#one is like....a skincare set? which I very much have on lock

[docholligay]

THANK YOU ALL I AM NOT GOING TO BE MODEST HERE I WORKED VERY HARD

2. I have no idea! It was always taught at 6 am which doesn't work with me having beeb in the mornings, so I never took it.

3. Maybe ahahah. It really is so stupid and I cannot believe that it is both 300 United States Dollars and that I want it so badly. It's too stupid to buy, but stupid enough to sweat. I'LL FOR SURE TELL YOU ALL HOW FUCKING DUMB I AM IF I WIN IT THOUGH.

[rinkkuma]

୨୧ BLUE LOCK BOYS AS BFS pt. 2

ft. chigiri hyoma, reo mikage, & sae itoshi

tags. a bit of cussing, the use of “blackmail” in reo's part is used jokingly (no toxic relationships here!!), reader implied to have longish hair in chigiri's, gn!reader, all fluff ! / author's note. thank you sm for the support on the first part!!

CHIGIRI HYOMA

loves doing his haircare routine on you, and if you're too tired, he'll be a sweetie and do it for you! as much as he loves skincare routines, but his hair is his top priority.

tests new hairstyles on you and you pull every one of them off, but when he tries them on himself, he's upset about how they don't look as good on him as they did on you.

plays those random dress up games online, (gacha life) and makes you and him.

has disney movie night marathons with you! his favorites are definitely tangled, (totally not because he just wonders how she takes care of that much hair) frozen, the little mermaid, and lilo and stitch. sets up the couch with lots of pillows, blankets, and snacks to make sure you're comfortable! you end up not using half of them and just use him as a pillow the whole time.

wakes you up early (which you don't mind) on sundays so you guys can go to the local farmer's market. people running the stands compliment you two for being such a cute couple! chigiri buys lots of fruit while he's here, (he believes farmer's market fruit is the best, he's right) especially strawberries. he also likes going to strawberry fields with you to pick strawberries during the sunset.

would love to adopt a cat with you! (canon that his favorite animal is cats! sorry if you don't like cats) has a whole list of names planned in his notes app and a bunch of toys he plans to buy for the cat.

REO MIKAGE

a little cliché, but look at anything for a little longer than one second and he buys it for you. i mean, what else is he supposed to do with all of his money? if you could fill a room with all of the things he's brought you just because you looked at it, you would need multiple rooms.

his whole ‘hidden’ photos folder is full of silly photos he has of you just for a little laugh every once in a while. (totally not to use as blackmail and to send them out of the blue to you) truthfully though, he doesn't think you have a single bad photo.

has a dedicated section in his closet full of clothes for you whenever you stay over at his house mansion. (bro probably has a walk-in closet that could be a size of a small bedroom)

two words, staring problem. just having a conversation with him, and his eyes are burning into your face, carefully listening to every word as if you're giving a very important speech. (which you are in his mind) you could be talking to a friend across the room, and he will be staring and pouting, waiting for you to hurry and come back to him. point is, man is staring at you 24/7.

although you two are dating, still stalks you on social media. (shamelessly) deadass one day he got up to use the bathroom and he left his phone on the bed, and you decided to peak at his phone, (not trying to be noisy, just curious) and saw that he was looking at the instagram highlight you had that was photos of you. you never let him live it down and still tease him relentlessly to this day.

holds your hand anywhere, anytime. while walking, sitting on the couch and chatting, while you guys sleep, literally anything. the warmth of your hand brings him comfort and makes him feel warm and fuzzy inside.

ITOSHI SAE

has a secret instagram account dedicated to you. posts all of his photos of you and the captions are just him ranting about how much he loves you. he blocks you to make sure you never find it because he's a little embarrassed. maybe he'll tell you about it one day though.

loves baking! his favorite thing to bake is muffins and bread, and let's you be the taste tester! request something for him to bake, and he makes enough to enjoy the rest of the month! if he ever needs to leave the house early for practice or meetings, you always wake up to a muffin, freshly cut fruit, and a note on the kitchen counter neatly set for you. on days he doesn't need to leave the house early, you wake up with breakfast in bed!

puts up with you and your shenanigans. hungry and too lazy to get up? he already prepared your favorite 10 minutes earlier. can't sleep? cages you into his arms and strokes your hair until you fall asleep. bag too heavy? he was already carrying it. you're the only person he'll put up with.

although the doesn't quite know how to express his emotions with words, definitely does with his actions. to physical touch, gift giving, and just spending time with you, sae doesn't let his inability of expressing feelings with words stop him from letting you know how much he loves you.

needs you to give him a kiss before you or him leaves the house for anything. these kisses last a little longer depending how long he'll be gone. if he's leaving for a trip overseas, he kisses you until you're breathless and pulls away every few seconds to murmur an ‘i love you’.

loves going on walks while it's raining with you. brings an umbrella and makes sure you're bundled up, you can't get sick on his watch!

[yearofthemagicaltorment]

Stem Cells for your Skin Cells

These anti-aging heroes are a must-have ingredient you need to add to your skincare routine. Stem Cells target and repair damage, diminish the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles, lock in moisture, and activate collagen production. There are several products sold that include Stem Cells, so give it a try for yourself. Here are some of my personal favorites.  

Medicube Age-R Booster Gel Serum - This gel product is very inexpensive, especially in comparison to the rest out there. It is used with micro-current products like Foreo Bear, NuFace, or in my case TheraFace. This product contains Jasmine Leaf extract and every time I use it people comment on how much my skin is glowing. 

Orpheus Resurrection Bio-Luminous Dewy Essence - This is a serum mist that hydrates and sets makeup with a dewy glow. It contains the Orpheus Flower Cell Peptide Complex which includes Bengal Flower and Nicotiana Flower Stem Cells. Since it is a dual-purpose product I have used it both ways and it works beautifully.

Franz Skincare - Stem Cell Culture Medium Ampoule - This can be used before a mask or on its own. I generally use it prior to a mask. After using this product, my skin feels plump, hydrated, and refreshed. There is really nothing like it out there. 

Franz Skincare - Daily Repair Stem Cell Culture Medium Toner - This stuff is seriously hydrating. I use it twice daily. One or two drops and your skin feels silky smooth. I love how bright it makes my skin look and it does appear to be making my botox last longer (or improving lines overall hard to tell with botox). 

[jakesimfromstatefarm]

not jealous | jake sim

summary: jake sim is not a jealous person. at least that's what he tells himself. so why does he find himself going through your phone when a certain "bluejay park" decides to text you?

pairing: jake sim x y/n [ft. mentions of jay park]

genre: angst, fluff 

warnings: angst, cursing (very minimal), one slightly suggestive sentence, jake being cute, some more angst lol, slightly cheesy bc jake’s just too cute ugh

wc: 3.8k

a/n: ok i loved writing this, which is why i went on to almost 4k words LOL oops. but anyways, i love jake a little too much and this type of scenario has been running around in my head for a while now so i decided to put it into words. also i may have created this blog just so i could post this somewhere LMAO anyways yeah this was my first fic so hope you guys enjoyyyy <3

Jake Sim is not a jealous person.

At least that's what he tells himself. To be fair, in his past relationships, he never showed any jealously. Then again, he doesn't know if he can call those relationships, "relationships". Does a fifth grade relationship with a girl who he was once dared to kiss during a game of Truth or Dare in the basement of a classmate's house during their 11th birthday party count? He doesn't remember being jealous when the same girl was later dared to kiss his classmate, Sunghoon. (Funny enough, that's how the two boys came to be best friends 'til this day, but that's a story for another time.) 

But really, Jake doesn't think jealously is one of his traits, even if he's now almost 20 years old without any experience with love other than his current relationship with you and that short-lived romance in the fifth grade. (What was her name again? Jake would have to ask Sunghoon later.)

So he doesn't know what clicked in that brain of his that lead him to this current situation he was in. He doesn't know why he felt a little spark of anger in him when your phone, which you left right next to him on the couch while you went to take a shower, kept buzzing with texts from "bluejay park". He doesn't know why he couldn't kept his eyes distracted from the messages, although your phone was constantly lighting up because whatever it was Jay had to say to you, he would not shut up about it. He doesn't know why he questioned what your relationship with Jay was for a split second.

In fact, you're close with all of Jake's friends. That's one of his favorite things about you, you get along so well with all his friends you might as well replace Jake himself in the friend group. So he doesn't know what tells him to take a little glance at your phone—at the messages.

But he finds himself doing it anyways.

Hearing that the water in the shower was still running (you were always the type to take long showers), he quickly grabs your phone and scrolls through the lock screen just to find that he couldn't even read the messages since you had your notifications set so no one could read them unless the phone was unlocked (darn you and your settings!) Thankfully, Jake knew your passcode––and you knew his too––or he thought he did. Until the iPhone vibrated, telling him the passcode was wrong.

He must've entered it too fast or something. So he tries again.

And again.

And again.

Until the iPhone switches its screen to say: "iPhone is disabled. Try again in 5 minutes."

There's no way. You never change your password. And even if you did, you would tell him—you two even had each other's fingerprints saved into each other's phones in the past (you know, before the world decided that Apple's home button was too lame and decided to just completely get rid of it). If there was an option to save multiple faces for Face ID, you two would be that couple that saved each others faces in your own phones.

That being said, Jake sat there, your phone in hand, frozen. Why was your phone locked? Why was Jay texting you 10 texts per second? Why did he feel guilty about this entire situation?

He hears the shower switch off and in that moment, he swears he feels his heart beat just a little faster. He tells himself there's no way you'll be out before the 5 minutes are up. You followed a really meticulous skincare routine (one that Jake memorized by now) that took an extra 15 minutes of your time after each shower.

"Hey Jake?" Your voice calls out from the tiny bathroom door crack that you left open before you hopped in the shower, "Is my phone out there? Do you mind bringing it to me?"

Fuck.

Jake shifts on the couch. Taps his foot on the ground. Returns your phone to its original spot. Clears his throat.

"Don't you want to get dressed first?" he calls back, quite timidly.

He can hear you stop moving around in the bathroom. Probably telling yourself what an odd response that was. To be fair, it was an odd question, considering the fact that you two have been together for so long, it’s not like he hasn’t seen you undressed before...intentionally or not. 

Next thing he knows, the steam is rolling out of the bathroom door and you're stepping out in your towel, eyebrows raised.

"If you didn't want to get up from the couch, you could've just said so, you lazy butt," you smirk at him as you walk towards him and the couch, leaving a faint trail of water drops behind you. Jake's eyes follow your figure as you go to grab your phone and lift the screen towards yourself.

That's when he freezes. You do too.

You cock your head, as if asking yourself why it was disabled. He can hear the gears in your head turning.

"Jake, did you try to unlock my phone?"

He runs through all the possible excuses he could blurt out. Come on Jake, think of something! But he knows he can't lie to you.

Too many beats of silence pass by.

"Maybe," he finally says—or more like murmurs. He looks up to you like a child looking up at their mom, who just them caught stealing a cookie from the cookie jar. To his surprise, you don't show any hint of anger. A flash of confusion—and is that worry he sees?—crosses your face for a split second before you shrug and turn towards your room to change, dropping the subject. It was natural for you two to use each other's phones anyways. So then why did you have that look of worry?

Jake knows you well, a little too well. But that's what you love about him. He can easily read all your emotions. One of the many things he picked up from dating you for almost two years now. But why would you care if he tried to get into your phone? Why would that worry you? All the possibilities run through head and his own worry begins to increase. He trusts you. He does.

So then why does the thought bother him throughout the entire day? Why does he bring it up during dinner later that night, when you're both cuddled on your sofa, slurping take-out ramen while rewatching your favorite k-drama under the thick blanket that you always keep in your living room for nights like these?

"Huh? Of course I've heard from Jay today, we had that conversation about that stupid meme you boys kept laughing about in the groupchat we're all in, didn't we?" You answer him when he asks if you've heard from Jay lately. You sit up from your warm spot under Jake's arm to put your empty bowl on the coffee table in front of you. When you lean back, you look up at him,

"Why do you ask?"

"Oh, it's nothing, just wondering," he says, avoiding your eyes by keeping his own trained on the series currently playing on your TV. This would be your third time rewatching this series together. He would never complain to you though, he knows how much you love it and if he were being honest, he was secretly attached to the characters—not that he would ever tell you, he would never hear the end of it from you and the boys.

"You're being weird. Just tell me, or did you forget that I can practically read your mind," you say with a giggle and shove to his side, the one you were currently warmly cuddled into. Jake wasn't the only one who learned how to read emotions; you could read him just as well as he could read you. And like you, that's one of the many things he loved about you. But maybe not in this case.

He toyed around with the contents inside his ramen bowl with his chopsticks.

"I just..." God, how does he word this? Why was he having trouble explaining it? You were the easiest person to talk to. To him, you were the only person he could tell everything to.

"Jaywastextingyouabunchearlier," he blurts out quickly, but not quickly enough for you to miss it.

He feels you shift under his arm. He feels the air in the room shift. Tension.

"What?" Now you're sitting upright, legs criss-crossed in front of you on the couch but turned, so your body is completely facing him. He mirrors you, sitting up to put his ramen bowl next to yours on the surface, but he stays facing the TV.

"Your phone kept going off because of him when you were showering," he says with a little more confidence. But inside, he was nervous as hell, the same nervous as when he asked you out for the first time many moons ago. But it's too late to back out now, he brought it up first, anyways. Guess we're having this conversation now, good going Jake!

"Is that why you tried unlocking my phone earlier? I mean I thought you were just trying to leave selfies on my phone like you always do but you were trying to read my texts?" You question, slightly raising your soft voice. He doesn't know how to react, he hates confrontation.

"It wasn't like that, Jay just kept spamming you and like I—why was he even texting you in the first place? Then your phone got disabled because you changed your password, which you never do by the way, so I–"

"I changed it because my little sister kept getting into my phone when I went to visit my family yesterday! Did you really think I was hiding something from you? You know I can text whoever I want, right? You don't own me."

Okay so now he's managed to make you angry. Good going Jake, part 2!

"Okay but what does Jay need from you so bad that he has to send you like 50 messages at once?" He's standing now. So are you, eyebrows furrowed together as you collect your bowls from the table.

Standing there, bowls in hand, you say, "Jake, that's none of your business! It wasn't even that big of a deal, I don't know why you felt the need to nosy around."

"Well, if he's texting you non-stop, then obviously it's a big deal! We wouldn't even be having this conversation if you would just tell me what you guys were talking about," he murmurs back, eyes narrowing. You scoff as you trail into your kitchen. He follows behind and stops at the other side at your kitchen island as you place the dirty dishes into the sink.

"No, we're having this conversation because you obviously don't trust me! It doesn't matter what we were talking about, it doesn't matter who I was texting! I could be texting your mother and I shouldn't have to tell you what we were talking about! That's why we're having this conversation," you say as you turn back to face him from the other end.

He hates this. He hates fighting with you (which is a very, very rare occasion). He hates that you think he doesn't trust you. He hates his insecurity eating at him, telling him to keep questioning you on why you and Jay were talking in the first place. He was aware that you were close with his friends, but it wasn't until the texts he realized just how close you are with them. It's not that he didn't trust you, he just didn't know how to act when it came to you and other guys. God knows how he got lucky enough to meet you, let alone date you, so the thought of him losing you to someone else actually terrified him. Not only were you his first real relationship, but he wanted you to be his first and only one in life. You were it for him.

"Why did he text you." He deadpans from his side of the kitchen.

You scoff with a hint of exasperation. "You're kidding me."

You stare at him. He stares back, quirking an eyebrow, as if restating the same question back, as if testing you.

You're fuming now. Why was he making it so hard? Why was he doubting you? Out of frustration, you start laughing, which scares him. That can't be good.

"Fine. You wanna know so bad? Take a look,"  you're one tone level away from screaming as you take your phone out of your pocket, unlock it, and open up your conversation with "bluejay park", sliding the phone across the island to reach him.

Jake stares at the phone which now lies there, unlocked, facing him. Isn't this what he wanted? It is, right? That's why he started this dreaded argument with you in the first place.

Then why does he feel so fucking awful?

He looks back up at you, to see you sighing and looking up at the ceiling, as if trying to force your forming tears back into your eyes.

Yup, he feels horrible.

"Happy? Happy to know we were just trying to plan a surprise birthday party for you but you and your jealously just had to know huh, Jake?" You quickly state, voice cracking, as you tried not to choke up. You weren't sad that he found out about the surprise. You were sad that it felt like he didn't trust you. That he thought you were the type of person to do god knows what behind his back. You hated the feeling of not being trusted. Especially by Jake, of all people.

"Fuck."

Jake's face (and heart) falls with the most broken expression you've ever seen. But you're too sad, angry, tired (a mix of all?) to care. Your only goal right now is to not let him see you cry.

You hurry past him, across your apartment, and into your bedroom, slamming the door behind you, leaving behind a shocked, and regretful, Jake.

His heart shrinks when he hears the door slam shut and a little more when he looks down at the still unlocked phone in front of him. He didn't have the heart in him to look at it anymore. Of course he trusted you, he knew what you said was the truth.

He mentally screams at himself for assuming the worst––for thinking that you, a literal angel, would betray him.  First, he thought he was losing you to someone else. Now, he was afraid he just lost you through his own actions. 

He hesitantly sulks over to your door, softly knocking when he reaches it.

"Y/N?"

No response.

"Y/N, I'm so sorry. I didn't know, I let my—”

"Jake just please leave me alone for now," he hears you painfully say from a distance, meaning you're on your bed. He knows the door's unlocked—the lock on your door hasn't been working for a long time now, despite the many times he tells you to talk to your landlord about it. But he doesn't find it in him to open it. He knows he messed up. If he saw you in there right now, crying, he wouldn't know what to do. He wouldn't know what he would to do himself, knowing he was the reason behind your tears.

He nods in silence, knowing you can't see him, but does so anyways and returns to his spot on the couch. He could leave right now, go back to the dorm with the rest of the guys, let you have your space like you wanted. But his heart hurts at the idea of leaving you sad, angry, or a combination of both. He can't leave this unresolved. He fucked up, he has to fix it.

And so he sits on your couch for another hour. The clock on the wall behind him continues to tick as the silent tension in your apartment continues to grow. When it hits 11pm and he's sure you've slumbered off into sleep, he quietly enters your room.

He can see your figure in the dark, your back facing the door as you're curled up into yourself under the comforter. He feels his heart drop a little more when he imagines you crying in that position from earlier. He slowly peels the comforter open and gets into his side of the bed, careful not to bother your sleeping figure.

Laying there, staring up at the ceiling, he's never felt more like a stranger in your bed. It's not that he hasn't slept over before, god knows he's probably slept over at your place more than he has in his own bed. But right now, in this moment, he just felt awful. Like he didn't deserve to be in such close proximity to you. How could he be deserving? He violated your privacy, made you feel like you weren't trusted, doubted your relationship.

These thoughts run through Jake's head as he stares up at your ceiling fan, wishing he could turn back time to a few hours ago, before he checked your phone, before he let his insecurities get to the best of him.

You can feel the dip he makes in the bed behind you when he gets in. Of course you're not asleep. There's no way sleep could reach you when you had the recent events constantly replaying in your head like a broken record.

You knew Jake with all your heart. You didn't have to look at him to know he was probably laying there, hurt, staring up at the ceiling, drafting what to say once you wake up—or once he knows you're actually still awake.

You decide to break the tension by turning to lay on your other side, facing him.

You were wrong. Thanks to the little sliver of moonlight shining through your sheer curtains, you can see him, now laying on his side, already looking at you with so much regret in his eyes. You can almost hear the cracks in your heart physically forming.

His eyes widen when he realizes you're still awake. He opens his mouth to say something, but not before you quickly shift over to his side of the bed and embrace him in a tight hold, burying your face into his chest. Without any hesitation, he returns the gesture, arms holding your body as close to him as possible. As if once he let go, he'd lose you forever.

He lets out a sigh of relief as he breathes you in. He didn't even know he was holding his breath all this time.

"I'm so sorry. I'm so, so sorry Y/N," he mutters into your hair. He feels his hoodie getting wet from where you buried your face. He pulls you closer, if that's even possible, feeling his own eyes heating up with sadness. He would never forgive himself for making you feel this way.

"You know I trust you right? Please know that. I shouldn't have assumed the worst when I saw your phone. I...I let my insecurities get to the best of me."

You move your head from its home on his chest to look up at him, as if asking him to elaborate. This was new to you, you didn't know he held insecurities in your relationship. But it wasn't because of you, no, you were his entire world. Losing you meant losing everything.

Jake's never been the best at saying his feelings. That's why it took him so long (with the help of his six best friends) to finally confess how he felt about you. He was afraid of letting people in if they could easily walk out. Maybe that's why he never let anyone into his life before you. But oh, were you an exception. The second he met you, he knew he was fucked. But thank god he did, because thanks to you, he's been able to be more open, more vulnerable. He's able to talk to you about anything and everything. He doesn't have that same fear of losing people anymore, not when he has you in his life to reassure him every step of the way. But right now, in this moment, he doesn't know how to tell you that his new fear was, in fact, just losing you.

The sheer idea of you not being a part of his life anymore terrified him. 

"I hope you know you're never going to lose me Jake, if that's what you're insecure about," you softly mutter as you wrap your free arm that's not stuck in between both your bodies around him to gently play with the ends of his hair. It's as if you could read his mind, he loves that you know him so well.

"It just sucks that you could even think I would ever do something as awful as what you were assuming...with one of your closest friends nonetheless," you continue.

"I know. I know, and I feel terrible. I'm so sorry. I know you would never do anything remotely close to that, and I know you would never intentionally try to keep anything from me," he sighs. He shifts so he can lie down on his back, bringing you with him to lie on his chest, never letting you go once. "It's just...I just don't know what I'd do if I ever lost you Y/N. Everyday, I ask myself what heroic thing I must've done in my past life to deserve this life with you and I can't help but think you could just as easily be stripped away from me."

As much as your heart breaks listening to him rant, you feel your love for him grow even more. You knew how hard it was for him to put his true emotions into words, and him telling you this reminded you how much trust he had in you.

After some moments of silence, moments of him drawing random shapes onto your back, moments of you two just holding each other like it was the end of the world, you speak up.

"I love you. I'm sorry for making you doubt yourself—"

"No, it's not your fault, I can't help but think things like that. I just don't know what I did to deserve you, and I know that I need to be mo–"

"Babe let me finish," you say with a little giggle in your tone. He immediately stops and mutters a little "sorry". How cute, you tell yourself.

"I was gonna say," you look back up at him so you're making direct eye contact now. "You're the only one that's ever on my mind, Jake. I can't help the way you think, but I can assure you that there is no one else I would rather be with. And I mean that for the rest of life."

You snuggle back into the comfortable hoodie he's currently wearing (you make a mental note to yourself to steal it from him later) and decide to ease the tension,

"So you're stuck with me for life, sorry to inform you Mr. Sim."

Jake lets out a laugh, looking down at you to see you returning his smile with a cheeky one.

"I love you. So much," he says so sincerely, so genuinely, that you almost tear up again from how content you were. Now you were asking yourself, what did you do to deserve him?

Jake Sim is not a jealous person.

No, he just loves you.

A lot.

[honeytae]

I didn’t know you had a thing for bandanas.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY LIV! omg how do i even start...you’re not only one of my favorite people on this site but literally one of my favorite souls on this earth. you radiate warmth, wit, and yes...thottery :) so of course i had to write some grammys tae smut for you, right? of course i did. i love you so much, i hope you have a fabulous day and i’m sending you so so many hugs! happiest of birthdays to you @taetaespeaches, my sister wife, my twin flame, the best honey boy min enthusiast, my favorite wholesome thot! i love you i love you i love you <3

genre: smut (ofc)

warnings: GRAMMYS TAEHYUNG, suggestive texting mentions, tae’s a Tease™️, heavy petting and groping, grinding/dry humping, fingering, brief nipple play, there’s a handjob or two, unprotected sex (stay safe!), mild dirty talk and profanity, this is pretty much just filth i do apologize

word count: 2.7k

“Oh my god.” 

Huffing, you tossed your phone back onto the counter, staring back at your reflection in the mirror above the sink, lips parted in disbelief. You could not believe Taehyung, truly. He could be a tease, of course, but tonight he was on another level. 

The number of photos, that could only be described as none other than thirst traps, you’d been sent throughout the night was dizzying.

Spanning from the time he was getting ready for the Grammy’s red carpet to when he was backstage in that goddamn bandana for the Old Town Road performance, you’d already stashed them in a hidden folder, pulling them back up on your screen whenever your brain drifted to them again. Which, admittedly, had been a lot over the past few hours. 

Despite traveling overseas for the award ceremony together, you could not attend the show with him for obvious reasons. Truly, you didn’t mind. You weren’t about the glitz and glamour anyway; but fuck, he really wasn’t making it easy on you. 

In addition to the multiple professionally taken shots of your boyfriend at the show beginning to circulate, your texting conversation with him consisted of only attachment after attachment at this point, eyes practically bulging out of your head with each scroll of your thumb and hooking you in for more in his absence from your hotel room.

And that had been your only activity for the night until you decided to part from the television and get ready for bed. 

Groaning when your phone began buzzing repeatedly on the marble, you set the washcloth you’d been running over your face atop the surface, peeking at the screen and rolling your eyes when you saw your boyfriend’s name across the top of it.

Swiping your thumb across the flashing display, you lifted the phone to your ear, leaning your stomach against the counter as you mumbled a greeting. 

“Hey, why didn’t you respond?” He asked immediately, making you chuckle at his bluntness. 

“I’m still processing the information you’ve provided me with, Tae.” You responded, hearing the man’s deep chuckle reverberate through the device. 

“What information is that, love?” 

You could hear the amused teasing in his voice, smug grin prominent on his face as he awaited your reply. 

“The endless shirtless selfies, Taehyung. That is the information I’m referencing.” You said, thinking back on the several attachments you’d gotten notifications for over the course of the night, each time Taehyung was changing his outfit followed by a photo of him nearly naked in the mirror backstage.

“I thought they were tasteful.” He teased, giggling when you groaned on the other side of the call. 

“Biting your lip while gripping your bulge? Oh yeah, I’m sure Army’s would agree. Very tasteful.” You teased back, the man humming deeply.

“I don’t share those things with Army though, because those are for you only.” He smirked, you mirroring his hummed reply with a slight smile.

“When are you coming back?” You asked, tapping your fingernails against the surface beside the basin of the sink.

“We need to do one more interview, then we can leave.” He answered, a member of the staff speaking in the background followed by Hoseok’s laugh ringing out through the room.

You sighed in response, quiet enough that you thought he wouldn’t hear it. That thought was proven wrong almost immediately as he chuckled, the phone shuffling in his grip as the voices in the background turned to muffled noise. 

“What’s wrong, hm? Miss me?” He lowered his voice to presumably not be heard by others, his husky tone causing you to swallow a harsh gulp, thankful you weren’t video calling so you could play along with his little game.

“Mm, not particularly. I just wanted to play GTA with Kook.” You teased, smirking at Taehyung’s scoff, hairs raising on your arms as he chuckled into the phone and through your speaker.

“Alright. Well, you can expect Kook soon.” He said, tone smug as he heard the breath hitch in your throat. 

“Love you.” He murmured into the phone before abruptly hanging up, leaving you clutching your phone with a racing heart as you anticipated your boyfriends’ arrival. 

Trying to fight the now strengthened desire for your man, you blocked out the images from tonight along with the tone of his deep honeyed voice through the phone the best you could, reaching for your soap pump with a sigh. 

“Unbelievably rude.”

The silence of your room was awfully loud as you drew out the remaining steps of your skincare routine, hoping that if you took long enough then there would be less empty waiting time for your boyfriend. Your incredibly attractive boyfriend who you could not wait to get your hands on.

Your eyes continually darted to the timestamp on your lock screen, sighing each time as only a few minutes had passed since the last time you checked. 

If Taehyung could see how desperate you were acting right now, he’d surely have that god damn smirk on his face, one that would probably have your jeans unbutton themselves beyond your own control. 

Heaving another sigh, you distractedly stretched your neck from side to side, scrunching your face up in a grimace at the resulting snaps.

The closing of your eyes combined with the loud rush of water from the faucet seemed to drown out the sounds you’d eagerly been waiting for, nearly jumping out of your skin at the sudden addition of Taehyung next to you through the reflection of the mirror above the sink. 

His hair was still styled over that black and white patterned bandana, matching with the shirt that exposed just a touch of his bicep and a whole lot of his chest. 

Despite the immediate salivating of your tongue, you kept your shocked expression on your face, breathing out his name as you leaned a hand on the counter beside you. 

“Fuck, you scared me.” You placed your other hand over your heart, Taehyung grinning before reaching his arm out to pull you into his chest, pressing a kiss to each cheek before leaning back to smile at you.

“Sorry, love. Ended up leaving a little earlier.” He explained, smirking as your eyes glued to the bandana still tucked under the hair over his forehead. 

“Hm, I don’t mind.” You said, blowing a breath past your lips at the man’s appearance. 

“What?” Taehyung asked in reference to the action, his eyes blinking back at you as your hand traced over his long hair curled to perfection. 

“You look really fucking good right now. Not that I need to tell you that.” You mumbled distractedly, fixing the strip of fabric laying over the top of his forehead, Taehyung teasingly raising his eyebrows at you with a swipe of his tongue over his bottom lip.

“No, please do.” He said smugly, causing you to snap out of your lust-struck daze as you tapped at his shoulder with a snort.

“What an ass.” 

“That’s what I’m saying.” He responded, smoothly trailing his fingers down a bit lower to rest on your butt and gently grope the globes, pulling you flush to his chest as his darkened eyes held contact with yours. 

“Can you ever get your head out of the gutter?” You tried to say, gasps escaping every few words as he began pushing your hips into his, effectively grinding his erection into you.

“Hm,” he pretended to ponder for a moment, “with you, no.” He said, placing his hand on your jaw to pull you into a long-awaited kiss, soft yet sensual in the way he smoothed his lips over yours. 

Your breath caught in your throat as Taehyung’s hand slipped beneath the hem of your underwear, letting his thumb glide over your clit as his tongue invaded your mouth. 

The action was needy, as was the manner his fingers gathered the slick leaking between your folds to push up to fill your hole. Taehyung swallowed your moans as his fingers played in your pussy, his deep chuckles vibrating against you while his fingers dutifully pumped into your entrance. 

“Like that, baby?” He mumbled against your bottom lip, your mouth hanging open as you whined incoherently in response. He groaned at the spasming of your walls around his appendages, leaning his forehead against yours as he backed you up against the counter to stabilize your increasingly wobbly legs.

“God, you drive me crazy.” He grunted, rutting his hips into your thigh as you moaned his name once again. 

Squealing as he suddenly withdrew his hands from your underwear and lifted you up on the counter by your hips, you watched with raised brows as the man ripped your pajama bottoms and panties down your legs, easily tossing them onto the tile floor and leaving your lower half bare on the cold marble counter beside the sink. 

“Eager, are we?” You murmured, Taehyung smirking as he shuffled out of his pants, his boxers soon to follow as you took the liberty of removing his t-shirt from your torso. 

“And you aren’t?” He posed, taking the shirt from your hands and tossing it somewhere below him in the mess of clothes piling up beside his feet. Tugging you by the thighs, he smiled as you helped him by scooting to the edge of the counter, wrapping your arms around his neck as his own hands landed on your lower back.

“I didn’t say that.” You said, fingers tousling the fluffy hair at the crown of his head as he hummed, playing around with the clasp of your bra until it released with a small sound, the cups immediately releasing your breasts as he pulled the straps down your arms. 

“I consider it a good thing that we can’t keep our hands off each other.” He shrugged, gently prying your arms from around his neck to successfully remove the bra dangling from your wrists, pressing kisses to the pulse points of your wrists before laying them down in your lap as his hands instead landed on your breasts. 

You sighed as his thumbs easily circled your nipples, his eyes glued to your chest as he watched the buds twist into peaks with a small grin. 

“So pretty.” He whispered, making you blush as you distractedly reached for his dress shirt, snapping the buttons out of the holes in a haste to see his bare chest. The task proved to be difficult with Taehyung’s increasing pressure on your nipples, a knowing smirk on the man’s face as your pleading eyes desperately darted to his own. 

“Tae, this shirt is really testing my patience.” You sighed, the man chuckling as he reluctantly removed his hands from your chest to assist you in unbuttoning the shirt that had nearly killed you while watching him perform a couple of hours ago. 

As soon as he undid the fifth or sixth button down, your hands were on the revealed skin, feeling him like a madwoman as he lovingly chuckled at your actions. Tossing the loose material to the floor, he finally stood before you completely naked, placing a hand on the back of your head to guide you to his lips in yet another heated kiss.

Taehyung hummed deep in his throat as you reached down to pump his fully erect cock in your hand, taking the hint as you lined him up at your entrance with a push of your other hand on his shoulder. 

“Love you so much.” He mumbled, his eyes fluttering shut as he pushed his hips forward to sink into you, each inch providing you with a delicious burn as you let your head rest on his shoulder, his lips pressing a tender kiss to the side of your head as he finally fit himself snugly inside of you.

Starting off slow, he only slightly moved his cock back before pushing it in again, causing you to mewl as he started teasingly circling his hips inside of you. The grinding was nice, sure, but it gave you no real relief. Which he was perfectly aware of.

“Fuck me harder, Tae.” You whimpered out as he continued sensually grinding into you, taking your bottom lip into your mouth as he stopped his actions completely.

“Hm? What was that, love?” He cockily raised his brows at you, grinning at the look of pure frustration on your face.

“Fuck me harder. Taehyung.” You practically spat out, the man tutting at your tone.

“Where are your manners, love?” 

“Tae,” you whined, “please just fuck me.” You begged, Taehyung simpering as he picked up your calves, resting your legs in the crooks of his elbows to push your knees to your chest and effectively spread you wider for him. 

Picking up the pace of his thrusts, he groaned at the feeling of your walls squeezing around his cock, praising you with a moan of your name as he tilted his head up toward the ceiling. 

With you leaning forward to kiss his jaw, Taehyung broke eye contact with the vent in the ceiling, instead focusing on you as he continued rolling his hips into yours. His eyes held yours with intense force, only faltering with a flutter of his eyelids when your walls began spasming around him.

“Shit, I love your pussy, baby.” He breathed, placing his lips back on yours when you responded with a wanton moan, placing his hands on your hips to glide you along his length in addition to the force he pounded into you with.

You whimpered at the sudden speed in which his hips slapped into yours along with the depths he managed to hit with the angle, clutching onto his shoulders in an attempt to ground yourself as he groaned your name.

“Fuck, oh my god.” You cried as he sped up the pace of his hips, gradually working himself up into an almost inhumane speed as he quite literally attempted to split you open with his cock. His grunts punctuated each thrust, hot breaths fanning out onto your neck as he buried his face in your skin.  

“T-tae.” You stuttered as the tip of his cock repeatedly tapped at your cervix, Taehyung responding with a deep moan as he glanced down between your bodies, eyes glued to where you met over and over again as your walls tightened the hardest they had yet around him.

“Cum, baby.” He panted, lifting his eyes to watch your own squeeze shut with a gasp, the man himself falling over the edge at the sight. Nothing could ever get him off like watching you orgasm.

As he hastily pulled out of you, you whined at the sudden emptiness in your core, leaning your head back against the mirror in exhaustion as your droopy eyes watched him jerk his cock using your slick, only a few moments passing before translucent white liquid shot out from his tip and onto your stomach. 

Sitting up from the mirror, you fell into Taehyung’s arms, the man chuckling a bit as he rubbed his palm over your spine. 

“I love you.” He murmured, breaths finally evening out as he held you in his arms, your own loosely wrapped around his waist with your fingers caressing the skin of his hip.

“I love you too,” you leaned back to look at him, forehead pressing to his as you gave him a lazy smile, “and I’m so proud of you. You were amazing tonight.” You said, swiping his long bangs out of his eyes as he shyly grinned at you, his flustered reaction at your words causing you to giggle fondly. 

“I couldn’t have done any of it without you.” He admitted, misty eyes making you cup his cheeks as you pressed your lips to the plush skin on either side of his nose. 

“Of course you could have. You’re amazing Tae, don’t underestimate that.” You soothed, the man’s lips quirking up slightly as he tipped his chin to place his lips on yours. 

“Okay.” He whispered against your bottom lip, chuckling breathily when you began pressing feather-light kisses to his lips, exaggerating them with loud “muah”s making Taehyung’s eyes shut as he laughed. 

“You good?” You asked, his irises sparkling back at you as he nodded in confirmation.

“I’m great.” He said, reaching up to push his hair back off his forehead, the copious amounts of gel his stylists had put in his hair throughout the night defying the action and making it fall back onto the skin anyway.

“Good. Now clean your cum off my stomach, I wanna go to bed.”

[bougiebohemian]

My Morning Routine

I thought I’d share my morning routine for 2021 and how I’m getting my life together to make sure I have the best glow up physically and mentally

7am-Wake Up

As soon as I wake up, I drink water. I have one of those gallon water bottles that gives you time marks to drink water.

then I sit and my bed and I meditate. Sometimes I use the calm app, other times I just look out the window and breathe and observe what I can see. Really take time to be in the present moment when you wake up. It sets up your mood for the whole day. If the first thing you do when you wake up is go on Twitter and find terrible news, that’s now going to guide you for the day. Take in the world when you wake and you’ll see yourself improve. I also have a gratitude journal and I write down 3 things I’m thankful for each day.

Next I do my skincare routine. I light an incense usually Jasmine and set my intention then start. I use Skin Laundry Extra Deep Gel Face Wash, and wash my face for 60 secs, really focusing on my problem areas. I then use Klairs Supple Preparation Facial Toner, followed by Cosrx Advanced Snail 96 Mucin Power Essence and then The Ordinary Natural Moisturising Factors +HA and finish it off with The Black Girls Sunscreen. Btw always use sunscreen, no matter how dark you are or what myths have been said about Black people not needing sunscreen. Black people can still get skin cancer and our survival rate is much lower than our white counterparts.

I also brush my teeth when I wake up. I use a tongue scraper, then brush with a bamboo toothbrush and then use Listerine Healthy White Vibrant mouthwash. I’ve been using this mouthwash for months now and my friends have complimented on how white my teeth are, it really works.

8am-Meditate/Workout

So after my skincare I usually make iced matcha latte. It’s just matcha powder, honey, and oat milk. Now I’m dairy free and ypu don’t have to be completely, but taking some dairy free days or dairy free meals will really help with skin problems, indigestion problems, and some weight loss problems as well.

I then sit on my balcony letting the sun shine on me, (why it’s important to put sunscreen before so you don’t get burnt)

I drink more water then I change into my workout clothes and begin my workout. My workout is around 30 minutes each day and I do the following:

Abs: https://youtu.be/iZPjHyWhoDw

Arms: https://youtu.be/8qDDtm6BOfw

Butt/Thighs: https://pin.it/7sIp1kY

Obviously you can come up with your own exercises, but this is what helps me. Getting movement in the morning can really help kick off your day with energy. You already did the most work, so you should be ready to tackle the day.

9am: Shower/Breakfast

So sometimes I eat breakfast before I shower or vice versa

When I shower I use my loofah and wash rag and the soap i’m using currently is the St. Ives Coconut Water and Orchid. I also use oatmeal soap because my eczema makes my skin very sensitive. currently I have braids so I wash my hair once a week or every two weeks and the shampoo I use is the Dark & Lovely Cleansing Water with Aloe. If you have braids, locks, or any protective styles like so this shampoo is best because it’s gets into every nook and cranny without messing with your hair. I also have eucalyptus leaves hanging from my showerhead which allows a very relaxing shower. When I shave, I use the Billie razor and conditioner.

After my shower I apply almond oil mixed with orange and vanilla essential oil over my body while it is still damp. I also use Tend Skin and Pfb Vanish on my bikini line and underarms to help prevent ingrown hairs and dark spots. I let myself air dry while I do my hair, which I spray with Carol’s Daughter Black Vanilla leave in conditioner and Sulfur 8 leave in conditioner for braids. if I had just washed my hair I also use AllDay Locks Locks and Braids Foam Control and then tie my hair down with a scarf to prevent frizz.

For breakfast I always have fruit, right now it’s cherries, and I make vegan banana pancakes and my morning morning matcha if I hadn’t had it earlier. I then sit outside again soaking up the sun and thank the universe and my ancestors for blessing me with this meal.

And that’s my 2021 morning routine

[writertitan]

Regimens

pairing: levi x reader

word count: 2834

themes: modern au, established relationship vibes, just so much fluff, it’s ridiculous how cute i tried to make this

requested by anon

“No.”

“Levi, please-”

“No.” 

With a huff, you set down the brush you liked to use to apply your clay masks, and internally debated if a pout and some more pleading would entice Levi into just giving in and letting you do your skincare routine on him. You had no idea why he was so against the idea; if anything, Levi loved taking care of himself. Sometimes, he was a little too high maintenance. You’d been so convinced he would actually like joining in on your skincare routine. On your own face, the clay mask was already coated on with a fuzzy headband keeping your hair out of it. You’d gotten the idea to also try to get Levi in on it, but to no avail. 

You tried again, after deciding that it would do some good to bring out the pout. 

“Levi, I swear you’ll like it-”

“I’m not gonna let you put mud on my face, idiot,” he deadpanned, and you whined. 

“It’s not mud! And it’s good for your skin!” 

“Not doing it.” 

“Ugh!” you cried out and slumped back against your couch, crossing your arms over your chest. Clearly, he was being stubborn. But you could negotiate. You brought your legs up onto the couch and nudged his thigh with your foot gently, frowning when he refused to look at you and instead kept his gaze on the TV. 

“Fine, no clay mask. How about a sheet mask? And then my usual routine?” 

“All of that skincare shit you buy doesn’t even work,” Levi said bluntly, finally peeking at you out of the corner of his eye. “It just smells good. You’re better off being smart like me and buying generic lotion that works just fine instead of wasting money buying a million different things.” 

“Let me prove you wrong,” you challenged, a gleam in your eye as you lifted your chin defiantly. “Your 3-in-1 shit is abysmal.” 

“It’s abysmal that you think I would stoop so low as to buy 3-in-1 anything,” Levi scoffed. “I just don’t throw my money at retinas or whatever the fuck you’re buying.” 

“Retinol,” you corrected. 

Levi groaned, eyes fully on you now. “It’s kind of insulting, y’know. Are you saying I have bad skin or something? Because it looks and feels fine to me.” 

“You have great skin, I just want to show you how I can make it positively glow,” you crowed, trying your best to really sell the experience. You pouted again when Levi stayed quiet, foot prodding against his thigh once more. “Plus, it would be really fun and would mean a lot to me, to let me fuck around with your face for the night.” 

The resigned look in his eyes and the sigh he let out told you that you’d won, and you squealed in victory before you leaned in to give him a grateful little peck on the lips. 

“Okay, I’ll be right back! I’m gonna use my best stuff on you!” In a flash you were gone, leaving a slightly bewildered Levi on the couch as you rummaged through your collection of skincare. It wasn’t the biggest collection by any means, nor was it very fancy, but you had a little routine going and liked the products you did have. 

You settled on the sheet mask for Levi, a new toner you’d been liking, your favorite serum, and your go-to moisturizer. A simple night routine, not wanting to push Levi too far by going all out with a more elaborate regimen. Especially when you were going to force one of your fuzzy headbands upon him. When you returned with your arms full of product, Levi gave you a look that screamed, Good lord what have I gotten myself into?

You spread the products out on the coffee table and then waved your fuzzy headband in his face, which made his eyes flash instantly. He was about to vehemently protest, you could tell, but you were already whining, and about to make a very good case. 

“Just do it, Levi! I wouldn’t want to mess up your precious hair.” 

At that, Levi simmered down, but there was no shortage of grumbling as you put the headband on him to secure his hair out of his face. 

“Okay, since it’s nighttime, this is more of a night routine-”

“You have a day routine and a night routine?” Levi asked, his tone slightly disbelieving, slightly condescending. 

You nodded once, not the least bit bothered, and continued explaining. “Since this is a night routine, it’s more about prevention and repair. I’m gonna use the toner first, to prep you for everything else.” You grabbed a cotton ball and carefully dotted some drops of toner into it, bringing it up to Levi’s face. Slowly, you dabbed the product into his face, ignoring the very steely gaze that was searing into your face. Still, Levi remained quiet and let you do all the work, his eyes on your face the entire time. You, on the other hand, morphed your expression into one of concentration, but you were careful not to make too much facial movement - your mask was slowly stiffening up and you didn’t want it to crack. 

You ripped open the package of the sheet mask, gingerly pressing it onto Levi’s face. He winced at the slight cold of it, but otherwise stayed still as you adjusted it on his face. It took everything in you not to grin at this new imagery of your boyfriend; wearing a fuzzy headband, sheet mask on, a lethal stare in his eyes...he looked absolutely precious. 

After ensuring Levi’s mask was in place, you snuggled into his side, busy on your phone while you looked at your timer. You’d set one for 20 minutes after applying your mask, and there were about 15 minutes left - still a good amount of time to let his mask do its work. 

“We’re gonna leave these on for about 15 minutes,” you explained, setting your phone aside to watch whatever movie Levi was watching. “Then we’ll take them off, rub the excess product into our faces to let it absorb, and then we’ll do the rest.” 

“You’re gonna make me wear this stupid headband for 15 minutes?” 

“Nope.” 

“Good.” 

“I’m gonna make you wear it for longer. This is only the first step in getting your skin fresh and radiant.” 

If you were anyone else in the world, you’d probably be dead. Good thing Levi was in love with you. 

Out of the corner of your eye, you see Levi reach a hand up and pat his masked cheek, a noticeable grimace appearing on his face. 

“It’s slimy.” 

“Stop complaining,” you said, turning to him fully. He did the same, immediately snorting at the sight of you. 

“Your mask is drying,” he pointed out, a hint of a smirk appearing. “You look kind of terrifying.”

You knew if you quipped back about how he looked, it’d be the end of this little experiment and he wouldn’t be so keen to participate anymore. So, you bit your tongue and made a noncommittal grunt, relaxing into Levi’s body while you watched the (kind of boring) movie. After a handful of minutes, you grabbed your phone and opened your camera app, attempting to capture a selfie of you two. Levi immediately caught on and moved out of the way, shielding his face with a hand. 

“There’s no chance in hell I’m gonna let you document this,” he said, shooting you a warning glance. You huffed and, in your own stubbornness, took a picture of yourself with Levi in the background, hand obscuring his face. It was better than nothing, and you settled back into him, smirking when he wrapped a tentative arm around your shoulder. 

Levi sighed in relief when the timer on your phone went off, and raised a hand to ruffle your hair before you stood. The clay was uncomfortable on your face now and you gave Levi a look as much as you could through the stiff case. 

“Come to the bathroom with me. I’ll wash this off and I’ll show you what to do, okay?”

“What, I can’t just take this off?” Levi asked, following you anyway. You tried your best to be quick with taking off your mask but, as always, rinsing it all off properly took a bit of time. Levi practically tore his sheet mask off and threw it away as you patted your face dry, and you rolled your eyes at him. 

“You have to pat the excess product into your face so it absorbs,” you told him, and Levi wrinkled his nose. 

“It’s slimy.” He voiced his complaint from earlier and you resisted the urge to roll your eyes yet again, but stepped forward to do it for him. 

Instantly, Levi’s eyes closed as your fingertips worked the product into Levi’s skin, very gentle with your actions; you were basically treating him to a mini facial massage. In truth, you were also fully taking advantage of the opportunity to touch him like this, slow and gentle in the way your fingers brushed over his forehead, his cheekbones, his jawline. 

“There,” you whispered, pulling away and wiping off your face. “We’ll let that settle in.” 

Levi grunted but followed you back to your previous place on the couch, and now you were absolutely animated. Once his face was mostly dry, you got to work and grabbed your favorite serum, applying an appropriate amount to your fingers and rubbing them together before pressing them into Levi’s skin again. 

“This is serum. It’s kind of like the sheet mask, but this one you use more often. Face masks aren’t for daily use. This one’s my favorite and really evens out my skin tone and helps keep my skin hydrated overnight, especially because you’re supposed to apply before moisturizer to lock it all in, so to speak.” You were mostly rambling, just wanting to keep Levi in the loop to keep his complaining at bay, but he was genuinely listening, which made you smile. 

Again, you were pulled into a state of concentration as you blended the serum into Levi’s skin, a smug little smirk playing at your lips when you saw his eyes close and felt him lean into your touch. You made sure to keep your touch steady and soft, taking your time with him as he let you map out his features with your hands. 

“This one’s not slimy,” was all he said, eyes still closed. You rubbed soothing circles into his temples, your eyes glancing over his now fully relaxed face. Giving into temptation, you settled into Levi’s lap, which he allowed with no fuss, and you leaned in to press a slow kiss to his mouth as your fingers traced along his jaw, beckoning him closer. He was happy to return your kiss, hands lazily at your hips to keep you in place, and you pulled away too soon to give him a bright smile, already shifting in his lap to turn towards the final step: moisturizer. 

Levi’s lips chased you in frustration, latching onto your neck as you applied some moisturizer to your fingers. Pulling away from him, his mouth broke free and he frowned at you for interrupting him, but you needed to gain access to his face again. 

“One more thing,” you told him, hands already applying the layer of moisturizer and working it into his skin softly, touch still feathery but deliberate. 

“Smells good.” The first compliment he’d given regarding your skincare routine, and you happily accepted it. 

Once you were done, you leaned back in his lap to examine your work. Breaking into a grin, you nodded once in satisfaction and cupped Levi’s face in your hands. “I knew it. Your skin is luminous, luminous I tell you!” 

Levi scoffed but, to your complete joy, offered a smirk and leaned in to kiss you again, this time short and sweet. You picked up the hand mirror you had brought along and gave it to him, your cocky attitude still present as he examined his face in the mirror. 

“See, what’d I tell you? My stuff does make a difference,” you declared, very much milking the moment. Your head definitely got a little bigger seeing Levi study his face with a little bit of surprise, tilting his head this way and that. 

“You did good, kid,” he finally said, making you beam at the final judgement he’d given. 

“Thanks for letting me do it,” you replied, swiveling around in his lap so your back could press into his chest. You turned your head to press kisses across his cheek, shocked when he pulled away and gave you a stern look. 

“You just did all that to my skin, don’t mess it up,” he said, and you honestly couldn’t tell if he was joking or not. 

“Levi,” you whined, leaning in again, but he pulled away even more, this time with a smirk on his face. To placate you, he turned his head and pressed a full kiss to your lips, which you happily accepted, and you sighed happily into it before pulling away. Levi pressed a short kiss to your forehead and grabbed a throw blanket on the arm of the couch to toss over the two of you, settling into your movie night. 

The screen turned black for a moment and you gazed at your reflections, and your eyes widened for a moment before you turned to look at your boyfriend again. 

“You can take the headband off now,” you reminded him. 

Levi only grunted in response. You said nothing and bit back your smile. 

He didn’t take it off until you took yours off, right before bed. 

-- 

Two days later, and you had made plans to spend the night at Levi’s place this time. There was no need to stop by your place beforehand; at this point, you had essentials over there too, and were looking forward to an evening of unwinding with some wine and whatever Levi had cooked up in the kitchen after your long day. It was a shame that the one thing you didn’t have at Levi’s was a dedicated skincare kit, so you could relax with a mask on and pamper yourself just a little. Only the travel-sized stuff you brought in your purse would be used tonight. 

Picking out the key Levi had given you to his place out of the jumble of them on your keyring, you pushed it into the lock and turned, giving a half-hearted knock as you stepped in. 

“Hi, I’m here!” you called into the apartment, eyes immediately finding Levi in the kitchen, back turned to you as he tended to something on the stove. 

“Hey,” he greeted you, not turning around. You didn’t notice the way he paused for a moment. “You’re here early. Wasn’t expecting you for another half hour.” 

“Yeah, I finished up early. It was a long day,” you sighed, fully about to start into a summary of your day. But first, you were needing a hello kiss, and walked over to Levi nonchalantly after taking off your shoes and coat to go and get it. You set down your bag on the counter and wrapped your arms around Levi’s lean torso, pressing a kiss to his shoulder, then tried to make him turn for a real kiss. “You wouldn’t believe -- oh my god.” 

You never thought you’d see the day. 

“What?” Levi asked, annoyed. Clearly pretending that he wasn’t standing in front of you, a sheet mask on his face, fuzzy headband perfectly in place. This headband was black, however, and you were positive you didn’t own a black one. 

“Nothing, but that better not be one of my masks,” you said, a giggle threatening to burst through at any moment. You knew it. You’d sucked Levi into the world of skincare. There was no telling if this was going to be good or bad. 

And, of course, you couldn’t help the little jab of, “Nice headband.” 

“It was the only kind they had,” Levi quipped a little too quickly, and the giggle that you’d been fighting off escaped your throat, earning you a hard glare. “Don’t start being a brat about this.” 

“I like it,” you told him honestly, hands up in surrender. You snuck a quick kiss to his lips and let him get back to his cooking, while you sauntered to the bathroom to freshen up before dinner. 

When you walked in to see the new arrangement of skincare products, all of them the same as the ones you’d used on him just a couple of days ago, you softened and couldn’t help the grin that seemed permanently etched on your face. You grabbed the box of sheet masks excitedly, poking your head out of the door. 

“Hey, I know I basically said you couldn’t steal my sheet masks, but can I steal one of yours?” 

[crackheadgeminibby]

mistakes were made

pairing: chris evans x black!reader

warnings: language, age gap, angst, mentions of sex TW body insecurities and talk of weight gain

word count: 2.9k

i do not consent to my work being copied in any way, shape or form or reposted on any other platform

picture credit: screengrab from "Captain America Dinner Party" on youtube

You finish getting dressed and pick up everything you need to go for a run. As you’re walking down the last steps, you see that Chris is sitting on the couch, working on something on his computer. You come up behind him and softly kiss his temple before saying,

“Hey baby. I just put Emma to sleep and I’m gonna go for a run. Can you just pay attention and make sure she doesn’t wake up, please?”

Chris absentmindedly nods and mutters a “be careful”. You faintly smile and roll your eyes at his unwavering concentration but make sure to turn the volume of the baby monitor all the way up before leaving.

You go out through the garage and smile up at the sky, feeling the heat of the sun warming up your face.

You start to run the route you used to before getting pregnant with your baby girl. Last Sunday, it had been five months since your bundle of joy had been born. As much as you utterly adored her and the experience of carrying your own child, you had not appreciated the effect that the pregnancy had on your body.

On the contrary, most mothers-to-be were described as glowing and full of new energy but while you were pregnant, you always felt like you were about to get a cold and you had put on so much weight that you could barely recognize yourself. You had thought that it was only the pregnancy hormones changing your body that way as you were still very young, but today, five months after giving birth, your body had stayed the same and that certainly was not helping your confidence.

You weren’t sure if Chris had noticed your insecurities that manifested themselves by you eating almost the same meager meals every day and pushing away all sorts of sexual interactions with him. Since he had never mentioned anything or ever seemed frustrated with you, you thought he simply didn’t notice it or just didn't mind it.

Lost in your thoughts, you’re back home before you know it. As you’re entering the garage, you faintly hear Chris’ voice travel through the house all the way to you. Slightly confused, you assume that he must have forgotten to tell you he had an appointment or something, so you make sure to be as silent as possible to not disturb him.

“Bro, I know, it’s fucking crazy. I actually have my own child now.”

You smile softly at his excitement. You’re downing a bottle of water you took from the fridge when your ears perk up at your name coming out of Chris’ mouth.

“Oh, Y/N? Yeah, you know, she’s fine, she's good.”

Tilting your head slightly, you try to understand the sudden shift in Chris’ mood: even from two rooms away, you could feel his energy change.

“No, it’s fine, it’s just that she’s been kind of weird since the baby.”

You frown at hearing Chris say that. He never mentioned anything to you so why the hell was he talking about it with whoever was on the other end of the phone?

“No but like bro, look, it’s like this. I’ll be out all day doing whatever, and then when I come home, she’s all over me, being super clingy and all. Like, she will literally not let me go anywhere. But then, whenever I try to ease the mood into, you know, something more sexual, she just shuts down and says that Emma needs some food or something and she leaves. Then, when she comes back, she’s practically running from me like I have the fucking plague or something!”

As Chris is listening to what the person on the phone is responding, you start to feel a knot in your throat and you know that if you don’t do anything soon, you’re going to be full-on sobbing. As you’re working on your breathing and a plan, you hear Chris say,

“Dude, I literally thought the same thing. I swear. But, when we went for her check-up a little after she gave birth, the doctor said we couldn’t have sex for 6 weeks. It’s been like 20 weeks now!”

Unable to contain your emotions any longer, you leave your water bottle on the counter and run back to the garage, as silently as you can. Once in the safety of the garage, tears stream down your face as you let out a sob that brings you to your knees. You let yourself cry for what feels like forever, but you know it must not have been more than 5 minutes.

When you start to calm down, you focus on finding a plan to make sure Chris didn’t know that you were eavesdropping on his phone conversation. You take deep breaths before wiping your face and fixing your appearance as best as you can while using the rear-view mirror of your car.

Once you’re certain that you can’t do anything more, you take a final breath before opening the door and slamming it loud enough for Chris to hear that you’re in the house. As you’re approaching the living room, and thus, the staircase leading to your room, you faintly hear Chris say, “Yeah, man. I’ll talk to you later.”

You pass behind him while keeping your head held high and not giving him a single glance. As you start to climb up the stairs, you see that Chris is turning towards you.

“Hey baby, I didn’t hear you come back. How was your run?”

You take a deep breath before answering as calmly as you can, “Fine. I’m going to take a shower.”

Chris hesitates for a second before responding, “Um, okay, I’ll start dinner then.”

You don’t answer and run up the last couple of stairs as you feel your resolve crumbling. You hurriedly take some random clothes and a towel before locking yourself in the en suite bathroom. As soon as the door is closed, you put your hand over your mouth as a cry escapes you again. You put your clothes and towel on the counter before sitting in front of your bathtub. You don’t know how long you stay there, stifling your cries, but you suddenly hear the doorknob jiggling before a loud knock resonates through the bathroom.

“Y/N? You okay in there? I heard some weird noises.”

You clear your throat as softly as you can before answering, “I’m fine, I just stubbed my toe.” You cringe as your voice breaks halfway through your sentence.

The doorknob jiggles again before you hear, “Are you sure? And why is the door locked? You never lock it.”

“Uh... I'm on my period.”

You roll your eyes at your dumb and illogical excuse but it was going to have to do for now.

Before Chris can say anything else, you start the shower, rapidly take your clothes off and step inside. Both Chris and you knew that when the shower water was on, it was almost impossible to hear anything else in the bathroom.

You spend at least an hour under the scalding water, and you finally get out as you see a glimpse of the time on the bathroom clock: 6:45pm. It was time to start getting Emma ready for bed and you knew that she rarely slept through the night if you weren't the one to put her to bed. Knowing that this meant that nobody in the house would really get any sleep, you reluctantly turn off the shower water and get out of the shower.

As you’re toweling off, you can faintly hear music coming from outside of the bathroom. You put on the clothes you had taken from your room and put them on.

How ironic. You were wearing the same shirt from the first time Chris had told you he loved you. You smile bitterly as you look at the shirt in the mirror and pick up the rest of your things before getting out of the bathroom.

You walk into your shared bedroom with Chris and immediately recognize “Wicked Games” by The Weeknd. You roll your eyes as you remember the time you had told Chris that, for whatever reason, The Weeknd’s 2010s phase could always get you in the mood. You take your time doing your skincare routine before taking care of your workout clothes.

After finishing in your bedroom, you close the door and head to Emma’s room to get her ready for bed. However, you frown confusedly as you see that everything in Emma’s room is clean and organized. Emma is clearly changed, dressed in her nighttime pyjamas, tucked in and soundly asleep while Dodger is snoring in front of her crib. You smile softly. Even before Emma was born, Dodger was extremely protective of her and when she was born, he was practically attached to her hip. Wherever Emma was, Dodger was also there.

You’re watching Emma and Dodger sleep, a seemingly permanent smile on your face when you suddenly feel a hand on your shoulder. You turn around rapidly and slightly jerk away from Chris when he attempts to put a hand on your arm. He frowns slightly before saying,

“I got Emma ready for bed and dinner’s ready downstairs.”

You sigh and walk around Chris before making your way downstairs as you hear his soft footsteps behind you. When you turn the corner to enter the living room, your breath slightly hitches as you see that Chris has set a candlelit dinner table. Chris softly sets his hands on your shoulders and starts to gently massage them as he says,

“I made spaghetti with chicken parm, your favorite. And extra cheese, just how you like it.”

As your resolve starts to crumble, Chris’ words from earlier in the day echo in your mind. The memory makes you instantly tense up and you let out a shaky breath while trying to control your emotions. To take the focus off of you, you sit down and start to serve Chris and yourself some water. You hear Chris sigh loudly before he sits down in front of you. He serves you a hearty serving of pasta with a whole chicken breast before serving himself. Chris looks at you, clearly hesitating to say anything for a couple of seconds while you’re poking at your food before saying,

“So, I thought you would like the chicken parm tonight since you seemed kind of down after your run.”

You let go of your fork, which loudly hits your plate, and put your head in your hands before you say, “Oh my God, Chris, I can’t fucking do this.”

“Woah, Y/N, you can't do what? What's wrong?”, Chris asks, shocked.

“What’s wrong, Christopher, is that I heard you on the phone this afternoon. Talking about how I’m supposedly clingy and never want to have sex with you anymore.”

Chris visibly tenses up as he hears your statement and stammers trying to find an excuse to justify his behavior.

“Wait, I… I can explain.”

You hold your hand up, signifying to Chris that you’re not done.

“First of all, you have absolutely no right to talk to anybody about our sex life without at least asking me first, which you know I would absolutely not agree with. Second of all, you should know by now that if you have any problems with me, you come to me. You don’t go talking to some random person about it behind my back.”

You angrily get up from the table and narrow your eyes at Chris as you continue.

“And third, not that you deserve any justification whatsoever for me not wanting to have sex with you, but I gained weight, Chris. Way too much weight. I find myself fat and gross and I didn’t want you to see my body and think the exact same things I think every single time I see myself in the mirror.”

You sniffle as you realize that you had been crying.

“And you can help yourself to the couch tonight.”

You walk up the stairs and, mindful to not wake Emma up, you softly close your bedroom door. You immediately snuggle into the covers while soft sobs rake through your body. You’re not sure how long you lay there crying but you eventually fall asleep from exhaustion.

You groggily wake up a couple of hours later while the sun is starting to rise as you hear Emma’s cries on the baby monitor. You rub your eyes as you get out of the bed and head over to her room. You take Emma out of her crib and immediately identify that her diaper is full. You feel your headache from crying developing further as you’re changing Emma.

When you’re finished, you take Emma in your arms and bounce her up and down while softly humming to help her fall back asleep with Dodger dutifully following you.

You head downstairs in search of painkillers for your headache while continuing to hum to Emma. While passing through the living room, you can see Chris’ head resting on the couch armrest. As Dodger spots him, he heads over to him and whines softly before setting himself at the end of the couch, prepared to fall back asleep.

You chuckle slightly before downing the painkillers and heading back up to Emma’s room, ready to put her back in bed. You set her down and tuck her in before exhaling softly and heading back to your bedroom.

Your headache and the painkillers had effectively made you exhausted again as you fall asleep almost as soon as your head hits the pillow.

When you finally wake up for the day, you groan at the faint traces of your headache still present. You look over at your nightstand and see that it’s now 7:30am. You roll your eyes at this. You had barely slept an additional hour.

Figures. You never really slept that well when Chris wasn't in bed with you.

As your senses start to really awaken, you smell some coffee and hear the shower running for a couple of seconds after which, it stops.

Before you know it, Chris walks out of the bathroom, body steaming, with a towel loosely wrapped around his waist. He suddenly stops in his tracks as he realizes you’re awake.

God… Even when he pissed you off, he was still hot as fuck.

He lightly clears his throat before saying, “Sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you up. I just wanted to take a shower after my workout.”

You gently shake your head before responding with a raspy voice, “You didn’t wake me, it’s fine.”

Chris nods his head once before tightly smiling. You can feel the tension in the room as Chris stands in front of the bathroom door and looks anywhere but at you. After a couple of seconds, he softly sniffles and croaks, “Y/N, I’m so sorry.”

You sit up in the bed and lean on the headboard as you frown softly. Chris makes his way to you and softly sits on his side of the bed with his head hung. You can see from the various expressions that are passing on his face that he’s trying to find the words to talk to you

“I didn’t really sleep last night because I kept thinking about what you said. And I realized how much of an asshole I was.” He balls up his fists as he shakes his head and continues, “I never should have talked about any of those things with Matt and I’m so sorry that I did. I’m also sorry that I never came to talk to you, like a grown man, and instead just talked about you behind your back.”

Chris hesitantly reaches for your hands and takes them into his when he sees that you’re not negatively reacting to him while tears are dropping on the covers.

“Above all, I’m especially sorry that I ever made you feel like I wasn’t there for you and like you couldn’t come to me. I really didn’t know how you felt about yourself and it breaks my heart that I let you go through this alone when I should have been there to support you after Emma was born."

He shrugs gently before finishing with, "And for what it’s worth, I think you’re as beautiful now as you were while you were pregnant and before you got pregnant.”

Chris looks up at you with red eyes as he waits for you to say something. You open and close your mouth multiple times as you’re trying to find the right words to respond to him.

You finally settle on, “I don’t know that I can forgive you right now, Chris. What you did really hurt me. Like a lot.”

Chris’ head slightly hangs down before you finish with, “However, I don’t think it would be beneficial to our family for us to be apart right now.”

As soon as he hears this, Chris’ head snaps up, a hopeful glint in his eyes.

“I’m gonna need space and time to work through this but I believe that our relationship is stronger than this.”

Chris nods excitedly and bites his bottom lip before asking, “Is it okay if I hug you?”

You lightly nod your head and chuckle slightly as Chris practically throws himself at you. He rests his head in the crook of your neck before whispering “I love you so much, Y/N.”

Without hesitation, you whisper back, “I love you too, Chris.”

If there was something that you knew would never change is that you loved Chris, forever and always.

[shuahoonie]

out of love [tom holland]

PAIRING: tom holland x female!reader 

SUMMARY: being close friends with your ex is fine, right? even if your love for them was unparalleled among others. even if you were still in the process of moving on from them. even if you know they’re happy with someone else. even if you have no clue whether they loved you like you loved them. 

WARNINGS: foul language, so much angst, it starts ok at first then goes downhill from there. i literally write things on the go so i don’t know if this will have fluff at some point 

(if it does and i didn’t state it here, send me a cute photo of tom and a message of: ok wow she pulled thru 🤪; and if it doesn’t have fluff, send me a meme and a message of: miss girl i simply cannot today ✋😃)  

WORD COUNT: 5.6k 

A/N: hello! tonight, we are going to be sad!!! i know i usually like to write about all things fluff, but this?? this is just for me because i am having one of those episodes. i just need to feel something again aside from the stress of writing 3 academic papers per week lmao. i’m def not expecting people to like this type of vibe but yannoe. i apologize in advance. 

this is inspired by that one episode from new girl (season 6 x ep 16)

gif credits: @thollandgifs​ 

vanessa’s masterlist | taglist form | part two - pandemonium ​​

“You know, you can still live with us right?” Your friend Maia commented as she placed the box, labelled “fine china that mom gave me but will i ever use them?”, on the kitchen island. 

“I know,” You murmured dropping the heavy case of pots and pans on the floor. “But maybe living alone will be good for me.” You replied, forcing a smile. “Besides, I don’t want to int—“

“Hey, Y/N, where do you want this?” Harrison asked as he held out a box that’s labelled with “books that my grandpa passed on. HANDLE WITH CARE!” 

“Oh, just set it down on the living room—“ before you could even finish, Harrison dropped the box on the floor as if it was nothing. “Harrison!” You hissed, as you quickly rushed to check on the box. 

“Y/N, babe, they’re just books. Surely they can withstand any amount of pressure, yeah?” Haz tried to reassure you. 

“Haz, those books are from my grandpa—which I’m sure he got from his grandpa.” You sighed. “They’re really old and fragile, so I just want them to be in a well enough condition to stand in my bookcase.” 

“‘m sorry,” He murmured, rubbing the back of his head. “It’s just, why do you have to move out?” Harrison asked, frustrated at the whole thing. 

“Like I told Maia, maybe having my own place will be good for me.” You replied calmly, as you neatly put the box filled with your grandpa’s books in the corner room—the initial place where you want to build your bookcase. “It’s been a while since I’ve lived on my own.” 

“Yeah,” Harrison acknowledged “But there’s absolutely no reason for you to move out. You can’t possibly leave me with her!” He pointed at Maia who let out an audible gasp. Harrison was being dramatic of course.  

“Haz—“ You were trying to fight off a laugh. “You two are my constants and if I became dependant on having you two at my convenience, it’s going to be a huge problem.” 

“In my opinion, I don’t see it as a problem.” Maia pointed out childishly. You shook your head in disbelief. You had to move out because you miss having a place to yourself— a place where you can be at your complete worst and you don’t have to think about your friends worrying about you. 

Besides, moving out means you don’t have to see Tom that often and that was a bonus in your book. It wasn’t a sour breakup per se, it’s just really difficult to feel happy for your ex when he practically showcases how different he is now with his girlfriend. 

You prided yourself as a mature and well-rounded person who could be complete friends with her ex as if that’s normal. You could only keep the façade for so long. 

Four months. It’s been four months since you and Tom broke up. You lived with Maia soon after the breakup and that enough was a blessing. Maia couldn’t bear to handle the fact that you would be alone at a time like this. Harrison usually crashes at Maia’s so he was bound to move in with you two. In fact, he was always there more often than you. 

That was the point where you were convinced that Harrison liked Maia and that Maia liked Harrison.

Conveniently, you and Tom never ‘officially’ moved in together so you could avoid him freely at all costs.

Of course, that was eventually going to end soon. You and Tom were in the same friend group so you were bound to see each other, much to your dismay. You couldn’t exactly make Harrison and Maia pick friends because it’s not fair for anyone. 

You were all friends before you and Tom decided to date. Maybe that’s why people say to never date a friend—especially if they’re near and dear. 

You were coming back from work when you found people in the living room, and as if the universe really wanted to test you, it was the least likely people you’d expect to see. 

“Y/N!” Maia’s voice was pure panic. “I didn’t know you’d be home this early.” 

Your eyes quickly flickered between the two people standing across you before you diverted your attention to Maia. “Uh—yeah. There wasn’t really much to do in the office so I came home early.” 

Maia turned to Harrison who was equally lost on how to handle the situation. I mean, who wouldn’t?! What were you supposed to do when your friend drops in unannounced with their new girlfriend and to makes the matters worse, your other friend—whom your friend dated before— decides to come home early? 

You didn’t know how what kind of spirit took over your body that prompted you to extend your hand to the girl sitting beside your ex and say: “Hello, I’m Y/N.” 

The girl looked surprised but shook your hand in return. “Nadine,” Nadine smiled slyly “I—um, I’m Tom’s girlfriend.” 

Tom looked mildly uncomfortable but you chose to ignore it. You were becoming good at that—ignoring Tom. 

You returned the smile at Nadine. You could feel the burning stares from your friends, mostly Maia. You cleared your throat and said, “I’ll just be in my room to finish the papers I need to send to my editor if you’ll excuse me.” 

Before you left completely, you gave Nadine another smile and said, “It’s nice to meet you again, Nadine.”

You don’t remember how you got to your room but that was the least of your concern. You were just undeniably overwhelmed with what just happened that you didn’t even notice that there was a knock on your door. 

When you opened the door, it was the last person you expected to see standing in your doorframe. 

“Can we talk?” Tom asked in almost a whisper. 

You gave him a half shrug and opened the door slightly wider for him. 

“We’re okay, right?” He asked, looking at you in the eye. 

At this point, you convinced yourself that you were numb. You never talked about the breakup. You never overtly said anything about what you felt. You felt empty. You convinced yourself that you were empty. 

You stared back at Tom and without missing a beat, you replied “Of course. Why shouldn’t we?” 

“Just admit that you two will miss me,” You teased, grabbing another box from Maia. 

“Only if you admit that you’re moving out for an entirely different reason,” Maia whispered carefully as her eyes flickered towards Tom who was also helping with your move out. 

You pressed your lips together and acted like he wasn’t even there. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” You said, you know, like a liar. 

You weren’t a vocal person. The idea of talking about your feelings was really difficult for you so you try your best to avoid it. Actually, it’s worse than that. You’d go to extreme lengths to avoid confrontation.

Obviously, it wasn’t healthy. You would always distance yourself whenever you feel emotionally exhausted, and you really meant that distance. It wasn’t bad at first—maybe a day or two was all you needed before you felt comfortable enough to be around people again. 

Then it became worse when you were in university. You were beyond unreachable. Aside from being emotionally exhausted, you were mentally drained too. You were always buried with papers and readings which was unavoidable but it took a huge toll on you. So whenever you get a chance to get a break, you completely shut off from people. 

Your friends definitely noticed it and they tried their best to help. 

Tom was among the people who definitely went out of their way to help you. He would always drop by at your dorm with food or coffee—he would literally just drop them off, most of the time. He would leave small notes that up to this day, you still kept and tucked away in a box. 

Both Maia and Harrison followed Tom’s approach. They would all alternate on who’s dropping what and when. Some days, Maia would drop off a new skincare product she’s been using or a lovely box of macarons from your favourite patisserie. 

On other days, Harrison would drop off some of his home-cooked meals or maybe a book he saw from a local bookstore—a book that reminded him of you.

Tom was very persistent though. He would sometimes wait out on the hall, just so he could see you and reassure himself (and your friends) that you were okay. 

You found it taxing at first—you would often try your best to match the energy from your friends, which only left you exhausted at the end of the day. You wanted space and you clearly weren’t getting that from Tom. You did acknowledge that he only did it out of pure concern. 

You often wondered why he did that, staying, but you didn’t ask him. You never did.

Maybe you were afraid that you’d come off as rude or that you’d seem ungrateful for dismissing someone when they’ve clearly taken the time off their day just to check on you. 

However, every time you’d open that door, it always seemed that Tom would breathe a huge sigh of relief when you lock eyes. Even if it was just for a quick second. You wondered about that too.

Tom wasn’t really being intrusive. Most of the time, he will leave a few minutes after you’d open the door to get the things your friends would drop off. You’d always ask him if he wants to stay inside for a bit, but he’d always decline.

Except for that one time, though. That one time that you knew you were going to fall in love.

It was the week of midterms and deadlines. You were knee-deep with papers from different classes that demanded to be finished that week, one of which was a research paper that practically tied you to your laptop and made you consume an unhealthy amount of caffeine. 

It wasn’t until 2 am when you were about to go on a quick drive to a McDonald’s but saw Tom dozed off in the hallway, his back pressed against the wall.

“Tom,” You shook him gently, trying not to startle him. “Tom, wake up.”

His eyes slowly fluttered open, seemingly disoriented at first but would soon fall into the warm familiarity that your face always brings. 

“Why are you sleeping in the hall?” You asked quietly, careful not to make a fuss. The walls in your dorm were very thin and you learned that the hard way. You’d think they’d put a disclaimer about that in the lease when you’re housing a bunch of university students with raging sex drives. 

It took Tom a minute to fully comprehend the question, seeing that the bright fluorescent light was being harsh on him and that he’s generally like that when being jolted awake. 

“Oh, erm, I—” Tom was finding the right words to use. He can’t exactly exclaim ‘I’ve been worried sick about you!’ out of nowhere. Instead he said, “I was waiting for you to open the door, just to see if you’re alright.” 

“All night?”

Tom scratched the back of his neck. “It seemed that way, yeah.” He muttered sheepishly. 

You were dumbfounded. Surely this was the first time someone actually fell asleep outside your door, waiting for you to come out. It was sweet but highly unnecessary. 

“I was just about to head out and get some McDonald’s, do you wanna come with?” You asked, giving him a hand to hoist himself up. 

“I should get going—“ 

“Have you eaten yet?” You asked cutting him off, taking Tom by surprise. He shook his head no. “Then you should really come.” You said, jingling your car keys in front of him.

Tom was debating whether or not to go with you. It’s been a while since you hung out, but that was the same case for everyone. None of your friends have properly hung out with you ever since the semester started. 

Tom should say yes, right? 

“Let’s go, Tommy,” You said as you grabbed his hand and dragged him across the hall. “I’ve been staring at my laptop all day and I really need some unhealthy food to balance out the concerning amount of caffeine I’ve consumed.” 

“Is that why you’re practically bouncing off the walls?” Tom asked amused, trying to keep up with your pace with your hand holding his. 

“Totally,” You grinned at him. “I need to wear out the caffeine or else, I’d have to skip my morning class again.” 

“French?” 

You nodded. “They’re counting the amount of absences in that class and I really need to keep my shit together.” 

“‘m not exactly sure why you took that as an elective,” Tom commented, properly wrapping his hand around yours with fingers interlacing each other.  

You tried to ignore it, you really did, but the warm feeling that settled around your stomach drove you crazy. 

“Why not? I think it’s cool to learn another language.” You nudged him playfully which he gladly returned. 

“I know and trust me, I’m in awe that you’re learning another language! erm—I guess it’s just I feel like you’re overworking yourself too much.” Tom pointed out softly, hoping he didn’t come off as rude or intrusive. 

“Eh, I don’t mind.” You replied “It’s what drives me to keep going and for me that’s more than enough. Even if it leaves me little to no sleep, even if it takes too much of my time—it’s enough reason for me to do it.” 

Tom stared at you in admiration as soon as those words slipped out your mouth and you didn’t even notice it. You were walking towards the student parking lot, consumed by the twinkling lights from the neighbouring lanes near campus. 

Maybe if you weren’t busy consuming the quiet campus grounds, you’d notice the very first time Tom fell in love with you. 

“Besides, I know a phrase in french now.”

“Hm—and what’s that, then?” 

“Je ne suis pas l’escargot” 

“L’escargot? Isn’t that—“ 

“I am not a snail,” You giggled. “Well, it’s true, isn’t it?”

Tom laughed, “I supposed so.” 

Maybe if you weren’t so afraid of confrontation, you’d have an idea of when Tom knew that you were his person.

See, the thing is— you needed to face reality sooner or later and both your friends could see right through it. 

“Honestly, Y/N, how on earth can your box of art materials be this heavy—” Tom appeared in front of the door frame, heaving as he carried the box from two flights of stairs. 

You quickly averted your gaze from Maia, who was staring at you expectantly, and cleared your throat. “You can just set them by the door, Tom. I don’t know where to put them yet.” You said as you tried your best to act normal. 

“You sure? They’re a tad heavy and I don’t want you to strain yourself.” Tom asked with furrowed brows. 

All you could do was nod. The last thing you wanted was Tom’s focused attention on you.

“If you say so,” Tom sighed in defeat “I’m going to grab more boxes—Baby, you don’t have to carry that!” Tom was quick to disappear as he urgently dashed towards his girlfriend, Nadine. 

“Oh, but I want to help, Tommy.” You heard Nadine say sweetly, assuming she was also pouting. 

You could see Maia roll her eyes, urging you to give her a nudge and a taunting look. “Maia,” you called her out, silently pleading her to stop. 

Maia settled down but she wasn’t exactly calm about it either. “I’m still not sure why she’s here.” She murmured. You and Harrison were close enough that you can hear her rambles—which was expected from her anyway. 

Maia and Nadine go way back—like toddlers and playgrounds kind of way. Though that sounds figuratively adorable in a way, Maia and Nadine never got along. 

Nadine used to date Maia’s brother, which already caused Maia a great demise. As one could expect, the relationship didn’t end well. She left him out of nowhere, saying she needs to find herself—or something along those lines. 

A week after the breakup, what Nadine found was herself in the arms of another man. Of course, Maia’s brother was devastated—He truly loved Nadine. Maia had to be the pillar that her brother leaned on. It took Maia a great amount of time to help her brother pick up the pieces that Nadine left. 

So yeah—Maia wasn’t thrilled when she heard that Tom was Nadine’s new boyfriend. 

“She offered to help, Mai,” You whispered “Who am I to deny help?” 

Maia looked at you as if you managed to empty your head while you were moving in between flats. “She’s been after me ever since we were kids. She’s also the reason why it took my brother months to get out of bed,” Maia deadpanned “and She’s Tom’s new girlfriend. Remember Tom? Your ex?” She said rather loudly.

You gave her a tiny pinch on her arm, causing her to yelp. “Maia, are you nuts?!”

Harrison left the two of you so he could grab more boxes, while you and Maia bickered silently amongst each other. 

“You are thicker than I thought—Seriously, Y/N. Quit pinching me!” Maia aggressively rubbed her arm. 

“They’re going to hear you!” You hissed. “The last thing I want is for those two to get involved.” 

“Babe, they’re already involved. Tom, especially.” Maia remarked. “I see the way you look at Tom. I also see the pain you feel whenever he’s with she who must not be named.” 

“I’m not doing this Maia,” you mumbled as you walked past her. Your objective was now to help Harrison with the remaining boxes. Your objective was anything but to talk about you and Tom. 

“You have to face it sooner or later, Y/N.” Maia called out “I’m not leaving you or this apartment until you tell me what really happened.” 

“What’s going on?” Harrison asked as he entered the apartment, carrying three sets of boxes. You grabbed one from him and actively avoided his question. 

Before Maia could reply, Tom and Nadine appeared on the doorframe, with Nadine practically glued to Tom. 

“Harrison got the last remaining boxes so we’re heading off now,” Tom announced as Nadine’s face painted with clear desperation to get out of your place. “Are we still going bowling tonight?” Tom asked before Nadine whispered something in Tom’s ear and left.

“I’m actually exhausted so I’ll pass,” You answered, obviously avoiding spending time with your ex and his current girlfriend. You’re not that pathetic. 

“Same might actually have to just drink the night away,” Maia responded with a grin.

“Well, there’s no way I’m third-wheeling so I’m good,” Harrison said as he threw himself towards the plush teal couch that you snagged from a flea market. 

For the tiniest second, Tom seemed disappointed but gave a tight-lipped smile. “Oh, maybe we can reschedule our bowling night, then?” He asked. “It’s not as fun to go bowling with just the two people.” 

You, Harrison, and Maia all shared a look. You weren’t on board with bowling-night, to begin with, but you didn’t want Tom to feel as if you were avoiding him—which you were but no one needs to know that. 

Maia looked at you, waiting for an answer because god knows she will solely depend on her decision based on yours. You don’t even have an answer, to begin with. 

“What are you two supposed to do then?” Harrison asked Tom. Thank god for Harrison.

“I might take Nadine to this poetry jam event that she’s been dying to go to” Tom replied with a soft voice. 

“A poetry night?” Maia almost wanted to laugh “You don’t even have the slightest interest in literature, Tom.” Maia didn’t mean to offend him or maybe she did? She wasn’t completely fond of Tom ever since you and Tom broke up—well, she wasn’t fond of the idea that Tom was dating her ‘arch nemesis’, but Tom was her friend and so were you. 

“I know that, Mai.” Tom rolled his eyes “but Nadine likes it and I’ll do everything to make her happy.” That left a bitter taste in your mouth. 

“If you say so,” Maia murmured before she took a quick look at you. She looked like she wants to give you the biggest hug. But you held a stoic look on your face—something that you picked up because you were afraid of confrontation. 

“I’m serious,” Tom defended, lost in his feelings, which only irked Maia even more. 

“I know, I heard you— we heard you,” Maia replied, her face showing only one emotion: annoyed. “God, read the room,” Maia grumbled to herself. Harrison had to reach for her hand, urging her to calm down. 

“I really love her,” Tom whispered. That left a slap in the face. 

It was a cold Saturday afternoon and it has been raining almost all day. It was one of the rare weekends that you weren’t really occupied to do anything other than to lay on your couch and consume a copious amount of entertainment.

Despite the spitting rain, you actually want to head out this time. Being confined to your desk and the university was torture especially since you couldn’t do anything about it—the four of you were graduating this year, no one could afford to slack off. 

You and Tom were cuddled against the sofa— Tom was busy watching something on TV while you were busy scrolling on your phone. 

“Hey, Tom?” 

“Yes, my sweet girl?” 

“Do you want to go downtown?” You asked, looking at your phone as you read the details of an event happening this weekend.

“Right now?”

“Mhm,” you hummed. “There’s a book fair being held at the local theatre.” You rested your chin on top of his chest and gave him a pout. You were getting sick of being cooped up between your study table and the library. This book fair was a change of scenery and it’s definitely right up your alley.

“But it’s raining, darling” Tom tried to say in the softest way possible. It’s not exactly up in Tom’s interests though.

“I know,” You sighed “I guess I’m just getting sick of this place.”

“You’re getting sick of me?” Tom asked with a huge pout. He was kidding of course. 

“I don’t think I’ll ever get sick of you, Tom.” You chuckled softly. 

“Okay,” He hummed, pulling you closer to him—if that was even possible. “Then can we stay like this for a while?” 

“Anything for you, angel.” You whispered as you closed the details about the local book fair. Maybe next time. 

Soon after Tom left, Maia pulled you to her side and asked, “You okay, babe?” 

“Yeah, why wouldn’t I be?” You feigned innocence. It was clear as day that you weren’t okay, your friends knew that. 

Knowing that you weren’t going to budge, Maia walked towards the kitchen and brought out a bottle of wine from the fridge. 

Harrison raised an eyebrow at her and asked, “When did you manage to put that in the fridge?” All of you had been occupied with grabbing boxes that there was no way that Maia had the time to put wine in the fridge, let alone obtain them from somewhere.

“It was supposed to be a celebratory drink for Y/N’s new place,” Maia replied as she set the wine and three various mugs on the coffee table. “Obviously, that’s not happening now.” Drinking wine using the oddly designed mugs you collected over the years was a cry for help. 

“It’s 4 pm, Mai.” You pointed out as you stared at the white LED clock that you bought off Amazon—another impulse purchase enabled from scrolling on Pinterest for way too long. “We haven’t even had lunch yet.” 

“Oh please,” Maia snorted “If there’s one thing that I’ve picked up from university, it’s drinking with little to no food consumption.” 

“And if there’s one thing that I’ve picked up from university, it’s cancelling all of my plans for the entire day because I have to tend your hungover-self, Mai,” Harrison remarked as he grabbed the bottle and placed it back on the fridge. “I’m ordering food and no one’s drinking until everyone has finished a meal.” 

You heard Maia mutter a string of curses but most especially the part that she said, “This is not the version of daddy that I envisioned Harrison to be.” 

All of a sudden Maia’s idea of binge drinking doesn’t seem like a bad idea, you thought. 

Turns out Harrison had no intention of letting any of you drink. He was pretty adamant about not having to babysit two drunk messes in one night. 

“As if babysitting one isn’t enough,” You recalled Harrison say. He was obviously pertaining to Maia, in which she just huffed the entire time. You often wondered if Maia and Harrison noticed the obvious tension between them, because personally you found it endearing. It was no question that they were meant for each other. 

“Y/N, you still haven’t told us whatever happened between you and Tom.” Maia suddenly pointed out. You, Maia, and Harrison were still in the living room, silently watching TV. 

You were actively avoiding this conversation for the longest time as you haven’t told anyone about it, and based by the curious faces of your friends, you figured that Tom didn’t tell anyone about it either. You’re still not sure whether that’s a relief or not.  

“There’s nothing to talk about.” You mumbled. It’s not like you were lying, there really was barely anything to talk about. Heck—You and Tom never got to talk about it properly either. 

“We see the way you look at him, Y/N.” Harrison replied softly. “I think there is something.” 

“Look—” Maia sat up properly “I know you’re not really vocal about your feelings, but the fact that you’ve never talked nor showed any emotion about your breakup terrifies me, babe.” Maia’s tone was laced with concern. 

“I remember the day you told us about it too,” Harrison couldn’t hide his concern too “We were having brunch together at our usual diner and half-way through our meal, you promptly said “We broke up” when Maia asked where Tom was,” Harrison recalled it like it was a fever dream. He and Maia had already expected that you weren’t going to tell them about the breakup when it just happened. However, it baffles them that it’s been over a year since you and Tom broke up, and not one word has been said about it. 

It was silent for a while, except for Criminal Minds that was playing on the TV. You blankly stared at the screen, hoping that you’d catch whatever the agents were saying. It was impossible, especially when all your mind could focus on was the recollection of the day Tom knocked on your door at 1 am to breakup.  

You were relatively busy that day from volunteer work, so you haven’t seen any of your friends the entire day—or Tom for that matter. Actually, you haven’t seen Tom in a few days. He would send texts periodically throughout the day but they were always short and most of the time, you always forget to reply. 

You figured Tom was busy with his own thing and both of you established early on in your relationship that texting—or lack thereof— shouldn’t account to your relationship, especially since both of you are equally bad at it. 

You didn’t think any of it since you were bound to see your boyfriend and your friends tomorrow for brunch anyway. He will have your undivided attention by then. 

So imagine your surprise when you heard a soft knock from your door at 1 am, only to find Tom in disarray. His eyes were bloodshot red, tears falling down his face. His messy curls were masked under the hood from his jumper. 

At first you were in panic, you thought that something terrible had happened to any of your friends—his family even. 

But as soon as Tom dropped to his knees and whispered, “I’m sorry,” you had a clear idea what was bound to happen next. 

It’s been silent for a while. The door was still open and Tom sat out in the hall with his back leaning against your wall. You did the same thing except you were on the other side of the wall that Tom was leaning on. 

You two were close enough to the door frame that you could hear each other, actually facing each other was a whole other thing. Tears kept streaming down your face as you kept your eyes closed and rested your head against the wall. 

At some point in your relationship, you prepared yourself in case this happened— that you would accept whatever happens between you and Tom. You didn’t exactly anticipate that it would happen so soon. 

“Was there someone else?” You asked quietly. It was the first time you spoke after Tom dropped to his knees. You hoped there wasn’t. In fact, you silently begged to yourself that there wasn’t someone else, because you knew that you couldn’t handle that. 

“No, no—of course not.” Tom immediately answers.”I could never do that to you.” 

It was silent again. You were starting to feel numb—you tried your best to gather your thoughts and forced words out of your mouth, but you couldn’t. 

“Are we not worth fighting anymore?” You practically whispered. It was a gamble— you weren’t exactly sure if Tom had heard it and you don’t have enough strength to ask it again. 

“Y/N,” Tom sniffled. “You can’t say that.” He placed his hand on top of yours. You had your hand resting on the floor and you didn’t exactly notice that it served as an invitation for Tom hold it again. 

You love Tom with all your heart. He kept dismissing it but Tom made you a better person. He made you feel like love can be expressed through different forms of things—not just words.

You loved him by exclusively making time for him. You went on museum dates where he would make cheesy remarks, saying that you’re the most remarkable piece of art in the entire place. You went on dates to watch football games—you never understood it but Tom was happy, so you were happy.

You loved him through your touch. You would often massage his back because he had been tirelessly working himself to the core. He didn’t ask for it but you knew it would make him feel better. Your touch didn’t have to be intimate—though you expressed it through that way too

You loved him through mindless actions. Almost every time you would stop by at the local cafe to grab yourself some coffee, you would always recite Tom’s favourite order on autopilot. 

You loved him through silence. Study dates were gems for you. Even if you didn’t talk for the entirety of it and even if you were the only one who studied for the most part and Tom was just playing on his phone, having Tom beside you was enough.

You loved him so much that it pains you to think that maybe you weren’t enough for him. 

“I don’t think I can fight for someone who doesn’t even want to,” You muttered bitterly. “Just answer the question, Tom.” 

He didn’t answer. All you could hear were the silent sobs that you two were trying to hold back. At this point, you knew you wouldn’t look at Tom. Your heart wouldn’t take it—it will crush you. 

“Are you not happy anymore?” Your voice cracked as you broke into a sob.

“Y/N—“ Tom squeezed your hand even more. You’re going to miss it, but you had to let go. 

“Tom, if I’m standing in the way of your happiness then we should end this.” You cleared your throat and pulled your hand away. There’s a ghostly feeling that still lingered from Tom’s touch. 

“Please, Y/N, let me explain—“ 

“It’s okay, Tom.” You whispered. “I understand.” 

“You know I love you, Y/N.” 

“I love you too, Tom.” 

“But—“ 

“But maybe it’s best if we end it, I know. I got it.” You let out a deep breath, trying to calm yourself down from crying. “Maybe it’s better if we stayed as friends.” Maybe it’s better to realize that whatever you and Tom had were too good to be true—that your love will never compare to the love he deserves. 

“Do you want the truth?” You asked your friends, with tears forming in your eyes. You can’t even decipher how they looked at you because of the tears clouding your vision. 

Were they looking at you in pity? Empathy? Sadness? 

“The truth is—I’m mad.” You gritted the words through your teeth. This was the first time your friends had seen you like this. All of the pent-up sadness, aggression, and hurt you felt was starting to get the best of you. 

“I’m angry. I’m hurt.” You snarled, furiously wiping the tears from your face. “I’m angry at the fact that I can’t seem to be genuinely happy for Tom. I’m hurt at the idea he seems to be a better boyfriend for Nadine, that he constantly makes an effort for her.”

“I don’t even know if he even loved me the way that I loved him,” Your voice became quiet “and it’s selfish for me to think that way because I never fought for it—for us. That’s enough reason to keep me up at night.” 

That’s enough reason for you to wonder if you’ll be capable of loving someone so deeply again. 

PERMANENT TAGLIST: 

@quaksonhehe @dark-infernal-instruments @trustfundparker @emsma11 @tomshufflepuff @spider-babe @goodgirlgonetom @tabi-toast​ 

[americano-jowajowa]

✒ [ 00:45 ] SUGGESTIVE || Han Jisung

Scene: When he walks in on you naked // wc: 765

Having a light shower in the evening is the best thing before going to bed, especially when you get to feel your soft sheets gliding smoothly against your fresh skin. The night was slightly chilly as well, perfect to have yourself buried in your duvet but before you could do that you have to do your nighttime skincare routines. It was 11 pm as of now, Jisung aka your roommate, should have probably been sleeping since 9 pm so you took off the towel from your torso and wrapped it around your hair instead. You were at ease, or maybe just had no care that your body is like exposed every inch. Proceeding to do your skincare, you grabbed your favorite lotion from the nightstand and tried opening it. It came in a tube and it was new, hence, explains why you're currently struggling to open it. It pissed you off a bit that you cant even open a tube of lotion, so gathering your strength to your hands you sat on the bed and tried to force the lid open while unconciously gripping the tube tightly.

It wasnt a good move, because the moment the lid finally opened tons of the white lotion flew and fell onto your body. Some made it onto your face, your torso, and even your thighs. It made you pause for a moment, before making you sigh in frustration. "Great, I made a mess." You muttered to yourself, and once you decided to stand up, you fell back in utter shock when the door to your room slammed open.

Behold, there was no other than Han Jisung who seemed to be in a state of emergency, but once he absorbed the scenario in front of him he paused. You were still in shock because of his sudden appearance, you still didnt quite get why he was staring at you up and down. However, you didnt miss the way his eyebrows flicked up as if he were impressed nor the licking of his lips and a muttered "Damn" under his breath, but the moment you felt the slick of the lotion trickling further down your body, you squeaked in realization and hastily covered yourself with a pillow. You even grabbed another one to throw at his face cause you knew very well that would distract his lingering gaze on you. "STUPID, Dont you know how to knock?!" You shouted at him, obviously flustered by the way you attempted to avoid eye contact whilst covering yourself with the huge ass pillow you have. Although, Jisung just barged into your room while you are butt naked, had lotion explicitly dripping across your skin and that he was hit on the face by an extremely soft pillow, he casually leaned his back onto the wall and cleared his throat in all seriousness. "I'll knock next time but as of now that's not important. Something serious just came up and I dont know what to decide ." By the tone of his voice, you were convince that it might be pretty serious so you gathered the courage to peek at him despite your current position. Once you locked gazes, he asked. "Should we get the pizza with pineapple toppings, since there's like a limited low price offer? Or would you like burgers, maybe some ice cream for movie night instead?"

Your jaw dropped in disbelief, and you threw another pillow at him, you even grabbed the vase on the nightstand which finally eased him to moving out. "You PRICK, get out!!" Jisung dodged the pillow you threw before rushing out in fear of getting himself bruised. "Im sorry! Im sorry! If it makes you feel better, I'll buy you that peach flavored drink!! I know how much you love it and you also have a nice set of peaches as well—"

"GET OUT." Okay, maybe barging into your room for options wasn't a great idea. Jisung made a mental note to himself that there are certain times that food aren't gonna be your first priority. He walked back to the kitchen where his phone is at, he really did plan to order some midnight foods, but now he suddenly remembered how you were freaking out while laying back in shock on your bed, lotion all over you bringing up such nasty thoughts in his head. It made his blood rush up to his cheeks and down south as well, because, damn, he knew you were hot... But who you knew you looked like a snack as well?

[wizkiddx]

i loved your blurb the other day . i have a request off it if you could do one more domesticated about the little things tom does in a relationship?

Ooooh I loved loved loved this request!! In my head he is a complete romantic sap at heart <333 this is a lot more wordy that I normally write and bit concerned it is a shitter - feedback would be well appreciate, if you have any opinion on which crappy writing style I do less badly :///

Summary: the boring and domesticated day to day life with Tom

warnings: look really close an a bit of implied smut, but otherwise sickeningly nice stuff I think ahah

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Given his rather unique position and place in the world - your relationship with Tom was also very much not typical. By no means did that mean worse though - Tom meant the world to you; as you did him. Yes, at times it was tough - the distance, the tightly scheduled face times because of the time difference. But every time you saw his crinkly smile, it was almost set in stone everything was worth it. He was, most definitely, worth it. 

Especially as he was such a sap. Perhaps because some of the things he did that brought rushes of heat to your cheeks - Tom wasn’t even aware of. Of course, Tom being Tom, he obviously did the bigger things and spoilt you rotten - which you were never going to complain about - though those weren’t the things that made your heart flutter so inexplicably. 

Take yesterday for example. Tom had just got back home from a long filming shoot for SM3 and it was fair to say you’d both been pining over each other enormously. Once he was back though, none of that mattered. The pair of you had spent almost a full 18 hours in bed, before eventually you’d pulled away from the pouty boy, due to your desperate need of a shower. That was too far away from you in Tom’s opinion though- meaning you’d had a shared shower too. Purely for water saving + environmental purposes , or at least, that had been his justification. It was intimate but not sexual, leading to the two of you wrapped in towels in the marble bathroom. Busying yourself with your skincare, you weren’t paying any mind to your boyfriend, who you assumed to be faffing about as usual. That was until you felt a gentle tug on the back of your towel dried hair. Instantly you locked eyes with warm brown ones looking back at you through the slightly fogged up mirror, panning down to see the hair brush in his hand. 

“What’re you doing?” You laughed gently, leaning back onto his bare torso, still slightly damp from the humidity lingering in the bathroom air. 

“ ‘jus’ brushin your hair, I haven’t got all the lotions and potions to spend hours on.” Cheeky bugger. Sweet but with a mischievous twinkle in his eyes - as he watched you roll yours. 

“If I phoned Rach and said you weren’t following her-“ Cut off by his lips craning round to meet yours, you decided not to fight it, instead melting into his embrace while turning round - your body still only wrapped in the towel tucked under your arm. After a few moments Tom paused to whisper a shh against your lips, before painfully slowly moving against yours again. God knows, you would’ve stayed in that moment forever if you could however you did also still have moisturiser only half rubbed in on your face, like warpaint. So, you turned back around finishing off in the mirror and very much enjoying the sensation of Tom still hovering behind,  ever so gently working the brush through your hair. It took much longer than it should have for you to finish off, mainly because you spent the time watching him in the mirror concentrate, especially the way he pressed his tongue against the inside of his left cheek in concentration. 

After the pair of you had finally got ready for the day (at 3 in the afternoon but no one had to know), you’d gone out for a walk with his parents. Naturally you spent the majority of the time gossiping with Nikki slightly ahead of the Dom and Tom - who were no doubt talking about golf or something equally as dull. Tom loved to say that he found how close you and Nikki got as terrifying - really you both knew he only adored you more for it. Family was everything to Tom and given poor Nikki’s immediate surroundings of pure testosterone, when you became integrated into the family it was like a breath of fresh air. And you didn’t smell of boy - which to her was a win. 

It was a beautiful early evening and the sun was slowly creeping its way toward the horizon, changing the light from a brilliant white to a more golden hue - basking the four of you and Tess in the glow. You’d all come to a natural halt whilst Tess had gone a bit mental chasing squirrels. It just worked out that the sun was opposite you and though the evening was beautiful, dealing with it head on , in your eyes, was not the most enjoyable. Before you could even reach your arm out to shield yourself from the sun,  the light was blocked out, a shadow casting over your forehead. 

Now what’s important to note here is Tom is by no means a tall man. He wasn’t a midget but it would be fair to say that all 5 foot 8 of him was ‘below average height’. Not that it let him stop being a sun block for you and you really did try not to giggle as your furrowed brows caught site of his raised heels. This boy was literally standing on his tiptoes to stop the sun getting in your eyes for god sake. He noticed your grin though and as if it was the most normal thing in the world just shrugged his shoulders before engaging back in his parents conversation. You weren’t as quick to recover, honestly having to take a moment to swallow down your glee. 

Afterwards, you’d gone straight back the Holland family home as they all wanted to celebrate Tom and Harry’s return- what better way than having Sam the master chef himself cook you all a three course meal? As if choreographed both of you had taken the seats next to each other… but not in a clingy way at all, Paddy was interrogating you on how the hell you’d beaten him at the classic game of mariokart (which you would never let him live down) whilst Tom and Harry were recounting one of their many tales of filming to Nikki. Once the plates of food were served out to you by the esteemed chef, Tom wasted no time in skilfully and subtly piling the greens of vegetables and salad off your plate and onto his. You’d never dream of offending Sam by insulting his cooking, really you did love it - there was just something about rabbit food that you had to put your foot down at. Perhaps it was because it was literal leaves? Things that you used to feed to your pet hamster perhaps? It was a constant source of bickering between you, Tom and Harry- they claimed you’d end up dying because of the lack of leaves in your diet, which you strongly contested. Fruit and some veg was allowed but salad- stay the hell away.

Anyway it didn’t matter, you wouldn’t have to face that debate tonight because Tom had you covered. He always had you covered. 

Finally, the night rolled round which you were so thankful for, considering even though you’d had an extortionate amount of time in bed last night - not a lot of it had actually been spent asleep. Combine that with the wine you’d been happily sipping on in celebration, it pretty much explained the situation you found yourself in now. Eyes bobbing up and down as the TV drifted in and out of focus, the slow and gentle thud of Tom’s heartbeat lulling you into that floaty place. You didn’t fight the drowsiness because really, nestled between the cushions of the sofa and Tom’s chest, you didn’t want to be anywhere else. Letting your eyes slide shut completely, you took a deep breath in and nuzzled into his chest- barely registering how he lightly chuckled at the action. Tom just took the time to look down at you, pressing the most gently kiss to the crown of your head. Moments like this would never not be his favourite. Don’t get him wrong, he loved your wit and sarcastic charm when you were more conscious… but something about how comfortable you were to be completely vulnerable with him, gave him a purpose. He would never be able to wrap his head around why you’d let him - how he deserved this was beyond him but he was so bloody thankful for it. 

Your hand that was splayed on his stomach caught his eye, you still had your bracelet on from the meal and he knew you hated sleeping with any jewellery on. Instinctively then, Tom ever so gently manipulated the clasp and skilfully removed the silver chain - reaching over and placing it on the little coffee table. Having spent 3 months without you within 100 miles of him, Tom was more than willing to wake up with back ache if it meant spending the night on the sofa with you like this. The gentle grasp on your wrist had roused you a little though. 

It was always the simple things that made your heart burst - like the bracelet . Or like his little raspy whisper, voice tired and thinking you were asleep. Even if everything else disappeared, it would still be the greatest life if you had Tom there saying this. 

“Your home Y/n… you and me forever…

…until u die from not eating ur greens.”

[tiny-crecher]

Unus Annus Secrets

Here I’m going to try and explain all of the Unus Annus codes + possible lore. If I have forgotten some information or if one of these links doesnt work/is incorrect please let me know. This post will be updated when needed. 

This is LONG, so be prepared. 

At first, these codes were only in videos edited by NerdFiction, but as of October 26th this is no longer true. (The possible exception to this would be the first video I’ve listed, as the editor is not in the description). 

1) 5 Weird Apps That Predicted Our Death

 “Here at Unus Annus the end is nigh... when the timer hits zero we will cease to exist. is it fate? is this a simulation? Can anybody hear me? My name is.... [FILE REDACTED]”. Timestamp - 0:14

2) Ethan Roasts Mark for 15 Minutes Straight

 “and in the comments, you will read the words you soon will see are wise controlling pawns who type our deed ‘That is Discord, not FaceTime’” Timestamp - 0:40

“within this truth a question stands, is the pee sauna ever close?”. [“Pee Sauna”was uploaded about a week afterwards] Timestamp - 0:40

3) Our Fans Try to Scare Us with Their Homemade Creepypasta

“What will happen if the clock stops”

“Could I find a way to keep it going?”

“If neither hand is right, what deals are left?”

“Who is the master of the clock?” (all around 8:44)

4) Learning to Cry on Command to Increase Our Youtube Views

“remember the key, the incompletion of a logolept’s corrective action” [a logolept is “a person who takes a keen interest in words”. Marcus is likely referring to himself.] Timestamp - 1:49

“the long wait ends with twenty four more for a path of destiny chosen before”[“Pee Sauna” was uploaded the day after] (closely after the last code)

5) Becoming One With the Horse

“They heard me, I knew it could work!” (timestamp currently unknown; to be updated)

Around this time, NerdFiction’s Twitter bio said, among his normal information, that he was “trying to stop the Unus Annus clock from within.” 

6) Preparing a 5-Star Meal for Our Youtube Famous Dogs

“I couldn’t stop it. Will I die with the machine?” (Timestamp - 21:33)

7) Does This Magnetic Skincare Routine Really Work?

“freed or so I thought. Another layer, but still the clock.” (Timestamp - 9:45)

“The Beginning of The End”. 

On July 26th, at 12pm PST, a video was uploaded to Unus Annus titled “Traversing the Desert to Find Our Inner Truth”. This video was only up for a few minutes before it mysteriously disappeared, only to be replaced by another video, titled “The Beginning of The End”. At first glance, the videos were identical, save for different titles and slightly different descriptions. However, the second video was slightly longer than the first, and upon further inspection, many came to realize that the audio was slightly different as well. You can listen to both audios here. There was a rumor going around that the captions of “Traversing the Desert to Find Our Inner Truth” said something about looking out for Norbert Moses, but no one has been able to confirm this to my knowledge. 

8) Puberty Simulator

“Happy birthday to the beast or to the body that once housed me. A transfer made for pity’s sake. Tricked into the machine as he had my cake.” (Timestamp - 14:36) [The same code was found a week earlier in “Mark and Ethan Shave Chica”, uploaded on NerdFiction’s birthday. The original code was very difficult to make out, so it is likely he inserted it into a different video to make it easier for us.]

On the same day, NerdFiction’s Twitter bio read “Everyone must leave something behind when he dies. Memento Memoriae” (remember memory)

In “The Koala Challenge: TikTok’s Intimate Couple’s Trend” one of the clips is edited to look like a TikTok video, with the user ron_somberest being used. Ron_Somberest is an anagram for Norbert Moses. This TikTok account does actually exist, and the icon is a zoomed in and brightened photo of Norbert Moses’s face with the eyes scribbled out. 

Around this time NerdFiction’s Twitter bio read “’It’s not dark, never was’ - Ron Bestsmore”. Ron Bestsmore is also an anagram for Norbert Moses. It is possible that the “dark” being referred to here is Darkiplier, and NerdFiction is trying to imply that Dark is not involved in this. 

About a week after the koala challenge video was “How to Start a Fire (except don’t)”, which featured an appearance from Unus. NerdFiction’s Twitter bio read “In the end, who is your savior and what are they saving you from?” 

Things were quiet for about a month. NerdFiction eventually erased the cryptic message from his Twitter bio. 

9) Learning To Use The Force

“wait no something is wrong. he knows!” (Timestamp - 10:45) [translated from small coded words hidden in the montage]

“STOPTHISWHATAREYOUDOINGO3″ (Timestamp - 11:40)

“it worked” (a spectrogram, derived from a sound played at the end of the video)

10) Momiplier Tells Us True Scary Stories from Korea

“As I was, as I’ve done to him now. Am I right to decide his fate?” (Timestamp - 5:44) [Right before this, Mark’s mom is talking about a nightmare she had where she was paralyzed, possibly implying that nerdfiction was once paralyzed and has now paralyzed someone else (pointed out by @/minervas-sandwich)]

11) Cryptid Olympics

“I thought you’d join us but, hey, that was just a theory, Memento Doctrina” (remember learning). (Timestamp - 5:49) [The code references the Game Theorists channel, which had uploaded a video about Unus Annus earlier that same day.]

- From here on, every video has had some sort of code -

12) Edward Pumpkin Hands - This was the first coded video not edited by NerdFiction, instead being edited by Diceroll.

At various points throughout the video small parts of a url are seen. When pieced together, this link is made: https://imgur.com/a/tyDewJ7. It leads to a photo of the Unus Annus hourglass. When edited, a series of binary text is shown, which translates to “zhIaNL2“. Inputting this into another imgur link gets you to https://imgur.com/a/zhIaNL2. After editing the photo (although you can still sorta see it without doing so), a cipher of a custom alphabet is shown (I posted an edited photo here).

At 5:01 in the video a weird image is shown for only a moment (a slightly brightened version of it here). Nobody knows what the hell it means.

At the same time, there is a reversed audio of someone (presumably Ethan; it sounds like him) saying “we did that”. For context, the sentence said right before that line was “if one of us dies, the other has to take over for the remainder of time”. This is possibly implying that someone, or multiple someones, has/have died and been replaced.

13) Blood Bath - edited by rad_r

“Everything’s fine”

The Unus Annus timer is shown. It counts down for three seconds before counting up for one second. Heavy breathing can be heard over it. It is then cancelled by an error message

“ITS NOT FINE HELP” (this and the previous two messages are hidden at 5:57)

“you’ve done it now.. a machine observed. there is no returning.. a machine unnerved. there is only.. a machine unconqured.” (right at the end of the video, before the timer)

14) The Unus Annus Annual Costume Contest - edited by nerdfiction

“I saw just one door in a hall filled with many, I locked your gate but they were too late to join me. He was re-placed, she was undone, I had escaped yet he had still won”. (Timestamp - 2:05) [possibly talking about diceroll and rad_r. The pronouns would line up, and it would make sense with those two now having edited coded videos.]

15) Ethan Turns Mark Into a Werewolf - edited by rad_r

“futility or farewell? only time time time.” (timestamp - 7:17)

16) Ethan Kidnapped Mark - edited by Diceroll

Two spectrograms are shown in this video; one at 14:08 and one at 17:38. Combined, they create an imgur link: https://imgur.com/a/gKB62sv

The imgur link shows a photo of a key. On the key is a code translating to “stop the clock”

At the end of the video before the timer is a set of text in the custom alphabet previously mentioned. Translated and decoded it translates to “I can hear it coming theres not much time left the ones that tried to stop it have had their hearts cleft it is now your turn to put this loop to rest take us out of here and show us a new nest”

17) Being Brutally Honest with Each Other

“It is alive, no longer living / misunderstood beats unforgiving / escaped that fate but lost the tale / does a hope yet remain or just one final nail?” (Timestamp - 26:03)

18) Recreating Every Single Unus Annus Video

“The bottom of the spiral” (timestamp - 10:55)

19) “All Our Video Ideas That Never Happened”

“Be careful for what you wish for” (taken from two different codes)

*20) The Unus Annus Last Supper + Who’s Cutting Onions In Here??? - both edited by rad_r

“We’ve asked... we’ve tried... is there no way to stop the end? To those who aren’t deterred: how much will you sacrifice to ascend?” (A quotefall puzzle, split into 2 parts)

21) Everything’s Legal If You’re Dead

Norbert Moses is mentioned at 10:50. Look closely, his name is only there for a couple frames.

These have been the only codes I’m aware of as of 11/11/20. 

(be sure to check out @gemstone6’s list as well!!)

Link to my Unus Annus theory

[hb-writes]

Just Because You Can Doesn’t Mean You Should

Summary: After a few rainy days stuck inside during spring break, the whole Cullen clan is feeling restless and resort to pranking to pass the time.

Featuring: Emmett Cullen, Carlisle Cullen, and Mia Cullen

-- It had rained for fifteen days straight in Forks, a parade of stubborn drizzles followed by steady downpours and carrying over into the week-long spring break. Mia didn't usually mind the rain, quite used to it giving her something to watch out the window when she didn't care for a teacher's lesson or the drops of it falling against her window and lulling her to sleep at night.

She usually enjoyed the impromptu breaks her family took from school, too, more than happy to roam the woods or sit out in the sun with a book while Forks High School held the impression that Dr. and Mrs. Cullen had pulled the kids out of school for some outdoor activity. But being stuck inside while the school was closed for an endlessly rainy break had Mia feeling a little restless.

It had taken her only a day to finish her pending assignments, and just one more to completely rearrange her bedroom. She had actually grown tired of staring at things, her eyes fatigued by and bored with her laptop screen, books, and the view out her window. And she had grown tired of her siblings too, bored of their usual indoor pursuits and routines.

By day three, Mia had strayed to playing innocent pranks to pass the time—moving her siblings' things when they left the room and making failed attempts to sneak up on all of them, but most specifically Emmett, who'd first made a game of scaring her, wrapping the whole family up in it so that Mia could hardly go an hour without being snuck up on.

Because of that, her pride and joy in regards to the pranks had been the alterations she made to Emmett's jeep, a prank she entered into knowing it would likely be an act of delayed gratification, not like the hiding of frequently needed items or the botched pop up scares. Emmett had no need to take a vehicle out any time soon. If he was going anywhere, he was more likely to run, and once school was back in session, they would be more likely to take Edward's car. Mia knew she could be waiting weeks for any sort of acknowledgement.

She was willing to wait though, the mere recollection of all she had done sufficient enough to get her through Emmett continuing to scare her over and over. She’d done a few things to his jeep, easy stuff like rearranging the mirrors and seats, and adjusting the radio volume to its maximum, and changing the station to the local one that favored heavy metal. But all of that was mostly a distraction because Mia was far more proud of the collection of nuts and bolts in tin cans duct-taped under his seats and inside the spare tire set on the back to the jeep. The whole vehicle would be rattling if he hit a bump or tapped the break, two things she assumed Emmett would encounter before even making it out of the driveway. 

Mia wasn’t usually one for such targeted and premeditated pranks, but Emmett had made a sport of scaring Mia over their week of near-confinement, and she felt he deserved something beyond the standard prank. So when the opportunity arose, with her siblings out for a hunt, her father at the hospital, and her mother occupied with some project in her studio, Mia took her opportunity. 

She knew Emmett would discover the rattle was no more than a prank after he asked Rose to take a look at it, but she still giggled to herself imagining what would happen when he finally brought himself to ask for Rose’s help and then she laughed once again imagining the look on Rose’s face as she held up one of the offending cans. Emmett was clueless when it came to cars. Completely clueless.

But she had only had to wait a few days because Rose had decided she wanted to go on a date, and Emmett insisted on driving, insisted on getting dressed up, and settling himself down on the couch beside Mia while he waited for Rose to finish getting ready.

Had Mia realized they would be taking Emmett's vehicle, she wouldn't have stayed in such a vulnerable position, lounging there on the couch. She would have put some more distance between herself and her siblings, and a locked door, perhaps. She would have prepared herself a bit better to feign ignorance.

But as she had been caught off guard, she hadn't been prepared to fight when Rose stomped back through the front door with Emmett following in her wake. Rose had barely spared her a glance, the can rattling in her hand as she continued straight up the stairs.

And though it all clicked very suddenly that she was about to be told on, Mia couldn't scramble fast enough because it seemed to happen too quickly that Emmett had plucked her off the couch and was placing her down in Carlisle's office, less than two steps away from a seething Rose.

To Rose's dismay, there hadn't been any true repercussions for the prank aside from Carlisle's request that Mia issue a genuine apology and an acknowledgment that cars were not something to be messed with. Mia had laid low for a few days anyhow, avoiding Emmett and Rose, and even her father, to the best of her ability, which was why Mia had settled in for a day of self-care, feeling she’d earned an afternoon of soothing teas and good music and moisturizing skincare and nail painting after all of the effort put into pranking and the hassle of being found out. 

With the rain and the music and her own voice filling her ears, Mia didn’t hear Emmett push her door open or tread across her bedroom floor. Had he been a human of his proportions, he’d not be able to sneak up on her, but as it was, Emmett was stealthy whenever he wished to be, able to take unassuming and delicate steps despite his size. 

“Boo.”

The word was barely above a whisper and Mia stumbled and let out a scream, startled just as much by the hushed remark as she was by the quick rush of breath near her ear and the hands that grasped her before she fell. 

“EMMETT!” she shouted, pushing at his hold and groaning once he settled her back on her feet. 

He reached over to turn down the music, laughing. “You’re too easy, kid.”

“And you’re a stupid jerk,” Mia ground out, shoving against his solid chest with all her might only for him to stand there unaffected, chest puffed out and smiling down at her. “You scared me!”

“Same here,” he said, gesturing towards the green clay mask on her face. “Got a bit of a Wicked Witch of the West thing going on there.” 

Mia’s rolled her eyes. “Actually, I was channeling my idiot older brother.”

“Ah, so Yoda, then?” Emmett smirked. “What an honor.” 

“Hulk,” she offered. “You know, the incomprehensible behemoth with no self-control?”

Mia stepped away from him, heading towards the bathroom to rinse her face and Emmett appeared before her once again, another scream coming from her lips. 

“Stop doing that!” 

“I’m sure you’ve done something to earn it,” he answered, “just haven’t figured out what yet.”

“I’ve been up here all day, Em.” 

“Yeah, and unfortunately your voice carries. Sounds like you’re drowning cats up here.” Emmett turned to glance in the open bathroom door and Mia smacked him on the arm. 

“I’m going to tell Dad if—” 

“Speaking of Carlisle, he wants to see you.” 

“Why?”

Emmett shrugged. “I’m just the messenger, but you might want to clean that off and drop the Oscar the Grouch act before you go down there.” 

Mia clenched her fist. If it would have done anything, she might’ve hit him, wiping that smug little grin off his face entirely, but she knew it wouldn’t, so she took a deep breath instead, releasing her fist and smiling instead.

“You mind giving me a minute, then?” 

“Wait for wicked sister grouch, the Yoda Hulk brother will,” Emmett answered.

Mia took another deep breath, waiting a moment to see if he was serious, rolling her eyes as he folded his arms across his chest and leaned against the door frame.

“I don’t need you to wait. I can remember how to get myself downstairs,” she said, but Emmett didn’t budge so she moved to the sink. 

She took her time with rinsing and moisturizing and didn’t utter a word to Emmett as she tried to step past him, but his hand caught her chin, though his palm and fingers spanned the whole bottom half of her face really, and the whole maneuver stopped her from moving entirely with little effort on Emmett’s part. 

“So soft now, your skin is.”

“Emmeh, lemme go!” Mia shouted, her words muffled as her cheeks remained squished between his fingers. “Yur nod fummy.” 

Emmett laughed, dropping his hold and holding a guiding hand out in front of them. “Fine, grouch. Go ahead, then.” 

“I will.” Mia massaged her jaw as she took the stairs nearly two at a time. “And I’m going to tell Dad you’re being an assh—” 

Mia’s mouth closed as she took a step off the stairs, rounding the corner, nearly knocking into her father.

Carlisle caught her arm as she stumbled and Mia briefly checked his face for any sign he intended to reprimand her for the word choice, but her eyes were instead pulled to the mess of tin cans on the table.

"What's…"

"All of this?" Carlisle asked as Mia wormed her way out of his hold. "I was hoping you might be able to tell us."

Her eyes flicked back and forth between the cans, her father, and her brother, who had taken a seat at the counter.

"I've been up in my room all day. I don't even know what 'this' is."

Emmett put his feet up on the stool beside him. "You're busted, kid. Might as well give up the act."

"I'm not busted because I didn't do anything.”

"Well, the fourteen tin cans found in the cars would say otherwise," Carlisle answered. "I thought we were in agreement that there would be no more pranks played, especially where the cars are involved?"

Mia’s mouth fell open a bit before she gulped. "But I didn't—"

Carlisle held up the can that certainly had been Mia's doing, a neat 'With love, Mia,' painted out on the side of the can with nail polish.

"You did this?"

Mia couldn't find the words, but she finally nodded. "But I didn't—"

Carlisle held up another tin can, a nearly identical message written out on the side with the very same shade of pink and Mia stepped forward, pulling the can from his grasp to study it closer.

"Dad, I didn't do this," she answered, "Emmett must've…he must be—"

"I must be what?"

Mia jumped at her brother's closeness and she smacked his shoulder as a reflex. "Stop doing that!” she said before turning back to Carlisle. “Dad, tell him to stop scaring me."

Carlisle sighed. "Amelia, I thought we were on the same page after our discussion. You agreed to stop with the pranks, but since our discussion doesn’t seem to have been enough—"

"Dad, I didn't do this," she answered. "I—"

"What about this?"

Mia let out a rushed exhale, a nervous laugh coming at the end of it. She had forgotten about the photo she'd replaced days ago, switching out one of her father and her as a baby to that of her father holding a potato wrapped in cream-colored blankets.

"I did that ages ago. It was before we talked."

"Aw, come on, Mia. You don't think we're that stupid, do you?" Emmett asked.

Mia turned from her father to her brother. "I think you are."

She shrieked as Emmett twirled her around, wrapping one arm across her chest as he held her against his front, using his free hand to clamp down over her mouth.

"Alright, I think we've heard enough of her lip, Carlisle. It's time for sentencing. Fearless leader, do your worst."

Mia knew her father would never do his worst. She wasn’t even aware of what Carlisle Cullen’s worst entailed, having never seen him more than slightly aggrieved, but she thrashed against her brother’s hold anyhow, prying at his hands until he caught her arms, and then she kicked at his shins, but Emmett easily sidestepped her attempts.

Mia yelled her brother’s name, the sound muffled into his palm before she bit down. It didn’t hurt him, more of a shock that she’d even done it, than anything. She'd gone through a short-lived biting phase around three or four, but they’d been incident free since then.

Emmett smirked. “Are you sure you want to challenge me to a biting war, kid?”

Carlisle cleared his throat. “I think a more appropriate punishment would be for Amelia to clean and detail the cars.” 

She groaned, her efforts to get out of Emmett’s hold renewed, if only because she wanted to voice her protest. 

“And dust every picture frame in the house,” Carlisle continued as Emmett finally uncovered her mouth.

“But that’s going to take forever and I—”

“I suspect it will keep you busy for the remainder of your break and provide you with plenty of time to think about your behavior,” Carlisle said. “And you’re grounded...three weeks.” 

“You’ve got to be joking,” Mia groaned, “Dad, I didn’t even do this! I—”

Mia felt Emmett shaking with silent laughter before she noticed the mischievous glint in her father’s eye, the slightest of smiles coming to his face. 

“You actually are joking, aren’t you?” 

Carlisle shrugged. “Emmett and I thought you could benefit from a little dose of your own medicine, Mia.”

Mia sighed. “So I don’t have to do any of what you said, then?”

Emmett lifted her over his shoulder, moving steadily towards the door.. “You’re still helping me wash the jeep, kid. Need to teach you the importance of not messing with my things.” 

“But it’s pouring out—Dad! Help!”

Carlisle stepped forward, beating them to the door.

“Thank yo—” Mia started.

He pulled his daughter’s rain jacket off the hook, handing it to Emmett. “We wouldn’t want your sister getting sick,” he said. “And let me get that for you.” 

Carlisle opened the door, an eyebrow raised and a small smirk on his face as Emmett carried her through. 

“Have fun, sweetheart.” 

--

Twilight Masterlist

[swiftiesimonriley]

it only takes a moment (modern! maxwell lord x f! reader - only one bed!)

modern! maxwell lord x f! reader ft. only one bed!

summary: after a planned trip goes awry, what happens when you, Alistair’s nanny, and max only have one bed to share?

warnings: mentions of drinking and sex (no smut in this work), mentions of bad weather and turbulence on a plane, anxiety

a/n: this is my first maxwell oneshot!! thank you to the anon who suggested it! my masterlist is here and my requests are open! also this is not beta read - we die like men KSJDHAKKS

To say this was one of the longest days ever would be an understatement.

Your day started like any other. Waking up around 6:15am, you quietly pad into your bathroom and wash your face, taking a few minutes to complete your skincare routine and brush your teeth before making your way back into your bedroom.

Going over to your desk, you pick up your outfit you laid out the night before, a comfortable pair of leggings and an oversized crew neck with the name of the college you went to on it.

You hold the wooly sweatshirt in your hands, a smile tugging at your lips at the memories of your time back on campus. While it’s been less than a year since you graduated, you still hold the memories close.

One memory in particular plays on a loop in your head.

It was last May. You were sat in a back booth with some friends of your favorite bar in the city.

You were celebrating the new job you had just been hired at - as a full-time nanny for a single father with a young boy.

It was no secret that you had struggled finding a job after graduation. You had put in a lot of work at your time here at school, but you felt a pit of sadness in your heart at graduation when all of your friends had already secured jobs and a future for themselves.

You felt the sadness when you didn’t know how you were going to make ends meet - you had student loans, bills and other things piling more and more stress on - but when you found an ad for a nanny job, you were over the moon.

After your interview with the assistant to the single father, who must be very busy or important if he has an assistant, you were thrilled when you got the news you were hired.

The assistant explained her boss was a high-profile man, and that he wanted to be the one to introduce himself to you, which you had no problem with. You also would be a live in nanny, meaning you would have your own space within the house.

With the job starting tomorrow, your friends decided tonight would be the night to celebrate, wanting to “send you off” with one last night out before your job started.

A couple of rounds of drinks in, you felt a sudden burst of energy - whether it be a real energy boost or the tension leaving your body from the numerous drinks you’ve had throughout the night - but suddenly you make your way over to the makeshift dance floor.

You feel the beat of the music flow through you as your friends come and dance with you for a while, losing track of time in the small bar as the night goes on. It’s after several more songs that you feel a set of big hands rest gently on your hips and a strong, yet comforting scent of cologne filling your nose.

“I hope you don’t mind me being a bit forward angel, but I couldn’t help but notice you from across the bar, and I have to say you are absolutely gorgeous,” the man says confidently, his fingers rubbing a soft pattern into the flesh of your hips.

You turn your head to the side to lock eyes with the handsome stranger, his brown eyes like swirls of chocolate and honey reflect the colorful lights of the bar back into your own.

A smile plays at his lips as you take in his styled appearance, his clothes fitting him in all of the right places, almost like they were made just for him.

“You see something you like darling?” he asks soothingly, the smile on his face morphing to a playful smirk as you nod back at him faster than you can say something.

He lets out a hearty chuckle and gives one of your hips a squeeze as he presses his front firmly up against your back, a small gasp leaving your lips as you feel how he is pressed against your ass, and you have to stop yourself from arching into his chest.

“Let’s get out of here,” you whimper, feeling the room get hotter as he stays close to your body, wanting to get some privacy with him before you drop to your knees right here on the sticky floor of the bar.

He nods along with your suggestion, gently grasping your hand in his and leading you to an awaiting taxi.

A shiver runs down your spine at the memory of that night. The more your mind lingers on that night, you swear you can almost feel him back between your legs and hear the whimpers of praise in your ear.

But of course that once in a lifetime high from your hookup turned into a nightmare the next day, when you realized that the gorgeous man next to you was not only the famous Maxwell Lord, but that he is the man you were to work under as a nanny.

Sure it was awkward when you came back to Max's house in the morning after sneaking out a few hours earlier, preteding that the two of you didn't have mindblowing sex the night before, instead opting to focus on the specifics of the job. 

Max explained that he was a very busy man - something you already knew - and that he really appreciates what you are doing for him and Alistair, and that he knows his son will love spending time with you.

That was a year ago.

Now the tension had gone down significantly, but you would be lying to yourself if you said you still didn't think about Max in the way you did that night with him. There were times when you caught him staring at you from across the room, feeling his eyes on you as you played with his son, a smile tugging at his lips.

There were nights where you laid lonely in your bedroom, wondering what would happen if you went down the hall to the master bedroom and joined your boss, but you stopped yourself from picturing what could happen.

You slip on your sweatshirt, brush out and twist your hair, opting to put it in one of you claw clips, a few stray pieces framing your face in all of the right ways.

Making your way out of your room you head down the hallway to Alistair’s room, knocking lightly before peeking your head in and letting him know it’s time to start waking up.

Today was a travel day.

Max was attending a conference down in DC and decided to bring you and Alistair along so he could spend some time with his son, as well as turn this little trip into a mini vacation. He planned on visiting several museums that he knows Ali will love, like the natural history museum and air and space museum, but also the national gallery of art for you as well.

He didn’t tell you he rented out the museum so it would be just the three of you. He wanted that to be a surprise.

You grab your small duffel bag for travel and make your way down the grand staircase, placing the bag near the front door as you head to the kitchen, starting to grab the ingredients to make belgian waffles - Alistair’s favorite.

Turning on the coffee pot, you hum to yourself as you mix the ingredients together to make breakfast, making sure to lay out three plates. As you pour the batter into the waffle maker, you make quick work of cutting up some fresh strawberries to serve on the side.

Hearing two pairs of footsteps coming down the stairs, as well as an accompanying giggle, you turn to see Max chasing Alistair through the foyer and towards the kitchen island, with Max laughing as he picks up his son and plops him down onto the barstool in front of him.

A smile pulls at your lips as you slide Max a mug of coffee, getting a nod of appreciation in return before he helps you plate up breakfast, encouraging his son to eat up so you all can get going.

Max had arranged for one of his private planes to fly the three of you out, telling you it would be much more relaxing than taking a normal flight, to which you rolled your eyes.

No matter how long you had been working for Max, you still aren’t used to how causal he is with spending his wealth. Especially when it came to you.

It was no secret Max had a sweet spot for you.

How could he not? It wasn’t all about that first night - sure he still thinks about it when he’s alone - but it’s about all of you. He loves the way that when he comes home it feels so domestic - you and Alistair either running around the house playing games or cooking or baking together - something about it feels so right to him.

But he doesn’t want to make things weird between the two of you.

He hopes this special trip will help him out a little bit.

“Alright, the only room we have left is room 5. Is that ok Mr. Lord?”

Max nods as the small bed and breakfast owner hands over the key. He turns to look at you with tired eyes, seeing Alistair leaning up against you, barely awake.

Grabbing your bags, Max makes quick work of guiding you and Ali down the long hallway of numbered rooms until the three of you were gathered outside of room five.

Opening the door with the key, Max leads the two of you inside the small two room suite, dropping the bags unceremoniously onto the carpet as Ali lays down on the couch in the “living room” which consisted of a small kitchenette, a couch and two comfy chairs, a tv, and kitchen table with chairs.

“I knew he was tired, but not that tired,” you chuckle, pointing to the couch where Ali is fast asleep, one of the stuffed animals you had bought for him tucked under his arm.

Max let’s out a huff of frustration as he sits down on one of the soft chairs, running a hand through his now messy locks.

“Hey,” you say soothingly, making your way to the chair next to Max’s and sit down. You reach out a hand and place it on Max’s shoulder and give it a comforting squeeze.

At the feeling of your touch, a pair of brown eyes looks up and lock with yours, Max’s brow furrowed in not only frustration but stress.

The past several hours didn’t go as any of you planned.

The plane ride started out as usual, Max siting comfortingly in his seat and looking over some documents for his upcoming meeting. You and Alistair were sat in your own seats, playing with a new copy of Mad Libs, with Alistair giggling as you read out the story he created.

You were probably in the air for about 45 minutes when you hit a patch of bad weather, the plane going through a bit of turbulence.

Feeling the plane rock, your hand immediately shoots out to grab onto Max’s, your eyes locking with his in fear as he squeezes your hand, sending a small wave of comfort throughout your body.

The pilot comes over the speaker to inform you that he needs to make an emergency landing while the weather passes, and you feel your heartbeat pick up as the plane begins to descend, hearing Max comfort Ali from his seat.

It’s when the plane is grounded, that you begin to process what just happened - you find it hard to catch your breath as your bags are unloaded from the plane.

“Hey hey hey,” a soothing, familiar deep voice says, “we’re okay, alright? Let’s find somewhere we can stay so you and Ali can rest.”

“What about you? You need rest too after today,” you sigh, feeling Max place his hand on the small of your back, grabbing a few bags and grabbing Ali’s hand as the three of you make your way towards the taxi the small airport called for you.

“I’m not too worried about it,” Max reassures, helping you load everything into the taxi before helping you inside.

The bed and breakfast you were staying at was hours outside of DC, but you could always find a cat tomorrow and drive down to make it to Max’s meeting. It was the only place nearby with availability, even if it was only one room.

You break eye contact with Max, telling him you are going to run to the bathroom real quick. You stand up and walk over to the door to the bedroom, turning the knob open and gasping as you look inside.

“What’s wrong?” Max worriedly presses, still on edge from earlier. He jumps up and makes his way over, ready to face whatever danger may be behind the door, but feels his eyes widen as he sees the one singular bed in the center of the room.

“Oh,” he sighs, seeing you have the same reaction. The two of you haven’t shared a bed since that first night, and the two of you never spoke of it again.

“I can sleep in one of the chairs,” you blurt out, not fully thinking before the words come out. You can’t imagine sharing a bed with your boss, with Max, after what happened last time. It just would be too awkward.

“No no, you don’t have to do that,” he reassures, “I’ll sleep on the chair,” he suggests, getting a head shake from you. You don’t want him to be uncomfortable because of you, but you also don’t want to push the boundaries.

He lets out a sigh as he runs his hand through his hair again, something he would do when stressed over something such as a business proposal or shareholder meeting, but this was different.

You take a deep breath and turn to look at the tall man, watching as his eyes look down to meet yours. God he was so pretty. Has he always been this pretty?

“How about we just both sleep in the bed Max, that way we can both be comfortable and get some sleep before our drive tomorrow,” you rush out, looking down at your feet to avoid his gaze.

Max stays quiet for a moment, thinking over the benefits of actually sleeping in a bed, with you in it. After today, he feels like he could fall asleep instantly, so maybe it’ll be that way in the bed.

“Alright,” he sighs, “I’m going to change in the bathroom.”

You nod as he reaches down to grab his designer travel bag, heading off to the attached bathroom before shutting the door, missing the way your face heats up at the thought of sharing a bed with him.

You will yourself to get changed quickly, not wanting Max to walk in on you changing, even if he’s seen you undressed before.

Grabbing your bag, you search through for your pajamas, which consist of a pair of striped sleep shorts and an old oversized tshirt. Letting your hair down, you feel a heavy weight of exhaustion flow over you like an ocean wave, and your body subconsciously makes it’s way over to the small bed and lets you settle in.

Max walks out of the en-suite bathroom a few moments later, clad in his custom Armani pajamas and makes his way over to the bed, seeing you already tucked under the covers and turned away from him.

He lets out a sigh as he peels back his side of the covers, letting his body slip into his side of the bed and relax, the bed feeling like a cloud under his tense muscles. Letting his eyes flutter closed, he wills himself to fall asleep fast.

“Max?” you whisper, turning over to lay on your back.

The older man lets out a quiet groan, flipping over to face you. “Yes?”

“Why don’t you date?”

The question nearly makes his eyes shoot out of his head. Was he dreaming?

“I uh-,” he starts, letting out a small cough and staring up at the ceiling. “I haven’t found someone i’d want to bring home.”

He doesn’t miss the small “mhm” you let out, the air becoming thick with tension.

“Why don’t you date?” He questions back, feeling a little bold. If you could ask him, why couldn’t he ask you.

You let out a small laugh, “Of course you’d ask,” you laugh, taking a deep breath before closing your eyes. It’s now or never. After the turbulence situation, it made you realize that things aren’t guaranteed. Hell, if it bothers him Max can find another nanny.

“I haven’t found anyone i’d want to bring home since I met you.”

Max feels his throat tighten up. He immediately turns towards you and sees you have opened your eyes back up, and are looking right at him. Fuck, is this really happening?

“Me?” he asks excitedly, trying to stay calm as his nanny confesses her true feelings right before his very eyes.

“Yes you, unless there is some other Maxwell Lord that I have slept with and work for!” you laugh, feeling the anxiety in your chest start to fade away. You watch Max closely, swearing you can see stars in his eyes as your confession escapes your lips.

Max smiles to himself, letting out a small chuckle to himself before looking back at you. He scoots a little closer to you, not wanting to overcrowd you, but wanting to close the space between you two. He reaches forward and brushes a stray piece of hair away from your face, watching as a faint blush rises upon your cheeks.

“Can I hold you?” He asks softly, almost as if you would disappear if he spoke louder. You nod back at him, turning on your side so that your back is pressed up against his front.

Adjusting the covers around you both, Max brings you closer to his body and places his strong arm around your waist, holding you softly, yet securely, as if he would never let go. He settles his face into your neck and takes in your soft scent of coconut and something else sweet, never wanting to forget the scent.

You both let your eyes flutter shut, set on getting some rest. Feeling Max rubbing a familiar pattern on your hip, you feel yourself start to drift off comfortably, only feeling butterflies in your tummy, but the good kind.

Tomorrow you both can talk about your feelings, but right now you just want to lie in Max’s arms, and never have him let you go

taglist: @salome-c @jasterslegacy @marydjarin @hnt-escape

[lilallama]

hello! i reaaaaally really reaaalllllyyyy love your writing! I'd like to know how both clubs would react to their beloved texting them? it could be anything you want! I trust your creative mind:D i hope you're doing well~(´∩｡• ᵕ •｡∩`)

[Thank you so much, cinnamon bun ❤ that makes me really happy ^^. I'm doing very good, I hope you do too. Hobis picture didn't fit on here (TT), so I will post it by itself. 💕🍑]

Hoseok

The young boy layed on his silk sheets, on his four thousand dollar mahogany bed, while drowning in the sounds of his best friend. On his phone he kept repeatedly playing the recordings of their calls. Hearing their voice felt like heaven to him, if he could he'd make them talk forever just so he could dwell in the sound of their voice. Suddenly his euphoria was interrupted by a notification.

Y/n 💕

Have you got the homework for today?

If yes, could you please tell me, thanks.

He sat up and put on his glasses. Yes, it really was Y/n. Although they consider him a best friend, Hoseok still cannot stop his heart from racing in his chest. He quickly typed an answer and jumped up to send them a picture of his finnished work.

Seokjin

With his soft black hair pulled back my a fluffy, pink headband and him wearing an evenly fluffy but white bathrobe, he sat in his private bathroom and applied his expensive skincare products. He hummed and sang a bit [I love you, Y/n~] before being interrupted by his phone notifying him that he got a message.

Prince/ss 👑

Have you got the homework for today?

If yes, could you please tell me, thanks.

He immediately threw his fifty dollar "protection and hydration, for a longer lasting youthful look" cream away and hurried to type back. Why should his love have to do homework, when he'll have one of his butlers do it for them. Silly Y/n.

Yoongi

The newest Rap music blasting in his ears, Yoongi hugged a photo of Y/n, his gorgeous [not yet] lover, to his chest. He dispises most of the new music. It's all money, sex and parties, none of which has anything to do with him. He's an anti social virgin, who has to work two part time jobs to be able to provide for himself and his alcoholic mother. But in that moment he didn't care. The sobs escaping his mouth got interrupted by a notification, no one ever texts him.

Angel 🎶

Have you got the homework for today?

If yes, could you please tell me, thanks.

His red, watery eyes widen. They actually wrote him. They noticed little, boring him. Without thinking he typed a response and made his way to give them what they asked for.

Namjoon

The sound of a pen scraping against paper, leavibg behing dark blue, inky lines that are formed into neat writings. As student council president, Namjoon made sure to set an example to everyone. Diligent, devoted, intelligent, responsible Namjoon. Just as the last sentence was brought to an end, a notification popped up on his phone. He was going to ignore the message, but then spotted the name of the sender.

Darling ❤

Have you got the homework for today?

If yes, could you please tell me, thanks.

His pen rolled out of his hand and hit the polished floor of his room. His love just texted him. They asked for his help! Is he dreaming? He must be. Oh, how he longed for such a moment. He can finally be useful to his darling.

Jimin

The music came to a stop and so did Jimin. He pushed his pink hair out of his sweaty face, while whiping some of the sweat away with his already soaked shirt. The white fabric sticking uncomfortably to his body as he tried to catch his breath. After all there's no time for breaks, he has to impress his baby with his skills! But before he could start the music again, his phone buzzed in his backpack. He walked across the practice room with an annoyed look on his face.

Baby 🥰

Have you got the homework for today?

If yes, could you please tell me, thanks.

Jimins vision went hazy for a second and he lost balance. Now on the floor, he still stared at the message. His face flushed even more than before while thinking about their cute face, distraught at having forgotten the homework. He smiled and took a picture of him winking, making sure to take it so they could see his sweaty shirt, stuck to his back in the mirror. He'll send you it once he gets home, until then how about you talk for a bit?

Taehyung

The artistic boy kept his eyes on the canvas before him. His apron had multiple dried up colour stains, while fresh paint coated his fingertips. Some of the paint got smushed on his face as he brushed his bangs aside, while sone of the paint also got stuck in his locks as he tied them into a small bun. He stepped back, the painted face of his love smiling back at him made him break out into a lovestruck boxy grin. But then his phone buzzed and his smile immediately disappeared.

God/dess 🌹

Have you got the homework for today?

If yes, could you please tell me, thanks.

With his mouth slightly agape, his almond eyes stared at the slightly stained screen. Was he imagining things, was his god/goddess really giving him the chance to serve them. After a few seconds he snapped out of it and hurried to grab his homework.

Jeongguk

In the dark of the night, Jeongguk slouched through the streets. He just got in a fight, boxed the guy so hard that he broke his nose, arm and maybe a rib, just to leave that pathetic, shaking pile of shit whimpering on the ground. As the streetlights softly shone down on him, illuminating his face, he received a message.

Spouse 💍

Have you got the homework for today?

If yes, could you please tell me, thanks.

He stopped in his tracks. A cold wind surrounded him, messing up his hair even more. A bright smile appeared on his face, revealing his bunny like teeth. After jumping around and twirling once or twice he stopped to reply. He couldn't repress the laugh that escaped his dry throat. Now he only has to hurry home!

Jennie

She was feasting with her parents at the gisnt dinner table, but they completely disregarded her existence, only having eyes for each other. She chuckled and cleared her throat, catching her parents attention who bashfully laughed along with her. Jennies parents are exactly how she wishes her future marriage to be. They started talking when her phone notified her of a message.

Y/nie 😘

Have you got the homework for today, girl?

If yes, could you please tell me, thanks.

Before her mother could scold her on her lack of etiquette, she squealed in a high pitched note, that her Y/n just texted her. Of course, her parents knew about you as well as her feelings for you, they were the exact same when they were younger. They sighed lovingly and huddled together while their daughter excitedly texted her love.

Jisoo

Just a few minutes ago, she was busy going through all her Y/n pictures that have she took these past months [5732, not counting her digital copies]. She was just brushing her silky black hair when her phone let out that obnoxious tone. Jisoo snapped around to her phone on her bed, her 20th one this month [her phone keeps running out of storage room from all her photos, yet she refuses to delete any. So she just gets a new one once her current runs out if storage]. She looked at the screen.

My Muse

Have you got the homework for today, girl?

If yes, could you please tell me, thanks.

As soon as she read these messages, her expression brightened. He brush was thrown into a corner of her big room, making a clack sound as it hit the tiles. In a matter of seconds she typed her answer and send you the homework, as you requested.

Chaeyoung

Soft, gentle fingers stoked the strings on a wooden guitar, filling the room with a sweet melody. An angelic voice joined the guitar play, creating a fairytale like song. As it slowly came to an end, the girl to whom that angelic voice belongs, leans over to her nightstand, grabbing her phone. With longing eyes she stared at the screen while muttering please under her breath. Just then, she received a text message.

My Lovely Y/n 😊

Have you got the homework for today, girl?

If yes, could you please tell me, thanks.

She jumped up, placing the guitar on her bed while dancing around. Her eyes, filled with love and adoration, focused on the text. She took a screenshot and replied while singing out of happiness.

Lisa

After she had finished her last pirouette for the day, she scated off the ice to remove her scates. The young girl sat on the cold bench, letting her hair out of her bun, to flow over her shoulders in smooth waves. While removing her skates, she received a notification on her phone.

Sweetheart 🌸

Have you got the homework for today, girl?

If yes, could you please tell me, thanks.

Lisa smiled as she exchanged her ice skates for a pair of warm boots and placed them back to where they belong. While texting her love, she walked out with poise and flipped her hair back. Of course her love would rely on her. She is the most trustworthy person after all.

[moondustaeil]

ᴄᴏʟᴏᴜʀɪᴢᴇᴅ ᴇᴄʀᴜ ⊰❀ ᴋ.ᴊᴡ

⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ✧☾.·:·. colourized ecru

⠀ ⠀⠀ about

⋅  genre : soulmates!au - fluff, angst, suggestive content

⋅  pairing : Jungwoo x reader

⋅  word count : 25.8k

⋅  warning: it gets a little bit suggestive at the end, but no actual smut

⠀ ⠀  ⠀ ⠀

⠀ ⠀⠀ synopsis

⋅   “Pick a colour” said lady Cyan who was strangely familiar. Your fingertip had endlessly trailed over the palette, but you picked ecru. Every day that goes by: you sit under the Daimyo oak that protected five little daisies, little did you know one of the five daisies is willing to give you a “loves me” or “loves me not” with Jungwoo, the boy from the enchanted soulmate library...

⠀ ⠀  ⠀ ⠀

⠀ ⠀⠀ colours

⋅  this is a collab created by @neo-cult-ure​ , where me and other writers went for a soulmate concept but each went our own ways with a specific plot. I would like to take the time to thank everyone in this collab: for the friendship and for the process that we underwent together ! Please check out their fics as well. [Author’s note is at the bottom]

「ᴡʜɪᴛᴇ : # ꜰꜰꜰꜰꜰꜰ」

Sat with your back against a tree, it nearly appears that you're one of the stereotypical nature-lovers on earth. It would have looked like a regular thing to do, if only you held a cliché poetry book, or if you weren't sitting there whilst clouds were turning into a very dark shade of blue. The if-only scenarios were only fiction as in reality you were sitting against a tree in the middle of a weather transition, your hands empty and your eyes shut.

"pick a colour," a faint but comforting voice tells you, you nearly feel comfortable due to the sugary sweet undertone in the voice if it weren't for the pair of eyes you were greeted with. The cyan-coloured eyes look straight into yours even if yours were shut in reality.

Upon hearing the request, your eyes open themselves to do as you are asked. A soft layer of dust seems to coat your eyelashes which causes your eyes to flutter open a couple of times before you're greeted with the world. Your expectations don't meet up with what's actually in front of you, the last thing you had in mind was an empty landscape on each angle that your eyes explored. No one with a cyan-coloured pair of eyes staring into yours, in fact, no one is around you at all. There is no colour palette from which you can pick a colour, the only colour palette is that of the scenery. Just a stereotypical scene surrounds you: green grass, white daisies, and a very dark rain-filled sky.

It's going to rain, and it's a shame that you have to find out the second it's too late. Little droplets rapidly leak from the dark clouds, not enough to get you soaked, but enough to make you realise it was time to leave. You get up from under the tree, setting off in a fast walking pace as you leave the park. You don't run as you don't want to look like the fool who sat in the park whilst knowing it would rain, that embarrassing feeling is not something you want to give yourself. Whatever you were doing under a tree on a rainy Sunday evening is forgotten momentarily.

The world seems strangely different but one thing that stayed the same was the way to your apartment, and you're lucky it's only a ten-minute walk, nine if you continue to keep up the slightly faster walking pace. Though thanks to the weather, the walk seems a bit longer, but still only exactly nine minutes pass when you sprint up to the stairs towards the second floor.

You close the front door behind yourself once you're inside the apartment. The first thing you do is kick off the wet pair of Vans on your feet, you leave them in the middle of the hallway before stepping over them to get into your living room. You stare at the decorated living room, staying silent as there is no roommate you have to greet, which luckily allows you to glue yourself onto the sofa for the rest of the night. Dinner could have been made but you're not in the mood to make a mish-mash out of leftover ingredients.

For everything in life, there's a useful app, just like there's a useful app that you use to order your dinner with. Unfortunately, there's no such thing that gives you an explanation for your own weird actions like sitting underneath a tree for god knows how long. You pay for your dinner before throwing your phone aside, leaving social media to drown in its toxic nature.

You stand up from the sofa and head to the bathroom. You wash up by taking a quick shower, brush your teeth, do your overly extensive skincare routine even though you don't feel like it, and lastly change into your most comfortable nightwear. Right when you leave the bathroom and are about to settle yourself down on the sofa, the intercom stops you and tells you the food arrived. Luckily for you, you already paid and the delivery man is nice enough to drop off your food right in front of your door instead of two floors down.

"thank you!" you say extra loud so that the delivery man manages to hear you even when he's already on his way downstairs. You lift up the bag with food and instantly take it inside before any of your friendly neighbours come outside to have a healing talk. Once you close the door again, you decide that it's the moment to lock yourself in for the rest of the evening. A house party by yourself seems the perfect way to name what you're about to do: watch abandoned Netflix series while you occupy your sofa as a dining area.

You slowly start eating whilst Netflix provides you with entertainment. Yet, the series isn't interesting enough to keep you distracted from your thoughts, that or your thoughts are very determined to keep the subject alive. The view of two characters getting in a petty fight over money is replaced by the same view as earlier: the pair of cyan-coloured eyes that were staring into yours, followed by the sight of the tree you had been sitting under not long ago. There was something about the scene that seemed too important to forget as it constantly returned to your mind.

But why was it that you couldn't forget about it? Your eyes close as you give in to the thoughts before they consume your entire brain. It seems like a bunch of little white clouds start to form in your mind, each of them is filled with a tiny piece of information about the unforgettable encounter. Despite your confusion, you’re willing to make those little clouds pop in order to receive some new information. Firstly told was that you weren’t allowed to forget the tree or lose focus of it, another cloud tells you to remember the tree because it might not be there forever. The little clouds fill the blank spaces in your mind, but it’s not enough.

You indeed never saw the tree before, it is something you can conclude after you went on a train of memories. Before today, you had been in the park numerous times to situate objects and pieces of nature, it was a little bit too familiar to say that you had no idea whether you saw the tree before or not. A piece of your heart interrupts your thoughts, without words making your interest in the tree bigger with each second you thought about it. Perhaps you would listen to yourself and keep an eye out for the tree, just to check if you weren’t betraying yourself.

After sighing, you shake your head to yourself. “You’re going crazy,” you tell yourself in a whisper, taking the glass of water from the side and sip from it to wash away the stream of useless thoughts. Fortunately for the future, it’s a mission you would fail in. Unfortunately for you, the thoughts wouldn’t get washed away for quite a while.

⋅ ⋅ ⋅

7:05 am

You wake up with a jerk, immediately catching your breath as you came back from running a marathon. The faint voice in your mind disappears, leaving you alone in your dark bedroom. The distant sound of rain drumming against your window makes your eyes open, searching for the little patch of light in the darkness until your eyes are fixated on the window.

It must be raining outside and you must be in your room. Unlike a minute ago when you found yourself in the park once more, sat underneath the same tree as yesterday with the cyan-coloured eyes staring at you from a distance. Your tensed body falls back onto the bed in relief, you're happy to be in bed even though the urge to go to that specific spot is eating you from the inside. Slowly but surely you turn your body towards the window, eyes focused on the patch of light that shines through. The sky seems grey like it's grieving for the start of a new week, but you're just grateful that you're not completely consumed by the darkness in your room.

When you think about something so much, people would say that you're in love, but clearly, you can't be in love with a tree, can you? If it was up to you to explain your feelings towards the tree: it would be a mix of hatred due to the constant thoughts about it, but also fascination because of the unknown meaning behind it. It's no secret that by now, you actually start to believe you're either way delusional, or that faith is on your side but you're not sure why.

"Fuck it" you quietly tell yourself as you get your sore body out of bed, starting the day rather impulsively as you would have preferred to stay in bed for a little while longer. Your nightwear is ditched on the sheets as you almost shoot yourself into yesterday's outfit. There's a sauce stain from last night's dinner in the middle of your shirt, but the dried-up spot is something your eyes miss or don't even care about at this moment. It's too late to question what you're doing before you realise it, you've already left the bedroom.

Similar to other and more rushed mornings, breakfast is something you forget about, though now it seems like abandoning it willingly rather than just forgetting about it. You walk past the kitchen and directly into the hallway, exchanging your bare feet for the wet shoes you left in the middle of the path yesterday evening. It seems like you're rewinding yesterday's events even though this time, you sprint down the stairs instead of up.

The moment you walk out of the apartment complex, you can feel the little droplets of rain layering onto your hair, it's like taking a shower first thing in the early morning. The feeling is annoying and it could lead to you getting sick, but you don't think of the consequences, neither are you caring about them right now. The sprint turns into a fast walking pace as you're greeted by a still calm street. Luckily at this hour, there aren't many people around, and if they are then they're in a rush to get to work.

Your feet speed up lightly as the urge to get to the park grows only bigger knowing you're only ten minutes away from the place. You walk further towards the park even though it's hard to keep yourself from going past the walking pace, luckily you're just very determined to keep your bit of dignity. Ten minutes isn't that much in reality, even if it takes up one of the six parts in an hour and one of the three parts in half an hour.

When the park comes into view, you opt to ignore the presence of a few early birds that jog towards the park, just like them you start jogging. The remaining minute turns into a matter of seconds as you run through the unofficial entrance and straight towards the tree that you feel captivated by. You don't care that you're running over the grass rather than the ground, it's not like the bit of dew could make you slip.

Your feet come to an abrupt halt once you're close enough to the tree, only taking smaller steps towards the piece of nature until it seems like the tree could engulf you in its branches. You greet the tree with a smile, unaware of your own little gesture. With the bit of distance between you and the tree, you reach out your hand to touch the trunk. "What makes you so special?" you ask quietly, it's more like a rhetorical question as you feel like you have to find out the answer for yourself.

Your hand pulls itself away with a slight sigh, the calmness spreading through your body after a second of contact between you and the tree. You turn your body and get into the same position as yesterday, your back pressed against the trunk while you look at the scenery. The spot that you claimed allows you to stay out of the rain, the branches and twigs catching a couple of droplets before they can get to you. It takes a minute for you to settle down in that spot, but once you do, it's like you're sitting in the perfect spot.

The view you have from this spot is amazing, especially seeing people rushing in their lives while you're sat under a tree that gives a protective vibe. But you're aware that you must be sitting here with a goal, and you have no idea what that goal could be. You cock your head to the side, allowing your eyes to check the little flowers that you find yourself in between like you ruined their little get-together.

Five little daisies proudly standing amongst other big trees and plain green grass, their two simple colours stand out compared to the other naturistic elements around you. It were the kind of flowers you would make a flower crown with when you were still a child and the flowers you could use to determine whether your crush really loved you. Not that you did that many times as you were too realistic, or at least that's what you thought about your years as a child.

A tingling feeling spreads itself starting from your wrist and all the way towards the ends of your fingertips. You break eye-contact with the white-yellow coloured flowers and use your eyes to inspect the palm of your hand. But, you don’t see anything more than just a simple hand quivering to the unexpected intensity of the tingles. Your fingers clench themselves until they’re hidden in your fist, pressuring the tingles to go numb. 

The set of strange events make you close your eyes to ponder, trying to ignore the reality to just silently wonder about them without having to go through the experience once more. Yet, the moment you close your eyes you seem lost in one of those events, one that you’re encountering for the second time. The Cyan-coloured eyes stare into yours eyes, a determined and yet comforting look that make you feel responsible over something you’re not aware of. “Ecru? That’s a fantastic choice, darling. Your world is now colourized ecru” the voice says in a soft tone. The voice seemingly fits the fawn colour that you can imagine when saying ecru. Your mouth opens to speak, but before you can push one word out, the pair of eyes are gone. 

Once again, you're left in the park with your eyes closed and your hands empty just like they were yesterday. Only this time, the world had changed, or perhaps it had before but you were too dumb to realise.

The world is now colourized ecru

「 ꜱɴᴏᴡ : # ꜰꜰꜰᴀꜰᴀ 」

"Your world is colourized what?" Sicheng asks you, making it clear you had to clarify the story for the third time today. His eyes glance over at you like it would make him understand the words a little bit better. You would have sighed if it wasn’t for the fact that you would do the exact same thing if he told you a similar story. You wouldn’t have understood either, perhaps you wouldn’t even bother believing it.

Getting the words on the tip of your tongue again, only takes up a few seconds, you could repeat them whenever you wanted and your head provided you with the same voice as the person that told you.”Your world is now colourized ecru” you repeat again, this time saying the words slower since the language gap could make it harder for him to understand what ecru meant, even though it isn’t language-related as you had to google the colour too. “The voice told me that” you add, explaining more than needed just so that Sicheng could understand and believe your story.

“Colourized ecru, isn’t that like the beige colour?” Sicheng asks as his feet take slower steps just like his mind is processing the entire situation in a slow pace. To you, it is almost too slow, as being headed to the park became something you are weirdly enthusiastic for, or rather than that, you simply long to find yourself sitting underneath that tree. “I thought so too, but apparently it’s not. I saw a pinkish shade in it but Wikipedia said it was greyish-yellow. So I don’t know anymore” you answer his question, leaving your best friend even more confused now that he doesn’t know which colour your world really became.

The rest of the walk to the park is as blank as it was before, with Sicheng asking questions and you giving vague answers because Google wasn’t always as smart as you thought. Eventually, you realise that you would have to find a way to answer your own questions instead of letting Google do it for you. And aside from mental support, you’re sure that Sicheng can’t help you with answers either. 

“This is the tree,” you say as you walk underneath it with Sicheng, allowing him to sit first between the five daisies that he hadn’t even noticed yet. You sit down on the free space next to him, stopping the urge that your eyes get as you don’t want to close them while your best friend is around. “Do you know what kind of tree this is?” Sicheng asks you, his head raising to look at the branches, twigs and the leaves hanging from it. He fails to see the way you shook your head but already expected a no from you, or well, he had never seen your interest laying in the origins of a park tree.

Through his lensless glasses, Sicheng looks at you again. “Perhaps you should visit the library, they must have some books about trees,” he suggests, his head turning unexpectedly when his hand touches one of the five daisies hiding in the grass. Before you’re able to catch up with what happened, he quickly places his hand next to them instead of on top of them. “And flowers” he adds quickly, giving you an innocent smile.

"Did you ever play the loves me, loves me not game with daisies?" Sicheng asks as he motions to the little miracles of nature with his free hand, your eyes immediately go towards the flowers, something you almost instinctively do as you would stare at them each time you came here. “I didn’t, I wouldn’t know who would love me” you answer with a small shrug, still convinced that you never played those silly games during your childhood. The loves me, loves me not game was made up out of lies, a flower would never be able to tell you who you belonged with. “Your soulmate loves you.”

“My soulmate?” you ask as you hear the word soulmate go past Sicheng’s lips. The word isn’t unfamiliar, perhaps it’s a bit too familiar as there is a lot of doubt to the existence of soulmates in the world. Some claim soulmates are just for people who meet each other and symbolically label themselves like that, others say soulmates could meet each other in special circumstances, and there was a group of people that completely deny the existence of the phenomenon. You have no idea which group you belong to, neither do you know what Sicheng thinks about it. Never have you pondered about the possibility of meeting your other half. 

Sicheng hums in response to you, a tiny smile coating his lips as he reaches out to one of the flowers and disconnects it from its long stem. “You just go like this” Sicheng says as he ignores your soft protests against what he was doing, something felt wrong when he plucked the flower from its safe spot. “Loves me, loves me not” he says as he starts to demonstrate, leaving you to watch how he throws away something precious. It makes you feel emotional, with petal after petal falling to the grass after getting plucked from the yellow-coloured disk. Each of those petals seem to represent how close you are to having tears in your eyes. You felt sick with apprehension.

“Loves you not,” Sicheng says whilst the last petal sadly falls onto the green grass, laying scattered next to the other petals that he had plucked away. Just like you predicted seconds ago, tears are burning in the corners of your eyes, threatening to run down your cheeks, but you refuse, you don’t want to be the person to cry over a flower. “That means you’re not my soulmate and I’m not yours,” Sicheng simply says, whatever was left of the flower falling from his fingertips and ending between the few white petals. 

⋅ ⋅ ⋅

The feeling of melancholy continues to follow you everywhere after what had happened. It started as a small pit in your stomach the moment Sicheng first separated the flower from its natural habitat, but as the hours go by the pit only grows bigger and leaves you unable to feel a different emotion.

After Sicheng left you with an apology for possibly fucking up something you desperately needed in your life, you had found yourself grieving over the flower for two complete hours. Those hours go by with tenderly holding the remains between your aching fingertips, and telling yourself you had four flowers left that no one would pluck away from you. Yet, when you left the park, there was the fear that a stranger or child would pluck them for fun. You had been hesitant about leaving, but you couldn't stay with the flowers day and night.

That’s how you end up marching to the local library, following up the at least useful piece of advice Sicheng gave you. You were no longer angry at him, perhaps you even blamed yourself for not making it clear enough how important the flowers were to you, how they seemed to connect to you and the ecru world you found yourself in. Grateful for the suggestion he made earlier: from the suggestion about going to the library, to the suggestion of a so-called phenomenon called soulmates.

You had no idea what time it was when you found yourself in front of the library, neither did the sky really tell you much because you weren't looking up at it. Your eyes were too busy to make sure you didn't bump into any people or objects whilst your thoughts were working overtime. Your steps were quick as the stairs only counted a few of them before you were right in front of the wooden door. Something else you didn't notice were the opening hours hanging on the left, you would have been able to see it was a quarter past closing time when you arrived. Your fingers wrapped around the door handle, trying to pull it down in order to get the door open but the handle merely moved an inch before getting stuck in its position. "Shit"

The spark of hope you had was taken over by the large part of melancholy once again, you didn't even need the opening schedule to know that you probably were standing here because it was closed already. This was one of the reasons you had to make sure before getting hopeful for things, especially now that you were obligated to wait the entire night before you were able to possibly let your thoughts rest. You couldn't help but pull the handle down once more, or attempt to as this time too it had no intention of letting you in.

In the end, there was no other option but to go home for the night and be tortured by your strayed thoughts. The walk home being extra long due to your unnecessary stop at the park to check if the tree and flowers were still there, waiting for your return tomorrow. But perhaps that's not the only thing waiting for you, perhaps a soulmate is waiting somewhere as well. Waiting for you.

「 ʜᴏɴᴇʏᴅᴇᴡ : # ꜰ0ꜰꜰꜰ0 」 

For the third day in a row, you're already waiting in front of the library ten minutes before the building opens its doors. For the third day in a row, you manage to find a spark of hope somewhere inside of your body that tells you that today is the day that you will find something. But finding the right books is harder than expected: somehow writers don't really dive deeper into the wondrous world of soulmates and books about trees take ages to thumb through just to get to the right illustration of the tree. It's hard to find what you're looking for, especially as you have no idea what you're actually looking for.

But today you're determined to find anything the book is willing you tell you. You hope having a picture of the tree would make it easier to receive information, even if you have no idea if any of the people around are skilled in giving you the answer to which kind of tree it was: the books are supposed to give you the answers but how are you going to recognise your tree between many others? Something else that could help you were the daisies, you know the name but never imagined there to be a meaning behind them until you thought back about Sicheng sadly removing one from the world.

You’re shaken out of your thoughts when the door is unlocked and soon opened for the public, even though right now no one but you stood in the invisible queue. The feeling of victory is quick to spread through your body the moment you step inside, the high shelves don’t make you feel small, if anything, they give you more motivation.

“Good morning,” A voice speaks up without you realising it, you unfortunately ignore it because you’re too focused on finding the books you need for your progress. If you had heard it, you would have been able to tell how oddly familiar the voice was, and you could have linked it to the weird experience you had in the park. It was a missed chance, but more chances would come in the near future.

Your footsteps take you up the stairs where you had been going to for three days now, it became a part of your routine. Nature-related books were usually found upstairs as not many people were interested in the miracles of life these days. You admit that before, you were one of the people that took nature by granted, something that changed drastically in a short period of time. 

You sit at the empty desk near the corner, a popular space you know from experience, but as no one is there, it’s yours for the rest of the day. You’re quick to turn on the computer in order to check out the catalogue, a catalogue of which the books don’t change but each day you scroll past the same ones in hopes that a new one gets added. Your fingers hesitate over the keyboard, hitting a letter befoe deleting it again as you remember searching for the word yesterday. “Can I help you?”

You look away from the computer screen when you hear the voice, a fake, friendly smile appearing on your lips as you get ready to give a fabricated response. “Not really I don’t know what I’m looking for but I don’t think you can help me,” you tell the person in front of you, giving her only a brief glance which makes you seem uninterested. “Perhaps I can help you, you can tell me what you’re looking for and I will help you with finding the right books” she offers you. Out of annoyance, you hand the person the little, coloured post-it note with the keywords on.

“Tree, daisies, and soulmates” The voice reads the keywords on your paper out loud, her words flow out like she’s familiar with them. Your handwriting must be near enough to read it without trouble. “Yes,” you mumble in response, already knowing the words by head so there was no need for anyone else to say the words like the woman just did. Okay, perhaps it had been a rude thought of you and it was uncalled for, but you’re convinced that no one is able to help you and you weren’t willing to waste time on someone who wanted to try. “What kind of tree are you looking for?” she asks you but before you can answer, she interrupts you again “do you have a picture or a name?”

You hastily fish your phone out of the pocket of your pants, after unlocking it going straight to the gallery to find the set of pictures that you made yesterday. All of the pictures look overly similar, but having multiple pictures gives you more proof. “Ah, I think I know what tree it is” she says when she gets a glance of your phone, or rather, the picture of the tree. “This is the Quercus dentata, or daimyo oak if I’m correct. I can find some books about this tree for you?” she inquires after blowing you over with the difficult name and her cleverness to recognise the tree immediately. She hands you the note back even though you immediately discard it beside the computer keyboard.

“I don’t know, I don’t know what I need” you admit to her, slowly turning in your chair to properly tell what was going on. The last thing you want is spilling the story to anyone gullible and willing to listen, but there is a sense of trust between the two of you. Indeed, you don’t know what you need and one of the reasons that you’re here is to find out what you need and why you need it. “You don’t know what you need?” She asks you, but still smiles as she says the words, she seems like she knows more and she’s about to share it with you. You shake your head, an almost desperate gesture as you want help even from a librarian who perhaps had no idea how to help you. “Seeing the keywords on your note, I would say you’re here lurking for information about something specific that overcame you. And you must be looking for an explanation because the tree, the flowers, and the soulmate part all seem to blend together?”

Having someone next to you, saying the words from a perspective that was unfamiliar to you, it was like one of your millions of questions just got an answer. The answer was so easy, perhaps because the question was a simple one too. “Is that true?” she decided to ask because the look in your eyes revealed how surprised you were by the words. You slowly look up at her face, promptly staring into the pair of bright-coloured eyes. The unnatural cyan-colour rings a bell in your mind, and it only takes a second to remember the times you had seen the eyes before. “Y-yes, I think so” you respond in a softer tone, barely getting any words out of your mouth because of the shock that numbs your ability to speak or think. 

The elderly woman can only nod at your words, something you don’t see as you are too busy staring at everything but her face. Right now, you’re looking at the name tag pinned to her shirt. It shouldn’t be a surprise to see her name, but yet, “Cyan” is typed down in a Verdana-lookalike on the tag. The numb feeling completely takes away your ability to speak, or you’re just speechless at this point. A couple of days ago there was nothing, then the tree came in your life, and now you feel as if you’re close to figuring out the ecru world you live in. Yet, you don’t have half of it figured out, barely a quarter. 

"So, can you help me?” You ask out loud, your posture straightening more unknowingly. You expect a no but still hope for a yes, and you can’t tell beforehand which one of the two it’s going to be. Cyan -if that’s what her name really is- seems to hesitate, her eyes simply staring at you with an emotion that you can’t name. “I’m not sure, I already helped you to realise what you’re looking for” your shoulders immediately slump back against the wooden chair, a sigh slipping from your lips as you try to admit this was exactly what you expected even when it wasn’t.

You nod sadly as your eyes leave her to focus on the computer screen again, this time you know what to type in the search bar but you feel too unmotivated to make it through on your own. “Thank you anyway” you say soft as you give her one last glance, your eyes almost begging for her to stay so that she would give you more information. You’re convinced that this Cyan, is the same Cyan that brought you in this strange ecru-coloured world. It’s something you can’t accuse her of, but deep inside you know that you’re right about them being the same person: some people that you come across in your dreams, are real people, just like Cyan.

"You're welcome, don't let it get plucked away from you, you will find out"

⋅ ⋅ ⋅

Exactly fifty-nine minutes before closing time, you still find yourself in the same spot in front of the computer, though this time, the screen is pure black and your eyes are scanning every few words in the book laying on the dark table. 

The work that you’re doing now isn’t ever going to meet up with any work you used to do for school, this took a lot more energy but at the same time, you feel more useful and smarter than the times you would make a paper about concentration because it was easy to copy from others. When the teacher back then said that making the paper had seemed to help you a lot with your skills, you were sure that you were good at faking such things. But if there was a teacher to evaluate you now, you wouldn’t even have to fake anything.

Thanks to Cyan you got onto the right path, or at least you are trying to convince yourself that you are walking on the right path. The pieces of evidence next to you give you a good feeling, it seems like literature is more important than you used to believe, especially the pages where little post-its are pasted between to look back on. However, you don’t seem to realise there is no more time to look back on any of those things, you had been so caught up in the available literature that you forgot about the standard needs of a human or the opening hours of the library.

You flip the page of the book as quick as you can once you read the last few words of the sentence, another soft sigh leaves your lips as you realise this book about daisies isn’t going to get you far. Perhaps there was a limit to the amount of information people could receive in a day, but at this point, you’re convinced that you’re way past that limit. Your eyes meet with a new chapter, the boldly-typed title staring at you but you’re too busy translating the words from their original language into English, even if the English words are written a dozen times over the upcoming paragraphs. 

effeuiller la marguerite

Quietly and almost inaudible, you translate the words for yourself. When you say them in French, it doesn’t ring a bell despite the little knowledge you have of the language. When you repeat the same words in English, you instantly think back about the day you and Sicheng spent in the park. The way he used one of the precious daisies to demonstrate how you were supposed to play the simple, but childish game of “loves me, loves me not.” You could still taste some bitterness of the moment on the tip of your tongue, a consequence of Sicheng unintentionally ruining the flower. 

The first paragraph provides you with a definition of the game, something perhaps not useful even though school always taught you the definition before anything deeper. Even if the context was the more important part, you still needed some framework to understand.

“She loves me, she loves me not or he loves me, he loves me not is a game of French origin, in which one person seeks to determine whether the object of affection returns that affection.” The words are literal, perhaps a bit formal but not in a university-level. It gives you the hint that you are the person looking for an object of affection in this ecru world. It is you, you that has to search for the other person, for a he, she or them that would possibly love you, or not.

“How does it work really?” you ask yourself silently as you read past some French paragraph that you don’t feel attracted by, it seems like the next paragraph nicely explains how you’re supposed to play. It’s quite silly to think of it, you exactly know how to play the game, but don’t believe yourself and go for an unscientific instruction in a book about daisies. “A person playing the game alternately speaks the phrases "He loves me," and "He loves me not," while picking one petal off an ox-eye daisy for each phrase. The phrase they speak on picking off the last petal supposedly represents the truth between the object of their affection loving them or not. The player typically is motivated by attraction to the person they are speaking of while reciting the phrases. They may seek to reaffirm a pre-existing belief, or act out of whimsy" you read in a whisper-tone, sometimes stumbling over your own words because of the stiff and formal use of words. However, the moment you look back at the words, they don’t seem as formal and stuff anymore, they make sense in some way.

The chapter is no longer than two pages long, yet those two pages had managed to provide you with a lot more information than other chapters did. Added to your story were now the flowers that fit right in the framework Cyan made for you, it’s like being one step closer to knowing what you’re supposed to do. A sad hunch overcomes you as you finish the chapter: there are only four daisies left, four daisies that you can’t recklessly use to play the game. You need to find the matching object of affection.

Your hand pulls back the thick side of the book against the other to close it, resting it on top of the other books that you had been browsing through today. For a second, you allow your eyes to close as they’re exhausted from the endless focus, yet it didn’t mean you were going to give up. On a different pile were two books left: one of them is filled with more information about trees, the other is a magazine that has an article about soulmates. Unfortunately, that article is the only copy that has the words “soulmates” in them, meaning that no other existing source was available to you.

“Sorry to bother you, but it’s closing time. And I think you really need some rest, love” Cyan who had helped you so dearly before was now about to ruin part of the progress you made, or she was trying to help you by giving you an opportunity to go home and rest. Though, you opt it’s the first option as you feel too far into it to stop. Perhaps Cyan wasn’t aware yet, but she would find out soon that you came here on a daily basis ever since three days ago. “Can’t I stay for a little while longer, just until you closed up. I need to read some more” you say in a soft tone as you motion towards the two sources that still have to get scanned by your inexperienced eyes and mind.

Cyan takes the magazine from the pile, reading the word “soulmates” on the cover and immediately she knows which magazine it is. It’s one that most beginners want to read, but at the same time, it’s the most useless piece of literature in the entire library. Yet, it seems like you’re willing to read the public source as they don’t have any others. “You can come back tomorrow, can’t you?” she asks simply, dropping the magazine back onto the pile before looking at you to scan your facial expression. The emotion displayed on your face is mostly desperation: it makes Cyan want to give in, but the tiredness in your eyes is what holds Cyan back from telling you to stay until she closed up. It wasn’t like the article was helpful and you would regret staying longer just to read it. 

"Come with me"

⋅ ⋅ ⋅

Cyan paves the way to a place you had never witnessed in the few years of regularly visiting the library - not that you visit overly often, or at least not before the entire ecru-world circumstance - , but you are positive that this hall was one of the places you had never walked through.

Walking there takes long enough, long enough to forget that you left most of your stuff on the desk in the corner. A vague idea tells you that you’re going underground: mostly because you had been taking many steps down rather than up, and also because of the musty smell that is sticking onto the walls surrounding you. Cellars always look old but you’re willing to have a debate over this cellar being older than a few centuries. 

You want to ask Cyan how long there was left and how many more steps in the staircase, you have no idea where you’re headed and the eerie feeling seems to double itself with each step further. You stop yourself from asking though: you don’t consider yourself as a six-year-old who continuously asks his parents when the car ride is finally over. You purse your lips as you hold the question even if that means you have to breathe through your nose.

“We’re here” Cyan announces after coming to a halt in front of a large iron door. The door is large enough to let a giant pass if it’s not for the obvious fact that it’s closed. Your own steps stop as well, aligning perfectly next to Cyan’s. From up close, the door is heavily decorated by different elegant shapes. Yet, there’s no keyhole that indicates the requirement of the longitudinal grooves. The door is a masterpiece, it seems like it belongs in a museum more than as an actual door underground. “Won’t you open it?” you ask Cyan quietly, only tearing your eyes from the door to see when Cyan would open the door. 

Cyan’s first response is to shake her head as a sign that she’s not going to open the door for you, in response to that, you let out a huff of annoyance and disappointment. How are you supposed to get in when the librarian doesn’t even want to open the goddamn door for you, it’s not like you know a secret way through. “You have to open it, darling,” Cyan says when she notices that you’re not amused, by far, you look irritated. 

“How am I supposed to do that?!” You ask loudly, drawing a long sigh from your mouth as it was another feature that you weren’t prepared for. You set another step closer to the door, not looking back at Cyan because you don’t care if she follows you or not. You’re not a magician like your friend Kun is, you’re clumsy and still didn’t figure out how to do the magic trick with the glasses that he always shows you. “Hocus pocus!” Leaves your lips before you can stop it from happening, whether it is for the laughs or for the deadly-serious expression on your lips, it doesn’t matter as the door doesn’t bother to react.

The string of magic spells leaves your lips, at once, calling out each one you know and unmagically cast them onto the iron door. Yet, none of them have the intention to pull the handle down and open the door for you. Cyan can’t be any more amused, but she is aware that you would still be here for hours if she leaves you to cast these spells. “Opening the door is like opening a new world for yourself,” Cyan tells you in a quiet voice, just loud enough to overpower your voice that casts the last spell you know. The hint is amateur level, even you find the answer within a minute. 

You swallow away the bundle of nerves that want to spread in your stomach. What you are about to say can, either way, be foolery or the start of something unidentified. Just like Cyan mentioned, opening the door is like opening a new world, and you are ready to be a part of it. 

"Ecru"

「 ᴀᴢᴜʀᴇ  : # ꜰ0ꜰꜰꜰꜰ 」

When you wake up from accidentally falling asleep with your head buried between a formal-worded book, you hear the large doors closing themselves slowly, and you guess you must have missed the moment they opened due to your tiredness. The non-rhythmic footsteps are unrecognisable but there must be only one person that has unlimited access to this place, Cyan. Your guess is confirmed when you hear her voice telling you: "you look tired.”

“I’ve been looking through these books for nearly three hours” you answer with a deep sigh leaving your lips, your fingertip tiredly points to the large pile of books of which you only managed to read one in those three long hours. But that one book is enough to make it seem like you read everything in this entire underground library. 

Cyan let out a quiet hum at your words, stepping closer to you with the same unstable sound of her footsteps on the floor. “That’s why I decided to get some coffee for you, you slept for over an hour,” she says in a sweet tone as the cup of coffee is delivered to the moon-shaped table you sit at. A small smile coats your lips thanks to Cyan’s sweet gesture, and you know your non-verbal message has been delivered when she smiles back at you. Every now and then she would deliver coffee to you, you didn’t even ask for it, she would disappear at random times and return with a cup of coffee for you. Your inner coffee addict was happy with that.

"Did you find out anything new?” Cyan asks as she has her eyes on you and one hand placed on the pile of books like she’s trying to suck the magic out of them. That thought is one you dismiss soon, you can expect a lot but that beats all of the other ridiculous thoughts you had. You reluctantly shake your head in response, hesitating because you had found many amazing things but you doubted if they were useful. “I guess so, but at the same time, I don’t think so. I don’t understand any of the words in the book” you admit, your eyes still reading over some of the words.

The book gets pulled from under your elbows by Cyan who takes it between her two hands as she begins to read at the point where you left off before falling asleep. “You’re reading the wrong book. I told you to follow your heart and choose a book based on that, not on an interesting title” she immediately scolds you for choosing what you did, she read less than a sentence but it’s enough for her to know that this book isn’t going to give you the answers you need.

"I don’t know how to, it’s harder than you think” you complain with a deep sigh, putting the cup of coffee down on the porcelain saucer before looking up at the elder librarian. “How am I supposed to know what my heart wants?” you ask, the question sounding both genuine but also mocking. You don’t believe in letting your heart decide which book to take, if it was true, you would be reading an easy and understandable book that wasn’t part of this underground library’s catalogue. 

Cyan closes the book and can’t help but sigh just like you did a second ago, she sounds disappointed even if she doesn’t use any words to confirm the feeling. It’s not an uncommon thing for people to choose the wrong book, everyone at least does so one time, especially when they judge by the cover. But after years of sneakily doing this, Cyan had a steady set of expectations from humanity, especially those looking for a soulmate. 

“y/n. Think about your soulmate, close your eyes and let your soulmate pick the book for you. Listen to your heart, it’s commissioned by your soulmate” Cyan says in an overly sweet and soft tone, dropping the thick book on top of the others as a sign all of them were useless in your story. You admire her for the way she says the words because you wish it’s as easy as it sounds, but, you hate the words because it’s not as easy as that. How is your soulmate going to recommend you a book if he doesn’t even know about your existence? 

Your phone vibrates steadily next to the pile of useless books, even though the moon-shaped table is in front of you, you huff because you are too lazy to lean forward and take the device in your hands. For an unknown reason, you flag your phone as an unnecessary accessory down here: there is no WiFi and you don’t expect anything from the phone reception. But clearly, your phones proves you wrong when it vibrates a second time. 

You lean forward and pick up the phone from the book-filled desk, finally giving it some screentime and giving yourself some ‘me-time’ as you would always name it. The lockscreen gives away the time, but you only have eyes for the notification of your best friend Sicheng. You feel bothered that he messages you, it wouldn’t be bothering if you weren’t in this almost-enchanting library.

Sicheng [ 2 : 35 pm ] : I found some more daisies around, plucked them and they're in front of your door

Sicheng [2 : 35 pm ] : sorry for wasting one the other day, I didn't know they would mean so much to you ):)

You can't help but smile soft, a certain feeling of warmth spreading through your tiniest veins and dropping once they reach your heart. It's obvious that Sicheng feels sorry for what he did to the daisy, and he must think that you’re not answering the door because of that.

It is a fact that you hadn’t been speaking to him since the day in the park, not because you were angry -as you weren’t -, but because you isolated yourself in the library after he advised you to. Sicheng was someone you couldn’t be angry at, he was soft but also because he had given you a little push onto an unknown path. You were still walking on the path he pushed you on, however, he isn’t walking on that same path and you feel bad about it. 

“Will you not write a message back to him, darling?” Cyan asks you as she notices the way you can only stare at the messages you received, and your fingers are resting on the edges of the screen rather than the keyboard that is waiting for you to send a message back. Your eyes stay on the screen, they never break eye-contact from the messages, not even when Cyan asks your attention by questioning you. “He doesn’t know I’m here. I think he thinks I’m angry because he took one of the daisies and showed me how to play the game” you explain to Cyan. She can see your facial expression growing bluer as you think about it. 

“But you’re not angry. So make him bloom again, his smile is precious to the world” Cyan says before you can continue telling the story with even more details, she is aware of the things that happen but still listens when you tell her the story about the little daisy. 

y/n [ 2 : 39 pm ] : just as much as you mean to me, you're a precious bean x

⋅ ⋅ ⋅

Apparently, and without warning, you're not the only soulmate-searching human in the world. The first time you realise it's simply because Cyan decides to tell you one minute before a girl that's also looking for her soulmate walks in, the time after you notice it's before the iron-grated door opens itself after receiving the name of a chosen colour. You're never facing the door but you're still able to hear how many different voices there are and how many times the door opened itself.

Three free moon-shaped tables are moving away from the centre of the library, each one getting closer to one of the bookshelves but simply so that everyone has bits of privacy in the process of finding their soulmate. Your table was right in front of a bookshelf already: probably because Cyan thought it was needed for a beginner to receive lots of written knowledge.

Among the variety of people around in the underground library, no one looks familiar to you. You don't meet eyes with them but you can put the blame on the fact that their noses are buried between antiquated books. Even those who are already familiar with one another, don't waste more time than the few seconds a small greeting takes up, simply because they're too disciplined. It makes you feel awkward, as you're too new to step up and introduce yourself to the hardworking set of people.

Silence fills the room to the brim, leaving only the furniture to take up the rest of the space. The only sound you hear is quiet breathing and when a slightly moist fingertip tries to turn the page of one of the books. Whilst everyone is busy with the literate, you are not. The books on your table are shut, still labelled as useless ever since Cyan said that they had no value in your story. But you can't bring yourself to figure out which one your heart wants, or which one your soulmate would recommend to you. Cyan probably was right, but that doesn't tell you how you should find the answer to the question, nor how to find the right book.

You stand up from the decorative stool, trying not to make any noises which you succeed in as you can easily slip off the piece of furniture. You let go of a breath that you had been holding in but it's even quieter than your footsteps as they approach the nearest bookshelf. It's only a few steps before your feet come to a halt in front of it and your eyes take over to complete the next task.

Your eyes stare at all of the books that you find yourself in front of, it's a lot to take in with all of the different colours and letters coming to you at once. Unknown writers and complicated book titles, but as Cyan said, you try not to judge the book by who wrote it or how interesting the title sounds. Society just got you adapted to thinking difficult was always the right choice when it came to literature.

It's like you're standing at an intersection of choices, but there are more than four choices, and perhaps there's only one right option amongst the hundreds of possibilities. Fortunately for you, you can't see how insecure your back looks from this angle: others see the way your shoulders carry a responsibility but they also remember how they had been at the exact same spot not long ago.

"You don't know which book to take?" A voice asks you, the male voice making you spin on your heels immediately just to politely face whoever was speaking to you. The man in front of you has a sweet smile on his lips, you immediately notice that once you look up to his face. The sweet smile tries to indicate that he's being friendly but also gives away that he's happy. You can't help but wonder if he's close to finding his soulmate.

You sigh softly, a monologue that you have been participating in a lot more these past days. Sometimes you sigh because you're frustrated by this endless hunt for answers, other times it's because you feel like you should give up and move on, and other times you do it because you just don't know. The thing you don't know is also hidden behind something you don't know, even though that doesn't really make sense to you. "No, I can't seem to figure out which book is mine" you answer honestly.

"That's totally fine, we all started at this point,"  He tells you, never stopping the smile from hovering over his lips. You realise that maybe out of experience, he's willing to help you more than Cyan is, or at least his advice could help you more than Cyan's vague instructions. "You indeed have to let your soulmate pick the book for you, but there's a catch to it all. The things you think you've researched outside of this library are the things you have to research here again. You're not looking for what a soulmate is, but who your soulmate is."

You're obligated to admit, the words make you think more clearly than Cyan's do. Cyan's words leave you to sleepless nights of wondering what they mean, the words of this man make you think twice and you already know what’s expected of you. Specifically, the last bit of words are what stick to your body and follow you behind even now that you're still standing in front of him.

You're not looking for what a soulmate is, but who your soulmate is.

"There's no right or wrong definition to soulmates, everyone describes it differently. But you have to focus on the things you experienced and find the meaning behind them, after that you can connect them to your special person" He says, the explanation seems never-ending but you willingly accept every single word that leaves his lips right now. The scowl from earlier turns into a grateful smile, you are genuine about the gesture as you feel helped by what he offered you. "Thank you…" you say to him, hesitating to end your sentence as you wish you are able to say the name, but you can't say things you don't know of.

He lets out a tiny laugh as he realises he had been stupid enough to help you before asking whether you need it, and without politely introducing himself, but he's used to helping everyone here now that he's so close to meeting his soulmate. "I'm Johnny, the one who usually helps others around here" He introduces himself, clearly it's not the first time that he does this but you had already figured that out the moment he gave you some useful advice. "I'm y/n, I guess I'm new here. Almost like a high school student on the first day of the first year."

Johnny can't help but let out a soft laugh at the latter part of your introduction, simply because he said something along the lines of that back when he was the youngest of the group here. In a matter of months or even weeks, that position drastically changed. "Everyone is like that at the start, but some new people will join sooner or later. Before you know it, you will be helping them as I helped you."

The words - just like before - stick onto your brain, luckily not onto your heart like his other set of words did. You break the eye-contact with him to instead stare at the many books waiting on the shelves, hoping that magically your soulmate would make one of them fall in the palm of your hand. But it's not as simple as that: your soulmate won't connect the dots for you, it's you who has to do that and your soulmate might create a shape out of it.

With a soft sigh, your eyes flutter themselves shut to get into a moment of peace. It's the scenery of the park that always does the trick for you: it's calming despite knowing there is a life-altering meaning behind it. The tree engulfs you between its branches, and you're safe under the oak with the daisies by your side. The daisies where the book showed you a ritual named "effeuiller la marguerite" of. But it's the tree that keeps you from harm, that invites you to come back over and over again.

It takes a few seconds to remember the scientific classification Cyan gave you, as she probably read it in the same book that you read on that day. Nonetheless, the Quercus dentata unconsciously became a part of the baseline information of which you thought you had it organised. But Johnny was right: you had to focus on things you experienced.

The daimyo oak that engulfs you in its branches seems to want to tell you something, it's an enchanting moment even though it's only a daydream that you find yourself getting lost in. The information that it gives you is purely its existence, yet it's linked to the existence of your soulmate too.

You tilt your head as you have the impression that someone is walking up to you with slow steps, yet it's like that because your heart tells you to live in the moment. The footsteps don't look like Cyan's unstable pace of steps, and on top of that, it's more like a manly figure which you notice by his legs and shoes. It's vague but the individual details will together give you a clear view, layer per layer.

Despite the fact that you're aware it's not Cyan walking up to you, you can't imagine someone else doing so and you have no other option but already think of the outstanding features that strike the starring role in your daydreams. You start to get twitchy with each step the person takes closer to you: it's an eerie feeling that you don't know what to think of. It's a daydream that you're living in, but it all seems a bit too real to be just a dream during the early hours of the evening.

In your daydream, you close your eyes, in hopes that when you open them, you won't be able to see anything but the peaceful scenery around you. Yet, luck isn't always by your side and for once, that's a good thing. You open your eyes and immediately met up with a pair of soft-sentimental-looking eyes. They're brown, in a shade that could be defined by the world's most cherished colour of brown.

"You coloured my heart ecru"

「 ɢʜᴏꜱᴛᴡʜɪᴛᴇ # ꜰ8ꜰ8ꜰꜰ 」

Blank-faced, you look up from the syllables that form a term together, your eyes are slow to react to the sound that triggers your other senses easily. The iron door creaks open as slow as your eyes focus on it, but you're quick to give up the hope that you're going to be the only one in the library tonight. Cyan's voice is quiet but still gets louder with every step she takes inside the library, symbolically taking the young man under her protective wings as he walks into the library after her.

The thick book closes as your elbow moves from between the two separated parts, but it goes unnoticed as your eyes are drawn to Cyan's new -victim- soulmate. A rare warmth spreads around the room and circles him like it's his aura presenting him, he's the young lad your existence softens for.

"I assume this is the library you've been looking for" Cyan announces to the stranger as she smiles at his sudden humbleness. His hands fold together politely as his feet are tightly pressed together to only take up one tile out of the hundreds that embrace him. "A little disclaimer before the library overwhelms you with useless information: pluck the book your heart chooses for you, it's commissioned by your soulmate."

You can see the expression change on his face, there's a universal set of facial expressions of emotion, and surprise seems to be one of the six universal possibilities right now. He doesn't show any of the critical signals aside from the arch that his eyebrows form into. "How do they tell me which book?" He asks once the surprise makes space for an emotion that you can't read so well.

"It just happens, Jungwoo. It might take some time but they will naturally come to you"

With the useless piece of advice, Cyan decides she has given him enough to leave him to his task. She walks away from the new test-subject and moves to a set of books that the others left behind a few hours ago. You can still recognise the cover of the book that Johnny had been reading earlier, and the book Ley read about life after meeting your soulmate. The two of them were awfully close to meeting their soulmates, with Johnny already knowing what the name of his soulmate was. Unlike you: you only possessed of the birth date of your soulmate.

When Cyan's footsteps are the only ones you can hear, your head slightly turns to the side to see around the room and catch the stranger standing on the same tile as before. He seems glued to the tile, the tips of his Nike-branded shoes rub over one another in an attempt to soothe himself, but it only shows how unfamiliar he is with the situation. You can't blame him, you had been like that too not long ago.

"You should sit if you want to" you break the uncomfortable, nearly timed, sound of Cyan's footsteps against the floor. The sound moves to a layer in the background as your voice is now the centre of attention combined with the presence of the young man.

You don't expect an answer to your words as it was a mere offer. But the silence makes your voice fade out instantaneously. One layer less, another chance for silence to fill the room like it did when you were sitting here alone. The stranger can only nod in response, clearly feeling shy when his feet shuffle to the moon-shaped table that is diagonal of yours. He quietly lowers his body and takes a seat on the low stool.

Unfortunately for the stranger, you don't have a lot of time to make him feel at ease in the library. It's self-discipline, something you badly need when you're isolated in this place for almost ten hours and that six days a week. There's more than enough work to do, and much like exams, distractions only cause more harm than help.

Your book is still closed on your desk, a result of getting distraught by Cyan and the stranger bursting into the library not long ago. Soon you notice what happened to your book and let out a tiny curse to yourself, your hands working quickly to open the book again. It's a hard task to find the exact page you left off at: any page between the numbers two hundred nineteen and six hundred eighty would be the one you read last. You know you're to blame for this, not Cyan, not the newbie. More discipline wouldn't be a bad idea.

Your fingertips tumble over each page hastily, starting at page two hundred nineteen to continue browsing over every page that follows after that. If you see the word you read last, you know which page it is, but to do that, you still have to turn each page until your eyes encounter the word. Now that you think of it, you don't even remember which word it was, but hope to retrieve it soon.

On the other side of the library, there are ten fingertips that aren't actively browsing from page to page in a book. Rather than browsing in a book, they're tapping onto the moon-shaped table continuously. It's a composition of instrumentless and voiceless music, a song you never heard, but you don't prefer having to hear it twice.

"I'm sorry but can you stop? I'm trying to focus" you announce in a questioning way, not losing the politeness in your voice as it almost sounds like it's only an option for him to quit. Luckily, he does as you expect of him, causing his fingers to tremble from the sudden lack of stress-relief. "Sorry," he says in a soft tone, sending an apologetic smile your way but the innocence in his voice already causes you to forgive him. "I guess I was trying to call out to my soulmate or something," he says, not holding back the snippet of laughter that nervously bubbles from his lips.

You don't know why your lips curve up into a smile at his lame joke, perhaps because it's amusing to see someone being nervous about being here. Now you now why Cyan works in this library, she can laugh at people's stupidity on a daily basis. You still remember how entertained she was when you said numerous spells to the door when you only had to say the colour you picked out to open the door.

"It's okay" you say back to him and smile, but you notice from the look on his face that he's filled to the brim with nerves. "You must be nervous" you suggest, giving him the opportunity to open up if that's what he needs right now. You, like no one else, are aware of the unfavourable feelings that the soulmate context brings along. After days, you still don't have a label to paste on the feelings from back then, simply because you still don't know what to feel now either. "I am. One of my friends already met his soulmate, and my parents are soulmates too. They suggested for me to visit this place as they said not everyone can find their soulmate randomly" he explains even if he doesn't state the reason why he's so nervous. Perhaps the pressure is the reason: pressured to find his special person because his friend did and his parents obviously did too.

You nod at his explanation, making sure he knows that you're listening, but you don't interrupt as you want to hear how he feels. His story reminds you of Sicheng who made you believe even more than you perhaps did before. Whether you were a believer or not, is something you don't remember because you simply didn't think about it that often. Perhaps you were a believer, or one of the more sceptical people, or you could have been a non-believer. Whatever you were, it didn't matter anymore, you are a believer now.

"My name is Jungwoo by the way," He says before you can respond to his explanation, he probably saw your facial expression as you were trying to form a correct answer and also didn't feel like telling you an uninteresting story of how he found out someone was his soulmate. To say it easily, the subject changed.

"I'm y/n"

⋅ ⋅ ⋅

It's twenty-five to eleven when you take the small steps to reach the street again, spinning on your heel to see Jungwoo sliding down the railing that separates the stairs evenly.

The sight makes you clasp your hand over your mouth in an attempt to silence the laugh that threatens to leave your lips. But only after you see Jungwoo losing his balance unexpectedly which causes his little playful moment to come to an end a little too soon. His feet stumble over the last two steps of the stairs before his body bumps against yours with full speed.

Not by speed, but by force, your body is dragged backwards and you almost hit the floor with a shocked Jungwoo in your arms. But before that happens, his fast reflexes are able to catch himself and you before the unfortunate event takes place. Yet, it doesn't stop the two pairs of feet from trying to find balance on the evenly divided ground.

"I'm sorry" Jungwoo immediately apologises as he makes sure your two feet can find balance without his arms holding you up, but the mere distance between your bodies causes his own feet to be unstable. It's a feeling he needs to shake off, his soulmate is somewhere waiting for him, and your soulmate must be waiting for you somewhere as well. "I was just trying to make you laugh, not fall"

"But I didn't fall, and I had a good laugh. Trust me, I had more fun in those seconds than in the past days" you admit easily to Jungwoo, it's the downside of being isolated in an underground library, but hopefully not a future consequence of looking for your soulmate. "Ah" is the only thing that slips past Jungwoo's lips at your response, it leaves both of you in a communal cloud of wondering what to say to not make it any more uneasy.

You simultaneously look into the same direction when a flower-shaped shadow seems to dwindle down from a large tree. "Did you see that?" You ask as confusion spreads over your face, your eyes torn between looking at Jungwoo or the shadow that slowly disappears once it hits the ground. The soft landing must have taken the silhouette to blend their shades into one.

"Sorry?" Jungwoo asks as he looks at you again, his head tilted to the left as he tries to find the reason behind your confusion. The beanie that refrains his hair from moving too much doesn't prevent his bangs from moving in the same direction as his head.

The reaction leaves you speechless and stumbling over your own words before you even say them, "the flower. A daisy just fell from that tree," you say as you point upwards to the large creation of nature. Jungwoo's eyes can't help but follow your fingers up to the leaves of the tree, he can't see the colour of them in the darkness, but daisies are absent in the almost-chromatic view.

"I don't see anything" he responds to your words as he tries to make his eyes work harder, but no matter how much he squints, the enlarged view shows a total lack of flowers in the tree, especially daisies.

Tiredness is clearly ruling a position as CEO while you're only a personal assistant for the feeling. "I'm tired, I bet it was something else or my eyes are just clowning around" you mumble in disappointment when you realise Jungwoo is right. When you look at the tree again, you don't see any daisies, and you become aware that daisies don't commonly fall from trees that aren't specific daisy trees.

"Sounds like you should go home" Jungwoo mumbles to you, letting a soft smile coat his lips and you're sure your clumsiness has been forgotten unless he's planning on teasing you with it for the upcoming time. It's something you see him capable of as earlier, he had a good laugh about a writer's odd name. But the soft smile that displays on his lips makes you trust him not to tease too much.

"I think I will" you confirm Jungwoo's suggestion, trying to give him a similar soft-looking smile in return, but you're too tired to control the muscles that make the gesture possible. Like a stereotypical teenager from a sappy romance, Jungwoo hides his large hands in his jeans pockets. "Will I see you tomorrow?"

Your response is a soft hum before you confirm it with your words. "I'm here every day, most of the day. So expect to see me a lot" you answer his question.

"I'll look forward to it" Jungwoo quickly tells you, the genuine tone in his voice refraining you from walking away without saying goodbye.

An hour later and you find yourself tucked in a thin sheet that is supposed to keep your body heat at a stable temperature for the rest of the night. Though, it's not the sheet that keeps your body at a pleasant temperature, but rather the little train of comforting thoughts that rides around in your mind.

From the little moments of laughter you shared with Jungwoo, to the sweet brown eyes of your soulmate that you continuously gaze into whenever you close your own.

It makes you feel warm inside

Your eyes - as they usually are when you're in bed - are closed as you want to go over all of the little big things of today. Yet, by now, you should know that it's a task you won't be able to fulfill.

While the colour is sometimes considered dull, the brown colour of his eyes seem to create other feelings. Feelings of warmth and wholesomeness as you gaze into them. The green palette of the park surrounds the two of you and you can feel the trunk of the Quercus dentata against your back.

"Don't pluck me daisies. Just make me be your flower"

「 ᴡʜɪᴛᴇꜱᴍᴏᴋᴇ # ꜰ5ꜰ5ꜰ5 」

"I don't understand what else I have to find out, Cyan" you breathe out as you drop the heavy-weighted book on top of some others that you had been scanning through for the past four and a half hours. Another two hundred seventy minutes wasted, and yes, wasted was the right word to use for all the time you spent in the library so far.

Cyan easily notices the high level of pressure, she already noticed when you first made your entrance of the day. "What do you mean by that?" She asks you as she tries to lift her body to sit on the side of the moon-shaped table but eventually just leans against it before accidents happen. "I already found out I have to play a game with the daisies, and my soulmate's birthday is February nineteen. What else do I have to find out?"

The way you say your words makes it easy for Cyan to see through them and bump into a big lump of exhaustion. It's a price many people pay but at the same time no one asked them to pay the fee, it's something people do to themselves because they're so desperate to claim someone to be theirs. You're no different from anyone when it comes to that, no one is any different. At least humans have one thing in common even though it doesn't make them less unique.

"Potentially, you could look for your soulmate"

A scowl coats your entire facial expression, your muscles doing work without you having to ask about it. You open your mouth to speak up but silence yourself from the string of curses and confusion that blend together to a feeling called bitterness.

"What?" You ask as you wish to get rid of your confusion, you swallow the curses you want to throw at her. You shouldn't curse at her, seeing that aside from her vague way of phrasing things, she's a blessing. The bitter feeling on the tip of your tongue is something you want to out but just like tastebuds, they stay in their place for you to enjoy the lingering bitterness a bit more. "You mean I've been here 24/7 for nothing?" you ask her, quick to hold her back because you receive a vague answer to your surprised exclaim, but even if this time your question is unmistakable, you still expect a similar answer.

"Darling," Cyan is about to continue but you hold up your hand in aim for her to stop. You know where her "darling" leads you in life. And that destination is non-existent.

Despite your tries to stop, she doesn't. "Listen to me y/n. You can go out and find your soulmate right now, no one ever told you to stay inside the library. If you know how to find your soulmate, go for it"

Now, that is something Cyan doesn't need to tell you twice. Instead of cursing at you, you now want to hug her tightly and press numerous pecks to her cheek to thank her. It's something you don't do though, but you could if you follow your current happy hunch.

It's the isolation that took a toll on your well-being and affected your way of coping with different emotions and situations. Before you entered this enchanted place, you were as sweet as a strawberry but now that you were allowed to leave, you walked out as a bitter cranberry that was kept in the fridge for one day too long.

"Are you serious?" You just want to hear her say the words once more, confirm that it was what she truly said before. You expect yourself to run out of the library within an instant, but your feet are attached to the tile as you wait for her to repeat the words once more.

She doesn't repeat the words once more, she simply nods and drifts off before you're able to stop her from doing so. Your eyes follow every movement she makes in the direction of another door and disappears behind it before you're able to see what is behind that door.

With your feet securely attached to the tiled-floor, you had no other option but to awkwardly stay still for at least sixty seconds. Your thoughts go blank at you look around the library.

Jungwoo is still sitting where he usually sits, his head buried between a book while his right hand is holding a pen in case he has to make notes. There is a white pair of earbuds in his ear so you assume or hope that he didn't hear the exclamations you made during the conversation with Cyan.

Generally, things aren't any more filled or less empty as they usually are. If anything misses, it's the presence of the other soulmate-searching humans. Today there's no Johnny, Ley, Isabelle, Donghyuck or any of the others that would usually be around at this hour of the day. You're aware they don't come every day, but you're so used to their presence filling up the ancient space even if they constantly read.

Your feet take you a step backwards, going towards the door to head outside. It's too early to celebrate that you can finally leave this antiquated hellhole because there's a hint of truth in Cyan's words, and you fear not being able to come back once you leave permanently.

"I'm going to go out for some air" you announce to no one in particular, it's not like anyone is available to you, but you still feel like telling so that Cyan and Jungwoo both know that you'll be back in a matter of minutes. You mean to see that Jungwoo nods, but realise soon that he's only bobbing his head along to a pop song.

You spin around and take the silence as an opportunity to leave for a few minutes, it doesn't have to be long, just some time to properly think and put everything on a non-organised timeline in your head. The iron door closes as you take your leave and follow the stairs up, right now they seem to lead to temporary freedom.

Once you're outside, it seems like you haven't seen the world in more than a year, even if it's been a matter of days, not even enough to make a sum that ends in enough days for a month. You have no idea what time it is until you look up at the sky and imagine this must be what the sky looks like when it's afternoon.

Your freedom only lasts for a minute, before you know it, you're claimed by whoever is making your phone vibrate in your back pocket. How did you even forget about the little device you used to be obsessed with?

Your hand slips in your pocket, clutching the phone between your parted fingertips before pulling it out of the pocket. It's only a matter of seconds before the phone is facing you with a bright screen, revealing that it's not just a text message but that someone is calling you.

Called ID is no other than your best friend Sicheng, and you waste no time in picking up the phone to hear what he has to say. You breathe into the speaker without realising that you do, already looking forward to hearing a voice other than Cyan's.

"y/n? Are you okay?" Sicheng asks, hiding a cough because he thinks he disturbed you in a heated moment, yet that's far from what is going on right now. "I am, sorry" you quickly say, regaining control over yourself to not pull such weird stunts once again. The last thing you want is Sicheng to think about your bed-activities.

"I've been trying to call you for the past two hours now, but it never went through" Sicheng breathes out himself but it's a sigh of relief that he finally gets to talk to you. He's not the type to call, so he must have been in a state of distress when he wasn't able to reach you. "I was busy, sorry" you apologise once more to him.

Sicheng sighs for the second time, it's another exhale of pure relief. "I have to talk to you, do you have time? It's important," he says before you're able to ask why he called you non-stop for the past two hours. You opt to nod but after a few seconds, realise that he can't see it. Normally he's next to you but now you're hearing his voice through the phone so he can't see you, and you can't see him.

"Of course, I have time" you answer Sicheng as you try to speak in a comforting tone, not aware of what Sicheng is about to say but it already sounds like it's something serious. "What is it?" you ask when your eyes don't pick up any response, no sound, nix.

"It's about the daisies"

You are all eyes and ears once he mentions the little flowers that have become so precious to you. Your eyes even glance to the spot where you thought you saw a daisy dwindling a couple of days ago, back when Jungwoo must have labelled you as lunatic.

"What about the daisies?" you ask back carefully, your hand fumbling with the edge of your shirt as your heartbeat picks up the pace. Through your veins spread nothing but fear, because deep in your heart you know exactly what happened to the white-coloured flowers.

"How long has it been since you were in the park?"

The question doesn't take you by surprise but it makes your nerves build up even more. The pit in your stomach now seems to take up al available space and even then, it only seems to grow bigger and bigger. Your mind has to dig through countless of book pages to get to the asked piece of information: when was the last time you had been in the park?

"A few days ago?" you answer in a questioning tone, admitting the words take you by surprise. It gives you time to reflect on yourself: how you abandoned the park for the library, and the real tree for a fantasia daydream of it. All of that for your soulmate, even if it's your own fault.

Sicheng hears how unsure you are by the underlying tone in your voice, it gives away that you're either way insecure or scared. He opts for the second one: it obviously wasn't going to be good news if he had been trying to reach you for over two hours just to happily talk about your visits to the park. "I was there today, y/n."

"And?" you impatiently urge for him to continue speaking before you properly processed the words that he went to the park. It's nerve-wracking to wait until he finally speaks up, even if you doubt that you want to hear what he has to say.

Nix.

"The daisies are gone, someone plucked them off. Only some stems are left"

⋅ ⋅ ⋅

When you wished for freedom, you didn't wish for the four daisies to be plucked away from you.

Your fingers dig through the grass in an attempt to find remains of the daisies, or find new barely-blooming daisies. You run your fingers through the cold grass multiple times, your eyes observing between the blades of grass to hopefully encounter something.

Sadly, you have to conclude that everything is gone, aside from the stems that are hidden between the grass. Clearly, the non-beautiful pieces were left even if they were critical to the white-yellow-coloured flower. There is a torn piece of a white petal laying in the depths of the grass, and you grieve over it.

Tears are endangering the soft and dry skin fo your cheeks, but the wet tears stay hidden in the corners of your eyes for as long as you're strong enough to hold them back. "Why?"

You don't get a response to your question, simply because you're not asking anyone, and no one is around you to answer. You know it's a question you can answer for yourself, and there is only one answer possible: you're the one to blame.

The blame is put on yourself, for various and valid reasons. For starters, you abandoned the park to spend your time in a library where books guide your feelings instead of your heart. Second, you were the person that wished for freedom and it heavily affected your chances to ever meet your soulmate in this life.

The combination of thoughts trigger the tears and they take their chance to slowly roll down your cheeks in grief. You feel your cheeks getting wet with remains of sadness, regret and grief. Before the first one falls onto the green grass, another one already rushes out and follows the wet trail.

You want to close your eyes and disappear from reality, but you don't allow yourself to see your soulmate's soft orbs when you close your own. Instead, you can only stare at what should have been the flowers guiding you as you walked on the path to your soulmate.

Whatever there is left to grasp, you grasp between your fingertips. You pull pieces of grass from the earth in the process of taking the leftover stems from their designated growing space.

When you stand up from your kneeled position, you faintly notice that the jeans fabric that covers your knees became a mixed colour of green and brown: the colours of grass and dirt. But the discoloured jeans are the least of your concerns right now.

With the stems of the daisies tightly clutched in your fist, you leave the daimyo oak alone by running out of the park. There's only one place you can go, and only one person that can tell you what to do: Cyan.

Your feet had never been this fast whilst running to the library, nor had your eyes done an effort of this kind to make sure you didn't bump into fellow humans or objects. That was one less disappointment for you to worry about. You had no idea for how long you ran when you finally arrived at the library, it seemed to have taken hours but in reality, it must have been a matter of minutes.

"Ecru" leaves you lips before you run through the barely-opened door to get inside the library. You look around frantically, searching for Cyan but you can only see Jungwoo who is still studying whatever he got to know about his soulmate.

Your feet skip over the large tiles as you march over to Jungwoo, trying to be understanding but you pull at the cord of his earbuds so that at least one of them falls from his ear. His lips are parted in surprise and it takes him a second to turn his head and realise that it's you who did it.

"Where is Cyan?"

Jungwoo doesn't answer your question immediately, causing you to only get more anxious. Tears start to rapidly flow down your cheeks, they do it gracefully but the sight looks far from that in third-person view.

"Why are you crying?" Jungwoo asks you worriedly, grasping your arm in an attempt to pull you into a comforting hug. But your trembling hands don't allow it, yet, they're too weak to stay together to protect whatever is left of the little daisies.

The remains sadly fall to the floor, descending from between your fingertips and onto the cold tiles. Your eyes meet Jungwoo's momentarily but as soon as you become aware of the emptiness in your hands, your blurry vision shifts to your hands, and towards the floor.

One droplet, two droplets and still flowing. Falling on the sadly fallen flower stems and petals.

"They plucked my daisies" you croak out in a broken voice, staring at the floor where the faint green colour becomes the eye-catcher of the scenery. Your blurry vision leaves you with nothing but hues, you can't even recognise the shape of a stem in the little heap that was on the floor.

You still feel the stems falling from between your fingers even though you're left empty-handed.

"Your daisies?" Jungwoo asks as he stares at the floor as well. His vision clear enough to see blades of grass, mixed with a couple of while petals and next to them some more greenery that he can't particularly name because they look the same as grass but a different texture. It's the little petal that makes him realise what you mean when you say the word 'daisies' but it still doesn't click in his mind.

His hand awkwardly moves towards you as you continue to sadly drop your tears over the greenery, his hand is reaching towards your back but pulls back in hesitation.

Before Jungwoo is able to make up his mind about the right way of comforting you, your name is called by Cyan who almost spurts from the hidden room within the library. She marches over to you with quick and heavy steps until she's right in front of you.

"y/n, what's wrong?" Cyan asks as her foot hovers over the stems unnoticeably, her hands move to your shoulders to make looking into your eyes possible. Her hands instantly straighten your shoulders but your eyes never leave the stems that are now crushed by a pair of elderly-woman shoes. You don't have the guts to say anything about it, if anything, it makes you realise that your chance to meet your soulmate is crushed.

"My daisies" you start to say but you can't finish off what you said so far. The daisies were the only living organism that mattered to you aside from your soulmate, and now, both of those were lost. Your arms that limply hang from your body bring a movement to your index finger, merely pointing down to where Cyan is standing. The effort goes by unnoticed, even by yourself.

"Your daisies?" Cyan inquires but the tears that freely run down your cheeks give away the answer before you even have to tell her what's going on. Better than you know, she is aware of your task and aware of the five daisies that led you to your soulmate. She doesn't judge even if she knows, she listens.

You nod your head, hiccuping due to the lump of sadness that is stuck in your throat. "Someone plucked my daisies and now they are gone."

Cyan's hands that had been on your shoulders, rapidly move to the back of your head as she pulls your body against her own. Her lips part as she wants to say everything will be okay any upcoming day, but that sadly wasn't the truth, nor would you believe it if she said that.

"Look at me," she tells you, once again holding onto your shoulders as she distances your bodies. Your tear-filled eyes are slow to react and ignorant as you can barely focus them on her. "This doesn't mean the end, y/n. I'm going to help you look for a way to make this right."

You want to trust her, you really do. But you can't bring yourself to put a grain of trust in her words because they seem unrealistic, just like everything else that is happening in this library.

"y/n," she says your name effortlessly because she knows you're listening even if you are not willing to. "I'm going to help you. Together we can still find your soulmate" she tells you, just the same words as earlier but with different words and phrases.

You take her hands away from your shoulders and shake your head in response. Your earlier wish for freedom becomes the wish to never remember any of the things that happened, a wish for the daimyo oak to permanently and magically disappear from the park so that you never have to look back at it again.

"Sorry Cyan," You say to her, the words hide the exact phrase that you're giving up or you've already given up at this point. Once more, your eyes meet the floor in sadness.

A virgin-white petal stares at you from its position on the floor, it's as damaged as your heart is, yet, its condition doesn't make you feel less lonely. You bend down, not caring if both Cyan and Jungwoo are staring at you whilst you grieve over the lost and broken petals.

Your fingertip reaches out for the petal, carefully lifting it as it rests on your fingertip.

You have to decide if you're going to wilt like a daisy or if you're just going to go forward and live the life that you've been granted

「 ʙᴇɪɢᴇ # ꜰ5ꜰ5ᴅᴄ 」

Your fingertip caresses the outline of the daisy that is printed on the spine of the book, your finger lifting slightly when it comes across one of the raised bands in the middle of the spine. It's useless to open the book but you can't help it, you open the book until the gutter is steady enough to separate the two parts.

Another illustration of a daisy stares back at you as you observe it, it's the anatomy of a daisy, something you surely knew by head at this point. Why did you still remember it even when you would never be able to use the knowledge?

Your heart hurts, almost symbolically sinks when your thumb tumbles over a few chapters, a new page greeting you with the uses of a daisy. Your eyes follow the different uses: culinary when its young leaves are between other edible greenery in a salad, herbal medicine when their juice is extracted to heal wounds, soulmate when it's destined that a person looks for an object of affection through the French game effeuiller la marguerite.

You swallow away the lump of sentiment in the back of your throat, trying not to gaze upon the infamous word, but you read out the word silently at least five times, once for every flower you abandoned in the park. Your thumb moves to the corner of the page, over the page number in hopes to skip over the page.

Yet, two minutes later, your eyes still read over the words while your thumb is frozen upon the digits that you don't want to change. It's like you're sentimentally obsessed, a bad consequence of not being able to say goodbye before your grieving process began.

Donghyuck who has been studying a book about dreams -as he has been dreaming about his soulmate and still would dream about them until the day they would meet one another -, stands up from his stool as he sees you lurking around the bookshelves in distress and grief.

"Are you alright, y/n?" he asks with a caring smile on his lips, you miss the sight because your eyes are endlessly pasted on the page of the book. At first, you only nod in response before muttering out a quiet, "yes."

Donghyuck shakes his head, his hand pulling on the top edge of the book to take it from your tight grip. "Focus on me for a few seconds, please. I know you're not alright," he says as he manages to conquer your weak grip, receiving the book between his hands even if it was never your intention for it to end up in his hands.

"I don't want to talk," You say as you look at Donghyuck but only momentarily, not allowing him to look at your tear-filled eyes for longer than a handful of seconds. You lower your head, facing the floor and mistakably see the green hue of the stems even when the floor is clean and only matte in its own dark-blue colouration.

"I know," Donghyuck responds, his hands gently put away the book on the nearby bookshelf before he takes your hands in his to hold. "But you can't give up now, your soulmate is waiting somewhere for you. Are you going to give all of that up because of the daisies?"

Even if you don't want to listen to what he has to say - because you've heard the same words at least twenty times in the past week - you can't help but listen to every word and consider it in the depths of your mind. "I know," you answer to his words but leave his question unanswered.

Yes, you are going to give up the progress you made because your daisies are plucked away. There is no reason for you to continue the search of your object of affection just to please your inner-soulmate personality or dreams. The longer you think about it, the more doubts you start to have with everything that has happened. No one could change your mind thus far: not Johnny who came by to say he met his soulmate, not Émilie that took your seat the times she was there, not Cyan who tried her hardest to be a positivist in this situation.

"Don't give up yet," Donghyuck said as he looked at you, a sad smile coating his lips because he felt emotional by just the sight and thought. If he were to lose the one thing that could lead him to his soulmate, he would have given up too, perhaps even earlier than you did. "You still have the daimyo oak in the park right? Please don't give up so soon."

You don't plan on replying to Donghyuck's endless pleading about you giving up, but a response is not anticipated anymore when the noise of the iron doors opening suddenly interrupts the conversation. All heads turn to the door, even yours is quick to react by giving all of your focus to the door instead of the melancholic-looking floor.

You catch a glimpse of who is running out of the door before it slowly starts to close again.

Black-haired Jungwoo who had been dressed in his usual jeans with nothing but a simple shirt to dress him up casually for the daily library visits. The white Converse-branded shoes on his feet take him out of the library as fast as his feet allow him to go. Walking is not even an option, he is running.

"What is going on?" Donghyuck and you simultaneously blurt out when seeing the young boy run out like his life is depending on it. Even when the iron-grated door slowly closes again, your eyes don't recolate, too astonished by the sudden unexplained and unexpected situation.

Cyan slowly steps forward towards the door as she sees it closing, she carries a smile on her lips as she knows exactly what is going on. She glances proudly at the closed doors, her eyes slowly blinking as her imagination is prepared to show her what is going to follow next. "His soulmate," she answers shortly, giving you and Donghyuck a soft look "flowers are blooming on his path, he must know the way."

The words leave you and Donghyuck clueless, but it's the smile displayed on her lips that make you the most confused that you have been in a while. You have the perception that Jungwoo found his soulmate, or at least is one step further than he was last week.

As you feel your heart breaking, you experience happiness that Jungwoo found his soulmate.

⋅ ⋅ ⋅

The minute hand ticks around the clock twice, it signals four times in two hours: when a new hour is announced and when that same hour passed halfway already.

One hundred sixty-six minutes pass by on the clock, you don't count any of the minutes but you're aware enough of the time each time you take a small glance. Due to the observing skill, it's not hard to count how many minutes pass by.

The minute hand is about to move a millimetre under your watching eyes, but you get distraught by the sound of the door opening. It can only be one person, the person everyone waited for: the person Donghyuck and you stayed longer for, the person Cyan dropped her work for.

Jungwoo appears inside again with a jubilant smile coating his lips, he looks like he won a singing contest but is out of breath due to the timeworn use of his voice. He breathes deeply as the doors close, giving him a cool breeze even though his body feels too warm to get cooled off.

"y/n," he starts immediately as his steps approach you, his pace fast but the rhythm in his footsteps are off due to the running back and forth he did. Twelve steps further, he stops when he is only two steps away from making physical contact with you.

You stay silent as you're taken by surprise, surprised by the sudden unexpected scenario that is yet to unfold right in front of your eyes. Speechless, even after a few seconds, you still can't utter out a response.

"I was in the park," Jungwoo says as he notices your silence, his breathing faintly coating a layer of warmth on your cheeks due to the condensation. His hand reaches out to yours gently, running only the pad of his thumb over the skin of your hand. "In the park?" you ask him soft, your expression brightening by a whisker, but it's enough for Jungwoo to see the changes.

"I was in the park" He repeats again, his other four fingertips slowly embracing yours until he is properly holding your hand in his. Your hand is trembling in anticipation or fear, for whatever is about to leave his lips next.

You nod in response, urging for him to continue speaking, you want to pull the words out of his mind so that you can hear them sooner, but realise he must have seen something unforeseen. "I went to the park for you, because I heard you talking about the Daimyo oak. So I immediately left and went there, and under the tree was a daisy."

A daisy. Those are the only two words you process out of all of the words he said. It's quiet when you try to once again process and accept what he said, your imagination running wild over the thought of one single daisy blooming under the oak, giving you another chance to meet your soulmate.

"Are you for real?" you ask as a smile slowly creeps onto your lips, your lips desire to curve upwards but you don't let them because your heart doesn't want to be harmed in case it was only a sick joke on your grieving process.

Jungwoo excitedly bobs his head up and down as a yes, he's excited but at the same time he has never been so serious about something before, he's torn with what way to bring over the news to you in order for you to believe it. But the young man can't contain the positivity that streamed through his veins when under the Daimyo oak, he saw a tiny daisy growing.

"You have to get to the park," Donghyuck says with a bright smile, Jungwoo's excitement clearly getting transferred to Donghyuck because he's unable to control the happy expression on his face. His eyes shift to Jungwoo and then back to you, not even considering Cyan who has been standing with you as well. "Go!"

Cyan clears her throat before you can do as Donghyuck says, it doesn't stop you from taking a step towards the door but does stop you from running out of the library to check if a daisy is really growing in the spot where the other four had been plucked away. She calls your name to make you turn towards her, which you do as you become aware that she wants to say something.

"Don't let it get plucked away again," She starts saying in a serious tone, almost strict as this might truly be the last chance you have to find your soulmate. You react by nodding your head, not giving her words attention, nor do you use your own words to reply to her.

It turns out to be Donghyuck who triggers you into ignoring Cyan "go!" he shouts and in reaction to that, you take off running. You exchange the library for the outside world again, this time not for freedom, but for your soulmate who might have given you one last chance.

⋅ ⋅ ⋅

Desire is like a storm. Things get broken

There is a quote saying "where flowers bloom, so does hope."

Hope bloomed in the depths of your heart as you ran all the way from the library to the park, running over the grass instead of the path just to get there a few seconds faster. From afar you weren't able to see if your tree engulfed a little blooming daisy.

But once you came closer, close enough to observe small-scaled details. One thing you're not able to observe is the growth of a little miracle in the grass.

Green is the only colour that paints the grass-filled space underneath the tree, you're not colour-blind, as no petals nor disks stare at you as you stare down in search for them. There are no daisies growing, peeking from out of the grass to grow even taller than the green blades.

"Where is the daisy?" you ask yourself quietly as you glance around your aura, circling around like a clock but it's useless. Nothing is growing, nor blooming, aside from the pain in your heart, even though you're embraced by the branches of the Daimyo oak.

Your view lowers itself another notch, this time in disappointment as there is nothing more to observe. Whether Jungwoo played a joke on you, or the flower got plucked away between the time that you and Jungwoo separately observed here, is something that doesn't matter. It's not Jungwoo's fault, nor is it the tree's that didn't protect its fellow natural miracle. It's your fault, you couldn't even live life as a natural flower, you bloomed like an artificial flower.

「 ꜰʟᴏʀᴀʟᴡʜɪᴛᴇ # ꜰꜰꜰᴀꜰ0 」

Your slouched shoulders effortlessly moved along with the natural movement as soon as you sigh, the walls seem to tighten after you let out the sigh. You feel closed in but the walls are so far away, it feels like you are left alone in a place you don't recognise anymore.

The physical sensation you feel when you sigh makes it clear that you're heartbroken, if not any feeling that is even worse than heartbreak. Even though heartbreak is the excellent word to use right now, broken not by your soulmate, but by yourself.

There's a hot cup in your hands, hot from the heat of the beverage, but it doesn't warm up your cold fingertips, nor does your heart feel warm by the little source of heat.

Less than one week ago, your days still felt enchanted. Filled to the upper brim with magic of the unexplained. Your warm beverage had tasted like the loveliest love potion, and you had willingly drunk every sip until the last drop fell on your tongue.

Each day was different but no less magical, if anything, each day that passed was more magical than the other. The twenty-four hours in a day resembled one step towards your soulmate, thus you walked the path for countless hours, and got one step closer to the promised land with each day that appeared on the calendar.

Dull. Days no longer felt magical or enchanted. Days were endlessly filled with dullness: every twenty-four hours, all one thousand four hundred forty hours, and the many seconds you could convert it to but that would fall into more depressive thoughts about never being able to walk the path.

Flowers had wilted on the path, blooming was something that wouldn't occur again. It was one of a kind opportunity to see the path filled with flowers. Unforgettable. Now you're doomed to walk on the same path and notice how the shades of reality coloured life but left the wilted flowers monochrome.

"ecru"

The word is hidden behind the muffled scoff that you let out but you can hear yourself saying the words. You don't expect a large door to grant you access to a library this time, if anything, you wish for something grander. Whether your grand wish has something to do with your soulmate is something you don't even know: you wish to meet him but at the same time you wish to forget everything that happened. Even though you're sitting in your own home, you hope that you can forget the past weeks and return home. A world without Daimyo oak and daisies.

Next to the post-it note where the term of the colour is scribbled down on, is your phone that has been endlessly occupied with its buzzing indications. It's something you opted to ignore for the past forty minutes even though the buzzing is more bothersome than the person who is spamming you with possible supportive messages.

You let out a soft sigh when the buzzing finally comes to a halt for longer than five seconds, you can't see it yourself but a sense of relief is washing over your facial expression, coating the sadness momentarily.

Now that the obnoxious buzzing isn't filling your eardrums, you feel tempted to pick up the phone and look at the messages, perhaps even force yourself to reply to some of them. Your temptation is hard to neglect, and within a span of nine seconds, the phone moves from the table into your hand.

The plain lockscreen of a professionally photographed scenery makes you think negatively about the way people see reality, it's them that see all of the nice colours while in reality, things are as coloured as you make them, and you're not planning on continuing your life with a pair of ecru-coloured glasses sugarcoating the world.

You're about to press the button to make your screen go black but get reminded of the many notifications because of the little border that restricts you from seeing the full picture on the screen. You take a second to stare at all of them: not individually even if multiple messages and useless emails have been displayed there, the global look seems to be your concept for picking who is important enough to reply to.

One name catches your attention, a name that you put in your contacts but never received a message from, nor ever sent a message to him: Kim Jungwoo.

Jungwoo [ 9 : 59 am ] : please reply, Cyan said that you shouldn't let the daisy get plucked away

The message makes you press the screen multiple times, once to say you want to read the message and twice to confirm to your phone that opening the messaging app is all you want at this moment. The coloured lockscreen disappears from your sight, instead, you're greeted with at least a dozen of one-sided messages, waiting for a response from you.

You scroll up lightly, until the moment your screen nearly hits the top of the saved conversation. Intensely, you read them word by word even though minutes ago, you swore you became a non-believer

Jungwoo [ 9 : 10 am ] : are you awake? There's something I need to say

Jungwoo [ 9 : 31 am ] : the daisy is under the oak in the park

Jungwoo [ 9 : 31 am ] : please believe me this time, I swear it's there

Jungwoo [ 9 : 46 am ] : let me go to the park with you, I'll show you

Jungwoo [ 9 : 48 am ] : please believe me. This oak is my birth flower and I believe in the magic that it would grant you a daisy because it did. I swear the daisy is there

Jungwoo [ 9 : 50 am ] : I'm staying here until you reply

Even though it was a waste of time, you still read the remaining seven messages to yourself, they all said the same, they all told you to reply or get your ass to the park as fast as possible. Another element that returned in more than half of the messages: the daisy.

Your feet are steadily placed on the floor, your legs seem to make it a forceful feeling like you're preparing to start running a marathon any second now. Indeed, you are ready for takeoff whenever the last straw triggers you into doing so. There's only one destination, one path, one marathon trail and that leads you straight to the park.

But it's your mind that runs a different marathon and prevents you from putting stupid thoughts into action, your mind endlessly avoids both of the paths there are: to go or not to go. You have enough reasons not to, seeing last time there hadn't been a daisy. If there is a reason to go, it's for your soulmate.

There is nothing you can lose by going, or at least that's what your heart tells you to tone down the loudness of your mind's unsteady footsteps. Plus you still trust Jungwoo, despite him being incorrect about the daisy last time, but you convince yourself that he stood under the wrong tree…

"The wrong tree?" You question the words you tried to convince yourself of, it's a thought that didn't cross your mind before but he had never explicitly said the Daimyo oak was his birth flower. It meant that he wouldn't be able to choose the wrong tree, there was only one Daimyo oak in the park, and apparently, it was accompanied by one daisy.

Jungwoo [ 10 : 13 ] : please come to the park

The buzz from the phone almost went through your veins, triggering you into the takeoff you had expected. Without responding to the text, you put the phone in your pocket as you got up from your chair.

Left your house, door wide open, heaven knows.

The daisy is so worth it, it is.

⋅ ⋅ ⋅

The unbuttoned grey trenchcoat that Jungwoo is wearing immediately pulls your attention, almost no one could pull off being so tall and make a trenchcoat look shorter than it proportionally was. Yet, it is the pure-looking facial features that bring the small sign of happiness to your lips.

"Finally!" He breathes out as you take the last few steps towards him, removing his hands from the 'storm' pockets to immediately run them through his black haircut instead. His body is filled with healthy tension and perhaps fear as well, because he badly wants you to believe him, after all, he had been speaking the truth all this time.

"How long have you been here?" You ask worriedly as you imagine him being here for way longer than you might realise, especially when you think about the forty minutes that he begged for you to come to the park. Jungwoo shrugs in response but there's a mischievous smile that tells you everything you need to know, "not too long".

As you look at Jungwoo, the Daimyo oak seems to naturally catch your attention by being as tall as it is. You don't need to tell the black-haired boy in front of you about the oak, nor about your newly-found excitement and hope about the daisy because Jungwoo can almost feel your emotions spreading through the many veins in his body.

"Oh!" Jungwoo reminds himself when he remembers why the mischievous smile was on his lips and the reason why he had been waiting here at the park for over an hour. "You have to come and look at the daisy," he said as his hand leaves his hair and immediately reaches out for your hand.

It would have looked like him dragging you along if it weren't for your own fast-paced footsteps that match Jungwoo's as you march towards the oak. You stay quiet as you anticipate the appearance of a little daisy, but Jungwoo can only let out a happy sound that almost sounds like a giggle.

You heard those happy giggles before, years ago, when your friends played "loves me, loves me not" with the daisies in the park and you wonder if soon you will be the giggly person because there is someone who answered you positively. You might not be at the appropriate age to giggle about such things, but better late than never. And when you're old: nostalgia is nostalgia, no matter at which age you were giggly over a lover you met through a game of loves me, loves me not.

Your feet move slightly faster than Jungwoo's when you're only a few steps away from being under what seems like your safe haven. Jungwoo takes it as a sign and slowly lets go of your hand, stopping his feet from moving before he's able to step into your safe bubble.

His eyes follow every movement you make, his eyes shining with happiness for you but he feels a little piece of his heart hiding the feelings that he isn't supposed to feel. He doesn't want to feel as okay as he feels, he wants to tear up but something tells him it's okay to be okay. His thoughts take him to fragments of time: when he saw you laugh or when he saw the tears rolling down your cheeks, all of the times he can look back on with his honest heart that stays hidden for the outside world.

"Jungwoo?"

Your voice pulls him out of his thoughts, he doesn't need to move his head to be able to see you as he had been staring at you and the scenery unknowingly. Nervously, his hand itches the back of his neck but still doesn't get the hint that something is expected from him.

"There is no daisy," You tell him even if it is too quiet for him to hear it, you only hear yourself say the words. You wish you were in a phase of denial, a phase where your mind will sugarcoat the sad story with something untrue and non-realistic. "There is no daisy!"

The second time the words leave your lips, Jungwoo can clearly hear what you said. "What do you mean?" Jungwoo asks incoherently, confusion fills his mind but he can't see anything because you're standing in front of the spot where he saw the daisy before.

His lips part slightly to speak but nothing comes out, he swore he saw the daisy here before you were here, and the time when you didn't show up at all as well. There was only one flower so how would he be mistaken so much? His breathing is stuck in his throat from the bundle of nerves that block the way.

With heavy - almost plumbum-feeling - feet he drags himself under your safe haven and his birth tree. Just like all the times before this one, he feels a sense of warmth engulfing him like the tree is holding protective branches around his body and above his head.

His feet come to a halt right next to you, like an anchor sinking to the depths of the sea, he stranded to this particular spot and isn't able to move another step. He moves his head to the right slightly, trying to catch a glimpse of the green grass that should surround the white flower. "The daisy," Jungwoo exclaims in a whisper as there are no white petals of which the colour deviates with the green of the grass.

Geen madeliefje

"y/n," Jungwoo starts anxiously as he placed his hand on your shoulder, the grip barely non-existent as the happiness from before is replaced with a heap of other mixed feelings. He feels sad for you, he truly does, on the other hand, he can't help but feel blank and empty now that there is no flower that grants your wish to find your soulmate.

Your lower lip nearly trembles as you hold it back from parting to yell at the world, yell at Jungwoo for once again saying he saw a daisy while there is no daisy waiting for you. It bothers you more how his warm and comforting hand is placed upon your shoulder.

"Jungwoo," you repeat his name as he said yours, the difference is found in the tone: whereas he sounded anxious, you sound broken. It's a symbolical thing but Jungwoo can almost hear your heart breaking in pieces when you say his name like that, even though, your heart would never react in any form or shape when saying his name.

Your body turns to him, causing his hand to limply drop to where it is supposed to be next to his body. Your eyes are closed but you find the courage to slowly open them to look at Jungwoo, you hope disappointment isn't the blinding emotion in them because you try to keep it hidden.

"It's okay, thank you for trying," You say in a soft tone, curving your lips into a smile but the corners stay as tight at they are now, not even moving the tiniest inch because you keep them in tone. "I'm sorry, I really thought I saw a daisy here," Jungwoo noiselessly admits, his eyes non-stop going between you and the spot where he saw the flower blooming.

You look at him to meet his eyes, knowing you can believe him when he says that, and you want him to know that you believe him but at the same time that you're disappointed in yourself for allowing the situation to get out of hand. The brown eyes seem familiar, a little too familiar as you swear you've been staring into them every time you close your eyes.

Jungwoo tilts his head as you look into his eyes, confused by the sudden change in your non-verbal attitude even though he unknowingly feels the same emotions as you do. The more you stare at him, the further his head tilts as he continues to gaze back.

Something as tiny as a snowflake appears in front of your visions, Jungwoo sees it as it dwindles down in front of your eyes, you can see it peacefully falling from his hair and onto his grey trenchcoat. Your eyes want to shift to the sky but you're stopped by the colour contrast going on in Jungwoo's hair.

White petals elegantly rest on the black strands of hair and a single minuscule daisy is trapped between the locks of his bangs. The white petals contrast against his black hair and the yellow-coloured disk makes the look wholesome. Disbelief spreads through your body, causing your eyes to widen as you try to make sense of the situation.

"There is a daisy in your hair, Jungwoo," you whisper nervously as your fingertip points towards the non-artificial flower in his hair. The sight makes your heart beat faster: a nearly adoring feeling spreading from your heart into your tiniest bloodstream.

You're standing under Jungwoo's birth flower, the Daimyo oak. While you're standing there: you are looking for a daisy to find your soulmate with and Jungwoo is next to you with multiple petals in his hair and one daisy to complete the look.

"In my hair?" Jungwoo asks as he uses his hand to almost comb through his hair, causing a few of the petals to fall from his hair and onto his fabric-covered shoulders. He feels the softness of the petals under his fingertips and can almost feel his quickened heartbeat in the tips of his fingers with each touch he leaves onto the petals.

You don't have to conclude, it's premade and there's only one possibility. Jungwoo is your soulmate.

Saying the words out loud isn't something beefed, by the time the conclusion is given to you, Jungwoo already has a bright smile on his lips. Smiling like a flower receiving a bit of sunlight to grow towards, smiling like a person who just found his soulmate.

His gaze is locked with yours, staring at one another as the droplets of reality sink in. The brief silence that follows is as tender as a rainstorm of daisies.

"It's you," you whisper to break the silence, your eyes endlessly locked on your soulmate who can't help but mirror your actions because he's stunned. A smile breaks through your facial expression as the last sigh finally pushes past your lips.

The flower in your heart was blooming and you could feel the effect it had on you. The person that you had fun with and cried with, the person you motivated into searching for his soulmate. He was your object of affection.

Jungwoo slowly nods even if he is still trying to grasp the situation with both hands, his fingertips slip from reality and dip into the ecru world he unconsciously chose for when Cyan told him to choose a colour. "It's me, " he says in a soft tone, a nervous chuckle slipping from his lips as his ecru world no longer seems divergent from reality.

Under the embrace of the tree, Jungwoo reached his arms out to you and within seconds engulfed you in his arms. His arms felt warm and sincere, feeling the desperation by the strong grip he had on you.

Your eyes were closed, as were Jungwoo's, almost overly used to the vague image of one another. But the heartfelt moment keeps you in reality, the freshly-bloomed love between two soulmates.

"Their desire was silent yet magnificent, like a thousand daisies attuning their faces toward the path of the sun"

「 ᴇᴄʀᴜ # ꜰᴀꜰ0ᴇ6 」

The chorus of your alarm needlessly plays its tune to wake you up, it's only on the bedside table so you have no trouble in reaching out your arm and pressing your index finger onto anything that feels like a phone screen. It's a Sunday morning, a day of only domestic softness and time for loved ones.

"Why did you set your alarm?" You hear the voice next to you question out loud even if it only sounds like a mumble, the slight chilliness makes everything sound louder than it truly is. The sheets even produce slight sounds as Jungwoo turns his body to you, pulling your body against his until there is no space for gaps to breathe. "I have no idea," you mumble in response, your heart relaxing after being awoken by the music.

It's too late to fall into slumber again and you would rather spend your time looking at your soulmate, Kim Jungwoo. You slowly turn your body around until you're facing him and smile once you see his somewhat swollen cheeks from laying on them all night. "Stop."

You let out a small laugh at Jungwoo's simple request for you to stop staring at him, his voice makes it sound effortlessly adorable and from that, you conclude that he must be happy with the specific way of affection you're giving him. Still, you don't follow his request and stare at him for a few seconds longer: giving him your coloured eyes full of admiration and love.

"You're still doing it, flower ~" Jungwoo sings almost impossibly high, his morning voice straining his throat which results in him letting out a small cough. After giving your boyfriend a worried look, you let out a hum as you know you've been caught in the act.

"Gotta admire it before it gets plucked away"

Jungwoo scoffs in response to your words, his fingertips pressing onto your skin like it is a sign that he wouldn't get plucked away and wouldn't let you get plucked from his life either. It's a soft feeling on your warm skin, his fingertips caress protectively. "I won't get plucked away," Jungwoo says to ease your mind a bit from the worries, he can imagine the thoughts that go through your mind on this lovely Sunday morning "but you'll have to water me every day," he whispers against the shell of your ear, hoping to hear you laugh at those words.

It is not the joke that makes you laugh, it is not the dirty undertone of the words, but it is Jungwoo simply being himself that makes the smile return to your lips. Worries fade like the moon does in the sky who temporarily exchanges his position so that the sun can make flowers grow a little more towards the light.

"Was that supposed to sound as dirty as it did?" You ask him as you can finally find the laughter in his words and you seize the opportunity to make this morning a good one. Jungwoo's facial expression deadpans but it's noticeable that he's trying to bite the corners of his lips with the intention keep them on the thin verge of curving upwards. "Nope," he says, his lips pressed together but laughter breaks the non-existent glue between his bottom- and lower- lip.

"I don't believe you, look into my eyes and say again that those words were not meant to sound dirty," you request from him as you get yourself comfortable on the free space of his pillow, making it easier to look into the homely-brown pair of eyes. Which he does: his eyes travel from the exposed skin near your chest, up to your lips and into your eyes. "Those words were not supposed to sound dirty, your interpretation was wrong… but I guess you just think about sex often," he teases.

In disbelief, you playfully roll your eyes at what you've been told about yourself, by none other than your own soulmate. "You think so? I think you should go out for a walk and reflect on who has the dirtiest mind here," you suggest, using the same playfulness from when you rolled your eyes.

Jungwoo's laugh fills the room, ringing decibels louder than your alarm did before you were awake. But the sound is music to your ears: it's the perfect song, played at a loud volume that it deserves to get played on because everyone should hear his laugh. Seconds after he started, his laugh slowly dies down as his lips gaze towards your lips again.

"Maybe it's me," he admits in a serious tone as his lips copy yours unconsciously, making slow movements like yours as you part your lips to respond to his words. His serious tone doesn't make you laugh but it still sounds strangely sincere, perhaps because his mind did shift to a sexier setting once he saw your lips moving like they usually did.

Once you catch up with his newly-found interest for your lips, you also catch up with his confession of why he is the one with the dirtiest mind between the two of you. You become aware of your lips being the centre of attention and play along at the moment by biting the right corner of your lower lip. "I bet it is".

Jungwoo huffs when he realises your teases are not a coincidence, nor an accident. But he's quick-witted and pulls your body on top of his without hesitation: giving you no other option but to once again look into his brown eyes. His expression is unreadable: he doesn't look like he's playing around anymore, but the same softness is still displayed in the depths of his orbs.

He puckers his lips and pouts them upwards, getting more and more desperate until he finally reaches your soft lips with his own. The kiss that he initiates is soft for the first few seconds and he can feel your smiling lips against his out of happiness.

Soon his lips start to move against yours, the kiss getting more heated as you notice his body is yearning for certain touches and that special kind of affection. Energy and excitement mix together and spread through his limbs and even his lips get affected by it: his lips that were moving against yours slowly lower themselves in a trail filled with open-mouthed kisses. He doesn't stop until the moment he kisses the side of your exposed neck, the kisses finally arrived at the planned destination.

The soft breath you let out as reaction only makes Jungwoo press more kisses in your neck, knowing by the reaction that they make your morning a little more pleasurable. His unoccupied hands trail to your hips, keeping you still before you can even start to make slow grinding motions on top of him, his fingertips squeeze your covered skin whilst his imagination starts running wild.

"Is it not too early for this?" you ask soft as your head lulls to one side, allowing his kisses to take up more space and press on the more sensitive spots of your skin. A hum leaves Jungwoo's lips and you feel the vibrations of his hum against your throat "it's never too early for this," he whispers against your skin, placing another kiss down before he pulls away from you.

Jungwoo sits up on his knees and rids himself of his layers of nightwear: the shirt that covers his skin and the pair of sweatpants that hide the hairs on his legs. His boxers are tightly covering the crotch area and it only gets worse as he winds himself up over the thought of your body. Once he's undressed, he gapes at you as you do the same he did seconds ago. Your shirt is discarded and your shorts soon join to coat the floor with a layer of fabric.

"Look at you," he whispers as he smiles at the sight of you bare, it's not just naked, it's bare and outside of that, it's beautiful. More beautiful than watching blooming flowers in the park but he shouldn't pluck petals, he only waters them so that they grow.

After taking in the sight of your body once more, he leans down to your abdomen and runs his fingertips over every little bump of your skin, every soft little patch and every rough one too. When he reaches the waistband of your underwear, he loops his fingers through them and starts to remove them in a teasingly slow manner: first an inch on the left, then only half an inch on the right. The fabric feels smooth as it runs over your legs but it's his fingers that provide warmth.

Your underwear soon joins the little heap of discarded clothes on the floor, you opt to look at where it lands out of habit but Jungwoo pays no attention to the piece of clothing.

Unlike your previous position, Jungwoo now hovers over you instead. His lips press kisses over every spot of your skin: what you expected to be a heated moment of not-so-delicate touches ends up being a moment where his lips caress over your skin with adoration.

"I love you so much," he whispers to you, his lips pressing against your earlobe to give a tiny kiss there before his loving path continues down your body. Your response follows minutes later when his lips have almost reached the lower part of your stomach but you're simply in bliss due to these soft petal-like kisses. "I love you too," you whisper back to him, sucking in some fresh air but it results in your mouth allowing a quiet moan to slip out.

The way his soft lips press kisses against your sensitive skin makes the moment last longer, it makes you more impatient for more but you're enjoying the slow pace towards a possible love-filled morning. His lips press together on the smooth path of your inner thigh: giving both sides an equal amount of kisses but teasingly kisses towards your sensitive areas more.

"I want to make love to you," Jungwoo mumbles against your smooth skin, his warm breathing reflecting on his cheeks that start to feel slightly damp but he doesn't care. "Can I?"

Luckily he looks up at you when he's asking the question, he sees you nod almost right after he says the words. A smile changes his current appearance and he looks even softer than he did a few minutes ago, you wonder how it's even possible that he looks even more soft and loving.

"Yes?" he asks as you don't reply to his words by actually saying something, even if he is content with the nod, he still wants to hear your voice and have your consent. "Yes," you breathe out, repeating his words without the questioning hue.

He sits up slightly, straightening his back as he is admiring you for a few seconds. His impatient hand runs over the many spots that have been touched by his lips before, it's a teasing trail full of little twists and minimal touches that leave you wanting more. His index finger reaches the most anticipated spot once his trail has been hiked.

"Sex is the seed and love is the flower"

⋅ ⋅ ⋅

Jungwoo hides your hand together with his in the sleeves of his trenchcoat, even though the warmth is provided by the sun, you feel more warmth from his - unnecessary - gesture.

The colour palette that is used to create the scenery of the park comes into view, and you can't help but smile as if you're seeing it for the first time in your life. It's like an ancient painting in a museum, you have seen it on the internet but never in real life, but in reality, it's just been long enough for you to forget the many shades of nature.

Almost six months ago, this would have looked like the stereotypical scenery but minds change, and views change too. From afar you can see the green grass and some white collectables of which you know that they are daisies, they fill the grass like butterflies fill your stomach each time you look at Jungwoo.

"Why are you smiling like that?" Jungwoo asks as he notices the smile on your lips and the way your eyes are trying to catch a glimpse of the park that suddenly isn't as far away anymore. He knows why you smile, but he still asks because he is delighted to hear the story being told from scratch. The story is the book his soulmate picked out for him and his heart willingly read every page.

"Because the park," you respond to him as your eyes shortly move to him but you don't want to lose sight of the real-life painting in front of you, you don't want it to get plucked away. Jungwoo looks away from you to look at the same piece of art, getting lost in the familiarity that sparks a collectibles in his mind.  

The world seems strangely different, the painting seems strangely different despite its familiar setting. The only thing that stays the same is the love between you and Jungwoo as you walk hand-in-hand towards the park. It's only a few seconds away, ten to be exact, nine if you pick up the pace a bit.

Jungwoo's feet halt before he's about to step on the grass field, not because it's something not everyone appreciates, but because his eyes observe why the world seems strangely different. You don't seem to notice yet, your sight is blinded by the colour ecru and you're not aware that the effect might wear off soon.

"y/n"

Your attention goes to your boyfriend again, the scenery that you've been vaguely looking at is replaced by the sight of two very surprised eyes. You hum in response as you continue to look at him, not questioning his look until he mentions it himself, which you're positive of that he will.

"W-where's the oak?" He asks as he looks at you before his eyes drift back to the missing piece of nature in the center of the park, he can see the tree in his imagination but notices its absence when he dips into the river of real life. He thickly swallows even though his throat is waterless.

Your head moves a few degrees to the right as you can only look at your boyfriend, "huh," you ask him as you eye him with your confused orbs.

"The oak," Jungwoo says in a more steady tone even though he has to keep himself steady, for some reason his long legs seem ready to give out any second. His hand untangles itself from yours to point towards the place where he met his soulmate, under a tree that was no longer there, but he was, and you were too.

Your eyes follow his fingertip until you can't see his finger in your eye-width anymore. The greenery of the park doesn't state it but your eyes officially discover the absence of the familiar oak: Jungwoo's birth tree, the tree where you found your soulmate under, the tree where daisies dwindled upon your shoulders once Jungwoo leaned towards you to hold you for the first time.

The memories are close in your embrace but you're no longer held by the tree that made all of those memories possible.  You lower your head, noticing the vague image of little daisies that are spread out all over the field, endlessly gracing every few inches with their appearance.

"Did it get plucked away?" Jungwoo asks soft as his voice almost stops cooperating, he's filled with confusion and emotions, his mind going over at least ninety-nine scenarios and he loses you in every single one of them. His hand is close to yours and he takes the opportunity to hold you tight before - just like the four daisies, and the oak - you get plucked away.

From the uninhabited space in the park, your eyes go to the movements on the little pathway of the park. A pair of unsteady footsteps shuffle over the stone-filled ground but they come to an abrupt stop when she bumps into a young man: as she stumbles back a notch, a smile coats her lips. As the young man helps her by placing his hand on her upper arm, you can see the bright colour of her eyes. Cyan, that's the exact term to the colour of her intoxicating eyes.

"Pick a colour," you read the words that fall from her lips and you can't help but mouth them in relay one second after she does. It's a familiar phrase and you even taste the remains of the colour you picked on your lips: it's a soft shade with a not-so-matching name.

Ecru.

The word effortlessly brings a smile to your lips: it's the colour of your soul and the colour of Jungwoo's love for you. Ecru: ecru was the colour of your world, ecru was atmosphere, ecru was the little steps on your path, ecru were tears when the path was unreadable. Ecru was and is magic.

"I don't think it did," you finally respond to Jungwoo has been looking at you until the answer fell from your lips. Your lips press a small peck onto his to ease his nerves. "We just planted the seed elsewhere, and it's blooming right now."

A U T H O R S N O T E / I N S P O 

hello, little daisies. With this, you must have reached the end of “colourized ecru,” it’s been an honor writing this. I know it’s not the best writing, not the best fic, or anything but I feel happy that I was able to finish this. For the longest time I put off writing this, even to the point where I wanted to tell the other writers that I wasn’t going to go through with the collab. But I did start writing and neatly finished the fic the day before it’s due. Thank you for reading, thank you for existing 

Inspo [music] - winner, remember ; d.o, that’s okay ; yesung, here i am ; yesung, paper umbrella (jungwoo acts in this mv if you didn’t know) ;  lee taeil ; one man (cover and yes I love taeil y’all know) ;  . . .

love, ambrosia aka moondustaeil  🌼