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jjunieworld · 9 months

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20. icarus ⸝ ˚⋆

↳ mostly written, some texts. word count: 8.6k (warning: there will be some suggestive acts in this chapter, but not smut.)

you and your friends were at the cafe figuring out your backup plan. the thought of your friends going through all this trouble just to make sure you had a good birthday really warmed your heart. you couldn’t have asked for better friends.

currently, your boyfriend wasn’t present for the plan, nor was the plan mentioned in the groupchat he was a part of. you suspected this was purposeful. ever since sakura announced she was throwing a birthday party for you, yeonjun has been more cautious than ever around soobin. in fact, all of your friends were. recent hangouts didn’t outright exclude him, but they made no effort to include him either. your heart broke at this. you didn’t want the people you love most to be part of two separate worlds.

yunjin brought a notebook along with her that she was writing the entire plan down. so far it filled almost two whole pages. yeonjun reached across the table and took it from her.

“so the main plan,” yeonjun said as he picked up the highlighter, “is that if we don’t go to the party, we go to the beach and do our usual birthday celebrations. and then after we have a big movie night at my apartment.” he highlighted the main plan as he spoke. the notebook honestly looked chaotic. there were little bullet point ideas written everywhere, some crossed out, some highlighted. ‘MAIN PLAN’ was written in big bold letters at the top of one of the pages along with ‘BACKUP PLAN’ written for the instance things go wrong.

“and here’s the main backup plans that we have in case something goes wrong,” yunjin continued. “for example, a change of clothes in case cake gets thrown on y/n along with makeup and hair supplies, our own bottle of alcohol in case the one there is spiked with something, and since we plan on walking home again since we’ll most likely be drunk, jackets.”

“oh and one of us will stay sober that way at least one of us is alert!” jake added. “i’ll stay sober,” kai said, “i’m too nervous about all of this to even think of drinking.” you gave him a side hug as you gave him a comforting smile.

a lot of the backup plan was excessive, a bunch of what ifs that all of you knew most likely weren’t ever gonna happen, such as the spiking of drinks, but it didn’t hurt to be prepared. you struggled to wrap your mind around the whole thing.

“won't people think we’re a little weird if we go in wearing bookbags and shit?” you asked. you didn’t think you could really leave the bags anywhere either without the fear of someone taking them. and you really didn’t want to have one of your friends sitting guard the whole night.

jake waved a hand, “we can stash them somewhere outside the house. everyone’s gonna be drunk, they aren’t even gonna notice.” you guess he was right. you took a deep breath. honestly, all of this is making you not want to even go. but you had to at least give it a chance. give soobin’s friends a chance.

“even if we did wear them inside, people already think we’re weird so who cares,” said yunjin. you all nodded at that.

“guys… we’re missing a key point…” you said. they all turned to you, puzzled looks on their face. you saw yeonjun’s eyes scan the notebook again. “what about soobin? where does he fit into all of this? even if we did just leave the party, what would i even say to him? does he come with us?”

at your last question, they all looked around the table. “damn… i kinda forgot about him,” you heard jake mutter under his breath.

yeonjun looked at you, “do you want him to join us?” you shrugged a little. “if you guys don’t want him there then i don’t want to make you uncomfortable.”

“it’s your birthday, y/n,” kai said. “it doesn’t matter if we don’t want him there. it matters if you do or not.” murmurs of agreement sounded off around the table.

you looked down to your hands, “i mean, i would like him there. he is my boyfriend. but still…” yunjin wrapped her arms around you. “then it’s settled!”

the new plan was that soobin really didn’t even need to know about the backup plan. again, it was just precautions that probably wouldn’t even happen. as for where he fits in with the main plan, if we decided to leave or not go at all, then you would just tell him to meet you at the beach instead. he joins in with the usual birthday celebrations and follows us back to yeonjun’s place.

“alright then!” yeonjun exclaimed as he closed the notebook. he stood and we all followed suit. “is everyone well versed with the plans?” we all nodded and yeonjun nodded in satisfaction.

“tomorrow is the party,” kai started, “which means that today will be spent with all of us choosing outfits.” he took your hands in his.

“especially the birthday girl! now, i already have the most amazing outfit picked out so unfortunately you will look second best on your birthday, but that’s okay! at least it’s still second!” you laughed as kai wrapped his arm around your shoulder.

“we gotta have you looking sexy!” yunjin squealed a little. “we want not only soobin all over you, but everyone else there too!”

you stopped in your tracks a little, “uh, i don’t know about—“

“you’re gonna look so good, the whole house is gonna want to get with you for a night!”

today was the day. it was your birthday, and you were another year older. the thought filled you with brief dread, but you tried not to focus on that.

your phone was blown up with a bunch of happy birthday messages and your heart couldn’t help but feel full. even though your friends posted embarrassing pictures of you on social media.

it was bright and early in the morning, and thankfully you didn’t have any classes today. your phone began to ring. you checked the caller id to see that it was your boyfriend, soobin.

“hello?” you answered.

“happy birthday, baby,” soobin replied.

a smile immediately broke out on your face. you held in the urge to giggle as you laid back down on your bed. “thank you! how did you even know i was awake?”

you heard him laugh through the phone. “i figured you wouldn’t be able to sleep that well.” he was right. you were tossing and turning all night. you looked to your side and were thankful that your roommate had basically moved out already.

“i wanna do something with you before the party,” soobin continued. “just you and i.” your smile widened and you nodded even though he couldn’t see it.

“okay! come over right now!”

it didn’t take long at all for soobin to get to your dorm room. it felt like he was honestly waiting at your door with how fast he arrived. he told you he was at taehyun’s dorm since he was helping him study for exams.

“he said happy birthday by the way,” soobin said, referring to taehyun. soobin was still in his pajamas too and he looked like he had just gotten up as well.

“tell him i said thank you!” you replied. “you look like you just woke up.” he laughed a little as he laid down on your bed.

“i’ve been basically up all night hammering these notes into my head.” he covered himself with your covers and closed his eyes. you sat on the edge of the bed next to him.

“don’t fall asleep, soobin! you said you were here for me!” you pouted a little. his arms sprang out from the covers and wrapped around you, pulling you down. you were now literally laying on top of him.

“there, that’s better,” he said. you started giggling, which was ultimately muffled by the covers. you turned your head to the side and stared at his profile. you were basically laying like a stick.

“this is very uncomfortable,” you smiled. his hands traveled down your body until he was at your legs. he moved them so that you were now straddling him. you sat up and looked down at him.

“this was your plan all along, wasn’t it?” you asked. it was like your words went in one ear and out the other as he just stared up at you. you felt his hands at your hips.

you snapped a finger in his face. “earth to soobin?”

he blinked a couple of times before a smile slowly spread on his face. “i’m sorry, but you cannot be looking down on me like this.” you rolled your eyes as you laid down on his chest.

“so what did you want to do?” you asked. you felt him shrug as his hands laid on your back, rubbing small circles on it. “i just wanted to be with you.”

“and sleep with me apparently,” you said as you looked at his closed eyes. they immediately flew open and he looked over at you. you sighed and rolled your eyes again. “sleep as in sleeping, not as in sex.”

he smirked a little and adjusted the two of you slightly so he could see you better. “i mean… it could be both if you want it to be.”

you didn’t even give him an answer, just laughed a little and turned your head to the other side.

he rolled you until you were laying beside him. “i’m content with just sleeping with you.” you intertwined your hand with his and you gazed at him. smiling, you gave him a soft kiss.

“i don’t think i’d be able to sleep right now even if i tried. but if you’re tired then be my guest, the plans don’t start until way later today.”

soobin pulled you close and put his chin on the top of your head. “mmm… if you’re not sleeping then i’m not either. i want as much time with you today that i can get.” you giggled at that.

a comfortable silence fell between the two of you. you were wide awake listening to soobin’s breathing and his heartbeat. you were sure that he fell asleep.

“i love you, soobin,” you said quietly, a small smile on your face. his hold on you tightened and you tensed a little. you were so sure he was asleep.

“i love you, y/n.”

you looked up and he moved his head so that your foreheads were touching. “you do?” you sheepishly asked. soobin chuckled.

“of course i do.”

he brought his lips to yours. it began soft, but with the heightened emotions and adrenaline running through both of your veins, it didn’t take long before it started to get heated.

you ran your hand through his hair to get it out of his face, lightly gripping the ends and causing his head to tilt back slightly. soobin broke away, about to say something, but you chased his lips hungrily.

he turned onto his back, taking you with him by the hips so you were straddling him again. the covers were tangled in between your bodies. your skin felt like it was on fire and your heart felt like it was gonna combust.

“y/n…” soobin said between kisses. you mumbled a reply, not bothering to take your lips off his. you put your hands flat on his chest and rocked your hips a little.

“y/n…” he said again, and pulled back slightly. you sat up a little, trying to catch your breath. “yeah?”

“are you sure about this?” he asked. “you know i was just kidding earlier. we don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do.”

you sat back fully. “i want to. i’m sure,” you replied. you went to lean in again but he stopped you.

“are you sure sure? i don’t want to make you uncomfortable. and if i hurt you in any way make sure you let me know and we can stop.”

you laughed at how worried he was. “i am one hundred percent completely sure i want to do this. i promise you.” you kissed him deeply again and he brought his hands to your hips and began guiding them. you softly moaned in satisfaction.

he then suddenly pulled away.

soobin smiled up at you. in one swift motion you were suddenly under him. you let out a small squeal at the sudden change. he smirked a little, put his lips to your ear, and in a low voice said, “happy birthday, baby.”

soobin then took off his shirt and brought his lips back down onto yours.

you were asleep across soobin’s chest when you were awoken by your phone absolutely blowing up. you checked the time and saw that it was around 5:30 in the afternoon now. the room was dark as the sun began to set.

the light of your phone blinded you as you got an incoming call. you squinted your eyes and began clicking around on the screen until it answered. you put the phone to your ear and let out a groggy “hello?”

“what the fuck!?” yelled yunjin’s voice. it was a facetime call and not a regular one. you quickly moved the phone away from your ear as it started ringing and angled it towards your face. you mumbled a response to yunjin.

“are you naked right now?” yunjin yelled even louder. this woke up soobin and he sat up next to you, sleepily looking at the phone.

“oh my god, so it wasn’t a prank,” yunjin gasped. the camera shook as she began to move and suddenly all your friends were on the screen. you groaned.

“this is so ridiculous,” you muttered.

“let’s hope she can walk well later tonight for this party,” jake said and the group laughed. you heard soobin laugh beside you and you pushed him away. it only caused him to laugh harder.

“goodbye!” you said as your cheeks heated. you didn’t listen to what they began to say as you ended the call. you ran a hand over your face and laid back, throwing the phone to your side.

soobin reached over and grabbed it. he began looking through all the notifications from your friends, laughing at some.

“i don’t think you want to open the group chat for a while…” soobin said, smiling as he looked over at you. you let out a loud and dramatic sigh. soobin laughed as he sat your phone back on the bedside table. he laid back down and pulled you to his chest.

“let’s just stay like this,” he then said.

you chuckled, “nice try. if we stay like this we’ll fall back asleep. and i need to take a shower.” you then tried to get up but his arms locked tighter around you.

“come on, stay in bed with me.” you laughed and shook your head. it was his turn to let out a loud and dramatic sigh as you sat up.

you watched as soobin’s eyes trailed down your body. gasping, you wrapped the blankets around you.

“how dare you look at me like way!” you say playfully. he smiled and sat up, placing kisses all over your cheeks.

“let’s go then!” soobin said as he swung his legs over the side of the bed. you looked at him, confused.

“go where…?”

“to shower, duh!” he replied. you let out a shocked laugh and shook your head.

“absolutely not!”

soobin turned to look back at you. “it’ll be faster, come on! don’t be shy! i literally just saw you naked.” the corner of his mouth tilted up and you pushed him a little.

“that’s different!”

“how?!”

you hesitated. you didn’t really know how it was different, but it just was! sex and showering together were two very different things! besides… the dorm showers were not the place to be showering together. granted, your dorm did luckily have its own bathroom.

“but the dorm—“

soobin swiftly cut you off. “exactly, not different at all. let’s go!” he tugged at your hand and you sighed as you got up, a small smile playing on your lips.

you and soobin met up with your friends around 8pm at yeonjun’s apartment. as soon as you stepped through the door, there were a loud chorus of cheers. your cheeks were immediately hot and you turned and buried your face in soobin’s jacket. you felt his chest vibrate as he laid a hand on the back of your head.

you turned and looked at them from over your shoulder. “i hate you guys so much.”

yunjin came up to you and took you from soobin’s arms. “someone’s glowing!” you rolled your eyes. you had a feeling that they were gonna come out of your head with how much you’ll probably be doing that today.

“steady now!” you heard jake say. you told him to fuck off.

yunjin took you away from the group, who were lounging at the table with some snacks, and took you into the bathroom. she locked the door behind her and turned back to you with the biggest smile on her face. “tell me everything!”

you hid your face in your hands, but began recalling the events. from soobin’s call, to him coming over, and to when she called. her hand was over her mouth hiding a wide grin.

“i’m surprised it was only one time!” she said after you were finished. you looked to the floor and said nothing. she gasped.

“twice?” you looked up to the ceiling, your lip between your teeth.

“no fucking way… three times?!” she practically yelled. you had to quickly smack a hand over her mouth. you were praying that the others didn’t hear.

you hid your face in your hands again as you sat on the edge of the tub.

“where??” her eyes were wide and she practically was shaking you for the answer.

“well the bed, obviously…” you started. “and the shower after… and in the car on the way here…” you muttered the second part. “damn!” yunjin said and then squealed. you wished you could sink down into the drain.

“i don’t know what’s gotten into me, i literally couldn’t keep my hands off him!” yunjin broke into a laugh.

“well, i know what’s gotten into you…” your mouth fell open and you smacked her arm. her laugh grew louder. “shut the fuck up! it’s not funny!”

you left the bathroom with yunjin, your hands covering your heated face as you went back to the living area

you heard murmurs grow and you quickly said, “if anyone else says something to me you will be dead in a ditch!” you then heard soobin’s laugh as he gently moved your hands away from your face.

“look at her cheeks!” kai said. you quickly shot him a fierce glare and he busted out laughing. you wrapped your arms around soobin and put your face into his shirt. “go to hell,” you said, muffled.

“let’s have her blow out her candles,” yeonjun announced, stifling a laugh.

you pulled away from soobin and ran your hands over your face before sighing dramatically.

yeonjun pulled out a cupcake from the box he had on the kitchen counter. he then pulled out a pack of numbered candles and put some on the cupcake. you sat at the table and yeonjun sat the cupcake in front of you and lit it. the others crowded around you as they began to sing happy birthday to you.

“make a wish!” jake said.

you thought it over for a moment. you had everything you could ever wish for right here in this room with you. what more could you ask for? then it occurred to you… you wish your life could be like this forever. surrounded by the people you love most in this world, and knowing they love you back just as much, if not more.

you barely got to blow out the candles before everyone began to cheer. soobin leaned down next to you.

“i love you, happy birthday.” he whispered in your ear and then gave you a kiss on the cheek.

hueningkai pulled you to your feet. “let’s sing!”

instead of going to a karaoke place, you and your friends found it much more fun to just put the songs on youtube and sing along in the comfort of your own spaces.

you moved to the couch as yeonjun set his tv up. yunjin snatched the remote from him and put on bubblegum bitch by marina and the diamonds.

yunjin handed you another remote and you stood up as she pressed play. she held the remote to her mouth as the song started playing. you’ve sung this song together so many times before that you each have your own designated parts.

i’ve got a figure like a pin-up, got a figure like a doll. don’t care if you think i’m dumb. i don’t care at all. candy bear, sweetie pie, i wanna be adored. i’m the girl you’d die for.

she took your hand as she spun around the living room. jake and kai moved the table out of the way so you’d have more space.

the rest of the group sat on the couch. you turned to them as your part came up.

i’ll chew you up and i’ll spit you out. cause that’s what young love is all about. so pull me closer…

you leaned down and took soobin lightly by the shirt. you then gave him a quick peck on the lips.

…and kiss me hard. i’m gonna pop your bubblegum heart!

you pulled away and went to yunjin and stood back to back as you both got ready to sing the next part together.

i’m miss sugar pink, liquor, liquor, lips. hit me with your sweet love, steal me with a kiss. i’m miss sugar pink, liquor, liquor, lips. i’m gonna be your bubblegum bitch.

you and yunjin then started the dance you rehearsed.

the others ‘ooh’ed and clapped a little. yunjin stood off to the side and began to walk to the center of the living room as she sang her next part. a finger in the air.

queentex, latex, i’m your wonder maid. life gave me some lemons, so i made some lemonade. soda pop, soda pop, baby, here i come. straight to number one.

you quickly ran up to her, a hopeful expression on your face.

oh, “dear diary”, i met a boy. he made my doll heart light up with joy!

you turned to soobin, making a heart in the air around his face. his cheeks turned red as he smiled and the other laughed.

you turned back to yunjin, trailing your finger down your cheek in lieu of tears.

oh, “dear diary”, we fell apart.

you didn’t even get to get your next part out as the rest of them sang along.

welcome to the life of electra heart!

you and yunjin continued the rest of the song. striking a pose at the end as your friends cheered. you looked at each other and shrugged nonchalantly.

“i know, i know, we’re amazing!” yunjin said as she playfully waved and threw out air kisses.

“we’ll see you next week!” you yelled.

that’s how the hours leading up to your birthday party at sakura’s unfolded. you each taking turns singing songs and doing duets. some were amazing, others were kai and jake singing a duet of wouldn’t change a thing from camp rock 2. you even got soobin to sing.

when it got to be about two hours until the party, you all decided to get ready. yeonjun kept banging on the bathroom door while you and yunjin were doing your makeup to let him in so he could check his reflection.

compared to your outfits from the last party of sakura’s you’ve attended, these outfits were much better. you looked like celebrities about to go on the red carpet.

yunjin made you get dressed in the bathroom so your outfit would be a surprise. as soon as the two of you walked back into the living area, it was so silent you could hear a pin drop. your friends’ and you boyfriend’s mouth hung open. yunjin just smiled and gave you a knowing look.

you all drove back to the dorms for the walk over to sakura’s. soobin was a little curious about the bags you were carrying, but yeonjun just chalked it up to various birthday stuff. you can tell that it confused your boyfriend a little, but he didn’t say anything else about it.

the crowd outside sakura’s house seemed even bigger than the crowd from last time. you were about to stand behind and wait your turn, but one of the security guards waved you and your friends up to him.

the security guard looked directly at soobin. “your friends, sir?”

soobin looked caught off guard for a moment before he said, “ah, yes…” he then pointed to you. “the birthday girl.”

realization showed through on the guard’s face and he opened the gate to let your group through.

the bags ended up getting discretely stuffed in some bushes close to the door. you hoped that you and your friends wouldn’t be too drunk to remember where they are if you needed them.

you kept a small little hand bag on you that mainly held your phone and headphones. your heart thumped in your chest as you grew closer and closer to the door. soobin took your hand and gave you a small comforting smile.

inside, the party was already in full swing. now that you were more familiar with the layout, it didn’t feel as overwhelming. you all circled around each other.

“do you guys wanna get drinks or do you just wanna to go straight upstairs?” soobin yelled to you all over the music. you all voted on drinks. after downing a couple, except for kai who decided to stay sober, you all made your way to the stairs and up to the fourth floor.

you once again bypassed another guard who stepped aside as he saw your group. sakura spotted you all and stood up from the circle of people surrounding her. she made her way over to you.

“y/n you look so lovely! happy birthday!” she air hugged you and then gave you two cheek air kisses. you smiled at her, “thank you so much, sakura!”

she led you all towards the empty couch that she must’ve saved for you and your friends. drinks immediately began getting served to you all.

“i have a cake for you, and then you’ll get your special surprise!” sakura smiled. you returned the smile. “but until they bring the cake out, drink up!”

sakura took a seat back in the center of the half circle of people. the music wasn’t as loud up here as it was on the other floors, so you could speak pretty comfortably. the fourth floor was also bigger, which helped.

you turned to your friends. yeonjun held up a finger from the hand that was holding the glass that was handed out. he took a sip from it and after a moment he nodded that it was good.

you tasted it yourself and was shocked that it was so sweet. it didn’t even taste like alcohol. you were already starting to feel a little tipsy from your other drinks. there was no doubt that this drink was gonna hit you a few minutes from now like a pound of bricks.

yunjin and kai went to where people were dancing and yeonjun and jake scoped out some escape routes. it was just you and soobin alone.

“you alright?” soobin asked. you looked over at him as you took another sip of your drink and nodded.

“yeah, i’m having a good time so far! i wonder what cake sakura got.” soobin stood. “let me see if i can go look, i’ll be right back.”

he pulled out his phone and shook it a little as if to say “text me if you need me.” you gave him a thumbs up as he made his way towards a hallway that led somewhere you couldn’t see.

you scanned your surroundings as you finished your drink. you gave a glance over at sakura to see that she was in her own world. the people around her were laughing at whatever she was telling them.

you decided that you wanted to dance. you began to sit down the glass you were holding on the table but a staff member appeared before you, taking it from you and handing you another. you jumped at their sudden appearance, but thanked them reluctantly.

this time you drank half of the glass and left the other half for later. the first one still hasn’t hit yet and you didn’t want to be so drunk again that you could barely walk. you took the glass with you as you made your way to where people were dancing to look for your friends.

“y/n!” you heard kai shout. you turned towards the direction of his voice and saw him and yunjin waving you over. a couple people told you happy birthday as you made your way over. your cheeks were slightly heated as you reached them.

“this place is like a whole different world,” yunjin said. you nodded in agreement. “i went to sit my other glass down and before i could someone was already putting another in my hand.” their eyebrows raised and shocked smiled appeared on their faces. they looked at each other in disbelief.

the three of you started to dance to the music, which was actually good. you felt a little silly for bringing your headphones now.

you felt hands snake around your waist and someone come up behind you. you quickly turned to see who it was, letting out a sigh of relief when it was just soobin.

you turned back around and continued dancing. he leaned down to your ear. “they wouldn’t let me in, but i did see a glimpse of it. all i saw was white.”

he took the glass from your hand and drank the remaining contents. you turned with a shocked look on your face. “i was gonna drink that!”

soobin looked you up and down with an eyebrow raised and just shook his head. he was laughing but you couldn’t hear it over the music. you realized that you were already starting to sway while trying to stand still. you swayed a little too much and he quickly steadied you.

you smiled up at him sheepishly. you could hear his laugh now as he bent down to press his forehead to yours. “i wasn’t even gone that long! how much did you drink?” you giggled. your brain was too foggy to recall. he shook his head a little as he kissed you.

at some point, yeonjun and jake joined the rest of you on the dance floor. you all danced for a while, got some more drinks—soobin didn’t let you have anymore of whatever was in those glasses—and made your way back to the couch.

you saw soobin’s friends, taehyun, beomgyu, and sunghoon, make their way over to where you all were sitting. they sat on the loveseat diagonal from you.

“happy birthday, y/n!” taehyun said as he sat. you smiled and thanked him. the other two mumbled a happy birthday and you thanked them too.

“so, who’s your friends?” taehyun asked. your eyebrows briefly shot up as you turned to your friends. you began introducing them one by one as you went down the line. yeonjun didn’t even look up at him.

after introducing your friends you said, “and this is taehyun, beomgyu, and sunghoon.” your friends said their hellos while beomgyu and sunghoon waved.

the whole exchange was very awkward. you glanced over to soobin. he put his hand on your back and subtly pulled you closer.

you saw sakura stand as a huge tv got rolled out to the center of the room, along with a table with a cake on it. the cake was in a fancy cake holder, so you couldn’t see what it looked like. someone handed sakura a microphone and she turned it on, giving it a small tap to confirm.

“hi everyone! as you know, this is y/n’s birthday party! can you make some noise for the birthday girl?!” she waved in your direction and suddenly a bright light shined on you, catching you off guard. you tried your best not to let it show as you smiled and waved. you heard the whole house go wild, especially your friends who were next to you.

“now it is time for her cake and her very special surprise! who’s ready?” sakura continued. you clapped a little and smiled for everyone who was watching you, but your heart was thundering in your chest. soobin’s hand moved from your back and gripped your waist.

you glanced over to your friends to see that they were all suddenly as alert as a hawk as the clapped and pretended to smile. their eyes scanned the room, especially the tv and table that got rolled out.

sakura walked over to you and were slightly thankful that the spotlight wasn’t completely on you anymore. even if it was sakura who was next to you. she held out a hand and you took it and stood.

“let’s have her blow out the candles!” sakura cheered. she began to guide you to the tv and table at the center of the room and you could see your friends and soobin following hot on your heels.

once you got to the table, sakura made everyone take a couple steps back so that you were the focus. you could tell this deeply troubled your friends, as they were as close as they could get. you were really nervous now that you might actually get a face full of cake and it would be displayed on the tv or something. suddenly it felt like all the alcohol left your body.

“let’s sing happy birthday on three!” sakura said and then began to count down. once she hit three, you could hear the whole house begin to sing. the microphone must’ve went to the lower floors too. you looked around as they sang, plastering a smile on your face. you were really searching for cameras. thankfully, you saw none, but that only put you at more unease.

“now time for the cake and surprise!” sakura then said. she came up next to you just as the tv switched on. you saw her switch the microphone off. “happy birthday,” she said and she gave you a smile as she grabbed the lid of the cake holder and took it off, handing it to a staff member nearby.

you looked down at the cake. it was completely white with two words in black lettering, ‘LOOK UP’. glancing over to sakura, her head was tilted slightly, a slight smirk on her lips. you did as the cake said and a video began playing.

whoever was taking the video was struggling to hold the camera up. you heard sakura’s voice from the video suddenly. “are you recording this? he’s so drunk, make sure you’re recording this so he can watch it back tomorrow.”

another voice started speaking, it sounded like beomgyu’s. “i’m recording! i’m recording! soobin…” he trailed off. you furrowed your brows.

what is this? and why are they mentioning soobin? your mind raced and you swayed a little. you looked back to him and your friends. soobin was being held back by beomgyu and sunghoon. he was looking at you with wide eyes of horror. your brows furrowed further, security was holding your friends back. you couldn’t hear them well over the video. everyone was now staring at you, some with smiles on their faces.

you turned back to the tv to see that soobin was now on the screen, clearly very drunk. your hands started to shake as your heart fell into your stomach.

—SOOBIN’S POV—

the color drained from soobin’s face as soon as the video started playing and he heard the familiar conversation play out for y/n to see. for everyone to see.

his body began to move towards her before two people harshly grabbed his arms and yanked him back.

“not so fast, pretty boy,” he heard sunghoon say near his ear.

soobin realized too late what this whole thing was. sakura knew, and she decided she wanted to kill two birds with one stone. and she wanted it to hurt. why else would she do this on y/n’s birthday of all days?

soobin pushed and pulled against the two people he thought were his friends, but to no avail. he stared at y/n in horror as the video continued.

when she looked back at him, clearly confused, he felt his heart get ripped out his chest. he could see that she was scared now. soobin, too late, also realized the fact that security was holding back her friends.

“get your fucking hands off of me!” he could hear yunjin shout, but it felt so far away.

he then heard sunghoon’s voice from the screen. “we bet that soobin couldn’t get with the most unpopular girl in school.” then he heard his own idiotic voice sound back at him like a grenade. “how much? how much? i’m not getting with some loser if i’m not getting paid for this shit.”

y/n put a shaky hand to her mouth. he watched through her body language as she began to realize what she was watching. she stood frozen in her spot in front of the cake.

soobin wanted to bang his head repeatedly off the ground. he wanted to rip his own voice box out so that he’d never be able to speak again.

he listened as he and his friends began throwing out numbers until landing on five hundred dollars. and him asking who he would be seducing.

“what’s that one girl’s name? yunjin… her friend?” beomgyu spoke.

no. this could no be happening right now.

“that’s where the real challenge is at! a month… to at least almost get to third base!”

soobin closed his eyes as his world came crashing down around him. “this will be easy. sunghoon, you better get my money ready!” he heard himself say.

sakura then tapped the microphone, causing him to open his eyes. sunghoon and beomgyu let go of him finally. she had a large wad of cash in her hand as she handed it to y/n. y/n turned to her, there were tears in her eyes that were threatening to spill. she didn’t take the money so sakura put it in her hands herself.

“five hundred dollars! don’t worry soobin,” sakura said, turning to him, “it’s all there. promise!”

soobin ran up to y/n. “please, y/n. please listen to me…” his voice cracked as he grabbed her arms which caused her to look up to him.

the money dropped from her hands and spread out all over the floor around them. the tears in y/n’s eyes fell. soobin felt himself crumble completely.

y/n opened her mouth, but no words came out. soobin could understand her perfectly clear. why?

“i… i gave you everything…” y/n managed to say, barely a whisper. she slipped from his arms and ran off towards the stairs.

the music then suddenly cut on as soobin stood there frozen, trying not to let his own tears fall.

“you thought you could have your cake and fucking eat it too?” he heard yunjin’s voice say as her hand landed hard on his cheek. his head flew to the side and he brought his hand up to touch his face. hands harshly grabbed him and turned him.

briefly, soobin saw jake and hueningkai running towards the stairs after y/n. yeonjun was stalking his way towards soobin after talking to them. the deadliest look was on his face.

he was brought back to the scene in front of him as yunjin got in his face. he couldn’t even process what she was saying, he was only thinking about y/n.

soobin will never forget the look in her eyes. the absolute hurt and betrayal in them. the way he watched as her heart broke into a million little pieces. he would do anything to be able explain it all to her. he would do anything to go back to earlier this morning. just the two of them, laying together in comfortable silence in her bed. to when she said she loves him. all of that, gone in an instant. maybe taehyun was right, he was icarus.

a fist connected with his face and he tumbled to the ground. soobin barely saw that it was yeonjun before he got on top of him and started landing punch after punch. soobin let him, he deserved it. he was so numb he didn’t even feel the pain.

yeonjun was pulled off him by security guards and soobin was hauled to his feet. he saw yeonjun shrug them off and wipe his bloodied knuckles on his clothes.

“if i ever see you again, you’re fucking dead.” yeonjun said before walking off with a furious yunjin.

sakura was then in front of him. “don’t say that i never helped you.”

you didn’t know where you were or where you were going. you swayed in the middle of the street as you drank from the bottle of whatever alcohol your friends brought to the party. the tears you shed were long dried the more you drank. it was pitch black outside, the only light guiding your way was from the streetlights every couple meters. you had your headphones on and turned up to the max volume. blue light by mitski was playing through them.

somebody kiss me, i’m going crazy. i’m walking round the house naked, silver in the night.

your phone kept blowing up so you put it on silent. you turned your location off too. you just wanted to be alone. just you and this lonely world.

when you ran, you grabbed the bag with the alcohol and cut through some bushes and then some yards. then went down some various streets and alleys. even if you wanted people to know where you were, you wouldn’t be able to even give them a hint.

a car pulled up beside you. you didn’t even bother to look over or stop walking. you didn’t care. you took another drink from the bottle.

are you that blue light? are you that blue light? are you that blue light? are you…?

the driver’s window rolled down. “y/n?” you couldn’t quite place the voice and you could barely hear them so you decided to look over and take one of your headphones out. taehyun looked at you, a worried expression on his face.

“leave me alone,” you replied. it came out a lot more slurred than you were expecting.

“you’re swaying violently and drinking straight from the bottle in the middle of the road. can you please get in the car?”

you shook your head and almost fell over. “no… you’ll just take me back to him.”

the car stopped and you heard the door open and footsteps run up to you. you kept walking.

“back to who? soobin? what happened in that house?”

you stopped and gave him a fierce glare. it took everything in you not to smash the bottle across his head for asking you such a stupid question. “don’t act like you don’t know what fucking happened. and don’t act like you weren’t in on this whole thing the entire fucking time.”

taehyun sighed and there was a long moment of silence as you got further and further down whatever street you were on.

“i promise you, i thought the bet was called off after you guys had your first date. i never knew it would get this far.”

you scoffed at him. you remembered what soobin told you about him, taehyun was the nicest out of all of them, but don’t underestimate his rudeness. ugh. even in your darkest moments you were still thinking about him.

“regardless, i can't just leave you out here alone, drunk, and walking in the middle of the road in the middle of the night. at least let me take you back to your dorm.”

you took another drink from the bottle. you knew at any given moment you will probably pass out from how drunk you are. taking a look around you, you let out a sigh. you really didn’t feel like standing your ground right now either.

you stopped walking and turned to taehyun. “fine, but i don’t want to go back to my dorm. everyone will be waiting for me there and i just want to be alone.” taehyun nodded.

“okay. you can stay at my dorm then. i’ll tell beomgyu i need it to myself for the night to study and i’ll stay somewhere else. you won’t need to worry about him in the morning either, he’ll most likely be passed out at sakura’s until late afternoon.”

you flinched a little at her name. you took a deep breath and shrugged. taehyun gently took the bottle and cap from you. it was a little over halfway gone. he screwed the cap back on and then threw your arm over his shoulders. you both made your way back to his car.

when you were safe in the passenger’s seat and driving down the road you turned to taehyun. “how did you even know where to find me?”

he glanced at you for a second before putting his eyes back on the road. “soobin called me freaking out. he said he overheard your friends saying how you disappeared and they couldn’t find you at all.” you heart dropped for a brief moment. you should probably tell your friends you’re not dead in a ditch somewhere.

“it was bad. he was crying. he begged me to come out here and look for you so i just started driving down random streets around sakura’s area.” you rolled your eyes.

you pulled your phone out of the small bag you still had with you, just now realizing that somewhere along your walk you lost the bag that had the alcohol bottle in it. you quickly texted in the group chat “not dead in a ditch somewhere. will meet you in my dorm in the morning if i’m awake by then.” or at least, that’s what you meant to type. you then completely shut your phone off and put it back in the bag along the headphones that were still in your ears.

taehyun reached the dorms and you stumbled out of the car, barely stopping yourself from face planting on the concrete. “woah, careful,” taehyun said as he guided you to the doors.

the trek to his room was a rough one, but you made it somehow. you went to his couch and immediately laid down, your head spinning.

“you can sleep in my bed if you want to, i don’t mind.” taehyun told you, but you just shook your head. there’s no way you were gonna be able to get back up.

“i’ll be in in the morning to leave you some ibuprofen.” you mumbled a response, already half asleep.

before you completely dozed off, you felt taehyun place a blanket over you.

—SOOBIN’S POV—

as soon as soobin saw taehyun’s name show up on his phone, he immediately picked up the call.

“well?” soobin asked, his voice was hoarse. he didn’t care. he was sitting outside by the dorms in his car in case he could catch a glimpse of y/n somewhere.

soobin was sick with worry. when he overheard jake say that they couldn’t find her, his mind immediately went to the worst possible option.

“i found her,” taehyun replied. soobin let out the biggest sigh of relief as he rested his head against the steering wheel. “where is she?”

“she said she doesn’t want to see you. but she’s sleeping right now.”

“taehyun just tell me where she fucking is.” soobin really didn’t have time for this. he needed to see for himself that she was okay. it was driving him crazy.

taehyun sighed on the line. “she’s sleeping on the couch in my dorm. but—“ soobin didn’t care for what else he had to say. he reversed into the dorm parking lot and got out, slamming his door shut behind him.

he sprinted to the doors and didn’t bother with the elevator as he ran up the stairs. he had too much pent up adrenaline to even be tired.

taehyun was waiting outside his door. soobin tried to walk past him and open the door but taehyun held a hand out to stop him. “is she in there?” soobin breathed.

taehyun shushed him. “she’s asleep! you shouldn’t even be here.” he said in a hushed tone. soobin waved him off. “i found her in the middle of the road swaying from side to side and drinking this straight from the bottle.” taehyun held up a rather large bottle of alcohol that was a little over half empty. soobin had to grip onto the edge of the door frame to steady himself.

“you fucked up, badly,” taehyun said as he slowly eased the door open for him.

soobin closed his eyes and leaned against the door as soon as he saw her peacefully asleep. he took careful steps further into the room. taehyun took him by the arm.

“you can stay, but you have until morning to be gone before she wakes up.” taehyun whispered. soobin just nodded, not taking his eyes off y/n. “and you look terrible, you need to go get those cuts checked out.”

when soobin looked in his rear view mirror after racing back to the dorms, he saw that he had the beginning of a black eye, a swollen and cut lip, and probably a broken nose. he couldn’t care less about himself right now. the wounds didn’t even hurt.

taehyun left soon after, locking the door behind him.

soobin knows that y/n doesn't want to see him right now. or clearly anybody right now. but he couldn’t bare to leave her alone, especially not tonight. he knows how much he fucked up. he said he wasn’t gonna break her heart again and he did. he wanted to rip his hair out. yunjin was right, he thought he could have his cake and eat it too.

he’ll give y/n however long she needed. he just desperately needed her to listen to what he has to say. just once. and if she decides that she never wants anything to do with him after, he’ll live with the consequences.

soobin rounded the table and quietly sat on it in front of y/n. he watched as her chest rose and fell from her breathing. before he could stop himself, his hand was already cupping her cheek, his thumb rubbing small circles into it. thankfully, she didn’t even stir. she must’ve been extremely drunk.

rounding the table again, soobin sat on the floor and laid his head in his arms on the table. he silently watched her. he was afraid that if he took his eyes off of her for even a second she would stop breathing or disappear.

soobin decided that he would stay up the rest of the night and however long he had with her in the morning to make sure nothing happened, not that he was going to get much sleep anyways.

masterlist.

summary: choi soobin has always been the popular kid surrounded by his popular friends. y/n… not so much. one night, soobin and his friends make bet that soobin can’t get y/n to date him in a month. unfortunately for y/n, they’re a hopeless romantic.

A/N: i am so sorry for this one… cause why i shed a tear and I’M the one who wrote it…

taglist: @imagineyour-kpopboy @gothgyuu @carengene @spooksh0wbabe (if your name is bold it wouldn’t let me tag you!)

— kipo <3

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crownmemes · 2 months

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Advice; About Pages vs Rules Pages

About Pages

An about page is where you describe information about your muse. It allows potential writing partners to see who they are and decide if they're interested in writing with them. An about page should ideally consist of the following:

Basic bio information (name, age, etc)

A short physical description (this is useful even if you have a fc image because you can describe how they may differ from the image!)

A short paragraph describing what they're like as a person

Any relevant history information

Of course, the more information the better, so you could write more than this if you wanted to! If you have a really long about page, having a short, condensed paragraph summary at the top of the page is a good idea.

An about page is also a good place to put any AUs you may have for your muse (or you could create a separate verses page!). For AU information, you should describe how your muse is different from their main verse.

You need an about page if you are writing an OC. Your OC is an original character, so you need to give potential writing partners that information so they can see what your OC is like. If your muse is canon divergent or AU based, you should also have an about page because people will want to know how your muse differs from canon before deciding to write with you.

If your muse is a canon character, you should still consider having an about page. This is because you're likely to have headcanons that differ from canon, so writing them down prevents confusion later on. It also allows people who aren't familiar with the character to learn about them so they can write with you too - this is especially important if you write for a small fandom!

If you're a new blog, writing about pages also demonstrates your writing ability and style, which can help you get your first interactions!

If you're struggling to write an about page, I have prompts for basic character information here.

Rules Pages

A rules page is where you write the rules for writing with you. Common rules are:

No godmodding (controlling your writing partner's character)

Age restrictions

The length of replies you want to write

Any topics you don't want to write

Some people also include a brief description of themselves here. It is a good idea to include whether you are under 18, 18+ or 21+ as many people have age restrictions in their rules.

Making a rules page is important because it allows you to set restrictions that potential writing partners can check before interacting with you. It also allows potential writing partners to check that you are compatible with them.

It's important to read a partner's rule page before interacting with them. It's surprisingly easy to tell if somebody hasn't read your rules, and people are unlikely to want to write with somebody who hasn't read them.

See suggestions of where to make about/rules pages here.

#I hope this doesn't come across as patronising but I've seen a lot of people confuse the two recently #I've also seen a lot of people who aren't aware of why they're important #take it from someone who has run a single rp blog with consistent activity for 12 years now:#an about page is REALLY important for new interactions. Especially if you're a new blog #rph #rpc #rp psa #rpc psa #rp help #rpc help #rp advice;

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zhongrin · 1 year

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┋ The Steambird Issue No.517

article commissioned by the fontaine steambird magazine and written by ✾ mei/rin ✾

[Breaking News!] Our Fontaine gadget makers did it again, folks!

A collaboration project between Fontaine's best gadget makers and the scholars at Sumeru Akademiya has resulted in a prototype device inspired by the now-obsolete AKASHA system.

Not many details have been revealed, but as the scholars described it, they are aiming to use the concept of AKASHA to create a virtual space, called TeyvaTweets, where people can communicate with one another without seeing each other's faces! Yes - much quite like a communication device, but one that utilizes text instead of the usual verbal methods of communication.

A few selected testers have been invited to try it out, and if you're one of the lucky ones - congratulations! We look forward to seeing how this new technology will help connect people across Teyvat.

——————————⟡⟡⟡ ✉️ ⟡⟡⟡——————————

Dear <USER>,

𝒞ongratulations! You have been selected to help with testing out the fruits of our labor, here at the Sumeru-Fontaine collaboration project. Enclosed is the device containing the application: TeyvaTweets. Have fun perusing it, and we look forward to your feedback.

⧽ [ Turn on the device ] [ Leave it off ]

ps. user manual and warnings attached on a separate page.

𝚄𝚜𝚎𝚛 𝙼𝚊𝚗𝚞𝚊𝚕 𝚟𝟷.𝟶.

you should be able to open it using both phone and pc (it's just a normal website).

clicking on pfp/name/username in a tweet (orange box) will open the profile of that person. clicking the 'x' icon on the popup box's top right side will close the user profile.

clicking the tweet on the main page will open the tweet's replies thread. clicking the back button will bring you back to the main page.

𝚆𝚊𝚛𝚗𝚒𝚗𝚐𝚜.

there are suggestive contents inside, but nothing explicit.

some of you make cameos under other people's tweets too! see if you can spot yourself ;)

there's a lot of images for this one so the page might load slowly for you, especially if your internet isn't fast. i'm also using a free hosting service from GitHub, so yeah.

in order to indulge everyone, please pretend the tweet reply threads that 'overlap' with one another is a separate world on their own (e.g. if multiple people are flirting with a character and they flirt back in the reply thread don't point fingers and say that they're unfaithful / is cheating / ruin someone else's fun in general ;;;)

tested on chrome & safari web browsers on a mac and iphone + google pixel. crossing my fingers that it works on other devices too...

created for 𝓏𝒽𝑜𝓃𝑔𝓇𝒾𝓃'𝐬 𝐬𝐮𝐫𝐩𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐞 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐧𝐭 (submissions are closed)

might make a y/n-ify version of this in the future bc my brain accidentally fleshed out a whole concept of how it would work, but don't count me on that bc it's gonna take a lot more effort than this and honestly idk if it's even worth it-

——————————⟡⟡⟡ ✉️ ⟡⟡⟡——————————

#genshin impact #genshin x reader #zhongli #al haitham #kaveh #childe #kaeya #wanderer #too many characters involved to tag in this #so i just tagged the ones with most appearances #zhongrin's surprise event #rin writes #rin uses her programming skill to have fun

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simon-roy · 5 months

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The idea of logging on a colonized alien planet brings my mind back to the planet Lalonde from Peter F. Hamilton's Night's Dawn books - a world that had very hard wood as its only meaningful export, and was also stuck developing its economy from agriculturalism (due to investment shortages, though).

All this is to say - Hey! What are some foundational inspirations for your sci fi verse? You gotta have some like recommendations of classic or older sci-fi for us, right? What are some of your suggestions of books and authors to read?

OK SO - My sci-fi tastes have sort of ended up in some very specific niches. Growing up, I was a Larry Niven +Jerry Pournelle man, in part because my dad amassed a huge collection of their books - then gave 90% of them away before i was old enough to read them. So one of my teenage missions was rebuilding that library, trash and all!

Stuff like Footfall, Ringworld, Gil "The Arm" Hamilton, Protector (yes i attempted to name a comic series similarly, and paid for it) "The Mote in God's Eye"... you name it, I read fuckloads of these books. And while they tend to land on a sort of human chauvinist "mankind will win based on his inherent adaptive human-ness, and the aliens will fail because of their rigid alien-ness", this shit was very foundational to me.

Their more collaborative series, The Man-Kzin Wars and War World, also loom large in my teenage mind. The Man-Kzin wars are super fun - humans meet a race of tiger-men, and go from being NWO peaceniks to roughneck cat-skinners in a generation! PEACE AND LOVE WONT DEFEAT TIGER MEN!

Similarly, war world (like lots of that 70s/80s military sci fi) was a sort of catch-all for western military nerds to play with their favorite factions - it was a planet where all the un-ruleable ethnic groups and nationalities had been deported by the authoritarian earth government, and left to rot... until a race of genetically engineered fascist super men land on the world, and start trying to rule the place. Pretty fun shit.

As I got older, I turned hard into William Gibson, and read the absolute shit out of both the Neuromancer trilogy and the Bridge trilogy, as well as his short stories. Bruce Sterling was part of that wave for me, too, and I religiously sought his old paperbacks out too. In terms of novels, "Distraction" is my favorite coherent Sterling Novel - though the short stories in the "Schismatrix" novel/collection of his remain my absolute favorite space opera pieces.

At this age, too, I found my top-top fave Sterling Stories - "Taklaman" and "Bicycle Repairman", both gritty pseudo-cyberpunk stories of the highest degree, in this collection:

This thousand-plus page collection of short stories and novellas was basically my bible for a few years - i put sticky notes on each story i loved and meant to return to, until the book was so festooned with sticky note bookmarks i abandoned the practice altogether. If you have the chance, just buy this book and chew on it for a few years.

As i got into my 20s, Charles Stross became my lode star - his books like Accelerando and Glasshouse were total game changers for me. They come with their own peculiarities, but I loved his transhuman/posthuman musings (or at least i was obsessed with his stuff for a good few years - the venn diagram of his obvious interests and my own overlapped enough that his books were great fodder for a growing sci-fi loving brain).

But since then, my main literary squeeze has been the great man, JACK VANCE. Working on Prophet, my friend @cmkosemen made a remark about how much the early issues of the series reminded him of a book series called "Planet of Adventure" or "the Tschai Cycle", by Jack Vance. The book has a beautifully simple setup - a man from an entirely undescribed spacefaring human civilization crash-lands onto a weird planet. But on that planet, he finds four separate civilizations, each who possess a population of enslaved humans, culturally and physically molded to the needs of their masters. And each book of this series covers our generic hero's interactions with each bizarre expoitative culture. I was extremely intrigued.

Soon thereafter, I found my current absolute favorite book - "THE DRAGON MASTERS". A book about an isolated medieval world... which gets visited, once every few generations, by a black pyramid starship, flown by a reptilian race known as the Greph. The greph capture humans to (surprise surprise) breed them into hyper specific slaves... who in turn become Greph-like in their thinking and demeanours. But the last time the BLACK PYRAMID landed, a bunch of angry medieval dudes stormed the thing, blew it up, and captured a bunch of greph... who became the breeding stock for a whole new human world of slave labour. By the time we meet this planet, the two rival lords of the human-populated regions have been breeding greph slave warriors, or "dragons", for generations, for combat against one another. But soon, the black pyramid will return...

I love this book I even spent a good few months during covid talking with the Vance Estate and several publishers about developing it into a graphic novel, but nobody could quite agree on how it could get made with old Simon getting a paycheque... so sadly it fell apart. There are concept drawings floating around my patreon and other corners of the internet. But one day I'll use 'em...

My other favorite books of his, to name a couple of the MANY books of his I love:

THE BLUE WORLD: A caste system of humans, descended from a crashed prison ship, live on floating settlements on an ocean planet, paying protection to a giant long-lived intelligent crustacean. But one man is tired of giving up all his crops to this tyrannical megafauna...

THE MIRACLE WORKERS: Rival lords on a planet descended to medieval tech (surprise surprise) fight using armies... and rival SORCERORS who employ the powers of suggestion to voodoo each others' warriors... but when facing non-human intelligences, these sorceror's skills fall short.

But there are heaps more, and I love most (thought not all) of the ones i've read. They're generally short, concise, and full of all sorts of bizarre bullshit.

THere are more books i've read and enjoyed in my life, of course, but these are the core ones that I think of when I think of my career as a sci-fi reader... let me know what your top recs are!

#sciencefiction #science fiction #book recommendations #jack vance #larry niven #jerry pournelle #simon roy #griz grobus #charles stross #dragon masters #william gibson #bruce sterling

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steddieunderdogfics · 10 months

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This is a space to celebrate fanfics that may have been lost to how quickly this ship grew!

This may change as the blog grows and the fandom continues to create! This post will stay pinned and be updated when these changes occur. Right now, these numbers come from the first three pages of the Steve Harrington/Eddie Munson tag on Ao3.

Nominate an author for WRITER'S SPOTLIGHT here!

Vote on our next THEME WEEEK here!

Suggest a CHALLENGE for Challenge Mondays here!

Submit a fic through our ASK and/or our SUBMISSIONS!

You can see our previously recommended fics here!

Below the cut, there are some frequently asked questions!

Can I submit my own works?

Absolutely! The more the merrier!

What counts as a popular fic?

Popularity is hard to determine with how many pockets of fandom there are. This is why we're using the metrics to gauge the cut off since people are discovering fics for the first time everyday! What may be the quintessential, most popular fic to you could be entirely new to a new fan or someone in another bubble of the Steddie fandom!

Are there any fics you won't take as recs?

No! All fics should be celebrated and it's easy to miss so many amazing creators and stories. Please refrain from anything that is on the first few pages of the ship tag when filtered by hits, kudos, comments, and/or bookmarks, since those are technically the most popular by numbers. As far as content, as long as the fic is properly tagged, it's okay to recommend!

How should we submit our recs?

There are two ways to submit: through the ask box or the submission tab. Asks: If you chose the ask box, just send the title and author (and if you're able the link, but sometimes tumblr won't let you) and I'll add the template to your response with the rating, tags, and summary! Submissions: In the guidelines, there's a template to copy and paste into your submission. Fill it out, add the links, and then choose the tags that best fit the fic you're recommending!

Can I submit multiple stories in one ask?

If you're rec'ing more than two, please do them separately! In order to give each fic the recognition it deserves, it's best if they're getting a post to itself so they stand out. Two is fine for a post, but anything more than that, please split it up!

Can I submit multiple stories in general?

Please do!!

Where can I see the fics that have been submitted?

You can check our main tumblr for fics organized by title and by author!

#steddie fic recs #steddie #steve harrington #stranger things #eddie munson #steve x eddie

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the-common-cowgirl · 1 year

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It’s Only Forever, Not Long at All…

Chapter 1: Into the Labyrinth

Labyrinth AU Mini-Series. Each Chapter based on the chronological soundtrack of the cult classic film, Labyrinth (1986).

Goblin King!Aemond Targaryen x Fem!Reader

Rating: Ch. 1 is General

Summary: Life at home is not fair, your only escape is your beloved fairytale novel, The Labyrinth. However, everything is about to change when you make a heat-of-the-moment mistake, causing you to strike an unfair deal with the one and only, Goblin King.

Warnings: teenage angst

Word Count: 2960

A/N: I know chapter 1 doesn’t delve too far from the original story, however, it’s pivotal for the remainder of the story so I kept it closely canon and will start separating in chapter 2.

Series Masterlist

Thunder rumbles distantly as you make your way across the park. The skies are gloomy overhead but you pay no attention. No, your mind isn’t stuck in the present. It dances to a realm where a handsome king holds you in his arms as you stare deeply into his eyes: in love. You clutch the fairytale novel, The Labyrinth, close to your home-made, hand sewn corset you made all by yourself after becoming infatuated with this book nearly four years ago. Now at eighteen, your childish obsession has somewhat taken over your life.

Your bedroom was covered in “Labyrinth” memorabilia. You had learned to sew garments that fit the fantasy world you pictured in your mind, creating an extensive array of different pieces. Your step-mother had a music box crafted for your sixteenth birthday, as a way of trying to grow closer to you. It was a miniature version of yourself in a big, white, puffy fantasy wedding gown and hair done up in pearls and beads in an intricate way. You loved that version of you in that music box so much that you had set out to remake the gown, it had taken two years but it was nearly finished and you couldn’t wait to put it on.

Your stepmother’s attempt at becoming friendly with you had worked, until it didn't. She had merely suggested one night recently that you should pursue a degree in fashion after you graduated since you loved sewing garments so much. The suggestion infuriated you, for she had been so close to understanding what fueled your passion for creating things, yet so far. You only created and learned to sew because of your love of reading, specifically your love of this book. How could she be so blind to not see that? That night a verbal fight had ensued between your step-mother, father and yourself. A fight so bad, your step-mother picked up your baby sister, you baby half-sister, and left the room.

The residual feelings of unease still lingered in the home, weeks after the fight. Which led to now, in the park, you reciting the main character’s words to the Goblin King and the air around you as a way to escape your home-life and reality, if only for a short while.

“Give me the child. Through dangers untold and hardships unnumbered, I have fought my way here to the castle beyond the Goblin City to take back the child that you have stolen. For my will is as strong as yours, and my kingdom is great,” your mind trails off as you try to remember the next line.

“Ugh,” you groan and hit the book in your hand to your head, maybe a little too hard as it stings slightly “ I can never remember that line!” It’s true, you couldn’t, but you were also in the middle of trying to memorize the entire book so you should’ve given yourself more grace. You open the book to the page and passage in which you are trying to recite. Reading the words on the page aloud to yourself, “You have no power over me.”

As suddenly as you read the line, a large, snowy white owl swoops overhead, capturing your attention to the sky and a single raindrop falls onto your cheek as you head is cast upward to the rapidly darkening sky.

Which reminds you that you probably need to be back home by now. Your father had asked you to babysit your sister so he and your step-mother could go to a local fundraising gala and socialize the night away. The rain starts to come down harder now and you make your way back toward your home, running over the park’s bridge, right by the gazebo. Then when you reach the street, the clouds let loose and the downpour begins. You’re showered with water as you spring down the street, across a neighbor’s backyard and when you finally reach the back porch of your home that you found refuge from the wet in, you realize that not only are your garment’s soaked, so is your favorite book.

Grumbling angrily to yourself as you step into the house, past the kitchen and dining room and into the receiving room as you head up the stairs. Your self pity is stopped abruptly in your tracks as your stepmother calls from the bottom of the stairs, appearing from thin air.

“You’re late,” she called and you turned around halfway up the steps, “and you’re drenched!” She shrieks and turns to your father who is just out of sight, “Paul! Please explain to your daughter about punctuality and being presentable!” Her hair is in an updo as she puts on her earring. Her dress is a beautiful pale, satin pink; she’s the epitome of punctual and presentable.

Your father appears from the other room, “Y/N, you were not supposed to leave the house without our permission. Do you not remember that you're grounded?” His voice is stern but softer than your step-mother’s.

“I’m eighteen dad, you can’t ground me!” You stomp, childishly on the stair you’re standing on above them, water droplets falling with your action.

Your father brings up his pointer finger in warning, “As long as you live under my roof, I can still ground you. Now,” he raises his finger and points above you to the second floor, “Please take good care of Sarah tonight.”

“She’s already down for the night,” your step-mother adds as your father walks into the other room, “But if she wakes, just-”

“I know, I know,” you cut her off, “rock her to sleep and sing her her favorite songs and while I’m at it, why don’t I just give her my favorite things?” You raise your arms in a dramatic shrug.

Your step-mother sighs and grabs the baluster of the staircase, “Y/N, please do not disrespect me,” she says with a soft-sternness too familiar to you from her mouth; a plea. “I’m trying Y/N, but you’re making it,” you roll your eyes and start to walk further up the stairs, “so hard!” Her last two words are yelled to you as you go to your room, slam the door, and fall face-first onto your bed trying to drown out her yelling from downstairs.

They make you angry, both of them. They didn’t understand you or your interests. But, your father at least had the good sense not to bug you about what he didn’t understand; she didn’t. She’d constantly ask you about the book, about your projects, about the different characters, all to only ask once more, as if she didn’t store away information so important to you in her mind. You’d assumed if she truly wanted to know you, she’d make an effort. The nicest thing she had done was getting you that music box but even then, she made it more about your hobby of sewing than your passion for the fantasy element.

After some time, you heard the front door slam and that seemed to wake Sarah. You took a deep sigh, internally cursing them for waking your sister, half-sister. Pulling yourself from the bed, you made your way across the hall in the direction of the screaming to your father and step-mother’s room where Sarah had been sleeping. As you opened the door, the screaming intensified and you covered your ears as you approached the crying toddler in her pink-striped pajamas. You picked the toddler up as she continued to scream, not soothed by your presence in the slightest. You bounced her trying to sing against her wails, pacing around the room hap-hazardly as Sarah’s screams only seemed to worsen. As you passed her cradle for the third time, you recognized a stuffed animal she had been sleeping with to soothe her; your stuffed animal toy. The one your mother had given you when you were a baby.

Of course they’d give Sarah your things, she was your replacement with your father’s new wife. She was their precious girl, you were just a product of his last marriage to them, an inconvenience. You thought bitterly about how your step-mother wanted you out of the house, away at university and out of her hair and then she could play “perfect” family with her perfect daughter and no more. Just the three of them, the way it was meant to be.

And in that moment, all your anger seemed to snap.

You raised Sarah up in the air, still screaming and recited the fateful words, the words no one should say, yet…you did.

“I can bear no longer!” Tears streamed down Sarah’s face, “I wish, I wish…Goblin King! Goblin King! Wherever you may be, take this child of mine far away from me!” The wind rattled against the windows, making your heart skip a beat, wondering if somehow this chant had in fact, worked. But when you looked outside, you had just realized the sky was dark and the sun had set. You turn your attention back to Sarah as she continues to scream. “Ugh, Sarah,” you were impatient but now more relaxed as you let off steam. Laying her down, still crying, you grabbed the stuffed animal from her crib as she reached for it and walked back to your room briskly, to where it belonged. As you made your way across the hall, back toward the room Sarah was in, you heard her screaming abruptly stop. Your hand lingered above the handle of the door, wary as to why Sarah had stopped crying.

Opening the door, you called out, “Sarah?” Looking at her crib, you could see movements beneath the blanket but you couldn’t see her face. As you neared the crib, it moved sporadically, not in the way Sarah would move if she had fallen asleep. “Sarah?” You reached for the blanket to pull it from her face to make certain she was alright but the blanket moved again and you heard mischievous laughing from beneath. Your heartbeat quickened as you snatched the blanket from the crib to reveal nothing; Sarah was not there.

Behind you, you heard shuffling along the floor, then laughing as you turned, seeing a figure go underneath the queen bed skirt. Bending down in search of Sarah, you lifted the bed skirt to see nothing. “Sarah?” Your heart beat was quickening as you looked for your baby sister. “Sarah, this is not funny.” Something touched your leg and you jumped, looking down to see nothing. Shuffling was heard across the room and laughing from three different places were heard. You looked all around you in a panic, shadowy figures that resembled cats were hiding and peeking out from all around the room. You screeched as the creatures slowly emerged.

Suddenly behind you, the windows burst open with a warm gust of air and you quickly turned to be flooded with the white feathers of an owl. Covering your face so to not get scratched you shouted in fear. Then, the air was gone, the noise was gone, it was still. Slowly lowering your arms from your face, you were met with a towering, silver haired figure in a long coat, tight pants, knee high boots and an eye-patch….staring at you with a mischievous glint in his remaining eye.

And you knew.

“You’re him aren't you? You’re the Goblin King!” You accused, stepping back in fright. “I want my sister back, please, if it’s all the same.”

The corners of his mouth quirked, “What’s said is said.” His stern voice held finality.

“But I didn’t mean it,” you pleaded.

His smile grew from your words, “Oh you didn’t?” Raising a single brow.

A creature, a goblin, ran from behind you, frightening you into another shriek, between your legs and behind the King who waved his hands in front of each other and procured a glass-looking ball from what seemed thin air, like a magic trick. “I’ve brought you,” the orb danced across his fingertips as he transferred it from one hand to the other, “a gift.”

You felt inclined to take a step toward him but refused that feeling, “What is it?”

“It’s a crystal, nothing more. But, if you turn it this way and look into it,” he turned the crystal closer toward you, “it will show you your dreams. But it is not a gift for an ordinary girl who takes care of a screaming baby.” He looked down to the crystal and his smile turned upside down as he looked up to you mischievously and threw the crystal at you, turning into a snake midair and landing on your chest. You screamed in terror as the snake fell to your feet and spun in tight circles, turning into a goblin and who laughed up at you.

When you raised your head to look at the king and you were suddenly in a new place, a realm of some sort, his realm. It was a dusty landscape and he stood above you, a warm wind blowing his silver locks across the tall black collar of his dust jacket. He raised a hand aside himself and procured an image of an ornate, golden grandfather clock whose hands spun sporadically. “You have twelve hours in which to solve the Labyrinth before your baby sister becomes one of us, forever.” He grinned devilishly, “At the center of the Labyrinth lies the Goblin City, and, my castle. You will find us there, waiting.” He pointed out beyond you.

You looked behind you to the massive maze in which you had to make it through in order to save your baby sister. At the center, far off in the distance, sitting atop a hill was a large castle: your destination.

“Turn back, turn back before it’s too late,” his voice rang behind you. As you turned you realized he had gotten closer, strangely close to you.

“I can’t,” you professed. “Don’t you know why I can't?”

He laughed deeply as he stepped backwards and began to disappear, “Such a pity.” His voice echoed around you, taunting you, encouraging you to fail.

You took a deep breath, stilling your mind and readied yourself for the task at hand. Turning, you set off and hurried down the hill to the tall, light dusty stone walls of the Labyrinth. Beginning your adventure into the world you had loved from pages for so long, that had now somehow, become your worst nightmare. You had to save your sister. You had to undo what you had caused. You had to solve the Labyrinth.

As you reached the towering walls you looked for an entrance into the maze and found there was none in sight, so you ran along the walls one way till you were nearly out of breath. Not seeing an end in sight, you turned and ran back the way you came and past that, until you were sorely out of breath. There was no entrance in sight, nothing but high stone walls that went on forever.

Feeling defeated and angry, you fell to the ground on your bottom, yelling, “It’s not fair!” Picking up a rock and throwing it to the wall without it to bounce back, rather, going through the wall. This puzzled you and you tilted your head.

“Life’s not fair,” a gravelly voice sounded behind you, causing you to startle. You saw a strange looking goblin walking about, spraying fairies and paying no mind to you.

“Hey! Don’t hurt them,” you reach out to scoop up an injured fairy that had been sprayed by this goblin. It looked at you with its little eyes and cute wings. You wondered why he had sprayed a thing so innocent and minding itself.

Then you felt a sharp sting in your hand and dropped the fairy, “Ow! It bit me!” Holding your hand to your mouth to stop the small pain.

“What did you expect a fairy to do?” He grogged and turned toward you as if we were dull.

“I don’t know…nice things like granting wishes?”

The goblin rolled his eyes, “Shows what you know, don’t it?” He returned to spraying the fairies but you had an idea.

Jumping up, “Hey, you live here don’t you? Why don’t you show me how to get into this place?” You put your hands on your hips with renewed hope.

The goblin and his sprayer turned, “Well, have you tried to get in?”

You furrowed your brow in confusion, “I’ve looked but there doesn't seem to be an entrance-”

“Just go through it,” he replied hastily, bored with your presence.

This puzzled you further. “Go through it?” You echoed and he merely nodded his head.

To get in you just walk in.” He spoke as if it were the plainest answer possible, the impossible.

Intrigued by his suggestion and oddly believing this goblin despite what help he offered to be very impossible, you decided to try it. So, you turned and walked to the stone wall with trepidation, hands raised. As you neared the wall, your hands slowly disappeared, then your arms, then you were on the other side of the wall, in the Labyrinth.

Elated, you returned back to the outside to thank this helpful goblin. “Wow, I just go through it!” He only rolled his eyes and returned to spraying the fairies. “Thank you, uh,” you hadn’t gotten his name.

“Hoggle,” he offered while paying you minimal attention.

“Thank you, Hoggle!” Excited, you slipped back into the maze. Turning around, you looked at the high walls before you and exhaled a deep sigh. Into the Labyrinth you went in search of your sister, to right your wrong, to defeat the Goblin King.

Let me know if you’d like to be added to the taglist! As always, reblogs, comments and likes are appreciated but not necessary. ❤️❤️

IOF,NLAA Taglist: @sassysaxsolo @fan-goddess

#fanfic #house of the dragon #a song of ice and fire #gameofthrones #smut #aemond targaryen #game of thrones #labyrinth #aemond #aemond smut #hotd aemond #aemond fanfiction #aemond x reader #goblin king #goblin king aemond #aemond one eye

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theelf-art · 1 year

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How I color manga panels: a tutorial

I'm no expert at doing recolors, I'm simply an artist who's occasionally too lazy to do my own lineart, and uses that of my favorite mangaka's so I can focus on other styles to simply have fun with my colors. I always try and choose panels or pages that are high quality, to avoid too much pixelization. Often I end up sourcing these from scanners or google images.

As far as programs, I use Krita (a free software). This all can be done with the standard brushes and tools that come with the software. But for some of the coloring, I have brushes from brush packs i like to use, as well as a few brushes I have customized myself. The main ones I use are from David Revoy, so if you want a recommendation for a great free brush pack, that's mine.

For this example I'll be using this panel from Chapter 58 of Moriarty the Patriot (I believe this would be Volume 15 of the manga) that I posted earlier here.

I'm not including the step where I crop the image, but I personally chose to remove some of the white borders that are needed for a traditional volume's page borders. Since I'm doing digital art, I don't always include them.

My next step is always to outline and fill the individual base layers. This includes the speech bubbles, each character, any independent props, the panels themselves and the backgrounds. There's no correct way to do this, but personally I use a brush to outline the object, then fill tool to well. Fill it, as well as the rectangle tool for the panels or straight lines I need to do.

For layers, I usually put all of these color base layers in a single group that's set to multiply, and change the opacity of the base panel so that I can fill the blacked out areas with a solid color easily, here you can see I was working with the base panel at 50%, but honestly i just kind of turn it down to whatever I think looks good.

The colors I use for this step are usually brightly saturated rainbow colors so it's easy to tell the different elements apart from each other. So you end up with something that ends up looking rather horrific like this:

From here, I usually create a copy of the base panel to put over the top of the colors. This way I can have transparency for the colors on some of the blacked out parts, but don't loose some of the nuance of the shading entirely. Moriarty the Patriot is a very black heavy cell style, which is the style I find the "panel above, panel below" method works best on. However as I work on the colors, I tend to toggle between having it on or off.

It's about here where I start doing my coloring. Of course this will depend on your coloring style and art habits, however personally, I like to start with the characters. I use those colored layers as the base layer I can clip my coloring layers to.

I will often turn off the layers that I'm not currently using so I don't have to deal with eyestrain, and will change the base layer to something more suitable (often a grey or light tan) so my color theory doesn't get all messed up. The bright colors in previous steps are to make sure they're visually separate. Now they've been established, I don't have to worry about that.

I don't usually label my layers, but for the sake of the tutorial I have to make it clearer which layer grouping is which.

I find in this step because of the multiply layer the colors can be a bit washed out, so I tend to either use much more saturated colors than I usually do, or switch to another layer style like Linear Burn of the overall color group to make the colors pop more. Ultimately though this comes down to personal preference. If your coloring style is very de-saturated, you might not have any problems with it. (I do suggest making your base color white, so the coloring of the base panel isn't off, you'll see in the screenshots above I forgot to when working on Sherlock. Ignore my mistake)

For the parts of the image where it's primarily blacked out (such as Sherlock's hair or coat) I don't bother shading at all, and only do the highlighting, as the black takes care of the darkest tones anyways.

During my coloring, I also add a separate grouping above everything for adding rendering and details above the panels. This includes things like the eye highlights (which I always do in pure #000000 white) and making certain parts of the heavily blacked out areas pop more.

(those refs and paint layer 13 are what I'm using to color pick off of, and keep the shading colors consistent throughout the piece. There's probably a better way to do it, but I just paste them directly into the image and then delete them at the end, paint layer 43 is a color dodge layer, and so has to be outside of the layer grouping to work)

Comparison of the art without:

And with the top details and white highlights:

It's a pretty subtle difference, but I find it's the little things that truly make the piece. Especially with the strands going over the face, they need just a bit more to make them really pop. I also just really like my fancy eyes which is hard to do without the top layer.

Insert several hours of coloring here, and about another hour just trying to figure out what gradient to use for the background, and you end up with the the base colors. From here I usually mess with overlay layers as well to get the colors to all look fancy and nice together without having to do color theory (pro tip /lh).

I forgot to grab screenshots while doing the background, but for the top panel I essentially just used the [deevad 5c screentones] brush and a transparency mask to add a screentone gradient, and totally didn't google "splatter overlay" or something like that and picked something off of google, and added some borders.

Because both the base manga panel and manga panel over the top are both not at full opacity, if there is text in the page or panel (such as this one) I like to copy the just the text part of the panel and add it as full opacity in the "colors" folder to make sure it's legible and matches up the rest of the colors.

And after all that, its basically done. I'll sometimes continue to mess around with certain aspects to make sure I like how it look, but that's essentially it. This is when I add my signature, and then it's queued to post!

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witheredoffherwitch · 1 year

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I can't help but cringe when I see some people trying to push Aegon v. Aemond or Helaena v. Alys in these online spaces. Each character in the show has their own role in the storyline--and it's absurd to think they could be pitted against each other. It's just too weird.

Aegon v. Aemond isn't a thing because despite these two hating each other's guts, they fight besides each other till their last moment. Aemond fights this war in Aegon's name -- and despite him thinking his brother is nothing more than a drunken wastrel, this fool still offers this challenge to Luke by asking, "did you really think you could just fly about the realm trying to steal my brother's throne at no cost?" In F&B, the conflict is mainly panned out between Aegon v. Rhaenyra and Aemond v. Daemon. Helaena's role is much more passive all while being extremely crucial to how the Dance ultimately ends. Many are quick to point out that Lucerys' death was the catalyst that jumpstarted this whole civil war (even though in truth, it had been simmering since that Driftmark incident) but fail to notice that Halaena's end is what cements the final conclusion of the war.

I have acknowledged my hesitation in discussing Helaena-centric topics on my page because I have always felt like I understand her the least out of all the Green characters. But the way some of y'all go ahead and make assumptions about her relationships with her family -- and make up fake conflicts to justify your own crackship is truly bizzare.

I cannot even comprehend how stupid this forced competition between Helaena and Alys is. People really need to stop injecting Aemond into Helaena's storyline. Her loss, grief and trauma is separate from her brother's struggles -- and Helaena's tragic end is one of the turning points that change the tides against Rhaenyra. Infact, I suppose in this Aegon v. Rhaenyra clash (where Rhaenyra is unbashedly favoured in the show), Helaena's presence might be offered as a false positive for Team Black after the fall of King's Landing. Helaena's death comes right before the Storming of the Dragon Pit that ultimately sealed Rhaenyra's fate -- what remains to be seen is how the show is going to depict the events leading up to that point? In the book, Helaena is more or less a passive figure who is reduced to a grieving queen after the culmination of B&C. I had previously suggested that Helaena's role is going to be bigger than what was depicted in F&B - and given the fact that she has prophetic powers in the show, I assume she will be playing a much bigger role! Helaena is a seer who can see into the future -- and since the show is already exploring the 'song of ice and fire' (a la the long night), it needs to be seen how else are they going to use Helaena beyond season 1. Does she see her line ending after the Dance? Is she aware that dragons might cease to exist after the war? Does she see the eventual demise of her house? Does she see the Dance's conclusion as some sort of inevitable truth that must follow to achieve Aegon's dream?

Alys on the other hand has a completely different role all together. She is either Aemond's high-calling or his partner in chaos. Much of her story is shrouded in mystery. We don't even get a full account of how her story concluded; what happened to her and her child during Aegon III's reign. She becomes the witch queen of Harrenhal but for the next thirty years, we do not know what happened before the castle was eventually given to Lucas Lothston.

In conclusion, I will once again remind folks that each character serves a distinct purpose in this war. The common denominator between these character is unfortunately their father, Viserys -- and this story is essentially a run-down on how the prophetic king himself dooms his entire family (and eventually his house) into the path of self-destruction. For most of his life, Viserys' main aim was to ensure both stability and longevity for his line, and despite his efforts, he failed at that task quite remarkably. Each one of his kids possessed that distinct Targaryen 'trait' and yet this is a king who places his oldest daughter above the rest out of the guilt for killing his first wife. In the end, it was his choice that ultimately doomed his own house.

#hotd discourse #aegon ii targaryen #helaena targaryen #aemond targaryen #alys rivers #helaegon #alysmond #pro team green #team green #anti viserys i targaryen #hotd analysis #fandom bs

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deathbypufferfish · 2 years

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How I Manage my Mods for Big Patch Updates!

Big updates can be overwhelming when you have a lot of mods, so I thought I would make a guide about how I keep track of things with google sheets!

As always, remember to back up your saves and take your mods folder out before you update! (taking the folder out is not necessary, but a good safeguard). Playing with unconfirmed and not updated mods after an update is at your own risk! If you want to wait until your mods are updated, turn off automatic updates and play in offline mode.

Even if you don't want to do a google sheet, it's still good to know where you can find your mod updates!

Resource List:

Deaderpool Discord Server (public server)

Google Sheets (you can use any excel-based program but this is what I use and it's free) I'll be giving some tips but this is not a google sheets tutorial.

Scarlet/Sims VIP Broken/Updated Mod List (edit: Scarlet changed it so the list is not on google sheets but displayed on her site. It's the same link and you can still search with ctrl + f so nothing has changed in this tutorial. I use the filtered views list).

First off: I will always recommend sorting your mods into folders. At the very least, a separate folder for your mods away from your cc. Remember that script mods should only be at most, one folder deep. This is how I personally organize my mods. Note that they all start with "mods" so they all appear together alphabetically. I group big mods on their own and smaller mods into these categories.

2. The first thing to do is to create a template sheet. This will be a list of your mods formatted in sheets that you can duplicate when an update happens. If you have any new mods, add them here and not to your update sheets. I do not include every single mod. The mods I include are my script mods and large tuning mods that are updated by their creators. Some mods, like for example the no blu by luumia, are small enough to not worry about and do not receive compatibility confirmations so I leave them out.

3. This is how my template is formatted:

When an update happens, I will cross reference my sheet to the Scarlet's List and input whether it is broken, compatible or updated. Once a broken mod is updated, I will change the status accordingly.

The creator's name comes first so that way if you decide to sort the sheet A to Z they will be grouped by creator. (You'll see why later). Do this by left clicking on column A. If you sort by A to Z the column titles will be sorted too, so freeze that row.

Edit: I also recently added a column for the links to the mod pages! I suggest wrapping the text in that column to keep it neat.

4. The Scarlet/Sims VIP Broken/Updated Mod list is updated in real time by tons of contributors and modders. Additionally, you can look for updates regularly with Scarlet's weekly update and changes list (found through the same link above) or with the mod news channel in Deaderpool's Server, which also gives updates. For now we'll only be looking at the main patch list.

There's tons of mods on here, but don't be alarmed! You can simply search the mod list with Ctrl + F. I recommend searching by creator so there is no confusion on the mods' names.

When an update happens, I will go down the list on my new, duplicated sheet and search for the creators on the Scarlet's List. I then label it on my sheet whether it is listed as broken, compatible or updated. Once a broken mod is updated, I will change its status to "updated".

Mods are listed as "unknown" if their status hasn't been confirmed any which way. After some time, I'd say a small "unknown" mod is safe to go ahead with, but do that at your own risk. I mainly am looking out for the big script mods, many small tuning mods I am willing to give the go ahead if it is still unknown after my major mods are confirmed.

I recommend sitting down and reviewing your mods after a day or so has past after the patch, or you can keep up and regularly update it with Deaderpool's server. You can also use google sheets on your phone for convenience.

Optional:

I do some conditional formatting as well to keep things more clear on my mods sheet. This is optional, but I do recommend it! Do this all on your template sheet so you do not have to redo it later on.

First, I go to Format>Alternating colors to make the rows clear from one another.

Go to Format>Conditional Formatting and select "add another rule".

Click on the top left square as shown here to select the entire sheet. The data range popup will appear. The data range should be something like 1:1000 (or whatever number of rows you have). Click ok.

Choose "is equal to" for your format rules. Type in the one of the status names into "Value or Formula", I'm using "compatible". Select the color you wish the cell to highlight with. You can choose additional formatting styles as well.

Repeat for "updated" and "broken" using different colors for all. I use red for broken, green for compatible, and yellow for updated. I leave mods that are "unknown" blank. Now when you type one of the status names into its column, the cell will highlight the respective color!

#ts4 #the sims 4 #ts4 tutorial #tutorial #sims 4 #do it and know peace #and stop putting your mods with your custom content for the love of god

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writingquestionsanswered · 9 months

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Hope this makes sense. In my novel I wanted to focus on the main romance, but two side character are hitting it off and it has the potential for a separate novel. How do I handle the timeline of both romances occurring roughly around the same time period if the events from one story might influence the events of the other and vice versa (I really don't want to bog things down with two stories in one novel).

Side Character Romance in Spin-Off

Here's what I would suggest...

Plot out the whole main story, including everything the side characters do and the development of their relationship.

Now, on a piece of paper, create four columns. In the first column, list all the events/moments relevant to both couples (in other words, events/moments both couples are involved in). In the second column, list all the events/moments relevant only to the main couple. In the third column, list all the events/moments relevant only to the side couple. In the fourth column, list potential "off the page" moments and events that do or could happen for the side couple, either that are hinted at or mentioned in the story.

The first column is essentially book one's plot. The second column is where most of your focus will go. The third and fourth column are essentially the second book/spin-off book's plot.

I hope that helps! :)

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discord-lurking · 9 months

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Dungeons and Daddies Wiki Drama: A Greek Tragedy Told through the Medium of Forum Posts (Part 4)

Epilogue/Exodus

Phaethon loses control of the chariot's reins.

As of the writing of this post, the wiki forums have stayed largely inactive.

December 22nd, 2023:

However, the wiki itself has been going through many changes in the days since starting this series, most notably the deletion of all character and location pages.

Yes, you read that correctly: the Dungeons and Daddies wiki will no longer be allowing pages about characters or locations featured in the show.

A quick look at the "All Pages" section of the wiki:

Only 37 wiki pages remain, all of which are separate pages for each episode of season 1 (and not even all of the episodes- many episodes past episode 33 are simply missing).

If you try to search for a specific character, such as main season 1 character Darryl Wilson:

The only results are pages of episodes where Darryl is featured (which, as a main character in season 1, is all of them).

This is a baffling decision for wiki moderators to make in good faith. It renders the wiki entirely useless, as fans now have to comb through individual episode pages for simple information on characters or locations. Why on earth would they make this change with no announcement?

The simplest explanation is that these people (or singular person) are not acting on good faith.

Taking a look at the wiki policy & wiki forum rules is also enlightening:

Wiki policy as of screenshotting earlier this week, then an addendum for the new rules related to character pages, lagging, and location pages, as of December 22nd, 2023.

These rules are... long, to say the least.

Notably, the second paragraph on the page reads as follows:

"Also, every rule must be taken seriously and if you think this is a joke that is your fault, and if you got blocked because you broke a rule that's your fault because you broke it. Don't try to get out of this, you have to follow the rules."

Again, odd speech patterns and a focus on wiki justice. I'm sensing the work of TwoRatner afoot.

I believe this part was added after penguinwithatophat's question in the forums about whether the rules were serious. The new moderators seem very concerned with being taken seriously and instituting absolute rule over the wiki.

Some rules of interest to me:

"Don't gossip about drama or cause drama."

I've already failed on that count. It appears I might find myself banned from the Dungeons and Daddies Season 1 Wiki.

Tragic.

"Malware, viruses, fetishes, and any links of that variety or any evil lowlife site link will not be allowed to prosper."

The Four Horsemen of wiki moderating: malware, viruses, fetishes, and any links of that variety/any evil lowlife site link.

"You can have alternate accounts, but you should tell everyone it's an alt before using."

"You can not sockpuppet. If you are found sockpuppeting, especially to evade a block, then that account will be blocked indefinitely. You will have a message sent to your main account stating what you did wrong and that you should not do it again."

"Meatpuppetry is semi-allowed, because some blocked users have good requests to give to others. Anyone who doesn't want to change and did severe rule-breaks shouldn't be trusted so you shouldn't add edits on their request, but a user that wants to change can ask a friend to edit for them."

"Don't sockpuppet, ever, especially to evade bans."

Four (4!) separate mentions of sockpuppeting/meatpuppeting in the wiki policy.

"Don't abuse your power. You shouldn't break global polices on FANDOM or attack users just for annoying you. Ask polite questions, or give stern warnings, but don't exact harm or make people feel unsafe by being here."

Seems that this rule for admins is more of a suggestion than a law.

Then the forum-specific guidelines (which are also, unsurprisingly, long).

"Be nice and treat people with respect. Keep discussions civil and be open-minded about differing opinions. Don't do other dads dirty. We need this to be a safe and welcoming place."

Again, a rule that seems to be more of a suggestion than a law for the new admin team.

"Don't use sockpuppets to add more votes to yourself or make yourself look good. Just don't use multiple accounts for bad reasons."

"Sockpuppets posting will have their posts removed; no exceptions."

"Alts posting is fine, but remember to state that it's an alt."

"To elaborate, sockpuppets (alt accounts for evading blocks or sabotaging polls) in general are outlawed, and you should never make any."

Again, another four (4!!!) separate mentions of sockpuppeting/alts. They seem very deeply concerned about this potential issue. It's truly unthinkable that someone might take over the forums with multiple accounts, pretend to be more than one person, and use these accounts just to agree with themselves.

Right?

I tried to pick out more favorite rules, but then I realized I was just repeating the entirety of the screenshots. If you're skimming this, I highly recommend pausing to read the entirety of the forum guidelines. They're funnier than I could ever attempt to be.

Now, screenshots of some mod accounts of note.

Dramatis Personae (screenshots taken December 19-22nd, 2023):

Gaycowboyrats, former administrator of the wiki.

Honic Washington, (allegedly) former administrator. The link on their page leads to a Reddit acount, which has seemingly been deleted/banned, as mentioned in their forum posts:

Then some of the main culprits of the new admin team:

TwoRatner, whose account has seemingly been taken over by MitchRiot(er(er)) and been replaced by TwoMarshall. Another reference to account breaches, possibly perpetuated by the mysterious MitchRiot figure.

The link on the TwoRatner page leads to a user account under the same name on the Jonah Who wiki.

Brazil86, controversial new admin figure and someone who self-avowedly "serves to live."

Then other assorted current & former mods:

As mentioned by Tumblr user spaceyam, Nicoh Watonshing sure sounds similar to Honic Washington.

(I hadn't noticed this at all until I saw it pointed out in the notes but now it seems incredibly obvious, thank you!!)

The link on TheOneTrueGod41's page also leads to the Jonah Who wiki, but this time to the main page, not a user page.

On Marth8204's page, the link goes to the main page of the Funbob wiki.

As for NicohWatonshing's page link, it leads to a user page for the same name on the Luke Nukem wiki.

Interesting.

It seems that if these are all separate people, they have a history of being editors on niche wikis.

Then, I became curious about the Season 2 wiki.

What was this all for? Why the rush to split the wikis? What was so important about the season 2 pages that they had to be kept separate from season 1?

Right.

Thank you to everyone for reading and getting involved in this series! There may be more posts happening if things continue to develop, so stay tuned if you're interested. There also may be a new fan wiki effort underway, keep an eye out for that!

#dungeons and daddies

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ihavethedreamies · 26 days

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From Afar | What the Heart Wants (1)

Qian Kun & Nakamoto Yuta (NCT)

Rating: Suggestive (18+) MDNI

Nothing explicitly is said or done, but sexual interactions are implied.

The beginning of this story has the reader underaged, but nothing happens or is implied to happen before she turns 18.

Word Count: ~14.2k

Pairing(s): Kun x AFAB!Reader x Yuta, the primary pairing is Kun x Reader, but it's kinda both for the first part.

Genre: Reader-Insert, Altered History AU!, Royalty AU!, Plot! (wow), Fluff? (not for sure that's what to call this), not quite smut (yet), Angst (but angry)

!!There are mature themes discussed…if that much isn't clear you should probably leave now!! MDNI!

Warnings: She/Her pronouns used, Arranged Marriage (ish), Harems/Multiple Wives (more fiancées…), Bullying (see Caution), Some Swearing, Borderline Misogyny/Sexism (you'll see, not from the boys, just like…society), Favoritism, Love Triangle, Jealousy, Pining, One-Sided Crush/Infatuation (or is it?)

Caution: This story is a bit darker than my normal stuff. There isn't bullying throughout, just one intense scene. It's not in a school setting, but I do want to warn anyone reading this that it could be triggering. I'll be real and admit that there is definitely toxicity here, and I know that's what it is, I try to be realistic with my stuff. There is also a part where the reader has a severe allergic reaction, so if that is something that is hard for you to read, be aware. Please let me know if you think I need to add in any more specific warnings or cautions.

Author's Note: This is based off of a dream I had while I took a nap a bit back. I changed some details because what happened in the dream was a little too unrealistic. But, most of it is pretty much the same. I have a lot of Kun dreams, but most of them I can't write a story with because there are weird cross-overs with my real life and often the video game Mass Effect (lol), so…

P.S. Kun is my Ultimate Bias and so…I held back for so long of going down the rabbit hole because I knew I wouldn't be able to crawl out once I did. I am working on another much longer series so that's why I don't have much posted for him yet since I want to get it mostly done before I post any of it.

P.S.S. The reader has a bad allergy to coconut, which is one I have. So, it might seem a bit extreme with her reaction to it, but I know from personal experience how bad I can be with it. I haven't had the same thing happen though.

I split this into two different parts because I hate reading a long story, and then the app or page somehow gets closed, and then you have to scroll to find your spot… The second part is just smut, literally just the smut part, but it was so long I needed to separate the two parts.

Part 2: Up Close (Smut)

I am cross-posting this on Archive. Please reblog! If you know anyone that would like this or future fics but they aren't on here my name and icon are exactly the same on the other site. Happy reading!

Your life seemed to end before it really began. Things like harems for royalty and royalty itself should be in history books and old stories, not modern times. Yet here you were. Historians often talk about how much different the eastern world might look had Japan been successful in taking Korea nearly 100 years prior. Would they have ruled East Asia rather than the Korean Monarchy? Would China be its own country still? Siam? All you knew is that if World War II had gone much differently, you wouldn't be in the situation you were.

In order to keep the commoners and everyday folks of each country of the Korean Empire in line, the Emperor would marry a noblewoman from each land, therefore forming his Harem. When he was a prince, he had his little group of girls that followed him around and did everything with him, almost like some kind of harem anime or even American dating show. One would be picked to be his 'main wife' and the rest were concubines. That's what you were. Well, almost. You were 'in training' to be a possible concubine or wife. The king had five wives, and a son with each woman. The eldest was Taeyong, from the king's first Korean wife; then Prince Yuta, whose mother was Japanese; third born was Prince Kun, from a Chinese mother; second youngest was Prince Ten with a Siamese mother. His birthname was not used very often since most people didn't know how to pronounce it, and finally the youngest Prince was Prince Doyoung. His mother was Korean as well and since he was the youngest, he had the least responsibilities. Not necessarily in a bad way, but he was quite lazy and didn't go out very often. Each prince had a symbol that then was used to name his girls. Taeyong's was a rose and so his girls were The Petals. Yuta's was the Cherry Tree, so his girls were The Sakura. Kun's was a Bear, and his girls were The Ursas. Ten's symbol was a cat and his girls, The Tabbies. Finally, Doyoung's symbol was a rabbit, so his girls were The Bunnies. The name he chose somewhat showed how little he cared for formality. It was too much effort, and he was actually considered the best prince to follow. None of the princes were bad, though, it was simply that Doyoung was the least strict, and there were less rules overall. Taeyong's group was the most prestigious since he was the Crown Prince, and so it was hard to stay in The Petals.

Many different things could make a girl leave or get kicked out. It was pretty easy to get kicked out actually, but most of the time it was by the other girls. Jealousy and competition were rampant, but if sabotage or cheating was ever even just suspected, you were out. Each prince got their initial set at the age of eighteen, and the girls would be at the most two years younger, never older. So, when Prince Yuta hit the proper age, they sent out the search committee. Your father had told you as a little girl that he would never, no matter how much money was offered, let you go. Unfortunately, he didn't get to make the decision because he passed two years prior. Your mother couldn't manage the family estate and business well either, so she remarried, and of course your stepfather was more than willing to hand you over. You never learned how much he was paid, but you knew, to him, it was more than you were worth.

There were always five girls, two from Korea and one from China, Japan, and Siam as well. When you were escorted to the royal palace, you looked up at the tall arch allowing entry onto the grounds. Due to historical preservation laws, no one actively lived in the palace, but there was a modern campus built for the royal family. The guards let the fancy black car you were being escorted in through and it continued down the road past the elegantly preserved palace. Finally, after nearly five minutes of driving, the vehicle stopped in front of what appeared to be an extremely fancy hotel. You were told the main estate was further into the campus and was where the King and Queen lived with the Concubines. Where you were to live was where the princes and all of their entourages lived. Shakily, you got out of the car when it came to a stop, the heels of your black Mary Jane's clicking on the stone pavement. Your suitcases were removed from the trunk, and they went off to your room as you were led down the opposite hallway. Looking around at your surroundings, the building felt less like a royal residence and more of a luxury apartment building, there were even a few restaurants. Finally, after a long walk in very uncomfortable shoes, you were told to enter a large ballroom and you stood in line with what seemed to be twenty other girls. That was a surprise, you thought for sure you had already been chosen. While you wanted to pray you wouldn't be chosen, you also feared being sent back to your stepfather. Your soft yellow and white dress was probably just as expensive as the other girls’ but seemed much plainer. Standing straight, trying to remember your etiquette training, the line of girls all did the same, stiffening when a door on the other side of the ball room entered. At least, you thought it was a ballroom. There was a stage on the opposite wall and that was it. No tables or chairs, nothing. You felt the girls to your left and right turn their heads to try and see who entered, but you just stared ahead. The three people that entered stopped in the middle of the room, a bit to your left since you were toward the end of the line. The other girls were whispering, and curiosity took over and your eyes flicked to look at them. It was a servant, most likely since he was in a butler's outfit, a man in a business suit, and who you assumed to be the prince. He was beautiful, and that was an objective fact. His dark brown hair was longer, hitting his shoulders and he had it tied back into a half-ponytail. He was not dressed like a prince really; he had on a black T-shirt or tank top with a soft-looking grey sweater over it. He was in jeans and sneakers, and you looked down at your dress, then at the others. You were sixteen, but you felt like a little girl then, with your high-collared, long-sleeved white button-up with a yellow sundress over top. Though, it seemed he preferred casual, and you were the closest to that. His stance was casual as well, arms behind his back, leaning his weight on one leg as he lightly swayed, looking over the line of girls. The servant cleared his throat, and it was like some kind of primal instinct took over, and you placed your hands together over your stomach, and bowed low. No one else did. Panic set in when you realized this, hearing the other girls whispering. Now too nervous to stand back up, you pressed your lips together, but stayed bowed.

"It seems she was the only one raised correctly." A new voice, a woman's, cut in and you heard another person walk in. The woman stopped in front of you, and you only saw the bottom of her dress and shoes, she was dressed in the traditional dark green and blue hanbok.

"You may look up, dear." She prompted and you straightened, looking up slightly at the much older woman. Her hair was graying at the roots, but she was still quite beautiful. Her hair was tied back in a bun with a simple wooden pin and you swallowed under her sharp gaze.

"Prince Yuta, please come here." Her tone changed, and she bowed, stepping to the side and you froze as he left his original position and strode over to you. He stopped before you and you dropped your gaze. Don't look at his face. That was clearly something no one else learned and you were a bit worried about that, though, his handmaiden seemed pleased with you. Didn't mean he would be.

"How old are you?" His voice was soft, deeper than you thought it would be.

"Sixteen, your highness." Your hands still rested over each other, flat against your stomach and you tried not to flinch when his finger went to your chin. He lifted your head, but your eyes stayed down, no matter how badly you wanted to look at his face better.

"Look at me." He prompted and you obeyed. He was even more attractive up close, more handsome than you thought, still pretty. He tipped his head and a similarly pretty smile spread on his face.

"Her."

After that, you were quickly whisked away.

"What will happen with the other girls?" You asked the maid that was taking your measurements after you reached some sort of dressing room.

"He will pick the other nine and you will begin training." The same older woman from before entered then and you nodded jerkily, trying to process everything.

"Training?"

"It seems you have begun on etiquette already, unlike the other girls. That will help. Ten girls will start and after your four years the final five will graduate up. You will all learn everything you need to, to be a good woman of the royal family and possibly a future princess."

"I see." The same maid began holding up different swatches of fabric next to your face, flipping through different colors. Seemingly making a decision, the maid nodded to the head handmaiden, and you stepped off the small pedestal you had been set on.

"Let us go child, I will escort you to the dormitory."

~*~*~

Over the next four years, as you were told, you trained. Ten girls all lived in a four-bedroom apartment, three in two, and two in two. It was miserable. You really didn't mind the training and tutoring itself, it was the clique-like mentality the girls had even within the dorm. Let alone in the other training groups. You felt like an outlier the whole time but staying quiet and laying low helped. You yourself were not bullied, but you weren't friends with the other girls either. Not in any of the groups. Prince Taeyong's girls were a few months ahead of your group and the other three were not even a year younger. The eldest prince was only about four months older than Yuta, and he was only a month, maybe two, older than Kun. The youngest were each a month after. It seemed the King had gotten to work quickly…

For the first year you almost never saw any of the princes, not even Yuta. It seemed the first year was really used to weed out girls, and that was when some of the original twenty made a return. If one of the ten got kicked out or left, they replaced her. That was not what you expected at all, but it seemed you were relatively safe. You only got one demerit over the first year, and it was minor. The rules were strict and after your first dink you never messed up again. What did you mess up? You forgot to put in your earrings before the morning check.

After the second year, you would have more interactions with Prince Yuta, and sometimes the others. That was when you first met the third-born Prince. Kun. Your eyes widened when you saw him, it was like some kind of rose-colored filter hung around him. He was…perfect. You weren't sure exactly what drew you to him so heavily, but it was nearly backbreaking, the weight of your crush. It didn't help that your infatuation was with the completely wrong prince. Most of the girls were good at staying loyal to their boy, and if they weren't, that was grounds for expulsion. It was your first true hinderance and possible snare. The only one, really. Luckily, he wasn't around too often in the second year. For no reason, really, you hated the girls in his group. They were so incredibly fortunate in your eyes and didn't realize how much so. Was Yuta bad? Not in any way, shape or form. He was extremely sweet and kind, generous…but he wasn't Kun. To you, that was his greatest sin. Your obsession was a bit worrying, honestly. Though the girls were given a therapist they could talk with, she was there for things like homesickness and anxiety. Not near yandere-levels of love for a Prince not their own. Okay…it wasn't that bad, but you feared that if your mind ever got too weak, if you broke, it would be that bad. When third year rolled around… It got so much worse. The princes did a lot of things together and if a girl made it to year three, then she got to as well. On the new year of year three, the girls remaining were the final ones. One could leave, but she wouldn't be replaced. So, what most often happened, is the gaggle of fifty girls would each take turns with which five would go on an outing with their prince. What killed you about those, was when you were picked, and Kun would be there. It was hard to keep your wistful stares off of him and you prayed he would stick near Yuta for as long as possible, so you could look at him all the more. He was what most considered to be the handsome one among the half-brothers. Taeyong was what the girls defined as cute-hot. Could be either. Yuta was handsome-pretty, Ten was just pretty and Doyoung was just cute. Kun was handsome to the rest, but to you he was also the cutest, prettiest, and hottest. He was by no means buff, but he was able to build the most muscle tone out of all of them and you couldn't help but stare when his pants were just the right amount of tight around his thighs. When you finally got close enough to really look at him the first time, you cataloged every little feature you could. Especially the beauty mark under his right eyebrow.

~*~*~

You were truly a goner when you attended a causal tennis game the princes were engaging in. Doyoung sat off the side with his girls, and they were literally playing some kind of board or card game instead. You sat with the four other Sakuras on a bench, not even watching the tennis ball fly between Yuta and Taeyong's rackets. You were staring off into the distance, messing with a stray string at the top of your knee-high socks. If the head handmaid saw it… Wrapping your finger around it tight, you yanked to try and pull it away, the elastic tightening with each tug. You were so preoccupied with your sock that you didn't even hear the warning call, but something thunked against the back of your head. You yelped, falling forward off the bench, managing to catch yourself with your hands, but you scraped your knees up badly on the court-floor.

"Hiyomi!" Yuta immediately called and was at your side. You weren't even sure if you would have known he was calling you if he had said your real name. You hadn't heard it in such a long time.

"Good job!" Ten shouted sarcastically and you heard another come to your side.

"Hey, you okay?" Yuta helped you sit up a bit, letting your rest your forehead on his shoulder as he looked at the back of your head.

"I'm so sorry, Hiyomi." Your body froze when the other person's voice seemed to speak right in your ear and another hand rested on your upper back.

"Does it hurt there?" You hadn't even realized Yuta had pressed on your neck at the base of your head. He must have taken your sudden rigidity as a pain response. Carefully, slightly, you turned your head so you could glance out of the side of your eye, through your hair, at a red shirt. Only one of the princes was in a red shirt that day. You were sure your face turned about that same shade when you realized the other boy so close to you was Kun, and that the hand on your back was his.

"Hiyomi?" Yuta prompted again and you flinched back to reality.

"Uh, no." Your own hand came up to run over your head, wincing as you felt the small bump forming under your hair. The hand left your back and you felt Yuta move your hair so he could see where you pressed. You gasped when Kun's hand came back, his fingers gently running over the bump.

"She should probably go to the infirmary." The younger prince decided, and Yuta hummed in agreement.

"I'm so sorry, Hiyomi." He apologized again, and even though it was your alias, hearing him speak your name twisted your insides around.

"I-It's okay." You were too scared to lift your head as Yuta helped you stand, knowing that if you met Kun's gaze then you would fall back to your knees.

"Come on, sweetheart." Yuta wrapped an arm around you so he could lead you toward the building and you felt the glares of your team boring through you. It was evident even before then that Yuta favored you, and it made the girls mad. You never made more of an effort to woo him like they did, you just lived your life naturally, and that seemed to be what appealed to him.

"I guess the nurse isn't here right now." Yuta had helped you sit on the edge of one of the two cot-like beds and then he kneeled in front of you.

"Do you mind if help with your knees?" He had noticed the scrapes, and you shook your head with a hum, and he left to get the first aid kit. It was then you really felt the pain in your head, but you hadn't even seen stars, so you doubted you had a concussion. The tennis ball hadn't been going that hard, it had bounced on the court before it hit you, slowing it down pretty good. When the prince came back, he cleaned the scrapes and you winced at the sting. He was so gentle and put ointment on as well before the band-aids. As his thumb smoothed over the bandage, he opened his mouth to say something, but the nurse decided to return right then. He went back out to the tennis court as she looked you over and she suggested you rest for a bit, there was no concussion evident, but you did still get hit in the head.

You had managed to drift half-way to sleep, and you somewhat registered hearing the nurse step out, and someone not too long after coming in. It was a different person for sure, they weren't in heels, and you wondered if it was the head handmaid. Flittering your eyes open when you felt them move to your bedside, you jerked in shock.

"Sorry, did I wake you up?" You tried not to panic, eyes falling quickly to the white logo on his red shirt. You were allowed at that point to look at Yuta's face, but you weren't sure about the other princes. Plus, if you did, you might just explode.

"N-No." You shook your head against the pillow and shuffled under the light blanket. Fuck. You tried not to wince when he kneeled down so he could meet your gaze. He smiled. You were done for.

"Sorry, I really didn't mean to let the ball hit you. I tried to go after it, but I'm not very fast." Kun huffed bashfully and you just gaped. Speak! Say something, stupid!

"I-It's okay."

"Can you tell Yuta you're not mad at me? He looked like he wanted to kill me." You knew the look. Yuta was definitely the scariest of the brothers.

"Y-yes." He sighed in relief at that and stood back up.

"I should probably go before you get in trouble for me being in here." He huffed in annoyance and then waved as he left the little infirmary. You were truly and royally, ironically, screwed.

~*~*~

Of course, it got worse through the third and into the fourth year. All the teams had been narrowed down to the final five, the girls that were weeded out were essentially turned into the reserve team. You didn't know what that meant until after you graduated. And you did. You were in the final five for The Sakuras, the little junior harem of Prince Yuta. You were also the forerunner, the informal leader despite being the youngest, but you were the least popular. Out of all twenty-five girls, they all either hated you or didn't care to acknowledge your presence. To them you put in very little effort to get to your rank, well, how you ranked to Yuta. In actuality, you put in the most effort, and had no demerits and never had to make up in any of your training. All of the other maknaes, the youngest, were the favorites of the other girls. Not you. You didn't fit the cutesy, sweet image you were supposed to it seemed. The graduation wasn't going to be until April. Because the princes were so close in age, they decided to just do everyone at the same time, and that just made the internal competition even worse. Though, your favor with the head handmaiden granted you a privilege. Early information. You knew things before anyone else, you were warned. That's how you saw it anyway. It seemed that there would be another year of training after graduation. Everyone was of age by then, which meant the sexual teachings started. It had to wait till you were finally assigned to your prince, since he would head your 'studies'. You were to learn what he liked, how he liked it and so on. It was a rumor by that point, and many girls were unbothered by this. It made sense and they were okay with it since they would be future wives anyway, and some were even looking forward to it. You didn't hate Yuta, not anything close. You did like him, but… You decided then that you had to give up on the younger Prince. You were Yuta's, and that was final. You also learned that the girls that fell through the cracks more or less joined a brothel, modern day gisaeng for the princes and their friends. Not only did the girls graduate in April, so did the princes. And that meant everything changed. You wouldn't say that they turned into scoundrels, but finally they were more-or-less unrestrained, so they let loose. Parties. Drinking. Sex. Lots of it. You never asked about the other princes, not wanting to learn that your beloved prince had fallen into debauchery as well. Their personalities hadn't changed, they weren't abusive or even rude, but they turned into animals. You heard that Ten and his friends had full orgies with his girls and the extras. You knew when Johnny showed up that something utterly filthy was about to go down.

Taeyong seemed to be more restrained, but he was somewhat selfish. He didn't want to share his Petals, but that didn't mean that it wasn't just as naughty what happened in his quarters. Doyoung preferred more low-key engagements, but just because there was only one girl in his bed didn't mean they weren't going at it for hours on end. The only first-hand knowledge you had was with Yuta. Obviously. Honestly, you seemed to be corrupted more and quicker than the other girls. It was one of the few times you felt like you could be yourself, not constantly worried about doing and saying the right things. It was a good outlet as well for all the emotions you pushed down and hid. You were open to most things, mostly because Yuta was by no means selfish. You preferred the more carnal and kinky acts honestly; you weren’t sure you could ‘make love’ to him. The only thing that first gave you pause was when he asked if you would be okay with two of his friends joining. No other girls, just the three guys and you. It was a bit scary at first, and you wondered if your future husband had some sort of fetish, but his reasoning shocked you.

"You let me do whatever I want, Hiyomi. I want to spoil you." He spoke between kisses along your neck, your shoulder exposed from where his shirt had fallen over it. Yuta wasn't that big for a man, but he was bigger than you, his clothes baggy on your body. If you asked him, he probably would be okay with just one wife. And it would be you. You wished it wasn't though. Even with the comparatively few interactions you had over the years with Kun, you had hopelessly fallen for him, and you were content to pine after him in the distance for the rest of your life. That was better than nothing at all.

"W-which friends?" You shivered as his fingers ran over your back under the garment you had on, one finger slipping under the waist band of your lacey panties.

"Jungwoo. Mark?" His arms wrapped around you and pulled you down further into his lap, his hard cock straining against his pants. It seemed the thought alone turned him on. Those two? That was fine. Most of the princes' friends were shared, but Yuta was the closest with the two he offered. It made sense. It was odd at first to think about it, but if you weren’t sleeping with Yuta out of love, then it wouldn’t be too much different with them. And, based off what you knew the other girls did, it was actually relatively mild.

"You don't have to, sweetheart." Yuta nuzzled under your ear, and you sighed.

"That’s fine." It became a somewhat regular occurrence. And, as far as you knew, the other girls were not in a similar arrangement. But they knew, or at least, knew parts. This made them hate you more, they saw it as favor. It was one thing for a prince to indulge himself in three women, it was another for one woman to get ravished by a prince and his two friends. That was the ultimate sign of favor, you were good enough to not just get solo access to Yuta whenever but get the same treatment from his two just-as-attractive friends. The other girls knew, but they didn’t realize it was a common thing, just once in a blue moon. You didn't talk about it, because you knew how the others would be with it, and it honestly made you want Kun more. Somehow. Even with three men only wanting to please you, you wanted more… Not more, just someone else.

~*~*~

You had a close call though, you almost got found out. There was some big event that the princes were having, some formal party. It wasn't a drunken orgy or anything, almost like some kind of game night with all their friends. All of the girls went as well, it was supposed to be childish fun. You hated it. Not minding cuddling up with Yuta, you hated doing it with all the girls glaring at you. Mostly the other four in your group, because it made his favor toward you all the more obvious. You managed to get through the night, taking the chance to watch Kun without restraint when they decided to start some karaoke. He was the second-best singer after Doyoung, but none of the brothers were slouches. Some of their friends were pretty good themselves, could have been their jobs. It wasn't you ogling him while he sang that gave you away though. And, either fortunately, or horribly, Kun was the one that noticed. The guys were all taking random pictures together, and you stood at the side watching, honestly enjoying the random things they were doing. At some point Kun ended up sitting on the floor, holding up his closest friend, Chenle, so he didn't fall off of Jeno's back where he stood. You covered your mouth and giggled, eyes flicking to Kun as they tried to hold the pose for the picture. His eyes flashed to meet yours and you felt yours grow wide. He smiled, straight at you, and not the sweet one he normally gave at formal events or to diplomats and other public figures. It was a smirk, and it was the sexiest thing you had ever seen. You knew your face was once again red as a cherry, you could feel the heat leaving your skin. You quickly avoided his look; hand going to try and cover your face as you slipped away from the crowd and toward the restroom. You splashed cold water on your face, then met your own frazzled gaze in the mirror. Taking a few deep breaths, you moved to leave but heard voices in the hall, so you halted.

"You know that Jingxian girl is a bitch, right?" The voice was familiar, but quieter than you were used to, so you almost didn't recognize it was Chenle.

"That's harsh." Another person replied. Renjun?

"It's true." That was Yangyang.

"Wait, was she the one who threw her soup at that maid while they were in Europe?" Renjun asked.

"Yeah. She also apparently pretty much stole some girl's necklace that she liked when she went to Japan with…I think her name is Eiko?" Chenle replied.

"Kun-ge told me that she had taken some book from one of Yuta's girls and threw it in a fountain. It was signed or something. He made her replace it and she had to pay like a million won." Your arm jerked away from the handle then. Yuta told you a maid had done it on accident…

"Was it the quiet one he got the leather satchel for?" You shook your head a bit in shock. Yuta got that for you…you thought.

"He told me he tried to get Yuta to let him have her in the beginning, but he said no." Chenle continued, and their voices faded as they continued down the hall. Your head was swimming and your heart had started to race again. There was nothing you could do if all that was true. You were Yuta's, and that was final.

~*~*~

There was a final straw for the other Sakuras though. At it would be their downfall it seemed, and they only fell because they weren’t careful when trying to push you over the edge first.

You were in the lounge, the area big enough to easily accommodate all of the girls and let them have all kinds of fun. Your favorite place was on the top bunk, of essentially a bunk-couch. Instead of a bunk bed, there was a nice soft couch with a wooden loft over it, and another couch on top with ladder-like staircase to get you up on. That was your favorite place. It was removed from the central conversation-pit-like area where most of the girls gathered. They would play drinking games and tell all sorts of lurid stories and secrets, while you would sit under the dim light of a lamp and read.

"Hiyomi, come here!" The girl that called you, Eiko, was the second eldest of your group. She was the only one that was actually Japanese herself, but even then, she was given a different name. You each were granted one from Yuta himself, you weren't even sure he knew any of your real names. Your birthnames didn't matter anymore.

Sighing, you reluctantly put your bookmark in your novel and trudged over to the group. Not everyone was there, Ten's girls were probably off getting drunk and defiled, and three of Taeyong's were with him abroad. Sitting down gently in an armchair, you smoothed your skirt down as you did and stiffly rested back.

"We're playing truth or dare." Of course they were.

"Okay?" They never invited you to play anything or do anything with them unless they were forced to. The competition had gotten much worse lately. As the Princes all approached the grand age of 25, they would finally choose their main wife. You were in the lead, to no one's surprise, but to everyone's chagrin. Yours included. You shot a quick glance at Jingxian. She was the forerunner of the Ursas…Kun's favorite seemingly. She was refined, elegant, beautiful. To many she was kind, sweet, but she was cold to you. She was never rude in person and as far as you know, after the book incident she didn't do anything. That was better than cruel though. She was close with Eiko, and you assumed that was why she disliked you so much, since Eiko cared so little for you. You didn't associate much with any of Kun's girls, but still you hated them. No, that wasn't the right word, you envied them. The worst thing was, you knew that Jingxian didn't love Kun. Just like you didn't love Yuta. She was enamored with Taeyong. Well, maybe not him, but his status. He was the crown prince, which would mean she could be queen if she was chosen. You weren't sure who else knew this, but you knew it was grounds for her to be more-or-less banished. If you really wished, you could out her, and get her kicked out, but what was the point? That wouldn't help you any, and there was no point in lashing out at her out of jealousy. That would make you just like all the others.

"Come sit here." Eiko was being way to friendly, which made you way suspicious. You followed her prompt though; you were the youngest after all. There was an empty soju bottle in the middle, the girls clearly having finished it off earlier.

"I'll start." One of the Petals started; her name was Anjeong. She spun the bottle, and you held your breath, only sighing gently in relief when it landed on Eunhwa, the eldest Bunny.

"Truth or dare, unni?"

"Hm." Eunhwa tapped her finger on her chin, "truth."

"How big is Prince Doyoung's cock?" She prompted and the girls chattered with curiosity. You zoned out then, knowing how this whole thing was going to go. Your eyes drifted to watch the gas flames in the fireplace. As you glanced back at the bottle as it was spun again, not even hearing her answer, your eyes passed over Lumei. She was the maknae of the Ursas, and you hated her the most. You could have been her; she was only about a month younger than you. She didn't seem to notice your glare and she giggled when the bottle landed on her when Eunhwa spun it.

"Truth or Dare, Lumei?"

"Dare!" She decided quickly and Eunhwa looked thoughtful for a second, looking around. She smirked and cast a devilish look at Jingxian before looking back to Lumei.

"Show us what Prince Kun's favorite position is." You wondered if they noticed you go still. Completely. You couldn't show a reaction, you didn't want to let any of them know your secret. They would use it to assassinate you. Jingxian scoffed at the question, over-dramatically.

"I don't think she's can." She grinned coyly, taking a sip of her wine and Lumei sent her a playful sneer.

"Honestly, I can't really show you, because I myself can't do it. But…" Lumei looked around and then climbed onto the couch behind her. She sat on it backwards, knees on the back of the couch, back to the cushion, her head hanging over the edge, hair flowing to the floor. She opened her mouth wide and just sat there a second, the other Ursas giggling. Your jaw clenched, eyes stinging, but you still didn't move.

"Her gag reflex is too sensitive." Jingxian pressed on her throat, and she hacked, sitting up to catch her breath around laughs.

"I can't even open my mouth that wide…" Mianyu mumbled, and the girls chattered and giggled. Your tongue ran over your lips, and you pondered if you could. You were all too familiar with that position Lumei mimicked, and at first you had been disgusted at her pose. But now you would enjoy it with Yuta more, you could imagine Kun instead. Like you often did. Your gag reflex was practically nonexistent, whether it was genetics or a fluke, it had always been that way.

"Okay!" Your eyes flicked to the bottle as Lumei spun it, still giggling, clearly tipsy. You sagged in relief when the bottle landed on Aikiro then. She was your biggest rival…in her eyes anyway. She outright despised you, she felt she should be the favorite just because she was the ‘leader’. Okay…whatever.

"Trush or dare?" The Ursa maknae hiccupped and you wondered if the blood going to her head made her drunker.

"Truth." She leaned back against the couch she sat in front of, sending a wry look your way. What did you do? You rolled your eyes and looked back at the fire.

"How many times have you done it with Yuta, and Jungwoo and Mark?" she asked, and silence fell over the group. Your eyes widened a bit, but you didn't look back to the group.

"You idiot!" Mianyu slapped the back of Lumei's head, and she yelped.

"What?" Aikiro nearly growled.

"W-well. I mean, everyone knows that Yuta invites them over a lot. Jinyu said…"

You felt four heated gazes fall on you and you licked your lips, looking slowly back at everyone else. Your eyes flicked to Jinyu who was staring at the floor, zoned out.

"What do you mean, a lot?" Aikiro looked back at Lumei who shriveled under her glare, pressing closer to Jingxian.

"E-every Friday." She replied. Before you could look back to your fellow Sakuras, you flinched as Aikiro stormed over, dumping her wine all over your head. You exhaled in shock, closing your eyes to prevent the alcohol from running into them.

"You fucking bitch! You told them? I bet you brag about it." You grit your teeth, reaching for the nearby tissue roll, but Eiko snatched it from your reach, her own drink joining. The fruity scent of whatever kind of pre-mixed cocktail she was drinking stung your nose and your hair started to drip.

"H-hey!" Gyuri, the kindest one there, the maknae of Doyoung's bunnies, tried. She really did try, but… You winced and grunted when a hand grabbed the back of your hair, yanking your head back so were forced to look up at the owner. Keiho was the oldest, out of all the girls actually, but she was the most cruel. She was the most two-faced as well. Your eyes flicked to her drink, expecting her to dump it on you as well, and your face fell. It was a bottled pina colada. Coconut. Everyone knew you were super allergic to it, couldn't even eat anything made in the same factory as coconut products.

"Hm, I wonder if you would like the taste of this?" Keiho took a sip before looking at the label on the bottle and she let go of your hair just long enough to let Eiko take over.

"Wait, Keiho-" Mianyu stood then, trying to go forward. Before she could get very far though, Jinyu grabbed her wrist, halting her. No one but you seemed to notice Gyuri slip away from the group and out the door. You prayed she was going to get help. Your heart was pounding, you were scared, legitimately. This wasn't a joke, not a game anymore. They were seriously out to hurt you. Keiho swirled the bottle a bit, and let it tip slightly, a drop falling from the mouth and landing on your cheek. It didn't take any more than five seconds for your skin to start itching, and the girls around you could see the skin already starting to redden, following the path of the drop before it landed on the floor. You tried to wiggle free at that point, out of Eiko's grip, but the final Sakura, Yumi, sat behind you in the chair, holding you in place. She giggled, leaning down to whisper in your ear.

"Should I tell them about Kun?" Her voice was so soft you almost didn't hear her. You froze then, eyes wide, looking toward Jingxian.

"She knows too, you know." Yumi whispered and then you saw the other woman smirk. The other girl still didn't let Mianyu go and help you. Aikiro kneeled then, joining Yumi in restraining you, her hand going to your face and pressing on your cheeks to force your mouth open. A tear fell from your eye, and you tried to shout, but Eiko's hand left your hair and landed on your throat. Not enough to cut off your air, but in just the right spot to silence you. Keiho swirled the drink again and was just about to tip it again, but she hesitated. Why? Your eyes met hers and she seemed to realize how bad it would be to do what she wanted, seeing the raising red welt on your face from just a drop. It wasn't like your tongue and throat would slowly swell shut, it could shut your body down faster than anyone could get help.

"Don't be a fucking coward." Jingxian snapped, slamming her wine glass down onto the side table so hard it sloshed from the glass. She snatched the bottle from Keiho, and she tipped it-

The sliding door slammed open, the loud noise startling her. The girls all looked in horror at the door, and you watched in terror as the bottle fell from her hand, the alcohol splashing onto you, and a swig or two fell into your still open mouth. You choked, trying to spit the liquid out, your mouth already burning, and the girls let you go as Yuta stormed into the room and straight to you.

"Hiyomi!" You spat more out, nearly tempted to force yourself to throw up…if you even could. Your mouth and face burned, your skin and eyes itched, and tears fell from your eyes as your head grew foggy. You were already wheezing, and Yuta was at your side immediately. A second person landed on your other side.

"Sit her up." You let Yuta move you, slumping back into him and watching blearily as the nurse brought the EpiPen down and injected the medicine into your thigh. You felt some relief at the moment, and you grew tired quickly but your breathing was still shallow. The nurse went ahead and injected the second shot and your body seemed to get enough relief that it wanted rest then.

"Hiyomi!" A third voice hit your ears and you blearily looked to see someone else dash in, heading for you as you fell unconscious.

~*~*~

You awoke to the sound of beeping, and distant voices. You blinked to clear your vision and it was clear you were in a hospital. You cringed, looking down at the IV in your arm…You really preferred it in your hand. You felt like you couldn’t bend your arm, and they had put it on your dominant side to boot. Groaning, you adjusted in the bed, your body and head felt heavy. The voices got louder; you could recognize one was Yuta's.

"They did it on purpose, everyone knows how allergic she is to coconut."

"I'm not saying what they did wasn't bad, but are you really okay with getting rid of your entire harem but Hiyomi?" It was another man, a voice you only ever heard in person once. It was the King.

"Father, if I had to pick only one wife, ever, it would be her. She was going to be my main wife anyway. I think having five of them is ridiculous anyway."

"Yuta-"

"I'm not the heir, anyway, so why does it matter?" You didn't hear a response if there was one.

"What about Jingxian and Jinyu?" Jinyu? She was there, but she hadn't done anything that you remembered.

"Get rid of them." Kun's voice was clear. And sharp.

"Didn't you tell me Jingxian was most likely your choice?"

"Not anymore."

"Jinyu too, then?"

"Wasn't it her idea?" Silence.

"Yuta, did what those six tell you not matter?"

"What?" Kun asked then, confused. You strained to hear Yuta's response.

"Yumi. She…she told me that Hiyomi likes you." Finally, your prince spoke. You heard the beeping of your heart monitor increase and felt it in your chest.

"Your highness, I found it!" A maid's voice joined, and you furrowed your brow, listening.

"There's a lock on it." What?

"Just snap it off." Your mouth went dry. Your journal. How'd she know about it? You were more than careful. Or so you thought.

"Did Miss Janyeon have the key to her lock box?"

"Yessir." Fuck. But, if the King requested, it wasn't like she could refuse. That was it. You were out. At least you didn't die.

"I knew all this." Yuta's soft voice was loud in your ears and your breath hitched. What?

"You did?" Kun and the King asked at the same time.

"She's careful. But I know her too well by this point."

"Why didn't you say anything?" the King prompted.

"She was mine, that's all I cared about. It was selfish, but… It is a bit worse than I thought." Yuta huffed.

"What do you want to do, Kun?" Their father moved on.

"It's up to her." It was hard to read his tone, and even in the other room, you could feel the tension rise just by the lack of response from Yuta.

"She's mine." His tone was harsh, you had only heard him angry one other time. Right before you passed out. It felt like minutes of silence passed.

"If that's what she wants." Kun spoke finally.

"I think we owe her a decision, since she went through such an ordeal. It’s impressive she kept it hidden so well, and didn't ever act on it, or act out against the other girls. I might not be around much, but your mothers are, and they tell me everything. She's brave and strong for all the shit the other girls put her through. For now, let's keep it hidden we all know, let her choose her next actions without interference. If she chooses Kun, what will you do Yuta?"

"If you love something, you gotta learn to let it go." His defeated tone made your throat clench. You didn't want to hurt him, you really cared for Yuta. You also knew that your feelings for Kun were borderline insane, if not straight-out irrational. It was infatuation, you weren't allowed to get close enough to him to call it love. You were starting to realize then, that it was probably Yuta's doing. Especially if he knew. Maybe that was why he kept you at his side if the others were around, you thought it might be to protect you from the other girls…

"That's a lot different than what you said three years ago."

"Fuck off."

"Yuta, if you allow her to choose Kun instead, you won't have anyone. It would look bad on me." their father pressed.

"If she leaves me, I'll abdicate." You gasped at that. Yuta was second born, even if he wasn't the crown prince, he was closer to the throne than anyone else. He was right after Taeyong, which would put him in a high position when the eldest became King.

"Yuta-"

"If Kun ditches his girls. If Hiyomi chooses you, you can only have her. She deserves the world, and you better fucking give it to her." You closed your eyes, a tear leaving your eye as you made your own decision. No matter how desperately you had wanted Kun the last four years, Yuta was willing to risk everything for you. You couldn't let him do that.

"Would it look bad for the third-born to have one wife?" Kun asked then and you clenched your jaw, the beeping on the machine picking up. You glanced at it, not sure how to read the numbers, worried if you got any more emotional it would set it off.

"I'm going to tell you boys something that no one else can know. Doyoung already requested that he only marry Gyuri. He's tired of dealing with the girls' drama. Ten doesn't care much for an actual marriage to anyone. Taeyong is willing to have the harem if he's king, since it was the deal for the imperial alliance. He already chose Sooyoung to be the crown princess. I remember when I was your age, all of the crap the girls did to each other, the backstabbing, the gossip. The only girl I've seen that hasn't played into any of it was Hiyomi. Even your mothers love her. If she chose Yuta, what would you do Kun?" More silence.

"If that's what she wants-"

"What the fuck do you want?" Yuta spat.

"Honestly? I want to take her from you. I have for years. I know you said, father, to let her decide without us interfering, but… I'm not going to just sit by." The King sighed so hard that you heard it, your head was spinning trying to process everything.

"If she feels safe with it, I want to bring those six to her. Make them apologize. Hiyomi can decide if they will simply be expelled or if she wants to press charges legally." Your mind ran rampant in that moment. The king was letting you decide? All of your hurt and anger, resentment, jealousy; everything bubbled inside.

"I will have someone speak to Mianyu and Lumei as well. I have a hard time believing they had no part to play, or at least that they didn't know." The king finished and the conversation died, and you assumed they left. A door opened and you realized they had been in the room next door, sharing the wall that was behind your head. Your own door started to open, and you partially shut your eyes, pretending that you just woke up.

"Miss Hiyomi?" A woman spoke a nurse entered, with Yuta behind her. No one else.

"Yes?" You opened your eyes more, continuing the act.

"Do you know where you are?"

"The hospital." You hadn’t hit your head, why wouldn’t you know?

"It was good the nurse had those EpiPens ready, you had a very quick and severe reaction. We're going to keep you here overnight and if all is good, you can go back tomorrow." The nurse smiled and then left after taking note of your vitals, leaving you with Yuta. He sat in the chair next to your bedside, taking your hand in his.

"How are you feeling?"

"Like crap." You admitted and he couldn't help but sigh with a defeated smile.

"I would think. Do you want to talk about what happened?"

"Could I have some water first?"

"Oh!" He got up and went to get what you requested, probably from a vending machine or something. You hated tap water… Yuta returned, and he helped you sit the bed up more as you took a swig from the bottle. You noticed his brow furrow, and his thumb rubbed over your cheek, it must have been a bit red still.

"What happened, (Y/N)?" You nearly choked, luckily you hadn't taken a sip.

"W-what?"

"(Y/N)." He reiterated and you closed the bottle, lip quivering a bit. It had been so long since you heard that name…

"I didn't know you knew my real name." you whispered.

"I shouldn't. But I asked." You had a hard time meeting his eye, so you just rested back, eyes closed.

"I was stupid. I was just reading, and they invited me over to play truth or dare." You huffed in annoyance, "I was suspicious immediately, but I went along with it. I…" You didn't want him to know you heard their conversation, or that you knew he knew about your feelings for Kun.

"I hadn't even been picked, but Lumei asked Aikiro about…about Jungwoo and Mark." You finally looked at him and he nodded, realization painting over his worried expression.

"It was clear that only I get the…privilege." You weren’t sure what else to call it.

"Aikiro got pissed and so she dumped her wine on me. Eiko dumped her cocktail on me and they with Yumi held me while Keiho threatened to make me drink her pina colada." His brow instantly furrowed, anger clearly taking over. But he was the quiet, scary angry type.

"Keiho hesitated, so Jingxian grabbed it from her and decided to do it herself…" You shivered a bit, feeling angry yourself. You never felt so mad. Sad, upset, hurt, frustrated? Yes. Not anger, not the rage you felt taking over.

"What about Jinyu?"

"Jinyu?" You played along. Yuta sighed.

"Apparently it was her idea. We decided that those six need to go. Father wants them to apologize first. He said it was up to you if they get expelled or if you want to get the police involved." You knew all of that already, but you were able to put on a bewildered expression.

"I can decide?" Your prince didn't say anything, and you wondered if he was thinking about his willingness to let you decide about him, or Kun.

"Yes, of course."

"What…what about you and them?" He didn't look at you and you wondered how he would word what you already knew.

"I only need you." He told you softly and you tried to hide your wince.

"Will you meet with them? You don't have to."

"No, I want to hear them apologize. And I want to tell them they're expelled. And I want to press charges." You turned your determined gaze to Yuta; he had never seen you look so harsh. But it made him smile.

"Good."

~*~*~

The doctors determined you were good to be discharged the next day and when you got back to the Sakuras’ dorm, it didn't look any different. You then remembered you wanted to be the one to tell them they were expelled, so you got to. The rest of them weren't in there, but there were maids scurrying about in their bedrooms, packing up their stuff.

"Hiyomi!" You turned as the head handmaiden came in and her hands went to your face, looking you over.

"You poor child." She sighed after you told her in detail what you went through.

"I'm sorry I had to help them find your diary." She pulled the journal out of the top of her hanbok, the lock had been broken off.

"It's okay." You took it from her, "did you look at it?"

"No, child. I know how to respect someone's privacy." You nodded in thanks, and she left to attend to other duties and so you entered your own room. Nothing had been touched, at least it seemed that way, but you still checked. Finding everything was in line, you got changed into something a bit more formal for the rest of the day. Looking in the mirror, you put on the brown and black plaid jacket that matched your skirt. Adding the beret of the same pattern, you pulled it further back, then readjusted your thigh-high socks. After, since you had about an hour to kill before you were supposed to confront the girls, you rummaged through your things. Many of your nicer accessories and little trinkets were from Yuta. Your mind went back to the conversation you had overhead nearly three years prior. Plucking the familiar book off your shelf, you looked over it, the spine was wrinkled from many read-throughs and the signature was in a slightly different spot than the original. It was your favorite book, and it made sense why Jingxian targeted it, but how did she know? Probably Eiko… You then looked at your leather satchel, you used it constantly, and you had nearly forgotten that apparently, Yuta hadn't got it for you. Did Kun really get it instead? Or did he suggest it? Get it for Yuta to give you? You didn't know. The other little gifts started to leave a sour taste in your mouth, making you wonder if he had lied about any of the rest. Your glass paperweight in the shape of a cat went missing, and supposedly a maid found it in your laundry, so he brought it back. A set of manga you liked had a limited edition only sold in Japan that he got for your birthday. But…he hadn't been in Japan when they were on sale. Kun had been though. Letting your thoughts loop into the negative, you gathered all of your gifts, minus the bag, and piled them on your desk. The bag was a practical item, so it was allowed some grace, but you wanted to ditch the rest for some reason. Why did you feel so mad at Yuta? It wasn't like he did anything wrong, technically, he just continued to act like he didn't know about your feelings for his half-brother.

"Lady Hiyomi?" A soft voice called after a knock on your door. A younger maid had come to escort you to a sitting room where you were to meet with the girls. Swallowing the few nerves you had, surprisingly, you followed after her and entered the room. It was empty, no one else was there-

"(Y/N)." You startled, only noticing Kun as you got further into the room. He was sitting on the couch under a window, and you wondered why Yuta wasn't there. He looked gorgeous as always; his hair dyed a dirty blonde and slightly wavy, and he had on a navy and white letterman jacket.

"(Y/N)?" If Yuta wasn't supposed to know your real name, how did Kun? That didn't matter, you were there with him, alone. And he was coming toward you. That's when you got nervous, and you gripped your hands together to hide their quaking.

"Yuta told me. I…I needed to show you something before everyone else gets here." He pulled his phone from his back pocket, and you glanced up at his face to see his clearly upset expression. He tapped on the device, and you heard an audio recording start.

"Can you help me or not?"

Yuta?

"I can, but what's in it for me?"

Was that…Jinyu?

"I'll make it so you can leave. Get out of here." "What do you want me to do?" "Come up with the plan yourself but figure out a way for the other four Sakuras to get expelled." "Can't you do it yourself?" "Not without a reason. Public image and shit. I really don't care about the rest of them, I just want Hiyomi. Can you do it?" "Probably. You wanted me to drag Jingxian too, right?" "Please. She's gotten on my last fucking nerve. She has to know about Hiyomi and Kun, why else would she be such a bitch?" "I know that's it. What was the last thing she did again?" "Something petty, poured bleach on her favorite dress. I got her a new one and she didn't even notice, but…" "How many things have you replaced?" "Like seventeen or something crazy. Those are just the ones she doesn't know I did, too." "You know, if you weren't my cousin, I wouldn't do this." "Bullshit, you know that's not why. We're only second cousins." "I'm serious, Yuta. I couldn't care less about the others." "Even Kun?" "Kind of hard to like your future husband when you're a lesbian."

It was clear there was more to the recording, but he cut it off. You were silent for some time, trying to process everything you just heard. You stumbled and Kun quickly pocketed his phone and reached out to stabilize you, then led you to the couch.

"Did…did Yuta know what the plan was?"

"I doubt it. But…it still was partly because of him." You slumped against the back cushion, resting your cheek on it, mind swirling. Your hat fell from its place, and you just pulled it all the way off.

"W-what do you make of it?" You needed more information; your emotions were so turbulent you couldn't even decide for yourself what to feel.

"Well…I know Jingxian was such a bitch because I like you." He just straight out admitted it and your body froze, your default response. He must have noticed the jolt you gave as your body stiffened and his hand went to your chin, prompting you to look up at him. Being so close to him, it took your breath away, he was even more stunning up close. And his eyes were so gentle and warm, not the same sharp heat you normally got from Yuta.

"Honestly, early on I tried to get Yuta to let you go, so I could have you instead, but he refused." Kun sighed, then huffed with dry amusement, "I'll admit I'm a little crazy when it comes to you."

"Birds of a feather…" You mumbled and he let your face go and you just slumped against the couch again.

"You know how Yuta gets you two presents for your birthday?"

"One's from you, huh?" You guessed accurately it seemed.

"How-"

"A few years back, I overhead your friends in the hall. They said that you made Jingxian replace my signed book. I know my bag was from you. Looking at it now, those gifts make a lot more sense. They would be so different from each other. Yuta would get me a pretty set of earrings and a necklace, but then there would be a full book series. Or instead of nice shoes, it would be a galaxy print. The year-long pass to the planetarium?" Kun was more of an intellectual than Yuta for sure, he was the only one of the princes that went to college. That was part of the reason you liked him so much, he was more similar to you than anyone else there. You knew that even with the restricted amount of time you had around each other.

"How did you get that recording?" You asked when it seemed he was struggling to find a response. He glanced up at you, head still bowed, dirty blonde bangs falling over his brow.

"Jinyu sent it to me with a caveat. She made me promise that you wouldn't press charges against her. She doesn't mind the expulsion, would welcome it…"

"Did you know that she was…?"

"Yeah. She told me early on."

"Yes, it was her idea, but… Yuta prompted her, and if you promised her that, I'll respect it." Your expression hardened then, so quickly it made Kun raise his brow in surprise.

"I can't believe him. I know…" You swallowed hard, "I guess he did it because he loves me. Or that might be what he says, but for all this time…" You exhaled hard through your nose, brow furrowing.

"Yes, I want to get back at the girls even past kicking them out, pressing legal charges. They put me through so much shit for so long…And I shouldn't be this mad at Yuta, but… I want to get back at him too." Your last sentence was much quieter, you felt ashamed of your rage toward him, but that recording just bubbled everything over. You looked up then, fully to make eye contact with Kun.

"I just…I don’t know how. Help me?" The other prince hummed, leaning into the back cushion himself, looking pensive.

"I shouldn't be as sadistic as I want…" Your phone alarm went off then, meaning the others would be coming rather soon.

"Think on it, I'll go with what you plan." You told him, standing to adjust your clothes. Stepping over to a mirror, you put your hat back on, fixing your rumpled hair as well. The king was coming too after all. As you primped, Kun stepped up behind you so you could see him in the reflection as well. He wasn't any taller than Yuta, but that did still put him nearly a head taller than you since you weren't in heels. You gasped, watching his arms wrap around you from behind, his cheek pressing against the side of your head. The black fabric of his sleeve smelled amazing, like him of course. Your heart started to beat so hard you were sure he could hear it, maybe even feel it where his chest met your back.

"Tell me, what does Hiyomi mean? Do you know?"

"Something with sunlight and beauty." You had learned Japanese in your training, but that didn't mean you knew name etymology. Yuta had mentioned it before though.

"How do you like Yuhua?" You assumed it was something similar…was he already thinking of picking a different name for you? Honestly, it was the next best after your birthname.

"Perfect." You whispered and nearly whined when he pulled away abruptly, the door opening not even thirty seconds later. Your posture immediately corrected itself, and you bowed your head as the King entered, followed by Yuta, then the six girls were escorted in by a few of the royal guards. Though, they looked more like federal agents…

"Sit." One of them ordered and the clearly dismayed girls followed. There was still evidence of mascara running and their faces were blotchy and red. They weren't in their fancy clothes either, having been dressed in clothes similar to the uniforms worn as trainees. Plain pleated skirts and button ups with a cardigan. For once, you weren't the plainest dressed one in the room, and you felt more smug than angry looking over them.

"Come here, child." The king prompted and you stepped to his side at his prompting, head still bowed to avoid looking at his face. You didn't notice the glare Yuta had sent Kun's way when he realized he had arrived there early. And that he had access to you without your prince being there as well.

"Tell them, Hiyomi." He motioned with his hand, and you turned to face them fully. They were clearly shocked by your cold gaze, and your eyes met Jinyu's. She looked significantly less nervous, and it was clear she was putting on an act.

"Expel them, please, your highness." The five other girls had various reactions, all forced down and if glares could kill, Jingxian would succeed in her mission.

"Of course. Now, you six. Apologize." The King's tone was hard, and the girls shakily stood and moved to face you. They clearly didn't want to do what followed, but they had little choice. They fell slowly to their knees, and bowed low, foreheads on their hands pressed to the floor. You barely registered the clearly scripted words they spoke, and you turned to look over your shoulder at the princes. Your gaze first went to Yuta, and it was clear he had no idea that you knew everything. He gave you his classic smile, but it just pissed you off then. You then looked at Kun and he gave a subtle nod.

"Jinyu can go." You then noted and the King was curious why you only let her go, but he allowed it. He knew there was something unspoken since Jinyu seemed to sag in relief as she left.

"We'll tell them the rest, father. Would you mind leaving us to it?" Kun stepped forward and his father turned to look back at him. They exchanged something unspoken through their gaze.

"Very well." He nodded and he left along with the guards, who stayed stationed outside the door as it closed.

"Hiyomi?" Yuta stepped up closer, but you ignored him, going to where the girls had sat back down. The other Sakuras looked a bit more nervous, but Jingxian was steaming. All of her hard work over the years, desperate to get whatever wealth and power she could, gone. The sneer she shot you pissed you off, hand flying up without thought, smacking her hard enough to snap her head to the side. She just sat there, not looking back at you. Not sure what to say to them, you turned and looked at Kun who was in the same spot, a little behind his slightly older brother. A smug look fell on his face, and he stepped around the other prince, shedding his letterman-style jacket and laying it on the table. You wanted to swoon as he rolled the sleeves of his white button-up, so they bunched above his elbows. Paired with his watch and the ring he had on his index finger, it was so little, but so hot. Yuta must have noticed how your expression changed, recognized it even, but you knew it was different than anything you gave him.

Kun sidled up next to you and he raised a brow, silently asking if you were ready. You nodded so slightly, with a tiny hum and you gasped as his hand grabbed your chin. The move was a bit rough, but your gasp was of delight, not fear or shock. His eyes were still warm, and he had the sexy grin back, your thighs twitched along with your core.

"You know, it’s a shame that only Yuta could get a girl so good." His grip softened, and he cupped your jaw instead. The room was so quiet you could hear Jingxian's jaw clench and made her teeth grind against each other. Kun's face was so close to yours that you felt his breath on your lips.

"Kun, what are you-" Yuta started, coming closer.

"But it's also a shame that she got stuck with him." His tone was incredibly patronizing, derisive and you just took the chance to bask in his presence and attention as he pulled his phone back out, stepping back slightly. He still had the audio clip paused where he left it off before, and you saw then it was half-way through.

"At least you only have to deal with one guy. He also knows. I have to get it up for four other sluts I couldn't care less for."

The four other Sakuras gasped, and your eyes flicked to look at Kun's phone, but his hand at your jaw turned you back to focus on him. It was hard to get mad with the following audio while looking over him, so close to you. You didn't even care to look and see what Yuta's expression was. He had frozen, just behind his half-brother, almost scared to move.

"Viagra?" "No, I just pretend they're Hiyomi. Hard to do though. Eiko's so fucking annoying and won't shut up. Sounds like a bad porno. Aikiro still doesn't know what the fuck she's doing even after training for a year and more. Yumi has no stamina and is selfish to boot. Keiho-"

Your eyes flicked to the phone again, waiting for him to finish. It seemed he paused to take a drink or something, because the audio kept progressing.

"Keiho is a fraud. She thinks I don't know that she goes to Ten's little orgies or whatever. I know she's slept with half of the guard too."

All the girls looked at Keiho then, her cheeks that were bright red with anger were now horribly pale.

"She acts like she wants stuff vanilla, loving. I know she can only get satisfied with two cocks in her."

Kun shut it off then, only a few seconds left but you had heard enough. How dare he criticize Keiho when he was the one that brought his friends in to fuck you at the same time? Did he think it would be flattering that he only thinks of you when he's with the others?

"Hiyomi-" Yuta tried to start, and you wanted to push around Kun, smack his stupid pretty face. But you trusted the other prince to come up with the best thing he could. He already tore down the girls, that much was obvious from their faces and the devastated looks they sent Yuta.

"Despite his supposed love for you, sweetheart, it’s a shame you don't feel the same." Since it wasn't directed at you, and it would still be incredibly hot if it was, the smug sadistic grin he had riled you up all the more. Kun hummed, prompting you to respond and he chuckled at the dazed look you had.

"No, I don't." It was like he was some kind of drug; your thoughts were foggy, and you needed more of him. He had taken out the girls, they looked like all the fight had been ripped from them, slumped on the couch. It had hit Yuta too, but not enough, not yet. Though, Kun needed to finish Jingxian first.

"Do you know how hard it was for me? From the moment I saw you, I wanted you. The only reason I was going to choose Jingxian was because I hate her. I couldn't live with myself if you weren't my wife, my princess, but I didn't want to hurt the other girls. They didn't deserve the hurt like her. She's a horrible human being and she seemed all the worse compared to you, (Y/N)." Hearing him say your real name again did it, you were head over heels in love with him and you thanked whatever higher being finally graced you with something good. All of the shit you had put up with came to the best moment of your life, knowing Kun wanted you just as badly as you wanted him. Even if you both knew it was crazy, even sick; at least you could be lovesick together. The final hit to the girls, hidden from Yuta since Kun blocked you from his sight, was the extremely gentle kiss he pressed to your forehead, followed by him gently brushing his nose over yours.

"Guards, take them to the police." The prince let your chin go, just enough so he could step back so as not to shout in your ear. The door opened and the suits came in, quite literally hauling the girls away, Jingxian now just as broken as the others.

"Only one left." You whispered when Kun came back to you. He shifted where you stood with a hand on your lower back, making you visible to Yuta then.

"Show him you're mine." He told you and it seemed your minds were linked. At graduation, each girl would kneel before the prince and swear their loyalty, almost like being coronated. You sank to your knees, but you looked up at him instead. The normally practiced display of reverence for a girl's monarch was corrupted by the desire you looked at him with, and he you. You were submitting to him as a man, not as a higher-up, nor a prince. He grinned when your hands gripped his belt, not moving to remove it, but the implication was clear-

"You fucker." Yuta shot forward, hand burying in Kun's shirt and yanking him away from you. You flinched back as Kun was pulled away and you quickly stood as the brothers stared each other down.

"You lost, Yuta. Move on, she's mine now. Ready to abdicate?" You flinched back with a gasp, hands covering your mouth as Yuta's fist moved toward his brother's face. Kun deftly moved his head the little bit he had to for the blow to miss.

"Wait!" You tried to weasel your way between them before the elder landed a punch on the younger. Even though they were the same height, Kun was bigger, Yuta had a hard time gaining any kind of bulk and he looked like a twig next to the other prince. While he wasn't the most muscular man you knew, he was outright perfect to you, and it was clear he was strong because Yuta barely budged him with his tug on his shirt, he moved with the pull. That was beside the point… You got back at Yuta, what happened was enough, you could tell by the hurt etched into his face. Your anger had immediately dissipated, a better solution hitting your mind. Neither of them knew you had heard the full conversation the day before, but that didn't change that you had.

"Don't abdicate. You already are losing your harem, but you told Kun to only have me, right?" Both men were clearly shocked that at your words and you took the chance to shove Yuta off, standing in front of Kun, clearly in a show of protection. Like you could really do anything…

"Y-yes." Your prince's voice was soft and rough. He didn't deserve how much you really wanted to wreck him. Your rationality had kicked in, logic taking over, he was already defeated.

"We’ll tell the press that the other four turned against me because I didn't want to be involved with you. Turn it on me. You take the three from Kun, and I go to him. You're second born, you can't just give up those rights-"

"(Y/N), I don't want to be a prince without you as my princess." Your chin quivered a bit at his tone, his eyes glassy.

"And I don't want to be a princess without Kun as my prince." You countered. You needed to break his heart for him to let you go. You didn’t turn to look at the other man even though Yuta's eyes flashed to look over your shoulder.

"Take the other three, add two more from wherever, do whatever. Wouldn't you rather move on and find someone else than love me and know I don't feel the same? If you love something let it go? Do you think I want to be restricted to you, when I love someone else?"

"You love him?" You didn't respond to his question. It wasn't the real definition of love, it wasn't that pure, but you had some twisted loyalty to Kun that you never did for Yuta.

"Do you love me?" You pushed back. You weren't sure, it seemed somewhat like you were a trophy, a luxury item that he might adore, but…

"You're supposed to be mine." He didn't answer the question. Not directly.

"You don't love me, I’m just your favorite. You liked that I didn't fight the other girls tooth and nail just to get your attention. You liked the challenge. If you really cared you would have told me all the shit that Jingxian did, and the others, I'm sure. You never even bothered to learn who I was, getting me pretty, girly things. You played up the romance but never did anything I liked with me. I might have been in your bed the most, but I wasn't in your heart."

"And you were in Kun's?" Yuta nearly spat, not trying to defend himself, because you were right.

"What's her favorite thing?" The man behind you cut in and you turned to look at him. You didn't answer, genuinely curious if Yuta knew, because he never acted on it…

"Books."

"Wrong. Space. She goes out at night to watch the stars. All her books are science-fiction. Her favorite sweatshirt is of the milky way and if there's ever a special event at the planetarium, she's there." How did he know all of that? The other prince was silent, clearly not sure what to do or say next. His eyes went back to you, and you couldn't meet his look, and stepped closer to Kun.

"Favorite animal?" Kun continued.

"Dogs-"

"Goats. She just can't have one as a pet, she asked. The keychain on her bag is a goat. So is the plushie she takes with her on out-of-country flights. She tells people she likes dogs because it's more accepted.”

"Her favorite color is dark purple because it looks like the night sky. She loves snow but hates rain. She's the only girl fluent in all four languages. She hates moths and loves fireflies." He kept going and you wondered how he knew all that. Though…it was all things that were more or less common knowledge, things your friends knew. It wasn't creepy, just observant, and it should be things Yuta knew. But, based on his face, he really didn't.

"He loves planes. He took lessons to learn to fly one. He loves cats but doesn't have one because Lumei is allergic. He wears a lot of black and white, but he always uses a blue pen because he likes blue too. He hates cold weather; he knows how to cook, and he even is scared of butterflies." You smiled softly, realizing all the things he knew about you, you pretty much knew about him as well. It was things you overheard while near him or figured out by watching him from afar. After an uncomfortable silence, you finally looked up to meet Yuta's gaze.

"I'll go talk to father. I'll… if you ever break her heart, I'll fucking kill you." The prince exhaled, seeming to get some kind of closure and he stepped closer, reaching for you. Midway though, his hand stopped, and his eyes flicked to the side, at your earrings.

"They're moons." He noticed.

"Yes." Your voice was quiet, and the prince dropped his hand, cast one more look to his brother, and left. Watching him go was…a relief. You thought you might feel something else, be a little sad, or hurt, but you just felt at ease. As you turned to face Kun once more, he was already there, his hands at your jaw and he pulled you to him, kissing you so hard your teeth clashed against his. The force of him pulling you into him knocked your hat off, falling to the floor. You whimpered, hands holding his wrists as you try to meet his fervor. Your butt hit the table when he turned you with his leg wedging between yours. One hand left your jaw to cup the back of your head, blunt nails scratching your scalp. The other hand found its way to your waist, then his arm snaked around your middle, helping you up to sit on the table. Kun finally pulled away, both of you panting and your dazed eyes met his sharp ones.

"Fuck." He sighed, leaning forward and resting his forehead on your shoulder. His hands rested on the table, holding him up so he didn't rest his full weight on you, and he stood there for a while. You pressed your cheek to his soft hair, basking in him finally being so close to you. Slowly, you brought your arms up, shaking, and wrapped them around his shoulders. The hug was quickly returned, Kun enveloping you back, and you pressed your face into his chest. With your ear over his heart, you closed your eyes, listening to it beat, soaking in the scent of his cologne. Neither of you really wanted to pull back, but never-the-less did so. He took your hands in his, bringing them up so he could kiss them.

"I need to talk to father as well, sweetheart," his hand cupped your cheek, thumb rubbing your soft skin, "wait for me."

Due to formalities and legalities, you weren't Kun's right away. Because of all the rules, you both were moved into a guest house more or less, still on the royal campus, but not one of the official palaces. You had to wait for nearly a week as the ministers convened, trying to figure out what the hell to do. Taeyong remained the heir and was the only one that kept the harem as promised. Yuta didn't abdicate, but he didn't rebuild his harem either. He ended up moving to Japan then, becoming the ambassador for that part of the empire. Kun adopted most of his roles and rights, and it was well received by the public that he wanted to marry for love instead. He wasn't the heir, so the ministers didn't mind too much. Ten had some of his privileges revoked when it was revealed how debaucherously he was living, but he didn't mind. Doyoung too gave up his harem, minus Gyuri. A lot of things changed fast, but it was welcome. Finally, once everything was official, you stood in the middle of the foyer of your new home, watching people mill about as they moved the final things in. Looking around, you startled when someone snuck up behind you, hugging you.

"It's done, sweetheart." Kun nuzzled behind your ear, and you bit your lip, giggling.

"Once everyone leaves, I'm going to take you, since your mine now."

Part 2: Up Close (Smut)

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