#the five stages of grief and i don’t even know which one i’m on | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

heartpascal · 1 year

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please don’t lose it again

— joel miller x platonic!f!reader

— summary: the aftermath

— a/n: i’m replaying tlou2 and got to the scene again. this followed. sorry if the flow isn’t great!! im all over the place. please please please heed warnings. love you so much. not the official ending for itdws!

— warnings: major tlou 2 spoilers, major character death, grief, burying a loved one, loss, spoilers for itdws, throwing up / vomiting (referenced, not really explicit), all the stages of grief in like 3 minutes, guilt, blame, being sad, GORE, or descriptions of gore, and dead bodies

— taglist: @rhymingtree @sleepygraves @wnstice (everything) @auggiesolovey @just-kaylaa @evyiione @lemonlaides @faceache111 @randomhoex @canpillowscry @pedropascalsrealgf @star-wars-lover @coolchick333 @soobsdior @rvjaa @sunflowersdrop @definitely-not-a-seagull-i-swear @miss-celestial-being (pedro)

a what if one shot from the if the door wasn’t shut universe!

masterlist (part one , part two , part three , part four , part five )

∘₊✧───── ───── ───── ─────✧₊∘

The world is full of horrors.

You learned that much a long, long time ago. In your formative years, your youth, when you were actually a child, you had experienced more horrors than you could name. You didn’t have enough hands to count them on. There was loss and there was pain and there was Joel.

There was a brief time, after arriving to Jackson, where you didn’t have Joel. A part of you always knew he would come back. Not for you, that was true, but you had always known that he would be back. That he wasn’t gone in the way so many were. That Tess was. In the very depths of your mind, he lingered. Even if he had left you behind, he was still with you, in the worst of ways.

You have never lived in a world which didn’t have Joel Miller.

He had always seemed untouchable. Unmovable. As if the world could only move around him.

You never thought you would have to live in a world without him.

There was always a certainty that you’d held. Joel would outlive you. He would survive, where you wouldn’t. Despite how you had improved in your skills out in the wild, in the back of your mind, when you saw Joel, you had always believed he would be the one to bury you.

Because even if Joel hadn’t stayed for you, he would surely stay for your death. It was who he was. Always the survivor, always the one to bury the bodies, always the one left.

You had never considered what it would be like to bury Joel.

Even now, as you sit with your hand pressed against the freshly turned earth, frozen at your fingertips, you aren’t sure you really know what it’s like. Because, surely, there’s no way that Joel Miller could be reduced to this. A body in the dirt. A faceless name left upon a headstone, forgotten in a garden of the dead.

He was alive yesterday.

He was alive.

How could they have buried him? You think of the way the dirt has iced over, numbing your fingers. You wonder how much effort had gone into plunging a shovel into the dirt. How much ice had formed on Joel’s skin when they put him in there?

He would be cold, out here. Without the jacket you knew was hung up in his closet. He would be cold.

“C’mon,” Jesse said, faintly. “Put your gloves on.” He tried, crouching beside you, beside Joel, with the very gloves Joel had gotten you held in his hands. Did you thank him, for those? You needed to. You needed to thank him.

You turn your head away from the wooden headstone, the clumsy carving that Joel could’ve done better, the letters spelling his name. If you don’t look, if you turn your face away, or close your eyes, Joel is still out on patrol. He’s wearing his jacket, holding his gun, pressing a warm hand against his hip in his signature pose. He’s not cold.

But when you turn back, it’s still his name. The ground is still frozen, and as much as you press your hand against the dirt, Joel doesn’t reach towards you. Joel doesn’t do anything. Joel stays buried underneath frozen dirt, underneath snow and ice. Joel stays cold.

Jesse’s hand is warm when he grips your own, his stare concerned and helpless. You wonder what would have happened if it had been you on patrol. If you were the one taking Joel and Tommy off duty. You wonder if you could’ve saved him. You pull your hand away.

He follows you when you stand up.

When you look back, Joel’s headstone blends in with the others. There’s nothing remarkable setting it apart, nothing screaming that it was Joel and he had been alive yesterday.

You wonder who the other headstones belong to. You wonder if anybody remembers them. You wonder why nobody is here, visiting. You wonder if Joel’s grave will end up the same way.

Vaguely, you notice that you’re counting. As you walk, you count the crunch of snow beneath your boots. There are thirty-three steps from Joel’s grave to his door. Thirty-three measly steps between his home, and where his body is buried. Did he know, yesterday, when he was drinking his morning coffee — the coffee you had brought him — that he would spend the rest of time buried thirty-three steps away? Did he have any idea that he would never come home? That he would always be thirty-three steps away?

Tommy is stood in the house when you walk in. His head is bruised, blood still crusted on his skin, and you wonder what happened. You wonder how this could have happened. He doesn’t look like the same man who had once walked on a patrol with you, gun raised, vigilant in every movement. If they let Tommy live, if they let Ellie live, why did they kill Joel? Why did they stop him from coming home?

It’s not long until you realise that you have nobody to ask about Tess. Tommy had long ago told you everything he could remember, most of which was corrected by Joel. Is there anybody left in the world who knew her? Anybody left who would ask about her?

Will it just be you, until your death, who remembers Tess? Who remembers Joel? After you, Tommy and Ellie are gone, who will know him? Who will remember him? Who will put flowers on the grave in which they buried him?

You wonder how long it will be until people wonder about his grave, as you had with the others. How long it will be until he’s forgotten.

What’s going to happen to his pictures? The photographs of Joel and Sarah? Of him and Ellie? Of you and him? Who is going to understand each of these pictures? Who is going to know what was happening in each? How many memories are gone, now that Joel is dead?

“Kid, I…” Tommy trails off, eyebrows furrowed.

Joel is dead.

He’ll never finish the supply of coffee you gave to him. He’ll never complete the guitar he was making for you. He’ll never finish reading your favourite book. He’ll never receive the new mug you’d made for him. He’ll never do anything. Because Joel Miller is dead, and he’s buried thirty-three steps away.

How do you fix that?

How do you tell Joel that you’ll forgive him for ever leaving, that you’ll forgive him for everything, if he just comes back? If this time, he comes back to you. How will he know that things could go back to normal? That you’d— you would do anything. You would bring him all the coffee you found. You would watch every shitty movie he wanted. You would make him every damn mug he asked for. You would forget about him ever leaving at all. You would go back to normal. To before he left, but better.

All he had to do was come back again. That was it.

He just had to prove that it wasn’t him they buried. That the disfigured body they’d brought back to Jackson wasn’t him. That he wasn’t the one who’d had his head caved apart. Joel had proved things that had been far crazier. Surely, for you, he’d be able to prove this.

He would come through the door, all amused grins and warm jacket, and he would walk the thirty-three steps to his grave and tear the headstone with his name on from the ground. He would make fun of Tommy for ever believing it to be him, and he’d make a better gravestone, the name — which wasn’t Joel Miller — carved on neatly, more clearly.

Joel Miller was a survivor. He had to survive.

You aren’t quite sure what you’ll do if he doesn’t.

“I’m sorry.” Tommy says eventually, finally finding his words, and the look on his face reduces your denial to ash. You look at him, trying to find the similarities between him and the mess of the body that had truly been Joel. You find nothing. No resemblance between the body and Tommy. It makes it all the more difficult to believe that he’s dead. You’re not quite sure what Tommy is apologising for. Was it his fault? Did he goad that—that girl into cracking Joel’s skull? Into spilling his blood out of his veins? Into leaving him there like that? Like a body, not a human being?

Jesse says your name, gently, as if your skull would cave if he spoke it any louder. You realise that you’re standing here, in Joel’s house, in the very place that you had drank tea and coffee and whiskey with him, and you have no reason to be here. There’s no Joel to make you a terrible cup of tea, or to play his guitar while you carve at his workshop desk. There’s no Joel, and all of Tommy’s apologies won’t change that.

“I didn’t—” You cut yourself off, finding that you can’t speak any further, lest your throat go dry and your eyes get wet. And really, the words you had gotten out are enough. You didn’t.

You didn’t save him. You didn’t give him that god forsaken mug. You didn’t take him dinner. You didn’t tell him how much you appreciated him. You didn’t tell him that you loved him. You didn’t tell him that he was your dad when nobody else was. You didn’t forgive him.

“It’s okay.” Jesse tells you, and he believes it, obvious in his arms as they wrap firmly around you. Obvious in the way he holds your head, in the way he breathes. But it’s not. It’s not okay.

How could it be okay? You want to yell at him. You want to scream at him that Joel is dead, that it’ll never be okay. You want to do something, anything, but there’s nothing you can do. It wouldn’t matter. Joel would still be dead, and still, nothing would be okay. But you can’t do anything. You can’t vocalise a thing, except for what becomes a choked sob as it leaves your throat.

This is the first time that you cry.

And even though Jesse squeezes you tighter, as if he could possibly put your pieces back together, you fall apart. Once it starts, it doesn’t seem to stop.

There’s an acceptance here. Tears wash away any hint of denial, and you’re left with a reality you can’t help but accept. A reality where Joel Miller is dead, and you will never see him again. The arms around you will never be Joel’s. He’ll never teach you to play a new song on the guitar he was making you. He can’t hear the way you cry, even if you scream and yell and call out for him.

For once, you can’t feel him lingering in the back of your head. As if his absence has removed him from you. It feels like losing him all over again.

You didn’t see Tess’s dead body. Now, you’re glad. If there had been anything left of her to see, anyway. But you had seen bodies before. Mostly of Infected. Or of raiders and hunters who were often shot and killed, sometimes when you were the one shooting. Either way, you’re not used to remembering them as being so… still.

When you close your eyes, forcing the tears to fall, you see him. You see the flashes of skull and soggy brain tissue and smears of blood. And he’s still. You think that you’re so used to seeing Infected people that this just… wasn’t natural.

And to think of that body as Joel? It was even more unnatural.

“C’mon,” Jesse urged once more, voice a murmur in your ear as he tightened his arms around you. “Let’s get you home.” He said, moving to leave.

It was wrong. You didn’t want to leave. It was making you feel all wrong, like there was a constant chill sending shivers down your spine. How could he ask you to leave? How could he ask you to leave when Joel had never come home? Who was going to wash Joel’s mug — the one you had made, that he had stolen — of coffee that he’d left on the side? Who was going to make his bed? Who was going to clean the dirty dishes Joel inevitably would’ve left on his dining table?

Joel wasn’t coming home. So who would do it? How could you leave it like this?

“Kiddo,” Tommy sighed, stepping towards you and taking hold of your hands as Jesse dutifully stepped back, expression creased. He looked tired, more than anything. He looked his age. Tommy blinked, looking up towards the ceiling as if holding back tears, and squeezed your hands in his. “Please, don’t… Go home, okay? I’ll send Maria by. And we’ll—we’ll talk later. Alright?”

It was hard to face the fact that Tommy didn’t want you here. It was incomprehensible. How could you be anywhere else but here? How could he want you anywhere else but here?

How could he expect you to go home? To go back and see that stupid mug you’d almost finished? That Joel would never see? All because you had insisted upon it being a surprise. Insisted that he couldn’t see it until you were done. And now he would never see the mug that matched his own, a slightly better looking owl painted upon its side? The size of it just a smidge smaller than Joel’s own?

He had been complaining that you always had to use the shitty old mug with a football logo on the front. You wanted to surprise him with a mug which matched his own. A sign of your bond. A symbol of your trust, your forgiveness.

Things hadn’t been the same since he left you, all that time ago. Both of you had known it. It was almost tangible, every time you saw one another. But you were getting better. You were seeing him at least once every week, which was improvement from the sporadic visits that’d been occurring last year.

You were all he’d had, after he and Ellie had fallen out.

You, perhaps better than anybody, knew that isolation. You knew how cold it could get. You wonder whether or not he would have even been on that patrol, had you not declined his offer of dinner, in favour of working on the mug.

It was a bitter feeling that bloomed as you pulled away from Tommy. An ugly, rearing feeling that was biting at your throat, and the only thing that stopped you from falling to your knees was Jesse. You wanted to be angry at Joel. You wanted to be able to scream and cry at him, to scold him for leaving you once more, even after he had promised he would never do it again.

And you know it wasn’t his fault. You know that he wouldn’t have chosen this. You do know that. But who else can you blame? Tommy, who is grieving the same as you? Jesse, who had done nothing but support you since you had known him? Ellie, who had no choice but to helplessly witness his death? And there was the girl, of course, Abby, Tommy had said to Jesse. But she seemed… inconceivable. A figment of imagination. After all, Joel was the strongest person you knew. What could have taken that away? Who?

It’s not fair. None of it is fair.

Abby had taken so much from you, and you know from the state of his body, that she hadn’t done it quickly. You feel sick.

Jesse is rubbing your back as you kneel on the snow, the shock of the cold seeping through your trousers bringing you to reality. You hadn’t even noticed leaving Joel’s house.

In the corner of your eye, you can see all of the flowers that people left for Joel. It doesn’t help. These flowers, too, will be cold. They’ll be cold and they will die and then Joel’s porch and garden will be covered in flowers just as dead as he is.

And all of the notes will be left unread, because Joel Miller is dead, and he is not coming home.

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if the door wasn’t shut taglist: @sleepylunarwolf @am-i-shit-or-am-i-the-shit @mandowhatnow @aphrcdites @doodlebob-mp3 @rrickgrrimes8 @nikt-wazny-y @fallenoutofrose @wrathofcats

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vanillaanillav · 2 months

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flower symbolism in alien stage

So, we have two confirmed flowers mentioned in the series—Clematis from Round 1 and Edelweiss from Round 2—and the red flowers from the Anakt Garden. I have a few options for what those could be, so I’ll go over each option at the end.

Of course, Clematis is the most obvious flower reference. Here’s what they look like if you’re unfamiliar. It’s a beautiful flower, available in pink and purple varieties, colors which you can find in both of their color palettes.

They represent transformation and wisdom, the pursuit of knowledge, determination and spirituality. Very compatible with the themes of the series, and specifically of Mizi and Sua’s love for each other. They deify each other and transform each other, through meeting and knowing each other. Sua’s knowledge of their world and Mizi’s lack of it is what leads to her death and to Mizi’s subsequent transformation.

Clematis grow on vines, constantly racing up towards the sun. Sua’s sacrifice, I think, is what will allow Mizi to finally reach it.

It’s really lovely and terrible. A perfect fit for them.

Now Edelweiss! It’s a very tough plant, but also very short-lived, and nearly impossible to get your hands on, as they’re native to the lonely peaks of the Alps.

It’s representative of devotion, nobility, and purity, which is FASCINATING to me. There are many more romantic flowers out there, even ones with meanings specifically related to unrequited love, but Edelweiss specifically so perfectly encapsulates why I think Till likes Mizi.

He sees her as something pure, untouched by the nightmare of their lives. She’s kinder than the others. Naive, still believing in good things like homes and friends and love.

Even when he hallucinates her, he imagines her as a child, big-eyed and smiling—her purest form. He hates their capture. Hates living, fights and fights and fights. I think he clings to her as a symbol more than a girl by the point of the Alien Stage, devoting everything to this ideal of her, continuing to sing his confession at her even while she’s crumbled into a ball of grief. That version of her may not even really be the being he’s singing to.

He clearly has her on a pedestal in his mind. When he loses that idol, both watches his friend lose her innocence and then his symbol of purity go apeshit and beat the hell out of their competitor, he loses everything. By the time we see him in Round 6 he’s been completely broken down by the system, never fully developing the will to live for himself, only for his Edelweiss.

As for the red flowers…

They have five petals, with a black center. Honestly, given that one of Mizi’s likes is “artificial Anakt flowers,” which are presumably these, they're probably not intended to be a specific type of real-world flower. But I’m going to play in the sand here anyway!

Poppies have four or six petals, but they do have the dark core. Red ones specifically symbolize death and remembrance, which is… obviously fitting the themes of the series. But, the red flowers are used mostly to depict their childhoods, specifically their playful childhood love rather than their deaths. I think some of the other options are more fitting.

Geraniums are commonly red and have five petals, but no dark inside. They symbolize deceit and preference, with the red variety further meaning stupidity and consolation. Yowza!!!

Preference is clearly applicable—Mizi and Sua choose each other to give their flower crowns to, Till makes his flower crown for Mizi. It seems like a ritual among the kids that they give their flower crowns to someone they like.

Stupidity could be for Till not noticing Mizi’s clear mutual interest in someone else, or for Ivan, either not realizing that the flower crown he stepped on was Till’s or thinking it would get Till’s attention in any other way than Till jumping him LMAO.

As for deceit or consolation… I feel like these don’t quite fit? Deceit isn’t present in the scenes with the red flowers, though maybe in Sua and Ivan’s decisions to sacrifice themselves? Consolation is unfortunately not really present in the series at all. Much to all of our collective pain and suffering.

So, petunias are my favorite option for the red flowers. They’re five-petaled and have the dark center, even if they're not as similar as poppies... just hear me out!!!

They represent two conflicting ideas—anger and resentment, and “being with you is soothing.” I think this fits all three of the pairs they’re shown in relation to. Till’s anger with Ivan in their childhoods for ruining his flower crown is pretty clear, his anger with him in general, even with the world.

Then Mizi and Sua’s reciprocated love—of course, being with each other is soothing, and Till finds Mizi soothing as well, as we covered in their section.

I love the double meaning. I think the meanings flip as they age, as well. Mizi resents Sua for leaving her, and Till only realizes once Ivan’s gone that he did, in some way, appreciate his presence.

Anyway I just had to get this out of my system because I have so many Thoughts about this series. Also fun tidbit: Till is said to specialize in floral art. Much to think about...

#alien stage #alnst till #alnst mizi #alnst sua #ivantill #mizisua #alnst

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hxney-lemcn · 1 year

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Closure — Farmworld! Finn Mertens x gn! reader

summary: reader has trouble figuring what universe they want to stay in. Prismo gives them some leniency and lets them visit Ooo. Finally, reader gets some closure and makes their decision.

tw: reader gets close to a break down, bittersweet

a/n: If I were reader, I'd simply die because I wouldn't be able to choose, but for the sake of the plot, they do.

wc: 1.2k

Chapter Five [A]

Master List | Chapter One

“Heeeeeey,” Prismo drew out, rubbing the back of his neck sheepishly. “Sorry about leaving you there for so long.”

I blinked, unsure how to feel. On one hand, I did want to leave my previous scenario…but leaving forever? And without saying goodbye, or letting them know that I was safe? I bit my lip glancing to the side only to see the tv wall still on. My eyes widened as it showed Finn trekking through the forest, a worried glare set on his face as he followed the lantern light in the same direction I took off.

Prismo followed my view, “Oh, sorry. Don’t mean to distract you.” Then he turned the tv off, turning the wall back yellow.

I blinked, turning to face the pink wishmaster, “I have to go back.”

This time Prismo blinked at me, “You don’t wanna go back to your old world?”

I hesitated, and Prismo seemed to notice. He turned the tv back on, revealing the Finn from my world. Turning the volume up, it revealed Finn on the phone with Marcy.

“You haven’t found them yet?” He asked in a worried tone, desperation filled his expression.

“No,” Marcy was heard from the phone. “I’m sorry man. But I’m sure they're fine, maybe they went on a trip?”

“Without telling me?” Finn asked, slightly hurt. “They’d never do that.”

Suddenly, the situation got 10x worse. I felt torn. How do I have two different Finn’s searching for me? I frowned looking towards Prismo. I suddenly felt like crying. No matter which world I choose, I’d be leaving people behind. I started pacing, thinking of all the pros and cons. My frown started to wobble, as no matter what I did, it would be the wrong choice. The thought of Finn endlessly searching for me throughout Ooo, once again being left behind by someone he cared about. Or Finn going back to his family, having to explain the person they’ve grown so used to had run off, and only glob knows what happened to them.

“Whoah, whoah,” Prismo spoke up, turning the tv off once more. “Hey, since I kinda caused this whole mess…sorry ‘bout that…I can be a bit more lenient.” I looked up at the pink deity, unsure of what he meant. “How about you go back to Ooo, talk with Finn, and then make your decision. I’ll put a sticky note in your front pocket to send you back. If you’re still unsure, I can send you to the magicless world and you can talk to that Finn. How does that sound?”

I felt myself calm, nodding my head, “That sounds really nice, thank you so much Prismo. This means a lot.”

“No probs,” He shrugged with a sly smile. Suddenly, I was transported back to Ooo, standing in the Candy Tavern.

The first thing I saw was Finn hunched over the tavern counter, not having noticed me just appear out of thin air. Dirt Beer Guy coughed, gaining Finn’s attention before pointing towards me. Finn seemed to go through the five stages of grief in the span of a few seconds before rushing to hug me.

He let out a happy shout of my name, “Where have you been?!”

I let out an awkward chuckle, hugging him back. He was nearly killing me with how hard he was hugging me…but I honestly deserved it.

“It’s a long story,” I mumbled. I can’t believe I was being so selfish. Staying in the magicless world without even telling Finn and the others where I would be staying? I’ve been downplaying my importance in Finn’s life and now I felt like a doo-doo head.

“I’ve got time,” Finn smiled while pulling away. “Get us another round DBG!”

I felt my heart clench, even more unsure of what I wanted now. As Finn and I sat down at the bar, I started from the beginning. How Prismo had accidentally brought me along with Simon, about how Fionna and Cake are real, and how I got stuck in the first universe we fell in. How in that world he had a family and I had become incorporated into it. How I ran away and ended up with Prismo taking me back to Ooo to decide where I wanted to stay.

It was awkward, explaining to Finn about how I lived with another version of him. I tried to pass over the fact that I might have fallen for that Finn and may have kissed him, but I think Finn knew I wasn’t telling the whole truth.

“That’s crazy!” Finn exclaimed, eyes wide with wonder. “I had kids! Five of them?!”

I laughed gently at his awe, “Yeah. They’re really sweet too.”

Finn hummed in thought staring at me with a somber stare, “You wanna stay there don’t you.”

I looked down towards my drink, swirling it around and shrugged, “I do…but I don’t wanna leave you here either.”

“Why don’t you bring your phone with you this time?” Finn asked, giving me a brilliant smile. “That way we can talk whenever we want!”

“Would that even work?” I asked, looking at him with hope. “And you’d really be okay with that? And I mean seriously. Not just saying yes for my sake.”

“Of course!” Finn said, leaning over to hug my side. “I want you to be happy! Even if it means smooching an alternate version of me.”

My eyes widened, face suddenly feeling like it was ablaze, “I’m not smooching an alternate version of you!”

“Uh huh,” Finn smiles cheekily. “Whatever you say. Don’t worry about me, I’m typically hanging out with Huntress Wizard anyways.” I wiggled my eyebrows at that, and he just let out a ‘pshh’.

Our laughs died down and I downed the rest of my drink.

“Hey, sorry to be a downer, but I gotta close up for the night…” DBG spoke up, putting a clean glass back in place.

“Oh! No problem bro,” Finn waved off, standing up. I stood up as well, and we exited the bar together. “So, when are you gonna head back?”

I shrugged, “Prismo said whenever I wanted.”

“You should probably go then,” Finn recommended.

I hugged him, squeezing as hard as I could, “I love you man, don’t forget that. Keep me up to date on everything, okay?”

“I will,” Finn agreed, hugging me back. “I love you too.”

Pulling away from each other, I waved at him before pulling the note from my pocket, which transported me to Prismo’s room once more.

“Welcome back,” Prismo welcomed. “Made your choice?”

“Yeah,” I nodded. “Oh shoot! I forgot my phone!”

“Oh, yeah that totally wasn’t gonna work,” Prismo shrugged. “You’re lucky I got you one that will work, already with your contacts transferred.”

With a snap, a phone appeared in my hands. Searching through the contacts, they indeed had all my friends listed already. A giddy grin formed on my face. Making this choice wasn’t going as badly as I thought it would.

“You ready?” Prismo asked. I nodded.

“Thank you again for doing all this.”

“Yeah, I totally shouldn’t be doing this, but since it was my fault…” He trailed off, looking to the side. “Anyways, are you sure you're sure? Cause after I send you there you won’t have a way to find me again since…well, their world has no magic.”

“I am,” I nodded with a serious expression.

With a snap of his fingers, I found myself in the living room/kitchen of the Mertens household. Suddenly, I was being tackled by a bunch of kids, all of them asking where I went and why would I do that.

← Previous Chapter Next Chapter →

#finn mertens x reader #adventure time x reader #fionna and cake x reader #farmworld finn x reader #farmworld finn mertens x reader #adventure time #fionna and cake #finn mertens #farmworld finn #farmworld finn mertens #adventure time imagines #fionna and cake imagine #fionna and cake imagines

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juneknight · 11 months

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•.Be Lost.• 2

Chapter One | Chapter 1.5 | Chapter Two | Chapter 2.5

“You talk about them often enough. I feel like we should formally meet. What’s the equivalent of putting a face to a name, but with sex toys?” Marc asks, voice warm with mirth from the other end of the phone. It’s the only thing warm about living up here in the constant snowstorms. Your feet ache today from stomping around in the fields on the frozen earth. Even though Spring approaches on the calendar, you don’t yet feel it in the air.

You dread the thought of possibly having to delay your return home, to Marc, because of the weather.

Your box of sex toys (it’s a shoe box, yes, some nice Cat’s boots with steel in the toes and thick insulated soles, a half-size larger than usual to allow for thick wooly socks which you favored) sits on the bed. You no longer even owned the shoes, but the box was heavy, the lid bulging from two years of collecting an eclectic set of sex toys.

“I’ll show you. But I have rules,” you say, phone wedged between your shoulder and ear.

“I’m listening.” You can hear the smile in his voice, and it drives you nuts.

“One–absolutely no naming them. I’m serious. The last thing I want is to be trying to get off and remember that you named a certain dildo Colonel Mustard.”

“I’m more of a Professor Plum kind of guy anyway, but consider your objection noted.”

“No making fun of me of any kind. Not even light teasing.”

“Agreed.”

“And no questions.”

“That’s…yeah, I don’t think I can agree to that,” he says, surprising you given how amicable he’s been so far. “Can we agree on premeditated questions? Some basics that you answer for each of them?”

You purse your lips and sit down heavily on your bed. The box rattles beside you, lid almost coming off. “Depends on the questions, I guess.”

“When was the last time you used it, and your personal rating out of ten.”

You relax somewhat. Whatever you had been worried about Marc wanting to know—’gross, why that?’ or ‘who used that on you?’—disappears. Maybe it says something about the men you’ve been with lately that your first fear is that Marc will become jealous or judgemental. You should have known that Marc would be different. “Yeah, okay. That’s fine.”

“Are you sure?” he asks, voice growing firm. “I don’t want you to say something’s okay when it isn’t. That’s a big deal to me.”

“I’m sure, dad.”

Marc snorts. “Okay, champ. FaceTime. Let’s go.”

You press the button, and while it connects, you experience all five stages of grief, chewing on one of your thumbnails as you shift from one socked foot to the other. At last his face appears, and it’s like a punch to the gut. Marc is so handsome: his brows, the curve of his nose, his whiskey-warm eyes, the curls spilling onto his forehead. His hair is longer now than the last time you saw him, and it makes your heart clench. You find yourself smiling without meaning to.

“Hey, beautiful,” Marc says, eyes squinting with his smile. “Long time no see.”

“Too long,” you admit. You study the picture in the background, trying to piece together where he is in his apartment. Judging by the lighting (warm but dark) and the lamp in the background, he is in his bedroom. This is confirmed when he rolls over onto his side and props himself up onto his elbow on one of the fluffy pillows.

Once, you had gotten too drunk to drive home and Marc had let you sleep in his bed. You had spent the whole night rolling around on the soft sheets, breathing in his scent, aching but too guilty to touch yourself.

“You okay?” he asks, brows lifting. His mouth settles into a soft, more neutral position, like he is being careful not to convince you one way or another. His lips are so full and soft looking… “If you don’t want to do this, we can say forget it. I just like to know what my options are.”

His options—oh fuck.

Your face burns hot. You slap one palm against your cheek, feeling the heat your skin gives off, knowing that Marc is watching you (which makes your face burn all the hotter). Fuck, how can he just say stuff like that, calm and casual in his soft, warm voice? You think about turning the camera away for a moment just to catch your breath.

“You’re so shy right now,” Marc says, a hint of laughter in his voice. “God. It’s cute.”

“Quit,” you groan, parting your fingers so you can glare at the phone. His grin just grows. “I’m not shy, I have a strap-on.”

“If you think having six inches between your legs makes you immune to shyness, I’ve got news for you.”

“Is that all you’ve got? Six inches?”

“You want to see?” The way he raises his brow, the way he so expertly calls your bluff makes your thighs clench together. Like a great neon sign flashing behind your eyes right now are the words MARC’S COCK. You’ve never seen it, but you know Marc is well hung. You’ve seen him adjust his hard ons before—in the morning after waking up, during a particularly steamy scene on Netflix. The bulge in his sweats has made an appearance or two in your dreams, yes.

“Maybe,” you admit, wondering if he’ll show you. Right now. On FaceTime. Just whip his dick out for you to drool over.

“Show me yours and I’ll show you mine,” he says, mouth quirking into a smirk. “But really. Go on. I have work in the morning, and I want to see every last toy.”

You bring out plenty of things that are “normal”. G-spot vibrators. Clitoral vibrators. Rabbit vibes, and pretty glass dildos. Most of the items get a high score—you have narrowed them down to your favorites. A natural selection amongst sex toys, if you will.

Sometimes you glance to Marc and get flustered at the solemn, studious expression on his face. He hangs on your every word, committing the things you say to memory. No man has ever given you attention the way Marc does: whole-heartedly. Singularly. Unconditionally.

Your throat gets choked up for a moment at the thought. God, you’re falling in love with him, you think in terror to yourself, as if you haven’t already. As if your knees aren’t skinned and palms bloody from the fall.

“You okay, honey?”

You jump a little, having gotten lost in your own thoughts. You clear your throat.

“Yeah, no, I’m good.” You pick up the next item, a candle. When he asks you what scent it is, you laugh a little. “The wax melts at a safe temperature for wax play. You know. Pouring wax on somebody.”

“Rate it.”

“It’s…maybe a four. May-be.”

Massage oil (8), cuffs (10), collapsible spreader bar (9), bite gag (5), blindfold (10), harness (7), all come and go. It is easier to continue once you get talking, and by the end you feel like late night Dr. Ruth.

At last, the box is empty.

“That’s all she wrote,” you tell Marc. He looks a little sleepy, though his eyes are still sharp where they focus on you, tracing over your features. He is quiet. You prod: “Well?”

“I’m going to have to use every last one on you,” he says, eyes on your own. “And until I can, I’m going to be thinking about you using every last one on yourself.”

His shoulder shifts, arm moving off screen—adjusting his hard cock.

“Fuck, Marc,” you sigh brokenly. “You can’t say shit like that.”

“That wasn’t one of your rules,” he says, eyes going heavy-lidded. You thought he was just adjusting himself, but the motion continues. Not enough for him to be full-fledged jerking off, but you think that’s he’s teasing himself. Massaging himself maybe. Your thighs squeeze together. Would he notice if you did the same? “Thank you for the show-and-tell. You’re such a good girl for me.”

You groan.

He laughs, the sound gentle and teasing. “That gets you, huh?”

“Don’t laugh at me,” you bark, endeavoring to cover your face as best as you can with one hand. The truth of his observation doesn’t matter; it’s the principle of the thing. Peeking through your fingers, you catch his expression, and your breath hitches. Marc looks at the phone screen with something unbearably tender in his eyes, something so terribly soft.

Marc looks at you like he loves you.

“Which one’s your favorite? Let me see it again.”

Your favorite. Hmm. You step back from your bed and look at the toys spread out so neatly, your brain turning over the question. All of them get you hot in one way or another, but there is one that stands out. You end up choosing a relatively simple rabbit vibrator. It’s ol’ Faithful; what else can you say?

“Is this what you grab when you want to blow your own mind, or is this what you grab any old night?”

“I want to blow my own mind every old night, Spector.”

“Noted. But you’re not pouring hot wax on yourself every old night,” he says. It is utterly distracting how his shoulder still tenses periodically, hand moving off-screen. You spend an inordinate amount of time watching those small muscles flex, trying to recreate the image of what his hand must be doing in your mind. “What is it about this one? What do you like about it?”

“I like that it fills me up,” you admit. It is a little easier to talk when you’re so distracted by him. “I like that I can use it without hands. Sometimes I put the spreader bar on and bind my hands to the headboard so I can feel like—”

Marc’s arm has stopped moving. His eyes are sharp, burning hot, like iron from the furnace. How voice is quiet but brooks no room for avoiding the question when he asks: “So you can feel like what, baby?”

“I…I don’t know,” you say. It isn’t a lie, either. You aren’t sure where the sentence was heading, and so much about your relationship with being submissive eludes you when you try to put it into words. You chew on the inside of your cheek while you think, and Marc is utterly quiet and still while you contemplate. “Like…like I’m suffering for somebody. Like my pleasure belongs to somebody else. Whoever tied me up. I don’t know.”

Marc nods a little, quiet for a moment himself. “From now on, it belongs to me, yeah? Even if you’re the one tying yourself up—you’ll be doing it because I tell you to, alright? And you’ll be doing it safely. It’s dangerous to tie yourself up when you’re alone. That’s not like my good girl. I don’t want to hear you doing that again.”

“Sorry,” you whisper. You kneel on the floor, bed too covered in toys to lay on. You rest your head against the edge of the mattress, adjusting the phone so that he can still see your face.

“I’ll forgive you when I hear that you won’t do it anymore,” he says. His hand is moving again. Maybe he is jerking off. “Promise me.”

“I won’t tie myself up when I’m alone. I promise.”

Marc lets out a breath, a literal sigh of relief. His eyes go squinty as he smiles, pride evident in the curve of his lips. “There’s my good girl.”

You groan again, turning to bury your face in the mattress.

“Are you on the floor right now?” he laughs.

You groan in an affirmative.

“Kneeling for me?”

You hadn’t intended it that way, but now that he says it, you realize that you are. You nod your head, face still hidden.

“Thighs apart?”

You peek an eye at him and hope he can tell that you’re scowling. Determined to follow his rules (even if your sex positively aches between your thighs) you shift your legs apart.

“You make me feel so powerful,” he says, voice a little shaky. His eyes are looking just off screen, like he can’t make eye-contact with you right now. “Kneeling for me, following my orders. So powerful. But so, so small. You know that? Because you’ve got me wrapped around your finger. And I like it.”

“I like it too,” you murmur, head a little foggy.

“Why?”

“It feels real safe,” you admit. “Like you’ll take care of me. Like you’d never have me do something that might hurt me or embarrass myself.”

“I wouldn’t, baby, I swear I wouldn’t,” he says. Then he sighs. “You’re driving me fucking crazy. I’m jerking off twice a day just to function.”

“Marc,” you say, your voice literally shaking. “Are you—right now?”

He hums and lets his arm grow bolder. The motion is unmistakable now. Marc Spector is masturbating on the phone with you—because of you. The knowledge is like an electric zap that you feel from your head to your toes. Is his dick out? Does he have a hand beneath his sweats? All of this is too much; your own hand falls between your thighs.

“At-at,” says Marc. His shoulder stops moving. “No touching yourself.”

“What?” you whine. “That’s not fair!”

“I stopped too!”

“You’ve been jerking off for twenty minutes though, you owe me!”

“That’s not how this works,” he laughs. “Not to mention, there isn’t a chance in hell you’d last twenty minutes even if I did let you touch yourself. No—we’re going to wait.”

“Til when?”

“Spring. The first time I hear you cum, it’s going to be with my fingers tucked inside you. I want to kiss you and swallow every sound.”

“Then can we hang up?” you ask, shifting on your knees. “I need to touch myself.”

“Use your cute little vibrator,” he murmurs. You both hang up.

He’s right. There’s no way you could have lasted twenty minutes when you barely make it to two.

Spring is never going to come.

Except it does. Of course it does. There is still the occasional snowstorm, but they are irregular enough that you are no longer needed. You book a flight back home, and send Marc a screenshot of your ticket.

I’ll pick you up.

The thought makes your belly flip with nerves. You decide that as eager as you are to see Marc, you are just as anxious too. You would rather prolong it a fraction more, would rather it took place on more familiar turf (outside your apartment rather than the strange unfamiliar-familiarity of an airport). So instead you tell him to meet you back at your apartment. If he brings some basic groceries, bonus points for him.

Though planes don’t often make you nervous anymore, you find yourself gripping your folded hands so tight that you leave marks from your fingernails. What are you doing, agreeing to have sex with Marc? This could ruin everything: your most valuable friendship. The one person in the world who had stuck beside you through thick and thin, even when you had lost people you thought you’d die without.

Even more frightening: what if everything goes right?

Landed, see you soon!! You hope that your exclamation points cover up your anxiety.

Don’t be nervous, he sends back. Fuck.

The Uber is the longest of your life, familiar scenery passing by as you leave the airport and enter the city you’ve called home for so many years. The city where you met Marc. The city where you meet him again and again in the spring, like Persephone coming home. It always happens like this too.

The Uber pulls up to the curb outside your apartment, and Marc is sitting there on the steps. Today is only different because he’s pacing—maybe you aren’t the only one who’s nervous. He’s dressed for spring in just a light jacket, t-shirt, and his jeans. He doesn’t recognize the car when it pulls up, but he recognizes you in the passenger seat. God. His face lights up. Marc goes to the car door and opens it for you, draws you out and into his arms. The first hug he always gives you is bone crushing. He lifts you off the ground and twirls you in his arms before helping you regain your footing.

“Long time, no see,” he says—like always.

“Too long,” you say, clinging to him.

“Uh. Don’t forget your bags,” your Uber driver calls through the open window.

“I got them,” says Marc. He insists on carrying them inside and up the stairs—nice to see that the elevator is still out of order even after the winter. On the way up, Marc fills you in an the uneventful time he spent popping into your apartment every other day to collect your mail, to dust, to water your plants.

You wonder if he slept in your bed. If he laid amongst the scent of you and wanted to touch himself, like you had that night you were too drunk to drive home from his place. You hope that he did—you hope that he touched himself. You—

“Bed,” he says, giving you a jumpscare. At the wide-eyed expression on your face, he misunderstands. “Not for sex! Just—your exhausted. That’s what you get for taking such an early flight. You should nap. Then we should get dinner, my treat. Then we should—”

“Talk.”

“Exactly.”

At his mention of it, your exhaustion (which you had been adamantly pushing back with nerves and adrenalin) resurfaces. He’s right; you always take the earliest flights you can manage, to get home as soon as possible, and yes you arrive to the airport way too early. You’re a woman with anxiety; it’s a given. But the last thing you want to do right now is part ways with Marc. A part of you believes that if he leaves, then you might chicken out. You might never let him back in…

“Stay?” you ask.

“For a nap?” he wonders, mouth stretching in a grin that reeks of fondness for you.

“Sure.”

“In your bed?”

You swallow past the sudden knot in your throat. Fuck, it feels so real. You’re going to have Marc in your bed tonight—for more than just a nap. You push the thoughts away with violence, feeling the way heat rises in your face at the thought alone. Come on, get it together! The way you’re pining for this guy is ridiculous, like you’re a virgin on her wedding night!

Fuck, but can you help it?

“Just sleep,” Marc says, interrupting your spiraling. “Then, dinner. Then…we’ll talk.”

Something inside you relaxes, your shoulders drifting away from where they had been climbing to your ears. Just sleep. You can do that. You’re certainly exhausted enough. A trail of you is formed throughout the apartment: your keys left in the dish by the door, shoes toed off at the shoe-rack, suitcase left haphazardly outside your bedroom door.

Inside, your room is as pristine as you had left it. The sheets are fresh. You have suddenly never been more tired in your life. Taking the last few steps to your bed—a full, larger than the twin you had suffered on during the winter—you collapse on top of the blankets. Who needs to be underneath them? You’re tired enough to sleep just like this.

But Marc pulls the blankets and the sheets back, working them free from beneath your body. He tucks you in, and he climbs into the bed on the other side. Peeking one eye open, you see that he is on his side, watching you. He grins when he catches you looking.

“Sleep tight,” he says sweetly.

God, you do.

When you wake up, the shadows have changed on the wall. It is early evening, your sleep schedule properly fucked. Marc has come to spoon you sometime during your sleep, and you relish the feel of his strong arm looped around your waist, his warm chest pressed flush against your back. The both of you had fallen asleep in your jeans and socks, and neither one cared. For a moment, you let yourself lay there, enjoying the intimacy. It’s easy to pretend you are lovers when he holds you like this.

Then his nose brushes a line up the side of your neck and his breath is hot against your ear as he whispers: “Sleep good?”

“Holy shit, I didn’t know you were awake.”

He snickers, unapologetic.

“Yes,” you say, twisting in his arms. “I slept great. But now I’m starv—...ing.”

As soon as you had turned in his arms, Marc’s eyes had gone molten. Outside, a car alarm goes off. There are horns honking. Someone plays music, but it doesn’t matter. Inside you room, the only sound is the heaving of near-silent breaths as you both lean precariously over the ledge of friendship—whatever rests below, who knows!

“I’m hungry too,” he says, innuendo in his words. His hand on your back traces a line down to the curve of your hip and then up to your ribs. His thumb barely brushes the space beneath your bra. He whispers your name.

He kisses you, a soft press of lips on lips. Again, heads tilted a little differently. Again, noses brushing in a way that has him smiling against your mouth. You part for a single heartbeat before he is leaning back in and kissing you deeper, tasting the seam of your lips with his tongue. Eager, you part your mouth and let him in. Fuck the uncomfortable angle of your neck—you’re kissing Marc Spector.

And God, what a kiss it is. He explores you in a way you hadn’t been explored before. Oh yes, you’d been plundered: had men whose tongues were like their cocks, thrusting away at your mouth, no finesse, no savoring of the moment. Marc kisses you like this is the first and last time he might get to. He traces the line of your teeth with his tongue. He softly nips your bottom lip. He coaxes your tongue into his mouth just to suck at it sweetly. Never have you felt so worshiped from a single kiss—nor so aroused.

Your hips rock against him, finding that he is already erect. You manage to loop one leg around his waist before he breaks the kiss, laughing breathlessly.

“What do you think you’re doing?” he teases.

“Aren’t we—?” you blink.

“I said dinner first.”

“But I’m hungry,” you remind him, arching your back to drag your sex over his hard cock. You’ll never forget the sight of his eyes rolling back, his mouth going a little slack as he takes a shuddering breath.

He rolls you over and straddles your hips, hands finding your wrists and pinning you to the bed. His cock tents the seam of his jeans. Like this, you suddenly feel so small. Something inside you gets small and soft and says, ‘Be good for him. Do as he wants.’ You have long come to terms with the instincts inside you that make you crave this, knowing that they do not make you less of a modern woman but God, it’s still so embarrassing how easily you want to fold!

You argue instead, arching up to rub yourself against him, a spark in your eyes. A challenge. Marc’s own eyes narrow. He kneels up off of one of your legs, gripping your thigh to push it up-and-out, spreading you open for him, and God for a moment you think that you’ve convinced him, swayed him with just a wiggle of your hips, and the coming satisfaction will be (almost) as strong as your disappointment.

Instead, he brings his hand down on your pussy in a spank. You yelp. Muffled as it was through the denim, you could still feel the strength in his hand, and you are sensitive enough that it leaves you with a brief, stinging ache. He cups your sex with his palm, soothing it with the warmth of his hand.

“Dinner first. Where’s my good girl at? The girl who fell to her knees a thousand miles away without me even having to ask her, huh?”

You’d cover your face, if your hands were free. Suddenly you are shy and embarrassed at your own behavior. You don’t even allow yourself to rub up against his touch, light though it may be. Looking at him through your lashes, you say: “I’m sorry, I just…”

“You need it,” he says, thumb smoothing along the sensitive stretch of your inner thigh. “I understand, baby. Was I harsh?”

“No.”

“No, what?”

“No sir,” you whisper shyly.

His grin is broad, beatific. It turns teasing almost right away. He leans down and brushes his nose against yours before releasing your wrists and rolling off of you.

“I want to be just friends for just a while longer,” he admits in a whisper. “Throughout dinner. There’s something important I need to tell you.”

#marc spector x reader

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seluneclerics · 28 days

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Omg just binge read the five existing chapters of more the fool me and brooooo

Like I just sat my self down and didn’t get up until I finished and I’m so desperate for more!!!

The way you write the characters feels so authentic, even though their relationships develop fairly quick - it doesn’t feel rushed and makes complete sense!

You write Miranda so well, I’ve always in my head saw her as almost adjacent to characters like Narcissa Malfoy, Regina from Ouat etc

They have a cold, detached air around them but they’re fuelled by this addictive passion and commitment to their loved ones that they’re practically clinical about, like they’re not here to play and you get that across so well with Miranda.

I don’t usually read x readers and if I do, I don’t read OC ones but I enjoyed this thoroughly. I might be a little bias because I look a bit like Fraser - brown skin, long, black curls barring the fact that she’s 5’9 and I’m 5’4 at the best of times - but it comes down to how universal you write her.

The name Fraser doesn’t feel like it carries too much connotations like a name like mf Amy or Charlotte which are wayyy to western for a non-white person to easily relate to and her personality is so relatable. And big plus she’s not super annoying so

But your writing is amazing - the way you write intimacy without it being sexual is divine, how the characters look at each other fondly or appreciate the others mind or oh! oh! How you slip in Fraser’s knowledge about them to emphasise how well she knows them! Like how she knew it was Alcina because of her height when she was passed out or how she’s aware that Miranda was coming to yell at her on the balcony! The way she holds Miranda’s face and how Alcina plays piano to her, how Fraser easily makes Mira, Alcina, and soon Donna I’m guessing feel less lonely.

I don’t know, I just live for good sapphic yearning and pining and it’s so nice to see that there’s still a plot - which omg I can’t wait to see where that goes - and it isn’t all easy. Fraser may feel some attachment to Alcina and Miranda but she’s still willing to go behind their backs to search for her father - like trying to sneak into that storage room. She gets close with them but not without her own agenda. The tender, heady back and forth with Fraser and the Lords/Mira is so perfectly countered by the far more gritty landscape and setting, the depictions of the violent, grotesque nature of the corpses and flesh, of the worms and the far less idealistic village and it’s history. You stay true to the grit of RE8 and I’m here for it, I hate when a wlw story or any queer story is all fluffy or all angsty like there needs to be balance and you got it.

Alcina has to hold herself back, she feels uncomfortable knowing about Miranda’s closeness with Fraser or vice versa, Miranda letting Fraser into her vulnerable parts despite how perturbed she is and Fraser not being a dick head that has no common sense but still makes mistakes.

The pacing is great, you have pretty neat prose and I am so interested! Keep up the really awesome work!

- from a dedicate fan now <3

holy shit, i’m???

thank you so much for taking time out of your day to read about the little evil gay women in my phone. thank you even more for making such a detailed comment, really it means the world to me—and also shocks me???

the representation of fraser being a black/mixed black woman was incredibly important to me. the RE community in general has a lack of rep for women of color, likely due to the games themselves not having too many woc in general.

i’m so glad you like my miranda characterization! in this fic, i wanted to lean heavily into what it’s like to be a grieving mother. outside of the vengeful, scornful side of miranda we see inside of RE8. of course, her rage and schemes are still very present in more the fool, but i wanted the aspect of dealing with the grief of losing someone to take center stage.

i think the beauty of miranda/fraser’s dynamic is that fraser exists within miranda’s grief, rather than trying to do away with it or fill the hole that’s left in her heart. she knows she can’t assuage her loneliness and she doesn’t want to. she simply wants to be with her through it all, and i think that’s the beautiful thing about them.

outside of the who-done-it nature of more the fool’s overarching story, i think it’s a story of what it’s like to go to the ends of the earth for a person, solely because you love them and would do anything to see you two reunited.

fun fact: fraser’s name means “of the forest men” and strawberry! the truth is, i got so attached to it when i was trying to come up with a name for her, but then realized it was a boy’s name. i thought it’d be funny for her lore to add in the fact that her father knew it was a boy’s name, but kept it anyway because he liked it so much. besides, i think we can all say it fits her better!

there’s so much more i want to say, but tumblr has deleted this on me like 4 other times already, so i’ll end it there. thank you again, and i look forward to giving you more to read soon!!

#re8 #resident evil village #more the fool me (the unwise lord)#mother miranda #mother miranda x reader #alcina dimitriscu x reader #vika von von #donna beneviento x reader

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cressthebest · 5 months

Text

Crimson Rivers thoughts pt. 22

chapter 38:

1. “"Right, so, your stylist?" Marlene asks, settling in as they continue to sway. "The one who looks like a fucking goddess? Yeah, so get this, she says we're friends…"”

james and marlene gossip sesh <3333333

2. 😧 MCGONNAGAL??????????

3. wait i think mcgonnagal is good. i’m pretty sure she’s from the phoenix. i’m not sure. i’m hopeful. i’m so hopeful

4. aww huey is kinda sweet. i like that’s he’s reg’s breath of fresh air when it comes to talking to the hallows

5. reg, i understand your anger, but please don’t make one of the only good sponsors feel bad

6. jealous james >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

7. “"I like your tea," James offers. "Maybe I'm biased, but it tastes better than anyone else's. What do you do to it?"

Regulus hums and lightly says, "I spit in it."

Without missing a beat, James replies, "Ah, that explains it."”

😭😭😭😭😭

8. “"Would you—" Regulus chokes on another relentless giggle, gasping a little. "Wait, would you actually drink my tea if I spit in it, James?"

"Love, I would let you spit directly into my mouth," James announces with absolutely no shame in his tone whatsoever.”

😭😭😭😭 james i love you

9. awww i love that barty is the most consistent part of reg’s life. i love barty

10. 😬 riddle is unconvinced in their love story. i- yikes

11. okay, right, mcgonnagal is good. thank god

12. dorcas wants to keep marlene out of the war, but only one of them has had a pov so far, so i’m not hopeful

13. oh shit marlene sounds hot

14. also, to add in, i’m so fucking glad there’s like no homophobia (that we know of) in this world

15. i do NOT want dorlene to be a tragedy in this universe

16. 😟 she gave back the ring. AHHHH

17. oh no. shit shit shit shit shit what did riddle do

18. “Riddle didn't even grant the liberty of leaving bodies behind for them to bury.” 😟😧

(but also, orion and walburga were dicks, so like, i’m not sad, just scared)

chapter 39:

1. aww regulus finally invites james in for tea

2. “On the day he accidentally kills a bee while tending to his flowers, he goes through the five stages of grief in less than an hour, which has nothing to do with the bee and everything to do with Vanity.” STOP! THE VANITY MENTION HURTS TOO MUCH

3. “When Regulus wants more time with him, he adds bagels, which James has now unconsciously been Pavloved into thinking of as his favorite food for that very reason.” STOP THATS SO GAY

4. sirius being dramatic about james and reg liking each other is TOP TIER in this fic, in the most realistic, aggravated, obnoxious, and completely loving way

5. BWAHAHAHHAHA JAMES GETTING A PIGGY BACK RIDE FROM SIRIUS IS GOLD

6. oh shit, (i’m not the best comprehensive reader, but i should have figured this out sooner), but from sirius’ perspective, he has to do the back and forth with remus his whole life. he doesn’t have the knowledge that i do, that a war is coming and they’ll finally get a chance to live together. he thinks he only gets to see remus once a year for two weeks at a time. this- this shit is heartbreaking yall

7. “”I watched him stand to his feet and tip himself into a river of blood in an act so tender that I'll never again be able to look at him with anything less than pure love. Every other member of the Black family, including you, fought and clawed their way home to their family, oftentimes to a family that never truly made them feel loved at all. Regulus? He fought and clawed through that arena, the entire time, for James. He's far more gentle than anyone gives him credit for."”

y’all, i’m crying over this. this is so lovely. effie is right, and i’m crying over how right she is

8. 😒 i know what’s coming. riddles a bitch. a right bitch. he’s gonna announce that previous victors are competing and i’m PISSED

9. so far, all three potters offered reggie food. they’re so hospitable, i love them

10. “He hasn't forgotten what it is to long for James. He still knows what it is to want him so badly that he'd be willing to kneel at the altar of James Potter and beg; he'd drop down on his hands and knees and crawl if that's what it took, if that would prove his devotion. He is the manifestation of longing built up with nowhere to go, and he craves, he yearns, he covets.”

both of them are so down bad

11. omg reg is so horny. his inner monologue is literally only like “”””“rip my clothes off please, read my mind and rip my clothes off”””””

12.AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH I KNEW IT WAS COMING! BUT IM SO MAD!!! FUCK RIDDLE

13. effie is a queen. she is a godsend. and i’m so upset right now

14. not effie making them promise not to volunteer, and immediately james and sirius arguing over who’s gonna volunteer for her

15. i’m seething. i’m pissed beyond belief. i’m so angry it’s indescribable. my babies are going back into that arena. honestly, fuck riddle

#marauders #regulus black #james potter #fanfic #jegulus #sirius black #effie potter #euphemia potter #sunseeker #starchaser #dorcas x marlene #dorcas meadowes #marlene mckinnon #crimson rivers

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mojjisxng · 1 year

Text

super shy

&team jo x reader / y/n

high school au, in which basketball player jo and ‘nobody’ y/n both have huge crushes on each other, yet are totally oblivious. well, that is until they are forced to confront their feelings in the aftermath of the final basketball game of the year.

requested (sorry it took a while, i’ve been quite busy)

pronouns- she/her (as requested)

warnings- super cheesy, shit writing because i haven’t written properly in ages (i’m so so sorry 🫶🫶)

word count- 1,035

lowercase intended

y/n hurriedly scuttled between the rows of students inside the crowded gymnasium, eventually situating herself in the middle of her two best friends. any minute now the final basketball game of the season was about to begin, and y/n was trying not to pass out from the nerves. so much so, that the aforementioned friends had to physically drag y/n to the game. if you’re thinking that the actual result of the game was significant to y/n, you’re terribly mistaken. the poor girl merely had an earth-shattering crush on the school’s star player, jo. she didn’t even think she could look at him right now, never mind watch him do what he does best; the crush had escalated that far.

she didn’t even know where the crush came from, it just manifested after observing him in their classes and during the small interactions they had at school. however, she was adamant that jo could never like her back.

‘i’m meek, nerdy and don’t stand out at all; i’m completely unremarkable,’ the girl pondered to herself whilst counting down the minutes until the game began. ‘he’s perfect and popular, and wouldn’t even know of my existence if we weren’t in class together. like yeah, we do make eye contact a lot in the corridors, but i’d be delusional to think he actually could like me. he doesn’t seem as intimidating as his other team mates though; he seems so gentle with everyone including me. and his stoic face sometimes quirks up into the most adorable smile when we greet each other. oh. my. god. I CANNOT STAND ITTTTT!!!!’

obviously, y/n’s internal monologue was presenting itself on the outside as well, as her leg was shaking erratically, she was gripping her jumper so hard it looked like her fingernails were going to pop through the other side, as well as her facial expressions going through all five stages of grief. her friends looked concerned, yet simply shared a slightly worried look and laughed with a roll of their eyes; they were used to this.

on the other hand, y/n could not have been more wrong about jo’s feelings towards her, seeing as though he too had a monumental crush on her. that’s why he was almost having a panic attack outside of the locker room, with yuma trying to hand him a paper bag to hyperventilate into. jo then started to pace towards the door of the gymnasium, peeking through the window to look for y/n. as soon as he spotted her, he sprinted back to his previous spot, doubling over with nausea.

“just take the bag dude, it might help you to not die,” yuma exclaimed with slight amusement in his voice.

the team captain, nicholas sauntered over, “you’re just nervous because you want to help us win the whole season, and it’s not because of that girl you like right…RIGHT?!?!” jo’s side eye did not look promising to nicholas, who just patted jo on the shoulder, shook his head and walked away in defeat, not ready to give relationship advice.

there was no time for anyone to comfort jo anyways, because the team was directed to line up ready to file into the packed gym.

the boys ran out, one by one, jo being the last due to the anticipation he brought with being the most important player of the season. as he scanned the audience while waving to everyone, he made direct eye contact with y/n. the pair immediately looked away from each other, blushing profusely.

throughout the game, y/n was internally being pulled between being unable to spare a glance at jo because ‘his magnificence was just to great’, as she put it to her friends, and being unable to look away from him. he effortlessly moved across the court with the ball, gracefully jumping to score (which he did many many (*italics*) times). the lovesick girl was mesmerised by jo, watching his tall frame join the crowd of other boys to celebrate a basket that he made, with a huge grin on his face. she wished he would smile like that because of her.

it was no surprise that jo’s team won the game. despite this, the oblivious pair were in for a shock, when they were forced into facing each other.

as soon as the final whistle was blown, y/n’s friends pushed her down towards the court, whilst jo’s teammates basically held him hostage in the centre of the court.

“jo has something he needs to get off his chest…don’t you jo?” yuma probed.

“funnily enough, y/n does too,” stated one of y/n’s friends, very matter-of-fact, despite having to push down a smirk.

y/n decided to just let it all out, maybe it would be a weight of her shoulders no matter the result, she thought to herself. as if they were psychically linked, jo figured that confessing couldn’t feel as bad as he had been lately because of his crush on y/n.

“OK SO BASICALLY I LIKE YOU, LIKE A LOT,” y/n and jo, practically screamed at the same time.

“huh, you like me back?! you, jo, the star of the basketball team, the most popular boy in school at the moment?!”

“well…yeah i do, i like you so so much, i could burst. i may be all those things that you said, but i feel like a shy loser around you. you’re so sweet and smart and beautiful, that i can’t handle it. i could barely look at you lately.” a smile bloomed across y/n’s extremely rosy face, at hearing jo’s confession.

“well, i guess we can be shy losers together now,” she giggles, laying her soft lips on jo’s plushy cheek.

their friends whooped and hollered, as the couple hid in each other’s arms, sending a glare at their mildly irritating supporters. yuma had to clutch onto his evil eye bracelet for protection from the double side eye.

“i guess we were the only ones that were clueless about each other’s feelings,” jo whispered into y/n’s ear, as they basked in the first of many tender moments they shared together.

#&team #&team jo #asakura jo #&team scenarios #&team imagines #&team fluff #&team reactions #&team ej #&team euijoo #&team fuma #&team k #&team nicholas #&team yuma #&team harua #&team taki #&team maki #&team x reader

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mellowwhumps · 3 months

Text

oc introductions!

heyo! now that i’m finally done with june of doom (which was meant to serve as a basic version of this) here’s all my oc introductions! i cannot for the life of me make it sound interesting but hopefully my future content compensates for that…roles are listed from least to most, but may deviate at times since i love role swap!

i’ll make picrews or coloured references like literally any normal creator. someday. soon. (lies)

side note: their personalities do change a lot between AUs since yknow. choices influence actions so yeah!! same yet different love that…as another side not everything i tag as simply “AU'' is just the main one i usually use since that’s the most developed

i really recommend checking their toyhouses since it goes into a lot more detail :3

haley !!

toyhouse (both original and AU)

quotelist + more in elowen’s quotelist

roles: whumpee-whumper (ex), caretaker

my scrunkly scrimblo…in a way i’d describe him as half living weapon. why half you may ask? because for the first half of his life he was treated as a human and then abruptly in the second half it just. changed. no more nice words. conflict between his ‘home’ and a neighbouring kingdom peaks, war comes, everything ends, though i mostly don’t focus on the war part haha. this guy knows he’s meant to be wielded and used, but just how much of a weapon is he?

personality wise, he’s not a talker. despite his generally serious demeanour, he’s a much nicer person to be with than the one who raised him, caring about others because he thinks the world should just be kinder, and maybe if he cares enough he can repent for it all.

for the most part he shifts personalities quite widely between aus…

——————

halcyon !!

toyhouse (unfinished)

roles: whumpee (ex), caretaker

from the aforementioned neighbouring kingdom! she serves the queen as the captain of the royal knights, yknow the drill, there’s war and they started it. she’s the type of person who believes in what’s right but also won’t hesitate to rethink if her beliefs are wrong. her story is mostly about dealing with all the hard stuff like Feelings and the Aftermath because nobody likes doing that ew.

she’s trying her best. i respect this behaviour

——————

elowen !!

toyhouse (AU)

quotelist

roles: caretaker turned (reluctant) whumper mostly but no fixed role

the guy that took haley in yeah. he cares. a lot. but sometimes his job matters more. he’s mostly there to drive the plot and then he literally just. dies. but that’s not the end is it? he lives on in haley’s memories, forever an enigma. their relationship is so complicated i wouldn’t do it justice in a short introduction…he’s alive and well in the AU and very relevant though

yes his intentions are good. yes he’s coping with it in the only way he knows how. he does genuinely care. he unwavers in his belief that he wants to give everyone a better life, wants to help more people than he possibly ever could. unfortunately, every decision has its downsides.

——————

ria !!

toyhouse

roles: whumpee (mostly emotionally i swear)

look. okay. i get to use at least one child for my found family agenda. once again i focus on the aftermath rather than anything else so it's mostly emotional whump

rogue. gremlin. she bites (sometimes) (affectionately) but she’s just dealing with how she simply is. she’s like the glue holding it all together as best as she possibly can, because she can’t even come close to understanding how bad it all was and sometimes that’s just better. can and will go through the five stages of grief before admitting that she cares and actually isn’t as independent as she thinks she is.

——————

ida !!

toyhouse (AU)

tiny quotelist (w. yuuto)

roles: whumpee, caretaker, whumper (rarely written)

right now i only have the AU version of him! his story’s about identity and somewhat also breaking free. oh and also semi-doomed yaoi but that’s not the problem here. he has a prosthetic arm and heart but that is 100% not his entire personality and just a few of the burdens he carries!! personality-wise he Does Not Care about restrictions but is also the furthest thing from impulsive when it’s most needed

i’m on a roll so this guy definitely gets more development in my writing than whatever i say here so!! check him out

——————

ibys !!

toyhouse (AU)

roles: whumpee, caretaker

right now i also only have the AU version of them although that and their current design might change someday…his themes are similar to haley (fate + past vs present) but they could not be more different in story and personality despite both being living weapons!! wanted to try a seperate route with them so this happened. they’re so serious but they’re working on it. so yes, since their story is directly intertwined with ida’s, their themes are similarly also about identity!!

the things i have planned for them are definitely more serious and whumpy than my other ocs (yknow. living weapon typical story) but sometimes that’s required for a good ending!! so bear with me and my little scrunkly scrimblo over here i swear they get nice things too

——————

twelve !!

toyhouse (both original and AU)

quotelist

roles: whumpee

verrill and them are from a completely different universe than above^^ (some of my ocs were previously from their home city though)

honestly their story is just based off one of my favourite dystopian literatures but i change it up a little! sorry their quotelist paints them as such a romantic because i sourced most of them when i was obsessed with their crackship…anyway!! damn this guy (gender neutral) can hold so much trauma with photographic memory that’s literally out for war with them

i think the best way to describe them would be dull exterior colourful interior! they hold so much hope in them…no 1 hurt/comfort extraordinaire

——————

verrill !!

toyhouse

quotelist

roles: whumpee/caretaker, pretty balanced

he's an adult he just has chronic babyface from my artstyle rip

the catalyst and the end of it all…this guy has Problems and refuses to deal with them. first attempt at a morally grey character, i suppose? extremely loyal, extremely caring, but only if it’s in his preference. loves playing hero but hates playing hero. walking contradiction. he cannot be described in a few words. he simply cannot.

——————

roles of other characters that might be mentioned (once again, least to most):

mc/emmei: caretaker

naeri: whumpee (90% emotionally) but really just there to drive the story. may/may not use her

cerilux (previously unnamed character no 2): (whumpee), caretaker

unnamed character: “caretaker”, whumper

more by @/lemlem21 | @/qiuthewhumps, a whole load of other characters in a whole load of roles: yuuto, saora, chelo + more

——————

misc.

oc asks

BECAUSE I WAS TOO SHY TO ASK PEOPLE TO. ASK. SO I JUST DID NEARLY EVERYTHING (please look at this to find out more i spent so much time on this it’s kinda insane) (still unfinished with spontaneous updates because i do whatever i want)

and of course, promoting my other completely unrelated oc introduction post here

——————

anddd that’s it!! thank you for scrolling!! may or may not be extra ocs or content added later on but for now this is my final cast; feel free to send in whatever, whenever! inbox always open to prompts questions musings anything really 💥 please i get so happy if it wasn’t obvious enough by me maxxing out reblog tag limits for things i love pleasepleasepl

——————

update: you can find my masterpost in the read more under my pinned post^^^

#whump #whumpblr #my ocs #original character #ocs #whumpee #caretaker #my art #character intros #mellowwhumps #never let me do character bust shot drawings actually

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flower-boi16 · 26 days

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It is still extremely dumb to me how Anne doesn’t seem to be affected at ALL by the fact that she just saw her best friend get stabbed through the chest by the end of Season 2 and yet for the first half of Season 3 she doesn’t seem affected by it at ALL.

For all she knows, Marcy could be DEAD. Having someone especially a loved one die right in front of you can give PTSD or trauma for most people, yet Anne doesn’t seem show any signs of it. And the defences people use are also dog water, “Oh but Anne is a 13 year old girl and she’s already been able to handle a lot of different shit”- I don’t think anything Anne has been through before are nearly as traumatic as watching your best friend get stabbed through the chest. “True Colors is acknowledged!” Sure you technically say it is but the urgency Anne SHOUMD feel after what happened is never actually addressed beyond a bunch of quick gags which is. Insulting, actually.

Anne should have FAR more worry about Marcy’s fate, she should she be more in a rush to get back to Amphibia. I would even go as far as to say she should have PTSD and trauma over what happened and should be going through the five stages of grief!

I’m not saying Anne should go through a Luz Noceda level depression arc but fucking ANYTHING would be good, but no, instead - the writers just forget that Marcy getting stabbed ever happened and Anne just acts like she didn’t just see her best friend get stabbed through the chest.

Great.

#while I like amphibia…#…MAN season 3 was so…meh #like the last few episodes are good at least #but don’t think that’s enough to save it #amphibia critical #anne boonchuy

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olivia-anderson-fanfic · 8 days

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Yuu can do it!

Part 59

First - Previous - Masterlist - TBC

“– so Jack grabs the rock, right, and Enma asks him to pass it over. And then he –.”

“Ito, c’mon,” Enma groaned, his face in his arms, his ears tinted red.

“– tried to bite the rock?!” Ito continued to explain, incredulously.

“I had to know, okay?! Grim’s always talking about how those things taste amazing! What if he was right?!”

Kuroki grinned, rolling his eyes. “And how did it taste?”

Enma seemed to be trying to disappear into the side of Kuroki’s mattress. “Like a rock…”

“Rocks taste good,” Grim said, firmly, patting his stomach. “Especially the ones that come out of those Phantoms.”

Kuroki scratched the monster behind his ears, smiling. “Well, I’m sure those blot stones are worth a fortune, so I’m glad you’re satiating yourself for free. I don’t want to go into debt to feed you.”

“Oh,” Ito said, snapping their fingers. “That reminds me. So, you know how we kinda ruined a fourth of Ashengrotto-senpai’s restaurant?”

“I thought you said it was a sixteenth?” Grim said, confused.

“I did do that, yes,” Ito said, their lips curling into a grin. “Anyways. I’ve been thinking. Ashengrotto-senpai is gonna make us sign a deal again to make him pay off that debt, soooooo… I think we should tell the Headmaster that the Lounge got trashed during the Overblot.”

Kuroki, who was always down to make the Headmaster suffer, nodded vehemently. At the end of the day, even if Kuroki wasn’t particularly fond of Azul Ashengrotto, he hated Crowley and everything he represented. If something hurt Crowley, he wasn’t going to pettily toss the idea aside simply because it might help Azul out.

He also liked not being in debt.

“I could still make you pay regardless!” a voice chimed in.

Kuroki reconsidered whether he hated Azul or Crowley more.

Yeah… still Crowley.

But this thought was immediately swiped from his mind, because Azul wasn’t walking into the infirmary on his own. No, he was being carried on Floyd’s back like a child.

Kuroki pressed his lips into a thin line to hide a smile. The paycheck. Just think about the paycheck and keep a straight face.

It was much harder when Jade waved at Enma when the boy lifted his head to see the newcomers. Enma immediately seemed to go through all five stages of grief. And then he ducked his head once again, trying to become one with Kuroki’s hospital bed.

“Oh?” Jade said, waiting for just a moment so Floyd could deposit a grumpy Azul on one of the cots, before making his way over to poke at Enma’s shoulder. “And here I thought you were eager to fight me… why not now? We’re both free, are we not?”

Kuroki narrowed his eyes.

His expression immediately softened when Enma’s hand found his own, squeezing a little. “Even if – if – y’know, I’m not really intending on leaving right now.”

Jade tipped his head to the side. Probably considering which choice on his dialogue tree would mess with Enma the most.

“Am I missing something?” Ito not-so-quietly whispered to Kuroki.

“We saw –.”

“I will suffocate you with a pillow while you sleep.”

“– absolutely nothing,” Kuroki decided. He could always tell Ito later, if they didn’t figure it out themself.

In the meantime, though, Kuroki considered the pros and cons of letting Jade mess with Enma. It was, slightly, unfair, he thought. He figured that, had he liked men, he would have probably been unable to look someone in the eyes mere hours after having seen them naked, especially not in such… strange circumstances.

But it was funny, so… as long as it didn’t go too far, Kuroki decided to let it ride.

Azul Ashengrotto, ruiner of plans, had other ideas:

“Nice to see that all of you can still be so… lively, in these sorts of circumstances,” he said, in a tone that suggested he did not, in fact, think it was ‘nice to see’.

“This is – like – Overblot number four, forgive us for not caring that much anymore,” Ito sighed.

“Four? I’ve only heard of three,” Jade said.

“Don’t worry about it,” Ito waved him off.

Jade looked like he was very much going to worry about it. Which was unfortunate for Kuroki, since he worked with him.

… wait, he was definitely fired at this point. Yeah! He had never been so happy to be at risk of dying of hunger!

Okay, admittedly, it was much harder to be pleased when he thought about the ‘at risk of dying of hunger’ thing.

He glanced at Azul, laying in his cot, trying valiantly to ignore Floyd poking and prodding at him.

“I do have to admit,” Kuroki said. “This is the first time someone actively tried to kill one of us. Like, most of the time, we were just there.”

Azul winced.

Kuroki pulled Grim onto his lap, carefully running his hand along his unfortunately-slick back. Floyd was right, he was like a little seal. It was cute, he supposed. He still missed the fur, though.

“... listen, Azul –.”

“I never gave you permission to call me that.”

“You literally tried to murder me. I’m done being polite.”

Azul flushed.

“All jokes – most jokes – aside… regardless of the fact that I do not like you, I can admit that you’re very hard-working. Sometimes hard work doesn’t beat natural talent, but it still does a lot, and most bosses prefer a hard worker over a naturally talented person, anyway. Naturally talented people kinda suck. See Kingscholar-senpai for an example.”

Azul’s face, slowly, flushed.

“Awww, what's the matter? Are you gettin' teary-eyed, Azul?” Floyd cooed.

“Dear me. You've gone back to that ink-spewing crybaby again.”

“Hey! You two signed an NDA covering that exact topic!”

“Right you are. My mistake,” Jade said.

Azul looked like he doubted it was a ‘mistake’. Probably because it definitely wasn’t one.

But, in the end, perhaps because he was simply too drained to deal with it, he turned back to Kuroki and said, “Your attempts to console me are clumsy at best.”

“Suffer, then,” Kuroki said. He’d tried his best. If Azul decided not to take it to heart, then what was he supposed to do? It was officially no longer his problem.

Enma grinned. “Aw. Kuroki. You were almost heartfelt for a minute there. Are you feeling okay?”

“No. I might be concussed,” Kuroki deadpanned.

… damn it, now Ito and Enma had noticed that he hadn’t even gotten halfway through his potion and were shoving it toward him again.

He, reluctantly, mostly just to assuage their worries, brought it to his lips again.

“What’s that?” Azul said.

Kuroki, pleased to talk and therefore have an excuse to not drink the potion anymore, lifted it high above his head. “A health potion.”

Azul blinked.

“... the fuck is a health potion?” Floyd asked.

“Is that a… thing from your world?” Jade asked, a little hesitantly.

Something like dread curled in the back of Kuroki’s mind. His hand fell back to his lap, his fingers tightening around the neck of the flask. “The Headmaster gave it to us, actually.”

(A little unwillingly, sure, but Kuroki would never admit that to them of all people.)

If anything, that answer just seemed to make the three mermen more confused. They looked between themselves, unsure.

“There’s no such thing as a ‘health potion’,” said Jade.

Which, of course, raised the question of what the fuck was it, then?

Kuroki worried his lip. Man, he really didn’t need any more world-shattering revelations today. Or tomorrow. Or, frankly, for the rest of his life, but he would settle for, like, a week.

“Can I analyze the rest of that?” Azul asked, his eyes gleaming.

Kuroki, who really didn’t want to drink anymore, jumped at the opportunity to rush out of bed and hand it over to Azul.

Grim immediately flew over and grabbed Kuroki by the back of his shirt, dragging him back to bed, his curses muffled by the shirt in his mouth.

Azul’s pupils narrowed at the potion for a moment. He held it up to the light, tilting it this way and that. His lips pressed into a thin line.

And then the door to the hospital wing started to open, and Azul rushed to hide it beneath his pillow.

They all smiled, innocently, at the Headmaster.

Crowley looked over all of their pleasant expressions, his wings fluffing up briefly, before he smoothed himself out, smiling in a way that was clearly supposed to be pleasant, but was instead coming off as blatantly nervous. “I’m here to assist you all.”

“Took you long enough,” Kuroki said.

The tension broke.

Enma cuffed Kuroki over the back of his head.

Kuroki flipped him off. “Bitch?! I’m injured, you can’t hit me!”

“I just watched you run across a room, you’re fine,” Enma said.

“I’ll be the judge of that,” Crowley said, cheerily, striding over.

Kuroki, of course, thanks to the not-health-potion, was declared to be perfectly fine.

But Crowley still wanted him to stay overnight for monitoring. Something about how, when you survive drowning, you can later do something called ‘dry drowning’, where your lungs decide to be a bitch and fill with water a second time for funsies.

Kuroki was half-tempted to simply see whether he should test out the limits of his possible immortality, but that voice in his head sounded distinctly like Enma, and he never listened to Enma, thank you very much.

So, he shrugged and nodded. Monitoring his health would, perhaps, actually be good for said health!

“And,” added Crowley, squinting at them. He pointed at Ito and Enma. “You two have to leave when the hospital wing closes in a few minutes, and you can’t come back until it opens again at 7 tomorrow.”

Their expressions immediately darkened.

If you looked carefully, you could see their minds all racing, trying to find a loophole.

Enma, after a moment, brightened back up. “Okay, Headmaster. We can do that.”

Crowley’s victorious look dropped into a slight frown. “Why do I feel like I’m losing?”

“I don’t know, why do you?” Enma asked, so very innocent.

“Can’t you three behave for, perhaps, a day?” he damn-near begged.

“We just killed an Overblot for you,” Ito deadpanned.

“... that you did!” he coughed, awkwardly, and then turned to go deal with the victim of said Overblot.

Azul, too, was mostly fine. Though the broken leg was still there. Whoops.

Crowley, after a bit of magic to make sure Azul’s bones were in place (everyone pretended that they didn’t hear the boy gasp in pain for a minute there, they were assholes, but not evil), made a quick splint for the injury.

And then he ushered the Leech twins out the door, Ito and Enma in tow, calling for Azul and Kuroki to sleep well and to simply say his name if they needed help.

Kuroki and Azul looked at each other in awkward silence, unsure what to do. Should they just… sleep? Talk?

Kuroki scratched behind Grim’s ear, his lips pursed into a thin line. “So, uh, am I fired?” he asked.

He no longer had a contract assuring that he wouldn’t be fired for no good reason. And, even if he had, he was pretty sure that ‘breaking the kneecaps of your boss’ and ‘trashing your workplace’ would count as being ‘good reason’.

To his surprise, though, Azul shook his head. Vehemently.

“No. You make my life miserable for fun. I haven’t even done anything to you! There’s no way I’m going to give you an actual reason to dislike me.”

… Leona, you have been forgiven. Your claims of Kuroki being evil might have just saved half of the Ramshackle student’s income.

“Sweet,” said Kuroki, slumping against his pillows. He was pretty sure that Crowley would have made him work in the infirmary if he had no other options, but he also knew Ito’s paycheck was around half of his own, and that included all of the hours where they simply ‘forgot’ to clock out.

They would have been able to scrape by, but Kuroki liked having some disposable income. The ability to slowly fix up their house was nice. And not cheap.

At least a certain birdman had stopped crashing in through their windows when Kuroki started making him pay for the damages.

Speaking of…

There was a knock on the window.

Kuroki raised his eyebrows when he saw Floyd Leech, perched on the windowsill, smiling and waving at them.

After a second’s hesitation, he hefted Grim in his arms and made his way over. “Hi…”

“We’ve come to take you guys home,” Floyd answered the unasked question.

“How did you get up here?” Grim asked, his eyes wide.

“Jumped, Azarashi-chan,” Floyd said, as if it were obvious.

Maybe it was. Azul didn’t look particularly surprised.

Kuroki sighed, peering past Floyd. The others were on the ground. Ito and Enma were chatting, but they brightened up and waved at him when they noticed him looking.

“... how do you expect me to get down?” Kuroki asked.

Floyd smiled.

“Fuck.”

The Ramshackle and Octavinelle dorms were quick to part ways. The moon hung in the sky, tinted just slightly green as always. The campus was quiet, barely a whisper of conversation on the wind – two people rushing around, clearly looking for someone, though Kuroki couldn’t say he knew who their Waka-sama was, so he wouldn’t be of help.

Not that he was particularly interested in helping either way. On the one hand, Grim was asleep on his shoulders and he didn’t want to wake the monster, and on the other hand, he certainly wasn’t kind enough to help people for free (ew). Basically, he saw no reason to be nice right now, try again later.

Ito yawned, rubbing the tiny tears that formed in their eyes away absently. “Can’t wait to get back home,” they murmured, briefly bumping their shoulder against Kuroki’s.

“Hope the Leech twins haven’t trashed the place,” Enma said.

“We can make them pay for damages,” Kuroki decided. “Plus some – for emotional damages.”

Enma hummed his agreement.

Kuroki stuffed his hands into his pockets. “... so…”

“So?” Ito said, lightly.

He took a deep breath. “Um. I didn’t – I’m not going to say I’m sorry for making that contract, okay? If I had the opportunity, I’d do it again.”

And, seeing as that contract with Azul had dissolved along with all of the others, this was actually something he had seriously considered.

“But,” he said. “I honestly… didn’t think it would affect you guys at all. I mean, sure, my anxiety was telling me that you guys might make a deal with Azul one day, but I didn’t… actually think you would. I didn’t think it would change anything, or mean anything, really. I kind of just expected it to be a quick deal that would never come up again. I didn’t… want to hurt you guys. I didn’t think you’d ever have a reason to know.”

Enma and Ito glanced at each other.

“... has anyone ever told you that you suck at apologizing?” Ito asked, lightly, their shoulder bumping against his.

Kuroki smiled, a little sheepishly. “I’m pretty sure this is the first time I’ve ever done it, so I wouldn’t be surprised.”

Enma sighed, lifting a hand to ruffle his hair. For once, Kuroki didn’t even give a halfhearted complaint.

“One day the ‘I never really had friends or a family’ excuse isn’t gonna work, y’know.”

Kuroki peered out from under the hand on his head, warily. “Is it working now, though? Because I can pull the ‘ooh ouch owie I am in so much pain’ excuse, too, if it’s not.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Enma said, his lips starting to twitch into a smile. He pulled Kuroki into his side. “You – you know that we weren’t… we don’t hate you, right? Like, you’ve seen how Ito and I are when we hate people. We just needed a little time to deal with it.”

“I still don’t get why you were upset, really,” Kuroki admitted. “If you guys did it for me, I’d be thankful – flattered.”

“No, you wouldn’t,” Enma muttered.

Kuroki opened his mouth to argue, but Ito beat him to the punch: “It doesn’t matter how you would react, because we aren’t you.”

“... I mean…”

Ito flicked him in the shoulder. “Yes, yes, our fundamental framework seems to be the same or whatever, but there are still more than enough differences for us to technically also count as different people.”

Kuroki huffed.

Ito sighed. “We know you… didn’t take it very well that we were avoiding you, but, frankly… that was the nicest I could be at the time. I mean, if I talked to you, I’d treat you how I treat Trey-senpai, and I can guarantee you would like that less.”

Kuroki considered that. It wouldn’t pick at his insecurities in the same way, but he did appreciate not having a broken nose…

“Like, really, did you want me to treat you like Ruggie? Or Jade Leech-senpai?”

“I definitely don’t want to be treated the way you treat Jade Leech-senpai,” Kuroki said, rolling his eyes. “But you cannot call what you have with him ‘hate’.”

“How do you know that, hm? You’re not me!”

“It’s painfully obvious. I mean, dude, I thought you were a good actor.”

“It’s not obvious… is it?”

He looked to Ito for help. Ito looked away, whistling innocently.

Poor Enma’s face went beet red in the moonlight. He groaned.

“Do you think he knows?”

Ito shrugged. “Even if he returned your feelings, I doubt he’d confess to you, he’d rather watch you flounder. And I think you’d be too prideful to risk making a fool of yourself to confess. So… I don’t know if it matters.”

“... is that a no?”

“It’s an I can’t read that guy at all.”

“Either way, as the only male figure in your life, I don’t approve,” Kuroki pitched in, because he had to. “There is no way in hell I am letting you date Jade-fucking-Leech of all people.”

“What’s wrong with him?!”

“What isn’t wrong with him?”

“I refuse to be Floyd Leech-senpai’s brother-in-law,” Kuroki added.

Ito blinked. Once. Twice. “You guys’re related?”

Enma and Kuroki immediately went tense.

“No, no,” Kuroki said, scrambling for an explanation, because he doubted that the truth would go over well with Ito in particular. “It’s just… since Enma and I don’t have any siblings, and we probably have similar genetic makeups, we’ve decided that we count.”

Ito’s eyebrows knit. They glanced between Kuroki and Enma. And then seemed to shrug internally. “I mean. I wouldn’t define it that way, but you can do that, if you want.”

Oh, the Leech twins had cleaned up their house for them in preparation for the Mostro Lounge branch they had wanted to turn it into.

Nice. Free labor!

They enjoyed this for all of five seconds, before immediately trudging upstairs and collapsing into bed as one.

Kuroki rested his hands on his hips. “Why would I let you come with us? You didn’t even come and visit me in the hospital wing yesterday!”

“I was busy stealing that mattress for you,” Jack said.

“... forgiven,” Kuroki decided, suddenly recalling that the Tetanus Spring was strangely missing from their bed the previous night. “What’s you two’s excuse?”

“We got roped into helping clean up Octavinelle!” Deuce defended them.

“How?! Why?!”

Ace and Deuce looked as if they had been struck dumb.

“I think we were so used to the crazy shit you guys drag us into that we just kinda went along out of habit,” Ace admitted.

(All of that work conditioning their friends over months, and the Octavinelle people might have ruined it for them! Nooo! They were waiting to cash that in for something big!)

“Sucks to suck,” Grim said, smirking.

“Says the guy who doesn’t even notice when they’re roping him into their schemes,” Deuce said.

“They don’t rope me into anything. They’re my familiars,” Grim sniffed.

Jack gave the three Yuus a glare. The Yuus simply smiled serenely.

“He’s right. He could order us around, if he wanted,” Ito said, lacing their hands behind their back.

Kuroki hugged the monster closer to his chest, smirking over his head. “We would never manipulate him into anything.”

Enma batted his eyelashes. “He helps us because we’re his darling, well-behaved henchmen, and he’s an amazing boss.”

“Exactly!” said Grim, nodding his approval.

“This is seriously fucked up. This is – like – brainwashing,” Ace said, horrified.

Kuroki hummed, pressing a kiss to the top of Grim’s head.

“They don’t even deny it,” Deuce said.

“... I’m starting to think that I shouldn’t be hanging around you three,” Jack muttered.

“Nah, you’re stuck with us now,” Enma said, giving Jack a pat on the shoulder, a mockery of comfort.

“Speaking of which!” Ito lifted their backpack, full of leftover water-breathing potions. “Let’s go on a field trip!”

The museum was closed. Again.

Kuroki frowned. It… wasn’t supposed to be closed today. He glanced at the sign outside the door to confirm, and found that he hadn’t remembered wrong.

A short chat with the guards revealed that someone had privately booked the place just last night.

Enma pouted up a storm.

Kuroki sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Fine. We can go to the library. But you have a budget on how many books you can st – check out.”

Ito looked at him, now, their eyes gleaming.

“One piece of jewelry.”

“Five.”

“One.”

“Four.”

“... two,” Kuroki offered.

“Seven,” Enma pitched in, because he sucked.

“Oh, yeah, seven,” Ito nodded along.

“Three!” Kuroki amended, a little desperately.

“Three it is!” they chirped.

Kuroki narrowed his eyes at them. He, suddenly, strongly suspected that Ito had been going for three the entire time.

But he sighed, nodding. “Yeah. Fine. Let’s go get your jewelry now, since Enma’s definitely going to spend the rest of the day in the library.”

Ace, Deuce, and Jack immediately backed off a few steps.

“Yeah, no, we’re going to wait outside. You guys have fun,” Ace said.

“You guys are literally so gay,” Ito said, rolling their eyes. “You cannot tell me that you’re scared of going in a fucking jewelry store.”

They were.

And, in the end, the Yuus were happy to let the three of them go and grab some food for everyone while they shopped.

“Aw, man, and they were so cute, too,” said Ito frowning at the price of a set of earrings and a matching necklace. From the way they had bee-lined to this store, Kuroki suspected that they had spotted the jewelry pieces sometime over the past three days. Perhaps when they went to get food with Floyd, way back on day one?

But they were disappointed to learn that that shit was not cheap.

The woman running the store gave a slightly apologetic smile. “Seaglass is pretty easy to come by down here, but welding isn’t particularly fun to do. The heating vents are…”

Enma hummed, his eyes gleaming. “It must be hard when there’s no fire.”

“Oh, there’s fire, if you can get a mage to help you, but it costs a pretty penny,” she said, lifting her arms in a shrug. “And, frankly, I don’t want to get near the stuff. It’s freaky.”

Grim sulked.

Ito smiled, reaching out and scratching behind Grim’s ears. “Fire’s not all bad, just a little misunderstood. Y’know, people used to make giant forest fires on purpose, because the ashes would make good fertilizer for their crops.”

Grim brightened up again. “And it cooks your food, after, too!”

“And it cooks your food,” Ito agreed, softer than Kuroki had ever seen them.

Now, if Kuroki had to guess, Ito had probably never had a pet before, and therefore didn’t hold the same reservations against caring for Grim as they did for Kuroki and Enma. There was no mental turmoil to be had, no ‘oh gosh am I betraying my original family?’ so why shouldn’t they indulge themself? Add Ito’s fondness for children, and their openly favoring Grim was inevitable.

This didn’t make him feel any less jealous.

It certainly made him feel stupid for being jealous in the first place, though.

He sighed as he took in the price. It… honestly wasn’t that much more expensive than he was expecting…

“This is about the amount I thought it’d be, if you really want just these.”

Ito lit up, leaning over to press a quick kiss to his cheek.

Kuroki smiled a little, his bad mood dissipating instantly.

The woman laughed. “Why does the little one get to decide whether you can buy things?”

“Little?” protested Kuroki.

But his friends seemed to not care for defending his honor on that front. Or any front.

“Because he likes budgeting, and if we don’t follow his budget he complains for days,” Enma lamented.

“I’m trying to keep us from starving to death!”

Grim raised his paw. “But you don’t let me get the fancy tuna.”

“It literally doesn’t even taste any different!”

He shook his head. “The extra money makes it taste better.”

Kuroki scowled. His life sucks.

At least Ito was happy, beaming as Enma helped fasten the necklace in place, sliding the pendant under their shirt for safekeeping.

With that, they were off in search of a library they could definitely-not-steal-from.

“Not going to wear the earrings?” Kuroki asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Not underwater,” Ito said, slightly forlorn as they carefully tucked the box into their pocket. “Swimming with earrings is always a little risky. If you’re not careful, they can pull their way right through your earlobe. And then you can’t wear any earrings.”

“... I’m not sure that ‘not being able to wear any earrings’ is the worst thing about that scenario,” Kuroki said.

“No, it is.”

“Okay.”

Jack, Ace, and Deuce came back empty-handed.

This should have been considered a crime, but alas, they couldn’t prosecute their friends. They just glared at them as hard as they could.

“They like raw fish down here,” Ace grumbled. “And not in the sushi way, in the straight-up raw fish way.”

Grim frowned. “What’s wrong with that?”

“We’re trying not to get food poisoning,” Jack said.

“... what’s that?”

“Oh, to be a monster,” Enma sighed.

“Yeah, so you could eat rocks?” Ace asked, smirking.

“You’re on thin ice for not coming back with food, Ace, reconsider what you just said.”

Ace looked like he had considered it very heavily and was willing to face the consequences, but someone saved him:

“Koebi-chan!”

“How does this keep happening to me?” Kuroki whispered.

And then he was bowled over, arms latching themselves around him.

He scowled, pushing at Floyd’s face. “Get off. Why are you here?!”

“We live underwater. Why are you here?” Jade asked.

Enma scowled at him, crossing his arms over his chest. If asked, he would definitely say the flush in his face was due to annoyance. “We’re shopping.”

“Actually, we’re going to the library,” Grim corrected.

Enma gave him a betrayed look. Grim merely blinked back at him, confused.

Ito sighed. “We were gonna go to the museum, but it’s closed, so we’re gonna grab some books from the library.”

“And, let me guess, you have no intention of returning said books?” Azul said, raising an eyebrow. He was still in his human form, for some reason, getting dragged along by Jade.

But who cares about his weird choices? He was currently suggesting that they would commit a crime, which simply would not do!

“I plead the fifth,” Ito said, solemnly.

Unfortunately for Ito, no one understood their joke. They slumped against Enma, sulking. Enma patted them atop the head.

Kuroki pressed his hand over his chest. “What they’re trying to say is that you really can’t believe that we, the people who organized a heist to steal a photo for you, would steal from a public institution.”

Azul rolled his eyes.

Floyd hummed. “If you guys’re wanting to get into the museum, we can take you.”

Kuroki tipped his head back against Floyd’s shoulder. “It’s closed for the day.”

“And why is that?” Jade asked, smiling behind his hand.

“‘Cause someone’s rented the place. I didn’t even know you could do that,” Enma mumbled.

“You wouldn’t have been able to afford it even if you had known,” Azul said.

“... no way,” said Deuce, catching on first, surprisingly.

“Yes, we have decided to rent out the museum for the day,” Azul sighed. “I have to put a photo back in its rightful place.”

Azul glared at the Leech twins. The Leech twins, of course, were unperturbed.

Kuroki, however, was also more than a little miffed. “Really?! It was so hard to get that photo, and you’re just gonna put it back?!”

Jade tipped his head to the side. “Azul here wanted it because he wished to erase his past. Considering what happened yesterday… clearly, he cannot outrun it, so facing it is the only option he has left.”

Kuroki’s heart thudded in his throat.

He smiled around it. “So, if he’s facing his past, shouldn’t he be in his merman form?”

“You’re pushing it,” Azul gritted out, his businessman’s smile straining.

Kuroki snickered.

Enma waved his hands for everyone’s attention. “No more banter! Let’s go to the museum!”

Kuroki smiled. He was acting like a little kid who was very excited about a field trip. It was funny, but also a little cute. So, he shut his mouth, and allowed the Octavinelle kids to lead them all to the museum.

The museum was nice. Kuroki couldn’t say it particularly interested him. He’d never been a history buff, like Ito, or fascinated by the world around him in the way Enma was.

So, he let them have their fun while he hung back near the entrance with Azul to make sure he didn’t try anything while putting the photo back.

“It’s a nice photo,” Kuroki offered.

Azul stuck it to the wall, scowling. “It’s a perfectly fine photo, just not a good one of me.”

Yeah, Kuroki had kind of guessed that much. Between the octopus-themed Overblot, and the ink-spewing crybaby’ line, and Leona calling him a ‘cephalo-punk’, putting together the pieces wasn’t that difficult – Azul was the little octopus Jade and Floyd were annoying in the picture.

And, considering how far their little group of three was from the rest of their class, and how they all looked different from the others… well, Kuroki had a few guesses as to why Azul was the way he was.

No wonder he’d fixated on Kuroki.

Kuroki was still taking it personally, though. If only because he didn’t generally appreciate it when people tried to kill him.

Azul stared at the photo of himself.

“I thought… if I could just erase all proof of my past, I would feel better,” Azul admitted, leaning against his cane. “I managed to get all of my classmate’s yearbooks, the negatives from the photographers, even this. But…”

“It didn’t make you happy?” Kuroki guessed.

Azul snorted. “Not in the least. All I could think about was how one day, somehow, someone would find out, and everything would just… end. And I’d be back there. Never did I think that it would be my contracts that would fail me, though.”

Kuroki thought about it, and then shrugged, leaning against one of the turnstile machines. He wasn’t at all qualified, but Azul was talking to him for some reason, and therefore it fell on Kuroki to fix things.

“Well… I think your problem is that you focused on the wrong thing. You wanted to make it so no one could make fun of you, right? But the people making fun of you… okay, they were the problem, but that’s not something that you can change. Sometimes, your situation is shitty, and you just have to move on, because there’s nothing else you can do.”

Azul gave him a slightly tired smile. “You’re bad at this.”

“I’ve been told I’m bad at apologies, too,” Kuroki shrugged. “Speaking really isn’t my strong suit, I think.”

They stayed there in silence for a long while.

“... did that work for you? Moving past it?”

“Our situations are different.” He walked over to peer at the photo. Slowly, he lifted his hand, thumb up, covering Azul’s past self. “I wasn’t… bullied, per se. I just… wasn’t.”

If Kuroki had never existed back in his own world, would it have changed anything?

Had he been born here, would he have been better off?

There was no point in ‘what ifs’, and yet it was hard to dismiss the thoughts entirely.

“And, as for moving on…” Kuroki smiled, wryly. “I think this is a ‘do as I say, not as I do’ kinda situation.”

Enma hooked his arm through Kuroki’s the moment he saw him.

“C’mon, you have to see the dinosaur skeleton,” Grim said. “It’s huge.”

“It’s not a dinosaur, it’s a sea dragon,” Jade corrected, lightly.

“Yeah, yeah, the definitely-not-an-ichthyosaur,” Enma said, rolling his eyes.

“What’s an ichthyosaur?” Jade asked, raising his eyebrows.

Enma’s eyes gleamed. “Okay, so, it’s this species of big water dinosaur, and it –.”

Kuroki tuned Enma out. Not because he wasn’t necessarily interested in dinosaurs, he is a guy, after all, he had just heard this particular rant before.

He watched as Deuce admired the craftsmanship on a nearby cauldron, which was said to belong to the Sea Witch. Ace was laughing at Deuce, but he took pictures when asked.

Ito and Floyd had taken to the gift shop, which housed one very stressed out worker who looked like they might start swimming belly-up if Floyd stayed for much longer. Ito, of course, was probably doing this on purpose in hopes that, should the woman pass out, they would get the chance to loot the place. They were owed one more piece of jewelry for the day, after all, and if there was anything they took seriously it was certainly their physical appearance.

As for Jack, he was currently looking at the different bioluminescent plants and small fish that were being used as makeshift lamps. He poked one of the fish. The fish, being a fish, swam away. Which, unfortunately, seemed to ignite a latent hunting instinct, and now Jack was chasing it around.

Kuroki smiled, his attention turning back to Enma.

“– took out a whole T-rex, it’s so cool, I wish I could show you the movie –.”

Ah, it was still going.

Perhaps at least partially because Jade was egging Enma on, nodding along with interest, but…

Now that Kuroki thought about it, Enma’s dinosaur rants usually lasted the longest, since it usually devolved into talking about Jurassic Park, which was… a movie series from Enma’s world. Apparently, it had dinosaurs in it. Lucky bastards don’t even know what they have going for them.

Ito walked over, a new shell bracelet on their wrist. Kuroki rolled his eyes. They simply shrugged, entirely unrepentant.

Which was fair, it wasn’t like Kuroki was going to get onto one of his friends for theft.

His eyes flicked to Deuce, who might also commit theft, honestly, judging by how he clearly coveted the cauldron, and found Azul standing by him, giving a sales pitch:

“I do understand how mages create fire underwater, but I should warn you now – my knowledge doesn’t come cheap.”

Deuce and Ace started rifling through their pockets.

Had they learned nothing from the entire anemone situation? Maybe Ito was right, they should have let Azul have control over them for at least a little while.

… well, it was officially the start of Winter Break for them, Kuroki supposed, and Azul was only asking for hard cash. He could let them have their fun.

In fact.

Kuroki nudged Enma in the side. Enma paused in his rant about how the moral of the first movie (something about how ‘You were so focused on whether you could, that you never stopped to consider if you should’) was stupid and annoying, actually.

“Azul is going to explain how fire works underwater.”

“... hold that thought, senpai,” Enma said, before immediately rushing to join the others.

(Kuroki sighed as he was dragged with him, relieved. Crisis averted. Jade and Enma could not become friends – or, worse, more than friends.)

Azul raised his eyebrows at the new addition to his audience but, having been paid, he seemed more than happy to comply. Probably because Ace and Deuce had shoved some extra thaumarks into his hands.

“Well, you see, understanding fire and its properties is important. It feeds on oxygen, which means you must provide it with air to breathe. You start off with a wind spell…”

#twisted wonderland #twst yuu #kuroki yuuya #enma yuuken #twst grim #ace trappola #deuce spade #jack howl #the muse will not release me helppppp #azul ashengrotto #jade leech #floyd leech #dire crowley #octavinelle

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skzhocomments · 5 months

Text

The Five Stages of Grief - Bang Chan Oneshot Fanfic

(And a second cover because I couldn't decide)

General Masterlist

Pairing: Bang Chan (Stray Kids) x OC/Reader (Story is written in 2nd person, no name is mentioned)

Genre: angst

Word Count: ~10k

Warnings: death, devastatingly sad, mentions of self-harm, suicidal thoughts. No comfort, although it does end in a positive note. Ending is hopeful if you squint.

This is just a story that doesn’t describe Bang Chan or other mentioned Stray Kids’ members true characters in any way. It’s just a product of my imagination and should be treated as such.

This story is also on Wattpad (click here) and AO3 (click here)

---

A/N: As any other writer out there, I would appreciate reblogs and your comments on this story. Please let me know if you enjoyed it, and most importantly, have fun!

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The Five Stages of Grief

---

“Hey Channie!” You entered his studio with a smile plastered on your face, that soon enough turned into a frown when you noticed your boyfriend of almost 5 years hasn’t even acknowledged your presence.

He tended to do that a lot, especially when working on new comebacks. His whole focus was on that damn computer which you were sure by now was your life-sworn enemy. It’s hard having to compete with a screen to get your boyfriend’s attention, but such was life sometimes, and there was nothing you could do about it.

You knew the risks that came with dating an idol, you just didn’t know how much worse it could be if you were to date a workaholic, perfectionist idol.

This was Chan.

He spent hours and hours and hours cramped in his small studio, perfecting beats, arranging vocals, switching up different rhythms and trying to figure out what could work out and have the most success between his fans.

“Have you eaten?” You asked, kissing his cheek, and only then did he notice you’re there, and pulled out his headphones.

“Oh, hi. Didn’t see you come in.” Was all he said, his face scrunched in concentration. “Did you say something?”

“Just asked if you’ve had dinner yet.”

He must’ve, right? It was well past 11 pm, but one of his bad habits was working himself to death, and more often than not, he would skip meal times entirely simply because he wasn’t good at keeping track of time.

“I had a protein bar earlier.” He shrugged.

“Want me to order you something? Or even better, why don’t we both head home?” You asked with a smile, trying to be convincing enough for your boyfriend.

It usually worked.

He would normally laugh off your attempts to be nice and realise that you’re just trying to take care of him, and he would comply and go home with you for the night, then resume his work the next day.

Once you’d be home, he would crash immediately, proof of how tired he’d been and how much he’d ignored his body’s needs. His sheer determination was scary.

However, none of this happened tonight. He rolled his eyes and muttered a small “There she goes again.”

You played it off, though, realising he probably didn’t mean for you to hear that. Brave on his part, you thought, in such a small quiet studio.

“What is that supposed to mean?” You asked, your tone still friendly, as if you were joking with him.

What you didn’t expect was for him to turn his whole chair towards you, his expression angrier than you’ve ever seen him.

“You heard me. God, it’s so frustrating having you come here all the time bossing me around. Eat! Sleep! Stop working! Can’t you see I’m busy?!” He ranted, pointing towards his computer screen.

“Wow, sorry, Mr. Busy.” You chuckled, despite being slightly angry with his words.

He doesn’t mean them. You told yourself. This is another one of his bad habits: bursting out and speaking cruel words whenever he’s extremely stressed and has tight deadlines. It hadn’t happened often, only a handful of times in your years long relationship, but it hurt nonetheless whenever it did.

“And there you go mocking me.” He rolled his eyes at you. “It’s like you don’t even care about the work I’m doing.”

“It’s not that, Chan. You know how much I value your work, it’s just-”

“Yeah, bullshit.” He laughs. “If you would, you’d stop barging in here demanding things from me when you know I have stuff to do.”

“Hey, I know you had a tough couple of days with the comeback and all, but there’s no need for you to take it out on my like this.” You crossed your arms in front of your chest, this time feeling genuinely upset. It’s like he’s escalating it on purpose.

“No, it’s not just a tough couple of days. Don’t you get it? You do this shit all the time, and I’m frankly sick and tired of it. Can’t you just leave me be for once and stop being so controlling?”

“Controlling?” You asked, baffled. “How am I controlling, huh? By making sure you eat and sleep when you’re supposed to?”

“How do you even know what I’m supposed to do?! You always think you know best, but you never fucking consider any of my needs and wants.”

“Literally everything I do is fucking consider your needs, Chan.” You answered coldly.

“No. You’re just too deep in your head and can’t fucking figure out when to back down, so I’m telling you. Stop telling me what to do and leave me alone if I’m busy. God, I don’t need this shit.”

He mumbled the last sentence and put his headphones back in, turning his attention back to the screen.

Maybe you shouldn’t have done what you did next, but he hurt you, and you didn’t like the way your conversation apparently ended. You wanted to know what he meant, so you grabbed his headphones’ wire and pulled them out of his ears forcefully.

The way he turned to you and the look he threw you almost made your blood freeze, but you were far too upset to care about upsetting him anymore.

“What exactly don’t you need, huh? What is this shit, exactly?!” You gestured with your hands.

“You can’t fucking let it go, can you?” He laughed in a baffled way.

“No, unless you tell me what this shit is.”

“This. Us. Everything. I’m really fucking done with how overbearing you’re being. I was doing fine before I met you, and I sure as hell do just fine without you over my head every fucking minute of the day.”

“Oh, is that so?” You asked, expressionless.

He hurt you, but by his anger still present on his features, you realised it’s all pointless. You’re not going to see eye to eye tonight.

“Do you want to break up?” You let out, the words burning your tongue, and Chan’s eyes widen.

“What? No! Fuck, you twist my words.” He sighs, exasperated. “Just leave. Let’s talk about it tomorrow.”

When he doesn’t say anything else, you let out a shaky breath and watch him put his headphones back in.

“Oh, and this?” He starts, pointing to one end of the headphones. “Never do this shit again.”

You watch silently how he turns his chair to look back at the damn screen, without caring that you’re still there in the room.

The discussion is over.

“I see. Fine. I’ll go.” You let out, tears beginning to spill down your cheeks. He didn’t see them, and it felt like he didn’t even care that he’s made you cry.

You quietly made your way out of the room, your sight too blurry to see anything, and you headed home.

---

Denial

---

Chan’s eyes are beginning to sting painfully, and after rubbing them and checking the time, he figures out why.

It’s way over 5 AM when he decides to finally leave the studio, and although it’s still dark out, the streets are already starting to get filled with people hurrying to whatever painful morning shift they are scheduled for.

It takes him about 20 minutes to get back to your shared apartment, and when he does, nothing seems unusual at first.

The house is expectedly quiet, it being so early in the morning, and he already imagines how deep in sleep you must be by now.

He feels guilty for how he treated you, that he let the anger consume him once again, and he regrets it. He always regrets it when he lets stress get the better of him.

As he heads towards the bathroom to wash the harsh day off his skin, he starts thinking about how he could make it up to you. Should he buy you flowers and bring you breakfast in bed in 4 hours when you’ll most likely get up?

Although he hasn’t slept at all.

Should he take you out on a date after he’s well rested? There was this restaurant you mentioned a couple of times that you wanted to try, but he didn’t have enough time to take you there to eat yet, not with all the planned comebacks and the work that keeps piling up.

Maybe tomorrow is finally the day.

He finishes his shower and rubs his eyes again, and God, how tired he is, just as usual when he pulls out all-nighters. Everything seems ordinary, but as he opens the bedroom door, however, something is unusual.

You are not there.

Confused, he takes out his phone to check for any messages you might’ve sent him, but upon noticing there’s no new notifications, he throws the phone on the bed, screen down, defeated.

Did you really think he wants to break up? Did you finally have enough and left him?

He knows he treated you badly tonight, but he thought it’s just a small drop in an ocean of happiness. Arguments are unavoidable, unfortunately, and he can’t always be the perfectly composed man he’s striving to become.

Would you really leave after a couple of cruel words he didn’t even mean? He starts asking himself as he gets into bed. Surely you know how much he loves and needs you there for him. It was just a bad night, that’s all.

Maybe you just wanted some space, and decided to head to a friend, or to a hotel or something.

He thinks about calling you, but with how late it is – or rather, how early – he knows he’d just disturb you or any of your friends you would’ve gone to if he were to call.

He decides to go to sleep instead and figure it all out tomorrow morning, when his mind is clearer, and when you’ve both had enough time to cool down.

His head is pounding with pain as he opens his eyes and feels multiple pulsations against all sides of his skull.

This is the worst migraine he’s ever had, and he realises how right you were when trying to convince him to go to sleep early. He really needed more sleep.

He grabs his phone to check the time, and when he does, he sees it’s flooding with notifications. His manager called him about a dozen times, starting at 8 AM and continuing up until 15 minutes ago, and he has multiple missed calls and messages from all the members.

Ugh, it’s only 10.

Did I have a schedule I’ve forgotten about? He wonders, rubbing his eyes confused, but checking the date, he knows it’s his day off.

He decides to head to the bathroom and freshen up, while picking up his phone and dialling his manager’s number.

He reaches the bathroom and puts toothpaste on his brush, and by the time the phone rang two times, his manager picks up.

“Chan! Where are you?” He asks, his voice hurried. “Why haven’t you picked up?”

He begins lazily brushing his teeth and checks the date again, and sure enough, it’s his free day. There’s nothing in his schedule.

“Huh? What do you mean?” He asks, his voice still ridden with sleep, still tired from the lack of rest. “It’s my day off.”

“Are you at home?”

“Yes. Where else?”

“Good. That’s… okay. Have you talked to anyone yet?”

“No…? You’re acting weird. What’s going on?”

“Listen, Chan. Something… something bad happened. I need you to sit down for a moment, okay?”

“Okay...?” Chan nods absent-mindedly, continuing to brush his teeth, oblivious about what’s coming.

“Last night… God, I don’t even know how to break this to you, so I’ll just say it. Do note that the company will do its best to assist you and-”

“Cut to the chase. What’s wrong?” Chris asks, starting to get worried. He finishes brushing his teeth, and just as he prepares to put the toothbrush down, his manager’s next words make him drop it to the floor instead.

“Your girlfriend passed away last night. She was hit by a drunk driver on a crosswalk, and although an ambulance got there in less than 2 minutes, she was already… I’m sorry.”

The line falls silent as Chan tries to process what his manager just said. The only sound in the room is made by the toothbrush hitting the bathroom’s white floor tiles.

Chan heard wrong. There’s no other explanation.

“That can’t be.” He dismisses his manager completely. “She was just with me in the studio last night, and then she came-”

Home. But you weren’t home.

“She must’ve gone to a hotel or something.”

“Chan… I’m truly, truly sorry. As I said, we’re going to support you through this tough time with everything we’ve got.”

What tough time? Chan wants to ask but stays silent instead.

He picks the discarded toothbrush from the floor and throws it away. How careless he’s been, dropping it.

He wants to chuckle at his stupidity, and he can’t wait to tell you about it. You’re going to nag him again for being careless and dropping things. This is the 3rd toothbrush he’s changing this month.

“Oh, God! Again?” He can already picture you with an amused expression on your face, your arms crossed. “You’re always dropping stuff on the floor!”

The thought brings the ghost of a smile on his face, and he starts wondering again where you might be. Surely your manager is mistaken.

“Her parents tried getting in touch with you, but they said you didn’t pick up. You should give them a call.” His manager continues to say. “From what they’ve told us, the funeral will be held tomorrow morning. JYPE offered to pay for all expenses. Anyways, this must be too much information to swallow for now, so I’ll come pick you up in 20 minutes and we can go to the company together. The rest of the boys are already here.”

“Okay, see you in 20 minutes.” Chan replies, not really understanding what’s happening.

He ignores the countless missed calls and messages and opens his call history to dial your number instead.

It goes straight to voice mail.

“Hello! You’ve called… wait, am I doing this correctly?”You chuckled, asking him with an unsure look on your face.

“Yes. The beep-”

“Oh, right! Thanks for calling, please leave your message after the beep. Okay, bye~!” You cheerfully said, ending the recording with a small laugh.

“Are you going to keep it like that?” He asked amused.

“Why not? It’s straight to the point!”

“You left my voice in it, though.”

“Oh, does it bother you? I can record again if you want me to.”

“No, no need. I just – isn’t it a bit weird?” He chuckled. “You even forgot to say your name.”

“Whatever.” You waved a dismissive hand in the air. “If they called my number, they know who they’re calling.”

“Fair enough.” He laughed.

‘Hello! You’ve called… wait, am I doing this correctly?

Yes. The beep-

Oh, right! Thanks for calling, please leave your message after the beep. Okay, bye~!’

He chuckles absent-mindedly at the memory of him teaching you how to record a message redirecting your callers to leave a voice mail. You’ve never been good at technology.

“Hi, babe. Can you please call me? I need to talk to you.” He says, deciding to leave a message, even though he isn’t convinced that you’ll get to hear it. You usually forget to check your voice mail.

He tries calling again, just for good measure.

‘Hello! You’ve called… wait, am I doing this correctly?’

Yes. The beep-

Oh, right! Thanks for-‘

And again.

‘Hello! You’ve called… wait, am I doing this correctly’?

Yes. The beep-‘

And again.

‘Hello! You’ve called… wait, am I doing this correctly?’

Yes.’

‘Hello! You’ve called…’

‘Hello!’

He throws his phone on the bed exasperated. Why aren’t you picking up?

You didn’t even come home last night, why is your phone turned off?

Do you want to somehow punish him for being cruel and make him worry?

He shakes his head confused and begins changing his clothes from the comfortable pyjamas to an appropriate enough outfit to go to the company.

It should be a crime to have to go so early in the morning anywhere on your day off.

When he’s done and he looks somewhat presentable, he picks his phone back up and dials your number again.

‘Hello! You’ve called-’

He cancels the call just when he hears a knock on his door, and opening it, his manager is looking at him sombrely.

“Hi.” Chris speaks first, but his manager doesn’t say anything. He just pulls him into a hug that lasts way too long, Chan thinks.

“I’m so sorry for your loss.” He finally says after pulling away.

Chan doesn’t know what to reply, so he opts to just stay silent. His manager’s words don’t register in his head anyway; maybe he’s still tired.

He did go to sleep way too late.

They head to the car, and although the ride to the company only lasts 20 minutes or so, the 20 minutes feel like an eternity.

It’s just as his manager said, and everyone else is already at the company. When he sees the boys, they come rushing to him, their faces tear-stained and their clothes black.

“Oh, Chris…” Felix hugs him tightly and starts crying, and Chan starts comforting him by patting his back a few times.

A few tears escape past his eyes as well by seeing all the boys so gloomy, but he still doesn’t seem to be able to wrap his hand around it.

“Her parents said the wake is taking place at their house, so that’s where we’re headed now. I thought it’s better for you to not go alone.” His manager blurts out.

Chris looks dejected for a few seconds, before taking out his phone again and dialling the familiar number. This time, he types it himself. He knows it by heart.

With a shaky hand, he puts it against his ear and waits to connect.

‘Hello! You’ve called… wait, am I doing this correctly?

Yes. The beep-

Oh, right! Thanks for calling, please leave your message after the beep. Okay, bye~!’

It makes no sense.

You couldn’t possibly… have died.

You are so young. You have so many plans and so many things you still want to do.

He is supposed to apologize to you and pamper you the whole day just to make up to you for being an asshole last night. He is supposed to take you to that restaurant you’ve been bugging him about for weeks.

You can’t possibly be gone, just like that.

Your parents embrace Chris as soon as he steps through the door. They’re sobbing loudly, and there are so many people present – some, he recognises: old friends from middle school you’ve shown him pictures of, some other colleagues from university, some coworkers he had the pleasure of meeting at the last Christmas party held by your company, a few family members…

There are also many people he doesn’t recognise; people your age, and Chan gets reminded once again of how young you are, with your whole life ahead.

He shakes his head once he notices a coffin on the large table in your parents’ living room; the same table you’ve both ate at just two weeks ago when you’ve last visited.

“My baby, Chris is here to see you.” Your mother cries, approaching the coffin and pulling his hand to guide him towards it as well.

It’s closed shut, and on top of it, your picture stares at him with a happy smile. You are so beautiful; he’s always loved this picture of yours. He’s the one who took it, just after you’ve graduated Uni and he handed you a big bouquet of your favourite flowers, rose peonies. You said your eyes wrinkled in a weird way, and never liked it, but he absolutely adored it. It’s been his wall screen ever since.

The coffin is made of dark polished mahogany, and its lid is adorned with golden handles.

You can’t possibly be in there.

Although beautiful, how could such a small coffin hold the large essence of your soul?

It makes no sense whatsoever.

Your parents’ cries seem real enough, though.

He touches the top of the coffin and wonders why it’s closed. Why would it be closed, when you are so gorgeous? People should see you, not a simple picture.

He decides it must be because you’re simply not in it. Or if you are hiding in there, maybe it’s all a joke and you’re going to open it from the inside and yell Surprise!, shocking everyone in the room and making your mother faint. It’s something you’d do.

So, he waits.

He waits, and waits, and waits, and his feet grow tired and his back starts aching after so many hours on his feet. People come and go, paying respects, patting his shoulders and trying to make some small talk, talking about you in past tense.

“She was such a wonderful person.”

“She was so full of life.”

“Her laugh was so intoxicating.”

“Her work ethic was admirable.”

“She was so smart.”

He listens and nods to each of their words. They are right. You are a smart, wonderful person, you are full of life, your laugh is the best thing he’s ever heard. He’s wished more often than not to record it and put it in one of his tracks, but every time he’d mentioned it, you called him silly.

By the time your father brings him a chair and places it next to the coffin so he can sit down instead of standing, it’s already night out.

“You should get some rest, Chris. I’ll stay with her.” He tells him, placing his strong hand on Chan’s shoulder as to attract his attention, but Chan just shakes his head.

How could he go sleep when you might decide any time to wake up?

Would you panic, with the lid closed and all? You’ve always been claustrophobic. Why is it closed, anyway?

It’s already morning when one of your relatives approaches Chris and urges him to get out of the living room to change his clothes.

They’ve brought him a white suit at the request of your father; wedding attire, since you didn’t get the chance to get married before you passed.

He is reluctant to put on the white pants and uncomfortable suit jacket, but he does it anyway. Your mother cries when she sees him, and your father pats his shoulder and thanks him for doing this.

The priest comes, and a lot of your friends visit your home again, to lead you on your last journey, apparently.

It takes the priest about half an hour to finish praying for your soul, and then your coffin is loaded in the back of a hearse. The car moves slow enough for everyone to be able to follow, and Chris is walking right behind it, next to your parents. Felix is behind him with Lee Know and Changbin, and the rest of the boys are somewhere far back. He sticks out like a sore thumb, dressed in all white while everyone else is wearing black.

Each time the car passes next to important places in your life, the hearse stops and people throw coins on the ground. They pass by your kindergarten and your old school, and with each step, your mother cries harder. Your father tries his best to stay composed, but even he bursts into tears when your mother starts talking about your life and what a happy kid you were.

Chris doesn’t shed a tear. He follows the hearse blindly, and when it reaches the cemetery, he watches as his members take out the coffin and place it on the ground next to a large, freshly dug hole.

The priest begins a final prayer, and soon enough, he watches how the coffin disappears inside the hole. People start throwing soil and flowers. He doesn’t know how a couple of roses get in his hands, but he begins throwing them one by one on top of the coffin that keeps getting lowered down.

You’ve never liked roses that much. You like peonies. Why did someone hand him roses?

There is also some music – hymns, or the sorts. Something you wouldn’t like. He doesn’t like it either.

A few moments later, some people begin covering the coffin in dirt, and he watches the scene expressionless. It gets covered fairly quickly. People start crying even harder, and his ears start ringing.

He feels sick to his stomach, so he decides to take a few steps back as soon as the whole gets filled to the brim with the freshly dug soil.

“I can’t believe she’s truly gone. She was so young!” He hears a woman say from somewhere behind him. He doesn’t bother turning his head to check if he knows her or not.

“Right? We were talking just yesterday morning at work about going shopping this weekend.” Another woman replies in a quiet tone.

“They didn’t even open the casket.”

“How could they? Didn’t you hear how she passed?”

“No! What even happened?”

“She was apparently crossing the road and a car came out of nowhere, hitting her with more than 200 km/h. It threw her like 30 metres in the air.”

“Oh my God! I heard it was a car accident, but this…”

“Yeah! It’s insane. There was barely anything left of her… only shattered bones and flesh, nothing resembling a human.”

“Shh, what if someone hears you say that?!” The other woman tried to silence the first one.

After hearing these details, Chris feels even sicker.

He wants to throw up.

“Son, we are going to the reception now. Do you want to come with us in our car?” Your father approaches him, and Chris simply nods.

He hugs him for a few seconds, and then they wait for your mother to come, and the ride to the restaurant is filled with her sobs while your father and Chan remain expressionless.

He sits at a table next to your parents. Felix is on his left, and the rest of the boys and other members of JYPE are sitting nearby.

There is an empty space to his right, and in front of it, the table is full of your favourite foods, snacks and drinks.

His eyes are stuck on that empty seat.

“Wow, they really brought me a lot.” You chuckle, looking at Chris with your head supported by your right hand, your elbow against the table. “How am I supposed to eat all of this?”

He watches the scene stunned.

“What’s wrong, baby? Why the long face?” You ask, the smile on your face wider, raising a hand to caress his cheek.

The next time Chris blinks, you’re gone.

The seat is empty.

The boys insist that Chan comes with them to the dorms, or that at least some of them come home with him.

“It’s not good to be alone.” Hyunjin says sympathetically, and Chris simply shakes his head.

What if you come back home tired and want to rest, but the boys are there visiting? He asks himself. It wouldn’t be fair to you.

So, he goes home alone, after much bargaining with them that he needs some time on his own.

The silence that greets him once he opens the door to your shared apartment is deafening.

He first goes to the bedroom to check if you’re back yet, but the sheets stay as empty as when he woke up two days ago, so he pulls out his phone to dial your number again.

‘Hello! You’ve called… wait, am I doing this correctly?

Yes. The beep-

Oh, right! Thanks for calling, please leave your message after the beep. Okay, bye~!’

The beep sound follows soon after, and he begins talking.

“Babe, I know you’re mad at me. I was wrong. I’m sorry. It’s time to come back home now. Please?”

A second beep follows, signalling that the time to record his message is over, so he ends the call. He ignores the countless notifications piling up on his screen, all the Condolences messages he’s been receiving, and he places the phone in his pocket and starts making the bed.

“Wow, well done, Channie! I’m impressed!” He can almost hear you chuckling, and turns his head towards the door, fully expecting you to be there laughing at him and praising him for doing the bare minimum, but there’s no one there.

Once the bed is made, he heads towards the living room. A half empty glass of water is on the table, its margins stained by your lipstick, next to a plate full of breadcrumbs.

Tsk, how messy. He rolls his eyes, knowing exactly why you haven’t cleaned up. You must’ve eaten in a rush again, this bad habit of yours.

You’re always complaining about stomach aches, but you keep eating on the go while getting ready for work in the morning, and never enjoy your meals.

He takes a picture of the crime scene and opens his phone again, shooting you a text.

“Forgot to clean up?” He asks, then attaches the picture of the plate and glass.

He knows you’ll probably laugh and start excusing yourself once you see it. If he were to check his gallery, half the pictures are surely of the dirty plates you simply forget about on the table.

Chris always washes them, but never fails to remind you of it.

This time, too, he takes the plate and glass to the sink and turns on the hot water. He rubs the plate with a dish sponge with way too much dish soap on it, and he hears your voice in the back of his head again:

“My, Channie! You’re so wasteful! You only need a drop. A single drop!!! What are you using so much dish soap for???”

He starts laughing as he grabs the glass and throws the half-drunk water out, but before washing it, he notices the lipstick stains again. He smiles to himself and sets the glass aside, wiping it off with a napkin, careful to not accidentally remove the stain.

Your lips left such a pretty mark, he doesn’t want to part with it yet, even if you are going to give him an earful later for not washing the glass properly.

When there is nothing else to do around the house, he opens his laptop and starts sorting out his emails. All of their schedules for the month have been cancelled, and their upcoming comeback postponed indefinitely.

He doesn’t think it’s necessary, but at the end of the day, the company’s rules must be followed. You’ve complained about him working too much anyway. Maybe this is the chance for you two to spend a bit more time together.

All he has to do now is wait for you to come back.

He waits.

And waits.

And waits…

Felix visits with Jisung and Seungmin the next day.

And then the next, Jeongin comes with Changbin and Hyunjin.

Minho drops by every morning with enough food to last Chris the whole day.

His manager comes once a week and makes sure to call him daily.

Whenever he’s on the phone, he paces around the empty apartment and looks around. He sees the jewellery you left on the coffee table; your sports shoes are still on the doormat in front of the door, your face creams and serums stay untouched in the bathroom, your hairbrush lays by the sink filled with loose hair, and there’s a half-ironed shirt on the ironing table in the dressing.

You don’t like other people touching your stuff, so he leaves everything just like that, waiting for you to come back and fix it all.

The glass with your lipstick stain on it is still there on the counter, next to the sink.

He’s texted you about a dozen of times since he first messaged you about it and the plate that’s long been washed, but you haven’t replied to a single text. Your phone still goes directly to voicemail, but worst of all… no matter how much he’s waiting…

… you don’t come home, and the apartment stays empty.

‘Hello! You’ve called… wait, am I doing this correctly?

Yes. The beep-

Oh, right! Thanks for calling, please leave your message after the beep. Okay, bye~!’

‘Hello! You’ve called… wait, am I doing this correctly?

Yes. The beep-

Oh, right!’

‘Hello!’

---

Anger

---

It’s been more than a month, but Chris still sets the table for you each time he eats what Lee Know brings him.

He wouldn’t bother eating much, if Minho wouldn’t have insisted to tag along to practically every meal after he noticed that he’s barely touching the food.

He always places one more plate on the table, right in front of him, at your usual spot.

“Just in case she comes back and gets hungry.” He explains to Minho, but he’s had enough of this.

“Hyung…” Lee Know hesitates. “She… she’s not coming back. You know that, right?”

His tone is quiet, and he tries to approach the subject as gently as possible. However, it’s time for him to do something. You’ve died more than five weeks ago, but Chris hasn’t moved any of your belongings, not even to store them.

There’s a box of tampons on the kitchen counter, but he won’t even move that, for fuck’s sake. He keeps waiting for you to come home, as if he doesn’t realise the fact that you’ve passed away.

“No, she will.” Chris says firmly, daring Minho to challenge him more.

“Hyung… She… she died. She’s not coming back.”

“You’re wrong!” Chris shouts all of a sudden, hitting the table with his fist strong enough to make the tableware bounce. He knows Minho is right. After waiting for you for weeks on end without you coming back, after dialling your number about a million times, after sending countless texts with no reply from you… he knows. But…

“Chris…” Lee Know stares empathetically.

“You’re all wrong! She… she’s coming back, goddamit!” He shouts again, this time grabbing the table’s edges and flipping it. The empty plates fall to the ground and shatter in the process, and Minho’s pot spills on the carpet, staining it.

Chris tries to cling to the last bit of hope he has regarding you, but he knows you’re dead. Everyone else was right, and he was wrong. You’re really gone.

“I’m sorry, Hyung. You… you need some help…” Lee Know continues with a shake of his head, bending down to grab the broken pieces of glass.

When he’s done cleaning up the carpet and the floor to the best of his abilities, he takes one more look at Chan. He looks like a ticking bomb, ready to explode again any second now.

Lee Know doesn’t know if it would be good to give Chan space, or if he should insist again that he comes with him to the dorms.

He decides to ask him anyway, and to his surprise, Chris nods and packs a small bag with clothes and hangs it on his shoulder.

They made their way out to Lee Know’s car, and once they’re at the dorms, they say goodbye as each goes to their respective apartments. Chris used to live with 3RACHA and Hyunjin, so that’s where he’s headed.

The dorms are as messy as he remembers, but they bring him comfort nontheless. His old room brings him solace as well.

There are a few pictures or you on the small desk in his room, and he looks at them fondly. You’re smiling beautifully in all of them. It’s the you he remembers. You, at your first date; you, the first time he took you to an amusement park; you, when all your fingers were coated in chocolate after you attempted to bake him a cake.

It’s you.

God, how he misses you.

How dare you leave him alone?

How dare you?

Why didn’t you fucking look to the left before crossing the road? Even if the traffic light was green, you should’ve fucking looked.

You’ve always been careful to look, so why…?!

Watching the pictures no longer makes him happy. It makes him angry, and out of anger, he punches the wall behind the desk with all his strength.

It makes no sense, really, but the pain in his fist takes away from the pain in his heart, so he punches the wall again.

He decides to try and calm down after hitting the wall two more times, and he hops into his old bed, shutting his eyes tight and thinking about the night you died.

‘I’m really fucking done with how overbearing you’re being. I was doing fine before I met you, and I sure as hell do just fine without you over my head every fucking minute of the day.’

Those were some of the last words he’s said to you.

Since you’ve died a few blocks away from the JYPE building, it happened right after you left.

You died thinking he doesn’t love you.

You died thinking he doesn’t need you.

He does.

He needs you.

If only he’d gone home with you that night, as you asked him, you would’ve never died.

It’s his fault.

It’s his fault you’ve died.

He killed you.

He lashed out on you and blamed all his stress on your attempts to take care of him, and he killed you.

Fuck, it’s all his fault.

For the first time since the funeral, he bursts out in tears, and he is unable to stop. It’s like all of his repressed feelings for the past month and a half come biting him right in the ass.

It’s so hard to breathe. He’s getting suffocated.

He can’t.

He can’t breathe anymore.

You’re on top of him, suffocating him.

“You killed me.” You say, blood running down your face.

He can almost feel the drops hitting him, with your face so close to him.

“It’s your fault. “You knew what you were saying. You killed me.” You say again cruelly, and Chris shuts his eyes even tighter.

His cries soon turn to wails, and he’s being loud enough for Changbin to hear him and get alerted. He opens the door without knocking, and upon seeing Chris, his heart breaks.

He just goes to the bed and throws himself on top of Chris, as if to shelter him somehow from the intense grief he’s feeling.

When his cries quiet down, Changbin takes a look at his friend and sees his injuries.

“Holy fuck, your hand is bleeding. Are you okay?” He asks in panic, standing up quickly to grab the first aid kit to bandage his fist.

“It’s all my fucking fault!” Chris screams at the top of his lungs, and his destructive mood comes back. He stands up, wanting to destroy it all. Every damn picture, every fucking thing in this room.

He wants to set it on fire and let it it all to pieces, letting himself burn as well. It’s what he deserves for killing you.

Sure, the drunk driver that hit you was directly responsible for taking your life, but the way he acted that night… nothing would’ve happened if it weren’t for him.

He killed you.

Changbin sees right through his erratic behaviour and anticipates his moves, throwing himself once more at Chris, holding him tight and not letting him move, no matter how much Chris lashes out. He doesn’t let go until his friend calms down again, and even after he does, he decides to camp in the room with him and keep him company.

---

Bargaining

---

It’s been three months, and Chris still has some difficulties accepting that you’re truly gone.

He probably shouldn't be here so soon, but it’s like he has to make sure again that you’re… that you’re dead.

Your parents did a great job with your grave; your gravestone made of marble stands tall , centred right in front of the ground you’re buried deep within, and the intricate designs of sculpted vines and flowers reminds him of you.

Oh, right. Flowers.

Chris remembers he brought a bouquet of pink peonies with him. He’s been holding onto it tightly ever since he bought it and stepped in a taxi to come here, but as soon as he got to your grave, time stopped, he couldn’t breathe anymore, and he forgot about the flowers in his hands.

It’s not like you need any more; there are so many fresh flowers all over and around your grave. Your parents also planted lots on top of the soil above your coffin, decorating your rest place beautifully.

You’ve always said you wanted a garden, and now, you have one: your little space in the uncomfortably large cemetery at the edge of the city.

“My favourite flowers. Aren’t they pretty?” He swears he can hear your voice, and turning to his left side, his breath hitches in his throat, choking him.

There you are, holding the bouquet of pink peonies he bought with a large smile on your face, but just like last time, he blinks, and the bouquet is in his hands, as it’s been the whole time, and you’re nowhere in sight.

A tear rolls down Chan’s cheek. He wishes he would’ve bought you that house and garden you’ve been dreaming of, instead of the convenient apartment in the city centre.

He wishes he would’ve proposed, and that you’d build a little family together. After all, you were his solace in the midst of all the chaos of his life. The sole person bringing him purpose and comfort.

But now you’re gone.

He wishes he wouldn’t have always put his job first. Especially now, as his schedules stay empty due to the company fearing for his well-being, he realises how much free time he could’ve had if only – if only he’d listened to you.

He regrets all those late nights in the studio when he could’ve been home sleeping next to you.

He regrets every breakfast, lunch and dinner he’s missed because he was too busy with making a new song, learning a new dance, or preparing for a new comeback. Now, none of it matters. You’re gone.

He could’ve postponed all of them. He could’ve done so much differently, and he regrets it all.

You’re gone.

He places the peonies in a little vase near your gravestone, next to some daffodils someone must’ve brought you a few days ago.

Then, he raises his gaze and reads the inscription in the headstone’s marble. It’s your favourite poem by Clare Harner.

Good choice, he thinks, as he goes through the lines of Immortality and traces each engraved letter with his fingers.

‘Do not stand by my grave and weep

I am not there, I do not sleep.

I am the thousand winds that blow,

I am the diamond glints in snow.

I am the sunlight on ripened grain,

I am the gentle, autumn rain.

As you awake with morning's hush,

I am the swift, up-flinging rush

Of quiet birds in circling flight.

I am the day transcending night.

Do not stand by my grave, and cry--

I am not there, I did not die.’

You stopped reciting the poem and took a deep breath, looking expectantly at Chan.

“Isn’t this poem beautiful?” You asked him, your eyes sparkling.

“A bit morbid, but yes.” Chris chuckled as he placed the freshly made pasta dish in a large plate and served you dinner.

“Aww, thank you. Smells so good!” You grinned in delight, your eyes closing into crescents, as they always did whenever you smiled brightly.

He couldn’t help but press a quick chaste kiss against your lips before he sat down as well.

“So, pasta master, show me how it’s done.” You encouraged him, nudging his elbow and handing him your fork and spoon.

“Tsk, you’re so spoiled.” Chris tutted jokingly, but complied nonetheless and started twirling the pasta with the fork. Once it became an appropriate bite-sized portion, he raised the fork and supported it with the spoon as he brought the food to your mouth.

“Mmmm, so good!” You exclaimed with a few quick, excited small claps, as soon as you started feeling the flavours.

“Of course, what were you expecting?” Chris chuckled.

“Only the best from you.” She praised, petting his head fondly. “So, about the poem. Do you think it’s good enough for my presentation?”

“For Uni? Yeah, of course. Anything you’d pick is good enough, babe. You have your way with words, and you recited it very beautifully.”

“You think?” You beamed at his words, and he nodded. “Thank you, Channie. I really really like it, but I was afraid it wasn’t appropriate.”

“No, it is. You can use it.”

“If the lyrical genius says so, it must be true.” You stood up briefly and kissed his cheek, before returning to your seat and starting eating the pasta.

God, how many years ago was that?

Chris bursts out crying for the millionth time this month, and grabs the headstone with both his hands, feeling his knees grow weak.

On the brink of collapse, he uses your gravestone for support as he weeps louder.

“Can’t you come back?” He asks, his voice shaking. “Please. Please come back. Please. I… I promise I’ll do better, hm? I promise I’ll no longer stay as late in the studio, so please… please…”

The headstone can’t support him enough when his hands go weak as well, and he falls to his knees right in front of the poem.

“If only – If only I’d left with you that night. If only we hadn’t fought. God… please, please come back. We still have to make up.”

He cries for what feels like hours, and his body grows cold.

“Please… please…” He forces out again. “Come back… come back… we have so much we want to do… come back… I need… I need more time with you, please. Please.”

And he cries again.

And again.

And again, until he feels a hand on his shoulder a while later, and he turns his head around hopeful, thinking you might’ve somehow heard his pleas and returned to him.

His expression falls as he sees Seungmin looking concerned at him, and then he frowns even more noticing the pathetic way he looks in his eyes’ reflection.

Seungmin falls to the ground next to Chan, hugging his side tightly. Then, he helps him stand up and balance on his feet.

Chris is grateful for Stray Kids being there for him, but he just wishes… it would’ve been you standing next to him instead of Seungmin.

---

Depression

---

Chris has never experienced such an intense fatigue before. Every part of his body hurts, and it’s like his muscles are screaming at him each time he stands up. He is lethargic and looks haggard and in desperate need of rest, but rest doesn’t come by too easily as of late.

It’s 5AM and he’s in the studio again, but instead of doing anything productive, like finishing up that song he’s started working on two months ago that he keeps beating himself up for, he watches how beautiful you looked in the picture on his desk.

You used to be so full of life and so gorgeous. Your smile could make anyone happy, and your laugh – God, how much he misses your laugh.

He misses your voice.

Sometimes, he can’t even remember what it sounds like, and he thinks it’s absurd; it hasn’t been that long since you passed. Only about a year. He shouldn’t forget it so soon.

He grabs his phone and manually types the digits to your number. He still hasn’t forgotten it, and with how deep it’s been ingrained in his memory, he doesn’t think he ever will.

‘Hello! You’ve called… wait, am I doing this correctly?

Yes. The beep-

Oh, right! Thanks for calling, please leave your message after the beep. Okay, bye~!’

He hasn’t cried in some time while thinking of you, but now, he’s on the verge of tears again. You used to sound so carefree.

You used to be so happy.

He doesn’t know when he started referring to you in past tense, but as soon as the realisation hits him, he lets a couple of tears stain his cheeks.

Chris is tired. He hasn’t slept in… God knows how many days. He’s always had trouble sleeping, but nowadays, his insomnia has been getting worse and worse. His doctor prescribed him some pills that are supposed to help, but he can’t even be bothered to take them anymore. They don’t help him rest anyway. If he takes them, he wakes up confused, disoriented, and with an even worse headache.

His phone is still in his hand and his finger brushes over his screen. He didn’t have the heart to change his lockscreen picture. It’s still you.

He hasn’t seen you in what feels like years. The first few months when he’d been haunted by your ghost were tough, but now that he hasn’t seen any glimpse of you in months, day to day life is getting harder and harder to navigate.

You don’t even visit him in his dreams anymore, on the seldom nights he sleeps. If he takes the small white pills, he doesn’t dream of anything, and he so desperately wants to see you again, to touch you, that he refuses to take them. That’s the other reason he doesn’t.

Fuck, this is hard.

Are you supposed to feel so devastated after a whole year?

Back then, years passed by so quickly – it meant comeback after comeback, work, work and more work, and time with you was scarce but very appreciated. Time used to fly, and without him knowing how much time passed, you’ve celebrated your 5th anniversary. He was planning to propose to you soon. He was looking at rings, but then you…

Time doesn’t pass by as quickly anymore. This year stretched for so long, it felt like a decade instead of barely 12 months. With each passing month, it was like nothing was changing at all for Chris, but now, looking back, everything feels different.

He’s a completely different person than the one that was staying in the studio up until 5 AM last year, and he blames himself so, so much for his unchanging bad habits.

He blames himself for your death still. It’s his fault, and this thought only makes him more hopeless and more depressed.

He’s lost weight. A lot of it, to the point where the company had to have an ‘intervention’. Whereas last year his body was toned, his abs perfectly sculpted and his form admirable, he now looks like a ghost of himself.

If he eats, his stomach immediately starts hurting. He threw up 3 times this week alone.

Your death still has such a big emotional toll on him, and he’s tried it all. He went to therapy. He still goes four times a week at his company’s requests. He’s on medication that makes him groggy and unable to think, medication that shut down all his feelings – not just the negative ones. He is numb, and when he isn’t, he feels utterly devastated and lost.

What is he supposed to do now, without you?

How come a year has already passed without you by his side? He’s even contradicting himself. Sometimes he feels that the year passed by slowly, and sometimes he looks back and doesn’t understand how he was able to live a whole year without you.

He needs you.

Fuck, he needs you so much, he still can’t believe he even insinuated that horrible night that he didn’t.

Life no longer has any purpose, and everyone around him is growing more concerned by the day, as this once optimistic man has left together with you, leaving in his place only a pessimistic, desperate person.

He realised how badly he wants to die exactly 6 months ago, when your sudden disappearance finally started sinking in for real. When he stopped bargaining with God or with whatever cruel higher power there might be in the sky to let you come back, even if just for 10 minutes, for enough time for him to kiss and hug you and tell you how much he’s missing you.

6 months ago, he started decorating his thighs with unsightly marks, some of them faded, other fresh. He can’t do it anywhere else, no matter how much he’d wished to cut his wrists open, for fear of anyone else noticing.

So, he takes his despair out on his poor thighs, pressing the small blade against his skin until he feels something, anything. Until blood starts pouring down and the shower’s water pools down at his feet completely red.

He winces in pain every time he does it, but at least he feels something different than the numbness that grows bigger and bigger in his heart, consuming everything in its way. His whole soul feels absorbed by it, crushed under the pressure.

On the rare occasions he’s not numb, he feels the immense grief your absence left. He now knows that you’ve not only taught him how to love, but also how it is to lose what you love, and it hurts. It’s excruciating, and his heart is being ripped apart still, each and every time he thinks of you, and your absence is tearing him apart from the inside out.

He is physically sick. His headaches are worse than ever. He can’t sleep. He can’t eat. He can’t do anything anymore. He doesn’t want to, either.

The only thing he wants is to die, but even this wish feels selfish. He sees the way his friends look at him, how they’re walking on eggshells around him, to not somehow mention anything that could trigger a bigger depressive episode than what he’s already going through. He only pushes through it because of them, because he knows how it feels to lose someone you truly love, and he doesn’t want them to have to live with this black hole in their chests.

But… the loneliness he feels is simply merciless. It’s pouring down on him like unyielding unforgiving rain, not showing him any pity, and so he tries to fills his days with something that would make him forget about the gap in his soul.

The company let him come back to work a while ago, but they didn’t plan any comeback for Stray Kids for the time being, nor are they planning any for the near future. He’s grateful they’re giving him time, because he’s in no shape or form ready to do anything, not when he’s withdrawn himself so much from everything he used to love.

It’s difficult to compose any up-beat songs, or any song, for that matter. It used to come naturally for him, but not anymore. Changbin and Jisung are doing their best to support him and make up for his lack of concentration, but it feels like he’s not bringing anything to the table anymore.

He’s missed practice over and over again. The Kids meet up every two days to dance to their older songs, and as they don’t have anything new to work with, they even started learning the dances of other popular songs, or creating choreographies that would fit western music. Chan never went. He stopped dancing 12 months ago, and he hasn’t even stepped in the practice room since you died, not even once.

He hasn’t sung since you died either, and no one said anything about it. No one blamed him at all. Not even his company, who he was sure was going to fire him in the first 6 months after your death.

They said they trust him, and that they’re going to give him as much time as he needs to recover. They talk about him like he’s sick, but he’s not sick. They don’t seem to understand that.

He’s not sick, he’s just devastated, and he doesn’t think he’s ever going to be able to live again, to sing and dance on stage and to work hard, because this is no longer his dream.

He only dreams of death, and the thoughts of it are the only ones bringing him any solace. His therapist said he needs more time, and he quoted Lois Tonkin more times than he can count. He said that life will soon begin to grow bigger around grief, and that the intense sadness he’s feeling is just another expression of love for you. One that is permanent, but that will diminish as time passes and as he starts enjoying life again.

He doesn’t believe any of it, though.

How could he begin to enjoy life again, with you not there by his side?

---

Acceptance

---

He met someone.

For the first time in years, he felt genuine happiness again.

It took him one more year to start reengaging in some of his older hobbies and in his work. He started gradually going to the gym with Changbin and Lee Know, and eventually felt ready to start dancing and singing again. Another year later, he was ready to get back on stage and face all his fans, who’ve thankfully shown an unwavering support of his journey with grief.

He started feeling a bit better, and even though you were on his mind all the time, he was no longer dwelling on the pain of the loss of you. Your memory started bringing him more happiness, and he started looking fondly at all the sweet moments you’ve both shared together.

He started appreciating being able to have met you, to have lived 5 beautiful years next to you, and even though he still feels it is unfair that you’ve been taken away from him so cruelly and way too early, he no longer blames himself.

He still regrets the argument you had on the night you passed away, but he started slowly coming to terms with the fact that there was nothing he could do about it anymore, no way to take his words back. He started accepting that this is the one regret he’s going to have to take to his grave with him.

It took him one more year to start embracing life again, to start looking forward to his future with Stray Kids and to start actively making plans. He realised there was so much more he wanted to accomplish, and his dreams started coming back to him little by little, with the support of his friends and family.

He’s met her two years later.

When it happened, he was still not ready to give love a second chance. He thought it was way too soon, that he was disrespecting you by catching feelings for someone else. He felt like he was emotionally cheating on you.

He decided it’s time to join a support group at the recommendation of his friend, and he’s met a lot of people of all ages: some younger than him, some way older. The way they spoke about their former partners warmed up his heart, and they made him realise that loving again is not an affront to your memory. He can still keep loving you while loving someone else as well. He can still honour your memory.

He opened up to her, and he’s told her all about you. She wanted to know who you were, and she even visited your grave with him, holding his hand and talking to you at your gravestone. She told you she loves him and thanked you for being there for him while you were still alive, for giving him precious memories to hold onto.

She apologized for life being so unfair and taking you away from Chris so abruptly, and she assured you she’s going to take care of him to the best of her abilities.

She was really patient with him. She gave him as much time as he needed to come to terms with his feelings. He let him set the pace on what he was comfortable with doing. The first time they slept together was after more than one year of dating, but she didn’t mind waiting for as long as he felt necessary.

She loved him, and he loved her.

He proposed to her almost two years later, and they welcomed a child one year after their wedding.

He visited your grave on your 10th death anniversary with his son in his stroller, a baby boy he’s given your favourite name. You were still present in his thoughts, and his love for you never subsided.

He now simply has additional people to love and to grow old with, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t miss you still.

He decided to visit your grave again, even if walking has become a bit too difficult. Still, he manages the way from the car until your grave just fine, even if he has to support himself with a crane.

He is now old enough to be called ‘grandpa’, and not just as a joke between him and his friends. His hands are shaking, and his legs are a bit wobbly; his face is adorned with deep lines and creases, his forehead is wrinkly, and each fine line contributes to his now years-long life and experiences. The skin dropped around his cheeks, but every lady in the nursing home assures him he’s still a handsome man.

Your grave is no longer as tidy and beautifully adorned with fresh flowers. The soil has been overtaken by weeds and is in dear need of cleansing. He hasn’t visited in a while, unfortunately, his health issues making it a tad too hard, and with your parents long gone, there is no one else to take care of your resting place.

He makes a mental note to hire someone to clean it up and plant some flowers, but for the time being, he simply sets the bouquet of rose peonies in the small, chipped vase next to your headstone.

The inscription in the once immaculate marble is no longer as visible, but he doesn’t need to read it in order to recognise Immortality by Clare Harner. He still remembers the poem by heart, and also all sorts of other small, insignificant things, like your old phone number that’s been disconnected decades ago.

He looks at your smiling picture, the one he took when you’ve just graduated from university, and he realises as if for the first time how young you were.

He’s grown old; he has multiple wrinkles, his skin sagged everywhere, and his body went through each transformation it was supposed to when advancing in years.

But you?

You’ve stayed young. You’ve stayed beautiful, cheerful, smiling. Your face stayed clear of any creases.

You’ve remained just as he remembers you.

You are immortal.

“I’m sorry for not coming in a while.” He speaks with a soft smile on his face.

“That’s fine. You are probably very tired.”

He swears he could hear your voice. Maybe the poem is right, and the whispers of the wind transform in your saccharine voice he’s so dearly missed.

“I’m truly sorry for what I’ve said.” He continues, feeling the need to apologize again for his harsh words that night. No matter how many years have passed and how many time he’s already apologised, he’s never forgiven himself.

“But I’ve forgiven you long ago.” The wind whispers, and he closes his eyes and nods his head.

“I still love you. I’ve never stopped loving you. I hope you know that.”

“I know.” The sunlight caresses his back, warming him up as the wind strengthens. “And I’m waiting for you, whenever you’re ready to meet me, my love.”

~The End~

---

(A/N) Obligatory song: 11 minutes by Halsey and YUNGBLUD.

youtube

When my best friend showed me this song, I immediately fell in love with the concept of the music video, that’s based on the five stages of grief. I thought to myself that I simply must write a story like this, but of course, that was months ago and I’ve completely forgotten about it, as I usually do with most random ideas that come to mind that I don’t write down lol.

I couldn’t really sleep for the past few nights, so my mind kept brewing ideas and scenarios to keep me busy and hopefully lull me to sleep.

It didn’t work, because the five stages of grief came to mind and I knew I had to immediately write a story about it and not let the idea go this time, so I got out of bed at like 6:30 am and wrote and wrote on and off for a total of 13 hours, until this 10k words of pure despair have been created.

I hope you enjoyed it even though it probably sent you spiralling into depression. Thank you for reading nonetheless!

Love,

Storm

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