#wait theres blow too i just dont like it very much

[asahicore]

bad news first - sjy (m)

this work contains smut - minors please do not interact pairing. jake x fem!reader synopsis. From the moment you'd met at eight to the day he moved to South Korea at fourteen, you and Jake were inseparable. But after years of being apart, you've come to terms with the fact that at twenty, you and Jake just aren't what you used to be. That is until you get a text from him, and all of a sudden, he's back by your side, doing his year abroad at the university you study at, and all your feelings for him float back up to the surface. genre. college au, childhood friends to ???? to lovers, painful mutual pining, one bed trope..... a sprinkle of angst (my hand slipped) but mostly fluff i promise and smut (mdni!!!), also i made sunghoon really weird in this and idkw, this is set in scotland.. edinburgh uni rep!! word count. 23k author's note. everybody say happy belated birthday to @zreamy.. happy belated birthday zo!!! being 22 years and 6 days old is cooler than just 22 years old anyway.. hope you like it bestie... if you dont... well theres a building on campus thats 17 stories high sooo.. enjoy! i hope everyone else enjoys too, since this is a bday fic for zo she couldnt beta read so i had to raw dog this so if its terrible.. not my fault! lmk what u think!! i also made a playlist for this, do listen along!!

“Alright kids, good news or bad news first?”

You looked at your teacher, then at the boy next to you, then back at your teacher. “Bad news first,” you said in unison.

You were only eight, but you were both wise enough to know that hearing good news second would assuage the blow of whatever these bad news were. Miss Dawson sighed as she crouched in front of you. “The bad news is your bus driver is on strike and won’t be coming. The good news is that your parents have been informed and are coming to pick you up soon.”

Following her instructions, you headed to the gymnasium and sat there silently among the other kids. Not many kids in your class rode the bus home, and the ones who did seemed to have drivers not on strike, so it was just the two of you. You were used to that, though - over January and February, you had made a sort of silent pact to stand and wait for the bus together. You sometimes shared snacks, but you never spoke. For some reason, you felt at ease with this boy, even though you didn’t know much about him. You had heard he had moved to Brisbane just at the start of this year, all the way from South Korea. You were pretty sure his name was Jake.

You handed him one of your Twix bars. Then he spoke. “I thought a strike was when you did really well in bowling.”

“Same,” you replied, mouth full of chocolate and caramel. “I’m not sure why that would keep the bus driver from picking us up.”

Jake looked at you with wide eyes, distress clear in them. “Do you think he went bowling instead of picking us up?”

This made you frown. “That’d be really rude.”

“It would. I always make sure to go bowling on the weekends, ‘cause if I missed school that’d be rude to Miss Dawson.”

You nodded your head in fervent agreement. “For sure.”

That weekend, his mum called your mum to ask if you wanted to go to the bowling alley with them. From then on, for the next six years, you were stuck together by glue. 

--

Twelve years later, Jake’s name appearing on your phone screen has become such a rare sight, you don’t believe it right away. It takes you a few seconds of intense squinting at the letters to actually realise your eyes aren’t deceiving you.

jake.sim15 hey y/n!! you go to edinburgh uni right?

You type and delete three different responses before settling for a simple yeah, I am! what’s up?, hoping you sounded nonchalant even though you very much felt chalant. You thought that whatever you sent wouldn’t be as weird as taking forever to answer such a straightforward question. 

As you wait for Jake’s reply, you scroll through your previous shared messages, noting with sadness that for three years in a row, the only instances you’d texted were to wish each other a happy birthday or when he reacted with a fire emoji to Stories of your dog, Milo. Before that, your last conversation was to congratulate each other about getting into your top choice universities and to discuss plans for your respective futures.

Futures that used to include each other, you think. His reply appears at the bottom of your screen before melancholy can fill your heart.

jake.sim15 i applied to go there for my year abroad next year annnnd i got in !! heh

You shoot up straight from your seat on the lounge chaise you’d been sunbathing on, a loud “Oh my God!” involuntarily escaping your mouth. 

“What? What happened? Is everything okay?” Chaewon asks frantically, rushing over to your side. “Oh,” she says when she sees your phone. “It’s a text… from a boy?” 

This makes Yunjin, previously unbothered by your panic, rise from her seat and take off her sunglasses. “A boy? Show me,” she demands, snatching your phone from your hands before you can protest. Upon seeing the texts on your screen, she lets out a loud gasp. “It’s not just any boy! It’s the one and only Jake Sim himself.”

“Give that back!” you plead, hand reaching for your phone, but Yunjin is already walking away.

“And he’s coming to Edi this September, apparently. He says he’s sorry for not saying anything earlier, but he was waiting for an answer up until now.” She scoffs. “Leave it to our uni to tell someone they’re in less than two months before term starts. Oh, you’re the first person he’s told, Y/N! After his parents. How cute,” she coos, protesting when you snatch your phone back from her. “Hey! I was reading that.”

“Those are my texts, Yunjin. I’m the one who’s meant to read them.”

She shrugs. “You would’ve told us anyway.”

“What are you going to reply?” Chaewon asks. With the both of them hovering over your shoulders and watching as you type a response, a sort of stage fright comes over you, making you send what might be the most unoriginal reply known to man.

“Awesome? Seriously, Y/N?” Yunjin reads, disproportionately disgusted with you.

“That’s a lot of exclamation marks. It almost makes it look like you don’t mean it,” Chaewon says.

“I do mean it!”

“Well, he seems to like it. A smiling-with-teeth emoji is a good sign, right?” she asks in an attempt to make you feel better.

“He has automatic caps off. That man is run-through,” Yunjin says, shaking her head as she walks back to her sunbed.

“You were excited about him texting me just a second ago,” you reproach.

“Yeah, before I found out he was a whore.”

“Yunjin, you know we don't slut-shame here!” Chaewon exclaims. Before Yunjin can say anything even worse in response, your phone starts ringing, and Jake’s name appears on your screen. “He’s calling you?” Chaewon gasps, making Yunjin sit up with a start for the second time in less than five minutes.

“This man is insane,” she remarks with all the seriousness in the world.

You run away from your friends, finding refuge in the outside kitchen area out of earshot. They don’t need to hear your conversation with Jake. You love them, but they can be weirdly unsupportive in moments like these.

“Hey, Jake,” you greet, hoping he doesn’t notice the breathlessness in your voice. It was because you had just ran, of course - you didn’t want him to think you were so nervous about talking to him after such a long time, you could barely breathe. Because you weren’t. At all.

“Hey, Y/N!” he replies, and the excitement in his voice makes your heart melt. “I hope it’s not weird that I called, I just thought it’d be nicer than texting, is that okay?”

“Yeah, it’s fine, it’s nice to hear your voice,” you say before you can really think about it, and cringe at your own words. Years without talking and the world’s worst line is the first thing you say to Jake. Thankfully, before you start excruciating yourself, a chuckle pours out of Jake’s throat and blesses your ears.

“It’s nice to hear your voice, too. What are you up to?” 

“Oh, I’m on vacation with my friends. One of them has a rich aunt who owns a villa in southern Italy, so we’re just chilling by the pool right now.” 

“You always wanted to go to Italy! That sounds so nice,” he says. Your breath catches gently in your throat - he remembers, you note.

“Yeah, it really is. What about you, how are you spending the summer?”

Jake tells you about the local bookstore owned by a grandpa that’s always had a soft spot for him and that gave him a part-time job for the summer. “I’m trying to save up as much money as I can before I leave. If I treat you to a meal, will you show me around the city?” he asks, and you can hear the grin in his voice. It makes you realise how much you’ve actually missed him.

“You don’t need to treat me to a meal, I’ll show you around anyway.” 

Still, he insists, and you find yourself giving in quickly - because it’s Jake or because free food is on the table, you’re not sure. Probably both. 

You and Jake get to talking, but fitting years and years of catching up into one conversation is an impossible task, and before you know it, when you check your phone, you’ve been talking for over an hour. Yunjin is angrily waving at you, pointing at her stomach to indicate hunger like a caveman who’s just learned how to communicate. You apologise to Jake, telling him you have to go, and plan to meet during fresher’s week before you hang up.

A few hours later, you get a text from him saying it was nice talking to you and jokingly asking whether Yunjin was satisfied with lunch. It’s innocuous, but it opens a gate for more texting, which leads to long, rambling voice messages, which leads to late-night phone calls that remind you of when you were fifteen and still kept in touch. When August fades into September, you feel like you’ve got your best friend back. 

You remember why you were so in love with him at fourteen.

--

You see Jake before he sees you.  

Among the throngs of people, you manage to spot the dark, messy flop of hair on his head weighed down by a nice pair of wireless headphones. After a thirteen-hour flight from Seoul, a four-hour layover in Frankfurt and a final, two-hour flight to Edinburgh, he looks rightfully exhausted, using what looks like the last of his energy to spot the exit and the airport bus stop. Even wearing a simple denim jacket, white tee and grey sweatpants, he’s so gorgeous you forget what you came here for, until he almost walks right past you without seeing you. You put yourself in his path and hold your hand-written banner up, making yourself as obvious as you can as you call out his name. 

When he sees you, he stops dead in his tracks for a second, someone almost running into him before he remembers the crowd behind him. His tired features break out into a bright smile that has your heartbeat speeding up so much, you think it might run out of your chest. 

He had told you not to come, that it would be late for you and he didn’t want to bother you, but you had managed to get the information of his arrival before he forbade you from picking him up so you did it anyway, wanting to surprise him. After years of being apart, rather than waiting another day, you wanted to see him as soon as possible.

Jake briskly makes his way to you, dropping his bags next to him on the floor as he engulfs you in a hug, warm and tight as if he’s trying to make up for all those years. You hug him back as if someone would appear out of thin air and take him away from you again.

“This was the longest day of my life, I’m so happy to see you,” he says when he pulls away, and you’re so happy you can’t even say anything back, resorting to giggling and lightly swatting non-existent dust off of his shoulders. 

As you wait for the bus, he tells you about every trivial thing that happened to him on his trip, from how expensive a sandwich is at the airport to the German kid sitting in front of him that kept turning around to stare at him on his second flight.

“How did you know he was German?” you ask, amused.

Jake pauses. “Just vibes.”

Conversation on the bus is slightly disjointed as you jump from topic to topic with random pauses here and there before one of you finds something to talk about - but it’s okay, you hadn’t expected for the two of you to be as easy as before. It’s more awe at seeing each other after such a long time than awkwardness. Even though you’d caught up over summer, there was a world of difference between speaking on the phone and actually sitting next to him. You notice things like the shine of his hair, the creases that form on the sides of his lips when he smiles, or, unfortunately for you, the veins that run along his forearms and hands - things you hadn’t noticed previously thanks to the sometimes questionable quality of the front camera of his phone. Once in a while, your thigh brushes against his, and it reminds you that he’s really here. Even that he’s real, at all. 

In a tragic turn of events, Jake lives in the student accommodation you used to live in in first year, and coming back to it two years later is slightly traumatising. His three-person flat is in a different building as your old one, and you marvel at how it somehow still smells the same - like dusty, decade-old carpeting and the permanent stench of students’ dubitable cooking. He’s the first one to move in, which makes the place slightly eerie, but it means that you’re not bothering anyone by unpacking Jake’s stuff and cooking Shin Ramyun the previous tenants had left behind at 11pm. 

Your late dinner was meant for you to take a small break, watch a couple episodes of Friends which Jake had been shocked to learn you’d never watched, and you had been shocked to learn he was a die-hard fan of (since one year ago), then get back to unpacking. But the ramen sends an already exhausted Jake into a food coma so intense, he falls asleep on your shoulder five minutes into the second episode. 

You let him sleep as long as he needs, turning the volume down on his laptop and stifling your chuckles as much as you can. You feel like a cat has fallen asleep in your lap - you are now obliged by law to stay still until Jake wakes up. It’s not until an hour later that Jake’s uncomfortable sleeping position forces him awake, lifting his head off of your shoulder with a grunt. He looks around himself, at his room that’s not quite familiar to him yet, then at you, eyes still scrunched with sleepiness as a grin blooms onto his lips.

“Sorry,” clearing his throat of its grogginess. “What time is it?”

“It’s almost one a.m,” you reply, and his eyes go wide.

“You should’ve woken me up! Does your shoulder hurt?” he asks, much more alarmed than he should be, and it makes you laugh.

“It’s all good. But now that you’re awake, I should probably head home.” 

“I’ll get you an Uber,” he says, already pulling out his phone. 

“It’s fine, Jake, my place is a ten-minute walk from here. I live just up the road.”

Jake’s fingers on his phone pause as he looks up at you. “Then I’ll walk you home.” He lifts a finger in warning when he sees you start to protest. “And don’t fight me on this. You did so much today, it’s the least I can do.”

As much as you love the idea of spending more time with Jake, even if it’s just ten minutes, you still don’t want to bother him when you know how tired he is. “It’s really safe around here. I can just text you when I’m home, if you’re worried about me getting kidnapped or something,” you say, taking his jacket from his hands and placing it back on his desk chair.

He grabs it back, putting it on before you can take it from him again, and rummages through one of his suitcases for a black, woolly scarf. Neither of you speaks as he wraps it tight around your neck, even though the early September weather isn’t cold enough to warrant it. His hands stop briefly on the scarf and a small smile spreads on his lips. You hope he doesn’t hear your sharp intake of breath when your eyes meet. “It’s not about that,” he says simply, voice low and unlike you’ve ever heard it before. You don’t think his voice had quite finished cracking when he’d moved away back then. 

Suddenly, he steps away, grabs his keys, and heads for the door. “Let’s go!” he says, voice back to its usual cheery tone. You don’t find it in you to question him, so you just follow him out, welcoming the night breeze that cools down your burning cheeks with open arms. 

The walk to your place is mostly done in comfortable silence, but it still goes by too quickly for your liking. You keep your hands in your pockets to prevent yourself from doing something stupid, like reaching out for Jake’s hand that swishes back-and-forth as he walks. Instead, you bury your nose in his scarf and relish in the unfamiliar but comforting smell that his cologne has left behind on the fabric. You hug goodbye when you reach your flat, and you have to remind yourself to let go. He insists on you keeping the scarf. “My mum packed me, like, three, so you can have that one.” 

“Your mum still pack your things for you, does she?” you ask, tone playful.

“No-” he says, voice slightly whiny, before he realises you’re just teasing him. “Whatever,” he chuckles, ruffling your hair. You hope the streetlights aren’t bright enough for him to notice the flustered look on your face. The both of you stand there awkwardly for a second, before he lets out another chuckle. “Right. See you tomorrow?”

“Yeah,” you beam.

“Okay,” he says, but still doesn’t make a move to leave. “Okay. Yeah. I’ll be off then.” He gives you one last smile then turns around, burying his hands in his pockets, and you watch as he walks away.

“Get home safe,” you call out after a few seconds. 

He pivots on his heels, and, with a wave of his hand, says, “I will! Go inside.”

“Good night!”

“Night, Y/N!”

When you walk into your living room, Yunjin is sitting on the couch, arms crossed over her chest, gaze trained on the wall opposite her, one lamp lighting the otherwise completely dark room. She looks like a detective in one of those bad cop shows.

“Gosh, what’s all this for?”

“You’re back awfully late,” she says, neither looking at you nor answering your question.

“Yeah, I was with Jake,” you shrug, heading into the kitchen for a glass of water. She abruptly gets up from her seat, following you into the other room and staying close behind you.

“And?” she demands, mouth way too close to your ear and making you start.

“And what?” you ask. 

“What do you mean and what?!” she says, clearly agitated. “I want to know everything!”

“There’s nothing to say, really. He seemed happy I picked him up from the airport, then I helped him unpack. He lives in Riego, by the way.”

“Ew.”

“I know, it was awful going back there.”

The two of you stare at each other as you drink your water. “Well?” she asks.

“What?”

“Is that it?”

You fill your glass again to take it into your bedroom. “I don’t know, we just ate and watched Friends.”

“You hate shows with laughing tracks,” she states like it’s an accusation.

“It wasn’t actually that bad,” you reply, shrugging.

She tuts. “Love will do ugly, ugly things to a person.”

“You’ve been in a loving relationship for the past two years.”

“This isn’t about me. Can we talk about how you’re still in love with the same loser from when you were ten?”

“I was fourteen, and don’t call Jake a loser when you haven’t even met him.” You ignore the roll of her eyes. “And I’m not. Not anymore. I’m just happy to have my friend back.” Yunjin gives you a look. “Okay, maybe I’m still a little bit in love with him. But it’s so little, it’s barely there.” Her expression is unchangingly unimpressed and you can’t help but throw in the towel. “Alright, fine. I still love him, what about it?”

“You’re pathetic.”

“I know that, no need to remind me.”

“Are you gonna do something about it?”

“My patheticness? I’ve tried, didn’t really work.”

“No, idiot, about Jake. You should go and get him! It’d be so sexy if you got together as 20-somethings after knowing each other since you were babies.”

“We were eight when we met. And I don’t know if sexy is the word I’d use here.”

“Anything is sexy if you try hard enough,” she says, and you have to laugh. “Anyways, you should confess your undying love and tell him you’ve felt that way since you met.”

“I wasn’t-”

“Guys might not show it, but they probably get all hot for stuff like that. Boosts their ego and shit.”

“Yunjin, I just got my friend back, I’m not gonna risk it. Plus, who knows, I might not actually be in love with him. It might just be my emotions acting up, like, seeing someone I used to like after a while. We’ve both changed so much, once I get to know him more now, I might not even feel the way I used to.”

“Notice how you’ve used the word might twice in ten seconds? You’re just trying to find excuses.”

You groan. “This is why I hate English Lit people.”

“You do English Lit.”

“I know, and I’m the only nice person that does it.” In your head, you add and Jake, but saying it out loud would only make this conversation worse for you.

“What’s that scarf, by the way? Did he give you that?”

You look down at the scarf like it’s a piece of incriminating evidence. “Can you stop grilling me, please? It’s late.”

“You’re not answering my question.”

You sighed deeply. “Fine. Yes, he gave me-”

“It’s not even that cold outside!” she exclaimed in an outrage. “Don’t tell me he also walked you home?”

You pause. “He did.”

She gasped. “He walked you home because he’s in love with you.”

“He walked me home because he’s a good friend that looks after me.”

“He walked you home because he realised how hot you’ve gotten and he wants some of that.”

All you can do is sigh. “Whatever. I’m going to bed.”

“If you weren’t such a coward, you wouldn’t be going to bed alone.”

“Whatever!” you say, shutting the door behind you, shaking that preposterous conversation out of your head. When you get into bed, it takes you at least half-an-hour before you can settle down, but you know your constant tossing and turning isn’t due to your inability to find a comfortable enough position to sleep in. Between your evening with Jake and Yunjin’s pestering, thoughts run wild and incoherent through your head. 

You want to tell her every little thing that happened with Jake tonight, but you’re afraid it might do you more harm than good. She is most definitely the type of friend who will take the smallest action a guy did for you or the most meaningless thing he might have said and turn it into a sign that he has the hots for you, which usually does wonders for your confidence, but right now, you don’t need that kind of delusion. Did seeing your childhood best friend you used to secretly harbour feelings for make you feel some type of way? Of course, but that doesn’t mean you still love him after all this time, after six years of being apart, the majority of those years spent with no contact. It wasn’t like you parted ways with resentment, or anything of that sort, far from it; rather, you drifted apart naturally, as two teenagers with over 7000 kilometres between them would. At first, you’d call frequently and even write each other letters - but as you became more preoccupied with school, friends, and extracurriculars, your phones gradually rang less and your mailboxes became gradually emptier. You don’t even remember who sent the last, unanswered letter. 

Tonight isn’t the first time you replay the moment Jake announced that he would go away, but it’s the first time it’s a bittersweet memory. It used to only be bitter - but now that you’ve reconnected, you can look back at it with fondness, wishing you could tell fourteen-year-old you the hurt would only last so long. 

It hadn’t started unusually.

“So, bad news first, right?”

In your six years of friendship with Jake, this had been the first time you’d really been wary of what he would say next. The look on his face told you that this bad news wouldn’t be as easy to shake off as usual. Your definition of bad news was things like I got grounded so I can’t hang out, I forgot we had a test tomorrow so I can’t hang out, my allergies are acting up again so I can’t hang out.

“I’m moving to Korea next month.”

I’m on another continent, so I can’t hang out.

You remember the words not quite making sense at the time. “Oh? How long are you staying there?” you said, taking a bite of your strawberry ice cream which Jake had insisted on paying for, even though you knew he didn’t get much allowance.

“Forever.”

You stopped chewing, and the ice cream melted uncomfortably in your mouth. You don’t know how long you stayed there, frozen as you stared at your best friend in disbelief. It wasn’t until he lightly shoved your shoulder, only meeting your eyes for a split second, that you remembered to swallow and to say something.

“Forever as in… You won’t live here anymore? At all?”

Jake shook his head. He kept his eyes trained on the vanilla-chocolate ice cream sandwich he’d left in its wrapper. In the blazing hot Brisbane summer, it had probably fully melted two minutes ago. “At all.”

“Oh,” was all you found yourself able to say. For some reason, you hoped that continuing to eat your ice cream would stop you from crying, but to no avail. Hot, salty tears quickly started raining down your cheeks, mixing with the sweetness of your ice cream when they reached your lips. 

“It’s my dad’s work. Same reason why I moved here when we were kids in the first place. They wanted him here then, they want him back there now. We just have to follow,” Jake explained, sounding just as upset as you felt.

“Right.”

“Are you mad at me?” Jake asked, worry clear in his voice, and finally turned to face you. At the sight of you crying, he let out a small oh, tears of his own pooling in his eyes.

You frowned. “Of course not. I’m never mad at you, you know that. I just… You’re my best friend, Jakey. It’s gonna be so lame around here without you.”

“It’ll be lame there without you, too.”

You attempted a smile. “Well, of course. But at least you’ll get to make new friends, see new places. You’ll be in a whole other country, I’m sure you’ll have fun there. I’m gonna be stuck in boring old Brisbane for the foreseeable future.”

“Do you know how offended our friends would be if they heard you speaking right now?” he asked, nudging your shoulder with his.

You sniffled and let out a chuckle. “They’re all great, but… I don’t like them nearly as much as I like you,” you said, staring down at your hands, hoping he wouldn’t realise exactly what you meant by that statement.

A weight was lifted off of your shoulders when Jake answered. “I like you the most too, Y/N.” You tried not to think too much about whether he’d meant it platonically or romantically - none of that mattered anymore. All that mattered was the feeling of his arms around you, his warmth enveloping your whole body, his familiar scent that you already missed. 

You felt him take a deep breath against you before he pulled away. He sniffled and did his best to put on a smile. “Right, enough of that. I’m not leaving until next month, so don’t think you’re rid of me just yet,” he joked, and it helped alleviate the weight on your heart, even if just a little. “You said you had something to tell me? Good news after bad news, and all that.”

“Oh. Right. I forgot about that.”

You thought for a second. Today was the day you had planned to confess your feelings to Jake - you’d only told him you had good news to share. But what was the point now that he was leaving? If he felt the same way, it would only make his departure that much harder, and if he didn’t, it would ruin your last moments together. It just wasn’t worth it.

Jake tilted his head, waiting for you to speak. In a split second, you made yourself forget your disappointment over having built the courage to tell him how you felt only for it all to fall through, and resolved to make the most of Jake’s last month here. You wiped your tears and mirrored his small smile as best you could. “Um, it wasn’t anything much. My mum made those cowboy cookies you like.”

Jake’s head fell back as he groaned in anticipation. “If she wasn’t happily married with three kids, I’d marry your mum. Let’s go right now.”

You laughed. “There’d be a bit of an age gap there.”

“We’d make it work,” Jake joked, throwing his arm around your shoulders as you walked towards your house. He beamed down at you, his bright, boyish smile that you loved to bits, and you beamed up at him as you grabbed the hand that hung off your shoulder in your own.

You walked as happily as you could. “Do you even speak Korean?” you suddenly asked.

Jake halted abruptly in his steps, a gravely offended look on his face. When you looked back at him in confusion, he rolled his eyes and started walking again, pulling you with him. “It’s literally my mother tongue, Y/N. I speak it every day at home.”

“Oh, right.”

At the time, you thought nothing could come between you and Jake. Not anyone, not anything, neither distance nor time. But they did. A week after he’d left, a boy from your class you’d talked to maybe once or twice asked you out on a date. You weren’t sure why, but you said yes. Then you said yes to being his girlfriend, even though you didn’t like him all that much, and you even said yes to reducing your texting with Jake because it made him jealous. When you’d broken up with him and wanted to catch up with Jake and apologise for your absence, you’d found that his new school in Seoul was a lot more demanding than yours in Brisbane, and he had to spend most of his evenings in academies if he wanted to get into a nice university. It’s when you learned that he’d be staying in South Korea for college that you decided to leave Australia too. Brisbane was a lot less fun without him there - why bother staying? You couldn’t go to him because of the language barrier and the cost of university there. If you were to essentially uproot your life, might as well go somewhere you could get a scholarship and understand the people around you. 

It seemed insane that someone you had thought would be by your side for the rest of your life, someone that was part of your most cherished memories, had been reduced to someone you casually texted once in a while. It seems even more insane that now that you’re finally done essentially grieving your friendship with Jake, he stands in front of you again, six inches taller but still donning those puppy-like eyes and smile of his.

For your sake, you just hoped you wouldn’t be as in love with him at twenty as you were at fourteen.

--

The next day, you show Jake around campus, which wouldn’t normally take more than ten minutes, but takes double that time because of the sheer amount of people there. Between the Societies Fair taking up most of the square, the tour guides leading freshers, walking slowly and taking in their new campus, and the pizza and drinks stands, freshers’ week always turns campus into what feels like the busiest place on Earth. You try not to let it hit a nerve for Jake’s sake, who’s clearly ecstatic at all the activity, but you like this place a lot more when it’s quieter. You walk through the Fair, laughing as Jake marvels at all the different clubs and societies at the Uni. 

“Gardening Society? Dungeons & Dragons Society? Wine society?” he exclaims, astonishment growing with every passing stand.

“And this is only the first day. They also have a Taylor Swift Society.” He grabs a flyer from about every society, even though you know he’ll join between two to zero of them. 

When you walk out, there’s a girl handing out samples of shampoo and conditioner, and you let her give you one, more out of politeness than anything. 

“These are so useless,” you start, and Jake chuckles, unaware of the incoming rant. “I had that job of distributing them last year, and we would get a tip if we gave them all out. So naturally I put a bunch in my bag, but then I had to use them for like two weeks.” You sigh. “First of all, my hair did not like it. And second, the ratio is so off. There’s way more conditioner than shampoo when it should be the other way around, so you have to condition your hair even though it’s not properly clean. So stupid.”

“Sounds terrible,” Jake says, laughing. “Is that why you’re not doing it this year?”

“Oh… Not really. I dated the guy that takes care of this promo stuff, so it would’ve been kinda awkward…” you trail, immediately wishing you could backtrack on conversation. Talking about your ex with Jake wasn’t on your to-do list for today. Or ever.

“You dated your boss?”

“The manager, yeah, I guess. He was only 24, though, don’t worry.”

“I’m more worried about the power imbalance than the age gap there.”

You shrug, looking down at your shoes. “It’s not like he was that high up.”

“So, what happened? Why did you break up?”

“Well, he acted like our four-year age difference meant he could treat me like a little kid. It was nice being taken care of at first but then I realised how condescending he was and dumped him.”

“How long were you together?”

You pause. “Two weeks,” you admit abashedly, making Jake chuckle. “At least he didn’t waste my time and showed his red flags early on.”

“Any boyfriends since?” he asks, and you wonder whether you’re making up the unsure tone of his voice. As if he’s curious, but doesn’t want to show it too much. You hope you’re not making it up.

“A few, but they never last very long with me,” you say, a meek smile on your lips. “Furthest I got was three months.”

“And why didn’t it work out with three-months-guy?”

“He started comparing me to his mum a bit too often.”

“Ouch.”

“Yeah, I ran out of there without looking back.”

“Well, it’s nice to see you’ve got high standards. I would hate to see you date just any loser.”

You want to say, High standards or issues?, but you don’t want to make it weird, so you play it cool instead. “I would never. I have a mental checklist with everything a guy needs to have for me to date him.”

“A checklist? I have to hear about this.”

You sigh, debating whether you should tell him about it. Would he notice it’s based on him? Would he notice the only person that could tick practically every box was none other than him? Jake gently elbows your side, goading you on. When you look at him, he’s got a shit-eating grin playing on his lips, and you give in. You look off into the distance as you start listing your requirements. “Well, there’s all your basics like funny, taller than me but not too much, ‘cause I don’t want neck cramps, smart, takes uni seriously, has plans for his future, easy to talk to, not emotionally stunted and can actually have a vulnerable conversation. It’s also a bonus if he has a nice face.”

“How much of a bonus?”

You think for a second. “It’s more a dealbreaker than a bonus, actually. Nice smile is a must, definitely.”

“Okay. Got any more specifics?”

“I do have some particular ones. It’s nice if he’s a reader, but it’s terrible if it makes him think he’s better than everyone or if he tries to sound smarter than me. I like it if he has experience, I don’t want to have to teach him everything. But obviously I don’t want him to still be in love with his ex. Guys and their first loves, I swear… I also don’t really like picky eaters.” You look over at Jake and take a double-take. He’s typing away on his phone, but because of his privacy screen protector, you can’t see anything. You huff. “I also don’t like it if he has those protective screens on his phone. What’s on there that’s so important that I can’t take a peek? What are you even doing?”

The sweet sound of Jake’s giggles erases any trace of annoyance that you felt seconds ago. He turns his screen towards you, showing the list of mostly ticked boxes that he’s written up. “See? I check most of these,” he says with a proud smile. “Guess your standards aren’t that high.” You don’t tell him that your standards are high, he’s just that amazing. 

You do your best to look only amused at this even though inside, you’re all but freaking out. “Which are you missing?”

“Well, I clearly own a privacy screen. And I don’t have much experience. Not nearly as much as you, by the sounds of it,” he admits, somewhat sheepish. “But other than that, I’m practically the perfect man for you.” He looks down at you with a smile so bright, it makes you wish you had brought sunglasses. It takes everything in you not to scream right then and there. Yes, Jake, you are the perfect man for me, but I wish you wouldn’t say it like it was a joke.

You let out a stiff chuckle, and, rather than saying something stupid and possibly damaging, shift the conversation to him. “What do you mean by not much experience? Have you not dated anyone?”

Jake sighs. “Nope, not anyone. I went on a few dates, you know, went through a few talking stages and all that, but it never went much further. There was always something…” He glances at you then. “Missing.”

“I know that feeling,” you say with a chuckle, and he laughs too, a breathy sound.

“I don’t have a checklist to pinpoint what it is, though.”

You smile. “You should try, it might help.”

“I just… I guess I’m like you in that I also have high standards. But it made me not even want to give anyone a chance, especially since I knew it wouldn’t end up anywhere.”

“Don’t tell me no one has ever managed to reach the great Jake Sim’s standards?” you ask, trying to keep your tone light.

Jake smiles, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “Of course someone has. She’s the whole reason I have standards in the first place. It’s not my standards I compare people to, it’s her.”

Jealousy has never made you feel as sad as it is right now. “And… it didn’t work out between you?”

Jake looks at you, eyes searching for something in yours but seemingly not finding it, and so he turns his gaze away. You don’t know why you feel so disappointed. “Nope,” he says, popping the ‘p’. “She didn’t feel the same way.”

Whoever this girl is, you can’t believe how stupid she is for passing up the opportunity to have Jake Sim. “That’s… It sucks, I’m sorry,” you say. You don’t think spitting on this girl would make him feel any better, so you keep those thoughts to yourself.

“It’s okay,” he says with a small smile. “It was a while ago already.”

“Doesn’t sound like you’re quite over it, though,” you say, and you’re surprised but glad to see his smile widen.

“That’s true.” His eyes meet yours again. “I don’t think I’ll be over her anytime soon, either.” You have to look away to shield the pain that flashes through your eyes from him.

Pretending you don’t have feelings for your best friend and that you’re okay with him being in love with someone else is like riding a bike: even after years of not doing it, it only takes a few minutes for you to be able to do it perfectly again. Muscle memory, if you will. So you sigh dramatically and throw your arm around Jake’s shoulder, slightly pulling him down to your level. “Don’t worry. We’re going to have so much fun this year, you’ll completely forget about her. Promise. She doesn’t know what she’s missing. Yeah?” 

He smiles down at you. You want nothing more but that glint of melancholy in his eyes to be gone. “Yeah.”

--

Jake is only half-glad to see you haven’t changed much from your childhood and early teenage years. You’re still just as pretty, just as warm; it’s still as comfortable to be around you. You’re also still as dense.

Then and now, he did everything he could to make his feelings for you very, very obvious. Either you’re completely oblivious, or the idea of dating him is so horrifying to you, you understand but pretend you don’t. He really hopes it’s the former. 

He arrived in Edinburgh just a bit over a week ago, and you’ve seen each other almost every day. Out of those times, there isn’t a single one where he hasn’t tried to send something your way - something that says, hey, what if we stopped being friends and dated instead? Wouldn’t that be cool? Can’t you see how desperately I love you?, but you never latch on. The ball’s in your court, and he wants you to throw it back, but it’s been feeling more like a boomerang that always hits him right in the face when it circles back than a game of catch.

But he’s reminding himself not to be too greedy. Even if it’s just as friends, at least he has you back, so he’s satisfied with that. For now.

His first class of the year is on the following Tuesday morning, a ninety-minute seminar specifically made for exchange students called Discover Scotland. (He has Mondays free, resulting in a three-day weekend, which you and your 9am Monday tutorial are very envious of.) As interesting as the English Lit courses he’s taking seem, it’s this one he’s most looking forward to - except for the one class he shares with you, of course. Not even because of the seminars themselves, which will be about all sorts of topics on Scottish culture and history, but because of the coursework, as crazy as that sounds. It consists of a singular project, not due until the very last day of the semester, in which he has to travel to at least three different places in the country, research its background and provide a detailed account of his experience there. It can take any form: a written report, an in-class presentation, a podcast, anything. He could even film a TikTok if he wanted. Jake knew that being part of the Arts & Crafts club for two years in a row back in Seoul wasn’t for nothing - his scrapbooking skills would finally have their time to shine. 

That afternoon, he practically snatches you as you come out of your lecture, giving you little time to say bye to your friends, and makes you take him to the biggest stationary store you know in the city. If he wants to ace this project, he will need supplies. Many, many supplies. And it’s more fun shopping if you’re with him. You seem happy following him around the store, and when he asks you if you want to come on his trips with him, he can pretend it’s because you seem so excited about his project and not because he had thought of you accompanying him as soon as he heard about it.

As you stand in line at the till, you tell him that if he wants to start his project now, you could go to the beach together. You raise your eyebrows at him when he snaps your head towards you. “There’s a beach here?!”

“Did you not look at a map before coming here?” you ask, amused.

“I guess I didn’t…” he says, distraught at the new information. It only lasts a second, though. “Okay, let’s go now.”

“Now?” you echo, and he nods. “But-” you start, but are interrupted by your thoughts. “I guess there’s no reason not to. The weather’s nice and it’s not like I have any uni work yet. Let’s go,” you agree, looking up at him with a smile. You’re so pretty he almost forgets to look away, until the employee calls Next in a bored drawl. 

An hour later, you’re at the beach, barefoot on the sand and ice cream in hand. Strawberry for you and vanilla for him, he notes with a smile. Really not much has changed, he thinks. From the sand, to the water, to the promenade along the beach, Portobello is worlds away from the beaches back home in Australia, or those of Jeju Island. But it’s still nice, and because you’re with him, it’s even better. You’ve been walking around for an hour, splashing each other with water and mercilessly ruining sandcastles left behind before he realises you technically came here for his project. He writes down things he doesn’t want to forget on his phone and snaps a few pictures, sneaking a few of you when you’re not looking. He wants to tell you how beautiful you are with your hair blowing in the wind and the way the chill bites at your cheeks, but he keeps it a secret between him and his Notes app. 

Even though he lives two stops further down, he gets off from the bus with you, containing his excitement as best he can when you invite him up for a cup of tea. “Depends. What tea do you have?” he asks, trying and failing to play it cool. He’s just grateful he doesn’t have to come up with an excuse to spend more time with you.

You roll your eyes playfully as you unlock the front door to your building. “I can make you hot chocolate, Mister Tea-Is-For-Old-People.”

He chuckles. “Actually, I’ll have you know I started drinking tea at uni.” When you turn around to look at him, a surprised look on your face, he nods proudly. “Mh-hm. I got addicted to caffeine very quickly into first year so I started drinking black tea for the sake of my heart,” he explains.

“God,” you say breathily, sounding mildly horrified. “A caffeine addiction sounds intense.”

“It was, yeah,” he says, laughing as he follows you into your flat. 

Yunjin and Chaewon are sitting at the living room table, watching an episode of what he thinks is Gossip Girl, and they greet him as normally as these two can, but he wonders what the knowing look they exchange is all about. He’d met them the previous weekend when you had all gone for drinks together, along with Jay, Yunjin’s boyfriend, and they had all but grilled him on his relationship with you. He hadn’t thought much of it, chalking it up to your friends feeling protective of you, and truthfully, he was just happy to get to talk about you. But now, he was wondering if you had told them anything about him that made them so curious about him. If you did, he hoped it was something positive.

He stands awkwardly in the kitchen, chatting with you as you boil the water and get cups out, but he can feel their gazes burning the back of his head. Clearly, whatever conversation he’s having with you, he’s also having it with them. “How do you take your tea?” you ask.

“Um, three sugars and lots of milk, please,” he says, smiling innocently when you slowly turn to look at him, a mix of disapproval, disgust, and offence on your face. 

You sigh deeply. “I mean, I’ll do it, but I’m not sure that’s even tea anymore.”

“You’re one to talk, Miss Caramel Frappuccino,” he says, recycling your bad joke from earlier.

“At least I don’t claim to be drinking coffee when I order a frap,” you argue. “And this is how you battled your coffee addiction? You’ll be getting another kind of heart problem, Jakey.” He doesn’t know if you even notice your use of his old nickname - the first time you’ve used it since he’s been here - but you don’t make a big deal of it, so he doesn’t either. Not outwardly, at least. Mentally, he’s running laps around your small kitchen.

Jake laughs it off. “I thought I came here for tea, not a health check-up,” he says, smile growing wider at the sight of yours. 

“Right, sorry,” you say, giggling. “I’ll make your tea just how you like it,” you add in a sweet voice. Jake knows you’re just doing it as a joke, but it still manages to make butterflies erupt in his stomach. 

His tea tastes even sweeter that day.

--

A few days after your impromptu trip to the beach, you’re waiting for Jake outside of his class. He heard of this donut shop he “absolutely needs to visit” and is dragging you along with him - well, “dragging” is a big word considering you’d follow him anywhere. You got here a few minutes early, not needing much of a reason to leave the library, so you scroll through your feed until Jake calls out your name. You’re only mildly surprised to see Jay leaving the classroom behind him.

“Y/N! Can you believe that Jay and I are in the same class?” he says excitedly as the two boys walk toward you. You feel like a dog owner being greeted by their over-enthusiastic dog after a long day (about three hours) of being apart.

“I can believe it, actually. You two do the same degree.”

You exchange quick greetings with Jay before the three of you start heading out. As you walk, Jake throws his arm around your shoulders so casually, it almost throws you off balance. Physical contact always came easy to him, but there’s something about him doing it next to someone else that catches you off guard. It reminds you of walking somewhere with Jay and Yunjin as they discretely held hands. It makes you feel like it’s not the three of you, but Jay with the two of you. Like you and Jake come as a pair rather than as two individuals. 

All of that from a simple arm around your shoulders.

Jake asking you in a very unsubtle whisper whether Jay can come with brings you out of your head and back into the conversation. “Yeah, of course,” you say, smiling. It’s not a bad idea to have Jay along: hanging out with someone else might snap you out of your delusion.

Most of the walk to the shop is done in laughter as Jake and Jay realise how much random stuff they have in common, from their peanut allergies to the embarrassing Harry Potter phase they had as fifteen-year-olds. Grassmarket is really busy on Friday afternoons, and there’s a bit of a queue of other donut-enjoyers in front of the boutique, but you don’t mind. The sun is shining down gently on the square and it gives you time to choose your donut out of the ten or so flavours available. In the end, you go for white chocolate and raspberry, while Jake chooses Biscoff and Jay, tiramisu. 

“My friend Sunghoon would love this,” he says after taking a hearty bite. “He goes crazy over tiramisu. Like a cat with catnip.”

Jake chuckles, mouth full of Biscoff. “That’s funny, I also have a friend named Sunghoon who loves tiramisu back in Seoul.”

Jay punches Jake’s shoulder, eyes wide in amusement and shock. “Bro, that’s crazy. You have to be lying at this point,” he says, but Jake shakes his head fervently. 

“I promise I’m not. I’ve even saved his number with the tiramisu emoji.”

“There’s a tiramisu emoji?” Jay asks, already over questioning the existence of Jake’s Sunghoon.

The conversation circles back to the courses you’re all taking this semester, and Jake tells Jay about Discover Scotland and the trips he’s planned so far. “Well, if you really want to discover Scotland as a student, you need to go on a night out in Glasgow,” Jay says. Going by the look on Jake’s face, Jay’s idea seems to have struck a chord in him.

“Y/N?”

You nod, finishing your mouthful of donut before speaking. “Yeah, Glasgow’s really fun. We should go,” you say, laughing when the two boys high-five in victory. Between the train, the drinks and the club entry, going out isn’t a cheap ordeal, and getting to and fro also takes a while - even so, the smile on Jake’s face makes it worth it. 

He wipes some raspberry jam from the corner of your mouth, shooting you a wink, and you want to disintegrate right then and there, become one with the bench you’re sitting on and never have to face him again. The conversation resumes as Jay tells Jake about all the best places to go out in Glasgow, but you don’t hear a word - the feeling of Jake’s thumb so close to your lips takes away your ability for coherent thought.

“It’s decided, then. We’re going out tomorrow night,” Jay loudly announces. “Let me gather the troops.”

That’s how you find yourself in line for the club the next day, already tipsy from pre-drinking on the train and at the pub. It’s still warm enough for you and the girls to wear as little clothing as you want, but Jake insisted on giving you his flannel jacket anyway. If not for the warmth it brings, you’re glad to have his scent enveloping you.

The five of you work exceptionally well together. You, Chaewon and Yunjin have been a given since you met in first year, and Jay and Yunjin went so well together that he was but a natural addition to your little group. Jake’s only been here for over a week, but it’s like he’s always been around, and you couldn’t be happier about it. Him and Jay hit it off immediately, and although the girls needed some time to warm up to him (it’s not everyday that you meet your friend’s ex-best-friend she’s practically always been in love with; you understand why they might’ve been wary at first), they now tease him just as relentlessly as they do Jay. He takes it like a champ.

For a little while, you watch your friends speaking over each other, bickering over nothing, a smile on your face. Two pints of cider and some of Jay’s fancy vodka have made you more grateful than ever for them - if you drink too much in the club, you’ll be hugging them and crying about how much you love them. You’re not sure what that might look like around Jake, so you decide to keep yourself in check for the night. 

It takes about thirty minutes before you manage to get into the club. It’s not coat check season yet, so you head straight to the bar. “Sunghoon said he’d meet us here,” Jay says, lifting his head to spot his friend in the sea of drunk students. “Oh yeah, there he is! Hoon, hey!” 

You hear a loud “Jongseong!” being shouted from somewhere in the crowd, but you’re not sure who Jay is waving at until a boy whose face is mostly eyebrows is standing - well, standing as best as he can, with the copious amount of alcohol he’s obviously already consumed - in front of you. He gives Jay a hug and the three of you a nod of his head, a lopsided smile on his face. When he turns to Jake, his eyebrows lift first, then his face breaks into a wide grin.

“Jake, my man!” he shouts, taking a stunned Jake’s hand and bringing him into a hug. 

“Sunghoon? What the hell are you doing here?” he asks, chuckling and frowning in confusion. 

“I’m just partying, man! Same as you!”

“No, I mean here in Scotland, you dumbass!”

“You two know each other?” Jay asks, looking back and forth between his two friends.

“Jake’s my man!” Sunghoon exclaims, unhelpful and stumbling as he throws an arm around his man’s shoulders. Jake shoots you a distressed look but you just laugh at him.

“This is Tiramisu Sunghoon I told you about,” Jake says, helping Sunghoon stand up straight.

“God, what I would do for a tiramisu right now,” Sunghoon says, looking at Yunjin like she might relate. She chuckles awkwardly.

“I have no idea what he’s doing in Scotland, though. Hoon, I thought you were going to NYU for your exchange?”

Sunghoon pauses to think for a second, looking like he’s never heard of NYU in his life. “Oh, that! Yeah, I did an online orientation thing and… it did not go well. Let’s just say there’s someone in New York City who wants me dead,” he says conspiratorially. You all stare at him but he gives no further explanation. On your right, you hear Yunjin whisper what the fuck under her breath. “So I transferred here instead!”

“I didn’t know you were an exchange student,” Jay says, still looking just as confused.

“Yeah, man! But anyways, let’s not talk about uni right now. I’m on a bender, day three, baby! Do not talk to me tomorrow,” he says, chuckling until the smile suddenly drops from his face. “I mean that.” You look around yourself, glad to find everyone is just as baffled as you. “Let’s party!” Sunghoon cheers, intoxicated grin back on his lips. Jake and Jay follow, but you and the girls stay back for a second, taking in everything that has just happened.

“That. Is the most beautiful man I have ever seen,” Chaewon blurts, staring blankly at the spot Sunghoon stood in a second ago.

“Yeah, he also seems to be a raging alcoholic. And he’s what, twenty-one?” Yunjin says, a scowl on her face. 

“I could fix him.”

“Okay, let’s go,” you say, grabbing your friends by their wrists before either of them can say something worse.

Feeling generous, Sunghoon buys shots for all six of you, and you quickly down them before heading to the dancefloor. On your way there, a group of sober-looking girls hand Chaewon a giant, still almost full jug of red liquid, something that costs at least twelve pounds here. They say they’re leaving and don’t need it anymore, smiling as you profusely and astonishedly thank them. You look at your friends, mentally weighing the risk and drugging possibility this might present, but shrug and pass the jug around after taking hearty sips anyway. It tastes so much like fizzy cherries that you wonder if it even contains any alcohol, but sure enough, twenty minutes later, the three of you are spinning around on the dancefloor, screaming the lyrics to your favourite pop songs at the top of your lungs. Jake at a club is a completely foreign sight to you, and you can’t stop laughing at all the silly moves he pulls. 

You’re shaking your whole body to a Nicki song from the early 2010s when you suddenly feel a hand on your hip. Before you can turn around and slap whoever this random man is that thinks he can touch you, a familiar voice whispers it’s just me in your ear, and you simultaneously relax and tense up knowing that Jake is standing right behind you. “There’s a creep staring at you,” he explains, lips and breath gently tickling your ear as he speaks. You look around the room and quickly notice a man standing in a corner, drink in one hand and the other in his pocket, unmoving as he eyes you with a smirk so slimy it makes your stomach turn. To avoid his gaze, you turn around, but you’re not sure the sight you’re met with is much better for you.

Jake peers down at you, eyes slightly glossed over and cheeks flushed from the alcohol, jaw locked in annoyance. He glances at the guy in the corner, who you assume is still staring when you feel Jake’s hands brush along your sides until they reach your waist. His gaze returns to your face as he brings you a step closer to him. Reflexively, you wrap your arms around his neck. 

“Is this okay?” he mouths. All you can do is meekly nod. You watch as his eyes deliberately scan your face, going down and down. Time stills when they reach your lips and stay there. It’s like someone has put the booming music of the club on mute, and the only thing you can hear is your heart loudly beating in your ears. You suddenly feel very sober.

You swear Jake’s face is slowly inching its way towards yours when you’re abruptly taken away. Yunjin has grabbed you by the forearm, leading you and Chaewon to the bathroom as she chants “Bathroom break! Bathroom break!”, clearly unaware of the moment she’s just interrupted.

Because of the queue for the girls’ bathroom and Chaewon’s decision to console this random girl who was in the middle of a breakdown, it’s not until half-an-hour later that you emerge back into the crowd. You spot the boys at a table, two empty shots each in front of them and all three with a beer in hand. They will not be happy checking their bank accounts tomorrow morning. 

“Y/N! You’re back!” Jake calls out happily when he spots you, and you can tell right away that he’s much drunker than when you left him. His whole face is flush, his eyes don’t open quite all the way, and a lopsided smile won’t leave his lips - even like this, he’s so pretty that you want to grab his hand and take him somewhere it’s just the two of you. 

Chaewon gets drinks for the three of you and then you’re dancing again. It’s already one am at this point, and the remaining two hours until the club closes, fueled with alcohol and good music, go by in a flash. Before you know it, the DJ is playing All of Me by John Legend and the lights have been turned on, clear signs that you’re overstaying your welcome. The few people that have made it to closing time stumble out of the club and into the street, heading for either the nearest subway stop or the next party of the night. Since there are no trains at this time, your group walks to the close-by bus station, listening to Jake and Sunghoon grumble about how the clubs in Seoul don’t close until at least five or six and how trains run all night there. 

The bus is already at the station when you get there, and the driver doesn’t seem too pleased about having six mildly drunk kids get on his bus, but he’s probably used to questionable people taking public transport at this time of the day anyway. Physically, Sunghoon is sitting across from you, but mentally, he’s off somewhere far, far from this bus. With his head against the window and mouth wide open, saliva pooling at the corner of his lips, he looks like he’s any second away from obnoxiously snoring. Jay and Yunjin are sitting somewhere you can’t see them, probably eating each other’s faces; she once told you they had their “most mind-blowing sex” when both a little drunk, and much to your dismay, you haven’t been able to get that piece of information out of your head since. Chaewon is on the phone to her long-distance bestie Sakura, for whom it’s a nice eleven in the morning right now. 

This means that you and Jake are left alone, both of you still tipsy and not tired enough to fall asleep. You drop your head on Jake’s shoulder, and not only does he let you, he also takes your hand in his, interlacing your fingers and placing them atop his thigh. Clumsily, because he now has to use his left hand, Jake slips his phone out of his back pocket and shows you the photos he took all evening. As the night progresses, they get blurrier and blurrier, so much so that towards the end, you can’t tell what he was even trying to capture, and you laugh at how inappropriate some of these would be to submit in a university project. 

When he softly says your name, you don’t raise your head, simply humming to let him know you’re listening. You close your eyes, cherishing the way your name sounds on his lips. It’s his tone, tentative and vulnerable as he tells you there’s something he’s been wanting to ask you, that makes you look up at him. He, however, won’t meet your eyes, and settles his gaze on the window, even though it’s so dark outside you can’t make out a thing.

“How come you never replied to my letter? I know it’s been ages, but… I still find myself wondering about it.” The question is softly asked and you know he by no means wants to hurt you, but it still feels like a punch to the throat. You hadn’t remembered who it was that had sent the last letter, while he’d been wondering all these years why his words had been left unanswered. 

He seems set on not looking at you, so you rest your head back on his shoulder. Your hand is still in his. “I’m not sure, Jakey. I’m sorry,” you say, aware it’s not a satisfying answer. You’ve thought about why you and Jake had stopped talking for hours on end; you’ve discussed it with your friends and your mum, looked at it from all sorts of angles, tried to come up with real reasons other than time pulling you apart. But now that Jake himself is asking you about it, the words don’t come easy. You’ve theorised that you were afraid putting effort into sustaining your friendship would only hurt you in the end, because it was just that - a friendship. You could fool yourself into thinking you were okay only being friends with him when he was with you, that putting your feelings aside was worth it since you could at least spend time with him. But now that he was away, you didn’t have that anymore - it just hurt. So what was the point? And how could you phrase all this without betraying your feelings for him?

“Our letters were so sparse anyway back then, even our texts and calls were getting less and less frequent… And whenever I had a new boyfriend, I’d get into the same argument about being too close to you over and over again, even though you were literally on another continent.” 

“You know, I always felt sorry about that.”

“About what?”

“Those boyfriends of yours. I felt like you waited for me to leave before you started dating-”

“It wasn’t like that!” you exclaim, lifting your head again. Finally, he meets your eyes, gaze softening upon seeing your affronted expression. “It wasn’t like that,” you repeat, relaxing your tone. “If anything, they were the ones that waited for you to be gone. I'm sorry I let their jealousy get to me.”

Jake smiles, the tenderness in his gaze making your whole body turn to jelly. He squeezes your hands. “It’s okay. I just… I felt like I was always in the way of your relationships, even after I left.”

“You don’t have to feel sorry about that. They should’ve had more trust in me.”

He pauses, gaze dropping down to your intertwined hands. “I would’ve been jealous.” When his eyes find yours again, there’s something in them that you quite can’t place. It creates a ball of nerves that pull at your stomach. “If I were dating you, and you had a guy friend you were as close with as we were back then, I’d be jealous. You know, I’d assume he had feelings for you. And that you might have feelings for him, too.”

Because I did, you think. I did, and I still do. You try to communicate that thought to Jake, but telepathy works especially bad when one has as much alcohol coursing through their veins as you do right now. So instead, you say the opposite of what you’re thinking, turning away from Jake to avoid his gaze. You watch the dribble of saliva trickle from Sunghoon’s lips. “That’s not a great view of male-female friendship.” 

Jake’s retort comes immediately. “But we were different, right?”

His words echo through your head until they make even less sense than they did initially. Different from what? From who? You’re not sure - but you like the idea of you and Jake being different, special. You especially like the idea of Jake thinking so. So you look at him and smile. “Right.” 

Slowly, his grin fades and turns into a worried expression. “Y/N?”

“Mm?”

“We’re still different now, aren’t we?”

You want to wrap him in your arms so tightly neither of you can breathe. You settle for running a hand through his hair and pinching his cheek. “Course we are.” Your whole being relaxes when his face breaks into a smile again. 

--

The next morning, you wake up to Yunjin plopping down on your bed unceremoniously, shaking you awake, and asking you if you want anything from Snax Café. On one hand, you’re grateful that she thought of you and that in thirty minutes’ time, you’ll have the greasiest sausage wrap and hash browns known to man in your hand; on the other, you’d like to think that she knows you well enough to know to order your regular from there without asking. But that’s probably the hangover talking.

You stumble out of bed, thanking last night’s you for having remembered to take headache medicine before crashing. Even if your stomach is very upset with the copious amount of alcohol it needs to rid your body of, and your throat is begging for water, at least your head doesn’t feel like it’s been split into two. As Yunjin barges into Chaewon’s room just as she had done yours, you head for the kitchen to get yourself a tall glass of revitalising tap water. You’re only mildly surprised to find Sunghoon passed out on your living room couch - it takes you a few seconds to remember that the three of you took pity on him when you learned he lived over an hour’s walk from the station, so you let him spend the night on your uncomfortable, cold leather sofa. While you down your glass in three gulps, you hear Yunjin shaking Sunghoon awake and asking him loudly if he wanted something from Snax.

“Fuck, I’d kill for a Snax right now,” he groggily says before he’s even opened his eyes. When he does, they dart around the room until they land on Yunjin, who's crouching in front of him. He looks like he thought her question was asked in a dream and not in real life. He also looks like he's not quite sure where he is, or who Yunjin is. It isn’t until Jay comes wobbling out of Yunjin’s bed to the couch opposite Sunghoon that the memories seem to piece back together in his head. The three of you watch him like he’s an unstable mental patient and you’re his doctors. 

“No need for that, I’m ordering it on Deliveroo.” He nods his head and goes back to sleep for the time being. 

Just as you’re about to text Jake, your phone rings with a call from him. His raspy morning voice as he asks you whether you slept well makes you want to put your head in an oven heated at 200 degrees Celsius. However, you resist the urge, and answer him with a smile, then ask him the same question.

“I slept pretty well too. I’d have slept in longer but one of my flatmates decided to have a Sunday fucking brunch and his friends are so loud. Can I come over?”

You’re very aware of the other people in the room, especially of Chaewon who has just walked in and is eyeing you suspiciously as if to say, Why are you smiling so hard at ten in the morning? You know the girls would jump at any opportunity to tease you about Jake, and with the added presence of Sunghoon in the room, you can’t have that. So you stifle the giggles bubbling in your throat and answer as nonchalantly as you can. It also gives you the chance to reflect on why Jake Sim asking you whether he can come over makes you want to giggle like a giddy schoolgirl so much.

(Maybe it’s because when it comes to him, you’re still the giddy schoolgirl you used to be.)

“Yeah, of course. I was going to ask you if you wanted anything from Snax, actually.”

“Snax? What’s that?”

“Oh my God, Jake, am I about to introduce you to Snax right now?”

Twenty minutes later, the six of you are sitting around your small living room table, all varying amounts of tired, dehydrated and famished as you dig into your breakfast. Given your current levels of energy, it’s fairly quiet; plus, the food hits such a spot that it’s hard to talk and eat at the same time. Jake eats like he’s never had a breakfast wrap and hash brown in his life. It’s an endearing sight if you’ve ever seen one. 

You spend the afternoon together, watching movies curled up in your bed, and you try desperately not to think about the implications of that - except that’s hard to do when Jake is right next to you, legs and arms ever-so-slightly brushing against yours, his warmth so close yet so out of reach. You purposefully let him pick movies you’ve already seen so that you don’t have to focus on anything but your own thoughts and the faint but dizzying scent of his body wash. The both of you had an innumerable amount of sleepovers as kids, so this shouldn’t feel weird, but it decidedly does, probably because you’re much more aware of him now in a way you weren’t before.  

As hard as you try to figure out what exactly he meant by “different,” you draw a blank. The only way you’ll understand is if you ask him, and you’re far too scared to do that. You don’t want to seem so hung upon a singular word he used when he was tipsy. It might be slightly dramatic, but you felt like some sort of balance had been restored since Jake was back in your life - the problem was it made you scared to do anything that might threaten this newfound equilibrium. It at least seems like different means a good thing to him, and that’s enough for you. 

You look over to him when the second movie comes to an end. He’s sleeping peacefully, lashes caressing the skin under his eyes and cheeks looking rounder than usual. It’d be so easy to reach a finger out and trace the line descending from the top of his forehead to his chin, gliding along the bump of his nose and feeling the plumpness of his rosy lips, but you settle for drawing that line with your eyes instead.  

You don’t think you’ll be able to fall asleep with him next to you and your heart beating so loudly in your ears, but you find yourself waking up a few hours later, the sun already starting to set. Jake is already awake, scrolling on his phone, one arm casually behind his head as if being in your bed is as comfortable to him as being in his own. When he sees you’ve woken up, his honey-coated smile washes warmly over you, and he makes a joke about how he keeps on falling asleep when he’s with you. “I feel that at ease, I guess,” he says, and you hope you’re not making up the small blush that spreads over his cheeks. 

--

Semesters are always a short and intense affair, but this one passes by even quicker with Jake by your side. Before you know it, it’s midterms already, and you and Jake have travelled enough for him to complete his project and make another one just for the hell of it. He had scoured the internet for the cheapest train tickets and most noteworthy sites, planning trips that lasted anywhere between three hours and a day for the two of you. All you needed to do was follow and trust him, which was the easiest thing anyone could’ve asked of you. 

You’ve gone back to Glasgow, during the day, this time, as well as St. Andrews and Aberdeen. You’ve practically visited every loch and castle in a one-hour train ride radius of Edinburgh, and Jake has more lined up for the second part of the semester. He’s even said that your trips should continue being a thing next term, and you couldn’t have agreed faster. With every new destination, every train ride spent looking out a window or laughing about everything and anything, any odd Scottish food you try for the first time, you somehow fall for him a bit deeper. You didn’t know your love for him could bloom any more than it already had - but Jake is the gift that keeps on giving, and, unwillingly or not, he always finds new ways to make your heart speed that much faster.

Attentionate, affectionate, sweet Jake who always makes sure you’re comfortable wherever you go, always gives you his jacket or tucks your hair behind your ear to prevent it from falling in your face. Who, as time passed, grew more touchy, would hold your hand, ruffle your hair, pinch your cheek, which was simultaneously devastating and elating. Who, you could tell, started to linger more, both in his touch and in his gaze. Questions of does he love me back or am I seeing what I want to see? nearly drove you mad. 

--

“I feel like at this point the only way she’ll understand that I like her is if I kill myself and write in my suicide note that it’s her fault for not loving me back.”

Jake has been pacing back and forth in Jay’s living room for approximately twenty minutes, with no end in sight. At least he’ll have gotten most of his ten thousand steps of the day in.

Jay sighs heavily. “Okay, I really don’t think you need to go that far.”

“Sounds romantic to me,” Sunghoon says, mouth full of salted caramel popcorn.

“I hope you never get a girlfriend,” Jay retorts, looking at his deranged friend with a scowl. He turns back to his (slightly more) normal friend and gives him a sympathetic smile. 

“I mean, I told her we were different. Different. That we weren’t like regular friends. I tell her she’s pretty every chance I get. I give her my jacket all the time, even though this country is fucking cold. I’ve even given her a t-shirt of mine, sprayed with my perfume and everything. And don’t get me wrong, I do it ‘cause I love doing that for her-”

“Simp,” Sunghoon snickers.

“But what the hell else can I do? Like, she has to be ignoring it on purpose at this point.” 

“You could always, you know… tell her?”

Jake scoffs, fixing his friend with a derisive look. “Wow. What a great idea, Jay, I never thought of that one before!”

A popcorn lands right on Jay’s cheek. “You’re so clueless, man,” Sunghoon says, a shit-eating smirk on his lips. As if he knows any better.

Jay looks back-and-forth between his friends, an expression on his face like he’s been disparaged. “Sorry, I didn’t know being straightforward and honest was such a bad thing. It would just make things a lot clearer for the both of you.”

“But… I’m scared,” Jake says. 

“Man up!” Sunghoon suddenly yells, punching the sofa next to him, making his friends jump. “How can she ever figure it out if you don’t tell her?”

“You were on my side just a second ago, man, what are you doing?” Jake asks, confusion written all over his face. Sunghoon’s eyes dart back and forth between the two boys, retreating into silence as he stuffs his mouth with another handful of popcorn.

“Just ignore him,” Jay says. “But for once, he did say something that makes a modicum of sense. You think you’re being really obvious, but you might not actually be. Which could be a good sign, you know. I heard girls were super aware of a guy liking them if they weren’t into him, but being totally oblivious if they did like him.”

“Where did you hear that?” Jake asks, an eyebrow raised in suspicion.

“...Instagram Reels,” Jay reluctantly admits, frowning at Sunghoon who bursts into laughter. 

Jake holds the bridge of his nose between two fingers like his head aches. “You’re both so useless, I’m never coming to you with my problems ever again.”

“I’ll pretend I’m not offended by that.”

“I’d rather you didn’t, anyway,” Sunghoon says. He’s smiling but Jake genuinely can’t tell if he’s joking or not.

“But seriously, if you think you’ve done everything, then just do one last thing that’s so obvious she can’t misinterpret it,” Jay says.

“Like what?”

“Like kissing her, or some-”

“Kissing her?!” Jake echoes.

“That’s wild, man,” Sunghoon uselessly butts in.

“It’s just an example, calm yourselves,” Jay says. “Or, again, just straight up tell her how you feel. It’s what I did with Yunjin, and it worked.”

“You and Yunjin are dating?” Sunghoon asks, bewildered.

Jay shakes his head at him. “Where the hell have you been, bro? We were literally cuddling on the couch the other day.”

“I just thought you were really good friends, or something.”

Jake groans, holding his head in his hands. Sunghoon was of no help whatsoever, and Jay was so on point that it annoyed him. Confessing was the only solution - but Jake was so afraid of being rejected and losing your friendship that he had barely entertained the thought. But he had found the courage to do it once, and even though his planned confession had fallen through back then, he could get himself together and do it again. 

It was the day he had told you he was moving to Korea, which he himself had learned that morning. Originally, he’d texted you because he had news to share - good news. Or at least, he hoped they were good. He hoped the soft, lingering looks you gave him weren’t a figment of his imagination but rather the confirmation he needed that you liked him back. He hoped that like him, you cared too much about your friendship to make the first move into something else; that by confessing first, you’d be relieved of that responsibility; that his wish to hold your hand and kiss your forehead wasn’t one-sided. 

He decided not to prepare anything - just a couple sentences that he’d rehearsed over and over in his head. Declarations of love, bouquets of flowers, chocolate and couple keychains, all that could wait until after you’d said yes to being his girlfriend. He didn’t want to win you over just once, he wanted to show you every day how much he loved you. Fourteen-year-old Jake was absolutely head over heels for you; so imagine his disappointment when, as he was getting ready to meet with you, his parents called him downstairs, a tone to their voice Jake wasn’t familiar with, but that couldn’t mean anything good. 

“Your dad’s job is sending us back to Seoul next month,” his mom announced, not beating around the bush. He felt everything quite literally crumbling down around him. His friends in Brisbane, his school, his hobbies, but above all, you. He’d lose it all. And what was the point now in telling you how he felt? If you felt the same way, it would only make his departure that much harder, and if you didn’t, it would ruin your last moments together. It just wasn’t worth it.

What he had planned to be good news turned into the most awful ones. The thought of it happening all over again makes twenty-year-old Jake shudder. But he wouldn’t let himself be trapped by time again - sure, in seven months, the academic year would be over, and he would go back to Korea. But that didn’t mean that those seven months should be spent in agony, or the following ones either, for that matter. You would make it work. What was long-distance to someone who loved someone else as much as Jake loved you?

But he doesn’t want to get ahead of himself. He has to start by really resolving to do this, and in the off-chance that it actually goes in his favour, he’d start worrying about long distance then.

First, he has a trip to plan.

--

You should’ve known that a trip to the Scottish Highlands in the middle of November was a risky choice in terms of weather. The day started off nicely enough - no sign of rain when you woke up or as you watched the sunrise through the train window. Clouds turned the sky a bright white at first, then increasingly greyer and greyer. You feel the first drops of rain after lunch as you walk around a small village. By four pm, it’s pitch black and storming like you’ve rarely seen before. You head into a pub to grab a drink as you wait for the rain to subside, but subside it does not. You end up ordering fish and chips, one each, although one serving is enough to feed three. Even after taking your time eating, the bad weather does not let up. The last train, which is meant to be at eight pm, has been cancelled. Luckily, there’s an inn right across the road from the pub; you have no choice but to spend the night. 

The inn receptionist is sitting so low on her chair, you can barely see her over the desk until you’re standing right over it. Her face is hidden by a book and it’s only when you say hiya that she seems to realise you’re there. You had never heard of the book or of its author, but you recognized the cover design as that of those romance novels with repetitive plots and weirdly misogynistic love interests your mum and every other middle-aged woman was obsessed with.

Her smile widens as she looks between you and Jake. “Hi there. One room for the lovely couple?”

“Oh, we’re not-”

“Yes, please,” Jake interrupts, smiling down at her, then at you. “It’ll be cheaper if we share a room.”

“Our only room with two single beds is already taken, I’m afraid. One double bed okay for you two?”

You feel like you’re about to faint, so you’re glad Jake is there to answer. “Yeah, of course.” How the idea of sharing one bed with you is so okay to him, you’re not sure - granted, you’ve done it before, but this feels different. For all intents and purposes, this is a hotel room you’re staying in. And you’re staying in it with Jake. 

You try to calm your breathing as the receptionist guides you to your room, chatting casually with Jake on the way there. As she unlocks the door for you, she informs you that check-out must be done before eleven in the morning tomorrow, then bids you good night and leaves you to it, still wearing that smile you swear has mischievousness to it. The door clicks shut behind you, and it’s just Jake and you again, together in this small room until tomorrow morning. Your chances of survival are very, very low. 

Your room is a humble one, consisting of a desk, a cupboard, two armchairs, a small, separate bathroom and the infamous bed. Every surface seems to be covered with wood, from the ceiling, to the walls, to the old-fashioned furniture. Only the floor is a soft, beige carpet. Especially with the darkness outside, it makes for a gloomy room until you turn on the lamp by the entrance; it casts a warm, golden light in the room, one that would make you feel at ease if it wasn’t for Jake’s presence next to you. The implications of being essentially trapped in a barely-lit room with him are heavy on your mind, especially when he looks this gorgeous with his hair still damp from the rain and the soft lights playing on his face. 

His voice brings you out of your thoughts. “Right. Do you, um, do you wanna shower first?” he asks, setting his bag on one of the armchairs.

“Oh. Yeah, sure.” There has never been such an awkward tension between the two of you, but you know you’re not doing anything to ease it. You hope a shower will help you get out of your head and make you relax.

You feel the tension leave your muscles under the hot water, but your stomach is still in knots. You’ve never been this nervous around Jake before; back when you were fourteen and again in these past few months, you’d gotten so used to dealing with your unspoken feelings for him that you could almost forget about them when you were with him. They’d come back to you when you were alone and dwelling on the moments you’d spent together, on his words and actions you desperately tried not to read too much into but always ended up doing anyway. But right now, they’ve floated to the surface, becoming as obvious to you as a stain on your skin you can’t rub away. You’re scared Jake will notice it, and, in the worst case scenario you often thought about, would run away and never speak to you again. 

At least the raging storm outside would make that a bit harder.

When you step out of the shower, you curse yourself for not having worn more comfortable clothes on this trip. You definitely can’t wear these jeans and button-up sweater to lounge around. Thankfully, the inn provides two long bathrobes that you could wear over underwear and your tank top, but you wonder where on the scale of inappropriate this would be to wear with Jake in the room. He’s seen you in short pyjama shorts before, but this, like everything else that would usually be normal between the two of you, feels weird today. 

You wrap the bathrobe around yourself, tying it in place around your waist, and decide that it’d only be weird if you made it weird. And if Jake found the sight of your bare legs weird, then he was the weird one.

The scene you’re met with as you walk into the room makes you want to retreat into the bathroom immediately. Jake is lying on the bed with his upper half against the headboard, one leg extended and the other one bent, resting his head against one palm, using his free hand to scroll through his phone. His t-shirt has ridden up slightly, putting the waistband of his Calvin Kleins into view. Worst of all, when he sees you, his face breaks into a grin. 

Your stomach twists when he gives you a once-over, letting his gaze linger on your legs. “Did you bring a bathrobe with you or was it included?” he asks with an annoyingly handsome smirk.

You roll your eyes. “Yes, I bring a bathrobe with me wherever I go,” you say sarcastically. “Now shut up and go shower, you stink.” Reverting to insults is always the solution when you’re internally freaking out.

“Yes, ma’am.” 

He takes so long in the shower that by the time he comes out, you’ve dozed off in bed. As if you were a child, he wakes you up with a boop to the nose, crouching next to the bed and smiling at you. His wet hair falls on his head like that of a movie star in a shower scene, which you find extremely unfair, and his cheeks are red from the warmth of the water. 

“It’s still early. Do you wanna go grab another drink?”

“In our bathrobes?” you say, laughing. “Nah, I don’t really feel like drinking anyway.” Read: I’m not sure what I’ll do with alcohol in me.

“Okay, no worries. Um, I think I saw they had board games in the lobby?”

Your ears perk up at this. “Ooh, what kind of board games?”

Putting jeans on underneath his bathrobe, Jake slips away for a minute and comes back with Monopoly, Uno, and a deck of cards. “They didn’t have much for two players,” he says, dumping everything on the bed. 

You already knew that anything would become fun if you did it with Jake, but you definitely didn’t expect to spend almost five hours just playing Monopoly and card games with him. Neither of you stays put for very long, always switching from sitting criss-cross to laying on your stomach, making fun of the other’s bathrobe even though you’re wearing the exact same thing. You make each other laugh as you make up your own nonsense rules and disregard the laws of your games, attacking the other ruthlessly for a couple extra points or coins. Jake even makes you go get snacks from a corner store that’s miraculously still open because you lose the first round of Uno. 

After some time, Jake lets out a loud yawn, which in turn makes you yawn too. He checks his phone to find that it’s close to midnight already. “Time for bed?” he asks, and your nervousness that had finally dissipated as you played came rushing back. 

You nod. “Yeah, sounds good.”

The two of you clean up before brushing your teeth. Even that, with Jake by your side, becomes a silly affair as he pulls faces in the mirror and nudges your hip with his. You stay behind to use the toilet, and when you come back out, Jake’s already in bed, bathrobe tossed on one of the armchairs. This means that Jake is just casually in a t-shirt and boxers, waiting for you to join him in bed. Luckily, his back is turned to you, so you quickly take off your own bathrobe and slide under the sheets, careful to keep your distance from him. The sheets are cold underneath you, and you know it’ll take a while before your body heat warms them up - although you feel very hot and bothered because of the man lying next to you. 

“Gosh, I’m really sleepy all of a sudden,” he says, words distorted by a yawn. You only hum in response, and he reaches for the lamp to turn it off. Just like that, you’re in complete darkness, and Jake’s body is mere inches from your own. 

It’s eerily quiet for a while, and when you’ve managed to slow your heartbeat and regularise your breathing, you start trying to fall asleep. You toss and turn, unable to find a comfortable position until Jake’s low, sleepy voice breaks the silence. “Can’t sleep?” he asks, and you freeze.

You sigh. “No. I’m sorry for keeping you up,” you say guiltily.

“It’s okay. I can’t really sleep either. It’s a bit cold in here.”

You pause. “Right. Yeah, it is,” you say, even though you feel like you’re sweating buckets. 

The room plunges into silence again, long enough for you to think Jake has fallen asleep. You feel something cold against your foot, only realising as it slides up your calf that it’s his foot. “Jake!” you whisper-yell, withdrawing your leg as he bursts into giggles that warm your heart. “Your feet are so cold,” you say in-between chuckles.

“I’m cold all over,” he whines. “Have they not turned the heating on yet? It’s already mid-November.”

“People are used to the cold here.”

“Well I’m not. Can we cuddle?” he suddenly asks, and he must somehow feel the way you freeze in place because he stammers out a justification straight away. “For, I mean, just for warmth, you know. I don’t think I’ll sleep otherwise.”

His foot finds yours again and you can’t help but laugh. “Sure, fine,” you say with a sigh as if you were doing only half-heartedly for his sake. As if this was some big sacrifice you were making, and not something you’d daydreamed about one too many times before. 

Your heart is beating a thousand miles a second when you scooch closer to Jake, his hands finding your waist as easily as if they’d been there a hundred times before. He pulls you in much closer than you had expected, holding you tightly against his chest, one arm for you to use as a pillow and one hand resting on your lower back. You try to calm your respiration so that he can’t hear how short of breath you are, but based on his own breathing, he seems to be out in five minutes. It takes you longer to fall asleep, every shift of his body sending shivers down your spine, but you manage to relax after some time, letting his warmth envelop you as you drift off to sleep.

--

The feeling of waking up with you in his arms is so unreal, Jake thinks he might still be dreaming.

He looks down at your peaceful sleeping face and can’t stop the smile that spreads on his lips. Jake always thinks you’re pretty, but this is a sight he particularly wants to commit to memory. He watches fondly as the bright sun rays of the early morning hit your face, making you scrunch your eyebrows and bury your face deeper against him. You grunt softly, and when he feels you shifting and stretching your legs, he pretends to fall asleep so you don’t catch him staring. It seems like you’ve raised your head, chin tilted towards him - if he’s lucky, you’re watching him “sleep” just like he did seconds ago.

He contains a smile at the joke that forms itself in his brain before shooting his eyes open, catching you off guard during what you thought was a private, secret moment. 

“Shit!” you yelp, practically jumping off of him and rolling onto the other side of the bed. He bursts into laughter, proud that his little prank was effective. Before you can scold him, he makes his way to you, wrapping an arm around your waist and bringing your back against his chest. He thinks he feels your body tense; but then you bring your hand over his, swiping your thumb back and forth against his skin, and you relax in his hold. “You’re so annoying,” you complain, but your voice is tender, almost weak.

He buries his face in your hair, trying not to be too loud when he inhales there. “Sorry,” he says, the smile evident in his voice. “The opportunity was right there. Caught you staring, huh?”

“You’re such an idiot.”

“I’ll take that as a yes.” It’s quiet for a few minutes, and Jake is more than happy to enjoy this moment in silence, but there’s something burning the tip of his tongue. It’s been there for a while now, but he thinks he’s finally found the right moment. “Y/N?”

“Mm?”

“There’s something I couldn’t tell you last night, but I feel oddly okay saying it right now. Are you listening?” 

“I am, yeah,” you say gently, voice so soft it caresses his skin and draws goosebumps from it.

His chest expands and falls with a deep, shaky breath. With your back right against it, he’s scared you’ll hear that his heart is beating faster than it should. “Bad news first?” he says with a nervous chuckle.

“Uh-oh.”

“There’s no roundabout way to say this, so here goes, I guess.” He takes another breath. “I’m in love with you, Y/N.” You tense in his embrace, and he waits for you to say something, anything before he continues.

“Oh,” is all you say. He hopes it’s a good oh - even if it isn’t, he doesn’t let it deter him.

“Yeah. I really debated telling you this… I know you might not feel the same way. But I also know that if I don’t say anything and make the same mistake twice, I’ll beat myself up over it for the rest of my life.”

“The same mistake?” you ask, looking at him over your shoulder.

He gazes down at you tenderly, pushing hair away from your face with a gentle hand. “I already felt that way back when we lived in Australia. I was about to tell you but when I learned that I was moving, I didn’t wanna risk ruining the little time we had left together.”

The look on your face both breaks his heart and patches it up again. “Jakey…” you say, voice just a whisper. You turn around to face him and bury your face in the crook of his neck. The fact that you’re not saying much is making his stomach twist in agonising stress, but he takes it as a good sign that you’re still holding him tight and not running away.

“I think I’d be the luckiest guy on Earth if you felt the same way,” he says, hopefulness clear in his voice. 

And then he finally hears the words he’s been dying to hear all these years. “Of course, I feel the same way, Jake,” you say, eyes meeting his. “This isn’t bad news at all, it’s like, the best possible news ever.”

It takes him a few seconds, but when your words sink in, a bright smile graces his features. He feels tears coming up - tears of relief that you feel the same way, of sadness that it took the both of you so long to get here, of happiness that something new might start - he’s not sure. Perhaps everything at once.

“Of course?” he echoes, smiling wildly. “It wasn’t obvious to me.”

“Oh, gosh,” you murmur, burying yourself into him once more. “I can’t believe this is actually happening.”

He tightened his hold around you, bringing you to him as close as physically possible. “Me neither.”

The feeling of you tangling your bare legs with his and bunching up the fabric of his t-shirt in your fist awakens something in him - he had been in his head, thanking the heavens that you loved him back, reeling from his belated confession, but he was now very aware of his body. And of yours. He was reminded of Jay telling him to kiss you - although he hadn’t needed to go there to reveal his feelings to you, it was still a possibility. It was even more so now that he knew you felt the same way. 

He tries to be subtle as he brushes a hand up your back to the nape of your neck, gently grazing his fingernails against the skin there. He has to suppress a self-satisfied smirk when he feels you squirm under his touch, lifting your head to fix him with a scolding look. Your stern expression fades as soon as his eyes fall on your lips, however, and you quickly mirror his gaze. His lips part, and he feels his whole body shake as he takes a deep breath in. Who knew that you’d share your first kiss on a random Sunday morning in the fuckass middle of nowhere in Scotland?

Maybe you take pity on him, or you recognise the effort put into being the one to make the first move, or, as he’d like to think, you just really want to kiss him - either way, you’re the one who closes the gap and presses your lips to his.

Your lips. So soft, so delicate against his, absolutely perfect. It’s a simple, tentative touch, but he’s craved it for so long that it makes his head spin. He frowns, despite himself instantly needing more than this feather-like feeling of your lips brushing against each other. His mind tells him to calm down and take it slow, but his body takes over, urging him to grab the nape of your neck a little harder, to hold you a little closer to him, to kiss you a little stronger. Thankfully, you let him do all of this and more, hands finding purchase in his hair and returning his intensity tenfold. 

He doesn’t know what’s better - the fact that you’re kissing him or the kiss itself. The way your lips move against his is intoxicating; it wraps itself around its mind and leaves no room for thoughts that aren’t of you. You seem to want him as desperately as he wants you, to have waited for him as long as he did for you, and this is what drives him crazy. You press your body against his and he sees stars; you let out a moan against his lips and he kisses you deeper, ready to do anything to hear that melody again. 

Unfortunately, the only melody he gets to hear is that of his phone alarm, informing you that it’s quarter to eleven and that you have fifteen minutes to leave. Check-out at eleven am had sounded nice yesterday; now, he would stay in this dingy inn his whole life if it meant he got to keep kissing you. 

The both of you reluctantly break apart, bursting into giddy laughter when your eyes meet. As said before, Jake always thinks you’re pretty, but with your pupils blown and your lips plump from kissing, this might just be the prettiest he’s ever seen you. 

“You know, I like you a lot, but I’d like you even more if you could stop time,” you say.

He looks down at you with a smile, pushing away the strands of hair that had fallen on your face. “Sure, I’ll learn how to control time for you.”

“Thanks, Jakey.” You peck his lips, lingering, and he closes his eyes to savour your sweetness. 

“Anything for you, baby.” His eyes widen at the nickname slip, but you erupt into giggles.

“Baby?”

“Would you look at the time, we really got to go,” he says, detangling his limbs from yours. He pauses for a second. “Baby,” he repeats, pressing a quick kiss to your forehead before bouncing from the bed.

You get ready together, and the mundane tasks of stripping sheets from a bed and packing bags become the funnest things he’s ever done. You’re all over each other, attacking the other with kisses and hugs; Jake doesn’t think he’s ever felt quite this happy. 

And this is only the beginning.

--

There’s a glint in the receptionist’s eyes when you check out of your room, as if she knew something you and Jake had been oblivious to all along. It’s the only one in town, so you go back to the little pub for a full breakfast with eggs, hash browns, haggis, and sausages. You get coffee so strong you think you might not sleep for the next four days, while Jake drinks tea that is equal parts sugar, milk, and actual tea.

From the moment you leave the pub to the moment you arrive at your doorstep, Jake’s hands barely leave yours. When they have to, like when you’re searching for the perfect seat on the train or when the controller checks your tickets, they’re back together within a minute, like two magnets that can’t stay apart for too long. The rain has long subsided, leaving place to a bright blue sky and wet blades of grass that shine in the sun. 

Now that your mutual feelings don’t need to be kept secret, you tell each other about everything you had to go through, like you pretending your good news was your mum having baked the cookies Jake liked and him seeing your new boyfriends every two months on your close friends story. He tells you about all the hints he’s dropped, causing you to facepalm over and over again. It feels like two friends catching each other to speed on all the latest gossip, except the topic of that gossip is you.

The juxtaposition of your familiarity with Jake with the novelty of behaving like a couple, of not having to hold back with your touches or gazes or words, is nothing if not jarring. But you have a feeling you’ll get used to it in no time. 

As you unlock the front door to your building, you don’t ask him if he’s coming up - to you, it’s a given that you’ll be spending the rest of today and every day after that together. So when he doesn’t follow you, staying still on the threshold, you turn around with a questioning look on your face. 

“There’s something I need to do this afternoon,” he says, taking both of your hands in his.

“Can’t I come with?” you say. Jake wavers for a second, but sadly, he stays firm in his decision.

“Sorry, baby, it’s a surprise. I’ll be back at seven with takeout?”

You can’t possibly be mad at him when he calls you baby and offers food in the same breath. “Only if you bring takeout.”

“You only love me because I feed you, don’t you?” he asks, a smile on his face.

“Yup,” you reply. You’re standing on a step, so you bend down to kiss him - you intend for it to be a peck, but when your lips touch, you’re unable to pull away. You let yourself get lost in the feeling of his lips on yours, in the warmth that takes over your body and makes your brain all fuzzy. 

A loud, affronted gasp from behind you makes you jump from Jake, and when you turn around, Chaewon and Yunjin are standing in the stairwell, staring at you with wide eyes and gaping mouths. 

“So this was a sexcapade?” is, much to your horror, the first thing Yunjin says.

Thanks to Chaewon, neither you nor Jake have the time to dwell on this sentence as she comes running down the stairs and pounces on you. You don’t know how a woman so small can have such force, but her hug is so tight you can barely breathe, let alone hug her back properly. “I knew you could do it!” she exclaims. When she pulls away, she seems so moved, it looks like she’s about to cry. “You finally popped your Jake cherry,” she whispers, but it’s loud enough for Jake to hear. A bark of laughter escapes his throat.

“Okay, thanks, guys,” you say, escaping this awkward situation and going up the stairs. “I’ll see you later, Jake!” you yell over your shoulder. The girls seem to be on their way out, and you’re more than happy leaving him to deal with them on his own. God knows you’ll get the worst of it when they come back. 

As soon as you get to your flat, you make a beeline for your bedroom, plopping on the bed. You’re the same person, and this is the same room. But something within you feels entirely different, like a scar that you had been carrying around had, without you even noticing, healed so well you could barely see it anymore. You lifted your hands in the air, looked at the back of them, then at your palms. They were the same old hands that had been with you your whole life, and you were almost shocked that there wasn’t something utterly different about them after having held Jake’s hand for so long. Just to be sure, you sniffed your right hand, but it didn’t smell any different, either. But you still felt Jake’s hand on yours, like headphones you’d been wearing for hours and still felt on your ears after taking them off.

Yunjin and Chaewon are back from their shopping half-an-hour later; they got you a chocolate fudge cake from Tesco to congratulate you. “You guys are acting like this is my birthday…” you say, eyeing the cake greedily as Chaewon cuts it into three equal parts (even though it says serves eight on the packaging). 

“This is more important than your birthday, Y/N,” Yunjin states as she pours oat milk into three cups of Earl Grey tea. “This is, like, the moment of a lifetime.”

“Are you saying a girl’s importance depends on her having a boyfriend?”

“Yes, Y/N, that’s exactly what I’m saying. Especially when said boyfriend is the guy she’s been pining after for all of her teenage and adult life.”

You sigh. “Well, he hasn’t exactly popped the boyfriend and girlfriend question yet.” They both turn to look at you, an annoyed look on their faces. You stand up straight, uncomfortable under their gazes. “What?”

“Usually, I’m all for clarity on this issue,” Chaewon starts. “But isn’t it pretty obvious here?”

“You’re still gonna have to tell us everything in minute detail, but Jake’s already told us what happened. He had no qualms referring to you as his girlfriend, so I really don’t think this is something you need to worry about. What you should worry about is when and where you’re going to hop on that dick.”

Chaewon bursts into laughter, and you can’t help but follow suit. “Gosh, Yunjin, you really do have a way with words.”

“I know. This is what having a Jane Austen hyperfixation at fifteen will do to you.”

Following Yunjin’s orders, you tell them about the events of the previous day and this morning over tea and cake. They ooh and ah and gasp in all the right places, ask you very specific questions and even make you draw a picture of the room you stayed in. You’ve talked to them about Jake so many times that there’s only so much to say now - but still, you talk for hours on end, deviating off-topic so often you end up talking about something else entirely. 

You’re in bed reading for your Middle English Literature class when the doorbell rings. It’s seven on the dot, so it can be no one else other than Jake. It’s been mere hours, but you’ve missed him enough to last you for weeks. 

He brought takeaway from the Indian place you’d raved about a hundred times but hadn’t brought him to yet. Somehow, your heart grows even fonder as you watch his reaction to the food, the raise of his eyebrows, the widening of his eyes, the excited shimmy of his shoulders. When you ask him about his afternoon, a wide smile breaks out onto his face, like a lightbulb illuminating a room. Without a word, he scurries to your room, bringing back some sort of book with him. He hands it to you  with a shy smile and curious eyes, eagerly anticipating your reaction. The cover reads Y/N and Jake in his clumsy but endearing handwriting, with the date of his arrival in Edinburgh and an em-dash scribbled underneath. “I haven’t booked my flight home yet, so I’ll add the second date later,” he explains. 

When you flick through it, you’re met with photographs of you and Jake on all of the trips you’ve done so far, as well as the various adventures you got up to in the city. There’s even one of you sleeping in the library at two am during midterms when you had forgotten about one of your essays, due at midday. Jake had come with coffee and words of encouragement, and now he could brag that the high mark you got was thanks to him. It’s not only photos - it’s also ticket stubs, receipts, stickers, and even a dried flower you had found pretty on your trip to St. Andrews. He’s also written quite a lot, from diary-like entries about what you got up to that day or songs that reminded him of you. 

“You misspelt right here,” you say, pointing to a sentence that reads This is the café write next to the hotel where the last Harry Potter book is said to have been written!!! under a photo of you drinking a massive cup of hot chocolate. The more you look at the typo, the more it makes you laugh, until you have tears brimming in your eyes.

Thanks to Yunjin’s messiness, pens and pencils are strewn over your coffee table. Jake, flushed red in embarrassment at the small mistake, snatches a pencil and aggressively erases write, spelling it correctly the second time around. “This is the level of today’s English Lit undergrads,” he murmurs under his breath. His frown disappears when he looks at you and he laughs along.

You continue looking through the album until you land on a page titled Why I love Y/N. From top to bottom, left to right, it’s filled with Jake’s tiny handwriting. You can tell he put effort into making it neat. There’s a singular photograph of you, one that dates from the first days after Jake’s arrival when you were walking around in the Meadows, the park right next to campus. The sun shone down on you and you smiled brightly at Jake behind the camera.  

You’re not a quarter through reading when tears swell in your eyes, rendering your vision blurry. You wipe them away before they can fall and stain the page. Jake has detailed every last thing he loves about you. It can hardly get cornier than this, but the fact that he wrote this about you makes your heart so full, you’re afraid it might explode in your chest. It ranges from basic things like the way she makes me laugh or her pretty face when she falls asleep in the train (or anywhere, for that matter) to more you-specific things like the strict pastel colour-coding she uses for her notes and her perseverance when eating spicy food even though she can’t take it. He mentions things about you that you didn’t even know, and that feeling of being known in-and-out, of being really seen by someone else only brings more tears to your eyes. Your favourite line comes at the end - the way she makes any place feel like home. A proper sob pushes past your lips at this, and Jake, who had been watching you with an anxious smile, rests a palm on your knee and inches closer to you.

“Why are you crying, is- Did I write something bad?”

You shake your head fervently. “No, no, Jakey, this is… It’s perfect. I’m just…” you trail, letting out a half-sob, half-chuckle. You look at him with a smile before pulling him into a tight hug. “I love it so much. I love you so much.”

You can feel Jake relax against you. “I love you too, baby. I’m glad you like it.”

You pull away after a small while, and turn the next page over. It’s a picture of you over breakfast this morning, with words WE’RE DATING!!!! written underneath it, and those simple words make you so happy, your cheeks ache from smiling. But every page after that is empty. Jake scratches the back of his neck. “I, um, I thought we could fill the rest out together. I debated just doing it myself and giving it to you at the end of the year, but I thought it’d be more fun doing it together.”

“It would. This is such an amazing idea,” you say, flicking back through the pages.

“I thought of it because of that project I had. When I started working on it, all the photos I wanted to include were of you, but I wasn’t sure how much my professor would appreciate that… So I decided to make one more personal. One for us,” he says shyly, shrugging like it’s no big deal.

“Thank you so much, Jakey.”

He smiles. “It’s no worries.”

“Did you do it all this afternoon?”

“I had started it before, but I added it most of today, yeah. Which, by the way, awful timing. I wanted nothing more than to spend today with you.”

Your heart leaps. You’re not sure you’ll ever get used to hearing such words from Jake’s mouth.

Sometime later, you’re laying in bed with Jake between your legs, watching the most recent animated Spiderman movie. With the tips of your fingers, you draw random patterns on his forearm, and if it wasn’t for his occasional chuckles, you’d think he had fallen asleep. You chat for a bit after the movie, but you find that after such an emotionally-packed day, you’re ready to call it a night fairly early. But when the lights are off and it’s just you lying against Jake’s chest, his fingernails grazing your scalp and his familiar, comforting scent clouding your judgement, all thoughts of an early night are thrown out of the window.

You shouldn’t feel so nervous - you had fallen asleep in his arms last night, and it had gone well. Really well. 

“This is different from yesterday, isn’t it?” Jake suddenly says, breaking the heavy silence with a low voice. It’s like he read your mind.

“Yeah,” you whisper against his skin.

No other words are needed. You brush the tip of your nose along his neck until you reach his jawline, pressing soft kisses there and delighting in the increasing shakiness of his breath. The feeling of your lips meeting is so intense, so all-encompassing, that you don’t know if you’ll be able to handle anything more.

This is still new territory, but you’re both so eager to discover it that it makes for a messy kiss, lips moving against each other ravenously, tongues beckoning moans from the other. It’s a kiss that somehow leaves you breathless and breathes oxygen back into your lungs at once. 

In a matter of seconds, Jake has flipped you on your back and is hovering over you, one hand holding him up and one hand free to roam your body. He slips it underneath your t-shirt, brushes it along the side of your waist, his touch leaving behind a trail of fire blazing on your skin. It’s so distracting, you can’t even kiss him back properly anymore. Jake doesn’t seem to mind. At first, when he starts pressing hot kisses to your jawline and your neck, you think he’s giving you a respite - but when he gently sinks his teeth into the skin there, leaving marks that will later remind you tonight wasn’t a dream, chuckling as you squirm and whine under him, you understand that this is anything but a respite. 

You curse your earlier decision of not wearing a bra, because it gives you no preparation whatsoever to the sensation of Jake brushing his thumb against one of your nipples. With a loud gasp, your back arches off of the bed, which only aids Jake in raising your t-shirt up over your breasts. 

He takes a minute to admire the sight of you panting and half-naked underneath him. It makes you feel shy, and you want to do something so that he stops looking and starts doing, but his gaze holds you in place. His pupils are blown with lust, eyes raking over your body and taking everything in. You have a hard time wrapping your head around the fact that it’s you he’s looking at with those eyes. 

His soft lips attach themselves to your nipple while his fingers continue their work on the other one. You’ve never felt this sensitive, never felt this on edge, like you might fall apart at any second even with so little simulation. Your core throbs, impatiently waiting to be tended to, but you’re already trembling so hard from Jake’s attention to your breasts that you don’t know what will happen to you once he actually touches you down there.

“You doing okay, baby?” he asks, the rasp in his voice making you want him impossibly more. You grip his hair and he looks up at you, a tender smile on his lips. You nod your head yes and he laughs. “Yeah? You want more?” You pause at his question. You do want more, but is it worth your sanity?

It takes you a second to decide that it’s worth that and more. You nod again. 

Jake seems to have sensed your hesitation. He tucks a strand of hair behind your ear. “You sure you’re okay?”

“I am. It’s just a lot.”

His expression of worry softens into a smile. “I’ll take it slow for you, love. It’s a lot for me, too.” He leans in to press soft kisses to your cheek, and some of the tension in your body diffuses. Whatever happens, Jake will be there to take care of you. “But it feels good, right?” he asks, lips moving against your ear, sending shivers down your spine.

“So good, Jakey,” you reply shakily.

“Good.”

You can tell that Jake really does want to take it slow - his movements are more deliberate, gentler. But eagerness, both yours and his, soon takes over, and a minute later, he’s trailing kisses down your body until he reaches your lower stomach. Your breath quickens as he hooks fingers underneath your leggings and underwear, sliding both garments down your legs and leaving you bare to him. You think the feeling of his lips on the fleshy parts of your inner thighs is what might actually do you in, make you lose your sense of reality forever - but then his tongue darts out against your clit, a barely-there touch, and your whole body flatlines. 

Your reaction eggs Jake on, who, more confident now, takes the sensitive bud in his lips and alternates between sucking and licking motions. A knot ties itself embarrassingly quickly in your stomach, a knot that tightens and tightens as Jake flattens his tongue against you, licking up your juices from your entrance to your clit; a knot that threatens to come loose when he slides a long finger inside of you. You can’t take more than thirty seconds of this.

“Jakey,” you say, voice practically a moan. Your brain is fuzzy and it takes a distressing amount of time to form a simple sentence. “Can you come here?”

“Is something wrong, baby?” he asks breathily, sliding his finger out of you and coming back up so that his face is right above yours. 

“No, just… I want you.”

Any trace of worry on Jake’s features dissipates as he cocks an eyebrow, one corner of his lips tugging up into a smirk. “Is that so?”

This kind of boldness would usually have you rolling your eyes, but here, it only makes your core throb more violently. It’s almost humiliating how much you want this man. It’s definitely humiliating, how easy it is to swallow your pride and play into his game. “Yes, please,” you say, eyes pleading with him.

He smiles almost giddily before burying his face against the side of yours. “My baby’s so polite,” he says, pressing a kiss to your cheek. “I’ll give you whatever you want.”

“Take this off, then,” you say, grabbing the bottom hem of his t-shirt. 

“So she says please and gives orders,” he jokes, quickly obliging anyway. 

Not once in your time apart had Jake posted any sort of beach trip or pool photos, so this was the first time you saw his bare chest. God, was it one for the history books. You trace the defined lines of his muscles with a finger and wonder how he had managed to get even more perfect. He lets you marvel at him for it, clearly proud that you’re gawking so shamelessly, but your mind drifts back to more urgent matters when he presses himself into you, his clothed cock, hard and hot, brushing against your folds. “Fuck,” you sigh, bucking your hips into his to feel him over and over again.

It’s so much, but it’s not enough; Jake instantly gets your message when you hook your fingers under the waistband of his boxers, pulling him to you and kissing him feverishly. Your lips don’t part as he slides his boxers off, and you drink up the nectar that are his moans as you take him in your hand, pumping him a few times.

“Condom?” he asks, but you shake your head.

“I’m on the pill. And even so… I usually always use a condom, but I don’t want to now. Not with you.”

Jake closes his eyes as he takes a deep, stabilising breath. “I feel totally normal about that. Not crazy at all.”

You giggle, and he opens his eyes, a wide smile gracing his lips before he bends down to kiss you. “You ready for the night of your life?” he asks against your lips. “It’s gonna last five minutes, tops,” he says, making you laugh again. “I’m sorry, baby, I can’t do anything about it. I think I could’ve cum just from eating you out.”

“That would’ve been hot.”

“Really? We’ll make it a challenge for next time, then.”

When Jake plunges into you, it’s unlike anything you’ve ever felt before. He fills you up, slow inch by slow inch, until he’s buried to the hilt inside you. You both need some time getting used to the feeling - Jake drops his head in the crook of your neck and lets out a sound between a grunt and a moan, something you’ve never heard from him before. You grab onto his shoulders, fingernails digging into his skin as you try to tether yourself to him. You hold him so tight that he has no choice but to let his body rest on top of yours, his arms coming to circle your waist and bring you even closer. 

His movements start out halting, the pleasure so overwhelming that it makes it hard for him to move steadily. In time, he falls into a torturously slow rhythm, but it’s the perfect kind of torture, the kind that has tears brimming in your eyes. It’s so hard to take, and yet you want more. You’re brought closer to the edge with every thrust of his dick into you, especially as he picks up the pace and lifts your hips to meet his. The new angle has his tip brushing against that spot deep inside you that makes it hard to breathe. 

You can tell he’s just as close as you when he loses that steady rhythm he had found, his motions growing more desperate, harsher, quicker. Conscious of your roommates, you slap a hand over your mouth to muffle your moans as your orgasm washes over you, your whole body on fire, so sensitive that the few more seconds Jake needs to come undone himself drive both your body and your mind into overstimulation. Even the feeling of him pulling out, drops of hot liquid dripping out of your entrance, is too much and makes you let out a small, tired whine. 

Jake peppers your face with kisses as he holds your waist tightly, brushing his thumb back-and-forth on your warm skin, sticky with sweat. “You did so well, baby. So good for me.” You think you might be ready for a second round if he keeps talking to you like that. “I love you so much.”

You sigh deeply, as if you were just told disconcerting news. “Okay.”

“Okay?!” he echoes, looking up at you with an outraged expression on his face.

“I’m sorry, I love you too, I just- I’m not used to this yet! You can’t just tell me you love and expect me to be normal. You have to warn me first.”

“Can I just warn you now that I’m going to tell you I love you every time I get the chance?”

You sigh. “I guess.” 

“Can I tell you now?” he asks, and you hum. “I love you.”

“I love you more.”

Jake tuts. “I highly doubt it, but whatever makes you happy.”

You hold Jake close to you, one arm around his shoulders and the other hand playing with his hair as you come down from your high. You think he might’ve fallen asleep, and you’re close to drifting off yourself when he speaks. “You have no idea how long I’ve wanted to do this. Not just the sex, although that has been on my mind for a while now,” he says, making you laugh, “but all of this. Being together, getting to be in your arms like this, kissing you whenever I want. Calling you my girlfriend.”

“Me too, Jakey. I waited so long I didn’t think it would ever happen.”

Jake chuckles. “How stupid were we not to have noticed we felt the same way?”

“Very stupid. I think we felt so sorry for ourselves that we were stuck in one-sided love, that we didn’t even realise the other was going through the exact same thing. But at least we’re now.”

“At least we’re here now.” You and Jake yawn at the exact same time, making you burst into giggles, giddy with sleep and love.

“Let’s sleep, baby,” you say.

Jake hums, burying himself deeper against your body. “Sleep well, my love. I’ll be here.”

--

After years of pining after each other, you and Jake find it a bit hard to keep your relationship to yourselves, or your hands off of each other.

At the beginning, all of your friends had been happy for you, but that quickly went away when your and Jake’s honeymoon phase never died down and the PDA just kept on going. If the glue you were stuck with previously was metaphorical, this one was pretty close to being real. Superglue kept you together, your moments together rarely spent without some sort of physical touch. Yunjin fake-gagged so often, you were afraid she might actually vomit one of these days. It took Sunghoon two weeks longer than everyone else to clock you and Jake had started dating.

This meant that in private, there was truly no holding back. Jake back-hugged you any chance he got, to the point you started to think he was more koala than human - although that’d imply he saw you as a tree. Make-out sessions were a particular favourite of yours - how could they not be when your boyfriend’s lips seemed to have been carved by God himself, soft and plump to the heavens, like they were made to be kissed. Really, you were just honouring God’s will when you kissed Jake.  

The goodbye that comes at the end of the year is not an easy one, and the month spent at home before you fly to Korea seems to never end. But you get there eventually, and as nice as it is to catch up with Jake’s parents after so long, you feign sleepiness after lunch as an excuse to get some time alone with your boyfriend. Ironically, this “time alone” is spent so intensely that you do end up falling asleep afterwards. 

You have to admit, you really did a number on your boyfriend this time - what can a girl do when she missed her boyfriend this much? Jake is still passed out when you wake up from your nap, so you slip out as discreetly as you can from his embrace and get out of bed. You head for the closet first and swipe the comfiest looking sweater of his that you find there so you can stay warm as you look around his room. A pang of melancholia hits your chest - most of the pictures and objects on his walls and shelves are parts of his life you weren’t around to witness. Friends you don’t recognize, places you’ve never heard of, phases you’d never known he’d gone through. But then you see the frame on his desk, a faded photo of the two of you at ten years of age, eating ice cream on the bench outside of your house. Milo is sitting at your feet. Jake’s family hadn’t adopted Layla yet. You realise that even if there’s whole parts of your life you didn’t get to share with each other, nothing could touch your memories, or your future.

You want to go back in time and tell fourteen-year-old you that no matter how painful it might seem at the moment, it will all be worth it for the sight of Jake Sim slowly drifting into wakefulness, patting the bed next to him, and noticing you’re missing with furrowed eyebrows. When he opens his eyes and they settle on you, a sleepy smile will grace his dazzling features, and he’ll say, “Come back to bed.”

You’ll be even more in love at twenty than at fourteen.

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[icarusredwings]

I rewatched Deadpool 2 and took notes.

Disclaimer: He's mentally ill and does mentally ill things (GASP, who would have thought?). Also, violence. A lot of violence. It's really long. Like.. really really long.

The very first words he says is "fuck wolverine"

Then blows his own head off with a shit ton of gasoline. Wonder if he had insurance on that appartment.

He started taking worldwide cases

He also admits to knowing "8th grade spanish"

"Passion of the christ. Then me." Says the man whos marvel jesus now.

I wonder how much wade owes cab guy.

Cab guy killed bandu Lmao

"What is it?"

"My IUD"

"A bomb??" Tell me why he was lowkey excited for it to be a bomb?

I love how serious he gets talking about how scared he is to be a dad.

This empire joke traveled from the first movie too.

"Pretty sure it doesn't work that way but we can try" yes.

When making toaster strudles its almost as if he could sense them coming despite it being so silent. This kind of makes me think that Logans not the only one who just jumps up sometimes.

This man really just said "Fuck it" jumped out of a 2 story window, BOLTED after this guy as fast as he could, got hit by a car, rammed another car, and whole ass hugged this guy before jumping in front of a truck with him. I don't want to see anyone try to tell me he's one sandwitch drop away from jumping off a cliff.

Cinatography by Blind Al.

Directed by one of those guys that killed john wicks dog.

God I love Ryan Reynolds because you know it was him.

Wade stop peeing your pants in public.

Weasel "We still have bowie..." Yeah id lie to him too at this point.

"Yeah im fine"

Fucked up

Insecure

Needy and

Emotional. Kübler ross apprently.

"Buck no more speaking lines for you" and he meant that shit.

Al is so humble and sweet. Making tea and giggling. Tries to shoot him and then just hears him collapse on the floor. How many times do you think he collapses on the floor a week? Just to be drimatic?

"Sweetheart can you speak up? Its a little hard to hear you with yhat pity dick in your mouth" Oh so shes his mom. Al is his fucking mom. Hands down. And the best one.

I love how he decided to do an entire bag of cocaine before dying. There was no reason for it and honestly was a waste of cocaine until you realize that these cocaine is wades whiskey. Shots dont work for him really, probably because hes already done it so much, but its the same way how Logan chugs that bottle before wade kidnaps him. Its easier to blame it on a substance then accept those were your actions.

Ness is so cute. The poster behind her has "I love you wade wilson" scratched into it. Its nice to know that his version of heaven is literally just a cozy Saturday morning with his wife.

Colossus just walking in to find wades body parts everywhere and put him in a bag like old dirty clothes lol

"Why cant I fucking die" tone was SO serious.

The fact that theres an x men rule book and its lowkey thicker then a bible. I bet you scott and Logan made 80% of those.

"That asshole was me" oh the tears. Baby boyy.

Wait isnt cable literally scotts son.

Im never going to understand this fucking time line jesus christ

Mutant rehabilitation?? What is he a drug addict? That kid is clearly in pain dipshits.

"X men trainee" is so funny

"Please stop cheating on me"

Daniel the pedophile looking ass

Bro casually signs ryan reynolds on the wolverine cereal box and then destroys his knee caps.

"Those guys hurt you??" It was at that moment, wade went ape shit.

Wade having fun in prison is so him. But come on imagine going to prison just for standing up to an abused child. Not to mention, His face when he immediately realizes how fucked he is and that "oh shit I actually DO have cancer now and it SUCKS"

Is it just me or does Cable reminds you of forge with all his cool fix it abilities. Or is he just futurey.

He didn't say were not friends to make him upset but to draw attention to himself. Him just eye rolling when stabbed in the hand was so funny too because he was like "Ouch. God damn it. Ducking OUCH."

Hes literally pleading with russel to find someone else to peotect him or hes gonna get molested because he cant do anything. His entire power is replacing dead cells WITH new cancer cells. His entire body is dying 24/7 but never fast enough to actually kill him, always regrowing way too quickly. Cancerous is better then dead.

"Get away from me kid" yeah cause he knows hes trouble and he REALLY doesn't wanna watch this kid die.

"Who the hell tries to kill a 14 year old boy"

"Kids give us a chance to be better then we used to be"

Dopinder is so wholesome. I love him so much. No i dont care that he killed a guy. Hes the type of friend you call to take to the movies or the zoo once every year and hes stoked just to be invited.

Peter: I just thought it looked fun :D

Dopinder: FUCK

Peter is that one dad whos kids left the nest and now he needs friends and a hobby so searches for the biggest weirdos he can find.

"Grab the boy- NOT INAPPROPRIATELY >:("

i love his crayon maps/plans

Oh my god weasel im not telling you anything ever again you snitch (same dude, cable is terrifying)

After crying over the love he has for his new team (x force) Wade confirms that he spent 10 years in special forces.

I love how supportive wade is with Peter despite him just being a normal dude only for him to immediately die LMAO

He just cassually lets his impulse win in which he steals a moped.

Oh i just noticed Dominos vitiligo. I always loved vitiligo charaters. Theyre so unique and barley ever given movie roles. Like why not?? Why wouldnt you want someone so beautiful? Im pretty sure she just has make up but it would be cool if not.

Something else is that cable just starts yeeting criminals out onto the street lol

"Theres nothing I cant kill" Let me intorduce you to the man whos on a constant road to dying but can never actually get there.

Im assuming cable wants to kill russel because he unleashes a big bad guy or something.

*cassually snaps neck back into place* Oh god that hurt!

Oh I was right! It was Juggernaut :)

Wade: *gets excited about being PHYSICALLY ripped in half*

"Rub my legs mama 🥺 I got growing pains"

"Oh noo! No no no Dp not again!" We love you Dopinder. Do not ever stop caring. "This shits happened before!?" Yes weasel. Sometimes your friends get ripped in half. Get used to it.

Wade just moves her gun to the right position.

Wade talking about saving russel is so serious that it makes you forget that he has a tiny baby ass rn. I couldn't make a deal with someone woth tiny baby legs... just... no. Not to mention that those baby legs are made of cancer.

"50 years from now you're super fucking dead"

Wade standing outside of the xmen mansion with his phone and a picture of a boom box playing music for Colossus to come outside and help him save russel is something i can see happening to Logan. They have a fight and he storms off to the mansion only for wade to stand outside like that.

"Hi Wade🎀✨️" "Hi Yukio!🥹 you guys make a super cute couple 😊 where was I? 🤨"

"So you wear a helmet so your brother cant read your mind?" "Yeaaahh" average kid conversations.

"Lets fuck some shit up is my legal middle name"

Okay sir edgelord.

Apprently wade has a gluten sensitivity

What is it with wade and metal men??? My man has a type.

"Im just gonna use this brick and maximum effort" Same wade. Same.

Yaayy!! Go yukio! Eveyone loves yukio.

"Thats how we do it in mother russia" What? Shoving an electrical cable up their ass and then put them in a pool? Damn. Ok.

That "I never should have never left you in that prison" with the hug? Man hed be a decent dad I think.

"Dont be ive been trying to make this happen for awhile" okay someone supervise him 24/7. Hes on the active watch list.

Wade: *is dying* Hi Yukio :D

Yukio: Hi wade :)

"R-dog" Oh my god hes too cute.

Them carrying the racist joke all the way til the end made me cringe but that was the point.

His last words being "do you wanna build a snow man?" Is such a deadpool thing.

I was NOT expecting to cry at the end of this stupid ass movie, AGAIN

"Dont fuck colossus" VANESSA KNEW

THE FUCKING COIN

"Is there a knife in my dick?" "There's a knife in your dick."

Oh I just didn't even notice she has heterochromancia! <3 Aahh!!

PFFT DOPINDERS SECOND CONFIRMED KILL

"WERE DEFINITELY NAMINF OUR KID CHER"

"Dont scratch!" *shoots himself 8 times* "Love you! Bye."

Wolverine: ???

[the-s1lly-corner]

TADC cast celebrating valentine's day!

figured i may as well make a TADC version of the previous post while im here tonight and waiting on making money for my roblox tycoon!! expect more typos than usual im fighting the sleepy demons but i gotta finish this tycoon because im !! i dont know LMAO

CAINE:

i keep saying how down bad caine is for his partner, and i think he would amp it up on this day! hes going to drop everything for you and make sure youre going to be drowning in gifts and affection! hes going to be following you around listening to your every whim. gives you something every hour of the day, and he might take you out to that cute little restaurant he and bubble went to in the pilot... makes you a digital meal catered to your palette. probably takes your hand and 'kisses' the back of it when he sees you arrive to the dinner date... 8/10 deducted points because he might get overbearing at some point.... not sure if thats the right word, though...

POMNI:

oh i think shes the type to forget its valentines season! she would probably scramble to get you something... i think she would give you flowers, from the grounds! probably tries to hastily throw together a date for you, trying to make it sound like she had it planned this entire time... oh she feels so so bad, please reassure her that its fine..! its just her first valentines with you and shes already blowing it, at least in her opinion! otherwise, though, shes very sweet... although still a little tense in her word delivery when shes trying to flirt with you, but thats only because pomni in general is an awkward person, at least in my opinion.. 7/10 shes doing her best

RAGATHA:

oh she loves valentines day, me thinks... i think she would sew you something, perhaps a plushie and a matching blanket! of course it wouldnt be a valentines gift if it didnt have hearts all over it and had the classic holidays colors! i think she would wake you up with flowers..! i dont think she would expect much in return but she would be over the moon if you returned the same energy to her.... giving things is nice but receiving is also nice because it shows her that you think about her too! tries to spend the day with you as an extended hangout/date, very nice very sweet... you guys go to the carnival! 9/10 i love her

JAX:

oh he definitely forgets the holiday and doesnt scramble when he finds out what day it is. i think he might MIGHT share his sour candies with you but dont expect more, hes not going to be twisting himself in notes to right his wrong... plus i dont think he sees much point in the holiday, and perhaps holds a "eeeeewww feelings" sentiment, despite literally... being in a romantic relationship with you... hes a little.... errrr.... you know? though he doesnt really put up much resistance when you try to take him out on a date around the grounds, so hey, at least you got that going! he would totally shut it down if he wasnt interested 4/10

KINGER:

very romantic, very much so. i think he would write you a poem... probably stays up for a few nights trying to perfect it for you... gives you a bouquet of flowers, i think he might try to take you out on a picnic... generally very nice... leans deep into the gentleman role, lets you hold on to him while he escorts you around the grounds. tells you how pretty you are that day. gives you a lot of compliments, takes the leads with things... if theres a puddle hes going to let you walk over him/hj ... i think he would be a little stunned if you give him anything in return... not stunned in a bad way...! he was just prepared to be the one spoiling you today..! sheepishly tugs on the collar of his robe and bashfully thanks you... very sweet, love this man 9/10 but i admit im biased for kinger but also this just sounds like a dream

ZOOBLE:

i think theyre more lowkey. i think they make you a unique card, handcrafted... definitely radiates their aesthetic, but also theres some of your charm added into it because they were thinking about you... awww, their thoughts about you shined through their own vibe.. might give you some candy, if they can get their hands on some... doesnt expect a gift in return but their eye kind of sparkles if you present them something... might do better with a gift that generally reflects their personality rather than something thats in line with the holidays traditions of candy and flowers... they dont have the words to express their gratitude but they do take great care of whatever youve given them 8/10 i like them too grrrgrrr

GANGLE:

i think this comes as a shock to absolutely no one, but she makes you a card with her own hands. but i think it would be intricate. gangle seems like the type to better express her feelings through writing rather than verbalizing them... so for you, in this card, she pours herself out to you. theres multiple segments, youre going to have to hold it sideways and let it fall open, it probably hits the ground... she even make little pop-outs, of the two of you and hearts and other things... theres even some tuggy things to reveal portions and make things move... she looks so anxious giving it to you, perhaps thinking shes done too much,, but she awaits your response... yeah i dont think anything is going to top this, its deeply personal and its crafted for you and only you.. 10/10 i would frame it up honestly

[tubbytarchia]

ji str

he joins the server sees sausage and hes acutally relatively normal. a creeper tries to blow both of them up and jimmys annoyed that sausage didnt see it. eloise comes along and jimmy and saus do. a perfect harmony

eloises house/tent looks like a nipple. she says this and they both agree. sausage says something then jimmy threatens to kick him

sausage has a dangerous bridge and when eloise asks for rails he says the dangers part of the fun

they split up and jimmy mutes to talk about the tuff blocks. sausage comes over and punches him and jimmys like yes sir? ...?????

sausage wants jim to watch a sausage clip. they talk about tuff blocks for a bit then jimmy goes to watch it. its a clip of sausages pov of the creeper and its not on his screen at all. nobody can see the creeper. they think its invisible. jimmy apologises and theyre both really confused

jim goes tuff mining and talks to chat for ages. hes texturing his build :3 really hard to get a good screenshot cuz he moves so much but it looks great

jimmy sees sausage and eloise and goes over to their cave. sausage says theres lore in the cave and jimmy threatens to kick him again. (the "lore" is firing wind charges and being like oooohhh spookyyyyy wind coming from the floor!!!!)

someones been leavings chests full of armour in eloises house and jims like thats probably sausage. and when he denies it they run away and split up.

jimmy goes to a trial chamber alone to pick up some copper bulbs. he immediately spawns some cave spiders but hes all fine. he doesnt get distracted! he gets some bulbs a couple doors then leaves.

olis in chat and jimmy shows off his cave house. he calls it "our house" which is very sweet...... they will always be real

he needs some moss so he decides to bonemeal it like. right behind sausages place. maybe 20 blocks or so away from it. which made me giggle

he adds in all the copper bulbs and. its so cute. i love his little cave so much.

he breaks his spruce doors to replace them and theres just a zombie waiting outside for him. a polite guest. kind of forgot they dont break wooden doors

hes so happy about his build he wants to show it off. sneeg comes over cuz hes mad someone stole all his eggs and released all his chickens (???) and jimmys like haha do u like my base :) and sneegs like yeah before continuing to talk about the chickens. normally i would get a little annoyed about him being brushed off but the chicken situation is SO baffling???? its probably martyn since he wants to build where the chicken farm was but like. if it was martyn he probably wouldve just killed all the chickens first before breaking things. since they were in a little fenced off area it wouldve been easy. but theres just chickens EVERYWHERE

sausage comes over and he loves jimmys build so much. its very cute actually. he compliments jimmys texturing and calls it lovely. then he unwaxes one of jimmys lights and says he loves waxing off in jimmys room. then sausage dips and returns to give jimmy some glowberries and glow lichen :)

he brings a couple lilacs over too and tries to place them but theres no dirt where jimmy wants to place them. sausage mines a single piece of dirt off the side of the land theyre on (the lip oli built. its like a floating bit of land attached to the side of the donut) and jimmy gets so annoyed at him for breaking it

aaaand stream over tomorrows probably hardcore again. wednesday a coop game with martyn oli and saus. thursday little nightmares. friday manhunt. wooooooo

YAYY JI STR

I. I need to see that part of Sausage punching Jimmy and Jimmy going "yes sir?" for myself. sometime when the vod is up. =???

Yessss though Jimmy's so good at building!! In the last "build and seek" vid too, he did some fantastic texturing imo. BUT ALSO him being proud?? And not immediately dismissing himself like "no it's bad" or "no I'm stupid" like he's prone to do??? Oh it's heaven on earth. He's proud and he stays proud and he shows his little cave off to others... ohhhh Jimmy ohh I'm so PROUD OF YOU. IM SO PROUD OF YOU. BE PROUD STAY PROUD YESSSSSSSSSSSSSS SWWOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Jimmy calling his home "our house" with Oli is so beautiful ur so right. There's always something with Jimmy and homes in all the. trauma. so this makes me want to both smile and cry doubly so

Sausage and Jimmy being genuinely cute makes me grit my teeth because I'm too tense. Anticipating something horrible. But for now. Just for now... They can be cute... Can you be like this more often Sausage then maybe I will like you. All of this minus the "I love waxing off in your room" thing please and thanks. But the lilacs lmaooo what are you trying to do Sausage. Its not going to work. This bit about trying to create the 2nd flower husbands was comedic the first time at most. Now it's just stale and annoying, this and last time. like 90% of your sex jokes sorry I am being a hater. Tired of being nice. Need to be a hater. Being a hater but need to keep up with everything that is Jimmy. I need to see and hear about his character development even if the surrounding context sometimes makes me want to pull my eyes out

[royallygray]

On the way back from a trip, I watched Wall-E for the first time on the plane. I liveblogged it because i thought it would be great.

It was.

SPOILERS AHEAD FOR WALL-E :D

also I am Not sorry for the typos

also I was using it/its for Wall-E and Eve and then I started using ae/aer for Wall-E and she/her for Eve just fyi

ANYWAYS ENJOY THIS THING

-- -- * -- --

2:20 what happened to my precious wind turbines???? :(

also tf is the song at the beginning

3:00 WALL E??? OMG THEYRE A RADIO BOI

wait this is literally the plot of my original story

LUNCH BOX

cricket :)

4:19 he's made a city out of trash :(

there is a baby crying on my flight :(

WERE ZOOMING

buy large gas???

04:57 wait so Wall-E is a brand of robot that cleans things? what's Eve gonna be im excited

OH MY GOD THE LITTLE CRICKET AND WALL E ARE BESTIES

turbulence on air :D

Wheeeeeeeeeee

05:10 there's a dead wall e :(

05:20 OH MY GOD THERES ABOUT TEN ZILLION DEAD WALL-E'S AA

NOOO

MY BOI :(

05:51 "too much garbage in your face? there's plenty of space out in space!" fuck you don't pollute space that's our space. Maybe not your space actually but it's MY space and don't put your stupid garbage in MY SPACE

07:15 aww fairy lights :D

TAPE :D ITS A RECORD TAPE :D

There's a spork in the lunchbox

why is there a rubix cube in the lunchbox

omg it's confused about whether the spork is a spoon or a fork :(

and it just put it on its own spot

like non-binary people :)

:( it wants someone to hold its hand :( it wants company :(

THE STARS

nope it was smog and the dust on the screen. rip

wtf is blowing up????

the cricket!!!!

09:57 it hibernates :(

and it swings itself to sleep :(

Wall-E needs some sun. go look at the sun, starshine :)

THE WALKING INTO THINGS IS REAL ASF WHY AM I RELATING TO A ROBOT

that's a nasty looking sun

POWER GAINED LETS GOOOO

NOOOOAOWJQJHW CRICEJT MY BELOVED NOOOOO

CRICKWT COME BACK

cricket is alive :DD

omg the bra 😭

it's a collecter :D

ping pong :)

ENGAGEMENT RING?? DAMN

IT JUST THREW AWAY THE RING AND KEPT THE CUSHION BOX 😭

FIRE EXTINGUISHER LMAOOO

PLANT :D :D :D

PLANT IN BOOT :D

CRICJET

wtf is the red light

I don't like that

what is it

what are ALL THE RED KIFHTS

IM SCARED

WALL E NOOOOOO

mans just dug dug dug dig diggity

wtf is that

id be scared too if I were wall e

is that the big ship that was there in the beginning

omg such a great disguise 😭

EVE :D

eve seems very tech advanced

OKG HEAVENLY

WALLES JUST LIKE "ITS ANOTHER CREATUEE :D"

bro all that pollution came down to deposit one robot

walle does not look comfy

FLY MY DARLING

windshield wipers??? in the eyes??? 😭

girlypop is a weapon

what do eves beeps mean???

NO CRICKET NOOOOO

CRICKET YOUVE BEFIRNSSD EVE

NO EVE DONT KKLL WALLE

eve wtf was that

are Wall-E and eve actually human size?? and it's just. idk

rip Wall-E they're going through it

what is eve even doing

also she's got anger management issues

me trying to get close to my moots

eve speaks :)

classified -_-

SHAEKNF NAMES :D :D :D :D

she laughs :D

eve NOOO

cricket??? where's cricket???

walle took you to its secret hideout you better be appreciative

cricker got a granola bar

oh she's ashamed that she broke it :(

BUBBLE WRAP :DDD

rubix cube

TAPE PLS WKRN :DDDD

YAY

EVE CHILL

YES DARLINF

wait no

chill girlypop

its got new eyes :)

walles like. raising their eyebrows

I'm gonna try to use neopronous for walle now because why not

ae/aer

LIGHTER

EVE NO

FIREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

ae just wants to hold her hand

SHES ASCENDING

nOOOO she stole aer plant NOOOOOO

GIVE AER AER PLANT

GIVE AER AER PLANT

NO AER'S CRYING NOOOO

PEORECTION

electrocution

CHRIST.AS KJGHRS

OMG RHIS IS SO SWEET

WALL-E + EVE 😭 IM GONNA SOB NOOOO

AE JUST WANTS TO HILD HER HAND NOOOOO

EXCEPT SHE DOESNT HAVE HANDS ANYMORE

IM SADDDSD

wait there's a hand

it's just not mutual :(

THE MOONNN

NOOOOO

AE'S PLAYING PONG AGAINST AESELF :((((

8000 VS 0

it's cloudy with a chance of meatballs rn

lighter

NO EVE

DONT RAKE MT DAUGHTER AAAY YOU STIPID SPACESHIP

EVE MO

WALLE

FLY WALLE FLY

PROTECT CRICKET AND FLY

no there are multiple eves

RAKE OFFDFFF

WALLE HANG ON LITTLE ONE

the subtitles are just [Wall-E screaming] 😭

NOOO CRICKET IS ALONE NOW

CRICKET NOOOOO

wait why the fuck did they just destroy so many satellites wtf

oh earth looks NASTY

THAT IS ONE NASTY LOOKIN PLANET

WALLE NO

omg phew

AE FOUND EVE :D

MOON

MURICA 💪

SUN :D

just got all the solar power ever ae did

MILKY WAY :D

OMG CLOUD

it's the huge ass tech plane

axiom

bro how long did that take to fucking build

that thing is bigger than earth tf

gravity :)

EVE NO

Wall-E what are you doing

38:31 they're getting pissed off by Wall-E'S existence :(

39:20 that cleaning bot is PISSED

aww they just realized they can go off the lines :)

mate GET ON TOP OF HER (not in that way) pls just OMG ride the same cart. pls. do not get separated from her pls

those guys are right next to each other wtf

John

A is for Axiom your home I STG IF THIS IS WHAT EDUCATION IS FOR

A is for Apple, your iPads

B is for Best Buy, where you get your iPads

C is for idk. cock

lunch in a cup. I wanna die.

also the uniforms suck ass. those are worse than my elementary school ones.

Men? what's so good about men? why are they advertising men in a makeup place? where are they gonna appease men? on their chairs where they don't look at each other???

"try blue!" yeah you shouldve done that ages ago

actually that's a terrible shade of blue. even red is better than that shade of blue and that red makes me eyes hurt

it's actually a good shade of blue. just not for the jumpsuit things.

"every holo-date I've been on has been a virtual disaster" OMG that's actually such a great pun. writers of this I love this

Hi Mary :)

I do love how friendly the humans are. they're just chillin

also I adore how friendly Wall-E is. if someone got me a Wall-E plushie for my birthday I would marry them

maybe. hypothetically. probably not actually.

a113?

omg all the captains are dead

WAIT WALLE GET BACK TO EVE

OMG extraterrestrial vegetation?? YOU MEAN EARTH??? MOTHERFUKER???

bro he can't read 😭

I'm sad

OMG CAPTAINS GETTING AN EDUCATION LRTS GOOO

don't clean Wall-E ae's precious

WHAT DID THEY DO TO MY WALL-E'S FACE 😭

eve looks so fucking bored

oh that shit fucking exploded

oh no

CHASE SCENE

WHY IS RHWRE AN UMBRELLA BOT 😭

eve is PISSED

she's so exasperated 😭

WHY DID THE CLEANING BOT STEAL HER SHOE

WTF????

WALLENOOOOOOOOO

THE FIRE EXTINGUISHER COMJBG IN CLUTCH YESSSSS

AAWWWWW YHEYRE HUGGING ASHAJAGDKWHNSSBNXS

was that a kiss

omg that was totally a kiss

omg that was adorable

how is there that much fire extinguisher in one can

AE'S got a surprising amount of control with flying

OMG MARY I LOVE TOU

MARY MARY I LOVE YOU

JOHN HI JOHNJI JOHN :D

OMG man and woman touch hands romance is alive

omg captains getting social stuff :D

THEYRE DANICJNG NI THE DIRE EXTINGUISHER

OMG THEYRE SO IN LOVE AWWWWWW

MARY AND JOHN ARE BESTIEE AWWWWWWWWW

They can't go back :(

70:36 "I don't want to survive. I want to live!" SLAY CAPTAIN

72:00 YOU KILL WALLE I FUCKING JILL TOU SQUARE UP AUTO YOU MOTHERFUCKER

NOOOOOOOOOO

NOOO THEYRE IN TRASH NO

NO wtf happened to Captain

NO SHE JUST GOT REPROGRAMMDD NO

wait did she? no she didn't thank God

omg it's giant Wall-E

ew

okay cleaning robot you've redeemed yourself ily

NO THEH KILLED THE TAPE

NOT THE TAPE NOOO

M-O

Mo ily

WHYD U THROW AWAY THE PLANT EVE

KEEP THE PLANT MAN

COME ON

YES ESCAPE DARLING ESCAPE YES EVE Y SO MUCH EVE YOUR THE BEST

OMG all the rogue robots are going together <33

REBEL CAPTAIN

NOOOOO NOT THE ONE BOT

wait where the hell are they getting oxygen if they don't have any plants

"John get ready to have some kids" Mary I love tou

Captain you can walk you can do it :D

YIPPEE

wait when the fuck did they learn how to walk

WALLE NO DONT DIE NOOOO

THEY ZOOMING

CALTAIN IS HAVING A FREAT TINE MAN

OMG THE FALAZY

CRICKET MY BELOVED:D :D :D

THEYRE HOMEEEEE

WALLES TRUCK NO

is there even any oxygen on Earth

when did theyearn to walk

eve pls just put aer In sun pls

OMG EVE YOURE THE BEST

UR FIXING AER

AHES FIXTING AER LET'S GO

PLS

PLS SOLAR PIWER PLS

YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSDDSSSSSSSSSSSS

CRICKET

YOPPEE

WALLE EVE YES AJEKAUAKAHQKHAKAHAKABANSNAKLAPQHEMSVDNSBABSBBZKSJAKSSKKAAALAKBDNSBSJAKALAKSNABANAKAK

NO

SIES AE NOT DECLGNIZE HER

WALLE NO

WALLE :(

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

AE LOST AER SOUL NOOOOO

NOIOOOOO

YES ELECTROCUTION

ELECTRIOCUTION

YES YES YES YES UES YES

KISS YES YES YES YES YES YES GES HES EHS GES

YES YES YESBBSJQNHDKAKAHDJSJAKDGWKJASNLAAJD

HANDS TES

AE'S FONNA SAY HER NAME

YES WVWNEHAJUAMJAKQQG FEW QKWyajlqshdnbdkavfvfa

EVE

WALLE YOURE ALUVE ILY SMHQJABSLQHSKAHQLAJAVD

CRICKET MO

BEAUTIFUTILN BUR

OMG I LIVE IT

OMG CAPTAIN I LIVE YUU I KIVE THIS I LOCE THIS I LOVE THIS I KIVE THIS TO LOVE THIS I LOVE THIS I LOVE THIS I KCIE THIS ISJWIAKDBSMAALA

OH MY FOD RHEY RESTORUED EARTH HOLY DUFKJNG SHUT

RHERE ARE LKANTS HOLT SHIT THERES A SRAR AND ITS EVE KMF IM SOBBING XRHINF WKQKWJQOWMSEFJWHWHLDHWLQHDKZJALSBDKDNAKSJHDKSNSNSN

SHIP

OMG ITS OVER 😭 EGIWWJKSSHKQHSKWJQJAJWJQAJ

DIRT

OH MT GOD OH MT FOS OH MY DKS

EVE VUILDS A WELL???? OMG THE THLING BOT MAKES SEEDS DHAJSHSKSHKAQKQHALSHAKBSKAVAKAHWKQHKSWGKQBSNSABHZJANAISHAKQBQIWIDHAMALDHSNHWOWHSNFND XNSNALAKBLQKAHSJSNA x

fish come back alive???? thetles

[hello-naptiime]

Hi gang

I see were talking about Jonathan Piss ass ToiletJon again

And as someone who was fucking THERE, WORKING FOR HIM WHEN EVERYTHING DROPPED

Oh my FUCKING GOD AM I SO PISSED OFF.

Welcome to my rant/vent

Mutuals look away Im sorry

Tw// for grooming and manipulation. General gross things in that area

Also Jinbop.

First of all Ashlie and Jon did was gross, but where Jon failed at literally everything Ashlie succeeded.

When the news dropped of what happened in 2017 Jon made a fucking video of him crying like a little man child, and then pressed charges (also doxxed himself like an idiot) WHICH IS INSANE BEHAVIOR. Even in his written respone he was only making excuses.

At that time I was in very close connection with him, I was on his build team, I played multiple games with him. He would come into vc and hang out with us for several hours, you could consider us friend maybe! I wouldnt.

But I was at the very least in a lot of personal servers.

So when things dropped I knew almost all of the behind the scenes BULLSHIT that was happening. How everyone waited for it to blow over and stuck by him. (I got kicked out of servers too cause people knew i was against him but I was still told everything by friends who were still in there)

Then February happened. And so much more, much worse things got exposed. From only his end. I won't mention who was involved, out of privacy reasons and because I dont want to drag them into this. But holy shit dude everyone left him after that. It was over, his gross behavior with minors (included me now that i think about, sir why are you calling me and my friends cute we are 15-) His awful and manipulative behavior with people he finds useful, how he treats his teams

. He never credited anything, I made his goddamn Dimensions s2 designs, Eddie made the skins. Only Eddie was mentioned, once on a stream.

Eddie also made designs and skins for Rosethorn, and got credited in video no less.

Its not that hard and yet!

The main point is

He was still acting in 2020, the incident was in 2017. And he was acting like this, in late 2020. Into 2021.

I wanted him to get better. I really did, I had been hyperfixated on this group of people for years it hurt a lot.

But its been almost three years and he infact has stayed the same!

He is a grown ass man acting like a toddler on a public twitter account, what makes this man some one to respect in any sort of way.

Theres so much more shit I know about this man, that I can't fucking say because of the people involved not giving me permission too. And I respect that. Thats their story to tell.

Now ashlie on the other hand.

Ashlie made a concise apology and owned up to her actions, shit she made sure not to happen again. She went to fucking therapy, she broke off that relationship first and has made so much effort to distance herself from that and apologize everyday of her life.

She went to therapy after breaking things off, and she went again after the callout just to double fucking check she wasnt a horrible person.

She initially handled everything that happened in 2017 in private, like youre supposed to do. Not have a public twitter meltdown. And in late 2020 still handled mostly everything privately. She wrote out a full explanation and apology that is still very visible on her yt channel, not her twt her full 100k subscriber yt channel

I THINK, THATS GROWTH and she should be respected for that. She's actively changed as a person from the 20yr that made mistakes

And what's crazy is that Max and Ross still make youtube videos with her.

Max and Ross, YKNOW. The people who made sure fucking Jinbop got arrested and stomp Sky's name into the fucking ground for the shit that Sky did. I 100% trust those two to make a decision about a person in their circle when theyre doing some FUCKED SHIT.

IN FACT, THEY DID DROP ASHLIE WHEN THE ALLEGATIONS CAME OUT. SHE WAS IMMEDIATELY KICKED OUT OF EVERYTHING INVOLVING THEM

And they came back. They came back and started making new things and videos with her, Ross is an active participant in almost all of her videos.

I think that speaks wonders about her.

Don't drag her name through the ground I respect that woman and all of her endeavors in the future, she has more than made up for the fact.

Jon is still an awful person, and I dont think he will ever change. He's had more than ample time to and acts like whinny child on Twitter. Actively tries to pull nostalgia bait on his dying yt channel and mocks his ex "friends'" work. I want him gone from the youtube sphere and to get an actual life.

[twentyfivemiceinatrenchcoat]

hai ariiiiii :3 guess whos SICK . me . im sick

ANYWAY thinking abt sugubooboo taking care of u while sick ,,,,,,,,

u kno when u get that feeling ur gonna b sick in the morning the night b4 it all hits ? i think sugu picks up on that after u blow ur nose one 2 many times n he asks if ur okay

ur not. obviously . so he heats up some nice peppermint tea, and something my mom does when im sick is take some honey, mix it w ginger powder + some other stuff thats good 4 ur throat and make me eat a spoonful of it [its gross as HELLLL i hate it but i feel a lil better afterwards] then tucks u in2 bed [later after uve fallen asleep he calls out of work for tomorrow, he REFUSES to leave u alone + sick]

the next morning ur properly Sick and suguru wakes u up w breakfast in bed, all warm foods infused with clove, mint, ginger, and sets a few packs of tissues next 2 the bed

after uve eaten he lays in bed w u 4 a bit, kissing your head and fiddling w ur hands. eventually u ask abt work, he said he called out 4 both u n him.

he trusts u 2 take a shower on ur own, but when u get out hes holding a towel and wraps u in it immediately then just hovers around u as u do ur morning routine, making sure youre okay n not abt 2 like . pass out or smthn

once ur dressed and fully cocooned in the bed once again, suguru pours out some cold medicine 4 u and hands u water once that NASTY liquid slides down ur throat. he gives u a lil candy as a palate cleanser tho, hes not mean

i think after that u just fall in and out of sleep 4 teh rest of the day until u get hungry again or need another dose of medicine. sometimes u wake up 2 suguru humming and playing w ur hair while he reads a book, sometimes he joins u and takes a nap w u. the only time u wake up alone is when its lunch or dinner n hes in the kitchen making smthn spicy 2 open ur sinuses

everytime u take a dose of medicine, he kisses you on the lips then pushes a glass of water in one hand n some candy in the other. hed probably mumble 'good job' or smthn like that in2 the top of ur head as he cuddles u while ur trying 2 get the taste out of ur mouth

he does NOT care if u sneeze n get snot all over him, puke on him if u have a stomach bug, cough in his face, or r generally disheveled. u could never disgust him.

if its sunny out, hell offer 2 take u outside just 4 a lil bit. if u dont think u can walk hes gonna pick u up. no complaining u NEED that sun, hell argue while sliding the patio door open

youll sit out 4 a bit, soaking up the sunshine then when u want 2 go back 2 bed hell carry u back and gently tuck u in2 bed

if ur 2 weak 2 even blow ur nose, hes holding the tissue 2 ur nose n waiting 4 u 2 blow. the chapstick might b all the way across the room n ur savior ends up being suguru and his long legs. the temp in the house is 2 hot? hes turning the a/c down and all the fans r coming 2 ur room bcuz he knows how slow the heating n cooling takes 2 change.

also everytime he walks in2 the room, hes asking how r u? do u need anything? does anything hurt too much? and he probably has smthn 4 u 2 do so ur not on ur phone all day [guess . guess who was on their phone all day . ME]

at the very end of the day, hes got u curled up in his lap on the bed, INCREDIBLY comfortable, and theres some movie on the tv in the bedroom. like juno or some other feel good indie movie. sugurus just kissing u everywhere on ur face and clutching u tight 2 him because u got super clingy after he had 2 run out 4 last minute groceries. since its past dinner time, he gives u lil candied ginger pieces 2 help w ur throat n other snacks 2 go w the movie.

eventually u fall asleep in his arms in the middle of the movie, smothered in warmth on all sides.

OKAY . WOW . moving on, HOW WAS UR DAY ARI ??? tell me abt that book ur reading rn !! u seem very enthusiastic abt it, id luv 2 know y ^_^ ! [personally my day was . ouchie . and ive got a book abt decolonialism checked out from the library rn :3]

ASHLEY !!!!!!!!! i’m answering this kinda late i hope your cold is gone by now 😔😔😔

BUT . GODDDDDDDDDD ARE YOU OUT TO KILL ME 😭😭😭😭😭😭 BE HONEST . how did you know sugu sickfics are my greatest weakness………… (i actually have . a whole fic just like this that i wrote a year ago or so 😭😭 YOU MADE ME WANNA GO BACK N READ IT HHHH this is very bad for my weak suguloving heart….) I’M JUST. I DON’T KNOW WHAT TO SAYY. you keep serving me meals on a silver platter n i’m just?!?!! eating gratefully …. thank you……

NO BC YOU’RE SOOOOO RIGHT YOU’RE SO OBJECTIVELY CORRECT :((((((( HE’S. THE SWEETEST. the best bf around !!!!!! he’s so good at caring for you when you’re sick…. sniffle……. AND OFCCCC HE’D PICK UP ON IT INSTANTLY TOO. his sixth sense is so crazy accurate when it comes to his baby </33333 and wahhh him making you tea and tucking you in and calling in sick for you 🥺🥺🥺 he just wants you to feel better……

WAKING YOU UP . W BREAKFAST IN BED. WHAT IF I CRYYYYY THIS CONCEPT IS SO DEAR TO MY HEART ASHLEY ….. and him just. hovering around you. i feel like he would stand outside the bathroom while you shower just in case you were to fall over or smth…….. he’s so caring :(((( and wrapping you up in a towel…… cocooning you into bed. sniffle. i need him to baby me sooooo bad it’s not a want it’s a need …… he rlly would stay by your side the Whole time………… cooks for you and tends to you and makes sure you’re okay . he’s so good. i feel like he kind of really loves it too….. he doesn’t love that you’re sick BUT . he loves being allowed to take care of you :’3 loves making you feel better.

ALSOOO him kissing you and praising you whenever you take your medicine T_T oughhhhhhhh one kiss on the forehead + ”good girl/boy” from him and i would be OUT like a light. collapsed. fainted. he would be so good at coaxing you into taking it ……… ANDDDDD the part abt you never disgusting him. SO true. you could never ever disgust him he just wants you to be okay…….. forcing you out into the sunlight………… asking if you need anything……………. making sure you aren’t bored…………………. ohhhhh he’s 2 perfect we need to put him down.

sugurus just kissing u everywhere on ur face and clutching u tight 2 him because u got super clingy after he had 2 run out 4 last minute groceries.

AND THEN . YOU TOP IT OFF WITH THIS. ☹️☹️☹️☹️☹️☹️☹️☹️☹️ THIS MADE ME MELT….. i’m so…………. i have so many thoughts abt this. sugu would LOVE a clingy s/o but i keep specifically thinking of him w an s/o who’s shy w physical affection.,,,, and how he’d react when they get sick and suddenly get all cuddly . 🥺 he would love it so much. kisses you all over and holds you soooo tight and he’s just!!!!! so enamored!!!!!!!!! you’re like a lil koala. he loves you. sob.

WAHHHHH THANK YOU FOR THE ABSOLUTE MEAL MY BELOVED i’m not exaggerating btw this is gonna feed my sugu thoughts for weeks to come…… AND MY DAY WAS GOOD!!!! i’m sorry to hear your day was ouchie </3 i hope it’s all better now!!! pls make sure to rest and eat properly <33 it’s what sugu would want for you!!!!!

AND . THE BOOK. YES. it’s called giovanni’s room by james baldwin and it’s sooooo <33333 yeah. it’s so good. i LOVE baldwin’s prose so much??????? and the story is just . AUGH. i’m still not finished but i’m so obsessed. it’s basically abt a closeted guy in like … the 1800s-1900s? who goes on vacation in paris while his girlfriend is in spain. and he meets this rlly mysterious charming italan barman called giovanni……….. the book is abt their relationship + their own experiences w homosexuality + their tragic ending (it’s revealed at the very beginning of the book that giovanni will meet his end by the guillotine)…..

so it’s just . yeah. it’s such a gorgeous book :’3 and just so . idk. raw? visceral?? i love giovanni a lot. and more than anything i loves james baldwin <333 i’m planning to buy another of his books too!!!! it’s called tell me how long the train’s been gone :3 I RLLY RECOMMEND BOTH OF THEM!!! i hope the book you just got ends up being good too <33

[teadrop-12]

heehee thank you for giving me hcs of my blorbo :))) can I ask hcs for your favourite hedgehog Rudy?????? I wanna hear abt em :)))))

Hiii bella omg yeah ofc!! i have a lot of them locked n loaded omg

so i said before like my main hc of ejen ali is that rudy is a trans girl. and that still stands. she/her rudy but only with a few people she knows wont give her shit for it

again i know i draw and depict rudy as being femme but in actuality nothing really changes. shes the same exact person with the same blunt personality and spiky hair shes just a girl now

has a bunch of skills like sewing and baking. absolute dogshit at cooking though

shes bi, i've always had the hc she's bi, even before the tgirl hc came along. like the reaction she had to kim was the same she had to Ali i rest my case

i think she's got a guy pref tho? like she thought she was straight until she had her first crush on a girl

ALSO!! shes on the aro spectrum, specifically demiromantic.

really good with animals and kids, babysits on weekends sometimes

Roza is genuinely like her sister, like her cool older sister thats basically rodrick from the live action diary of a wimpy kid movie

she's not in a band but to blow off steam she plays the drums sometimes

theres a boxing bag in her room she uses that too rudy knows boxing

her and bulat are the besties of the agency. they met each other when bulat came to the academy and they have been each others ride or die since

while she was in the infirmary and her arm completely healed she would sneak into the kitchen and bake for the remaining agents anonymously

she thrifts and gets a lot of grundge and trad goth clothes, but she cannot be bothered to dress up unless shes with a date or at an event then she wears formal Baju Malayu (im so sorry if i got it wrong i just searched for malay formal wear and the one i saw her wear is just like that so i dunno)

like think hot topic, or gothic lolita clothes.

kinda clingy with people? i dunno how else to describe it but its like if shes with a friend or something and they abruptly get taken away for something else she'd be a tiny bit jealous or something

moons like her little sister i think, like theyre always bickering and stuff n tease each other but if anything happened to her she would be mad

she can't really take compliments well. like from anyone.

very indulgent hc, shes got a crush on Alicia.

audhd

im sorry these hcs are so boring

an actual menace to society, she should be put down/j. but srsly, she is a known prankster in canon before ali and alicia came and she became so much more tough

i think she would have had rabies. at least twice. one as a kid once recently

as a kid she actually had really long hair but she got it cut rlly short bc she wanted to style it like Djins

accidently called one of the mentors "mom" once but that mentor said it was fine and flattered

despite having a huge crush on alicia, she is also her biggest rival. Like luz and amity except theyre both amity except alicia amity is luz does this make sense

calls ali and khai cringe for liking a card game like WAUriors but in actuality she has a whole collection for herself.

ok here are some heavy hitters (TW su1c1de mention)

Remember that thing with my dos hcs? with dos being unknowingly cloned? that clone was rudy, but because she was a child, they couldn't wait for her to grow up so when they tried to terminate her, rudy caught wind of this and ran away, which is how she got homeless until she was around 2 or 3?

if thats not the case, I do think something more sinister happened in which MATA was involved with the fact she has no family left.

given the fact they hid ali's mother dying from him for about a year or two after he joined MATA, i dont doubt that they hid something about Rudy's origin.

I like to think when she first joined MATA she did know Aliya but she doesn't remember her so she can't put her finger on why Ali's so familliar to her

When she was younger she was kinda the older sister to the other kids there, like she would pickpocket some extras for them or find some sort of shelter and stay outside if there wasn't enough room for everyone.

Agent Geetha is the one she considers a mother bc shes the one that would actually primarily take care of her when she was a baby

When she grows up she actually goes through such a terrible incident on a mission that makes her lose her arm, but she refused to get a prosthetic bc she didn't want to look anything more like djin

like moon, she had strenuous nightmares for months and didn't sleep an entire night once after the incident in s2, and when they finally subsided, after season 3 it all started again

when she's older she actually quits being an agent, but doesn't leave MATA until shes much older, like around 30, and till then she's a CSI for them and still tags along on certain missions but not as common now.

I like to think Geetha adopted her after some years when they got much closer. Sometimes rudy would ask to sleep in her room when shes having a nightmare or something like that.

speaking of which, She calls her Ama or Ami (since Geethas desi in canon I want to think she prefers being called mom in Urdu)

rudy did kind of. like still not completely trust geetha even after she adopted her, but it got much better later when rudy would get really sick and geetha wouldn't stop helping her and she like wouldn't leave her side like she slept in a chair next to her as she was sick.

I do adore the hc we have of Geetha and dos being rudys moms, but i am also loving the hc of like. rudy finds out shes techinically Dos's "daughter" (bc of the whole clone thing) and her kind of realizing that geetha is so much more of a mother to her than dos can ever be and thats also what strengthens their bond.

After she saw alicia crying after Zain died, they always kept an eye on each other. like alicia and geetha are really the only ppl she'd cry in front of.

when she found out dos almost killed alicia she kind of cried there too. because what if she did actually die she wouldn't have met either of them.

after djin died she did actually attempt, but it didn't work and had to see a MATA specialized therapist.

ok i think thats all for now behn!!! super sorry for the boring hcs i didn't know anything new!! but pleaseee send me more hc asks i love them so much!!

[19calicos]

fic authors self rec! ♡ when you get this, reply with your favorite five fics that you've written, then pass on to at least five other writers. let’s spread the self-love ♡

hi wyr & @mollyrolls !! you both sent me this so i’ll answer u both here :-) thank you for the ask btw !!!

so technically i dont have 5 fics out LFMAOO so i’ll plug everything i’ve published so far + my favorite ikwtl chapters!

when the sun sets, it rises again (osamu oneshot)

this is the most self indulgent thing i’ve ever published ….. i wrote this when i was barely starting to come out of a really bad headspace, and it ended up kind of helping me out of it more. i really love osamu and i’ve been wanting to write more for him but im glad i put him in this one :-) and i think that all of the things i’ve written, i genuinely don’t care how many notes this one gets LOL idk how to describe it but it’s just so close to my heart

street style (oikawa smau)

HELP im gonna have so much fun writing this ITS SO EASY TO BE FUNNY FOR THIS FIC 😭😭 oikawa fuckass bermuda shorts pic u do Not know how iconic u are to me !!!!! i think i’ll also post a style guide for this one since fashion is a part of it !

tea for two (kiyoko smau)

a fic that im very very excited to write ‼️ plus kiyoko deserves more love and the more i plan for this/look at my notes the more im like Wait….. Theres literally no way i actually considered a man for this fic 😭😭 im very excited to do my best in characterizing kiyoko and the support this fic has alr garnered just from the masterlist blows me away <33 i really love the image of crescent teahouse that im creating and how it and yn march to their own beat :-)

i know where to look (kuroo smau)

definitely my pride and joy and very self indulgent 🙂‍↕️ im proud of how far i went with it and i will be finishing it soon one way or another! it still blows my mind that this was my first fic and it kind of blew up very soon after i started publishing chapters. i appreciate all the love it’s received and i think about some of the tags in the reblogs very often, esp when all i want to do is abandon this blog 😭😭

ikwtl chapter 6: clocked and chapter 12: who wont slime

6 & 12 are the funniest chapters i’ve written out of the entire series 🙂‍↕️🙂‍↕️ i rmbr reading peoples’ reactions and laughing my ass off when i was writing the tweets 😭 like bokuto choking bc he was too drunk to remember to chew & noya selling slime to akaashi i rlly make myself laugh ! i am very glad my very dumb humor has also made other ppl laugh too !!

[goldenimpact]

hELLO IS ANYONE OUT THERE????

OKAY HI hELLO  FIRST OFF I HOPE EVERYONE IS WELL NOW

THAT THE EVIL WHATEVER I AM HAS FALLEN AND GCANT GET UP COMMERCIAL

SOMETHIN SEOMTHIGN DID IT HURT WHEN YOU FELL FROM HEAVEN THE ANSWER IS YES I GOT SHOVES TO THE FLOOR RECENTLY AND THIS FUCKIN BRUISE ISNT FADING FUNNNY HAHA OK PLEASENTRIRSSE ARE DONE

UH IM CATHERINE, MOD-SAN, GOLD, whatever they're callin me nowadays holy shit dude my hands are shakin like crazy

they've had me literally cleaning house PRETTY MUCH AS SOON AS I RECOVERED all work no play makes jack a dull boy thats me IM jack damn it i can't tell if i've eveolved into  a live-in housekeeper or some sort of roomaate and the paymetnt si s that i get to keep my lifeand also i REALLY need to move my keyboard over or get the window to leave the screen cause i can't blind type it just ain't happenin my leg's jitterering like hell BUT THE MOST IMPORTANT PART IS IM ALIVE YAHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO but i have absolutely NO CLUE how ;long THAS gonna last BBUT the great news is that ive finally been able to sit at my dangf computer and and actual;ly TYOOUCH ANFD LOOK AT IT ive practically been buried in all the freezers BUT ANYWAYS GOD MY HANDSA THEY STING SO FUCKING IABAD D ALKl ANYWAYS IM ALIVE IM STILL HERE IM TRYING?????????? TO GET BACK BUT EVERYONE HERE IS UHH NOT GOOD TO PUT IT LIGHTLY ITS TERRIFYIN OVER HERE BUT IM SENDING MY WELL WISHES THAT EVERYONE IS OKAY OVER THERE AND YOU SURVIVED WHETER THE HECK ANGR MY BIG SDIS MUST"VE SBUBJECTED YALL TOO BEACSE SHE IS FUCKING PISSSEEED LATELY IM GENUUNINLY WORRIED FOR OURLIVES LEVEL THERES SO MANY FIGHTS AND COMING-OUT-ABOUT-HER-LEGEND-OF-VIOLENCE STORY AND THE SHOOTIGN REVENTLY AND POINT IS THE LEGAL STUFF MIGHT GET RESOLVED OKAY?????? DADS MAGIC PROTAG POWERS OR WHATER APAPRENTLY HE KNOWS EVREYONE PERSON ON THE PLANET ITS GODDAMN WITCHCARAFT BUT MOMS DROPPIN LIKE EVERY OTHER DAY BBBBBBUYT OTS HER BIRTHDAY THIS WEEK AND WERE GONNA TRY AND TAKE ME OUTSIDE AND SEE IF I EXPLODE IN THE SUNLIGHT SO UUUUUUUUUUUUUUH THANKS FOR EVERYTHIGN I LOVE YOU GUYS ILL TRYT TO FUCKIN REACTIVATE ALL MY ACCOUNTS ALL A BAJILLION OF THEM APPARENTLY I WAS ONE CRASY AKJSFI KID PLEAASE PASS THIS MESSAGE ON MY BI G SIS WAKES UP SOON IF SHE HEARS ME IM GETTTIN IT I HAVE NO FUCKIN IDEA WHATS GOIN ON ON YOUR SIDE CAUSE NO ONE IS SAYIN JACK SHIT BADUM TSSHH BUT I GOT  MY SHIT COMIN AT LIKE 9 AM RIGHT WHEN I TAKE MY VERY MYSTERIOUS NO ONE KNOWS WHAT THE FUCK THEY DO ANYMORE MEDS AND IF I KICIK THE BUCKET AT LEAST I FUCKING STAYED BABY YAHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

ALSO IM NOT DRUNK WE DONT DRINK IN THIS HOUSE EVER BUT I DEFINITYL NEEDS A LIL HELP IN LIKE ANY SORT OF MEANIN NO ONE IN THIS HOUSE FUCKIN REMEMBERS ANYTHING IN ANY SOR TOF WAY FOR ANY SORT OF THING ITS AN ACTUAL I HAVE NO IDEA WHOSE CALLIN OR TOUCHIN SHIT OR WHAT TALL THIS SHTI IS IN THE HOUSE AND FRANKLY IM TERRIFIED CAUSE EVREYONE LEAVES POR PASSES OUT BEFORE I CAN GET A CLEAR ANSWER AND AND ADN COLD WAR INTELLIGENCE WHATHER NEWS STORY OLD POPS HERE IS PUTTIN ON TV ANYWAYS LOVE YOU GUYS STAY SAFE CALL OUT IF YOU SEE ME IN THE WILDS SOMEDAY BUYYEYEEE

WAIT I JUST REMEMBRED BIG SIS IS GONNE DESTROY SHIT SOON SONSONSOON SHIT HSHISTHSHIT OK ANYWAYS ERVYTHIN ONLINE LOOKS OKAY FROM WHERE I CAN SEE IT IN MYSETRUOS VPN LAND AND IM GOIN THROUGH MY COMP RIGHT NOW BUT EVREYON IN OUR HOUSE RECOGNIZES THE DISCORD SYMBOL PROBABLY>>>?????? SO IM TRYIN TO FIND ALL OTHER CONTACTS BUT ITS JUST A BUNCH OF EMAILS DDDDUDE I JUST HAD TO LET YALL KNOW WE'RE ALIEV HOPE ALL OF YOU ARE WELL LOVE YALL EVER IF YOU DONT BELIEVE THAT ASTY SAFE WATCH OUT FOR FUKCING PUNCHES OR SIDESWEEPS AND MY BIG SISSS KILLING BLOW AND THE FCKKGNGI  SWORD ON TOP OF HER BOOKSELG OR THE LITTLE GUN THING IN HER LCOSET WHAT THE FUCK IS EVEN IN HER ROOM ANYMROE ANYWASY DONT DIE OUT THERE LIKE ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! PEACE OUT BURY ME UNDER A BLUE SKY WITH ALL MY SHIT IIM HANDING  DOWN WHATEVR THE ITTY BITTY NOT SO BITTY NEICE WANTS LIL PRINCESS LILLY HAACKER SCAMMER HUSTLER SECOND LEGEND OF VIOLENCE IN THE MAKIN IM GONNA FUCKIN PASS OUT I HAVE NO  IDEA OF FUCKIN ANYTHIN THATS HAPPPENIN HERE EVERERR GOD CAN I TALK TO ANYONE THAT ISNT THIS NEIGHBORHOOD THAT THIGNS I HAVE HEARSD ABOUT THE PWOPLE ROUND HERE any ewysbans m y hands are shak in and breakin and crankin love yall stay safe dont fall into a ditch like me ever again mMWAHH TEDDIE IF YOURE OUT I STILL OWE YOU THAT FUCKIN LETTTERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

[malevolententity]

PROJECT 14!! I TOOK A BREAK FROM PATTERNING RICHAS!!

oh boy!! this took all of quarentena part 1 to make!! its been a few years since i made anything mesh so whipping up this hat in? what 5 and a half hours? maybe 6? i have not checked the vod time and i was also Cooking Dinner during a portion of it so time is hard to judge on how long this actually took. but it was fun! it Did reawaken my urge to crochet a mesh shirt even tho i would never wear it because it would be so uncomfortable. but making mesh is just so very mindless in a way thats good for me. maybe i should make a mesh blanket to scratch that itch.

we have an array of models for this item! to try and show off the mesh say hello to the bobby i made back in? oh the beginning of april i believe? i dont think any of you have actually seen bobby he might have been a twitter exclusive, say hi to bobby. we also have green garlic my bulbasaur showing off the mesh the best i believe!

QUARENTENA SEASON THOUGHTS! YES I AM CALLING IT A SEASON THERES GONNA BE 2 EPS. SEASON 1 ONLY HAD 3 EPS. THIS TOO CAN BE A SEASON!

i am blown away by how fun this group is and the skills they all have to roleplay in a second or third language for like 6 hours with basically no breaks to speak their natural languages. that is taxing to do and to deliver a story on top of that? i am so proud and impressed with all of them. also holy shit????????? no one fucking died???? i was convinced when the oneshot, now season, was announced that it was going to be a dungeon crawl that ends in everyone dying. i cant believe theyre all still alive after that?? AND THEN THERES ANOTHER EPISODE IRL NEXT WEEK?? i cant wait for the tpk next week!

i love this entire cast of characters theyre all such weird fucking guys in the most complimentary ways. I LOVE THAT WE BASICALLY GOT A SAW MOVIE??? THRIVING!! in a move that shall surprise no one. diego is my favorite. look at him. he is guy of all time to me. BUT OKAY THEYRE ALL WEIRD and usually when you have a cast of weirdos theres always someone who doesnt gel but they all did!! they all fought each other!!! but they all still complimented each others insanity and. this is what the party comp is To Me

i am too lazy to open photoshot for this tonight. maybe you get it proper tomorrow<3

i loved the ending. i loved the slow realization on everyones faces that in saving themselves they might be killing the world and still themselves!!!! also i cant wait to see the fall out next week. i am so fucking upset my dnd game is scheduled for around the same time so i am going to miss probably the first 2ish hours but i know my dash and the official!!!! twitter updates account!!! will catch me up on those two hours so i can jump back in. but AAAA oh i loved this. i dont know if it was on purpose that this felt like a zero escape game at times but oh man the production quality in this vs where m at in season 2 is just mind blowing. i knew it got better once they started being in the studio but this was so great for a home game. ALSO YALL GO CHECK ON AMY??? GO GET THE KID??? YOU CANT JUST LEAVE THE TRAUMATIZED BABY ALONE AFTER EVERYTHING U DID TO KEEP HER ALIVE??? GO GET HER?????

AND ALSO?? STUDIO NEXT WEEK?? BRAZIL MEETUP??? OH I AM SO PLEASED TO SEE IT ALL AND WHAT HAPPENS. this is def my longest update for this silly crochet project i started just a few months ago and i apologize but also. i dont because this show does mean so much more to me than i know how to put into words. and its been a long time since i fell in love with a tabletop universe this quickly. and i feel so grateful that i got to be introduced to this ttrpg earlier this year, and got to pull some friends into watching quarentena tonight because theyve heard me gushing about how good this universe is and how i trust this to be satisfying horror which is so hard to do in ttrpgs, but thats another post for another day.

[radiandromeda]

althea what ARE your hobbies and interests that you don't hide from everyone

ALTHEA: (‹|3 OMG YUO AGAIN HI ≈:D)

[His voice is moderately muffled.]

ALTHEA: (‹|3 ONE SEC!!!)

[For several seconds, some kind of audible physical efforts are made. There is a horrible suction noise, like something being rapidly displaced from within deep mud, followed by a series of gloopy-sounding blows connecting with a rubbery surface. Whatever recording equipment may be in use only partially registers the low, reverberant tone that responds; somewhere between a groan and a rattle.]

ALTHEA: ‹|3 THERE we go!!!!!

ALTHEA: ‹|3 Phew!!!

[Momentarily, Althea’s voice goes quiet again, like he’s far away from the mic.]

ALTHEA: ‹|3 THANK YOU!!!!!!!!

[The audio quality is much clearer now.]

ALTHEA: ‹|3 WELL!!!!!!!

ALTHEA: ‹|3 I like frog hunting!!!!

ALTHEA: ‹|3 Generaltly speaking I love hodling little guys ≈:) Im in a swmap righ tnow and theres SO MANY GUYS you would not BELEIVE

ALTHEA: ‹|3 And gheyre not all little!!! Theresd soooooo many bugs an dspiders and forgs and really cool birds and turbles ans snakes and cute litl fishies and crocogators

ALTHEA: ‹|3 They dont all like beifn held but thats ok!!! I can appreixtae them from a ditsance!!

ALTHEA: ‹|3 But sometimes i think they woukd love to be held but they are too big ≈:( But that usuallt means theyre pettable!!!

ALTHEA: ‹|3 Pattable?? Petpat.......

[The mud suction noises pick back up, in a steady rhythm.]

ALTHEA: ‹|3 Ans sometimes they dotn like being held or peatted but theyr MORE than happy to try snd shove u in their chomphole

ALTHEA: ‹|3 Like that guy just now ≈:) He was very nice ans helpful when I asked!!! A real hop-up gentlemn

ALTHEA: ‹|3 Other hobbies n interestes uhhhh

ALTHEA: ‹|3 I like goin really fast ridinf on my lususz back!!! Anddd climbign things and participatifj in weather and cooking wirh whatever i have around

ALTHEA: ‹|3 I like umm drawing sometines but im not very good andd also swimmifn sometiimes and OH

ALTHEA: ‹|3 I like visiting my best friends!!!!!!!

ALTHEA: ‹|3 Re— wait can I say thier names

ALTHEA: ‹|3 Uhhmmm

ALTHEA: ‹|3 Best friend 1 adn best friend A!! Theyrbe both the best

ALTHEA: ‹|3 I like visitjng them and hanfing out and talking in oerson or over text and sometimes they even let me show fhem cool stuff !! Well Aesi— bestfriend A goes with me a lot when im with her but I hsve a harder time convincing best frend 1

ALTHEA: ‹|3 I like dxploring a lot ≈:) The world is so cool!! Andbthe parts of it that trolsl dont usually go to are so full of the most interestijg creachers and old ruins and environemnts and ahhhhh mannnn itsjust so cool

ALTHEA: ‹|3 Can you see anyvof this??

[The sound of rushing air being processed through a cheap mic. A short pause.]

ALTHEA: ‹|3 ..I wish I coukd show u ≈:( its the prettiest things

ALTHEA: ‹|3 .....

ALTHEA: ‹|3 Augkjh I hsould go my husk is dying ≈:[

ALTHEA: ‹|3 But rhsnk u for asking me!! Stay warm!! And have a good mornign!!!

[-— Manual disconnection 00:00 —-]

[jazz-kitty]

what are your favourite pokemon fan games and why should i play them i have already downloaded reborn but gush abt them

oh my goodness most ask of all time. but uhhh fun fact! i have played 3 pokemon games to completion ever. pokemon emerald, pokemon reborn, and pmd: explorers of sky ^_^''!!! i found out about reborn because my friends played it, and now here i am. i have barely played any pokemon games and much less pokemon fangames!!!! unless you count rejuvenation which i've got like 5 hours of gametime in. but i don't. ive got nothing to say about the game. i've got like 5 hours of gametime in it

pokemon REBORN THOUGH. i blow up. i fucking adore pokemon reborn. it's so fun. as a residential fall asleep in english classer i'm not confident enough in my abilities to call any media Good as fact. but. i had so much fun with the game and plot. the characters are charming and appealing and the ones that aren't are done so intentionally so they are still interesting anyways!!!!!!!! theres a reason why i constantly draw them hanging out- because they are fun to think about!!!! it has it's moments where you lean back and go "ah right this is a self proclaimed darker grittier pokemon game with more mature themes" and have to take a big drag of your cigar because of it but it has so many moments that are just GOOD and ENJOYABLE that it is VERY EASY TO LOOK PAST!!!

also i appreciate the idea that lingers in reborn of like. things can get better and things will get better. the world is dark and gritty but throughout the entire game people still find happiness and peace and work to make things better wahhhh!!!! the main antagonists whole catchphrase is how friends dont matter, love doesn't matter, and nothing matters in the end because they can't be stopped no matter what and you are powerless. but they are WRONG and everyone without fail goes NO thats FUCKED UP and a BAD THING TO THINK. i fall for the power of friendship every single time dog its so real...

gah. i like pokemon reborn. im bad at putting into concise comprehensible words why,but know that i think it is so very awesome and if you are still here from my dream smp art or danganronpa art or miscellaneous pokemon art GO PLAY POKEMON REBORN i need more people to talk about it with.

sorry if you were expecting me to have played more pokemon fangames but i definitely uhh. have not! i've heard from friends that desolation is really good though; but to wait for the next update because the dev team is changing the early portions of the game & quality of life stuff!!!! i plan to play it too once it updates, so keep that one on your bucket list

[the-s1lly-corner]

I’m hoping this is the inbox- pls help I’m used to just reading what’s in the tags on tumblr and never requesting anything 🥹

I hope you’re having an amazing day/night/whatever time of day it is for you-!!! I just found your blog and I am so happy I did!! I’ve been binge reading it but the fact that I found someone who writes for Creepypasta???? I’m??? In luv??? (platonically ofc) may I request some LJ with a fem!reader who has bpd and he’s their fp, carries his little music box everywhere she goes and always “talks” to him in public, not caring about any crazy looks she gets from people?

Also politely asking to be 🩶 anon (if you’re taking any ofc-)

Laughing Jack x fem!reader w/ BPD who has him as her FP!

UEUEUEUE im so happy to hear you love my writing sm ehehehe! always thrilled to hear people enjoying my stuff/that it makes them happy! i hope you enjoy this, i havent written a reader with BPD before so i hope this is decent! also also youre doing wonderful; requesting i mean! i dont think theres many rules against how youre meant to request (every blog is different though!!)

honestly i think hes genuinely thrilled to be taken around and about with you in his little box! usually hes sitting in his box waiting for an unfortunate soul to take it home; its been like this for... a while now... so actually being able to go around and see things is a nice change of pace! plus it makes him feel more included in your life rather than just being an "at home friend"

i think in the beginning youre going to have to ask him to pipe down a little since he might talk a little too loud... like near yelling because hes just so excited

loves helping you shop :)! quick heads up though he might beg you to buy stuff you guys dont need

general silly ideas aside, i think hed be chattering the entire time so you two probably always have a conversation going on whenever you guys are out

probably sneers at people who give you looks tbh, will probably trip them if they decide to be a little ruder and mutter something under their breath while theyre passing by you... i mean they cant prove anything! they just tripped on air! jack totally didnt swipe one of his long arms out and tug their ankle back!

the only downside is that jack cant do much outside of talking and sneaking stuff around since him just fully popping out his box might blow his cover, you know? doesnt mean he doesnt have the urge to jump out when he sees you getting a little stressed out or overwhelmed about your surroundings or when someone is being particularly cruel

though i dont doubt hes remembering faces; i mean at the end of the day hes still a clown that specializes in torment, do i really need to say what hes cooking up in his brain?

no in cases where you're beginning to struggle hes probably going to try to quietly urge you to disconnect and take a breather

keeps your favorite candies on him at all times and slips them into your hand, probably does the same to any stress/fidget toys you may or may not have.. though i do hc he can just materialize certain things and i can easily see that sort of thing falling into something he can just yoink into existence

very good at reassuring you of your worth and how much you mean to him; this is a general thing but i think he makes it more of a point if self image is something you particularly struggle with

who would have thunk it, the clown with abandonment issues is good at reassuring others that hes not going to go anywhere

[midyearflowers]

i have some Thoughts about totk that i have to get out cause i watched zeltik's review and i agree so hard

obviously major spoilers ahead

so i wanna start by saying i absolutely LOVE totk and its easily my fave zelda game ever, with botw being in second. but i will say both games as incredible as they are definitely suffer from the nintendo treatment in that there are awesome moments that blow everything out of the water, and then there are some bad moments that can really bring them down. case in point for totk specifically, zelda's sacrifice and draconification brings me to tears every time and her final words give me goosebumps. but then the cutscenes after each dungeon are... literally copy and paste. like you play them together and its beat for beat the same ("demon king?? secret stone???" nintendo why....)

like i love the story and think they couldve really had something if they had put more effort in and not only fleshed it out more but delivered it better. the whole "find the memories that can be out of order" thing worked for botw cause you already knew the ending so they were mostly additions rather than the full story. but with totk you dont know the ending, you dont know what its all leading up to. there is a mystery to it all, and being able to basically walk up to the end without any other context just ruins that. its just a weird decision honestly

and this all makes it clear that 90% of the development time went to the gameplay. which isnt entirely a bad thing, the gameplay is fucking AWESOME. the world and the way you interact with it is seamless, they NAILED the atmosphere and sound design for every single thing. like the tense beginning as you get closer to ganondorf, the ancient and solemn sky islands and ruins, the creepy and unknown depths. diving down my first chasm, which wasnt the story one so there were NO lights waiting for me at the bottom, i got CHILLS. Falling further and further, the area getting darker and more gloom infested, to land in endless darkness in all directions and having "the depths" title appear onscreen. *chefs kiss*

tho that brings me to another point in that, like botw, totk suffers from "world too big" and there ends up being many pockets where theres just. nothing. maybe a korok, but those get boring after the first few. but theres so much that is just empty and bare that you wonder if they wouldnt have benefited from a smaller map. like i love open world games, and totk at least added caves to the surface world which helped, but theres really only so many random puzzles you can do before youve seen everything. the depths being an inverted hyrule is SO cool, but they didnt really do anything with it. aside from the camera quest and very brief yiga stuff, there really isnt any real reason to comb the depths, unless you need some zonaite or something. the dlc stuff being treasures you could find was neat, but also nearly every armor being the same as botw except for a couple extras was kinda a let down. the new dragon armors are so cool and unique, i wish they did more

the zonai. merely hinted at in botw through ruins and vague item descriptions. they were so mysterious and literally everyone was theorizing on them. and then we get a game that is going to explore it all! the mystery is going to be solved! .....except it wasnt. id almost argue we know LESS about the zonai than we did before. they supposedly descended from the heavens with magical artifacts and founded the kingdom of hyrule, and then when zelda travels back to this time, theres only 2 zonai left and they barely know anything about their own species??? like what?? its like the timeline between the first mural and the second is like. centuries. why are there only 2, where did the rest go? if they were there before the kingdom of hyrule, what did they do? WHY did they descend from the heavens? it feels like nintendo needed to explain where the new tech was from since it wasnt sheikah, so they just kinda made stuff up as they went to justify it. its as if the story was just built around the gameplay. which id honestly believe cause initially it was just supposed to be dlc for botw but they came up with too many ideas so just made a new game in the same world

which brings me to my next point. why was it marketed as the sequel to botw, when it basically did its hardest to pretend botw didnt even happen. the botw references were basically just that. references. not continuing the story or adding to it. its just "yea that happened and we're rebuilding now". the fact the developers literally just said "eh the sheikah tech just disappeared one day and no one knows why" like come ON. not to mention all of the important characters you directly affected in botw seemingly forgetting link exists within the 2-3 years between the games. the man who you paid to build your house doesnt even recognize you! HESTU doesnt recognize you, and youre one of like 3 people who can see him!! the people of HATENO where link literally LIVES dont recognize him!!!!!!!! WHY

i have more but this is already long. i have something else on ganondorf but ill make a separate post. anyway i do love this game with all my heart but nintendo has me scratching my head more often than not

[emmiri-bumble]

dum lil half baked friendsim pre-end-of-game idea. a mallek ♥ reader experience i gues. feat....a lot of the rest of the cast. too much zebruh.

just.. like. Its before the ending of the game but after the final chapter and theres just.. a decent buffer of time there.

And theres this like.. mandatory several-day holiday that a god chunk of the cast really would like to invite Reader to but like no one is celebrating this with other members of the cast (some are) so reader is being pulled around.

And Mallek of course jumps on it first and invites them out to like someplace else. like a middle-class-tier rental. Like a beach house or something (im from the coast, thats upper middle class to me). Itll be great theres gonna be like snacks and movies and enough space to blow up vegetation for funsies. But he does not specify when he wants them over so Reader agrees but has no idea whats up. But then whats this? oh its the always welcome artist Charun on their balcony and they also invite reader to their cave to celebrate some of it, really ring in the holiday with like.. vegetation art. Why is there so much vegetation involved? So reader joins them asap since their stuff is now but Mal's is later.

And its really chill and they get deep deep about the nature of their societies and Reader really feels heard. It was great. Charun hit their social limit and bid them adieu. Great time all around.

But then heres the fun part is that then you encounter like a mish-mash of other trolls (2 from each caste tops because im not smart enough to consider everyone and thats ok) who Reader can agree to spend time with and whoever they choose they find that celebration is different on ever level. That even the ranges of castes dont celebrate it the same and some absolutely wont recognize it.

this parts definitely the most half baked, Hypothetical optional paths. I absolutely want just an unhinged hotdog adventure with Diemen again. And i want Stels and Grgor to invite Reader both with different plans to have a teal celebration + Gal and Reader but no one communicates that to the other and Tyzz is just there knowing whats up on both sides but unwilling to say anything caus Stels is adamant shes got this and frankly Gor's plans to have Gal around are kinda annoying and she waiting for him to fail. I want Galekh and Zebruh to both have just gone way out of the way (to like... whatever is the best equivalent to renting luxury cabins in the mountains) Both on their own and signed a lil vacation rental agreement only to find these fuckin rental hives are way too close. like theyre as close as their own neighborhoods are. And Zeb had FULL intention to spend a lovely holiday relaxing with the lovely Reader (or lets be honest, manipulate Marvus into getting out there. VEEERYYYY long shot. Marv isnt even partying like he announced hes chilling in his hive for it for once.) and completely jumped the gun and rented without their ok. While Gal was held at knifepoint i guess to host Gorgor's idea of the party.

Vikare is allowed to just do his thing, man. let him be funky.

And Reader spends days with friends (hours with zebruh at BEST) and Mal is just like "haha yeah go have fun i'll see you later, ok?" and hes clearly like... unwilling to force the topic. He'd rather Reader joined him on their own volition. And they just... dont realize Mal wanted to spend a lot of time with them just the two of them. Totally not thinking of quadrants, bro.

and in the end they join him at the very last bits of the holiday and they just.. both fall asleep by accident. thats it end of game.

PSYCH. THERES A SECRET ROUTE WHERE YOU ACTUALLY DO "MANIPULATE" MARVUS INTO GOING OUT TO THE WHEREVER THE INDIGOS ARE AND MARVUS KNOWS WHATS UP AND JUST BRINGS EEEEEEVERYONE HE CAN TO CLOWN IT UP AND HOLD READER UP LIKE A FUCKIN PUPPY AND THEY ALL WRECK THE RENTAL AND ZEB HAS NO CLOWN INSURANCE AND HES BESIDE HIMSELF WITH WORRY BECAUSE HERES THE INCEDIBLE MARV IN HIS RENTAL AND HERES THE WONDERFUL READER IN HIS VICINITY AND HE CANT FUCKIN PAY FOR THIS, MAN BUT HE HAS TO KEEP IT UP BECAUSE WHEN THE FUCK IS HE EVER GOING TO GET THIS CLOSE TO BELONGING TO THOSE HE ADORES EVER AGAIN??? Marvus has a great time tbh and really does just carry reader like a lil pubby for a lot of it. Whatever the lil alien says goes. his party is great and its all thank to you, lil alien.

and secret route that i put in there because im me and i love zebruh and this is MY POST. but he gets laid off screen. ohhhh so consensually. maybe not by marv and maybe not by only one clown but he gets the good nut and then a raging purple seedflap infection in the coming days. But like. ya get to talk to him and ask him why this is all necessary and he gets a little vulnerable. like maybe he could cry. thats kinda weird you thought blues were a lil heartless. still dont stop the animosity for him but you kinda get his damage just a little more. why dont you try facing an imminent future where you have to be intimate in order to live but no one wants you. ever. in a hive run by one of the more sexually violent animals on earth. being both too dumb and too privileged to really get how or why you can make ppl happy.

This man needs out.

anyways Reader and Mallek fall the fuck asleep and its a lovely end to a long long holiday. gnight, you two.