I got a job at a Ukrainian museum.
On the first day someone asks me if I have any Ukrainian heritage. I say I had ancestors from Odesa, but they were Jewish, so they weren’t considered Ukrainian, and they wouldn’t have considered themselves Ukrainian. My job is every day I go through boxes of Ukrainian textiles and I write a physical description, take measurements, take photographs, and upload everything into the database. I look up “Jewish” in the database and there is no result.
Some objects have no context at all, some come with handwritten notes or related documents. I look at thick hand-spun, hand-woven linen heavy with embroidery. Embroidery they say can take a year or more. I think of someone dressed for a wedding in their best clothes they made with their own hands. Some shirts were donated with photographs of the original owners dressed in them, for a dance at the Ukrainian Labour Temple, in 1935. I handle the pieces carefully, looking at how they fit the men in the photos, and how they look almost a hundred years later packed in acid-free tissue. One of the men died a few years later, in the war. He was younger than I am now. The military archive has more photographs of him with his mother, his father, his fiancé. I take care in writing the catalogue entry, breathing in the history, getting tearful.
I imagine people dressed in their best shirts at Easter, going around town in their best shirts burning the houses of Jews, in their best shirts, killing Jews. A shirt with dense embroidery all over the sleeves and chest has a note that says it is from Husiatyn. I look it up and find that it was largely a Jewish town, and Ukrainians lived in the outskirts. There is a fortress synagogue from the Renaissance period, now abandoned.
When my partner Aaron visits I take him to an event at the museum where a man shows his collection of over fifty musical instruments from Ukraine, and he plays each one. Children are seated on the floor at the front. We’re standing in a corner, the room full of Ukrainians, very aware that we look like Jews, but not sure if anyone recognizes what that looks like anymore. Aaron gets emotional over a song played on the bandura.
A note with a dress says it came from the Buchach region. I find a story of Jewish life in Buchach in the early twentieth century, preparing to flee as the Nazis take over. I cry over this.
I’m cataloguing a set of commemorative ribbons that were placed on the grave of a Ukrainian Nationalist leader, Yevhen Konovalets, after he was assassinated. The ribbons were collected and stored by another Nationalist, Andriy Melnyk, who took over leadership after Konovalets’ death. The ribbons are painted or embroidered with messages honouring the dead politician. I start to recognize the word for “leader”, the Cyrillic letters which make up the name of the colonel, the letters “OYH” which stand for Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN in English). The OUN played a big part in the Lviv pogroms in 1941, I learn. The Wikipedia article has a black and white image of a woman in her underwear, running in terror from a man and a young boy carrying a stick of wood. The woman’s face is dark, her nose may be bleeding. Her underwear is torn, her breast exposed. I’m measuring, photographing, recording the stains and loose threads in the banners that honour men who would have done this to me.
Every day I can’t stop looking at my phone, looking up the news from Gaza, tapping through Instagram stories that show what the news won’t. Half my family won’t talk to the other half, after I share an article by a scholar of Holocaust and genocide studies, who says Israel is committing a genocide. My dad makes a comment that compares Gaza to the Warsaw Ghetto. This gets him in trouble. My aunt says I must have learned this antisemitism at university, but there is no excuse for my dad.
This morning I see images from Israeli attacks in the West Bank, where they are not at war. There are naked bodies on the dusty ground. I’m not sure if they are alive. This is what I think of when I see the image from the Lviv pogrom. If what it means for Jews to be safe from oppression is to become the oppressor, I don’t want safety. I don’t want to speak about Jews as if we are one People, because I have so little in common with those in green uniforms and tanks. I am called a self-hating Jew but I think I am a self-reflecting Jew.
I don’t know how to articulate how it feels to be handling objects which remind me of Jewish traumas I inherited only from history classes and books. Textiles hold evidence of the bodies that made them and used them. I measure the waist of a skirt and notice that it is the same as my waist size. I think of clothing and textiles that were looted from Jewish homes during pogroms. I think of clothing and textiles that were looted from Palestinian homes during the ongoing Nakba. Clothes hold the shape of the body that once dressed in them. Sometimes there are tears, mends, stains. I am rummaging through personal belongings in my nitrile gloves.
I am hands-on learning about the violence caused by Ukrainian Nationalism while more than nine thousand Palestinians have been killed by the State of Israel in three weeks, not to mention all those who have been killed in the last seventy-five years of occupation, in the name of the Jewish Nation, the Jewish People — me? If we (and I am hesitant to say “we”) learned anything from the centuries of being killed, it was how to kill. This should not have been the lesson learned. Zionism wants us to feel constantly like the victims, like we need to defend ourself, like violence is necessary, inevitable. I need community that believes in freedom for all, not just our own People. I need the half of my family who believes in this necessary “self-defence” to remember our history, and not just the one that ends happily ever after with the creation of the State of Israel. Genocide should not be this controversial. We should not be okay with this.
Tomorrow I will go to work and keep cataloguing banners that honour the leader of an organization which led pogroms. I will keep checking the news, crying into my phone, coordinating with organizers about our next actions, grappling with how we can be a tiny part in ending this genocide that the world won’t acknowledge, out of guilt over the ones it ignored long ago.
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WANT • S. REID X READER
smut (mdni, you will be blocked); needy spencer; praise; fem!reader; oral (f receiving); possessive wording; ~1.1k words
Spencer was, for lack of better word, whipped.
Morgan would say pussy-whipped, but Spencer wasn’t fond of that. Just because he liked you, would stop what he’s doing at the drop of a hat for you… it was for more than your body.
Even if it was beautiful.
He could remember every curve, every scar, every wrinkle, envision it clearly in his mind's eye.
God, he missed you.
“Hey, boy genius,” Morgan calls, and he snaps back to attention. “Staring at your file won’t get it done,”
“I know,” Spencer grumbles, going to make more coffee. He sends you a text — miss you. — when he does. He’s not one for that, preferring calls and time together, and knows you’ll piece it together.
It’s an excruciating hour and a half that it takes to get the paperwork done and put in and to drive back to your shared apartment.
He relaxes even as he puts his key into the lock, door opening to the smell of your body wash.
His eyes find you first, dressed in one of his shirts, hair still wet.
“Oh.”
He lets it click shut behind him, eyes trailing up and down you shamelessly.
“Missed me?” You tease, and he nods. You wrap him in a hug, clingy as ever. He melts into you.
With you wrapping him in your arms, he has no choice but to stumble to the couch and let you sit him down and straddle him, lightly tracing the smile lines that won’t fade as he looks at you.
“Pretty boy,” you coo, and he smiles more. “What’s going on in your head?”
He makes a show of pretending to think and grab the thought before meeting your eyes. “Thinking about how gorgeous you are,”
You beam at him, and he wills the image to sear itself into his memory.
You’re so warm and soft above him, just supple skin and delicious smells that make his head spin with need, nothing on but his shirt and a pair of flimsy panties. He can feel everything, and it drives him insane, fingers twitching against your thighs.
“Spence,” you whisper. “Words, baby,”
“You’re so soft,” he exhales quickly and you cock a brow, letting him trail his fingers to your inner thigh, where he draws circles.
He wants to pull your panties to the side so badly. But he knows to wait.
“Yeah? I moisturized today.” You give him a smile, sultry and enticing, and then you tug your (his) shirt off, pressing your breasts into his chest. “Feel. Soft, right?”
He obeys, trailing his fingertips so lightly it raises goosebumps. His mind feels like it’s full of cotton. “Yeah–yeah, soft,” he clears his throat, wanting to nibble hickeys into the skin. With effort, he tears his eyes away and to your face. “And so gorgeous. Like always.”
You hum, tap a finger against his temple. He leans into your hand, desperate for the touch. “Thank you, baby,”
He stares at you in silence, forcing back thoughts of what he wants.
“Wanna prove how much you missed me?”
“Please,” his tone is almost reverent, and he should be ashamed how easily he folds for you; how he wants to be on or in you, always; how he wants and wants and wants, and how it’s never enough; how he’s happiest with your smell and touch overwhelming his senses.
“Show me.”
Spencer slips to the floor on his knees, pressing a kiss to the side of your knee. He crawls his hands up slowly, lets them hook in the waistband of your panties and tug. He thumbs the wet spot before dropping them to the ground, and he knows his eyes are blown out when he stares at your beautiful pussy, glistening with your need for him.
He exhales shakily and shuffles closer, presses a kiss to your thigh before licking a stripe up your core. He groans at the taste, shutting his eyes when you whimper at the sensation — the sight of your chest heaving, eyes glazed over already, head thrown back as far as you could while keeping your gaze trained on him… it was too much.
Spencer circles your clit with his tongue before kissing it, letting your thighs squeeze around him with an eager moan.
He shifts a little lower, nose bumping into your clit as he dips his tongue into you. You shudder, whimper his name like he’s helping you see heaven, and he sighs, sloppily licking into you.
He normally has good technique but he’s already so drunk off your taste, ears buzzing and face burning hot, red with desire and loss of air.
Spencer only whines when you tug on his hair and yank him back, reveling in the way it stings.
“Breathe, Spence,”
He nods, head swimming. He wants — god, he wants you spread open on his fingers and tongue, quivering under the stimulation, sweating and sobbing from how good it feels; he wants you to help him get off, wants you to fuck him until he can barely breathe and it aches to be touched; he wants you to mark him and he wants to be called yours.
“‘m yours,”
“Hm?” It comes off airy and whiny as he sucks your clit back into his mouth.
He takes a bit to answer, pulling back breathlessly. “Tell me I’m yours,”
“You’re mine,” you tell him, tugging his hair and shoving him back into you. He whimpers. Loudly. “You’re my good boy, you’ll do what I say, yeah?”
He nods vigorously, getting sloppier and sloppier, more whimpers and vibrations into you than coordinated movement.
“Spence. My love,” you gasp, arching up into him. “Make me cum,”
Spencer nips your clit, just enough for you to shriek and melt under him after tensing.
“Mine, my pretty fuckin’ girl,” he’s incoherent, babbling. “So sweet and pretty, always ready for me, such a sweet girl… tastes as good as you look, as you talk,” Spencer locks eyes with you finally, and he swears he could cum from how dazed you are alone.
You wail as he finally tips you over the edge, and Spencer can’t stop. Not when you taste so good, and all he can smell is your arousal coating his chin and your thighs, when you’re shaking around him and all he wants is for you to do it again.
It takes you yanking him away from you for his mind to clear a little from the fog, breathing heavily and eyes trained on your pussy until you guide him to look at you.
“Enough, baby,” you coo, rubbing your slick off his chin. “Give me a breather,”
He whines.
“Pussy-whipped,” you coo, and he can only nod. “Just give me a second and you can have me again,”
Spencer licks his lips. “Thank you.”
fuck it we ball (not proofread which.. expect that. when it comes to my works). i need him so bad. gif is my own :)
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can’t get you off my mind
all good love stories start with a drunk stranger, don’t they?
warnings: mentions of alcohol, fem!reader
genre: fluff, comfort
word count: 4k
it starts at a bar.
or really, it starts with a man at a bar. one that you’ve seen before in passing, a familiar face in a sea of more familiar faces. someone who you’ll later learn is one third of your best friend changbin’s production team, someone who you should have met years ago probably, someone who you would find is the perfect puzzle piece that fits into your jagged edges.
but right now, he is just a man at a bar with a beer in hand and a ridiculously dopey smile on his face.
“marry me, please,” he says, absolutely serious but it’s a bit diluted from the way his words were slurred around the edges. “or i’ll have to kidnap you.”
“excuse me?” you raise a brow at him, his image swimming a bit as you turn your head to fully take him in. you’re not drunk, but youre a couple glasses of wine deep and you’re not known for being fully articulate whilst sober anyways.
“i swear i’m going to marry you,” he says, eyes wide as he looks at you. “you might be the most perfect person i’ve ever seen.”
you’re not overly fond of men you haven’t met hitting on you, but this one seems a bit harmless. if you ignored the part where he said he would kidnap you. at least he wasn’t grabbing onto you or trying to touch you - that would have sent your fist flying towards his face and probably a swift exit from the bar. it was a little weird that you didn’t find him weird, but in retrospect you must have known, even then.
“okay, listen,” you put your hands on your hips, giving him an unimpressed look. “if you find me when you’re sober, ask me again and maybe i’ll reconsider.”
“okay,” he nods, hair moving along with his movement like a puppy’s ears. “i can do that. i’ll find you, i promise. i’m gonna marry you, did you know?”
“so i’ve heard,” you roll your eyes, already feeling a bit fond about him. you didn’t think you’d meet him again, but you were sure that you’d look at this night with a fond smile later.
he sends you the brightest smile you think you’ve ever seen on a person and scampers off, and you stand rooted to that one sticky spot in the bar for longer than you want to admit.
–
he’s in the back of your mind when you wake up the next morning, in a better mood than most - you never liked waking up early, it always took you a good hour and some coffee to be able to stand without grimacing. this morning though, you float around your apartment as you get dressed with a small smile on your face.
a cute stranger who kept his boundaries and called you perfect? that wasn’t something that happened often, at least not to you.
the floatiness followed you all the way through your morning routine until you found your feet stopping outside the coffee shop that you and changbin all but owned. you had no stock in it, but you’re sure that you supply them at least half of their revenue, you probably sit on their rickety chairs more often than your actual couch at home. this place has nursed you through every college class and job interview preparations and beyond, and if it ever closed you might lose time off of your life span.
your movements from the door to the counter to your usual seat were robotic, muscle memory taking over while your head did somersaults through the clouds. it’s only when you take the first sip of coffee, the bitterness and heat hitting your tongue in a delightful dance, that you notice it.
another man is sitting next to changbin. a man that looks awfully familiar, and it takes you a moment to realize why. it’s the man from the bar.
“changbin?” you keep your eyes on the other man as you direct your question at changbin, trying hard to keep your face neutral. “explain?”
“i’m chan,” the man interjects before changbin can answer, reaching his hand across the table for you to shake. it’s warm, his grip somewhere perfectly in the middle of too hard and too soft, and he lets go after an appropriate amount of seconds. despite the neutral passivity of the gesture, you feel something ignite within you, and it threatens to sputter out when you catch no spark of recognition in his eyes. was he that drunk last night that he doesn’t remember you? do his sober eyes not find you as perfect?
“he crashed at my place last night,” changbin’s voice filters through your turmoil, and you finally break away from chan’s gaze to level him with a look. “and he needed coffee, so i brought him along. chan, this is y/n, my best friend.”
the conversation that followed flowed more freely than the coffee dripping from the machines behind the counter, and you almost hate how much you like it. chan is a little goofy, the man from the previous night shining through moments of seriousness and rapt attention.
by the time you had to leave to go to work you felt like you knew him. you learned where he lived (close to you!), that he worked with changbin (he’s a producer!), and that he loved all animals but he adored dogs (he has one named berry!). just an hour of casual conversation had led to you needing more of him in every aspect of your life, but still in the back of your head lived the thought of him not remembering you from the night before.
changbin leaves first, citing some meeting he had to run to in the middle of a yawn, and when you were left with chan the embarrassment began to set in.
“i’m going to marry you,” he blurts out, startling you so much you almost jump out of your seat.
“what?” you ask, a mixture of surprise and disbelief combining into a confusing vortex within your head - was he going to go through this again? you didn’t know if your heart could take it.
“i mean, i remember you,” he says before you could awkwardly excuse yourself and commit to getting to work early for the first time in a year just to escape being in a room alone with him for much longer. “i’m sorry, i was just embarrassed. i didn’t want to make a fool out of myself in front of changbin.”
“oh,” your breath leaves you all at once and you slump into your chair, understanding hitting you like a train. “that makes sense? i think?”
“i’m going to marry you,” he repeats, a mischievous glint in his eyes, the boy from last night shining through. “one day. i’m going to do it.”
“take me on a date first,” you tease back, a genuine smile stretching across your lips when he laughs, a full bodied thing that drew in eyes from the patrons across the room. for once, you didn’t seem to care that others’ eyes were on you. he made you feel comfortable.
“what are you doing tomorrow?” his mouth turns upwards into a beautiful smile that you can’t help but return.
“eager, are we?” you open your phone, sliding it across the table with the new contact page open on it. “i’m free.”
“you’re the most perfect person i’ve ever laid eyes on,” he says, as serious and genuine as the way he had proposed to you last night as he taps his number into your phone. “sorry if i’m a bit desperate.”
“don’t apologize,” you take your phone back, making a mental note to text him later. “i like it, for some unearthly reason. you’re cute, chan.”
the sound of his delighted laugh follows your footsteps all the way to work.
—
he picks you up for your first date at noon, right on the dot. he wasn’t a minute late, a polite knock sounding through your apartment just as the hour turned, as if he had been waiting and watching the time outside the door.
god, is everything about this man endearing?
he’s wearing shorts and a light sweater, looking like something out of a posh magazine. his hair is curly and swept off his forehead and he’s wearing a smile with the most adorable dimples shining through.
he leads you to his car and you have to hold back an impressed whistle. you knew changbin and his team did well for themselves, the name 3racha all over the credits of songs on the radio, but this car was nice. you were going to have a talk with changbin about why he still drove the same beat up sedan he’s had since college but that was a thought for later. right now all you wanted to think about was the man who held the door open for you to slide into the passenger seat and was now holding your hand over the middle console.
“do i get to know where we’re going?” you ask, peering at the map open on his phone but it tells you nothing more than that your destination was 15 minutes away and that he had to make a right turn in one mile.
“it’s a surprise,” he says, voice a little nervous but it was masked with excitement. wherever he was taking you, you would be happy to be there if he was this happy the whole time.
four songs on the radio later, one of which you teased him for when he revealed that he wrote it, he was pulling into a parking lot illuminated by flashing colorful lights. he had brought you to the fair.
“i’ve never been to the fair!” you bounced a little in your seat, wriggling in excitement. “i’ve always wanted to go, how did you know?”
“lucky guess?” he shrugs, avoiding your gaze as he cuts the engine and unbuckles his seatbelt.
“changbin told you, didn’t he,” you smile at the thought of chan asking his friend about what you’d like. it was cute, a word that you were probably exhausting when thinking about him even after a day of knowing him.
“yes, but,” he flushes, the tips of his ears burning red. “i asked him after i had decided to come here, just to make sure it was a good idea. i didn’t steal it from him.”
“hey, it’s okay,” you squeeze his hand in yours that he had yet to let go of in what you hoped was a comforting gesture. you didn’t know what brought him calmness yet, but you wanted to learn. you wanted to learn everything about him. “now, take me to the fair, bang chan. i was promised a date.”
he finally meets your eyes again and he’s grinning so happily that you feel like you had just won a prize. who needed a fair when you had your very own carnival game right here?
it turns out, you did. by the time the sun was beginning to set, your arms were full of various plushies that chan had won for you, each one earning him a hug and a kiss to his cheek. you treasured every single one, the fluttering in your chest when he stepped up to the booths to throw and shoot various things never ceasing.
“let’s go to the ferris wheel,” you tug at him with your free hand, thanking the skies when you see no queue there. “i bet the sunset looks beautiful from the top.”
he’s quiet when he follows you there and into the carriage, his thigh pressing against yours as he slides in next to you, but you don’t notice in your excitement. it isn’t until the wheel ticks to the top and stops that he grabs your hand again, trembling a little.
“chan? are you okay?” you ask, concern warping your voice as you turn towards him. your movement rocks the carriage a bit and he turns pale, ducking his head into your neck to hide.
“yeah, ‘m okay,” he murmurs, his eyelashes ticking your skin when he blinks his eyes shut. “just don’t like heights very much.”
“oh my god, why didn’t you tell me?” you cry out, jumping a bit and regretting it when you rock the carriage again. “nevermind that, what can i do? it’ll go down soon, you’ll be alright.”
“just keep holding my hand?” he squeezes your fingers lightly and your heart melts. you may have made a joke that he was just trying to trick you into holding his hand any other time, but the fear in his shaking body was real and you’d never tease him for that.
“of course,” you press a kiss to his hair, moving your other hand slowly to wrap around your intertwined fingers. the wheel begins to turn again, swaying the carriage as it descends. you keep your grip on his hand tight the entire time, all the way until you’re on your feet again on steady ground.
“i’m so sorry,” you begin to say, the horror of subjecting him to his fear creeping up now that the crisis has passed.
“i’m going to marry you,” he says, cutting off your apology and lifting your hands to his mouth so he could press a kiss to the back of yours. “no one’s ever been able to keep me that calm. thank you.”
you were left speechless after that and all you could do was smile at him, the ghost of it not leaving your face for the rest of the night.
–
your thirty first date with chan ends with you crying into changbin’s arms, utterly confused and the feeling of despair creeping up your veins. you had met him your cafe as you had done several times since the fair, but when you arrived he wasn’t there. he came late, dark storms in his eyes and a hard set to his jaw and you didn’t understand what had made him like that. the usual smile and twinkle in his eyes were missing, and when you and asked him about what was wrong he had snapped at you in a way you hadn’t been talked to in years.
you had left after that, brushing him off when his eyes had widened and he reached for you while calling out your name. you know that you should have given him a chance to explain, but at the time you were too hurt to consider it.
you made your way to changbin’s apartment without thinking, your feet taking you to safety before your head could catch up. changbin had taken one look at your face before wrapping you up in his arm, walking you to his couch so he could cuddle you properly while words spilled out of you like a leaky faucet. you felt like you were back in college, crying and blubbering over a boy who had rejected you at a party, and you hated it.
you didn’t notice changbin sending an angry text to chan, but the sound of changbin’s door opening with a bang startled you out of your tears. chan bursts in like a whirlwind, his hair sticking up at weird angles and a look of panic on his face as he takes you in. he reaches the couch in a few strides and falls to his knees in front of you, holding a crumpled bag from the cafe in his hand and taking your cheek gently into his other. his thumb wipes at the tear tracks there and you could practically taste the guilt emanating off of him.
“love, i am so sorry,” he starts, ignoring changbin when he scoffs at the apology. “i shouldn’t have snapped at you, i had no right to do that. i got some bad news this morning and i wasn’t feeling my best, and i should have been honest with you. i’ll never do anything like that again, please forgive me? i’ll do anything.”
it was more his voice than his words that did it - he sounded so desperate, like he was trying to hold
onto a ledge that was crumbling, threatening to hurl his body into eternal nothingness. you knew him, you knew he was sorry, and against your first instinct you trusted him when he said he wouldn’t do it again.
“is that an almond croissant?” you eye the bag in his hand.
“it’s two almond croissants,” he nods fervently, his hair swishing back and forth with the movement. you sit up, sliding out of changbin’s arms and onto the floor in front of chan. chan’s arms replace changbin’s easily when you lean into him, and it feels like coming home.
“it’s not like i have a nice couch you could be sitting on,” changbin mutters as he leaves, shaking his head fondly at the two of you before making himself scarce.
chan kisses you, cradling your head gently into his hands, and they’re so warm. he slides his lips against yours, slowly like he’s taking his time memorizing the planes of your mouth to commit to memory. even after kissing him dozens of times you still find new things to learn about each other.
“i swear,” he says, pulling away to meet your eyes. “i’m going to marry you, someday.”
“keep getting me croissants as apologies and we’ll see,” you say, sniffling into his neck.
—
your eighty seventh date was spent in your bed, your head spinning like both hands on a clock simultaneously and your body exuding more sweat than you ever have.
chan is wringing out a cool cloth to place on your forehead and it feels so nice that you moan.
“i’m sorry,” you mutter, and chan has lost count of the amount of times you’ve said it at this point. “we had a date and i ruined it.”
“we were going to see a movie,” he says, running a hand up and down your spine. “and we will. we don’t need a movie theater when we have a screen right here, hmm?”
“but the popcorn,” you complain, closing your eyes in bliss when he runs a hand through your hair, scratching gently at your scalp. an apology for being so sweaty was at the tip of your tongue but you hold it back in favor of enjoying the feeling of his touch.
“i’ll make you all the popcorn you want when you’re feeling better,” he promises, dropping a kiss to the side of your head. “for now, how does soup sound?”
“popcorn soup?“ you ask, a wave of dizziness taking over your body; if you weren’t lying down already, you’re sure that too would be falling over.
“yeah, baby,” and even in your delirium the fondness in his voice was prominent. he couldn’t hide it even if he tried. “i’ll make you some popcorn soup. get some rest okay?”
you’re asleep before he leaves the room, and you only wake up when he shakes your shoulder a bit and helps you into an upright position. he feeds you bites of what is definitely not popcorn soup after putting a movie on your laptop, the screen sitting at the foot of your bed. the both of you fall asleep before the movie finishes, but you don’t mind.
he stays with you for days, making you soup and tea and toast and feeding you medicine and being an all-around angel as he nurses you back to health. by the time you’re better you think you’ve fallen back in love with him several times.
as you had expected and warned him about, he catches your sickness the next week, and now it’s your turn to be his nurse. you try and do the same job he did, but his delirium seems worse. the silver lining is that his fever isn’t as bad, so you’re babysitting a babbling boyfriend more than a sick one.
the night before his fever breaks is the worst, since he doesn’t even recognize you. you shake your head at his silliness when he asks who you are and calls you pretty. you smile when he takes your hand in his and asks you to come closer.
you tear up when he tells you that he has a girlfriend that he loves very much and so even though you’re pretty he can’t do anything else because his girlfriend is the prettiest one in the whole world. you let a tear slip when he tells you that he can’t wait to propose to his girlfriend and that he’s going to marry her someday.
you tell him that you have a boyfriend that you're going to marry someday, trusting that he wouldn’t remember it in the morning.
—
your hundredth and fifth date was not unlike your fifth, or your tenth, or your ninetieth. two and a half years later, you were just as endeared by him and he was just as obsessed with you - even more so, if it were possible.
he takes the time to tell you how gorgeous you look when he picks you up just like he does on every date, and you hide your disgustingly fond smile for him behind his back like you do every time you see him.
he parks and runs around the car to let you out like he does every time you habit this restaurant, a little fancier than your usual best but it was a favorite of the both of yours - across the street from the bar the two of you had met at.
you start walking before he does, letting him jog to meet you and complain about how you left him, just like you do every time. before him. you might have thought the monotony would have gotten tiring, but he had a fantastical ability to make every moment feel like the first despite their practiced nature.
he calls your name from behind you right on schedule and you hum in acknowledgement, turning towards him absentmindedly. the second you lay eyes on him you’re completely alert, though; he isn’t jogging after you, but rather he’s kneeling on the sidewalk, a small box in his hands as he smiles up at you.
“i’ve told you that i’m going to marry you more times than i can count,” he starts, eyes shining like the stars twinkling in the night sky above you. “but this time i’m asking you.”
“chan,” you choke out, hands coming up to cover your mouth as it quivers. tears spring to your eyes and you silently curse yourself - you always thought you’d be level headed when you got proposed to, but nothing could have prepared you for this, not even the thousands of declarations he had made to you prior.
“i love you. you’re the only one in the entire universe that i need more than blood or breath, you’re the song that runs through my heart and the fire that leads my path when i’m lost,” his voice is thick, like he’s trying to hold back his emotions long enough to get his words out. “i never thought that i would feel so strongly for someone, i never thought that i deserved a love like this until i met you.”
he pauses as you walk closer to him, letting you approach him before he continues.
“my love, my eternal light,” he’s tearing up now, blinking fast to keep the salty water at bay. “will you marry me?”
“chan,” you start, kneeling down next to him and taking his wrists in your hands. “i never told you this, but ever since that first day i knew. i knew that the drunk idiot that was hitting on me would be my husband.”
he chuckles, smiling delightedly as the tears finally spring from both of your eyes in unison.
“so?” he trails off, searching your face with his eyes, waiting.
“oh!” you tighten your grip on him in an apology. “of course i’ll marry you, gosh i love you so much.”
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