#so why don't you give him more credits and let him be his own person?

[pierregazly]

the bookworm ꨄ george russell smau

george russell x bookworm/writer!reader

the one where george couldn't be prouder to call you his, even if it seems like the whole world hates you just for doing what you love... even if they don't know the whole truth.

georgerussell63

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georgerussell63 enjoyed the time off! would never complain about spending time with my best friend, time to get back into things 💪🏎

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username gotta go check off 'george posts shirtless pics during off szn' on my bingo card

username gotta go check off 'yn cares more about her own hobby than her bf' on my bingo card

username girl you got issues with books? can't read?

alex_albon bad hair day? or are hats your new thing

yourusername tried to convince him to go with the bucket hat, but he claims 'all the kids are wearing caps babe'

username girlypop can't even enjoy a holiday with george without being focused on anything other than him??

username he's literally NECKING her in one of the photos?????? do you want her to koala hold him everywhere???

username future wdc russell george and his future writer wife frfr

username 1/2 of these things are probably true and we both know it's not the second lol

yourusername spoiling me always, my handsome handsome man 💗

georgerussell63 wouldn't have spent the last few weeks with anyone else (even if you kick me in your sleep nightly)

username do you think yourusername pictures george as the main male character in any of the books she reads???

username if i can picture him in fanfiction, im sure she pictures him in everything else???

gisèlerosebooks

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gisèlerosebooks first time being on any device since my trip with my favourite person ended. the love on collided continues to amaze me, and i'm so extremely honoured to continuously receive so much love from not only the reading community, but many of the formula 1 faithful as well. this is NOT the end of the journey, either. for now, let the formula 1 season begin... and maybe find me at a race or two? 🤭

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gisèlerosebooks oh and to my incredible, amazing, handsome boyfriend, thank you so much for always proofreading my formula 1 terminology and understanding. i promise i'll give you real credit one day.

username god adrien is so charles leclerc coded, he's all i could think about this entire book

lilymhe 🏎🫶🏻

username the fact i literally could've cared less about the lil zoom zoom cars before the dirty air series dropped and now im eager for the new season.... gisèle baby why u do this to me

username miss girl???? how are we supposed to find you at any races when we don't even know what you look like!!!

username jealous of gisèle's bf is!!! his gf is too talented for the world

username not throttled being the book to get me back into reading and now i'm blessed wth a second book??? mother is mothering real hard

username this is the type of book series i'd totally read at the track and imagine an f1 driver as my husband sry

username 10/10 book!!! dying!!!

yourusername has posted a story

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georgerussell63 wow we're so lucious and hot

yourusername luscious sweetie

georgerussell63 god i love having a hot, smart, book-writer gf. write a book about me and use that word

yourusername they're all already about you??? (handsome)

username you showed up to a race?????? shocking

gisèlerosebooks has posted a story

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username omg!!!! where are you!!! dying to meet you omfg

username YOU WERE SERIOUS

georgerussell63 i saw u slip up and post this on the og account loser

georgerussell63 can i have my scooter back ya nerd

gisèlerosebooks no sorry </3 i own it now

georgerussell63 no creds in the books and now my scooter stolen???? you hate the british

gisèlerosebooks my pseudonym is an ODE to you PAL

georgerussell63

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georgerussell63 a shame that this weekend didn't go the way we all wanted it to go, i know for a fact we'll be coming out on top soon! i also know yourusername or as most of you seem to prefer (for no valid reason at all) gisèlerosebooks is pretty deep in finishing book 3 and apparently this weekend was super influential??? go me (give me book creds)

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yourusername george!!! lmao!!!

yourusername a heads up next time??? maybe?!?

username 'for no valid reason at all' so SASSY oh boy

username everyone on twitter the other day calling yourusername a freeloader is soooo not doing well rn

lilymhe the secret's out!!!! (shocked, baffled, wild, can i get my books signed now)

username (G)isèle (R)ose... (G)eorge (R)ussell... dare i say... deliberately done

yourusername 🤭

username amazing race this weekend!!! can't wait to see you on top

username no one talking about book 3 almost being done??? or the fact george proofreads all her writing??? so cute

charles_leclerc so collided... is not about me?

georgerussell63 get lost mate

yourusername has posted a story

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georgerussell63 you think im a gentleman??? love you

yourusername the BIGGEST gentleman, i love you

username god this is so cute

georgerussell63

tagged yourusername and gisèlerosebooks

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georgerussell63 that's my little freeloading, best-selling author and future wife!

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username someone come get this chronically online man rn!!

yourusername can i be your freeloader forever??? spending my own money sucks

georgerussell63 my money's your money always my little freeloader

alex_albon emphasis on the best-selling author and future wife part

georgerussell63 you're right mate

username re-reading dirty air and knowing fully the entire book series is about george makes me so happy omg

username proud to admit i loved yourusername before AND after she was revealed as everyone's fav author (and it's not just a hobby losers)

username george doesn't get book creds until he wins a race again :)

yourusername i love this stipulation!!! georgerussell63 thoughts?

georgerussell63 you hate the british.

i had SO much fun writing this!!! i picked george after going down a george rabbit hole again (of course), so i hope you all love it!! thanks for all the love always.

i'm not necessarily taking requests right now, but if you have suggestions please feel free to send them my way.

[ja3yun]

Undercover Lover (pt.2) | P.JS

detective!jay x detective fem!reader

warnings: smut (mdni), angst, unprotected sex, oral (f. rec), edging, begging, teasing, kinda rough, mentions of guns and alcohol, gambling, confrontation, jay is kinda mean again but he makes up for it! not proofread.

wc: 9.1k+

synopsis: after yesterday's antics, you're still obligated to work alongside jongseong. however, when you're forced into a life-threatening predicament, feelings become tangled.

(part 1)

a/n: hi! a LOT of people asked for a part.2 and although i initially set it to be a one-off, you all enjoyed it so much i had to give you a conclusion. jongseong in the final two scenes has me swooning icl! enjoy <3 feedback is always appreciated, don't let it flop pls

_______

As you delicately adjust the spaghetti straps of your dress in the mirrored reflection of the elevator, a subtle uncertainty creeps into your mind regarding the chosen outfit. It doesn't exactly exude a rich man’s wife, but your limited wardrobe options leave you with no alternative, the only fancy clothing you own is the dress that got mercilessly ripped in half at the hands of Jongseong. 

Even thinking about last night is giving you a dry mouth. Jongseong had manhandled you, fucked you so good you’ll be thinking about it for months and then proceeded to just leave you, your self-worth shattered like glass. You knew he was an asshole but that was a new level of low.

Even this morning, he had the audacity to reach out, seeking your assistance once again. You might be on a mission but you do contemplate whether you even have enough respect for him to pretend to be his wife.

To call him yours, kiss him, and be in love with him. It was a mission within itself.

However, the gravity of the case at hand hangs over your precinct, too important to be jeopardised by personal feelings. This case has the potential to change everything, and you want to be credited for your part in it. Perhaps there's a twinge of spite aimed at your work rival, but the prospect of infuriating him further by sharing the glory spurs you on.

As the elevator comes to a stop in the main lobby, a firm resolve forms inside you - that you’re going to become the best wife Jongseong could ever dream of, and make sure your name ends up on the case report. 

Your eyes land on Jongseong’s broad back, the white solid ribbed knit top is tight enough for your brain to work out the contours of his back. Before you can stop yourself, you’re thinking about how his shoulder blades felt under the tip of your fingers and how you could feel every muscle working as he fucked into you. If there was one good thing about having sex with Jongseong last night it’s using the lust and memory to your advantage. If you can’t fake love, you can at least reminisce about the desire you felt for him last night.

Placing your hand on his arm and stroking down until your fingers interlock, you begin your Oscar-winning performance, “Hi, Jjongie. I’m sorry I slept in,” With your free hand you turn his face to look a you before bringing him down for a kiss.

Despite the suddenness of your presence and physical affection, Jongseong kisses you back delicately, and those lips touching yours again send a bolt of lightning down your spine. Involuntarily, your body arches into his touch as he lets go of your hand and wraps his arms around your waist. 

The kiss feels different than the one last night; it's gentler than the way his lips were battering yours. Probably because Mr. and Mrs. Kim are looking straight at you both, Jongseong felt pressure to pour some sweetness into it, rather than hatred. 

When you go to pull away, Jongseong pulls you back for more, his tongue swiping your bottom lip. You don’t know why he’s dragging this out considering Kwangmin is thoroughly convinced about the both of you, if not by your words of affection at dinner yesterday, then certainly by the way you’re both holding one another. Regardless, you let him continue because the feelings he’s portraying in this one kiss are more of an apology you’ll get verbally from him.

“You’re both so perfect for one another!” Mrs. Kim shrieks, looking at you both with adoration.

Her voice brings you both back to earth. You turn to face her but Jongseong’s eyes are still on you, assessing how you might be feeling underneath your charade but you’re so good at hiding your true emotions, he can’t work it out.

“Sorry, Mr. and Mrs. Kim for being so late, we had a long night last night, Didn’t we, baby?” Your pupils are still blown from the kiss and exhilaration of this case that the light reflects almost a starry gaze as you look at your pretend husband.

Jongseong sits his arm along your waist and smiles, “We did, angel. You look beautiful so I think we can all agree the delay was worth it.” He confesses.

“She does look radiant, Hwang,” Mr. Kim comments, “Come, let’s go to the lounge for brunch,” The Kims walk ahead leaving you and Jongseong trailing behind them, the air filled with unspoken words.

Nevertheless, he takes your hand and tightens his grip, not offering you a glance but reassurance. This was a big deal, this was your last chance to get in on the drug smuggling scheme and coax a confession from Kwangmin about all his wrongdoings. He knew how much pressure was on you both.

As you walk into the lounge, you see lots of the same people from last night; upper-class men with their suits, talking about nothing of substance. The place was made for VIPs of the hotel, however, Mr. Kim’s influence earned him a special section on the far right-hand side. The only way you and Jongseong could get in there was with Kwangmin escorting you, however with the drug king opening up his private lounge for you, it brings envious stares of those around you.

Jongseong notices the shift in your manner and pulls your hand to his lips, kissing it lightly before moving into the area, his protective body barricading you in case something happens. If he was half the man he was as Hwang Jongseong, Park Jongseong would be far more bearable. 

He takes a seat and pulls you beside him, keeping you close. For the first time on this trip, you’re both alone with the Kims, no eyes scouring at you or observing your every move. Although you were putting on this act for the criminal, you weren’t naive to the fact that he would have eyes on you both at all times. 

But now that you're alone, Jongseong, and you've raised your guard, the uncertainty of what might happen makes the situation stressful. 

“It’s so nice to have you here with us today. We can only apologise for the abrupt leave of absence at dinner last night, you both seemed to need some privacy.” Mr. Kim laughs, pouring a glass of 18-year-old Yamazaki single malt for Jongseong and himself, “I assume my wife’s wonderful suggestion brought you both closer.

You could say that.

“Yes, Mr. Kim. It was an excellent idea, we’ll steal the idea for future occasions if you don’t mind.” Jongseong swirls the glass, admiring the fragrant alcohol. This might be his only time to try a £1,700 bottle of whiskey, so he jumps at the chance.

With a click of his fingers, Kwangming summons a waiter over to give you a glass of champagne, the bubbles at the bottom fizz happily, meaning it’s on the more expensive side.  He truly liked to spend money, which raises your suspicion considering he is known to be cautious with his finances unless it’s on his wife. He’s up to something.

The conversation flows between your husband and Mr. Kim. You suppose Jongseong has been on this case for months, setting up a rapport with him, otherwise, why would you both even be here? 

Jongseong seamlessly transitions into his role, portraying the character so convincingly that, if it weren't for the mere two desks that separate you back at the office, one could easily be fooled. He navigates a series of probing questions about how he used the inherited money, his investment strategy, and his ambitious aspiration of matching Mr. Kim's wealth. To the casual observer, his demeanour appears cool and collected. Yet, small indicators show the subtle strain beneath the surface - a tensed hand on your thigh when confronted with difficult questions, or the rare slip over facts.

Your role as his wife, whether the affection you express is genuine or artificial, remains the same: to provide comfort and reassurance. Your hand delicately strokes his arm, and you kiss his shoulder tenderly.  It seems to work each time as if your presence calms him down. 

The vibration of Jongseong’s phone gains the attention of everyone in the room. He thought he had turned it on silent, scared that any interference from outside could jeopardise your case. 

He delves into his back pocket, retrieving his mobile. Of fucking course, it's Heeseung calling – of all the times, he chooses the most inconvenient moment.

Glancing over, you spot the contact name, panic briefly flashing in your eyes. "Baby, just ignore it; we’re with company," you suggest, offering him a way out of the awkward situation. However, Mr. Kim dismisses your words, extending his hand to signal Jongseong it’s okay to answer the call.

Your husband looks at you with concern, hesitant to leave you alone with the couple. Yet, you communicate through your eyes that you can handle the situation perfectly well and assure him that you'll be fine on your own.

He pats your head and answers the call, careful not to be too loud.

“Y/N, tell me, how would you like to accompany my wife to the spa?” Mr. Kim poses the query nonchalantly but it throws you off. Being a detective, you have a natural curiosity and question every intention and this is no different.

Shifting your gaze to Mrs. Kim she has a bright smile on her face, “Please, Y/N, it would be so lovely to spend some time with you,” You have to admit, she did seem like a genuinely warm and lovely person compared to her man. Spending a few hours with her would also help her open up; If you can’t get Mr. Kim to speak about it, maybe you can convince Mrs. Kim.

“I would love that, some R and R is just what I need,” You giggle, “Plus, it’s been so long since I’ve had some girl time.” The words you speak aren’t a lie, you could do with some relaxation, the knots in your shoulders that have been there for the past 3 years need to be unravelled. 

“Excellent!” Mrs. Kim claps, “Come, Y/N,” She takes your hand, pulls you from the couch and blows a kiss to her husband who happily catches it. Aside from all the drugs and murder, you do wish for someone to dote on you like that, just once in your life.

Walking out of the lounge, you both bump into Jongseong who looks at you with wide eyes, confused, “Sorry, Jongseong, I’m stealing your wife for an hour or two.”

His demeanour stiffens, reminiscent of his initial uneasiness in the lounge. Given his previous interactions with the Kims, his suspicions are understandable. "I see. Can I speak with Y/N, and she can meet you there?" he asks, surprising you with his unexpected request. Wouldn't it be strange if he initiated having a conversation with his wife straight after receiving a phone call?

Seizing Mrs. Kim's arm, you titter into character, "Jjongie, you can talk to me later. I'd like to go have some fun. Okay? Mr. Kim is waiting for you."

He sighs, conceding, "Of course, baby." He leans in and kisses your cheek, the touch lingering, "Please be careful," he says quietly enough to go unnoticed by your spa companion.

"Do not worry, Jongseong. I'm good at taking care of myself, remember?" You whisper through gritted teeth.  It was a true statement but also a dig at last night and he knows it. Your genuine feelings for him remain disgusted beneath the facade of a completely loyal wife.

He passes you and Mrs. Kim with a nod and a tongue poking his cheek, his departure accompanied by a sour attitude.

_____

As you and Mrs. Kim walk into the spa, it is like nothing you have ever seen before. The ambience surrounding the lobby is tranquil, the echos of waves from the white noise machines fill your ears. Despite being a girl who loves maximalism, you can’t help but find beauty in the sleek gold and orange furnishings that adorn the place. It’s dimly lit, with only a few lamps on throughout the area which only puts you into instant relaxation mode.

Your job doesn’t come with many perks but you could get used to this, you wonder if Mr. Kim has any friends.

Focus, Y/N. You drill into yourself. If you get too caught up in the serenity of the spa, you’ll lose your chance to move this case forward. 

Truthfully, you aren’t expecting much from this conversation but any sort of intel is better than nothing. Mrs. Kim could either know every inch of her husband's secret dealings or be completely oblivious, either way, it’s an avenue you have to explore.

The receptionist sees you both stroll up to the counter and stands, bowing slightly, “Welcome, Mrs. Kim, Mrs. Hwang, It’s lovely to have you both join us this afternoon,” How did she know your alias? 

“Thank you, Seola, do you have the room ready?” Mrs. Kim asks.

The receptionist nods and directs you to two masseuses who guide you into an almost pitch-black room, the only light emanating is from a Wood and Lavender Yankee candle in the middle of the room.

Mrs. Kim starts to undress and lays on the massage table, and you follow suit. It’s a little weird, getting naked in front of three people you don’t know but that feeling instantly goes away when your masseuse drops some oil onto your back.

You let out a little groan in satisfaction as she starts to work her magic, you definitely need to come here with your girls for a proper retreat away.

“Y/N, can I ask you something, woman to woman?” Mrs. Kim speaks up, breaking the peaceful silence after about 15 minutes.

“Sure, Mrs. Kim,” Your eyes roll as the girl’s hands apply pressure to your shoulder, working out the tension you’ve pent up.

“Please, call me Heejin,” This is good, first name basis with the drug lord’s missus is a step in the right direction and all you had to do was lay there and be pampered. If only everything was that easy, “You and Jongseong, you’ve been married for how long?”

Shit. Shit. Why can’t you remember what your profile said? 2 years, no, 3? No wait, married for one, it was definitely one.

While you internally battle with the facts, Heejin twists her head to look at you, eyebrows raised, “One year, it’s all gone by so fast it feels more like forever,” You joke, hoping to play it off. Being in this setting is making you complacent, you need to get your head back in detective mode.

She smiles at you, tucking her arms under her head, still looking at you, “Honeymoon phase is still in full swing I see. Tell me, was it the money?” 

“Huh?” You furrow your eyebrows in confusion.

Clicking her fingers, the masseuses leave the room urgently. Like a wave washing over you, you realise what’s happening. She’s duped you, “Y/N, you’re not fooling anyone here, you both aren’t. I know what Jongseong wants from my husband; I’ve been observing him for a while.”

This is not good. 

You sit up, wrapping a towel around your body to maintain some decency. This is twice in 24 hours you’ve been naked and vulnerable in front of someone. Next time, you’re not taking your clothes off so easily.

Heejin mirrors you, both of you are knee-to-knee. The shadows from the candle on her face make her look totally different, she looks dangerous. You should have known she wouldn’t have been as innocent as she looked, she was a Kim after all.

It’s hard to read the situation because her voice remains monotonous as she speaks, “He wants my husband’s money.”

Do you play dumb? Your persona is to be clueless and just madly in love with Jongseong but that isn’t going to play right now. She’s smart enough to see through it.

"Actually, I want your husband's money," you respond, sitting up with purpose. The confession piques Heejin's interest, and she leans back slightly to gaze upon you in a fresh light. "My Jjongie is wealthy now, but he needs more. Your husband has the means to put him in a healthier position," you say, changing the tone from serene to animosity. This is your opportunity to play her perfectly.

"What 'means' are you referring to?" She retorts. Heejin is smart, too smart.

If you wanted to catch them, you couldn’t say ‘I want my man involved in your drug ring’ outright because then it isn’t a confession, it’s you leading the witness which wouldn’t hold up in court. Your heart is pounding and for some reason, you really wish Jongseong was here.

"Heejin, you're not naive. You understand what I mean," you assert, and she nods, smirking, clearly grasping the gravity of your insinuation. "How can we establish a working relationship between our husbands?"

She leans on her palm, elbow sinking into her leg as her gaze burns into you akin to the candle beside you, “What’s in it for me?” 

Like most women, she has far more power than her husband. Jongseong had been so concentrated on winning over Kwangmin that he should have been sussing out and building an alliance with Heejin. 

You scoff out a laugh, “My husband is new money, do you know how many contacts he’s made in just a few years? Get Kwangmin and Jongseong into business together and I’ll make sure you have every name and detail of each one of them,”

“Y/N, I have all the contacts I nee–”

"Yang Jungwon" The name strikes the woman in front of you. The case file specifically addressed Mr. Yang several times, as well as Kwangmin's attempts to reach him for many years without success. Yang Jungwon is the leader of hundreds of black-market schemes across South Korea; whatever agreement Mr. Kim could make with him would render the drug lord invincible. Your colleague, Sunoo, has been working on catching Yang for years, but he's like a ghost, never staying in a single place for too long and far too distrustful, so he gets rid of most of the individuals he works with.

It’s an empty promise and if the rest of this mission proceeds longer than this week, you’d be the first on the chopping board either from your superior or the Kims.

Crossing her arms, she nods, “For several years, yes. And how do you know where he is?”

“He offered to work with my husband in exchange for exclusivity, Yang would work only with Jongseong, and in return he would do the same,” The lies fly out of your mouth like you’re in secondary school and you’ve been rehearsing for your Spanish oral exam. 

Heejin’s eyes narrow but in thoughtfulness rather than suspicion, “Trust is not easily earned. What guarantees do I have? You could be lying for all I know.”

You pause for a moment, choosing your next words carefully, “Actions speak louder than words. Get my Jjongie a meeting with your husband to discuss it, and I’ll give you Yang’s current location.”

She appears to be carefully considering your proposal because, to her, even if there is a slight chance you are lying, it is too good an opportunity to pass up. As she begins to speak, a knock interrupts her. As the door opens, you both turn to face the spa attendants, who are holding a tray of sparkling water and cucumbers.

Exchanging a glance with Heejin, she nods her head and smirks, taking her drink from the tray.

“How good is Jongseong at poker?”

_____

“Jongseong?!” You burst into the Ambassador suite, your excitement is palpable as you search for your co-worker. “I have some amazing news. I got you a-”

However, your words catch in your throat as you witness Jongseong harshly packing Petunia with your clothes. Is it over? Did he already secure what was needed for the case?

Ignoring your attempts at conversation, Jongseong briskly zips up your case and places it in front of you. His voice takes on a stern edge as his perfect jawline clenches, "You're going home."

Confusion flickers across your face as you process his unexpected actions, “Why? Jongseong, listen to me, Mrs. Kim gave us a gateway in.”

He pauses for a moment, his gaze piercing into you. This morning, he seemed to have been softer in his manner but now it’s back to good old cold Jongseong, not giving you the time of day. After the apology, albeit through text, you thought he might have some remorse but now he’s just kicking you out like you aren’t about to give him the lifeline he needs to break this case open. He never valued you, not as a person and not as his partner on the undercover mission.

“The poker game? Yeah, Kwangmin texted me about it. I appreciate your efforts but I don’t need you here anymore. It’s a done deal.” His words sting, after all the work you put into this case he can’t just kick you off.

“I’m not going.” You stand your ground, picking your suitcase up and unzipping it, taking out the clothes you planned to wear tonight. 

Jongseong releases an almost growl-like groan, forcefully pushing you away from the suitcase. He snatches the dress from your hands, roughly throwing it back in, "Listen to me, Y/N. This is MY case, alright? Not yours. I decide when you stick your fucking nose in." His face is flushed with frustration, and his eyes flicker alarmingly over you as if harbouring unspoken sentiments. There was more to this, you just didn’t know what, "Go home. Now."

Defiantly shaking your head, you retort, "I got you this chance. I am just as involved in this case now as you are." Your tone hisses with determination, "Plus, how would it look if I suddenly don't turn up tonight? A little suspicious, wouldn't you say? They'll know something is up." The attempt to negotiate with him feels futile, especially in the midst of his seething anger.

How can he be so idiotic? Surely, he understands the repercussions of his actions. If he shows up tonight without his ‘wife’ it’ll foil the entire plan.

"Get it through your thick skull, L/N. I don't need you. You served your purpose for me, so fuck off out of here," Jongseong bites out with a cold finality.

The sharp sound of a slap resonates through the room.

With all the force you can muster, you've just slapped Park Jongseong. It feels as if a primal instinct took control of your body in a moment of fight or flight. His words struck you because you know he’s not talking about the mission, he’s talking about last night. 

Your hand tingles with the aftermath of the hit, and you can only imagine the soreness on his right cheek. The room hangs in an electric silence, the consequences of your impulsive action reverberating between you and your partner.

Quickly, he grabs each side of your face with force, pressing his forehead to yours. You should be scared, terrified of his next actions but for some reason, you know he won’t hurt you, an inexplicable trust courses between you and him. The way he connected both of your heads was as if he was trying to telepathically communicate with you, the intensity of his gaze serving as a silent aid to the cause.

“Please, Y/N. Please go home, don’t come tonight.”

He was scared, you could see that now. The way his voice trembles as he says your name tells you all you need to know. Reaching up, you wrap your arms around his neck, massaging him softly but before you can get too comfortable with the embrace, he pushes you away gently, holding you at arm's length. 

Caught in a whirlpool of competing emotions, you try to find the right words but the mixture of emotions is too loud for you to gather any coherent thoughts in your head.  

He takes your silence as surrender and moves you to the side, finding his way to the bathroom to start getting ready for tonight’s big event. 

______

Lugging Petunia behind you, you make your way through the lobby with a heavy feeling in your chest. Jongseong left an hour ago to go into the poker game, not speaking a word to you. 

The entire situation leaves a bitter taste in your mouth. You should despise him, tell him to go to fuck after the way he's treated you this weekend – insulting your work ethic, battering your self-esteem, and ultimately deeming you worthless. He's been an unapologetic asshole.

Yet, a sense of concern for his well-being gnaws at you. You've always been an empathetic person, but this takes it to another level. When his eyes bore into yours earlier, you felt his fear, the apprehension of what the night's outcome might bring. The poker game wasn't going to be a simple, friendly competition; it held the potential for disastrous consequences. 

You can’t let him do this alone. 

Despite your valid anger and hurt, a sense of responsibility drives you to return to the lift, retracing your steps back to your room to change. Jongseong will probably kill you for intervening, but deep down, you know it's the right thing to do.

Minutes later, you emerge from your room, having changed your casual clothes for something more appropriate for the poker game, a skimpy gold dress that shows your tits and ass perfectly. The weight of your decision rests heavily on your shoulders, but you can't back down now. You need to be there.

As you return to the lobby, your thoughts swirl. The contradictory feelings of disdain towards Jongseong yet still having the need to protect him against your better judgment create a storm within you. It's a difficult decision of empathy versus self-preservation. Jongseong was scared because no one could predict Mr. Kim’s moves, which meant even stepping into the VIP area was a risk, you know that but how could you go back to the precinct knowing you could have helped in some way? What if something happened to your partner?

Taking a deep breath, you fix your posture and stride into the lounge, heading directly for the poker game. Just like earlier in the day, the VIP area is heavily guarded by Kim’s men but you stay unfazed, you’re getting in there one way or another.

“Can I help you, Ma’am?” One of the guards asks.

“My husband is in there, Mr. Hwang. He’s expecting me, I’m a little late,” You smile brightly but he doesn’t budge, “Could you let me in to see him?”

Turning, he talks into his earpiece and you stand there, swinging on your heels as you wait, eager to get in there. You see his head nod as he faces you again, “Go ahead, Ma’am.” That was a lot easier than it should have been but you don’t question it too much, bowing as you walk past the guards. 

The room is filled with burley men in suits, they all keep a strong gaze on you as your feet reach the room ahead where the game is. It’s about an hour and a half into it, so you can only hope everything is peaceful. 

It must be your lucky day because as one of Kim’s men opens the door for you, you see the Kims and Jongseong silently playing the game. At least he’s safe.

“Ah, Y/N. Jongseong said you had an emergency and had to leave?” Mr. Kim queries, glancing up at you.

Jongseong’s back straightens and he turns to you with wide eyes, his hands almost dropping his cards.

“I managed to sort it. I can’t let a little matter like that ruin the weekend, right?” Your voice is higher pitched to match your character. Honestly, it’s grating you every time you open your mouth. One of the guards pulls out a chair for you but you swerve him and sit on Jongseong’s lap, circling your arms around his neck as you give him a quick kiss on his lips, “Hi, baby.”

His left hand holds your ass up, providing some support as you get comfortable on his thighs, “Y/N, what are you doing here?” He whispers into your lips, kissing you gently. You can feel his heart rapidly beating in his chest as he rubs his hand on your lower back and ass cheeks. Since your dress was so short, half of your ass is hanging out, so the warmth of his hand on your bare skin is setting a fire in your lower belly, thoughts of last night creeping back into your mind.

“I’m not letting you do this alone, I’ll take the risk.” He hears your determined voice and nods, it’s not like he could do anything about it now, you’re in this mess with him whether he likes it or not.

You take the cards from his hands and smile, “Mr. Kim, you don’t mind if I help him out, right?” You’re hoping you’ve played your persona well enough that you aren’t deemed a threat to his chances of winning, what with being just a stupid little girl with her husband's money. Heejin knows you better than that now though and smirks at you out with her husband’s view, she’s impressed at how you came in and took over.

“Of course, Y/N, I think your husband could use some guidance.” Kwangmin jokes and gestures to the table. Jongseong is losing big time it’s almost embarrassing.

Looking at his cards you analyse the situation, whispering to Jongseong, “Follow my lead, yeah?” 

40 minutes later, you and Jongseong are literally wiping the floor with Mr. Kim, all the hands seeming to fall into place. Turns out, the issue Jongseong was having was that he had never played poker in his life, reading a quick guide before coming down. It was rookie play but thank god you came when you did. 

The Kims look frustrated as they lose and it’s about the get even worse because you’re staring at the straight flush of cards in disbelief. Unless Kwangmin has a royal flush or higher-ranking cards for a straight flush, this game is as good as yours. 

Feeling a pinch on your side you glance at Jongseong who is looking at you intently, “Should we throw it?” He whispers. You understand where he is coming from, throwing it would give Mr. Kim no reason to throw a gasket and lash out but if you lose, there’s no guarantee he will see Jongseong as a worthy partner. It could go either way.

You shake your head, concealing the gesture by rubbing your nose against his. "No, play it. Don't fold."

“It could go south,” He debates back. 

“Trust me, you need to win and we’ll deal with what comes, okay?” You kiss him, telling yourself it’s his fake wife’s actions but in reality, you did it to try and still his nerves, hoping he focuses on your lips rather than the potential threat of what is to come.

He kisses you back, his eyes shutting, deepening the kiss and prolonging it way more than you intended. Each glide of his tongue carries a weight of apprehension, the gravity of the situation prompting him to embrace the moment fiercely. If things go awry, he wants this kiss to linger as a lasting memory.

"Hwang, are you going to play?" Mr. Kim's snap pierces the tension-filled air, his frustration is evident in the tone. 

Amidst the strained atmosphere, Jongseong meets Mr. Kim's impatient gaze and nods, "Apologies, Mr. Kim. Let's continue." his voice carries a confidence that contradicts his internal turmoil. As you lay down the cards, revealing the straight flush, a hushed gasp ripples through the room.

Mr. Kim's frustration transforms into an icy glare as he surveys the winning hand before him. The weight of the moment hangs in the air, and for a heartbeat, everything seems suspended in anticipation. His face contorted with suspicion, and he abruptly rose from his seat, eyes still fixated on the straight flush laid on the table.

“This is impossible,” His previous frustration is transforming into accusation, “You two…you cheated me!” His voice is heavy with venom.

Jongseong lifts you before standing up himself, his face a mirror to the gravity of the situation. Kwangmin is going to do exactly what he was scared of. His grip on your hips tightens.

The entire room is silent following his accusation but is suddenly broken by the ominous click of his holster being undone. You and Jongseong both freeze as Mr. Kim pulls out a gun, the steal of the semi-automatic catches the light.

Your throat dries up as a desperate echo of wishing you had brought your own weapon with you swirls your mind, it would have come in real handy right now. Before you have time to think, Jongseong has stepped in front of you, acting as a protective shield. 

“This was a set-up, you hustled me for nearly £2 million! Your little wife knew you were losing and you called her back here, didn’t you?” Mr. Kim's voice is a vicious snarl, and the Beretta in his hands is now aimed directly at your head.

Jongseong pulls his gun from his jacket pocket, pointing it to the madman in front of you. His action caused a domino effect of guns being pointed from every angle, each of his men has both of you in their line of sight.

However, although you’ve basically accepted your fate, Jongseong doesn’t waver, “Kwangmin I promise you, you don’t want to touch a hair on my girl’s head.” 

“Or what?”

“Or else your wife will become a widow.”

Jongseong's words hang heavy in the air. He means each word, his finger poised to pull the trigger. It's a testament to how far he'll go to defend you, even amidst the violent confrontation. As the safety on his gun clicks off, the room becomes enveloped in hostile silence. In this moment, Jongseong is the shield between you and the looming threat of your opponents gun. You find yourself unable to reciprocate the same level of protection for him, mustering a guilty feeling in your chest.

You wanted to help him but you’re stuck. The whole point of coming to this stupid game was to help him and now you can’t even do that, in fact, you might have made it worse by actually aiding him to win.

The standoff seems to go on for an eternity, each heartbeat echoing like a drum in the charged atmosphere. It’s a battle between the glares in their eyes, you’ve never seen your partner so focused.

“Jongseong, think about this,” Mr. Kim sneers, trying to one-up his opponent, “If you pull that trigger, you won’t leave this room alive.”

Jongseong’s expression remains stern, his gun unwavering, “I’m not afraid to die if it means protecting her.”

You don’t know what to say, whether he meant it as your fake husband or as a fellow detective, it still made your heart leap from your chest. Was he truly willing to die for you? Honestly, in this situation, you don’t want to test it out.

As you step forward, Jongseong holds you back, warning you silently not to move but as you gain a new perspective, you see Heejin staring at you with a knowing glare in her eyes. Raising your eyebrows and flicking your eyes to her husband, she understands, nodding slowly.

“Kwangie, baby,” It’s funny how she also puts on a persona around her husband, “They won fair and square. It seems Y/N is just really good at poker.” Her hand rubs his arm, snaking its way to the one holding the gun, pushing it down. 

You feel like you can breathe again, the burden of possibly losing your life slowly easing. The only one who could tell Mr. Kim what to do was Heejin. Her husband’s eyes land on her, a momentary flicker of uncertainty crossing his face as he battles with the decision to listen to his wife or end this with one bullet.

“Heejin, they can’t get away with this even if they won. He threatened you.” He debates with her.

“Yes, but baby, you also threatened the love of his life. You can protect yours but he can’t protect his?” They’re both playing a tennis match with each other’s reasonings, and Heejin hits an ace. It all comes down to Mr. Kim being a family man, that’s what saves you. 

Mr. Kim’s shoulders relax and instructs his men to lower their weapons. Once all guns are no longer pointed at your heads, Jongseong follows suit, bringing you close to his side. You can sense his heart slowing back down as his breathing regulates.

Subtly, you mouth a ‘thank you’ to Heejin who lowers her head in a courteous nod, “Now, why don’t we break this up and reconvene when you’re both in better minds, yeah?” She suggests.

Unsurprisingly, the whole room agrees, holstering their weapons. Kim’s men gather the poker chips in a suitcase and hand them to Jongseong who hesitates to accept. This is more money than he could have imagined he’d ever own but it also wasn’t his to keep. In one last attempt to gain trust, he pushes the case to Kwangmin, “Keep it. I don’t need your money anyway.”

It’s tactical to give the money back, you know Jongseong has a plan and you definitely trust him after his heroic display towards you.

______

As the elevator pings, you glide into your room, laughing in disbelief. You can’t believe that a poker game that began as a way to build a bridge between the two men ended in a near-death confrontation. 

“I can’t believ-”

“I told you to go home, Y/N,” he interrupts, his fists tightening, “You’re so fucking stupid,”

Any chance to defend yourself is swiftly halted as his lips meet yours. His right hand cradles your face while the other holds you in a tight embrace. His actions speak volumes, conveying the fear he felt at the thought of you being in danger.

Considering his recent behaviour, you should push him away. After all, it wasn't long ago that he belittled you. Yet, his current actions and the fact that he just saved your life leave your moral judgment in disarray.

Slowly, your hands untuck his shirt, granting you access to run them up his bare torso and chest. A gasp escapes him when you dig your fingers into his pecs, and his open mouth invites the exploration of your tongue.

“I could have fucking lost you back there,” he whispers, his words trying to convey both frustration and concern. The way he says 'I' doesn’t escape your notice, as if you were his to lose in the first place.

“But you didn’t,” you lean back, locking eyes with him. “I’m right here because you protected me.”

He lifts you, reconnecting his lips with yours as he carries you to the bedroom, your legs wrapping around him tightly. Indulging in this with his track record feels wrong, but he's undeniably addicting and intoxicating.

Tossing you on the bed, he chases your mouth until he’s on top of you, his hands roaming all over your body, “I shouldn’t have had to protect you, you should have listened to me,” He moans when your leg rubs against his crotch as you desperately seek contact from him.

Even as his mouth trails kisses down your neck, he continues to challenge you. The dynamic that has defined your relationship for years isn't easily left behind, even after a near-death experience. The intensity between you both is undeniable, a blend of desire, frustration, and a history too intricate to understand right now.

The power shifts as you assert yourself, flipping him onto his back. Straddling him, you lean down to capture his lips once more. There's a hunger in the way you kiss him, “I didn’t want the precinct to blame me if you died and I didn’t do anything,” You tease him, smirking into the kiss.

His hands grab your ass as you grind against him, creating a sense of mutual desperation. Clothes are shed in a flurry, leaving behind fragments of the personas you wore only hours before. 

"I don't know why I bother with you," he says, his tone tinged with both irritation and tenderness.

"Maybe you can't help yourself," you say, a taunting gleam in your eyes as you lean in to capture his lips again but he pushes you back so your head is on the soft pillow, spreading your legs forcefully, each of his palms holding you down by your thighs.

Licking his lips, he almost drools seeing your pussy laid bare for him like this, it was only yesterday he was buried deep inside you but he never got a taste of you. He smirks as he delves down, his nose nudging your clit softly, the sudden touch flooding heat to your core.

With his eyes staring into yours, he licks up your slit purposefully, his tongue ridgid as the tip of it reaches your nub. The eye contact is insane, the way he’s trying not to miss one change in your facial expression turns you on more. 

His teeth nibble the sensitive area, making you yelp and groan at the same time, “Holy shit, Jongseong,” He was teasing you to get back for disobeying his orders, he knows what you need and he’s only giving you a taste before he takes it right back. 

One of his hands alleviates the pressure from your inner thigh and trickles its way to your entrance, making you thrust your hips up, pleading for his fingers, “What do you want, hmm?” He asks, his voice velvet smooth. You buck your hips up again and mewl out but he doesn’t bite, “No, Y/N, use your words,” He places one more soft lick on your folds before retracting again, “Beg me.”

No chance in hell are you going to beg for Park Jongseong to finger you. The woman inside you wouldn’t allow it, no matter how desperate you are, you have too much pride. 

Your defiance only makes him chuckle, a wicked smile graces his lips as he shakes his head in mock disapproval. His fingers, skilled and deliberate, find their way back to your entrance, teasing the edges without fully committing, “Come on, say it. Beg for it like I know you want to,” he goads, and the anticipation builds between you both.

His eyes are narrow as he looks up at you again, waiting. This is what you found so captivating about the sex you had last night, the charged energy you both get from how you play off one another. 

Tutting, he circles his middle finger around your hole, applying just enough pressure for you to whine out. He waits again for the surrender he knows is inevitable. 

"Fuck you, I can get myself off," You challenge him, but as you clench around nothing while he sucks your clit for a single second, you understand your words are meaningless, floating in the air with no substance because even if you can get yourself off, it won't be enough for you. You need him.

“Give in, come on, don’t be pathetic,” The words strike a nerve in you, urging you to slap him like earlier, but he slowly inserts his middle finger, curling it slightly as he drags it out and it makes you squirm under him, “See? You want it, I want to give it to you, all you have to do is ask for it.”

He makes it sound so simple and in reality, it is. Just one of his fingers is enough to have you aching for more.

The throbbing within you becomes an insistent pulse, the defiant act you put on now dissipating with each thump of your heartbeat, “Jongseong,” He smirks, knowing exactly what’s coming next, “Please, I need you,”  The plea escapes your lips before you can stop it.

A triumphant glint sparkles in his eyes as he hears your soft voice, “That wasn’t so hard, was it?” his middle finger returns to your canal but this time he’s adding his ring finger with it. Between the fucking he gave you last night and the arousal you’re feeling now, your entrance is already prepped from him, he’s just doing this for fun.

His digits set a rhythmic pace, he feels each inch of your walls as his mouth attaches to your clit once again, this time for a longer, more gruelling experience. He works the bud perfectly in his mouth, the perfect combination of lips and tongue.

The coil in your stomach starts to heat as his fingers hit a soft spot in your pussy repeatedly. He was unreal, like nothing you’ve ever experienced before. 

Sensing your impending climax, Jongseong intensifies his movements, seemingly coaxing your release. His mouth and hand work in unison, skillfully stimulating every nerve in your sensitive region. The pleasure builds, bringing you to the brink of ecstasy. However, just as you teeter on the edge, he abruptly stops.

Withdrawing himself from you, he watches as your body squirms, aching for the release he has denied. Confused, you open your teary eyes, searching for an explanation. "You didn't listen to me earlier," he says as if it's a sufficient justification for withholding the orgasm you were on the verge of releasing.

“Jjongie, please fuck me,” You moan out, grabbing him so his weight is on top of you. It’s a last-ditch attempt to gain back some power in this sexcapade.  

“You can’t stop begging for it now, huh?” If you weren’t so drunk for him, you would have bit back a comeback but he was right, you are so overcome with need you’re willing to do anything to get it. 

Teasing you, he runs his firm length up your slit and sits it on your sensitive clit, tapping it a few times, “Tell me you’re sorry for putting yourself in danger like that,” His voice is overcome with lust and some remnants of concern as he recalls the poker game.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” You practically cry out, holding his face, “I didn’t want you to get hurt,” The confession hangs in the air, shocking him for a moment. Your sincerity, combined with the desire, results in a raw and vulnerable moment. It’s not like Jongseong thought you didn’t care about him, but the depth of your actions in entering such a crazy environment for his sake leaves him momentarily breathless.

He captures your lips with his, moving fiercely as he tries to convey the thankfulness of your selfless actions, “You’re seriously so stupid, Y/N. You shouldn’t care about me that much,” The electricity around you both shifts from pure desire to tender intimacy. 

You rub his shoulders, “But I do, I don’t know why, but I do,” You say in a hushed tone, punctuating each sentence with a kiss. The words are an unexpected revelation, not even something you've consciously acknowledged to yourself. Yet, in the heat of the moment, they spill effortlessly from your lips. 

Jongseong’s gaze softens, and any anger still within him crumbles away. You cared about him and he cared about you.

When you both had sex last night, he was scared when you said ‘I hate that you can’t just admit you like me’. It was as if you could see right through him in that very moment, and no one had ever done that in all his years of living. He did like you, he respected you as a colleague and a person, and he never intended to start this hate war between you both, it just happened. You were two kids eager to be the top detective, it was only natural to find you a threat to his career goals.

You reach up and stroke his face, bringing his attention back to present you, “Jongseong, please,” You reach your hand down to stroke his red-tipped cock, “Fuck me.”

Not having to be told twice, he lines up at your entrance, easing himself into you, no longer finding the need to withhold any pleasure from you. A gasp escapes your throat, mingling with his low groan. The feeling of your walls hugging him again feels incredible, “You feel so right,” The admission could be taken in two ways but he doesn’t care, the sensation of you is making his head fuzzy. He could sing your praises the whole night if you let him.

This is a complete juxtaposition to yesterday, hell, even about 10 minutes ago. The way he starts to fuck into you is so much more delicate but still forceful, it’s the perfect mixture of lust and vulnerability. 

As he begins to pound into you with growing intensity, his eyes meet yours and each time he pulls back far enough to graze over your g-spot, he sees a flash of pleasure flicker over your iris’. He’s fucking you so good, you wonder if you’ll ever be able to go back to anyone else.

His arm reaches over, pulling one of the pillows from the top of the bed, he places it under your lower back, tilting your pelvis to help him effortlessly reach a new angle that has you moaning out his name, chanting it like a hymn, begging him not to stop.

Spitting on his hand, he begins to rub your clit in a harsh circle, something he learned you liked last night. He was sending you into overdrive, completely crumbling beneath him as you felt that heat in your belly once again. The difference is, this time when he feels you close to orgasm, he isn’t stopping.

“Jjongie, I’m cumming,” You warn him, spurring him on to get you off as blissfully as possible. It doesn’t take long before you’re body contracts, your walls clamping down on him. The way you’re trapping him into you brings him to the edge of his own release

His head falls back, exposing the long column of his neck, his veins standing out as he thrusts into you with more fervour, hitting you deeper. The force of his movements causes the bed to creak loudly under you. You’re just lucky the headboard was mounted on the wall or else he would have created dents.

You lean up to kiss his neck, licking up his protruding vein causing him to let out a low purr. It all becomes too much for him and he releases inside of you, his hips jutting erratically due to the intensity of his climax. Ropes of his cum shoot inside of you and it seems never-ending, the grip he has on your hips will certainly leave half-moon indentations in your skin.

Panting heavily, he collapses onto you, your breaths and heartbeats the only music dancing around the room. The weight of him feels perfect on you like you can support him easily. You nuzzle your face into his neck as your arms reach to hug him, one hand stroking his back softly to calm him down from his high.

Both of your hearts sync up, the once rapid beating now slowing down as you catch your breaths. The quiet aftermath and weight of unspoken words hang between you, both knowing that the complexities of this relationship just escalated.

He plants scattered kisses along your collarbone before getting up. You still have a little niggle in your brain which tells you this will be a repeat of last night.

But as quickly as Jongseong retreats from the room, he’s back with a face cloth, drenched in warm water. He’s trying to make it up to you, the guilt he felt when he left you to look after yourself when he knew that was his job was unspeakable. The man spent all night cursing himself for treating you that way.

“I’m sorry I was such a prick, especially with all this stuff,” He wipes your pussy gently, collecting the mix of your fluids as he apologises, “It was really shitty. I promise I’m not usually that much of a dick.” 

He never meets your gaze as he speaks, yet, you feel the sincerity of his words. Grabbing his working hand you gain his attention and smile softly at him, “You’ll just need to keep making it up to me.” At your words, he gulps and his stomach summersaults, the prospect of more times like this is something he could only dream of. 

“I don’t know where we go from here,” Jongseong admits, his voice vulnerable. The truth of his words settles, the experience you just shared unravelled something profound, something you both didn’t know how to navigate.

Nodding slowly to echo his concerns, “I don’t either,” The response is truthful. You had no fucking clue what this meant for both of you, all you know is that your dynamic has shifted, “We can work it out together though, right?” You offer in optimism. 

Jongseong shoots his eyes to yours, a mix of uncertainty and yearning sitting in his gaze.

Suddenly, Jongseong’s burner phone dings a few times. You urge him to grab it because if it’s his undercover phone, that means it can only be one person. Reaching over to grab his trousers, he pulls the phone out and reads the messages, eyes widening and his smile follows.

He faces it to you, allowing you to read it.

Kim Kwangmin:

8.12pm: 

You can hold your own kid, you’re not as stupid as you look.

I’m impressed.

I’ve got a business proposition for you. Tomorrow. 8am at the lounge.

You look at each other in sear shock, not quite believing after everything that transpired that the Kim Kwangmin was ready to offer Jongseong a way into his drug smuggling, a way to get him put behind bars.

“You fucking did it,” You whisper astounded.

“We did it,” He states, bringing your chin up to look at him, placing a kiss on your lips, sealing your mission case closed.

[shinynewmemories]

The exchange between Peeta and Gale in Tigris's basement used to be my least favorite scene in the entire book. I hated how it made Katniss out to be a heartless drone whose only motivation is survival. But I've been thinking about it a lot lately, and I'm now convinced I grossly misinterpreted the purpose of the passage the first times I read it. I don't think it's about Gale revealing some sage wisdom about Katniss; I think it's a revelation about how far gone Katniss and Gale's relationship truly is, and how little he understands the way she loves. AND it's about how much better Peeta understands Katniss, even in his half-hijacked state. Let me break it apart a tad to explain what I mean:

“She loves you, you know,” says Peeta. “She as good as told me after they whipped you.”

Peeta is correct on both counts. Katniss DOES love Gale, and in CF, she internally refers back to the whipping as the moment she "chose" Gale over Peeta. Peeta knew it then, and he knows it now.

“Don’t believe it,” Gale answers. “The way she kissed you in the Quarter Quell... well, she never kissed me like that.”

Correct, but it's interesting that Gale refers to THAT moment on the beach as proof that Katniss loves Peeta. Because on one hand, that WAS the first time she felt and displayed sexual desire for anyone. But on the other hand, I would argue that there was lots more evidence for Katniss's love for Peeta; "anyone paying attention" could see it. So why does Gale point to the one time things got hot and heavy between them?

“It was just part of the show,” Peeta tells him, although there’s an edge of doubt in his voice.

Incorrect, but I'll give him half credit for the "edge of doubt" in his voice.

“No, you won her over. Gave up everything for her. Maybe that’s the only way to convince her you love her.” 

Here's where Gale starts talking kinda crazy. Since when has the issue been convincing KATNISS that HE (or Peeta) loved HER? Since the end of book 1, there has never been the slightest doubt in Katniss's mind that Peeta loved her. And she's never doubted Gale's love, although she admits it caught her off guard. Does Gale actually think that if Katniss could just SEE how much he loves her, she'd have no choice but to marry him? Or does he think Katniss is holding back because he hasn't "given up everything" for her? Either way, he paints Katniss as a fundamentally untrusting and self-centered person.

Also, he implies that Katniss needs to be "won over", that she needs to be PERSUADED to love either of them... Yikes. It's like he actually believes Katniss doesn't have the emotional capabilities of falling in love all on her own.

There’s a long pause. “I should have volunteered to take your place in the first Games. Protected her then.”

Incorrect! Over to Peeta for an explanation of why that would have been a Colossally Stupid idea:

“You couldn’t,” says Peeta. “She’d never have forgiven you. You had to take care of her family. They matter more to her than her life.”

DING DING DING DING! I just picture Peeta making a ????????no??? face as Gale says he should have volunteered for him. Like?? Can you IMAGINE? Book 1 Katniss would have been screaming at Gale like "you absolute IDIOT. WHY would you throw your life and the lives of your and/or my family away. And for WHAT? MORON."

But I get it. Gale is saying this out of desperation. Because he can't say "I wish you had died in those games" (although perhaps that is how he's felt once or twice). And to be fair, if Peeta had never been in those games with Katniss, things between them now would be very... different. (shhhhh Gale doesn't have to know about the whole "this would've happened anyway" thing)

“Well, it won’t be an issue much longer. I think it’s unlikely all three of us will be alive at the end of the war. And if we are, I guess it’s Katniss’s problem. Who to choose.” Gale yawns. “We should get some sleep.”

Correct, nothing to object to here.

“Yeah.” I hear Peeta’s handcuffs slide down the support as he settles in. “I wonder how she’ll make up her mind.”

Even though Peeta is more in sync with Katniss, he doesn't presume to know how her romantic side works. Gotta respect that.

“Oh, that I do know.” I can just catch Gale’s last words through the layer of fur. “Katniss will pick whoever she thinks she can’t survive without.”

So I ask: if Gale is shown throughout this exchange to be mostly wrong about Katniss's motivations, desires, and possibly her whole personality, why would we believe he's correct about this?? I think the only conclusion is that he's NOT.

I'll end by adding Katniss's opinion about Gale's assertion:

It’s a horrible thing for Gale to say, for Peeta not to refute. Especially when every emotion I have has been taken and exploited by the Capitol or the rebels.

Katniss is DEEPLY hurt by what Gale said. And I no longer believe it's because it's the truth about HER. I think it's because it's the truth about how Gale sees her, and he sees her in a very hurtful (albeit incorrect) way.

[theemporium]

oscar w a feral!gf who fully believes that she could fight a kangaroo. idk, it's kind of a shit prompt but just a lil something

-🌠

don't know what the fuck this became but enjoy! thank you for requesting!🫶🏽

.

“You sure you’ve got her?”

“ I'll be fine.” 

“You sure?”

“Yeah, I’ve got—wait, baby, no—” 

You burst into a fit of giggles as you felt Oscar’s arms wind around your waist, pulling you back into his chest before you could get far. You leaned back into his embrace, tilting your head back until you were practically looking up at him upside down—a sight that only made you giggle even more.

Your friend raised her brows, looking at Oscar with a doubtful look. “Are you absolutely sure?” 

He gave her a tight-lipped smile as he held you up, but something in his chest eased a little at how concerned your friend was. It was reassuring, in some odd way. It was nice to know you had a good support group when he was half-way across the globe, wishing he was beside you. 

“I can handle her,” he said, almost sounding amused when you let out a scoff. 

“I don’t need help! I am so fine on my own,” you commented, attempting to step away from him to prove a point but the stumble in your legs had him clinging onto you. “I could, like, totally fight a kangaroo right now.”

Oscar pressed his lips together to bite back his smile. “A kangaroo?” 

“Yeah,” you nodded confidently before gasping, looking at your boyfriend with wide eyes. “Oh my god, you’re basically a kangaroo.” 

“Jesus, you drank a lot,” Oscar murmured as he waved your friend goodbye, watching her head back inside to the bar he had just driven to to pick you up before he began guiding you towards his car.

“I could fight you!” You said, sounding far too happy about the prospect of it. “I have a mean right hooker!”

“Hook,” he corrected with a fond smile. “Do you even know what that means?”

“Of course not,” you said before bursting into another fit of giggles, practically sinking back into his embrace and giving him your full body weight. 

To his credit, Oscar hardly even faltered. Instead, his arms remained locked around you as he practically carried you towards the passenger seat of his car. He continued to let you ramble away, knowing that at some point you would tire yourself out and the sleepier side of your drunk self would come out. 

“Do I annoy you?” 

Oscar’s head snapped around to you so quickly, it was almost comical. Luckily, the car had been parked at a red light, but that didn’t stop the uncomfortable twist in his stomach when the question passed your lips.

“What?” He frowned as he watched you lazily blink at him, almost as though you were waiting for him to say yes. “Baby, I—” He paused, shaking his head. “No, of course not.”

“Okay,” you said, giving him a small smile. “I don’t think you’re annoying either.”

But the light-hearted teasing didn’t shift his attention away from the heavy question. “Why would you ever think you annoyed me?”

“I don’t know,” you shrugged, unable to fight the yawn leaving your lips as you leaned further back in your seat once the lights went green and Oscar began driving again. “Just heard some people mentioning something.”

Oscar frowned. “Who?” 

But you just shrugged again.

And maybe somewhere in your drunk and fuzzy brain, you knew not only would it be embarrassing to say out loud, but also that Oscar would be upset by it. He didn’t get angry, not when it came to himself. He was fairly laid-back, he let things mostly wash over him before moving on with his life. 

But when it came to the people he loved? When it came to you? It was a whole different story.

You knew that it would upset him that somebody upset you, that their words affected you enough to play on your insecurities and doubts. It would upset him to hear someone bashing you in such a cowardly way, mocking the way you acted and how loud your personality was. It would upset him to hear the way they thought you were too much for him, not good enough for him. 

People like you weren’t right for people like Oscar. 

“Baby,” he said in a soft voice after you had fallen quiet. He watched as you blinked, glancing around and seeming to realise you were now parked outside his place. “Look at me.” 

You turned your head, your eyes meeting his and something eased in your chest. 

He reached towards you, his hand engulfing your cheek as you leaned into his touch. He watched you for a moment before leaning over the console, pressing a soft and chaste kiss on your lips before he spoke. “I don’t know what happened but you could never annoy me.”

You blinked, your hand reaching out to hold his wrist like you were scared he would pull away. “Promise?” 

“Promise,” he said with a nod before smiling at you, that full lip smile that made your heart stutter a little. “C’mon now, need to get my pretty girl ready for bed.”

You snorted, rolling your eyes even if the idea of your boyfriend doting over you warmed your heart. “M’tired,” you grumbled as you watched Oscar reach for the door. “Let’s just go to bed.”

“Nuh uh, gotta take your makeup off, baby,” he said with a shake of his head, smiling a little when you let out a whine. “I promise I’ll do all the work.”

Your smile brightened. “Have I mentioned that I love you?” 

“Yeah, once or twice,” he grinned back at you. “I love you too.”

“Of course you do.” 

Oscar sighed. “Had to ruin the moment, didn’t you?”

“Just pointing out the facts, my kangaroo boy.”

His nose scrunched up. “Please do not let that become a thing.”

You could only laugh in response.

.

[pasta-in-the-pudding]

Thank youuu, maayybbee a comforting headcanons about your choice of Creepypasta with a reader who is like uh like really really tired in all sort of ways that they won’t cooperate in anything, mind being so nice to give them a whole slideshow of their messed up childhood and

Y’know just a really fucked out reader

Sorry if it’s y’know too much or anything, you can do it whenever you want!

-🐰

I love writing comfort scenarios <33

Credits to divider goes to saradika-graphics! Go follow them and support their works

Thank you so much for requesting!!

Ticci Toby

He understands that sometimes, everything is too much and your brain just kind of shuts down

But he is also a very anxious person

So when he sees you laying in bed, the exact same position you were in when he left in the morning, he gets a little concerned

Have you moved at all? Have you eaten? Drank anything? Taken a shower?

But he respects your privacy and doesn't ask you about it, assuming maybe you just wanted a lazy day to yourself

So he brings his dinner up to you that night, sharing just in case this is in fact the first you've eaten all day

And when you continue this behavior the next day, he begins to panic

The other creeps know something's up too, or at least, E.J does, because once Toby gets home E.J approaches him about it

"Hey, I asked y/n to clean the equipment they used in the gym last time and they just said no. They also seemed pretty lethargic, barely moving or breathing at all. Nothing to worry about right now, but it is concerning."

And with that, he walks off, seemingly not even wanting an answer, just wanting to give Toby a heads up

So once again, Toby goes to your room once again, seeing that you still haven't moved

"You haven't moved." He says

"Mhm" you respond absently, scrolling on your phone

"Have you eaten today?" He asks, beginning to get nervous

"Mhm" you respond once more, though it's not a real response it's just one to make him happy

"Um. EJ said you didn't want to clean the gym equipment you used?" He fidgets with his fingers now, picking at the dry skin

"Mhm" Is the only thing you say, and the only thing you're going to say he realizes

So he comes to sit on the bed next to you, moving some of your hair out of your face (if you have any, if you don't he rubs your back) "Are you ok? You can talk to me, you know? I love you"

This seems to trigger something in you, because instantly a flood of tears happens

This startles him, but he continues to comfort you nonetheless

He pulls you up and drapes your arms over his shoulders, while his go around your body, rubbing your back and head

He doesn't talk because he doesn't want to overwhelm you, so he silently rubs you and kisses you until your sobs turn into sniffles

"Let me take care of you tomorrow?" He asks, pulling away to look into your eyes

You pull him back into the hug and nod "please"

Jeff The Killer

Jeff doesn't really know how to deal with his own emotions, let alone someone else's

So when he sees you in a funk, he decides to just leave you alone and let you deal with it yourself, because he doesn't trust himself enough to actually help instead of hurt

But this of course, it seen as him leaving you in your time of need from your perspective

So this only makes matters worse, causing you to snap at others for small things, like when Toby accidentally bumps into you while you are on the way to get another snack

He of course, apologizes profusely, but it just isn't your day so you yell at him and tell him to be more careful next time

When Jeff gets home, Toby is talking about the incident with another creep

Not in a malicious way, but in a concerned way

This peaks Jeff's interest "What are you saying about my partner over there??"

"I'm just worried is all. They totally blew up after I accidentally bumped into them" Toby says, putting his hands up defensively

Jeff scoffs and rolls his eyes, already tired of the mood you're in

So he goes up to your room and walks in angrily saying "Why are you being such a dick? What'd Toby ever do to you?"

You don't feel like arguing, so you snuggle further into your bed

He laughs at this "Seriously? You're gonna ignore me? Listen dude, I don't know who you think you are but I really don't like this fucking color on you. Fix your attitude before I fix it for you" And with that he slams your door

Next day, you bump into each other in one of the hallways, and he tries to talk to you obviously seeing you still upset, but you push past him

Or at least try to

He quickly catches you and pins you against a wall "Just listen to me, won't you?!" he yells

This is all too much for you, so you begin to cry, bowing your head so maybe he won't see it

He softens at this, loosening his grip and looking at you confusedly "Why....why are you crying?"

"Why are you being so mean to me??" You ask as you sob

He sighs and brings you into a tight hug "Ok.....Ok tell me how long you've been upset"

"A long time!" You say truthfully "It's not even about Toby!"

"Why didn't you say anything??" He asks, cradling your head against his shoulder

You grip onto his chest and try to catch your breath before talking "Because you left and I thought you didn't want to see me!" You whine in a fast, high pitched voice

Despite this, he seems to catch every word "No, baby, baby....I always wanna see you I just didn't wanna hurt you...." He whispers into your head

"But you did!" You say into his shoulder

"I know....I'm sorry" He rubs your back a bit before kissing your head

"....really?" you sniffle

"Yeah" He pulls away and lifts your head to kiss your forehead, before pulling you back into the hug

You are quiet for a while, standing in the hallway and holding each other before you finally break the silence "it did feel good to cry"

He snorts and pulls away "Well I'm glad you liked it, because now I have snot and spit all over my hoodie"

You smile and kiss his nose "You love it"

Ben Drowned

Barely moving himself, he probably won't notice for a little bit

But when he does, he just assumes you're in a lazy mood, So he tries to snuggle up with you in bed

You flip over, avoiding his touch which makes him raise an eyebrow "Hey, you ok? It's cool if you just wanna be alone but this isn't like you"

"I'm fine" you say quickly

"....oookay.....do you want me to leave you alone?" He asks, his face changing from confused to concerned

You don't answer for a long while, but when you finally do you say "no"

"ok" he says simply, staying to his own side of the bed while he plays video games

Eventually, you begin to cry softly, and you flip back over to snuggle into his chest, wrapping your arms and legs around him like a koala

He looks at you for a moment before putting the game aside for a second and petting your head "I thought you said you were ok?"

You shake your head and cling harder

"Alright, c'mere" he says, pulling you up into his lap and putting your head in the crook of his neck

You try to hide your face away in his shoulder, but he grabs your chin before you get the chance "Hold still, I wanna kiss you" he says

With this, he kisses anywhere he can reach, eventually letting you drop your head back onto his shoulder while he grabs onto your arm and kisses from your shoulder all the way down to the tips of your fingers

Once he is done, he looks down at you, seeing that you are now only sniffling he uses a knuckle to wipe away any remaining tears "now are you ok?"

You nod and wrap your arms around his neck, kissing his cheek "Good. I like seeing you happy"

He then pecks your lips and hands you another controller, so that you can play the previously discarded game together

[imaginingbleach]

Forever your protector,

Word Count: 1,176

Requested: No, personally wanted to write angsty fluff using the phrases: My first instinct is to protect you, no matter the cost. && I never realized how much I needed you until you weren't there.

Summary; You distance yourself from Ichigo in hopes your absence will go unnoticed when you're taken to Hueco Mundo... Ichigo's more perceptive than anyone gives him credit for and rescues both you and Orihime.

CW: implied that reader has been stalked by Aizen; kidnapped to Hueco Mundo; tiny confrontation with Uryu; Ichigo worrying; Ichigo is hurt but what else is new

Tears streamed down your face as you ran over to him, the man who had come to your rescue despite everything...

You had known that Sosuke Aizen had planned to kidnap you at some point... It was not a matter of if but when.

You had accepted that fact long before it happened...

You had accepted that when you went to help Ichigo rescue Rukia that he would see you... And you already knew whatever he was planning was not good. As soon as he showed his true colors to everyone... you knew it was only a matter of time before he was going to come and find you.

When you returned to the World of the Living, you had said goodbye to Ichigo and his friends, and had made a silent vow to yourself. You didn't want to drag them into anything, so you would begin to distance yourself from the others.

You saw them less and less, you basically dropped off the face of the Earth... However, unlike Rukia, though, you didn't just suddenly disappear from their memories.

It came as no surprise to you when strange hollow like men came to take you. This was the first time you had met any arrancars, and likely the first time they had come over to the World of the Living. You had accepted that this was going to happen and that there was nothing you could do to fight against it.

Fate had a funny way of reminding you of what you had left behind... Orihime at some point had been brought to Hueco Mundo and that was when you knew Ichigo would come to save her.

How would you be able to explain to him just why you were here? What would he say?

... Would he give you that famous scowl and tell you how stupid you had been for running off on your own?

The thought made you giggle to yourself, but it made your heart ache...

────────────────────────────────────

"The hell do you mean you haven't seen them since we got back?!" Ichigo growled as he gripped onto Uryū's shirt, leering down at him.

"I said they haven't been in class or clubs since we got back from the Soul Society. I don't have their number, so I can't contact them... I would think you would've heard from them, Ichigo."

"I..." His grip loosened as he began to think over the days since their return. He remembered saying goodbye to you... He remembered saying he would see you later... And... Then, what? His thoughts were racing through every face he had seen since then and none of them were yours. Not a single one.

"I gotta go," he spat out, letting go of the other's shirt and running off. He had to see you. How did he manage to let the days go past without noticing?! His jaw clenched, hands balling into fists and speeding up into a sprint towards your home. You were okay... You had to be okay.

The thoughts of you being hurt or dead made his chest ache and only made him go faster. Once he arrived, he quickly searched for the spare key you had. In his haste, he nearly dropped it before managing to get it into the key hole and slam open the door. He called out your name, looking everywhere within your home.

He was just overreacting, right? You would be in your room, curled up with your computer or a book and peek your head up at him... Looking confused why he sounded so frantic... Right? You had to. His hand shook as he reached for the doorknob of your bedroom, twisting it and pushing the door open.

But you weren't there.

His lower lip trembled as he looked around your room. The bed was made and honestly it looked like no one had been in there for... Well, it definitely looked like you hadn't been home much since your return. He gritted his teeth and slammed the side of his fist into the door frame.

"Damnit!"

Unfortunately, he didn't have time to even begin thinking about where you could be or what could have happened to you... The arrancars soon came down and he was thoroughly defeated. Then they came back and took Orihime with them.

As he was preparing to head to Hueco Mundo to rescue Orihime, something hit him. He remembered his conversation with Grimmjow during their last interaction.

"Hah! You're so dense, Kurosaki! All these people and none of you even noticed we've already taken one of your pals!"

His eyes grew wide at the realization, feeling like he was hit with a train.

"He wasn't talking about Orihime! Son of a-"

────────────────────────────────────

"You're such an idiot, Ichigo! You didn't have to do that," you sobbed out as you fell into the sands before him. He had gotten badly hurt during his fights... And naturally you blamed yourself.

"Heh, but I did... My first instinct is to protect you, no matter the cost." He explained, smiling up at you as Orihime began to heal him.

"That's stupid and you know it!" You whined out in protest, feeling a bit better now that he was starting to get healed. "I'm not-"

"Hey, none of that. You are such an important person in my life," he spoke softly and reached up to wipe your tears away. "I never realized how much I needed you until you weren't there..."

"D... Don't say weird stuff like that!" You huffed, cheeks growing warm with embarrassment. Despite that, you never tried to move his hand from your cheek.

"I mean it... It took me way too long, but, I love you."

"Y-... You're just dizzy from blood loss! Stop saying weird things when you're so hurt!" You could feel the steam coming out of your ears, heart racing and trying to turn situation to have less of a focus on yourself.

"Hey! I am not! I've been thinking about this since the day I realized you were gone! It's taken me way too long to realize it, but you know me... I'm not always the best with these sorts of things. I'm just happy I can see you again and tell you how I feel."

Before you had a chance to say anything, he had gently pulled you forward until your lips met with his. It was gentle and sweet and left you absolutely breathless. When he pulled back, forehead resting against yours and his hand still cupping your cheek, you felt a soft sigh leave your lips.

"You're so stupid... and reckless... and I love you too, Ichigo."

"Great, wanna go on a date after we defeat Aizen?"

He stared at you with a confused look for a moment, watching as you just began to laugh at his silliness. His expression soon changed to a soft smile, knowing just how ridiculous he was being. It was the first time in a while he had gotten to see your smile... so he didn't mind you laughing at him.

[astradyke]

okay yeah let's get freaky with it (not an acceptable way to start a post whatsoever) i cannot stop THINKING about this fucking We're All Doomed cap. like just in the last TWO days...

[ID: photo one is of Phil Lester in the hospital, wearing the We're All Doomed cap. photo two is of Phil Lester in a pool, in which the We're All Doomed hat is laying on the edge of the pool. end ID.]

and then not to mention all the latest videos...

[id: photo of Phil wearing the We're All Doomed hat]

(there are definitely more but i'm multitasking so i can't sleuth out the videos rn)

like, when i am trying to describe Dan and Phil as a phenomena to my friends i always mention the fact that Phil is like THE consistent hype person for Dan (vise-versa but focusing on Phil here). "Dan is leaving me" is obviously an insane video about their relationship but also spends a substantial time promoting We're All Doomed; "I TRY TO GIVE DAN A HAIRCUT!!" is basically just YWGTTN promo. What Dan and Phil Text Each Other 2 (iirc) Phil encourages Dan to talk vaguely about upcoming stuff, etc. like Phil is ALWAYS so crazy supportive of what Dan does

from the mukbang "I wanted you to be happy [...] you did loads of shit on your own" (quoting from memory)

but something about the We're All Doomed hat feels DIFFERENT to me fundamentally because it's just... such a casual thing? they're no stranger to using their old merch, or wearing merch in videos after its release, but Phil literally cannot be separated from this hat as a guy who never seemed to be that crazy about hats to begin with. but it's just such a casual presence in his life, like a must-have object, it goes with him everywhere from Türkiye to the A&E, just this constant support for Dan's solo work.

when Dan says in Basically I'm Gay: "And for someone who has dealt with the same kind of self hatred I have, one person accepting you makes all the difference." (quoting from memory again),

it's like. there is such a love confession in the sheer act of seeing someone's creative work, something they poured their life and soul and savings into, and holding THAT in your palms -- and loving it. Phil was part of the WAD pre and post show, Phil was listed in the credits, even in Why I Left YouTube Phil's presence is there in the fact that he was patient as Dan tried to pursue Dan Is Not Okay, even at the potential risk of them postponing moving. don't even talk to me about how Phil was involved in Dystopia Daily, not only as a guest but also working on the set too.

holding something that has as much meaning as We're All Doomed does to its creator and not only loving it in the moment, not only relentlessly promoting it, not only being part of the premiere, but also continuously wearing its merch -- it's such an embrace from Phil of not only Dan as a person, but who Dan is creatively, and the ways he expresses himself.

and considering all the thematics of We're All Doomed, the hope and the new era and the self acceptance... yeah. fucking YEAH.

we talk a lot about different kinds of love and all the different ways they love each other, and i think this has always been the loudest and what i've personally been most affected by. the way that Phil Lester became a safe and accepting place for Dan Howell back when he was eighteen, and how he never fucking stopped being that place for him since.

[flowersandbigteeth]

Which monsters of yours would freely give their credit card to their darlings, no questions asked vs. the monsters that’d ask for a “favor” of some type in return?

And then which monsters would just say “no” to me, and leave me crying cause I wanted a new Sanrio plushie?

This is such a cute question, I love it! Answers below:

First, in the hypothetical situation where he appears magically in our world, Golmad is going to tell you "no" to Sanrio plushies. Not because he is worried about money, but because badass Orc Queens don't carry around adorable plushies, they carry weapons. He'd suggest a nice mace or a whip in the color pink. However, after he sees your pouty eyes, that plush is going to mysteriously appear in your bedroom with a mini axe strapped to its back.

After your "adjustment" period is over, Roth is issuing you your own card and sending you on elaborate shopping trips with the club girls. The caveat is you have to give him a personal fashion show when you get back to show off the clothes you bought.

Leander is pretty sure spending money is your primary job and has contacted the bank to let them know you are authorized to withdraw however much you like. Every shop owner in town adores when you come in because they know you are dropping serious cash.

Serge will demand favors in a big way. He'll make you call him pet names and give him smooches in return for whatever you like. He will also trade treats for self-care. Brushing your teeth or showering yourself will result in cash prizes! Money isn't an issue, but he's not giving you the credit card because it's so much more fun to extract concessions for his whims.

Idreod has no problem with issuing you your own card, but you're in charge of the budget anyway, so you already know the balances and whatnot. His only stipulation is that whatever you buy better be high end. His wife has to look a certain way so people know she's above them.

With Vylkas the situation is switched. It's you giving him your credit card. Of course, you have to give him a card with a limit because he has no common sense and will spend all his money on cigarettes and decorations for his murder pond.

Hugo will bicker with you about spending money on frivolous things, but always gives in eventually. He'll pout when you buy designer clothes or plushies, but quietly build you a new shelf to store them or expand your closet to fit the new clothes. He'll tell you it's so he can add photos of whatever he built to his portfolio to draw new customers and earn back all the money you're spending, but you notice he is very careful with your new stuff (picking up and arranging your plushies if you leave them out or hanging up your dresses if you toss them on the floor) and asks you to wear things he likes for him or asks if you want him to grab your plushie while you're watching movies.

Rafe is the worst. He's happy to buy you what you like, but he demands lots of naughty favors in return. Extortion is his favorite bedroom game.

Chase also likes to be in control of the money, but he's more playful when he shakes you down. He likes to come shopping with you so he can demand kisses for him to swipe his card. He likes showing off to people that you're his and especially likes to make the other shoppers jealous, spending lots of money on you. He's a bit of a terror in the store. If a shop worker appears to be flirting with you, he'll make their life extra hard, demanding they run around getting all sorts of things you have no intention of buying. He's also very picky about the things you buy. He wants you to look like a cute little housewife, so very few pants unless they are leggings that show off your figure. He's perfectly happy to buy you plushies or other cute stuff, but practical things are a no-no. Why do you need a drill? He will do all of that hard stuff so his pretty little wife doesn't break a nail.

Lethia loves shopping and terrorizing you with naughty games. She'll demand you try on all sorts of revealing lingerie and racy outfits just to watch you squirm and blush in them. She doesn't see any reason for you to have "normal" clothes, but other than that, she'll buy you whatever else you want for a kiss. Her little pet has to look fabulous at her side so she'll take you to get your nails done with the most elaborate sets, hair dyed in mermaid or candy colors, and whatever other pampering you didn't know you needed. If she finds out you like plushies, you'll be buried in them. She'll have alerts on her phone for the latest drops, so you get the newest ones.

Once Nasos gets used to you not being a sleeve, shopping with you is his second favorite activity to the naughty stuff. He'd be excited to take you to all sorts of alien markets, just to see your eyes light up with all of the products you never knew existed. He's always been a simple guy, so he doesn't need much for himself. For you though, he spares no expense. Since you two are often on long trips into deep space, he wants to make sure you are plenty occupied and not bored. You wouldn't get your own credit card, but all you have to do is look at something with your big sparkly eyes and he's ringing it up.

Kostas is far more practical than his cousin. You are allowed treats, but only for good behavior. He's carefully helping you learn how to control your temper with a reward sticker system. When you deal with an emotion appropriately, you get stickers that can be cashed out for a treat at the end of the week when the two of you go to town for supplies. He's very specific about the stickers he gets, too, so you enjoy collecting them because they are super cute, not just for the big prize.

<3 <3 <3

[canyouiimagine]

NONSENSE | LH4 x Black! Reader

PART 2

Materlist

✧ Paring: Lando Norris x Streamer black!reader

✧ Warning: none.

✧ Summary: In which reader is head over heels for a "fruity" man that wears orange.

✧ Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. I do not own nor know these people personally. I also do not claim this to be an accurate depiction of their character. 🥰

✧ A/N: I hope it was worth the wait 😭.

ZANDVOORT |

twitter |

-

-

twitter |

SINGAPOUR |

landonorris

liked by maxverstappen1, danielricciardo, carlossainz55 and 1, 923,461 others

landonorris P2 GUYS! 🍾 Thank you to the team for this great effort, thank you to Carlos for backing me up and thank you to My Lucky Charm 🧡

carlossainz55 Vamos! 😆

danielricciardo Congratulations! Who knew you could actually get girls?! liked by maxverstappen1

landonorris very funny.

lilymhe You can finally get over him and be with me now 🥹 @ y_username

y_username You were right baby, I deserve so much better :( lilymhe She got a fat ass though :( y_username She do :( Didn't even stand a chance! :'( alex_albon 😭 @ landonorris fix this! hater1 are you not embarrassed?

f1wags @ y_username You'll always be our favourite, dw 💕 liked by y_username and maxfewtrell

hater2 why is everybody up her ass? hater1 right?! she's not even pretty! hater3 For real! 😷 ybfusername Don't make me 'this you' y'all. 🤨

landoxyn4evr @ y_username :(

y_username Y'all won't let me repent in peace :( fan1 Baby you ain't slick, we know it's you 🙄 y_username I don't know what you're talking about 🤷🏾‍♀️ hater4 Y'all can finally leave Lando alone.

JAPAN |

y_username

liked by yungfilly, ybfusername, mclaren and 1, 226,107 others

y_username Congratulations to my fruity baby who knows more than me because its his job 🥹🧡 @ mclaren Keep up the good work! 😀

mclaren This felt like a threat 😀

y_username It was 😀 mclaren Duly noted 😳 fan1 Y/N! 😭 y_username What??

lilymhe :(

y_username :( alex_albon :) lilymhe @ alex_albon Leave.

carlossainz55 So happy for you guys! 🍾

y_username Don't talk to me. carlossainz55 😭 What did I do?

maxfewtrell You force us to take pictures of you guys but give no credit? Cold 😔

ybfusername RIGHT!? landonorris It's not like you guys at anything better to do... maxfewtrell @ landonorris 😶 maxfewtrell @ y_username has a bad influence on you 💀 ybfusername If the dig wasn't directed towards me, I would be proud 🥲

yungfilly My brother! 💪🏽 liked by landonorris and y_username

danielricciardo Finally! I was 100% rooting for you!

y_username YOU'RE SUCH A LIAR! danielricciardo Well that's what you get for trying to still my girlfriend! y_username It's not my fault that I'm hot while you're built like a bowling pin 💅🏾 danielricciardo I hate you.

sabrinacarpenter I WAS SO INVESTED IN THIS, I'M SO HAPPY!!! 👯‍♀️

landonorris I was the one who posted the song lyrics, why are you commenting under her post only?? :( y_username @ landonorris You want her to give you attention? 🤨 landonorris 😶 never mind

Part 1

Hope you enjoyed it 🥹🫶🏾

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[furicookiebndz]

Lucifer x !FemReader : My old friend

Hello everyone, it is my first time writing this, i hope it will be good enough, have fun! This fan art isn't mine. Full credits to the amazingly talented artist/creator.

It has been thousands of years since evil began.

Lucifer, whose pride blinded him, attempted to dethrone the creator, only to ultimately fail and be banished from Paradise.

Lilith, who refused to submit to Adam, in turn fled from this magical place, but which hides many facades.

Yet few people know that with them, a third person flew out of Paradise. And even rarer are people who know the cause, 3 to be precise.

However, behind this unusual act lie very dark secrets, seen as…

-Can you stop, Vag'? You're giving me a headache.

The young woman turned her head towards the source of this execrable voice, a spider who was visibly lying carefree on the sofa, arms behind her head, a bored expression on her face.

Refraining from answering him, she continued:

Tragic, some thought it was another rebellious woman, others a fallen angel because of a serious crime, but that wasn't logical, what's worse than to confront the creator?"

-That doesn't help all of us, the young woman noted, running her hand through her hair, frustrated.

-It would be beneficial to have her on our side, especially if she has such a significant influence on the world of the living and beyond, Charlie concluded thoughtfully.

-But she hid from the world, living as a hermit. Many think it's a myth, but given what's been happening lately, I believe it's much more present than sinners think.

Vaggie rubbed her temples, trying to come up with an idea.

-Who the hell are you talking about? I hate it when you pretend to be Sherlock and leave me like the old cookie in the back of the cupboard.

-Are you interested in what we do? retorted Vaggie sarcastically

-No, more about why you were busting my balls, joked Angel.

-You don't even have one, asshole, mumbled quietly Husk, taking a sip of his cheap booze.

-Want to check~? It is free for you kitty cat.

-Not even for a thousand balls, growled quietly Husk, who was beginning to lose his patient.

-Ouuh finally a price there is progress, Daddy, the spider sent him a kiss

Alastor, who was reading a book by the fireplace, decided to speak

-Charlie, Darling, you seem concerned about this person Let me see…

He seemed surprised for a moment, before smiling more, if possible.

-My my, what a terrible coincidence. The person you are looking for is one of the most sought after. Didn't Lucifer tell you about Lady (Y/N)?

-Um… We're not exactly talking about all that-

“Daddy issues,” Husk muttered.

Alastor continued:

-As reported in this document, she flew away shortly after your parents. She was a person living in Heaven, she was not human, but not an angel entirely though, she had two pairs of wings, although she is the appearance of a mortal, yet she had her own power, not to be underestimated. She embodied humor, justice and determination. In short, all these things that are way too boring-

-Cut it short, Alastor, Vaggie said, snapping her fingers.

-But when Lucifer challenged God, she did not follow him, not because she had to beat him, but because he knew just as well as she did that what he was doing was wrong. For the first time in her life she felt an immense disappointment in the love he had once inspired in her, and the semblance of a relationship that was perhaps tending to end disappeared with the appearance of the first demon, your father, Charlie.

However, you are aware that shortly after the creation of Lilith, she quickly became friends with your mother, and when she flew away from Paradise, and she learned the cause, she entered in a black anger, so black that Gabriel had difficulty in containing it, Until then, she had always been obedient, never contesting the decisions, which were of infallible Justice, but this departure had torn away part of her herself. She confronted the lord, she tried to rally the others to her cause, but nothing changed. Disappointed, she left that place, and no one ever saw her again.

There was a heavy silence for a moment, before Angel said:

-So…Is she still a virgin?

Vaggie rolled her eyes before Charlie had an idea:

I'm sure she's not that far away. Maybe I should ask my father to contact her again. She must care about him, at least I hope so, and if I convince her, Gabriel won't be able to object!

Vaggie refrained from adding a comment, she knew it was too good to be able to do it, but in front of her girlfriend's adorable face, she couldn't refuse anything.

______________________________________________________________

-No, Lucifer said firmly, before Charlie could even finish his idea.

-But dad-

-End of discussion, I don't want to hear anything, he turned around and mechanically squeezed the rubber duck in his hand, like an anti-stress ball.

Lucifer seemed elsewhere, deep in thought. His friend, his old friend…

.

.

.

“Luciferrrrr!” A burst of joy appeared as she walked towards him, a smile on her lips, a book in her hands.

Lucifer as usual had a lyre in his hands. He looked up at Y/N and smiled.

One discussion led to another, he shared his ideas about the mortal world, while she agreed with some and shared her opinion on others. They would sometimes just stay silent, or she would read aloud from a book, and he would then accompany her with his lyre.

Such a beautiful memory…

.

.

.

Why Lucifer?! Why did you do this?

This same friend was there with her eyes filled with tears, disappointed in him.

Lucifer looked down. One mistake, just one mistake, had caused him to lose those he considered family, and his closest friend.

He wanted to tell her that it was just a misunderstanding, that it was for the best, but the damage was already done.

He took Lilith's hand and without a word, left for their new home.

The young woman, in tears, could only watch them leave, the man she loved and her friend, without being able to do anything, because her principles prevented her. Gabriel placed a comforting hand on her shoulder, and said nothing. If she knew, he couldn't imagine how she would have reacted

.

.

.

-Dad?

Lucifer seemed to come out of his thoughts and focused on a family portrait. Lilith was already gone, after their separation he only had his daughter left, and after a second of thought he sighed and said:

-I'll see what I can do…

-It's true? Oh thank you Dad, thank you thank you thank you!, cried Charlie enthusiastically.

She took him in her arms, and Lucifer said to himself that finally, if having a hug from his daughter meant having to seek the 7 rings of Hell and even the beyond, he would do it without complaining.

Now all that remained was to find it, the most complicated part…

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

Lucifer, Charlie and the hotel members thought for several days, using all their knowledge and powers to find her. If she was neither in Hell, nor in Heaven, or even in the mortal world, she must be between the latter options-

Lucifer suddenly had an idea, remembering a conversation they had shared long ago, and he cast an incantation, which opened a portal to a world- no, a unique place, so messy and blurry, and yet so… familiar, as if he were…

“In the middle of a dream,” Charlie whispered softly. The rest of the team followed her, looking around curiously. Lucifer asked himself so many questions, was it a place where souls rested between life and death? He did not know it. After all, the soul left the body for a while when it slept, that would explain the place.

-Who are you? I sense human souls, but something else…

They saw several women advancing, of great beauty, similar to fairies, but armed, ready to defend themselves, if it was not for another who stopped them by raising her hand, she advanced slowly, and Lucifer recognized her completely. right now.

-(Y/N)..Lucifer seemed upset to see her, and tried to pull himself together by talking to himself. "Ok, Ok. It's going to be okay buddy, you can do it, you can do it", When he met her gaze, he lost all his courage and hid behind Charlie.

-Dad!

-What? I-I'm just covering your back Charlie.

-At least what I thought of you is true, you're just a sissy Lucifer, Alastor sneered.

You looked at him for a moment, the man you had loved for thousands of years, it was..strange. You didn't know whether you should greet him or hit him.

-Lucifer, what is the honor of this visit worth to me? In 10,000 years you have never had the decency to come visit me.

Sarcasm. Something unusual about you, he couldn't help but admire you. Your two pairs of wings were now grey, but your eyes were still this soft (e/c) shade, but now full of resentment, and perhaps.. mockery?

-And you, you must be his daughter, mhh?

You moved closer to her and observed her suspiciously, while she was sweating profusely, and Vaggie seemed on the edge on attacking you, and to her surprise, you smiled widely and took her in your arms, with surprising strength.

-My lord you are his carbon copy, so pretty~, you squish her cheek cheeks and gush about her, while she laughs awkwardly.

Everyone was stunned by how fast the tension dissipates, and the women behind you giggle, seemingly aware by how fast your emotions tend to change. Lucifer smiles, maybe he still had a chance..

-But you seem so polite, unlike some, you cast a dark look at Lucifer, and greeted the others with a sympathetic and curious look, their offering to sit down for a while to talk.

...maybe not finally.

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

-If I understood everything, you created a hotel to rehabilitate sinners… and are trying to convince Heaven, is that right?

She nodded and Lucifer tried to add something, but you stopped him:

-I don't speak with traitors and liars, especially if they forget to send me a life message for eons.

Lucifer doesn't say anything wanting to make anything worse. He knew he was wrong, and sighed heavily.

(Y/N)-1 Lucifer-0.

-Damn, this girl is awesome, Angel whispered excitedly.

Vaggie continued:

-Lady (Y/N), you still have decent relationship with heaven.Could you try talking to some highers-up about it? Like Gabrie-

-No, this thing is no longer part of my circle of close friends, I can still try to talk about it again with Sera and Emily, but I can't do anything with the other weirdo.

Charlie felt hopeless, and she took your hands and looked at you with a miserable expression.

-I beg you, you must speak to him, my people are dying every year at the hands of the exorcists, and I-I cannot stand by and do nothing. Can you try..?

At his beaten puppy look, you widened your eyes, it was exactly-

Please don't tell them where I was, Lucifer pleaded with adorable eyes. You sighed but smiled, nodding your head.

-Well, i will. But I'm not promising anything though-

-Thank you thank you thank you, she hugged you, and you hugged her back with a smile.

Lucifer felt his heart beat faster, these two women who are precious to him have finally met, and got along better than he expected.

Now all he had to do was sort out one last problem.

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

Explanations were made. You listened patiently, and after a while you answered:

-Why Lucifer, didn't you tell me before? I-I thought I was your friend.

Lucifer held her gaze, and for the first time in millennia he took his courage in both hands and took hers:

-I didn't want to see your disappointed look, I know I made a mistake, but I only thought about doing the right thing. And I-

-You got scared?

He nodded, and you sighed:

-I don't blame you, at least not anymore.

He raised his eyes, feeling a bit of hope, and feeling Charlie's encouraging look, he continued:

-So, can we try again? I mean our relationship- Well our friendship!

He blushed slightly and you chuckled softly:

-Yes, always Lucifer.

[parad-ice-lostandfound]

Prompt: "…How’d you know I wanted this?" "Because I heard you talking about it on several occasions." "I didn’t know you paid this much attention to me." "—I don’t. You just happen to talk really loudly.”

Pairing: Idia Shroud x GN!Reader/Prefect/Yuu

Genre: Fluff, and slight crack because it's Idia <3

TW: NA

"-And so, we shall celebrate this winter with a housewarden Secret Santa exchange!" Crowley smiled, golden eyes crinkling into happy little half-moons behind his mask.

The seven housewardens of NRC, joined by Ramshackle's Prefect for this particular meeting, looked at each other. Some with clear exasperation in their eyes, a few (namely Kalim) showing a little more excitement than the rest of their dour counterparts.

The Prefect sighed, sinking into their chair as if embarrassed beyond words as Crowley clapped his hands and stretched his arms towards them, proudly continuing.

"I must give credit of this splendid idea to our beloved Prefect, who told me about this adorable little custom they had followed back in their own world. Of course, being the kind and generous soul that I am, I wish for our Prefect to feel right at home here in Twisted Wonderland. I believe all of you wish the same, hm?"

Leona grumbled under his breath as he leaned back in his chair, tail swishing irritably. Of course the old crow goes and uses them against us, he thought to himself, watching as the others' faces immediately softened at that. No matter how much the seven housewardens of NRC hated working with each other, with the exception of Kalim who seemed happy to just be there, all of them would bear with it if it was for the sake of the Ramshackle Prefect.

Crowley didn't exaggerate when he called the magicless human a beast tamer.

"Fine by me, as long as I don't have to get somethin' for the lizard," he spoke, jutting his chin at Malleus as he frowned. The dragon fae narrowed his eyes at him, before turning to look at the headmage.

"As much as it pains me to admit it, I agree with Kingscholar," he said, voice low and serious. "That being said, I do hope that you would allow me to partake in this gift exchange with the Child of Man as my partner."

"Now, now, that isn't fair to the rest of us, Malleus. I would very much like to be the Prefect's Secret Santa as well," Vil hummed, raising a perfectly trimmed eyebrow as he crossed his arms over his chest.

"That's not how Secret Santa works," the Prefect sighed, before Crowley took over for them. "Precisely. And to ensure that everyone has a fair chance of being assigned as our beloved Prefect's Secret Santa, we will have the fairest means of competition possible!"

He took a box from under the table and placed it in front of everyone. "You all shall draw chits, and the person who's name you draw will be for whom you have to get a gift," he drummed his golden claws on the box as he pushed it in Riddle's direction.

"Mr. Rosehearts, if you would."

Riddle nodded, before putting his hand inside and pulling out a chit.

The process continued, with the Prefect being the last to pull out a name. Their eyes had widened on seeing what was written before they shoved the piece of paper in their pocket, refusing to answer Malleus and Kalim's questions of whose name they had pulled.

No one noticed the reclusive housewarden of Ignihyde slinking away in the shadows, the tips of his hair flaming a soft pink.

"Why did I have to get them, out of everybody?" Idia groaned into his pillow. The one time he decided to attend a housewarden meeting in person, he had to be roped into what was probably going to be the most awkward bonding activity.

"I do not have enough XP to get the Prefect a gift for Christmas," he mumbled to himself, turning to lie on his back. As Idia stared up at the ceiling, he continued airing out his grievances to the techomantic machines in his room.

"If it was any of the others I could have gotten them something. What do I get them...?"

Idia let out another groan, dragging his hands down his face. Maybe avoiding them after his overblot wasn't such a great idea...

But how could he have brought himself to talk to them after the entire fiasco that was his overblot? If there was anyone who knew all about the effects of overblots on victims and the people around them, it was him. Besides, Ortho had become fast friends with them, so he could always keep an eye on their state through him...

"Ortho!"

The young humanoid poked his head in through the door, only to be met with the frantic and helpless eyes of his brother.

"Help me get something for the Prefect!"

Idia sighed, wishing for not the first time and certainly not the last time to melt into the floor, if only to escape the stifling atmosphere in the room as the housewardens exchanged presents.

Distracted by the sight of ever oblivious Kalim handing a flustered Riddle an extremely expensive-looking tea set, he didn't notice when the Prefect snuck up on him.

"Hey."

"Sevens-!" He spun his head to look at them, eyes wide with shock and fear. "P-Prefect, you shouldn't creep up on me like that! That's t-too much for my poor otaku heart-!"

Idia's cheeks and hair tinted a light pink as they mumbled out an apology for startling him. They allowed him to calm down before speaking.

"So, who's the lucky person?" They asked, their gaze on the wrapped box in his hand. He felt his mouth dry, at a loss for words.

"T-this is, uh, it's for you, a-actually," he mumbled, feeling warm as he looked down at the neatly wrapped present before handing it to them.

The Prefect tilted their head, and Idia had to stop his squeal at how cat-like that action was. "You're my Secret Santa?"

Idia nodded, not trusting his words to be anything but a panicked jumble of how cute they were and how much he liked them and how he hoped they liked what he got for them because if they didn't then he would happily bury himself alive to escape the humiliation and embarassment and-

"What a coincidence! I'm your Secret Santa as well!"

"O-Oh." Idia's train of thought screeched to a stop, before roaring back and running at even higher speeds. Is this some sort of joke from the Seven? That just upped the difficulty level! Abort, abort mission right now!

They smiled, before pressing something into Idia's hands. The warmth of their smaller hands on his was equal parts comforting and panic-inducing. Had Ortho been there, he would have definitely remarked on his increased heartbeat and dilated pupils.

"I got you the merch that Precipice Moirai released recently. It isn't much, but..."

"Isn't much..? Wait, are you talking about those figurines they launched for their fifth anniversary?!" Idia's eyes widened as you nodded. "Even I couldn't get them anywhere because I was a bit late! How did you clear that quest so easily?!"

"Well... I entered the lucky draw they held just for fun, but ended up winning the figurines. And I knew that you wanted them, so-"

"How did you know I wanted this?" Idia asked. It wasn't his intention to be rude, but he was pretty sure that all of his groaning and moaning about losing the chance to own the ultra-rare, SSR tier merch was only heard by Ortho.

He watched as they hesitated before answering. "That's because... I heard you talking about it to Ortho a few times."

Idia's heart thundered in his chest. The Prefect was trying to not make eye contact with him, a clear sign that they weren't telling the entire truth.

"I, uh.. I didn’t know you paid this much attention to me"

"—I don’t. You just happen to talk really loudly and passionately about the things you like," they said, still refusing to make eye contact with him. Before Idia could tell himself that it was because the Prefect wanted to get over with this interaction as soon as they could, he noticed the darkness of their cheeks, and the colour on the tip of their ears.

"Oh. Well, thank you anyways, Prefect. I hope you'll like my gift as well," Idia said, an awkward, yet sincere smile on his face.

Back to Masterlist...

[heavenlymorals]

Why are you always trying to paint Arthur as a misogynist? When he clearly isn't??? I like your posts by why do you hyper fixate on stuff like that?

Hello anon and thanks for the ask.

Well, quite simply, I "paint" Arthur as someone who actively believes in and enforces gender roles because he does so in the game. It's a part of his writing and his character. The canon Arthur is NOTHING like how the fandom here on Tumblr portrays him as. That's also a reason why I started making these posts because I honestly hate when fanon becomes the accepted truth of characters and not the actual canon. It happens all the time.

I'm a very pragmatic person and this will show in my posts. I don't care about what characters COULD be and I focus more on what they ACTUALLY are. That's why my retrospective posts are usually looked at through a psychological, sociological, cultural, feminist, and/or literary point of view. I look at characters and learn things about them through their actions and words, as well as the time period that they are a part of. I do not care at all about making characters seem morally better, especially when it comes to historical attitudes because those historical attitudes aren't as historical as we make them out to be.

They still affect us every single day and only recently have we started pushing back- that's also not mentioning cultures where these attitudes are STILL encouraged, which then changes the way people think. Understanding historical attitudes allows us to understand not only our own cultures better, but people as well and why they do the things they do.

Now let's talk about Arthur. Arthur is a man born in 1863. Women couldn't even get a credit card by themselves without a man till 1974. To put it quite simply, he lived in a time era where women had almost 0 rights and those women who did succeed in life usually had some sort of male support. People supported this system, both male and female. Did you know that when the suffrage movement began, most American women didn't give a fuck because they believed that was men's duties, not their own? Point is is that even if Arthur is a lot more lenient regarding this stuff, he still actively believes in it because of how pungent it was in the society he lived in.

The first mission we have with the female gang members is heading to Valentine. The first thing he says to them is whether Miss Grimshaw could spare them from their domestic chores, already showing that in the gang, the girls' main duty is the domestic work and that Arthur supports this. Later in that mission, when he chases down Jimmy Brooks, he puts Uncle in charge of bringing them back home, even though he is an old ass man and they are three young, healthy, and capable women. In one mission, you got two examples of Arthur being an active encourager of gender roles.

And then there is Sadie- when she expresses her frustration over the work she has to do, he tries to shut her down. When she gets her pants, he mocks her: "You get a pair of pants and all of a sudden you think you're Landon Ricketts?" When she asks Dutch when she can go robbing with them, both him and Dutch laugh her off. When they bust John out of prison, he does it with her cuz literally no one else would help him and when they escape on the boat, he gets visibly annoyed that she doesn't take his hand. There are even more examples of things like this when he antagonizes her, but that's just the main game.

And there is the antagonizations of women performers. "Women shouldn't be doing this." "Go make someone some supper." "Go back to the kitchen." "This ain't ladylike." I'm sorry, but these need no explanations. His antagonize lines are just as canon as his greet lines and the fact that he says stuff like that shows that he believes in gender roles. It's an active part of his belief system.

There are so many more examples of this and the majority of them are subtle but I come from a culture that still treats its women like the 1800s treated theirs so when I ever pick up on these things, it's cuz I've lived it before.

And my final point- this is a historical game. Rockstar made sure to be as accurate as they can in regards to the time period- so characters not only react to historical attitudes but they are a part of it as well. Same goes for Arthur. He's a historical character with a historical background and historical attitudes- and that comes with the good, like chivalry, and the bad, sexism. You shouldn't play a game like RDR if you're expecting characters to feel modern in their thought processes.

Thank you and have a great day.

[ficsinhistory]

I think the problem with S3 of The Bear was that ok the mess, the coldness and the distancing and the plots in general...if it seemed like it was intentional. If they had a long term plan and this was a bait to change course later like good stories do. But it wasn't, it was just poorly written (and a bit racist).

For example, we could see Sydcarmy being separated because of Carm's worsening mental health and him wanting to convince himself that Claire is better because he doesn't want to make mistakes with the kitchen family and Syd anymore, more as a legitimate plot point and less as Storer wanting to sink Sydcarmy at any cost (which was a stupid idea and I don't even need to say why) if it didn't completely sideline Syd and obliterate her and Carmy's character in the process. Because that man may be chaotic and stupid as he may be, but Carm always cared about Syd's well-being at the end of the day.

Even after doing something stupid, Carmy always had this worry about asking how she felt about it. And that's what made their relationship different and the heart of the show. He can be distant and cold, but ignoring Syd's wishes? Doesn't give her credit when he was the one who asked her to be her partner in the first place??? The same person who recognized in 3x01 that the credit for them getting through the family and friends' night was solely hers, because he knew he had screwed up everything and didn't deserve to be part of it? Not only that, him being an idiot to Natalie, yelling about money when she was pregnant? Even though she was his only living sister? And that he started going to therapy at her request even though he didn't want to after realizing that yes, she was right? And not going to see his niece because he was more worried about Claire?? The woman who, let's be honest, he didn't like. I mean, he a panic attack thinking on HER!!! And now she is his peace??? Using suspiciously the term that the Sydcarmy fandom baptized Syd, almost as an affront. (And let's remeber Claire was pretty happy talking how she almost kill a teenage. I was bawling my eyes if was me. Weirdo (derogatory))

And speaking of her, Sydney Adamu, my beloved and favorite character, what did they do to you? She was thrown into the corner so much that I couldn't believe it. She is a protagonist and ok, she and Carmy are on tense terms, but why not take advantage of the fact that they are more apart to delve deeper into her and her relationships, find out more about her. Her relationship with her mother and father? Any flashbacks, since there were so many, about Sheridan and how this still affects her? She and the rest of the members of The Bear, Nat, Richie. She should exist outside of Carmy in her own right, but they just threw her in there and gave screen time to Claire and the Faks and that sucks. Which leads to another point, why don't you talk more about the og members of The Bear. Okay, we had Napkins for Tina, fair enough. But what about Gary, Ebra, Many? Marcus, whose mother died barely had any weight? It left a bitter taste in the mouth. If they want to fix this, they're going to have a lot of work to do, because history has taken everything to an almost unsustainable level. It's okay to be a tragedy, but give us the rays of sunshine, so we can believe in the best. And we didn't have that. It was just going in circles and that could cost the entire story.

[solradguy]

why is xtra hated? Does it have character inconsistencies or something else to have hate towards it?

Ok. So. For starters, one of the main characters is a girl named Mizuha that is very probably a child/young teenager and they draw her like this all of the time (sometimes even WORSE):

(her personality is... fine... I guess. she's just uncomfortably sexualized)

The plot is basic shounen genre trope soup. The other main character, Tyr, has a dragon/Gear arm and was sealed away for a mystery amount of years so he looks like a teenager but is older than Ky (who was ~24 in the canon at the time). They also did that thing where Ky ~just so happened~ to have seen Tyr on the battlefield when he was a kid before he joined the Holy Order, and Tyr is apparently working with/under Kliff. Very "we have a new character and need to speedrun making him relevant. let's shoehorn him into everyone else's backstories."

Tyr's Gear arm (it looks like a normal arm unless he activates it):

None of the characters ever bring any of this up ever again outside of Xtra. It's not mentioned in GG World, any of the guide books/encyclopedias, character profiles, novels, interviews, etc. Which you think it would be if Kliff knew A GUY WITH A GEAR ARM IN THE HOLY ORDER LOLL

The characters that are actually in the games make cameo appearances throughout the comic and I think the artist had more fun drawing them than they did the actual protagonists because they all look leagues cooler than anything Tyr or Mizuha end up doing

I will give Xtra credit for one thing though, and that's for giving us one of the rawest Sol Badguy scenes in the entirety of Guilty Gear:

I just don't get how the guy that wrote Lightning the Argent and Butterfly & Her Gale, two books that are still canon-relevant and generally enjoyed by the (JP) community, ended up writing such a bland story. Was it solely his idea? Was someone else forcing him to make changes to the plot and he just had to go with it?? This was GGX era so Guilty Gear was doing PRETTY GOOD in Japan at the time.

I have no idea why they felt the need to put out something with such an unoriginal premise in a series that frequently bends or breaks genre expectations. Daisuke Ishiwatari is included as an author on this, but I get the impression that was just a legality thing since he wrote basically the entire setting and cast outside of the few new ones introduced in Xtra. None of the Tyr lore beats line up with any of the established Gear lore, either pre- or post-Xtra.

Why did they write Xtra when they could have written something focused on the established cast instead. Going into Xtra for the first time is like when you pick up a cup expecting it to be pop and find out it's water instead but since you were expecting something sweet the water just tastes gross and extremely disappointing. Xtra is my least favorite Guilty Gear entry out of the entire library. Vastedge at least gave us Naoki Hashimoto and Isuka gave us A.B.A. Xtra just gave us wiki editors annoying homework.

You can read Xtra over on Mangadex if you wanna form your own opinions about it. It's only one volume and can be read pretty quickly: https://mangadex.org/title/911025e8-ae47-499c-8eff-453d18b6459a/guilty-gear-xtra

[tonicandjins]

find your way back home | lee donghyuck

pairing: lee donghyuck | haechan x female reader

word count: 22.5k

genre: fluff, some mentions of sex, ANGST and nostalgia lots of it, haechan-centric, slow burn

warnings: mentions of sex, excessive drinking, will talk about insomnia and depression

summary: nct’s haechan gets into a scandal after a night of drinking his ass off in hongdae, which prompts the management to put him in an indefinite hiatus. and it’s not like it’s the first time, because over the past months, haechan’s drinking problem had gone worse. hence, his parents send him back to jeju island for some healing time because his parents and managers think that maybe some time home would help. haechan laughs at the thought. if medication can’t, what can jeju island do? besides, he hasn’t been there in literal years.

author's note: this is my favorite work so far, which is why it took this long. i put my heart in here. please let me know which one is your favorite line/scene. this is also very heachan-centric, so please don't expect a lot of the reader's POV. also, may i recommend you to listen to Moon, Be There For You, Never Goodbye by NCT DREAM, Good Person by Haechan himself, and Black Clouds by NCT 127 as you read this! :) TIP ME HERE.

taglist: @mosviqu @matchahyuck @sirens-dreams @sundamariis @lovingvoidgoatee @anjaenha @thiccfullsun @665321-more @hyuckiesoftie @aliceinwhateverland @tddyhyck @anniebyanto @novawona @gimmehyuck @blxshqueen @blitz-fall @byungbyungbaek @calssunflower @funkygoose @carelessshootanonymous-blog @jungwooforever @budibbly @positionslab @beomyomom @jexizia @4everhyucks

disclaimer: names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of my imagination or used in a fictitious manner. i do not claim to own or to have invented any copyrighted characters or concepts that i write about.  

Y/N = your name, Y/C/N = your childhood nickname

Haechan’s dream has always been the spotlight.

His Mother would tell her friends stories of how he would always tell her he’d be a star someday, a grin flashing across his small face on pictures and clips of him taking a stage as small as the podium in his first grade classroom, and would proudly brag that his first-born son made it to the world stage. She was so proud that she’d have his portfolio picture as her display image in her social media accounts. As a musician herself, she’d play NCT’s music out loud and would even go an extra mile by using their b-side songs when teaching their students at their small but proud music academy in the big city of Seoul. Haechan’s pictures are all over the small place they’d rented for their small business, two floors—the vocal lessons facilitated on the second floor and piano and guitar on the ground floor—and the humble husband and wife would proudly say the most successful student they’d ever had was Lee Donghyuck, now better known as Haechan.

Haechan allows her to take credit of it all, his success, because after all, she’d been the one to encourage her to take a chance at SM Entertainment’s infamous Saturday auditions. People tell Haechan he works hard, but nobody really works harder than his Mother. With sheer determination and a passionate heart, his mother would take little Donghyuck to every stage—no matter how small. Young and bright, he remembers being dragged from one contest to another, even when their family still lived in Jeju, and he’d win all of them for her. He’d take the spotlight just to see her happy and proud.

At times, Haechan wonders how much effort his mother had really put into his career. If he thinks about it now, it started with their entire family moving out of Jeju Island, completely uprooting their entire lives from the simple life in the island to give her dream a chance. People say that Haechan was born a star, that SM got lucky to have a child prodigy offer himself—bare and whole and real—who was willing to give up his childhood and education for a shot in the dark. His father had been reluctant about it, saying that they’d have to give up their entire life savings to merely move to Seoul—considering plane tickets and security deposits need to be sent prior to moving—and that taking a loan wouldn’t be ideal when they could barely make ends meet with four children growing up too fast. A shot in the dark, a flip of a coin, the luck of a draw. They say he was meant for this, was meant for the stage and the lights and the applause, but to Haechan, it’s not really fate. It’s just his mother doing all the work, and he’d take the spotlight for her.

Because Haechan likes the attention. He likes the good and the bad. The cheers and the applause. The painful arm slaps from Mark when he’s annoyed him enough. The head pats and hugs Taeil gives him when he’s being cute and when he lives up to his maknae image. The viral videos of him all over the internet for simply walking down the stage.

And his mother couldn’t be prouder to have a reliable son like him. She had always dreamed of the spotlight herself, but the timing was never right for her—hence Haechan living her dream, her spotlight, had been one of, if not the biggest accomplishments of her life.

The night is cold. Haechan feels dizzy when flashes of the lights coming from the small window of the bar’s building hit his face. He hates the lights, he hates being seen, and it makes him throw up when, as soon as he closes his eyes, it’s his mother that he sees.

Would his mother still be so proud when she learns that, after a long weekend of a back to back concert with NCT 127, his son would be getting a blowjob from a stranger at the back of some sleazy bar he had found online?

“Please tell me this isn’t real.”

Mark Lee is only twenty-three, but with how his forehead’s skin is wrinkling, he might as well invest in several sessions of botox shots. He’s holding his phone up to Haechan’s face, as if bringing the device closer to the younger’s eyes would deny the article that Dispatch uploaded at five in the fucking morning.

“I didn’t sleep with her,” Haechan denies, voice bored, tired. “We might have done other things, but I didn’t sleep with her.”

Mark lets out a groan of frustration, throwing his phone behind Haechan, the device landing on the carpeted floor. Haechan doesn’t even flinch even though it almost hit him.

“Haechan, what the fuck is going on, man?” Mark asks, demands to know what really is going on with his best friend, or whoever he’s speaking with now. “You know SM is going to kill you, right?”

Haechan shrugs. “What are they gonna do? Fire me?”

“You know they can!” Mark shouts, walking back and forth while Haechan remains seated on the couch, unbothered. “You’ve seen them do it! To our seniors! To the people you trained with. You think you’re big time, huh? That just because you’re essential in both units, they wouldn’t send you to some dungeon?”

Haechan laughs bitterly. He reckons being placed in a dungeon would be much better than the hell he’s living in now. “Now that,” he mocks. “Would be the ultimate dream.”

“You’re a fucking nightmare,” Mark says, pointing a finger to Haechan, enunciating each syllable so it goes through his skull.

But nothing can really make Lee Haechan budge anymore—not an expensive, hard device laterally thrown to his face, and not even his best friend (if he could still call him that) blatantly showing how disgusted he is with him—and he can’t really blame anyone. It used to he frightening to see Mark angry at something he did. Used to.

Haechan doesn’t really know what to say, so he chuckles bitterly and leans his head back so that it’s against the backrest, pondering whether it’s a good time to drink the bottle of vodka he’s been keeping under his bed.

“It’s funny because I don’t even know what having a nightmare feels like.”

Mark huffs, seemingly had given up on Haechan, then leaves the room alongside the small piece of sanity that the younger had left. Haechan bolts, sitting up real quick, but too slow because Mark is already out of the door. Haechan likes attention, and even though Mark Lee makes his head hurt, he likes the attention. Haechan likes that Mark is angry at him.

His manager calls him next, (as expected) voice angry as if he’s about to explode, and tells him his publicist is doing her very best to answer every god damn call from every magazine and news outlet. But none of those magazine and news outlets who have called had posted something to clear the situation; none of them were buying it. Haechan thinks it’s fucking ridiculous anyway. There were pictures and videos of him sneaking out with Hana or Hari, whatever her name was, and a clip of him zipping his pants up as they try to hide from the flashes of lights. Who the fuck would believe he was just out exploring with his 35-year old, happily-married-with-kids personal assistant?

And it’s too late, anyway, because what was the point of it all when his most loyal and long-time fan sites have all shut down overnight, his Instagram followers reducing down to five million in a matter of hours since Dispatch posted that article, and his best friends blatantly ignoring him with the exception of Mark confronting him, but of course, Haechan had to screw that up, too.

“They’re calling you in for a meeting,” his manager concludes with a sigh after elaborating what had been done to patch up the entire mess. “Be ready for whatever they have to say. Don’t expect me to have your back because I’m over it, Haechan. Whatever they decide to do with you, you fucking deserve it.”

The call ends. Haechan didn’t even get to talk.

He looks at the screen of his phone. There were a million of calls and text messages from his agency, half of it were from his mother, and the last thing he really wants now is to hear her voice. He scrolls through it all, chest tightening when he realizes nobody from Jaemin, Renjun and Jeno had tried to call him. Haechan knows he’s an asshole, deserving to be the receiving end of all the shouting and cussing, and he’s probably made the dumbest mistake of his entire life, but he’d live the stardom’s life long enough, he’d be okay. But a call from his best friends would have been a breather.

Haechan understands, what his manager said, that he shouldn’t really expect anyone to have his back after all that’s transpired in the last few of months.

You see, Haechan developed insomnia. He’d look the symptoms up in the internet, and it’s described as a common sleeping disorder that can make it hard for people to fall asleep, or if one’s attempt to drift off is successful, to stay asleep. Taeyong had said it’s a common disorder for idols, that their seniors from groups like EXO and SHINEE had all gone to psychologists for help, but Haechan didn’t really want to make a big deal out of it. He relied on what Naver offered him one morning when the sun’s already out and his eyes are still wide open.

Stress and anxiety were the major causes. Some resources say it could be from a poor sleeping environment such as an uncomfortable bed or bad lighting or temperature. One claims that it could also be from one’s lifestyle, like jetlag from traveling frequently, or drinking one too many caffeine-infused doses of fluids. It all could be factors why Haechan’s been getting 8-10 hours of sleep a week, and he acknowledges that he doesn’t really have the best lifestyle—and it’s not like he’s ever had the choice since NCT blew up.

So, he’d consulted Taeyong again, through a text, and all he’d gotten was a link to a study that insomnia can be caused by mental health conditions such as depression, followed by his therapist’s phone number.

Among all the causes he’d gathered, Haechan could confidently rule out depression because there’s no fucking way he’s sad. There’s barely any reason to be sad. Sure, he’d miss his siblings most of the time and he hates the feeling of seeing any of them cry whenever he had to leave, but nothing is more gratifying than the relief of seeing them happy whenever he comes home with luxurious gifts or plane tickets to Tokyo for a vacation. Haechan likes making people happy, and Mark tells him he’s always been a people pleaser. At times, he’d think his happiness depends on the happiness of the people he loves and values, and people around him are happy.

Hence, Haechan is happy.

Or at least, was happy.

Because the insomnia got worse—not that Haechan’s dealt with it enough to know whether it’s getting better or worse—but it was bad. He would come home exhausted as fuck after an entire day of dancing and singing, and he knows he’s tired because his body tells him so. Haechan would lie on bed, body drained from all energy, but his eyes would be wide open for an entire night. He’d only fall asleep when the sun’s started to seep through his curtains, a good hour before his manager would wake him for the next schedule. It was manageable, and the tour was a good excuse for the insomnia, but it followed him even on his days off, even in the beginning of the pandemic when there little to zero schedules that would have caused him anxiety or stress.

Therefore, reluctantly, he’d visited a doctor to get a prescription for some meds he could take to help him sleep. He’d lied, though, that it wasn’t that bad and that he would need it only on nights after shows, because he knew they’d only refer him to a therapist. Haechan doesn’t need a therapist. He could just talk to his mother about it, and she’d know what to say to make him feel better. To make him keep going.

It was fine until the melatonin supplements stopped working. Sometime last year, if he remembers right, when he thought he’d gone crazy because everything stopped working for him. There was a bottle of soju, half empty, from the fridge he had in the corner of the room he shared with Johnny, and he reckoned it could help. As soon as the bottle was empty, Haechan felt drowsy; he was out like the light half an hour later.

But just like the prescription from the doctor he can’t even remember the name of, drinking half a bottle worked. Johnny would give him suspicious looks when he would see Haechan stocking up soju inside their room, but he doesn’t ever say anything. Because alcohol made him sleep, until it didn’t. Until half a bottle stopped working. Until an entire bottle is no longer enough. Until Taeyong’s decided that there should be no alcohol inside anyone’s fridge, both fifth and tenth floors.

Hence, the drinking problem.

Haechan wonders what’s next. The sleeping problem, then the drinking problem. It looks like here is it, the next one: the scandal.

When Haechan was a trainee, his greatest fear was getting removed from the agency.

There was an assessment every quarter, and the CEO himself would sit down in a panel alongside other producers and choreographers to identify which of the trainees would move on to another level and which ones would have to go home. Each time they had to go through the assessment, Haechan, alongside other existing members of NCT, would spend long days inside the training room. He would fear that the CEO would ask him to rap all of a sudden because Haechan can’t rap to save his god damn life at that time. He would fear that his mother would receive a call and find out his beloved son, whom she spent so much money on just to get ballet classes, failed and would need to go home.

Today, Haechan fears none of those.

The decision to put him in an indefinite hiatus was quick to make, not that Haechan expected anything less.

The news was out the second they threw him out of the meeting room (but not before the CEO slapping him right across the face, his left cheek throbbing in pain he’s oddly happy he could feel) and his bags were packed before he could even tell his members. The dorms were empty when he arrived, and there was no time to visit Dream’s place; Haechan knew he could just call, or visit. His family lives twenty minutes away, a short ride from downtown. He’d figure it out, like he always would.

What fazes him is what he comes home to.

His father offers him a one-way ticket, says his mother is still too upset to look even at Haechan in the face, that she’s spending the night in her friend’s house. The domestic flight ticket is bound to Jeju Island, and it boards tomorrow morning.

“Your grandmother will be waiting for you,” his father says, eyes everywhere but Haechan’s. “Your mother thinks it would be the best for now. Your agency knows, of course, and they’re helping us ensure you get your privacy in Jeju-do. We just need you to stay there for a bit, Donghyuck. Might help.”

“Dad,” Haechan pleads, Dad sounding foreign to him now. He’s stopped calling him Dad years ago, right before he debuted in NCT, and had been calling him Father. He’s not sure why he’a suddenly calling him that now, perhaps it’s the sinking feeling in his stomach, but Haechan is desperate for another solution. “You can’t send me back in the island. I haven’t lived in grandmother’s house since I was twelve.”

“Don’t act like the place isn’t civilized, Donghyuck,” his father sighs. “You’ll be okay. You can take your expensive gaming laptop with you so you can entertain yourself while you’re on vacation. It’s only going to be a few months.”

“A few months?” Haechan cries. “I can’t live there anymore!”

“The agency decided not to terminate their contract with you,” his father reveals. “Apparently, you’re too talented to let go of. Your mother and I are very grateful they didn’t. All they want in return is for you to go back in six months—sober and full of life again. Your therapist suggests you go to a vacation.”

“I don’t have a therapist?”

“The doctor who prescribed you sleeping pills? You didn’t tell us you had insomnia.”

“Fuck you,” Haechan spits before he could even think about it. “Neither you nor mother thought of asking me what’s been going on. Dad, I wanted you to scold me. To punch me in the fucking gut and tell me I’ve ruined everything. I wanted mother to yell at me until my ear bleeds, so I can find the motivation to work hard and make her happy again.”

“Donghyuck, we–”

“Don’t call me that!” He yells. “The first thing that came to your mind was how grateful you are that I’m not fired from my job? I’m not some retirement plan! I’m your son!”

“Keep it down. Your siblings are–”

”Donghyuck-hyung?” Haechan turns. Gyeom stands at the end of the hallway, seemingly woken up from his slumber, and Dongmin hides behind the younger one to see what’s going on. Haechan doesn’t even see Seungyeon come out of her room. He just hears her door shut loudly, the lock clicking, and realize he fucked up big time.

He takes a look at the ticket from his father’s hand.

It’s ridiculous. If the melatonin pills he’s taking are not helping with his stupid insomnia, and drinking a bottle of soju works as equally as useless, what the fuck could work? They think a recreational vacation to fucking Jeju Island would do shit?

Fuck his parents, honestly.

Fuck his siblings for not even giving him a hug as soon as he entered their home.

Fuck his members for not checking up on him.

Fuck the entire god damn world.

He rips the ticket from his father’s hand and turns to leave, taking the same bags he’d brought in a few minutes ago. The flight is tomorrow morning, but Haechan calls a taxi to take him to the airport.

Sleeping (or at least, trying to) in the uncomfortable airport seats is a fucking pain in the ass, literally. But nothing more hurts than the look on his family’s face: the blankness in his father’s and the fright from his siblings.

Jeju fucking Island. Way to end the day.

When Haechan was younger, his grandmother would take him to the Camellia Hills on the weekends. While kids his age would be taken in Aqua Planet to see thousands of animals and plant species to ease their shoulders from studies, Haechan would be running around fields of camellia and hydrangea flowers. They would spend hours just walking around trees of over five hundred different kinds of wildflowers. His grandmother would take pictures of him and let him eat whatever he wanted at a nearby restaurant, and his siblings would always cry and complain why Nana only wanted to bring Haechan. There wasn’t a particular reason, of course, it was only because the younger ones were too difficult for their grandmother to look after on a trip to Camellia Hill. Little Donghyuckie was well-behaved albeit his bold and obnoxious nature. He would do whatever his Nana would ask him.

Haechan’s always claimed that he’s the favorite despite his grandmother repeatedly saying she doesn’t do favorites, and he knows deep in his heart that he is. He is, after all, the first grandchild, and he spent a lot of time with his Nana alone for many years while they were in Jeju.

His grandmother used to sing him to sleep at night. When his younger sister was born, Nana stayed with them in Seoul for a while to help his parents adjust to having two kids, considering Haechan’s age gap with Seungyeon is only a year. Nana made sure Haechan slept well every night, in a separate room from his parents because newborn Seungyeon who wouldn’t let anyone sleep past one in the morning. She’d sing him songs from The Beatles in broken English, and Haechan likes to think that even though both his parents were musicians, the reason why he could sing well was his Nana.

She eventually had to move back to Jeju Island as soon as the family had settled, but years later, at the age of seven, his grandfather died and Nana was left all alone to tend to their land and business, hence the Lee family packed their bags to stay at Nana’s supposedly for the summer, but ended up with the decision of staying for her.

Nana had problems sleeping when his grandfather died. Haechan used to find her awake when he’d need a glass of water or to go to the toilet at two in the morning. She’d be watching television, a nighttime talk show she used to like, or reading a book from his grandfather’s shelf. The lights in her home were always on.

So, Haechan started singing her to sleep just like how she did when he was a child.

She’d tell him, “Oh, my Donghyuckie, you have such a nice voice. Why don’t you sing more?”

Then she’d fall asleep while Haechan wondered why lovers die at different times, why one has to go first and the other is left on Earth trying to sleep well every night.

Upon his arrival in Jeju-do, his grandmother doesn’t pick him up from the airport like he’d expected, so he takes a taxi from the airport to her house. Haechan knows what their home looks like despite not visiting since his training days. They own a small hectare of land filled with tangerine trees, and his grandmother had been the sole operator of it all for many years until she had to start hiring people here and there to manage things for her when her age caught up with her. His father used to travel back and forth to see how things are here and there, but eventually stopped when Nana had found people she can rely on—which Haechan is very glad about.

He must be an asshole, or a prick, or a hypocrite to even say this but he’s been thinking about her more often than he calls. If he recalls right, the last time he’d called was three months ago, on her birthday, but it was two-minute exchange of generic how are yous and please stay healthys. She would call, of course, but Haechan would always have something as an excuse: a dance practice, a trip to Japan for a show, a photoshoot, something. Something to cover up the fact that he hasn’t been the best grandson to her in a long time.

He arrives and the first thing he notices is a hammock hanging in between the posts of her patio. A kick of nostalgia hits him because grandfather put up a hammock at the back of their home once, when Haechan was around five years old and they were visiting the couple for the summer. Her grandmother used to tell Haechan that the hammock is the best place to take his afternoon naps, hence little Donghyuck would spend most of his afternoons lying on a hammock made of strong nylon.

Shaking off the nostalgia, Haechan clears his throat. “Nana! I’m home!”

“Donghyuckie, is that you?” she calls from somewhere. Haechan walks over to the patio and drops his bags.

Nana comes out from the side of the house, her favorite pink apron on, grey hair hidden by a hair cap. “Oh, sweetheart.”

Haechan sees her age simply by the way she stands. Her back is hunched more than it was the last time he saw her during Chuseok last year. The wrinkles in the edges of her eyes and around her mouth are much more evident. The skin on her neck is loose, and so is the skin on her arms and everywhere.

For a second, Haechan feels like he’s seven again, seeing her for the first time since summer, her eyes not as happy as they were from the last time they’d been in Jeju-do, when grandfather was still alive. Haechan suddenly is taken back to when she’d hug him so, so tightly, crying to his shoulder, telling him harabeoji had left her while she was asleep. He remembers his heart dropping down to the ground when he saw her breaking down, his loving grandmother—who was always bright and happy, whom people would say he got his personality from—at her lowest. It’s the same wave of sadness Haechan feels looking at her now—looking at the years painted in her skin. Her memories blurring out the color of her eyes. Decades of hard work and labor tainted on the callouses on her fingers. Glints of loneliness spread throughout the wrinkles on her face.

Haechan has been all over the world for years now. Years of training and sleepless nights perfecting a performance had led him to where he is now. People who speak different languages love him and cheer for him even with countries and continents in between. He’s made millions happy by simply singing songs or saying hi in a fan call. And while he’s done of all of these, what had he done for his grandmother? People have been watching him grow up, who was watching Nana all this time?

Haechan chokes on his own tears. His grandmother, his Nana, opens her arms like Haechan is not the person the world hates right now. She hugs him like Haechan is not the person who had potentially ruined the group his best friend Mark had worked hard on. She holds him in her arms like Haechan is not the person who scared his siblings and cursed his own father. Nana takes him inside her home like he’s her Donghyuck again.

Haechan feels like he’s her Donghyuckie again.

Contrary to popular belief, Donghyuck doesn’t like affection as much as Haechan does.

He believes that being offered tenderness is the very proof that you’ve been ruined, and Haechan likes to think that with the life he has now, he’s not really in the position to talk about his life’s struggles. Because there are more people in the world who deserves to talk about their pain. Donghyuck doesn’t deserve as much.

Hence, the nostalgia goes away as quickly as it arrives. Haechan spends the rest of the day trying to sleep in his grandmother’s spare room and doesn’t even bother answering when his grandmother knocked on his door to invite him for lunch despite him being wide awake.

Haechan gets up at five in the afternoon, just when the sun is about to set, eyes heavy. The sky looks a lot like the color of his own skin, he notices, and he thinks about how beautiful the sky would be in Han River and recalls how him and Mark (and sometimes Doyoung) would lie on the ground, letting their skin soak in the sun slowly sinking down to its rest.

But none of that is close to happening because he’s here. In Jeju-do. Stuck like some twelve-year old sent to camp for an entire summer because his parents can’t stand him.

Haechan’s train of (bitter) thoughts is interrupted with a loud plonk from the wooden patio, which is right outside his window. He pulls his curtains slightly to peek, and he finds you on the floor on your side, groaning like a kid and massaging your back. It looks like you’d just fallen out of the hammock.

Curious, Haechan gets up and quickly slips out of his room to see you on their front porch.

“And Nana says it’s the most comfortable place to sleep on,” he hears you mumble as you get up, eyes meeting his as soon as you see him. Your eyes widen in shock, probably recognizing him, but you quickly catch yourself and look down.

“You are?” Haechan asks, towering over you.

You clear your throat. “Y/N.”

“I don’t mean your name, pumpkin,” he replies. “What do you do here?”

Haechan smirks at the way one of your eyebrows raised, clearly already infuriated at his attitude. You’re wearing a white shirt that’s too big for you underneath your denim overalls. The pair of boots sitting under the hammock is a clear sign that you’re a farmer tending to the tangerine trees on the land right beside the house, separated by a fence and his grandmother’s home garden.

“I manage your grandmother’s land,” you answer, stance defensive. “And it looks like you’re the delinquent grandson they sent away for the summer?”

Haechan chuckles, liking how you’re bark and bite, wondering how far he can push you, because the last thing he really wants is someone staying at his grandmother’s house. Too close. Too easy to see everything. You’d make millions selling him to the tabloids. He’d honestly rather hear people saying how much of an asshole he is, than have people invading his grandmother’s privacy while he’s here.

“You mean the world star, right?” he brags, licking his upper lip. “And you manage the land we own? Sounds a lot like a farmer to me.”

You stifle a laugh. You’re not at all intimidated. “Oh, pumpkin, I think the last thing you’d want to do in Jeju-do is insult a farmer for their job. The agricultural structure of Jeju Island has done more than you thrusting your hips up on the air for young, easily-manipulated teenage girls, Donghyuck.”

“So, you know my name?”

You click your tongue and turn around, proceeding to slip your boots back on. “How could I not know?”

“Because I’m a world star, right. How could you not know?”

Haechan watches you tie the laces up of your boots. You don’t give him another glance and leave, stomping your feet down the stairs to the ground until you’re out of his sight.

“Hey, you’re awake,” Nana says from inside. The door is wide open. “Where’s Y/N?”

She walks towards where Haechan stands, looking around for you. “That girl. I told her to stay for dinner. What’d you do, Donghyuck-ah?”

“Nothing,” he mumbles, annoyed at how Nana is more concerned about you leaving than ensuring his privacy. He’s a star, for god’s sake. “Why’d you let her sleep here, anyway? And have her stay for dinner? Aren’t you scared she might sell me off to some magazine for, I don’t know, one million won?”

“Why would Y/N sell you—“ his grandmother sighs. “Not everyone is out to get you, Donghyuck-ah.”

“Why does she even know my birth name?” he questions. “That’s like, too much, Nana. Don’t share things like that.”

His grandmother slaps his arm. “Ow! What’d you do that for?”

“You’re a moron!” she screeches. “That was Y/N! She waited for you to wake up all day!”

“That’s creepy!”

“Y/C/N,” Nana enunciates. Haechan remembers. “Her childhood nickname. Does it ring a bell?”

“Y/N—” he breathes out. Frozen. “—is Y/C/N?”

Haechan has always had an affinity with flowers, long before he named his fans sunflowers.

His grandparents had a larger flower garden as compared to how it is now. They’d planted tangerine trees in place of the fields of beautiful red azalea and rhododendron blossoms. On spring days, the cherry blossoms were infinite, and little Donghyuck used to spend a lot of time looking at the flowers and making necklaces out of them.

You used to (still do, perhaps) live down the street, and your parents used to help out in the farm when your grandparents needed another pair of hands to harvest the tangerines. Little Donghyuck met you when he was six.

If he recalls it right, it was the second day of summer, a hundred something days before they had to return back to Seoul. He found you lying under a cherry blossom tree, eyes closed, allowing hundreds of pink petals to drown you in their beauty. Little Donghyuck lied down beside you, upside-down but his head is right beside yours. He’s always been a curious kid, so he wanted to know why you were letting the pink petals rain on you. There was nothing special about it. Just petals falling when the wind blows a certain direction.

When he opened his eyes, you turn to look at him, your eyebrows were furrowed the way they were when Haechan found you on the floor of his patio earlier, right after you’d fallen from the hammock.

“Hey,” you had said. “You’re the kid from Nana’s house, right?”

“She’s my Nana,” he corrected, closing his eyes once again. “And yes, I’m the kid from Nana’s house. You are?”

“My mom calls me Y/C/N,” you answered. “Are you staying for the summer?”

He nodded. “Only for the summer. We’re leaving before school starts.”

“Do you like flowers?” you asked.

“We don’t have a lot of flowers in Seoul,” Little Donghyuck mumbled. “But I love flowers. Last summer, Nana took me to Camellia Hills to see the flowers bloom in May.”

“Then you should stay,” you trailed off. “If you love flowers and Seoul doesn’t offer much, then you should stay.”

“What about school?” Donghyuck had asked, opening his eyes to look at you. You’re looking at him, upside-down and all. Donghyuck’s never seen someone more beautiful. “You’re pretty.”

Your eyes widened. You immediately hide your face from him using your hands. “We’re only five. I can’t have a boyfriend at five years old.”

“Maybe when we’re older.”

Haechan doesn’t remember much from the day you met, but he got close to you during that summer in 2006, even more when his family moved back to Jeju-do in 2007. Your friendship blossomed from walking together in first grade throughout primary school until he’d graduated and eventually moved back to Seoul.

He can’t believe that he’d forgotten your name, and a part of him knows it’s because he’s always called you by your childhood nickname, but a larger part of him likes to think that it’s because he’s almost twenty-three now—it’s been almost ten years. He’s met probably thousands of people at this point, and with the lifestyle he has, he really can’t afford to remember each person he spends time with. Not even the girl he spent his entire childhood in Jeju-do with.

So, Haechan forgives himself before he could ask for yours. He reckons you’d understand. You know him, somehow. You kept in touch until Haechan got into SM in 2013 and high school and training got the best of him. He changed his number and lost contact with almost everyone in Jeju-do, even his closest friends, and you were one them.

Life as a singer means Haechan had to sacrifice a lot of things.

Most people know an idol sacrifices having a normal life—playing in the streets, trying out to be a part of the basketball team, dating at fifteen years old, prom, staying at one classmate’s house for a group project—and it includes forgetting the people you used to be close with.

One of the rules in SM when he was a trainee was to not get in touch with the people from their past. One of their managers used to tell them that their lives are divided into two parts: before training and after training; and to be successful in the industry means to forget who you were before training. They’d deleted all of his social media, which means he disconnected from the people he knew before he was Haechan. They’d deleted who he was before Haechan.

Many sacrifices, indeed. The list goes on, and at the end of it was your name.

“She never left Jeju-do?” Haechan asks, curious, as he ate the dinner Nana made for him. “Like not even for college?”

“She didn’t go to college at all,” Nana answers. “And she likes it here. Why do you make staying in Jeju-do sound like a living hell?”

Haechan shrugs. “It’s not like that, Nana. I mean, God knows what I’d do to get a normal life and go to college in Seoul and do what normal people in their early twenties do.”

Nana smiles at him. “This is probably what normal is for her. Not everyone has big dreams like you.”

“Why wouldn’t they?” Haechan asks. “Dreams are free. It doesn’t cost anything to dream. Why wouldn’t people want to have big dreams?”

“Aren’t you the lucky one to have a dream and to be able to live your dream?” Nana says. She finishes up her meal and watches Haechan eat. “How are you, Donghyuck-ah?”

Haechan stops chewing and braces himself. Nobody’s asked him how he is. He continues chewing like it’s not a question that’s been weighing him under.

“I’m okay,” he answers, mouth full of food. “They didn’t fire me. So, I guess I should be grateful. I’m okay.”

“You know that you don’t have to lie to Nana, right?” She asks, smile kind and warm.

And Haechan wants to say it all. Out loud. Maybe even cry.

But he is not about to let his grandmother carry his burdens with her. Burdens that shouldn’t even matter because he’s so lucky to have the life he has now. Burdens that are nothing compared to other people’s.

“Come on, Donghyuck-ah,” she urges. “Talk to Nana. Tell me what’s wrong, my dear.”

“Halmeoni,” he firmly says. “I said I’m okay. I’m tired. Thank you for the meal.” He bows and stands to leave.

Life has a singer means Haechan had to sacrifice a lot, indeed.

Nana leaves a box of things Haechan would need while he’s in Jeju-do before her trusted chauffeur takes her to the town’s market for some business.

Haechan finds himself wearing the same fit as you the day before: a pair of overalls, an old, non-branded shirt that looks like it’s been worn and washed 300 times. Nana left a list of chores to do, and there’s no way Haechan is doing all of those. He’s taking a walk around the fields, supervise like how the owner’s grandson should, bask on the sunlight for a bit, then go back to his room and play some games with strangers online.

You’re waiting by the patio, sitting and looking at the opposite direction so he only sees your back, when Haechan comes out, dressed up for the role but not ready for whatever today brings him.

“Took you long enough,” you grumble as he steps out of the house. You stand and turn to look at him. “Lock the door and let’s get going. You’re late on your first day.”

“Chill out, sweet cheeks,” he scoffs, reaching behind the door and locking it before slamming it shut. “You’re not the boss of me.”

You nod, chuckling. “I’m not. But your grandmother is. And she added your list to the name of workers joining us to harvest today. You will be paid by the hour.”

Haechan gasps lightly in disbelief. “I don’t need to work. We own this place.”

“Hmm,” you hum, feigning curiosity as you tap your index finger to your chin as if you’re thinking hard. “You know I manage this whole place, right? Which means I also manage its taxes and permits annually. I’ve never seen your name in any of the papers I play with every day.”

“Same fucking thing,” he mumbles, walking past you to reach the gate. Haechan finds two horses waiting for him outside. He turns, ready to ask you what kind of joke you’re pulling on him, but he finds you going around the house, perhaps to make sure everything’s locked and all. You catch up on him, eyebrows raised when he points to the horses.

“Don’t tell me you can’t ride a horse,” you ask, seemingly in disbelief that someone like him isn’t capable of riding a horse. “You can’t work in the fields just walking. You’ll tire yourself out and will waste most of your working hours just walking.”

“I—I’m really not—” Haechan falters for a second, but comes back as quickly as he goes. “It’s been years since the last time I rode a horse. I’m not certain if I can do that now.” You give him a questioning look. “Besides. I’m a celebrity if you haven’t noticed it already. What if I break a bone?”

“You’ll live.”

“What if I fall and break my face?”

“Seoul has the best plastic surgeons.”

“My legs! They were injured before. I can’t afford to get another injury!”

“You’ll be fine. You’re such a drama queen.”

“I’m a star!”

At that, you burst out into a fit of laughter, the kind that Haechan would normally join in, because what he just said is truly ridiculous. He can’t believe he said that himself. But, of course, he can’t just laugh with, basically, a stranger.

“Oh my God, Lee Donghyuck,” you say in between laughter.

Something ignites something in him, the way you just said his name.

Haechan is a name he loves, an alter-ego he adores, a character he lives. Full sun, because that’s what he wants to be. He wants to bring light to everyone looking up to him, and he wants to be remembered by the way his voice warms the entire planet. He loves hearing cheers and applause when he introduces himself as Haechan. Because Haechan is talented. Haechan is an ace, an all-rounder who can do anything an idol is expected to do, perhaps even more. Haechan is bright and positive, and he likes making people laugh and at the same time uncomfortable of the influx of skinship he offers. Haechan loves the lights and cameras on stage, and he adores the way his name is in every city he goes to.

Meanwhile, Lee Donghyuck, he’s heard in a million times. Mark still calls him Donghyuck like they never aged since 2013, even Doyoung and Jeno. His parents seldom call him Haechan, never for Nana. His fans also have been calling him Donghyuck since they learned his birth name is Donghyuck, sometimes Hyuck or Hyuckie, which he finds really endearing.

Yet no one’s ever called him his name like he’s nothing but just Lee Donghyuck. Not for a long time. Not from someone before Haechan.

Donghyuck suddenly feels like he’s twelve again, the year he left Jeju-do and had to say goodbye to all of his friends with a promise to keep in touch and to never forget. Donghyuck finds himself looking at the way you’re laughing, how you have your eyes closed, mouth agape and melodies of your amusement coming out like a song he thought he’d forgotten but know all the words to, and he finds himself thinking, maybe being Lee Donghyuck isn’t so bad.

His first day at the farm didn’t go as quick as expected and if Donghyuck could say so himself, it’s the longest fucking day in his entire life.

Evidently, he couldn’t ride a horse to save his life. He doesn’t even know why he’d told you it’s been a long time when the only time he ever rode a horse was when he was eleven for a field trip and only to take a god damn picture to make his mother smile. You and him were only a couple of horse steps or whatever away from Nana’s home and his horse was already squirming and more like threatening to throw him ten meters away, hence, you begrudgingly offered to have him ride with you. Donghyuck didn’t decline, of course, because it was either walk around the place under the hot sun or die at the hands of a stupid horse. You had let him sit behind you, skillfully and impressively holding the other horse by its rope, Donghyuck’s arms reluctantly wrapped around your waist because he didn’t want to fall, and if you were uncomfortable, you didn’t say anything about it.

You had taken him to a tour within his grandparents’ land, and Donghyuck is already twenty-three when he realized his grandparents are big time, like for real. The land isn’t as big as the others, ones that are owned by a big corporation, people who aren’t even from Jeju-do but like to play agricultural monopoly, but it’s bigger than most. Nana was too humbled when she’d told him the night before that he would need to help out in their “small” business.

The business is nowhere near small, with hundreds of tangerine trees scattered around, blooming in the famous Jeju-do delicacy, and she had forty to fifty employees working for her.

“Not really like full-time employees,” you had explained when Donghyuck verbalized his surprise with the number of people working for the farm. “Normally, it’s just me and Nana and a few other people who handle the delivery, quality assurance, and sales in the farmer’s market, which I’d need to take you to tomorrow, and also some folks from Seoul who handle the cargo shipping to the cities. But when it’s harvest season, we really would need more than ten pairs of hands to help out.”

“So, like, all year, there’s only around ten people are here,” Donghyuck confirmed, hands still on your waist as the horse came to a stop. “And on harvest season, Nana hires more people to help out. That’s really nice. Could be a good summer job for students and all.”

You hummed in agreement, patting the horse that Donghyuck learned you named as Daisy. “But normally, you’d find older people working here instead of the younger ones.”

“Oh?” Donghyuck’s curious. “That’s a little odd. I mean, isn’t the job physically tiring?”

You shrugged. “The elderly, well, they don’t really have a lot of opportunities to work here, you know, considering that Jeju-do has become more of like a tourist island than a self-sufficient, thriving agricultural place. You’ve probably heard of the water park they’d built nearby the airport and other big corporations taking over and building their stores here and there. And of course, they’d most likely hire younger people who can relate to the Korean Wave your group caused, right?”

“Keeping tabs?”

You scoffed at that. “As if! Now, get down before I ask Daisy to wiggle her ass and throw you off.”

After the supposed short tour that took an hour because, well, their land is enormous, you take him where some of the elderly people are harvesting.

“This is Donghyuck,” you’d introduced. “Nana’s grandson from Seoul. He’ll be helping us today. So, halmeoni, don’t even think about getting him off the hook because he’s Nana’s grandson. He will be paid for the day like everyone else. You wouldn’t want someone to get paid the same, only to work half of what you do, right?”

The older women laughed at the way you’d introduced him, and he feels his heart swell with the way you’re laughing with them and how they looked at him with so much tenderness. And normally, Donghyuck doesn’t like the look of tenderness, especially when directed to him, but today, it felt warm. Warmth like never before.

“You grew up so handsome, Donghyuck-ah,” one of the women said. “But I thought you’d be taller, you know. You had such long limbs when you were younger.”

Donghyuck feigned offense, clutching his chest. “Ahjumma, you should’ve stopped at the word handsome.”

“Tangerines ripen earlier than other citruses, so they can escape damage from freezes that will harm midseason varieties such as grapefruit and sweet oranges. Most varieties will be ready for picking during the winter and early spring, although the exact tangerine harvest time depends on the cultivar and region,” you explain, following the lead while Donghyuck and two other guys around yours and his age trail behind you. He apparently needs some training before he can start working.

“How do we know if they’re ready to be picked?” Joohyuk, one of the part-timers, ask.

You will know it’s about harvest time for tangerines when the fruit is a good shade of orange and begins to soften a bit. This is your chance to do a taste test,” you answer, stopping to show an abundant tangerine tree. You pick one out and show it to Donghyuck and the rest. “Cut the fruit from the tree at the stem with hand pruners. If after your taste test the fruit has reached its ideal juicy sweetness, proceed to snip other fruit from the tree with the hand pruners.”

You proceed to show them how it’s cut and hand them a piece each. Donghyuck likes that the fruit is sweet, not sour.

The ahjummas find your group and start handing baskets to Donghyuck and the guys, telling them they’d guide them all throughout.

He found himself spending the rest of the morning getting to know the people harvesting tangerines and making them laugh like it’s his job. He learned all their names one by one, their families briefly, and what they used to do before they retired. By the time it’s lunch, Donghyuck was about to say goodbye and perhaps ask you to take him back to his house, the group from the other side of the farm joined their area, all packed with bags of lunch.

They asked him to join, of course, but Donghyuck refused, in respect of their time to relax and take a break, and asked if you could take him home instead. You agreed, of course, mumbling that you would also need to go home to feed your dog.

“I’ll pick you up at 1:15,” you say as soon as Donghyuck lands on his feet. “Don’t sleep, please. The ahjummas will be expecting you. It’ll be a lot hotter, so drench your celebrity skin with twice the amount of sunscreen you’d normally use.”

“Yeah,” Donghyuck responds, itching to say thank you, but not enough to actually say it. He rubs Daisy’s neck instead. “You—I, okay.”

“O-kay,” you nod and whistle to signal Daisy to turn and walk the other way.

Nana waits for him by the patio. “How was your first day?”

“It’s not even over yet,” he sighs, slumping his butt on one of the patio’s stairs. “Nana, I can’t believe you’re making me work while I’m on vacation.”

“Your father never said anything about a vacation,” she responds, smiling as she struggles to sit beside him. Donghyuck helps her. “You’re here for some time away from work, right?”

“Yeah, a vacation,” he emphasizes.

Nana reaches to move the fringe covering a part of his eyes. “Let’s call this your healing time. But I wouldn’t call it a vacation because a vacation for you only means playing computer games until the sun rises then sleeping all day.”

“You should stop talking to Seungyeon about me,” he mumbles, looking sideways to find his grandmother looking at him lovingly. “And I don’t only play computer games. I also listen to a lot of music.”

“Try not to think about the limelight while you’re here,” she says. “The farm needs some help now. And it’s the best time for you to learn about the family business in case you don’t make it back in Seoul.” Donghyuck groans, burying his face in his hands, and Nana laughs at him. “That’s a possibility you should be considering, Donghyuck-ah.”

“Nana, you’re making me feel worse,” he whines. “You just told me not to think about the limelight, how can I not when you just said what you said!”

“I’m only joking,” she admits. “No one is ever going to take the limelight away from you, Donghyuck-ah, even if they try. You were born for the stage, and I know it’s everything you’ve ever wanted.”

Donghyuck looks up at her. “Is it bad that it’s all I want?”

Nana shakes her head and offers a kind smile. “Having a dream like yours is never bad, Donghyuck-ah. I know that eventually you’d have to leave and go back to where you really belong: the limelight. But all I’m saying is, stepping out of the light isn’t as bad as you think it is.”

“Right.”

“Tell me how it was in the farm.”

“The ladies love me,” he chuckles. “I’m quite popular even in the small villages of Jeju-do, aren’t I?”

“You sure are,” she agrees. “They’ve been asking about you for a long time. Looks like your Nana isn’t the only one who missed you.”

“How come they still remember me?” he asks before he can think about it. “I mean, I’m sorry, but I’ve forgotten about most people here. They still remember how I used to play around and sing for small events.”

It’s true. It caught him by surprise that the workers still remembered him—and not only because he’s a celebrity now, but they remember him by the small, insignificant happenstances when he was younger. Like for example, one of them mentioned how he was once was injured, his pinky finger to be exact, because he was running like a madman when his mother had given him permission to go play computer games with his cousin. He doesn’t remember that person being there, but he knows his grandmother talked about it like it was a news about a hurricane hitting Seoul at that time it happened.

It makes Donghyuck wonder how many people remember him, and how many people he’d forgotten and left behind for his dreams.

“Our world here in Jeju-do is small,” Nana explains. “People like you, who left, well, while ours remain humble and small, while we fade into the background and slowly become insignificant, yours become bigger. So, while we remember, you forget, slowly, one by one—and nobody blames you for forgetting, Donghyuck-ah.”

Oh, look. Another burden, another truth that Donghyuck has to carry for the rest of his life. Another reason not to fall asleep tonight.

There is a small, local store located down the road from his grandmother’s house. They don’t sell nearly half the number the ones local convenience stores in Seoul would, but Donghyuck likes to think it’ll do. Soju and beer taste the same anyway, regardless of where he buys it.

With the faint, beaten yellow paint from its exterior, the store has been around even before Donghyuck was born. It’s the village’s very own convenience store, after all. There weren’t any rival stores like how it would look like in Seoul where every corner of every street one would find a convenience store. From where Donghyuck stands, the store doesn’t like look like it’s changed much in a decade.

For some reason, Donghyuck remembers how much Renjun likes reading neuroscience studies for fun. He doesn’t know anyone else who would read neuroscience studies. For fun. But anyway, back to his point, there was a neuroscience study that Renjun has been blabbing about during their US tour. It was something about when someone recalls an old memory, a representation of the entire event is instantaneously reactivated in the brain that often includes the people, location, smells, music, and other trivia. Recalling old memories can have a cinematic quality. Memories often seem to play out in the mind's eye like an old Super 8 home movie or vintage Technicolor film. Neuroscientists discovered that when someone tries to remember a singular aspect of an event from his or her past—such as a recent birthday party—that a complete representation of the entire scene is reactivated in the brain like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle coming together to create a vivid recollection. The new research reveals that humans remember life events using individual threads, that are coupled together into a tapestry of associations.

Donghyuck’s never really understood what Renjun meant at that time, except now.

He stands there, a good ten-meter distance from where you’re sitting. The pavement on the sidewalk isn’t the most comfortable place to sit in, but Donghyuck thinks it might just be, with how comfortable and at peace you look: legs stretched out to the street, headphones covering your ears, a book (or a journal perhaps, Donghyuck can’t see well from here) in one of your hands while the other is twirling a pen.

The scene takes him back to ten years ago, in the exact same place where you’re sitting, and if Donghyuck thinks about it now, it seems like nothing’s really change—except he’s almost twenty-three now, and despite him standing a few meters away from you, it feels like you and him are worlds away. And from what it looks like, you still love writing as much as Donghyuck loves singing.

It was a warm evening in May 2013, a couple of weeks before school ended and summer would officially start, counting down the nights when Donghyuck would have to move back to Seoul, and it was way too hot for Donghyuck’s liking. Nana didn’t have an air-conditioning system yet; his father was working hard to get her one before they leave for Seoul because summers can be crazy hot in Jeju-do. And Donghyuck needed a popsicle so bad, otherwise, he’d probably explode.

He found you the same place where you are now. Donghyuck thought your SHINEE shirt looked cute because while girls your age liked the newly debuted EXO, you still listened to SHINEE like a religion. You were sitting with your legs sprawled on the street, right under the streetlight, a pen in one hand and your old, beaten up journal on the other. Your eyebrows were furrowed, and Donghyuck caught himself before he could start thinking about how pretty you looked like that: focused and doing what you loved.

Donghyuck decided not to disrupt your focus and opted to go straight inside the small store, spending the last of his money on yours and his favorite: lime and cherry twin popsicle—the kind that’s packaged in one, two flavors in one, lime green and cherry red colors separated in the middle between popsicle sticks. Lime for you, cherry for him. You didn’t look up when he sat beside you, but took the lime-flavored popsicle from his hand when he handed it to you after peeling off the plastic cover and breaking it into two.

“Thanks,” you mumbled, taking the ice-cold treat in your mouth. Donghyuck couldn’t help but think his cherry-flavored popsicle resembled the color of your lips.

Donghyuck nodded his thoughts away, leaning in to peak at the page you’re working on. “What are you working on?” he asked it while the popsicle rested on one side of his mouth, his left cheek protruding.

You shrugged, taking the popsicle off your mouth, showing your work to him. Donghyuck found it endearing that you write all over the pages of your journals, it was as though he could see your train of thoughts: some smudged, some erased under ink but not really because he could still read through it, some clear as day, some to never see daylight again.

“I was in Science class today,” you started.

“We’re in the same homeroom, dumbass. I was there.”

“I’m talking,” you whined. “And I doubt you were even listening. You hate Science more than anything.”

“Fair point,” he hummed. “Okay, what about Science class? Please don’t tell me you’ll start writing about Science. Because I’m so sorry. I’ll never read any of your work ever again if you decide to do that.”

You laughed, the melody of your fondness of his jokes creating its own room inside the crevices of Donghyuck’s brain. “Teacher Kim was talking about symbiosis.”

“I’m not even going to pretend I know what that means.”

“Symbiosis is a term describing any relationship or interaction between two dissimilar organisms. The specific kind of symbiosis depends on whether either or both organisms benefit from the relationship,” you continued. “Butterflies and flowers, they are the best examples of symbiosis.”

Donghyuck nodded, savoring the sweetness of his cherry-flavored treat.

“Hence I did some research and read more about butterflies and flowers, and I read something a little sad,” you trailed off. “I learned that certain flowers bloom when butterflies hatch and depends on how they match each other. Butterflies, they prefer light-colored flowers they can perch on. So, when the timing is off, the flower misses the butterfly. The butterfly, therefore, finds another flower.”

“Then what happens to the flower?” Donghyuck asked, watching as you try to catch the melting piece off your popsicle, taking it back to your mouth. Your lips looked really pretty. “If it misses all the timing?”

“Well,” you shrugged, looking up to the night sky. The stars in Jeju-do that night were much prettier than it is in Seoul. “They bloom again next year, and hope that maybe next time, the timing is better. That the butterfly arrives just in time for the flowers to bloom.

“That is a little sad,” Donghyuck acknowledged. He watched you look back down, grimacing a little as you take the popsicle off your mouth. “Wanna try mine?” he asked before he could think about it.

You looked back at him. The stars in Jeju-do turned out to be nothing compared to your eyes. “Yeah?”

Donghyuck pulled the sweet treat from his mouth just as you hand him your lime-flavored one. He took it in his mouth, and Donghyuck had never been the biggest fan of anything sour, but for some reason, the lime flavor tasted sweeter than ever. You took his cherry-flavored ones, groaning in delight as you taste the treat’s sweetness.

“Cherry has always been my favorite,” you’d confessed, and Donghyuck was surprised because you’d always gotten the lime-flavored ones. The twin pops were your thing since you met summer of 2006—it was cheap, practical for two kids, two-in-one; you’d always choose the lime ones. “God, this is good.”

“You literally always take the lime ones,” he argued. “My whole life has been a lie. I’ve always thought lime was your favorite because you always take it whenever we get this!”

You shrugged. “You never liked anything sour,” you said like it’s the easiest thing to say, like it didn’t make Donghyuck’s heart somersault. “And I can take a little bit of sourness if it means you enjoy your cherry-flavored popsicle.”

Donghyuck was only twelve. He didn’t know anything about falling in love, but that night might just be the closest thing.

“So, you drink alcohol to help you fall asleep?” you ask as if it’s the most interesting solution to insomnia. Donghyuck thinks it isn’t; he’s read somewhere online that alcohol really helps. “That’s stupid.”

Donghyuck shrugs. “It’s not really working great right now. But it helps.”

He sits beside you on the sidewalk, legs sprawled out just like yours, a can of cold beer one hand while the other holds him up, flat on the rough pavement. There’s no particular reason why Donghyuck’s talking to you now. You and him got off the wrong foot, and it’s not like you can really blame Donghyuck for seeing a (supposed) stranger sleeping at his grandmother’s patio. And you were friends. Even though it’s been years, Donghyuck reckons talking to you would do no harm. Besides, if he’s staying here for a few months, a companion would probably make it less miserable.

“And your father thinks coming to Jeju-do would help, too?” you ask.

Donghyuck chuckles. “I guess you could say that. What else have you heard about me?”

You look at him, away from the street and right into his eyes. Donghyuck wonders why he didn’t recognize you the first time he saw you. Your face looks the same from the day he bid you goodbye a decade ago—lips colored in cherry, eyes bright as the stars, cheeks soft all over.

“A lot,” you answer. “But I’ve never been one to believe in rumors anyway.”

Donghyuck licks his lips. “The rumors are true.”

“Not about the sleeping around and getting drunk, pabo,” you mutter. “That, I believe.”

“Which ones?” he asks.

“People are saying you no longer like being on stage,” you say. It’s not the first time Donghyuck’s heard it. “That you’ve been burnt out from working all these years. And that you don’t care about music anymore.”

Donghyuck snickers. “That’s true, too.” He throws his head back, chugging on the cold beer. “I’m so over it. I don’t even care what happens after this.”

“Oh, Donghyuckie,” you whisper softly, eyes still glued to his face. “What has the limelight done to you?”

Donghyuck only shrugs, finishing off the rest of the cold beer, helping himself up and taking the plastic bag full of iced cold beer from the store.

“I don’t think that’s something you should be worried about,” Donghyuck says. You keep your eyes on him, so you’re looking up from where you’re seated and Donghyuck looks down on you. “It’s getting late. Wanna go drink at Nana’s?”

“Nana would kill you if she finds alcohol inside her house,” you say.

“I’ve snuck in about twenty bottles since I arrived last week and she hasn’t noticed,” he confesses.

“You’re a fucking nightmare,” you laugh.

Donghyuck freezes for a moment, watching you stand in between giggles. Mark said the same think a couple of weeks ago, but it doesn’t sting when you say it. You say it in laughter. Like it’s okay. Like it doesn’t scare you.

“My house is down the street,” you say, helping yourself up and standing in front of him. Donghyuck remembers. “I’ll call Nana and let her know you’re with me.”

A bark startles Donghyuck for a second. You and him turn to find a golden Labrador running towards where you stand.

“Aw, my baby’s here to pick me up,” you announce with the softest voice. The lab runs, almost dashes towards you, and Donghyuck is taken aback when it tackles him—not you—knocking the plastic bag off his hands and resulting to him landing his butt back to the pavement. “Pororo!” you shriek, not in surprise but with a tone of betrayal. “I’m your mother!”

Donghyuck hears you shriek, but laughs through it because the golden lab is hogging him, licking him all over as if he’d miss him all these years. “Oh, baby, you’re so cute,” he coos, cradling the dog by its face, looking up at you as the dog licks his face. “This is yours?”

You fight back a smile, but you lose immediately because your face breaks with a grin. “What has the limelight done to you?” you ask, the same question from earlier, but a different tone—teasing, nostalgic, like years ago.

The dog sniffs him all over and you stand there watching them.

“Can’t even recognize your own dog now?” you tease, walking so you could pet the dog and have him follow you. “It’s the puppy Nana got you a month before you left Seoul. You couldn’t bring him with you, and Nana couldn’t take care of him when you left, so I adopted him, pabo.”

“Pororo?” Donghyuck finally, finally recognizes. Pororo looks like he’s nodding, like saying thank God, you remembered me! The dog goes back to tackle him. “Oh, Pororo! My baby!”

You lead the way to your house, Pororo following after you. He watches you take several steps ahead of him. He feels dizzy watching the scene in front of him. Donghyuck understands what Renjun is talking about now.

Humans remember a singular aspect of an event from his or her past that a complete representation of the entire scene is reactivated in the brain like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle coming together to create a vivid recollection. You’re the representation of his entire life in Jeju-do, a clear image before Haechan, and he’s fucking sorry he forgot about you all these years.

But that’s an apology you’d never hear from him. Instead, he watches you, taking a small step towards you, and decides he’ll allow his unsaid apology to be added on the long list of reasons why he can’t sleep at night.

Nostalgia comes in waves, they say, but why do you bring it to him like a hurricane?

Donghyuck could say that Nana is impressed with the drastic change of character in the span of six weeks.

She’s been treating him better these days; by “better”, Donghyuck means she’s been cutting off a few hours from work so he could spend more time at her home, guarding the hens and roosters that serve at her alarm clock and watering her plants from her small vegetable garden. She’s also been paying him, giving him a small envelope with cash and a small paper that resembled a payslip showing the number of hours he’d work for the week, and Donghyuck ignores the quick jump from his heart when he sees your signature at the end of it, affirming that the hours listed are accurate. Donghyuck takes the money, of course, after Nana threatened to beat him up because she’d be breaking Korea’s labor laws if he doesn’t accept it, and he keeps it all in a small box in his room, planning to show it to his members when he goes back to Seoul and brag about working like a normal civilian at the age of 23.

There is a pinch in his heart when he remembers his members. While Donghyuck has been working on (and failing to) sober up for an entire month, his members have not called nor texted him. He’d been reaching out, of course. Some of his members have been assigned solo projects and activities in the last month, and he ensures to congratulate them. All he’s gotten so far are the receipts that his messages have been read.

Donghyuck convinces himself that it’s probably SM that advised everyone not to give him a time of their day, that they probably think being away from work means disconnecting from everyone, too, that his members love him and also believe that he needs some time off from everything.

But the convincing can only do much. The convincing distracts him while he’s at work, or while he’s watering Nana’s plants, but it doesn’t do much at night. Still, after six weeks, Donghyuck is nowhere near clean.

He wakes up with a terrible headache every day (from lack of sleep or hangover, he’s not really certain), and his Nana has been oddly making hangover soup for breakfast. Donghyuck wonders whether you’d ratted him out or his mother had called her about it. Either way, she probably knows something’s up.

His mother had called him a few times now, Seungyeon, too, and it’s been casual. His mother’s voice always sounded like she’s walking on eggshells whenever she’d call, blurting a half-assed apology for not seeing him before he left and telling him she’d forgiven him and that she’s looking forward to seeing her in a few months. Seungyeon talks to him the most, almost every day, in short text messages and 10-minute calls on the weekends when she doesn’t have to worry about waking up early the next day.  And she talks to him about the most random thing, nothing ever related to his obsession with drinking or the scandal, which makes Donghyuck feel better somehow.

Six weeks didn’t make much of a difference, not that Donghyuck was expecting any. The only thing that’s changed so far is that, he’s not as exhausted as he was in Seoul despite his shitty sleeping schedule continuously fucking up his already deteriorated mental health. He hasn’t been listening to songs for quite a while, and he’s been drinking every night. And if it means anything to him, you’ve been hanging out with him while he drinks.

In six weeks, he learns that you’re not much of a drinker. You don’t have many friends that you could really invite for a drink in a nearby pub or in a samgyeopsal restaurant. You’d mentioned that most people your age have all moved on to different places, spewing names that were once familiar to Donghyuck and telling him where they are now. Donghyuck is yet to learn why you had stayed in Jeju-do, not once stepping in Seoul, when the world off this island’s shores are much, much bigger than you think.

It’s two in the morning. You’d taken him home because he could barely keep his head up with the number of soju bottles he had downed, and he appreciates that you try to stay quiet when you put him to bed and leave, keeping the blinds closed because he’d told you once that the morning sunlight seeping through spaces between the curtains hurt his eyes. You’d left when Donghyuck’s barely awake.

His phone dings a notification. Donghyuck probably won’t remember so he reaches over, checking it and recognizing his mother’s name.

She sends him an article about the upcoming debut of NCT DoJaeJung, and Donghyuck’s seen it in the groupchat for some time now. Donghyuck isn’t even halfway down the article when she sends another one: Mark’s solo song.

She doesn’t add another message, and he sees her status change from online to offline in a split second, but she doesn’t really have to say anything else for him to understand.

Donghyuck’s dream has always been the spotlight.

Or at least, as he recognizes now, his mother’s dream for him has always been the spotlight.

Donghyuck always thought he loved making people happy and singing equally.

While people called him kind and a ray of sunshine, Mark’s always called him out for being a people-pleaser, reminding him that he doesn’t have to make sure everyone is happy with the choices he’d make, telling him he doesn’t have to feel the strong urge to please everyone. And Donghyuck never understood it until now, now that he’s wide awake and looking at his mother’s messages. She’s probably expecting a solo project for him, too, and she sends these things that make her happy, and she’s already expecting him he’d do it no matter what. Donghyuck’s mother is a good person; he’d look up at her and think to himself that when he grows up, he’d want to be as supportive as his mother, and don’t get him wrong when he says she expects him to do anything that’d make her happy. Because this is all Donghyuck’s fault, anyway.

With his desire to make her the happiest, he’s done everything he could to make her happy, even at his own expense.

The infamous Saturday audition at SM was something Donghyuck never thought about—not at the age of 13 when he had just gotten back in Seoul after five years of staying in Jeju-do. His accent has changed and he reckons he could have a good relationship with boys his age who grew up in the city. And as much as he loved performing, Donghyuck doesn’t like being criticized. He doesn’t like rejection, and he can’t bare the thought of adults telling him he couldn’t sing.

Hence, his initial answer to his mother’s proposal to visit SM Entertainment and give it a try was no. The only thing that had made him go, knees shaking and palms sweaty, was his mother’s words: “It’ll truly make me happy if you give it a try.”

She’d said it in many occasions, and Donghyuck’s given everything that’d make her happy a try. She’d never said a bad thing and even told him a few times that it’s okay if he doesn’t want to, but he does it anyway.

Donghyuck was afraid that she’d love him less if he didn’t make her happy. He was only thirteen, and his twenty-three now, and his biggest fear hasn’t changed: to be loved less because he didn’t make them happy enough.

So, Haechan blurts out the most random jokes when the cameras are on and initiates skinship with the member even if they abhor him for it and style his hair a different way, because it makes the fans happy. Haechan stays up learning the tune of the new song and recording himself in his phone for hours even after an entire day of physical activities, because it makes the producers happy. Haechan takes his friends and the younger members to dinner after a 16-hour flight from the west on the night of his birthday—his eyes barely open the entire time—because it makes them happy. Haechan plays the maknae role perfectly, even when at times he’s tired of it, because it makes the older members happy. Haechan continues to be a sunny and bright character even on days when he’s exhausted, because it makes his managers happy.

But the truth is, Donghyuck doesn’t like dyeing his hair. His hair’s gotten so unhealthy from dyeing it different colors last year.

Donghyuck feels awful sometimes, when his friends do not return his affection, but he plays it off, feigning hurt even when it actually does.

Donghyuck wants to sleep after a 16-hour flight.

Donghyuck wants to drink with his hyungs, too.

Donghyuck just wants to sing and write songs when he’s learned enough.

Donghyuck doesn’t want to be like Mark, or Doyoung, or anyone else.

Donghyuck wants Haechan to be… Donghyuck.

Donghyuck wants to be happy—in his own terms, by his own choices.

But how can he be happy when he’s always depended his happiness on the people he loves?

Donghyuck feels like a dead man walking.

You and Donghyuck are tasked to bring the harvested fruits at the farmer’s market in the early hours of Sunday.

It’s barely five in the morning, and the sun’s not even out yet, but you had forced him to sleep early the night before to make sure he’d accompany you to the market. (He didn’t sleep though; he lied awake until his phone rang and you’re calling from outside.) You’d driven the farm’s truck to get here, and Donghyuck can’t help but admire the way you hold the steering wheel with one hand.

Donghyuck helps you carry the boxes out of the truck, arranging them in front of his grandmother’s store. You had walked in while he carries the rest inside and Donghyuck hears you talk to Eunseuk, his Nana’s sales person who handles and manages their place in the public market.

“That’s awful,” Donghyuck hears you say as soon as he places the last of the boxes in a corner. “Can’t the mayor do anything about it?

Eunseuk sighs, shaking her head. “Unfortunately, it looks like the donation project Nana’s driven wasn’t enough. She barely made enough profit last quarter because she’d donated most of it to the project.”

“What is awful and what project are we talking about?” Donghyuck interrupts.

Eunseuk smiles sadly at him. “The clinic that Nana’s been proposing to the mayor for years now. The town’s mayor thinks it’s not going to be built this year.” Donghyuck’s never heard of it.

“The community has a lot of elderly people who live alone in Jeju-do,” you explain when you notice his curiosity. “Especially in here in the island, even more here in our town. Most people leave Jeju-do at the age of eighteen to find a better life in Seoul, which is ridiculous because there’s no place better than Jeju-do, and Nana thought it’d be great if she built a small clinic for the elderly nearby, that way they wouldn’t have to travel fifty kilometers to visit the nearest hospital. It’d be great if the elderly can have themselves checked for free and to have, if not all, most equipment they’d need.”

“How is that possible?” Donghyuck asks.

“Well,” Eunseuk starts. “First, we need the funds to actually build the clinic itself. Nana is halfway through the amount needed. The mayor’s children are doctors, and if he wants to keep winning the next elections, I’m sure he’d be happy to have them volunteer.”

“What about maintenance?” he asks.

“Good question,” you say. “And good thinking. I like it, you’re already thinking ahead, Donghyuck-ah. Anyway, the elderly is very much willing to do community service in exchange of the maintenance of the small clinic. And don’t worry, it’s not like Nana’s going to make them work like horses.”

“Services like crocheting products for the local market,” Eunseuk adds. “Food manufacturing—the kind that would allow them to make while sitting down, local farming, jewelry-making, and the like. Things we can sell in the market. You know how tourists are so keen on buying anything hand-made.”

“So, a clinic for the elderly built and maintained by the elderly?” Donghyuck sums up.

“Exactly!”

“How much are we looking at in terms of money?” He asks.

You chuckle. “If you’re grandmother wanted to ask money from you, she would have already. She has some kind of pride, you know.”

“Well, I’ll give it you and you tell her it’s an anonymous donation.”

“As if she’d believe that bullshit,” you answer. “Anyway, Eunseuk-eonnie, what do we do now?”

The older woman shrugs. “We’ll keep selling tangerines until we reach the goal, I guess.”

Donghyuck talks before he could think about it. “I can do something.”

You and Eunseuk look at him like you’d just seen a ghost.

“I don’t know what I can offer,” he says right away. “But I’ll… I think I can do something.”

“Donghyuck,” you say. “You can sing.”

“I am aware,” he jokes.

“No, you can sing,” you repeat. Donghyuck looks back at you. “You can sing, so I’m sure you can teach people how to sing.”

“And?” He doesn’t get it.

“It’s summer,” you answer. “Most kids are bored and are probably looking for something meaningful to do while they wait for school to start again. Teach kids how to sing and have their parents pay for it!”

Donghyuck thinks it’s a good idea. “And you can write.”

You freeze. “No.”

“Teach kids how to write and have their parents pay for it.”

“Over my dead body!”

“I will do it only if you do it.”

Eunseuk laughs, “Oh, this is good.”

“No, Donghyuck. I’m not a professional writer. I didn’t even go to college. I don’t have the credentials for it.”

“You don’t have to go college to be a writer,” he snorts. “Scott Fitzgerald didn’t even finish college.”

“Where’d you even learn that?”

“You told me when we were kids!” he answers, laughing. “Come on, Y/N. I’m sure Nana can find someone to do your job in the farm while we teach kids.”

“I don’t know, Donghyuck,” you sigh.

Eunseuk lightly slaps your arm. “Come on, young lady. Do it for the elderly.”

“Yeah, Y/N, do it for the elderly.”

The sparkle in your eyes and the smile on your lips tell Donghyuck you agree.

And so, the plan goes accordingly.

Donghyuck could say that Nana is more than delighted to learn that his delinquent and embarrassing grandson, who’s spent all this time pretending he doesn’t care, had decided to help out. You’d done the most part, of course— obtaining the permit from the mayor’s office and settling all the paperwork needed. All Donghyuck had to do was to help clean up and renovate his grandfather’s old office in the farm. Everyone else who had some free time helped because apparently, that’s what this community does. Donghyuck could probably get used to receiving help without him asking for it.

So, in more or less five days, his grandfather’s old office, which is about forty square meters, had turned into the community’s summer class headquarters. You and Donghyuck decided to call it Nana’s Music and Literature Classes. And with the help of Eunseuk and some of the workers, the word spread like news from the radio. In a week’s time, you and Donghyuck have over twenty student each. Mondays and Wednesdays were his schedule; yours were Tuesdays and Thursdays. Fridays were called Hyuckie and Y/C/N’s day—which means you and him would dedicate an entire day brainstorming and talking about your class’ progress.

The summer courses would take eight weeks to complete, and at the end of it would be a competition, in which the Mayor promised he’d give a very big reward for. Those who enrolled in Donghyuck’s classes would have a recital at the end of summer where the kids will hold a small concert for the town—tickets to be sold as part of the drive, of course—and the judges will be identified to select three winners. As for your classes, it will be a short story competition, and the winners will be announced on the night of the small concert, which Donghyuck is the best ending any summer could have.

The place is cramped, and Donghyuck’s never been more excited his entire life.

He’s gone to many places and met with many prominent people in this lifetime. But he’s decided that this is the most exhilarating day of his life.

The parents leave as soon as Donghyuck assures them that the kids will be safe and will be all set for pick up by 3 in the afternoon. You’re talking to the kids while he ensures that the room is cool enough for everybody. The room is filled with excitement that Donghyuck could feel inside him. He learned from the parents he’d met just a few minutes ago that the town doesn’t really offer things like this for children and that they’d have to send their kids to summer camp in the mainland if they wanted them to experience this, and the fact that you and him are doing this for a cause makes it even better.

Donghyuck views this like it’s not as big as the drives NCT had been doing, or the charity concerts he takes part in, or the money he donates to various causes, but to the people of the town, it’s bigger than anything they had ever known.

“Aigoo,” one of the parents cooed when she’d seen Donghyuck greet everybody outside. “Your grandparents have always been kind. They’d been the pillar of this small town for quite some time now. I’m glad you’re growing up a good man.”

You’d smiled at him when you heard that, and Donghyuck wonders if you also think he’s growing up a good man, because he thinks you grew up to be such an amazing, compassionate person.

“Hello, kids!” Donghyuck greets. Everybody says it back with the same enthusiasm, and despite having been in hundreds of shows with thousands of people in the audience, he can’t remember the last time a crowd made him feel alive.

Donghyuck hates being recognized.

When his career had just started, he thought that the greatest compliment was to be recognized. He thought that he’d measure his success with the number of people from the general public who could recognize him under a hat and with a face mask covering half his face. But in the latter years of his career, he’d learned the hard way that he hated being seen and being recognized.

There had been many happenstances in his job in which he’d just wish he was invisible for a moment. Anytime he’s in an airport, regardless it was for an event or concert overseas, or worst of it all, a vacation with his family, all Donghyuck wants is for people not to know who he is. In afternoon runs by himself, all he needs is a time alone and not girls following him and taking pictures of him. On days when he’s out with friends and family, all he hopes is peace. This comes with the job, Johnny would tell him whenever he’d get frisky and annoyed, but Donghyuck never really understood why his privacy is anyone’s business. Never really understood why he had to go through this when all he’s ever really wanted was sing.

Donghyuck hates being seen.

More than anything. Especially when he’s trying hard to hide. And he wishes he’s only talking about his physical appearance being seen. He hates that his grandmother sees through him but doesn’t say anything about it unless he opens up first. He hates that Mark, his best friend in the entire world, sees right through his walls and that all Donghyuck’s done is push him away and make him hate him even more. He hates that his father sees his pain, but doesn’t talk about it for some reason. He hates that you see him—all of him—but you don’t look at him with disgust or pity or anything of that sort.

It’s Friday, yours and his day, the second one since summer school’s started, and he’d started calling you by your childhood nickname again. You’d grimaced the first time and told him nobody’s called you that in a long time, but allowed him nonetheless.

The clock strikes six in the afternoon and the dusk had just settled in the horizon. You and him are sitting on the floor of his room, facing each other, separated by a small table, notepads scattered, ideas running a hundred miles per second.

“This is perfect,” you comment when you and him had finished planning out next week’s daily agenda. “The kids are going to love it!”

Donghyuck stays silent, eyes on you as you finally set your pen down.

“What should we have for dinner?” you ask, eyes still on the notepad. “Nana’s probably heating up some leftover galbi, but I think we should make some kimchi stew, too.”

Donghyuck hums. You look up at him. “What’s wrong?”

He shakes his head. “Nothing. I just had something in mind.”

You tilt your head. “Tell me.”

“It’s a question,” he says. “And if I say it, you’d have to answer.”

You think about it for a moment. Donghyuck almost takes it back. “Sure.”

“Really?”

You nod. “As long as you answer a question from me, too.”

Donghyuck pretends to think about it. “Can we set some rules?”

“It’s literally one question,” you snort. “Come on. Ask me.”

“No, ask me first,” he insists.

“You asked first.”

“No. Ask me first,” he repeats.

You scoff. “Fine. You have to tell me the truth, yeah?” A nod. “Ready?” Another.

Donghyuck holds his breath for a moment and you don’t say anything for about a minute, probably thinking the same as him: this is the only chance both of you are honest and open, might as well ask a question one wouldn’t answer on a normal day.

“How are you?”

He exhales the breath he’s been holding and nearly breaks down in tears when he hears the question you’d decided to ask. He’s sure you’ve heard of it all. Everything’s been all over the internet for the past two months he’d been in hiding in Jeju-do: the drinking, the nights in clubs and bars, the fights with the members, the cherry on top which is the scandal. It’d all spiraled into everything he was initially afraid of. The girl he’d met at the back of the club had sold him to reporters and had made up a story of how they’ve been in a sexual relationship for quite some time. The media had dug up stories of him being out of control in the streets when he’s shitfaced from all the soju he had and had posted tales of him asking multiple women to sleep with him whenever he’s drunk.

The agency sued everyone for making shit up, of course, but Donghyuck knows half of those are the truth. He has not been the best group member in a long time: always late in practices, grumpy and hangover during fan signs, lethargic during concerts, and fucking up performances. He’s lost himself, and he’s losing everyone in the process of it.

People ask him if he’d really had sex with someone at the back of a bar. They’d ask him why he never asked for help with his drinking problem. Comments from his Instagram would tell him to back off and just leave the group. Fans from calls and fan signs would ask him why he’d stop making covers of the songs he loved and why he hasn’t been on Bubble in a long period of time.

But nobody else had really asked him how he’s been aside from Nana, who he doesn’t have the heart to open up to.

“I—” He starts but swallows, breathing in. You wait for him. “I’m—I don’t really—I’m not sure if I can.”

You nod. “Take your time, Donghyuck.”

Donghyuck reminds himself to breathe.

How is he? How has been holding up after everything that’s happened?

He’s lost his spark. He’s lost his love for music, his passion for the stage, the sparkle in his eyes. He’s losing the people he loves. He’s losing his friends. And he’s losing a battle with himself.

He’s—

“I’m, ” he tries again. “Y/N, I’m not okay.”

It pours like rain, his tears. He shakes when he cries and his chest is tight and it’s hard to breathe, but he keeps crying because it’s the only time he ever will. He sobs in pain and holds himself when his entire body shakes from the ache of it all.

He’s grieving, weeping, like how one would in a funeral, because how does he ask for forgiveness? How does he ask forgiveness from his parents and siblings? From his members? From his fans? From the staff and the people who’d brought him to where he is? How does he ask forgiveness from little Donghyuck when all he’d wanted was for him to grow up a good man?

You let him cry, and only reach out to hand him a handkerchief when he’s done. You don’t say anything. Instead you kneel and reach over to hug him from the other side. Donghyuck accepts your tenderness.

“I don’t have anything else to ask,” you murmur against his hair. “But I do want to say that you’re loved in ways you probably have forgotten already. You’ve probably been used to love that’s loud—screaming and flamboyant and beautiful and everything anyone would want—but you’re also loved quietly. In a small, serene room. In a way you’ve forgotten.”

“Thank you,” he says, sniffling, a little embarrassed now. “I’m sorry. I probably ruined the moment.”

You chuckle, pulling away, and Donghyuck’s heart does flips when you kiss the top of his head like you always did when you were younger. He doesn’t know why he remembers all of a sudden.

“Stop apologizing,” you reply. “There’s nothing to apologize about.”

“There’s a lot,” he admits. “I didn’t recognize you the first time I saw you. We did everything when we were kids, and I didn’t recognize you.”

“And it’s okay,” you assure, holding the top of his hand that’s resting on the small table. “I didn’t expect you to recognize me right away. You were worlds away from me. We forget people and that’s okay.”

He shakes his head. “It’s not. I promised to keep in touch, and I never did. I’m sorry.”

You nod. “You’re forgiven.”

Donghyuck sighs in relief. “I doubt, but okay.”

“Trust me.” He does. “Anyway, you were going to ask me something. You’re not allowed to ask the same thing because I’d just answer that I’m tired and I want to sleep. Nothing big happens in my life.”

Donghyuck smiles again. “Ready?” A nod. “Why’d you never leave Jeju-do?”

It seems like you didn’t expect the question because your face tells Donghyuck you’re surprised by what he just asked. You lick your lip and exhale largely, looking everywhere but his eyes. Donghyuck allows you to take your time, and you’re not running away so he’s assuming you’re thinking of an answer for him.

“I don’t have a dream,” is your answer. “My parents think it’s not normal. Because even they had already left the town and moved to a bigger place off the island. People think it’s impossible that I don’t have a dream, that I must want something in life, I just haven’t discovered it yet. And I’m twenty-three, I’m still waiting for my awakening, for dreams to find me, but it hasn’t. I don’t want to do anything in life but just… survive.”

Donghyuck only listens. “In high school, when we were deciding what to take up in college and which college we’d go to, I had nothing in mind. I didn’t want a career—not an engineer, not a teacher, not a doctor, none of those. I couldn’t think of anything. Writing is something that I love doing, but I really can’t see myself pursuing it as a career. I don’t want to end up hating it. I’ve always been convinced that I wasn’t specifically good at anything apart from that. I’m okay with all subjects at school, average grades and all, but nothing ever stood out for me. I never stood out. And I was okay with it for a reason I still don’t know. I was okay with not having dreams. College was the only reason for me to leave Jeju-do. There’s nothing else, therefore I’m still here. At twenty-three, I haven’t accomplished much, and if you want me to be all out and honest,” you sigh. “It’s… it’s starting to scare me.”

“What scares you?”

“That I haven’t accomplished anything yet,” you admit. “I’m not one to, you know, force myself to people and make them remember me. I wasn’t scared of oblivion. Until… these days, I’ve been asking myself, how are people going to remember me?”

Donghyuck nods, urges you to continue.

“Are they going to remember me as someone who helps out in your Nana’s farm because I had nothing to do?” you voice out. “Are they going to remember me as someone who brings all the deliveries to the farmer’s market when the staff is unavailable? Are they going to remember be as Eunseuk’s co-worker? Are they going to remember me at all?”

 “Can I tell you something?” he asks but doesn’t wait for you to answer. “I know I’m not in the position to say anything about remembering you when I couldn’t recognize you the first time we met after a decade, but I remember you by the way I see cherry blossoms.”

You tilt your head to the side. “Is that a good thing?”

“We met in a puddle of fallen cherry blossoms in summer of 2006,” he explains. “I remember you by the way you admired flowers that fall off from its stem, by the way you loved fallen and broken things equally when they were perfect and when they stood still. I may have awfully forgotten you all these years, but the way I see cherry blossoms is the exact same way you see them.”

Donghyuck continues, “You know how they say we’re a manifestation of all the people we met, right? That we’re a mosaic of everything we’ve ever learned from them. To me, I remember you as the clear image of who I was before… before everything that’s happened. I remember you as someone helping me find my way back home.”

“Donghyuck,” you trail off. “That’s the… best thing anyone’s ever said to me.”

Donghyuck smiles. “And so, what if you don’t have big dreams? Dreams are just dreams anyway. You don’t have to have one if you don’t want to. You shouldn’t have to struggle so much in order to live.”

“Do people know you’re this kind and profound?” you chuckle. “People should see this side of Lee Donghyuck.”

“Call yourself lucky you’re the only one,” he answers.

“What’s wrong with people seeing this side?”

Donghyuck shrugs. “I don’t think they’d want the boring kind. I think they like me better when I’m funny and over the top and a sucker for attention.”

“Well,” you click your tongue. “I like you either way.”

Donghyuck is barely twenty-three. And if he knows anything about falling in love, this might just be the moment he truly learns it.

You and him end up falling asleep on his bed. Donghyuck likes to think he doesn’t really remember how it happened. You’d told him you’d sleep in the hammock at his house’s patio, but he’d insisted to sleep in his room, of course. Reason? Mosquitoes, of course. Donghyuck said he’d sleep on the floor, taking an extra pillow, but you were already half asleep, moving so your body is right by the wall, safe and sound. You’d save the extra space for him to sleep beside you. Donghyuck likes to think he’d fallen asleep because he was exhausted and not because he felt safe around you.

It’s the longest sleep he’s had in a long time.

He wakes up at eight in the morning, the room already warm despite the air-conditioning system still switched on. You are no longer beside him, but he clearly hears your voice from outside.

Donghyuck gets up, going straight outside and finds everyone from the farm gathered around for breakfast outside his grandmother’s house. He’d forgotten that his Nana invited everybody for a scrumptious breakfast today, Saturday, and he wonders why neither you nor Nana herself had woken him up to help out.

Farmers and harvesters pass a plate to one another. A long table is set up in the middle of Nana’s driveway space, various of dishes laid out, and Donghyuck finds you holding two pitchers of tangerine juice, walking around to fill up the workers’ cups.

It’s Eunseuk who sees Donghyuck standing by the patio watching everybody move around.

“There’s our Donghyuckie!” she announces.

Everyone looks at him and greets him a good morning. Nana shouts his name and asks him to come over and eat some breakfast. You squint when you look at him, the sun blinding your eyes, but you smile as soon as he waves hi.

Donghyuck can’t help but think being recognized is not so bad after all.

Donghyuck spends the rest of summer like a kid.

Except he goes to work at Nana’s Music and Literature Classes on Mondays and Wednesdays, goes to the farm on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and spends his Fridays with you. He learns many things over the summer, especially about the community and the town itself. He meets more people as Donghyuck, Nana’s grandson who teaches children how to sing and who helps out in the farm two days a week. They accept him as he is, and he feels like seven again, meeting new people every day until they all remember him by his name.

Among the things he’s learned, he likes learning how your lips taste the most.

It was sudden, unplanned, the kind where he didn’t know he was doing it until he’s done it. You and him were ending a Friday session at your place that time, the place where he used to hide his drinks, and he was so elated that he wasn’t going home drunk for the first time since he arrived in Jeju-do. And he was bidding you goodbye. He’d leaned it like it was the most natural thing to do and caught your lips in his. You shrieked in surprise, unable to say anything, but tipped on your toes and gave him a second kiss before turning and running inside your house.

You didn’t talk about it, and Donghyuck felt like it was not something to talk about. You had voiced out you liked him in many occasions, and Donghyuck’s been relentlessly flirting with you since the night you fell asleep in his room. The signs were never mixed and the lines were never blurred. Donghyuck’s grown much closer to you more than anyone else in the world, and he’s been falling asleep in the safety of your arms these days. It was safe to say the kisses weren’t meaningless.

The night of his class’ recital comes quickly.

Donghyuck spend the entire two days practicing with each of his students while you were busy reading all of your students’ works and giving them feedback before they submit it to the Mayor’s office. You find him getting ready in his room, dressed in the only button-down shirt he brought from Seoul and a pair of slacks. Meanwhile, it’s the first time he’s seeing you in a dress that somehow matches the colors of his outfit.

“Looking great, handsome,” you say.

Donghyuck pulls you for a kiss. “Could say the same to you, beautiful.”

“Why are you so touchy these days?” you whine but lean back to kiss him again anyway. “Ready? One of the parents called and said his kid is already in the venue. They’re excited.”

Donghyuck nods, grabbing a jacket just in case it gets cold later tonight, and leads the way out. Nana is dressed in a pretty dress Donghyuck gave her for Christmas last year. Donghyuck drives to the venue and finds himself nervous for the first time in a long time.

 You’d managed to convince him to sing tonight despite his persistent refusal.

“Come on, Donghyuck,” you begged, pulling him by the end of his shirt as he harvests tangerines. “The audience will love you!”

“They paid their tickets to watch the kids of the community sing, not me,” he argued. “And besides, I haven’t sung in like, four months. Who knows? I may have forgotten to sing already.”

“Bullshit,” you said. “Your Nana would want to hear you sing live.”

“She’s already heard me sing live many times,” he replied. “She’s been to many concerts.”

You tilt you head, a habit he’s grown to really like. “But I haven’t.”

Donghyuck had wanted to kiss the pout off your lips at that time. “Watch it from Youtube.”

“You don’t get many lines!” you said.

“So, you do watch my performances in Youtube, huh?” he teased. “Only in NCT 127 I don’t get so much lines because there are more members. Try to listen to NCT Dream.”

“Donghyuck!” you bellowed in frustration as you follow him around the farm. “Please!”

He stopped and turned, a little too late for you to step back because you’re already pressed up against his chest. “Okay.”

“Really?” you asked, voice lower because your faces were just inches apart—one wrong move and you’d be kissing in the middle of tangerine trees.

He nodded, purposely moving his face closer. “Only if you start reviewing for the SAT again and start sending your drafted college applications from your laptop.”

“Who told you to sneak in and open my files!” you gasped.

“I was checking if you’ve ever watched porn in your life and I found something better: your college applications.”

“I hate you, you know?”

Donghyuck chuckled, moving even closer to intimidate you but he hoped you couldn’t his heart hammering against his chest. “I know. Now. Do we have a deal? I’ll sing at recital night and you start reviewing for the upcoming SAT and send out your college applications when it’s time.”

“I’m—I’m not sure.”

Donghyuck let you go, you almost falling back but he held your hand before you could. “Then I’m not singing.”

“But Donghyuck!” He turned to leave while you scream behind him, pleading.

Ten steps forward and he finally got what he wanted: “Okay! I’ll do it! I’ll start reviewing and will send all the drafted college applications! I’ll do it!”

Hence, the singing stunt for tonight.

The event goes as planned.

The night starts with Donghyuck’s entire class singing their own rendition of a famous traditional song that the crowd truly loved. One by one, the kids would sing, with intermission numbers in groups in between, and by the end of it, it was Donghyuck’s turn.

The minus one track is ready and Donghyuck takes a deep breath as he walks up the stage. It’s smaller than any of the stages he’s been on—perhaps the smallest—and the lights aren’t as bright than the ones he’s used to. Big stages mean big lights, and if he’s being completely honest, he doesn’t see a single face when he’s on stage. The illuminations to ensure the fans would see them are blinding, beyond what people think. While his mother thinks his eyesight has gotten worse due to the long hours of playing APEX on his days off, Donghyuck believes it’s because of the blinding lights from the stage and everywhere he goes.

However, this stage has the gentlest lights he’s ever seen. The crowd is small, about two hundred people including their students, and from here, he can see their faces clearly. He stands not too far away, not to high, and he smiles when the crowd cheers when he reaches the middle of the stage.

“Hello, I’m Donghyuck,” he says on the mic. “I’m the teacher of the talented kids we watched this evening, and I can’t be prouder with how they sang their hearts out tonight. To show my gratitude, I also prepared a song for you.”

The crowd cheers again, your voice standing out as you stand right beside the stage, your phone already up probably recording him.

“I sang this song some time last year,” he continues. “This is Good Person.”

The instrumental plays and the crowd claps before he even starts. Donghyuck breathes, closing his eyes, and sings: “What’s going on today? Your face looks like it’s been crying. Did he break your heart? You’re the most precious person in the world to me.”

He hasn’t sung in a long time, and he barely practiced this song yesterday. Donghyuck, for some time before everything went to crumbles, felt scared going on stage. He felt as though he wouldn’t do well enough to deserve the applause and cheers, and he spent a lot of time doubting his own capabilities.

Whoever he is now, Donghyuck truly worked hard for it. At first, he only knew how to sing and it was the only thing he ever loved. And then he learned how to dance, how to stand like an idol, how to answer like a celebrity, how to have his “candid” photos taken, how to be a proper artist—even when he only wants to sing.

Standing here, now, in a small crowd, singing a song he wished was his own, he wished he had written, Donghyuck feels safe.

In Jeju-do, he feels safe. Donghyuck feels like he’s found his way home. The people he’s spent all these months with brought him comfort he’s never known—like coming home after a whole day of being pestered in the real world—and he knows that he’ll never find ease and serenity the same way Jeju-do had given him. The town took him in with open arms, like he’s not some idol who ruined their career for fleeting pleasure, like he’s not some person who’d forgotten about all of them. His Nana embraced him like he was seven again, like making mistakes is normal and that forgiving is easy when you love the person. You accepted him and taught him what falling in love means as though he was deserving of love and comfort.

The song ends with his voice dragging out the last words, his eyes closed: “I can only comfort you.”

When Donghyuck opens his eyes, the lights don’t blind him and the people he knows and love clap, cheering for him. It comes to him like pouring rain. And he allows himself to drench in it—the tenderness, the warmth, the love.

Because he deserves it. He deserves the love, therefore he takes, takes, takes, until he’s full of it.

Like many times in Donghyuck’s life, the ease and serenity end as quickly as it arrives.

You’d spent the night in his home, Donghyuck for the first time learned how to make love in bed. He’s had sex before, of course, but never like how you and him connected in his bed—moans and music of pleasure hushed by each other’s mouth, his honey-colored skin’s warmth pressed against yours, his lips and tongue tasting every inch of you. He’d said he loves you, and you’d said it back as you and him take each other.

This morning he wakes up without a headache, and he’s been waking up without one for a few weeks now. He usually wakes up with the sound of roosters from his grandmother’s backyard, or the sound of you and his Nana talking over your morning coffee. But today, he wakes up with the sound of his grandmother knocking profusely, seemingly frightened by the sound of her voice calling his name.

“Donghyuck-ah,” she shouts. “Please wake up. I don’t know what to do.”

You and Donghyuck get up startled, scrambling to put some clothes on and hurrying to open the door—only to find Nana on the verge of tears. Nana never falters, she’d only shown strength but Donghyuck finds her shaking. Nana doesn’t get the chance to answer because Joohyuk barges in, sweaty and catching his breath.

“The mayor’s security team is here,” he announces. “Let’s get going.”

“Go where?” Donghyuck asks, but Joohyuk is already pulling him.

The door opens, and Donghyuck finally realizes what’s going on.

They’d found him. Men and women with cameras shout his name—he recognizes a few from the conferences he’d attended—and flashes of lights and the stuttering sound of shutters devour him. He looks around and he can’t see you and he hears his Nana cry, and Donghyuck doesn’t understand what the fuck is going on, but he feels his legs give out. Joohyuk practically carries him to the SUV waiting outside their home.

Inside the car, Donghyuck catches a glimpse of the crowd—a crowd that looks like twice the amount of the people from the recital last night. He hears them screaming his name and he sees glints of neon green and posters as they pass by. His Nana, who sits beside him, cries and says she doesn’t understand why they’d found him. The mayor had specifically ensured that the town’s residents do not say a word about his visit way before he’d arrived and she’d done her best to protect him from the lights. He doesn’t say anything and only hugs her tight.

On the other side of Nana is you. You’re staring off the window, the fields far more interesting than what just happened, and you’re biting off the nails of your fingers and your legs wouldn’t stop bouncing. And you’re silent, and Donghyuck wonders why all of a—

Donghyuck doesn’t have to ask you to know.

You’d sold him off.

“I’m sorry,” is all you had to say when you and him are left inside the mayor’s office’s lounge. Donghyuck asked everybody to leave.

You’re sitting on the couch, eyes on the floor, while Donghyuck walks back and forth, angry. “I didn’t mean to.”

He stops walking right in front of you. “What do you mean you didn’t mean to post me on your Instagram? How could you possibly accidentally do that?!”

You keep your head low. “I—I forgot that it wasn’t on private and I didn’t have that many of followers to even be bothered by it. And one of our old friends commented and asked me if it was you—”

“And you said yes?” he enunciated. “You consciously, deliberately said yes?”

You start crying at this point. “Yes, and I’m sorry!”

“That’s a little too late now, isn’t it?”

“I just—”

“You just what? You want to play the girlfriend role so fucking bad?”

“Donghyuck, please, listen—” You get up and hold him by his arms but he backs off and rips his body from yours. “I just—I wanted the world to know that you can be kind and warm and you’re nothing like what the tabloids say—”

“So, you admit you purposely posted it!” he shouts. “What a fucking—”

“Yes!” you admit, still crying. “Because I can’t live knowing the world sees you differently when you’re generous and loving and amazing!”

Donghyuck takes a deep breath, hands on his waist, head tilted up so he can focus on the ceiling instead of the image of you crying. “You have no idea how the world fucking works, do you?”

“You always loved singing,” you reason out. “And the world shouldn’t take that away from you because of one mistake. I’m so sorry for what I’ve done. I didn’t think it through, but please understand my purpose.”

“You really have no fucking idea,” he concludes, looking down at you, right in your eyes and says: “How would you have any knowledge of what goes on outside of Jeju-do, anyway? You have never left this god damn place in your entire life and you know nothing aside from stringing words beautifully to get what you want. And you think you’re fucking cool for not having a dream and staying in an island, living your small-town girl fantasy, when in fact you’ve done nothing in life and people won’t even remember you. Why would you think you can make this decision for me? You’re just some girl who didn’t even go to college!”

“That’s enough, Donghyuck!” Nana interrupts.

Donghyuck turns and finds his Nana, Joohyuk, some of the Mayor’s security staff, his manager, and his Mother standing right outside the now opened door.

He looks back at you and you’re no longer crying. Your expression is just empty, like a light bulb burnt out.

Indeed, like many times in Donghyuck’s life, the ease and serenity end as quickly as it arrives.

They take the first flight to Seoul after successfully shooing the media and fans away. Nana travels with them, his mother deciding that it’s the best for now until everything calms down.

Donghyuck finds out during the flight that yours and his old friend from middle school had reposted the video of him singing from last night and it went viral in multiple social media platforms. Overnight, people had found out his location and the media had started interviewing people in the town. Despite the mayor instructing everyone not to say a thing, some had answered questions, even submitted entries on some forums about Haechan online.

His manager talks about how their PR team sort of thinks this might just be what he needed, says something about the locals of the town had said so many good things about him. He confirms that the post originated from your Instagram account and you had deactivated at this point and that they’re in the process of contacting your old schoolmate because the agency wants to press charges for invading his grandmother’s privacy and for bothering him on an unofficial schedule.

His mother holds his hand all through, and she offers a kind smile and kisses the top of his head.

Donghyuck cries like baby, and his mother only holds him, and perhaps that’s all he truly needs.

The crowd is just as bad when his plane lands. Donghyuck can barely see and hear considering the lights and people shouting his name. They take him to a separate SUV, away from his mother and Nana to keep them off the radar, and he sits in the car beside his manager.

“Here,” his manager hands him a phone as soon as the car starts moving. Donghyuck had forgotten his phone. It’s probably still in his room back in Nana’s house. People are still screaming his name. Donghyuck stares at his manager’s phone blankly. The screen shows he’s in a call with Mark.

Donghyuck’s hand shakes when he takes it. He puts the device over his ear and doesn’t wait for Mark to say anything.

“Mark-hyung,” he cries.

And cries. And cries. And cries. Until he arrives in SM’s headquarters and the manager has to take the phone away from him. Mark tells him he’s on the way to the headquarters with Renjun and Doyoung and that the others should be on their way after their individual schedules.

They arrive and immediately their staff take care of him like a baby, and he realizes that he’s back. He’s back. Right where he’s supposed to belong.

They take him to the PR teams office, and none of them ask how he’s doing and he’s spiraling again—already starting to think how he could please the staff and make them happy, not even an entire day of landing in Seoul and he’s already thinking about other people at his own expense.

Hence, Donghyuck makes a decision he’s never considered before.

While one of the PR associates discuss how he’s ranked number one in Naver’s most searched term, Donghyuck raises his hand.

They all look at him.

And finally, Donghyuck says: “Please get me a therapist. Please get someone who can help me.”

The room is clean and if Donghyuck’s being honest, a little too perfect for a therapist’s office. A tiny part of his fucked-up brain tries to convince him that they’d probably set him up for a documentary he’s not aware of to clean his image, so he looks around and tries to check if there are any cameras setup.

“Truly a celebrity,” Dr. Yoon says, which makes Donghyuck jump a little. The doctor stands from the door way, closing it as he steps inside. “Please, feel comfortable.”

Donghyuck thinks that’s a little impossible, but he takes a seat one of the single couches.

“The first thing that celebrities do in my office is look around for cameras,” the doctor comments, sitting on a similar chair across Donghyuck. “And I assure you that no amount of money can buy my integrity as a psychologist.”

“I’m relieved,” Donghyuck mumbles. “Hello, I’m Donghyuck.”

“Hello, Donghyuck,” the doctor greets; Donghyuck bows. “I had a quick glimpse of your situation from the form you filled out online. Are you feeling better today?”

“I guess,” Donghyuck shrugs. Dr. Yoon smiles.

“How about I ask questions and if you don’t want to answer, stay silent instead of lying to me?” He asks. Donghyuck sighs but nods. “And if you want to answer, answer as truthfully as you can, yes?” Donghyuck agrees. “Let’s start with simple questions.”

“Do you have any siblings?”

Dr. Yoon asks him many close-ended questions, to which Donghyuck had given him all the answers to, then proceeds to ask him what’s on his mind. The doctor’s notepad sits on the table between them, left open and blank even after asking so many questions.

Donghyuck is not really sure whether he’d done the right thing by seeking help, but he can’t keep hurting people just because he’s fucked up in the head. And he can’t keep hurting himself just because he can’t make the entire fucking world happy. He can’t keep drinking his insomnia away because he’s scared a doctor may tell him he’s fucked up in the head, which he knows already, he just doesn’t want it written in his medical records. He can’t keep fucking up his group’s image just because the alcohol doesn’t help his insomnia anymore. He can’t keep drowning himself in his sadness and the thought of disappointing so many people in his life—the people he left behind in Jeju-do, the members, his fans, the staff, his parents and siblings, his Nana, you.

If melatonin didn’t work, if the alcohol didn’t work, and if Jeju-do didn’t work, then perhaps a therapist is his best shot at getting better.

Donghyuck takes a deep breath, closes his eyes and begins.

“I keep thinking about how I can make everyone happy without sacrificing anything.”

The doctor finally picks up the pen and starts scribbling down.

Donghyuck keeps talking.

Donghyuck goes to therapy on Tuesdays and Fridays, and SM keeps his hiatus status active until Donghyuck decides to come back himself. It’s an agreement his parents, Donghyuck, and the agency settled while things are still chaotic.

The members are supportive of this, especially Mark and Taeyong. They’d send him cheerful messages every Tuesday and Friday, when they know that his session would begin. Sometimes, Jeno, Jisung, and Jaemin would pick him up and take him to a barbecue restaurant after. Donghyuck can’t remember how many times Renjun and Chenle had driven him to therapy and had waited for a couple of hours, only to take him to his favorite Chinese restaurant that serves the best hotpot. The older members have also driven him to therapy once or twice, with Jungwoo even signing up for therapy one time, and they’ve all given him love and tenderness—which Donghyuck accepted.

Donghyuck learns many things from Dr. Yoon. He learns that people pleasing isn't a mental illness, but it can be an issue that adversely affects how many people, with or without mental illness, relate to others. Most of all, people pleasers try to nourish other people without adequately nourishing themselves. Dr. Yoon called it Sociotrophy. He described it as the tendency to place an inordinate value on relationships over personal independence in response to the loss of relationships or conflict.

Those with sociotropic tendencies, wish to make other people happy, often at the sake of their own needs or values. While being warm, kind, and helpful are positive traits, they can result in strong feelings of resentment, anxiety, stress, and emotional depletion when they come at your expense.

People-pleasing, apparently, falls at the opposite end of the scale from autonomy. Autonomy places emphasis on independence whereas people-pleasers prioritize interpersonal relationships above all else. People-pleasers are often extremely empathic and attuned to others’ needs. A people-pleaser therefore tends to pursue intimate, affectionate, and confiding relationships. These people have a strong desire for external validation and avoid, or are sensitive to, situations where conflict may arise.  They will go above and beyond to avoid displeasing others out of fear of diminished social acceptance.

This behavior can have detrimental effects on a person’s self-worth and self-esteem.  A never-ending pursuit of approval, a desire for acceptance, and a sense of validation that arise from others happiness often result in a negative self-image. The person is likely to feel unworthy, powerless, or resentful, which may result in a lack of self-care.

The way Dr. Yoon had described it basically sums up Donghyuck as a human being.

He also learns that Sociotropic tendencies are often associated with mental health disorders such as anxiety or depression, which finally gave them Donghyuck’s diagnosis: clinical depression, also known as major depressive disorder abbreviated as MDD.

Clinical depression is a chronic condition, but it usually occurs in episodes, which can last several weeks or months. Dr. Yoon says one would likely have more than one episode in a lifetime. Donghyuck had asked him what was the difference between MDD and depression as it is.

Dr. Yoon explained that it’s normal to feel sad when you’re faced with difficult life situations, such as losing your job or a relationship. Some people may say they feel depressed during these situations. MDD is different in that it persists practically every day for at least two weeks and involves other symptoms than just sadness alone. It can be confusing because many people call clinical depression or major depressive disorder just “depression.”

Dr. Yoon also blabbered about chemicals in his brain that, well, Donghyuck really doesn’t understand much. All he knows at this point is that the treatment involves some medication and most specially psychotherapy. Apparently, studies show that the combination of these treatments is more effective than either of them alone.

Donghyuck has been investing a lot of his time in psychotherapy. His normal sessions were every Friday, thirty minutes to a maximum of an hour each. Like how his prescription doses went up, he also requested his psychotherapy sessions to be more frequent, hence Tuesdays and Fridays, minimum of one hour a session, maximum of an hour and a half.

Donghyuck likes to think that over the course of eight weeks, he’d gotten a little better. It turns out that being honest with your doctor means you’d get prescribed the right pills to take to help you fall asleep. No wonder the melatonin pills he’d taken didn’t work in the long run; he was taking the wrong ones and the wrong dosage—just like how he’d been looking for happiness in the wrong places.

From today’s session, Dr. Yoon asked him if he could talk to his mother about how he’d felt for so many years—the pressure, the urge to do whatever pleases her, the comparisons with other members, everything. Hence, Donghyuck finds himself knocking on his parents’ room.

He’s staying at their home during his hiatus. He reckons it’s the best time to speak with her as his father and the kids are out for work and school.

“Come in, Donghyuck-ah,” she says softly from the other side. He opens the door and finds his mother writing something in her journal. “You need anything, baby? Do you want to eat?”

He shakes his head and walks towards their bed, sitting on its edge. His mother puts the pen down and sits beside him. “Something wrong?”

“Eomma,” he says in the softest voice. “Can I sleep here?”

The question brings tears to his mother’s eyes. She nods and leads him to bed, Donghyuck lying on his side and his mother cradling him from behind. He looks like he’s thirteen again, the day before the audition at SM, young and anxious about what the next day would bring, and his mother seems like she’s never aged a day, still determined and only wants the best for her children.

Donghyuck can feel her crying.

“I’m sorry, Donghyuck-ah,” is all she says.

And Donghyuck knows deep in his heart that even before she’d uttered her apology, he’s already forgiven her.

Haechan comes back right before Chuseok.

NCT Dream is invited to perform at a music festival held in the Seoul Olympic Stadium alongside many other artists. When news broke that this would be Haechan’s come back stage, the ticket sites went crazy—crashing every second because everybody wanted to get tickets to see the most-awaited comeback.

Over the course of seven months of Donghyuck’s hiatus, many things have changed. He gained more fans in the latter parts of the hiatus after the world learned his life in Jeju-do. He’d gotten a new piercing in his cartilage, which the fans love, but only Donghyuck probably understands what it means. Old videos of him going on stage went viral years later, the world seeing how talented and passionate he truly is. Clips of him randomly singing without autotune circulated for quite some time, and his fondness of children and respect for the elder have been the talk of the KPop industry for the last months or so, calling him the most well-mannered idol. The scandal had not been erased from history, of course; some people still hate him for it. Some of his old fan sites did not return to support him, and if we’re talking about old Donghyuck, he’d probably be pretty bummed about it. He’d probably start compromising his privacy to give them a glimpse of his life off the stage to get them back.

But the sessions with Dr. Yoon have been working well, because Donghyuck doesn’t really care about pleasing the entire world anymore. Donghyuck thinks that as long as there’s a good number of people supporting him and loving him for who he is—as a person and as a singer—then he’d be okay. He didn’t have to make the entire planet roar his name.

The dress rehearsals are done by the time the clock hit four in the afternoon. The members argue where to go eat. Jisung announces he’s going shopping for a new pair of wired headphones because he lost his on the way to the stadium, to which Renjun says he’d go with him. The others decide to go eat with the staff, some opt to go home and rest so they’d be ready for the next day.

Donghyuck decides to go buy the book that Johnny recommended him: The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. He’s told that the book is about a boy growing up, and that it might strike his thoughts if he’s up to reading a children’s book meant for adults.

Hence, Donghyuck finds himself going through shelves and sections of children’s book after picking up The Little Prince and wondering if Gyeom would want to read any of these.

You see, Lee Donghyuck is not much of a believer of fate. As he’d say before, his career didn’t happen by fate because it was all his mother doing all the hard work. But what are the odds of him choosing to visit this exact book store at this exact moment over elsewhere and another time?

And what are the odds of him finding you leaning against the wall in the corner of the store, hair longer than the last time, nose red and body bundled up in layers of clothes, a book in your hand as you read through it?

Donghyuck stops, stares at you, as if he’s waiting for you to look up from the book, and thinks about how much he’d missed you all this time and how much he’d regretted ending things with foul, unacceptable words. He thinks about remembering you anytime he sees tangerines and flowers around the city. He thinks about the odds of finding you again and again in this lifetime. He thinks about the flowers only blooming as soon as the butterflies have left, missing their timing, and how they bloom again next spring, hoping that this time, the timing is right.

He thinks about you in silence. He thinks about love hiding in the corners of his chest, convincing him he’ll get over it—he’ll get over you. He thinks about his dreams.

A few people pass by the space between you and him. The distance is about three meters. It’s silent for the most part.

Donghyuck is not much of a believer of fate, and you look up to prove him otherwise.

It’s only then that Donghyuck takes a really good look on you: new hairstyle, backpack slung in one arm, a student ID badge hanging right below your chest.

“Y/N!” A girl whisper-shouts from behind fDonghyuck. “Have you found the book?”

You don’t tear your glance away from him, but you nod and say, “Yeah. I’ll go check it out and I’ll meet you outside.”

The other girl doesn’t notice him and proceeds to leave. You take two, three, five, seven steps, and you’re right in front of him.

“Hi, Donghyuck-ah,” you say in the softest voice as soon as you’re close enough.

Donghyuck wonders whether this is just a dream or if he’d started hallucinating you because of the medicines he’s been taking, but then he catches a whiff of your scent, and Donghyuck believes.

Donghyuck believes in fate. In forgiveness. In healing. In love. In finding one’s way back home.

END

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[illubean]

ooo idea for the unaligned experiment!reader (same guys as last time)

so reader gets bored during a job and wanders off once they know their favorite free meal human isn't going to die or something.

they go outside and find a stray cat, and when their favorite human comes to find them reader unprompted says "you're like this cat to me. you'll die before me and you'd be easy to kill, but I don't speed up that process because i like the fuzzy feelings you both give me. plus you're both kinda cute. :3"

like that's kinda just reader's usual rambling but it does cement that:

reader's actively thought about how easy it'd be to kill him

they don't do that because they (on some level) like being around him at this point

they're consciously aware they'll outlive him

they think he's cute

Also possible angst/comfort at the thought they've gotten bored and left him. also the reminder that reader's fully willing to wander off without him if they're not provided enrichment, but then they find out they consciously decided to stay where they could be found because they (on some level) grew to like him.

Unaligned!OP!Reader pt. 2

Characters: Illumi Zoldyck, Chrollo Lucilfer, Feitan Portor Type: Headcanons, Gn!reader

Couldn't really think of a hurt/comfort aspect because of these characters' personalities...

Warnings: mentions of death, a little angsty? idk

Illumi Zoldyck

Illumi of course already knows that you could easily take him out

it's why he kept you around in the first place

he originally only kept you around as some sort of Zoldyck super weapon

but YOU are beginning to develop FEELINGS? for HIM???

he probs just uses that to his advantage tbh

Illumi is worried when you wander off though, because what if someone else finds you and you take a liking to them? what if you leave him?

he doesn't care all that much about it from an emotional standpoint but he can't afford to lose such a valuable weapon

so he would accept your affections if it meant keeping you under wraps

you're willing to do whatever he tells you if it means keeping him around

since you don't really want him to die soon you're quick to attack anything or anyone he asks you to

even if you don't completely understand your emotions and even if it's one sided, you decide to stick around

you couldn't have your favorite human be lonely, could you?

Chrollo Lucilfer

he lets out an amused chuckle at your revelation

he too often thinks about his own mortality and that of others

so he's not as put off by your comment as he should be

"Maybe you're a lot more human than you think you are."

and his statement offers you some peace of mind

even though your immortal and were quite literally created to be a ruthless killing machine it felt good to know that you could actually experience human emotions

after this you are a lot more willing to express your affinity for him, weather physically or verbally

and you don't wander off as often as you used to

you still don't really grasp the concept of love but Chrollo understands what you mean

since you know you'll outlive him you become very protective over him

you decided it's better to keep him around as long as possible

so...I guess Chrollo did kind of get what he wanted

you were like his personal guard...dog? demon? idk you were his guard something

I'm not sure he would develop any sort of romantic feelings for you (at least not very quickly) but he does care for you to an extent

he doesn't have to worry much about losing you since yk you CANT DIE

but he does like seeing you happy :))

Feitan Portor

he's not sure how he feels about being compared to a cat

normally he would be offended but his brain skips over all the morbid parts and is like wait did they just call me CUTE!?

HIM? CUTE? HE IS A KILLER

he's mildy flustered by this but he plays it off as annoyance

but also he's offended that you think he's so weak

he knows he technically can't beat you because you're immortal but like...give him some credit

it wouldn't bee THAT easy to kill him

he could give you a run for your money

he probably just scoffs and tells you to shut up before walking away

even when you do wander you still end up finding and following him in the end

Feitan would never admit it but he enjoys having you around <3