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bokuroskitten · 4 years

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Business Trip.

➟Summary: Kuroo is away for business for the weekend, but decides to get a taste of his partners through FaceTime. ➟Genre: NSFW 18+ ➟warnings: Poly relationship, Dom/Sub dynamics (Daddy title used), webcam sex, fingering (female receiving), handjobs, begging, kenma slaps your thigh once ➟Character(s): Kuroo Tetsuro x Kenma Kozume x Fem!Reader ➟Word Count: 3k

It had been a long day for Kuroo, business trips were never his favourite. Especially the ones where the company was too cheap to accommodate for his significant others as well.

The pouty little face you had given him as he dragged his suitcase out the door still made him laugh. But it did suck, being away from the two of you for the weekend. He let out a gentle sigh as his fingers tugged on his tie, loosening the constricting fabric as his eyes darted over room numbers to find which belonged to him. It didn’t take long for him to find it, easily slipping the white card through the reader and letting himself in.

“Welcome home.” He mumbled to the empty suit, kicking off his shoes and dropping his suitcase by the door. He was too tired to do any unpacking right now, plus the beer cooler was calling his name. After he had a bottle, took a small swig his phone buzzed in his pocket. Easily slipping it from his slacks he scanned the message, amber eyes lighting up a bit when he saw your name.

“You settled in yet? Wanna FT when you do?”

He couldn’t hold back the giddy laugh that bubbled from his throat. He knew you and Kenma would miss him this weekend just as much as he missed the two of you, but seeing the text still managed to send butterflies straight into his chest. So, without a second thought he pulled his laptop from its brief case and set it up on the desk in the corner of the suit. After a quick plug in and a few adjustments he settled into the leather chair, taking another swig of beer as he found the FaceTime icon.

Kenma’s contact was the first one on there.

It rang three times before Kenma’s face popped up on the screen, controller in hand and gaming headset on. Kuroo had assumed he was gaming. With a large grin he waved, earning an eye roll from Kenma.

“Kitten C’mere, Tetsuro’s on.” Kenma called out to you, and Kuroo had to laugh at the shuffling from the other end of the screen, watching your face pop before the webcam with a large smile.

“Hi lovey!! How was the first day?” You spoke, smile staying wide on your face as Kenma pulled you into his lap, his eyes glancing between Kuroo and what he assumed to be the game he was playing previously. Kuroo let out a happy sigh, leaning back into his chair a bit. “Hey kitty... it was okay. Business as usual. I miss you too already.”

“We miss you too Tetsu.” He could hear the pout in your voice as your lower lip pushed out, giving Kenma a little nudge to follow your lead. The faux blonde grunted softly, eyeing you. “It hasn’t even been a full day yet; I don’t miss him— “

“Wow Kenma Cat, affectionate as always~” Kuroo chuckled against the lip of his beer, eyes taking in his significant others. He assumed you were going to bed soon, considering you were wearing one of his old volleyball t-shirts and pyjama shorts. Even Kenma had his hair pulled back into a low ponytail. He watched the way you leaned into Kenma, the way your fingers pet along his thigh softly despite nagging at him for being mean to Kuroo while he was off doing business.

The older male smirked a bit to himself, leaning onto his elbow. “You being good for me Kitty? Not giving Kenma a hard time, are you?”

“Please lovey, he’s the one giving me a hard time— “you respond, pulling back one side of his headphones to snap it back against his skull. The action has him grumbling, finally releasing the controller only so he could tickle along your sides.

There was a stream of giggles to follow and Kuroo sighed in delight. He watched the two of you for a moment, wishing more than anything he could be there with you in that moment. But he gets distracted when amber eyes reach your thighs. From all the squirming you were doing he realized those sleep shorts that he thought were sleep shorts were not that at all. They in fact were just panties, pretty ones at that.

He bit along his lower lip, fingers traveling over the lip of his almost empty beer bottle. When Kenma finally gave up on the tickling you were straddling his thigh, face dug into the crook of his neck as you whined about how unfair it was to bring tickling into a match. Kenma noticed the way Kuroo looked at the two of them through the webcam and his brow twitched, one of his hand slowly pulling his headset around his neck.

“What is it Tetsu?” He spoke, causing you to also peak your head up. Kuroo couldn’t hold back his amusement, the slacks he was wearing beginning to feel a bit too tight.

“Kitty didn’t answer my question... but I think I know the answer since she’s only wearing panties under that T-shirt.” That caused a little light to shine behind your gaze, lips puckering up a bit as Kenma let out a soft scoff. “Observant as always.” He spoke, one hand smoothing down your back, only to cup your rear. His fingers dug into the shirt you wore, clumping it up a bit in his palm to show off more of the panties.

“If you’re just gunna wear panties when you call me baby, you might as well show me them hm?” Kuroo purred, eyes narrowing a bit in delight as your thighs subconsciously tightened up around Kenma’s. The blonde nudged his nose gently into your hair, his chest tightening up at the way Kuroo was eyeing them through the monitor.

It made him desperately wish he was home.

“C’mon Kitty, you’ve been good for me all day so let’s be good for Daddy now.” Kenma murmured, hearing a little hum of approval from Kuroo on the other end of the computer. Feeling an encouraging pat on your rear you let out a pleased little sound, nodding a bit as you slowly rose from Kenma’s lap. With his help you settled into his lap again, this time with your back against his chest. Feeling his hands grip your thighs you followed their lead and rose them up, spread them far enough apart so that Kuroo could have a good view of the panties you wore. Kenma slid one hand low enough on your thigh that his fingers brushed along your covered slit, a needy little noise bubbling past your lips as you turned your face into Kenma’s shoulder.

“So pretty...” Kuroo spoke, his eyes staying trapped on Kenma’s lean fingers against your dark panties before slowly traveling up to look at your face, the way your eyes glistened with need and how you began to bite your lip swollen. Kenma had a light blush on his cheeks, his own amber gaze following his fingers as they left feather like strokes over your core. “Was she really good Kenma? Think Kitten deserves a treat?”

“I think so...” he mused, his lips pressing subtle kisses to your hair line, attempting to bring your face back to look at Kuroo. “She finished that essay, made dinner for herself and me, even called the doctor and made an appointment all by herself. Isn’t that right Kitty?”

Kuroo raised a brow at that, a little bit of pride swelling in his chest. You really had had a productive day and he always loved seeing you and Kenma do your best. But when you slowly met his gaze again, eyes glossy and lips slightly hung in a silent plea he groaned, fingers squeezing along his length as you nodded.

“What a good girl we have, want Koz to give you a treat baby?” Kuroo asked, easily easing the belt he had on out of its loops considering he already knew your answer. Your answer slipped between your lips soft and pretty. “Yes please...”

“C’mon Kitten, louder so Daddy can hear.” Kenma encouraged, a little smirk on his face as he watched Kuroo lean back in his chair, fist gripping was he assumed to be his freed cock. He probably had a long day and deserved a treat himself.

“Y-Yes Please...” you spoke again, this time a bit louder, your own eyes traveling back to the monitor to see Kuroo looking at the two of you with desire. “Please what Kitty? I wanna hear you say the whole thing.” Despite being behind a screen there were still rules to be followed, and Kuroo intended to make you keep every one of them.

Although your voice threatened to give out due to Kenma’s fingers that suddenly began to add a bit more pressure over your panties, you spoke, voice a bit shaky and filled with need. “Please... I want a treat please Kozume... Can he give me a treat, Daddy?”

“Yea Baby, let’s see it.” Kuroo urged, spitting into his palm before slowly working it over his length, which already stood very much at attention. He watched the screen closely as Kenma hooked two fingers around your panties, easily pulling the damp fabric to the side. You whined as the cold air hit your cunt, hips pressing forward a bit only to be held back by Kenma’s free hand. He ran two fingers over your folds, slowly peeling you open in a lewd manger that had your face heating up.

“Pretty thing isn’t it Tetsu?” Kenma murmured, holding back a snicker at the way Kuroo devoured you through the camera. “Fucking right it is.” Kuroo agreed, his hand squeezing along his shaft. He desperately wished he could press his length into your welcoming pussy, make Kenma watch instead with his arms bound and begging, but due to business this would have to do. “Sink two fingers in her cunnie Kenma, nice and slow for me.”

Kenma did as he was told, his index and middle finger slowly sinking into your pussy. Your head lulled back onto his shoulder at the action, a sweet moan slipping from your lips as you clenched about his fingers. Kuroo smirked, his own hand working along his shaft. “C’mon Kitty keep those pretty eyes on me, tell me how it feels.”

You whimpered softly, cheeks heated, and lips parted as you slowly made eye contact with Kuroo through the screen. “It—It feels so good Daddy.” Kenma began to press kisses along your throat, making it much harder for you to form coherent sentences. “I bet it does baby... want him to pump his fingers in there? Make you cum?” Kuroo knew the answer but wanted you to say it in that needy voice you held during times like this.

Kenma’s thumb pressed along your clit then, causing you to let out a pleased cry. Kuroo chuckled when your thighs threatened to close, only for Kenma to swat the skin of your inner thigh and make a noise of disapproval. “Thighs open.” Kenma spoke lowly, eyeing Kuroo and the way his muscles seemed to tense.

Sucking in a trembling breath you urged your thighs back open, whining softly as Kenma continued to rub slow circles into your clit. “I—I want that Daddy... Please can Kenma move his fingers— please.” You gave Kuroo a pleading gaze, hips pressing forward ever so slightly off Kenma’s lap in an attempt to feel more of his fingers. Kuroo couldn’t keep that damn grin off his face as his pumped himself a bit faster, a bit of sweet building up behind his bangs. “Yea babygirl he can. Koz, fuck our Kitten good for me.”

Without another word Kenma began to pump his fingers in and out of your cunt, going all the way up to his knuckles before pulling back out again slowly. You couldn’t help but cry out, one hand desperately gripping his shoulder as your eyes threatened to spill tears. The pads of his fingers pressed along your inner walls, feeling for that one spongy spot that would have you crumbling in his grasp. All the while he kept his eyes glued on Kuroo who watched the whole thing with blown out pupils, moans of his own slipping out as he worked his length.

“Isn’t she pretty Daddy...~” Kenma murmured, his hand leaving your clit only to take hold of your chin, force it forward so you could look into the webcam. The action made a little bit of drool dribble from your lips, making Kuroo groan in delight. “Yes, she is baby, so fucking pretty... I wanna see her cum around your fingers.” He demanded again, his own tolerance running thin as he watched your pussy greedily suck in two of Kenma’s digits.

Kenma hid his smirk against your hair but could tell by the sound of Kuroo’s voice that he wouldn’t last much longer. Wanting to make him happy he brought his free hand back down to your clit, giving the swollen bud some much needed attention as his fingers picked up their pace, finally finding that sweet spot. Your eyes widened, a gasp of delight making you arch your back in Kenma’s lap. “That’s the spot isn’t it Kitty... need you to cum around my fingers for Daddy, can you do that?”

“Yes, yes yes please— please Koz— “Your words were nothing but babbles at this point, words slipping into whimpers and moans as Kenma’s fingers continued their assault on your sweet spot. Kuroo was panting himself, watching the way tears finally spilled down your reddened cheeks, the way your thighs trembled uncontrollably, the way Kenma’s fingers looks so slick slipping in and out of your puffy lower lips.

With a small grunt he finally reached his high, his own back arching some as he spilled along his palm, certainly making a mess of the slacks he wore. He fist slowed a bit as he rode out the waves of pleasure that washed over him, amber eyes fluttering as he couldn’t help but chuckle. “Fuck— cum Kitty. C’mon cum right now.”

You wanted to respond, but instead the cord in your stomach snapped when Kenma’s fingers hit your sweet spot again. With a sob of delight your head flew back into Kenma’s shoulder, your pussy clenching about his digits tightly before releasing a little flood. Kenma bit his lip to hold back a moan, the sound of his fingers pumping within you and being covered in your release certainly being loud enough for Kuroo to hear over the monitor. He waited until your core stopped its clenching before he slowly pulled his fingers from you. The fingers that were petting your clit slowly moved to cup your sex instead, petting along it gently as he held his fingers up to the webcam.

“She did good...” Kenma spoke, pulling his two fingers apart to show the slick that stuck to him in strands. The action had Kuroo’s cheek flair up a bit pink, wanting nothing more than to lick it up all for himself. He let out a shaky sigh, finally sinking into the chair. He didn’t bother tucking his now soft cock away knowing he would just hop into the shower after this, but instead he used the napkins nearby to clean off his hand. “She did do so good... you hear that Kitten?” Kuroo spoke, a little grin on his face as you lulled your face back over, tear stained cheeks and all.

“Mhm...” You hummed, body twitching a bit as you slowly closed your thighs about Kenma’s palm, nuzzled your face into the crook of his neck. Kenma let out a soft chuckle of his own, using his clean hand to pull your panties back over your sloppy core. “Sleepy Kitten...”

“Make sure you shower her before you put her to bed.” Kuroo spoke, getting an eye roll from Kenma who already knew to do such things before bed. Holding his dirtied fingers to your lips you allowed your lashes to flutter, before taking his fingers into your mouth without objection. You sucked on them softly, a blush rising on your cheeks as you tasted yourself on his skin.

“Fuck... you’re such a good girl.” Kuroo spoke from the other end of the monitor, the act alone enough to get him hard all over again. But sadly, another hand job given to himself just wouldn’t cut it. Blowing his dampened bangs from his face he watched Kenma nod to his comment, slowly pulling his fingers from your lips before pressing a gentle kiss there. “You are a good girl baby, time to clean you up okay?”

You nodded, and despite your body being a bit twitchy you adjusted yourself so you could straddle Kenma once more, allow him to carry you when he stood. Kuroo watched with a fond smile as you leaned your head into Kenma’s shoulder, fingers gripping his sweater. Kenma leaned into the camera then, spoke softly. “Say goodnight, (Y/N).”

“Goodnight Tetsu... I love you.” You mumbled, briefly looking up to send a smile Kuroo’s way. The little gesture had his heart fluttering. “I love you too Kitty, sleep well.” Kenma huffed softly as he readjusted a bit, held you to his chest. Kuroo sent him a grin then. “If you need some relief Kenma, just do it after you’ve put the baby to bed okay?”

“Nah it’s okay.” The faux blonde spoke, his palm smoothing over your rear. “I’ll wait till you get home. G’night Tetsu. Love you.” He didn’t wait for Kuroo’s response before hanging up, knowing that he would respond with--

“Love you too Koz...” he spoke to now a black screen. Kuroo leaned his head back on the chair, sighing out loud to his now quiet room. He took a few moments before finally standing and heading to the shower. He prayed this weekend would go by faster, just so he could get him to his partners.

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jtrbluv · 4 years

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we’re not really strangers | pjm

summary: We’re Not Really Strangers is a purpose-driven card game and movement all about empowering meaningful connections. Three carefully crafted levels of questions and wildcards that allow you to deepen your existing relationships and create new ones. Ready?

or alternatively,

your furtive infatuation with your lifelong best friend proves to be hard to suppress when there’s (1) alcohol involved and (2) a card game that forces you to reveal more about yourself than you could ever wish for. in short, no, you are not ready.

[friends to lovers!au]

pairing: jimin x reader

genre: fluff, crack, slight angst

word count: 8.7k

warnings: swearing, alcohol consumption, two emotionally constipated best friend, PG-15

A/N: hi, i’ve been really excited about this fic for a while, and i’m genuinely so happy that i finally finished it! the card game is in fact real and i got inspired for this fic after i had played the game with a couple of friends myself. AHEM! @koushiningg ! we both cried and i do highly recommend to play it! but anyways, i hope you enjoy this fic because i had a lot of fun writing it! sending love always... jumi out!

EDIT: @bangtans-peaceful-piegon i’d also like to thank the lovely pidge for beta reading this 4 me as well! PIDGE I FUCKIN LOB U!!!

PLAYLIST ; SEQUEL

♤ ♤ ♤

Not once in your life did you ever imagine a simple card game to become the bane of your existence.

Yet Park Jimin was able to prove you wrong.

Let’s play ‘We’re Not Really Strangers’ he said. It’ll be fun, he said.

You stare down at the card in front of you—everything else in your periphery was blurry in vision and you can audibly pinpoint the erratic beating of your heart.

The card was practically taunting you, laughing in your face. It was as if there was a sentient being in the room who was aware of your own subconscious and the not so latent feelings you had for the boy sitting in front of you.

Same said being loved to constantly place you in a state of trepidation concerning your current situation—your blood pressure skyrocketing—nearly feeling the muscular pink thing inside of you thrusting itself against your ribcage.

The white card with crimson red writing made sure to leave an impact, making you feel the most ridiculed you’ve felt all night which says a lot—leaving your mind in a complete frenzy although you refused to let it be known.

And so you sat there. Fiddling the card in between your fingers, feigning nonchalance. You were very much on the brink of cracking your facade—your sanity practically crumbling as the minutes ticked by. You didn’t think you’d last this long to be honest. Yet an hour and a half proved to be way too straining on your body, especially your heart.

He simply sat there with his hands folded on the table—void of emotion, whistling a familiar top 50s tune you couldn’t quite put your finger on. You considered shifting your focuses on trying to comprehend the tune—hoping it would ease the concerning state of apprehension you were in.

But then you remember that you aren’t that pathetic. Even though you both had probably been sitting in complete silence for about two minutes now. Up to the point where you could probably hear the crickets chirping outside his apartment, except the only sound that was filling your ears was your own conscience telling you how idiotic you were being.

Your face may be gradually morphing the same shade of crimson as the writing inscribed onto the card itself, and you may have a whole line of sweat encompassing your hairline. But it’s just a stupid little card game. You could say any stupid little answer and the stupid not-so-little boy wouldn’t care. He wouldn’t care. So you shouldn’t care.

When did you become so pathetic after all?

-one hour and a half ago-

“Why can’t we just play Mario Kart or Uno? This sounds like there’s too much thinking involved,” you whine, leaning against the side of his couch.

“One, we always play that. And two, I always lose,” he grumbles, plopping down onto the floor.

Jimin rests his back on the frame of the couch as he sits in the small gap made by the large piece of furniture and the coffee table that resided in front of it. You decide to sit on the floor as well, around an arm’s length away from your friend. He places the red box down onto the table—opening the cap and revealing the contents with a mischievous glint in his irises.

Within the box was a deck of cards, separated into three piles with two pencils on either side. Knowing Jimin, you assumed this game had an ulterior motive you were unaware of, and by the title of the game, you could already tell that you weren’t going to like it very much.

“How do you even play this?” You ask, causing him to look up in return.

He bites his lip, taking a couple seconds to ponder on your question, “I don’t know it’s my first-time playing too,” he shrugs. “I was watching Jin and Namjoon playing it a couple of weeks ago and for some reason, Jungkook started crying.”

“He is a sap,” you hum in agreement, thinking in retrospect of Jungkook crying from various situations such as Iron Man dying or that one time Jin farted on his pillow and he got pink eye for a whole week.

“The biggest,” he concurs, “Hm, there’s no instructions in here.” He mutters while shuffling through the cards.

“Why don’t you just search it up?” You suggest, sliding the box to yourself as he nods and fishes his phone out of his pocket.

While holding the box in the palm of your hand, you scan the contents—turning it around in your palm until your eyes narrow in on the words printed at the bottom.

“Oh, it says something here.”

His head perks up. “Hm? What is it?”

You clear your throat at the sight of the long explanation. “We’re Not Really Strangers is a purpose-driven card game and movement all about empowering meaningful connections. Three carefully crafted levels of questions and wildcards that allow you to deepen your existing relationships and create new ones.” You internally grimace at the words. The game hasn’t even started and you already had a bad feeling about it all. “Ready?” You say through clenched teeth, purposely keeping your head hung low.

Jimin’s lips quirk up into a cheerful grin, unaware of the piercing stare you were giving him. “Okay, I think I got it,” he declares, eyes zeroed in on his phone once more, ”There’s three levels—perception, connection, and reflection. Each level we pass, the deeper and more thought-provoking the questions get. Helping us make a deeper connection and get to know each other better yadda yadda yadda.”

You nod in understanding, sliding the box of cards back towards him—forcing the grimace that kept threatening to plaster itself onto your face into a small, smug smile.

“The first thing we have to do,” he begins, taking out two pencils and two small pieces of paper, “is write messages to each other. We won’t be able to open these until after we leave.” He explains, sliding a pencil and paper towards you.

“Wow, very cryptic,” you tut, biting down on your bottom lip before more distasteful remarks decided to leave your lips. He doesn’t catch your reaction or your comment though because he’s already got his pencil in his hand, scribbling vigorously onto the tiny piece of paper. Knowing him it could very well be nonsensical insults and doodles, or a whole essay about your friendship and what you mean to him. Most likely ludicrous and full of thought, either way, just like him.

Without much thought, you lazily jot onto the paper.

know that i love u, u fucker <3

-y/n

The sound of your pencil falling against the table causes him to look up at you, eyes knit together in confusion.

“You’re done already?”

You chuckle, “I mean, I wasn’t going to write an essay. You already know how I feel about you. But it seems like you’re writing one though.”

His eyes narrow in on you—giving you an indiscernible look before letting out a small ‘hmph’ and lowering his focus back down to his pencil and paper. You dismiss his enigmatic behavior—deciding to mindlessly scroll on your phone while waiting for him to finish his MLA formatted essay.

Two minutes pass and you hear the sound of his pencil being placed onto the table. “Done.”

“You added citations too right?”

He scoffs, “No, but i’ll gladly add some if you’d like.”

You roll your eyes for what seems like the umpteenth time in the last five minutes, “Just start the goddamn game.”

He takes the first stack of cards and shuffles them between his hands. “In all three levels, there are wild cards or basically dares we have to complete. And for each level, we get two ‘dig deeper’ cards. Pretty self-explanatory. So this is the perception level. It’s basically designed for first encounters and strangers, and we’re gonna be asking each other questions about ourselves.”

Your eyes widen at the whole confidentiality of it all. “Are we going through all of those cards?” You blurt out, staring at what seemed to be like 50 cards in his hands.

“Oh no,” he quickly refutes, “It would take hours. We’ll just do like 12 cards each.”

“Alright,” you huff, letting out a small breath of relief.

“Yay! Okay I’ll go first,” he beams, his toothy smile evident as he places the deck in between the two of you while grabbing a card from the top, “What do you think my name is?”

You snort at the conspicuousness of the question, “Jamal.”

He immediately guffaws at your response, throwing his head back in addition. “Hey, I don’t mind that.”

“Are all of the questions like this?” You say in between hushed laughter.

“Nah,” he shakes his head as you pick up another card from the deck, “now you ask me.”

“Alright, what’s the first thing you noticed about me?” You ask, slightly taken aback by the sudden earnestness of the question, causing you to become genuinely curious about what his answer was going to be.

He hums, taking a second to think it through. “I think your smile and your laugh. It’s always been really contagious since the day I met you.” He admits, almost matter-of-factly as if it was something you should’ve known by now, yet you did not.

Your heart nearly disintegrates into a puddle of goop right then and there, but you manage to conceal your reaction, “Aw, you actually like me.” You tease.

He scoffs with a playful grin on his lips. “Don’t flatter yourself. You still cackle like a damn hyena.”

Your eyebrows shoot up, “At least I don’t laugh at every single of Jin’s lame ass jokes.”

He gasps, jaw slack open due to your all too accurate truthbomb, “I did not ask to be attacked in my own residence.”

“Well, what are you gonna do about it then.”

He snorts. “Holy shit, do you remember when I banged my head on the corner of his coffee table.”

“How could I forget? I had the picture of the bump on your head as my lockscreen for like a month.” You reminisce, resisting the urge to pull up the picture from your phone.

“Yeah, and that same month I bought and rotated between the same 10 hats.”

“Hey! It genuinely didn’t look as bad as you thought.”

He whips his head towards you, giving you a piercing glare that made you want to redact your statement immediately.

He grins from ear to ear, the little shit, amused at the reaction he was able to garner from you.

“Aha!” He suddenly guffaws, shooting out of the floor and prancing towards his fridge. He then takes out three bottles of lychee-flavored soju and makes his way back towards the table.

Jimin being the borderline alcoholic he is, it doesn’t come as a surprise to you. Not even after he takes another trip back to the fridge to grab yet another three bottles of soju, mango-flavored to be exact. He has probably one of the stupidest grins etched onto his face as he held onto the bottles—meanwhile you were more concerned about the possibility of having to clean up a bunch of broken glass and wasted soju. Then again, it wouldn’t be the first time.

“And do you plan on drinking all of this by yourself?” you say, gesturing towards the bottles.

“I know my liver is strong, but I don’t buy this shit just to enjoy alone,” he retorts. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees you shake your head as you click your tongue, “Playing this while tipsy just sounds ten times better don’t you think?.”

You shrug—although you had a strong hunch for what he was insinuating, “I mean I guess.”

He starts to pour soju into his shot glass, stopping just before it hits the brim. He slides the glass to you and you take it into your hand, eyeing the sparkling fluid and thinking about the way the contents would do its little all-too-familiar dance on your tongue.

“Well, you know what they say,” he says, pouring a glass for himself, “drunk words are sober thoughts,” he finishes while dragging out the last word—downing the first shot in one quick swig. You follow his lead soon thereafter, refusing to let your mind linger on what he had just said and the viable likelihood of you spewing out the words that could just make or break your longstanding friendship and lead to a lifetime of regret.

Obviously, everything’s going fine and dandy for you.

The next 20 minutes consisted of a plethora of superficial questions that would vary from:

“What's your favorite song lyric you can think of off the top of your head?”

Your head shoots up as if the lightbulb in your head just flashed on. “Easy. Shawty’s like a melody in my head that i cant keep out got me singing like-“

He lunges over to clap a hand over your mouth before you could sing the next line. “Na na na na no Y/N. Please stop.”

Or something along the lines of:

“What character do you think I'd play in a movie?” He asks with a smug smile.

“You’d be the second male lead that everyone secretly wants to end up with the main character because you act all sweet and kind and and genuinely cares about her but instead she chooses the other guy because something about him draws her in and it was her ‘gut instinct’ or some shit like that.”

“So I would get second male lead syndrome?” He reiterates.

“Yes.”

He sets his shot glass back down with a glower, clearly taken aback. “That is the biggest insult I’ve ever gotten in my entire life.”

You also couldn’t forget about:

“Oh, this one says to create a secret handshake.”

“No.” You deadpan.

“And why not?”

“Your pinky‘s the size of a vienna sausa—“

He smacks you square in the cheek with a pillow before you could finish your sentence. You don’t even fight back because your mind was so slow to process what he had just done. The fact that you only slept for 5 hours last night didn’t help whatsoever. Your evident lack of energy causes him to jab his finger into your side, causing a loud shriek—your fight or flight response starts kicking in as you grab the back of his neck and slam his face against the fabric of the couch cushion.

Soju was never able to make the two of you full on drunk—buzzed of course, but not enough for complete incoherency. And so you both down a bottle each before finishing the first round.

“I’m surprised we didn’t get any wild cards that round,” he says while resting his head on the couch.

You purse your lips, “You spoke too soon.”

His eyes flash open as he cranes his neck in an attempt to see the card. “Wait actually?”

You can feel your insides churn as you read the words in front of you, and you were sure that it wasn’t the alcohol talking. “Write down the three most important things to you in a relationship for 30 seconds and then compare.”

Jimin reaches over to grab two pieces of paper and pencils while unlocking his phone to find the timer app, “Okay, I’ll put a timer on for 30 seconds starting… now.”

And so the internal monologue in your head begins.

Three most important things… only three? That’s not anywhere near enough to suffice. Wait, what would the first one even be… oh yeah, trust. Trust is very much important yes, yes, yes. What else? Um, communication? Yes of course, that’s essential. Okay, what would the last one be?

You sneak a glance over at Jimin. His cheek is squished against the palm of his hand, making his cheek fat (an area in which he lacked in) more prominent and the pink, plush flesh of his lips appear even bigger than they already were.

The ceiling light emitted a faint, ambient glow—the lights and shadows hitting all the slopes and curves of his face. You never understood how someone could be so effortlessly stunning. Even the mess atop his head that’s supposed to be his hair looks purposely tousled—the ebony strands sticking up in multiple directions was framing his temples and contrasted with the honey-like hues of his skin.

Unlike the glow that radiated from the lights of the worn-down apartment and the radiance of whatever was beyond the glass of the window behind him, everything about him seemed to glow much brighter.

“Hello, earth to Y/N, your 30 seconds is up.” He interrupts pointedly, waving a hand in front of your face.

Blinking rapidly, you shake your head as well as all preceding thoughts that definitely weren’t consuming your mind a few seconds ago, “Sorry w-what?”

He laughs at your disoriented state, “Did you finish writing your three things?”

No, I wrote your name as number 3. “Yeah, I did. You can go first though.”

He nods with a small smile. “Oh, okay then let’s see. First, I put trust. I don’t know, I think everyone puts that to be honest. After that, I put communication. I feel like that’s just a given y’know. Another thing I feel like most people would say.”

You utter a timid “mhm” under your breath albeit zoning out and being unaware of what he was saying. Opportunely, you managed to scribble out his name with the mere seconds that had passed and now you were tapping the lead point of the pencil against the paper, littering the page with a bunch of grey, little dots—incognizant to the fact that he had his eyes focused on you the whole time.

“I didn’t really know what to put last. Three things isn’t anywhere near enough in my opinion. But at the last second, I wrote down vulnerability,” he continues.

You look up upon hearing the last word. “Oh wow, that’s good. I didn’t even think about that.”

He chuckles unabashedly, clearly pleased with your reaction. “Right? I just figured. At first, I thought it would go in the same category as trust but then I thought about it more. Yeah, you can trust someone and someone can trust you, but to what extent does that all go to. Where does it start? And where does it even end? You need to be able to open up to the person I feel like. So I guess trust and vulnerability go hand in hand.”

Impressed with his words, you decide to chime in. “Wouldn’t communication go along with it too?”

“Hm?”

You place your pencil down. “You would open up to each other by means of communication, becoming more vulnerable, and then overall gaining more trust in the end.”

His brows raise at your sudden revelation, “Wait, you’re so right, did you just wax poetic and full cycle all that?.”

You smile, “I mean I guess,” you respond humbly, “ it does make sense though, does it not?”

He hums in agreement while downing another shot, “It applies to us, right?”

You force out a chuckle, but it comes out a lot more faux-sounding than you would’ve liked. “Haha, yeah I guess it does, doesn’t it.” Once again, starting to dive deeper into the abyss of pitiful hope and unrequitedness.

“Describe your perfect day.” He suddenly interjects.

You quirk a brow. “Didn’t I just go?”

“It’s okay, I’ll go for this one too.”

“Alright,” you say, foot tapping on the wooden floor as you look past him and out into the glass window of his living room, “well, I wouldn’t have school of course. And I think it would all depend on how I feel that day. If I was feeling particularly lazy, the day would probably consist of me binge-watching shows in bed while eating a shitton of carbs. And the other case would probably be galavanting around the city or going to an amusement park with friends.”

Jimin listens intently and smiles as you speak, causing you to avoid his stare before pigment threatened to rush to your cheeks, “Both of those scenarios sound really nice. I better be included too.”

You roll your eyes, turning away to hide the grin creeping up your cheeks, “We’ll see.”

He groans, standing up from his spot on the floor and falling onto his couch instead, “My asscheeks hurt.”

Your face contorts into a look of disgust, “And you want me to do what with that information?”

Scoffing lightly, he leans back into the cushions and tilts his head back, “It was a declaration, not a cry for help.”

“Yeah, and it’s the bony ass for me.”

His head perks up. “It’s having a flatter ass than their guy best friend for me.”

Gulping down the sad but unequivocal truth, “It’s kissing up to every teacher’s ass for me.”

His eyes narrow in pure chagrin, “It’s the crying on your teacher’s doorstep for them to round your grade for me.”

“It’s splitting your pants on orientation day for me.”

“Fuck you, people would pay to see this ass! It’s getting a concussion from falling down the main hall stairs for me.”

“For fuck’s sake, I told you that they waxed the floors that day!” You snap back.

“Okay, and who said it was a good idea to walk down three flights of stairs while trying to cram for a midterm? Yeah, exactly no one.” He says incisively, giving you an even bigger urge to push him off of the couch, yet you digress.

“This could go on for hours.” You heave out.

“Is that the sound of someone giving up I’m hearing?”

“Is that the sound of a midget I’m hearing?”

“But I’m taller than you?!” He screeches petulantly, smacking your shoulder. You burst out into a fit of laughter—toppling onto the wooden floor with pure malice.

Gasping for air, you attempt to stifle your laughter and regain your breath. “Wow, I’m on a roll today! I deserve another shot.”

He shakes his head, his anger quelling at the sight of your giddiness. “Remind me to not let you drink and play this game.”

You turn over from your side to lay on your back. “This will be the first and the last time I play this game with you.” You say almost immediately—the words involuntarily slipping from your mouth before you could stop it.

He sinks in his spot on the couch, brows knitting at your comment. “Why?”

Sobriety crashes into you like a colossal wave —your irritation dissipates almost immediately. The exaggerated tone your voice begins to register through your head—as well as the fact that you sounded a lot more disapproving than you intended.

Groaning at your hindered ability to think and process properly, you attempt to clear the air, “Sorry, I didn’t mean it like that. We just... practically know everything about each other I guess. What else is there to know?”

He hums. “You sure about that?”

What? “Wait what?”

“Nothing,” he chuckles awkwardly, “next question.”

The straightforwardness of the next question causes you to quirk a brow, “How are you, really?”

His eyes widen. “Well, that’s a deep one, isn’t it?”

You smile. “A little.”

He sighs, a small grin lacing his features, “Hm, how am I,” he affirms, adjusting himself in his spot on the couch, “I feel content with where I am right now, I guess. Things can always be better, but at the same time they could be worse too.”

Your number one defense mechanism as of late has been to constantly tease and make jokes at the poor guy—essentially using him as your own mental punching bag. He went along with it out of the assumption that it was all caused by your stress from school while you knew the true origins of your behavior.

You smile at his optimism, "Hey, that's always good to hear."

He chuckles, shifting his position on the couch so he could face you directly, "I don't know, maybe it's the new sense of freedom. Or all the amazing people I've gotten to meet and the opportunities that are offered here. Or the fact that I'm still going to the same school as my best friend after all this damn time."

"Chim, don't get sappy on me man." You warn him while pouting exaggeratedly— slumping onto the frame of the couch while he takes a strand of your hair in between his fingers. You bask in the moment, your eyes shutting close.

"Hey, I'm just being honest! For some reason, it all makes up for the impending student debt and draining lectures and professors that have a superiority complex as fat as their paycheck."

"Too bad their paycheck still isn't as fat as your ass."

An audible gasp coming from the only other person in the room causes your eyes to flutter open.

"Aw," he coos, ruffling the hair atop of your head, "that’s the nicest thing you’ve said to me all night. Admit it, you love me."

Out of instinct, you opt to stick your tongue at him instead of replying with a witty comeback. You turn away from him before mumbling to yourself, "More than you'll ever know buddy."

"What was that?"

Shit. "Nothing. Next question!"

After twenty questions and a whopping 10 empty soju bottles later, you are quite literally about to implode.

Your eyes stare down at the card in front of you—everything that surrounds it is blurry in vision and you can audibly pinpoint the erratic beating of your heart.

The card was practically taunting you, laughing in your face. It was as if there was a sentient being in the universe who was aware of your own subconscious and the not so latent feelings you had for the boy sitting in front of you. Same said being loved to constantly place you in a state of trepidation concerning your current situation—your blood pressure skyrocketing—nearly feeling the muscular pink thing inside of you thrusting itself against your ribcage.

The imminent headache was starting to spread towards your temples and you practically felt like you could feel your brain shifting inside your head at this point. Although you felt groggy, you were certain that your heart was at a rate that is way faster than it should be. And sitting on your legs has caused them to lose all feeling from the tips of your toes all the way up to your kneecaps. One attempt at standing and you would come crashing to the floor in a heartbeat.

To say you were mad was an understatement. Out of all the times throughout the entirety of this hour and a half that you were playing this game, he decided that now would be the best time to use his 'dig deeper' card.

There it was.

Admit something.

"Okay fine, I was the one who stuck pink hair dye in your shampoo last semester."

"Y/N, did you really think I didn't know? C’mon I know there’s something else in there.”

You scowl, brows furrowing, “Why would I keep something from you?”

“Why are you getting so defensive over this?”

"What the hell is there for me to admit to you?" You snap back in exasperation, the harsh tone of your voice rendering the two of you speechless.

He averts his gaze, closing his eyes while inhaling a deep sigh. "Ever since we started college, why have you been treating me so differently?"

Your eyes widen in disbelief, stumped. Yet you refuse to wither out of this.

"I– are you mad?"

"No. Of course not," he quickly digresses, softening his gaze, "I just noticed after all this time that you've only been acting differently towards me. Did I do something wrong?"

"No, you didn't do anything wrong Jimin. You never have."

His eyes narrow, giving you yet another indecipherable look, "I'm using my 'dig deeper' card." He deadpans.

And so you sat there. Fiddling the card in between your fingers, feigning nonchalance. You were very much on the brink of cracking your facade—your sanity practically crumbling as the minutes ticked by. You didn’t think you’d last this long, to be honest. Yet an hour and a half proved to be way too straining on you in a variety of different ways.

He simply sat there with his hands folded on the table—void of emotion, whistling a familiar top 50s tune you couldn’t quite put your finger on.

You considered shifting your focuses on trying to comprehend the tune—hoping it would ease the concerning state of apprehension you were in. But then you assured yourself that you haven't reached that level of patheticism yet.

Even though you both had probably been sitting in complete silence for about two minutes now —practically anyone else could detect was the crickets chirping outside his apartment, yet the only sound that was filling your eardrums was your own conscience telling you how idiotic you were being.

This was it. There was no point in trying to weasel yourself out of this situation. If you tried, your more than futile attempt could very well end up causing more problems than if you were to go with the latter.

So instead of constantly wracking your brain with witty banter and deceitful ways to gaslight your feelings for the man sitting in front of you, you come to terms with the fact that your time had run out. You internally commend yourself for putting up a good fight, as well as internally become accosted at how immature you were at handling the whole situation.

You sharply inhale through your nose, peering at the man sitting in front of you as his eyes meet your own, "Alright."

He offers you a small yet empathetic smile in return, giving you the tiniest sliver of reassurance. His hand pats the couch cushion next to him, motioning for you to sit down next to him.

You push yourself up from the floor, immediately propping a leg onto the couch to avoid your numb limbs to be the cause of your embarrassment.

You inhale slowly through your nose and out through your mouth. "This is going to sound really absurd. Like more than absurd. Possibly borderline hysterical." No Y/N, why would you say that?

He interjects, placing a hand on your forearm. "I'm beginning to think you're becoming borderline hysterical," he lets out a small chuckle, "slow down Y/N. One thought at a time."

Your jaw is still slack open due to your previous rambling. "I'm sorry, I just—I don't think I've ever felt this anxious… around you at least."

He bites his lip, eyes trailing away from yours as he tries to think of a way to aid you, "Will it help if I turn around?

"Maybe." You reply timidly, smiling to yourself as his back came into view.

“It’ll be pretty funny if we don’t remember this in the morning,” you start off with, “I shouldn’t be saying that either I’m sorry. Stupid alcohol.”

He snickers at your drunken state, it was adorable. “Pretend I’m not here Y/N. Like you’re talking to a wall.” He advises, back still turned.

You nod although he can’t see you. “Okay. Well, hi Mr. Wall. I’ve been keeping a secret from my best friend for as long as I’ve known him and I don’t know what to do about it. I’ve suppressed it all this time in hopes that it would eventually fade away, and it almost did. No really, it actually almost did. But now it’s back again and all the same feelings came, but like freaking twofold. No, tenfold. No, like a hundred fucking fold.”

Jimin tries excruciatingly hard to stifle his laughter, cupping a hand to his mouth so he wouldn’t move and distract you.

“I’m literally in love with my freaking best friend when I know he doesn’t see me in that light nor will he ever. If he did, we wouldn’t be where we are right now because I am so shitty at hiding my feelings that I am more than certain that I’ve let the truth slip a couple of times.” You say all in one breath.

He slowly detaches his hand from his mouth, eyebrows raising in disbelief in the words you had just said. His body urges him to turn around. Yet you continue to think out loud. So he digresses.

“Towards the end of high school, I think my feelings started to become more dormant because I had become more concerned over finishing high school and transitioning into college. I was content and I convinced myself that my feelings were fleeting for once.” You begin with, allowing whatever thoughts that you consumed your mind to spill all out for Mr. Wall to hear.

You sigh, taking a pillow from his couch and squeezing onto it for dear life. “That was until we ended up getting into our top picks and going to the same school. I couldn’t believe it. My stupid head tried to convince me that life had always just paired the two of us up together for some reason. And that maybe, just maybe I had a chance. But whatever I guess. I don’t know.”

A notification causes your eyes to trail to your phone. Really, Professor La, this is not a good time to tell me to finish my research paper. You swipe at the notification, revealing your lock screen—a photo of you and Jimin at an amusement park back at your hometown, sporting matching university hoodies with bright smiles on your faces that were captured mid-laughter.

Setting your phone down, you lean into the couch—letting your head fall into the cushions as your eyelids slowly start to droop shut. “What also didn’t help is how college life just seems to suit him perfectly. He just always looks so happy now. Like yeah, he’s always been a social butterfly. Yet in addition to that he has top notch grades. He charms professors. For fuck’s sake the Dean treats him like a son. His passion, his laughter, his love, his happiness. It’s always been so infectious. But college just made the effect he has on people grow even stronger. I-,” you stammer, pausing breathlessly, “it just looks like he truly belongs here. Like college was just made for him.”

He sits there in a complete stupor—still trying to process all the words that he had just heard. His body is itching to turn around, take you into his arms, whisper soft nothings into your ear. Anythings. Everything. He never wanted you to feel anxious about his feelings for you ever again.

“Mr. Wall, that was a lot, I’m sorry. But I’m really… really tired.” You utter quietly, a long yawn escaping your lips. You fall asleep.

Ten seconds pass until Jimin sneaks a glance over his shoulder, scanning your body as he notices your shut eyes and timid grip on his pillow.

“Y/N?”

You’re unresponsive.

He grins at the sight. Getting up from his seat, he makes his way toward you—slowly prying the pillow from your grasp as you carefully slides his hands under your body and picks you up from the couch.

Instinctively, you wrap your arms around his neck and bury your face into his shoulder as he carries you to his bedroom. You are very much still asleep, yet you always had the habit of needing something to hold onto while you were unconscious.

Kicking the sheets aside, he makes room for you to lie down as he gently places you onto his bed. He quickly scurries to the other side, slipping into the covers himself as he lays down beside you.

The sudden contact causes you to shift in your sleep—suddenly wrapping an arm around his torso. He lays there, completely stunned at your actions and begins to heavily debate whether he should give into his desires or not.

The internal conflict lasts about two seconds before he turns to his side—placing his free hand on the small of your back and pulling you into his chest, leaving a small pocket of space in between your two bodies.

Unknowingly, you close the gap almost immediately—nestling your head into the crook of his neck as your arm that was lazily slung over his torso starts to tighten its hold around his body.

His arm slings over your unconscious form, his hands making his way to your back as he basks in the foreign feeling, being this close in proximity to you. It was different. Yet it almost felt like it was where he belonged. And he was scared because he didn’t want it to end.

While gently placing his chin on the top of your head, he begins to stroke your hair as fatigue starts to wash over him as well. “Things will make sense soon Y/N, I swear.”

He retracts, craning his neck in an attempt to see your sleeping form. His attempt proves to be futile when an indecipherable groan leaves your lips—brows knitting slightly and lips curling downward from the sudden lack of warmth.

His soft laughter fills the room as he obliges—carefully pressing a small kiss to your forehead before reverting back to his original position.

“For now, just know that I love you too.”

The intolerable throbbing sensation in your temples caused you to stir in your sleep.

The only events you could recall from last night was being at Jimin’s apartment, playing that stupid card game, and downing the most soju you’ve ever had in one sitting.

It only occurs to you that you’re wrapped in someone’s arms when you open your eyes and the only thing in your periphery is a firm chest, steadily heaving each time they take a breath.

Your legs were messily entangled with theirs—arms slung around each other’s torsos as you felt a strange yet dense weight on the top of your head.

Carefully, you try to pry yourself from their grasp albeit your haphazard state of mind. You pull back ever so slightly, making sure not to wake them up in the process, discovering that the excess weight was actually their chin that had been resting on top of your head. Their fingers were still twined in your hair as you pulled back, making you freeze in your spot. Curious, you tilt your head, peering upwards and catching a glimpse of their face.

The boy is undoubtedly still asleep. Eyes shut and ample lips slightly parted. Your timid movement, to your luck, which hadn’t phased him in the slightest, as he was unperceptive and nearly immobile at this point.

If it weren't for your abhorrent headache and the even more abhorrent symptoms that had rooted from your hangover, it would be an understatement to say that you would be freaking out right about now. In reality,

You'd be in a complete state of manic.

Because of the fact that your body was paying for the despicable amount of alcohol you had decided to consume the night before, an influx of any intense emotion would cause your body to exacerbate itself even more. And the last thing you needed was to puke all over the poor guy after sleeping together for the first time.

While you were physically experiencing withdrawals, your mind felt slightly inebriated nonetheless. You weren't quite sure if it was from last night's affluence of liquor or the way everything's starting to come back to you. And the longer your eyes linger on the boy's face, the clearer everything starts to become. From the foolish banter to your childish outbursts leading up to your intoxicated yet conscientious confession.

You left your heart all out for him to witness last night, and now the only thing you could do is wait for a response.

Taking a deep sigh, you retreat back to his body—deciding not to ponder any longer on the matter and wait until you had felt physically capable of doing so.

Steaming hot streams of water splash against his back. He stands under the shower head while massaging soap into his hair, replaying the events that had happened last night on loop.

The words that left your mouth were engraved into his mind as they involuntarily kept replaying over and over again—particularly your inebriated confession, which kept garnering the same reaction of both hope and frustration within him.

The solution should be simple. In reality it is, yet he still felt so internally scattered.

“—he doesn’t see me in that light nor will he ever...”

That was the singular line that he just couldn’t wrap his head around. There was never a moment where he would hesitate to drop everything he was doing to be there for you and make sure you were okay.

Yes, he knew that you two were best friends and that it was natural. But what best friend drives across town at 2am because you had the stomach flu and your parents were out of town. Keep in mind it was his mom’s birthday that day.

What best friend ditches their prom date when yours had stood you up. Or coax the drama teacher into giving you the lead in the school play because he saw the ways your eyes glimmered when you saw the words ‘High School Musical’. And damn, weren’t you justthe greatest Gabriella he’s ever seen.

Little did you know that in reality, he always wanted you to be the Gabriella to his Troy, and not Chad. Yet you seemed to have believed the latter all along.

But in the end, what the hell kind of best friend remains oblivious to the fact that for years, past exes have consistently broken up with him for the same reason.

“Your heart belongs to someone else.”

Or alternatively,

“I’m not the right person for you.”

Straight A’s don’t mean shit when no teacher has ever taught him how to realize that he was irrevocably in love with his best friend, and that she had always, almost candidly, felt the same way.

He shuts his eyes tightly, hands aggressively running through his soaked hair as he comes to a conclusion.

Being strangers could never be an option. Being friends, or moreso, best friends was fine. But that’s it. It was just fine. It was normalcy. It has been for years.

And that just wasn’t going to cut it for him anymore.

Your arm traces along the fabric of the bedsheets, alerting you that there was a void of space and lack of warmth from the other side of the bed. Your eyes spring open to see that there was no one laying beside you.

A long yawn escapes your lips as you stretch your limbs, body sprawling all over the bed before selfishly tugging the sheets all to yourself.

Soft hissing from which you assume was coming from his shower was confirmed to be true when your eyes spot the closed bathroom door and the small beam of light that was emitting from it.

A small, folded piece of paper that was taking up the space of where his head was resting was where your eyes shift to next.

y/n <3

You knit your brows together, knowing that it was most likely put there strategically rather than a piece of trash that had slipped out of his pocket.

It was addressed to you after all and so you grab it while making a futile attempt to rub the sleep out of your eyes. Your throbbing headache and churning insides had significantly died down. Regardless of your recovery time you internally make a promise to yourself to never get this wasted ever again. The chances of you sticking to it? Highly debatable considering the current situation you’re in.

Blinking rapidly, you finally are able to decipher whatever is written onto the paper. And it says:

hi y/n, i can already tell by the looks that you’re giving me that you already despise this game and im sorry. all i wanna say is that by the time you read this, i hope that we remain close as ever even though what i plan on saying tonight could obliterate all of that. i wanted to play this game bc i know we’re both hiding stuff from each other and it’s about time we get it out. at least for me. whatever happens, i love you. always will.

- chim :)

EDIT: for fuck’s sake y/n i’m FUCKING IN LOVE WITH YOU TOO I WAS SUPPOSED TO CONFESS TO U FIRST LOSER NOT THE OTHER WAY AROUND T-T

“Finally awake?” You hear a familiar voice call out. He walks out of the bathroom, fully clothed (to your dismay) while drying his hair with a towel, eyes immediately softening as they connect with yours.

You swallow down your nerves, “Yeah, I’ve been.”

He walks over to the edge of the bed, eyes shifting to the piece of paper in your hand before reverting his focus back to your face, “What are you reading there?”

“I don’t know,” you huff, feigning ignorance, “why don’t you tell me.”

A soft chortle leaves his lips as he throws the towel to the side, smiling as wide as ever as he jumps onto the vacant spot on his bed right next to you.

Propping himself up, he sits against the headboard, letting out a content sigh before looking down at you once more. “Come here.” He says, reaching his arms out in hopes that you’d fill the idle gap.

And you do, shaking the sheets off of your body as you place yourself in his arms, freshly revelling in the comfort. You wrap your arms snugly around his waist, letting your head rest on his chest while he clutches onto you tightly.

“I’m sorry for pushing the subject so hard onto you last night.” He starts off with, “I guess I just never fathomed the fact that you could return the feeling, and I was too stubborn to even admit it to you in the first place.” He expresses while stroking your back, “I didn’t mean to confront you so harshly, it’s unlike me, and I’m really sorry about it Y/N.”

“Do you think I’m mad about that Jimin?” You inquire, just barely above a whisper.

He pulls back slightly, peering down at you, “Are you?”

“Of course not. I should be the one apologizing anyways for being even more stubborn and resorting to such childish ways.” You disclose whilst mentally beating yourself up.

“Hey, there’s no use in beating ourselves up over it. Look where we are now.”

“Where exactly are we Jimin?” You inquire timidly, head still resting on his chest.

His fingers brush over the base of your chin, gently tilting your head up until your eyes found his.

“Y/N, it’s honestly hard for me to formulate the words but all I know is that I think I’m in love with you. And I think I have been for a long time, no scratch that, I have been for a long time,” he says all in one breath, making you smile at how high-strung he was acting.

The grin remains plastered onto your face, “I’m not drunk still right because did I just hear you say that you’ve been in love with me?”

“Y/N…” he whines, jutting out his bottom lip as he drags out the last syllable of your name.

You can’t help but laugh. “I’m sorry! I’m sorry! Go on please.”

He bites his lip, “I honestly had a whole speech prepared in the shower but I forgot all of it.”

“It’s alright, I barely remember half the stuff I spewed out last night,” you chortle.

He chuckles, “Well, if you were wondering, you’re cute as fuck when you’re piss drunk.”

The compliment makes your breath hitch in your throat—your heart starting to pick up speed dangerously quick.

A few seconds pass, allowing you to slightly gain back some of your composure, “Why did you um– I mean– when do you think you fell in love with me?” You stutter.

“I was actually trying to figure that out too,” he starts, “in the shower. Well, this is going to sound dumb,” he admits, sharply exhaling out of his nose, “But do you remember when we went on a field trip to that amusement park in 8th grade? Around halloween time.”

“I think so… but what about it?”

He nods. “I still remember that night so vividly for some reason,” he pauses, collecting his thoughts, “There were haunted houses all over the park. And they were all different themes. And I think the first one we went into together was—”

“The clown one.” You deadpan.

“Yeah!” He beams, laughing at the way you shudder after your words, “Anyways, you were walking behind me with your hands on my shoulders, but you had a razor grip and I thought my arms were going to fall off, so I made you walk next to me instead. We had our arms interlocked and you were gripping onto me so closely and you had your head buried in my shoulder the whole time.” He explains, the smile never ceasing to leave his lips.

You don’t take his eyes off of him—smiling sweetly as he explains the retrospective moment that you never knew had held so much significance to him.

“All of a sudden, you grabbed my hand, and honestly, I think that was the scariest part of the whole experience,” he admits, chuckling softly.

“But then I intertwined fingers with you. And I liked it. Thinking about it now, I probably loved it. It felt almost borderline euphoric. Like as if I was riding a high, and when we detached hands, it felt like there was just something missing. And I guess I never really put the pieces together because it just became a normal thing after that. And when our skinship kept evolving from there, I just kept dismissing it over and over again. Like as if that feeling was a normal thing to happen between friends, because I genuinely thought it was. Yeah, I think that’s the moment I pretty much fell in love with you.” He finishes, giving you a close-mouthed smile while he tucks a loose strand of hair behind your ear.

Astounded was an understatement. You couldn’t believe that you both had been suppressing these feelings for so long. Yet somehow, this whole confession didn’t seem out of place or time, it was as if everything that had happened beforehand had led up to this very moment.

“Wow, Jimin I– I don’t know what to say.” You reply.

He shakes his head. “You don’t have to say anything Y/N. I’m sorry for making you wait for so long, after all.”

You interject, “Please don’t say sorry, I think we were definitely both in the wrong here.”

He smiles, except this time his eyes crinkle up all the way, “Alright, but can you at least let me make it up to you?”

“I’m listening.” You jokingly reply.

“Let’s go on a date,” he declares brazenly, “but tonight, after we’ve recovered from our hangovers and what not.”

The corners of your lips upturn so high that your cheekbones sting, “Jimin, I’d love to–”

“Ah, wait! I’m not done.” He cuts you off, head inching forward, leaning in so close that you could feel his breath tickle your ear and the heat rushing up to your cheeks.

“And at the very end of the night, I’ll make certain that you won’t be able to walk normally by tomorrow.” He whispers into your ear— voice low and full of lust.

Shivers run through your body as it feels like all the wind had just gotten knocked out of you. Yeah, this was definitely worth the wait.

MASTERLIST ; SEQUEL

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anistrange · 4 years

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A MYTHOLOGICAL ESSAY (TITANS)

Like many here, I love Greek mythology with its unlimited catalogue of gods and fantastic creatures. However, I've always had a problem adapting these stories. Beyond the writing of these figures which is an object of discussion in forums like these, I want to focus on a more A E S T H E T I C aspect.

Specially, about the Titans

NOW WHO ARE THE TITANS?

In Greek Mythology, the titans are the second generation of the gods (theoi) that ruled the cosmos, Cronus is the youngest of the titans when he overthrew his father, the primordial Uranus to later rule the heavens together with Rhea. To this point we know the famous story of Zeus against his father when he freed his brothers from the cage (A.K.A the belly) of Cronus and managed to defeat him and then he was sent to Tartarus.

Now my problem lies beyond its writing and symbolism, the design of this second generation of gods is a problem for me, especially in modern adaptations for the big screen and videogames. How many times have we not seen an adaptation and its design is completely "strange" to say the least?

BEHOLD THE TITANS

- God of War III (2010) -

WOW, I didn't know Thanos signed with Santa Barbara Studios to work as a stuntman for these people.

- Wrath of the Titans (2012) -

- Thank you Hollywood for making us believe that Kronos = Surtr (does not compute)

- Immortals (2011) -

TRIVIA: Did you know that the titans had a strange kink with reinforcing bars :D (seriously, why grey?)

- Disney’s Hercules (1998-1999) -

Ahhh...

BACK TO THE TOPIC

i mean, we can argue all day long that they as a representation of natural forces is normal to possess supernatural forms in comparison to their descendants the Olympians who represent the human elements of society.

H O W E V E R

I find it too convenient that only these figures have an over the top design compared to their younger generation, (Even the Primordial Gods who are the pure elements of the universe and at the same time the parents of the Titans, they don’t have this monstrous aspect, just look at Nyx and Gaia from Marvel Comics) or we have even seen sometimes how some Titans have human form (Special case, Rhea, Helios and Eos from the God of War saga)

- Gaia and Nyx from Marvel Comics -

My primordial queens look better than their children... How is that possible?

- Helios, Rhea and Eos from the God of War saga -

See? Designing characters like this is way better and more interesting than turning them into a generic foe as if they were taken from a Lord of the Rings bestiary.

Now, I can understand that this mistaken interpretation of these figures is due to the confusion of the Titans with the Giants (both groups are sons of Gaea who fought a war against the Olympic gods) So it’s kinda understandable that the confusion is palpable.

With all this covered there's someone who's wondering.

Is there any evidence of how the ancient greeks saw the Titans?

Fortunately the answer is YES . There is enough evidence to understand how this second generation of gods were seen by the ancient inhabitants of Greece, especially in two areas, sculpture and painting.

STATUES OF THE TITANS

- Farnese Atlas (150 B.C) -

- Piece of an altar with Selene the moon titaness with either Phosphoros and Hesperus or the Dioscuri -

- Themis, the titaness of justice ( Chairestratos, c. 300 BCE) -

First of all, even if the former statues represent either titaness and a second generation titan (Atlas) We found no indication that these figures could be represented in a more exaggerated context.

But the most interesting part is the portraying of the titans in the old greek vase-paintings. WHY? Because the painting compared to the sculpture shows a more human focus on the gods, respecting their authority and power but implementing the qualities and defects that any mortal possesses. And the titans were not the exception when they were portrayed in this spectrum of the art.

AND THIS ARE THE PAINTINGS

- Atlas and Prometheus ( ca. 530 B.C.) -

- Oceanus and Tethys (ca. 580 - 570 B.C.) -

But for me, without a doubt, the most representative painting of the titans is this one.

- Cronus and Rhea (ca. 460 – 450 B.C.) -

If one day I was asked about how the Titans looked like? I will show them this image.

The first time you see this painting, the first thing you can imagine is the portrait of a normal greek family, but once you know who they really are, your perspective about this couple changes, there are no elements so over the top as a giant and monstrous Cronus and a normal stature Rhea that sometimes can generate confusion in people. Perhaps in a way the ancient Greeks wanted their mythological figures not to be too far removed from human nature, so that the people could identify with their deities in the most humane way possible even if the titans were not such adored figures compared to their descendants, the point still stands.

IN CONCLUSION

Lately the stories of Greek mythology have taken a more intimate approach to the relationships with the Greek gods, the fantastic elements are still present, but that is not the main value of these stories. How these figures relate to each other on a daily basis is perhaps an example of how the Greeks saw their gods. Beyond the powers, the titles, they saw people with qualities and defects.

So, if one day there is an adaptation to the screen about mythology and the titans make their appearance, I wish they were less over the top and with more human appearances and relationships, obviously keeping their corresponding power. Just a little thought :)

Thanks for reading my post :D peace ✌️ ✌️

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happytsukki · 4 years

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common sense

k. tsukishima

you were a fool. but only for tsukishima. (f! reader)

a/n: ive been reading the manga and chapters 370+ literally have me bawling, im so emotionally attached. also fun fact you cant get your drivers license in japan till you graduate high school,,big rip for (y/n) and her food.

someone with common sense would’ve ran home to avoid the predicted forecast. they would’ve enjoyed safely arriving home without getting a single drop of rain on their uniform. but you lacked common sense.

the steady beat of raindrops hitting the ground accompanied by a strong gust of wind greeted you as you exited the school. you stood waiting, a bright green umbrella painted with purple triceratops in one hand while you rocked back and forth on your heels.

“what are you still doing here?” a voice suddenly asked, snapping you out of your trance. looking up you locked eyes with tsukishima causing a champagne pink hue to creep onto your cheeks.

“oh, i-uh, knew you didn’t have an umbrella, so i figured i would wait for you and we could walk together,” you beamed. tsukishima rolled his eyes and adjusted his glasses, but you swore you could see the corners of his lips curl up.

you knew tsukishima. you knew he hated the rain and deep down, he appreciated your kind gesture even if he didn’t say it.

he grabbed the umbrella in your hand and opened it outside the safety of the building. he took two steps into the rain before turning around to realize you were still frozen on the steps of karasuno high. there you were, an idiot shivering from head to toe in the cold weather, yet you still had a smile painted across your face.

“are you gonna just stand there or are you actually coming?” he muttered, his eyebrows furrowing in slight confusion.

“coming!!” you cooed before running down the steps and practicing colliding with him as you pressed closer to him under the tiny umbrella. maybe you should’ve packed a bigger umbrella, but you definitely weren’t complaining.

you walked in unison, small drops falling onto your sweater as you could barely fit under the umbrella with the beanpole. you took notice of one hand tucked away in the warmth of his jacket and the other clutching the umbrella for the two of you. and with your warm gloves, you placed a hand over his.

“sorry, your hand seemed a little cold” you blurted out, slightly afraid he would take his hand away in disgust. but he didn’t, he let you hold his hand. you could finally release the breath you were holding and smiled. rainy days never felt good. the sky may have been dark and gloomy, but being with him felt as if it was another spring day, the sun beaming brightly and the birds chirping.

your walk consisted of asking tsukishima about his volleyball club season and him asking about your classes. you wanted to amuse him, to hear his laugh just once, so you told him the story of how you went to school thinking you math test only to find it was actually an english test, receiving a grade no higher than your age.

and miraculously, he laughed. it was subtle and quiet, but it took away your breath and made your heart race.

tsukishima halted, finally arriving at his home. he glanced up at the sky before catching it slowly transform from a color to a baby blue.

“it stopped raining—“ you cut him off midsentence, grabbing the sides of his face and pulling him closer before you placed a quick peck on his lips.

“bye!” you shouted as you ran away. leaving poor tsukishima standing there, dumbfounded as to why his heart was beating so fast and why his knees turned into complete jelly.

you liked tsukishima. and luckily, he liked you too.

someone with common sense would’ve finished their homework and took advantage of a night free of worry. they would’ve enjoyed a full eight hours of sleep while dreams danced through their mind. but you lacked common sense.

the kitchen clock read 2:18, you were growing impatient waiting for cookies in the oven. before your crazy attempt to make lunches and treats for the entire karasuno team, you studied for your history test and finished a 10-page essay due the next day.

with your apron stained with all sorts of condiments and food, you glanced at the pile of bento boxes placed on your dining table. each decorated with a name of every player on karasuno’s mens volleyball club, of course including the cutest managers and best coaches.

the lunch box on top, reading my tsukki, my moon made with extra love and care for you boyfriend.

tomorrow was the miyagi prefectural qualifiers and as much as you wanted to be there, you had school. you longed to be in the crowds, screaming for tsukki and karasuno at the top of your lungs. so of course, you felt guilty for not being able to give your support. an alternative? food.

beep beep. the timer of the oven finally went off and you breathed a sigh of relief. you weren’t sure how long you could keep your eyelids open. your tiredness must’ve gotten to your head because without a second thought you opened the oven and reached for the scorching pan.

you spewed a variety of curses quietly in an attempt to not wake your parents, but the pain was intolerable. after taking the cookies out with the opposite hand, throwing them in a container and trying to type out ‘how to deal with burns’ with your pinky while one hand held ice (not a good idea) to the burn— you fell asleep on the couch.

not even 3 hours later, you woke up. oh the things i do for this boy. you shook your head, a smile creeping onto your face just thinking about him. you quickly throw on a hoodie and carefully place the food into a basket attached to your bike.

the sun had barely come up, just peeking from the horizon. it was way too early. riding your bike to karasuno while you rubbed your eyes constantly and yawned nonstop was a challenge. you almost tipped over several times. but once you arrived you were greeted by a horde of “hey it’s y/n!!” but the only thing you could really hear was “y/n what are you doing here?”

“well, good morning to you too, tsukki,” you chirped, taking the food out of your basket and carefully distributing it to everyone.

“wow y/n, you really didn’t have to do this.” daichi said. “but this does look amazing.” sugawara butt in, admiring the cute design. “y/n you’re the best, seriously!!” praised hinata, already shoving a small bite into his mouth for a quick ‘taste.’

when you handed tsukki his, confusion and worry came across his face. “but— look at you y/n. you look terrible.” he spat, reaching over to inspect your face. he titled your chin up and pulled your eyes wide.

“is that what you tell your girlfriend after she spent all night to make you lunch?” you pouted, slightly hurt from how he reacted.

“i think y/n looks pretty, like always.” yamaguchi gushed from afar.

“shut up yamaguchi.” “sorry tsukki!!”

“but you know thats not what i meant. i’m just worried about, you look like you haven’t sleep at all.” he shook his head.

“hey! technically i slept for 3 hours.” you argued, earning a signature tsukishima eye roll from the man himself.

“you’re an idiot, y/n. but thank you.” he muttered and placed a kiss on your forehead. suddenly, coach ukai cut in and yelled for everyone to get in the van. groaning, tsukki squeezed you into a hug.

“sorry i can’t be there, but win for me and i’ll be there next match. i promise” you pouted, adding an extra boost of encouragement for tsukishima. these days, you’d noticed how passionate he’d become about the sport and no words could describe your happiness over this.

after waving bye to the team and wishing them the best of luck, you stood alone in the parking lot. happy and excited for what was to come for the karasuno boys volleyball club. but stupid for thinking you could make it through the rest of your day on the mere 3 hours of sleep.

you were an idiot— a fool, perhaps.

someone might as well hand you a jester hat and shoes, bells included, of course. because you were a fool, for tsukishima kei only.

someone with common sense would’ve followed the sign saying “only players allowed on court.” they would’ve yelled praises of encouragement from the stands and just sent a text. but you lacked common sense.

as soon as you saw red liquid ooze from tsukishima’s hand, you hoped out of your seat and grabbed your belongings without hesitation. oh no. your heart sunk and before yachi could even try to calm you down you were already running.

past the crowds and down the stairs leading to the court. you sprinted towards the karasuno team, completely ignoring the officials yelling at you.

you gently pushed through tsukishima’s teammates and an angry expression reached your face once you met eyes with the boy.

“tsukishima kei, are you stupid?” you cursued at him. his face turns a slight pink as his teammates snicker at your typical girlfriend antics. meanwhile, several tournament officials walked over to check on tsukishima’s condition and kick you off the court since you weren’t a player. but you didn’t care. you took his hurt hand into yours, putting your face closer to examine the extent of his injury.

he winced in pain causing your anger to melt away. “you almost gave me a heart attack, you have no idea how worried i was up th-“ you blab on before tsukishima reassures you.

“y/n i’m still breathing, right? you care about me that much huh?” tsukishima smirked as he tried to hide the pain he felt in his right hand.

“okay lovebirds, why don’t you go to the medical office together and get it checked out? we’re going to need you back on the court, tsukishima.” coach ukai quickly sends the two of you away in hopes of him returning by the fifth set.

akiteru and yachi anxiously follow as you and tsukishima rush to the medical office. they wait outside and the doctor tells you two that only his pinky is discolated and the rest of his fingers are fine, so he can still return but he has to wait for the bleeding to stop. the doctor excuses himself to get more bandages, leaving the two of you alone.

you stand up from your seat to stand in front of tsukishima. his face is serious, clearly still fixated on the game still going on at the moment. you wanted to give him peace but you couldn’t hold in how proud you were.

you go on to explain how amazed you were. “and when you jumped up to block, i knew ushijima had no chance— then BOOM! his spike goes straight down into the floor. i think i broke yachi’s eardums with my screaming. not to mention how hot you looked out there like what the hell??” you gushed, making tsukishima smile amidst his pain.

he pulled you in closer and wrapped his long arms around your torso, tucking his face into the comfort of your neck. like muscle memory, your hand finds its way to his back and began to rub circles.

“you’re really sweaty, tsukki. its kinda gross.” you whisper into his hear making him click his tongue in response. but despite the perspiration dripping down his back, you honestly didn’t mind.

tsukishima pulls away, his eyes wander around your face. his breath hitching at your every feature, especially at how your eyes possessed a unique twinkle that didn’t just resemble stars but the entire galaxy. then he remembers the day he fell in love with you, that day you walked home together in the rain.

“god y/n, you’re crazy you know that, right? but i love you.” he chuckles. “i know.” you proudly state while you try to hide the fact that your heart was physically hurting from how fast it was beating. “and i-“ you sprinkle a dozen kisses all over tsukishima’s face. one for eveything you loved about him.” love you too, kei” you say before pressing your swollen lips against his.

“now go out there and beat shiratorizawa’s ass!”

and that’s exactly what he does.

#haikyuu!!#haikyuu #haikyuu scenarios #haikyuu imagines #haikyuu writing #haikyuu oneshot #tsukishima #tsukishima kei #tsukishima scenarios #tsukishima imagine #tsukishima x reader #tsukishima fluff #anime scenarios #anime imagines

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puppy-phum · 4 years

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thank you once again @yibobibo for tagging me ♥ even if, like I said, this is pure torture. I have so many sons that I’ve given up on counting them sigh but here goes.

favourite male fictional characters.

I took it that this meant ten so am going with that (tho am not gonna try and put them into order). am also sticking to all the characters I loved this year. and gonna ramble and add gifs so cutting it here.

1. Liu Sang

The Lost Tomb Reboot/Reunion: The Sound of The Providence

I have so much love for this boy it’s not even healthy. it’s a bit funny tho bc once I started tltr, I didn’t really like him and almost forgot about him as the first season ended. he just felt so annoying and bitter in what I saw him, even if I did get that he had a Tragic BackstoryTM (I felt for him but well. tltr really made him hard to like at first). but then they brought him back in the second season with his sad puppy eyes and inability to handle his thoughts on wu xie and being all touch-starved and pitiful and whatnot and baam, I had the adoption papers ready. he’s wonderful and so strong and so smart and amazing. and liu chang as his actor has been wonderful (and he’s so pretty my god, have you seen him??)

2. Shen Wei

Guardian

never did I expect to just. fall into this hole after a year? I remember what a mess I was when I first watched guardian over a year ago, right after finishing the untamed. I was in shambles even as I knew how it would end. and now I’ve done this all again while also reading the novel and. my love for shen wei, especially bc it’s zhu yilong acting as shen wei? astronomical. I want to write poetry about him and his stupid responsibilities that he chooses to carry silently and his devotion to zhao yunlan and his love for his ppl and his didi and. I hope that one day I manage to write weilan bc I have this one idea and you can come pry it from my cold, dead fingers if it doesn’t get out there (am also super happy about the edit I made bc my god does he deserve at least that)

3. Cloud Strife

Final Fantasy VII

ok so stepping into the video games territory now. I was waiting for the remake like crazy and it was everything to me once the quarantine hit during spring. the game is so beautiful and I felt like I looked at this gorgeous boy once and was ready to give him my heart (tbh am quite sure he owned my heart before I even learned to know him). he is tragic in so many ways (I’ve only scratched the surface of all of his pain I know) and I wish I could just. hug him a lot. he is kind and cares very deeply even if he hates to show it and I love it how remake showed him also just being a human disaster (some of his scenes are just. peak comedy). I would kill for his smile (I have already cried for it a dozen)

4. Geralt of Rivia

The Witcher (The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt)

if there’s one grumpy, brickwall of a man I love, it’s geralt. I affectionately call him “papa wolf” while playing witcher 3 and his voice in it does things to me (I am just so fond of him ok, begone you dirty fuckers). I got introduced to him through the books and adored him in them bc he is so prickly and sarcastic and still so full of love even if he will never admit to it. he is the father figure I wish I could have in real life. (and yes, I’ve seen the tv series (or at least a couple of the first episodes) and it looks stunning but. this is my version of geralt and that’s the hill I will die on)

5. Xiaoge

Zhang Qiling, Daomu Biji (The Lost Tomb 2)

(wow finding a gif for him was a pain, apparently I gotta learn how to gif or?) ah, my dear boy who I’ve ended up just calling xiaoge bc he seems to prefer it over his real name/title/whatever zhang qiling really is. I got introduced to him through tltr where we really didn’t get to know that much about him bc he was just... there. huang junjie was absolutely stunning tho and his soft smiles made me super fond, but only in the lost tomb 2 did I really fall in love with xiaoge as a character. I was surprised tbh bc I didn’t expect it to be this drama? I had so many doubts about the cast in tlt2 but they all delivered! and I think cheng yi’s xiaoge is now my favorite bc he somehow captured that softness and the pain of him? (and we do not talk about that buxun storyline tyvm) tho now that ultimate note is on the way, I gotta say that xiao yuliang does a wonderful job as xiaoge too!

6. Wu Xie

Daomu Biji (Ultimate Note)

(sorry we have to go with a pingxie gif now but maybe it’s only fitting) tbh it’s hard to choose my favorite version of wu xie. I think all of the actors for him have done amazing job showing wu xie in different parts of his life (all of them are very distinct but still feel like the same person) but currently zheng shunxi takes the lead. I really wanted to put the reboot version of him here (bc I love that mature, relaxed and somehow very soft version of him and the angst is phenomenal and the thoughts he has about death... yeah) but I already have zhu yilong’s face here once so :’D wu xie is just one of those characters you cannot not like. he is so strong, so kind, so stubborn, so wonderfully stupid sometimes and in need of careful protection. I also adore it how smart he is and I could listen to him spew history facts for 10 hours straight (even if it was in a tomb full of blood zombies) ♥

7. Jiang Cheng

Jiang Wanyin, The Untamed

my darling boy! my beautiful angry grape! I love him beyond words. I love him in all of his raging, misunderstood, stupid, sassy, constipated, abused, tragic, bitter, big hearted glory. I could write novels about him (and I did and am still writing oh boy) and his love for ppl and his inability to show that love and his loneliness and his issues. I could also write another novel for all of his outfits etc. bc damn, what a fashion king. he is just so great. he owns my soul. he deserves happiness and in this essay I will

8. Isana Yashiro

Adolf K. Weismann, K Project

I rewatched k project this spring bc a) it’s one of my favorite animes ever (it just looks stunning with all the colors) and b) I love yashiro to bits. I remember falling in love with him when I first watched k project many years ago bc he was just so kind and bright. this time though, I ended up seeing another side of him and my god did I cry. he is... so sweet. he cares for others so deeply and is ready to sacrifice so much for them and his love for his two clansmen... yeah. I think I finally saw the tragedy of him too, all the pain and loneliness and insecurity he decides to hide behind his smile and obnoxious personality. he reminded me a lot of myself and watching him made my heart bleed in a good way

9. Qi Tiezui

Ba Ye, The Mystic Nine

(wow am going to riot for the lack of all the gifs hhh) yes, we’re continuing with the dmbj universe that sucked me in big time this year. the drama of the mystic nine wasn’t probably that earth shattering for me as it somehow got boring more than once but I did love ba ye to bits. he was just... so nice? I got it that he was somehow this “comedic relief” in the drama with all of his funny scenes and ridiculous mannerisms but I could see the brilliance of him. he is warm and smart and kind of a romantic too and he cares for all of his friends so deeply? it was also sweet how protective of him his two zhangs were (does that run in the family? the tendency to imprint into one smart but disastrous man and keep him safe? maybe) and I really hope I knew more about him bc he seemed to have a lot of knowledge and a lot of impact to ppl’s lives (I yelled when they mentioned him in ultimate note, I miss him ;;)

10. Dorian Pavus

Dragon Age Inquisition

(yes I’ve been replaying DA:I this year, this counts!) another darling boy! my lovely sass master son! I have so much love for him and his story in DA:I. he is my favorite companion (and his romance is my favorite too, probably obvious in the way am currently romancing him for the third time) and he has given me a lot of strength. the way he stands up against his father, how he’s ready to reform his homeland instead of walking away, how he’s so caring for those he sees struggling... it’s very warming and I feel like I’m safe with him. it feels a bit silly to say that but he really is that comfort character I will seek out when I just want to know am doing fine :’) (and I am so excited to see him again in DA4! probably?)

+ 11. Li Cu

Tomb of the Sea

yes I cheated a bit (with my own rules lol) to fit li cu here. I didn’t really expect to like him or tomb of the sea as much as I did once I started it? I’ve seen leo wu elsewhere before this (battle through the heavens, nirvana in fire) and his face always makes me think about a sad puppy so maybe I just grew fond over li cu instantly bc he was... so hurt? the first episode really slaps you in the face with all of it, showing him being abused, wounded, kidnapped, tortured, used and then just very, very scared and broken. he continues being that throughout the whole drama and I feel like tomb of the sea (or sand sea or sha hai idk) is the darkest and angstiest story in the dmbj universe. I know it deserves to be bc this is a dark time for wu xie but... my darling li cu. I wish him only happiness ;; he was so strong and smart and wonderful in this and it was just so amazing to watch him grow and find his own place in the world just bc he did something himself (even when he got dragged into all of this bc of wu xie) also I support the wu xie adopts li cu -agenda

Honorary mentions:

Zhang Rishan, Xie Yuchen and Hei Xiazi from DMBJ universe. The Twin Jades of Gusu and Ouyang Zizhen from The Untamed. The Iron Bull and Fenris from Dragon Age games. Thane Krios, Kaidan Alenko and Jaal from Mass Effect games. The whole lot of Assassin’s Creed protagonists (especially Ezio Auditore and Shay Cormac). Adam Parrish and Ronan Lynch from The Raven Cycle. Neil Josten from All For The Game. Eduon and March from The Smoke Thieves. Qiling from L.O.R.D. Critical World. Luo Fei from Detective L (played by Bai Yu).

well, with this I can really see that I have a thing for those who are tragic :’D I have a thing for grumpy, prickly and antisocial guys or those who hide their pain behind a smile. maybe it’s bc I am somehow both, even if I can’t show my anger or be mean to others and even if I feel like my smile never sticks either. I just find kinship in all of the characters who are on this list. and I feel like I aspire to be as strong and as kind and as loving despite all the pain I’ve been put through.

thank you, this was so much fun! and sorry I made this so long and so complicated ^^’ but well, there are just way too many male characters I love haha

at the end I want to tag @i-am-just-a-kiddo @ashenwren @kholran @tiesanjiao @lan-xichens @aheartfullofjolllly @manhasetardis and @lzswy ♥ feel free to do this in your own way or not at all! and thank you if you managed to read through my rambling :’D

#tag game #wow this was something #i've been waiting for one #bc there is so much love in me #and this year i've discovered so many #new characters to just gush over #about me #random #edit: added a few characters #and tagged some more ppl sorry #also mobile tumblr wouldnt let me edit so lol

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madamewriterofwrongs · 4 years

Text

May and the Rainbow Kingdom

911/Buck & May

Written for @cirrius-akiyo who wanted a Buck & May friendship.

The station was unusually quiet when she walked through the front door. The trucks were still in their place, being polished and restocked by other crew members – most of whom paid her no mind or recognized her as the ‘captain’s kid’. She’d only been called that once, but she remembered the uneasy feeling and the sneer of the probationary officer’s voice. A well-practiced eyebrow raised, and her best customer service smile, ensured he never bothered her again.

Today she wasn’t here as the ‘captain’s kid’, she was here as a friend in need of help from another – older and wiser – friend. A glance at the ambulance missing from its usual station dampened her expectations slightly.

“Hey, May.” She looked up to see a familiar face waving at her from the loft and she jogged to meet him.

“Hey, Buck. I was hoping to talk to Hen, is she around?”

The blond-haired firefighter returned to his task of tidying the upper floor (the table smelt comfortingly of bleach and lemon so he was nearly done) while she knelt on the couch to watch him work.

“Sorry; she just left on a call with Chim and Bobby. Is there anything I can help you with?”

She tried to keep the dejected sigh from her voice. “How versed are you on Bioethics of Non-Existence?”

It was almost comical, the way Buck paused in his sweeping to take in her question. “I definitely recognize some of those words.”

As she suspected; May turned to collapse onto the couch with a groan. “I really needed to talk to Hen.” Not that she didn’t trust the other adults in her life – Maddie had tried to help, but she’d been out of Medicine for too long – Hen was her last hope.

“School going that well, huh?” She didn’t have to look to hear the amusement in the man’s voice.

“It’s actually pretty good.” She admitted, still slumped half-off the couch. “I just have mt midterm on Friday and I really need someone who can test me on this stuff.”

“I’m sure you’ve got a handle on it. You were always a smart kid.”

May did smile at that. It was easier to accept being called a child from someone who actually knew her as a child. Granted, she and Buck weren’t overly close, but he was always nice to her, and Bobby seemed fond of him.

“I’ve studied this stuff over and over but I just don’t feel ready” she admitted to the ceiling. Maybe Buck should clean those rafters (he was certainly tall enough). Better yet, maybe she could do it. “I either need a distraction or another month of review.”

Maybe if she hid out at the station, she could lie to her professor and say she had a medical emergency. Or maybe, she could convince him to let her take her exam tomorrow and put her out of her misery. She hated the waiting game. The more she reviewed the material, the less secure she felt in her knowledge. It just needed to be over and done with so she could start stressing about the next thing. Her English essay was due next week. It could use a third rewrite.

“I don’t know about the review.” Visions of Buck peering over top of her, pulled May out of her spiral. “But if you’re in need of a distraction, I could use a co-babysitter tonight. I’m watching Christopher while Eddie’s out on a date and I’m sure he’d love to hang out with you.”

An evening spent with her stepdad’s friend, and her stepdad’s other friend’s son was not exactly what she had in mind for a Monday night, but it was better than nothing. Besides, she liked Christopher well enough; he was a cute kid with a sensible head on his shoulders. And Buck was nice – if a little bit accident-prone for the amount of times she’d visited him in the hospital – plus it was an excuse to get out of her routine for a few hours. Maybe she could come early and ask Eddie some questions (an army medic had to have some thoughts on ethics in medicine, right?).

“Sure,” she smiled up at him. “why not?”

Which was how May found herself squished between a surprisingly calm 10-year-old, and an overly-energetic 29-year-old, splitting the difference as she scrolled through their Netflix Kids’ queue.

Christopher had insisted that they didn’t need to use the kid’s channel as he was absolutely old enough to handle all the scary movies. She remembered Harry, not too long ago, with the same attitude (along with the same nightmare he’d had for weeks about a clown in a sewer). While Buck didn’t have the same experience, he was with her decision to stick to the lighter stuff for tonight. Perhaps he was being overly cautious as he always was with the boy.

Everyone in their circle knew about how Buck had saved Christopher during the tsunami and how close the three of them had become afterwards. It was no wonder he wanted to do everything in his power to protect him – even from the CGI monsters.

As they continued to scroll, she paused on their ‘Continue Watching’ bar, to see if there was anything they wanted pick up. She wasn’t about to watch whatever they chose for their post-dinner treat; she had her textbook and laptop in her bag all charged up.

Just as she was about to continue the search for the perfect movie, her eye caught one of the titles with a half-full red bar and shot a confused glance to Buck. The man kept his eyes purposefully trained on the screen, eyes darting to hers once, as a sign that he knew what she was looking at. Still, he showed no sign of explaining himself so she moved on. For now.

They ended up settling on one of the dinosaur documentary movies, but May kept her promise to herself and reviewed through the entire 90-minute event. It was easy enough to tune out, the graphics were fine, the story was predictable, but at least the boys on either side seemed to be enjoying themselves. Every once in a while, Buck would elbow her to pull her attention back to the screen but it never held her interest for more than a few minutes. Then Christopher would do the same, asking her questions or feeding her facts about the various dinosaurs. That did help for a little while, but even that kid’s endless enthusiasm couldn’t keep back the voice in her head that told her she should be studying.

As far distractions went, this night seemed to be a bust.

When she heard the water run in the bathroom, signally the beginning of Christopher’s bedtime routine, May found herself reaching for the remote once again; if only to keep her hands occupied while she waited to say goodbye to Buck. The least she could do was thank him for his attempt to distract her – even if it had failed.

That was when she found the ‘Continue Watching’ bar once again, and her curiosity got the better of her.

“What’s True and the Rainbow Kingdom?” she asked once her companion had returned. “’Cause it doesn’t seem like something Christopher would be into.”

Buck huffed as he flopped on the couch next to her. “Okay,” he began his confession by raising his hands in surrender. “I watched an episode to see if it was something that’d be appropriate for Nia, but I kind of started watching it on my own.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really” he matched her mocking tone. “Not all the time. But I’ll admit, when I’m having a bad day, it’s nice to turn my brain off with some mindless fun.”

She wasn’t laughing at him – maybe she was, but she wouldn’t tell him that – it was that the image of this grown man, sitting at home, watching what was clearly a Sophia the First carbon copy (if the design was to be believed), was very amusing to her.

“Wow, I see how it is.” Buck lightly pushed May as she shuffled over to create more space. “I try and help and instead you mock me. Very nice.”

Even as a joke, she saw his point and the laughter turned into a smile, which morphed into an eyeroll.

“You’ve got to admit, this doesn’t exactly fit your image.”

“I have no image” he protested. “I’m allowed to like whatever I like.”

“So, you wouldn’t mind if I text my mom that” she had barely begun picking up her phone from the coffee table, when he reached the device first.

“Don’t you dare.” More laughter did make her heart feel a little lighter.

He only handed her phone back once she’d half-heartedly agreed not to text her mom this fresh blackmail material. “I bet you’d like it. It’s about a girl and a cat, and she gets these wishes from a tree, and she uses them to help others.”

“The cat gets wishes?”

“Just” Buck rolled his eyes, grabbing the remote from the cushion between them. “we’re going to watch it right now.”

Without waiting for her response, Buck tapped the first episode and shushed her failed attempt to protest.

The first scene introduced a reasonably catchy theme song with bright colours, along with the main character True and her talking black cat named Bartleby. There was something about a party and a bitchy princess and a weird walking pill they called…something Banjo? Admittedly, when the cat said something sarcastic towards the girls, she cracked a smile, but her mind was still reviewing the differences between Potter’s and Callahan’s philosophies.

The next time she tuned back into the episode, they were sitting on mushroom stools under a tree, attempting to solve a problem as a group. When they took a deep breath, May found herself exhaling with them, and her forehead ached from holding tension for so long. Admittedly, it felt nice to relax her shoulders.

Okay, so this was clearly a kids’ show and nothing else. Mining wishes from a tree and using a book to decipher what all the wishes could do, as though they were Pokémon characters. It was ridiculous, why was she still watching this? She needed to get home to study.

“Sure, they get to use the ‘wishopedia’ but my professor won’t let me use Wikipedia as a starting source?” she grumbled under her breath.

“What was that?” She startled when Buck smirked at her.

May tucked back into the arm of the couch with a half-hearted glare. “Nothing.”

She really should be reviewing. The more time she wasted outside of the classroom, the worse her chances of success. She shouldn’t be wasting her time watching this kids’ monstrosity. This really was a stupid show. Why would True forgive Grizelda after she was such a bitch to Bingo-Bango? She was always so positive and patient. And she only used her special powers to help people. That was pretty nice.

That theme song was pretty catchy.

Before she knew it, she was four episodes in, watching two mushroom people win a motor race after everyone got detoured by falling crystals and Grizelda being a bitch (again).

“She should just toss the Cu-Bigly over the cliff and then throw Grizelda.” At Buck’s look of amused indignation, she shrugged. “What? She deserves it for sabotaging the race. It’s not like she’d die from that height.”

A quick glance at her phone told her it was after ten and she had a class in the morning. What astonished her most, was that she hadn’t thought about her course work in an hour. For the first time since starting university, she’d let herself escape her thoughts just for a little while; and honestly, she felt lighter for it.

Still unbelievably guilty for not spending every waking moment of her life preparing for her next test or assignment – but just a little bit lighter.

“Hey, Buck?” She turned to the man barely hiding the fact that he’d begun to doze off. May smirked when he awoke with a snort. “Thanks for your help, I really needed this.”

For a moment, she saw the ‘puppy dog’ that her mom liked to call him: the puffed chest and kind smile and excited eyes. She saw what won over her, somewhat cynical, mother; it made her smile brighter.

“Glad I could help.”

Buck was scrolling mindlessly through his phone two weeks later, when it buzzed with a new text notification, and his mood instantly improved.

87%

Also I may have finished the first season of TatRK

I totally ship True and Zee

Do you want me to wait for you to catch up?

“Hey, May passed her Bioethics Mid-Term” he announced to his friends sitting in the loft; the rest, he would keep as his own reward for a job well done.

Bobby looked up from his usual place in the kitchen, buttering a pan for some dish most of them wouldn’t get to eat. “Since when did May start telling you about her exam results?”

There was no honest answer that wouldn’t make him feel embarrassed, but Buck blushed regardless. “I, uh, helped her study.”

Eddie slapped his shoulder jovially as he passed on his way to grab a bottle of water. “Is there something you want to tell us? You have a secret Bioethics degree?”

Buck brushed him off with a smile. “No, but you do what you can to help out family, right?”

His eyes met with his Captain’s and there was a fondness he only saw with May and Harry. Something he hadn’t seen for himself in a long while.

“Yeah, kid, you do.”

#cj writes things #911 fox #911 fic #evan buckley #may grant #true and the rainbow kingdom #fire fam #friendship #cirrius-akyio

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piyoduki · 4 years

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Hinata and Kamukura

(wow what a creative title)

Just a place for me to dump my thoughts on these two, and why they are so important to each other... This is another really long essay analysis thingy.

Spoiler warning for... everything. :p

1. Reserve Course

Hinata is an ordinary guy who loved and admired Hope’s Peak Academy. He loves talent, and wishes he could attain a talent and become someone recognised by society.

Hinata always calls himself normal, and says there’s nothing noteworthy about him. But unlike Naegi, Hinata was not satisfied with being normal. Hinata was obsessed with talent, because he believed he needed one to become someone he could be proud of, to be acknowledged by others. That was why he wanted to enter Hope’s Peak Academy so much.

(Horror game protagonist?)

DR’s society is one that puts talented individuals, the best of the best, above everyone else. SDR2 and DR3 give us a look at just how the other people in this world, the ones who were not chosen by Hope’s Peak Academy, feel. Hinata is the one who represents the hopes and despairs of the common people.

Hinata’s hopes about the school were quickly dashed when he realises just how they were treated in comparison to the Main Course students, aka the Ultimates. It’s also interesting that despite claiming to love the school, Hinata doesn’t actually know how the Reserve Course differs from the Main Course. It appears that Hinata believed that he would be able to get a talent and become an Ultimate even if he entered through the Reserve Course. Either the school hid the dark reality of the Reserve Course (which wouldn’t be surprising), or Hinata didn’t actually dig deeper in his research. Especially considering he did not even try to apply for the position of Ultimate Luck (he did not even know about that, actually), I believe that Hinata is someone who doesn’t like to confront his greatest fears or worries, and by choosing to remain ignorant, he can hold on to his rosy image of a school that can make his dreams come true.

Of course, he can’t be ignorant of the truth once he’s actually in the school. Already, he can see a clear difference in how they were treated. The Main Course students are allowed to move between schools easily, but he (and the other Reserve Course students) get beaten up just for trying to enter the building? When his friend and classmate gets murdered by another Reserve Course student, that student then gets murdered by a Main Course student... who never got any sort of punishment? Two Reserve Course students lost their lives and the Main Course student who committed the same grave crime got their crime covered up? (Off-topic but isn’t it weird that Komaeda gets expelled for property damage but Fuyuhiko gets no punishment for MURDER... are the yakuza that powerful? Or more like why does DR3 want to make fun of Komaeda so much?)

And those are just what we see on screen. There is clearly some animosity between Main and Reserve Course students given Hinata’s class seemed very annoyed and hostile towards Koizumi when she went to visit Sato. The whole atmosphere of the Reserve Course is gloomy and depressing, compared to the Main Course where they were skipping class, throwing parties and playing games... We can infer what other micro-aggressions and unfair treatment the Reserve Course students felt when compared to the Main Course.

I have seen some people say that Hinata went through with the Kamukura Project because he wanted to impress Nanami... which I strongly disagree with. If anything it looked like he wanted to avoid her because he knew she would try to stop him. Hinata was fed up with being treated like second-rate trash. Not to mention he already has the pressure of his parents having to pay high school fees (that the Main Course most likely didn’t need to, given there are a few students in debt), so dropping out would disappoint them (and Hinata is stubborn and doesn’t give up easily once he’s decided to stick to something). Natsumi dying was simply the last straw. When he’s given the chance to become the person he’s always dreamed of becoming, a person full of talent, at this point where Hinata was at his lowest, there isn’t anything holding him back anymore. He is no longer afraid of something going wrong, because he’d already seen his classmates DIE, and the perpetrator with an Ultimate talent got to walk away scot-free. If he doesn’t take this chance now, he might end up the same way.

And he most likely would have, given all 2375 Reserve Course students committed a mass suicide. 2357 people who were not even named, or treated as individuals, who were just lumped into one number without any identity beyond having no talent.

By deciding to take part in the Kamukura Project, Hinata was able to live.

2. Kamukura Izuru Project

Or not really, because Hinata got his memories and consciousness erased. Can walking around as an emotionless shell really be called ‘living’? Junko implied that some messed up stuff happened to Hinata during the process, and I don’t know much about brain surgery... but we can imagine it was very painful and not ethical. Like Junko said, in order to completely rewrite Hinata’s personality, the researchers would have to go through drastic measure to accomplish something like that.

When did Hinata stopped being Hinata and when did he become Kamukura? We don’t know. But Hinata could feel everything when he was still Hinata. The fear, anger, regrets, pain, isolation... the feeling when he starts to realise he’s becoming numb. The feeling when he realises he can’t remember certain things. Soon the time will come when he can’t even remember anything. And he doesn’t even care anymore, because his emotions had been repressed to such an extent. (Does he even need anaesthesia to be operated on if he doesn’t feel pain? Hmm.)

He is now called Kamukura Izuru by the scientists who created him. Just like the other Reserve Course students, Hinata’s identity was erased and discarded.

In V3′s UTDP, Kamukura introduces himself in this way, basically showing he doesn’t really feel like he has a sense of identity either.

Kamukura is the proud product of the scientists’ hard work. Yet he is a secret who cannot be shown to the world, not just yet. The school claims it is to protect such rare talent, that he would somehow be mankind’s saviour. But it would surely tarnish Hope’s Peak Academy’s reputation, if the rest of the world knew what kind of lengths they went through to create such artificial hope anyway. And who knows just how much more they could push Kamukura’s talents? If Junko didn’t take over the school and call out to him, who knows what would happen to Kamukura? Would they dispose of him once their success was recorded and it might be too dangerous to keep a human experiment around? Would they fear the very being that they had created, that could easily overpower them if he wanted to? Would Kamukura, who had no motivation or reason to live, even care if he were to get killed...?

Kamukura was locked up in a dark room with just a bed. We can assume he was only let out to undergo tests and such. He was given the bare minimum for survival, and because Kamukura had no motivations, he did not want or need anything else... but he was extremely bored. Kamukura’s whole life was confined to his empty room and the lab. He could definitely escape if he wanted to, but what point was there in leaving? He could predict everything that would happen. To him, the outside world was probably as boring as the world inside the lab, or at least not worth the effort of sneaking out or escaping. (Although he did sneak out once in the DR3 anthology... and as you might have guessed, he found it boring.)

Junko is the one who gave Kamukura a motivation. She promised him the thrills and excitement of a world filled with despair. Kamukura had nothing to lose by going along with her plans, and in the best case scenario she would be correct and perhaps he might just feel something through despair.

Despite being apathetic and having all the talents... Kamukura does want to feel something. Because nothing surprises him, because he can predict everything, because he doesn’t feel challenged by anything, because he finds everything boring, Kamukura wants to find that something that can make him feel. And Junko promised he could find it through despair.

So she puts him into the Student Council Killing Game where he just... stands around and watch them. It isn’t until the very end when a bullet grazes his cheek where he gets somewhat surprised, and kills the student in self defence.

Junko uses him as a scapegoat to blame the killing of the student council on, and Kamukura starts to show signs of annoyance at being used. Eventually Junko kills Nanami, and Hinata’s subconscious reacts to the death of yet another of his friends, causing Kamukura to tear up. Although he is confused by the reaction, he holds on to her hairpin as a reminder. Hinata was still not truly gone, and he caused Kamukura to feel the most emotion he had felt in his short years of existence.

In UDG, Kamukura aggressively rips out Junko’s AI in annoyance, showing that he isn’t truly emotionless and he does dislike being used in such a matter. It’s also possible he was disappointed as despair did not really make him feel much. Still he goes along with her plan to infect the NWP and turn it into a killing game, but mostly to use it as a final showdown between hope and despair.

I say ‘final’, because the two options would both lead to Kamukura being erased and replaced by a different person.

3. Neo World Program and the Virtual Killing Game

Kamukura knew that he would not be able to take part in SDR2′s killing game, and told Komaeda that in Chapter 0. He knew that his previous self (Hinata) would be used as the avatar, so once again he could only watch from afar (was he even conscious?).

Kamukura went in knowing that if the rehabilitation of the Remnants of Despair was a success, then Hinata would live on as Hinata, and his memories and identity of Kamukura Izuru might be suppressed and erased (sound familiar?). If Junko’s plan succeeded, then she would upload her AI into all of the Remnant’s bodies and continue spreading despair.

Kamukura, before that point, had barely found a reason to live. But it still wasn’t strong enough to convince him. So if he were going to die, then at the very least he wanted to see if hope or despair could really excite him. If not, then at that point, would there be anything that could make him feel anything? Perhaps nothing would change even if he were to disappear. If he were to just keep being used by others to achieve such a boring, predictable hope or despair, then maybe he didn’t mind just dying. Perhaps, since death is what made him able to feel something, by putting himself in such a situation, he might even feel the fear of death itself?

And so Kamukura Izuru hijacked the NWP and Hinata Hajime was pulled out from the deepest recesses of his mind, and was able to live in the NWP.

But this Hinata isn’t the Hinata that is all too aware of the reality of being a talentless person in a world loved by talent. This Hinata is a fellow student in a class full of Ultimates. SDR2′s Hinata wanted to believe that he has a talent. When he sees the rest of the students, how they act, how some of them got to the school of his dreams through something like luck? Helped by Komaeda’s supportive words, Hinata believes that he must have just forgotten his talent due to the shock of suddenly waking up on a deserted island. Not to mention his memory of entering the school felt fuzzy in the first place, so it must be true. Since he was surrounded by Ultimates, he had to have one too.

That’s why, in SDR2, Hinata presents himself as a person who is more confident in himself. He sees himself as an equal to all the Ultimates, compared to Komaeda who clearly views himself as beneath the others. Hinata is able to feel comfortable making sarcastic remarks and comments about the others, because he believes he is just like them. But as the game progresses, Hinata starts to doubt himself. In Chapter 3, he starts to have some hazy memories that he tried to suppress.

It’s possible that he might have contracted the Despair Disease from Tsumiki and was starting to remember his past, before he entered Hope’s Peak Academy. Either way, as usual, Hinata continues to ignore his problems and negative thoughts.

When he hears about the traitor, while he did not want to believe it, he started to think it might be him. After all, he was the only one here who did not remember their talent. If he forgot something so important, perhaps it’s possible that he forgot he was the traitor as well. Despite his attempts to fit in with everyone, Hinata still felt left out from the others.

But Hinata continued to believe he was not the traitor, that his talent would come to him eventually, because he didn’t want to face what would happen IF he were the traitor. In Chapter 4, he reacts negatively to Komaeda and Souda suspecting him of being the traitor. He started acting more depressed and impulsive, not helped by the fact he had gone without food and being trapped in the Funhouse for a few days. Not to mention, he was the one who pushed everyone to go to the Funhouse so they could find the truth of their missing memories, in other words his talent.

Hinata became desperate, when he heard that there was a chance he might find out the truth through the Final Dead Room, he was ready to risk his life and go inside, but Nanami stopped him just in time. It’s very possible Nanami knew about his past to be better equipped to help him in his recovery. Or at the very least, it’s likely she knew he did not have a talent, and did not want him to get hurt if he found out the truth.

Unfortunately for them, Komaeda does get access to the secret files by playing roulette at Komaeda-level difficulty. Besides the details about them being Ultimate Despair, Komaeda also finds out the true talents of the Imposter and Hinata, which he promptly rubs in Hinata’s face probably in an attempt to make himself feel better about being the very embodiment of what he hates.

Hinata is shocked and in denial about it for a short while, because it came so suddenly, and from Komaeda, no less. But he could not run away from the truth forever. He should have expected it, being the only one who did not know his talent was just too suspicious. He should know better than anyone, how much he wanted a talent, how much importance he placed on talent. Forgetting was just a convenient excuse to make himself feel better. But that did not make it hurt any less. He was a fraud, a nobody, and this reality crushed Hinata’s fake confidence. The act he put up around the class crumbled. Komaeda constantly bringing up his lack of talent, mocking and insulting him did not help. But he had a murder to solve, and a genocidal Komaeda to deal with the next chapter. Hinata had no time to mope about and take it all in, he had to keep fighting for his survival.

Hinata had already lost hope when he found out about his lack of talent, but Komaeda starts tp be more aggressive in trying to expose the traitor’s identity. And once again Hinata starts to wonder if he were actually the traitor.

Komaeda gave them no time to rest and immediately told the remaining students about his plan to blow up the island. So they worked together to stop him, and found his gruesome dead body, and worked to find the murderer.

In the middle of the investigation, we once again see how pained Hinata felt when he confirms that he was in fact a talentless Reserve Course student.

“Why... why am I here with the other Ultimates?”

Eventually, they find out Komaeda’s death was not just a simple suicide, and they found out Komaeda’s true plan was to expose the traitor and execute them (which they later found was the exact opposite of what he wanted). Because Hinata knew Komaeda’s true personality, he knew that Komaeda wouldn’t die in such a meaningless way, so Hinata suspected there had to be something more to his death. Hinata was forced to expose Nanami as the traitor, through Monomi’s diary that included that moment that only Nanami should know about... Nanami, who noticed he was feeling anxious and being suspected of being the traitor, who left her group to find him because she was worried for him, who convinced him not to take the risk and leave the Final Dead Room, who told him not to listen to Komaeda mocking him.

Also, when Hinata saw that scene in the diary, he pretended not to acknowledge it and thought he shouldn’t bring it up to Nanami, because he wanted to avoid a potential problem once again, until he was forced to confront it in the trial.

With both Komaeda and Nanami gone, Hinata and the others are left exhausted and empty. But the time was up, and they could finally leave...? Even if Hinata wanted to completely give up now, the doors to freedom were (supposedly) finally open and it would be a waste not to at least give it a look.

A tired Hinata enters the mysterious Future Foundation building, and slowly pieces together the truth behind this killing game. In the final trial, we finally learn about Hinata’s backstory through Junko happily telling him that he is not merely a talentless Reserve Course student, but also a human experiment and his real self is no longer the same person standing in the class trial. The Future Foundation members are also shocked that Hinata and Kamukura were apparently the same person. Hinata’s first reaction is understandably denial, who would believe that they would go through something so messed up for the sake of hope and talent? Especially after Junko adds that Kamukura was the one who killed the student council members and kickstarted the tragedy.

But the seeds of doubt were already planted into Hinata. Junko easily uses Hinata’s fears to deter him from going along with the Forced Shutdown sequence. After all, by going through with it, he and the others would lose their memories of the virtual killing game, meaning he would go back to being Kamukura Izuru. For Hinata, this means that he would cease to exist. Again.

Junko brings up the fact that the Future Foundation want them to do the Forced Shutdown for their own desires, wanting to stop her from taking over the world, but is it really worth the cost of sacrificing their own lives and memories?

Hinata has a breakdown because how is he supposed to choose? Between sacrificing himself or saving the world, just because some people say so? He is afraid. He doesn’t want to disappear. He suddenly got put into this spot where the only choices are to die or destroy the world. Both Junko and the Future Foundation are only thinking of their own goals. The Future Foundation might give false reassurance that everything will be fine even if they go back to being Ultimate Despair, but will it really? They conveniently don’t bring up the fact that Hinata won’t even exist anymore in an attempt to convince them to go along with their plan to defeat Junko. As Junko mentioned, do these people even care about him and the others?

Hinata refuses to choose, because he cannot handle it anymore. The burden is too great, and Hinata would rather just give up. Once again, he is unable to face his issues head on and chooses to avoid them.

Hinata imagines an ending where the class is happy and back on Jabberwock Island. But Nanami snaps him out of it and confronts him. Hinata tells him his worries, tells him that he wants to give up, and adds that if they go through with the Forced Shutdown, everyone would forget about her too. Nanami tells him that no matter what, the future she and everyone fought for would still remain, and that Hinata should believe in himself and stop being so indecisive. Nanami tells him that they are the only ones who can decide their own future, and if they can’t choose one of the two options, to create their own future.

Hinata confronts his impression of Kamukura, or rather, his own negative feelings projected onto Kamukura’s avatar. His feelings of being talentless, being useless, being unable to change anything, being betrayed, his denial of being Kamukura Izuru. Hinata finally faces his own feelings head on and realises how uncool he is to act like that and keep moping about.

Thanks to Nanami’s encouragement, Hinata was able to overcome his feelings and awaken. Finally, Hinata has stopped running away and has decided to fight for a new future. He says that he is not Kamukura Izuru, but Hinata Hajime, and argues that they don’t have to stick to the two choices presented to them, that they can and will create their own future that they can be proud of. Hinata convinces the other survivors to do the same, and they go through with the Forced Shutdown sequence. Usami appears and defeats Junko, and the survivors wake up from the NWP.

3.5. World Destroyer

This technically happened before DR3, so I’ll put this here. With Kamukura’s talents, Hinata was able to create the AI of World Destroyer, who was given Kamukura’s personality to be as efficient and ruthless in his job as possible. And he was modelled after Hinata’s avatar because... well there are a lot of theories, but personally I think it’s because Kamukura’s hair physics would be a bigger pain to work with then Hinata’s short hair.

Okay that was a joke, but my interpretation the reason is that they wanted to pick someone who is distant from the other students, so that they wouldn’t get too attached or get emotionally hurt when WD shoots them and wakes them up. So they went with Hinata since the students won’t have any memories of him before the killing game (which seems to be where their minds are trapped within).

It’s possible that Hinata might sometimes feel as if he were not truly a part of the class, as everyone except him shared some memories of their time in Hope’s Peak Academy or being Remnants of Despair (that they may or may not have regained). We already know he thinks that he is different from everyone else. Not to mention, he might have also felt responsible for causing them to die in the NWP since it was Kamukura who injected Junko’s AI into it, so he tried to wake them from their coma.

Hinata (and Kamukura) had to shoulder the huge burden of saving these people, with the hopes of all the other survivors resting on him. Did he think, he was the only one who could do something like that? With all these talents, he could finally be of use to his friends? Despite people like Nanami constantly telling him that it’s okay not to have a talent, it’s only because he became Kamukura, that he obtained all this talent, that he was able to bring everyone back to life.

Having to deal with the pressure that you will be responsible for all these people’s lives, knowing that it’s your fault but not really that they ended up like this, having to deal with living the rest of your life with another person in your mind, knowing that you finally got what you always wanted but you caused so many people and yourself so much pain... That is something only Hinata Hajime would feel.

4. Kamukura, Hinata and the Future

(This section will contain a lot of rambling headcanons based on how they get along after the events of SDR2/DR3. Also me being confused by DR3′s writing.)

When Hinata wakes up from the simulation, it is heavily implied that Kamukura’s personality is still present within him, as he occasionally mentions being bored (like when the Future Foundation members come after them). Even though he cut his hair, and continues to mainly present himself as Hinata, he retains Kamukura’s talents and shares a body and mind with him.

There are a few confusing things about SDR2 and DR3, such as the fact Naegi and friends don’t know Kamukura and Hinata were the same person, even though Naegi would have likely needed to meet Kamukura to ‘capture’ him, and in the visions Kamukura retained his appearance when talking to Komaeda on the boat to the real Jabberwock Island. It would be kind of suspicious to see that Kamukura was not present in the simulation but instead a completely different person, yet the Future Foundation talk as if they did not know Kamukura even existed...? Why would a random Reserve Course student be in the simulation instead? You would think they would know the identities of who they were going to upload into a rehabilitation programme... or at least put two-and-two together and do some research into this Hinata Hajime person? Anyway I digressed.

I believe that Kamukura was able to also get what he wanted. While he might also have known about the Forced Shutdown sequence, I feel like he might still see it as a non-answer (it may be the Future Foundation’s hope, but he and the other Remnants would go back to being despair anyway). But I don’t think he would have expected Hinata to retain his personality (and possibly memories of the killing game) as well. (Or is it just Kamukura acting as Hinata? We will never know why it seems like the SDR2 cast reverted to their in-game personalities despite the Forced Shutdown being unable to retain those memories...) Either way, I think Kamukura would not have predicted such a thing, because it... defies logic. Seriously how did they even fuse? Why does Hinata have heterochromia?? Did the program malfunction and a miracle happen?? I guess so.

Hinata can still feel emotions, but probably a lot less than he would before, because his brain has been messed with to suppress emotions. But for Kamukura, who had felt nothing his entire life, to be able to feel what it is like to ‘feel’, even just a little, is exactly the kind of stimulus he had been looking for.

And for Hinata, to go from being a talentless nobody, to becoming possibly the only survivor of the Reserve Course, to be suddenly equipped with all these skills and talents... I imagine it must have overloaded him, to suddenly wake up and feel so foreign in your own body. To suddenly realise there is someone else besides him, in his own brain, and that someone be an emotionless, apathetic, harsh, judgemental person... but still a person.

As I mentioned before, I think Hinata felt responsible for putting the class through the killing game. Even if it wasn’t technically him, because it was him that became Kamukura, he caused them to suffer to such an extent... But at the same time, because it was him, because it was Kamukura, he was able to use his foreign talents for something he wanted to do - to save his friends. For once, his identity as the Ultimate Hope was not being taken advantage of by someone else, but he was able to use it for his own wishes. For once, Hinata was able to regain control of his, of Kamukura’s, talents. Because of Kamukura, Hinata was able to live, face his regrets and save his friends.

For Kamukura, I think that he has finally found a meaning to his life. To be able to feel Hinata’s conviction in wanting to rescue his comatose friends. To want to use his talents that he previously would find boring. To want to live and keep existing. Hinata has shown him that things that he can’t predict do exist. Because of Hinata, Kamukura was able to find his purpose.

Hinata, who had always doubted himself, his identity, had to suddenly wake up as two people in the same body. He had to come to terms with the fact that he was different from everyone else, that he had gone through some things people would never be able to understand. He had to learn how accept this was how he would be for the rest of his life, to accept Kamukura as a part of himself. And similarly, Kamukura would also have to accept Hinata as a part of him, rather than just his past that did not matter, Hinata exists and is here right now.

Also, since Kamukura technically only existed for a few years, despite having so much knowledge, he is still lacking in experience. So Hinata would still have things to show and teach him. I also think that Kamukura has low energy due to his lack of motivation, which was why he barely moves about, only sees the value in ‘efficient’ actions, prefers to stand back and observe others, and that is why Hinata is the one that takes the lead in their body after SDR2.

(Stealthy edit but I totally missed this part in the OVA, but Hinata confirms they are both him, meaning they’ve both come to terms with each other and has accepted the other as a part of themselves. :D)

Hinata needs Kamukura, and Kamukura needs Hinata. Without one of them, the other would not exist, and they make up for what the other lacks.

Bonus: Cute Stuff

To end this off, here are some miscellaneous cute facts about these two!

Kamukura talks in a more polite way than Hinata

They have two colours of underwear, blue and red/pink with white sakura patterns

Kodaka made a tweet that suggested Hinata Hajime’s name could be read similarly to Kamukura [Hi (ka) -nata (muku) Hajime (kura)]

Kamukura’s hair follows a similar pattern to Hinata’s hair (ahoge, the one pointy middle strand)

Hinata’s stop/cancel sign in his eyes transforms to a target sign when he becomes Kamukura (two prongs) and awakened Hinata (three prongs!!)

Hinata’s official watch has black and red clock hands... :]

Anyway, thanks for reading if you somehow made it this far! This ended up being.... extremely long and rambly... and I might have repeated my points a few times... but I hope you still enjoyed it! :’D

#danganronpa #sdr2 #hinata hajime #kamukura izuru #fishy thoughts #long post #text post #ahhh hh hh h #i may like them... maybe...#kamuhina #slaps the kamuhi tag here too because let's be real it's a kamuhi essay too ww

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girlsluvbot · 5 years

Text

MATCHMAKER pt.1

pairing: roseanne park × fem! reader

genre: fluff, angst

about:

matchmaker /ˈmatʃmeɪkə/

noun

a person who arranges marriages or initiates romantic relationships between others.

"an enthusiastic matchmaker who continually tried to pair off the difficult bachelor with unattached ladies"

a/n: i'm back!!! hehe this goddamn thing took so long to write, i both despise and adore it with every fibre of my being. enjoy my blood, sweat and tears in the form of a fic.

You loved your job. Very few people are lucky enough to be able to relate to that statement, and you were thankfully one of them. Hell, not only did you love your job, you were extremely good at it.

Since you were a little kid, writing nas always been your biggest passion. Wether it was writing short stories, poems or essays about the french revolution, you were always happy when you were able to put your feelings and thoughts onto paper. This was the main reason why you became the manager of your local newspaper during middle school, high school and eventually even university.

You've won multiple writing contests and even people who had no idea what your name was knew one thing about you: you were an amazing writer.

Years of practice, your impeccable set of skills and a recommendation letter from your university professor secured you a job at Vogue almost immediately. After all this hard work, you finally achieved everything you were looking for. You were truly happy.

Until this very moment.

"Well, I don't know," the woman sitting in front of you made a disgusted grimace, "it just lacks any emotion whatsoever. I've quite literally never read something so stiff and akward."

And here they were. The first words of criticism you have ever recieved. You were so used to everyone praising your work, you didn't know how to react or respond.

Three months ago, you would have never gotten into a similar situation: simply because there was nothing about your work to critize. But a lot has changed in the past few weeks, and not exactly in the good kind of way.

When you first joined Vogue, you were the head editor and journalist of the spread dedicated almost entirely to interviews. Thats what you did, talked to celebrities and wrote about them. And that's what you were good at, almost too good.

Just a year after working in the magazine you got promoted. You were still the head editor, but now of a completely different part of the journal: one dedicated to a single topic. Love. This was bad news, very bad news.

Why, you ask? The reason was fairly simple but no less embarrassing. Even as the head editor of a spread all about love, you've never experienced it yourself. In other words, you've never been in love. And how are you supposed to write about something you know nothing about?

Your boss looks at you and shakes her head. She reaches for the stack of papers on the table in front of her and starts reading, "For example; 'His lips brushed against mine. They were soft. The kiss was short but sweet. I loved it.' What the actual heck? I kiss my cat more passionately than this." she took off her glasses and started massaging the crook of her nose.

"Listen, Y/N, I've read your previous pieces and they were simply wonderful. But this? I don't even know what else to say without hurting your feelings."

"I'm so sorry. I know, it's just that I dont have much experience in said area." you don't finish the sentence, hoping she somehow gets the memo. She doesn't.

"What area?"

"Love. I dont have much experience with love." you blurt out the words that have been on your mind nonstop since the day of your promotion.

"Oh, you poor thing" she leans back in her chair, her eyes scanning your every move, "Isn't that unfortunate."

You nod your head slowly, trying not to get offended at her words full of pity.

"How are you supposed to write romance stories then? This won't work." the woman grabs a post-it note

"Are," your voice cracks in the middle of the sentence, "Are you firing me?"

"Are you crazy? Of course I'm not," she hands you the piece of paper with a phone number, "We just have to improvise for the time being. Do you know Roseanne Park? She's the manager of our Matchmaker spread. You can be her assistant for the next few months, help her around, learn a thing or two. Hopefully your writing wont be so...bland after."

To be completely honest, you didn't handle changes well. Maybe that's why you were standing in front of your new, and hopefully temporary, bosses office, trying to build up the courage to knock on her door.

One of the reasons why you were so nervous was that Roseanne Park, the manager of the Vogue Matchmaker was insanely attractive. Admittedly, you did some online stalking the night before- okay, a lot of it. Here's the thing; you were a planner. Whether it came to your career, writing or even relationships, you liked to beprepared.

That's why after a few hours spent on the internet, you knew everything. The name of her sister (Alice Park), if the had a pet (yes, a fish named Joohwangie) and who her favorite band was (The 1975).

You weren't usually like this, so head over heels for a girl you haven't even met. But your writing, the reason you were here in the first place, didn't usually suck so after all, some things really do change easily.

Just as you reached for the dark wooden door in front of you, it opened before your hand could even touch it's sleek surface.

"Oh!" the tall woman stopped in her tracks. Thanks to your thorough internet digging, you instantly recognized her. Roseanne Park. Your new boss. A 'matchmaker' if you will.

"You must be Y/N! I've heard that you're going to be my assistant for a bit." your cheeks heated up for no apparent reason. Did she know the reason why you got transferred here so quickly? Every molecule in your body wished and prayed to every possible god out there that she didn't.

"Yeah, that's me!" you finally composed yourself enough to speak, but that didn't mean your voice didn't sound like one of a twelve year old boy going through puberty- high pitched and squeaky.

You examined her face more in depth, and realized quite a few things:

She was somehow even prettier in real life. How? you had no idea. Some people just really won the genetics lottery, you thought.

Her hair was red. Like undeniably, undoubtedly red. In all of the pictures you found yesterday it was either brown or black, so this change caught you off guard. You couldn't complain though, because this girl looked like a hotter version of Ariel with a much better sense in fashion (and music).

"Have you been standing out here for too long?"

"Oh no, I just arrived." lying has never been so easy.

"Great! I'm gonna go downstairs to grab a package but you can look around the office while I'm gone," she opened the door a bit to let you walk in.

You did as she told you and entered the room. The door closed behind you without you noticing, the only thing you could focus on was this girl's office. It looked just like you would imagine heaven to look like- full of light, white furniture and expensive looking leather couches.

There were pictures everywhere: a dozen of four young girls (one of them being Roseanne), a few more of her with famous celebrities and one of a familiar looking face- her sister.

You carefully walked towards the table in the middle of the room, not wanting to damage anything. You noticed quite a bit of unexpected clutter, and above everything a print of the brand new Vogue issue. A woman on the cover flashed you a beautiful smile as you picked it up. The headline stated: Kim Jisoo talks acting, NYFW and love.

You flipped the glossy magazine pages to find the spread dedicated to said interview and noticed just what you were looking for: the author of the article. The credits at the bottom of the page revealed a nice surprise- Author; Roseanne Park.

"Well what do you think? Is it a good article?" your soul almost left your body when you realized who was standing next to you. You quickly put the magazine down, "I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to touch your stuff. I just saw the cover and..."

"Oh my gosh, are you kidding? That's completely okay, I don't mind." she pointed to the journal, "That interview is actually one of the favorite pieces I ever wrote, and not just because it's about Jisoo. Plus, my friend took the pictures, so it was extra fun." She opened the spread again and pointed to a name credited right next to hers, Photographer; Lalisa Manoban.

"Oh wow. I've seen her pictures before, they're really good. I with I could take photos like that. Seriously."

Here's one thing to note: when you're nervous, you ramble. Like a lot. Some people would say its better than staying silent, but let's be honest- it's like stepping into a puddle instead of mud. Not a disaster, but there's still plenty to complain about.

Thankfully, Roseanne only giggled, "I know exactly what you mean. I hope you'll get to work with her someday."

You both stared at the magazine spread for a second before Roseanne broke the silence.

"But now, let's get to bussines. Sit down please, this might take a while," she pointed tkwards one of the leather couches you noticed earlier and took a seat at the other side of the table.

"So, as you probably already know, my name is Roseanne Park. As a manager of Matchmaker, my job is to read these letters," she grabben a handful of papers for emphasis, "and respond to them, give advixe basically. The title 'Matchmaker' comes from the fact that the majority of the letters talk about love. Any questions so far?"

When you shook your head no, she continued, "As my assistant, your job is fairly simple. You're going to sort and read through the hundreds of letters I recieve weekly and pick the most interesting ones for me to feature. And occasionally, you might accompany me to a few interviews. Sounds good?"

You slowly nodded, processing all the new information. Letters, answers, interviews and a hot boss. That doesn't sound so bad.

"Great. So Y/N," she suddenly stood up, "Would you mind going with me to Subway? I'm starving."

By the time you were finished with lunch, you had a new point to add to your list of realizations about your new boss:

She loves food, and by loves I mean LOVES.

The moment you arrived at the restaurant, food was the only thing she would talk about. She told you about what she had for dinner and breakfast, what kind of snacks she hid in the office and what kind of salad she was getting alongside a baguette.

After she actually managed to get a bit of calories into her system (thanks to a foot-long chicken turkey sandwich) the conversation finally got more interesting.

Don't get me wrong, you could listen to this girl talk for hours, no matter the topic. But after listening to a thirty minute long monologue about why pineapple pizza is the best thing ever invented, even you have reached your limit.

"So," you start, in an effort to break the ice, "how long have you been working at Vogue?"

She squints at the toast in front of her, trying to remember, "About five years? Yeah, it's gonna be five years in May."

"Oh wow, that's impressive."

She tilts her head, "Is it? I mean, when you work as often as I do, time just goes by. I don't even remember the last time I went out with my friends to discuss something that wasn't work related."

You pout, regretting the choice to ask her about work.

"But at the same time, I love what I do so I can't really complain. What about you though? Why did you decide to become a journalist?"

"Oh, I started just a year ago. And I studied literature, so I guess becoming a journalist made sense."

"Why did you study literature then? There's so many other better paying jobs out there."

"I don't think anyone works in such a field for money, that's for sure," you try to lighten the atmosphere, "Well, my mom wanted to become a writer, but she got pregnant before she could finish her book and she's been pretty much busy ever since. I guess her love for books kind of rubbed off on me."

Roseanne nods, to let you know she's listening. "I'm glad you and your mom have such an important aspect of your lives in common. My mother wanted me to become a lawyer, I doubt she's ever read even a single fiction book in her entire life."

"What does she think about your job now?"

Her lips tighten and she crosses her arms. "I don't know. I haven't talked to her since," her eyes seem empty, their signature spark gone. You can tell you struck a nerve. "I haven't talked to her since I moved out."

"Well, I'm sure that she's proud of you," you can't help but add.

Rosie lets out a dry laugh, "You don't know my mother then," she slowly pushes her plate away, "I think I'm full so I'm gonna head back to the office."

Sometimes it's better to keep your mouth shut. You learned this the hard way.

You head back after your lunch break ends, alone. Even though Roseanne walked you through everything she expects you to help around with, you know that your job doesn't start and end with sorting through letters.

You softly knock on the office door before heading in. She's already sitting there, behind her desk. Without looking up from her laptop, she scoffs, "You're late."

"It's just five minutes," you shrug, not taking her tone seriously. Finally, she raises her sight to meet yours. Even without her saying anything, you understand. Do not play around with fire.

You mumble an apology and quickly run to the small hallway at the other side of the room which leads to your own (significantly smaller) office.

"What makes you think I'm done?" Turning around, you notice that her eyes are piercing through your back. Unsure of what she expects you to do, you walk back in front of her.

"While you were out there doing god knows what for two hours," you resist the urge to roll your eyes, "I already did your job and sorted through the letters. You're welcome."

She walks around the table and pushes a thick stack of papers against your chest, "That means you'll be doing my job and write replies to them. Can you handle that?"

You try not to show her how terrified you are. You? Giving relationship advice? Sounds like a recipe for a royal disaster. Instead, you rise your chin and smile, "Yes ma'am."

She visibly winces at the formal title, but still nods and returns to her seat. You take this as a sign to head back to your spot and do your job. Well, her job for now.

You sit down calmly and shuffle through the papers, trying not to look too freaked out. What the heck are you going to do now?

A quick peek at your boss reveals that she's either busy with work or just flat out ignoring you.

Trying to remain collected, you pick out the top letter from the pile. The first paragraph reads:

Hi Rosie! I'm a huge fan of your Matchmaker spread :) I never thought I'd be the one writing you a message but here we are hahaha. (Let's hope this gets featured!)

You roll your eyes but continue reading,

Me and my boyfriend have been dating for just about two months and I would describe our relationship as 'lowkey'. We first met at a bar a last year but we surprisingly didn't immediately hit it off.

With a raised eyebrow you skip over a page full of sappy descriptions and relationship stories, before getting to the end of the letter.

So what should I do? He's really sweet but I'm not sure if I'm ready to meet his family just yet.... please help! Love, Courtney.

You fold the paper back to it's original state with a quiet gulp. What on earth did you get yourself into?

#blackpink #blackpink scenarios #park chaeyoung #rosé #rosé fluff #rosé angst #rosé smut #rosé x reader #girlfriend rosé #blackpink rosé #blackpink rose #rose angst #rose fluff #blckpink fluff #blackpink angst #blackpink smut #roseanne park #rosé park

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solalunar-eclipse · 4 years

Text

Scars You Can’t See - Chapter 5

Chapter title: Ready to explode

Word count: about 3800 words (whoa)

Author’s Note: I think it’s about time I gave a shoutout to @teamxdark! Their comments have gotten me to start planning out some of the later chapters (and giving me a lot of inspiration), so I figured they deserved some credit!

And thank you to everyone who’s read this fic so far- every note I get is incredible and I hope you’re all enjoying the ride :)

First | Previous | Next

Sonic stared blankly at his phone screen for the fifth time this morning. The old texts and the name at the top of the messaging app blurred slightly as his eyes unfocused. He was waiting for...something. What, he wasn’t sure.

That was a lie.

Truthfully, he was hoping that the three little dots showing that someone was typing would appear like a miracle. He knew that wouldn’t happen, though. The hedgehog on the other end of the messages had turned off his phone entirely. Heck, Shadow was literally in hiding. There had been exactly one post on Chatter (which he and Tails totally hadn’t read over and over searching for hidden messages) and that was from Omega.

But chaos, how Sonic wished for just five minutes to talk to him. He hadn’t even realized before now how much he normally texted the hybrid in a day. The hero honestly just messaged whenever he saw something or found a funny joke that he thought Shadow would like. In dealing with his new absence, though, Sonic had come up with an idea to write down whatever it was he’d seen that he figured Shadow would enjoy and save it for later.

He was forced to stop this when he wrote nearly two thousand words’ worth of moments in half an hour.

Sonic cursed all the times he’d taken Shadow’s near-constant presence for granted. The hybrid had always been a punctual texter, despite Rouge’s repeated attempts to convince him that he didn’t have to answer right away. Even when the other hedgehog had been off on a mission, Sonic still had an idea of how long he needed to wait before he could start texting. But now, it could be days, weeks, or even months before he could talk to Shadow freely again.

What if you’ll never hear from him again? a nasty inner voice whispered. What if that call was the last time you got to hear his voice?

Sonic felt his stomach fall through the floor at that idea, before swallowing the sensation and shaking his head. He couldn’t doubt Team Dark like that! They were guaranteed to pull through, and kick G.U.N.’s butt in the process.

Speaking of which…

The hero was pretty angry at G.U.N., and that was actually a big deal for him. Sonic didn’t get angry, except sometimes at Eggman. Even when a bitter detractor had posted a lengthy essay on Chatter explaining exactly why Sonic was (supposedly) a terrible person, he hadn’t reacted in fury- or even close. He’d had his friends’ support, and honestly? He’d pitied the person more than anything. Anyone who was trying to tear others down had probably been hurt pretty badly themselves.

Sonic had even made a meme out of their misspelling of his name- “Sanic” was now a worldwide joke with a hilarious drawing to match.

But now, all he really wanted to do was beat someone up- some robots, some evil agents, whatever- and trash the whole organization until they were all falling over themselves to apologize. The fact that G.U.N. had dared to treat Shadow’s obviously painful past with no kindness whatsoever really got on his nerves. The hybrid had suffered a hundred times over, lost his memory, and even died to save the world, yet he still didn’t get the respect he deserved.

“Uhhh, Sonic? Is everything okay?”

The blue blur jumped, startled out of his spiraling thoughts. He heard a growling noise, and his eyes widened when he realized it was coming from him. Sonic could feel his lips curled back into a snarl and quickly straightened his face out, blinking and clearing his throat. “Yeah! Sorry, Tails…” he said, embarrassed at having been caught in that kind of state. The fox eyed him skeptically. “Really, I’m fine!”

“Are you su-”

“Yeah!” Sonic exclaimed, grinning reassuringly. No point in upsetting others with his own problems, after all. “Everything’s good here, buddy!”

“If you say so…” Tails muttered. He didn’t seem convinced, but accepted it despite this. “Anyway, what I came over to say was: we’re out of groceries- can you head out and get some? I made a list of everything we need, it’s right here!”

Ordinarily, Sonic would’ve complained loudly and with much drama about having to do something so menial as a grocery run when he was a hero, for chaos’ sake. But that wasn’t the case these days. “Sure thing!” Sonic agreed, feeling better already. With a distraction to keep his worries and negative thoughts away, he’d be back to normal in no time. “See ya soon!”

The blue blur dashed out the door- before returning a second later, a sheepish grin on his face. “Forgot the list,” he explained, rushing out again.

With the wind in his quills, it was almost too easy to forget everything that he’d been thinking about just moments before. Sonic grinned properly as he raced across fields and through side streets. This was his element, after all! He made his way to his and Tails’ favorite grocery store, bounding over obstacles and pulling a few awesome parkour tricks he’d picked up over the years. Shadow had always gotten on their case for not supporting a more local store- this one was a big name, after all- but Sonic had--

He shook his head, walking into the building. No more thoughts like that! There was only so much ruminating on bittersweet memories a guy could do in a day.

His presence here was relatively common, so he didn’t do much more than turn a few heads as he stepped through the automatic doors into the air-conditioned halls of the large grocery store. Sonic forced himself to walk through the aisles (instead of sprinting through them and accidentally whipping half the items off the shelves in his wake). As he did so, though, he began to hear people talking. And they weren’t just talking about the latest viral video, or boring politics, or any of those things, either.

They were talking about them.

Of course, everyone would always change the subject when he walked by, chatting loudly about their dog or their kids or whatever. It was almost as though they were saying, “Don’t look at me! I didn’t say anything about your friends! I’m just here, minding my own business!” But of course none of them really had been.

He recognized that he was spiraling down the path of thinking about it again, even though there was nothing he could do. And now no matter what, the thoughts of some of his closest friends were tainted. Which totally didn’t frustrate him at all.

It didn’t help, he thought irritably (not noticing the mild scowl that had appeared on his face), that G.U.N. was basically screaming in all the op-eds and information releases the organization could get their hands on that they weren’t in the wrong. They didn’t say that specifically, of course- that would be too obvious. Instead, they just published the same old news over and over again: Team Dark had stolen classified files and then run away.

This had all begun to grate on Sonic’s nerves a little, particularly when pundits and newspaper writers alike began to spout wild conspiracy theories about Team Dark having been spies for ‘the enemy’- whoever that was- or that one of them had finally lost it...or even all three at once. The most frustrating, however, was when once avid supporters of the former G.U.N. agents completely disavowed them and distanced themselves from the team as much as possible. It made him want to pull a Knuckles and punch a wall- how could people turn on the team so easily?

The hero pulled himself back to reality to realize that he’d been staring at a can of soup for the past few minutes. And were those dents where his fingers had been? He put the can in his shopping cart, took a deep breath, and continued on, giving himself a little ride on the back of the cart as a treat. Normally, he’d remember his various accidents and restrain himself, but lately the hero had needed to clear his head. He deserved this.

A few minutes later, a chime on his phone let him know that Tails had sent him a message. Sonic opened it up and read the text:

milesperhour: Sonic, I think you need to see this. Take a close look at paragraph 5. https://www.centralcitynews.com/team-dark-update

Sonic clicked the link, sighing, and began to scan the article. Another one? Really, he’d had enough of-

Oh boy. Oh wow. Okay.

They’d made a move. G.U.N. didn’t release much in the way of information- all they’d done was declare an official alert asking people to keep a lookout for Rouge, Shadow and Omega. And to tip G.U.N. off at a hotline that they’d provided for this purpose.

Sonic had learned how to read between the lines over the last few days, though, and on his second read-through, he saw what most would not.

...are in possession of multiple classified files…

So they’d stolen more info? That must’ve been what Omega’s post was about! Sonic began to squeeze his phone hopefully. Maybe this was it, maybe soon this whole nightmare would be over!

He practically flew through the rest of the store at the thought. Team Dark would give G.U.N. what for, the organization would apologize, and then everything would be fine!

Sonic checked out in a hurry, rushing home as fast as he could. Slamming open the door, he yelled out, “Tails! Did you see- oh right, you sent me the article. But still! Things are looking up, buddy!”

Tails had a slightly lopsided grin on his face, making the hero’s heart sink. “What’s that look all about?”

“I don’t know- it’s probably nothing! After all, Team Dark can handle any situation they come up against...just, G.U.N. has a lot of resources, you know?”

Sonic’s smile returned in full force. “Sure they do, but they also owe me for saving the world, like, a million times over! Once we’ve got the Edge Gang back with us, I’ll go talk with the commander and get them to straighten everything out!”

“That sounds like corruption, Sonic…” Tails said, a wicked smirk appearing on his face.

“Dude, what?! No! I’d never-! I just meant I was gonna see if I could talk some sense into them- hey, get back here!” Sonic screeched, seeing Tails run off with the groceries...including the donut he’d bought for himself.

…

Later that afternoon, Sonic was in the middle of finally enjoying said donut after wrestling it from Tails’s (evil terrible Sonic-and-sugar-hating) claws. It was a little squished, but it was still great- he wasn’t complaining!

That was, of course, when he heard a loud, sharp knock on the door.

He jumped up and zipped over to the entry hall, pastry still in hand. Whipping open the door, a shocking sight greeted him- one that made all of his battle-honed senses immediately scream danger danger danger. Two impeccably dressed G.U.N. agents stood before him, a human and a barn owl. The human seemed pretty awkward, wearing slightly rumpled slacks and overall looking a little messy. The owl, however, despite being about the same height as the blue blur, exuded an air of steely discipline that would make everyone she faced feel about two inches tall.

Everyone except Sonic, that was. He was secure in the knowledge that his friends were not wrong, and he maintained his usual relaxed demeanor without a hitch. The hero smiled fake-pleasantly at the two agents, ignoring the fact that he had sugar glaze at the corners of his mouth and all over his glove. “Sorry, guys, I wasn't really expecting guests.” He gestured to himself as an obvious example. “Anything I can do for ya?”

He didn’t offer to let them inside, though. These agents were hunting down his friends, he was absolutely sure of that. Sonic refused to help them in any way, not when Team Dark was still out there and being threatened by their organization.

The barn owl gave him a look that nearly pierced through his very soul. “Sonic the Hedgehog. I am Agent Toya, and this is my colleague, Agent Jones. We have a few questions that we would like to ask you. Inside.” Her voice was cold and clear, with no trace of an accent.

Sonic felt a chill run down his spine, but kept his smile up regardless. “Sure thing!” he chirped, despite very much not wanting to let them in. “The living room’s right this way- make yourselves comfortable, I’ll be back there in a sec.” He honestly didn’t think he could have refused them entry without...complications.

The hero zipped over to Tails’s workshop, flinging open the door with a little more force than he’d intended. The fox jumped up in a fright when it smacked against the wall, staring at Sonic. “G.U.N. is here. Two agents.” he said quickly. The imminent sense of danger in the back of his head wouldn't leave him be, despite the fact that he was one of the most powerful people alive.

...Despite this, don’t let G.U.N. take you or anyone else anywhere. You might not come back…

...These people aren’t crazy geniuses- they’re ruthless destroyers…

“Oh, chaos.” Tails breathed. “I’ll wait nearby, okay? Then I can do something if they start getting too intense.”

Sonic nodded, before speeding back down to see the agents sitting on his couch. “Hi! So whatcha guys want?” he asked perkily, burying his thoughts for now.

“Hello to you too, Sonic.” Jones said politely. “How are you?”

The hero tugged slightly at the cuff of his glove. “Pretty good!” he lied through his grin. “Been chilling around the house for most of the day- how ‘bout you?”

“Not bad,” the human answered. “Work is work though, you know?”

“Yeah, sounds pretty rough.” Sonic said, a little unconvincingly. Before he could stop himself, he thought of all the late nights Shadow and Omega had spent working on paperwork and various odd jobs for G.U.N., and the times when Rouge had to cancel her dates with Knuckles because she was just too exhausted from work to do much of anything. His smile became slightly strained as he worked to keep his frustration on Team Dark’s behalf under wraps.

The owl gazed at him silently for a moment, having watched this whole awkward transaction with a calculating look in her eye. Then she spoke. “I’m certain you have seen the news lately.”

“Uhhh...kinda, I’m not big on newspapers, but I try to keep up, yeah! Always nice to see an article about yours truly, hah.” He played it off, deciding to act dumb for now.

Agent Jones shifted in his seat, looking cautious. “Yeah…” he said, offering up an incredibly fake smile. “I’m a bit of a fan, myself.”

Sonic knew exactly what was going on. It was almost so classic he had to laugh- the old good cop/bad cop scenario. The human was clearly trying to play the good cop, and not enjoying it either. The hedgehog had to wonder, though, was he just a better bad cop or uncomfortable because he was helping grill a hero?

Oh, right- Agent Toya was talking again. “We know that you have seen the articles published about the betrayal of Team Dark. Even if you do not read the news, one of your friends will have told you by now.”

The hedgehog’s eyes narrowed a little. “And what’s that supposed to mean? What do you want outta me?”

“You. Know. Something.” she said sharply. “That team- in particular Shadow the Hedgehog-” He tensed at her flippant use of his name, as if they weren’t hunting him down like he had legitimately gone bad. “-trust you. You are very close with them. They would not have left you with nothing.”

Sonic shook his head, trying one last time. “I don’t think so, lady. I know about as much as you- if that. It’s not like we’re besties or anything.”

Agent Jones shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know- it looks like you guys are pretty close to me. Not that that’s bad, I mean-!!” he amended rapidly, realizing his mistake. In addition to having blown his role as the ‘good cop’, he was now being stared down by a very irritated pair of green eyes. The look he was being given contrasted sharply with the grin plastered across the hero’s face, and the agent began to sweat slightly and avoid his stare.

Meanwhile, Sonic turned his attention back to Agent Toya, sitting up straight and squaring his shoulders in preparation for more. He was a fighter, after all.

It seemed that the barn owl came here ready for a fight as well, because her own eyes flashed and she straightened her G.U.N. uniform. “Sonic. We need information. Our organization has been compromised. Twice. We are in a crisis and we are ordering you to tell us what you know.”

That did it.

“As if!” the hero exclaimed, jumping to his feet. “You think I’m the kind of guy who’d sell his friends out and watch them get carted off to jail- or worse?! I don’t know as much as you think I do, and if I did, I wouldn’t tell you!” He had probably blown any semblance of ignorance up now, but Sonic couldn’t find it in himself to care.

The owl agent stood as well, glaring at him. “If that is the attitude you are going to take, then we have no choice but to take you into custody.” She began to reach for the Taser on her belt at the same time as Jones grabbed the gun from his holster. Sonic’s eyes flickered between them both- the human he could take on, but he wasn’t completely sure about Toya’s skill with the Taser.

Could he get around them? Sure, but not without breaking something...and he hated to bust up his house just because a couple of agents showed up on his doorstep and pulled weapons on him. He’d handled worse odds, hadn’t he? But then he and Tails would constantly be on the run, and that was no way for a nine-year-old to live…

A loud crash resounded in the kitchen. Jones shouted and jumped up, Sonic’s head snapped around so fast he tweaked his neck, and Toya took a step backwards.

Rubbing his neck and wincing, Sonic yelled out, “Everything okay in there?”

Tails dashed into the room out of nowhere, crying out, “Sorry! Sorry! I was just working and wanted a drink- and I heard- I heard-”

The fox then began to cry, sobbing and clinging to Sonic’s chest. “You’re not gonna take him away, are you? I need my big brother…” he sniffled. “Sonic, everything’s gonna be okay, right?”

The hero was trying his very hardest, meanwhile, to keep his jaw from hitting the floor as he watched his brother, a brave, intelligent sidekick and someone he was proud to fight beside, put on the most incredible show he’d ever seen. “I…I dunno, buddy…” he said honestly, uncertain about how to react.

This seemed to be a pretty good move, as Tails immediately began to bawl harder and gasped, in between sobs, “Please don’t take him away from me!”

It appeared that Toya would not feel comfortable using force against Sonic (or even resuming her interrogation) when the young fox was around. Instead, she gave him a very pointed, piercing look, before declaring, “We will be back at a later date to continue this conversation.”

She stalked out the door, Jones shoving his gun back onto his belt and following sulkily behind her. As soon as she had gotten into her car and driven off, the hero sagged into the couch and let out a loud sigh. “Welp.”

Tails flew out of the room immediately afterwards, whispering a quick “Wait there and chill for a second I’ll be right back” before he exited. Once he returned, the fox crawled around on the couch next to Sonic before letting out an “Aha!” and holding up what appeared to be a tiny piece of metal.

“It’s a shame to have to do this, but…” he muttered, before vanishing with it. A couple minutes later, a very loud noise boomed from Tails’s workshop and made Sonic panic before blasting in there at top speed.

“What was that?!” he shrieked.

“Just destroying this camera that human agent left in our couch.” the engineer replied lightly.

“Wait- what??” Sonic gasped. “He did what?”

“I thought they’d be crazy to leave without planting one, so I checked the camera feed, and it was pretty obvious! He must be a new recruit.”

“Wait- you have a camera? In our living room?” the hero asked, feeling slightly creeped out.

Tails shrugged. “Well, I didn’t until recently, but I figured that G.U.N. would have to show up at our place eventually, so yeah.”

They both stayed there in silence for a minute, before making their way back down to the main house.

“Well, what do we do now?” Tails wondered.

“I dunno- you’re the smart guy, pal.” Sonic replied quickly. “I just don’t want to have to escape from them! I like running, but not away from people. Especially bad people.”

“Well...does it count as running if we’re hanging out with Knuckles?” the fox suggested hopefully.

Sonic sighed. “I guess not...it’d be cool with him, too, since Angel Island is a pretty safe place and all. I still hate the idea of hiding from them, though.”

“Maybe you won’t have to!” Tails said, trying to be cheerful. “After all, I don’t think people will buy it if G.U.N. says you’re a...traitor…” He trailed off, remembering a particularly eventful moment from their past.

“Yyyeah.” the hedgehog said dryly, having thought of the same thing. “That’s exactly why I didn’t have to ride through the streets of Central City on a piece of helicopter.”

“Let’s not think about that for now though, okay?” Sonic asked. “ I don’t like the idea of being scared all the time.”

Tails nodded in agreement. “Besides, we’ve handled them before! We can cross that bridge when we come to it anyway.”

Sonic grinned. “How about we watch some TV for now, take our minds off things?”

“Sure! But I’m definitely gonna tell Omega- or whoever calls us next- about this. They deserve to know.” the fox answered.

“Okay…” the blue blur said. He felt a little guilty that he could just turn on a movie and forget about G.U.N. for a while- Team Dark didn’t have that luxury. Quickly, though, he added, “Anything on there you’ve been dying to watch?”

Tails smiled happily, and Sonic decided that this was totally worth it. “Well, there is this one documentary…”

#scars you can't see #sycs #team dark #sonic the hedgehog #miles tails prower #*eggman voice* it's time for a change of pace!#i had to look up sonic characterization posts right before the final edit #i want to write him well!!#btw just to clarify #gun received word about the second heist directly after the end of chapter 4 #i can't believe we're at chapter 5 already!#wow #sol’s fanfiction

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wellesleyunderground · 4 years

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Wellesley Writes It: Conversation with Sumita Chakraborty '08 (@notsumatra), author of ARROW

Sumita Chakraborty is a poet, essayist, scholar, and a graduate of Wellesley College, class of 2008. Her debut collection of poetry, Arrow, was released in September 2020 with Alice James Books in the United States and Carcanet Press in the United Kingdom, and has received coverage in The New York Times, NPR, and The Guardian. Her first scholarly book, tentatively titled Grave Dangers: Death, Ethics, and Poetics in the Anthropocene, is in progress. She is Helen Zell Visiting Professor in Poetry at the University of Michigan - Ann Arbor, where she teaches in literary studies and creative writing.

Sumita’s poetry appears or is forthcoming in POETRY, The American Poetry Review, Best American Poetry 2019, the Academy of American Poets’ Poem-a-Day, and elsewhere. Her essays most recently appear in the Los Angeles Review of Books. Her scholarship appears or is forthcoming in Cultural Critique, Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and the Environment (ISLE), Modernism/modernity, College Literature, and elsewhere. Previously, she was Visiting Assistant Professor in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, as well as Lecturer in English and Creative Writing, at Emory University.

Wellesley Underground’s Wellesley Writes it Series Editor, E.B. Bartels ’10, had the chance to chat with Sumita about publishing, reading, and writing. E.B. is grateful to Sumita for willing to be part of the Wellesley Writes It series in the middle of her book debut!

EB: Thank you so much for being part of the Wellesley Writes It series, Sumita! I’m excited to get to talk to you about writing in general, but especially your debut collection Arrow. Can you start off speaking a bit about how this book came about?

SC: Thank YOU so much! This is such a joy.

The book that’s now Arrow went through about seven prior full versions.

EB: Oh my gosh! Wow.

SC: While there’s a lot going on in there, the most fundamental story I wanted to tell was that of the experience of living in the aftermath of severe domestic violence, other entangled forms of assault, and grief (in my case, particularly for my sister, who died in 2014 at the age of 24). The word “aftermath” is a tricky one, because there is no neat and tidy “after” violence or grief, particularly when one considers the varying scales on which various devastations and mournings take place. One of the main narrative arcs of the collection, though, is that of becoming someone who can embrace love and joy and care and kinship even when those concepts have been weaponized or altogether foreclosed for all of one’s childhood and adolescence. And that’s a narrative that requires a sense of an “after” that I am deeply fortunate to have personally experienced. That’s the main tightrope the collection is invested in walking, which forms the through-line around which and with which its other preoccupations and obsessions orbit and collide.

EB: Wow, thank you so much for sharing all that, Sumita. I especially like what you said about the lack of a “neat and tidy” ending -- isn’t that always the case when it comes to writing about things from our own lives? We want real-life closure but sometimes have to settle for just narrative closure instead.

I meant to say also congratulations on the publication of your collection not only in the US but in the UK as well! What was it like to put that version together? The same? Different?

SC: I was wildly lucky in this regard. Some years ago, I published the poem “Dear, beloved” in Poetry, before it was in Arrow—and in fact before this version of Arrow even existed. At that point, the editor of Carcanet reached out to me to say that the press would be interested in bringing out my collection in the UK. I kind of panicked!

EB: I totally would have, too!

SC: As I mentioned, there was no Arrow yet. I was on a much earlier version that was “complete,” but when I looked at it, I knew: This ain’t it. And querying US presses was therefore not something I was prepared to do at that time; UK publication was even less within the realm of my imagination. I essentially told them the manuscript was in progress and asked if I could reach back out when it was ready and if I had secured a US publisher. Some years later, the collection was picked up by Alice James in the States and I reached back out to Carcanet to see if they were still interested, and they were! Alice James and Carcanet worked together during the production process, so while there were certainly some differences in approaches across either side of the pond, much of it was really streamlined, and that is all thanks to the outstanding and immense labor of the extraordinary editors and staffs at both publishers.

EB: How did you begin writing poetry in the first place? What was your path to becoming a writer?

SC: I didn’t come into much of a sense that I was interested in poetry and in literature until college. When I got there, I didn’t have a sense of really any passions and skills that I had, and that’s not imposter syndrome speaking—it’s because I had a terrible record in high school and found nothing inspirational there, and I was also pretty busy attempting to survive the violence I was experiencing at home and working toward moving out, which I did before college. In my first year and my sophomore fall at Wellesley, I took a really broad smattering of courses, including (with wild, and probably inappropriate, disregard for prerequisites in both cases) Advanced Shakespeare with William Cain and Advanced Poetry Writing with Frank Bidart. I was very much not good enough for both of those courses! But even as I was flailing around in them, something in my mind clicked: this was something I was willing to be terrible at until I started to understand it a bit better. These were puzzles that I liked, questions I liked, problems I cared about dwelling with. It was pretty much “love at first confusion.”

EB: I love that idea: “this was something I was willing to be terrible at.” That 100% nails how I feel about writing, too.

So, obviously, as you just said, Wellesley was very important in your trajectory as a poet -- the title of your book is a reference to a Frank Bidart poem! Which other faculty, staff, fellow students have influenced or inspired you? Are there any professors or classes you would tell young Wellesley writers that they 100% have to take?

SC: Following “love at first confusion,” I essentially made a second home of the first floor of Founders, so my answer to who at Wellesley influenced or inspired me could fill multiple pages!

EB: I love Founders. I miss Founders.

SC: I will invariably accidentally leave someone out and feel guilty, so I offer my mea culpas in advance. In addition to Bill Cain and Frank Bidart, I am beyond grateful to Dan Chiasson, with whom I worked on both my literary studies (including my thesis) and my poetry, and who graciously offered me more mentorship than I’d ever experienced in my life before that point; to Kate Brogan, from whom I got the bug for twentieth-century poetics, which remains the focus of my literary studies research; to Yoon Sun Lee, who taught the theory class when I took it, and planted a hugely important seed that I didn’t even know had been planted until much later simply by being a brilliant Asian American literary scholar (not a role I had ever before seen filled by someone of this subject position); to Larry Rosenwald, who was the first person I had ever met in a literary context who both knew that English was not my heritage language and, in his infinite and genuine passion for multilingualism, viewed that fact as a strength.

I wish I’d had more of a chance to get to know my peers while actually at Wellesley—my life circumstances while I was in college differed from the typical Wellesley experience in ways that made doing so challenging (for one, I worked multiple jobs the entire way through), but I’ve gotten to better know many people I knew at Wellesley more in the years since and that’s been a wonderful experience.

EB: I’ve also made a lot of Wellesley friends post-Wellesley. The Wellesley experience never ends, in that way.

SC: Since I’ve already spoken to the coursework that inspired me, I’m going to zig a bit where your last question zags: there isn’t a single course I would tell young Wellesley writers or literary enthusiasts that they 100% have to take. I don’t think one could go wrong with anyone I’ve named here (and I’ve been really excited to learn about the new additions to the English department: I would have loved to have learned from Cord Whitaker and Octavio González, and have heard wonderful things about both!). But I think that what made the Wellesley experience truly influential for me was that I had the opportunity, like Whitman’s “Noiseless Patient Spider” (though, um, not very noiselessly or patiently), to “launch’d forth filament, filament, filament,” and really listen to what spoke to me. I came in with no preconceptions, no expectations, no firm career plan (or even career plan). Knowing what undergraduates at environments like Wellesley frequently pressure themselves or feel pressured to do (or achieve or produce or attain), I don’t want to offer advice along the lines of a “must-do.” Rather, try things out and truly listen to yourself. What’s your “love at first confusion”?

EB: I know from personal experience that writing can be a really lonely practice. Who did you rely on for support during those really frustrating writing moments? Other writers? Your spouse? Friends? Fellow Wellesley grads? What does your writing/artistic community look like?

SC: All of the above! The thing is, for me, I don’t think writing is a lonely practice. When I feel most energized about writing, it is because I feel like I am in a conversation—or, to put a finer point on it, when I’m in a conversation that is nestled within hundreds of thousands of other conversations that have happened for millennia, are currently happening all around me, and will continue to happen after I’m a hunk of dirt. Tapping into that is often what brings me to the page in the first place.

EB: That’s such a good point.

SC: So when students, for example, feel really isolated or alone in their writing life, my first recommendation is to remind themselves of their beloveds. These may be actual living ride-or-die humans in their lives; these may be ghosts of writers and artists past that are important to them; they might be their most frequently bustling group text or their favorite TV show. Honestly, if one’s thinking of this question as broadly as I recommend, those beloveds probably belong to all of the above categories, to some degree. When you write, even if none of these beloveds are your subject or your audience or anything quite that easily analogous to the process, they are with you, and they have formed who you are before you’ve even picked up a pen or turned your computer on, so they are with you when you are writing, too.

EB: What is it like to now be teaching poetry to undergrads? Are you channeling your inner Dan Chiasson?

SC: Ha! Thank you for that—I just got a visual of myself trying to go as Dan for Halloween and I cracked myself up. (Dan, if you’re reading this: sorry!) I teach undergraduates and graduate students at Michigan, both in literary studies and in creative writing, and I love it very, very much. My students of all levels are brilliant, thoughtful, curious, and wildly imaginative people who often help bolster my faith in the ongoing importance of literary work. Honestly, particularly during this year, I have frequently been in awe of my students and have felt overwhelmingly lucky to be able to work with them.

EB: I know that you are also currently working on your first scholarly book, Grave Dangers: Death, Ethics, and Poetics in the Anthropocene. How do you approach writing poetry vs. writing an academic work? How is your creative process similar or different?

SC: For me the two have been inseparable since Wellesley. I essentially ask similar questions and have similar preoccupations no matter what genre I write; in terms of deciding which thought belongs to which genre, or which project a particular moment is better suited to, that’s often a matter of thinking carefully of what shapes that I want the questions to take, and what kinds of “answers”—in quotation marks because I don’t strive at certainty or mastery in either genre, or in anything for that matter—for which I imagine reaching or searching. For me, the processes for writing both are very, very similar: I draft wildly and edit painstakingly. It’s more a matter of closely listening to my patterns of thinking on any given subject or day in order to find out if the rhetorical patterns of academic prose would better suit them or if the rhetorical patterns of poetry would better suit them.

EB: What are you currently reading, and/or what have you read recently that you’ve really enjoyed? What would you recommend to read while we (are continuing to) lay low during this pandemic?

SC: 2020 was such an incredible year for books! Which feels somewhat perverse to say, considering everything else was dismal and it was hardly an easy year to put out a book, either. In terms of new poetry releases—and this is not a comprehensive list, so my mea culpas here too to the many that I have loved and will end up accidentally leaving off—I have this year read and loved: Taylor Johnson’s Inheritance, francine j. harris’s Here is the Sweet Hand, Craig Santos Perez’s Habitat Threshold, Jihyun Yun’s Some Are Always Hungry, Eduardo Corral’s Guillotine, Rick Barot’s The Galleons, Jericho Brown’s The Tradition, Shane McCrae’s Sometimes I Never Suffered, Victoria Chang’s Obit, Danez Smith’s Homie, Aricka Foreman’s Salt Body Shimmer, and Natalie Diaz’s Postcolonial Love Poem. Two prior-to-2020 poetry collections that I reread every year are Brigit Pegeen Kelly’s Song and Lucille Clifton’s The Book of Light. I’m currently reading Claudia Rankine’s Just Us and Alice Oswald’s Nobody.

EB: Also what about Lucie Brock-Broido? I know she was a teacher of yours at one time, and she was a professor in my MFA program. I had the pleasure of once sitting in on her lecture, and it was life-changing. Are there any particular poems of hers you would suggest?

SC: I joined Lucie’s summer workshop held at her home in Cambridge, MA the summer after my sophomore year at Wellesley, and I stayed in it until I moved to Atlanta for graduate school in 2012. “Life-changing” is right—in fact, it feels a little too modest. She was transformative. A cosmos-realigner. A hilarious, brilliant, extraordinarily kind meteor. A fox with wings. A unicorn. I could go on, and on. For a reader new to her work, I’d recommend starting with her posthumously published “Giraffe” in The New Yorker. I think “A Girl Ago” and “You Have Harnessed Yourself Ridiculously to This World” from Stay, Illusion (2015) are also remarkable entry points. After that, I would probably recommend reading her collections in this order: first Stay, Illusion; then A Hunger (1988); then The Master Letters (1997); and finally Trouble in Mind (2005). The sequencing here isn’t intended as a ranking in the least—my own personal favorites toggle back and forth depending on where my own “trouble in mind” lives, and each collection is dazzlingly strong and has its own raison d’être—but rather because I think the story those collections tell in that order would let a new reader have a full sense of Lucie’s poetics outside of the story that mere chronology can tell.

EB: Any advice for aspiring young poets?

SC: Filament, filament, filament. Let your writing life be as huge and wild and disparate as the whole person you are—don’t feel like there’s only a part of you that’s “worthy of poetry,” and don’t let anyone else tell you what kind of writer you should or shouldn’t be.

EB: Thank you, Sumita! That was wonderful.

#wellesley writes it #wellesleywritesit #wellesley #wellesley underground #wellesleyunderground #sumita chakraborty #eb bartels #e.b. bartels #class of 2008 #class of 2010 #poet #poetry #writer #writers

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twoidiotwriters1 · 4 years

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Written In The Stars XLII (Harry Potter xF!Oc)

A/N: This is a great book and I hope I did it justice. Imma start adding little extras that I call the HarryxMel soundtrack which are songs that I used as inspiration to write the fic. This first song’s the one who gave book three its title on Ao3 (I post this thing there as well) -Danny

Words: 1,749

Series’ Masterlist

Book I // Book II // Next Chapter

Listen to: Meteor Showers -Andy Kong

Chapter One: A Quiet Summer.

"What do you want to be when you grow up?" She turned her head to see the boy, laying beside her.

"I don't know," He looked at her as well, eyebrows up in surprise.

"I want to be an explorer," The girl smiled, "I could send postcards to my mother and uncles, learn about the wizards around the world, the magical creatures..."

"Sounds brilliant," His eyes wandered to the ceiling. He smiled, "make sure to send postcards to me as well."

"Oh," Mel blushed, "I thought- I thought you'd like to go with me?"

"Oh," Harry turned back to her, taken by surprise, "I-"

"It's alright," She sat up, hiding her face so he couldn't see her embarrassment, "forget what I said, it was silly-"

"No-" Harry straightened up in the bed as well, shifting so now his back was against the wall, "W-We could take Hedwig- it'd be easier to send letters and all..."

She stayed silent long enough to make sure he wasn't joking.

"I...I could take my camera?" Mel offered timidly, "I hope I know how to use it by then, cause these few weeks have been a total disaster..."

"You've had it for two weeks only, you'll learn," the boy said, "you could ask Colin once we're back at school about the potion to make them move"

"I could pay for his services with a whole stack of pictures I took of you during my birthday, you looked lovely with all that cake on your face-"

"Shut up," He laughed.

"Are you two doing your homework?" Her mother asked loudly from downstairs.

Mel and Harry shared a look.

"Almost done!" Mel yelled back, holding her laughter.

She passed him a set of books and he laid them on the bed. Mel pulled out parchment, ink and two quills from her drawer, ready to work.

"My parents had the same plans– about traveling," She continued while he searched for the chapter they were supposed to be reading, "they'd thousands of plans, all set after the war -ending the war was first- their friends were supposed to join them too... friends from school, I think, but..." She shrugged.

"Has Emily ever talked to you about them?" Harry asked in curiosity, "About her friends? She must've been the same age as my parents"

"Never said much," Mel sighed, "I didn't want to insist, she barely talks about my dad so... I don't mean to sound ungrateful-"

"You're not," He assured her.

"Thanks," She smiled lightly, "I just... we could've had all that, Glasses. The adventures, the big families... I try not to think about it a lot, but sometimes is hard."

"What happened to them?" Harry inquired, "Did they..?"

"She's never told me. I think they died, but even if they didn't it, it's almost like they don't exist anymore. Either way, my uncle still lives and we love him dearly."

Harry nodded, though he seemed worried about something. Thirty minutes passed without them talking before he dared to speak again.

"Do you think that'll happen to us? What happen to your mum and her friends..."

"That we'll have to pretend we're dead?" Mel grinned, "Sounds rather unlikely..."

"You know what I'm talking about."

"No," She answered with certainty, "We're different, you and I. So are Ron and Hermione- I believe we'll be fine, although it could feel a bit difficult at some point when we grow up."

"You're odd, Mellow"

"Oh, get out of here," She grinned, throwing a pillow at his face.

The schoolwork on the bed was long forgotten as Harry and Mel started a pillow fight. Mel knocked the ink on accident just as her mother entered the room to check on them and went mad, reminding them they should be doing homework.

Summer was going by fast, she'd tons of interesting books to study for her extra lessons with Dumbledore -everyone was happy for her, even her mum- and the letters she was receiving from her friends were always long and constant, it was the busiest summer she'd ever had.

Between her study sessions and the letters, she had a new hobby: Her mother had given her a camera for her thirteenth birthday, it was easy to use but she was having trouble with the lens and lighting, pictures kept coming out wrong, no matter how much effort she'd put into them. She had a shoebox with a bunch of pictures of her mother and Harry from that summer, they were her most valuable possession.

Talking about the devil, Harry technically wasn't allowed to be in Mel's house. He'd been punished after Ron tried to call to his house and Mr. Dursley answered only to go deaf after Ron screamed through it. But technically, as long as they didn't go anywhere near his room, it was as if he hadn't left the house. How he'd managed to climb out of his window without getting injured, it was a mystery. How he was going to climb back, only he knew. It was fun to see his rebellious side, though.

It was also easier to ignore her feelings when he wasn't being all heroic and solemn. Not like he tried to be like that all the time, but there was something about being at school solving mysteries and being famous that just made him look like a knight in shining armor (she wasn't going to admit that to Hermione.) Back home he was just Harry, the small boy that lived next door since they were babies. Well, not so small nowadays, Harry had caught up with her during late June and now they were the same height. That didn't amuse her.

They were slowly growing up, and getting older also meant accepting changes- which meant she had very little time before having to come into terms with the fact that her feelings were evolving despite all her attempts.

She was still a kid, though. So it was safe to say she could keep pretending for at least two more years.

'...nothing's changed, not really. We had a strange year and all- but we did fine I think.

Harry's fine- I'm fine, we're still friends. I must admit, I was afraid we'd stop being friends once in school, it didn't happen. I'm glad, he's still my best friend...'

Her hand lingered above the paper, thinking of her next words.

'I do have more friends now, so don't worry! It's just that Harry... he's different, you know, he's been my friend the longest... I think I like him. I mean, of course, I like him. I mean- I have feelings-'

She huffed, tearing the paper and throwing it into the bin.

Every time. Every. Single. Time.

Why? It was embarrassing! Why did she keep trying to tell her uncle about her feelings for Harry?

He wouldn't know how to help her, he was an adult! Worse yet, he was a man. He didn't know what to do when a girl has her first crush.

Her alarm clock went off at that moment, startling her.

Harry's birthday!

She jumped out of the bed and rushed over to the window, she'd planned to throw rocks at it to wake him up and be the first to wish him a happy birthday when she found him already standing there.

She opened her window with a swift movement and leaned on the frame, smiling.

"What're you doing?" They asked at the same time. She laughed.

"I was finishing my essay on the witch-burning in the fourteenth century-" He started to explain, but stopped at the sound of her laughter.

"You sound so scholar when you say the whole title," She grinned. "You shouldn't do your homework so late at night, might worsen your eyes..."

"I would've finished yesterday if you hadn't suggested to try and bake cookies while Emily was away," Harry said pointedly. "Why're you up?"

"I was finishing a letter for my uncle," She explained, "and waiting till midnight."

"Why?"

"You know why," Mel smiled.

The girl disappeared for a brief second so she could look for the present. When she found it, she approached the window holding the box.

"Ready to catch?" She whispered, leaning further on the edge.

"Is it heavy?" Harry had half his body out of the window, preparing himself for the challenge.

"Not much. One, two... three!"

She launched the package and Harry caught it safely in his arms, hugging it tightly against his chest as he got back in.

"Should I open it?"

"Please do," She encouraged him.

Harry ripped the box open and let out a laugh, looking at her.

"You're improving," He pulled out a wool emerald green hat, "it's neater than the first..."

"I also made a scarf like last time- I practiced something different there," She said eagerly.

Harry rummaged through the box and took out the scarf. He put it around his neck and then put on the hat, a childish smile on his face.

"How do I look?"

"Like it's winter," She giggled, "Happy birthday, Glasses."

"Happy birthday," He beamed, then realized what he'd said and added, "I-I mean, thanks"

She had to muffle her laughter so her mum wouldn't wake up.

"Distracted as always... turn the scarf around, you didn't see the details!"

Harry took off the scarf and examined it, it was magically fixed so the little ornamentation -little lions that Mel had done on her own- would change its colors. She didn't know exactly what did it had to happen for the lions to change- if it was depending on his mood or the weather- she'd just used the magic wool thinking it'd be clever.

"Wow..." Harry breathed, "you're working hard to outdo my presents, huh?"

"You're welcome," She replied simply, closing her window and going back to bed.

She squirmed in the mattress and covered her face with the pillow to hide the embarrassing noises she was making. Harry had loved her present, he even said she was improving.

She fell asleep with the biggest of smiles.

Next Chapter —>

Taglist.

@tiphareth2018 @vampiregirl1797 @siriuslysirius1107 @celestialhayi @mikariell95 @thesuitelifeofafangirl @steve-thotgers @kylosleftbuttcheek @reverse-hxlland @tomshollandz @omiwashere

#twoidiots writing #Harry Potter #harry potter fanfiction #harry potter xoc #harry potter x reader #WITT fic #hp fanfic

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shenanigumi · 5 years

Note

Can you please, please talk about my one and only, Zelos??? Spill your magical mind tea, Alley. I love every sip.

Oh God, well,,, I wasn’t going to talk about him on this blog, but… if you insist. (Wow, I’m a pushover.) Tales of Symphonia spoilers ahoy, and warning for length and complete irrelevance to anything otome. This is also probably going to be a persuasive essay–style spiel, but don’t worry, I know you already agree.

Now, you all know that I like complex characters, and often characters with complexes, and Zelos is no exception, though not everyone might understand why. When people who know Symphonia think of Zelos, most of them think of the quintessential ladies’ man. Shallow, conceited, and not to be trusted, Zelos enjoys a life of luxury thanks to his status as the Chosen, a divinely ordained hereditary role second only to nobility. Using his good looks and his position of power to his advantage, he is a habitual skirt-chaser who prioritizes himself at all times and cracks jokes at inopportune moments (or, alternatively, ends up the butt of them). On top of all that, he’s a triple agent for the party as well as not one, but two different organizations opposing them. He appears unsympathetic to the plights of all those whom he considers beneath him, including some party members.

Basically, some players like Zelos because he’s a ladies’ man with a goofy side and they have a weakness for that. Some players hate Zelos for the same reasons. On both sides of the argument, not as many really take the time to consider his whole story, because believe me, that’s not even the half of it. See, Tales of Symphonia is one of those early 2000s JRPGs, a very long game where there’s a lot more story than the main plot actually explores, and where implications are more frequent than statements. As a result, most characters are much deeper than people might assume based on what they see from the main plot, and not everyone might choose to explore the specific events that lead to more exposition on each individual backstory. Hell, some people might not even know there is more backstory to explore. The anime goes into some of it, but not all, whereas the sequel… oh, God, what that abomination did to my precious characters is a rant for another time.

What not everyone accounts for is that, like all characters, Zelos’s past shaped who he is, and Zelos’s past qualifies as tragic. In order to groom the Tethe’allan Chosen lineage to produce a Chosen with the right genes for their purposes, the angelic organization Cruxis forced the Chosen at the time to marry another woman rather than his lover at the time. Thus, Zelos was born to be the future Chosen. As a result, from the beginning, he has been treated like a burden, his mother in particular telling him at every opportunity that he never should have been born. In fact, these were her last words to him when he was twelve and his father’s half-elven lover tried to kill him and dealt her a mortal wound instead. The lover was put to death, her daughter [Zelos’s younger half-sister] Seles was also blamed despite her youth and locked up in an abbey, and Zelos developed a prejudice against half-elves as a result. At some point after this, his father killed himself, and Zelos officially became the Chosen.

What a beginning, right? Zelos was quite literally born to assume a title, which he never asked for and consequently hates more than anything else, with the possible exception of himself. His parents loved neither one another nor their son, so he was perpetually undervalued, never given a sense of his own worth beyond the title he would assume someday. Thus, he grew up believing himself useless apart from his future role, longing for some kind of freedom and wishing people would like him for who he was rather than what he was.

So what did he do after he became the Chosen? No one cared enough to befriend him for his own sake, so he used his title, wealth, and looks to his advantage, occupying his time the way most any handsome young man with too much money to spare would. He took to hiding his self-loathing and cynicism behind a cheerfully flirtatious mask, indulging himself and some of his many admirers to distract himself from his perpetual dissatisfaction with his life as a whole. In the meantime, he also cheated his way through university since his female peers were willing to do his homework for him (even though it’s worth noting that Zelos is so sharp he’s actually better at math than Genis Sage, the resident prodigy).

Because of all this, Zelos learned to fight for nothing and no one except himself, because nobody else has ever fought for him as a person. With the exception of Sheena, whom he met and befriended sometime before the events of the game under undisclosed circumstances, he hasn’t grown emotionally close to anyone and is prepared to stay that way. He’ll make just about any deal as long as it means he can escape unscathed. The Renegades approach him and ask him to keep tabs on Cruxis? Sure, he can do that. Cruxis approaches him and asks him to keep tabs on the party? Sure, he can do that. As long as he has some guarantee of his own personal safety, anything goes, up to and including throwing his companions under the first applicable bus.

Or at least, that’s how it starts out. Things start changing for Zelos once he joins the party, even though he shoehorns his way into it based on that deal he made with Cruxis to report on their movements. The others aren’t exactly happy about this turn of events, since he acts incredibly full of himself and he won’t stop flirting with the female members, but they still treat him like a human being rather than just the Chosen. They’re the first people to openly trust Zelos and consider him a part of their group in spite of his quirks, which in turn gradually makes him endeavor to deserve that trust.

Except during the Kratos ending—or as I like to call it, the bad ending—where Lloyd, and by extension everyone else, asks the fatal question: Can I trust you? There’s a turning point where Zelos is responsible for handing the Sylvaranti Chosen, Colette, over to Cruxis. In the normal ending, this is a ploy to gain their trust so he can betray them at the last minute and throw the situation in the party’s favor. In the bad ending, this is not a ruse, and he stays behind to fight the rest of the party himself, forcing them to kill him. And this is after he already made a deal with Cruxis that, in exchange for Colette, they would release him from his fate as Chosen and give his title to Seles instead. Zelos chooses to die at the hands of his so-called friends despite already having a guarantee that the burden of his title as Chosen will be lifted. That’s how badly he hates himself.

Fortunately, that kind of extreme behavior is relegated to the bad ending. In the normal ending, he’s perfectly content to leave Cruxis once and for all and state his position as belonging firmly to the party, because they believed in him and gave him hope that he could change his situation for the better. After this point, kindly ignore everything the anime and sequel tell you, because Zelos is much less obnoxious than usual for the rest of the game, and with every indication of staying that way. This proves that his womanizing is less a fundamental part of his personality and more a learned behavior in response to the above set of reasons.

To conclude: I know Zelos can come across as annoying at times, and you’re still well within your rights to dislike his behavior, but really. Does all that sound like a shallow, self-obsessed philanderer to you?

#zelos wilder #characterization essay #not hakuōki #i used to have a tales blog #maybe i should try to resurrect that #also #magical mind tea???#i love it thanks hahahaha

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lostinspidey · 5 years

Text

too shy to say, but i hope you stay | peter parker

summary: peter doesn’t want to sleep alone, but he also doesn’t want to be a burden and ask you to stay the night.

word count: 1.2k

a/n: this is my first time writing for my boy peter - hope i did ok! i know there’s a bunch of other fics like this but i could personally read a million stories about falling asleep in petey boy’s arms. title is from come out and play by billie eilish & gif was made by @ironarm

warning(s): ENDGAME SPOILERS!!!, majority angst (i’m so sorry) w a fluffy ending :-)

“peter, seriously, i have to go,” you insist for the third time tonight, rising from the edge of his bed. you’ve been conversing on and off for a few hours now, making each other laugh while peter works on an english essay.

(you like to watch his face when he isn’t looking - how the screen of his laptop shines a bright light on his face, his nose casting a shadow over the pair of lips you’ve been trying not to stare at. luckily, he doesn’t seem to notice.)

“uh, definitely not,” he says, eyes still trained on his computer. “you just got here.”

“yeah, five hours ago.”

“five?!”

you can’t help but crack a smile. “mhm.”

“hang on, i’ve just got one more page.”

he lets out a big yawn, stretching his arms above his head, and your eyes suddenly fixate on his dark circles. have they always looked that bad?

“maybe you should wait till tomorrow, petey,” you say slowly, leaning against the edge of his desk. slowly so that he’ll take your advice into consideration instead of brushing it off.

of course, it doesn’t work. he looks up at you from his desk chair, eyes nearly pleading.

“it’s one more page, y/n. won’t take me any longer than half an hour. please just stay while i finish it.”

you shake your head. “nuh-uh. i need sleep and so do you.”

“i don’t need sleep. i’ve never needed sleep. i’m a machine.”

“peter.”

“yeah?”

peter continues typing, his fingers moving rapidly over his keyboard.

“c’mon peter. dude. peter, hey.”

your hand catches his wrist gently. he looks startled at first, peering up at you with wide eyes. now that he’s looking at you and not his computer, you can really see that he’s tired tired, the color drained from his cheeks and the sparkle disappeared from his eyes.

if you’re being honest, that sparkle’s been gone for a few months now. ever since the two of you returned to earth, peter’s been off for reasons that his aunt may has only half-explained to you.

all you know is that he still takes the long way home after that mural of tony stark went up near his apartment, still tenses up if someone mentions his name in class. the extent of their relationship isn’t something peter’s told you about just yet, and you know better than to bring it up.

you’re a bit surprised when peter lets you close the lid of his laptop. for the first time in five hours, the room is completely silent.

“i’m sorry.” peter’s voice is small. he clears his throat. “you’re right, you should totally go. uh, thanks for keeping me company and stuff.”

“do you always stay up this late?”

he scratches the back of his head nonchalantly. “normally, yeah. but it’s no big deal. i’m fine.”

your heart sinks. you know that peter would never lie to you unless he was trying to protect you. what could he be trying to hide from you this time?

“peter?”

“hm?”

“would you fall asleep easier if i was here?”

peter blinks, tearing his eyes away from yours. “um, i - i mean, if you want - i don’t want you to feel like you need to - it’s up to you, y/n, really.”

“okay.” you lower yourself back onto his bed decidedly. “then i will.”

peter smiles, and you can feel a piece of you melt, unable to help it. it’s the first genuine smile you’ve earned from him all night.

after your teeth are brushed and your pajamas are on (peter in an old decathlon shirt, you in a pair of aunt may’s sweatpants), you wordlessly climb into bed. he leaves as much space between the two of you as his twin bed will allow, a distant look in his eyes as he wills them from falling shut.

this isn’t the first time you’ve shared the bottom bunk, but it’s certainly been a while. you wait for peter’s shoulders to untense before asking:

“do i need to be concerned?”

peter frowns. “about what?”

“about my best friend. about the amount of sleep he may or may not be getting.”

he shrugs, but you can tell he’s hurting, itching to say something his brain won’t allow him to say. you wish he would follow his heart for once.

“sometimes…” peter begins, voice low. “sometimes i wish every night was this easy. laughing over dumb memes with you while we do our homework. that’s how it should be, right? we’re in high school. it should be that easy.”

your hand finds his beneath the covers, squeezing tightly. “why can’t it be that easy, petey?”

“because -” he stops himself, so eager to tell you yet so sleepy and broken that he isn’t sure where to begin.

he swallows audibly, and you can see that his eyes are wet, and fuck, you just want this poor boy to be happy.

“it’s okay.” you lift up your free hand, brushing away piece of hair that has flopped against his forehead. “it’s okay. you don’t have to tell me right now.”

“you know i want to, right?”

you nod. “is there anything you can tell me?”

“that i’m really glad you’re here. that you’re the most important person in my life.” ignoring the way his voice cracks, he interlaces your fingers against the mattress. “that i’m jealous of how dope the memes on your phone are and how mine look like shit in comparison.”

you laugh, and through some type of magnetic pull the two of you scoot closer to one another. peter’s arm slips beneath your shoulders, pulling you tight against his chest. even though you vanished alongside peter for five years, it feels like it’s been an eternity since you’ve done this.

“what about you?” peter asks, voice muffled by your hair. “anything you want to tell me?”

that i love you. i always have. that i love you so much it hurts. that i would do anything to protect you and try to put you back together again. you look up at him, biting your lip to keep the words from spilling out. he’s not the only one with a secret.

peter isn’t crying anymore, but his eyes are shining as he meets your gaze. sparkling, even. the fondness in them makes your cheeks burn. it would be so easy to kiss him if you wanted to.

his hand moves to your cheek, his fingers grazing your jawline so tenderly you want to burst. and so you do it.

your lips barely touch at first, but to your surprise, peter’s the one who leans in even more, tasting like toothpaste and something you’ll later realize is just him. a siren suddenly blares outside, and the two of you laugh at the ruined moment, teeth knocking clumsily against each other before the kiss is resumed.

all in all, it’s short and sweet and not at all what you expected to get out of tonight. peter looks just as shocked, but the wide smile on his face puts you at ease.

“wow, y/n, you have quite a way with words,” he cracks.

“what can i say? i know how to get a point across.”

he chuckles, lips now grazing against your forehead. after a few moments of silence, he whispers, “y/n?”

“yeah?”

“i’ll tell you everything one day. i - i will. i promise.”

“i know, peter.” you close your eyes, surrendering to the exhaustion of the day. you can only assume that he does the same. right now, his arms wrapped snug around you matters more than anything else. “i know.”

#peter parker #peter parker imagine #peter parker fanfiction #peter parker fanfic #peter parker x reader #peter parker x you #peter parker fluff #tom holland #tom holland imagine #tom holland fanfiction #tom holland fanfic #tom holland x reader #tom holland x you #tom holland fluff #*

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decembercamiecherries · 5 years

Link

Chapter 18 title: Epilogue

Chapter 18 word count: 2,384 -> Total story word count: 105,822

Chapter 18 summary:

Gon kissed him again—though this time it was probably to shut Killua up more than anything. Killua could feel his laughter in the vibration of his lips, but Killua found he didn’t care. Instead he threw his arms around Gon’s shoulders, smiling into Gon’s lips, and kissed him back.

They’d saved each other, in many ways. And now that they were together, they would save each other countless times more.

I wrote this whole sprawling goodbye/end of the fic essay on ao3 so I’m not going to clog up this post by repeating all that lol. Please just know that this fic has pushed me to become a better writer in so many ways and I absolutely love it. This is my favorite fic I’ve ever written. Thank you to everyone who has stuck with me until the end <3

-o0o-

The setting sun was beautiful against the backdrop of endless grass and rolling hills.

Killua watched as the sky turned from blue to purple to scarlet to gold, his palms pressing into the wood of Kite’s porch and his silver hair swaying in the breeze. Everything felt so much more peaceful here, he had noticed. There were no beeping cars or blaring sirens like in the city. Here, the only sounds were the quiet chirping of crickets and the distant voices of his sister and Kite.

He squinted out at the horizon. He could just barely see them, two silhouettes against the blinding sun. Kite was the tall, willowy figure, a cap on his head. Alluka was shorter, her bush of thick hair chopped short since they jumped into a stolen car at the airport and took off into the night. She looked nice with the shorter hair, Killua thought. It suited her.

Creak.

“Whatch’a thinkin’ about?” Gon grunted as he sat down next to Killua on the porch steps. Killua shrugged, allowing Gon to wrap an arm around his waist and pull him close. Even as he hugged him, Gon was careful to avoid Killua’s fractured ribs and for that, Killua was grateful.

“Dunno,” Killua said vaguely. He watched as Alluka’s figure turned towards the small house where he and Gon sat. She threw up a hand, waving enthusiastically, and Killua automatically raised a hand in return. “Just...stuff.”

Gon hummed. “Any kind of specifically interesting stuff?”

“Not really.”

They sat in silence for a moment. A bird crowed in the distance and the sun was warm on Killua’s skin. They could sit here forever at never worry another day in their lives.

Gon commented, “It’s quiet here.”

“Yeah. I like it, though. I’ve never lived away from a city, before. It’s a good change.”

Gon nuzzled his face into Killua’s hair. Killua didn’t need to see Gon’s smile to hear it in his voice, “I’m glad you like it. Maybe, if you want, I could show you the farm I grew up in.”

“The one with your Aunt?”

“Mhm.”

A small smile tugged at Killua’s lips. “I would like that.”

“I think you would, too. You might have a hard time bringing Alluka, though.”

“Yeah, well—” Killua huffed, “—it’s not my fault she’s obsessed with him. I think she might be even more taken with Kite than you.”

Gon laughed and Killua grinned at the sound. Alluka had been very taken with Kite, right from the moment they all arrived on his farm in the middle of the night. She was fascinated with his ideas, listening intently to his discussions about research with wide and eager eyes. Kite in turn questioned her about her inventions, even helping to pull out some bits of metal from his basement to help test a theory of hers. The two had connected on a level almost better than Kite and Gon.

“You don’t mind it?” Killua asked, turning a little to look at him. “I mean, Alluka’s kind of hogging all of Kite’s attention and he’s supposed to be your friend.”

Gon shrugged. “Kite lost his memory years ago because of what Pouf did to him. I can’t expect him to know who I was, or for him to like me right away with who he is now. It’ll take time. But that’s okay! I’m just happy he’s alive and safe. And Alluka too, of course.”

Killua leaned his head back on Gon’s shoulder, eyes fluttering shut. He could smell the faintest hint if pine. “I’m glad,” he murmured.

Gon shifted slightly under him. “About what, Killua?”

“That Alluka is happy. That we found Kite. That we’re all still alive.”

“I knew we could do it!”

“Yeah, well...I had my doubts.”

“Hmm. It did get a little hairy there at the end.”

“Yeah…”

Killua frowned. A week had passed since their encounter with Pouf. The bruises on his and Gon’s bodies were yellowing but still tender, and Killua’s ribs still ached even after a rough but thorough patching up on Leorio’s part on the way to the airport. And Killua still woke up every night running from a crazed looking Pouf who turned into a swarm butterflies before exploding into flames.

But the nightmares about Pouf were always better than the ones with Nanika—those nightmares were worse, because they often left Killua locked alone in a dark room with nothing but the younger version of his deceased sister, staring at him with holes for eyes and a toothless, empty smile.

Gon must have noticed Killua’s silence. He nudged Killua slightly, and asked, “How are you two holding up, by the way?”

Killua shrugged. “It’s hard,” he said honestly. He wouldn’t lie to Gon and make their situation seem better than it was. He and Alluka has paid dearly for their escape from their family and the Palace. “That AI was the last connection we had to Nanika. With it, we felt like we were somehow keeping her with us. Letting her go like that was…”

“Not what you wanted,” Gon finished. “Yeah, I get it.”

Killua sighed heavily. “It just sucks, you know? The price of leaving our family behind for good was leaving Nanika behind, too.”

“Do you really think they’ll leave you alone now?”

“I’m sure they’ll keep looking,” Killua mused. The warmth of the sun’s rays were growing weak on his skin. The sun would set fully soon. “But Nanika didn’t just self-destruct that night in my and Alluka’s beads. She would have followed that self-destruction order with all her beads, including the ones my family stole from us. She would also have fried any system she was connected to—”

“So your family’s technology is basically destroyed? Gon asked and Killua nodded.

“Theirs, and the President’s. That’s why all those alarms went off that night, because Nanika was destroying every electronic system and code that Pouf’s phone was connected to.” He paused. “But we should take Kite and move on from this place tonight anyway, if we want to keep the President off our backs.”

“Oh! Yeah, ‘course, that was the plan all along. But—” Gon let out an appreciative whistle, “—wow. Your sister was really something. I wish I could have met her…”

Killua swallowed thickly. There was a lump in his throat, a burn in his eyes. He didn’t think he would ever fully get over Nanika. But he would do is best to remember her and honor her memory.

“Yeah,” he said roughly. “I wish you could have, too.”

“Maybe you should take me to see her grave,” Gon suggested. “Like how I showed you Kite’s!”

Killua shook his head. “No way, that’s all the way back in Padokea with my family.”

“Oh...we're better staying here, then.”

Killua let out a bark of laughter. “You could say that again.”

Silence fell between them. It wasn’t the kind of stiff and strangely charged quiet that had risen up to meet them in the first week they’d met. They’d seen too much of each other’s fears and hopes to be like that anymore.

Killua had changed, since meeting Gon. He trusted him because he knew him, had seen him at his highs and lows. He was comfortable here on this porch, watching the sun set and resting in Gon’s embrace.

“What about you?” Killua asked quietly. “Do you think you’re free from the Hunters?”

“...I think so,” Gon said thoughtfully. “I mean, I didn’t contact them after the chaos at the Palace. They probably think I died.”

“And you’re okay with that?”

Gon squeezed him. “Yes, Killua. I don’t want that life anymore. I just want you.”

Killua closed his eyes and breathed deep. His heart throbbed at Gon’s words, his skin warming and his chest filling with something light and giddy. It had taken him a while to figure out why his body responded to Gon’s confessions like that.

But now—now he knew why.

Killua opened his eyes. “H-Hey...Gon?”

“Mmm?” came the sound of Gon’s happy hum. The feel of his warm arms wrapped around him made Killua want to melt into his embrace and never leave, but this was important. He wanted to see Gon with his next words.

So he gently untangled Gon’s arms from around his waist and turned to face him. Gon’s eyes fluttered open, the color of his irises turning gold in the sunlight, and Killua’s heart fluttered in turn. He reached out to interlock their fingers, relishing the easy way their hands fit together so easily.

“I want to—to tell you something,” Killua began hesitantly and Gon tilted his head.

“Yeah?”

Killua gave a jerky nod. “Yeah. Um...do you remember the night of the invasion?”

Gon’s lips twitched up into a humorless smile. “Kind of hard to forget. Didn’t we get captured and you get beat up in front of me and then almost got handed back to your family?”

Killua swallowed thickly. Could Gon feel his palms sweating? “Exactly. But, uh, before that...at the party. We danced together.”

“Mhmm.”

Gon had started to stroke the back of Killua’s hand with his thumb. The movement was comforting but distracting at the same time. And it most definitely didn’t help that Gon looked like a golden statue in the sunlight—his skin glowed bronze and his freckles popped like mini suns on round cheeks. It made Killua want to…

No. Focus, Killua. You have a mission.

Killua sucked in a shaking breath. “You said then that you loved me.”

Gon stopped stroking Killua’s hand. He focused on Killua’s face, a frown ghosting across his lips. “I did. I do. Why, are you doubting me?”

“Wha—no!” Warmth prickled across Killua’s cheeks, a heat that had nothing to do with the summer sun. “Of course not! How could I, after everything that happened?”

“Oh. Okay, then.” Gon relaxed and went back to stroking Killua’s skin.

Killua shook his head. Gon was a little too intense for him, sometimes.

“Why’d you bring that up?” Gon asked. He was looking down at their hands, a small smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. “I thought we were trying to move past that whole ordeal. ‘Start over’ and all that.”

“We are. I just wanted to tell you that…” Killua steeled himself and squeezed down on Gon’s hands. Maybe if he squeezed hard enough, the butterflies in his gut would fly over to Gon instead.

He said timidly, “I wanted to tell you that I—that I love you. I’m in love you, too, I mean. Um.”

He stopped. Gon was staring at him, eyes blown wide as the setting sun. It made Killua feel even more self-conscious than he already felt, the butterflies in his gut swarming and battering against his chest like they were trying to escape.

“You...You love me?” Gon asked. His question was barely louder than a whisper. “You’re in love with me, Killua?”

Killua forced himself not to look away from Gon’s slowly darkening face. He had never been the best with sharing his emotions, and he doubted he ever would. But he was so sure of this, confident for his feelings in a way he’d never been sure about anything, except maybe loving Alluka and hating his family.

And Gon had always been so open with Killua, from the very start. He never lied, never put Killua in any danger more than necessary. And he trusted Killua, just as Killua now trusted Gon.

“I do,” Killua said and his voice shook. Gon breathed in deep, his whole chest swelling. “I’m, uh, sorry it took me so long to—to—you know—mph!”

The rest of Killua’s stumbling apology was quieted by Gon’s mouth being shoved against his. Gon’s hands cupped Killua’s jaw, fingers digging into Killua’s burning cheeks as the ex-Hunter kissed him enthusiastically. Killua closed his eyes and returned Gon’s kiss, tasting cinnamon and smelling pine and feeling that all-consuming and ever present warmth Gon constantly exuded.

He didn’t think he would ever get tired of this. When Gon kissed him, the butterflies in his chest fell away and the rest of the world with it. All that mattered was Gon and his love for Killua. It was a love Killua knew he could count on, to face today’s problems and tomorrow’s and everything that came after.

Killua hadn’t expected to find this when he found Gon. But now that he had, he couldn’t imagine living without it.

Gon pulled back and Killua’s eyes fluttered open. Gon’s pupils were blown wide, leaving only a rim of gold around the edge. Something hot coiled in Killua’s gut at the sight.

“I love you too, you know,” Gon whispered, lips split in a gleeful grin.

Killua rolled his eyes. Now that Gon had stopped kissing him, Killua could feel the burn of his blush in full force. “You told me that, already.”

“I know! But now that you love me, I can say it whenever I want!”

“I doubt you would have stopped telling me that, even if I didn’t confess to you. You called that stupid meal at the diner a date.”

Gon laughed. “You’re probably right,” he agreed and stroked Killua’s cheeks with his thumbs. “But I already knew, then.”

Killua’s heart swooped and soared, and he finally didn’t have to wonder what the feeling was. He whispered, “Knew what?”

Gon grinned, showing off a brilliant smile that Killua adored so much. “I knew that you were special. And I couldn’t be more grateful you sat next to me on the train that day. You saved me, Killua.”

Killua squeezed Gon’s wrists. “I think you saved us. If you hadn’t come, we still would have en hiding from my family. Alluka and I wouldn’t have been free to travel the world.”

Gon smirked. “Let’s agree to disagree.”

“Stop being so damn stubborn—”

They’d saved each other, in many ways. And now that they were together, they would save each other countless times more.

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