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#this could have been better crafted i think
fefairys · 2 years
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man a lot of the pesterquest routes are just like. batshit fucking bananas but then they end really nicely in a way that makes me feel bad for criticizing the beginning and middle parts
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fisherrprince · 1 year
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*Shakes you like a marionette* THANK YOU! You get it! I've been trying to tell people for -so long- that ARR (and post) is purposely taking its time to build up the characters, the story, the -entire world- that you're going to spend the next who-knows-how-many-hours/days/weeks/months exploring and adventuring and experiencing and -feeling- through! It might not be "the best paced", but god damn it if I still don't love all the random asides and non-plot moments that just -shapes everything-
(BANGS GAVEL)
LET THEM COOK!!!
#to be clear this is not to say a bunch of story decisions and pacing issues were Fine Actually And Perfect#of course not! the feast while Titan is definitely awakening was odd pacing. the sylphs took way too much long back and forth. f’lhammin;;;#HOWEVER!!!! I am of the opinion that you should play through all of that ANYWAYS#because the things they do and tell you and sneak characterization into within the bits that could have used work are still valuable !#because CRUCIALLY because because — it has Payoff#you are there for reasons. some big some long-term some unnecessary but kinda fun#dark road I think… had less of an effect on me because it didnt have good payoff. I would forgive the messy pacing and uneven attention#to characters they want us to get attached to much more if the end was also constructed better. the end was FUN! but-#look imagine if we’d been with baldr More? They were cooking and it was interesting but the payoff could have used different#(or more) buildup emotionally and attachment-wise. I love murder. it is shock value; not cast interest; that makes it fun#ask#anon#(pacing) I would have to craft an osp video on what constitutes media that does this meandering absurdity thing well and Less Well#MUCH easier to do in a video game where you are the main character! Everything can be relevant to your growth#like homestuck does it well EXCEPT when it doesn’t. most of problem sleuth is easily forgotten#anyways. cuts myself off of essayifying my opinion#that’s enough of that you and me are amiably shaking hands anon
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arolesbianism · 13 days
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Thinks abt Sif Odile duo looping au. When the two who can't read eachother for shit get thrown into the horrors together
#rat rambles#stars posting#my favorite sif relationship within the party is them and odile so I had to at least try rotating this idea in my head even if trying to#write these guys makes me anxious as hell#its just like. siffrin has such a complex around this middle age woman its both funny and sad to me#and odile just does not realize this and it creates such a rift between their understanding of eachother#they both care abt eachother so much but it's hard for them to bridge that gap sometimes#and its a weird situation imaging them looping together because idk if thatd help things or make them way worse#because siffrin is allergic to dealing with his own issues and odile struggles with addressing said issues when shes not certain of what#they are and since she's not particularly great at reading the emotional side of things she'd probably struggle a lot with that#its just interesting imagining how the two could potentially both grow closer and drift farther apart over the course of the loops#which applies to all duo looping aus but Im particularly invested in these two so theyre who Im thinking abt#like idk just something abt odile slowly realizing how sif sees her appeals to me deeply#also I like thinking abt early on stuff where it's more lighthearted and they get to have some fun in the early loope#I do think theres a lot of awkwardness in the air especially on siffrins end but I like to think theyd have a lil fun with it#for better or for worse in the long run#odile and siffrin sitting clueless as they hand craft a whole bunch of new things for siffrin to beat himself up over later#and odile as well I want her to realize that sif has been internalizing this shit and quietly spiral over it#anyways I need to to to bed now gn
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lottieurl · 1 year
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here's. a thing. to consider. van was originally gonna die in the wolf attack i think?? cause i know they just kept the chatacter cause they liked liv that much (meaning that would be a wilderness death and an s1 death). and i gotta ask. like completely honestly and genuinely how interesting would van as a character be if she did die during wolf attack
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noisytenant · 1 year
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You can stop capitalism and the attention economy from sucking the joy out of art for you right now*
*at the small price of, perhaps, your hopes and dreams.
Commodification and competition only suck the joy out of art when you buy into them. If you want to make art for fun and not worry about attention economies and algorithms then literally just stop worrying about them, and accept the consequences of that.
What are the consequences? There are artists who have successfully risen to a living wage off posting their art online, and in the shadow of these prominent but rare figures it is difficult not to dream of having even a sliver of their luck. And this is to say nothing about the social and emotional fulfillment of sharing art with others, but I'll be focusing on the economics here.
It's luck. Commercially successful artists who seem to have "gamed the algorithm" are prone to survivorship bias--it's impossible to know how many artists have tried the same tactics only to get nowhere. And most will attest that every step of these attention-economy-appeasing rituals is demoralizing and exhausting. Many--even those who succeed--give up or take a step back.
But if these rituals are so awful, why perform them? To potentially increase the meager chances of economic success as an internet artist? To see your engagement numbers go up?
I don't want to tell people to give up on this dream because I believe it is impossible. Instead, it is possible, which is the trap. And when the entire economy and job market are so dire, it's difficult not to dream of that lottery ticket.
I do believe we can live in a world where we can survive and make the art that brings us joy--Through significant effort and numerous systemic changes at every level of culture and society. And in the meantime, there is a huge grey area of economic sustainability--if you make even a little money off your art, that's more in your pocket.
But hobbyist artists have been making and continue to make art out of joy and curiosity regardless of how popular or commercially viable it is, it's just harder to find them on common online platforms. They're in your neighborhood, at work, in your family and probably among your friends, sitting at the library leafing through a "How to Draw" book or signing up for an adult beginner's class, if they have the money. And when we promote the idea that art is fun for everyone, we make more space for people to enjoy it.
We have a finite amount of time and energy every day. Our capitalist economy saps us of both such that we have very little left to devote to our passions. But we fail to realize how much more we lose investing in an arbitrary and fickle economy that is, in fact, entirely optional. If you work a day job with clearly defined hours, you may spend several hours miserably--and that is a problem that needs addressing--but your day ends. Meanwhile, the work of a professional internet artist is never done--You are always on the clock.
I feel heartbroken when I see artists lamenting how joyless, soul-sucking, and uninspiring art has become for them in the midst of our current circumstances. I think they are correct in identifying that the attention economy saps them of this joy--But they are not seeing the forest for the trees.
It is the difference between the expectation of success and the reality of disappointment, rather than the disappointment itself, that leads to such a depressing state of affairs. Let go of the idea that sufficient effort scales with reward in a system as arbitrary as ours. Save your energy. The best way to win is not to play.
Art is as beautiful and life-affirming as it ever was. Realize what it has to offer you, and realize what you need from elsewhere. We still need food and a roof over our heads. We still need friends and community. If we want art to occupy a joyful space in our lives, we need to rely on other parts of ourselves to get through the sometimes boring, tedious, and depressing work of living our daily lives.
Our capitalist system and its associated attention economy deserve every criticism they can get, but if we fail to question their fundamental assumptions, we will never truly move past them. We have the autonomy to untangle capital from our artistic lives, if not completely, at least to a more manageable state.
So, believe that art can be fun again. The things you want to see in the world are waiting for you to make them.
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... how am I meant to get any sort of restful sleep when it's like 85F indoors in my bedroom at NIGHT .. hhhhhhhhhhhhhh
#why the next poll adventure and everything else has taken so long lol.. I straight up have just not done anything#the past few days... staring down my todo list and sweating hopelessly#AT LEAST it;s relatively low humidity. the highest it's been up to is maybe 65%. but is usually around 50 or 40ish#There is one small window air conditioner in a roomate's room that can KIND OF be shared by nailing a sheet up to block off the hallway#with the rooms in it so the cool air goes into the other bedrooms but doesnt flow out into the kitchen or etc but#wjhen it's the time of day that the sun is directly hitting the window & it's like 102F outside even that doesnt help much. to cool 3 rooms#and I always feel like we're going to explode the air conditioner or something running it too much with direct heat on it. sometimes it#smells like hot plastic or whatever ghj.. so it's mostly just.. block off all windows with 5 layers of blankets and cardboard#starting at 10am (meaning.. no indoor light for days basically.. no natural lighting.. time passes weird. hard to determine time of day).#throw water on the bed every night so you sleep in wet sheets and keep your clothes and hair wet at all times. ice. cold drinks. keep a#little fan running pointed directly at you nearly 24/7 even when sleeping with a fan blowing air on you makes your eyes and throat painfull#dry. etc. etc.. and i KNOW people have it worse in plenty of places blah blah. i am just complaining on my little blog that is about me lol#I think the biggest thing about lack of adequate/central air conditioning for me is just the LACK of productivity!!! I am working on games!#and novels!! and so many other crafts. costumes! sculptures!!! things I want to do!!! we all have a limited amount of time on this planet a#nd I have so many goals!! To lose basically 4-5 days straight or producivity - when if I had been able to temperature#control my environment better I could have easily gotten more done because I wouldn't be laying around nuseous and too hot#and sick to do anything all day etc. -- is like.... GRRRRRR... it just feels so senseless.. i could have USEd that time...#Every CEO who has contributed to global warming owes me 1million doallrs to fund my art projects and make up for all the time#I've lost on them due to their stupid bullshit.. also they should be stoned to death in a public square. but redistribute the money FIRST#to everyone on the planet. but especially people who have been affected by floods. fires. etc. etc.#poor people who have limited choice in housing and access to air conditioning. homeless people in cooling centers. people with disabillitie#and health issues that are worse in the heat so the entire future just seems increasingly terrifying for them. etc. etc.#ANYWAY.... eughhhgh.... It can cool down SLIGHTLY at night but the past few nights I have been sleeping in an 81 degree room and I wake up#and first thing in the morning its like 82 by then and I'm so nauseous and nasty feeling... just so so tired of it.. I NEED SNOW#literally not even joking.. snow would heal me. .. oughffff...#AND i got the new nasty stinky poo poo pee pee tumblr dashboard update lol.. e v i l
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eatyourdamnpears · 2 years
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my best friend is dragging me back into the craft kicking and screaming
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asiancatboy · 2 years
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i'm rly looking forward to rf3 special actually
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neverendingford · 7 months
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#tag talk#I keep getting customers being like “wow do you perform professionally?” and shit like that about my whistling and like..#no how do I tell you that I'm doing this for my own enjoyment and I don't think I'm better than anybody else I just think you all are worse#like. yeah I'm good at whistling that doesn't make me special or cool it just means everyone else sucks ass at whistling#seriously though. I hear people whistling breathy airy off-tune inconsistent note quality and I just.. ughhhhh stop stop stop stop stop#idk I'm tired of being told I should sell my crafts I should sell my art I should perform professionally I should make myself a spectacle#I'm not a thing to look at I'm not an object to pay for my soul isn't a thing you can buy on Etsy my habits aren't a show to purchase entry#I'm glad people enjoy listening to me whistle. I enjoy listening to me whistle. yeah sure I'm good at it. I just. ughhhh#don't tell me like you're leaving a comment underneath my YouTube video. I'm not content for you to consume.#ughhhh I hate public spectacle and maybe being a side show for every church in my parents' mission network had consequences on me#you know it took me until I was seventeen to finally say no when I was told to take off my shirt to display my scars to someone?#fifteen years of being a freak show. a news update. a creature to be looked at. disrobed and examined. displayed.#and I'm fucking done with it. I'm no one's toy I'm no one's property I'm no one's news letter topic.#I'm my own fucking person and I wish I could actually accept that instead of struggling with it constantly.#idk. maybe I have problems besides “you scored highly on our depression questionnaire so let's teach you coping methods”#maybe next time I have a therapy appointment I'll search my tag talks through jetblackcode and take notes ahead of time#I mean. I am blogging. that's like journaling. maybe I should actually use that to my advantage. go back and use the resources I have.#anyway that being said I've been practicing whistling the orange blossom special (Buddy Greene version) and it's very hard#but I'm getting much better at it.#I really started getting into harder stuff when I started college and would wander the campus whistling homestuck music (thanks Toby Fox)#Rondo Alla Turca is a particular favorite of mine cause it's got some really fun quick sequences#anyway if any of y'all have good recommendations on good chapstick/lipbalm brands that'd be sick because I need to start buying more#and like. find a really good brand that'll last longer on my lips and then just buy a case of it or something.#because I go through lip balm pretty quickly because your lips dry out when you whistle a lot and also I live in the desert so it's dry af
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miniimight · 5 months
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I need more dad Sukuna and mom reader fics / headcsnons, I love the way you wrote for them!!
hey anon thank you! i'm thinking about making this a series, if you guys have any ideas/requests/prompts lmk <3
PICKING UP BABY FROM SCHOOL oops, toddlers can't ride motorcyles! (dad!sukuna x mom!reader)
sukuna rolled up about twenty minutes before his daughter's school got out, deploying the kickstand of his pitch black motorcycle against the rainbow colored fencing. he pulled off his helmet, sighing deeply when he met fresh air again.
his phone buzzed against his thigh. he pulled it out of his tight cargo pocket, answering immediately when he saw your caller ID. "hey, doll."
"you got there okay?" you asked.
"mhm."
"and you're on the right side of the building? that's where her class comes out."
"mhm."
"great." you exhaled. "m'sorry i couldn't make it this time—"
"stop." he says gruffly, his phone between his shoulder and ear as he pulls off his gloves. "what are you sorry for, silly girl? you're sick and should rest."
he doesn't mind anything when it comes to his two girls, not the fifteen minute commute to her school or the half hour of waiting just to get a parking spot nice and close to the doors.
your laugh was warbled over the phone. "at least the car is air conditioned. it's been getting warmer lately."
"..." he looked down at his bike.
"ryo, baby?" you hummed.
"hm?"
"you did take the car, right?"
"..."
his silence was all you needed to hear. he tuned out your worried rambling about how the hell is your daughter going to get home on that thing in order to process. toddlers don't usually use motorcycles as a mode of transportation... and he should've thought of this before!
"it'd be fine if i had an extra seat." he mused, debating on how he could manage this situation without having to call you to get them.
"an extra seat?! not even an extra helmet?" you shrieked. "baby, i swear, if you're actually thinking about driving with my baby girl on that thing—"
"relax, doll," he grumbled, pushing down the traces of embarrassment burning at his ears. "the brat will be fine, s'just a couple blocks away. she can handle the wind."
"..."
the bell rang and the doors swung open, children pouring out of the hallway and buzzing around in search of their parents.
"she's out, we'll see you soon." he was about to hang up when he heard,
"i'm literally about to come get you, do NOT go anywhere."
he frowns, his eyes scouring the crowd of midgets for his kid. he didn't mean to make you so upset and worried. he just... overlooked important details sometimes. not his fault, he's trying his best :(
"y/n, you will sit your ass down in bed. when i come home, you better be laying down exactly how i left you." he warned. he heard your breath hitch. "you trust me, don't you, baby?"
"yes... unfortunately."
he nodded. "we'll be home soon."
"in one piece?"
he rolled his eyes, grumbling. "yes, woman."
"hm." you huffed and hung up.
he strolled into the compound. as soon as he saw those pretty eyes that creased happily when they landed on him, he smiled and crouched down.
she ran over to him, her backpack jostling behind her. she held up a painting she made. "daddy, look!"
"i see." he pulled her closer, holding the backpack off her back and letting her walk off it. he slung the bedazzled bratz backpack over his shoulder, lifting her up in his arms. "what is it?"
"for mama."
"oh. all your crafts seem to be for mama. still nothing for me." he complained with a drawn out sigh.
she rolled her eyes, and he swore he was looking at you for a second.
"don't roll your eyes at me, brat." he scoffed. "who the hell even taught you that?" he muttered under his breath.
sukuna finally stopped in front of his bike. her eyes lit up as her legs started to kick in excitement. she's only ever seen daddy ride off on this thing, now she gets to ride with him?
he swung his leg over the bike, ignoring the mix of distasteful and flirtatious looks thrown at him. "okay, kid." he exhaled, shrugging off his jacket and holding it up to her. "gotta put this on."
she turned up her nose. "stinky."
his jaw dropped open. "i showered before i came to wait half an hour for you, chubby brat. the hell do you think you're talking to?"
she looked at him as if it were obvious.
"you'll put this on now. give me mama's painting, i'll put it in your bag." he said gruffly yet gently slid the painting into her backpack with the utmost care.
the jacket drowned her, the sleeves near triple the length of her arms. sukuna zipped her up and put the helmet on her head.
she started to whine. "stinky." she wailed.
"hush." he hissed, slapping some shades on and holding her towards her chest firmly. with her protected as best as he could with what he had, and with the jeweled backpack strapped to his back, he began to roll out into the road.
that drive home was the longest thirty minutes of his life. he had never drove so slow before.
you were waiting by the front door, running down to meet them as your husband pulled into the driveway.
"oh my god oh my god," you ripped your baby from his arms, tossing the helmet off her head. "are you okay, baby?" you smoothed away the sweaty hair from her face, your lips pursing when you hear her sniffles.
"my poor baby. daddy's never gonna pick you up again, don't you worry." you peppered her face with kisses.
sukuna caught the helmet before it crashed to the ground, walking behind you with his hands in his pockets. he kissed your temple as he leaned over your shoulder to peer down at his daughter. "daddy didn't do so bad."
you glare at him, cradling your daughter's head against your chest. you whirl away and storm into the house.
he sighed.
after many apologetic kisses and a good amount of groveling, you let him do pick-ups and drop-offs again. though you made sure to watch him get into the car before he drove off.
© miniimight ! thanks for reading <3
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a-b-riddle · 5 months
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Part Three
Warning: If you don't like Taylor Swift, you're not gonna like this chapter that much, homie. But So Long, London is so fitting for this drabble series. (I guess a series since it's longer than a drabble at this point)
Can’t stop thinking about reader just trying to move on
You had to remind yourself several times not to check in with the guys. It had almost become second nature doing something big like this. But going to another country…
Not that they would care. You told yourself. It was for the best that way.
The expo went better than you expected. You didn’t believe that there would be a line out the door of eager readers wanting to read your book, but you got a decent amount. More than a few told you they couldn’t wait to read it. Several asking for photos and asking questions on any future books, a spin-off or even continuing the series.
When one a particular large group of girls your age asked for a group photo, you could have cried. They were had found each other in an online book club. You had given them your book several months ago. All copies signed with a note thanking them for taking the time to read what you had poured your heart into.
You had spent a large chunk of your free time talking to them. Bonding more so as women than over your book.
"Have you listened to Taylor's new album?"
It had only been out for two days and you had been able to avoid it like the plague. You didn't need to even listen to 'So Long, London' to know it would fucking gut you. So you would enjoy your time in the states. Save the listening experience for when you were packing up their stuff.
They had posted and tagged you before continuing on with the rest of the expo. You had reposted the photo to your own social media. Or at least one attached to the pen name you had crafted. You only had twelve thousand instagram followers, but it was something.
The first day was much like the second. You had attended several Q & A sessions with a panel of more experienced authors and managed to go to a few meet and greets. Before you knew it, it was time to pack up shop.
The agent the publishing house had assigned to you had stuck with you for most of the day. You were able to pick her brain a bit about new ideas for possible future plot lines and her thoughts. Overall, the trip was great.
Not only were you able to make great connections and take a lot back home with you to reference, but for a few days you forgot what waited for you back home. Or rather what wasn't waiting for you.
By the time your plane landed back in London you could barely hold yourself up. You left the expo, went straight to the hotel to shower, pack and head to the airport.
Your flight was delayed. Your luggage was taking forever to get onto the belt. It was only seven, but fuck if you weren’t ready to just call it a day. Tomorrow you would have to start again. Opening up the shop. Coming back to an empty flat. Maybe start gathering up the items the boys had left behind.
Should you give them in separate boxes or just one giant one and let them sort it out themselves? It was easy to discern whose sweatshirt and t-shirts belonged to who, but when it got to things like socks and chargers...
Yeah.
They could sort it themselves.
You could drop it off at Kyle's when you knew he would be at the gym. He was good at avoiding you anyway.
It wasn't until you stood in your apartment did it hit you.
You were alone.
For the first time in over a year you couldn't call one of them over to soothe that ache of loneliness.
For the first time in over a year, you had to relearn how to handle just being alone.
You usually showered at night. Washing away the grime of the day before settling into bed. But today was a new chapter. You woke up wanting to start it on a good note. Plus you went straight to bed after getting home so you still had a bit of airport funk on you.
It had been a week. One official since you had sent that text nailing the coffin shut. You had touched base with your friends who didn't bat an eye at you dating four men at once. They liked them, even if Simon scared them. You didn't give them the details of the breakup or the cause. You were pretty private in your problems and if you wanted relationship advice, you would seek an unbiased unopinion.
You had a good group of friends, but the moment you told them that you were well and truly heartbroken, they would insist the best way to get over someone is to get under someone else. Something you were nowhere near ready for.
So you needed to look like you had your shit together. You put on a dress that was feminine and, most importantly, comfy as fuck. An A-line floral frock paired with a light sweater and some white trainers. You knew a few of your friends would be stopping by for tea so you need to look like you were taking the separation well. Even if you were barely holding it together.
With makeup and perfume on, you started the early morning stroll to your shop.
You loved openings. Starting up the register and selecting the playlist for today. Picking out the essential oil to put in the diffuser even though you mostly stuck with a lavender and vanilla blend during the spring months.
For the morning you stuck with a Taylor Swift Instrumental playlist you had found initially for studying, but you liked the peaceful feeling it brought. Even when it covered the most gut wrenching songs.
You had started to collect the online orders that had accumulated over the last week. Sending out the e-mails alerting to your patrons that their orders were ready for pick up. Luckily you weren't set to receive a delivery until tomorrow.
It was eight and everything was set. Although not many people came to a bookstore at eight in the morning, it really didn't bother you opening up that early considering you were the only employee that was on the payroll. It gave you the possibility of making money, but mostly you spent the morning reading or writing.
You flipped the sign over from CLOSED to OPEN. Ready to start take on the day.
You had turned the kettle on in the back room when your friends had stopped by around lunch. You always said it was just tea, but you always had an array of snacks on standby for you all to munch on.
Meredith was complaining about what a dick the new client at the law firm was being. An absolute slime who had been married to his wife for almost twenty-five years before he decided to fuck his twenty-two year old assistant.
Tabitha didn't want to talk about work. To her, her career in tech was just a paycheck. She did what she needed to do and left when she was done.
You talked about the expo and how your book. Although neither of them really read, they had promised that they would read your book. You didn't hold your breath. They had reposted your posts as well as making ones of their owns in celebration of you. Words of praise about your dedication and hard work.
You realized that even though they couldn't give you the support you needed as readers, they supported you blindly. You could have written absolute garbage, but they would still support you.
You talked about how many people liked your book and wanted pictures and to sign their copies.
Then came the question you had been rehearsing since you had texted them a week ago. They both shared a look before Meredith finally asked.
"How are you holding up?" You gave a half-smile and a shrug. So perfectly rehearsed in your head you were ready to deliver your lies lines.
"I'm fine," you lied. "It was just fading so there isn't much of a difference, I guess." Not necessarily a lie. "We just wanted different things and were on different paths in life." Not a lie. "It's for the best." You weren't sure if that last one was a lie or not just yet.
They both shared a passing look before returning their gazes back to you. "You know you can come to us about this stuff." Tabitha's hand reached across the table, placing a hand on top of yours.
"It wasn't going to work out." You added. "Situations like that don't and I should have known better."
"A situation?" Meredith asked. "When have you ever called it a situation?"
"It always was one."
"I love you enough to call bullshit." She raised her eyebrow at you, crossing her arms over her chest. "You loved them and you need to stop pretending this is easy."
"You're a divorce lawyer, Mere," You reminded. "You see marriages fall apart every day."
"I do. I get to see from across the table how a woman is still willing to take her cheating arse of a husband back. So the fact that you went from on cloud nine with all of them to not even talking about the break up is concerning to say the least."
"Tabitha," you looked at your only ally left. "A little back up would be nice."
"I'm with her on this one." She confirmed. "You loved them. Not that I cared, but if you weren't talking about books or the shop, you were talking about them. What you did, where you went. How they fucked you."
"I think I'll miss that part the most." Mere sighed. "I lived vicariously through you."
"You know you could actually date people." Tabitha suggested.
"I'd rather live with chronic carpal tunnel than a man." You almost choked on your tea. If you were wearing pearls you would have used the comedic relief of clutching them to break the awkwardness of the current topic of conversation.
"That should be put on a t-shirt." You suggested
"I wouldn't mind it on a welcome mat to be honest." Tabitha added.
"But in all seriousness, cut this bullshit." Meredith gave you an sympathetic smile. "We're here. Good, bad and ugly."
You returned her smile. "I know."
You had closed up shop for the evening. Your lunch had gone longer than expected so now you were left doing the dishes and clean up during closing. You were setting the last cup on the drying rack when you heard the front door chime.
Shit.
You must have forgotten to lock the door when you turned the sign.
“I’m sorry!” You apologized, making your way out of the back break area and to the front of the store. “We’re-”
“Closed.” He said, locking the door behind him. “I saw the sign.”
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shiegra · 1 year
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super brief thoughts on Li Su Su
I feel like I ragged a little on her in the last post and I want to clarify - I find both her book and show counterparts fascinating. While I do love the uneasy-frenemy banter in the books between Li Su Su and Tantai Jin, where they always know the other is up to something and all their repartee has the edge of a knife even as they grow to have a strange understanding and twisted fascination of the other deeper than anyone else’s -
The narrative as it stood, this serial oft-travelogue in that subgenre of batshit action and over the top characters, would have been harder to sell on screen. I think they made an excellent choice to focus on Tantai Jin as a more complex, nuanced character and build up his personal journey. While the webnovel’s fast pace and action could carry the roadtrip adventures as they meandered back to main plot, both budget and the need for consistent overarching story structure complicate that for show.
(I also think this politely avoided some incredibly Unfortunate Implications regarding people with antisocial personality disorders due to the in-your-face allegory lol.)
In doing so they had to change up her character, and possibly played it safe due to genre conventions leaned into her directness to keep the plot moving. (Given the care and energy with which they fleshed out the two biggest secondary female characters.) But it’s also fascinating to me because even her lighter show characterization feels like it’s calling back to book characterization - but book characterization from the second dream, of her younger mischievous fairy self before the weight of apocalypse crushed her into what she is in the opening of the book.
(Plus on just a personal level maybe partly due to early fandoms I had and neglected female characters there, female characters with somewhat messy writing but who are so fascinating to explore the implications and potential layers of are like catnip to me.)
#TEOM meta#im still not sure this is coherent but i KNOW that if i put it in drafts again to write better later it will DIE there lol so#im trying to actually post things im excited to write and think about instead of everything dying on the vine because it's not 'perfect'#believe me it is wild to hear myself say 'i think they made the right choice in shifting the main protagonist to the male lead from FL'#but it really was and although LSS ended up a little simplified with less time devoted to her changing complex emotions she's still#yknow the co-lead. also i have so many weird analytical thoughts that have no answers about just the shift in directing#e.g. in early scenes with the flat composition of her contemplating him on the ice and him on the ice where i feel like the tone doesn't#quite come through. is it meant to convey a creeping sense of callousness that peaks in the whipping?#but she COULD act that - we see it in others scenes - so the combination of her sitcom acting and the shot composition and music#it feels like she was directed to act the scenes very very casually and thus leaving it tonally jarring in a sort of fascinating way#anyway i think this adaptation is kind fo amazing there's so many points where they tease out book themes and threads#and weave them back in to a different point in the story (bcs of compression) where it ends up MAKING MORE SENSE???#SO fun to just chew on with my brain as someone who read the book and enjoyed it with critiques and has been enjoying the show a lot as#well just also with some critiques. just genuinely really cool and exciting to dig into the writing craft of it or at least try
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luveline · 2 months
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this might be silly but i imagined the boys (marauders) playfully arguing over who gets to marry reader first and they’re just listing times they did these ridiculously romantic things to win the name of husband
“I’ve been thinking…” 
You’re focused on your keychain, but you hum to show you’re listening. Once you get to the end of this row, you can talk properly. 
Sirius sits beside you, his hands paused on either side of his own keyring. They’re technically alpha patterns made from knotted embroidery threads, but you and Sirius call them keychains. 
This is the second time he’s sat with you to make them, and it makes you so happy you could cry. Last Saturday he’d been sitting on the sofa as he usually does when you’re by the coffee table in the evenings, Remus at the other end, feet in his lap, when he touched your shoulder lightly and asked if he could try to make one with you. 
It’s definitely not an easy craft to teach, but it isn’t rocket science, either. Sirius is a quick learner, and his keychain looks very neat. 
“Would you wanna get married, someday?” he asks quietly. 
“Of course I would.” 
You put your string bobbins down. You’d answered without thinking, and the true answer is a little sad. Of course you wanna get married someday, but you’re not exactly in a conventional relationship. Marriages don’t tend to go four ways. 
“You know I wouldn’t have it in a church or anything, but we could still dress up. You could wear a white dress,” he says, looping a bobbin string under one of the anchors, knotting it, and moving on to the next. “I’d get you any dress you want.” 
“That would be nice,” you agree, leaning in to hug his side. You kiss his shoulder, lips pressed to a sleeve. 
“And then you could get divorced and marry me,” James says, backing into the room with a tray of drinks and snacks alike. He sets them down on the table behind your craft station, before rounding it, and sitting behind you to feel your shoulders. “Better yet, marry me first, and Sirius can go second.” 
“No, I’m going first,” Sirius says without worry. 
“You can’t just go first.” 
“Says who?” Sirius turns into your hugging to hug you back gently. 
“Me?” James says. “You can’t just decide that. What I want to marry you first?” 
“You haven’t asked me to get married.” 
You laugh at the ridiculousness of their conversation. There’s sincerity in it somewhere. 
They bicker about who’s doing what and where and who’s with who. You revel in the feeling of Sirius’ hand on your back moving a slow back and forth, each line of his fingers. You love his hands. 
“Babe,” James says eventually, “would you marry me first, please?” 
“Sirius asked first.” 
James groans. “Okay, but does Sirius deserve to be first?” 
“James,” you warn softly. 
“It’s fine,” Sirius says. “He’s kidding.” 
“I’m not kidding,” James says, though he is. “What has Sirius done for you to deserve you as I do? Who brings you a bouquet every Sunday?” 
Technically, the bouquet is from everyone, or so they say, but it is James who wakes up early for bread, milk, and flowers. 
“And who rearranges it? Who gives you your back rub every night?” James pulls you away from Sirius, your head dipping back against his thighs. His smile is catching. 
“Those are very nice things, Jamie, but Sirius takes good care of me too.” 
James cups your cheek. 
“I’m the one who kissed her first,” Remus says. You startle at his voice. He’d been quieter than Sirius, letting himself into the room, climbing over the arm to sit on the sofa behind Sirius. “Which was very romantic. Not sure if you remember.” 
You remember. 
“That disqualifies you from any more firsts,” Sirius says. 
“By that logic, you’re disqualified too,” James says. 
You flush and sit up properly. “I’m not marrying any of you because I’m not something to be argued over.” 
Again, you’re kidding around, but Sirius holds your arm to his side, tired enough to be affectionate. “Sorry,” he says, smiling, “I was just thinking about it.” 
You lean back against James’ legs. How lovely is that? You’re stressing over embroidery lines and he’s thinking of you at the courthouse together. 
“I’ll marry you,” Remus says, giving Sirius a nudge. “Yes?” 
“Yes please.” 
“See,” James says, “they’ll get married and we’ll get married, as I wanted.” 
“And when they’re married and you don’t get to call Remus your husband, you’ll be okay with that?” you ask. 
James frowns deeply. “Well, I hadn’t thought of it until now.” 
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gtgbabie0 · 3 months
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-Benjicot Blackwood x smallfolk!reader
{The Realm seems to have spiralled into disarray, Benjicot makes promises of protecting you}
Short and sweet because I can’t help myself, Enjoy my lovelies 💕
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The days seem much longer since the crowning of Aegon Targaryen, the Realm quickly swearing their fealty to whatever side could offer up the best deal or come across as the most threatening. Men were quick to take up swords, training all through the day and deep into the night.
Benjicot was not exempt from this, immediately following suit. Although it came naturally to him, a sword in his hand gave him a boost of confidence like you’ve never seen before and suddenly he was ready to take off into battle with an eagerness that would put anyone on edge.
It took up most of his time, unfortunately. The growing space between the pair of you was noticeable, you wouldn’t hold it against him, you couldn’t. Especially not when he visits you at the end of every day with a boyish grin and messy hair.
“Missed you today.” He breaks the silence, standing awkwardly at the doorway, watching you potter around the small kitchen.
Several moments pass and you still don’t even give him a glance, focused rather stubbornly on the task of scrubbing down the already pristine countertops. He makes a popping noise with his lips repeatedly, trying to gauge a reaction or at the very least your gaze.
With a groan he steps over to the dress you have been working tirelessly on, you have a talent for weaving threads and fabrics with your very hands, crafting the most beautiful dresses for the pretty ladies of the Vale for a rather pretty sum.
“Do not touch that with your filthy hands unless you wish to spend coin on new lace.” You tell him, turning around to meet his grin.
You have to bite the inside of your cheek to stop your lips from curling into a traitorous smile, the sight of him all dirtied and bloodied looked so out of place in the backdrop of pastel colours and the softest fabrics.
He puts his hands up in mock surrender, allowing you to tug him over to the wash basin with a chuckle that passes through his chapped lips.
His expression softens as he watches the way your gentle hands begin to wash the mud and blood from his own, so much more delicate than his, not sullied by violence and battle, no, they only knew needlework and he vows to keep it that way.
“I said I missed you today.” He repeats his earlier statement, tilting his head slightly towards yours to meet your eyes.
“I suppose I should be grateful then, Lord Blackwood.” The words leave a bad taste in your mouth, despite the fact that there was no malice behind them, but still, that doesn't stop the regret that immediately swells up inside your chest at the deflated look he gives you.
“I sense I’ve done something wrong, have I?…” he treads carefully, his eyes searching your expression as your hands carefully work to free them of muck.
You shake your head, drying off his hands as you stare down at them with a troubled look. “No… forgive me I have been rather on edge as of late.”
He hums in understanding at your words, glancing around the room, trying to think about the right thing to say, before finally looking back down at you. In truth, he has never been good at this, words, but for you, he’ll try.
“You got me and I’m better than anyone in battle, you’ve seen it yourself, I’ll protect you.” He states with so much confidence in his tone you can’t help but chuckle, it was true he became a wildly different person on the battlefield, a man possessed by the thrill.
You avert your eyes to the sword that stands, leaning up against the wall with your brows pinched together in worry. Benjicot’s hands immediately cup either side of your face with care, the feeling of his calloused hands keeps your mind from drifting off to every worst possible scenario.
“Hey, look at me.” He whispers, tipping your head up ever so gently. “If anything happens you’ll have refuge at Raventree.” He promises, his tone carrying a seriousness that he does not always have.
“You sound so sure they’ll just take me in…” You whisper, unsure if you’d be welcomed at all.
“I will demand it, and so will my Aunt, she loves you especially after you made her that riding jacket.” His words warm your heart, a soft smile gracing your lips at the memory of Alysanne, the gratefulness of her tone and the excitement in her eyes.
A warm smile spreads across your lips, his rough hands still cradling your face as if you were the most precious thing across Westeros, the pads of his thumbs caressing the space under your eye.
“Now, no more worrying, hmm?” He announces, pressing a kiss against your forehead with a smirk as you agree with a small whispered ‘Alright’
The pair of you soon find comfort in the warmth of your bed, listening to him ramble on vividly about his day, his hands moving all over the place to get his point across and for the time being everything seems to be peaceful.
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neowinestainedress · 2 months
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wave | lee donghyuck
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pairing: lee donghyuck x fem reader genre: college au, academics rivals to lovers, kinda fake dating, forced to work together on a project, smut, fluff, humor (idk), music major!haechan, music major!mc | not really requested but thank you 💌 anon for the inspo summary: your indifference toward Lee Donghyuck, also known as Haechan, becomes rivalry when he decides to sabotage you. The battle turns into a war, the war turns into a plan, and the plan, well, the plan fails miserably... or succeeds wonderfully. After all, it’s all about points of view. Or, Haechan thinks he found a way to distract you and be better than you, but doesn’t think it thoroughly and screws it up. warnings: smut, mentioned weed consumption, alcohol use, fingering, oral (receiving), unprotected sex, public sex, jealous sex, bickering, teasing, etc | inclusivity notes: reader wears different hairstyles (no mention of texture, type and color), no mention of body type (but haechan lifts her a few times), no mention of skin color, no use of y/n wc: 22.4k (out of 42k)
a/n: finally i’m back! i started this fic more than a year ago so seeing it finally come to life means everything to me. i had so much fun writing it, so i hope you’ll love it too. please, let me know with comments, reblogs (that also help reach more people), or anon. i love knowing what you think. enjoy! also if there are formatting mistakes please let me know cause i’ve been having problems posting this and i copied it without editing it once again.
masterpost (with visuals and playlist) (i can’t post the link or else the post doesn’t show up in the tags, but you can find it on my profile)
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Being number one in your academy isn’t a want, but a need.
You didn’t spend your entire life crafting your skills and splitting yourself between the books and the training room for all of that to be swept under the rug when you finally made it to your dream university; Neo Arts Academy.
Surely, with the prizes promised to those on top, you aren’t the only one with that racing passion to drive you through each day. Tons of people try their best, and even put their health at risk to reach the biggest success, but you manage to focus on yourself and keep your life in a pretty healthy balance.
You managed to focus on you… until something, well, somebody, started to come into your way.
Lee Donghyuck, also known as Haechan, his stage name —if he ever made it big in the industry he wanted to be already known.
You never paid him much attention. Honestly, you never paid attention to anybody, your only goal was to take care of your small garden and top everybody else, but when his competitiveness got the best of him, you just couldn’t push him in the back of your mind.
Apparently, his goals are the same as yours, and that isn’t a nice thing considering how competitive your world is. You first truly glanced at him during a songwriting lesson, when he huffed a bit too loudly behind you while he announced to his friend, probably named Mark, that he sucked at writing songs. However, you only chuckled mindlessly that time and went on with your day.
That was your first year there and everything went fine. Then the second year arrived and you applied for your minor degree in dance and that was when Donghyuck’s presence started to be louder. You had nothing against him, but you quickly learned he couldn’t stand you for some reason. Rumours were quick at flying around, being passed from mouth to ear and you knew them.
You simply couldn’t care.
Yet.
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Haechan doesn’t hate you. He could never do that. After all, he doesn’t even know you. But he does know something about you. He knows your name, and how it is always on top of his in any ranking. He knows you will always win the contests he wants to win so badly. He knows you are good at theory and practice. He knows he just can’t win with you.
He also knows nothing can touch you. Not because you are unreachable and believe you’re superior to others. Actually, you are very modest about all your academic success, but you always walk straight on your road with the goal perfectly in the line of view.
Haechan doesn’t hate you. Though, lately, he has a strange feeling in his body every time he sits at his desk to study and his only motivation is to surpass you. Nothing different than the first months there, he got pretty soon you were going to be a tough but nice competitor, but fuck he never imagined you would be so hard to beat. Now that after a year he never won or got the top grade and always came second after you, you aren’t motivating him, you are driving him insane.
He doesn’t have many distractions, but he has friends, some hobbies outside of university, and even a part-time job. But you? Is there something that is distracting you? Is there anything that could distract you? He has no idea, not now that he is watching you walk into the room, ready for the classical ballet history class —yes, of course out of all the minors, you had to choose his— and sit a few rows in front of him, all alone as always, taking out your lilac book note and your pen.
Haechan has no idea, but he is going to find out something that can easily distract you and push out of your path.
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You know people think of university as a moment to socialise, but being on your own has never been a problem for you. You have contacts with some of your hometown friends, and most importantly, you don’t mind doing things alone; you can go to the cinema when you want, you can pick whatever restaurant you like, you can take a walk, or stay at home.
You’ve always been comfortable in your bubble, and you’d like to keep it that way, but life has strange plans.
“Damn, always on a rush.” You recognize Haechan’s voice, but you don’t bother turning around because you’re sure he’s not addressing you. You think it’s weird he’s sitting next to you, but you blink the surprise away and grab your tablet from your bag. “Whoever put music theory at 8:30 in the morning on a Monday needs to go to jail.”
You chuckle at his comment, subtly rolling your eyes before opening the note app to go where you left it in the previous lesson.
“You write a lot.” This time you’re quite sure he’s talking to you, so your neck turns to look at him and you find him closer than you’d like him to be.
“I annotate, it’s just the essentials.”
He scans the notes quickly before scoffing. “The essentials? I don’t write as half as that.”
“Well, I think this is essential, but we all work differently,” while you’re answering him, you don’t even notice that his friend is not beside him, and you get lost in him for a second, mostly in the scent that’s filling your nostrils now that his brown jacket is so close to you.
“The professor talks too fast, how the fu— how do you get everything?” He stops himself from cursing and backs away, finally making you breathe some air that is not filled with his intoxicating perfume.
“I rewrite phrases. And, to be sure, I record the lessons, so I can re-listen to them in case something doesn’t make sense when I study them. And then I also re-write the not—”
“You record the lessons?” He almost snarls with his eyes bulging out of his skull as he, once again, stands too close to you.
“Is it illegal?” Your head tilts to the side as genuine curiosity blooms on your face.
“No, it’s… it’s…” he sighs, throwing his head back and cursing something under his breath in a tight dialect you don’t recognize. “I never thought about it.”
“Oh, well, it helps me a lot. Sometimes when I’m too tired to read I just play the lessons and memorize stuff while I do other things,” you smile, moving your hair to one side of your neck before grabbing the pen when the professor walks in. “You should try.”
“Oh, you can be sure I will.”
Haechan can’t be so stupid. He can’t believe he can be so stupid. Why didn’t he ever, ever, think about that? That’s a smart idea, better than crying and cursing when he tries to understand what he wrote down on paper when he revisits the notes, or asking Mark if he wrote some phrases he had marked down with several question marks or dots to fill —dots that he never fills.
But he’s still sure he can’t be a terrible student, he had always been on top of his classes, always aced them and his study method worked… but what if yours worked better? Given the results of the past year, and the start of this one, the answer is clear: yours do work better.
But he doesn’t think that it’s the only reason you are beating him in everything. What if you have other tricks?
Haechan is going to find out.
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You always believed your only competition was yourself. You never liked to engage with other people and fight them or fear them. But Haechan had given you no choice.
It was an open threat at you when he purposefully told you a different day to turn in an assignment when you were sick, you had no choice but to fight back.
That was when Haechan truly became your rival. He had always been, you two were always at the top, fighting for the first place and the big prizes, but now it was a matter of pride.
Haechan had officially made it on top of your blacklist, at least he could arrive number one in something, not like there was a big competition to be in there, in fact, you didn’t even have one before he pushed your last nerve.
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Fucking it up with you wasn’t Haechan’s plan, he wanted to befriend you and trick you into giving him some magic tricks, but things went… wrong. With Mark by his side, it was impossible to sit next to you. During songwriting you got up and sat on another seat in the middle of the lesson with the excuse of ‘not seeing from afar’, and he couldn’t approach you in any other circumstances. So, when you got sick for three days, he thought he could, for once, steal your spotlight.
He wasn’t sure you were sick, but he was sure enough you weren’t going to miss lessons days to study or work on projects; you never needed extra time, unfortunately, he knew it well. So the only thing that could lock you in your place was an illness of some kind. He did feel bad when you came back four days later and asked him if you missed something, he could see you still weren’t at your best, and he could’ve tried his luck by telling you the truth, hoping that the precarious state you were in was going to make you come up with a terrible essay on an instrument of the 18th century, but his eagerness got the best of him, and he lied.
So he had officially screwed his plan of getting closer to you.
“You are an asshole,” you scream, slamming the books in front of him on the table in the garden, not caring about his friends staring at you in shock. “And don’t look at me with that face of ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about’ because you know what I’m referring to.”
“I don’t, though…” he whispers, trying to keep a distance between you because you look scary —half bent on the table, furrowed forehead, pointing finger— and he thinks you are very motivated to reach over his neckline and strangle him.
You roll your eyes, groaning in annoyance. “You told me Professor Kim left an essay for Monday, I thought I could use the weekend to do an amazing job and he called me to his office because I was three days late.”
Haechan gulps, and the table goes silent, you feel his friends’ gazes on you but they are the last thing in your mind.
“Mind to explain?”
“I… I didn’t do it on purpose?”
“You have to ask me if you are an asshole because your mother didn’t put a brain in your skull?”
“Hey, take it back!” He warns with a pointing finger, glaring at you.  
“No,” you retort, crossing your arms on your chest and standing up straight. “You sabotaged me.”
“You are making things up. Maybe you should be in the creative writing major,” Haechan taunts, a shit-eating grin on his face.  
You gasp offended, clenching your fists to avoid wrapping your hands around his neck. “You — you — ugh,” you huff. “This paper was graded! And you knew it, it’s part of the mid-course work he adds to our final grade. Why would you do that to me?”
“You think I did that on purpose?”
“When did you turn it in?” You ask and when his eyes widen you scream at his face. “See! You turned it on time. I fucking hate you!”
“I didn’t answer,” he tries to defend, a challenging edge in his voice, getting to your nerves more than the look on his face.
“First of all, I can see it in your face. You’re trying to look surprised and even scared, but you’re having the time of your life because, guess what, you can’t surpass me if you don’t play your stupid games.”
He snorts offended, gulping before leaning closer. “You think I can’t beat you?”
“It’s not what I think, it’s what the rankings say, it’s what our professors say, and it’s what all the external opportunities I’ve got say. But if you want to try to prove facts wrong, bring it on,” you shrug, grabbing your things and taking a step back. “No more dirty games from now on, Lee Donghyuck. Trust me, you don’t want me to start playing them too, you might not even see the top three if I do.”
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The months to come are fire. You should keep minding your business but as soon as he opens his mouth in class you can’t press your lips together and fake it. You try, every time, but you fail.
“I just mean that the melody is what attracts people,” he argues during a discussion in the songwriting class.
You huff, shaking your head. “People care about the lyrics more.”
He scoffs loudly and the professor glares at him for the reaction but he still goes on. “People won’t listen to a song if the production sucks.”
You turn around, eyebrows pressed in a furrow. “And they won’t listen to a song if the lyrics are dumb, or tell a bad message.”
“Really? Catchy pop music is a thing even if you want so badly to maintain the purity of the art of music with only lyrical depth.”
“I love catchy pop songs, but there’s something objective in music and something subjective, if you paid attention to any of our classes you should know, right?”
The class holds back a laugh and the professor coughs, making you utter an apologize, more addressed to her than your enemy.
“Oh, trust me, I paid attention to class,” he retorts, mockingly smiling at you. “And we’re not talking about the quality but the appeal. People remember the rhythm of the song or the tune more than they remember the words.”
“And words can hold so much meaning for someone they will stick to them forever. Also, lyrics can have different interpretations and if you’re a good writer you can make one song fit for more occasions.”
“That’s dumb,” he says, looking at you up and down after scoffing. “Notes can transfer different emotions, what you said just doesn’t make sense, please.”
“Can we tone it down?” Professor Park warns, glaring at the both of you.
You nod and mutter another apology before speaking up again, “I believe that a good melody can easily attract people at first listen, but if we talk about the long run, a memorable song also needs good lyrics. And Mariah Carey herself said how being a songwriter makes your career last more, so I think it’s telling coming from one of the best voices ever.”
“I think you both make a great point,” the professor cuts the conversation off before you can jump at each other’s throat again. “It would be interesting to make a deeper analysis and maybe break down songs and compare data over time. If it was possible to keep the decorum…” she whispers the last word and you want to disappear because you hate the scene you gave. “But we need to move on with our lesson, so, as I was saying…”
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Out of all the heated discussions you had in class, the one about the importance of production and lyrics, led to your worst nightmare, working on a project with him. Professor Park was so nice to pair you together because she wanted to see how your different points of view would’ve worked in the song you had to write and produce and even if you smiled and said, ‘it will be really motivating,’ to avoid yelling at her face, now you want to die.
You’re sure the first two knocks on the door don’t even reach the other side; your hits are too weak and the small apartment in that complex is too loud for anyone to hear. Is this the environment you have to work in today?
You roll your eyes and knock again, this time making sure it’s impossible for them not to hear you. You wait there only for a few seconds and then the door opens, revealing a boy your age you can’t remember.
“Oh, hi,” he cheers, big toothy smile beaming at you. “You must be here for Hyuck, right?”
You hum, nodding and murmuring, “Yes, I have to work on a project with Haechan.”
“Come in.”
You step inside the house and look around briefly before your eyes fall on the table in the small living room; there are books everywhere, headphones on the ground, boxes of food and empty water bottles, and most importantly talks too loud for four boys that were supposedly studying.
“Mark, can you lower the music?”
“Music is what I’m studying, I can’t,” the man you know well replies. “Why don’t you keep your pencil close to you? Jesus, there’s graphite everywhere.”
“You’re so annoying, I can’t go in my room, Jeno still didn’t take down the light boxes,” the brown-haired replies, sending a death glare to the boy at his side who quickly replies to his defence.  
“Hey, I finished shooting half an hour ago and now I have an essay to write, leave me alone.”
“They’re entertaining, aren’t they?” Haechan’s voice brings you out of the haze of his bickering friends, their conversation fades in the background while your anger level rises just seeing his face when you turn around.
“Surely more entertaining than you,” you retort before taking a step forward, pretending to know where to go in that house.
Haechan rolls his eyes, thanking his friend who opened the door —Jaemin— and coming next to you. “You don’t know where my room is yet, so if you’d like to follow me.”
You trail behind him, waving at the men around the table but it’s clear that none of them even noticed your presence. Luckily for you, Donghyuck’s room is at the end of the corridor and the mess that goes down in the other room is not hearable enough to make your day a living hell.
“So, do you have anything in mind?” He asks after you sit at one of the chairs at his desk.
You shake your head, fixing your skirt and pulling out some things you might need from your bag. “Wanted to hear from you first. Since the melody is so crucial, we should start from that,” you mock in a fake-sweet tone, and you feel his glare on your skin.
“You truly are a pain in the ass, you know?” He scoffs, moving his hair out of his face, gaze fixed on you.
“And for what? Because I agreed with your theory?”
“If you have a melody in mind it’s easier to make the words flow.”
“If the melody has nothing to do with the idea, you only have some notes and not a song.”
Now that there aren’t rows of chairs dividing you, the heated argument has led you face to face, literally. And you feel your heart pound in your chest from the anger and, also because it’s weird to be this close to a stranger you can’t stand.
“Okay, Miss Taylor Swift, why don’t you enlighten me and show me what you got?”
You glare at him but he’s unfazed, holding the eye contact proudly. “My lyrics will be better than your production.”
“And are those lyrics in the room with us?”
“God,” you groan, throwing your hands in the air and your head back. “You drive me insane.”
“And you are pretentious and still never prove all the things that that little, bratty, annoying mouth of yours says.”
Deep creases show on your forehead, and you have to turn around because if you see his face for a second more you will slap him. But you want this project done, you have four weeks to turn it in, but you want this torture to be over as soon as possible, so you know you have to put the pettiness aside.
“If we want a great result and good grades, we need good lyrics and a good melody,” you say, calmly facing him again, slowly watching as his face softens. “My words and your production. I don’t care what comes to us first, if you think it can be useful, we could even brainstorm some tunes and catchphrases and then build it around it.”
“Now you’re making some sense,” he exclaims, smiling widely before patting the top of your head. “So that head is not empty.”
“Oh, seriously? I’m trying to have a truce, and you fuck it all up again?”
“No, sorry, I just think you’re really smart when it comes to college but a bit annoying when it comes to life.”
“You’re just mad you can’t beat me.”
“I can,” he retorts smugly.  
“Then why don’t you do it?” You tease, cocking your head to the side.
Haechan scoffs, lips twitching in a quick smirk before he wets them. “I didn’t yet, but are you so sure I won’t?” He whispers, breath colliding with your lips and nose brushing yours, your brain doesn’t even register his hands on your legs right away, only when his fingers caress your bare skin right above the hem you wake up from the haze of having him so close.
“Time will — time will prove us,” you say, turning to the desk and scratching your neck. “Time will tell us, not prove us.”
Haechan snickers, moving closer to see on your tablet where you opened the notes, and smiles smugly. He thinks he found a way to distract you.
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The project isn’t done in the first week, and to put a cherry on top, Professor Park decides to make it the big project for the end of the class, adding a cover for the single, a plan to sponsor it, and, if someone feels brave enough, even to record it. Even if you wanted to, a thing this big, and now with so much weight on the final grade, can’t be done in one week.
Yet, you think you’ll have to deal with Haechan only on your weekly meet-ups for that project and during lessons, you never imagined you would have to deal with him even during your library study on Wednesday.
“Why are you studying in the middle of the week?”
“You know, if I had to replicate a sound every time we start a conversation it would be ‘and now, I just want to sit back and relax and enjoy my evening, when all of a sudden I hear this agitating grating voice,’ and that is the sound that plays in my mind, actually.”
“Grating? Really?”
“Well, it’s the quote but it fits,” you reply sternly, bringing your attention back to the book. “Also, the question is not, why am I studying, but why aren’t you? How will you beat me if you don’t?” You wink, laughing under your breath. You don’t even need to see his reaction; you know his jaw tenses and his nostrils flare for a brief second every time you tease him.
You hear the chair in front of you scratch on the floor, and deeply hope he’s not sitting on it. But Haechan is sitting on it, staring at you as if he could steal the information from your brain and pass it to his.
“I am studying.”
“No, you’re not,” you reply, eyes widening when he rips a page from your notebook and a pen from your case. “So, what have you learned since now?”
You fight the urge to roll your eyes to the sky and instead run a hand on your face while sighing deeply. There’s just no way to get rid of him, right?
“You don’t even know what I’m studying.”
“Sound design,” he replies promptly, and you look down to see if he could’ve gotten a grasp from your books but there’s a paper on it and there’s not much written on it. Haechan smiles and moves to the chair next to you. “It’s because I started it too, there are too many notions, it would be a suicide to wait for the finals.”
“Oh, so you do something else other than think about me,” you tease, nudging him with your leg.
“Hey! I don’t think about you,” he replies firmly, frowning.
“Sure,” you huff, waving him off. “So, what do you know?”
“Well, all the basis we learnt last year, so the definition of sound, the path it follows, how it’s perceived based on the medium and how fast it travels through them, slowest through gases, faster through liquids, and fastest through solids, and that temperature effects it as well.”
You smile, content with the reply but you want to test him more. “What about the five characteristics of sound?”
“You think that’s a difficult one?” He asks, almost disappointed at the easiness of your question.
“Well, if you want to impress me so bad, I could ask you to list all the types of compressors?”
“You already know that?” He questions, quirking a brow, trying to think why he doesn’t remember them. “Wait, we didn’t do that in class.”
You laugh. “See, you’re witty. No, we haven’t done that yet, but since you love producing so much, I thought you knew it as personal knowledge.”
“Why do you talk as if you don’t want to do the same job as mine?” There’s a bit of annoyance in his tone, but there’s genuine curiosity in his eyes.
You shrug, pressing your lips together before diverting your gaze.
Haechan gasps. “Don’t tell me you don’t know what you want to do, yet, because I won’t believe it.”
“It’s not that I don’t know,” you reply, a low huff leaving your lips. “I’d like to try different things out, being a PR manager sounds interesting too. And I’m also pretty good at dancing, so that could be a career path.”
“It’s a shame we didn’t start practical courses, I would love to see you dance.”
“Yeah, sure, so you can mock me some more,” you groan.
He shakes his head. “No, you wouldn’t enroll in a program if you weren’t absolutely perfect at it, so I can’t come at your skills.”
“You’re so kind, I think I might love you,” you mock, moving closer to him and pouting before pushing him away with a light push on his chest and focusing on your papers again.
“And by the way, I know the characteristics of sound,” he says, right next to your face.  
You smile and think to yourself that this might be fun. “Good, go on and tell me.”
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You don’t get why Haechan’s roommate bicker so much. Not that you could lecture them when, as soon as you walk inside his room, your talks won’t be much different than theirs (worse, probably). But you think you and Haechan, at least, have a reason to fight so much. His roommates are… weird. They are close. They all are, in an annoying way almost, always moving in packs and breaking their back to meet up even if their institutes are scattered around in the Academy. Yet, they get heated pretty easily when they sit in the living room, and you can only blame it on stress as you chuckle, standing against the countertop with a glass of water in hand.
“Donghyuck left you all alone?” Jeno enters the kitchen, distracting you from Renjun screaming at his painting and Mark cursing while he tries to come up with a melody for a small assignment you decided to not worry about —you have Haechan to worry about now.
“Yep, told me to be here at 2 pm just to be in the shower instead,” you reply with a tight smile on your face that makes him laugh and scroll the black hair out of his face.
“My fault,” he explains while pouring himself a glass. “I convinced him to stay at the basketball field when we finished and he couldn’t meet up with you smelling like rotten leftovers forgotten under the august sun.”
“Creative writing?” You ask after you chuckle at his description.
“Nope, photography, Renjun’s worst nightmare.”
You laugh. “It’s because you leave all those big things around his room, right?”
“Our room,” he says, empathising on the first word.
“Okay, communism king, your room but I don’t think your comrade is happy about it.”
Jeno laughs, and hums before gulping down a sip of water. “I’m not rich yet to afford a studio so he’ll have to deal with his bestie working, sweating, and crying his way to the top.”
“You could’ve been a nepo baby and have everything handed to you.”
“Sucks not to be one. I wouldn’t even bother being in Uni, just leaving my best life with my camera and daddy’s money.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Haechan says entering the kitchen, hair still damp and casual housewear on.
“None of your business,” you reply, placing the glass in the sink and walking to the door. “Come on, we have a song to create. It could be our first Billboard number one.”
Haechan sighs, snatching the bottle of water from Jeno’s hand, briefly confused at his grinning face, and then follows you quickly.
“Are you trying to hit on my friends?” He asks, closing the door behind.
“Would you mind?”
“Yes, I’d hate having to deal with you in our group hangouts.”
“You already deal with me. More than you should since you always come to me even when we could not be together,” you say, tilting your head to the side, and sitting on your assigned chair. “Are you perhaps jealous? Do you want me all to yourself?”
“Nah, you can go and fuck all of them right no—”
“Okay,” you don’t even let him finish and you’re at the door, but he springs after you and stops you.
“What are you doing? I was kidding!”
“Why? Since when you can tell me what to do?”
Haechan groans and drags you back to your place, but he doesn’t sit just yet, he’s bent over to be close to you. “I need you here with me to work on this goddam song, and then you can go and have a gangbang in the living room, I don’t care.”
“You’d be mad you won’t be part of it,” you joke, having the time of your life watching his pissed-off expression as he stomps loudly back at his place. “Accept that you will never win with me, and maybe you won’t be so triggered every time we talk.”
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“Shit, it’s late,” you murmur, lifting your head from the lyrics you’re trying to write down. Now you got the theme —it’s a love song that you hope won’t turn lame— and even a faint idea of a tune, and while Haechan tried to get inspired by other songs and tried instruments he wants to add to the track, you worked on the words.
“Don’t you think we’re trying too hard?” He whispers, placing the guitar on his bed before standing up and stretching.
“What do you mean?” You ask, lifting your neck so you can look at him after you turn around on the rotating chair.
“Music should come to you, it should be… spontaneous.”
You’d want to roll your eyes, mostly for the spontaneous part, but he’s right. Most artists don’t think about the songs they make, the song comes to their mind when they’re not thinking about it.
“Yes, but do you think we’re doing such a shitty job with this?”
He shakes his head, walking closer to you. “Not totally, I just think that if we want to be on top, we have to work around it differently.”
You gulp when he hovers over you and grips the side of the chair tightly. “Like?”
“We should… relax. Take our mind off of it and just wait for it to come,” he glances at the desk, studying the crumpled tries you gave up on and the only three phrases you were happy with written on the tablet. “We should get inspired,” he whispers, and you’re once again so focused on his face that you don’t feel his hand on your thigh, under the long black skirt you’re wearing, it surely must’ve been on you for a while if the fabric was already crumpled up and his fingers teased the hem of your panties between your hips and stomach.
“Is — is this how you inspire people?” You ask, glancing down with a rising chest but for some reason not pulling away.
“Don’t know, I’ve never done it before,” he chuckles, slowly moving closer to your core, observing the small signs of your body. “Should we see if it works?”
You hate him. You should be working on that lyric for the last half hour you have left. You hate him. He’s making it impossible for you to stick to your ‘minding my business’ plan that had worked through all your school years. You hate him, you do, and yet you nod, humming a feeble ‘yes,’ in response.
“Good,” rolls out of his lips, and it sounds so different from his usual tone, you can’t help but feel hot.
Your nails sink in the chair when his fingers slip right against your clit after he had your consent and starts teasing it.
“So, it’s a love song…” he says, and you frown, heart pumping louder as for a second you think he led you on and you looked like a pathetic horny loser, but his hand is still playing with your pussy and his face is still close to yours. “Chose that because you have somebody in mind?”
“We literally picked it for a reason last week, you —”
“God,” he shushes you up, pushing the panties to the side and teasing your entrance, it’s already damp, but not enough how he wants it. “Can you stop being so rational for once? I know why we picked it; remember I’m trying to inspire you.”
“Wait, you really think some fingering can inspire me to write a love so—” your words shut down when he places a hand on your mouth, eyes widening but pussy leaking an embarrassing amount of cum.
He quirks a brow in surprise and, shortly after, a smug smirk curls his lips. “Oh, so you’re into that?”
You can’t reply, but even if you could’ve, you’re not sure you would’ve said anything.
“So, anybody in mind?”
You shake your head. Your love life has been anything but exciting, and after a few tries, you were sure it wasn’t what you needed to focus on, especially because nobody sparked your interest. Nobody was worth moving your focus from your studies.
“Great, so I guess that’ll have to be me.”
“What?” You mutter muffled, closing your legs and moving on the chair.
Haechan rolls his eyes in his skull, keeping you in place. “Oh, come on, you can fake it for a few minutes. Don’t act disgusted, I’m knuckle-deep inside you,” he says.
“Not yet.”
“I’m knuckle-deep inside you,” he retorts after he pushes into you with two fingers, staring right into your eyes.
You bite back a moan and a curse under your breath. “Fine, but I don’t want to think,” you say. “Just, prove it to me. If you’re good, I’ll be inspired and I’ll come up with the lyrics, if you suck, we’ll go back to our original method.”
Haechan hates that he constantly has to prove things to you, and he hates even more that he does it, almost as if he’s your dog and he has to follow your orders while you keep him on a leash. But if this will work to come up with a great song, and in his outer-songwriting-course-plan to distract you, he won’t complain.
Honestly, he couldn’t complain even if it only meant to finger you. He might want to fight you every time he sees your face but, damn, what a face.
“Shit,” you moan. You don’t want to give him too much satisfaction, but he knows what he’s doing and it’s been way too long since someone touched you like that. Damn, even since you touched yourself like that. Maybe the whole ‘staring at your goals’ was taking some funny things away from you.
“Do you want to turn the song into a Hozier song?”
You huff, you just asked him one thing and his mouth is running again doing the opposite. “You wish you were this good to inspire a Hozier type of song.”
“Really?” He taunts, pressing his thumb on your clit, starting to tease the throbbing nub in circles.
“Yes,” your voice trembles, but your face shows confidence.
Haechan snickers, quickening the pace of his fingers, watching you fight against yourself to not show how much you’re loving it. “One second of this mouth on your pussy and I’d make you change your mind,” he whispers right against your ears, hot breath fanning your skin. “It’s a shame you don’t deserve it.”
You groan, head rolling back in disappointment, and that makes him laugh.
“You have to think twice before running that mouth, babe. Especially with me.”
“Never,” you talk back, opening your eyes and regretting as soon as they meet his. His gaze is too intense, and your brain is too far gone to keep it up.
Haechan only grins, enjoying your wrecked face and the sounds your pussy is making as his fingers keep working on you. You might try to deny him, but your body is speaking to him, and deeply so are you. It’s in your eyes, and your lips trembling, and in the beautiful moans that are rolling out of your tongue.
“Are you close, brat?”
You don’t have it in you to complain, or retort, the orgasm is right around the corner and you fear he would ruin the experience if you said something out of line.
“Answer me,” he orders, lightly slapping your thigh.
“Yes,” you breathe out, biting your lower lip to prevent the whole house from hearing you.
“Good,” he replies, smiling proudly and starting to move faster in and out of you, hitting your sweet spot every time he reaches the base, and torturing your clit with his thumb. And when it’s too much for you, you come. Body trembling against the chair, and legs pushing up as the shocks of pleasure run through you.
“Acid when you talk but sweet to taste,” he hums after pulling out his fingers from his mouth and you only glare at him as you quickly try to get yourself together again. 
“It’s late,” he says, staring at the clock. “Go home and let me know if this was useful somehow. And not by replaying it in your mind at night wishing I was there with you.” He winks and you slap his shoulder hard. “What the hell!”
“I won’t come up with anything on purpose, and I swear if you keep being so annoying, I’ll be terrible at this.”
“You would never, this makes up like 80% of our final grade.” He challenges you with a glare.  
“If I go down, you go down with me,” you retort, face to face, fiercely looking into his eyes.  
“It’s not smart of you.”
“It doesn’t have to be,” you smile sweetly before it drops from your face. “It’s a threat.”
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It’s not like you’re trying to avoid him after what happened, but that’s exactly what’s going on. You don’t regret the act per se, you just can’t believe it was so easy for you to agree to do that with him. And you know he will use it against you for eternity.
A very dumb move from your side to give him the possibility to tease you even more and about something you couldn’t defend yourself from.
But if you try your best to change corridors when you see him from afar, walk quickly back to your dorm room, and sit on the opposite side in class (you fail at keeping your mouth quiet, but you need to discuss with him during lessons), it seems like he’s doing everything he can to be on your path.
“I’m starting to believe you’re a stalker,” you huff, clearly scaring him when you stop abruptly in the middle of the library and make him stop in his tracks.
“I’m not.”
You raise a brow, staring at him until he huffs and throws his hands up in the air. “Fine, fine, I was following you but only because I wanted to know what you will study.”
“Why do you care so much about what I study?”
“So I know how to beat you?”
“Isn’t it more exciting if you beat me only using your brain by putting some knowledge in it without seeing my cards?” You say, pushing a finger on his chest and making him walk backwards until his back hits the bookshelf behind him.
“I think sneaky games are funnier, though,” he whispers, hand moving to rest on your side. “Especially with you.”
You scoff, rolling your eyes, and taking a step back, freeing yourself from his hold. “The games you’re playing are not sneaky. Why are you always in my business?”
He shrugs. “Why not? So, what are we studying today?”
“We are not studying together.”
“Why? Isn’t it funny? The same study method, same hours, but one of us will be better than the other. That’s a truly equal comparison.”
You run a hand on your face and keep walking to find what you need. “If you didn’t distract me every two seconds, I would’ve already been like five pages into my studying session.”
“Oh, please, you are wondering around the library anyway. I’m just keeping you company.” His body follows yours like a shadow, his heat radiating so close to your skin that you think you might go insane.
“I don’t want your company,” you say, moving your eyes swiftly over the books in front of you as you try to find what you are looking for in the sociology section. When you finally find it, reminding yourself you have to buy it so you can annotate directly on yours, you walk back to your table, but Haechan is still beside you like a puppy on a string. “Can’t you just leave me alone?”
“I could, and I’d want to, but I can’t,” he says, sitting at your side, smiling widely when you glare at him.
“This is a useless lesson for you,” you try to dismiss him.
“Is it? Because we have the same ones.”
“Jesus, okay, fine,” you give up, throwing your head back and raising your voice enough to make some heads turn in your direction. His biggest talent is to exasperate you. “But we give ourselves a timing, and then when we’re done, we’ll have to answer five questions.”
“And who answers to them all?” He asks, there’s a taunting edge in his voice, and a grin on his face.
“Is the best,” you reply as if it’s obvious.
“Yeah, but there should be a prize.”
“Being better than you is the prize.”
Haechan scoffs, and he hates to admit in his mind that he finds your snarky remarks so fucking hot, if you weren’t in a public library and if his job on earth wasn’t to detest you, he would’ve already had you bent on the table.
“I love how you’re always so sure of being better than me.”
You snicker and send him a flying kiss. “Honey, I am better than you.”
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“Wait, I just left out a detail!” You almost scream when you compare your answers for the nth time because you can’t believe he has done slightly better than you.
“That detail is important,” Haechan replies unfazed by your indignation.
“No, it’s not. We would have the same score if this was graded,” you insist, feeling more angered than you should. It’s nothing serious, it shouldn’t be serious, but with him, there’s your pride on the line.
“But this is between me and you, so I win. Also, my phrasing in the second answer is better than yours.”
“Shut up, it’s not.”
“It is, and you just have to admit you lost,” he insists, leaning over, staring at you with a challenging raised brow.  
You swallow, eyebrows furrowing, and then you sigh. “Your advantage is minimal. And you only won a battle, because I’m winning a war.”
“Fine, Napoleon, I still won and you’re coming to my place even Saturday so we can do this some more.”
“Hey, Napoleon sucked! He lost the most important battles, the only ones he should’ve won.”
“That’s why I called you that,” he winks, clicking his tongue mockingly.  
“Oh, you think you will win the war? You’re wrong, honey, Waterloo is yours.”
Haechan laughs, standing up after putting his things in his bag. “I’m waiting for you on Saturday…” he says and before you can complain he starts singing, “Waterloo, I was defeated, you won the war…”
“Oh, shut up!” You say, hitting his arm as you push him away, but he giggles and walks away continuing with the tune.
“Waterloo, promise to love you forevermore. Waterloo, couldn’t escape if I wanted to…”
And you think that if only he didn’t try to sabotage your final grades in Music History, you might even find him funny.
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Haechan hates you.
If he was sure he didn’t before, he is sure that he does now.
He can’t wrap his head around the fact that you, Miss zero social skills, and negative 100 friends, can be so good at debating. On every fucking topic. You’re well-spoken, witty, smart, somehow it looks like you know everything about everything. And even when you don’t know (and you always specify it — which he shouldn’t find so hot, but he does) you always come up with perfectly thought theories and analyses coming from the small knowledge you have on the topic. The thing he also hates is that you never sound like you’re showing off your skills, it’s just really nice to listen to you and —when he’s not the one intervening against you— you’re the sweetest person ever and everybody in every class absolutely adores you.
He wonders if you’re a robot. Maybe you’re some sort of artificial intelligence sent there to conduct studies on humans’ stupidity, and he was unlucky enough to start a fight with you. You just don’t seem real. And he’d love to dig deeper but he doubts he will find anything relevant.
You might be smart, but you also look incredibly boring. He tried to find out if you had interests, or anything that could distract you, but his research led nowhere. The biggest problem is that he hates you, but not to the point that he wants to get you suspended from University, so he has to find another way to make you slip.
Apparently, you’re playing the same game, but even at this, you are thinking faster and smarter.
“Where the fuck are all my anthropology notes?” Haechan mutters as he looks through his library, moving books and notebooks around, thinking he has gone insane. “Mark!” He screams, rushing to the desk to search again but he knows where he left everything; on the second shelf of the small library in his room, on top of the music theory book that hasn’t moved since a week.
“Yes?” His housemate peaks from the door only with his head.
“Did you mistake our notes?”
“What notes?” Mark furrows, backing away from his friend who looks out of his mind.
“The anthropology notes,” he says, voice full of annoyance because, why does Mark never know anything? He’s in the same course and, yet, he’s always somewhere else with his head. 
“Man, I don’t even take notes during that lesson.”
“What do you mean you don’t? Ugh, never mind,” Haechan groans, rolling his eyes because he can’t believe he can’t count on anybody. “Have you seen them somewhere?”
“Nope,” Mark replies, entering the room. “I mean, I don’t know what they look like.”
“You know right we have a test tomorrow? The winter break is close, and some courses have it. You are studying, right?”
“Yeah, just not every…thing…”
Haechan rolls his eyes, shaking his head. “Why don’t you like it? I mean, I know it’s not really music related but it teaches you so much about other cultures and there’s a whole part about how music is different from culture to culture.”
“Next semester, we didn’t get there, yet. It’s a bunch of complicated terminology and theories I just don’t get,” Mark defends. He never understood why Haechan loved studying so much. He is only there for the music, and a few other theoretical lessons, but some courses don’t make any sense to him.  
“So you plan on being terrible tomorrow?”
“I just want a decent result; I don’t strive for perfection like you and your girlie.”
Haechan almost chokes on his saliva. “My girlie? Who’s my girlie?”
“That girl in class you always get into heated arguments with, and then she comes here and I’m pretty sure you make out when no one’s watching,” Mark says so calmly it infuriates Haechan more than if he was teasing him.  
“Shut the hell up! She’s my mortal enemy and while you have been paired with Yangyang for the song project, Professor Park thought it was nice putting her and me together.”
“Yeah, you can still make out with your mortal enemy,” he snorts, hitting his friend with a playful elbow hit.  
“Mark, shut up and leave, I have to study,” he tries to cut short, pushing his friend out of the room.  
“With what notes?”
“I don’t know. I left them on the shelf, and nobody entered my room since Saturday when she — Oh, my God.”
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When your name resonates in the empty classroom after you’ve taken the anthropology test, your blood freezes for a second.
“Haechannie,” you cheer cheekily, turning around and pushing your tote bag far up your shoulders.
“Don’t,” he warns, lifting a finger to stop you from starting anything. “I have to talk to you.”
“Sure, the test was easy, right? You might have beaten me this time,” you say but you have to hold back a laugh when you scan his furious, pissed-off expression.
“Yeah, if you studied, it was,” he retorts venously.  
“And you surely studied,” you say, faking innocence.  
“You can study when you have something to study on,” he says through gritted teeth.
“Yes, and you do,” you still play dumb, but when he calls your surname, you know he’s not joking anymore. “Yes?”
“Do you, perhaps, know where the fuck my notes are?”
You look around, shrugging. “Where are your notes, Donghyuck?”
“I don’t know, I’m asking you for a reason,” he retorts, plastering a fake smile that doesn’t reflect in the darkness of his pupils.
“They might’ve mixed up with my stuff when you invited me over Saturday?” You sing-song, tilting your head to the side and shrugging.
“Might’ve,” he repeats, a hint of bitterness in his tone. “It was just a coincidence.”
You shrug again, pushing your lower lip in a pout. “Sometimes… things happen.”
“And if it wasn’t on purpose, why couldn’t you just text me?”
“Because I didn’t notice,” you reply innocently, batting your lashes, knowing it will get on his nerves even more.  
He groans, closing his eyes to calm himself down before he speaks again, “then how do you know?”
“Don’t know, just making assumptions,” you say. “It turns out I’m really good at it.”
“I swear, I — I want to… I want to —”
“To what? Choke me because I got my revenge? Oh, it turns out it’s really not that funny when someone plays with you?” You mock, and in doing so you get closer to him.
“Goddamn,” he groans before your back meets the hard wall of the room and his lips meet yours in a heated kiss, his hands on your body and yours limp at your side as you’re too shocked to react. “I want to — I want to kill you, actually.”
You smirk, chuckling straight at his face. “Filled the space with the wrong letter, ‘cause you’re kissing me.”
“Maybe my kiss is lethal, maybe there’s poison on my lips.”
“Oh, you’re so romantic you’d die for me?” You coo, placing a hand on your heart.
Haechan groans, throwing his head back. “Why are you always so, so, so, God,” he curses, running his fingers in his hair. “I want my notes back, now.”
“I don’t have them,” you say, grinning because he looks wrecked. You know it wasn’t very morally mature for you, but it was only fair. Also, you know he doesn’t arrive last minute with anything, he had already studied everything and you’re sure he had answered everything on that paper, he just couldn’t revisit.
“My notes back when you pass by for the project or it’s war.”
“It’s already war,” you retort when he walks past you to leave.  
Haechan turns around, locking his gaze with yours. “Oh, honey, it can get so much worse than this.”
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You felt like testing your luck when his notes weren’t back on his desk, but you had no idea it could get worse than that, until it got.
When he deleted an essay from your computer and you had to remake and finish the work of five days in five hours, so you cancelled a project he was working on for another assignment you had. And then he erased the recording of a course from your phone, so you ripped his notebook in front of his eyes (and his roommates too). The list of petty things is long, and you’re not really proud (you’re sure not even Haechan is) of what you did, especially when things started becoming personal. You two want to destroy each other, but you are honestly just killing yourselves in the meantime.
Your book slams closed so hard that you almost zip your hands in it, and by protecting your fingers you lose track of where you’ve been. “Get lost,” you whisper bitterly as soon as you recognize the hand that did that.
“No thanks,” he replies, sitting next to you.
“I’m trying to read a book in the quiet of the library, so can you leave me alone?”
“It’s a public space, I can sit wherever I want,” he replies, leaning back into the chair, and widening his legs under the table. You know ‘cause you feel his knee push against yours and you have to retract your leg to avoid the contact.  
You glare at him, breathing deeply through your nose because you can’t make a scene here. You two almost got kicked out of a class two days ago, and that was humiliating enough. So, you think that ignoring him is the best thing you can do.
“Wow, so you have a bit of self-control and don’t talk back. Never thought I’d see that day,” he replies sarcastically to your silence with an amused grin that curls his lips.
You hold back a scream and huff loudly, “I truly need you to get fucked right now.”
“Nevermind,” he jokes, pulling a tight forced smile and you close the book again, now too annoyed to even focus on the words on the paper. “I came here in peace, by the way.”
“Yeah, your peace is war in my country,” you reply bitterly, trying to shift away but those damn chairs make the loudest sounds at the smallest movements.  
“That’s because you’re full of prejudices.”
You inhale deeply, rubbing your temple to soothe the headache you know is about to arrive. “Haechan, tell me what you want and then leave me alone.”
He smiles, happy you are finally willing to listen, before he clears his throat. “Okay so, I have to say that some of this is funny. I mean, only the debates and these random talks, but I’m not the biggest fan of all the other stuff we’re doing, so why don’t we bring it back?”
“Bring it back? As in?” You question, raising a brow in confusion.
“I liked it better when we would just compete without tearing ourselves down. If you cancel, ruin, or save one of my projects with the word boobs in it before sending it to the professor another time, I will go insane.”
You hold back a chuckle. You have to admit it was your lowest move, but it was quite funny when Professor Choi had a whole talk in class about being careful before sending out finished projects and exposed him in front of the class.
“No, it wasn’t funny,” he mutters sternly, watching you fight with all the muscles of your face to don’t break into a laugh.
“No, sorry, it was,” you defend, voice trembling, threatening a chuckle to come out. “Like Iloveboobsdemo1 is the best thing I’ve ever come up with. That could be the title of our song.”
“If you want to get expelled from all the academies in the world that would be a perfect idea,” he says, trying to be serious because seriously it wasn’t funny, but when you stare into each other’s eyes for too long none of you two can hold back the laughter anymore. “Okay, fine. It was funny, but I don’t want that to happen again.”
“So? Do you give up?” You taunt, tilting your head after placing it on your palms.
“I’m not giving up, we are changing strategies of our combat.”
“Oh, okay. You will lose anyway in the end, so if this can be more beneficial for me in the meantime, it’s fine.”
He sighs, rubbing his temples, and you chuckle. “Don’t laugh,” he whispers distraught. “I… could you sometimes at least pretend to give me some kind of chance of winning with you and not feeling like you’ll always have the last laugh?”
“I just replied.”
“No, a reply would’ve been ‘Yes, Haechan, don’t worry, we can change it.”
“Too wordy,” you comment, waving him off with a movement of hand.
“You said like ten words more,” he replies, voice breaking in his throat in a whine, but you decide to act as if you don’t notice.  
“It still flowed better. See, that’s why the lyrics are in my hands. You’re really not good with words.”
“You keep doing that,” he groans, slamming a hand on the table, attracting some curious eyes on you before you glare them away. “But it’s fine, okay, so… no more dirty games? No more sabotaging?”
“Yes, no more. Well, not like this, but we can still play a bit, right?” You ask, retracting your hand right when you’re about to hold his to seal the deal.
“Yes, but nothing weird, or you know what I mean.”
You hum, reaching out again and shaking his hand. “It’s a deal, then?”
“It’s a deal.”
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The deal somehow turns into Haechan always being next to you. He’s like a shadow, sitting next to you in class, studying with you in the library, and so on. You don’t mind him when he minds his business, but he rarely does. Especially during lessons when you need to focus on what the professors are saying.
You roll your eyes when Haechan sneaks a paper next to your notebook and you read ‘how would a dog wear pants’ with two badly drawn different options on it.
“Does it look like the right moment?” You whisper under your breath, side-eyeing him, and trying to keep your focus on the lesson. You see him nod and decide to mark the second option, thinking that he’d be happy with it, but he has the urge to hear a whole dissertation on something that will never happen, right now.
“Why?” He asks as if you’re not in the middle of a lecture.
“Not now.”
“But this lesson is boring,” he whines, poking your side with his elbow.  
You huff, covering it with a cough when you realize it is too loud, and then take a sip from your bottle of water.
“You didn’t answer,” Haechan insists, this time poking your arm with the cap of the pencil. 
“I picked one,” you mutter, pointing at the paper with your head.  
“Elaborate and change my mind.”
“You think it’s the first one?” You say in disbelief, the utter shock causing the tone of your voice to be louder than you expected.
“Any problems there?” The Professor asks, and you feel your blood freeze.
“Mh, no, nothing, my pen has no more ink, I was asking for another one,” you lie, thanking God you two are sitting far in the back of the class and the Professor can’t hear and can’t see that your pen isn’t dead at all. So, with a suspicious nod, the middle-aged man goes on with the lecture while Haechan giggles beside you.
You glare at him, and he shrugs raising his hands. “If you kept quiet, it wouldn’t have happened.”
“If you let me concentrate on the lesson instead of asking dumb questions, it wouldn’t have happened,” you retort, and he laughs under his breath again, but doesn’t ask more questions. He still ruins your notes with ugly flowers and other drabbles and you let him be because at least he’s being silent and paying attention.
“So, you really are giving up,” you say when the bell rings and the class starts emptying.
“What makes you think that?” He asks, putting his things in his bag, just like you.
“You didn’t write anything down.”
Haechan shrugs. “Why would I? I have your notes.”
“No, you don’t,” you say but before you can realize he rips the notebook from your hands and snaps a picture of the two pages you wrote. “Hey! That’s not fair. That’s my work.”
“Your amazing summarizing skills and my artistic skills. I don’t gift beautiful sunflowers to just anybody.”
“Beautiful sunflowers?” You snicker, starting to walk down the stairs, pushing the notebook into your bag as Haechan follows at your side. “If Renjun saw them he would have a heart attack.”
“Can’t compare Vang Gogh to Picasso.”
“Keep Picasso out of your mouth,” you say threateningly.
“Still, aren’t you happy you will think of me while studying?” He bats his lashes, and you hold back an entertained grin.
“Can’t wait to go through the absolute most painful ulcers every time I glance down on those things.”
He gasps offended, bringing a hand on his chest. “See, this is what happens when you spend all your days on socials and your brain doesn’t know how to appreciate real art anymore.”
“You are so annoying, and distracting. Next time if you sit next to me, I’ll push you off the chair,” you warn, and only when a colder blow of wind hits you, you realize you’re walking back to your places together.
“Right!” He says and you think it’s the good time he leaves you alone, but no, he’s not done. “You didn’t explain why the dog would wear it only on its hind legs.”
“Is it really that serious? Why do you want to know so badly?”
“It’s funny. I’m sick and tired of hearing you only discuss music, sociology, and the media and other stuff.”
You sigh. But you still have a bit to walk, so you might as well have to deal with him and his hypothesis about dogs. “Because pants have to cover your lower body, so legs, and ass and everything else. If you wear them like the first option, half of the ass is out. And also, the back limbs correspond to our legs, we’re divided in half horizontally, not vertically.”
He doesn’t reply right away, processing your answer. And you think you broke him.
“Oh!” You exclaim. “Zootopia, animals wear clothes like the second picture.”
“Really? You had a whole statement that made perfect sense and then you added a cartoon to your thesis?”
“But it still makes sense,” you argue back. “And, most importantly, I made you agree with me,” you wink before stopping when you reach your complex.
“Fine, fine, you’re right,” he gives up before looking behind you. “You live here?”
You nod, searching for the keys in the tote bag, and you think it’s time to stop pretending that’s Mary Poppins’ bag and throw away some useless stuff.
“I thought there were only rooms here,” he states, looking at the big complex a few meters away from the university.  
“There are common dormitories, and then there are some one-room flats. I got one with a scholarship when I graduated. It’s less expensive than an apartment and I get a small place all to myself.”
“Oh,” he whispers. He doesn’t know why he thought you had roommates. “So, you’re alone, alone?”
“No, you can’t come in,” you say.
“I didn’t ask that,” he frowns, offended you would even imply that. “I thought you… well, oh, never mind.”
“Yes, I’m alone, so I can do whatever the hell I want. If I want to cook, I cook. If I want to stay up all night to study, I do that. If I want to dry the clothes in the middle of the living room, that is also the bedroom and the kitchen, I do that.”
“Is it really that small?”
“It’s decent, I guess. It’s spacious enough to live in it comfortably but not big to the point I have to waste days cleaning it.”
“Maybe we could study there, no loud roommates screaming in the living room.”
“I like the mess of your place, and I’ll be there Friday.”
Haechan rolls his eyes. “Come on, I hate the library. Can’t we for once study at your place?”
“I never invited you to my studying sessions,” you groan.
“But you love it.”
“No.”
“Yes, you have an orgasm every time you know something better than me.”
“Please, shut up,” you wave him off, starting to walk away.
“I don’t care, I’ll be here tomorrow,” he screams when you’re too far, clearly running away from him.  
“And I’ll be at the library!”
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You never go to the library, to be honest, you were just unlucky enough that the washing machine thought it was the right moment to leak all over the floor and Haechan found you at home with your coat on the couch, the tote bag next to the door and your jeans half soaked as you tried to fix the mess on the pavement.
From that moment, your meet-ups become more and more periodic, whether it’s at your place, his or at the library. You hate to admit it, but the competition drives you forward, and you love seeing his face every time you defeat him somehow.
“Are you busy this Saturday?” He asks while he strums with the guitar to come up with a chord progression for your song.
“Yeah, why?” You reply, poking the cap of the pen to your cheeks, drifting your eyes on him.
“Want to go out with me?”
“What? Saturday is my day to study and do my things like I want to,” you say. It was the only day, along with Sunday, you had to fix all your notes without being wrecked from the lessons of the day, or listen to lessons while cleaning the house, and so on. You tried to squeeze everything there so Sunday could be your free day and you could dedicate it to your hobbies and to write for the magazine you worked for, nothing too serious, just some money to add to the survival costs that your parents would send you, and the monthly entrance you had when you would get called to help a dance studio downtown.
“Great, we’re going out tomorrow.”
You huff, slumping back on the chair. “No, we’re not. I’m busy.”
“You can take one afternoon for me,” he replies, placing the instrument next to him. “Come on, it will be fun.”
“Where would you even take me?”
Haechan smirks. “It’s a surprise.”
When Saturday afternoon arrives, you don’t know how to feel. You spent the whole night trying to find a positive thing about it, and the good thing is that for once you are leaving the house to do something funny —you hoped so— not all by yourself. The bad thing is that the person you are going to do this thing with is Haechan.
You try not to worry about it too much, he’s not that bad when he wants to, and he’s funnier than you’d like to admit, so maybe taking a small break from the obsessive studying and tidying, will do you some good.
When you hear the knocks on the door, you grab your coat and your bag and head to open it.
“Hi,” he says. “Anything to fix before we leave?”
“Don’t say that, they will hear you and break all together.”
Haechan laughs, briefly looking at your body, mostly covered because it’s still cold outside and you have way too many layers on you. “Toy Story for home appliances?”
“Yeah, that would be my life,” you reply, closing the door behind you and walking outside of the complex. “So, where are you taking me?”
“I told you, it’s a surprise,” he says. “Don’t expect anything big, I just don’t want to hear you nag about it.”
“Hey, I appreciate almost everything.”
“Yeah, it’s the almost that worries me,” he says. “Hop in the car.”
“You have a car?”
“Yeah, it’s right in front of your eyes,” he answers, gesturing to the space next to you.  
You turn around, holding back a laugh when you see the old blue car, it’s surely a Hyundai, you have no idea about the model, but you know for sure it’s falling apart. “This is the car?”
“Yes, I’m sorry I’m poor.”
“It will get us killed,” you say opening the door, letting out a breath of relief when the handle doesn’t stay in your hold.
Haechan rolls his eyes and sits in. “Can you don’t be overdramatic for one second?”
“I’m stating facts. Are the airbags still working? Is the oil level high enough? The battery? And the water for —” Your eyes widen when his lips crash on yours. At first, it’s a harsh attempt to shut you up, but then his lips shily go for more, moving along yours with a small flame of need.
“I won’t kill you, but please shut up,” he begs when he pulls away, sooner than you want to, later than he should’ve.  
You gulp, trying to shake the dizziness and the way his kiss made you feel lightweight. You might occasionally still want to wrap your hand around his neck but he’s quite good at being a charmer.
“I’m giving you the privilege to pick the music,” he says once you’re on the open road, the lights of the city shine against the windows and the other cars pass beside you.
“Yeah, can I connect my Spotify to the car? Oh, wait, this model from the future directly brings the singers into your backseats so you can have a live concert,” you joke after seeing the car radio.  
“Wanted to take the metro?”
You laugh. “No, I’m just… why did you say that as if I could connect the aux or the Bluetooth? It was funny.”
“Fine, you’re forgiven,” he says. “Just play it through your phone.”
You hum, already deep into the scrolling of your music catalogue. “Can I put my driving playlist?”
“You have a car?”
“No, I have a driving playlist.”
“Why would you have a driving playlist if you don’t have a car?”
“Because right now it comes useful,” you wink, pressing play without waiting for his answer.
Haechan smiles, quickly glancing at you before his attention is fully on the road. “Baekhyun?” He asks with surprise when the second song starts. “You listen to Baekhyun?”
“Everybody should listen to him,” you reply, already getting defensive because his next words could be the last straw of your ‘relationship.’
“Oh God,” he whispers.
“If you tell me you’re a hater I’m jumping out of the running car and changing the trajectory of your life forever,” you warn, turning to the side to have a better view of him.
“Me? A Baekhyun hater? He’s my father! I just can’t believe you have some sort of sense and taste.”
You slap his shoulder, making the both of you break into a light-hearted laugh.
“You scared me for a second,” you say, placing your hand on your beating heart.  
“Sorry. So, it turns out we have one thing in common,” he jokes, creases creating at the corner of his eyes as his features soften and a genuine smile blooms on his face.
You shrug. “I mean, we have many things in common, actually. That’s why we get along so badly. Maybe it’s true, opposite attracts and that’s why we don’t attract.”
“I think we do attract… proved it a few times.”
“Once,” you reply immediately.
“Twice, with the kiss…”
“You did that to shut me up.”
“I don’t shut up just…” anybody… “I felt like kissing you.”
You smirk, loving watching him struggle. “Nothing wrong to admit you find me attractive,” you tease.
“Unfortunately, your mouth ruins everything.”
“My mouth is the thing that attracts you the most about me, or else you wouldn’t keep lingering around me like bees on honey.”
“Bees make honey, they’re not attracted to it. Bears are.”
“Yeah, you look like a bear, you know?”
He glares at you, and you laugh. “Bears are cute.”
“And attracted to honey.”
“And do I look like honey?” You ask teasingly. “Wait! You always call me honey!”
“It’s a mockery honey, not a sweet honey. You’re not my honey.”
You think about it. “You’re not my honey… could be a line of our song.”
“No academy talking today. It’s forbidden. You have to forget about uni.”
“Fine, I’ll forget about it just for today.”
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The dates with Haechan, you can call them dates, right? Well, anyway, whatever they are, they become more common. At first, you tried to reject his weird, most of the time, last minute, proposal, because they would throw in the air all of your plans, but after a while, you somehow still found a way to go back on track without screwing up your academic goals.
“Why don’t you stay?” Haechan asks. It’s another Friday afternoon, and you two met up to go on with the song’s project. Much to your dismay, you have to admit you are the one who’s holding you two back. It’s like words can’t come out of you, not like you want to, at least. But Haechan’s not mad at you. Actually, you like the atmosphere around you when you lock in his room for those sessions. One time, he even made you try edibles to see if you could come up with something, but you ended up making out on the floor instead, so you stopped going for that path.
“I don’t know,” you say, huffing when you glance at the words in front of you and remind yourself that they don’t make sense. “I was thinking of going home and maybe listening to your tracks and…”
“Come up with something?” He drags the chair closer to you and steals your papers to read them. “It’s not as bad as you made it to be.”
“Yeah, it’s a good song, but it’s basic. And I feel like it’s a bit… cliché.”
“You do know that everything has already been written?” He jokes, but it’s not a teasing remark, it’s the truth, and he’s genuinely trying to lift your spirit.  
“I know, but it’s not my style, this is not how I usually write, I —”
“You write?” He stops you and only then you realize what you said. “Like, you have written songs before?”
You nod, shame pervading you when he stares at you with an expression you can’t comprehend. “Are you going to make fun of me?”
“No, I just thought you preferred lyrics over production, but I had no idea you were a lyricist.”
“Now, lyricist… I try, sometimes…”
Haechan smirks, poking your tummy making you cover it with your arms. “So there is something you’re insecure about.”
“Oh, I knew you were going to have a ball about this,” you groan, rolling your head back.
“No, hey, it’s just… I’ve never seen you like this about something you do. You are confident, usually,” he explains with no hint of mockery in his voice.
You sigh, looking at your feet tapping the ground and then look back at him. “It’s just… very personal,” you confess. “I think it’s clear I don’t have lots of friends. I used to, back at home, but here I’m alone. But even back then I’ve always felt like there was something I couldn’t completely let out. That’s why I love dancing, I can express myself in a different way, but I found out it still wasn’t enough and when I started playing the piano again I… started writing. It started almost as a joke, and it was a cheesy break-up song when my ex cheated on me, like the cheap version of drivers license,” you joke and he laughs with you.
“But it was still better than this, I guess?”
You hum, shaking your head. “Nah, my first song was a mess, but then it was like I just couldn’t stop writing, so my songs became my diary. Every time something happens, I write about it.”
He hums, moving the chair closer until your legs intertwine. “So, to write a love song you would need to fall in love?”
You’re taken aback by his question, and don’t reply right away. “No, I just need to be inspired. I’ll watch some movies, and it will come to me.”
His face twists in mild disgust as he shakes his head. “Movies are fake, it’s better to live things on your skin.”
“I don’t have time to date, and I can’t just find someone that easily,” you say laughing. “But don’t worry, I won’t make us fail. I’ll try to edit this and make it work if I really can’t come up with anything else.”
Haechan is not convinced, it’s clear in his face and the way his leg is bouncing nervously, but he doesn’t get back on the conversation. “Are you staying?”
“I have some notes to edit and —”
“You have tomorrow,” he cuts you off. “Come on, I have to do it too.”
You groan, hating the way you can’t say no to his big eyes staring at you. “Fine, but not too much.”
It’s useless to say that none of you get those notes written better.
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“God, are you fucking Professor Kim?” Haechan growls, grabbing your wrist and stopping you in the college corridors right out of Music History class, the last lesson of Tuesday.
“What?” You babble out, surprised by his angry tone and his speculation.
“No cause you’re his favourite and it’s driving me insane,” he utters under his breath, glaring at you.
“I’m his favourite?” You tease, tilting your head to the side, loving the fire that turned on between you two. It had been three calm months, the bickerings were too intellectual and you missed this.
“Yeah, I gave him the exact same answer and he found the tiniest thing to say I wasn’t right, just so he could hear yours instead and praise you.”
“Oh, poor baby boy, Professor Kim didn’t give you head pats and now you’re mad?” You pout, patting his head in a mockery gesture. 
Haechan groans, throwing his head back, and pushing you into the nearest empty class, closing the door behind.
“Haechan, what are y—”
“Shh,” he says, shushing you with a stern gaze and a squeeze of your wrist. “You passed by his office the other day, didn’t you? Needed extracurricular help ‘cause you didn’t understand something,” he mocks with a high-pitched voice. “Taught you how to play his flute in a historically accurate way?”
You’d love to laugh at his terrible blowjob-music reference but when his gaze darkens, you only chuckle, and that’s enough to drive him mad.
“God, for you is just a game, isn’t it?”
“You really think I fucked Professor Kim?”
“No, but I’m pretty sure he fantasizes about having you bent over his desk and, fuck, it drives me mad.”
“You wish he fantasized about having you bent on his desk?” You joke, smirking.
He groans. “No, I hate the way he looks at you, and talks to you, the last thing he had to do today was to call you a good girl in front of the whole class.”
Your lips curl in an amused grin, but your heart —and something else— flutter at the way he says ‘good girl,’ you try not to show it and go on with your teasing. “Not my fault I’m good, and I’m interested in his subject.”
“Your fault you lick his boots,” he groans, pushing you flat against the door, standing so close to your nose. “I know you’re smart and you don’t need to ride a dick to be first in class but…” he stops, inhaling your scent, and leaning against your forehead.
You lift his head with two fingers under his chin, and lean in, whispering, “you still want to see me bent over a desk, and you want to be the one railing me, isn’t it?”
He doesn’t reply, not verbally at least. The only answer is a guttural moan and two arms lifting you, making your legs wrap around his waist as he kisses you roughly.
“Hyuck,” you moan into the kiss when he starts walking toward the desk, sitting you on the edge.
“Yeah?”
“We can’t — we — this is, we can get expelled…”
He snickers. “Be quiet and nobody will even hear us.”
“What if they lock us inside?”
“Shut up,” he groans again, kissing you another time as his bag drops on the floor. “You drive me so fucking mad, you have no idea.”
You snicker under your breath, but your heart loses a beat when his hands roam on your thighs, moving closer and closer to your heat. “Wait,” you whisper.
“Wait, what?” He hums, cupping your chin and lowering your head, staring straight into your eyes. Haechan scoffs when your thighs squeeze against each other and he can see you gulping. “Don’t act like you don’t want this,” he whispers, leaning closer to your lips, making you believe he’ll kiss you, but you only get a taste of his thumb rubbing over your full lips, “don’t act like you don’t want me.”
“Haechan!” You scream when he rips off your tights, the tear of the fabric resonating in the room as you look down in shock. “I’m gonna kill you,” you groan but he’s not bothered in the slightest.
“They were getting in the way, and I get rid of everything that gets in my way,” he says with a smirk.
You laugh mockingly. “Then why am I still here?”
His brows furrow and a small pout forms on his face but he shrugs it off. “I’m taking care of you, I told you,” he groans, kissing you harshly. “You’re not winning the war.”
“Oh, and your military strategy is to fuck me?”
“Yeah, until you forget everything.”
You huff loudly when he finishes ripping the tights from your legs, the only pieces left the ones trapped in your shoes, and you’re glad the skirt is long enough to don’t make you freeze on the way back home.
“So much better,” he says proudly, staring at his work of art, letting his hands wander on your now bare skin. “And, now, let’s find out if there’s a way to shut you up.”
You look at him in anticipation, waiting for his next move as if your life depends on it. And you hate to be so eager, you hate you fantasized on it more than you should’ve, but you want to know what his lips feel like. And it’s almost as if Haechan hears your secret thoughts.
“What do you want, sweetheart?” He taunts, kneading his fingers on your flesh.
“Nothing,” you mutter, trying to sound more confident than what you are.
Haechan laughs at you, shaking his head as he slowly gets on his knees, looking up at you. “You are always so fucking proud and annoying.” His hands rest on your knees before he pushes them far apart, forcing you in place as you uselessly try to close your legs. He tsk, shaking his head. “Don’t act ashamed, I’ve already felt you, and tasted you.”
You don’t reply. It’s hard to keep eye contact but this is bigger than sex, this is a game between you two and, he might not beat you in class, but he’s beating you right now.
His laugh brings you back to earth and you hate the smug smirk that’s sitting on his face. “So you do get quiet, thought I needed to give you a taste of my mouth to shut you up.”
You open your mouth to retort but the stern glare that flashes on his face is enough to put you back in your place.
“Good girl,” he says and your body trembles before you can even try to hide it. “Should I get a better taste of you?” He stares at you, waiting for an answer that doesn’t come, not like he wants to at least. “Use your words, babe. You know how to run that mouth when you want to, so, beg for it.”
“Fuck, no,” you retort, trying to move away but his hold on you doesn’t give any signs of loosening up.
“Okay, then,” he says, slowly standing up, and grabbing his bag. “See you around.”
“What?” You squeal, grabbing his wrist. “What are you doing?”
“Leaving,” he replies, shrugging.
“That’s not fair,” you reply, and he snickers.
“What? Are you wet? Do you want me?”
You don’t expect that reply and struggle to find the words, even more now that he’s standing between your open legs, keeping them apart, and his eyes are staring down at you, pinning you down in place. “I don’t want you,” you lie, swallowing the gulp in your throat when his right hand sits on your waist. “I just… I want to fuck.”
“Oh, do you? Well, there are plenty of people here, I’m sure many of them would want you. You know, even if you don’t pay attention to anybody, people look at you,” he whispers, caressing your jaw with his other hand. “First on the list is Professor Kim. Don’t you want to feel the thrill? Come on, go to his office now, so I can have something to hold against you forever.”
You chuckle. “Yeah? Want to blackmail me so I can do all the essays for you? Maybe you’ll get the best grades like this,” you tease, pulling him closer by the collar of his shirt and making him groan.
He licks his lips, staring at yours, and you smirk. “I don’t need you to be first, and you know it.”  
“Do I?” you tease. “Want to be first at something?”
“Don’t,” Haechan warns, eyes darkening even more while the tent in his tight pants becomes even more evident.
“What? You can be the first one who fucks me on a desk if you quit playing hard to get.”
“I’m not playing hard to get,” he replies, leaning even closer, your bodies are pressed together and you can feel his hard dick press against you. “I won’t be the one begging, especially to eat you out,” he groans, cupping your chin unexpectedly. “Don’t act as if you didn’t think of this before. I’ve seen the way you get lost in my fingers when we study together. You see me twirl a pen in my hand and you wish I was inside you, don’t you? And when we argue? There’s always a small fragment where you lose focus and stare at my lips. Where do you want them, honey?”
Your brows furrow but your entire body reacts differently, a small shake, while wetness pools down your panties, soaking them even more, and your eyes close because you can’t bear his smug glare.
“I said,” he urges, giving a quick squeeze to your chin, “where do you want my lips?”
“On — on me,” you breathe out, voice muffled by the firm hold on your face.
His lips twitch as he leans closer and kisses your cheek. “Here,” he says, holding back a laugh when your eyes widen. “That was where you wanted them, right?”
“Oh, fuck off, you know what I meant,” you huff.
“No, I’m the dumb one, remember? You are smarter than me, you know everything. I’m always a step behind, I need you to guide me step by step,” he mocks in a condescending tone, pouting.
You take a deep breath. “I hate you.”
“Oh, I know,” he laughs. “But if you use just three magic words I’m sure you’re going to love me for a while.”
You don’t want to give up but you’re on fire, and you fear that the more time passes by the more someone could find you out.
“I’ll ask nicely one last time,” he whispers against your lips. “Then I’ll ask you to do something for me and you’ll lose my lips for the second time. Where do you want them?”
“On my pussy,” you whisper, not meeting his eyes.
“Fucking finally,” he laughs. “Was it so hard Miss big brain?”
“Stop mocking me!”
“Mocking you?” He asks, getting on his knees again before grabbing your panties to pull them down. “I might hate you but it would be dumb to not recognize your qualities, right?”
You don’t reply, you have other things to worry about. For example, your mortal enemies kneeled between your legs in an empty class of your Academy, staring into your soul, ready to eat you out.
“So, since you’re so good with words, here we go again. Beg.” Haechan craves putting his lips on you just as you do, but this is the only moment he can have some power over you. And after the humiliation of today’s class, he has to make you pay for it a bit. Or maybe he just wants to hear that even if you’d choke him and slap him, you still want him.
“Please, Donghyuck, please,” you plead, looking into his eyes.
He’d love to hear you beg for him more, but the way your cunt is dripping on the desk is already enough to tell him how much you want him, and for now, it’s enough.
When his lips come in contact with your skin your legs immediately hook around his shoulders and you can feel the chuckle on your wet folds.
“Eager, honey?”
“Just, please, eat me out already,” you barely have time to finish that he stops playing around and starts moving his mouth on you. Your head falls behind while your thighs squeeze tighter around his face. Your hands clench on the edge of the desk as you try to keep your balance, but it gets harder with every lick of his tongue.
“Keep quiet, the door is closed not locked,” he reminds you, pulling away from you just to pick up again.
You try to don’t be too loud, but he’s better than you expected and maybe this was the wrong time to try this out. You should’ve simply begged him to fuck you, but now that you’re in the middle of this, the last thing you want is to stop him.
One of your hands is brave enough to let go of the hold on the desk and reach his hair to push him closer to your body, surprising him.
Haechan always thought you were much more shy than this, honestly, he didn’t even hope much for this to happen. But you surprise him, not only you let him have you in a random class at your university but you are also pushing him closer.
“You are eager,” he muffles against you, he can’t pull away when you’re pressing him down with so much force, but the way you’re acting is setting him on fire. He loves hearing you moan and whimper, not a word coming out of your pretty lips to confront him, just bliss on your face and voice. And that pushes him to give you even more, putting his entire self into eating you out until he almost drags screams out of you, making both of you forget where you are.
You’re not sure how many minutes pass by but when the orgasm rushes in your body you feel it’s too close. You’d probably force him down for another round if you were in any other place but you don’t feel brave enough.
“So? Disappointed?” He asks, cleaning his chin as he stands up, reaching you again. “Don’t lie, you’re still dripping down the desk, you’re even more turned on than last time.”
“I’m not,” you lie. You know you are, and Haechan knows it too.
“What is it? The thrill of being caught? My skills? Just me, or something else?”
You don’t know why you reply with what you reply, but you do. “Maybe someone else,” you tease, not even sure he’ll take the bait, but he’s too caught up in you to see the games you’re playing.
“Yeah? And who’s that?”
“See, I always believed you were perspicacious and could catch details, I can’t believe you didn’t get it. You’re so sure Professor Kim wants to fuck me, ever thought I want him too?” You bat your lashes and Haechan tries to silence a groan, but you feel his fists clench at your sides.
“Don’t play with me, I’m not falling for this.”
You shrug. “Fine, I’ll still think about him while you fuck m—” he shuts you up with a rough kiss, pushing you down the desk with a quick movement that makes your heart jump to your throat.
“He’s not even that hot,” he groans, turning you around before bending you on the desk, and pulling your skirt up around your waist. “And he’s not even that old, there’s not even the charm of the dilf.”
“He’s smart,” you talk back, not sure how much you can pull your luck.
Haechan scoffs, slapping your ass. “Not smarter than me.”
“You’re not the professor so…”
“A degree means nothing,” he says, his chest pressing against your back. “What’s that you like so much about him?”
You chuckle. You’re not sure if he’s playing into your game or is just so easy to fool, but either way, you decide to keep going. “Everything. Don’t you see him?”
Haechan groans. Out of all the people, out of all the professors, he has a very personal beef with him that started at the start of the year and the way you just praise him so much —even outside of this specific situation where he got you’re messing up with him— drives him insane.
“Because he’s the best at everything? Isn’t he?”
You nod, expecting him to talk back but the only answer you get is the sharp sound of his belt being pulled away from his pants and smacked against your ass. “Fuck,” you curse, hating the way your body buzzes with pleasure at the impact.
Haechan chuckles. “I wonder what he would think of you if he saw you like this.”
“He wouldn’t think,” you say. “He’d act, fucking me like I deserve instead of wasting time like you.”
When his cock fills you up with no warning you almost scream but his hand is quicker at reaching your mouth.
“Yeah, would he fuck you better?”
You groan in his hand, but your brain goes blank with each thrust into you, pulling his hips back before he snaps them forward, so forcefully that you slide upward on the desk and he has to pull you down so that your hips don’t hit the wood.
“Answer me,” he urges, making a makeshift ponytail with your hair to force you up. “Would he?”
“I… I don’t know,” you cry out, feeling him deep inside of you, filling you perfectly.  
“You just have to test me until I snap, don’t you?”
“He seems —fuck— fitter than you.”
Haechan snickers mockingly. “Yes? You want to be thrown around? Like you’re worth nothing? Do I have to do that to make you feel good?”
You shake your head, ass perking up, your feet on their tips as you try to keep balance.
“No? Is being fucked in a class enough for you? Does it satisfy your needs?” He hisses, eyes rolling back when he focuses them where your bodies meet, your cum dripping down his length and balls. He can’t believe how turned on you are. “Thought you were innocent but look at you.”
“Not my fault you don’t catch details,” you retort with a small bit of sanity —not really— you have in you.
“Details? Or maybe you’re just an actress. Making everyone believe you only think about grades and studies and here you are, drooling while I fuck you over a desk. Begging for my dick.”
You don’t even realize you are drooling down the desk and when you’re about to clean your chin, Haechan grabs your hands and pins them in place behind your back.
“No,” you whimper, falling flat with your chest pressing down the wooden table.  
“Yes, honey,” he mocks. “I want to see you become a mess for me. Should I take a snap of you like this? Send it to Professor Kim so he can see he will never have you like this?” He whispers against your ear. “Think I don’t know it was all a play? Not only you don’t like him, but you wouldn’t risk your reputation for a terrible fuck when you have a brain like yours.”
Your pussy clenches. It’s the way his voice sounds like velvet, it’s how deep it’s hitting you, it’s in his words, and the way it turns you on that your number one rival, the one that despises you, still knows your value.
“Still, I’m pretty sure he wishes he could see you like this,” he adds, biting your earlobe. “A shame he can’t, right?”
“Y-yes,” you mumble in a pathetic wail.   
“But maybe I could still keep it to myself,” his hips start moving with more force and you can’t hold back your moans as you clench around him. “Yeah? Want me to take a photo of you like this?”
You wish you could reply but words just don’t come out of your lips, brain emptying and eyes rolled back in your skull.
“Maybe another time,” he says, breath getting ragged as he keeps fucking into you with determination. “Don’t really want to pull away to take a pic of us.”
“There — there won’t be —fuck— another time,” you reply, forcing yourself to speak.   
Haechan snickers. “The mess between your legs tells me otherwise,” he mocks, reaching in front of you to play with your clit, making you shake. “Don’t be so hard on yourself, you deserve good things, even a good fuck from me.”
“Too much,” you cry out, feeling your eyes getting wetter as the orgasm starts choking you.
“No, you just haven’t had a decent orgasm in ages,” he retorts.
“Shut up! You know —shit— you know nothing.”
“Honey, I can only imagine you playing with yourself, but your hands or toys don’t come close to me,” he says, so smugly you can feel the smirk on his face.  And you can’t even retort because —as much as you hate it— he’s right.
“Come here,” he says, putting a hand over your shoulders to pull you closer to him. “Are you close?”
You nod, biting your lower lip until it bleeds because you’re sure the sound of your ass slamming against his hips is already a giveaway of what’s going on inside this room. You clench around him when he bites down your shoulder to muffle a louder groan as his hips start moving faster as he chases his climax.
You feel your legs give up as the second orgasm hits you and you hold against the desk again because you don’t know where else to hold on to. Haechan tries to keep his curses low, sticking his face in the crook of your neck and you feel you could come again just by his voice alone; his moans the pretties sounds you’ve ever heard.
“Oh god,” you breathe out when he gently lets go of your body and you can relax on the hard surface again, squirming in discomfort when he pulls out of you.
“I hope you didn’t tear my panties apart, too,” you say, rolling on your back, making him laugh.
“Don’t move, you’ll stain the skirt, it’s the only clean thing on the table,” he says, grabbing a napkin to prevent you from making even more of a mess.
“And who’s fault is that?” You ask, glaring at him.
“You should just thank me for the orgasm, better, two orgasms, I gave you.”
You huff, rolling your eyes, but still letting him clean you up, after all, the cum was his, so it’s his place to clean it. After you’re sure you won’t ruin the last untouched piece of clothes you have, you sit up, taking your —uncomfortably— wet panties to put them on.
“So…” he whispers as he cleans up the rest of the mess on the table and shoves your broken tights in his bag, “it was just for fun, right? You have no intentions with Mr…”
You break down laughing. “You’re so easy to fool. You seriously think I’ll ever let him see me like this?”
Haechan scoffs, finishing fixing his clothes before walking to the door. “It’s not about what you would do, is if you think of him.”
“I don’t,” you reply, following him even if you feel like your legs could give up any second. “I wonder if your jealousy was also a play,” you tease, nudging him as you two walk down the corridor to leave.
“It wasn’t jealousy, you would just have terrible taste if you truly liked him, and I have beef with him.”
You chuckle, deciding to believe him.
“Wait,” he says, stopping to search for something in his bag.
“I’ll go for the door, reach me,” you say, starting to head on, you’re not even sure you two could be there at that time. “Lee Donghyuck,” you curse when you try to push open the front door. “What did I say?”
He walks toward you nonchalantly and shrugs. “Yeah?”
“They locked us in!”
He smiles, shaking his head, and grabbing your hand. “Can you run?”
“What?” You blink a few times, trying to understand how his question fits the situation.
“After I fucked you like that, can you run?”
“Shush,” you scold, fearful someone might hear, you’re not sure who since you seem to be completely alone, but better safe than sorry. “And no, I don’t know, I… why would we run?”
“Do you trust me?” He asks, reaching out his hand for you to take.
“No,” you say resolutely.  
“Good,” he smirks before he starts running into the corridors, giving you no chance but to follow him, cursing and damming every life decision that led you here, with cum threatening to leak out of you after you finished having sex in the class of your Academy and are now running to go God knows where, locked inside the institute.
“Hyuck!” You scream when he runs up the stairs and you swear you never felt so much adrenaline rush in your blood but when he looks back for a second and shows you his big bright smile with his hair falling in his face perfectly, you swear the world stops and all your worries are lifted from your shoulders. Maybe you trust him. Maybe you need to be this carefree sometimes.
Your heart jumps in your throat when he pushes open an emergency door and the mild breeze of March runs over you. You breathe in deeply, pushing into your lungs the air and the first early spring scent, letting the wind play with your hair and your clothes while your hand never lets go of his.
And then you both start laughing. Never looking back, and terribly looking forward, watching your steps as you run down the emergency stairs. You laugh, and you’re happy and you can’t believe your fingers are still intertwined with the ones of your mortal enemy.
When you reach the ground floor, hidden in the back of the palace where the sun doesn’t shine, there are still some tears spilling out of your eyes. You two pant, trying to catch your breath, and look at each other before you have to look away or else you will start laughing again.
You can’t believe you followed him blindly.
Your hands are still intertwined.
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With each passing day, Haechan is convinced he has a perfect plan. It’s all part of the original plan, but if he gets you to try out romantic things, not only will he distract you from your perfect grades but he will also make you come up with a song that will give him a perfect score.
There are some small details that Haechan didn’t even consider. Detail number 1: where this could lead you two and your relationship. Detail number 2: that while distracting you, he will inevitably distract himself. But he doesn’t get it until it’s too late.
Haechan can’t remember when you started to dress up so much every time you hang out. You always dress well, or maybe he is biased for thinking that even the most basic white turtleneck shirt and cargo pants when you are too done with life to put up your skirts, dresses, or cutely styled other types of outfits, look amazing on you. Yet, during these last few dates, you started doing more, playing more with your hairstyles, trying different make-up, and always looking perfect in whatever clothes you put on your body.
Haechan hates you. Now more than ever because this was supposed to be your silly little race to the top of your second academic year and yet here he is, feeling his heart pound in his throat as you walk toward him. With your hair in a slicked-back ponytail, a freaking heart-shaped side part, your short red dress, while the white cardigan covers your arms and shields you from the light breeze, and your red short heels tap on the asphalt and bring his attention to the white socks that reach you right below your knees, while your hand clench around a heart-shaped bag.
He hates you because he wants you too badly and he’s terrified this is crossing the lines of bland and stupid physical attraction.
You smile, calling him Hyuck and he’d love to scream because he can’t be so smart and yet so dumb at the same time. But he tries to ignore it, and smiles back at you, addressing you with your surname so he can put some distance between you. You don’t even get mad anymore, it makes you smile tenderly as you lower your face to the ground and tangle your arm with his to walk to the car. Now he hopes that the old sardine can will make you two blow up, not to kill you, but to don’t make you accept a date from him anymore.
But that old car struggles but doesn’t crash, and drives you to the restaurant safely.
“This place is so pretty,” your voice rings in his ears, bringing him out of the thought he’s struggling with since you walked out of your apartment.
“Yeah, it’s musically themed, thought it was a good idea.”
“And the dishes also have song names? That’s the best thing I’ve ever seen,” your face lightens up when you scan the menu and in reflection, he does too.
What the fuck are you doing? He curses when he catches himself lost on you, too focused giggling like a child as you catch the references between the songs and the plates. You look like a cliché embodiment of love, and he thinks you’ve done it on purpose. It’s way past Valentine’s Day, but he feels that Cupid is flying right above you, ready to play him a dirty trick.
“So? You picked?” You ask, bringing him out of his thoughts, and he shakes his head, coughing while glueing his eyes on the menu.
“Nope, I’m a bit uncertain,” he says, pretending he wasn’t just too busy staring at you a few moments ago.
You laugh, humming. “Oh, I know.”
“What did you get?” He asks, meeting your eyes above the paper in his hand.
“I wanted to get the Summer 69’ appetizer first,” you reply and he smirks.
“Are you hinting at something?”
“Oh, shut up, you perv! It just looks tasty, there are different appetizers from different parts of the world and it’s a cold start.”
“Then we can take the big one so we can share?”
“Sure,” you reply, smiling at him. “Oh, and then ‘I wanna dance with somebody’ as the main dish.”
“Do you?” He winks.
“I’m not sending you signals, I’m just starving,” you reply, rolling your eyes, but he hears the low giggle that you try to hold back.
“Fine,” he smiles. “I’ll take ‘Maneater’ in your honour.”
“I’m a maneater? Oh, thanks, the best compliment ever actually,” you say playfully.
He smiles, stopping for a second after he hands you his menu. “You look beautiful tonight, by the way.” And when your mouth parts and no sound come out of it, he thinks he screwed it up. It’s not the first time he compliments you but well, the other times didn’t sound so serious.
But then your face breaks in a smile, and your eyes light up, shily diverting the gaze as you thank him before the waitress saves you both from the embarrassment that’s tangible in the air.
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“Karaoke? Are you being extremely nice, borderline perfect, tonight so you can show me the biggest twist ever?” You gasp when the karaoke downtown enters your line of view. You’ve been walking for a while now since he couldn’t find a spot nearby, but he never mentioned where your next stop would be.
“I’m always nice to you when we go out on da— like this,” Haechan replies, opening the door of the place for you to get in first. “Also, since we’ll have to record the song soon, I think it’s time to test our vocal abilities.”
You giggle, waiting for him before you start walking to the desk to book a room.
“Karaoke is for fun, never to show off you’re like Celine Dion.”
Haechan chuckles, nodding in agreement while you reach the booth that the lady at the counter assigned you.
“Right, I’m more like Ailee, actually,” he jokes, closing the door behind you.
“Prove it to me, I always hear your mouth run to talk shit but never to sing melodies, so…”
“Should we go for a duet?” He asks, starting the TV to scroll down the songs listed.
“Nope,” you say, sitting on the couch. “A solo song first.”
“Fine,” he says, humming as the titles pass in front of your vision. “Mhh, what about Dean?”
“Love him, would love him more if he came back from the death and dropped another album of the year,” you say, sitting back to fully enjoy Haechan’s performance.
He chuckles at your comment. “This one was a painful reminder,” he says before clicking on “Instagram,” making the logo of the place appear before the countdown, signalling the beat was about to start.
You never thought you would find yourself so caught up in him but when he opens his mouth, you feel like you’re being taken to another world.
His voice sounds like honey, so raw yet so lovely. And as he keeps singing, you think that he would be wasted as a producer, a voice like his deserves to be heard by everyone. But when he finishes, you don’t show any of the emotions you felt.
“Your performance was very touching,” you say while standing up to grab your mic, “but I’m a performer, so I’ll go with Queen Britney.”
“Can’t wait to see your Superbowl worth it performance,” he snickers, sitting back against the small couch in the room as he watches you getting ready.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” you start, winking at him and swinging your hips to follow the rhythm of the music.
Haechan would love to find it as funny as he does at the start, but when you start singing for real, and moving around in the small boot, he gulps, feeling the air around him starting to dim. And it only gets worse when you turn around and start to perform for him. Of course, you know the song by heart, you don’t need to read the words, and you don’t need them to change colour to know when each verse, chorus and bridge starts.
“Oops, I did it again, I played with your heart,” you wink, tilting your head to the side, still moving your body to the beat. He can’t tell, not right at the moment, but he thinks you’re replicating the choreography. That’s the last worry in his mind.
I played with your heart.
And Haechan thinks you really did that. This doesn’t feel like a game anymore, and not even like sex. He looks at you, even right now, that you’re sensually singing a Britney Spears song, and he can only fucking smile like an idiot.
“Wow,” you exhale when the song ends, fanning yourself with your hand, “it’s really hot in here.”
“It definitely is,” he whispers, drifting his gaze from you.
“So? How was I?” You ask, head tilted to the side, and a big, bright smile on your face.
“Good,” Haechan mutters, catching himself staring at you for too long again, shaking his head, the red blush on his face is humiliating. “You were good.”
“Yes,” you cheer, clapping your hands. “Should we duet, now?”
He hums, grabbing the remote again and searching ‘duets’ in the search bar. “Sad, sexy or silly?”
You roll your eyes. “Really?”
“What? I’m trying to understand the vibe we want to go with.”
“I’ll let you pick,” you say just to regret it when you see the song choice on the screen. “Seriously? Anything you can do?”
“What? It’s fitting for how relationship,” he says nonchalantly.
“That’s a crazy choice.”
“Worried you can’t actually do better than me?” He winks, passing you the mic as the song loads on the screen.
“You’ll see,” you challenge with a glare.
One minute into the song you regret having agreed to that, not remembering the last time you sang like this, but the look on his face when it’s time for you to hold a long note for 15 seconds is worth it. And it keeps going until the end, as you both surprise each other with all the skills that this song requires.  
“Wow, you’re good,” you both say when the song ends and you break down laughing, a sound that grows bigger when the screen lights up to show a perfect score.
“Maybe we make a great couple together,” you say, laying back on the couch, tired from the singing.
Haechan turns to you, smirking and nodding. “I guess we do.”
You sit up, resting your chin on his arm. “Can you take another one?”
“Oh, don’t test me, baby.”
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“So, ice cream is good for vocal cords?” You giggle as you walk to the side of the Han River with the ice cream in hand. It seemed like Haechan didn’t want to end the night anytime soon, but you don’t feel like complaining.
“Yeah,” he hums with conviction, licking another stripe of chocolate.  
“On which book you’ve read this scientific fact?”
“The ice cream ghost came to me one night and whispered the secret to my ear,” he jokes, making you laugh.
“Uhm, yeah, I think that ghosts are much more reliable than old men in white coats in a lab,” you joke, but then you remember something you wanted to talk about since you’ve walked out of the karaoke. “Mhh, you know what I was thinking?”
Haechan shakes his head, waiting for you to talk.
“I think we’re going down the wrong path with our song,” you voice out. “Especially me. A warmer, darker, I dare to say more sensual vibe, fits us better.”
Haechan chuckles and you glare at him. “What?”
“Nothing,” he giggles, but he can’t lose against you so he goes on. “That’s the production, you know?”
You huff, rolling your eyes, and jumping on the handrail to sit. “I never said it wasn’t important.”
“Whatever,” he snickers. “So I have to scrap everything I’m working on?”
You shake your head, cleaning your hands after swallowing the last bite of the cone. “No, I was thinking about the second base you were working on, the one with the guitars and violins, remember?”
He hums, but he’s dangerously close to you, and you don’t understand why his hands wrap around your waist.
“I think we could use that and —” you gulp when he places his feet on the handrail under you and reaches your height, “and then I can change small things of my — my writing to fit more. What do you think?”
He smiles before it turns into his usual smirk. “I still think you’re worrying too much and you’re not letting it come to you,” he whispers, and the air of his breaths puffs on your lips before he erases the space between you and kisses you.
You feel your breath taken away as you feel like you’re falling behind in the river as the wind blows harder and your hands immediately leave the handrail to reach for him.
You’re not sure that wasn’t an attempted murder from him, but you can’t care when you feel your heart flutter and your legs give up as he deepens the kiss.
“Let it flow,” he whispers, kissing you again, whispering against your lips, “and the song will come at you.”
You know it’s not what he’s talking about, but you kiss him again, this time pushing him down so your feet are on the ground again. Your hands are holding tight on his sweatshirt as you pull him even closer and he does the same wrapping his arms around your frame tighter.
You find yourself in the same position in the living room of his apartment, struggling to make it to his bedroom without waking some of the others up. Not that you care much, it would be fair payback for all the chaos they make when you and Haechan are studying together.
The clothes fall on the floor as quickly as he’s on top of you on the bed.
“I hate that I have to ruin your pretty face,” he whispers, fingers deep inside your sopping wet cunt, pumping in and out painfully slowly as he stares at your face, a cute mix between ecstasy and annoyance because he’s giving you something but not enough. “The red eyeshadow looks really good on you, you know?”
You groan, rolling your head back. “It’s not time for compliments.”
“I’ve been complimenting you all night,” he says, teasing your clit with flicks of his thumb but without giving you much. “It is a shame you will look like a mess once I’m done with you.”
“We can’t be loud,” you say, hating that, for one reason or another, you two always have to keep quiet.
“Nah, Jeno has his headphones on playing games with Yangyang. Renjun has headphones on with music to don’t listen to Jeno. Mark’s not home and not even bombs wake Jaemin up.” The explanation is particularly non-sexy now that he has his fingers inside of you and it doesn’t make you relax much, but you hum nonetheless and beg him to keep going.
“Patience, honey. We’ve got all night,” he smirks.
“Yeah but —”
“Ah, ah,” he says, clicking his tongue and silencing you with a finger on your lips. “What did I tell you before? Let it flow.”
“It was different it was —ugh,” you mumble when he covers your mouth with his hand, eyes widening before they narrow to send him a deadly glare, but he only smirks. He has control now. He always does when he has you underneath him, he still has to fight with you a bit, but you both know this is the only time he can ever win against you. And tonight is special, he wants you to let go of the reins completely, he wants you brainless, because even if your brain is the sexiest thing of you —yeah, yeah, and the thing that is making his college years hell on earth— your brain is also the thing that makes you obsess over the smallest thing and doesn’t make you follow your heart so freely.
Yeah, tonight Donghyuck wants you free, but for the sake of the dirty talking later —and to fool himself he doesn’t care about you that much— he’s going to say he wants you dumb.
And he’s starting strong tonight, his beautiful, long fingers reaching deep inside you, hitting right against your sweet spot, causing so much cum to pool around them and drip down while your pussy clenches hard and your hips buck up to ride the pleasure with him. And you don’t have it in you to fight; it feels too good, especially when he starts rubbing your clit and whispers dirty talk about how well you’re taking him.
Your eyes flutter open, just in time to catch the proud smirk on his face as he stares at your body, you dare to say, in awe. It shouldn’t warm your heart, but it does. You don’t even care if he sees you like a prize he won, right now, because even if he does, you know he only fights hard to win the trophies he cares about. He wants you, he likes you, even. Between the hate and the tension, something about what attracts you two together makes this work. And it’s fine.
“Hyuck,” you breathe out, chest panting and toes curling as you feel the familiar knot in your stomach. But you don’t expect the next words that come out of your mouth. “Kiss me.” When you realize what you said, you anticipate him mocking you, your ears already hear the snicker you know, oh so well, but it never arrives. What arrives are his lips on yours as he leans down, pressing his chest against yours while his fingers keep working wonder inside you.
The kiss is passionate, but not rough like the ones you’re so used to sharing. There’s no anger in it, just need and greed, and chemistry. So much chemistry, your hands have to run in his hair and tug them, making him moan and his dick throb against your thigh.
“I want you so bad,” he slurs against your lips. “I will do some dumb shit one day for you.”
You don’t get what he means. You don’t even know what he could mean by that given the nature of your bond, but his words, mixed with the sultry tone of his voice, are enough to make you come. You barely register the orgasm, hitting you like a singular explosion of a firework, leaving you gasping, exploding as quickly as it came yet slowly running through your bones as the feeling tones down.
Haechan snickers softly. “You love it when I get in trouble for you, don’t you? Even when it’s just a promise.”
Your lips part to reply but he shuts you with a kiss. “No talking, not unless I tell you to. I know everything I need to know, your body tells me that,” he says, grinning like an idiot when he shows you his cum coated fingers, tapping them against your lips, silently ordering you to taste yourself. You would never do that, but tonight it’s like he’s commanding you like a puppet on a string, and you obey. Closing your lips around him and sucking hard.
He smirks, feeling his dick get even harder as he stares at your lips. “That’s what I do to you, pretty girl. And I’m not even started.”
Your pussy throbs in anticipation while he pulls his fingers out. You know he’s one to keep promise, and you can’t wait for what’s to come. But he’s taking too long, and you can feel his hard dick against your leg, so your hand creeps down to touch it.
“You’re not in command tonight, angel,” he says, grabbing your wrist to stop you from moving your hand on him.
“But I want you,” you whine, trying to win him with a pouty look on your face.
It doesn’t work as he pushes your hand over your head and leans in. “Patience, princess. Keep quiet, don’t be greedy and just trust me. Can you do that? Or is it too hard for you?” He groans against your ear, making your hips buck up.
“I — I can,” you whisper but he stops with a glare and your brain replays his words ‘quiet, no words from you tonight,’ and he means it. So you nod, breathing in deeply as you feel weak in the knees for the way he looks at you.
“Good girl,” he says, pushing up to stand between your legs, pushing them open.
When he slips inside you, you gasp, dragging your nails on his back. “Are you alright?”
You nod, forcing yourself to look into his eyes.
“Good, and now,” he whispers, kissing your lips, and dragging out of you, “I want you to give into me and completely turn your brain off. You have me, that’s all you need right now.”
When he starts moving in and out, your body succumbs to the pleasure. Your muscles relax as you let him take care of you. His lips trace over your sensitive skin, leaving kisses on your neck and chest. His hands run over your body, touching and squeezing every inch. And he reaches so deep inside of you that you feel you can barely breathe.
“Just like this,” Haechan whispers close to your ear, gently biting the skin on your jaw. “Don’t think about anything,” he groans, hitting you deep after pulling out of you completely. “Not a single worry in that pretty brain of yours.”
You rarely let him win, but you have to admit that the way he makes you feel, the way he can lift all the stress off your shoulders, is a talent. He knows what he’s doing, and the scary thing is that he knows how to get you. So easily wrapped around his fingers, crumbling into nothing at his tiniest touch.
You whimper loudly when his fingers press against your clit, seeing stars at the new stimulation.
“You can take it,” he groans. You’re about to talk but he traps your lips in a messy, wet kiss as he pulls you closer by your waist, hitting even deeper. “You’re a good girl, right? You can take it.”
You’re doubtful, but you do take it, over and over again. You lose track of time and stop counting your orgasms after the third. There’s no need for that. All you need is the pleasure Donghyuck gives you, fucking you until both of you can’t do it anymore.
There’s nothing left once it’s over, no strength to talk or clean up the mess, just the warmth of your bodies cuddled against each other.
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“Good morning, I will kill Lee Je — what the hell,” Renjun exclaims, entering the kitchen, making you turn around as if you’ve been caught stealing, holding the mug full of coffee in your hands and giving him a shy smile. “What are you doing here?”
You gulp, pushing your hair out of your face before coming up with a lie. “We studied too late.”
Renjun steps further into the room, staring at you with a raised brow before he tilts his head and studies how you’re dressed. You’re wearing Donghyuck’s sweater and pants.
“Oh, now they call it studying? Last time I checked you’re not med students, didn’t know music had anatomy in the program,” he taunts, grinning at you as he comes to your side.  
You choke on your saliva and don’t have time to come up with a reply because he strikes again.
“Oh, no, maybe you were exercising vocalization, it’s better when it’s done together, right?” He winks and you glare at him.
“It’s not what you think,” you lie, but honestly you feel so embarrassed about everything. You didn’t think anybody else would be up this early on a Sunday, but it’s clear you don’t know Renjun well. You could’ve left, but you didn’t want to. It was slowly starting to sink in that you didn’t like the solitude of your life anymore.
“Don’t worry, I won’t tell anybody,” he says, sitting in front of you. “Come here, don’t stay up.”
You do as told, and smile when he offers you a pack of biscuits. “I would’ve cooked something usually, but Jeno kept me up all night.”
You chuckle. “It’s fine, normally I don’t even have breakfast.”
“You don’t?” He gasps, and you nod.
“Yeah, just coffee.”
He looks down at you, shaking his head in disappointment. “It’s not healthy.”
“I know, I know, I’ll try to eat more, okay? For you.” You reach out your hand and he takes it.
A fit of cough brings both of your gazes to the door and you see Haechan stand against the frame. “Once it’s Jeno, another time it’s Renjun. I bring you home to study and you flirt with my friends.”
“Drop the bullshit, Hyuck. He knows,” you say, rolling your eyes.
Haechan’s eyes widen, but he slowly fakes indifference. “Knows what? That you don’t have time for a relationship so you can’t date him?”
“That you two fuck,” Renjun answers instead, making him cough.
“That’s not true,” he defends. “I hate her,” he says, laughing, but when he meets your eyes and sees them sadden, he feels pain in his heart. “No, no, I don’t hate her, but we’re… you know our relationship, why would we fuck?”
“Who’s fucking?”
“Not you, Jeno. Not you for sure,” Renjun says, rolling his eyes.
“Hey! Why do you always gotta be so rude,” Jeno whines.
“I doubt he’s not getting laid,” you chuckle, and Jeno winks playfully.
“See, words of a wise woman,” he brags, walking to the fridge to grab something.
Renjun sighs loudly. “A woman that doesn’t know you.”
“Would you fuck him?” Haechan asks out of nowhere and you glare at him.
“I just said that he’s hot and smart, I don’t see how he can have a hard time finding somebody,”
“’Cause he’s annoying,” Renjun answers, but Haechan’s not listening.
“I didn’t ask that,” Donghyuck says instead, his attention is all on you as if there’s nobody else in the room.  
“I don’t answer stupid questions,” you reply before sipping from your cup and drifting your gaze away.
“Wait, why are you here?” Jeno asks, only now realizing you’re not supposed to be at their place, not in the morning at least… wait… “Wait! Are you two fuck—”
“No,” Haechan answers sternly, glaring at him. “We’re studying. And it got late, so since we were closer to my place, I let her stay the night.”
“I thought you left yesterday saying you had a date, though,” Jeno says confused.
You chuckle under your breath before you feel Haechan’s hand wrap around your writs to pull you out of the room, not even giving you time to finish your coffee. “A studying date, and now drop it.”
When you reach his room, he groans loudly, walking to the closet to pick something to wear. You watch him move for a while, but then you can’t keep your thoughts inside your head anymore.
“Are you ashamed of me?” You ask and he turns around with wide eyes.
“What?”
“Am I something to be ashamed of? Do I don’t fit in the standard of the people you would usually fuck?”
He sighs, shaking his head. “No, I don’t want them to get invasive, they don’t let me live once they know something. And with you, it’s more embarrassing because of our history…”
You giggle, trying not to show the relief you’re feeling because, for a moment, you thought he was one of those types of men.
“Why can’t you ever make things easy for me?” He asks, annoyance in his voice. You have so much power over him, more than he likes to admit, and he feels like he can’t even be too mad at you about it.
“Sorry, it’s just, it’s funny having a history with you,” you explain. “My mortal enemy, always ready to steal my number ones, and my good grades.”
“You’re so annoying, you’re never sleeping over ever again.”
“Yeah, ‘cause I won’t let you fuck me ever again.”
“Liar,” he says. “And now move, I’ll drop you home.”
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you can find part two on my account on the story masterlist or haechan’s masterlist (i can’t link it because if i do the post won’t appear in the tags)
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general taglist: @froggyforhyuck, @wingsss45, @tddyhyck, @technologyculturedneo
fic taglist: @hcluvie, @gusgus0517, @multifandomania, @413cl, @odgsuji,
@hey-hey-heybitch, @nctrawberries, @n0hyuck, @haechoshi,
@girlwholoveslpreppyattire, @viciousdarlings, @hyuckmoon,
@jaeymark, @hqech, @xntlax, @milkyway-vxm, @fullsunahceah,
@beomgyusonlywife, @toroufriteh, @yesohhsehun @shxnz
@haecastor, @hyucksaint, @sk8ermark, @midnightrained
@maiteeeeesstuff, @smwhrinthehaze, @yoursyuno
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© neowinestaindress ; all rights reserved. do NOT repost, modify, or translate any work from this blog on any other platform and claim it as yours. 
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dduane · 5 months
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Hi Diane!
I promise this will end in an ask, but I have a story to share first, if you have the time.
I’m very new to Tumblr, in fact, I was moved to finally create an account to send you this message, but I’ve been casually poking around for a bit. A quick google last summer told me that Tumblr is the best place to get Good Omens news from Neil himself, but it didn’t do the courtesy of warning me just how magnetic this particular bastion of chaotic creative internet mayhem can be. This story is one example. Fun note, when I was composing this message my husband looked over my shoulder at the literal essay I’d typed out and suggested that I maybe, perhaps, might consider shortening it to the length of a conversation that could take place in an elevator. Or in line at the coffee shop. However, i’m not one sacrifice enormity for brevity.
Your post the other day regarding the cover for your novel, Stealing the Elf King’s Roses, got me thinking. First, that it was a very genuine thing to share, second, that I wasn’t entirely sure why I wasn’t immediately familiar with your work, and third, what a fun visual challenge. I was still thinking about it when I should have been sleeping, so I decided to dig in. I almost stopped reading your bio at the ‘blah blah blah’ because I was feeling quite bad about my media literacy at that point, but then I saw that you’re well-known for the Young Wizard series.
The Young Wizard series.
I said I’d try to keep it brief and this is my best attempt. I read books 1-5 of that series during the hardest, strangest, most heartbreaking time in my childhood when I desperately needed a different reality than my own. What I found in your novels was so much better than that. Your stories, your characters, your vision, helped teach me to ground myself in my strengths, frame my reality with hope and purpose, and how to build the spaces I needed within myself to find the compassion, forgiveness, joy and peace I so desperately needed. One of the things I built within myself on my healing journey was a beautiful jeweled box. It resides in my mind just off of I-335 in Topeka, Kansas. I was driving through the flint hills on a road trip from Milwaukee to Wichita when I finally finished the long process of constructing it, so that is where it stays, shining in the sun and twinkling under the stars. This box contains everything I experienced that couldn’t come with me as I grew. Crafting it was a lengthy, emotional, wrenching process, and it’s the best thing I’ve ever done to allow me to become the person I am today. I used visit it every now and again, to make sure the jewels are still bright, but I’m very careful to not jostle the lid.
I’m recounting all of this to you because two nights ago I quite suddenly found myself standing beside my box for the first time in almost a decade. I could feel the gravel under my slipper socks as I gently opened the lid to see my copies of your books resting at the very top. I wasn’t immediately familiar with your work when I saw your name because it is so inextricable from the very fabric of how healed myself, that I accidentally let your words fall under the closed lid of the very box they helped enable me to make. Nothing else clamored to be released as I carefully pulled them out, and once more closed the lid.
So, the ask. I will be brief here - I’m an artist. Not currently working professionally as I’m exploring a different career path, but I’m usually working on a personal project or two. I needed a new one and was still intrigued by the post that started this all, so to help me process the emotions described above I made a version of a cover for STEKR and wanted to ask if I could share it with you. It looks like I can’t attach here, but I’d love to post it on my new, very empty page. It truly might not be your style, but I once again found solace in a space you opened the door to and this time I have the opportunity to share it!
Also, from the bottom of my heart, thank you.
You're so very welcome! And I'm really glad the books were there for you when you needed them. (And plainly are there with you still.) 😊
And absolutely, post that cover! I'll be delighted to see it.
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