#Also I'm pretty sure that if Ace were Ann

[owl-it-here]

Deuce, after seeing Ace tear up for the fourth time, looking at Luffy's first wanted poster, even though he had just beaten up some thugs who had laughed at said poster a few seconds ago: Are you even a man at this point, or are you just pretending? Ace, without hesitation: Of course I'm a man, I'm a manACE! If I were a woman, my name would have been Ann.

[dat-town]

abcdlove

Characters: school radio club leader!Taesan & class president!female reader

Setting & genre: high school au, coming of age, first love, fluff, a hint of enemies to lovers but it’s only in the girl’s head

Summary: You convinced yourself that you hated Han Taesan after what he had done in sophomore year but now you have to work together on a senior project and maybe he isn’t that bad. Or maybe just for your heartbeat.

Warnings: stage names are used, OC has negative opinion about Taesan and Leehan in the beginning, mentions of social and parental pressure, the amount of banana milk consumed might not be healthy, hopefully not too ooc even though i wrote it within like 2 weeks after @restlessmaknae started sending me bonedo content

Words: 9.6k

Author’s note: this is the product of the amount of Ann Liang books i binge read recently, the instagram algorithm and @restlessmaknae’s marketing for Zico’s kids. this really pulled me out of my writing slump, so thank you for that! honestly my first impression of Taesan was that he looks like a tsundere, so that’s pretty much how it all started.

i'm pretty sure you guessed it; happy name day @restlessmaknae <3

read Leehan’s companion piece here

You had been following your well-planned route to success for years. You had already taken advanced courses at a prestigious hagwon, a private after-school academy for the subjects you totally needed to ace at CSAT. You also offered tutoring services to underclassmen, volunteered at the local library during summer and carefully chose your extracurriculars to align with the ideal student vision SKY universities had. You only needed to follow through the plan in your senior year too and you would be fine. You would finally make it.

Needless to say Han Taesan wasn’t part of your plans.

Yet, there he was standing right in front of the principal’s office where you were heading in all his 6 feet tall glory, his school uniform’s tie neatly done for once.

“What are you doing here?” You blurted out with no greeting when your steps slowly halted next to him, your jaw set and muscles tense.

Taesan turned his head slowly and looked at you impassively from under his dark fringe before speaking up in his raspy voice that made your classmates swoon whenever they heard him make a radio announcement.

“What does it look like?” He raised a brow as if he was telling you not to ask stupid things.

There could only be two kinds of reasons why somebody was called into the principal’s room: either very good or very bad. You had never gotten into trouble, so you were hoping for something positive but seeing the boy there wasn’t really promising. Not because he was a troublemaker or a bad student. He might not have been a straight A student like yourself but he was the leader of the school radio club and he was also generally liked among his peers as far as you knew. Your wariness was more so because you didn’t want to be associated with him in any way.

“Oh, both of you are already here. Wonderful! Come in, come in,” the office door opened and Principal Im rushed you inside with a welcoming smile.

At least, you could be sure by then that the news wasn't anything too bad.

You took a step to follow the man inside at the same time Taesan moved next to you as well which made you momentarily falter. However the boy merely reached out and put a hand onto the door’s edge to keep it from closing. You had to force yourself not to scoff at the fake gentleman-ish action and instead just duck under his arm to go inside the office.

You just sat down in one of the cushy chairs and smoothed out the lines of your school uniform skirt when you heard the door close and soon enough Taesan took the chair next to you.

“Alright, I won’t even waste your precious time since I know both of you are busy. I called the two of you here because as representatives of the senior classes, I would like the two of you to conduct interviews with your classmates and prepare a pre-recorded radio segment that can be broadcasted on graduation day. It can be about anything you want: what the students’ aspirations are or what they liked the best in high school. I trust you will do a great job,” the principal smiled at you hopefully but you could feel your own polite smile freeze onto your face. This was not how you imagined yourself spending the first term of senior year.

“But…”

“Yes, Y/N?” The principal looked at you expectantly and you could feel Taesan’s dark eyes on you as well which snapped you out of your confused stupor.

“Why the two of us?”

“Of course, you can get others to help too if you want but you have exceptional organizing skills as I heard and Taesan already has experience with our recording system and editing softwares. You two were the first ones we could think of, but of course I can’t force you…”

“It would be an honor, Principal Im,” you hurried to stop him there because there was no way you would have said no to a task like this. Not only because you could hardly say no anyways but also because it would look good on your resume. The only thing that bothered you was having to do it with a boy you could not stand. If you had that much time and you could do so, you would have gladly done it alone without his help but no matter how much you hated it, Principal Im was right: he had the skills to perfect a radio segment.

“Great! If you don’t have further questions, then good luck!”

“Okay, what about we meet after school to discuss the plans?” You asked immediately once you left the principal office because you had less than 5 minutes until first period and since you didn’t share a class with Taesan, you rarely ran into each other unplanned (thank god) and you would need your color-coded planner from your bag to plan any further than the afternoon.

“I have a radio club thing until 6,” Taesan simply said, not offering any alternatives, so you let out a sigh. Of course. What did you expect?

“And I have academy classes every other day,” you pointed out because he wasn’t the only one busy. “Then I can just email you your parts and we don’t need to–”

“So you can complain later that I’m freeloading off your hard work? No thanks,” the boy interrupted you and your gaze sharpened at him. He leaned casually against the corridor’s wall, a hand reaching up to loosen his tie and tilted his head at you as if to challenge you to protest. “We can make do during lunch hour.”

You opened your mouth, ready to tell him that you had plans already but going over your History notes, when it was just the first week of the term and you were ahead of the course work anyway, wasn’t that necessary even though you hated giving in to his idea.

“Okay, let’s meet outside at the benches then,” you agreed, telling yourself to be the bigger person, and turned your back on the boy before he could see the frustration bubbling up in you.

You and Han Taesan had the kind of history that you didn’t really like to revisit. That’s why your initial reaction was to roll your eyes whenever you heard his voice on the school radio or to puke your guts out when girls gushed about his ‘tsundere charm’. Their words, not yours.

Actually you would have probably not cared about the guy if it wasn’t for your model student campaign which he had ruined. Last year the school had run an event to choose a student representative by voting and every candidate could have a pre-recorded segment on the radio. You had your own carefully recorded and edited audio file with the best convincing speech you could prepare and emailed them the sharing link on time just to hear yourself sing your go-to karaoke song through the radio on the big day. In panic, you ran to the school radio broadcasting station only to find Taesan sitting there by the control panel with headphones over his ears, calmly letting the audio play well past the two minutes mark, seemingly not finding it weird at all that somebody tried to win the campaign with a karaoke rendition of a love song instead of saying a few words. As it turned out, you managed to share your entire recordings folder with the radio team but the club president, instead of playing the file titled campaign_speech_final.mp3, decided that AUD_20230326_192251.mp3 was the right track for your model student image. That week you not only lost that title to the grade’s pretty boy, but you lost your pride as well and it was all Taesan’s fault. Not that he ever thought to apologize or right his wrongdoings. So no, you weren’t looking forward to working with him at all.

He was late.

You had already dotted down six different questions and a rough program outline with your half-finished, now cold rosé pasta lunch menu  on the side by the time Taesan put his tray down on the outdoor table.

“You are late,” you picked at him right away which earned you a rather confused look.

“It’s still lunch hour,” he pointed out and dug into his own kimchi jjigae like he had all the time in the world. His behavior was seriously dancing on your nerves.

“Whatever. Let’s get into it,” you prompted because you didn’t have time to argue about semantics or his attitude. “We should divide the related tasks this week, finalize the questions and gather people for the interviews, then we can start on those next week.”

“What’s the rush? We have months until graduation,” Taesan questioned and while he was right (or because), you had the sudden urge to strangle him right there. You forced yourself to stay calm.

“Well, I don’t like to leave things to the last minute. Closer to graduation, we will be busy with the exams and college applications anyway.”

“As if you don’t already have everything prepared,” he muttered absentmindedly, scooping more kimchi on his spoon, eating without a care.

You pursed your lips, annoyed. You needed to remind yourself again that you had no time nor the energy to argue with him if you wanted to get this discussion done before your upcoming English class.

“Khm… so we can agree on splitting the interviews between us, right? You interview your classmates and I will do mine. We just need a common question sheet,” you said, tapping the end of your pen on the table.

Whether it was the repetitive sound or your words, it managed to get Taesan’s attention. He looked up from his food and leaned forward on his elbows, his dark eyes sharpening their focus on you.

“How would you record the interviews?” He asked, simply yet you had a feeling it was a tricky question.

“On my phone?” You furrowed your brows. Wasn’t it obvious? How else did he expect you to do it?

“That won’t be good. We would have a huge difference in audio quality. So unless you are fine with that, you need proper equipment. I can borrow a portable mic from the radio club, but I’m not trusting you with that.”

“Excuse me?” Your eyes widened in disbelief but Taesan didn’t elaborate on his reason. Ridiculous. He was just looking for faults in your ideas.

You let out a huff of frustration.

“Are you that desperate that we work together?”

“It’s called professionalism, miss class president,” he taunted you, looking completely serious. “I don’t want to broadcast anything under my name that’s just ‘good enough’.”

“Do you now?” You snorted and rolled your eyes. As if it wasn’t him who played your singing for the entire school. Where was his professionalism then? Who was he to lecture you about it? But okay, you could be the bigger person if he was so freaking stubborn. “Fine. We can do the interviews together with your fancy mic. These are the initial questions I thought of.”

You slid your open notebook towards him with questions about what they used to dream of becoming as a kid, what they want to be now, what colleges and majors they considered as well as their most memorable moment at the school and what they would tell their younger selves or their underclassmen. Taesan furrowed his brows as he was reading through the draft, probably dissecting each of your questions like a poor lab rat but eventually didn’t say anything. You raised a brow at him when your eyes met and he just shrugged.

“Sounds good to me,” he said which didn’t really added value but at least he didn’t find something to pick on in everything you did.

The rest of the discussion went easier as it was obvious that he would be the editor and you would organize the interviews. You were already mentally preparing a survey to send out to the students via the group chats you usually used for class president duties to see when they would be free to conduct the interview among the slots you offered. Taesan wasn’t particularly enthusiastic about the hectic and busy scheduling in the upcoming weeks but eventually agreed to get it over with within two months tops. He must have realized too that the earlier you finished with this project, the sooner the two of you could part ways.

You had the first batch of interviews at the end of next week. After ruling out inconvenient locations, you ended up with the obvious option: doing the recordings in the school radio clubroom. You were against it at first because the last time you had been there you faced public humiliation, whispers behind your back for weeks about your singing and messed up campaign, but objectively speaking you knew it was the most reasonable choice, so you bit the bullet.

You arrived ahead of time, of course, but you were quite surprised that Taesan was already there too, setting up who-knows-what on the professional equipment. He looked up when the door opened, the sun hitting the side of his face, giving it a natural warm glow, a stark contrast to the coldness he often radiated. He acknowledged your presence with a nod then went back to his work, so you just put your stuff down next to the round table in the middle of the room and got ready with your nicely printed questionnaire.

For the most part, the interviews went well, the students showed up more or less on time for their own slot, Taesan let you do the talking, merely letting you know when a recording started or ended. It all started going down when the last interviewee for the day didn’t show up. After five minutes passed, you texted Wonyoung asking politely whether she forgot the interview but she didn’t answer. Ten more minutes of awkward silence while Taesan was playing (or texting, you couldn’t tell) on his phone, you tried calling her but with no success. You started getting restless and frustrated.

“She could have at least told us if she wasn’t going to come,” you muttered more to yourself than anything when your next call went to the voicemail as well. It was such a waste of time just waiting.

“Why do you always assume the worst of people? Maybe something happened and she can’t make it. She could be too sick to care about you blowing up her KakaoTalk,” Taesan looked up from his phone and there was something in his eyes that made you feel like you were in the wrong, like you were a sulky child because generally it wasn't like you were always this pessimistic about people, but before you could have argued, Taesan sighed. “You can go. I can interview her if she shows up until 6.”

Well, you could have taken his word and left. Wonyoung was his classmate and he probably didn’t have anything better to do anyways. There was a set list of questions and not much to mess up. But just as he didn’t want you to handle his beloved mic alone, you didn’t want to leave it to him alone. So you just stubbornly held his gaze, trying to come up with a more profound reason when the clubroom’s door opened and Wonyoung stepped inside in the cheerleading squad’s PE clothes.

“Sorry. Practice got delayed. Thanks for waiting for me,” she panted and Taesan sent you a ‘told you so’ look which made you want to commit atrocities. You hated not being right and even more to be reminded of it.

“It’s okay. Catch your breath,” you turned to the girl with a reassuring smile but you were undeniably relieved when you could finally bid goodbye to her and pack up. It was getting late.

However, when you saw that Taesan was still saving the audio files and uploading them to your shared cloud folder, then putting away the recording device and the mic, you stalled around the door, feeling inconsiderate to leave earlier.

“Just go,” the boy muttered gently when he noticed your hesitation and you didn’t need to be told twice.

On your way to the bus stop, you stopped by at your favorite corner convenience store for some banana milk and almost missed your bus but luckily the driver saw you running and stopped.

“Thank you,” you bowed to the middle aged man who just mumbled something about youngsters these days, then tapped your transportation card against the sensor before looking for a place to sit.

Since it was past the rush hour, there were quite a few empty seats but there was one next to a familiar face close to the door. He had put on a hoodie over his uniform and had his head against the window, eyes closed but you would have easily recognized his long ass limbs everywhere. With the taste of your hurt pride still fresh on your tongue you walked past him, sitting down in the very back, only checking on Taesan a few times to see if he managed to wake up in time to get off at his stop.

Even without the interview project, senior year was busy. You felt like your days were piles of classes, homework, mock tests, real tests, tutoring and studying. Sometimes you memorized English vocabulary or dates for History class even during your lunch breaks or on bus rides because that way you could make the most out of your time. Some might have argued that you took it too seriously but if you wanted to get into the top universities of the country, you had to.

No wonder you spent the two hours you had between classes and tutoring on Friday in the library too, working on your Literature essay. It was kind of boring and you had a long week; you justified your frequent yawns and slow blinking. You didn’t even notice when you slipped into a dreamless sleep, not until you woke up with your head over your folded arms on the table.

As you were still in the haze, instead of panicking that you might have missed your tutoring class, you slowly blinked yourself back into consciousness and the first thing you saw was a pair of eyes.

The boy sitting at the table next to yours was looking at you with something akin to the mix of concern and amusement but you were too busy committing the lovely almond shape and chocolate brown shade of his eyes to your memory to be bothered by it.

Then the realization hit you like a truck because it was no other than Han freaking Taesan.

Oh, did he always have such pretty eyes?

Realizing that you were staring, you quickly turned your gaze away, sat up properly and fixed your messy hair while mentally reprimanding yourself for letting your sleepiness take too much control over you.

You hastily checked the time on your watch, sighing in relief that you only napped for about 15 minutes, so you still had time to finish what you were doing. Which was…? Ah, right, your essay.

You cleared your throat as you focused back on your homework, pretending not to be hyper aware of every chair creaking or pen against paper scribbling sound coming from the table on your left.

The next batch of interviews were scheduled a week later and you did everything in your power to avoid Taesan, hoping that he would forget that embarrassing little encounter you had in the library. Not like he was looking for you either but now that you have become more aware of his presence, you suddenly noticed him everywhere. He wasn’t just the subject of your classmates’ talks and an annoying voice from the radio anymore, he was in the canteen, on your regular bus, on the corridor between classes. Really, you wondered if it was your mind’s self-sabotaging doing or you just managed to ignore him previously. Since you tended to be laser focused on what to do, often walking by people you know without recognizing them, it wouldn’t have surprised you that much.

Still whenever you saw him, he was usually alone if not with juniors from the radio club, so you were a bit taken aback (and you weren’t sure you were hiding it well) when a bunch of his friends from his class were already in the clubroom by the time you got there. The door was left ajar, so you could hear Jungwon’s bubbly laughter and Gyuvin teasing Taesan for ‘working oh so diligently’. They all fell silent when you pushed the door open wider and suddenly their attention was on you. Leehan patted Taesan’s upper back with a grin and muttered something about ‘boss lady is here’ which earned him a glare.

“We will be on our best behavior,” Jungwon saluted with a promise when it turned out they booked the first three slots of the session on purpose, so they could sit through each other’s interviews. While you interviewed people by themselves, since the entire school would hear the edited version anyways, you supposed it couldn’t be a problem if they really did behave. They were friends after all, if they wanted to share them why not?

Them chuckling at some parts of each other’s answers or whisper-shouted hollering about future ambitions was a bit distracting but nothing seriously annoying. You could only hide your laugh with burying your face in your hands when Gyuvin recited a freshmen memory as his most memorable with a prank that ended with the four of them becoming friends. Apparently the day before the first term’s end, right on the edge of the summer holiday, Taesan had brought soap dispenser-shaped water guns into the PE changing rooms, so whenever somebody just tried to wash their hand, they got wet. It shouldn’t have been funny since it was rather childish, but glancing at the always stern and intimidating Taesan and seeing him smile at the memory turned it into something lovely even if it ended with the four of them arguing about whose was the best prank out of all the ones they did over the years.

It was truly one of a kind to see Taesan interact with his friends, people he felt comfortable around. He suddenly became talkative and loud yet warm and gentle when he scolded Gyuvin like an Asian mom for falling asleep at Miss Lee’s class again but promised to send him his notes once he got home.

“What?”

“Nothing,” you shrugged when he caught you red-handed watching him still after he literally pushed his friends out of the door.

Despite witnessing this side of him, if you wanted to be honest, it didn’t quite sit right with you that he was friends with Kim Leehan. The popular boy might not have ever rubbed salt into your wounds by reminding you that he was chosen as the model student representative of the school instead of you who was the grade’s academically best student, the defeat still hurt. You didn’t like to lose in general. So while you knew it was a far-stretched idea, your mind couldn’t stop coming up with scenarios to prove that Taesan sabotaged your campaign speech on purpose to help his friend and it made you irritable and restless during the rest of the interview sessions.

When you were finally alone, it made you blurt out:

“Was it a prank too?”

Taesan froze mid-movement when you spoke up. He was doing the finishing touches, getting ready to leave as it was just the two of you. He slid the headphones, which he used to make sure the recording quality was good, down around his neck.

“What?” He furrowed his brows, visibly confused and you weren’t surprised, he had probably long forgotten how he had humiliated you.

“My model student speech last year,” you said, your nails digging into your palms, bitterness sweeping into your features.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” the boy claimed, firm in his standpoint which made you snort.

“Of course, you don’t,” you muttered, then grabbed your bag and walked out of the door before you would say something you would regret.

A part of you thought that Taesan would ignore you the way you ignored him, especially after your callout (or whatever he wanted to call it), so it took you aback when the opposite happened.

As a class president you often had to help the homeroom teacher. It was nothing out of the ordinary when he called you into the teachers’ room and gave you a box of university application help books to hand out in class. It wasn’t really heavy but there was no proper handle on the box, so you had to hold it against your chest and it made it hard to see the stairs in front of your feet as you walked up to the classroom.

Students came and went both ways around you, nobody really paying attention to you struggling not to fall and you let out a little sigh of relief when you reached the first landing of the staircase without tripping. You adjusted your grip on the big brown box and was about to go on when the box crashed into somebody’s chest… or more like, stomach.

“Sorry, I…”

You were about to apologize automatically when you saw Taesan standing in front of you, very clearly on purpose. However, before you could have told him to move out of your way, he did the unthinkable: he easily took the box out of your hands, his knuckles brushing against your open palms as he did so.

“Hey! Give it back!” You reached out for the box again once you snapped out of your stupor but the boy’s hold on it was too strong.

“Stop being so stubborn for once,” he said, his quiet, deep voice washing over you in waves and then you could barely do anything but watch him turn around and walk up the stairs with ease, the box in his hands and his bag thrown over one of his shoulders.

You shuffled after him a bit awkwardly, halfway torn between being grateful because out of all people in the school only him was considerate enough to offer help and being offended and angry because what if he only did so because he pitied you now that he knew that you still held grudges over what happened last year.

That became a smaller worry though as you realized he was heading straight towards your classroom and you didn’t even want to guess the rumors starting if even just one gossipy girl saw him help you. You grew more anxious the closer you got but Taesan’s steps halted right before he got to the door. You almost bumped into his back at the sudden pause.

“Here,” he turned to you with the box that you took gingerly, making sure you didn’t touch this time.

“Thanks,” you mumbled, actually meaning it but you couldn’t tell with Taesan’s low hum and light on his feet disappearance if he believed you or not.

The third week of interviews went without a glitch. You were almost done which also added to your good mood. One less thing to worry about, one less to-do during your already busy weeks.

Taesan stayed behind in the clubroom this time too, hunching over the computer setup with the headphones on like always but for the first time you said bye. Or well your version of it.

“Don’t stay too late,” you told him loud enough, so he could hear you through the headphones but turned on your heels before you could have seen his reaction.

It was a good day, you decided. You got praised by your Literature teacher for your essay on the themes of social class and Confucian values in your recent obligatory read. The interviews went smoothly and the corner CU had a 1+1 promotion for your favorite banana milk. You even caught the bus just in time, getting on the vehicle after two giggling students. It was busier now than usual because lots of students had to stay longer in preparation for the Freshmen Open Day.

Apologies falling from your lips, you made your way through the crowd in the front of the bus and looked for a seat in the back. That’s where you caught sight of Taesan with his bag on the seat next to him and when your eyes met, he pulled his stuff into his lap. You hesitated for a moment but that was pretty much the only place left and it would have been more awkward if you didn’t take it. So you dropped the ignoring act, swung your bag to your front and sat down, drumming with your fingers on your knees. The bus departed from the stop and took a turn, the silence between the two of you becoming louder than the chatter around you.

You unzipped your bag and pulled out the banana milk bottles you just bought and held one out towards Taesan. The boy turned his head towards you, his dark eyes unsure and… was that blush on his cheeks? Your hands touched when he took the bottle from you, sending little tingles over your skin.

“Wanna listen?” He held out one of the earbuds of his wired earphone that he always seemed to have with him. So old-fashioned, so cool.

You felt shy as you looked him in the eye because it was like sharing something intimate. Still, you took the audio device and put it inside your right ear, smiling as the unfamiliar beats of a slower western song played. You pierced through the lid of the banana milk with your straw and hid your smile behind your drink when you saw Taesan do the same.

Maybe you were just warming up to each other after weeks of working together but it gave you the push you needed to ask about what you were listening to and it started a whole monologue about the kind of music Taesan liked and how his father introduced it to him. Honestly, he listened to a lot of bands you heard of but couldn’t really associate songs with and quite a few you hadn’t even heard about. You didn’t mind though, you liked listening to him talk about it, watching him gesture and slur his words when he got excited. It was a lovely side of him.

The bus ride never felt so short.

That one conversation and shared banana milk somehow led to daily song recommendations from the boy. He was always curious about your opinion even if you didn’t like it. Soon enough he could guess pretty accurately if you would like a song or not, so he even created a Spotify playlist just for you that he updated frequently. This turn of events was surely unexpected but not at all bad.

You also got to know that he would have liked to study sound engineering in university and you told him about your own ambitions and why it was so important for you to have near perfect grades and all those achievements. Belatedly you realized that you had never told anybody how much impact it had on you that you were constantly compared to your cousins.

It was a new side of Taesan you got to know, a side he didn’t show to just anybody and you realized it was the same with you. You hated showing weakness in front of others, yet it wasn’t too bad to admit to him that you tended to be judgemental with people because nobody had really been patient with you either before labeling you this or that.

But texting over the phone was one thing, you weren’t sure it would change anything in person. Sure, you had been seen together due to the interview project but that would be over soon. Not to mention you really didn’t want to deal with high school gossip in your last school year. And yet, you couldn’t help but look for Taesan whenever you were in the school canteen or near his clubroom. You caught yourself anticipating the radio announcements just to hear his voice. It was pathetic really, how fast you went from finding it annoying and purposefully ignoring him to waiting to see him.

Your heart did a little somersault when you actually saw him in the library one afternoon and only when you walked closer did you notice that he wasn’t just leaning over his papers but he was sleeping soundly, his pencil still in his hand, his textbook getting wrinkled under his weight. Briefly you wondered whether you should have looked for another place since Taesan must have chosen this corner table far in the back to have some peace but you would have liked to believe that he wouldn’t have minded you joining. After all, he waved to you casually like you were friends when you ran into each other on the corridors earlier that day.

Eventually, you pulled out the chair on the other side of the table and quietly put your study material down. You squinted at the books and printed papers around Taesan recognizing them as advanced Maths exercises on trigonometry. While you were trying to see if it was a sheet you had already done, something else caught your eyes instead. The light reflected on the silver bands around Taesan’s index and ring fingers down to the similar thin, metal bracelet he wore. You had never noticed that he wore accessories but you had never really paid attention to what he was wearing either (except his unmade tie). Or maybe due to the long sleeved uniform you couldn’t even notice it but now that he had his sleeves rolled up and arms outstretched, you couldn’t help but notice how long and elegant fingers he had, unfairly nice for a guy.

Taesan suddenly exhaled sharply which made you act on impulse. You leaned back in your chair and looked down at your randomly opened book just in case he woke up. However, his quiet sleeping noises soon returned to normal, so you deemed it safe to look up. You let out a relieved sigh when you saw his eyes still closed, his eyelashes casting a light shadow over his cheekbones. Dark strands of hair fell softly over his eyes and you weren’t sure what came over you but maybe all those silly romance dramas were right when they thought girls couldn’t stop themselves from brushing a boy’s fringe out of his eyes just once in their life. But just as you reached out, Taesan straightened his back and yawned like a cat, stretching his arms towards the sky. He blinked himself awake slowly but he froze the moment he noticed you right in front of him.

To make the situation less awkward for both of you, you smiled at him as casually as you could (which wasn’t much thanks to your racing heartbeat but still, you tried) and turned to your book, flipping to the correct page you wanted to review. From the corner of your eyes, you saw Taesan fix his clothes and sit up properly before arranging his rumpled papers to continue the Maths exercises. He must have been stuck on a problem though because he kept sighing and going back to the same page in the workbook. After his sixth or so frustrated sound, you couldn’t take it anymore.

“What are you stuck on? Maybe I can help,” you spoke up, closing your own book, so he would see your focus was on him.

“It’s fine,” he dismissed your offer so fast that you could tell he didn’t even think about it. You were sure because that was what you tended to do too: claiming you could handle everything on your own. But still, sometimes wasn’t it nice to receive help? Like how he had helped you with that box?

“Okay, then what about explaining it to me?” You changed your strategy because sometimes even that much could help: offering a listening ear. Maybe he could realize the mistake he was making in the equation while telling you about it.

You didn’t even think about it, you just stood up and walked to Taesan’s side of the table, sitting down next to him, leaning closer to see his scratchy handwriting and the calculations he had been doing. You might have blushed when you realized just how close you were but you refused to show it. You took studying seriously after all. So you looked the boy in the eye with a challenge in yours until he gave in.

Four minutes later he found the trigonometric identity he used incorrectly.

After sharing songs through texts and studying together at the library, the next thing that became a routine for the two of you was visiting the corner convenience store whenever you left the school together. When it first happened, Taesan claimed he needed to buy something too but he was looking around in the snack aisle suspiciously long (you missed your usual bus that day), so the next time you told him that you would catch up to him at the bus stop, he didn’t need to come with you. But more often than not, he went along with you anyways and ended up buying candies or chocolate bars. When you told Taesan about your go-to emotional support banana milk reminding you of your childhood, he told you that he wasn’t really into sweet things, so he bought all these snacks for his younger siblings. One time he bought a pack of four cream milk breads just for the freebie Pokémon toy that came with it because his little sister liked that character. It made you coo internally.

It wasn’t always just the two of you though. One day you were going over the English vocabulary with Jihan from your class in the library when Taesan and Jungwon walked in and took the desk next to you, eventually joining the English quiz. Another time Leehan needed to stay after school too because of his model student representative duties (a photoshoot for the Freshmen Open Day brochures apparently and suddenly you weren’t so sulky that you didn’t get the title) and he decided to tag along when he saw Taesan and you head over to the nearby CU.

“Ah, senior year is really hell. Everyone’s so busy we barely have time to hangout after school anymore,” he justified himself while throwing an arm around Taesan’s shoulder. “Jungwon told me you went to the library to study the other day. Since when do you do that? I thought you said being around so many people is distracting.”

You still heard Leehan’s voice as they disappeared into the snack aisle with the purpose of getting jellies and you walked forward to the refrigerated section, trying not to think too much into it. Maybe senior year changed Taesan’s mind, maybe he found the presence of others motivating now. Or maybe he just wanted to spend more time with you. The thought alone made you shy.

You were on schedule with the interviews and soon only the intro and outro as well as your own parts were missing. You wrote a script for the introduction and ending which Taesan improved with his experience of radio shows at school. You argued about whether your version with the ‘high school memories forever staying with you’ sentiment was too cringy or his ‘it’s only the beginning’ version was too vague but this time there was no harshness in your voice, there were no grudges held, it was only friendly banter as you went back and forth with arguments supporting your own ideas.

Eventually you managed to find a common ground, mentioning both the importance of keeping one’s high school memories as a reminder of their formative years and youth as well as being ready for what was coming. It was not even a question that it would be recorded by Taesan because he really had a nice voice and while you tried to stay professional and pay attention to his pronunciation and the flow of the speech rather than him, you failed miserably. Luckily, Taesan had enough radio experience to know exactly what to do. He introduced the segment with ease and charm, captivating the audience (you, for now) and you had to clear your throat to focus when he finished reading.

“We can start the interview with me,” you said, eager to get on with the tasks before Taesan could call you out on your behavior. He must have known your reason for the sudden change of attitude though because he smiled to himself, quiet but obvious about it, as he held the microphone out for you and hit record.

You knew all the questions by heart but still you waited for the boy to ask before you answered.

“When I was young, I wanted to have my own karaoke room. There was one on the basement floor in the building where I used to live and the owner auntie always gave me homemade honey biscuits. She seemed to be so joyful humming songs happily,” you said at the first question, glancing in Taesan’s direction briefly.

He must have been surprised – you were too –, because it wasn’t the model student-like answer everybody was expecting of you like saying your dream had always been to become a doctor or lawyer. Honestly, you had your own answers prepared and memorized ever since the questions for the student interviews were finalized and approved by your teachers. But looking back at it now, you felt embarrassed because even though it was just an interview, it wasn’t graded or judged, yet you had felt obligated to answer according to what other people would think of you. However, in the recent weeks as you got to know Taesan better, you realized that people would judge others without reason, without knowing them, even you. So you shouldn’t have changed your whole personality just so you would fit into this image they had of you. Even if it was about your parents’ or teachers’ expectation or your classmates calling you the teacher’s pet behind your back. You had been okay with the prejudices since high school was just one step in your foolproof plan to lead a successful life, you had been okay without building deep connections with other students because you had known that you would drift away after graduation anyways but only lately you realized that you could have had fun while also working hard. You could be yourself and let people closer. The world wasn’t going to crumble, it wouldn’t ruin your plans. You could be honest, both with yourself and others, because what was the worst thing that could happen? That they would judge you? They are doing it anyway, so it didn't matter.

“And now? Now I’m applying for business majors. I’ m not sure what exactly I would like to do with my life but I will get there. Who knows, maybe one day I will open a karaoke room, too,” you chuckled even though your ambitions were to build a bigger company, something creative and useful. You still had time to figure out the details.

In the beginning of the term you would have felt vulnerable sharing these about yourself in front of Taesan or the entire school because everybody expected you to know what you want to do with your life but now, it felt okay. You actually felt lighter, relieved. Especially because there was nothing akin to judging in Taesan’s eyes as he smiled at you from the other side of the table.

“Please tell us about your most memorable high school memory,” he recited the last question after you went over all the others.

Previously, you would have said it was being chosen as a class president because it was an honor and a proof of hard work but now, your academic achievements didn’t seem that important. What will you really remember when you will be older and think back on high school?

“Honestly, senior year so far has had some unexpected surprises, it’s hard to choose just one but maybe this one. Now,” you and me, just the two of us in the radio club room, being vulnerable yet not being judged. “I like the person I have been becoming ever since this senior interview project started and I think it's going to be a great memory one day.”

Silence embraced you as you finished talking, a bit nervous but without regrets. Taesan pressed a button and the recording stopped, ready to be saved.

“So karaoke room, huh?” He asked and you kicked his shin under the table for that teasing grin on his face.

“Your turn,” you reminded him as you passed the mic and adjusted the headphones around your ears. By then, over so many interviews you were sure Taesan knew what was coming too but just for the show you asked him about his dream job as a child versus now as well as his higher education plans.

“Becoming a musician was my childhood dream. My entire family loves music, many of us play an instrument, so it felt natural,” Taesan said and even though you didn’t know this, it wasn’t hard to imagine given his love for music and all that knowledge about genres and classics. “After I joined the radio club, I realized that I like it a lot despite the fact that here we don’t usually play music. So it would be cool to be a radio DJ on a music show one day but I’m interested in the technology behind it all, that’s why I will study sound engineering.”

You smiled to yourself because you had already known that latter part and it felt nice knowing you had come so far. After a few more answers, you got to the last question about his most memorable moment and Taesan’s feline eyes turned mischievous.

“Hm, a fierce girl yelling my head off during a live school radio radio–”

“Yah, be serious!” You interrupted him when you realized he was talking about what happened last year but your voice was more amused than scolding.

“I am serious,” Taesan claimed but there was a teasing tilt in his mouth. “It’s pretty memorable.”

“So you’re saying I was the only girl interrupting you during a broadcast? Shocking,” you raised a brow at him, a small part of you feeling triumphant about the fact that in a way you were special even if your first actual meeting didn’t have the best circumstances. Thank god that his microphone wasn’t on when you showed up and straight up started questioning him. “Also, just to clarify I wasn't yelling. I just expressed my bewilderment about why you were playing that audio.”

“That was the only one under your name.”

“What?” You blinked, confused at Taesan’s quick response. He sounded like he meant it but you knew that couldn’t have been true, they got access to your entire recording folder accidentally. So if he didn’t see that, it meant he wasn’t the one checking their emails.

“To make sure things are running smoothly, we always have a script about our broadcasts and all the audio files are organized in linear order in a folder for that day. I just played what was prepared for me,” he explained and gosh, you felt so stupid.

All this time you thought he had been the one who chose the wrong file on purpose maybe to help his friend, maybe to just have a good laugh but it made sense that his juniors were more likely the ones doing such preparatory work.

“But still, you could have stopped it instead of just letting it play,” you muttered, trying to justify your reaction.

“Well, at first I thought it was actually a pretty unique tactic and then…” Taesan scratched his nape and looked away, then shrugged as if he just convinced himself to tell you something that might be embarrassing. “To be honest, I just liked your singing.”

At his words you felt the tip of your ears burn and heat spreading all over your cheeks. You were glad that the lighting in the room hid it well.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” You found yourself asking quietly because thinking back you weren’t exactly nice to him.

Taesan gave you a look. Okay, true, you didn’t really give him a chance to explain before antagonizing him. And then it must have been weird to just bring it up.

“Right. Um, sorry,” you mumbled, embarrassed due to your too quick judgment but the boy just shook his head as if he had never been mad at the injustice in the first place. “About your answer though, you have to cut it out.” 

Obviously with 60 people answering 6 questions, not everything would make it into the final cut, it would be more of a montage of answers, a glimpse of the seniors’ lives and you didn’t want to be reminded of that incident in front of the entire school. Not again.

“Nope,” Taesan protested, popping the ‘p’ sound, teasing just to be difficult.

“I’m deleting it,” you warned him but you seriously miscalculated several things: there was no way you could have reached the computer before him and with him standing in front of the monitor and keyboard you didn’t see anything. You tried to get hold of the mouse at the same time as looking over the boy’s shoulder but he made sure that he was always in the way which somehow turned into a one sided (struggle) wrestle match and honestly at that point you weren’t even trying to achieve anything and both of you just laughed at your poor attempts.

“Am I interrupting something?” Spoke up a newcomer you didn’t even notice. Sullyoon, another radio club member from the year, stood by the door visibly surprised to see you or well the current situation you were in: Taesan leaning against the desk in front of the computer and you pretty much plastered over him, trying to reach something behind his back.

“No!” You objected vehemently and took two steps back, stumbling a bit. Taesan reached out to steady you by the forearm and only after he made sure you wouldn’t fall did he turn to the girl from his club.

“Is everything alright?”

“Yeah, I just forgot my buju here,” Sullyoon got over her surprise too and quickly retrieved the prettily decorated journal from one of the shelves. You watched her go and then buried your face in your hands because of embarrassment.

“Emotional support banana milk?” Taesan prompted after he saved the files and turned the computer off.

You smiled at him and followed him out closely. If you were any better off, you would have teased him about his flushed face but instead you just made him race you to the convenience store, so both of you would have an excuse if anyone asked about your red cheeks.

Now that all interviews were done, only the editing was left from the project and while you could have left it all to Taesan since he did the actual editing, you were there keeping him company all through it. First of all, you listened to all the raw material and decided which answers to include from each interviewee in the final cut and then you could help out when he needed a second opinion on the order or cut parts or whether the transition was smooth or not. When he was deep in the concentration mode, you just did homework or studied for upcoming tests. It took three sessions to finish it (you had to force Taesan to get his ass out of school during the second one because he was determined to finish it which past you would have appreciated but not even this project was worth losing proper meal schedule or sleep over it) and when you listened to the final version you were proud of what you had done, together.

“Should we celebrate?” You suggested once the file was sent to the principal and his secretary. You finished it pretty much on schedule and yet, you weren't as relieved as you thought you would be when you had first started it. But still, it was an achievement and you liked to celebrate small wins like this because if you didn't, who else would?

You meant it as in going out to eat something good. For example, in the tent restaurant two streets down the auntie was selling the best tteokbokki you had ever tried. But Taesan had his own idea.

“What about karaoke?”

“Yah! Stop teasing!” You glared at him but you weren't actually mad, it started to turn into a private joke between the two of you.

“I’m not!” The boy insisted and all it took was his almost pout to convince you.

There were karaoke rooms on pretty much every other street in this neighborhood, so it wasn't hard to find one where you booked a room for an hour and bought snacks and drinks at the counter from the girl who looked like a bored university student.

You usually went to sing with a small group of girls from your class, so it was the first time that it was just you and a boy. And not just any boy but Han Taesan. Somehow it felt more special. Sure, he might have already heard you sing and said that he liked it, but you were shy, so you insisted that he would pick a song first. He chose Dean's 21 and totally nailed it, the karaoke machine's high score proving that you weren't just biased when you told him that. You had already liked his speaking voice but when he sang, oh boy! You could have listened to him for hours.

You went with a girl group song you were confident in and it was fun. Song after song you both hyped each other up and the one hour passed by quickly. A part of you wished you could just pay for one more and sing until your voice became hoarse but the rational part knew that you shouldn't have stayed out too late. You still had homework to do and Taesan needed to memorize those English words for tomorrow's test.

It was the same T side of you that went a bit ahead of you and started thinking about the midterms and then how busy you would get once summer ended and the last term rolled around. It was still months away and yet, you wondered if it took that much for you to drift apart or the end of this interview project would be enough. You were a bit scared to know the answer, just how you were scared to answer Jihan's question the other day when she saw you walk to class together with Taesan. Admitting out loud that you liked him would have made it real and it would have made you vulnerable. You weren't sure you were ready to do that but it was certain that you didn't want to lose him.

“Taesan…” You spoke up quietly, swinging your feet back and forth on the bench in the bus stop after you spent the walk from the karaoke room to the stop in silence, lost in thought. The boy turned his head towards you, his fringe getting into his eyes, messy and beautiful. Your heart ached with the certainty only first love could. “Now that the radio segment is ready, will we go back to how we were?” You asked barely in a whisper as if speaking louder would have had its consequences. That was also why you had to rush to clarify. “Because I don’t want that. I… I would miss you too much.”

You didn’t mean to say it like that and it was a scary thing to admit but it was worth all the extra beats of your heart to see Taesan smile, a shy little thing stretching slowly from one side to another, his eyes sparkling under the moonlight and street lamps’ glow.

“Me too,” he said and you reciprocated his smile. There was a short pause, an inhale of the universe waiting, then Taesan called your name and you looked up immediately.

“Hm?”

He looked you in the eyes with those dark oceans of his. Once you associated them with the cold depth of the sea but since then you realized that you were wrong. You knew only a few people who had warmer souls than this boy.

“You are my most memorable high school memory for a reason,” he whispered like it was a secret and a promise at the same time.

It left you speechless a moment too long and the bubble around you burst when the bus pulled up in front of you with a loud screeching sound. Taesan was quick on his feet but instead of getting on the bus right away, he looked back at you and held a hand out for you. You blamed it on not having time to think about it with the bus driver yelling at you impatiently and took it, following the boy onto the vehicle and to your usual place in the back with a smile on your face and a new rhythm in your heart.

Taesan didn't let go of your hand during the entire ride. As you closed your eyes and listened to the music he put on, you hoped he wouldn’t let go for a long time.

[red-hot-kick]

Theory: Ryuji was popular, before.

I'm not entirely sure if anyone has really talked about this but I maintain my interpretation that, in the canon of Persona 5, Ryuji used to be very (or at least moderately) popular prior to the events of the story.

This is something I've gotten into before when talking to friends who like the game and the character, but I haven't really considered writing it down until now. The main argument I have is based on three things:

Things Ryuji alluded to in canon (but no one believed him on)

The deliberate choice of making him a track athlete

Typecasting for voice actors

1: "There were girls all over me!"

I don't really have the time to go on a deep dive through all the instances in which he hints at his reputation before the Kamoshida incident, but I think the most clear-cut representation of this was during the scene where he and Ann spend the day with Futaba during her post-palace social rehabilitation:

So here's the thing...I don't think he's lying about this. Nobody in the room would be that impressed to find out whether Ryuji was popular since they are already friends (or in Mona's case, he really just doesn't care), so it wouldn't make sense for him to lie.

Regarding everyone's reactions though, here's my impression: Ann was simply not aware of what was going on with the track team, being predominantly focused on dealing with rumors, her friendship with Shiho, and her modeling career (and eventually Kamoshida's advances once he started doing that shit) and she mentions a few times that she and Ryuji weren't actually close before joining the PT; they were just in the same class in middle school. Futaba hasn't interacted with anyone her age in years and isn't the most reliable source when it comes to what people generally find attractive; just because she doesn't have any interest in Ryuji doesn't mean that nobody her age would. And Morgana is a cat that brags constantly about how cool he is, so he shouldn't be throwing rocks.

There are many other times in the game when you get little glimpses of his social savvy, and from my understanding of Royal (I'm an OG vanilla P5 player and haven't done 3rd-semester yet, so don't kill me) when the track team returns to "how it was", he is getting along extremely well with everyone. Not only was he the team's ace: this kid was also expected to become the captain by his senior year (as briefly mentioned when he bumps into his former senpai at the gym, iirc). That's huge! If his team held him in such high regard, then the general student body of Shujin surely had a similar opinion. This brings me to my next point:

2: Girls like boys that run fast(???)

This is honestly something that baffles me. It's also really difficult for me to substantiate; any source material on this is obviously in Japanese and if I could find any of it, I sure as hell can't read it. The only English-language source I know of I cannot find anymore; I think it was an old Tofugu article? However. If you've watched any romance anime set in a high school during the last 20 years, you might have seen this trope at some point: the school sports festival is happening, and the relay race is kind of a huge deal (it's the final event! a make-or-break moment for the class!). The boy thinks to himself "If I win this race, I'll be able to win her heart/ask her out/etc." Low-stakes drama ensues. Maybe a confession happens.

This is (from what I've been told) based on a long-standing trend of girls and women self-reporting in surveys about how, oftentimes, their crushes in junior or senior high school were simply "the boy who ran the fastest in the races". I have no idea what this means in a broader cultural context. It makes no goddamn sense to me at all. Do not cite me on this. But I think it's worth keeping in mind, even if it's almost entirely speculative (and possibly outdated) information. And even if it's just based on rumors, don't you think it's pretty in-character for Ryuji to go for a track scholarship—despite being adept at other sports like baseball and football/soccer, as mentioned in P5 and P5D—because he was aware of the potential of being more popular with girls? Of course, his priority would be getting the scholarship and paying his way through school to lighten his mother's burden, but hey, getting a girlfriend on the way up wouldn't be half bad!

I think this could also inform us as to why Kamoshida (as a predator who wanted attention from high school girls) felt so threatened by the track team in particular, and why he felt a need to specifically knock Ryuji down a peg and sought out a weakness to do so (as opposed to targeting any of the probably just-as-popular boys on the many other athletic teams and clubs in the school). Just some food for thought on this one! Also, if anyone can find a source or has any insight on the relay race thing, please share. I am so confused about it.

3: Typecasting

So this is something that you really only notice if you are very into keeping up with seiyuu in Japan. I am not one of those people. But I do have some favorite voice actors! One of these being Mamoru Miyano.

So I freakin' love this dude. He's voiced a lot of my favorite characters, sings incredibly well, and has an unreal sense of comedy. He's stated in interviews that his acting inspiration is Jim Carrey, and let me tell you: it shows. He is also quite consistently typecast into certain roles, predominantly as princely pretty-boy types, Coolguys, or complete fucking nutcases. Sometimes all three at the same time (shoutout to my boy Ling FMA!)

ATLUS definitely cast him for P5 because of his comedic chops. But I think they also cast him because having him voice someone like Ryuji is a great way to subvert expectations for the player. I think it's supposed to give you whiplash—"what do you mean the voice of LIGHT FUCKING YAGAMI is coming out of this guy's mouth?" "why does the delinquent character sound like king of the host club Tamaki Suou?" "isn't that Rin Matsuoka's voice?" etc. etc. etc.

(here's a quick list, just to really get the idea across. maybe you recognize a few.)

This is obviously a non-comprehensive list, but something that a lot of the characters he's voiced over the years have in common is that they were considered cool, handsome, or popular. Not just for fans, but within the canon of their stories! So...what does that mean? What does that say about how we should see Ryuji?

I think players are supposed to expect that he will fall into one of those categories too, and then be surprised to find that it's not the case—that he's been isolated and made bitter and resigned by what happened to him the year before.

Speaking of his tone, I think it's very telling that Ryuji actually forgets to keep up the delinquent act a lot in the original JP audio, which unfortunately doesn't really carry over in the ENG translation. The delivery of his JP lines sounds a bit more subdued in comparison too—yeah he's got a lot of energy and is very hotheaded, but when he gets to talking about serious shit, he sounds a lot more regretful and melancholy as opposed to the EN delivery which depicts him as more resentful and outwardly angry. I think before Shit Went Down, he probably had the Coolguy vibe. Still a bit of a rowdy idiot and a showoff, but I think he probably came across to most people as a very friendly, sincere, and popular guy.

So yeah, the girls probably were all over him, at least for a short while.

[playingwiththetennisgrownups]

Do you honestly think Sinner and Alcaraz (or any tennis players) are madly in love or fucking like bunnies? That's weird, their just kids!

Wow. WOW. But hey, I did say anything on anon so sure, that's your prerogative.

OK so honestly no, no I don't. I fell in love with both of their tennis playing this year (I've been watching tennis since the mid-80s), and then somewhere around Wimbledon the ADHD went 'oooh new hyperfixation' (there's another long post brewing actually about it might be a lifelong suppressed special interest) I felt like I was being super annoying to my partner and all my friends and went 'oh huh I wonder if there's a tennis fandom on Tumblr', and lo, there was a tennis fandom

There were people loving Sinner and Alcaraz and Federer and Nadal and Shelton and being excited and geeking out over the games. And there were slashers. Now, I'm a slasher. I have been writing fanfiction since I was a pre-teen, I have been writing slash fanfiction since my teens, and I have been posting said fanfiction online since my late teens. We're talking the 90s here people. (proud owner of an Anne Rice C&D dontcha know?) I've also been in as many, if not more, RPS fandoms than FPS ones. It's a hobby, I enjoy it. (There's only been maybe 2 RPS fandoms in all that time I actually believed in. Sincaraz is not one of them (although the more time I spend in fandom, the less sure I am about not believing the Fedal!) - but seriously, allow me to talk about how I do believe the Jack/Daniel and McShep or the Hardison/Parker/Eliot)

And so I was curious and I went onto AO3. I was... legit quite shocked by the amount of fic. I wasn't expecting it. I started reading. It was a lot of fun. My muse, Bob!, he is a fickle creature and he likes the pretty. He's decided Jannik and Carlos are his current pretty he wants to play with. I've written and posted more fic in the last two weeks than I have in months and THAT feels fantastic.

Although, having said that, I'm not actually physically/sexually attracted to either of them. You know why? Because they are literally over half my age. I think Jannik is cute as fuck and I'm currently at 'would kill to protect', I think Carlos has a... conventionally attractive physique and I do appreciate good strong shoulders/upper arms. I legit feel kinda dirty at times. But it's nothing more than 'aesthetically attractive', there's no... anything else. If nothing else, I'm queer so there's that! (There's a whole 'nother long post planned about being demi/ace, levels of aesthetically pleasing/pretty/attractiveness and what they mean).

TL;DR no, I don't think they're fucking, I adore them both as tennis players and people, I am loving the fandom around them, slash fanfic is fun. *gives all the love to the tennisblr, jannikblr and sincaraz peeps who've graciously welcomed me to the party over the last couple of weeks*

[majestick-posts-op]

You know what?

*Sisterizes your ASL Brothers*

Oh, yes. Its Ann, Lucy and... Sibi? (That's my actual sister's name)

The designs are pretty simple. Ann is still topless, but I guess she shall be contained by a bra. The flower is like the one Rouge had <3. And I wanted to give her and Sibi sirta the same hairstyle but in different fonts, like Ace and Sabo. Lose ass pony tail vs lose ass braid.

Now Lucy barely has any changes. Slightly longer hair, pigtails replicate that inner child vibe. Now, she is topless but... doesn't actually need a bra because...

Law might have sold those boobs on the black market. Maybe.

And lastly, Sibi gets a nice victorian style gown. She is flatchested as hell, and like how Sabo has mormal clothes under that coat she also has pants underneath. I wasn't sure od how feminine vs androgenous I wanted her to look so in the end I went with a "i'm gonna dress as atrociously as I want to" vibe.

[Side note. I have this headcanon that as a kid, her clothes were actually purple because her parents told her that bullshit "blue is for the boys" but it was her favorite colour so she got blue clpthes as soon as she ran away and keeps wearing them as an adult]

[discet]

So how do you think things might have played out if the girls were TOH Witches from the start, yet still maintained there overall canon personalities and dynamics?

So like, Marcy's parents are moving off island or something, her and Sash get Anne to steal the Calamity Box from Eda's shop (who herself stole it from the thrift store back on Earth) and the same basic setup still happens but the girls already have their own form of magic and came up in a rather different cultural environment than in Canon.

Alright, lets start off with the basics

Anne: Beast-Keeping Coven Sasha: Bard Coven Marcy: Plant Coven

ets say that the girls attend Glandus, just to give Sasha her queen b status what with their 'Rule by the Strong' mentality.

Inciting Incident : Shift

So I'm gonna shift some things around.

Leif steals the box and brought it to the Boiling Isles which was the new target of the invasion 1000 years ago in this AU. It ends up in the hands of the titan and subsequently buried on the island after his death.

The box was struggled over by various factions on the islands for hundreds of years as a source of magical power, but is lost in some grand conflict... until Phillip digs it up in his travels around the island. So it ends up in the hands of the emperors coven.

It is not Marcy's plan to steal the box in this AU, it would be Sasha's.

That last one requires a bit of explanation. So I don't think moving away makes sense in this AU. The Boiling Isles seems to be an isolated society in TOH. They don't seem to have trade with any other societies. The only time we even see another culture(the titan hunters) its through the use of an ancient artifact gate. No one seems to have the seas beyond the islands that well charted.

That with the fact that the Boiling Isles don't seem that big, and the girls all have access to magic, I don't think moving would be that big of a threat to their friendship. Especially once they have their palisman and they can just fly anywhere.

You know who could take you away from your friends and keep you from ever seeing them again? The Emperors Coven. You know who would be a good enough ruthless combatant that it would catch the eyes of the Emperor's Coven? Sasha. You know who has an unhealthy attachment to her childhood friends and would hate to be separated from them AND had a hatred for authority? Also Sasha.

So Sasha basically pressures Marcy and Anne to help her break into the Emperors castle to steal the music box. Cause she's read its a massive sink of magical power. If she had it, no one could tell her what to do.

How it Effects the Main Plot

So I think things would pretty much have to go off the rails rapidly.

Anne earns a lot of respect and fear in Wartwood for her beast keeping magic in this AU. She's not... good at it at first? Like she's not suddenly an ace student in this AU, she just likes animals. So a big part of her arc in Season 1 is mastering her own magic in Wartwood. However I think ultimately she gets out of the valley early once she tames a bird and just flies out of it. I think an interesting change here is how this effects her personality growing up. Anne is really connected to her Thai heritage, and that wouldn't really have an equivalent in the boiling isles. The culture seems pretty homogeneous.

Sasha absolutely hops off the rails in this AU. She has bardic magic so she just whistles to kickstart her escape early. Id need to look at what Raine can do before I knew for sure how this would work. But something I've played with in AWiW is the calamity power helping empower magic (Anne's Sorcery and Marcy's Druidry) and once Sasha gets her hand on the beetle ax we see her swinging in Battle of the Bands, she is going to be a force to be reckoned with.

Marcy I think has a bit of a different character arc in that I don't think she has a big escapism complex as she did in Canon. Even if her home life wasn't great, I don't think Amphibia is that much more mystical or filled with opportunity than the Boiling Isles. She is a lot more concerned for where Sasha and Anne are and would be trying to figure out what the heck that box was.

Honestly the girls with Magic and Calamity Powers probably makes the Amphibia plotline a lot less crucial. I don't think they even necessarily charge the stones back up. I don't think Sasha would want to once putting together the power it gives her bardic magic.

I'd really need to sit down with this AU longer to really nail down where things would go from there, but I think Marcy would probably figure out a way to jump back without the box itself by using her more robust magical theory knowledge from the boiling isles. Might need to fight both Belos and Andrias? Lots of possibilities, but this is probably where I would start.

[cyborg-franky]

F/O Selfship Post

Thank you friends and anons for sending me so many of these, I had alot of fun and it still makes me so happy that people like my dumb little bird.

Thank you @rosiinante @pebbsie @my-one-piece-experience @fire-fist-ann @childofblackmaria @gaynchor

🍀 - How lucky is your f/o?

Marco is pretty lucky... he is sometimes the butt of pranks on the ship though.. Ace however.. his luck hasn't been the best.

🐞 - What makes your f/o squirm? [in a sexy way? lets go with that]

Marco likes having his hair played with, having fingers gently run over the back of his neck, sensitive feathers in harpy mode too.. Ace is more how you talk to him, send him some words of affirmation and praise maybe even a 'good boy' and he's a mess.

🛏️ - Give us a sleep-related headcanon!

Ace sleeps the most, for sure but is prone to nightmares more then either of us, he sleeps well if he's in the middle. Marco and me tend to stay up late and it's either Ace needing us or the other making the other go to bed. In cold weather we like Ace in the middle and in hot weather Marco.

🍂 - How does your f/o feel about change?

Marco is very good at rolling with the punches, he can adapt very well, gets on with it. Ace is good at coping and adapting to change but he's alot more reluctant to it.

🌌 - How much faith does your f/o have in horoscopes?

Ace doesn't really care about them, just sorta nods along whenever people talk about them. Marco isn't a fan, he likes stars and charts but he doesn't go for horoscopes, he thinks you should own up to your own flaws instead of blaming the month you were born in.

💰 - How much does your f/o spoil you?

Neither boy is a 'spend money on you' sort of people. Marco brings us little gifts, things he's found that remind him of us. Ace like to try his hand at making things. They both spoil me with words of affirmation and quality time.

👽 - Is your f/o superstitious? Do they believe in cryptids?

Show me a pirate who isn't somewhat superstitious. Ace is reckless and doesn't care mostly but sometimes I see Marco doing strange little quirks. We've all seen enough to believe in cryptids.

🍅 - What makes your f/o blush?

With Ace using petnames like firefly and freckles has him blushing, complimenting him also. Marco is much harder, catch him off guard and make him jump causes him to blush or if you whisper something dirty in his ear when everyone else is around..

🍇 - Does your f/o naturally give them self “me time,” or do they need reminders from time to time?

Both are little shits about this, well we all are I guess. Marco is the hardest though, he's always so busy that he feels he doesn't have time to rest. Ace on the other hand doesn't feel he deserves selfcare so it's a fight to get them to have some 'me time'

🌻 - How does your f/o cheer you up?

Ace and Marco are both big into cuddles, you wouldn't think it but they are. Marco would wrap us up in his wings or arms, pulling us close, telling us nice things, offer to get us a drink. Ace is about making dumb jokes to try and get you to smile. Best thing about poly is there's always two of us to cheer the other one up.

👠 - What’s the height difference between you and your f/o like?

🍊 - What’s your f/o’s biggest secret?

I'm not telling you that!

🧀 - Does your f/o have any allergies? [we are very cheese]

Not that we know of... Marco can be fussy but thats about it.

💎 - What does your f/o value in life?

I think all three of us can say.. each other and our big found family.

🌱 - How does your f/o feel about nature?

Ace likes it, he'll sit and enjoy the ocean, he likes flowers though he won't ever admit it. Marco also enjoys his time in nature, often we will sit on the beach or just go for a walk.

🎃 - You and your f/o are going to a costume party! What do you both dress up as?

Oh man me we try and find a three way matching one most the time but Marco is often low effort, I'm tries to make an effort and Ace is practically walking around like a stripper.

💋 - Give us a kiss headcanon!

Marco likes to kiss on the forehead alot, he's the best kisser out of the three of us, Ace are still awkward and not the best. I love kissing cheeks more then lips. Ace is more of a quick peck on the lips type.

🚨 - How observant is your f/o of danger?

Nothing and I mean nothing gets past Marco, he's often the first one to sense anything. Me and Ace are... not so much but we are getting better. It's not that me and Ace are bad it's just Marco is ten steps ahead of anyone.

🧽 - How clean is your f/o? (In general)

Ace can be a little goblin sometimes.. I mean me too.. Marco is very neat and tidy, he looks lazy but his part of the room is always the neatest. We are pretty clean in the other way too.. I shower and bath alot and often share.

🗺️ - If you could go anywhere with your f/o, where would you go?

I want to go to water 7 and I think the other two are just happy to see everything in time.

💜 - Free space! Tell us a random headcanon you have for your f/o.

-I'm the bottom, Ace is the switch and Marco's the top.

-When Ace has a cold we have to seastone him or he'll accidentally set us on fire, it's almost happened before.

- Me and Ace are bastards for taking Marco's clothes so that's why he looks like he only has three shirts.

- Ace picked out Marco's glasses

Thank you <3

[pbandjesse]

I have survived the very long day!! My calves and feet hurt very very much but I did it. And i held it together really well I think. I honestly had a great day.

I did not sleep good last night though. I kept waking up afraid I would miss my alarm. Though the ac was a nice white noise. And having it be at the foot of the bed this year rather then next to my head is way better.

When my alarm did go off at 630 I would pull myself out of bed. And I washed up and got dressed and felt super cute. This was going to be a really good day.

Me and James got ourselves ready. They came with me to the museum early to get set up for the market. We would also stop for breakfast and get there a little after 7.

I realized I forgot my sign and I was a little bummed but James, because they are amazing, drove home to get it for me. I was very forgetful today. But everything would work out.

I got my table set up and tried my best to make sure Ann had any help she needed. I would make trips inside to get the cart and any tools we needed. It was a great morning! But man it was hot. Our car would say it got to 103 but officially it got to 95. It was pretty brutal but I was under the pavilion and it wasnt as bad there. I had drinks and snacks and a good attitude.

I was nervous I wouldn't sell anything but in the end I made almost $300! My best day in memory. It would be pretty consistent throughout the morning. And people were so kind. I had raised all my prices by $5 and was nervous but no one seemed to care. Having a credit card reader helped a lot I'm sure. And I even had people who bought from me last year come back and buy new things! The big bears did not sell but they were a huge draw and everyone wanted to hug them. It was very very cute.

I had a lot of really nice chats. About art and the museum and programs. I would buy some amazing strawberries and a mint plant. James would get tomato plants too.

It was very busy though. And I was on my feet for almost the entire time. I did take my shoes off at one point and that helped a little. The cool cement under my feet made my whole body feel better.

But as 1 came around I was rushing. Ann left early, she had her last chemo treatment on Wednesday and she wasn't feeling good but was holding it together best she could. I would take over and make sure everyone was okay and heading out. I traded a print for a dozen eggs. I made sure things were packed up safely. And after going in to say goodbye to James I was on the road again.

I went out to puhtok. Got stuck in a little traffic because of the Preakness. But I got to camp at 215 without much trouble. Though my hands were shaking a bit and I was stressed.

But it was so nice to see Elizabeth and Cate and headed up to my building.

It felt a little like coming home. Though Elizabeth promised me it wasn't full of spiders but it for sure was. I would have time to set up the printing stuff and clean a little after bringing some of the stuff I brought inside. I am back on Tuesday and I hope to get more out away then. The real set up will happen in a few weeks but it was nice to start. I left it in good shape though so it should be pretty easy, even if it's time consuming.

The kids were a little older then I expected. Mid teens. But super sweet and they did a good job! I think I should have had them practice first but I was worried about them running out of time. But they did good and it was super fun watching them and helping them. Everyone did something even if it wasn't what I expected. One child had a really hard time coming up with an idea. And ended up doing this crazy heavy ink print just layering colors. It wasn't exactly the project but it was very avant garde and I encouraged it.

They were very fun though and I had a good time. But I had to rush again once they were done. I washed everything and was so distracted I almost left all my rings next to the art buildings water pump. I would turn the car around to get my rings. Said goodbye to everyone and was back on the road.

I was starving. And the gps took me the weirdest way but I would get to the museum and got myself chipotle and that was the best choice.

I ate my dinner and felt a lot better. I was just this side of exhausted but I couldn't think about that to much. I had a few more hours to hold it together.

I didn't realize this until later but apparently I was so tired I parked in the middle of two spots. Embarrassing. But I would do a bunch of extra stuff at the museum. Helping with the photographer and finding the best places to do photos. And then made a chase to print. It really was an awesome night.

The couple was lovely. And Kristen was fun to chat with when she wasn't in the other gallery. I had a lot of really lovely guests and I got to talk about things I'm passionate about for a while and it was a great night.

But once it was dinner I was just. Done. I couldn't hold it together and so Angie let me go home. Not that they ever actually need us for that last hour but I usually try to at least stay and help to clean. But I had to go home. I was in a lot of pain.

When I got back here, after driving basically directly into the sun, I would bring up my printing stuff and put away a few things but I felt so dirty from the heat and the dust from camo and I was just a little to hot still.

So I took a cool bath. And it was the best. I felt so much better after. And would play Stardew valley for an hour.

James was at a baseball game. Apparently having a blast with the 6 year old boy, Jackson, who was sitting next to them and is apparently their new best friend. Adorable. But they just got home. And so now it is time to get some rest.

Tomorrow CJ is coming to hang out and I have knitting to do and a print to finish and I have some things I need to write for a thing I might apply for. But now is sleep.

I hope you are all staying cool tonight. Take care of yourselves! Sleep well!

[klainydaze]

Hi! I'm super fascinated that you came to Glee via American Crime Story - I'm curious if this offers a unique look at the show? Do you mind talking about what led you into Glee fandom - and maybe how your perspective might be different (or not) from those of us who survived living through Glee first, lol. Also - what is it about Glee that made you want to check out fandom? Would love to hear any of your thoughts! :D Also - welcome to the madness! :)

Sorry it has taken me forever to answer this.  You gave me a lot to think about!

So yes, I did come to Glee via ACS Versace.  I’d loved ACS OJ Simpson, so I’d been anxiously awaiting the Versace series. Among other things, being older than dirt, I clearly remember the actual events, particularly because several of my family members lived on Collins Ave. in North Miami Beach – not all that far from where Cunanan’s hide-out boat was docked.  We all paid a lot of attention at the time, though I only had a vague idea back then of Cunanan’s many crimes prior to his killing of Versace.  

I was aware, from pre-show publicity, that Darren Criss had been on Glee, but neither he nor the show meant much to me when I started to watch the first Versace episode.  But there quickly came a moment when I became VERY aware of one Darren Criss:  The early scene in the first episode, when a fully-clothed Andrew walked into the ocean and wailed?  I had a visceral reaction to that – so many emotions expressed all at once and with such intensity, it was almost too much, and yet absolutely perfect.  I knew in that second that this was not going to be a typical crime show, and that I was not looking at a typical crime show actor.

By the end of ACS Versace, I was a confirmed Darren Criss fan.  Still, I resisted starting on Glee, a show I’d dismissed back when it was on TV because it seemed to be targeting a much younger demographic, and because I personally hadn’t been part of any sort of glee club or theater since grade school. (I was all about rock music, singing and playing guitar by the time I reached high school.)  So, still no Glee for me – at least, not yet.

And then, early that June, Darren booked a one-off show at Largo, one of my favorite Los Angeles venues. (Yeah, I live in L.A.)  And, to quote my own June 11, 2018 Facebook post: “Darren Criss at Largo: Two solid hours of absolute joy & delight!!”  Within days, my 2-3 week complete Glee binge had begun!

It’s hard to say how my perspective differs from the original, real-time Glee survivors.  For one thing, I simply cannot begin to imagine what it would have been like to have to actually WAIT in between episodes (not to mention seasons).  Horror!  I’ve also noticed that I seem less inclined to rate or dismiss one season vs. another. For me, it was just one long, extended show, with many wonderful, brilliant moments as well as a whole lot of lame ones, most of which I tended to fast-forward through.  In fact, I pretty much fast-forwarded any time neither Darren nor Chris Colfer were on screen.  

An aside on the subject of Chris, I should add that although I started to watch Glee solely because of Darren, I quickly came to absolutely adore Chris as well.  Good lord, that boy’s voice!  There’ve been times I’ve found myself in tears just by hearing him sing certain notes. It kills me that his singing life was already behind him by the time I found him.   And yes, when it comes to Glee, I am all Klaine, all the time, though I do quite like several others in the cast as well, just with much less intensity.

Once I’d finished my first complete Glee binge, all I wanted to do at that point was interact with other Glee fans, as I normally do when it comes to things I am passionate about, like my favorite bands, TV shows, and books. (Yes, books.  My first fandom experience was with other Anne Rice fans.) It was also then that I started to hunt down Glee fanfiction.  (Last time I’d read any kind of fanfiction was back in my aforementioned Anne Rice fandom days in the <gasp> 1990’s!)  I started my fandom search on Facebook, and found, well, pretty much nothing.  Not sure how I finally landed on Tumblr, the logic of which still confuses me over two years in, but here I am, still figuring out my way through.

Also, of course, I found (and read) TONS of Klaine fanfic, and WOW.  I am constantly blown away by the quality of much of what I read.  I am beyond grateful to each and every fanfic author for the amazing gifts they have shared with me and the fandom.  Absolutely incredible.

OK, going to stop now.  (Congrats to anyone still reading this dissertation.)  Hope this answers at least some of your questions, @spaceorphan18.  If not, feel free to ask more. :-)

[vinceaddams]

Neither of those two things sound plausible, sorry anon! The kneebands of the breeches are what keeps your stockings from falling down, so there's no way you'd want to unbuckle & unbutton them when out and about. The knees of breeches are also very tightly fitted, especially late in the century, so I can't imagine that rolling them up would be comfortable. I do recall seeing them unbuttoned in at least one portrait, but it would have been in an informal relaxing at home setting. There are quite a lot of portraits of gentleman at home in silk wrapping gowns, often with the shirt unbuttoned, but you wouldn't dress like that out in pubic.

I can't see how any neck would be visible at all under a cravat and shirt collar, especially if there were ruffles on the shirt.

For most of the 18th century it was fashionable to leave the waistcoat partially unbuttoned at the top, and the shirts buttoned closed at the collar but had a long open slit down the front. But even so, you can't see much chest, since the shirts were so voluminous and the edges of the waistcoat so stiff. The unbuttoned portion was most of the waistcoat in the early 18th century, but gradually became less. I suppose to keep it proportional, since waistcoats gradually got shorter.

Here's my 1730's getting dressed video, for anyone who wants an explanation of All The Layers:

But anon asked specifically about the late 18th century, and waistcoat styles were very different, and they were generally worn buttoned all the way up by then!

However, with the shorter styles of waistcoats in the 1780's and 90's breeches were more visible, and they became much tighter. Stretch knit breeches were a thing (the V&A has a pair!), and leather breeches too, though I think those were mostly for riding. I should specify that leather breeches are typically a light buff colour and are soft and stretchy and not shiny.

I don't know as much as I ought to about 18th century society, so I'm not really sure what was generally considered attractive in a man back then. Probably @nellygwyn would have a better idea?

But anyways, no there isn't really any way to show more skin in an 18th century suit without looking silly and/or improperly dressed, but there were some very tight breeches. There were some pretty tight coats too.

As a very ace 21st century person I'm probably not the best judge of what's sexy, but here are some late 18th century images that seem relevant.

George Harry by George Romney, c. 1790-93. This is a good example of what leather breeches looked like. He's only wearing boots because he's out in the country and riding horses, in town he'd have shoes.

Jean-Baptiste Belley by Anne-Louis Girodet De Roucy-Trioson, 1797. More tight leather breeches, and tight coat sleeves too.

Mr. Hope of Amsterdam playing cricket by Jean-François Sablet, 1792. (Please note that he has his sleeves rolled up because he is playing sports, and once he's done he will button his shirt cuffs and put his coat back on again.)

Portrait of the singer Jean Elleviou in Le Prisonnier by Louis-Léopold Boilly, 1798. (Please note that this is a theatrical costume that's quite different from normal everyday clothes worn in 1790's France.)

Sir Brooke Boothby by Joseph Wright of Derby, 1781.

Magasin des Modes, 1786.

1793. These last two are illustrations from fashion magazines.

I've mentioned both stretchy knit and leather breeches, but they can be made to fit tightly with just plain woven fabric too. I made these orange ones with a fairly stiff & heavy silk:

I'm gonna preface this with I'm sorry. Do you what 'sexy' clothes would be for a man in the late 1700's? We had a debate about this at work (long story), and all we could come up with was maybe rolling his breeches to show his knees and tying his cravat in a way that shows his neck, or maybe just wearing expensive clothes. Thank you and again I'm sorry if that was weird

I do not know the answer, but I know who might be able to tell you!

@vinceaddams, any thoughts?

[whumppile]

I just found your Spider Man's fics and I gotta say I love your writing style ❤️ Could you do more whump fics of him? Maybe Tony calling him to help them out with anything and then something horrible happens to him? Or maybe have him loosing his powers for a bit? (Like in the 2nd Spiderman movie) Anyways, I'm glad I found your blog with whumpiness all over it ❤️

Aww you’re so sweet, I’m so glad you like them! Lol I love writing whump, I can’t stop hurting the poor kid  hehe this was a good prompt, I really hope you like it! Let me know what you think? I’ll also post it on my ff.net and a03 accounts as “Hold on.”

“You want anything else?” The checkout girl looked supremelybored as she handed Peter his bag of snacks, but he smiled all the same as hetook them.

“No, thanks. I’m all good!”

He may have been Spiderman but he still got hungry.

His senses were usually pretty good, but he’d beendistracted all day, and he didn’t notice the other man come in. He also didn’t noticethe gun he had in his waistband.

He was about to leave the store when his phone rang, and hequickly balanced his snacks in one hand to answer it.

“Hey Mr Stark! I just finished school and I aced thatscience test I was telling you about!”

The older man’s voice was slightly amused, and a littleproud. “That’s great Pete, I told you it would be fine. You know, Cap and Iwere talking and I think it’s time you came on a mission with us.”

Peter attempted to calm his racing heart as soon as thosewords were spoken. A mission? With Iron Man and Captain freaking America?

His voice was embarrassingly high as he replied. “Um, yeahthat sounds cool! You want me to meet you now?”

A crash and a scream drowned out Tony’s reply, and Peterturned in time to see the cashier stuff handfuls of money into a bag, for theman holding a gun to her head. Peter let out a curse, as he ducked behind ashelf of food.

“Shit.”

“Peter, you know your Aunt hates it when you-“

The kid quickly cut him off, crouching down behind the shelfand trying to get a peek at the man with the gun. The check-out girl was crying.

“Tony this store is being robbed.”

There was a pause. “The one you’re standing in?”

“Yeah, but I have my suit in my bag. If I can just get somewhereto change, I can handle it.”

Tony paused again, and Peter was worried he’d tell him tostay out of it, and make a speech about how he wasn’t bullet proof and heshould just wait for the police to get there. But instead he agreed.

“Okay, you got this. But BE CAREFUL, all right?”

Peter could almost jump up and down with excitement, exceptthat would most definitely get him shot. He was about to hang up the phonewhen-

“What are you doing?”

Shit. The man with the gun was now pointing it at Peter, andhe didn’t know what to say.

“Nothing.”

The robber looked panicked, hand shaking as he aimed the gunat Peter’s chest, bag of cash hanging by his side. Peter put his hands up.

“Who are you talking to! Did you call the cops? I can’t haveany cops coming in here!”

Peter flinched back as the man got closer. He smelt awful,and his teeth were rotted and broken. His pupils were blown wide too, whichmade it obvious he was on something. That only made him more dangerous.

“It’s not the cops, it’s…my dad. You don’t have to hurtanyone, why don’t you just put the gun down and we can talk about this?”

Tony’s voice was still coming from the phone, and he soundedworried. Peter kept his eyes on the gunman as he took the phone from his hand.

“Who is this?”

Peter could hear Tony’s furious reply from where he stood,and tried to come up with a plan to get the gun away from the robber.

“If you touch my kid, I swear to god, I will hunt you downand make you pay.”

The robber’s hand dipped just a little as his attention wasdiverted, and Peter saw his opening. He lunged for the gun, getting his fingersaround it before the man had even turned around, and within a second, he wasdisarmed.

Peter aimed the gun at the man, but kept his finger far awayfrom the trigger, as he took his phone back from the surprised junkie.

Tony was still screaming profanities as Peter pressed thephone back to his ear, and the teenager smiled as he cut him off.

“-YOU PIECE OF SHIT, I’LL HAVE THE WHOLE-“

“Tony, it’s fine, I got the gun. And I didn’t even need touse my-“

Peter didn’t really register what the sound was at first. Itechoed through the small store, and left his ears ringing. The cashierscreamed, and the junkie looked like he was about to throw up.

The gun dropped from Peter’s hand as he looked down at hisstomach. There was red seeping outwards, and it burned like nothing he’d everfelt before.

Another voice came from the front of the store, gruff and annoyed.

“I told you to grab the shit and go, why do I have to doeverything myself? Hurry up, leave him.”

The junkie left with the other guy, and the cashiercontinued to scream as Tony started yelling once more, but Peter was frozen.

“Peter? Are you okay? Peter answer me!”

It took a few moments for him to find his voice, long enoughfor both robbers to leave, and when he finally did speak, it came out small andscared.

“T…Tony. I think I’ve been shot.”

His knees hit the floor, and he let out a cry of pain as hecurled on his side on the disgusting tile. It hurt so badly, it was like a hotknife was being pushed into his stomach, and he couldn’t breathe without morepain carving through him.

There was a lot of noise coming through the phone, like enginesand panicked voices but Peter couldn’t concentrate on anything but the pain. Hecould feel his own blood dripping down his side, and the way his shirt stuck tothe wound. He sucked in a ragged breath, closing his eyes against the way ithurt his chest, and tried not to gag on the smell of copper tinging the air.

A sniffle caught his attention,and he opened his eyes to see the cashier standing above him, tears streamingdown her face as she pressed her hands to her mouth. Peter reached towards her,words shaking.

“Are…you o-okay? Did he hurt you?”

She shook her head, eyes glued to the hole in his stomachbefore they found the phone still clutched in his hand. Tony was still yelling,begging for Peter to answer him, and the cashier carefully knelt and took thephone from Peters shaking hand.

“Hello?”

“Who is this? Where’s Peter, is he okay?”

The girl’s face crumpled as she began to sob, and Peter justtried to concentrate on breathing.

“They shot him.”

Tony’s voice was strained. “Is he alive?”

The girl nodded before answering verbally. Tony sounded alittle more focused now, and his words came as a command.

“Put me on speaker and let me talk to him, while you findsomething to stop the bleeding.”

She nodded again and did as she was told, putting the phonedown next to Peter’s head as he twitched on the ground. It hurt to move butevery part of him shook from the pain and shock.

“Peter, talk to me kid.”

He forced his words out, hands hovering over his stomach asthey trembled. He knew he had to put pressure on it, but he couldn’t makehimself move.

“H-hey.”

Tony let out a breathy laugh, relieved to hear his voice astires squealed in the background. “Hey. Everything’s going to be okay, I’m onmy way and the police are coming. I’ve already gotten F.R.I.D.A.Y to notify mymed team and they’ll come soon. You just have to stay awake, all right?”

Peter nodded as the cashier came back, holding a bunch oftowels. She knelt beside him and balled them up, pressing them to the bulletwound and making Peter cry out in agony as she profusely apologized.

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry, but your dad said I had to stop thebleeding!”

Peter couldn’t hear anything else, as she pressed harder andpain filled his mind. His senses were more intense than other peoples, and hecouldn’t block anything out when distracted as he was. The lights were toobright, and there was too much noise from the phone and the cars outside, andhe could feel every millimetre that the bullet moved inside him.

He couldn’t shut any of it out, and the pain was so intense hecould do nothing but scream.

They were lucky that no one from the street came to see whatwas happening, because they couldn’t deal with any normal paramedics and Peter didn’tneed any more sensory input right now.

Tony’s voice came through the phone again, trying to soundsoothing despite how it shook.

“It’s okay, Peter! You’ll be okay, I’m coming. I’m on myway, just hold on for me, buddy.”

The cashier started crying again, pushing down on the towelsas they grew wet. Peter’s head began to swirl, and he noticed her name tag forthe first time. It was hard to read when your eyes don’t want to stay open, buthe was pretty sure it said Anne.

Tears fell down her cheeks as she watched Peter, and shecalled to the phone on the ground as his eyes got heavier.

“He’s falling asleep! And I can’t stop the bleeding, it justkeeps coming! I don’t know what to do!”

The engine on the other end of the phone revved harder andPeter blinked up at the face above him. Tony sounded angry.

“Stay awake, Peter! Just keep pressure on it, I’m almostthere! Peter! Answer me!”

Lights turned into glowing embers, and the face above himbegan to blur as the teenager started to shiver. Why was it so cold?

“No, Peter come on. Stay with me, kid.”

He hadn’t meant to say that out loud. Peter’s breaths beganto slow, leaving his mouth in noisy pants, and it was getting harder to pull inany air at all. His mouth tasted like copper, and he could feel blood coat hislips as he coughed.

Tony was still waiting for him to say something, and hiswords sounded wet and weak.

“M…Mr Stark? I’m scared.”

A noise like a sob came from the phone. Peter knew he wassupposed to be a hero, and that Spider-Man was supposed to be brave. But he wasin pain, and he knew that if he fell asleep, he might never wake up. All hewanted was Tony to be there; to make him feel safe, and to tell him everythingwould be okay. He felt so alone on that hard floor, with a stranger’s handscoated in his blood, and his only comfort a voice on a phone.

Tony’s voice was strangled, like something had a hand aroundhis throat as he spoke.

“It’ll be okay, Peter. I promise, I’m going to fixeverything, just stay awake. Don’t…don’t give up, you can do this, I know youcan. Keep talking to me. Tell me about that test you had today.”

The world was moving so slowly, and Peter’s eyes wereclosing of their own accord. He was so cold, and so tired. He couldn’t hold onanymore.

“I’m sorry.”

His eyes closed, as Tony called for him, and the cashier’s sobbinggrew louder.

Tony was driving as fast as he could, knuckles white on thesteering wheel. He could barely see through the stupid tears in his eyes, buthe continued, needing to get to his kid.

He could hear Peter’s ragged breaths through the phone, andhe could hear when they stopped. It was like his heart suddenly turned tostone, and became a weight in his chest that prevented him from breathing.Because as much as he hated hearing the wet, painful gasps being draggedthrough Peter’s teeth, he hated the silence more. The girl was sobbing soloudly, that Tony could almost pretend it wasn’t true. Of course, Peter wasstill breathing. He had to be.

But they weren’t there, and when he finally pulled up to thetiny store and ran inside, he could ignore it no longer. Peter lay on theground, arms laying at his sides as the crying cashier held bloody towels tohis stomach. There was so much of it, stained all over the girl, and poolingfrom beneath the teenager.

Tony’s hands started shaking as he looked at him. He was sopale, his eyes closed and his soft curls falling back from his forehead. Therewas blood dripping from his mouth and…he wasn’t breathing.

Sirens rang outside as Tony fell to his knees beside theboy, picking up one of his limp hands and holding it in both of his. He was so,so young, he didn’t deserve this.

Tony barely managed to push his words out before a sob tookover him. “Peter? I’m here, I’ve got you now. You’ll be okay. Wake up.”

Those eyes didn’t open, and that chest didn’t rise and fall.He was cold. He was gone.

Help arrived a few seconds later, the med team he’d calledstormed in, shouting things, and taking over, and Tony knew they were there tohelp but he couldn’t stand the thought of leaving Peter.

Finally, someone pushed him away and he sat on the floor afew meters away, as they tore Peter’s shirt open and attached pads to his chest.He tried to remember how to breathe as he watched Peter’s body arch, seizingfrom the electricity passing through him, before he slumped back to the ground.

He watched them inject things and place wires, careful handsholding Peter’s head still as they shoved a tube down his throat. He didn’t moveuntil they’d strapped Peter down onto a backboard, calling for Tony to comewith them.

“You can follow in your car, Mr Stark. We’ll take himstraight to Avenger tower.”

He watched them take his kid away, and got up to get in hiscar, but stopped as he caught sight of the blood and gauze all over the whitetiles. God, Peter had died on that floor.

He couldn’t look away, couldn’t seem to tear his eyes fromthe horror in front of him. But Peter still needed him, so he made sure thecashier was taken care of before he went to his car, and drove.

………………..

Peter woke to music. It was one of his favourites, and itfilled his mind and helped him swim to the surface of whatever darkness he waslost in. The music lifted, and suddenly he couldn’t just hear things, but feelthem too. He was lying down, with his chest a little raised, and someone washolding his hand.

There were smells too, sharp, and antibacterial which Peterdid not like, but at least he knew where he was now. He’d been in the medicalwing of Avenger tower enough times to recognise it by the smells alone.

His eyes were heavy, and didn’t want to open, but when theydid they were met with a white ceiling and white walls, a soft blue blanketdraped over him, and Tony Stark sitting by his bed.

Tony looked tired, like he hadn’t slept in days, and hesmiled when he saw Peter awake.

“Hey, kid. It’s about time you woke up, I almost thought you’dsleep forever.”

The teenager took a second to reply, finding his voice roughand his throat sore.

“You came.”

Tony nodded, and stood to pull Peter’s blankets higher uphis chest, unable to help himself from fretting. It had been touch and go forso long, and he’d waited three days to see the boy’s eyes open again.

“Of course, I did. I’ll always be here when you need me,Peter.”

The kids eyes drooped, and he frowned as if he were about tocry. “I didn’t mean to fall asleep, I didn’t want to give up but I was soscared and it hurt so bad.”

Tony quickly sat on the edge of the bed, and put a hand onthe boy’s shoulder, eyebrows coming down over his worried gaze. “No, no, it’sokay, I’m not mad Pete. You didn’t do anything wrong. Everything’s okay now,you just rest.”

Peter heaved a shaky sigh as he blinked, a stray tearfalling down his cheek.

“I didn’t want to die alone, with a stranger. I didn’t…I didn’twant to be by myself.”

Tony sighed and wiped the tear from that pale cheek, with acareful finger. “You’re not alone, Peter. I won’t leave. Just sleep, okay?”

Peter nodded, finally feeling safe, and let his eyes closeonce more, squeezing Tony’s hand as he fell back into the warm dark.

 (I hope you like it! Also sorry for killing Peter lol I didnt intend on that at first but it kind of happened. Let me know what you think?)