#this is all over like 4 sentences. fucking stupid academic writing. i hate it. i want to set this manuscript on fire

[opens-up-4-nobody]

I wish my manuscript wasn't shared with my boss so that I could annotate it with belligerent comments

[jamaiskookie]

Yoongi Doesn’t Romance [myg x reader]

✂︎ warnings: excessive cursing, bad writing

✂︎ word count: 6.6k (I meant to write a very short drabble… aHAHHA)

✂︎ genre: it’s.. literally just crack. Good dosing of cheesy romance and overused cliches

✂︎ A/N: it took awhile but we here!!! with a short drabble but still!!! hope you enjoy this cringey fluffy fic full of shameless jimin and shy yoongi- arguably the best yoongi

masterlist asks

✂︎ synopsis: yoongi isn’t great at expressing feelings- especially with how nervous he gets around you. alternatively titled: yoongi sucks at romance

“... and I don’t understand why you’re so hell bent on denying it! You obviously have a crush on him!” You roll your eyes at Namjoon, flicking your index finger at his forehead and watching as he flinches and lets out multiple sounds of pain, which you promptly ignored. 

“I’m denying my crush because he so obviously doesn’t like me back! He hates me, Joon. He literally detests me.” You say, jumping back onto the stained and cluttered couch that occupies most of you and Namjoon’s shared dorm. 

“And I’m telling you that you’re overthinking it,” Namjoon says, chewing on some popcorn. “I don’t think he hates you, you’re just exaggerating things.”  

“I am not!” You protest, swinging your head around to look Namjoon dead straight in the eyes. “He hates me! He practically leaps out of the room whenever I’m around.” Namjoon opens his mouth to reply, but is cut off by Taehyung, who is currently seated two feet away on a small thrifted chair. 

“Shhhhhhhh-” His eyes are still fixated on the TV screen, watching the random nature documentary playing that you and Namjoon had long ago abandoned. You and Namjoon both watch Taehyung for a second amusedly as he attempts to stuff popcorn kernels in his mouth and completely misses the mark. You’ll have to remind him to clean up the floor later. 

“But,” Namjoon whispers to you, “Literally every time you aren’t around I swear all he can do is run his mouth on and on about you.” 

“Not true!” You yell, squeaking out a quick apology to Tae, who glared at you for interrupting the segment on apes. Something about how apes can learn languages, but you’re not too sure. “Lies!” You hiss, elbowing Namjoon in the rib. 

“Ow-!” He jumps back, wincing. “Why do you always resort to violence?” You didn’t have an answer to that question, unfortunately. “And I’m not lying! I swear on my bonsai trees he always asks where you are whenever you don’t show up to stuff.” 

“Maybe he just wants to know how much glorious time he has left before he has to face me again.” You offer, tearing open what must be your third dorito family pack of the night. (It’s fine, you’ll burn it off by running to class tomorrow when you’re inevitably late once again.) “Namjoon, face the facts: he only tolerates my presence occasionally because we share a couple of mutual friends. If it weren’t for you and the other guys, he would’ve already started a  hate club for me, I’m sure of it”

Namjoon stared at you exasperatedly, before muttering something that very suspiciously sounded like ‘God you’re such a dumbass’ before taking out his phone to swipe through Tinder, not uttering another word to you. 

Despite Namjoon’s utter and complete lies, you don’t exaggerate anything when it comes to Min Yoongi. Not his hatred towards you, or how he speaks two words maximum every year directed at you, or your massive slight crush that you’ve harboured for him, or how cute he looks with beanies on, or how you almost fainted that one time you saw him playing basketball, or- well, you get it. 

The point is, you can’t acknowledge your crush on Yoongi (Even though everyone around you is fully aware of it) because he seems to completely resent you and your existence for no reason in particular. Namjoon, Taehyung, Jimin, and many others insist that he doesn’t hate you as much as you think, but you dismiss their stupid assumptions time and time again. You’d love to believe them, but the evidence and first hand experiences you’ve had says otherwise. 

✂︎

Exhibit A: He seems to avoid you on campus, or anywhere you go. This one is actually quite impressive considering the classes you two share. You’ve never seen someone go so out of their way to ignore someone they don’t like. It’s pretty commemorable. Whenever you sit in the same row as him during a lecture, he’ll move seats. One time you waved at him at a coffee shop and he just strangely blushed, and bolted out of there faster than you could say ‘rejected’. Taehyung ended up saying it, all while laughing his ass off. (You made him pay for your coffee that day.) Everytime you head over to Jimin’s dorm, he’ll just blankly stare at you two and march straight towards his room and lock himself in there until you leave. He even gulpes and swerves away when he sees you in a hallway. 

You know, that awkward thing when you’re heading the same direction so obviously you’d try and be slightly friendly and wave or something but then he’ll just suddenly turn around, navigating through the crowd of angry, late students and facing all that social pressure just so he doesn’t have to waVE BACK AT YOU- okay, maybe you aren’t as over this incident as you thought. 

Exhibit B: He won’t speak to you or touch you or interact with you in any way. Okay, maybe ‘in any way’ is a teensy bit exaggerated, but he definitely seems to find trouble when you two are left alone for some strange reason. He seems to be fine when all your other friends are around, but he just looks so uncomfortable when it’s just you two. He won’t look you in the eye, and he’ll just mutter incomprehensible sentences under his breath. 

A couple months ago you attempted to hold a decent conversation with him in the kitchen of Jin’s fancy ass apartment. After many awkward silences that you had to fill up with your timid and boring small talk, he just mumbled something and you had to watch him go into the bathroom and scream. Either he was having some really bad explosive diarrhea, or having to talk to you was just that excruciating. Apart from intense Uno game nights or when he’s under the influence of alcohol, you’ve never even heard Yoongi raise his voice!

How is it possible that just by talking to you, he feels the urge to scream? You aren’t that boring, you think-! Actually, now that you think about it, you did try and bring up sea otter fun facts as a conversation starter, so maybe that’s why he had to scream. 

Personally, you think that sea otters are the most adorable creatures to ever grace the earth, but Yoongi does seem like the kind of guy to prefer bats or something like that. 

Exhibit C: The elbow incident. This haunts you to this day, not just from the horrible humiliation, but if the two previous exhibit’s weren’t convincing enough, this was real cemented evidence that Min Yoongi hates your guts. 

You were talking to Jimin about the significance of ‘Phineas and Ferb’ in the cinematic industry, when your dumbass had tripped and caught yourself on Min Yoongi’s fucking arm (His bicep, on a completely unrelated note, was much bigger and stronger than you had thought, which was a complete other source of anxiety.) You would much rather fall on the ground and break all your bones, because the look on Yoongi’s face as he stared down at you clutching his arm like some sort of idiot, could only be described as disgust or horrified. Maybe both. You immediately let go, of course, and blabbered out apology after apology, but all he did was just stare and blink owlishly at you. 

You proceeded to blush madly and run away, hiding your face in Jimin’s chest, which was, in hindsight, not a good idea, considering how hard he was laughing at the time. (What you didn’t see was Yoongi staring from behind you, deciding to never wash the hoodie he was wearing ever again.) 

So, that concludes your argument against Namjoon’s preposterous claim that ‘Yoongi doesn’t actually hate you Y/n, it’s all in your head’ Delusional, that’s what he is. How could someone like Min Yoongi, a person you have literally been drooling over for most of your academic career, a person who single handedly has every sorority girl wrapped around his finger, even tolerate your very existence, much less be attracted to you? No, none of it makes any sense. You’ll continue to hurt yourself by being around him, despite clearly knowing that he detests your presence, and will even deny the crush you’ve somehow managed to build up for him. 

Because even though it hurts to see him flinch and ignore you, you truly do think that Yoongi is one of the greatest people to ever walk on this shitty earth. He’s caring, even if he does pretend to not care, he’s smart, passionate, ambitious, and you’d be absolutely lying if you said you haven’t dreamed of pinching those squishy cheeks he seems to hide away so often. 

If only you knew why he hated you so much. 

✂︎

All the way across campus, Yoongi was having a similar breakdown while Jimin looked on anxiously. 

“God fucking dammit!” He screamed. The sound comes out slightly muffled since Jimin can only hear what he’s saying through the pillow that Yoongi currently has his face buried in. He kicks his legs up and whines, hitting the bed with his hands. Jimin is suddenly reminded of his 4 year old cousin who threw a tantrum when she didn’t get the doll she asked for. 

“And then you know what I said, Chim?? Do you kNOW?” Yoongi’s been screaming for the past thirty minutes or so. Jimin’s surprised that nobody on campus has come pounding on their door telling them to shut up yet. 

“Please, do enlighten me.” Jimin murmurs, picking at his nails. 

“I said ‘Salutations’ AND THEN I RAN OUT THE FUCKING CLASSROOM.” Yoongi tilts his head up from the pillow and groans, scrunching his nose up at the embarrassing thought.

“At least it’s not as bad as the time you screamed in the middle of the street when she touched your shoulder… right?” Jimin offers timidly, forcing a smile on his face. An angry, sleep deprived Yoongi is already scary enough, but he’s ten times more intense when the source of anger comes from you. 

Honestly, sometimes he wonders how effective it would be if he could just lock Yoongi and you in a room and force you two to admit your feelings for once. (Until he mentioned this idea to Namjoon, who dejectedly informed him that they’ve already tried that.) ((Yoongi broke out of the room using a bobby pin and sheer force of will)) He’s never even seen a pair so smart, and yet so obliviously naive. Anyone with functioning two eyes could see the horribly obvious feelings the both of you shared for each other. In fact, for the first couple months upon meeting Yoongi, he thought that you were his girlfriend, based on how much he talked about you. That assumption carried on when he met you, until Jin told him that the two of you were just in a weird phase of dumbasses who kinda flirt. 

It’s not Yoongi’s fault that he’s so bad at having actual emotions that aren’t the tears of joy that he sheds whenever he gets free coffee from the barista at the local cafe, and it’s not your fault that your self esteem is too low to recognise that Yoongi basically worships you. 

In theory, you two are a match made in heaven. Both just as stupid as the other.

“How do you do feelings, Jimin?” Yoongi sits up from the bed, and Jimin thinks that the tear tracks and defeated look on his face is a tad bit dramatic, but he chooses not to comment on it, for fear of his own life. 

“... what?” 

“You know, feelings. How do you romance?” 

“... what?” 

Yoongi, completely exasperated, throws his hands up in the air and turns around to face Jimin. “Everytime I try to talk to her by myself it’s like I’m a fish out of water. I get way too nervous, and then she starts talking about otters, and she’s way too pretty so I obviously start freaking out! I don’t know, you and Jungkook have been dating for a year now, right?” Jimin nods.

“How’d you do that.”

“... Are you asking me how I got a boyfriend or-? Because I assure you that 85% of getting Kookie to be my boyfriend had to do with my great ass, so I can’t really help you out there- ” Jimin laughs as he watches Yoongi squeal and cover his hands over his ears. 

“Can I ask you for relationship advice without hearing about your sex life, please?” Yoongi pleads. “I know too many unnecessary things about how Jungkook is in bed.” 

Jimin decides to put his friend out of his misery. He places a hand on his shoulder, and shoots him a soft smile. 

“Yoongi, my young grasshopper- ” He retracts the hand when he sees the deathly stare Yoongi is looking at him with, but so far so good, “- there really isn’t much to it. Tell her you like her, and in the very, very, extremely small chance that she rejects you, so what? It’s not like you’re going to spend the rest of your life getting ov- ” Jimin’s voice falters again when Yoongi’s stare intensifies. 

“You don’t get it!” He complains, throwing himself back onto the bed once again. “You’re all good at this sort of stuff!” Jimin tilts his head in confusion. “You know, relationships! Talking to people! And I’m pretty sure Y/n is the love of my life, so I’m literally going to break down if she rejects me! I’m going to cry for days, I already know it!” Yoongi stares up at the ceiling, pouting at nothing in particular. 

“She’s so perfect, smart, nice, caring, funny, strong and incredible. It hurts that she’s never going to like me the way I like her.” 

“You know, Yoongi, if you never talk to her, she’s never going to know you feel that way.”

He sighs and closes his eyes, while it takes all of Jimin’s strength to restrain himself from not throwing Yoongi out of the window. 

Once he’s absolutely sure that Yoongi is fully asleep, he pinches the bridge of his nose and rolls his eyes. After a few quick taps, he brings his phone up to his ear. 

“Guys, I can’t deal with him anymore. We have to do something.” 

✂︎

“I would like to, once again, reiterate that I am 100% against this idea.”

“Shut up, Namjoon.” Namjoon grumbles something about being unappreciated, but continues to speak up.

“It’s a bad idea, Chim. Logically, there’s only a small chance this will work out in our favour, and if it doesn't, I’m at least certain that Yoongi will dislocate all of our limbs until we’re a pile of human flesh.” 

Jimin dismisses the thought. “Yoongi would never do that to us.” 

“Of course he would,” Taehyung piped up. “Do you remember the time he dyed my bright pink because I made fun of Y/n for her stupid heart patterned boots and she cried?” 10 pairs of eyes slowly looked up at Taehyung. 

“Well, that’s justified, we all want to murder you.” Taehyung gasps at Jin, who smiles back at him in return. 

“And also, you were being a huge asshole that day and you totally deserved it. The pink hair didn’t even look that bad.” Tae smiles proudly at Jimin. 

“That’s true, I fucking slayed with that pink hair. I kinda miss it, actually… ” He hums thoughtfully, scratching his chin. Jimin looks away and scoffs. Taehyung’s one of his oldest friends, but sometimes he gets a little too art-kid-college-dropout-hipster for him to handle. 

“Do you guys think I should dye my hair pink again?” Nobody answers his question. 

“Tae might be an absolute douchebag, but he has a point. We all know how protective Yoongi is over Y/n. Are you willing to potentially risk your life if this doesn’t work out?” Curse Namjoon for being logical. Maybe Yoongi killing him is a bit of a stretch, but he would make Jimin’s life a living hell if this operation ended up a failure. 

Nevertheless, he continues to insist. “Okay, what’s the worst that could happen? I physically can’t stand Yoongi stomping around the dorm because he’s emotionally incapable of working out his feelings anymore! Yesterday he fell asleep in my bed. My bed, Namjoon. For such a tiny man, he’s really fucking heavy, I couldn’t move him and had to crash on the couch for the night. If this doesn’t end up working, Yoongi will just go back home and mope around all day long. Nothing different from what he’s doing now.” 

“Um, what’s the worst that could happen?“ Namjoon asks incredulously. “How about if Yoongi finds out we tricked him, invites us to a murder mystery party, but then decides to kill us instead, and covers it up by burying our cold hard, deAD bodies in a highly unhygienic GRAVEYARD? What will you do if that happens, Jimin?“ 

“..........“ 

Nobody says anything to Namjoon, and the boys turn to Jimin once again. Shaking his head, and attempting to ignore... whatever the hell Namjoon just did, Jimin speaks. 

“Oh come on guys!” He shakes his shoulders and lightly taps his foot against the ground. “Aren’t you guys tired of dealing with these two dumbasses too?” A murmur of agreement seems to go around the group, and Jimin breaks into a huge smile. 

“Well, gee,“ Namjoon mumbles sarcastically. “Why don’t you just make a Namjoon Facebook hate group?“ Taehyung shushes him. 

Beside him, Jin and Jungkook are exchanging money, clearly for some kind of bet. What the bet entails, Jimin has no idea, but he doesn’t have the time to question them right now. 

“So, we’re in?” Everyone slowly begins to nod, all except Namjoon. Jimin beams, looking up expectantly at him. Namjoon bites his lip, and squeezes his eyes shut. 

“Fine.” He grumbles out, not acknowledging Jimin’s shouts of joy. “If this goes wrong though, you bitches better be fucking responsible.” 

“Well, I’m happy you’re all on board, because Hoseok is already here.” Jimin happily smiled up to find Hobi shuffling through the cafe doors, waving enthusiastically at him. He also decides to ignore the collective round of groans and ‘Jimin!’’s that went around the table. 

“Why did you even ask us for our opinions if you already planned this out anyway?” Jungkook hisses, awkwardly smiling at Hoseok.

“Because you guys can never say no to me!” 

“That’s only because of how fucking annoying you are, Chimmy.” Jin moves over in order to let Hoseok sit, even though he doesn’t look overjoyed at having to abandon his favourite seat. 

“Well, all of you look super happy to see me.” Hobi jokes, immediately picking up Namjoon’s milkshake to take a sip. 

“Sorry that you had to get dragged into all this bullshit, Hobi,” Namjoon says, pushing his milkshake towards him and sticking a second straw in the cup. 

“No problem! I love pissing Yoongi off!” The group slowly stares at Hobi, who is still cheerfully sipping at Joon’s milkshake. 

“Well,” Taehyung mutters. “What else do you enjoy doing in your spare time? Drowning yourself in lava?” 

“Taehyung, play nice. Some people are just special. Anyways, here is the plan for Operation: Delusional Idiots Who Need To Make Out.” 

“... Can’t we shorten that?”

“Yeah, seems pretty lengthy.”

“How about Operation: DIWNTMO? Like, pronounced as diwinteemo?”

“That’s… even worse, somehow.”

“Let’s just shorten it to Operation: Delusional Idiots.” 

Six voices, in the middle of the busiest cafe on the school campus, suddenly shout out the words ‘Operation: Delusional Idiots!’, and a cheer goes around the table. 

Onlookers wonder if they are referring to themselves. 

✂︎

In hindsight, Namjoon was probably right. But Jimin can be extremely convincing sometimes, and Jin takes every opportunity to throw a party, so maybe Namjoon was fighting a lost cause in the first place. 

He ponders what he wants his tombstone to say, while pacing around Jin’s apartment, where the party is already going on, full force. Maybe something like ‘Kim Namjoon (1994-2020) Murdered by Min Yoongi at a house party.’ Well, at least if he really does die tonight, it would be a good night for it. 

Namjoon has many complaints about Seokjin. He could probably pull up a never ending list of the girls and guys who have come complaining to him for his friend’s mistakes, screaming about how Jin broke their heart, so and so. But, even he has to begrudgingly agree, Kim Seokjin throws one hell of a party. 

It was one of those rare nights where you could actually make out the faint stars in the Seoul skyline, where the twinkling of the stars felt peaceful. Namjoon isn’t too much of a party person, but the monsters that he calls his friends go out every Friday night, pulling him along most of the time. He’s gotten used to just camping out on Jin’s fancy apartment balcony, (Seriously, what kind of college kid has a balcony?) avoiding the cheers, loud screaming and horribly unhygienic things that are happening inside. 

Unfortunately, thanks to Park Jimin and his horrible ideas, Namjoon is currently wincing in the middle of a huge crowd full of sweaty bodies. He regrets not faking a fever while he could, but it was way too late now. His job tonight was to keep Y/n preoccupied. 

“Remember Joonie, under no circumstances can Y/n see Yoongi before Hoseok completes the task. If she even sees a glimpse of him, she’s going to freak out and leave.”

His aforementioned target was nowhere to be seen. Namjoon is starting to worry that all their efforts will go to waste just because you decided it was another Friday to stay in bed and watch Disney movies on repea-

“wHOA!” Another sweaty hand pulls him out from the crowd, and Namjoon stumbles out, breathing heavily. 

“Why aren’t you out on the balcony?” 

“Why- what- oH! Y/n!” 

You stare blankly at Namjoon, who is still rubbing his arm in pain. 

“You came!” He says, with a look on his face that you can’t quite decipher. 

“What do you mean, I came? Of course I came! It was you and Jin who insisted I come, right?” You dragged him over to the makeshift bar that Jin had set up hours ago on his kitchen island, pouring the both of you strong drinks. You’ll need it to get through the night. 

“Right!” Namjoon awkwardly laughs and follows you into the kitchen, craning his neck to lock eyes with Jimin, who then gives him a thumbs up and leans over to whisper to Hoseok. 

“Y/n,” He says, patting your back when you start coughing lightly from the shot you just downed. “We’re friends no matter what, right?” 

“What are you talking about?” You cut him off, looking around Jin’s apartment. “Wow, it’s pretty empty today. Aren’t there usually like 50 people trying to get into one of these parties?” Luckily for Namjoon, who was almost sweating and about to cry trying to come up with an excuse to satisfy you, you ignored him and continued talking. 

“Whatever, it’s fine. The less, the better.” You’re still looking around the crowds when you grab a hold of Namjoon’s shoulders, turning him towards you. “Yoongi’s not here, right?”

“What? hahahHHAHAHA nO of course not!” 

“Oh okay,” You breathe out a sigh of relief. “I look terrible today, I would not be able to face him.”  

“You look great today! What do you mean…!” Hopefully you dismiss the bead of sweat trailing down from his temple. It is pretty hot in here. 

Apparently, it took multiple threats, to Yoongi’s coffee machine and lots of bargaining from Jimin to convince him to attend the party, but it seemed to have worked, considering that Namjoon could make out the dark figure of Yoongi, dressed in a black hoodie and ripped jeans in the corner of the room, chatting to Jungkook. His eyes, however, were riveted straight beside him, on Y/n. 

“They really are idiots.” Namjoon muses to himself. 

“Hm?” 

“Nothing.” 

From the corner of his eye, Taehyung is waving his arms around trying to catch his attention. He mouths something that Namjoon can’t quite make out, so he just mouths a ‘what?’ back at him and shakes his head. 

Namjoon can almost hear Taehyung sigh from across the room. 

You’re still pouring your second shot, so you don’t notice as Hoseok walks slowly from the living room. Namjoon has actually never seen his friends more concentrated on anything in his life. Even Seokjin, who was, just a second ago, dancing with some guy that Namjoon isn’t even sure he knows, has now pushed the stranger away, completely fixated on Y/n, who is blissfully oblivious to the attention focused on you. 

“Hey…!” Hoseok slowly slides in, real fucking smooth, if Namjoon could add, beside Y/n leaning on his forearm and smiling up towards her. Namjoon has to commend Jimin for the execution of Operation: Delusional Idiots. He’s honestly never seen Jimin put this much work into anything. 

Hoseok was the only mutual friend they knew of that Yoongi was familiar with, but not Y/n. Jimin said that he had considered Jackson for a short while, before realising that Jackson can’t talk to girls for shit. At least Hoseok can force his thoughts into some semblance of order when he’s flirting. 

“Oh! … Who,” You furrow your brows at Hobi, and Namjoon slowly backs away against the kitchen wall. “Are you?” Hobi laughs and spins around to face you. 

“I guess you don’t know me. I’m Jung Hoseok,” He sticks his hand out and you tentatively shake it, making him grin. “I’m friends with Namjoon.” He points up at Namjoon, and Joon awkwardly smiles, waving back at the pair. 

“Ohh,” You say, nodding. “Hi! Nice to meet you!” Sometimes Namjoon worries about you. You’re way too friendly and nice for your own good. 

“I’m a dance major, actually. You can call me Hobi, by the way.” He smiles at you and finally lets go of your hand. “Are you sure we’ve never met before?” You shake your head, murmuring incoherently. “No, I didn’t think so. I’d remember you if we met.” You giggle and push him aside playfully, offering him a drink. Hoseok accepts it with a smile even wider than the last. 

(Namjoon is now a little skeptical about Hoseok’s claims of flirting skill, but thankfully, you are, admittedly, a little stupid when it comes to this kind of stuff. You probably won’t even notice Hobi’s flirting with you at all.)

From the corner of the room, Yoongi’s deep gaze is now glaring deep into Hoseok’s back, but Hobi either seems to not notice or acknowledge it. He continues to stare at Y/n, laughing at whatever comes out of your mouth. 

“You’re a dance major? That’s so cool!” You gush, and if he didn’t know you so much, Namjoon would think that you were flirting back. No, you were just that naive. 

“- Thanks!” Hobi suddenly laughs at something that Namjoon didn’t manage to catch, but what he does catch is the look on Yoongi’s face when Hobi touches your forearm. 

Even Jungkook, who was talking to Yoongi, gulped and took a step back. Jin gestures something to Jimin, and Jimin shoots back an enthusiastic thumbs up. He then shouts something over to Namjoon, but he can’t quite hear over the loud party noise. 

 Based on his own mediocre lip-reading skills, he either said ‘It’s going well’ or ‘Jungkook smells’ He’s thinking maybe it’s the first. Namjoon slides away from the kitchen to join Jin, who is happily watching all of this unfold from the sidelines. 

“When do you think he’ll break?” Jin says, sipping on a bright blue drink that Namjoon doesn’t even want to know the contents of. He quickly glances over at Yoongi’s face, which is getting redder by the moment. 

“Anytime now. His glass is about to explode from his grip.” Sure enough, Namjoon predicted correctly. A few moments later, Yoongi begins to stalk over to the kitchen, and Jin clinks his bright blue monstrous concoction against Namjoon’s glass. Grumbling, Jungkook also comes over and slaps a $10 dollar bill into Jin’s palm, scowling when Jin smiles and accepts it. 

“Yeah, so a group of otters are actually called a romp, can you believe that- oomph!” Seemingly popping out of nowhere, Yoongi grabs a hold of your hand, glaring at Hobi. 

“Yoongi!” You squeak out. Namjoon, that fucking liar! He left you all by yourself with a new friend and didn’t even bother telling you the love of your life was in the very same room? You didn’t even wash your hair yesterday night! Well, at least someone finally listened to what you have to say about otters… say, that was a bit unordinary, nobody else has ever been interested in your otter fun facts before- 

Your trail of thought fades away when you look back up at Yoongi, who is still strangely looking at Hobi. “Um...” How is he holding you right now? He flinches away whenever you poke him on the shoulder, how is he holding your arm right now, completely unaffected? Oh. 

Of course Yoongi wouldn’t touch you willingly. He just has to be stupidly noble and moral and save you when you’re alone with a man he isn’t familiar with. “Oh, ah… Yoongi! This is my new friend, Hobi! You have nothing to worry about, I was just talking to him about otters and- oh, nevermind. Anyways, you don’t… have… to… hold my hand anymore.” Well, at least you can save him from the embarrassment of holding your hand any longer. 

“Yoongi, Yoon- Yoongi,” He doesn’t let go of your hand, even when you attempt to slip yours out of his. He seems to be gripping on, for a reason you can’t seem to comprehend. All he’s doing right now is maintaining eye contact with Hobi. Instead, he just glares into his eyes, repeating your words. 

“Friends. Friends?” 

“Yes, friends! Oh, ah, let me introduce you, um, Hobi, this is Yoongi, and Yoongi, this is-”

“Jung Hoseok. You call him Hobi?” 

“Well, yes- oh! Do you two know each other, or?” 

“Of course!” Hobi says, pouring another drink out. He stretches out his arm and offers the glass to Yoongi, but all he does is stare at the glass, not moving an inch. Still smiling brightly, Hobi just brought the glass to his lips, sipping on two separate drinks at a time. 

“Long time no see, man! Yoongi, how’ve you been?” Yoongi, still clutching onto your hand, stayed silent for a while, all while Hobi continued to smile. 

“I’m… fine.” He eventually chokes out. 

“Yoongi, are you okay? You seem really-” You’re once again interrupted when Yoongi pulls you away, stomping out the kitchen. You lean backwards, yelling out a quick apology to Hobi, but he doesn’t seem affected in the slightest. 

“Yoongi, you’re being rude! I said you don’t have to worry! Hobi is a new friend I met, he’s a friend of Namjoon’s, and we were just talking about otters-” 

“Why are you defending yourself?” Boy, you just keep on getting interrupted tonight. 

“Wha- huh?” Yoongi finally lets your hand go when he reaches the apartment door, shutting it closed, leaving it swinging in midair, even though he regretted it immediately after. You can still faintly hear the party going on through the door, but you had no time to process the fact that Yoongi just pulled you outside the party when he spoke up again. 

“I said, why are you defending yourself like that? You have no reason to. You’re acting like I just caught you cheating.” Yoongi’s voice turns faint towards the end of his sentence, and he looks down at his feet, stuffing his hands into his hoodie pockets. 

“I’m not defending myself! I’m just- I’m just, well, I-” You fumbled with your words, stuttering and fidgeting around with your fingers. Why were you defending yourself? It’s not like… Yeah, it’s not like you’re his girlfriend or anything. 

“You can talk about otters to whoever you want. You might want to change up your flirting tactics though, not many people can put up with your strange obsession with otters-”

“hEY!”

“- Anyways, Hoseok’s, not a bad man. He’s pretty great, actually,” Yoongi admits. “He’ll treat you well. And he seems to be super interested in you, so… ” Yoongi clears his throat. You narrow your eyes and look down at his shuffling feet. This is probably the most Yoongi has ever spoken to you, in private, anyway. Why is he so unbothered? And why does that bother you so much? He doesn’t even care a little bit? Does Hobi really seem like such a great guy? 

“You don’t care?” 

“No, just, you know, don’t get hurt, or whatever. I’ll have to murder him… Or something.” You let out a small laugh, but he doesn’t seem to be joking.  

“So, if I go straight back in and ask Hobi out, you wouldn’t mind?” You swear that a vein pops out from Yoongi’s neck, but perhaps it was just your imagination. 

“Why would I mind?” He says, through clenched teeth. 

“... You’re right. Why would you be mad? You don’t care about me anyways.” Something ticks in Yoongi’s jaw. 

“What do you mean I don’t care for you?” He blurts out, just as you were about to head back through the apartment door. 

“Oh no, please, it doesn’t bother me as much now, trust me. It’s fine, Some people just don’t… vibe with you, I get it! You don’t like me all that much, it’s okay! It’s not like you’ve hurt me or anything! You just don’t like talking to me because I’m kind of a dumbass, that’s alright. It’s okay to keep avoiding me. And again, I’m sorry for the whole elbow thing, you didn’t talk to me for like the next two weeks, and again, I totally understand, you know?” Yoongi stares at you, blinking in realisation. 

“So… you mean to tell me that all this time, you’ve thought that… I didn’t like you?”

“Well,” Now you’re blinking confusedly along with him. “Isn’t that… why you run away everytime I come over to hangout with Jimin?” Yoongi brings his hands out of his pockets and buries his face in them, groaning. 

“And that’s why you don’t like talking to me, right? And that one time I spoke to you and you went into the bathroom and screamed for like five minutes? … Do you not hate me?” A look of realisation floods his eyes, and Yoongi leans against the wall, slowly sinking down to the ground until he’s practically sprawled out on the floor. Staring aimlessly, he reaches up and grabs your hand again, pulling you down to face him. You let out a small squeak, but you crouch down on your feet, awkwardly looking at your right hand that Yoongi (!!!) is currently holding for the second (!!!!) time. 

“Forgive me, Y/n.” He whispers, dropping his head onto your hand. 

“Forgive you? What for? Yoongi this is a little dramatic, don’t you think? This is technically a public area, um, maybe you wanna go back to your dorm? I can call Jimin out here, I’m sure he’ll leave the party early, let me just-” He pulls you back and won’t let go, even when you try to stand and leave his grip. 

“Yoongi!” Like a child clutching onto his mother, he just sits there and pouts, not letting your hand go. 

“I’m sorry!” He wails, lightly kicking his feet up. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry for being my emo self and avoiding you, I’m sorry for making you think I hate you when that really isn’t the case at all, I’m sorry for being an idiot and screaming whenever you touched me, I promise that none of that was ever your fault, because you must have felt so hurt and disgusted by me-” Yoongi suddenly looks up and glares at you. 

“Yah! Why didn’t you just slap me!”

“Slap… you?”

“Yes, slap some sense into me, you idiot! I was so mean to you, why didn’t you just tell me you were hurt?” 

“Well,” You said, smiling nervously. “I wasn’t hurt!”

“Yes you were!” He wails again. Some sort of strangled noise comes from the back of his throat. “You must’ve been really hurt, and I’m sorry! I don’t want you to be hurt! I don’t want you to date Hobi, and I don’t want to lose you, because I’m selfish, and I’m fucking stupid!”

You speechlessly opened your mouth and closed it again, like a fish. Well, that was a full 180. What is he talking about? Apologising? You had dealt with the uncomfortable small talk and denying your feelings for years only to have him apologise now? You finally manage to open your mouth and firmly say something, but what comes out of your mouth is certainly not what you planned to say. 

“Min Yoongi!” You yelled and watched him slightly tilt his head up. “How could you say that now!?” His head is fully up now, gazing at you slightly dazed. “How dare you mess with my feelings for the past two years, just to completely, unexpectedly, blurt all of this out outside of Seokjin’s shitty house party?” You cry, slouching down onto the ground and sitting cross legged. Your unoccupied hand reaches up to your hair, frustratingly running your hand through your messy locks. 

“... If it counts for anything, I think that your obsession with otters is really cute.” You sniffle, for no particular reason, and nod. 

“... Does that mean you like me then?”

“Y/n,” Yoongi sighs, taking your other hand out of your hair and placing it into his own. “Isn’t that obvious, you fucking dumbass?” 

“You’re kinda giving off mixed signals here.” Yoongi squishes your cheeks together in a brave act from an unusual burst of courage that he managed to somehow build up. 

“Y/n,” 

“Mmph- Yesh?” 

“I like you. I like you a lot. I’m sorry for being a dumbass who couldn’t ask you out, and I’m sorry I had to do this at Seokjin’s ‘shitty house party’, but I’d really like it if you would go on a date with me sometime.” 

Yoongi releases your cheeks from his grip when you stay silent for a small while, red slowly creeping up from the neck up to his ears. 

“I mean, you know, only if you want to, it’d be fine if all of that was just, you know… ” Yoongi mutters, gesturing around randomly. 

“I’d love to go on a date with you, Yoongi.” 

“Oh. Cool, that’s cool. That’s… yeah that’s cool.” 

“Text me the details?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll, I’ll do- I’ll do that.” 

You can hear a faint scream when you enter Seokjin’s apartment again, but instead of filling you with the insecure, horrible feeling like it once did, you just smile and giggle to yourself again. What you don’t seem to notice is Jimin, Jin, Joon, Tae, Jungkook and Hobi exchanging victorious glances across the room. 

(About a week later, Yoongi took you to the zoo for your date. He slightly regretted that decision after you spent an hour making faces at the otters.) 

[itsaudreyhornebitch]

Kastle College Professors AU Part 3

           (A/N: IDK why Tumblr wouldn’t let me indent some paragraphs, so sorry for the wonky formatting. Let me know what you think! Also I am unbeta’d, so sorry for any dumb editing mistakes I missed.)

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Epilogue 

READ ON AO3 HERE

 The first phone call had come three days after the staff mixer. Frank had assumed it was a wrong number—a squirrely kid calling to thank him for volunteering to be interviewed for some kind of project, and asking for the best time to set up a meeting. He’d politely responded that he had no idea what the kid was talking about, and hung up.

            The second call had come while he was sitting in the office across from Karen. Ostensibly, he was meant to be focusing on his work, though in reality he had spent the better part of his afternoon distracted by the way his officemate kept tying her hair up and letting it down again—a nervous habit she took up whenever she was stuck with her writing. He’d observed Karen gather up all that golden hair in a bun, only to release it to drape down her back again, ten times in a row. Watching her, he’d felt the pull of something deep and warm in his stomach—it was the pale and delicate arch of her neck, the way her top button gaped to reveal the dip of her collarbone every time she lifted her arms, the little sigh that left her lips every time she brought them down again. It was heady stuff.

            When the phone had rung, he’d been almost embarrassingly jostled out of his contemplation of her. His brow had furrowed when he’d heard a different voice giving him the same spiel as the first caller—“thank you for volunteering to sit for an interview with a student from Journalism 101; I am calling to set up a time to meet for a brief get-to-know-you session.” Again—albeit a little more gruffly this time—he’d responded that he had no idea what the hell the kid was talking about, and hung up.

            He should have known, from the way Karen watched the exchange with such interest—her eyes alight with something akin to mischief (which Frank mistook for her standard curiosity). He should have known when she tilted her head, a smile pulling at the corner of her mouth, and asked, with all the innocence in the world, what the phone call was about. He should have known. But he didn’t, because he was too busy thinking about how damn nice it felt when she looked at him that way—with that intense and penetrating attention.

            No—it didn’t dawn on him until the fifteenth phone call, when he stopped himself from hanging up the second he heard the beginning of the pitch (it was obvious all these callers were reading from the same script). Instead, he’d finally just come out and asked “what the fuck are you going on about?”

            As soon as the freshman on the other end of the line—Randy, apparently—had explained that Frank’s name and number were listed on a spreadsheet of volunteers to be interviewed for a project by beginning journalism students, Frank knew exactly how it had ended up there.

Karen.

He would have laughed out loud, but didn’t want to give Randy the impression that he found any part of their conversation entertaining.

Randy had also explained that the volunteer spreadsheet had been sent out to all of the participating students. And after the second time Frank had hung up on a kid, the students had made it into a little challenge, seeing who could call and actually get him to sit for an interview. They even had a sizable pool going to see how many seconds they could keep him on the line before he hung up. So far, Randy told him, their conversation had everyone else beat by miles.

Frank had sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose in annoyance at what he was about to do. Cutting off a jittery-sounding Randy, who had been rambling about supporting growing students in their quest for knowledge, Frank agreed to the interview. In some strange way, it was his idea of being noble; of being a good sport. His prank had wasted two hours of Karen’s life, so he’d let hers waste two hours of his.

It had been painful, sitting in an overcrowded coffee shop and leaning forward into the mic to answer stupid, personal questions about his life that nobody wanted to know the answers to. Standard things, like “where were you born?”, “did you always have an interest in physics?”, and “does your family understand what it is you do?” But also some really fucking invasive questions, like “do you regret choosing a job that takes so much time away from being with your family?” and “do you ever worry that you’re wasting all of your potential to do real good in the world by locking yourself up in the Ivory Tower of academia?” The questions like those, which Frank assumed the kid had intended to be clever and incisive, he’d skirted around with vague and unsatisfying answers. He’d downed four cups of coffee just to get through the whole ordeal (which he wouldn’t tell Karen, as he was always riding her about cutting down on her caffeine intake).

Afterwards, he’d written the whole thing off as a shitty, awkward experience the he would never have to think about again, and made a mental note to congratulate Karen on her clever little prank. But early the next morning, he’d received another call from Randy, who was so excited he could barely get a complete word out. The interview, apparently, had gone so well (Frank scoffed at that), that his professor had convinced the school newspaper to print a condensed version in their next edition. Randy just needed Frank’s permission to write it up.

The school newspaper. Frank had felt the familiar shiver of divine inspiration crawl up his spine at Randy’s pronouncement. Karen read every copy of the school paper religiously—because of course she did. Which meant that she would read every word he said…

Frank grinned. “You know, Randy? I think publishing the piece is a great idea. I was just wondering, could I add some last minute comments…?”

Which was how he found himself a week later, a copy of the latest school newspaper folded neatly on his desk, waiting eagerly for Karen to breeze through the doorway.

He barely twitched when she threw the door open with gusto, stomping into the office, annoyance smeared across her face.

“Ugh, I’m going to kill that man, Frank, I swear I am,” she spared a glance in Frank’s direction as she shrugged out of her coat. He noticed, with some amount of pride, that she actually took the time to hang it up on the coat rack (he’d been bothering her enough about using it). As she unwound her scarf from her neck, he took a minute to study her—cheeks reddened (and not in that wonderful, blushing way they looked whenever he caught her staring at him just a hair too long), mouth screwed up in a grimace, hands trembling slightly in what he assumed to be rage. She was glorious.

“Who are we murdering today, Kare?” Frank leaned back in his chair, templing his fingers under his chin as Karen pulled off her gloves with more violence than necessary. (These she threw on the ground under her desk—he’d have to work with her on that later).

“There’s no we, Frank,” Karen dropped her briefcase with a resounding thud. “This is personal. I’m not sharing this kill with anybody.”

“I see. So who are you murdering today, all by yourself, with no help whatsoever?” Frank amended the question with a quirk of the lips.

Karen shot him an irritated look, rolling her eyes.

“Who do you think?” She sunk into her chair with a groan, scrubbing her hands over her face. “Danny Fucking Rand, that’s who.”

“Ha,” Frank snorted a bitter sound, “It’s only 8 in the morning. How could he have done something worthy of the death sentence already?”

“Oh, I’ll tell you what he’s done,” Karen shifted forward, planting both her hands on the desk in front of her, face ablaze. “Apparently it’s not enough that he’s poached my research project out from under me, but now he’s actually trying to steal my fucking graduate students too!” She balled her hands into fists, pressing them into the dark-finished wood beneath them. “Trish emailed me this morning that he’d approached her about joining his research team. He’s willing to offer her a $5,500 stipend per semester for her help.”

Frank jerked in surprise. He knew Trish—had been introduced to her a few times. She was a former radio show host who’d recently returned to school to pursue her PhD. in journalism. Karen had taken her under her wing almost immediately, acting as her academic adviser.

“Trish said no, right?” Frank didn’t know Trish all that well, but he knew Karen. And she tended to inspire all kinds of loyalty in people.

“Well of course she said no,” Karen released a large breath of air, making a conscious effort to de-tense her shoulders. “But he shouldn’t have even asked her in the first place. He’s just doing it to get a fucking rise out of me.”

“Well, I hate to point it out,” Frank tilted his head conciliatorily, “but it seems like he’s succeeded.”

“Ugh,” Karen let her head fall to the desk with a gentle whack. “I know,” she grumbled, and Frank had to strain to hear her speaking with her face pressed against wood. “That’s the worst part, Frank. I keep playing right into his hand. Always will—because I’m an emotional creature. An easily-riled-up, reactive, emotional creature.” She shook her head, and her forehead made a little squeaky noise as it dragged across the polished wood of the desk.

“Well, if it makes you feel any better, I wouldn’t have you any other way,” the words were out of his mouth before he could stop to think. And he would have felt embarrassed—would have tried to take them back or amend them—but the soft, warm little smile on Karen’s face when she lifted her head in response was pretty damn great. So maybe it had been the right thing to say.

“You know, Frank,” she was looking at him with something gentle behind her eyes, “that actually does make me feel better.”

“Yeah, well,” Frank cleared his throat, shifting in his seat and reaching for the nearest paper to busy himself, “if you weren’t so easy to rile up, I wouldn’t be able to get my kicks picking on you either.”

“Yeah, yeah, Frank,” Karen waved a dismissive hand in his direction. “Try to cover it up all you want, but that was very sweet.” She bit her lip, watching him try to distract her from the way the tips of his ears reddened ever-so-slightly by looking down and futzing with the papers in front of him.

She took the moment to admire him while he was preoccupied—allowing her eyes to drift over the hunter green sweater that fit so snugly around his broad shoulders, darting down to appreciate the way his rolled-up sleeves left his forearms bare.  He was wearing a pair of glasses at the moment—a rare sight, as he only wore them when he couldn’t be bothered with his contacts in the morning—and they only worked to accentuate the handsome lines of his face. She notice that he’d shaved his stubble the night before, leaving his sharp, square jaw clean and smooth. She wondered, not for the first time, what it would feel like to ghost her fingers over the edge of that jaw—tilt his head up to kiss those lips.

Karen shook her head, clearing the thought from her mind. She’d long ago come to terms with the fact that she had a crush on Frank, but that didn’t mean she would let it distract her at work. She was a professional, god dammit, and not even a man as stupidly attractive as Frank Castle could make her lose her focus.

Crush—it was such a girlish term; made Karen think of hearts doodled all over notebooks and love notes shoved into lockers. But what else was she supposed to call it when she couldn’t stop thinking about him? When she couldn’t stop daydreaming about his wry little smiles, or his laughter (both the booming kind that came out when taken by surprise, and the dark, deep little chuckles that slipped when he found something funny he definitely shouldn’t)? Or when she kept drifting off, imagining what it would be like to feel his body pressed against her own, hard and warm and comforting?

Yep, Karen pursed her lips grimly, that’s a crush alright.

She was right about to turn away to boot up her computer when she noticed the newspaper folded on the corner of Frank’s desk. She frowned. Frank didn’t read the newspaper, and certainly not—she craned forward to read the headline—the school newspaper.

“Uh, Frank…” she trailed off, waiting for him to pop his head up to look at her. She gestured toward the paper with a nod of her head. “I didn’t know you read the school newspaper?”

Oh shit, Frank’s eyes darted toward the edition on his desk. He’d completely forgotten about it. His plan had been to watch her read it in front of him, so that he could savor her reaction to his interview. But after the morning Karen had had, he’d changed his mind. He didn’t want to add on to the ever-increasing pile of things that were ticking her off. No—he’d save it for another time.

“That’s—uh—well I picked it up for—” Frank grabbed the paper to shove it into his desk drawer, but Karen was already up from her chair and walking toward him.

“Did you pick up a copy for me?” She asked, sounding touched. It was the only explanation she could think of—she’d tried to get Frank to read articles written by her students numerous times, but he always complained that university publications were painful to read. So if it wasn’t for him, and he knew she liked to read every copy the day it came out, then it must have been for her. “That’s so nice. I completely forgot the new edition came out today—I was so distracted by the Danny thing.” She reached out to grab the paper from his hands. Reluctantly, Frank let her have it.

She perched herself on the edge of his desk and shook the paper open (Frank’s eyes, completely of their own volition, flitted to the way her skirt rose on her thigh as she sat).

“Oh,” Karen made a surprised little noise, “it says there’s an interview with Dr. Frank Castle on page 5!” She looked over her shoulder at him incredulously, and he groaned inwardly, dropping his chin into the palm of his hand. “You didn’t tell me you were going to be in the newspaper!”

“Yeah, well,” Frank shrugged, a little helplessly. There was no point in fighting it now—she was going to read the interview.

“I can’t believe you! Keeping something like this from me,” she muttered to herself, turning the pages quickly to find his piece. She cleared her throat, making a big show of wiggling on his desk, hunkering down and getting comfortable to read. “The only reason I’m not reading this out loud is because I’m afraid you’d get up and walk out the door if I did.”

“Damn right I would,” Frank mumbled, and contemplated doing so even now.

He watched her face carefully as she read, tracking the movement of her eyes back and forth across the paper. It was quiet for a good minute, Karen’s breathing filling up the space as she read with a little smile on her face.

He could tell the exact moment she got to the part he was anticipating, because her smile began to slowly slip into a frown, edges turning down by degrees. Her eyes narrowed into half slits, her nostrils flaring.

“Frank Fucking Castle,” she muttered darkly under her breath, though Frank (thankfully) sensed a current of amusement buried deep in the timbre of her voice. “You prick.”

There are, however, some drawbacks to working at the university level, Castle confided over the phone.

“You’d think that university professors would make for mature, professional colleagues, wouldn’t you? But sometimes that’s not the case. Not even close.” When asked to expand, Castle chuckled, “Some of the people I work with most closely are as childish as my undergraduates—messy, dramatic, juvenile. Prone to playing ridiculous pranks on one another. Always starting little rivalries. It can be a major headache.”

Castle refused to name the colleagues in question, but left us with the following comment: “They know who they are.”

Karen re-read the paragraph again, just to be sure her mind wasn’t playing tricks on her. When the words were still there—clear as day—she growled. Closing the paper with particular violence, she whipped around and smacked Frank on the head with it.

He barely had time to throw up his arms in defense before she was whacking him again.

“’Messy, dramatic, and juvenile?’” She screeched, but the effect was severely undercut by the laughter in her voice. “I’ll show you ‘messy, dramatic, and juvenile’!” She whacked him again.

“I think you already are, sweetheart,” Frank chuckled, dodging her blows.

“Ooh,” she shook her head, eye twitching. Hopping off the desk, she eased up, shaking her rolled-up paper at him in a manner reminiscent of an old man yelling at kids to get off of his lawn, “I’ll get you back for this.”

Frank couldn’t help it—she looked like a caricature with a hand on her hip, newspaper/weapon in one hand, foot tapping on the floor—he burst out laughing.

“Frank!” Karen threw her hands up in exasperation, “Don’t fucking laugh while I’m trying to threaten you, you big oaf!”

“Can’t help it,” Frank covered up his mouth with a hand in an attempt to stem off the laughter. It didn’t work.

Karen opened her mouth to speak, but was interrupted by the loud beeping of her cellphone. It was the alarm she set to remind herself that she needed to leave STAT if she wanted to make it to class on time.

“Time to go to class, Karen,” Frank got out through his bout of laughter, looking far too delighted for Karen’s liking.

She stood rooted in her spot for a moment, looking back and forth between the phone on her desk and Frank (who was studiously looking away). Clicking her tongue in annoyance, she turned her back to Frank to turn off the alarm and grab her briefcase. No matter how much she wanted to keep laying into him, she couldn’t be late to class.

Whipping around with her bag over her shoulder, she pointed the newspaper at Frank once again.

“This isn’t over, Castle. But I’ve got to be a responsible, mature adult and teach a fucking class.” She tossed her hair over her shoulder imperiously and stomped out of the office. Frank waited until he could no longer hear her heels clicking down the hallway before dissolve back into laughter.

Karen glanced down at her watch as she pulled open the door to the coffee shop. She had exactly 30 minutes between classes to refuel, which wasn’t a whole lot of time, but luckily the line didn’t look too long. She was in desperate need of caffeine—she’d been so upset about the Danny-Trish thing that morning, she had forgotten to stop in at the usual place by her apartment for coffee. And at 3:30 in the afternoon, she was flagging something awful. If she wanted to make it through her next lecture without passing out, she’d need something strong.

As she grabbed her large, black coffee from the barista, she noticed Matt sitting by the window nursing his own cup. His hands were roving back and forth on the table in front of him—reading. It was odd to see Matt back on campus—sitting in the usual coffee shop, drinking his usual drink—after he’d been gone for so long. A little disorienting. Shoving her change into her purse, Karen made her way over.

“Hey, stranger, mind if I sit?” The question was perfunctory, as she was already sitting by the time he responded.

“Karen! Of course,” he moved to shove some of his notes out of the way to make room for her.

“So,” Karen grabbed a handful of sugar packets, ripping them open one-by-one, “haven’t seen you in a while.” Karen was again struck by the strangeness of it all. Before Matt had left, she and Foggy had spent all of their free time with him. Barely a day went by that they hadn’t seen each other—met up for lunch of drinks at Josie’s. And all of the sudden, she was in the position where she hadn’t seen Matt in over a week.

“Yeah, I—” Matt made a vague gesture with his hands. “Uh, been busy. Trying to get all the notes from my sabbatical into some kind of order. Figure out what I’m doing and all that.”

“Ah,” Karen bobbed her head, “thought you might be avoiding me, Murdock.” She intended it as a joke, but from the way Matt’s head jerked forward, she could tell that he hadn’t taken it that way.

“No way, Kare, I’ve really just been—”

“I know, I know,” Karen cut him off, placing a hand on his arm, “Kidding, Matt. I know you’re busy.”

Matt nodded joltingly, and Karen thought about how things had never been this awkward before the whole Elektra-sabbatical incident. Apparently, without Foggy there to act as a buffer, things were a little more than slightly weird between her and Matt.

There was a beat of silence, in which Karen took a loud sip of her coffee. Matt winced slightly.

“Uh, actually, Karen. I was wondering if we could talk about something,” Matt was suddenly wearing his serious face.

“Uh-oh,” Karen’s voice grew wary, “that doesn’t sound good.”

“It’s about Frank Castle,” Matt folded his hands on the table, like he was getting ready to deliver a lecture. The gesture did not bode well for the direction of the conversation.

“Frank?” Karen was confused, “What about Frank?”

“Look, I’ve been asking around about him, and I don’t know if he’s someone you really want to be getting close to, Kare,” Matt shifted in his seat. “He’s got a reputation for being a bit of an asshole. For being rude and unfriendly; to students and colleagues both. Associating yourself with him won’t do you any favors. Plus, didn’t you hear what he said the other night about how much he gets around? Clearly, the man’s a prick.”

There was a tense beat of silence, in which Karen tried to wrap her mind around what Matt had just said. He sat there expectantly, a mild expression on his face, like he hadn’t just spewed the most ridiculous bullshit Karen had ever heard.

“What the fuck, Matt?” Karen hissed lowly, leaning forward. She had to take several steadying breaths to calm herself. Matt could be painfully sanctimonious—she’d always known this about him. And she’d heard him pass judgment on others of her acquaintances in a similar manner before, but there was something about Frank that was just off-limits for Karen. Something that made her hackles rise.

“There are—” Karen’s voice was shaking slightly, and she paused a moment before trying again. “There are so many problems with what you just said, I’m not even sure where to start with you.”

Matt had the gall to look surprised.

“First of all, don’t speak about Frank to me. Don’t ever speak about Frank to me. You don’t know him. And if you don’t know him, then you don’t have the right to speak about him, understand?” Karen didn’t pause for an affirmation. “Secondly, you were the one that said he got around the other night, not him. Frank would never speak about women that way. Which, again, you would know if you actually knew Frank.”

Matt opened his mouth to speak, but Karen cut him off.

“Not done, Matt.” She shook her head. “Thirdly, who do you think you are, telling me who I do and don’t want to associate with, Matthew Murdock? What gives you the right?”

There was a strained pause.

“Now I’m done,” Karen tapped a finger against the Formica table top.

“Karen,” Matt reached forward, looking to grab one of her hands, but she removed them from the table quickly. “I’m just trying to look out for you. I come back from Tibet and hear that you are spending all of your time with some strange man—of course I’m going to look into him.”

“What do you mean of course?” Karen’s anger was beginning to give way to frustration. “Matt, you’re not my father. And you’re not my boyfriend. I don’t need you ‘looking out for me’ or doing background checks on everyone I choose to spend my time with. I’m a grown woman.”

“I know that, Karen,” Matt was aiming for conciliatory, but instead he just sounded patronizing. “But I can’t help it. I care about you.”

“Oh,” Karen scoffed. “You care about me? Just like you cared about me enough to run off with your ex-girlfriend at the first opportunity? Is that how much you care about me, Matty?”

“Is that what you’re really upset about? The Elektra thing?” Matt tilted his head, “Because I can explain if you would let me.”

“No, Matt. I’m not upset about the Elektra thing.” And she really wasn’t. “I couldn’t care less if you ran off with a bevy of women. What upsets me is that you don’t see how hypocritical you’re being right now. You can’t be the kind of guy who cares so much about me that he feels compelled to check up on everyone I spend my time with, and also be the guy who disappears for months with another woman and doesn’t even check-in with a ‘hey, how are you?’”

Matt sighed, shaking his head.

“How did this conversation get so far off the rails?” He muttered darkly.

“I don’t know, Matt, you tell me,” Karen crossed her arms, feeling defensive.

“Kare, I just wanted things to go back to the way they were before,” Matt ran a hand through his hair. “I just wanted it to be you, Foggy, and me. Just like old times. And I come back, and this—this Frank is now your entire social calendar?”

“So you decided to disparage him to me out of jealousy? In the hopes that I would—what? That I would terminate my friendship with him because you think he might be a bad guy? Because you want us to all go back to pretending you didn’t leave for months? Act like you didn’t wait until you’d been in Tibet for 3 months before even dropping Foggy and me a line letting us know where you were?” Karen’s head was starting to hurt.

“I don’t know, Karen. I don’t know what I wanted,” Matt sighed. “Not this.”

“Yeah, well, I didn’t want this either.” Karen glanced at her watch. “And we’re out of time.”

Matt didn’t even try to stop her as she gathered all of her things. He just sat there, hands in his lap, feeling foolish.

“Bye, Matt,” she tossed over her shoulder as she walked away.

 Later that evening, as Frank sat in the office answering an endless stream of emails, he smiled when he saw a text from Karen come through.

Just because I’ve been teaching class all day doesn’t mean I didn’t carve out some time to plot my revenge, Castle.

He’d snorted and typed back a response.

Well your last attempt at revenge ended up working out for me quite well, so do your worst.

Scrubbing a hand over his face and adjusting the glasses perched on the bridge of his nose, Frank stared across the dimly-lit office to Karen’s empty desk. It was strange to think how, a little over two months ago, sitting in the office alone had been the norm for Frank. He had actually enjoyed it—the respite from the masses of students complaining about how he didn’t curve the test, and from the incessant pressure from the dean to publish more, and faster. His office had been his sanctuary—where he could think, uninterrupted. Alone.

But now, he just felt lonely. Without Karen clacking away at her keyboard, humming music under her breath (she’d been on a ridiculous R. Kelly streak lately), or pulling him into long and winding conversations, the space felt empty. Like it was waiting for something—suspended in time, waiting for Karen to return. And Frank felt like he was, too.

It was strange, the extent to which Karen had burrowed herself into his life. Or maybe not so strange. Frank did the math in his head quickly: they’d been working together for two and a half months, so about 50 days (not including weekends, and they spent an average of 5 hours in the office together per day (early mornings and late nights included). So, over the course of their friendship, they’d spent about 250 hours together, in a confined space, talking.

That was a lot of time. More than Frank would have guessed.

But time always tended to fly by when he was with Karen. She had a way about her that set him at ease; there was never an awkward moment of silence when she was around.

After all their time together, Frank could certainly see what it was that made Karen such a fantastic reporter. She was honest and genuine—interested in everything. Her curiosity was boundless; she could listen to him go on, ad infinitum, about his research, and though she didn’t understand everything he was saying, she made an attempt. If someone else was excited about their work, well then Karen could get excited about their excitement.

And she was so incredibly non-judgmental. He’d heard her tell her students, multiple times, “the things I don’t know, and don’t understand, far outweigh the things I do.” How—Karen always seemed to be asking—could she pass judgement on someone else when she, herself, was just a blind creature grappling for answers? He’d seen her practice empathy in the most incredible ways. Once, when a class she taught was studying the coverage of one of the most famous murder trials of the century—a war vet convicted of over 30 homicides—she’d convinced them to stow away their initial biases and see him as a human being. Students had been in the office for days discussing that trial, with Karen gently reminding them, every so often, that they should always seek to understand before reaching for fear and hate.

But above all, Karen was vulnerable. She was open and generous with her own life. She shared of herself so freely—laughed with abandon, cried without shame, felt everything down to her core. It was beautiful. It was inspiring. It made Frank feel less like vulnerability were something to be ashamed of, and instead something borne out of the kind of strength he could never fathom.

Karen was a million flawed, beautiful, precious things. And how could you not want to get close to that? How could you not want to huddle closer, sharing in that kind of light?

So when Karen asked him a question—when she reached out toward him—he was always powerless to deny her. Which is how she’d turned the notoriously-laconic Frank Castle into the kind of guy who felt lonely sitting in his office without her.

He glanced at the clock—6 PM. Normally by this time Karen would have made it back to the office for a few extra hours of work before heading home. They would have done the usual—banter back and forth about nothing in particular, or else complain about deadlines and grading, or maybe share something ridiculous or strange one of their students had said in class—then they would have said goodnight. But the sun was slowly sinking and she was nowhere to be seen.

            Frank stretched, shuffling through the papers on his desk listlessly. He was contemplating calling it a night when his phone started to ring. It was Karen’s ringtone—“You Don’t Own Me” by Lesley Gore (the perfect song for a woman like Karen).

            “Page,” he said, by way of greeting.

            “Uh, hey Frank,” there was something tight in Karen’s voice as she spoke. Something that sounded an awful lot like pain. Frank sat up straighter in his seat, on alert. “You still at the office?”

            “Yeah—yes. Karen, are you okay? You sound kind of—”

            “Actually,” Karen cut him off. He heard some kind of movement, followed by choking noise. Then a “fuck” muttered quietly under her breath. “I was walking back from class and I think I sprained my ankle. Stupid fucking heels on the stupid fucking cobblestones. Why the fuck do we still have cobblestones?”

            “Karen, where are you? Can you walk?” Frank was out of his seat already, shrugging on his coat and reaching for his keys.

            “I’m on the corner between the deli and the co-op. I can kind of hobble, but there’s no way I can make it home on this foot.” She made a soft grunt of pain, and Frank was out the door.

            “Okay. Stay where you are. I’m coming in the car.”

            She was leaning against the wall of the deli, a black shoe with the heel dangling off in one hand, when Frank pulled up to the curb.

            She sighed in relief as he hopped out the car and jogged over to her.

            “Shit, Karen. That doesn’t look good.” As he got closer, Frank could already see the swelling begin to turn slightly purple.

            “And I had a gig ankle modelling tonight. Just my luck,” Karen said through gritted teeth as Frank sunk to his knees at her feet and took the foot in hand.

            She tried to cover up her sharp intake of breath as his fingers gently probed at her ankle. Staring down at his head, she concentrated on the way his hair was growing long enough that you could just see it begin to curl, and ignored the throbbing of her ankle.

            “Hmmm,” Frank pronounced after a moment, standing up, “Looks like it’s not fractured or broken. Just a bad sprain.”

“Jesus. Haven’t sprained an ankle since the summer my mom enrolled me in overnight cheer camp and I got kicked out for sneaking in candy.” Karen tucked her broken shoe into her bag, pushing herself off of the wall.

“You’ll have to tell me that story later.” Frank caught Karen as she listed forward, reaching out to slip one arm under her shoulder, pulling her close to the side of his body. “But for now let’s get you in the car, huh?”

            “Thanks, Frank,” Karen panted out, hobbling forward. Despite the circumstances, Karen couldn’t help but appreciate the situation. She’d never really touched Frank like this before, with so much of her body. Leaning against him, she let the heat of him sink into her side—let herself melt ever-so-slightly into the hard planes of his chest. His hand, which had steadied itself on her hip, gripped her tightly, and she knew she’d be feeling the burning impression of his palm on her skin for days.

            “Here we go,” Frank shifted, helping her climb into the car before jogging back around to his side. Karen buckled herself in, taking a steadying breath before Frank reappeared.

            “Home?” Frank asked, and Karen nodded. Fortunately, Frank had picked her up for various work functions at her apartment before, so he didn’t require directions. She only lived about a ten minute walk from campus.

            As he pulled away from the curb, he shot a sidelong glance at Karen. Her face, flashing in and out of the beams of streetlights as they passed underneath, was contorted.

            “You know, this is exactly why I don’t wear heels to work anymore,” Frank quipped. Karen barked out a surprised laugh, which sounded quite a bit more like a snort.

            “Ooh,” she grabbed the handle on the side of the car in a tight grip, “Don’t make me laugh when I’m in pain, Castle.”

            “Sorry,” Frank said, but he didn’t sound it.

            “Just so you know, this act of kindness doesn’t make up for the whole interview debacle,” Karen shot Frank a dark look as she shifted in her seat.

            “Obviously,” Frank conceded with a nod of his head. “I’d need to save you from a burning building to make up for that.”

            “Two burning buildings,” Karen shot back.

            “You know, nobody who reads that paper is going to know I was talking about you,” Frank pointed out, taking an extra-cautious right turn so as not to jostle Karen’s ankle.

            “But I’ll know, Frank. And I have my pride.”

            “More than your fair share of it, I’d say.”

            “Hey, buck-o. You’re on real thin ice,” Karen jabbed Frank’s arm, which was resting on the gearshift between them. “I’ve got the absolutely perfect amount of pride.”

            “It’s just like someone with too much pride to think they have the prefect amount of pride,” Frank shook his head sadly.

            Karen almost replied with something snotty, but realized that Frank kind of had a point.

            “Whatever,” she grumbled, and Frank shot her a confused look.

            “You must really be in pain if you don’t have a snarky comeback for that,” he sounded more than a touch concerned.

            “Give me a minute, and I’ll come up with something,” Karen said through a grimace.

            “Okay.”

            The car grew quiet, and Karen focused on breathing through the aching pain. She was by no means a whimp when it came to pain, but she’d already been on her feet all day—in heels no less—so the sprain was just the cherry on top of that. Plus, the whole confrontation with Matt was still weighing on her. And though that fell more in the category of psychological pain than physical pain, Karen still figured that pain was pain. A few more beats of silenced passed, then Frank spoke up.

            “It’s been a minute, Kare.”

            Karen made an annoyed little grunt, then opened her mouth to speak, but Frank was already rolling to a stop in front of her building. Shifting the car into park, he turned to her.

            “Wait here.”

            Karen had unbuckled her seatbelt and swung her briefcase over her shoulder by the time Frank made it around to her side.

            “You know, you don’t have to walk me all the way up,” Karen said, as Frank helped her down from the car. “The staircase has a perfectly-functioning railing for me to hold onto. I can make it myself.”

            Frank shot her a disbelieving look.

            “Don’t be ridiculous,” was all he said, wrapping his arm around her.

            Together, they hobbled up the stairs of the complex, and Frank waited patiently while Karen punched in the code to the outer door.

            As they made their way to the elevator, it became increasingly obvious to Karen that Frank didn’t plan on leaving until she was perfectly settled in her apartment. In a slight panic, she began to scan her memory—trying to recall what kind of state her apartment was in. She couldn’t for the life of her remember how recently she’d tidied up, and if the clean laundry she’d taken out of the dryer last night was still on the couch in the living room.

            Too late to do anything about it now, she thought, as they approached her door. Frank stood patiently as Karen fumbled to find her keys.

            It was with great relief, as Karen threw open the door, that she took in a relatively clean apartment.

            Frank, who had never actually been up to Karen’s place before, took it all in with great curiosity. As he walked Karen over to the couch, he noticed that—surprisingly—he place was quite tidy. From the way she treated their office, he was expecting piles of dirty dishes and papers scattered everywhere. But the place looked put-together—cared for. The clutter that did fill up the apartment was all rather cozy—books stacked on the coffee table, a basket of yarn and knitting needles next to the couch, eclectic throw pillows piled up everywhere, an afghan draped over a chair at the breakfast table.

            The place was warm. Inviting.

            Depositing Karen on the couch, Frank moved to collect some pillows to prop under her leg.

            “You really don’t have to do that, Frank. I can take it from here,” Karen tried to wave him away as he approached with the afghan tossed over his shoulder.

            “Nope,” was all Frank had to say in response, as he gently covered her with the blanket. “Got any tea?” He asked over his shoulder, as he wandered into her kitchen.

            Karen sighed. There was clearly no room for argument here, so she gave in.

            “Yeah. In the cabinet above the sink,” she sighed. “I like the green tea.”

            Frank nodded, filling up the electric kettle before reaching for the tea packets. Karen watched with interest as he moved around the kitchen gathering mugs and sugar packets. He looked so domestic—suddenly, Karen could picture him as the husband he once was. Making tea for his wife after a long day at work. The thought grew warm in the pit of her stomach.

            “Karen?” Frank’s stern voice broke through her thoughts, and she looked up to see him leaning down with his head in the fridge.

            “Hmm?” Karen hummed in response.

            “Why do you only have—” he paused, sticking his head further into the fridge. “A jar of pickles, some yogurt, and a case of beer in here?” His head popped up over the door to shoot her a bemused look.

            “Why are you snooping around in my fridge?” Karen crossed her arms over her chest and scowled.

            “Because I want to make sure you won’t starve tonight while you’re recovering on the couch,” Frank began opening and closing a series of drawers in her kitchen, clearly searching for something in particular. Karen watched his face light up in triumph when he found where she stored her takeout menus. “I’m going to order pizza. What do you want?”

            Karen would have made a comment about how he was being particularly pushy this evening, but she was feeling quite hungry herself—and thankful for the company. She was never a good patient, and secretly adored the attention when she was hurt. Sliding down further on the couch, she yawned.

            “Get the supreme. With everything on it.”

            “Girl after my own heart,” Frank smiled at her as he dialed the number. While he ordered, he snooped around until he found Ziploc bags, then began filling one with ice from the freezer.

            He approached with the make-shift ice-pack wrapped in towel, hanging up the phone as he handed it to her. She gingerly placed it on her swollen ankle, hissing at the contact. Frank frowned, sitting down at the far end of the couch, careful to avoid her foot.

            “Pizza will be here in about half an hour,” he peered down at her ankle, inspecting the increased swelling.

            “Does that mean you’re staying for dinner, then?” Karen reached for the end table behind her, grabbing a bottle of pain meds she kept on hand for her migraines.

            “If that’s alright with you,” Frank shrugged.

            “Don’t you have other things to do? I don’t want to keep you from anything,” Karen said, before dry swallowing a couple of pills.

            “Nope,” Frank shook his head. “Kids are with Maria tonight, and my weekly cult meeting isn’t until tomorrow. Why, want me out of your hair?” He suddenly felt a little self-conscious—a little presumptuous—sitting there on Karen’s couch like he owned the place. He was so used to their dynamic at the office, comfortable and easy, that he didn’t stop to think it might be different with him in her home. In her territory. For a quick moment, he became strangely aware of his own body—how it moved throughout her space, bulky and graceless.

            Seeing the look of uncertainty flit across Frank’s face, Karen was quick to speak.

            “No, no. Just didn’t want to inconvenience you will my clumsiness.” She gestured at her injured foot.

            Frank shot her an unreadable look, frowning.

            “You’re not an inconvenience.”

            The electric kettle dinged, and Frank popped up to finishing making the tea.

            On the couch, Karen was the one who was beginning to grow a tad self-conscious. She and Frank had spent an abundant amount of time together, it was true—but never like this. Never in so intimate a setting. There was something so different about having Frank wander around her kitchen, among all of her things. Something that made her brain go a little fuzzy as she watched him stirring sugar into her mug (one packet, just like she liked it)—made her insides clench in interesting and confusing ways.

            He padded back to the couch to hand her the mug, and she noticed that he’d shed his shoes at some point. There was something endearing in the fact that he wore argyle socks.

            Frank noticed the direction of her gaze, and wiggled his toes

            Karen chuckled, taking the mug with a ‘thank you.’ Blowing the steam from her tea, she noted Frank’s line of sight drift to the wall next to the bookcase, where all of her most impressive articles hung side-by-side in matching frames.

            “Wow,” Frank whispered, as he walked closer to inspect. There was the article she’d written about child soldiers in Yemen, the one about illegal gender-assignment surgery and the rights of Intersex children, and even the piece she’d published about the man in South Korea who’d fathered over a hundred children through anonymous sperm donation. “These all yours?” Frank asked, even though he could clearly see her name written in the byline.

            “Yep,” Karen popped her ‘p,’ studying the broad expanse of Frank’s back as he leaned closer to skim through one of the articles.

            “These are amazing.” His voice was soft.

            “They were all gifts from my brother, Kevin,” Karen sunk further into the couch, feeling the pain meds starting to take effect and dull the throbbing of her ankle. “Every year, he used to send me one on my birthday. Said the greatest gift he could give me was reminding me of my own accomplishments.”

            Frank hummed. “So he’s the one responsible for your inflated sense of pride?”

            Karen snorted a laugh. “Was,” she corrected, “He passed away last year. But I think he’d be happy to take the blame.”

            “I’m sorry,” Frank shot Karen a concerned look, brow furrowed. “About your brother.”

            “’S alright,” Karen shrugged. “You didn’t know. And he had been sick for a while—cystic fibrosis. We had been prepared for a long time when it happened.”

            “Doesn’t make it any easier, does it?” Frank turned back to the articles,

            “No, it doesn’t.” Karen shook her head.

            There was a beat of silence, and Karen took a sip of her tea, wincing at the loud slurping noise it caused. Frank glanced over his shoulder, eyebrow raised.

            “Why’d you quit?” He asked, gesturing at her wall of accomplishments. She’d never really mentioned her change in career, and he never asked. But it seemed like the appropriate time. “This stuff is remarkable—what you got to see, the places you got to go.”

            Karen threw her arm over the back of the couch, cupping her jaw in her hand and scanning her own articles.

            “Well…I guess I didn’t want it to change me, y’know? Didn’t want the job making me someone I wasn’t. And I could kind of see that it was,” she looked thoughtful.

Frank stared at her in silence, waiting for her to expound.

Karen pulled her mug to her chest, letting the heat of it warm her through her shirt.

“I mean, I became a journalist because I wanted to humanize. I wanted to connect. To talk to people who were so vitally different from myself; to understand ways of life fundamentally unlike my own. To just…I don’t know. Write articles that made people understand that everywhere—through everything—there’s this common thread of humanity that unites us all.” Karen took a sip of her tea, her face drawn in thought.

            “And it wasn’t what you hoped it would be?” Frank prompted.

            “No—yes—I mean, in some ways,” Karen shook her head. “At the beginning, it was everything. The travelling, the learning, meeting people living lives I could never image. You know, just getting to touch the whole worlds that exist inside other people. Soaking in the culture,” Karen smiled wistfully. “I saw some…amazing things,” her voice took on a breathy, dreamy quality. “I saw a Chinese mother reunited with her son, 30 years after he’d been adopted and taken to the US. And that moment of joy when they first embraced each other—that moment of reconnection—of love made tangible. A broken chain being remade. I don’t think I’ll ever forget it. As long as I live, Frank.”

            Frank moved away from the wall of frames, sitting back down at the end of the couch. Gingerly, he lifted Karen’s ankle and placed it into his lap on top of a throw pillow.

            “But I also saw some—some truly horrible things.” She bit the inside of her cheek, thinking about the article she’d written on female genital mutilation. “I know that it’s important that atrocities have witnesses. That someone has to be there to see the trauma and the horror. To understand it. To make it known. But it’s hard being a witness, you know? Being the one who can’t look away, because it’s your duty to watch.” Frank heard the catch in Karen’s voice. Her eyes looked so far away.

            “And the dark just go too much? Outweighed the light?” His voice was quiet. He threw his arm over the back of the couch, the tips of his fingers barely brushing the ends of Karen’s hair.

            “No—I don’t think that was it,” Karen shook her head. “In the beginning, the beautiful moments were stunning. Took my breath away. Made me feel so fucking human. And the horrible moments—they broke my goddamn heart. Tore me apart. But, in a way, that was good. I was feeling things—I was present,” Karen ran a hand through her hair. “After a few years, though, everything kind of started to numb a bit. Just became…less. The beautiful and the ugly—they just made me feel numb.”

            “It’s hard to see these stories as human when your job is to reduce them down to a thousand word article, to be consumed by an audience over breakfast. I think I started looking at people and seeing them as quotes and word limits and bylines. Gets to the point where you hear about the latest national tragedy on the news and you think ‘I better publish a think piece on this before someone else does.’”

            Karen shifted, moving to put her uninjured foot in Frank’s lap as well. He absent-mindedly began to rub his thumb up and down the arch.

            “You know, I once saw an old colleague of mine harass this poor woman outside of a court house, moments after her husband had been sentenced to life in prison.” Karen’s voice grew hard, and Frank saw the ripple of anger in her eyes. “Just kept badgering her and pushing her until he got the quote he wanted. This woman was sobbing on his jacket, but he was smiling because—fuck it—he got a great quote out of her.” Karen lifted a hand to her mouth, distractedly biting at her thumbnail.

            Frank was silent for a moment, as his thumb continued to stroke her foot. He tried to envision it in his mind—to imagine a Karen who was numb and callous to the world around her. Who could look at suffering and feel nothing. And he found that he couldn’t do it—the Karen he knew had a direct line to the beating heart of her humanity.

            “So you left because you didn’t like being numb?” Frank’s deep, rumbling voice drew Karen’s eyes up to his own. He was looking at her with a kind of tenderness that made her feel weak.

            “Uh,” she cleared her throat, “yeah. Yes.”

            “Was it hard? Leaving it all behind?”

            “No. I’ve never had a hard time making the decision that’s best for my mental health. You have to be kind to yourself above all—and this was the decision that was kind to Karen,” she smiled weakly. “The only difficult part was dealing with all the rumors. The gossip.”

            “Rumors?” Frank tiled his head.

            “Oh, you know,” Karen shrugged. “That I’d quit because I couldn’t handle the pressure, that I couldn’t cut in a male-dominated business, that I was too weak and emotional to be a good journalist.”

            “Bullshit.”

            Karen was a little surprised at how forceful Frank’s voice sounded, and her eyes shot to him with curiosity.

            “You’re the strongest person I know, Page. And the very fact that you were able to leave when you needed to leave proves it.” Frank’s stare was intense, and Karen felt the well of affection for him in her chest damn-near overflow. She bit her bottom lip to keep helpless tears from welling up in her eyes.

            “Thanks, Frank,” she whispered.

            He was about to open his mouth to speak, but the buzzer rang. Karen cleared her throat, and Frank moved to stand up.

            “Pizza guy,” he said, removing her feet from his lap. Standing up, Frank paused for a moment, his back to Karen. She watched his shoulders move as he took a deep breath.

            “You know, Karen,” he said, turning slightly to look at her over his shoulder, “I’m really glad you ended up here. However you got here—I’m glad you did.”

            Karen didn’t have a chance to respond before Frank was out the door.

            Frank ended up staying until around midnight, at which point Karen passed out on the couch, unable to fight her exhaustion any longer. They’d talked almost the entire night away, over pizza and tea (Karen would have offered the beer in the fridge, but knew that Frank wouldn’t drink as long as she couldn’t). The topics of conversation were considerably lighter than their before-dinner chat.

Frank told stories about his kids, Frankie Jr. and Lisa. How Frankie Jr. was learning to skateboard, which mostly seemed to involve wrapping himself up in various layers of padding and standing on the skateboard with his arms spread, looking like a terrified, baby deer learning to walk. Or about how Lisa was trying out for her school baseball team—they didn’t offer softball—and how she’d petitioned the school using Title IX for the right. Frank had been spending most weekends at the park with her, teaching her to throw. Karen noticed, with some interest, that he didn’t really talk about Maria, despite the fact that she knew there was no bad blood between the two of them. (Frank would later admit that David had told him never to talk about his ex-wife with a girl he liked).

            He talked about his friends, Curtis and David. Karen had laughed until her stomach hurt when he relayed the fact that David’s wife, Sarah, had actually been on a date at Coney Island with Frank, when he’d introduced her to David. She’d dumped Frank mid-date to go off somewhere with the other man. Frank had been upset, until he’d seen how incredibly besotted the two were.

            Frank did little things throughout the evening that set Karen’s heart to thundering wildly in her chest. He’d brushed a stray strand of hair off of her face at one point, tucking it behind her ear; he’d gently squeezed her calf when she’d told him about the way she and Kevin used to get their father to film homemade James Bond movies with them (in which Kevin was James Bond and Karen was Q—not Moneypenny); he’d even wiped a dab of pizza sauce off of her lip with his thumb.

            As Karen had watched Frank do an impression of his mother, complete with the high-pitched voice and all, a strange—though not entirely unwelcome—truth dawned on her.

            She didn’t just have a crush on Frank Castle. No. Nothing that simple.

            She was fucking in love with Frank Castle.

            If someone had asked Karen to describe exactly what had shifted in her relationship with Frank after the night of the sprained ankle, she wasn’t entirely sure she could pinpoint it. All she knew was that something had shifted.

            There was a new kind of comfort between the two of them. A cozy sort of warmth that seemed to grow whenever they were in the same room.

            (Trish, who had popped in one evening to get Karen’s advice on her dissertation proposal, described it to her buddy Jessica as a sense of gravity between them. The way that Karen could ask Frank to close the blinds with merely a tilt of her head; the way that she seemed to know that Frank was hungry before he even spoke—reaching into her desk drawer for a protein bar and tossing it his way. Like they were doing a choreographed dance. She’d sighed dreamily, ignoring Jessica’s rolled eyes, going on about romantic tension and undisclosed desires).

            Both Frank’s and Karen’s students had picked up on it, too. These days, it seemed that any time they saw Dr. Page walking (hobbling on crutches) around campus, Dr. Castle wasn’t far behind. Her senior seminar class, unbeknownst to her, almost had a collective meltdown the day that Karen walked into class one day wearing what was clearly one of Dr. Castle’s sweaters with the sleeves rolled up. (She’d spilled coffee down her white silk shirt, effectively making it see-through, and didn’t have time to go home and change before class. Frank, who always had an extra dress shirt in his desk drawer, had offered her his sweater).

            Karen, with her newfound knowledge that she Capital L loved Frank Castle, had decided to keep that little tidbit of information to herself. She wasn’t ready to let all those soft, confusing thoughts that lived inside of her, in the box marked “Frank Castle,” out into the real world just yet.

            So instead, she reminded him constantly of her plans to get back at him for his interview stunt. Because, apparently, like an elementary-aged boy, her idea of letting someone know you liked them involved low-key bullying.

            She’d dropped hints about having contacts in the psychology department who could get their hands on lab mice, but Frank had just grunted a laugh and replied, “You’d be more scared of the mice than I would, sweetheart.”

            She’d also been toying around with the idea of doing something to his car—maybe getting it towed or having some of her students help her fill it with packing peanuts. But it seemed sacrilegious to deface his car when it had saved her so much pain the other night when she’d sprained her ankle. The car didn’t deserve that kind of treatment.

            Limping back to the office from her final class of the day—two weeks after the incident, and Karen had just gone off her crutches—Karen had an epiphany. She knew exactly what she’d do to get Frank back—and it would bug the piss out of her hyper-organized office mate. It would take a lot of time, and a lot of man power, but she was sure she could get Foggy to help her out (she still wasn’t on speaking terms with Matt after their coffee house showdown, or she would have recruited him too).

            Walking into the Physics building, Karen contemplated the logistics of completely flipping their two sides of the room. They’d have to move the desks, the bookshelves…have the move all Frank’s degrees to her wall, and move her paintings to take their place. It would be a full evening’s work, so she’d have to wait until next Thursday, when Frank left the office early to pick Lisa up from baseball practice. Then they’d have all night to do the swap.

            A devious smile worked its way to Karen’s face as she hobbled down the hallway to their office. She was just about to open the door, when she heard some odd noises from inside. It sounded like yipping, as strange and out-of-place as it may have been. Like little puppies barking. For a moment, Karen wondered if Frank had brought a puppy to work. But no—he would have told her if he had.

            Pushing the door open, Karen saw Frank’s head shoot up, eyes wide, as he immediately clicked a button on his computer, making the noises stop.

            “Frank,” Karen asked, drawing out his name as she limped her way over to his desk. “What were you watching?”

            “I was—” Frank thought about lying, covering up the fact that he was watching a live puppy feed from the local pit bull shelter when he should have been working, but gave up on it. Karen was a journalist—she’d get it out of him eventually. With a sigh, he turned his screen around to Karen could see. “Just, puppies.” He said, shrugging.

            “Oh my God,” Karen whispered, watching the live feed as a pile of little pit bulls crawled all over each other. She looked from the computer screen to Frank—who was sporting a rather sheepish look—and felt her heart squeeze in her chest.

            Fuck the prank, she thought. I’ve got to find a way to tell this ridiculous man that I’m in love with him.

[humanitys-shortest-sassmaster]

Dumb relationship rant, sorry this won't be regular

So the other day my almost 25 year old boyfriend was asked to leave a language class by a teacher Apparently the reason why is that the teacher asked the class to do group work on something, and he said no She told him to do it and he said no again, saying that he doesn't like teamwork She let him do it for a few minutes and then eventually told him to go home because it was disrespectful to her and the other students He started ranting to me about it and how the teacher is crazy and loves being in authority But like... I think he's being a huge fucking child. He doesn't have social anxiety or any of that, he just simply doesn't want to work with other people, even if it's filling out a worksheet. I said I was sorry that happened, and he said, "But I know you're not on my side anyway." And that really angered me. I wasn't on his side, but I didn't want to not support him when he was frustrated, and so I pushes my own thoughts aside and was supporting him and he passive aggressives me. Just last week he had an issue with the same teacher, he made a mistake when writing kanji, and she told him to write it 4 more times. Which yeah, sounds kinda bitchy of her. But then he sat there and said no. She told him to and asked him why he wouldn't and he said because it was stupid, and he won't do anything that's stupid. Additionally, just before that he was angrily told by his landlord to throw his trash away using the proper bags designated by the city, which you can buy at any convienence store in the area, and they cost like $1-4 for a big pack of them. And he told me that now because that guy was rude he will never ever buy the correct trash bags. I told him that he could start using them once he finishes his current pack, and he said no, it's stupid. I told him to be careful because there are stupid rules in Japan, and as a foreigner you can be subject to more criticism over them, and that if his landlord is a really big ass, he could potentially be evicted if he doesn't use the correct bags. Boyfriend said "I don't care, it's stupid." "But being evicted over that would suck, and I know it's stupid, but wouldn't that be even more stupid? You'd have to move back to the guesthouse and you hated it there because of the stupid people." "I don't care." And I know they're small things. I know I create issues in the relationship with my poor communication, and I fully take responsibility for that and have been doing a good job in recent weeks changing that, even he's commenting on how I'm doing better. But I just absolutely have not been in love with him at all for the last like 1+ year of our relationship, and I keep trying to push aside things that bother me. Things like all the passive aggressiveness towards me if I let go of his hand for a while while walking, absolutely no sexual attraction or satisfaction in the relationship due to him basically wanting me to be a dominatrix when I am absolutely not lmao and he goes I'm absolutely into being submissive but he said I don't know what I want, (lol aight) and the bizarre demand that later when I'm working I need to take two weeks off and go meet his family and travel with him. When I told him that I can't just take 2 weeks off for fub, especially considering it'll be a new job, he basically demanded that before my free flight benefits end in April I have to fly to meet his family with him before then. Like I am just REALLY not happy being with him, and future stuff doesn't look good either. He's studying Japanese for fluency, but even after almost one year of intensive study he can hardly say an extremely basic sentence. He's now saying he wants to go to university in Japan and signed up for an exam at one of Japan's top most difficult universities next year, even though his Japanese is extremely basic now, and his academic background and transcript is very poor. He skipped almost an entire year of school because he didn't feel like going, and got a lot of bad grades in what I think was French remedial or alternative school. When I say that he'll need to study for the actual tested content on the university exam, which are famously difficult, extremely intelligent Japanese people study incredibly intensely for months or years before taking it, especially considering its one of the most difficult schools in Japan, (and it's a private school and he has extremely little money, I don't know how he expects to pay???) And he says he doesn't need to study for it. He says all he needs to study is just Japanese himself. (Which will require a metric fuck ton of studying considering he struggles to even order at a restaurant or at Starbucks and can't understand convienence​ store questions like would you like another bag, would you like this heated, do you have a point card...) And I try to help him with the university stuff, because I did graduate from a top Japanese university and kind of know a bit of the ropes, but nope, he says all he needs is one more year of study. It's additionally frustrating because his English is poor too. As someone living in another country speaking another language, I complete understand and sympathize with the struggle because I experience it in Japanese. It didn't bother me at all for one year, and then more recently it's starting to frustrate me, because we just can't properly communicate anything. And I'm sure it frustrates him as well, because I absolutely know the feeling of frustration of not being able to say something in another language even though IT SHOULD BE THERE IN YOUR HEAD. But he always says "Ahhh I can communicate so much more and be so much funnier and cooler in French" Which I did believe and sympathize with. But I really am realizing that other French people don't really like him. He'll consistently make a new French friend for a week or a month or so, and then will tell me that the person is a jerk and went to a party or something without asking him. When I suggest that maybe he should try asking the other person to hang out, he says he doesn't need a friend like that, and then (super cliche-ly) "I don't need friends." I do understand the struggle of making friends with other people because that was basically my entire high school life and dealing with bullshit people. But I still had just a few close friends in high school, and internet friends. Once leaving high school i have a ton of friends, I'm not super crazy close with every friend because I do often have antisocial tendencies, but I'm on good terms with all of them and don't have trouble making plans with them. But what worries me about him with friends is the inability to keep friends. Because he makes new French friends often. But literally every single one after a time reportedly don't want to hang out or be friends with him anymore. He has one friend who he is still friendly with in France, but my boyfriend said they aren't really close at all. My boyfriend has said, ever since the relationship started "oh once you start to know me better you won't want to be with me anymore, because everybody does that" I always ignored it because it sounded so cliche and edgy that it was difficult to take seriously, but he seems to almost take pleasure in stuff like that. He used to often say 'oh one day I'll tell a joke but you will think I'm serious and will be mad at me' and I'm like, no shit that happens with literally everyone person at some point. Well, eventually I happened. Except he wasnt telling a joke, he said something pretty rude or inflammatory to me in order to start a fight. I immediately warned him not to start with me, which followed with 'lol, I was just joking!' which we all know is what people usually say to cover their own asses and make the offended party look bad. Then he immediately goes on with "SEE???? I told you that one day I would tell a joke and you wouldn't know it was a joke!!! I knew it would happen! See I know these things!" And going on like that for five minutes, which was pissing me off more because he was gloating about it and was clearly not joking. So this is all obviously a big ass rant. I know I cause a lot of big ass problems in the relationship, mainly me not always messaging him enough and not hanging out with him enough, which then makes him jealous, so he'll accuse me of cheating, which I absolutely have not done and never would, and then he's told me he's sent me pictures of himself with other girls in an effort to make me jealous, and then was angry when I wasn't jealous. But.. the reason why I didn't always message him every single day (fixed now) and don't hang out with him as much as I should (partially financial, he lives about $60 round trip away) is because I just genuinely don't enjoy being with him. A couple of months ago I wanted to break up for many of those reasons, but didn't because I didn't want to let some dumb short term feelings of negativity in the relationship end things. But nothing has changed since then, and I think I'm even less happy now, despite fixing a few of my own personal issues and issues in the relationship... Just Lord What do