#somehow i want to do all of these things and none of them at the same time

[elryuse]

Hierarchy

Pt 4 : Truth Or Dare

Y/n POV

Somehow, I found myself getting closer and closer to ryujin. Something that even shocked me. I was a nobody, I was a scholar, And even though ryujin was one of those privileged students, She didn't care to be friends with me. Day by day, My usual boring life was starting to shift. Ryujin alongside her friends would always ask me to go out together. Either eating at one of those luxurious cafes, Hanging out at the Large library, and even staying out at one of those PC bangs until late at night.

And without me realizing, I was getting closer and closer to some of the most privileged students here at jooshin high. One day, At the classroom. Ms. Han was teaching us about the ways people could play other people just by using their brain. The whole class was sternly listening to every word that comes out from Ms. Han's mouth. She explains that, One of human's biggest weaknesses is their ego. And we, as a student of Jooshin High, Must learn how to use that weakness, So that we can achieve whatever we want.

"This is how you'll earn your place at the highest level. This is how we can reach the hierarchy". Ms Han exclaimed.

As the materials were done. Ms sohee said her goodbyes, Before me and the rest of the class. We could finally take our lunch and have some time to relax. Ryujin immediately took a seat close to me, Alongside some of her friends such as Jimin, Minjeong, Yeji, and Chaewon. As they kept gossiping about the recent news and popular K-pop groups. Yeji murmured something out, Which was about the upcoming Birthday party of the Top students at Jooshin high, Which was none other than Park So-hyun.

I was hesitant at first, A large event such as this was a very new experience for me. I mean, I don't know what I should do, What I should bring, Or what I even need to go for. However, Ryujin kept begging me. As she playfully teases me, Making me blush like crazy. As I tried my best to reject her offer, Ryujin and her friends kept teasing me, And in the end, I found myself accepting their offer.

Small Timeskip

As D-Day is coming up. I was nervous as ever, I wasn't sure if my clothes were that proper. I mean, I don't even know what the dress code for this party was. All ryujin said was to wear something nice. How the fuck should I know, What's nice for them and what's not nice for them. Haishhh... It's frustrating asf. But nonetheless, I tried to wear something proper. So I decided to wear a casual piece of suit. With a nice white cotton shirt.

As I looked at myself in the mirror, I could only think about what sort of crazy thing would happen today. After getting done with myself, I waited for my transportation. Which was provided by ryujin. I don't know why, But this privileged student didn't really bother to buy or rent their friends some expensive lifestyle. I mean, She rented me a fucking limousine. Just for myself. Like what in the actual fuck. I'm all alone. Why the fuck would you rent me a fucking limousine? Nonetheless, I immediately got inside the limousine, before the driver drove me to the designated spot.

I could look outside my window, The huge palace that was none other than So-hyun's home. The place was huge, Filled with many abstract statues, and trees. The anticipation was palpable as I approached the grand mansion, its facade bathed in a soft, golden glow. Ryujin had been raving about the party So-hyun's was throwing, promising a night of endless fun and extravagance.

As I stepped inside the mansion, I was greeted by a breathtaking sight. The interior was adorned with lavish decorations, each room a masterpiece of opulence. It was clear that So-hyun, the queen bee of Jooshin High, had spared no expense.

Ryujin, beaming with pride, welcomed me and introduced me to her friends. I was surprised to see Wonyoung again, the girl I had met at her family's home, where I had played the piano for them. I hadn't seen her since that day, and I couldn't help but feel a strange mix of excitement and apprehension.

As the night wore on, the party reached a fever pitch. Music blared, laughter filled the air, and people danced with abandon. Ryujin and her friends urged me to join them, offering me shots and a small dose of drugs. I had never done any of these things before, and I was hesitant to try them. But with their encouragement, I reluctantly agreed.

As I took the shot, a wave of warmth washed over me. I felt a sense of euphoria, a carefree abandon that I had never experienced before. The drugs seemed to amplify my senses, making everything feel more intense, more alive.

Wonyoung, meanwhile, had retreated to a secluded area with So-hyun. I watched them from a distance, their faces etched with a mixture of guilt and longing. I knew they were struggling with something, but I couldn't quite figure out what it was.

As the night progressed, I became increasingly tipsy. Ryujin and her friends decided to play Truth or Dare with me, their laughter echoing through the room. I was game for anything, my inhibitions loosened by the alcohol.

When it was my turn, Ryujin dared me to "kiss the person who you think is the hottest and prettiest in this party." I hesitated for a moment, my mind racing. I knew that Ryujin was hoping I would choose her, but my heart was elsewhere.

I walked slowly through the crowd, my eyes scanning the faces around me. Then, I saw her. Wonyoung was sitting alone in a corner, her eyes filled with sadness. Without hesitation, I walked over to her and kissed her.

The room fell silent. Everyone stared at us, their eyes wide with shock. So-hyun's face was a mask of confusion, while Ryujin's expression was one of betrayal.

I pulled away from Wonyoung, my head spinning. I realized what I had done, and I felt a wave of guilt wash over me. I had betrayed Ryujin, and I had humiliated myself in front of everyone.

Wonyoung looked at me, her eyes filled with a mix of anger and hurt. "H-how could you?" she said, her voice barely a whisper.

I tried to explain, to tell her that I didn't mean it. But the words wouldn't come. I was too ashamed, too embarrassed.

As I turned to leave, I felt a hand on my shoulder. It Was Wonyoung. "Wait," she said. "We need to talk."

I followed her to a secluded part of the mansion. We sat down on a couch, facing each other.

"What The Fuck were you thinking," Wonyoung said. "Why The Hell would you kiss me in front of everyone"??

"I-i'm S-sorry" I answered with guilt on my shoulders.

Wonyoung took a deep breath. "What Would Happen if Everyone started to Shipped You & I together." Her voice stern and full of anger.

My heart shnked like the Titanic. I couldn't believe it. I was so stupid and drunk, That I kissed one of the most powerful students in Jooshin High. What would happen to me now.

"Now what are we gonna do?" Wonyoung asked,her voice trembling.

"I-i Don't know.. I-i'm sorry",I answer. "I was drunk as hell wonyoung... I-I didn't mean to".

"But why me?" She asked. "Why do you kiss me and not anybody else"??

"I-i Don't know," Y/n said. "I'm sorry. I was just so... lost. I didn't know what come over me"

As wonyoung and I came back from the secluded area, the air and atmosphere gets more and more intense. People were staring at us. I can only hope that luck was by my side. I hoped that nothing bad would ever happen to me. I just wished that all of those eyes stopped staring at me. As I thought I was gonna be suffocated by the amount of pressure. Someone started to walk in our direction. The sound of the elegant high heel shoes was all that I could hear.

That is until, That person approaches me, before kissing me. I was shocked, I was flabbergasted. Because that person is none other than, So-hyun. The whole crowd immediately stopped partying, As they were shocked at the sudden move. All of the students immediately let out their phone, Before they took pictures and video of me and her. What is going on. What game am I currently being played at. What's gonna happen to me.

To be continued

[laundrypause]

AU where loscar are in high school, Oscar's quite popular and Logan is not as popular but just as much as well-liked. One thing about Logan is he is the most oblivious human to ever exist in the entirety of mankind. People flirting with him? Nah, they're just being nice. Getting chocolates for Valentine's? They must feel bad that he doesn't have one. Notes with hearts attached to phone numbers mysteriously finding their way into his locker? Must be the people he's been partnered with for their midterms. At first, Logan's secret admirers thought he was trying to reject them without outwardly saying no to their advances. And if that really was the case, they'd back off cause yk common decency. But then they find out he actually doesn't realise that these advances are essentially what they are. Advances. So they do what seemed like a perfectly reasonable solution and asked one of Logan's best friends to help them out because maybe their flirtations were too general. Too normal. They needed an insider who knew what Logan liked other than fishing and cars. Things that made his heart flutter, his cheeks blush. They wanted him to know that they were interested in him, not just being friendly. So who else to ask none other than Oscar to help them out.

Oscar wouldn't say he was Logan's bestest best closest friend who knew everything about him down to a T. That position was occupied. But Oscar thinks he knows Logan enough to try and be a Cupid-associate per say and help these poor souls who decided to fall for Oblivious Man™. He doesn't know what the tightening of his chest or the flood of fire trickling through his body means but it's probably the odd gloop of greens the cafeteria calls lunch he ate. Not for any other reason at all.

For about 2 weeks straight, Oscar's the designated Loge(Love) Guru, attempting to inconspicuously ask Logan questions and relaying pieces of said information to the admirers that fit the list of questions they'd emailed him. Yes, emailed him like social media didn't exist and this was the early 2000s or something. The list of questions include:

What's Logan's favourite color?

Is he a steak kinda guy?

His ideal type in 3 words?

Coach or Gucci?

And other questions Oscar deemed.... he'd rather not ask (let's leave it at that).

Logan's a little confused about the sudden influx of questions hurled at him by Oscar but deigns it harmless enough. If it meant he'd get to spend more time with Oscar, he'd take it. Who's there to judge him? Exactly. No one.

It's been weeks ever since the admirers have asked Oscar for help and still...no dice. It seemed like after they'd requested Oscar's expertise, Logan's become even more detached to their pursuits, which should definitely be impossible but it's Logan. He always somehow manages to defy the odds. But maybe this is a sign of some sort, that Logan will never manage to see through the fog and accept that it's possible for people to experience attraction towards him.

When they say this to Oscar, however, he's weirdly defensive. Saying how could they just give up that easily, if they're actually serious about Logan why are they not doing anything more, that actually they were asking the wrong questions. That did they not realize that Logan wasn't that much of a materialist? Their actions need to have meaning, their gifts need to convey a message. They can't just throw a designer watch at him expecting him to know their intentions. Hell, he wouldn't even accept the damn gift because oh why would you spend so much on me? I can't accept this.

Nor can they can't just give him flowers all willy-nilly, just grabbing them off a shelf because it's the most expensive. Purple so obviously clashes with him and didn't they remember when Oscar said Logan liked yellow? They should've gotten him a yellow bouquet with greens and blues complimenting it, yellow because he was as bright as the sun, always exuding warmth and blues and greens because they were the colors of his eyes and wrapped with delicate pink crêpe paper because that's the color of his cheeks whenever he flushes and-

Oh my God, they were dumbasses. Idiots, fools, blockheads. Of course Oscar's 'advice' didn't work. It didn't work because he liked him. He liked Logan. Shit, it was all starting to make sense now, why none of the help Oscar lent truly...helped. Because he didn't want to help them. Because he liked Logan and didn't want them to- God how were they so dumb? It's so obvious now, so clear. The way Oscar's eyes always managed to soften when Logan was in his radar, the immediate hardening of his body, muscles taut whenever someone says something less than friendly to the American, ready to jump into a fight like an aggravated cat or even the way he always seemed to be the first person in line to lend Logan a shoulder when he's tired out of his mind, staving off sleep just to do one more calc question.

Always the one forcing him to take care of himself whenever Logan forgets to. God, they were complaining about Logan being the oblivious one but how about them? Being completely blind to the obvious lovesick simp that was still going on about how the direction of the quirk of Logan's mouth could clearly tell you about the mood he's in.

Oscar, the most discreetly obvious about his feelings. So discreet, he managed to go unnoticed by the admirers until now. So discreet, he himself doesn't realize the extent of what he's feeling for Logan isn't just platonic.

[seventeenreasonswhy]

Super Shy ~ A JWW School-Life Romance Pt. 3

Star Athlete!Wonwoo x Shy Wallflower!Reader

Jeon Wonwoo... THE Jeon Wonwoo is... paying attention to you!?

~1.5k words

Read Part 1 + Part 2

Series content: fluff, first crush plot line, school-life anime vibes, slow burn/yearning, some light angst, classmates to friends to lovers, fem reader, reader is ~*super shy*~ and has low self-esteem, reader is kind of bullied (?), sweetie pie Wonwoo, appearances by Choi Hansol and more!, all characters are in high school so no explicit content (but probably kissing eventually).

My Masterlist

Author’s note: Thank you to everyone who has read, reblogged, and liked this little series so far! This part reveals more about Y/N’s interests and talents, which she’s afraid to share because she is insecure! But not for long with sweet Jeon Wonwoo around. Also she has a fictional younger sister named Daehee (not after anyone in particular, I just like that name). 😉 These two are so innocent and cute, I’m having such fun writing them! Enjoy!!

Taglist: @clownprincehoeshi @soffiyuhh  @wonwoos-wineparty @hamji-hae @junniesoleilkth @seokqt @haniinah @yangtyunhannie @cherrylovescheol @lukeys-giggle @cookiearmy @sojuxxi  @vixensss @lixisoul99 @mjpark15 @lelsforlino  @neivivenaj  @blvkkeddcc (lmk if you want to be tagged!)

~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+

“Whoa you’re going all out on that, Y/N—”

Your younger sister, Daehee, had come down for breakfast with her bangs still in curlers, wearing her school uniform shirt over her Hello Kitty pajama pants. She was watching you as you concentrated on preparing various dishes at the stove. A thin omelet, grilled shishito peppers, vegetable tempura; it was pretty simple stuff, but you’d developed an urge to create aesthetically pleasing lunches these days.

You couldn’t really explain it, although somewhere in your heart you knew it probably had something to do with Jeon Wonwoo.

For the past week, Jean Wonwoo had been spending lunch on the roof alone with you.

The two of you barely exchanged words, really. Your longest conversation probably lasted only a few minutes. But not for Wonwoo’s lack of trying! You still wondered why he was spending his lunchtime up there at all—even more so why would he keep trying to strike up conversations with you? You guessed he really was just that nice. But every time you were around him you couldn’t help clamming up somehow.

“Are you in any clubs, Y/N?” he’d asked you the other day, between bites of his kimbap.

“Uh, no...” you answered quietly, your nerves frazzled from your total lack of conversational skills.

“None of them appeal to you?”

“Uh, not really that...” you didn’t know how to answer him. You’d ended up just looking at him blankly, like a fool. However, nothing in his facial expression or his tone made you feel like you had to necessarily come up with an answer... But his gaze was intent, and you found it hard to hold onto for more than about three seconds.

“What do you do for fun? To relax?” he followed up breezily, “You’re the class mystery.”

“Um,” the odd self-consciousness you felt at being called ‘the class mystery’ aside, you couldn’t really think of anything to say to him.

Actually, there was one thing that came to mind... but it wasn’t something you’d ever shared with anyone. Your one ‘hobby.’ Though to you it felt more like... squeezing a stress ball. It was what you did when you needed to turn your brain off.

He wants to know what I do to relax?

You couldn’t say what compelled you, but you pulled out your phone and found the photo album you had saved of your miniature paintings.

You worked with acrylic paint on very small canvasses, using very fine, small brushes to create miniature floral designs, portraits, landscapes... Your style was incredibly detailed. You had hundreds of tiny canvasses in little boxes and frames all over your room. You took pictures of most of these tiny paintings when you finished. You had even recorded a couple of time-lapse videos, showing you creating them in fast motion. You’d never felt compelled to create a social media account to display or monetize them, though. You painted because it was what you had done since you were a preteen—the careful, methodical process of dabbing tiny paintbrushes into your carefully mixed colors, getting the tone and shading of a poppy flower’s petal on a tiny scale just right... For you, creating these paintings was like a meditative practice.

By some stroke of inspiration—or insanity—you handed your phone to Wonwoo. His face became visibly more curious as he took your phone carefully in his hands.

“Wowwww,” Wonwoo said, holding the screen closer to his face. He seemed absorbed in your phone—you even caught him zoom in on a few pictures. You could tell he was looking carefully through the album.

“You’re crazy talented!” he said after a while. He sounded genuinely impressed.

“No, haha,” you somehow laughed, coughed, and gasped at the same time, your heart accelerating out of embarrassment from his compliment.

“No, seriously—Y/N, these are really incredible!” he said. “They’re so detailed, and they’re so small! How do you even do that!?” His eyes were glued to your phone screen. A part of you was screaming inside, why on earth you would show these to him!? and urging you to snatch your phone right out of his hand, throw it over the side of the building even. You couldn’t believe that Wonwoo was seeing this, this... habit. And YOU had been the one to show him, of all things!

“I wouldn’t say they’re ‘incredible,’” you said, filling up with more and more anxiety over coming off as bragging or crossing some social boundary that you shouldn’t have crossed.

Wonwoo finally looked up from the screen, looking directly at you instead. You still couldn’t bring yourself to meet his gaze, but you felt his eyes on you. After a long pause, you dared to glance up at him...

But he quickly looked away from you.

Ugh, I’m probably making him feel like he has to be super nice or something...

“Oh, whoa—a time-lapse?” He said, quickly recovering from the somewhat awkward moment when your eyes had met. But his stumbling across the most recent time-lapse video that you’d made prompted you to snap out of your reverie and bolt to grab your phone out of Wonwoo’s hands.

“Ah, don’t watch that!” you lunged for your phone, but Wonwoo reflexively pulled his hand away, surprised by your reaction but still effortlessly dodging your attempt. He smirked down at you, and your heart almost stopped.

“Why not?” he said, and the deep resonance of his voice made you realize how close your bodies were—you were practically sprawled over him after reaching for your phone, his face just inches from yours...

Your whole body seemed to flush a deep shade of red before you catapulted backward away from him. You could have sworn that you saw that Wonwoo smiling to himself, but you were so flustered and anxious about the way you’d completely invaded his personal space that you couldn’t think straight.

“I won’t watch it,” he said light-heartedly, smiling at you as he tossed your phone back to you. “But you are super talented, Y/N. Painting is such a unique skill, too.”

And just like that, he went back to eating his kimbap like nothing had happened. His relaxed, friendly tone mercifully neutralized the atmosphere, but you just stood there clutching your phone to your chest.

“It’s not that I’m embarrassed,” you started, even though you couldn’t look Wonwoo in the eye, “It’s just—I’ve never shared these paintings with anyone except my family...” Your heart kind of ached for some reason as you said this to Wonwoo, who just continued to look at you in silence. What on earth had compelled you to share that with him?

Agh, say something! You willed for this pause in conversation pass, but it didn’t seem to be budging.

“Thank you for showing me,” Wonwoo said at last. His low, gentle voice seemed to shoot directly into your bloodstream, flushing you an even deeper shade of red than you thought was humanly possible. You looked at him briefly, and something about the way he was looking back at you...  

The moment had played over and over again like a movie in your head for the past few days. The directness of his gaze. The rich, sincere quality of his voice. The way he’d smiled to himself... you couldn’t stop thinking of that particular lunch hour.

Standing at the kitchen counter, Daehee watched you dip veggies in tempura batter and toss them in the pot of hot oil on the stove. You let your mind run through the questions it had been asking all week: why was he spending time with you like this? Did he lose a bet? Is there some kind of hidden camera prank you should be wary of? More than that, why was he being so nice?

“Hellooo, earth to Y/N! I said you’re really going to town on your lunches these days,” Daehee tried again to get a rise out of you.

“Oh,” you said, taking the last piece of tempura squash out of the oil. “I just like experimenting.” You weren’t lying, exactly—you did like exploring all kinds of different food and dishes. Cooking was fun to you, different from the calm of painting.

You would be lying if you said that an added bonus wasn’t Wonwoo noticing and complimenting your work.

You liked it when he praised you. It felt like he meant it.

No one could be that good at faking sincerity, could they?

You couldn’t help but hear that small voice in the back of your head, doubting Wonwoo’s intentions.

But he hadn’t done anything other than come up to the roof during lunch this week, mostly just eating in silence with you—the two of you simply looking out at the sky...

But after you had shown him your paintings...

Maybe it was since then that you had started to put more effort into your lunches.

[soobadnoonecanstopher]

Rat Bastard - Part 7

Pairing: You x Kyungsoo 

Rating: M (Mature)

Word Count: 8900

Warnings: There were too many beds, Enemies to Lovers, Slow Burn, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Idiots to Lovers

A/N: I wrote this in less than a day and none of it followed any of the plans I had for this story. This new laptop makes it too easy to write and it might end up adding extra chapters to this fic. Sorry and you’re welcome.

Tag: @ilovemyapopbaby

Links: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8

The silence that sat down atop both of your heads after that door closed tight, leaving you and him completely alone together for the first time in literally forever was about as loud as anything you’d ever experienced. 

Kyungsoo stood just inside of the drab entryway and you had been lingering closer to the hallway that would take you further into the shelter. You watched his face for a while, trying to gauge the mood he would be in to find himself trapped in here with you for at least one night, maybe two if things got wild at the hospital and Mr. Chen wasn’t able to get away as he promised. 

How would he feel about this? The relationship and you used that word strictly for lack of any other word to describe the you and the him, had been strained from the start, downright hostile at times, and only very recently kind of sort of settled into this civil agreement in which you did not antagonize him and he did not antagonize you -- much. 

It wasn’t a friendly relationship for he himself had told you quite brutally last night that he had no interest in being your friend, but lately, with the interactions that had grown just a little bit softer, the chat you’d had with him out on the patio as he made you ramen and teased you about your sexual optimism, the silly time passing game of stating a personal preference between two completely inconsequential things and you found, much to your surprise that you and he shared more than a few minor tastes in common; the fright you had been triggered into with the spiders in the movie and the genuine comfort you felt from him; it felt almost as if something somewhere might be changing. Were you, just as you had been with the threat from the fake spiders, simply imagining the entire thing? 

“Well, shit,” Kyungsoo whispered mostly to himself after the heavy door slammed shut and you looked up into his face to catch the smallest furrow of his brows and the frown of his lips. 

Was this a worst case scenario for him? Trapped alone with the girl he never wanted to be trapped with? Having gone out of his way all those months ago to ditch her on that stupid blind date and she just had to be pathetic enough to pick a fight with him about it, and then about anything and everything she could find to fight about and just when he thought he’d escaped that nightmare of a person she shows up here and not only is she forced upon him by the staff here but now he’s somehow charged with feeding her and entertaining her? You could see it in his face. He looked disappointed as evidenced by the furrow and the frown.

You pulled your arms up and crossed them over your chest, pulling your eyes down and away from that disappointed look you saw in his eyes and you made a deal with yourself then and there; you would not be a burden. You would keep as good a distance as this situation allowed and behave yourself as far as your temper or your tangled feelings for the man were concerned. You wouldn't let it show just how far down this pathetic rabbit hole you’d fallen of uninvited attraction and unrequited love. You’d treat him with disinterest, maybe casual civility that a shop worker would get, or that old man at the grocery store who made a friendly joke about the price of eggs and you provided the required perfunctory laugh at exactly the right pitch and tone to be deemed socially acceptable. That was what you would do, you would perform as expected by society in such a situation. 

It wasn’t his fault that you’d allowed this little crush to fester deep inside your stomach; and for a man who didn’t even desire friendship from you. It wasn’t the first time you’d let your heart run away with your mind. It didn’t have to happen with this man. 

You felt a slight burning in your stomach, just below your breastplate and you placed a palm over the space where you felt the pain. You knew enough about your body to recognize that you were just feeling the aftereffects from the panic from earlier. It always came as an upset stomach that burned and ached usually for hours after your heightened emotions had run their course. 

“What is it?” You hadn’t expected his attention but he must have seen your hand sink down hard just over the space at the top of your stomach. He must have noticed the look of discomfort on your face that you quickly blanked away with the drop of your hand. 

“Nothing,” you said flatly dropping the subject entirely before he had a chance to probe or suspect more of you and you lifted a hand to half shrug into the air, “umm… did you want to finish the movie or … maybe play another game?”

His lips parted and he closed them up, his eyes briefly leaving your face and glancing behind you into the dark hallway from where you both had come. 

When he didn’t answer you right away you inhaled to speak again, before you sounded like his own liability that he had to deal with, “you don’t have to do either, if you don’t want to. I don’t need you to entertain me or anything, I can figure something out for myself if you just want to be alone.”

You’d already spun on your heels, determined with your newfound resolve to be exactly as aloof and unaffected by anything he said or did as required by society to keep the peace; taking the first few steps away from him and turning back toward the dim light from the open kitchen door that you could barely make out as a direction in which you should travel.

“We could,” the first sounds of his voice stopped your steps and you turned your face in his direction, not committing to turning around the whole way, “play something, if you want.” 

“Not Monopoly again, I swear to God,” you said with a finger lifted into the air and you heard the soft chuckle that came from behind you. 

“Awww, my little Princess didn’t like the bitter taste of defeat?” You could hear the joking tone in his voice and weirdly that strong feeling of uncertainty you’d felt only moments earlier seemed to change with the teasing tone he used with you. Changed into what? You wouldn’t say, but it was only a slightly more comfortable feeling. There was a burning sensation just under the skin below your cheekbones and you thanked whatever god was responsible for putting you in this darkened hallway during this moment for the cover that would keep the blush from being noticed by him. You were imagining the softness you heard in that nickname. This man did not hold any affection for you. 

Inside the kitchen you returned to the familiar set up that you had left, only it felt wildly different. Gone was the soft comfy feeling of the mattresses on the floor, the pillows set up at your back and the fluffy down winner’s blanket sat in a tangled clump on the floor beside the bed that you both had occupied. The briefest of thoughts flittered by -- would you be able to smell him in it now? That clean, crisp fragrance he seemed to carry with him, would those microscopic molecules be wound into the spaces in between your one thousand threads ready to drift inside of your nose, bringing you back to the moment below the blanket when his fingers intertwined between your own and he held your hand, keeping you grounded and still connected to this world. The comfort he had given you then, but why? To keep you from embarrassing yourself or maybe him? You couldn't find the reasoning for it anywhere inside of you, but this wouldn't be the first time that man did something you couldn't understand. 

The burning was back. You had an absentminded hand running over the spot on your belly and your feet carried you to the spot beside the fridge where the water bottles sat. You ‘d seen an electric kettle there and you busied yourself grabbing a mug and heating the water. Behind you, Kyungsoo was looking through the games again, trying to find something that he could no doubt destroy you with again. Your heart wasn’t in the fight this time, you felt too distracted. 

The water was heated and you poured some into a cup, finding that plain hot water always soothed your stomach the best and you returned to his side to peer over his shoulder holding your mug. 

He glanced over at you and down at the mug, making no comment about either, and then he held up a game. It was your game. It was the first game, a word game you’d picked to play with a nostalgic and hopeful glint in your eye. 

“We can play this one, if you want,” he said with a bit of a whisper as if you two weren’t the only ones in this entire building, “it’s still fun even with only two people.”

You nodded and took a seat near him but not close enough so he could cheat and look at your letters and he quietly set up the game, not once looking directly at your face for too long apart from the smallest of brushes with his eyes into yours as he handed you bits and pieces for the game. 

You settled into your seat and took a good long look at the letters you had to pick from, picking a few up and shuffling them to see if you could come up with something good and after a few moments you settled on something that was actually pretty decent, especially for the first round. The realization pulled a small smile to your face and you grabbed the letters to place them on the board. He’d already told you that you could go first and as you began placing your tiles on the board you looked up to find that he was watching you, of course he was; you were playing the first word. This word would determine what he could or couldn’t play from his letters. 

You played your word and did the math, giving yourself a nice start with 20 points and you wrote down the number on the pad of paper and looking up at him expectantly. You had expected him to be paying attention to the word, to be impressed by your intelligence. You had managed to spell that word on your very first go. You had expected him to feel thoroughly challenged by the force he had to reckon with. 

He sat there though, his eyes watching you but something about his mind seemed disconnected from the game. Your smile at your own move slipped just a little bit, falling flat because he hadn’t even looked at the word you played yet. He just sat there with his shoulders relaxed, his unshuffled letters sitting there in front of him, he didn't even have his fingers on them, rearranging and thinking as you would have expected. He just sat there -- it was odd. You lifted your chin and wiggled your head, lifting your eyebrows and you heard an inhale as he took a deep breath and exhaled as he slowly pushed the air through his lips and when he was empty his eyes closed up. He gave his head a little shake back and forth and finally, finally his eyes left your face. 

Finally he was looking down. 

“Oh you played that, hmm,” you heard him mumble and he was back. All at once, his fingers were touching lightly over his letters, picking some up, moving them, shoving some aside, actually thinking about the game in front of him instead of whatever in the world he had been so distracted by. 

You lifted your mug and took a sip, feeling the warmth of the hot water warm the inside of your stomach a little bit. The pain was still there even after another sip and you looked down at the mix of letters you had thinking of what word you might play next. You adjusted your posture some, lifting a hand to rub just below your breastplate again, wishing that knot would just go down and be done so you could win this game already. 

Kyungsoo had played his word, counted out his points, and wrote a sad little 16 under his name. You were already winning. The self-satisfied smile was back, it had replaced the wince on your face when you realized you already had your next word. You played it quickly and tallied up your numbers. 24 -- He really didn’t stand a chance. 

You heard the scrape of chair legs and the sound pulled your attention up to the man who was standing up and walking away from you toward the kitchen cabinets at the back wall. 

“It’s your turn, Kyungsoo,” you called toward his retreating back. 

“I know, I’m just getting something real quick,” he called without looking back at you and you heard him inside the fridge, heard him pulling something out and he was slicing something with a knife on a board. The kettle was going again and you heard a metal spoon hitting porcelain as he stirred something into a cup. 

He was back quickly with two mugs in his hand and when he returned to your side he’d place one of the mugs in front of you. 

The color of the water inside the cup was a pale yellow and you saw a single disc of sliced ginger floating on the surface. You could see the string and tab from a tea bag in his mug. 

“Honey and ginger,” he said as he busied himself with playing a word on the board game, “for your stomach,” he added as if you’d made an announcement at the start of your game that your stomach was hurting and he was just responding to that. 

You hadn’t said a single thing to him about it. In fact, you had thought you were doing a pretty good job hiding it from him. You hadn’t let him see you frown or groan or cry out in pain once. The worst you did was lightly massage the space where it hurt the most. 

You lifted his offering to your lips and took a sip expecting it to be too hot for you to drink comfortably and finding the temperature rather mild actually. You took another bigger sip and felt the soothing warmth slip into you. It was sweet with the honey he added and slightly spicy from the fresh ginger he’d added. It was delicious. You’d never tried this for your stomach aches before but it seemed to actually be helping. You took another sip and swallowed, finding that the burning lessened with each sip you took. 

Kyungsoo silently played a word and you watched his mouth moving as he added up his points and wrote down his score of 20. 

You smiled widely. He had just played the letter you needed to play your next word and with the orientation of the word you would be able to get the bonus points. You were already laying your letters out on the board and counting out your points before he’d even had a chance to replace the letters he’d used on the last word. 

“Oh come on, what? You gotta give me a chance to catch you,” he groaned in annoyance that didn’t really seem to sink too deep into him for him to really mean it. You could still see the smile on the edges of his mouth and in his eyes. You did a little victory wiggle in your seat, wrote down 50 points under your name, and even stuck your tongue out at him with a giggle. His eyes slipped down your face and his lips had been pulled into a smile, despite the fact that he was losing this game miserably. 

He pulled his head back a little bit and looked up into the air above his head. A quick glance at his pieces told you he still needed to replace letters and so you held up the bag with the open end toward him. He was still sulking about the heavy blow and you had to reach out to touch your fingertips over the back of his warm hand to get his attention. You gave the bag a little shake and you had his eyes in yours again as he reached into the bag, pulling out tiles and groaning at the letters the universe had decided to give him. 

“Ugh,” he was groaning with each new letter he pulled out. His eyes darted over the game board and occasionally slipped back up into yours, probably because you had been watching him for signs that he had something good to play. It didn’t seem like he did. 

“Blegh,” he made a disgusted sound,  complaining again. “What am I going to do? What do I do, what do I do?” he repeated to himself as he pondered his brand new fate as a loser of this game. 

In his hand, he held only two tiles and he hovered lightly over a space on the board. You giggled when he set them down. It was the saddest word you’d seen in a while. 

“You’re going to have to do better than that if you want to beat me, Kyungsoo,” you sing-songed playfully watching him spell out the word ‘SEE’ for only 5 points.

His hand moved and he spun his letters around, showing you very quickly the hand he had. You saw a slew of vowels, mostly the letter E and everyone’s least favorite burden a single solitary X. 

You were openly laughing at him now. His cheeks were pink and he was reaching into the bag to select his replacement letters and when he pulled them out he tossed them in disgust. They both landed flat on the table, face up with a clatter. He had thrown them there. You looked down to see two more Es and the sight threw you back into a noisy fit of laughter that seemed to be catching. You could hear him giggling beside you and he gripped the Es in his fingertips and tried to put them back into the bag. You snatched it up quickly and held the bag of letters out of his reach so he couldn't cheat and put them back in. 

“No no,” you gasped through the giggles, “Think of words with lots of Es like meet, umm, teeth, f-feet,” you said through a strained voice and you were laughing again at the look he shot you at the mention of the words that brought up a very recent sore memory for him. 

“Teeth and feet?” He said with his eyes wide, “You really brought that up again?” He exhaled through his teeth, his lips pulled wide in frustration. He was leaning now, reaching desperately past your game pieces to where you still kept the bag of letters out of his reach to keep him from cheating, even though you were pretty sure he wouldn’t be able to catch up with you even if he replaced all of his letters now. He had scooted his chair closer to you and you reached for his desperate hand, gripping around his fingers and pulling his hand down into your lap, holding it tightly there and leaning into him to help you gain some leverage against him. He was quite strong when he wanted to be but he seemed to be letting you hold him back like this. He definitely wasn’t putting his all into this struggle against you. Something was off with him. Kyungsoo had never held back on that chance to be terrible with you before. 

Instead, he had moved in too close to you and after the small playful struggle, you felt the warmth of him all over you. You had been giggling as he reached out with his other hand, reaching again for the bag of letters you held out of his reach and you felt the tips of his fingers wrap around your wrist and he pulled your arm down. It was a bit of a stalemate and you heard the soft laughter from him settle and go curiously still, when you opened your eyes you found his face in front of yours. You had his hand inside of yours down on your lap right over your thigh and he held your other hand with his fingers wrapped tightly around your wrist.  You hadn’t expected this level of closeness from him, the shock you felt radiating through your chest had taken the laughter out of your voice and left you stunned in a frozen silence instead. 

You suddenly felt hyper-aware of your own body. He was so close to you, that you wondered if he was able to hear how noisily your heart was pounding inside of your chest, or if he could hear the stuttered way your breathing moved in and out of your lungs. 

God, he was beautiful up close. His skin was clear and he had a scattering of tiny moles all over. The small freckle in his upper lip seemed to have a presence all of its own and you struggled to look away from him. Your eyes roamed over the length of his face. He had long since stopped laughing and he had even stopped reaching for the bag, stopped struggling against your hands and he was watching you with slow blinking wandering eyes over your face that seemed to settle again heavy and deep inside of your eyes. 

You exhaled a breath you had been holding through your parted mouth and his eyes slipped down to look at your mouth when you moved. This was something. Something was happening here. Something that shouldn’t exist with the intense animosity he’s always felt for you. Something between you and something between him. You could feel it in the way your skin flushed, the blood in your body seemed to seek refuge in some place that wasn’t in your veins. You found it difficult to breathe with him so close and those eyes of his didn’t let up, they didn’t let you go, you felt so much more trapped here in his eyes than ever before. Your ears picked up on the smallest grunt of effort from somewhere in the back of his throat, then the smallest inhale of breath lifted his lungs, and finally, finally, he closed his eyes.

“I think I’ve lost this game,” he whispered through closed eyes with a sudden tight clench of his jaw. 

He was leaning. He was moving. You watched the sway of his balance and he moved closer to you, impossibly closer and the fingers he’d wrapped around your wrist released their hold, that hand was moving. You felt the first tiny touches of his fingertips as he moved his hand to touch your face lightly and achingly slowly along your jawline. You felt as if you could burst into flames at any second and judging by the heavy puffs of air that left his lungs, something similar was happening to him too. 

He leaned into you, close enough for a kiss but something stopped him. You felt and saw the lean though. He pulled back half a centimeter and it felt like he was at war with himself. 

You watched his face as he did it. His eyes, he kept them closed up as tightly as he could and the hard clench of his jaw did not let up. 

He was touching you though. His hand had moved and his thumb brushed lightly over your bottom lip and his fingertips dug in behind your ear. His other hand, the one that you held in your lap had moved too and you felt a squeeze from his fingers as he clenched tightly around your hand. 

Everything about him was tense. His jaw, his hands, his eyes squeezed shut tightly. 

This man was very purposefully attempting to regain control of himself and resist whatever it was he was feeling by being this close to you, by you touching him, and by him touching you. Your own self-control felt thready. How easily you could snap in two. How flimsy your resolve had grown around him. 

You’d long since dropped the bag of letters. You felt the need for the warmth of his soft skin under your fingertips. So you reached for his face, delighting in wonder at the smoothness your fingertips traveled over, even with the hard clench of his jaw he felt so warm and inviting and he was still so very close to you. He smelled so good, it was overwhelming. You wanted him. 

He was so very close; close enough for you to feel every quick burst of air that came from his nose against your lips, close enough for you to so easily lean your face into his and press your lips up against the softness of his mouth.

So you did it, you did it -- you leaned into him and you kissed him on the lips, relishing in the softness you felt when his lips gave into yours so, so easily, it seemed to come like second nature when you had actually worked up the nerve to do it. 

There were almost imperceivable changes in him when you did it; when you kissed him. The hard clench in his jaw let up with the soft grunt of surprise that came from the back of his throat and in his hands; the loosening of the tight grip he held you with on your face as he simply let go of you entirely for the first few seconds of this kiss from you. 

The next change was less subtle, you felt the careful way he caved to your lips. The tilt of his head paired with the parting of his jaw and he leaned into you further, pulling your soft bottom lip into his mouth then pulling you again, your upper lip. When he moved again you felt the tip of his wet tongue guide along your teeth and reach for yours with that same suction he had pulled against you which you gave to him, giving him what he wanted, feeling very much out of control now with greedy the way he sucked on your tongue. The kiss was too much in an instant. The undeniable attraction you felt for this man had taken every bit of rational thought and tossed it out the window, carrying them all away with the wind outside. 

His mouth and teeth and tongue nipped inside of your mouth, pulling at your lips and he was moving, peppering tiny kisses, bites, and nibbles along your jawline as he moved lower to taste the skin below your ear. 

You reached for him again, reaching a hand forward for his waist and lower, you’d lost your mind when you touched near his belt, slipping the tips of your fingertips in between the denim fabric and feeling along the elastic waistband of his underwear. Feeling the very clear bump of his arousal and the warmth of his skin there.

His hand flew up to stop you and you heard the soft groan that came from his chest against his will. You could feel your labored breathing taking your chest and heaving it up and you shook your head back and forth at the nerve he had to stop you. You wanted him, you wanted the sex. You were beginning to feel desperate for him. 

Kyungsoo leaned his forehead against yours and his hands now had a strong ironclad grip on your wandering hands. You felt the very slight movement of his face back and forth. 

No. 

He was telling you no. 

You had to take a genuine moment to absorb it. He was telling you no. You closed your eyes and inhaled a deep breath and you inhaled the no, the refusal, the rejection took its time coming at you slowly in a big old sluggish wave and your breathing was beginning to calm down now. 

“Kyungsoo?” You called out lightly, feeling just a bit upset and even more confused as to why he would have kissed you back so intensely if he didn’t want this. 

“I,” he opened his mouth and pulled his head back, “I don’t—” his words were broken, staggered, and fractured, “I couldn’t live with myself.”

“You don’t want me like that.” It wasn’t a question. You weren’t asking him a damn thing. It was a stark realization that you had simply misread his actions as affection. 

“I don’t mean that,” he began, his voice clearer and with slightly more urgency than the staggered speech from earlier, he inhaled and swallowed, licking his lips as his eyes searched over your face. 

“I don’t do that lightly,” he exhaled and furrowed his brows, narrowing his eyes and looking into your face again, “I’ve never slept with someone outside of a relationship. I don’t do it. This can’t happen. We aren’t going to have sex.” 

He had released his tight grip on your hands now that his reasoning was out and you sat there feeling just a little bit foolish for having jumped so quickly straight to sex. You felt the embarrassment hit you hard and you closed your eyes through it and shook your head, straightening your back and removing your hands from within his fingers and pulling them back toward you as you carefully busied yourself with straightening your shirt back out. This felt awful. You reached down for the mug with the now cold ginger honey water and you downed the remains quickly, hoping that some of that sweet honey might coat your insides and soothe your fractured ego while it was at it. 

You felt the softness of his hand land over yours when you put the mug back down and you looked down at it, his hand covering over yours. You could feel it then, he was asking you to look at him. You had been embarrassed by the rejection and had been busying yourself with literally anything that wasn’t him. He’d given you time to process it and to get yourself under control before calling your attention again with the softest and most gentle pull of just the warmth of his hand on yours. You signed deeply, willing all of that oxygen to fill your lungs and power your brain well, and after what felt like several inescapable seconds passed you looked up into his face. 

He was watching you, no words on his lips and a slow and steady blinking of his eyes.

You swallowed before you spoke, “I get it,” you said plainly, biting down on your lip once before you continued, “I understand. You don't sleep around. I sleep around. You and I aren’t the same.” 

His lips parted and his eyes rolled over his face once before they sank back down heavy inside of yours. He inhaled a breath, clearly ready to counter your words. You knew you were misinterpreting his meaning. It wasn't even as if he’d called you a slut or anything, but goddammit that recent discovery of his. Him having found your 20-pack of condoms in your bag; you couldn't help but compare them to the single 5-pack he brought which he probably never even had any intention of using in the first place when you had every intention of using some of those condoms on this retreat. You would be goddamned if you didn’t get laid at least once on this trip. It had been so long for you, that you needed something from someone that made you feel desired and attractive to another human being. 

“You know,” he was speaking, his eyes had drifted closed and he was having trouble getting the words out again. Maybe he was about to tell you he was on his way to pray for your forgiveness for being such a slut. 

“You already know how I feel about you,” he whispered and pulled his eyes open. 

You looked at his face for a moment before your eyes wandered over the space above his head; giving the smallest head shake as a reply. Not really. He hated you for one minute. He laughed at you and teased you another minute. He made you ramen and tasty honey tea to soothe your upset stomach and beat you mercilessly at Monopoly but his cold hard facade fell apart when you teased him back. He was a mystery to you, whenever you thought you had figured something out about him, he would pull out the rug from under you and swear that no matter how desperate you were for it he would specifically not ever sleep with you. You felt that same familiar pain in your stomach flare up again. You hissed through it and inhaled a small gasp, doing your best to keep your reaction under wraps. 

His eyes narrowed and he dropped his chin, “you must know,” he said again, “you already know.” 

You must have flinched somewhere in your face. Those knowing eyes of his caught it and his head ticked as his eyes moved over you again. 

“How could I know anything?” You were beginning to feel like you should go lie down. You even felt a tiny bit dizzy the more you stayed here just withstanding this. Maybe a warm shower would help. 

“Sara told you. You know everything.” he threw his head back and looked up at the ceiling above his head. He had a sort of exasperated expression on his face now and you tried to focus on this conversation but you’d already been through enough of it. 

What had Sara told you? She had been so excited about every little interaction between the two of you that her words had been too exaggerated and overly dramatic to be able to trust what she said. Your mind flew through her words to you about him. About him saying how pretty you were. So what if you were pretty. The man hated you. He hated you. Her words, were a distant memory now even though it had only been a couple of hours since she said them. 

‘The way he looks at you -- If I didn't know that he was desperately in love with you, I’d think he was trying to set you on fire with his eyes -- he was desperately in love with you -- he is desperately in love with you.’

It was impossible. Sara was wrong. This man did not love you. He couldn’t love someone like you. 

Doh Kyungsoo had just rejected you for the third time now. The first when he stood you up on the date, leaving you to stew in the rejection, publicly calling you out amongst your best friends about it, basically ridiculing you again and again for your stupidity; how dare you really think someone like him could ever actually be interested in someone like you. The second rejection was shallower, the way he treated you when he found out you were here with him. You had the audacity to show up here and play pretend like you belonged here beside him; going so far as to reject even your offer of friendship, the lowest form of acquaintance and even that he didn't want. And now, reminding you of just how little he thought of you. 

He didn’t sleep with people he wasn’t in a relationship with. You’d offered yourself so easily to the man, practically begged for it but again, you received another rejection. 

Wasn't there a point in which you should give up on this? 

“I don't know anything, Kyungsoo. I don't even know you, remember? We never really even met each other.” You said it with such finality that his lips closed up and he pulled his head back. He seemed taken aback by the force with which you said those words to him. You stood up, done with this. There was only so much you could take. That surprised look on his face from earlier had flattened out and he was staring ahead of himself, not looking up at you. 

You stood there looking down at him for much longer than your pride should have allowed. Watching him staring ahead of himself with his silent lips and his bright red ears, his chest heaving up and down as if all of the emotions bubbling just below the surface of him could ever presume to break through that thick outer shell of a man who keeps everything inside when he should have just let it out. Goddammit Kyungsoo. But he wouldn’t move. He wouldn’t explain and he sure as hell wasn’t about to try any more than absolutely necessary with you. You’d been the one to put yourself out there again and again for this man. You felt let down. 

“I’m going to shower and lie down for a while.” 

You took the first steps to leave, to walk past him and you’d made it three whole steps toward the door when you felt the warmth and strength of his hand wrapped tightly around your wrist, pulling you back. He pulled you back roughly. You had been moving forward with such a momentum that the break in your stride caused you to stumble backward and you yelped out in surprise finding yourself pulled into him, pulled to where he still sat uselessly in that chair and the rough yank on your wrist sent you moving until you collided with a resisting barrier.

You stumbled on your feet and you bounced against him and the second you collided with him you felt the strength of his arms wrapping tightly around your waist. You felt the push of his firm chest hit against your thighs and in your belly you felt the point of his nose as he buried his entire face within your shirt, just below your ribs deep, within the softness of your belly. It tickled uncomfortably but you felt too stunned to do anything. You looked down in shock, seeing only the top of his head, his soft black hair fell into the fabric of your shirt and from his mouth somewhere you heard the softest moan that reverberated through your body. 

For lack of anywhere else to put them you rested your hands on his shoulders and you heard and felt him make another sound, a rough growl from his chest sounded out into your skin, buzzing into the skin of your stomach and his hands around your waist tightened to uncomfortable levels. He inhaled a deep breath from somewhere in the center of you and you found some semblance of some words to say. 

“Kyungsoo, what,” you began but his hot exhale warmed you on the exit and sent goosebumps cascading down your spine, taking whatever words you thought you could speak. After several breaths he lifted his face, propping his chin right against your skin to look up into your stunned and confused face. 

“What are you doing?” you managed. You felt too blindsided for more.

“Get to know me then,” he whispered up into the air and you wiggled against the tightness you felt in his arms matching the crazed look you saw in his eyes. He did not loosen them any, “get to know me, until you understand how I feel about you.” 

This didn’t feel real. It was impossible that this was happening. Was he serious? 

Your mind was spinning. You couldn’t reconcile the two versions of Doh Kyungsoo you were witnessing. The desperate way he clung to you told you one thing and yet, so much bad had already happened to tell you the complete opposite. This version clearly hadn't listened to a damn thing the other one had just told you. This one didn’t know about the no sex before commitment rule, the one that had his chance and squandered it, humiliating you in the process. But as tightly as you were wound here within his arms; you could feel your body responding to him all over again. You’d already been too affected by him before.

His eyes were looking up at you and you could just barely make out the tiny pout on his lips that was hiding within the fabric. 

Maybe he was drunk. Maybe that mug he had been sipping from had been full of whiskey instead of tea and this man was off his head right now. 

“What are you talking about?” 

He was moving with the question you hung into the air above his head. You could feel the slow way he moved his face, pressing himself against the softness of your belly again, breathing you in slowly and deeply as if every bit of sanity had simply left his body and this was a madman whose only purpose was to drive you as crazy as he was. 

“You know for someone who doesn’t want to fuck me, you are doing a terrible job of letting me leave this room.” 

Your own bluntness surprised you but you’d expected him to wake the hell up and release you so you could go take care of this problem he’d caused. 

“I never said I don’t want to fuck you.” He whispered it with his face hidden deep within the skin of your belly but the words echoed inside of you, hitting you hard with their heavy impact. 

The man was a menace. He’d just turned you down only to do this to you? You felt so turned on you almost couldn’t keep upright.  

You braced both of your hands on his shoulders and you pushed against him hard, pushing your hips backward too until he got the message and loosened his hold around you. The release allowed you to take a step back. His hands still lingered around you and you even felt one of his hot palms lying right over your ass, having slipped down from your waist he didn’t seem to be in too big of a hurry to take his wandering hands off of you. 

“Sorry, sorry,” his immediate apology told you that he knew exactly what sins he had committed against you, “I’m not in my right mind.”

You reached behind you and grabbed his hand off of your ass and brought it back around, dropping it down on his own lap. It landed with a flop in his lap and his eyes pulled deservedly down as he took on a much more sheepish expression in his face. You couldn’t tell if it was genuine. 

“You say one thing and do another, Doh Kyungsoo.”  

You felt ready to snap. “You say we won’t have sex, and that’s fine. I’m fine with that,” you said through wild eyes and even though you managed to get the words out, it felt like a lie. You weren’t fine with that. This hot piece of ass needed to figure himself out and in a hurry because you weren’t sure how much more of his torture you could take. 

“You seem fine with it,” you heard him mumble under his breath and your eyes widened as you lifted your eyebrows and looked at him. He lifted a hand and waved it lightly, “Sorry, continue.” 

“I was fine with it until you,” you lifted your arms and wrapped them around your body, doing a speed-run pantomime of him grabbing you around the waist, hugging you tightly and you even ran your fingers over the entire length of his face lightly, jumping back in pure frustration, “did all that to me, Kyungsoo. What the fuck?” 

The man who sat in front of you with his forearms crossed strategically over his lap ‘just so’ dared to smile at you. It was a tiny smile but you lifted a finger and pointed right at his face with a frustrated gasp. Again his smile, impossibly, widened.

“I am going to go take a shower. And I am going to lie down.” These words came out in a low growl. “I better not see you standing at that bathroom doorway.”

You’d spun on your heels for the second time to walk away from this man and you nearly screamed when you felt his hand reach for you again. This time he was standing up and you lifted your own hand in an 'I swear to god, give me a reason’ pose, enjoying how quickly he flinched away from you. 

“Wait, wait” he quickly spoke, not wanting to get smacked. You decided then and there that you weren’t above doing it. The memory of last night's tit punch was still fresh in your mind and you were feeling almost crazy enough to do it. 

“Just wait, goddammit,” he had the nerve to sound annoyed. He actually reached up and grabbed your raised hand and carefully brought it back down. “Come back later. Later tonight, give me like two hours maybe.” 

“What happens in two hours?” your eyes narrowed and your lips pouted just a little bit with the suggestive tilt of your head as your mind whirled through the possibilities. Did he just need two hours to decide that maybe you were worth a round or 20 of pressing your back into your mattress, or maybe his mattress? Hell, four mattresses were lying over there on the floor where the movies had been showing, you were not that picky. Literally this table here would suffice. Your face must have betrayed your filthy thoughts because he squeezed your hand and you heard a tiny laugh break free from him. 

He was laughing through his words, “Dinner. Just dinner with me. God, will you relax, please?”

His proposal sounded promising. Your eyebrows were lifted in curiosity without you even realizing it you eked out a tiny question for him.

“Like…a dinner date?” This sent a strange wave of panic through you. The tiny smile on his face and the little hum he made as a response sent butterflies flying. You felt at odds with the strange burst of nerves. The idea of having an actual date with this man was, well — you’d never once considered a re-do with him. Back then you’d been so offended, so humiliated, and so angry that the last thing you wanted was to give him a second chance. After a while, you’d even run out of any desire for him to explain himself for what he did back then. 

Perhaps a make-up for that botched blind date all those months ago that started all of this trouble was the kind of thing your heart craved deep down inside. You suddenly felt nervous. Sex was one thing but a date with him? Sex was just physical but starting this over again, a date with Kyungsoo felt too vulnerable. Why was that so much scarier to you? 

What if he didn’t show up? 

Wait, he was trapped here and he was the one doing the cooking. Plus if he didn't show up, you knew where you could find him. You’d beat down the door and kick his ass as long as he was hiding away in one of the rooms here that didn't have any spiders. 

His eyebrows lifted and the smile he was wearing on his lips was gone. 

“You don’t want to?” He asked the question and left his lips hanging open. You could see on his face that despite the false bravado he wore when he proposed the date, to begin with, he also was feeling a lot of the same nerves about it that you felt. His focus on your face was flighty, not quite able to commit to solid eye contact with you with this heavy question handing in the air like this. 

“Okay,” you finally answered in a whisper and you closed up your mouth and nodded your head up and down twice. 

Kyungsoo’s eyes watched your face and you caught him mirroring the same head nod. “Okay,” he also whispered. 

You nodded again and he was quiet as he looked at you, eventually looking away from you and looking around the kitchen space with a small exhale of air through his mouth. He didn’t move, but what was even worse was that you also did not move. You weren’t sure how to do it.

Oh. Oh no. Oh no this was awkward. Did you just say goodbye and walk away? Did you give him, like, a high five or maybe lean into him for a hug, God that would be terrible, Imagine? A hug, thanks buddy, thanks pal, thanks for letting me make out with you, sorry to freak you out when I got too into it and touched your boner because apparently that is a no-touchy zone, I did not get the memo about the boner. Should you lean in and give him a kiss on the cheek? How did you leave this situation with at least one-fourth of your dignity, an acceptable amount for someone with your history of humiliating yourself, still intact? 

The kiss on the cheek might be okay, right? His cheeks were soft and his skin was smooth. You took the smallest step into him and you leaned in for it, but oh god, he was moving already. You leaned at the exact same moment that he spun around on his feet and began to walk away from you toward the doorway that led toward the bunk beds, which would have been completely fine except for the fact that he had seen you beginning to lean into him right before he moved. He had seen you move, he had seen you lean, but his feet had already stepped, his body had already begun the exit process and what resulted was a terrible, awful, awkward time in which he stopped walking abruptly and turned back around to face you, halfway toward the doorway, stuck somewhere in the middle of this kitchen with him again facing you and neither of you wanting to explain to each other with words why the journey to the exit had been halted so abruptly. 

“No,” you shook your head back and forth. His face was pink again. “No, just go. You already ruined it.” 

“What were you going to do?” 

“Doesn't matter. It’s over.” You sidestepped him and moved quickly through the space, placing your handle on the kitchen door and pulling it open. You hurled yourself into the darkness of the hallway, feeling just a tiny bit of irritation at the realization that you could still hear the sound of his footsteps very clearly. He hadn’t stayed behind in that kitchen but he seemed to be following you down the hallway toward the room with your bunks. 

“You were leaning, what were you leaning for?” 

“Why are you following me? I have things to do. Alone, Kyungsoo.” You emphasized the last bit while looking directly into his eyes and he was fighting his smile a little but he didn’t seem to stop following you until you reached the door to the bunks and stopped to look at him with your hand on the door handle. 

“I just need to get my bag. Then you can have the place to yourself.” He was already pushing past you, rushing through the room toward the bed in the back and he was grabbing a black duffel that he slung over his shoulder and he made quick work of the distance with his quick walking reaching the space in the doorway that you still occupied in no time. 

When he was back at your side you moved inside the room to give him room for his exit but before he disappeared through the doorway you caught an abrupt shift in his balance. When he was close enough he leaned into you and pressed his soft lips against your cheek, lingering against your skin for one second too long before he pulled back again and looked into your eyes. Admittedly, you hadn’t expected that at all and you had closed your eyes halfway through the lingering part and you had to act quickly to open your eyes up in time so as not to miss the smoldering look part. 

“Now, wouldn’t that have been awkward to do back in the kitchen when I was going to come all the way over here the whole time?” 

You’d opened your mouth and inhaled a breath to respond to him. You would have lied and told him that you weren’t going to kiss him in the kitchen, or that he was imagining things again, or maybe you would lie and say you took it back and you didn’t want to have sex with him ever. He had already disappeared and the heavy door slammed shut before you had a chance to think of a clever comeback. 

Links: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8

[grandpasauce]

"bioware's doing the best they can" "they have to trim the fat SOMEWHERE" "they have to move on from the previous games EVENTUALLY" "they ALWAYS have disregarded things from past games" guys........... (ramblings under the cut)

my man on earth....... morrigan is literally claimed By The Devs to be a prevalent character in datv and ur telling me NOTHING that happned to her is worth putting into the background of datv?

you can claim bioware is just doing their job and have all the excuses in the world for them but when u get down to it.... they really just didnt want to deal with anything from the past three games... they didnt want to put the work in to add even CODEXES (one the the easiest cheapest forms of implementing background lore) to this game... the literal game director barely even knows who ZEVRAN is (a MAIN CHARACTER from the FIRST of the series) because they didnt bother going back to replay or research dragon age as a series beyond dai... like... i understand the devs wanting to simplify their jobs and i actually totally agree, they needed to get rid of the keep, that was too much info for them to keep up with.

But they cut back SO MUCH, like an unnecessary amount. Three? THREE choices? AND ALL OF THEM ARE SOMEHOW RELATED TO SOLAS? NOTHING the inquisitor did was notable beyond their relationship to Solas? Nothing??

people are using leliana as an example of something bioware has retconned before because shes alive regardless of if u killed her in dao or not. except the problem with that is that the games DOES address the fact that she's supposed to be dead. like it very much does that??? hello?? id rather they bring her back and address it than just totally retcon it and never explain it

this is such a horrible, disrespectful decision on bioware's part and making excuses for them is WILD. like. the devs are fine i promise u. stopppp telling people to **touch grass** and **take some deep breaths** after I myself have invested over half my life into playing these games just to get slapped with "lol actually none of that matters now hehe" jfc

like i understand fandom can get a lil crazy but im telling u this isnt an overreaction lmao let people be upset about things that theyve poured their lives into for 15+ years

im still buying the game, im still playing it, ill still love it, but MAN this has kind of totally ruined my trust in the devs and im back to being nervous about how they will address things in this game and beyond because it really feels like a big fuck u to long time fans and idk how they wouldnt think it would be perceived as such.

[shewolfofvilnius]

There is a huge part of me that is curious about dragon age because I love BG3 so much. But idk anything about it? Also none of the characters strike me as interesting (or attractive....) Maybe you could tell me what you like so much about ? maybe talk about the characters so I can give it a chance? I want to like it! but I just don't know!

I DIDN'T FORGET

So for me the first draw of Dragon Age is the incredible lore and worldbuilding that goes on in the games and books. It's arguably just as fleshed out as a setting like the Forgotten Realms despite just being three (soon four) video games and about a dozen books/comics. There's centuries of history. Ancient ruins. Environmental storytelling for days. A little visual cue in the first game that's referenced in optional banter in the third that pays off in the fourth (FIFTEEN years apart). I really appreciate that the first game, Dragon Age: Origins, only exposes you to part of the story. The game's set in a pestilence known as the Fifth Blight, and you're the plucky young adventurer that the grizzled old veteran manages to recruit out of a bad situation just before the end. And you and your friends are all that stand between victory and oblivion. But right off the bat there's storytelling about love and loss and prejudice and honor. There's a noble character who dies, leading to a coward being killed as the stakes are built. (There's also a dog you can pet, and moments to show kindness during armageddon, like a prisoner who just wants a sandwich before he dies, he hasn't been fed.)

And the banter is funny (if some of it's aged a bit unwell), and the gameplay really encourages you to get in the head of whatever character you want to build. Yes you can be the cliche prince charming. You can also be the sibling of a prostitute to pay the bills until your sister lands a high profile john who catches feels for her. From the start it's equal measures hopeful and bleak at the same time. (And as you invest in YOUR character emotionally, you inevitably emotionally invest in your companions too.) And gradually the world gets bigger. A character whose town you watch get destroyed becomes the protagonist of the second game, and they hook you in to. They're a refugee, a very timely story, and if they're a magic user, then they're an especially persecuted refugee. But you still make friends amidst the hopelessness. More of the world gets revealed. You have FUN, somehow. Characters from past games recur, either as cameos or in one very specific case as a high profile recurring character in 3 out of the 4. And you become so glad to see them as they represent continuity of story.

It's a game about family and faith and the lack thereof and prejudice and love and how one counters the other, about how persecuted people often pay the price of things that happened before their ancestors' ancestors were born, and that tomorrow should always be better than today.

That's thematic, though. Maybe you take a shine to Isabela the Pirate and Aveline the Guard Captain (maybe Merrill the blood mage elf, too). The three women basically form one of the best depictions of big/middle/little sister trios I've ever seen in a game. What starts out as cold hostility becomes banterful compassion and love. A lot of folks fell for Solas, an elven apostate whose every word is couched in three mysteries and two half-truths but seems to know way more than he's letting on. When you find out a horrible secret about the honourable Grey Warden Blackwall, do you leave him to his fate, try to redeem him, deliver a sufficient consequence, or outright torture him.

And you won't like everyone. The odds of you liking both the spirit-possessed mage Anders and the anti-magic elf Fenris in the same play of the same game are low unless you metagame it. And sometimes the games even rewards you for someone hating your ass or vice versa, and THAT'S organic. But being mean or having a negative interaction isn't some edgelord thing either, it's just "sometimes people don't get along" or "something you just need to punch someone"

You get to laugh at the tough stern warrior Cassandra getting absolutely beside herself wanting to know what happens in a book that it's writer, another of your companions, hated writing - and that even Cass herself calls smutty literature. Another character, The Iron Bull, is faced with a choice: His found family and the freedom to be who he's become, or the belief system he's known his entire life and that expects him to conform.

Does your character sacrifice? Does your character make the streets run red with blood? Is all you want to make people feel inspired and in something bigger than themselves? Even playing three (soon four) wholly new characters, you get to truly role-play and emotionally invest in these little blorbos, maybe even more strongly in Baldur's Gate. When a character returns you weren't expecting, is it joyful or melancholy? Can your character handle a confrontation of everything they've ever known.

And in the newest game, there's a baby griffon.

I love Dragon Age. The lore is expansive beyond sanity for a franchise with it's commercial output. The characters feel alive, and the game tasks you to emotionally invest in order to reap the maximum reward and suffer the strongest heartache. Plus, in many cases, when the game doesn't tell you, say about your character? You get to roleplay and use your imagination so, so strongly.

[slavhew]

Hello!

If you're not too busy, would you mind listing some of the things you think count as death flags for Mr. Spender?

There's the obvious fact that he's the "old" mentor to group of young protagonists, but what else do you think would count?

OHH BOY ok so I'd think I'm a crackpot for this but since we're talking about Zack "Foreshadowing" Morrison. I have some thoughts

No harm in leading with the (chronologically) first thing that jumped out at me:

This one IMMEDIATELY made me antsy whenever I came back to it after my initial read, and considering Zack has referred to it on twitter in the past as one of their favorite jokes it's definitely not been forgotten about.

Second, the sheer amounts of near-misses, jokey or not, of Spender narrowly avoiding specifically lightning

Again, not much, but it's weird that it happened thrice, latter two of which had real gravitas rather than an one-off joke.

And third, Spender himself. He's repeatedly shown himself to be kind of a self sacrificing idiot, as well as prideful to a fault. Granted, it's both him and Mina trying to take on all the responsibility of saving Mayview and its inhabitants from their fate.. But Spender is exactly that right measure of doesn't-value-himself-enough (chest footprint aftercare or lack thereof), having an obscene amount of power (enables his loner act + pride) and poor judgement that has the capacity to put him at great risk. And it has!

Spender has not only shown low enough self-esteem to view himself as the de-facto scapegoat for the safety of the town, but also prideful enough to make very bad calls that end up in people, often himself, hurt (COUGH FORGE INCIDENT COUGH)

This is all conjecture, but it's definitely enough to make me worried about him :') Even if all this doesn't mean he'll necessarily die he's definitely getting (even more) seriously injured at some point. I love the guy but he's so far doing a horrible job of convincing me he wants to live bad enough to circumvent at least that

[spacebugarts]

I wasn't gonna make an Indigo Park oc but then I started thinking about the theme park I went to as a kid and I got the idea of a beaver running a ride based on water flumes like Logger's Run or Splash Mountain :3

They're also based on wildlife education characters like Smokey the Bear and Ranger Rick!

[pkmoth]

having swap au thoughts. *slaps roof of claus* there's so much mental illness in this guy. im gonna blow up everyone in the room and then myself

[bookshelfdreams]

.

[that-foul-legacy-lover]

today just will not let me rest huh. reasons are in the tags but i get very emotional just be warned

[pseudophan]

i just lost two followers and it's making me laugh because judging by my most recent posts i assume they were diehard royalists? or at least people holding the british royal family in an unusually high regard? cry about it i guess idk, i do find it funny that you give a fuck though

on this note though of my followers holding different beliefs than me - if you're a terf? please kill yourself! i don't usually give a fuck because i just don't have it in me to start a war with everyone i disagree with but like. truly. if you hold any kind of prejudice against trans people whatsoever. fuck off from my blog lol i don't want you here

[valiant-portabella-pirkko]

tagged by: @brax-was-here

Challenge: make a poll with five of your all-time favorite characters, and then tag five people to do the same. See which character is everyone's favorite.

- honorable mentions: Gregor (the Underland Chronicles), Jowee (Drawn to Life), Mari (Omori), P03 (Inscryption) and also the bonus bonuses of Mai Trin (Guild Wars 2) and Ariane Yeong (Signalis) because I didn't want to double up on fandoms--

And now, tagging: @gristlegrinder , @clemmykins , @sand-through-glass , @fireskarr , @felixitous , @knight-of-the-thorn and anybody else who hasn't done it and wants to! just go ahead and steal it tbh

[toytulini]

reeeeeeally wish. it didnt feel. like the needs of my body vs the needs of my brain were actively in fucking conflict with each other in a way that makes it impossible to function or exist

[crossbackpoke-check]

V random but I’m in my Brockpetey feels could I listen to your 46 60 playlist!!

of course!! the first playlist i mentioned in the tags is actually not mine—it belongs to ash @notthequiettype and is a soundtrack to their wonderful fic Lake Rules (go read it if you haven’t already!!! highly recommend!!!)

annnd this one is my personal brockpetey vibes playlist

happy listening!!!

[mylittleredgirl]

there are many good reasons not to see avatar but if you DO see avatar definitely see the 3D version. the entire movie is effects. same movie as the first one just underwater now. also if you are wearing 3D glasses it is less obvious that you will cry like seven times.