#Also there is no way that boy lives on the ocean and doesn't have a hell of a tan

[gia-d]

Team W! As in Who let them near the fire rods???

Four, Legend and Hyrule

[specialagentartemis]

godddddd i have disliked becky chambers' work since long way to a small angry planet and I agree that that fish scene is SO much of what is wrong with contemporary SFF especially queer SFF. refreshing take, great review, thank you. would love to hear what authors or works you think of as the antidote to that sensibility.

The thing is, I enjoyed The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet when I first read it - it was a fun, light adventure, clearly a debut novel but I was excited to see where Chambers would go from there. And I actually really do think the sequel, A Closed and Common Orbit, was good! It did interesting things with AI personhood and identity.

... and then Chambers just kinda. Did not get better. She settled into a groove and has a set number of ideas that I feel like she hasn't broken out of, creatively. And they I M O kind of rest on an assumption that "human nature" = "how people act in suburban California."

As an antidote to that sensibility, I'd say... books where people have a real interrelationship with the land they inhabit, a sense of being present, and reciprocal obligations to that land; books that recognize that some things can never be taken back once done; books with well-drawn characters, where people have strong opinions deeply informed by their circumstances, that can't always be easily reconciled with others, and won't be brushed aside; books where these character choices matter, they impact each other, they cannot be easily gotten over, because people have obligations to each other and not-acting is a choice too.

And it's only fair that after all day of being a Hater I should rec some books I really did like.

Piranesi by Susanna Clarke - A man lives alone in an infinite House, over an equally infinite ocean. Captures the feeling that I think Monk & Robot was aiming for. Breathtaking beauty, wonder at the world, philosophy of truth, all that good stuff, and actually sticks the landing. The main character's love, attention, and care to his fantasy environment shows through in every page. (Fantasy, short novel)

Imperial Radch by Ann Leckie - An AI, the one fragment remaining of a destroyed imperial spaceship, is on a quest for revenge. Leckie gets cultural differences and multiculturalism, and conversely, what the imposition of a homogeneous culture in the name of unity means. (Space sci-fi, novel trilogy)

Machineries of Empire by Yoon Ha Lee - An army captain's insubordination is punished by giving her a near-impossible mission: to take down a rebelling, heretical sect holing up in a space fortress and defying imperial power. She gets a long dead brain-ghost of a notorious criminal downloaded into her head to help. Very, very good at making you feel like every doomed soldier was a person with a past, with a family, with feelings, with hopes and dreams and frustrations and favorites and preferences and reasons to live, right before they brutally die in a space war. Also very much about the imposition of homogeneity of culture as a force of imperialism. (Space sci-fi, novel trilogy)

The Fortunate Fall by Cameron Reed - Maya Andreyevna is a VR journalist in high-tech dystopian future Russia, and she decides to investigate the truth that the government doesn't want her to. She might die trying. It's fine. Also has digital brain-sharing, this time in a gay way. It's bleak. It's sad. It feels real. Not making a choice is a choice. Backing out is a choice. And choices have consequences. Choices reverberate through history. About responsibility. (Cyberpunk, novel)

The Vanished Birds by Simon Jimenez - Nia Imani is a spaceship captain, a woman out of time, a woman running from her past, and accidentally adopts a boy who has a strange power that could change the galaxy. Spaceship crew-as-found-family in the most heartbreaking of ways. Also about choices, how the choices you make and refuse to make shape you and shape the world around you. How the world is always changing around you, how the world does not stay still when you're gone, and when you come back you're the same but the world has moved on around you. About how relationships aren't always forever, and that doesn't mean they weren't important. About responsibility to others. It's a slow, sad book and does not let anyone rest on their laurels, ever. There is no end of history here. Everything is always changing, on large scales and small, and leaving you behind. (Space sci-fi, novel)

Dungeon Meshi / Delicious in Dungeon by Ryoko Kui - A D&D style fantasy dungeon crawl that stops to think deeply about why there are so many dungeons full of monsters and treasure just hanging around. Here because it's an example of an author thinking through her worldbuilding a lot, and it mattering. Also because of the characters' respect for the animals they are are killing and eating, their lives and their place in the ecosystem, and the ways that humans both fuck up ecosystems with extraction and tourism, but also the ways that you can have reciprocal relationships of responsibility and care with the ecosystem you live in, even if it's considered a dangerous one. (Fantasy, manga series)

Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang and How Long 'Til Black Future Month by N. K. Jemisin and Everyone on the Moon is Essential Personnel by Julian K. Jarboe - Short story anthologies that were SO good and SO weird and rewired the way I think. If you want the kind of stuff that is like, the opposite of easy-to-digest feel-good pap, these short stories will get into your brain and make you consider stuff and look at the world from new angles. Most of them aren't particularly upbeat, but there's a lot of variety in the moods.

"Homecoming is Just Another Word for the Sublimation of the Self," "Calf Cleaving in the Benthic Black," and "Termination Stories for the Cyberpunk Dystopia Protagonist" by Isabel J. Kim - Short stories, sci-fi mostly, that twist around in my head and make me think. Kim is very good at that. Also about choices and not-making-choices, about going and staying, about taking the easy route or the hard one, about controlling the narrative.

The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells - Security robot with guns in its arms hacks itself free from its oppressive company, mostly wants to half-ass its job but gets sucked into drama, intrigue, and caring against its better judgement. This is on here because 1) I love it 2) I feel like it does for me what cozy sff so frequently fails to do - it makes me feel seen and comforted. It's hopeful and compassionate and about personal growth and finding community and finding one's place in the world, without brushing aside all problems or acting like "everybody effortlessly just gets along" is a meaningful proposal. also 3) because it is one of the few times I have yet seen characters from a hippie, pacifistic, eco-friendly, welcoming, utopian society actually act like people. The humans from Preservation are friendly, helpful, and motivated by truth and justice and compassion, because they come from a friendly, just, compassionate society, and they still actually act like real human beings with different personalities and conflicting opinions and poor reactions to stress and anger and frustration and fear and the whole range of human emotions rather than bland niceness. Also 4) I love it (space sci-fi, novella series mostly)

[jnnul]

ric flair drip

a/n: oh my god. it's finished. i've finally written all of her. i genuinely don't know how to explain the relief i feel right now. it feels strange writing this after writing and healing myself through writing this. i hope that anyone in college who's feeling the way y/n or jaehyun did knows that you can and will grow from it. heartbreak is inevitable and so is growth. quick note: feedback, comments, etc. GREATLY encourage writers! if you felt any sort of way (in a good or bad way!) about this fic, pls leave feedback!

word count: 20k

tags: college au!, frat boy!jaehyun x girlboss!y/n, honestly it just a dissertation about modern love and how people nowadays love each other, there's a lot of soul searching in this one, i poured my heart and soul into this please love her the way i do warnings: mentions of sex, underage drinking, and general college shenanigans! also explicit mentions of oral sex, uhhh foreplay and sex

HONESTLY, NOTHING ABOUT JUNG JAEHYUN IS REMOTELY APPEALING TO YOU. you hate the perfect boy act he puts on, you hate his need to impress everyone and everything, and you really fucking hated his dick.

because if it wasn't for his dick, which you were sure is just as perfect as the rest of his stupid self, you wouldn't be awake at inhumane hours, listening to your friend recount their sexcapades.

"oh my god, and then he did this thing with his tongue and i swear, i'm literally never going to be able to have oral again. he's fucking ruined me. i'm genuinely going to just make every guy i fuck put a jaehyun mask on from now onwards just to recreate it," sia yoo, unfortunately one of your best friends, quips dreamily. she yelps when roseanne park, your roommate and singular other voice of reason, throws a pillow at her.

"you sound like a fucking psycho. as in needs to be checked to a mental facility psycho. as in if i hadn't heard worse when you got with johnny suh, i'd be calling the cops right now psycho," roseanne says and easily ducks when sia winds up to throw the pillow back at her. fatima khan, sia's roommate and mother friend extraordinaire, pouts sympathetically with sia as the two of them turn to you as if you would fall on their side.

"sia, baby, honey, love and light of my life - i'm really sorry but i'm with rosie on this one," you say and sia puts on the most theatrical frown you she possibly could before she cocks her head curiously.

"rosie's got a reason for judging jaehyun since she doesn't even like men all that much. what's your excuse, y/n? you like men, judging by the way you were getting railed to next week by that freshie park seonghwa. you've never gotten dicked down by jaehyun."

you're half-tempted so tell sia that it's not fucking weird that you got with seonghwa, considering the fact that you're only a sophomore yourself but you're even more tempted to remind her that even though you were no stranger to a good time, you never recount your stories.

in fact, the only reason why the other three (well, you suppose rosie would know regardless given that you literally live with her) know about your sex life is because you choose to tell them whenever you felt like it. and usually, it was more than three days after the encounter.

you loved your friends, you really did - and sia was notorious for getting into one night stand rehash sessions at ungodly hours, so this was nothing new - but for some reason, every time jaehyun's name came up in the conversation, your skin would prickle with irritation.

maybe it was the fact that every single person around you seemed to be infatuated with him. or the fact that he was just so effortlessly good at capturing the attention of everyone in the room, no matter where he was.

or maybe, just maybe, it was the fact that you knew that if you looked too closely into the deep end, you'd fall right in with no life jacket. and jaehyun was an endless ocean.

+++

maybe you had given jaehyun too much credit, you lament. maybe jung jaehyun's as deep as a fucking kiddie pool. you know you're wrong because you were in the same english literature class and the man had been published because the professor liked his prose so much, she had submitted it to a literary journal.

and they had accepted it.

but as you stare at him across the lecture hall, burning holes into the poor guy's skull, you sure think he's stupid. because there was no way in fresh hell that jung jaehyun was in an introduction to east asia class. as a south korean.

people begin settling into their seats as you mull over the possibility that jaehyun had fucked so much, his brain had fallen out through his dick. from the stories of his more than above average size, it was definitely not out of the realm of possibility.

just as you're send a very judgmental text to fatima, who was supposed to be taking the class with you but had had to switch last minute when one of her major required classes opened up, jaehyun gets out of his seat to stand at the front of the room, next to the professor.

you realize belatedly that the people jaehyun had been so animatedly speaking to were none other than bambam and ten - two people who most definitely were in this class. and of course, they had chosen this class over all the others because oh my god, jung jaehyun is the uta for this class.

in hindsight, it makes sense, given that jaehyun is a east asian studies minor and a stellar fucking student. but it doesn't make the text you were about to send fatima any less humiliating as you realize your attempts to undermine his character were desperately failing. you try to backtrack on your phone, deleting the winding paragraph you were about to send her when your thumb slips, accidentally sending a half written message.

you: jaehyun is fucking

you're sure the statement will be true within the next couple hours (the jung bed at the nct frat never seemed to stay empty for too long - and that was just from orientation week last week) but it felt almost blasphemous that you would send a text so crude to your friend when you insisted that you couldn't stand his guts.

or what lay between them, really.

three gray dots appear on your screen as you half-heartedly listen to your professor drone on about how he went to china, became a changed man, and now taught about the wonders of east asia and its exoticism. his name was paul but the class could refer to him by his 'enlightened name' - lao ma. even jaehyun rolls his eyes behind the professor's back as all of the asian kids in the classroom begin to eye each other warily.

if this class wasn't so easy, you're sure the population would've shrunk to a quarter its size based on the weirdness of the professor on its own. or maybe not, if it meant that people got to stare at jaehyun's gorgeous face for an hour and a half every monday morning.

mommy tima 🤍: honey, i think whatever sia's got going is contagious. mommy tima 🤍: aren't you the one who hates him? mommy tima 🤍: he really lives in your mind rent free, huh.

you scoff under your breath as you type furiously, vaguely registering that you definitely need to check the syllabus for this class later because you have not been listening to a word the professor has said this whole time.

you: first sia's got cooties or a raging std that's what she's got going you: second he's my fucking uta you: as in i am going to be forced to see his face for an entire semester mommy tima 🤍: drop the class then, babe. you: can't this is too good for my gpa & the prof's a freak you: it's a gpa cushion and a circus in one go

you tuck your phone away when you see that jaehyun is coming up the aisle on your side with a packet while the professor is on the other aisle on the other side with the same packet to hand out. jaehyun probably wouldn't care that you had your phone out during lecture (syllabus week was just an excuse for college kids to get drunk during school days anyway) but it was the principle of the thing.

"here you go - oh, it's stuck together," jaehyun says as he stops at where you're sitting. his tongue slips out as he thumbs at the packet to give you one instead of three and suddenly, your treacherous brain takes you back to sia's rambling the night before.

and then he did this thing with his tongue...

you're shaken back to reality when you realize that you're staring at a blank wall, with a pink packet in front of you, and jaehyun has already reached the back of the classroom.

fuck. shit. bitch.

jaehyun had seen you stare at his stupidly handsome face and then some. he was your ta. oh my god, what if he docked points on some test because he thought you were the creepy stalker type.

damn you, sia yoo, you curse in your head.

+++

"damn you, sia yoo!" you yell over the blaring music that's so loud, you can feel the vibrations in your skull. there absolutely no reason you should be caught dead in a frat on the friday of syllabus week but sia had made it her mission to make sure you had a going out rate of at least 80% this school year, given that you were prone to trying to skip out on weekends out last year.

not that you didn't like going out - you actually really liked going out with your friends. you just took a little more inertia to get to the energy levels of actually going on.

sia just nods at you lazily as she bounces to the beat of another shitty remix of 'what you came for' by calvin harris and rihanna. you never understood why frats always found the worst remixes of classic party bangers but anything flew after you had enough alcohol in your system so the music would recede to the depths of your mind in a couple cups of whatever the fuck this drink was.

especially since you were a full sunshine drunk; whenever you were drunk, you became the life of the party and would always be found in the center of the room, regardless of the music. sia was a flirty drunk and you really couldn't remember the last time sia actually spent the entire weekend in her own bed. props to her stamina, honestly.

rosie was a mix of you and sia in that she would become so much more bubbly but the second she found someone she wanted to spend the night with, she went after them with no hesitation.

fatima usually played the role of sober mommy when you all went out. although she was never one to miss out on a good time, when she did get drunk, she much preferred it to be within the confines of the four walls that she shared with her roommate and the people she trusted the most - you, rosie, and sia.

which is why when rosie abandons you for her on again, off again fuck buddy (miyeon cho) and her fuck buddy (yugyeom kim), you're not surprised at all.

"that's going to be an interesting story in the morning," you say, nodding to where rosie, miyeon, and yugyeom are all heading upstairs together. fatima nudges you to look at sia, where she's pressed up against none other than johnny suh (or the love of her life, prior to jaehyun, apparently).

"that's going to be an interesting story in the afternoon," fatima counters. you turn to her with furrowed eyebrows, as if to question the timing. "i don't think i've ever heard of a girl leaving johnny's bed before 3 o'clock the next afternoon."

your jaw hangs in shock as you watch your friend wrap her arms around the tall man's neck, whispering something into his ear when he bends down to kiss her collarbone.

"are all of the nct boys secretly porn stars or something? how can they all be that good in bed?" you gape, waving at sia when she turns around to wink at you and fatima as her and johnny are bustling out of the door, undoubtedly to the nct frat house.

"they test us as part of rushing," says a low, velvety voice behind you. a hot rush of shame runs up your spine for two reasons: a) you were able to recognize jung jaehyun just from his voice and b) he heard you gossiping about his frat brothers' sexual prowess.

you exchange a look with fatima before whipping around to meet jaehyun eye to eye. he's wearing a plain black t-shirt and lightwash distressed jeans but he might as well be wearing designer trash bags for all you care. what you do care about, unfortunately, is the almost slutty way his v-neck dips to show off the beginnings of the planes of his chest.

you feel no better than a victorian man and it takes fatima a poorly concealed cough to break you out of your thoughts. fuck, you'd done it again. you really needed to stop getting caught up in jung jaehyun's pretty face. and body. and that stupid smile.

"haha. very funny. sounds like something straight out of a cheesy porno sponsored by viagra or something," you say, rolling your eyes. smooth. very smooth. normally, you like to think that you're proficient in the witty banter department but something about this boy made you almost feel dumb about your comebacks.

jaehyun cocks an eyebrow, and you're distinctly made aware that even with platform sneakers on, jaehyun is a good head taller than you when you have to look upwards to notice the motion. "you seem to be well versed, y/n. you make it a habit to stay up to date?"

you flush at the thinly veiled euphemism at your x-rated movie watching habits before clearing your throat. "i'm more of a fan of practical study, really. i am a scientist, after all."

you're aware that fatima has slipped away from you to talk to another friend, park jeonghwa, and also the fact that you are slowly beginning your descent into drunkenness but you can't seem to bring yourself to find the caution in it all. it's just jaehyun, after all.

jaehyun hums, bringing the solo cup in his hand to his lips to take a swig. "you're a biomedical engineering major, aren't you?"

you balk at that. "wait, wait. you know my name and my major?"

jaehyun nods slowly, seemingly stumbling for a moment before he gains his self-confidence once more. "you don't know mine?"

"you're literally my ta. i know you're an east asian studies minor and your name because you told the class," you say, recovering quickly. it was a really good thing you were a quick thinker because you were lying through your teeth.

you knew jaehyun's name, minor, and even major (computer science) because of his notorious reputation, not because he was your ta. but the last thing you wanted was to give him the satisfaction of asserting his popularity on campus.

"anyway. what was that you were saying about 'practical study'?" jaehyun's eyes twinkle in the dim lighting of the cramped basement you were in and you had a feeling that if you were any more inebriated, you'd be diving headfirst into jung jaehyun's bed as long as he looked at you like that.

but fortunately (unfortunately?) you're sober enough to make mostly intelligent decisions - which just means that you're not going to jump headfirst. maybe feet first but not headfirst.

"wouldn't you like to know," you sing-song, leaning into jaehyun's body enough to smell the mix of woody pine, fresh water, and vodka that seems to emanate from him. jaehyun watches you as you lean over him to grab another solo cup from the assortment that some lower ranked frat brother had been forced into bartending.

you down the entire drink in two swigs, patting away the stray stream of alcohol that had dripped down onto your chest. you don't notice the way jaehyun's eyes follow your hand down its descent to your chest. but you finally feel like your element, and in a moment of sheer idiocy and liquid courage, you enter the growing throng of bodies behind you, beckoning jaehyun to follow you.

you're not 100% sure what you want from him, honestly. you want to have a good time, and you're sure you'll have one with or without him. but something about the way jaehyun follows you like a puppy into the mess of people makes you feel like a zap of electricity has hit your body.

and if you're being completely honest with yourself (as you usually only are with ethanol in your system), you really didn't hate jaehyun. you had no qualms with him as a person, even if you hated the consequences that came with a night with him.

it's when you're in the middle of the crowd, with jaehyun looking at you with those hooded eyes and hands tucked into his pockets when you realize what you want from jaehyun jung.

you want him to desire you the way that his mere presence makes people desire him.

so you do what you do best and just let go. it's ric flair drip by metro boomin that's playing - a song that's definitely not the one to get down to. but the bass fills you up in a way that never hits the same outside of a sweaty frat basement so you can't even bring yourself to care.

"i'm tryna fuck you and your bestie," you sing along with the near hundred people surrounding you. jaehyun is still looking at you with an eyebrow sitting higher and an appraising expression; something that somehow manages to get under your skin.

in a moment of passion, you manage to hook your fingers into one of jaehyun's belt loops, pulling him closer to you. you're aware that you've painted yourself to be jaehyun's next conquest if the way that the girls next to you look upset means anything, but you couldn't care less.

especially when you're this close to the bane of your existence. the song switches to something a little more what you need (under the influence by chris brown) and you look up at jaehyun through your lashes and in that moment, jaehyun knows what you're offering him through your gaze.

a challenge.

+++

jaehyun never really meant to take on the role of nct's resident whore. in fact, jaehyun had been planning on doing the exact opposite when he came to college.

although it was unbelievable now, jaehyun jung had originally just been a very strange, nerdy, and sweet boy. he never got up to much trouble, kept to himself most of the time, and was known for...nothing, really. he was sweet and bubbly but he wasn't exactly running with the popular crowd.

in fact, jaehyun was kinda forgotten all throughout his schooling. it was easy to forget about jaehyun, as though he were some visage in a dream that everyone shared.

it hurt.

so when jaehyun finally hit his growth spurt in senior year, started going to the gym, and his voice no longer cracked every other sentence, he felt like a whole new person. like he was finally the main character in his own life.

it felt so fucking good to look at the same girls who had smiled at him pitifully and have them melting under a single wink. the summer between high school and college had been wild, with more stories than jaehyun could really even care to keep track of.

but when college began, jaehyun was fully intending to return to flying under the radar with his new upgrade in personality, appearance, and wardrobe. with a face like his, however, doing so was about as easy as trying to pass professor yoon's intro to bio class - nearly impossible.

slowly but surely, jaehyun morphed back into the personality he had adopted that summer and surprisingly, it wasn't as foreign as he thought. he was still a good student and wasn't a stranger to having to skip out on hanging out with his friends to study.

but having a new girl in his bed every other day? that was definitely new. a new revelation, but a welcome one nonetheless.

and in that, jaehyun was used to people using all sorts of tactics to get with him. playing hard to get, with coy smiles and flirtatious winks. or the bold ones, who told him straight up that they wanted to spend the night with him. even the downright horrifying ones who tried to pretend like they were blackout drunk in hopes that that would 'attract' him. spoiler alert? it didn't.

jaehyun originally thought you were of the 'hard to get' caliber. the type of girl to say that she wasn't like other girls and that's why he should get with her instead. so initially, when he approached you at the party after seeing you in his class, he was mentally preparing himself for the whole pick me speech.

but it was something about the way you looked at him.

it was like two halves of your mind were battling against each other. on one hand, you looked like you wanted to fax jaehyun straight into the fiery pits of hell with high speed shipping. on the other, it also seemed like you wanted nothing more than to ride him until the sun came up. mixed with a little bit of curiosity, confusion, and downright anger with yourself for all the emotions, you looked like the perfect cocktail of firebrand that jaehyun couldn't help but become intrigued by.

so when you were laughingly talking to your best friend (jaehyun's frat brother kun was half in love with fatima, which meant that jaehyun was more than well acquainted with her) about him and frat brothers, he took it to be the opportunity he needed.

and when you're looking at him like this, daring him to make a move, almost as if to make your mind fall one way or another about drawing a conclusion on him, what is jaehyun to do but to make good on the challenge you've offered?

he watches you for a moment more, trying to commit the memory of what you look like when you're this carefree and happy, before taking the micro-step it takes to get so close he can smell the citrus and apple cider that you seem to always smell like.

"i promise you i can fuck you better than johnny," jaehyun says, a corner of his lips tilted up as your eyes flutter the closer he draws.

"johnny's your 'bestie'?" you say, and jaehyun can tell that the last threads of your resolve are starting to snap by the way that your hand is now pressed against his chest.

"that's what you're curious about right now? the dynamics of the nct frat brothers?" jaehyun asks but he knows that this back and forth is exactly you need right now; the time to decide if you can take the plunge. or if jaehyun's worth your time tonight.

"as i mentioned, i'm a scientist," you say, and even as your voice stays stable, your fingers seem to leave burning trails against jaehyun's skin as they dip and feed into crevices of jaehyun's body that he didn't even know existed.

"hmm," jaehyun manages to eke out when your fingers lace into his hair. he's not sure how you manage to find every single sensitive spot he has but he's fairly impressed by the way you catch his breath hitching as you work your other hand up as well.

"hmm? cat got your tongue, jaehyun?" you say, making sure that jaehyun looks straight into your eyes as you lean impossibly closer. "you know that sia's with johnny right now, right? girls talk - especially with your best friends. which means that if you can't make good on your promise, i will find out."

jaehyun feels like he's sweating like a pig but thankfully, you don't notice, too busy making him sweat. he clears his throat once, and then twice to make sure that his voice doesn't give out.

"that right?" he says, and you roll your eyes, letting go of him and stepping back. you seem to appraise him for a moment (and jaehyun is unnaturally nervous about what you will decide) before grabbing his hand and leading him to the door. you only pause to flag down fatima, who takes one look at your intertwined hands, and waves the two of you away.

jaehyun blushes like a schoolgirl at the way fatima flashes him a catty smile.

"i swear to god, jaehyun, if you're all talk and no game - or if you're gonna sit still and look pretty the whole time - i will literally blue ball you. i don't do pillow princes," you throw over your shoulder as the two of you make your way to the nct frat. jaehyun knows for a fact that the nct frat will not be a quiet place tonight by the number of dresses and pants he sees in the foyer and leading the way up the stairs.

he says nothing, even as you're quite nearly storming up the stairs with a certain level of urgency, almost as though if you were to slow down and think about just exactly what you're doing, you'd turn around and leave right now.

jaehyun definitely can't let that happen.

so the second that he gets you into his bedroom (he had to rock, paper, scissors with doyoung to get the room tonight), he shuts the door and locks it behind him. he turns around to see you looking between the two beds, as if trying to guess which one was jaehyun's.

he mentally pats himself on the back when he sees the fresh sheets on the bed. reaching where you stand in less than a stride, jaehyun turns you so that you're facing his bed, and you squirm to turn to meet his eyes even as his hands are on your waist.

"what is with your hands?" you ask harshly and jaehyun blinks as he looks down.

"what do you mean? they're on your waist," jaehyun says softly, and once again, he's hit with a wave of citrus and apple cider. you simper at him, grabbing his wrist and moving it incriminatingly downwards.

"what am i? a virgin? put them somewhere useful." you whisper the last part and it's as though jaehyun has just woken up.

"you know," jaehyun begins, sliding his other hand downwards to sit comfortably on the curve of your ass. "if i didn't know any better, i'd think you were trying to rile me up. i wonder..."

he doesn't finish his thought, instead pulling you close so that your hips are pressed against his. he can hear the gasp that you're desperately trying to conceal, coughing uselessly to the side. a devilish smirk grows on jaehyun's lips and for the first time in a long time, you're sure you're going to be up all night.

+++

you were, in fact, trying to rile him up. you had heard all the rumors about jaehyun and johnny, about how one night with them was like one night in heaven. hell, you'd had first hand accounts from sia yoo about exactly what it's like to be in bed with either of them - multiple times.

so when jaehyun had fronted with such a cautious attitude when he realized what you wanted, you were almost offended. if you wanted to take control and fuck a man's brains out, you could do that with anyone. why would you fight against your own mind this much to get with him?

but seonghwa park. changkyun im. even kun qian, before you discovered he was head over heels for fatima. jung jaehyun.

these were all people who put you in your place. the way you wanted to be. it just seemed as though jaehyun might've needed a little more persuasion to get there.

so yes, you were riling him up. was that such a crime?

by the way jaehyun's looking at you right now, his breath hot and heavy on your neck and his eyes dark with a feeling that you can't describe but resonates with you on a deeper, more primal level.

"you know, after you got with kun, he wouldn't shut up about it for a week," jaehyun says, pressing kisses down your neck, pausing when he reaches your breastbone. he eyes your corset top with a discerning eye before reaching behind you to pull the lace strings that were precariously holding your top for a week.

"yeah?" you ask, threading your fingers through jaehyun's thick hair as he makes quick work of your top, leaving it pooled on the floor as his lips find your chest as though he couldn't be physically parted from it.

"yeah. even after he met fatima, he said that you were the best he's ever had - that's a big reputation to live up to when you're in nct," jaehyun says, his voice breathy and deep as he walks you backwards so that the back of your knees hit the frame of his bed.

"hmm. what can i say? i know what i want and what i want is usually lots of fun," you say, letting jaehyun unzip your jeans, pulling them down and kicking them off when jaehyun moves too slowly.

"i know. god, after knowing that you and kun were going at it, i swear everyone was jerking off in their room for an hour. even winwin wanted to go for you today. you're an unpredictable woman; no one knows where and when you're going to show up to one of the parties so everyone has to take their chances when they get them," jaehyun says, tugging his shirt off and throwing it somewhere behind him carelessly.

you nearly melt when you see jaehyun's uncovered top, eyeing each and every hard ridge of his body, reaching out to touch him. his chest is almost soothingly warm as your fingers memorize each and every aspect of the planes of his chest, almost worried that they might disappear if you let go.

jaehyun looks at you amusingly as he lets your fingers dance across his body, focusing on tugging your panties off to discard them where he's sure he's going to have to search for them later on.

you pout when you see the difference in clothing but jaehyun just gently pushes you backwards so that your back is against his bed, leaving your pussy exposed in away that makes you feel absolutely mortified. you move to gain some level of privacy back but jaehyun is too fast, gripping onto your thighs incriminatingly as he raises an eyebrow.

"don't think that i'm soft just because i'm being nice to you now, pretty girl. i know you don't like to listen but don't hide from me. i will not let you have any fun if you try to hide from me," jaehyun says, his voice dropping a full octave. you suppress the shiver that runs through your body (and that simultaneously delights jaehyun) as you nod softly.

he seems satisfied by the way your body melts and rewards you for your submission by licking a wet strip up your pussy, one hand snaking up to touch your nipple while the other one keeps your thighs open.

jaehyun is slow at first, exploring each and every hidden crevice of your body but as he feels you get wetter and wetter, he can't seem to stay soft for too long. he continues to press his lips against yours but the moment you try to grind your hips against his lips, he pulls away, his tongue darting out to taste your essence on him.

you almost whine at the loss of his hot mouth on your pussy, and you're embarrassed to realize that in front of jaehyun jung, you are no better than your best friend in falling in love with the way he moves.

"you're not going to cum from my tongue, baby," jaehyun says, practically ripping the belt out from where it was caging his jeans. "especially when i know that your pussy is magic."

"you say that, jaehyun, but you're being so fucking soft. if i didn't know any better, i'd think you're in love with me," you snort, trying to catch your breath. jaehyun freezes from where his boxers are hanging so low on his hips, you can see the muscles in his pelvis tense angrily as he looks at you dangerously.

"my fucking bad for making sure you're wet enough to take me," jaehyun whispers, pulling close to you. his eyes turn even darker than usual and a small spark of excitement ignites in your chest when you realize that you've finally reached it - jaehyun's breaking point.

"sounds like you're scared, jaehyun. you know what? you know why kun was so good? because he wasn't scared. he wasn't scared to fuck me like he was trying to break the bed," you retort, and saying kun's name is when jaehyun finally snaps. he tears his boxers off as he pushes you so that you're further up on his bed.

"y/n, i'm not fucking joking around. if you want me to stop, say it now. just say the word, and i'll pretend like this never happened. because i swear to every god in existence, if you let me, i'll ruin every other man for you," jaehyun says and his knuckles turn white from how hard his clenching his fingers to keep himself from pouncing. the thought is almost cute if you weren't desperate to be fucked into next week.

"if i wanted you to stop, i wouldn't have said kun's name, would i?"

that's all it takes. no sooner do the words leave your mouth, jaehyun's on top of you, every inch of his body fighting to claim yours. he's not sure what it is about being with a bratty girl but every time a girl tries to challenge him, jaehyun can feel his excitement grow as his mind runs wild with ways to prove you wrong.

and with a girl as beautiful and sexy as you? he was going to have the time of his life.

time of his life he does.

+++

when jaehyun wakes up, he's almost happy. almost because he has bruises on his hips from how hard he had pounded into you, a litter of hickeys across his chest, and freshly washed hair from when you had enticed him into taking a shower with you.

inevitably, it led to another hour in the shower that jaehyun had spent having his soul sucked out from his dick, eating you out under the shower, and seeing you cum twice just from his tongue.

if only he had woken up with you still in his bed, jaehyun would've actually been happy.

realistically, jaehyun had no clue what he was expecting. after taking a shower, it had taken you a total of five minutes to fall asleep in his arms, wearing nothing but jaehyun's oversized t-shirt and your panties.

there was no pillowtalk, no heart to hearts, nothing. no discussions of having whatever happened last night happening again. no trying to get to know each other better.

not that you had ever been obligated to do so. if anything, jaehyun was far more obligated to do so, after practically declaring that he had wanted to get with you since last semester - which he had been completely serious about.

but with his reputation, regardless of what he had said last night, jaehyun's almost 100% sure that you would've disappeared by the morning.

he's so caught up in his thoughts that he almost misses the bright pink post-it note on his neatly folded shirt on his desk in the corner of the room.

9.5/10. if you see sia, tell her she was right about your tongue. see you in intro to east asia on monday.

jaehyun's half disappointed and half happy. disappointed because you'd never left your number or anything and happy because at least he knew that you weren't going to completely avoid him whenever you ran into each other next.

he shakes his head as he folds the post-it note and throws it in the trash can next to his desk.

jaehyun jung may not have started college with the intention of becoming the resident fuckboy but he still had a reputation to maintain. he had fucked countless women over his time at sm university and he had no intention of falling for any of them.

he was not about to get soft-hearted or soft-dicked by a girl he was with once.

even if she was really good in bed. like really really good. like good enough to make him think about the other boys she's been with and if they'd made you feel as good as he did.

fuck. her. which jaehyun had already done. which meant that he needed to move onto the next step of the day before his head exploded with all of the implications flying around in his mind about their relation to each other (nonexistent) and if you were thinking about him like he was thinking of you (you weren't).

he pads out of his room, passing doyoung on the way out, who claps him on the back and says, "you finally got with y/n?" jaehyun doesn't know how doyoung knows but it strikes him that neither of you are very subtle people and you had caused quite the scene leaving with him last night.

similar reactions are offered to him by everyone he passes. he's not really sure how many of the boys you've been with but jaehyun can feel his street cred go up by at least a decameter with the way some of these pledges are looking at him.

in fact, everyone is looking at him with a new look of respect in their eyes until he reaches the kitchen, where yoo sia and johnny are sitting, practically eye-fucking.

jaehyun was very used to seeing johnny's friends in the kitchen the next day, neither of them ready to really say goodbye each other yet but for some reason, knowing that sia was your best friend and seeing her with johnny sets jaehyun's stomach into a series of knots that he was sure he was going to have to unravel when he had his head on straight.

"she already left?" sia says, finally breaking her stare from johnny's. jaehyun shrugs, digging around the fridge to see if they had any coffee. they didn't (none that wasn't expired anyway) so he has to settle for a caprisun.

"she had somewhere to be," jaehyun says. he wants to ask sia if it's normal for you to leave that early. it can't be if sia seems surprised that you'd left before the clock struck ten. what did that mean? what does that say about jaehyun? oh god. what if you hated it. what if you hated it so much that you didn't want to spend a second longer with jaehyun.

he cringes as he locks eyes with another shiny eyed pledge (jaehyun thinks his name is jungwoo) and tries to shake his head to clear any and all thoughts of you. he was pussydrunk. that was the only explanation. he just needed to dick down someone else and then he would get over whatever little infatuation thing he had going on.

"really? hmm..." sia says finally. jaehyun turns to see her looking right at him and suddenly, he's transported back to the previous weekend, when sia had been wrapped up in his sheets.

+++

"why did you start fucking around like this?" sia had asked, her chest still heaving from their previous illicit activities as she wraps herself tighter in jaehyun's sheets. jaehyun pauses for a moment as he catches his breath, pulling on his boxers as he thinks. he throws the shirt that sia's grabbing at, still not sure how to piece together his thoughts.

or why he wants to tell sia the truth. maybe it's because no one's ever asked about it before, but jaehyun feels strangely vulnerable as sia watches as he clambers back into his bed, her expression pensive and uncharacteristically wise.

"i don't know," jaehyun says honestly, laying over the covers as he feels his face grow hotter under sia's unrelenting stare. "i think it's because i wanted to know what it felt like. to know what it felt like to be wanted for a night instead of just being in the sidelines as the guy with the potential. just the guy that people brought along as the friend of the hot guys that kept him around."

sia doesn't say anything, instead turning so that she was lying on her back. jaehyun turns to look at her, to see if he could decipher some level of understanding from her silence. really, he knows that he should feel embarrassed about confessing his insecurities to a girl that he's hooked up with two or three times but he can't bring himself to for some reason.

maybe it's because he knows that she wouldn't say anything about it to anyone. or because he knows that she's head over heels for johnny, whether she'd admit it or not. or maybe it's just because for the first time, someone had asked something about jaehyun just to get to know him as a person, rather than trying to get him in their bed.

not that he really minded that - it just made him feel like it was all a lot more transactional than he was used to. he had been a romantic once upon a time. when you grew up with the nickname of 'valentine boy', it would have been stranger if he didn't have some sense of romance.

but jaehyun's penchant for romance disappeared almost just as soon as he realized that no one else was yearning for a pure type of love like he was.

and yet, it didn't bother him as much as he thought it would. turns out that jaehyun's a very adaptable man. if he wouldn't find love in this decade, then perhaps it would be lust that he would have to settle for.

"then again," he begins, gaze darting over to where sia had slipped on his t-shirt as she tiredly begins to settle down in his bed once more. "isn't that what everyone is doing nowadays? looking for a warm body for the night, instead of a genuine connection?"

sia snorts at that, turning so that she was facing jaehyun now. "don't tell me that you're one of the boomer types. the ones who always go around peacocking about how they were born in the wrong generation and that they're one of the 'good guys'. i might actually leave right now if you are."

"no, no i'm not. well. maybe a little bit. but i don't know why that's so bad to be honest," jaehyun acquiesces finally. sia rolls her eyes, but even she goes quiet for a moment. once again, jaehyun's reminded that this is sia yoo - a girl who routinely wakes up in someone else's sheets every saturday (although it was johnny's more often than not) and as sexist as it was, someone who carried a reputation for it. even jaehyun was surprised to find that she was such a deep conversationalist.

of course, he mentally berates himself soon after but he can't help the thought. for him, sia was just the girl he would get with a couple times. a good time. the fact that that's the only role she fulfilled in his mind made him feel disgusting inside out as he waits for her response, vowing that he would work to change his mindset. or maybe just change personalities altogether. ick.

"you know one of my best friends? y/n? the one who got with kun before he decided to go clean for fatima?" sia says with a careful tone. jaehyun nods, not trusting that he wouldn't say something dumb after his sudden realization of his flawed thinking.

"this is something she always says but it's honestly pretty simple: love is however you want to define it. humans spend so much trying to find labels and definitions for things that just might not have or need them. for such an advanced species, we spend so much time concerned about how to put a feeling into a box or how to classify a thought instead of rejoicing in the fact that we had such a beautiful feeling in the first place."

"for people in this generation, the old school love is hard to find because they've got so many other types of love that weren't allowed back when old school love was big. it's a different type of freedom to love someone on the weekends but never to fall in love with them. maybe we're just romanticizing hookup culture but who's to say that we can't? maybe we're all more romantic than we want to admit. maybe when we fall into the sheets with someone we barely know, we're looking for a fragment of love to satiate our heart in ways we didn't know it needed."

jaehyun doesn't know what to say to that so he just pulls her closer to him and she lets him, throwing her leg over his as they fall asleep, closer to each other than they had ever been.

+++

you're not sure what had compelled you to leave so quickly that morning. you usually like to get the boys who sleep with to at least cook you breakfast before you left (for compensation of being terrible in bed, if the situation so called for it) but for some reason, every instinct in your body had pulled you to leave.

you had waken up at nearly 5 in the morning, a mere two and a half hours after the two of you had fallen asleep, gathered your clothes, and were about to leave when you turn to look at jaehyun, still snoring away peacefully, his arm crossing his body to rest on the empty space next to him that you had occupied previously.

you had a feeling that you're going to lament leaving this early after psychoanalyzing why you were leaving so early later in the day but for now, if your gut was telling you to leave, you were going to heed the precautions.

but even as you're about to leave, you find yourself turning to jaehyun's desk, sparse but somehow still a little messy as you rummage for a post-it note and a pen to write with. you grin to yourself when you find yourself successful (and endearing somehow that jaehyun has bright pink post-it notes).

you pass a brother on the way out (undoubtedly a freshman who had received the short stick of the duties tonight) but you wave him off when he offers to walk you home. dangerous? most definitely. but you really needed the time and space to yourself and the short, almost ten minute walk back to your apartment would offer some enlightenment.

spoiler alert: it didn't. no matter how hard you wracked your brain to come up with some version of a logical explanation, you realized that there was just simply no way to do so.

and something about that frustrated you. you knew it wasn't a big deal. jaehyun was just a hook-up. a one night stand. and yet...something wasn't fitting right in your mind. so you start to think in the only way you know how, collecting all of the pieces of information you did have.

a) you just had sex - mind-blowing sex with jaehyun. he was everything you expected and more when it came to a sexual partner. b) you didn't develop feelings for him. sex comes fifth on the list of things you subconsciously (or now consciously, since you've spoken it into existence) have when looking for a potential boyfriend. first comes personality, then intelligence, then ambition, then looks, and then sex. you didn't even have a conversation long enough to figure out if jaehyun had more than three brain cells to piece together. c) jaehyun jung had confessed that he had wanted to get with you since last semester. did he mean with you-r body or with you?

you shake your head as if to physically shake the irrational thoughts in your mind out and press your id against the scanner at the entrance of your apartment building, rubbing your fingers against your temples as you get into the elevator to reach your apartment.

unlocking the door to your (empty) apartment, you decide to shelf the thoughts for some time when your head wasn't pounding and collapse on your bed, thanking the lords you'd had the sense to take a shower at jaehyun's.

and the last thing you remember is the smell of jaehyun's shampoo in your hair as you drift into blissful, dreamless sleep.

+++

you're not surprised to feel a weight on your bed when you wake up the next morning. you blearily open your eyes to make out sia's general figure, rosie and fatima undoubtedly chatting quietly in the kitchen.

you vaguely piece together something about fatima having kun over but him sleeping on the couch and you try to push down the guilt that creeps up into your brain as you realize that you had left fatima alone at the party. a party where all of you knew a lot of people (and the outcome was just as everyone had thought it would be) but the principle of the matter stung nonetheless.

you push aside the thought - along with the idea that you should probably apologize to fatima when the cottony feeling in your mouth started to subside - in favor of looking at sia, who is strangely quiet as she watches you gather yourself. for her boisterous personality, sia yoo could see through anyone to the extent of theorized telepathy so you don't even bother trying to hide anything from her.

although, it really is hard to take her seriously when she's got hickey's littered across her neck. well. you suppose you don't look much better at the moment.

"you left before 10 o'clock," sia says simply. you don't pretend to not understand what she means as you nod, pushing yourself up on your bed as fatima and rosie also enter, rosie handing you a glass of water.

"i know," you say softly. "but i want to hear about everyone else's nights right now. i just don't know that i'm in the right headspace to think about why i left so early - i'm not even sure i know why i left so early."

sia says nothing for a moment, watching your face, almost as if she were trying to read your very essence. but she relents, reaching out to hold your hand briefly before completely switching up, speaking animatedly about her very adventurous night, leaving you to simmer in your thoughts.

had sia always been this smart? probably. who's to say that she wasn't, after all?

turns out that sia and johnny were actually going to go on a date on wednesday, after realizing that their chemistry extended further out of the bedroom than either of them had expected. sia was through the roof, obviously, given that she had been thirsting over johnny (although more in a sexual sense than anything else) for so long.

rosie, miyeon, and yugyeom also worked a lot better than any of them had thought so you were sure that you were going to lose your roommate to the other '97 liners more often for the foreseeable future.

fatima was the only one who had a pg night, with kun coming over to her apartment and just chilling together the whole night, eventually having him sleep over since he was too tired to walk back to the apartment that he lived out (it was on the other side of campus, given that he moved out of the nct house pretty late into the semester last year).

"speaking of kun, when are you guys gonna make it official? i mean after this year, you guys are going to only have one year together before you guys graduate," you say, bunching your comforter before letting go. it felt weird saying that. especially in regards to your friends. theoretically, you had all the time in the world together.

but all the time in the world wasn't enough when it came to these girls.

fatima sighs before getting up, wringing her hands together as she thinks. "i don't know. i mean kun's graduating a year early so i really only have this year left. i - i know how much he likes me. i know that he wants to do this right way. go the whole nine yards."

"but...?" rosie says, elongating the syllables as you and sia look at her patiently. fatima shakes her head, getting up to walk around the room, six paces enough to take her from one side of your room to the other.

"i just don't know. kun's great and honestly, i really think that's the one. or at least one of the ones for me. but i just don't know if my parents would be okay with it. i mean my parents are great! they give me so much freedom and honestly, i'm really thankful that my parents allowed me to find religious and spiritual freedom on my own, without ever trying to shove it down my throat."

"but at the same time...how can i betray their trust in me by dating someone who is so far from my religion? like. kun is a great guy but he's not muslim. and sure, i don't follow a lot of the stricter things in islam but i - i have god in my heart. and i don't know that god would want me to start a family that doesn't follow islam. especially since i can see that in my future with kun and kun - i don't know that i could ask kun to convert to another religion for me."

the room is silent for a little bit after fatima finishes, with her collapsing in your bed next to you. rosie and sia exchange a look with each other, and then you, as they both decide to leave the room, leaving you to console fatima.

you were always the most philosophical one out of the bunch anyway.

"look, fatima, i can't pretend to know what it's like to have that kind of mental burden and i really can't understand what it's like to think about the future and be concerned about the impact on the world you might create. i read about something the other day though - did you know that kun means 'manifesting' or 'believing' in arabic?" fatima looks at you with disbelief written all over her face, shaking her head.

"how did you know that?" she asks and you just shrug, nodding at the 'islam for dummies' book you had bought in hopes of understanding a little bit more about one of your closest friend's religion.

"that's not the point. but fatima, you are the single kindest, most beautiful person i know. and i have faith that you will choose what's right for you, not what's right for the people around you because you know better than everyone that the only person who can judge you is god. and no one - no one - on this earth has the right to take that peace away from you."

fatima is silent before wrapping you in her arms, the soft material of her hoodie comforting you and lulling you back into a sleep that's dreamless and calm.

+++

jaehyun doesn't know what to expect when he walks into intro to east asia on monday. should he say hi? wave? start a conversation? should he acknowledge that he spent the better part of his weekend wondering if he would lose his fuckboy status if someone realized just how down bad he was for you?

probably anything but the last one was a good idea.

jaehyun was not in a good state of mind. he was a hot 19 year old man with a near perfect gpa (a whopping 3.98 only because he got a singular a-), a not so terrible set of dimples, and a killer body. and yet he was walking around like how he had been prior to his enlightening summer.

it's almost freeing but also humiliating to think that one night in bed was enough to make him start an entire philosophy but that was where jaehyun was at so who was he to question anything, really?

in fact, jaehyun is so caught up in what he would name his new branch of philosophy (loserism, with a lot of inspiration from zeno) that he doesn't even realize that you've already walked past him and taken your seat.

third row, first seat. you're putting your bag down next to your chair, pulling out your laptop, tossing your hair over your shoulder when it falls in your face. jaehyun tears his eyes away, knowing that this was not a good look for him.

if jaehyun really wanted to pursue you, which he was sure was where all of his jumbled emotions were eventually going to lead him anyway, he knew for a fact that you weren't going to be interested in having to take the lead. especially if jaehyun wasn't even sure that you were interested in the possibility.

but that's a struggle for another day. what was it that stephanie laurens said? that all women want sometimes is a little old-fashioned loving?

that was, in fact, the opposite of what sia had said you were really into but jaehyun had a sneaking suspicion that you wouldn't mind handing the reigns over in the decision making process portion of a relationship, or the courtship, if your time together this weekend alluded to anything.

jaehyun almost misses the beginning of the lecture, where professor ma (no one actually calls him that besides himself) was going into some of his favorite places to stay during his time in china. and while missing any portion of professor ma's lecture was of no crime, he also almost misses the way that you're looking straight at him, faking a yawn when jaehyun finally locks eyes with you.

professor ma was known for giving stellar recommendation letters (which was why johnny had coerced jaehyun into ta'ing for his class in the first place) but he was such a pain in the ass.

jaehyun has to keep from laughing out loud when he sees your exaggerated gestures to show how boring you were finding the professor's lecture to be, pulling himself together in time for him to finally be able to take a seat in the back of the classroom, professor ma having asked him to take attendance for the some two hundred students in the classroom. by hand.

he almost drops the piece of paper that you slide into his hand, subtly slipping it into the pocket of his basketball shorts as makes his way up the flight of stairs to the tenth row, dropping his backpack on the floor next to him, in a rush to open the delicate piece of paper in his hands.

there's only three words on the piece of paper and a series of dashes and yet jaehyun knows that this is all he needs. this is all the signal he needs to know that he wasn't imagining the chemistry or the tension between the two of you. and fuck what anyone said about his 'reputation'; it was jaehyun's turn - the old jaehyun's turn - to get the chance to experience the relationship he had always been dreaming of.

he rereads the little piece of paper before smiling and tucking it into his pocket again.

earn the rest. 9__-___-____.

+++

johnny suh is getting whiplash from his best friend's actions.

one day, he's asking sia yoo if her best friend usually leaves her one night stands by the time they wake up. then he's throwing said one night stand's notes into the trash can before leaving for some frat meeting or another.

the next day, he's carrying another note from the same one night stand he can't seem to get out of his head.

jaehyun doesn't tell johnny anything. he really doesn't need to at this point. johnny suh is a senior in college and he's pretty much seen it all. he's also the vice president of a frat - which means that even if he didn't have all the experience that he did just because of his seniority, he definitely seen it because of the sheer number of stupid decisions frat brothers will find themselves making when they think they're going to either a) get drunk b) get high c) get their dick wet.

johnny knows it's all in good fun (fun that he's definitely not opposed to) but jaehyun's always been a little bit of an enigma when it came to all of it. he was good at the drinking and alright at the getting high and absolutely fan-fucking-tastic at the getting his dick wet.

it was the goddamn dimples. everyone always fell for the dimples.

and sure, while jaehyun had had crushes before (johnny could read his little like no other), they'd always been fueled by the hormonal rush of adrenaline and testosterone pumping through his veins. in fact, johnny's not sure that jaehyun had had a proper crush on anyone at college after getting fucked over in high school, where johnny had also gone to with jaehyun.

not that johnny had really known jaehyun. he was quieter and kept to himself more then. didn't really hang out in the same crowd as johnny.

he knows that's not necessarily true. johnny had, truthfully, just completely overlooked jaehyun. like a lot of girls had until jaehyun had finally started to grow into his features.

but johnny knows jaehyun now and he also knows that if jaehyun had never met gianna lee, jaehyun wouldn't have ever dove headfirst into the deep end of shitfuckery and sleeping around with every breathing body in sight.

cliché story of course. college boy becomes a fuckboy after having his heart broken by a girl in high school. johnny's almost 100% positive that sia's shoved at least two or three novels like those in johnny's face, with the same exact plot.

but what is life but a series of clichés after all. and honestly, did it even matter? it was real. it happened to jaehyun. that was all. end of story.

so johnny doesn't even say a word when he sees the post-it note in jaehyun's trash can. he's silent as he watches sia and jaehyun talk and jaehyun fall into a period of overthinking (and jaehyun knows he's overthinking too because johnny can see him shake his head even as he continues to stare at the 'people' tab of intro to east asia).

and johnny finally decides to break his silence when he sees jaehyun with a new post-it note, although this time it was a much more tame blue post-it, and a pensive look.

jaehyun slips it to johnny to read as they're sitting at the local starbucks, with johnny filling out some paperwork for the job he was signed on for as soon as the school year ended and jaehyun studying for the organic chemistry exam he had coming up the next week.

he doesn't say anything when he passes the note but johnny can see him sideye-ing him to catch his reaction and it's all he can do to keep from letting a little smile slip through.

he hands the piece of paper back, watching as jaehyun immediately stuffs it into his backpack, and for some reason, he's really not sure what to say. if sia were here, she would know exactly what to say, and how to say it. she had a way of saying things that were a little too straightforward to feel good but also obviously coming from a generally good place.

it was one of the reasons why johnny had thought it would be a good idea to make it official with her. sia yoo was nothing like what johnny had thought - and the thought simultaneously frightens him and comforts him.

"you plan on asking her out on a date?" johnny says lightly, sliding his laptop over to pretend to look at his phone casually. in actuality, he's typing furiously to sia (one of the few people that johnny trusted or consulted when it came to advice giving) about what was happening.

johnny is not very surprised when sia's gray bubble appears, disappears, and then appears again only to say, "yeah, i know."

he waits for a more elaborate response. or even a more sia-like response but the more that he talks to her, the more johnny is learning that sia is more unpredictable than she really seems to be.

and sia yoo seems to be completely out of the box.

johnny shakes his head, as if to physically get rid of the thoughts of her from his head, unsure why he was thinking of her when he was supposed to be helping out one of his boys.

"yeah. i think so? i don't know. i mean we had a good time and we definitely have chemistry. but we literally just had one night in bed and that's it." jaehyun furrows his eyebrows as he realizes that's not just it. "well, there is the fact that kun was walking around singing her praises. and i know that fatima wouldn't be friends with kun or y/n if she wasn't sure they're both good people. not to mention the fact that i've always thought she's kinda hot. but it's always been superficial. even us spending the night together was really nothing more than finding each other hot or trying to figure out if the talk around town was real or not."

johnny takes a sip of his americano as he lets jaehyun's words sink into his own mind. jaehyun rests his heads on his arms crossed in front of him and johnny knows exactly the set of thoughts that's running through jaehyun's mind because they were the same as johnny's when he had decided to ask sia out on a date.

is it worth it? is it worth possibly getting my heart strung up on someone again just to face the possibility of breaking it again?

so johnny offers the only advice that he really has.

"talk to roseanne. girls' fiercest protectors are their friends and something tells me that talking to her will make you fall on one side or the other."

+++

the next time that jaehyun sees roseanne is a complete coincidence. he really only meant to say hi to one of his homies, yugyeom, on the way out of the library and hadn't expected to run into roseanne or miyeon at all. especially not a singular day after johnny had suggested that he seek her out in the first place.

he watches as yugyeom thumbs the rip in miyeon's jeans as he continues to talk to jaehyun about something jeongguk had done the previous weekend. and then he sees miyeon press a kiss to roseanne's cheek as she gets up to fill up her water bottle.

jaehyun didn't think he would understand that dynamic at all but whatever floated their boat. who was he to judge? he had watched the barbie movie and was still having a crisis about his masculinity and was actively searching out his one night stand's (were you still just his one night stand?) roommate and best friend to fix it. to be fair, he didn't really fully understand the barbie movie, to the chagrin of doyoung's girlfriend nairobi but that was besides the point.

yeah. jaehyun was really in no position to speak. wow he had a lot of things to work on internally. the more he talked to the women in his life, the more he was realizing this. again. not the point.

roseanne takes one look at his face and then exchanges a look with miyeon and then yugyeom before standing up and walking towards the exit, looking at jaehyun questioningly when she realizes that jaehyun hasn't moved an inch. jaehyun hurriedly bids yugyeom and miyeon goodbye as he rushes after her.

the two of them linger outside of the library and roseanne just raises an eyebrow as she appraises jaehyun. and for some reason, jaehyun stands up straighter, and she just sighs, a small smile playing on her lips.

"let me guess. 'who makes people work for their number? what is this? sprinkle sprinkle type of stuff?' or maybe 'this is kinda cringey, isn't it?' or just a sweet and simple 'what the actual fuck?'" roseanne says nonchalantly, listing out each possible question jaehyun could have come to ask.

"would it make me a bad man if i said yes to all of the above?" jaehyun asks, shoving his hands into his pockets. roseanne shrugs, crossing her arms across her chest.

"not really. i don't think so at least. it's a fair set of questions that even i asked her the first time a guy came up to me asking who the fuck my roommate thought she was," roseanne says. she takes sees the look of confusion on jaehyun's face as she continues, "you're definitely not the first person to ask me that but you are of a selective few. y/n usually doesn't let people get this far in the first place. and secondly, she doesn't really tell us much about people she's interested in until much later."

"she's a strange person, if i'm being honest with you. there's just something about her that makes her so captivating and invisible at the same time. she'll capture the attention of everyone in the room but if you talk to her, she'll make you feel like her best friend. she seems like an open book, and an even more open friend. and you feel so close to her within a conversation and then you end the conversation, you realize that even as she spoke, she revealed nothing about herself."

"i'm her best friend and i could tell you very confidently that i didn't know a single thing about her truly until recently. it made me frustrated at first. like i was a shitty friend or something. but the closer to her i got, the more i realized that she's always been a great friend but no one's been a great friend to her. she's very selective with the people she associates with - not just people she lets herself be seen with but people she confides in."

"this whole thing is a defense mechanism. she'd be caught dead before she'd ever admit it but she just hasn't been loved in the way that she's loved and now she's more guarded for it. i'll tell you this jaehyun, but if you want to give up, do it now. she says she's just going to give you her number if you earn it but once you get all 10 digits, know that she's gonna give you her heart."

"it seems like i'm violating girl code by telling you all this but like i said, even if you were to ask y/n, she would say the same thing. not in so many words but still. like i said. she's an open book and a closed heart. she knows you're gonna ask me and so she only tells me something that she would be okay with you hearing."

jaehyun, who had been listening quietly and patiently the whole time, cuts in with a quiet voice. "isn't it exhausting to live like that?"

roseanne looks at him strangely, as though she was truly seeing him for the first time. jaehyun doesn't know if he's offended or relieved that she'd done what he'd done to sia - made assumptions based on his appearance. he lands on neutral. it's human nature, to try and make proper guesses about who's gonna act like what.

the ancient art of preventing heartbreak, jaehyun supposes.

"maybe. i don't think so though. it's gotta be a different level of relief knowing that no one's gonna talk shit about you because a) no one knows you well enough to do that or b) because you're so careful with who you trust that you know they'd never betray you or even c) they can only talk about what you put out into the world. it's why censorship is so effective. people can only talk about what they know. there's few people who will ignore what they see to find what they can't see tangibly."

"are all of y/n's friends secretly poets or something? why the hell are you guys all speaking cryptically like you're all freemasons or some shit like that. i can't tell if i find it cringey or cool," jaehyun says, cocking his head.

roseanne lets out a real, full bellied laugh at that, clutching her stomach as chuckles escape her. jaehyun's not sure what he's said that's so funny but he knows for a fact that she's not laughing with him, but at him.

"why is it cringey, jaehyun? why would it be cool? it's just what it is. we're just girls. you'll see us at the party next weekend, drinking our weight in alcohol. we'll have the conversations about makeup and dresses and having fun and our future and our past. there's nothing like freemasonry, i promise. it's just so amusing to see men get alarmed by the thoughts that girls have been wrestling with since they've been twelve. the duality of man, i guess," roseanne says finally, once she's caught her breath.

jaehyun doesn't know how to respond to that so he elects to save the remaining tatters of his dignity by just not responding at all. if there's one thing he's learned about you, it's that you surround yourself by women who are not hesitant about putting him in his place. and he's oddly thankful for it.

"i have one last question. well, two last questions, actually," jaehyun says when he sees roseanne turning around to head back inside, still wiping the tears from her eyes from laughing too hard.

roseanne turns, a knowing glint in her eyes even before jaehyun asks his question.

"how many guys have talked to you? and what's the highest number anyone's ever gotten to?"

roseanne is silent and just as the silence begins to turn awkward, she promptly turns on her heel and begins to walk away. she opens the door to the library before she seemingly changes her mind and looks back at jaehyun.

"two guys have talked to me. you're gonna have to ask fatima about the second question though. and jaehyun? the next number is 6."

96_-___-____.

+++

jaehyun finds fatima not soon after his conversation with roseanne. he's sitting in the nct house, watching johnny pace back and forth in his room, trying to figure out if what he was wearing was too casual for a date to a bowling alley.

it was way too formal, in jaehyun's opinion. but he was just going to wait for johnny to finish panicking (even if he would never admit that he was, in fact, panicking) to figure that out on his own. seriously though, who wore a button down and slacks to a bowling alley?

then again, he was going on a date with sia yoo so really, anything was fairplay when it came to that girl. she was a whirlwind of literally everything that could possibly go into a human being. she was a maximalist to the fullest, seizing every opportunity she could to make good memories, pressing forward with a sense of perfect clarity and sobriety that most people would be scared of.

the type of girl who was the main character of any story that she would feature in. sia was the type of person that people who trip and fall over themselves trying to have a good time with that she practically promised. she walked around with fairy dust in her fingers and a strange sense of wisdom that felt like she could read you like a book within a singular meeting with her.

jaehyun knows that she's the most intimidating out of all of the girls. out of you, roseanne, fatima, and sia, she was hands down the most frightening because even though she could read everyone else, no one could really read her.

then there was roseanne. she was the wet dream of every girl alive - the reason why straight girls lamented that they were straight and still falling a little bit in love with her. she was hot, flirtatious to the extent of making everyone wonder what they were when she gave them even a split second of attention, and so incredibly full of life. it doesn't surprise jaehyun that she had become exclusive with miyeon and yugyeom. for some reason, he feels like she just wouldn't have been able to settle for liking one person at once.

she was a little too much for just one person to be able to handle. she was like the human personification of a leather jacket wearing, motorcycle driving, woody cologne smelling wattpad trope. jaehyun understands her appeal all too well.

and then there was fatima. she was kind, sweet, kept to herself, and always offered a helping hand to those around her. jaehyun understood why kun had fallen so hard for her within two minutes of meeting her. she had an air about her that made you feel like she was someone who truly cared about you, even if you didn't know her and she didn't know you all that well. she was the type of girl who was always forgotten in the novels about warriors and princesses. the girl who was often reduced to nothing more than the main character's best friend.

until you met a girl like her in real life. fatima was still a little forgotten, and jaehyun knew that. guys often overlooked her in favor of her 'hotter' or 'wilder' friends, which is admittedly what jaehyun had thought at first. but she was just so genuine and clearheaded. she protected her peace in a way that was so unusual for young, college-going students. not to say that sia, roseanne, or you weren't genuine or anything like that. but fatima was the type of girl that jaehyun knew was perfect for kun. the girl that he could go home and know that no matter what he had done in his past, she would love him all the same.

and there was you. smart, strangely private, and a series of contradictions housed within one heart. jaehyun wracks his brain, trying to gather everything that he knew about you and yet, he comes up empty.

frustratingly empty.

jaehyun vaguely registers the fact that johnny has finally changed and is getting ready to go. he knows that he should say something about how johnny should just be himself and that sia liking him is completely up to her, regardless of what johnny were to do. but when he locks eyes with johnny, he realizes that johnny already knows.

so jaehyun just claps him on the back as he heads back to his room, his mind spinning as he tries to think of everything that he knows about you. and he draws a blank every fucking time.

he knows superficial things about you. maybe it's because he doesn't know you like he knows your friends. he hasn't talked to you as much as he's talked to them. but how does he not know you? he's been wanting to get with you for so long. he wanted more than just your body. he wanted your charm and your appeal.

was it just your body? is that all it was? is that all jaehyun wanted? somehow, jaehyun doesn't want to believe that. he doesn't want that for himself. logically, he knows that gianna's impact on his life shouldn't be extending this far. he knows that he shouldn't want or have to fight himself this hard but you're not making it much easier for him.

when was the last time jaehyun wanted to get to know such an enigma of a girl? gianna lee. and he wants nothing to do with a girl like that ever again.

and yet, here he is. falling into the same trap all over again.

jaehyun's so caught up in his own thoughts, feeling himself starting to spiral when he bumps in fatima and kun, who are equally caught up in a conversation with each other.

"oh, my bad," jaehyun mumbles, ready for fatima to brush past him but she doesn't, looking at jaehyun and then kun.

"hey man, we're headed back to my place. why don't you come back with us?" kun offers, and jaehyun just nods blankly, as he starts to follow them out of the nct house. kun stops at the entrance where he picks up a textbook from yuta, who had been borrowing it for the last week, before the three of them make their way out.

"how are you, jaehyun?" fatima asks with a sweet smile as they pile into kun's car. somehow, jaehyun doesn't want to give her a generic, insincere answer.

"i'm...okay. i'm just okay. confused but okay," jaehyun says and fatima seems alright with this answer. kun pulls out of the 'driveway' of the frat house, exchanging in a quiet conversation with fatima about what they were planning on eating for the night, leaving jaehyun to simmer in his thoughts.

gianna lee. there was a name that he thought about almost every day and never all at the same time. the girl who had made him and broke him. the girl that jaehyun had trusted with his heart and made him regret ever doing that.

the girl who had been the first love of his life.

+++

gianna was a year younger than him. smart, so incredibly sweet, and yet someone that no one could confidently say that they knew. she was the type of girl who could slip under the radar as easily as her friends seemed to always stay on top of.

she ran in the same circle as jaehyun had in senior year, right when jaehyun was beginning to blossom into the man that he was today. she had always been kind to him, if not a little withdrawn, even when he was a skinny boy with proportions that absolutely did not seem to match each other.

jaehyun didn't even know her well enough for her to break his heart, honestly. jaehyun had liked her even before having a proper conversation with her. he knew how left out she felt in her own body. even though he couldn't imagine a more gorgeous girl, he knew that she didn't feel that way about herself.

he knew that she always compared herself to her friends. her well-accomplished, 'main character' best friends who were the talk of the school. and her. no matter how intelligent or kind or put together she was, no one really looked at her the way that jaehyun did. she knew it.

even jaehyun couldn't place why he liked her so much. maybe it was the fact that he was somehow comforted that a girl with so much beauty could feel the same way as him. maybe it was the fact that she had always held the same smile for him, regardless of what he looked like. or maybe it was even the fact that one time, she had held his hand as she pulled him across the street, running to catch up with their friends who had already crossed.

jaehyun just remembers looking at her dyed cherry red hair falling into her eyes as she laughs, pulling him forward to where the rest of their friends were standing. and as he breathes in the smoke in the air and the raspberry scent of her perfume, he just knows that he really, truly likes gianna lee.

gianna lee doesn't like him the way that he likes her. he knows that. logically, jaehyun knows that his feelings are truly unfounded. he really has no reason to like gianna the way that he does. and yet, there's a part of him that holds onto the hope that maybe, just maybe, she'll turn around with those big eyes and upturned lips and say that she likes him the way that he likes her.

so he continues to look at her first when he makes the friend group laugh. he always slips her a napkin when he's getting one for himself when they're out getting milkshakes. he offers to help her with apush when she's stressing about a test the next week.

the closer he gets to her, the more jaehyun realizes that really, she was nothing like the image of her he had conjured in his head. she was every bit sweet as he had thought but she was argumentative, competitive, and all too obsessed with perfection. she always needed to be right in an argument, always had to win, and always had to make sure that she looked flawless doing so.

jaehyun doesn't realize it, of course. he's so obsessed with his glazed over façade of her that he just continues to let her win the arguments even when he knows that she's wrong. and she lets him wrap his arms around her when she gets an 89% on her test.

he lets her walk all over him and she lets him act on his feelings.

it was a toxic, parasitic relationship that neither of them were truly happy in. when gianna asked him out, jaehyun hadn't felt like fireworks were going off in his stomach. he felt like he had won a prize at a marathon. like he'd won a medal.

gianna wasn't a medal. she was a flawed, beautiful human being - every bit gorgeous and horrible as jaehyun and every other human being was. but jaehyun had won, hadn't he?

he hadn't. and it took so long for him to realize that by the time he'd realized that gianna had really only taken to him out of pity, he was so far in his own head that he didn't know how to leave her.

eventually, the summer before college rolled around and gianna had taken it upon herself to do the nasty deed of breaking up with him. it had been an amicable split, as far as their friends were concerned.

but none of them had ever truly either of their friends. so what did they know?

what did they know about gianna finding comfort in her ex's arms? what did they know about her grades slipping at the end of the school year? what did they know about her having to excuse herself at a meeting for her internship to sob in the bathroom as she realized the true fallacy in the way she had acted? what did they know about the way she had to reconstruct herself bottom up? nothing.

what did they know about jaehyun spending every other night with a different girl, trying to ease the ache in his heart? what did they know about the obscene number of hours at the gym, not sure how to combat the sudden numbness after girl after girl? what did they know about the fact that jaehyun could not physically stand the smell of raspberries anymore? absolutely nothing.

no one knew anything until jaehyun had finally come to college. it was once he joined the frat and met guys who were so alike and different from him at the same time that he finally opened up about gianna.

only to doyoung, kun, and johnny but people nonetheless. everyone had gone through something similar - while for some it happened at college or back home, they all knew the pain. some of them were more in the fault than others but pain is pain and a paper cut bleeds the same red as a gunshot wound.

which is why when kun sits him down on the couch and fatima hands him a cup of iced tea to save them all from the sweltering heat as august makes a last stand against september's winds, jaehyun spills everything.

gianna. his past. his insecurities. everything. he knows he shouldn't. logically, fatima had nothing stopping her from going and telling everything that jaehyun had told her to you, but for some reason, jaehyun thinks that she won't.

she doesn't.

+++

fatima knows that jaehyun was going to talk to her about something like this. it seemed that all of the nct boys came with some level of trauma like this. she wasn't sure what it was about every single boy she had met in college (although, granted, they were either her friends' conquests or kun's friends - a very interesting group of very intertwined boys) having their hearts getting ripped to shreds. sometimes it was of their own volition but they all seemed to be some level of hurt either way.

so when jaehyun spills his heart out on kun's carpeted floors, she's ready with a well-rehearsed speech. he's one of six boys she'd already had this same exact conversation with (kun has a bad habit of picking up strays) but when he looks at her with such raw anguish in his eyes, she falters.

she looks to kun, who's looking at her with the same question that she knows jaehyun is asking.

"how do you know when to choose between your head and your heart? because my heart is so fucking scared of getting attached to someone again. but my head knows that i can't push everyone away because i'm scared."

fatima is quiet, searching for the right words. she's about to say something when kun speaks up, looking determinedly at fatima.

"you learn to choose you. instead of choosing between your head and your heart, just choose yourself. at the end of the day, you and y/n are good people who aren't trying to hurt each other. you're both trying not to get hurt. and honestly, maybe you'll realize that you both are better off as friends along the way. maybe you just realize that you don't want to be with someone right now. or maybe you find someone who makes you feel like you're safe and loved when you're around them, whether you're in love with them or not." fatima looks at kun with a soft smile, reaching out to hold his hand gently.

"you have to choose yourself, jaehyun. trust me. the more you start thinking about what is best for the people around you instead of thinking for yourself, you'll look back fifteen, twenty years down the road and see everyone but yourself in your life. don't do something because gianna and how she made you feel. don't let your past define your future," fatima says, and jaehyun can feel the tears prick his eyes. he blinks determinedly, trying to make them disappear but when kun sits on one side of him and fatima on the other, he starts losing his battle against his emotions, finally letting himself mourn the innocence he had once had.

he buries his head into fatima's shoulder and for some reason, he feels as though kun and fatima would be amazing parents. because jaehyun doesn't remember the last time that he had felt this safe in an embrace.

"and jaehyun? the furthest anyone has ever gotten is five numbers. you're at three. it's your call from here. do what you want, not what you think you need to do." fatima taps his shoulder gently and lets him cry for as long as he needs to.

963-___-____.

+++

jaehyun gets the next number from you. after his conversation with fatima, he's sure that if he wants to go any further than this, he needed to talk to you first.

it's strange. he's earning your number but it feels like jaehyun's somehow earning himself back. and when he finds you again, he knows that you can tell.

even johnny could tell. when he had come back from his (successful) date with sia, the first thing he had said was, "wow. you look so...light."

jaehyun hadn't said anything but 'thank you' but it was enough.

johnny had just smiled at him and recounted the date, stating that he was going to ask her to go on another date this saturday night. jaehyun doesn't mention the fact that nct is throwing that night because johnny already knows.

and honestly, sia is a junior and johnny is a senior. they've been to their fair share of parties. one party being missed wouldn't be life changing for them. but skipping a party as the vice president of a frat and a girl who was sought after as a sweetheart for six frats meant something nonetheless.

he hadn't expected that they were to get that serious that quickly but it was a refreshing change. even fatima and kun were starting about talking about talking to fatima's parents to get their blessing for their relationship. her dilemma was no secret and it seemed that the conversation between the three of them had served to help them through their own issues as well.

there was just something in the air, jaehyun had supposed. august turned to september in the week that jaehyun had wrestled with himself, eventually leading to seeking you out.

it had been at the nct party, actually. you were standing with some of your acquaintances, all of your friends having dispersed to do what they were going to do. jaehyun had been on the other side of the room, convincing bambam that it was most definitely not a good idea to try and pursue soyeon jeon if he wanted to make sure that he woke up with all his limbs intact the next morning.

you had met his eye, raising an eyebrow before continuing your conversation, all thoughts of him seemingly out of your mind. jaehyun looks between bambam (who has gone from trying to get with soyeon to jumping into the pool) (that pool had not been cleaned in a full six months) and you. he just finds jungwoo, one of the pledges, and hands him a very drunk bambam.

"do not let him do anything dumb. i'm counting on you pledge," jaehyun called out over his shoulder as he weaves through people to get to you.

"jaehyun! hey! long time no see," hailey whitfield says, throwing herself in jaehyun's arms. jaehyun looks at you, where you're staring straight at where hailey's body ends and his arms begin. jaehyun tries to push her off of him. once upon a time, jaehyun would've been behind happy about getting with her again - she was so good with her mouth. but now, he has no intentions of giving you the wrong impression.

at least until he has a proper conversation with you so that you knew where he stood with you. and where you stood with him.

"hey hailey, sorry i've gotta get to my friend," he says, not even looking at her as he pushes off of her, resuming his threading through the crowd to where you're standing. you look at him, unimpressed, but jaehyun knows you well enough to know that three numbers are enough to make you feel a certain way if jaehyun was fooling around with other girls.

which he hasn't been. not a single night. jaehyun jung's bed has been empty for an entire two weeks, something that doyoung and nairobi have been taking full advantage of.

even some of jaehyun's friends had started asking if he was having problems or something but he had brushed them off. he definitely wasn't having problems, if hailey whitfield was any indication. but he felt like it would be doing you dirty if he had someone in his bed while he was talking to your friends about you.

so he hadn't.

he knows you know. he knows that you know he's talked to sia, roseanne, and fatima. he'd figured that you'd find out either through them or just by him. he can tell by the look in your eyes that you've read him thoroughly.

so he really doesn't feel bad about pulling you away from your friends, taking you upstairs to his room. finally, doyoung had promised that they would go back to nairobi's place on the condition that jaehyun made sure that no one would try to fuck on his bed. he promised, knowing that the only person who'd be coming up here would be him. he needed to talk to you tonight. if he knew anything it was that.

but once you're sitting on his bed, watching him pace back and forward, he's lost everything he's been wanting to say. where does he even start? with gianna? with the questions he has for you? with the number? where does he begin?

jaehyun looks at you, where you're watching him with a small smile on your face and suddenly, it doesn't matter where he begins. you'll listen to it all. he knows that much.

"why do you want me to work for your number?" jaehyun asks. you look at him curiously, tilting your head as you piece together an answer.

"are you sure you don't know the answer to that question?" you say, folding your legs so that you're sitting criss cross on the navy covers.

"i do. but i want to hear it from you, y/n. you know what all your friends say about you? that they didn't properly know you until a full year of friendship with you. but they said that you never lie. so i want you to tell me," jaehyun says, chest heaving by the end of his ramble. his eyes turn soft as he watches you become more and more solemn and he steps forward, sitting down on his desk chair and swiveling it over so that he was sitting directly across from you.

you pause for a moment, searching for the words before saying anything. "i've never been in a relationship before. so i don't have the trauma that could come from something like that. but i know what it's like to lose your heart to someone. and i know that it hurts. i want to be loved in the way that i never thought i could be. so the number thing is just an excuse for me to get to the point where i won't feel guilty about liking someone."

you shrug, smiling but not allowing the smile to reach your eyes. "it's a good way to make sure that the guy knows what he's getting into either way."

jaehyun nods at that. he knew that much. it feels different hearing it from you though. when you're the one saying it, jaehyun knows that it's real. raw. not coming from people trying to protect you because they know that you're far too soft to truly come at him guns blazing.

somehow, he likes it. he likes that you're much softer than you seem. that you're a lot more vulnerable than you come off as. and for some reason, jaehyun hopes that you never perfect the art of becoming standoffish.

"hmm. you've never been in a relationship before?" jaehyun says finally and you nod, shrugging once more. a shadow of bittersweet nostalgia crosses your face before you're back to your soft smile and guarded yet curious eyes.

"nope. part of it was on me; i've got high standards, if you can't tell. and the other part was that i've always wanted someone who fascinates me. of course, i wasn't all that appealing to men because i spent so much time trying to beat them at the only thing they were good at - ego-boosting themselves but they weren't interesting. none of them were people i really wanted to get to know," you say, unfolding your legs.

jaehyun likes the fact that the tips of your toes are the only part of your feet that touch the ground from how far back you're sitting on the bed. in an act of boldness, jaehyun moves forward to sit next to you, right where you're sitting. his feet are flat on the floor, he realizes.

he doesn't know why he's noticing things like this but he is and something about that frustrates him, frightens him, and tugs at his heartstrings altogether.

"you're heartbroken, aren't you? boys like you always seem to be a little hurt," you say, tossing the words into the air like rose petals. they're recklessly thrown but they're somehow beautiful in the way that blackened roses are always beautiful.

"yeah. i was. i think i will always mourn who i was before that. i was so naïve. but i'm not him anymore. and i think i'm realizing that i'm actually okay with that." jaehyun says the words just as carelessly as you do but once they're out in the open, he realizes that he's being completely honest. he turns to you with a strange look though.

"boys like me?"

you smile and nod at him. "boys like you."

you stand up, walking to where jaehyun has a corkboard with a shitload of scraps and photos from the past two years. you don't mention the fact that none of the memories that he has on the board date from before senior year. you don't need to.

"boys like you who've never been loved completely. boys who think that they need to listen to what the world says about how they should be acting or thinking. boys who are hopeless romantics but what would the world say if they knew that these boys just wanted a little bit of love? what would they say if they were looking for warmth in an empty and cold bed?"

jaehyun hates that you're right. it's the college boy tragedy. condemned to never be able to completely heal from one bad experience and then always breaking hearts to collect enough pieces to build themselves a new one.

he didn't want to end like that. even if it wasn't with you, he was ready to grow past it. he didn't want to end as a heartbreaker.

"boys like me...and you like a boy like me?" jaehyun asks. he doesn't know why he does. this is the first proper conversation you've had with him when both of you are decidedly sober. you want to deflect the question but if he's being honest, that's a sign for you to be just as honest.

"i don't know. from what my friends say, and what i know about you as a person in class, i know you mean well. and honestly, i've always just been the type of person to like someone past things like the books they read or the way they dress," you say, still looking at the memories jaehyun's pieced together over the years on this board. "i feel something around you. and i don't know you well enough to know that i like you as someone more than a friend but i'd like to at least have the chance to get that far."

that's all jaehyun needs. he gets another number that night.

+++

jaehyun waits for you outside of intro to east asia, rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet as he waits for you to make it out of the classroom. you're the last one to leave, knowing that technically, you and jaehyun weren't allowed to see each other while he was your ta.

jaehyun had never really pegged you as someone with so much respect for the rules but you had argued that it was mostly about the principle.

he'd learned a lot about you that last weekend. you and him had stayed up all night, talking about nothing and everything under the sun until the sun itself rose, eventually falling asleep in a tangled mess of limbs and conversations.

he learned that while you didn't like the rules, you often followed them as long as they followed your own moral code. that you would die for your friends and that had landed you in many bad friendships when people would use that to their advantage before you'd met your friends in college. he learned that you were super close with your family, and that they were quite literally the best friends that you could always rely on.

and he learned that you wanted to see him again. on a date. sometime soon. so with no real way of communicating with you outside of social media (and he somehow felt like sliding into your dm's was corny and somewhat of a copout), here he was. waiting outside of the classroom like he was ripped straight from a 1950's romance movie. he even had the letterman jacket on to boot.

"oh my god, you scared me," you say, pressing a hand to your chest as you quite nearly bump into jaehyun. he smiles, readjusting his backpack on his shoulders as the two of you start walking.

"you knew i was waiting for you outside, didn't you?" he says, pushing the side door open to walk towards the parking lot, where he's convinced kun to let him borrow his car for the day.

"yeah but i didn't think you would be literally outside the door," you murmur, checking your phone to see the rest of your day's schedule. you had purposefully blocked off three hours of your schedule to hang out with jaehyun, which you were sure to regret later on when your organic chemistry class kicked your ass. but that was a later issue.

"well, i couldn't text you where i was so i figured i'd wait in plain sight," jaehyun retorts, opening the passenger door for you without a word. huh. that was the first time a man has ever done that for you. and jaehyun did it as though it were second nature - like it was a given.

you don't know why something so small means so much to you but you're alright with it. you're alright with just appreciating it.

"that's fair," you say. another number's on the tip of your tongue as you watch him get into the driver's seat but jaehyun beats you to the punch.

"don't give me a number. not yet," jaehyun says. "not that i don't want one. but i just...me waiting outside your classroom or opening your door isn't enough for a number. even if i don't get all ten, you've got to up your standards."

you don't know what to say to that so you don't say anything, turning on the music and letting the melody of chemtrails under the country club by lana del ray fill the rainy september afternoon sky.

+++

when jaehyun pulls up to a run down diner, you're pleasantly surprised. although you're not much of a sucker for romantic places, the fact that jaehyun is somehow makes you happy. it makes you happy that he still sees the beauty in places like these. and when you look over at him, dimples threatening to show as he breathes in the air of misty fog and the smell of milkshakes and burgers, you're so tempted to kiss him.

so you lean over, looking at him with a twinkle in your eyes once jaehyun has parked.

"can i kiss you?" you ask, mere inches from his lips. jaehyun just looks at you, and from this close, you realize just how beautiful his eyes are. they're dark, darker than anyone else's that you know. and yet, it feels like you could fall in and never regret it.

"please."

it's all you need. and it's all he needs because as soon as word slips from his lips, he's pressing forward, his lips against yours. he's soft, you register vaguely. nothing like last time. nothing like how he'd kissed you like he could think of nothing but absolutely ruining you.

jaehyun is soft. like the feeling of slipping a cold hand into someone's warm jacket pocket. he kisses you like he's scared of ruining you. ruining this. and you're absolutely addicted to the feeling.

the feeling of knowing that he could just claim you instead of trying his best to claim your heart. no matter how fucked up it was that you were even thinking that someone could 'claim' you. he wasn't like that and you could work with that.

he pulls away from you, eyes still closed as he sits against the drivers seat, his head against the headrest. you watch him, a silly and childish smile on your face - although you're not really sure why it's there in the first place. but who are you to knock anything?

there aren't many words to exchange as the two of you make your way into the diner. jaehyun had opened your car door again. this time, you just offer him your hand and you're strangely alright with just how safe you feel with his hand locked in yours.

the diner seems as though time has frozen still here.

and everything about the date seems the same. it feels as though time has frozen still - almost as though the two of you are in a little bubble with no one but each other. it's a feeling you haven't experienced in a while. a feeling you don't think you've ever had because of a boy.

it feels...almost scarily comfortable. it doesn't feel as though there are fireworks exploding for every word that jaehyun says. but it does feel as though that there's a hot mug of cocoa that's been handed to you on a cold winter night. and that feeling, the feeling of warmth spreading through every corner of your body, is the feeling that you know is good for you.

so you listen to him, watch him speak animatedly about basketball or a book he read, chin resting in your palm as you find yourself falling deeper and deeper.

jaehyun gets two numbers that day.

+++

it doesn't take much longer for jaehyun to get the rest of the numbers. soon enough, you're more than happy just to spend time with him the way that you spend time with your friends. you feel as though you've made a good friend out of someone you'd thought that you wouldn't even be able to get along with.

"you know, when i first met you, even before i knew you, i really didn't like you," you say, taking a sip out of your latte. the seasons have changed, fall giving way to winter. the november air bites your skin every time someone opens the door to the tiny café the two of you were sitting in.

jaehyun smiles, nodding as he leans back in his chair. "i know. i could tell by the look in your eyes."

"the look in my eyes?"

"yeah. the one that said that you wanted to get to know me. to figure out my deal even if you didn't necessarily want to find out for sure. kind of like you wanted to be the one that said 'aha!' at the end of a movie, even though you weren't sure of the ending at all."

you look at jaehyun for a moment before laughing, shaking your head as you laugh. "you're even starting to talk like me now."

jaehyun pauses before he nods, smiling with you. "yeah, i know. you've rubbed off on me in a lot of ways."

"i've improved your music taste, that's for sure," you snort, taking another sip out of your latte. "i still can't believe you didn't like ric flair drip when we met."

"it's not that i didn't like it and it's still not that i like it now. but i guess i just have a good memory associated with it now so it's growing on me," jaehyun says. your eyebrows furrow as you try to recollect what good memory he could possibly be referring to.

"oh my god. the night that we met! i was trying to get in your pants with ric flair drip," you say incredulously, shivering when someone opens and closes the door once more. jaehyun hands you his hoodie, leaving his arm extended silently when you protest.

you don't know why you still bother trying to protest with him when you knew you were going to lose. you put the sweater on as jaehyun starts talking, letting the scent of clean water and pine trees swaddle you softly.

"honestly, i think i was more than you that night," jaehyun says, as he looks at you with an incriminating twinkle in his eyes. "that was around the time that even taeyong said that he wanted to see if kun's vivid descriptions were true or not. and i wasn't about to let him get the opportunity to get to you before i did. i don't know why. i felt almost protective over you. but not in a good way. in the type of way where i wanted to show you how good i could make you feel - more than anyone could even begin to think of making you feel."

the previously cold café begins to become a lot hotter than you were feeling before, clearing your throat as you try to let the moment pass.

"how did we even get here?" you say, fanning yourself delicately. the move only serves to work against you when you fan yourself so that the scent of his cologne on his hoodie only gets stronger in your mind.

jaehyun leans back, letting you switch the conversation. he'd bring it up to you later in the night, anyway. besides, for someone who puts on such a strong front, it's honestly a little fun to see you squirm at the slightest implications from jaehyun.

"but, uh, jaehyun. i've been meaning to ask you something for a while," you begin, fidgeting with the wrapper of the straw in front of you. jaehyun tilts his head as if to question what you have to say as he waits patiently.

"what are we?"

now jaehyun is truly confused. was the past month of going on dates not clear enough? jaehyun wasn't going on dates with anyone else. oh my god. were you going on dates with other men? is that why you're asking.

"i thought we were dating?" jaehyun says, phrasing his sentence more like a question than a statement. "i mean i'm not talking to anyone else and i kinda assumed that since i'd gotten all ten numbers, neither were you."

you hum, unable to stop the silly smile on your face.

"good. that's just what i was thinking too."

+++

honestly, everything about jaehyun jung is appealing to you. from the way that he engulfs you in a hug when you're up late studying. or the way that he convinces you that you have a virus on your laptop just so that he could spend more time with you 'fixing' your laptop for you. or the way that he sits with you and your friends, patiently listening and offering advice wherever he can (or honestly, is just allowed to speak).

you're so glad to see him like this. as your boyfriend of four and a half months (you hadn't let him make it official until he was no longer your ta), you've seen him grow in ways that you'd never thought. jaehyun was every inch the stupid, naïve fuckboy you'd thought him to be in the beginning. and he was also every inch the hopeless romantic with a little too much love to give for a scarred heart.

so you heal together. you help each other when you quite literally can't handle the pain and together, you grow. he's more confident. not just in the way that he looks - but the way that he speaks around people. the way that he educates himself. the way that he communicates how he feels.

and he helps you everyday. he shows you what it feels like to be loved the way you love others. he shows you that you are worth the princess treatment. and most importantly for you, he loves the people around you the way you love the people around you.

kun and fatima find their happy ending. fatima had spoken to her parents and while they took some time to warm up to kun, his soft demeanor and the way that he loved fatima so completely and sincerely eventually won them over. fatima even met kun's parents with equal success, although kun's mother kept asking when fatima and kun would get married.

(their wedding was already in the works by both fatima's mother and kun's mother. you were beyond elated to go to both the traditional muslim ceremony and the traditional chinese ceremonies.)

johnny and sia ended up going out on a couple more dates before realizing that they probably just weren't meant to be a couple. they loved each other as friends and were probably always going to hold a special place in each other's lives but it just wouldn't be as each other's significant others. johnny was already starting to retreat from the frat boy lifestyle after meeting a girl at the library one day. and sia had finally met someone who could handle her crazy personality with a sweet smile, bringing her back down to reality whenever she went a little...too lively. you're looking forward to meeting him over summer, where the four of you and your friends were going on a vacation together.

roseanne, yugyeom, and miyeon still haven't put a label on their relationship. but you've caught roseanne falling asleep in yugyeom's arms more than once (one too many times than rosie cares to admit) so you figure that it's a good thing that they've all found each other. as unconventional as their relationship might be, they all mesh together so well that you can't even find it in yourself to question it. all's fair in love and war.

jaehyun and you frequent the diner as a favorite date night spot to visit, although you're upset to hear that they're remodeling the entire establishment for favor of a new, more 'modern' atmosphere. although how modern a diner could get was a little bit of a strange notion. but as people change, so do the winds.

and when you walk into the diner the next semester, hand in hand with jaehyun, you're a little comforted to see that diner is now a speakeasy (in true 1970s fashion) with three words written in blinding rhinestones against the velvet background. of course.

ric flair drip.

[quimichi]

↳ ❝ [CALLING THE MONDSTADT BOYS YOUR GOOD BOY] ¡! ❞

Mondstadt boys x Creator!Reader

Dainseif, Diluc, Kaeya & Venti

Albedo's part here > ♡

Dainseif - What does freedom really mean, when demanded of you by a god?

"Please, come to me" you simply said, your voice echoing not only in the room, but also in his mind. Dainsleif doesn't hesitate for a moment.

He stands and crosses the distance between you without a second thought. His every movement is graceful and elegant. He would move through the ocean if it meant he could hold your gaze just a moment longer.

Now that he is close, he kneels once more. He wants to be on your level, he wants to be near you. "I am here, Your Grace." He stays on his knees, silent, waiting for you. If you want him to move, he will; if you want him to speak, he will; if you want him to simply be here, just within your presence— he will.

"Dain?" It only takes your utterance, your voice, for his head to snap in your direction.

"Yes, Your Grace?"

"You're my good boy aren't you?" The words are music to Dainsleif's ears. He loves nothing more than to hear you call him something so loving. "Yes," he whispers, the word a breath of reverence. "I am your good boy."

"And why are you my good boy?" His cheeks flush as he looks up to you, eyes glowing like a star. His lashes flutter against his cheeks as the thought of being your good boy floods him with happiness and contentment.

"Because I am yours and have always served you." His words are firm, with the certainty of one who has never strayed from his purpose.

"Mine?"

"Yes. I am yours."

"I exist to serve you, to serve your beauty, your kindness, and love." This is truth to Dainsleif. He cannot imagine himself being anything but yours. "And thats why youre my good boy, Dainsleif" "Yes, Your Grace." He smiles at you, joy and contentment overflowing inside of him.

"I am happy to be your good boy. I am proud and eager to serve you, to honor and adore you." His expression is loving, warm, and peaceful. Dainsleif stays on his knees, head cocked to the side. His blue eyes are shining with love and affection. "What would you like me to do for you?" He asks, eager to serve you with all his heart.

"I want you to stay with me forever..." "I would love to stay with you, Your Grace." Dainsleif would die a hundred mortal deaths if it meant living in your presence for even an hour. The very thought of being near you stirs something inside him; his heart leaps into the sky, his breath catches in his throat.

He is entirely devoted to you.

Diluc - Though it is still not enough, I will always face the darkness.

"Please, step a bit closer to me" such a simple request it is but your command startles him. He looks up at you, and his eyes go wide. He is utterly taken aback, but that is not an excuse. He is yours to command.Diluc complies, and steps closer to your side.

"Are you my good boy, Diluc?"

"Y-yes," he responds at once. He bows his head as he speaks but, if it were possible, he bows even further. His heart is thumping against his chest as if it wants to jump free. He is utterly devoted to you. Every inch of him yours. "I'm sorry i didnt quite heard you, could you repeat that?" You're teasing him, how could you not? Diluc is more than embarrassed, but it is not his will to refuse you. He is yours, after all.

"Y-yes," he says, and his voice breaks slightly from the embarrassment.

"Once more, please, for me?" the opportunity is to good to let it slide. "Yes!" he says once more, and the blush on his face spreads throughout his body. Embarrassed, thats what he is, embarrassed. Your smile alone makes his stomach jump like it's trying to escape. He cannot understand how you make him feel this way.

He is still shy about this ordeal, but he knows that he cannot look away. He is there to serve you, after all. "Good boy~

"Diluc smiles despite himself at your praise. He knows better than to be happy at this moment, but some part of him thrills at the feeling of your gaze on his skin. His heart has a mind of its own, however, and it seems like it knows no boundaries. "Thank you," he says, and bows his head yet again. His embarrassment remains, but it is balanced with the thrill of your praise.

Your good boy...

Kaeya - Life's greatest illusions are the ones we believe in ourselves

"Kaeya?" Kaeya glances up at you, but he doesn't move from his comfortable position— at least, not yet. In fact, he appears to have become more comfortable, resting his head against your thighs and taking small, deep breaths. He stares down at you and smiles, seemingly amused by the situation. "I'm not moving," he mutters. "I'm perfectly comfortable here."

"Oh? Is my good boy all comfy?" "...Mhm." Kaeya's smile is genuine. With one hand, he reaches up, brushing his thumb against your cheek. "...I love you, Your Grace." Please let me stay here. I don't ever want to leave.

Hes so enchanted by your presence alone, he seemed to not process every word you say. Kaeya takes them as they are..."Did you hear me? I said youre my good boy" You're just checking, thats what youre telling yourself. But und truth, you just want to see a reaction, hear how his voice changes with realization.

"Of course I'm your good boy." Kaeya closes his eyes now, nuzzling himself against your legs. "No one else could be, after all. They don't worship you like I do."

"Your devotion's a gift, you know." Kaeya's tone is one of playful teasing, though the compliment is very much sincere. "You know I wouldn't let anyone else here give me physical affection, but for you, I make an exception. Why? Well, for one thing, you're deserving of it." You notice that Kaeya's leg is twitching— he wants to move, but it's as if he physically can't manage it. This may just be the most comfortable Kaeya's ever been, even if he can't say it out loud.

"Isn't my boy nice, huh?" "What can I say? I'm at your service... always." Kaeya's grip tightens about your thighs slightly. "Your approval means the world to me... I'd do anything to keep in your good graces."

He pauses for a moment, his expression becoming almost solemn. "...You know what I most desire, Your Grace?" Kaeya keeps his eyes shut, as though he's ashamed to speak."I would very much like to be yours," he says quietly.

"I want you to choose me."

Venti - Videtis illam spirare libertatis auram

"Yes, your Grace."

Venti complies instantly, quickly moving to sit down on the seat beside you. As soon as his body settles down, he starts idly swinging his legs up and down as if he's a toddler waiting for his mother to take him to the playground.He doesn't say a word, instead contenting himself with simply smiling up at you.

"Good boy" such small words, but they hold a way bigger meaning behind them. As Venti hears your praise, he almost falls into a completely euphoric state. He is practically quivering with excitement, unable to control his emotions for even a second longer. He starts muttering to himself, unable to comprehend what he is feeling in the presence of your grace.

"Please— please, don't call me a good boy again... please, please, make me yours..." Venti flushes pinker than a rose. "I— I meant your worshipful servant!" His eyes are fixed on you adoringly and desperately.

"Your dog, even!" Venti is too lost in the moment to realize how awkward his words were, and he starts desperately scrambling to come up with something even more degrading to call himself.

"Your footstool, even! Your carpet, your chair! Even your floor...!" His words are garbled and desperate, his mind completely blank right now. "But Venti, you're my good boy, not my chair or my floor...my good boy"

Venti's eyes widen as he hears your words. His face is still bright red, but your praise is enough to make him lightheaded. "Am I— am I your good boy.." he mumbles quietly, but he sounds genuinely baffled. "Are you sure..?"

"Yes" Venti is practically panting with excitement now, having gotten the confirmation that he is yours. "Y— you really mean it.." Even when he speaks quietly, you can hear the excitement in his voice, the thrill in his heart.

"Then I really am your good boy, aren't I...?"

"Yes"

"Then I will do my best to be the very best good boy for you, your Grace," Venti whispers reverently.

Even in his excitement, Venti remains reverent towards you. To be your good boy... He can't think of anything he wants more.

[laura1633]

Here are all the lovely fics , I would be so grateful if you could give these fics a read and leave some nice comments for the authors who took the time to write them. 💕

It's been a great gun fight (You drew blood, I set myself on fire) by LeonSolo There will be one religion in Italy, Charles Leclerc. On his knees, he will pray to a God he was supposed to kill.

Red Light at Dawn by LuciThornz Five months ago Max was kidnapped by pirates. Miraculously he was found safe, and now his father has arranged for him to start courting the Governor’s son. But it’s not that simple, Max hasn’t told anyone the whole story of what happened at sea, getting captured was never part of the plan, neither was falling in love. Now Max has a plan to get back on the open ocean and find the pirate he fell in love with before it’s too late. The funny thing about plans is they never do go smoothly.

The Tortured Driver's Department by Shadow_reads Prompt Fill for Lestappen Birthday Challenge:  Charles said he'd love to have his own F1 team in the future, and Max already has Verstappen.com. Max is also experienced and is most suited to being a team principal. Their shared retirement arc is where they own a team together: Charles handles the press conferences and media, while Max focuses on the data and strategy.

Forever Love by stealmysunshine Charles isn’t going to wait around for Max to pop the question. Who says that there is a preordained question popper? There are two people in this relationship and Charles has every right to show Max just how precious he is and make him feel loved.

(k)not in public by bananasomg When Max accidentally invites friends to tag along on his and Charles' holiday to Greece (which Charles has coined their mating oasis trip), Charles isn't phased, and Max is easily convinced. Hallowed Ground by crimsonmidnight When an FIA racing law forces Omega Charles to take part in a mandatory mating hunt after getting the Sauber seat, Alpha Max vows to do everything it takes to claim him as his own.

The Wait Is Worth It by crimsonmidnight Max Verstappen's adventures in purchasing a fucking machine and using it when Charles gets an attitude.

Sutures by jadesaturn After years of grueling battles, academic rivals Max and Charles part ways upon graduating from medical school until they meet again as surgical interns at the same hospital. Their age-old feud continues, as expected. Grey’s Anatomy Enemies to Lovers but make it Formula 1.

A taste of the divine by (anonymous on ao3) female!Charles ends up losing her virginity to Max and he is going through it.

i'd wanna hold you (just for a while) by Kashoot Charles doesn't normally want to regress, choosing to ignore his needs in favor of keeping busy with all his other obligations. "I'm a racing driver, Max, not a baby!" Max knows better.

Preloved by LaurawritingF1 After getting caught up in another scandal, Charles, the crown prince of Monaco, is sent to an 'Omega Establishment' to find himself an omega in the hopes it will settle him down. Charles is not at all interested in picking out a pretty housewife for himself and is intending to return home empty handed until he meets Max, an omega housed up in the 'Preloved' section of the establishment and clutching hold of his pup tightly.

Everything Changes, Yet Nothing Does by Shadow_Reads The sun was setting over Monaco, casting a warm golden glow over the city. The gentle sound of waves lapping against the shore provided a serene backdrop, contrasting with the turbulent emotions swirling within Charles. Tonight was the night he would ask Max to spend the rest of their lives together.

how you get the boy(s) by amelielacy In which world-famous streamer Max falls in love with artsy single dad Charles.

Hunting Love by himmywimmy Charles becomes an unwilling participant in the pack’s annual mating run and to protect himself, he asks his alpha friend, Carlos, to catch him. But as the night of the mating run unfolds, another alpha seemed to be on the hunt for him.

5 moments of chaos and +1 moment of peace by LaurawritingF1 Charles and Max are retired and dealing with the chaos of looking after their children during the summer vacation. Jimmy, Sassy and Leo also make appearances. Them the breaks, they don’t come gently by imamessofawriter “They just announced that Charles is retiring.” Charles suddenly announces his retirement and then appears to disappear completely.

[keto-keyes]

The Slytherins at Valentines

Imagine/preference

In celebration of the day of love, I have taken it upon myself to commit to paper how I imagine the Slytherins would celebrate Valentines with their S/O

Mattheo Riddle:

Mattheo would probably act like he'd forgotten until right at the last minute before it was time to head to sleep for the night

and practically dump a whole-ass pile of presents on his S/O's head.

definitely expects you to cuddle w/ him

he's the little spoon obviously

would constantly whisper things like:

"You thought I forgot, didn't you?"

"...Dumbass thought I'd forget the best day ever"

If you correct him, you lose your gifts

If you don't, smug ass bf forever

Choice is yours

He never really shows how touch-starved he is until Valentines Day, when he can snuggle with you and kick all the others out of your dorm without hearing you complain

not that you ever do

Basically, cuddles and rich-man benefits from the king of puppy eyes.

Tom Riddle:

This man... he is so romantic about how he spoils his S/O

A single rose, or a ring or some other piece of jewellery

Watch out, he'll present it at breakfast with a modest little card and expect you to wear it all day without fail.

might even buy you a crown fitting for the queen of the slytherins

doesn't like PDA, so none of that

Subtle smiles in your direction, maybe even a blown kiss

will love exchanging coded love letters with you like the little nerd he is

if you expected him to be cold like usual, he's not

other kids get time off from being victims, he's moony about you for a change

probably even brings small little things he finds to give you in-between classes

a feather, a dropped quill, some cookies he "borrowed" from some useless gryffindors

Mattheo couldn't stop teasing him after he caught Tom plucking nice-smelling herbs from the potions closet

You might need to stop him killing his brother

he's a gentleman, alright?

Theodore Nott:

Italians know how to Valentines Day

the saint is literally FROM Italy

and theo is rich. So....

Presents. lots of presents

anything you need

kisses also. lots of kisses

mans really loves kissing you. he'll never say no to PDA

staring at you for HOURS

dude has a stare like looking into the ocean - beautiful but somehow also makes you self-conscious

whispering to you in italian

even if you can't understand him, you know he's either complimenting you or whispering blasphemy about whichever first year last crossed his path

he likes to sit you on his lap when he can and rub your thighs or massage your shoulders

shoulder and neck kisses when you do

he doesn't like to be too far away from you, like any good clingy bf

will definitely need you to tell him to stop holding your hand or your waist before he does

maybe needs reminding multiple times. especially with other guys around

double the soft boy on the day of love

Draco Malfoy:

expect this boy to become very clingy

he's attention-starved, remember?

but he will give his S/O lots of gifts and presents to celebrate love

cards, messages via flying paper crane, roses, rings, ripped out passages of books from the forbidden section of the library, all the romantic gifts

he prefers to give little pecks on your cheeks when he can, but if not, definitely hand kisses.

i kid you not, he will get down on one knee with his usual gentlemanly demeanour just to kiss your knuckles

give this poor boy lots of kisses please

he needs them

play with his hair, let him be the little spoon

not that he isn't usually

he just won't let any of the others know that

holding hands

terrorising first-years

sending cutesy love letters to one another without the professor knowing

or zipping them right past mcgonagal's ear, if you live on the wild side

either way, he's so soft and squishy

Blaise Zabini:

i have come to inform you that this man will skip school for you

you're not feeling potions today, rather go out on the town? done

he does not care

you both get good grades anyway

all the sweets

sugar is his love language, and, funnily enough, your pet name

letting you wear his jackets

kisses. give this man some kisses

holding hands whenever you can.

i headcanon his hands are huge.

like giant sized

him smiling to himself whenever he sees you

"How did I manage to score this little sugarcube?"

yep, another sugar-themed pet name

you are like a little flower he needs to preserve (an icing flower, if you catch my drift)

another member of the touch-starved trio

he can do your hair for you (if you have long hair), but ONLY if you sit on his lap

this man knows french. and danish

did you know danish is one of the most beautiful languages on earth? well, you will soon

he likes muttering how pretty you are in danish. and how much he loves you

also, mans is a legit beanpole boy

he will rest his head on yours. he is just that tall

anyway, he loves you in 3 languages fam

Pansy Parkinson:

probably wants to make sure you both have the same number of presents

you'll always have one more than her somehow. like, how does someone forget they bought you the cat (or some other household pet) you always wanted?

isn't happy until she can constantly see a smile adorning your features

like Blaise, she will do your hair for you (if you have hair)

she buys THE NICEST necklaces and bracelets. not even Tom can compare

she can also speak french, but she'll only open up and start speaking it when you tell her you love her in your native language

will find pretty flowers to put in your hair or behind your ear so you can constantly smell of that flower

holding hands. there is no excuse

showing you off to the boys, making them pretend to have never met you before

no-one is allowed to make you smile except her. so, please stay away from Mattheo and Enzo for the day

will contain her anger and short temper for you

she's the little spoon.

you must comfort her. dealing with 6 boys everyday is tough

you're like royalty for a day, deal with it

Lorenzo Berkshire:

cheesy gifts. no cap

small flowers out of decorative bouquets? check

a flower or butterfly pin? yessir

constant hand-holding

teasing you

lip bites, squeezing your thighs, twirling strands of either of your hair

he is a major flirt, contrary to popular belief

he thinks you are the most adorable thing ever

loves to tell you how gorgeous you look

master gentleman in action, ladies and gents

singing cheesy love songs

mans will serenade you

he is the big spoon, for reasons you may never know

perhaps he likes holding his world in his arms

that's right folks, you are his WORLD

and nothing will stop him from telling you that as you nap in his arms instead of going to potions

[goldengirl-116]

Sometimes Max's and Charles' dynamic is wildly misinterpreted, because while most of the fans think that Max is probably more dominant due to his aggressive nature on track and his unforgettable Mad Max era, he's actually a softy with a huge heart that is too nice and cares about his friendships with other drivers even when they don't say nice things about him. Meanwhile, Charles is a menace, chaotic and adorable but also quite the troublemaker, being shit at other sports but always claiming, for the life of him, that he's the best. Charles is extremely competitive and wants to be the best at everything even when he's not (adorably so), and even though he speaks French and is widely loved by Italian men, he has quite the strong character, fiercely loyal and very protective of the people he loves.

And while Charles listens to the maxplaining because he can't deny that he lives for those debriefs, he will carefully listen to every word Max says to him and immediately clarify any points he disagrees with, insisting on his opinion until he can make Max see what he sees because he needs it. Charles is also aware that he's pretty and while he's humble, but not shy about it, he won't stop himself from batting his eyelashes at Max when he wants to get his attention because he knows Max can't resist him.

And Max really can't resist Charles when he's near him and probably goes home and thinks of things that he can say to Charles and get away with like if the Singaporean flag is actually Monaco's; and when his mind goes blank because Charles is too pretty and Max forgot the list of things he had prepared, he asks him about the weather and tells him about how he hurt his elbow.

Baby girl Max is probably Charles' favorite and while Max is a champion on track and probably turns Charles on when Max gets all aggressive with him while they're battling wheel to wheel, because yeah, Charles wants to win and Max is his biggest rival but also...he knows Max the most and he's secretly so proud of him when Max doesn't budge an inch and that's the most fun he has in races. As payback, though, Charlie likes to tease him, naming his dog after him and giving him lopsided winks because it gets Max all flustered and bothered.

There are moments, of course, when Max's feelings are too much to handle and calls out to him, "Charlie, I have space for you" because of course, he fucking does. They reminisce about the good old days, the inchident that they refuse to let anyone forget about, when the fire inside of them flamed so high that they almost burned themselves. However, Max will always talk about Charles' racing and use it to flirt with him because racing is his element and if there's one thing he's absolutely sure of, it's that Charles' driving is beautiful and if Max got into F1, then so would Charles.

Charles, on the other hand, knows how to sweet talk his way out of anything and works the crowd so well that when the fans boo his baby, he immediately quiets them down, because if you love Charles, then you have to love Max, it's a two for one kind of deal. And Charles Leclerc will always be the so-called Monaco prince and maybe this is why Max secretly moved there, where the color of the sea reminds him of deep green eyes.

Max...he's a three-time world champion and the only person that can really take him on is Charles; born only sixteen--yes, sixteen, no relation to the Ferrari boy's number--days apart to challenge each other into one of the greatest mechanical love stories of their generation, it was predestined and inevitable.

Off track, though, he's actually Charlie's baby girl, soft and sweet with clear ocean eyes and a sharp tongue that wraps around Charles' name like a prayer.

The point is, their dynamic is like this:

Charles is the dominant one, often playing Max the same way he plays the piano, focused and attuned to him; and Max likes to dive headfirst into Charles, because he's most alive when the sun shines through the rain.

[thegnomelord]

oh my lord... mentioning merfolk finally pushed me into sending in an ask for you, so hai!

im a huge marine bio nerd and i could probably ramble about that kinda stuff for awhile so im gonna keep it shorter and stick to sharks, aka my favorite species... i apologize for the very long ramble incoming

id imagine that the kind of shark makes merfolk vary heavily - you have smaller, less aggressive sharks (bamboo sharks, nurse sharks, leopard sharks), then you have dogfish which are aggressive small schooling sharks (that actually have venom from what i remember), and the big bois that are mean like bull sharks, oceanic whitetip sharks, great whites, ect. also you have basking sharks and whale sharks which are big ass chill lads. as much as i love them having a tail instead of legs, i think there'd be two "forms" of merperson, one with legs and a tail and one with just the tail. im mainly referring to the ones with legs and tails when i talk about them

like i was saying, the kind of shark species a merperson (or mershark, ill start calling them that) makes them differ between general personality, strength, size, ect ect. bigger sharks are more popular due to their strength, aggression, and speed, making them very useful in the military. smaller guys also have their advantages - its just that a bull mershark would have a much easier time in the military compared to a lemon mershark. although bigger lads are definitely more of a pain in the ass to work with if they grew up in the ocean over on land, cause i like to think most mershark (and merfolk in general) prefer living in the ocean. smaller sharks are easier to control, as they tend to be less prideful and stubborn compared to the bigger species. oceanic whitetip would be especially bad due to their aggression and pride, they're probably the most aggressive species of shark in the ocean

then when it comes to mating/courtship rituals... they don't do any of the fancy things like a werewolf, harpy, or dragon, they're rather direct. sharks in the wild don't court, typically when they meet another shark of the opposite gender they mate due to how rarely they meet other sharks, although mersharks would probably have small courtship rituals. it's pretty simple, just spending more time around who they want to court. i also think it'd be really cute if they gave the person they were courting a shark tooth of theirs that fell off as a memento of sorts. when it comes to mating, male sharks bite as a ritual. not as hard as they'd bite prey, but definitely enough to leave scars. shark mating is pretty rough, but mersharks would probably tone it back a little bit, though there will be times when their instincts slip.

mershark are also oblivious as fuck to other courting rituals if they grew up in the ocean. almost no shark species really have courting, so they don't have instincts when it comes to someone courting them, and they don't have the same socialization that a mershark that grew up on land would have. i just think mersharks are very interesting and very cool <3

thank you for reading my insane rambling about sharks and sharkpeople... once again, sorry for the long ramble, but i had to share my thoughts

Oh god anon this is some GOOD SOUP and as a fellow animal nerd I absolutely love hearing weird animal facts and all I can imagine is just Ghost and Sharkmer reader being absolute idiots lol :D

CW: NSFW at the end, short and quick bc brain isn't braining but this concept of your anon is so cool!

Like Ghost initially thinking all monster courting rituals are complicated as fuck, and the info he finds on the internet doesn't help one bit. And you, having grown up in the ocean, have no fucking clue he's trying to court you in some convoluted way.

You'll spend days just existing next to him, or very gently nibbling on his fingers, which, in your mind, makes it very clear you want to mate, but all Ghost thinks is that you want to eat him. And the next thing you know he's shoving an energy bar into your mouth and walking away and you're left confused.

And Ghost, bless the poor fool's soul, eventually gets lured into the waters by your sparkling eyes and wide grin of sharp teeth. The same teeth bite down on every piece of his skin, not enough to actually hurt him, but your teeth marks litter his thighs, his ass, all across his chest and especially around his pecs, from shoulders down to his biceps and anywhere you can reach while you stretch him.

God the sex is one of the best he's ever had, his usually cold body warming up from the proximity of you and the warm waters you're in as you slowly fuck both of your cocks into him, having stretched him open until he was unable to beg between his hiccups. And he's so pretty beneath you, rough groans as he rubs his cock while you move your hips in a slow rhythm, your dicks pushing in and out, in and out, brushing against his prostate until he was close to losing his mind with how you stretched him beyond imagination.

Some of your teeth end up lodged in his shoulder, and when you finish mating him you tell him to keep them, making them into a necklace he now wears around his neck.

[rogueshadow1124]

CUTS AND BRUISES

[BATFAMILY IMAGINE SERIES]

Batfam x Batmom!Reader

Summary: when Bruce arrives home from patrol and his wife immediately notices that he's injured, suddenly coming to worry about the boys who also happen to have gotten injured...

Word count: 1756

Warnings: mentions of injury. (Not proof read)

There was never a day- well night that any of the boys came back without injury, they're vigilantes. When the boys say 'it doesnt even hurt' or 'it'll be gone by morning', whether those words are genuinely true or not Y/N Wayne never takes them lightly. Her babies are hurt and she couldnt stand to see them like that, sure, Dick and Jason may be adults but it still doesn't mean she cant look after them and worry for them- that especially goes for Tim and Damian.

Y/N was currently stood at the kitchen counter along with Alfred, speaking about the most random things that came to mind when Bruce walked in, still in his bat suit with his mask off. His right eye forming a bruise and a pretty noticable cut running from under his jaw to just below his cheek bone.

"Oh my- what on earth happened to you. Where are the boys, a-are they okay?!" The Y/H/C haired woman rounded the counter and stalked her way towards her husband, taking a hold of his chin gently as if not to hurt him before tilting his head every which way checking for more injuries.

"I'm fine Y/N, the boys are okay."

"Define 'okay' Bruce." Her eyebrow arched in question, stern eyes setting on his deep ocean blues. Her hands came to set on her hips, body leaning slightly to the right.

"Hm..." his eyes averted from his wife's harsh gaze for a second, he may be batman but even he is afraid of somethings, more specifically his angered wife that had a mean attitude and grudges she always manages to hold for however long she sees fit. "Dick busted his nose and lip. Jason might have broken a rib. Tim fell and hit his head and Damian sprained his wrist, he also cut his cheek."

"You come with me." Y/N spoke, pointing a finger to Bruce who finally set his eyes back on her form. She then turned to Alfred smiling sadly, sighing out. "Please can you bring one of the medic boxes to the lounge. I'll gather the boys."

Her bright Y/E/C orbs went back to Bruce, her hand reaching out to take a hold of his as she walked out the archway and into the front hall where she lead her husband within the darkness- ironic really. When they first met he always said 'she was the light in his darkness.' She came to a quick stop at the bottom of the stairs staring up into the dark abyss, spotting a small tint of light coming from behind one of the doors.

"BOYS. LIVING ROOM, NOW!"

Bruce flinched at the sudden pitch her voice turned to, following behind as she set in a vast walk into the lounge which was the next room along in the large hall. There stood Alfred, placing the medical box onto the coffee table, opening it fully as he started to take out some of the supplies that would possibly be needed as of now.

Y/N pulled at her husbands hand, pushing him back so he slouched on one of the couches. His head tilted back, a low groan escaping his lips at the relief it gave him to be sitting in a comfortable position after a hard night of watching over Gotham city and fighting crime.

"You know the drill darling." The Y/H/C said softly, taking a seat next to him. She leaned over his body, hovering a hand over his cheek to turn it in the direction she needed him to be for her to clean the cut. A hiss passed his lips as she brought down the cotton pad that was covered in rubbing alcohol, comforting words echoed through his ears as Y/N tried to soothe the stinging sensation. Her free hand, rest on his chest gently running up and down in a calming motion. "M'done, jus' need some ice for that eye of yours."

She stood from the couch, footstep sounded through the silence while she shifted around, looking through the box infront of her. She tilted her head, looking to the source of pitter patters to see the boys, each of them bashed up in their own way, her heart clenched at the sight of them- saddened at the thought of her babies being hurt.

"Who's going first?" Dick was the first to step forth, sitting in the spot Bruce was sitting in prior when he moved to get an ice pack from the kitchen. The eldest 'son' plopped down, turning his head to face his mother figure who sent a smallsmile to him, one hand coming to rest on his right cheek while the other raised a cotton pad to swipe at the now nearly dried blood on his cupid's bow, just above his upper lip.

"Thanks, cleaning my wounds never gets old, huh?" The eldest ravenette smiled sheepishly, rubbing at the back of his neck when the woman scoffed.

"Wish you boys would be more careful." She tapped Graysons cheek lightly, pressing a quick kiss to his forehead as he moved to the other couch so Jason could take his place next. A audiable whine left the boys lips, hands going to grip at the left side of his torso, face scrunching in pain. "Oh jaybird, why is it alway you who breaks a bone?"

"Because he's the most insignificant. He's completely useless, Tt." Damian snapped, crossing his arms over his chest with a smirk tugging at his lips when Jason shot him a glare.

"Can it Demon." The second eldest snarled back, eyes looking back up at the woman looking to treat his injury. "I dont know why Ma', I'll be more careful next time."

"You say that everytime Jay." She smiled at him, shaking her head. Her hands skimmed over his suit on the injured side of his torso, in which he immediately winced at when her hand made contact with it. "Gonna need that setting back into place. Dick give me a hand."

Dick jumped up from where he sat, coming to stand on the opposite side to where she was standing next to Jason. She motioned for him to hold his shoulders back, her own hands coming down to put pression on the upper and underside of his ribcage on the left. She looked down at Jason who nodded, screwing his eyes closed. As soon as she made the quick movement, pushing down hardly hearing a crunching sound the male yelled aloud, trying to move out of the way in pain and discomfort.

"Fucking shit, hurts like a goddamn bitch. Fuck!" He swore, rolling to his uninjured side to take away the pressure of his broken rib. She had in unzip his suit to uncover is torso before turning to the coffee table to take a hold of a bandage wrap, pulling around the boys torso to keep it in a stable position for the time being.

"S'okay Jaybird, should heal nicer than it would have done now. No patrol for a couple weeks okay?" Y/N brushed a hand through the white streak of hair on his head, hearing him groan out and nod, laying down to rest as peacefully as he could.

Y/N looked over to Tim, his eyes half lidded seemingly trying to stay awake. She strolled over to him, tugging on his arm while sitting him on the love seat next to the couch Dick and Jason were resting on.

"Oh, hey mum. How are you?"

"I'm okay Timmy, now let's have a look at your head, yeah?" She chuckled as the boy nodded, leaning forward so his head rested on her shoulder. Her eyes rolled in fake annoyance, a tut passing her lips, she brought up a hand to brush Tim's dark locks away from the back of his head where she found a gash which had luckily stopped bleeding at this point. "Dami, pass me a bandage please."

The youngest Wayne appeared at her side in seconds handing her the item. She unravelled the end and held it at the base of his neck where the cut stared proceeding to wrap the appendage around the perimeter of his head, tying it back at the starting point when she was sure that she had wrapped it enough. Y/N then layed Tim back in the double seated couch, assuring that her second to youngest was in a comfortable position.

"Al'umu." Her attention was caught by her youngest 'son'.

"Dami, now what am I working with here." She looked down at the boy seeing as she was a few inches taller than him.

"I can assure you, I'm fine al'umu..." his words went unnoticed by the woman as she turned and picked out another cotton pad, applying some of the rubbing alcohol onto the material. She spun back around to face Damian who scowled and went to turn away from her but was stopped when she held his cheek, preventing him from turning away.

She dabbled at the cut on his cheek, the boy didnt wince nor did he show any kind of pain at all. Once she had cleaned the minor wound on his face, she pulled another bandage from the box remembering that Bruce had said that Damin had sprained his wrist.

"Give me your injured hand Dami." She heard him huff but he gave her his injured hand, his eyes following as she wrapped his wrist in the white appendage and tied it off at the end, tight enough to stat in place but not so tight to cut the circulation.

"Thank you al'umu."

"I always take care of you boys, no matter how old you get." She looked around seeing the other asleep on the couches, Dick was layed the arm rest as Jason's head layed on Dicks shoulder, arms slumped over his waist. Tim was layed in a separate seat, legs dangling over the edge as his upper body slouched down and Dami stood beside his 'mother' arms wrapped around her torso as he hugged her with her returning the loving gesture.

"All been seen too." Bruce's deep voice sounded from behind the two making them turn to look at him.

"Yeah..." Y/N smiled at her husband, laying a kiss on his lips when he walked over and leant down to her. A loud sigh came from Damian at his parents affection which made them chuckle in amusement.

[ash-and-starlight]

BOOKS OF 2024

the list nobody asked for. again <3 i think this time around i read less books than the previous year?? but still 😤 we did it boys we read some fine books. reviews under the cut since i love yapping and i cant be fucked to make a goodreads account

Cromorama - Riccardo Falcinelli this book was sooo cool so engaging so interesting, its a look into the history and science of colors but its also so much more rlly one of my favorite nonfictions of all time

The Murderbot Diaries - Martha Wells disclaimer I only read this series up to Rogue Protocol, but I enjoyed it, I rlly liked the characters and the worldbuilding and the short novel format and most of all murderbooottt my best friend murderbot. when im in the mood for scifi again ill read the rest asw I prommyy

On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous - Ocean Vuong this is one of those books that as u read it you can already tell it will stay with you forever, dont be fooled by the shortness every single line will Kill You. it will kill you dead.

The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida - Shehan Karunatilaka probably my fav book of the year, it's beautiful it's gripping it's deep it's scathing it's irreverent it has a careful and deeply cultural magical surrealism it has sociopolitical satire it won the booker prize of 2022 and deserved it so much

Fuori le Palle! Privilegi e Trappole della Mascolinità - Victoire Tuaillon ill be hoooneestt I didn't find this uhh as groundbreaking as I was kinda expecting it to be?? but still it was a nice read and the "flipped" perspective to center the myth of """masculinity""" in a feminist text was interesting. also rlly pretty cover

Lavinia - Ursula K. Le Guin Ursula girl u did it again! constantly rising the bar for all of us!! another stunning book that sadly fell victim to the #girlboss tiktokification but DONT LET THAT STOP YOUUU its sooo good. bitches Love pre-hellenistic latin society <333 bitches love even more when the boundaries between story and characters and reality and fiction blur in such a masterful way that Lavinia can have a conversation with Vergil and it doesn't feel not even the littlest bit forced or out of place <333

Exordia - Seth Dickinson Went in for the giant snake alien/human toxic yuri stayed for the weird mystery body horror stuff almost left for the overabundance of USA military stuff that I just can't be bothered to care about. I liked it way less than the masquerade but it Does have all the classical elements that make it a Seth Dickinson book aka fucked up women. Imperialism Critique. the horrors. the trolley problem. being Very Long. etc

Iron Widow - Xiran Jay Zhao wow guys. this book fucking sucked. like I'm speechless. you'd think that with the crazy popular rep it has it would have smth worth salvaging but uhhh- anyway go stream cocoon by corrupter which is iron widow if it was actually good

Fire from Heaven - Mary Renault nothing more special than a cultured fujo and her special golden shiny perfumed blorbo that everyone wants to fuck so bad <333 finally a book that healed my tsoa related trauma, the only thing that could've made it better is if hephaestion discovered brat taming

The Spear Cuts Through Water - Simon Jimenez beautiful and with such a dreamy magical atmosphere once again I LOVEEE interwoven stories, and I feel like some of the writing's style Choices are so original. it starts a bit slow tbh but I found it impossible to put down from the second half of the book til the end

Voyage of the Damned - Frances White well. it was a cherished super pretty shiny gift from a beloved friend so that's why I finished it but uh. uhhMMMMM uhghhh whhhhfhhmmm uhhhhh hmmmmm uhhhhh. yeah. I'm iconic 💅

Bad Gays: a Homosexual History - Ben Miller, Huw Lemmey ill be honest I didn't expect to like this book as much as I did but its really nice!! its a critique and analysis of white male gayness told through the lives of some Notable Controversial Homos, and I liked how it rlly paints a full picture not only of their lives but also of the socio-political landscape that shaped them and the concept of queernes of the time. only lil gripe tho is why there was only One woman and One Japanese guy then-

[byeomtori]

the only exception | beomgyu x reader

pairing: beomgyu x female reader

content: love at first sight au, summer love thingy, lots of reference to paramore's the only exception and txt's our summer, pda

tw: mentions of fight and blood

words count: 12k

notes: reposting because of high demand (lol)

preview:

you were not the type to believe in the existence of love. to you, there was no such a thing as true love; no such a thing as unwavering, unbreakable, and unparalleled fondness and devotion for someone. to you, people love to get something they desire in return — money, power, status, pride. your parents were a living prove of that

the day you were old enough to understand the lack of love and affection between your parents to each other, and to you; you swore to never grow that feeling to anyone — family, friends, partner. anyone. because to you, love did not exist.

you were content living that way for years, not happy, but content.

the absence of love in your life protected you from attachment, heartbreak, sorrow — those negative emotions that you deemed unnecessary and unworthy to be sitting inside of you.

life was okay without love, you thought.

until you had to spend the rest of your summer with a distant relative whom you've never met in your entire life, in a small town with an ocean view, where fate had brought you a boy whose eyes shine brighter than any stars in the night sky.

and maybe, just maybe, love does exist.

a comforting smell of freshly brewed chamomile tea wafting in the air as you make your way inside the unfamiliar home — the one you will be spending three months in because your parents are way too busy flying around across the globe to be taking care of you.

"come on in, y/n." the woman in front of you speaks, her voice soft, the type of voice a kindergarten teacher would have.

maybe she was one, you have no idea. in fact, you know nothing about the woman standing in a yellow dress in front of you. she is pretty, even though it is evident her aging is slowly creeping up to her from the way her skin wrinkles on the corner of her eyes when she smiles. but to you, she is pretty- the mother-like kind of pretty. the kind of pretty that makes you feel warm inside.

but again, you know nothing about her. have never seen her in your entire life. never even heard her name from any of your parents until today.

aunty sue.

that was the name your mom had told you in the car this morning when she was dropping you off at the train station, she couldn't even make some time to drive you straight here, and telling you the woman is a distant cousin of hers whom she hasn't met in a long time. and that was also the name the said woman had introduced herself to you.

"do you want some tea, honey? or anything else?" she asks, making her way into the kitchen as you trail behind her like a little lost puppy.

"tea is fine," you reply.

leaning against the kitchen counter, you roam your eyes around the room. some parts of the walls are painted in pastel green while another part is decorated with a plaid wallpaper with the same color — just a shade darker. the counter tops are full of kitchen appliances, cookbooks, sunflower patterned dishes, and freshly washed vegetables along with some other things. there are random little trinkets on the windowsill — a wooden carved statue of a cat, a line of herbs in old tomato cans, and a sun catcher being hung at the corner of the window making tiny little rainbows refracting inside the kitchen.

the furniture of the dining area does not match with each other — one wooden chair with a striking blue cushion, a yellow wicker chair and another two plastic chairs in white. though everything is mismatch, it doesn't look weird. it feels right, even.

it feels like home.

very different from your house where nothing is ever out of place. the countertops made of slick white marble, picked personally by your mother, are always shiny as if no one has ever touched it. truthfully speaking, they kind of are. no one is ever cooking in that kitchen. you bet the only stains that has dirtied that counter was that one time you spilled your morning coffee on it. the stove, it looks brand new compared to the one in front of you right now which looks like it has been in service for more than a decade with how rusty it looks.

everything in your house is perfect to the tee. a façade that is what you like to think — to mask the family's imperfections.

a house that never felt like a home.

"i'm going to keep my stuff in my room first, i'll be right back," you say as you pull your luggage with you.

"sure, honey. your room is the second door on the right."

honey.

not even your own mother has ever called you that.

you haul your bag with much difficulty up the stairs, cursing yourself mentally for overpacking, before making your way to the said door. the room is spacious, not as big as your own room back in the city, but still enough to fit a queen-sized bed in the middle, a study desk by the window and a two doors wardrobe in the corner.

the glass sliding doors that lead to the balcony are being left slightly open, the warm summer breeze blowing the white sheer curtain. leaving your luggage by the bed, you make your way over to the balcony — pushing open the sliding door wider as you step out into the outdoor.

to say you are astonished is an understatement. the view in front of you is breath-taking — the house is located on top of the hill, overlooking the neighborhood and the ocean, the season's bright sunlight is making the scenery even more spectacular.

you breath in the air, inhaling the smell of the blue sea with your eyes closed.

there is someone, other than aunty sue, downstairs — you can clearly hear the sound of a male voice which is a little bit too loud to be ignored, talking to the woman in the kitchen about how his mom had forced him to deliver cake to all the houses up the hill in the middle of the day.

"y/n, honey! are you done? come downstairs, please." opening your eyes, you let out a soft sigh as you walk back inside, keeping your eyes on the ocean outside as you close the glass doors.

it's okay, you have the whole three months here. you tell yourself as you make your way back into the kitchen, the guest is still going on about how his little rant.

"i mean, don't get me wrong. i love summer, but to deliver all of them under the sun? god i felt like-.." and as he turns to face you who is standing at the entrance of the kitchen, your breath hitch in your throat.

you're not sure is it the iridescent illumination from the sun catcher beaming on him, or the glow of his skin that is glistening with sweats from biking under the summer rays, or the sparks in his eyes as he stares at you;

but oh god, he is beautiful.

not pretty, but beautiful. the angel-like kind of beautiful. the kind of beautiful that would make people turn their heads. the kind of beautiful that would make you steal glances at him if you were to sit in front of him in a train. the kind of beautiful that makes the ocean view you saw earlier lose its' price.

the once in a lifetime kind of beautiful.

"y/n, this is beomgyu, his mom owns a bakery down the hill."

"oh, this is the girl that you've been telling me about!" he says excitedly as he makes his way over to you, "she's pretty."

and you almost choked on your saliva. how can he be saying things like that so casually?!

"hi, i'm choi beomgyu," he says, extending out his hand for a handshake. "aunty sue told me a lot about you so i'm kind of excited to be your friend, that is if you want, of course."

you look down to his hand, lifting your own as you slowly put it in his. "im y/n,"

though it feels rough, his hand still holds a certain kind of warmth that makes you feel secured. you can feel calluses on his fingertips, too. does he play the guitar?

you're not even sure why you feel bashful under his gaze. you don't understand the warm fuzzy feeling you're getting when he keeps his hand in yours. you don't get why your heart is beating so fast when he says your name, the syllabus rolling perfectly on his tongue like it was made for him and only him to say.

"well then, i look forward to hanging out with you, y/n."

the conscious side of your brain is already blaring an alarm, telling you to turn him down, telling you that no, you don't want to hang out with him. that no, you don't look forward to spending your summer with him.

but despite that, you find yourself nodding to his words. "me too, choi beomgyu."

it has been three days since you have first arrived, and you have concluded that choi beomgyu is a man of his words.

you didn't think much when he told you that he looks forward to hanging out with you, thinking that he was just being nice to a newcomer and to act friendly to you.

because that's all you have ever known — people acting nicely to you.

you remember when you used to associate in a group of girls back in middle school; it was one of the worst times of your life. eleven years old you were so naïve (read: stupid) to realize that those girls were just using you for your unlimited amount of cash — always inviting you to go shopping, forcing you to throw fancy sleepovers — until one day one of them literally had to scream in your face that they were only hanging out with you for your daddy's money.

and since then, you have never tried to befriend anyone and those around you never approached or asked you to hang out, either.

so, it is a surprise to you that choi beomgyu stays true to his words.

yesterday, he had come over early in the morning looking as beautiful as you had remembered the first time you saw him; asking you if you want a little tour of the small town. you had declined, telling him you still had a few things left to unpack, leaving the boy pouting. you had felt slightly bad, just slightly.

you are in the backyard with aunty sue, picking up some ripe tomatoes from the small garden. she told you she has been tending this small part of her backyard for almost seven years now, planting

various kinds of vegetables, using the excuse of she doesn’t like the ones sold in the market, when in reality she just really loves gardening and watching her plants come to live day by day.

“is the tomato that interesting to you?”

you jump in surprise as you hear a low voice speaking next to your ear. turning around, you find a grinning beomgyu looking down at you. he peeks under your straw hat, trying to have a better look at

your face. “you look like a tomato yourself.”

you frown, “what do you mean by that?!”

he bends, hands resting on his knees, now being eye to eye level with you. humming, he continues to study your face.

there is always something about him that never fails to make blood rush to your face. yesterday it was the way he dressed — white sleeveless top tucked messily inside his black jeans. it was simple, nothing outstanding about it but to you, he was breath-taking. and today; it’s the way he’s looking deep into your eyes, eyelashes fluttering against his cheeks with every blink.

the rational part of you is telling you to push him aside or to move away, to break the eye contact. but the other part that you have no idea existed inside of you until you met him few days ago, is telling you to keep staring into his sparkling eyes, to play along to whatever little game he has put on.

the rational part of you won as you take a step back, creating a safe distance between your figure and his. you can feel your cheeks flushed, fully blaming it on the warm temperature as you had been

standing under the sun for quite a while now.

“your cheeks are so red, like a tomato.” he giggles, “are you hot?”

you look away from him, hiding your face under your hat as you whisper, “k-kinda…”

he was about to move closer to you again, hand reaching over to your hat, but it stops mid-air when aunty sue is calling over for the both of you. thanking the lord and savior, you quickly make an escape

from him as you walk over to where your aunty is standing with a plate full of freshly cut watermelon in hand.

you sit beside her on the porch, while beomgyu is standing right in front of you. “tell your mom i say thank you for the watermelon,” aunty sue says and the boy just hums, hand reaching down to pick up two pieces of the sliced fruit, handing one over to you.

you thank him quietly and he smiles down at you, “you will never find a watermelon as sweet and juicy as the ones that my grandfather planted.” he boasts, and aunty sue make a sound as what sounds

like she is agreeing with him. “that’s right, mr.choi planted the best watermelon in the country.”

the scorching heat of the sun calls for you to take a bite of the fruit – it is sweet, just like what beomgyu had said. “it’s so good,” you speak under your breath. you’re not sure how he manages to hear what

you said but he did, as the smile on his face grow wider. “right? i told you!”

he waits for you to finish the slice in your hand before handing you another one, all the while still towering in front of you.

“sit down, beomgyu.” your aunty says to him to which the boy just shakes his head. “i’m protecting y/n from the sun,” he replies casually, taking a bite of the watermelon “she looks like a real tomato

right now.”

both you and aunty sue look up to him in sync. he is, indeed, covering you away from the sun — being tall makes it easier for him to shield you away from the direct sunlight of the summer rays but his back

is taking up all the consequences of his action as you can see droplets of sweat forming on of his neck, sliding down to his back.

you glance to aunty sue, a coy smile on her lips. “j-just sit down!” you scold him, pulling him down by his wrist to sit beside you on the wooden veranda.

aunty sue giggles, “talking about tomato, do you want to bring some home, beomgyu?”

he shakes his head, “thanks, aunty sue but no one in that house enjoys eating tomato.”

“but i do want to ask for your permission to steal this cute tomato away from you for the night,” he says as he pokes your cheek with his index finger to which you move slightly away. “my friends are doing a bonfire by the cliff later, i was thinking to bring y/n along.”

you hesitate, gaze moving from his face to your aunty’s. “you can go, y/n. it’s much more fun to hang out with people your age rather than spending time with me,” she ensures you.

you look back to beomgyu, his eyes hopeful as he waits for your answer.

“okay, then.” you finally give in, a wide smile making its’ way across his face.

he stands up, one hand in the pocket of his pants as he bends down to look at your face, again.

“see you tonight then, tomato.”

one conclusion you can come up after spending a good half an hour with choi beomgyu is that he does not have a sense of personal space — not that you mind, at least for now when you are surrounded by unfamiliar teenagers laughing and chattering around the bonfire.

you’ve been stuck to his side since the moment you reached the cliff. it’s not like you are that comfortable with him but out of everyone here, he is the only person you know. despite that, choi beomgyu looks like he is that comfortable with you — hand on the small of your back while walking, wrapping his flannel around your waist so that you won’t get your shorts dirty (when in reality he just doesn’t like the way the other boys are looking at the exposed skin of your legs), sitting too close you can feel his shoulder brushing against yours as he moves.

truthfully, you would have been so annoyed. but this is choi beomgyu. he is choi beomgyu and you have no idea what’s about him that makes you feel so protected. even now when he has his hand on top of your right knee while he’s talking to his friends, you don’t feel irritated.

it feels right. he feels right.

“beomgyu!” someone calls him over from behind. he sighs, “i’m gonna go talk to him for a while, you’ll be alright here, right?” he asks to which you just nod your head.

what is he expecting you to say answer? no, don’t leave me, beomgyu. as if you would ever say that out loud.

the warmth of his palm leaves your skin as he gets up, making his way over to the blue-haired boy that was calling for him. your let your eyes linger on him, watching as he gives the guy a fist bump before

both of their gaze move to you and you quickly look away.

“you’re y/n, right?” a guy who is sitting in front of you speaks.

you nod, “hueningkai, right?” you ask, remembering his name after beomgyu had introduced you to him earlier. and you glad you did from the way his eyes lit up when you get his name right. years of

attending charity events and parties where you were forced to talk to random people by your parents has thought you to imprint people’s names on your mind easily.

“heard you’re from the city. how is the life there? i really want to live there someday, it’s really boring here,” he pouts. “the nearest mall is like, miles away.”

“i think it’s fun here,”

“yeah? and why is that?”

you go quiet for a moment. why is that? — there are various reasons why you think the town is not as boring as hueningkai believes. for an example, the ocean. there is no beach in the city, the nearest one being a whole hour drive away. the air here is cleaner too, not as polluted with vehicles smokes as the city. the weather here is nice too; though it’s summer, the heat here isn’t as bad as it is back

home.

and as your mind try to come up with another reason why you think the town is fun, your eyes move over to the brown-haired boy laughing along to whatever joke the blue-haired one has said to him.

even in the darkness of the night — the only source of light coming from the fire in front of you, he is still beautiful. the way he throws his head back as he laughs, the way his eyes are sparkling under the

night sky, the dimple that appears on his cheek as he smiles.

“it’s fun because there’s beomgyu, right?”

you turn your attention to the boy sitting across from you, his eyes on the same person you were staring few seconds ago.

“do you like him?” hueningkai asks, out of sudden.

“w-what?” you look at him, bewildered. “i don’t know what context of like you are talking about, but he is a good fr-…”

friend.

you so badly wanted to call beomgyu your friend, but you don’t even have the slightest idea of what a friend is — you never had one, at least not a real one. all through your school years, you have never

really had someone you can call as friend. sure, you talked to your classmates, but they felt more like acquaintances than friends. and you never bothered to get close to anyone because you know there

are always something they want in return — money, gifts, invitations to fancy parties, rich kids from your family’s circle to date, the list goes on.

so, you stop yourself from labelling beomgyu in that way. he is not your friend, not after only three days of knowing each other.

“he is a good guy, of course i like him. what kind of person doesn’t like good people?” you say, shifting in your seat to which hueningkai just shrugs his shoulders, “i think he likes yo-…” he stops talking midsentence when someone throws their arm around his neck, holding him in a chokehold.

“taehyun is calling for you,” beomgyu says as he smiles down wickedly at the younger. hueningkai knows his friend is lying but he just rolls his eyes and walks away to where taehyun is sitting.

“let’s go somewhere,” he extends his hand over to you.

“where?”

beomgyu grumbles, “just come.” taking your hand, he pulls you up to your feet.

following him from behind, you have no idea where he is taking you as you both walk further and further away from the group, until you’re climbing down the cliff.

he offers his hand to you, and you gladly accept, “be careful.”

holding your hand in his, he wraps his arm around your waist as he pulls you down to the ground with an ease. the night is pretty chilly compared to the sunlit afternoon earlier, but beomgyu’s hand still

hold a certain kind of warmth. and even though the temperature is low, you still can feel heat rushing up to your face when he keeps his arm around your waist even after you’ve set your feet safely on the

sandy beach — you’re glad it is dark, you don’t think you want him coming up with another vegetable related nickname for you.

“i wanted to bring you here yesterday, but you were busy unpacking. and i wanted to do it today too, but you looked so tired from helping aunty sue,” he says. “i know this is not the best time to be coming

here since it’s so dark but i just thought maybe you would want to see the ocean at night too.”

you move your gaze from his face to the moana in front of you. the water is calm, small waves crashing along the shores. no one else is around, only you and him.

you were about to walk over to the water’s edge when you feel beomgyu tugs on your hand gently. “take off your shoes first, pretty girl.” bending down, he wraps his hand around your ankle before

slowly pulling the white alexander mcqueen off of your foot. beomgyu is surprised, to be honest, to the fact that you casually wear a very expensive pair of sneakers to a lame bonfire party. then again,

these shoes probably didn’t cost that much for you.

“all done, you can go now.” he stands up straight again and he can’t help but notice the pink shade decorating your cheeks even in the inky night, “tomato.” he chuckles, pinching your left cheek.

you gently swat his hand away, blushing deeper, before walking to the water again. you smile as you feel the sand seeps through your toes as the waves crash on the shore. turning around to beomgyu, you see him with a soft smile in his face as he watches you from a distance.

“join me,”

and he can’t seem to decline your offer when you’re looking so ethereal underneath the moonlight, a gentle smile on your lips as you move your feet around to play with the wet sand.

abandoning his cheap pair of sneakers beside your expensive ones, he runs over to where you’re standing back facing him. he pretends to push you further to the ocean to which you react faster, shoving him — making him fall into the water with a big splash.

“hey!” he shrieks, quickly getting up on his feet. you take that as a sign for you to run — in which you didn’t manage to escape far enough when you feel his arms circling around your waist before he pulls you down along with him into the water.

“beomgyu!” you whine while splashing more of the salty water towards him while giggling.

and that night, while you both are walking home, soaked from head to toes with your wet clothes sticking disgustingly on your skin, laughing and giggling, you thought; maybe this is what friendship feels like.

“aunty sue, i’m going out for a while!” you call out your aunt in the kitchen as you’re running down the stairs toward the front door.

she peeks her head from the kitchen’s entrance, “where are you going, honey?”

“beomgyu’s mom’s bakery!” you reply, already stepping outside and you failed to catch the tender smile your aunt is throwing your way as you are busy putting on your shoes. “i’ll be back before dinner.”

when you push open the gate of the house, beomgyu is already waiting for you on his bicycle, a hat in his hand as he offers it over to you. “put it on, it’s too sunny.”

you accept with no question, putting the white hat on. it smells like him — like a mixture of frangipani blossoms, toasted coconut, and bergamot waters. it smells like summer.

he smells like summer.

beomgyu watches as you put his hat on, holding back his smile to how adorable you look trying to tighten the hat’s straps to fit your head’s size. his hand reaches over to your face, tucking a few strands

of your hair that have come loose from your braids behind your ear. “pretty,” he whispers under his breath.

you look away from his eyes, quickly moving to sit on the backseat of his bicycle, wincing as the exposed skin of your thighs come in contact with the burning metal of the seat.

“sorry, chieko has been out in the sun for a while,” he says, referring to his bike. “you good?”

“yeah,” you shift on the seat, trying to find a comfortable position. “you name your bicycle with a dog’s name?”

he hums as he starts paddling, “my grandfather got this bicycle from a japanese owned shop. the owner used to have this really cute golden retriever by the name chieko, i loved him, hence the name.”

he explains, “is it weird?”

“kinda,” you reply to which he just laugh it off.

it has only been a week of summer break and beomgyu had come up with so many plans for the both of you. he has promised to make this, as quoted from the man himself, the best summer of your life

— to which you just responded with a raised eyebrow. you don’t mind spending the whole three months of break with him, you don’t mind at all. in fact, you would really like the idea — but he doesn’t

have to know that.

one of the plans he had come up with is; baking. and that is how you find yourself in the back of his mom’s bakery, with a baby pink apron tied around your waist and beomgyu going around in the

kitchen looking for the ingredients for the fruit strudels he had promise to make with you.

“oh, you must be y/n.”

you turn to the source of the voice, and you quickly bow your head, “ah, yeah. nice to meet you.” the woman in front of you have the same dimple as the one on beomgyu’s, and the way she smiles warmly remind you of her son too.

“you’re really pretty, just like what beomgyu had told me.”

“mom, where’s the peach?” he asks, stopping his mom from exposing him further, as he is rummaging inside the fruit basket on the counter.

the woman giggles, “is our beomgyu shy? is he embarrassed if his mom is going to tell the pretty girl all about the things he had talked about her?” she continues, emphasizing on the pretty girl.

you look over to him and notice how his ears has turned slightly red from his mom’s teasing. you’re not sure why he is acting that way when he has called you with that specific nickname so many times

already.

“mom~” he whines, all the while avoiding your eyes that are fixated on him.

his mom lets out a loud laugh — now you know where beomgyu got that from — as she walks over to the fridge behind you. “i keep them in the here, baby.”

“oh,” he says, taking the peaches from his mom’s hand. “thank you, my lady.” he leans down and kiss his mom’s temple to which his mom playfully pushes him away. the gesture tugs a string in your heart

— a feeling of longing. you can’t remember when was the last time you hugged your mom, or your dad. heck, you can’t even remember when was the last time they asked you about your day.

“have fun baking, y/n. i’m only a shout away if you need something, okay? in case beomgyu burns the kitchen down,” she jokes again before walking out to store again.

beomgyu sighs, “sorry about her. she can be a bit… overbearing sometimes.”

“no, she’s fun.” you says, stepping closer to help him with the fresh fruits.

and that’s how you spent your thursday morning; baking various fruits strudels — peach, strawberry, mango, blueberry. well, it was beomgyu who did most of the work but nevertheless, you had fun

cutting up the fresh fruits.

the oven digs, indicating the pastries have been baked. beomgyu pulls the tray out, before setting it on the flour-covered counter. “oh, it smells amazing!” you exclaim excitedly.

“wait until you taste them, they are,” he looks down at you, making a chef’s kiss gesture to which you just giggle. “well, we have to let them cool down first before putting the cream and the fruits. wanna

go up to my room while we wait?”

you hesitate, never ever in your life have you ever stepped a foot in a boy’s room. despite that, you find yourself nodding to him, “sure.”

he nods, taking off his apron and waits for you to take yours off before snatching it from your hands, hanging them on the hook by the fridge.

following him up to his room which is located at the second floor just right above the bakery, you notice the picture frames decorating the wall going up the stairs. family portraits, baby pictures of

whom you assume are beomgyu and his brother, wedding pictures of his parents, a picture of beomgyu’s kindergarten graduation. it’s like the family’s own little hall of fame.

imagining your house in your mind, you don’t think you have any other picture being hung on the wall aside from that one huge family portrait in the living room — the one where you were looking so rigid

sitting in between your parents. you hated that picture, and you still do. family portraits are supposed to be a symbol of happiness, a symbol of affection, a symbol of a healthy family relationship but your family does not have any of that. the picture that was taken in the fancy film studio in france was just another attempt to cover the family’s despair. it’s pathetic, really. how hard your parents are trying

to come off as a happy married couple with a perfect daughter. throwing the money away for material things that can cover up the lack of happiness in the household. it’s pitiful, the only thing they need to be raising a happy family is the one thing that they lack in life.

a loud chirping at your right as you step onto the landing of the second-floor surprises you. you turn your head to look at the green-colored parrot in the cage. it has its’ head tilted as it stares up at your

unfamiliar face.

“this is toto, my pet.”

“your pet?”

he nods.

“out of all the animals you can have as a pet, you chose a parrot?”

he shrugs, “toto is everyone’s best friend in this house.”

you blink, and he does too.

“oh, okay.” you say and he nods. “come, my room is this way.” he leads you over to the door that has a messy scribble of ‘choi beomgyu’ in colorful crayons, opening it for you and urging you to take step inside. “after you.”

his room is surprisingly neat. well, it’s not like you have seen a guy’s room before but you did assume beomgyu to be a little messy kind of person — the usual clothes on the floor, comic books scattered

on the bed, snacks wrappers on the desk. but his room is clean, no used clothes on the floor, only a round foldable table in the middle of the room.

“how long are we supposed to wait for the pastries to cool down?” you ask, taking a seat on the floor by the desk. “around half an hour,” he replies. “you know what other baked goods i’m really good at?”

you shake your head, “tell me.”

“pumpkin spice cupcake, but we don’t have any in the store now. it’s not autumn yet so finding for pumpkin is quite hard this time of the year.” he explains.

“how am i supposed to have a taste then?”

“that means you have to come here again during autumn,” he says. “i’ll bake every autumn desserts for you. beside, don’t you want to see my pretty face in a different season too?”

you grimace, “what difference does your face make in autumn?”

he laughs before reaching over to his guitar that was leaning against the wall beside the door.

so, he does play the guitar.

“do you want to hear a snippet of the song i wrote?” he asks while tuning his guitar.

“you wrote songs?”

“yeah, for fun though. i’ve never really let anyone listen to it, aside from the guys.”

“sure,” you say, holding in your excitement.

“i wrote this a few days ago, it’s not finished yet but i’ll try to give my best.” he gives you a smile before he starts strumming his guitar strings softly.

and when you thought choi beomgyu is already beautiful from the way he smiles, from the way his eyes twinkle under the summer sunshine, from the way his whisker dimples form on his cheeks when

he laughs — here he is giving you another reason to think that he is the most heavenly person you have ever came across when he opens his mouth to sing.

your fresh fragrance, your sparkling eyes

makes me feel better

reality loses its power, even the earth dies

the moment is eternal

you’re not sure is it the way the sunlight shining through the open window or the way his eyes are fixated on you while he sings, but you can feel the blood rushing to your face, leaving your cheeks feeling so warm.

no matter where you are, no matter what season

if we’re together, feel like summer

“this is getting boring.” says hueningkai as he throws the uno cards on to the floor before plopping on his back on the ground.

“agree, we should be doing something else.” taehyun, who has been scrolling on his phone since half an hour ago finally spoke.

beomgyu, with his four other friends along with a few others are sprawled out in choi yeonjun’s basement. they’ve been doing everything that they deem fun to do in the last four hours — the video games, board games, card games, truth or dare (in which beomgyu had successfully dodged every single question and dare related to you).

“let’s hit the diner, i’m kind of starving,” one of yeonjun’s friends, minho, suggest to which the other boys agree without any objections.

“nah man, i’ll pass for tonight.” beomgyu says, already standing up from his seat, “think i’m going to go home and sleep.”

“really, sleep?” minho asks, smirking up to beomgyu. “or are you going to see that girl, what’s her name again? y/n?”

beomgyu raises his eyebrow, “what does y/n got to do with this?”

sensing the shift in the air, soobin quickly nudges minho in the rib. “hey, shut your mouth.” says the older.

“i don’t know, beomgyu?” the blondie continues, “i barely see you hang out with your friends lately. every time i ask them where’s beomgyu, their answers were always the same; hanging out with y/n.” he pushes his tongue against his cheeks, clearly enjoying how extremely annoyed beomgyu looks.

“you don’t even have time for your friends anymore now? why? too busy fucking that little rich bit-…” and the next thing beomgyu knows is he is on top of the guy, throwing punches across the blondie’s

face as both soobin and yeonjun try to pull him away.

“don’t you fucking dare say that word.” he yells out loudly, throwing another blow on minho’s cheek.

minho forcefully pushes beomgyu, making the latter falls on his back as the blonde-haired boy climbs on top of him, punching him on the corner of his lips before yeonjun had to (literally) throw hands

towards minho to make him stop punching his younger friend.

there’s a loud ringing in beomgyu’s ears, his head spinning.

he was never one to resort to violence when it comes to anything. aside from that one time he accidentally kicked a girl in elementary school while trying to show off his hapkido skills, beomgyu has never hurt anyone physically. but there is something about the way your name rolls on minho’s tongue that make him sick to the core.

he gets on his feet after regaining his vision again, blood trickling down from his lips. he gives his friends one last glance before running up the stairs of the basement, slamming the door loudly as he walks out.

wiping his bloody lips with the sleeve of his hoodie, he curses under his breath, thinking he can’t go home with bruised lips and blood stains on his hoodie — his mom would make a big deal about it.

so, he continues walking — passes the front of the bakery, up the hill. feet moving according to where his heart wants him to go. to find comfort.

and it wasn’t a surprise to him as he stops in front of your aunty’s house, looking up to the second floor where your room is. the lights are out, total darkness surrounding your room. of course, it’s half

passed midnight, of course you will be sleeping by now.

beomgyu is not sure why did he came here. it’s not like he wants you to see him in this state — bruised lips, fresh blood still oozing from the cut, tousled hair, red stains on the sleeve of his yellow hoodie.

no, he doesn’t want you to see him looking this miserable. he was just trying to look for comfort, and to him, his comfort comes in the shape of a girl in an oversized blue t-shirt standing across from him.

“you scare me!” he says as he finds your figure standing in front of the gate of the house.

“what are you doing out here?” you ask.

“what are you doing out here?”

you cross your arms on your chest, “i saw you from the window.” though the only source of light shining on him comes from the dingy lamppost above him, you’re still able to make out his busted lips.

stepping over to him, you gently take his face in your hands. at that moment, beomgyu knows coming here to actually see you wasn’t a bad idea when he can feel the heat from your palms engulfing his cheeks.

he wanted solace and apparently you are his.

“what happened to you?” you ask softly, afraid that if you raise your voice any higher it might hurt him.'

“i fell…” he says, “for you.”

you take your hands off his cheek, slapping his arm to which he jokingly winces in pain. “how could you slap me when i’m already this wounded?” he pouts, “i did fell, okay? i tripped while coming up

here. the hill can be pretty steep sometimes.”

“you’ve been going up and down this hill your whole life, how can you suddenly fell today out of nowhere?”

“i don’t know? people make mistakes, y/n.”

you roll your eyes, “come on, i’ll clean it up for you.”

beomgyu didn’t hesitate to follow you into the house, up the stairs and into your bedroom. you lead him over to the bathroom, trying not to make too much noise and waking up your aunt in the room

right across from yours— you don’t think she would appreciate you bringing a boy into the house in the middle of the night, and the last thing you want is her thinking there’s something passionate going

around between you and the baker’s son.

taking his face in one hand gently, you blow onto his cut. “it’s going to sting a little, okay?” he hums, enjoying the cool breeze from you on his open wound.

he watches you tentatively as you dab the antiseptic on his skin. “does it hurt?” you ask to which he just shakes his head no. “okay. phew, this is kinda scary.” you giggle as you lean closer to his face again, your nose a few inches away from his.

beomgyu roams his eyes all over your face — your eyes, your nose, and your lips. he observes the way your long eyelashes flutters against your soft cheeks with every blink you make. the way your pupils dilate as you are so focused on attending his busted lips. the way your nose scrunches up occasionally when he lets out a low groan of pain. the way your lips are pull into a pout while you’re busy nagging to him.

even under the ugly fluorescent light of the bathroom, with you wearing the most basic clothes — no fancy summer dresses, or blouses, or expensive sneakers – with your hair messily being put up into a bun, face free from any kind of make-up, to choi beomgyu; you are the most beautiful.

and in the daze of post-punched and being in your presence, he lets the words slip out of his mouth.

“you are so fucking beautiful, y/n.”

the saying of time flies when you’re having fun is actually true. days have turned into weeks, and weeks have turned into months — it’s already been two months since you first arrived in this small

town with the ocean view.

the past months have been filled with many new things you’ve never experienced in your life — going hiking to see the sunrise with beomgyu, harvesting vegetables and herbs with aunty sue, helping

beomgyu’s mom in the bakery, binge eating snacks at the convenience store past midnight with beomgyu and his friends, barbecue party with the townspeople.

and the most precious thing you’ve encountered during this summer break is friendship — not only with beomgyu, but his friends too. you’ve come to get comfortable with yeonjun, soobin, taehyun and

hueningkai along the way after spending time with them. beomgyu had brought you along to hang out with them a few times, and you had grown to enjoy the boys’ company, too.

and beomgyu has stay true to his words about making this summer the best three months break of your life.

“you look pretty already,” aunty sue says behind you as you’re busy fixing the strands of your hair framing your face.

turning to look at her, you pout. “i’m not.”

“beomgyu thinks you are.”

you blush, looking into the mirror to avoid your aunt’s teasing eyes. “i’m done, let’s go.”

“you’re not going with beomgyu?” she asks as the both of you are walking down the hill, a rattan basket in your hand.

“he said he’ll meet me there,” you explain. “he has to help his mom with the bakery booth.”

“ah, right. i forgot about that.”

another new thing you get to experience in this small town is their annual summer festival. aunty sue had told you that the town’s mayor came up with the idea of making the festival around a decade ago

in an attempt to give some sort of entertainment for the kids and teenagers, and also the adults, in the town during the season. it was a great success the first year it was being held — with more than

thirty booths of various foods and games. hence, why the summer festival has become the town’s annual event now.

as you reach the festival’s venue which is being held by the beach, you see soobin and yeonjun chattering at a booth near the entrance. you hand aunty sue the basket before excusing yourself to talk to the boys.

“yeonjun! soobin!” you call out, running up towards them. “oooh, y/n! you look so cute!” soobin exclaims excitedly as you stop in front of him. “but not as cute as choi odi, though.”

“choi odi?” you question and the boy nods “my pet.”

“a cat?”

“no, a hedgehog.”

you grimace — what’s with this group of friends and their weird animals as pet?

“what? you don’t think hedgehogs are cute?” he asks.

no, they look like rat — is what you wanted to say but you don’t have the heart to voice those words out from the look soobin is giving you. “yeah, they are… not bad.” you say before moving your gaze

away from him.

yeonjun notices the way your eyes are scanning around for the familiar mob of brown hair in the sea of visitors, and he chuckles. “his booth is on the other side,” he says. “want us to show you the way?”

your cheeks flushed from being caught but you thank him, anyways. “it’s okay, i’ll go by myself. i’ll see you guys later, then!” you say, walking away from them while waving.

you were about to walk around, trying to find his mom’s bakery booth when you hear your phone’s notification inside your bag. pulling it out, you smile as you read the name of the sender.

beomgyu: where u at, pretty girl? i saw your aunt but not you.

you quickly type in your reply.

you: i’m at a cotton candy stall near the entrance, omw to find u

beomgyu: stay there. i’ll go to u.

after waiting for a while, you spot him walking over to you — dressed in a white button up shirt, tucked inside his black jeans. hair slightly dishevelled from the ocean breeze. he has a smile across his face as

he keeps coming closer to where you’re waiting for him.

even in the sea of people, choi beomgyu is the only one that caught your eyes. you could be in a big ballroom of a masquerade party and the only one that has your attention is still choi beomgyu — there’s

just something about him that you can’t seem to explain that make you only look at him and him only.

you look up to him when he stops in front of you, the smile from earlier getting wider. “hi, pretty.” he says before his hand reaches up to your face, tugging the strands of hair behind your ear neatly. this

has been a little habit of his that he really loves doing whenever he sees your hair getting on your face — never once have you told him that you purposely let those strands untied.

“the firework show will be at 8pm, so we will have around,” he checks his phone, “hour and half to walk around. what do you want to do?”

“you’re not helping your mom’s booth?”

“my brother is here, so he’ll be helping mom for today.” he says, peeking to the stall behind you. “wanna try the cotton candy?”

there is already a line of children waiting for their turns to get the sweet treats in various shapes —heart, bunny, flower, and even a unicorn. when it reaches your turn, beomgyu asks you what shape

you would like for your candy, and you eagerly point at the bear on the menu sheet.

“here’s your order, mr. lover boy.” the man says, handing the stick of the bear-shaped cotton candy to beomgyu. “enjoy your time here, lovebirds.”

“we’re not-…”

“thank you, we will.” taking the candy from the man, beomgyu put his hand on the small of your back, leading you away from the line.

you look up at him, blush evident on your cheeks. why didn’t he deny the man earlier? lovebirds? love, really? “beomgyu, why didn’t you-..” you pause mid-sentence when he hands you the cotton candy.

looking up at him, then down to the cotton candy that is still in his hand, then up to him again and down to the candy again, you let out a laugh.

he furrows his eyebrow questioningly, “what so funny?”

taking out your phone, you open the camera app. “stand still.”

he complies, standing still with the cotton candy in hand all the while you’re giggling and snapping multiple pictures of him. “are you done?” he whines.

you show him the photo on your phone screen, swiping right to let him see the rest of his pictures you’ve taken. “the bear looks just like you!”

“is it funny to you?” he asks, wrapping his arm around your waist as he tickles your side. you squirm in his hold, laughing harder. “it is, because it looks exactly like you- ah! beomgyu, stop tickling me!”

he holds onto the stick of the cotton candy tighter as his other arm is still wrapped around your waist. beomgyu has always known of how beautiful you look when you smile and laugh, but, oh god. right

now, where you’re laughing to your heart’s content, in his arm, dressed in the loveliest white summer dress he has ever seen, with the warm glow of the sun slowly setting, he swears nothing else is as

beautiful as you. not even close.

“beomgyu, please stop. i’m going to pee.” you beg, tears from laughing pooling in your eyes. he lets you go slowly before handing the cotton candy to you which you gladly take.

“let’s go,” he says as he takes your free hand in his, pulling you into the gleeful summer festival.

you spent a good hour touring around the festival — eating tanghulu and few other famous street foods. playing random games at the game booths even though you knew they were all rigged, it was

still fun — beomgyu did won you a small teddy bear keychain from the dart game.

you visited your aunt’s stall too, where she’s selling little handcrafted trinkets. you couldn’t ignore the cheeky smile she sent you when she saw the way beomgyu was holding onto your hand.

then, you went to his mom’s booth where you met his brother for the first time. you were kind of expecting the teasing from him, but you didn’t know it would be so bad to the point you had to ask beomgyu for a glass of water, afraid you might suddenly pass out from the excessive blood rush.

it was fun. you don’t think you have experienced this much fun in your life. the last time you felt happy was when you had visited disneyland back when you were ten. with your maid, not with your parents. you don’t think you would have enjoyed it as much if you did go with them.

“we have 10 more minutes before the fireworks show.” beomgyu says as he leans his side against the railing. he had suggested to go up the cliff to have a better view of the firework. you thought it’s going

to be a packed spot but surprisingly there are only three other people there, sitting distance away from where you and beomgyu are standing.

you can feel his stare from the corner of your eyes, making your cheeks flushed. god, is it possible to lose one’s life from immense blushing? if it is, then you’re in a terrible danger.

“have you ever been in love?” he asks suddenly.

at that moment, the only thing you can hear is the loud ringing in your ears. gone the sound of the festive happening down by the beach, the sound of the waves crashing against the shore, the sound

of the people behind you chattering. the sound of beomgyu’s voice.

have you ever been in love?

have you? you want to say no. you want to tell him that you don’t believe in love — that you would rather believe in the existence of a flying elephant rather than believing in love. you want to tell him

there is no such a thing as love in this world. there is no such a thing as sincere love. people love to get what they desire in return — money, power, status, pride. your parents are a living prove of that.

you want to tell him if there is one thing you are so fucking afraid of in this world, it is to love.

you want to tell him that you don’t think love is worth taking the risk, you don’t think it’s worth fighting for. love is not a real thing. you’ve seen so many people from school getting heartbroken over a

breakup with their lover, only to jump into a new relationship a week after that. if love is a real existing thing then, how could you move on so easily like that?

you so badly want to tell him, but no words come out from your mouth as you stare into his sparkling eyes.

“you don’t have to answer if you don’t want to,” he says after sensing the discomfort on your face.

“have you?”

“yeah,” he says, now facing the sea. “i’m in love with a lot of things — my family, my friends, toto, my bicycle.” he says, shifting on his feet, “i love helping my mom in the bakery, i love writing songs even

when no one listens to it. i love this town, no matter how boring it gets sometimes, i still love it.”

“i love summer,” he says as he turns to face you again. “i love summer because it brought you to me.”

you were about to say something to him when you hear the announcement from the speakers that the fireworks will be going off in the count of three.

ignoring the proclamation, you keep your eyes fixated on his. he is staring at you endearingly, a soft smile on his lips as he takes a step closer towards you.

three

he takes another step forward, until the tips of his shoes are meeting yours.

two

he tugs the strands of your hair behind your ear like he usually does, only this time he didn’t put his hand down, keeping it on the soft skin of your cheek. he rests his other hand on your waist, pulling you slightly closer to him.

one

he tilts his head, leaning down towards your face before stopping, leaving a small gap as he waits for you to make the next move, an unspoken sign of asking for your permission.

and as the fireworks start shooting in the sky, you stand on your tiptoes. hands resting against his chest as you lean forward, closing the gap in between your lips and his soft ones.

it started off with you gently resting your lips on his, until he starts to pull you closer by your waist — where he deepens the kiss.

it feels magical.

the way his lips are massaging softly against your own, the way his thumb is caressing your cheek in the gentlest manner, the way he tightens his hold on your waist — not hard enough to hurt you but

strong enough to keep you in place, the way his heart is beating so fast under your palm. the way the sky is glowing and shimmering brightly with the non-stop fireworks.

he is magical.

it’s not like you have ever kissed a boy before but the way beomgyu is kissing you with so much care, with so much affection, so endearingly, with so much love — you know the kiss is perfect. you just know it is.

because you don’t need a flawless kiss for it to feel complete, all you need is choi beomgyu to be the one kissing you.

to you, choi beomgyu is the epitome of perfection.

the ringing of your phone wakes you up from your deep sleep. reaching over to the vibrating device on the nightstand, you pick up the call without checking the caller id.

“hello?” you say, voice hoarse.

“y/n?” shoot, it’s your mom. “are you still sleeping?”

“uh, yeah. i just… woke up.” you sit up on your bed, eyeing the clock on the wall – 12:04pm. if there is one thing your mom hates, it would be tardiness — in anything, including the time you wake up from

sleep.

“i slept really late last night,” in which you did. after the summer festival, and the whole kissing thing, beomgyu had walked you home. not forgetting to give you another kiss, which felt more like a peck,

before he left. and you had stayed up until almost four in the morning replaying that particular scene on the cliff over and over again in your head.

you hear your mom sighs from the other end, “how you been doing there?”

oh, that’s new.

“it’s been okay,” you twirl the end of your blanket. “aunty sue is a very war-…”

“listen, y/n. i’m kind of busy right now. i just called to remind you about your leave after the summer break.”

and that is when reality hits you.

“your dad thought it would be a good idea if you come home this weekend. to make early preparations.”

shit. how could you forget?

“i’ll send a driver to pick you up this sunday,” she says, and you can hear rustling from her end, “i gotta go.”

when the line goes off, you remain holding your phone against your ear.

how can you get forget? did you forget because you’re too busy having fun here? did you forget because you finally found something, or rather, someone to share your happiness with? did you forget

that you’re only here temporarily, to take a breather from the crowded city? did you forget that you’re not supposed to be attached to anyone?

you’re leaving. you’re leaving the country in september. you’re leaving for a university on the other side of the world. you’re leaving your home. you’re leaving this town.

you’re leaving beomgyu.

beomgyu.

these past months, you have been engulfing yourself too much into whatever temporary fantasy he had created for you. you were so into it that you started to brush away all of your beliefs that have

been your pillar your whole life. you were so blinded by the happiness he had brought you that you started making an exception for him.

and for the first time in two months, for the first time since you have arrived in this small town with an ocean view, for the first time since you met the boy whose eyes shine brighter than any stars in the night sky — you want to be anywhere but here.

you know you’re being a jerk to beomgyu — ignoring his calls and text messages, lying to him about coming down with a fever, forcing aunty sue to make up whatever excuses she could think of

whenever the boy stopped by to catch a glimpse of you, pretending to be sleeping whenever you saw him standing under the lamppost outside of the house at night.

you’re being irrelevant and you know that better than anyone else. but you can’t find any other way to explain to him about everything — you’re not ready and you don’t know how to. you know he’s in

love with you, and maybe, just maybe, you do harbour the same feeling for him as well — but you're in denial.

love does not exist.

that’s what you’ve been telling yourself every day.

you’re going back home tomorrow, and you have successfully avoided beomgyu up until this point. until aunty sue had to (almost) beg on her knees asking you to deliver an official government letter to

the choi’s place. she had come down with a summer fever herself, making you feel bad if you refuse to help.

and that’s how you find yourself inside the the bakery’s kitchen that saturday afternoon, a brown envelope in hand. you are glad it is saturday — meaning beomgyu is not around as he always spends

the day at taehyun’s place.

you peek around the kitchen, no one in sight. there’s no one behind the register in the bakery too. is the shop closed?

you hear footsteps coming down the stairs, turning around with the envelope still in hand, “mrs. choi, aunty sue asked me to-…”

you blink, hands coming down to your sides.

leaving the brown paper on top of the counter, you were about to make an escape before you feel his hand wraps around your wrist, tugging you back to him.

“y/n,”

“let me go,” you say under your breath.

he pushes you against the wall, trapping your body. “are you okay?”

out of all the things he could be saying to you right now, he’s asking you if you’re okay? out of all the mean things he could be spitting to you right now for ignoring him without explanation, the words

that came out from his mouth are those of endearment.

you avoid his eyes, afraid that you might break if you catch a glimpse of his sparkling eyes. “i’m fine.”

“then why have you been ignoring me?”

“i wasn’t feeling well.”

“then, that means you’re not okay.” he says softly, “look at me, y/n.”

you look up at him, tears pooling your eyes. “why are you being so difficult?!” you didn’t mean to scream in his face, but at this point, your brain has lose control — your body moving according to your

heart.

beomgyu is taken aback by your sudden outburst, “what?”

“why are you making it a big deal that i’m not talking or hanging out with you anymore?”

“how am i supposed to not make it a big deal when the person i’m in love with is pushing me away?” there, he said it.

“love?” you say, while trying your hardest to keep your tears from falling. “there is no such a thing as love in this world, beomgyu.”

“are you saying my feelings for you are invalid? of course, there is. there’s love everywhere in this world.”

“no, there’s none!” you scream again, “how can you fall in love with someone within, what? two months? that’s unrealistic, beomgyu.”

“you don’t need years to fall in love with someone, y/n. you can be by someone’s side for decades, shares one roof, sits at the same dinner table and sleeps on the same bed for years and years onwards

but if there is no love then there will be no love until the end.” he raises his voice slightly.

you finally let your tears fall as images of your parents cross your mind — of how unhappy they are with each other, of how their eyes never hold any kind of affection for one another. they have been

married for almost two decades now — live under the same roof, eat at the same dinner table, sleep on the same bed, wear the same silver bands around their ring fingers – but the love was never there. it’s never going to be there.

if there is no love then there will be no love until the end.

they are the reason why you’re acting the way you are now.

"i don’t need years to fall in love with you, y/n.” he wipes the tears on your cheek gently, “the moment i saw you that one summer afternoon, i knew i was falling head over heels for you.” he pauses,

searching for your eyes. “i knew that i’m in love with you.”

“tell me, y/n… did i do anything wrong? is it the kiss?” he asks, “i’m sorry i stepped over my boundaries.”

“it’s not the kiss,” you whisper.

“then? what’s bothering you, baby?”

more tears come out of your eyes at the nickname, “this whole thing,” you gesture to him and you, “you know it’s not going to last, right?”

he shakes his head, “no, i know you’re going to back to the city after the break, but we’ll make it work. it’s not even that far. you know people do anything for their loved ones, right?”

you take a deep breath, before wailing loudly, not caring about anything anymore. “you’re not gonna love me anymore after i leave, beomgyu. and i’m not talking about going back to the city. i’m leaving the country soon, to the other side of the world, for four fucking years, choi beomgyu!”

“i’ll wait for you, i promise.”

“no one is that stupid enough to wait for someone for that long. why take the risk of waiting years for someone? what if i suddenly came back with a boyfriend, or a fiancé?”

“you worth all the risk in the world, y/n.”

“why are you making things difficult for me?” you push him off of you before you make a run for the door. you continue running up the hill, tears still spilling out your eyes.

you stop, looking back to where you came running from. he doesn’t come chasing after you.

and a part of you wish that he did.

“is this the last one?” your driver asks as he loads the last of your luggage into the car’s boot.

you nod, thanking him to which he replies with a nod of his head. turning to face your aunt, you take her hand in yours. “thank you for taking care of me in the past two months.”

she smiles, rubbing on the back of your hand with her thumb. “are you sure you don’t want to see him first?”

you shake your head and the woman just nods hers before pulling you into a hug. it’s warm. she has always been warm, ever since the first time she picked you up at the train station. she has treated you

like nothing less than a family member, though you and her are very distant relatives.

“i’ll miss you.”

“i’ll miss you too, honey.” she caresses your hair. “come back soon, hm?”

you nod, moving away from her warm hold. “bye, aunty sue.”

as the car drives past the familiar bakery, you look down to your lap, droplets of tears wetting the thin fabric of your skirt.

and just like that, your temporary happiness ends.

the leaves start to wilt, slowly turning brown as the season transition from summer to autumn. the temperature getting colder and colder as each day passed by. no more scorching sun, no more clear

blue sky, no more children running around by the beach.

he stands on the cliff, overlooking the ocean. nothing much has changed since three years ago — except some parts of the railing has awfully broken down. honestly, he prefers it that way — the town not

changing. the way the town looks boring to an outsider, but actually holds a lot of hidden wonders.

the town holds a lot of dear memories to him. this is the town he has grown up in, the town that taught him all the life lessons that made him the person he is today, the town that brought him a girl

that he could never forget, even in his next life.

he looks over to the sea. if he swims far enough, would he reach the other side of the world? to where you are right now?

three years.

it has been three years since he last heard anything from you. it’s not like he didn’t try reaching out to you, he did, multiple times. he tried calling your phone, only to be greeted with the same bot telling

him that the number is no longer in service. he tried looking up for your social media — facebook, instagram, anything. but nothing ever came up with your name aside from a profile website of your

family, a picture of fifteen years old you under the words ‘daughter of a successful businessman and the uprising fashion designer’. he thought you look adorable in the picture, despite the lack of life in

your eyes.

three years went by and you still haven’t come back.

three years and all he could think about every day is you.

you, you, you.

his friends have been telling him to just let it go, telling him it was just a summer fling, telling him it’s time for him to move on, to go meet new people in college.

but he didn’t. he knows what is worth it in his life — you are worth the wait, the risk, everything.

he tugs his hands inside the pocket of his coat, the air is getting so chilly despite it being only september.

“thought i would find you here,”

he turns his head so fast as he hears the familiar voice, he thought he might get a whiplash from it. but as he stares at the figure standing across from him, he thinks he is experiencing more than a whiplash right now.

there you are, standing five feet apart from him. he roams his eyes over your smiling face, and he wonders how is it possible for someone to be this beautiful. you look different from the last time he

saw you, in a good way.

your hair is slightly shorter compared to three years ago, you have lost the baby fats on your cheeks too, making your cheekbones stand out when you smile, and your eyes, they no longer look like the one he saw on the last day he saw you, or in the picture from the internet. your eyes are filled with life now, sparkling under the grey sky of the autumn morning.

“i went to your mom’s bakery but you weren’t around. figured you would be-…” you didn’t get to finish your sentence as the man takes a long stride towards you before pulling you into his arms.

he holds the back of your head with one hand, pressing your nose against the base of his neck while his other hand is wrapped around your waist.

he still smells the same — a mixture of frangipani blossoms, toasted coconut, and bergamot waters.

even in a different season, he still smells like summer.

you wrap your arms around him, “sorry i took too long.”

shaking his head, he wraps his arm tighter around you figure — afraid that you might suddenly evaporate into thin air, and this is just another night dream of his. “no, thank you for coming back.”

“thank you, too. for waiting for me.”

he pulls you away from his neck, staring deep into your eyes. “i promised i would wait for you, didn’t i?”

you nod, smiling up at him happily. you notice how he had grown few inches since the last time you saw him that one afternoon in the back of his mom’s bakery, from the way your neck is straining so

much looking up at him. his hair is no longer the deep shade of brown anymore, it's ash grey now.

he leans down, tilting his head as he nudges your nose with his — waiting for you to close the distance between his lips and yours, just like what he did that one summer night, in this exact same spot.

and as you finally rest your lips upon his — you think about how choi beomgyu is worth all the risk that you’ve took. the arguments with your parents because they kept opposing the idea of you dating a

nameless boy from a small town, the cramped semesters because you wanted to cut one semester off so you can come back to him a year sooner, the longing and aching feeling for him you got whenever

your friends in university talk about their partners. at the end, there were all worth it.

choi beomgyu is worth it.

you are still a firm believer of love does not exist. it’s hard to get rid of that idea when you’ve been sticking to it almost all of your life. and given that your parents’ eyes still lack of love and affection for

each other even after being married for a whole two decades now, it’s impossible to accept that there is love out there for everyone.

but to you; love exists in a form of a boy whose eyes shine brighter than any stars in the night sky, and that is all that matters to you.

and to choi beomgyu; even under the cloudy and gloomy autumn morning sky, with wilted leaves dancing around in the air with the wind, with the temperature getting colder and colder as day passed

by, it feels like summer to him — because it doesn’t matter where he is, or what season it is, whenever he’s with you, it feels like summer.

[splatsvilles-fashionista]

The appeal of One Piece

I know everyone's a bit sour on One Piece after the clown stunt tumblr pulled, but with the live-action series out and the anime popping off on social media, there's more eyes on this goofy pirate story than ever, and I've been dying to talk about it, so now's the time.

A lot of the conversation around One Piece is steeped in hyperbole, and it's hard not to be hyperbolic when you're talking about a work of almost unprecedented length and popularity. With that in mind, I wanna try to explain what makes One Piece so good in a way that is concise, spoiler-free, and that will give you an idea if this might actually be a story you'll enjoy.

And I do actually think a lot of people who would enjoy One Piece are currently writing it off, and I think a lot of the blame lies on assumptions people have about shonen as a genre. One Piece is no doubt a shonen, with young and teen boys as the primary demographic, but it is also first and foremost an adventure story about a group of quirky outcasts setting out to follow their dreams, despite (or often in spite of) the crushing weight of reality.

But you can't have an adventure story without a world to set that adventure in, and what a world Eiichiro Oda has crafted. One Piece manages to feel like it has fully realized an entire planet, with every island we travel to having a very distinct sense of culture and visual identity. A lot of care has gone into building the history and politics of these places, and the mechanics by which their more out-there elements, like the sky-high ocean geyser or the mountain with an upside-down waterfall, function. As such, it is a setting that afford its story a lot of variety, while also being able to tackle a lot of very heady topics like authoritarianism, racism, and abuse in intelligent, nuanced ways.

But just as important as all of islands we visit are the wonderful characters we meet. A lot of people aren't into One Piece's exaggerated cartoon aesthetic, and I respect that, but it does lend itself to a lot of very unique faces and body types that make its cast of 1000+ characters a joy to behold. This is admittedly less true of the more conventionally attractive women, many of whom look very similar, but this is does not extend to their writing. Oda is very good at imbuing his characters with life, pulling on their histories to give them personalities and quirks that are often as funny as they are sad. Everyone I know that reads One Piece has a side character that they stan hardcore for, be it the lovable klutz Donquixote Rocinante or the petulant ghost girl Perona.

And all of this is especially true for our protagonists, the Straw Hat Pirates, each one of which is a deep, multifaceted character whose drive and dreams can be traced back to their often heartbreaking origins. I know I mentioned it at the top already, but at its core, One Piece is ultimately a story about a group of hurt, lonely individuals who find in each other not just friends, but a family that will support and protect them as together they chase their dreams in the face of a world whose systems have been built to squash them underfoot.

All of this is brought together by Oda's exceptional artistic skill. While as mentioned earlier, One Piece's cartoony artstyle isn't for everyone, it's by no means an accident. One Piece is a story set in a cartoon world, and Oda is able to give even his most ridiculous characters and places a tangible sense of physicality, making everything feel real within the confines of the page. While Oda has a team of assistants to help him, he still does the brunt of the art himself, and his dedication to his craft means the comic is full of panels that are breathtaking in their complexity and visual density.

But it's not just his technical skill that makes the art of One Piece so good, it's that Oda is also very good at letting his art speak for him. Compared to a lot of other big shonen manga, One Piece doesn't lean as heavily on the dialogue to give the readers all the necessary information, but can convey a lot of what is happening and how characters are thinking and feeling through its artwork. There's some sections where this doesn't hold as true (and they are frequently less well-liked as a result) but it makes One Piece a far lighter read than its soon to be 1100 chapter-count would make you believe.

But the thing I think makes One Piece the most exceptional of all, and what makes me recommend it despite its length, is that as a story, One Piece has a remarkable clarity of vision. One Piece has a stance and a worldview that it does not waver on, and it is present from the very beginning. It's is romantic story, about the power of faith and dreams, about people's right to be free and be who they want to be, and about how the beauty and wonder of the world makes its worth its danger and uncertainty.

One Piece knows what it wants to be from the very beginning, and because of that you don't have to wait for it to get good. A problem that a lot of longform media struggles with is that the opening hours are a slog to get through, because it doesn't show you its hand early enough for you to know if it's something you'll like, and that is not a problem One Piece has. It is exactly what it is going to be from the beginning, only in a simpler, cruder form that it is going to expand upon to become the sprawling pirate fantasy epic it has grown to be. This clarity of vision also makes One Piece very rewarding for attentive readers, as it frequently hints at future places and characters, and plants story seeds that it pays off hundreds of chapters later. It does a lot to make the world feel big and interconnected, and makes One Piece very fun to re-read as you pick up on things you missed the first time around.

It is frequently recommended that new readers start with the initial 100 chapters, the East Blue saga (which is what the live action series adapts, for the record), to see if One Piece is right for them, and that's the note I am going to end this post on, as well. East Blue uses its 100 chapters to tell a fairly self-contained story that introduces the first half of the core cast, setting the stakes and building its world while giving you plenty of interesting places, bizarre creatures, and wacky action all the while. It is One Piece showing you its hand, with the promise that if you like what you see, it'll have so, so much more in store for you

[suuuupernovaaa]

kurkung

kurkung [ˈkuɾ.kuŋ] n. asshole (vulgar)

Request from @darrarii: Could I request a Neteyam x reader where the reader's blunt and kind ofbitchy. The Sullys are arriving and meeting Aonung's best friend (the reader) and he hears her say some randomly blunt and out of pocket stuff under her breath. I live for kind and loving readers but imagine neteyam and reader just side eyeing people together.

Aonung nudges me, removing my focus from the task at hand, and I turn to admonish him. I have been working on this net all day, and I am nearly done. I have also asked him nearly ten times to quit bothering me while I work, but Aonung never listens to anyone who isn't Aonung.

"Look!" he says, and points. Above us fly five beasts, ikran, and it's a sight to behold. My anger melts away and I stand with Aonung and Roxto, who is never far off, our mouths agape. "Visitors."

Aonung charges forward, and Roxto scrambles to follow. I carefully set aside the net I've been working on, and have to jog to catch up.

The riders are dismounting as our clan gathers on the beach, gawking and whispering. They are strange people, a deeper blue than us, and I think they must be from the forest. Ikrans, dark blue, and as I get closer, I see their thin arms and tails.

What business do they have here, in the ocean?

They're a family, clearly. A mother, a father, and four children. The eldest look to be around our age, maybe 18 or 19, and the youngest cannot yet be ten. I must admit, she is very cute, but the features on the older boys make them look weak. They won't be able to swim, or hold their breath - but maybe they're just passing through.

Aonung and Roxto approach, and Aonung points out one of their tails.

"Is that supposed to be a tail?" Aonung asks, and Roxto laughs.

"It would be better to have no tail at all, than that useless little thing," I say to Aonung, who smiles at me. One of the boys turns his eyes to me, glaring, and I shrug.

I'm sure his tail is fine where he's from. Here, it will be little more than a nuisance to him.

Tsireya approaches, and slaps Roxto as he laughs, admonishing him and her brother, Aonung. She gives me a sideways glance, but again, I shrug.

"They do look strange, Tsireya," I say.

"As strange as we look to them," she replies. Where Aonung and I are harsh, Tsireya is soft and caring. I admire those characteristics about her, but don't see a use for them myself.

When I turn my attention back to the newcomers, the mother is telling our chief, Aonung's father, how her husband was Toruk Makto.

That grabs my attention - everyone knows the legend of Toruk Makto. I just imagined him to be... something different. I guess I pictured one of us, even though I knew he was a forest person.

"Toruk Makto is a Great War leader," Tonowari says, and I lean over to Aonung.

"I don't want a war here," I say to him, and he glances down at me, and nods once.

Again, one of the older boys looks to me, but he doesn't look annoyed this time - he looks sad.

"Toruk Makto and his family will stay with us," Tonowari says when I turn my attention back to him. Just a moment later, he's promising that Aonung and Tisreya will teach their children our ways.

I know what this means - I'll be roped into it too, as will Roxto. The three of us have always been somewhat of a package deal.

At least, I tell myself, this could be interesting.

--

I sigh and grab Neteyam's hands. "Bah, Neteyam!" I exclaim. "Are you watching me?"

He rolls hie eyes for the 100th time that day. "I am! You're going too fast. Slow down."

I have done the phrase what I think is slowly a dozen times, but he is still not picking it up. I am starting to think that these forest people are going to be hopelessly useless here, and I worry about them, just a little.

"Once more," I say, and move so slowly that it feels as if I am hardly moving at all. "Where... are... we.... going..."

Finally, when he repeats the gesture to me, it is correct.

"Yes!" I exclaim. "That's right, Neteyam!"

He smiles and laughs, and the sight of it... does something to me. I have seen Aonung smile a million times. He laughs with me every day. But never before has it made me feel this way.

There's a strange feeling, almost a fluttering in my stomach, and I snap my eyes away, trying to focus, but it isn't easy, not when he's still smiling.

--

Often, I find myself making excuses to be around Neteyam. I tell myself he must need help riding his ilu, learning how to slow his heart and hold his breath, or adding more finger speak to his lexicon.

Even as it becomes increasingly clear that he really doesn't need anyone's help anymore, I still find myself there, always there, offering a hand or a correction.

He never turns me away.

"Will the Sullys be stealing all of our women?" Aonung asks me as we ride our ilus together, the first time we have been alone since our arrival.

A pit settles in my stomach. I knew that Lo'ak and Tisreya had eyes on each other, but I hadn't known Neteyam had shown interested in anyone. I wonder who it could possibly be, and how have I not noticed?

Just the thought of him showing interest in another woman makes me sick, and I have to finally admit to myself that I care about the forest boy. Since the moment I saw him smile, he's nearly all that I think about. When we aren't together, I wonder what he's doing, wonder how he's adjusting to life here. I find excuses every day to talk to him, and I would even call us friends.

I'm hurt that he has found a woman, and I was unaware.

"What do you mean?" I ask, trying to keep the emotions off of my face and failing.

"First my sister, now my best friend," Aonung says, shaking his head.

"Me? And Neteyam? Bah, Aonung, no."

He rolls his eyes. "Don't treat me like I'm stupid. You like each other. I never thought you would stoop so low."

"Aonung!" I exclaim. "You are too harsh. They have been through a lot, and even you can't deny, they've adapted well here."

He rolls his eyes once more, and dives under and darts away from me. I want to be mad at him, but I'm too busy wondering if he's right - does Neteyam like me?

I have never been one to dance around what I want or how I'm feeling. Sometimes, I have been told, this comes off as being too harsh, a jerk, unfeeling and mean. I try to deliver the truth kindly, and only deliver it if it needs to be said, but I don't always know where the line is.

I don't worry about all of that now. When I return to shore, I head to where I know Neteyam and his family are staying, and hover in the doorway only a moment.

His mother and sisters are there, but not him.

"Do you know where Neteyam is?" I ask, and his mother's eyes snap up to mine.

"Fishing," the youngest replies. "Just left."

I nod and smile. "Thank you, Tuk."

--

It takes me a while to find Neteyam, who has swam far and found a little-used beach where the good fish rarely come. He couldn't have known that, so I hold my tongue on chiding him.

"Neteyam!" I yell as I step up onto the beach.

He turns, a spare in his hand, ready to launch, and smiles. "Y/N! How did you find me?"

"Well, I've been looking a long time. There aren't really good fish here, Neteyam. I can show you better spots."

He sighs and lowers his spear. "Damn. Okay."

"I want to ask you something," I say as I reach him, shaking the water from my hair. "Do you like me?"

He looks a little taken aback, with eyes wide, his tail swishing from side to side. "Like you? Yeah, I like you. You've been a good friend."

"No, no," I reply, stepping forward, shortening the gap between us. "Romantically, I mean. Aonung said he thought you did. And I like you. Romantically. So, I am asking."

When the confusion fades from his face, it is replaced with soft eyes and a wide, beautiful smile. "You are very straight-forward."

"I know. Most people don't like it, or like me. That's why I'm asking. I thought Aonung could be wrong."

"He's not," Neteyam replies. "I do like you. The first day on the beach, I did not," he tells me with a chuckle, "but I just thought you were... an asshole. I don't think so anymore. I think you just say what you are thinking, and it's kind of nice. I never have to wonder how you feel about something. And you've always been patient and kind to me, even when you didn't have to be."

Though Neteyam is right and I usually do speak my mind, my mind currently is a garbled up mess of joy and a little bit of fear. What will it mean, to fall in love with this forest boy? What will be permitted? Do we have a future together?

I'm not sure it makes sense to worry about that now. What I know is, nothing has ever made me as happy as Neteyam has. I wake up every morning, wondering what part of the day I will get to spend with him. To be assured that, going forward, I get to spend every single day with him... it is the greatest happiness I have ever known.

I am speechless. I wrap my arms around his waist and place my head on his chest, listening to his strong, loud heartbeat as he wraps his arms around my shoulders. I feel his chin resting on my head, and I take deep, slow breaths, enjoying this moment.

"I'm sorry I didn't make a good first impression. I'm glad you were able to look past it."

He reaches under my chin, tilting my head up to him, and places a soft, quick kiss on my lips.

Too soft. Too quick.

"You are lucky you are so beautiful, or I may not have given you another chance," he says with a wink and a teasing smile.

I want to shove him away for the comment, but I can't bear to tear myself away from him. Plus, he certainly owes me one.

I'll get him back tomorrow.

[bozers]

Random Mk character headcanons Pt.1 THE MENFOLK

Raiden

Sweaty. Sweats like a mf even when he isn't working. Has to wear undershirts to combat the waterfall coming off him.

Never struggled with anger issues until becoming a champion and getting the amulet.

Secretly a bit freaky. Is down for pretty much anything eye emoji

Reiko

Has a mild ED. Was worse when he was younger, but he's getting better about it. Used to hoard food. Struggles with body dysmorphia due to unrealistic expectations, comparing himself to Shao ( a completely different species...)

Allergic to cats.

Loves the ocean. Dreams of one day owning his own boat to take out sailing whenever he wants.

Kung Lao

Weirdly enough? Introvert. Raiden is one of very few people who doesn't deplete his social battery.

Struggles with bouts of depression. Self medicates with Marijuana.

He is incredibly secure in himself and none of his confidence is an act. That doesn't mean he can't get discouraged sometimes, but he won't try and hide disappointment behind false smiles.

MOAR BELOW vvvvv

Johnny Cage

Struggled with contamination OCD tendencies all his life and coped using substances. His lifestyle is in direct conflict with his illness and it acts like immersion therapy in a way.

Cancer runs in his family so he is vigilant about getting screened once a year.

Life in Hollywood almost crushed him into an apathetic cynic, but somehow, he has managed to stay hopeful if not a bit delusional at times. His hunger for recognition rivaled only by his boundless curiosity.

Smoke

He had a tongue ring for many years and wants to eventually get a tattoo but can't settle on a design.

Can "Slav Squat" and isn't shy about showing off to friends.

Struggles with unhealthy attachment styles.

Rain

Is actually an extrovert. He may think himself above others, but he still requires validation and gets sad if he doesn't get to talk to those close to him.

Iron deficient

If he had never been appointed as High Mage, he would have gone on to teach magic theory at the academy.

Geras

He may be immortal, but that doesn't mean he just sits in a room all day. Geras is endlessly curious, as this is a core part of his very being. Observing and learning new things is both his primary function and an endless font of joy.

He knows how lonely Liu Kang is. Knows that even he can't fill the void left in his masters heart. Time for him is just a function, whereas for Liu Kang, it is and endless road of isolation

Will search up humans in funny situations on the hourglass to watch. It's like his version of FAILARMY.

Liu Kang

Is and has been incredibly lonely for eons. He really thought he would fill the void after reuniting with his old friends, but the feeling isn't the same. They don't know him. Not really.

Once he found a way to connect to his Titan friends, he visits them often. Being able to talk with Lord Raiden again alleviated the strain on his heart tenfold. Reuniting with Kung Lao, (his boy, his bro!!) has also helped give him hope for the next few eons. Same goes for Kitana. (She was the one to find him again after the dust settled.)

His brother is alive in his timeline. Of course they have no relationship, Liu choosing not to intervene due to fears of drawing danger to him. Instead of becoming a shaolin monk, Chan lives happily in the united states as an Ice Road Trucker.

Shang Stung

Has BPD and narcissistic personality disorder. This severely impacted his ability to live peacefully in society and pushed him to grifting. Taking advantage of others was less exhausting than pretending to be a friendly employee to some shopkeeper.

He is half human. Shang's mother traveled to outworld during the last tournament 100 years ago. She was a servant to Liu Kang's champions but ended up running away with a disgraced Edenian.

Doesn't identify as a specific gender, especially after learning shapeshifting. Will often times swap between whatever he feels like that day.

Syzoth

Double jointed and hyper flexible. Shang Stung had to find a way to control him other than shackles, cuz he could always slip out no matter how tight they were.

He is very at ease around children, and falls back into dad mode immediately. Is also a purveyor of terrible dad jokes.

Has Gilberts Syndrome. His species use of bile/acid attacks puts a lot of strain on his liver. Due to his rough living, he didn't get adequate nutrition and now his body struggles to keep balanced out humors.

Only needs to eat once a week, but will happily snack if something tasty comes across his path.

Shao

Has no biological children. Despite his family's standing and pressure to continue the prestigious line, Shao has never taken a wife. Multiple concubines and bastards, but no wife or suitable heirs.

He doesn't view any of the young men and women he mentors as children, just tools. Even though he saw himself in young Reiko, his affection is entirely dependent on his loyalty. Reiko is more of an extension of himself, a way to overcompensate for what he lacks.

Has IBS.

Kuai Liang

He left the Lin Kuei a few years after Tomas was adopted. At odds with his father at the time, he left to go live with their allied clan: the Syrai Ryu. He was born a cryomancer like Bi Han, but chose to pursue pyromancy to distance himself from his lineage. Though able to wield fire, he is still weak to it. When he finally returned home, his father welcomes him back like the prodigal son he was. Bi han deeply, deeply resented this.

Got his tattoo in Hong Kong while he was totally plastered (not a reputable place. They even got the tattoo wrong lol)

Unreadable poker face. DO NOT play cards against this man.

Kenshi

Was forced to drop out of high school to support his family when his older brother was killed, and subsequently got wrapped up in yakuza shit. Has since taken his high school equivalency test (GED) and passed with flying colors

Is addicted to caffeine.

LOVES holidays! Especially Christmas. He may not get all his friends gifts, but the ones he does give are very well thought out and personal.

Bi Han

Doesn't take care of himself or maintain his appearance very well. But he basically won the genetic lottery so it's not that noticeable.

Has a type A personality and is a perfectionist. But he is actually a very gracious person at heart, and will silently shoulder the brunt of responsibility to spare his brothers.

Was happy to mentor Tomas when he first arrived, even though Kuai and Tomas had the stronger friendship. His attitude changed, however, when Tomas choose to stay after Kuai ran off. Instead of seeing the loyalty of Tomas's decision, he saw it as a shallow way to win his fathers favor.

(he couldn't see it was actually jealously. That Kuai could have a choice to leave but he didn't. Tomas had an actual valid reason to want to leave, but he is the one remaining? Bi Han has big feelings and does not process them well )

Quan Chi

Once he started losing his hair, he decided to go bald.

Much prefers to spend his time in the Netherrealm. His dominion there is near absolute, and he would much rather be in the company of those subservient to him. He doesn't see anything wrong with this dynamic, believing this the superior to mutual friendship. (this is laughably hypocritical given his relationship to Shang mf Tsung)

Indulges in all kinds of delicious foods. Sweets, fine drink, rare cuts of meat- the works. Even if he dislikes it, he will eat it anyway just for the sake of it. He made himself ill by eating an entire box of chocolate once.

Havik

Was born in secret to slave parents. They hid him from the government for as long as they could, and so he was able to live a relatively carefree childhood. Other's his age, and of unsanctioned birth, would be seized by the state and put to work as soon as possible.

Fierce passion aside, Havik is very introspective. When not fighting, he often sits in silent contemplation for hours at a time. Before his mind begins to degrade from the blood magic use, he would sit and scrutinize every action he took.

Unlike Quan Chi, Havik cannot bring himself to indulge in luxuries. He feels tremendous guilt given how many of his people are still unable to enjoy even the barest bit of comfort.

He leaves his dick and balls at home for safe keeping.

[dulc3vida]

puppy!reader

girl next door, mom owns a bakery with heyward level success (doing alright, but not as successful as the wreck). her house was always the spot for the pogues growing up bc her mom always fed them and looked out for them. her mom is a curandera (folk healer) and always has someone in the house picking up some remedy she concocted or getting their stomach massaged to help digestion. during the summer, pup is on the beach with her lil cart selling cups of fruit and she also offers palm readings on the side.

john b is puppys best pairing bc they're both such lovers. like pup just oozes affection, its in her name. all of pups friends expect a hug, a kiss on the cheek, and a "i haven't seen you in sooooo long" when really its been a few hours. she greets john b with a million kisses all over his face and he eats that shit up every time. john b loves a lazy sunday with her where he can share the hammock with her head on his chest, listening to her read his palm.

"tell me again, whats that one mean?"

"that's your lifeline." she traces her finger over the line on his hand. "it's deep and long which means you're gonna live a long life." she unknowingly soothes john bs anxiety over an untimely death. (lets be real, that boy doesn't see himself making it to 30).

they also make a good match bc they balance each others energies. john b grew up around masculine energy so being around you was his only time to be soft and you didn't know your dad so you benefited from the stability of john bs friendship your whole life.

our resident woo woo girl is always going on and on about the power of the tongue. pope could be giving some real ass advice about the stupid shit they're gonna do and she disregards most of it because it's pessimistic.

"all i'm saying is that your positive affirmations aren't gonna keep the cops from recognizing our faces on cameras and arresting our asses. i mean we let jj plan this, he's gonna get himself shot." pope is looking at this mission from every angle, trying to cover everyones asses.

pup rolls her eyes. "and all I'M saying is that you're being really negative right now. if you keep speaking 'we're not gonna make it and jj is gonna get shot' into the universe, then we're not gonna make it and jj will get shot-"

"you speaking that shit into the universe pope? i thought we were friends what the fuck?" jjs offended voice came from the side of pope.

"we need to look at our solutions and not our problems." pup scurries into the chateau and comes back with a box of beanies she knitted for john b. "see, solutions. no one will see our faces."

"to find a solution you have to look at the- nevermind." pope shakes his head when he sees john b petting pups hair and kissing her forehead telling her how smart she is.

OH! and pup loves to knit and crochet. she makes a lot of her own clothes and stuff, even had a bikini unravel on her in the ocean which prompted a rescue mission and a stern (maybe a smidge condescending) talking to from john b.

"what did i tell you, huh?" john b is staring down at her wrapped up in his shirt, sitting in the sand not looking at him. he has his arms crossed and is staring down at her in that disappointed john b way.

"the top was gonna fall apart." pup pouted.

"and what happened?"

"it fell apart."

"you gonna listen to me the next time i say somethin's not ready?"

"mhm..." she looks up at him, unintentionally giving him puppy eyes because its just a natural response.

john b decides she had enough embarrassment for the day and takes a seat next to her, patting his thigh. "com'ere. not mad at ya. come to daddy." and pup crawls into his lap to watch the sunset.

[lemonqii]

How the ghosts feel about theme parks (courtesy of me visiting one again after like 5 years)

Elias: only there for the food and pictures of his sons. Will complain about the price of hotdogs and lemonade ("$5?! I could make a better hotdog at home for free!" Nags the boys about it but buys em both a hotdog anyway. Will 100% end up buying hotdogs for the rest of the Ghost's too.) doesn't really go on the rides ("I've had enough excitement for a lifetime") but is willing to go on the Ferris wheel. Definitely took mama walker (or you can pretend it's y'all, I don't judge...) on dates to theme parks and go up together with them swirly ice creams and point out the sights.

Hesh: was a little hellspawn as a teenager when it came to theme parks. Always coaxed Elias into letting him drag Logan with him onto the scariest rides. (Still believe that them climbing the Ferris wheel is canon). Personally don't think he'd be very into buying any merchandise/souvenirs. Definitely more of an "I'm here for the rides and the rides only" typa guy.

Logan: as much as I don't think Logan particularly minded going on the scary rides, as he ain't really scared of heights, I like to imagine that he was a short kid and didn't have a growth spurt til he was around 17. Which meant in order to get onto the rides they had to have him wear insoles or else he wouldn't be tall enough for the requirements. Definitely likes the ride that goes all the way up and just plunges down (No clue what it's called). Unlike Hesh he definitely likes to collect plushies (Is limited to one per visit. Would buy all of them if he could).

Merrick: only really likes the teacup ride. Probably the only ride he will go on the entire day. Rest of the time he spends babysitting the ghosts (Elias may have their best intentions at heart but the man can't control em as well as Merrick can). I feel like he likes looking around and seeing all the other families and comparing it to what he has with the ghosts (“our Logan is way better behaved than that kid..”).. Despite never having kids of his own, he’s definitely taken the ghosts under his wing. Will only buy himself a beer, but won’t say to Elias buying him a hotdog. Refuses to go on any of the fast rides, uses the excuse that he’s carrying all the bags of merch that Logan buys.

Keegan: this man LIVES for the extreme rides. He competes with Ajax and Hesh on who will look most nonchalant in the replay (He always wins). Definitely one of those adrenaline junkies who tries out every ride. Hesh is the only one who can keep up with him, so the two generally split off from the rest of the group and go together. Also a sucker for the hotdogs.

Ajax: unlike the other two who take the whole “posing” competition very seriously, he’s more so there just to hang out with his friends. Going off the hc that he watches nature documentaries, I think he’d be real into those relaxing train rides where it’s like they’re going through a safari and explains what and how everything works (sfx are a must. Otherwise he will complain that it’s not an immersive enough experience).

Kick: those space/ocean inspired rides? Chefs kiss. Loves em. Considering how good he is with tech and I can’t help but imagine that he knows some stuff when it comes to the physics of the theme park rides. Will nag your ear off about how certain rides aren’t “up to code” (if it’s creaking too much it ain’t up to code). Isn’t really into the super fast rides, likes to look around and really see how the rides work.

Rorke: honestly? Idek where to start with this man.. pre fed Rorke was probably a sucker for those tall stripper pole reminiscent towers that go up and then down real fast. Likes the adrenaline, but really he enjoys looking over the landscape. -> especially if they're somewhere in America. He doesn't really get a chance to travel around the country since they're always so busy with missions, and being able to take in the whole view of his home is something he really enjoys. Fed Rorke on the other hand doesn't like theme parks all that much at all. Definitely feels like it doesn't suit a leader like him to be going on rides like a little kid. (Will still go on the scariest one just once to prove he's man enough.)

This is all I could think of for now I love these silly critters sm ෆ⁠╹⁠ ⁠.̮⁠ ⁠╹⁠ෆ