#we never had that era yet? oh maybe that was just my dream last night oops TMI heh

[jmdbjk]

So I'm writing this because of a convo with my bestie who said:

"Ferg, have you considered writing a blog addressing the wrong headed assumption that the members were "forced" to create the Festa content that we got today? How the people pushing that agenda are not looking at what was happening in their lives at the time said content was filmed. They always want us to have pictures and music at Festa. They WANT to create that content. If they were "forced" it wasn't by the company, it was by the calendar and the government. With no (military) exemption, they understood that the only time to come up with OT7 music or pictures was before mid December (2022). And drilling down, the only time was in October. RIGHT when they hit the final acceptance that they would all start enlisting and the foreseeable future was actually not foreseeable at all. Their hearts were extra heavy that within a few weeks they would say goodbye to Jin. Yoongi was dealing with severe writers block and, I think, feeling guilty that he was going to miss his deadline for the first time EVER. RM was working toward the release of Indigo. Kookie was looking at heading to Qatar. Yada yada. So with all that....they had to try and look light hearted. They didn't. The anxious vibes come right off the screen. We all feel it but many are not interpreting it right. You know, the ones who already are quick to blame everything on the company."

Or the ones who only view everything through a shipper or solo lens and say the guys hate each other.

The members, who filmed this video months ago, filmed this with pure sincerity and love for us knowing they would not all be available to do anything for us for their 10th Anniversary Festa in June 2023. How must that have felt to them? To know that their milestone 10th Anniversary would not play out like they had envisioned way back in 2020? They thought they'd start enlisting by the end of 2020 and be finished with MS by now, so they'd be together in 2023. They had to try to come up with something spectacular for us and for themselves so that 3 years after that hot mess, we could celebrate with them. They deserve to celebrate themselves as well, they worked so hard over the past ten years.

Its the end of 2022. They looked a little tired. We know 2022 had some heartbreaking moments for them. By this time they were juggling their own projects AND the Busan concert preparation.

Hobi was ever-present sunshine, yet maybe he had a lot on his mind? Was he already thinking about his next projects and starting to contemplate an earlier than planned enlistment? We know Yoongi was trying to put finishing touches on D-Day. We know Jimin was working on at least one collab as well as his own MV concepts and promotion activities for Face and working out details for his fashion ambassadorships. Tae was busy exploring new things with fashion brands and tv shows. RM was finalizing his Indigo promotions. Jin was about to announce his enlistment plans. JK was prepping for Qatar. And here they were thinking ahead to June 2023.

I think they filmed this Festa video within days of the Busan concert. Either before or after. Remember we had a VHopeKookMin live right after the concert. I would also venture to say they also filmed this the same day as the Festa photoshoot (Love Myself campaign promo released end of November 2022):

Yet they still thoughtfully planned and executed things to be released for Festa. Concepts were conceptualized and the company took it from there and we see they've done a great job procuring deep-pocketed sponsors.

I don't understand the whole "they need to go start their own label" mindset either. I've already said it several times... they already did that, it's called BigHit Music. If BTS don't re-sign a contract its because they are retiring from releasing music. What IS plausible is a member or two starting an independent label for other up-and-coming artists so they can write and/or produce for them... all still under the HYBE umbrella.

During this solo era, I want to say things like "I think we can all agree ... [insert almost anything]" but I can't say that these days because, in my opinion, the fandom (on Twitter and other soc med platforms) has fractured into so many different factions who seem to spend a lot of time pitting themselves against other parts of the fandom for everything and anything they can find to nitpick, criticize, compare and compete with, to be angry about, that no one agrees on anything. This member is better than that member or ... and this one galls me... the company is forcing them to do this or that OR [insert member's name] sabatoged [insert other member's name].

Twitter Army yelling at Weverse Army "YOU'RE NOT DOING IT RIGHT!" Who designated Twitter Army as the dictator of all things BTS?

People berating others for not streaming the music, or trying to humiliate followers into streaming 'CORRECTLY'. The conspiracy theorists–don't get me started on that. The dissatisfaction with how the solo projects have rolled out. The constant comparison and competition of which member has the most streams in a certain time frame, who has the most songs on the chart for the longest, fastest, more countries, more collabs, more awards...whatever... It's all "my way or the highway/[member name] is the best" and it is really disappointing and tiresome to see the enormous waste of energy.

And if you are still reading, I am totally on board with what another blogger said the other day about how the entire Kpop fandom has this Kpop culture mindset deeply rooted in their way of thinking. It colors their view of EVERYTHING: that artists are treated badly by their record labels/entertainment companies to the point of being physically abused, artists are not paid well, artists are forced to do things and play roles... adhere to strict rules, etc.. because that's how the oldest companies started and some are still operating today (looking at you SM Entertainment).

That "business model" may have been "the way" in the beginning of the kpop industry because no one stood up and called them out on it. So people have come to think EVERY entertainment company operates that way when we've been shown and told over and over by many HYBE employees that its a great place to work. MANY people OUTSIDE the company, staff and other people in the music industry including other artists are blown away at the innovation and forward thinking of the company and we've even heard the members themselves say that they love their company.

Of course no company is perfect, there will be mistakes made, bad decisions, wrong projections, etc. but out of all the entertainment companies, BigHit, Bang PD and BTS have strived to change the system from the start and our own "fans" are being brainless shitheads and talking trash.

Also, HYBE can't come over here to the United States and start auditioning young people for new groups if they are operating like SM Entertainment. That shit ain't gonna fly over here. You'll have a lawsuit in a blink of an eye as soon as someone gets a whiff of sexual harassment or physical abuse of a minor. A carefully built and protected reputation would be ruined, not just Hybe's but BTS's and every other artist under Hybe's labels as well.

Yes, some things we've seen make us scratch our heads... the tight back to back release of Jimin and Yoongi's work had us all wondering what happened. Yes, Jimin's very abbreviated promotion period for Face was frustrating and disappointing. But no one knows what went on behind the scenes. If neither Jimin or Yoongi comes out and tells us what happened then I will just move forward like they are. If either of them made a mistake, we might not ever know of it, but they will correct it going forward. If the company was the one who miscalculated, they too will correct that in the future. We can call it out when we see it happening but there is no reason to dwell on it. I don't see anything positive or productive about the continued pointing fingers to blame, holding grudges and continuing to speak negatively when it's plain the members of BTS love us, work hard to show us that and deserve only to see our love reflecting back at them.

Ok so I've ranted long enough.

[Public Service Announcement: if I don't talk enough about your favorite member, or if I don't say things you want to hear about whatever is your hill you chose to die on, there is a block button way up there and also this nifty thing you can do called "scroll" that lets you ... wait for it... scroll! past my blog post so you don't have to expose yourself to my words. Its not that hard. Really. Otherwise, its all on you.]

[xoxodiluc]

in my dreams, you love me back | kamisato ayato x female! reader

genre romance, angst, hurt / no comfort

cw arranged marriage, ayato's kind of an asshole, heartbreak | not proofread.

inspired by in my dreams by red velvet

notes in my angstfics era i think and i'll write a part 2 of this maybe

sequel i love you

The version of Kamisato Ayato in your head was better than he was in reality.

In your dreams, he would eat dinner with you and talk about his day. After a tiring day at work, just seeing your face makes him happy.

"I'm home." Ayato enters your shared house and notices you sleeping on the couch. Ah, just the sight of you makes his tiring day better. He takes a glance at the dining table and sees all the delicious food you had made for him. 'Hmm... Looks like she hasn't eaten yet.' And just in time, you flutter your eyes open and see your husband looking at you with a smile. "Oh, you're home! How long have you been there?" "Not too long, my love. Come on, let's eat these delectable dishes you've made. I can't wait to tell you about what happened at work today."

In reality, his chair often is empty, you're always alone while eating and when he eats with you, he never talks at all.

"I made dinner." You awkwardly pointed at the dining table as Ayato entered your shared house, and he simply nodded while taking off his coat. While eating, no words were muttered. Not even a 'thank you'. He only ate with you once a week, and it was always like this. But you still loved him.

In your dreams, he would sleep with you every night, embracing you as you both fall into a slumber, and whisper sweet nothings into your ear.

"I love you," Ayato whispers, hugging your frame tightly. "Goodnight." You lift yourself up to kiss his lips as you say, "Goodnight, I love you too," before going back to curl up into his chest. It wasn't long till you fell into a deep sleep, dreaming of Ayato in your dreams.

In reality, he wouldn't even sleep in the same bed with you.

Ever since you two got married a year ago, instead of being in a shared bedroom, Ayato would always tell you that he'll sleep in the guests' bedroom. And a few months later, he stopped letting you know. He didn't have to, as he'd go straight into another room to sleep. But you still loved him.

Every time you woke up after dreaming of Ayato, you'd cry.

You could only dream of him loving you back.

"I understand that you don't like me, but could you at least talk to me?" It was funny that you were both living together for a year but almost never spoke to each other, or at least you tried speaking to him.

Ayato didn't even look up from the papers on his desk, "I'm busy."

You looked up, trying to stop your tears from falling. You finally had enough. "Do you hate me so much that you won't even talk to me?"

No response.

"What did I even do to you?"

"What did you ever do to me?" He looked at you, jaw clenched. "You confessed to me that you love me a week before your father told me we were getting married—"

"It wasn't my choice to marry you, Ayato!" You cried, "I only knew about it the same day my father told you!"

You've known Ayato since you were kids, and you've liked him ever since, even dreaming about marrying him. You confessed your love to him last year and he said he couldn't give you an answer yet, then a week after your confession, your father arranged a marriage for the both of you.

And he thought this was your way to have him all by yourself. He thought this was your doing. He thought you begged your father for you to marry him.

"Just because I couldn't give you an answer to your confession—"

"Stop!" Now, tears were streaming down your face. "Stop accusing me of such things!"

He doesn't even trust you, so there was no way he could believe you.

Sobbing uncontrollably as you ran back to your room, you wrote to your mother about how you want a divorce, how you couldn't take the pain anymore.

You didn't have a choice when your father told you that you were getting married to the man you loved. Heck, you don't even know if you could have a divorce because you knew your father would get angry.

You eventually stopped doing all the things you once did for Ayato... He never asked for it, anyway, so he shouldn't mind them anymore.

"You're leaving?"

Ayato asked and you cursed at yourself for still feeling butterflies in your stomach, because you had to move on from him.

Without saying anything, you nodded, carrying a bag of your belongings as you passed by him to walk to the door. While your father disagreed with the divorce, your mother had suggested that you live in another home. At least the both of you are still married but not under the same roof.

"...Why?" His question almost made you scoff, turning to face him.

"Why do you care?"

"I don't—"

"That's what I thought," You turned around and said, "I won't be living here anymore."

He said nothing, and you got the message. You left and never looked back.

You could only wish you got the happy ending like the one in your dreams.

xoxodiluc © 2022 | all rights reserved. do not claim as your own, modify, copy or repost.

[hotforharrysheart]

Sensory Escape

You’re cuddled up on the couch, face in his neck, breathing in the scent of his cologne, soap, and everything that is just Harry. You only have a few days before he’s off to conquer the world of music yet again and while part of you is so proud and excited for this new era, the other selfish part of you is already missing him.

“You're gonna be leaving next week...How am I gonna survive without this?”You ask, your bottom lip stuck out in a pout. “Without a kissing session? Without falling asleep with you each night?”

Your hand slides down his stomach to his dick. “Without this dick inside me wherever I want?” You ask, palming him.

“Fuck babe, I've never had to worry about this issue myself and, to be honest, I'm not looking forward to sleeping alone either. Quite accustomed to being buried in you every night.”

You grown. “H…don't go…just stay here with me.” Your eyes go glassy as you look down fiddling with the fringe on your shorts

“Don't look away from me.”

You stand up, facing him.

“You don't understand, I'm really, really anxious about you going when this—You motion between the two of you, “Is so new and different.”

He sighs. It’s always the same conversation and it never gets any easier. “I've left before, you know I come back...”

“I know. I'm just being needy.”

“I hate this.” He says, hands moving to his eyes and massaging them.

“The last thing you need, I'm sure,” you say under your breath.

He looks up at you. “No, baby. I hate having to leave you just as much. Babe, I'm invested in this—“ He motions between you two. “Me and you.”

“I know, H. I'm just worried.”

“And no, you aren't being "the last thing I need" I heard that. Stop biting your nails and talking under your breath. We don't do that - we talk. C'mere...” He pats his lap.

“You're right. I'm sorry.”

“Give me those hands.” He looks over your nails and kisses the cuticles. He holds them up. “These gonna be bloody by the time I get back?"

You shake your head.

“Gonna go get your nails done while I'm gone?”

“Maybe.” You smile.

“I'Il miss the scratches they leave on me.”

“H…” You cover your face, blushing.

"Don't hide from me.” He says, pulling your hands from your face. “I’ll miss matching polish with you.”

You smile and nod and then your face crumples as the tears slide out of your eyes. “I'm sorry, H. I just…this sucks. I don't mean to make you feel bad - I know this is your dream and you know I support you a million percent right? I'm just feeling a bit sorry for the girl that's getting left behind.”

“‘M not leaving her behind. I’m coming back every chance I get and when I can't come back, you'll come to me.”

“You promise?”

A tear falls from his eye. “Swear to God.” He pulls your wrist to his mouth and places a kiss there. “Let's go away again. To our cottage in Cornwall?”

“How could I ever forget Harry?” You shiver and smile. “I think that would be very nice,” you say softly. “What would we do?"

“You just leave that up to me.” He kisses you on the nose. “We need to just get away from all this and be with each other for a bit.” He brushes your hair away from your neck and kisses behind your ear. “Need a chance to be inside you as long as I want, no distractions.”

You sigh. “When do we leave?” You throw you head back as he kisses down your neck passionately. “When do…ahh...when do we leave?”

“Gotta cum first dontcha’ think?” He asks, smirking against your skin.

“Cheeky lil demon.”

“Did ya get...my joke? Gotta cum before we can go?”

"Really Harry your jokes are awful.”

“Heeyyyyy…” Hands wondering up your shorts.

"What’re you doing?”

He smirks. “Oh it's no joke, ya gotta cum, then I'll tell you when we're gonna go.”

***********************************************

You’re in his bedroom trying to pack some things you’d brought over from your place. “Harry, should I take this swimsuit or this one? I like this red two piece...but the black one is from before so…I dunno.”

Wrapping his arms around you he says, “Neither.”

Smiling you say, "Really?"

"I'm not taking trunks.”

You gulp. “You're not?”

“No.”

“Oh, but I like those navy ones with the red stripes!”

“Naked.”

You gulp. “Naked?”

“Naked. All week.”

“All...umm…all week?"

He kisses your ear. “All week. Robes if you get cold.”

“Mmm..”

“What is all this shit, babe? You don't need all this.”

“Where's your bag?"

He holds up a little Gucci duffle and a newer looking smaller duffle.

“That's all you’re taking?” He nods. “What's in that black bag? Maybe there's room for my robe in there.." You reach for it.

"Nope, 's all full,” He says, swinging it away and up high.

You narrow your eyes. “You're up to something Styles.”

He smirks. “Plan on being up all week. I know I will,” he says, winking. He slaps your ass and says, "Now hop to it!"

You yelp. He darts out the door, "Gonna go start the car.”

“I'm right behind,” you say, looking down and fingering the red swimsuit "sans swimsuit…” You mutter to yourself, tossing the suit on the bed. You stop for a couple of bottles of wine and some of your favorite snacks and you can't help but point out the drug store.

“Guess we don't need to stop there this time.”

He smirks and slides his hand up your thigh and says softly, "Nope. We don't now, do we?”

You blush and lean over to snatch a kiss. “God, it's so beautiful here, H,” you tell him as you pull up the drive.

“Know..love this place.” His hand slides to your center. “Love this place too.”

You let out a moan.

“So warm, babe. You excited?"

“Mmmm, yeah, said no to me this morning because you wanted to get on the road. Patience baby.”You huff.

He pulls the car round the drive and turns the key off…you just sit looking at him.

“I love you.”

Putting his hands on your cheeks he brushes his lips over yours. “I love you too.”

"Thank you for doing this.”

"Did it for us, did it for me, did it cause I'm a selfish man and I want as much of you as I can get."

You lean your forehead to his. “Thank you. It means a lot.”

“Let's go inside.”

You nod with glassy eyes. Damn, you're gonna miss him. You’re putting away the groceries. You grab a bottle of wine and hold it up. “You want a glass of red?" With no response, you turn around and he's just standing there looking at you.

"No, I want you to go up to the bedroom, take off your clothes and lay in the center of the bed and wait for me."

“I'm sorry, what?"

“Go upstairs, take off your clothes, lay in the middle of the bed and wait for me.”

“Harry, I need a show-"

He shakes his head no and moves to stand in front of you. “No. You need to do what I asked.”

Swallowing hard you softly say, "Ok.”

He smiles at you, "good girl.”

You almost ask if he needs help with the rest of groceries before you leave but think better of it. As you walk by he slaps your bottom lightly and you flash a saucy smile back. “Don't make me wait long.”

“Baby, you'll wait as long as it takes.”

Your heart starts to pound in your chest and your saucy smile fades and your core clenches. You fold your clothes neatly, pull off the fluffy white duvet, and crawl up in the California King laying flat in your back in the middle of the bed like he told you to. You can't stop thinking about how demanding he was and what he has planned. You can feel your heart beat in your pussy and you know you’re dripping onto the sheets. Your breathing is fast and you have a mind to run your fingers over your nipples. Just as you are about to reach for them you hear, "Don’ even think about it.” Startled, you jerk your hand down and raise your head up.

Shirtless and barefoot, Harry is standing in the doorway with his jeans unbuttoned and that blasted black bag in his hand. Your eyes follow the trail of hair from his belly button to the nest peeking out the top of his undone jeans.

“No underwear..." you mumble.

“And your naked,” he says running his eyes down your body.

Your hand goes to your lips because you can't believe you said that outloud.

He's breathing heavy. “Goddamn, you are so beautiful. Spread your legs, show me my pussy.” He slowly walks to the end of the bed and drops the bag. His eyes never leave your center. “Drippin' all over the bed, baby.”

“I know…can feel it.” Your hips involuntarily roll upwards. “Harry. What's in the bag?"

"D’ya trust me?"

“Completely.”

He smirks showing both of his dimples. “Then stop worrying about the bag.”

You sigh and close your eyes.

“Tonight you are all mine to please.”

You moan out.

“I wanna memorize your face, your body, your sounds…everything about you. I need to make you cum as many times as I can until you are screaming my name and begging me to stop.”

You moan out again.

He walks to the side of the bed trailing his fingers from your toes to your hip. “Need you to understand something.” Your eyes meet his. “Have you ever heard of the traffic light system?"

Shivering, you say, “You mean like green means go, yellow means slow down, and red means stop?"

He smiles and his finger circles your nipple, “Exactly.”

Your chest is heaving.

“Tonight I'm gonna eliminate some of your senses, but I want you to be able to tell me how you're doing when l ask. So when I circle this pretty nipple, what traffic color would you say you are?”

Squirming, you cry out "More!"

“So that's green?"

You nod.

“If it gets to be too much and you wanna slow down or stop, just give me a color. Ok?”

“Ok,” you say breathlessly.

“You remember that tie you bought me on my 25th birthday?”

“The pink and black one?“

He rummages through the bag and he pulls out that very one.

“We weren't even dating then. You still have that?”

“Love this tie.”

“Can't believe you remember that.”

He trails it up your sternum and drags it across your eyes. “May I?" He says, as he holds it close to your face.

You nod.

“Words, love.”

“Yes.”

“What color are you?”

“Green,” you say letting out a breath.

“You ask nicely…”

“You get it.”

“Tha’s right.”

“Lift your head up, love.”

You raise your head and he gently ties the tie over your eyes. You're panting at this point.

“Breathe, love. What color are you?”

“So green.”

He laughs his breathy little laugh.

“I miss seeing your face.”

“I'm here, I've gotcha.”

You grab his hand. “Ok,” you let a breath out. “Ok.”

He leans down to place a soft kiss on your lips and trails his lips down your neck to your collarbone. With his tongue he licks a stripe down to your nipple and suckles the tip between his teeth.

“Ahhh!” You groan out and squeeze his hand tight.

He cups your tit tightly and nibbles lightly with his teeth.

“Ohmygod ohmygod. Ohhh…”

“Your nipples are always sensitive. You respond to me so well.” He reaches over to grasp the other one between his forefinger and thumb, giving a gentle tug and twist you cry out, “More Harry!”

You twine your fingers in his hair.

“Darling, I want you to grab hold of the bars on the headboard.”

“I want to touch you, though.”

“Hands on the headboard.”

You sigh and lift your arms. The movement of your arms causes your tits to pull up. His nostrils flair.“I'm gonna try something. First, let me check..Jesus baby, you’re drenched.” He runs his fingers through your folds. “Is this turning you on?"

“Harry, I've never EVER been so turned on.”

You hear the zip of the black duffle and the swishing of fabric.

“I'm going to tie this hand to the headboard, Ok? What color are you?”

“I'm green, Harry.”

He smiles proudly. “I'm gonna do the other one now. Who knew my old headscarves would come in so handy,” he says, kissing your forehead.

You moan. “I loved you in those. Those curls…. Wanna touch you.”

“What color?"

“Green.”

“Fuck, you're so sweet like this.”

Your knees draw together and you tighten your thighs to get a little relief.

“Do I have to tie your legs too?”

“No, I'll keep them open..."

You hear the thud of his pants hitting the floor. Then the only sound is only the sound of his breathing. It's a deep steady breath. It helps soothe you. “Harry?" Stillness. “Harry?"

“What color are you, love?” He whispers from across the room.

You sigh. “I'm green now, but please don't leave me like this.”

“I won't leave, I just wanna look at you for a minute.”

Your heart rate spikes again.

“‘M so hard for you right now.”

“Want you to fuck me Harry.”

“Can you hold on just another minute for me?"

“Yes. Are you touching yourself?”

“Oh yeah.”

“Tell me about it.”

“I'm swollen and hard. I can't squeeze tight enough.”

“Unnnghhh…” You thrust your hips up into nothing.

“Keep your legs open.” You open your legs. “Wider.” He smirks. “You picturing me fucking you baby?”

“I'm so empty…I…I need to touch-"

“No, you can hold on just a little bit longer.”

You whimper.

“Fuck, I can see the wet spot your making on the bed.”

“Harry.." The end of the bed dips and you feel the warm wetness of his pointed tongue circle your sensitive bundle of nerves. You cry out.

“Who's clit is this?"

“Mmmm…Fuck! Yours! Unghhh!” Your hands tighten in your restraints. “Oh. My. God. I'm gonna cum if you do that again!”

“Yeah?” And he does it again.

Your entire body convulses and you draw your knees up to your sides, your hips rolling with the contractions. You feel a fresh drop of cream run down your cunt as the waves crash down.

Laying on his tummy he has a close up view of the entire moment. “Shit baby, I could see your pussy clenching.….most amazing thing I've ever seen.”

“Harry I need more, I'm so empty and I need you inside me, it's not gonna st-stop until you're inside me.”

“Shh shhh, baby.” Hands running down your legs.

“Yellow!” You pull against the ties. “Yellow, Yellow!”

He places his hand on your lower tummy. “I'm here...I'm gonna take care of you.”

You’re sobbing..."I need to see you.”

He scrambles up your body and removes the tie from your eyes. He kisses you all over your face. “You’re ok, love.”

You raise your head to kiss his cheeks, his lips, his neck. “Untie me.”

He sits back on his knees between your legs and quickly releases the scarves and your hands fly to his chest. “Come down here" you say, pulling at his shoulders.

He finally settles his weight down on you, forehead to forehead. “Tha’ was intense, how’re your wrists?” He's searching for them to rub.

You have them deep in his curls before he can even check. “They're fine, they're fine.”

“Are you su-“

“Jesus Harry, Fuck me! Please! Know you're in pain.”

He reaches down and lines himself up at your entrance. “Ready?"

You smirk. “Green.”

He chuckles and thrusts in deep.

You both let out loud filthy groans.

“Oof…here, pull your knees up,” he says, as he slips out of you. He chuckles. “So wet…just slipped right out of you. Wettest you ever been for me baby.” The sound of his cock slapping your pussy as he pounds into you could be the soundtrack to a filthy porno flick.

“Who. Is. Fucking. You?"

“You are, Harry!!"

“Who?"

You groan out, “Harry Styles!”

“Tha’s right, baby, you remember when you start to miss me that I'm always yours. Our bodies, our souls, our spirits belong to each other. You’re never away from me. I am never away from you. Never been like this…it's never been like this. Cum with me...“

“Me either H! I-never felt like this before.”

“Need you to cum.”

“Am I hitting our spot?”

“Yes!"

You’re breathing heavily into each other's face, foreheads pressed together mixing your sweat.

“Fuck…just felt you gush on me.” His breath puffs out of his lips. “I can't stop this, cum, baby girl, cum!”

You let out a high pitched open mouth groan of satisfaction as you both go completely stiff. The pulsing of your pussy and the deep twitch of his cock is almost more than you can handle. You squeeze your eyes shut, stars exploding behind your eyelids, and then blackness. The ringing in your ears goes silent. Suddenly you hear, “Babe, babe…come back to me. Come on…come back.”

Your eyes flutter open.

“Jesus, baby scared the shit outta me.”

“Mmmm,” is all you can mange to say. You’re huffing out your breath. “You're so good to me, H. So, so good. You feel so good inside of me.”

“Breathe love, just breathe.”

You wrap your arms tight around his back, sensing that he might be trying to move. “No don't move. Wanna hold on to you just a little longer.”

He's brushing the hair out of your face. “Ya did so good. Tha’ was so intense.”

“Death by orgasm.”

You both giggle.

"No don't laugh baby, 'm cock is so sensitive.” That just makes you giggle again.

He groans. “Baby…. gonna get me hard again.” He squeezes his eyes shut. “Stop giggling, love.”

“Stop being funny!" You groan. “I don't think I'Il ever move again.”

“Ya gonna hafta move in a minute, need to change the sheets.”

You bury your face in his neck.

He smiles his beautiful smile. “God we have have to order a new bed..." He mutters to himself as he rolls to his side.

You roll over on your side next to him. “My God.." you breathe out. “Come away with me to cottage he says. It'll be fun he says. Let's stop for wine he says.” You glare at him playfully.

He chuckles.

“Fuck me Harry she says,” mimicking your voice.

You slap his chest and snuggle into him. A gentle silence falls over you.

He grabs your hand and placed it over his heart. “God I'm gonna miss you while I'm gone.”

“I'll miss you more.”

[user21340]

my only exception

(i don’t own this gif or any of the characters in this fic)

summary: you and nat are separated when in the Red Room. you both are reunited. after holding onto a couple things to give her for a couple years you both realize love is well and alive.

warnings: violence, abuse, swearing, lil angst, fluff

pairing: natasha romanoff x fem!reader

word count: nearly 1.8k

a/n: omg i don’t know what to say! thank you for all the support on the stuff i’ve released so far. it’s super crazy seeing some of my favorite writers following me. thank you so so much for 30 followers! much love 💕💕

(italics in dialogue mean the person is speaking russian)

sorry for any mistakes i wrote this at 3am and have to get up for school at 6 😪 no bueno

It was a cold and stormy night as the power in the Red Room continuously flickered on and off even with the help of a high powered generator.

You and Natalia had been waiting for an event like this to occur so you could break out. Even though both herself and you lived only a small bit of life outside in the real world before you were taken in and trained to become a weapon, both of your humanly morals knew right from wrong. The Red Room’s treatment definitely being a wrong.

Madame B and the other monstrous staff at this facility put all you girls to bed roughly an hour ago. Nat and yourself undid your cuffs connecting your wrist to the metal bedframe so you could pack the few things you both owned before you made your escape. Both of you had talked this plan over through and through so you both were on the same page as soon as you saw that flicker of a power outage surge though the site.

At the moment you both were eighteen years old meaning both of you had proven yourselves worthy enough to hone a spot at this academy and had graduated a couple months prior.

GAME PLAN

Some information you had gathered which the staff weren’t aware of was every time the power flickered off, it disarmed and unlocked the exit door/s for nearly five seconds. The weather has been dry but cold lately not making this discovery too useful. The plan was to sneak over to uncuff yourselves in the middle of the night when these brief power outages were occurring, pack your items, and as you were about to escape bang on the wall of the large room where the girls kept at the academy would sleep to create enough of a distraction before you were out and free for good. Easy right? How wrong you’d be.

When it was time for the distraction, Nat stood by the door waiting for the next surge of lightning of whatever broke the electricities stability as you walked to the far side of the sleeping quarters where you were sure you’d have enough time to bang on the walls and sprint out of that door.

You heard a crash of thunder so you knew your escape chance would be soon. As you were about to start banging on the walls you see a door knob parallel to Nat but far away none the less start turning.

BAM

Lightning strikes, what seems to be right outside of the building. You sprint for the door only to have your arm caught by one of Madame B’s henchmen.

Just like that the power flickers.

five.

Without much thought you break away from the man’s grasp lunge at Natalia who happened to be at the door.

four.

“We’ll meet again Natalia.” you speak softly

three.

You shove her out of the door with all of your might.

two.

You use all of your remaining strength that you can muster up to slam the heavy metal door closed.

one.

Click

The door locks once again.

“You stupid little bitch. Get over here NOW!” the man practically growls.

You slowly and steadily walk over to the man as he gruesomely pummels and kicks you.

Sure the beatings, mind torture and manipulation hurt, but you’ve never experienced any kind of pain on the same caliber to what being separated from Natalia feels like.

Madame B is more than disappointed, enraged and annoyed with one of her ‘star students’. You receive daily beatings and long, tiresome training hours for helping Natalia escape. Although everyone is ‘replaceable’ in the minds of the staff as well as Madame B, they just lost Natalia so they couldn’t afford to lose you as well.

Months later the beatings finally slow down to a couple a week which you are able to endure. Madame’s mission now is to make a monster out of you by pushing you to and past your limits when training.

One night you finally drift off to sleep. You hate sleeping. It’s a constant replay of your last night with Nat. Only hoping that she made it to civilization safe and sound and is living a normal teens life. However, tonight’s dream is different. In this dream you see yourself shoving your packed-escape bag between your mattress and bedframe as you are bleeding out on the ground from the beatings. You wake up in a cold sweat and manage to kneel on the ground and slowly lift up your mattress only to find that same, small bag filled with the few, but important belongings of yours and Nat’s. You open up the bag forgetting all about what you both had packed. The most important items you see is a picture of Natalia as a toddler with alongside her mother and father, a small metal ring which you had made for her after stealing a small teaspoon at dinner, banging it against the concrete floor with a rock to flatten it out as you’d continuously bend it back and fourth so only the thinnest part is of the spoon is left which you bend into a ring before surprising Nat with it after you know she had a pretty rough day training, and lastly Nat’s papers containing important info about her such as her full name, birthplace, parents names, and birthdate.

November 22, 1984

November 22, 1984

November 22, 1984

November 22, 1984

You make sure you have this date burned into your head, latching onto any important information about her you can learn.

You hang onto those three items keeping them hidden.

Two and a half years later...

It’s late at night when you hear gunshots and fights breaking out throughout the facility. You quickly get up out of bed (once again undoing your cuffs) and grab those three items from under your mattress. You place them in your pocket getting ready to make a break for the outside world. As you reach for the door you turn back taking one last look at the place you’ve been living for pretty much the entirety of your life, only before a man in a funny red, white, and blue costume enters your view.

You bring your hands up ready for a fight.

“Look kid, I’m not here to fight you. We are breaking you out.” the man ensures

“Who even are you?” you sternly question

“Steve Rogers. But the public calls me Captain America.” his gaze settles on your figure, “Mind telling me who you are?” he pushes

“Names y/n, but look I’ve got places to be ma-“ you are cut off when Captain America’s jaw drops.

“No, we both know you don’t. But, you ARE coming with me.” you know there isn’t much room for protest but that won’t stop you from trying. You lunge at him and push him to the ground as you wave a small goodbye and sprint towards the door only for your body to fall on the ground limp. Realizing you’ve been stunned by something temporarily.

“YOU MOTHERFUCKER!” you shriek, he only chuckles.

“God, Nat was right about you.” she shakes he head with a small grin on his face.

“N-nat?” you whisper as you vision fades black.

You regain consciousness and look around only to find yourself in a weird windowy, loud vehicle type thing. You see a group of people standing around you but you see one particular familiar face hovering directly over yours lightly combing through your hair with one one hand and gently outlining your jawline with the other.

“NAT!” you screech, your brain is feeling too many emotions to comprehend at the moment.

Once she sees and hears you are awake she pulls you into a bone crushing hug.

“Y/n/n I’m so sorry I left you and you had to stay in that hellhole for so long alone I don’t know how I would’ve help up it if that-“ you cut her off

“Natalia, all that matters is I’m here with you right now.” you reason.

After getting off of what you learned is a ‘plane’ you and Nat spend hours together clinging onto one another as if, as soon as you separate you will be absent in her life for another couple years, vice versa.

Months pass by. Even though you and Nat have yet to label yourselves as a couple your hearts belong to one another after being attached to the hip to one another for pretty much every activity or mission you both do. In this time you were also recruited as an Avenger due to your skillful hand to hand combat and your masterful types of fighting you have nearly perfected from your time in the room.

The date just happens to be November 22. You are pretty sure no one in the compound is aware of Natalia’s birthday, hell, you aren’t even sure if she’s aware.

Today is the day you decide to return the missing items from her bag that you recover after she left.

You wake up next to her and wake her up with a long, graceful, soft kiss on her lips to which she responds shortly after by kissing you back as you feel as tiny smirk against your own lips.

“Hey, what was that for?” she asks playfully

“Ohhh nothing. Just maybe it’s for my favorite girl’s special day today.” Nat blushes.

“H-how’d you know?”

“Oh honey, I know e v e r y t h i n g.” you reply

Before she can respond you pull her to sit up on your shared bed and hand her an envelope containing her papers as well as he one and only photo of herself and her family.

As soon as she sees both items she sobs into your chest. (more because of the picture, you really only included her papers so she too would know all the most crucial parts of her life pre-red room era.

“Uh, uh, uh’” you tut,”One more thing.” you reach for her hand slowly and tell her to shut her eyes. You slowly slide the makeshift ring on her finger.

“Open.” you instruct

To which she gasps at the sight and just like the day you both were reunited you hugged and kissed for hours on end.

“Nat, will you be my girlfriend?” you ask with a sheepish smile.

“Of course y/n/n, I thought you’d never ask.” she takes a breath,“I know love is for children, but you are my only exception.”

“Ditto.” Natalia chuckles, “That is what the Americans say, right?” you backtrack with flushed cheeks.

She holds you tighter and presses a soft kiss to your forehead.

“Sure.” she breathes out.

[sheepwasfound]

dnf moments caught from within the chaos (every single one)

 march 10th george alt stream

 ***

first video:

00:11:40-00:12:30 "is that george from dreamhunt?"

00:20:37-00:21:10 g:"me and dream argue about the stupidest things"

(many good sap/gogy sibling moments! and then...)

00:26:49 dream joins in secret and george tries to figure it out

00:27:26 dream gives himself away with a chuckle

00:27:55-00:29:00 "i was watching George's stream, i didn't even know you were streaming"

00:34:08-00:34:45 lil uk travel ban talk

00:36:46 g:"'late nights in the middle of june' this is true x2"

00:37:52-00:38:10 1.5 inches elephant still on george's desk

00:40:56-00:41:12 dream chuckling going "george is so salty"

00:49:04 dream hasn't paid george the $1,000 from geoguessr

00:49:50 dream tries to get george to play geoguessr

00:50:18-00:50:45 george tells dream about dreamhunt guy

00:53:37 d:"im on literally negative sleep"

00:55:57 g:"'tell dream you love him' no."

00:56:27-00:57:00 g:"'george you're the hottest piece of ass in dreamhunt' is that true dream?", d:"maybe it is" + "you're such an idiot"

00:57:14-00:57:54 dream tries to think of who in one direction each one of them are, can't choose for george

00:59:12 d:"he's like the most annoying person on the planet" (prob cus he can't focus on chess cus of gogy)

01:17:36 sapnap doesn't reply to george, dream replies immediately

01:19:26-01:19:40 + 01:21:56-01:22:50 talking about george exposing dream for the s*x tiktok

01:24:13 g:"ok i'm gonna go get water. dream, entertain my stream."

01:29:55-01:32:00 george and sapnap argue over servers, simp dream settles it w/ a "coin flip" (rigged)

01:33:40-01:34:50 sapnap waited for dream to wake up for burger day, s:"george wishes he coulda been a part of that"

01:36:12 d:"i was actually writing lyrics this morning"

01:40:37-01:42:12 stonks talk g:"what do i invest in?" d:"me"

(dreamnap moments interval here...)

01:50:14 s:"should i tweet out a picture of your girlfriend george?", d:"it's gonna be like a picture of my yt icon"

01:52:11-01:52:43 d:"'dnf arc'? yeah maybe", g:"is it a joke to you?"

01:52:57-01:53:11 sapnap and dream don't send george good morning texts & it upsets him

01:53:13-01:53:45 george didn't laugh at dream's joke, so dream calls him out for not paying attention

01:53:51 g:"'pretty privilege is real and you have it!' is this true dream?" d:"yeah. yeah"

01:54:13-01:54:55 sapnap accusing george of having a girlfriend, g:“dream, should we just tell them?”

01:59:30-01:59:50 g:“’can you say bleepbleep dream?’ no i can’t say that”, d:”just say it. george.”

02:02:00 g:“’is it true quackity and dream constantly fight for your love?’ it’s true”

02:02:10-02:03:00 d:”we were in our, like, linked arc. except for opposites …attract”

02:03:30 dream starts going through his texts with george

02:04:30 d:”my favorite number is…one second, i’m pulling up my george contact”

02:05:35-02:06:20 dream reads out their texts about waking up at the same time & having s*x

02:06:33-02:08:00 george’s “ayo muffin man” text to dream where he asked if he could make a joke about dream’s cheating drama, d:”you were being a good friend”

02:07:02 g:”we don’t text that much” d:”we text, like, everyday, but…”

02:08:36 first video ends

***

second video:

00:10:35 george shoots dnf on a wall, d:”you’re so dumb”, s:”what?”, d:”george”

00:14:30 g:”dream come baaaaackk”

00:16:22 dream in the bg laughing alone “this text is so funny! this text is amazing” (note: he started going through their texts, like, 20 mins ago)

00:17:25-00:17:58 george’s first text to dream: “hi loser”, sapnap asking about his first text, d:”that’s different”

00:20:38-00:21:00 s:”maybe if you were watching my stream instead of watching george’s all the time” + s:“maybe if you weren’t in your, like, dnf arc all the time”

00:22:40-00:23:15 g:“’george and dream’s brotherly relationship is so iconic’ brotherly?”, d:”someone in chat said ‘the alabama arc’”

00:26:05-00:26:30 pickle dick g:”dick-…dip his hands in the pickle jar”

00:27:05 d:”you’re an idiot george, you’re such a, you’re such a dick”

00:30:29-00:41:45 discussion about covid travel rules and george going to florida, george heatedly going through every possible trick to get there but dream being responsible about it

00:34:00 g:”dream, get me a private jet”

00:34:56 g:”i’ll just stay”, d:”for how long?”, g:”forever.”

00:36:13 gnf charity for private jet and then george will grapple down from a helicopter, d:”you’re such an idiot x2”

00:36:51 g:”i’m not actually joking” + g:”no it’s not impossible!” *checks cost of a private jet*

00:38:20 d:”you need to double it cus you have to go back” g:”i’m not going back. i’m not going back”

00:38:38 about deportation g:”dream, you can just protect me dream, just don’t let them take me away”

00:39:29 about deportation g:”then what if i never go back, what if i just never go back?”

00:40:01 g:”wait i have an idea dream. what if you just married me?” s:”you’re not allowed to marry someone to get them in the country”, g:”well that’s not the only reason”

00:41:13 g:”’sounds like dream doesn’t wanna meet you’ yeah he doesn’t”

00:43:43 g:”to be fair you are in your silly goose arc”, d:”i’m not in any goose arc” *mutual giggling*

00:44:45-00:45:25 discussion about obama escorting george on his private jet

00:47:38 dono:“you visiting dream is not a no, it’s a not yet”

00:50:21 g:”’just admit it, you’re madly in love with dream and you’re using this as an excuse to marry him’ no. this is false”, g:”i’m in my hating dream arc right now” d:”well, i mean … it’s about to be in a different arc though”

00:50:40 finishing each other’s sentences

00:50:50 s:”i wish karl was here.”, s:”at least i would have someone to be like, in love with, jesus”

00:51:29 d:”sapnap third wheel arc” s:”you guys may flirt and stuff, but me and you have physical s*x” d:”oh my goddd, what the hell?! that’s too far!”

00:54:43 sapnap teasing george about being able to cuddle dream, g:”i don’t care, i don’t care”

00:56:27 george teasing sapnap about having a gf again, s:”you have a dream”

00:56:43 g:”should i play geoguessr?” d:”oh, yes!”

00:57:07 d:”i’m exhausted and i’m laying in bed” (but he’s still staying)

(00:58:30 geoguessr starts, they’re tired and argue a lot)

01:00:48 arguing about colors g:”well you’re wrong” d:”maybe- actually maybe i think that’s- actually you’re right”

01:03:27 george was going to do geoguessr with wilbur today, but is too tired now

01:07:55 d:”if you had asked, i would’ve told you” g:”i didn’t wanna ask, i did it myself” *sassy*

01:13:55 george missed dream’s joke and he called him out for it again

01:17:00 g:”i’m not buying a maid dress” d:*silence*

01:20:10 g:“’dream we need your support to get george in a maid dress’ what do you think dream?”, d:*silence*

01:21:53 g:”you know what dream? i trust you”, d:”no, don’t trust me!”

01:22:50 dono:”when you asked dream if you should wear a maid dress, the silence was so loud” d:*silence*

01:23:23 after george makes a dumb voice d:”why are you reading like that?”, d:”i’m about to leave” (spoiler: he doesn’t leave, just stops looking for 30 secs)

01:24:10 g:”what do you mean you’re not even looking?”, g:”why, do you hate me?”, d:”you were being in your annoying arc”

01:34:28 dono:”do you have a song that makes you think of dream?”, d:”probably heat waves”, + george saying he doesn’t think of dream when listening to songs and dream not buying it

01:36:40 dream replying for him that george’s most listened to travis scott song is goosebumps (aka “their song”)

01:39:50 george confirms goosebumps is his most listened to travis scott song

01:42:26 d:”this is the last game im playing with you”, d:”cus i don’t wanna play with you anymore” (spoiler: it’s not the last one)

01:45:52 g:”alright one more”, d:”no i said i’d-…ok fine whatever one more” (spoiler: it’s not just one more)

01:48:46 dream mishears that george is gonna kiss him

01:54:24 g:”alright here’s the last game guys”, d:”you keep saying that, you keep…leading me on”

01:57:02 d:”that was the last one”, g:”no we said we were ending on a win” (no they didn’t) g:”you can’t leeeeeave, you can’t leave! it’s not allowed”

01:58:17 dono:”what is a place you’ve always wanted to go?”, g:”idk”, d:”america”

01:59:27 g:”i just, i was like…aaaaaghhhhlldududu you know?”, d:”yeah, i do know”

02:05:00 d:”alright, i’m gonna head out”, g:”wait, wait just wait”, g:”why are you in your like salty era?”, d:”why are you in your clingy era?”, d:”i think it would make sense if i left when i want to”, g:”alright, well, leave then, see what happens, you’re gonna regret it, that’s all i know”

02:05:30 dream leaves the call but then immediately starts watching george’s stream until he ends (who’s the one in their clingy era?)

02:06:10 george talks about going to bed (dream’s already in bed so they’re synced once again) 

[adorehs]

cabin fever

Hi! This might be my last fic of the year- I’ll try and get another out for New Years since I’ve had one in my WIP for a few months now but I’m not sure if I can get it done since I’m having surgery later this month. With that being said, I hope you guys enjoy this!

Summary: Y/N and Harry are having a really good honeymoon (4.7k)

Warnings: lots of fluff and smut. The reader is kinda a horse girl :/

“Harry!” a whisper left your lips as your lips tightened into a wide smile- Harry easily concluded that you were happy. 

“Yeah?” he let out a short chuckle, “What’s got you so excited?” his hand met your chin, tilting it upwards to meet his face. His eyes studied yours for a moment as they glimmered with pure joy. 

You tilted your mouth to meet his palm, leaving a kiss on the soft skin, “Look!” your head whipped towards the dirt pathway, “There are horses,” you whisper again. 

Harry hums in realization, “There are horses baby,” he responds with an amused tone. 

Your head slowly turns back in his direction, “Be quiet! You’ll scare them,” you scold him softly, “And don’t make fun of me,” your bottom lip puffs out into a pout. 

“Sorry love,” he lets out yet another laugh, trying his best to be quiet for you, “Just excited for you,” his hand met yours tightly, wrapping it around his. 

Your eyes narrow into a glare- a look you feel absolutely cruel giving, but Harry thinks you look adorable- you just knew Harry was lying now. “Alright,” you dismiss him with a mocking smile. 

Harry smiles wider than before: he was really fucking in love with you. He bumped his hip with yours as you watched the horses in pure awe. One of the horses turned its head towards you, prompting you to squeeze Harry’s hand in excitement. You were still worried you would scare them away so you acted with caution- inaudible reactions and hushed tones would make due. 

“Are you excited?” Harry asks you, watching the horses intently, anxious about your ultimate reaction to what he has planned.

You looked at him in pure disbelief, “Of course I’m excited.” 

He hummed in response, his eyes never faltering from the view of the horses that were hardly a yard away at this point, “They're coming this way,” he told you. 

Your eyes snapped back instantly. The horses were within reach and if you could just get close enough maybe you could brush through one of their manes. Excited was an easy word to describe how you felt at that moment. 

“Harry,” you whispered again, “Do you think I can pet one?” 

“Yeah, let's do it,” he assured. Your face was starting to hurt from how much you were smiling. 

You let out a giggle, pulling his hand softly as the wind blew against your body, “Do you know how you’re supposed to pet them?”

“Yeah,” he replied gently. As you approached the horse, he could feel you tense up in anticipation. The white horse before you seemed to be standing still, awaiting your arrival. You shoot Harry a nervous smile and slowly step close enough to touch- Harry close behind you. 

“You don’t wanna do it for too long. Don’t think horses are big cuddlers like you, angel,” Harry prefaced. He watched as you nodded in concentration, “Alright, I’ll show you, hm?” 

His hand held yours softly, guiding it to the horse’s shoulder. Your hand shook slightly in his and Harry doesn’t know how much longer he can take your cute nervous habits. He stroked your palm against it’s shoulder three times in an expert rhythm before the horse's head turned towards yours and you let out a soft yelp, retracting your hand. 

“He’s not scared, just trying to see who you are,” Harry laughs at your shock, “He looks quite happy, no?” 

You gulp harshly- for some reason you were scared. “I guess,” you reluctantly agree with your now husband. 

“Okay ready for my surprise?” he asks you after a moment of silence, you still working up the courage to pet the horse. 

“What surprise,” you turn to him, eyes wide. You were really fucking excited and Harry was really fucking nervous. 

“I- uh,” he pauses, his finger brushing his nose in thought, “I brought someone here,” he says. 

You squint your eyes at him, “Are you pregnant,” you harmlessly joke. “No, wait!” you let out an exasperated gasp, “Am I pregnant?” your hand meets his chest in an instant, “How did you find out? I didn’t even know I was pregnant. Did I miss my period? Babe where’s my phone I need to check my tracker-” 

Harry cut you off with a hearty laugh, oh how he loved you more and more each day. “No, you’re not pregnant, love,” he breathed out, his tension evaporating almost instantly. 

“Then who did you bring?” you asked, eyebrows furrowed, “On our honeymoon?”

“Okay, I didn’t exactly bring someone. I hired someone,” he states simply, knowing you would get worked up at his sub-par answers. 

“God, Harry you couldn’t get more vague if you tried.”

Harry hummed in agreement, “Well that’s all I have to say. I hired someone.”

“Did you hire a male stripper because I feel like that would be a better use of my time tonight,” you joke, slightly annoyed with him. 

Harry’s laugh (which you defined to be more of a scream), echoed across the empty field, “I hired someone to help us go horseback riding, you twat!”

Your face turns upward instantly, a smile adorning your lips and a gasp falling out of them softly, “I’m going to ignore that word you called me because we’re going fucking horseback riding!”

-

It was later that night when Harry felt like his heart was going to explode out of his chest. He had watched carefully as you nibbled on the last of your dinner, your eyes focused on the newspaper you had found lying inside a drawer of the rental house- you were doing the crossword. 

You just looked so cozy. Sitting at the dining table under low light, your tea long forgotten in front of you, and the pajamas you wore made you look so comfortable. And Harry loved that you were comfortable around him.

Actually, he loved a lot of things about you. Being comfortable was just one of them. But, the thing he loved most was that he made you smile. Day after day he tried his hardest amongst the long hours he worked to come home and make you smile- to make your day better- because you were an instant (and permanent) solution to all his worries.

He stood from the couch steadily, his mind focused on nothing but coaxing you into cuddles by the fireplace, “You doing alright over here?” he asks, his hand landing on your shoulder gently.

You hum in confusion, a sign that you were lost in thought. Harry let out a chuckle before sitting down next to you, “Think this one is dream girl,” his finger lands on 42 across: ‘Lover’ being the clue that had you stumped. 

You nod slowly along, mentally inserting each letter into each box, humming in agreement when it fits perfectly, “You’re clever,” you tell him, wrapping your arm around his waist, pulling him into a short hug. 

“You got about 100 words in without me, love,” he chuckles. 

“I guess we’re both clever,” you look up at him, puckering your lips asking for a kiss. Harry happily obliges, “Alright,” you sigh as you stand up, “Whatcha want?” you ask with a sweet smile. 

“I got everything I need in here,” Harry cheeses a grin at you. 

“God I hate you,” you roll your eyes, making your way to the sink to wash your dishes, “You just ruined this whole thing!” 

“No I didn’t. And you love how cheesy I am,” he sticks his tongue out like your six year old nephew always does. 

You bellow out a laugh, “You make me feel so young yet so old.” 

“What does that say about me?”

“Means you’re crazy,” you dry your hands off before giving him a proper hug. Your hands make their way under his sweatshirt, Harry fighting to urge to jump at the icy feeling of your fingertips. He shakes his head at you in disbelief before wrapping his arms around you too. 

“Alright, well the crazy old man wants to watch a film,” Harry tells you, feathering a few kisses at your hairline, making you burrow your head into his chest to hide your warm cheeks. 

It takes a moment to recover from his constant affection, “Alright, but I’m choosing because I refuse to cry over The Notebook again. Not today, Harry. You and your crazy habits are being put to bed today.”

You can feel his chest rumble with laughter, “Okay,” he pauses, “Then what’s your suggestion?” 

“We will be watching,” you pause in thought. 

“No, don’t say it,” Harry begins, “Not again, you say we watch The Notebook a lot but here you are starting Ferris Bueller's Day Off for the hundredth time-”

You cut Harry off in full offense, “It’s a good movie! And we have not seen it a hundred times,” you mumble.

Harry laughs, “No sorry ninety nine times.” 

“Alright well no movie for us- want to watch a show?” you brush off. 

Harry hums in thought, “Sure, let’s watch Game of Thrones,” he says.

You nod your head slightly in approval, “But we watched that a while ago,” your eyebrows furrowed in confusion. 

“Yes but that was a different era, baby. You’re my wifey now, not my girlfriend,” he says, smothering your temple with a long line of kisses.

Your nose scrunches up in disgust, “Don’t call me your wifey.”

“But you are, no?” 

“But it makes me cringe, no?” you counter. 

Harry smiles, giving you an extra squeeze (making you gasp and feign suffocation) before letting go and guiding you to the couch. He took an extra moment to turn the fireplace on and bring a few throw blankets to the warm couch before turning the tv on, “Okay round two with my wifey,” he speaks to himself, making you roll your eyes. 

“You’re so annoying,” you huff out before snuggling into his side, you leg over his lap and your arms around his body. 

Harry smiled softly at the sight of you. He can’t stop thinking about how happy he is. And how lucky he is. And blessed. You were his number one blessing and he couldn’t be more thankful for you. 

But, despite how grateful he was, he couldn’t be more frustrated with you. Maybe it was the way you kept inching yourself closer. Or the way your arms started to droop and your hand was lingering all too close to the apex of his heart. 

Usually, it would be an endearing motion. But Harry knew you had ulterior motives. He sat in thought, that’s where she pushes me to lay on the bed. And he really wanted her to push him onto the couch. 

It was hardly a moment before the feeling became overwhelming. He sat in a deafening silence, tuning out Daenerys’ cries for help as his mind became consumed with lust- he wanted you. And he was impatient. 

You grimace at the tv, slowly retreating into Harry’s hold, and that’s when you feel it. Or rather you both feel it. His stiffened cock slowly pushing on your lower back as you try your hardest to ignore the pit forming at the bottom of your stomach. 

The feeling was almost repulsive- you’d been to all too many parties with the same outcome. People having an inability to control themselves and pushing it onto you. But this was vastly different because this was Harry, your Harry, and you welcomed the feeling of desire that is forced upon your body.

First it was your head that turned slightly. You locked eyes and smiled at your new husband- his breath slightly fanning on your face as his eyes begged for you to feel the same way. Then, it was your body slowly turning to face him entirely- the show long forgotten. His arms wrapped around you silently as you leaned onto one leg to hoist the other around his lap. 

You sat straddling him with a small smirk playing on your lips, “Couldn’t help it, huh?”

Harry groaned in response, “Was I just supposed to let it go unnoticed?” 

Your teeth found your bottom lip and pressed into it seductively while Harry began to lose all control, “I don’t know,” you shrug, definitely unsure of the conversation he was trying to hold. You were tuned into him, your body slowly beginning to circle around his cock, grinding slowly and almost noticeably. 

But Harry certainly noticed.

He let out an elongated groan as the pressure between the two of you increased and his head fell onto your shoulder. He could almost feel how your panties continued to accumulate your arousal. Seeping through the thin material and onto the sweatpants you wore, your entire body was soon to be glazed over with a thin layer of sweat and his would follow shortly after just by the look of you. 

“C’mon,” he urged you to stand, “Let’s get to the bedroom.”

You let out a disgruntled whine, “Love me out here,” you tell him with a small pout. Your lips pursed together as you pleaded. 

Harry’s breath hitched in his throat at the sight of you- so innocent and ready to ruin, “You want me to fuck you by the fireplace?” he asked with an amused chuckle. 

“Would you?” you ask, with a grin creeping up on your lips as he watched you shift excitedly on his lap- or rather his cock. 

He sends you a charming smile before his hands tug up on the hem of your (or rather his) shirt. Carefully flinging it aside, he traced his hands around the soft swells of your breasts as you released a longing sigh of pleasure.

Your hands wrapped around his shoulders as you sat up straighter in his lap. His hands met your collarbone before he leaned his face into your chest, his mouth immediately attaching itself to your hardened nipple. His tongue worked quickly to outline your nipple and suck on it harshly. Teeth gently coming together to bite and smacking sounds could be heard as he leaves open mouthed kisses around the mound. 

His eyes watched you the whole time- your hands knotting into his hair as your head is thrown back in absolute pleasure. Your mouth parted open angelically urged him to go faster and longer- to suck a bit harsher and bite a bit deeper. The purple bruise left on your breast made him smile widely before he replaced his mouth with his hand and started on your other breast. 

He continued to massage your nipple with his tongue and your breast in full with his hand. You were going absolutely insane as he worked on your body- your breaths getting shallower and more frequent as you panted for him to continue. 

When he finished his assault on both nipples, he was sure he had lost a few chunks of hair but it was worth it. 

His mouth worked back again, a chaste kiss left on your lips before spongey kisses were left along your jaw and neck. Your hands shoved his head closer to your body, if possible, and you sat in pure ecstasy as he worked his way down your décolletage and onto your stomach. 

Your hips bucked upwards as Harry laid you down on the couch, his forearm making a home on your hip bones to hold you down as he kissed lower and lower on your body. It felt like pure torture as you let out a defeated moan, his lips getting exceptionally close to the top of your sweatpants but avoiding them perfectly.

“Please,” you whine out, nudging up with your foot. 

Harry hummed in response, “Get up, babe,” you tell him as you groan in pleasure. Harry obliges, his body lifted from yours as you immediately kick off the rest of the clothes you wore, “Okay,” you mumble as you pull his arm back to its place by your head. Harry smiles at you sweetly, giving you a long kiss before making his way back down to your glistening cunt.

He gave you one last look before making a long, broad lick across the expanse of your vagina- his tongue immediately enrapturing in your taste that he gathered on his tongue. He smacked his lips together playfully and moans in approval at the sweet taste before bringing his head back to your cunt. 

He leaves a harsh kiss at the center of her opening, his tongue sneaking in for a short moment before he backs away. Moving up slightly, he makes contact with your swelling clit. It was puffier than usual- the grinding doing a lot for sheer horniness you were unable to get away from. 

He teasingly bites it with a hardly noticeable pressure before his lips wrap around it, sucking harshly as if he was milking it of everything you had to offer. It hardly took him two seconds to elicit a scream in pleasure from you, your hips moving up rapidly to get more friction. He was doing everything for you.

“What,” he mumbled out as he continued to suck. 

“God, Harry, you’re not funny.” you insult him as he continues his assault on your wet clit. 

You begin to grind your hips against his face. You want more. And Harry knows that but he is no gentleman. 

He begins kissing along the folds of your skin, teasing you by slowly moving from the outside in. His eyes followed yours as they skewed shut and you tried your best to calm your body down, which seemed impossible at the moment. He gets so close to where you want him but he’s teasing. He stops right before he gets to the center making you whine in disapproval. 

He lets out a hearty chuckle before laying his tongue down flat at the base of your entrance. He licks fully up your cunt before returning to the base. He follows into a short pattern- he begins going halfway up, fully up, and laps up and down three times before he repeats. And this has you going absolutely crazy.

You let out a series of moans and a string of curses before calling out his name, your voice laced with sultry, “Harry please,” you moan out, your voice a bit raspier than usual. He hums in approval against your cunt, making you let out another moan at the feeling.

Then, he finally finds your clit again, this time his fingers deep inside you to aid. He bites softly, the pressure feeling euphoric through your body, before you find yourself letting go onto his fingers. 

He sits up, you following shortly after and leaning back onto your elbows. You were out of breath but too lost in lust to care. 

Harry licks his fingers clean, dipping them back in to tease you a bit. You move your body sharply at the contact, feeling so overstimulated in that moment. Harry sent you a smile before bringing his fingers to your lips. 

Your lips wrapped around his fingers easily making him groan. You sucked every last drop off, leaving some on your tongue to tease him before swallowing it all and kissing him after. This time, it was your turn to make him feel good. 

You begrudgingly sat up, your body still in dire need of rest from the orgasm you just had, and allowed Harry to lie down, putting a pillow behind his head for support. Your hand found the drawstring of his sweats and quickly worked the knot loose before sliding them off his legs along with his boxers. While you worked on his pants, Harry haphazardly tossed his shirt behind him, hyper aware of the fireplace that was blazing next to them. 

You moved between his legs and gingerly wrapped your fingers around his cock. Feeling it stiffen (what seemed like to its last degree) made you smirk before running your thumb over the tip. 

Harry exhaled out a sharp breath at the contact and rolled his head back onto the pillow, his hand making a makeshift ponytail for your head as you started moving your hand up and down around the base of his cock and lowered your head to be eye level with his swollen tip, “God, Y/N. Takin’ too long, love,” he moaned out as you slowly inched your mouth closer and closer. 

Jokingly, you stuck your tongue out slightly, giving his shaft a small kitten lick, before fully retracting and leaving him with just your hand. 

He let go of your hair in defeat and ran a hand over his face, “And you say I’m not funny?” he asks.

You chuckle at his annoyance before moving your head fully down to his cock just as he wished from you. You left a series of kisses along the length of his shaft before you wrapped your lips around it, barely taking in the tip and your tongue greedily swirling around it with no hesitation. 

Harry can feel everything perfectly- you’re teasing him so well. He can feel the way you breath out from your nose and he can feel your hand creeping up his thigh and getting all too close to his balls. 

“Y/N,” he moaned out in ecstasy, “Please,” he begged you softly as his words strung together, similar to when he was drunk.

Your hooded eyes look at him as your hand reaches where he wanted. You fondled his balls with your left hand as you continued to stroke him slowly and teasingly with your right. You allow him to gather your hair once more before sinking his cock deeper into your mouth. 

Harry groaned at the sight of his cock poking your cheek- perhaps it was the sight of him being inside you in a way he could see that was so pleasurable to witness. You hummed around his shaft, making him moan out a “fuck” before you removed your right hand and swallowed his entire cock. 

Harry was absolutely lost on how he was supposed to survive at this point. He was so sure you were going to kill him with pleasure in that exact moment as you began to bob your head up and down along his cock and as your hands played with his balls- worshiping him fully. 

He bucked his hips up against your mouth, signaling he wanted to fuck your face, but you weren’t going to allow that to happen. He could take control in a bit. 

You let your mouth off his cock fully, a string of your spit connecting your lips and his cock. He groaned at how hot he thought you looked- your lips absolutely swollen and the way you swallowed all the precum before sticking your tongue out at him. It almost felt childish to him- how excited he was to kiss you- but it was real. 

You leaned into him slowly, hardly touching your lips together before you went back down to his wet cock. 

You spit onto his hardened shaft before moving your hand along it quickly. Your thumb ran over the tip of his cock before sliding back to the base, bringing the drop of precum with it. 

Though Harry had the feeling for a while, he had begun to get a fiery pit at the bottom of his stomach. It was much quicker than he anticipated but he was never able to fully hold back with you. 

His hand tapped your shoulder to notify you he was about to come- he knew you didn’t like to swallow. You glanced at him in acknowledgement before you finished getting him off. 

He let out a few whines before an elongated moan left his lips. It was deep toned and louder than usual and it made you feel everything in that moment. His eyes shut harshly as you made the last movement before ribbons of his cum flew out of his cock and onto your chest. You sent him a smile as he breathed heavily, “Every time I think I can go longer but you just have to make me come, huh?” he groans out. 

You let out a laugh, “I can say the same.” 

Harry smiles before grabbing your arms and turning you around in an instant, “We can try again,” he tells you. 

You nearly moan at the thought of him finally being inside you as he works quickly to lay you on your stomach, his hand reaching towards his cock and stroking it gently as you get comfortable, a pillow pulled under your stomach so he could access your body easier. 

“Please, H,” you moan out as you feel him shuffle to get above you, “God hurry up, you’re literally just standing there,” you complain.

“Oh what? Is this over now because I wasn’t fast enough?” he asks, a smirk hinting at his lips.

“Shut the fuck up,” you groan, “You’re so annoying just put your dick in me.”

Harry laughs, you’re all too impatient these days. He situates himself above you and angles his stiff penis at your entrance, his cock glistening from your saliva and your cut still wet from before. He pushed in fully, a groan leaving both of you simultaneously as he began to slowly tease you, his cock making incredibly short strokes in and out of you. 

You were beginning to have enough of his teasing, though the position was deemed your favorite- he just felt so much bigger- it was beginning to lose its appeal. It was hard for you to take control when you couldn’t even see him.

Sitting up slightly on your knees, you pushed your ass back onto him, making him thrust fully into you in a quick instant, “Doesn’t that feel so much better?” you pant.

Harry groaned a bit, “Yeah but it won’t be as satisfying-” he tries to explain.

“Just fuck me, we can talk about satisfying later,” you tell him with a snappy tone, your head craning awkwardly so you can send him a calculated glare.

Harry rolled his eyes in defeat, leaned forward and gave you a quick kiss and an apologetic smile before immediately thrusting in with as much power as he could muster up. 

The sound of skin on skin and your combined moans filled the room and fueled the fire between you two. The room was much warmer now, filled entirely with your sweaty bodies and the now sweaty furniture, but neither of you paid enough mind to care how uncomfortable you felt from being so sticky. It was trivial, really.

His cock hit you just right over and over again, your body falling numb to anything but the feeling of him on you. Your throat began to hurt from the screams you were letting out and Harry’s knees were beginning to give out at how good he felt in that moment.

You clenched around his cock, milking it for everything it had to offer, making Harry groan, his arms falling down beside you so he could stay upright. 

As his thrusts slowed down, you could feel how exhausted but happy Harry was. It had been a long day and a wonderful night that he could feel nothing but pleasure throughout. 

Your moans kept him going as he continued to thrust into you, hitting your g-spot perfectly, the position making it feel more than satisfactory. He was coming down from a high and feeling everything between the two of you became a new drug for him. He was addicted and couldn’t seem to get enough. 

His hand found your clit as he regained his energy and began rubbing furiously, his thrusts slowing down slightly but never fully stopping. As usual he was on a mission to make you feel good.  You knew he was waiting for you to come before he had the pleasure himself. 

You were close though, there was close to nothing for him to worry about in that department. With your lips falling open and disgruntled moans leaving them softly, Harry was about ready to explode.

“Oh my god, Harry,” you moan, your eyes shutting tightly as your body shook with pleasure. You reached your climax and Harry found himself giving you a few more thrusts before following himself. 

He was severely out of breath and you were at a loss for words as Harry laid down next to you, his head turned and your eyes caught light together. The fire was slowly dying down as the sound of the Game of Thrones intro made itself noticeable again. 

A soft smile was sent between you two, “Let's stay here until we have cabin fever.”

[jikookuntold]

What happened to Jikook in May 2015?

“How Jikook Started?” “Jikook and significance of May” “Jungkook and his Song Recommendations” were all the titles I thought about for this post and I ended up with the one you see. But what made me write this? A few days ago I came across an old tweet of JK from May 2015. This tweet was a song recommendation which I hadn’t notice before because I was only focused on 123 theory and as we all know this theory starts from October 2015 and I thought maybe we should pay more attention to the other songs JK recommended either. So I decided to go deeper and when I checked the tweets from May to August 2015 some interesting theories came to my mind.

Jikookers believe Jikook’s relationship changed in INU era and for proof of this theory they discuss some moments (long stares, exchanging jackets, etc.) but I’ve never seen them paying attention to the songs JK recommended in this era. It’s obvious that not all the songs he listens, likes or recommends are about romantic aspects of his life. On the other hand, musicians listen to any kind of song and this helps them for their career so not everything has to have a secret message or meaning, but no one can ignore the fact that when you feel connected to some lyrics and it captures your emotions you tend to share it with others so they can understand your feelings. This is more relatable for introverted people, an introverted person with artistic features uses different forms of art to express their feelings and JK is one of them.

JK’s song recommendation tweets started at the end of 2014 with “Lee Yerin -Your Universe” on December 24th and continued with “Misty Miller - Best Friend” on February 22th, and two songs on March 9th“King Krule - Baby Blue” and “Years & Years – Memo”. This declaration was necessary for this post but I’m not going to analyze these songs here. These songs are very significant (especially the last one from an openly gay artist with very expressing lyrics) and they need their own post.

After “Years & Years – Memo” JK didn’t recommend any song until May 24th. It’s interesting how there is a pattern for dates of his song recommendation tweets, it’s like he spams Twitter for a week and then deletes the app for months. Even his tweets in general, follow this pattern and most introverts can relate because sometimes we feel like expressing ourselves on social media, and some days we avoid it at any cost.

So, what happened in May 2015? Why Jikookers think this period is significant in Jikook history? Jikook had some obvious moments in INU era, JK seemed to be enchanted by Jimin and Jimin had became quieter and more preserved but still captivated by cute maknae. The most notable moment from this era happened on May 5th at Sukira Radio Interview where the MC asked about Jimin’s love for JK and Jimin answered: “There is something about him I don’t like but he is cute”. JK’s reaction to this answer is remarkable especially when Tae almost exposed them by saying “I think he kinda likes men” about Jimin and Jimin didn’t deny it.

A week later, on May 13th BTS went to Kota Kinabalu to film the Summer Package and Jikook filmed a log together before coming back to Korea. A few weeks later on June 5th when they were in Malaysia for Red Bullet Concert, they asked JK in an interview to describe Jimin "Jimin hyung is such a nice guy. His personality is just too nice. And he keeps giving me nice food. And when he smiles, his eyes are so pretty. He's the most charming guy on the team. If I were a girl I would date a guy like Jimin hyung." He answered. Fun Fact: They didn’t ask him who he wanted to date if he were a girl, but yet JK managed to state this anyway. They had asked this question from the members since their debut but JK never had chosen any member for someone who wants to date, and this moment was a turning point in JK’s attitude especially toward Jimin, even Jimin himself was shocked by JK’s answer. This fact directs us to the main question: What did happen in May 2015?

How was JK feeling at this point? Did something change in him? We can’t give a precise answer because we don’t know his emotions unless he shares them with us. As I said earlier, sharing music is a good way to express emotions. With recommending a song you can share your feelings without being too obvious (and get away with it because they are not your words, duh?) JK didn’t recommend any song after March 9th for two and a half months and finally, on May 24th he felt to share music and became active again. But three days before this date, Jimin had shared a song, surprisingly.

We know it’s not very common for Jimin to recommend a song especially in the style Namjoon and JK do, but on May 21st he recommended a newly released song named Pretty Bae by Lee Hyun and Park Bo Ram, here are the lyrics translations:

They say I’m pretty these days that I’m like a woman

They ask me, do you even have any flaws?

They say I look good these days, my friends tell me

Is there anyone out there like me?

I walk on this street while humming

I feel good today for some reason

I wanna date someone pretty

A person with a pretty heart rather than a pretty face

I wanna date someone nice

A person with a warm heart rather than a good body

Had a cup of coffee on the weekend, watched a movie I wanted to see

It’s all good but what’s missing?

A person to laugh at my boring stories

Where is that person?

I walk on this street while humming

I feel good today for some reason

I wanna date someone pretty

A person with a pretty heart rather than a pretty face

I wanna date someone nice

A person with a warm heart rather than a good body

He’s not handsome but nice-looking

She has no makeup but she shines

Is he looking at me?

What if she catches me? I pretend not to see

It feels good, should I go to her/him

And carefully start a conversation?

I wanna date someone pretty

A person with a pretty heart rather than a pretty face

I wanna date someone nice

A person with a warm heart rather than a good body

I wanna have a pretty love

A person with a pretty heart rather than a pretty face

I wanna date someone nice

A pretty person, a nice person, I hope it’s you

As you see, the lyrics are about someone who is feeling pretty and wants to date a person with a good and warm heart but he/she secretly wants it to be him/her crush. Jimin’s timestamp is on the last part of the lyrics saying “A pretty person, a nice person, I hope it’s you”. And three days later JK posts a screenshot of a song from Kehlani (an openly pansexual artist) named “You should be here”. Here are the lyrics:

I'm looking right at you, but you're not there

I'm seeing right past you, but you seem well aware

Your body is here but your mind is somewhere else

So far gone and you think I can't tell

Can't tell that you are disconnected

You pulled away and I miss your presence

I always said to you

Baby, you should be here, right here

Baby, you should be here, right here

Don’t know where you went but you're lost now

Don’t know where you went but you're gone now

Don’t know where you went but you're lost now

Don’t know where you went but you're gone now

Head on your chest babe, but your heart is so quiet

We used to talk all night long, now we laying in silence

Your arms around me but your soul is somewhere else

Gone so long and I know you so well

I know that you are everything that I ever dreamed of

And hoped that love had a happy ending

Baby, you should be here, right here (yeah-yeah)

Baby, you should be here, right here (you should be here, right here, right here)

Don't know where you went but you're lost now

Don't know where you went but you're gone now

Don't know where you went but you're lost now (oh-whoa)

Don't know where you went but you're gone now

You should be here, right, right here yeah

The lyrics are talking about someone who the artist cares about and it feels like that person is physically present but his/her mind is somewhere else. He/she wants that person close, not just physically but also mentally and emotionally. A few hours later, JK recommends another song, this time a famous song (any Shrek lover know this by heart) I need some sleep by Eels: Here are the lyrics:

You can't go home like this

I try counting sheep

But there's one I always miss

Everyone says I'm getting down to low

Everyone says you just gotta let it go

You just gotta let it go

You just gotta let it go

I need some sleep

Time to put the old horse down

I'm in too deep

And the wheels keep spinning round

Everyone says I'm getting down to low

Everyone says you just gotta let it go

You just gotta let it go

You just gotta let it go

You just gotta let it go

You just gotta let it go

You just gotta let it go

*Fun fact: This song was on Jimin’s playlist in 2017.

This song is about mental and emotional frustration and exhaustion, being deep into something, and seeking redemption. We can’t tell if JK is expressing this about himself or someone else since his timestamp is on the part saying “You can't go home like this”. But the song JK recommended the next day (May 25th) is another story and has a straightforward message. “Can’t help falling in love” is a hit song by Elvis but the track JK post is a cover of this song by Eels:

Wise men say only fools rush in

But I can't help falling in love with you

Shall I stay? Would it be a sin?

If I can't help falling in love with you?

Like a river flows, surely to the sea

Darling, so it goes. Some things are meant to be

Take my hand, take my whole life, too

For I can't help falling in love with you

Like a river flows surely to the sea

Darling, so it goes. Some things are meant to be

Take my hand, take my whole life, too

For I can't help falling in love with you

For I can't help falling in love with you

The lyrics don’t need any explanation. His timestamp is on the part saying “If I can't help falling in love with you?” this part comes after the part “Would it be a sin” and makes it more remarkable. It’s obvious that there was something big going on with his emotions at this point and when you put these four songs together (one from Jimin and three from JK) you can see the roller coaster of feelings very clear. But the next day (May 26th) something interesting happened which relays my theory. Namjoon recommended a song named Pray from Younha and this was the thing he wrote in the caption of his tweet: “For all the broken-hearted” Sure this can be to anyone but two weeks later on Jun 10th JK recommended the same song without any caption. Here are the lyrics:  

When you are lost

I will shine a light

When your heart shakes because of the wind

I will hold your hand

I am praying for you

Praying that you will be protected

So that my hopes can reach you

The closed door is slowly opening

I hope you won’t cry over your scars

Or get trapped in despair with pain

With all my heart, I hope you will be comforted

Today, I’m praying again

I am praying for you

Praying that you will be protected

The world has become harsh seas

For you, who has left for the voyage?

I hope you won’t cry over your scars

Or get trapped in despair with pain

With all my heart, I hope you will be comforted

Today, I’m praying again

When Namjoon literally recommended this song two weeks before, why JK had to do this again? Unless he had something to express through lyrics. As you see the lyrics are about pain, despair and getting emotional scars or as Namjoon captioned “something for broken-hearted people”. Two days later JK posted a video of himself walking and singing in the night, the song he was humming was from Yoon Jong Shin and here are the lyrics:

On January 13, which was especially cold, I first met her, who laughed a lot

She said she never spent a birthday with a boyfriend before

She liked shoes and bags and that was so cute

She said I looked sad from behind as she took a picture and smiled

On the sunny first day of April, I made her cry for the first time

After seeing her pretty eyes get puffy, I cried too

Every time we fought, we always used the word “break up”

We wouldn’t talk to each other for days, having a tense battle

Would she know that my heart raced every time I went to pick her up?

I have never met anyone who was better than her in my life

On June 17, she was struggling and broke up with me

In the end, I gave her a scar, although I didn’t mean to

A month passed, a year passed and still, there are times when I miss her

Whenever I pass by that street in Ichon-dong, it’s still clear like it was yesterday

The park at night, the hamburger store, the rice bowl store in the basement

There is so much emotion in this lyrics and you have to be really in love and broken-hearted to hum this song in the dark let alone filming and posting the video. After that JK didn’t recommend any song for two weeks and he came back on June 27th with another straightforward message. A song named Love Me Again by G.Soul and here are the lyrics translation:

It’s already been a few years

And we’re standing in front of each other like this

As if nothing happened

Just like the old days

As I look at you

Who is calling me a good friend?

I tried to hold it in

But I need to tell you something

I know I hurt you but

Could u love me again?

Without knowing, I’m in love with you again

So could u love me again?

I didn’t know love back then

Baby love me again

Baby please please please

Need u love me again?

It’s already 3am

We’re both getting a little drunk

As if it’s nothing, you talk about your new boyfriend

As I look at you

Who is calling me a good friend?

I can’t hold it in

And I have to tell you something

I know I hurt you but

Could u love me again?

Without knowing, I’m in love with you again

So could u love me again?

I didn’t know love back then

Baby love me again

Baby please please, please

Need u love me again?

Oh please believe me girl

This time, I’ll really

Love u harder

Oh baby one more time

Love me again

I know I hurt you but

Could u love me again?

Without knowing, I’m in love with you again

So could u love me again?

I didn’t know love back then

Baby love me again

Baby please please, please

Need u love me again?

Oh baby just please please, please

Could u love me again?

Again, love me again, again

Oh girl I need you to

Love me baby

Love me again

He wants that person to give him another chance and love him again. He confesses that he has hurt that person because he didn’t know love back then and doesn’t want to be “the good friend” that person sees him now. He wants that person’s love.  JK didn’t recommend any song after this for another two weeks and came back on July 10th with a song RapmonHyung has recommended to him: Tears by Le So Ra

Me in the mirror inside the cramped dark room…

The dismal face is quite ugly

Foolish like this, I’m left behind

But I still long for you.

Miserably left behind like this,

I just make unwelcome calls

It’s okay if you get mad at me

It’s okay if you make me cry

Just turn all your attention back to me

It’s okay, just say anything

It’s okay if you mock me

I’m like this only with you, oh my own.

Like a speck of dust in this cave-like room

I’m foolish and I’m left alone

I miss you again today before you miss me

I’m miserably left alone like this

And again I call you before you call me

It’s okay if you get mad at me

It’s okay if you make me cry

Just turn all your attention back to me

It’s okay, just say anything

It’s okay if you mock me

I’m like this only with you, oh my own.

In the mirror, I look so ugly

This song is about being left alone and rejected. His loved one is mad at him and doesn’t give the love and the attention he/she used to give before. Four days later he recommended another song named Romance by CHEEZE and here are the lyrics:

With a red balloon full of

Your deep flowery scent

You surround me in your

Lifeless hollow smile

All our warm memories together

Can’t melt my heart

That has been frozen over

By that cold stare of yours

Walking through the night, side by side

The faint silhouette of your back

Still haunt me as my sweetest nightmare

Like the strings of a puppeteer

Losing sleep over the cold half of the bed

As your wandering image gently crushes me down

Walking through the night, side by side

The faint silhouette of your back

Still haunt me as my sweetest nightmare

Like the strings of a puppeteer

Walking through the night, side by side

The faint silhouette of your back

Still haunt me as my sweetest nightmare

Like the strings of a puppeteer

This is another song about someone who used to be warm and loving but now has a cold stare with no emotion. In my theories, this emotional conflict started in May and ended in August. Why August and how it ended? In August 18th Japan fan-meeting Jimin fainted and apparently this had a big impact on Jikook’s relationship. The day after, when Jimin came back on the stage JK did a beautiful interaction with him. Two days later JK did a live stream and sang a song named I will give it all to you. Three days later Namjoon posted screenshot of this song with the caption “Jeon Jungkook OST”. Here are the lyrics:

I have something for you

I have something to say tonight

I will give it all to you

My love that's about to burst

There's nothing I can't do for you

After picking the stars, I'll fill your hands

I have something for you

I have something to give you tonight

There's nothing I can't do for you

After picking the stars, I'll fill your hands

I will give it all to you

My love that is about to explode

The lyrics are talking of a beautiful love about to burst and the lover is ready to sacrifice and do anything for him/her love even if it’s bringing the stars in the sky and hand it to his/her lover. 12 hours later Jimin tweeted something suspicious: “The stars in the sky (musical note emoji) (surprised emoji)”. This tweet has no media and the caption has no hashtag except Jimin. It seems like someone had brought the stars in the sky for Jimin and it has something to do with music either. I wonder who it would be…

Conclusion

I tried so hard to not express my theories and leave the conclusion to you but some facts are undeniable especially when you put them together with the events and moments that happened in that period. I (rightfully) believe that the chronology of the events is extremely important and it can tell you more than just a surface without reading too much of it. If you don’t like theories or you have your own theories just don’t read this part because I don’t want to change anyone’s mind:

We all know about Jimin’s affection for JK in their debut years. I don’t think that was something fake or exaggerated, he really adored JK and wanted his attention (maybe he was aware of their mutual crush, I don’t know) but he could never imagine this turning into something serious. But it did and JK was the one who noticed this first and took action but he got rejected and became broken-hearted. This rejection was the result of fear, fear of an unknown future. Jimin’s love for JK was still strong but he had to reject JK to stop things from getting worse and out of hand. But in JK’s eyes, everything was different. He wanted him back, he was missing Jimin’s affection because he had found out that he is in love, the thing he didn’t know beforehand (I think memory of the rainy day has happened at this era, or maybe I’m wrong) After weeks of emotional conflict, finally they were at the same page and they were ready to make their relationship work. JK assured Jimin about his love and it seemed like a happily ever after but little did they know about their future and fate.

[galactic-magick]

Remember Me: Agnes/Agatha Harkness x Reader

Request: Ok so I have this idea for a wandavision fic. Agatha had a wife prior to westview, and the wife comes looking for her and gets zapped into the hex. The wife loses all memories prior to westview so when she sees Agnes for the first time she’s like head over heels in love with her all over again. Agnes of course absolutely recognizes her and remembers everything and decides to woo her wife into marrying her again. Of course shenanigans ensue. Also Agatha doesn’t want to just give her wife’s memories back cause she wants to protect her. I also think the wife’s personality is pretty opposite to Agnes’s, I see her as more quite and innocent, but still bubly and positive. I know this is a lot lol but I just think it would make a great fanfic!

Summary: You and Agatha have been married for years, but a rough fight causes you to take a break for a while. When you’re ready to try again you go looking for her, but accidentally get sucked into the hex in the process and lose all your memories.

Words: 3.6k+

Warnings: spoilers, some angst

Author’s Notes: This fic got pretty long cuz I just kinda ran with this amazing idea, hope you enjoy! 

Taglist: @nyx-aira @midnight-lestrange @thestrangeundoing @dreamydanvers @sleep-deprived-athlete @dr-robotnik-said-hella @fallingfor-fics @p-nymph​ @thelanawinterrs​ @sunproud

-

-

-

You feel…lost.

It’s as if something was at the tip of your tongue, something extremely important was on your mind a few minutes ago, but you can’t think of it for the life of you.

You’ve always struggled with directions, so you know you probably took a wrong turn. You remember driving into a town called Westview, and you’re pretty sure you’re here now, but your mind feels fuzzy. You can’t recall anything that happened to you before driving here. Your body feels like it got ripped apart and put back together, if that’s even possible.

You try your best to shrug off your concerns, and you start to feel more and more at home here. You know what, you have been here your whole life. You grew up here, you have friends here, and you never want to leave.

Despite that, though, you have no idea where your house is. You drive around, searching for anything that looks familiar, to no avail.

You see a woman picking some flowers outside, so you pull over and get out to talk to her.

“Good afternoon!” you wave. “I don’t believe we’ve met, I’m Y/N,”

“Hello!” she smiles. “I’m Wanda. Are you one of my neighbors?”

“Oh, um, yeah! I’m in the neighborhood,” you nod. “Those flowers are beautiful. Is there a special occasion?”

“Yes, actually! It’s me and my husband’s anniversary today! I’m planning a romantic evening to surprise him when he gets home. One of my other neighbors gave me some ideas and tips,” she laughs. “Oh there she is again!”

You turn around to look at the house next door, and see the most beautiful human being you’ve ever seen in your life. There’s something familiar about her, like a distant memory. She waves at Wanda, but when she sees you she stares. She can’t take her eyes of you, like she’s seeing a ghost.

“Agnes! Come here a second!” Wanda calls her over. “This is Y/N, she also lives around here. Have you met?”

“Oh…”

She’s wearing a gorgeous yet simple plaid dress, and her smile is captivating. There’s a gleam in her eyes that’s magical, and you find yourself falling a little too hard for someone you just met. You’re not usually the type to lay your heart down so quickly, but something about her is different.

“Oh, no! I don’t think we have!” Agnes snaps out of her trance and shakes your hand. “I’m Agnes,”

“Y/N,”

“Lovely to meet you,” she momentarily turns her attention back to Wanda. “Now, is there anything else you need for tonight? Extra candles, more magazines, makeup?”

“Some more candles would be amazing, thank you,”

“Great, I’ll drop them off in a bit,” Agnes glances at you again. “Would you like me to walk you home, darlin?”

“Sure,” you start walking together down the sidewalk. “I’m sorry if this is weird, but I feel like I know you from somewhere,”

“Do you now?”

“Maybe you just have one of those faces,” you sigh. “Anyway, I honestly can’t remember where my house is. I’ve always been bad with directions,”

“Did you just move here recently?”

“Maybe?” you scratch your head. “I…think I’ve always been here, but maybe I left and came back. Is it weird that I can’t remember?”

“Not at all,” she smiles. “Is this it?”

You look, and there’s a house just a few down from Wanda’s that you can almost swear wasn’t there before. But it looks like home, it looks familiar.

“Yes! This is it!” you race up to the door, and find a key that fits perfectly in your pocket. “How’d you know this was mine?”

“I just had a feeling,” she says.

“Well, thank you very much,” you reply, about to close the door.

“Wait,”

“Hmm?”

“Would you like to get some ice cream tomorrow?”

You nod, a bit surprised she’s so interested in you, “Sure,”

 -

 You meet up again at the ice cream parlor the next day, and you’re shocked when you get there that Agnes has already ordered your favorite, and a couple scoops are in your grasp within a few minutes.

You sit down together and start eating it, “How’d you know this was my favorite?”

“Oh…um, you just seem like that kind of gal?” she takes a spoonful of her own.

When you’re both done, you take a walk around town, waving to other people you think you’ve seen in the neighborhood. It feels a little strange that you’re hanging out with Agnes for hours as if you’ve been friends for years, but at the same time it feels so right. It’s almost like she knows everything about you already, yet everything is still a mystery.

Later in the afternoon you attend the talent show together, and you find yourself laughing especially at Wanda and her husband Vision’s performance. Some of their tricks fool you enough into thinking they might be real, but how could they be? Magic is all just a trick on the eyes, isn’t it?

You say goodbye to everyone and turn in for the night, and you have a strange dream.

Agnes is there, but she looks different. Older? Younger? You’re not sure.

She smiles at you, and takes your face in her hands. She presses a kiss to your lips, and doesn’t let you go until you can’t breathe.

You continue to see snippets of you and her together, each time in a different place, maybe even a different era. You’re happy, it seems, the love is deep and strong, something so good you didn’t think it could exist.

Until the last one.

You’re yelling at each other, but you can’t make out the words, not even your own. You can almost feel tears streaming down your cheeks, and Agnes takes her bags and leaves. You fall on the couch, completely miserable. You can’t tell what happened, but the aching in your chest is enough to tell it was the worst thing you’ve ever experienced.

When you wake up the next morning, you don’t remember anything.

 -

 The world is now in color, but you honestly can’t recall what it looked like yesterday, so it doesn’t seem strange to you.

You get a call from Wanda telling you she’s pregnant, and you congratulate her excitedly. She asks you to keep it under wraps except for close friends, which makes sense since it’s so early on.

Even though you have plenty of time before the baby arrives, you decide to go out to the store and pick out some stuff you could give her. You’ve never had children of your own so you’re not sure exactly what she’d need, but you know the basics, like clothes, teething toys, and blankets.

You look through the racks and piles, picking out a few things you think would be cute.

“Don’t tell me you’re pregnant now too, hun,”

You jump, and you see Agnes behind you.

“Oh! Agnes, hi!” you exhale quickly. “No, no, I’m not. I’m just picking up some things for Wanda. Maybe we could plan her a little baby shower or something?”

“I’m just kidding, hun. And that’s a great idea!” she pushes her cart forward a bit. “I’ll catch up with you later, okay?”

You nod as she hurries away.

 -

 As you’re walking home, you see Agnes chatting with one of your other neighbors, Herb. You don’t particularly hear or care what they’re saying, but you stop in your tracks when you see something purple coming out of Agnes’s fingers.

Herb’s eyes roll back for a moment, and then they carry back on in conversation. After a few minutes Vision runs out of the house and talks to them a bit, then they all go their separate ways.

Maybe you were just seeing things, but something about that interaction was really weird.

You catch up with Agnes down the street, saying hello and asking how she is. She doesn’t seem to know you saw what happened, so you decide to ask yourself.

“What was that purple stuff coming out of your hands?”

“What?” she chuckles, scoffing as if you’re crazy. “What are you talking about?”

“I was walking by Wanda’s house earlier and I saw you talking to Herb, and there was something coming out of your hands. Maybe it was just weird light or reflections or something-“

“Oh, yes, that must be it,” she pats your shoulder. “Say, how about we grab some dinner or something?”

“Really?”

She raises a hand and strokes your head and hair, and it feels like a wave of calm rushes over you. She murmurs some words you can’t understand, and you forget what you were going to say.

“What was that for?” you giggle, cheeks flushing a bit at her tender touch.

“Oh, there was just something stuck in your hair, dear,”

 -

 “Agnes,” you say, after taking the last bite of your dinner. You’ve had a wonderful night, you don’t think you’ve smiled and laughed so much in your life, and she makes your heart feel like it’s transcending to peak happiness.

“Hmm?”

“I really love hanging out with you,” you’re too nervous to say the actual words you want to say, and you desperately hope she understands.

“I love hanging out with you too,” she reaches for your hand. “I’ve missed you,”

You cock your head, “What do you mean?”

“Oh, nothing,” she laughs. “It’s just…been awhile since I’ve had someone in my life that I care about so much,”

You sigh as she squeezes your hand, “Do you believe in soulmates?”

“I might,” she grins. “Why?”

“I just…I know it’s so weird, but I feel like there’s something between us that’s beyond our control, you know?” you talk fast, hoping getting all the words out quickly will help you to say what you’ve wanted to say since you first met. “Maybe we were together in another life, another universe, I don’t know, it’s just…it’s not just me, right?”

She shakes her head, and you can almost see a tear in her eye, “No, it’s not just you,” she kisses the palm of your hand. “I wish I could tell you everything, I really do,”

“What do you mean?”

“But I can’t,” she stands up and waves her hand in front of your face, all memories of your conversation slipping from your mind. “It’s for your own protection sweetheart, I promise. Once I figure out how all this is happening, we can be together again,”

 -

 Agnes walks you home that night, but you don’t want to leave. You’ve had such a wonderful time with her, and you can’t bear for it to end.

“Do you want to come inside?” you ask.

“Oh, honey, I don’t think I should,” she laughs.

“Please,” you beg. “Just for a little bit? I have some tea and cookies,”

“Alright,” she sighs. “Just for a little bit,”

You start boiling the water and arrange some cookies on a plate as Agnes sits down on the couch.

“What kind would you like?”

“I’ll take anything,” she says.

You return with a cup and plate for her and plop down on the cushion, “You know I should probably apologize,”

“For what, dear?”

“I just feel like I’ve been a bit forward, which is weird since I’m normally super reserved and shy, but I just feel so comfortable with you, ya know?” you sip your tea. “I feel like I’ve said or done something wrong. I can’t remember what, but I definitely did,”

“Oh darling, no,” Agnes shakes her head. “You’re perfect,”

“Really?”

“Yes, just as you always have been,” she lifts your chin and leans in, capturing your lips. “My everything,”

 -

 You never knew what head over heels felt like until now.

You wake up smiling, barely able to contain your emotions. You kissed Agnes last night. You kissed Agnes last night.

You. You did.

You head over to Wanda’s that morning, wanting to meet the twins and give your gifts. When you walk in they’re crying very loudly and Wanda and Vision look stressed out of their minds.

“Hey, Wanda!” you give her a hug. “Baby troubles?”

“Yeah, they just…won’t stop crying,” she sighs in exhaustion.

“Do you need any help?” you ask. “Also, I got you some stuff,” you hand her the gift bag.

“Oh! Thank you so much!” she smiles in appreciation. “And yeah, could you? I’ve tried everything, but if you have any ideas on how to calm them down go for it,”

You start to rock the cradles a bit, when you hear the doorbell ring.

“Hiya kids!” Agnes strolls in. “Hey hun,” she winks at you.

“Oh Agnes!” Wanda says, relieved to have yet another person to help with the situation. “Oh, Y/N, could you actually grab some milk for them? There’s some formula on the counter in the kitchen,”

“Yeah, sure!” you smile at Agnes, your heart pounding a bit before you turn around to make the milk.

As you’re stirring, you hear Vision escalate into a panic, and then it falls mysteriously silent.

“Do you want me to take that again?” you hear Agnes say.

What?

“You want me to hold the babies, should we just take it from the top?”

You hear Wanda laugh and the conversation continues on normally. You finish mixing up the milk and head toward the living room, but you meet Agnes running in to look for some liquor.

“Agnes! What do you think you’re doing?” you whisper.

“What do you mean? I’m just trying to help with the kids, just like you!”

“Yeah, but, you’re acting really weird,” you shake your head, staring at her in disbelief. “What were you talking about in there? Taking it from the top? What does that even mean?”

“Oh, honey, don’t worry. I’m just a little jazzed up today!” she kisses your cheek.

“Y/N! AGNES! The kids are gone!” Wanda gasps.

You rush in, and all of your turn around towards the stairs to see two definitely not baby boys in front of you.

“Ah, kids. You can’t control ‘em, no matter how hard you try,” Agnes chuckles, taking a sip of her drink.

Are you the only one that finds it strange that the twins randomly grew older right in front of you?

 -

 That evening you go on another date with Agnes. She doesn’t bring up anything that happened this morning, but she does mention the tragedy of Wanda’s family’s dog passing away. You feel awful, especially since they got him recently.

For the most part it’s a normal date, you’re still very much in love with her and you have an amazing time.

But by the end of it when you’re heading back home, the eerie feeling returns, and you can’t keep ignoring it. You need answers, and you need them now.

“Something’s not right here, Agnes,” you observe. “Everyone here acts weird, especially Wanda and Vision, and even you sometimes. I don’t get it,”

“Darling-“

“No!” you snap. “Every single time I’ve brought up feeling weird with you or in this town in general you distract me so I forget about it. You know something Agnes, I can tell you do. Why won’t you be honest with me? If we’re gonna do this relationship thing, we need to be honest with each other,”

She takes a deep breath, “I can’t,”

“Why not?”

“I can’t now, but I will,” she says. “This weekend, Halloween. Meet me at my house and I’ll tell you and show you everything,”

“Do you promise?”

“Yes, I promise,” she nods, then leans in to kiss you. “I just have to do a few more things first,”

She walks away.

 -

 You stand outside her house on Halloween just as she asked, dressed in a cheap witch costume you found in your closet.

“Oh, look at us!” Agnes opens the door, eyeing you up and down and grinning. “We match!”

You laugh as she takes you hand and leads you to her car.

Before she pulls out, she turns to you, a glaze of fear in her eyes.

“Are you sure you want to know everything?”

“Yes,” you nod.

“Okay,” she presses down the pedal and drives.

She passes by all the familiar streets, into the neighborhoods you’ve never seen. There’s people outside that are barely moving, and the farther you go, the more frozen they become. It begins to scare you a bit, but you trust Agnes to explain everything to you when you get to your destination.

She finally stops the car at the last stop sign on the edge of town, and everything ahead looks like an empty field.

“You don’t remember how you got to Westview, do you?” she asks.

“No,” you shake your head. “I think I’ve been here a while, but my past is fuzzy,”

“But somehow you have memories of me?”

“I…” you search your thoughts. “I felt like I recognized you when we first met, yeah. But I don’t think they were actually memories,” you look into her eyes. “Why, do you think they’re real memories or something?”

“I know they are,”

“You mean, we were together before?”

“Yes,” she nods, and her gaze falls to the floor, unable to look at you. “But it didn’t end well. I made a lot of mistakes, and you asked me to leave, so I did. I’ve been all over the place, and I ended up here. Then all of a sudden, you were here too,”

You can’t believe what you’re hearing, “How come I don’t remember any of that?”

“Wanda created and controls this town. She wiped and changed your memories,”

“Wanda?” you scoff. “How would she even do that? And even if someone could do that, why would they? She’s so nice, you really think she’s controlling me?”

“I don’t know how she’s doing it, that’s what I’m trying to find out. But I know it’s her. She’s the only other magical being in this town, and she got her powers from an infinity stone. Maybe it’s just that, maybe she’s a mutant, maybe it’s chaos magic, I don’t know. But she’s the one,”

You shake your head, almost giggling at how ridiculous it sounds, “Agnes, no, you’re not making any sense. Magic? Infinity stones? Mutants? Are you serious? Come on, just tell me the truth,”

“I am telling you the truth,”

“Stop lying to me!” you storm out the car door, walking back towards town. Agnes calls after you, but you keep going. “I can’t be with you if all you’re going to tell me is complete bullshit!”

“Y/N!”

Your feet lift off the ground and you spin around, flying through the air towards her. You scream, and you see that same purple smoke coming out of her fingers that you saw before. She pulls you against her, one arm wrapped around your waist and another cradled around your head.

“It’ll all make sense now, sweetheart,”

She whispers a spell and all the memories flood back into your mind. Your real first meeting, your first kiss, your first date. Your wedding day, your first house. You see every moment, the good and the bad, the way she looked at you like you’re an angel every single day. You relive every anniversary, every holiday together, every tradition you shared, and finally the last moments together, and the day you decided you wanted your beloved wife back.

“Agatha?” you whisper.

“Yes,” she crashes her lips to yours, taking in everything she loves, everything she missed. You wrap your arms around her neck, kissing her deeply, a smile escaping every so often. You don’t care that it’s messy, you don’t care if your teeth get in the way, you’re in love and you never want to let her go again.

“I’m so sorry, darling,” she exhales, breathless.

“No, I’m sorry,” you say between more kisses. “I can’t live without you Agatha. I can’t,”

“It’s okay, we’re together again,” she slithers her fingers into your hair.

“But what now?” you wipe your teary eyes. “If you’re right about Wanda using magic to control everything, what do we do?”

“I’ve been dropping clues to make Vision suspicious, and I’ve been trying to get her to crack,” she says. “I have a feeling she might make it all crumble on her own. If it’s chaos magic like I think it is, it’s unpredictable and she might lose control if she keeps it up much longer,”

“Do you…think she’s doing it on purpose?”

“She has some consciousness of it, yes, but I don’t think she’s trying to hurt anyone,” Agatha replies. “But at the same time, I don’t think she’d hesitate to hurt anyone either if someone threatened her,”

“Oh,” you fall back in her arms a bit so you can look up at her. “How come you didn’t return my memories when we first met again?”

“I wanted to protect you. I was afraid you might get targeted if Wanda found out you remembered who you are, I doubt she’d hurt you but I couldn’t risk it,” she runs her thumb along your cheek. “Plus I thought it might be fun to fall in love with you all over again,”

You laugh, “It was kind of fun,”

She pulls you in for another kiss, “I love you, sweetheart,”

“I love you too,”

She holds you close, making up for all the lost time. You’re not sure what will happen or what you’ll have to deal with next, but you’ll do it together. Always, no matter what.

[angstymarauder]

Arch Enemies {M.M}

Marlene McKinnon x Female!reader ; marauders era

summary: where two long-time rivals realize how thin the line between love and hate really are after an unfortunate quidditch incident.

word count: 3.4k ish

contains: angst, fluff, a heated kiss?, side of wolfstar,

a/n: i didn’t re-read it bc I'm lazy. Also if people could drop some wlw angsty harry potter recs that would be phenomenal.

· · · ∞ · · · · · · ∞ · · · · · · ∞ · · · · · · ∞ · · ·

Marlene McKinnon has been your rival since as far back in your Hogwarts years as you can remember. Always at each other’s heads. Always a competition between the two of you. Always striving to be better than the other.

The two of you made just about everything a competition. Chess Matches. Pranking. Grades. Eating. Walking. Detentions (you almost got kicked out of Hogwarts that year.)

Anything that could somehow be made competitive, you two competed. And while you tended to beat her with grades, she often beat you in things that took place outside of the classroom.

The Marauders, apparently, have been placing bets and keeping track of your wins against one another. Lily even claims that one time she walked into their room unexpectedly and caught them writing on a poster on their wall that had both your names in big letters on each side and a series of tallies below each with dates and event names on the bottom, but as soon as they saw her one of them casted a spell to make it disappear.

This year was no different. You knew it was stupid to believe that maybe, just maybe, you’d be able to try out for the quidditch team without Marlene fighting you for the same spot. You have no real desire to be on the quidditch team, quite honestly, but your older siblings play quidditch, your parents played quidditch, your aunts, your uncles, your cousins, your grandparents, your great-grandparents.

You have a quidditch family and you do not want to can not disappoint them.

The hope that Marlene may leave you alone for this one was shattered, as you expected it to be, when you walk into the team's locker room, a bag of quidditch gear in your hand. “Y/L” Marlene spoke as soon as her eyes met yours. Her eyes widened more than usual, a change most people don’t notice, but then again, you’re not most people. You know Marlene better than anyone else, you’ve memorized the meaning of every look in her eyes, every curve of her lips, every flick of her hands. You know her brain, how she works, what she is thinking, for the most part at least because right now you found yourself momentarily confused by the surprise lacing her voice. Why is she so surprised? Did she not expect you to be there? Your thoughts are cut short when the blonde standing at the other side of the room clears her throat in an attempt to reactive her favorite tone of voice when speaking to you, cockiness, “you going for the beater position too?”

“Yea,” you respond, walking over to one of the lockers.

“May the best player win,” you continued unpacking your bag, putting on the final touches to your uniform, but you didn’t need to look at her to know that she was smirking as she spoke, you could hear it clear enough in her voice.

She awaited a snarky response from you, you know that, but you didn’t want to waste your energy on a catfight right now. Your anxiety is already through the roof, there is enough pressure on you at the moment that you feel like your brain physically cannot handle any more conflict, so you ignore her.

Her eyes burn holes into your body as you continue to pull your knee pads on. Eventually, the door opens and you listen to her steps as she walks out of the locker room, closing the door with a slam and leaving you all alone.

It’s not long before you’re 100% ready for tryouts. You stare at yourself in the bathroom mirror for a moment before leaving. Taking deep breaths in an attempt to calm your nerves. Calm your mind. It helps a little bit, but maybe not enough.

· · · ∞ · · ·

“Y/L! Watch out!” is the last thing you hear before everything goes black.

The tryouts were going great, James was the captain this year and after stealing a glance at his little sheet, you could tell that you were going to beat Marlene out for this spot.

You should’ve been happier with that knowledge than you were, but somewhere deep down you almost wanted Marlene to beat you. This wasn't what you wanted and by the look in her eyes, you knew that this was what she wanted. A strange feeling arose in your chest each time she looked at you during tryouts, her eyes conveyed a message you hadn’t seen her wear yet and all you wanted to do was decode it. To understand why her eyes looked… sad? Almost. Like she knew you were going to beat her and she was upset about it. She’s never been upset before, always a team player. She took her losses as they came and just vowed to beat you next time. But for some reason… for some reason this was different.

· · · ∞ · · ·

Marlene’s Pov:

You looked so pretty. Flyaway hairs and a look of determination on your face as you swatted away Bludgers so effortlessly. She loved quidditch, but she wasn't as good as you. Jealous, not because you’ll win whatever competition the two of you are probably making out of this, but jealous because she knows she won’t get the position she’s been working her ass off for. Lost in thought she doesn't even notice the bludger coming towards her, luckily she hits it just in time, but then… Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit. Marlene watched as the bludger tumbled straight towards you, “Y/L! Watch out,” was all she could get in before it hit you right in the head.

· · · ∞ · · ·

The first thing you felt when you woke up was an intense pounding in your skill that caused an unconscious groan to leave your mouth. As you increasingly became aware your head began hurting more and more. You went to bring your hand up to rub your eyes in an attempt to wake yourself up when you felt another hand on yours. Opening your eyes only increased your headache, but the desire to know whose hand was holding yours overruled the pain. Their hand was soft, warm, it felt like … like home. That's the only word you could find in this pain-forsaken state to properly describe the feeling.

The blur of a person who held your hand made you think you were crazy. You found yourself blinking a few times in attempts to clear your vision, not initially trusting your eyes and barely trusting them now as you see Marlene McKinnon's hand, holding yours.

Marlene McKinnon.

Your arch-nemesis?

The one who practically hates you?

Yea… her.

What the fuck.

Why is she holding your hand… and why do you never want her to let go?

You can feel your lips curve up into an unconscious smile as you stare at the place where her hand connects with yours before roaming your eyes up to her figure to her sleeping face being held up by her other hand, elbow resting on her armchair next to your bed. She looks so peaceful, so beautiful, and you wonder why you’ve never noticed how gorgeous she was before. How her lips look so soft and her skin so smooth. The way the waning gibbous moonlight shines into the room from the large infirmary windows and lights her face up in a way you’ve never seen in before and in that moment you want nothing more than to stare at her face like that forever. You don’t even notice your other hand moving up to touch her face until you hear a voice whisper from a few beds over from yours. “Oh, you’re up.” Startled, you feel like you were just caught committing a crime and immediately pull your hand back to where it was before. Marlene shifts in her sleep from your quick movements and you’re watching this moment slip through your fingers, silently begging whatever runs the universe to let you stay in this moment just a little bit longer. Thankfully, they answer and Marlene stills, returning to her peaceful sleep. “Don’t worry, Lils says she sleeps like a log.”

You giggle at these words, turning to face Remus with a smile, “yea, she does. We can never get her up in the morning.” “It’s the same with Sirius. He never wants to wake up.” The two of you giggle quietly, afraid to wake up anyone in the castle this late at night, especially the girl sitting beside you. You talk about Remus first, asking if the full moon the night before was really that bad that Pomfrey made him stay overnight again and if he's okay. He assures you that he is fine and redirects the conversation to you, “What about you? Are you okay?”

“I don’t even know what happened to me,” you tell him, “or why my head hurts so much or why M-” you pause, now looking at the girl. You’re scared of speaking the words out loud, afraid it may reveal that her presence is only a dream or a figment of your imagination and that you will sound crazy if you speak about it.

“Or why Marlene is here, holding your hand.” Remus finishes your sentence.

“Or that.” you turn your gaze back to Remus, now wishing the moon was a little darker so your close friend can’t see the blush that is surely on your face.

“Well to answer your first questions,” started Remus, “You got hit with a bludger during tryouts, Marlene and Sirius rushed u in here while I was taking a nap - thanks for that by the way”

“Sorry” you giggled

“- and then Sirius went back to practice, as for McKinnon there, she refused to leave. I think she feels bad cause she's the one that hit you. Pomfrey said you probably have a concussion which means you can’t … well you can’t play quidditch this year.” You should be focusing on the quidditch part, it was something you were working so hard for, but you can’t stop your mind from trailing off to her. Is she only here because she feels bad? Or is there more to it? You hope it's more. You’re not sure when these feelings came to fruition, but they’re there now and you’re worried about getting your hopes up because it means risking yourself getting let down.

“I think she likes you,” you take a minute to process the werewolves' words, glancing between the blonde’s head and her hand.

“You think so?” you say with a hopeful smile.

“I think she’s liked you since first year and you’re just too oblivious to realize it,” you look up with him, your confused face causing a slight chuckle to leave his lips, “I’m observant, you know that but it's not that difficult to see how in love you two are, even though you act like you hate each other. I think she knows what she feels,” you both glanced at the girl, “and I think you just figured out what you feel.”

You smile at his words. “I think you’re right,” you admit, too tired to be stubborn and reject what your heart says is a fact.

“Just wait till January to tell everyone please, I have a bet going with the boys and- “ Suddenly the door to the infirmary opens, Remus goes quiet with confusion and Marlen begins to stir from the noise. She’s really waking up this time, you immediately close your eyes, unsure of what else to do or even say to her. You can feel her eyes on your face, her hand holding yours. “Good morning sleepyhead,” remarked Remus. You curse out his name in your head as you feel Marlene’s hand immediately rip out of yours. All you want to do is look at her face, read her mind. Was she embarrassed? Ashamed? Your mind went to the worst.

“How’s the girlfriend?” marked a new voice, Sirius. Of course. Who else would come to the infirmary this late other than Sirius to check up on Remus?

“She’s not my girlfriend.” remarked Marlene, her tone sending a brief stab of pain through your own heart, “I don’t even like her,” another stab.

“Yea, okay, and Moonys not my werewolf boyfriend.” You would’ve laughed, hearing the noises of Remus hitting Sirius in response to his words, but your mind was stuck on the words of the girl who was still standing close enough for you to feel the heat radiating off her body.

“I don’t like her,” she said, her words laced with annoyance and anger, “In fact, I hate her. We’re literally enemies.”

“Then why are you here then?” Remus rebutted, he probably meant to be helpful, but the words she spoke next only made your heart ache more.

“Because I’m not a monster! I hit her with the bludger and I felt bad. That’s it. Nothing else.” you were almost thankful when you started to hear her moving around, collecting her stuff, tears were threatening to spill out of your eyes and you didn’t want her to see. “I’m tired so I’m going, goodbye.” And with that you waited, listening to the sounds of her footsteps, getting quieter with each moment. You listened to the opening and closing of the infirmary door and only dared to open your eyes again once you could no longer hear the clicking of her shoes down the hallway.

“You okay?” Remus spoke first, witnessing the silent tears now streaming down your face. You wish you stayed asleep. You wish you never looked at her. Never let yourself feel something you knew she wouldn’t reciprocate. You curse yourself for believing Remus’ hopeful words.

“Fine,” you spoke quietly before turning to your side, the back facing the two boys who get to share the kind of romance you find yourself only able to dream about.

“M’Sorry,” you heard Remus whisper, before the weight of your head and your heart lulled you into a dreamless sleep.

· · · ∞ · · ·

You woke up to Madam Pomfrey's voice urging you awake. Her soft voice reminded you of your mother and made you want to curl up into her arms and cry, Marlene's words last night still resting their weight on your chest. “How are you this morning, love?” she asks, placing a plate of food on the bedside table, you're thankful that she doesn't mention the tear stains that probably made their home on your cheeks last night.

“M’fine,” you mumble, “better.”

“Good, good,” she smiles, handing you a glass of water that you didn’t realize how much you needed until the whole glass was gone in a minute and Madam Pomfrey had to fetch you a new one. “Took a big hit yesterday, that Miss McKinnon has a good arm.” You hum in agreeance, an attempt to not be rude to the elder in front of you, but hearing her name still hurts, the wound of her words still leaving scars on your heart that haven’t even begun to scab. “Speaking of the devil,” the nurse spoke, your head raising up to see Marlene's figure entering the curtain that surrounded your bed. Her hair looked so soft, messier than you usually see it, but you liked it. You couldn’t stop your eyes from travelling down her face, taking in her beauty while she was awake. Bags plagued her beautiful brown eyes, she didn't sleep much last night. Your gaze moved to her lips, the same lips that unknowingly cut scars along your heart mere hours ago. Memories from the night before that you had allowed yourself to forget for a moment returned as fast as they left, returning the heartache that accompanies them. Suddenly, you found the hem of your shirt more interesting, keeping your gaze and your hands on that. “I’ll leave you two alone,” spoke Madam Pomfrey, ignoring the tension-filled silence that laid in the air, “I’d like to keep you here for a little while longer but you should be discharged by dinner,” and with that she left the two of you alone, your breaking heart not even strong enough to look at her.

“Hey,” she spoke first, breaking the silence, but not moving from her spot where she stood at the end of your bed. “Sorry I hit you with a bludger,” she tried to joke, but the tension was too thick that it was just awkward.

“Why are you here?” you ask, a sudden surge of bravery coming from the anger that stems from your sadness.

“Wh-What?”

“Why are you here?” “Because I feel bad? Because I'm not a total bitch and I care about you?” she remarks.

“Why do you care?” your voice grows louder, angrier than you want it, but you’re too stubborn to stop speaking now. “I can’t play anymore, you got the spot on the team, didn’t you? “I mean you said it yourself we’re enemies, right? You hate me?” you continue, repeating her words from last night. “So isn’t this what you wanted? You won. You beat me. Congratulations.”

“So you were eavesdropping?” she asks, her tone attempting to stay angry, but her eyes revealing that look you’re slowly seeing more and more often.

“It’s not eavesdropping if I’m lying right there.”

“Merlin, y/n, I don’t hate you!”

“Liar.”

“You’re so stubborn,” she yells, getting closer to your face.

“If you don’t hate me then why would you say it?” You sat up, both your voices were raising, anger surging through the air.

“Because I don’t hate you! I love you,” she yelled, and then everything went quiet. She loves me? Only now did you realize how close your faces were. Her lips were inches from yours, your ragged breaths intermingled with one another, both of you already exhausted from your previous argument. You looked up from her lips to her eyes, just to find them already staring into yours.

“You what?” you whispered so low that only she could hear it.

“ I-” her eyes were filled with fear. Fear that her feelings won’t be reciprocated. Fear to express the vulnerable emotion that has plagued her heart for how long? You don’t know. So you move forward and capture her lips in yours.

After the initial surprise, Marlene began to kiss you back, her hands finding the back of your neck and your head while yours found her hips. You broke apart too soon for your liking and she rested her forehead on yours. One of your hands moved to tuck a strand of her hair behind her ear before speaking. “I love you too.” You watched as her eyes lit up with joy and you couldn’t help but smile. “I get a point on the leaderboard for admitting it first,” she chuckled.

“Mmhm,” you hummed in agreeance leaning forward again so your lips brushed against hers as you spoke, “but I get one for kissing you first.”

“Dammit,” she whispered, before leaning in for another kiss.

· · · ∞ · · ·

“So Gryffindor Beater, huh?” you asked Marlene. The two of you laid together in the infirmary bed, her back pressed up against half of your chest, your arm hanging around her shoulder twirling and untwirling her hair with your one hand while both her hands played with the fingers of your other.

“Yea, James said it’s mine if I want it, but I don’t need to take it if you don’t want me to.”

“No, merlin no,” you said quickly, “I know how much you want that spot, I barely even wanted it. Was only doing it because with my family I felt like I had to.”

“Really?” She looked up at you hopefully, “you don't mind.”

“Nope.” “Promise?”

“Promise.” She gave her a peck on the lips before turning her head around again. “Plus, you’re going to look so hot in that uniform, I feel like I’ll be the real winner in this situation.” Your words earn a loud laugh from the girl in your arms and you feel like you're on cloud 9. You place a quick kiss on her temple and want nothing more than to be the one to make her laugh for the rest of your lives. Lives that you hopefully get to spend together.

Meanwhile…

“Told you so,” he whispered.

“I should’ve kept my mouth shut,” the second boy groaned, placing coins into the other boy's outstretched hand.

“Yea, but look how cute they are, Moony the Matchmaker.”

“Oh shut up Padfoot,” he groaned, “I’m hungry, let's go to dinner.” “Whatever you say handsome,” barked the boy before looping arms with his lover and walking away from the two girls in the infirmary who looked utterly and completely infatuated with one another.

[yodawgiherd]

End of an Era

It was fun while it lasted guys :)

>>>Read on AO3<<<

And one night, without any warning, the last piece of the puzzle came. The dream told her everything, ran over the entirety of her life, and when the old and wrinkled soldier Mikasa closed her eyes for the last time, she woke up with unshed tears brimming in the corners.

Next to her, the devil she decapitated slept peacefully, with no marks or scars under his eyes. She didn’t want to wake him yet, as there was another person Mikasa needed to talk to right now, so getting out of the bed carefully she located her phone.

“M-Mikasa?”, a yawn, “It’s four in the morning, why are you calling me?”

“I’m sorry Armin, I have to ask you something.”, Mikasa whispered, keeping her voice low not to wake Eren, “please…”

“Sure, just…” another yawn, this time even longer, “Give me a second so I can collect my brain from the dreamland.”

Mikasa could hear the phone being put down and then the rustling of bedding on the other side as Armin was most likely stretching and fully waking up. She waited patiently until he picked the device up again, speaking in a much clearer voice.

“Ok, I guess I’m functional now. What’s up?”

“In the book you are writing, does the main pairing gets a happy ending? Do they get together?”

“I… Uh… Is that why you woke me?”

“Armin, please. It’s important to me.”

In truth, the blond had no idea why Mikasa was suddenly so interested in the ending of his story. Sure, she read it during development and said that it was good, but there’s a difference between that and calling at four AM to grill him about the ending she didn’t get to see yet because Armin finished it about a week ago. Then again, her voice was completely serious and while Mikasa did like some fun pranks from time to time, this didn’t sound like one at all. So, following her wish, Armin gave her an honest answer.

“No, they don’t. The girl is forced to kill her love interest to save the world from him, but it's sort of bittersweet because their friends get to live a happy life after.”

There was a gasp on the other side as if he confirmed some of Mikasa’s suspicions.

“Why?”

“Well, people like angst, and giving everyone a happy ending is a bit of a cliché, no? I mean…”

“Why her though, wasn’t she the heroine?”

“Yes, but she can move on in time you know, forget about him and whatnot.”

There was a bit of silence on the other side before Mikasa spoke again, this time in a small and sad voice.

“Could you change it? Please, for me.”

“How?”

“Just make her happy…”

Running a hand through his sleep-tussled hair Armin puffed out air, turning the possibilities in his head. It wouldn’t be that hard to make Mikasa’s wish come true. He had a lot of supernatural going on in his book, monsters, and gods, a simple resurrection wouldn’t break the story. Plus it was rare to hear Mikasa beg like this, she was usually the “cool and stoic” type, and it tugged at Armin’s heart.

Hell, why not.

“All right, I’ll do it somehow.”

“You will?!”

“Yeah, but you’ll owe me one.”

There was happy and relieved laughter on the other side.

“Of course, I’ll do anything Ar, thank you so much!”

With a click, the call ended and Mikasa let out a long breath, rubbing the unshed tears from her eyes. It would seem that Armin wasn’t writing a story, more like remembering it, but unlike the one that happened this one would get a different ending.

Mikasa told Eren everything over breakfast, hugging a warm cup of coffee with both hands. He didn’t say anything while she spoke, just listened, his green eyes taking all of her in, both words and gestures. Only when she finished did he let out a long breath, one that felt like he was holding in for an eternity.

“This is a lot to take in.”, he said, “Especially at once.”

“I know…, you don’t have to believe me but…”

“I believe you. Every word.”

“Just like that?”

A firm nod.

“You believe it, and I see no reason why I should not. Past lives and other-universe memories can exist, it's not like the entire human psyche has been mapped.”

He looked away for a second.

“The Eren you described, he is so different than me, yet so terrifyingly similar in some aspects. I can sit here and say that I would never cause the apocalypse but in his place…? I just can’t know for sure.”

“I guess we are lucky that we don’t have to find out.”, Mikasa offered, “This life is so much better than whatever they went through...”

“For sure.”

“And that’s not all.”

“What do you mean?”

“I… I think I married someone… Jean maybe? Had kids with him too.”

“Oh my god.”, Eren threw an arm over his face dramatically, “Out of all people, why him?”

“I… I don’t know if it was him but….”

“Please Miki, I get that I died, and you wanted to move on, but didn’t your past life have any taste ?”

“Hey! Jean is nice.”

He peeked at her from under his arm.

“Nice huh?”

“Yea, nice. You know what, if you die I’m going to marry him here too.”

The fingers that were till now peacefully resting on her hip curved and dug into her flesh, a dangerous flash in the emerald that stared at her.

“You’re just trying to rile me, is that it?”

She fought the grin, not wanting it to reveal the joke.

“Maybe…”

However, Eren’s grip weakened as his face grew distant, the classic “philosophical” look entering his features.

“Would that be fair to him though? Jean is… okay I guess, and you treating him like an afterthought, a second choice? Not nice.”

Mikasa’s smile faltered when she realized that, and Eren was not even done with his speech.

“Then again, if I’ll be dead then I guess I have no agenda in telling you what to do. Plus I think I’d be happier if you moved on and had a family instead of mourning me forever. You are too young for that.”

These words hit way too close to Mikasa’s dream, and she could feel the sadness rising in the chest again. To battle it, she took hold of Eren’s chin and tugged it down until their lips were touching.

“Hey, not more talk about death, okay?”, she ordered, “I had enough of that while sleeping.”

“Yes ma’am.”

When she kissed him, Mikasa’s sadness melted away again, chased away by Eren’s warmth against her. Maybe her other self had to settle for something else, but not her. She was here and she had the love of her life right in her arms, in her bed, and she couldn’t be happier about it.

Eren mulled the facts over for a time, putting them together in his head. It was a nice day outside, and while he did all the math Mikasa simply watched him with a faint smile on her lips. It was almost noon when he came to her with a new question.

“So let me get this straight – I didn’t achieve anything In the end? My island was still nuked and the monsters…”

“Titans.”, Mikasa corrected him.

“Right, titans. Those are still around? Man, I guess I was turned into a clown at the end.”

She didn’t know how to disagree with any of those points.

“And the point of it all was nothing? That no matter how hard you struggle to save something you hold dear it will end up destroyed anyway?”

“It does sound hopeless when you put it like that.”

He snorted.

“Guess I was a certified clown then – oh well, now you see what zero pussy does to a motherfuc…”

“No, no, oh my god.”, Mikasa interrupted him, “Why do you keep making fun of it, I swear you are such a kid and…”

“W-What?”, Eren had trouble speaking because of the laughter, “It’s true! I died for nothing in your dream, I was a joke.”

“No… It wasn’t like that.”

“Take it as you will, but all my nightmares became reality and…”

Eren tapped the table a few times, most likely trying to wrap his head around it all.

“…you married Jean.”

“Well… yea, that was a bit weird.”

“Was it? I mean, the guy had a crush on you.”

She blinked at him.

“It was just a tiny one if there even was one at all.”

“Oh c’mon Miki,”, Eren’s grin was wide, “You couldn’t be that dense.”

“I-I mean…”

Jean? A crush? It reminded her of that night, not that long ago when she found out that most if not all of her female friends would like to have some sort of intimate experiments with her.

“Doesn’t matter.”, she blurted, “He’s a good friend, and I like him a lot, but not romantically!”

“He will be heartbroken…”

“He will?”

“Nah,”, Eren chuckled, “Jean got over it, he and Hitch are happy together, as far as I know.”

“That’s good, a crush is hardly a good base for a real-life relationship.”

“Then I guess we can be happy that you guys married in a dream only.”

“Indeed.”, she reached over the table to gently touch his face, “Here I have you.”

Eren mirrored her gesture, letting his thumb stroke the scar on Mikasa’s cheek.

“And I have you.”

“Forever.”

“Sadly.”

“What was that?”

“Oh nothing baby…”, a devilish grin, “Yes, forever.”

With her dreams done and finished it was time to return to civilization, to leave the cabin life behind. Eren told her that he got this, very courteously, most likely still worried about her mental state.

“Just take it easy,”, he said, kissing the top of her head, “I’ll pack.”

He did as he said, fighting with the baggage to the best of his ability. Mikasa was left to wander around aimlessly, and for whatever reason her steps took her to the big tree sitting there, overlooking a vast plain of grass. Taking a deep breath of the fresh air she leaned on the tree, but then her eyes caught sight of something that almost made her jump out of her skin.

There was a ghost sitting there, a ghost of her, dressed in a simple skirt and shirt, the scarf still around her neck. The apparition was about the same age Mikasa was, maybe a bit younger, but they looked almost the same. Her hair wasn’t short, it was long and pulled into a ponytail and there was no red highlight decorating it. The ghost looked up, her eyes meeting Mikasa’s, and a faint smile crossed her lips.

It was her perfect copy, down to the scar on the cheek - albeit the ghost’s was even more faded than hers, long years washing over it. She must have gotten her cut as a teenager. And there was also something about the eyes – it would be a lie to say that Mikasa had an easy life, but what she saw in the ghost’s eyes was something different altogether. The sitting girl saw hell and more, and it showed in her face.

“You are me.”, Mikasa finally pushed out.

The ghost looked at her curiously, tilting her head to the side.

“You… you can’t speak, can you?”

The ghost shook her head.

“I wonder why….”

The sitting girl shrugged, not understanding this any more than Mikasa did. She was just about to question her further when something else caught her attention. The ghost wasn’t sitting there on her own, there was something next to her – a tombstone with a very familiar name written on it.

Eren Yeager

Mikasa already had a suspicion, but this confirmed it – the sitting girl was the other Mikasa, the one she had dreams about, her past life. Following her eyes the ghost saw what she was looking at, her smile replaced by a look of deep longing. Gently, she caressed the stone, her eyes shining with tears.

“So the dreams were right, huh? You had to kill him.”

The ghost nodded solemnly.

“You saved the world, everyone, but you had to give the love of your life up.”

The apparition didn’t react, eyes trained at the cold tombstone.

“They say that if you love something, you should let it go.”, she told the ghost, “But I can’t do that….”

Looking over her shoulder at the man she loved so much, Mikasa let the words spill freely.

“I guess I’m selfish but I don’t want to lose this love we have, no matter what kind of symbolism it is. I want to wake up next to him every morning and spend ten minutes getting out of his hands because he holds me so tightly when we sleep. I want to see him yawn and wish him good morning and share a cup of coffee. I want him to be there for me when I come back so we can talk about our days and cuddle on the couch together…”

Her hands intertwined on the abdomen, gently stroking the fabric of her shirt.

“I want to have children with him, family, kids that will combine my and his looks and attitude. Is that selfish? Is that too much to ask? Is that…”

Lost in her speech Mikasa stumbled over the words and fell silent, letting out a short laugh after.

“I’m selfish and I don’t care. I’m never letting go simply because I don’t want to and damn everyone who disagrees with me. I deserve this, I deserve to be loved.”

As soon as those words left Mikasa’s lips she realized how insensitive those were towards her other self, the poor girl who, for all her bravery, for the act of saving the world itself – got nothing.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to make you feel bad.”, she apologized to the sitting copy of herself, “I know that you never got to experience any of that with him.”

The ghost’s face fell and she buried her face to the scarf, eyes moving towards the headstone next to her. Seeing the longing written in her features, Mikasa couldn’t help but wonder.

“Did you… did you learn to let him go? Did you come to terms with his death?”

The pain in the girl’s eyes was all the answer Mikasa needed. It resonated within her, the suffering because she could imagine how it would feel. Maybe it was because she experienced it in her past life, maybe it was because of all these strange visions but she could do it and the pain and emptiness were terrible.

“This is not fair,”, she blurted, “You did everything you could, you saved the world and this was your reward? You’ve sacrificed… everything… and….”

She was crying now, Mikasa realized, her tears matching the ghost’s. Falling to her knees next to the girl she tried embracing her only to realize that she can’t touch a figment of her imagination.

“I’m so sorry for how the universe treated you, you deserved more, so, so much more….

More flashes- this time of a child, a faceless husband, grandkids too.

“This, all that… Did it make you happy?”

The ghost girl gave her a small enigmatic smile, and Mikasa realized one thing. It wasn’t for her to know – maybe she was happy with the other family, maybe she wasn’t, that would remain an enigma.

“But still, you kept visiting his grave,”, Mikasa’s eyes moved over to the headstone and the flowers there, “You never let his memory fade.”

A nod from the other girl.

“Still, it wasn’t fair to you. You could have been, no, should have been so much more…”, this time the raven’s eyes moved to where her Eren was, “You deserved to have a happy future with him too.”

“Yet you didn’t, and I did – you got the pain and I have the rewards you fought for. I swear, I will not let it go to waste.”

Standing up, she offered her hand to the ghost.

“Please, come with me, experience all that you bled for, struggled for so much. Let me show you how the love you wanted feels in full bloom.”

But the girl didn’t move, simply looking at her. And that was when Mikasa realized….

“… you don’t have to come with me because you are already here. You are me, I am you, we are the same person.”

It was strange, realizing that this was her- this old, tired soldier, a woman broken by a war Mikasa couldn’t even comprehend. A tragic hero who sacrificed her greatest love for the greater good, being left with nothing but a memory. A girl who was thrust into a cruel world and treated unfairly, no matter how hard she tried to change it, to save those she held dear. Tears in the corners of her eyes, Mikasa clenched her fists.

Not anymore.

Now there was no war, no titans, no apocalypse over their heads. Eren wouldn’t go to commit a global genocide to save his country, only to have it destroyed anyway. She wouldn’t marry another man and have children with him, bring her family to his grave, and plant flowers with pain in her heart. No.

Mikasa wasn’t a soldier anymore – she was an MMA fighter, a professional athlete, a model. Her life wasn’t filled with a constant struggle for survival. It was dreamy- filled with everything she could wish for, whatever it was spending her time with friends, goofing around with Eren, or training her pole dancing. She didn’t care for horses or sharpen her blades.

Eren wasn’t a hopeless maniac, driven to war by the sheer necessity of survival – he was a doctor, a surgeon, helping people in need not killing them.

Most importantly they were together – an engaged couple that loved each other so much that they couldn’t put it into words correctly. No tragedy would befall them.

Keeping her hand outstretched, Mikasa talked to the ghost again.

“We are one, but I am the lucky part of us, of me. I am love, I am the nights and lazy mornings spent in bed, I am all the kisses and hugs. You are my sadness, my sacrifice, my longing and pain, my unfulfilled and tragic fate.”

She stretched her fingers closer to the girl.

“Please, take my hand and experience it all with me, learn that there is beauty in this cruel world.”

Not hesitant anymore, the ghost held her hand towards Mikasa.

When their fingers made contact a chill ran down her spine and she gasped, blinking several times. The girl was gone, so was the grave, only the tree remained and gently swayed in the wind. And in her heart, in her soul, Mikasa felt different – different yet same because now she knew everything and the pain in her heart resonated.

It would always be a part of her, or rather it always was, but Mikasa wasn’t feeling down because of it. Now she knew that she had to feel everything, every touch and happy emotion that she experienced with him because it was what her past died for. If anything the full realization of her suffering made Mikasa appreciate it even more – she was living this life not only now but for the past too.

He was her Eren, she was his Mikasa, and in this world, nothing would tear them apart. And the tears the began to appear in her eyes did nothing to deny that fact.

“Miki? Why are you crying, what’s wrong?”

Refusing to answer Mikasa crossed the distance and hugged him, burying her face into Eren’s chest. Understanding that she didn’t want words now he stroked her back patiently, waiting for her to come back to him.

“Eren, you won’t ever leave me, will you?”

“Never.”

“I mean, I couldn’t do it even if wanted to.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t think I love you anymore, it’s more like fascination, adoration maybe.”

“…Eren…”

“Hell, I’d do anything to stay with you, you want me to bark for you? Cause I will..”

Despite her sad mood, Mikasa felt the smile tugging at the corners of her lips.

“Stop, come on.”

Ignoring that, he pressed his face into her hair, a quiet bark leaving his lips.

“Woof.”, he nuzzled her gently, “There, I did it.”

She giggled at that and Eren smirked, glad that he made her smile because that was his mission in life – making the beautiful angel he was, for some reason blessed by, happy.

It made her reflect on the whole story, now that she had it whole. Eren kept silent while Mikasa was deep in thought, his fingers gently stroking her hipbone in small soothing circles. In her mind, she recalled as much as she could, brought it together and….

Mikasa took a shuddering breath.

“It makes no god damn sense.”

“What doesn’t?”

“The whole story, It… it doesn’t add up at all. You dying for nothing, me moving on so quickly I… The whole world….”

She was pouting now, that adorable expression that made Eren want to kiss it right off of her face, but he held himself back. Mikasa was talking.

“It had such a nice build-up, but in the end, it collapsed completely. I don’t understand why….”

“Well, that is the thing with dreams.”, he mumbled next to her, “They often don’t make much sense once we wake up.”

“But still..”

“Mikiiiiiiiiii…”, unable to resist her cuteness anymore, he pressed a string of soft kisses all over her face, turning that pout into a breathless giggle, “Stop overthinking dreams so much.”

Grabbing her hand he intertwined their fingers, raising it so the sun slid over their skin. It highlighted the contrast between them, how his tanned shade complimented her pale one, just as perfectly as they completed one another in life.

“This. This is important.”, he said, “This is real. You may be a broken titan slayer in your dreams, but here you are… well, still a titan slayer but one that is happy… I think.”

His voice got even deeper when he directed his question right at her.

“Are you happy with me?”

Mikasa was nodding her head before she even realized what was happening.

“Yes. Gods yes, I couldn’t be happier.”

“See?”, the flash of white teeth revealed his grin, “Then focus on that. Here, in this world, I’m not going anywhere, and I’ll stay with you as long as you’ll have me.”

“That might be a very long time Yeager, are you sure that you want to do that to yourself?”

“As if I had a choice.”, his fingers danced over her hip, “You bound me to yourself with black magic, remember?”

“Good to see that you remember that. My Dark Knight.”

The kiss Eren gave her was interlaced with a smile, and it was one of the sweetest Mikasa ever got in her life. He was right, after all, her dreams, past self, it was a tragedy that befell her, but it was so jumbled at the end that she had a hard time taking it seriously. The “ending” of her past didn’t make sense, no matter how much she tried to see the point of it. It all looked like such a tragedy, but in the end…. was it maybe a comedy? A twisted image where all the sacrifice and pain they went through amounted to nothing? Where several characters were made to be worthless, and their struggle amounted to nothing? A parody of a terrible conflict that couldn’t be solved by anything else by an annihilation?

But... why dwell on it?

She had this- this life, this Eren, and this happiness that they built together, and she loved every second of it.

And there was nothing else that the past could show her anymore.

“Let’s get out of here.”

“You sure? Didn’t forget anything?”

Mikasa looked at the tree where the conversation with the ghost took place, smiling. Tightening her hold on Eren’s hand, she felt more content than ever before, finally having an explanation and ending for her nightmares. It all made sense, and she would live her life to the fullest with the love of her life – not only for herself but for the other Mikasa too. She deserved to experience it, every second of it. After all, they were one and the same.

“Yes. I have all I need right here with me.”

[axoxtxhxh]

First Date with the Vets - Hange

Big shoutout to @chaotic-nick​ for making this lovely banner for me!

Overall Summary: I had this idea to do a first date with the vets and what it would be like. I am including Erwin, Levi, Miche, and Hange in this list. Each date will be different, but all of them will be set in modern au.

Check out Miche’s story here, Erwin’s story here, Levi’s story here

Pairing: Hange x Masc!Reader

Content: All fluff

Word Count: ~ 5,300

Summary: Reader is getting ready to close up his shop for the night and start his Friday night when just before it’s time to close, a familiar face walks in the shop. Will this change his plans for the night?

A/N: Here I am again, writing for a masculine reader. I hope I did okay :) I am also still trying to get better at writing Hange and because of that, I may make mistakes with they/them pronouns and other non-gender specific things. Please let me know how I can fix it if I’ve made a mistake. Thank you!

Also, I wasn’t planning to post this today, but you know what? I don’t care. Happy Pride Month! 🏳️‍🌈

The clock on the wall continued to tick as slowly as it had been the last hour, each time you checked it, you swore it slowed down even more. You nibbled on your thumb nail again, tapping your fingers on the counter as you looked out the front window. It was one of those nights that felt cold, rainy and wet. The ground was wet, but it wasn’t actually raining. There were no umbrellas necessary, but you could still feel that rainy day mood.

The weather meant most people were either inside or at a café, trying to pull as much of the cozy feeling that they could. Not the best night to be at a bookstore. Especially an old bookstore without a café. You definitely mentioned this to your boss, but no such luck. It would have been a nice addition.

Normally Friday nights were quite busy and normally you loved being there. This Friday was a bit different. For once you had plans to go out and these were plans you were actually looking forward to.

Your friend had called you up last week saying she had tickets to an art show just down the street from where you work. It’s not that you were a huge fan of art, but you really liked the idea of being able to be out without having to get looks from people because you were alone.

It was the whole reason you loved living in the city. There were so many things you were able to do by yourself, but still have people around you. The was basically a dream for you being an introvert. Plus, it’s not that there was an issue finding someone to hang out with, you just preferred doing things alone. At least, you had yet to find someone you were interested in spending time with.

You checked the clock again. Twenty minutes left. You sighed and brought your thumbnail to your mouth again. It looked like the rain was actually picking up. More umbrellas were popping open and you watched the droplets of water roll down the front window. The rain wasn’t going to slow you down though. If anything, it meant there might be less people interested in an art showing and you could have the place to yourself.

You continued watching the rain droplets rolling down the window, periodically checking the time, until you recognized a familiar Starry Night umbrella. The walk of the person holding the umbrella was even more familiar.

It was maybe four months ago that Hange Zoe first walked into the bookstore. You were working that day, standing in the exact same spot. They had never come in the bookstore before, you were very sure of that because had they come in, you would have remembered them. Still, the second they stepped foot inside, it was as if they knew the place, as if it were their bookstore and not your boss’s.

At the time, you didn’t realize that anytime Hange came in, they would be searching for the most random and hard-to-find book in existence, but after about a month of that happening, you quickly realized that when they walked in, you would be having to place an order for them. You were pretty sure that’s what brought them into your bookstore in the first place since you ran a specialty bookstore. Still, Hange found a way to get you searching for books you had never even heard of.

The first book they wanted was a very old and very specific ethics textbook. You had no idea what they needed that for, but you knew you didn’t carry it in the store. They waited by the spinning display of sunglasses while you filled out the form. Yes, your boss decided to sell cheap sunglasses in the front as well as those keychain nametags, but couldn’t find a reason to open a café.

Your eyes kept taking glances at Hange while they tried on the most ridiculous glasses meant for the children that came in. You laughed to yourself as you finished filling out the form and called your boss over to sign the order form.

“What is it?” He asked, carrying a stack of books that you knew he was going to have you stocking later on.

“She’s looking for this book.” You pointed to the order form.

“It’s actually ‘they’.” Hange spoke so nonchalantly that you weren’t actually sure if they were speaking to you or to themselves in the star sunglasses they’d put on.

“Pardon?”

“I use they/them pronouns.” Hange gave a wide grin, peaking around the spinning display.

“Oh, I’m sorry.” You had hoped your face wasn’t showing how uncomfortable you were feeling. You hated making mistakes like that. You hoped that they weren’t annoyed with you for that mistake. Based on the smile they had on their face, they weren’t bothered at all.

“No problem.” Hange was still smiling and there was something so contagious about the way they smiled. Something about the open-mouthed grin that made it seem like they were constantly half a step away from giggling that always got you to smile back.

“They are looking for this book.” You looked back down at the order form, still smiling. “I need your signature to order it.”

Your boss took the form and signed it, handing it back to you and you couldn’t help but stand there watching Hange trying on another ridiculous pair of sunglasses. This time, it was a Halloween themed pair with one square lens and one circle. It really was the stupidest addition to the bookstore, but that day was the first time you were happy that it was there. You laughed to yourself as you watched them try to realign the glasses in a spot they didn’t fit in.

“Mx. Zoe.” Hange looked up and skipped over to you.

“I will place the order today and for most books, they come in after a couple days, but since yours is quite specific, it may take a week or two.” You explained everything to them and gave them their receipt. “Please make sure you bring your receipt in when you come to pick it up.”

You watched their attention move from you to the receipt to the card on the table. They slowly reached up and picked up the card, reading the text and flipping it over.

“You guys repair old books?” Their eyes moved up to you and you nodded.

“It’s another one of our specialties.”

“I have a couple old books I’ve been scared to read because of how fragile they were when I bought them.” They put the card in their bag.

“There are some limits to what we’re able to fix, but if you bring them in, I can take a look.” You smiled widely, hoping to see them smile once more before they left.

“I’ll see you tomorrow then.” They flashed a wide smile and that time you actually did laugh. A laugh which you covered up with a cough and scratched your head, pretending to tend to something on your computer. You watched Hange walk out and realized you had something to look forward to.

The next day Hange came in with a crate of books. You smiled at the cuteness of the little huff they gave after setting the books on the counter in front of you. Your smile quickly dropped as you saw the books they had.

“Where did you get these?” Your eyes were wide. Most were books that you would never be able to get your hands on, order form or not.

“Lots of different places,” they explained as you reached your hands in to pull out the first book.

“Do you collect these?” You couldn’t take your eyes away from the books. They were in pretty bad shape, but the fact that they owned these was amazing.

“Some of them are books I’ve been wanting to read. Others I’ve read online and really wanted to own the original.” You could feel the smile on their face, but found it so hard to look away from the original binding.

“These are amazing.” You smiled, finally looking at them. They were just as excited as you and their smile widened even further.

“This one’s my favorite.” Hange reached in the crate and pulled out a severely crumbling textbook. “Vicki is in back shape.”

“You named your book Vicki?”

“It’s a Victorian era medical textbook detailing surgery of the time. What would you name it?” Hange explained.

“I wasn’t questioning the name choice, but the fact that you—never mind.” You chuckled to yourself. “Vicki is a great name.”

“Thanks, Fuzzy.”

“Fuzzy?” “Your beard. It looks like it’s coming in nicely.”

“Thanks.” You rubbed your two-day old stubble, a little embarrassed that someone noticed you forgot to shave and a lot embarrassed that Hange seemed to like it. Maybe embarrassed was the wrong word. Hange never lingered though and just after complimenting you, they moved on to the next thing that caught their attention. In this case it was the receipt you handed them and they started signing.

“I imagine this will take some time to get through.”

“For this amount, it will probably take at least two weeks,” you started, “We are closed on Mondays which is when we get the book repairs done.”

“Like a vets office.” Hange smiled and gave you the signed receipt. “Spaying and neutering on Wednesdays.”

“Like a vets office.” You nodded, laughing to yourself at the connections they always made.

“I’ll see you around, Fuzzy.” They waved good-bye and walked out.

From that day, you always looked forward to any exchange you were able to have with Hange. It was always a good day when they came into the shop and each time they came in, they would stay longer and longer chatting with you about new books that came into the store or new books that they acquired. You often wondered what their apartment looked like considering how many books they talked about.

Seeing their smile as they walked into the bookstore on that rainy Friday night made you really happy that there was still twenty minutes before closing. Hange stepped inside and shook the extra water off their umbrella before bringing it inside. They threw the hood of their raincoat back and smiled.

“Heya, Fuzzy.”

“Hey, Hange. You here to check the status of that book you ordered?” You leaned over the counter and smiled at them.

“That, I am.” They took off their raincoat and you watched them fail at hanging it up a couple times before finally getting it to stay on the coat rack. “Please tell me you have some good news for me.”

“I do have some good news.” You watched their face light up in a huge smile. “It’s not about your book though. Apparently, it’s not supposed to rain all weekend.”

“I see what you did there.” They pointed their first finger at you and narrowed their eyes, quickly breaking it with a laugh. “Good thing I don’t get disappointed easily.”

“One of my favorite things about you.” Hange’s excitement for books always seemed to remind you of your own.

“Got anything good coming in?” They hopped up to sit on the counter next to where you were leaning, something the boss hated them doing. Hange always did it anyway and you found it incredibly endearing.

“Not this week.” You stood up straight, turning yourself to lean against the counter. “Most if it is stuff you already have.”

“Aw shucks.” They took the inventory chart from you to take a look. Another thing the boss didn’t like, but you found adorable. You watched the way their glasses slipped down their nose as they scanned over the list. “Not bad. You guys are actually starting to become a specialty store.”

You laughed loudly at their comment. Since the beginning, Hange was always criticizing the lack of textbooks that were offered in the store. Your boss liked to focus on rare fiction, but Hange loved non-fiction more than anything. Textbooks on ethics, medicine, dinosaurs, you name it. It was always the first complaint out of their mouth when they checked the inventory.

“I don’t think anyone’s collection will come close to yours.” You watched as Hange smiled shyly. It didn’t take you long to realize that no matter how much you tried to compliment how they looked, they never noticed it as a compliment. That is until one day you commended their commitment to building a library in their spare bedroom and the blush that reached their cheeks that day was on your mind for weeks. You always tried to find ways to flatter them through their achievements after that.

“Such is the life of a crazy professor.” They lifted their hands, palms up, in an expressive display and you laughed. “Any plans tonight?”

“I have this art show I got invited to.” You shrugged it off, not sure if Hange liked art so you didn’t want to seem too interested. “I uh… I’ve never really been into art, but this one seemed good.”

“That sounds like fun.” You watched them kick their feet lightly forward and there was a small voice in your head that told you to invite them to the show. You didn’t want them to feel obligated, but this was a chance to bring your work friendship to possibly something more. For all Hange knew, you lived in this bookstore.

You both heard a noise outside and watched as a little kid tripped on the sidewalk. His mom picked him up and kept walking.

“I hope he’s okay,” Hange whispered. You were pretty sure your window to ask them to the art show closed. It would be weird if you asked them about it now. You sighed.

“What about your plans?”

“Just going home. Maybe watch a documentary.” They’re just going home. Dang it. It would have been perfect for you to ask them. You tried not to beat yourself up over it and instead enjoy the short time you got with them before you would have to leave.

You were both laughing and joking as you normally did when they walked into the shop that you completely forgot to keep track of the time. You caught a glimpse of their watch and saw that the bookstore should have closed thirty minutes ago.

“Oh!” You jumped up. “I have to close up.”

“Oh man, sorry.” Hange jumped off the counter. “Here I am, just talking away.”

You moved to the back counter and flicked off all the lights and shut down the computer systems. Hange moved up front and you met them by the door as they put their raincoat back on and opened their umbrella. You locked up and turned to them.

“Well, enjoy your art showing, Fuzzy.”

“Thanks.” You smiled, not feeling as excited to go now that you didn’t ask Hange to join. “Enjoy your documentary.”

They nodded and turned around and you watched them walk through the crowd of people. You were going to turn around and start walking to the showing, but you couldn’t get yourself to move. You should have asked them. What a wasted opportunity. You sighed again before your feet started moving forward, not in the direction of the showing, but in the direction of Hange. When you realized what you were doing, you started running.

“Hange!” You called after them and ran even faster to catch up. They turned around at their name and looked at you, confusion crossing their face. “Do you… maybe want to come with me? I’m pretty sure I can bring a guest.”

The realization that you just asked them to hang out with you outside of your bookstore hit you quickly and your cheeks started heating up, your hand instinctively moving to the back of your head and you laughed at yourself. A smile also grew on Hange’s lips.

“I think I’d like to.” They nodded, putting their arm out for you. You closed your umbrella and took their arm with one hand and held their umbrella with the other. You reached for your phone to message Fenmore quickly.

[Fen, is there any way you can add a plus one for me at the art show? I’m bringing someone :) ]

[You have a date!!!]

[It’s not really a date.]

[At least I don’t think it is.]

[I don’t know 😩]

[It seems like a date! You both are in]

[Good luck!]

You stuffed your phone back in your pocket and turned to Hange and started walking to the art gallery. It wasn’t far, just a couple blocks away from the bookstore, but you couldn’t stop thinking that this was possibly a date and it made you so nervous which made the couple blocks feel like miles. When you did finally get to the door, you breathed a sigh of relief and walked inside.

“I think there’s a couple artists at this showing,” you said, reaching for a pamphlet. “I don’t really know much about many of them.”

“Me neither.” They smiled at you. “I may love studying, but art wasn’t really on the top of my list.”

You started with the first art piece in the pamphlet, standing in front of it and waiting. You tried to look around and see what everyone else was doing. This plan of getting to spend more time with Hange was becoming a fail because you had no idea about art. You didn’t want to say anything weird if they were liking it, but you really didn’t think you could just silently look at all these pieces. Honestly, some of them were weird.

“This one’s nice.” You turned to them and smiled.

“Yes, very nice.” They smiled.

“What’s it called?” You leaned forward to look at the information card. “Abandoning All Hope… ah.”

“Lovely.” Hange nodded and you swallowed hard. This was bad. This was really bad. You both moved to the next one, the artwork looking a little happier.

“This one looks bright.” You turned back to Hange and they read the title card.

“It’s called Basking in Sadness.”

“Jesus.” You rubbed your temples and closed your eyes.

“According to the description,” They started, “the artist was sick as a child and often had to stay inside. So when he would see sunny days and be stuck inside, he felt sad.”

“I suppose that makes it a bit better.” You scratched your head. “Still sad.”

You both continued and hoped that the art would get better at making conversation naturally flow between you both. It was weird how well you conversed in the bookstore, but now you were really struggling with what to say. You walked up and the next piece looked like a murder scene.

“Gosh, I really have no idea what any of this means.” You finally admitted. “Sorry, I’m really not as big into this kind of art.”

“Oh good!” Hange laughed. “I’ve had no idea of anything since we walked in.”

You look quickly to them and smiled.

“I thought the bench out front was part of the exhibit until I saw someone sit on it.” You both laughed and a man walked up to you with a tray and glasses of champagne. You turned to Hange and they nodded, grabbing a glass.

“Well, to having no idea what we’re doing here.” You held up your glass and Hange clinked it and you both drank quickly.

After the first glass of champagne hit, you started feeling a lot more comfortable. The artwork still made no sense to either of you, but you were having fun. When the man came back around a short while later, you grabbed another glass and another glass and another glass. Before you knew it, you and Hange were five glasses in and finally the art was starting to make sense to you.

“Wait, wait, this one. Do this one.” Hange stood next to the artwork giggling and you rubbed your chin.

“Hmm, it’s definitely about a mother.” You had no right to be as confident as you were when Hange looked at the title card, turning back to you with a surprised look on their face.

“A Mother’s Touch. How did you do that?” They couldn’t believe it. You grabbed Hange’s arm and pulled them next to you, pointing at the picture.

“You see all those swirls look like arms. Like a hug.”

“I do not see that at all.” They laughed. “Do the next one!”

You stood in front of the painting and thought about it, but your eyes kept drifting over to Hange. They weren’t looking at you which only made it harder to focus on the painting. If they could see you, then you’d have a reason to look away, but their eyes were glued to the artwork and yours were glued to them.

“There’s no way you’re going to get this one.” They leaned back up from looking at the title card and faced you and you quickly looked back at the painting. “No way at all.”

“Something with a snake.”

“How!?” They put their palm on their forehead and smiled. “Snake’s Path. How did you know?”

“Come on.” You laughed. “Let’s go to the next one.

“Wait, I’m getting more champagne.” They started moving towards the bar. “The one they’re passing out now is cheap. I want the good stuff.”

“Make sure you bring me a glass.”

“I’m bringing the whole bottle, Fuzzy.” You laughed and went to look at the next artwork while you waited. It was a short wait and you felt a tap on your shoulder.

“Excuse me, sir?” You turned to see a man standing behind you.

“Yes?”

“Is that your date?” The man pointed to Hange and you looked over his shoulder to see them at the bar. You started thinking about them being your date and it made you smile this time, your nerves from earlier completely calmed with alcohol. Hange was still at the bar and you watched them debating with the bartender. It really reminded you of how great they are. Hange never got scared of confrontation like you did.

“Yep.” You smiled proudly. “That’s them.”

“I’d like to let you know that she is causing quite the—”

“They. Their pronoun is they.” You corrected.

“Well they are trying to steal alcohol from the bar. We’re going to have to ask you both to leave.”

It took everything you had no to burst out laughing on the spot, but you managed to hold it in enough to make it to Hange and you both walked outside. Once outside, you both started laughing hysterically, holding your belly as you tried to catch your breath. It was nice outside now. The rain had stopped and it left the air fresh and cool which felt great against your heated cheeks. You both stopped laughing and looked at each other.

“It’s a nice night.” Hange smiled.

“Yeah. Thanks for coming with me.” You smiled back, taking a deep breath.

“Anytime, Fuzzy.”

You didn’t want to say good night. You weren’t ready to leave yet. There really wasn’t anything else to do though. It was probably nearing eleven at that point and you weren’t sure if Hange had things to do in the morning. But you still didn’t want to say good night just yet.

“Do you want to go to the bookstore?” You asked without thinking. “We got a new shipment you might like.”

Hange smiled, a strange look in their eyes as they looked at you.

“You liar.”

“What?”

“I saw the shipment earlier,” they explained, “You showed it to me and told me I wouldn’t like any of it.”

“Oh, right.” You looked down, laughing at your ridiculous attempt to spend more time with them.

“But I would still like to go to the bookstore with you.” You looked at them quickly.

“You would?” You couldn’t hold back your surprised face at that.

“Lead the way, Fuzzy!” Hange linked arms with you and you both walked back the couple blocks to the bookstore. This time, the walk was a lot faster.

You unlocked the door and were about to step inside when you realized that Hange wasn’t with you anymore. It made no sense considering they linked their arm with yours. You leaned around the corner, looking for them, but they weren’t there. It was possible that they changed their mind, but they didn’t know how to tell you and just went home. That didn’t really seem like them though.

“Fuzzy!” You turned around and saw Hange running over to you with a bottle of convenience store wine and you both laughed.

“After you.” You gestured them inside and started looking for some cups. You only had a couple small dixie cups, but they worked well enough. Hange poured a glass for each of you and you tapped your cups together, spilling wine on the floor.

“So how many years before I get to walk into your bookstore?” They asked. At first you misunderstood, thinking they were talking about the bookstore you both were in.

“Ah.” You smiled. “I think it’s a while before that.”

Your dream of owning your own bookstore came up in conversation with Hange more often than you ever thought it would ever. They genuinely seemed interested in it and seemed to be your biggest cheerleader when it came to opening it. Normally when people would ask you about it, you felt rushed and like you were behind. Almost as if they were saying ‘you still haven’t opened it yet?’ but not with Hange. Never with Hange. They made it seem like you were right on track and your dream would be here sooner than you thought.

You looked over at them and smiled. It was amazing how pretty they were. You definitely noticed it the first time they walked into the bookstore last summer, but you wondered if you were the only one to see it. There’s no way. There was no way that someone as intelligent and funny and kind and so beautiful didn’t constantly get asked out. You must just be lucky enough to catch them on a free day.

“You know what Fuzzy?” You looked over at them as they spoke, their eyes still looking down at the empty cup of wine. “I’m glad you asked me to the art showing.”

They giggled a little to themselves, possibly remembering what a hot mess it was inside the gallery. Or perhaps building the courage to say what looked to be sitting on the edge of their mind.

“I don’t get asked to do much these days. Not since moving to the city.” Hange hiccupped and you tried to understand how that was possible. “But I’m having a lot of fun. Thank you.”

You weren’t really sure what to do. You really couldn’t believe it. You managed to smile when they looked up at you.

“It’s my pleasure.” You stared at them, maybe a bit too long, but you couldn’t look away. Hange’s eyes were lidded, tired from all the alcohol you both had. But seeing their drunken smile and hearing their small hiccups had your heart beating quickly. They reached forward and put their hand on yours and you looked down at it. “Oh! I wanted to show you something.”

You jumped up from the ground and helped pull Hange up with you. You walked towards the backroom and halfway there realized you were holding Hange’s hand as you pulled them behind you. It was so soft and so warm and you were thankful for the alcohol letting you do things that you normally would second guess at every moment.

“It’s up there.” You dropped their hand and did your best to reach the top shelf, barely touching the bottom of the books you wanted. “Maybe if you try.”

“We’re the same size.” They laughed.

“Oh right.” You were both laughing and they handed you a shoe and you grabbed it, trying to shimmy the books down. “Wait, whose shoe is this?”

When you turned to look at them they were smiling and you looked down at their feet and couldn’t hold back your laughter at their feet missing a shoe.

“Here, climb on my shoulders.”

“Great idea.” They hopped up and reached for the books. This time they were able to grab them and slowly pull them from the shelf.

Your balance was surprisingly good considering how intoxicated you were. You were looking up and focusing on making sure Hange got the right books. As soon as you saw them grab it, they handed them down to you, one-by-one, and you set them on the table next to you.

“Last one!” Hange placed the book in your hands and you set it down. They threw their hands up out of excitement and you finally lost your balance as they moved back and forth. “Oh!”

Hange started to fall backwards and you quickly bent forward, giving them a way to hop down as you grabbed them before they fell. You managed to catch your balance and Hange fell into your arms and you both fell backwards onto the floor, Hange on top of you.

Their face was so close to yours and you reached up to fix their glasses, smiling at them. You couldn’t help but notice how warm they were, how soft their body felt up against yours, how much prettier they were up close and how badly you wanted to kiss them.

“Hange.” You took a breath, not sure if you were going to be able to do it. “I’m going to kis—”

Before you could finish your sentence, Hange bent down quickly, pushing their lips against yours. At first your eyes widened from the sudden movement, but then when you realized what was happening, you slowly closed them, your arms moving around their back and up to their face.

You rotated your head a bit, trying to get a better angle so your noses weren’t smashed against each other and your tongue slipped out to brush against their lips. Hange opened their mouth and brought their hands to your hair, their long fingers delicately moving along your scalp and you sighed into their mouth. The butterflies in your stomach were going crazy and you couldn’t believe how good it felt.

Hange slipped their tongue into your mouth and you moved your hand to their hair. You had always noticed how silky and shiny their hair was, but feeling it in your hands was a whole different story. You rolled yourself over so you laid on top of them and Hange let out a gasp, pulling back so they could laugh at the sudden movement.

They really were so completely dazzling and you watched them, smiling yourself, until they stopped laughing and looked at you.

“You’re beautiful.” You brushed a hair out of their eye and smiled. “I suppose a stepladder would have been safer.”

“It wouldn’t have been as fun.” They wrapped their arms around you and pressed their lips against yours.

[myrandom-fandomlife]

Hello! I'm the anon from the 4 part ask that you answered earlier! I saw your post about the different "eras" of DNF and I would like to share some of my opinions since I've been in the fandom since March of last year, so maybe I can write my own analysis and briefly explain what happened during these times (and hopefully someone will find enjoyment in reading this)!

So the first era was probably the most "baity" period where every interaction between Dream and George with slight romantic undertones was pure bait. From Dream placing romantic music in the background, to the small texts on screen that would read "arguing like a married couple" and even proclaiming his love to George any second he could, it was obvious that it was a means to garner a reaction and moments that could be used in compilations, edits, videos, etc. Dream addressed George just the same as he currently does Sapnap or Bad: Dude, Bro, etc, and when they weren't attempting to bait, for example on streams, things were chill, no tension, just two bros hanging out in minecraft.

LOVE OR HOST ERA. The catalyst in DNF's relationship, in my humble opinion. Now, where do I begin? So, LOH was definitely a time that I believe Dream became aware of his feelings towards George (platonic or romantic, I can't be sure) and his fear of losing him. Before/During George's LOH, we got Dream saying some interesting things, the most notable one "George is the only man I can see myself dating". Now, I'm pretty sure this was meant as bait, but how he reacted prior to LOH, was very telling. Dream would avoid George like the plague in every situation that didn't require them to interact. Twitter? Only one mention (and that was literally him tagging George in Andrea's post in spite). Stream? That I can remember he didn't join much during this time, nor did he stream that often. During MCC, the DT was separated in different teams, Sapnap & George together and Dream alone. Now Sapnap DID pop off. He was doing amazing. And Dream complimented him and his team quite a lot. But what about George? I believe he mentioned him ONCE. This was the first time we see Dream jealous in regards to George, and the lack of content and interactions between these two made many believe DNF was dead and abandon the ship all together.

QUACKITY AND KARL. Now there is a lot that happened in between LOH Arc and the friendship between the DT with Karl and Quackity. Dream and George seemed to have solved whatever occured between them, and things were tranquil. We got a few baity moments here and there, but we also started to get the start of the infamous "name-truthing", the soft voices and other subtle moments. Now, during this time George, Dream and Sapnap started developing their friendship with Quackity and Karl, George in particular started getting closer with them and spending LOTS of time with them, so much so that we got more G/K/Q content than we did DT content. And we get Jealous Dream 2.0., only difference from the other occurence of jealously? He addressed it publicly, admitted that he was frustrated and physically affected by the lack of attention from the british man. He confronted George while he was streaming, with an audience of 50k+ viewers. He was desperate.

Things were pretty calm after that, the more intimate and subtle moments between the two became more and more apparent and began to outweight the baity moments. Quackity/George/Karl continued to blossom their friendship, and DNF was slowly becoming a topic to tease George and Dream (I can only compare their teasing to that of middle schoolers when their friends had a crush). We can compare this teasing to that of Skephalo, the difference, while one is leaning on the more explicit side and used to make others laugh or get an over the top reaction, the other was used as an inside joke of sorts, only brought up to embarass or shut up Dream/George when they got over-confident (most times it would effectively leave them quiet, important to note, is that they never denied the claims nor attempted to).

TRAINS PODCAST. Oh boy, was this a night to remember. A historical mark for DNF. The point in history that George decided to become BOLD and actively flirt with Dream whenever he wanted to, rendering or poor Leo speechless most of the time. That podcast changed these men, it unlocked something within them and things have never been the same since. This is where we see the dynamic take a major switch, and baity moments had become almost non-existent, and instead we got probably some of the most tension filled convos between these himbos. Name-truthing had become something natural between them, the unavoidable excitement whenever they hear one another in call, suddenly ever call became a matter of how long until they were third-wheeling everyone. It's also during this time that we clearly see a difference in between Dream & Sapnap's relationship and Dream & George's relationship (not that one outweighed the other, but the nature of these relationships were very much opposing)

And finally we are in our current stance. Where the sweet, obnoxious moments continue to pile; More and more of their friends are calling them out (you can literally see Quackity and Karl becoming more direct and, quite honestly, aggressive with their call-outs. I bet they are just as tired as we are); The whole hoodie fiasco and the secretive pictures; Syncing sleep schedules once again; Tension continue to grow and you can see them testing the waters, in a game of tug of war until one of them caves in and starts the conversation.

As I said before, they have nothing to gain from the bait they are currently doing. They excuse it as being a joke, and hide behind this lie, as a means to test the development and seriousness of whatever they have going on. The whole Valentine's thing proves that they (unfortunately) do not understand when the other is being sincere or baity...

Also here is some food for thought. George has been very clingy with Dream ever since he and Sapnap moved in together. Not being able to see each other is certainly another factor that is affecting them.

I'm anxious to figure out what in the hell is happening next between our oblivious idiots with communication issues. It sometimes seems surreal the things that occur between them, and straight out of a fanfic.

Anyway, sorry for the long rant and if this wasn't very interesting to read! Just wanted to get some thoughts out of my head!! Stay safe and hope you have a good day/afternoon/night! ❤

Hi love! Glad to have you back <3

Firstly, don’t ever be sorry for ranting in my inbox, especially ab dnf. I love to see it!

Thank you for this, especially the early parts when I wasn’t in the fandom yet. Ahh this is super helpful.

I agree that George has gotten more clingy since Sapnap and Dream moved in together which is so funny because Dream and George have a more similar sleep schedule than Sapnap and Dream do LMAO

But yes all of this ugh I’m deeming you my genius anon

[timextoxhajima]

haknyeon x gender neutral reader — soulmates that keep meeting in different centuries/eras

⭗ once upon a dream

⭗ tbz haknyeon

⭗ soulmate! haknyeon x gn! reader, angst [SFW]

⭗ cursing, maybe diabetes

⭗ 1.8k

⭗ a/n: ngl you got me good with this one. took me awhile to crack it out and think about something worth writing even though I already had an idea - I wasn't sure how to piece it tgt into a one shot but here it is!

"oh, it's the duke of the east!"

"the duke of the east!"

keeping your eyes on the chandelier hanging from the ceiling, it's the gasps and the exclaims that pull you out of your trance. shoving the coin back into your pocket, the trumpets start to blow and music erupts all over the hall, the crowd of people starting to part like Moses parting the red sea.

"May I present... duke lee hyunjae!"

Next, it was the small, minuscule squeals that paint a slightly disgusted wince over your lips. But you smirk it off as your hands come together, with the duke at the top of the stairs bowing.

the ball begins with the duke initiating a dance, with one lucky duchess from the other side of the country. but you are unbothered - you were only invited as a royal escort, meant to keep tabs on the pair of twins- a young prince and a princess - here.

soon, the twins are taken into the hands of some older royalties present at the ball, giving you a breather where you slipped out through the balcony. the gentle wind gushes through your hair as you close the balcony doors behind you, glancing through the tiny gap of the curtains to make sure your responsibilities were still in the dance hall.

the moat around the castle glistens under the night sky, the cool air resting in your nostrils and bringing calm to your nerves.

and yet even that is short-lived when the door behind you clicks open and someone steps out of the dance hall.

"your majesty," immediately bowing, your eyes fall to the floor.

"oh, no! no no!" ju haknyeon hurriedly bows too, rushing towards you and resting his palms on your shoulders to pull you back up. "it's okay! i saw someone going out so I got curious."

"oh, well, I should escort you back in then-"

"no, please. i just... wanted some peace and quiet."

with a gentle nod, you let him past you and lay his hands on the rock platform of the balcony, far extending into space and almost giving you the feeling of falling over and into the moat below.

"beautiful, isn't it? the moon?"

"it is a full moon tonight, your majesty," you join him at the edge of the balcony, hands placed behind your back by instinct.

"it's just... it's so far and yet so bright," he pauses. "well, I know it's the sun, but... it definitely has its own honor."

silence engulfs the space between and around you, and your eyes gradually drift from scanning the curves of the architectural stone to the royalty standing before you.

but the silence is again, interrupted, when the young twins burst out through the door and approach you, smiles on their faces.

squatting, they squeal as the duke of the party runs after them, and they pull you backwards despite you already squatting.

"oh, your majesty," standing to bow, you lower your head as the young prince and princess cling to your clothes.

"why are you all doing out here?" lee hyunjae turns to haknyeon, who lowers his head just a tad bit. "party's back inside, so come on in."

then the children yank on your hands, pulling you along and back into the dance hall. you hear a clink - it's the coin that you had been fiddling with before the duke had shown up. turning very quickly in a bid to look for the coin, haknyeon gives you one last grin before you're pulled beyond the curtains.

your eyes bolt open upon the sharp ring that slices through the air.

stupid alarm, you think to yourself. the sweat's attracted your hair to your neck and your oily face and you look down to remember that you hadn't changed out of your clothes from the night before.

"y/n!" your mother's shrill voice replaces the alarm, then your brother blasts the loudest version of stayin' alive by the bee gees you've ever heard.

"oh, for fuck's sake! eric!"

"what?!"

"mom!" you scream, pulling yourself to your feet as you process the afternoon sun flooded all around the room. your groggy eyes scan the floor for any stray pieces of clothing before you randomly pick a grey tank top and switch it out with your flannel. then you begin yanking your pants off your legs, nearly falling over the carpeted floor.

"don't yell at me like that!" she yells back when you yank open door. in her hands was a basket full of laundry, then her eyes fly up and down your body, catapulting you into an instinctive panic.

"why do you look so haphazard?"

"I just woke up," you frown at her, running your hand through your hair as the music continues blasting from eric's room. "who do you think I am? mick jagger?"

"excuse me-"

"oi, eric!" now, your fist is running into his door, your fuse slowly burning out by the second. "do you think you could become any more hard-of-hearing?!"

"fuck off!"

with a sharp bang, you ram your clenched fist into his door once more before your mother loses her head. ripping eric's name label off the door, she's screaming at you with the laundry basket in her hands, trailing after you while you take 2 steps at a time down the stairs in your house.

it's like you don't bother to brush your teeth or worry about your appearance before you get the front door open, ready to throw yourself out onto the middle of the road in a bid to be the rebel you are. hurling the label to the ground, you step in it and start kicking it around on the asphalt.

"what the hell do you think you're doing?!" she shouts from the front door, almost throwing the laundry basket to the floor. "get back here!"

"ask eric to turn down the fucking stereo!"

"get off the damn road before-"

"y/n!"

the third-party voice catches your attention, eyes immediately turning your whole head to look behind you.

"hak?" a frown falls across your face when you realise you were facing directly at the sun. "what are you doing here?"

"um," he lifts a bouquet of flowers and a paper bag. "ran errands for my mom."

your chest heaves, thoughts floating around in your head when you feel like you just saw him the night before - but you were sure he hadn't been out getting wasted like you did.

"hey, um, did we- did we hang out last night?"

"last night?" haknyeon raises a brow, then shakes his head. "nope." the pause lets you observe his quick glance to your mother still standing at your front door.

"weren't you busy last night? homework or something right?"

you're confused at first, but his wide grin afterwards settles it.

"ah!" feeling your own eyes light up, you turn and rest your hands on your hips. "yeah, I was working on- on homework last night!"

"I didn't ask," your mother shakes her head, unable to bring herself to reprimand you in the face of the nice neighbour down the street. "get back here!"

sighing in defeat, your tongue pokes the flesh on the inside of your cheek. you turn to side-eye haknyeon, watching him mouth a tiny 'sorry' to you.

"it's fine. you tried."

haknyeon provides you one more timid wave before you kick eric's label one last time and trudge back to the house.

you're jolted awake when one of those free-falling sensations slap you awake from your drooling. the music blasting in your earpieces start to register in your head, the lyrics somehow still not making any sense at all with all the numbers in your tutorial workbook.

with a dry throat, you gulp and yank out the earpiece, pushing yourself off the chair and struggling to get to your numbed feet. you find haknyeon snoozing on the sofa of your shared apartment, the television still turned on and blasting the late late show where harry styles was babbling on and on about.

after getting a glass of water, you stand with one hand on your hip, taking your time to dampen your throat while watching harry talk to kendall jenner. but you turn when haknyeon shuffles, and you notice a thick book - something like looks like scrapbook - by his arm where his hand was limp.

something glimmers in one of the transparent pockets, so out of curiosity, you tip-toe over. craning your neck to find an angle where you can scan the item clearer, you take awhile to process the item.

it's a coin.

a squint shrinks your eyes, fingers reaching out for the booklet. you turn on your heels, letting the ceiling light shine on the metal much clearer.

1932.

"it's just... it's so far and yet so bright... well, I know it's the sun, but... it definitely has its own honor."

naturally, your eyes dart to haknyeon when you hear his voice in his head, but you're sure you're not hearing it from memory. by choosing to take a leap of faith and let curiosity get the better of you, you flip it again, this time finding something much stranger and difficult to explain.

it's a door label with a horribly drawn typography on it, and for some strange reason, you recognise the way the letter 'e' was written.

"ran errands for my mom."

with a thud, the scrapbook meets the floor and you stumble backwards, hands covering your mouth.

in your peripheral vision, haknyeon jumps to consciousness, hands by his hips on the cushion of the sofa when he notices your astonishment.

"hak-"

"no, wait-"

"what the hell are those? why- why do I- oh my god!"

"y/n, please, just calm down, alright? i can explain."

your heart is thumping in your head when he stands, slowly inching towards you with his hands out. you're not afraid of him, but about what's going to come out of his mouth.

"do you recognise the coin and the name label?"

"i- they look familiar- and i-"

"okay, good. means it's coming back to you."

"what?" the shakiness in your voice is worrying. "what does that mean?"

as he sucks in a deep breath, you hold yours.

"y/n... I've been alive for more than a hundred years, and ever since i found you in 1902, I've never let you out of my sight. not once."

[nriacc]

This one’s for team Alex

1. i’m sorry this is going to hurt ?????? UMMMM

2. matty being happy <3333 wheels and Al cuddling at night <3333

3. GEORGE MY LOVE YOURE HERE OMG WE MISSED YOU / CHOCOLATES OMG YES PLEASE MARRY HIM IM BEGGING

4. even if i wife you up IM SCREAMING

5. yeah this dinamic is everything to me. george wheels and alex thresome when

6. “I’m really glad that this between us will never come above my love for George.” SAME!!!

7. god they are so sickeningly cute and adorable and they’re everything to me / valentines date 😭😭😭 she’s so enamored by him 😭😭😭 / she really doesn’t want to lose this 😭😭😭 she really doesn’t want to lose him 😭😭😭😭 / he adores her and get all gooey when she texts i’m gonna jump out of the window 😭😭😭

8. SHES LETTING HERSELF FALL IN LOVE WITH HIM OH MY GOD TEAM AEX GET UP THIS IS OUT TIME / two month break is here which means it’s time to fuck!!! let’s go / WHEELS PLEASE JUST FUCK HIM I NEED THIS / OH MY GOD OKAY FASTEN YOUR SEATBELTS PEOPLE / YUP. THANK YOU JESUS.

9. MOVING IN TOGETHER HELLO IS THIS WHAT DREAMS ARE MADE OF?? / YES, and when is this ‘being official’ situation going to take place ???

10. ‘it’s always been us’ 😭😭😭😭😭😭

11. matty and wheels bffs era ! we love to see it / GEORGE OMG HI I MISSED YOU / yes YES she’s cuter with him

12. IS TODAY THE DAY????

13. i’m sorry WHAT IS HAPPENING?

14. oh no oh no oh no oh no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no

15. no 😭 no no no no

16. i will be throwing myself onto traffic. WHY. WHY. why can’t we ever have nice things 😭😭😭 team alex we were so close

where’s the method to your madness 😭 i will be taking legal repercussions against what you just did to me today, you’ll hear from my lawyers. Today was a dark day for team alex but at least team george still stands strong. We almost made it, we should’ve know better than to expect happiness. Why do bad things (the last parts of this chapter) happen to good people (me, who was expecting happy days and a bunch of sex for wheels and al). I love you but you are evil 💔

The method to the madness comes very very soon I promise😂 You’ll be forgiving me by the end of the next part I have no doubt about it. Team george does stand very strong, maybe the strongest. I love you, the evil won’t last too much longer (ish)😂😂💜💜

1. I’m sorry 😂 I had to warn you

2. They are so adorable I am so happy for them

3. I WANT HER TO MARRY HIM TOO!!!!!

4. How sweet it would have been 🥺🥺😭😭😭

5. Don’t even tempt me because I will write that threesome

6. No one beats the love for George. No one.

7. THEY WERE SO CUTE IMMA GO CRY AGAIN

8. HAHAHAHAHA GLAD YOU LIKED IT!!!!!!!!!

9. Oop

10. Sobbing. ✨emotional damage✨

11. Yesss we love the bff era and he’ll yes we team george.

12. It was certainly meant to be😭

13. I felt sick writing that bit

14. Oh no indeed 😭😭😭😭😭

15. Sobbing again😭

16. So so so close but yet so far 😭😭😭😭😭

[dropsofletters]

you feel like magic.

— summary: byun baekhyun offers the nicest services for anyone who needs it—call certain number and be prepared to spend the best night of your life with a call boy, ready to meet the expectations of your wildest dreams. the golden star of his business, kim jongin, also known as kai when seducing his clients, thinks there is more to it, much more when he accidentally gets a call from someone who doesn’t know about his call boy ways. is sex really everything in this era?

— title: you feel like magic — pairing: kim jongin x reader — genre: call boy!au ; web designer!au ; strangers to friends to lovers!au ; meeting through the phone!au ; meet cute!au ; slice of life!au — type: fluff ; angst ; suggestive ; drama ; romance — word count: 12,910

His sweetener tongue meets the roof of his mouth, plush lips parted to welcome the coldness of the night. It’s at moments like this that he wishes to be like the walkers by this horrid side of the city, sporting long coats and hands hidden in the depths of his pockets; perhaps, they rush out of their nine-to-five jobs, seeking for the warmth of their homes once they reach them. Jongin lets his shiny boots roam over the concrete-made sidewalk, kicking a rock to make it roll to the center of the street. A lonesome moment leaves the pebble in tranquility before a car moves it further away, or dissipates it into the thin air. He doesn’t know anymore.

What he knows is how to keep the buttons of his shirt opened enough to capture the glimpses of a few women, four to be exact, rushing to stay away from the cold night that ventures into the possible rain that has yet to appear. They cup their mouths to speak beneath themselves, and he takes this moment to run his fingers through his bleached blonde locks, barely sending a smile before they widen their eyes and laugh beneath themselves. Not his usual clients, but he’s made to charm people, right?

The leather of his pants rubs against his thighs, doing nothing to protect him as he waits for a fancy car, perhaps a expensive-looking woman to pull up in front of him and invite him to the nearest hotel. Made to please those who pay him, is how Kim Jongin would describe himself. A mess of seduction that ended up in various sheets just because of his words. Visual matters aside, the real key to getting someone to have the time of their lives while laying in bed and trusting another person with sex comes with the talent of speaking. Dulcet, sweet, with the right amount of spice and a vibrato after his tone. Goofiness aside and exchanged for something desirable—never quite enough to sedate, for he wants his clients to see him one more time.

One more time means more money.

It means a recurrent client.

That, in the call boy world, simply translates to a phrase: sex sells and you have to make them obsessed with your sex, your shared nights, whatever it is that they desire.

The few sprinkles of rain fall when he takes his phone out of his pocket, the black device matching his clothing and the grayness of the night, a little bit over ten and yet, left abandoned to wait for whoever the fuck knows how long. What he needs right now is some money for the week, the recognition that comes with a newcomer, and the promise of excellently paid nights that had been the only thing his boss, Baekhyun, had talked about for the entirety of the afternoon.

Instead, his phone lights up with an unknown number, calling him at the peak of night. It’s rare for clients to call him directly—hell, and he doesn’t even think about the option of a real hook-up calling him. Jongin hasn’t had one of those in a while; maybe over eight months, if not more. Something about sex isn’t quite as appealing anymore, at least, not in his personal life. Not in his free time.

Byun Baekhyun, with his black hair and big pockets filled with money coming from the men he assesses, wouldn’t man up enough to give his number around. He had done it in the past; something about a new way of making money he had been speaking about (“Seriously, Jongin.” The man had said at the time, crossing one leg over the other as he sat on the edge of his pristine glassed desk. “Phone sex is the new it-thing. People are just too busy to spend hours having sex…or, I don’t know, you could sext people? I’m sure you can make your dick look nice for a picture.”), but he never pulled through with it. Too personal, as well as too risqué—someone could record him, send the pictures to someone else, taint his name as a call boy (if he can even do that, he’s already socially tainted), and if that’s what he wanted, he would’ve been a porn star instead.

He could just ignore it.

But there, in that dangerous side of the crowded city, with his back pressed to a concrete wall, hiding in the shadows, he finds nothing better to do. If the call is some woman trying to get inside his pants, he may as well ask her to meet up with him and just get tonight’s worth in money. Clearing his throat, he lifts his eyebrows, using his arm to support the elbow thanks to his lifted hand, speaking into the phone with certainty.

“Hello, who’s this?” Jongin doesn’t have time to lose, tranquility and sweetness long exchanged for something more serious. The timbre of his voice remains seductive, knowing the difference between his character as a call boy and who he really is. Kai promises a good night, while Jongin thinks a good night is being able to crash in his bed without having to worry about getting out at midnight and fucking someone. And doing good at it, which is even worse. It’s not as easy as people make it out to be.

“Oh, you don’t sound like a girl.”

The voice is much too innocent, one would call it aloof, and with the rain pouring down on him, he can only hide beneath the smallest roof, looking at the droplets of rain that pool by his feet. It’s not the first time someone has called him with that tone, as if she’s ready to get over the pure side of her and exchange it for something else, but it is the first time someone tells him he doesn’t sound like a girl, as a sentence starter at that.

“I’m not one, that’s why.” Jongin breathes out, eyes widening when he sees a car pull up in front of the street, he finds himself in. However, a man rushes out of one of the buildings and enters the platinum car, leaves with a harsh pull of the door, and the car pulls off. “Were you looking for a girl?”

“I’m—Uh, I was trying to call my friend Hyuna.” The woman on the other end breathes out. “Are you her boyfriend?”

A girlfriend. He hasn’t had one of those in a while, and it’s mostly his fault. How does one tell the woman they love that he is a call boy? That each night, when he said he was going out to work, he went out with other women to be able to give himself a respectable life? The way his ex’s face fell when she discovered everything, from his job to how it started, still replays in his head from time to time. An asshole, he has been, and yet, he doesn’t have enough time in his life to sit down and regret it, tearfully reminiscent of the way his entire world had changed.

“Unless I have a girlfriend I don’t know about, I would tell you you’ve got the wrong number, sweetie.” He doesn’t know why the last part slips from his tongue. Maybe, because something in her tone tells him that she is having a bad night, just like him, one of those moments where it feels like everyone lives their lives correctly, and you’re the only one that hasn’t quite fit in the adult world.

“Oh.” She breathes out, the sound of a door closing following her statement before she clears her throat. “Well, that’s unfortunate.”

“I think it is.” And he should leave it at that, but given that his ‘date’ for the night is nowhere in fucking sight, he may embark in some conversation with the melancholy made woman over the phone. “Did you need anything from your friend?”

For a moment, she pauses, hesitating, and Jongin really thinks he has fucked it up. You see, small talk is not normally something he takes part on unless someone pays really well. He goes out to dinner, holds their hands for a while, makes them feel beautiful and then, he’s off towards the natural route. Sex in whatever way his client wanted. “…Kind of…” She breathes out, a ragged sigh following her statement. “I mean, I hoped that we could have a girl chat, but I’m over here talking to some stranger while I can’t even talk to the love of my life—”

Oh, someone who likes to rant. He hasn’t met one of those since the afternoon when Baekhyun was talking wonders about the client that has yet to appear. He doesn’t know if he still likes it. “You can’t talk to your significant other?”

“That’s the thing, he’s not my significant other.” Well, this is taking the casual route of ‘high school problems that shouldn’t be present in adult life, but for some people, they do’. “I’ve been in love with him since college and, uh, well, now we’re very much graduated, very much into our adult lives and he just started working at my workplace after years of not seeing him. And he’s single. H—Hot, too.”

See?

This is the issue one would have in high school, when you’re a teen and you don’t know better, meaning that Jongin should be laughing at this matter. Cackling at the stutter in her tone, had he not found it refreshing. Have people continued to be adorable in this era, or is it just her?

“Did he make a move on you in college?”

“Kind of.”

“And what happened?”

“Well, Donghae was not quite ready for a relationship then, so…I didn’t even try to continue the flirting. We just became friends.”

“Has he made a move now?”

“…No…”

“Then, show him who’s boss and who’s taking the reins now. You have more balls than him and you get to make the shots. Nothing sexier than a woman who knows what she wants and gets it.” Jongin looks over to the street one last time, a small smile appearing on his face when he sees a woman over her forties getting out of a red convertible. That stage of unknowingness that comes with the forties doesn’t only affect men, he thinks, but by the way she quirks an eyebrow, wrinkles a little bit more prominent than his usual client, and how she licks her red lips, he knows he won’t have to do much.

“Oh, wow, I would’ve never thought about it that way. H—How do you know so much about relationships?”

Jongin starts walking, one leg in front of the other as he gets drenched in rain. If he’s lucky, that will get him naked sooner, and the job will be over before he knows it, able to go back home and have a nice night of sleep. “Well, baby,” He whispers, a smile on his face. “You’ve just called a call boy. I know what both women and men find sexy. One, because I’m a man. Two, because I go out with a lot of women.”

“Fuck no?” She questions, and Jongin has to chuckle at her tone.

“You swear?”

“Sometimes.”

“Sounds cute in your voice, honey, but—” He speaks into the speaker, getting closer to his client of the night. “I really have to hang up. I have a client, you see.”

“Oh fuck, I’m so sorry!” Though, he feels like laughing at that moment—something he doesn’t do often when he’s in the job, more like he has never done such thing, but soon after, their communication cuts short with a brief goodbye. “Thanks for the advice…I didn’t get your name.”

“Kai.” Though, he says it to the woman in front of him as well, extending his hand for her to take before he presses the pillows of his lips to her knuckles. A classic for older women.

Just at that, he hangs up, putting his phone inside his pocket before speaking again.

“Owe me a phone for being late, young lady.” He speaks up, biting down on his lip when the woman chuckles.

“With that smile I’ll buy you two, hon.”

That’s always better.

###

What connects Baekhyun and Jongin is that they were once both strippers. Not at the same time. Not under the same circumstances. And definitely not with the same conclusions. Baekhyun ended up with his own call-boy business, with men he recruited from his group of friends or from strip-clubs, never once tangling himself in the sheets of other women, becoming a husband and a magnate after dancing on tables and poles. Now, that’s a good ending.

His white denim jacket remains open, abdomen in full display as he hooks his fingers on the necklace around his neck. He knows what he is doing—these parties that Baekhyun invites him to go to are simple business moves. Jongin looks more like a boy-next-door, easy hook-up, an Angel in Hell, when he’s in the strip-clubs. Stealing someone’s clients’, for sure, but also embarking those clients that don’t know much about him. It makes Baekhyun earn more; it gives him the benefit of looking like a party-goer and getting more money than intended. Life is good when they attend these big events with heirs over heirs fighting just for some love.

The bass thrums against his ribcage, the hands of some woman ending up on his belt, his plump lips parting to connect with her pink mouth, tongue coming forward just the slightest as his hand becomes one with her neck, thumb touching the column of her throat and stealing a breath away from her. Smaller than him, definitely a bit above twenties, wearing a golden dress that she had talked about when they had just met—Louis Vuitton, something of the like, but Jongin prefers Gucci, in his own opinion. His client for the night, now fully aware of the call boy he is, sucks on his bottom lip, cornering him against the entrance door, the red lights of the strip club shadowing him, the white ones falling on the women and men scattered across the stage, all in their own poles.

She pushes her gray hair off her shoulders, when the elongated strands are moved away, he can see the figure in her eyes, grasping his fingertips to tighten his hold around her neck. “Where’s the nearest hotel, call boy?”

“Like twenty minutes away.”

Hwa groans from the back of her throat, the necklace around her neck swinging to glisten its diamonds right at his face. Oh, money, that’s what everyone loves, ain’t it? “I don’t think I can wait that long.”

“I can do the job in the car, but the prices are higher for lack of comfort.” Jongin jokes around, though he’s using his eyes to his favor. A glisten of those almond-shaped majesties and he can get everything he wants. “But I can wait for you, Hwa.”

The woman takes her keys out of her bag, shaking her head at his antics. “No, Kai. I’m getting you in that car as soon as possible and you’re doing your job. I can’t wait.”

You see, when Jongin was younger, something like twenty and twenty-one, he would’ve loved this kind of response. He used to love having someone for a month, rubbing that spot of romance before letting it go for lust. It was fun, until it wasn’t. Until working as a bartender had developed into something stronger—being promised to dance, ending up taking his shirt off in front of everyone, making appearances in bachelorette parties, translated into women wanting to be with him. With taxes to pay and a roof to maintain, Jongin promised himself he’d do it once—once to get a ring for his then girlfriend. Once and it would be over.

Once.

Once and a thousand times.

Once.

Once and then, again.

Hwa swings her hips as she tries to find her car in the parking lot, and Jongin follows suit. He takes the time to button his jacket up, the glances of a few partygoers getting through him. When it’s out under the lights like this, he doesn’t feel quite as confident. People judge him for what he does, he knows this, but when he’s left in the shadows, existing in solitude, the smoke waving his vision into nothingness, it’s all he has to do. Easy money to live the life that makes him feel more complete; beer in the freezer ready for him to take when he’s stressed, an apartment bigger than the one he used to have, and all his taxes paid.

A white car opens its doors when she presses the red button on the keys, a big smile appearing on her face when Jongin leans forward and captures her lips once again. What does he have to think about to feel better? He always tells himself this is going to be the last client, but it’s never the case. It doesn’t feel better to kiss someone else, to end up in whatever surface doing the nastiest thing he can imagine.

It’s not fun anymore.

Was it ever fun to start with?

His phone rings inside his jeans, making him frown as he tries to concentrate on the kiss. It must be Baekhyun trying to ask him how he’s doing, but after one missed call, the phone rings again. This time around, Hwa pulls away, looking at him with a scrunch of her nose before rolling her eyes.

“Aren’t you going to get it?” Annoyance rips from her throat and Jongin sighs. That’s why someone as pretty as her goes to a call boy, maybe, because that attitude of hers definitely isn’t a good thing. Taking his phone out of his pocket, he stares at the unknown number that somehow feels so familiar to him. Another sigh rips from his throat when he puts his phone up to his ear, speaking into the speaker with intent.

“Hello?”

“Kai!” The cheery, pure, somehow adorable tone in the other end almost has him pressing red, but instead, he tries to hide the smile on his face. “Uh…how are you doing?”

“I’m at the job, honey.” He replies, something that doesn’t quite settle well with Hwa, pushing at his belt and trying to get him closer to her. Pushy bitch. “Is there anything you need? Why did you call me again? Thought it was Hyuna?”

The golden skin of the back of his neck creates goosebumps when she chuckles softly, falling into soft silence. “I actually needed advice. You know, from someone who knows much more about the subject than me. But, if you’re busy—”

Somehow, he can’t bring himself to say no. This is the only person that looks for him without actually looking at him. If she’s interested in talking, it’s because that’s the actual truth.

“Baby, I can call you later if you really need to, but right now, I’m trying to earn some money…”

“Y—Yeah! I understand!”

Hwa doesn’t understand, however, pushing herself off him with a hiss coming directly from her pretty lips. Not all that shines is gold. “Listen, you bitch, are you going to fuck me or not?”

You know, Jongin works for money. There is no way in hell that he enjoys being someone’s toy, having Baekhyun direct him the clients that he’s going to grasp, sending him to parties, putting his life at risk by sleeping with married women, taken women, women who don’t take care of themselves sexually and so on and so forth. He’s done things that he would have never thought about liking in his sexual life, all for the sake of having some green in his vision. Though, at this very moment, all he can see is red.

He’s not a toy. Much less Hwa’s.

“You know what? I’m leaving.” Jongin replies softly, taking her hands out of his jacket before huffing into the phone.

“Kai!” Hwa calls out for him, and he hears the sound of a high heel falling on the floor. Someone had just thrown a high-heel at him. “Kai, get the fuck back here! Do you want your money, bitch?”

“I’ve already got money.” He answers, turning around to look at her as they talk. “Thank you, though. I’m sure someone will gladly take it, but it’s not me.”

Life had never felt quite as liberating as that moment, when the breeze doesn’t bite at his naked chest and he can finally let go of a night without feeling used. The expensive cars are left behind him when he walks towards the street, hiding himself in between the groups of people after such drama. “Oh my—What just happened?” Just then, he remembers he is on a call, and he can only chuckle at the sound of this woman’s voice. This stranger that just made him lose a client, and he can’t bring himself to care.

“Clients are rarely good to me, you know?” Jongin spits out, losing himself in the city for a second, listening to the cars passing by and the people talking beneath themselves. Somehow, with this phone call, he feels like a normal person. “But, enough about me. What kind of advice did you need?”

“The sexy kind.”

Jongin laughs at her antics, at the whisper of her statement and the way he can hear the TV on the background of her call. “Oh, so you come to the call boy because he’s more knowledgeable about sexy stuff?”

“I don’t know you, Kai, but I know you’re a thousand times sexier than me.” She initiates, only to continue with her train of thought soon after. “I am always in an office, wearing a hoodie, looking at pictures of men on Instagram and liking them intensely. I just can’t do sexy.”

“Why not?” Jongin questions, a smile petrified on his face. “Being sensual is all about acting. No one is sensual naturally.”

“Lies.”

“What?”

“That’s a lie.”

“It’s the truth!” It has been a while since he has raised his voice from his usual deep tone. It’s the kind of voice he speaks to his friends in, but not the one he uses with women. Something must be different about this one. “Do you really think people go around biting their lips, flexing their muscles, talking all deep, and all that shit? That’s an act. I’m an act.”

“But that’s the problem…” The whine in her tone has him turning to the corner, needing the walk as well as getting home. He’s not going back to that strip-club. “I need to be sexy to get Donghae’s attention.”

“What? No. Sexy doesn’t cut it. If sexy is all that cuts it for him, he’s…he’s wanting you for the wrong reason.” Jongin thinks back to the last time he had gone out on a date. Beautiful stylish, a lover of coffee and elongated readings. She put too much cream on her strawberries and then, would hide away from him. Excuse him, but holding onto her waist, onto the imperfections that made her real, made him feel like the connection was stronger. “You know? A real man, the one that you should give the time of the day to, wouldn’t mind seeing you in a hoodie or with a crop top. He will look at your ass, but will also love your eyes.”

She cackles at his antics, and he imagines her shaking her head. Perhaps, she’d look somewhat plain—the kind of beauty that blends in the background but is enchanting in its own way. “I just want to be sexy, that’s all. I want him to desire me…because I kind of texted him thanks to you and I think we’re going to meet up outside of work.”

“Like a date?”

“…I guess so. Is it a date?” She speaks to herself and he wants to ask her to stop. That voice will be the death of him, like ice cream cake—dulcet but freezing him at the same time.

“I don’t know, you tell me.”

“Ugh, I guess…” She replies, sighing deeply. “But I don’t know. What do men like? Low cut shirts? Boobs? Ass? Both?”

“Men love confidence.” Jongin tells her, trying to reassure her. “Just know that how you look doesn’t matter and wearing a sexy shirt is not worth a thing if you don’t feel good using it. Besides, if he really thinks you’re hot, he’s going to think you’re hot as long as you’re comfortable.”

“You’re just saying that—”

“You want to have his attention?” Jongin interrupts, getting closer to his apartment complex by the minute. Still, it’s perhaps twenty more minutes of walking. “Like, my only advice here would be to tease him. Flirt with him but then, cut it short. Let’s say you’re kissing him, and he leans in for more, just smile at him and ask him—” He clears his throat then, going back to his seductive tone. “Why should I keep kissing you? What’s there for me if I do?”

For a moment, she stays silent, maybe pondering, but then, a shuddering breath leaves her. “…Now I know why you have so many clients. That was hot.”

“And you didn’t even see me while saying so. I could be the farthest thing from your type right now, and you wouldn’t even now. You didn’t even see my boobs and you still thought I was hot while speaking.” A blush creeps up on his face, and he doesn’t even know why. It’s been the longest time since heat has appeared within him from mere words.

She laughs at his antics soon after, melodious, like she gives all the cares to this world and yet, doesn’t hold grudges for how badly it treats her. “You have nice boobies?”

“Ah, uh—” Taken aback, his laughter comes out high pitched. “Somewhat.”

“Somewhat…” She whispers, a brief chuckle coming after that. “Thank you for the advice, Kai.”

“You’re very welcome.” He replies, though, he stops her before she could say her goodbyes. “But you could thank me by telling me your name?”

It’s unfair, he knows it. To her, he’s Kai. He’s not Kim Jongin, a dancer that ended up being a stripper out of need, out of lies that were told to him, crafted especially for people like him. But it doesn’t feel quite as unfair when she says it with honesty, perfect for saying it out loud. Like a poem, like a song.

“…Good night, Kai.”

“Good night, baby.”

And he doesn’t know why he wishes she would say: Good night, Jongin.

###

While laying down on Baekhyun’s couch, he swings his legs back and forth, his stomach fully pressed to the blanket on top of the brown leather. His cheek is squished against the fabric, though, a small hand presses further into his free cheek until his lips pucker up, pressing a wet peck to his mouth. With his eyebrows very lifted and a flutter of his chest, he hears Baekhyun speaking from his kitchen, stopping all chances of snooping at what his wife is making for dinner to send a glare towards his eleven-months-old daughter.

“Choonhee, what do you think you’re doing?” Baekhyun, who is normally lively and over the moon to make people laugh, now has his hands placed on his hips, strutting over to his daughter to stare down at her. Their eyes are fairly similar or, at least, to how Baekhyun’s eyes looked in those pictures he displays on his coffee table, where he was much younger and less of a mess. Jongin will always say Choonhee is far more adorable, and maybe, that’s thanks to her mother, Lia. “You don’t kiss me but you kiss Uncle Jongin?”

Choonhee makes grabby hands at her father, and Baekhyun relishes on the feeling of being needed, forgetting his attire of a businessman and basically the manager of over twelve call-boys to something simpler. Jeans and a white t-shirt, as if he’s in his early twenties. “Dada.” She utters softly, the only thing she can manage to say, and when Baekhyun puckers up his lips, she pulls away.

It’s almost one of those silent comedies they used to watch in the sixties.

“You get all the ladies, and you also get my daughter. It’s unfair.” Baekhyun speaks out, a dramatic turn on his heels making him sit down on the couch across from him. For someone whose bank account is well filled thanks to his business, his home is a little bit on the warmer side. Beige tones, a lot of yellows, and a bunch of pictures of his family and friends. Jongin could find himself somewhere in there if he looks close enough.

Jongin sits up then, extending his arms over his head before clearing his throat. “I always said I would like some children of my own.”

Baekhyun’s legs is bouncing his daughter rapidly, smiling at her after he made a few mocking faces. “You’d make a great father, that’s for sure.”

If only he had a different life. If he could date people freely, or do something else that isn’t feeling like a marionette. Jongin looks at the ceiling, then off to Lia, whose black hair is wrapped tightly in a low bun, wearing baggy clothing and humming one of Baekhyun’s songs under her breath. They love each other, and he can’t have what they created. Not with anyone. “…It would be easier if I just quit.”

His boss stops his motions with his daughter, his face falling in concern when he looks over at his friend. “I—Jongin, didn’t you like your job? You’ve always been one of the best members of our business.”

It’s not about being the best, it’s about how he feels like the worst person while doing it. “I’m tired of it, Baek. It just…sucks. You don’t know because you don’t do it—”

“We used to work on the same thing—”

“One thing is dancing on poles, another thing is…you know…” Jongin trails his voice, concern lingering on Baekhyun’s face as he thinks.

“So, you came here to quit?”

“I came here to talk about it with you.” Jongin replies, cracking his knuckles while he puts his arms down. “I—I would like to pull away from this mess I got myself into, but I wouldn’t know how to start again. I don’t have a resume; I don’t have a reputation as a dancer. I’m just some…call boy.”

Life should feel like each breath brings him closer to a happy ending, not like his lungs only bring him further into a life he can’t control. His time has elongated into torture, and he can’t stand it one minute longer. Choonhee is playing with the brown strands of her dad’s hair, pulling it to various sides, and yet, he doesn’t react.

“I’ll find you a job. As some dance teacher or something, I don’t know. You do well with ballet, I think.” Baekhyun answers, blinking rapidly. “But if you want some good money, I could give you a grand finale. Find a client that would give you so much cash that you wouldn’t have to worry for a while. That is, until you find the job of your dreams.”

“One last time?” Jongin ponders, licking the inside of his cheek.

“For old time’s sake.”

Jongin’s phone vibrates inside his pocket, and before he takes it out, he nods delicately. “Only if it’s nothing extreme. Just one final goodbye with some good money, and in a good place. I’m tired of cramped cars and stupid hotels.”

Baekhyun lifts his hands in the air, laughing joyfully. “Damn princess, what else do you want? Satin sheets? A pretty girl?”

“Baek—”

“Okay, alright. I got it. I’ll take all your conditions into consideration.” Baekhyun says, puckering his lips once again to try and steal a kiss from his daughter, and his groan is enough of an answer. “Choonhee! Kiss! Come on, kiss dada!”

His phone screen welcomes him from a series of texts from a number he had saved two weeks ago, under a name he wouldn’t want to forget even if he tried.

To: Kim Jongin.

Hello, Kai!

How have you been?

As polite as ever, he can imagine her sweet tone speaking directly into his ear. Heaven in hell.

From: Kim Jongin.

I’m doing great, baby.

How are you?

To: Kim Jongin.

Fine. Thank you for asking!

Then, the line falls eerily silent.

From: Kim Jongin.

May I help you with something?

To: Kim Jongin.

I have a sexy question.

From: Kim Jongin.

There’s nothing less sexy than saying sexy question.

To: Kim Jongin.

Sexy question.

Sexy.

Question.

S-E-X-Y.

Q-U-E-S-T-I-O-N.

From: Kim Jongin.

Donghae’s lucky.

To: Kim Jongin.

You remember his name!

From: Kim Jongin.

I sadly have good memory for stupid things.

What’s the sexy question?

To: Kim Jongin.

I’m too shy to say it.

From: Kim Jongin.

…Really.

Are you really?

To: Kim Jongin.

I’m in Donghae’s bathroom as of this moment.

Hiding.

Well, not hiding.

Googling stuff.

From: Kim Jongin.

What kind of stuff?

The picture that pops soon after has him widening his eyes. It’s a screenshot of her current situation, looking up on Google how to suck someone off, and at that very moment, he looks up. Choonhee is still in Baekhyun’s lap, and Baekhyun is chatting with Lia peacefully. Somehow, he feels like a teenager hiding his screen from his parents. He wouldn’t hear the day of it if Baekhyun realized he was talking to someone and giving them sex advice.

From: Kim Jongin.

How old are you again?

To: Kim Jongin.

26.

From: Kim Jongin.

And you’re googling this.

Oh.

My.

God.

How?

Why?

Wait, how?

What?

Are you sucking him off right now?

Ew.

Or yay?

To: Kim Jongin.

Stop spamming me, please.

I’m on the verge of throwing myself out of the bathroom’s window.

But it’s too goddamned tiny.

From: Kim Jongin.

Haha.

If you don’t want to do it, you don’t have to do it.

To: Kim Jongin.

I thought I wanted to.

But it’s too complicated.

I haven’t done that…ever…

His eyebrows raise, enough to capture Lia’s attention that is flipping something on a pan when she asks: “Jongin, are you okay?”

“Yeah, uh, I’m just reading an article…Don’t mind me.”

“You’re staying over for dinner, right?”

“O—Of course.” Though, his eyes divert towards the screen once again. So, the beautiful voice behind the phone is much more innocent than he thinks.

What does she think of him as a call boy? Probably that he’s the dirtiest man she knows.

To: Kim Jongin.

Jongin, he’s asking if I’m fine.

Teach me.

Give me tips.

I don’t know.

From: Kim Jongin.

I don’t know eithr!

Either*.

I have never sucked anyone off.

Well, not a…guy.

To: Kim Jongin.

But you’re a guy.

From: Kim Jongin.

And?

To: Kim Jongin.

You should know what men like!

From: Kim Jongin.

I know what I like, not what other men like.

We’re all different.

To: Kim Jongin.

Google said the same thing.

Fuck.

From: Kim Jongin.

Language.

But wait, did you want to do this?

Or what?

To: Kim Jongin.

He asked me to do it.

And isn’t that how things should go?

I’m an adult, after all, and I’ve wanted to be with him since college.

If I lose my chance with him now, he won’t want to go out with me anymore.

Why, oh why, do people enjoy being with absolute shitheads?

From: Kim Jongin.

If you’re not ready, or you don’t know how, he should be totally fine with leaving it for another time.

And if he really wants to see you, he will be alright with not doing anything tonight.

If he’s nice, he’ll go out with you again, doesn’t matter if you suck him off or not.

For a handful of minutes, Jongin gets to eat the precious homemade food in the Byun’s table, small talk filling the space with laughter and warmth, though his eyes always divert to his phone, somewhat expecting that the read message comes with a reply. It’s only twenty minutes into the dinner that his phone lights up again, a message coming through that steals his breath away.

To: Kim Jongin.

I left.

He was bummed, to say the least.

Thank you for your advice!

You’re an angel.

With food-coated hands, he replies.

From: Kim Jongin.

Far from it.

Though, the picture that comes after is a screenshot of their conversation, the most noticeable thing being his name—his call-boy name, Kai, accompanied by an angel emoji by its side.

If only she knew she was the angel in between the two.

###

“When are you going to let me have a piece of that ass, Kim Kai?”

Ling plays with the rips of his jeans as he says those words, and his eyes stop skimming through the pamphlets placed on the coffee table in the waiting room outside of Baekhyun’s office just to look at him. The man has always had some kind of crush towards him—one that had been somewhat imperceptible at the beginning of times, but now had fallen into kind of a joke in between them. With his arms tattooed, his slim body hunching onto itself as he smokes from a cigarette, he knows he is the only person in this entire business that earns more than him.

For, he just has more range. He’ll deal with just about anything and anywhere, too. Tell him to bend himself over in the most ratchet of streets and he’ll do it—for the right price, and with the word of mouth that inherits protection. He’ll deal with women and men equally, though his preference varies depending on the day. Threesomes are more of his thing nowadays, and it gives him twice the money he would have with one person.

It’s a weird thing to say—but Ling is talented. He’s not the type of seductive Jongin’s character is—Kai is a man next door, the kind of guy you just like because he is handsome and it gives you a boost. Who doesn’t want to sleep with someone who everyone desires? Ling, on the other hand, knows what he is doing. The person he is with could be completely blind and still feel all of him. He’s a charmer—he fits himself to the person he is with.

Let’s say his client is insecure about that one mole on their left ass-cheek. He’ll make them feel good about it. No doubt they won’t ever doubt their attractiveness after being with him.

“How about never?” He replies, a bit of sassiness in his tone as he picks up the book the clients are introduced to when asking for their services. When he opens the first page, he sees the younger generation of call boys. Towards the latest page, Ling and Jongin are showcased perfectly. The gray background makes his golden skin stand out and, at the time, he had brown hair—chocolate rich and ready to make him look like innocence personified. His eyes glisten with malice, while his lips remain serious. How had he believed he’d be happier with this job?

“Don’t say no until you try it.” Ling conquers, taking off his jacket before sighing deeply. “Are you waiting for Baekhyun?”

“Yeah. He said he’d come here thirty minutes ago…but he’s nowhere in sight.”

“That’s weird…that he told you to come here, I mean. He was super busy this morning. One of the newcomers has to get an STD test because he really thought not wearing a condom was a good idea.” Ling takes his phone out of his pocket, probably texting one of his many dates before continuing with the conversation. “Newbies, I guess.”

Jongin frowns deeply. He had never been in that position—but he guesses some people like this job more than others. “Who is it?”

“The short guy, page three. Not my style, though, too short.” Ling explains with certainty, quirking one of his thin eyebrows. “Were you going to ask Baekhyun about your grand finale?”

“He told you?”

“Everyone knows you’re dropping out of the call boy thing.” He says. “It’s as much of a big deal as when a porn star drops out of porn to live a normal life. You’re the Lana Rhoades of our business, Kai.”

The man can’t help but chuckle at his words, standing up from his seat to get closer to Ling. “Well, I should go if he’s not coming, then—”

“He found you a grand finale, though. I think you’re getting half a million in just one contract.”

Jongin likes money. He likes how green the paper is, the smell of it, and simply the feel of it. One of his most enigmatic nights as a call boy is when he was laying down on a bed filled with money, and the woman had been rich enough to ask him to take all of it—plus his payment, of course. Though, his eyes almost budge out of his head at the sound of that amount of money. Half a million just for a night with him.

“Who the fuck would pay that much?”

“The first woman you slept with when you started, of course. Once you take someone’s whore virginity, it feels special. You’re the one who taught them how to be a whore, after all.”

The first woman he ever slept with as a call boy.

She would be near thirty-nine at this moment, if not older. At the time, when he was twenty-two, she was the owner of a big web designing business. With straight bangs and a skirt that almost reached her ankles, he would’ve never thought of her as the type to ask for a call boy. Though, a bit of a difficult woman—she asked for dinner, some foreplay and after, it was him. Jongin damn right passed out after he came back home. Firstly, he was tired. Secondly, the woman was crazy as all fuck.

He has been asked plenty of crazy things in his history as a call boy. Everyone has their weird quirks; he likes to believe. But the first woman he slept with as a call boy, whose name now slips his head, had been so attached to her ex-husband that he had to roleplay as him.

Roleplay as Jinyoung, he remembers.

He had to call himself Jinyoung, in third person.

And it was horrid.

“Oh, no.”

“Oh, yes!” Ling replies, putting his phone down in the process. “I think I heard Baekhyun say something about a whole routine, though. You’re going to have to be her ex-husband.”

“As in, roleplay?”

“As in, become as close to him physically as humanly possible.”

Some people are really crazy.

“…Is Baekhyun out of his mind?”

Ling cackles at that, standing up at the sound of his phone ringing before taking off outside. “Probably. Maybe. I mean, I don’t think it’s that much of a big deal, but…” Shrugging his shoulders, he opens the door with one brief motion before laughing. “Good luck, Kim Kai. You’ll need it.”

With that, he’s left alone to his thoughts.

One last time.

###

Being physically tired because of dancing is a newfound experience that he used to know so well. His chest heaves as he lays down on his bed, hostage of his bedsheets as he curls his fingertips against the fabrics. There is nothing he would love to do more than close his eyes and nap the night away, but something keeps him up: adrenaline.

Mom used to tell him that he’d know when real passion would come to his doorstep when he felt tired after working. Jongin believes the real kind of love for a job or a hobby comes through when he feels restless. His eyes can’t close, fingertips trailing over his chest in hopes of reducing the beat of his heart to a calm blue, chest still shaking as he turns down the music. The world is silent again.

When he looks at his phone, he reads through his text conversations. Family members. Baekhyun. The text from Baekhyun remains unread, sent three hours ago—

From: Baekhyun.

I already bought the clothing you’re going to wear with Mrs. Kwon.

Practice your best businessman lines.

One more week.

Though, he can’t bring himself to answer right now, jumping away from the text conversation to look through his contacts. Flowers bloom inside of him when he reads her name, Donghae’s not so perfect half, who had not texted him since that last time she had thanked him for being able to slip away from that horrendous date. Over a month and they had not talked, not a single word from her, and definitely not a word from him.

He’s curious about her; perhaps, how she looks like, what she does for a living, who she is.

And it’s at this moment, when he presses the call button, that he realizes just how alone he must feel to do such a thing. Lacking that female character in his life, maybe, or just a new friend.

“O—Kai?”

The surprise in her tone brings a smile to his face, placing his hand behind his head before humming. “That’s me, baby.” He replies, not realizing that he has lowered his voice the slightest until he is looking up at the ceiling. “Am I interrupting something? You sound surprised.”

“No…I was just working after hours. I’m glad you called, actually.” She whispers softly, and he can hear the clicking of a mouse. “I haven’t heard from you in a while.”

“That’s what happens when you don’t text, but since you knew who I was, I suppose you kept my number.”

“You were super nice to me, why would I delete your number?”

“Are you sure you don’t want my call boy services and that’s why you kept my number?”

“W—What?” The stutter in her tone has Jongin chuckling loudly, perhaps sounding the farthest away from the sexy. “No matter how sexy you sound, Kai, I’m not one for call boys.”

“Good thing I’m not going to be a call boy for much longer…” Jongin trails, a sense of happiness creeping up on him when he hears a whistle from the other end of the phone.

“Are you ending up as a nine-to-five worker like me?” She asks, an elongated sigh following her statement. “Well, it’s not that bad. I look at a computer screen far more than I’d like, and I can tell the difference between Calibri and Arial far too well, but apart from that…there’s some good things.”

“I’m going to be a dancer.” Jongin explains, though, not wanting to divert the attention so much on himself, he talks to her. “What do you do?”

“Web designer.” The answer has Jongin scrunching up his nose. What are the odds of web designing being so huge these days? “I make websites look cool, and then, I get underpaid for it. My boss gets rich, I get poorer.”

Jongin has to agree to that. “My boss is mad rich as well. Not that I don’t earn well…but in comparison to him, I’m on the streets.”

“Asshole.” She spits out, only to have Jongin laughing.

“I get along well with him!”

“No!”

“Yes! He’s a nice dude. We used to be strippers around the same time. Well, he was finishing his career when I was starting and he kind of recruited me.”

He remembers thinking that Baekhyun and Lia were interested in him with how much they frequented the strip club he used to work in. Turns out that Baekhyun only wanted to see his talent before offering him a better deal—he took it, and years later, he’s ready to let go of it. “Didn’t you take a test?”

“What?” Jongin asks, incredulous. “Do you think sex work is like a college application program or something?”

“No, no! But how did your boss know that you were good at…?” She trails her voice, and he imagines her cupping her hand around her mouth and speaker. “At doing the deed?”

He can imagine Baekhyun being asked that question, and the answer would be yelled out of lack of shame (“It’s in the hips!” Baekhyun would say. “Have you seen that man move his hips, bro?”). However, he can’t bring himself to say that. “Usually, if you’re a good dancer…you know how to move…and that’s all there is to…doing the thing.”

“Oh!” Excitement fills her tone then, and he hears her tapping away on her keyboard. “Kai, I didn’t know you danced!”

“If I said I was a stripper, I kind of had to know how to dance.”

“So, are you a pole dancer?”

“Not initially…” He ventures into the world of memories. “I was a jazz dancer at first, then I went for ballet. I can dive into contemporary and just about anything, but pole dancing wasn’t my thing. I learned on the spot.”

“You, my friend, are a box of talents.” She utters. “Women must go crazy over you.”

“They go crazy for Kai.” He replies, a groan at the back of his throat. He doesn’t know when it started to become an insecurity for him—the division of character and the ways they met. There are things in common between Kim Kai and Kim Jongin, after all.

She hums. “Isn’t that your real name?”

“Nope.” He pops the word out. “I can’t use my real name. None of call boys do. It’s to avoid people looking for us, or getting attached, or whatever. There are some crazy clients.”

“May I ask something?”

“Sure…”

“What’s the craziest thing you’ve done while on the job?”

Jongin doesn’t really have to think much about it. He could say all of it—there is something so inherently weird about being paid to have sex with someone he doesn’t even know, in places where he could possibly get murdered in. It’s a bit of trust mixed with luck. “An orgy.”

“What?!” She asks, voice high enough for him to think she’s alone in the office. “Oh my. With how many people?”

“Four apart from me.” Jongin recalls. It was at the beginning of his career, and he can’t say he was proud of it. “I wouldn’t recommend it. It’s uncomfortable and standoffish and it just makes everyone uncomfortable. I saw far more genitals that day than I had intended and it wasn’t fun.”

“Kai…you’re incredible.”

“Am I?” His face heats up at the sound of those words, only to have her humming.

“Only the brave would do that for money. That’s the confidence I want to have.”

“But that’s who, my character, Kai is.” He says into the phone, turning around on the bed to lay on his stomach. “And I want you to get to know the real me.”

“W—With pleasure. Ah, who would that be?”

“Kim Jongin.”

###

The beauty about sexual encounters is how genuine they can be. His job, on one hand, wants to bring the most honest version of sex that can be paid—he’s an actor, if anything, but not a porn actor. Which is why he is used to the normal accommodation of events and dialogues, called improvising in acting terms, but he isn’t used to scripting himself past the character of Kim Kai. One would think that for his last appearance as Kai, the call boy, he would have the reins of the situation on his hands, but Baekhyun had given him a script along with the suit he was going to wear, and a visit to the hairdresser followed suit.

For the afternoon and part of the night, he has to be Jo Jinyoung, Mrs. Kwon’s ex. A man born in a wealthy family who, in real life, had scammed his own wife and managed to get away with thirty percent of her earnings for the next fifteen years—and, for some motherfucking reason that shall remain unknown, Mrs. Kwon’s still wants to bathe in orgasms at the idea of Jo Jinyoung—. Fitted suits and dark hair, his air of confidence has to be changed for one of manipulation. As if he wants the ground, he is walking on to be kissed by his wife, degrading.

It’s uncomfortable. Really. If he could say a few words to Mrs. Kwon, he’d say: you can do much better than whatever you’re imagining is what you deserve.

The doors of the web designing building Mrs. Kwon owns open like the wings of a butterfly, showcasing him in the perfect stance of him with that gray suit. He loosens the black tie around his neck, sending a smile to the receptionist who widens her eyes at him. She fixes the cat-eye glasses that fall down on the bridge of her nose before speaking politely.

“Good afternoon, welcome to Han Designing. May I be of help for you today?”

“Yes, I’m looking for Mrs. Kwon.” Jongin speaks with certainty, his voice a deep timbre, and that’s enough to entice the woman in front of him to lift her phone up to her ear.

“Who would it be?”

“Jo Jinyoung.”

She stops momentarily, because that is a name she had heard before—either from Mrs. Kwon herself or because of the gossip around the office, however, she continues with her job, shrugging her shoulders when she talks to the biggest boss in this building. “Mrs. Kwon, hello, a young man who calls himself Jo Jinyoung is asking to meet up with you. Should I send him over to your office?” A brief set of words from Mrs. Kwon has her changing her features, pressing a button on her computer before humming. “Yes, I’ll cancel your lunch meeting, Mrs. Kwon and I’ll send him over to you.” After hanging up, she points at one of the many elevators by the right, all cladded in gray and glass. “You can go to the twelfth floor, she’ll be there. Her main office has her name written on the door; it should be easy to find.”

“Thank you.”

You know, let’s go back in time for a while. Kim Jongin, aged nineteen, stumbling out of a party with a girl in between his arms—that was the first time he was ever with someone sexually. It didn’t last a thing, two minutes tops, and it was in complete silence in fear that her parents would hear them in her room. The nervousness of being caught, of doing wrong, of being with someone he liked all bundled up together to paralyze him. At this moment, as he enters the elevator and watches the numbers go up, the people surrounding him getting off one by one, he feels like he is about to lose his virginity.

One last time.

Just one fucking last time.

The elevator welcomes him to a new kind of world, passing through a bunch of cubicles to be able to get to that last door—Mrs. Kwon’s office. The older woman was wild enough to ask for their first event of the scheduled program to happen at her office. Apparently, it was one of the many things she did with her then husband. Jongin just has to barge in, pretend to be a total asshole, and probably do her against the desk. It’s nothing out of the ordinary. He has done worse, right?

The movement of his feet is always coordinated, but for some reason, he ends up hitting his little toe with the edge of one of the desks in the cubicles just as he is walking to the main office. A groan rips from his throat, tiny, followed by a hiss that has the person by the desk standing up to check up on him. When he opens his eyes, he first notices a bunch of little action figures—Star Trek or Star Wars, he is guessing here—scattered across a disorganized desk, though when he looks up, he’s met with a pair of beautiful yet worried eyes.

Her eyes glisten enough for him to part his lips in surprise. A gray hoodie clads the upper part of her body, a pair of high waisted pants highlighting the plushness of her thighs. Jongin watches her chapped lips, how pieces of her hair still remain inside the hood of her shirt, but what interests him the most is the sound of her voice—

“Oh my, are you okay?”

That voice he has heard in the peak of the night, when he has nothing else to do. It’s the voice he sometimes hears in voice messages when she is talking over coffee and pastries. It’s the voice he misses when he spends days without talking to her. It’s the woman that accidentally called him once, and now he can’t seem to get enough of. A nice friend, he’d say, but one that doesn’t know him physically at all.

It’s her—it’s the woman who never considered herself to be attractive, yet exudes the kind of beauty that makes him want to pull away. Simplistic. Caring. The kind of person men miss when looking at what’s easiest, when the most difficult of puzzles always give the most gratification.

The woman he has been talking to for the past month is one of Mrs. Kwon’s workers.

“Y—Yes. I’m sorry, I think I made you drop this.” He picks up a Stormtrooper action figure that fell by his feet thanks to the commotion, but when he puts it down on the desk, he sees the surprise on her face. “You’re a science fiction enthusiast?”

Her lips part to say something, but they close immediately, instead putting one hand over her mouth to cover it up. It does nothing to conceal her surprise. “I—I am.”

The doors to the main office open then, Mrs. Kwon standing in all her enigmatic glory, leaning against the doorframe as she silently calls out for him with a mere glare. In front of him, he has the opportunity to stablish some conversation—meet someone who he had deemed interesting when talking over the phone with them, but the job is calling. His last opportunity to get some money and run for his real dreams is calling.

“I have to go meet up with Mrs. Kwon.” Jongin whispers, giving her a shy smile. “I’m sorry again.”

Only when he starts giving a few steps towards the main office, sporting one of those smirks he is tired of, he feels his phone vibrating inside the pocket of his pants. Jongin knows who it is, but his hands are shaking as he gets the device out, putting it up to his ear as he keeps walking.

“I—It’s you. You are here to see Mrs. Kwon.”

He closes his eyes. It’s horrid that she has to see him like this—like who he used to be and wants to get over and done with. Maybe, she’ll think less of him. Now that she sees him, she will see how deep into the call boy world he had gotten, enough to throw all shame out the window and have sex with someone in a fucking packed office.

“Sorry, baby. Have to do this last job.” Jongin whispers, briefly turning around to look at her, a look of despair on her face when he hangs up the phone, a sigh ripping from his throat when he finally is in front of Mrs. Kwon.

Maybe, he’s not meant to get this close with anyone unless they pay him.

###

“Jongin, let loose!”

Taerin puts on a pair of awfully tiny green sunglasses as they stand in the middle of the mall, both her hands occupied by the group of children they teach. Contemporary dance was the topic of this month, and all the parents had agreed on recording a video in a mall showcasing the dance skills that their children had acquired through the program. Not that he would ever think he’d be here three months ago, but with Baekhyun’s help and his connection with his ex-girlfriend, Taerin, he had been able to get the job.

“I’m letting loose!” He says, pulling at the red strands of Taerin’s hair as he passes by her and places the two children, he is holding hands with on their positions. “But dance is an art, I need them to be in the right positions before we start recording so we don’t bump into each other.”

Taerin is so much more different from Baekhyun’s current wife. She’s more on the outstanding side, that is for sure, with a high ponytail and her curvy body covered with clothing of all colors, shapes, textures. He isn’t surprised that a few pairs of eyes end up landing on her, either with confusion or with attraction. Not that she is his type, really. “They’re just children. And we’ve been practicing for a month.”

“Yes, Mr. Kim!” One of the children, William, says from his spot. A little bit over nine years old and definitely a threat to society with how hyperactive he is, but for dancing…he’s spectacular. Jongin sees a bright future with him. “We’re ready.”

Dabin, a seven-year-old boy, raises his hand in the air with anxiousness. “Actually, Mr. Kim, Mrs. Lee, I’d like to practice one more time before y—you start recording, please.”

“Dabin!” William whines, only to have Dabin pouting.

“I forgot one part.”

Jongin is ready to go over the dance again, nearing the Bluetooth speakers to put on some music when he comes face to face with a person he knows and a complete stranger. They are seated by one of the mall’s tables, in front of some ice cream shop that he has yet to go to. The man wears a bright pink sweater and ripped jeans, the band of his boxers peaking from his jeans as he leans down to capture his date’s kiss on a passionate kiss. His lips part way too much, sucking on her upper lip with intention as she covers most of her hands with the sleeves of her hoodie, holding onto his long, brown hair.

Her features are hard to dismiss—he had seen them once, missed them for three months. Not that she had not tried to reach out to him, perhaps weeks after they had seen each other in person, asking how he was doing…but he was unable to answer. Embarrassment latched onto Jongin like a leech, sucking every desire of continuing with their interesting conversations. It hurt him, but it’s what he had to do.

The date in question, or perhaps her boyfriend (and Jongin really hopes this is not that Donghae, dick out, guy.), pulls away with a smile on his face, his plush cheeks matching his rosy lips as he rests his thumb on her bottom lip, pulling it down the slightest, not caring about who is seeing or the embarrassment that clads her face in beauty. His eyes trail down to her lips, thumb still rubbing at the skin as he speaks, and it’s at that time that Jongin feels a shiver going up his spine, trailing up to his neck and his head.

He wants her.

And he hates it.

But it’s okay. It’s all cool. Why should he care if she goes out on a date with someone, or if she’s dating, or if someone even wants her? She’s an attractive woman, of course people are going to look at her—

So, why is it that when the man in question leaves the table and goes to one of the restaurants nearby, he asks for some timeout and rushes out to her?

He doesn’t know. Jongin knows about sex, not exactly about romance.

“Back with Donghae?” is the first thing he can manage to say when he nears her, placing his hands inside the pockets of his sweatpants and hoping that she doesn’t catch the jealousy on his features, masked by a smile, under his cap. She raises her head then, frowning deeply at the sound of his voice before gasping audibly, eyes widening in the process.

“Kim Jongin?” She asks, both hands coming up to her face, just like the last time he had seen her and he damn right finds it adorable. “…Long time no see. Or talk. You didn’t really answer my texts.” She replies, and just like the first few times they had talked, she chuckles and continues to rant. “Well, not that you should. I mean, half the office knows that you and Mrs. Kwon—”

Jongin scrunches up his nose then, shaking his head in the process. “Oh no, me and Mrs. Kwon have nothing to do. She hired me for the entire day so she would pay me half…a million.” At the sound of that amount of money, he lowers his voice, making her raise both eyebrows, mouthing the number with surprise. “Not that it matters. I’m not…I’m not in the business anymore.”

Her hand extends in front of her heart, sighing deeply. “And here I was thinking I had been talking sex with Mrs. Kwon’s boyfriend behind her back and that I was going to get fired.”

“No,” Jongin answers, laughing as well. “If there is something, I don’t have is bad tastes in women, and Mrs. Kwon is not exactly my style. A client, first and foremost, and secondly…too hooked up on her ex. She likes all the bad shit in this world.”

“I get it.” She says, pointing to the seat in front of her before asking him to sit down. Jongin shouldn’t, but he finds himself sprawled on the seat before he knew it, interlocking his hands together in front of him. “That’s not Donghae.”

“He wants you.”

“Oh, no—” She replies, scoffing in the process. “He doesn’t want me. Come on. We’re just—ah, we just kiss sometimes. It’s nothing serious—”

“Let me remind you—I know about seduction. That whole lip thing I just saw? Seduction.”

“Friendship.”

“Seduction.” Jongin corrects, laughing at her face when she groans. “Doesn’t he meet your standards, like, the same as Donghae?”

Her eyes divert towards her date, standing in front of a restaurant and talking to the worker there. Not that he is anywhere near unattractive, but it isn’t the kind of person he imagines with her. Maybe, someone like himself would be more of a fit.

“I’m not interested in that with him.” She answers, shrugging her shoulders. “Perhaps, I’m just broken. I can’t feel sexual attraction anymore, to anyone. It’s insane—”

Though, she looks at him briefly, making Jongin chuckle as he speaks. “Baby, that’s not being broken. That’s just being selective. It’s okay to be that.”

“With every man?”

“Yeah, it’s completely normal.”

“But…” She throws her head back, sighing. “Isn’t it annoying? Like, most adults just want sex—”

“Not all of them.” Jongin replies, looking down at his interlocked hands before biting on his lip. “Outside of my job, I haven’t done much with anyone. Once your life revolves around sex, you realize it’s the least of your priorities.”

A second of silence follows his statement, and he hears her pulling her chair forward, closer to him. “Why didn’t you text me back, Jongin?”

He looks up then. “I was afraid you’d think less of me for being a…a…” He can’t concentrate his pupils on her anymore.

“A call boy.”

“Yeah.”

“Jongin, I would never think of you as less because of that.” Her voice drips sincerity, eyes twinkling in the way he had seen once and couldn’t get enough of. “It’s a job. It’s not the most common of jobs—but you did it for a reason, and you wanted to stop. That’s your choice, your life, it’s not what makes you a better or a worse person.”

Jongin smiles at that, looking over to the group of children practicing with Taerin. “I’m a dance teacher now, you know that?”

“If someone had texted me back, I would know.” Though, the moment is cut short when her date, or her friend, whoever he is, appears with a trail of food on his hands, sending a comfortable smile towards the man before nodding.

“I didn’t know you were bringing a friend.” Her date says, but Jongin is already standing up from his seat.

“I was just greeting her, nothing big. I’m leaving now.” Not that he wants to do that, but it’s better if he does. Turning around one last time, like he always does with her, he feels the magic in her eyes when he says: “It was nice talking to you again.”

###

From: Kim Jongin.

How did the date go?

It takes him five minutes, three dots on the screen and a slurp of spicy noodles inside his mouth to get an answer.

To: Kim Jongin.

Horrid.

Why?

Like, it’s bad to rant about this.

And you probably think I’m some picky bitch but—

Is it my lips?

Why do all men I go out with want me to suck their dick?

From: Kim Jongin.

I don’t think you’re a picky bitch.

Never say tat.

That*.

Because you have to be more honest and less malleable.

If what you want is a simple date, tell them.

I’m sure they give you signs that they want a hook-up.

What comes next is a screenshot of her screen, typical as ever when coming from her, a Google search that has him almost choking on his food.

She’s funnier than she lets herself believe.

The search says: Why can’t man differentiate normal flirting with hook-up flirting? And the articles are nowhere near as informative as they should.

To: Kim Jongin.

I’ve given up.

On dating.

Men are complicated.

Capital C.

Cursive.

From: Kim Jongin.

There’s nothing wrong with self-love.

To: Kim Jongin.

But now I have a bucket filled with fried chicken and no one to share it with.

From: Kim Jongin.

Mhm.

Send me your address and we can share

I’ll bring some noodles.

Slipping into his coat after getting her address feels like a new beginning. For him, maybe, to get out of his shell and realize that he is more than just a body moving through the world. He’s a soul—his charisma, his strength, his delicacy. There is something about the smile he gives to that closed door, because a new beginning has never felt quite as beautiful as this.

###

When he was twenty-three, he promised himself he would never fall again. Love is so meticulous that the only free time you have is spent doubting. He didn’t want that for himself anymore, neither for the person he was seeing.

The street lights bring him back to the places he had been in, but now, he’s seated on a bench. Typical Saturday night of their weekly meet-up when Jongin gets out of work at the same time she does, and they grab something to eat to spend a few hours of the night together. If the world’s beauty had a voice, it would be hers. It feels like magic; as if for the time they are talking for, he learns all her insecurities and makes them human. Every single wound, every crevice, every portion of her that bleeds, aches, palpitates, grounds itself and silences its complaints, make him more interested.

Kim Jongin prided himself on never being sedated.

“If I have a car, and you know this,” Jongin says, placing his hands under his thighs as he sits down, looking at her profile that basks under the lights of the empty street. The hood of her shirt is pulled tightly over her head, the few traces of makeup she must’ve put on in the morning disappearing after so many hours of not retouching it. “I don’t know why you insist on waiting for the bus.”

She looks at him then, eyes twinkling—in the time that he has gotten closer to her, he has known a few things. They shine when she’s happy, sad, angry; it’s as though her eyes can’t help but show her heart, and all he wants to do is protect it. “I don’t want you to think I’m using you.”

Jongin scoffs at that. “I know you would never use me.”

“Still.” She replies, fixing the black bomber jacket he had thrown over a gray t-shirt, playing with the edge as she speaks. “You already do enough by spending every Saturday night with me.”

His cheeks fluff out at that, a pout on his tone as he speaks. “I enjoy spending time with you.”

“I know you do.” She imitates his voice before sighing. “For some goddamned reason, but you do.”

“I love it when you talk films and science fiction with me even though I don’t understand a thing, what can I say?”

“You said we were going to watch Just My Luck next week.”

“I did say that,” Jongin mumbles, eyes trailing down to her lips. The speckles of her lip-gloss have disappeared, leaving them in their natural color, void of any decoration, and yet calling him out for his lack of attention. Jongin knows the two of them—a man who stopped believing in people wanting him for something more than sex, and a woman who went through the same. Circumstances that they could understand with different outcomes. They meet in the magic ways of life, in the dulcetness of being seen as a person, speaking and talking to their heart’s content, falling in silence and yet, screaming out the words that they never say. “You look pretty tonight. Always, but uh, tonight specially.”

“Thank you.” She breathes out, the words curling her lips in a pretty smile, and Jongin doesn’t think he can hold it any longer. This longing of conversation, of uniting his soul with someone else’s. For the first time, he wants to believe.

It’s in the bend of her waist, in the way she seems to understand him in ways that no one did, how she grasps his face in between her hands and brings him forward, half of his body hovering over hers as she kisses him. Not a single word of lust, not a moment of suspicion—no matter how many women had kissed him, how many bodies he had touched, the things he did and what he did not, she saw past them. For, he is not Kim Kai, he is not a call boy—he’s the man she calls when she wants to see him, talk to him, feel him like a presence beside her, not over her. He’s Kim Jongin to her, and that’s more than he ever expected.

Her lips are not as experienced as one would have imagined. She takes her time, a woman with a lollipop between her lips that doesn’t want to break her teeth. She doesn’t want to bite too soon, eat more of him in ways that would have his plump lips growing redder. Instead, she takes her time, and takes him as well, perhaps whispering in the depths of her heart that he deserves this. A kiss that feels as though he is not wanted, not needed for the scratch of an itch, for filling what was once left void, he is not desired. He’s wished upon. He’s a star. A dream, a thought, a feeling—

His fingers sneak around her waist, lifting some of the hoodie up to feel the warmth of her skin through her white t-shirt. Those portions of her she had never shown to anyone—the parts she talks about in between laughs, trying to mask them as miniscule beings, those are the ones he wants to know. Jongin has never been a romanticist, but what would be of him if he missed an opportunity like that?

Some wheels roll over the street, and when she pulls away, the glint of his saliva ends up over her lips, chest heaving, and the beat of her heart matches his with their chests pressed. Her hands come up, they always do, hiding those lips he doesn’t want to let go of, and she touches the skin there as she says: “I just missed my bus, Jongin!”

With a fleeting kiss over her lips, he says: “Let me take you home.” He adds, though, he tilts his head to the side. “Or I can wait here. Just, please, let me spend some more time with you.”

She laughs at this. “You could have anyone and yet, you choose to have me?”

“Who is anyone when there’s you?” Jongin retorts, watching her lick her bottom lip, mouth falling from its smile to look down at his lips. This time around, she takes the first step—decisions made by her, words left unspoken that tell him he’s the first man she has found fitting in a while. Not fitting for her, but worth her time.

Intimacy at its finest, Jongin can say he has felt a lot—desire, lust, hatred, disgust, sadness, hopelessness. Yet, this is different.

It’s the first time he has felt accepted.

It’s the first time he can say he feels like he is under a spell, one that he can’t get out of.

[honeypwark]

[ Missing ]

  ↳ Roller Coaster era (late Jan-early Mar 2019)

       ↳ Lily goes missing. All hell brakes loose. Every idol ever tries to find Lily.

m.list

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

There’s a kind of contentment that comes with being absolutely exhausted. When you’re that tired, you know you’ve done your best and pushed yourself yet you’ve withstood the tiredness and given it your all. That’s usually how Lily feels after a long day of practicing. She’d be extremely tired, ready to drag herself home and flop into bed and start over the next day. But not today.

The exhaustion is there, wearing well into her bones but instead of feeling content, she just feels tired. She’s not even supposed to finish practicing for another hour and yet she is just so tired. Usually she pushes on through, telling herself the pain now is worth it in the end. But this doesn’t feel like the tired she’s used to. It’s so much concentrated, seeping into mind and making her just want to sleep.

She stumbles over her own feet again as she tries to work through the dance break at the end of her solo comeback song for the nth time. She takes a breath and bends over, coughing as she braces herself on her knees. She just feels completely wiped out; maybe she’s been pushing herself too hard? She wobbles over to the couch on the side of the room and sits down with a sigh.

“Okay, Lily. Take ten then we’re back,” she says to herself.

She coughs again, clearing her throat before settling further back into the couch and leaning her head back. All it takes is a few deep breaths with her eyes closed and she’s out like a light.

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

“Lily Lee~ Unnie made you breakfast,” Nayeon sings gently as she enters the maknae line’s room.

The eldest member carries a plate of blueberry pancakes, Lily’s favorite. All of the members are well aware of how hard Lily is pushing herself to make her solo comeback go nothing less than perfect. They know she feels guilty for being given so many individual opportunities over her members despite all nine of their reassurances that they’re nothing but proud of her. Nayeon decided to surprise Lily with her favorite breakfast in bed.

“Li...ly?”

Nayeon doesn’t think she’s heard Lily get up this morning. Tzuyu and Dahyun are still asleep in their bunks and Chaeyoung is out to brunch with a friend. Lily’s bunk, however, is empty, save for Blue curled up in his usual spot at the foot of the bed. Nayeon leaves the room and her eyebrows only knit together further when she checks and finds the bathroom empty.

“Jihyo, do you know where Lily is?” Nayeon asks.

Jihyo, Sana, and Momo sit in the living room eating the extra pancakes Nayeon had made. (The best ones, of course, had been puts on Lily’s plate.) All three of them look up at Nayeon’s question.

“Is she not in her room?” Jihyo asks.

“No.”

“Bathroom?”

“Just checked.”

“She didn’t stay at Jisung’s dorm last night, did she?”

“No, she was practicing until late,” Momo reminds the leader.

“Did anyone hear her come in?”

“We all went to bed before her but maybe?” Sana says.

Jihyo glances around at the growing worry on her members’ faces.

“Okay, um, Sana. Go ask the others if they know where Lily is and whether or not they know she came home. Nayeon, put Lily’s plate in the microwave and finish cleaning up the kitchen. Momo, call Lily’s cell and see if she’ll pick up. I’ll call Jisung and see if she’s with him.”

The other three girls set off to do as they were told and Jihyo pulls out her phone. She quickly finds the right contact and calls Jisung. NCT Dream’s dorm is practically Lily’s second home. She is constantly spending the night there, the other group’s maknae never complaining to give up his bed to Lily for the night if it means getting to joke around while eating cereal together the next morning. If not for their endlessly busy idol lives, they would be attached at the hip.

“Uhhh... Jihyo sunbaenim? Hello.”

The boy who answers the phone is not Jisung.

“Hello, who is this?”

“I’m Jaemin, one of Jisung’s members.”

“Where is Jisung?”

“He’s showering but he should be out soon- oh, he’s right here.”

Muffled, Jihyo hears, “Hyung, why are using my phone?”

Louder and closer to the phone, Jaemin answers, “It’s Lily’s leader.”

“Jihyo?”

“Yeah.”

Jaemin presumably hands the phone to Jisung.

“Noona?”

“Jisung. Is Lily with you?”

“With me? No.”

“Oh, okay.”

“W-Why? Is she okay? Did something happen?”

Jaemin says something Jihyo can’t understand. The sound that follows sounds suspiciously like Jisung hitting his older member.

“We’re not sure where she is right now,” Jihyo answers.

She looks up as Sana, Nayeon, and Momo return to the living room, several of the other girls coming with them, all looking worried.

“Do you need help finding her? I can call her,” Jisung offers.

“No, it’s alright, Jisung. Thank you, though. Bye-”

“Wait! Will you let me know when you find her?” Jisung says quickly before she can hang up. “Or ask her to text me when she’s home?”

Jihyo blinks, “Uh, yeah. I’ll tell her to text you. Bye, Jisung.”

“Goodbye...”

Jihyo hangs up.

“She’s not with Jisung,” Jihyo announces to the others.

“My call went straight to voicemail,” Momo says, “Her phone’s either off or dead.”

“I don’t like this,” Mina says. “Lily always tells us when she’s staying with someone.”

“Yeah,” Tzuyu agrees quietly.

“What if something happened to her?”

“She might just be at ITZY’s dorm. They live a little closer to the company.”

“But what if something did happen to her?”

“She was walking home late at night; someone should have gone to get her.”

“She’s so little.”

“If someone tried to grab her in an empty street she wouldn’t be able to do much.”

“What if someone recognized her?”

“What if she got kidnapped?!”

“What if she got followed by a sasaeng!?”

“Guys... GUYS!” Jihyo calls to get everyone’s attention. “Worrying like this isn’t going to help anyone. I’ll stay here with Sana in case she comes back. You all split up and start trying to find her.“

While the others hurry to pull on coats and shoes and throw their hair up into ponytails, Sana walks over to Jihyo.

“What are we going to do?” Sana asks.

“We’re going to start calling people,” Jihyo answers. “Anyone Lily knows and we don’t, we’re going to figure out their phone number and call them.”

“How are we going to do that? Like, I don’t have any of Blackpink’s phone numbers.”

“Well... okay. But you know Nayeon. And Nayeon knows Jisoo. Find connections like that.”

A few minutes later, Jihyo has gotten Blackpink’s eldest’s phone number and been told she’s not with them. Nonetheless, Jihyo tries to remember another one of Lily’s countless idol friends to try and call.

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

What had gone from a ten minute break to a nearly nine hour night of sleep leaves Lily still fast asleep on the couch of a practice room that morning. She’s shifted onto her side, curled up and sleeping soundly. She wakes slowly, blinking and groaning at the bright overhead lights still shining from the night before. She eventually sits up and rubs the final remnants of sleep from her eyes. Her phone is dead, she realizes, getting the time from the clock on the wall instead.

10:13AM? Really? She was asleep that long? She’s almost surprised her body let her sleep for so long; she usually can’t make it past seven hours of consecutive sleep. She knows her members must be worried sick about her not being home after being alone the night before. She should head home right away to let them know she’s okay. As she pulls her coat on, she hopes her members aren’t worrying too bad.

Unbeknownst to her, the members of Day6 and Stray Kids are scouring the entire company building for her. Nearly the entire kpop idol community has become aware of Twice’s missing maknae as Jihyo and Sana have continued calling more and more people. If there was ever a day to run into an idol somewhere in Seoul, today would be that day as anyone who is able to is out looking for Lily.

“Come on, idiot, don’t actually be missing,” Jae mutters to himself as he starts checking in and out of practice rooms.

Despite Jae’s mean older brother act, it’s obvious and impossible to deny that he cares about the younger American. He’s always teasing her about her height but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t know how easily someone bigger than her could grab her and force her into a car or down an alleyway or-

“Lily!”

Jae spots Lily leaving a practice room further down the hall. The girl turns toward him.

“Oh, hey-“

Jae crashes into Lily in a hug, squeezing her tightly.

“Okay. Hi, there.” She pats his back as she hugs him back, confused as he usually only briefly hugs her in parting, “Is today a special occasion or...?”

“You are an absolute dumbass, Lilliana Lee!” Jae yells at her, smacking the side of her head.

“OW! What was that for?!” she whines.

“Your members have no idea where you are!” Jae exclaims. “They think you’ve been kidnapped or killed or something and have everyone you’ve ever even looked at for more than five seconds looking for you.”

“W-What?“

“They woke up and you weren’t at the dorm and you weren’t answering their calls so they started calling people to see if you were with them and now every idol ever is searching the entirety of Seoul for you but you’ve just been in a practice room?!!”

“I fell asleep! I didn’t mean to!”

“You can’t just disappear like that!” Jae continues to scold her. “You’ve got so many people worried over nothing and- shit.”

Jae turns away from Lily and covers his eyes.

“Are you-,” Lily steps around him to look at his face, “Are you crying?”

“No,” he says firmly.

“I think you are.”

He glares at her, “I’m still mad at you.”

She steps back with her hands raised, “My bad.”

He sighs, “Alright. Let’s get you home.”

“Okay,” Lily agrees softly.

She lets Jae lead her down the hall, coughing into her elbow before entering the elevator. Jae already has his phone out, texting his members to stop their search because he’s found her.

“Are you sick?” he asks.

“I just think I need some water,” she says.

“You should take some medicine when you get home, just in case.”

“Aw, you do care about me. The only tsundere I know is Jae Park.”

Jae shoves his phone into her hands, “Shut up and call Jeongyeon. You get to deal with her wrath.”

Lily looks at Jeongyeon’s contact that has been pulled up on Jae’s phone and gulps.