innocence. due to not loving myself

that comes from… misconceptions i have about my beauty and worth. and we’ve already listed above all the reasons i don’t need to be worryin bout that

somehow i was writing a literal letter to myself through tarot and that’s awesome. i need to keep reading that lil letter as a reminder while i heal heal heal (because remember? i’m protected :))

i feel my aura is green and brown and i'm kind of an energetic traveler. i’m learning that i compare myself a lot to purple and pink people. maybe because i want to embody those colors too? but don’t know how yet :)

the hierophant - following the rules / tradition - but in this case the rules are fun because it’s the tradition of the universe which is love and it’s teaching me how to follow :)

THE TRADITION OF THE UNIVERSE IS LOVE

it's sunday. january 15. 5:55am. 555. :) (the 5 was all about balance and emotions)

________________________________________________

the next day, i felt reborn.

the tradition of the universe is love.

operating in the frequency of light and love has changed my entire life. every day is beautiful, i am so happy to be alive. 26 years and i found a way through an intense dark night of the soul... to the light.

i hope if you're reading this, it means something to you too. and i hope you find the vibration of light and love within yourself, because that is where all Divine wisdom is found.

<333

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cloudteawrites · 3 years

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chapter: seven ( 12.3k ) rating: mature (death, past abuse, eventual smut) genre: mystery | romance | hurt/comfort tags: bts x reader | ot7 x reader | hybrid | poly summary: when an estranged uncle leaves you his massive fortune you wonder if the universe is playing a joke on you. when that fortune comes with seven hybrids, you know for sure that it is. << first < previous | next > last >>

The sound of your phone ringing rips you from sleep. You sit bolt upright, confusion and panic dousing you like twin buckets of ice water. You’d been having a nightmare about something, but you can’t remember what. The tattered ends of it are already slipping away, just out of reach. You don’t chase after them.

You fumble for your phone in the dark, fingers groping uselessly at your blankets until they close around it. The bright white light from your screen blinds you as you flip it over and you blink blearily, rubbing at your eyes with one hand and trying to answer with the other.

“Hello?” you rasp, mashing the speaker button. “Who is this?”

“Apologies for disturbing your sleep, ma’am.” A woman’s voice crackles over the other end of the line. You can hear exhaustion dripping off every word. “This is Officer Kwon from the Namhyeon-dong precinct of the Seoul Metropolitan Police Force.”

You squint into the dark expanse of your bedroom, a little frown on your face as you struggle to process what she’s saying. “....okay?”

“I’m calling because we’ve got two of your hybrids in custody.”

You blink slowly. “Hmmmm, I don’t think so...” you mumble through a yawn. “They’re all in bed.”

“We ran their numbers through the registry and you were pinged as the owner of both.” You hear papers shuffling and her voice get distant as she transfers the receiver to her shoulder to free up a hand. “We’ve got a rabbit calling himself Jeongguk and a Seokjin who the rabbit says is a deer-” She sighs. “Listen, I’m at the end of my rope here. They won’t tell me where they came from and the phone number of the business they were registered to before you is out of service. They’re hurt pretty bad, worse than what we can take care of here at the station. We can’t get them any sort of medical care without their guardian’s permission, so-”

Your eyes glaze over as you groggily connect the dots.

A deer and a rabbit.

Not canine, not feline.

Other.

You shove the covers down your legs and kick them over the side of the bed. “I’m on the way,” you tell her, already adding up the distance between your building and Namhyeon-dong. It’d take an hour to get all the bus transfers you needed- your eyes narrow as you squint at the time on your phone. 3:27 AM. You’d have to get a cab. Your stomach twists at the thought of the fare, but you shove the feeling down. This was no time to be thrifty. “Do whatever you need to.”

The officer exhales in relief. You can practically hear the tension leave her shoulders. “There’s a little hybrid clinic in the neighborhood. I’ll see if I can get the vet up and convince them to go.”

“Thank you,” you breathe. She gives you the address and you type it into your notes app, reading it back to her twice to make sure you got it right. She hangs up with a promise to see you soon and your phone locks, leaving you alone in the blue-black gloom of an early morning.

This wasn’t great. This wasn’t great any way you sliced it. You’d thought you’d have an extra two weeks to get the canines settled and all five hybrids to at least not want to kill each other. That’d been the plan, at least, when you’d sequestered yourself in your bedroom without telling Jimin and Taehyung goodnight or doing any introductions. Now the others were coming and you were on borrowed time. You drag your hands down over your face. “What are we gonna do?” Nothing but silence answers you.

When you were a kid and you’d had anything big before you- a massive school project you’d waited til the last moment to start, having to walk yourself to the market because your mom was too sick to go, a hard conversation with a friend- your mom had always told you to break it down into smaller pieces. Make the big thing small; do what you can for now. So, that’s what you do.

You shove your phone into the pocket of your sweatpants, tug your backpack out from under your bed and grab a pair of socks. You slide them on as quickly as you can and head for the door. You tug it open and try to rush through, already on the way to your next small thing- but you stumble over a shoulder and go down.

You let out a yelp of surprise that quickly morphs into one of pain as your forehead knocks against the other person’s. Your hands slam down on either side of their head and their own fly up to your waist to steady you. You blink down at them, willing your eyes to adjust to the dark.

Hoseok is beneath you. He’s squinting up at you, his hair in disarray and his cheeks puffy with sleep. “Ow,” he croaks.

You wince. “I’m sorry,” you whisper, rubbing the spot on his forehead your own knocked against on autopilot. He seems to wake up a little at that, eyebrows inching up his forehead. You snatch your hand back. “Ah, sorry. I was worried I hurt you-”

“I’m okay,” he rasps, his voice still thick with sleep. “You didn’t hurt me.”

“Okay.” You disentangle yourself from him and rise back to your feet. He struggles to get up too, mirroring you. The blankets pooled around his hips fall to his feet. You frown at the picture he makes, his shoulders slumped from exhaustion and indents on his cheek from the hardwood. “Did you...did you sleep out here?”

His ears fall and he lowers his head a bit between his shoulders. “Yeah,” he admits, rubbing the back of his neck. “I did…”

You wrote off a lot of the behavior the boys exhibited that you didn’t understand as just a part of them being hybrids. When Taehyung affectionately headbutted you, or Jimin always hopped up on counters or Yoongi lapped from glasses instead of sipping, you just accepted it and stashed it away to google later- but this was a little more concerning. Did he not feel safe in his room? You’d tried to put him and Namjoon as far away from the felines as you could, but you also knew the cats weren’t thrilled about sharing their space. You hoped they hadn’t made him feel too unwelcome after you’d collapsed into bed.

“Is everything okay?” His ears twitch as the smell of your worry fills his nose. He leans forward and for a moment you think he’s gonna close the distance between you- but he pulls back.

“No,” he answers. You feel your heart sink. “I just...your room is closest to the front door.” You blink at him slowly, not following. You don’t know how his sight is in the dark, but he must see the confusion furrowing your brow,because he continues. “Your room is the only one on the first floor and it’s close to the living room and front door. We all sleep upstairs. If someone broke in, they’d get you first.” He tosses a finger down at the blankets. “I was sleeping here so that wouldn’t happen.”

“Nobody’s gonna get me, Hoseok,” You soothe, trying to assuage his fears. “I’m nobody-”

“You don’t know that,” he argues back. “And you’re not ‘nobody’ to me. I waited my whole life for you. I’ve gotta keep you safe.”

You don’t know what to make of that. You’d known Hoseok had been trained specifically to protect the person he’d eventually be sent to, but you hadn’t expected him to be so adamant about it. After all Namjoon grew up in the same place- No. Your expression sours as the thought stops you. No he didn’t. The wolfdog hybrid had been locked away for most of his life and interaction with others had come only in the form of meal delivery. He wouldn’t have had the director’s lessons drilled into his head everyday in the same way Hope had.

Still, no one has expressed this level of care for you since your mom died. You’re not entirely sure you deserve it.

“I was gonna wake up before you did and go back to my room,” he mumbles, kicking gently at the blanket and not meeting your eyes. “I promise, I was. I didn’t expect you to be up this early.” He fiddles with the hem of his shirt, his ears drooping more and more the longer you look at him. “I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable…”

“You didn’t make me uncomfortable, Hoseok,” You tell him and his ears perk up a little. It was true, he hadn’t. His actions were sweet, if a bit misguided but you were more worried about him than anything. “I don’t know what the director told you or what you’ve heard, but I promise there’s no one after me.” He frowns at that, lips twisting into a little pout. He goes to interject, but you speak again before he can. “If you’re worried about anything, just tell me okay? If there’s anything you need to do to make yourself feel more at ease here, just tell me.” You implore him softly.

Hoseok nods slowly and you see his tail give one small wag. You nod back, and turn to go, but his voice stops you. “I think it would help a lot if I could sleep down here.” Your brow furrows at that.

“This is the only bedroom on this floor, though?”

He whines and looks like he’s about to explain- but a soft voice purring in your ear cuts him off. “He could sleep on the couch,” Jimin supplies, his arms entwining around your middle as he rests his chin on your shoulder. “It’s quite comfortable...Y/N-ah, do you mind dogs on the furniture?” His tone is light, free of the haze of sleep and a little teasing. From the way Hoseok’s ears droop and the way his shoulders curve in, you could tell Jimin hadn’t crept down here for a bit of good-natured ribbing. Your scent sours as your expression does, irritation with the leopard hybrid pricking at you. He lets out a little disgruntled murr in protest as he noses at your neck, trying to get you to soften for him. You tilt your head away from him and disentangle yourself from his arms. It’s three in the morning, you have to cross the city to deal with the fallout from God only knows what, and your neck still aches from the bruise Yoongi had left on it. You have too much on your plate to deal with Jimin needling his new housemate.

“Leave him alone, Jimin,” You exhale, side-stepping the leopard hybrid and heading down the corridor for the door. “Hoseok, you can sleep where you want. I’ve gotta go.”

The doberman takes a step forward. “I’ll come with you-” the icy look Jimin shoots him has him slowing but it’s not until the leopard hybrid bares his teeth at him that he stalls entirely. The sound of his whimper has you whirling around, but when you do, you find Jimin looking at you, blasé and Hoseok eyeing him with uncertainty

“I’ll be back as soon as I can, I promise,” you toss back over your shoulder as you slide your feet into a pair of shoes. “Please, just...if you can’t be friendly, just do your own thing ‘til I get back.” You lace up your sneakers as quickly as you can and duck out the door. “Text me if you need anything; I’ll call on the way back.” And you’re gone, leaving the leopard and the doberman in the dark.

You are not at all confident in their ability to maintain a truce while you’re gone. You’re almost certain that if you hadn’t shoved your way between Namjoon and Yoongi last night, they’d have come to blows right there in the lobby last night. You punch the button for the ground floor and slump back against the railing of the elevator, exhaustion settling heavy on you now that you were alone again. You’d known Yoongi, Jimin and Taehyung weren’t thrilled about sharing their space, but you hadn’t expected this kind of fallout from bringing new hybrids home. You don’t know if there’s anything you can do to make things a little easier, but you want to. Sighing, you resign yourself to more research. You pull out your phone and start typing.

why are my hybrids freaking the fuck out

You backspace. Venting at google wasn’t going to help you figure out what the sharp looks Jimin kept throwing Hoseok while he thought your back was turned meant or why Yoongi had been so furious the other hybrids’ scent was on you.

why don’t my hybrids like each other

Just like all your other searches, this one turns up millions of results. You thumb over the links but none of them are helpful. They’re dealing with puppy hybrids bickering and cat hybrids hissing at each other. None of them cover cross-species beef. None of them deal with exotics. You sigh, lock your phone and tilt your head back to stare at the soft yellow lights in the elevator’s ceiling. You were out of your depth. You’d known that from the moment Mr. Seo turned you into an heiress with a wave of his fountain pen. You get the urge to run, that old niggling feeling that settled like a stone in your mind and made your palms itch.

It’s been years since you last felt the need to pull a disappearing act. You don’t think you’ve done it since the one year anniversary of your mom’s death. The foster home you’d been sent to was a shit show. You found out the woman in charge had been pocketing the money you gave her every month for your mother’s columbarium fees and her urn was in danger of being thrown out. You’d shoved everything you owned into your school bag and walked across the city to get her. When the police found you, you were striding down the side of the highway, her urn clutched to your chest, determined to go anywhere but there.

You hadn’t known where you were going then; you still didn’t now. All you’d had was the urge to flee and fire under your feet. All you’d had was a singular focus on the road ahead.

The elevator reaches the ground floor with a soft ding, the automated voice letting you know you’ve reached the lobby. You step out and shuffle across it with your head down, careful to avoid eye contact with the receptionist watching you warily from behind her desk.

It’s a cold night. A blast of frigid air hits your face the second you’re out the door. You curse under your and fold your arms around yourself in a futile effort to keep warm. You should go back upstairs and get the coat Yoongi made you buy. You shift from one foot to the other, weighing your options- and decide against it. If the conversation you’d had with Hoseok was enough to wake Jimin and send him slinking toward you, you running in and out of the penthouse would almost certainly wake Yoongi up. Memories flash in your mind: his hands gripping your hips tight, his rough tongue laving over your neck, that self-satisfied smirk he’d let spread over his mouth. You pinch yourself, trying to stem the heat you can feel crawling out the neck of your sweatshirt. It had upset you, there was no denying that. The warm feeling that’d bubbled up in your stomach at being touched didn’t wash away the fact that him marking you had nothing to do with your friendship and everything to do with warding off the canine hybrids.

Yeah, you decide, quickening your pace down the ice-slicked sidewalk. You’d much rather face the cold than him.

You make quick work of the walk from Haneul Tower to the streets of the club district. It’s only two blocks up and one over, but by the time you get there, you feel like a giant icicle. You’re out of place in a sweatshirt and scuffed up sneakers among the glitz and glamor of the club-goers, but you don’t have time to deal with your imposter syndrome. You duck into the first taxi you find, pass the old man the address Officer Kwon had given you and settle back.

He complains nearly the entire time about how far out of the way you’re making him go. You apologize as much as you’re able and promise him return fair back to Gangnam if he waits for you. He huffs and puffs, but he still takes you. Forty minutes later, you’re standing on the sidewalk outside of Happy Tails Hybrid Clinic, rapping urgently at the glass. After two minutes that feel like twenty, someone finally answers you.

You think she’s in her late twenties but the dark circles under her eyes she keeps rubbing at make her look older. She’s dressed in the typical winter police uniform, minus her jacket. The pale blue sleeves of her dress shirt are rolled up above her elbows and are blotchy with pale red marks she’d tried to scrub out. Blood. You swallow, your throat suddenly dry.

She unlocks the door and pokes her headout. “Y/N L/N?” She asks, eyes narrowed against the glare of the street lamps.

“Yeah,” you answer, giving one short nod. “Yeah, that’s me.”

“Officer Kwon; we spoke on the phone.” She opens the door for you fully, stepping back and ushering you in urgently. “I’ll be honest,” she says once you’re safely inside and the door is locked back tight again. “I wasn’t sure you were gonna show.”

You frown at that. “Why wouldn’t I have shown?”

“Most of the time when hybrids run, it’s an abuse case.” She drops into one of the plastic chairs lining the waiting room. Her head falls back with a thunk against the yellow plaster. If it hurts, she shows no signs of it, just stares up at the fluorescent lights. You settle on the lip of the chair next to her, feeling awkward and anxious. “The rabbit broke into an Olive Young to steal antiseptic and bandages,” she supplies without you having to ask. “He said he did it for the deer. When he showed me he was…” Officer Kwon exhales sharply and tips forward to rest her head in her hands. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen that much blood.”

“I wouldn’t hurt them,” you insist softly. “It wasn’t me.”

“I know,” she answers, voice muffled against her palms. “I pulled your name and ID picture from the national database and the rabbit didn’t recognize you. Even if you didn’t do it, I didn’t think you’d wanna deal with it.”

Your anxiety spikes at her words. What had happened to the hybrids before she found them? Who’d want to hurt them that badly? Your mouth feels dry, but you force it to move. “Do you know who they were running from?”

Officer Kwon shakes her head and drags her hands down her face. She lets her arms fall to her knees as she hunches over in her chair, back bowed with exhaustion. “Whatever the rabbit knows, he’s not sharing,” she exhales. “-And the deer’s in no position to speak up. He’s been unconscious since I found him.” As if sensing you tense, she adds, “He’s on the table now. I think Dr. Cheon put him under sedation.”

You don’t know what to say. You’re not sure if there’s anything you even can. You have a million questions buzzing around in your mind, but so heavy is the weight of them on your tongue that you can’t find the strength to ask a single one. You’re saved by the doctor coming out from the back.

The door right next to the counter that reads STAFF + PATIENTS ONLY swings open and a middle aged woman in cat print scrubs comes out, shoulders hunched in like she’s got the weight of the world on her back. You can’t blame her; she looks every bit as tired as you feel. She stops just short of you and Officer Kwon, peels off a pair of blue medical gloves, dyed sticky red, and tosses them into the garbage can behind the reception desk. “Well,” she huffs, dragging her fingers through the greying wisps of hair that’d escaped from her braid. “It’s done.”

“How is he?” The police officer asks before you can. Dr. Cheon grimaces and leans against the counter.

“If you hadn’t found him in time, it could’ve been much worse.” You think she’s trying to put you at ease, but you don’t want compromising optimism. You want the truth. “An hour or two later and we’d be dealing with a very different situation, medically.”

You swallow and force yourself to speak. “Do you have any idea how this could’ve happened?”

Dr. Cheon turns her attention to you and blinks slowly, like she’d just noticed you were there. “...this is the guardian?” The police officer nods. The doctor takes you in, eyes roving from the mess of your hair twisted into a bun atop your head, to the scuffed rubber toes of your sneakers. She’s judging you, you know, trying to find something that’d mark you as the reason for the pain and suffering of the hybrids she’d helped. She finds none. “It didn’t happen to them,” she sighs. “Someone did this to them on purpose, likely over the course of several hours.” She tugs the office chair out from behind the desk and sinks into it, her limbs going to jelly the second she’s seated.

“Jeongguk won’t tell me what happened, but I know the signs. Puncture wounds around the entirety of Seokjin’s ankle, remnants of both sedatives and epinephrine in both of their blood, what looks like a bullet graze wound on Jeongguk’s side and he’s got a broken arm,” she rattles off symptom after symptom, each of them making the knot in your belly wind tighter and tighter. “The worst of it is Seokjin’s head. Hairline fractures all along the top of his skull and lacerations on his pedicles. They took his antlers from him.”

You feel sick to your stomach. You knew there were people who hurt hybrids, just like there were people that hurt animals and other people. You just hadn’t expected to ever have to deal with the fallout of one such incident. “Will he be okay?”

“He’ll survive, if that’s what you’re asking,” Dr. Cheon allows. “But he’ll need to be monitored closely during these next few weeks. They were hunted. If they decide to come with you instead of going to the shelter with Officer Kwon, you’ll need to be cognisant of the fact that the trauma from that could manifest in unexpected ways.”

Hunted. They’d been hunted.

You knew hunting was illegal in South Korea, you had that little tidbit tucked away in the recesses of your grade school memory along with the list of provinces and their capitals and the names of all the sailor scouts. It’d been outlawed in the fifties with the rash of hybrid centered legislation after a hunter up in Chungcheongbuk-do had shot a black bear hybrid he’d mistaken for a real bear. It was determined that since humans couldn’t distinguish between regular animals and hybrids shifted down into animal form, hunting had to be outlawed to prevent any accidental killings.

“Were they shifted down?” You ask. “Did someone not realize-”

“No.” Dr. Cheon’s answer is swift and final. “They knew. This was a choice.” The disgust in her voice is palpable.

“There are places that...Some centers cater to people that want to hunt.” Officer Kwon cuts in. “They have hybrids as employees and they let people rent airsoft or paintball guns to come hunt them. It’s supposed to be more ethical than actual hunting. No matter how distasteful I might personally find it, if they have a permit, there’s not really much the police can do unless a law has been broken. ”

“And without any information on where they came from, we can’t prove that one has,” Dr. Cheon finishes. “The most I can do as a vet is submit a report to the police about a possible abuse case and hope it makes its way to the hybrid crimes unit.” You hear the words she doesn’t speak, the meaning behind them. There’s nothing more we can do. They’ll get away with it. This is the end of the line.

Dr. Cheon drops her palms against her knees and forces herself to stand “Jeongguk’s injuries should heal just fine outside of the clinic,” She sighs. “But Seokjin-” she clicks her tongue against her teeth and gives a single shake of her head. “Cervine hybrids don’t shed their antlers like real deer do. There’s no telling if his will grow back or what they’ll look like when they do. All we can do is keep the wounds clean and pray.”

You nod numbly. She gestures for you to follow her and you do, making your way around the reception desk and through the staff door with her.

It’s dim in the back. The overhead lights are off and your path ahead is illuminated only by what light spills over from the reception room and an exam room up ahead. There’s only four of them, but the door to this one is slightly ajar. “Wait here for a second,” Dr. Cheon instructs, slipping through the door and leaving you alone in the corridor. You can hear her speaking softly to someone inside and them answering in even quieter tones. You have to strain to pick up the edge of their voice and even then, you can’t understand what they’re saying. “Would you like her to come in here, or would you like her to stay outside?” You hear her ask. The response is too soft for you to catch but a second later the door swings open.

Dr. Cheon steps out and gestures for the shadowy figure behind her to follow. “It’s alright,” she assures them. “No one here is going to hurt you.” Slowly, they shuffle out from the back.

It’s Jeongguk. There’s no denying what he is, not with the black velvet ears you see poking up out of his mop of wavy, dark hair. They’re alert; they prick toward you when your breath hitches. His eyes are dark and wide and the tip of his nose twitches when he looks at you. You muster up a smile you hope is reassuring and this right foot taps once against the linoleum. Yes, he’s a rabbit- but he’s also fucking huge.

What little research you’d managed to do in between apologizing to your taxi driver and keeping an eye on the fare had been straightforward: rabbit hybrids were naturally timid, needed a lot of attention and were small. Most sources you’d checked seemed to concur that they very rarely cleared 5’5. Jeongguk is pushing 6 feet and he’s built like a professional athlete. You suppose that’s what happens when you’ve spent your whole life running for it.

He’s wearing a teeshirt that’s too tight on his chest, the logo of the Seoul police force stretched thin, and a pair of grey sweatpants that are too short for him, both obviously on loan from Officer Kwon. His feet are bare, but there are bandages wrapped around both of them. True to what Dr. Cheon told you, his arms in a cast and wrapped in a sling. There’s scrapes on his knuckles and bruises blooming on the right side of his face. He looks like he’s been through the wringer. Still, he doesn’t slouch or shrink before you.

“Jeongguk, this is the woman we talked about,” Dr. Cheon tells him. He nods, but doesn’t move his gaze from your face once. “You’ll be going home with her-”

“Only if he wants,” You interject and she nods in agreement, quickly adding that caveat in.

“-only if you want.” He nods again and swallows, his bare foot giving another little tap against the floor.

“What about Seokjin?” He asks you.

“If he wants to come too, he’s welcome to, but neither of you have to if you don’t want to.” There’s a little frown on his face as you answer and he finally looks away. You can’t help but think that’s a bad sign, that he thinks he and his friend would be safer in a shelter that they ever could be with you- but then he asks another question.

“Do you have a husband or a boyfriend?” You frown at that. Why was it that every hybrid in the city was suddenly so concerned with your marital status? Hoseok had asked you in the car last night and now Jeongguk seemed worried about it as well. Sensing your confusion, he clarifies. “Do you live with any men?”

You wince. “Oh! Yeah, I live with five.” You see his expression darken as his ears sag. “They’re mostly predator-”

“If they’re hybrids, it’s fine.” He interjects, a little tension leaving his shoulders. “I can live with them.”

You relax too. From what you’d seen, most shelters weren’t nice places. They were overcrowded and underfunded. If the news was any indication, some of the worse ones got treated like grab bags by fighting rings, who’d shell out a couple thousand won for a canine hybrid and turn him into a prize fighter. You didn’t want that for them, not if you could provide an alternative.

But was it one though? He said he could live with them, but could they live with him? You think back to Yoongi and Namjoon snarling at each other last night, about Jimin’s little jabs at Hoseok. Yeah, you’d need to have another house meeting when you got home if this was ever going to work. Jeongguk had just been through hell and back; the last thing he needed was a territorial bobcat trying him.

“You can change your mind any time,” You tell him softly. “If you get there and feel like it’s not a good fit for you and Seokjin, you can go, okay?”

He dips his head. “Okay.”

“I think Seokjin can decide for himself.”

Your eyes rocket just over Jeongguk’s shoulder. There’s a man leaning heavily against the doorframe of the room the rabbit hybrid had come out of. He’s in a blue exam gown, his feet bare except for a plain white cast on his left leg. Every part of his head from his eyebrows up is bandaged, but you see soft tufts of red-brown hair poking out from between the layers. He looks human. You’d almost think he was if it weren’t for the oblong pupils in his hazel eyes and supple ears you see twitching as he observes you.

“What are you doing up?!” The alarm in Dr. Cheon’s voice is palpable. “Those sedatives should’ve kept you out ‘til morning.” She takes a step like she’s going to rush to his side- but stops short when he tenses and tilts his chin to his chest. Just for a second, it looked like he was preparing himself to square off against her- like he was brandishing something that wasn’t really there. His antlers, you think. He was trying to protect himself with his antlers.

Seokjin forces himself upright, his knees wobbling as he tries to stand on his own. He looks off-balance, and it’s not just because of the cast. He looks like he’s trying to figure out how to stand now that a piece of him is missing. His legs are trembling. “What can I say?” He huffs, sounding like he just ran a marathon. “I like to surprise people.” And then his legs buckle underneath him.

He hits the floor with a heavy thud. Jeongguk and Dr. Cheon rush to his side but he waves them off, eyes closed and brow knit in frustration. “I’m fine,” he insists, pinching the bridge of his nose and trying to struggle back to his feet. “I’m fine, I just…I just need a moment-”

“You need bed rest.” Dr. Cheon goes to latch on to his arm to help him stand but Jeongguk catches her wrist, gives a single shake of his head and she drops it back to her side.

Seokjin manages to get himself back standing, but he sways precariously. “If this were a hunt, I’d already be dead.” He swallows and inhales shakily through his nose, doing his best not to gulp down air. “You should have left me, Jeongguk. You know the rules. One falls, but the herd rises-”

“The herd is gone, Seokjin.” The bitterness in the younger hybrid’s voice takes you aback. It’s a black wave, threatening to drown all four of you right there in the corridor. Seokjin stares at him, his jaw slack and pretty brown eyes wide.

“What do you-”

“They’re gone.” The rabbit hybrid’s bruised fingers clench into a fist and he fixes his glare on the tile. “All of them.”

Silence rings in the corridor. Dr. Cheon’s mouth is pressed into a thin line, but she doesn’t press for details and neither do you. She’d been right. They’d been hunted. The thought of it turns your stomach. Seokjin closes his eyes, long lashes fanning out over his cheeks as a muscle tenses in his jaw. He’s thinking. When he opens his eyes again, his gaze is settled on you. Your heart jumps as your nerves get the better of you, and one of his ears flicks back.

“You’re taking us?” He asks. You swallow.

“Only if you want me to.” An unreadable look passes between him and Jeongguk, the younger’s nose twitching.

“Speaking strictly as your doctor,” Dr. Cheon speaks up, interrupting the hybrids’ telepathy. “You need time to rest and recuperate-”

“Is there any special reason I have to rest and recuperate here?” He asks. You can’t help but notice the slight challenge in his voice. The corner of the doctor’s mouth twitches.

“No, I suppose not,” she acquiesces. She doesn’t look particularly pleased about the prospect of letting her patient go when he was still in the danger zone, but if the look of determination in Seokjin’s eyes is any indication, she doesn’t have much choice.

“Then, we’ll go.” The tone of his voice is final, letting everyone present know that he’s done talking about it.

That's the last that’s said to you or anyone else about it. Jeongguk falls in line with his orders easily and so doesDr. Cheon after she manages to get him to accept a pair of crutches she’d foisted upon him and passes off a prescription for pain meds and both of their check up schedules to you.

“It’s important that they don’t miss these dates,” she tells you at the reception counter, tapping the sheath of papers with one clean, blunted nail. “A single one of them. And make sure they don’t shift ‘til I’ve given them the all clear. Hybrid injuries are tricky, but they’re aggravated by the shift.” You nod, hanging onto every word she says, forcing your tired brain to take mental notes. “And-” she cuts her eyes at Jeongguk and Jin, both of whom are lingering in various extremes in the room, the deer hybrid sitting ramrod straight in a chair in the far right corner and the rabbit pretending to browse informational pamphlets. Once Dr. Cheon’s deemed it safe, she leans closer to you across the counter and gestures for you to come closer as well. You blink in confusion but acquiesce. “It’s important that your current hybrids be made to feel secure with the new additions coming.” She tells you, voice gravely serious. “Do you know about scenting order?”

After a beat, you nod. “Yeah. I mean, I read about it online but-”

Dr. Cheon tuts her tongue against the back of her teeth. “Online sources are shaky at best, wildly inaccurate at worst- particularly forums.” Your stomach flips. Had all your research been for nothing? “What did they tell you?”

“Um…” your brain boots up slowly as you try to recall the hours of research you’d done. “Uh, dominant hybrid first, then in age order?”

The corner of Dr. Cheon’s mouth quirks in an odd way. “That’s certainly a simplified way of looking at it.”

You wince.

“Hybrid group dynamics can be…” She searches for the right word. “Messy to start out with, especially with hybrids who don’t know each other who find themselves with an inexperienced handler. They’re all going to be trying to figure out where they fit in the pecking order as well as how their relationship with you works. There’s likely to be a lot of posturing, not just in order to impress you, but to solidify their place as well.” Dr. Cheon drags a hand down over her face. “Seven male hybrids under one roof...It’d be a miracle if no one’s missing fingers by the time the week’s out.”

“Is there any way I can stop them from being mean to each other?”

“I’m not a behaviorist,” The doctor sighs. “But I’d suggest you start with a conversation.”

You slide into the back of the taxi a little after 5:30 AM and pull out your phone. You’d promised to call on the way back and you don’t want a repeat of what’d happened the last time you’d forgotten. You scroll down your contacts, thumb hovering over Yoongi’s name and you hesitate. You remember warm lips, a rough tongue. You remember hands gripping your hips tight and a possessive growl in your ear. You press Taehyung’s name instead.

The tiger hybrid picks up on the third ring. “Hello?” His voice is slow and scratchy, still thick with sleep.

“Hey, it’s Y/N-” Almost immediately a happy rumbling starts from his end of the line. You can hear the sleepy joy in it and it makes your face warm.”A-and I just wanted to let you guys know I’m on the way home.”

Taehyung hums in acknowledgement, a low, musical sound. “Where’d you go?”

You bite your lip as nerves spark up in you. Well, all things considered, it was probably better for him to find out now rather than later. “The last two hybrids my uncle got…they were hurt and I had to come get them.”

The line is quiet for a moment and you gnaw at the bottom of your lip. Finally, Taehyung speaks. “Ah.” That’s all he says. Somehow, that’s worse than whatever Yoongi growling at the new hybrids or Jimin icing them out.

“I’ll be home in about another forty-five minutes, okay? Could you have everyone get together in the living room for me? We need to have a conversation.”

“Yeah, I can.”

You wince. There’s an almost imperceptible change in his voice. You swallow. “Taehyung, are you upset?”

He hums again like he’s considering it. “No,” he answers after a moment. “I don’t think i am. At least, not with you.”

That does little to allay your fears, but you force yourself to sound upbeat when you tell him, “I’ll see you when I get home, okay?”

“Okay. I’ll see you when you get home.”

The line clicks off and you drop your head against the headrest. A conversation. It should be a simple thing, but you spend the entirety of your taxi ride back to Gangnam with your stomach in knots. If the thought of introducing your two (very injured, very vulnerable) new hybrids to a house full of predators wasn’t enough, you have to try to allay Jeongguk’s inexplicable fear of the taxi driver. The middle aged man isn’t thrilled about ferrying hybrids across the city anyway, but between Seokjin swooning and Jeongguk thumping his foot so hard the whole car rattles whenever the man so much as looks in his rearview mirror, he’s almost ready to put all three of you out on the side of the highway. You have to promise him a 50,000 won tip just to get him to relent. He rolls up the partition, but even that doesn’t put Jeongguk at ease.

The rabbit hybrid is curled up in the corner of the backseat, his back against the door, his injured arm cradled close and his knees pulled up to his chin. His ears are on high alert, twitching at every passing car or stray siren. His whole body is tensed up like there’s a current running through it, like if he lets himself relax for a second, he’ll disperse into nothing. He’s glaring daggers at the partition, but you know he can’t see the driver. The car rolls over a speed bump a bit too fast and he flinches, hand shooting out for the door handle.

You watch him, concern coloring your scent. It’s not your place to ask, you know, and you feel almost stupid doing it, but the words slip out of their own accord. “Are you okay?” It’s a ridiculous question. You can still see the bruises blooming on his cheekbone, see the angry red of his split lip in the stray light of street lamps. His dark eyes flick toward you, round nose twitching.

“How do you know he’s taking us somewhere safe?” His gaze shifts from you, to the partition, to Seokjin, dozing fitfully on your otherside. The deer hybrid had finally surrendered to his pain meds not a second after you’d helped buckle him in. He’d been out cold before the driver had pulled away from the curb.

“Because that’s what I paid him to do,” you tell him, truthfully. You’d never given much thought to how much trust you placed in taxi and bus drivers to not kidnap you before. You certainly had to now, especially when Jeongguk seemed hyperaware of the fact that you’d entrusted all of your lives to a stranger. The rabbit hybrid swallows, his adam’s apple bobbing in the long column of his throat. He gives a little shake of his head.

“He could take your money and still take us somewhere bad. He could take us up into the mountains and Seokjin and I wouldn’t be able to do anything because we’re hurt and-”

“That’s not going to happen, Jeongguk,” you say in as soothing a voice as you can manage to muster up. “It’s really unlikely that that’ll happen, but even if it did, I’d do my best to protect you.”

He snorts, ears tilting back. They brush the roof of the car as they do and he shrinks himself, shoulders hunching forward. “What can you do?” His tone is derisive. “You’re only human. You’re not as fast as us or as strong-”

“I’d try,” you insist, some strong, unnameable emotion tightening your chest at the thought of them in danger. “If if came down to it, I’d still try to protect the pair of you-”

“You don’t even know me.” Jeongguk’s voice is edging somewhere between disgust and disbelief. You look away from him then and at your hands, gripping your knees.

“I don’t,” you agree easily. “But I’d like to. Even if I don’t- even if I didn’t, people should still help each other when they can. We owe each other that much.” The taxi is quiet for a moment, only the sound of tires rushing over the slick pavement and other cars zooming by filling the empty air between the two of you. Finally, the rabbit hybrid exhales shakily.

“I’m not a person.” He sounds resigned to that fact, like he’s accepted a burden far too heavy for him. “I’m not even an animal. I’m a-”

“Just because you aren’t human…” you start off hesitantly, very much aware that you might be crossing several invisible lines. “...doesn’t mean you’re not a person. You have your own thoughts and feelings and emotions. You deserve to have them heard. I know I’m not as fast as you or as strong, but the least I can do is listen to you, right?” The car is silent again. You’re too nervous to look at Jeongguk, worried that you’d gone too far- but then there’s a warm weight against your side. It starts slow at first, just your shoulders brushing against each other, but before you know it, Jeongguk’s leaning his whole body against yours. He’s slumped over with his head tucked beneath your chin like he doesn’t have the strength to hold himself up anymore. You swallow, your throat suddenly dry. “Jeongguk-”

“I’m afraid.” He admits in a whisper, like it’s the worst thing in the world. “Everything in me tells me to run all the time, but I can’t anymore.” His ears droop and his pretty dark eyes slip shut. This close, you can hear his heart beating at breakneck speed in his chest, feel how he shudders with every shaky inhale. “I’m so tired of running.” He’s terrified. You wouldn’t have guessed from his posture. Maybe the reason he held himself so tight was to stop himself from shaking apart.

You watch in surprise as the rabbit hybrid links his fingers with yours and drops your hand on top of his head, right between his velvety ears. “Help me like this.” You’re frozen, unsure what to do with a six foot tall man practically crawling into your sweatshirt with you. Was this really okay? He’d just been through something traumatic, the details of which you know nothing about. You hadn’t thought he’d want anyone to touch him, much less you, a virtual stranger. You don’t know what to do. The car jerks to a quick stop and the taxi driver leans on his horn, curses jaywalkers. Jeongguk’s grip on you tightens and he flinches so hard you’re surprised he didn’t knock his head into your teeth. He exhales shakily, tilts his head up and brushes his nose along the underside of your jaw. “Please,” he asks in a voice so small you know it’s killing him. “Just ‘til we get there, please just let me be weak.”

That breaks something inside you. Despite how awkward you might feel, he’s sure to be feeling worse. You wrap your arms fully around him, hesitant until you feel him go lax in your arms. You slowly stroke the back of his head and he buries his face in your clavicle, his eyes squeezed shut. “We’re almost there,” you assure him gently as he fists his good hand in the fabric of your sweatshirt. “You’re almost home.”

By the time the three of you arrive back at Haneul tower, the sky is lightening in the east and the first wave of office workers are making their way from your building into the streets of Gangnam. It’s not even 6 AM yet, but the city is stirring.

It takes you a good ten minutes to rouse both the boys and get them out of the taxi. After you’d let Jeongguk cling to you, the rabbit hybrid had fallen asleep quickly, the exhaustion from his turbulent day finally catching up to him. Even in sleep he was latched on to you, a small crease between his brows and his nose wrinkled up. Seokjin hadn’t fared much better. The cocktail of meds Dr. Cheon had given him had rendered him dead to the world for the entirety of the drive back. Even now you were having trouble rousing him.

“Seokjin…” You shake the sleeping stag’s shoulders but the only response you get is a slight hitch in his snoring. “Seokjin, please wake up, we have to go…” You can practically feel the glare the taxi driver is giving you in his rearview mirror. Yeah, the meter is still running, but you’ve taken up enough of his time as it is. “Seokjin, come on…” Jeongguk is standing behind you, staring bleary-eyed up at the apartment building, his free hand fisted in the fabric of your sweatshirt. If he’s cold in his thin tee-shirt and bare feet, he makes no mention of it.

Without warning, the taxi driver leans on the horn. Seokjin’s eyes fly open and he sits bolt upright, fear making his body tight. Jeongguk jerks so violently you think he’s going to rip a hole in your sweatshirt. You stumble back a few paces, trying to steady the rabbit and stop the pair of you from tumbling into the street. When you manage to right yourself, you slam a palm against the roof of the car and glare in the window at the driver. “Yo, what the fuck?”

The man glares back at you and waves you off. “I don’t have all day!” He shouts. “Get your animal and get out!”

You want to argue with him, you want to make him apologize- but the sight of Seokjin disoriented and afraid stops you. He’s looking at you with hazy eyes, his whole body stiff and his chest heaving. It’s for his sake alone that you hold your tongue. You reach a hand out to him. “Come on, buddy.” You say. “I got you.” He looks from your face to your hand and finally, slowly, places his own in it. His fingers are long and elegant and his hand dwarfs your’s. You tug him from the backseat and he leans heavily on you, hopping awkwardly to avoid walking on his broken foot. You pass him his crutches and he takes them, wobbling awkwardly as he tries to set himself to rights. “Can you stand?” You ask him. He nods and starts limping for the glass doors of Haneul Tower. He’s doing his best to look strong. His back is straight and his head is high, but you don’t miss the tremble in his fingers or the way he winces whenever the wind blows over the top of his head. You shove some bills at the taxi driver with a final, disapproving look, usher Jeongguk up onto the sidewalk and head inside after Seokjin.

The moment the three of you breach the double doors, Jeongguk drops his hand from your sweatshirt. His eyes rove over the glass and granite, round nose twitching at all the scents and his ears standing at attention on top of his head. He pauses, a little furrow between his brows. You’re halfway to the elevators, hovering a foot behind Seokjin in case he falls, before you notice the rabbit hybrid isn’t following you.

You cast a look back over his shoulder and find him gawking up at the hanging lights, mouth slightly ajar and starry-eyed. The corner of your mouth twitches. He’s cute, you decide. The thought leaves you almost instantly when you see Mr. Park powerwalking over to him, a sunny smile on his face. Jeongguk takes notice of him only a split second after you do and his eyes wide. You see him tense up, watch the fingers on his uninjured hand curl into a ball.

“You need to get him,” Seokjin says, sounding like he’s out of breath. You turn your attention back to the deer hybrid. He’s leaning heavily on his crutches and his face is pale. “You need to get him,” he repeats, nodding at Jeongguk. “That man gets any closer and Jeongguk will kick him.”

You whip back around. Mr. Park is closing the distance between them, seemingly unconcerned by the look of distress on the rabbit hybrids face or how his foot seems to be tapping a mile a minute.

“Excuse me!” The older man says, reaching out to put a hand on the rabbit hybrid’s shoulder. “Where’s your-”

“Mr. Park!” You practically sprint over as fast as you can, sliding between the receptionist and the hybrid just as he’d started winding his leg back. Mr. Park blinks, surprised to find you so suddenly in front of him. You offer him a tight smile. “He’s with me.”

“Oh! Ms. L/N, I apologize. He didn’t have a collar, so I assumed he was a stray.” The statement pricks at you, but you know he means nothing by it, so you try to stamp down your irritation. “It’s rare but we do occasionally have them come in in the hope someone will take them in.” He clucks his tongue against his teeth. “Such a shame really.”

You feel Jeongguk’s hand fist in the fabric of your sweatshirt. He wants to go. You nod emphatically at what Mr. Park says, already heading back to the elevators. “Yeah, totally,” you agree, shuffling the rabbit hybrid in front of you and putting some distance between him and the elderly man. “Well, have a good morning! I’ll see you later!”

“Ms. L/N, I actually need to speak with you-”

You wave him off and duck into the elevator Seokjin had called in your brief absence. “We’ll talk later!” You tell him, pressing the close door buttons as quickly as you can and willing them to shut before he can catch up.

“But it’s about your-!”

The doors click shut and you’re blessed with silence. You exhale in a short puff, press the button for the penthouse and slump against the cool metal wall, finally letting yourself relax for a moment. The elevator starts rolling and Jeongguk flinches beside you. He duck his head like he’s going to crouch down- but he stops himself, grips the railing instead.

“It’s okay,” You soothe. “It’s just-”

“I’m fine,” he insists, forcing himself to stand up straight and release the death grip he has on your sweatshirt. “I’m fine; my time’s up.”

It’s just like he’d said in the car. Just ‘til we get there, let me be weak.

The rest of the elevator ride passes in silence outside of the automated bell dinging as you pass each new floor and Seokjin panting quietly. He’s in a bad way. He’ll need another dose of pain meds soon. You arrive on the top floor, punching in the key code and pull the door open. “Let me get Seokjin settled, Jeongguk and I-” You run directly into someone.

Their arms wrap around you, covered in a brown cable knit sweater. It’s soft and they smell of vanilla. They press their cheek against the top of your head and exhale, a little rumble kicking up in their chest. “You’re back.” Taehyung.

“Hey, buddy.” You pat him on the back gently and peer around him. Yoongi and Jimin are both sprawled on the couch, legs kicked out so there isn’t room for anyone else to join them. Namjoon is sitting on the stairs shooting daggers at the back of Yoongi’s head and his arms crossed over his chest.Hoseok is lingering in the no man’s land between the living room and kitchen looking like he’d much rather be anywhere else. The atmosphere is tense to say the least.

Taehyung dips his head down. “I got them, like you said,” he whispers, lips brushing against the tip of your ear and his breath warm. You have fight off a little shiver, but if he notices it, he doesn’t react. “I don’t think Hyung and Jiminie like the others very much.”

You give a little nod of acknowledgement. “That’s okay,” you tell him. “We all just need to get to know each other a little better.”

Seokjin hobbles through the door, past the tiger hybrid and drops himself onto a stool on the kitchen with a heavy exhale. “Well, I’ve got maybe fifteen minutes at most before these meds catch a second wind, so let’s get this over with.” He’s doing his best to sound cavalier but he’s pallid. You don’t miss the thin sheen of cold sweat on his face and neck. “Seokjin. Twenty-eight. Red stag.”

All the other hybrids are staring at him in a mix of confusion, irritation and, in some cases, open dislike. It seems like they don’t know what to make of him. It’s Yoongi who speaks first. “If you’re a stag,” he drawls and you already feel dread welling up in you at what you know is going to follow. “Where are your antlers?”

Seokjin fixes him with a tight-lipped smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. “I only put them on for special occasions.”

“Okay!” You clap your hands together trying to diffuse the tension you can feel building. “New house rule: let’s not ask each other about injuries past or present unless we’re asking how to help.” Yoongi looks miffed, but he settles. It’s weird. Normally, you’d have expected him to say something snarky back to you. He’s trying not to push his luck after last night, you think. “Yoongi, why don’t you go next?”

His ears flick in annoyance, but he does as you ask. “I’m Yoongi, I’m twenty-seven and I’m a bobcat-”

“I’m Jimin,” his junior pipes up before he’s hardly had time to finish. “I’m an amur leopard and I came here with Yoongi-hyung and Tae. We’ve been with Y/N the longest.” He says it like it’s an important piece of information for everyone to know.

Beside you, Taehyung lifts one hand, palm up. “Hi,” he says calmly. “I’m Taehyung. I like the color purple.” Everyone watches him to see what else he’s going to say, but the tiger hybrid is finished. You give him a little nudge with your shoulder.

“Tell them how old you are and what your hybrid is,” you suggest.

“Oh,” he lifts his eyebrows like the thought genuinely hadn’t occurred to him. “I’m twenty-four and I’m a tiger.” Suddenly remembering something, he tilts his head forward in a little bow. “It’s nice to meet you all.” A sour look takes over Yoongi’s face and Jimin rolls his eyes, gestures for the youngest of their group to come sit beside him.

Hoseok is the next one to pipe up. “I’m Hoseok!” He seems to perk up a little when you turn your eyes to him, his docked tail giving as much of a wag as it’s able. “I’m a Doberman, I’m twenty-six and Joonie and I came from the same pla-”

“My name is Namjoon.” The wolfdog cuts off the other canine with a growl. All the wind goes out of Hoseok’s sails and you don’t miss the way Seokjin freezes up at the dark sound, suddenly alert. You weren’t sure if prey hybrids still avoided predator hybrids like their animal counterparts did, but you’d need to learn and fast. Namjoon leans back on the stairs, his jaw clenched. “I’m the same age as him-” he jerks his head at the Doberman hybrid. “-so I guess I’m twenty-six too.” He makes no mention of his hybrid and you don’t press. You don’t know how sensitive a subject it is for him yet, but you don’t want to find out the hard way.

Hoseok looks back at you and cocks his head to the side, his gaze fixed on a spot just over your shoulder. “Who’s he?”

Five pairs of eyes follow his. You turn around. Outside the apartment, still in the corridor, is Jeongguk, his back pressed against the wall and his eyes wide as he surveys the mixed bag of hybrids spread out in front of you. Your eyebrows furrow in concern.

“Do you wanna come in?”

His gaze flicks from you, to the cats, then to Hoseok and finally to Namjoon. It’s only when he sees the wolfdog hybrid that he moves from the wall. He takes halting, jittery steps one after the other until he’s planted by your side, his eyes on his bare feet. Every move he makes makes it look like he’s fighting against his own body, forcing himself to tamp down his instinct and move.

“Can you introduce yourself?” You ask him softly. “Or do you want me to?”

His good hand clenches into a fist and forces himself to look up. He meets each of the other hybrid’s eyes evenly. “My name is Jeongguk.” When he speaks, there’s no shake in his voice. “I’m twenty-three years old. I came from the same place as Seokjin but we don’t know each other that well. I’m a Flemish Giant Rabbit.” So that was why he was so big. You’d never seen a Flemish Giant in real life, but you’d happened across the odd youtube video of them once or twice in your suggestions. They were huge.

With introductions out of the way, you feel a little tension melt out of your shoulders. That was the biggest hurdle. Maybe now that they all at least knew each other, they’d be a little more open to being around each other. You let out a little exhale. “And I’m Y/N. I’m also twenty-three and this is my uncle’s apartment. He’s the only that bought all of you but I only found out you were coming a little over a week ago, so please forgive me for being unprepared.” You rub your palms against your eyes, trying to combat the exhaustion you can feel crawling over you. “I don’t know that much about hybrids, but I’m trying to learn. A lot of things you’re gonna have to help me with. I’m not expecting you guys to be pets or best friends or anything, but if we could all try to get along I’d appreciate it.” You offer all seven them a weary smile. “Thanks for getting up early to do this, guys, I appreciate it. If there’s anything you need, literally anything, please don’t be scared to ask-”

“Um, Y/N?” Hoseok is looking at you like he’s been dying to say something for the past five minutes. You turn your attention to him and squint as you try to focus on what he’s saying. “I did a sweep of the apartment earlier-” That was concerning. You make a mental note to tell him he doesn’t have to do security sweeps anymore. “-and there’s only four bedrooms.”

You blink at him in confusion.

“There’s eight of us.”

Oh. Oh. You drag your hands down over your face. You hadn’t accounted for lack of space being an issue. When you first moved in, Oliver’s penthouse seemed like it went on forever. “Okay,” you start, crunching some quick numbers. “Some of us are gonna have to double up.” There’s a disgruntled mrow from the couch and without looking, you know it’s Jimin. “Yoongi, Jimin and Taehyung are already sharing so they’re exempt, but Seokjin needs his own room- at least until he recovers.”

“That’s fine by me,” the stag chimes in. “But that leaves Jeongguk without a-”

“Hyung, can I stay with you?” The room goes quiet.

“Seokjin really needs his own room-” You pull your face out of your hands to address the rabbit hybrid, but he isn’t looking at the stag. His eyes are fixed on Namjoon who’s looking at him in a mix of confusion and alarm. The wolfdog looks from the rabbit to you.

“I saw a camp bed out in the greenhouse while you were showing us around last night.” He says, standing to go. “I’ll sleep out there.”

“Namjoon, you don’t have to sleep outside-”

“I like it out there.” He calls back over his shoulder as he climbs the stairs. “I can see the sky.” Then he’s gone and the six of you are left.

“Well,” Jimin purrs, rising and crossing the living room to you. “Best of luck.” He rubs his cheek against yours, folding you into a loose hug. You think he’s about to pull away, but he whispers in your ear, “If you want to share with us, you know where we sleep.” And then he’s gone, sauntering up the stairs with Taehyung and Yoongi in tow. The bobcat tosses a look at you, but you look away quickly, missing the way his ears sage when you do.

Now, the only ones left are you, Jeongguk, Hoseok and Seokjin who’s rapidly fading. “I’ll take the couch,” you volunteer. It wouldn’t be the most comfortable thing in the world, but right now, the stark white cushions look like heaven to your sleep-deprived mind. “Seokjin can have my room-”

“He can have mine,” Hoseok interjects. “And, if it’s okay, could I stay with you?” There’s a light whine on the end of his words and you don’t miss the way his ears prick up in anticipation of your answer. “It’s what I wanted to ask you earlier.”

Oh. When Jimin interrupted him, that’s what he’d been trying to say: he wanted to sleep in your room to be closer to you. To protect you.

“Yeah,” you agree easily. “Yeah, that’s fine.” Sharing beds wasn’t a big deal for you. You’d grown up in a flat with your mom and had shared a bed with her til she’d been taken from you. Then in foster homes with too many kids and not enough resources, you’d had to double- and sometimes even triple- up. It was a matter of convenience and space.

Hoseok’s tail gives a little wag and he nods, happy with your decision.

“Great!” Seokjin cheers weakly. “Now can someone please help me lie down.”

It’s Hoseok that helps the stag hybrid up the stairs and into bed. He’s stronger than you and taller, so it only makes sense. You show Jeongguk to his new room and stay with him for a few minutes while he feels it out, making sure it’s safe. It’s only once he’s sequestered himself under the covers and dismissed you that you leave, closing the door quietly behind you as the rabbit hybrid settles down for some much needed sleep. You turn to head back for the stairs- but you find Yoongi at the other end of the corridor, staring you down. You stare back. He swallows.

“Can we talk?” He asks, his voice quieter than you ever remember hearing it.

You give a little nod. “Yeah,” you assent. “We need to.”

He meets you halfway, his hands shoved into the pockets of his joggers and his gaze anywhere but on your face. The seconds stretch out and you exhale, closing your eyes. “Yoongi, about last night-”

“I’m sorry,” he interjects. “About what happened in the elevator. It was disrespectful and immature. I won’t do it again.”

You balk at him. You’d honestly expected him to tell you you were being childish for reacting so strongly to it when you’d told him he could mark you whenever he was ready. But he hadn’t. He shuffles back a few steps, his head still low.

“Well, that was all I wanted to say to you, so-”

“Do you understand?” You ask him. He stops short. “Do you understand why I was upset?”

His tongue darts out to wet his lips and you see a little furrow between his gray eyebrows. “Because I marked you.”

“No,” you insist, emphatically. “I was upset because it didn’t feel like you were doing it for me.” He does look up at you then, yellow eyes unreadable. “It didn’t feel like you were marking me because we’re friends or you wanted me to be a part of your group. It felt like you were doing it to show off in front of Namjoon and Hoseok.” You swallow. “And that hurt my feelings.” It feels good to say. It feels good to talk about.

He lets out a little chirp of distress. “I don’t wanna hurt you,” he rasps. “I just-” He rakes a hand back through his hair and shakes his head. “Fuck, I just felt like if I didn’t do something right then you’d get bored of me and send me away. I thought you’d replace me with them.”

Your heart twists. You know the feeling more intimately than you’d like to admit. You reach out, hesitantly and squeeze Yoongi’s arm. “Yoongi, I’m not gonna send you away. Ever. It’s important to me that you know that. Unless you wanna go, you can stay. There’s room enough for all of you.”

“No there’s not, that’s why we’re sharing rooms,” he drawls.

You roll your eyes and let out a little chuckle. “Okay, smart-ass.”

The corner of his mouth curls up at the playful insult. After a moment, he speaks. “I don’t, for the record,” he says. “Wanna go, I mean.” He stares down into your face, yellow eyes intense. The seconds drag on and something between the two of you grows tight. He leans down, face nuzzling the soft spot between your ear and your jaw. He huffs. “Bunny scented you,” he mutters, tail flicking in annoyance, but there’s no heat behind it. You’re relieved.

“He was afraid in the car,” you answer softly. “I think it helped.” Your hands slip from his arms around his back and he purrs. It’s the first time you’ve heard him make that sound. It sends warm vibrations through your whole body and you giggle. Yoongi smiles against your skin and your heart leaps. He’s never smiled around you before. You can’t see it, but you can feel it. You know it’s there. “Do you want to try again?”

Yoongi exhales, his breath warm on your neck. “Can I?”

“Yeah,” you say, tilting your head to the side for him. “You can.”

This time is different, you can feel that from the onset. His fingers wrap gently around your hips and he nuzzles into your skin. He nips lightly at the skin below your ear, the corner of your jaw, all down the column of your neck until he reaches the spot where it joins your shoulder. He hums, wraps his arms around you fully and pulls you flush against the hard line of his body. Your breath hatches and you can practically hear your heart thudding traitorously in your chest.

It’s not a big deal, you tell yourself as he laves his rough tongue against your feverish skin. It’s not a big deal; marking isn’t sexual. This isn’t a big deal, there’s no need to be nervous or get- the points of his teeth scrape over the mark before he laps at again and you have to bite back a whimper. Your knees feel a little weak- that is, until Yoongi slots his thigh between them, keeping you up while he finishes his work. Your hands ball up into fists in the fabric of his t shirt and you grit your teeth together with the effort of keeping quiet. He pulls off your neck with a wet pop and you swear you’re imagining it when he presses a final kiss to his mark. He noses your ear, still purring and you think he’s gonna mark you more- but then his warmth is gone and his standing before you, eyes a little hazier but no worse for wear.

He reaches up and flicks you in the forehead. You grumble at him, covering the spot up with your hands before he can do it again. A lazy smirk spreads out on his face. “Welcome to the family,” he drawls. Then he’s turning on his heel and heading back to his shared bedroom. “Don’t wipe this one off this time, okay?”

You nod mutely after him as he disappears, your hand cupping your mark. “What was that?” You wonder. You descend the stairs in a daze, your mind whirling. None of your research had told you creating a mark would be like that. You’d thought it was a quick thing and Yoongi had just been showboating for the canines. Even in the videos you watched, the hybrid had leaned in close to the human, given then a few quick swipes with their tongue and moved on. Then again, those hybrids had all been domesticated dog or cat breeds. “Are exotics different?” You muse, turning the handle to your bedroom- and promptly tripping over someone.

This time, you don’t go all the way down. You make it halfway before Hoseok catches you. “Ah, I’m sorry, Y/N!” The dog hybrid whines, fussing over you as he sets you back to rights. “I’ll do better about staying out of your way, I promise-”

“It’s okay,” you soothe, trying to stop him from fretting. “It’s okay, I’m okay.” You survey the floor of your bedroom. It seemed like in his security sweep earlier, Hoseok had found the linen cabinet and made use of the spare blankets. His pillow and a comforter are set up in a little pallet on the floor in front of your door. It seems he’d been putting the final touches on it when you’d stumbled over him. “Hoseok…” you start slowly. The Doberman looks at you, ears pricked up. “Hoseok, I wasn’t expecting you to sleep on the floor.”

He cocks his head to the side, doglike even in his confusion. “Then where…?”

“The bed is big enough,” you say, gesturing to the queen sized bed dominating the center of the room. “I don’t mind sharing if you’re comfortable with it.”

His adam’s apple bob’s in his throat as he swallows, suddenly serious. “Yeah,” he says with a nod. “Yeah, I’m comfortable with it.”

You nod and pat him on the shoulder, passing him as you head to bed. “Come on, then.” You collapse onto your bed face-first and slip back under the covers with a groan. “I’m just gonna take a quick nap before I’ve gotta get up and deal with stuff…”

The room is quiet, but somewhere in it, you can hear Hoseok shuffling around. “Maybe I should check to make sure everything is safe one more time?”

You exhale, your eyes slipping shut. “Hoseok…”

“Did you lock the front door after you came in? I think the rabbit...Jeongguk was the last one in? I don’t remember him locking-”

“Hope, bed. Now.” He doesn’t say anything else, but a few seconds later, you feel the far side of the bed dip with his weight. You sigh as he shifts to get under the blankets and you snuggle down further into your pillow. “Sleep well, Hobi.”

He mumbles something under his breath about security being a serious issue, but you don’t catch it. You’re already halfway to dreamland.

#thebtswritersclub #hybridbtsnetwork #bts fic #bts x reader #bts x y/n #hybrid!bts #ot7 x reader #seokjin x reader #namjoon x reader #jhope x reader #yoongi x reader #jungkook x reader #jimin x reader #taehyung x reader

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kingsansa · 2 years

Note

Totally respect your'e not in the mood to write the grenade chapter so how about you give us a hint not of the grenade but something innocuous about the next chapter iono like where Sansa takes Robbie to go explore parts of Chicago or how Catelyn has bribed the doorman to spy on Sansa for her?

It doesn’t take long for her to figure out that there are some upsides to not living underneath the same roof as her parents and siblings.

Just some.

“Wait,” Her arms fly around his shoulders, her skin sticking to his. “Stay.”

They’re both panting. His breath control is better than hers for obvious reasons. Still, that doesn’t stop her from wrapping her legs around his waist even tighter so that he’s secure in the cradle of her hips. Jon grins at that, boyish, sweaty, and hers.

“I’m heavy,” His curls tickle her forehead.

“Crush me.” She demands, touch drunk.

He doesn’t, but he shifts so that half of his weight is on the bed rather than fully on top of her, pulling out. His lips skim her pulse, then her clavicle, as his breath whistles hot against her chest.

“I was supposed to be downstairs 30 minutes ago.” He murmurs against her skin.

30 minutes ago, he woke up to go down to the gym. 30 minutes ago, she had the best idea of her life. Then 30 minutes ago, she tugged him back into bed. Their bed, where they didn’t have to worry about overbearing parents or nosy and noisy siblings—

Their bed. Their home. Theirs.

Sansa drags his fingers through his hair. “Might as well just stay here.”

His laugh warms her all over, as he meets her eyes. “Might as well, huh?”

She’s barely even gotten out a response when his fingers find her stomach, making her writhe in laughter, as his scruff finds her throat, rasping delightfully against her skin. Her laugh drops into a sigh like hum just as his mouth moves up to hover over hers—

A phone rings.

His, not hers. Her ringtone isn’t nearly as obnoxious—the sound of an alarm crackling through the bottom speakers. His throat rumbles against her skin, which tickles.

“Who is it?” asks Sansa.

“Who cares?” Jon mutters, before he kisses her in full.

They’re granted a minute of peace after the phone goes silent. His fingers are gliding up her rib cage, chasing the sound from her mind completely, until—

It starts right back up again.

Her hands find his chest mid kiss. “Is it important?”

“This is important.” His hands circle her wrist, as he pulls her up close to him.

When the phone goes silent the second time, it almost immediately starts back up again.

“Fuck,” Jon says, before she can even say anything. Grinding his jaw, he disentangles his limbs from hers to snatch his phone off the nightstand, smushing it to his face.

“What?”

It’s 7:05 in the morning. What, indeed. Who’s calling him three times at seven in the morning?

Sansa’s stomach turns a little, but she ignores it. Ignores Harry’s voice in the back of her head, too, as she snuggles closer to him, half sitting up.

“At home.” His voice is muffled from dragging his palm down his face.. “I already said I wasn’t coming.”

A male voice. She tries not to relax out of relief. She’s close enough that she can hear a faint answer of disbelief, followed by a demand for an explanation.

“My girl and my kid got in yesterday. We have plans.”

Her heart skips a beat, then a whole flight of stairs.

My girl.

It’s so stupid considering everything he said last night about giving Issher the ring and building a life together and growing old together, this is what really gets her. My girl.

Because it makes his promise feel a lot more real.

“I did.” Jon says shortly. “Like 5 million times.”

Sansa presses her cheek into back, banding an arm around his waist, ignoring the stupid smile threatening to melt her face off. Her heart doing jumping jacks in her chest. Her hope—

No.

She doesn’t have to do that anymore.

“We have plans?”

She’s sitting up fully, arms wrapped around his shoulders, face buried in his neck so he can’t see how ridiculously pink and pleased her face is.

“The aquarium.” He kisses the back of her hand, and she can feel his grin against her skin. “They have starfish. And cotton candy. Team bonding can wait.”

Hockey can wait.

She never, ever thought she’d hear those words come out of his mouth.

“What?” He says, when she hugs him even tighter, but doesn’t say anything.

Three words on the tip of her tongue, warm and true, but still so, so heavy. Even with as happy as she is right now.

She swallows them down for another day. She feels a little less lighter. But that’s okay.

On the nightstand, the baby monitor detects rustling. A small whimper sounds through the speakers, a cross between a yawn and a bleary huff.

“I thought we’d have a little more time.” Jon says under his breath, regretful. But not really. Not in the slightest.

He kisses her hand again.

Sansa kisses his jaw, heart soaring rather than falling.

“We’ve got all the time in the world.” She says, rising. “Hurry up and get down to the gym so we can leave. I want my cotton candy.”

#ficlet #pinky promise

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restapesta · 3 years

Note

23. Don’t you get it? You’re the only one I can be honest with.

Mickey takes being alone with Ian for granted. He really does.

It's quite sad he only realizes that when he's not alone with his ginger life companion—specifically when he's stuck in a moving car with him and fucking Phillip, feeling like a pussy for not having the guts to just open the door and jump out.

Did Ian put child's lock on his door, what the fuck?

He can't do this. It's a fifteen-minute ride to the Gallagher house and Mickey won't be able to survive it. No fucking way. Why did Ian have to say yes to picking Lip up from work? Did he know what hell he would be putting his poor husband through, huh?

If college bitch says something about his shitty delivery job one more time, he swears to God—

"And you know what the best part about this shitty delivery job is?" No. Please, God, make him stop. "Bathroom? Doesn't even fucking exist,"

If Mickey had a gun, he'd stuff it in his mouth.

From the corner of his eye, Mickey sees Ian's gripping the wheel slightly tighter, his knuckles turning white, his tongue bitten between his slightly clenched teeth. Sadly, only Mickey can see him be so frustrated from the passenger seat. He wishes Lip would lean over from the back and see how fucking annoying he really is with his constant babbling.

Maybe it's good he didn't bring a gun with him—Ian looks like he'd wanna stuff it in his mouth, too.

Does he have child's lock on?

"Anyways," Lip breathes out and Mickey focuses on the buzzing of the AC so he wouldn't have to endure the brainwashing his brother-in-law's—why him?—voice is doing.

Ian seems to be thinking the same thing, his eyes rolling discreetly to the back of his head, staying there for a moment or two.

Mickey's torn between telling him to keep his eyes on the goddamn road or just letting him crash their new car into a pole. At least then they wouldn't have to listen to the yapping that's filling every nook and cranny of the fresh interior.

Their car had never seemed so small. Since when is Mickey so claustrophobic? There used to be so much room.

Oh right, Lip's ego is taking up most of it. How could Mickey forget?

"Oh, yeah," He says suddenly, and Ian and Mickey share a look. What now? Will he ever stop? "I meant to ask you about your meds, Ian. You told me you were visiting your doctor or some shit like that."

Mickey reclines back in his seat, lips pursing as he waits for Ian to fill Lip in on the new prescription and its side effects, and whatever other shit Mickey's already got written down in the notes on his phone from when Ian told him in detail about it.

He had been pretty down when he came home from seeing his doctors, listing off all of the shit he was worried about with the new therapy and adjusting to it. He even had a couple of sleepless nights that resulted in him seeking out different pharmacies to buy sleeping pills, which ultimately led to a night of sleepless vomiting because the cocktail of pills didn't really bode well for Ian's stomach.

Mickey doesn't mind reliving it. Doesn't mind listening to his husband talk about the things important to him and things that Mickey should know about.

And, truthfully, Mickey's already come face to face with the fact that he likes knowing about all of Ian's shit—they're already living, sleeping, and working together, so the prospect of knowing that new meds give Ian diarrhea if they're taken on an empty stomach doesn't really seem like a TMI-type of thing to know.

When Ian's related, nothing and everything is pretty much TMI.

"Oh," Ian responds after a moment of silence. His eyes aren't focused when Mickey turns to look at him. It seems as if he's racking his brain around for the proper words, yet can't seem to find them. Eventually, he just lets out, "Everything's the same. Nothing new."

Mickey knows that's not true.

"Didn't you say you were being put on some new shit?" Lip's confused. Mickey is too.

Ian was put on new shit. Shit that landed him with a week of goddamn exhaustion and a fucked-up stomach.

"No. It's the same."

"Oh," Lip mutters. "Okay then."

And he continues to go into another monologue about why being a delivery boy is such a shitty job to have with a mind of his.

Mickey stares at Ian's side profile for as long as it takes him to turn around and meet his eye. It takes him long—in fact, Mickey's pretty sure Ian won't be turning around any time soon.

Why would he lie? Why would he hide the fact he did change his meds when it's really not that big of a deal?

Mickey's even more confused by it because Ian had ranted about his doctor's appointment the day of it, nearly talking Mickey's ear off. He had been annoyed, relieved, and worried, all at the same time, and the entire Tuesday was just spent with them talking about bipolar like the mundane thing it was.

So, why wouldn't Ian just want to retell that shit again? It wasn't as if he didn't still have frustrations over it. Not like he wouldn't fucking jump on the chance to talk about his biggest concerns the second the opportunity presented itself.

Why then?

Lip's still talking and Ian's still not looking at him.

Mickey places a gentle hand on his thigh, trying to get his attention. In response to Mickey's thumb running over his husband's jeans, Ian just places a hand on top of his, picking it up and raising it to his mouth until the rough skin meets the smoothness of his lips. When he finally looks at him, there's a plead in his eye. An answer to Mickey's unasked question.

Later.

"Ugh, can you guys not do that here? Since when did you become that couple?"

They both ignore the dumbass in the backseat of their car. Ian turns to look ahead, and he pushes his foot down visibly on the gas pedal, and Mickey knows that the time until they're able to drop Lip off is cutting shorter.

"You guys are really annoying with that mind-reading shit, you know that?"

Mickey breathes in deeply.

Five more minutes. Just five more minutes and they'll be alone.

Ian's hand doesn't disentangle from his, but Mickey does move them so they're laying on top of his leg, palms pressed tightly together. He squeezes at it once.

Ian squeezes back.

There's a faint mumble from the back.

"I fucking hate being the third wheel."

Mickey barely stops himself from jumping into Ian's lap, just in spite.

Instead, with his free hand, he just flips him off.

---

They're driving to their place when Mickey finally asks the question. They've been alone for a couple of minutes now, after a prolonged—much to both their dismays—goodbye to Lip in front of the Gallagher house. As soon as it was appropriate to, Ian peeled out of the driveway, putting as much distance between him and his family—his annoying-ass brother—as he possibly could in a record time.

At first, Mickey fiddled with the radio until he landed on some radio station that played pop-shit music, lowering the volume until the Taylor Swift song—he hates that he knows it—was just a hum filling the silence. Ian isn't speaking, but he doesn't seem tense.

He seems just as always, shoulders even further relaxed—slumped, actually, because he has the posture of a question mark—now that Lip is out of the car and in the hands of the others to deal with.

"So," Mickey starts casually when his weirdo of a partner starts singing lowly to Lover on the radio. It's a song they only listen to when they're feeling sappier than usual, but Ian tends to always be sappy, so none of this sweet singing shit was a surprise for Mickey. The lyrics coming out of Ian's mouth still make his chest swell pleasantly, despite him barely holding himself back from rolling his eyes. "What was that?"

"Hm?" Ian's eyes momentarily move to eye Mickey. They go back almost immediately. "What was what?"

"What was that thing with Lip?" The question isn't meant to be judgmental nor accusing. Mickey really is just curious.

It wasn't him whom Ian had lied to. But why did he lie in the first place?

Ian shrugs, lowering the volume with the switch on the wheel even further until they can barely hear the soft voice.

"I just didn't feel like telling him." Is the simple reply.

"Why?"

"Because."

"Ian."

"Mickey—"

"Come on, man, don't give me that bullshit."

"I'm not—I don't," He exhales roughly as if finally forcing himself to admit to something he doesn't want to admit to. "I don't like anybody knowing about it. It's nobody's business but my own."

Mickey makes a face, still confused as fuck. He gets the reasoning behind the words, but it's just not clicking in his brain. Maybe Lip really did brainwash it. "You say you don't like anybody knowing, but you told me."

Ian glances away from the road and sends Mickey the type of look that says he thinks what Mickey just said was the dumbest thing possible. It's incredulous.

"You're not anybody, Mick."

And that's sweet and all, but—

"Lip's not anybody either."

Ian sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose with his fingers, dramatically exasperated. "Don't you get it, Mickey? You're the only one I can be honest with. Completely transparent."

Mickey doesn't know why he's still pushing, but fuck, there's no way. "You can be transparent with Lip. He'll hear you out, give you advice. Won't judge you." Why is he defending Lip again? "I'm not the only one who understands."

"Yeah, but you're the only one who isn't annoying about it. If I wanted Lip to know, I would've called him straight away. But instead, I talked to you. Mickey, you're a dumbass if you don't see that you're the only one I want to tell."

Well fuck.

Mickey blinks. He actually is a dumbass, but that's already been genetically proven. This is something else.

Mickey feels Ian's words deep in his chest. His heart jumps to his throat—it's one of the best things Ian could've said to him. It doesn't feel fucking real.

"Really?" He asks pathetically. It's not like Ian would lie; he's always had a knack for saying everything that's on his mind. Mickey loves that about him right now. It's just that—Mickey? He wants to tell Mickey about it and nobody else?

Ian smiles at him. "Really, babe," Mickey blushes as the nickname. "You know just how many questions to ask. When to listen and when to talk. When to give me advice and when to tell me to get out of my own head." Ian's eyebrows furrow. "Lip doesn't know how to do that. Not like you—"

No. Mickey will not cry. No. It's just eyeball sweat.

"—With you, I know that I can say whatever is on my mind and won't feel like shit about it. It's fucking liberating, having somebody like that."

Mickey breathes in deeply. Fuck Ian for using his words like this and making his heart squeeze impossibly. Why is he so fucking perfect all the fucking time?

How did Mickey get so fucking lucky?

"Yeah," He responds dumbly, out of breath—because it legit is logged up in his throat at the moment. He clears it. "I guess that's what best friends are for."

And the grin Ian sends him in response to the sheepishly-said sentence is enough to make butterflies explode inside Mickey's belly—ugh, no, he's supposed to be past that stage, for fuck's sake.

Ian's still grinning as Mickey's whole face probably turns the shade of Ian's favorite vegetable—maybe that's why Ian likes it when Mickey blushes—and he has to avert his gaze so he doesn't go even redder than Ian's hair.

"Best friends? I feel honored, Mick."

"Shut up."

"No, for real."

"Shut up."

Ian laughs and spares Mickey the embarrassment by raising the volume up on the radio, the song now booming loudly through the space.

Ian glances over at Mickey right as he starts singing it joyfully, a wide smile on his face. This is the Ian Mickey knows and loves—happy Ian.

Mickey's favorite Ian after the horny one.

Mickey's chest swells with pride. He ended up with Ian. The Ian who loves him unconditionally; who knows just the right to say and when to say it; who just told him Mickey's the only one he can be real with.

I can only be honest with you, too. He wants to tell him. I only am honest with you.

Instead of saying the words, he starts singing himself, and the screeching voices of two men stupidly in love are seeping out of the slightly opened windows, the wind whooshing them away.

I can only do this with you, Mickey thinks. I'm only this free with you.

Judging by the way Ian's smiling, Mickey guesses he's thinking the same thing, too.

"Darling, you're my, my, my, my lover."

#gallavich #ian gallagher #mickey milkovich #ian and mickey #shameless #shameless us #*ficlet #i only know about bipolar from thw show so don't hold my word for anything written in this #btw anon hope you have a wonderful day #thank you for the ask!

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gisachi · 3 years

Text

Better late than never?? Supposed to post on the day itself but of course I couldn’t. This is my rushed contribution to the prompt: domestic mixed with black knight&princess.

ShinRan Week Day 6

Prompt: Domestic (+ Black Knight&Princess)

Words: ~2.5k

“Not just once, but twice! Who was it that saved my life again? Oh, unnamed knight with the black cloak, if you will grant me my wish… Please take off that dark mask and show me your true face!”

“If that is what, uh, the princess wishes, I shall show you my sorrow- sorrowful? - face under this moonlight. Oh wow this is cheesy.”

Ran leans on the arm of the couch, bound script covering her resigned face. If she had a hundred yen for every single complaint coming out of this detective’s mouth, she’d have enough to buy two entrance passes to Tropical Land for each day of the week, plus snacks and drinks.

“I went here because I thought you’d be a more immersive practice partner than ‘tou-san. You are worse.”

“I’m sorry, princess, if my mom being an actress ruined your expectations of me.”

“Oh, for sure. And otou-san doesn't destroy the scene by dropping nonsensical comments. And lie on the couch while reading the script. So he’s better by a lot.”

Shinichi props his body up, eyes rolling sarcastically before throwing a look at the lady on the edge. “To be fair, you came barging into my house so early on a Sunday. This is justified.”

“Shinichi, eleven in the morning isn’t early.”

With a stubborn grumble, the detective flops back into the cushions, script on his lap sliding to the floor. “ ’M tired Ran, long case last night, let me sleep.”

“Please, you’re my last option! School festival is in less than two weeks, and I can’t possibly ask Araide-sensei to spare time on a weekend outside of our rehearsal schedule when he’s busy working—”

The lightning speed Shinichi jolts upright causes Ran to cut herself short. “Araide-sensei is the cloaked knight?”

“Yes, didn’t I tell you?”

“You didn’t.”

“Really? I-” she pauses, delayed in taking in the curt iciness of his response when he was so apathetic five seconds ago. On anyone else it’s clear what that tone implies, but she’s never heard it on him.

“Do you have a beef with Araide-sensei?” she asks.

“A beef?”

Ran arches an eyebrow, skeptic. Shinichi meets her gaze, eyes slightly thinning before glancing away, cheeks crimson.

“I mean— Why Araide-sensei? Shouldn’t he be busy, I dunno, being a doctor, than being a fictional knight or something.”

“All the guys in our class were too shy and declined, so Sonoko asked Araide-sensei when he happened to come in for a checkup. He agreed so easily! Would you believe he’d taken a lot of lead roles in plays when he was a student?”

“And that was fifteen something years ago.”

“He’s also good at things like emphasizing lines and handling a woman!”

“Anyone can- What?!”

“Stop being a sourpuss Shinichi, especially when you’re the first to decline.”

He looks at her quizzically. “I did?”

“You don’t even remember?” Amidst the faint pink on her cheeks, disappointment etched on the way Ran’s lips curve to a small pout. “You were the first Sonoko asked... You were so quick to turn her down, she said.”

Astounded by the revelations docking in his brain all at once, Shinichi struggles to recall the conversations he had exchanged with Sonoko the past weeks. None stands out. If she had included Ran’s name in there, he would remember instantly. But Sonoko didn’t. Suddenly, the floodgates in his mind open.

If he finds out later on about the plot and the cast, he’ll definitely find a reason or two to sulk, if not object. Whether Ran is partnered with someone else or Araide-sensei doesn’t matter, for as long as it isn’t him. Him who she’s positive would outright reject her offer to act as a prince because why would he? In any case, god knows Sonoko omitted Ran’s name on purpose for this.

The sly woman has stirred something up, and she will proudly take the front row seat on his reaction she was so sure he’d make.

Not saying Sonoko’s predictions are right. This is just how she thinks. And he won’t react the way she expects he will. She is not right.

Not. Right.

Sonoko, yaro...

“Stand up, let’s do this.”

“Huh?”

“You want immersive? I’ll give you immersive.”

Left with little time to process as Shinichi pulls her by the hand, Ran drops her script on the floor. The sudden shift in character is unbelievable. How can someone so sleep-deprived turn into someone this enthused in a span of a breath?

“But first, let me…” He leaves the room, and Ran picks up her script, still quite lost. Whatever she said earlier must have triggered something, and she’s torn if she’ll ask once he returns but considers the possibility that he may break character. Not gonna risk that. He said he’ll give her an immersive practice, and it’s oddly unexpected, but she’ll take it. This is good. After all, she needs him as the knight.

Wants him as the knight.

“Sheesh, Ran, stop…” Shying away from her own maidenly thoughts, Ran flips to the designated page, scene, and line, rehearsing as she waits.

Some minutes later, Shinichi reappears, holding his script and something else. Of all things she would expect him to own, a blue fancy Columbina mask adorned with elegant silver and royal patterns wasn’t one of them.

“Mom has these things, okay,” he explains, putting it on. Ran isn’t sure if she wants to laugh or tease, but she does neither when she gets a glimpse of him with half of his face covered, and she catches her breath at the sight.

Standing against silk red curtains and brilliant glow of afternoon sunlight, he really does seem like a mysterious knight…

“Don’t laugh, idiot. After doing this for you. Wear this,” he says, and Ran zeroes in on the line of his lips because she has nowhere else to look at as he places a small barrette tiara on her hair. Doesn’t matter what he says, what they wear, even if they fail to match the daintiness of the mask and tiara. Shinichi with this on makes Shinichi as the knight much more vivid now. And Ran as the princess...

“Sorry!” She claps a hand on her warming cheek, pulls back a dumb smile she doesn’t notice she is wearing. “And I— I wasn’t laughing!”

“Still smiling creepily though.”

“I wasn’t being creepy! Geez. Anyway! Page-”

“Page 27, Scene 8, Line 10. Got it.”

After some short blocking instructions, they drop their scripts on the couch, and begin.

“Oh, unnamed knight with the black cloak, if you will grant me my wish… Please take off that dark mask and show me your true face!”

“If that is what the princess wishes, I shall show you my sorrowful face under this moonlight.”

Two steps forward and he removes the mask, and time slows down. She’s seen the same face a million times yet this time, her heart leaps like she’s laid eyes upon the most handsome face in the universe.

“Might—Might you be Spade?” She carries on, taking everything she can to maintain composure. “Long ago, you were banned from this land by my father… but now you’ve become the prince of Trump Kingdom...”

It’s nerve wracking, the way he’s strikingly still, eyes laden on her, either waiting for her next lines or admiring how beautiful she is with the tiara, she isn’t quite sure. The mask is gone, but he isn’t breaking character. Meanwhile, she’s trying her darned best to stay as Princess Heart of Bridge Kingdom.

“If you have… not forgotten about our childhood promise, then please…”

A nervous lump forms in her throat as she wraps her arms around his shoulders, and his hands find her waist, and she nearly gasps but holds it in because right now, she’s Princess Heart, not Mouri Ran asking this of Kudou Shinichi. “Please, show me on these lips.”

“As my princess so desires...”

It should be ‘the’, not ‘my.’ And there’s supposed to be another line after that, but nothing stops him as he leans in ahead of time and her eyelids flutter to the erratic beat of her heart. It’s better to be partnered with Araide-sensei in this after all. He will not mess up his lines, and she will not lose her mind the way she’s losing it now.

Two parted lips are a pucker away when the doorbell chimes, making both jolt.

Ran is first to snap out of character, as if she hasn’t had the urge to earlier.

“That—That must be Sonoko. I forgot to tell you... I invited her in.”

“Oh, great,” Shinichi says.

Forcing her limbs into working order, Ran disentangles slowly, drawing a distance. Shinichi glances at the mask in his hand, then at her, before tossing it to the couch and turning for the door. From the window, she watches him walk to the front gate, scratching the back of his head in an annoyed manner like she just woke him from sleep, but grumpier. She hasn’t seen him display much emotion on a Sunday noon the way she’s seeing him now.

Maybe I shouldn’t have bothered him, she sighs, her turn to slump onto the couch this time.

“As I was saying, the prod already scouted the finest material for the costumes, and I decided, pink suits Princess Heart— Hello? Are you listening?”

Ran nearly drops the knife she holds if not for her inhuman reflexes. “Of course! Princess Heart in pink! Yes.” Like nothing happened, she resumes slathering jam and butter on the toast she’s preparing for the three of them. She doesn’t need to look at her side to know Sonoko’s eyeing her from head to toe.

“What happened to her?” The woman turns to Shinichi who sits at the high stool by the kitchen island.

“Dunno,” he says, sounding as noncommittal as he probably appears. Her back is turned against him, but she can see his face, and god why is she blushing?

“I just helped her rehearse. For the play,” he adds.

“Oh?” Sonoko’s brow perks up her forehead, hair whipping as she turns between her and the boy across them. “Did you?”

“Yup. Page 27.”

The dramatic gasp that tears from their friend’s throat is exactly the kind of gasp they expected; even so, Ran still flinches as Shinichi’s stool rakes the floor. “You kissed and I didn’t see?!”

“Hah?!”

“No!”

The two yelp in unison.

“That’s sly! You have to do it again! I’ll judge.”

“Excuse you! It didn’t happen, what you’re thinking!”

“Sonokooo!”

“Oh, shush, Ran, this is good practice. Good practice.”

“But—”

“Relax, rehearsal is rehearsal! In the actual play, once it’s Araide-sensei, he’ll do a better job—”

“I’m going to the toilet,” Shinichi gets off the stool, jaw stiff, out of the kitchen.

“—with a hug than a kiss. Right?” Sonoko ends, once Shinichi is out of the room.

“What?” Ran’s expression is inscrutable as she faces Sonoko completely, the flush across her face befitting embarrassment or ire. “You’re losing me here!”

“Oh, you’re not going to kiss, Ran. The lights will dim before your lips touch.”

“Then why—” she puts down the bread and walks in haste to the island to flip through the script, “Wh— That’s not in here!”

“Sonoko-sama hereby deems the script revised now that we have Araide-sensei.”

“Eh...?!” Ran cannot explain the play of her reactions. On one hand, a cloud is cleared from her mind, having to worry no more about doing something she has no experience with in front of watchful eyes. On the other, bunch of half-formed thoughts whirl through her mind that goes, Shinichi and I almost kissed for nothing, for nothing we almost k-kissed, an almost kiss with Shinichi, almost—

“That won’t do! I mean— That’s so not you! T-To choose a hug over a...”

“Duh, Ran! Even if it’s just a play, I won’t enable a kiss scene between a student and a staff member. We can fake the kiss. That, or switch to hug. Or better yet, change the male lead.”

“Change the male lead? In two weeks? Who will agree?!”

“Easy.” Just in time, Shinichi returns, hands in pocket and long face worn all the way to the stool. “I know someone who will.”

‘Once it’s Araide-sensei, he’ll do a better job…’ What? Kissing Ran? Shinichi wants to puke. Sonoko needs to think things through. If this is part of her plan, it’s unacceptable, it sucks.

There’s no way, no way anyone can do a better job kissing Ran than…

“Aaaargh, what are you thinking!” He ruffles his hair in dismay, curses here and there. He only wanted to help Ran yet he almost went for it. Not as Spade but as himself. The audacity. It’s part of the script, sure, but—

If it is part of the script, then have Ran and Araide-sensei rehearsed it before?

“That’s it,” Shinichi huffs, storming out of the bathroom. If this is the kind of reaction Sonoko wants from him, she’s in for a show. Not just a show but a lifetime of curses and mental stabs. For her to go this far is unbelievable. Did Ran even agree to that? Will such a scene really happen in the play? No matter how despicable Sonoko’s methods are, he has faith she respects Ran’s preference as the female lead. No offense against Araide-sensei, but he cannot take Ran’s first kiss, whether as Spade or not.

That is not to say he knows Ran’s preference, especially when it comes to a first kiss, but… it’s not... Araide-sensei... is it?!

He cannot ascertain, not when Ran did nothing when they were about to kiss…

Okay, halt there, self. I said immersive. That’s immersive. She was acting.

All was but an act. She’s a great actress. I suck. No need to make this a big deal.

Shinichi is a pitiful mess once he’s back in the kitchen.

“My offer still stands, you know.” Sonoko sits beside him, munching a toast, while Ran is busy returning the jam in the cupboard, back against them.

“Your offer?”

Shinichi glances at Ran, then at Sonoko, with that feral grin on her lips and Shinichi does a bad job looking pissed, and it’s maddening because he is pissed, just not obvious with the blush forming across his cheek.

Reprimanding Sonoko is what he intends to do. For doing him dirty, him and Ran dirty, for dragging a staff to be the male lead, for imploring Ran to give her first kiss she’s probably saving in a different setting. All invalid reasons, when he cared less about the play before. He’s a full-time idiot, and Sonoko knows it clearly that’s why she’s offering the role again. He doesn’t want to fall into her trap, the same way he doesn’t want anyone else to be Spade when Princess Heart is Ran.

But Ran looks over her shoulder and they accidentally lock eyes, and pink blooms across her cheeks before she turns around, and suddenly the words that leave his mouth completely betray the thought process he underwent in the bathroom.

“If Ran agrees, yeah,” he says.

#shinranweek2021 #day 6 #late entry #shinran #kudou shinichi #mouri ran #fanfic #oh my god this is all over the place AHAHA #i dont want to leave this in my draft forever tho so here ya go!!

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nillegible · 4 years

Text

It wasn't supposed to hurt him. Ouyang Zizhen had used the talisman before, on his sister and his sister's idiot fiance (Now he was her fiance. Before the talisman, he'd just been a shixiong who absolutely refused to confess his feelings to her). In retrospect perhaps it was unkind. A talisman that was meant to force you to confess what you were hiding from the other person? Jiujiu would have smacked him for even thinking about using it.

Jin Ling would punish himself if it would help, would do anything, to snap the talisman, or to get his stupid uncle to just say his stupid secret, because right now?

Right now, his uncle is choking on his secret, literally forcing it down by strength of will alone while Wei Wuxian flutters around desperately, trying to destroy the talisman and Hanguang Jun plays his guqin. The spiritual energy from the Lan musical technique is so heavy that Jin Ling's skin buzzes with every note, and it's even more concentrated on the three older cultivators, visible threads of it sparking over their skin.

Jiujiu still looks like he is in agony, breaths harsh and ragged, choking, his face screwed up, twisted, awful.

"Jiang Cheng please, please, just spit it out, I don't care what you still blame me for, I don't care just say it," Wei Wuxian begs, but it's no use, his uncle shakes his head no, and Jin Ling covers his own mouth to stifle a sob. He hadn't listened when Jin Ling begged, either.

It's such a simple talisman, so terribly simple a compulsion that it's not meant to be fought or broken. Powered by the strength of the secret and the spiritual energy of the person it was affixed to… Jin Ling hadn't known it was possible to even try.

"Jiang Wanyin," says Hanguang Jun. He has to say it again to get his uncle's attention. "Let me help." His uncle stares blearily for a few moments, then nods again. Abruptly, even the gasping choked off noises break off, and Jin Ling rushes closer, but he's okay. He's still okay, slumping a little and leaning onto Wei Wuxian in exhaustion, but alive.

"Wei Ying," says Hanguang Jun, and apparently that means something to his other uncle, because Wei Wuxian immediately turns his attention back to paper he'd been scribbling on, and continues.

It takes Wei Wuxian a full hour more to break the compulsion, for his uncle to collapse sideways like a broken puppet onto him, and cough up mouthfuls of blood while Wei Wuxian rubs his back. "Thank you, Hanguang Jun," says Jiujiu.

Then he looks up at Jin Ling, who is frozen in place, not sure if he should run or fall to his knees and apologize, and holds out a hand. Jin Ling throws himself forward and hugs his uncle sobbing his apologies. "I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry."

“Stupid,” Jiujiu says, voice hoarse, but he doesn’t let go of Jin Ling until he falls unconscious, and Wei Wuxian disentangles him from the half embrace – Jiujiu’s other arm was clutching Wei Wuxian’s robes, tightly – and lifts him into his arms.

“He’ll be okay, right?” asks Jin Ling, a bit pathetically. This was all his fault, after all.

“Jiang Cheng will be fine,” says Wei Wuxian.

When Jin Ling thinks back to this moment, he will realize that Wei Wuxian sounded oddly broken, not just tired.

It turns out that Jin Ling had actually ruined everything. He’d been sure that his uncles cared for one another, he’d watched the weird way they held each other at arm’s length but seemed desperate for more, and only wanted to help them out. Whatever it is they were keeping a secret couldn’t be worth it right? Wei Wuxian was back from the dead. He was, not Jin Ling’s mom or dad or anyone else. Jin Ling had only wanted them to make the most of it.

Instead, all Jin Ling does is show Wei Wuxian that Jiujiu has some giant terrible secret that he would rather tear his lips bloody trying to suppress than admit to, and Wei Wuxian seems to give up. He’s cautious around Jiujiu after that, He’s polite. And that only makes Jiujiu angrier and frostier in turn.

This is not what had happened to Ouyang Zizhen’s sister and her husband! (They’d gotten married in the spring, Jin Ling had even gone to their wedding.)

Perhaps Jin Ling should have considered what would happen if the secret was a bad one.

“Would you tell me?” asks Jin Ling. He’s treading on dangerous ground here. Jiujiu hasn’t punished him for the stunt ( “You’re a Sect Leader now, brat, you pick your own consequences,” he’d said, and Jin Ling had assigned himself a lot more make sure Jiujiu is recovering okay missions, whenever he could make the time) and he doesn’t want to remind him to.

“Of course not,” he snaps, Zidian sparking in hollow threat on his finger. At least he scowls? When Jiujiu isn’t busy being angry, he’s been strangely melancholy, recently. Jin Ling hates that, too.

It’s Hanguang Jun that Jin Ling approaches in the end. Oddly, he’s the one who’s angriest at him, Wei Wuxian had just waved off his apologies and asked him to introduce him to the maker of the talismans, and never mentioned it again.

“I really am sorry,” Jin Ling tells him. “I want to know how to fix it.”

Hanguang Jun is silent for a long time, and Jin Ling braces himself for dismissal, to be told he can’t, that it was his fault in the first place, he should stay away from Hanguang Jun’s husband.

“It is hard to speak when you are afraid,” Hanguang Jun observes. Which, what? Yes, of course. But why now? Jin Ling nods uncertainly. “Why should Jiang Wanyin be afraid of Wei Ying?”

Oh. Huh? “He’s not, he’s never…” Jin Ling trails off, uncertain. He’d grown up secure in the knowledge that Uncle Jiang would protect him from the evil Yiling Patriarch. That he wasn;t afraid of him. Things were apparently far more complicated than that, but Jiujiu had never been afraid of Wei Wuxian. So why wouldn’t he tell the secret. What did he think his secret would do, that hasn’t happened already? They barely even look at each other anymore! Hanguang Jun just keeps his steady gaze on Jin Ling, waiting for an answer. “Um. He was afraid… to hurt him?” asks Jin Ling.

He gets a slight nod in affirmation.

“You’d think Senior Wei would know all the awful things already,” Jin Ling says, quietly. Wei Wuxian’s life kind of sucked.

“Sometimes, it isn’t the terrible things that hurt,” says Hanguang Jun.

Jin Ling peers at him closely. “Does Hanguang Jun know my uncle’s secret?” he asks.

“No,” he says, and explains nothing further. “And Wei Ying does not.” He looks up then, over Jin Ling’s head, towards the door. “Wei Ying does not need to know, if he trusts Jiang Wanyin.”

Wei Wuxian laughs, lightly. “Who would have thought Lan Zhan would be defending Jiang Cheng some day, hm?”

“He’s right, Wei Qianbei,” Jin Ling hurries to say. “Jiujiu cares for you. He says awful things, he’ll say, ‘You’re a stupid brat, who raised you, I should break your legs’ but he doesn’t mean any of it. Except maybe the stupid part.”

Wei Wuxian laughs again, then drops a hand to Jin Ling’s head. “I know, A-Ling,” he says, the name sounding so fond when he says it. “He’s my brother, and that part of him hasn’t changed.”

“He hasn’t changed,” says Jin Ling, fiercely. Jiujiu is the only constant in Jin Ling’s life, he wouldn’t just become something else.

“He has though,” says Wei Wuxian softly. “He’s all grown up, now. The last time I saw him, he was little older than you. And look at him now, keeping secrets from his shixiong.”

“I don’t believe he ever called you that,” says Jin Ling, because his nose is sour and he doesn’t want to cry.

“No, no, you’re right, he didn’t,” says Wei Wuxian, a little more cheerfully.

They put themselves back together slowly. Wei Wuxian makes an effort to reach out again, far more determined this time. With some pointed nudging from Jin Ling, Jiujiu tries his best to meet him half way.

It’s not easy. There is. There is so much between them that Jin Ling will never understand, broken promises and dead family, and debts that can never be repaid.

It shouldn’t be possible, to put all of that aside and start anew. Especially not for Jiujiu, who held his grudges forever, and didn’t quite believe in second chances.

They had once been the twin prides of Yunmeng though.

They don’t care that it shouldn’t be possible.

They do it anyway.

[Inspired by this post because holy shit I love Yunmeng Pride reconciliation fics so incredibly much, but it’s not always about divulging that secret really, is it? I just wanted to write one which is definitely about that secret but also not if that makes any sense. I’m not sure if I succeeded, if I confused you I apologize.]

#jiang cheng #wei wuxian #jin ling #yunmeng shuangjie #yunmeng brothers #yunmeng shuangjie reconciliation

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weuschoiceheart · 3 years

Text

⋘I-Land (OT9) / Enhypen⋙ Love, I-Land

A special collection of stories, for a special group of boys...Happy anniversary to eggies, it’s been a year since I-Land announced the first batch of trainees, a year since we all dive into this roller coaster ride of a show.

~ Inspired by Taylor Swift’s love songs ~

Tagging: @mari-kigold @akira-star @affectionaterainoflove @enhypenthusiast @periwinkle-ink

Warning: suggestive in K’s part (just a brief makeout session), angsty in some parts BUT there’s fluff to make up for it, cursing (literally all my works have curse words in them, I can’t write without making the characters curse at least once lmao)

Word Count: 6k+

K - Wildest Dreams ; passionate love

You didn’t know how you two ended up like this.

It was just a simple school project, and you’ve told yourself it was going to be nothing more than that. That's what you kept repeating in your head, over and over again as you called him over. Yet in your heart, you knew you just wanted him all over you again, even if it’s just temporary, even though you knew it would tear you apart.

Nothing lasts forever...but this is gonna take me down.

You shouldn’t be doing this.

You shouldn’t be making out with the school’s enigma, you shouldn’t have invited him to your house in the first place, knowing it would end up like this, with your lips latched onto his. You shouldn’t be reciprocating the kiss, his mouth hot against yours, one hand tangled in your shirt to bring you ever closer, the other wrapped tight around your waist that you knew it would leave bruises. And most of all, you shouldn’t be enjoying this as his lips moved down your neck, his warm breath tickling your sweet spot, tongue flicking over your collarbone.

Because you knew this moment would be your last, before he disappears and leaves you with a gaping hole in your heart.

K finally pulls away, panting slightly as he tilts his head, a cute gesture that doesn’t match the smirk on his face. “Your lips are so red.”

Bringing a hand up to touch them, you knew they were swollen from the amount of times he bit and nipped at them. Your eyes flicked to his, before looking away. “Well, so are yours.”

K studied you for a bit, his gaze searching, making you feel suddenly small under his glare. What is he thinking? After a moment, he lets go of you, standing up and straightening out his shirt. “I’m going to go. See you tomorrow.”

And suddenly, you felt that panicky feeling in your chest again, and the fear came rushing back. You don’t know if you’ll see him tomorrow, or ever again. Those were just casual words, something to say instead of “goodbye,” because some part of you, maybe it was just wishful thinking, hopes he feels the same. But K isn’t like that. He’s like the autumn breeze that comes and goes, before sending your life into winter without his presence. He never abides by the rules, and floats in that gray area in between, where your relationship with him also lies.

You knew what you were getting into when you kissed him on the rooftop that day, knew that it would only cause you pain. You don’t want your time with him, all these passionate moments of love, to disappear until you can only recall them in your wildest dreams.

Your body reacts before you can think, grabbing his arm as he turned to the door. He stiffened in your grasp, but didn’t make an effort to break away.

“Stay, please.” You mentally curse your voice for sounding so weak, the hand on his arm trembling.

K turned around to face you again, his cold, calculating eyes softening as they met your uncertain ones. His arm finally relaxed, and he sat down again.

“Alright.”

Heeseung - Superstar ; idol love

“I swear to god, why aren’t they picking up?” you tapped your phone in frustration, frowning. As if on cue, a message lit up your screen, and you opened it, curious to see the reason behind your friend’s unresponsiveness.

Sorry, I won’t be able to make it to the concert. I’m working on a project with K.

“K, huh?” you shook your head at your friend’s words. “Aren’t they afraid that he’ll break their heart? Project, my ass.”

Sighing, you pocketed your phone. There’s not much you can do to convince them that their relationship with K was only going to hurt them, but you couldn’t stop the two from having their hands all over each other, ever since your friend came to you screeching about their first kiss on the school rooftop. Like some romantic K-drama where a bad boy falls for the good girl.

Well, not like your love life is any better....

You shook your head, deciding to push these thoughts out of your head and go enjoy your school’s spring concert by yourself. At least you’ll be able to stare at Heeseung all you want without your friend teasing you.

A small twinge of sadness echoed in your chest at the thought of Heeseung, but you quickly pushed that out of your mind. You weren’t here just for him, of course. Youngbin and Geonu were doing a duet, Seon had a sexy solo that he’s been bragging about for weeks, and Nicholas, Jaeho, and the rest of their dance team prepared a special stage as well. So no, as much as you like spending most of the time ogling Heeseung, you were there to support your friends, have a good time off from your studies, and ignoring these annoying fangirls that always surround him—

Yeah, right. You knew it all circles back to Heeseung eventually.

Kicking at some pebbles on the ground, you sighed and realized that the guards were about to close the entrance doors soon. Joining the queue of parents and students, you handed your ticket to the theater teacher (who fixed you with a scrutinizing stare, perhaps remembering you as that problematic theater student she took under her wing a few years ago) and entered the auditorium. The lights dimmed, and the show began.

You screamed yourself hoarse during the performances, cheering on your friends (turns out Seon’s performance did live up to the epic stage he was talking about, you saw the girls—and some boys—practically drooling), and the thought of Heeseung left your mind. Until the final encore, that is, when he and Geonu took center stage to cover “Butterfly” by BTS.

Your eyes widened as he started singing, heart racing a million miles per hour. A smile unconsciously made its way onto your face, and your breath caught in your throat as his eyes flickered over the audience. As if reading your mind, they landed on you, leaving you breathless. Please notice me...oh my god, his eyes are so pretty....

“Did you see that? He made eye contact with me!” the girl beside you squealed, and the moment was gone. The smile wiped off your face, and you turned to her, seeing her beaming at the same boy you were looking at before. Your gaze broke away to scan the masses of people staring at the boys on stage with love-struck expressions on their faces, and suddenly you just feel...alone. Some part of your heart broke, and it was like reality struck you across your face.

You were just another wide-eyed fan desperately in love with a superstar who doesn’t even know your name.

That revelation followed you outside after the concert ended, and as if the weather understands your thoughts, it had started pouring outside. Rummaging around in your bag, only to come up empty, you gulped down your tears and resolved to walk home without an umbrella. Damn it, you should’ve come prepared!

Well, you can’t really prepare for heartbreak, can you?

You hadn’t gone two paces however, when you felt something opening up above you, and turning, you almost had a heart attack upon seeing Heeseung standing beside you. He held an umbrella over you both, his eyes darting from you to the ground, a small blush painted across his cheeks. He seemed fidgety, unlike the confident boy on stage moments ago, and you’re left speechless. An awkward silence passed between you two, before he cleared his throat.

“You’re really cute—I mean, you’re Y/N from my research class, right?” You nodded, internally screaming at the fact that he just called you cute. “I...I, um, I saw you didn’t have an umbrella and it’s really pouring out here, so uh-” he laughed nervously, a small grin forming on his lips as he stared at you expectedly. “Do you want to share?”

Jake - Fearless ; first love

“Bleh, sappy couples,” you shook your head, wrinkling your nose at the scene in front of you. Then again, everyone basically called you and Jake a sappy couple, so you really shouldn’t be saying anything.

Speaking of Jake, you caught him running down the road towards you, his umbrella jostling over his head. Laughing to yourself, you watched as the umbrella caught on another, then got tangled in a whole mess of umbrellas. Jake quickly disentangled his from the rest, apologizing profusely to the party of concert-goers who only shook their heads and motioned for him to go. Giving them a slight nod, he ran up to you, thankfully with no further mishaps, stumbling to a stop in front of you.

“Hi,” he said breathlessly, beaming at you. You swear every time you look at him, it was like falling for him all over again. Despite the cold and the rain, the feeling spread all over you and you felt suddenly warm and fuzzy.

“Let’s go.” You grabbed his hand, and he tucked you under the umbrella, arm wrapped around your waist. The two of you began walking home. “How was the concert?”

“Amazing, though I still wish you got to perform,” you snuggled up to his side, unable to keep a smile off your face. Jake sighed, somewhat regretfully.

“You know I have to work overtime this week, or I won’t be able to pay the rent for the apartment.”

“I know, I know.” You turned to him, eyeing the dark bags under his eyes. “You look exhausted....hey, you should’ve gone home to rest, not come out in the rain to pick me up. You can catch a cold—”

“I don’t want you to walk home by yourself after dark, it’s too dangerous,” Jake interrupted. He grinned at you, and you felt like your heart was gonna melt. Is this what love feels like? Then I’m glad that he’s my first.

The two of you were almost home, when you realized that you were approaching the abandoned parking lot near your house. An idea struck you then, and you suddenly grabbed Jake’s hand, startling him out of his rant about the shitty customer at the cafe.

“Come on, let’s dance in the rain.”

“Huh?” Jake’s eyebrows knit into a frown. “Weren’t you worried about catching a cold a few minutes ago?”

You shook your head, a cheeky grin on your face. Your heartbeat quickened, a shot of adrenaline rushing through you. You weren’t usually like this, but you thought back to the shows you watched, and well, first love means trying something new, right? “The rain is letting up Jake, we’ll be fine. Please?”

A flicker of doubt crossed his face, and you thought he was going to say no, before he nodded and closed the umbrella. You let out a gasp as the cool drops hit your face, and a loud squeal when Jake grabbed your hand and twirled you around the parking lot.

You thought this only existed in movies, but it’s all real. You’re dancing with the love of your life, fearlessly, in the middle of a rain shower. His hands clasped around your waist, a wide smile stretching from ear to ear as you grabbed onto his shoulders and he lifted you off your feet, like the ballroom dances in these old fashioned films. The wind whistled in your ears, the rain splashing on the sidewalk sounds like music. You couldn’t stop laughing, and neither can he, and you knew you were going to remember this moment for the rest of your life.

However, your strength gave out after a while, and the two of you stood there, swaying side to side. At this point, you couldn’t care that your clothes are wet and sticking to your skin, and you lean your forehead against Jake’s. He giggled, small droplets of water trailing down from his soaked hair. And he slowly leans in, the distance between you two shortening, your hands begin to shake as your breath quickens.

Is he going to—?

Sensing your nervousness, he grabbed one of your hands in his, pulling you in. You felt a little more brave as you tugged at the front of his shirt in your other hand, and connected your lips, at last.

It’s a first kiss, it’s flawless, really something, it’s fearless.

Jay - Ours ; long distance love

Lucky Jake, you muttered to yourself, sighing as you rested your head on the counter. He doesn’t have to deal with stupid customers at this time, and at least he has more experience with people yelling at him. Or maybe you’re just jealous that he has someone to hang out with, go on dates with, and laugh by his side.

You smiled sadly to yourself and took out your phone, opening the photo gallery. You felt a pang of nostalgia and wistfulness as you clicked on the first photo of you and Jay. It was from your date at the shopping mall, where Jay had chosen several outfits and forced you to try them on. It was a time where you had let your insecurities get the best of you, and Jay was having none of it. The photo was of him hugging you after you tried on one of the outfits he picked out.

You look beautiful, you can hear him say. Stunning, amazing, don’t ever doubt yourself again.

I won’t, you had murmured back. Thank you, love.

“Seriously, is this some sort of playhouse? Can’t even do their job right....”

Your head quickly shot up, eyes widening at the intimidating businessman in front of you. Fuck, not him again....

He rolled his eyes at you. “Two large cups of mocha latte with a half shot of espresso. And make it quick, I’m in a hurry.”

You purse your lips in disdain. “Yes, sir.”

Putting your phone away, you sighed as you began making his order. If Jay was here, he would’ve made you laugh by making fun of his attitude, or just straight up told the man off. But he’s not here, and he’s not going to help you out, you thought to yourself, gritting your teeth together as you mixed the coffee. He’s working for that fashion company in Paris, so just let him live his dream. C’mon, Y/N, just make this damn coffee, give it to that damn businessman who can’t keep his damn mouth shut—

“Be careful, you idiot! You’re going to spill them!”

You snapped out of your daze, again, by the harsh voice of the customer, who grabbed the two coffees, spilling foam over your hands, causing you to hiss in pain. And he had the audacity to walk away muttering, “Gosh, I’m never coming back to this shitty place again.”

Swallowing the pain, you went to wash your hands at the sink. It’s part of the job, there will always be some people yelling at you, it’s not your fault, you tried to comfort yourself, though you were sick and tired of this. This endless routine, the fake smiles you have to put on, a gaping hole in your heart you can’t cover up. It’s been over a year since Jay has gone, and suddenly, you missed him more than ever. Frustrated, you turned the faucet off, almost yanking it off the sink in the process. Burying your face in your hands, your mind wandered to something Jay had told you, right before he left for the trip.

Don’t you worry your pretty little mind, people throw rocks at things that shine.

You smiled at Jay’s words, and took a deep breath, calming yourself down. You will get through this. Drying your hands off on a towel, you smooth out the wrinkles in your shirt and set your face in a hard line. Just a few more hours, and you’ll finally get off work. You can do this.

Making your way to the counter again, you prepared to put on your custom smile and act like the cheerful barista you were supposed to be. “Hello! How may I—”

“Y/N?”

Your breath caught in your throat, as your eyes met the person you were just thinking about. No, it’s not possible, how— The two of you stared at each other in disbelief, before Jay’s face relaxed into a bright smile, and he opened his arms.

You ran out from behind the counter and wrapped your hands around him. Nuzzling your face into the crook of his neck, you held on tight, and that’s when the tears came, happy and sad at the same time.

Jay didn’t say anything, for there was no need to use words when actions and feelings showed it all. He grasped you in his arms, body shaking slightly as he blinked back the tears from his own eyes. I’m finally back home.

The two of you stood there for who knows how long, but you couldn’t care less. No matter how many annoying customers you have to face, no matter how many times coffee spills all over you, nothing can separate you from what is yours.

You can say what you want, but this love is ours.

Sunoo - Sparks Fly ; pure love

You and Sunoo quietly crept out of the cafe, not wanting to disturb the couple hugging by the counter. Unfortunately for you two though, it had started raining outside, and none of you brought an umbrella.

“Really? And the forecast said it wouldn’t rain,” Sunoo grumbled, pouting. “The weather person needs to get fired.”

You laughed at his words, resisting the urge to pinch his cheeks. “They’re just trying to do their job, Sunoo. I mean, it’s not that bad....should we just make a run for it?”

Sunoo gasped dramatically. “And mess up our hair? How will I take our end-of-the-date selfie with our soggy selves?”

You rolled your eyes, “we can use our school bags to cover us. I mean, it’s either that, or be late to our movie night.”

Sunoo mulled over it for a moment, scrunching his nose in concentration. “Oh, fine. But we’re sticking to the cover until we have to cross the street.”

“Deal.” The two of you shuffled along the awning of the cafe, until you reached the end of the street where the crosswalks are. You two looked at each other, hunching your bookbags over your head. One hand holding onto your bag, you stretched your hand out to Sunoo, a smile crossing both of your faces as he took it.

“One.”

“Two.”

“Three. GO!”

The two of you dashed out into the rain, laughing and screaming like little kids. A wild, childish bliss took over you, and you couldn’t stop giggling as you gripped tightly onto Sunoo’s hand. He looked over at you, and you can see that he was having the time of his life as well, smiling so much that his eyes seemed to disappear. You wish time could stop at that moment, as rain poured down around you two, the happy feeling in your chest expanding with love.

All too soon, your journey ended as you two rushed up, panting, to the door of your house. Letting your bags fall over your shoulders, the two of you turned to each other and laughed. You reached over to part the hair from his eyes, and he playfully flicked his head, spraying water on your face. You let out an indignant yelp, before lightly pushing him, then reaching to catch him again before he slips down the wet steps. Sunoo held onto your arm, trying to contain his laughter, though his bright smile gave it away.

“Gosh, we’re a mess,” you said as you tried to catch your breath. Putting your bag down, you fumbled in your pocket for your keys. “But you know what? Let’s do that again next time.”

“Well, hopefully we’ll actually remember to bring an umbrella next time,” Sunoo said, shaking out his wet bag. He grinned at you, and you swear you can see sparks fly whenever he smiles.

Jungwon - Mine ; enduring love

You trudged down the street, not minding the fact that you’re thoroughly soaked by the rain. Everything felt like a blur around you as your mind kept replaying the scene from moments before, and the tears came streaming down your face again, mingling with the drops from the sky. The sound of laughter pierced through your reverie, and you turned to see a couple giggling together at the front steps of their house, the sight making your heart squeeze.

What went wrong?

We were like them too, so what happened to us?

Sniffing, you wiped your nose with the back of your hand, turning away from the scene. Looking around, you realized that you had walked farther away from the house than you expected, and that it was already dark. Should I go back? As much as you don’t want to confront Jungwon right now, you don’t want him to worry either. Would he even worry though? Maybe this really is the end...

Making up your mind, you resolved to just keep walking, until you finally decided on what to do. Taking out your phone, you texted your friend whether you can stay over at theirs tonight. Slipping the device back into your pocket, you continued plodding along.

Until someone grabbed your arm, and you screamed.

“Y/N, it’s me! It’s me.”

Whirling around, your heart rate slowed as you made eye contact with your boyfriend. The rain had slowed to a drizzle now, and you saw that his eyes were red, like he had been crying too.

“Jungwon...” you extricated your arm from his hold, and took a deep breath. “What are you doing here?”

“I ran after you,” he mumbled, looking down at the ground. “After you left.”

You blinked in surprise, not expecting that answer. “O-oh.”

Not knowing what to say, the two of you stood there, and each passing minute felt like a wall growing bigger and bigger between you two. You didn’t know how the two of you even ended up like this—an offhand comment, which somehow led to yelling and cursing, and then you were running out into the streets alone, crying. And now, to this silence. It felt like hours before Jungwon spoke up.

“I’m sorry.”

Gulping, you forced the words out of your throat too. “I’m sorry too. I should’ve stayed instead of just running away like that.”

He shook his head. “No, this was my fault. I shouldn’t have yelled at you...talked to you in that way.”

You sighed. “Well, let’s just say it’s both of our faults, then. It doesn’t matter.”

Jungwon nodded hesitantly, peering up at you. “Should we go back to the dorms?”

You bit your bottom lip, thinking. Everything felt too much, like a fragile heart broken into a million pieces, each one jagged and misshapen. “I already texted my friend that I’ll stay over at their house tonight. Should we—should we just take a break, Jungwon? These days we’ve just been arguing and fighting with each other, I don’t know how we can continue this, if we can even—”

Your voice cracked, and the whirlpool of tears finally broke free as you sobbed, face in your hands. Your body tenses as you feel Jungwon’s arms wrap around you, relaxing slightly as he patted your back, trying to soothe your sorrows.

“Y/N, do you remember when we first met?”

He was working part-time at a restaurant as a waiter, and you thought he was pretty cute. You found that he was going to the same school as you, and the two of you became best friends. You fell for him a few months later, and ever since then, he was always by your side. Until everything fell apart a few weeks ago, when your tempers ran short and tension climbed high.

“I thought you were so beautiful...and remember our promise? I swore I was going to stay with you, that we won’t make the same mistake as your parents. You are the best thing that’s ever been mine. I know it’s hard to be together right now, when both of us are so busy that we don't have time with each other anymore...but I’ll always have time for you, Y/N. I know this sounds cheesy and all, but I just want to say that I love you and I don’t want to let you go.”

Sniffing, this time the tears flow because of his words. Turning around, you gave him a cheeky grin as you wiped your face. “Didn’t know you were such a romantic, Jungwon.”

His cheeks turned a shade of pink, and he shyly held out his hand. You took it, and the two of you started walking back home.

Niki - Jump Then Fall ; childhood love

Never mind, I’m going home tonight.

You raised your eyebrows at your friend’s message. Probably some couple problems with Jungwon. You were about to text back a reply, before you felt your pants get splashed with water.

You lifted your eyes to the sky, exasperated because you already know who did it. Sometimes I wonder how I even have a crush on him. I waited for him after dance practice and this is what I get? Turning around, you faced your friend, or as you like to call him, your greatest enemy, Nishimura Riki.

He has his usual mischievous grin on his face, jumping from foot to foot as he kicks at another puddle. Thankfully, you jumped out of the way just in time. Narrowing your eyes playfully, you said, “I see how it is...this is war.”

The rain had left numerous puddles on the sidewalk (probably due to the potholes your school refused to spend their money to fix), and you chased Niki down the street, splashing him with water. He laughed loudly and reached up (dangit, why is he so tall?), grabbed one of the branches of a tree, shaking the water from it. Gasping, your eyes widened as you got drenched from the drops. You glared at him, only causing his smile to stretch even wider from ear to ear. “I won,” Niki announced triumphantly.

You pouted, rolling your eyes. “Oh, fine. But it’s not fair, how did you even get this tall?”

Niki shrugged, as if it was no big deal, though you want to wipe the smug grin off his face. “I grew 13 centimeters last year.”

“Impossible,” you huffed. He shoved his hands in his pockets, raising his eyebrows at you as if challenging your statement. Shrugging his dance bag over one shoulder, Niki started walking, and you followed. “You just want to brag about your height.”

“Maybe I do, maybe I don’t,” Niki teased in a sing-song voice. “Either way, I’m still taller than you~”

You smiled grudgingly, stealing a look at him from the corner of your eye. It seems like yesterday when you both were kids, and he was this bouncy little boy who loved to annoy the hell out of you. He still does, but you felt a twinge of nostalgia as you see how tall and mature he had come, and even more good-looking as well. If only he knows how much I like him.

Sensing your stare, Niki wiggled his eyebrows at you, making you laugh at his expression. “What are you looking at?”

“Nothing,” you turned away, embarrassed. You really need to be less obvious, though Niki’s too oblivious to know anything about your feelings for him.

“No, it’s something,” he leaned closer to you, and suddenly you forgot how to breathe properly. “Is there something on my face?”

You shook your head quickly, gaze wandering anywhere but his eyes. Spying a puddle in the corner of your vision, an idea flashed through your mind. Leaning closer, so that your faces were only inches apart, you noticed that Niki’s cheeks were blushing pink at the close distance. Maybe this isn’t so one-sided after all.

“Actually, there is something.”

“W-what?” You expected him to pull away, but his eyes were dreamy, getting lost in your own. Or maybe you were the one getting lost in his. Tearing your gaze away, you grabbed his hand and dragged him towards the biggest puddle near the curb of the street. Taking a deep breath, you jumped straight into it, causing a huge splash that doused both you and Niki in water. You wished you could capture this moment on camera: Niki’s flustered face when you took his hand, his eyes widening comically as water sprayed his clothes. You laughed out loud, smirking at him. “I won,” you said, mimicking his voice from earlier.

Your smile faded when Niki didn’t say anything back, the shocked expression still on his face. Confused, you asked, “what’s wrong?”

Clearing his throat, he motioned his head towards your intertwined hands. “Um, you’re still holding onto my hand.”

Maybe it’s cliche, two childhood friends falling for each other, but what’s wrong with cliches? You tightened your grip on his hand, grinning as his face flared red. “Is there something wrong with it?”

“Nothing,” he looked down, making you giggle. Oh, how the tables have turned. You took a step closer.

“No, it’s something.”

He glanced up at you, unable to conceal a shy smile. You loved the way his hair falls in his face, slightly damp from jumping into too many puddles.

And all I can say is come closer, take a deep breath and jump then fall into me.

Daniel - Fifteen ; platonic love

“When are they going to confess already?” you snickered, eyeing the two teens playing in the puddles. Daniel followed your stare, shrugging at your words.

“When they finally get in through their heads that their feelings are mutual,” Daniel said. “Who knows how long that’ll take.”

You fold your arms across your chest, turning away and gazing wistfully into the distance. “Maybe one day I’ll find love like that.”

Daniel raised an eyebrow at you. “You got time, you’re still fifteen after all.”

Your hands dropped, and you sighed as your shoulders sagged. “I can’t believe I’m fifteen already...high school is so hard.”

Daniel laughed at the whine in your voice, reaching over to ruffle your hair. You pushed his hand away, glaring at him. “Hey, don’t laugh. You didn’t get any of the difficult classes this year.”

“That’s because I already know I want to major in art so...there’s no need to take these classes anyway.”

You stopped and turned to him, narrowing your eyes. “What in art, specifically?”

Daniel's eyes flickered to yours, looking away in embarrassment. “Oh, just something in music.”

You grinned slyly, probing further. “What in music, exactly?”

Daniel gulped, hoping you wouldn’t laugh at him this time. “Um...well, I really want to become a rapper…”

Your eyes widened and you gasped. “A rapper? Daniel, that’s amazing!”

Your friend blinked in confusion, surprised at your excitement. “You-you think so?”

Nodding fervently, you started walking again. Around you, the streetlights flared to life. “Yeah, I mean, you seem pretty passionate about it. I remembered how the teacher caught you writing lyrics in the back of the textbook when you’re supposed to be paying attention during class.”

Daniel humphed, his long strides quickly catching up with yours. “Hey, math is boring, alright? You weren’t listening either.”

You decided to concede with him on that point, because math, indeed, is a pain in the ass (also because you were afraid he’ll stop letting you copy his homework right before class). “Fine, but I’m just saying that you shouldn’t be ashamed of your dream. You’re dedicated, I know you can do it.”

Daniel smiled shyly at your words. “Thanks, Y/N.”

You smiled back half-heartedly. “And here I am, with nothing planned out. I still don’t know who I want to be, or even who I am.”

“It’s fine if you haven’t figured yourself out yet, just go with the flow and do things that make you feel happy. Then you’ll discover where your interests and dreams lie,” Daniel said sagely, making your eyes roll at his tone. He bumped your shoulder with his. “I’ll always be here for you, yeah?”

“Thanks, but I just...you know how you’re at that time in your life, when you’re just questioning everything? Like, what is the meaning of life? Why am I here?”

“Just to suffer,” Daniel whispered, flinching away as you whacked him on the arm. “Ok, ok, I didn’t know you were going to get this deep.”

“Maybe I should be an English teacher then,” you said thoughtfully. “Make all the students analyze the meaning of the universe, like how Mr. Kim is forcing us to analyze Romeo and Juliet.”

“Romeo and Juliet…” Daniel stopped suddenly, making you bump into him. “Oh no...I forgot my copy of the book at school!”

You gave him a look. “Seriously? I told you to get it out of your locker!”

Daniel scuffed his shoe on the sidewalk, avoiding your gaze. “Well, you know how loud and chaotic the dismissal was...I couldn’t hear you.”

You shook your head in resignation. “Whatever, I’ll just send you pictures of the pages we have to read.”

Daniel’s head shot up, eyes staring hopefully at you. “Really? Y/N, thank you so much, you know you're my best friend right?”

You rolled your eyes. “Just make sure to remember it next time, or you’re on your own.”

(Jokes on you, Daniel knows you’ll grudgingly share your book with him for the rest of the year if he keeps forgetting it).

Sunghoon - Love Story ; forbidden love

“Sunghoon!” you whisper-shouted, grimacing as your boyfriend stepped on a stick. The sound seemed too loud in the quiet darkness, and you looked around wildly. Grabbing his arm, you dragged him behind a rock, lips pursed in a tense line. Heart pounding, you felt both worried and exhilarated at the same time.

“Sorry,” Sunghoon said sheepishly, scratching the nape of his neck. “Didn’t see that.”

You frowned at him, turning around. “And I thought princes have stealth training as part of their schooling.”

Sunghoon scoffed. “All they teach us is how to look buff and strong so we can pick fights with your family.”

Stifling a laugh, you took his arm again, pulling him along. “True true, that sounds a lot like what they teach Youngbin too...though Youngbin isn’t the fighting type.”

“Your brother’s too soft,” Sunghoon muttered, “I feel sorry for him sometimes...he’d rather be kind than argue.”

Your lips quirked up in a sad smile. “Yeah, but there’s not much we can do about the feud, right?”

Nodding, Sunghoon carefully stepped over a pile of leaves, hand clutching tight onto yours. As the two of you cautiously stepped around the bend in the country road, Sunghoon let out a light gasp seeing what lay ahead. You grinned at his expression, quickening your pace until you two stopped in front of an enormous garden. Its gates were made up of interlocking flowers and vines, a sweeping archway of overhanging branches from two willow trees, and an open field lined with flowers of every kind laid beyond. Pushing away the branches, Sunghoon watched as you unraveled the flower gate and stepped into the beautiful utopia.

“A secret garden,” Sunghoon commented in awe. “How…”

“Youngbin and I used to go here all the time, whenever our families fight,” you answered. “Now that he’s confined to the training field, I feel too lonely being here all by myself.”

“Are you sure Youngbin wouldn’t mind?” Sunghoon asked, not wanting to intrude in sibling affairs.

You cast a funny look at him. “No, I’m sure he won’t. Besides...you’re the person I’m closest to besides him.”

The comment made Sunghoon blush, and he followed you down the path. On each side of him bloomed hundreds of colorful blossoms, making Sunghoon wonder who lived here long ago to tend to them all. Marigolds, roses, lilies, fuchsias, tulips, flowers of every kind decorated the leaves and vines. He reached out to pluck a red rose from the fray, careful not to prick his fingers. Stopping every now and then to admire the flowers, you tugged him towards the open field. Sitting down on the grass, you leaned your head against his shoulder.

“Look, the sun is rising.”

And indeed it was. Sunghoon smiled as you two relaxed in silence, watching the sunlight streak over the horizon in different shades of pink, yellow, and orange. A new day, a new beginning, he thought. He turned when he felt something being placed on his head, only to meet your grinning face as you adjusted the flower crown in his hair.

“There,” you said, pushing a stray hair away from his eye. Leaning back proudly, you nodded at how the wreath of white daisies complemented his raven hair. “You look pretty, flower boy.”

Sunghoon took the red rose, breaking off the stem, tucked it behind your ear. “No, you’re prettier.”

“Whatever,” you said, though Sunghoon saw that you were trying hard not to smile. “Do you know what this reminds me of?”

“What?” Sunghoon asked, laying back onto the grass. He took the flower crown off and held it up to the sky, scrutinizing your handiwork. You mirrored his movement, turning on your side to face him.

“There’s this story I read in the library a few days ago, about how two young lovers woke up at dawn so they could watch the sunrise together.”

“Oh?” Raising an eyebrow, Sunghoon motioned for you to continue.

“Mhm,” You gazed off into the distance, a thoughtful look on your face. The sunbeams have gotten brighter, and they cast a glow on your face that Sunghoon couldn’t describe, other than ethereal. “It reminded me of us.”

“Who knows,” Sunghoon shrugged. “Maybe someday someone will write a story about us too.”

“A forbidden love story?” You snickered. “Who would write something like that?”

—— —— —— —— —— —— —— —— —— —— ——

~ Which story is your favorite? ~

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minor-solemnity · 3 years

Text

Never Gonna Give (You Up) pt.2

(content warning: some smut)

You really should get up.

You should.

Riddle is unusually quiet as you lead him away from the party. His eyes are focused firmly on the ground, as though he’s worried that if he doesn’t watch his step, he’ll stumble. You watch him out the corner of your eye, taking in the slight sheen of sweat, the way his skin, save for the raw acid burns on his chest, is even paler than usual, his pinched expression. “You know, I’m surprised you’re not screaming bloody murder,” You say, trying to keep your voice light and casual and not like you’re about to start panicking over the state of his chest. “I always thought Slytherins were a bunch of posh crybabies.”

You suppose it’s good to know that Riddle is not so injured that he can’t summon up the strength to glare at you. “And I always thought that Gryffindors were meant to be chivalrous and honourable but the way you looked when Slughorn asked you escort me to hospital wing suggests otherwise.” He snaps and you feel at once both indignantly angry and… guilty. You feel guilty. And you hate it.

“Oh please, you’d be as annoyed as I was if the roles were reversed. Because of you, I won’t be able to meet Beaufort and having her as a character reference is essential if I even have a hope of becoming a curse-breaker. You know as well as I do what’s waiting for me after Hogwarts otherwise.” You say, all the sorrow and frustration you feel over your missed opportunity leaches into your voice and the grip you have on RIddle’s arm tightens without you meaning to. You’re not wrong either, wizarding society is still of the collective opinion that witches if they’re from a good family should be married off as quickly as possible, and if they’re not, are looking at jobs in retail and teaching. Particularly intelligent and insightful witches might be lucky enough to go into research and academia but generally, any witch wanting to do something a bit more exciting with their life is shit out of luck.

Riddle shoots you a surprised look like he hadn’t expected your response. To your own surprise, he doesn’t have a quippy retort ready to skewer you with and you walk the rest of the way to the entrance hall in stony silence.

You begin to move towards the staircase intent of getting him to the hospital wing as quickly as possible. Your reasons are twofold: firstly, with any luck, once he’s under the care of Madam Montague, you’ll be able to return to the party and hopefully be in time to at least make yourself known to Beaufort; secondly, Riddle, as much as he’s trying to hide it, is clearly in a great deal of pain. The slight tremor in his shoulders has turned into full-body shakes and his eyes, usually so sharp and erudite, are clouded in pain and have a far-away look to them. It’s unsettling to see him so vulnerable. You’ve spent so much of your time at Hogwarts wishing to see Riddle cut down to size but now you’re witnessing it, you find that you’re really not enjoying it.

“Come on, let’s just get to Madam Montague,” You mutter, trying to pull him along but Riddle won’t budge. In fact, he begins to stumble in the opposite direction towards the dungeons. “What are you doing? We have to go to the hospital wing! Riddle, you’re hurt—”

“I’m not going there - I have… I’ll be able to fix this if I can get to my dorm.”

“Oh for Merlin’s sake, you can’t possibly fix this yourself.” You exclaim half exasperated half pleading. He fixes you with a glare that would be a lot more intimidating if, at that moment, he didn’t sway violently on his feet and you weren’t forced to steady him by looping both your arms over his shoulders. Riddle sags into you, his body pressing against you, his forehead resting on your shoulder. The way your stomach clenches at the close proximity is entirely inappropriate.

“Just go back to the party, that’s clearly where you’d rather be,” You think he might be aiming for scathing but something horribly vulnerable has crept into his words. “Beaufort’s probably still there.”

The fact that Riddle is allowing you to leave, to enjoy the rest of your night, to maybe secure a job is… You feel… Odd. Confused. Sad. Sad that he thinks that you’d leave him to stumble back to his dorm on his own. For the first time since you’ve known him, you wonder if he’s ever had someone to rely on before. If the air of self-sufficiency and aloofness is something that comes naturally to him, or if it’s something he’s had to learn.

“Don’t be ridiculous. You can barely stand up by yourself; I’m not going to leave you to potentially faint on your way to your dorm.” When you disentangle yourself from him and resume your journey and he makes a small noise in the back of his throat that you will not for the sake of your sanity interpret as disappointment. “Like you said: Gryffindors: known for our chivalry and honour.” And he must be delirious because he actually laughs.

The Slytherin common room is exactly what you imagined it would be: dark, luxurious, refined, and so unlike the cosiness of the Gryffindor tower. Thankfully, Riddle’s room is empty when you’re finally inside. He pulls off his ruined dress robes, leaving him only in his trousers. You avert your eyes out of respect for his privacy and not because the sight of his lithe torso is at all appealing. He manages to get to his bed and starts rummaging around in the chest of drawers beside it, leaving you standing in the doorway, entirely unsure of what it is that you’re supposed to do next.

Jar in hand, he more or less collapses onto his bed. Wounded as he is, he still manages to look outrageously good. The low light from the candelabra casts him in a muted, golden glow, adding colour to his complexion and softening the wounds on his chest. You swallow thickly and internally berate yourself for having such thoughts because this is Riddle, and even if he weren’t your sworn enemy, he’s still injured and hurting and that should be your first priority.

You watch as he struggles to open one of the jars for a second before you make up your mind. Summoning every shred of Gryffindor bravery you possess, you walk towards him, ignoring the look of sheer surprise and alarm that settles on his face as you stop in front of him. “Here, just let me— let me help,” You murmur, your breath catching in your throat because this feels… This feels intimate and new. You’re fairly sure that whatever happens next, your relationship with Riddle has been changed irrevocably. The seconds tick past and you just watch each other. The air seems to thicken around you and the atmosphere grows charged and tense with something that you don’t have a name for.

Slowly, he nods and you gently manoeuvre him so that he’s lying on his back, propped up by his pillows. Next, you reach for the jar that he’d been holding, unscrewing the lid and scooping some of the clear, jelly-like substance into your fingers. There’s an awkward moment when you try and figure out the best way of reaching his chest before you grit your teeth and straddle his hips.

Despite his current state, Riddle still manages to look far too smug for your liking. He raises an eyebrow and smirks up at you from your perch on his thighs. Despite the furious blush that creeps up your neck and along your cheeks, you manage to keep your voice steady as you say, “Don’t make this weird, Riddle.” He starts to chuckle lowly before it’s cut off by a gasp as you start to rub the salve on his wounds.

Your fingers brush against his chest and you find yourself entranced by how warm his skin is, how he tenses under your hands as though he wasn’t expecting and isn’t used to gentleness, how his breathing slowly evens out as the salve does its job and the burns start to scab and heal. A slow, curling heat wraps its way around you, making your heart stutter and your blood thrum in a way that is so deliciously intoxicating that you don’t even notice that your hands have travelled down his chest and are now skimming his sides, edging lower and lower to the waistline of his trousers.

You’re brought back to reality when he wraps a hand around one of your wrists, his dark eyes glitter in the dim candlelight and a slow, easy smirk curls his upper lip. He moves his free hand to your waist and he watches you closely, taking in every twitch, every shiver, every sharp, stuttering intake of breath. “So, I should go and let you rest…?” You hate the way it comes out as a question, the slight upturn in your voice revealing the nerves that tangle and twist inside you.

“That would be sensible, yes,” Tom agrees, even as his hand slides up your waist and along the curves of your breasts.

You really should get up.

You should.

You don’t. What you do instead is simple: you kiss him. You bend over his chest, one hand clutching his side the other pressed into the pillow and you kiss him with the fervour that only seven years of bottled up chemistry can conjure. He responds immediately, let’s go of your wrist to tangle his fingers through your hair, drags you closer until the spaces between you are taken over by the feeling of his body, firm and solid and sure beneath you. His other hand slips under your dress robes, gliding up your thigh and pulling the silky fabric up until it’s bunched around your waist and his hand splays across the swell of your arse, exploring and gripping and kneading. Every part of you that he touches is on fire and pleasure curls inside of you like bonfire smoke: rich and thick and all-consuming.

A moan escapes you as he rolls his hips against yours and he tugs your hair sending small shockwaves of muted pain and pleasure tingling down your spine. You pull away from him to catch your breath and for a moment you just stare at each other. His eyes are nearly all pupil and there’s a delectable flush spreading across his cheeks and there’s something else as well. It’s the way he’s looking at you, you realise. Turned on and hot and wanting, yes, but under all that… there’s something like awe in his eyes.

That alone is enough to make you reach down and start tugging at his belt, hands fumbling with nerves and then he’s kicking off his trousers and you’re pulling your robes above your head with a frantic kind of desperation that would surprise you if it wasn’t so fucking obvious to you now. The opposite of love is not hate, but indifference and you have never been indifferent towards Riddle. Your clothes land in a haphazard pile at the foot of his bed, and suddenly his arms are around you and he’s flipping you over and pressing against you, grinding down as he sucks a bruise along the underside of your jaw before trailing kisses down your neck and along your collarbones, flicking his tongue over the sensitive bud of one nipple. “So good,” He whispers into your skin, “Always knew you’d be so good for me.” And something inside of you sings at the admission, at the implication.

The franticness of earlier fades into something slower, though no less intense, and you take the opportunity to snake your hand down his body and curl a fist around him, stroking long and slow, revelling in the way he feels in your hand: heavy and hot and thick in. You are rewarded by a quiet, broken gasp and his fingers and tongue caressing every part of you he can reach. His fingers slip between your legs and you’re already so close to edge that all it takes is a few clever strokes and you’re tumbling into the ravine, back arching, toes curling and you’re dimly aware of him tensing above you and then he’s falling right along with you.

In the moments following, anxiety and uncertainty begins to creep through your afterglow, and you shift against him, unsure if you should gather your things and leave. You start to push yourself up but are stopped by a hand on your shoulder. Tom (because you should start calling him that, anything else feels like an erasure of what’s just happened, and despite the worry, you don’t want to erase this) gently pulls you back down, tucking you against his side as he runs his fingers through your hair. The anxiety fades and you fall asleep with your head nestled in the crook of his neck and his arm curled around your waist.

***

In the three weeks since Slughorn’s party, you’ve made several appearances in Tom’s dorms. There had been one particularly embarrassing moment when Abraxas Malfoy had walked in, rolled his eyes and muttered ‘finally. But also, gross’ before he'd made a speedy exit after Tom had threatened to poison his favourite peacock.

You still argue and you’re still horribly competitive; you’re fairly sure that those aspects of your relationship with Tom are dyed in the wool by this point. But now he edits your essays and you bring him coffee when he spends too long in the library. You eat breakfast together. It feels good. It feels natural.

It’s over one breakfast on a nondescript Friday morning that the letter arrives. Tom passes it to you along with a mug of tea and you frown at the unfamiliar handwriting. You scan it quickly and your curiosity quickly turns into disbelieving excitement. “Christella Beaufort wants to meet me.” You whisper, eyes wide, hands shaking. “She says that she’s sorry she missed me at the party and that she’s available to talk the next Hogsmeade weekend. I… Tom, this is… How…?”

“I may have written to her explaining the situation.” He says, entirely casual, as though he hasn’t just made every wish you’ve ever had come true.

He really only has himself to blame when you lean over the Slytherin table, fingers wrapping around his tie and ruin a lot of people’s breakfasts by dragging him into a kiss.

(part 1)

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sisterspooky1013 · 3 years

Text

Only One Choice, Part 2, Chapter 24

Read it here on AO3 / Tagging @today-in-fic

June 1999

The air smells wet and woody, birdsongs trilling in the early morning sun that trickles through a sky light. She stretches, then disentangles her legs from the sheets and stands, walking to the window.

There is a giant soaking tub in the corner of the room, flanked by two windowed walls that afford a sweeping view of the Cascade mountains, green carpeted hillsides meeting with a baby-blue sky.

She can still recall her mother’s face when they told her the wedding would be in Washington State. “But...we don’t even know anyone in Washington, Dana,” she’d said with a bemused expression, lamenting the length of their flights with a nine-month-old in tow.

Her mother’s reaction paled in comparison to Mulder’s excitement when she’d suggested the idea; she would spend their honeymoon relaxing with a book in the tub, and he could spend it traipsing through the woods looking for Sasquatch, or ‘squatchin’ as he called it. They would reunite in the afternoon, hiking, making love, catching up on all the conversations they’d missed while in the trenches of parenting a new baby. Mom would stay at the same resort with Molly so they could see her every day, while having precious nights to themselves; something they haven’t done since she was born.

She turns the tap on the bath, a blast of water thundering into the empty basin. When it’s full nearly to the brim, she disrobes and eases in, breathing deeply to inhale the juniper-scented steam, courtesy of the resort-provided bath salts. Closing her eyes, she thinks back over it all; their chance meeting, how she was drawn to him by a force that seemed to be bigger than them both, the anguish of wanting him but feeling like she owed it to Ethan to stay together. Her eyes snap open, a memory long-buried in the recesses of her mind springing forth like a trebuchet.

The day she met Mulder, she’d been planning to take the day off to go to a book signing for an author she admires. The signing was cancelled due to a scheduling conflict and she almost took the day off anyway, but had a last minute pang of guilt knowing that the workload that week was already heavy and Trudy would struggle to manage it all on her own. So she’d gone in, she’d performed that autopsy that should have been on Trudy’s docket, and she’d filled out the paperwork, and she’d met Mulder. How delicate the balance of the universe that such an insignificant choice completely changed the course of her life.

She suddenly misses him acutely, and a bundle of nerves and excitement flutters in her belly thinking about when she’ll see him next. She’d scoffed at the idea of them spending last night apart; they live together and have a child so the performative chastity seemed to be a bit much. He said it was like a fast, that a little time apart would make it even more special when they saw each other at the ceremony, and she ultimately acquiesced.

“Meet me on a mountain top at 4 o’clock tomorrow?” he’d asked as he backed out of her room, pulling away from the desperate kisses she was planting all over his face.

“Wouldn’t miss it,” she replied with a smile, and they said goodnight.

She smiles again, sinking down until the water slips into her ears. She can’t wait to marry him.

———

He sits up and arches his back, his spine protesting the cramped accommodations. Looking over at Byers and Missy curled up in the king size bed, he regrets his decision to crash on the couch here instead of staying with Scully in their room. Not only because he slept like shit with his legs hanging over the end, but also because work takes him away from his girls so often, he’s an idiot to add another day to it if he doesn’t have to.

He stands, hands on his hips as he twists to stretch his angry muscles, and walks to the window, taking in the dense green hills and valleys that surround them. He smiles, because she could have asked to go to Mexico, or France, or anywhere on the entire Earth and he would have given her what she wanted, but she chose the place she knew he wanted to go. Selfless and giving to a fault, his Scully. Soon to be his wife.

He quietly slips on his running shoes and sneaks out of the room, hitting the hard-packed dirt trail the concierge had told him about. The quiet forest is the perfect place to be alone with his thoughts, nothing but the thud of his feet striking the ground and the twitter of waking birds to distract him. He thinks about his life, about being a child who was lonely and alone, with parents who provided food and shelter but not much more. He thinks about Molly, and how she will never know that kind of pain, that there will never be a day of her life that she is not told how much she is loved. He wonders if his dad ever felt about his mom the way he feels about Scully, and he knows it’s not possible that he did, because if so they would still be together.

He comes to a break in the trees and pauses, breath heaving and lungs burning as he watches a hawk gliding through the valley below, hunting for breakfast. How easily he could have missed this moment, he thinks. Even one small change to the trajectory of his life, and he never would have walked into the autopsy bay that day. If the courier hadn’t been sick, if he hadn’t stopped by Kirkbride’s office when he did. Even further back, if he hadn’t stayed with the bureau with the X files were closed, if Valerie hadn’t been there to encourage him, or if he hadn’t met Valerie one random Tuesday at a record store. The path was long and winding, and it led to her. It led to him on this mountaintop in a sweat-soaked T-shirt, smiling at the thought of his baby daughter, his almost-wife.

He picks up running again, the smile staying on his lips. He’s always felt like he was running away; from his painful past, his regrets, his bad decisions. Now he realizes he’s running towards; his future, a thousand opportunities yet unseen, a kind of happiness he never thought he’d know. He can’t wait for the rest of his life to start.

———

He stands in a clearing near the edge of a cliff, the lush green landscape toeing up against the horizon looking like crooked teeth. Frohike stands beside him in khaki pants and a white linen shirt, a leather folio clasped in his hands. Mulder is also dressed fairly casually, in slacks and a blue Oxford shirt, the sleeves cuffed and the top button undone.

Scully wanted this to be as non-traditional as possible, to make it their own. There is no wedding party, no tuxedo, no flower girl or garter toss. No one will walk her down the aisle, as no one but herself has the ownership to give her away. The guests are small in number; immediate family only, plus the gunmen. Monica and Dahlia are house-sitting back in DC, minding Priscilla as well as the dog, King, that joined the family after the purchase of their house in March. Bucking the idea of arranging guests by whose “side” they are on, they all sit in a small cluster, and Scully will enter from the side.

He looks out and waves at Molly, who is standing on Missy’s lap, holding her hands and bouncing up and down forcefully. She squeals and shouts “dah, dah, dah!” which he chooses to interpret as “Daddy” even though Scully told him it’s just a nonsense syllable and doesn’t mean anything.

Langly gets the signal from Frohike and hits play on a small boom box, piping an instrumental version of “Can’t Help Falling in Love” up into the branches of the towering evergreen trees. He expected to feel nervous at this moment, but all he feels is excitement as Maggie scurries out from behind a line of trees and takes her place beside Bill, giving him a smile and a wink.

Scully appears from around the same group of trees and he grins broadly. He’s seen the dress, they picked it out together, but the full effect is stunning. Her hair, now grown well past her shoulder blades, is curled softly and pinned half up, brilliant red tendrils shimmering in the midday sun against her porcelain shoulders. Her dress is full length pearl satin, a slim sheath cut with off the shoulder straps. She is holding a small bouquet of pink peonies in her hands, and holding his eye with a playful smirk.

She arrives beside him and before the music stops, before Frohike has a chance to begin, he steps forward and takes her by the waist, kissing her fully. The guests laugh and he pulls away to see a confused smile on her face.

“I couldn’t wait,” he says simply.

They move through the ceremony, exchanging rings and vowing to love each other forever; promises they’ve already made to each other a hundred times. As they near the part that Scully understands to be the end, Frohike goes off script.

“Mulder has prepared some words of his own, he’ll read them now,” he says, nodding toward his friend.

Scully’s eyebrows lift in a surprised and confused expression.

“Mulder, we didn’t talk about writing our own vows,” she whispers, afraid she’s failed to complete the assignment.

“It’s okay, these are for both of us,” he whispers, and then, taking her hands in his, he reads a passage from her favorite book from memory.

“I have for the first time found what I can truly love; I have found you. You are my sympathy, my better self, my good angel; I am bound to you with a strong attachment. I think you good, gifted, lovely. A fervent, a solemn passion is conceived in my heart; it leans to you, draws you to my center and spring of life, wraps my existence about you, and kindling in pure, powerful flame, fuses you and me in one.”

The tear that slips down her cheek is borne only of happiness. She looks into his green eyes and sees contentment and love, and desire. It’s not a spark, what they have, nor an ember. It’s a wildfire, a white-hot torch, an eternal flame that binds them together inseparably. They were forged in fire the moment he laid eyes on her in that autopsy bay, maybe even before.

Frohike concludes, “by the power invested in me by the State of Washington, I now pronounce you husband and wife. You may kiss your bride…again.”

He wraps his arms around her waist, lifting her up as he kisses her deeply, a gust of warm summer wind picking up pine needles and tossing them in a mini-tornado that surrounds them both. Molly squeals “dah dah dah!” and claps for her parents.

———

She stands at the mirror, brushing her teeth. Her hair is combed out, her makeup removed, the white dress hanging in the corner of the room with the hem now tinged brown from the dirt that served as their dance floor.

Mulder appears behind her, an arm snaking around the waist of her satin nightgown. She smiles at the sight of his newly ring-adorned hand pressed flat against her belly, then leans forward to rinse.

“Ready for bed?” he asks softly, and she nods.

They slip beneath the cool sheets, curling around one another face-to-face; her leg threaded between his, his arms around her back, foreheads touching. She draws in a big breath and lets it out slowly, contentment settling deep in her bones.

“Do you ever think about all the things that had to happen in exactly the way they did to lead us here?” he asks, and she pulls back a little to look at his face.

“Yes, I was actually just thinking about that earlier,” she says with a curious lilt.

“Makes you wonder, huh, what lives we’d be leading if even just one detail were changed,” he says, tracing his finger along her shoulder blade.

“I don’t think it would have mattered, actually,” she says, and he gives her a quizzical look, silently asking her to elaborate. “I know this will sound a little far-fetched coming from me,” she begins with a self-conscious smile, “but I think it was always going to end up this way. Even if we hadn’t met when we did, we would have crossed paths some other way. Looking back over everything, it just seems like this was meant to be the outcome, even if the path to get here could have gone in a lot of different directions.”

He ponders this, remembering a conversation they had over coffee when, against all odds, she reappeared in his life.

“Like there was only one choice, and signs along the way to pay attention to,” he says contemplatively, lifting his hand to brush a lock of hair behind her ear.

“Exactly,” she replies, pressing her lips to his briefly, “it was always going to be you.”

END

#the x files #txf #dana scully #fox mulder #gillovny #msr #sculder #x files fanfic #alternate universe

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theres-an-impulstor-among-us · 3 years

Note

Hi there!

I finally have an idea for the sequel to the angst! By the way, it really did help. Less strong emotions :D

Anyways, idea. Woot woot-

Wels, as a kind of revenge for the death of Hels, wants to save some other helsmits from the world that is Hels. Because it sucks there. He ends up secluding himself from the server to try this. When somebody goes to check on him, they find an obsidian portal frame with a firey red portal contained within. Queue Wels and another Helsmit conveniently coming through, and Wels having to quickly explain before the Hermit tells X-

this is a long boi!!! lol

first part here

...

This is it. This is the moment Wels has been waiting for. After weeks of hiding out in his house, doing experiment after experiment, he’s finally managed to create a portal directly to Helscraft. Now he can finally start on his mission.

He steps through the portal and finds himself facing a bridge across a gigantic ravine with lava at the bottom. On the other side is a mountain made of netherrack and magma blocks, some of which are on fire.

Shivering, he crosses the bridge slowly, one step at a time, keeping a wary eye out for any helsmits around. There doesn’t seem to be any.

Until he steps off the bridge, glances up, and happens to spot a familiar person sitting in a “tree” made of soul sand and bone blocks. Familiar except red eyes, red streaks in his hair, a much shorter stature, and black-and-magenta dragon-like wings.

“Hi,” he says cautiously.

“Helsknight…?” The person narrows their eyes. “Why do you look different?”

“I’m not Helsknight, I’m his hermit counterpart.”

The helsmit blinks in surprise. “Welsknight? What are you doing here in Helscraft?”

“Are you Grian’s helsmit?” asks Wels, avoiding the question.

“...surely you can tell,” the helsmit scoffs. “Yeah, I’m Xelqua, Grian’s helsmit. Why’re you here? Where’s Helsknight?”

Again, Wels tries to avoid the question. “Were you… close to Helsknight?”

“Not really.” Xelqua again narrows his eyes. “What do you mean by that? Where IS he?”

“He’s…” Wels hesitates and bows his head. “I’m really sorry, but he… he passed away.”

He hears a sharp intake of breath from Xelqua.

“I’m sorry,” he says uselessly.

“Why are you here?”

Wels looks back up at Xelqua. “What?”

“WHY ARE YOU HERE?” demands Xelqua loudly. “What, is it not enough that we exist here in this HELLISH place?! You wanna come here and take it over too?! Drive us out AGAIN?!”

“I- No!” Wels hurriedly shakes his head. “No no no! I came here to invite you back to Hermitcraft.”

A flash of shock flickers over Xelqua’s face. “Why the hell would you do that?”

“Because Helsknight wanted all of you to be free. He sacrificed himself for me, so I’m carrying on his dream.” Wels offers his hand to the helsmit. “Xelqua, come with me to Hermitcraft. I can get you a better life there.”

“Wow.” Xelqua appears not to know how to react to this unexpected offer. “What do you get in return?”

“Nothing.”

Xelqua rolls his eyes. “SURE.”

“No, really,” Wels insists. “I want to help you, all of you. I’m not asking for anything in return. I just want you guys to have a better life.”

Xelqua regards Wels with a half-suspicious look. “Why me, of all the helsmits?”

“I want to save all of you at some point. You seem like a good place to start.”

The helsmit doesn’t appear to have a response to this.

“Please, Xelqua,” says Wels softly. “Give me a chance.”

Xelqua is silent for a while as he processes this in his head. Finally, he says, “Okay. I won’t turn down a chance to go to Hermitcraft.”

Wels can’t help an excited smile. “Great! You won’t regret it.”

When Xelqua hops down from the “tree”, Wels is surprised to discover that the helsmit is only just half his height. The height of a child, despite looking almost exactly like Grian.

“Okay, come this way,” he says.

He leads Xelqua back down the bridge and over to the portal. “Will you be able to come through?” he asks.

“I dunno, you’re the brainiac hermit,” Xelqua responds. “Will I die if I go through?”

“Not inherently, but…”

Xelqua shrugs. “Whatever. Death is better than another day in Helscraft anyway. YOLO.”

Wels blinks as Xelqua steps through the portal. Did he just say… YOLO?!

He hurriedly follows Xelqua. As soon as he steps foot in his house on the other side, however, he sees Xelqua frozen on the platform. When he steps forward, he sees why.

One of his friends is standing at the bottom of the staircase, staring at him in shock and horror.

Wels blinks, his heart starting to pound. “...J-Jevin. Hi. You’re in my house.”

“Of course I’m in your dang house, Wels!” snaps Jevin. “You haven’t been seen on the server for WEEKS! And now you come out of a demonic nether portal with a DEMON?!”

Wels quickly pushes Xelqua behind him. “He’s not a demon, Jev. His name is Xelqua. He’s Grian’s helsmit.”

Jevin’s eyes widen and he steps back.

Wels sees his friend’s muscles bunching. “Jev, no…!”

Jevin takes another step back.

“JEV.”

“Somehow a demon would have been BETTER!” yells Jevin, before taking off running.

Wels sprints after him. He’s a lot faster than Jevin so he’s able to tackle his friend to the ground at the top of the stairs.

“Jev, wait!” Wels grunts, trying to hold his squirming friend down. “Hear me out!”

“Are you INSANE?!” Jevin shrieks back. “WHY would you bring a helsmit here?!”

As Wels is about to respond, a dry voice comes from behind them. “Now I know why you said you wanted to avoid this guy, Wels.”

Wels twists his head upwards to find Xelqua standing over them, arms folded. “I didn’t say-.”

“The hell’s that supposed to mean?” demands Jevin, disentangling himself from Wels.

The hint of a smirk is visible on Xelqua’s face. “He said you were pretty close-minded and quick to jump to conclusions.”

“I never said-!”

Wels is cut off as Jevin jumps to his feet and jabs his finger at Xelqua. “You shut your mouth. You’re not even supposed to be here!”

“I’m not the one judging someone I just met based on their nature of birth, Slime Face,” retorts Xelqua.

“If you call me that again, I’m gonna ram my fist in your eye,” Jevin growls.

Xelqua lifts his chin challengingly. “Go for it. I’m not afraid to fight an old man.”

As Jevin moves suddenly, Wels gets between them and holds his friend back. “Okay, STOP it! Both of you! Jev, be the bigger person here.”

“I AM the bigger person!” Jevin snaps back. “Literally!”

“Wow, a short joke,” Xelqua says expressionlessly. “Original. You proud of that one, Slime Face? You feel funny? Clever?”

Jevin’s hands curl into fists. “Wels, you better explain yourself before I punt this obnoxious kid straight into the goddamn sun.”

“Your stupid slimey foot would go right through me,” Xelqua responds immediately.

“Right, that’s it.”

Wels has to strain against Jevin to stop his friend from physically attacking Xelqua. “JEVIN. STOP.”

“Explain yourself, then!”

Wels quickly draws Jevin aside into the next room. “Look.” He takes a deep breath. “I spent months befriending my helsmit, learning about how he dreamt of freeing his siblings from their torturous existence, only for him to die before even being able to start on his dream. Helsmits aren’t inherently evil, Jev. Helsknight grew as a person right in front of me. With the right environment and people surrounding them, they can become good.”

He pauses, his gaze dropping to the floor. “Even if I can only change one helsmit’s life for the better then maybe Helsknight’s death didn’t have to be meaningless.”

Jevin gazes back at him, an odd expression on his face.

“Just…” Wels sighs quietly. “Please don’t tell Xisuma until I’m ready. If he finds out about this before Xelqua makes any noticeable improvements, he’ll have him thrown back to Helscraft and all this will be for nothing. Helsknight’s dream can’t die like that. I can’t… I can’t lose him all over again.”

A short pause follows his words.

Finally, Jevin unfolds his arms and says, “Okay. How can I help?”

“By not treating me like a stupid kid,” comes Xelqua’s voice.

Jevin turns to find the helsmit poking his head through the doorway. “Wasn’t talking to you, Parrot Boy.”

“I’m not a parrot,” Xelqua says. “I’m a dragon.”

“Sure.”

Scowling, Xelqua extends his jet black and magenta wings. “My wings are dragon wings.”

“Whatever you say, Parrot Boy.”

Xelqua glares at him and doesn’t respond.

Jevin raises an eyebrow. “Nicknames hurt, huh?”

“Jev,” sighs Wels. “You’re the adult here.”

“Why AM I the adult here?” Jevin demands. “If he’s Grian’s helsmit, why is he still a kid?”

Xelqua stomps his foot. “I’m not a kid!”

Ignoring him, Wels replies, “Helsmits are only born once a person becomes a hermit. Grian’s only been a hermit for a few years, so Xelqua hasn’t had a chance to grow up yet.”

“Hey, I’m PERFECTLY grown up!” snaps Xelqua. “I already know how to kill things without spilling much blood and how to steal stuff from a chest from right under someone’s nose.”

Wels and Jevin exchange a slightly concerned look.

“But you never had a normal childhood?” asks Jevin.

“I’M NOT A CHILD!” yells Xelqua angrily.

Jevin persists: “Have you ever even seen grass?”

Xelqua scowls. “...what’s grass?”

“Okay…” Jevin pauses for a moment. “Come up this way.”

As he goes to the door, Wels starts to speak: “Jev-.”

“I’ll be careful,” says Jevin reassuringly. “Come on, kid.”

Clearly deciding not to argue anymore, Xelqua follows Jevin out of the house. As soon as he gets outside, he glances up and immediately jumps almost a foot in the air. “What is that?!”

Jevin quickly identifies where he’s looking. “The sun.”

“That’s not the sun,” scoffs Xelqua.

“It is.”

Xelqua shields his eyes from the sunlight and squints up at the sky. “But it’s not hurting my skin.”

“It will if you stay out in it too long.” Jevin pauses. “Why, what’s your sun like?”

“Volatile,” Xelqua responds. “If it’s in a bad mood, it’ll set you on fire as soon as you step out in it. Which is almost every day.”

Jevin blinks. “Your sun is sentient?”

“Trust me, that’s not the weirdest thing that’s sentient in Helscraft.”

“Do I wanna ask?”

“Nope.” Xelqua lowers his hand. “So what’s this grass thing you mentioned?”

Jevin gestures at the ground. “What you’re standing on.”

“Really? This is grass?” Xelqua hops up and down on it a few times. “I thought it’d be a bit more interesting.”

“Lie down on it.”

Xelqua shoots him a suspicious look. “Why?”

“Just do it.”

After a moment, Xelqua lies down flat on the grass. “Okay, now what?”

“Look up at the sky,” Jevin responds. “See those clouds?”

Xelqua frowns up at the sky. “The grey things?”

“Yeah. Do you have clouds?”

“Not like those. Ours are spikey and red and rain lava.”

“Oh jeez…” Jevin shivers. “Well, these ones won’t hurt you. Just watch them for a while.”

“Okay…”

The two fall silent. Jevin watches the clouds himself for a while, before turning back to Xelqua, whose expression is almost completely blank. “So?”

“Weirdly, this is nice,” admits Xelqua. “It’s a bizarre concept to not be afraid of every single thing around me.” As if on cue, a few raindrops start to fall from the sky. Xelqua hops up as the rain gets heavier and dives between Jevin’s feet, clutching Jevin’s leg tightly. “WHAT IS THIS?!” he shrieks.

“It’s just rain!” Jevin reassures him, gently stroking his wings. “Don’t worry, it’s just rain. Just water. It won’t hurt you.”

After a moment, Xelqua sticks out his hand and lets some raindrops fall on it. When it doesn’t hurt him, he carefully emerges from his shelter and hovers just above the ground, closing his eyes against the rain falling on his face. A smile appears on his face and he shoots upwards, his beating wings scattering raindrops everywhere.

Shielding his eyes from the rain, Jevin laughs as he watches Xelqua shoot up through the clouds and dive back down several times. It’s like watching a foal discover how to run for the first time.

“How’s it going out here?” asks Wels, emerging from the building. Immediately, he lifts his arms to shield his head from the rain. “Oh! It doesn’t rain often on this server.”

Jevin continues to gaze up at Xelqua far above him. “...Wels?”

“Yeah?”

“This kid really needs a better life.”

Wels nods. “He does. They all do. This is what Helsknight wanted: for the helsmits to have the same opportunities as us. The same expansive resource-rich world to explore, not the barren hellscape they’re forced to live in year after year. To be able to live and grow without worrying about being robbed or hurt or attacked or murdered by the world and people around them. They have so much potential that’s not being realised because they’re stuck in literal hell. I won’t rest until they’re all as free as Helsknight almost was.”

After a brief pause, he glances over at Jevin and finds his friend smiling at him. He chuckles. “What’s that look for?”

“I’ve never seen you this passionate before,” says Jevin softly. “It’s nice.”

“It IS nice,” Wels agrees. “I haven’t had a cause like this to fight for in a long time.”

Jevin pats his friend on the shoulder. “If you ever need help with Xelqua, lemme know.”

Wels glances at him in surprise. “You want to help with Xelqua?”

“Yeah, I really do.”

“Why?”

As Jevin starts to respond, Xelqua suddenly lands on the ground in front of them, soaking wet. “What are you two nattering about?” he demands. “Come fly up here with me!”

“We can’t fly when it’s raining this heavily, Xelqua,” responds Wels. “It’s too wet for our elytras to work properly.”

“Oh.” Xelqua rolls his eyes. “You guys are lame.”

Wels raises an eyebrow back. “Mhm.”

As Xelqua takes off again, Jevin says, “To answer your question Wels, I want to help because I can tell Xelqua has the potential to be a good kid. He’s got some problems I wanna help iron out.”

“Wow, I…” Wels smiles gratefully. “I’d love the help. Thank you.”

At that moment, Xelqua reappears through the rain and holds out a shovel to the two. “I stole this from a chest in that guy’s house over there,” he says proudly. “He didn’t see me.”

“That’d be Beef’s house,” Wels sighs.

As Wels reaches for the shovel, Xelqua sharply steps back, hugging the shovel protectively.

Wels shakes his head. “You don’t have to steal things here, Xelqua. We’ll help you get your own stuff.”

“Oh…” Xelqua reluctantly relinquishes his prize to Wels.

“Thank you,” says Wels gently. “Do you want your own shovel?”

After a moment, Xelqua nods.

Wels smiles, feeling strong paternal instincts towards the kid.

“Okay, let’s get you a shovel.”

#hermitcraft #welsknight #helsmits #hels hermits #ijevin #vaunna’s requests

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therealvalkyrie · 4 years

Text

Painter’s Hands and Guatemalan Coffee: Part 5

very pretty, very beautiful

Pairing/setting: Levi Ackerman x Female!Reader, modern!college!AU

Summary: When you catch your idiot boyfriend cheating, your grumpy roommate is there to pick up the pieces and watch your back as you toe a carefully drawn line in the metaphorical sand.

Word Count: 3.6k

Warnings: intoxication, swearing, feelings, nightmare, fluff, mentions of a deadly car accident

AN: WHOAH OKAY. So I’ve been thinking about the last half of this chapter every second of every minute for the last two days. It has haunted my dreams, y’all. Thanks to that, you get this before the weekend! Yay! Special thanks to @ghostlightprincess, @anlian-aishang, @cant-spell-slay-without-lay, and @horseanon--simpforall for helping me edit and giving me many encouragements and compliments which, quite frankly, made my head the size of Jupiter. I love you all dearly. As always, let me know what you think in my comments/DMs/askbox!! Don’t be a stranger!! And be kind to yourself and others<3 ~valkyrie

—

(read chapter 4 here)

“I think you’re very pretty.”

I think you’re very pretty?

Fuck. Shit.

“I-I-I mean,” Levi feels his throat tighten and cheeks set ablaze, “You’re very, uh, very beautiful.” He says it because it’s true, and the truth is what Levi relies on when his brain is short-circuiting. You’re more than pretty, more than something as trivial as very pretty, you’re gorgeous and smart and funny and it makes his palms sweat. Recently, you’ve been everywhere: in his bed, in his arms, in the periphery of his life even outside of the apartment. It’s overwhelming, this is overwhelming, how his hands are on you and how you’re looking up at him with insecure, anticipatory eyes. They’re glassy and red-rimmed, pupils blown to saucers.

Oh. That’s right, she’s high.

Levi lets his hand drop from the top of your head. He tries to move his other hand away from your cheek, but you grasp his wrist to keep it there. He can feel his own pulse fluttering under your fingertips.

“Very beautiful?” It’s soft, hopeful.

He forces himself not to retract the statement (because it’s true) out of self-preservation.

“Very beautiful, kid.” He can say it without stuttering this time. It’s important that you believe him, and it’s equally important that this is as far as it goes.

You close your eyes against the pet name and turn your face into his palm for a split second, press a swift kiss to it and then drop your hand to your lap. His heart stutters. He drops his hand, too.

“Thank you,” the words fall past your lips, careful and distant, as he takes a step back.

He needs some space. To get his head on straight, to scream into a pillow, to talk some sense into himself. Can’t risk this, not with you, not with you.

“Your, um, your pajamas,” he points to the end of the bed where they’re sitting in a neat pile, then turns tail and strides out of your room, shutting the door behind him.

In his room, his jelly legs finally give out and he flops onto his bed.

Fucking hell.

“Do you think I’m pretty?”

What kind of question is that? Do you not think you’re pretty? Do you care if he, specifically, thinks you’re pretty, or was it intended more generally? Very pretty, very beautiful. What does that even mean?

Levi may not be eloquent in the least, may not know how to confess that you make his every breath burn in his chest, but he does know how to paint. He stands up, wiping sweaty palms on his flannel pants and examining the painting on his easel. His mom stares back, her eyes sparkling, her hair tumbling over one shoulder in ebony waves. It had taken him the last few days to get the curls just right, and when he added the last highlights of shine, it’d finally felt complete.

“Sorry, mama,” he murmurs as he lifts her to set her against the wall under the window.

A new canvas procured from his closet finds its place on the easel. He sifts through his supply drawers for a moment, setting paints and brushes and charcoal neatly on his desk.

He takes a deep breath, situates himself in his wheelie chair, and leans forward to start sketching.

—

It’s 5 AM when you start screaming in a long, shuddering cry, causing Levi to jolt up in his seat, paintbrush poised over your left temple. It breaks off into sobs that make his gut twist and hands clench. A long moment, then you’re letting out another keening wail and Levi is out of his seat. Paint splatters from the brush where he drops it on his desk and his chair rolls back as he runs, ripping doors open and narrowly avoiding furniture in the dark.

You’re sprawled out, thrashing on the bed, sheets tangled with your legs. Levi sits on the edge of your bed, brows pinched in worry, and reaches for your shoulders. This is okay — he can touch you when you ask for his help. When you whimper and reach for him in your sleep, he can pull you close and smooth a hand across the planes of your back. It’s when you’re looking at him, all trusting and expectant for something, that he’s unsure.

He says your name, low and urgent, once, twice, before your eyes open mid-sob. They’re wide and terrified, your jaw tight, muscles clenched. “It’s me, kid, it’s just me,” he intones, “It was just a dream, you’re safe, it’s just me.”

Your heaving chest slows for a second, hitches somewhere in your sternum, and then you’re launching yourself forward and into him. He catches you there, steady against his chest.

“Breathe.” He sets an example with his own deep breaths.

It’s a long minute before he feels you relax at all, before he feels you sigh against his neck. Your arms are tight around his middle and you must be stronger than you look because after a while it starts to pinch. He doesn’t mind, though, just traces patterns on your back and stares at the pale wall.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

He feels you shake your head.

“Do you want to go back to sleep?”

You hesitate before you whisper, “Only if you stay.”

Levi thinks about the wet paintbrush currently drying to his desk. He thinks about the mess of clothes on your floor. He thinks of the half-finished painting of you in his room. “Okay. I’ll stay.”

You pull back, and he gets a look at your face in the near-dark. Your eyes are still acutely haunted, but they’ve regained awareness. He lets you take a moment to wipe at your cheeks as he reaches to gently disentangle the sheets and spread them more carefully over your legs.

He looks up at you again to catch your sad eyes with his. Your head is tilted quizzically, knowingly, sympathetically all at once as though he were the one who just woke up screaming. It makes him itch.

“What’s that look for?” he grumbles, toeing his slippers off and tucking them under your bed.

“Nothing,” you hum. “Come here, please.”

He blinks at you for a second. That’s my line. But he goes, crawling into bed with you and slipping under the covers. He lets you tug his arm gently so that he’s on your chest. He gets comfortable there, one arm thrown over your waist and head rested over your heart. Your own arms find a home cautiously around him. You exhale with the grounding pressure of his body on yours and let your mind sink into calm release.

—

The knock on your door breaks your attention from your laptop. You sigh, finish typing your sentence, and push your blue light glasses up your nose before standing up to answer it.

You’re not expecting anyone, but maybe Levi is. He’s been holed up in his room all morning, Chopin drifting lazily under his door, probably studying. Like you’ve been trying to. The second series of knocks on your door makes you jog the last few steps to pull it open.

“Hi—” the greeting dies in your throat when you see who’s standing there.

“Hi,” Annie says. She’s standing, nonchalant as ever, in her winter parka and leggings, holding two to-go cups and a pastry bag.

“What?” It’s a breathless question, genuinely confused. It doesn’t harbor the animosity you would expect — you’re not sure you can feel anything other than queasy right now.

“I got your voicemail.”

You blink in confusion. She rolls her eyes and thrusts the to-go cups at you with a brief “hold these” before reaching into her pocket for her phone. You just stare at her while she taps and scrolls for a minute. She looks the same as before you stopped speaking: blonde hair tucked into a bun at the back of her head and hoodie peeking out of the collar of her jacket. Maybe a little more tired, though Annie always seemed to be tired.

She holds up her phone for you to hear as a voicemail starts playing and, to your further shock, your own tinny voice spills out. It sounds like you’re crying, and slightly muffled.

“Annie, hi, um, I know it’s late but I couldn’t think of anyone else to call, I just,” sniffle, “I know we’re not talking and I’m still mad at you, like REALLY MAD, okay? But I couldn’t think of who else to call and long story short I think I’m in love with Levi and he might’ve just rejected me but I just couldn’t tell—”

“Okay, okay, I get it,” you cut in across your own voice, stepping into the hall with her and toeing the door almost shut behind you. She stops the voicemail. “But why are you here?” You know why she’s here — Annie never backs down from anything, and you had started the conversation, even if you’d been drunk and high and half asleep and you don’t really remember doing it.

“You called, here I am. That’s what best friends do.” Her tone is even.

“Not best friends who fuck their best friends’ boyfriends,” you snap, anger finally bursting from your stomach and into your throat.

She closes her eyes impatiently, sighs, then looks at you again not quite pleadingly.

“Look, if you want me to leave, I’ll leave. But I’m here now and there’s more to the story that you aren’t aware of.”

“What else could there possibly be?”

“Let’s go for a walk and I’ll tell you,” she offers, then holds up the pastry bag. “I brought coffee and donuts. They’re jelly.”

Jelly donuts are your favorite.

You look down at the cups in your hand. You look back at her steady blue gaze. More to the story.

“Fine.” You turn and kick the door open a little too harshly. “Just let me get dressed.”

She follows you in, even though you don’t extend an invitation, and closes the door softly. You put the cups down on the coffee table and watch her sit in her usual spot on the couch to wait for you out of the corner of your eye. You scowl but say nothing.

It only takes you a minute to shuck off to pajamas and pull on jeans, a sweatshirt, and boots. You don’t bother with a bra.

You knock lightly on Levi’s door and call through, “I’m going for a walk, so make sure to lock up if you leave. I have my keys.” You jingle them as evidence and he grunts in acknowledgment. “Let’s go,” you turn and address Annie, who stands.

The walk down your street to the river is short and habitual, your feet carrying you while your mind races. You can feel the anger and hurt, visceral and stabbing, in your chest. But there’s also something tender there, too, something that acknowledges how you missed your best friend. Something that screams at you to tackle her to the ground and feel her stoic comfort. Instead, you shove your hands deeper into the pockets of Eren’s jacket and kick a pebble, sending it skidding down the sidewalk.

The pair of you reach the walking bridge over the river and pause at the railing. The sky is overcast, threatening a snowstorm. A car beeps downtown, reaching you distantly. Annie hands you a coffee and a donut. You lean against the railing and avoid her gaze.

“So. You wanted to talk. Talk.” You bite into the donut.

She sighs through her nose. “I know what you saw. We… we did kiss, but we didn’t do anything else. We never had sex.”

“Hmm.” A sip of coffee.

“I know you have no reason to believe me, but it’s the truth. I’m guessing you didn’t exactly listen to Reiner when you broke up with him?”

“I didn’t have time for his bullshit excuses.”

She breaks off a bit of her donut and stares at it contemplatively for a moment, “I know you don’t owe either of us anything, and this isn’t meant as an excuse, but will you listen to why, at least?”

You press your lips together, sneak a look into her devastatingly blue eyes, and nod. What harm can it do? And you have to admit there’s a large part of you that’s been wondering at the why, even if you’ve refused to hear it.

“Okay. Tell me why.”

She takes a deep breath and leans her elbows on the railing before starting to speak, low and pensive.

“I’ve known Reiner and Bertholdt a long time, since we were kids. We’ve always been this… this odd group. You wouldn’t think we were close if you didn’t know us. But it wasn’t always just us.” She pauses, looking distant. “Do you know Porco Galliard?”

Galliard… “He’s a sophomore on the lacrosse team, right?”

“Yeah. Do you know what happened to his brother?”

“He has a brother?”

“Had. Marcel. He was a year older than us but somehow ended up in our little group. And a couple of years ago, senior year of high school, we were all in a car accident. He was home on winter break and we’d all had a little too much to drink, and we convinced him to take us to Denny’s for midnight milkshakes. And, well, there was a winter storm coming in and it’d been freezing rain that week, and we crashed. Marcel died. It was… I hadn’t…” She pauses, tilting her head back to the sky, blinking away tears. “It was horrible.”

Your eyes have gone wide, cast downriver. You don’t know what you’d expected when you walked down here, but it certainly wasn’t this. It wasn’t Annie, only rivaled in her stoicism by Levi, choking back tears and wiping snot from her nose.

“Hey,” you start, voice gentler than it’s been all day. “You don’t have to—”

“No, no, I want to, just... give me a second,” she interjects, wringing out a hand. She takes a deep, purposeful breath.

“Okay,” you whisper, looking back out across the water.

“It, uh, it hit us all really hard, brought us really close together. That’s why we all ended up at school here, actually. It kinda made us realize that, like, time is limited, you know? We don’t have forever. And Bertl, he…” she smiles, watery and reminiscent. “When he asked me out, it felt like a long time coming. It was just about perfect. He felt safe and like home, and… well, you know how in love we were. But I could see that it alienated Rei, at least a bit. He tried not to show it, but I could tell he felt like a third wheel. He was already drifting away from us, still struggling with all this guilt.”

Your breath catches in your throat. That’s a familiar feeling. Guilt. And yet, you’d never noticed it in Reiner, apparently never got close enough to shine a flashlight into his darkest shadows. He’d always seemed so… sunshiney. You clearly hadn’t given him enough credit to dislodge the aura of jock frat boy he projects so brightly.

Soft dough squishes under your fingertips where you’ve resorted to playing with your food instead of eating it as Annie continues.

“And then he met you and fell in love so fast. I was so relieved, I mean, you and I were roommates and it was just perfect, right?” You look at her and see a flicker of hopefulness still there. “I thought maybe you two getting together would bring him back to us, that maybe we’d be alright after all. And at first, it did. But then you moved off campus for sophomore year and he started drifting away again, though he was at least anchored to you, this time. It scared me, it really did.”

She kicks the bottom of the railing lazily, as if to expend the sadness there rather than in her words. The first fat flakes of snow drift down around you. One dances away on your exhale.

“He’s so withdrawn, sometimes, in his own head, and I never know how to reach him there. I didn’t know if he had told you about Marcel, or anything, so I couldn’t go through you. I don’t… I didn’t know what to do, so I just... let it fester. That night, when we kissed, I hadn’t seen him physically for a month. It hurt.”

She looks at you imploringly, like the weight of everything she’s saying lies on deep hurt. You can relate to feeling as though there’s nothing but hurt and guilt and drifting.

“So I figured out where he was from his Snapchat story, abandoned my group project, and went over there to see him. I didn’t know what I’d say or do when I got there, just that I had to get him back, somehow. He was already plastered, you know how he gets, and he wasn’t listening to me, so I just… kissed him. I don’t know what I was thinking, I didn’t know you were there, I didn’t even know you saw until he called me the next day after you broke up with him to chew me out.

“So, long story short,” her voice breaks on a mournful, almost hysterical laugh, “I fucked up the three most important relationships to me in one night because I couldn’t use my words.” She wipes at wet cheeks, not looking at you. “So, um. Yeah, that’s the why, I guess. I don’t expect you to forgive me, or him, but I just… I needed you to know. It wasn’t like, this elaborate affair.”

You aren’t sure how to right your brain from the way it’s tilted off kilter. It’s so much, so different from what you’d built up in your head. There’s no conspiracy, no grand intention to break you.

Even with all this new information, what stupidly slips out first is, “Did he kiss you back?” You blanch, turn to her with wide eyes, “Sorry, that’s not exactly im—”

“No, it’s fine,” she meets your eyes. “He did kiss me back.”

“Oh. Okay, um…” you trail off, bite your lip. You don’t know what exactly to say. Your skin is tight with the urge to forgive her immediately and wholly, but logic holds you back. Now that you know the truth, you need time to heal and get some perspective. You straighten up from where you’d been slouching against the railing. “Okay. You’ve been honest, so I will be, too.”

She stands up fully as well, facing you with one hand on the railing.

“I don’t know how I feel right now,” you start. “I think I need some time and perspective. But, I… I can see now where I went wrong, too. I assumed the worst, didn’t let any communication happen.” You swallow down the lump in your throat threatening to choke your voice. “And, I wasn’t there for Rei like I should have been. I had no idea — no idea! — what he was going through.”

“Well, he didn’t exactly tell you—”

“And why is that?” Your voice breaks, squeaks with the question. “Did he feel like he couldn’t confide in me? Did I make it too much about me and my trauma? I wasn’t exactly shy about telling him my shit.” You take a long draw of coffee. “Anyway. I should probably talk to him, shouldn’t I?”

She nods. “He’d like that.”

You’re both quiet for a moment, watching the sparse snow flurry around you. Annie finally starts eating her donut.

“I’ve missed you,” you confess into the storm. “A lot.”

“I missed you, too.”

Your chest aches with both the cold air and the conflicting feelings of relief and regret.

“Why, uh… why didn’t you tell me all that stuff about Marcel?”

She leans on the railing again, takes a sip of coffee before answering. “I was still working through it. Still am, rather. I didn’t know how to bring it up, or that it was relevant.”

You hum, nodding. “I get that.”

There’s another silence, but it feels lighter, less charged. There are still questions bouncing around your mind, but you decide it’s better to process through them on your own rather than blurting out something stupid. Perspective.

“So,” she shoots you a look under blonde eyelashes, “what’s this about you being in love with Levi?”

“Aw, shit,” you laugh, leaning your elbows back on the railing and giving her an imploring look. “It really snuck up on me.”

“Is that so? Can’t say I’m shocked.” Her tone is dry, a little amused around the last bite of jelly donut. She wipes her fingers on her leggings and faces you. “And you think he rejected you.”

“Well, I…” you cringe, thinking back to last night. “He called me very beautiful.”

“Doesn’t sound like a rejection.”

“It was the way he said it! Like it physically hurt him to admit, and then he just ran out of the room,” you whine, scrubbing a hand down your face.

“I think that’s just his emotional constipation.”

You look at her sharply, mouth agape, to catch her eyes dancing and the corner of her lip curling upward slightly. “Annie!”

“What? I’m right.” She finishes off her coffee, tilting back the cup to catch the last dregs of it. “He likes you, or he’s an idiot if he doesn’t.”

You narrow your eyes in doubt, mirroring her half-smile. “Hmm. We’ll see.”

“Yes,” she promises, crumpling up the pastry bag in her fist and stuffing it in her pocket. “We will.”

—

(read part 6 here)

#levi ackerman x reader #levi x reader #aot fanfic #attack on titan fanfic #snk fanfic #shingeki no kyojin fanfic #female!reader #levi ackerman #annie leonhart #swearing #intoxication #painter's hands and guatemalan coffee #valkyrie writes

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