#yes the idea would be to fix them but we all have our own definitions about what that means

[sorryimananti-romantic]

Cyberpunk

housewifekeeper droid!jongho x programmer!reader

futuristic/apocalyptic droid au

genres and warnings: fluff, angst, established relationship, a bit tragic but no tears i hope :) yunho, woo and san cameos, violence warnings, hostage situation, near-death experiences, etc.

word count: 23.7k

synopsis: when you find jongho assigned to be a droid you need to 'fix', it takes everything in your power to pretend that you don't know him, that he isn't the boyfriend you left behind to keep safe. with no idea where you are and being under constant surveillance while trying to find a way to turn jongho back to human, you manage to run away with him only to learn a shocking and sinister truth that makes you regret ever being part of the eden droid project. you must put an end to your mistakes once and for all, and it may cost you a lot.

manager-nim: @eightmakesonebraincell (we call it cryberpunk bc it became the bane of our existence)

“You really think I’m incapable of taking care of myself?” you asked, making a face as you grabbed your bag and slung it over your shoulder. “I’ve been doing just fine so far, Sir.”

“You’ve lost a lot of weight ever since we woke up, so yes, you definitely haven’t been eating well. You can’t keep surviving on instant noodles,” your supervisor, Mr. Han said. “Besides, this is a good chance to test if the droids we’ve programmed can actually perform household tasks.”

“I did not programme droids to make food for us,” you muttered under your breath but you supposed that was the least of your worries right now. “I’m pretty sure you need a housekeeper more than me. A housewife, perhaps. You must miss your wife.”

Mr. Han only smiled in response and you felt annoyed by that. It was as if an unspoken rule had been passed- that no one could talk about their life before they ‘woke up’. You reckoned everyone was just keeping silent until one of them would complain out loud. It hadn’t been that long since that little episode so you figured no one was that desperate right now. 

“It’s the Team Leader’s orders. Nothing I can do about it. Maybe I’ll get a droid next to drive me around- if they’ll allow it. It would be nice to have a look around this empty town and see if we’re the only ones awake while the rest of the world is asleep.”

“I don’t like this,” you pursed your lips, scratching your wrists. Something about all of this was making you anxious. “Just between you and me, are they really sus-”

Mr. Han shushed you with a finger on his lips, his eyes flickering in the direction of the CCTV in the corner of your office. “They’re testing out your droids, miss. You know what they say- a perfect droid should be as good in battle as it is in the kitchen.”

“Wasn’t that supposed to be a joke?” You muttered, deciding to leave it there. “It feels like a big joke. It’s like my droids are being insulted by being placed in the kitchen.”

“You thank the deities there isn’t a war right now,” Mr. Han almost whispered. “When everyone wakes up… there might be. And if there is a war in the future when every nation will possess their own set of droids, when you have to run for your life and are injured… who do you think will take care of you? Not a human, I’ll bet.”

Those words stuck with you during your ride back home. They kept looming over your head while you took a shower and changed into a comfortable set of light blue pyjamas. With a towel hat, you sauntered into the kitchen to make yourself coffee, looking in the fridge for something to snack on and finding nothing.

Perhaps you really did need a housekeeper. A droid- one that wouldn’t complain and would do as told.

And as the doorbell rang after a few minutes, you took your words back when you opened the door to a familiar face. The anxious feeling in your gut finally settled in resignation.

This was what you had been dreading. 

A million thoughts processed in your head in a matter of seconds- maybe you could give the droids a run for your quick decision-making. Because you needed to make a big decision, right now. 

It had to be some sick, twisted joke that Dr. Jin, Head of the Eden Droid Project, was playing with you. There was no way that this wasn’t intentional. Of all the 7 billion people in this world, they chose the one person you had been wishing would never appear in front of you- at least not until you were done wrapping up what you had begun.

Choi Jongho. Your best friend, the person you loved and had to leave for good.

The one person you had done everything in your power to hide from these people, from everyone. Hell, you didn’t even dare think of him ever since everything went downhill lest someone spy on your own thoughts. 

And now he was here, and worse, a droid. A lab rat. His left pupil flickered blue to confirm that.

“I’m CJ, the droid assigned to take care of your personal needs.”

“CJ,” his codename rolled like a foreign language on your tongue, your voice coming out as almost a whimper but you cleared your throat. “CJ. The housewife, eh?”

The droid appeared confused and you, for the first time, loathed programming the droid’s facial expressions to sync with the human emotions. “I’m not quite sure…”

“The assistant,” you let out a short laugh. “I presume you have your identification files and code?”

Jongho said your team’s code out loud before handing you the files and you quickly looked over them. Assigned by your own team- how fucking convenient. You nodded and handed the files back, peeking behind him- looked like he had his personal belongings. “Please, enter and make yourself at home… I guess?”

“There’s another document you need to look at before I enter,” Jongho said almost mechanically, digging out a letter from the inside pocket of his jacket and your brows rose in surprise when you saw that it was from Dr. Jin himself. Begrudgingly, you unsealed the letter and read the contents, the smile falling from your face when you were done.

“Alright,” you breathed. “I see how it is. You can enter now… CJ-”

You caught Jongho staring at you almost like he was fully human. Fear gripped your heart in that moment and when he only bowed in response, you stifled the sigh of relief. He stepped inside your apartment, looking around. He was probably scanning every nook and cranny for potential threats. When he was satisfied, he turned to you.

“Is there anything you would like me to do?”

“Tonight… nothing,” you nodded slowly as you thought. “I’ll show you your room and you can uh… rest? You should wake up at 7 tomorrow and prepare a light breakfast for the both of us before accompanying me to the office. That should be your first task.”

“Understood,” he said and you showed him the spare room and he assured you he had his basic personal necessities. You went to your room, the coffee long forgotten at the kitchen counter and you shut the door. 

Make no mistakes.

You turned off the lights and went under the blankets, covering your face like you usually did- and that’s when you let out a shaky exhale and let your emotions take the better of you.

There could only be two reasons why Jongho was here as the droid assigned to you. The first one was pure coincidence- maybe he was just one of the other humans randomly selected by your team. Maybe this was all just bad luck. Maybe this was a slap on your face from the force above, since you dared to play god yourself. 

But another possibility… the one that made more sense, was that they knew. They knew Jongho was someone important from your ‘previous’ life. From before you entered Phase I of the Eden Droid Project- . They must have known and were using that to their advantage, but either way…

Either way, Jongho wasn’t sent to assist you and play housewife. That was all bullshit. He had one purpose, and that was to have you under surveillance. That probably meant that the New Government was aware that you weren’t as loyal as you appeared to be. Perhaps, this was a test of your loyalty, and they were going to confirm it with the task that was detailed in that letter.

Fix CJ.

Two words, yet you understood the message. You were to live with the droid for a certain period of time and fix the only glitch your droids had- that they were too human. All the while, you would definitely be under surveillance by him. Perhaps, the Team Leader thought that giving you the space you needed with your own personal test subject was what you needed to finish debugging the droid. Perhaps, they knew you had been delaying fixing the droids on purpose. Whatever it was, you had no choice now. 

You would have to fix Jongho or else you would be exterminated along with him.

—---------------------

It was almost unsettling waking up to the smell of eggs, butter and bread. For the few seconds that you lay in the bed, you almost thought you were back in your parent’s home and your mom’s voice would call you for breakfast or your sister Cookie would tickle you until you yell at her, but the bed was too soft and the blanket did not smell like the sun. The alarm rang only a few seconds later and on cue, two solid knocks sounded at the door.

“Miss Jeon? Breakfast is ready.”

God, you thought. This was going to be difficult.

You said you’d be out in 10 minutes and forced yourself to walk to the bathroom like every other day. Somehow, your steps felt heavier than the first day you woke up here. The feelings of disorientation and panic then were nothing compared to the anxiety that dissolved in your bones the moment you heard Jongho’s voice.

Whatever you did, you could not slip. You would have to keep on pretending that Jongho was just a stranger, a droid to you. Just a bug that needed fixing, you told yourself as you exited the room and walked towards the kitchen-

“I told you, the pan needs to be tapped in the middle of baking so the top of the brownies crinkle!” Jongho said as he took out the said pan, now with fully baked fudge brownies with a perfect crinkly top and you gasped at how good it looked. “Would you believe me if I say this really is my first try?”

“Looks too good to be a first try,” you admitted. “I’ll give my verdict after I taste these. Who knows? Might find an eggshell in there.”

“Hey, what do you take me for?!” Jongho looked offended and you grinned. He shook his head as he cut a piece for you and put it on your plate. You spotted a faint smile on his face and you dug your fork in the brownie, about to take that bite when he tsk-ed and held your wrist.

“You’ll burn your mouth,” he took the fork from your hand and you pouted. You watched him wait a few seconds, blow on that little bite before feeding it to you himself. Your eyes went wide as soon as you realised how rich the brownies tasted.

“Oh, my god,” you breathed. “Jongho. You’ve just won my entire heart all over again.”

Jongho burst into laughter, looking down and you leaned across the counter to cup his face and make him look at you. “You look at me when you laugh like that, okay?”

“Stop it,” he wriggled away from you, a flustered mess. “Let me taste them.”

“Here,” you took your fork and blew on the new bite before handing it to him. He nodded in satisfaction. “Normally, I wouldn’t contribute to anything that would give you an ego-boost, but this one deserves it. Cookie won’t believe it when she hears about this.”

Jongho smiled once again, continuing to cut the rest of the brownies for later. “What did you mean when you said… that I won your heart again?”

You stifled your smile. “You want to hear it?”

Jongho looked expectantly at you in response. You scanned his figure- his hair messily swept back, flour on his cheeks, rolled sleeves baring his strong arms, and to top it all, your apron on him. Your smile grew wider.

“I fell in love with you all over again.”

“Miss Jeon?” Jongho called, frowning at the way you stood in the middle of the living room, your eyes stuck on the apron that wasn’t yours on the person who wasn’t yours. He wasn’t even the same person anymore.

“Sorry,” you gulped, shaking your head. “Needed a moment to process uh… what I’m seeing right now.”

Jongho didn’t respond and that finally made you move and sit at the table where he set down a mug of coffee. He would have retorted if things were normal and you smiled sadly to yourself at the thought. You heard the clink of the mug and when you saw Jongho pick up his own tray of breakfast and move, you cleared your throat.

“Where do you think you’re going?” 

“To eat my breakfast and give you privacy while you eat yours?”

This was the time to make things clear- better yet if you were being watched. You put one leg over the other before you said, “Look, I assume you know what you’re here for, CJ. Who are you?”

“A droid that needs a little fixing.”

“And how would I figure out what needs to be fixed if I don’t watch your every move?” You cocked your head. “Does that make you feel unsettled?”

“I do not feel, for I am a droid,” Jongho responded mechanically and you shook your head, urging him to join you. You detected reluctance in his movements and your heart sank a little.

“That’s the thing with you droids,” you almost whispered as if letting him in on a secret. “You forget that you are humans programmed to be droids. Until you possess human nature, you cannot be fixed… that’s what I believe. The superiors think otherwise. What do you think… droid?”

“I…” Jongho frowned again. “I’m just following orders.”

“I know,” you told him and he relaxed a bit. “We’ll need to interact and talk more for me to figure out what exactly needs to be fixed, okay?”

“Okay,” he said. You took a bite of the bread and he mirrored your actions. You ate the rest of your breakfast in silence, finishing together. 

“I will examine your code when we go to the office,” you told Jongho. “You will need to guide me a little. I may have created the blueprint for you droids but I haven’t programmed every single one of you.”

“You can access my code only at the office, by the way,” Jongho said and you set your cup down, almost clenching your jaw as you looked at him. “I’ve been programmed to reveal my code files only in the office.”

“Have you now?” You scoffed internally. “Well, I’ve been programmed to be a lazy bum who works best in the comfort of her home and I’m human, so let’s see how we deal with this… predicament.”

Jongho almost looked curiously at you. You checked the time and told him to meet you outside in 10 minutes. Just before he took your car keys from you and opened the door, you sighed.

“Do you know how to make brownies, CJ?”

—--------------------------

“Don’t you think it’s ironic?” You said, sparing a glance at your supervisor who was examining the code on the shared screen right across from you. “We’re trying to find an error in a human. Being human is the error. How do we override the nature of who the droid really is- completely and irrevocably?”

Mr. Han had heard that quite a lot, and not just from you. Every programmer and developer in this project had asked him this question at least once, and he often found himself wondering the same too. “I’m highlighting this line of code, see what you can do about it.”

You looked back at your screen and clicked your tongue. “Not this one. That’s Dr. Seo.”

“Oh, then I won’t tweak it,” he said, scrolling further. You glanced at Jongho who lay on his front on a stretcher with a cord attached to his back to access the chip and its data inside. He was unconscious which you thought was convenient but every time he came back to consciousness, you were afraid he was going to recognise you, make a mistake and destroy everything you had worked for so far.

How could you tell Jongho to pretend he didn’t know you without telling him?

“You look spent. Shall we call it a day?” Mr. Han caught you staring at the droid’s body.

“Please, yes,” you stretched dramatically, producing cracks and he chuckled at that. “The amount of times I have zoned out today… I think I need a chip inside me that would override my mental stamina at least.”

“Says you,” Mr. Han scoffed. “The child prodigy. The kid that built the foundation of this project.”

Oh, how you regretted that. “Please, you flatter me way too much. I was only one coder with a few hundred others.”

“But you were the youngest and your work is our blueprint. I have every right to flatter you,” he said, his conclusion leaving a sour taste in your mouth. “Dinner at the cafeteria?”

“Why would I? I have my own personal chef now,” you grinned.

“I thought you were against droids doing housework or something.”

“Yeah, well,” you finished shutting down the programme and unplugged Jongho. “This one is quite good at it.”

Jongho was, and it was making you realise a few things- muscle memory. Something you nor any coder so far had considered to be a factor worthy of attention. You noticed that when he made the brownies for you a few days ago and exactly at half-time, he opened the oven to tap the pan against the counter once. 

It took everything in your power to not react to that. To not let your emotions take the better of you and maintain your composure. However, you did ask him if he had accessed some recipes recently before making the brownies and when he denied, you knew then. You knew that this was not only from memory but muscle memory.  

Could this be the reason droids were not perfect? That their muscle memory was ingrained in them to the extent that no programme, no code so far had overridden it? 

Whatever it was, you knew you had to keep this observation to yourself.

As Jongho started to regain consciousness, you maintained a certain distance between you two, glancing around- most of your colleagues had signed off for the day. There were only a few at the far end of the room and then there was Mr. Han who was just leaving for the cafeteria. You locked eyes with the droid and found your hands getting clammy when he started blinking rapidly, trying to adjust his eyes to the light. As soon as he looked at you, you started tapping on the desk lightly, waiting for something while praying for the opposite.

Waiting for him to look at what your fingers were tapping and praying that he wouldn’t recognise it, even if you were doing this to rock his human memory.

However, your prayers were actually answered this time and Jongho straightened as the confusion in his eyes disappeared. “CJ of Team 8.”

“That’s right, welcome back,” you sighed, tossing him his t-shirt and he wore it. It irked you a lot, how the droid was not reacting to having woken up from unconsciousness without clothes on his upper body. Jongho would have been a flustered mess.

This was not Jongho. He looked as different as he felt different.

“We’re done for the day,” you told him when he got up. “Are you feeling okay? Any haziness? Something off?”

“Perfectly fine, Miss,” he confirmed and you nodded. 

“Let’s go, then,” you said. 

Over the past few days, you had made no progress whatsoever with the droid assigned to you. You weren’t sure if people were expecting quick results from you- Mr. Han was monitoring each and every move you made in the office as if you weren’t already being surveilled by the droid itself. You were half certain that Mr. Han was also ordered to keep an eye on you but you’ve always had doubts about that man. His ‘fatherly’ nature was a little too overbearing and demanding at times.

You had no idea how long you were going to keep working on Jongho until he would be deemed ‘unfit’ like the other droids you had failed to save. Failed to fix, actually, but resultantly, they lost their lives. You could not do that to Jongho- perhaps, fixing him as a droid was the only way you could save him, but…

How could you do that to him?

How could you do that to him, you wondered as he set the table and settled down on the chair in front of you, saying his usual ‘enjoy your meal’ before digging in himself. You almost expected him to put a piece of meat in your bowl like he used to do before everything went wrong. You almost expected him to ask you what was wrong when you would zone out just like you were now-

“You’re not eating,” the droid said.

A simple statement, void of emotion, but…

Muscle memory.

Could this be what could really change everything?

“I… I’m just tired,” you said. The truth, but you wished you could tell him what exactly was going on. You put a spoonful in your mouth anyway. 

“You worked overtime today,” Jongho said and you nodded. This droid had a knack for sounding way too human, or maybe you were over analysing everything because it was someone you were familiar with. “Would you like me to make you some tea after dinner?”

“No, thanks. I’ll make my own tea,” you scoffed to yourself. If his muscle memory was really still intact, he would get your tea just right and you were not prepared for that. “Isn’t it ironic, though?”

“What is ironic?”

“Humans have made so many machines for the sole purpose of serving them,” you ate another spoon as you watched Jongho, noticing that he needed a haircut now. “All these machines, and yet they would prefer a human to work in the kitchen.”

“A droid is not a human.”

“A droid is a human,” you corrected, locking eyes with him in challenge. “A machine is something like… that coffee-maker. That microwave,” you pointed. “Something like that, yeah? As long as you have a functioning heart, you are human.”

“Whatever you say, Miss,” Jongho said almost dismissively and you rolled your eyes at his automatic response. 

“I wonder if humans need someone to work in the kitchen for them- for a specific taste that only humans can construct or to keep company or for whatever reason… why would they not send these heartless machines to fight for them? Why would they send humans?”

“A machine can only make so many decisions,” the droid said.

“Yeah, well, they want me to fully turn you into a machine,” you scoffed loudly. Damned be the consequences- if they were watching you, they should pay heed to your words. “What’s the point of you being a human-turned-droid then? We could have built a human shaped machine designed for war from scratch. We could install whatever thinking ability it needs.”

“But it would not think or make decisions like a human does.”

“Well, are you human right now, then?” You wondered and that finally got the droid to shut up. “Because you sure sound like one right now despite insisting that you are a droid.”

“Can’t a droid be both?” Jongho frowned and your eyes twitched in response- you couldn’t believe what you were hearing. You searched his face for any signs of recognition but found none.

“I guess that’s why it has to be a human that gets turned into a machine,” you concluded. “A machine wouldn’t have asked me that question.”

Jongho didn’t react to that. He simply finished his meal and waited for you to finish before he cleared the table. You made yourself that cup of tea and looked over your code from today, wondering how you were going to proceed from here. If you were really being watched right now, you somehow needed to let Jongho know that he should not react when he recognises you. How were you going to pull that? 

It was near impossible. And with that thought, you went to your room to prepare for the worst.

You were trapped in a town that wasn’t yours. Just like everyone else here, you had magically woken up in your new house, in your new room and had simply been instructed to follow the orders if you wanted to live- no further explanation. What you had gathered so far though was this whole thing had been planned since decades. The New Government- the group of people from all over the world who were the masterminds behind the Eden Droid Project aimed to create an army of droids and then distribute them among the powerful nations so they could have the ultimate leverage over the less powerful nations and make them submit to them. 

It was evil, it was twisted, and when you first began programming for robots instead of droids that were actually humans, you never would have thought that this was what it was going to come to. You worked with your friends Yunho and Wooyoung- an inseparable trio. As soon as your team sensed something darker, you all decided to leave and you cut ties with your family and friends, moving away without any explanation to attempt to make things right again. Your sister was the only one who had an inkling of what was going on and she had kept your parents calm but Jongho…

He didn’t deserve what you did to him, and now he was here. You were probably going to die by his hands. And maybe… maybe you deserved that.

You prayed your family was unconscious just like the common people who weren’t a part of this. Sometimes, you wondered if you had been fed a lie- sure, the world had progressed a lot but how could 99.9 percent of the world’s population be in a state of unconsciousness as they claimed? How was the world functioning? Machines could only handle so much especially if autorun, and droids couldn’t replace humans even if the world had progressed a lot in the past few decades. You were sure you had been brought to another piece of land and fed this lie so you would cooperate with them. 

Whatever it was, you had no choice but to obey. You were not allowed to question anything. And if you gave up on this project and they killed you, it wouldn’t make a difference because someone else would eventually figure out how to fix the droids. 

As you finished showering and sat down in front of the vanity, wrapped in your bathrobe to dry your hair, you wondered if this environment was created for the coders and programmers specifically so they could produce quick results. You felt like a lab rat and the fact that this might be true was making you nauseous. Just when you were about to settle down in bed, you heard the sound of a dull crash and you went to inspect- it looked like the sound came from the direction of Jongho’s room.

Sure enough, Jongho was picking himself up from the floor, brushing his clothes and when he looked at you, he flinched-

In pain.

You started tapping a single word on your thigh repeatedly, hoping he would understand it- just a simple ‘no’. No to whatever he was thinking, no to whatever he was about to do if he managed to get a few moments of clarity as a human. Jongho’s gaze fixed on your thigh and you asked him if everything was okay, continuing to tap that word.

“I heard a crash- did you trip or something? Are you having motor problems?”

“I…I don’t think so, I…” Jongho exhaled loudly, his fingers pinching the bridge of his nose as if that could rid him of the ache in his head. “Sorry for disturbing you.”

“Will you let me check if everything is good with you?”

“You can’t access my code here-”

“I actually can, I just haven’t been allowed to,” you told him. He must have known since he didn’t react much. Good, you thought. He was still CJ. “I’ll just have to override the security files… or we could head to the office. It’s going to take the same amount of time.”

“I think I’m fine,” he straightened. “You can check my code in the office in the morning, or right now- whatever you prefer, Miss.”

“Morning it is,” you shrugged, feeling defeated. “Goodnight-”

To your disbelief, Jongho was tapping something on his thigh as well. You did your best to appear nonchalant when he finished tapping a single command. 

“Goodnight, Miss,” he said in his usual flat tone before turning to go back to his room. You took a deep breath before going back to your room and sitting at the edge of the bed as you translated his message.

Help.

—------------------------

You were more suspicious of everyone around you including Jongho now- now more than ever, especially since you just came back to your office after presenting your monthly progress-

Which was little to none, if you had to admit. You did try talking in circles but it never worked in front of the panel.

“You’ve been here for 3 months now, Miss Jeon,” Dr. Seo closed your files detailing your progress and winced as if the lack of your progress physically hurt him. “I can’t tell if you’re being stubborn or if you no longer want to be a part of this. Because there’s no way you haven’t figured it out already.”

“I… I appreciate that you believe in me so much, I really do,” you met eyes with all of your seniors who had seen through every step of your journey especially in the beginning, when things were normal. “But I’m sorry to admit that I really don’t see a future with what we’re trying to achieve. You simply cannot turn a human into a droid and not expect some drawbacks- it’s humans we’re dealing with, not machines.”

“But it has worked brilliantly so far with your help and everyone else’s who has been a part of this team,” Dr. Jin, one of the masterminds behind the Eden Droid Project said. “And I’m sorry but I expected more from you.”

“Has anyone else figured it out yet?” You asked.

“It’s not that we’re comparing you,” his smirk was almost devilish as if he knew exactly what you were hiding. “It’s because we believe you’re the only one who will figure this out. What is the one thing keeping humans from becoming almost the perfect version of droids?”

“Their human nature,” you said.

“What part of it?” He shifted in his chair and you wiped your sweaty hands on your trousers. “Emotions? But you synced them. Is there a fault there, or is it something we haven’t even considered yet?”

You fell silent. They were definitely on to something. 

“Should we have a meeting with the other brilliant coders of this project?” Dr. Seo attempted to break the tension in the air. “Maybe what all our coders need is to interact with each other and exchange ideas.”

You suddenly felt hope- you did consider the possibility that Yunho and Wooyoung were also here, forced to work just like you. If you could just meet them, if you could just see them-

“You know why we haven’t allowed them to meet,” Dr. Jin reprimanded. “I can only allow healthy discussions within the designated teams. Miss Jeon, if you need some help, we will accommodate you as best as we can, but I will have to ask you to be quicker with this. We do not have much time and if we do not come up with a solution first, if another nation beats us to it, we will lose our advantage. Don’t you want to go back home and be with your family?”

And that was it. The last straw. 

You were aware that this was some sort of a race now. Whoever would figure out what was wrong with the droids would have the advantage- they could keep it from other nations. They could use that as a leverage because they would be the ones with an army of droids at their disposal. Droids that could make excellent spies, fighters, doctors, and whatnot. Droids that would be weapons for all the powerful and selfish leaders of this world, to use at their disposal when they terrorise the weaker nations into submission. Sure, this was nothing new- the world was always at war with each other but with droids in the question, it could go very wrong. 

And the fact that they were using your family to bait you? The fact that most of the people here had something to lose if they refused to cooperate? How could you undo all of this? Every day, you cursed yourself for ever being a part of this project, for ever giving them the idea that led to this day, yet beating yourself over it would achieve nothing. You had to take action, soon. You couldn’t let them know that you had the answer already. 

You had to wake Jongho up.

“Everything alright?” Mr. Han asked, having spotted you zoning out in the corner of the office next to the window, glancing at Jongho’s unconscious figure attached to the cords- you hadn’t paid much attention to him today. He approached you and opened a box, revealing an assortment of donuts. You smiled despite yourself, picking a glazed donut.

“I just came back from the monthly report presentation,” you told him and he hummed in understanding. “How did yours go?”

“They reminded me why we’re doing this,” he rolled his eyes and you scoffed. “As if I’ve forgotten.”

“Do you think we can figure it out before someone else does?” You asked casually and he looked at you for a few moments.

“It’s not that I have an insurmountable amount of belief in you,” he began and you relaxed. “You’re only human too, and it’s been tough to be away from what was normal, right?” You nodded and he continued. “But I really do think that you can do this. You just need some time. Should I ask them to allow you to work from home too?”

“I don’t think they will agree, but I appreciate it,” you smiled. “They’re doubtful for the right reasons too, after all.”

Mr. Han shrugged and gave you the box, asking you to share it with CJ when he woke up. “He must be having a hard time.”

“Don’t let the superiors hear that you’re empathising with a droid,” you whispered and he winked at you before he went to his station. You went to yours, hoping the office hours could quickly come to an end before you could unplug Jongho. But…

You needed to access all his code files. “Mr. Han?” 

“Yeah?”

“Do you think I could be granted access to all the code files of this droid? Even if it’s just a preview? I think I should check if some other code is interfering with my code files.”

“Should I make a call?”

“If you can?” You asked and he nodded. You went back to pretending you were actually working and Mr. Han told you that you would know your answer in the morning. 

You hoped they would agree, especially after today’s meeting. If they really thought that you’re the one who should debug the droids, maybe they needed to start trusting you more and stop hiding things.

And when you gain their trust and figure out how to save Jongho…

That’s when you would have to make a decision.

—-------------------------

You were not sure exactly what part of you sitting casually in the living room, watching TV with the smell of your favourite tea filling the room, a donut in your hand, rocked Jongho’s human memory but you watched him faint in front of your eyes and your jaw fell open in shock. You remained still as your own memory flashed in front of your eyes-

“Oh, what a sight,” Jongho shook his head as he entered his living room, finding you already having made home on his couch- a towel on your head and donut in your hand as you watched the TV while you waited for him to come back from the convenience store. Jongho put the groceries on the kitchen counter. “I found your teabags.”

“Oh my god, thank you so much,” you gave him a look of gratitude before turning your attention to the drama. “I would have gone myself but you know how tired I feel after showering- it’s like a sign that my day is over and I should just relax.”

“Yeah, and how convenient for you that your boyfriend is willing to do anything for you, huh?”

“Of course,” you muttered absently, eyes widening at the turn of events playing in the drama. Jongho turned on the kettle and sneaked behind you, planting a kiss on your cheek that caught you by surprise and you looked at him as a smile made its way on your lips. 

“What was that for?”

“For being cute?” He booped your nose before going back to the kitchen and pouring the hot water in the cup. You weren’t interested in the drama anymore- you turned your full attention to him. He hummed an unfamiliar song before bringing the cups to you. 

“Did you leave some donuts for me or are they already long gone?”

“Of course I did,” you pouted. “Kept your favourite ones.”

“Good,” he slung his arm around your shoulders and you snuggled into him, making him laugh when your towel bumped with his face. You spent the next few minutes wrestling him as he tried to get the towel out of the way while you argued that on one condition- that he dry your hair for you. Jongho pouted in response, nothing going his way and you pecked his lips to make amends, handing him his favourite donut and he could only smile in defeat. 

You poked the droid’s thigh with your bare feet- he really was unconscious. You sucked in an annoyed breath- how you wished there were no surveillance cameras in your living room. You moved Jongho’s limbs so he was in a more comfortable position and went back to what you were doing.

Sure, you couldn't do anything about this right now but you sure hoped that whoever was going to give you the pass for accessing Jongho’s code files in your home would see this moment and make his decision afterwards. For now, you finished your donut and tea and as soon as Jongho moved, you sat down on the floor next to him and began tapping on his thigh.

Don’t.

One single word, but perhaps Jongho’s mind was too hazy- his eyes widened in recognition and you subtly shook your head no but it wasn’t enough-

“What are you-”

“Ah, good thing you’re back,” you attempted to sound normal but perhaps your unusually high pitch betrayed you. “What do you think? I should be allowed to access your code files at home now, no?”

It wasn’t CJ- it was Jongho looking at you in confusion, and you were so glad your legs blocked the sight of Jongho linking his hand with yours and squeezing it in confusion, in desperation. You squeezed them back to assure him that you knew, that you could hear him even when he couldn’t speak. That you understood him even when he was not himself. 

“Do you recall what you felt right before fainting?” You asked.

“Uh… confusion. Haziness.”

“All normal- are you feeling alright now? We can call for permission to access your code if you think it’s necessary right now, CJ.” 

“I wouldn’t know,” he muttered and he shut his eyes as if in pain. You immediately unlinked your hands and when he opened his eyes, the blue lens in his left eye flickered-

CJ was back.

The droid immediately started getting up and you followed, straightening your clothes awkwardly. “Sorry for the inconvenience, Miss.”

“Oh, that’s alright. Would you like a donut?”

His brows furrowed in confusion and you went back to your seat, sliding the box towards him. When he opened it they were all half eaten- neatly cut in the middle.

“Sorry. I really had to taste all of the flavours. Kept a whole one for you, though. You might like it.”

You pointed at the chocolate-dipped donut and internally cursed yourself for asking him to join you for donuts. You had kept them to rock his memory but considering the events of today, you didn’t need to do that anyway. He stared at that donut for a long time before he finally picked it up to eat.

And you knew then- whatever happened tonight was enough. Whatever went through Jongho’s head tonight was enough- you didn’t have much time. You needed to save him before the human in him gets lost forever. With that thought, you went to your room.

To prepare for the battle ahead. One that might cost a lot of lives. One that was necessary to fight, to undo the damage you had done to this world.

—--------------------------

“Miss Jeon, I would advise you to drop your gun and talk it out,” Mr. Han’s fatherly tone almost made you put the gun you had been aiming at his direction down on the nearest surface and follow his orders- talk it out.

Except there was nothing to talk about anymore. Everything had gone so very wrong, so very quickly.

“And risk an arrest? Or worse? I’d rather not,” you attempted to scoff but it came out more like a whimper.

“Come on- what did you hear?” Mr. Han never moved the gun aimed for your head- good thing you were both stationed at opposite ends of the room. 

“Oh? Should I have heard something then?” You cocked your head. “What I saw was enough.”

What you saw was the file on his desk regarding the self-destruct code installed in the droids that were assigned to different coders- including Jongho. You weren’t sure if it was a careless mistake or if he left it out on purpose for you to see- maybe it was a mistake since you rarely ever went to his part of the office. But your suspicions were confirmed- they had indeed installed some self-destruct files in Jongho in case someone tried to meddle with his code. So with that anger- with that boiling, seething anger, when you went to find Mr. Han and confront him, you spotted him in the next building through the window talking to none other than Dr. Jin.

You couldn’t help but wonder how much of this was planned. Anger consumed you and within minutes, you were back in your office overriding Jongho’s code files and putting him to sleep and then hacking your building’s system to turn off the CCTVs- just like you had practised so many times in the past few days. They may have the best coders and programmers in this building and you probably had seconds, but…

They had forgotten that you were the pioneer of this damned project. You were what they were against, and you had to surprise them again, just like the first time you did when you were still a stupid teen who thought they did something smart. You attached a USB in the main PC with an auto-run file to keep the system glitching while you unplugged Jongho and hastily put his shirt back on his unconscious body. 

You had a couple of minutes at most- you went to Mr. Han’s desk and grabbed all the files you could and stuffed them in your briefcase, taking out the gun you had slipped past the detectors a few days ago during a system crash episode- pure luck. The gun had been in your car for a while but as soon as you saw the chance, you slipped it into your office, not knowing you’d need it this soon. You weren’t surprised to see that Mr. Han kept a gun of his own- you were simply disappointed.

The lights flickered on and off and you figured the technicians must be having a tough time figuring out exactly what was wrong. You could hear your shallow breaths as you shifted your grip on the gun, the sweat from your palms making it feel slippery. 

“If you think you know what’s happening here, you’re wrong, sweetheart,” Mr. Han shook his head. “I’ve been following orders just like you. I can’t believe you’re being this reckless when you too must have a family waiting for you. Someone they use as leverage against you.”

“Almost everyone is here against their will,” you corrected him. “You’re no different than the rest of them. So go ahead. Go ahead and shoot me, but if you do, you’ll lose everything and everyone you love. Eden cannot debug droids without me- I’m sure of it.”

“I never intended to shoot you,” he sighed, lowering his gun and you frowned. “If we’re not being watched right now… we don’t need to do this.”

“Aim your gun at me either way,” you told him and he obeyed. “Did you know that CJ was going to be assigned to me?”

“I knew a droid was going to be assigned to you, but not the specifics. Is there a problem with CJ?”

“A problem?” You scoffed. “Imagine you were in my shoes and it was your wife that was assigned to you as the droid you needed to fix. How would you feel?”

When Mr. Han paled visibly, you realised he may not have known CJ’s identity after all. “CJ… is he someone you know?”

“You don’t know?”

“I don’t know everything, y/n,” he pleaded. “I’m only following orders and supervising you- though you hardly need that.”

“He’s the person I tried to protect all these years,” you bit your lips as you looked at Jongho’s limp figure on the stretcher. “Can you imagine how I’ve been feeling all along? I have to turn him into a droid or else he’ll be killed.”

“I’m sorry, I really am, y/n,” Mr. Han lowered his gun. “Damned be the consequences. What do you plan to do?”

“I’m going to run away,” you told him, lowering your own gun. “With CJ. He won’t self-destruct for now, I’ve taken care of it.”

“They’ll find you,” Mr. Han said. “There’s no way you can be on the road and not be found. The car must have a tracking device.”

“I took care of that too- all it will take is a click. As for them spotting me… I think I know how to take care of that as well…”

“Of course you do,” Mr. Han laughed in disbelief. “Tell me… you know how to fix the droids, don’t you?”

When you didn’t respond, he nodded. “Tell you what- you can do whatever you want from here, but never, ever fix the droids, okay? You hear me?”

You passed a weak smile in response and he finally approached you, emptying his gun and handing you the extra bullets. “I won’t need them.”

“They’ll punish you for letting me go.”

“You can knock me out- I’ll play dumb for as long as I can,” he grinned. “Besides, I don’t think the cameras caught me entering the office.”

“Can you help me get Jongho in the car first?”

Which was how a few minutes later, you found yourself on the road, a jamming device fixed on the dashboard to make the surveillance cameras glitch whenever you would pass. You sped through the unfamiliar roads but you knew you would need to ditch your car soon- there was no way you could blend in when this was a black SUV with the office plate. You looked around the billboards and the street signs for any clue of your location but they were all blank or painted over. The only guide you had was the map in the car but that turned off as soon as you strayed away from your usual path.

You considered waking Jongho up and asking for help but there was no guarantee he wasn’t going to try something that would cost you both a lot. You decided to keep going forward and look for an abandoned building- it was getting dark and you needed to sort this mess out before you could proceed forward. Sure, you had prepared beforehand- you had everything you needed in the trunk of your car, discreetly putting necessities in the bag day after day since the beginning. From tools to clothes to food, you had everything.

Now you just needed to take care of Jongho- currently sprawled across the backseat, his hands fastened with a cable tie. You had no doubts he could still overpower you but for now, you had to make do with what you had. So when you spotted an empty area of the town with a few warehouses, you decided to take a chance and make home in one of them. You parked your car in the narrow space between two warehouses, deciding to hide it later with the empty tubs lined next to the walls. You searched the car for a physical tracking device and when you found it, you crushed it under your feet- you needed to take the jamming device inside with you so this was necessary. Then you turned off the infotainment system for good and finally sighed in relief.

You had done it- you finally ran away.

Just like you had run away from home two years ago.

You looked at Jongho from the front mirror and recalled the last day you had spent with him and your family- a memory you had kept in your heart as the days following got lonelier and regretful-

“Wonder what’s gotten into her,” your sister, Cookie, whispered to Jongho. “Did you propose to her? Is she showing off her housewife skills? Which are little to none, by the way…”

“Please,” Jongho scoffed. “I think she’s just collectively going to poison us all. She’s still sour about how we ditched her to go hiking last weekend, isn’t she?”

“Yeah, well that would make more sense,” Cookie said. “But it was her fault- I asked but she was too busy with her little codes to process what I said and told me to get out. That’s a no, right?”

“Definitely-”

“I can hear you both, you know,” you said, looking at the two. While at other times, you would have chucked something at them and ensued chaos, this time, you simply smiled at the sigh of your little sister and your boyfriend standing shoulder to shoulder as they watched you arrange everything you had cooked (or bought- they didn’t need to know that) on the trays. When you were finally pleased with the presentation, you asked them to help you take the trays out to the backyard where you were going to have a little party- all of you.

The two obeyed and marched outside singing another song that you didn’t know- Jongho and your sister got along way too well and were usually partnering against you. He probably adored her more than you but your sister was smart and knew she had to be on good terms with him so he could spoil her- and spoil he did. 

Your heart ached at the sight of the two and you prayed they would stay like this forever- happy. Even without you. You hoped they could fill your absence in the house and make your parents feel better.

Jongho’s parents cheered for you when you came out. “This is something your sister usually plans but we’re glad you’re not holed up in your room for once.”

“Thanks, uncle,” you laughed. “Just wanted a little breather.”

“You should have joined us last weekend!” His mom sighed in happiness. “The view was so good and the air so fresh. I think I feel younger ever since I came back.”

“I thought you felt older- you were complaining about your kneecaps- ow!” Jongho earned a smack on the back of his head from you and everyone laughed at that. Your mom patted the space next to her and you took the seat, urging her to try the sandwiches you made. The air filled with the sound of their laughs and you felt warm all over as you looked at each one of them, not saying much but committing this memory to your heart. 

You went to take a walk with Jongho later that night to share a beer and go to the park to sit on the swings and relax. Jongho asked you if everything was okay- he never missed anything.

“Perfectly fine,” you assured him. “I don’t think I’ll ever forget today.”

“Me neither,” he smiled and you clicked your cans before drinking. “You’re a bit different today, y/n. If something is bothering you… you can tell me, you know that, right?”

“I know. I trust you, Jongho,” you looked at him. “You know that you’re the one person I trust the most in this world, right?”

Jongho frowned at the sudden confession but nodded. You continued. “And you know that I love you, right?”

Jongho would have gotten flustered and teased you but tonight, he noticed the sadness in your voice. “What is up with you? What are you planning?”

“Nothing,” you laughed. “Just wanted to tell you this before the night is over.”

Jongho narrowed his eyes but when you didn’t give in, he sighed. 

“I don’t know what the matter is, but I hope you know that I trust you too. And I love you too. You’re not alone. You know that, right?”

“I know,” your smile was genuine. “I know.”

And the fact that you were not alone was what needed to change. In the middle of the night, you packed your necessities and left the note for your sister in her room by her bedside which said that you ran away to protect them and you would return soon, but no one could know. You told her to stay strong for you and help the rest cope. You apologised for the burden you gave her but she knew- she had seen you cry in your room for so many nights. She knew you had done something and the guilt was eating you up. She knew it was related to your job.

You prayed Jongho would remember the conversation you had with him and not blame himself.

Perhaps, he did blame himself. Perhaps he never gave up trying to find you, which was how they found him. Maybe running away wasn’t the best choice since they found Jongho anyway- your eyes welled up with tears at the thought of all the lost time, the years you could have spent with your family. Maybe you would never see them again now. With tears rolling down your cheeks and a blurry vision, you surveyed the area and deciding that it looked safe enough for now, you dragged Jongho inside and propped him on a bench, coughing due to the dust. You took off his shirt again and plugged him to your laptop- there were some things you needed to get done immediately- check if you were being tracked, check if Jongho’s trackers were all blocked now, see if there were any signals nearby- droids or not, and finally-

Find out your coordinates.

—-----------------------------

“We are not in the office.”

“Clearly,” you muttered, hugging yourself tighter with your folded arms as you looked at the droid seated in front of you, unbound this time. The droid scanned the new environment, his eyes lingering at the odd things in front of him- especially at the cord and your laptop, your bags and the packets of snacks sprawled on the table between you.

“This is unauthorised,” Jongho stated. 

“Yes,” you admitted. “What are you programmed to do in case you find yourself in a situation like this?”

“Find my way back. If I cannot, I will have to activate the self-destruct code.”

“Going to be quite an explosion, huh?” You sighed.

“It will be very dangerous for you, yes,” he looked down at his limbs. Was he surprised that he was untied for once? “Why are we here?”

“Are you programmed to find out the reason for your unauthorised absence before you make a decision?”

He wasn’t. You got that from the red flicker in his usually blue lens in the left eye. This was the humane curiosity in him questioning things a droid shouldn’t have cared about. You shifted in your position- you hadn’t really planned this conversation so you would have to tread carefully from here on.

“Jongho,” you locked eyes with him. “What is the next step that you are going to take?”

“I can’t access the server,” Jongho frowned. “My code has been altered.”

“You didn’t ask how I know your name,” you whispered. “Choi Jongho. Don’t you remember me?”

“I’m sorry, but I’m not sure what you’re talking about,” an unrelenting answer from a droid.

“Are you programmed to self-destruct if your identity is found out?” You asked. He shook his head no. “Interesting. That can only mean they sent you to me knowing we had history. Do you remember the last time you saw me?”

“In the office-”

“No, you, Choi Jongho. Not CJ. You,” you insisted and he finally frowned- it was working. “How did you feel to learn that I ran away?”

“I… don’t know.”

“You know,” you told him. “Your memories are just locked away. Deep inside, here,” you tapped your temple. “All you gotta do is dig in and think. Remember when you, CJ, saw me with the donuts? Did it rock a memory of yours?”

When he didn’t respond and continued to stare at you, his lens flickering, you leaned forward. “How did you know how I like my tea?”

That was another odd thing that took place a few days ago. No one could make your tea the way you liked it. Only Jongho knew, and only he could make it perfectly every time. Sometimes you wondered if you simply liked the drink he made because he was the one who made it. 

“I don’t know. I just made it how I learned to-”

“Learned from where?” You asked. “From me. We learned to make it together, Jongho. Two dips, let it sit, add exactly 1/4th spoon of honey and dip thrice. Don’t mix it, let it sit for exactly two minutes before you take the teabag out and mix the honey. How did you know? It’s your muscle memory, Jongho. It’s what makes you human.”

Jongho’s eyes widened just a fraction and you relaxed. You had him now. “We’ve been so close to home all this time, Jongho. I found out where we are- only a few hundred miles away from home, an abandoned town. I thought we were someplace else entirely. I thought only we were the ones awake and the rest of the world was asleep- surely they would have searched for you if not for me, right?” 

He shook his head as if in disbelief of what he was hearing. You sighed. “How did they find you, Jongho? Did they find you… or did you find them?”

“Y/n.”

Even though your name was called in warning, your lips parted in surprise because this wasn’t CJ- this was Jongho who called your name. And goodness, how long had it been since the last time you heard your name roll from his lips? How long had you waited for this moment?

You shifted to get up but he raised a hand in the air, muttering ‘don’t’ and you sat right back down. His eyes twitched in pain and he groaned deeply. “You need to get out of here- leave me here and run.”

“Jongho-”

“You haven’t deactivated any trackers- they know you’re here, they meant for this to happen-”

“What are you talking about?” You whispered, blood rushing to your head and making your vision darken for a moment. 

“They even know what we’re talking about right now,” Jongho cried out and you put a hand on your mouth in sheer horror, sweat taking root in every pore of your body. 

Muscle memory, Jongho. It’s what makes you human.

Oh, how absolutely foolish you had been. Jongho got up and whispered, “They’re near.”

You mirrored his actions but almost fell on the floor due to the dizziness- everything was too much. This is not happening. Nothing made sense anymore- you had deactivated every tracker- how could they have found you-

There was a tracker on you.

How could you have been so incredibly stupid?

Jongho reached you in a hurry, the lens no longer a blue or red but simply transparent, revealing his brown orbs as he grabbed you by the arms and shook you a little. “Come to your senses, y/n. You have to get out of here- I don’t know what they’ll do with us. I’ll stay back and distract them-”

“No,” you cried, feeling nauseous all of a sudden. “I’ve run away once. I won’t run away again.”

“This is not running away,” he smiled a little as if it finally dawned on him that he was here so close to you, he was human and he had you in his arms. His hands were steady as they found your face, tucking your hair behind so lovingly, eyes travelling on every inch of your face.

“Don’t you look at me like it’s the last time,” you whispered. “Don’t you dare leave me, Jongho.”

But perhaps, it wasn’t meant to be. Not this time. You heard the unmistakable sound of vehicles- not one but too many vehicles circling the warehouse. Jongho sighed in defeat yet from the look in his eyes and the smile on his lips, it seemed like he wouldn’t want to be anywhere but here. He cupped your face and leaned in, locking his lips with yours and the tears that had been threatening to spill finally found a reason to. He kissed you surely and soundly, breaking apart to wrap his arms around you, his fingers on your back tapping rhythmically-

Morse code.

“What-”

“Shh,” he urged, tapping again. “Everything will be okay. Don’t forget this moment, alright?”

You nodded and buried your face in his chest- your safe space. “Have you forgiven me for running away?” You asked as the sound of the door being slammed open echoed in the warehouse- so loud yet the sound of his dull heartbeat was louder.

“Oh, we will talk about that. One day,” he assured you. “But for now… I love you, y/n. I hope you remember that.”

“I hope you remember that I love you,” you countered, breaking away just to get a good look at his face, at his messy curls falling on his forehead, at the absolute adoration in his eyes replaced by devastation when the soldiers who came barging in pulled you from him harshly and the last thing you saw was him screaming your name before you felt something slam against your head and the roaring in your ears finally came to a silence. You welcomed the darkness this time.

—-------------------------

“Y/n! Will you please wake up? I need to go to the convenience store and I need some company!”

“Go alone, Cookie” you groaned, “Let me sleep some more.”

“I’ll treat you to fried chicken.”

Now that was something worth opening an eye to take a good look at your little sister. Was she bribing you? Clearly. Was it working?

“Give me 15 minutes,” you said, getting up with a groan and she grinned. “I need to get ready.”

“It’s almost evening so take a jacket, you’ve been out cold for far too long. Thought I’d let you know the day has ended!” Cookie called as she left your room. 

Perhaps, getting up immediately was a mistake- it seemed like all the blood rushed down from your head and you fell back on your bed unceremoniously. You groaned in pain- why were you having the worst headache of your life?

When you felt stable enough to move, you made your way to the toilet and washed your face, noticing a fading bruise on your left temple. Now how did you get that? You reached for your toothbrush-

It was not there. Odd. You did not remember throwing it away- if you did, where was the replacement? Groggily, you made your way back to your room to check the cupboard where you kept your supplies and found no signs of a toothbrush.

“Cookie, what prank are you playing with me now?”

“What do you mean?” She called from her room.

“Where did you hide my toothbrush?”

“Why would I hide your toothbrush?”

“To prank me?” You yelled in frustration. “I won’t go to the store with you if you keep this up.”

You heard the angry pads of her footsteps. “Look, that prank was one time. You were so mad I wouldn’t try it again.”

You narrowed your eyes in suspicion. “The smirk on your lips says otherwise.”

“That’s just me finding this funny,” she flipped her hair dramatically as she went back to her room and you sighed deeply, the voice of your mom calling your names in warning stirring something deep inside you.

I will not cry over a missing toothbrush, you told yourself and got ready, wearing a denim jacket over a casual outfit. You went into the living room to drink some water and when you turned-

You almost dropped your glass.

“Can you pour me a little too?” Your mom asked and you found your mouth going dry, nodding subconsciously as you reached for another glass. You watched her drink- why did it look like she had aged a whole lot since you last saw her? Didn’t you just see her last night? Didn’t you spot the grey in her hair, the wrinkles around her eyes ever before?

Or maybe you always saw her but never cared to look. Your mom made a face at you, making you laugh a little as you broke out of your trance. “What’s up?”

“Nothing,” you shook your head. “I was just counting your grey hairs.”

“Y/n,” she laughed loudly. “I think this is my sign to book a salon appointment.”

“Yes, mother!” Cookie came in, squeezing her shoulders. “You should get your grey strands dyed a fun colour- like pink.”

“Oh, come on, what will your dad think?”

“I think he’ll like it,” she winked. “We’re going out- be back before curfew!” Cookie grabbed your hand and dragged you out before your mom could say her usual chant- stay safe, don’t do stupid things, don’t fight, and so on. It seemed like forever since you had heard that and a part of you wished you had stayed to hear it.

Before you knew it, you were deep in a heated discussion about school being fun versus school being a bad memory. Of course, for Cookie, everything was fun. It was kind of endearing how she always saw the positive in everything and made sure to enjoy every moment. You, however, were the pessimistic of the two, though you preferred the term ‘realist’. School did have fun moments, yes, but you didn’t have a normal school experience at all- you were always working with the teachers and seniors who could code. While that was the beginning of your career, you didn’t get to interact with people much and they didn’t make an effort when you had some normal moments.

It was a relief then that Jongho was in your class and never made you feel alone, you wondered as you finished the argument with your sister and the food. She was paying the bill- a rare occurrence because ever since you started working at a very young age, you made sure to spoil her (a mistake- the brat learned that she could convince you to get her anything). Cookie turned to smirk in some sense of superiority she felt for having treated you and you let her have that moment, chuckling as you exited.

“Ah, the weather’s nice,” you looked up at the sky- it was too cloudy to see any stars. “I’m craving beer. When will you get old enough for beer?”

“Just a few more months, sis. We’ll see who’s the better drinker out of us.”

“Yeah, I might be bad, but you can’t beat Jong-”

“Oh, would you look at that,” Cookie pointed at a cafe at the end of the street. “I heard they’ve added cookies to their menu. Let’s get some to take home.”

You rolled your eyes. There was a reason you called her Cookie. Before you could protest, she was already speed-walking, her short hair flowing behind her and you struggled to catch up, looking at your surroundings. 

“Yo, wasn’t there a barbeque place here?”

Cookie paused to look at you. “That was like what- two? Three years ago? You should really leave the house more. Being cooped up in your room all day is doing something to your memory, I swear-”

“It’s not that,” you, for once, didn’t argue, telling her to get some for dad too while you decided to wait outside. 

Why did everything feel so… new? Tangible? You looked at your hand, moving it- were you dissociating? Was it that strange realisation that you were real? But it didn’t explain the ache in your heart since the moment you opened your eyes today. And you were glad Cookie was lost in her own thoughts on the short walk back home, giving you time to think. Just like always, you made a tray with cookies and milk and knocked on your parents’ room, entering when they gave the signal.

“Oh, dear,” your dad sighed in happiness. “Just what I wanted.”

“Long day?” You asked, grinning when they took the tray and placed it on the bed.

“Not really, but was just craving something sweet,” he smiled and you scanned his face- again, the sadness in his eyes was something unfamiliar to you.

“Well, enjoy your cookies. My Cookie is waiting for me outside.”

“Always attached at the hip,” your mom shook her head. “I don’t know how they do that when she’s home all day and the little one is rarely ever home.”

You scoffed when they continued that discussion, exiting the room to see Cookie smiling cheekily with the box of cookies open and one glass of milk-

“Cookie.”

“I don’t like milk!” She protested. “You drink milk. I only dip- why do I need a new glass?”

“I don’t like to dip cookies in the milk!” You argued, sitting across from her. “I don’t like the crumbs you leave!”

“Well, what am I supposed to do?” She pouted. “You won’t drink the leftover milk if I get my own glass?”

“Nope,” you shook your head sternly. “Want me to call Jongho over? He can share with you.”

“And who’s Jongho?” Cookie frowned.

“Oh, please,” you took a bite of the chocolatey goodness. “As if this prank is gonna work on me.”

“No, but seriously, who’s Jongho?” Cookie wriggled her brows. “New imaginary boyfriend?”

“Imaginary?”

“Yes, imaginary. How would you find a boyfriend when you’re home alone- oh, is Jongho a bot?”

You rolled your eyes so hard that you felt an ache. You unlocked your phone to dial his number but found no contact saved. Frowning, you typed his number- did you accidentally delete his contact info? 

“This number does not exist.”

“Strange,” you muttered. “Did Jongho change his number? Did you know about this and decided to prank me because of this?”

“Aren’t you the one pranking me right now?” Cookie actually paused to stare at you. “Who’s Jongho?”

“Choi Jongho? The neighbour kid? Your best friend? Your big brother? My boyfriend? Do I need to say more?” You laughed in disbelief. “Don’t push my buttons by taking it too far.”

“Y/n, are you… are you okay? We don’t know anyone named Jongho. And what do you mean the neighbour’s kid? They never had one- they moved two years ago, don’t you remember?”

Two years. You were hearing this number a lot today. You went to your room to grab a photo of Jongho and slam it on your sister’s face but the grid on your desk only had polaroids of you and your family- no signs of Jongho. Feeling the hair on your neck rise, you unlocked your phone again to find some photos but again, no signs of him. You started sprawling through your drawers, checking your laptops, the pockets of your clothes, your eyes a blurry mess and when you heard the small voice of your sister calling your name, you looked at her.

“Where did you hide the photos? Please tell me, I need to look at him-”

“Y/n, come to your senses,” she sank down on her knees in front of you. “Who are you talking about?”

You glared at her before snatching your hands and marching to her room- you examined the grid on her desk- again, no signs of Jongho. You went through the things on her desk, opening the drawers-

“What are you doing?” Cookie whimpered and you turned to see her crying as well. “What’s wrong? What’s wrong with you, tell me.”

This couldn’t be happening. “It’s Jongho, don’t you remember? The one who taught you how to ride a bike? The one who protected you when you were being picked on in elementary school?” Tears rolled down in succession on both your faces- one trying to pick all the pieces that were threatening to disappear and the other trying to make sense of them. “Jongho, the one you called big brother? The milk to your cookie? The jelly to your peanut butter? Don’t you remember?”

“I- I don’t,” Cookie cried harder, sinking to the floor and breathing as if something was consuming her from the inside. 

“My Jongho, Cookie,” you whispered, gripping her desk. “The love of my life. You had a whole document on your computer about all your plans for our wedding- you made that when you were ten,” you laughed and Cookie chuckled as well, crying harder. “How can you forget?”

“I don’t know!” Cookie’s voice was loud in denial. “I don’t know him!” 

“Don’t you remember when I made food for all of you and you teased us about marriage and how I was preparing to be a housewife?” You laughed at the memory, Cookie’s ‘you made food?!’ indicating she was somehow more surprised to hear that. “We had that little party in the garden, his family and ours, remember?”

“That was-” Cookie paused, frowning. “I remember a party in the garden but… there were our neighbours there, yes, but not someone named Jongho- that was two years ago, right?”

Two years.

“Why did we have that party? Why did you make food?” Cookie looked at you, partly horrified as the dreadful realisation made its way to your mind.

“I… we had that party because I was going to run away. I… I ran away- how am I here?” You looked at your hands and then at Cookie. “How am I here?”

“Uh… this is your home?”

Home. You hadn’t stepped inside your home in two years.

It all started coming back to you in a series of chronological events- from that party to you running away from home and living in a studio apartment that Jeong Yunho had arranged for you. The two of you working to undo everything about that damned project that you could-

That damned project.

Droids.

“Oh… oh goodness-” you rushed to the toilet as a wave of nausea overtook you and threw up, groaning as you clutched your hair- Cookie was quick enough to help take care of your hair while you threw up some more, sobbing along. Your sister was also wise enough to shut the door and let you sob a little before urging you to get up and wash your face, helping you clean up. Once you were done and you had downed a glass of water, Cookie took you to her room and made you wrap a blanket around yourself- necessary at this point since you were shivering.

“You need to start making sense now. What’s happening?” 

You looked at your little sister. You hadn't seen her in two whole years, and she had grown so much in that time. She was also an inch taller than you now, you had noticed while walking. “Do you remember what we did yesterday?”

“Of course,” Cookie folded her arms. “You were in your room all day-”

“And the day before?” You asked. “And the day before that?”

Cookie’s brows finally unfurrowed in realisation. “I… I don’t remember.”

“Do you remember the note I gave you two years ago?” You asked. “The one that told you I was running away?” 

When it looked like she was still lost, you sighed deeply, looking around. “If I gave you a note that told you that I was going to run away but you could tell no one that I’m running away for a reason… that I’ll be back and you have to take care of everyone… where would you hide it, knowing you have to pretend you know nothing as well?”

“I don’t know,” Cookie sighed in frustration. “Why don’t I remember?”

“You’ll get your answers,” you got up, running your fingers along her bookshelf. “Where would you hide something like a secret note? Think, Cookie. They couldn’t have searched that deep, they couldn’t have found that.”

Cookie got up, looking around, and almost mechanically, she went for her underwear drawer and despite everything, you laughed. Of course. No one would dare rummage through her private things- but it got better. She had it taped on the inside of a bra.

“I don’t wear this one, so,” Cookie admitted and you shook your head, watching her open the note and read it again and again. “Make it make sense.”

“Where do I start?”

“From the beginning. Tell me everything.”

—------------------------------

Seeing a familiar face after riding a train all day was what finally gave you some strength to believe that things would be alright, and what finally put a smile on your face as you walked to your mentor, partner-in-crime (quite literally) and old friend, Jeong Yunho. When he spread his arms with a sad smile on his face, you didn’t hesitate to hug him, muttering how sorry you were to learn that he went through something quite similar to what you did.

“I’m just glad you’re safe, little one,” he broke the hug to look at you. “Are we sure there’s no tracker on you?”

“None- they put one on here,” you turned your arm to tap your shoulder blade. “Almost like a needle, Yunho. I would have missed it.”

“What did you do with it? If it’s stationary, they would know-”

“I put it on my sister,” you grinned. “And told her to act like me until I’m back.”

“Hoho, look at you,” he scoffed in amusement. “Finally told her everything?”

“Had to,” you sighed. “And this was the one step that I did not want to take, but she suggested that she could hold the tracker for me,” you handed one of your bags to Yunho who opened his car trunk and tossed it inside. When you were seated on his passenger seat, you asked, “How’s your brother?”

“Oh, all good. He forbade me to come back to the office after he saw the state I was in- broken limbs and everything. I don’t know how I managed to run away. Only a few months later and when I tell him you need me? He lends me his car with a threat that I better bring it back unscratched.”

“Damn,” you whistled. “Better keep that promise.”

“What about you, y/n?” He asked. 

“Do you remember how they took me? That part is still a bit blurry.”

“I thought they tailed me and found your apartment, but turns out you were just unlucky and they spotted you when you were going to Wooyoung’s place. They tailed you- I tailed them- it was a mess. Wooyoung and I barely managed to escape and when we opened our eyes, we were tied to chairs.”

“You were tied? Alone? Is he okay?”

“Yeah,” he laughed. “They should have tied my legs better- I walked around with the chair tied to me until I found someone and they helped us.”

“I can’t believe I missed that sight,” you exhaled in disappointment and he shook his head. 

“You should have seen yourself. I thought they killed you or something. What happened after?”

“Well… I woke up in a new world, Yunho. All futuristic with savvy tech and whatnot. It didn’t look like home. I was alone in a luxurious apartment that wasn’t mine, with a set of instructions to follow. Once I got to the office, I learned that all of us who were present had something to do with the Eden Droid Project- or something to contribute. There were coders, engineers, doctors, literally everyone they could find. We couldn’t ask questions, we weren’t allowed to talk other than for work, and we were watched like hawks. We were made to believe that only we were the ones awake while the rest of the world was on pause. Honestly, if there weren’t people like us there, it would have been so much more difficult.”

“Was there someone you knew there?”

“Dr. Seo. Dr. Jin. The big brains behind the Eden Droid Project- you remember them, right?”

“By faces, yes,” he asked you to hand his water bottle and drank a few sips while he drove on the highway. “So… what next?”

“My team- we were all tasked to work together to fix the droids. The droids that I programmed and the codes that Dr. Jin took forcefully from me when we were his interns.”

“He should have waited until we had perfected them,” Yunho scoffed and you mirrored that. 

“So it’s all starting to feel normal, a month passes. I realise I need to somehow run away and expose what they’re doing, but I have literally no idea what my location is and there’s no one to trust. And to make things worse, they have this brilliant idea to assign Jongho to me. They turned him into a droid, Yunho.”

“Oh… crap,” Yunho glanced at you. “Is he okay?”

“I don’t know,” you pursed your lips. “They decided that I needed to monitor a droid closely and figure out what was interfering with his droid mechanisms. They knew who he was and what he meant to me. They must have had a good laugh seeing me pretend I didn’t know him.

“Anyways, he’s not functioning properly as a droid- seeing me triggers him into remembering whatever memories they’ve locked away inside his brain. I can see that he’s suffering, yet I can do nothing about it, even when he tells me to help. I trust the first person who acted like he cared- Mr. Han, my team’s supervisor. He does help me escape but…”

“But it’s all a part of their plan.”

“Bingo,” you sighed. “I run away with his help, take Jongho far away from all of this, block every tracker and finally get Jongho to feel human long enough to speak- and he tells me what this- all of this was a part of their plan. This was like a simulation for me- I was a player in their game and they waited until I won- or thought so. That’s when they got their answer to the question- what was making droids not act like humans?”

“What?”

“The link between their subconscious brain and muscle memory, Yunho. That’s been the key this whole time.”

“Oh. Oh!” Yunho almost stopped his car in excitement. “How did we miss that?”

“There’s a reason they got Jongho to be a player too,” you shook your head. “Did you find any signs of him?”

“Not yet, but I will continue my search tonight,” Yunho said. “Why did they let you go, though?”

“I don’t know,” you sank down in your seat, hugging yourself. “I woke up back in my house and they made it look like I had been there all this time. But… strangely, only I remembered Jongho. They locked away everyone’s memories, wiped any physical signs of him- whatever they could find. Cookie forgot who Jongho was too- she still doesn’t remember but she believes me thanks to the note I gave her before I ran away two years ago.”

“If they knew where you lived during that span of two years, they would have made it look like you were there all along. That might have been more believable for you, and could have worked- but maybe not. Wooyoung and I would have found you anyway.”

“Does he still blame me for what happened two years ago?”

You, Wooyoung and Yunho were teammates in the initial days of the Eden Droid Project. You were their supervisor and leading the project, and Wooyoung always had qualms about what you all did- rightfully so. When everything went wrong, you had an argument and a falling out with him. Yunho tried for a long time to get you two to talk to each other but without success so he let you two be. You and Wooyoung did often share your files as you all were working to expose the project but that was it. 

“He’s forgiven you. He forgave you long ago- he was just being stubborn,” Yunho chuckled. “When he learned you were taken, he’s the one who tried the hardest to find you. Harder than me too.”

“God, he’s so dramatic,” you chuckled. “Do I get to meet him now?”

“Oh, yes,” Yunho grinned. “He’s waiting for you- party hat and all.”

“No way.”

He was. Party hat and all. You couldn’t believe how much he changed- his hair was longer, he looked more mature, but he still had those fierce eyes and lovely smile. He greeted you with a glare but as soon as your smile fell, he laughed and you finally joined, smacking the hat on his head before hugging him.

“I’m just glad to see you’re unscratched- oh, that looks painful.”

“Glad to see you’re in good spirits too,” you touched your temple- the bruise didn’t hurt anymore but it was an ugly shade of green now. “What did I miss?”

“What did we miss?” Wooyoung turned to get the tofu lying on the table.

“Yep- that certainly was no less than a prison,” you laughed, your stomach growling at the sight of the variety of food on the table. “Can we talk while we eat?”

And so, you briefed them of your ‘prison time’ again, connecting the dots with their help- they intended only to get you from the beginning because only you could have solved that mystery of why the droids acted so much like humans- the link between their subconscious memories and muscle memory was too strong. You could lock away a person’s memory, sure, but the subconscious was something you hadn’t messed with yet, and never intended to either. The reason the people of that project could manipulate memories was because of your team too.

When the three of you were interns in the Droid Project, they had told you to code for machines, not humans. That was how you began. Artificial intelligence was nothing new, you were just aiming to take it to the next level. When they told you that you needed to start coding to make droids, they talked about a better world- a world where soldiers could be able to fight better to defend their land. A world where a doctor could hold an insurmountable amount of knowledge and skills. A world where a patient wouldn’t have to feel all of the pain he would be in. A world where, they mused, you could cook anything you like for yourself without having to go through the trouble of thinking if you were capable. It wasn’t such a bad idea to code for that world.

But it was Wooyoung who accidentally heard what the real deal was. And when he told you both, you hacked into several databases to find out what they really intended to do with droids- and oh, the revelation was startling enough to make you all cry. You couldn’t believe that they used teens to make the blueprint for a world where the Elites- the people of power- would be controlling the droids to make the rest of the world submit to them. This world wasn’t their playground, and they shouldn’t play gods- with that message, the three of you ran away.

And now you were here with the consequences of your actions, with no idea if Jongho was okay. You couldn’t sleep for the past two days and when Wooyoung saw you zoning out in front of the fire in the backyard instead of being in bed, he decided to share a beer with you.

“You look like you have an idea but you’re worried how it will play out,” he observed.

“I mean…” you wrapped your shawl tighter around you. “It can’t get any worse, can it?”

“If they still think you’re back at your home, you might have a chance. They’ll be unsuspecting- we just need to hack into their system and get the Panel to listen.”

The Panel being a group of coders and developers who were, at one point, part of the Droid Project but left just like you. Yunho told you that ever since you were taken, they had been quick with contacting world leaders and giving them a sign that something dark was unravelling right under their noses. He didn’t tell you the identity of those people and you didn’t ask- you trusted him enough to take the right steps. He also told you that they were trying to find a way to get Eden’s military to side with them, but there was no guarantee that the military and the government weren’t already working together so if you made a mistake, you’d be doomed.

“We can’t simply sit and try to hack into their system, Wooyoung, while they have Jongho and several other people suffering with chips inside of them. I’ve seen their experimentations fail and lives lost. I cried myself to sleep everyday and the only reason I’m still sane is because I need to put an end to this as soon as possible-”

“Well, you’re not alone,” Wooyoung told you and you took a deep breath. “We’re here. We’re helping you. You don’t have to do this alone anymore.”

“I do have one idea, but I’m not sure you will agree.”

“If it’s something stupid and you think we won’t agree? You’re probably right and I won’t hear a word about it-”

“About what?” Yunho came outside with his own can of beer. “Was gaming and going to sleep but I heard the chatter.”

“You really should touch the grass once in a while,” you teased. “You can’t spend all your free time in front of screens too.”

“Whatever,” he plopped down on a chair. “Continue, please. Don’t stop on my account.”

“Okay, listen,” you leaned forward, the orange hues of the fire illuminating your face as you spoke. “I need to go and get Jongho back- you both know I can’t simply sit and wait for our hacking attempts to be successful. If they could be hacked, we wouldn’t be here right now.”

“Right,” Yunho agreed.

“When they found Jongho and me, when we ran away, Jongho gave me a short message- two words. ‘Yunho’ and ‘Strictland’. Strictland must be the name of the town they’ve made home at. What do you know about Strictland?”

“Did he… did he tell you to find me and say Strictland?” Yunho frowned. “Are you sure?”

Wooyoung looked as lost as you and you told him you were sure. You watched Yunho’s expressions change from confusion to realisation. “Do you remember when we first found out about the Droid Project, I talked about how this couldn’t have been the first time that humans have tried to create droids?”

“Maybe?” You shrugged.

“I don’t remember, I don’t think so,” Wooyoung admitted.

“Well, the term ‘droid’ only originated recently. There have been other terms used to define the concept of a human machine- and since, at first, the only reason for such a creation would be to fight wars. So they were called super assassins, X-fighters, and a bunch of other stupid terms. Whenever I tried finding more about their history, I got blocked. I even got a few warnings. I thought it must be some confidential information- it would make sense if the general public doesn’t know that such attempts have been made. But… I did find something that suggested that they did succeed once.”

“They did?” Wooyoung looked at you in disbelief. “Wasn’t this supposed to be the first time?”

“I wouldn’t know? They sure make me feel like I’m the one who came up with this. I know I’m not, but I didn’t think that far back into the past?”

“The current droids, you came up with that,” Yunho corrected. “But whatever version- or versions- existed before… there have been occurrences. One that began in Strictland a few decades ago but there’s no evidence. It is said that everything related to that project was burned, all the evidence erased. It was quite a disaster and they covered it up with a few bombs thrown to call it a ‘terrorist’ attack- the military got involved and there was a major clean-up or something. But the facts never matched, and those who dug enough know that the government has been hiding the real incident.”

“And how did Jongho know?”

“Maybe he heard things? He definitely did. And if he heard my name too… they might be coming after me next,” Yunho concluded.

“Well, that just means I have to proceed with my plan.”

“What plan exactly is that?”

You told them what you were thinking. There was a series of ‘no’ from Wooyoung, ‘absolutely not’ from Yunho, but you made them consider every other option and when the sun started to shine its first rays on the trees, you all agreed that this might be risky, yes, but this was probably the only way you could win.

Fight fire with fire.

—---------------------------------

“You must have finally gone insane.”

You lightly shrugged when you heard that- it was rich coming from Dr. Jin when he was the one who pushed you to this point.

“I mean… it’s been a while…” your finger circled the dramatic red button, itching to press it- Wooyoung’s idea. You told him it was stupid but when he insisted that nothing riles people up than seeing big red warnings, you let him craft this goodness. 

“What do you want, y/n? Why are you here?”

“I thought you’d know,” you finally stood up, brushing your clothes. “You still have something I can’t go back without.”

“Oh, that stupid droid? You came back for that?”

“That is a human very close to me, which you must have known when you decided to turn him into a droid,” you glared at him. “Don’t test my limits, Dr. Jin. You know how short a temper I have.”

And you had proven that in the span of the last few hours. Your genius plan had been to walk to their office in Strictland, which was relatively easy because all the soldiers recognised you and whenever they tried to move from their places, you told them the purpose of the device in your hand. Not a bomb, but better, you told them. You had one of the soldiers drive you to the office and then you sat down on the ground, waiting for Dr. Jin to show up.

In the meantime, you had a messy confrontation with Mr. Han. You told him you had not expected him to cooperate with any of this but he insisted that he was still following orders to keep his family safe. Though you despised him for making a fool out of you, not even giving you a hint of what was happening, you could understand his reasons. Your reasons were the same after all.

“He’s my family, and I would have you bring him to me right this instant.”

“Or what?”

“Or else I press this,” you raised the remote in your hand. “And it sets off a chain reaction. A droid self-destructs– for real this time, no games,” you looked pointedly at Mr. Han. “and if there’s a droid within a 2 mile radius of that droid, it self-destructs, and so on.”

“All we need to do is snatch it from you,” Dr. Jin scoffed.

“Well, unluckily for you, I’m the droid that will be setting off that chain reaction.”

A chorus of gasps sounded and your seniors- the one who had once been your mentors- all gaped at you. Dumbfounded. Confused.

“You wouldn’t,” it was Dr. Seo that spoke. Your first mentor.

“I would, and you know that,” you extended your wrist showing a small opening where the chip was installed. “Do you remember this version of the droids, where you would still be more human than a machine? The one Dr. Jin was so quick to reject? Turns out it’s the better version- doesn’t require all the surgeries and whatnot.”

“That’s a bluff, isn’t it?” Dr. Jin scoffed. “You wouldn’t kill yourself over some droid.”

“Again, that droid is my family, and yes, I would kill myself if that means everyone here in Strictland dies and this cursed project comes to an end,” you glared at him. “To save humanity, a few lives sacrificed won’t be in vain- oh, and if you try to snatch this?” You waved the device in your hand. “This was just for the dramatics. It doesn’t work- I don’t need it to activate self-destruction.”

Dr. Jin’s nostrils flared in anger, the wrinkles on his face deepening as he tried to make a decision. “Any chance for negotiations? Because I won’t simply hand over Jongho to you- you couldn’t hack into him and deactivate his droid functions. We clearly have the upper hand.”

“You do,” you admitted. “And you can continue with whatever the fuck you’re doing in here, but I can do something for you and you can do something for me in return, right?”

“What do you suggest?” Dr. Seo spoke this time. “What can you give us?”

“What you clearly want. I know you haven’t found a way to solve that muscle memory problem yet.”

“But given more time, we could definitely do it,” Dr. Seo shifted on one leg, pushing his glasses up. “Why would we need you for that?”

“Because I’m pretty sure you can’t do this without me- I’m the only programmer in Eden who can accomplish this,” your smirk was devilish. “You needed me when you began this project, and you clearly need me now. It’s a shame I didn’t cooperate, right? Maybe if you hadn’t used Jongho to rile me up, I would have actually solved the problem.”

“But you didn’t know what the problem was in the first place,” Dr. Seo said.

“I didn’t, but come on. I would have found out with any droid had I observed it as closely as I did Jongho. Now… I code to make the link between muscle memory and the subconscious dormant, and you uninstall the chip in Jongho and let me leave in peace. Do we have a deal?”

“What’s the guarantee you won’t try anything once you have Jongho?”

“None,” you admitted. “But if you trust me, I’ll trust you. For old time’s sake? And you know where my family lives anyway- I wouldn’t be stupid enough to try anything.”

Dr. Jin and Dr. Seo looked at each other, whispering. Mr. Han looked like he wished he was beside you at that moment fighting with you, not fighting against you. You gulped down the anxiety bubbling in your throat- you had bluffed a whole lot just now but you needed them to buy it. Yes, you could self-destruct but there was no way you would simply just go back.

“Alright, I think we can work with that,” Dr. Seo came closer, extending his hand. “For old time’s sake.”

“You should apologise for playing dirty,” you shook his hand but he only scoffed in response. 

“You’ll have to follow some rules here. Protocol,” Dr. Seo explained and you cooperated this time, letting them scan your body for potential threats and then asking for access to your code. You let them see it- Dr. Seo had made this version with you so when he seemed satisfied save for the self-destruct file that you didn’t allow him to access, he decided to let it be for the moment.

“I have a condition too,” you told him. “I’ll work on uninstalling Jongho’s chip first. Once he’s human, I’ll play my part.”

“Okay- I’ll have a programmer work with you.”

Thus initiated the second part of your plan. You had successfully gained access inside their building and so far, their actions had been very predictable. Wooyoung was right about them asking to read your code too. The self-destruct wasn’t a bluff but you had hidden the real code elsewhere because you just knew Dr. Seo would attempt to replicate it if he got one look at it. You were pretty sure he had gone to note down what little he saw.

What he missed, though, while worrying about the new code was that you did not have one but two chips, side by side, inside your wrist. The other, a tiny thing, attached to the main chip. You finally pressed on your wrist to turn it on.

Surveillance through your eyes. The simplest, most basic droid function, installed in each droid as well as you. But you were reporting back to your server- to Yunho and Wooyoung, who were right at the outskirts of the town, who must have detected your signal by now and would be transmitting the live coverage to the Panel. The Panel, where different world leaders, scientists, human rights workers and other brilliant people were present, the group bigger than ever, waiting to see what you would show them.

And the first sight they saw- oh goodness. Rows and rows of humans strapped on to the stretchers lit by a light so bright that they looked blue. One of them was being brought to you- you were pretty sure your whimper was heard by everyone in the Panel.

Jongho did not look good. The signs of his struggle were quite visible on his bare upper body- a big, ugly bruise on the left side of his stomach, a long slash running down his right arm, a twin bruise like yours on his temple. You were never going to forgive these people. 

With newfound fierce determination, you nodded to the person you were to work with- a woman who looked to be in her late thirties with her stern face and slicked back hair. Without saying a word, Jongho was plugged to the screen and his code files secured with multiple passwords were accessed. Then the two of you started working side by side to end every running code in his chip. It must have taken only an hour and then you were done.

“We’ll take him to surgery. You can access whatever you need here while we take the chip out of him.”

“No thanks, I’ll take whatever laptop you have and work from there. He needs to be in front of my eyes.”

“I’ll get back to you,” she said and moved to a corner to convey your message. After getting confirmation, she allowed you to follow her to the medical section of the office. The lights started to dim the further you walked down the hallway, almost to the extent that you thought they were going to surprise you with something unexpected, but a turn to the right and you were suddenly in a familiar setting of a hospital. You were glad it looked normal- all the neon lights used in the offices had rooted some trauma in you for sure.

Unsurprisingly, the waiting room was equipped with all sorts of necessities you would need. The woman simply turned on the systems and plugged in the USBs before instructing you to wait for Dr. Seo. You rolled your eyes- nothing you could do about that, so you resorted to monitoring Jongho, trying to quell the seed of hope in your heart. 

Jongho would be okay. You would make sure of that.

The process of installing the chips in humans was something you had seen a lot- however, uninstalling the chip was rare. You tried not to recall the time when you first tried to save a person- it had backfired and induced a seizure. While you had worked with a lot of programmers to make sure something like that wouldn’t happen again, the people here kept insisting they didn’t need you to work on this because they thought there wouldn’t be a time when they would have to turn droids back into humans. But you were grateful that you and your team had been stubborn enough to at least make it a little better. 

Now it was up to Jongho and his willpower to make it out of there with full health. You weren’t sure what you would do if something happened to him.

While monitoring Jongho, you started working on the one problem that had doomed your life- the link between subconscious and muscle memory. You had Dr. Seo working with you from his office- it was no surprise that he was monitoring your progress and making contributions considering he was one of the brains behind this project and had a lot of medical knowledge to contribute from the years he worked as a neurosurgeon before he started learning programming. 

But since he was watching, that meant you had to do this properly- and you would. You understood that coming here to save Jongho meant you would have to share the knowledge that could change the power dynamics of this world. You could only pray that the Panel would make sure that these people would never get to put your theory into practice, because you couldn’t imagine a world where humans would be programmed to lose the very essence that made them human to fight for people that could only be called monsters. And you prayed your wildcard- getting the military involved- would work.

It had to be the longest three hours of your life. By the time Jongho was out of surgery, his vitals normal, you were almost done but your hands were trembling uncontrollably, your sniffs were getting louder as you tried to control the sobs that threatened to leave your body, because-

You did it. Jongho was okay, Jongho was okay. 

And you may have just doomed all of humanity with your code. You were pretty sure Dr. Seo might be testing your code on some unfortunate human right now. You should have gone with him- but you couldn’t leave Jongho. He needed to be in front of your eyes. You wished you had some means of contacting Yunho and Wooyoung right now- all they needed to do was tell you that you did well and you would be fine. But you didn’t have the means to hear their reassurance so you had to settle for the hope that the Panel was proceeding with the final part of the plan.

A military raid. Eden’s military against the New Government’s soldiers. Eden had never been so divided. 

A notification popped up on your laptop and Dr. Seo confirmed the validity of the code so far and asked you to wrap it up. You took a deep breath.

The last step. The final step you had to take in order to destroy the foundations of the Eden Droid Project, once and for all. 

You told him to give you a minute- you needed to check if Jongho was okay. With that excuse, you got up and went inside the ward to check on your unconscious friend. The surgery wasn’t anything big, no. It was just like removing a piece of shrapnel from your body, the chip relying on signals to send to the neurons. You just had to make sure that Jongho’s body hadn’t adapted to the chip’s presence so much that it couldn’t function without it anymore.

You wiped your face with your sleeves before clutching Jongho’s hand- you needed his strength, every bit of it. With your other hand, you combed his hair so it wouldn’t fall on his eyes. Jongho stirred in his sleep and you whispered his name. He subconsciously squeezed your hand before his eyes fluttered open. He wasn’t surprised- seeing you wake him up was nothing new, though it had been quite a while. He looked around to get his bearings-

“Oh, goodness, what are you doing here?”

“Good to see you too,” you laughed, wiping your eyes again. “How are you feeling? Can you move? Is your vision okay?”

“Never been better,” Jongho groaned as he sat up, exhaling. “I feel tired. That’s new.”

“That means you’re human,” you smiled.

“What do you mean?”

“You’re no longer a droid, Jongho,” you told him, for once pleased with your work. “You’re okay now.”

“But where are we?”

“Still there,” you let go of his hand to squeeze his shoulder, letting it trail down his bicep which was when you started tapping. “You’ll go home soon, I promise.”

“And you?” He asked, “Won’t you come too?”

“I’ll be right behind,” you kissed his forehead, having finished tapping your message on his skin. Jongho squeezed your hand in warning but you shook your head. “I have to wrap things up here, but I promise I’ll be home soon.”

“We go together, or we don’t go at all.”

“Jongho-”

“I won’t leave you behind, not this time,” he shook his head fiercely. “I know you’re strong. But we’ve always worked better together, haven’t we?”

“You’re still recovering though.”

Jongho called your name in warning and you caved in. You told him to make sure to follow your instructions and you made a request to Dr. Seo that you wanted to be there to witness the end of this. Dr. Seo sent an escort who accompanied the two of you to a lab where he was indeed working on an unfortunate young man just like you had suspected. Dr. Seo cast a wary look at Jongho before turning to you.

“You’ve worked brilliantly so far, Miss Jeon. Shall we begin?”

You nodded and asked Jongho to take a seat. You first went to check the man’s vitals, taking note of his label - CS, 005. “He’s one of the first few, isn’t he?”

“He is,” Dr. Seo confirmed, setting up your station. “A volunteer, though he didn’t quite know what he was getting into at that time.”

“Right,” you muttered, swallowing the distaste his words brought. “I’ll start now.”

Feeling sorry for the man who was about to lose the last shreds of humanity in him, perhaps forever, you started typing the codes, Dr. Seo watching from his screen across you. There were just a few lines of command left to type and you cast a quick glance at Jongho who passed a subtle nod. 

He was ready. And so were you. 

You had tapped a message to Jongho- Cookie’s play. A joke that ran in both your families of how Cookie would pretend to be sick whenever she wanted to have her way or skip school. And he was going to do just that. 

Jongho groaned loudly in pain, clutching his head, causing Dr. Seo to stop what he was doing and frown at him in confusion while you asked Jongho if everything was okay, your fingers typing a series of codes that were going to be your salvation now. Jongho fell on his knees and you, feigning panic, got up along with Dr. Seo who was genuinely worried for Jongho’s wellbeing since you had made sure that you weren’t going to give them anything if he wouldn’t make it out alive. You started walking across the room to where Jongho was, the droid CS on your way and you paused just a fraction of a second to slip your chip- the small chip they had missed during inspection- in the port on his back from where he was plugged to the system. 

You rushed to Jongho and asked him if he was okay- he continued to act like his head was going to burst open with pain and just when Dr. Seo took out his phone to call someone, Jongho pounced on him, tackling him to the ground and placing a hand over his mouth. You didn’t wait to see who would win as they started clawing at each other- you ran back to your station to your laptop, glancing once at Dr. Seo’s panicked face before pressing enter and enabling the ‘run’ function.

The guards outside must have heard some commotion and one of them peeked in to check but it was too late- thanks to Dr. Seo being impatient and sceptical, testing your code after every few minutes, it only took a handful of seconds for the code to stop running itself which was when the droid opened its eyes. Dr. Seo finally managed to land a punch on Jongho and get him to let go of him. He rushed towards you but before he could stop the guards, one of them yelled ‘freeze!’ and you raised your hands-

Unplugging the droid in the process.

“What have you done-” Dr. Seo reached for his screen to read the code, consumed by confusion and panic as he read the last lines which must be making no sense to him now-

Because the original code was also in that mini chip you had sneaked in. If this went well, you would owe Yunho your life- and Jongho’s.

“CS, 005, what’s your status?” You whispered just so the droid could hear. 

“Okay,” he confirmed.

“Then get up and protect us from the threat.”

You thought you saw the slightest hint of a smirk on the droid’s face and before you could ponder over it, he rose to full glory, straightening and cracking his neck before asking you to take cover. 

What you saw next was something you were sure you would never forget. There was no way this person wasn’t a skilled fighter before he became a droid because he dodged each bullet with expertise and kicked the gun out of the guard’s hand, catching it mid-air and pointing it at Dr. Seo, creeping towards him and holding him at gunpoint.

“Down on your knees, now,” he commanded and the guard obeyed instantly, backup arriving too late. Nothing they could do now- the Head Coder of this project could lose his life if someone made a wrong move.

“How,” Dr. Seo muttered when he spotted you from the corner of his eye. “I saw the code- there was nothing.”

“It’s just like what you did with Jongho and the other droids,” you finally let out the laugh you had been holding. “I am the master now, and my wish is his command. Isn’t that right, CS?”

He nodded in response and Jongho whistled, thoroughly impressed by you. You took out Dr. Seo’s phone from his pocket, unlocked it and called Dr. Jin.

“Is it done?”

“Uh, you might want to come here, Dr. Jin,” you said innocently. “We may have an emergency.”

You hung up before he could respond and Mr. Han came bursting into the room, freezing when he saw just what was going on.

“Uh, I was going to inform you that there’s been a military raid but it looks like it was planned…”

“Maybe,” you shrugged but you couldn’t keep in the sigh of relief- all hope was not lost after all. The military was on with you in this one- looks like the Panel had played their part well.

Mr. Han, to your surprise, was smiling in satisfaction. “Is it going to be over soon?”

“For you lot, yes,” you narrowed your eyes. “You don’t look too mad about it.”

“I’m not,” he smiled and you tried to figure out just what he was thinking but Dr. Jin appeared, fuming. The old man looked like he was going to have a stroke any second.

“Stand. Down.” He commanded. “Or you’ll face the worst consequences, Miss Jeon.”

“Like what?” You cocked your head. “I could have this droid blow your favourite coder’s brains out, right here. I don’t think it can get worse than that-”

Dr. Jin’s phone rang and when he frowned at his screen, you finally let the little ray of hope you had been harbouring in your heart consume you. Dr. Jin picked up the call and you watched all the blood drain from his face. 

“Ah… It can get worse,” you finally grinned, looking at Jongho who appeared a little lost but squeezed your hand in assurance anyway. “CS, you will continue to hold Dr. Seo as leverage until I give you the signal. Dr. Jin… I think it’s time you sit down and accept your defeat.”

Dr. Jin scoffed and attempted to leave the room but you shared one look with the droid and he knew what to do- with impeccable aim, he fired the gun in his direction, hitting right in the middle of his calf. His painful yell echoed throughout the vicinity and some of the guards pointed the gun in your direction instinctively while some rushed to help the man. You ignored Dr. Seo’s series of curses aimed at you amidst the chaos. Soon, a man in Eden’s staple blue military uniform walked in followed by a group of soldiers, ordering them to start arresting everyone in the building- and to your surprise, he nodded at you. CS finally let go of Dr. Seo only for him to be handcuffed and escorted outside.

“Thank you for coming,” you said as a greeting to Eden’s Military Commander- everyone in the room must have recognised him seeing how they were so willingly cooperating now. “I wasn’t expecting you to.”

“It took me quite some convincing to come, but seeing what’s going on here,” the tall man looked around, “I think it was necessary. If you could be so kind as to guide me through the appropriate measures to be taken regarding the droids?”

“Yes- can you make sure Mr. Choi is escorted safely outside first? He might require some medical attention-”

“Y/n-”

“It’s okay, Jongho,” you assured with a smile. “It’s going to take me a while here, but I’ll be with Yunho and Wooyoung. I’ll be okay.”

Jongho looked at the Commander for permission and he nodded, letting him take you to a side for a little privacy. “I’m anxious, y/n. I don’t want to leave you here-”

“I’m not alone, trust me,” you took both his hands in yours. “I need you to get out of here and get to Cookie, okay? She’s going to be worried sick- she knows everything now.”

“Really?” Jongho shook his head. “What about your parents? My parents- are they okay?”

“They’re all fine,” you told him. “They had a memory blocker but Yunho was going to take care of that before he came here. Everything will be normal when you go back.”

“Not normal. Not if you’re not there,” he said and you laughed at that.

“Jongho, I’m so thankful to you for a number of things. I’ll tell you all about it once we’re back, okay?” You promised. “But I need to take care of all the droids first. You know they can’t keep on living like this anymore. You know that better than anyone.”

Jongho nodded reluctantly and you continued. “You saved me today, Jongho. I’ll thank you for that now. And you need to be safe, at home with our families, so I can work peacefully here, okay? We’ll be in contact- here,” you went to grab a paper and pen to scribble your contact number. “You can call me whenever.”

“Alright,” he finally gave in, bringing you in for a hug and you gladly soaked in every bit of it. You needed that for what was next.

—--------------------------

“You’re burning the toasts, Wooyoung.”

“They need to be just the right amount of brown for this dish to come together,” Wooyoung tsk-ed at your ignorance and you scoffed, looking for someone to back you but apparently everyone’s new favourite sport was to gang up on you now.

“We get that you’ve not been in the kitchen for a while,” Jongho began. “But how did you survive living alone in Strictland?”

“Let me guess. Instant noodles and microwave food,” Cookie shook her head in disappointment when you pursed your lips guiltily. “Mom’s gonna have a stroke if she hears.”

“Shut up,” you muttered though your heart ached at the mention of your mother- two years of not knowing where her daughter was had really aged her. “And you’re laughing, Yunho. As if you’re one to say.”

“Still better than you,” he stuck out his tongue at you and before you could retort, you heard the door open.

“I’ve set everything, what’s taking so long?” San said, going to check on Wooyoung. “Now that looks good.”

“See?” Wooyoung turned to look at you. “Man’s got taste.”

“I think I was better off coding in my room, what say you, Cookie?” You turned to leave but Yunho grabbed your arm and swung you back to your spot, laughing along with Jongho. You noticed Cookie was too busy staring at San who was helping Wooyoung plate the last of the dishes now. You met Jongho’s eyes and you shook your heads- her crush on San was way too obvious. Yunho shook his head, amused, and you all decided to let her have her moment.

It had been about 3 months since the raid in Strictland and since then, you were working on wiping clean any signs of the Droid Project in the land. You, Yunho and Wooyoung had worked day and night for a whole month to turn the hundreds of droids back to normal and then it was the military’s job to get them back to where they belonged. Everyone had unanimously agreed that since you guys were the brains behind this, it was your decision if you wanted to keep the data or delete everything permanently. One look at Yunho and it was decided- you were going to burn everything related to the project. It had almost caused the world to lose its humanity. There should be no signs of it anymore.

Everyone who was a part of the Eden Droid Project was tried in court and imprisoned with heavy sentences of treason, especially those who had collaborated with people from other nations and risked their homeland’s security. These included everyone who willingly cooperated- testimonies were heard, yes, but they didn’t prove to be much valuable. All the military needed was a background check of their activities which attested to their willingness- people like you who had left the project in its early stages and suddenly found themselves back were let go of with non-disclosure agreements. Some were put on probation but it turned out good.

What surprised you was when you were called as a witness for Mr. Han’s testimony. He revealed that he had purposely not blocked your memories of Jongho so you would quickly realise what was going on and do something about this project. Since he had always been a part of this project, it was hard to believe that he had contributed to the downfall of this project but you had to agree- if it weren’t for him, things would have been much, much different. He got the lightest sentence among those who willingly participated in this project and he was grateful that you came on his behalf. You figured you couldn’t be mad at him for too long- he probably did what he did for his family too.

The Panel was sure to not let a whisper of this project out- everything was hushed and treaties were signed. You met with a few of the members who commended your efforts but you didn’t take any credit. You did what you had to. You only asked for one favour- to let you and your friends be. You were never going to play with the idea of droids again- this was enough. You were simply going to work on the last droid- CS- from ‘the headquarters’ which was Yunho and Wooyoung’s home. The Panel agreed- they knew better than to get on your wrong side. If the world came to hear about what happened in Strictland, the establishments would collapse. 

As for San, your new friend… he was CS- the droid. The person you felt the most sorry for. The person you had apologised to at least a hundred times in a span of the past few months because it took you the longest to get his droid functions to hibernate, and once he became somewhat human?

You recalled the look in his eyes that absolutely shattered you- the look of guilt and horror. It was very messy at first, countless arguments as you tried to convince him that you were not a monster (but weren’t you? You created the droids, after all) and that you were so sorry for using him as a weapon and as a shield, and you were sorry for what he had to go through all this time. Sometimes, it looked like you two were getting along but then one night, you had your worst argument- screaming and yelling, tears and anger. Yunho and Wooyoung had been out and they chose the worst (arguable) timing to come back home- with Cookie and Jongho. 

And how Cookie defended you. When she heard the yells, she stormed inside and hugged you and you sobbed into her chest while she sent daggers in the stranger’s direction. And then what she said afterwards was how you got here- to being a group of tightly knit friends.

“My sister has been used, manipulated, held hostage in a simulation and made to code you droids with the threat of her family hanging on her head. She went back to sacrifice herself and everyone including you if that meant the world could be a safer place for the rest of us, so don’t you dare call her a monster. If it weren’t for her, you would have been their first killing machine, do you understand? You should be thanking her for trying to save you- she’s still a fucking droid and refuses to feel tired or sleep until you can!”

“Cookie!” You scolded. “Language!”

“I’m almost 18 now, I’m not a kid anymore,” she glared at you and you felt that stab, having missed two of the most important years of her life. She went back to glaring at San who looked… starstruck? “She didn’t see her family and her boyfriend in 2 years because she was afraid she’d hurt us. Don’t you call her a monster ever again.”

Now? Now you smiled proudly whenever you thought of that night. After Cookie’s outburst, everyone was too surprised to say anything and it was Wooyoung who tried to cut the tension in the air by asking Cookie to take you to his room. Jongho stood gaping at the little kid he had practically raised, muttering, “I did not raise her like this but damn.” And he was right. The boys had a good laugh and San slept over it and realised he may have been acting like an idiot. 

And that idiot was clearly very curious about Cookie, you realised when he opened his birthday present for her to reveal a lilac cardigan- Cookie had very casually pointed at someone’s cardigan in the street calling it cute. You did not expect San to be so observant. 

“Oh, this is lovely,” Cookie ran a hand over the cardigan’s soft fabric. “The colour- I love it, San.”

“Stop shooting daggers at San,” Jongho, who was sitting next to you, whispered, poking your stomach and you swatted his hand away.

“I can’t help it,” you whispered back, eyes still locked in San’s direction. “He’s getting way too chummy with her lately. I don’t approve.”

“You literally told San you love him like, two days ago,” Jongho pointed out and you glared at him.

“That’s because he got me my favourite brownie when I had been working all night long,” you said as if that warranted your admission of love for him. “As a polite servant should. His master is losing sleep trying to get his droidy senses back to human.”

“This droid still possesses his super hearing,” San whispered just for you to hear- you possessed that too. “So maybe shut up.”

“Stop looking at Cookie like that and I’ll shut up,” you countered and Jongho laughed out loud, having put two and two together from what he heard you whisper to San. “Don’t make me activate the master-servant dynamics back.”

“Oh, stop that,” Cookie glared at the two of you and you both immediately pretended to be normal, smiling at her. “Please get along for once. It’s my birthday. Where’s your gift, sis?”

“Uhh,” you looked around, digging in your pocket, “Here.”

A finger-heart. Cookie groaned loudly and everyone laughed as you ran for your life when she got up from her chair. “It’s on the way!” You yelled. “I forgot to order it on time!”

“It better be good or else I’ll have San droid-handle you!”

You stopped running, coincidentally finding yourself behind San’s chair. “You wouldn’t. She wouldn’t, right?”

“Your wish is not my command but her wish,” San pointed at Cookie before looking at you with that smirk you wished to wipe off his face, “very well might be.”

“Oh, I’m going back to code,” you started and San laughed, grabbing your hand before you could go inside and apologising like a true gentleman (he was actually a gentleman, you found). Wooyoung complained that the food was going to get cold if you all kept joking around and you finally gave in, settling between San and Jongho and digging into the feast.

It was heartwarming to have all of them together like this, after everything that you went through. You had never felt more content in your life, and it showed, even though you hadn’t reached the finish line yet. You still had to turn San and yourself back to normal- you had been far too busy erasing all evidence of the Droid Project to worry about yourself. As for San, it was a sensitive line to tread on. You did not want to hasten it and he understood- he was just glad that his droid functions could be controlled at his will. He was content too, having reunited with his family and found another here.

Jongho noticed you smiling to yourself as you walked back home from the convenience store- you had gone to get more drinks but you also volunteered because you wanted to take Jongho along with you. You barely had alone time with him ever since you came back so you made most of the stolen moments. 

“What’s going on in your head?” Jongho teased, elbowing you lightly.

“Nothing. I’m just happy,” you grinned. The simple truth- you were happy. “Wanna take a little break?” You pointed at the empty park with swings and Jongho led you inside, the two of you settling on the swings.

“How are your parents?” You asked Jongho. “Are they still confused about your disappearance?”

“They are, I mean… I told them I went to find you but you’re not back home yet. They wonder why sometimes.”

“When did you guys move?” You asked. “It’s a shame that we won’t be neighbours anymore.”

“I know,” Jongho sighed. “My grandmother was sick two years ago- they wanted to move closer so they could take better care of her. We still own that house so we haven’t ‘fully’ moved away’.”

“Oh, does that mean you can come by sometimes?” You asked but then you remembered. “You have college, though.”

“I could come stay there on the weekends if that means we can spend some time together,” he shrugged and you poked his thigh.

“Just like when your parents went on a trip and I would sneak out in the middle of the night so we could have sleepovers?”

“Good old times,” Jongho laughed. Now that you were getting a good look at him, you noticed how much he had changed in the years you had been gone. He was much broader now, the muscles peeking through his half-sleeve shirt more defined, and-

“You’re staring.”

“You got a haircut,” you said. “I like your hair a bit longer, I think.”

“I’m going to shave my head,” Jongho declared and you laughed loudly. Just like the old times. “This reminds me of the last time we were at a park. On the swings, just like this.”

While you had thanked Jongho for a lot of things ever since you came back- for taking care of Cookie while you were gone, for believing in you and not going out and beyond trying to find you, for making sure your parents knew you were safe wherever you were and this was something you needed to do, for not giving up when he got taken and turned into a droid, and for keeping you safe there… you were still struggling with words needed for an apology. Jongho told you time and time again that he didn’t need your apology, but that didn’t mean you felt less sorry.

“Do you consider it a bad memory?” You asked and Jongho shook his head.

“Never. I was a bit out of it when I learned that you were gone, but one night I came back to the park and recalled our conversation. I told you that you could trust me and you told me that you did. You assured me that you loved me and you knew that you weren’t alone-”

“Jongho-”

“Let me finish,” he smiled gently at you. “If you hadn’t told me all of that… I don’t know what I would have done. I was grateful that you had told me that. It meant that whatever you did was necessary.”

“God, how did I get so lucky?” You looked up at the sky, laughing to keep the sting in your eyes from getting worse. “I think I’ve used maximum luck. It can’t get any better than this.”

“Please,” Jongho smacked your arm, his ears going red and you giggled. Even after all these years, simple confessions like these made him fluster and it was the cutest thing. “I’m just telling you this so you can stop looking at me like you owe me a big fat apology. Not a good look at you, y/n. I like it better when you act like you’re the boss and can do whatever you want.”

“But I am sorry,” you told him and he looked pointedly at you but decided to accept it. Perhaps that would take the weight off your shoulders. “I should have told you more. That’s the only regret I had.”

“Oh, we’re fine anyway, aren’t we?” Jongho said. “We’re all back. Our gang has grown, Cookie is finally sharing drinks with you, we got a new friend-”

“Choi San,” you muttered. “I don’t know how you two get along so well. How all of you do. I think we’re still moments away from going full warrior-mode droid on each other.”

“Oh, that’s because you don’t like how chummy he and Cookie are,” Jongho laughed heartily. “Don’t let her find out. She’s gonna start rebelling.”

“Like, I know they can do whatever they want, I’m not against it at all. I’m probably wary because, well, I’m her sister. Of course I’m going to be. It’s just that… he looks at her the way you look at me. It’s unsettling.”

Jongho raised a brow. “Oh? And how do I look at you?”

“With those big eyes,” you grinned, and when his gaze got softer, you smacked his arm. “Stop!”

“Why?” Jongho pulled you closer, making you rock dangerously on the swing but he was quick to cage your legs between his so you wouldn’t fall over. “How do I look at you? Like I’m in love? Like you’re my everything?”

“You need a drink,” you told him, about to bend to pull one out of the grocery bag but Jongho grabbed your arm instead, making you look at him. “Stop, you’re making me shy!”

Jongho must have been in a dire need of drink because he wasn’t all for such romantic moments- but that didn’t mean he wasn’t a romantic. When he was in the mood, you often found it overwhelming simply because you couldn’t believe he could love you so much. He intertwined his hands with yours, caressing the scar on your wrist below which the chip was embedded. When he looked at you, your gaze was already stuck on his parted lips and he didn’t waste time drawing you in and meeting your lips in a heartfelt kiss. You let your arms travel around his neck mostly for support because you were still worried you would fall off the swing but Jongho had you secure, one hand on your waist and the other on your neck as he deepened the kiss.

It was perfect. It was quiet with only the sound of cicadas carried by the cool breeze, the faint sound of traffic almost dismissable. It was nostalgic and contained longing from all the time you spent apart, the time you lost and wished you could get back. But what made your heart content was that it was still the same. He was still the same, just like you had left him. He still kissed you like he couldn’t have been elsewhere. He still held you like he did the first time- with caution and care, making sure you felt safe. As you continued to kiss, he let go of that caution and let himself get comfortable too, the kiss turning passionate. It was only when you heard the sound of passersby- children- that you broke apart with a little laugh.

“Can we ditch going back to give them the drinks and continue?” You asked and Jongho laughed, kissing you for a few moments more before he let go with a sigh.

“You owe me two years worth of kisses,” Jongho said, getting up and helping you get up next. “You better make up for it.”

“Really?” You took him by surprise as you pulled him for another short kiss. “That’s one less for you now.”

“I’ll take another then,” Jongho kissed you back and when he drew apart, you two burst into a fit of giggles. “Let’s go back.”

The short walk back to the headquarters cut a few more kisses from what you owed him and when you set the drinks on the table, you found everyone looking pointedly at the two of you. “What?”

“What took you so long?” Yunho shook his head, opening the drinks and then pausing mid-air. “Actually… don’t answer that.”

“Oh?” San unintentionally quipped in, looking confused for a moment before he looked around and connected the dots. “Oh.”

“Ew,” Cookie said and everyone burst into laughter, making Jongho hide his face in a corner and you threw a packet of chips at Wooyoung who was laughing the loudest, who proved you wrong instantly by laughing even louder. You couldn’t help but join despite everyone ganging up to tease the two of you. You subconsciously touched your wrist, remembering that you were part droid right now but San caught that, sharing the sentiment-

That even though you were part droid, you had never felt more human. You had never felt more emotional, and perhaps, these moments that became a part of your subconscious had ultimately saved all of you. You made a silent prayer wishing everyone’s subconscious would be filled with such wholesome and happy moments. As long as you had this, you would be okay.

Elsewhere, at the outskirts of Strictland, a man dressed in all-black with a cap was standing anxiously waiting for someone. As soon as he saw a car approach, he clutched his briefcase tighter, worried his attempt at a negotiation would go wrong. The car halted a few feet away and a man in a suit accompanied by another of a much bigger stature drew closer.

“What have you got?”

“A few documents and one chip that I managed to hide before they found me,” the man adjusted his cap. “I have a trial scheduled this week so I thought I’d get this done.”

“And everything is here, in this briefcase?” the man in the suit asked and got a nod. He signalled . “Thank you. Your job here is done.”

Before the man could ask what was next, the one standing in the shadows pulled out a gun and shot that man in the forehead before he could blink. The man in the suit wiped his suit mockingly.

“Get rid of him, and make it quick. We’ve got work to do.”

[iamthescalesofjustice]

the thing is, nate and anders are regularly hooking up, very possibly dating, and velanna and sigrun are dating, and nate and velanna have chemistry and are maybe sliding into the start of a relationship with each other, and you would think justice and anders maybe have something going on but at this point in their lives they are just friends, its velanna who is actually willing to engage with justice on issues of oppression and its actually nate that is putting feelers out for something more with justice, and sigrun and justice dont quite understand each other but in a different way than they both dont get understand normal people, they are very much on a shared autistic to autistic communication wavelength so they are bros in that manner. meanwhile the primary tone of interpersonal relation between anders and velanna is awkward metamours and sigrun is willing to be friends with anders but he hasnt quite figured out how to do that. 

and this is normal, this is the baseline state of my understanding of the awakening polycule before any other factors. different warden commanders bring different dynamics and potential additional entanglements to the table. 

[not-an-alien-scientist]

Barometric Pressure

Kay: *rubbing some gel onto her wrist and hand*

Si'miel: Kay that is quite a strong scent, I thought most humans preferred their "perfume" to be only slightly noticeable

Kay: Huh? Oh, no, sorry, this is just a painkiller. Smells funky but works decently well

Si'miel: *pales a little* pain ...killer?!

Kay: sorry, I'm out of sorts right now, its a pain reducer. Can you do me a favor?

Si'miel: Oh yes, I will gladly help you in your time of pain *feels slightly honored most humans simply tell one 'don't worry about it' and never consider one's ability to help*

Kay: Alert the ship's maintenance engineers that the atmospheric pressure is dropping

Si'miel: . . . Kay I'm certain the sensors would have alerted them to that!

Kay: *slips on an odd black device that covers her wrist and partially her hand* Well the sensors are faulty. My joints are all messed up but especially my ankle and wrist. So I know.

Si'miel: *alarmed* We must go to the infirmary immediately!

Kay: nah I used my gel med and splinted my wrist so it can't move mu- -

Si'miel: You've immobilized your own body?!

Kay: *deep sigh* Si'miel us humans sometimes have bad joints and when atmospheric pressure drops the pain in our joints increases. My right wrist is just slightly worse than the others, so making sure it doesn't move around as much prevents an increase in pain.

Si'miel: You..... you just walk around with your joints hurting? It...it can detect pressure changes? How? Do all humans have such a skill?

Kay: Bad joints are bad joints not much I can do about it. And no, not everyone can, I'm so envious of people whose joints haven't gone on strike. Anyways we have no idea... well I have no idea why, but I can just feel it. The ship's atmosphere is definitely dropping. *sad smile* haven't felt the awful sensation it gives since I left Earth, I just really want to go have some soup and watch whatever dumb movies we got recently, so can you let the engineers know?

Si'miel: *nervously twitches their front appendages worried for their human crewmate* I will let them know .... are you sure you don't need the infirmary?

Kay: Yeh definitely sure, had this issue since I was 21, sucks but hey thats life. Thanks for letting them know, I knew I could count on you *heads off*

___

*Si'miel walks into the main work station of the ship maintenance engineers*

Engineer 1: *looks up* do you need something?

Si'miel: I do not wish to insult your work but a human crew mate informed me that the atmospheric pressure of the ship is dropping. I'm certain you would know if such a thing were true but.... the manual on humans says we should not ignore them when they use the phrase "I can just feel it/ I can just tell" so I thought I would alert you to her statement

Engineer 1: Thats not a possibility our signals would have gone off, but *sighs* new protocols state that we can't ignore a human's warning *rolls two of their 4 eyes... an odd expression they ironically picked up from humans*

Engineer 2: I'll check manually *heads down the corridor a bit and after a few minutes*. . . Activate protocol 651!!!

Engineer 1: W-what?? thats not possible

Engineer 2: *running back to the work station* just do it! Another hour of the pressure dropping will make the system go critical, we'd have to emergency land, and we'd both lose our jobs now do it!

Engineer 1: *hurriedly gets to work*

Si'miel: interesting so it is tru- - -

Engineer 1 & 2: Be quiet!

Si'miel: *startled and heads away without interrupting them further*

___

*Si'miel finds the lounge Kay decided to relax in, an empty soup bowl on the table next to the lounge chair, the TV being the only source of light in the room*

Si'miel: *takes the seat next to Kay* Kay, when you say "hey that's life" what do you- -

Kay: *snores*

Si'miel: ah *takes the blanket draped on one of the the other chairs and lays it across Kay's body* With the pressure fixed you may feel better.... sleep well human friend...

[thedarks1de]

Professor

!professor Nanami x !student reader

Ignore the mistakes!

1 part

Ever since the college changed the physics professor, you have been having serious problems with the subject. In fact, you always had problems-you never understood physics, but the old professor, an elderly man, gave you good grades for good money. All you had to do was slip him a few dollars and the highest grade was in your pocket. You were happy, the professor was happy, everyone was happy.., but sooner or later everything changes. That professor quit and a new one took his place.

Professor Nanami Kento. A stern, serious, nerdy man. He looked to be in his early thirties. He always went in strict suits, wore print ties and dark green glasses. And worst of all, he didn't take bribes.

You failed several important tests that affect your final grade. You had no idea what to do. You could, of course, just start studying his subject and fix your grade, but you never understood physics, it's unlikely you'd be able to do that… But you'll find a way to crack Professor Nanami. Maybe if you try hard enough, he'll take the money and give you a top grade in physics. Yeah, you should definitely try to bribe him again.

You found him in the physics room, which was no surprise. Taking a deep breath, you stepped inside. When Kento saw you, he put his notebooks aside.

— «Ms. y/n, did you want something?» — He asked, looking at you through dark green glasses.

You started to fidget for some reason, the words wouldn't come out of your throat, and you just stared at him in silence, biting your lower lip.

— "Ms. y/n?" - he snapped his fingers, bringing you back down to earth.

— "Ah… uh… Yes." - You muttered. "I mean my grades…"

— "Oh, you've finally come to fix them?"

— "How much do you want?"

— "What…?"

— "I'll pay you as much as you ask, just…"

— "I don't take bribes, Ms. y/n. We've already discussed this, haven't we?"

— "But…"

— "No "buts". Learn the material and correct your grades."

You walked out of the professor's office, slamming the door loudly. You felt a great sense of disappointment and despair. All of your hopes that you would be able to get good grades without difficulty have been dashed. You have to face the harsh reality: you will have to learn to understand physics on your own, to absorb the material, to spend a lot of time and effort to assimilate new knowledge. No, you would find another way. You didn't want to spend your days and nights sitting behind books.

— "That Nanami pisses me off!" — you complained to your friend about your teacher. Every class, he bombarded you with questions, gave you bad grades, and generally pissed you off with his existence.

— "Why don't you just start studying?" — A friend asked, sipping her coffee.

— "No. No way! I'll find a way to crack it." — You said.

— "Maybe… and though no, you won't." — sighed her friend, shaking her head.

— "What are you talking about? What won't I do?" — You asked interestedly.

— "Well… Have sex with him."

— "…What?"

— "Almost all the professors in our college fuck female students and give them good grades."

— "What do you mean almost all of them?!"

— "Well, Professor Gojo, Professor Geto, Professor Sukuna, and Fushiguro. You'd know how many they've already fucked. The students themselves come to them and ask for it. I think Professor Nanami's the same way. Just seduce him, get him in bed, and he'll give you the highest grade of the year."

You pondered, listening to your friend. The idea of sleeping with a professor for a grade sounded absurd and unacceptable. But the thought began to slowly creep into your thoughts. But you couldn't believe that something like this was happening at your college.

You didn't want to stoop to that, but on the other hand, you found it more… more attractive than sitting at a textbook. But Professor Nanami wasn't someone who could be seduced that easily.

A week had passed and you were determined to sleep with your processor. You were struggling with mixed feelings of fear and excitement. You even began to watch Nanami more closely, trying to figure out what might have attracted him. While Nanami was still that strict, serious, and nerdy teacher, he was also quite an attractive man. And even very sexy.

After class was over, you went to his office again. Once inside, you closed the door behind you.

Nanami looked up at you. You bit your lip and silently stepped closer to him.

— "What is it, Miss y/n? If you've come to offer me a bribe again, then…"

— "No, Professor… That's not what I came for."

— "Oh? Well, I'm listening to you." He took off his glasses and put them on the table. Nanami looked straight into your eyes and you felt uneasy, but you don't intend to give up.

— "I came to offer you my body..."

— "I beg your pardon?" Kento arched an eyebrow.

— "You can have me… well… to sleep with me… in general, I offer you my body in exchange for a high assessment…"

Nanami was silent. His face expressed obvious bewilderment and indignation, and this indicated that he would not accept your offer in any case.

— "Miss y/n… As a student, you should strive for knowledge, not use your body… for the sake of personal gain, to offer such a thing to a professor."

You have experienced a sharp sense of shame and chagrin. Your hopes for an easy way out of a difficult situation have collapsed again. You could feel your hands shaking and your heart beating so loudly and strongly that it seemed Nanami could hear it. You looked at this man, barely holding back tears.

— "I can pretend that you didn't offer me anything like that. Now go and study the topics you're lagging behind on." — Nanami remained serious as he said this.

— "I'm sorry…" — You ran out of his office with tears in your eyes. You were ashamed, very, very ashamed. How could you offer yourself to a professor? Why didn't you think that he would refuse? Damn it, now he definitely thinks that you're not only dumb, but also a slut offering to fuck yourself for a high score.

For the next few days, you stopped going to Nanami's classes because you were ashamed to even look at him. You've disgraced yourself and you don't know what to do next.

With a sigh, you closed your eyes and promised yourself that now you will study seriously and really immerse yourself in the material. You need to find a tutor who will teach you physics.

And you went back to Nanami's office. You were very nervous and afraid to look at him.

— "Miss y/n?"

You stood in front of Kento, feeling confused and confused.

— "Hello, Professor…"

— "What is it this time? And why did you skip classes?"

— "Ah, I'm sorry… I… Professor Nanami, I wanted to ask you to study with me additionally. If it's not a problem for you…"

— "So you've decided to start studying after all? This is encouraging."

Nanami looked at his wristwatch. He frowned, and you started to get even more nervous, afraid of rejection.

Kento looked at you again.

— "I don't stay here after the lesson is over," he said.

You lowered your head. So he's not going to teach you?

— "If you want additional classes, you can come to my house. We'll work out there," Kento said.

— "At your place?" — You specified.

Nanami nodded. You've been thinking a little bit. So he's inviting you to his house?

— "Good!" you nodded enthusiastically.

— "In that case, shall we go right now or will you make up some kind of schedule?" asked Kento, leaving the college with you.

— "Maybe if you're free, we can start today?"

— "All right. My car is in the parking lot, let's go."

You and Nanami walked to the parking lot where his car was parked. Kento opened the backseat door for you to get in. You're blushing a little. What a gentleman he is.

You drove for 30 minutes in complete silence until you finally reached the professor's huge house.

[daaydreamy]

okay so i just had this idea and i was hoping maybe you could do something with it. you know how when a guy proposes, the woman usually does a sexy boudoir shoot in lingerie as like a wedding gift to him? i feel like the roles would definitely be reversed with sub!h and Y/N, she would propose and then he would surprise her with a boudoir shoot where he’s all done up for her 🫦💅🏻 idk just a thought :) love your work ❤️

photoshoot

summary: harry surprises y/n. 

warnings: nudity (?)

pairing: harry styles x fem!reader

•••

“Why didn’t you let me take the pictures?”

Harry’s brows furrowed as he looked at Y/N as she shuffled through the various pictures he surprised her with (along with a few polaroids he had taken himself once he got home). He frowned, “…Because they were supposed to be a surprise?” he shuffled closer and took the pictures from Y/N’s hand, looking through them himself. 

“Do you not like them?”

“Of course I do!” She exclaimed, wrapping her arms around Harry’s neck and giving him a big kiss on his cheek? before resting her head against his shoulder. “It’s just… I have my own camera, you know. We could’ve taken them here, on our bed… Could take more of these.” She emphasized, holding up the filthy polaroids Harry had taken himself with Y/N’s polaroid camera and Harry’s cheeks grew warm as he looked at them, taking the polaroids and putting them back down face down, making Y/N laugh as she buried her face in his shoulder. 

“So, what do you say?” She asked and pulled back, smiling. 

“Another photoshoot?”

“Another photoshoot. I’ll make it more fun, I promise.”

Harry snickered, “Fine.”

“Yes!” She exclaimed triumphantly, grabbing Harry’s hand and kissing the ring that was around his ring finger, before leaning in to kiss his lips. 

•••

“You done?” Y/N called out to Harry, who was in the bathroom getting dressed. Or… er, undressing? Y/N was fixing her camera, sitting on the bed as she waited for Harry. He also wanted to wear different sets for the pictures, so there were two more pairs of lingerie sitting over there on the chair in the corner, neatly folded and ready to be worn to adorn Harry’s body. She glanced over at the door once she heard him getting out, getting up from the bed and flashing Harry a bright, excited smile once he finally walked out of the bathroom. 

“Is it alright?”

“‘Course it is.” She reassured, placing her camera down on the bed for a second to walk over to Harry. She wrapped her arms around Harry’s waist, leaning in to give him a sweet kiss. “You look pretty.” She said in a softer tone, making heat rise to his cheeks and smile. 

“So, we’ll take a few pictures of you in this, yeah? Then we’ll do the other set.”

“Just a few? I like this one.” Harry frowned, looking down at himself. That caused Y/N to run her eyes down Harry’s body as well, a soft chuckle leaving her lips. 

“I’ll take plenty.”

•••

“Stop laughing!”

A smile pulled at Harry’s lips and he started laughing again, “I’m sorry!” He exclaimed, placing a hand on his stomach and blowing out deep and slow breaths to get himself to calm down, holding back those smiles that were itching to get on his face. He wasn’t even sure why he kept laughing, all Y/N told him to do was to close his eyes and stay still. 

(The pictures looked better while he was laughing anyway.)

Y/N rolled her eyes, now laughing herself, “Just get changed.”

“Can I see them first?” Harry asked as he was getting up from the bed, watching Y/N flick through the pictures. She turned the camera away from him once he got closer, making him frown. 

“You’ll see when we’re done.”

Harry narrowed his eyes at her. 

“Fine.” He mumbled, grabbing the last set to wear, heading over to the bathroom.

•••

“That one looks kinda weird.” Harry mumbled, staring at one particular picture. They finally finished and Y/N let him see all the pictures. He was toying with his lower lip and he glanced at Y/N, who was now looking at the same picture, brows furrowed. 

“No it doesn’t. You look pretty.”

Harry only hummed and flicked through the rest of the pictures, unable to stop blushing as he looked at them. Y/N would sometimes speak up and tell him he was pretty over and over again, Harry never grew tired of it. 

“How about those polaroids, hm?” Y/N had a sly smile on her face and she grabbed Harry’s left hand, bringing it up to her mouth and kissing over the ring she put around his finger. Harry snorted and placed the camera down, giving her a look that made her brows furrow. 

“What? It’d be a good use of my polaroid…” She shrugged, placing a hand on the back of Harry’s neck to pull him in for a kiss, making a smile rise to his face. 

a/n: sorry it’s kinda short, but here you go!!! this is photographer!y/n, a very very small thing i thought of a while ago so i thought it’d be good to use for this concept!!! hope it was okay, feedback is always appreciated! thank you so much for reading love u 🫂🫂🫂

🏷: @crow-i-guess, @planetflos, @harrycanyonmoonn, @bxtchboy69, @sweet-as-lilacs, @lyricalniall, @venusincleo (couldn’t tag you!), @bxbun111, @tenaciousperfectionunknown, @emispleased, @goldenhrry, @cinnamongirlrry, @manifestrry, @sadqn1, @judesgfirl, @taylorsreputationsversion, @violetsandfluff, @phoebebridgersforqueen, @a-strange-familiar, @moonlightbea-33 (couldn’t tag you!), @famedrs-blog, @coochiesteak, @blahblahblah-888 (couldn’t tag you!), @milesisntdonewritingyet, @harrysgoth, @walkingintheheartbreaksatellite, @cinnamonlola, @youcan-nolonger-run, @velvetrylie, @vamprry, @ellie-loveshs

[glade-constellation]

“We’re going to literally spell out why the bad guy is bad, and how to help them, but do nothing about it because they are Bad Guy™️ and bad guys can’t change.”

The current running theme for every single fucking villain in TSAMS. A running theme I viscerally hate with my entire being. I think KC was the only one to escape this, but even then they just killed him off later.

For a show that seems to want to handle sensitive and heavy topics, they sure as hell never handle them well. Listen, if a majority of your audience is young teens, you need to be careful with the story you tell and what might be taken from it. TSAMS is teaching its audience that bad people will never change.

That’s just not true. At all.

Often people who act out do so because of past trauma. Trauma can be healed with time and therapy. Yes, it’s difficult, especially when the person says they don’t want to heal. But you can do it. Did you know that rejecting help can be a subconscious survival tactic? It doesn’t instantly mean that the person wants to be bad, or wants to stay bad. They are simply living in survival mode, and their brain thinks the way they currently act is the only way to survive.

Just because Bloodmoon says they can’t be helped doesn’t mean it’s true. And it definitely doesn’t mean they immediately deserve death. Yes, they have done terrible things, but nearly everything they’ve done has been ordered of them by another person. That, or their coding. The coding may be a harder thing to fix, but listen. Look at your current cast. You can’t tell me Moon and Solar couldn’t work together to fix it. Or Earth couldn’t help them with therapy and they’d eventually turn to killing just animals. There are so many ways Bloodmoon could be helped, but no. Just no. They don’t want to be helped, so we won’t go out of our way to try.

It’s just so unbelievably frustrating that several fans have pointed this out and the show doesn’t seem to care. Bloodmoon has room to be redeemed, even now, but the show doesn’t want that. They seem to be stuck on this idea the Bloodmoon can’t be redeemed.

And it’s not like this is a new theme they’re trying to tell for the story. No, this has been around since Eclipse. Yes, Sun and Moon did try to help Eclipse in the beginning, but help is a strong word. It was more like they tried to bargain with him. No one actually tried to help. And the moment the bargaining didn’t work, they just dubbed him the villain and turned against him. In the end, Eclipse tried to help. It was pretty terribly done, yeah. But he was trying. He even gave up his one piece of power and told Moon he could send him anywhere in the multiverse. But no, the only way out was through death. I get that Eclipse did a lot of terrible things. I get that a large majority of the cast had their own trauma because of Eclipse. But he could have been helped. We have seen moments where he wanted help, but would immediately turn back to his survival tactics. Eclipse was bad, but he didn’t have to die.

Anyways, they already taught the “villains always bad” story with Eclipse. They don’t need to retell it with Bloodmoon. That’s just reusing old parts of the story.

The only reason I don’t bring Ruin up is because Ruin was different from all the others. There wasn’t anything that made him a villain besides the fact that he was a virus. There was no “sad backstory”. He just was evil. That is how you write a villain you want your audience to love but still want to kill off in the end. Ruin was fun to watch, and a great villain, and I wasn’t mad when they got rid of the virus. I was attached but not at the emotional level as I am with Eclipse, KC, and Bloodmoon. He had no backstory to make me want him to live. I love a villain that is enjoyable to watch but don’t mind when they’re gone. That is how you write a good villain you don’t want people to riot about afterwards.

This has just turned into me ranting about storytelling and character analysis, but honestly. TSAMS. Do better. A good portion of your fan base is screaming for a Bloodmoon redemption. Why are you pushing so hard for people to hate them? You’ve already told the plot line you’re currently trying to sell. What is the point of just upsetting your fans?

[qqueenofhades]

oh, absolutely! and that’s why i’m honestly so fed up with these online leftists. they act like they were the first people to sound the alarm on bunch of horrible shit and go all defeatist, completely disrespecting the work of activists and organizers who have been trying to fix these issues since before they were even a thought. there’s this widespread idea that the systems won’t ever work in a way that’s fair because they weren’t designed to, and while yes, the systems were designed to be unfair and awful to marginalized groups, gutting them won’t solve the problem if there’s nothing to replace them with. mutual aid is a wonderful thing and i’m happy to see people talking about it but i don’t think a lot of them realize it can’t replace a system. it can help but it can’t be this thing you throw everything into because you’re disillusioned with the systems. the only way to make those systems better is to vote in candidates who will but these people are so sick of being told to vote they just refuse to even entertain why people may be telling them to do that.

See, this is where far-right libertarians and far-left "burn the whole system down!!!" ideologies once more collide. Far-right libertarians don't want to participate in society and don't want to be responsible for the welfare of others and don't want any rules and definitely no regulations and so on and so forth. Far-left "revolutionaries" claim to want the same thing in terms of destroying the existing system, but they do so out of some misguided idea that either some new and completely perfect system will magically spring from the ashes (spoiler alert: no), or that informal neighborhood-level networks of mutual aid (however they define that, when they're often willing to totally exclude people who disagree with them about the smallest things, so why would they help people they disagree with on everything else?) can replace, as you say, the entire system.

The thing is, if you're reduced to informally scraping along with your local neighbors and have absolutely no other recourse or formal system of governance and/or distribution, you're living in a failed state, and nobody who has ACTUALLY been through that experience thinks, as the Online Leftists do, that it would be a great idea. This is another thing about their total failure to learn from history, or listen to anyone who isn't American, despite the tankies' insistence that America causes all evil in the world forever. My friends who grew up in the former USSR sure don't think their system was great, even if it was called "socialism" or "communism" or whatever terms the left wants to use with no appreciation of their difficulties. And so on.

Basically, it reminds me of when the Brexit loons were insisting that it made no difference to food supply if Britain left the EU, because, and I quote, "Britain is a nation of farmers, we can grow food in our back gardens!" As if the entire point of human civilization has been to bring us back to personal subsistence farming, which has generally been acknowledged throughout history to totally suck and also be the least reliable way of providing for yourself, and also... the idea that personally growing food in your nice back garden in Kent can replace the entire structure and system of the EU single market and customs union is completely absurd. To say the fucking least, and to anyone whose brain isn't poisoned with Brexit Brexit Brexit! And yes, hey presto, Britain is now experiencing food difficulties and frantically blaming it on anything except Brexit. Meanwhile, Sunak finally negotiated a new Northern Ireland protocol with the EU, but it's anyone's guess if it'll pass the Commons, since the Tory backbenchers just reflexively nuke anything that suggests any cooperation with the EU or any acceptance of EU law. Because they want to pretend the EU never existed! (Even though it was Margaret Thatcher's idea/initiative, shh.) Yeah. That'll work.

So yeah. If you live in your own world where facts don't exist, or exist only to support your preferred ideology, and your insistence that destroying the system with nothing to replace it is the best idea... it is, uh, dumb. Which is the nicest way I can possibly put it. It's never worked out before, it won't work out now, and honestly, "I'm tired of being told to vote after I didn't vote and then things went wrong!" is an argument I have NO sympathy for whatsoever. I know things are bad. You know things are bad. If there's a simple, easy way to start fixing it -- and systems CAN be fixed, even if it takes time and is not the instant dopamine gratification of moral posturing on social media -- where you have to participate once every two years, and you don't do it, then yeah. I don't think that person is serious about fixing anything, and I have no obligation or desire to listen to them at all.

[bliphany]

The Coffee was not drugged. The Coffee reflected how we related to our own and other people's free will (of making one’s own choice)

So I read this post and agreed with it so much I felt myself vibrating. After a few hours of thinking about it, I wanted to ramble more under op’s post, initially, but found that it grew way too long. So, I decided to make a separate post.

After two months since Good Omens season 2 finale, my view of various theories/metas concerning the final fifteen minutes is that, I am okay with most of them as long as they don't erase Aziraphale’s agency.

Did Aziraphale genuinely want to fix Heaven with Crowley but with Crowley’s strong refusal he took the second best thing he thought he could get? I’m fine with that.

Did Aziraphale tried to fix Heaven to make it worthy of Crowley, the world he loved, and his idea of real goodness (he wouldn’t see the world suffer if he could help it) and with the newly-gained information of Second Coming he made his choice even though it broke his heart? I liked this a lot. It was my initial thought right after the finale and I’m still about 65-70% standing by this take.

Did Aziraphale lie to gain more wiggle room in an urgent, intense, and limited-resource situation while due to his own and Crowley’s backgrounds and characteristics they also hurt each other in the process? YES YES YES. Right now this is my favorite interpretation because it’s a realistic and complex bag of limitation/repression from the system, individual’s agency despite of it, free will and choices (never means we won’t make mistakes but always means we can still choose to do something), and their mutual (mis)understandings and relationship dynamics. It’s SO GOOD. It can lead to so many possibilities. It has its depth and enough twist for both characters and the audience. It well-reflected our world and can bring valuable discussions.

Was there something we weren’t shown and actually Aziraphale and Crowley had come up with some plan? I’m okay with that it might be fun.

What I personally don’t want (aside from “oh it’s all God’s plan God wanted them to love each other God is one of us”… but that’s another post I guess…) is to erase the weight of Aziraphale’s choice at the end of Season 2, along with all the good and bad and everything in between it could bring to the table and all the valuable exploration of “how could we thrive to make hard choices even (especially) under limited circumstances, with "a cup of coffee."

I believe that coffee did mean something though...

"Give me Coffee/Freedom or give me death."

Coffee means freedom to choose and free will. Coffee/freedom which Aziraphale was half-forced to take, meaning the “free” choice pushed upon you weren’t as “free” as it seemed after all. Especially true under our current capitalism world, wasn't it? But it was not completely drunk without Aziraphale's agency, either. Coffee/freedom which Crowley asked six shots of. Coffee/freedom which Nina served every day but still on her way to break free from a previous not-free situation. Coffee/freedom which Ms. Sandwich claimed tasted better when Nina was happy.

I think it's also worth mentioning that, Aziraphale served Muriel tea and demonstrated how to drink it but respected their choice not to drink just yet. Aziraphale invited Jim/Gabriel to have a cup of cocoa which Jim/Gabriel described as the best thing ever.

The coffee was not drugged. The coffee was a metaphor of many different ways people could relate to their free will and ability/responsibility to choose.

The most interesting part was, theoretically, we people praise free will, we value choices, and we love love characters to have their agency...

Until they made a choice that we personally don't like, against our point of view, or hurt us.**

**This is also why I never truly believed Crowley would Refuse Aziraphale with capital R in canon... Crowley was definitely heartbroken, but between the two of them, he was also the one who valued and respected people making their own choices more. We saw he did that again and again even when he didn't personally agree. The only once he "took" away others choice in canon was to prevent a suicide.**

Then, that was free will no more. We'd framed it as if said individual was nonconsensual. Or the relationship must be bad or unhealthy. Which was understandable, emotionally, but that was also exactly the point of people having free will, wasn't it?

Giving people agency means acknowledging that they are different individuals from us. There's connection. There's love. There's devotion. They're still their own person just like we are our own. Giving people freedom to choose means they might, will, and should be allowed to choose differently. If their choices break our hearts. Well, they break our hearts. That happens because people are people.

People can't truly choose/love us freely if they aren't also given the freedom to not choose/love us. (Not saying Aziraphale and Crowley didn’t love each other because they definitely do. I’m just saying, they’ve been co-shaping humanity from the start of course they would act more and more like people, and to paraphrase what Adam once said, it made no sense to make people people and then be mad at them when they acted like, well, people)

Ursula Le. Guin wrote this short story called "Nine Lives" and it was about real, meaningful connections were created by reaching out a hand in the dark, without knowing for sure whether there would be other people to reach back.

It’s a practice. To love and to love under the blessing and curse of free will choice.

Idk I’m just… the “coffee was drugged theory” especially didn’t make sense to me personally, because Good Omens has always been a story about human free will.

[wuffgang-ameowdeus-moozart]

Eddie's awesome and super effective step-by-step plan on how to seduce local pretty boy Steve Harrington:

1. Make a good impression on his kids

That was almost too easy. DnD always gets them all.

2. Mentally prepare yourself to become a parental figure to a fuck-ton of kids

After much contemplation and many basketball games between Sinclair and Steve where the latter sweats and takes off his shirt and pours water over his head, I have decided that I am ready for this huge step. I will be the best stepfather those kids have ever had. Besides Steve, of course

3. Ask him out on a date

Should probably figure out step 4 before I do this one. No, this is NOT STALLING OKAY !!!!!!

4. Take him out (ON A DATE!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

Possible date ideas:

Invite him to one of our shows

Go Are you stupid? Haven't you seen how many times that boy has been hit in the head? and you want to invite him to a place with LOUD MUSIC and FLASHING LIGHTS?!

...God?

No. This is your fbi agent.

Ohhhh. Am I a wanted man? 😏

You are a risk to the public safety after what happened this summer. And after watching you attempt and fail to lick your own elbow for over an hour to prove a point to a kid half your age, and also seeing you fail so miserably while trying to plan a date, I am convinced that that was the correct choice by the US Government.

First of all: I knew that you weren't God be

stop showing me your tongue. I can see you through the camera. Cause he would definitely be a huge Corroded Coffin fan. Second of all, don't fucking inter

You can't stop me, and you are clearly dependent on my help. Rupt me. Asshole. And third: leave my Docs alone?! a) I can think better with lists. b) This is also where I save

most of your music, I know. I fix some verses sometimes to give it a better flow

I KNEW THAT THERE WAS SOMETHING WRONG

You're welcome. I don't even ask that you credit me. Now please, calm down. You have time to throw your tantrum later. Right now we have a date to plan. In the time I have gotten to know you, I have become concerningly invested in your relationship with the Harrington boy. And my partner also agrees.

Hello. I am the FBI Agent assigned to our current target Steve Harrington.

Uhm, mister agent. You are aware that I meant take out in the DATING sense and not in the KILLING sense, right?! Wait, you know what, let me go clarify it real quick.

A clarification is not needed.

He's going to do it anyway. He never listens.

Sounds like someone I know. Back to our *romantic* target. I can tell you that Steve Harrington wishes nothing more than to live a domestic life in a comfortable home with the person he loves and a truly impressive amount of kids. And a dog.

HAVE YOU SEEN HOW I FUCKING LIVE?! HOW DO YOU EXPECT ME TO BUY HIM A WHOLE-ASS HOUSE?!?!OAJFJWJF

Although I am not technically assigned to you, you and my responsibility spend so much time together, that I have indeed had ample of time to thoroughly inspect your residence, yes.

In fact, me and my partner oftentimes take turns watching over the both of you at once

WHY ARE YOU TELLING HIM THIS. IF BOSS FINDS OUT WE WILL BOTH HAVE TO WORK FULLTIME AGAIN

Calm down, we are already breaking the rules by directly interacting with out target. So, whenever you and Steve watch a movie or cuddle or sleep in the same bed or go to the record shop together even though you both have completely opposite taste in music or s why are you looking like this Eddie.

FUCK WE REALLY DO ALL THAT, DON'T WE?!?!?!

Yes.

Yes.

BUT THESE......THESE ARE ALL.....THESE ARE ALL GREAT DATE ACTIVITIES AREN'T THEY?!?!

Yes, since both of you have a romantic interest in each other I would say that these activities could be considered a date.

Now you understand why we are so invested in your relationship? Aaaaaand he's run off.

But. But he has to delete this document. Nobody can never know of this severe breachment.

Wait true! Fuck! EDDIE MUNSON GET BACK HERE FOR A SECOND

EDDIE MUNSON!!

@weirdandabsurd42

@spicysix

@alliecat523 (ik u don't go here but u did interact with the post so)

[shadowofahope]

We Are Liars

Pairing: rich college student! Changbin x college student reader

Warning: Flufffffff

Premise: He needed an out of his mothers attempts to set him up. Your summer schedule was empty. Maybe him asking you to be his fake girlfriend wasn't the worst idea. It did make a lot of sense. But then again it was too easy to say yes...

Word count: 4.7 K

Authors notes: Tada! I've been very overtired recently so please forgive the errors. I'll go back to fix them but for now I wanted you to have our lovely Changbin!

SKZ Masterlist

“Every time I go back home my mother incessantly tries to set me up with her friends daughters, even their nieces. No matter how many times I tell her that I want to find love on my own, she just still pushes. I was so tired of it, I just blurted out I have a girlfriend.”

He looked tired, honestly. Him asking you out to a late night coffee run, you weren’t expecting to meet up with him looking so exhausted. He was always busy and the others always told him he looked tired but this seemed different, but you guessed this made sense now.

You sip your coffe nodding along to his words, setting it down on the metal table, leaning back to give him your full attention. “Ok, well why me?”

“She knows of you in our friend circle, but she’s never met you or seen us together. I panicked and you were the first person I thought of. Being friends already I figured it’d be the easiest sell.” 

The antsy leg bounces unde the table weren’t lost on you. Agitation wouldn’t be the right word for the look hardened on his face. You could see it clear as day though, he wasn’t one to mask his feelings or insecurities. 

“Fair enough.” Because it did make sense to some extent. If it was one of the other girls that hung around occasionally, you wouldn’t bet money on their acting abilities. Or honestly their inability to not have a crush on him. Most of them, as annoying as they were, were just around clinging like flies to hot trash. Trying almost anything to get the boys to notice him, Changbin being the easiest sell as he was the richest friend in the group. Or at least he had the richest parents, you had pointed out once to the caddy bunch. They made some comment about being the only male in the family and blah blah blah. You had walked away without saying anything at that point, you didn’t see a point in listening anymore.

“She started asking me all these questions about how we met, so I just told her we met through Minho, which is the truth, but then she demanded for me to bring you home this summer. So now I’m sitting in a deep dark whole that I dug for myself that I’m really hoping you’d help me out of…I’ll even pay you for it…” His eyes squeeze shut, creating crows feet around them, hands coming up in a praying nature, bottom lip coming out in a pout. Putting on his best pitiful show.

He really didn’t need to beg so hard, but it was cute. “Ok. I’ll help.”

“You’ll come home with me?” He sounded almost shocked, did he really think you’d protest to helping a friend?

“Yea. No one should be forced into anything. I feel bad enough for you.” You laugh at him, keeping a light air around you. You did feel bad for him, relationships were hard already but add on a pressure cooker of a mother and who knows what someone would be willing to do to release it.

Knowing Changbin and being close to Changbin were two different things. You had hung out within groups but never alone, until tonight. However, you had never felt uncomfortable around him or unsettled. It seemed easy enough, and if you had to act with PDA, it definitely didn’t help that he was attractive. Not someone you’d usually find yourself drawn to, but maybe you’d get to see a new side to the rich, muscle man.

“Seriously?!” His eyes light up, as he reaches his hand across the table to yours. “Thank you, thank you, so much. I’ll definitely repay you for everything!”

“However.” You try to mask your smile behind a mask of seriousness. “We are going to have to set up boundaries, those of PDA.” 

You use your head to gesture to his large hands still enveloping your smaller one. Not that you had a real problem with it, it was warm in the cool night air.

He chuckles nervously, “Yea, we don’t want anyone feeling uncomfortable…”, pulling his hands back from you.

“That goes both ways.” You genuine smile returning. “How are you generally in relationships and around your friends and parents?”

Finding out the logistics before hand would be a better idea than going in blinde. Especially as your normal reaction to things is keeping space between you and other people. Be that mentally or physically. You don’t want to recoil suddenly if he went to hold you hand infront of his parents. That would put an end to your show rather quickly.

“Hm-” He stares off, slightly behind you in contemplation. “Well I would say I am slightly on the clingier side. I like to hold hands, cuddling or just be touching in general. I’m very open to letting everyone know I’m with someone, I tend to be possessive in that sense. Normally I’d use pet names too. But i’ve never brought someone home so I’m not really sure how I’d be. My guess would be probably the same.”

You mull over his words carefully, factoring in your ability to act with him. 

“Ok, Well I’m comfortable with the PDA level. I can accept clingy.” You coo at him. Who knew muscles had such a cute needy side. “Do you have a pet name you want to be called or can I wing it?”

“You can wing it. I don’t mind, I tend to use baby for my partners.”

“Baby it is.” You stand up, grabbing your coffee off the table. “Well shall we go create some evidence?” 

“Evidence?” He eyes you suspiciously. 

“Yep. Lets take some photos of us, plus I can use one as my lockscreen” 

“That’s a cute idea! I want one too.” He exclaims clambering to his feet to join you in your walk down the street. He catches up with you rather quickly, which doesnt surprise you at all. But his next words do catch you off guard. “Should we practice?” 

“Practice?”

His hand slides down your exposed wrist, fingers slotting between yours to intertwine your hands. Lifting your joined hands up for you to get a good view of them.

“Practice.” Something about that look he gives you makes you want to wipe that smirk off his face. If he thinks he can beat you in the cheekiness department, he is utterly wrong. 

“Then how about kissing? Do we ignore that or should we practice?” 

The innocence in your voice is lost behind the sounds of him chocking, followed by your hysterical laughing. Neither of you letting go of eachother, creating fake memories for the trip to come.

🌊☀️🌊☀️

“Nervous?”

“Yes and no.” You explain. “On one hand if it doesn’t go well, its not the end of the world because were not actually together. On the other, it’ll be a really awkward homecoming for you if this doesn’t work.”

“Fair points. Just be yourself, with a little bit of me.” 

You roll your eyes at him, turning to look out the window. The drive was 4 hours overall, which you had spent 3 hours just talking and getting to know eachother, flushing out details like; how long have you been official, were exactly you met, first dates, etc. Obvious questions anyone might ask. Somehow you started talking about your childhoods and siblings, turning to various ex’s. Leading you to mention that your last relationship failed because of toxicity, but he allowed you to ghost over it. Not wanting to dwell or talk about it. You may be having to fake being vulnerable, but there was no way you’d actually show it now.

8 minutes left of your journey in the comfort of his slightly sporty highly expensive car with your own personal chauffeur, 4 hours was a breeze. 

And just like you assumed, when he pulled up to the beach house his parents and sister were waiting out front for the two of you. Their eagerness to meet you was overwhelming but you held it together well. Open arms for hugging, warm welcomes and benign ushered inside to chat about the detaisl they were dying to know. 

How remarkably easy it was to walk around on a tour with his hand in yours, luggage moved to your shared room for the nights you’ll be staying. His mother making a fuss about you two needing to share a bed because no matter where she would set up Changbin she knew her son would sneak back to you. Remarks she made, making you turn an eye to his, although he dodged eye contact very well. 

Physical contact you both had made sure you were accustomed to, so even without thinking you would seek eachother out. Small kisses here and there, pecks on the cheek or forehead. His favourite place to keep his hand you found was on your lower back. So trip through the small town with his mother, also meant a large amount of teasing from her. His need to hold onto you continuously, she’d laugh at, pester him about being possessive and smitten with you. 

Which is exactly what you both had planned. So shockingly convincing you were, it became comfortable. Easy. His warmth was contagious. 

Not only his, but his whole family. From baking in the kitchen with his mother, to discussing with his dad about his favourite starwars movie in the franchise, to going out on lunch dates with his older sister talking about her drama filled work place and the guy she had a crush on in the office. 

Watching him interacting with his family on calm nights like this, started making you think of things that were no longer possible. What it would be like to have someone like him love you, have his family love you.

Thinking back to last summer, the idea of dating again seemed like eons away. Leaving one toxic relationship behind you didn’t want to let yourself become that comfortable again. Setting yourself away on a shelf, adorned with forgotten trinkets of other peoples pasts. 

Maybe that’s why you didn’t know how to act in a healthy relationship. Letting him set up his boundaries and agreeing with them meant he wouldn’t know that you were broken in a way. The unrelenting bluntness and over communication made some relationships weaker, but on another hand made many stronger. 

Minho knew everything you went through with your ex, his uncompromising support for you to make your own choices, but also his need to scold you when you were being careless flourished your mere ‘childhood friends’ title to best friends. Over the years, no matter what friends you each made he kept your secrets adn you kept his. 

But maybe it was time to share them with someone new. You’d never felt so welcome and at home with a partner before. It would be easy to get swept away by his parents and sister, swept out to sea from high tide, until when? You’d find yourself buried under the think sand, suffocating to feel this love again? 

In this moment, you wouldnt let yourself dwell on anything. 

A ping from a phone set down next to you grabs your attention. Changbins screen lights up with text notification. 

“My love,” You call out, catching his attention. “Your friend messaged you about tonight.” 

He doesnt hesitate in bounding over to you, settling down next to you, arm resting behind you on the back of the couch. He unlocks his phone, opening the text nodding at it before angling the phone for you to see. 

You read it over quickly, before his mother observes “Are you two planning to go out tonight?” 

“Just him” You smile at her, but continue explaining as she looks a little irritated with her son. “He’s going to have a drink with his old friends while I take advantage of the jacuzzi tub in his bathroom.”

“She’s been eyeing it for a while now.” He leans over to land a gentle kiss on your temple, a soft smile forms on your face. 

“Alright…” She says unsure, but drops it nevertheless. 

🌊☀️🌊☀️

They’d been out for a few hours now, going to their favourite club when they were younger. It was a little closer to town, so they had carpooled together. You had waved at them when they left, and he remembers thinking how at ease he would be if this relationship were real. 

Now he’s many drinks in, and a few of them are tipsier then others. Him being one of the drunker ones.

“So when are we gonna meet this girlfriend of yours Bin?” His friend remarks, raising his voice to be heard over the loud music playing. 

“How bout right now.” He shouts back, struggling to pull out his phone from his back pocket whilst still sitting on it. 

“Man it’s 3 in the morning, you think she’s gonna be awake?” His other friend leans closer to him, making sure he doesn’t fall off his chair as he fights his jeans.

“Mhm!” Finally managing to rescue his phone from its compounds he carefully calls your num ber. It only takes a few rings before it connects. He smirks to himself, he knew you’d be awake. 

“BABY!” Shouts gleefully into the phone.

An airy chuckle comes through the receiver. 

“Yes my love?” Your warm sound already making him feel sleepy.

“Would you be able to pick me up from the club? I don wanna take a taxi.” His words slightly slur, but he fights through the fog of the alcohol. A pout forms on his lips, one he forgets that you can’t see.

“Where are your keys?”

“On my gym bag” He sings, knowing he’s won. 

“Do you want me to come get you now?” 

“Yesssss pleassssssse” Now there’s no hiding his sleepiness. 

“Be there soon.”

“Yay!” Cheering he hangs up, turning to his friends.

“There you go! Now you’ll get to see how beautiful and amazing she is.” Turning serious. “Now none of you go falling for her, she’s taken”

He doesn’t wait for them to respond, instead he clambers to his feet to push his way through the crowd to make it outside. You were coming to get him, he wanted to be there. He was excited to see you again, even though it hadn’t been that long since he left you behind he had already begun to miss you the moment they drove away.

His friends follow him through the mass, making sure he doesn’t stumble too far to hurt himself. Or anyone else for that matter.

His body vibrates in impatience and delight when he sees his car pulling up.

“BABY! You’re here.” He shouts gleefully as he slings himself onto you in a too tight embrace as soon as you step up on the curb. He pulls back just to pout at you and look down at your clothes. “But why do you have to look so cute?”

You had dropped your book and slipped into the closest things you could find, that wasn’t your pjs, which at the time you had grabbed one of his shirt’s and a pair of your jean shorts. Your hair in a messy ponytail tail with your glasses still on your face, you couldn’t help but smile at his cuteness.

Ruffling his hair you coo at him “cmon you drunk, lets get you home.”

“Here, we can help.” Two of his friends attempt to pry him off of you and usher him into the car.

“I want bed and cuddles” he whines as you break contact. 

“You know what would get you bed and cuddles faster? If you weren’t so drunk” you laugh at his plight. 

“Hi y/n, I’m Wooyoung.” A hand comes out for you to shake. “Sorry for the lousy first meeting.”

“Honestly it’s ok, it’s still nice to meet you Wooyoung”

The gir standing behind himl snubs her nose at you but you pay her no mind as the other two guys come round the car also giving their introductions, to then point out the female and drop her name. You only nod at her.

You hear a scuffle behind you as changbin starts to re-emerge from his seat, trying to make another break for you. The males run round to stop him. 

Heels click next to you. Something grateing about the voice makes your skin feel icky. “He let’s you drive his car.” 

That was definitely a statement, not a question. But still you felt a tug to answer.

“Sometimes.” You smile watching the men fight, before turning to her “have a good night”

“Changbin! If you want bed and cuddles you need to get into the car.” You tell him sternly.

He gives you a goofy smile before giving a “goodnight guys” and disappearing into the car.

“Have a good night y/n, it was nice meeting you again.”

“You guys as well. Hopefully I’ll see you soon.” A smile once again before climbing into the drivers seat and heading towards the beach house.

🌊☀️🌊☀️

“Remind me not to drink that much again.” Changbin groans, rolling over holding his head in pain. 

“I don’t know, you were pretty cute.” You mock contemplation, tapping your chin with your finger in consideration. Sitting on the edge of your shared bed, you’re already dressed and ready for the day. You had graciously let him sleep in a little longer before waking him up.

“I was what?” He shoots you a look from his hiding spot. 

“You heard me. If I had known you were like that I would have drank with you guys more often.” The smirk on your face might as well be permanently plastered there. This was something you weren’t going to forget easily. 

“What did I do?”

You don’t answer, walking across the room to pick up his phone. You unlock it, clicking on the video that Wooyoung sent him before tossing it onto the bed next to him. He scrambles to reach it, sitting up to watch carefully. Forgetting about the pain he was just in.

“Did I actually demand bed and cuddles from you?” 

“The whole drive home.” You laugh evilly, heading out the door. “Now get dressed my love, your mother said brunch is ready.” 

You hear a muffled mumble from behind you, but you don’t bother to check on it. You head down for food.

Halfway through food, he gets a call. Quickly leaving to answer it, leaving you and his mother and sister to continue eating and chatting. It doesn’t take him long to return. Hand on your back, but talking to the group. 

“Dad wants me to go with him to the office today.” He sighs dejectively. He eyes you meekly, you’re unsure if he’s upset because of the hangover or he wanted to stay with you. You didn’t do much throughout the day anyways. You liked reading while listening to the waves, sometimes zoning out at the view even. 

“Oh ok, I’ll stay here and help with the set up for tonight.” You smile up at him. Purposefully setting the question aside for later when it would be just the two of you again. 

The at end summer party his family threw every year was tonight. They invited all their friends and their families to it. Changbin mentioned he hated it the most as that’s when his mother would stop her subtle hints at setting him up and blatantly attempt to arrange dates for him. This time thankfully he had you, so he could actually enjoy the night.

“Are you sure?” His puppy dog pout comes back, you can’t help but laugh, reaching up to kiss him ont he cheek in hopes of cheering up.

“I’d love to have her help.” His mother sings from the other side of the table. “We’ll be alright.”

“I can take her shopping later to pick out a dress for tonight!” His sister speaks up.

“Noona, you don’t have to.” He tries to derail.

“Of course I dont, but I want to spend some quality time with my sister-in-law!” She squeaks happily, putting on an overdramatic show just to annoy her brother. 

“Upgraded already?” Changbin chimes, giving you a pointed look. “Did you put my family under a spell or something? Why do they love you so much?” 

Both of you break into matching smiles. He gives you a quick peck on the lips, before turning to leave the room.

Your smile doesn’t recede when you watch his back as he leaves, turning back to food you find his sister and his mother beaming at you. 

Excited giggles and chatter from the other two about the party when they decide to stop staring at you.

🌊☀️🌊☀️

“Are you positive that this is necessary?” You call out from the dressing room. 

You had tried on countless dresses, creating your own fashion show when you’d unveil them to her. But each time them seeming not quite right to either of you. 

“You can’t wear my brothers shirts forever.” She calls back.

“Says you.” You mumble, still loud enough for her to hear. You can make out her faint laughter through the door. 

“Ok, last one then we’ll head home.” You dont react in time to her flinging the bottom of a dress over your door onto your head. You can’t stop yourself from outright laughing at her eagerness.

“Fine.” 

Hanging the dress up on the hook you can now take a moment to look at it. A periwinkle empire waist full length dress, full flowy skirt bottom, with a shimmer of silver over the thin strap. Huh, something about this one pulls you in. You don’t realize your staring at it for so long until you hear her ask.

“Is it on?” 

“Uh, one more minute.” 

You slide the soft over your skin, the complimenting colour to you skin tone giving you a slight glow. Somehow out of the million dress you’ve tried on this one seems to fit perfectly. The zipper glides up, creating a snug but comfortable fit. 

“Ready!” You call out.

Stepping out you don’t wait to look at her reaction. Spinning around to look at yourself in the mirror, your eyes widen.

“This one.” You sigh.

“This one.” She smiles at you in the reflection.

🌊☀️🌊☀️

“You look….” He scans the dress, to your hair and makeup. A light glow on your skin, his sister insisted on. Spending the evening getting ready with her allowed you to surprise him with the look for tonight. “...amazing,”

“Thank you. You’re looking very handsome in this look. I think I like it.” You tease, eyeing him up and down dramatically. And he did, the black slacks and white button up loosley buttoned was definitely a good look for him. Slightly snug in all the right places, biceps and thighs to be exact. Both equally impressive. 

“Oh we like it hm?” He teases back. Maye you should reevaluate your ‘type’.

“Mm, might need to request we go to parties like this more often.” You laugh at the idea.

“Then lets get this party over with and I’m all yours to stare at.” His chuckle comes out genuine as he grabs your hand and leads you down the stairs.

When entering the party area Wooyoung makes himself known to the two of you. Hurriedly you make your way over, joining the large group there. Introductions of more of their oldtime friends turns to introductions to uncles and aunts and other family friends and at one point you think your head is about to start spinning with how many people you’ve just met in such a short time. 

Even then, the smile on your face never wavers. Nor does his. 

Eventually you find yourself in a conversation with his dad on the couch with an uncle of his and a family friend. You weren’t a huge fan of heels so you ending up opting to sit down with his father as he continued talking to his friends.

But like the whole trip here, your time without him was short. Your phone vibrates in your hand.

You give him a cheeky smirk before leaning over to tell his father where you were going and excusing yourseslf. You meet eachother at the back door. Heels left behind on the porch, hands intertwined you begin walking down the beach towards the water.

“Couldn’t stay away huh?” You tease, the breeze off the water feeling like bliss through your hair. It was starting to get a little too warm in the crowded house. 

“You seemed to be having fun though, talking to other people…” You catch the accusation in his words.

“Jealous of your own dad?” You pry farther. 

“Yes. Jealous of anyone who gets to spend time with you.” Once again his infamous pout appears. This pout would be the death of you. 

The cutest muscle man you’d ever seen. One you’d been allowed to see close up and personal for what feels like forever but also only a moment in time. 

“Confession time” He stills your walk when you reach the waters edge.

“I think I’ve been forgetting that all of this is fake.” He holds up your hands to look at them, and how perfectly they fit together. Slowly he lets go, dropping them and takes a step away. 

You take a deep breath, before taking a few steps into the cool night water. Honesty and communication had always been your thing, the two of you. Easy reading others and their needs but also able to talk about what you wanted openly. Maybe that’s what made this work.

“You’re not the only one.” You admit, feeling the water rise and fall with the ebbing tide.

“What do we do?” He whispers, you turn to face him still on the beach. “I don’t know if I can go back….. I don’t want to go back.”

“Then, it sounds like we only have one option.” It all made sense, but then again nothing made sense. You didn’t have to think with Changbin, you just had to be. “We stop lying. Stop pretending. We stop faking.” 

He takes hesitant steps into the water. Standing in front of you. “From now on, its real? Every moment, every kiss, every word, every touch. All real?”

Letting his words sink you, you think about what he’s asking.

“It’s already been real for me.”

You see the realization dawn on him. Cups your face and kisses you. Kisses you for all the kisses that contained the lies you told together. 

“And I’ll be taking my payment in kisses please.” You manage between an onslaught of kisses and giggles. His arms wrapping around you keeping you close to him, the light in his eyes igniting into something more mischievous.

“I can think of another way for payment if you’ll accept it.” 

You pretend to mull it over before hungrily kissing him, your tongue slipping into his mouth. A moan esapes him when you push him further to then pull away. 

“From you? Payment accepted.” You give him a peck before pushing against his chest and running up the beach towards the house. Hell catch up quickly, you know that for a fact, but you also know he knows exactly where you’re headed. To his bedroom. The first night of you being together, no longer liars but two people loving eachother. 

In the warmth of the truth. 

SKZ Masterlist

[ryuichirou]

Replies

Only two today, but long ones!

Anonymous asked:

Out of curiosity, are there any tropes in Media/Fanfiction that you and katsu Hate/Love...? or even Neutral about it?

I think don't you guys talked about that before unless I somehow missed it?

Anon! Sorry for the late reply. I had to think about it for some time, but I also feel like there is no way to answer this question in a definitive 100% conclusive way; there will always be some exceptions when the trope that we hate somehow still works okay, or when our favourite tropes don’t do the story justice at all. So this is more of a list of first things that come to mind! Mostly because these are the tropes we discuss the most.

We really tend to not like a lot of family-related tropes, especially when characters settle down and start a family and start living a slow domestic life and stuff, and when it’s painted as an endpoint or a happy ending of sorts. This is why we don’t really like talking about characters having kids or headcanon OC kids for our ships, the idea just doesn’t have the appeal to us. Maybe it’s because we don’t want children ourselves so it doesn’t click with us/we don’t get it; maybe it’s just because of how overwhelmingly popular this trope is, and how a lot of times it tends to make characters lose their unique characteristics and boil them down to just being a mom and/or a dad. Even if it’s not fanfiction but an original piece, we don’t really resonate with stories like that. Hmm, I guess it’s mostly about the nuclear families though, because I personally would find a story about a broken household more interesting. But if it’s just a “he is a papa, he is another papa, and here is their sunshine baby” is just boring to us personally… Where are my stories about characters going through divorce and fighting over their children? lol

Same goes for anything pregnancy related. We really don’t resonate with tropes that are related to pregnancy, the only possible exception being some horror stories.

Our favourite tropes… we love a despair-filled story! A tragedy, I guess. “Yes, everything is that bad; no, there is nothing you can realistically do to fix it” type of story, maybe a good example would be Shingeki no Kyojin.

When a super powerful being is somehow linked to one person and doesn’t stop being a super powerful being and doesn’t develop empathy or humanity! I don’t know how to explain it lol We love it when someone super powerful and inhuman favours a character, either due to having plans for this character or due to its selfish obsession, but it doesn’t go the typical route of “and then the demon learned how to care and love someone”. Like, the obsession is still there, but the creature doesn’t experience it in the same way that humans do, even if it looks like it, there is still this creepy gap that could never be closed. Whenever this gap closes and the creature starts feeling love, it turns into the trope that we really don’t like lol

Somehow related to this, but not really? I’ve said it multiple times, but: character A loves character B so much that they are willing to do horrible things for them (things that character B never asked for). We also love selflessly loyal type, sadodere or yangire boys, anything that makes characters’ relationship with each other almost cartoonishly exaggerated and extreme. I hope it makes sense.

Also! A character is bored and does whatever they want in the story, dancing to the beat of their own drums. Like chaotic neutral, but without any common sense? Hisoka from HxH or the Tweels would be good examples. You never know whether they are an ally or a foe because you can never guess what exactly they’re thinking about.

I can talk about it for ages, but these are the tropes that come to mind first!

Anonymous asked:

Any fav writers/artists you two follow bc of their work or ships?

Im new to bsky and want to follow ppl with similar taste first

Sorry for the late reply, Anon!

To be completely honest with you, we don’t have a lot of people who we follow on bsky; well, we do have a lot of our favourite jp artists who made an account there when it became publically available, but a lot of them don’t post there regularly and prefer to still use twi. Still, I’ll give you the links in case they start posting again!

I wish I could give you more recommendations, so if anyone wants to add to this list, feel free to comment under this post.

Here are some of our faves:

https://bsky.app/profile/thumaru.bsky.social - not shippy, but a lot of very good character art; their Vil is top notch.

https://bsky.app/profile/rakugakityou03.bsky.social - also not shippy; absolute god of illustration, their art is gorgeous.

https://bsky.app/profile/akiseizon.bsky.social  - I physically can’t NOT post a link to Futairo-san; I am so obsessed with their art it’s pathetic at this point.

https://bsky.app/profile/moketaros.bsky.social - one of the best rkvl artists out there, even though they haven’t updated their bsky in a bit…

https://bsky.app/profile/chocomaimai.bsky.social - one of my favourite Shroud artists! They don’t post much on bsky unfortunately, but their collection of artworks on pixiv and twi is great.

https://bsky.app/profile/rikuaso.bsky.social - another one of my favourite Shroud artists! Their Shroudcest is gorgeous :”)

https://bsky.app/profile/ingtakou6910.bsky.social - pretty Jamils!! Very pretty Jamils!!

Once again, the list isn’t as big because I’m limiting it to bsky, but if you ever want a twi/pixiv list, let me know. 😔

[lilyrealm]

i simply think it is so fun to imagine a world where a company makes a bunch of androids to assist people and provide companionship so they give the androids stories and release them in certain themes or lines and those androids are the genshin characters. credit to @yandere-daydreams for the idea. i love it so much. yes we all want x character to be our boyfriend or girlfriend and we have sex with them yes but i think its fun to imagine their roles when theyre not being yandere...

also the read more is very long i just went off about my ideas for most of the mondstadt characters. nothing wrong with me

if this is set in teyvats world imagine amber being like a gliding instructor in mondstadt. good engineer too, maybe the first bot that can fix other bots/have intricate knowledge of them (because she made baron bunny).

for human injuries theres barbara and jean, but with different temperaments for different patients. or if we're still set in teyvat, then jean (and the rest of the favonius knights characters) are actually android assistants to the actual human knights. basically the androids replace vision holders??

but yeah kaeya would also be a knight assistant, noelles story is she trains super hard but still isnt a knight (because shes made to help actual trainees!). lisa of course manages the library. yeah sorry thats it. makes tea

and i had the idea (this is all stolen from my own twitter thread from *checks* last year? anyway) that they would tease the release of bots like diluc, rosaria and razor through voicelines from kaeya, barbara and lisa. really like the idea of razor originally being some sort of surveillance android for wolvendom/integrating with them in some way for research and sort of became a guide for people who get lost in wolvendom.

diona and diluc are two different types of bartenders, one is good against people who cant say no to a cute (angry) kitty and the others... are those require some intimidation.

VENTI. god, i think itd be cool if they had prototype models for the seven archons and actual venti bots now definitely play into the "broke bard who plays for alcohol" thing. but of course anyone with eyes knows that his original model was the barbatos android.

oh!! and bennett and fischl being adventurers buddies. bennett is "unlucky" but hes actually like, wired to be hypervigilant and take hits for you while he shrugs it off. and fischl comes with oz if you need some chuuni speech translated, but you can disable that if you want to go full rp with her.

*looks at my thread* oh yeah "Albedo is made for the alchemists in the Knights, and he was meant to be released with Klee, but there was a delay because his ai kept experimenting on its own copies (Flowerfell Albedo?)" ngl i didnt play the albedo event and never bothered to watch a video so i dont know the full extent of his lore here. oh right and i added "sucrose is made to keep an eye on him in the labs" lmao

klee is. i suppose made for the knights. a cute energetic girl to keep morale up, whos fireproof and thus able to scout dangerous areas/bomb them if you so wish.

oh yeah i wrote that the church was not happy about the rosaria bots being made so they relegated her to guarding dragonspine against foolish adventurers. as to why she keeps appearing in bars, well, uh. No comment — Celestia Inc.

the lawrence clan wanted in on this business and sponsored a representative of their family, but mondstadts opinion of them is less than friendly, so the knights compromise and make eula, a lawrence knight.

whew okay for some reason i was able to churn out a lot for mondstadt and then everyone else i was like uh yeah. they exist and do things similar to what they do in game like xiangling being a cook's aide. yep. idk why the mondstadt worldbuilding gripped me so hard like that.

also my last thought is that maybe the hilichurls are just the verryyy alpha version of their bots, the khaenri'ah line (i think daydream mentioned this) and maybe just broke down and went rogue/abandoned. so now they make better bots to fight them and keep people safe. go figure. earns them a ton of cash though. lol imagine if getting them was a lottery too....

[bluerskiees]

THE DAMNED PRINCESS 👑

｡ ˳ْ  👤  ⍈  🪐 𓂂 ˚  ◌ 🧸

｡ ˳ْ  𓋼𓍊  Synopsis: Haitani Ran, the prince of roppongi has always been the 'Enemy' of princess Ito y/n of shibuya. Let it be education, gratefulness, anything, he was always better than her. And to make it worse, he likes teasing her so much. What happens when their parents propose the idea of their marriage ? Will love blossom between the two young hearts ?

Tw: Murder, Typical bonten shenanigans, Mentions of Alcohol, Teasing, Enemies to lovers trope, Ran being full of himself, A bit fluff (?)

@trashmemebitch @who-dezz @sleeplessreader @ranmahaitaji @slutaholic69

R/m - Ran's mother

R/f - Ran's father

Y/m - Your mother

Y/f - Your father

Ran could see it. The way you clenched your jaws, the way you balled your fists. He saw it all and smirked. You screeched at him as he won. AGAIN. You were supposed to win this. You were always the best at learning new languages weren't you? Then how come Ran out of all people beat you? It confused you, you knew ran since forever, he wasn't the type of person to learn a new language. Anything he does, he plans it perfectly. He definitely has a motive behind mastering a new language in less than 2 months and you knew it— you knew his motive. It was obvious from the way he looked down on you, implementing that he's always a step above you and in simple terms he's just better. Better at everything. And he doesn't even try. Just the thought of him boils your blood. And since you weren't able to do anything, you ran to your carriage and locked yourself in your room when u reached your palace.

You could hear your personal maid begging for you to come out, "Y/n dear, it's 8. Please come out, you've been locking yourself in ur room for 3 hours, It's dinner time". You made yourself comfortable on the bed before letting out a long exaggerated sigh. You just hated him. Him. His guts. The way he looks down on you. Everything.

You fixed your dress and went down to eat dinner. You saw your parents sitting in the table and that made you happy. They finally had time for you after so many months. It was hard living in the same palace and yet not being able to even catch a glimpse of your own parents. However, the smile on your face soon dissappeared after you saw the evil prince from the neighbouring kingdom a.k.a Ran Haitani. You sat beside your parents after rolling ur eyes at him.

R/m: "You've grown a lot y/nnie"

R/f : "Ofc she has, she's a grown woman now, she's no longer the little girl who used to cry over a small cut"

Everyone : *laughs*

R/m: Sooo Ito-chan, have you told her yet? About the big moment?

This snatched all your attention. Tell you? The big moment? What was happening??? U honestly had no clue

Y/m : haha we haven't yet told her, she was busy earlier.

You weren't— they were. But still, What was happening. Everyone seemed to know what was going on. EVERYONE but you. The sly smile adoring Ran's lips said he knew about it too. Ugh! How much you hated this.

Y/f : So Y/n, You know, me and mama are getting a bit old and our health isn't at it best right now. So we want you to marry Ran, I know you hate him, but trust me darling he loves you more than anything. "DAD HE ABSOLUTELY HATES ME". Would you marry him and make us proud, baby?

You couldn't do anything now. You wanted to run, scream, cry. But nothing happened. Your legs didn't move, your voice was barely audible. You didn't want this. Neither the wedding nor the idea of making your parents proud only by marrying him. They did a lot for you, from the second you were born till now. They gave you everything before you asked for it and asked nothing in return. Now that they finally asked you something after all these years, will you accept it or will u make them sad ? Ofcourse, you wouldn't, you weren't ungrateful. If that's what they want, then you're ready. Ready to marry him.

"Yes dad, I would love to marry him" You said with a smile that didn't quite reach your eyes. Ran saw it, but your parents didn't. They were too busy celebrating the great news. You sat there quietly. You didn't know how to react— It all happened too quickly. You were internally panicking until u heard a soft voice requesting your parents to talk alone with YOU, his soon-to-be. Wait- soft voice ? That's unusual. He must definitely plan to embarrass you later.

You followed him quietly into the balcony, your bangs covering your teary eyes which were about to be spilled out any moment.

"Why? Why did u say yes?" You heard him speak. You could say nothing except whispering a huh, which u were sure didn't reach his ears. But it did anyway. "Something's obviously wrong Ito-chan, Your smile didn't even reach your eyes, are u really okay with this marriage? I can ask my parents to cancel it if you aren't happy with this y'know?" You could hear the genuine concern in his voice. The smirk that once was in his lips is now replaced by a frown. This was you last straw to not cry.

"Why? W-why are u like this ? This isn't you? Why are you nice to me ? Do u really think im that p-pathetic huh? I- i—" that's all you were able to say before breaking down in tears in front of him. Oh this was a nightmare.

Ran gently pulls you into his arms and kisses your head and forehead until you calmed down.

"Who said I hated you huh? Who said I thought u were pathetic? Did I say it?"

"H-huh? I thought —"

Your words were interrupted by ran as he proceeded to speak, "Did I say it?"

"I- no. You didn't. I just thought—"

"See, I never told you anything of that sort, And honestly i dont think you're pathetic. In fact, I think you are the most beautiful, talented, adorable, super-cute girl i've met in my entire life y'know?"

"What—"

"What? Am I not allowed to love you?"

"Huh? You love ME?"

"Ofc YOU dumbo, do u see anyone else here?"

"Oh- yeah"

There was long silence between you both before you decided to speak again.

"How long have u loved me, Ran?"

"Hmmm, I loved you ever since we were children. I fell in love with the way you smile, the way you talk, the way you walk, literally everything about you makes me wanna fall in love with you all over again. You make me feel like a teenager experiencing his first love. You have no idea how many classes i've joined just to be with you, Who would've thought that the great Ran haitani would join a class to simple learn (language name). You got me doing it. Oh you have no idea how much i wanted to hug yoy and kiss you whenever you show me that face of yours. You make me wanna be a better man. All for you"

You were flabbergasted. You were blushing like crazy and your heart was beating so hard you were sure people from the next kingdom would hear you. You didn't expect this— Definitely not from ran.

"You know, I've never seen you that way, but the sincerity in your words makes me wanna give you a chance and that's what I'm gonna do. Dont break my heart, Haitani"

Words couldn't express how happy he was, to be accepted by the love of his life, the apple of his eyes, the sunshine that lits up his world, You were his everything and he wanted to protect you.

"Oh darling, I would never break your heart. I may break others bones but never your heart. Never in a million years"

And that's how your love story began, in the balcony, your eyes interlocked with his, as if time has stopped. Everything stopped. The only thing that matter now were you and ran. You could feel your heartbeat perfectly syncing his racing ones— indicating he's your soulmate, he's yours and you're his. That's when you realized Ran haitani wasn't always a bad guy. He was the one who helped you when you almost got kidnapped by a bunch of locals, He was the one who helped you become a better version of yourself because if it wasn't for him, you wouldn't be practicing your skills regularly. He was your everything. So were you his.

This may be the end of the one shot, but the love you have for each other will continue for centuries to come.

Maybe marrying your so called 'Enemy' wasn't a bad idea afterall <3

You knew you were gonna enjoy your new life with him. And you were more than excited for it to happen ♡

[dancingacrossthemilkyway]

i have no idea what kind of drabble prompts you prefer tbh but here: jmart but in space. like sci-fi, maybe star trek-y

“Ow!” Jon flinches as a thick gel is applied to his reddened arm, freshly scraped free of the spores that had attempted to embed themselves in his skin. The gel itself feels relatively good against his skin, a soothing cool against uncomfortable heat, but the gloved hand rubbing it on is anything but gentle. “Are you trying to cause me more pain, Dr. Blackwood?”

The doctor in question grunts from behind the full-body suit he’s wearing as he treats Jon, but Jon doesn’t need to see his face to picture the severe expression residing there. Pinched brows, wrinkled nose, pursed lips: the trademark disapproving scowl Martin likes to fix Jon with whenever he comes back from an explorative mission that has gone somewhat sideways. 

It’s probably far more displeased than normal, considering the personal protectice equipment he’s donned and the fact that every member of the on-world team has been quarantined in their own separate rooms until Martin’s convinced they’re safe to be around.

“Will it keep you from doing something like this again?” Yeah, Martin’s definitely grumpy. His voice is pitched slightly higher than usual and filled with a mixture of sassy irritation that he only gets when particularly peeved with whatever stupid decision Jon’s made. “Christ, I thought having Sasha as your second-in-command would make you less likely to get into trouble, but she’s as bloody impulsive as you!” 

Sasha was promoted recently from Communications Officer when Manuela had finally had enough of Jon’s brand of spontaneous decision making and requested a transfer to a different ship. It wasn’t necessarily much of a surprise that they didn’t get on, even without Jon being the way he is; disciples of the Dark rarely worked well in close quarters with those of the Eye. It was one of the risks of having a crew contain an officer from each of the Fears: there were always going to be inherent disagreements that weren’t easily resolved due to a difference in beliefs. 

Jon hasn’t had much contact with Manuela’s replacement, Basira Hussein, but this mission proved that she can definitely hold her own. It shouldn’t be a surprise, given her high recommendation from Daisy.

Slowly they’re settling into a team Jon thinks he likes. Even if he doesn’t get along with all of them on a personal level, they’re good members of the crew and they work well with each other. That’s what matters - that’s what he remembers being emphasized at the academy. 

“Yes, well,” Jon replies, giving Martin a blank look as he speaks in his typical deadpan. “If I were less impulsive, we wouldn’t have as many successful missions under our belt already.”

Martin scoffs. “I’d take less successful missions if it meant you stayed safe. Or do you think I enjoy having to dig worms from your skin, or, or, make sure you don’t end up sprouting fungus, or stitching you up when you decide to piss off something with knife hands-”

Jon waves a hand between them, relieved when Martin finally stops aggressively rubbing the gel across his arm and steps back to survey him. “Yes, yes. That’s why I was chosen to be Captain, not you.”

Another scoff. “No, I chose to go to medical school, not the academy. Honestly, I don’t know why Space Marshall Bouchard chose you over all of the other far more qualified options-”

“Love you too, Martin,” Jon interjects with a soft laugh, having heard this spiel a million times before. And perhaps, if not for knowing it comes from a place of affection and concern, he’d take offense to it. But Martin worries; that’s part of who he is. He worries, and even if Jon were the most qualified individual for the job, he’d worry. 

“-I swear the man is just out to give me a heart attack when you go charging off into the dens of literal space lions. What did I ever do to deserve this?” Throwing his arms up in the air in an exaggerated gesture - which loses most of its effectiveness given the way the suit squeaks against itself as he moves - Martin moves to put away the supplies he used. “Christ. You know, it’s a good thing I love you, or I’d be done.”

“Done… with me, or on the ship?” Jon prompts, despite the fact that they’ve had this discussion before. Sometimes it’s fun to egg Martin on a little - god knows the favor is returned. 

“Both!” Martin groans, dropping the disposable tools into the hole that leads to the medical waste fires. “You’d better not grow anything and miss our date tonight.”

“I’ll do my best to not grow anything on this arm.”

“Anywhere, Jon! You’d better not grow anything anywhere!”

[aceofstars16]

The Epilogue is up! After over a month (or five years, if you are counting the first seven chapters lol), this story is finally finished!

Thanks to everyone who read, reblogged, and liked it!

The whole story can be read on AO3 or you can read the epilogue below:

Epilogue

June 20th

This had officially been the longest day of my life. I already wrote about what happened in the past (Man I was really freaking out about time paradoxes, huh? Good thing there is such thing as a Time Wish!) but I thought I should fill you in on what happened after me and Mabel got back for the second time.

First, much to my surprise, the Mystery Fair was still going on! But it was different than the one Stan had put on before our time travel adventure. The biggest difference was that there were way more scientific booths around. You could actually learn things! But not all of it was different. Stan still had his dunk tank, and it was still rigged. Aside from that, most of the activities seemed a little safer (maybe the safety signs were actually real…but knowing Stan, they could still very well be fakes). I was pretty sure that the science and safety were Ford’s doings, and that was confirmed when we found our grunkles on the grounds.

What a reunion! They were so thrilled to see us that Stan practically tackled us in a hug.  What had only been a few minutes for us was thirty years for them! But true to their word, they had plenty to tell us, with more promised after we get some sleep (as if I’ll be able to sleep! Okay, Globnar did kind of wear me out, but my brain is still going a mile a minute.)  However, the pictures in the hallways of the two of them on a boat make me think a lot of their stories are going to involve sailing.

But the-

Okay, Mabel keeps begging me to let her write some. So I’ll pass it on to her for a minute.

Hi!  Mabel here! Dipper forget to mention the best thing! Or, one of the best. Seeing Grunkle Stan and Ford again (and getting the tightest hug ever from Stan) still makes me grin. BUT the other best thing happened when we first made it back to the fair. True to Dipper’s word, we started looking for Waddles. Now, with how different everything was, I wasn’t sure where to look for the pigs. And I was starting to wonder if they even had pigs at this fair. But then I saw him! Waddles was in a pen, just like before! And I won him again fair and square. Now I have my pig and both of my grunkles! It’s the best day ever! Thanks Dipper!

Okay, Dipper here again. Yes, Mabel got Waddles again, and I’m okay with it, even if it meant giving up my day with Wendy. Oh, right, I need to fill you in on Wendy in this new future! She’s still around, in fact, she still works for Stan! (And kind of Ford too. He told me that she’s helped him and Stan investigate anomalies a few times!) Ford said something about not having enough money to buy a boat. So Stan had the idea to turn the house into a tourist trap (count on Stan to have the same idea no matter what changes in the past). Of course, Ford wasn’t a huge fan. But they needed the money and Ford realized it would be a good way to educate the public about anomalies.

And so, the “new” Mystery Shack was born! It’s definitely more educational than before – which Mabel says is boring – but Stan still creates his fake attractions. There is even a game to play where you have to figure out what is real and what is fake. It’s a lot harder than it looks!

Soos is also working at the Shack as a handyman. Something about Fiddleford (who Ford told me was actually Old Man McGucket! Though he looks way different than he did before) focusing on his family and his own inventions and Ford not having time to fix the little annoyances around the house. Plus, I think Ford can tell how much Stan enjoys Soos’ company, even if he’d never admit it!

I still can’t help but wonder what had happened in the past to result in Stan running the original shack. But when I mentioned it to Ford, he simply stated that some mysteries are better left unsolved. And, seeing how happy everyone is…it’s hard to disagree.

So, I know who the author is. It’s a little strange, realizing that the biggest mystery of the summer is already over. But I have a feeling there are still plenty more adventures to be had this summer, all of which I will document here. I can’t wait to get started!

Signing off for now (because Stan just poked his head in to tell us to “Get to bed you knuckleheads, or I won’t tell you about the kraken I fought with my bare hands.”),

Dipper Pines