#pls come discuss with me. let’s have a book club moment

[antstarion]

Headcanons wise, what kinds of books or movies do you think each of the boys and Layla if u feel like it would be into? Like genre wise, tropes, era, whatever!

ahhh thank u for this question, it sparked something within me and I let it get a little bit away from me but we move. I actually had a wip about what books I think the boys would like so i merged that into this. I'm no book or movie expect so pls don't rinse me for what I think are classics or what films belong in what genres.

Marc:

Marc's favourite trope is enemies to lovers. He likes it because of the vibe that someone can see the worst parts of you but then love you anyway. That sort of redemption. He'd probably relate a lot to people in stories including this trope because marc is pretty disconnected from his emotions and I think at first he wouldn't know how to open up and show that he loves someone, so he could come across cold and distant, like a lot of people in this trope do.

Marc is an 80s movie man, and he's into dude-bro movies like fight club. He's just a guy, he doesn't watch many films so he's only seen the popular stuff and a couple cult classics. In the mix there are also movies he's seen at the cinema with Layla so she influences his taste a little bit.

Maybe he watches films that give tomb buster vibes, like the mummy (he and steven could watch it together) and Indiana Jones.

Marc's a simple movie enjoyer, would go crazy for that moment in an action film where the main character walks away from an explosion.

I think marc is a comic guy, if we're talking marc from the comics you can see from his room that he liked star wars as a kid so we know he's a bit of a nerd. Maybe comics are a thing he'd reconnect to during his adult life and allow himself to indulge in to relive the better parts of his childhood. Maybe he walks past a comic book shop or something and wanders in just to check it out. He'll pick up a few of the recent issues of the stuff he used to read (I won't say any examples of heroes since we're talking marvel so idk how that would work). Although marc wouldn't call himself a superhero I still think he'd find it funny to see how being a hero is sort of romanticized in some comics, since he knows what it's like.

Reading them wouldn't have the same enjoyment as it used to but it would allow him to reconnect with his inner child and his nerdier side. He'd hide it from layla though, only keeping physical copies of his favourites and mostly reading online and at night so it's more inconspicuous.

Maybe he'd pick up a few poetry books to try and connect with Layla's interests, but he isn't into them or reading really.

Also, I think marc vibes with pop science books, you guys are probably sick of me and my marc loves space headcanon (I'm not projecting😔). he'd mainly be into the fun physics book like What if? by Randall Munroe, nothing too heavily complicated or mathematical. just books that are a little bit thought-provoking for when he has the energy.

More specifically I think marc would enjoy The Outsider by Albert campus. I don't know, I think marc could be interested in philosophy, or some of the ideas included in this book. He certainly thinks about morality a lot because of his work with knonshu and I think he'd have some interesting takes to bring to a discussion.

Steven:

Unrequited love is his favourite trope, he's a sad romance kinda guy

Prefers documentaries to fictional movies, he likes to learn and will put on a documentary when he's too tired to read. Not just history though, he's big on nature documentaries too. Stuff like the blue planet, maybe Blackfish. Occasionally he'll watch a true crime documentary too, but he prefers ones about crime in america because the british ones feel too close to home.

You didn't ask but I also think he's big into podcasts to help him stay awake. Casefile is his jam.

But also Dr Who and British reality tv shows (GBBO, love island, gogglebox).

I feel like the 2000s is his era. Like lord of the rings, finding nemo, maybe shaun of the dead.

I feel like steven would be into international films too. He strikes me as a big language learner so he'd love watching films in different languages and trying to pick up a few new words from the subtitles.

You all already know steven loves his egyptology and history books so I won't talk about non-fiction. But I feel like he'd be big on fiction too for the escapism.

I think steven would like classics, books like The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde and Farenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. I think he likes searching a book for the messages and rereading to notice little details. Steven thinks a lot about the message a book is trying to tell and how it applies to the world outside of the book.

Stay with me here, I'm gonna talk a lot about this one book but trust me, it screams steven. Its The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern. Like the beginning of moon knight, we discover the story of the book as the main character does and all the pieces come together as the mystery involves.

"For those who feel homesick for a place they’ve never been to. Those who seek even if they do not know what (or where) it is that they are seeking. Those who seek will find. Their doors have been waiting for them"

This quote is what first made me think of steven. In the way that he says he's been feeling like he's been waiting for the adventure his whole life. This relates to steven being a fictive too. From what I understand fictives in systems can have memories from their source materials. Maybe steven gets flashes of his adventures from tomb buster sometimes and that's why he yearns for it. Or maybe his desire for adventure is just from his interest in Egyptology. Either way, both the main character of this book and steven go on a journey, learn about themselves and get the adventure they've always wanted and I think that's cool.

Jake:

I don't think he's into romance stuff, so I won't give him a favourite romance trope.

Doesn't have much time to watch movies or shows so I think he'd rewatch the same things over and over. He doesn't want to take the risk of watching something new only to waste his time and not enjoy it.

Jake's a big comfort movie guy. His comfort movies are mostly movies that people close to him have recommended to him or that he's watched with friends, so they have good memories connected to them.

Again he doesn't have much time for books but I feel like he'd read more since he could carry books around in his taxi. On missons I can see jake reading to pass the time.

Because he can't really have possessions jake had a library card, he goes to the library so much all the librarians know him by name.

His favourite genre would be thrillers and maybe crime novels or mysteries. Simple and shorter books that he doesn't have to think too much about. He likes books with main characters with a darker vibe, maybe morally questionable like the detective gone off the rails vibe. If jake can't get into the mind of the character he struggles to get into the book so he will drop a book without a compelling protagonist.

I don't read this type of book so I won't try and give any recommendations. Although if we're talking true crime I do think jake would enjoy In Cold Blood by Truman Capote.

Other than that jake just reads books for research, maybe picking up books on places knonshu is sending him if he has time. He likes to get to know a location before he arrives and studies in the local libraries when he has time. Maybe he looks at the tourist attractions for each place, fantasizing about going there and wishing he was visiting the city for a different reason.

He also reads cook books to find new recipies to try. He'd look for a simple vegan cookbook to send to steven from his "mum" to try and get him to eat some proper food.

Layla:

I think layla would like the fake relationship trope. I can see that being how she and marc got together. Like they act as a couple for a mission and they both slowly realize there's something actually there.

She likes simple romance films, with how complex her and marcs relationship is, I think when she sits down to watch something with romance she wants to get away from that.

She likes romcoms, her and jake could watch mamma mia together,

She likes documentaries too, because of her adventures and "liberating" artifacts I think she likes to watch history documentaries and wonder where the items have ended up.

Layla likes movies that are so bad theyre good, or like movies you know are bad but you can't help watching them anyways. a bit like tall girl. like not a cult classic, you know it's shit but you watch it anyways because it's easy to watch. basically just bad Netflix movies.

Obviously, layla likes her poetry, I know absolutely nothing about poetry but I think it was french in the show, I feel like she uses it to connect with her emotions and find the words to describe how she's feeling, she and steven could share their favourite poems together almost gift giving like a love language.

I think layla would be into classical books too, maybe her dad introduced her to reading through the classics. She seems to be influenced by her dad a lot and I think it's nice to imagine them reading together.

Books I think layla would like: The Secret History by Donna Tartt, All The Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr. Sort of that dark academia vibe.

[sukirichi]

dutifully yours. [01]

Attached to the could’ve been’s of a promised happily ever after with the Crown Prince disguised under a scheme for power and greed, you are torn between choosing your happiness — or abandoning it to fulfill your duty as the future Queen.

→ unedited bcos i’m brave lazy. implied patriarchy. angst in future chapters. pure romance and fluff for now. royalty au. eventual smut. prince naoya !! i love him sm i could cry. this fic will break me, okay. naoya is close to canon but with my twist if that makes sense. drama in future chapters. oh and listen to this while reading <3

→ massive shoutout to my besties for always hyping me and helping me uwu, i present this token of prince naoya being an ideal husband okay cry cry i love him sm im crying. anyways pls enjoy bcos i poured my heart out to this and bcos i want more people in the naoya fucker club :>

one | next (to be posted)

Ever since the day your mother taught you how to read, you’ve had your nose buried in a book. Losing yourself in different worlds, swooning over fictional princes, and fantasizing for a love story ripped out of fairytale itself with such burning, passionate romance – you’d been through it all, dreamt of it all. And yet, you struggled to stop yourself from tugging at your dress.

The tight corset hadn’t even been the main focus of your worries, and neither was the heavy rivière resting on your collarbones.

“Would you stop fidgeting?” Beside you, your mother pursed her lips, fingers decorated with jewels stopping in their movements of fanning herself. The temperature hadn’t been particularly high inside the limousine that evening. You supposed it was the mere sight of you tugging and gulping audibly every now and then, gloved hands running over the hems of your collar.

You ducked your head down. “Sorry, Mother. I can’t help it.”

“Dear, your anxiety is written all over your face,” she sighed, turning your face to her as she cupped your cheeks. Smiling tenderly like a mother always did, your heart felt soothed even by the slightest bit. You wished she could keep holding you like this – like you were a fragile flower she was afraid of breaking; a fragile flower that needed more care handled than most. Tonight, however, you felt a hundred years older. Like you’d accidentally clicked on fast forward and got launched to the future. A future that seemed so unclear yet so...perfect. So right.

“How would the Prince fancy you if you’re sweating bullets like that? It’s not a good look for a marquess’ daughter.”

At the mention of the Crown Prince, your heart sank again. “My apologies, Mother. I’m just rather nervous. It’s the Crown Prince we’re talking about here.”

“He is quite the looker, isn’t he?” she giggled behind her fan, “Strong and handsome, as well.”

“My ladies. You are not fantasizing over the Crown Prince in my presence, are you?”

Crossing her leg over the other, your mother leaned forwards, elbows on her knees as she winked at your father. The marquess had his torso half twisted from the passenger seat, glaring playfully at your mother’s unabashed features. “It is of no seriousness, My Lord. I’m simply easing your daughter’s nerves.”

Your father sighed in worry. “What’s got you so worked up, child? You are beautiful. The Prince would be blind to not notice you.”

Each fibre in your body screamed in desperation for your father to be right. Tonight was not just any other night – the entire Kingdom, including noblewomen, foreign royals, and unwed daughters from honourable families had been invited to the Zen’in Castle for one purpose only: to find his Crown Prince a suitable wife, one that would be fit to be the next Queen as well. As the daughter of the marquess, you’d naturally received the invitation. It felt just like yesterday when the mail arrived and you’d cheered so much in joy the chickens went flying out of their coops, your horses galloping and whinnying at surprise, and now you here – minutes away from the palace where you were soon to be deemed worthy or unworthy to be beside His Highness.

With a shaky smile, you dug your nails into your thighs. “Well, we’ve only met once, Father. I doubt the Prince would remember me.”

“Just smile, darling. You will do great.”

To no one’s surprise, the Zen’in Castle brimmed with people and esteemed guests. Men and women danced with one another as muted chatters and chuckles blended in with the grand royal orchestra, everyone dressed to the nines and making you feel completely out of place.

The moment you’d been welcomed by the knights and led to the palace doors, your dress began to feel tighter than usual, your ribs clenching uncomfortably from the pressure. Your hands had not stopped trembling either, not even when you hid it behind your back and nodded at the people passing by. There were governor-generals, dukes, earls, professors and royal advisors and even families of the royal family’s inner circle of knights. Everyone looked like they belonged here. Chatting amongst one another over the finest of wines or discussing conspiracies on where the Kingdom of Zen’in would be in the next sixty years of the future King’s reign, no one here seemed to be out of place.

Everyone except you.

A warm hand was suddenly placed on the small of your back, making you gasp. Your mother’s smile was nothing short of warm as she held you close to her one last time, leaving a kiss on your forehead. You didn’t even realize how much you shook until she clasped her hands with yours. “Calm down, dear,” she reminded, “You’ll be on your own now. This is where we leave you since we’re not supposed to mingle with potential princesses.”

“Mother!” Your eyes widened in embarrassment. Looking around frantically, you bit your lip in fear someone must’ve heard.

Of course, while it would be no surprise most guests – if not all – hoped that their daughter would be the Crown Prince’s chosen fiancée, it still felt wrong to boldly assume such when you could barely keep up with the events of tonight.

However, your mother merely laughed. “I am proud of you, dear. Never forget that. It doesn’t matter whether you are chosen or not. We’re only here for formality and respect to the King and Queen’s demands.”

“You say that as if the Crown Prince really would not bother with me.”

“We didn’t mean that,” your father cut in, a flute of champagne already nested between his calloused fingers. Ever since you arrived, he’d been snatched away by fellow earls and barons, disappearing into the crowd for a ‘hearty conversation over one’s lands.’ You knew better than that, though. That statement always translated to which leader got to have more chances to wine and dine with the King, to which your family was ridiculously reminded of that you’d been stationed to the most faraway land where even hearing news from the royal papers was but a privilege.

“Just be yourself, alright? And enjoy the party. It’s about time you met with girls your own age and made some friends.”

“I – Father, wait!”

A slender young woman slithered to your side out of nowhere, her golden brown eyes following the silhouettes of your parents. It wasn’t long before they completely disappeared. Left alone with the stunning woman that was – for some reason – dressed in a plain black curve hugging dress too modest for tonight’s appropriateness, you took three steps away in caution. “You must be from way up North,” she noted, her head to the tipped to the side. “I don’t think I’ve seen you here before.”

God, was she beautiful. Long, thick eyelashes and short hair chopped in messy yet elegant curves, you struggled to hold her gaze. “Oh, yes, I come from the Terratian Borders. My family is stationed there under His Majesty’s orders.”

She hummed to herself. “The Terratian Borders are mostly forests and fields, no? The last time my family and I visited there, I came across the loveliest dandelions I’ve ever laid eyes on. Shame they died on the way back,” offering her hand – again, bare and empty with decorations yet still littered with faint scars and cuts – she beamed at you. “I’m Mai, by the way. Mai Zen’in.”

Zen’in?

Hands cupping your mouth, you bowed deep until your back ached. “Lady Mai!” you shut your eyes closed, unable to live with the shame. Mai Zen’in; one of the iconic twin pair from the extended Zen’in royal family, both a fashion icon and a legend for being a rumoured female knight. To have her in your presence was an honour. “My apologies for not recognizing you any sooner, Lady Mai!”

“Stand up, I’m not a royal,” she sniggered, “We’re just relatives of the actual monarch, but don’t let the family name fool you. The Crown Prince barely even acknowledges us being of the same blood.”

Albeit hesitant, you followed her gestures of making you stand up. You straightened your back and cleared your throat, fighting the urge to go haywire the moment his name was brought into the conversation. Not only would you be seeing Prince Naoya again in real life for the first time in years, but you’d also made acquaintances with his distant niece. However, his name was spoken with malice.

Frowning, you faced Lady Mai in all seriousness. “Prince Naoya? Why so?” Lady Mai looked at you like you’d grown two heads.

“He’s an ass, that’s why.”

“I-I don’t think he is,” you defended, “The Prince has been nothing but kind to me.”

“I didn’t know he was capable of kindness,” she muttered more so under her breath, low enough you were unsure whether you were supposed to hear it in the first place. Lady Mai then shook her head to herself before stealing a flute from a waiter passing by. Chucking it your way, her face turned dark and grim. “Take it as free advice: stay as far away from his as possible. The Crown Prince is nothing but good news.”

“Is it because he has lots of lovers?” you inquired with a small voice, “Uhm – well – It was an assumption. With a title and handsomeness like that, it would make sense everyone would want to be the Crown Prince’s lover.”

Lady Mai’s lip curled upwards. “Prince Naoya won’t bother with lovers. He is too occupied for that.”

“So I’ve heard.”

“Heard from whom?”

“The Royal Declaration from His Majesty himself,” you said, “Was it not the purpose of this ball? To find worthy candidates to be the Crown Prince’s betrothed? His coronation is coming soon.”

“Right. I forgot today was technically a bridal market,” she scratched the edge of her brow, falling silent for a moment. Her eyes scanned the lively crowd for a brief moment – watching with you as everyone laughed and danced to their heart’s content – the grand final event of the routine personal dance with the Crown Prince himself slowly approaching to reality. “You are joining in the festivities, are you not? Later, when he arrives, he shall meet you.”

“I am obligated to as a noble bachelorette, though I doubt His Highness would even look my way. There are far richer noblewomen here and even daughters of duke that would be perfect as his wife. ”

“You may have a point for that,” she hummed to herself, unaware that her agreement to the Crown Prince not paying attention to you left a sting both in your ego and heart. Not that it lasted long, for Lady Mai was already tugged on the arm by another equally fiercely beautiful woman – her older twin, Maki Zen’in. Soon to be governon-general of the Kingdom.

Lady Mai smiled in apology. “I need to go now since I’m not a part of this event. But hey, if ever I come around to visit the Borders again, perhaps you could entertain me?”

“I would be honoured to, Lady Mai.”

“You are sweet and innocent,” it was her sister who spoke this time, glasses perched high on her nose that concealed the wariness of her gaze. “I hope the Crown Prince never gets to your routine.”

“I’m sorry?”

“It’s nothing; she was talking to herself. Maki does that a lot,” Lady Mai’s forced chuckles were barely heard from the music. “You enjoy the party now. Don’t drink too much lest you want to embarrass yourself in everyone’s eyes and be talk of the Kingdom. Prince Naoya would hate it if you took the attention away from him.”

“Oh, uhm...”

“It’s a joke, Lady Y/N. Relax.”

You bowed once more. “My apologies.”

“The dance is about to begin,” Maki tapped on your shoulder, making you look up right where her eyes zeroed in. And exactly in the middle of the grandiose hall, under the sparkling golden chandeliers where he made all the gold in the world look incomparable next to him, the Crown Prince stood in his fully glory. Blond hair with the ends stained of midnight gelled back to reveal his forehead, the Crown Prince’s beauty never failed to shine. Whether it be in the papers, in the tabloids, in the billboards that you passed on the way to the city, or from way back when you met him for the first time as a naive, innocent teen – Crown Prince Naoya came straight out of a magazine cover.

In the back of your head, you could hear either of the twins murmuring good luck. Maybe both of them had said it – you had no idea. All of your attention, all the sensibility and coherence of your state had been switched the next instant, as if your heart and soul was born for the sole purpose of being bewitched by your Crown Prince.

And as if feeling someone’s gaze on him, the Crown Prince’s eyes trailed over the crowd. Almost boredly, his sharp eyes bounced from one giggling woman to another, the ends of his lips smirking upwards for just the tiniest bit. It must’ve stroked his ego. Until his eyes connected with yours. The Crown Prince’s eyebrows knitted together. You had no idea how you looked in that moment, and quite frankly, you didn’t care. Because the Crown Prince was looking at you, and you were looking at him with hearts in your eyes along with your heart pulsing at the tip of your tongue.

“Let us begin,” his lips moved from the distance, “Play the music. I shall dance with my bride.”

The air shifted in a split second. Murmurs were thrown over the room, women and men alike turning pale. Even the orchestra was stunned from the Crown Prince’s entrance – and it hadn’t even been dramatic to his standards – yet the whole castle fell mum from just a few of his words. A few seconds later, the crowd recomposed itself, and the strings began to dance along with its bows.

You are pushed into the crowd. Nearly colliding into the arms of another, you quietly thank the masked man who was to be your first partner of the night.

All the men joining the dance floor dressed with the intention of making the Crown Prince shine. Prince Naoya stood out from the throng of white as per the colour code, his blood red uniform as both Prince with the  golden crest of the military leader pinned to his right breast. The other men meant to be filler partners until all the potential brides got to their designated three minutes with the Prince were all dressed in black, faces covered behind a plain black mask. None were allowed to talk. None were allowed to utter even a word, and so your partner pursed his lips in displeasure at your apology.

Whatever. You just had to wait a few more rounds before the song finished and transitioned into a new one; the song where you’d been informed would be your time alone with the Prince.

You’d been so lost in your head you barely breathed the entire dance. From partner to partner, you blanked. Your heart drummed so wildly in its cage it begged to come out, and strings of apologies were let out each time your masked partners grimaced for a brief second when their hands came in contact with your sweaty ones. Around you, all the lovely women smiled and danced graciously, mouths moving in unreadable conversations shared with the Crown Prince. Not once did you look at the six partners you’ve danced with. Not once did you worry about tripping on your own feet. Not once did you care that some of the masked men held you a little too roughly for your comfort. Your entire reason for existing in that moment was to witness the Crown Prince himself, mirroring his frown that got deeper and deeper with each woman retreating to the sea of people he’d rejected.

Not once did you even think about being one of them – the girls who’ve ducked their heads down as their parents comforted them over not being the chosen one, of bringing ‘dishonour’ to their families that the mighty Crown Prince had deemed them unworthy. Tears streamed down their faces until black ink followed afterwards, lips trembling from silent sobs.

Despite their broken prides – although there was that minority who simply sighed in relief after returning to their own families – no one would dare interrupt the Crown Prince’s dances.

All of these thoughts crossed your mind too late and at the exact time your masked partner pulled away from you, body half bent in a bow with his arm outstretched to the side. Following where he was gesturing at, your eyes met the Crown Prince’s tall and lean stature, a few blond fringes now fallen from his movements.

Even though a thin layer of sweat shone from his face, Prince Naoya remained ethereal.

And like a snake charmed by the musician’s seductive tone, your feet moved on its own. Fingers stretching until it met with the Crown Prince’s large and warm ones, you were now in front of him. With him. Holding him, touching him, meeting him eye for eye and realizing – gold. His eyes burned a deep shade of gold, elegantly rich and heartbreakingly stunning your heart ached.

Before you knew it, your hands began to tremble, feeling as if your body had been corded into a corset three sizes smaller. You could not breathe, and the Crown Prince took notice.

“You are stiff. Do I make you uncomfortable?” Good Saint. If only possible, you would’ve closed your eyes and basked in the deep warmth of his voice. It reverberated from deep within, breathed out with an air of natural authority and profound confidence it made your knees weak. As if sensing his effect on you (though for the wrong reasons, it seemed), Prince Naoya hummed to himself. “This routine shall last for a few minutes before I can let you go, I’m afraid.”

You instantly realized the implications of your silence. “N-not at all, Your Highness! I am honoured to be dancing with you.”

“There is no honour in a choreographed dance. Everyone will dance with me. It’s nothing special.”

Your heart fell. Prince Naoya not only sounded dejected, but detached as well. As if he found no pleasure or specialty in this event, at a time where he had every opportunity to meet his lover, and that this ball was merely a task to be checked off in his already long list of responsibilities. It wasn’t disappointment, per se, but rather melancholy that left a bitter taste in your mouth. Not because Prince Naoya held little to no regards for something you treasured, but because he sounded terribly alone. Like he was simply waiting for it to end out of discomfort.

“It’s special to me, Your Highness,” you blurted out faster than you could stop yourself. For a moment, you feared you may have offended him, but the Crown Prince only laughs.

And when he did – saint, when he laughed – his eyes crinkled into half moons, pearly whites flashing against the bright lights and his whole chest shook with amusement.

You’d never seen him smile this way before.

Prince Naoya’s laughter didn’t cease. Around you, your gut instincts told that people were now beginning to look; the Crown Prince’s deep rumbles of laughter sounded exquisitely like music as well, after all. “ Is it special to you because you are now dancing and within the Crown Prince’s proximity? As much as I presume how exhilarating it might be for those who mostly see me in the papers and in the tabloids, I assure you, dancing with your Prince is not an honour. Especially when you are all sent the invitations based on your status and not your worthy traits.”

“It’s special to me,” you mumbled, growing shy all of a sudden when the Crown Prince nodded at you to continue. “Because...because it reminds me of the first time we met.”

The Crown Prince hummed in amusement.

“We have met before?”

“Yes, Your Highness. I’m from the Terratian Borders – my father is a loyal servant of His Majesty. You visited the borders when you were eighteen and I was sixteen. Do you remember it, Your Highness? You stormed in my private library.”

Indeed, the young barely-out-of-his-teens Crown Prince barged into your home’s library years ago. You were not previously informed he and his parents would be visiting since they arrived wordlessly, so you were stuck in your chambers as usual, killing time if not for sleeping and tending to the animals. Perched on a ladder, you attempted to reach for a book on the upper shelf when your foot slipped beneath you. At the age of sixteen, you were dramatic enough to say your life flashed before your eyes. You would’ve screamed then had strong arms not appeared out of nowhere, the Crown Prince staring at you with wide, golden eyes as they were now, his breathy rasped as he asked, are you okay, my lady?

The mere recollection of that fateful memory had your cheeks warming in delight. “You were so charming and heroic back then. Even when I had no idea you were a royal, I would have still believed you to be princely,” you said rather absentmindedly, blinking once then twice at your words. “Of course, it’s understandable if you do not remember, Your Highness!”

“My apologies. I do not remember, though Terratia is a wonderful place. Such a shame I was not informed beforehand they had a lovely daughter.”

“Thank you, Your Highness,” you cheered back, cheeks and jaw beginning to ache from how wide you were smiling. But could anyone blame you? You felt absolutely silly that you were a breath away from passing out minutes ago, and now here you were, dancing with the Crown Prince and sharing memories with him like it was a daily occurrence. The words it’s true love when you feel at peace with them suddenly rang back at your head from that latest romance novel you read, and you turned away, hoping the Crown Prince would not read your thoughts to your face. However, Prince Naoya’s lips pursed into a thin line, all traces of humour now disappeared. “I’m sorry – should I not have laughed?”

“No, I don’t mind,” he mused with his jaw locked tight, “I just haven’t seen anyone react that way before.”

“Like what?”

“Like my words meant the entire universe to them. I may dare even say you look terribly in love, though I cannot blame you on that one, can I?”

Prince Naoya shook his head the minute the words left his mouth. Forcing himself to believe it couldn’t be real, perhaps, you truly did not know anymore. Your only plan for tonight was to see the Crown Prince and get to live out your dream of seeing him once more even for just a brief moment before you travelled back home while he married another, and yet – “Your Highness, I’m in love with you. I have always been since the day we met.”

You could no longer stop the words. The voice at the back of your head begged you to shut up and not cause a scene, that your time had passed up and people were staring, yet you remained in his arms no matter how much you wanted nothing more than for the ground to swallow you whole.

“Please do not misunderstand me, Your Highness. I did not come here to attempt to steal your heart and be your wife, though I will admit I have dreamt of meeting you again for so many moons. I...I only want to tell you this. That I love you and even though it was a brief moment, I think the love I’ve always read about felt real and possible for the first time in my life,” chuckling nervously, you gather to courage to face him, adoration shining for the Crown Prince stood shock still before you, however stunned he may be. “I love you, Your Highness. I love you. And to whoever lucky woman you choose to be your betrothed, I hope she takes care of you and showers you with all the affection you are deserving of. You would make a great King. So God help his Crown Prince, and may you lead us all into a better world.”

Prince Naoya did not budge a muscle. His eyes remained hard on yours, breath warm as his nostrils fumed. With each passing second that he did not speak, you grew restless and tugged your arm away from his hold with a disgraceful smile.

You’d truly crossed your line. The repercussions to be faced for this impoliteness would destroy your family’s honour. You had to leave. “Your Highness? The song has changed. It’s time to let go—”

The Crown Prince inched close enough until his hair tickled your cheeks, his deep voice sending shivers down your spine as he pulled you close, close enough that your lower bodies touched. Skin ablaze with heat, you dared not move an inch. “Do you mean it?” he demanded lowly, his fingers ghosting over your wrist to hold you in place. “Do you truly love me? Not for what I have, not for who I was born to be, but me as a person itself?”

Closing your eyes to shudder in a deep breath, you exhaled. “Of course, Your Highness. Even if you were not born as a Prince, I’m sure I would’ve still loved you in a different universe.”

“But I do not know you.”

“We don’t have to know each other, Your Highness, and we never will. Once you let me go, I’ll return to the shadows where I belong, and I will continue supporting you until the day of your coronation.”

“And if I refuse to let you go?” he clicked his tongue, “What will you do then?”

The Crown Prince’s spicy perfume must be an aphrodisiac or hypnotizer of sorts. Everything he did messed with your mind that it was too late – the music had stopped and people were no longer drinking or chatting. Everyone’s eyes were on you and the Crown Prince. You could only imagine how controversial this position must be; with his lips trailing dangerously close to that sensitive spot in your neck where you nearly moaned. You really needed to leave.

“P-people are looking, Your Highness. You do not want this affair with someone you won’t choose—”

“Who said I won’t choose you?” Finally, he pulled away. But Prince Naoya never once tore his gaze away from yours, nor did he allow you to look at anyone but him as he caresses your jaw so light and feathery you wondered if he was truly there.“Who said I haven’t laid my eyes on you the moment you walked in here? This ball is for naught because of you, Lady Y/N. I’ve already made my choice, and you helped me confirm it as soon as you danced with me.”

“Your Highness...”

“Look at me,” he ordered, your eyes flitting from his pinkish lips to his sharp nose and then to his fox-like gaze. Only this time, Prince Naoya was no longer harsh. “Don’t be scared.”

“But they’re looking.”

“You are with me, of course they’ll look,” he teased, “They wish to be you right now. But ignore them and dance one more time with me.”

It wasn’t like you had a choice, but did it matter? One nod from him was all it took before the orchestra fumbled back to their spots and a new song played, Ode of Moonlight Lovers, and the Crown Prince was guiding you back to where he had originally danced with you.

From the corners of your eyes, you caught a glimpse of your parents with their mouths gaped open; your father looking like he was on the verge of passing out. However, you felt nothing but joy, nothing but the adrenaline pumping through your veins as he danced and twirled you in his arms. When the music stopped and you were both panting for air with silly smiles on your face, it dawned on you that you were with the Prince. No, rather, it was only you and the Prince alone. Even in the sea of people whose faces began to blur, he prevailed crystal clear.

You could recognize him anywhere, find him everywhere.

Prince Naoya stepped impossibly closer until your chests touched, hearts beating as one. Cupping your jaw, he was near enough that he swallowed all your shaky breaths with a small, teasing smile like you both shared a secret the entire world could not know.

“Do I still make you nervous?”

Laughing, you nodded. “Yes, Your Highness. I feel like I’m going to explode.”

“It’s beloved now,” he corrected, face inching closer and closer to a point you could count the number of his lower lashes. “And what do lovers do to seal their union?”

“M-Marriage?”

“Close, but this is much better.”

If anyone were to tell you that you would have a love story ripped out straight from a fairytale, you would’ve laughed at their faces. You were no Cinderella, nor were you a goddess of beauty that could’ve possibly caught the Crown Prince’s eye. Yet, his soft lips were on yours, kissing you with as much passion you could only dream of that you cried.

Strong hands guiding the back of your waist, Prince Naoya dipped you lower to the ground – the grand of finish of his dance. He had chosen his bride.

The crowd cheered and rejoiced all around you, making you smile into the kiss. Fisting his collar to bring him closer to yours, your mouth burst into metaphorical fireworks as soon as his tongue mingled with yours for an experimental taste. He was bitter yet sweet; expensive wine resting on his tongue, yet a delicate vanilla sat heavily on his soft lips that molded with yours. It was a taste you could spend forever being addicted on. And you were crying, crying so much your chest ached and the Prince’s cheeks grew damp from yours. You’d dreamt of this for so long, too long now.

Prince Naoya slowly pulled you away, his thumb wiping the tears away from the pads of your cheeks with tenderness in his touch. However, the Prince was not satisfied. The crowd whooped as he leant down to kiss your forehead. “You are mine now, my princess.”

Looping his hands with yours, the Crown Prince led you out of the castle. The crowd parted naturally to make way for the new couple, and you were left staring at his broad back and the tuft of blond hair where you’d soon find out how soft it would be. Sending one last glance to your crying parents, you waved goodbye. You had no idea where the Crown Prince would take you but you were already bunching your dress up, heart completely filled with trust you did not question it. What mattered tonight and for the rest of your life was that it felt right. That it was him – your beloved Prince Naoya Zen’in and soon to be husband – that you’d follow through the moon and back.

[wistfulrat]

a 4-part rec list of my fave drarry fics - the thrillers, dramas, soft bois, and wankbanks getting me through 2020′s shitstorm

[the soft boi list is here and truly i’m not surprised this rec is going to be the longest bc if there’s one thing a bitch is going to do, it’s yearn.

as always! if you love a fic, follow the authors, leave kudos & comments, send them nice msgs bc free art is still labor xoxo]

part 3: soft bois

mood: for when I need respite, a balm to the all-consuming shittiness of life

includes: fluff, comfort, low-stakes, slow-burn fics. a wistful look, a rainy morning, an unexpected grace, a stupidly disarming joke. i could live inside these fics. the smallness of human lives removed from the site of that which hurts & irreparably changes. the story-equivalent of a deep breath after a long day. pregnant silences & pensive mundanity & shy smiles. banter with bite but without the cruelty. the color lavender. weirdly whimsical. soft fics are not necessarily conflict-averse (no drarry fic rly can be, considering the context) but, they offer the reader a generous distance from the initial harm. they’re the quiet cleaning up after a storm. sometimes healing is an exacting surgical knife and other times it’s a slow scabbing. you read these fics to be reassured that the way forward is not always ruthless. and honestly?? they deserve a semblance of peace godDAMmit.

The Way Down by @letteredlettered - 65k - T “and I thought that if someone talked to you as though you were a human being you might—maybe you could act like one” --the way i think about this line daily. the characterization of draco in this fic is one my favorites bc he’s earnest and neurotic and tired of harry’s shit. which is to say, he cares so so much. and harry doesn’t know what to do with that bc he’s got a monster in his chest and lives as a recluse. but they both humanize each other in ways no one else can. “you’re just a person” has to be some kind of drarry ethics of belonging and it makes me CRY. -

Little Deaths and How to Avoid Them by @greaseonmymouth and dustmouth - 96k - T “Maybe it’s not about deserving it? Maybe you just get to have it anyway. . .I’m allowing myself to want something and to let myself have it and to fight for it.” --harry runs a daycare and also works at a library. draco spends a lot of time in said library. they bond over sci-fi books and therapy anecdotes and quiet philosophical conversations held over cafeteria soup. and harry’s struggling to understand his asexuality. draco’s learning how to live with anxiety and depression. they both want to be deserving of love. incredible fic with beautiful art by dustmouth. - 

Open for Repairs by @drarrytrash - 35k - T “A few leaves rustle in the gutter and the muggle world pays no mind to them, to two lost boys holding on for dear life.” --all of their fics feel exactly like this. like you’ve been allowed to look at something private, tender, unexpected. draco, known abba fan, is a repairman in the muggle world & harry can’t stop breaking thrifted things in order to see him? say less, i'm thERE. also “I think I have a crush on you” goddddd  - other faves by them: Counting Down By Ten - 2k - T: draco’s stepped outside of the party for a smoke. harry follows him bc of course he does. i could read this 100 times and not get tired of it. - Clouds That Veil the Midnight Moon - 36k - E: FUCKING HILARIOUS I CACKLED THROUGH THE WHOLE THING. draco’s wolfy problem and harry helping him and harry being flustered by how much he likes draco and draco’s hot heroic moment. shutup it’s perfect. “He almost asks if Draco ever gets tired of being a miserable complaining shit all the time, but he knows that he, personally, never ever gets tired of being a miserable complaining shit.” and “It’s the traumas,” Harry says gravely” --lines that live rent free in my head -

Harry Potter and the Future He Doesn't Really Want, Thanks by seefin - 70k - E “That was the only logical thing to do here, wasn’t it? It was the next step, it was the end of hurting each other and the beginning of the exact opposite.” --harry lives with luna and neville and also he dreams about the future sometimes? and he keeps running into draco. draco thinks this is sus as hell, until he doesn’t. feat. taxi rides, museums, cinemas, rooftop conversations beneath a lunar eclipse, mid-sex innocuous banter, draco and harry discussing nicki minaj. this fic charmed my ass off. seefin writes the most effortlessly hilarious dialogues. i smiled at my phone like an idiot at least 7 times. -  other faves by them: Wild - 93k - E: “he liked feeling needed, for the things that he was needed for back at the house in Ireland. For cooking and gardening and driving. Easy things.” --this shit makes me cry it’s so good. harry lives in Ireland with these three brilliant, hilarious, wandless witches and draco’s a potions student who's come to study under one of the housemates and the boys have so much shit to work through but their love becomes so tender and honest. draco yells at harry a lot and harry lets him and they both keep each other grounded in something real and fuCK.  - Divination for Dickheads - 7k - G: “I’m terrible at having crushes. I’ve never played anything cool a day in my life.” -- oh harry, we knOW. a bus ride, a fortune teller, an aquarium birthday party. god i love this fic. -

Modern Love by @tackytigerfic​ - 61k - E “But we’ve worked so hard at this, haven’t we? Yeah, I know it’s a horror to have to talk about it, but fuck it. We’re friends now, but it took so long to get here. Have you ever had to work so hard at something before?" --the steady blossoming of their friendship in this fic is so goddamn beautiful i want to yell. it’s draco and harry learning to trust each other and the whole thing unfolds so slowly, in this whimsical mix of london streets, wizarding politics, church halls feat. a Hot vicar, and a magical antique shop owner who’s married to literal poseidon?? goD the environment of this fic. immaculate. [also there’s a tender shower scene that makes me cry every single fucking time so if you read this fic pls dm me so we can be embarrassing about it together tbh] -

Nice Things by aideomai - 22k - M “He kept waiting for the weird shock of touch to not knock him clean out of his head, leave him quiet and warm and happy.” --8th year. harry forms an unlikely friendship with draco that begins with smoking weed on a windowsill. harry is touch-starved and draco touches him like he touches all his close friends - like it’s easy. the quiet affection in this fic, the way harry burrows himself into touch bc he’s been without it for his entire life. reading this is like being held. -

Running On Air by @tinyhistory​ - 74k - T “do you remember when we were eleven?” --alexa play coldplay’s the scientist it’s sad girl hours and we’re about to fucking yearn. you’ve seen this fic rec on every drarry list under the sun and i'm here to be redundant. the hype is so goddamn real. this story is a lyrical masterpiece held together by lines that act as refrains that will rattle around your brain until you die, probably. draco’s been missing for 3yrs. harry goes to find him. it’s their odyssey of homecoming. -

Title of Their Sex Tape by @cibeewastaken - 12k - T “But Draco, Draco was everything but boring. Draco made sitting in the rain watching an empty house fun.” --auror partners pining and draco being eccentric and harry being very earnestly gay about draco’s eccentricities!! god this fic is so genuinely fun skskd feat. undercover missions, murderous faeries, a book heist, a stunning navy dress, harry’s eyelashes. -

How We Throw Our Shadows Down by @thistle-verse - 14k - T “Draco is about to say something else— to thank Potter for what he’d done, however poorly— but Harry is smiling at him again, and it’s so soft and perfect that Draco holds in any inadequate words, lest he spoil it.” --draco collects tea cozies and of course harry has the one he wants. the sad and tender gays are at it again feat. conversations in the rain at a train station, melancholy Blaise, muggle photos, wizarding e-bay, the Dursleys.  -

Helix by Saras_Girl - 92k - E “Draco sighs in his sleep and Harry clings on to consciousness, needing to hold on, to give this tiny, insignificant moment the attention it deserves” --I think maybe you can describe every soft Saras_Girl story as giving tiny, insignificant moments the attention they deserve. like, this is an 8th year fic about snails and it’s full of whimsy, grief, compassion, and easy humor. an absolute must-read author in this genre if you want languorous, episodic fics full of distinct OCs and affectionate creatures. - other faves by them: Light up the Night Sky - 98k - M “Draco, sometimes you make my head feel like soup” --the one where harry is a fireworks artist and has a pet chameleon named ken. draco is on the wizarding arts council. they both pine like hell. - Headlights in the Snow - 71k - M “they stare at each other in silence, Harry’s heart beating so loud in his chest that he thinks the biddies must be able to hear it over the sound of their card game.” --the one where draco drives the knight bus and carts around the biddy club, a group of rambunctious old ladies who knit and drink tea and gossip. harry can’t help but fall in love with the everything about this. -

Follow the Water by @xanthippe74 - 38k - T “Harry’s heavy thoughts lift at the sight, like dark clouds blown away from the sun by the wind. The tent doesn’t feel so cramped and stifling now. It feels cozy. And safe. It’s the same feeling that Harry gets when he’s at the Burrow for Sunday roasts, when a group of people who care for each other deeply are crammed into too-small a space.” --harry wanders to the lovegood house on a sunday afternoon. he’s baffled to see that luna’s taken pansy, greg, and draco under her wing. what follows is a summer of forest walks, scavenger hunts, gardening, water fights, odd cakes, faerie rings, and picnics. so many picnics. i love the pace of this fic, the innocent return to childhood things, the way luna brings out the best in all her friends. reluctantly soft slytherins are just *chefs kiss*!! -

Going Postal (A 125pg comic) by dustmouth - T what. a. beautiful. ass. comic. the wizarding fashion, the textures, the character design!! harry travels a lot for his job as a resourcer. draco works in the regulations dept. they pine like a bunch of lovesick idiots via field report notes. god i love dustmouth’s art. -

All the Earnest Young Men by @tepre​ - 29k - E “Draco is twenty-seven layers of personality wrapped up in drama and humour, and a wit so sharp it still stings when he doesn’t see it coming. But there is something below that, too. Something that makes Harry ache just looking at him.” --the way i would lay down my little life for tepre’s characterization of draco, whom invented the word earnest. he’s a magical art theory expert and portraits are disappearing all over London and harry’s the auror assigned to this case. and well. they’re both so very avoidant about how gay they are for each other and it’s like!! shutup and kiss!! which they do in fact, shutup and kiss.  -

Trenches by sara_holmes - 3k - M “Somewhere in the distant part of his mind that hasn't frozen solid, he thinks that maybe he and Draco are about to become more than auror partners, smoking buddies, wine-mates and co-inhabitants of a snow filled trench somewhere in western Scotland.” --the plot line here is literally “it’s cold and i need a fucking cigarette” but let me tell you how I never tire of the shared loaded-silences of two emotionally repressed gays. -

The Years Before Love by lomonaaeren - 13k - M “That’s one of the meanings of peace, he thinks, as Hermione hugs him...That he can do things slowly, softly, without worrying that they won’t be there tomorrow.” --andromeda taking harry under her wing and harry finding solace in teddy. narcissa and draco showing up and the tentative relationships that slowly develop in the quiet calm of andromeda’s house. found families and kisses in the snow and special xmas gifts ugh what’s not to love -

The Moon Looks Lovely Tonight by Omi_Ohmy - 35k - M “I want this to be a house where people are welcome, where they don’t have to be any one way or another” --in which harry collects lost things--owls, best friends, inept bakers, potions experimenters--and turns the mausoleum that is grimmauld place into a home. feat. your fave drarry tropes like shared-beds and reluctant waltzing partners. -

[part 1: thrillers | part 2: dramas | part 3: soft bois | part 4: wankbanks]

[mxvladdy]

I can't stress enough 'wows' in tve way you write along with the fact that it's you first few posts (i think? Pls correct me) can you do luci mammon and satan with a reader who takes naps bc of overthinking? They just tug their sleeves and shot them a tired look, while looking down shying away. Also, have a nice day and take the time to be yourself!

Aw thanks fam! I am fairly new to posting my works, I tried twice before this with two different writing blogs but I deleted them both bc I felt discouraged. I’m older now and I feel a lot better about my writing, so third time the charm and all that lol! I’m so glad you like my writing! I know I need some work on grammar and expanding my vocabulary.  

This was a super cute prompt ;.; I hope I did it justice!

Lucifer

He is a mix of jealous and pissed. He wishes he could fall asleep so easily when he gets inundated with too many things at once. But also- just don’t do that? Where were your manners?

He starts noticing your little peculiarity in class. Specifically that you tend to nod off in advance alchemy and rune scripting. You were being so studious, jotting down notes, ask great questions. Next thing he knows you're out like a light.

He is shocked for a moment before he will wake you up. Your wide doe-eyed frown does nothing to him. JK his hearts clench at your wounded look.

He makes the other brothers report to him about your behavior and odd sleep habit. Were you ill? Was this just something humans did? Devils, was Belphie rubbing off on you?

They all say the same thing. One moment you are working hard or talking to them about a topic you are passionate about, and the next you are yawning hard enough to pop your jaw and shyly asking to lay down.

Well-he can’t have that.

If you are going to fall asleep around anyone it’s going to be him.

He sets up remedial lessons with you after dinner to make up for the work slept through. You sit by him at his long ornate desk while he tutors you on what you missed.

You weren't having any problems,  you even finished a few pages. He is proud and then-

“I can almost hear those gears slowing my dear.” Lucifer interrupts himself mid-explanation of Zosimos of Panopolis and Maria the Prophetess's theories of alchemy in human medicine.

You jerk awake and turn to him blinking owlishly. "Yeah, I just need to lay down." You admit.

Lucifer eyes you critically. This was sudden, were you ill? You had been fine moments ago, bright-eyed and enthusiastic. He cups your face, turning it from side to side. "So suddenly? We haven't even discussed the properties of mercury yet." You hum letting your eyes droop. He was always so warm.

"Hour nap break? Please?" His stern gaze softens at how your nose scrunches up cutely as you yawn.

“Very well.” He relents letting you slick over to his couch. You flop over face first with a grunt of satisfaction. You toss and turn for a while, moving his pillows around unsatisfied.

“Luci-” You call in defeat. He ignores you at first. If you wanted to nap fine, he would get some work done in the meantime. “Luci~” You say again. You could see his brow twitching. “Lu-”

“My dear,” He shoots you a withering look. “You are treading a thin line. If you have the energy to call for me you have the energy to study.” You say nothing at his brisk tone, instead of opening your arms to him to join you. “You tempt me.” He purrs hiding his smile behind his paperwork.

“Learned from the best.” Lucifer shakes his head laughing at your smug reply. He glances over you to his grandfather clock. Hmmm-perhaps he could spare a few minutes. He rises elegantly discarding his tie and waistcoat to his abandoned chair. Running a hand through his hair he snorts at your little whistle.

“Move.” He commands. You shake your head patting your belly. “I will crush you.” He laughs but lays over you regardless.

“Good-you’re warm.” You say muffled in his shirt. Wrapping your arms around his middle you drift off. Lucifer holds you close, running a still gloved hand up and down your side. Perhaps he should bring out some more complex topics next time. If this was the outcome-

Mammon

He noticed you get drowsy before in class. Your cute little head jerks as you nod off, hands rubbing at your face as you fight to stay awake before giving in to the need to sleep. It was adorable- not that he was watching you because of that! He was just doing his job of looking out for you

Ye-that was all.

Honestly, he thought you were just like him. He never cared for the books being forced on him in class. Boring useless crap in his opinion. He much rather sleep through a lecture on stats too.

Now books on photography? That's where it's at. He has a legitimate passion for it.

He likes being behind the camera just as much as he likes being in front of it. Though he doesn't snap photos often.

He doesn't need more beratement from his brothers than he already gets. Sides, he just feels like they would look down at this like everything else he does.

He'll share his hobby with you though. You at least seem interested in it. He'll show you his collection of vintage to high-tech cameras and talk your ear off about the makes, models, and features.

You nod along and ask questions from time to time, smiling along with Mammon while he prattles on about color theory next to you on the floor.

He was just getting to Auguste Lumiére when he feels a gentle bump on his shoulder.

"O-oi!" Mammon starts, shaking his shoulder to rouse you. You look up at him, blinking the sleep from your eyes. "Was...was I that boring?" He deflates a little, all previous excitement gone in a flash. You had seemed so interested...

"What? Oh, no. No Mammon I'm sorry. It's really all fascinating," You grab for his sleeve so he couldn't run away. "It was just a lot of information all at once. I just got a bit overwhelmed."

"So you fall asleep?" He raises a brow not believing you for a second. Who falls asleep when something is interesting? He'll admit he's fallen asleep while listening to Levi talk about a new anime or Asmo with a make-up release.  But that's because it had been boring. "Is that like a human thing?"

You shrug snuggling closer. "I don't know- but it's a me thing. Give me five? I'd love to hear you talk more about your collection, promise."

Mammon glows scarlet at your words. "Of course you do!" He puffs out his chest excitedly. “I got great taste.” You nod into his shirt before drifting off again. He tilts his head slightly to look at you chuckling internally when your breathing and heartbeat slow down. Damn, out in seconds. Well, better get comfortable.

Uncrossing his long legs he picks up the camera he had been showing you. The old Polaroid lens reflects his face back at him. He remembered the day Land had debuted this marvel of engineering. He just had had to get his hands on one. It was useless now, he had much better quality cameras than this old thing, but he remembered you reminiscing about your human friends and their portable camera. Would you take some pictures with him too? He would take one now, but the sound of the flash would definitely wake you up.

He fiddles with it for a few more minutes, opening and closing the film canister and checking for any parts that needed fixing as he waits. You stir at his side a few minutes later with a little mew of satisfaction. Mammon hears your joints creak and pop as you stretch. "Morning." He says sarcastically, earning himself a light punch to his shoulder. "Ready to continue?"

You nod eagerly, perky and aware. At least for the moment.

Satan

He didn't really notice at first the pattern of your behavior.

You would come over for book club. Which was really just him reading his current novel and you picking something at random to gain a little random knowledge.

You would find a comfortable position on his bed, curl up nice and small and read. Then after a bit yawn and start to snooze.

He first thought it was the atmosphere of his room. It was quiet, warm, and the sound of flickering candles and the rustle of paper sometimes caused him to doze too.

But when it starts happening outside of class he notices.

Hmmm….this is new.

He looks it up in his human anatomy books and finds nothing.

He's not particularly worried about you per se. You always bounce back quickly after a quick snooze.

Then you start dozing when he is talking… >:(

Like his brother/dad he is a little miffed at first but then your behavior reminds him a cat and he loves you 10x harder now

Satan stops in his pacing of the back gardens. His book of poetry hanging limply in his hand. He had been reciting some of the most fascinating lines of work from Lord Byron's later works and wanted a human's perspective. He had thought you were interested. You never complained before when he asked you out here. Perhaps you were just being polite all those times before. Anything to soothe wrath. He snaps his book shut sharply, take some perverse satisfaction in the way you start out of your light sleep at the noise.

"Why'd you stop?" You ask wiping at your face.

"No point talking to someone that doesn't wish to listen." He snaps tersely.

"Oh-Satan, no I was listening. It...it just got to be so much so fast." You flush. “You had some great points going, I just needed a minute.” He watches your eyes grow heavy again, and it dawns on him.

"Do you just sleep when overwhelmed?" He asks incredulously. In all his years with humans, this was new. You shrug making grabby hands for him to move closer. He scoffs but moves into your space. You grab at the hem of his shirt and pull him down to sit next to you. He goes willingly getting comfortable by your side. You eye his lap longingly, hands clutching around his coat sleeve. “Fine-” He rolls his eyes. “Come here you odd thing.” You smile in triumph and crawl into his lap. Once settled you nuzzle into his warm chest.

“Wake me up in ten? I want to hear more about your conversations with Byron.”

“I’ll hold you to it.” He kisses the top of your forehead, opening his book to read again with one hand. You hum at his soft kiss, returning it sleepily with one of your own before passing out again. Ten minutes go by in an instant and Satan looks down at your peaceful face. He smiles to himself, perhaps he’ll let you sleep for a little while longer. You’d need it for his next point.  

[t0tallyspine]

When Spine joined the Syndicate, one of the last things she expected was to appear in the middle of a minor gang war.

She was finally comfortable in her angel form, and the ceiling was the most convenient place to keep all of her eyes and observe the busy workings of the base. The rooms were spacious and the ceilings high enough to fit several fully-grown adults, but the girl still didn’t know they would be such a popular hang out spot. She hadn’t met most of the people up there and wasn’t yet mentally ready to meet them face to face, so Spine preferred waiting for most of them to leave before settling comfortably on the surface above and enjoying the chaos beneath.

Today was one of the free days, with most of the people that usually hang at the ceiling having scattered off to different rooms. One of the writer’s seemed to have finished their new story and the members gathered to read and discuss it together. Spine didn’t have eyes in the room the improvised book club meeting was held as she was too lazy today to tune into complex and rich stories so the nephilim joined the library where Caro and Kiki were playing chess, the confusion of the latter quite entertaining to witness, and kept some of her eyes in the main room to keep track of people coming in and out.

There was an especially tense moment in the game, which Spine could see even though she didn’t know anything about chess, and she devoted most of her consciousness to keep up with the siblings. So it came as an unpleasant surprise when she felt sharp pain in another part of her form that she stuck to the ceiling above the big table.

”What the hell..?” Spine asked incredulously, her voice reverberating and rumbling out of shock more than anything else.

She coughed awkwardly and fixed up the tone, asking calmer and quieter, “What'd just happened?”

She blinked with all of the 30 eyes currently composing her form and looked around. The nephilim didn’t have to search for long: right at her eye level she notices the smallest person she’d ever seen, looking up at the girl with a mischievous smirk. But to Spine that mischief suddenly started looking much more like blood thirst, as the stranger had a butter knife in their one of their hands. Her little horns also seemed extremely sharp. If Spine was in her humanoid form, she would’ve gulped in fear.

”Why did you poke my eye..?” The girl asked cautiously, trying to sound as non-threatening as possible.

The stranger’s smile grew wider.

”Kill.”

Spine heard someone laugh from beneath her and finally notices Aelyn who was holding the short scary person on her shoulders to help them reach the top. She gasped in mock betrayal.

”Aelyn! I trusted you!”

She laughed again, now looking slightly more apologetic, but not overly so.

“I’m sorry, but I had no choice. The knife is blunt, don’t worry.” She shrugged a bit, trying not to shake the stranger off and added, “I was also curious if you would feel it.”

”You could’ve just asked..!”

”Yeah, but it’s more fun that way.”

Spine huffed – just a regular day at the Syndicate base, how could she think she could avoid troubles by sticking to the ceiling and being silent. The girl wasn’t angry, just… really confused.

The stranger decided to broaden their explanation.

”I can’t join the ceiling gang, so violence is the only solution to that problem I could think of. It’s nothing personal though, you seem okay. You’re Spine, right? I’m Pink!”

”Ceiling gang..?” Spine wondered to herself silently.

“It’s a name for all the people that like to hang out on the ceiling, it’s nothing that serious.” The nephilim thought, and she scanned the room in search of the one she knew was actually behind that thought. As the girl suspected, she spotted a familiar dirt block in the corner of the room, the grass on top of them bright and freshly watered.

”You were thinking too loud again, you gotta stop doing that,” Mcpe explained with no actual malice behind their thoughts.

”Oh, sorry. I’ll try. What do you..?”

Spine didn’t have the time to finish the thought as she noticed out of the corner of one of her eyes a quickly approaching knife. The girl didn’t spend any time to think it through – she never did, so that was normal – and lifted Mcpe in the air to put them in front of her. The knife when right into the soft dirt, getting stuck in there instantly.

”Well that was just rude.” Spine thought and felt guilty after experiencing that thought.

”Sorry, you were the only thing I could lift to do that. You didn’t feel that, did you?”

”Of course not, you think I possess nerve endings?”

”Fair,” the nephilim thought and shrugged mentally.

Pink didn’t seem deterred by the lack of reaction. Instead, they giggled and pulled the knife out before stabbing the dirt a couple of times more, before some of it started crumbling and fell onto her face. Pink sneezed, her eyes closing involuntarily, causing them to lose balance and slip off Aelyn’s shoulders. The girl gasped and flew down to catch her shorter partner in crime, leaving Mcpe to regenerate with ease and Spine finally getting to calm down. She knew these were just games, but that wasn’t enough to let her guard down completely.

Now that the girl was relatively safe, she put the dirt block down on the table carefully and got ready to return to her humanoid form, which she couldn’t do before due to stress. But that wasn’t the end of today’s troubles, as suddenly Spine heard a suspicious noise come from above her. Not even a minute after the noise started, a small circular hole appeared right next to the nephilim, and she caught glimpse of an eye that was definitely not hers.

”Hey there, neighbor! How is the ceiling gang doing this fine afternoon?”

Spine couldn’t take it anymore: her eyes fell down next to Mcpe one by one and scuttled next to the block in one big pile. She could see more holes appear on the ceiling, as well as hear Pink still sneezing somewhere to the side, and thought as loudly as she could,

”This place is the wildest thing I’ve ever seen, and I’ve been here for a week.”

”You’ll get used to it,” Spine thought in a way that was unmistakably not hers, “or you won’t. But isn’t it more fun that way?”

Amazing characters belong to:

Mcpe - @minecraftpocketedition

Aelyn - @midnattheir

Pink - @whatiisanartblogname

(pls tell me if you don't like being tagged/don't want me to use your characters in stories<3)

[ethereousdelirious]

I finally wrote something!!!! It's just a little bite-sized (1k) snzfic about some OCs. I am currently working on a book that I'm hoping to publish, so I have changed the names in the interest of not screwing over my future self 😅 The premise is around reincarnation, so it flashes back and forth between past (1700s West Coast USA) and present. I hope that's not confusing!

It was never a good sign when Professor Lehman asked everyone to drag their desks into a circle. Gabriel hefted his backpack into his chair and dragged his desk into place, shoulders tense with anticipation for what was about to come.

He ended up sat down next to a girl he only vaguely recognized. He thought her name might be Brandy, or Briana, something like that. She had a flower bouquet on her desk, small golden flowers interspersed with white roses and baby's breath.

She caught him staring and smiled. "Aren't they pretty? The Agricultural Club is selling bouquets down by the library."

"Oh," said Gabriel, making a conscious effort to not flinch back in surprise. He drew a hand through his tight curls, noting with some annoyance that he needed a haircut. The urge to sneeze snuck up on him and he barely registered it in time to turn his head away, let alone stifle it. "Hh'sch!"

--

"Bless you," Emilio said, looking up with mild concern painted across his features. The breeze blew his dark hair and made the hem of his habit dance around his ankles.

Matías opened his mouth to thank him and drew in a gasp instead. "Eh'chf!"

His horse let out a snort, obviously annoyed with the way Matías was jerking her lead.

"Are you alright?" Emilio asked, peering at him with wide brown eyes.

Matías sniffled and felt in his pockets for his handkerchief. "Yes, I'm f-- Hh'schf! Eh'tsch!"

"Go on?"

"Actually, I'm dying."Matías sniffled again to no avail and leaned into the side of his horse. His handkerchief, if he'd even brought one, was evidently stowed away in one of the saddlebags and he couldn’t be bothered to search for it. He wiped his eyes on his sleeve. "It's time for last rites; I'm done for."

"Go sit down," Emilio said with a fond smile. "I'll mind the horses."

"Keep an eye out for any priests, would you?" Matías handed the reins over and stepped a few paces away. He found a flat rock and sat down on it, admiring a nearby patch of golden blooms. Emilio had told him it was mustard and it marked the paths between missions.

The warm breeze made the flowers sway. Matías grit his teeth, feeling the familiar tickle and ache in his sinuses. "Hh'ksh!"

--

"You gonna live, Gabriel?" Professor Lehman asked.

Gabriel sniffled and resisted the childish urge to wipe his nose on his sleeve. Unable to keep eye contact, he stared down at his hand, studying the way his dark skin contrasted the white plastic of the tabletop. "Sorry, it's just allergies. I'll have my roommate bring me some Claritin."

"Alright." Professor Lehman clapped his hands once. "You can go last, then." He turned to the girl sitting beside Gabriel. "Brinley, why don't you start us off? What conclusions did you draw from last night's reading?"

Brinley started to speak, and Gabriel pulled out his phone to shoot Inti a text.

Gabriel: Pls bring Claritin. Main building room 203. I'll buy u a coffee'

Inti: omw

Gabriel shoved his phone back in his pocket and tried to pay attention to the discussion.

It was difficult, when his head throbbed and his nose kept trying to drip. He was sniffling so often he was sure everyone around him could hear it and only just managing to stave off sneezing fits by shoving his finger under his nose. It worked, but the pressure buildup in his sinuses was so intense it made his teeth ache. His shoulders shook with the impending fit, and he nearly shot out of his chair the moment Inti texted that he had arrived.

But that was rude and would put more eyes on him, so Gabriel sat there with shaking hands and trembling breaths until the discussion hit a pause. Then he slipped out.

Inti was waiting a little ways down the hall, lounging in one of the alcoves. Gabriel swallowed and tried not to notice the stripe of golden skin that peeked out above Inti's waistband.

"Allergies?" Inti asked, sweeping his gaze down the length of Gabriel's body.

Gabriel shuddered. "N-no, I--" He tensed and the sarcastic quip died on his lips. "Hh'tschf!"

"Bless--"

"Eh'tch!"

"Bless--"

Gabriel took in half a breath and stopped short. "Oh, I think I'm done."

"You sure?" Inti tapped the tip of Gabriel's nose.

Gabriel flinched back and shook his head. "Yes." He wiped the tears off his face and sat down next to Inti with a groan. His head ached.

--

"We can take a longer rest, if you need," Emilio said.

Matías waved his hand in dismissal, already clambering to his feet. His head spun with the motion and he swayed into Emilio's shoulder. "No, no. Don't waste time on my account."

"It's not wasted time, especially if you're feeling unwell." Emilio caught Matías' chin in his hand and used the other to wipe the tears off Matías' cheeks.

Matías' face went warm. He wondered if Emlio could feel it against his palms. "I'm alright."

"You're sure?" Emilio asked, his dark eyes wide and searching. "Santa Barbara can do without me for a few more days."

Matías didn't even have time to screw up his face before the next sneeze sent him reeling forward. "Hh'kschf!" His forehead hit Emilio's chest with a muffled thump, his face nestled against the somewhat scratchy material of his habit. It was more contact than they'd ever shared and Matías almost relaxed into it before the dawning comprehension filled his mind with horror. He stepped backward, eyes downcast. "F-forgive me, Padré, I--"

"Forgive you for sneezing?" Emilio sounded as lighthearted as ever, so Matías chanced to look up. Sure enough, Emilio only looked bemused. He cocked his head like a puppy. "It's not a sin. Come, let's rest a while longer." He wrapped an arm around Matías and guided him to a shady spot beneath a pine tree.

--

"I have to get back to class," Gabriel said.

Inti took the hint and produced the white-topped Claritin bottle from his hoodie pocket. "You sure that's a good idea? You sound awful."

Gabriel dry-swallowed the pills with a wince. "It's group discussion day."

"Alright, alright. You'd better keep the bottle, then." Inti got to his feet and extended a hand to help Gabriel up. "You wanna wipe your nose on my sleeve?"

Gabriel chose (diplomatically, in his opinion) not to answer that. "I gotta go. See you."

"Do blow your nose, though. You really do sound half-dead."

"Will do. Thanks, Inti."

"No problem." Inti smiled brightly and swept his long hair back. "Remember, you owe me one."

"Sure." Gabriel turned to go back to class, a strange, warm feeling in his chest.

[wetalkinboutbooks]

New Year, New Review 🤩

A Sky Beyond the Storm by Sabaa Tahir

Summary: The long-imprisoned jinn are on the attack, wreaking bloody havoc in villages and cities alike. But for the Nightbringer, vengeance on his human foes is just the beginning.

At his side, Commandant Keris Veturia declares herself Empress, and calls for the heads of any and all who defy her rule. At the top of the list? The Blood Shrike and her remaining family.

Laia of Serra, now allied with the Blood Shrike, struggles to recover from the loss of the two people most important to her. Determined to stop the approaching apocalypse, she throws herself into the destruction of the Nightbringer. In the process, she awakens an ancient power that could lead her to victory--or to an unimaginable doom.

And deep in the Waiting Place, the Soul Catcher seeks only to forget the life--and love--he left behind. Yet doing so means ignoring the trail of murder left by the Nightbringer and his jinn. To uphold his oath and protect the human world from the supernatural, the Soul Catcher must look beyond the borders of his own land. He must take on a mission that could save--or destroy--all that he knows. (Taken from Goodreads)

Our Ratings:  

 → Geena:  ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

 → Kae: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Overall: The final instalment of the Ember Quartet had us crying in the metaphorical club. It’s exciting, terrifying, and probably the horniest book in the series and we loved it!

~Spoiler-full discussion below~

The Good:

→ Elias and Laia

Geena: In the final instalment of the Ember quartet, Sabaa deprives us of an Elias POV and slaps us with the Soulcatcher instead… He’s very much an ‘emotions are bad’ type of dude, the opposite of Elias who always had so many… but both of them are so angsty? The Soulcatcher really likes to beat up trees when his memories from when he was Elias resurface which was so emo to me. Despite being possessed by Mauth he is also such a coward, especially around Laia, because Elias’ feelings for Laia scare him and every single time he is like *running emoji*. We were surprised that Sabaa let him remain the soulcatcher for so long, every chapter I was like ‘Okay, maybe this is where Elias breaks through…’ but no.. Elias remained buried UNTIL their night in the cabin… the Soulcatcher was like ‘k I’m out’ but ONLY for ONE NIGHT and that still makes me scream.. The Soulcatcher was like ‘you kids are too horny for me, I’m gonna take a nap for a bit and let Elias take over bc Jesus.’ 

Despite it all, the Soulcatcher’s chapters were enjoyable albeit painful because this man was so duty bound, like even Elias wasn’t that dedicated when he was a Mask. But near the end, when we finally get the chapter that starts with Elias…. Ngl I cried a little, and immediately wanted to reread the whole series (I feel like Sabaa did this on purpose to torture us). I want to fight Sabaa though, like she did an amazing job showing how Elias’ conscious and the Soulcatcher’s conscious were constantly fighting one another, and how Elias’ memories of the people he loved ultimately fuelled the Soulcatcher’s actions… even though the Soulcatcher was like ‘I’m doing this for the ghosts’ like okay… no ghost told you to keep protecting and kissing Laia but you still did it…  

Kae: Okay, so Geena summed up my boy Ilyaas pretty damn well. Also, we LOVE HIS ETHNIC NAME IN THIS HOUSE. But um, YES. Elias was a sad boy ™ the whole time while fighting his emotions and ultimately losing. It was so PAINFUL as a reader, seeing all of  his chapters except the ONE say ‘Soulcatcher’. But when it finally said ELIAS again, I too, started to cry. Because he was BACK. 

You can all thank the power of Laia’s determination to seduce Elias back to himself, because our girl was NOT giving up. She said ‘you gonna get this coochie, dammit’ and in the cabin, Elias was like ‘well i’ll be damned. I sure as hell am. I am BACK BAYBEEEEE’

Geena: Sabaa Tahir said horny rights like ksjdnfdsjknfsdk

Kae: AUFVAHLHVKJ. BUT YES. In the end, love won. And so did sex because everyone was doin it or TRYING to do it. I guess when the world is ending, you only get one last time to uhh…. Have a good time. So they made sure they did lmao 

Now, let’s get into Laia. 

Laia. My sweet little cupcake. My mug of tea with too much honey. This girl has been through literal hell and back, and yet, she kept going. She NEVER gave up. Laia woke up in book 4 like ‘Today i will commit crimes. Helene and I crave violence’ and they both just started kicking ASS and I LOVED THAT. I was really happy to see the progression of Laia and Helen’s friendship and how they genuinely grew to like one another and see each other as besties. They both deserved a girl friend and I’m glad they found a friendship within each other. 

Laia is the bravest character in this damn book. She went from poor scholar, to slave, to hero and she was brave because she had to be. Laia is strong and took on their entire world. She had help, but she did a lot of it alone and that takes some real guts. She is the most genuine, sweetest, bravest girl and I love her. <3 

Laia also single handedly brought the Ilyaas back from his Soulcatcher shit. During this whole book she was just like ‘You know what? I think I’mma go mess with Elias’ emo ass today to see if I can get him to kiss me or something’ THEN SHE PROCEEDED TO SHOW UP AT THIS MANS HOUSE (realm or whatever) BUTTASS NEKKID. And he saw her and immediately flew the hell out of there it was TOO MUCH and he LIKED IT but couldn’t admit it. 

Geena: You know what I love about that whole scene was like earlier she was like ‘He’s a lost cause idc’ and then Darin was like ‘Elias wouldn’t give up on you if that happened’ and Laia was like ‘you’re right, he would show up stark naked and try to seduce me back to my body’ and she did just that...

Kae: SHE DID. SHE SHOWED UP AND SHOWED OUT! Like, her entire mission was to bring Elias back while also planning on taking down the Nightbringer. But she was straight up like ‘okay but not before i get my man back through SEDUCTION’. Ugh, the mango scene?  Superb. 

Geena: Laia is hands down one of my favourite book characters to exist. Her journey from the first book being a scared girl with a missing brother, to being the face of a revolution… like the GROWTH. Like Kae mentioned, she and Helene end up as BESTIIEESSSS, and I was surprised at how natural they seemed. Because we went from them hating each other to close friends, but despite not seeing their development, it came off so natural? So, I loved that! 

Kae covered Laia’s character pretty thoroughly, she was both a horndog and a bad bitch. Like this girl has pretended to be a Slave for the Commandment to travelling a desert by herself and facing off a squad of Jinn… In retrospect, Laia is a unique case, she’s allowed to be kind and caring and doesn’t have to be a fighter type to be strong. She’s not the chosen one, which this book made clear, it could’ve been anyone to fight the Nightbringer… but only Laia was strong enough to love him AND defy him. And I just love her a lot… she was very much an anime protagonist with the power of love, family, and friendship… anyways I love her and that’s all I have to say

→ Helene 

Geena: The way I ended up liking and rooting for Helene this book? Came out of left field. To be honest, in previous books I didn’t feel much for her other than ‘stop chasing after Elias and Laia pls.’ But this book I wanted her to win, especially with the fight against the germanic-esque invaders. She goes through substantial development, no longer seeing Scholars as slaves and taking their opinions seriously.. Like Laia, Musa, and Darin were all a part of her crew. A stark difference from Book 1 Helene, who thought Scholars only had one role in the world and that was slaves. 

Helene… like Laia… really has the Ember equivalent of hot girl summer with Harper… all the time she spends denying it she is like *jumps on him the chance she gets*. The bath scene… Helene’s power was turning her tortuer into her MAN… But also Sabaa said that ‘yes she has changed, but she has to repent for her sins’ and that’s why Helene is basically left alone at the end (save for Laia, Elias, and Musa). 

Kae: So not gonna lie, I never actually disliked Helene. I saw her as the flawed character she was in the beginning. During her cat and mouse chase with Elias and Laia in the beginning, she would piss me OFF because like, that’s your BEST FRIEEEEEND. JUST STAAAAHP. But also, it was him or her and her family's death, so I get it. But I always saw potential in her to be better. And thank GOODNESS she went through all that character development. Because she was a damn menace in the beginning. 

Also like Geena mentioned; Helly and Harper finally hooking up? I swear the heavens opened up in that moment because EVERYONE could feel their tension. LIKE JUST DO IT ALREADY. You can’t fight love, baybeeee

Watching Helly grow as a person was really rewarding as a reader. Like Geena said, she went from hating scholars to being like ‘hmm, maybe my opinions are shitty?’ and straight up changed.  I also feel for her because she lost her ENTIRE family and like, honestly? I would’ve given up. BUT SHE DIDN’T. She’s a literal fighter, bred for this shit. So she FOUGHT. And I was really scared she was gonna get murked because y’all know Keris’ tiny evil ass doesn’t have a chill button. And when they were fighting? I was like LAWD PLS DON’T  TAKE HELLY. But instead he took Harper *upside down smiley face* SO THAT WAS FUCKED UP AND I WASN’T READY FOR IT. But a piece of me knew it was coming. 

The Bad:   

→ Darin and Harper

Geena: As Kae mentioned… Harper kicked the can in this book :’( His eventual fall came from loving and caring for Helene too much, which left him open and gave Keris the chance to stab him. Harper was basically Helene’s heart outside her body, and when he went down so did Helene. I had had a feeling when Book 3 ended that Harper wouldn’t make it, but I WASN’T HAPPY ABOUT BEING RIGHT FOR ONCE… Harper had finally met his brother (Elias) and hadn’t even had a chance to meet the real Elias and talk to him about their father or other sibling stuff. LIKE OF ALL CHARACTER DEATHS… AND THERE WAS A LOT… The other one that came out of left field was fucking Darin of Serra… DARIN… THE ONE DUDE WE SPENT TWO WHOLE BOOKS SAVING… DEAD WITH A SNAP OF HIS NECK!! I WAS SO MAD

LIKE SABAA HAD US THINKING HE WAS GONNA BE SAFE, SHE GAVE HIM A LIL GIRLFRIEND AND EVERYTHING BUT THEN SHE GOES.. AND KILLS HIM?? JUST LIKE THAT?? Then we had to read the scenes where Elias helps both Darin and Harper pass over into the afterlife and I was just *cries angrily* 

Kae: Well, THAT was sad. Have you ever just like, felt your heart break into a million tiny irreparable pieces? That’s how I felt when Darin and Harper died. Because like, they were both trying to save the women they loved. Darin to Laia, (foolishly so against the Nightbringer) but I would do it for my little sister too. And Harper with Helene against evilass Keris. Dude, that shit just sucked. It hurt to read. It hurt to imagine the girls feeling the pain of their deaths. They were both such good men. And DARIIIN. 

Darin didn’t have to go out like that, man. It was such a harsh death. No last words. It was just over and his body was just gone. I wish Laia would’ve been able to talk with him at The Waiting Place at least one last time. But it is what it is. I hated to see both of them go. Especially since Darin pretty much sparked this whole series. 

Sure, Laia, Helene, and Elias were the main characters. But Darin was the spark that started the fire. And he didn’t even get to see it’s flames extinguished. 

Geena: He was the ember in the ashes… literally like Sabaa uses that for Elias and Laia but it applies to Darin the most

Kae: LITCHRALLY gonna get teary eyed over here. Our boys deserved better :( 

Conclusion 

Geena: This was not at all a disappointing end to the series we’ve followed closely for so long. The different plot points and character arcs were tied up nicely, and Sabaa Tahir showed us once again why she’s one of the best fantasy writers on this side of the Milky Way. We didn’t even bother including a ‘The Ugly’ section because we loved it too much ksfmsd. The only qualm I’d have with the end was the empire remaining, Helene recognized the Scholars as equals but centuries of pain isn’t easily forgotten you know? SO THAT’S WHY I THINK WE DESERVE A SEQUEL SERIES… BUT I DIGRESS… OVERALL, I loved this book and the ending for all the characters ESPECIALLY FOR OUR GIRL LAIA <3

Kae: YES. I AGREE 100% WITH GEENA. It was such a beautiful end to the series. Sabaa is  GENIUS and her storytelling is phenomenal. I loved every little surprise she’s hidden in all of the books. ESPECIALLY WITH COOK BEING ALIVE? I DIDN’T SEE THAT SHIT COMING AT ALL. LIKE HOLY SHIT? So Laia had some remaining family afterall, and I think that’s very sweet. I’m really sad to see the series be over with and Geena and I are both *~HOPIIIING~* for an epilogue or some little crumbs or SOMETHING with the gang and how their lives ended up into middle adulthood or something. 

Geena: I would literally take a single paragraph… Ms. Tahir…. Blease…

Kae: But yes, in conclusion, Laia has a heart of gold and we LOVE HER. She’s brave and strong and smart, and was the only one out of THOUSANDS to stick for herself and defy the Nightbringer, and save the whole world. Helene has come a long way and she developed beautifully as a character. And Elias. Ohhh, Ilyaas. His continued self sacrifice and bravery and love still helped him live in the end and I think that’s beautiful. 

[writeyouin]

Hey, absolutely adore your work! I'd love to see a very christmas-y fic with pre-deviant Connor in which the reader attempts to incite some kind of humanlike reaction from him with all the festivities--baking, gift-wrapping, all the fluffy little in-betweens, hehe. If you end up not getting to it somehow/don't have time or motivation, please don't worry about it! (and if ya could shoot me a message or sumthin to lemme know you got this, pls do! tumblr eats a lot of asks for me.)

Connor X Reader - Traditions

A/N – Hey, I hope you don’t mind that it’s not too long. It’s really little more than a drabble, but I think it turned out okay.

Warnings – None.

Rating – T

Connor stood in the hallway of your home, looking annoyed as he often did between deviancy cases. You knew if you left him, he would stay there all night, trying to figure out the connection between androids and RA9; it was a process he had gone through since he first came to stay with you. Granted, he was supposed to stay at the station between cases, but it seemed cruel to leave him there, so you had offered to let him stay with you. Connor, seeing the tactical advantage of staying with at least one partner, should there be a case after hours, had accepted your offer graciously.

You stretched, feeling tired after the long day at work. You and Connor had just left Hank at the park, after a long discussion involving the fates of the two Traci’s at the Eden club. Quite frankly, after such a case, wherein Connor had spared the life of the androids, letting them escape, you had begun to question his own deviancy. Given time, you thought he might become more human than most people you knew, but would he be prepared for that day? If he did turn deviant, you wanted him to know that you would be there for him, but how did one broach such a sensitive subject with the deviant hunter himself?

“Hey Connor, you alright?” You asked, motioning to his yellow blinking LED.

“My systems are fully functional, if that is what you mean,” He answered mechanically.

“It’s not. I just meant- Well, today was rough and-”

“Need I remind you Detective I do not have human emotions.”

“Right,” You deadpanned, not believing it for a second. “You know, off duty, you can just call me (Y/N).”

“Would that make you more comfortable?”

“Yeah.”

Connor nodded curtly, “Then I shall only use your rank at work, (Y/N).”

“Great…” You walked further inside, wondering how to best help Connor realise that he was turning just as much deviant as the other androids. Whether he was affected by the earlier case or not, he followed you for the first time since he had become your temporary roommate. He took note of your interests based on what he found in your home, from the books that lined the shelves to the pictures that adorned the walls.

You flicked on the radio, which usually helped you think, happy to find that your station was playing through the classic Christmas songs.

“So,” You started, “What do you think of between cases? Other than RA9 and further deviancy, I mean.”

“Well,” Connor considered momentarily, “I wonder how I can make Lieutenant Anderson more cooperative with me.”

“Hmm? You won’t need to worry about that after tonight. You really earned his respect out there.”

“Really? How could you tell?”

“Because, you didn’t shoot.”

Connor’s brow furrowed confusedly, “But we failed our case.”

“By protecting a life,” You insisted.

“That was an android, (Y/N). Just like me, it wasn’t alive.”

You sighed, turning away from Connor to enter your bedroom. He did not follow, sensing he had disappointed you with his answer. You gathered a few supplies from your wardrobe, bringing them out with you and laying them out on the living room floor, all the while wondering how you could teach Connor that not taking the shot was far braver than anything else he could have done at the Eden club.

Wishing to ensure your cooperation in future cases, Connor tried to pick up the conversation in a way that might please you. “What do you think about between cases?” He asked.

“I think about a lot of different things,” You said, distractedly.

“What are you thinking about right now?”

“The holidays.”

Connor looked at you, as if waiting for an elaboration.

“Okay, well, I’m wondering if my family will like the gifts I’ve picked out, and if they’ll complain the wrapping isn’t neat enough again. I’m hoping we’ll get a lot of good snow this year, and thinking about making gingerbread men for Mr Cormaci down the road; ever since his husband died, he’s all alone and I could use the biscuits to invite him up on Christmas. After all, nobody should be left alone on the holidays, especially not an eighty-year-old man. So, like I said, I think about a lot of things.”

“I’m not doing anything right now,” Connor commented. “Perhaps I can help you wrap your gifts.”

You considered the proposal for a moment, and then a bright idea hit you. Maybe if you could show Connor the joy of joining in Christmas festivities, he would have something of a human reaction which would help him if he later deviated.

“Okay, sure, I guess I could use the help.”

And so, Connor joined you on the floor, wrapping the presents that were put before him. The two of you were complete opposites. Where Connor worked in silence, making sure every present was impossibly neat, you sang every Christmas song loudly, making a mess and often getting the tape stuck to your fingers.

As soon as that was done, you asked him to join you to bake. You helped him with every step, mostly so you could keep a close eye on him and see if he would show any human emotion. All it would take was the tiniest hint of a smile, a few hummed notes of one of the Christmas songs, maybe even some further curiosity about your own traditions, but he remained stubbornly closed off to you.

With that, you incited the next round of your Christmas game, asking him to help decorate the apartment for the holidays.

“Isn’t it a little late in the night for that?” Connor asked.

“Hmm? I suppose, but I doubt I’ll be able to sleep for a while, so we may as well do it now, unless you don’t want to,” You said, ignoring the tiredness that tugged at your mind, begging you to sleep.

At your insistence, Connor complied with your request, helping you unpack the decorations you had pulled out a few days prior, placing them wherever you instructed him to. He remained stony-faced as he dressed the tree, even when you let him put the topper on, an honour you didn’t give to just anyone. It seemed that your plan to spread humanity through Christmas cheer was completely useless. You wondered if you could come up with a better plan in the future but thought it might have to wait until morning; perhaps sleep would provide you with a dream that might help.

After saying goodnight to Connor, you excused yourself, leaving him to go into stasis in the hallway as you always did. Instead of going into stasis however, Connor stood staring at the tree that he had helped decorate. The slowly blinking lights felt relaxing to watch. They were so small and delicate, not at all like the harsh glaring lights of the city; for some reason, the thought made him smile. Connor supposed that was his integration software, but how could it be when there was nobody around that he needed to integrate with.

It had been a year since you had last got Connor to partake in some Christmas traditions, and a lot had changed since then. Instead of living with you, he had stayed with Hank for a while before moving into his own place. He had been reinstated to the DPD where the three of you worked on more than just android related cases. Best of all however was the way Connor now regularly showed real human emotion on a daily basis; he had earned that freedom after everything he had been through.

Connor sat at the table of his own apartment, wrapping your present whilst happily listening to Christmas music. He couldn’t wait till you tore open the green parcel to find a first edition of your favourite book; it was one of the last remaining copies, since books had went paperless now. Given time, he hoped he might live to see a day where the two of you might be a couple. He longed to sit with you resting lazily on top of him, reading the book together as a couple. For now, that was only a Christmas wish, but given time, he was sure it would come true. After all, without you, Connor was sure he would have never deviated in the first place.

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[madraleen]

The Well of Ascension - Brandon Sanderson 5/5 stars

Jot-it-down-as-it happens commentary, wherein my soft-spot character becomes very clear.

-Me, not having even opened the book yet: Where’s Elend? Where is he? Is he here? -“El,” omg, hold me. -Straff Venture! Excellent. -Oh, is Elend Snapping or Ascending or something? (The thought of him dying is unacceptable) (Pls don’t pull a Kelsier on me) (Dammit, I should know better) -Oh my God, Elend is going to have a wonderful arc, isn’t he. -Not to be that person, but, damn, I love Kelsier and he isn’t even in this book. -A second kandra mystery!! Excellent. -Oh gosh, the writing style is much more alive and engaging, you go, king! -For the record, if by some chance Elend is the kandra, I’m gonna hurl this book away so fast. -Oh, hello, Zane, Elend’s brother, that’s why you looked familiar. Come to the good side, we have cookies and coins! No atium, tho, soz. -Reading what a koloss looks like, all I can say is - :O -Lekal! What! -Awww, Breeze soothing Elend, my heart. -“I think the more women you come to know, Your Majesty, the more you’ll find that statement applies to all of them.” BURN, EL! -Ah-lrianne? Oh-lrianne? Excuse me, I - *has a mini breakdown over name pronunciations* -BrEeZy! -Oh come, now Vin must dance with Elend at some point! -Vin not wanting to be kissed bc of her makeup, what a relatable queen. -Get you a man that loves like Elend loves Vin. However she is. -Omg, OreSeur is funny! -Philen! Don’t make fun of my boy! Nvm that I’m laughing, just stop! -I’m sorry, “Gneorndin”? How do I pronounce… How d… *cries* -It’s a given that Vin will go to the Well, but how, what will make her leave the city, and who will she go with? Argh, I’m so curious. -Ugh, Elend in his king clothes and Vin in her white gown, iconic, 10/10, power couple. -I love this discussion on whether a good man can become a good king. -E l e n d! Elend!! He attacc! -If Vin and El aren’t endgame, I’m throwing hands. -Oof, Sazed, yes, get them out of the city. I, too, shi-shi-shi-ship them like you do. -I love how the actions of characters affect other characters in introspective moments, how characters learn by other characters’ actions, how interconnected they are. -What a Vin way to get married. -Lol, Vin and El be honeymooning at the Well of Ascension. Of course. -I… Pls don’t let the crew die. That’s just… no. -Oh Clubs :(((( -No no, these aren’t tears, it's just just allergies… -Dockson?! :’( -Vin is so understatedly iconic. -Alendi, tho <3. Best character I never knew. -Oh no. Sazed?? Marsh??? Shazed???? -I, uh. Have questions about Zane. Didn’t he have a spike in him. -What do you mean the spirit slashed Elend’s gut, what do you mean, no! -HE HAS SNAPPED HASN’T HE -Yes, my babe, burn that pewter, my love, you’ve been working on that arc since the beginning, burn it away <3. -But who is the mist spirit. -Wait, so we have a power couple of an emperor and an empress who are both Mistborn?? That’s badass, man. -Omg, that’s amazing. Something changes the prophecies, this is ingenious. And Tindwyl was right all along, the information was contradictory! -So wait, is Zane’s God the nefarious evil? -The ending is so satisfying. -Welp. Perfect story is perfect. -I hope Breeze is doing well.

[tomboyneedshercoffee]

Being Friends with The Losers (IT)

Summary: Your personal relationship with each loser

Word Count: 1.9k

Author’s Note: I’ve been in the IT Fandom for a while so I just whipped this up because BOY do I love each Loser with all of my heart!

I did this in like an hour pls dont hurt me!!!

- There isn’t a group of friends that are closer than the loser’s club

- You loved hanging out with the Loser’s club whenever you had the chance and it didn’t take long for you to develop a close relationship with each and every one of them

- Bill was your neighbor and the first person you met when you moved to Derry

- you two would hang out pretty often, most days consisted of running errands for Bill’s mom on your bikes

-if you had enough money you two would take turns paying for snacks at the convenience store and Bill would always let you keep his leftover change because he hates the feeling of coins in his pocket

- on weekend nights, Bill would always invite you to have dinner with him and his parents so he wouldn’t be alone or lonely at the table

- you both leave your windows open so that way if there needed to be an emergency meeting between the two of you, I’d be as easy as throwing a shoe into the other person’s window

- you’ve definitely woken up to Bill sleeping at the foot of your bed whenever he had nightmares or couldn’t sleep

- you have  the tendency to kick and turn in your sleep so there are times when you’ve kicked Bill in the face

- when his “sleepover” became more frequent, you made it a point to leave space on the bed so he wouldn’t have to sleep near your feet

- out of all of your friends, your parents love Bill the most because of how respectful he is but when you two are hanging out, he never hesitates to roast you

- “ You’re actually an idiot Denbrough.”

- “ This is c-coming from the s-s-same girl who t-thought Chicago was in P-Pennsylvania s-so shu-shut your mouth.”

- You’re pretty smart in school but it’s mostly because of  your study buddy Stan Uris

- You two share most of your classes together and if you fall asleep in class, Stan always has your back and takes notes for you

-  whenever the teacher announces that you can choose your partners, he leans over his desk to flick your ear asking, telling “hey be my partner.”

- most study sessions are at his house in his living room since his parents don’t trust him to have a girl in his room

- Stan always has flashcards and his textbooks are always labeled with sticky notes which makes studying with him super easy

- if you’re reading the textbook silently, he’ll just shout random questions that he thinks will be on the test like  " QUICK! what’s the Stamp Act of 1775?“

- ”AHHHH WAIT I KNOW THIS ONE LET ME THINK!“

-” Wrong answer.“

- You two love using big words around the other loser’s to try and seem smarter, even if you have no idea what the word even means

- ” Quit being so hematopoietic all the time Richie"

-“  Cut him some slack Stan, he can’t help but feel ceruminous all the time.”

- “Okay what the hell does that even mean?”

- The only time you ever saw Stan cry was because of how much he hated Chemistry and he then proceeded to throw his textbook at the wall

- but you were always there to comfort him as best as you could with your chemistry jokes

- “hey Stan, what do you call an acid with an attitude? A-mean oh acid!!! Get it like amino ac-”

-9/10 times Stan would never laugh but he would at least give a small smile or stop pacing the room and pick up his book

-speaking of books, BOY did you get along with Ben Hanscom

- when you first saw his room, you were in awe of all the news clippings and articles scattered along his wall

- he was so happy when you asked about what other things he thought were interesting, causing him to pull a box of conspiracy theories from his closet

- you two spent a whole month reading theories about the death of Marilyn Monroe, the JFK assassination, and the moon landing

- while most of your theories made sense, you two would always debate on whether or not Aliens were real 

- “If Aliens are real how come we’ve never seen one? The closest flying saucer I ever saw was the plate that Stan threw in his house.”

“ There are UFO sightings all across America! Do you think those people just made those stories up?”

- “ YES! I think that’s exactly what they’re doing!”

- other than that, you two would always get along since you both shared a love of reading

- you two would always recommend and exchange books and you had days where you both would go to the library and just read quietly

- he always made you bookmarks out of old newspapers or tree bark

- long story short you two always have something to talk about and you’re glad someone enjoys reading as much as you

- next on the list is my boi Eddie and don’t be fooled this boy has amazing taste in music

- everyone thinks Richie has the best playlists but that’s only because Eddie recommends the songs to him

- you and Eddie share the same type of music, he said you are his “music soulmate”

- when he found out you were going on a weekend road trip, he made you a mixtape with songs he thought would keep you awake

- you never went into Eddie’s house since his mom is pretty strict about girls and who he hangs out with so you two just jam out at your house

- no one knows Eddie’s big secret: BOY can he dance, he has so much rhythm in his bones but if you ever told anyone he would kill you

- the only person who knows is you and Bill since Bill catches you and Eddie dancing through the window

- you aren’t a big dancer but when you’re around Eddie, you dance like there’s not a care in the world

- some days you two will lay on the ground side by side and go through the “sad days” mixtape that he made when he was feeling down

- other days would be the “Dance it Out” playlist where you would grab his hand and dance around your room, jumping on the bed and acting like a bunch of hyper kids

- when you’re walking to class in the morning, you’ll feel a pair of headphones go over your ears

- “Y/N you HAVE to listen to this song! Tell me this isn’t the best song ever!”

- “Africa by Toto? Are you serious?”

- if we’re on the subject of Africa by Toto, let’s talk about you and Richie

-it’s not surprising that Richie hit on you when Bill introduced the two of you but the big surprise was how quickly you two got along

- whenever he wants to watch a movie he’ll beg his dad for money and take you to the theatre where you two make comments about the movie and throw popcorn at each other

- however, when you two watched I Was A Teenage Werewolf, Richie clung onto your arm and tried to crack jokes to lighten the mood

- “Hey gov'nor! I didn’t know you were the lead role in this movie! You’re acting is phenomenal Y/N!”

- “Beep Beep Richie.”

- you loved dragging him to horror movies and you can bet when Jaws (1975) came out, he avoided jumping into the Quarry for a whole two weeks, no matter how many times Stan told him “Sharks can’t get into the Quarry”

- even though Richie is such a huge flirt, you’re definitely his wingwoman and vice versa

- when a classmate had a crush on the famous Trashmouth, Richie begged you to put in a good word for him

- it was going well until he told you of the attempted date he had

- “Wait! You told their dad ‘the only hot thing I put in my mouth is hot sauce, peppers and [Classmate’s name]?!?!”

- “ Should I have said your name instead honey?”

- but no matter how annoying Richie can be, he’s still one of your closest friends

- You were always busy with school but you made it a point to bring lunch to Mike everyday on the weekends at the farm

- you didn’t get to see Mike much since he was always telling you he was busy doing chores but you decided to volunteer and help him around the farm

- it took a little bit of convincing but he accepted your help

- one day you two had to clean the barn and move some of the machinery out to make room for more animals

- bonus Mike Outfit which is ACTUALLY CANON: Mike shows up in corduroys, a white tee shirt and black high-topped Keds

- Some of the machinery was hard to lift by yourself so you would ask Mike to help you

- “ I swear Hanlon, after all of this heavy lifting I better be as ripped as you!”

- after a hard days work, you two would sit on the grass and eat your late lunch, staring at the field and horizon as the sun went down

- your discussions were always deep and about the future, you envied how Mike knew exactly what he wanted to do with his life while you had no clue

- Mike always comforted you, telling you that you had so much time to decide what you wanted to do and that there’s no point in worrying about the future when you’re still young

- “Y/N, you’re smart, I know you’ll figure it out someday but you shouldn’t worry about how much money you’re going to make or who you’re going to fall in love with. Just live in the moment and live day by day you know?”

- “ You always know what to say, you  big nerd.”

-  Mike was always grateful for your help and presence since he knew how tired you always were after helping him out

- but you were even more grateful for having him in your life

-Last but not least is your girl Beverly who you were close to for obvious reasons

- you two were always surrounded by the loser’s club and you both would share a sigh or a groan when the boys said something incredibly stupid

- “ I’m losing brain cells being around so much testosterone, you wanna blow this popsicle stand?”

- you could always go to Beverly to talk to her about boy troubles and when she and Bill shared a kiss, you were the only person she told

- but you two didn’t always talk about boys, it seemed that there was no limit to what you two would talk about whether it be home life, the terrible thing called puberty, funny events that happened at school etc.

- one day, the boys were going to the Quarry and you were cramping so Bev decided to take you to get ice cream and you both walked around town the whole day laughing and cracking jokes

- your style was pretty different from Bev’s so it was always interesting when you would borrow clothes from her closet and vice versa

- the only person who noticed the outfit swap was Stan and it annoyed him because he thought his mind was playing tricks on him since “I just saw Beverly wearing that yesterday…”

- you love every single member of the loser’s club with all of your heart and while some days you love one of them more than the others, each of them have a special place in your life

- even if they annoy the living crap out of you sometimes

- *cough cough* Richie Tozier

-nonetheless, you couldn’t ask for a better group of friends

[sportifynews]

1:45

Sky Sports News reporter Kaveh Solhekol says Gareth Bale’s return to Tottenham from Real Madrid is ‘very close’ to being completed

Sky Sports News reporter Kaveh Solhekol says Gareth Bale’s return to Tottenham from Real Madrid is ‘very close’ to being completed

Gareth Bale’s agent has told Sky Sports News the forward has never been closer to leaving Real Madrid since his then world-record transfer in 2013 and is waiting for the green light to fly to London in his private jet and seal the move to Tottenham.

Bale’s advisors are talking to Spurs about a potential loan move from Real and negotiations have reached the stage that lawyers were drawing up contracts on Wednesday night.

Gareth Bale back to Spurs Q&A

Leon Bailey still wants PL move, Spurs interested

Tottenham transfer rumours

Transfer Centre LIVE!

It is understood Bale would like to return to Spurs – where he spent six seasons between 2007 and 2013 – and if a deal can be agreed with the Spanish club and that while slow progress is being made, all parties are confident a transfer can be done.

“There’s a long way to go on some issues, but without doubt Gareth is closer to leaving Madrid than at any time in last seven years,” Bale’s agent, Jonathan Barnett, told Sky Sports News.

“The deal is complicated, but there’s reason to believe a deal is close and things could move very quickly if discussions continue to go well.”

Spurs head coach Jose Mourinho did not want to be drawn on the club’s pursuit of Bale when fielding questions ahead of Thursday’s Europa League qualifier against Bulgarian side Lokomotiv Plovdiv.

1:20

Tottenham boss Jose Mourinho refused to confirm the club are interested in signing Bale from Real Madrid

Tottenham boss Jose Mourinho refused to confirm the club are interested in signing Bale from Real Madrid

Asked if Bale was a player he admired, Mourinho said: “I tried to sign him for Real Madrid which was not possible to do during my time there. But the president followed my instinct and my knowledge and the season I left he brought Gareth to the club.

“There is no secret on [my admiration of the player], I think even Gareth knows that.”

However, it is understood that Mourinho, having received permission from Madrid to open discussions, has spoken to Bale, explaining how he would play a pivotal role in his system.

“Gareth has spoken to Jose and explained how Spurs have a special place in his heart,” added Barnett.

Bale remains in Madrid for now but is believed to be excited by the progress which has been made.

1:04

Tottenham defender Eric Dier admits it is ‘impossible’ for the Spurs squad to ignore speculation surrounding the return of Bale

Tottenham defender Eric Dier admits it is ‘impossible’ for the Spurs squad to ignore speculation surrounding the return of Bale

Agreement has been reached on many of the key financial issues – although there is still crucial work to be carried out on what is understood to be a complicated negotiation.

Having earned more than any other British footballer, the financial aspects of his deal, including his image rights, need to be agreed by a number of parties.

It is thought unlikely that Bale, who earns in excess of £600,000-a-week, will take a pay cut as part of any deal and that Tottenham are the only club presently in discussions with the 31-year old Wales international.

Real would prefer Bale to leave on a permanent deal.

United: No meaningful talks took place for Bale

3:10

Sky Sports News reporters Dharmesh Sheth and Kaveh Solhekol explain why Manchester United never began ‘credible negotiations’ to sign Bale from Real Madrid

Sky Sports News reporters Dharmesh Sheth and Kaveh Solhekol explain why Manchester United never began ‘credible negotiations’ to sign Bale from Real Madrid

Sky Sports News reporter Alan Myers on the view from Old Trafford:

“Once it became apparent that a return to the Premier League was a distinct probability for Gareth Bale, it was almost inevitable that Manchester United’s name would be linked with the Real Madrid star.

“Compounding the issue would of course be the impasse over United’s long-running pursuit of Jadon Sancho. But the reality is, while United undoubtedly will have raised an eyebrow to what was happening with Bale, there was no real credible negotiation or dialogue between the two parties.

“Privately, the hierarchy at United were prepared to listen to the details of any such proposed move back to England for Bale but that’s as far as it got within the corridors of Old Trafford

1:35

Former Tottenham director of football Damian Comolli has warned the club’s attempts to sign Bale could be derailed by egos, as opposed to financial issues

Former Tottenham director of football Damian Comolli has warned the club’s attempts to sign Bale could be derailed by egos, as opposed to financial issues

“There is a widely understood belief that the former Spurs man wants to return to the place where he made his name, but equally having the name of Manchester United connected would always have strengthened any bargaining hand in negotiations.

“United’s rebuilding process is accompanied by a strict wage structure and, although it would be a very exciting transfer, it would go against Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s master plan

“Spurs are possibly in line to make a double swoop with Sergio Reguilon looking likely to join Bale in London, this was another deal which never went past the discussion stage at Old Trafford – one of the sticking points being a buy-back clause which United would not entertain.”

Insight: What needs to happen for the deal to go through?

Tottenham is ‘where Bale wants to be’, according to his agent Jonathan Barnett

Sky Sports News’ Paul Gilmour:

“There is a feeling that the most difficult aspect of the deal has already been sorted out which is the wages. Real Madrid are willing to subsidise part of that to make this deal happen.

“What we know as of Wednesday morning, Tottenham and Real Madrid remain in talks over the sensational return to north London and those talks centre around a loan deal. What we don’t know if there’s the possible option to buy.

“Bale has two years left on his contract, and that loan might just see out those two years. There certainly is a feeling among those close to the deal that this is more likely to happen than not as things stand. There’s a real optimism.

“The Bale to Tottenham story has come up in most windows over the past three years but the issues has always been about them not being able to afford his wages.

“If Tottenham are in a position where they only have to pay between £200,000 to £300,000-a-week, there is a feeling that this deal is one within their grasp.”

Analysis: Spurs taking a calculated risk for Bale

6:54

Bale can help lift Tottenham to a top-four Premier League finish if they sign him from Real, according to former Spurs boss Harry Redknapp

Bale can help lift Tottenham to a top-four Premier League finish if they sign him from Real, according to former Spurs boss Harry Redknapp

Sky Sports News reporter Kaveh Solhekol told The Transfer Show:

“There are three reasons why this is happening. The first is because Bale wants to play for Spurs again. Secondly, Real Madrid want to sell him, they need to sell him to get his wages off their books and the third reason is that Spurs want him back, Daniel Levy wants him back.

“There has been a big mood change as far as Bale and Real Madrid are concerned. Last summer, he came very close to a move to China that was blocked at the last minute but Real Madrid have made it very clear that they want him out this summer. Bale before ha stuck to his guns and said ‘I’ve got two years left on my contract, I’m not going anywhere’ but in the last couple of weeks, his position has changed, he wants to play football again and he will get that at Spurs.

“Spurs’ motto is ‘To Dare is To Do’, which means you have to believe in yourself and take a risk. Spurs are taking a risk signing Bale but it is a calculated risk, it makes sense to them because they are going to get him on loan, they will be paying a portion of his wages and over the whole season, it looks like he will cost them about £20m and in the current economic climate, it is a deal that makes sense for all parties.”

Analysis: ‘Now is the time for Bale to leave Madrid’

1:17

Bale joining Tottenham from Real would suit all parties, according to the Spanish club’s former president Ramon Calderon

Bale joining Tottenham from Real would suit all parties, according to the Spanish club’s former president Ramon Calderon

Former Real Madrid president Ramon Calderon told Sky Sports:

“If it’s Tottenham that he wants to go to, I’m sure he’ll go there. I don’t have a personal knowledge of his intentions or the terms of the deal, but apparently it looks to be Tottenham.

“Sometimes when the salary of the player wanting to leave Real Madrid is very high, we’ve shared part of that salary but I don’t know if that’s going to be the case now.

2:55

FREE TO WATCH: Highlights from Everton’s win over Tottenham

FREE TO WATCH: Highlights from Everton’s win over Tottenham

“He came here being the MVP from Tottenham, but now the point is to see if he can recover his time as a good player as it’s clear that Zinedine Zidane doesn’t count on him. It’s the time to end this situation and for me it’s the best moment to do that.

“I suppose it will be [a permanent deal]. He has two years left on his contract so if he leaves this season, I feel he would stay at the new club for the rest of his career. He has three or four more years at a good level, so if he goes to Tottenham maybe he will finish his career there.

“I don’t know if Dele Alli will be part of the deal, but I don’t think Tottenham would want to let him go as he’s a very good player. Any big team would want to have him in their side.”

Transfer Centre LIVE!

All the latest news, analysis and rumours from the window in one place.

The summer transfer window will run for 10 weeks from July 27 and close at 11pm on October 5.

A domestic-only window for trades between the Premier League and EFL then runs from October 5 and closes on Friday, October 16 at 5pm. Follow all the news and analysis on Sky Sports News and across Sky Sports‘ digital platforms, including with our dedicated Transfer Centre blog.

original source

The post Spurs in Bale talks over loan deal appeared first on Sportify News.

[sometimesambroswrites]

Hey it's me again! do you still take prompts? If so,,,, malec going to see Hamilton and then discussing lams? Or smth along those lines idk exactly

First of all, it was very rude of you to introduce me to this pain. *harrumphs*There is one line, one line in this fic that I’m really proud of though :3 I don’t really have a lot to say because I’m asleep on my feet rn, but a few quick points1) nobody betae’d this, I didn’t even reread it so ... pls be gentle2) every single opinion here expressed about Hamilton, Burr, Laurens etc. comes strictly from convenience to the plot, I know nothing about them

Jokes aside, thank you so much for the prompt :3 I hope you like this!Also, yes, I just made Lin-Manuel Miranda a warlock. 

Alec, of course, has no idea whatHamilton is. He knows who Hamilton is, but he just blinks atMagnus when he presents him with two tickets for Hamilton, fourthrow, central seats. Excellent tickets is what Magnus is tryingto say here. Not that it had been difficult getting them, Lin is agood friend, has been for a few centuries now, but still. Hewas expecting a bit more enthusiasm.

Fine. Never let it be said that MagnusBane gives up easily.

“A musical?”, Alec asks, scepticismheavy in his voice as he raises his eyebrows.

Magnus snatches the tickets from hishand: “A masterpiece”, he corrects.

Alec rolls his eyes: “But they justsing.”

“Who made you try Indian food”,Magnus says, pointing his finger at him, “even though you keptcomplaining and saying you wouldn’t like anything? Who would eatchicken tikka masala every single day now, hm?”

Alec raises his hands - wisely,because they both know Magnus could go on and on with similarexamples. Granted, there had been flops and mistakes like taking Alecto a gay Mundane club or taking him to a painting class for couples,but most of Magnus’ ideas had been, admittedly, fairly successful.

“Fine”, Alec says, “but I havethe right to complain throughout the whole thing and annoy you if Idon’t like it.”

Magnus grins, steps closer and says:“Of course,” and seals the deal with a quick kiss. He feels Alecsmile fondly.

*

Alec wears tight, black pants and asoft, grey, sweater with a white button down picking out from theneckline, and Magnus is a huge fan of Hamilton already.

They are almost, almost, late,because Magnus is wearing a black, see-through only if you’rewatching very closely, sheer shirt, tucked in his dark grey jeans, anembroidered dragon wrapped around his thigh, and Alec just sighs ohcome on when he turns around from where he’d been fixing hiscollar and sees Magnus.

Magnus grins at him, his shit eatinggrin, because he knows, and Alec simply glares at him whenMagnus pushes him away, lips red and eyes glossy, says: “Now it’llbe your fault if I don’t pay attention to this thing.”

Magnus keeps grinning.

They sit, Magnus’ fingers tangled inthe soft sleeve of Alec’s sweater; he can feel him tense besideshim, knows Alec isn’t comfortable with being surrounded by people,knows Alec has already memorized the exits and the routes to reachthem. He rests his head on Alec’s shoulder and Alec relaxes thetiniest bit, exhales, slips a bit lower on his seat and rolls hiseyes like he’s saying you know how I am. Magnus smacks anobnoxious kiss on his jaw.Then a voice says at thisperformance, the roles of Laurens and Philip will be played byAnthony Ramos and silence falls.

*

Alec is still sceptical at first,Magnus can tell. He’s watching distractedly, like he’s bored, andhe looks around half uncomfortable, half annoyed when people whistleand clap at the first Alexander Hamilton.

It only takes one performance for it tochange. By the time Aaron Burr, Sir is over, he’s completelyenraptured. His eyes are focused like when he’s training, his lipscurling in surprised smiles and annoyed frowns based on who’s onstage.(He seems to like Lafayette and Laurens, he’s fondlyannoyed every time Hamilton talks - he knows they’re both thinkingJace - but he can’t figure out how he feels about Burr. Hejust gets this weird frown on his face every time he’s on stage.

Also, Magnus is perfectly aware of thefact that he’s watching Alec more than he’s watching the stage,but he can’t really help himself.)

He sees him laugh and pay attention tothe lyrics, sees how he relates to the soldiers, how his eyes are wetand bright when Laurens belts out tomorrow there’ll be more ofus surrounded in a blue light, how he aches for Philip’s death,how he laughs every time King George is on stage.

He sees him stand up and clap at theend, eyes bright.

Magnus knows they’ll have to see itagain, because he doesn’t really remember anything apart fromAlec’s expressions.

*

Alec is rambling about strategies and Ican’t decide if that was bold or plain stupid and can youbelieve it they bet everything on morale and do you have booksabout George Washington and yes, I know, you’d told me so,and Magnus is more than happy to hang off of his arm as he eats hishot-dog and stay as close to him as possible, trying to steal some ofhis warmth as he listens to him. Alec doesn’t ramble oftenabout things he likes, but when he does it’s the most fascinatingthing ever. He’s incredibly smart and sharp and sees things in waysMagnus often doesn’t, and the fact that it was Magnus whointroduced him to Hamilton makes it all the more satisfying.

They are walking in silence, have beenfor probably twenty second because Magnus had gently pointed out howAlec’s hot dog wouldn’t be very good when frozen, when Alec asks:“Am I Burr?”, with a frown on his face, the same Magnus had seenevery time Burr had been on stage. He asks quietly, like he didn’treally mean to but couldn’t quite hold it back.

Magnus looks at him for a moment, knowsthat simply saying no, what the hell wouldn’t help, so heasks: “Why do you think you’re Burr?”

Alec shrugs, takes a final bite of hishot-dog: “I don’t know”, he huffs, “he always seems to wantto play it safe. Wants to please everyone. Ends up screwing uproyally.”, he shrugs again, “Sounds familiar.”

Magnus hums, tilts his head and holdson to Alec’s arm, doesn’t let him look away: “I don’t thinkthere’s anything wrong with wanting to please people, you know? Youjust have to find a balance so that you don’t forget yourself inthe meantime, what you stand for, who you want to protect. And that’ssomething you manage perfectly,” he adds, and Alec looks away anddown, a small smile curling his lips. It’s too dark to see, butMagnus is pretty sure there’s a pretty pink blush sitting on hischeeks.

“Also,” Magnus goes on, lighter,“if anything, you remind me of John. Laurens”, he adds, becausehe sees the question in Alec’s eyebrows before he asks out loud,“He too would do anything for what he believed was right. He wasstubborn when it came to his beliefs, he was incredibly smart, andmostly he was -- kind. Patient. Loyal to a fault.”He blinks,realizes Alec is watching him closely.

“Were you two -- a thing?”There’sno worry or anger or jealousy in the way Alec asks, simple curiosity,a drop of empathy in case the answer is yes, and Magnus shakes hishead, a small smile curling his lips: “God no. No, John only hadeyes for Hamilton.”

He sees Alec’s eyes widen insurprise: “Laurens and Hamilton?”

Magnus hums, nods: “They were --well, together, in their own way, from the moment they met untilJohn’s death.”

He doesn’t add maybe longer buthe remembers how Hamilton seemed to have lost something after John’sdeath, how he’d never been the same. When news of his death hadreached him, Magnus had wondered if maybe he’d aimed his gun alsobecause he’d thought of John, of how he was waiting for him on theother side.

He sees Alec mull it over, sees how heworks all the pieces together, Angelica and Eliza and John anddifferent kinds of love, for the politician and the soldier and theman.

He sees sadness settle in his eyes. “Itmust have been difficult”, he says, leaves the sentence like thatbecause there’s really no need to finish it.

Few things about Hamilton and John’slife had been easy.

He sees the sadness in his eyes and hecan’t stand it, knows the thoughts running in his head, so he says:“You know, I really didn’t like Hamilton. I found himobnoxious and loud and stubborn. He talked too much and he gave me aheadache more than once. So I asked John what he saw in him and Johnsaid when I’m with him the perfect world feels like it’s justone breath away. So when I heard that John had died I -- I feltlike I had to check on Hamilton, for him, so I wrote to him andHamilton wrote back saying I’ll build for him a world sobeautiful he’ll have to come back.”

He blinks, holds Alec’s hand tighter,feels Alec’s fingers brush his cheek, his arm around his ownshoulder, a brief kiss in his hair.

He thinks that that’s really thepoint, the only point. Going on without forgetting. Wrapping yourselfin pain, letting it hold you up until you can do it yourself.

Alec murmurs: “Let’s go home,”against his forehead, and Magnus wraps his arms around his waistsing-songs: “This is an order from your commender,” andAlec huffs, smiles.

He knows every single word of everysong by the next time they go see Hamilton.

[futbolfics]

Missed Calls- Paulo Dybala Imagine (x)

Success hadn’t come easy for you. In fact, it was rather Pyrrhic. Nonetheless, here you were, entering into the Milan airport as the designer of the first clothing line that originated from Argentina, and was to be showcased in Milan Spring Fashion Week. You felt childish perseverating over a simple text message from your former boyfriend asking if he could, quote on quote, “come and see you to chat.” Ever since Paulo had left Cordoba, things had changed. Because of his promising future, he had chosen to leave your hometown’s futbol club, composed of peon civilians, to pursue his dream of becoming a professional footballer- all while leaving you in the process. His empty promises still rang loud and clearly in your ears, “I swear, mi amor, we’ll call everyday, and as soon as I can, I’ll come and visit.” Five years and 25 unanswered phone calls later, you had finally abandoned all hope of ever seeing him again, and you despised every amorous memory of your former dalliance with him. You were teenagers in love- scratch that- you were a Ingénue who fell in love with a self absorbed prick whose love extended solely to himself what was on the pitch. Your thoughts of impending dread clouded your usually well-functioning brain, as your agent repeatedly called your name.

“Y/n,” Camila hissed causing you to abruptly turn to her, knocking over your coffee in the process. “We have dress rehearsals tonight,” she hastily snapped, “And you need to be there in order to approve of the styling for the models.” As the two of you exited the egress and waved over a taxi, she continued to ramble on about the importance of each event on the agenda for the day. You bit your lip and tried to maintain a state of attentiveness towards her discussion, but your thoughts continued to drift towards him. In that moment your phone buzzed, as the name on caller ID registered immediately in your mind- Paulo. You read the text message repeatedly until your eyes went numb. “Y/n,” it read, “I heard the big day is tomorrow! So proud of you tbh. You’ll catch me in the front row.”

“Camila,” you hesitated, “the show is booked completely, right?”

She shot you a look the iterated “I-have-told-you-this-at-least-a-thousand-times,” and wailed, “Yes, that is why it is imperative that you focus today!”

After you had finished all of the quintessential events on schedule, you flopped onto your hotel bed, going through your cell phone. You coyly smiled as you scanned through Juventus’s game schedule. Serendipitously enough, tomorrow Paulo had a home game against Delfino Pescara, meaning that there was no way in hell he’d show up to your show. ‘He’d always choose football over you,’ you thought as you flicked the light switch off, ‘You had learned that lesson a long time ago.’

The next morning, as you reached the venue, butterflies began to form a pit in your stomach, causing you to be a a tad more meticulous than you already were. As people began to file in one by one, the evanescent feeling of fear became replaced with unwavering confidence- you were ready. As the lights dimmed, the models strutted effortlessly down the runway, showcasing the hours of work you had forged, by highlighting each embellishment on the articles of clothing. At the time of the finale, you walked hand-in-hand with your team of co-designers down the aisle as the mellifluous sound of the crowd’s cheers carried you every step you took. Your eyes inflated to the size of balloons as you scanned the crowd, and found Paulo clapping ebulliently while looking up at you. As you exited of the runway with your coworkers, you glanced at the text message, that Paulo had sent to you. “That was incredible! Meet me out back in an hour. Pls?” You groaned while securing your phone in your pocket, as you began to re-organize each outfit that had been on display that night. Sixty minutes passed, and you found your hands clumsily trembling to open the door to the back exit. As you maneuvered out of the door, and found a familiar frame you had grown accustomed to waiting patiently for you.

“Y/n,” Paulo cheered, “Congratulations! I’m still having a hard time grasping the fact that you actually designed all of those.” “I remember when you used to sketch on the back of everything,” he rambled, “Nothing was safe, newspapers, magazines, hell- even my comic books you would draw on.”

Biting your bottom lip, you tried to forget the vestigial memories of Paulo’s weird obsession with comic books, and how both of your quirks conflated in the most beautiful way possible. “Yeah,” you remarked monotonously, “So what’s up?”

You saw pools of green look hastily to the floor and then back up to you while he confessed, “Listen, y/n, I just wanted to let you know that I know I have made a mistake, and seeing you here today, and witnessing everything that you’ve become,” he trailed off, “Well, it’s been a blessing”

“A mistake?” you scoffed, “No a mistake would be forgetting your girlfriend’s birthday, or I don’t know, accidentally throwing out your boyfriend's old comic books,” you surmised.

“You mean antiques! Y/n they were antiques!” Paulo chimed in looking miffed.

“Whatever,” you  objected aggressively, “The point is you don’t just get to ignore someone for five years and walk back into their life, by saying ‘oh, it was a mistake.’ Do you know how many times I called you?” you argued in disbelief.

“25,” he whispered guiltily, “I still-um- have them, believe it or not. I used to listen to them when I felt homesick”

“Are you looking for some kind of sympathy,” you retorted approaching him, “You were the one who never called me back. You were the one who decided to forget me.”

“I’m not asking for your sympathy,” he pleaded, matching your stride by advancing forward, inches away from your face, “and I never forgot you. I was a teenager who knew that if I continued to talk to you, I would end up catching the next flight to back to Argentina in the following days,” he croaked, fighting back tears.“Hi, this is just y/n, I know you maybe aren’t receiving these, but I just called to let you know you have someone thinking about you at home,” he recited, matching every intonation and elision of your voice perfectly. “Do you know how many times I’d have to listen to your recording, just to fall asleep? You felt the hot air emanate from his breath causing shivers to run down your spine. “Do you know how many-” he began causing you to cut him off, by reaching up and feeling the dulcet taste of his lips against yours as you pulled him into a kiss.

You felt a smile etch onto his lips as he tousled your hair playfully. He pulled your body into his embrace, and optimistically whispered in your ear, “Does this mean I back into your good books?”

“Absolutely not,” you giggled, “That’s going to have to take a lot more work.”

“Of course it does,” he smirked while batting his captivating emerald eyes at you, “I guess I’m just going to have to work extra hard to make up for lost time.”

[shadowywonderlandobservatio-blog]

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[sarangjjokjis]

seven days (to fall in love)

seven days au // 22625 // somewhere in between monday and sunday, wonwoo falls

— monday

wonwoo doesn’t consider himself to be the luckiest in love. he doesn’t have that much experience to speak of— which, in his case, means none at all— and frankly, he’s not that interested in romance, not while university entrace exams are looming over his head. he wants to go to school for business or economics, and while he knows he’d be fine with either one, the scores he’d need to get into either one at a top school are insanely high.

so far, he’s managed to do well in school, becoming the vice president of the second year class and founding the first literature club there. between helping to manage the events their class puts on every so often and setting up a space for anyone to freely discuss their favorite books, wonwoo has no time at all for matters of the heart.

which is why he’s currently spending his lunchtime staring out of the window and into the school courtyard down below. there’s a small group of girls all talking animatedly among themselves, and some of them seem to be holding small envelopes, evidently love letters.

“oh, it’s starting again,” jihoon remarks, looking over wonwoo’s shoulder. “they’re waiting for him.”

“what’s happening? why are you guys all crowded in here like this?” soonyoung, who’s in another class, asks as he nudges his way in between wonwoo and jihoon. he leans his weight against wonwoo’s shoulder, sighing wistfully. “ah, the weekly ritual of love. don’t you ever get tired of watching?”

“not really,” wonwoo says. he rests his chin on his palm, watching as some of the girls pull out their phones to start checking the time. “kinda makes you wonder, though, doesn’t it?”

“what does? soonyoung doesn’t even think, let alone do things requiring an imagination,” jihoon says wryly, which earns him a smack on the arm. “oh right, i forgot you dance.”

“how do you /forget/ i dance! that’s all i ever talk about! do you even listen to me when i open my mouth or does it just go in one ear and out the other?”

as the argument escalates behind him, both soonyoung and jihoon getting progressively louder and louder as their bickering gets more off track, wonwoo sighs and turns his attention back outside the window. it’s been going on for at least a few weeks now. every monday, like clockwork, a crowd gathers in the courtyard, and the reason it happens had spread slowly through the school at first, then like a wildfire, as if someone had lit a flame under it.

wonwoo supposes he can’t blame kim mingyu for attracting the eyes and hearts of even students years above him. he’s heard that every monday at lunchtime, the first year agrees to go out with whoever manages to ask him out first. apparently he doesn’t have a type— guys or girls, short or tall, pretty or not, he’ll say yes to all of them.

“it must suck, though, to go out with someone as handsome as he is and then break up with him after a week,” soonyoung says, reappearing next to wonwoo’s shoulder. “i guess it’s a good week, though, if no one’s ever talked shit about him behind his back for doing things like this.”

“i heard he’s a really great cook,” jihoon says, straightening his collar. “maybe that’s why. i mean, if he was good at making a decent cup of coffee i wouldn’t say anything bad about him either.”

“speaking of food, though, do you think our jjajangmyeon’s here yet? we ordered that, like, twenty minutes ago, right? wonwoo, go check if the delivery guy’s here yet, it’s your turn to pay~” soonyoung singsongs.

“i hate you, kwon soonyoung,” wonwoo grumbles, but he pushes himself out of his desk to make the trek down the stairs of the building. they’re lucky that as far as high schools go, theirs is pretty lax. they’re allowed to order delivery to the school as long as they can finish it within the forty-five minutes alloted for lunch, and being the teenage boys they are, they usually end up splitting a meal three ways between them and taking turns paying for it.

he ends up passing by the crowd of girls on his way outside the gate, and he hears one of them mutter to her friend, “where’s mingyu-oppa? he wasn’t here the entire day, do you think something’s wrong?”

well. it isn’t his problem if an underclassman skips school. he waits outside the gates for the deliveryman, taking out his phone only to see that soonyoung and jihoon have sent him a multitude of text messages in the two minutes that he’s been gone.

12:40 haemjji: hello wheres the food??? 12:40 haemjji: im STARVING 12:40 haemjji: pls wonu :(( 12:41 uri jihoonie: ignore him 12:41 uri jihoonie: take all the time you need wonwoo 12:41 uri jihoonie: just ignore him

wonwoo snorts, tapping out quick messages before soonyoung can whine any longer.

12:42 jeonha: calm down 12:42 jeonha: the guys not here yet 12:42 jeonha: oh wait i think i see him 12:43 jeonha: youre saved 12:43 jeonha: soooo needy

wonwoo lifts his head up— he’d heard the revving of engines, and he’d assumed that they were from the jjajangmyeon delivery guy’s motorbike, but he’s wrong. it’s a car instead, and he watches with no small amount of interest as a tall and lanky figure steps out of the passenger seat. he waves goodbye to the driver before watching the car drive away from the school.

wonwoo doesn’t need to see the boy’s face to know who it is. all he needs is the first year uniform and the tanned skin and the unruly mop of hair, and he knows that it’s—

“hey! kim mingyu!”

the boy turns, his eyes wide and his jaw slack. he stares at wonwoo for just a brief moment before he’s bowing at the waist with his arms straight by his side.  “sunbae!”

wonwoo doesn’t stop a small grin from curling across his lips. there’s something to be said about how /earnest/ mingyu is. wonwoo doesn’t know him all that well, really. he’s only had the chance to meet him a few times before, most memorably at the beginning of the school year when wonwoo had given a welcome speech for the first years and mingyu had been one of the class representatives.

mingyu is standing so stiffly, though, and wonwoo feels just a bit bad for him. “hey, it’s okay. there’s no need to be so formal with me. i’m not really anyone special, just hyung is alright.”

mingyu straightens up, the expression on his face relaxing. “is calling you wonwoo-hyung okay?”

wonwoo nods, and a relieved smile breaks out across mingyu’s face. mingyu shifts the weight of his backpack from one shoulder to the other, and then wonwoo realizes something. “why aren’t you in class? did something come up?”

“ah. my sister had a bit of a… feminine problem, so i went with her to grab some supplies. a neighbor drove me to school since she knew i was already late.” mingyu rubs the back of his neck a bit sheepishly, before his eyes widen again, adding frantically, “i’ve already asked some of my classmates to lend me their notes so i’m not behind.”

“oh, i’m not too concerned about that. i’m really not a stickler about things like that,” wonwoo says, waving his hand in the air, and mingyu heaves a sigh. “why? am i really that scary?”

mingyu fidgets. “no, wonwoo-hyung, but it’s just that… well. people talk, and i… i heard some people say you were really big on missing school and being late. just things like that.”

wonwoo actually laughs at that, a loud sound that comes barreling out of him, and he knows it’s the kind of laugh where his entire body folds into itself and his nose scrunches up. “wow. wow, no. if i were big on attendance, do you really think i would be friends with kwon soonyoung?”

“oh, that sunbae? he’s the president of the dance team here, right?”

wonwoo crosses his arms over his chest, pretending to puff up his chest with bravado. “yeah, let’s just say that if i cracked down on everyone who was late to class or missed school, kwon soonyoung wouldn’t even be in school right now. he’s just lucky i take such good notes, otherwise he really might’ve failed his first year.” wonwoo leans forward, a conspiratorial grin on his lips. “by the way, you shouldn’t call him sunbae. his head is already big as it is already, don’t inflate it even more.”

“i see, sun— wonwoo-hyung,” mingyu says, stumbling over the honorific. wonwoo frowns inwardly. this can’t be the first time mingyu’s spoken to an upperclassman, but why is he so awkward? he hadn’t seemed like this when wonwoo had coincidentally happened to catch one of the sports games mingyu was substituting in for an injured member for. wonwoo wonders why he’s so… awkward.

when mingyu starts angling his body as if he’s about to leave, wonwoo remembers the huge group of girls that had been waiting just inside the school gates. he gestures to the gates, waving a hand in the vague direction. “mingyu, do they always wait for you like that?”

mingyu flushes, ducking his head. “oh— that. hyung, you know about it?”

“do /i/ know about it? pretty much everyone knows about you, kim mingyu,” wonwoo says, not unkindly. “they’re all in love with that handsome face of yours. so they always wait for you like this?”

“kind of. i’m used to it, though, hyung. don’t worry about me.” mingyu smiles, and for the first time, wonwoo notices that he has a very visible canine, one that shows whenever he smiles fully.

“does it bother you?” wonwoo asks, and mingyu shakes his head.

“i don’t mind it. after all, it’s my fault that this happened, right?” mingyu shrugs, in a /what can you do about it/ type of gesture.

“do you have a type then? so many people must come to ask you out every week, how do you choose?”

“i just go out with the first person who asks me,” mingyu says. “otherwise, that wouldn’t be fair, would it? to play favorites?”

it doesn’t make any sense at all to wonwoo. it doesn’t click for him to just spend a week with whoever happens to be the first one in line, who gets to run up to him and confess first, or the loudest one who can make their voice heard.  but still, wonwoo nods in agreement. “so you don’t have a type at all? you must have a type, though?”

“hmm. i don’t think so, not really. but let me think, wonwoo-hyung.” mingyu taps his chin, staring into the distance. wonwoo is about to tell him that it’s okay if he doesn’t have a type, that wonwoo could really not care less if mingyu has a specific hair color or eye shape he likes when mingyu’s face brightens up. “oh! i like your face, hyung.”

his face? wonwoo knows he’s handsome. it’s something people have told him ever since he was old enough to know what beauty and attractiveness were, that /oh, jeon-ssi, your son is growing up to be more and more handsome by the day/ from the ahjummas at the neighborhood market, or /wonwoo-yah, stop being so fucking handsome all the time, you make jihoon and me look bad/, from soonyoung just earlier that month.

but as nice as it is having a face he can stare into a mirror for minutes and minutes on end for without stopping, it’s also a crutch in a way. there are expectations that people have of him, that he’s supposed to be well-mannered and intelligent and athletic, all of the qualities that would generally be packaged with a face like his, that he just can’t meet. he can’t be the model son or the top student or the star athlete, and he always watches the faces of expectation turn into faces of badly concealed disappointment when they realize he’s not all that he’s supposed to be.

just as mingyu is used to people swarming him, desperate to be the first one to say the magic words, wonwoo is used to this. he’s used to people telling him they like his face and then being repelled by the way he always laughs too loudly and too widely, by the way he can lie in bed for hours on end without moving and still want an afternoon nap, by the way he can eat three servings’ worth of a meal in one sitting and have room for dessert.

“thank you,” wonwoo says. “your face is nice too.”

mingyu’s hands fly to his own cheeks, as if this is the first time he’s been told that his face is nice, which wonwoo is one hundred percent certain it’s not. “i— thank you, hyung. i should probably—”

right. lunchtime. all of the girls waiting inside the gate for mingyu. wonwoo straightens up, brushes the imaginary lint off of his slacks, and moves so that mingyu can pass by. before he does, though, he’s struck by a sudden impulse, and he has no idea where it comes from or what it’s doing in his brain in the first place. but if mingyu likes his face, there’s no real harm in doing what the idea is whispering at him to do, since they’re just sunbae and hoobae, just friends, right? he’s just curious, really, if mingyu would say yes, so he blurts out, “mingyu, would you go out with me?”

mingyu stops in his tracks, and before he can respond, wonwoo sees the jjajangmyeon delivery guy speed down the road, stopping in front of him. finally. his phone’s been vibrating like crazy in the last few minutes, no doubt due to soonyoung’s incessant messages. the smell of the noodles wafts out of the take out boxes, and wonwoo is practically /salivating/.

wonwoo approaches the delivery guy with the same kind of feelings that he expects that the first people to have ever discovered an oasis in the desert felt as well, and he rummages through his pockets for his wallet, but he comes up with nothing. /fuck/. he must’ve left it in the classroom with jihoon and soonyoung in his backpack.

when he looks up, though, the delivery guy is gone, and mingyu is standing there with the plastic bags dangling from his hands. shit. mingyu must’ve paid for it. “i’m so sorry, mingyu, i left my wallet in my bag in my classroom. if you come by after class ends, i can pay you back for this, okay?”

mingyu cocks his head to the side. “wonwoo-hyung, what class are you in?”

“i’m in 2-a.”

“oh really?” mingyu grins. “i’m in 1-a, i guess we’re in the same class, just different years.”

wonwoo sighs with relief, taking the bags from mingyu. “i’m so glad i met you here, mingyu. thanks so much, you really saved my stomach today. find me after class today, alright?”

mingyu nods. “i’ll see you later, hyung,” he says, and waves wonwoo off. “i’ll be heading in a bit later, so you go ahead, wonwoo-hyung.”

when wonwoo brings the jjajangmyeon back to the classroom, soonyoung’s  about to descend on it like a ravenous vulture when jihoon puts a hand up.

“wait. soonyoung stole your wallet because he thought it would be funny to watch you run all the way back here to get your wallet when the delivery guy came,” jihoon says around soonyoung’s palm on his mouth. he wrenches soonyoung’s hand off of him and reaches into wonwoo’s desk to pull out his wallet. “how’d you pay for this?”

“oh. i met an underclassman outside, and he paid for the lunch.” at soonyoung and jihoon’s twin raised eyebrows, wonwoo hurries to explain. “i’ll pay him back later, though, it’s not like i got treated to lunch by an underclassman. jeez. seriously. by the way, you’re an asshole, soonyoung.”

soonyoung blows a kiss at him when wonwoo settles into his chair, picking apart a pair of chopsticks. “i love you too,” he mumbles happily around a mouthful of noodles.

“stop talking while you’re eating,” jihoon says, disgust written into every line of his face. soonyoung stares at him, his jaws paused mid-chew, before he lunges forward to smush his face into jihoon’s. “oh god, wonwoo, get him away from me! stop, i’m trying to eat, what is your /problem/?”

wonwoo exhales before reaching forward to smack soonyoung on the small of his back. “hey, kwon soonyoung, stop that, or i’m pretty sure jihoon is going to come by your house in the middle of the night and set everything you love on fire.” wonwoo pauses to think. “he’d probably take your those choreo vids we all agreed never happened and release them to the world, too.”

“you wouldn’t,” soonyoung breathes out, his jjajangmyeon forgotten. “lee jihoon, you wouldn’t.”

jihoon shrugs, leaning back in his chair and slurping up a mouthful of noodles and sauce. “do you want the secret that only the three of us know to become a secret the entire world knows?” jihoon’s lips curl into a wicked grin. “your move.”

soonyoung is the calmest wonwoo’s ever seen him at lunch, and when he finishes off his bowl and tosses it into the bag, he glares at jihoon. “watch out, you little gremlin. don’t forget i still have those preschool videos of you trying to serenade our teacher,” he cheerily singsongs before making a break for the door and running for his own classroom in 2-c before jihoon can even react.

wonwoo hides his laugh behind his hand as jihoon sits there, fuming and writing /kwon soonyoung is going to die/ on his notes. the rest of the class passes by in a such a blur that he almost forgets that he’d asked mingyu to come by after the day ended. of course, the whispers start up a few minutes after the final bell rings, and wonwoo cranes his neck above the relatively lower sea of heads to see what’s going on.

“isn’t that 1-a’s kim mingyu? what’s he doing here?” wonwoo hears, and he’s out, grabbing his wallet and pushing past his classmates to reach mingyu. mingyu’s leaning against the wall, one leg crossed over the other, and he’s smiling down— down! it’s been a while since wonwoo’s had to look /up/ at anyone, and he doesn’t know if he likes it or not— at wonwoo.

“hi, wonwoo-hyung.”

“hey, mingyu,” wonwoo says, and counts out the exact change plus a few thousand won extra for the tip that mingyu had probably paid as well before handing it out to him.

“oh, thanks,” mingyu says, folding the bills up. he takes out his phone. “hyung, could i get your kakao id? is that okay?”

wonwoo blinks. it’s not a weird question, but it’s just a bit /faster/ than wonwoo usually exchanges info like that with people he’s just become friends with. but still, maybe mingyu is just overly friendly, so he shrugs and takes the phone, keying his name and info into the kakao app. “here,” he says when he’s done, handing the phone back.

“great. i’ll text you later so you have my contact info too, hyung.” mingyu puts his phone away before leaning forward to tuck something into wonwoo’s jacket pocket.  he grins. “see you tomorrow!”

“bye, mingyu,” wonwoo says absently, meandering back to his desk, where jihoon is waiting. he’s just a bit taken aback, though, when he sees the expression jihoon has on. “what?”

“since /when/ were you friends with kim mingyu?” jihoon asks, his eyes narrowed. “what’s going on?”  

“i’m not friends with him,” wonwoo says, still confused. “he’s the one who paid for lunch earlier, so i asked him come by so i could pay him back.”

jihoon snorts. “look in your pocket, you dumbass.”

with a feeling of dread starting to materialize in his stomach, wonwoo looks down, and he almost immediately regrets doing it. in his jacket pocket are the neatly folded bills that he’d just handed over to mingyu for lunch.

“i just got treated to lunch by an underclassman,” wonwoo groans, but there’s something unsettling about this that he can’t quite put his finger on.

he realizes what it is as he’s walking home and searching through his apps for some new music to listen to on the way back. there’s a new notification from his kakao, and when he clicks on it, a message pops up saying that /kim mingyu has added you/, and wonwoo finally puts it together.

paying for lunch, asking for his contact info— there’s only one way to explain it: did mingyu think he was serious?

(six days remaining)

— tuesday

wonwoo’s phone is buzzing. it’s honestly way too early for him to be woken up like this, given the fact that his alarm hasn’t even gone off yet, so he groans and rolls over in bed to try to ignore it. it doesn’t work. the buzzing goes on, and the more he lets it continue, the more he feels like his skull is going to split apart.

“what the fuck,” he grumbles under his breath, finally giving in and reaching for his phone on the bedside stand. he squints at the display glowing on the screen— he doesn’t have his glasses on, and he doesn’t sleep with contacts, either, so he has to lean a bit closer to see who it is that keeps messaging him at fucking six thirty in the morning. he’s ready to tear into soonyoung or jihoon, whichever one of those two it is, for ruining his sleep until he reads the messages, and now he’s even /more/ ready to fight someone at lunchtime.

06:29 kim mingyu: good morning! 06:30 kim mingyu: hi wonwoo-hyung! 06:30 kim mingyu: are you awake? 06:30 kim mingyu: it’s going to be a warm day today 06:31 kim mingyu: so make sure to put on sunscreen

/kim mingyu/, wonwoo types out, still squinting in the dark. he takes extra care to spell every word correctly and to not use any of the slang he’s gotten used to with soonyoung and jihoon. he has to put his foot down, show mingyu who’s the boss here. /do you want to die?/

the reply comes almost instantaneously. /umm, not really. why?/

/because you probably have a death wish, waking me up this early/, wonwoo sends, and it doesn’t take long for his message to be read. he wonders if mingyu is lying on his bed and squinting in the darkness the way wonwoo is, or if he’s awake already and getting ready for school. whatever, mingyu’s morning routines aren’t wonwoo’s business, and wonwoo’s shouldn’t be mingyu’s, so why—

his phone buzzes again, this time with an incoming call, and wonwoo sighs as he picks up. it’s honestly too early for him to be awake, and he knows that he probably shouldn’t take out his early morning anger on mingyu, but he just can’t help himself. it’s just so /early/.

“what?”

“i didn’t expect you to be so grumpy in the morning, wonwoo-hyung,” mingyu says, his voice tinny over the phone. “are you more of a night owl?”

mingyu doesn’t even sound that excited to be awake, though, the way that his other friends who wake up at ungodly hours do whenever they try prank calling him at five in the morning. he wonders if mingyu’s up so he can bother wonwoo, or if there’s an underlying reason for it all.

“yeah, i am. why would i want to wake up this early when i don’t even need to be awake until seven to get ready for school?”

“i guess that makes sense. wonwoo-hyung seems like the kind of person who stays up all night reading, anyway.” wonwoo hears a low and muffled laugh from over the connection. it’s still evidently tinged with sleep, and if that alone hadn’t already confirmed wonwoo’s suspicions, the telltale sound of mingyu trying to suppress a yawn comes through the phone.

“hey, you’re not a morning person either, are you?” wonwoo accuses. “did you wake up this early just to annoy me? you did, didn’t you?”

a beat. “not really,” mingyu says, his voice softer now. “i kind of had a dream and i couldn’t go back to sleep, so i thought i might just text you to see if you were awake. sorry for waking you up. i just— i just wanted to talk to you.”

well, shit. wonwoo feels /awful/ now, suddenly more awake than he’d been at any second during the last five minutes. “are you okay now? was it a nightmare?”

there’s a terrifying, horrifying second when all wonwoo can hear is mingyu’s steady breathing. “no, hyung. it was just a regular dream. maybe i’ll tell you about it someday when i get the chance to.”

“i’m glad it wasn’t a nightmare, though,’ wonwoo says before he looks back at the alarm clock on his desk, its glowing numbers still bright in the rapidly dawning morning light. “i don’t know if you or i can even go back to sleep after this, though. i’m going to go get ready for school, so i’m gonna hang up now.”

“okay,” mingyu says, and wonwoo has his index finger hovering over the button to end the call when mingyu yells out, “wait!”

“what’s wrong?”

“um. hyung, do you want to eat lunch together today? i promise i won’t pay for your meal this time.”

wonwoo snorts, but he’s glad that they’re separated by phone screens right now so mingyu can’t see the smile on his face. it’s been a long time since he’s gotten to have lunch with someone whose name wasn’t lee jihoon or kwon soonyoung. even though he knows he doesn’t get out much, it never hurts to have more friends. “sure thing, mingyu. do you want to drop by 2-a? or should i come down to you?”

“we can go on the roof, if you’d like.”

wonwoo’s interest is immediately piqued. “the roof? but it’s locked.”

“i know a way in,” mingyu says, and wonwoo has /no idea/ how mingyu knows the way to the roof when wonwoo doesn’t even though he’s a year older. he’s going to find out today, though. definitely. “i’ll show you.”

“alright, kim mingyu. don’t flake on me,” wonwoo warns. “i’ve always wanted to go up to the roof.”

mingyu laughs, brighter than the chuckle he’d let out before. “okay, hyung. i’ll see you later.”

wonwoo gets ready in almost record time. when he makes it to the dinner table, his backpack on his shoulders and his tie securely in place over his cardigan, bohyuk stares at him from across the plates, his chopsticks clattering noisily to the ground.

“what?” wonwoo pulls out a chair and plops down in it, reaching for the boxes of cereal to pour himself a bowl.

“nothing,” bohyuk says, his eyebrows furrowing, disappearing momentarily under the table to retrieve his chopsticks. “you look… happy today. you’re never happy in the morning.”

wonwoo scoffs. “i’m always happy.”

“hyung, that is so untrue. last week, you told me my hair looked ugly even though you were the one who chose it for me in the first place, and it was only because i woke you up before you’d be late to school. now you’re like, thirty minutes early. what gives?”

“maybe i just wanted to wake up early for once,” wonwoo says, noisily bringing spoonful after spoonful of cereal into his mouth. bohyuk stares at him even more /strangely/. “what /now/? jeon bohyuk, aren’t you tired of seeing my face after so many years?”

“well, yeah, kinda,” bohyuk starts, then he says more slowly, “hyung, you /never/ eat this flavor of cereal. the one you like is in the cupboard.”

wonwoo blinks, looking down into the bowl. oh, he’s right. this is the one with the mixed nuts and berries, and he wrinkles his nose. “oh, ew. how’d you notice, bohyukie?”

bohyuk pushes himself and his chair back out of the table so quickly that the chairs screech against the floor. “that’s the third weird thing! you /never/ call me bohyukie! never! why are you so damn weird today, hyung?”

wonwoo watches bohyuk leave for school, with bohyuk looking back every so often as he laces his shoes up and tossing him a “ugh, so weird, who are you and what have you done to my brother?” before he steps out of the door. whatever. it’s not wonwoo’s fault bohyuk is the weird one in their family.

wonwoo finishes his cereal and cleans up his and bohyuk’s meals, and he grabs the extra roll of kimbap his mom had laid out on the table for lunch. he’s strangely… happy when he’s walking to school. there’s a weird skip in his step, and it’s when he finds himself whistling along to the birdsong he hears on the road that he can finally admit it to himself— yeah, something’s wrong with him today. something’s really wrong.

the first few hours of school go as usual. there’s homeroom, where jihoon tries to stack as many ripped up pieces of paper into wonwoo’s hair before he notices, then english and korean. after their korean literature teacher leaves the room, it’s lunchtime, and wonwoo looks down at his notes to see doodles scribbled all over the page. weird.

“it’s him again,” jihoon says, seemingly apropos of nothing, and wonwoo lifts his head up from his backpack from where he’d been looking for his roll of kimbap to share with soonyoung.

“who?” wonwoo asks, but he doesn’t need to ask to know the answer. mingyu’s standing in the doorway, and once he catches wonwoo’s eye, he waves. “oh, gotta go.”

“hey, jeon wonwoo,” soonyoung starts. “what exactly is kim mingyu doing here? and why are you going to lunch with him?”

“he’s just a hoobae,” wonwoo says defensively. “i don’t know why you’re being so weird about it, you’re acting like i can’t have friends a different age from me. what about seokmin for soonyoung? what about seungcheol-hyung for you?”

“you’re misdirecting us on purpose. that isn’t my point at all and you know it,” jihoon says, his eyes narrowing.

“am not,” wonwoo says, taking his roll of kimbap, and for good measure, he sticks his tongue out at jihoon and soonyoung, a gesture that only soonyoung returns.

“they seem to be really good friends of yours,” mingyu comments, swinging a small cloth bag in front of him as they walk up the staircase.

“yeah, they just seem like that if you haven’t spent much time with them at all,” wonwoo snorts. he tosses the roll of kimbap into the air, catching it as it falls. “but they’re really annoying once you get to know them well. trust me.”

they’re at the top of the stairwell now, after passing the third floor, and wonwoo stops right in front of the door.

“it’s locked,” wonwoo says, reaching out to jiggle the handle. it doesn’t budge. “see? i told you.”

“wonwoo-hyung, let me.” mingyu shoves his way past wonwoo, and he holds out a smalll cloth-wrapped box. “oh, can you hold my lunch for me?”

wonwoo takes the box and watches as mingyu pushes the lock into the handle before twisting it in the opposite direction that it’s supposed to go. it opens, and mingyu turns to give wonwoo a victorious grin before pushing the door open more widely.

“after you, hyung,” he says with an exaggerated bow, and even though wonwoo scoffs, he still goes through. the rooftop is more expansive than he’d thought, spanning nearly an entire baseball diamond and more. it’s almost unearthly still up here, and wonwoo can only imagine what he can do up here without having to deal with his friends. he can read as much as he wants, or he can get some homework done, or he can just lie down and take a nap. it’s perfect.

“it’s really not that cool,” mingyu says, coming up behind wonwoo, and wonwoo startles, very nearly dropping mingyu’s boxed lunch and his own roll of kimbap.

“i’ve never been here before, okay?” wonwoo mumbles, shoving the box back into mingyu’s chest, and mingyu lets out a soft /oof/. “where do you usually sit?”

“there.” mingyu points at what looks to be an unused shed, and wonwoo can practically feel his eyebrows

“we’re going in there?”

“uh, i think that shed’s locked really tightly. some of my classmates told me that it used to be a club room, but the club was disbanded, so the room was shut down too. we can just sit in the shade next to it, since it looks pretty clean over there.”

wonwoo shrugs. it can’t be that bad, since the floor looks pretty clean, if a little bit dusty. besides, even if mingyu ends up kidnapping him, at least jihoon and soonyoung know that wonwoo was with the underclassman. it’s fine. he takes a seat next to mingyu on the ground next to the shed, his back against the wall. taking mingyu’s silence as a cue to start eating, wonwoo picks up his kimbap and starts peeling off the plastic wrap. he has a piece halfway to his mouth when he feels something tap his leg.

he looks down. it’s a small carton of banana milk, and wonwoo looks up to meet mingyu’s eyes. there’s a small smile playing at the edges of mingyu’s lips, and the longer mingyu taps the carton of milk against wonwoo’s leg, the wider the grin gets.

“i thought you said you weren’t going to buy me lunch.”

the carton taps more insistently against his leg. “hyung, who will drink this banana milk if you don’t? what if it just goes to waste? it’ll just end up in the garbage if you don’t drink it. i already have one. why don’t you just take this?”

wonwoo narrows his eyes at mingyu. after paying for his jjajangmyeon yesterday, and now this, it’s obvious what mingyu is up to. “i know what’s going on.”

“you do?”

then wonwoo realizes that this is his chance. he can clear any and all of the misconceptions that mingyu might’ve had about him— he can tell mingyu that he’d just been testing whether or not mingyu /really/ went out with anyone. he can finally, finally ask mingyu if he thinks they’re actually dating.

wonwoo swallows. “hey, mingyu, can i ask you a question?”

mingyu doesn’t look up. he’s too busy trying to balance the carton of banana milk on wonwoo’s leg. “yeah, go ahead, hyung.”

“are we dating right now?”  

mingyu looks up at him, and with wide, wide eyes, says, “yeah, wonwoo-hyung. you were the one who asked me. now are you going to drink this milk or not?”

wonwoo should stop this. he really, really should— this isn’t going to end well for either of them, and it’s only going to cause both of them pain in the long run. but mingyu’s eyes are so bright and so expectant that the words die out in wonwoo’s throat, and instead of /mingyu, i’m sorry, i didn’t think you would actually take it seriously/, he says, “yeah, i will,” and snatches the carton out of mingyu’s hands.

he can’t shake the feeling that he’s doing something unspeakably wrong somehow, but he figures that this is probably what the routine is like. if mingyu dates someone different every week, it must be commonplace for him to buy them lunch and take them up to this roof and tap cartons of banana milk against their leg until they finally give in and take it.

this must be something he’s done many times before, enough for word to spread that kim mingyu is a nice guy who’ll give you a fun week of memories and break up with you on good terms. he’s never, ever heard anything bad about mingyu, so he probably doesn’t try anything that anyone’s uncomfortable with during those weeks.

mingyu might just be lonely. wonwoo doesn’t understand how someone like him, with looks that draw people in like honey and the personality to match, could possibly be lonely enough to date anyone at all who asks him out, but he supposes that maybe that’s what mingyu is looking for in life— a steady stream of companionship, of learning new things about people and of making new friends.

wonwoo thinks that out of everything he could choose to fault mingyu for, it’s definitely not this. mingyu is kind and charming, and if he’s going to spend the next week with mingyu— if he’s going to spend the next week /dating/ mingyu, he might as well make it worth both of their time. after all, they’re both busy people, and they don’t have that much time left.

so wonwoo lets himself lean against mingyu just a little— mingyu is just a tiny bit taller than he is, if wonwoo tells himself that four centimeters is “just a tiny bit,” and the difference between them isn’t as apparent when they’re sitting down. mingyu is warm and solid next to him, and wonwoo thinks that everyone else before him, they’ve all been lucky to have someone like mingyu by their side.

well. time’s ticking. even if wonwoo doesn’t think he’ll necessarily be the /best/ date mingyu’s ever had, wonwoo’s confident that he’s going to be the best friend mingyu’s made out of a situation like this.

wonwoo takes the next piece out of his kimbap roll and offers it to mingyu, sucking noisily on the straw of the carton. “you want some?” he asks once the carton is empty. “it’s really good.”

“what’s inside?” mingyu asks even as he takes the roll. he closes his eyes as he chews, as if he’s trying to decipher its secrets. “kimchi and radish? it tastes like there’s a little bit of sesame in here too?”

he’s three for three. “how did you know?”

“ah, i cook, so it’s pretty easy to tell what ingredients are in food.” mingyu takes the lid off of his boxed lunch so wonwoo can see what’s inside. it’s just a regular lunch with beef, kimchi, and lettuce laid out on a bed of rice, but wonwoo can tell that it’s very clearly homemade.

“you should cook for me sometime,” wonwoo blurts out before his brain to mouth filter can stop him. he wishes he could take the words back, try to explain them as him just being overexcited about mingyu’s cooking and to draw back the unspoken boundaries that he must’ve already crossed. mingyu doesn’t seem to notice, though.

“i will, if you want me to,” mingyu replies, grinning. “you might have to fight minseo for the portions, though. i usually cook for her whenever i make myself lunches, too. our parents can’t since they have to work really early.”

“minseo?”

“she’s my little sister. she’s still in elementary school, though, so you’ll probably be able to beat her. maybe.” mingyu shrugs. “she has some really strong fists, that one, especially when it comes to food.”

“oh, yeah, i know that feeling. my little brother, bohyuk, is getting worse and worse by the day.” wonwoo sighs. “pretty soon, he’ll eat all of the food in my house and be taller than me.”

“become taller than you? wonwoo-hyung, that’s not really that hard to do,” mingyu says, an expression of faux innocence on his face, and wonwoo doesn’t even hesitate before he reaches forward to smack mingyu on the arm. “ow!”

“hey, it’s not my fault that you’re— you’re— an overgrown beanstalk,” wonwoo snaps, biting into a piece of kimbap. “i’ll have you know that i’m the tallest out of my group of friends. all of them.”

“me too, hyung, you’re not special,” mingyu says lightly. “do you want my banana milk too? it looks like you might need some help growing in the height department.”

that’s it. wonwoo smacks mingyu again. “listen, i’m a perfectly normal height! you’re just too tall. maybe your parents gave you too much milk when you were younger, and that’s why you’re so… sticky. like a long pokey stick.”

“wow, wonwoo-hyung, has anyone ever told you that your insults are really bad or do they all just play along with how totally bad they are?”

wonwoo hasn’t ever been this offended ever since soonyoung told him that his choice of a bright pink beanie clashed with the black hoodie and red plaid pants he’d worn to the movies. it’s a good kind of offended, though, the kind that lights a fire under wonwoo and makes him want to start coming up with rebuttal after rebuttal. if being with mingyu is going to be this easy and fun for the rest of the week, wonwoo doesn’t think he’ll mind at all.

they end up postponing their war of words until another day when they don’t have just fifteen minutes left to eat lunch, and mingyu feeds wonwoo beef and kimchi wrapped in the lettuce he’d brought along in exchange for more pieces of kimbap. mingyu ends up drinking the other carton of banana milk, and when they’re cleaning up, wonwoo takes both empty cartons and their trash to toss it all away later.

“i can do it,” mingyu says, making grabbing motions at the pile of trash in wonwoo’s hands, and wonwoo shakes his head.

“no, it’s ifne. you brought the milk, anyway, this is the least i could do.” he steps through the door first, and mingyu shuts the door behind them. “so you don’t have to lock it again or anything?”

“nah, it stays locked unless you know the right way to open it.” mingyu leads the way down the staircase. “you remember how to open it right, hyung?”

wonwoo pauses on the step, trying to remember what mingyu had done. press the lock into the handle, pull the handle in the opposite direction, push the door out. “yeah, i think so.”

mingyu turns with his entire body to smile at wonwoo. “good. this is going to be our secret, okay, hyung?”

wonwoo nods even though he doesn’t know why his throat feels like it’s closing up. “yeah, mingyu. our secret.”

when wonwoo gets back to the classroom, mingyu passing him by with a wave before he heads down to the first year classrooms, jihoon gives him the stink eye. he’s alone, which means that soonyoung must be back in his own class.

“lunch with kim mingyu?” jihoon hisses as their english teacher starts talking about compound words. “/really/, jeon wonwoo? is there something you’re not telling us?”

“shut up, there’s nothing going on,” wonwoo says absently. he has more important things to worry about, like the difference between compound words and hyphenated words. he doesn’t have time to think about kim mingyu’s smile, or kim mingyu’s voice, or the warmth of kim mingyu’s leg against his. of course not.

even so, he realizes after the period is over, that he’s doodled puppies and dogs all over the page. wonwoo wrinkles his nose. he’s not the biggest fan of dogs, but he supposes that that’s what mingyu reminds him of the most— an overly excited, hyper puppy.

he can’t wait for tomorrow.

(five days remaining)

— wednesday

06:50 kim mingyu: wonwoo-hyung 06:50 kim mingyu: do you want to eat lunch together again today? 06:56 jeon wonwoo: thanks for waking me up at a normal time today lol 06:56 jeon wonwoo: but yeah sure 06:56 jeon wonwoo: want to come up again? 06:58 kim mingyu: ok!

the day goes pretty much the same way yesterday had gone. wonwoo rolls out of bed earlier than he’s used to, slipping on his uniform and doing his best imitation of a zombie as he makes his way to the kitchen. and just like yesterday, bohyuk gives him weird looks over his breakfast again even though wonwoo remembers to take the cereal he likes from the cupboard before pouring out a bowl for himself.

“what? stop being weird, bohyukie. you’re going to get wrinkles if you keep that up, and you’re only in middle school.”

“stop calling me bohyukie,” he grumbles over his mouthful of cereal. “it’s too hot for you to be acting all weird like this.”

“i’m not weird, why do you think i’m weird? what did i even do to you, my little bohyukie?”

“you were /singing/ in the shower!”

wonwoo pauses. that’s nothing new, though. “i always sing in the shower, though? how is that weird?”

“i mean you always sing in the shower, yeah. you usually sing stuff like drama soundtracks and ballads, and mom and i used to joke that you were like our little radio whenever you were showering, but now you’re singing love songs! it was like someone totally just changed the channel!”

“really?” wonwoo doesn’t remember this at all. “what was i singing?”

“um, i don’t know. something about like, first love and ‘you’re so pretty’ and things like that— oh.” bohyuk’s eyes go as wide as saucers. “hyung, are you /in love/?”

wonwoo rolls his eyes. “no, of course i’m not. you preteen boys are always just thinking about things like that. i don’t even have /time/ to be in love, okay? i have to study and be class vice president, so no, i’m not in love.”

“hyung, you don’t have to be in a relationship to be in love,” bohyuk presses. “it totally makes sense, this is why you’ve been acting so weird. ugh, i should’ve noticed earlier, what kind of brother am i?”

“a really unobservant one,” wonwoo deadpans, and he fakes a look at his watch. “oh wow, look at the time. i’m late for school. oh no. gotta go, bohyukie, don’t miss me too much.

wonwoo grabs his backpack before making his way to the doorway to slip his shoes on, and bohyuk’s yell of “you have twenty minutes left, hyung, you liar!” follows him out the door. wonwoo can’t quite hide his smile, though, and he’s fairly certain that he ends up scaring some squirrels on the way to school. whatever. what bohyuk doesn’t know won’t hurt him.

jihoon ends up being harder to fool than bohyuk. as wonwoo settles into his seat, jihoon turns around and stabs the pointed end of a pencil into his chest. it barely misses his heart, instead being stopped by the soft fabric of his summer outerwear, a light grey school-issued cardigan.

“ow, what the fuck,” wonwoo whines, brushing the small graphite stain off of his cardigan. “i just washed this last week.”

“i don’t care,” jihoon says, brusque and clipped. he takes out a pencil sharpener from his backpack and starts sharpening the pencil he’d just used to attack wonwoo. “you’re going to get more of where that came from if you don’t spill.”

“spill about what?” wonwoo tries to play dumb, but he supposes that jihoon’s a lot smarter than bohyuk is. he tries to smile at jihoon, but jihoon’s like a shark that’s just smelled blood in the air, and wonwoo’s smile disappears as quickly as it had been plastered on his face.

“are you and kim mingyu dating?”

“um.” well, that was direct. wonwoo had been expecting a more gentle interrogation, maybe something along the lines of “so, i’ve noticed that you and that one underclassman are getting close now,” or “what a nice day it is outside, is that why you’ve been spending your lunch with that one kid?”

jihoon probably doesn’t have the time to waste on pleasantries, then. he’s busy enough with his music club as it is, so wonwoo and his current situation are probably at a solid middle in the mental ranking jihoon has of everything important to him. at the very top is his family, followed by his music; at the very bottom is studying for the korean exams he knows he’ll ace and responding to soonyoung’s half-whined half-demanded pleas for them to come watch him perform. wonwoo’s love life is just interesting enough for jihoon to want to know more, but it’s probably not intriguing enough for jihoon to want to pursue the matter any more than a few questions right before homeroom.

which is why wonwoo deflects the question, instead of answering like he knows any other sane human would’ve done. “am i, or are you?”

jihoon rolls his eyes. “whatever, i have better things to worry about. fuck you, jeon wonwoo. i hope you have fun with your fifty cats in the future.”

when jihoon turns back to scribble some music notes onto the surface of his english textbook, wonwoo pumps his fist in triumph. then he realizes that he doesn’t know anything at all about this once a week dating thing mingyu has going, and if anyone’s going to know something, it’s going to be jihoon.

he leans forward and pokes jihoon in the back with his finger. jihoon twitches, but he doesn’t respond. sad. wonwoo pokes jihoon harder this time, jamming the tip of his index finger right in between jihoon’s shoulder blades, and this time, jihoon flinches with his entire body before turning around and slapping wonwoo’s hand awat.

“/what/?”

“not that i am, but since you asked, have you ever dated kim mingyu?” wonwoo asks, trying to keep it cool. he’s fairly certain that jihoon won’t notice anything amiss, since wonwoo’s been told that he has a pretty good poker face, but. well. he and jihoon and soonyoung have known each other for just over a decade, ever since they’d discovered that it was more fun to pretend to be pokemon and run around in the grass with three people in total instead of just one.

jihoon is silent, and wonwoo nearly bites back a scream. if jihoon’s dated mingyu before, wonwoo just might have to break it off before the week is over. there are some things he can’t handle, and this is one of them. then he realizes that jihoon’s face has stayed almost deathly still for the past thirty seconds, and even when he reaches out to poke jihoon’s cheek, he doesn’t respond.

“hey, you okay?”

“/no/,” jihoon chokes out, sounding mildly strangled. “i can’t believe you just /said/ that. me? date kim mingyu? i’d rather date bohyuk.”

“ew, that’s disgusting.”

“exactly.” jihoon’s face smoothens out into its usual placid half-frown half-what soonyoung and wonwoo have started calling his kitten grin. “anyway, i’ve never dated kim mingyu because i have standards, but i know someone who has.”

“who?” wonwoo leans forward in his chair, and now that he knows he’s got wonwoo’s attention, jihoon leans slightly back, his smirk growing by the second.

“guess,” jihoon says, and when wonwoo’s about to open his mouth to complain that there are so many people in the school, how is wonwoo supposed to know who’s dated mingyu and who hasn’t, jihoon gives him a hint. “it’s someone you know. someone we both know well.”

wonwoo squints at jihoon. he racks his brain for people both he and jihoon know— even though they’ve known each other for an inordinately long time, they don’t really run in the same friend groups. they know a lot of people, but only superficially, so thinking about someone that the two of them both know well is a bit difficult. there’s soonyoung, of course, but other than him, they don’t have too many others in common.

unless, of course, they’re talking about the student council, and wonwoo suddenly realizes that he has the answer. it can’t be seungcheol, the student body president, nor can it be jisoo, the secretary— there’s no way wonwoo could see either of them with mingyu. that leaves just one person.

“jeonghan-hyung?” wonwoo asks, half expecting jihoon to burst out in a cloud of glitter and streamers and say /surprise! we tricked you!/.

the glitter and streamers don’t come, though, and jihoon only nods. “yep.”

“but… but… aren’t they super awkward with each other? like, /super/ awkward?” wonwoo’s heard tales of how when jeonghan and mingyu see each other in the hallways, they won’t make eye contact. apparently it’s hard for them to make and then maintain eye contact long enough to greet each other, so they just don’t.

jihoon rolls his eyes. “okay, first off, they’re not really that awkward. it’s just a rumor. but they /are/ a little bit awkward, so second off, where do you think the awkwardness came from?”

“oh, so they were okay before the dating thing but once they broke up it got weird?”

“i don’t really know the specifics, but if you want to know more, you should find jeonghan-hyung. he’ll probably be willing to tell you anything and everything.” jihoon hums. “you’re being really suspicious right now, wonwoo, i’m just saying. so weird.”

wonwoo huffs. “what, a guy can’t be curious about his new friend without people think he’s dating him? i just wanted to meet the infamous kim mingyu, okay, and so what if i think this is interesting?”

“okay, okay, whatever.” jihoon’s eyes sharpen onto wonwoo. “but listen up, wonwoo. i think you should ask mingyu why he’s doing this, since he probably has a reason he only ever dates people for a week and then breaks up with them. he’s not a game for you to play with, so don’t treat his feelngs like they’re insignificant.”

“i told you, we’re not dating,” wonwoo lies, and even the small voice in the back of his brain sneers at him. /lying jeon wonwoo, your mom is going to be so disappointed/, the voice taunts him, and wonwoo smushes it into the back of his mind with all of the other voices for rational thought and reason.

“alright, well, okay. then i’m telling you as a friend not to toy with him, even if it’s as a friend or not.” jihoon’s face softens. “treat him the way you’d want to be treated, yeah?”

wonwoo swallows. he hadn’t thought about it that way before, but now that he thinks about it, he realizes he hasn’t been treating mingyu fairly. he’s been treating the entire relationship as an experience to have, while for mingyu it’s probably an earnest effort to find someone he really likes. he could just /kick/ himself. “yeah, i got it. i’ll talk to jeonghan-hyung after class, thanks for the tip.”

“you’re so suspicious, wonwoo. has anyone ever told you you’re a really bad liar?” jihoon asks, wrinkling his nose, and before wonwoo can make any kind of clever comeback, their homeroom teacher strolls into the room and all of wonwoo’s rebuttals die in his throat. he files a mental note to himself in the back of his brain: tell jihoon he’s fucking wrong.

when lunch finally rolls around, slowly and mercifully, wonwoo doesn’t even wait for soonyoung to traipse over to their room before he escapes, taking his usual roll of kimbap with him as he makes his way to the second floor stairwell landing. he waits there until he sees mingyu’s familiar tuft of hair coming up from the first floor, and then he turns and pretends like he hasn’t been waiting.

“hi, wonwoo-hyung. were you waiting long?” mingyu asks, tapping wonwoo on the shoulder, and he turns and shrugs as nonchalantly as he can.

“nah, i just got here so you wouldn’t have to come over to the classroom. my friends are nosy, anyway.” wonwoo motions to the stairs, and they start climbing to the top floor. he tries to walk so that he’s always looking at mingyu, and ends up nearly tripping over a step.

mingyu reaches out just in time to grab wonwoo’s wrist to steady him, and after it’s clear that neither of them is going to fall anymore, he asks, “oh, are they? they seem so nice, though?”

“i told you once and i’ll tell you again and i’ll keep telling you this as long as i live, but don’t be fooled by kwon soonyoung’s and lee jihoon’s appearances. they’re evil. they’re evil and sneaky,” wonwoo says as they reach the top of the stairs. he waits for mingyu to open the door, but when all he gets is a blank look and a vague gesture, he realizes that mingyu wants him to try opening it. “brat,” he mutters, copying what mingyu had done exactly. the door opens, and he pushes it wider so they can go through.

“i heard that,” mingyu singsongs, waltzing past and almost skipping to their usual corner.

“i know,” wonwoo says, following on his heels. they settle against the wall the same way they’d sat down yesterday, putting their lunches on their laps. “i meant for you to hear it.”

mingyu snorts. “please, hyung, i’m the /furthest/ thing from a brat. if i were a brat, would i—” and mingyu reaches into the bag he’d brought with him, pulling out a carton of strawberry milk, “get this for you?”

wonwoo has to try hard to stifle a laugh, and even then, he doesn’t manage to muffle it all the way. “are you ever going to stop bringing me milk? it’s not like i can’t feed myself, you know,” he says lightly.

“i know,” mingyu shrugs. “but hey, you need that extra calcium, don’t you? you should try a bit harder to become taller.”

“wow, this brat…” wonwoo starts, trailing off once he realizes he doesn’t have anything to say in response, and mingyu’s face breaks out into a triumphant grin. he shakes his head, taking the carton of milk from mingyu’s hand and stabbing the plastic straw through the top. “thanks, though.”

“anytime, hyung,” mingyu says. he hesitates just a second, his eyes straying to wonwoo’s kimbap. “can i…?”

“oh, yeah, sure.” wonwoo picks off a few pieces and hands them over to mingyu, and he gets some beef and lettuce piled on his plastic wrap in return. “this is kinda fun.”

“what is?”

“this.” wonwoo makes a vague sweeping gesture in the air above them, one that circles over their heads and their food laid out in front of them. “like this. eating together, sharing our food, stuff like this.” wonwoo grins. “it’s really nice. i like it a lot.”

“i’m glad,” mingyu replies, smiling a smile that makes wonwoo feel like his stomach is lurching before he goes back to picking at his lettuce. “oh no, the beef is a little overcooked today… i hope minseo’s eating it alright in school…”

meanwhile, wonwoo tries to self-diagnose. he presses the heel of his palm to his stomach, but the uneasy feeling doesn’t go away. maybe it’s the kimbap, or maybe it’s the milk that’s making his body act up. he tries to surreptitiously check for the expiration date on the carton, but it’s a few months in the future, so wonwoo squints at the kimbap. maybe the pickled carrots went bad? but mingyu doesn’t seem to be reacting badly to it. maybe it’s just him. he’ll figure it out some other time.

they wrap up lunch just as the bell signaling five minutes left of the period rings out, and mingyu pauses when wonwoo gets to the second floor landing.

“this was fun, hyung. i really liked it, too.” mingyu shifts, and this is the first time wonwoo’s seen him so— uncomfortable? vulnerable? wonwoo doesn’t really know what to call it, but he knows that it’s an emotion that shouldn’t be written across mingyu’s face. he almost steps forward before he stops himself, which ends up manifesting as a sort of forward jerky motion. “i’ll see you tomorrow, then?”

“yeah, i’ll see you tomorrow,” wonwoo echoes, and he waves to mingyu as he takes the stairs down to the first floor. he’s strangely absentminded the rest of the day, his mind starting to wander around during the last two periods of school. jihoon gives him strange looks, but he doesn’t pay him any attention. he has a lot on his mind, from why his stomach is acting up to why mingyu had looked almost /sad/ to what he’s going to talk about with jeonghan later.

the bell marking the end of the school day rings out, and wonwoo is out of the classroom in a flash, his backpack already packed and his books stowed safely away. he makes it to the student body club room on the third floor in what must be record time, skidding to a stop in front of the door. he pulls himself upright, breathing out evenly before he knocks.

thankfully, a familiar face opens the door.

“hi, wonwoo,” jeonghan, the student body— something, wonwoo isn’t sure what jeonghan does, except that he’s /always/ in the club room. even when he’d had to ask seungcheol things regarding his own duties as second year class vice president, he’d vaguely remembered jeonghan always being somewhere in the background. “what’s up?”

“hey, jeonghan-hyung. can i come in?” wonwoo asks, and jeonghan nods. he leads wonwoo inside to a clearing with bean bags piled all around it, and they each take a bag to sit on.

“it’s just me right now, all by my lonesome,” jeonghan sighs melodramatically. “who were you looking for? seungcheol? doyoon? jisoo? i can let them know that you’ve been looking for them if you want.”

“actually,” wonwoo starts, “i was looking for you.”

“me?” jeonghan’s gaze, usually placid, narrows. wonwoo doesn’t think that he’d have noticed the change at all if he hadn’t been searching jeonghan’s face for ay sign of emotion.

“yeah.” wonwoo swallows. “hyung, did you date the first year kim mingyu before?”

jeonghan stares at wonwoo before he breaks out into bright peals of laughter. wonwoo’s almost afraid that he’s offended jeonghan somehow, but he stops laughing and leans against the wall. he speaks more slowly now, with the hint of a smile curving at his lips. “yeah, i did. are you interested?”

“oh no,” wonwoo blurts out. “i was just wondering for a friend— what kinds of things do you do with him?”

“ooh, jeon wonwoo. i didn’t think you would know who he was. is our upstanding young vice president looking for love?” the smile doesn’t leave jeonghan’s lips. “i wonder what everyone would think about this?”

“jeonghan-hyung, /please./“

“hmm, so you really want to know. okay.” the curl of jeonghan’s lips is chased away nearly instantly by something more serious. he starts drawing abstract patterns into the bean bag, the surface molding into whatever shape jeonghan’s fingers direct them into. “i guess… he was a good guy. he was nice and everything. the perfect gentleman, really. he never did anything you didn’t want to, and he had his limits, too.”

“‘he never did anything you didn’t want to?’ what do you mean?” wonwoo doesn’t want to think about the implications of that— if there are lines that he’s already crossed without knowing. but mingyu would’ve told him already if he was uncomfortable with anything, right?

jeonghan taps his chin, humming under his breath. “i don’t know why, but he wasn’t really big on things like hugging. and i know what your next question is gonna be, so i’ll just answer it now. there wasn’t even anything beyond that, no kissing, nothing more than that. we went on a date, and he was great. we split the bill for the dinner, and it was all kinda normal stuff. things like that.”

“what about meals during school and stuff? did he give you food?”

“during school?” jeonghan echoes. “oh, we never met up at school. he was actually really conscientious about it. he didn’t want everyone at school to know who the person he was dating at the time, since he didn’t want to make others jealous or something. and because he really liked to keep whoever he was dating a secret, he tried not to meet up with people during school if he could. it was always after school, after all of our club meetings and his sports practices.”

“you never met up for lunch here? not even for like, a quick snack? things like that?”

“nah, never. not even once during that entire week,” jeonghan says almost dismissively. “why? you interested? i heard he’s taken for this week, though. anyway, though, i wasn’t really surprised when he said he wanted to break up. said he couldn’t fall in love with me, which i guess was to be expected. i’m not kidding, he’s a great guy and all, but i just didn’t feel that /spark/ with him. it was fun, though, i’ll always remember that week.”

wonwoo’s stomach curls itself into a tight and uneasy knot, and he manages to stand and bow and say, “thank you so much for telling me, jeonghan-hyung, have a nice afternoon.”

he barely catches jeonghan’s returning dismissal before he’s out the door and making his way out of the school building. he thinks back to all the lunches they’d shared on the rooftop, how mingyu had said that it was their secret, and he wonders if jeonghan is lying. he wonders if jeonghan is just telling wonwoo this because he doesn’t want wonwoo to have unrealistic expectations, or if jeonghan’s telling the truth and mingyu doesn’t usually meet up with people during school.

as he passes the school gates, he notices that the pool is still brimming with noise. the swim team must be practicing for their meet this upcoming friday, and mingyu must still be there. he pauses just outside the gates to listen to the shouts of the coaches that manage to carry across such a far distance, and he wonders, for the first time, if there’s something that mingyu isn’t telling him.

it’s alright. he can’t let himself keep thinking like this— he’ll just live each day as it happens. his mind made up, he slings his backpack more securely over his shoulders, and tossing one last look back at the pool, he starts to walk back home.

(four days remaining)

— thursday

“jeonghan-hyung told me you came to see him yesterday,” jihoon says by way of greeting when wonwoo slumps into his seat in the morning. “you’re really not as sneaky as you think you are.”

wonwoo sticks his tongue out at jihoon. immature, he knows, but whatever. “yeah, we had a really productive conversation yesterday.”

jihoon wrinkles his entire face at wonwoo, which wonwoo hadn’t even thought possible until this very moment. maybe jihoon is just a spectacularly evolved human. “i’d ask, but i don’t think i really want to know.”

“good choice,” wonwoo says sagely before their homeroom teacher ambles into the room. there’s nothing much to do in class other than to listen to their teacher tell them about how the school festival is next friday, so wonwoo lets his mind wander a bit.

he’s more than just a little curious about mingyu. it makes no sense at all to him why someone like mingyu, as tall and as handsome and as popular as he is, would need to do something like this. he’s certain that virtually anyone would leap at the chance to be with mingyu. the question follows him even to lunch, even when he’s unpacking his box of rice and kimchi next to mingyu.

“no kimbap today?” mingyu asks, but wonwoo doesn’t hear him, since he’s too absorbed in what he’s thinking on his own. there’s a honeydew melon milk balanced precariously on his knee when he looks up, and just next to that is mingyu’s face peering into his. “what’s wrong, hyung?”

wonwoo blinks. “oh, nothing. i’m fine, sorry. i’m just a little bit distracted right now. did you ask me something?”

“you’re not having kimbap for lunch today?” mingyu pokes wonwoo’s leg. “a won for your thoughts?”

“mingyu,” wonwoo says, and then he stops. he tries to think of all the things he can ask mingyu now— /was jeonghan-hyung telling the truth? was he lying when he said you don’t eat lunch with people you date here? if so, why am i here right now? what am i even supposed to do when i’m dating you? do we kiss? do we hug? do we hold hands?/— and he realizes he has too much to ask. there’s no way mingyu can even process everything that wonwoo has to say, much less answer them.

he could lie. he could lie and tell mingyu that he’s been thinking about what he’s going to have for dinner tonight, or he could tell mingyu that he’s been wondering what kinds of decorations they’re going to put up for next week’s festival. but mingyu’s been nothing less than completely truthful with him so far, and he doesn’t deserve to be lied to. there are so many questions that wonwoo wants to ask him, and even though he doesn’t know which one’s the most important, he knows which one he wants to start with.

“mingyu, are we dating?”

it’s mingyu’s turn to blink owlishly at wonwoo, and when he lifts himself up from when he’s been trying to balance the melon milk on wonwoo’s leg, it falls to the ground. mingyu picks it up almost robotically, checking it over for bumps and scratches before he balances it on wonwoo’s leg again. “yeah, we are, hyung. why?”

there’s the slightest note of tension in mingyu’s voice, and wonwoo doesn’t pretend to know where it’s coming from. maybe he doesn’t like things like this being questioned, or maybe it’s just a dumb question that he’s confused as to why he has to answer in the first place. wonwoo doesn’t know why mingyu is so suddenly tense, but what he /does/ know is that he can do something about it.

“if we’re dating, shouldn’t we go on a date?”

mingyu blinks again, this time slower. he looks like he’s trying to process wonwoo’s question, and wonwoo is just about to ask him if he’s alright when he springs upright, his forehead nearly knocking into wonwoo’s. “let’s go, hyung!”

momentarily startled by mingyu’s sudden change of expression, wonwoo pulls himself together in time to reach out and flick mingyu on the forehead. “we’re at lunch right now, we can’t just /leave/.”

mingyu sticks out his lower lip in a pout that somehow looks too familiar— when he’s this close to wonwoo and pouting, he really reminds wonwoo of a puppy looking for a treat.

“do you have swim practice after school today?” wonwoo asks, shifting so that he’s not as close as he was before. it’s not that he has anything against physical contact, it just fills him with all sorts of weird feelings that he doesn’t know how to name yet.

“i don’t today. do you have any class vice president things to take care of?”

“nah,” wonwoo says. he does, actually, but mingyu doesn’t need to know that. he’ll just ask jihoon to take care of it for him; it’s just some ordering that needs to get done before the festival actually happens next week. “do you want to grab something to eat after school, then?”

“yeah, i’d like that.” mingyu beams, and then he drops abruptly to the ground, his head landing squarely onto wonwoo’s folded legs. wonwoo stares down at him, and he doesn’t quite know where to put his hands— by his side? on mingyu? should he be patting mingyu’s head?

as if he’s completely unaware of wonwoo’s inner turmoil, which he probably is, mingyu closes his eyes and mutters, “hyung, your legs are a good pillow.”

“are you calling me fat?”

“no, your thighs are just soft. it’s a compliment, hyung, just take it.” mingyu looks way too content just laying there. “mine are too hard. not soft at all.”

wonwoo rolls his eyes skyward, resisting the urge to push mingyu off of his lap. “are you really complimenting your own thighs? don’t you have a lunch to eat?”

mingyu cracks an eye open at him before the corners of his lips slide upwards in a small smile. “will you feed me, hyung?”

wonwoo actually /does/ push mingyu off this time, sending him rolling onto the ground. mingyu lies there, facedown, for longer than wonwoo really thinks is necessary. “feed yourself, mingyu, that’s what you have hands and a mouth for.”

“so mean,” mingyu mutters under his breath as he rolls over onto his back. then he turns his head towards wonwoo, and wonwoo can tell by the look in his eyes that it’s not going to be anything wonwoo particularly wants to hear. “but that’s what i like about you, hyung.”

it’s not even /that bad/, but wonwoo can feel himself flushing to the tips of his ears already, and before he knows it, he’s standing up and grabbing his food. “kim mingyu, you’re—” incredible? unbelievable? “you’re really something else,” wonwoo finishes lamely. “i’ll see you later, you deviant.”

mingyu’s yell of “i’m /not/ a deviant!” follows wonwoo all the way down the stairs, and once again, he can’t stop himself from smiling all the way down. even soonyoung, who’s sitting in wonwoo’s usual seat, gives him a sidelong glance tinged with suspicion.

“look who the cat dragged in,” soonyoung says. “decided to join us for lunch again?’

wonwoo flops into the seat soonyoung usually sits in, and he holds the melon milk up in the air, inspecting it from all angles. mingyu’s too nice. wonwoo should bring him something to drink next time. “yeah, sure, why not.”

when lunch wraps up, soonyoung prods wonwoo in the side. “okay, so even though everyone and their mothers know you’re dating mingyu, i know you’ll never admit it to me because he’s so far out of your league. but anyway, you should come see me perform at the festival next week. bring him along, too, i promise it’ll be fun.”

wonwoo squints at soonyoung. “promise you’re not going to drag me on stage again and make me do more embarrassing things?”

“swear on jihoon’s kindergarten serenade,” soonyoung says sagely, placing a reverent hand over his chest, and jihoon glowers at him over his rice. that’s good enough for wonwoo, though.

“okay, i’ll go. next week?”

“yep. be there or be a fucking square, wonwoo.” soonyoung pats wonwoo’s head on his way out of their classroom to go back to his, class goes by, the same as always, and wonwoo nearly falls asleep during their last period. finally, when math is over, wonwoo feels like he can breathe again.

except he remembers what he’s doing after school today, and the butterflies in his stomach start to act up again. he’s going on a /date/, and it’s all he can think about when he descends the stairs to the first floor. class 1-a is just around the corner, and when wonwoo rounds it, he bumps squarely into someone’s side.

“sorry,” wonwoo says automatically before he lifts his head to see who it is, and when he does, he retracts it almost immediately. “nah, you deserve it. let’s go, mingyu.”

“i’m so hurt,” mingyu whines, but he follows behind wonwoo, slinging his backpack over his shoulders and jogging a little to keep up with wonwoo’s strides. “why are you so mean to me?”

“ask yourself that question in the mirror and maybe you’ll find out what the answer is,” wonwoo says. he stops in the middle of the hallway, making mingyu bump into him, his chest colliding into wonwoo’s shoulder. “oh, where did you want to go?”

/where do you usually take your dates?/ is what wonwoo wants to ask, but he can’t bring himself to. it seems wrong, somehow, to acknowledge that this isn’t the first time mingyu’s done this, and the more wonwoo thinks about it, the worse he feels.

“um. i don’t know, anywhere you want to go is fine,” mingyu says, his words trailing off at the end.

wonwoo stares at him. he’s so /unhelpful/. “i know somewhere,” he announces, and when he starts walking again, mingyu follows.

there’s a small shop downtown that wonwoo likes. it’s a cozy place, one that’s run by an elderly couple, and it oozes warmth and familiarity from every corner. he’d used to go here all the time with his parents and brother, and if there’s anywhere he can think of that exemplifies comfort food, it’s here.

“choose whatever you want,” wonwoo says to mingyu, who’s still studying the menu behind the counter. there are tables all around them, but wonwoo wants to take these to go. there’s somewhere else he wants to go after this.

mingyu taps his chin. “have you ever had the seafood pancake? is it good?”

wonwoo shrugs. “i don’t know, can’t eat it. their kimchi pancake is pretty good, though, so i would think that the seafood pancake would be good, too.”

“oh, hyung, you can’t eat seafood?”

“hm, i’ve always had kind of a sensitive stomach. i’m kinda allergic to seafood, so i have to carry around some medication with me just in case.” wonwoo snorts. “soonyoung always says that he wants to be the one to stab me with a needle in case i ever eat seafood.”

“sounds like a great friend,” mingyu hums. “i’ll just have the bibimbap, then.”

“okay.” when mingyu steps up to order and pay, wonwoo shoves him off to the side. “hey, get out. i’m paying this time.”

mingyu gives him the most kicked puppy expression wonwoo’s ever seen a human make, and he laughs. “god, you should see your /face/ right now. you keep bringing me milk, just let me pay for this.”

“but the milk is nothing!”

“but this is nothing!” wonwoo echoes, and he takes out his wallet. “shut up, i’m paying for your food.”

mingyu sulks in the background while they wait for their food to come, and wonwoo flicks him in the chest every so often, making him sulk even more. “don’t be so dramatic, it’s just one meal,” wonwoo says. “are you really that upset about it?”

“not really.” mingyu purses his lips together. “kinda just wanted to do stuff for you, but i guess this is nice too. wonwoo-hyung is treating me this time,” he sings, and wonwoo feels like he’d accept it happily if the earth just opened up to swallow him.

thankfully, he’s rescued by the appearance of their food, his kimchi pancake in a takeout box and mingyu’s bibimbap in a bowl. “it smells so good,” mingyu says, lifting up the cap to smell the rice. “i could just smell this /forever/.”

wonwoo wrinkles his nose, pushing the door open to leave. “can you not? you’re supposed to eat it, not smell it.”

“why not both? i can smell it and eat it later,” mingyu says, grinning widely and following wonwoo out. somehow, he’s able to keep up with wonwoo’s pace even as he’s breaking his chopsticks apart and eating his rice while walking.

“how are you doing that?” wonwoo stares at mingyu in between bites of his pancake.

“doing what?” mingyu asks, his mouth full of rice and beef and beansprouts.

“eating while walking!”

“oh, this.” mingyu swallows the mouthful of food before he responds. “a man’s gotta do what he’s gotta do, hyung. even if it means learning how to eat and walk at the same time. anyway, where are we going next?”

“there’s a movie i wanted to see,” wonwoo explains. “i was going to force soonyoung or jihoon or my brother to come watch it with me, but since you’re here, we might as well go together.”

by the time they make it to the movie theater just a few blocks down, both their boxes are completely empty, save for some leftover grains of rice and bits and pieces of kimchi.

“this is what you wanted to see?” mingyu asks, looking up at the poster for the featured movie. “a romantic movie?”

“shut up,” wonwoo mutters. “stop judging me.”

“not judging you, hyung, i’m just a little surprised that you would like watching things like this.” even though wonwoo isn’t looking at mingyu, he can hear the smile in his voice so, so clearly. damn him.

mingyu manages to beat wonwoo to the punch this time, shoving his way in front of the line and paying for both of their tickets before wonwoo can even say, “we’re not together, i want my own ticket, fuck you, kim mingyu.” as revenge, wonwoo buys the biggest size of popcorn he can, as well as drinks for the two of them.

this is a movie that wonwoo’s wanted to see for a long, long time. he’s read the book three times already, and he’s cried at the ending every single time. he knows the entire plot inside and out, and he could recite the most impactful quotes from memory. wonwoo’s been looking forward to watching this movie and enjoying it and raving about it to all of his friends and family and anyone who will listen to him, and he’d thought that this would be the way to go.

except when they leave the theater, all wonwoo remembers is the way that mingyu had reached for the popcorn at the same time wonwoo had and the way that mingyu’s hand had come to rest gingerly on wonwoo’s. even though he’d tensed up, he hadn’t pulled away, and mingyu’s fingers had curled ever so gently around wonwoo’s. they hadn’t spoken a word to each other for the rest of the movie, when before they’d been talking about the characters and what they thought the plot would end up being.

it’s all wonwoo can think about now, the warmth of mingyu’s hand against his as the characters on the silver screen professed their love to one another, and when he looks at mingyu, all he knows is that he’s gotten himself into more than he can handle.

(three days remaining)

— friday

wonwoo doesn’t sleep well that night. he replays the entire debacle of what had happened at the movie theater over and over in his head until he’s certain that he can pull the exact chain of events up from his memory. he’s not stupid. he knows that what he’s feeling now— what he’s been feeling for the past few days— is more than just friendship. it’s something that he doesn’t have the courage to put a name to yet.  

it’s getting too dangerous, too risky, for wonwoo to keep playing along. he doesn’t know why mingyu is doing this in the first place, but wonwoo doesn’t know if he can continue. aside from shortlived crushes, this is the first time wonwoo’s ever felt this way, and it hurts even more knowing that he only has until the end of this week with mingyu.

he falls asleep uneasily, and his dreams are filled with things he can’t remember. all he knows is that he wakes up in a cold sweat, his blankets soaked around him, with his phone alarm blaring noisily and incessantly in his ear.

wonwoo blinks. it’s the first time this week he hasn’t been woken up by the familiar sound of a text notification, and when he rolls over to check his phone, it’s exactly seven. there aren’t any texts flashing on his screen, and even though he doesn’t want to admit it, he’s a little bit concerned at the lack of a text, a feeling he almost immediately dismisses.

he and mingyu aren’t /married/ or anything, mingyu doesn’t have to send him good morning texts if he doesn’t want to or if he’s too sleepy in the morning to. but still, wonwoo wonders why he feels like there’s something missing in his life when he doesn’t wake up to an annoying chirpy /good morning!/ thirty minutes before he’s even supposed to get up.

bohyuk stares at him over the breakfast table again, and wonwoo gives him just a glance before sliding into his seat. “what?”

“nothing, hyung.” bohyuk’s eyebrows furrow. “what’s wrong?”

“nothing’s wrong. why do you think something’s wrong?”

bohyuk frowns. “you don’t look happy anymore.”

bohyuk’s words play over and over again in his head as he walks to school like a broken radio. if he really thinks about it, bohyuk is right— he’s been happier this week with mingyu than he has this entire school year.

he’s distracted throughout most of class as well, with jihoon mercifully holding back any scathing insults he probably has ready on the tip of his tongue. when lunch starts, he pulls out his phone to send a quick message.

12:32 jeon wonwoo: hey mingyu 12:32 jeon wonwoo: are you okay?

“jeon wonwoo,” he hears suddenly, and he closes his phone and looks up. it’s soonyoung, hovering above him with a concerned look on his face, which makes wonwoo plaster on his usual blank expression as quickly as he can. “what’s wrong with you today?”

“nothing’s wrong,” wonwoo says for the second time today, exasperated out of his mind. “i’m fine, seriously.”

“did something happen?” soonyoung presses on, taking the seat next to wonwoo’s and leaning closer. “you can tell us.”

“/nothing happened/,” wonwoo says a bit more forcefully this time. “everything’s okay.”

“then why are you here?” jihoon asks, sipping on his yogurt drink and leveling a glance at wonwoo. “you weren’t here literally this entire week. what happened?”

“nothing did,” wonwoo says. “i’m done talking about this, can we just eat?”

he turns his attention to the food in front of him, and he pretends not to notice the way jihoon and soonyoung exchange looks over his head. it should really be a delicious lunch, with his mom knowing exactly what he likes and in what ratios, but it tastes surprisingly bland and boring today.

as the lunch period wraps up, wonwoo feels a buzz against his leg, and he picks up faster than he’s willing to admit.

12:58 kim mingyu: hi hyung 12:58 kim mingyu: sorry for not responding, i got super busy today 12:58 kim mingyu: i have swim practice later too 12:59 kim mingyu: sorry

/it’s okay/, wonwoo types back. /take all the time you need./

mingyu sends a sticker with a dog making a heart in return, and wonwoo finds himself smiling down at his phone. then a thought hits him: if he doesn’t see mingyu today, is the week over already? will he not be able to see mingyu again after this? judging by the way mingyu’s conducted himself this week, wonwoo’s deduced that mingyu doesn’t keep in contact with people he used to go out with, and wonwoo isn’t nearly delusional to think that he’s the only exception to the rule.

it’s why, when the last bell rings, wonwoo is out of his seat and making his way up to the room reserved for the student body. as the vice president of his class, he counts as a member, so he pushes the door open like he owns the place.

“if you’re looking for him, jeonghan’s not here,” seungcheol, the class president of the third years, calls out from where he’s hunched over a long table, probably finalizing details for the festival next week.

“oh, i’m not looking for him. thanks, though, hyung,” wonwoo says absently, flipping through some yearbooks. he goes through the pages until he finds what he’s looking for— photos of mingyu in the swim club and in the band club. there’s a picture of him holding a bass guitar, and even though he looks inexperienced, he’s clearly passionate.

he runs his finger down the page, staring at the black and white photos of mingyu when he’d first entered the school. wonwoo’s going to figure out why mingyu does this, even if it takes him forever. he needs answers. he puts the yearbooks back into their rightful palce on the shelf, and slinging his backpack onto his shoulders again, he gets ready to leave.

except when he’s right by the school gates, he hears the telltale sounds of water splashing and sharp whistles. the swim club is practicing, and even though wonwoo tells his feet to go home, he finds himself moving almost on autopilot to the pool.

mingyu is exponentially more graceful in the water than he is on land. when he’s standing up, he’s always falling and dropping things, always clumsy around fragile things. but when he’s in the water, his arms coming up with every stroke and his legs sliding through the water with seemingly minimal effort, he’s /incredible/.

wonwoo could watch him forever— and he does, taking a seat on the bleachers with some other students, maybe swim club hopefuls, maybe fans. he watches their entire practice, from laps to more competitive time trials, and he doesn’t think mingyu sees him at all, so he turns to leave once the swimmers have all been dismissed.

“wonwoo-hyung.”

speak of the devil.

“hi, mingyu,” wonwoo says lightly.

“what are you doing here?” mingyu asks, and wonwoo tries not to look at anywhere below his neck. he’s standing there in front of wonwoo, shirtless, with water making its way down his neck and shoulders and chest in long rivulets, and his swim shorts cling to his thighs in places they really shouldn’t be.

“i just wanted to see you practice,” wonwoo replies, and he hopes his voice doesn’t sound as high as it does in his head.

“you didn’t have to come today,” mingyu says.

“i wanted to, though.”

mingyu exhales, and he runs his hand through his hair, pushing it back. “hyung, you really—” he sighs again, this time louder, before he shakes his head. “hey hyung, are you free tomorrow?”

wonwoo blinks at the sudden change of topic. “uh, yeah. why?”

“do you want to come over to my place? i’ll make it up to you for missing lunch today. and we can watch another movie or something if you want.”

“yeah, of course,” wonwoo says, still trying to process just what the fuck happened.

they stand there like that, unmoving and unblinking, until the swim coach’s voice pierces the air and mingyu turns. he rubs the back of his neck, his gaze still turned away from wonwoo. “sorry, hyung, i gotta go. i’ll text you the details, okay? i can come pick you up if you’d like.”

“nah, i think i’ll be fine. i didn’t survive this long for nothing, right?”

mingyu actually turns back again at that, a grin blooming across his face, and wonwoo feels like his heart is about to shatter into a million pieces. “okay, hyung. i can’t wait to see you tomorrow.”

when wonwoo finally gets to walk home, it’s with a weight on his shoulders that hadn’t been there in the morning, and even though he’s answered one question of where mingyu’s been all day, it feels like a dozen more have popped up in his place.

it’s no problem, though. he’ll get the answers he wants out of mingyu. he definitely will.

(two days remaining)

— saturday

mingyu lives a bus station stop down from wonwoo. the address is easy enough to find, and wonwoo finds himself checking his phone every few steps just to make sure he knows where he is even though he knows for sure where he is. he’s just nervous, and he stops in the middle of the street to just breathe. he looks down at his phone again, the messages from last night still up on his screen.

23:19 kim mingyu: hi hyung 23:19 kim mingyu: sorry for not being around earlier today :( 23:19 kim mingyu: i’ll make it up to you!!! 23:20 kim mingyu: i can make you lunch or something 23:20 kim mingyu: if you want to come over? 23:35 jeon wonwoo: yeah that sounds good 23:35 jeon wonwoo: what time? 23:35 jeon wonwoo: should i bring something? 23:37 kim mingyu: just bringing yourself is enough for me, hyung~

that’s what mingyu had said, but wonwoo has a six pack of banana milk and a bag of lychee jellies in his backpack. there’s no way he’s showing up to mingyu’s place empty handed, especially not when he’s being invited over for food. there’s a buzz in wonwoo’s pocket, and he pulls his phone out to see several messages from soonyoung, all coming in quick succession one after another.

11:40 haemjji: yo where r u guys 11:40 haemjji: do u wanna get food 11:40 haemjji: @ wonu bc our lil troll doll is prob sleeping

wonwoo rolls his eyes, moving to the side of the road to let other passersby walk past as he types out a response.

11:41 jeonha: no 11:42 haemjji: y 11:42 haemjji: do u hate me 11:42 haemjji: or is it bc im me 11:43 haemjji: would u want to get lunch w me 11:43 haemjji: if i were a hot tall cute first year 11:44 haemjji: named kim mimgyu 11:44 haemjji: *mingyu 11:44 haemjji: ;—)))))) 11:45 jeonha: . 11:45 haemjji: so thats a yes 11:45 jeonha: . 11:46 haemjji: u r such a cradlerobber 11:46 haemjji: im calling the cops on u 11:46 jeonha: . 11:47 uri jihoonie: shut the fuck up you children 11:47 uri jihoonie: i’m trying to sleep 11:47 uri jihoonie: you’re all dead

wonwoo gulps and puts his phone away again, ignoring the buzzes that come right after that. jihoon doesn’t take lightly to being waken up anytime before twelve on weekends, and there’s zero doubt in wonwoo’s mind that the first thing jihoon’s going to do on monday morning is to grab wonwoo’s arm and twist. wonwoo only hopes that jihoon will be merciful.

it’s easy to decipher to directions to mingyu’s house once he’s not distracted with jihoon and soonyoung and their early morning antics, and before he knows it, he’s standing in front of mingyu’s home, a small and nondescript apartment. he doesn’t know if he should knock on the door or not, so he settles for just texting mingyu and letting him know that he’s here.

he watches as the message status changes from delivered to read, and then there’s a series of quick footsteps and the door is opening in front of him. instead of mingyu, though, wonwoo looks down to see a girl with long dark hair and big eyes.

“hi! i’m minseo, mingyu-oppa’s in the kitchen. he told me to open the door for you,” she chirps, and leads him through the door and into the hallway. “oppa! your friend is here!”

“okay!” mingyu appears from the kitchen doorway just a second later, wiping his hands on a washcloth. he’s clad in just a worn t-shirt with plaid shorts underneath, and wonwoo realizes two things: first, that he isn’t as underdressed as he thought he would be, and second, that it’s the very first time that he’s seen mingyu outside of school. with that realization, the atmosphere suddenly starts to feel different somehow, like he’s walking past a line that mingyu’s drawn between his personal and his school lives.

the smell wafting through the air is tantalizing, though, and without even noticing it, he takes unconscious steps towards the kitchen. “what are you making, mingyu?” wonwoo asks, trying to peer around mingyu’s shoulder at the pots and pans on the stove.

“ah, hyung, i’ll show you when i’m done! the living room is just around the corner, you can put your bag down there. i’ll be done real fast, just give me a few minutes, okay?” mingyu stands there in the doorway until wonwoo acquiesces and trudges towards the living room.

minseo is there, doodling on a notepad in the middle of the coffee table, and she looks up when wonwoo sits down. “hi!”

“hey, minseo. i’m wonwoo, your brother’s— friend.” if minseo notices the pause in wonwoo’s words, she doesn’t show it at all, continuing to shade in some finer details in her picture.

“oh, really? mingyu-oppa doesn’t really have a lot of friends. he /never/ brings any of his friends here,” minseo huffs. “you’re the first one!”

wonwoo’s heart does a strange lurch in the middle of his chest. he’s the first person mingyu’s brought home? even including mingyu’s not date but regular type of friends? hearing that from minseo doesn’t just make him feel elated at being the first one— it makes him feel uneasy beyond measure, and he realizes that he knows next to nothing about mingyu.

he knows that mingyu is in class 1-a. he knows that mingyu is in both the swim team and the band club, and that he plays the bass guitar. he knows that mingyu is tall and handsome, the universal object of adoration in their school. he knows that mingyu goes out with anyone who asks him first for just a week, only to break up with them after the week is over. he knows that mingyu is good at cooking and that he has a little sister in elementary school named minseo. but other than that, wonwoo knows next to nothing about mingyu.

“oppa!” minseo says suddenly, snapping wonwoo out of his thoughts, and he looks up to see mingyu standing there.

“hey, minseo. hi, wonwoo-hyung.” mingyu folds his hands in front of him, and in a deeply exaggerated version of what he’s probably seen in dramas, he bows. “your food is ready.”

“oppa,” minseo says, grabbing her notebook and throwing it into a small cloth satchel on the ground. “i’m going to jieun’s house. she lives next to the ahjumma who likes to sing while doing laundry, you know her, right? we have to watch some stuff together.”

“okay,” mingyu allows. “but don’t be out for too long, alright? i’ll call jieun’s parents if you’re not home by five. do you want anything to eat before you go?”

“nooo,” minseo draws out the vowels as long as she can as she hops and skips to the door, toeing on her shoes. “jieunie says she’ll have some pizza for us, so you don’t have to worry. bye, mingyu-oppa! bye, wonwoo-oppa!”

a swish of her skirt and her long pigtails, and minseo is gone, the door slamming shut behind her. it’s just him and mingyu now, and wonwoo has never been more acutely aware of his own breathing before now.

“so what did you make?” wonwoo asks, trying to distract himself from the fact that he and mingyu are alone.

“do you want to come see?” there’s absolutely no way wonwoo could say no, not when mingyu is looking like that, all expectant and bouncing on his toes. “it’s good, i promise.”

wonwoo follows mingyu into the kitchen, where mingyu’s already portioned out the dish he made into smaller bowls. it looks like pasta with a white sauce, and even though it looks simple, it smells amazing. “did you make this all yourself?”

mingyu practically puffs up with pride. “yeah. it’s a simple fettucine alfredo with chicken.” his voice gets a little bit softer, and he looks down into wonwoo’s eyes. “i would’ve made it with shrimp, but i remembered that you can’t eat seafood, so here we are.”

wonwoo can’t look away. there’s just so much emotion in mingyu’s gaze, so much that wonwoo thinks that even if he spends the rest of eternity trying to figure out what exactly every single quirk of mingyu’s lips and every single sparkle of his eyes means, it still won’t be enough time. he swallows. “thank you, mingyu. i really appreciate it.” he forces himself to look away, and he can almost swear that he hears a sigh. he doesn’t know if it’s from himself or mingyu. “let’s eat before it gets cold, then. it looks delicious.”

they carry the bowls to the coffee table in the living room, and this is definitely not what wonwoo had expected when mingyu asked him to come over for food. he’d expected them to make sandwiches together, or to heat up some soup, not to be sitting around a table eating mingyu’s homemade pasta. wonwoo’s socked feet knock against mingyu’s as they’re trying to fit themselves and their legs around the table, and wonwoo winces. with mingyu in the clothes he’d clearly worn to sleep last night and wonwoo in the same, it feels too domestic, and he doesn’t know how he feels about this.

“oh, right.” wonwoo pulls out his cartons of banana milk and the bag of jellies from his backpack, and mingyu nearly flips over the table with the way he flops onto the table, laughing.

“hyung, i told you, you didn’t have to bring anything! seriously! do you ever listen?”

“i couldn’t have my underclassman showing me up now, could i? banana milk is obviously just a half step lower than homemade fettucine alfredo with chicken. obviously.”

mingyu’s still grinning from ear to ear when he takes one of the cartons from wonwoo’s hands. “we can leave the jellies for dessert later, but for now, let’s eat!”

they eat in silence, the stillness punctuated by mingyu asking if the food is good and then by wonwoo replying that yes, for the seventh time, it’s delicious. it really is, though, and that’s the reason wonwoo doesn’t really feel like talking much. he likes to savor his meals, rather than to talk too much while eating, and he wants to savor this meal especially. he just wants mingyu to cook for him forever, but a small voice in the back of his head reminds him, unhelpfully, that /your week is almost up/.

wonwoo shakes his head jerkily, as if he can get rid of the offending thought just by shaking it out, and he eats quicker and quicker until pretty much all of the noodles are gone and only sauce remains at the bottom of his bowl. mingyu stares at him from across the table.

“hyung,” mingyu asks, wide-eyed, and wonwoo can see that mingyu’s barely halfway done. “did you even eat breakfast today?”

wonwoo tries to think. “um, no. but i only ate fast because your pasta was really good!”

mingyu tuts and grabs wonwoo’s bowl from him before he disappears into the kitchen. he reappears moments later with wonwoo’s bowl filled up again, smiling broadly. “i got you more food, hyung. you can stop eating whenever you want, but i just made so much and i don’t want to waste it, so it’s good that you came along with an empty stomach.”

wonwoo takes longer this time to finish the second bowl, and by the time he’s done, mingyu’s done with another one as well. he watches as mingyu leans back against the side of the couch, patting his stomach. “well, i’ll go put these in the sink now,” mingyu announces, and wonwoo takes his bowl and chopsticks before mingyu can get to them. “hyung, /why/ are you like this?”

“i’ll help you wash it,” wonwoo says. “i can’t have you be doing all the work around here.”

“fine, have it your way,” mingyu sniffs, but there’s the barest hint of a smile playing at the edges of his lips. wonwoo follows mingyu to the sink, and their hips bump against each other when mingyu reaches over to grab the dirty pots and pans. wonwoo washes the dishes down with soap and water while mingyu rinses them off and puts them back into the drying racks. once that’s done, mingyu puts his hands on his hips and tilts his head to the side. “hyung, what do you want to do now?”

wonwoo shrugs. he hasn’t really thought this far in advance, since he’d been expecting to just go home after lunch. “i don’t know, do you want to watch a movie or something? what’s good?”

mingyu mirrors his action, shrugging as well. “is there anything you want to see?”

“not really,” wonwoo says, then he remembers something. “oh, one of my friends said there’s this one disaster movie about a tsunami hitting haeundae beach or something? it’s supposed to be good, do you want to give it a try?”

“yeah, sure. i can put it on my laptop if you want to wait in the living room?” at wonwoo’s nod, mingyu leaves to go back to his room so he can grab his laptop. he reappears in the doorway, holding his laptop, and he slides into the spot next to wonwoo on the floor. they’re just leaning against the side of the couch like before and then propping the laptop up on the table, since it’s a bit easier than hooking the laptop up to the television.

mingyu finds the movie without any difficulty, and honestly, it’s /boring/. wonwoo has no idea if it was intentionally this bad, but he just can’t bring himself to keep his eyes open any longer. halfway through, he very nearly falls asleep, and that’s when he reaches forward to pause the movie.

“was it bad for you too, or am i just imagining it?” wonwoo asks, and mingyu heaves a loud sigh of relief. wonwoo ducks his head to send soonyoung a quick text— /kwon soonyoung you fucker i hate you for making me watch that shitty movie/— and looks back up at mingyu when he’s done.

“it wasn’t just you, i’m so glad it wasn’t just me. let’s never talk about this again.” mingyu exits the browser with the movie playing on it, and he turns to wonwoo. “what should we do next?”

wonwoo has a couple of things on his mind. first off, he’s going to call soonyoung and ask him why the fuck he recommended that movie to him when all it’s done is waste an entire precious hour of his time. second, he’s going to write up a scathing review of the movie he’d only watched half of and then file it away in his laptop where no one will see it. third, he’s going to—

and then he doesn’t get to finish his thought.

“wonwoo-hyung,” mingyu says, and his voice is lower than it had been just seconds ago, and wonwoo’s heart leaps into his chest. “do you remember the day i said i couldn’t sleep? when i called you and you yelled at me for waking you up?”

wonwoo winces. he remembers that day as clearly as the lunch he’s just had with mingyu. “ah, yeah, i’m sorry. i didn’t realize you had a nightmare—”

“hyung, i already told you. it wasn’t a nightmare,” mingyu says, and it isn’t just wonwoo’s imagination that mingyu’s leaning closer and closer to him, pressing him further and further into the couch behind him. “i dreamt about you.”  

he can /feel/ his heartbeat thundering in his ears, its frantic staccato rhythm nearly deafening. it’s starting to all make sense now. mingyu is just a breath away from wonwoo, and as mingyu closes his eyes, wonwoo bridges the space between them.

“hyung,” mingyu whispers against wonwoo’s lips, “i—”

“i know,” wonwoo murmurs, even though he doesn’t know, not really, what mingyu was going to say, and he kisses mingyu again.

mingyu slips his hands underneath wonwoo’s shirt— it’s just a thin cotton one, the kind that’s perfect for enduring the summer heat, except now, wonwoo thinks that nothing could make him feel more on fire than the drag of mingyu’s fingers against his stomach. wonwoo doesn’t know where to put his hands, so he settles for reaching upward to tangle his fingers in mingyu’s hair. he tugs, experimentally, and then mingyu /moans/ into the kiss. the sound alone sends all sorts of sensations up and down wonwoo’s nerves, and he shivers.

mingyu’s fingers play across wonwoo’s stomach, leaving trails of electricity wherever he touches, and with every brush of mingyu’s fingers against wonwoo’s skin, he feels himself falling just a little bit more. wonwoo cups mingyu’s face, his fingers tracing mingyu’s jawline, and he wonders how he was ever this lucky.

then a sound, sharp and shrill, breaks the relative silence, and wonwoo pulls away from mingyu so quickly that his head starts spinning. he takes his phone out of his pocket, and he resists the urge to throw it against the wall once he sees the caller id: soonyoung the shitface. he knows that if he doesn’t pick it up, soonyoung is only going to keep calling until he does, so he sighs and swipes his finger across the screen.

“what?”

“you’re so /dumb/, wonwoo, i can’t believe you actually watched the movie!” soonyoung cackles. “that’s an hour of your life you’ll never get back!”

“god, i hate you, i want those entire sixty minutes back. i’ll never have them again. i want a refund.”

“i can’t get you a refund, but i can get you free tickets to my team’s performance at the festival. i’ll get you two, yeah?”

“fuck you,” wonwoo says as cheerfully as he can before hanging up. he stares at his phone for just a second before he looks up at mingyu, and then he’s speechless. mingyu’s hair is wildly tousled, a far cry from the usual neat and attractive chaos it’s usually styled in, and his lips are redder now, shinier now. wonwoo had been the one to leave those marks on mingyu, to be the one to make him look like this, and that thought fills him with a thrill like no other.

“hyung,” mingyu says, and his voice is still so unbelievably low. he reaches up to pat his hair, and wonwoo nearly loses it when he sees the expression of sheer confusion written on mingyu’s face. “who was that?”

“just soonyoung.” wonwoo shrugs, then a thought comes to him. “hey, mingyu, are you free next week during the school festival? soonyoung’s dance team is doing a performance, and he wants me to come watch him dance. do you want to come with?”

“next week?” mingyu asks, his lips pressing together into a thin line. he swallows, and his expression smooths out into something guarded. “but… next week, i can’t— i don’t know if i can.”

the question “but /why/?” is on the tip of wonwoo’s tongue before he realizes exactly why. his week with mingyu ends in a day, and in a week, someone else will be with mingyu. someone else is going to be the one next to mingyu’s side, and it’s not going to be wonwoo. of course. it was stupid of him to ever /hope/, to think that he could ever start anything with mingyu when the entire reason they’d met was this entire week long dating thing.

“never mind,” wonwoo mutters, and he gets up off of the floor abruptly. he grabs his backpack, slinging it on his shoulder. “i’m sorry, i forgot i had something to do, thanks for the lunch, mingyu, it was really good.”

as he lets himself out of the apartment, a strange prickling feeling at the corners of his eyes, he pretends not to see the way mingyu watches him leave, still with that same unreadable expression on his face he’d had before, just as he pretends that his heart isn’t breaking with every step he takes away from the one who’s managed to make it his in the span of just a week.

(one day remaining)

— sunday

wonwoo doesn’t sleep well that night at all. he tosses and turns in his sleep, jolting himself awake every so often, and it’s when the sun starts to peek above the horizon that wonwoo decides to just get up. at six in the morning, his phone buzzes with a notification.

wonwoo stares at the banner flashing across his phone screen— it’s an absurdly late (or absurdly early, wonwoo’s can’t decide which) hour, but here mingyu is, messaging him. he watches as the notifications appear, stacking on top of one another, and even though he’s already told himself that he won’t read the messages until it’s no longer obvious that he hasn’t been sleeping at all, he still reads the previews that show up.

06:35 kim mingyu: wonwoo-hyung 06:35 kim mingyu: i need to talk to you 06:35 kim mingyu: can we meet up today at noon on the roof?

wonwoo stares at the ceiling. he’s not /stupid/. he knows mingyu only wants him to go up there so he can break up with him. he knows he’s going to hear the words that jeonghan had heard, that so many other people before him had heard— “i’m sorry, but i couldn’t fall in love with you. let’s break up.” what he doesn’t know, though, is why he feels so /calm/ about it.

he doesn’t have an answer for how his heart skips a beat whenever he sees a notification that mingyu’s messaged him. he doesn’t have an answer for why his mouth goes dry when mingyu turns to smile at him. he doesn’t have an answer for everything that had happened last afternoon, and he wonders if mingyu does.

he wonders if mingyu’s content to write it off as a mistake or as an accident that never should’ve happened, or if mingyu feels the same way wonwoo does— if mingyu lies awake at night with wonwoo’s face at the forefront of his thoughts, if mingyu wakes up from dreams with wonwoo’s name on his lips, if mingyu thinks of wonwoo the same way wonwoo thinks of mingyu.

wonwoo knows that he’s not an easy person to love. soonyoung tells him that he’s like a rose— that he’s nice to look at on the outside, but when anyone tries to get close to him, they’ll be burned by his thorns. wonwoo doesn’t think that soonyoung’s wrong. he’s heard this from so many people before, that his personality is just /bad/, that he tries too hard to be funny when he’s really not, that people are turned off of him by how large the gap between his looks and his real personality is. wonwoo wonders if mingyu thinks of him that way as well.

he drifts back to sleep, half-formed thoughts meandering lazily through his mind, and the next time he opens his eyes, it’s just a quarter until noon. /fuck/.

wonwoo gets dressed in record time, and even though he knows it’s going to be a breakup, he wants to look good for it. he’s wasting time the more he stares at his closet, though, so he just grabs the cleanest looking pair of non-uniform clothes he can find before he toes on his shoes and sprints out the door. the school is usually a fifteen minute walk, so when wonwoo runs, it’s cut almost in half. by the time he reaches the school gates, panting heavily, he has just a few minutes left until noon, but those are all that he needs.

the school is open on weekends if any sports teams want to practice or if any clubs need to use their reserved rooms for events, and wonwoo takes full advantage of that, pushing the gates open and letting himself in. he takes the stairs two at a time, and right as he pushes the button in and twists the handle in the opposite direction, wonwoo takes a second to just /breathe/. a week is over, but just like jeonghan had said, he’ll move on. it’s fine. he’ll move on.

then he pushes the door open.

it’s windy up this high, and wonwoo’s hair whips around his face as the door slams shut behind him. there’s just one other person on the rooftop, and when wonwoo takes a step closer, the figure, who’s been standing near the walls of the rooftop, turns.

“hi, hyung,” mingyu says. he’s dressed simply, just a t-shirt and dark wash jeans, and wonwoo thinks he looks amazing. he looks down at his watch. “it’s noon. you’re here.”

“i am,” wonwoo acknowledges. he takes a step, two steps, as many as he needs closer to mingyu until he’s standing barely three steps away. when he’s this close, he knows mingyu can see the shadows under wonwoo’s eyes that are nearly the exact same as the ones underneath mingyu’s eyes.

“i asked you to come here because i had something to tell you.”

“you did.”

“i’ll tell you everything, hyung, but first, do you have any questions for me?”

wonwoo swallows. this is his chance, his only chance, to figure out mingyu’s secret. “why, mingyu? why do you do this every week? what do you have to gain from it?”

“do you really want to know?” at wonwoo’s nod, mingyu’s mouth twists into a crooked smile, one that sends ice down wonwoo’s spine. “i’ll tell you then, hyung.”

wonwoo listens.

“when i first entered this school, there was this one assembly that everyone here had to go to. i remember it because i /hated/ it. i didn’t want to go at all. all of my friends and i were so determined to skip it, but then i found out literally the day before that i was chosen as a class rep. my grades weren’t the best, and i wasn’t really involved in clubs at the time, so i guess they only really chose me because of my face.” mingyu sighs. “so that was even worse. i /had/ to go to this stupid assembly, and then my friends found out there was no way we could skip it since our homeroom teachers were taking attendance at the beginning.

the assembly? what does that have to do with anything? wonwoo’s brain kicks so quickly into overdrive trying to figure out what assemblies have to do with dating when mingyu starts talking again.

“then i found out it wasn’t as boring as i thought it would be. i saw someone who was just so beautiful i couldn’t keep my eyes off of that person. even after the assembly ended, i kept thinking about that person. i couldn’t even focus in school, i was thinking about that person so much. i found out what class that person was in, and i kept thinking of ways to get closer to that person. but they already had their own group of friends, so i thought they didn’t need me in their life.”

“that sounds like a really shitty person,” wonwoo says. he can’t imagine what kind of person would be that dense. he’s glad that mingyu’s telling him this story, though— it’s helping him get his mind off of what’s about to come.

mingyu smiles, wry and pinched. “i don’t know if you’ll be asying that when i’m done, though. anyway, thinking about that person became such a distraction that one of my friends suggested that i try something out. he said that i should probably try to date people, you know? get out there and try to figure out what kind of people i like instead of being hung up on a face for so long. and that’s what i did. with a nice face like yours and mine, it’s not hard to get love confessions, and, well, long story short, i went out the first person who asked me out. she was nice, but she wasn’t what i was looking for, so i broke up with her.”

his gaze turns downward, his eyes shadowed. “but then it started becoming a thing. people would go out with me for the novelty of it all when i was just trying to find someone i really clicked with. here i was, pouring my entire heart out to them, and they just treated it as a game. they would go out to dinner with me just to get a free meal, and sometimes, they’d even try to kiss me when i didn’t want them to. they thought i was easy just because i said yes to them. some people were definitely nicer about it, and some of them seemed actually genuine. your friend, jeonghan-hyung, he was nice to me, but others weren’t the same.”

“so that’s where it all started,” wonwoo says quietly, and mingyu nods.

“it’s been happening like this ever since the beginning of the school year. every week, a new person. every week, someone different to break up with. it was okay. i was actually thinking about stopping this. i was just so tired of having to pretend to be someone that everyone i dated thought i was. they expected me to be like a prince, someone who could sweep them off their feet and bring them to a whole new world, but i really wasn’t like that. i’m not like that. and then you came along.”

“me?”

mingyu sighs and looks into the distance at a point somewhere behind wonwoo’s head. “you came outside and you saw me and then we started talking. that’s when i decided that even if you thought i was kidding, i was going to treat it as the real deal. i know you probably thought it was a joke at first, but i took it more seriously that i take my college entrance exam practices. you were funny and articulate and everything that i had ever hoped for and more, and that’s why.”

“that’s why, what?”

“that’s why i have to break up with you, hyung. you were that person.”

wonwoo’s heart stops beating. “/what/?” he chokes out. “/me/?”

mingyu smiles again, that same pinched smile from before. “hyung, i can’t keep acting like i don’t like you. you were all i thought about, and when you asked me out, it felt like a dream come true. i can’t do it anymore, though. thank you for this week, though. it was fun to pretend like i was dating you for real. but i just can’t act like this, and i can’t keep being friends with you now that you know everything. i’m sorry.”

wonwoo’s head is still spinning, trying to process this. it makes sense now, why mingyu had acted so differently around him than around his other dates, why mingyu had seemed so eager to say yes, why mingyu had invited him over to his house when he hadn’t done the same for anyone else. then he realizes what he has to do. “mingyu, wait!”

mingyu stops talking, and his face takes on a look of confusion. “what, hyung?”

“you didn’t even consider what i felt. all of this talk about feelings and your poor heart, and not /once/ did you ask me what i felt.” wonwoo takes a purposeful step forward, his eyes locked with mingyu’s. “did you even once stop to consider that i might feel the same way you do?”

mingyu laughs, a sharp and cutting sound. “don’t be like this, hyung. it really isn’t funny. now, why don’t you just let me get on with my life and we can both pretend this didn’t happen?”

“that’s the thing!” the words explode out of him. he’s been waiting and waiting to say this for so long. “i /can’t/ pretend this didn’t happen! i /can’t/ just pass you by in the hallway and not even say hi to you! that’s not something that i’m willing to do, believe it or not. i fucking like you, kim mingyu, and i’m not going to let you walk away like that!”

the last sentence rips out of his throat, and he stands there, gasping for breath as his chest heaves. mingyu’s eyes are wide and his jaw is open and slack and he looks like he’s just seen a ghost. wonwoo balls up his fist and takes another step closer to mingyu and he whispers, “please, mingyu, listen to what i have to say.”

“hyung,” mingyu chokes out, and his eyes are bright. “i—”

“mingyu,” wonwoo says abruptly. “when does the week end?”

“what?” the look of confusion on mingyu’s face disappears almost as quickly as it had come. “it ends whenever you want it to.”

wonwoo hums, taking a look down at his watch. it’s a quarter after twelve. “okay, it’ll end now, then. this week with you is over.” he looks at mingyu, whose face is now creased with something like disappointment. “it’s over, mingyu.”

“i don’t understand,” mingyu says slowly. “you just said that you liked me, but why are you doing this?”

“because,” and wonwoo breaches the gap between them, taking the final step to mingyu until they’re pressed nearly chest to chest with one another. he looks up at mingyu, looks up into mingyu’s eyes, and asks, with the brightest smile he can muster on his face, “kim mingyu, will you go out with me?”

mingyu stares at him for a second, then two, and then his entire face crumples. “i will,” mingyu chokes out, and he drags his arm across his eyes. “hyung, you’re so /ridiculous/, i swear, why are you like this.”

“even if one week ends, i can keep doing this, right? i’ll ask you every week, again and again, until you get tired of me.”

mingyu snorts, his eyes still watery. “i won’t get tired of you, hyung. never. i’ve waited so long for you, did you think i would give you up that easily?”

“well,” wonwoo trails off before he leans forward so he can knock his forehead against mingyu’s, his arms coming up to wrap around mingyu’s ahoulders. “i won’t let you give me up anymore.”

“that’s good,” mingyu says, his arms coming to rest on wonwoo’s hips. wonwoo hasn’t noticed it until now, but when they’re this close, he can see a small mole mingyu has on his cheek. his fingers move on their own accord to brush against the mole, and mingyu startles before laughing. “you never noticed?”

“no,” wonwoo says absently, leaning up again. “never was close enough to you to see it like this.”

mingyu’s breath hitches before he says, even and measured, “hyung, you know, i thought you would never see me this way.” wonwoo knows what he means by that— that he wouldn’t ever see mingyu as more than just an underclassman.

“i might’ve before,” wonwoo admits, lacing his fingers behind mingyu’s neck and dragging him downwards, “but not anymore.”

this kiss is slower than the first, like they’re content to take their time, and when they pull apart, mingyu rests his forehead against wonwoo’s again before he sticks his pinky finger up between them. “promise you won’t go?”

“i won’t,” wonwoo says, hooking his pinky finger around mingyu’s and shaking it. “that’s a promise.”

mingyu grins at wonwoo, wide and toothy, and wonwoo can’t help it— an answering smile breaks out across his face, and then mingyu is pulling him closer again, so close that wonwoo feels like he could just /melt/ into him.

/yeah/, wonwoo thinks as mingyu plants a light kiss the tip of his nose before pulling back and grinning wildly, and the sunshine framing mingyu’s face looks like a halo— he looks handsome, even more handsome now that wonwoo knows that mingyu likes him the same way he likes mingyu. /it’s going to be a good week./

(?? days remaining)

— next monday

at midnight, soonyoung spams wonwoo with enough happy birthday messages that if he printed them all out, he could probably cover an entire house with them. jihoon sends him a /happy birthday loser/, which wonwoo responds to with a /shut up, i’m older than you now/. jeonghan and seungcheol and wonwoo’s other friends all write him messages, and he responds to them all as soon as he can.

all except one.

wonwoo stares at mingyu’s messages for what feels like an eternity. he’s still over the moon from earlier today. mingyu had walked wonwoo home after that, and they’d spent a few minutes just standing in front of wonwoo’s house and hugging until bohyuk had come home and immediately started to collapse in laughter and tears. wonwoo had reassure mingyu that “no, it’s not you, my brother’s just an asshole,” and then after mingyu had walked off, wonwoo had kicked bohyuk’s ass to jupiter and back.

according to bohyuk, wonwoo had been “even weirder than normal, what the hell” during dinner, and even their parents squinted at him over their rice and side dishes.

“wonwoo-yah, are you okay?” his mom had ventured, and wonwoo kicked bohyuk in the shin to stop him from blabbing.

“i’m fine, mom.” wonwoo smiled at her, and he could tell by the furrow in her eyebrows that she hadn’t been entirely convinced. then, in a miraculous stroke of luck, her weekly drama started airing on the tv behind them and with her attention diverted, wonwoo sighed heavily.

which brings him to now. he supposes that mingyu doesn’t have any idea when his birthday is— they’d never discussed that, after all, and wonwoo doesn’t know if mingyu is friends with any of wonwoo’s friends. it’s probably not a big deal at all, so he puts the thought aside in his head and goes to sleep.

he gets a good morning text from mingyu, and he smiles as he types up a response. classic mingyu, knowing that wonwoo wouldn’t ever wake up before seven unless it was absolutely necessary.

06:48 mingyu: hi hyung! 06:48 mingyu: wake up~ 06:50 wonwoo: im awake now 06:50 wonwoo: thanks

bohyuk teases him all over breakfast (“hyung, are you sure you’re good enough for that guy? he’s too handsome and tall for you, maybe you should consider someone who doesn’t look like he just walked out of a magazine”) and wonwoo jabs back at him— “hey, if you think you can do better, just try. i’m waiting.” he goes to school as usual, taking his usual seat and writing down his usual notes. everything is as it always is, and soon, the fact that it’s his birthday today gets pushed to the back of his brain by his upcoming exams and the festival.

apparently, he’s going to have to help staff it since the club that usually helps sets up the festival is going to be busy later in the week. while the festival itself is actually fun, the hours of planning and setting everything up aren’t, and wonwoo sighs to himself after he gets the message from seungcheol that he’ll be on duty this week. his phone buzzes again, and since it’s in the middle of class, he puts it away without checking the message.

lunch rolls around, and when wonwoo picks up his phone to check the message, he realizes that he’s fucked up. there’s a message from mingyu waiting for him right at the top of his screen— /hyung, can you meet me on the rooftop for lunch? ^^/

/shit/.

“i gotta go,” wonwoo says hurriedly to jihoon, who only nods.

“okay.” jihoon doesn’t even look up from his rice. “we’re still on for after school though right?”

he, jihoon, and soonyoung have had a tradition dating back as far as their very first days together where they get ice cream after any one of their birthdays. there’s no way he’ll pass up the chance for free ice cream. “yeah, of course.”

“okay, see ya. have fun.”  

as he exits the classroom, he bumps into soonyoung, and before he can tell soonyoung where he’s headed, he just gets an eyebrow waggle from the other boy.

“hey, have fun, wonwoo,” soonyoung chirps, raising his eyebrows in what he probably thinks is a suggestive manner before he darts into the classroom. wonwoo stares at him, wondering just what the fuck that was all about before he shakes his head. mingyu is waiting.

when wonwoo pushes the door open, he’s fully expecting to see mingyu standing in front of him or sitting next to the shed. he’s nowhere in sight, and wonwoo steps forward with a frown starting to curl at his lips. where is he?

“boo!” he hears from right behind him, and he can’t help it, he screams, flinching forward and whirling around. mingyu’s standing there, a bright smile on his face, and goddammit, wonwoo should’ve known.

“holy fucking /shit/, kim mingyu,” wonwoo gasps, reaching forward to punch mingyu in the arm.

“ow,” mingyu lets out even though the expression on his face doesn’t change at all. it’s then that wonwoo notices that mingyu’s holding something behind his back.

“what’s that you’re holding?” wonwoo asks, and mingyu’s smile gets even wider.

“happy birthday, wonwoo-hyung.” mingyu holds out the cake he’d been hiding behind his back. it’s /pretty/, white cream with small frosted flowers on it, and wonwoo laughs outright at the small pair of glasses drawn next to the /happy birthday!!/ written in chocolate icing.

“thank you, mingyu,” wonwoo says in wonder. “did you make this?”

“yeah. sorry i didn’t talk to you all last night, i was trying to figure out how to make it as pretty as i could. beating butter and powdered sugar is harder than it looks. my arms are so sore right now.”

“you didn’t have to,” wonwoo says, looking up into mingyu’s eyes.

“i wanted to, though,” mingyu says, and he holds the cake out further. “hyung, take it. i brought some forks and a knife if you want to cut it.”

wonwoo takes the cake, marveling at how perfect it looks. a thought hits him. “wait, how did you know my birthday was today? i don’t think i said anything about it?”

“oh. i asked soonyoung-hyung. he’s friends with one of my friends, seokmin.” mingyu shifts. “i hope that’s okay with you?”

“no, it’s more than okay,” wonwoo says, then he squints at mingyu. soonyoung knows /way/ too much about wonwoo, and he’s not sure if he wants all of this information readily available to mingyu from the start. “did he… tell you anything?”

mingyu shakes his head, though, and wonwoo is about to heave a sigh of relief when mingyu speaks up again. “maybe he did. who knows?”

“why are you making my life so hard?” wonwoo complains, but there’s no real bite behind it. the weight of the cake is comforting in his hands, and just holding it sends a warm feeling through his entire body.

they sit down at their usual spot, and when wonwoo looks over at mingyu, it’s strange. they’re both mostly the same people they were last week, but there’s so much that has changed in the span of just a few days. mingyu cuts the cake for him, seemingly unaware, and wonwoo watches as mingyu takes a slice out and puts it on a plate. instead of handing the plate to him, though, mingyu picks up a small portion on a fork and holds it out to wonwoo.

“here you go, hyung.”

wonwoo purses his lips before he leans forward to take it. it’s delicious, the light cream pairing well with the cake. “thanks, mingyu. it’s really good.”

“i’m glad,” mingyu says, taking a small bite for himself as well. he looks up. “hyung, there’s some cream on your face.”

“oh, really?” wonwoo tries to lick it off, but mingyu takes his wrist and leans forward.

“hyung, let me.”

mingyu’s lips are soft against wonwoo’s, and wonwoo stares at mingyu’s closed eyes. he’d /planned/ it all, what kind of drama moment is this?

mingyu pulls away after just a few seconds, and he licks the cream that’s transferred onto his lips. “got it,” mingyu declares.

“nah,” wonwoo says, and he scoots closer to mingyu and takes the plate of cake out of mingyu’s hands, placing it on the ground. “you missed a spot, too.”

he watches as mingyu’s eyes dance with amusement, like he knows what wonwoo’s up to. mingyu’s lips are parted just slightly, and wonwoo just wants to lick the small white speck on mingyu’s lower lip away. so he does, again and again and again.

even though we don’t know when our last will be even if something happens and we can’t see each other lean on me lean on me

(∞ days remaining)