#scribbles from today before i have to leave to get ramen with friends

[jqnehr]

les améthystes du ciel | neuvillette — part 14

two individuals under pressure to marry. one has the hydro archon on his back, and the other has her matchmaking friend pushing her along. when the two meet at a ball, and both in dire need of peace from two meddlesome females, what better arrangement is there than their own betrothal?

pairing : neuvillette x fem!reader warnings : crack and (attempts at) funny ha-ha humour at the start (massive failure), ANGST (again, surprise surprise), ermmm idk what else, this is sfw. word count : 4.5k (another short one...) note : SOSOSOSOSOOOO SORRY THIS TOOK SO LONG TO GET OUT, school has been WHOOPING my ass (and love and deepspace is taking up all the remaining gb in my brain) and I've hardly had time (and motivation 😔) to write 💔💔 BUT ANYWAYS!! better late than never <33

! not proof read

! do not copy, redistribute, translate, or use my work with or without credit in any way. thank you.

part thirteen ⋮ masterlist ⋮ part fifteen

ao3 ⋮ playlist

...

“My goodness, Neuvillette, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you with such heavy eyebags.”

Neuvillette releases a sigh through his nose and continues perusing the documents before him, not even glancing up at the Duke of Meropide. “How fortunate am I to have a friend that is unfailing in pointing out the obvious.”

“In all seriousness, though, are you alright? You look like you haven’t slept a wink for a week.” Wriothesley’s perceptiveness strikes again. The Chief Justice dips his quill into the ink jar and scribbles his signature on the dotted line of a paper upon some recently-overseen hearing. “I haven’t.”

“And you’re not your usual amiable self either. You know, if you’re worried about your wife, there’s a nice Inazuman restaurant that just opened downtown. The Tonkotsu Ramen is divine.”

“I don’t even know if she likes Inazuman food.” Neuvillette isn’t really in the mood to entertain Wriothesley’s company today, but the dark-haired man seems to be making no move to leave. The warden of the Fortress appears to be more than eager to give the Iudex some unsolicited love advice from the ‘love expert’—Wriothesley’s words, not his.

“Everybody likes Inazuman food. Oh, and did you hear that Lyney and Lynette’s holding a massive magic show in two weeks? Maybe you could take her along, have some fun.”

“Did you forget that this marriage is contractual? There isn’t any real reason to take her on dates, Wriothesley.” The Duke’s eyes widen in incredulity at his words. “You don’t mean that. I can just tell that the very cause for your lack of sleep as of late is the very woman you don’t have ‘any real reason’ to take on a date. Do you think I’m stupid? You’re like an open book, Neuvillette.” “The thing that I don’t understand is how adamant you all seem to be on making us into a happy, loving couple. Have you been colluding with Furina in secret?” “She’s had a few cups of tea with me, but that’s besides the point. Isn’t the Madame bedridden with an awful cold right now? I bought some of my favourite tea up here so you and I could share some, but maybe you could take it and have it with her instead. What kind of husband would you be if you didn’t help nurse your ill wife back to health?”

That worries Neuvillette. “Do you think she’d be offended by my lack of checking-in and visits? I already had some chicken soup made for her yesterday, though.” Wriothesley’s spirits lift once he sees he’s starting to get through to the clueless man. “If I was your wife, I’d be insulted, whether contractually married or not. And chicken soup, Neuvillette? How cliché. I bet you told her maid to not let her know you requested it for her.” Neuvillette’s subsequent silence was answer enough.

Wriothesley rolls his eyes. “Whatever happened last week that caused this rift between you two is just silly. So, tell me—what did happen?” “Uh…” Neuvillette’s ears flush red at the memories that instantly flood him. “N-Nothing much.” “Did you two kiss or something? Oh, yeah, real scandalous. It’s almost as if husbands and wives don’t do that kind of thing!” 

“We’re husband and wife on paper and by arrangement only, Wriothesley. It would be going against the contract to initiate any kind of intimate contact with each other like that. And no, we didn’t ‘kiss’. It was just…” The Duke leans forward in anticipation for the Iudex’s answer. “Well?”

“…Well, we ran into each other at the beach in the dead of night and talked.”

“Did you two do the deed?” “No!” The Chief Justice’s entire face flares bright pink at Wriothesley’s innuendo. “Goodness, Wriothesley, how on earth did you come to that conclusion? Did you just come here today to bother me about such private matters?”

“Yeah. Anyway, you’re blushing like a maiden on her wedding night. If you just ‘talked’, didn’t ‘kiss’ and didn’t get it on, then why are you so hesitant to divulge what unseemly act you both committed on the beach that night?” “Alright, since you keep insisting—we almost did.” “As in, almost kissed or almost had se—”

“Kissed! Kissed—we almost kissed.” Neuvillette waves a hand in front of face in defeat, trying to ease his embarrassment. He didn’t want to think about how if they weren’t interrupted, it probably would’ve escalated way further. Archons, I sound like a right idiot. He shoots the smug man before him a look. “What books have you been reading? You’re making me seem like an airheaded teenage girl giggling about her first kiss to her gaggle of friends.”

Wriothesley looks almost offended. “The only things I have time to read are reports upon convicts and the management of the Fortress, Your Honour. And I’m sorry, but I really didn’t know you were so sensitive about this matter. As if I didn’t see how you carried her out of the tea party, all bridal style and everything. Looked way too real to just be an act. Isn’t that just so interesting?” Neuvillette purses his lips, throwing Wriothesley a side-long glance. “You have just as wild of an imagination as Furina. I’ll take up your suggestion about the tea, though.” “What about the magic show and restaurant? You could go dine at the restaurant after the show. Don’t you think she’d like that?”

Quiet, the Iudex stares blankly at the document before him, contemplating. Would that be overstepping my bounds…? Oh, to hell with it—I’ve already done so too many times to count. What hurt is a small date going to do?

“…Alright. Your counsel is sound, I suppose.”

“Of course it is. Oh, and do you know when the banquet will be?” “…In two weeks’ time. What day is the show?” “It’s on the Tuesday.”

“The banquet’s on the Friday. Are you going to attend?” “Furina’s…coerced me into attending. I’m going to be stampeded by frenzied mothers desperate to marry off their equally crazed daughters again.” “Careful, or—how do the youngsters call it these days?—she’ll ‘hitch’ you up with someone, too.”

Wriothesley gives him a look. “You sound like a ninety-year-old.”

Neuvillette side-eyes him in return. “And why do you think that is? I can never keep up with the ever-changing colloquialism of the kids these days.”

The Duke shakes his head in amusement, seeing he’s succeeded in his mission and thus can leave. “Alright, old man. Send my get-well wishes to your wife for me. And don’t tell her I sent the tea. It’s supposed to be all you.”

Neuvillette is too polite of a person to tell someone outright to get lost, so he opts to wave for the door. “Yes, yes, I get it, Wriothesley. I’m sure you’ve got plenty of things to attend to, or would you like me to assign you some documents to peruse for me?” Wriothesley instantly gets the message and hurries for the door before Neuvillette can follow through with his threat. “I’ve got a date with the Pankration Ring, so sorry. Have fun with your wife!”

His office door quickly clicks shut. Neuvillette shakes his head and continues on with his work, perturbed.

・・・・

Neuvillette debated with himself over whether he should deliver the tea to you anonymously, say Wriothesley heard of your sickness and sent it out of friendly well-wishes, or just man-up and go personally brew it for you.

Eventually, Neuvillette decided on the latter.

Now, he stands hovering outside of your bedroom door, hand raised to knock, but hesitance keeps him back. He’s worried you’re sleeping, and would disturb you—and that’s why you knock, idiot—or, if you’re awake, subject himself to even more embarrassment upon the remembrance of what almost happened a week ago. This is a bad, bad idea.

He almost leaps out of his skin when your voice calls out from behind the door, a slightly muffled: “Neuvillette, I know you’re out there. Stop dawdling and come in.” Resigning himself to his fate, he clicks open the door and shuffles in, embarrassed. “My apologies. I was worried you were sleeping and that I would be disturbing you.” You haven’t looked up from the book you’re reading. He recognises the book title with a start—The Soul of a Human. The box of tea in his hand almost slips out of his grip at his shock. “Well, you were fretting over it outside my door for five minutes.”

“I…apologise. Am I intruding?” He understands why you would be grumpy—your voice is awfully stuffy from the cold, and your face is pale. And lo and behold—you’re in the very same nightgown as you were that night. Neuvillette averts his gaze, ears burning. Ugh, what’s going on?

“No, you’re alright.” You pick up a bookmark to your side and slide it into the book, closing it, giving him your full attention. You look up at him, before your stare falls to the item in his hold. “What’s that you’ve got there?” “Oh, uh…” He glances down at it, searching for the right words. Wriothesley told me not to tell her he sent it… Neuvillette finally manages out, “…I brought some tea to clear your head. Care for a cup?” “How thoughtful of you!” An abrupt swell of pride at your thrilled affirmation envelops him, and confuses him. Ignoring it best he can, he ahems and turns for the coffee table. There’s a rustle of bedsheets and covers and you’re padding across the carpet for him. “Here, I’ll go ask Anaïs for a fresh pot of tea.”

“No, you must rest.” Neuvillette doesn’t even think before he’s already put a hand upon your shoulder, stopping you in your tracks for the door. You turn to look up at him in surprise, and he quickly removes his hand. “Erm—I can go and ask her. Just relax. You need as much bed rest as you can get, yes?” You stare at him silently, and he takes in your appearance. Hair unbrushed, up in a messy bun with wild strands of it flaring out, lips pale and chapped, nose red with your cold and your eyes are sunken with fatigue. I was a fool, staying out for as long as we did that night. But, despite it all, seeing your complexion bare and sickly, he’s rather struck with admiration.

He doesn’t realise he’s staring even more intensely than you when your quiet call of his name snaps him from his stupor. Blinking, Neuvillette takes a small step back. “Uh, sorry? Yes, I’ll go brew it.”

“That’s not what I sai—” But he’s already rushing for the door, leaving your hand outstretched in a feeble motion to stop him. Now it’s your turn to blink in bewilderment.

Man, he sure likes to stare. The bouts of chills you’ve been getting are traceless now, heat left in its place. You’ve never had someone look at you so appreciatively, and you’re sure you look like a gremlin right now. Neuvillette was dead silent and just studying you intently, like he was looking at the moon. 

You move to pull open a window, disliking how abruptly hot the room has gotten. Should I do something about my appearance? He’s already seen you practically naked, and that thought makes you blush even more. Anxiously patting at your hair, you head for the bathroom and take a look at your reflection, almost recoiling in disgust. I look ghastly! You quickly run the tap water, splashing at your face, sucking in a breath at the chill of it. Goodness, no wonder he ran out of here! I look like something out of a nightmare.

You jump when the sound of your bedroom door clicking open reaches you and, with a rush of panic, you whirl around and shut the bathroom door. Soft footsteps pause, and Neuvillette’s voice calls out, “[Name], are you alright?” “Fine! Just—one moment, please.” You hurriedly pat your face and hands dry, then moving to yank your hair tie from your bun, wincing at the sharp pull. That’s right, I haven’t brushed my hair for a few days, I was so sick! It must be a rat’s nest, and I probably have split ends now! No matter how much you try to pry the tie from your hair, it won’t budge, and it hurts like hell.

Okay, stop panicking. Why are you even panicking anyway? It’s not like you can help looking so dreadful at present. What are you trying to do—impress him?

“Ow, ow, ow, ow,” you softly whimper, bent over the sink awkwardly, gently trying to untangle the snag your hair tie has hit. You forget Neuvillette has exceptional hearing when three soft taps knock on the bathroom door.

“Are you sure you’re alright? You sound like you’re in pain.” He catches you by surprise, and you jump, hand still in your hair, ripping some strands out. Involuntarily, you yelp, cursing under your breath, arms sore from the angle. You hear Neuvillette’s polite, “I’m coming in” before the door clicks open. 

Great. I wouldn’t blame him if he started laughing. One look in the mirror and it’s quite clear just how ridiculous you look right now. Hair flopping over your face, the end of it still tied together. Hot with humiliation, you rush to explain. “I…was trying to untie my hair, since it’s been up like this for a few days—” “Would you like some help?” Neuvillette shuts the door and approaches, hands reaching for your hair slowly, as if awaiting your permission. Seeing no other way, you nod feebly, your hair bouncing comically with the movement. “…Yes, please.” Neuvillette begins to remove his gloves; biting down on the material covering his middle finger and sliding it off smoothly. The action is so minimal, so natural—but you can’t help but find the sight extremely attractive. His eyes meet yours, and he tilts his head slightly in silent inquiry to your ogling of him. You look away, fidgeting. Things are starting to get out of hand.

At least there isn’t a hint of amusement in his face—he doesn’t seem to find your current state funny at all. You were expecting him to tease you, maybe chuckle at your silly state, but he’s perfectly expressionless. As usual, you suppose. Although, he does seem to smile a lot at you. His eyes are soft, too.

“Where is it tangled?” His voice is quiet. Neuvillette’s fingers wind into your hair, quickly finding the hair tie and observing the state of it. You have to keep your head bowed awkwardly—but you suppose it’s nice that he’s significantly taller than you, so you don’t have to lean over too far. You reach up and lightly grab his hand, guiding it to where it is specifically twisted. “There. It’s knotted, I think.”

“Mm, it is.” His fingers are gentle, never tugging or pulling, just carefully working away at untying the knot in your hair as best he can. “It’s not so bad it has to be cut, though. You are fortunate.”

Relief fills you. “I’m glad. I suppose you have to deal with such incidents yourself with your hair?”

Neuvillette chuckles. Gods, his laugh is so nice. “From time to time, yes. But I take very good care of my hair. Wouldn’t it be so silly if the Chief Justice oversaw a trial with matted hair?” “They wouldn’t let you in,” you laugh back, straightening slightly as your back muscles are beginning to ache. “Do you ever tie your hair up? Or try different hairstyles?” “I…can’t say I have.” Neuvillette shakes his hand, some strands of your hair falling to the floor, before he continues untangling your hair again. “I think I prefer it out, with just the ends tied.”

“I see.” You’re the opposite—having your hair down all the time gets in your way. So, you opt to have it up in a hair claw or gathered on top of your head in a messy bun. You really can’t fathom how Neuvillette gets around so easily without sitting on his hair or getting it stuck in doors. But then again, you suppose, he has been wandering around like this for centuries, so he ought to have learned how to manage it by now.

But the little girl in you always wants to reach for his hair. It looks perfect to braid and brush to your heart’s content, but you wouldn’t dare ask. All you know is that it’s soft and very well-kept, considering its lucent shine and the handful of times he’s picked you up and you had to hold onto his neck. 

Such a train of thought makes you curious—what’s his morning routine? Nightly routine? Does he put his hair up in a net before sleeping? How long does it take him to brush it out each morning? Doesn’t it get bothersome at times? Has he ever had a haircut? And what are those blue things in his hair?

You voice that last question. “Neuvillette, what are those pretty blue ornaments hanging down from your head?” The movement of his hands in your hair freezes, and you immediately wish you could take your words back. You and your big mouth, [Name]! Haven’t you learned how to mind your business yet? Biting down on the inside of your right cheek, you move to apologise. “I’m sorry if it was a personal question, they’re just so peculi—”

“They’re, uh…” His quiet reply silences you, and Neuvillette begins to untangle your hair again. “I can understand why you’re curious. I can’t explain it, but they’re just…well…” “I dare say, they look like antennas,” you offer amiably, hoping to ease his clear awkwardness. “Or horns?” Then you giggle lightly. “Are you a dragon or something?”

Neuvillette swallows, beginning to sweat bullets. You just hit the nail on the head, and I can’t even tell you. He really can’t think of an excuse for them, but he isn’t about to indulge you in his secret. “I’ve been around for a long time, [Name], so surely it can’t be strange to realise that I may be some kind of mystical creature.”

“You said you’re not a vishap, so are you a dragon?”

“…Not exactly. I can’t really tell you, to be frank.” Sometimes, he wishes you weren’t so perceptive. It’s a valuable trait, yes, and he admires you for it, but it’s uncomfortable when he witnesses you practically unravelling his own secrets he’s kept very down-low right before his very eyes. Your quiet, observant demeanour is worth its weight in gold, but he wasn’t aware that you had been silently studying him also.

Well, it makes sense, if you think about it. You’re both married, and live in the same residence. It would be more logical to consider it strange if you weren’t curious about him—as he is you.

“Oh, I won’t pry, then.” It isn’t that factor that bothers him, he’s just a bit worried you’ll become suspicious, connect the dots—and it’s game over for him. If you haven’t already. 

Silence reigns for a few moments, Neuvillette just gently unknotting your hair from the tie before finally pulling the band from your hair completely, holding it out to you. With the de-tanglement came a lot of pulled hairs, and a clump of some is still latched onto the tie. “There you are. Would you like to shower and wash your hair before joining me for tea?” “Uh, yes, I will.” Embarrassment fills you again. You glance at yourself in the mirror, letting loose a humourless laugh. “I look ridiculous.”

Neuvillette surprises you by patting your head, much like he does to the Melusines he’s so fond of. He’s smiling at you with that same gentle smile, too. “You look cute, if anything. There’s no need to be embarrassed. Things like this happen.” You stare at him. He thinks I look…cute? 

Neuvillette appears to be perturbed by his own words. His eyes widen a fraction. “Uh—that is, there’s no need to put yourself down. Feel free to take your time.”

You, again, don’t get a chance to answer as he’s already whirled around and shut the door behind him. 

・・・・

The bathroom door clicks open and you step out, towel wrapped around your head, hair up. You look and feel much more refreshed than before, face washed and moisturised. Neuvillette glances up from the newspaper he was reading and turns to you. “You look much better. I managed to keep the tea warm. Care for some?” “Of course.” You take a seat beside him, briefly shooting a glance towards the newspaper. And, as expected, the headlines are still going on about the announcement of Neuvillette’s marriage. One of the most notable headlines, Will There Be A Wedding? lines the top of the front page, along with a long string of columns holding articles on the matter.

“The Steambird is just eating this up.” You’re somewhat amused. You’ve, effectively, thrown the entirety of Fontaine into chaos. There’s a picture of you both at the tea party someone must’ve managed to snap just in time—Neuvillette’s lips upon your cheek, your expression perfectly surprised—displayed across the front page. You pick up the paper and begin reading the first few sentences of the article aloud, “For once, Fontaine has been graced with something much more exciting and shocking than the latest murder mystery resolved at the trials—the very man known for overseeing such hearings, Iudex Neuvillette, has recently announced his marriage to a young woman, Madame [Name].” It’s so ludicrous. Furina must be overjoyed.

You hear Neuvillette sigh from beside you, then the trickle of tea being poured sounds. “It gets better. The subtle slights thrown your way, in particular, are especially riveting.” Sarcasm drips from his tone. “I don’t recommend reading it. I’ve half a mind to send for them to halt publication of such an offensive article.”

“No need, I was prepared for this.” Society is fueled by vanity. Everyone likely expected Neuvillette, an unreachable, enigmatic figure with the face of an angel, to follow down a fairy-tale storyline. He would choose a woman equal to him in appearance, someone gorgeous and loveable, not someone who looks like every other person you pass by on the street. Not someone normal.

You’ve long grown a thick skin to scornful comments from those around you—commonly people you don’t even know, and who don’t know you—but it hurts a bit to be compared to the man next to you. So you opt to ask him what he thinks of your appearance.

“Well, Neuvillette, what is your opinion on me?” You brace yourself for the worst. But he’s too nice a person to give it to you straight. Perhaps his hesitance to confide in you of his true, maybe even superficial, views on you is a factor that could wound you deeply.

“Opinion?” He echoes, surprised. Neuvillette sets down his cup upon the saucer in his hand with a soft clink, mauve eyes rather bemused. “…Could you be a little more specific?” You have to choose your words carefully—you don’t want your deep-seated, pushed-down insecurities revealed, nor do you want to look like you’re fishing for compliments. For attention. You just want honesty, not flattery. “Erm…well, have you found that you would have rathered a more comely wife?” “I will be perfectly frank.” Neuvillette places his cup and saucer on the coffee table before you both, before leaning back and facing you fully. “I am not someone who goes for what’s on the outside. However, in this sense and our situation, I never had a choice anyway—not that that’s turned out to be a bad thing.” He, too, seems to be having trouble wording it right. “What I mean to say is, I like you. Your personality. And it’s very easy to look past all those superficial, facile ideals of beauty and appeal once you understand the heart of who you’re dealing with.”

Yeah, he should’ve been a poet. You want to tease him, but now is not the time. You also didn’t expect his words to comfort you so much. Beauty is a double-edged sword, and so is being average. Then it hits you—wait, could this be considered a…confession, of sorts?

“So, you’re saying…you don’t care about my appearance? Like how the entire country and Furina does?” “I never did. Why do you think I chose you? If I wanted a beautiful woman, I need only have taken my pick. I could send a letter to some nobleman with a particularly attractive young daughter and solved all his problems with marrying her off. But I didn’t. Although this situation is unromantic and unideal, that doesn’t mean I wanted it to be unrealistic.”

His words make you ponder. He had options, but he selected me. “…You could still say you had no choice, Neuvillette. The only reason I wound up here is because we danced and sent the ball rolling—a ball Furina herself put there, waiting for someone to kick.”

“Yes, you could. But you had a level head, could manage yourself under pressure, and you’re not the type to take much to heart. I needed someone rational, and it seemed like you were the only logical woman there.”

But it’s not like you were different from all the others. You were just in the wrong place at the wrong time, really. You give him a rather rueful smile. “You’ve misunderstood me once more, Neuvillette.”

“Sorry?” He almost flinches at your words. “Misunderstood you? How do you mean?” “I am not some sensation. We were both in sticky situations and we both appeared before each other in the nick of time. And I didn’t see you talking to any other woman apart from Clorinde that night. You didn’t try to seek someone out—it’s like you just hoped the right person would come along. And they did.” Neuvillette’s gaze drops, hurt flashing across his features. You feel pierced, like you just hurt yourself too, but you push that guilt down. This is not going how I intended it to. Miscommunication strikes again. And it’s the only thing you’re both capable of, because you have some silly little piece of paper to stick to and blurring lines to stay behind.

It’s frustrating, actually. You want to know more, but the contract says no. You’ve both come so close to breaking those rules you set for yourselves, only to pull away just in time. A chemistry you never asked for sputtered to life between you both, but it’s something to be adamantly—indefatigably—avoided. Why is it such torture?

Torment like no other. Ha. You’re talking as if you know what this is. But you don’t. And you won’t. All you know is that you can’t.

“I…” Neuvillette seems to be at a loss for words. “I’m not sure what to say.” “It’s alright.” You lean forward and pat his hand, which is curled into a tightly clenched fist. “You didn’t have a choice. This isn’t your fault.” But it will be your fault if this continues on and becomes something it shouldn’t. No matter how you strain to touch his face, you will be lost beneath the waves.

did I post this MINUTES after my announcement of how it'll be up today? yes. yes I did.

anyways HELLOOOOO AGAIN EVERYONE!! so nice to see you all once more <3 I hope you're healthy and well and don't have 4 massive cavities to be filled like I do!! 🥰

again, so sorry this took ten years. ive had other projects (love and deepspace) that I've been slaving away on and school assignments (that im procrastinating from) on my plate as well :((( BUT!! not to worry, for chapter 14 is here 🤭‼️

HOPE YOU ENJOYED!! and recovered from the last one. cause WOW 😨 I need to seek professional help ☺️

taglist!

@shiroonekoo @just-here-reading @avyakaslana @eternal-dokja @confusedparticle @xitrinez @tanspostsblog @vcatson @sek0ya @loving-august @mxyarylla @ultigoblin @constantlyoverthinking @pvbbyb0y @lynettezzp @esthelily @furblrwurblr @sangoqueenkoko @lacunaanonymoused

© jqnehr 2024. all rights reserved. do not translate, repost/redistribute and plagarise any of my works

[veshiro]

Million Dollar Man - Rui Kamishiro

x fem!reader part II

-> ...and now you're completely confused.

Come on baby, let’s ride

We can escape to the great sunshine

The past week has been confusing, draining, and overall shit. You took the day off from helping the troupe, which you normally don’t do as it feels sucky to ditch, to work on your overdue assignments. Then, there’s the haunting thoughts of the director himself. The way he had stepped in between you and that creep that one night still lingers at the forefront of your mind. His hand on your waist, the slight growl in his voice when–

Homework.

You groan and shove the heavy mathematics textbook shut, the loose-leaf paper filled with scribbles and sad attempts sticks out slightly. The only thing keeping you sane right now is your Lana playlist. The weight of that party’s events has been holding you down. Right after the whole incident occurred, Rui just went back to normal. Didn’t talk about the fact that he pretended to be your boyfriend. Didn’t talk about how his personality flipped. Didn’t talk about the obvious tension between you two now. It bothered you immensely, so much that you went to An and ranted about your troubles to her over a coffee. She said the same thing your other friends said: talk to him. 

“That’s a lot harder to do than it sounds like, An.” You had said while distracting yourself with a sip of the hot latte.

“It’ll make you feel better. And have you ever thought about why this bothers you so much?”

“What?”

An sighs but leans forward, her chin resting on the palm of her hand, and a small smirk appears on her face. “Why would Rui pretending to be your boyfriend, holding you oh so close, then acting like he nothing happened bother you?”

“Stop implying what I think you’re implying.” She shrugs and then leans back against the seat again. “Just think about it.”

There’s no way in the entire universe that you could have feelings for Rui Kamishiro. He’s practically a coworker. A friend that you wouldn’t gossip with or rant to. He’s just Rui. A simple man with a slightly unhinged personality.

So why does he feel so highlighted in your mind?

You pause Spotify and swipe into your rhythm game that took the stress off of your mind, and the custom focus status you had set up appears as active. Studying wasn’t going to happen, and you sure as hell didn’t want to go out with any of your friends today, so rotting away playing a game would have to do. 

That’s why you fail to see the text nofiication when you enter the game.

Time passes quickly and you’ve used up all your bonus energy on a few favorites. With a sigh, you exit the game and turn your phone off, tossing your headphones onto the bed for dramatic effect. It’s eighteen hundred and due to your parents working late, you could either scavenge ingredients or go grab some ramen from the nearby convenience store.

It’s obvious what anyone would do. 

Your shoes slide on easily and you grab your keys and wallet, phone stationed in your back pocket for easy access. The door locks behind you but you don’t get far down the sidewalk when you crash into something. 

Or, someone.

You look up and see familiar purple hair looming over you, an anxious feeling settling in your gut at the same time a fluttering one appears. Even your body was confused about how to feel about Rui. 

“You never skip out on our brainstorming sessions,” He crosses his arms before raising a hand to cup his chin in a questioning manner.

“My studies…” You didn’t sound very convincing, not even to yourself.

He sighs and runs a hand through his hair. “Was it something I did? Did I finally manage to scare you off like everyone else?” His voice is teasing and playful, but when you look into his capturing eyes you can see the pain. The remainder of his childhood. How he thinks every relationship he has will end.

“What? No!” The words leave quicker than you would have liked them to. “I just–”

“You just?” 

A raindrop hits your scalp first, then lands on your shoulders in faster successions. The both of you don’t seem to mind the sudden change of weather. 

“You confused me, okay?” There it is, the admittance.

“How?” 

Does he really not get it? Then you laugh to yourself realizing that men just don’t.

“How would you feel if I had made you feel all these wonderful and confusing things in the span of a few minutes, and then completely disregard it all without an explanation?” 

He thinks for a moment. “I suppose I’d find myself in your situation.”

“Exactly. Rui, you…” The words don’t come naturally and you struggle to hide around the truth. The truth that you had just discovered. The truth is that you had feelings beyond friendship for him.

At this point, the rain had started to drench your hair and shirt. Rui’s jacket weighed down on him heavily, but he didn’t care. His focus and attention were plastered on you.

“Why did you do it?”

“Because I couldn’t let that asshole ruin your night like that.”

If you say this, it’s all laid out. If you say this, the conversation may go down a different route. “Then why pretend to be my date? Or boyfriend? Or whatever the hell you did!” 

He freezes and a few droplets of water run down his face like makeshift tears. He blinks. “That bothered you?”

“Of course it did! You can’t just play with a girl’s feelings like that. Throw her into days of goddamn emotional turmoil and–” 

Within a moment he steps forward to close the distance between you two. His hand tenderly comes down to hold your chin, pointing your face to look at his. 

“You’ve been avoiding me because you have feelings for me?”

“Yes.”

He almost chuckles but spares you the embarrassment. “You’re a fool.” 

But then he kisses you and it feels like the world exploded. All the confusion, all the turmoil, gone in an instant. Rui Kamishiro didn’t just leave you confused, he left you breathless.

[c-rowlesdraws]

women want her, sharks fear her

[pies-writes-and-more]

unforgettable

request: asahi content!! :) 

pairing: asahi azumane x fem!reader 

warnings: all fluff besides asahi being a v nervous boi and daichi and suga teasing him lol

a/n: thank you for the request anon! I’ve been meaning to post some more love for our ace but I keep forgetting to finish the wips haha so thank you for getting me into the groove! big thank you to @satan-ruler-of-hells​ for helping me out with this fic :D

haikyuu masterlist

Asahi wondered how he should feel, having the most beautiful girl he had ever laid eyes on, holding his hand, pressing a kiss to his cheek. Should he feel like his heart was going to burst out of his chest? Should his whole face be burning with embarrassment? Because here she was, smiling up at him and making him forget what his name was and there was really only one issue with this situation.

Asahi had absolutely no clue who this girl was.

“Are you excited for your match, babe?” You asked, seeming to not take notice of the fear and confusion in his eyes.

‘Babe’?

The team must’ve frozen behind him because no one was saying anything, except for the surprised sounds coming out of Noya and Tanaka’s gaping mouths.

“Oh hey there! You’re Asahi’s girlfriend right?” Daichi asked, grinning as he waved to her. “It’s nice to finally meet you. He talks about you all the time!”

I do? Asahi thought to himself, trying to think about his recent conversations with Daichi.

“Asahi, she’s so much prettier than i would’ve imagined! No wonder you didn’t want to bring her around - I would totally steal her off of you,” Suga laughed.

Asahi’s brow furrowed as you just nodded, introducing yourself to the team. I have a girlfriend? He wondered to himself, his heart beating too fast for his body to keep up. There was no way that this was possible. But his eyes were drawn to her - she was exactly his type. How the hell did he manage that? Besides that, how the hell did he manage to forget her?

Asahi Azumane you IDIOT, he scolded himself internally, just watching her smile and giggle at how excited everyone on the team was.

Hinata and Kageyama were both hiding in the back, whispering amongst themselves because the upperclassmen were acting as if Asahi had mentioned this girl before.... but they had definitely no memory of this.

“Maybe it happened when we were practicing one day?” Hinata whispered, eyes narrowing as he tried to see if he recognized you.

“I dunno, I don’t pay attention to anything they say unless it’s about volleyball,” Kageyama admitted quietly to him and Hinata smacked his arm, scolding him about paying more attention.

Asahi still felt like he was going to faint - this couldn’t possibly be happening. Wait, what was this girl’s name? He should’ve listened to you introduce yourself to the team - maybe your name would’ve sparked a memory for him. What kind of person was he to not even remember his girlfriend? And look at her, she was perfect, she would definitely leave him if he told her that he didn’t remember her. What kind of husband was he going to be if he couldn’t even remember her name?? What if he forgot his children’s names? What if-

You suddenly let out a breath, grinning and glancing up at him, “Sorry, I didn’t mean to come on so strong. But thank you for going along with it!”

Going.... along with it?

“And you guys too! I appreciate it!” You beamed, nodding specifically towards Daichi and Suga.

“No worries, I noticed those guys trying to catch up with you. I figured you were in a bit of trouble,” Daichi admitted, glancing through the crowds to make sure the creepy older guys had left after seeing you with them. “Will you be okay now?”

You nodded and looked over your shoulder, comforted by the fact that they were gone, “Yep! I’m sure once I find my way up on the stands, they’ll leave me be. Sorry again, I just saw a tall kinda scary looking guy and figured he was my best shot,” you laughed, smiling up at Asahi again.

“W-What?” Asahi wasn’t sure he was putting the pieces together fast enough - so... you weren’t his girlfriend?

Daichi rolled his eyes, punching the ace’s arm to shock him back to reality, “She got spooked by some dudes. Pretending you were her boyfriend was probably a way to get them off her back. You know, cause you look like a 30 year old man.”

Asahi frowned tightly at the comment, rubbing his arm, “Hey! I can’t help the way I look!” His eyes turned to Suga who was laughing at how mean Daichi could be. “So you knew too?”

“Oh no way. I’m not as quick as Daichi. But I saw you panicking cause you didn’t seem to recognize her and thought it was hilarious,” Sugawara laughed and Asahi groaned - he should’ve known his friends enjoyed watching him torture himself.

“Thank you for your help! Sorry again,” you apologized, for what felt like the 100th time. “I’d like to make it up to you if I can. I know I made you uncomfortable back there.”

Asahi shook his head quickly, waving his hands in front of him in protest, “N-No not at all! Why would I be uncomfortable at a pretty girl holding my hand?”

You giggled, noting the other teams starting to pile into the gym, “Well, maybe after your game I can find you and take you out for food as a thank you. I appreciate you helping me out there.”

Daichi and Sugawara were still snickering as they helped push the rest of the Karasuno team into the gym, trying to give their Ace some time with his fake girlfriend.

“You really don’t have to thank me, if anything it’s probably Daichi you should thank,” Asahi admitted, rubbing the back of his neck nervously.

“Mm maybe. But I don’t think your captain’s my type. I picked you cause you were kinda scary looking... but also you seemed like my type,” you explained to him with a laugh.

Asahi’s eyes probably popped out of his skull hearing that, stammering out all sorts of noises and making you laugh some more.

“You’re the ace for our team right?” You asked, glancing into the gym in hopes that you weren’t making him late. It was only then Asahi realized you were wearing a Karasuno school uniform. “I’ll be cheering for you up in the stands, boyfriend,” you teased, giving his hand a small squeeze. “And maybe later we can go get food together?”

Asahi felt his face burning with nerves as he nodded shyly, your smile making his stomach do all sorts of flipsjust nodded nervously, you shooting him another one of those gorgeous smiles, “S-Sure.”

“It’s a date!” You beamed, waving a little to him as you went off to find a spot on the bleachers.

The tall third year finally let out a breath he had been holding, wondering if he had dreamt the whole thing. He looked at his hand, reimagining how it had felt with your hand in it.

“Oi! Asahi! Are you coming or what?” Sugawara called from the gym. Asahi blushed some more as he shook off his daydreams, nodded quickly and rushing in to start stretching with everyone else. “I hope you got her number.”

“W-What?”

“Y/N! That girl that you were just talking to! Did you get her number?” Sugawara asked, eager for the details. It wasn’t every day that Asahi seemed so head over heels over a girl (especially one he just met).

“N-No but… she wants to get food together,” Asahi admitted shyly, playing with his fingers in front of him.

“Well you better play your best today so she doesn’t back out,” Daichi snickered as he joined the conversation.

Asahi whined as Daichi and Sugawara continued to tease him, both of them hitting his back with some somewhat supportive words, grinning ear to ear, “Go and be the best ace ever!” Suga cheered as the game started.

Asahi took a breath, silently promising himself that he would play his absolute best this game as he caught your eyes up in the stands, smiling softy to himself. “Y/N,” he whispered to himself, repeating the name that you had given Sugawara and the others. He heard you cheering for them with the other Karasuno students as the game went by, points racking up as he felt himself getting more into the game.

After their win, Asahi was happy to find you hanging around as everyone else was disappearing. “So you really are as good of an ace as they say,” you complimented him with a smile. “It was really cool to see you play.”

“T-Thank you,” Asahi blushed, brushing some flyaway hair from his eyes. “I guess I should properly introduce myself. Azumane Asahi, but please, call me Asahi.”

He held his hand out to you and your happily shook it, both of you immediately wondering if it was common to find someone whose hand seemed to fit so perfectly with your own, “Y/L/N Y/N, but call me Y/N. I did say I would treat you to some food, so what kind are you thinking?” You asked boldly, smiling up at him. It wasn’t every day you found a guy like him and if he was interested, you definitely weren’t planning on letting him go.

Asahi spluttered out some more sounds, ones that definitely weren’t words, and you just giggled in response, making him even more nervous because your laugh was just so wonderful. “A-Anything you want,” he finally managed to get out. Was this really happening to him? A perfect girl like you asking him out?

“I’ve been craving ramen if you’re interested!”

“I know this great place that has tonkotsu ramen!” Asahi found himself blurting out excitedly, suddenly also craving ramen.

“Sounds like a pretty good date to me,” you glanced at the clock nearby, quickly tugging your bag off your shoulders and pulling out a pen. “Here. I assume you’ve got to head back with your team, but text me,” you suggested, scribbling your number on his arm. “Sorry if I’m being too bold,” you apologized with a laugh, tossing your pen back into your bag. “You just seem pretty cool.”

Asahi shook his head quickly, insisting there was no need for you to apologize, “I-I like it.” He gave you a wave as you started to head out, looking at the digits written on his skin as if memorizing them just in case they magically disappeared.

“Y/L/N Y/N,” he murmured under his breath. He wouldn’t be forgetting your name anytime soon, he was sure of that.

haikyuu taglist (lmk if you’d like to be added)

@al0ehas​​ @aurumk​​ @neko-chii1​​ @thisnoodlewritesao3​​ @satan-ruler-of-hells​​ @trashy-simp​​ @jeppiet​​ @tobi-momo​​ @darkvadeeer​​ @haikyuutothetop​​ @livy384​​ @babyshoyo​​ @jesssobs​​ @b-bakana​​ @just4readingfics​​

[lunarflux]

"i promised i'd forget, but you're all i see when i dream the night away"

bang chan x reader

genre — drama!au

suggested background music: x

note: like i said - i put a lot of my life into writing. something similar to this happened to me today, and i'd like to think that music is getting me through it. i wanted to add more of a "post credits" scene for chan and o/c, but this is how my day is going and how this situation ends.

The world never felt so heavy.

You'd never thought that scrolling through social media could create this bleeding ring in your ears, yet somehow here you are, unable to look at your phone. The photo you stumbled across had already been burned into your memory. There were times when you could forget what song you'd just listened to, and yet this one image had suddenly been burned, a permanent nightmare in your mind.

Your ex looked happy. It wasn't a bad breakup, but after a year, you couldn't expect him to stay single forever. You'd both agreed to move on, and while you swore you had, seeing the photo of him with a beautiful girl kissing his cheek made your shoulders heavy. Staring at your blacked out screen, it was like the photo was still there, and no matter how hard you tried, you couldn't keep yourself from seeing it. Every time you closed your eyes, there he was.

Happy.

You fumbled with your cell phone, placing it face down on your desk before your boss could catch you. It was hard to hide the look on your face. It was pain, sadness, and confusion. How was it that after all this time, you hadn't succeeded in moving on, but he had?

Was it you? Or was this girl really so special that you were worth forgetting?

The feeling of being forgotten - it's seeing the dust gather on photos and the doorknob that he will never open again.

It's over.

"Do you have the paperwork for the meeting tomorrow?" Chan popped into your office, placing a fresh mug of coffee on your desk. You'd started here only six months ago, but he already knew that you liked your coffee light and sweet. "Jisoo wants to make sure we're not missing anything before -"

"Yeah, I have it." You said curtly, looking back at your computer, typing away at your report. "I'll bring it to you later."

"I mean, I can wait for it if you have it ready."

"Chan," you looked up at him. "I said I'll bring it to you later."

Chan looked at you with mild concern. Sure, there were a lot of women in the office, and the men had eventually learned when not to step on toes in the case of any mood swings because of work stress. You weren't one of those people though. You were the type of person who'd rid the stress with a bar of chocolate and be done with it. You'd never snapped at him before.

"Okay." Chan backed out quietly. He ducked into the next office over. Knocking on Minki's office door, he peered in.

"Hey," Minki stood up. "I gotta bring these to the fourth floor, can you watch the phone for me?"

"Yeah, no problem." Chan smiled before taking a seat.

Ping

He knew that you and Minki were office best friends ever since you got hired. While he didn't mean to see it, Minki left his messenger open and slowly your messages came flooding in.

x: he moved on x: am i supposed to be upset? x: we broke up a year ago, so why do i feel so defeated haha x: maybe i'm just decomposing. why do i feel like this x: can we get drinks later? i know you hate it when i drink to drown out my sorrows, but i just can't be here right now.

Damn.

Chan swore he didn't mean to see all that. That would explain the mood though.

x: i didn't think i'd miss him this much. i just want to forget about it.

Taking in a deep breath, Chan pulled out his phone and made a call.

**

"Chan, why did you need me for this stupid client dinner? And who the hell has dinner at 4PM?" You continuously complained as he drove you down the road into the next district.

"Just relax, it'll be fine."

You rested your head against the passenger side window. As your breath fogged up the glass, you scribbled little hearts, peppered over the skyline as Chan drove. It wasn't until you started seeing signs that you realized you were at Banpo Bridge. Chan pulled into the empty parking lot.

"The client wants to have dinner here? What are we doing - getting takeout?" You jested.

Chan opened your door. "Go sit over there, I'll be right back."

You took your seat right by the edge of the water. The weather really was perfect today. The fresh air helped clear out your thoughts. Even though the breakup was a year ago, seeing that photo really made it feel like it just happened yesterday. Your heart broke twice, and yet you couldn't bring yourself to think that you hate him now. You loved him as a memory - a beautiful, happy memory, and it was time to let go now.

Chan re-emerged next to you, a bag with four bottles of soju and piping hot ramen in his hands.

"Um -" You nearly laughed at the sight of him struggling to carry everything. "Am I missing something? Are the clients your drinking buddies?"

"Sit, sit, please." Chan arranged everything down on the ledge.

"Not that I'm ungrateful, but I am confused."

"I, uh." He sat down next to you, removing his jacket. "I'm sorry. Please don't be mad at me."

Stopping halfway from opening a bottle, you looked up at him.

"y/n, Minki had me watch over his desk, and I... I'm sorry, I saw your messages."

"Chan, that was private." You looked down at your shoes, feeling the heaviness in your chest again.

"I know. And I'm sorry." He grabbed the bottle from you and opened it himself. "Minki had to run to another meeting, and I saw how sad you were. I just figured I'd help you escape for a bit. I called in a favor from the interns to watch your stuff, so we could... do this, I guess."

You'd always known Chan was a softie. He was that guy in the office who never forgot about birthdays and important events. He was never late, and he would do everything he could to help out the new people. Even to you, he was a big help whenever you needed it.

"Again, I'm sorry." He poured two shots and handed you one. "But you looked like you needed it, so - cheers."

You watched him as you threw back your soju. You stifled a smile, "Pitiful, isn't it. Still feeling like you've been dumped even after an entire year."

Chan winced as the alcohol hit the back of his throat. "Not at all. Who said that a year was the right time to get over someone? There's no rule for that."

You continued to sip slowly, watching him open up all the snacks.

"I haven't had a girlfriend in years, and I swear, after my last girlfriend and I broke up, I couldn't stop thinking about her even because of the littlest things. It wasn't a bad breakup, but when you have so many happy moments with someone, you can't help but feel sad when you see that person making new moments with someone else. It makes you wonder if that could've been me, y'know?"

It couldn't be stopped. One deep breath and suddenly all the tears started pouring out. You couldn't control your breathing, and it felt like the weight of the world finally came crashing down on your chest, reminding you of every little happy memory that had to be released into the ocean like confetti.

Chan rushed over, placing his jacket on your shoulders. He hushed you, rubbing your arms to warm you up. Crouching down in front of you, he pulled you up and brought you into his chest.

"Wait, I'll get makeup on your shirt -"

He laughed at your childish worries. "It's just a shirt. Just go ahead, it's okay. I can get it dry-cleaned, and you're worth more than some shirt."

Feeling your tears soak up in the cotton, you just cried, and Chan let you until it felt like there was nothing left. You chest was still heaving, but you felt the weight lift slowly. The sea air started filling your lungs again like an icy burn.

"I'm sorry." You finally looked up, mascara stained on your cheeks. You smeared what you could from your face before sitting.

"Stop apologizing." Chan sat down beside you again. "Do you feel better?"

"A little."

Placing his hand on yours, Chan smiled. It was a warm gentle smile. He squeezed, "It will get better. I promise."

"I just feel like everyone keeps moving on, and I'm just stuck here."

"Where is 'here' to you? 'Here' to me is existing with a good job with good friends and a good life. 'Here' is anything you're doing happily without him." He reached up to cup your cheek. "I know you feel miserable, but your body won't let you feel this way forever. And neither will I. Please don't feel as if 'here' is an awful place. 'Here', you have me, and I'll stay until you're not sad anymore."

Peering up at him with red eyes, you smiled with whatever energy you had. Sadness still sat on your shoulders, but it didn't feel so awful anymore.

Chan nodded towards you.

"Until you're not sad or until you ask me to leave - I'll be here for you."

[tranquil-space-ninja]

Screenplay (Sanders’ Sides Soulmate AU)

Ft. Mociet and background Dukexiety

Based on this. 

Tw: cursing, bullying, death, neglect

-----------

Patton slammed his bedroom door shut and crawled into bed, pulling the covers over his head. Today hadn’t been a good day. Dad was on a business trip, and would be gone until next weekend. The other kids, Oliver in particular, had been going after him again. “Where’s Virgil now?” they asked. “Did he get sick of having to watch your ass?” Virgil, Patton’s best and only friend, was at boarding school, having the time of his life. Patton was happy for him, really, but he missed him, too. He wished he was five again. Because then he’d at least still have Mom, and he wouldn’t be moping in bed. They’d be in the kitchen, making snickerdoodles while Patton told her what had happened. She’d say something comforting and hopeful, because that’s who she was. Dad would come home from work at exactly the time he said he would, and he’d smile and play catch with Patton again.

Patton wondered where they would be if Mom hadn’t died overseas. Would he and Dad be shopping for suits? Would he have remembered Patton’s birthday?

He was turning sixteen tomorrow. That was the day he was going to get his soulmate. Virgil had already found his. A cool guy he’d met at boarding school. Virgil talked about him nonstop. He talked about his roommate almost as much, but not in a good way. Apparently, he was, “pure evil”. Pattom sighed and burrowed deeper under the covers. He wished he could be there with his friend, but Virgil had gotten into the school on scholarship. Patton’s grades weren’t nearly good enough for that, and he didn’t know how he’d convince Dad to pay the steep tuition, let alone get his attention long enough to broach the subject.

Patton stayed in bed, scrolling through his phone for the rest of the afternoon. At around five, he got up to start cooking vegetables so he could spruce up some ramen. After dinner, he took a shower, and got back into bed, watching Netflix until he fell asleep.

***

School the next day was just as good as the day before. Patton went home and made himself some cupcakes. He got a call from Virgil just as he was about to order a pizza.

“Happy Birthday, Popstar!” His face lit up, though there was no one there to see him.

“Virgil!!” The older boy laughed softly.

“You sound happy to hear me.”

“I am! I miss you so much. How’s school? How are you doing?”

“I’m fine, Pat. School’s great. How are you? Have you heard your soulmate yet?”

“No, not yet!”

“Viiiiirrrrgillllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll,” someone wailed from the other side of the room.

“I’m talking to Patton,” he yelled. Virgil sighed, and Patton giggled.

“Was that Remus?”

“Yeah. He’s a gremlin. He’s my gremlin, but he’s still a gremlin.”

“Love you too, Veevee.” Patton laughed again.

“VIRGIL, PAY ATTENTION TO YOUR STUPID SOULMATE!!!”

“SHUT UP, JANUS! I’M ON THE PHONE!!!” Patton’s heart skipped a beat. That was the first time he’d heard Virgil’s roommate’s voice. He was yelling, but still.... It was beautiful, like a thunderstorm. “Anyway,” Virgil continued. “Where were we?”

“I haven���t gotten my soulmate yet?”

“Right--”

“VIRGIL!”

“Veeveeveeveeveeveevee--” Virgil sighed again.

“I’m sorry, Patton. I’ve got to go.” Patton’s heart sank a bit. “I’ll call you later, okay?”

“Y-yeah, sure!” Virgil hung up then. “Bye,” Patton said, voice cracking a bit. He ordered his pizza. Then he ate a cupcake while he waited for it to arrive. At least he wouldn’t have to cook for the rest of the week. The tears were slipping down his face before he realized it. He tried to wipe away his tears, but then he thought about why he was crying, and then he was bawling. He couldn’t stop. But then--

Ext. Day. A small park with picnic tables.

DAVID is sitting at a table scribbling in a notebook.

David: No, no no.....

Patton stopped crying and listened to the story playing out in his head. It sounded like this person was editing a short film. Every few minutes, they’d start at the beginning and start reading again, pausing every now and then. Each time they’d start over, the story was a bit different. His pizza was there in a few minutes, though, and the story stopped at about that point.

That night, after dinner, Patton wrote, “I liked that screenplay you were writing. Can I hear another?” He read it over, then waited.

Oh. That screenplay is the only one I’ve written. My roommate has a bunch of books, though. I could read one of those if you wanted?

Patton grinned.

That sounds great.

Alright, then.

Patton curled up in bed. His soulmate began reading from The Count of Monte Cristo. He grinned. Monte Cristo was both his and Virgil’s favorite book, and one of the reasons they’d started talking in the first place. Patton drifted off as the words his soulmate was reading.

***

Patton shook his head, trying to focus. His soulmate was frantically editing the screenplay he’d read the night they met, and it was distracting. He caught sight of Virgil waving from a table in the corner. He was sitting with a taller guy with a moustache and a white streak in his hair and a guy wearing a hat. The one with a hat was hunched over some papers, making a bunch of marks with a red pen. Patton made his way over to his friend and hugged him tightly. “Hey, Virge!”

“Hey, Patton!” Patton looked over at the boy with the streak in his hair.

“You must be Remus.” Remus grinned and nodded.

“Nice to finally meet you, Pattycakes.” They shook hands.

“The bitch wearing the hat is Janus,” Virgil said.

“Shut up, Virgil,” Janus said without looking up. Patton’s soulmate stopped reading for a minute. “I need to get this done so I can film and edit it in time for the Film Festival.” Virgil rolled his eyes. Patton’s soulmate started reading again. He shook his head and walked up to the register and ordered a drink. When he came back, his soulmate had stopped reading and Janus had put away his papers and was playfully bantering with Virgil. Virgil grinned at Patton.

“Hey, Janus, I think this guy right here could be your Lee.” Patton sat down, frowning.

“What did you say?”

“It’s my screenplay,” Janus said. “It’s about this guy named David who has a meet-cute with a guy named Lee and they end up dating.”

“Look, David, I’m sorry. I’m sorry if you don’t feel the same, but I like you. I like that you take off your glasses when you’re concentrating, I like how angry you get when bad things happen, I like that you weave magic into your stories that leaves me breathless. I like you,” Patton rattled off immediately. Janus stared at him, wide eyed. Patton looked straight into his eye. “Your screenplay has been playing nonstop in my head since my sixteenth birthday.” Janus took a deep breath.

“Can I kiss you,” he asked. Patton nodded, and Janus leaned forward and gave him a swift kiss on the lips. “You’ve been amazing,” he whispered. “All the feedback--” Patton blushed.

“No, no, it’s an amazing film! You should be proud of it.” Janus smiled. Virgil cleared his throat, and Patton and Janus turned to look at him.

“Look, it’s great that you two found each other, but Janus?” Janus tilted his head to the side. “If you ever break his heart, I’m going to come for your fucking kneecaps.” Janus gulped and nodded.

“Noted.” Patton shook his head and smiled. Some things never change.

--------------

Taglist:

@kawaiikat54

[bangtaninink]

when night falls i am your escape

a sequel / prequel to sanctuary! ( as requested by @athenakyle )

The dull sound of rhythmic knocking against a wall has Jisook stopping in her tracks, a tray of dirty dishes in her grasp.

“I’d keep walking if I were you,” Sanghoon says, fixing his glasses, a leather portfolio tucked in the crook of his arm. “Miss _____ has Master Jeongguk over again.”

Jisook sighs.

“I just did the laundry,” she mutters, walking off.

Sanghoon lets out a terse chuckle in reply, checking his watch.

“Ah, the Chairman and his wife also informed me earlier that they won’t be home for dinner tonight,” he calls out to Jisook. “They’ll be dining with the rest of the board of directors. Miss _____ will be dining out with Master Jeongguk also, so do let the rest of the staff know that only a light supper will be needed when they return, Jisook-sshi.”

“Thank you, Sanghoon.”

Sanghoon bows his head as Jisook disappears into the kitchen, the sound of her shuffling slipper-clad feet growing distant.

The rhythmic knocking eventually stops, and Sanghoon arches a brow at the sudden quiet, looking up from his diary, page half-turned. A few beats later, the door to your room opens, and you emerge in the middle of tying the silk belt of your robe around your waist, hair in a messy bun atop your head.

“Afternoon, Sanghoon,” you greet, lazy smile stretching across your lips. “How you doin’ today?”

“Good afternoon, Miss _____,” he replies, bowing his head. “I’m well. Thank you for asking.”

“Want anything from the kitchen while I’m there?”

“No thank you.”

“Okie dokie. Enjoy the rest of your day, okay?”

“I will do my best, thank you.”

                                                         〰️

Jeongguk yelps when something cold hits the small of his back, clicking his tongue as he pushes himself up off his stomach to sit against the headboard, taking the beer you’re holding out to him.

“It honestly surprises me that I’m allowed inside here every time I come over,” he says, taking a sip.

“Why?” you laugh, reaching into your bowl for a strawberry.

“Uh, ‘cause you’re one of the richest people in the country, and me and the hyungs literally have diets consisting of ramen and discounted kimbap. We are not the same, dude.”

“No one’s complained yet.”

“I don’t think your staff would complain. Maybe talk about you behind your back though.”

“Jeongguk, you’ve seen Jisook. She nags me more than my actual grandma. She would not hesitate to call me out.”

“True. She has such a cold stare sometimes. I can come over here horny out of my mind, but then I see her and I feel like my balls shrivel up and die in an instant.”

“Gross.”

“Well. I could be rich soon though. I hit five hundred thousand followers on Soundcloud within twenty four hours of those photos coming out from that dinner. And then seven hundred and fifty thousand followers on Instagram not long after. Kinda scary how quickly people can find my shit. You didn’t even promote me straight away.”

“Your nudes will be next,” you joke.

“Pfft. Please. You say that like it’s a bad thing. My nudes are spectacular.”

“You know who I bet would love to see your nudes? What’s-her-face. Hara? No, Hana.”

“Oh, Jesus. Don’t,” Jeongguk groans. “I thought her seeing you with me would force her to give up, but now I feel like she’s gotten worse. She keeps blowing up my phone.”

“You gave her your number?”

“Nah, nah. She’s been messaging me on Instagram. I bet it’s because of your ‘statement’.”

“What about my statement?”

“You said I was a ‘close friend’.”

“Well, what am I supposed to say? ‘Jeongguk’s my fuckbuddy. He’s got my favourite flavour of dick!’”

“Aww,” Jeongguk coos, hand pressed to his chest. “I’m touched.”

“Yeah, well, you can touch yourself on your own for the rest of eternity if you keep that up.”

                                                         〰️

“Hi, excuse me, um… c-can I get your autograph?”

You look up from your menu to see someone standing a few feet away from Jeongguk, holding a notebook close to her chest as she waits nervously for an answer.

“Yeah, for sure,” Jeongguk says, grinning and wiggling his eyebrows at you briefly before taking the notebook from the girl, scribbling his signature on a blank page before bowing and watching her walk off. “Look at that. I’m famous.”

“Congratulations,” you say, nonchalant as you turn your eyes back to the menu.

“Damn, you really live like this? I could get used to it.”

“You say that now. Wait ‘til you’re getting followed into the bathroom when you go to take a dump.”

“How much do you think I could sell my shit for now that I’m famous?”

“I dunno. Ask Hana. I bet she’d be the only one crazy enough to buy it,” you say, looking up from your menu again to grin.

“Shut up.”

“Are you ready to order, Miss _____?” a waiter asks, stepping up to the table with a small notepad.

“Mmm, I think I’ll have truffle linguine,” you say, setting the menu down on the table.

“Of course. And for you, sir?”

“Uh… I’ll have the tenderloin steak with the cream potatoes, thank you. Medium rare,” Jeongguk replies, smiling.

“Excellent. We’ll have it over right away.”

“Thank you.”

“Damn. The perks of being rich.” Jeongguk leans back in his seat, hands on the back of his head. “I really could get used to this.”

“Don’t get too cocky, Jeon,” you say, taking a sip of your wine. “It’s not a good look on you.”

“You know what is a good look on me?” You look over your wine glass. “You.”

“God.”

                                                         〰️

“How were your meals tonight?” the waiter asks, collecting you and Jeongguk’s empty plates.

“Amazing. Send my compliments to the chef,” Jeongguk says, smiling. “I’ve always wanted to say that.”

“Would you like some dessert? Coffee?”

“Oh man, I’m stuffed.”

“Just the bill, thank you, Minwoo,” you say, reaching for your drink.

“Of course,” the waiter says, bowing his head before walking off with the empty dishes.

Jeongguk reaches into his back pocket for his wallet as you finish off your wine, counting out his money before slipping it into the small leather folder the waiter sets down on the table.

“What’re you doing?” you ask, amused; Jeongguk looks at you, confused.

“Paying?”

“Why?”

The crease between his eyebrows grows deeper as he furrows his eyebrows, saying, “because I asked you to come to this restaurant with me? Wait, hold on, I’m confused. Am I missing something? Should I not be paying?”

“No, it’s just… most people would be making me pay, that’s all,” you say, shrugging your shoulders.

“Please,” Jeongguk scoffs, proceeding to put his money in and shut the leather folder. “In case you haven’t noticed, I am not like most people, sweet cheeks. Also, making you pay makes it seem like you’re my sugar mommy or some shit, and that feels weird as fuck.”

“Oh, eww. You’re right.”

“Come on, let’s go. I need a smoke.”

                                                         〰️

You can feel the floor of the club pulsing beneath the soles of your heels, walking over to your usual table with Hyemi and Sora on either side of you, paying no mind to all the heads that turn your way. The rest of your friends cheer and wave when they see you approach, making space for you three in the booths.

The drinks easily come and go, and eventually a bunch of you end up on the dancefloor, nodding your heads and swaying your bodies to the sound of the music, laughing and fooling around as you always do.

One by one, you friends drift off, returning to the tables or leaving with a handsome stranger, until only you and Hyemi remain on the dancefloor – but even she looks like she’s one song away from disappearing from your side.

As you anticipate, just as one Jay Park song ends and another starts, Hyemi has her fingers entwined with an unfamiliar face, and she turns to look at you with an apologetic smile before wandering off. You let her go with a casual shrug and a smile, unbothered because you’re used to this routine now, knowing the fun is only yet to start now that you’re no longer surrounded by your friends.

It’s now that others will gain the courage to approach you, no longer resorting to fleeting glances your way—as if they weren’t being completely obvious in doing so—but using their alcohol-fuelled bravado to make their way closer to you on the dancefloor, until eventually, someone will sidle right up to you, hand on your waist, department store jeans pressed to the back of your tailored Prada dress.

“Hey.”

Like clockwork, you feel a hand come to rest on the small of your back, and the air around you briefly smells like whiskey, cigarettes, and clean laundry.

“Jeongguk,” the stranger says, guiding your hips to sway in time to his.

“_____,” you reply, smiling to yourself.

“Knew that.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Surely everyone here does,” Jeongguk says, chuckling.

“You’d be surprised.”

“No way. They’d be insane to think you’re just another pretty face. Are you having a good time so far, _____?”

“Sure am, Jeongguk. How ‘bout you?”

“Me? Oh, I’m fuckin’ petrified.”

“What?” you ask, laughing as you turn around, Jeongguk’s hands wrapping around your waist as you rest your hands on his chest.

(You’re excited to find that his chest is beautifully firm—almost rock solid—beneath your palms.)

“Oh, definitely.”

“Why’s that?”

“Well, I’m not sure if you’ve got bodyguards watching you from afar. If I move my hands an inch lower, I could be tackled to the ground and banished from the country for laying a hand on probably the richest twenty-something year old in Korea.”

You throw your head back and laugh, the sound barely drowned out by the loud music.

“I don’t leave the house with bodyguards all the time,” you reply, grinning.

“Ah. A wild child, huh? I’ve heard that too actually.”

“Is that right?”

“Yup,” Jeongguk says, emphasising the last syllable with a pop.

“I’m surprised the tabloids are reporting the truth.”

“Oh, so it’s true? Oh, I like that.” Jeongguk grins when you laugh again. “So. What do you usually do on nights out, Miss _____?”

“Well, that depends on what you usually do on a night out, Mr. Jeongguk,” you reply.

“Hmm. Well, I’ll usually down a few drinks, dance next to a pretty girl, get slapped in the face before she tells me she has a boyfriend, and be on my merry way, crashing on my third secondhand mattress to the sound of my roommates fucking their boyfriends.”

“Sounds like a great time.”

“Eh. Could be better,” Jeongguk replies, shrugging. “Maybe havin’ the balls to dance with one of the richest people in the country will change my fate.”

You hum, barely audible.

“Or maybe this is the part where I slap you and find another hot guy to go home with.”

“Well if that’s the case, at least I can say I tried. I think I’ve done a lot better than that table on my left who’ve been staring at you from the moment you stepped foot on the dancefloor.” You turn to look off to the side, snorting when a cluster of guys startle and turn away from you before any of them can meet your eye.

“Story of my life,” you say, turning back to look at Jeongguk.

“It’s not too late to rewrite it, sweet cheeks,” Jeongguk says, winking. Smooth! “Unless, of course, you were planning on leaving with someone else.”

“Considering you’re the first person to come up to me, I think the gold medal is going to you tonight.”

Dramatically, Jeongguk swipes a finger under his eye.

“I’d like to thank my mother, my lucky lighter, and Jack Daniels.”

He takes your hand and leads you off the dancefloor, no complaints when you detour to your table and grab your things and wave goodbye to your friends who watch on with wide eyes as you leave with your arm hooked around Jeongguk’s.

His friends do the same, it seems, if the way he juts his chin out with a smug look on his face is anything to go by, ignoring the frantic waving to try and get his attention as he walks you to the door. He does, however, humour them with another wink just before he follows you out with a hand on your lower back, paying no mind to the ping of his phone when you’ve both exited the club.

“So. My place or yours?” he asks, waving down a taxi.

“Yours, s'il vous plait,” you reply, running your fingers through your hair. “My place is swarming with people and paperwork right now – probably the whole reason why I came out tonight actually.”

“That sounds so fun.” Jeongguk chuckles, opening the door to the taxi and holding it for you. “After you, sweet cheeks.”

“Wow. A gentleman.”

With a shrug, he waves you in, before climbing into the taxi after you, quoting the address of his apartment to the driver and leaning back, shoulder pressed against yours.

“So. What’s it like being filthy rich?”

“Eh,” you reply, shrugging. “It’s got its pros and cons.”

“Cons?” Jeongguk repeats, eyebrow raised. “That’s hard to believe.”

“That’s what everyone says – until they get a taste of the life, that is.”

“Hmm. Can’t relate. I get excited when I get a new follower on Soundcloud and Instagram, or when I can afford three cups of ramen instead of my usual two. I bet you barely notice followers flooding in – or even eat cup ramen.”

“Well, I can’t say cup ramen is a staple in my diet, but even I can’t resist that stuff. Just means I’ll have to do an extra session of hot yoga to get rid of all that excess sodium.”

“Hot yoga, huh?”

You look at Jeongguk, who stares off into space with wide eyes, totally distracted by what you’d just said. You laugh loudly, shaking your head.

“God, you’re such a… guy.”

“You said ‘hot’ and ‘yoga’ in the same sentence, and I am but a mere mortal,” Jeongguk replies, hand on his chest.

The taxi slows to a stop in front of an apartment complex, and you watch, intrigued, as Jeongguk hands his money to the driver, before stepping out and rounding the car to open the door for you.

He leads you up to his apartment, but without warning, he pauses, hand on the keypad of the front door.

“Shit,” he mutters.

“A problem?” you ask, amused.

“Yeah, I just remembered neither me nor my roommates cleaned up before we left.”

You shrug, saying, “doesn’t sound like a problem to me.”

“Oh, it’s a problem. How dare I invite a goddess into a trash can of an apartment?”

“Are you like this with everyone you sleep with?”

“Well… the guys and gals I sleep with don’t usually have a net worth of a trillion Won…”

You laugh again, shaking your head.

“You can open the door, Jeongguk.”

“Alright, alright. But don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

Jeongguk punches in the passcode and pushes open the door, turning on the lights and kicking aside stray shoes in the doorway to make a clear path to walk through.

“Honestly,” he says. “I’d say shut your eyes and let me carry you to the bedroom, but I can’t even guarantee my room is any better.”

“This isn’t bad,” you say, scoffing as you look around at the expanse of the apartment, unbothered by the old takeout boxes, empty soda and beer cans, crumpled loose papers, and the remnants of rolled joints and cigarettes in ashtrays around the living room. “You made it seem like a junk yard.”

“I don’t know if you’re just saying that, but I’m not gonna push it,” Jeongguk says, rubbing the back of his neck and chuckling, before motioning to the door of his room. “If you so desire, your Highness, your throne awaits just over there.”

“Weird. Your lap is right here,” you say, nonchalant as you kick your heels off and put your bag down on the sofa, before walking over to Jeongguk’s room.

“Oh,” Jeongguk groans, fist pressed to his lips as he watches the way your hips sway, nodding to himself before eventually chasing after you.

                                                         〰️

Taehyung whimpers softly as Yoongi bites gently at his neck, punching in the passcode without pulling away.

“Hyung,” Taehyung moans, toeing off his shoes, hands fisted around the lapels of Yoongi’s shirt. “Hyung, wait. What’s that noise?”

“Huh?” Dazed, Yoongi lifts his head, eyes squinted in concentration as Taehyung takes the opportunity to nibble at the shell of the elder’s ear, fingers curling around his belt loops. “Is that… I think that’s Jeongguk.”

“Jeonggukie’s home already?”

“Oh fuck, Jeongguk! Yes! Yeah, right there. God!”

Frozen, Yoongi and Taehyung stare off into space as the apartment fills with the sound of moans and groans, jolting in surprise when Jeongguk’s bedroom door swings open.

Panting, Jeongguk frantically crosses the apartment completely naked, stopping dead in his tracks when he notices Yoongi and Taehyung standing in the doorway, staring at him. He jerks his head in a nod, chest still heaving as he grins.

“Hyung, I’m grabbing some condoms from your room,” he calls out.

They watch silently as Jeongguk disappears into Yoongi’s room – and Hoseok’s room, for good measure – before returning to his own room and kicking his door shut, and it isn’t very long before the sounds return.

“You wanna just… watch a movie?” Yoongi mutters, sighing.

“With the volume turned up very loud please, hyung,” Taehyung replies, nodding solemnly.

“I guess I’ll text Hoseok to warn him in case he plans on doing anything with Joon then.”

                                                         〰️

“Christ, you guys wanna turn that down?” Jeongguk says loudly, wincing as he stands shirtless and in a pair of sweatpants against his bedroom doorframe, arms crossed over his chest, lit cigarette held in the corner of his mouth.

Yoongi and Taehyung look at him, eyes narrowed, even as Yoongi’s thumb mashes the volume button on the remote.

“What the fuck were you doing in there?” Yoongi asks, frowning as he holds his lit cigarette to Taehyung’s lips. “I know you’re loud, but Jesus Christ, Guk.”

Jeongguk shrugs, exhaling a cloud of smoke.

“Did you kill her?” Taehyung asks, exhaling. “Have you just fucked someone to death? I’m telling you right now, we will not be your accessories to murder, Jeon Jeongguk. I’m telling the police everything.”

“I’m sure I can settle any lawsuits that might come from tonight.”

Yoongi inhales sharply, dropping his cigarette into the ashtray on the coffee table as he coughs violently when you step out of Jeongguk’s room, tying your hair up. With wide eyes, Taehyung stares at you, mouth opening and shutting repeatedly as he struggles to find words.

“Y-you’re… you… you’re…” he stammers.

“That’s Yoongi hyung, my roommate; and his boyfriend, Taehyung hyung,” Jeongguk says, motioning towards them. “I’m sure I don’t need to introduce you to _____.”

“What the fuck, Jeongguk?” Yoongi says in between coughs. “What the fuck?”

“Your boy’s got game, hyung.”

“Mmm, and a great dick,” you add, picking up your bag.

“Is your driver here? I’ll walk you down.”

“It was nice meeting you two.”

Yoongi and Taehyung stay frozen on the sofa, completely dumbfounded, even when you and Jeongguk leave and meet your driver at the front of the apartment complex.

“Oh,” you say, reaching into your bag and pulling out a pen, grabbing Jeongguk’s hand to scribble your number on his palm.

“Oh, this is officially the best day of my fuckin’ life,” he says, grinning. “Same time next week, sweet cheeks?”

“Wouldn’t say no to that,” you reply, winking and opening the car door. “Let me know if any of your neighbours wanna file any complaints.”

                                                         〰️

[ sms: YOONGI ] _____.

[ sms: _____ ] mr. min. how can I help you?

[ sms: YOONGI ] my phone feels like it’s going to eXPLODE WTF [ sms: YOONGI ] did Jeongguk tell you to do this?

[ sms: _____ ] pfft no [ sms: _____ ] if anything, I did this to piss him off ;

[ sms: YOONGI ] jesus _____ [ sms: YOONGI ] there are so many notifs on here what do I do??? [ sms: YOONGI ] my phone is not strong enough to handle all this [ sms: YOONGI ] I’M not strong enough to handle all this oh god

[ sms: _____ ] you want a new one?

[ sms: YOONGI ] huh?

[ sms: _____ ] a new phone lol

[ sms: YOONGI ] HUH???

[ sms: _____ ] i’ll send you a new one [ sms: _____ ] and hoseokie too :)

[ sms: YOONGI ] hold on [ sms: YOONGI ] HOLD ON [ sms: YOONGI ] YOU’RE SENDING ME AND A SEOK A NEW PHONE??? [ sms: YOONGI ] HELLO?? [ sms: YOONGI ] _____?!

 [ DISPATCH ] Samsung heir, _____, promotes underground Soundcloud rapper, Agust D’s second mixtape, ‘D-2’.

 [ sms: JEONGGUK ] you gave the hyungs new phones??? [ sms: JEONGGUK ] WHAT ABOUT ME

[ sms: _____ ] i’m not your sugar mommy, sweet cheeks ;) [ sms: _____ ] maybe hana will buy you a new one!

[ sms: JEONGGUK ] SHUT UP [ sms: JEONGGUK ] YOU’RE UNBELIEVABLE

[ggukkiedae]

Hannah’s Thoughts

notes: oooooh it’s my first real post for hannah! this is just her getting into her thoughts with her rant buddy over some ramen (uuuuntil someone comes to pick them up) hannah isn’t normally like this though, this is just when she’s kinda overthinking things.

feel free to leave a comment, suggestion, question, or reaction in my pms or my ask box, they’re always open and i’d love them! enjoy the story!

-c

reminder: conversations in italics are spoken in english

“And you’re getting my help because?”

“You’re smart.”

Hannah was sitting in the middle of the practice room with all her notebooks scattered around the floor. Jeno sat across from her, going through what she had as well through his own notes.

“I just really need help,” Hannah muttered, “I can’t get past these stupid numbers and big words.”

Having grown up in England and in America, Hannah always went to school using the English language. She even mostly used English at home. She only started properly learning Korean back when she was accepted into SM in 2013. Now, she was taking a Korean homeschool for middle school, and all the words were confusing her. Not to mention she also wasn’t fond of dealing with numbers. That’s why she turned to Jeno for his help. She knew he was one of the higher ranked students in his school.

“Well, for one, you should have squared the numbers before adding them,” Jeno pointed out. At Hannah’s confused look, he added on to his statement. “You should have multiplied these numbers by themselves before adding them together.”

Hannah looked at her notes again then at her worksheet before grumbling to herself and frustratedly scribbling down a different solution with Jeno helping her through it all.

“Also you don’t have to use the given measurements for this word problem,” Jeno took a pencil and one of her scratch papers, “Just use x as a variable then put 3 as a coefficient for the second value because it’s tripled. Because it’s raised to three, that turns into 27. Then it cancels out the variable and gives you the ending ratio when you divide it. Twenty-seven is to one.”

“Oh my God,” Hannah looked at him, “why does it look so easy when you do it?”

Jeno shrugged and helped her with the rest of all her algebra homework. He even helped her in understanding Korean history. After a solid two hours of studying and Jeno trying to simplify the harder terms that she didn't understand, a staff member came to tell them to leave the room since it would be used soon by some of the older trainees. Jeno helped Hannah gather her things and led them to a small restaurant just a few streets away from the SM building. They settled in a corner table, and Hannah fell into silence while Jeno ordered a bowl of ramen for each of them.

“You do know I’m trying to maintain a diet, right?” she asked him once the waiter left.

“You’re as thin and light as Lami,” he noted, “and she’s three years younger than you. In my opinion, you need to put on some weight.”

Hannah laughed with a roll of her eyes, “You sound like Jaemin and Goeun unnie.”

“It’s true,” he defended himself. Hannah just laughed and moved to take one of her Korean workbooks out of her bag. Jeno reached over the table and took her bag to his side before she could get it out.

“Lee Jeno,” Hannah kicked his shin, “I need to study. Give me back my bag.”

“We’ve been studying for the past two hours, Hannah,” Jeno rubbed at his leg, “That’s enough for the day. I’ll help tutor you or whatever, just stop when it’s been two hours of studying outside of school hours.”

“Why are you like this today?”

“Because I watched you completely stress yourself out over things you don’t need to worry much about,” Jeno told her, “I’m no Goeun noona, but I’m still your best friend. I know how bad it gets when you get too stressed.”

“God, I hate it when you get all like this,” Hannah groaned, “You make more sense than Jaemin and Goeun unnie when you're like this and it’s not fair.”

“I hate being like this, too,” Jeno lightly chuckled, “so don’t stress out. If you do, I’m telling Taeyong hyung.”

“You wouldn’t dare,” Hannah narrowed her gaze at Jeno who just laughed. At that moment, their ramen came.

“Eat, Hannah,” Jeno pushed her bowl towards her, “I don’t want Yeri noona bursting into our training sessions complaining about how thin you’ve gotten.”

Hannah laughed, remembering the event that inspired that thought to cross Jeno’s mind. They ate mostly in comfortable silence, exchanging small talk about how their day was before they met up at the practice room. Once she finished, she was picking at the small pieces of carrots she had avoided in the side salad that came with the ramen.

“Jeno?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you think I’ll ever get the chance to debut?”

Jeno looked at Hannah. She was usually so strong-willed and hyper. The girl in front of him looked scared and worried. She never got scared.

“Of course you will,” Jeno reassured her, “We both will. The fact that we’re going on Mickey Mouse Club after being announced as SM Rookies is enough to solidify that.”

“You don’t get it,” Hannah picked up a piece of carrot and dropped it into her leftover ramen soup, “We’ve all heard the plans they have for their next boy group, and Red Velvet is still technically new. You have a chance. No, you’re sure to debut. The girls and I, we don’t know how long we’re gonna be stuck here.”

“Hey,” Jeno poked her chopsticks with his, “You are gonna debut. You literally practice and work as hard as Mark hyung, and that’s saying something. You’re talented, and you’ll get there. We’ll all get there. I know it feels tough, and we’ve been at it for years, but I’m sure we’ll finally reach the day we debut.”

Hannah could feel something squeezing at her heart. Her throat felt like it was closing up, and her free hand clenched into a fist, nails starting to dig into her palm. Jeno pulled her hand opened and held it so she wouldn’t hurt herself.

“I’ve just been doing so bad with studying lately,” she sighed and squeezed Jeno’s hand, “and I couldn’t get the steps down properly earlier today. They’re also still coming at me for my rap when I’m no good with coming up with my own flow or rap lyrics. I’m just doing so bad. Was it worth leaving my mom behind in a completely different continent? What if I just get worse? Jeno, I don’t want to disappoint my mom. I promised her I’d debut.”

“And you will debut,” Jeno shook her hand a little, “You’re just having an off day. Or week. Everyone has those. But, Hannah, you’re talented, and you work hard! You’re not doing bad. Besides, you have us to help you if ever you’re struggling with anything. You know that. You’ll debut, and you’ll make it big. I promise.”

“Don’t make promises you can’t keep, Jeno.”

“I don’t,” Jeno smiled at her, “I promise you’ll debut and make your mom prouder than she already is. I promise you’ll have the other SM Rookies and the sunbaes by your side.”

Hannah smiled at the statements. Sometimes, it was nice to have someone verbally say these types of affirmations. Yes, she had a hard time believing in promises, but she would let herself believe in these promises just this once.

“Also,” Jeno let go of her hand and put his head in a flower pose, “ maybe you’ll debut with me.”

That made Hannah laugh and throw a tissue at him.

“Maybe I’ll look forward to that, but I wouldn’t count on it.”

“There you two are,” a voice called from the side. Hannah and Jeno both turned to see Goeun sighing in relief as she approached the two and stood by their table.

“Noona,” Jeno looked at her worriedly, “did you walk here alone? It’s late, you should have brought one of the hyungs with you.”

“I’m fine,” Goeun waved her hand, “I was just worried. Lee Haeeun, you didn’t message me that you’d stay out this late.”

“I’m pretty sure I did,” Hannah checked her phone messages only to find that she had typed out the message, but she never pressed send. “Oops.”

“I’m gonna get a heart attack because of you someday,” Goeun sighed, “You better be thankful Jeno messaged Dongyoung oppa that you two were here.”

“Sorry,” Hannah smiled apologetically.

“Well, we already paid,” Jeno stood up and took both his and Hannah’s bags, “so how about I walk you two back to your dorm now?”

“You sure, Jeno?” Goeun asked, “Your dorm is a lot closer than ours is.”

“Noona, it’ll make me feel more reassured to see you two go back safely,” Jeno smiled before lightly scolding Goeun, “but you shouldn’t go out alone at this time ever again.”

Hannah laughed at the situation in front of her. Jeno was on a roll today. Goeun just playfully rolled her eyes at him before linking arms with Hannah and heading for the door.

“Let’s go, kids.”

[bangtanoneshotsx]

Debate-Seokjin

The air was crisp, the leaves crunching underneath your feet as you made your way to class. Your bag was heavy on your shoulder, your feet cold as you decided against wearing boots. Entering the building through the nearest door, you quickly found the classroom, finding a wall to lean against while you texted Jin. The boy would be late. He always was. While you got up early to make sure you could find a seat, Jin would always slip in at the last minute counting on there being an empty seat beside you. And there always was. 

Today was unusual though. As a class left the lecture theatre, your class slowly making their way in, you heard someone shout your name. Turning in the direction of the voice, you found Jin running in your direction, two cups of coffee in his hands. With a grin, he stopped just in front of you, passing you a cup.

   “Thought you’d be late.” He hummed, taking a sip of his coffee before talking.

   “Line was shorter than usual.” You yawned, letting him enter first before quickly finding your place beside him again. 

   “Must be field trip time.” The first-year students always had a ‘great adventure’ their first year, under the pretense of education, the students often found their way to make it just another way to get drunk. 

The lecturer entered, her own coffee in hand, and a pile of files tucked under her arms. 

   “Morning class. As talked about previously last week, I’ll be splitting you into pairs, one of you will be for, and one will argue against.” You gave a small sigh, resting your head on your hand as Jin groaned. It was your debate class, the one subject you hated due to the amount of public speaking. Jin, however, loved it, he threw himself into any role he was given, no matter what side he actually agreed with. This time, the topic was relevant, with the end of year ball only a month away. The question was ‘Are Social Balls really worth it, or do the movies romanticize it?’ This was one you didn’t mind arguing about. Your high school prom wasn’t one you were particularly fond of. Your best friend had had a massive crush on one of the more popular boys. She was full of glee as he asked her, making a big deal in the cafeteria, his smile seeming genuine. You were happy for her, excited for the dance. That was until she called you on the night, saying he had stood her up. Instantly, you had left the dance, catching a taxi to her house. You spent the rest of the night with your heartbroken friend, watching ‘The Notebook.’ 

You watched as the lecturer brought up the group list on the board, a collection of reactions emitting from the class. Squinting your eyes, you tried to peer at the small names, trying to find yours. Yours sat under Against, whiles Jin’s was under For. You gave a laugh as Jin held out his hand to you, a teasing smile on his lips. 

   “Good luck, and may the best man win.” You grinned, rolling your eyes playfully. 

   “Oh, she will.”

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

Books covered the single long desk you occupied, your laptop balancing on the edge, plugged into the wall. You had a notebook in front of you, your messy handwriting scrawled over the two pages. While you had your own opinion on the topic, you were currently researching for any figures to add to your argument. 

   “You know that’s pointless, right?” Jin chuckled, placing another takeaway cup full of coffee beside you. Sticking out your tongue slightly, you quickly turned back to face your laptop after thanking him.

   “Let me guess, you’ve already gathered all your material.”

   “Yep.”

   “And what lecture did you miss?”

   “Gender studies,” Jin muttered, shoving you slightly as you laughed, shaking your head. At Jin’s loud noise of protest, you could see a couple other students lift their head, their eyes narrowed, the librarian shushing you. 

~~~~~~~~~~~

You had met Jin in your first year of university. You weren’t sure how you didn’t notice him straight away, but the truth was, you were too busy trying to grab the back corner seat to really notice anyone. It wasn’t until the seat next to you was the only one left that you met Jin, watching as he stumbled into the lecture, nodding his head in apology to the lecturer who had briefly stopped talking. 

   “I don’t think she likes you.” You whispered to him, not knowing where the sudden burst of confidence came from. Jin gave a sheepish smile, shrugging his shoulders.

   “I think it’s because she’s never seen me arrive on time.” From that moment, you found yourself coming out of the corner seat, always leaving a space for the boy who would arrive late, no matter what time the lecture was. 

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

A steaming bowl of ramen sat in front of you, your chopsticks already resting against the side of the bowl as you took a break. Your tongue burning, you tried to cool it with your coke. Jin only laughed at your wide eyes, slight panic in them. Subtly, you raised a middle finger, a smile gracing your lips as you received one back.

   “So how is this semester going for you anyway?” You asked, you only saw him for one class that happened twice a week. You tried to meet up every couple of days for lunch, but sometimes both of your schedules didn’t allow it. This was one of the rare times they did. 

   “It’s okay, Namjoon’s doing a project with me, so he’s starting that while I focus on winning this debate.” 

   “You mean, loosing.” An unknown emotion flashed in Jin’s eyes as he grinned at you, his head shaking slightly.

   “Sure, when I lose.”

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

Your hands were shaking as you held your cue cards. The small rectangles of pink card held all your arguments, all the facts that would hopefully stop you from becoming too emotional. Jin stood behind the other wooden podium on the right side of the front of the room. 

   “Whenever you’re ready guys.” The lecturer announced, quietening down the rest of the students. With a broken breath, you started, your voice shaking slightly.

   “The media sets up unrealistic expectations for any social event, especially things like dances. Prom is a good example of this, many high school students can’t wait until their last year, to dress up and slow dance with their crush. However, their dreams are crushed when they realize this isn’t reality. The university just now is doing the same thing. With all of the hype around dresses and drinks, and who’s going with who. People tend to forget what it’s really going to be like. No one finds love at the ball, no one socializes outside of their already established social groups. It’s only an excuse for students to get drunk after a year of stress.” You weren’t quite sure what the emotion on Jin’s face was. His eyebrows were furrowed, though he wore a small, sad smile. 

   “I actually disagree with everything Y/N has said. It is no secret that movies exaggerate everything to do with high school. If you truly believed that what you saw in the latest chick flick was real, you’d have to believe those 26-year-olds were teenagers.” You could hear a couple of chuckles, mainly from the lecturer as she scribbled something down. “Social balls give you the chance to have the courage to ask someone out. When you ask someone out in everyday life, there’s a pressure to plan the date, to talk to them, to know how to keep the conversation. With a social ball, all of that goes away, you can dance, you can test the chemistry without any pressure.” Jin took a deep breath, his hands shaking as his voice got quieter. “I, for example, met my first love at university. I’ve been in love for her for two years, ever since I sat next to her for the first time at the back of a lecture hall. I would love to gather the courage to ask her. And it’s those moments that the society ball provides. Those small moments of hope that we students need in a time of exam prep and assignments.” Your eyes were wide, your mouth slightly open as you noticed Jin’s cheeks and ears were now flushed red. How did you not know any of that about him? Who was this mysterious girl he was so caught up on? Thinking about it made your heart ache. 

After a couple questions, you and Jin sat down back at your seats. For the rest of the lecture, Jin avoided you, his cheeks still burning. 

   “Jin!” You shouted after him as he ran out of the classroom, his backpack barely on his shoulder. “Jin wait! Please!” At the desperation in your voice, he stopped, slowly turning.

   “Is what you said about your first love true?”

   “It is.” He muttered, his eyes on the floor as he shifted his weight from one foot to the other.

   “So why don’t you ask her to the ball?” 

   “She doesn’t like them.” At that small confession, your heart seemed to stop. Your sudden silence made Jin look up, his bottom lip in between his teeth. 

   “Y/N, I’m sorry. I know I shouldn’t have said anything. But it’s just... I was planning on asking you, but then hearing your stance on the dance. I don’t know, maybe I could change your mind. I’m sorry if you don’t feel the same way. I’m sorry if I ruined this friendship. I’m so...” Jin was cut off by your lips softly pressed against his. Drawing back, you gave a shy smile, your own cheeks covered in red. 

   “I like you too.” You hesitated, your heart beating fast. “I wouldn’t mind the ball if it was with you.”

[animeniacss]

Coffee On a Tuesday - Namjoon x Reader [One-Shot]

Synopsis: Never judge a book by its cover, unless you’re using that cover to flirt with the cute boy a few tables over.

*this is a gift for my friend @saesbyeols​ / @byeolbitch​ who is a Joonie lover. <3 Please go support her she’s a wonderful fic writer

Genre: Romance, College AU, Slight Vmin being goofy, Quirky and Awkward Flirting

Length: approx. 7.2k words

Coffee on a Tuesday - Namjoon x Reader [ONE-SHOT]

           College means a lot of different things for different people: working hard towards your goals, creating memories with different people all different places as you honed your skills together, staying up until 3 a.m. partying while your 10-page paper sat idly on your dorm room desk with nothing more than your name on it, scarfing ramen down for breakfast, lunch, and dinner almost 5 days out of the week. Regardless of the experience, college was a place where anything and everything could happen. Despite the endless different paths that interwove among each other throughout the campus, you found yourself following the same one every day: the path leading directly to your dream job. To do that, however, you had to follow the path that led to the library. Your career required a lot of studying, a lot of time dedicated to your academics. Parties were few and far between for you, because even if you did go, you would find yourself mingling with the mathematical equations in your head rather than other partygoers. Today was another day that you found yourself strolling down the bustling paths, past groups of friends chatting about homework and weekend plans. The break-in your classes allowed you the perfect opportunity to utilize the library during a time where afternoon classes were in full swing, it was glorious. The campus library acted as both a place for college goers and the public, however, during stressful moments in school such as finals, or summer classes, the building would mostly be inhabited by stressful college students who needed a quiet place to get their work done. It didn’t bother you who was in the library, or when you were there. You just loved to be there.

           Stepping into the library almost immediately eliminated the polluted chaos of outdoor conversation, and soft conversations scattered through the building took their place. Librarians chatted with one another behind their long desk, students passed by with their noses in books as they looked around for a place to study. Just by standing in the front entrance of the building, you turned immediately in the direction you wanted. This library was a convoluted maze to the untrained freshman eye, any amateur could find themselves lost in rows and rows of romance novels for hours while they try to locate the science fiction. This was not an issue for you, as you had memorized the library map long before even memorizing your school schedule. The library was your safe space, no doubt about that. Fixing your bag that rested on your shoulder, you made your way towards the collection of tables that were set in an open area for students to together and sit while they studied the day away. This area tended to be the most crowded, and you could see people lined up against the walls as they used their laptops, while other students sat in small groups and studied or worked on group projects together, whispering to each other as to not disturb their neighbors. You quickly found a home at a small, two-chair table, using the other unavailable seat as a backpack holder. You nestled yourself cozily into your high-raised seat and pulled out all of your books from your morning classes, flipping to the homework pages and quickly getting to work as you tuned out the commotion happening around you.

           Homework problems were being solved at a blazing pace, flipping from one page to the next, and scribbling down all that you could. The answers were easy to find if you just looked hard enough in the text. You could never understand the students who claimed they couldn’t find the problems – that normally meant that they didn’t try hard enough. But that wasn’t the case for you. Before you knew it, the assignments for one of your classes were completed. A smug grin popped on your face as you shut your textbook and notebook, stuffing them back in your pockets.

           “What should I do now?” you mumbled to yourself, resting your chin in the palm of your hand as you scanned the area. As you did so, an unfamiliar sight caught your attention. A tall man in light blue jeans and a black and white striped shirt strolled into the area full of tables. He fixed his glasses, which shielded two beautiful dragon-shaped eyes behind their thick frames. The man strolled in here as if he had built the place himself, knowing every nook, cranny, and corner of the building, though this was the first time you had ever seen him at this hour. Your head remained still, but your eyes were on him like a hawk watching its unsuspecting – and frankly very attractive – prey, trailing him as he walked towards an open table only a few feet away and plopped himself down. You were sitting perpendicular to him, so you would have to turn your head if you wanted a good look at him. Quickly, you shuffled your seat to the other side of the table, giving yourself a much better view. The man opened up his bag and pulled out a book, not a textbook, or a notebook, just a book. The distance prevented you from reading the title, but it seemed like one he had already begun reading, as he flipped the book to the middle, bending the spine almost perfectly in half, fixing his glasses, and seemingly beginning to read.

           Wonder what he’s reading. You thought to yourself. Glancing over at your bag, you took one more scan around the vicinity. Everyone in the area seemed to be busy, so you had no problem leaving your bookbag to guard your spot while you got up. Maybe I can start up a conversation. Swinging your legs forward, you hopped out of the seat and slowly began making your way towards the silent man, whose stunning almond-shaped eyes were still glued to the pages in front of him. You had to admit, the intensity to which he was reading was really hot. As you walked closer, however, you began to get a bit nervous. Would he be annoyed that you interrupted him? You had no idea what you would ever say to successfully have a conversation with him. You could see him getting closer and closer to you with every step you took, each one making your heart race just a beat faster. He got closer and closer and closer…

           ….and you walked right past him.

           Letting out a deep exhale, you quickened your pace into one of the many rows of books. You craned your head just slightly to see if he turned towards the figure that had just passed him, but it seemed like he did not. When the opportunity presented itself, you found yourself hiding in the self-help section of books, which, unsurprisingly, was vast in its options for any and all helpless college students. You watched from afar as the boy idly flipped his papers and continues to read as if there was nobody else in the world except for him and this book.

           I don’t know what to say to get his attention. You thought to yourself, lips pursed together in aggravated frustration. Just as you continued to rack your brain, finally, the boy’s head lifted up from its craned position down at the book. Even though he was not looking in your direction, you instinctively found yourself hiding deeper within the wall of shelves. As you did, your eyes scanned the spines of multiple different self-help books. How to Cook Without Burning the House Down: A Guide to Prevent Fires, How to Do Laundry and Smell Nicer, How to Manage Your Time…. Titles like these continued throughout the rows. You had to admit, a few of them gave you a chuckle, just at the idea that some students really do need to know these things when they leave home for the first time. As you were scanning, your eyes fell upon one in particular.

           How to Say Hello: A Guide for People With Social Anxiety.

           “Maybe this?” you mumbled to yourself, pulling out the book from its spot on the shelf. Holding it in your hands, you saw the title was big, bold, taking up most of the cover, while the subtitle was not as noticeable. You quickly skimmed through the thin book, wondering if the contents inside were helpful. You were sociable, sure, but for some reason, the second you laid eyes on this man, it was as if you lost all ability to function like you did moments ago. As you thumbed through the pages, the sound of a chair pushing back was heard, and you looked up. From where you stood, you could see the boy get up from his chair and set his book in his bag. Was he leaving? He turned to a young girl at the table beside him, tapping on his shoulder. When the woman looked over, the boy smiled.

           “Would you just watch my stuff while I run to the bathroom?”

           “Sure…” the girl said softly, her voice trembling slightly. A smile formed on his face.

           “Thank you.” He nodded, before beginning his trip to the bathroom. Now you were your chance. Glancing back down at your book, you walked over towards your seat once again. The boy's table was slowly approaching your vision, and you scanned his backpack, sitting idly in the seat next to his. Your eyes took a moment to dart towards the girl, who had turned back around to type away on her laptop. When the coast was clear, you set the book gently on the table where the boy sat and returned to your seat. As you got comfortable again, you pulled out a textbook and opened it to a random page. You didn’t know which one, your eyes were focused on the seat in front of you. It was time to play the waiting game.

It felt like forever, but you finally saw the boy stroll back to his seat, tapping the girl gently on the shoulder and offering his sincerest thanks with a radiant smile on his face. He took his seat and you found yourself a lot more nervous than you thought you would be. The boy looked down and his eyes fell onto the book on his table. An eyebrow arched in curiosity; he lifted the book in his hand.

“...What the-?” He mouthed to himself, looking around the immediate vicinity. You saw how confused he looked, and it made you giggle. As a pair of stunning eyes fell onto you, your giggling immediately stopped. An eyebrow arched in confusion, and you quickly hid your head behind your algebra textbook. Despite getting exactly what you wanted, the idea of him looking at you made you very nervous. You heard a ‘huh’ from his direction and poked your head back up to see him just as he set the book aside, scooping up his own book. Before he dove back into reading, his eyes raised up to meet you again. This time, you offered a shy wave. He chuckled; eyes turned up behind his dark-rimmed glasses. A hand raised up, and he returned your wave, before finally looking back down at his book.

The man seemed distracted now, his focus placed entirely on the world written before his eyes. It was perfect timing too, as your afternoon classes were coming up, and you needed to head over there. You collected your stuff into your bag, slinging it over your shoulder as you hopped off of the chair. With one more glance at the handsome man at the other table, you waited to see if he would lookup. When he did not, you simply headed down the hall and out the library doors.

As you strolled down the campus walkway, you kept thinking about your actions in the library. Was that guy amused? Was he creeped out? He was probably creeped out. It’s not everyday people communicate through books as if they were letters sent by pigeon mail.

“....I need to call Jimin.” You mumbled to yourself, your hand slipping into your jacket pocket. As it sunk deeper and deeper, eventually hitting the bottom of your pocket, your eyes widened. “What the-?” Immediately, you stopped in your tracks, shaking your hand in your pocket rapidly, your heart beating faster with every second that passed and you did not have your phone in your pocket. “Okay, uhm…” you pursed your lips together and try to think. “...FUCK, it’s probably in the library.” Without missing a beat, you spun on your heels and hurried back to the library as quick as your feet would carry you.

When you arrived back at the library, you quickly caught your breath at the door, calming yourself as you headed towards the table you sat at. The area was slightly less packed compared to when you left, but you still saw the boy, sitting in the same chair and reading the same book behind the same rimmed glasses. He flipped the pages of his book silently, and you hurried to your table. Your phone, thank God, was still on the table, undisturbed by anyone else. As you scooped it up, you noticed a book was resting right beside it. You lifted it up, reading the title. 

The Girl With the Pretty Smile. The pastel colors decorating the book signaled that this was most definitely a romance book for younger readers, a freshman in college, or even the occasional non-campus attendee who wandered into the library with friends. It was childishly amusing, in a nostalgic kind of way. You looked up, scanning the area to see if you could determine how this book ended up here. You assumed someone had taken this seat after you left. However, much to your surprise, your eyes landed on the boy, whose eyes were finally raised from his book and in your direction. A slight blush tinted your cheeks when he offered you an amused smile. Though his eyes were soft, for some reason, you felt a burning in your cheeks. You couldn’t help it, there was something about the way he carried himself, the way he smiled and the way he sat, you couldn’t bring yourself to say anything to him. You had to glance back down at the book and study it for a moment, before looking back at the boy. Yet again, his attention was on his book. Your face went absolutely red, and you had to set the book down, hurrying out of the library before he dared look back up at you like that again.

—————

“I don’t know why I was dragged along to this.” 

“Because, Jimin, I want you to see for yourself. He’s really cute.” 

“I’ll be the judge of that.” Jimin huffed. Ever since that afternoon in the library, you had seen that mysterious boy show up at the library more and more. He would sit in the same spot, putting you at a perfect view from behind your textbooks. While he was sitting in his spot, reading whatever book he had chosen as his written entertainment today, you would peruse the isles of books nearby, looking for ones with interesting or funny titles you could use to interact with him. At first, he didn’t seem to understand what you were trying to do. You waited for your moment to strike each time, and not knowing how long it would take, or if it would even happen, would leave you anxious, yet slightly excited at the same time. He would come back from wherever he would go, sit back down, and stare at the new book found right beside his current one. You would continue to eye him from behind your biology textbooks, frequently finding your eyes darting back down into the pages when his eyes would lift in your direction. Jimin watched you look around one of the isles, your eyes scanning the walls of various books. “Why don’t you just, oh I don’t know, talk to him?”

“Every time I walk past him to the books, I try, but I chicken out and walk right past him.”

“Why?”

“He’s just too handsome. I get intimidated.” You pouted as you heard Jimin snicker in amusement behind you.

“Has he ever responded?”

“He did the first time, but that’s all. Now he just kind of chuckles and goes on reading.”

“He probably wants you to talk to him in person,” Jimin said.

“Oooooh, what do you know? You don’t even know who he is. Just help me find a good book title.”

“I will not help you in your little hermit flirting game.” Jimin teased, pulling at the spine of a book at the end of the aisle. “I’ll be looking around. Go have fun.” You watched as Jimin made his way to a different aisle, leaving you alone to peruse. You embraced the new silence that surrounded you. It felt like forever that you were looking, but then, you heard a voice approaching the desks. Immediately, you turned your head, and two male figures entered the room. The male was entering, talking quietly to yet another incredibly handsome man with a white alpaca tee shirt and jeans. You made sure to keep yourself out of view as you scurried to the next aisle, watching as Jimin flipped through the pages of what seemed to be a romance novel.

“Jimin.” You gasped, making him lookup. “I see him. He just walked in.” Without letting your friend say anything, you took him by the wrist, leading him back towards the end of the aisle. “There.” You pointed. “The one with the glasses.” There was a moment of silence, and you looked over at Jimin, trying to gauge his reaction. Jimin sighed, looking at you. “Well?”

“Kim Namjoon?” He asked. You raised an eyebrow. “That’s Kim Namjoon, literally one of the smartest kids on campus.” You blinked, eyes falling back towards Namjoon, who was sitting across from his friend, both of them skimming through textbooks.

“Really?”

“Yeah, and the other guy is Kim Seokjin. His boyfriend.” Jimin’s eyes fell on you, watching as they went extraordinarily wide in surprise. He had to cover his mouth so he wouldn’t laugh. “I’m kidding, they’re like best friends. They’re older than us by a few years, but they both do tutoring sessions for the younger students.”

“I had no idea.”

“Maybe because you don’t need tutoring. But Taehyung and I see them at our science tutoring every week.” Jimin explained. “He’s really nice. I’m sure if you go over to him and talk, he’ll be more than interested in starting a conversation.”

“No way, not with his friend there.” You huffed. Jimin rolled his eyes, chuckling. “What book did you find?” you asked, yanking the text from his hands before he could even reply. Staring at the cover, you blinked. The covers held a myriad of beautiful blue tones, resembling that of the deep ocean. Across the top of the cover were the words Pretty Boy written in a white, wispy font. Your eyes immediately shot back up to Namjoon, who was scribbling his studies away. “I have to wait for my chance to strike.”

“What is he, prey?” Jimin asked. “Whatever, I’m going back to the table.” You watched Jimin put his hands in his pockets and head back towards your spot. As he approached Namjoon as Seokjin, he turned to them. “Hi, Hyungs.” He said softly. The boys looked up.

“Hey Jimin~.” Namjoon grinned. “How are you?”

“Fine. Studying~.” You watched the trio have a conversation for a few moments before Jimin nodded his head and continued heading towards your table. Before he did, however, he was sure to turn to you and grin, his eyebrows raised as if to say ‘See how easy it is?’ You couldn’t help but pout at your cocky friend as he walked back to the table.

Good for you being a social butterfly, Jimin. You thought to yourself. You continued waiting for your chance to head over, watching them. As you did, you watched Namjoon’s eyes raise up, staring directly in the area you were standing in. The minute his eyes fixated on your, you felt your cheeks go absolutely red hot, and you turned away, covering your face with the book. It was quiet in the library, so the chuckle that Namjoon emitted seemed a lot louder in your ears than it most likely was to anyone else. After a moment of collecting yourself, you heard the sound of the chair being pushed back against the floor. When you looked over your shoulder, Namjoon and Seokjin were standing up. Namjoon motioned his head towards a nearby isle of books, heading over his hands in his pockets as Seokjin followed suit, grinning in amusement. You could’ve sworn his eyes darted in your direction, but you were too nervous to be sure it wasn’t your mind playing tricks on you. As your eyes fell back towards the book, the title staring you right in the face, you knew this was your chance. Peeking around the corner, you could see faint glimpses of the boys a few isles down, scanning some books. Jimin was flipping through pages of his biology textbooks. So, you began walking back to your seat, biting your lip. As you passed Namjoon’s seat, you quickly set the book down on top of his opened algebra book, before picking up your pace and practically throwing yourself in your seat. As you settled, you looked up at Jimin, an amused grinning staring back at you. “What?”

“You’re funny.” He said. “You could’ve just talked to him.” Before you could respond, you heard footsteps heading back over. Glancing over, you saw Namjoon and Seokjin walking back to their seats, books in their hands. Though your neck was craned down to your book, your eyes were directed at Namjoon. As he pulled his seat back, a smile graced his lips. He lifted up the book in his hands and he looked over the cover, even showing it to Seokjin. Namjoon looked over to you, and you blushed. He lifted the book up slightly, making sure you knew he had it, and that he enjoyed it, before sitting back down, his back to you as he and Seokjin returned to their studying. “So looks like Pretty Boy over there might actually find it cute.”

“You didn’t think he would?” you asked.

“I would’ve found it creepy, honestly,” Jimin admitted. You huffed. “Whatever, just study.”

A little bit of time passed, all parties in the library focused on their studies before afternoon classes. Every so often, you would look at Namjoon, who was flipping from one book to another, studying as much as he could before it was time to go. You have finished up your biology studies and closed your book. Based on the time flashing on the lock screen on your phone, you had time to kill before you and Jimin needed to pack up and meet Taehyung for afternoon classes. Jimin looked like he was still taking some intense notes, so you decided you would go look for some more books. Maybe you would get some ideas for next time, or, maybe even find something to read in your free time.  You walked in the opposite direction of the boys, into an aisle dedicated to sci-fi stories. You didn’t think you could find a book for Namjoon in here, but you weren’t really planning to at this point. Surprisingly enough, you forgot that these books you were passing to Namjoon was meant to be read for more than just their titles.

You looked around for what seemed like a little while, but unfortunately, found nothing that really sparked your interest. It was good to stretch your legs after all of your studying, so you wouldn’t immediately write these few minutes as a total loss. However, you knew it was time you would probably head back to your seat, afternoon classes crept up on you with every minute that passed by. As you headed towards your seat again, you still saw Jimin sitting in his seat, writing notes just as he was doing when you left a few minutes prior. However, as you approached the table, you immediately noticed something sitting on your textbooks that were not there when you had left. As you took your seat, you saw The Case of the Silent Beauty written on a book cover. It was a black book, with the face of a woman on it. The woman’s face was only shown from her nose to her chin, a piece of duct tape put over the face. On the tape, was the words Silent Beauty from the title, written in an eloquent red. You lifted the book up, examining the mysterious cover for a moment, before glancing at Jimin. He looked up at you.

“Don’t look at me.” He said, motioning to the table only a few feet away. You looked over and saw Namjoon’s back. He was still writing stuff down. However, the sound of Jimin’s voice must have alerted him, because he looked up and over his shoulder. He saw the book held in your hands, and he grinned. Jimin watched your ears turn an extra two shades of pink. You looked down at the book, flipping open to the first page. Namjoon chuckled, before turning back to his studies and leaving you to read.

Yeah, books are meant to be for reading.

---------------------------------------------------

Finals week, the most stressful time of any college student’s career. It was a time where all of a student’s professors decide to throw a handful of projects, chapter readings, assignments, and hell, even an unnecessary paper or two into the mix of constant due dates that came with preparing for the already stressful final exams. This was a time of the year where the library was filled to the brim with anxious students, constantly flipping through the pages of their textbooks as they tried to make sure they take in every piece of information they possibly can before they sit down for the final day. You were doing the exact same thing, sitting around a circular table with Taehyung and Jimin as the three of you doing whatever necessary to make sure everything was done and was done well before it was submitted. You had to admit, normally this was a time where you would stress, your time management skills skyrocketing to insanely amazing levels. Taehyung and Jimin were sitting next to one another, looking over notes and study guides they had prepared long before finals week began for a class that they shared together, while you were skimming over a mock test that Jimin had made for your upcoming human anatomy final. It was a simple quiz, involving labeling different parts of the human body. The systems, the bones, the functions, anything Jimin could collect from your months of classes were put into a mock test scribbled down on notebook paper. You were finishing the test up, doing your best not to use your notes for help, as they would be of no use to you the day of when you caught a vision. Namjoon was passing by, a stack of books in his hands as he searched the area for an available seat. Your eyes wandered over to him for a brief moment, and you smiled. Namjoon – or Pretty Boy as Jimin now referred to him as - and you had been playfully communicating through fun book titles a total of 6 days over a month and a half. There were times he wasn’t there when you were, and vice versa, so you took the time to search for titles and keep a note of them for future encounters. Each time you exchanged books, Namjoon would simply smile and turn his head back to his work, most likely because you were far too nervous to talk to him, and that nervousness was etched on your face as clearly as the answer to your mock quiz were in your textbook. However, knowing that he was here now made you happy, at peace in some sort of weird way. Despite this, however, you were unsure if you would be able to find the time to casually peruse for a book. Not only that but would Namjoon even leave his seat today? He wasn’t the smartest kid on campus for nothing, of course, he had to study constantly. Taehyung must have noticed your eyes wander because he tossed an eraser at your head.

“Ow.” You pouted.

“Focus. You don’t have time to be your shy little nerd self.” He said simply. You pouted, looking back down at your test questions. “Are you done?”

“Almost.” You mumbled. Setting the paper down, you continued to label and draw and circle the correct answers left on the back of the page. “Alright, I’m finished.” You passed the test over to Jimin, who looked up.

“Okay. I’ll grade it in a second.” He said.

“What else should I study?” You asked. “I’m only really worried about the anatomy final.”

“Then just study anatomy.” Taehyung said, not even looking up from his notes now, his pencil scribbling along with the paper. You nodded, looking down at your book as your friends continued to work beside you. You flipped through some pages, wrote down some terms, but soon enough, found yourself growing bored. Well, maybe bored wasn’t the word. More like…distracted. You couldn’t stop thinking about Namjoon, only a few tables away and studying just as hard as you should have been. But you couldn’t. Damn him and his good looks, and intellectual appeal, it was throwing your intellect out of whack.

“I’m going to walk and read.” You said, lifting up your anatomy book. The boys lifted their heads as they watched you flip the book open to the bookmarked page. Chapter 13, the Reproductive System, and read as you headed towards the shelves of books. As you disappeared behind one of the isles, the boys turned to each other.

“She’s not going to study, is she?” Jimin asked.

“I doubt it,” Taehyung said. They simply shrugged, leaving you to your own devices as Jimin lifted up your anatomy quiz and began to grade it. You were walking around the isles, occasionally glancing between your book and the ones tempting you on the shelves. You were trying to stay focused, reading instead of book title hunting, however, you wanted to pass one off to Namjoon today. It had been about two weeks since you had seen him, most likely due to the increase in work both of you had due, and that time apart made you feel a bit lonely. Well, as lonely as you could feel towards someone you’ve had not a single word to, but still! As you reached the end of the book isle, you finally closed the anatomy book, marking your spot with your cute little bookmark that you had gotten at a school fair.

“I give up.” You said. As you turned your head, a sea of books took over your eyes. You set your anatomy book under your arm and began to look through the options. You looked around, eyeing the spines of books in hopes that a fun and interesting title would catch your eye. When finals were over and summer break began, you were unsure when you would be able to see Namjoon again before the new term started. Things would be different next semester, and you wanted to be sure that this book would be the best one yet because it made be the last. As you kept looking, Jimin’s voice entered the back of your mind.

Why don’t you just talk to him?

“He’s right. I should probably finally say something.” You hummed to yourself. “I’m being childish…” you hugged your anatomy book to your chest as you continued to look around. You knew you weren’t to social, at least not as social as Jimin or Taehyung, but you knew how to talk to people! So, what was so weird about talking to Namjoon? His looks? Well yeah, he’s really good looking. But as you saw through Jimin, Namjoon seemed incredibly approachable and kind, not hesitating at all to have a conversation with Jimin. There was a part of you that knew extremely well that you were being irrational in regards to speaking to Namjoon, but you couldn’t help it! You huffed, pulling out a few books from the shelves and looking them over. “This is unique…it’s cute. I don’t know anyone else who has flirted with a guy like this, it’s my thing, he must like it because he keeps giving me books back.” You looked over books and smiled a bit as you scanned them over. Finally, you found a book that you felt fit extremely well. It was a cute little short story called Coffee on a Tuesday, the cover a collection of soft yellows and oranges reminiscent of a sunrise. A table stood in view of the rising sun with a freshly brewed cup of coffee resting on it, allowing not only the characters inside, but the reader, to start the day off feeling refreshed and energized as if they had just drunk a cup of coffee. This was perfect, it would finally move you from short, choppy sentences that made little to no sense, to actually asking him out on a date. “Take that, Jimin.” You huffed to yourself, tucking the book away with your anatomy book as you headed back to the table to wait for your chance. As you headed back, you glanced towards Namjoon’s table. He wasn’t there. Your eyes quickly scanned the room, and you saw Namjoon making his way into one of the nearby isles, hands in his pockets as he looked around quietly. Now would most likely be your only chance! You walked past Namjoon’s table, your eyes constantly darting in his direction to make sure he didn’t look over, and you grabbed the book in your hands. Quickly, you set the book down on top of his textbooks before speed walking back to your table. When you arrived, you sighed in relief, watching Taehyung and Jimin give you a confused look. “I did it. I found a book with a good title. It’s almost like I asked him on a date.”

“Told you she didn’t read her book,” Taehyung said to Jimin, who nodded in agreement. Jimin glanced down at the book in your hands, and his eyebrow cocked in confusion.

“Hey…what do you have there?” he asked. Before you could respond, Jimin leaned forward and yanked the book from your hands. As he did, your eyes fell onto a sunset with a cup of coffee on a table. “…Coffee on a Tuesday, hm?” Jimin hummed, glancing up at you. “This is what you were studying?” You quickly yanked the book back and scanned it, your eyes widened.

“Then where’s my textbook?” you asked. Almost immediately, your head swiveled around to the anatomy textbook, sitting right where you accidentally slammed it above Namjoon’s textbooks. “Oh God, fuck.” You groaned, hearing your friends stifle their laughter at the mix-up. “I need to get it before-.” Just as you were about to get up, you saw Namjoon heading back to his table, a few books in his hands as he headed over. “…Too late. Guess it’s time to die.” You groaned, running a hand across your face. You didn’t want to look, but you couldn’t pull your eyes away. How would he react to a Human Anatomy book with a big noticeable bookmark leading to the human reproductive system react?

Namjoon immediately noticed the book, his head tilting his slight confusion. He lifted it up, flipping open to the page with the bookmark inside. That was exactly what you were dreading. As his eyes fell on the page in question, his eyes widened, and he had to stifle a laugh. You groaned, wanting to crawl into a hole and die when you saw him look in your direction. You immediately turned away, staring at your friends who were still flashing goofy grins.

“It’s not funny.”

“Yes, it is.” They said together. Just before you could get up and flee the country, you heard footsteps approach your table.

“…Are you trying to tell me something with this one?” A deep voice hummed playfully behind you. When you turned, Namjoon was standing with the page flipped open, pointing to the figures that depicted the male and female reproductive systems and their parts. Pretty Boy was here, in the flesh.

“N-no, it was an accident…” You choked out. “That’s my anatomy textbook.” Namjoon smiled, before simply passing it over to you. You took it and held it close to your chest. Not yet had you looked Namjoon in the eyes. You couldn’t.

“I figured. But it was funny.” He quickly pulled a chair up to the table and sat down, saying his hellos to Taehyung and Jimin. “I thought you suddenly got bold.”

“I never talk to you, what would make you think that?” you mumbled shyly. Namjoon shrugged.

“Nothing, in particular, I guess.” He said. “What was the book you wanted to give me?” He motioned to the one poking out from your tightly knitted arms. “Is that one it?”

“No.” You said quickly. “Please forget it.” Namjoon glanced at the boys, who shrugged.

“Sorry, did I make you uncomfortable?” He asked.

“It’s not… It’s not that…” you said softly. Namjoon nodded.

“Right. I look forward to seeing what you actually wanted to say when you’re ready. Sorry for bothering you guys.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Jimin said as Namjoon stood up. “You delayed the lecture she’s about to get for almost failing her mock quiz.” He passed you back the exam, a big red 60 written on top. “She seems to have been distracted before.”

“Anatomy is my worst subject.”

“Sure it is…” Taehyung nodded.

“If you need help, I do a lot of tutoring in different subjects.” Namjoon offered. “Consider it a…trade, for the mix-up?” You finally glanced up at him and saw that he was offering you a wide smile. “It’ll help me study for my tests, so we all win.”

“I-.”

“She would love to,” Taehyung said quickly. You glanced over at him with wide eyes, Taehyung simply slipping your textbooks into your bag and passing it to you. “We’re studying other classes anyway, so go. Be free.” He grinned his little boxy smile, and you never realized you could hate it until right now. You have no idea what possessed you to do it, but you grabbed your bag and stood up, following Namjoon to his table. At least, you think you were. You were moving, but your heart was beating so loud in your ears you couldn’t hear your footsteps. As you sank down in the seat beside Namjoon, he took the textbook back as well as the mock exam.

“Let’s see.” He smiled over at you, before fixing his glasses and skimming over the contents of the test. You watched him silently for a moment, taking the opportunity to examine Namjoon up close. He was much more handsome from this distance than he ever could be from afar, his skin was smooth and his hair was laid in such a pretty way. You sighed softly as you watched him. “It looks like you know a lot of stuff, you just seem to be confused about some of the names of different things.” Namjoon flipped to the necessary pages in the book. “Let’s get to work, shall we?” You nodded, leaning forward slightly as he began to speak.

--------------------------------------

Finals week had passed, and you found yourself wandering the library for one last time before the semester came to an end. You found yourself doing this before every major break away from campus because you enjoyed the peacefulness of the library so much. The past month and a half had led to a handful of interesting interactions that disturbed your normally peaceful routine in ways you had not expected, however, you in no way minded those changes. You looked up and down the aisles, before turning to one and seeing a familiar face. Kim Namjoon, with his glasses perched upon his nose as always. He was glancing at a shelf just below eye level, causing him to lean forward just slightly. You hadn’t spoken to him since he tutored you for your anatomy test, which thankfully helped much more than you thought. You hadn’t even been looking for any new books. The one you had found during studying, you never ended up giving to him, the embarrassment from the mix up just totally pulling you out of that playfully flirty mood you had felt just moments before. However, maybe now was your chance. As you walked closer, you noticed Namjoon look over in your direction, and he smiled.

“Hey. Long time no see.” He said as you approached. “Looking at books?” You nodded, and he hummed. “Yeah, me too. I always get a bit sad when the library closes to the public so they can do summer classes.”

“I know. It makes me want to take summer classes.” You joked, and Namjoon laughed, which made your heart flutter. That was the first time you really ever heard it, and it was lovely. “I uhm…thanks for helping me with studying.”

“No problem. Did you pass?”

“Yes.”

“Good!” He grinned. “Glad I could help.” You nodded, stepping just slightly closer to him so you could see more books. “Looking for something in particular?”

“Yeah, I guess so.” You said softly, your eyes raised up to higher shelves.

“So am I.”

“I thought I saw it here last time, but-.” Suddenly, you got on your tiptoes. “I think that’s it.”

“Oh? What a coincidence, same here.” Namjoon said. You lifted your arm to grab the book, however, a big hand reached in front of yours, grabbing the book you were going for. “Oh.” He said, looking at you as you lower your hand. “Was that the book you-?” When you nodded, he hummed, pulling it off the shelf and examining it for a moment. “It looks interesting. I thought I would read it.”

“Yeah, I agree.” You said softly. Namjoon suddenly passed you the book, and you took it into your hands. The beautifully warm colors and the coffee cup starred you in the face, as the oak-colored title stared back at you.

“I knew it was that book you were going to show me,” Namjoon said. “I had found it a few days before and I actually was planning to use it on you, so hopefully you would talk to me.” You glanced at him as Namjoon pulled his hand out of his pocket. “So, what do you say? Coffee?” You nodded your head, smiling.

“I’m free next Tuesday.”

~END~

Return to Masterlist / Return to RM

[vegetasleftsock]

A Devil’s Smile (Chapter 6)

Read the entire work on AO3 here -> A Devil’s Smile

Catch up on previous chapters:

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 |

Authors note: This chapter is particularly meaningful.. lots of great angst and more background about Milla.

Thank you to @minyapaws​ for helping me with concepts and editing. I feel like my work really transformed after our conversation. Please go read her story, "Ox Queen" if you haven't already. It is FANTASTICALLY written and so well thought out.

If you've read this far, thanks for sticking with the story! Find me on AO3 @vegetasleftsock​. Leave your feedback and thoughts in the comments! I love to read them :)

Here’s the link to the song mentioned in the chapter  “Amarillo By Morning” - George Strait  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZBf16B5vhs 

Chapter 6 - Promises and Pride

A tall, thin waitress with curly red hair and a bright smile approached the high top table where Milla and Vegeta sat. She was wearing a tight, navy blue, v-neck t-shirt and ripped skinny jeans with a black apron tied around her tiny waist. 

The attractive waitress shone her blindingly white smile at the pair and handed them each a menu and a set of silverware. 

“Hi, guys! Welcome to Umai Ramen! My name is Amy and I’ll be your server today.” She glanced back and forth between Vegeta and Milla before clapping her hands together. “Can I get you two started with something to drink? We have soda, beer on tap, and sake.”

Milla stared at her intently as she spoke and gave her an earnest smile before starting to order. “We’ll both have whatever craft beer you’re into at the moment,” Milla said, batting her eyelashes and still smiling softly at the redhead with her cheek in her palm. 

Vegeta glanced up from his menu and watched the interaction silently. He raised an eyebrow and questioned to himself why Milla seemed to be laying it on thick with this waitress. 

“Actually,” Vegeta started, causing the waitress to stop the scribbles she was making on her notepad and look up towards his voice. “You can get me a water.”

The woman awkwardly smiled and nodded her head. “You got it. I’m going to go ahead and put these in for you guys while you take a look at the menu. Be right back!” The waitress said with a polite grin before striding away.

“She’s so pretty,” Milla said nonchalantly while her eyes glazed over the long, creme colored, laminated menu. 

Vegeta scoffed and looked mildly disgusted. “She looks like she could be crushed with a gust of wind.” 

“If you don’t think she’s hot, you’ve got some fucked up taste.” Milla shrugged while still glancing over the menu. 

“Ha!” Vegeta laughed, setting his menu down on the wooden table to cross his arms across his chest in a gesture of confidence. “What does that say about yourself-”

In the middle of speaking, Vegeta had realized what he just admitted to, but it was too late to take the words back. 

Milla sat in silence, staring, burning a hole through her menu. Without moving her face, she glanced to the side and then looked up to meet Vegeta’s gaze. 

She analyzed his face and saw him trying to play it off, but the color in his face was a dead giveaway. It was the same face he had made the night they had met, when Milla had used her finger to lift his face towards her while she performed. 

Milla rolled her lips in, trying to hide her smile and spare his pride but she couldn’t contain herself any longer. She burst out into laughter at the sight of him. His wide-eyed reaction sent her even further into her laughing fit until she buckled over from the cramps in her side. 

She was flattered, but the look he gave her after he slipped was what made her lose it. Had Vegeta not acted like a little kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar, Milla might have entertained the conversation in a different way. 

“Hoo!” Milla breathed while wiping a tear from her eye. “That was fucking hilarious.” She said, still slightly chuckling. 

Before Vegeta could respond, the waitress reappeared and started to set cardboard coasters on the table, followed by their drinks. 

“Alrighty, guys. Are we ready to order?” The waitress said, pen and pad ready. 

“Yes,” Milla said, regathering herself. “Can I please get a black tonkotsu with the thicker noodles?”

“Sure can. And for you?” The waitress asked, looking to Vegeta.

“Uh- I’ll have the same thing,” Vegeta said, realizing he hadn’t finished looking at the menu.

“Awesome! We’ll get that right out for you.”

“Thank you,” Milla beamed. “By the way, your hair is just so gorgeous.”

Vegeta rolled his eyes and looked away, refusing to watch as Milla flirted with the taller female.

“Well, thank you! That’s so sweet,” the woman said, shining her big, bright smile and happy eyes at Milla. “Let me know if you guys need anything else!” She nodded towards them before walking away.

“So, I’ve never asked,” Milla said, trying to revive the conversation. “What do you do? Bulma told me that you like, fight and protect the Earth and shit, but is that all you do?” She said before taking a sip of her beer. 

“Is that all I do,” Vegeta derided her question, almost mocking her. “Saiyans are warriors meant to pursue greater power. It’s not some silly little Earth duty. In fact, I’ve neglected my training by being here.” 

Milla pursed her lips and nodded. “Not a silly little Earth duty. Noted.”

“I can’t imagine what kind of dull positions Earthlings hold anyways.” Vegeta stated plainly.

“For your information, not all of them happen to be dull,” Milla said, rolling her head to the side a little bit, her eyes looking up and appearing to question her own words. “My day job just so happens to be kind of bland, but it makes ends meet.”

“My point.” Vegeta said.

“Guess you got me there.” Milla laughed, her arms crossing on the table. Her sleeves were pushed up to her elbows, leaving her tattoos on display.

“What’s the reason for these?” Vegeta asked, his eyes set on her body art.

Milla looked at him, eyebrows raised. “My tattoos? I’m guessing that’s not something people have where you’re from. They’re all stories, things I find beautiful, or am attached to.”

“This one is a date,” she said pointing to a roman numeral on the side of her wrist. “My mom and dad shared a birthday. My mom passed not too long after I was born and my dad, Leo, would honor her memory every year on that day by continuing to celebrate as if she was there. It helped me feel connected to her, even though I never really met her.”

Vegeta sat, quietly listening as Milla continued to explain the story behind each of her bigger pieces.

Milla pointed to another tattoo, the one on her forearm. She laid her arm flat on the table to show him. 

“This one is my childhood dog, Pinto. I grew up with him and he’s easily one of nicest dogs I’ve ever known. It was hard to lose him, but I got this tattooed so I could always see his sweet face wherever I go.” She admitted, a small smile crossing her lips as she remembered her black and tan Labrador. 

“Have you ever had a pet? You don’t seem much like an animal person.”

The first thing that came to Vegeta’s mind was Nappa. Having to babysit him was the only thing he could relate to in terms of having that kind of responsibility. He just shook his head in response. 

The waitress returned to their table with two large ceramic bowls. “Okie dokie, we have two black tonkatsu with udon noodles. Is there anything else I can grab you? Everything looks good?”

“Looks fantastic. Thank you.” Milla said.

Vegeta and Milla continued to learn more about each other over dinner. There were even a few moments where both of them shared small laughs. Milla liked being able to make Vegeta smile, even if it was just for a quick moment and even if it was only because she said something sarcastic about someone he disliked.

After they paid the bill and left a substantial tip, Milla convinced Vegeta to follow her back to her apartment despite his resistance. 

He was spending a lot of time away from his training- too much time. He feared he was becoming too comfortable in his situation and that it would put him behind in his progress. The thought itself was unacceptable, but he pushed the feeling into the back of his mind - at least long enough that he could enjoy the events that ensued once they returned. 

Vegeta tested her limits, and she tested his patience in a way that only further motivated his lust towards her. They ended only when they were both completely spent, which is a state that landed upon Milla long before Vegeta - but not something she was going to willingly admit or display. 

The pair stayed where they were at to sleep for no reason other than pure exhaustion, but it’s not something that either of them were upset about.

 Milla enjoyed having his warm presence in her bed and felt herself starting to let her walls down just slightly. Her chest clenched when she thought about it. Lust was one thing, friends with benefits was another thing, but commitment was not something she was ready for or even consciously interested in. 

She thought about one of the values that her father always drilled into her.

Milla’s father, Leo, sat in the driver’s seat of the car. His blue eyes remained on the road ahead as he spoke to her. He was average height and build, wearing a black t-shirt, loose fitting jeans and motorcycle boots. His hair and goatee were silver and it had been that way since she was a little girl. He told her once that he started graying at 18 and that he was completely gray by 20. He was heavily tattooed, with almost his entire torso filled with art. Leo left his hands, neck, and face empty so that he could still look professional at work, but now, on his day off, his tattoos laid freely on the parts of his skin that his t-shirt left exposed. A single tattoo adorned the pinky side of his fist, a squashed insect, which represented a story from his childhood. 

“You have your whole life to settle down, have kids, and do domestic shit,” Leo said. “Travel. See the world. Pursue your biggest dreams. And if you’re still dissatisfied after that, THEN find a partner. It’s not worth it before that point.”

Milla pouted her lip out. As a young girl, she always wanted to date like her friends did. At this time, she was 12 and in middle school and Leo still forbade it. 

“I don’t understand why I can’t find someone I love and travel the world WITH them,” Milla said, looking at her father who frowned at her response. “Wouldn’t that make it more fun?”

“It’s hard to understand this now, but when you meet someone you love, your world stops. It starts to focus around them and you don’t feel the need to put your effort into other things. That is until that initial bond fades and you’re left with regrets.” Leo said, gaze unmoving from what was in front of him. “You fall in love, you get married, you settle down and before you know it you have bills and kids who need and deserve all of your time and attention. It’s not fair to them to be selfish.”

Milla looked down at her hands as she twiddled her thumbs. She didn’t want to believe her dad. She wanted to love and to be loved by someone so bad. 

“Milla,” Leo said, glancing over at her. “If nothing else, promise me you’ll see the world. I know I’m asking a lot of you, but there’s so much out there past this little town. All the foods you and I try, you’ll love them more in person. I want you to feel whole whenever you do find your partner and I know this is the best way to do it. Promise me, Milla.” 

Milla looked up towards her father, her only family in the whole world, and saw him as a parent, pleading with his only child to not make the same mistakes he made. As it often did, her heart hurt for him.

“Okay, dad. I promise.” Milla said, running her father’s words through her head, almost as if she was recording them for safe keeping. 

“What if i’m afraid?”

“It’s okay to be afraid, but remember. You have to let your confidence win over that fear. Never let it overpower you, never let it win.” Leo said.

Milla clenched her fists, battling a list of fears in her head: the fear of being alone, the fear of not fulfilling her father’s promises, the fear of failure, the fear of being hurt.

She looked down at her hands again, nails digging into her palms. “I won’t dad. I won’t ever let it win.”

Milla heaved a deep sigh after replaying the memory in her mind and thumbed over the date on the side of her wrist. Her mom’s date. Her dad’s date. 

Her heart felt like it caved into her stomach. It had been five years since she heard her father’s voice. The father that made her who she is. The reason why she performs, the reason why she lives outside of the norm. He was also the father who broke her heart and her spirit. She kept this brokenness shoved deep inside where no one could ever see. No one was ever going to see her hurt, her fear- especially not her father. Not after what happened between them. 

She looked over to Vegeta laying next to her. He was either asleep or pretending to be. His face usually looks so angry, but now she thought he looked strangely relaxed. 

Milla stared at the ceiling and wondered what exactly she had gotten herself into. Regardless of what she felt for Vegeta, and regardless of how her father hurt her, she was never going to give up that promise that she made him. 

~ 

Early morning came and Milla carefully lifted herself out of bed, doing her best not to awake Vegeta from his sleep.

 She brushed her teeth and washed her face before going out to the kitchen. She decided she probably couldn’t keep as quiet as was necessary while cooking, so she crept back into her bedroom, grabbed her headphones and closed the door slowly until there was a soft, ‘click’. 

Milla started to pull pans and ingredients out from her cupboard and put an earbud in each ear. She switched to her dirty pleasure playlist- country music. It reminded her of home and though she would rather die than admit she had an affinity for the genre, it was her favorite music to cook and do chores to. 

Milla started by mixing the dry ingredients: flour, sugar, baking powder, salt.

Then the wet ingredients: eggs, milk, and melted butter. 

As she combined the wet and dry ingredients into a batter, she sang along to the music softly. 

“Amarillo by morning, up from San Antone. Everything that I’ve got- is just what I’ve got on…”

She turned on the stove and pulled a cup of chocolate chips out of a container. 

“When that sun is high in that Texas sky, I’ll be buckin’ at the country fair…” 

The lyrics reminded Milla of small town dances, sunsets rising over fields of endless corn, the smell of morning dew and rich soil. 

Milla was always the odd one out. She remembered an incident her freshman year of high school. Her basketball team told everyone to wear boots, but the only boots Milla owned were knee-high Doc Martens. She had assumed it would be okay since it was all she had. When she showed up, everyone was wearing western boots except for her. The seniors on the team zeroed in on her and made sure she knew that she was the black sheep of the team. This was just the start of a long line of incidents that occurred through her time in her tiny Texas town. 

It took years of separation and a strong sense of nostalgia to bring her back to listening to country music. Now, she was confident that she could push those who alienated her to the back of her mind and focus on the good memories that the music was a soundtrack to. 

“Amarillo by mornin’, Amarillo, I’ll be there.” 

Milla grabbed a pat of butter from the fridge and tossed it in the pan. The heated pan sizzled on contact with the butter, and she rotated the pan to coat it. 

“They took my saddle in Houston, broke my legs in Santa Fe. Lost my wife and a girlfriend, somewhere along the way.” 

She remembered cooking these same pancakes with her father on Sunday mornings.

 It was her grandmother’s recipe- the same one who gifted her the emerald earrings she wore every workday. 

Leo was an amazing cook. Before Milla’s mom passed, he had aspired to become a chef and go to culinary school. Although taking care of Milla became a full-time job as a single father, it never stopped him from experimenting with new dishes and teaching Milla as much about the culinary arts as he could. 

“Look Milla,” Leo said. “It’s all in the wrist.” He grinned widely before flipping a pancake up into the air and back into the pan.  

“Wow!” Milla cheered, clapping for her father. “I wish I could do that.” 

“Practice makes perfect.” Her father said, tearing a piece of the pancake off and feeding it to Pinto, who was wagging his tail happily at the offering.

 Milla turned the volume up on her headphones, hoping to drown out the thoughts that made her miss everything she used to have. 

She grabbed a spoonful of batter and poured it carefully into the pan before methodically placing chocolate chips into the raw, gooey pancake.

 “But I’ll be looking for eight when they pull that gate- and I hope that judge ain’t blind.” 

Vegeta woke up in an unfamiliar place. He realized he was still in Milla’s bedroom. He had stayed the night. Fallen asleep. Trespassed his boundaries for himself and everyone else. The discomfort with his current situation swelled inside of his chest. He needed to leave - now. 

Vegeta hastily put his clothes back on, looking around and trying to figure out where Milla had gone. He was hoping that she had already left for work. The last thing he needed was Milla looking at him with those dark brown eyes and questioning why he was rushing. It would only be a greater waste of his already poorly spent time. He heard her singing from outside the door and came to terms with the fact that she was fully awake and home. This was not going to be easy, but Vegeta was not going to play a coward’s game. He had his pride. 

He walked out the door and stood a couple of feet behind her and leaned against the wall, arms crossed. He listened to her sing for a moment, allowing the peace to remain for a few seconds more. As she sang each word, her accent was more and more apparent. He thought that it must be a quality that she chose to suppress. 

 “Amarillo by mornin’, Amarillo’s on my mind.” 

Milla placed the golden brown pancake on top of the stack that was growing on a plate next to her and turned to grab another pat of butter from the fridge. 

When she saw Vegeta out the corner of her eye she jumped, startled. Her face turned bright red while she wondered how long he had been standing there. 

“You just love to sneak up on me, don’t you? Take a seat,” she gestured at the kitchen table with her spatula. “There’s enough ready that you can at least have a first serving.” 

“That won’t be necessary,” Vegeta stated plainly.

 “Oh yea?” Milla said, plucking an earbud out of her ear. Her heart sunk a little at the thought of being left alone with her feelings. She didn’t want to address how she felt about Vegeta, but his presence was still comforting. “Got somewhere you have to be?”

 She held her confidence in her throat, knowing at any moment if she took a deep breath, it would come tumbling out and break her facade. 

“Yes,” he said, looking towards the window where the sun was peeking out into the dark night sky, creating the tip of a sunrise. “This is the last time we can do this.” 

He turned his face towards her and their eyes met. He watched as her face contorted with confusion and what he recognized as a hint of anger. 

“Do what, exactly?” Milla asked, her tone sharpening. Her eyebrows furrowed and she blinked like it would somehow correct the words she was hearing. 

“Be around each other in this situation. I know you’ve grown close to some of those inside of the small web of people I know, so I don’t expect to not see you. But never again in private.” 

If looks could kill, Vegeta would be long gone.

Milla sat the spatula down and turned the stove off. 

“What the actual fuck, Vegeta?” She growled under her breath while clenching her hands into her fists like she would every time she was scared as a little girl. Her fingernails dug further into her palms as she seethed.

“This has been a waste of my time.” Vegeta said, his stare matching her intensity.

Milla’s forehead bunched up and she threw her head back and laughed. 

In the back of Vegeta’s mind, the laugh reminded him of unsettling memories from his past. Her laugh was fueled by pure rage - he was sure of it. 

“A waste of your time, huh?” She said with one hand on the kitchen chair, tapping her foot in rhythm with her racing heartbeat. 

She walked up to him and shoved him back by the shoulder. He barely moved, but the action made him stumble slightly out of surprise. 

He glared at her, hoping she’d let it go, but it seemed to only fuel Milla further. 

“Since we’re sharing our feelings, do you want to know what’s a waste of MY time?” Milla snapped. “YOU. Thinking you can literally barge your way into my fucking life like some rouge bulldozer. Honestly Vegeta, what kind of fucked up are you that you literally had me thinking for EVEN A SPLIT SECOND that I might have cared about you? You took care of me, took interest in me, LITERALLY admitted your attraction to me and led me on to think you cared and now you’re just going to act like I don’t exist? Because why, Vegeta?” 

She pushed her chest against his brick wall of a body shoving him back slightly, looking up at him as he looked straight past her. 

“HUH? Look at me.” She demanded in a low tone. 

He flipped his glare down to look her in the eye. The more time he spent here, the more damage would be created and he was well aware of that. 

“Because why, Vegeta?” she repeated, getting close to his face. “Because it’s too much for you? Is the brave Prince Vegeta too afraid to face his own fucking feelings?” Each word she spoke was like venom. “Just as I thought initially. Fucking. Pathetic.” 

She held eye contact with him for another full moment before shoving herself away from him. She turned around and started walking towards her bedroom. 

“Get the fuck out, Vegeta.” She said. 

Vegeta stood where she left him, his blood boiling at the brim of each insult that cut into his pride. 

He didn’t have his father, he didn’t have his people, but he had his pride. 

“And you think that you can get off acting like some little spoiled brat?” He laughed, smirking at her as though her words left him unaffected. 

“Vegeta. Shut the fuck up and get the fuck out!” Milla yelled. 

“How could you be so dense as to think that I would be interested in commitment with a dirty little Earth brat like you? I wouldn’t dare destroy my royal bloodline by choosing someone like you as my mate.” Vegeta said, lying through his teeth. 

“Dude, you are seriously fucked up! Get the FUCK out of my house, Vegeta!” Milla shouted, pointing at the door.

He took a couple of steps towards Milla and locked eyes with her, their staring contest commencing once again. 

“I expected more from you, Milla.” Vegeta said, cupping her chin. Her eyes went wide when she heard those words, and a shock went bellowing through her entire body. He was saying things out of pure spite at this point, choosing anything he could say that would hurt her. He scoffed and left without another word. 

Milla stood motionless, eyes still wide as saucers. Her facade crumbled and her knees gave out beneath her as tears streamed down her face. She didn’t feel like she was crying, but the warmth of the little droplets running down her cheeks told her that she was. 

Her body was frozen, those words echoing in her head. 

“I expected more from you, Milla.” Vegeta said.

 “I expected more from you, Milla.” Leo said. 

[junkercrush]

Halo!!! I dont know your inbox is still open, but could I have a request please? Maybe Poly!Junkers harboring a crush and then dating reader who is really quiet around strangers but tends to liven up around people when theu gain their trust? I just love those two smelly bois! Also, I really like your writing and blog! Thank you!!

You sure can! Here you go:

“The Quiet One” 

SFW

Pairing: Poly!Junkers x Reader

Words: 2,008                                                                                                                     

                                             *~*~*~*~*

Prologue

Overwatch Headquarters: Cafeteria. 2076. Valentine’s Day.

The headquarters cafeteria was decorated in red, pink, and white. Paper maché hearts covered the walls. It was like someone hired an elementary school to decorate the room. Ironically, the entire Overwatch team made the décor. Jack’s orders.

“Ah, the day of romance.” Junkrat sighed as he dropped his food tray on a table beside his crime partner Roadhog. “This is the best time to hit the jewelry stores, mate! Let’s say we get us some diamonds after today’s mission. What do you say, Hog?”

Junkrat noticed Hog hasn’t touched any of his food. He snatched a heart-shaped cookie and followed his partner’s gaze towards the lone eater on the other side of the cafeteria: You. Hog let out a longing sigh.

“Rat,” Hog called out.

“Yeah?” Junkrat answered.

Hog took out a pink envelope from his pocket and gave it to Junkrat. “Could you do me a favor—”

“Wait a minute!” Junkrat sniffed the envelope and gagged. The giant wave of roses rushed through his nostrils. “Are you kidding me? You want me to send a love letter to the Quiet One?”

That’s what everybody in Overwatch called you. You barely spoke to anyone except during meetings. You were a scientist, Winston’s assistant. The people you’ve spoken to the most were Winston, Angela, and Mei. The Junkers tried to talk to you before. You would say a sentence or two before shying away into your lab.

“Please do this for me?” Roadhog pleaded. Junkrat’s eyes widen. He has never seen the Hog act so vulnerable about anyone before.

“Can’t do that, mate,” Junkrat said, crossing his arms with a sinister smirk.

“Why not?” Hog huffed.

Junkrat pulled out a crumpled envelope from his shorts. It had little heart doodles drawn over them. Unlike Hog’s envelope, it smelled like an auto shop.

“Because I’m going to give the Quiet One a love note first!” Rat said triumphantly. He jumped onto the table and started table-hopping towards your direction.

Roadhog growled. “Oh no you don’t, you little—”

Roadhog chased after Junkrat. People saw the big man storming the cafeteria, swinging his hook, and leaped out of the way.

What on Earth?

You looked up from scribbling scientific notes. Junkrat was jumping on tables towards you with his behemoth friend Roadhog running behind, trying to catch him with his hook. You instantly gathered all your books and binders from the table. Unfortunately, you didn’t save your homemade lunch on time.

“NO!” Roadhog grabbed Junkrat as soon as he landed on your table, slamming his face on your lunch. Hog looked at you and immediately wiped Junkrat’s face with a napkin. You hid your smile behind your binders.

“Sorry,” Hog apologized.

You waved your hands at him. “It’s okay, Mr. Rutledge! I—

“Roadhog here wanted to give a love note!” Junkrat shouted loud enough for the whole cafeteria could hear.

Roadhog grabbed Rat’s throat. “Would you shut up!?”

Junkrat only laughed and shoved his motor-oil scented envelope towards your face. “For you, darl! Take it and run!”

“No! Take mine!” Hog offered his pink envelope to you.

You quietly took both envelopes. “Th-thank you.” You whispered.

You didn’t think in a hundred years both of your Junker crushes would pass you love notes on Valentine’s Day. And to think you had to choose one of them to offer your V-Day note. Now, this was your chance.

“Here.” You gave the Junkers two heart-shaped notes. Both, written in gold ink, said:

I like you. Do you like me too? –(Y/N)

All eyes were on you. You couldn’t take the attention anymore. You scampered out of the cafeteria before the Junkers could say anything.

“Looks like we didn’t need to fight at all.” Junkrat laughed. Both Rat and Hog flipped the hearts over. You left them your phone number and private e-mail address.

                                               *~*~*~*~*~*

 Present Day

Your Apartment. 2078. Valentine’s Day.

“You think we’re going to have another indoor date?” Junkrat asked as he set up a romantic dinner in the middle of the living room floor.

Roadhog sighed. “No, we’re going out.”

“Really?” Junkrat blew the fire out from the candlelit dinner. “You know our Quiet One is not quite the people person.”

Roadhog chuckled behind his mask. “Give it time.”

You came out to the living room wearing a long winter coat. The Junkers stared at you curiously.

“Ready to go?” You asked your boyfriends. Junkrat sauntered towards you.

“What you got under there, lovely?” He purred. You backed away from him with a smile.

“No peeking until we get to the bar.”

Junkrat whimpered. “Just a little pee—”

“To the door, Rat.” Hog barked.

“Fine, fine.” Junkrat opened the front door for you. You stopped midway. A faint burning scent danced around your nostrils.

“Rat, did you leave the oven on again?” You asked.

Junkrat giggled. “I forgot about my brownies. Give me a sec. I’ll meet you and Hog down at the parking lot.” Junkrat rushed to the kitchen, cackling.

You rolled your eyes and smiled. “I’m so glad he hasn’t burned down the apartment yet.” You sighed.

Roadhog gently grabbed your hand. “Me too. We don’t need another damn landlord suing him.”

                                        *~*~*~*~*~*

Some folks from Headquarters invited you and the Junkers to a couples’ night out at a Japanese karaoke bar. You always passed the place on your way to and fro from work. It wasn’t your kind of hangout, too noisy. However, it was going to be different since you had new friends along with you. 

“Oi, you’re here! You’re actually here!” Lena, also known as the famous Tracer, ran to you before you could say hi. “I know we don’t see each other much. Do you remember me?”

You shyly nodded. You’ve seen her frequently coming in and out of Winston’s office. She always needed some fixing with the complex piece strapped into her chest.

“Let me take you to the crew,” Lena said. She turned to the Junkers. “Do you mind?”

Roadhog waved his humongous hand. “No problem. Rat and I have to go to the restroom.”

“Do we?” Junkrat asked innocently. His face and hair were covered with soot. Apparently, he almost lost his battle saving his brownies from the oven. Roadhog silently dragged Rat to the little boys’ room.

You took a deep breath. This was your chance to be more social. You’ve been working for Overwatch for four years now. It’s about time to spread your social butterfly wings.

You’ve been watching your co-workers from afar. They’re great people. Thank God, it’s nothing like high school. Your first two years sucked big time. Fortunately, your GPA back then helped you graduate two years early.

You shook the awful, awkward high school memories out of your mind as Lena guided you through the raucous bar. Your stomach rumbled as you spotted a couple playfully feeding ramen to each other. You were definitely ordering a big bowl for yourself as you soon as you get settled.

“Here we are, love!” Lena pushed through a beaded curtain and lead inside a private VIP room. You first laid eyes upon a mysterious red-headed woman. She was in the middle of stuffing sushi into her mouth. She turned to you and waved. 

The cowboy McCree was sitting on a pile of lounge cushions. His arm was wrapped around a Japanese man you’ve seen every blue moon at Headquarters. McCree whispered something into the man’s ear, and the man burst out laughing, blushing too.

“Hello there,” McCree greeted. “It’s about time you came out of the fox’s den.”

Lena grabbed your hand and lead you closer to McCree. “(Y/N), you know McCree, right? This is his boyfriend, Hanzo.”

Hanzo cleared his throat. “Partner.” He shook your hand. “It’s a pleasure.”

“Partner? Really?” McCree whined as he pulled Hanzo back into the cushions. “We’re more than partners, Bud.”

“Hello.” Someone squeaked behind you. It was the redhead again. She was more gorgeous up close.

“Oh, how could I forget?” Lena groaned. “This is the love of my life, Emily!”

“Nice to meet you.” You said.

“You too,” Emily shook your hand. “Lena told me so much about you. How did you end up dating—”

“We have arrived!” Junkrat announced as he leaped into the room. He gave you a quick peck on the cheek. “Hello, love! Getting along with everybody, I hope?”

Roadhog soon followed and spotted the sumptuous Japanese cuisine displayed on the table. “Is this for me?” He sat down and started eating.

“My California rolls…” McCree groaned.

“Don’t worry, we’ll order more. It’s on me.” Lena chirped.

“You mean, it’s on Jack’s tab.” Emily corrected.

“It’s Valentine’s Day. He’ll understand!”

You giggled as you imagined Jack staring at his bank statement with confusion at the hefty bill from a karaoke bar.

You spotted a coat hanger behind you. It was getting hot. It was time you finally removed your coat. Roadhog rushed over to your side as if he read your mind.

“Let me.” He said. You watched his large fingers as he helped you out of your coat. You heard him gasp. Luckily, no one else heard it.

“What’s wrong?” You turned to him and smiled. You stood before your surprised lover wearing a tight sangria-colored turtleneck dress. You wanted to wear something sensual but nothing too risqué.

“Hooley Dooley.” Junkrat gasped behind you.

You pretended it was nothing and shrugged your shoulders. “It’s just a simple dress. I had it in my closet for a while. You haven’t noticed?”

Honestly, you ordered the dress online a week ago. Many reviewers said wearing the dress gave them more attention from their lovers. Some even got laid for it. You had no plans for sex (yet), but you did have in mind a little extra friskiness from the Junkers.

“Where’s the karaoke machine?” You asked, trying to break the Junkers’ attention away from you for a second.

“It’s in the next room,” Emily said.

You tiptoed over to the conjoining room and moved the beaded curtain aside. A microphone stood in a center surrounded by more lounge cushions. A tiny mini bar stood in a corner. A J-Pop band danced on the television with the English lyrics appearing on the bottom of the screen.

“Do you sing, (Y/N)?” Lena asked you.

“I’ll try.” You replied.

Behind Lena, you noticed the Junkers were still gawking at you. You gave them a flirty wink, and they acted like they were going to keel over.

The Junkers were overall pleased you were willing to go out and open yourself to more people. They’ve never seen such progress since the three of you started dating two years ago.  They watched you proudly as you shared your adventure stories traveling with Winston around the world.

You spoke little Japanese to Hanzo (which was a big surprise). You were stationed in Osaka for four months for a scientific expedition. You had to learn the basics to get around.

                                          *~*~*~*~*~*

 After the night was over, Roadhog carried your sleepy self to the bedroom. It was 2:32am. You were tired as all get out. Surprisingly, Junkrat was still full of energy, even though he had too many sake bombs to drink.

“Let’s sing another song!” Junkrat begged Roadhog.

“Shh!” Hog covered Rat’s entire face with his hand. “(Y/N) is tired.”

You only moaned and rolled around on the bed. “Could one of you guys tuck me in?” You asked the Junkers. “One of you can take the dress off.”

Junkrat let out a high-pitched gasp. You chuckled. Where did the heck did that noise come from?

Junkrat hopped into the bed with you and roamed his hands all over your body. “Come here, darl!”

“No, Rat, I get to do it!” Roadhog yelled as he yanked the Rat out of the bed. You could only laugh as the two argued over you and pulled on your dress.

What a way to end Valentine’s Day and a new chapter to your budding social life.

                                                      END

[knjnvrland]

Prank Wars - ch. 4

> pairing | jungkook x reader

> word count | 5.6k

> genre | college!au, fluff, smut, angst

> warnings | swearing, sexual harassment

> synopsis | College can be a stressful time in anyone’s life as it is, why don’t we throw a little prank war in the mix to make it harder?

> fic masterlist

> A/N | English is not my first language, I'm sorry for the eventual spelling mistake, please let me know if you find any! Things start to get a little bit heavy in this chapter, it's not much but it still is something and I ask you to be aware of that. Please be safe. I'd also like to add that I'm updating frequently now because I have a few chapter already written, once those are done I'll probably take a little longer to post.

CHAPTER 4 - Pink Drink Thrower Horse Girl

Hoseok was stressed trying to find back up dancers for his final performance, the one that was worth 50% of his grade and pretty much settled if he would or not be approved. Jimin was already helping out, of course, but his classmates all had their own performances to worry about, and Jimin’s classmates, even the nicest ones, didn’t think they could fit more rehearsals into their busy schedules. At least that’s what they told Hobi, but Jimin knew that everyone was secretly a bit afraid of the older dancer. He was too, actually, but he also loved Hobi too much to say no. But it wasn’t enough, Hoseok need at least a couple more dancers for the routine he had prepared to work, and he was cutting a bit too close. That’s why, when Jungkook approached him while he was at the library, it didn’t take much for him to carve.

“Please hyung, she’ll never know it was you” Jungkook pleaded, elbows on the table, body anchored forward, full on puppy eyes mode right in front of Hoseok’s food.

“You’re hanging with Taehyung too much” Jungkook plopped back down on the chair and moved his hair back with a huff, to what Hoseok showed no reaction to.

“I’ll be your backup dancer” it’s what got his attention “if you tell me the guy’s name, I’ll help you out on the finals”

“I'm listening” Hobi leaned back and stoped anxiously munching on his snacks.

“I’ll even get Taehyung to dance too, you need two, don’t you?” Hoseok nodded “Then we’ll do it, just tell me his name”

“And why would you want that?” He still didn’t know where Jungkook wanted to get with this, and he knew it couldn’t be anything good.

“Would you believe me if I told you I was just trying to help her out too?” Hoseok glared at him “Ok, but if I tell you you’ll become an accomplice, do you want that?”

“Fair enough, his name is Ray, we rehearse at studio twelve every day at seven, if you or Tae ever get there late I’m whipping your ass” Hobi said in a single breath and stood up, gathering his stuff to go to class while Jungkook scribbled the name on the side of his notebook. “He does something with engineer, if that helps”

“Thanks hyung” Jungkook turned but Hoseok was already gone, and a few people on the table over were looking at him weird, but it didn’t matter, because now he knew how to get back at you.

A couple of days passed before Jungkook could put his plan into action, he needed to find the perfect moment, and the perfect moment just happened to be at Yoongi’s lunch break. They were both at the university’s radio studio and some indie R&B song was on while the two boys ate their ramen quietly. Yoongi was good at mixing up trendy songs with really underground ones during his time on the radio, and along with his producing skills, he was a pretty amazing rapper as well, witch made him nearly unbeatable as far as audiences go. That and the fact that his program was on from mid morning to mid afternoon, when the campus was usually packed. Jungkook or Alice would drop by with food sometimes, knowing that Yoongi would forget to eat lunch if they didn’t, but Jungkook would actually help out as well, and they had just began to work in a few of Yoongi’s side pieces, along with Namjoon, so it wasn’t weird for Jungkook to just be at the studio at random hours of his day.

That afternoon, however, it wasn’t as innocent as it usually was. While Yoongi left to throw out the trash, Jungkook got into the transmission booth and took his chance when he saw it. He locked the door from the inside out and, even though Yoongi obviously knew the password, it would give him a couple more seconds that could be essential for it all to work. Spending as much time as he did there, he knew his way around all the technical equipment and, when he noticed the song that was on was reaching its end, he stopped the playlist that Yoongi prepared and started broadcasting. 

“Hello hello and good afternoon to every student out there on their lunch breaks” Jungkook spoke into the mic “We have a special request today from a dear friend of mine, and I own her one so: y/n, this is for you”

You were at the cafeteria with Namjoon when it started. The both of you recognized Jungkook’s voice straight away and started paying attention, but it didn’t really seem to bother that many people around you. That is, until your name was mentioned. Yoongi would never mention names, he would sometimes receive more personal requests and do dedications, but he would never ever say the names of anyone. So when a name was mentioned, everyone stopped for a second to listen.

“For those of you who don’t know, y/n is the horse girl that dyed Delta Sigma’s kitchen pink a while back” Jungkook’s voice kept coming from the speakers and you felt your face starting to get warm. Namjoon looked around but everyone was paying attention and not really looking at the two of you, either way his brotherly instincts kicked off and he dialed Yoongi straight away to find out what the fuck was going on. “And was at Delta Sigma that she met the guy of her dreams”.

Yoongi had just entered the studio when his phone started ringing, seeing as it was Namjoon he just ignored and assumed that they were both trying to do the same thing: murder Jeon Jungkook. The “on air” sign was still on and, as much as Yoongi wanted to burst through the door and drag him out, he also had a job and a reputation to keep, so he decided to just send the younger boy a homicidal glare through the window before cutting the transmission, but Jungkook was faster and as soon as he saw Yoongi opening the door, he sped up to get to the real deal.

“So if you’re Ray from engineering, just know that horse girl really wants to ride you” the transmission ended abruptly and a soft mellow tune started playing as if nothing had ever happened. Everyone around you was whispering or laughing quietly, and you began to feel a couple of eyes being averted to you. 

“I think Yoongi got in” Namjoon put his phone down, having had his call ignored “JK is so dead” deep down he knew that it was all in good fun and the talking wouldn’t last long, but he could few how annoyed you were from across the table.

“I hope he is, ‘cause if Yoongi don’t kill him I sure will” you bit your apple angrily, and your brother laughed.

“Just let it go, it will die down soon enough” you took another bite, staring straight ahead at nothing, contemplating the most painful ways you could commit murder and not get caught. “Please don’t do anything stupid, this will get out of hand way too fast.”

You knew your brother was only looking out for you, but in your head you were already plotting the next step to wipe the smile out of Jungkook’s face once and for all.

“Who is that Ray guy, anyway?” Namjoon resumed eating, assuming it was best to ignore the look on your face and the whispers going around and just try to distract you.

“I am” a guy stood behind Namjoon and had a shy smile on his lips. He was in a simple blue shirt that matched his eyes and looked as good as you have even seen him. “Hey, y/n”

“Oh my god Ray” you stood up and swallowed the piece of fruit you were still chewing in a rush, starting your non stop anxious mumble "I’m so sorry that was my… a guy called Jungkook, we’re in this kind of war with each other I don’t know how he found out your name or that I talked to you and I’m so embarrassed I don’t even know where to begin to apologize I promise I will personally kill him and make sure he never speaks of you again-“ Ray just smiled patiently at you. 

“Hey it’s okay, breathe” you took a deep breath in and laughed even more embarrassed at the whole situation.

“But really, I’m so so sorry” you covered your face with your hands, knowing you were redder then the apple you were just eating.

“It’s fine, I’m actually glad because I’ve been trying to find you for a while now and what a coincidence we were both here when that happened” he turned around to point at a table on the other side of the cafeteria where a few guys from Delta Sigma sat “JB knew who you were and spotted you here” JB and a few others waved and you waved back shyly.

“I will never live down this embarrassment” you stated, more to yourself than to Ray “I can’t even-“

“If you want to apologize so bad, you could go out to dinner with me this weekend” he interrupted you again and this time actually left you speechless.

“And that’s my cue to leave” Namjoon grabbed his tray and backpack and stood up “take care sis, don’t commit murder” he winked your way and you blushed even more, if that was even possible. Being asked out in those circunstantes in front of your brother was definitely up there in the ranking of humiliating situations you’ve been in.

“So… Friday?” Ray was looking at you with the same expression from the night you first met, the one that made him look like a greek god, and suddenly you forgot what language you even speak.

“Ye-yeah, sure!” You were a little too bewildered about what was going on.

“Give me your phone” you responded on auto-pilot, and watched as he typed in something and then took out his own phone, showing you he had called himself “I’ll text you later” he handed you back the device and winked at you, at what you only stood there, frozen. You had never in your life had so little game at a flirting situation. You were definitely losing this game and honestly? You didn’t even mind that much.

“Okay” Was all you managed to say, before he turned around and walked back to his table. You must’ve stood there a few seconds too long but finally you picked up your stuff and left. You still had a Jungkook to kill and even if that whole mess turned out kind of alright, you couldn’t help but get more and more angry again with every pair of eyes staring at you as you made your way out of the cafeteria.

Funny enough, you couldn’t find Jungkook for the rest of the week. That boy was in every single sports team he could be in and as the semester neared it’s end he was training for something nearly every day, so whenever you got together with someone from the group, he was never around. Taehyung was the one who told you Jungkook was still alive, but not for long as he wanted to murder the boy as much as you did, seeing as now, on top of all the art work he had to finish, he was also having dance practice everyday with the scariest instructor ever: Hoseok. So, in Tae’s own words, “get in line”. You didn’t worry much, though, because throughout the week Ray texted you constantly and you really enjoyed talking to someone outside your friends for once.

Friday finally came along and you were excited for your date. Ever since you got to college you didn’t have the time or the stamina to date anyone, and your last serious relationship was when you were still in high school. In the year you spent abroad you didn’t want to get to know someone only to have to say goodbye soon, so you only maintained a couple casual booty calls and that was it. You were rough around the edges when it came to actually having dinner with a cute guy and Alice had to stop you from biting your nails off during the entire time she was fixing your hair in a pretty loose braid.

“It’s done” she stated, admiring her work. She picked up her phone and took a picture to show you, and you were very grateful once again to have her in your life.

“Thank you Al” you smiled at your friend through the mirror and she dismissed you with her hand. “he should be here any time now, when do you leave?” Alice was going back home for the weekend on the last train of the day.

“Yoongi will come pick me up soon, please don’t get in trouble while I’m out” she pleaded, like you were a little kid.

“I won’t, mom” you rolled your eyes and she jokingly sticked her tongue out to you. Your phone notified a text and you checked to see that it was Ray letting you know he was downstairs. “He’s here, do I look okay?” You had a short black dress on, trying way harder than you generally did, and even though the dress was long sleeved and you had stockings and you favorite leather jacket on as well, you could tell you’d be cold throughout the night.

“You look hot… but also cold” Alice handed you your jacket while you putted on your heeled boots.

“And my brother’s awful sense of humor is getting to you” You grabbed you jacket and hung it over your shoulders.

“What can I say, Jin’s rubbing off on me” Alice then handed you your purse and you thanked her quickly, excited to begin your sure to be fun night “I dropped a couple condoms in there, just to be safe” she winked at you and you once again rolled your eyes, getting out as soon as she bid you farewell.

Ray had a fancy car that was way out of a college student's budget for sure, but you enjoyed how comfortable and specially how warm it was. You went to a restaurant a bit out of town, it was this little cozy Chinese place that had some of the best dumplings you've ever had, and the conversation between the two of you flowed easily. You learned that he was majoring in computer engineering, after all, and lived out of campus in the same neighborhood as your brothers. You talked about favorite movies, because he wasn’t that into books, and about places you wanted to go. At the end of it he payed for the entire bill and held you hand on the way to the car.

On the drive back it started to rain softly and he turned on the radio but kept the volume low, you were distracted by the nice view of the ocean as you passed by the beach when he rested one of his hands on your thighs. It took you by surprise but you didn’t really mind, and soon you got used to the weigh of his hand on you. He then started to move his hand further up, and you rested yours on top of his to stop him when he was getting a little too close for comfort.

“What’s the matter, baby?” He purred, still looking at the road ahead. You didn’t know how to answer him, so you just pushed his hand back to where it first was and left yours still on top. “Didn’t you enjoy our date?” Once you didn’t answer he looked your way with the same charming smile as always, and you smiled back.

“I did, yeah” at that he pushed his hand a bit further up again, but not by much, and squeezed you a little.

“I'm glad, we could continue it for a little longer, don’t you think?” Your smile faltered a little, not knowing how to let him down easy. Is not that you didn’t want to spend more time with him, but when you were actually looking forward to date someone, you wouldn’t sleep with them on the first date.

“I'm a little tired, actually, it was a long week and I need to catch up on sleep” you were looking at his hand on you while you spoke, but you could see from the corner of your eyes his smile drop a little. “but we could go out again soon, if you’d like?”

“Hmm, I’d rather we extend tonight a little longer than postponing what we both know we want” he slipped his hand a little further up again. “My place or yours?” He looked at you for a second and you could see, for the first time, the hunger in his eyes now that his smile wasn’t as bright.

“I really just want to sleep tonight” you squeezed his hand, now unsure of what route to take. Outside, the rain was getting heavier and the speed of the car faster. “can you just drop me back at my place, we can go out again tomorrow.”

“I’m going straight to mine's” his voice no longer had the traces of kindness it had before. “You can either come with me or just find another ride home” you knew he was joking, he had to be, but then again he slipped his hand further up and turned to look at you while the car was already way above the speed limit “and it’s raining pretty hard now, so I don’t think you have a choice, really”

At that you snatched his hand away from your legs and hugged your jacket closer to your body. “just leave me here, then, I can find another ride home”. He still drove a few seconds, both hands on the steering wheel and you could see his knuckles going white with how much strength he was holding it, and that's when you really started to get scared. Then he started to slow down, and you started to believe again that he was only joking, but he slowed down until the car stopped completely.

“Get out then” he didn’t even look at your face. Outside the rain was even harder now and you could see the violent waves on the ocean at the distance. You stared at him and realized that this was actually your best chance, so you opened the door and got out.

You could barely close the door and he was already gone. And now you were alone at night in the middle of the road during a storm and saw no sign of another living thing anywhere near. You hugged your jacket as close to your body as you could and, seeing no other alternative, started walking. You were so caught up in you own misery it took you a few minutes to remember that phones are a thing that exist and that can be used in these kinds of situations, so you dug yours out of one of the jacket’s outside pockets only to realize it was dead. It could’ve been just the battery that ran out, or it could have been that it was soaking wet and you were dumb enough to leave your phone in your outside pocket during a storm. Having no other alternative, you just kept walking. A couple of cars passed you by, but no one stopped, and you don’t know how long you walked until you found a gas station with the lights inside still on.

You rushed in only to find a little man with dark skin and a thick white mustache behind the counter staring at you as if you were mad. You could understand him, though, you were soaking wet and your hair was nowhere near what it was at the beginning of the night, you rubbed your face only to see your hands painted with the leftovers of your once nicely done make up, and you knew you had murder written all over your face. Man were trash, you had to remember yourself over and over. You were never dating anyone ever again.

“Hi sir, do you have a phone I can use, please?” The man nodded and took from behind the counter one of those old dial phones, and motioned it to you without saying a word. And that’s when you remembered: you didn’t know any numbers by heart beside your mom’s, and you really didn’t need to worry her. You could call the police, but really, what would they do too? You let out a sigh of frustration and promised yourself you’d start memorizing phone numbers from now on. You decided to take a look around the small convenience store and grabbed some tissues to at least try to dry yourself a bit, going back to the counter next to pay. As you took out the money from the inside pocket of your jacket, you noticed that amongst the few damp notes you had folded, there was also a small piece of paper with a number on it.

Jungkook’s number.

That was the same jacket you wore at the halloween party, and one of the paper’s you and Jimin were using as confetti must’ve gotten in there. You asked the man to use his phone again and dialed the number with one hand, while using the other to open up the pack of tissues you had just bought. It rang a few times and you were starting to get anxious when he picked up.

“Hello?” His voice sounded tired, and you knew you must’ve woken him up.

“Hey Jungkook, it’s me” your voice was shaking, you noticed, and the reality of your condition started settling in.

“y/n? It’s almost 3 am” he grunted on the other line, clearly annoyed. He had only gone to bed an hour ago, having stayed up late finishing up an assignment only to send it after the deadline anyway, and his legs were sore from the amount of exercise he was actually getting that week, all Jungkook needed was to sleep for as long as he could.

“Yeah, I’m sorry, could you rang Jin for me? My phone is dead and I’m in a bit of trouble, I need him to pick me up” he must have noticed how defeated you sounded, because all the red signs in his mind went off and he was suddenly very awake.

“Where are you?” Jungkook was already getting up, if you were in trouble there were no time to call anyone, he could pick you up himself, as much as he loathed you, you were still his best friend’s little sister, so he just putted on his shoes, not bothering to change out of his cozy outfit.

“I'm in a gas station in the middle of the road, I don’t think I’m too far from the city-“ at that the man behind the counter pointed at a sign above him that read ‘Pier 11’ on bright green colors “near pier 11?” You sounded unsure, but Jungkook had been there before.

“The one near the beach, with the green neon light up front?” He was already waiting for the elevator on his hall, and for a second he wondered if he should actually call Jin.

“Yeah, that’s the one” but your voice was shaking and he didn’t know why, but he just really needed to make sure you were alright.

“Ok, I’ll be right there” at that he hung up and you thanked the man, handing him back his phone. The man handed you some keys and pointed at a door on the other side of the small store, and you assumed it must be a restroom, so you headed there to try and get yourself back together.

Looking at the mirror you realized your mascara had run all the way down your cheeks and your lips were so white they were almost blue. Your hair was a mess and it took you a while to untangle it from what used to be the pretty braid Alice gave you. You took your jacket off and washed your face with warm water, but your entire body was shaking because of how cold you were, so it didn’t help much. You finished cleaning up as much as you could and dried yourself to the best of your ability with the rest of the tissues you had, and took a sit on the corner of the bathroom, hiding your face in between your knees, you took a few deep breaths and probably more time trying to get your head in place then you realized, because that’s when you heard the bell of the front door ring.

“Y/n?” You recognized Jungkook’s voice, so you grabbed your jacket from the floor beside you and stepped out, not bothering putting it back again. The second he saw you, his already furrowed brows grew deeper. “hey, you okay?” You nodded, and went to the counter to give back the keys to the old man, thanking him silently. “Let's go, the car is outside” that’s when you noticed his hair was a bit wet as well, and he was in very pajamas like clothes, only a hoodie, a pair of sweatpants and those black sneakers he wore all the time.

You followed him outside and he opened the door for you and then went around to get on his sit. Before even starting the car properly, he turned on the heater to the max and you let go of your jacket to put your hands in front of the air vent. He turned to the backseat and found a yellow jacket you remember seeing him wear before, handing it to you. He started driving quietly and you were, for once, thankful to have him in your life. He never asked you what happened, but the way he looked at you you could tell he was curious, so you told him. You were doing fine until it got to the part where Ray put his hands on you. At first you were just too angry to feel anything else, and then you were too cold and worrying about not dying, but now you were safe and slightly warmer in a car with someone you came to trust and before you noticed your eyes were filled with tears and your throat was shut. 

Jungkook didn’t know how to react. You were always quick to clap back and hot headed, and he had yet to see you lower your head to anyone, so seeing you try to hold back tears after the hell of a night he was sure you had, it just broke something inside of him. You brought your hand to your mouth so you could bite on the side of your nails, but Jungkook intercepted your movement and held your hand in his in front of you. “You’re alright now” he said, barely a whisper, but you could understand. And that’s all it took. You letted go of his hand and covered your face, letting the tears roam free inside the small dome you created in front of you. You sobbed silently for a few seconds, and then took a deep breath in, realizing something you haven’t thought of before.

“I can’t go back home now” you stated, more to yourself than to him “he knows where I live and Alice’s out of town for the weekend”.

“do you want to crash at mine’s?” He offered, in a heartbeat.

“I don’t want to bother you, really” you couldn’t even look at him.

“You won’t, I promise you” he smiled softly at you, and you couldn’t help but be grateful for it. “Besides, I feel kinda responsible” his smile slipped and he looked back at the road ahead, the city around you dead and quiet in the middle of the stormy night.

“It’s not your fault.” You were quick to response “but thank you”.

You were back at his place in no time and, as soon as you stepped in, you realized you had never actually been here. The layout of the loft was the same as Yoongi’s, who lived a few floors down, but it was so different at the same time. Yoongi’s was very crowded with stuff, action figures, sound system, his producing material and clothes everywhere, while Jungkook’s was surprisingly clean. He had a few movie posters on the wall, and some photography equipment in the shelves and in one of the corners, but aside from a small pile of clothes near his bed, everything else was very minimalistic and neat. While you were looking around, Jungkook went to grab you a towel and some warm clothes, handing them to you and grabbing his now wet jacket in return.

“Go take a shower, I’l make you some tea so you don’t get sick” he bossed around and you’d be annoyed otherwise but you were still a little bit in chock and just followed his instructions, hopping into the bathroom the take a shower. He had nice hair products and a soap that smelled like peaches -smelled like him, you realized. You took your time getting clean, trying to wash away not only the dirt from the rain and from the road, but also everything else that took place that night. When you got out dressed in clothes similar as the one’s Jungkook was wearing, the boy was at the small table for two he had separating the kitchen from the rest of the place, with a couple mugs in front of him. He was busy scrolling trough his phone to notice you were back out, and only looked up when you were already sitting in front of him.

You were both quiet while you drank your tea, but the tension around was starting to be too much to bear. “Thank you” you blurted out, not really looking at him.

“It’s alright, really” he reassured you “but I was wondering, why did you call me?” That was eating him inside from the moment he hung up the call, and seeing the small smile grow on your lips he decided he didn’t have to know why for sure, but he was glad you did.

“It was the only number I had” the confusion only grew on him “I found one of the papers that you had written your phone in one of my pockets, the one’s you gave the boys last year?” You tried to jog his memory “Jimin still had a bunch of them on him and we were playing around a while back, one must’ve slipped inside my jacket and I never noticed.” You were looking at your lap, so you never saw the small smile that showed up on Jungkook’s face.

“If he still have that many he didn’t do his job properly, that’s why I couldn’t get a date recently” he joked around and got a small laugh out of you in return, but it turned into a yawn and soon both of you were on sleep mode. “You can have the bed, I can sleep on the floor” he offered, but his bed was big enough for the both of you and you didn’t find fair to cast him out in his own home.

“I don’t mind sharing” you stood up, grabbing the mugs and leaving them at the kitchen sink as if you’ve done it a thousand times.

“Are you sure?” And that’s when you realized Jungkook was a nice guy. A little rough around the edges, sure, but a nice guy nonetheless.

“Yes, I’m sure. Besides, it’s too cold for you to sleep on the floor” you made your way to the left side of the bed, as the right side had the covers pulled and you assumed that’s where he was sleeping before you called.

“I won’t argue with that” he got in as well and turned down the lights, but you could still make out his profile from the light that creeped in from the window. You both fell into silence, but you could tell none of you were actually asleep.

You don’t know how long you were just laying quietly on the dark listening to his breathing, you were very tired, and emotionally drained for sure, but for some reason you just wanted to stay awake a little longer. Eventually the tiredness got the best of you and you fell into a dreamless rest. Jungkook, however, stayed up a little longer. It was silent enough for him to hear every single small noise you made and even though he noticed you had fallen asleep, he still felt like he had to say something. A while later, you turned around and rested one of your arms over his chest, hugging him sideways. He held his breath, trying not to bother you but also not knowing what to do. Your hands were still cold and he noticed your pale lips, so he made another one of the many bad decisions in his life related to you: he scooted closer and passed one of his arms under your neck. If you had woken up he didn’t notice, but you molded yourself into him, resting your head on his chest and wrapping one leg around him as well. He then grabbed your hand with his and took it closer to his lips, blowing hot air on it until it wasn’t freezing anymore. He could feel your heart beating through your wrist and that’s the rhythm he followed until he too, was falling into a dreamless sleep.

> A/N | A little bit of angst, a little bit of fluff. It will start to get a little bit angstier from now on, and I'm planning to touch on a couple of difficult subjects moving forward, so please read with caution. Have a nice day, wherever and whoever you are :)

TAGLIST |  @w1tchcraftt ; @girlwiththeglittereyeliner​ ;

TAGLIST IS OPEN!

[gwydionae]

(Keep My) Back to You

A/N: Hey, look at that! The fic I thought for sure I would be too lazy to continue and end up leaving as a one shot actually got continued. Well color me surprised. But sometimes you just just wanna write about that sweet, sweet platonic male friendship. Never enough in fanfiction.

Posted on fanfiction.net >here<. Chapter 1 on tumblr >here<.

Teaser: Naruto just wants a friend. Sasuke will never allow himself to have one. But heavy burdens carried by small backs feel lighter when the load is shared with others.

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto. Eventual canon divergence. Rated T for mild language and eventual violence.

Chapter 2: Rivals

"Aw, Sasuke's gone again! I wanted to invite him over for dinner. It's probably hard living alone, doing all that cooking yourself. And Mom's making tempura!"

From his swing, Naruto snorted in disgust as his classmates left the academy grounds, an angry pout marring his normally cheerful face. Yesterday had been a complete disaster, leaving him just as friendless as he'd been every other day of his life. What kind of orphan kid turned down free food? Had the offer of homemade tempura been meant for him, he would have jumped at the chance! Instead Sasuke had yelled at him and called him a loser.

"He's the loser. Jerk," he grumbled as he kicked a loose stone, narrowly missing the back of an older student's head. Glaring at the failed projectile, he silently cursed his poor aim. A chase around the village would have been a welcome distraction.

Digging his toes into the dirt, Naruto absently rocked forward and back. The anticipation of the last few days had been exciting, leaving today far duller by comparison. He had gone out of his way to make extra sure that he didn't so much as look in Sasuke's general direction, and as so many desired to be as close to the boy genius as possible, this had left him even more ignored than usual.

Roughly kicking off from the ground, Naruto closed his eyes tight. Pumping his legs, he quickly built up momentum, feeling the rush of air as he swung higher and higher. The sun on his face felt warm, and the wind at his back seemed to hold him up in midair. His thoughts traitorously wandered back to those brief moments on the little dock at the lake watching the sun set, a warm back to his. At the highest point, he leaned back.

The wind, it turned out, was not as supportive as another human body.

With a loud thud and a pained yelp, Naruto found himself lying on the ground, the empty swing jangling wildly above him, suddenly free of its rider. Looking up at it with a fierce sense of betrayal, he sat up and rubbed his sore back. The wind was too light and the ground was too hard, both cold in their own ways. All he wanted was to feel that warmth again. And not just for a few minutes. He wanted to know it would always be there when he needed it.

Jumping to his feet, he raced through the busy, late afternoon streets to his home, not even stopping to further offend those that took the time to scold him. His young eyes were set with determination as he flung open his door, dug through his drawers, and pulled out some crinkled paper and broken crayons. Dropping them haphazardly on the floor, he crouched down and hurriedly scribbled a crude face surrounded by spiky, black hair. With a bit more force than was necessary, he grabbed the red crayon and drew a big, messy X over top of it. He held it up, looking proudly upon his creation.

"'Not friends'. Well, who wants to be friends with a jerk anyway," he said as he scrambled to his feet and began searching for some way to hang his masterpiece. He soon settled for peeling the clearance stickers off of his slightly-passed-the-sell-by-date instant ramen. "I'll show him who's the loser! I'm gonna train every day so I can wipe that annoying glare off his 'perfect' face! See how much they all like their 'precious' Sasuke when I give him two black eyes!"

The drawing merely scowled at him as Naruto's new training routine began immediately, with sloppy but forceful punches being aimed directly at its nose.

"Good morning, Sasuke-kun! I can't wait to watch you in the taijutsu test today. I'm sure you'll do the best out of the whole class again!"

With a huff, Naruto's gaze followed his newly appointed rival as Sasuke silently made his way to his seat, ignoring the customary encouragement that rained down on him whenever there was a test. Or whenever they were learning something new. Or whenever he walked into a room. Naruto clenched his lightly bruised knuckles and shot to his feet. Pointing a finger squarely at the other boy's face, he grinned maniacally.

"Ha! Not today, Sasuke! I've been practicing extra hard for this one, so you're gonna have to settle for second best this time! Right behind me! I'm gonna kick your butt, just you wait!"

Bold he had always been, but never had he so directly and confidently challenged anyone in class before, let alone the top-of-the-class Uchiha prodigy. The stunned silence he earned for his little performance proved he had hold of everyone's undivided attention, sending a thrill down his spine. But the braised pork on the delicious bowl of ramen that was this moment came when not the fangirls, not the jealous boys, not even the teacher were the first to react.

"Someone like you is never going to beat me, you usuratonkachi."

Naruto had no idea what he'd just been referred to as - a thin hammer? - but having Sasuke, Mister Always Ignores Everyone's narrow eyes focused solely on him, knowing that he, the worst in the class, had dragged that reaction out of him, only broadened his feral grin. The retort wasn't nice by any means, of course, but being the one to push him to react at all felt significant. It felt powerful. His words and no one else's held sway over the "perfect" Sasuke's attention.

"You tell'im, Sasuke!"

"Ah! Sasuke-kun, you're so cool!"

"I have no doubt you'll pass with flying colors as always, Sasuke. Naruto! For that outburst, when it is time for the test, you will have the honor of going first so that everyone else can learn from your mistakes. Now sit down!"

Not the praise heaped on Sasuke nor the disparaging remarks from the teacher could ruin Naruto's mood. Sure, being called an usura-whatsit wasn't as nice as a friendly "good morning", but as they were now rivals, the words seemed more like a challenge than an insult. And if he could get Sasuke's attention with some simple light goading, imagine what would happen if he actually managed to complete the challenge.

The reality of the situation came crashing down around him, however, when Naruto was indeed commanded to go first during their test. Enthusiasm alone was not about to fix his poor form, and as no teacher had ever bothered to either, he found himself yet again on the receiving end of harsh criticism, belittling insults, and cruel snickering while he clumsily punched and kicked. Not halfway through his routine, a large foot suddenly shot out, hitting him roughly in the knee. The teacher spouted the importance of a firm stance with a bit too much glee as his student fell to the ground in pain, amusement mimicked through the laughing of the onlooking class.

Naruto shot the offenders a menacing look while trying to hide any signs of discomfort and embarrassment, seeking the face of one in particular. To his surprise, the face he sought was the only one seemingly ignoring him.

He had expected his so called rival to at least appear smug at his obvious failure. However Sasuke wasn't even looking at him. The other boy's arms were folded, and his gaze trailed off to the side, a light frown on his face as the laughter continued around him. As if feeling someone watching him, dark eyes glanced up and finally met his, narrowing only slightly before quickly turning away again.

Suddenly the laughter didn't seem so loud, the pain in his knee growing dull. Naruto stood gingerly and made his way back to his classmates as the teacher predictably called upon none other than Sasuke to go next who took his place silently, eyes kept resolutely forward. Naruto watched as Sasuke settled purposefully into a perfect stance, pausing only briefly before putting on a flawless display of punches and kicks. Mocking was replaced by gasps of admiration and envy.

There was no doubt that Naruto was an attention seeker. He craved it more than just about anything else. But this was one of those times he was grateful to have the spotlight stolen from him so thoroughly. These were not reactions he had been fishing for - these were ones forced upon him by hateful bullies.

"Excellent work, Sasuke. Full marks as always, a far cry from the poor performance preceding you."

And as Sasuke made his way back to the group without so much as a haughty glance in his direction, Naruto knew that he could not have chosen a better rival.

As the days passed, Naruto kept up his boasting, telling anyone that would listen - as well as those that wouldn't - about how he would defeat the great Sasuke Uchiha. The boy in question would bristle, flatly shooting down the very idea, but as with that disastrous taijutsu test, he remained silent when the teacher or other students chose the route of open ridicule. The gesture, though small, was enough that Naruto began keeping an eye out for some of Sasuke's more aggressive fans, planning his most show-stealing antics for the times they grabbed their idol's arm before he could tug it away or asked invasive questions about his murdered relatives. He had no idea if Sasuke noticed or cared, but in his mind, this kept them even.

It was not the sort of warm, friendly bond he wanted. He still went home to a lonely apartment to eat a lonely meal before trying to sleep through a lonely night. But it was a bond nonetheless, driving him forward, pushing him to grow faster and stronger so that one day perhaps Sasuke would see him as a rival in return.

"Usuratonkachi."

"I don't even know what that means!"

"It means you're useless."

That day could be years away, but Naruto would fight tooth and nail to finally reach it. And that goal alone was enough to keep the smile from ever fully disappearing from his face. ____________________________________________________

"Wait, why is Naruto here? It was so obvious he failed the exam yesterday! I'd better not get stuck on the same team as him!"

Sasuke did his best not to glare at the all too cheerful Naruto who had plopped down beside him, headband signifying him a genin contrasting starkly with his bright blonde hair. His own thoughts mirrored those of his classmate's, but no matter how it had happened, it was clear that Naruto had somehow indeed managed to pass, leaving him with only one concern.

He'd always known that he would eventually be put on a team with two others from his class, and watching the students above him graduate had given him some unfortunate insight into how those groups were formed. Sometimes certain clans or students with specialized skills were kept together. His classmates from the Nara, Akimichi, and Yamanaka clans would likely be paired this year due to the closeness of their families, and the team from last year with the Hyuuga member had all shown themselves to excel at taijutsu, for example. However there was another constant that showed up year after year, one that made the giddy chattering coming from the boy sat next to him somehow even more grating.

Without fail, the highest ranking graduate was always paired with the lowest.

Apparently this had to do with keeping the teams balanced, but to the current highest ranking graduate, it could be considered nothing less than a handicap. Naruto struggled to make a single clone - a clone! - one of the most basic techniques that Sasuke had mastered long ago in what felt like a completely different lifetime, one that belonged to someone far more innocent.

The memories threatening to bubble to the surface were quickly pushed aside, but not before his other concern whispered in his ear, sounding of light footsteps on wooden boards and an offer of a shared meal.

"Move it, Naruto! I planned to sit next to Sasuke-kun today! You shouldn't even be here!"

Their teacher entered the classroom just as one of his annoying admirers - the pink-haired girl, Sakura, from some civilian family - managed to violently shove Naruto out of the way and take the seat beside him. Sasuke ignored her as thoroughly as he had Naruto, eyes glued to Iruka at the front of the class who was holding a clipboard. He listened intently as instructions were given and names listed off, trying to remain relaxed as more and more of his fellow genin were assigned to teams of three while his name - and Naruto's - continued to go uncalled. His hope that perhaps this year they would make an exception were dashed, however, when Team Seven was announced to comprise of Sakura, Naruto, and himself.

Their lunch break could not come fast enough. Trying to stay focused on their teacher with Sakura constantly clamoring for his attention while Naruto grumbled beside her was surely a mere taste of the headaches awaiting him on official missions. He bolted from his seat the moment they were dismissed, the two next to him thankfully too engaged in their own bickering to notice him leave. Grabbing the rice balls he'd packed that morning, Sasuke darted outside, grateful for some fresh air and a chance to think.

It wasn't as if he hadn't known this was coming. He had hoped that maybe Naruto would be too stupid to pass, or perhaps they would place him with the Hyuuga girl, the only female in class he didn't find completely intolerable as she was too nervous to even speak let alone drape herself all over him. But predictably he found himself with the dead last who struggled to make a clone and a fangirl more interested in flirting than fighting. Sasuke couldn't help but think that he'd have been better off as a team of one.

He was so caught up in the injustice of it all that he didn't even notice as a rope wrapped around his middle and yanked him off his feet. Naruto, of all people, had gotten the jump on him and ran off, his own face smirking down at him as his captor left him tied up on the floor. Sasuke was sure his murderous intent was palpable as he angrily used his training to escape from the ropes and dash back outside, using every tracking skill in his arsenal to figure out where his new teammate and soon to be punching bag had gone.

"Sasuke-kun! There's no need to change the subject! Just forget about Naruto. All he does is get in the way!"

Sakura. Of course. The moment she started rambling it was obvious that he'd missed the first half of the conversation. He had no idea why Naruto was so infatuated with someone who treated him as less than dirt. Not that there were many people that didn't treat him that way. He'd always found it strange just how vitriolic everyone was toward Naruto, contempt dripping from every word, some even calling him a monster to his face. He could be annoying, sure, but he doubted the guy had a single truly malicious bone in his body. He was too soft, eyes too bright and hopeful. Sasuke hated that about him.

And yet...

He forced his attention away from warm backs and innocent curiosity and back to his present teammate and task at hand.

"My parents would never let me get away with the kind of pranks that he pulls! That's why he's so selfish. But he's lucky, in a way, don't you think? Not having parents to nag at him - must be nice."

It was as if something snapped inside of him. He rounded on her with a look so furious she choked on whatever nonsense she was about to spew next. "Lucky"? "Lucky"?

"Do your parents buy you things? Or cook for you? Help with homework, do your laundry? Would you rather have 'nagging' parents or a cold, empty house to return to every night?" Sakura shrank back as his words spilled out, dripping with scorn. Her eyes widened as his narrowed. "I would rather put up with his selfish attention seeking then listen to a single word from a spoiled girl who thinks it would be fun to play at being a ninja."

His anger barely contained, Sasuke turned on his heel and began to make his way back to the academy. After only a few steps, however, he paused, and with a shaky, calming breath he glanced back at his new teammate who looked about ready to cry at his sudden and unusual outburst. Not many had managed to strip away his calm facade. She had come face to face with a side of himself he worked hard to keep hidden, and leaving her like this could make things difficult in the future. He would have to learn to work with her, whether he wanted to or not. Starting now would be his best option.

"The life of a ninja is dangerous," he said, managing to keep his voice steady. "You should appreciate what you have. You never know when it'll all be taken away from you."

Unwilling to stay still long enough to see if his words had any effect, Sasuke again turned away, leaving Sakura behind. Someone like her, raised as far from the daily struggles of shinobi life as one could be while growing up in a hidden ninja village, couldn't possibly understand. The mundane struggles of dealing with overbearing parents couldn't even begin to compare to the vast weight of loss, loneliness, and death that had followed him day and night for five years. What he wouldn't give to hear his father's voice, see his mother's smile, just once more. He wasn't sure if Naruto shared his same desires or if he'd even known his family before being orphaned. But the loneliness, that was palpable. Only someone free of the shackles of an empty home could be so blind to it.

What bothered him the most, however, was that he cared. Cared enough to berate her callous attitude. Cared enough to stand up for someone that pestered him on a daily basis. And caring was the one thing he couldn't allow.

Sasuke spent the rest of the day doing everything in his power to block out anything unnecessary to his mission of vengeance. He pretended not to notice when Naruto seemed shocked to see him no longer tied up. He focused on the sort of techniques he hoped to learn from their new jounin leader as Naruto and Sakura bickered about some poorly set booby trap. And when asked about his future dreams, he put as much conviction and loathing into his words as he could muster. If Naruto seemed put out at being ignored, if Kakashi appeared unimpressed at his new team, if Sakura's determined answer for her own dreams being to become a stronger ninja felt unlike what he would have expected her to say, he refused to acknowledge it. None of those things mattered. He had to become stronger, and he had to do it with as little outside interference as possible.

So why, then, was he so willing to offer up his own lunch to a useless teammate who, despite claiming to be so good at setting them himself, failed to see the most obvious trap ever laid? Why would he risk being sent back to the academy when all he had to do was follow a single, simple order? Why was he the one to go back and free that insufferable usuratonkachi from that damned post when escaping from such a situation should have been as easy as breathing for any qualified shinobi?

Team Seven would officially begin duties at dawn, but despite the late hour, Sasuke found himself unable to sleep, staring up at his dark ceiling. Every rationalization he came up with for his behavior during the bell test sounded weak, like an excuse a child would give to try and circumvent an assured punishment. He had been assigned to a team less than two days ago, and already his vision of the future was blurring, the red suddenly tainted with yellow, orange, and, more frustratingly, a slight twinge of pink.

The shameful truth of it, however, was that he couldn't even feign surprise at this development. Ever since that day on the dock five years ago, he knew that his plan had already been compromised. Not that he hadn't tried to repair the damage and find peace in his lonely existence. In one desperate attempt he'd gone so far as to making a clone to sit with, be a calming presence, chase away the whispers of death. But the reality of a firm back offering quiet support was now an experience he couldn't simply forget, and there was no comparison. The hollow shell that had a bit too much resemblance to the remaining member of his family only made him crave companionship all the more. And so that lone moment of serenity had followed him, a constant reminder of what he longed for despite the red and black target that would be painted on the back of anyone he accepted it from.

He had always had a feeling that that target would one day appear on the back that had come to symbolize the kind of life an avenger such as himself could never truly have, no matter how obnoxious that back's owner could be.

It was already too late. It had been too late for years. Even if he and Naruto weren't exactly what anyone would call close friends, there was no denying the subtle, if tense bond the two had somehow managed to form against all odds. Naruto was the only person he found difficult to tune out, amusing to rile up, and worth standing up for. Being on the same team, having to work together every day, it was merely a matter of time before his brother's eyes would become Naruto's constant invisible companion, staring at Sasuke, tempting him.

There was no avoiding it. Naruto had not failed, and Sasuke had not been specially placed on a different team. The Mangekyou Sharingan would be within reach, and it would be far sooner than he would ever be ready for.

Sasuke had two missions now. He would kill his brother, but he would also make damned sure that Naruto didn't become the latest victim. _____________________________________________________

A/N: Just in case someone needs to hear it, this is not a Sakura bashing fic. More significant canon divergence - and action - coming soon to a chapter near you.

As always, critics and grammar police are appreciated!

Chapter 3 on tumblr >here<.

[antiadvil]

Electrify My Heart

summary: Dan Howell picks his college major almost at random. Even after a gap year, he doesn’t know what he wants to do, so he supposes he might as well pick whatever will make him the most employable and impress the largest number of his relatives. Within his first semester, he knows he made a mistake and switches out. Except Dan’s major isn’t law. It’s computer science, and Phil is his TA.

rating: PG13

wc: 13k

notes: for all the notes go read the ao3 version but tldr ty @itsmyusualphannie​ for being beta and ty to lots of other ppl and imposter syndrome real

read on ao3 or under the cut

College was hard, Dan decided, and his classes hadn’t even started yet. All he had wanted was coffee, and god, why did everything have to be so hard? He was waiting in line at a coffee shop on campus with some cutesy name- “The Daily Grind”- and a ridiculously long line. Really, it should not be taking this long to get one iced coffee. He was just beginning to wonder if he should give up and go somewhere else when someone slammed into him from behind. Dan stumbled and fell.

“Oh my god. I am so sorry.”

Thank god Dan hadn’t gotten his coffee yet. “You’re fine,” he said automatically, standing up.

“Seriously, I’m sorry. Are you alright?” A face with shaggy black hair and blue eyes peered intently at him.

“Yup,” Dan said, “Pretty sure.”

“Let me at least buy your coffee for nearly killing you.”

Dan froze. “Uhhhhh…”

The boy laughed. “Calm down, I’m not asking you out. I just mean coffee. Don’t worry.”

“Oh,” Dan said, relieved. “Uh, yeah, that’d be great. Coffee, I mean.”

“Great,” he said. “I’m Phil, by the way.”

“Dan.”

It turned out that Phil was a grad student in computer science, the same subject Dan was majoring in. Dan’s eyes glazed over when Phil started talking about what exactly his specialization was (something about human-computer interaction and other words Dan didn’t understand), but Phil steered the conversation away from that pretty quickly once he noticed Dan’s reaction.

“So you’re a freshman? How’s the college life treating you so far?”

Dan shrugged. “It’s okay, I guess. It’s kind of nice not having my parents around, but also, I’m really bad at doing adult things.”

Phil smiled. “It’s okay, I didn’t really know how to cook until I got an apartment my junior year. As long as you know the basics-”

“No,” Dan interrupted. “Like, I’m really bad at doing adult things. I set my ramen on fire because I didn’t know you needed to put water in.”

Phil was clearly struggling to remain composed. “Recently?” he inquired politely.

“Yes,” Dan said.

Phil laughed, and the way he laughed made Dan feel like there was a slowly growing bubble inside of him. “I’m sorry,” Phil said, “But look on the bright side. That’s actually hilarious,” and Dan had to admit it was.

When they parted two hours later, after all the ice in his coffee had melted, Dan had added Phil on every social media platform known to man and had Phil’s number saved in his phone with instructions to text if he had any issues.

Dan wanted to, he really did. He had never wanted to text anyone so badly. He gathered the courage to send a “Hi! It’s Dan!” text, then quickly threw his phone across the room, only to pick it back up immediately when it buzzed with Phil’s response.

It was just a smiley face. Why was Dan so excited about a fucking smiley face? A fucking smiley face that Phil probably only sent because he couldn’t think of anything else to say.

Dan spent the rest of his weekend in his dorm, leaving only to attend exactly one welcome event and spend a truly disturbing amount of time (and money) at The Daily Grind, hoping he’d run into Phil again. Why Dan didn’t just text him, he couldn’t explain. He hadn’t sent anything since the introduction text and Phil’s smiley face reply.

If the universe wanted him and Phil to be friends, the universe would have to work a bit harder.

***

Classes started the next Monday. After the disaster that was the one welcome event he attended, he had spoken to exactly zero people, unless you counted the barista at The Daily Grind. He was almost relieved when classes started just because he’d be around other people again, and if that didn’t say something about how isolated he was, he didn’t know what did.

His relief quickly vanished when his alarm went off at seven am for his eight am calculus discussion section. He dragged himself across campus to his classroom, where he promptly fell asleep when given a worksheet. No one in his group woke him up, and when the TA came around to collect their worksheets, Dan sheepishly turned in a piece of paper with his name on it and a few scribbled numbers he must have written before he passed out.

Dan looked longingly at the time on his phone. He really didn’t have time to take a nap before his next lecture, but oh, he desperately wanted to. He considered skipping, but he knew he should at least attend the first lecture to get an idea of what the attendance policy was like.

He found somewhere on the main quad to sit for a bit, but he must have dozed off, because the next thing he knew, a bell was faintly buzzing in a nearby building, his CS 115 lecture was starting right now, and he still wasn’t sure exactly where it was.

He ended up being around ten minutes late, and as he paused outside the wooden double doors to catch his breath, he again considered just not going. He checked the time again and groaned. He really did feel bad walking in so late, but it was either that or not at all. He straightened up, wiped his hands on his shorts, and opened the door as quietly as possible.

His eyes worked over the seats, searching for an empty spot. There was an entire empty row in the front, but there was no way in hell Dan was sitting there. He spotted a seat in the middle of the back row, and briefly debated turning around and leaving so he wouldn’t have to ask the people at the ends of the row to move.

After looking around again, he braced himself and walked up to the end of the row.

“Excuse me?” Dan whispered.

The girl sitting at the end of the row rolled her eyes and tossed her blue hair over her shoulder, closing her laptop and standing up so Dan could pass.

“Thanks,” Dan whispered, moving past her, which required them to be far closer than Dan was entirely comfortable with.

The rest of the row was mostly a blur of groans and snickers, but everyone at least moved their laptops back so Dan could step over their knees.

Finally, Dan sat down in his seat, his ears burning, and pulled out his laptop.

The professor paused. “And if everyone could make an effort to be on time next time,” she said with a mildness that terrified Dan, “That would be appreciated. Thank you.”

Dan shrunk into his seat. An auspicious beginning to his college career. Hopefully, his lab later in the day would be better than his lecture.

It was not. After standing in line for at least twenty minutes and eating a rushed lunch and attending a two-hour-long lecture for his film class, which was interesting but incredibly long, he showed up to his lab.

He was on time, at least. He even managed to find an empty table. But then the empty table started filling up, and his tablemates all wanted to talk to him, and it was almost a relief when the TA walked in to start class. His relief vanished when he and the TA made eye contact.

It was Phil.

Phil’s eyes widened slightly, but he recovered quickly. He pulled out his laptop and adjusted his glasses. “Welcome to your first lab section,” he said. “I’m Phil Lester, your TA. I’m here to help you work through your lab problems, homework problems, and Machine Project, but they’re ultimately graded by the online autograder, which I have no control over, so bring up any issues about grading to Professor Ross. Any questions?”

Someone’s chair squeaked.

“Okay then,” Phil said. “Today’s lab is to download, configure, and familiarize yourself with IntelliJ. I’m sure that sounds easy, but even experienced programmers have issues getting used to IntelliJ, which is why we’ve devoted a lab period to it. Your instructions are online. Let me or the CAs know if you need help with anything.”

The lab passed with mind numbing boredom, but by the end, with the help of his tablemates and a bored-looking Course Assistant, Dan had IntelliJ up and running.

As he stood to leave, his stomach growled. He really should have picked a lab that was earlier in the day, but whatever. Even if Dan was able to figure out how to use his student portal, it was probably too late to transfer lab sections. He glanced at Phil, but he seemed absorbed in helping another student, so Dan just put his laptop in his backpack and trudged away.

He stepped outside the Computer Science Center and took a deep breath, aiming himself towards his dorm and a thirty-minute walk home, but he was interrupted.

“Hey! Hey, Dan,” Phil said, running after him. “How’d I do?”

Dan looked up. “Phil?”

“Yup,” Phil said. “It’s so funny that you ended up in my class. It must be fate.”

Dan wrinkled his nose. “I don’t believe in fate.”

“Well, you’re no fun,” Phil observed.

“There’s a thing called coincidence.”

“I’m just trying to think of a smooth way to ask you to coffee again, Dan. Work with me here.”

“Is that allowed?” Dan asked.

“Being friends with people in your lab section? It’s not exactly encouraged, but I don’t grade you or anything, so as long as I don’t display blatant favoritism it should be fine.”

So he really did just mean coffee. Again. “I don’t want to get you in trouble.”

“You won’t. Besides, if I did get in trouble, which I won’t, it would be my fault, not yours.”

Dan shrugged.

“Anyway, if you’re not comfortable with it, that’s fine. But I really liked you and thought it would be nice to spend time together sometime. You know, if that’s cool. I know you probably have a ton of work right now, but if you get a chance.”

Phil was nervous, Dan realized. “I think I’d like that,” he said slowly.

Phil smiled. “Text me,” he said, reaching out to touch Dan’s hand briefly. “Anyway, which way are we headed?”

“My dorm’s kind of far.” It was the farthest dorm from the main quad, actually, since Dan had put off registering for housing until a week before the deadline.

“My apartment’s definitely farther. Want a ride?”

“Where are you parked?”

Phil jerked his head to the left. “Like ten minutes that way?”

Dan hesitated. Yes, he did want a ride from Phil. But Phil’s car was parked on the opposite side of campus from his dorm, and it would probably take just as long to walk to Phil’s car and get a ride to his dorm as it would to just walk there.

“Sure,” he said before he could regret it.

“Cool,” Phil said, starting to walk. “So, how are you liking CS so far?”

“It’s fine,” Dan said cautiously, following him.

“No, really,” Phil said. “I do course development for CS 115. I want to know if I made it better or worse.” He flicked his hair out of his face. “I also want to know how things are going for you, of course,” Phil added hastily.

“The homework’s been kind of hard,” Dan said hesitantly.

Phil nodded. “Did you take APCS in high school?”

Dan shook his head.

“No prior coding experience?” Phil continued.

Dan nodded.

Phil nodded. “Yeah, that would do it. Coding has a really harsh learning curve, and Java, in particular, is really unpleasant to beginners. If it were up to me, the class would be taught in Python or something, but we already have so much infrastructure for Java, and a lot of people in the CS department don’t like Python, so it’s probably not happening.”

“Oh.”

Phil shrugged. “Sorry, you’re probably not that interested in how I think your class should be taught. I kind of do that sometimes, talk about things I think are really interesting but no one else does.”

“It’s fine,” Dan said, and weirdly, it was. When Phil talked about things, he had this way of drawing people in- Dan could listen to him for ages. “The way you talk about it makes interesting.”

It was hard to tell in the slanted light of the setting sun, but Phil might have blushed. “Thanks,” he said, “But you really don’t want to get me started on my thesis topic. It’s embarrassing how much I talk about it.”

“It can’t be that bad,” Dan reasoned.

“My ex-boyfriend cited it as one of the reasons he decided to break up with me,” Phil said.

Dan winced. “I’m sorry.”

Phil laughed, but it wasn’t the laugh he normally laughed. This laugh was harsh and brittle. “It’s not your fault.”

Dan didn’t have a lot of bad breakup stories, but he thought he’d try. “I dumped my ex-boyfriend because I found him on Tinder under a fake name.”

“How’d you know it was him then?” Phil asked.

“Oh, he used his real photos. Just the name was fake.”

“Yikes.”

“You could say that again,” Dan said. “Anyway, I lived. It wasn’t that great of a relationship anyway.”

They had reached Phil’s car. Phil fished in his pocket for his keys. Dan awkwardly stood by the side of his car, debating whether to sit in the front or the back seat, before deciding he was not a twelve-year-old being given a ride by his friend’s dad, and ducking into the front passenger’s seat.

“Which dorm?” Phil asked, starting the car.

“Walton,” Dan said.

“Nice,” Phil said. “I didn’t go here for my undergrad, but I hear that’s one of the better ones.”

Dan shrugged. “It’s okay. I got a single, which is nice, but it’s kind of far from all my classes.”

Phil nodded.

“Do you know how to get there?” Dan asked.

“Not really,” Phil confessed.

“Me neither,” Dan said.

“Can you navigate?” Phil asked. “If I tried to Google Maps and drive at the same time I would one hundred percent kill us both. I have no coordination.”

“Encouraging,” Dan said, pulling out his phone and typing his address in.

Phil laughed. “It’s okay. I’m not the world’s best driver, but I’m not the worst, either. Probably.”

“If you say so,” Dan said. “Okay, take a left here.”

Phil turned.

“Okay, then go straight for a while-”

“That’s what my mom said when I came out as bisexual.”

Dan sputtered. “What?”

Phil clarified. “Well, she said she hoped that wouldn’t stop me from settling down with a nice girl someday. But later it turned out I was gay, so joke’s on her.”

“Oh,” Dan said. He hadn’t known Phil was gay, and that knowledge sent a knot to Dan’s stomach that he decided to ignore. He was not attracted to Phil, he reminded himself firmly. “I haven’t told my parents I’m… whatever, yet.”

Phil nodded. “That’s fine. Coming from high school, I assumed that most people were out to their parents, but it turns out that lots of people aren’t out to their parents. I actually feel like most people aren’t. I don’t know, maybe that’s just wishful thinking on my part, but I just wanted to let you know. Plenty of people have gay lives at college and their parents don’t have any idea.” He paused for a moment. “Sorry. That was probably weird.”

It was, a little bit, but Dan didn’t say so. “Thanks,” he said. “Um, right here. I mean, turn right. Sorry.”

“Got it,” Phil said, turning. He abruptly braked for someone crossing the street. “God, I hate driving on campus.”

The person crossing the street turned around and glared. “I think the feeling is mutual,” said Dan.

Phil started driving again, more carefully this time. “At least it’s not winter. Driving in the winter here ranks as one of the worst experiences of my life.”

“Is it that bad?” Dan asked.

Phil laughed. “You’re not from around here, are you?”

Dan blushed. “No.”

“I bet you didn’t even bring a coat.”

“Was I supposed to? Can’t that wait until Thanksgiving?”

Phil glanced at Dan, incredulous. “You didn’t bring a winter coat?”

Dan shrugged. “Is that bad?”

“Dear god. You’re going to die. When it gets cold, remind me to lend you a coat. I have extra.”

Dan’s face was still hot. “You don’t need to-”

“I want to.”

Dan felt like his face was on fire. “That would be nice. If you don’t mind.”

“I wouldn’t have offered if I didn’t mean it,” Phil said.

Dan shrugged. He was glad that Phil was focusing on the road and couldn’t see his face, which was probably getting redder by the minute.

“Some people do that,” Dan said.

Phil glanced at Dan and smiled. “I don’t. Whenever I offer you something, I mean it, okay?”

“Okay,” Dan said, staring at his feet.

Phil laughed. “You sound like I’m yelling at you. I’m offering you help, Dan. If you don’t need it or you don’t feel comfortable getting it from me, that’s fine, but don’t say no just to avoid being a burden. You’re not.”

“Sorry,” Dan said.

“You don’t need to apologize,” Phil said. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Sor-” Dan started, then stopped. “Thanks,” he said.

“That’s better,” Phil said.

Dan laughed. “Are you sure you’re not majoring in early childhood education? You sound like my kindergarten teacher.”

“Pretty sure,” Phil said, “But I was actually looking into being a professor for a while.”

“Wait, really?”

Phil laughed dryly. “Yeah. That dream lasted about three months into my Master’s. There is no way I could survive a Ph.D. program.”

“Oh,” said Dan. “Sorry.”

Phil glanced over at Dan. “You’re doing it again.”

“I am sorry, though. That sucks.”

Phil shrugged. “It really isn’t that bad. You can get some pretty sweet jobs with a Master’s degree in computer science. Just not generally jobs being a computer science professor.” Phil pulled up outside Dan’s dorm. “Anyway. This is you, right?”

Dan started. “Yeah. It is. Uh, thanks.”

Phil smiled. “Yeah. No problem. Let me know if you need a ride anywhere again.”

“I will,” said Dan, who had no intention of becoming such a burden.

“Or if you ever need any help with anything CS-related or anything. You’re not bothering me, I swear. I love computer science and I love helping people.”

Dan couldn’t help but doubt that. “Thanks,” he said, still with no intention of becoming such a burden.

“Have a good night!” Phil called as Dan stepped out of the car.

“You too!” Dan said, shutting the door.

***

Dan’s first week of classes flew by in a blur. He had more homework than he’d ever had in his life, and he was handling it badly. Luckily, most of his professors seemed pretty understanding about it- his film professor gave him an extension on a reading quiz he completely forgot about, and none of his CS homework assignments were due until two weeks into class.

Before he knew it, the first Machine Project for CS 115 was released. He mostly ignored the initial release since the deadline wasn’t for two more weeks- he had plenty of other homework to do anyway. A truly astounding number of papers to write for his English and film classes, a crushing number of assignments for his physics and calculus classes, and the daily homework problems for CS 115 on top of all that.

He continued isolating himself. He wasn’t proud of it, but it seemed like everyone around him had condensed into social groups while he wasn’t paying attention, and now even when he tried, they wouldn’t let him in.

He didn’t mind too much. He wouldn’t pretend it was fun, eating meals in the dining hall on his own and sitting by himself in every lecture, but social interaction was too painful to be worth it. Besides, he wasn’t even sure if he had time to have friends. It wasn’t like he had an abundance of free time to kill.

Anyway, he had Phil. Dan was still a little bit scared of him- he was a grad student after all, and Dan was just a freshman- but they talked sometimes outside of class. Phil sent Dan memes about computers that he didn’t always understand. Dan replied with memes about video games they both played. They usually talked after Dan’s lab. Phil offered him a ride home again, but after Dan declined once, he didn’t offer again. They met up at the coffee shop once to study together, and even though Dan didn’t get much done that day, just being around Phil made him feel much better.

It was already the deadline day when Dan finally remembered his MP. He hadn’t meant to leave it this late, he really hadn’t, but everything was so overwhelming and there was so much going on and it couldn’t be that bad, could it?

He had woken up early. It was ten am. His deadline was eleven pm. That was plenty of time.

He pulled out his laptop, following the instructions on the course website, and surprisingly managed to download the MP starter code with no problems.

Actually completing it was a different story. He had read the instructions over a couple of times, but he still wasn’t exactly sure what to do. Still, hesitatingly, he started typing. There were some red squiggles underneath some of his lines of code, but he ignored them for now. He searched the crowded upper menu, selected the “Test Checkpoint 0” option from the dropdown menu, and clicked run.

A scarily large number of lines with red symbols next to them appeared. Trying not to panic, Dan did his best to decipher them. Each line started with the word “error,” which was probably very bad. It was mostly a mix of errors that read “; expected” and “illegal start of expression,” with one “reached end of file while parsing” error thrown in at the end.

Dan stared at his screen. What file, he wanted to know, and what the fuck was a parsing? He stared at the errors some more. He hit run again.

He got the same error messages. Again.

After some more staring, he decided to go to office hours. He packed up his laptop and checked his phone to see who was holding office hours right now. His heart started beating a bit faster when he saw that Phil was holding office hours for eight hours starting in fifteen minutes.

Well. It couldn’t hurt to see Phil. It gave him something to think about on the thirty-minute walk to the Computer Science Center, at least.

He really needed to figure out the bus system. This was way too much walking.

Office hours for CS 115 were held in the same room as labs. It was large, spacious, filled with enough tables and chairs that the forty or so students in his lab always had room left over, but today, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to find a seat. He stood inside the door, scanning the room for a seat before giving up and aiming for a spot on the floor near a table and an outlet. He plugged his laptop in and raised his hand, waiting for help. Miraculously, a CA came to him within a few minutes. “What’s the issue?” he asked.

“Um, I don’t really know,” Dan said. “My code won’t compile and I’m getting this error?”

The CA bent over to look at Dan’s screen. “You probably have a missing parenthesis or curly brace somewhere,” the CA told him. He flicked shaggy blond hair out of his eyes.

“Where?” Dan asked.

The CA double-clicked on the error message, which brought his cursor to the start of one of Dan’s method names. “Somewhere above here, probably.”

“But where?” Dan asked.

The CA shrugged, already moving away. “I’m really sorry, there are a lot of people I need to help. You’ll have to look for it yourself.”

Dan scowled and stared at his code, looking for the line with the error. His eyes flickered between lines of code, scanning for matching parenthesis and curly braces. His eyes blurred. It looked fine. It really looked fine. Was there really something wrong? He hit the run button again.

The same error message appeared. Dan groaned in frustration. He went back to hunting for his mistake.

Half an hour later, Dan found his mistake. This time when he ran his code, the test suites started running too. Dan let out a breath he had been holding for much too long and let his shoulders sag, relief coursing through him. He didn’t even care that he failed every single test. The fact that his code ran at all was honestly a miracle. He stared at the new error messages, trying to figure out exactly what was going on. He had no idea what he was even looking for, but he stared at it resolutely, fighting back a yawn.

He was just about to give up when Phil materialized in front of him. “How’s it going?” Phil asked.

Dan looked up. “Oh, hey. I didn’t know you were doing office hours today,” he lied.

Phil smiled. “Surprise, I guess. How goes the coding?”

Dan explained the situation.

“So you’ve moved on from getting a compile error to getting a runtime error!” Phil said. “Now you can start debugging.”

“Lucky me,” Dan said.

Phil laughed. “Debugging isn’t fun, I’ll give you that. But when everything falls together? It’s the best feeling in the world.” He glanced around. “I should get to helping people.”

“What if I need help?” Dan complained.

“Raise your hand,” Phil said, trying and desperately failing to wink before sweeping off to help other students. “See you.”

Dan returned to his laptop, hiding a smile. His smile slowly faded as he worked. His code was not as easy to fix as he had hoped it would be when he first got it to compile.

He worked on it for about an hour, during which a chair opened up at a nearby table and he scrambled for a seat. He raised his hand.

It only took a few minutes for Phil to arrive. “So what’s the issue?” he asked, leaning over Dan’s shoulder.

“I’m not really sure,” he admitted. “There’s, um, a lot going on.”

Phil nodded. “So, where did you start?”

“Kind of everywhere,” Dan confessed.

“Okay, well, don’t do that,” Phil said. “How about you start with the first method?”

Dan scrolled up. “This one?”

“Sure. It doesn’t really matter.”

Dan had some code written there, all spaghetti lines splashed with lines of red like tomato sauce. He resolutely ignored the slight pangs of hunger in his stomach. “It’s failing the tests.”

“Well, you’re not done, are you?”

Dan felt slightly silly. “No,” he mumbled.

“Then how about you get it done?” Phil said. “Read the documentation a few times and ask me if you have any questions, but try to find answers in the documentation first.”

Dan scowled. Phil smiled. Why was his stupid face always so fucking happy?

He read the documentation, like Phil told him to. When he got confused, he read it again. It slowly started to make more sense.

He started typing again, working on a single method this time instead of jumping around. The first two went okay, but he got stuck on the third for an embarrassingly long time.

He looked around and raised his hand, but the TAs and CAs all looked busy, and none of them seemed to notice. He sighed and put it down.

He must have sighed really loudly, because the girl next to him shot him a look.

“Sorry,” he said.

She rolled her eyes. “It’s fine.”

He glared at his screen again, hoping that the error in his logic would suddenly jump into focus. It didn’t. He sighed again.

The girl next to him glared again.

Dan meant to apologize, but he accidentally said something else. “Can you help me?”

For one frightening moment, he thought she might snap him in half. But then she didn’t. “With what?” she asked.

“I don’t know why I’m failing this test case.” He turned his laptop towards her.

She hesitated for a second before looking. Her eyes lit up in recognition. “Oh, I got that error before.” She reached over to scroll on Dan’s laptop and pointed out a section of his code. “You see here? You’re not checking that the input is valid.”

Dan stared at it. “But-” Something clicked. “Oh,” he said. “Oh.” He reached for his keyboard and added a few lines of code above the section she had pointed out. He ran the autograder and held his breath.

A hundred percent. Thank god. He allowed himself to look up from his laptop for the first time in an hour and realized the room was almost empty except for him, Phil, the girl sitting next to him, and a few other scattered students.

Dan spent a few more moments glancing at Phil, trying to gauge when he would be done so they could leave at the same time, but Phil didn’t look like he was going to leave anytime soon. Dan watched as Phil sat next to another- student? course assistant? TA? Dan couldn’t tell. Phil laughed and threw his arm around the other boy.

He knew Phil had an ex-boyfriend, Dan realized with a jolt, and it sounded recent, but he had no idea if Phil was currently seeing anyone. There was a lot he didn’t know about Phil. Ears burning, he buried his face back in his laptop, trying to look busy, even though he didn’t have anything left to do other than submit his work.

He snuck another glance at Phil. Phil didn’t have his arm around the other boy anymore, but they were hunched together over the same laptop, shoulders pressed together, exchanging glances and the occasional laugh as the other boy explained something, animated. A bolt of jealousy shot through Dan’s stomach. He tried to ignore it.

They were just quiet enough that Dan couldn’t make out the details of their conversation, but just loud enough to be distracting. His eyes were drawn back to them again and again.

Dan had always been a jealous person. He had learned to cope with it over the years, but nothing ever seemed to make it go away completely. It stemmed from a place of insecurity, he knew, because as nice as Phil might be, as nice as anyone might be to Dan, there was no way they would ever really like him. And if they did, they were just seconds away from realizing what a bad deal they got with Dan, how much better they could do.

Dan wrenched his gaze away from Phil again. He could submit his work when he got back to his dorm. He waited until Phil’s back was turned before slipping out the door.

***

The next Monday, when Dan slunk into the back of lecture and sat in the closest seat to the door he could find, he realized he recognized the head in front of him. He tapped her shoulder to say hello.

“What’s your name?” Dan asked. “I just realized I never got it this weekend. Sorry.”

She glanced at him, startled. “Helen.” Her blue hair rustled, and suddenly something clicked.

“Hey, wait. Did we meet on the first day of class?”

She stared at him. “Were you that guy who was late?”

Dan nodded. “Yes.”

Helen laughed. “God, I thought Professor Ross was going to kill you.”

Dan smiled, embarrassed. “I thought so too. I’m Dan, by the way.”

“Nice to meet you, Dan.” She smiled.

“Really?” Dan asked. “I’m going to be honest, most times we’ve met before I haven’t made a great impression.”

Helen froze. “You totally think I’m a bitch; I’m so sorry.”

“No, no,” Dan started, but Helen was already talking again.

“I’m so sorry, I was just super stressed that first day of class and when I saw you the other day I hadn’t finished my MP yet and I-”

Dan cut in. “Seriously, you’re fine.” He smiled. “And you helped me anyway, which is what really matters.”

Helen took a deep breath. “Cool.”

“Cool,” Dan said. “So, do you-”

Their professor started speaking, interrupting Dan. “Later,” Helen said, swivelling to focus completely on class.

Dan envied the totality of her focus, the way she was able to switch it on and off like it was nothing. The only thing he had ever been able to focus on with that kind of intensity was video games. He reluctantly turned back to the front of the room and tried to herd his thoughts into something resembling order.

He failed. No matter how much he tried to pay attention to the lecture, his thoughts kept drifting back to Phil. Phil, offering to buy some dumb freshman a coffee. Phil, offering him a ride home. Phil, teasing him when he asked for help and telling him to wait in line. Phil, helping him anyway.

Dan smiled. He couldn’t help it.

Oh god. He had a crush on Phil.

There was no way he could be expected to focus on class now. No way.

He tried anyway. He wrote some notes on a google doc. Something about inheritance and pets and dogs and cats and he wondered if Phil was a cat or a dog person and fuck. He was fucked.

He tried really hard to focus. He really did. But when class ended, he had about five lines of notes that probably wouldn’t even make sense to the professor if he showed them to her.

His mood brightened slightly when he noticed Helen waiting for him at the door of the auditorium.

“Hey!” he said, hurrying to meet her.

“Hey!” she said. “So, how was lecture?”

“It was lecture,” Dan said. “How do you expect me to say it went?”

Helen shrugged. “I took APCS last year, and we’re finally getting into stuff that I haven’t seen before. I actually really like it.”

“This is my first programming class,” Dan said.

“Oh, wow,” Helen said. “I would probably die.”

Dan was dying a little bit. “It’s pretty rough,” he admitted.

“Why are you taking it then? Is it a required class for you?” she asked.

“Yeah,” Dan said. “This is my major. Unfortunately.”

“Unfortunately?” she asked.

Dan shrugged.

She let it drop. “It’s required for me too. I’m actually a double major, though; this and film studies.”

Dan stopped. “Wait, are you by any chance in my film class too?”

“FS 105?” she asked.

“Yes!” Dan smiled.

“One o’clock, Tuesdays and Thursdays, with Professor Min?”

Dan nodded again. “We should try to sit next to each other.”

“Sure!” she said. “Can I give you my number?”

“Yeah,” Dan said, digging through his bag and handing her his phone. She quickly put her number in and handed it back.

“See you around!” she said.

“See you!” Dan replied. He made the usual walk back towards his dorm, but he felt a bit lighter than normal this time.

***

After seeing Phil with the other boy in office hours, Dan tried to avoid Phil at his next lab. He managed to escape a tiny bit early while Phil was talking to another student. The next week, he wasn’t so lucky. When he tried to duck out, Phil was already waiting for him outside the classroom.

“I haven’t heard from you in a bit,” he said.

Dan shrugged. “I’ve been busy.” It wasn’t a lie. Most of his classes were completely kicking his ass at the moment, and he still hadn’t started the next MP, which was sure to be a completely new level in the history of ass-kickery.

“Classes are catching up to you?”

Dan nodded.

“You seemed stressed at office hours. I hope MP Zero went okay?”

Dan nodded. “I think I just left it a bit late.”

Phil huffed. “That’s a mood if I’ve ever heard one. I’m the world’s worst procrastinator.”

Dan felt that that title should probably belong to him.

“Anyway, I hope you’re doing okay,” Phil said, shoving his hands into his pockets. “The first semester of college can be really rough.”

Dan blinked. Was Phil… worried about him?

“Thanks,” Dan said, his voice coming out startlingly watery.

He hadn’t expected Phil to show… genuine concern for him. Maybe he wasn’t just some dumb freshman Phil had picked up out of pity. Phil seemed to… actually care about him.

Phil nodded. “Let me know if you ever want to talk,” he said softly.

Dan nodded, not trusting his voice.

“See you around,” Phil said, patting Dan’s shoulder and moving past him with a quick, almost embarrassed smile.

“Yeah,” Dan echoed to an empty room. “See you.”

***

Dan was determined not to leave the second MP to the last minute. He started it an entire week before it was due.

He downloaded the starter code and read a bit of the documentation, then decided he deserved a break. He picked up his phone and texted Phil.

i’m bored, he said.

Dan barely put his phone down before he got a reply.

Mood, Phil said.

Dan opened the text. He wasn’t even sure how he would reply, but Phil was already typing again.

Where are you?

Dan glanced around his dorm room. dorm, he sent.

Where’s dorm? Phil asked.

Dan settled back into his pillow of blankets. you know where i live, he replied.

I forgot.

Dan laughed. ur the worst friend, he typed.

Just remind me lol don’t mock me like this

Dan wanted to push it further, but he also wanted to know why Phil wanted to know where he was. walton, remember? he sent.

That’s only ten minutes from where I am rn lol, Phil sent back. Wanna meet up?

Dan only hesitated for about ten seconds this time. sure, wya?

Phil sent him the address of the coffee shop where they first met: The Daily Grind.

Dan responded with a thumbs-up emoji. He shoved his feet into his sneakers and left his dorm faster than he would have thought humanly possible.

It was embarrassing, he reflected, how easy it was to get him to go places Phil would be. Maybe he would go to classes more often if he got someone to text him saying Phil would be there ahead of time.

The walk was supposed to be ten minutes. Dan swore the anticipation made it feel like at least twenty, but according to his watch it was actually seven and a half.

He arrived at the coffee shop only slightly out of breath. He saw Phil almost right away, but had to wait ten minutes in line for his coffee before he was able to slide into the seat across from Phil.

“Hey,” he said.

Phil smiled. “Hey. How’s it going?”

“Okay. I got started on the next MP today.”

Phil’s eyes lit up. “Good!” he said. “Not too hard, I hope?”

“Yeah,” Dan said, deciding to quickly change the subject. “What are you working on?”

Phil frowned at his screen. “Thesis things.”

“Writing?”

Phil shook his head. “No, not yet. Just looking at data.”

“Can I see?”

“Sure,” Phil said, turning his laptop around, “But it probably doesn’t mean much to you.”

It didn’t, but Dan nodded anyway. “Nice,” he said.

Phil shrugged. “It’s not really nice at the moment, but thank you.” He paused. “Did you bring anything to work on?”

Dan had his laptop and most of his notes for his classes, so he could work on those, he supposed, but he didn’t want to. “I was hoping we could just hang out. If you’re not too busy, anyway.”

“I could use a break,” Phil admitted, closing his laptop. “What do you want to talk about?”

Dan thought about it for a moment. “Tell me about your thesis topic,” he eventually said.

Phil started. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah,” said Dan. “Just make sure to explain it to me like I’m three, because in Computer Science years, I am.”

Phil nodded slowly. “So, I’m studying human-computer interaction. Do you know what that is?”

“No idea,” Dan said, sipping his coffee.

“Well, it’s basically- like, we communicate with computers using a keyboard and mouse. Or a touchscreen if you’re on a phone, or a touchpad if you’re on a laptop, or whatever- you get the idea. And mostly that works okay, but what if there were better ways to communicate with your computer?”

“Are there?”

Phil shrugged. “Well, I like to think that what we have now is better than crawling around inside a computer and reconnecting vacuum tubes like they did seventy years ago or whatever.”

Dan nodded.

“But then when you get to weird, complex stuff like AI, it’s like, we could communicate with this the way we communicate with regular computer programs. But we could also do literally everything in the terminal, and we don’t, partly because it’s a pain in the ass and partly because it makes technology super inaccessible to non-tech people.” Phil paused. “Like, could you imagine scrolling through Instagram by running a program in the terminal and putting in a new command to see each photo, and there was a special command to like or comment or share? That’d be a terrible user experience.”

“I don’t even know how to do anything in the terminal,” Dan confessed. “I think the only time I’ve ever opened it is when someone else did it for me.”

“Exactly!” Phil said. “It’s also really unfriendly to beginners. Like, can you even imagine having to program computers in an era where you’d actually have to program in actual machine code? I would die.”

Dan confirmed that, he, too, would probably die under those circumstances. Or just pick a different major.

“So anyway, to make, for example, things like AI more accessible to people without a PhD, or people without any technology background whatsoever, we need to build user interfaces for those. And those user interfaces might not look anything like computers we’re used to. For example, some people are looking into AIs you can communicate with the same way you’d communicate with another person, or computer programs that are controlled by your brain. I mean, they’re a long way away, but I’m actually doing some research with that.”

“That’s… really cool,” said Dan.

“So yeah,” Phil said, messing with his coffee mug. “It’s way more complicated than that, obviously, but that’s the gist of it.”

“Thanks for telling me,” Dan said.

Phil shrugged. “Thanks for listening. I know it’s not really interesting unless you’re already interested.”

Dan shrugged. “I’m interested in you. So it’s interesting.” He realized the way that sounded when the words were just halfway out of his mouth, and he felt blood rising in his cheeks.

Phil’s cheeks colored. He cleared his throat. “Thanks,” he said awkwardly.

Dan tried really, really hard not to die. Luckily, Phil changed the subject. “So, how’s everything else going for you? Like, the not-CS stuff.”

Dan decided not to tell Phil that his life was, in fact, falling apart, and he had no friends. “It’s going okay,” he said. “My classes are honestly really intense, though, I haven’t had much time outside of them.”

“You said you got a start on MP One, though, right? That’s good.”

Dan shrugged. “I cloned the repo.”

“That’s still a start,” Phil encouraged.

Dan shrugged again.

“Feel free to ask for help if you need it. Office hours are basically 24/7, and this time I’m not doing Sunday office hours, so I’ll have some free time then if you want me specifically.”

“I think I’ll be okay,” Dan lied. “But thanks.”

“Yeah, any time,” Phil said, looking down. His phone buzzed and he jumped. “Fuck.”

“What?” Dan asked.

“Sorry,” Phil said. “I have class in fifteen minutes.” He glanced down at his phone. “I mean, it’s just a lecture….” He trailed off.

“No, you should go,” Dan said. “I have class soon too.”

“Yeah,” Phil said, shoving his phone into his pocket. “Sorry. Um, see you soon?”

“Yeah, of course!” Dan said.

Phil hesitated for a bit, leaning towards Dan as if he was going to give him a hug before lurching back again and awkwardly waving goodbye. “Text me,” he said, before leaving.

Dan did, eventually, just not under ideal circumstances. The next week, he sat down to start actually coding for MP1.

He didn’t understand the documentation or the starter code, or what an object was and why it was oriented and programming. In general, as the kids would say, he was not vibing.

He considered texting Helen, but then he remembered how stressed she was before the last MP deadline and thought better of it.

He remembered Phil’s offer to help. He hesitated, but reached for his phone anyway.

i need help, he texted Phil.

Don’t we all, Phil replied nearly instantly. With what?

MP1, Dan said.

We can meet up if you want? Unless your question is pretty basic, then you can just ask now

Even though Phil had offered to help him, a wave of relief crashed through Dan when he realized Phil really meant it. He hesitated. meeting up would be good if you’re not too busy

I’m not! I’m just hanging out at the daily grind all day. Let me know if you want to stop by.

Dan didn’t want to look too desperate for help, but at the same time, he was. i’ll be there soon, he replied. He tossed his laptop and charger into his bag and left the library.

***

“That was fast,” Phil commented when Dan slid into the booth across from him.

“I was nearby,” Dan said.

Phil closed his laptop. “So what do you need help with?” he asked, leaning across the table.

“I think something’s wrong with my constructor,” Dan said.

Phil frowned. “That’s like, half the checkpoint. Can you be more specific?”

“Uhhhh,” Dan said. “So, I think the issue might be that I’m having trouble with the concept of a constructor.”

“Okay,” Phil said. “What part?”

Dan felt his face go red. “All of it?”

Phil sighed. “Can I use your computer?”

“Yeah, sure.”

Phil tilted Dan’s laptop towards him, pulled up a browser and quickly navigated to the course home page, and then the slides for last week’s lecture.

“Here you go,” Phil said, clapping Dan’s shoulder. “Let me know if you have any questions about the notes.”

“Thanks,” Dan said sarcastically. He spent about 15 minutes reading through the slides before switching to watching the lecture videos at two times speed, reaching over to tap Phil on the shoulder and ask questions whenever he reached anything that confused him.

Then, when he finally finished reviewing lectures, he started the MP. It made a bit more sense now. A bit.

After he had written out most of the checkpoint, he ran the test suites, but again, his code wouldn’t compile. It listed a few errors this time, luckily not as many as he had gotten last time he had the missing curly brace. He frowned at his screen, unable to decipher what exactly they meant, before flipping his computer to show Phil and tapping his shoulder.

Phil pulled his headphones off to examine the screen.

“Hang on,” he said. “Are you writing out the entire thing before trying to compile and test it?”

Dan looked up at Phil. “I mean, not the entire thing.”

“But most of it?”

“I guess, yeah.”

“Don’t do that. Run your code literally as often as possible. It makes it easier to tell when you break it. Didn’t they mention that in lecture?”

Dan shrugged. He honestly wasn’t sure what was happening in lecture these days.

“Well, they should have,” Phil said, returning to his coffee. “Anyway, the first two errors are probably telling you you’re missing a semicolon, and it looks like the third doesn’t recognize a variable or method name. Common culprits for that will be typos or forgetting to declare it properly.” He paused to scroll a bit through Dan’s code. “Yeah, just take a look at each error on its own, fix it, try running your code again, and see if it makes it better or worse. And in the future, run your code more often so you’ll generally only have to fix one error at a time.”

Dan groaned.

“Debugging never gets fun, kid.”

Dan wrinkled his nose. “I’m nineteen. Don’t call me kid.” He decided not to comment on the other reason he thought it was weird for Phil to call him kid.

“Sure, kid.” Phil reached over to pat his head. Dan swatted his hand away.

“Oy. Don’t mess up my hair.”

Phil laughed.

“I’m serious. I spend like an hour straightening it every morning. If you mess it up I’ll kill you.”

“Okay, okay,” Phil said, leaning back. He raised his hands in the air. “No hair touchy. See?”

“Good,” Dan said, returning to his work. Occasionally, he stopped to ask Phil questions. Phil was annoyingly unhelpful. He refused to answer half of Dan’s questions, instead redirecting him to google or the documentation.

“It’s my sacred obligation as a tutor,” Phil said. “You’re never supposed to just give people an answer. You have to give them the skills to find the answer themselves.”

“Did you memorize that from a handbook somewhere? That’s the dumbest shit I’ve ever heard.”

Phil shook his head, looking hurt. “I wrote the handbook we use to train Course Assistants.”

Dan laughed. “Of course you did.”

Phil looked insulted. “Someone had to.”

Dan relented. “I’m sure it’s a great manual.”

Phil sat back, still pouting slightly. “We didn’t have any training procedures before I took over the program.”

“Thank you for your service,” Dan said.

“You’re welcome,” Phil said. “Now get back to work, kid.”

They fell into comfortable silence. Phil put his headphones back on, and Dan slipped his earbuds in.

He was actually making decent progress when Phil interrupted him by pushing Dan’s computer screen down slightly.

Dan looked up.

“It’s getting late. I think I’m going to go back to my apartment,” Phil said.

“Oh,” Dan said. “Okay.”

Phil started clearing his books of their table, then hesitated. “Want to come with?”

Dan’s heart started to beat faster. “Yeah, sure,” he said, doing his best to sound normal.

“I hope that’s not weird. Sorry, I just get my best work done there, and it’s getting close to dinner- if you don’t mind staying for dinner, anyway, we could also grab something on the way.”

“I’m cool with whatever,” Dan said, starting to pack his things.

“Instant ramen it is!” Phil said. “I also have mac and cheese if you’d prefer that. The college staples.”

“Sure,” Dan said. “It beats dorm food. They’re having meatloaf tonight.”

Phil winced. “Is that as bad as it was at my undergrad?”

Dan shrugged his backpack over his shoulder. “Probably. Meatloaf is bad everywhere.”

Phil laughed. “Don’t tell my mom I laughed at that.”

“Why do moms everywhere think meatloaf is so great?”

“I wish I knew,” Phil said. “Maybe I’d be able to get them to stop making it.”

“The one thing technology can’t do,” Dan mused.

“I promise you there’s a Silicon Valley startup dedicated to that somewhere.”

“Really?” Dan asked.

Phil rolled his eyes. “There are dumb silicon valley startups for almost everything.” He stood up. “You ready?”

“Yeah,” said Dan, following.

“My car is in the shop,” Phil explained. “I hope you don’t mind walking.”

“That’s fine,” said Dan, who would never dream of saying anything even if he did mind.

“It’s not too far, just twenty minutes. I normally walk it, actually, since parking on campus is hell.”

“I walk that far all the time. I still haven’t figured out the bus system,” Dan admitted.

Phil laughed. “Wait until it gets cold. You’ll figure it out soon enough.”

“God, don’t remind me,” Dan mumbled. Phil laughed.

They spent the rest of the walk in comfortable conversation. Phil asked Dan about his family, and Dan asked about his in return. Dan told Phil about his younger brother at home in California and his parents who were so insistent that he get his degree. Phil told Dan about his older brother who already ran his own business, was engaged to his girlfriend, and was only a year and a half older than him.

“It’s kind of hard to measure up to that,” Phil said with a slightly bitter laugh. “I mean, I love Martyn, I really do, but I’ll never be like him.”

“Is it your parents pressuring you about it? Or just yourself?” Dan asked.

Phil shrugged. “Mostly me, I guess. It’s nothing they’ve really done, I just… feel like I’m not what they’re supposed to want. Even if they don’t mind.”

“You’re getting your Master’s degree,” Dan said, “In a subject that will actually get you a job after you graduate. That’s better than a lot of people can say.”

Phil was quiet for a moment. “But I’m me,” he said. “I dropped out of my PhD program and my grades in undergrad sucked and I don’t even know why they let me in here. And my parents want me to hurry up and have babies, and I’m, well, gay.” He shook his head. “Sorry, that’s so dumb. I was joking with that thing I said the other day about my mom, they don’t mind. Literally everyone around me is fine, I’m just… not. I don’t know, I can’t imagine someone not being disappointed in me.”

“No,” Dan said. “I get it.”

They walked in silence for a few minutes.

Phil cleared his throat. “That was sad.”

Dan laughed. “If you want sad, we can talk about my relationship with my dad.”

Phil shook his head. “That’s okay. Unless you want to.”

“There isn’t much to talk about. He’s just, y’know. Vaguely a homophobe.”

“I’m sorry,” Phil said. Dan could see the pain reflected in Phil’s eyes. “Are you sure you don’t want to talk about it?”

“Yeah,” Dan said. “But thanks,” he added more softly.

“Sure,” Phil said.

Dan cleared his throat. “Anyway,” he said, changing the subject, “You mentioned you knew a lot of dumb silicon valley startups?”

Phil laughed. “Luckily, most of the worst ideas never got that far. Mostly, I’m just annoyed about how pushy those people get. I once had a guy try to talk to me about his password manager startup the week before finals while I was in the library trying to study.”

Dan laughed. “Did you let him?”

“That’s the worst part,” Phil said, letting his voice rise to a whine. “I didn’t want to be rude and tell him to go away so I just sat through his entire ten minute pitch. It was awful.”

“Oh no,” Dan said, giggling.

Phil thumped his shoulder. “Don’t laugh at me,” he whined. “It was traumatizing!”

Dan laughed harder.

“Don’t pretend you’d be any different,” Phil reproached.

“You don’t know me,” Dan defended himself. “Maybe I’m secretly super confrontational.”

Phil wrinkled his nose. “Sure, kid.”

“Don’t call me kid,” Dan reproached.

“Sure, child.”

“That’s worse. I will have you know I am a legal adult.”

“Sure you are,” Phil said.

Dan pouted. He didn’t look that young. “I’m not that baby-faced,” he said.

Phil looked skeptical.

“I’m not,” he insisted.

“Sure,” Phil said, smiling. “Anyway, my apartment’s just over here.” He led Dan to a door just a few feet into an alley. He jiggled his key in the lock, pushed his shoulder against the door, and led Dan into in his apartment.

Dan didn’t really know what to expect from a college student’s apartment, but he supposed Phil’s apartment fit the stereotypes. It was small and dimly lit, but mostly clean, with a common area with a sofa and a TV connected to a kitchen and a hallway that Dan assumed led to the bedrooms.

“We can work in my room, if that’s okay,” Phil said. “I don’t want to bother my roommates.”

“Yeah, that’s fine,” Dan said automatically. Inside, though, he was freaking out. Phil’s room? He was almost 99% certain Phil didn’t mean it like that, but if he did...

Phil must have noticed the look on Dan’s face, because he paused. “Are you sure it’s fine?”

“Yes,” Dan insisted.

“Was it what I said earlier? I was just teasing,” Phil said softly. “You’re not that baby-faced. I hope I didn’t hurt your feelings.”

Dan’s face felt warm. “No, it’s okay. Sorry, I just-”

“You don’t need to apologize if I made you uncomfortable,” Phil said.

“You didn’t,” Dan said.

“You’d tell me if I did, right?”

Dan shrugged helplessly.

Phil shook his head. “I swear to god.”

“I’ll try,” Dan said.

“Good. Now, do you want to go to my room or do you want to stay in the living room?”

“Your room is fine.”

“Okay,” Phil said, leading Dan through his living room, down a hall, and into his room. He immediately dumped his backpack onto a pile of (hopefully) clean laundry. “Sorry it’s a mess,” he said, clearly embarrassed. “I wasn’t expecting to have anyone over today.”

To be honest, Phil’s room was pretty messy, but Dan wasn’t in a position to judge. Living in a single dorm room without his mom to yell at him to pick up his dirty laundry meant things could get pretty bad in his room.

Phil gestured to his bed. “You can sit here if you’d like. There’s also my desk.”

Phil’s desk was buried under mountains of papers, and it looked like there were some stacked on his chair too. There were way too many papers for someone whose main assignments were submitted via GitHub. Dan sat down on the bed.

“Cool,” Phil said. “I’ll be back in a minute, just going to make the ramen. Make yourself at home.”

Dan was tempted to snoop, but he opened up the MP again instead, staring at his code. He was only failing one test suite now, but he couldn’t figure out why. He checked the time. He only had an hour before he had to submit his code.

He frowned, as if glaring at his code would make it suddenly make sense. He thought he might be making progress when Phil’s door opened, interrupting his thoughts.

Phil handed Dan a mug and a spoon. “Sorry,” he said. “All the bowls are dirty.”

“That’s fine,” Dan said, setting aside his laptop. He could take a few minutes to eat.

It seemed like Phil had the same thought process, sitting next to Dan on his bed with his own mug and bowl. They ate quickly in companionable silence, but Phil was the first to finish, downing the last of his broth and setting it on his desk. Dan followed his lead.

Before Phil could get too absorbed in his own work, Dan tapped his shoulder.

“Can you help me with this for a sec?” he asked.

“Sure,” Phil said, looking over Dan’s shoulder. He paused for a moment, head cocked to the side, before speaking again. “That for loop- why does it only go until the length of the array minus one?”

“Because otherwise-” Dan stopped. “Oh. I was trying to avoid an index out of bounds exception, but I guess I didn’t need to do that there.” He was acutely aware of Phil’s shoulder pressed into his back.

Phil shrugged. “Let’s see.”

Dan changed the code and ran the test suite again.

Slowly, the symbols next to each test case turned green.

Dan stared at it, unbelieving.

“Don’t forget to commit and push,” Phil said.

Dan nodded, still in shock, his hands moving to submit his work almost automatically. “It worked,” he said breathlessly. “It worked!”

Phil closed his laptop and set it aside. “Really,” he said with a twinkle in his eye. “I was right?”

“Literally shut the fuck up,” Dan said, putting his laptop on top of Phil’s and flopping down so he was lying right next to Phil. “You’re so fucking annoying.”

“Really,” Phil said, laughing into Dan’s shoulder.

“Yes,” Dan groaned, and then Phil’s eyes were right there, so close, and then they were even closer, and their lips were touching, and it was nothing and everything like Dan had imagined.

Phil was warm and soft and solid in his mouth, under his hands, beneath his skin. His hands ran over Dan’s chest, dipped under his shirt. Dan gasped.

“You okay?” Phil asked, his normally light eyes dark with concern and something else.

“Yeah,” Dan said. “Yeah, that felt… really nice.”

“Okay,” Phil said, running his hands down Dan’s arms. “We don’t have to-”

“I want to,” Dan said, gripping Phil back. “Please don’t stop.”

“Okay,” Phil said, and he kissed him again, and this time he didn’t stop.

Afterwards, when the heat and grasping hands were done, Dan sat up, but Phil pulled him back down.

“Don’t go,” he said, wrapping his arms around Dan.

So Dan didn’t.

***

Dan’s alarm was blaring. He shifted, mindlessly, reaching for his phone to turn it off.

He fell out of bed. “Ow,” he mumbled, finally getting his phone to shut up.

Phil’s head poked out from his bedsheets. “Dan?” he asked groggily.

“I have a class,” Dan said, pulling his boxers on.

“It’s so early,” Phil said.

“Yeah,” Dan snapped. “That’s how eight am’s work, Phil.”

“Sorry, sorry,” Phil said, sitting up. “Do you need anything?”

“How long does it take to get to the main quad from here?” Dan asked, yanking his shirt over his head.

“Like half an hour? I can walk you-”

“Fuck,” Dan said, looking at his phone (which was at a disturbingly low percentage). “I’m going to be late.”

“You can skip, Dan, I really want to talk to you-”

“No, I can’t,” Dan said harshly. He was tying his shoes now.

“Okay,” Phil said, “But Dan, we really need to-”

Dan left before Phil could finish his sentence.

***

He wasn’t sure if he should have bothered going to class. All he could think about was Phil anyway. The way his hands felt tangled in his hair. The way his mouth felt on his skin. Certainly not definite integrals.

He had classes back to back until his CS 115 lab. He didn’t even have time to go back to his dorm to change, just to scarf down a quick meal in the dining hall. He hoped no one noticed he was wearing yesterday’s clothes, but who even would? It wasn’t like anyone cared enough about him to pay enough attention.

He considered skipping his lab. He never really got anything out of it, and he wasn’t sure he was ready to face Phil possibly ever again.

He checked his grade. Well. No chance of missing lab, then.

He slunk in the back of the classroom and chose the closest seat to the door. He tried not to make eye contact with Phil when he walked in. Phil didn’t even seem to notice Dan. He looked disgustingly put together, Dan thought. He had no right to look like everything was fine.

Phil approached his lab table. Dan looked down.

“Dan?” Phil said. “Can I speak with you after class?”

Dan’s face was hot. He continued staring resolutely at the table. “Fine.”

“You and your boyfriend fighting, Howell?” the guy at the end of his lab table mocked.

“That was inappropriate, Nathan,” Phil said.

Nathan just rolled his eyes. Dan’s face got even hotter.

He didn’t finish his lab. At a certain point, he gave up trying. He was useless at coding, and he was even more useless with Phil standing behind him every time he turned around. He scowled, staring at his screen, willing a solution to appear. He was almost grateful when Phil dismissed the class and he could put his laptop away and give up.

He started to head out the door when he heard Phil’s voice.

“Dan,” Phil said.

Dan turned around, rolling his eyes. “Yes, sir.”

Phil blushed. “I hope you didn’t forget about our meeting,” he managed, flustered.

“How could I forget?” Dan asked, sarcasm lacing his voice.

“Dan.” Phil took a deep breath. “I’m trying to give you some leeway right now, given the situation. But that is not an appropriate way to speak to your TA.”

Dan stared at Phil sullenly.

“Okay,” Phil said. “Dan, you’re not doing very well in this class.”

Dan continued staring.

“I’m not here to encourage you to drop the class or anything. Hopefully this is a temporary setback we can work through. There are a lot of resources available to you as a student of this university. We want you to succeed.”

“That’s nice,” Dan said. “Anything else?”

Phil sighed. “Dan, can we talk?”

“About what?”

“I think you know what. You kind of ran off this morning.” Phil took Dan’s silence as encouragement to keep talking. “Dan, I- I shouldn’t have done that. I’m your TA, and you’re my student. That’s bad enough. But Dan, you’re my friend. I wanted to make sure that everything we did last night… that you were okay with it.”

Dan stared at the ground.

“I would never want to hurt you. But you need to tell me if I did.”

“You didn’t,” Dan said.

Phil relaxed slightly. “I’m glad. But I’m still sorry.”

Dan rolled his eyes. “It was that bad, huh?”

“I just meant- Dan, I really like you. But I can’t do this while you’re my student. I’m sorry. I just can’t. Maybe next semester, if we’re both still interested, but right now, I’m just not comfortable with that.”

“Great,” Dan said.

“Really, I’m sorry. I hope we can still be friends.”

Dan’s stomach twisted. “Friends.”

“It’s okay if you can’t do that. It’s okay if you never want to see me again. You can switch lab sections. You can-“

“No,” Dan said. “You’re literally my only friend. I’m not losing you over something as stupid as this.”

“That’s really sweet,” Phil said. “But you really need to get more friends.”

“I know,” Dan said. He did, unfortunately, but knowing he needed more friends didn’t mean it was easy to make them.

“Dan. If we’re going to be friends, I just need you to know I really am sorry. It was my job not to cross any boundaries, not yours, and now I’ve gone and made it all weird.”

“Stop acting like this is all your fault!” Dan exploded. “Stop sitting there fucking apologizing like you did something I didn’t want. I’m nineteen, I knew what I was doing, and if I didn’t want it, I wouldn’t have fucking said I wanted it.”

Phil stared at Dan. “Dan, I- look, I’m just saying-”

“Well, stop.”

Phil raised his hands defensively. “Fine.”

“Fine.”

“Okay then. I guess we’re done. Unless you have anything else you want to say.”

Dan glared at him. “No.”

“Okay. See you next week, unless you decide to switch lab sections.” Phil reached for his coat.

“Wait,” Dan said. “I have a question.”

“About?”

“Computer Science.”

“Okay,” Phil said, stepping closer to Dan.

“Do you like CS?” Dan asked quietly.

Phil sighed. “It’s, well, it’s a love-hate relationship. And to be completely honest, I hate it more than I love it most days. But when I love it, I really love it. And even when I hate it, I really do believe that software has the power to change the world. And I want to be a part of that change.”

Dan nodded, staring at the floor.

Phil moved even closer. “I know a lot of people go into CS for the wrong reasons,” he continued, even more gently. “It sounds cool or the starting salaries are so high or they want the power to reshape the world in their image. And then they get here and it turns out computer science is hard, and frustrating, and time consuming, and sometimes, it’s just not for them. And that’s okay. It doesn’t make them any less valuable to society or less intelligent.”

Dan stared even more intently at the floor, willing himself not to cry.

“Are you thinking of changing majors?” Phil asked.

“I don’t know,” Dan said, and his voice came out disturbingly watery. “What would I even change it too?”

“You can figure that out. It’s okay if you do. It’s not for everyone.”

“No, it’s not,” Dan said. He blinked and suddenly the tears that he had been trying to hold back rushed out. “It’s not,” he repeated, this time through a sob.

“Dan,” Phil said, reaching for him, then closing his fist on thin air. “I’m really sorry.”

“For the last time, Phil. Stop apologizing.”

“I just want you to be happy, Dan. I hate seeing you like this.”

“That must be really fucking hard for you, Phil. Want to tell me more?” Dan couldn’t help the bitter laugh that spilled from his throat.

Phil watched helplessly. “Computer science is hard, Dan. Especially if this is your first class. Computer science is frustrating and confusing and hard and no one’s code ever works right on the first try and if you’ve never had a breakdown over an assignment you either have incredible time management skills or you’ve only been doing CS for like a month or you’re a liar. And I’m not going to pretend that doesn’t suck, but you come out from it a better version of yourself each time. I’m the programmer I am today because of all of the times I’ve failed.”

Dan couldn’t help the waves of anger that rose up sharp and aching in his lungs. “That’s great, Phil, thanks. Thank you so much for being helpful. Really, it’s all going to be fine, because even though I’m fucking miserable, I’ll be a better person at the end of the day.”

“If you’re really that miserable you should drop,” Phil said.

Dan was silent.

“The drop deadline for CS 115 is in a week,” Phil said. “You have time to think about it.”

Dan nodded and wiped at his face.

“Can I help you with anything?” he asked desperately.

“I don’t think so,” Dan said.

They stood in silence for a few more moments before Dan left. “I don’t think we should talk anymore,” he said shakily, before walking out. Dan didn’t look back, and Phil didn’t follow. He went back to his dorm room, where he was finally able to cry again.

***

The actual moment was rather anticlimactic. The form was less than a page, and all he needed to do for it to be official was get his academic advisor to sign it, which wasn’t difficult, considering his grade in CS 115. Then he uploaded it as a PDF to his student portal and his major change was approved two days later.

Dan expected to feel better afterwards. Somehow, even though this had been sitting like a pit in his stomach for months, he just felt worse.

Without CS 115, his schedule felt weirdly empty. He had gaps in his schedule where he used to go to lecture (sometimes), study, work on the MP, and have mental breakdowns.

He left his dorm more often. He paid more attention in his other classes. He even made a few friends from his film class that he studied with sometimes. They even had time to hang out when they weren’t doing homework. One of the girls in the group probably had a crush on him. Dan supposed she was kind of cute. He didn’t know. He didn’t know much of anything lately, including what the fuck his sexuality was and whether or not he wanted to mess with some girl’s feelings in the process of finding out. And that was without even considering whatever the fuck had happened with Phil- if he was ready to move on from that relationship, if it could even be called that.

Dan filled his life with the things college was supposedly supposed to be about. He went to parties. He spent time with friends. He stayed up too late. He experimented with his look, leaving his hair in its natural, curly state instead of straightening it every morning. He wore clothes that weren’t baggy sweatshirts and jeans. He painted his nails. He even started wearing a tiny bit of makeup.

So why did he still feel so empty? It was probably natural after a breakup, or whatever you were supposed to call what had happened between him and Phil.

Dan had no reference for “normal.” He didn’t know what this was supposed to feel like, but he had a hunch that it wasn’t like this.

He stumbled through his days. He made an appointment with his school’s mental health center, but he wouldn’t be able to see a therapist for at least three weeks. Midterms were coming up, the woman on the phone explained, and they always filled up quickly around then. For now, all he could do was wait.

About two weeks later, he got a text from Phil.

You down for coffee today? I know you said you didn’t want to see me which I totally understand but I really miss you and I want to talk some things over.

Dan wasn’t sure how to respond. He wasn’t even sure if he did want to see Phil again.

idk i have a lot of homework

Phil replied almost instantly. You can bring your homework! I have some work to do too

Dan hesitated.

His phone dinged. We can be study buddies lol. It’ll be fun

Again. If you don’t want to come that’s fine. I just wanted to talk

Dan picked up his phone. sure, he typed, sending it before he could regret it.

Alright! 3:00?

sure, Dan sent again.

Perfect! See you then!

And then Dan had nothing to do but wait.

He regretted not asking Phil to meet up with him earlier than three. Now he was just going to spend the next two hours feeling incredibly anxious.

He tried to work on some homework, but he couldn’t focus. He could feel the same feelings he used to have for Phil bubbling up inside of him again, and he did his best to shove them down. Last time they spoke, Phil had said he wanted them to be friends. He had also had sex with him, so Dan felt Phil was sending a few mixed signals, but that wasn’t the point.

Dan wasn’t even sure what he hoped to gain out of a conversation with Phil. Closure, maybe? Some sort of reconciliation?

He certainly wasn’t hoping for a relationship. Was he? He wouldn’t have agreed to meet with Phil if he didn’t at least want to be friends. Probably.

He let himself imagine it. Just for a second.

He shut his laptop, grabbed his keys, and shoved his sneakers on. He needed a walk. He went through the process of leaving his dorm almost automatically, taking the back staircase instead of the elevator so he wouldn’t have to run into anyone else. Once outside, he shoved his hands in his pockets, doing his best to ignore the chill in the air.

He had put on his angstiest short playlist before he left, but when it ended about half an hour into the walk, Dan’s hands were too cold for him to even consider taking them out of his sweatshirt pockets for long enough to select a new playlist, so he just went back to his dorm, collapsing on his bed. He checked his phone. He still had an hour to go. He glanced longingly at his Xbox.

He probably had time for a quick game, he decided, reaching for his controller.

After just under fifty minutes of Skyrim, he felt much better. He rolled out of his bed, and after messing with his hair for a bit in the mirror, he put his thickest sweatshirt back on and left for The Daily Grind.

He spotted Phil almost immediately, staring at his laptop with two coffees sitting in front of him.

Dan approached.

Phil looked up. “I’ve got our drinks,” he said.

“That was fast,” Dan said.

Phil shrugged. “Maybe I got here ten minutes early to make sure you had your coffee when you got here. Who knows?”

“Thanks,” Dan said, sipping his coffee.

“Yeah, of course,” Phil said, and the way he said it made it sound so much like Dan had done him the favor that he almost believed him for a second.

They sat in silence for a while, before Dan spoke. “I submitted my major change form.”

Phil’s face lit up. “Dan, that’s great! What did you decide to change it to?”

“I was thinking something more arts-based. I’m taking a film class this semester and I really like it. I also really like the idea of creative writing. I don’t know.”

“Well, the good thing about most humanities majors is that it’s way easier to pick up a double major or a minor than in engineering. I actually really wanted to minor in English in undergrad, but I just didn’t have the time.”

“Wow,” Dan said. “How didn’t I know that?”

Phil shrugged. “I don’t talk about it a lot. Everyone has dreams that died, I guess. It’s impossible to fit them all into one life.”

“What if I don’t have any dreams?”

“You’ll figure it out,” Phil said with so much confidence that Dan almost believed him.

“I guess,” Dan said.

They were quiet for a few more minutes. “I dropped CS 115 too,” Dan said.

Phil looked up, his smile slowly growing. “I’m that shitty of a TA, huh?”

“I feel bad,” Dan confessed.

“I always felt bad whenever I dropped a class in undergrad,” Phil said. “I can’t imagine dropping out of an entire major.”

Dan focused on his coffee. “You said you liked being a TA because you liked to help students succeed.”

Phil paused. “I did,” he said. “And I do. It’s probably the most rewarding part of my job, and I’m going to miss it a lot after I graduate.”

“Even after watching people like me fail?” Dan asked.

“Dan,” Phil said. “No. You didn’t fail. You realized a subject wasn’t for you. That’s incredibly different.”

Dan shrugged. He didn’t really want to get into an argument with Phil, but he still felt like a failure, and he wasn’t sure anything could change that.

Phil sighed and changed the subject. “So how have things been going for you?”

Dan filled Phil in on the changes in his life, and Phil talked a bit about what had been going on in his. They avoided any difficult topics, choosing to stick with idle chitchat instead, but the pit in Dan’s stomach was growing.

There were some things he needed to ask. He gathered his courage. “Are you doing anything today?”

Phil looked slightly surprised, but he just shrugged. “Depends why you ask.”

“I’d like to hang out some more. If that’s okay.”

Phil blinked. “Hang out… why?”

Dan shrugged. “You’re really cool and I’d like to be friends with you.”

Phil looked disappointed. “That’s all?”

“Well.” Dan took a deep breath and looked at Phil’s eyes, studied their not-quite-familiar composition of blue and yellow and gold. “Maybe more. If you’d like.”

Phil reached across the table to take Dan’s hand. “I think I would.”

They sat in comfortable silence for a few more moments before Dan spoke. “You know, it’s getting cold out.”

Phil smiled. “It is. You still need that jacket?”

“If you don’t mind.”

“Want to head to my place then? You can grab it there, and we can… hang out. Do whatever you want.”

Dan smiled. “Sure.”

Dan left Phil’s apartment the next morning. He forgot Phil’s jacket.

Oh well. He’d just have to come back.

[euphoria-vmin7]

Gnossienne | myg

pairing: min yoongi x reader

genre/warnings: fluff for right now, non idol! au, future angst, future gore

words: 6,286

--summary: the thing you were most proud about in your relationship was the trust between you two. you could tell yoongi anything and he told you everything. that’s how it’s always been. and that’s how it’ll always be...right?

a/n: uhm trying something new here :) and there will be future parts to this so don't worry! enjoy!!

Gnossienne 

gno·ssi·enne

n. a moment of awareness that someone you’ve known for years still has a private and mysterious inner life

****

| part 1 | part 2

If there’s one thing you prided about your relationship, it was the lack of lies. When your friends so eagerly bragged about how romantic their relationships were or complained about the lack of trust amongst them and their partners, you could easily say: 

“Our relationship has no lies. We tell each other everything.” 

And although it took a considerable amount of time for you and Yoongi to fully open up to each other, after almost a year had passed, you both knew everything about one another. And it was one of the things you loved most about your relationship, arguably even your favorite thing. It was just very reassuring, knowing that whenever you struggled with a problem, you could always go to Yoongi and tell him everything. 

And that mutual trust you shared also served to eliminate a large majority of fights and arguments between you two. Of course, the two of you had your occasional lover’s spat but nothing ever went too awry. There were never any harsh words regarding neglect or any accusatory shouts of infidelity. 

It was just you two. 

So now as you twirled a piece of spaghetti around your fork listening to Seo Jin complain about how Minseok never talked about his social life, an easy smile played on your lips. You were already comparing your own boyfriend to the men your friends were describing. 

“Well at least Minseok tells you about work. Jaehyun doesn’t tell me about work at all, either. I mean, I know men have their own private lives but sometimes I get nervous that he’s hiding something,” Min Seo replied, sighing sadly into her palm. 

“Hey, why do you even think that way? Just because they don’t tell you everything doesn’t mean they don’t love you,” Eunha reprimanded. “Right, (Name)?” 

You nodded with a barely repressed smile. Even after so long, just thinking of your relationship made you giddy. Seo Jin shot you a teasing smile. 

“Well of course she thinks that. (Name) has Yoongi,”

You laughed a little, taking a sip of your drink. 

“They never even fight!” Eunha said. “The trust you two have is amazing. You two should learn from their relationship,” 

“Yeah yeah,” Min Seo responded with a wave of her hand, smiling. 

“I envy you,” Seo Jin sighed, looking at you wistfully and you shoved her lightly. Though a part of you was filled with pride. 

The four of you continued to chat animatedly until your dishes were clean and only melting ice cubes remained in your glasses. You glanced outside to see that the Sunday sun had long set and the moon was already shining in the sky. Min Seo spoke before you could. 

“Well, I better get going,”

Eunha nodded. 

“Yup. Thanks for tonight guys. I had a great time,” 

The four of you smiled and bid your farewells as you exited the restaurant before splitting up to head your separate ways. You approached the bus stop and took a seat, pulling out your phone as the chilly night breeze washed over your skin. You were a little surprised at the number of notifications, though they were all missed calls and texts from the same person. Your lips stretched into a fond smile as you read the texts. 

[5:46 p.m.] Grumpy: i’m coming home early today

[6:17 p.m.] Grumpy: huh? where are you? i’m home…

[6:54 p.m.] Grumpy: (Name). where are you right now?

[7:08 p.m.] Grumpy: oh crap...i forgot you were meeting your friends. have fun and text me when you’re on your way home 

You giggled a little, quickly standing as the bus pulled up to the curb. You climbed on, flashing a quick smile to the driver and taking a seat near the back before starting to type your response. 

[9:32 p.m.] (Name): sorry for not reminding you. didn’t mean to make you panic. i’m taking the bus now so i should be home in 20 :)  

You shut your phone off before leaning your head back against the seat, letting the tiredness of the day wash over you. And just before you completely lulled off to sleep, you were awoken by the bus stopping in front of your familiar stop. You stood up and voiced a quick thank you to the driver, who bid you goodnight, and stepped out onto the street before beginning the quick walk to your apartment. A light smile played on your lips as you pushed the key in and unlocked the door, eager to see your boyfriend after such a long day. It still amazed you how excited you got around him even after this long. You stepped inside and shut the door behind you, pulling your shoes off slowly. Now that you were home, the tiredness rushed back amplified. 

You walked to the living room and smiled when you saw your boyfriend lazily draped across the couch, clad in simple sweats and a black t-shirt, an empty bowl of assumably ramen on the floor. Some movie was playing on the T.V. but Yoongi’s eyes were lethargically scanning his phone screen. He looked up when he heard you set your bag down. 

“Hey, baby,” he drawled, his lips curling up at the side. You smiled softly and took a seat next to him as he sat up. 

“Hey,” you said back as he leaned forward to press a kiss to your forehead. 

“Hungry?” he asked, his arm tightening around you and pulling you closer to him. You shook your head in his embrace. 

“No, I just ate,”

“Right,” he chuckled. “How was it?” 

“Fun,” you replied, looking up at him with a light smile. You didn’t want to tell him that you spent a lot of time talking about your relationships, let alone bragging about him. He gave you a smile back, his eyes soft. 

“Mm why don’t you go shower and change into something more comfortable?” he asked, motioning to your dress and you grimaced at the uncomfortable feeling of it. 

“Good idea,” you said, standing up as he gently nudged you with his leg towards your room. 

And after a quick shower and slipping into your typical PJs, you found yourself languidly spread across him as his fingers carded through your hair, lulling you to sleep. 

“How was your day?” you mumbled against him, struggling to stay awake. 

“Normal,” he sighed. “Just normal,” 

“You don’t sound happy about it,” you answered, lazily tracing patterns on his shirt. 

“It’s not that. I’m just saying it because nothing different ever happens in my life,” he paused. “But maybe that’s a good thing. I like this,” he muttered, and you smiled against him. 

“Me too,” 

His chuckle rumbled through his chest and soon enough the steady rise and fall of his chest had pulled you off to dreamland.

***

You pushed your boyfriend lightly, ignoring his quiet groans of protest. 

“Yoongi~” you whined, pushing his shoulder harder, a smile on your face. “You have to get up,” 

“No,” was all you got back and you suppressed a giggle. 

“Okay fine but I’m leaving. Don’t be late for work,” you warned, pressing a kiss to his fingers before standing up, catching the smile that twitched his lips. 

“I love you,” he mumbled, eyes still closed. And after it all, you still had it in you to blush. 

“I love you, too,”

 You sat at your desk, your computer screen glaring into your face. Despite having work to do, you didn’t feel up to it at all. You sighed in boredom as you began to scribble on a scrap piece of paper, your mind wandering. You heard the sound of a chair being rolled over to you and someone sighed. 

“What if he’s cheating on me?” Min Seo asked you, scooching her chair closer. You chuckled. 

“He’s not. Trust me. You and Jaehyun have had feelings for each other for a long time. There’s no way he’s cheating on you. He loves you,” 

“But he’s so secretive about things and it makes me nervous,” she complained. “Maybe I should try looking through his stuff-” 

“Don’t you dare,” you warned sternly. “If he finds out you did that it’s gonna go badly for both of you. You have to trust him. And if it’s really bothering you, then be open and talk to him about it. But I’m totally sure he’s not cheating on you. Jaehyun’s a good guy; he’d never do something like that to you,” 

“You think so?” she asked with a hopeful smile. You nodded. 

“You’re worrying over nothing,” 

“Yeah,” she paused. “From what I remember, Yoongi was a pretty closed off guy. How did you two open up to each other anyway?” 

You stopped to think. 

“It’s didn’t happen in the first week. Heck, it didn’t even happen in the first month. We didn’t tell each other a lot for a while. But over time, you’ll end up realizing that you can trust him with anything. And he’ll see it too and then you’ll find yourself telling each other everything. Just give yourselves some time. It’ll get better. You both are still in a fairly new relationship anyway. If you start doubting him now, everything’s gonna fall apart,” 

She nodded. 

“You’re right. Thanks, (Name),” 

As she rolled away, you couldn’t help but remember one of the first serious conversations you had with Yoongi. 

You still remember like it was yesterday. You were cuddled up on your couch watching some old flick on T.V. Yoongi walked in, phone in his hand. 

“Pizza or Chinese?” he had asked. You shrugged. 

“Your choice,” 

“Chinese it is,” he smiled and began dialing the number. You couldn’t help but smile back. You two were around 9 months into your relationship but by heaven, if you said you didn’t know that you already loved him, you’d be lying. 

After answering the door and getting the food he joined you on the couch, allowing you to rest into his side as his arm looped around you. In between munching, you considered telling him your thoughts, but a part of you was slightly nervous. You two hadn’t really talked much about your families and inner personal lives. The first few months had been the two of you getting used to each other, learning interests and dislikes and what each daily schedule comprised of. But you pushed away the hesitation because this was Yoongi. You loved him. You could trust him. 

“Something on your mind?” he had asked before you could even speak. The fact that he could already tell was comforting. Because it told you that he knew you. He really knew you. 

“Actually, yeah,” you said scooching closer as you put down your food. 

“What’s wrong?” 

You hesitated but continued. 

“My parents are pissed that I took the job,” you said, trying to ignore the slight sting of the words. “They kept telling me that the pay wouldn’t get me anywhere and now they’re angry that I went against their advice,” 

He hummed in thought. 

“Did you try talking to them?” 

“After we talked last, my mom said she wasn’t gonna help me with any financial problems and that this was my life to deal with now. They aren’t picking up my calls,” you admitted quietly. He gave you a slight squeeze. 

“Well...the best thing you can do is work to prove them wrong. You wanted this job. Who cares if it doesn’t pay a lot? Just as long as you can get by and you’re happy it’s fine. Okay? They’ll come around. Don’t worry too much about it,” he said and you nodded a little, snuggling into him. 

“Yeah, you’re right. I know they’re only being like this because they care about me. What about you? Do your parents ever do things like this?” 

You had asked without thinking. And that was a mistake. Because Yoongi stiffened above you and went silent. 

“My parents aren’t alive anymore,” he responded and you immediately raised your head to look at him, eyes wide with horror. He chuckled dryly. 

“I...I am so sorry, Yoongi, I really had no idea oh my-” 

“(Name). It’s not that big of a deal. It happened a long time ago. I’m over it,” he replied with a wave of his hand. But how does someone get over something like that? 

“Plus, you shouldn’t even be apologizing. I never told you this. You didn’t know,” he shrugged, but you could see the pain behind his eyes. 

“H-How….how did they…?” you tried asking, nervous that he’d get upset. He looked up. 

“Uhm...car accident. When I was 16,” 

“Oh god, Yoongi, I’m so sorry,” you leaned forward and wrapped your arms around him, heart aching for his loss. 

“No, it’s okay. I’m fine, sweetheart,” he muttered into your hair. “I have you,” 

When you thought of that, you wondered how the world could be so cruel. Nobody deserved such things, especially not Yoongi. He had always been such a good person. Sure, at first, he may have came off as a bit cold and indifferent, but over time as you got to know him you had discovered the loving and sweet side of him reserved only for you. So the fact that he had been totally alone since 16 made you so upset. 

“Excuse me! (Name), what are you dreaming about?! This is work not home!” 

You snapped out of your revere as one of your seniors began waving in front of your face. 

“I apologize! What did you need me to do?” 

She pushed a notebook into your hands. 

“There’s a new report we’re trying to start. We got a call about a disturbance at this address. The lady on the phone thinks it’s gangsters but honestly, it’s probably just a robber or something. But I want you to go and ask her some questions and try to make an interesting article. Make it something cool and interesting,” 

You paused, looking at her. 

“You want me to lie and write a fake story?” 

She rolled her eyes. 

“Sales are low this month, alright? I don’t care what you write, we just need more publicity. People would rather read things about gangsters than an old lady who was robbed. And don’t look so offended. You’re not the only junior who’s been asked to do this,” 

You took a quick look around to catch quite a few seniors talking with your peers. 

“Get to work,” she said simply, before leaving you alone at your desk. You rolled your eyes once she turned away before looking down at the address. You sighed. 

After lunch, you ended up taking the bus to the location. You had never stepped foot into this part of the city before. And you didn’t really want to. It looked pretty sketchy. The buildings were a little more worn down, the streets a little quieter, especially for a Monday afternoon. But you shook it off and started walking towards your destination. Once you reached, you raised your fist to knock on the door of the apartment. An elderly woman answered. 

“Yes?” 

“Hello,” you greeted politely. “I’m with Seoul Weekly. I’m here regarding your call?” 

Her face morphed into an expression of realization. 

“Ah! Yes, please come in,”

You looked around her house as she made you a cup of tea. 

“Do you live here alone?” you asked, trying to start a conversation. 

“Yes,” she smiled. “Both of my kids have their own families,” 

“And your…?” 

Her smiled turned sad. 

“My husband passed away a few years ago. It’s just me now,” 

“I’m sorry,” you said sympathetically. She smiled at you, handing you a cup before taking a seat. 

“So, why don’t you start by telling me what happened?” 

“Well...it was around 2 in the morning. I woke up to get a drink of water when I heard voices outside. At first they were very quiet voices, but soon they started arguing. They were shouting at each other,” 

“Do you know who they were?” you asked. She shook her head. 

“No, but I could tell that they were men. A whole group of them,” 

“About how many?” 

“I’m not very sure...only around 5 people were talking but I have a feeling that there were more,”

“Who did you think they were?” you inquired. 

“Oh, gangsters for sure,” she said seriously, her eyes going wide as she leaned forward. “Definitely gangsters,” 

“How do you know that they weren’t just a couple of guys messing around?” 

“Because I could hear what they were talking about,” 

“And what were they saying?” 

“Well I only heard a little bit but they were talking about some shipment. One of them was angry that the shipment was late and the other one was just laughing about it. And then the gun went off,” 

“Gun?!” you asked, surprised. “You mean to say there was a gun involved?” 

“Yes,” 

Well she could have mentioned that earlier.

“When the gun went off, I ran to the window. I didn’t see any dead or injured person but they had all run away. I only caught sight of one of them,” 

“And what did he look like?” you pressed eagerly. 

“I didn’t see his face. He had a mask on. But he was tall and built too. He was wearing all black and on the back of his jacket there was a logo. It was some kind of diamond. And he was holding a gun. That’s how I know they were gangsters,” 

“Wow,” you managed. You were intrigued now. But you didn’t know whether to believe her. 

“Did you call the police?” 

“I did,” she admitted. “But when they questioned around, everyone denied hearing anything because they were all asleep. So the cops thought I was just crying for attention and being a crazy old lady. But there’s one thing that proves my theory,” 

“What’s that?” 

“Come with me,” she stood up and you followed her out of her house and into the alleyway where the whole thing went down. It looked like a normal alley. A few trash cans at the very back, graffiti littering the walls. Nothing looked particularly out of place. 

“When I showed this to the police they thought it was simple graffiti. But tell me that doesn’t look like some kind of gang symbol,” 

She pointed to dark red color on the wall. Harsh streaks of paint were etched into it. You didn’t know how to describe it. The shape looked so simple but at the same time, felt deadly. Yeah, that was definitely not regular graffiti. That was some kind of symbol. A logo. Some kind of representation. A signature. Whose signature, you didn’t know. 

“This is the same symbol I saw on the back of that man’s jacket. They are a gang. I’m telling you,” the lady stressed with a shake of her head. You raised a hand and gently brushed your fingers over the paint. Your curiosity was peaked. Now this wasn’t about pleasing your senior. You wanted to know more. You wanted to get to the bottom of this. You didn’t think that there were gangs running around Seoul but now that you knew, you were going to find out more. 

“Thank you for your time,” you said to the lady, feeling excited. “It was very helpful. I’ll find out more about this gang,” 

She sent you a sweet smile as you walked her out of the alleyway but not before turning to look at the logo once more. You engraved it into the depths of your brain, knowing that you’d need it for future use, before turning away. 

***

You were draped across your bed, eagerly scrolling on your laptop when Yoongi got home. He pulled off his coat, eyes landing on you and staying there. 

“Hey,” you greeted him, without removing your eyes. 

“Whatcha doing? You never work this hard. The last time I saw you so interested in something is when that one idol group came--” 

“It’s not that,” you said hurriedly, before sitting up and crossing your legs. “There’s a story my seniors want me to write so I’m working on that,” 

“Wow, look at you being all hard-working,” he teased, walking towards you. He took your face in his hands and pressed a loving kiss to your lips. You noticed his shirt as he pulled away. 

“What, did you miss your mouth while eating lunch today?” you asked playfully, fingers brushing over pinkish red stains near the top of his white button down. He looked down in confusion before rolling his eyes, a sweet gummy smile stretching across his handsome face. His fingers wrapped around your wrist and pulled your hand away from the stains. 

“Who knows? I probably fell asleep while eating, right?” he shrugged, before making his way into the bathroom and leaving you giggling as you continued your work. 

Over the next few weeks, you worked hard on your report. And though it wasn’t a solid article yet, you spent quite a lot of time doing research and interviewing people who claimed to know things about gangs around Seoul. None of the ‘witnesses’ had definite names, which was a huge piece of the puzzle, but you didn’t want to give up. You were determined to make this your best report yet. 

You walked into work one morning, slightly nervous but also confident. Your senior had asked you to bring whatever work you had done so far and show it to her, so you brought everything you had collected over the past few weeks. You were pretty proud of what you had. The only thing left was to see her reaction. 

“Did you work hard on it?” she asked as you walked inside her office, motioning for you to take a seat. 

“Yes,” you said. “I found a lot,” 

“Good,” she said as you handed her your research. “I’m glad that you could make it more interesting than just a stupid robbery. But that lady was definitely lying about the gangsters haha,” 

“Actually..” you started. “I believe her story. I did all my research on gangs in the area,” 

She stared at you. 

“Seriously? You believe that crap?” 

“Yes, I do,” you said honestly. “Her story seemed to fit,” 

“It seemed to fit?! (Name), you can’t base an entire story off of one crazy old lady!” she said exasperatedly, flipping through your work. “Declaring that there are gangs in Seoul is a big deal, alright?!” 

“But I genuinely think there are!” you pressed earnestly. “Did you see the symbol?? That looks like some kind of gang-” 

“That could’ve easily been any teenager doing graffiti. That’s what the police said too!!” she argued back. 

You looked down in defeat. 

“Look...” she sighed. “..if you really think that there’s a story here, you need hard evidence. Not just of some paint on the wall, but if you could catch some kind of footage or evidence of the gang in action or something that proves they exist, we could get this done. Otherwise, I’m sorry, but I don’t think we can publish this,” 

“No. Please, give me a little more time, I’ll try to find something,” you pleaded. 

“Alright but if you aren’t successful, you have to let this one go and start something else okay?” she acquiesced, albeit reluctantly. 

“Yes, thank you,” you bowed quickly as she handed you your work and you exited her office.

Oh boy I’m screwed, aren’t I? I have to find evidence that gangs actually exist. Where the hell do I get that from? 

When you got home after work, you immediately began scouring the internet for any sightings or video clips.

You were so absorbed in your work that you didn’t even notice Yoongi come home. 

“Are you still working on that report?” he asked, loosening his tie. 

“Yup,” 

Yoongi had let you be for the first week and a half, understanding that it had to do with work and leaving it at that, but over time he got curious too. 

“Okay, I wanna know,” he said after a quick shower, taking a seat next to you. “What’s this report on? You’re really into it,”

You paused your typing to face him, excitement now shimmering in your eyes. 

“Well, a few weeks ago this lady said there was a disturbance in an alleyway next to her house, so she called the police. The police thought it was just an attempted robbery but when I went to hear her story, guess what she said?” 

“What?” Yoongi asked. 

“Gangsters!! There was a gang outside her house and apparently a gun fight too,” you told him and his brows raised in surprise. 

“Gangs?? I didn’t think there were gangs in Seoul,” 

“Me neither, but she told me about what she heard. They were fighting about some shipment or something and someone shot a gun. And and and, in the alley there was this symbol on the wall and I’m pretty sure it’s some kind of logo or code or something-” 

“Isn’t it dangerous for you to get involved with this kind of thing?” he asked, brows furrowing. “I don’t think a gang wants a random person looking into them like this,” 

You waved your hand dismissively.

“They don’t know about me. Besides, if I’m right, this could be my best story yet. I may even get promoted! I mean, I’ve been in the same position for so long and I really do want to get promoted, Yoongi! Just imagine what we could do with the extra money. I could finally show my parents that this job is better and-” 

“I know, sweetheart, but..” he trailed off. Your eyes softened. 

“Look, I promise I won’t get too close okay? I just need to be able to say that there’s a gang at work here. I’m not gonna get involved with them,” you promised, wrapping your arms around him. 

“How are you gonna prove that?” he asked. 

“My senior says I need to find evidence. So some kind of footage or solid proof that there’s a group of people doing illegal things. That’s the hard part. I don’t know how I’m going to find anything like that,”

“(Nickname), it’s probably not even a gang, alright? Maybe it was just a couple of guys trying to rob her and she heard something else, not a gun. I mean until now, when have we heard of gangs around huh?” 

“No, Yoongi,” you pressed. “I don’t think she was lying. I really think there’s something here,” 

“(Name) seriously. It’s stupid. Why would gangs be forming now? And if they were really discussing a shipment, why would they do it outside by some lady’s house? This is such a dumb idea,” 

You frowned. 

“Why do you keep trying to say I’m wrong?” 

He sighed. 

“I don’t know...I just don’t want anything to happen to you,” he muttered into your hair. 

“Nothing’s gonna happen to me,” you reassured him with a soft smile. “I promise,” 

***

You got into the bus after work, taking a seat near the back once again before closing your eyes to think. After a few days, you became so stressed with the lack of evidence. You couldn’t find anything about a gang. It seemed like these guys were extremely good at covering up their tracks. You really needed to get something solid soon. Otherwise all the work you had done over the last few weeks would be gone. But how? Where do you find it? 

You lurched forward a bit as the bus stopped. You blinked in confusion. Not many people boarded the bus this late. There were only around 5 other people in the bus. A couple, a man in the back, and an old lady with assumably her granddaughter. The doors opened and a man stepped on before taking a seat a few rows ahead of you. You settled back into thought as the bus started moving again. You needed to figure something out. 

When you opened the door to your apartment, you weren’t surprised to find it empty. Yoongi usually got home later than you did. You were about to go startup work again but you realized that you really needed to relax tonight. The stress was getting to you and you felt extremely tired. So you did what anyone would do and changed into some comfy PJs, ordered pizza, and binge watched Netflix. Maybe that’s why you didn’t realize how fast time went. Because when you managed to stop the next episode from playing, you saw that it was 12:27 in the morning. Yoongi wasn’t home yet. He never got this late. If he was going to be late from work, he’d always shoot you a text or give you a call. You walked into your bedroom and quickly checked your phone to see, but there was nothing from him. You clicked on his contact and pressed his number, holding the phone to your ear and lying down. It rang once, twice, three times, four times, five times, six times, then his voice. 

“If you’re hearing this, it means I don’t wanna talk so stop calling me,” 

You couldn’t help but playfully roll your eyes at his voicemail. 

“Hey, where are you? I didn’t think you’d be coming home late today. It’s really late, I’m a little worried...just call me okay?” 

You ran your fingers through your hair and sighed. He’s probably on his way home and his phone just died. 

That’s what you hoped anyway. You snuggled under the blanket and stared at your phone screen that didn’t light up with any notification. It didn’t light up, and that worried you. 

Slight shuffling from behind you was what woke you up. You didn’t even realize you fell asleep until you heard someone getting into bed. Your eyes flickered open, first focusing on the clock on your bedside table. 

3:41 a.m. 

You shifted a little to turn and see and-

“Shh, hey, it’s just me. Go back to sleep,” Yoongi’s deep voice whispered, his hand gently rubbing your arm. You didn’t really listen and turned around anyway, nuzzling into his chest.

“Why are you so late?” you mumbled. 

“Sorry, baby,” he sighed. “There was a huge blockage in the subway and we were stuck down there for hours. I wanted to call but my phone died,” 

“Oh,” you muttered. “I was worried,” 

“I know. I’m sorry,” he murmured, pressing a kiss to your brow. 

“S’okay. I’m just glad you’re home safe,” 

He smiled a bit and gently rubbed your back, and you drifted off to sleep once again. 

***

“I heard that you’re trying to prove a gangster story?” a familiar voice asked from behind you and you turned around to see Seo Jin. 

“Yeah,” you nodded. 

“How come?” she asked, moving to pour her own cup of coffee from the machine in the break room. 

“At first, you know how the seniors wanted us to stretch the truth for some stories?” 

She nodded. 

“Well when I went to go talk to the witness, I ended finding that her story did make sense and now I’m just trying to come up with some evidence that proves gangs are active in the area,” 

“Ah,” she paused. “It’s weird though. I never really imagined gangsters as a threat here. It’s kind of scary haha,” 

“What? That gangsters roam around here at night?” you asked, taking a sip of your coffee. She nodded. 

“Yeah,” 

“As long as you don’t bother them I’m sure they won’t bother you,” you said with a shrug of your shoulders. 

“What if I was walking home one night and all of a sudden, this gangster comes out of nowhere and kidnaps me-”

“You watch too many movies,” you chuckled and she smiled sheepishly as the two of walked back to your desks, ready to continue the work laid out for you. 

You packed up and headed home at the usual time. When you got home, you decided to give yourself a little bit of free time and read a book. It was fairly interesting. It was about a woman whose family members and close friends start getting killed one by one. Everyone ends up murdered except for her husband. They both decide to move far away from the town where the original murders happened but soon enough, people start getting killed again. Turns out that the husband is the murderer and he ends up killing his wife. You wondered how the husband could have managed to be so secretive. And why did the woman marry him when she obviously knew so little about him? 

After you read until you were satiated, you started working on your report. You were so involved, you didn’t realize how fast time was passing until it was around 9:30 at night. 

You decided to send Yoongi a quick text. 

[9:28 p.m.] (Name): hey just wanted to check if you’re gonna be home late today? you want me to leave dinner out?

You got back to work, keeping an ear open for a buzz that indicated a response, but you got none. Assuming he was still in the train or something of the sort, you let it go. A few hours later, you stood up and checked your phone again. 

[11:43 p.m.] (Name): where are you? are you going to be super late today? are you still at work?

And then you went back to your computer, letting time go on again. You probably would’ve stayed up more. But the fact that Yoongi wasn’t home yet was distracting you. Maybe it’s another problem with the subway. 

Thinking it was something along the lines of what happened last time, you shook it off. It wasn’t often that Yoongi had situations like this, which meant that it was probably important and there was a logical explanation to it. So you decided you wouldn’t let yourself get too panicked about it and continue your work. 

Or so you thought. After it hit 12, your brain wouldn’t let you focus at all. What were the chances that there was a subway problem again? Worst came to mind and you began to gnaw on your lip nervously. Finally, when you couldn’t push your anxiousness anymore, you picked up your phone and dialed his number. 

It rang once, twice, three times, four times, five times. 

You mentally prepared yourself for his voicemail. 

“Hello?” 

You stilled. 

“Yoongi? Oh thank god. Where are you?! Why didn’t you call?” 

“Shit…” you heard him curse under his breath. “Sorry, sweetheart, it’s been a crazy day. I actually had to take a train to go visit my grandmother. She suddenly got really sick and I headed back to Daegu as soon as I heard. I mean I stopped at home and grabbed a few things but then I just left. I meant to call you but it’s been really hectic. We’ve had to call all my relatives and shit and-” he breathed a heavy sigh. You took a minute to process what he had just told you. 

“She’s sick?? Is everything okay now? Do you need anything?” you asked, frowning. 

“For right now, no. I might have to stay here a couple days and--shit!” you heard him hiss through his teeth. 

“Crap! Sorry hyung…” another voice rung out and you paused. 

“Who is that? Yoongi are you okay? What’s going on?” 

“Uh that was just my idiot cousin. I’m fine (Name), really. I’ll be back home soon. I’ll call you every day. It’s just, I can’t leave right now. I have to be here with them,” he said, his voice sounding very tired and you frowned sympathetically. 

“Yeah alright. It’s okay, everything will be fine,” you tried to cheer him up. “Take your time there and stay safe,” 

“You too, baby. I’ll call you tomorrow, alright?”

You nodded, though he couldn’t see it. 

“I love you,” he said and before you could say anything back, the line went dead. 

***  

About a week passed, and Yoongi was still in Daegu. He stayed true to his word, though. He made sure to call every day and shoot you small little texts that somehow had the corners of your lips lifting upwards. As your Netflix episode came to a conclusion, you stood up and went outside to get the mail. A part of you was a little worried about Yoongi. Was he okay being in Daegu all by himself, especially in a situation like this? You had offered to come join him but he had immediately shut the idea down. 

Yoongi is just going through a lot right now. I mean, he doesn’t have his parents. The closest family he’s got is his grandmother. I understand why he’d be worried. 

After getting your allotted mail, you began walking back to your apartment. Once inside, you plopped down on the couch and began sifting through the envelopes. 

Bills. Bills. Ads. More Bills. Then an unfamiliar one. 

XXX Hospital. 

You frowned in confusion. Nobody had gone to the hospital recently. You flipped the envelope over to double check the information. 

Your address was right there. Maybe it was addressed to you on accident? Or maybe it was a very old bill that they forgot about?

You tore open the envelope and pulled out the documents, eyes beginning to scan over the typed words.

 Patient’s Full Name: Min Yoongi

Sex: Male 

D.O.B.: 9 March 1993

Age: 25

Diagnosis: Stab wound to the lower abdomen.

.

.

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