#How are you such a good writer that you CREATE your own genre???

[archivewriter1ont]

Day Two: Holding Back Tears

Summary:

D'Agosta is dealing with the aftermath of what happened in Italy, even if he sees Pendergast alive and well in front of him. Pendergast had already put all that behind him and doesn't see why his friend is still upset...until the lieutenant snaps.

I am a huge Pendergast fan though I haven't really found a community on here for that 😭 but here it is. @febuwhump

[asahicore]

kiwi and layla - sjy

pairing. jake x fem!reader synopsis. in which you mistake jake’s backpack for your own, making you each go home with the other’s bag. both of you are too curious for your own good, so you quickly find out that you excel in the subject the other is failing - a mutual tutoring agreement ensues, and it turns into much more than what you had expected. genre. high school au, f2l, lots of fluff and some angst too, f2l, shy reader x outgoing jake warnings. food & swearing, mention of parent death and divorce, kms jokes, jake being stupid but also really cute (lmk if i've missed any!) word count. 26.3k a/n. this is part of the unexpected collab !!! go check out the other fics and caelin thank u for hosting <333 hope u guys like this one, it took me a while but i had so so much fun writing it !!! i love my jakey in here he's a little bit confused but he's got the spirit. @zreamy thanks for being the world's awesomest beta reader and a decent friend ig... 2 baddies wouldnt be the same without you... lifeguard wet body sunghoon coming soon guys dont miss it! as always pls remember how important reblogs and feedback is for us writers!!! it's what keeps us going <3 enjoy!!

listen to the playlist!

This was not your backpack. 

In your defense, it looked so similar to yours - scratch that, it was the exact same as yours - that you couldn’t possibly have been able to tell the difference between the two bags until you’d opened one of them. Just a basic black Eastpak that probably a hundred other kids in your school owned with nothing to tell them apart, because you hadn’t had the mind to add a little something to it and make it recognizable. You hadn’t really needed to - your backpack was always on your back, next to your seat or in your locker. There was no way you might lose it or mistake it with another.

Until today, obviously. Instead of having a chill last class before spring break like every other teacher, your psycho math teacher Mr Choi had decided to give you a major test on this otherwise beautiful Friday afternoon. While other students watched a movie or played Kahoot, you were stuck in a cold classroom with algebra questions in front of you. Mr Choi had argued that this would be better than having a test after the holidays and ruining your time off with studying, but a test was a test, and math was math, so you hated the idea anyway. 

To eliminate all cheating possibilities, Mr Choi made his students only take a pencil and eraser with them, leave their bag at the back of the classroom and put their phone in a box he kept on his desk. Plus, with his hawk eyes watching intently, there was no way to sneak answers on a small sheet of paper or even on your palm. 

When the test was over, your brain was so fried and you were so eager to get the hell out of there that you didn’t even notice the two identical black backpacks next to each other, you just grabbed the first one you saw, not even questioning that it might not be yours.

And indeed, yours it was not. From your snooping around, you quickly found out it belonged to one Jake Sim. 

You knew Jake. Although you’d been attending the same school for the past three years, you could probably count the number of times you’d talked on one hand - but you knew him. Or at least, you knew of him. You knew that he was good at STEM subjects and that he was on the soccer team; you knew he was a really sweet guy and was easy to talk to, even for someone shy like you. 

Most importantly, you knew he was friends with Park Sunghoon. This was important because you had liked Park Sunghoon since the moment you’d laid eyes on him - or rather, your whole friend group had. It might’ve sounded extremely odd to others, but you and your friends had a few random people at school you liked to keep tabs on or create backstories for, and Sunghoon, because of his dashing looks that had struck all four of you in your first week of freshman year, was one of your victims. Well, you liked to think of them as characters on a TV show rather than victims, but to each his own. Your other characters included that popular sophomore who already considered herself a celebrity because of her ten thousand followers on TikTok anyway, the French and Spanish teachers you were sure had a thing going on, and that one guy in Yena’s biology class that only showed up every two weeks but always looked stoned (hat guy, Chaewon liked to call him, even you’d never once seen him with a hat on). It was all harmless, really - none of you ever actually went up and talked to them, just discussed them among yourselves.

Perhaps Sunghoon was different, because each of you had had a class with him at some point, so you’d all had at least shared a word with him. You probably hadn’t talked to him more times than you’d talked to Jake, so the information you knew about him was pretty surface-level - he was an ice skater, but everyone knew that, and he was shy like you, which was immediately noticeable. He also had one of the most handsome faces you’d ever seen. But again, everyone who saw him knew that.

You, Yena and Chaewon had debated whether one of you should just go ahead and make a move (Hyewon didn’t participate because she already had a boyfriend, but she was all for approaching the boy). You guessed you could describe what you felt towards Sunghoon as a sort of crush, even if it was one you shared with your friends - you found him cute, and you got nervous when he was around. But you were more the watch-from-afar-and-pine type, so you were satisfied with liking him from a distance. You didn’t think you actually had the guts to strike a conversation with him - that was more Chaewon’s thing.

However, this didn’t mean you weren’t curious about the contents of his best friend’s backpack. Your being shy didn’t mean you weren’t interested in other people’s lives - if anything, you were quite nosy. Curiosity may have killed the cat, but you were just a regular teenage girl, so this was fine, right? After just a few minutes of snooping, you found out Jake Sim wasn’t hiding any big state secrets in his Eastpak, anyway. Just some textbooks, notebooks, and a lot of single sheets of paper. It was pretty messy in there. 

Your idea of him being good at STEM subjects was correct - he kept all of his graded tests in the sleeve pocket of his math notebook, and there was not a single one that had received a note under 95. He even seemed to be doing some extracurricular exercises - there were formulae that were completely unfamiliar to you and that you were sure you hadn’t done in class. You found it slightly insane, but that might have just been because you despised math and wouldn’t understand why someone would want to do more of it than was required of them. 

His English homework was another story. His essays had more red from the teacher’s pen than his own black ink, and from the grades on his reading comprehension tests, you highly doubted he’d actually read any of the assigned books. You weren’t in the same English class but apparently had the same teacher, Ms Park, so you were studying the same thing. You couldn’t help but cringe as you read his answers on a Pride and Prejudice reading test - he seemingly kept mixing the sisters up, assigning actions and character traits to Lydia that clearly belonged to Jane. At least he somewhat got Darcy right, writing that “he’s probably not as bad as he looks,” with no further explanation. 

As you aimlessly flipped through his English notebook, curious about the way he took his notes - or if he even took any - you noticed some scribbles in the margins. Looking closer, some of them were in his handwriting while others were in an unfamiliar one. It looked like some sort of conversation, so you assumed the other writing belonged to his deskmate. You also did this with your friends in classes where the teacher was very strict about no chatting in class.

dude coach said if I fail any of my classes I would be out of the team, you read Jake’s handwriting.

Wait seriously????

yeah and I suck at english so Im scared it might actually happen

You just need to study more bro

bro I DO but this shit is hard

Then find someone to help you

neither of you guys is that good in that subject either tho

Ok ouch but also just find someone else then

bro who

IDK man 

Y/N maybe ? she’s good at English and she’s nice so she might say yes 

there you go about y/n again dude MAYBE you ask HER to teach you some sonnets

Shut up you’re the one who needs help dumbass

whatever isn’t it weird just asking her randomly though like i dont want her to feel like she has to say yes

Lol if she sees your grades she might do it out of pity

fuck u man

You were surprised to see your own name written there - it felt weird knowing that Jake and his friend were talking about you, for some reason. And what if that friend was Sunghoon? You had a hard time believing he not only knew you existed, but thought of you as good at English and nice. You liked to think both of these things were true. 

He was also spot-on about saying you would agree to helping out Jake in those subjects, but what he got wrong was thinking you’d do it out of pity. Clearly, you and Jake were in very similar positions. You didn’t have any sort of club you’d be kicked out of if you failed a class, but it sure as hell wouldn’t look good on your college applications, so you needed to get your math grades up. 

Jake and you both desperately needed something the other person could help with, so you had a feeling he wouldn’t turn down the offer that was brewing in your head.

—

This was not Jake’s backpack.

He noticed it right away - it was much heavier than his own and the straps were tighter around his shoulders than they should be. He looked inside for some clues about who it might belong to, and luckily, the first thing he found was a journal that had Y/N’S DIARY written on the cover page in big, pink letters. 

Unluckily, however, he’d also noticed that you had practically sprinted out of the classroom as soon as the bell rang, and indeed, you were already far gone when he tried looking for you around school. He had to get to soccer practice anyway, so he put the issue to the side for the time being.

When he got home, he had to shower then have dinner, so it wasn’t until 8 p.m. that he remembered he had your backpack. He had meant to text you straightaway about it, and he knew it was wrong to look into someone’s belongings, but he couldn’t help himself, especially when his best friend Sunghoon had liked you for ages. Maybe this was an opportunity to find out more about you.

Your mind-blowing grades in English don’t come as much of a surprise to him, and after reading through your most recent essay, he thought you definitely deserved them. Your essay was on a Shakespeare play he had never heard of - you apparently also had Ms Park for English, and he didn’t know she was doing Shakespeare in class, so he wondered for a second if you were actually crazy enough to read another book and study it. As if 300 pages of Jane Austen weren’t enough as it was. 

What shocked him were your math grades. It was like looking into a fucked-up mirror: while you excelled at English, you sucked at math; while he excelled at math, he sucked at English. You were just as close to failing your math class as he was at failing English.

Now that he thought about it, maybe Sunghoon’s idea hadn’t been so dumb - you could help him out, and he had an actual argument as to why you should, rather than just using pity on you.

As he put your stuff back in your bag, he was reminded of something - your diary. For some reason, the pretty floral pattern on the cover made him feel even worse for opening the journal in the first place, but he did it anyway. Either you’d only just picked up the habit of writing in a diary or you had finished your previous one recently, but this one seemed pretty new, as only about ten pages had been filled with your neat handwriting. Judging from the dates at the top of almost every page, you wrote in there everyday, and Jake only felt even worse that you hadn’t been able to write in it that day.

Still, he flicked to the first page and started reading. And he read and read, unable to take his eyes away from your diary. He thought he wouldn’t have cared much and a page would have satisfied his curiosity, but the way you wrote about the people around you and about yourself fascinated him. Basic high school things like friend drama and annoying teachers actually became interesting through your words. You didn’t use particularly complicated sentences or unheard-of words, on the contrary, you used simple language, and that spoke a lot more to Jake than any of the classics he’d attempted to read for class. 

And then, he saw an all too familiar name in an entry dated from just a few days ago. 

I sat next to Sunghoon today. It was during physics and both of our desk partners were absent, so Mrs Kim made me change seats. She always does this, and I used to wonder whether she hated to see an empty seat or to see a student sitting on their own, but whatever the reason, today, I was just happy about it. This isn’t our first time sitting next to each other in class, but I was still nervous, since I wasn’t expecting it. I hope he couldn’t feel the awkwardness practically oozing off of me or the way I very obviously struggled with the exercises (obviously, anything to do with math is not my forte). We shared my textbook because he’d forgotten his, and he showed me his notes when he saw I couldn’t keep up with Mrs Kim as she told us what to write down. We only exchanged a few words but I was satisfied when class was over. It’s odd, because you’d think someone would want to talk to the person they like and get to know them more, but I don’t feel that with Sunghoon. Maybe it’s because we’re both so introverted, and he seems to have just as hard a time as I do starting conversations, so I’ve sort of accepted our silent fate. I’m fine just continuing to steal glances at him from across the cafeteria. 

After that, there were a few more pages of writing up until yesterday's entry, but it was the only mention of Sunghoon. Jake had apparently been wrong to think that a girl’s diary would be full of rantings about her crush and things along the lines of “omg, he looked at me today”. 

But you had very clearly referred to Sunghoon as the person you liked, and Jake wasn’t going to let that go so easily. This was precious information that he held in his hands now, so he had to figure out how to deal with it properly for your sake as well as his friend’s.

Turns out there was more he could help you with than just algebra.

—

Seeing Jake Sim in a setting other than school was slightly odd, if you were being completely honest. 

You had just been about to text him about the backpack mix-up when you’d received a message from the man himself, asking if you could meet up the next day to exchange them. In response, you’d asked where you should meet, thinking he’d offer either his house or yours, or some halfway point between them, but he surprised you by proposing some café in the center of town. They have good hot chocolate there, he’d said, and that had been enough to convince you. 

And also I have something I want to talk to you about. 

Your stomach had turned at this message - what on Earth could Jake Sim need to discuss with you had been your first thought, and then you realized you also had plans you wanted to share with him. So his idea of going to a café was actually good for you, too.

You’d only been waiting for about five minutes when he appeared at the café, red and panting from seemingly sprinting to his destination. 

“Y/N, I’m sooo sorry,” he immediately said when he saw you waiting. “I was planning to be early, but when I got on the bus I realized I literally forgot your bag, so I had to go back but the next bus wasn’t for another twenty minutes so I just ran the whole way here, and now I’m all sweaty, and I’m late, and I’m really sorry.”

He’d rushed through his sentence and was breathing heavily as he looked at you expectantly, waiting for your answer. He seemed so genuinely sorry for such a small thing that after your surprise faded, you started laughing. It was his turn to be surprised, and he immediately stopped talking at the sound of your soft giggles.

“It’s okay, Jake. I haven’t even been waiting five minutes,” you explained, smiling. “Let’s just go in, yeah?”

Jake’s heart did something weird just then, and the feeling was so unfamiliar and confusing that he decided to promptly ignore it. As if in a daze, he stood still for a couple of seconds until the sound of a bell ringing, the one the café had on its doors to signify the entrance or exit of a customer, snapped him out of it. He followed you into the shop, let you order and pay for you both (“I’m the one who took the wrong bag, it’s the least I can do,” you’d said) and sat across from you at a booth in the back.

You gave each other your respective bags back, then started chatting as you sipped on your hot chocolates (Jake had been right - they really were delicious). He was surprisingly easy to talk to, and whether he sensed you were a reserved person or was just naturally talkative, you liked that he both managed to do most of the talking and ask you loads of questions at once. Usually, you wouldn’t have really cared to listen to someone go on and on about their passion for soccer and the recent game that their team had won, but for some reason, you were hooked on Jake’s every word. The way his eyes widened in excitement as he recounted the winning goal he scored, the way the volume of his voice decreased as he filled you in on the team gossip even though no one was listening to your conversation, the way his grin turned into a proud smirk as he mentioned his coach congratulating him - every single one of his actions had you mesmerized. You’d never seen anyone so expressive in their speech, never seen anyone punctuate every sentence with a movement or a facial expression. It was just fun, listening to him.

Even when he didn’t talk, he stayed expressive. He asked you whether you did anything outside of school, and he listened intently as you told him about the theater group you’re in, humming and nodding and laughing at all the right moments. Usually, you wouldn’t have talked about it for more than thirty seconds, afraid to bore others with unnecessary details, but Jake’s reactions and the questions he asked made you actually feel listened to and like what you were talking about was interesting. So you grew more confident and told him what you loved about acting and about theater, about your own gossip (the arrogant actress who got the lead role and thought she was better than everyone else, that one guy who was clearly flirting with three girls at the same time), and you almost couldn’t believe Jake seemed so entertained by your stories. 

“So, you said your group focused on more classic plays, right? Does that mean you’re good at English Lit?”

With his spoon, Jake scooped some whipped cream into his mouth, hoping he was appearing as nonchalant as he was trying to be. He had to make you think he’d deduced that just now and not because he had been snooping through your backpack just the night prior. 

You, however, could not have cared less how he’d figured it out - you were just grateful he had segued into this topic of school and grades, because you’d been wanting to bring it up yourself but had no idea how.

“Um, yeah, actually, it’s my best subject. Math, on the other hand…”

You chuckled as his eyes widened and he leaned in across the table, pointing his spoon at you as he spoke. “See, that’s interesting, because math is my best subject, but I suck at English Lit.”

“Oh, really?” you asked, trying to sound genuinely surprised even though this piece of information was not at all new to you.

“Yeah,” he said, looking back down at his almost-finished drink with a small smile on his face.

“You know-”

“You know-”

You and Jake had spoken at the same time, and your eyes locked for a second before you started laughing. You gestured at him to go on first.

“I actually need pretty urgent help in English. Coach said he’ll put us out of the team if we fail even just one of our courses, and I’m very close to failing that class.” He took a moment to let out a sigh. “So, if you want, we could help each other out. Me with math, and you with English.” 

His eyebrows were slightly furrowed and he bit his lip as he looked at you expectantly. You thought he looked far too nervous for such a simple request, expression more like a boy who’d just asked his crush to the prom rather than offering mutual help you both desperately needed. You couldn’t help the smile that grew on your lips - you had never known Jake Sim to be so… cute. But he was waiting for an answer, so you pushed the thought out of your head.

“That’s a great idea, actually,” you replied, as if you hadn’t had the exact same idea. You were just relieved you hadn’t even had to bring it up yourself. “I also really can’t afford to fail math. It would look terrible on college applications.”

Jake let out a long, loud exhale. “God, yeah, college, I hadn’t even thought of that. Even more motivation to get better grades now,” he said with a chuckle.

You chuckled along, then cleared your throat and sat up straighter. You watched with amusement as Jake mirrored your actions and even the fake serious frown in your brows. You presented your hand for him to shake, which he did without hesitation.

“So it’s a deal then. We’ll tutor each other until we’ve gotten our grades up.”

“Deal,” he replied. As you both withdrew your hands, he dropped his serious facade and burst into giggles, a sound you hadn’t expected from the boy but somehow fit him well. You watched his face closely for a second, noticing the curl of his lips and the crinkle at the corner of his eyes, before breaking into laughter yourself.

You stayed in the café for another half hour, going over details of where and when you’d meet, of what exactly you needed help with (“Everything,” you’d said, to which Jake had replied “Same”), and just talked some more.

“I’m taking the 53 that way,” Jake said when you exited the café, pointing towards the bus stop.

“Oh, so am I!” you exclaimed.

“Seriously?! What’s your stop?”

And that’s how you and Jake figured out you only lived two bus stops away from each other. 

“That’s so cool! It’ll make it easy to meet up then,” he said, and you hummed in agreement. After a pause, he added: “But if we live so close to each other, how come we didn’t go to the same schools earlier? Aren’t you usually supposed to go to the one in your district?”

“I used to live in another part of town,” you explained. “Then my parents divorced when I was in middle school, and I stayed with my dad because he lived closer to the school I was at, but I moved to my mom’s place for high school.”

“‘Cause she lives closer?”

“Yeah, basically.” There was more to it, but you didn’t think Jake would be particularly interested in your parental issues - although you surprised yourself for even considering telling him. If Jake sensed that you weren’t saying everything, he didn’t push, just swiftly changed the topic as you waited for the bus to come.

When you got home some time later, the first thing you did was open your diary and start writing. It had felt wrong not to write in it even just for a day, so it was a relief to feel the pages between your fingers and the familiar scent of the paper and your perfumed pen. You wrote without thinking too much, simply letting all of your musings out into your diary and freely brushing the tip of your pen across the pages. 

You didn’t ever reread your entries right after writing them, but if you had that day, you might have noticed all you could write about was the boy you’d drank a hot chocolate with.

—

Spring break week passed by far too quickly, and it was on the first Monday back at school that you and Jake met again. He had soccer practice on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays, while you had theater rehearsals on Thursdays and Saturdays, so you’d agreed to meet up every Monday and Wednesday after school. Since his mother worked as the school nurse, she drove him to and from school everyday - so on Monday, you met Jake in front of the nurse’s station, waiting for his mom to wrap things up before she drove you both to their home.

You had been surprised to learn that the kind nurse that never asked too many questions and always let students take a nap if they didn’t feel well was Jake’s mom, but upon reflection, it made sense. Once you knew, it was almost obvious that she had raised him - they shared the same friendliness, the same comforting smile and the same ability to make conversation. The whole ride home, she asked you about yourself and thanked you for agreeing to tutor “our little Jakey,” because “God knows he needs the help.” 

You couldn’t help but laugh when a blush crept on Jake’s face and he looked out the passenger seat window with an embarrassed frown, muttering something like “Thanks a lot, Mom.”

She noticed his reaction and laughed along with you. “I’m just saying, Jakey-poo. It’s good to know to ask for help when you need it,” she cooed, reaching a hand out to ruffle his hair. This only made Jake groan loudly and hide his face in his hands. You didn’t know Jake very well, but this flustered, red-faced side of him was definitely one you liked seeing.

The first thing that greeted you when you reached Jake’s house was a happy welcome home bark.

“You have a dog?!” you exclaimed, unable to reel your excitement in.

“Yeah! This is Layla,” Jake said, giving energetic rubs to the Border Collie that made her whole body shake side-to-side but that she seemed to thoroughly enjoy. 

“Hi, Layla,” you cooed, crouching down to her level to let her sniff you. She decided you were a person worthy of petting her. “She’s so cute!”

“I think she likes you,” Jake said, a grin on his face, as he watched Layla presenting her belly to you and asking for scratches there. “Do you have a dog?”

“We have a Corgi at home. And a cat, too.”

“That must be fun,” Jake chuckled. “Do they get along?”

“Depends. They have a bit of a love-hate relationship.” You looked up at Jake, and it was uncharacteristically quiet as you locked eyes for a couple of seconds. You both looked away at the same time, surprised by the sudden eye contact.

You gave Layla one last rub and lifted yourself up. “Um, should we get started?” 

Jake paused for a second as if he’d forgotten what you were here for in the first place, then started nodding his head quickly. “Right, yeah. Let’s go to my room. Downstairs is just one big room and my mom will probably watch TV or make dinner or something, so it might be distracting…” he explained, lightly scratching the back of his neck. It seemed like he was embarrassed to be bringing you to his room, which you couldn’t help but find endearing.

“Okay, sounds good,” you said with a smile, hoping it’ll reassure him.

You followed him up to his room, ignoring his complaints as you lingered on the framed photos on the wall next to the stairs and giggled at his baby pictures. 

“Do not look at those,” he said with a warning tone that didn’t scare you in the slightest. When you didn’t listen, he grabbed your hand that had been pointing at a photo of baby Jake in the bathtub and forced you to keep walking.

“Why?” you asked, a slight whine to your voice.

“‘Cause it’s embarrassing! I was an ugly baby.”

“What?! You were so cute!”

“Whatever. I’d rather study English than talk about this, and that’s saying something.”

When you looked at Jake, you were surprised to find that he actually seemed upset about this. You weren’t sure what was so wrong with looking at his baby pictures, but the last thing you wanted to do was make him mad, so you stayed quiet and continued your way to his room. Once there, although you were infinitely curious about all the posters, pictures, figurines, trophies, and other small tokens of Jake’s life, you didn’t ask him about any of them, just sat next to him at his desk and opened The Picture of Dorian Grey, the book you had both been studying in Ms Park’s class.

You’d agreed on spending forty-five minutes on English, have a small break, then spend forty-five minutes on Math. It wasn’t a lot, but you both had other homework and things outside of school you needed to do, so you’d decided to start out that way and see if it worked out.

You were glad to see how seriously Jake was taking this - he listened intently to what you said and asked questions when he didn’t understand something. You quickly figured out that what he didn’t like about English Literature was that the answers weren’t as straightforward or as logical as they were in math, and even worse, that multiple answers were possible depending on the reader’s interpretation. 

“It just all feels like a guessing game,” he said, resting the side of his head on one of his palms. “How am I supposed to know what this dude meant? And if it can be analyzed in different ways, how can Ms Park tell me the way I understand it is wrong?”

“It’s all about the way you justify it,” you explained. “You can’t just say whatever. Ms Park will look out for how you use the text to support your answers.” You then went on to pick out a specific part of the book, asking Jake to analyze Dorian’s mindset in that scene. 

“He sounds like he’s going insane,” Jake said flatly when he was done reading, getting a chuckle out of you.

“Exactly. How do you know that?”

“I don’t know, just the words he uses,” Jake replies, shrugging.

“Okay, underline those words,” you instructed gently. Jake sighed, but he complied.

“There.” 

“Good. What can you say about those words?” When Jake just looked at you like a lost puppy, you reformulated your question. “What do they have in common? What type of words are they? Are they common nouns, verbs…”

Jake looked back at the words he’d underlined on the page. “They’re… adjectives?” he said, tone unsure.

“Exactly!”

Jake paused. “So?”

“So now you can say that the author uses many adjectives to convey the gradual loss of sanity of the main character.”

“Oh.”

When you looked at Jake, he wore an expression like the words on the page were finally starting to make sense to him. “That’s the content. You can also look at the structure. See how many punctuation marks there are? Commas, semi-colons, question marks… It’s like he keeps cutting himself off. His thoughts are all over the place.”

Jake nodded slowly. “So, I just need to look out for things like that?”

“Basically, yeah. And the more you practice, the more these things will stand out to you. It actually becomes somewhat repetitive sometimes.”

Jake let out a shaky breath. “That’s actually relieving to hear,” he said with a chuckle.

Thirty minutes passed by like this as you showed Jake ways to make sense of a literary text. When the timer rang, he leaned back in his chair and stretched his arms out wide with a sigh. He put his hands behind his head and let it hang back, and the way your stomach flipped at the sight of his exposed neck and Adam’s apple made you look away immediately. You could barely meet his eyes as he turned his head to look at you, still in that same position, and, with a smirk, asked if you were ready for some snacks. 

You gulped, trying to look as normal as possible. “Uh, yeah, sure!”

Downstairs, Jake presented you with all sorts of snacks - there were so many, you felt like you were in a convenience store. This was worlds away from your ingredient-only household. You opted for some biscuits and a banana while Jake made himself a bowl of cereal. A very distracting ten-minute long argument then ensued about the order of milk and cereal - horrifyingly, Jake poured his milk before his cereal. You thought it was a myth that some people actually did it that way, but Jake very proudly defended his choice. 

“I bet you eat pizza with pineapple on it, too,” you said half-jokingly, only for your joke to punch you right back in the face.

“Duh,” Jake answered.

You could only shake your head in defeat. “Let’s just get back to studying before I murder you.”

“Damn, Y/N,” Jake said, laughing. “That’s harsh.”

“And you’re a freak,” you retorted, a grin blooming on your lips.

“You know, you remind me of my friend Jay,” Jake mused as you walked back up the stairs. “He has so many of these small battles that he just won’t let go of. He got super worked up over an argument about mint chocolate chip ice cream once.”

“Let me guess, you like that ice cream?”

Jake shrugged. “It’s not my favorite, but I’ll have it once in a while.”

“God, Sim, you just get worse and worse.”

You sat back down at his desk and started eating. “I bet you think I’m weird for liking math too, right?”

“That’s the worst offense of them all.” 

Jake’s sudden quietness caught you off guard. When you turned your head to look at him, he was already gazing at you with a smile and a sort of thoughtful glint to his eyes, resting his chin on his palm. It sounded like he was thinking out loud when he spoke next. “Guess we’re perfect opposites of each other. Like two peas in a pod!”

The realization of what he’d said dawned upon him as soon as the words left his mouth. He slowly lifted his head as his eyes widened. “I don’t mean- just, you know, since you’re good at English and I’m good at math, and- you know… I didn’t mean it in a weird way, or anything…”

His eyes kept glancing back and forth between you and his bowl of cereal, as if he was scared of looking directly at you but wanted to check your reaction. 

As a smile grew on your face, you kept your eyes trained on your biscuits so he wouldn’t see your flustered expression. But when you looked at him again, he held your gaze, mouth slightly agape. You didn’t have it in you that he had gotten the idiom completely wrong. “I know, don’t worry.” You chuckled. “We are opposites of each other. You just better be as good at teaching math as I am at teaching English,” you teased.

You watched as a smirk tugged one corner of Jake’s lips up and he raised an eyebrow. “Who said you were good at teaching English?”

You gasped. “You said you understood better now!”

Jake’s smile softened as he giggled. “I’m just teasing. You are a good teacher.”

You sat up straighter at the compliment, a proud smile on your face. “Your turn, Mr Sim. I’m all ears.”

“Right,” he said, mirroring your posture. “Shall we start by going over Mr Choi’s test from last week?” 

Your smile dropped instantly at this. Reluctantly, you fished your graded paper out of your bag. You already knew Mr Choi was a psychopath, but you still didn’t understand where he found the will to grade thirty papers over the weekend. You avoided Jake’s gaze as you handed him your test with a big, red, circled D- at the top.

You cringed as Jake sighed. “At least it’s not an F, right?” he said in what you could tell was an attempt at reassurance but somehow only made you feel worse. He looked over your answers quickly, trying to find what in particular you struggled with. “All right. Let’s start from the beginning, yeah?”

For the next forty-five minutes, Jake went over each test question with you, breaking them down and explaining how to solve them in a way you understood. The words he used were so much clearer than the half-assed explanations you were used to from Mr Choi, and for once, math actually made some sort of sense. Your brain still felt broken after almost an hour of numbers and greek letters, but at least, you felt smarter rather than dumber at the end of it. You had never been more grateful for the sound of a phone alarm than the one signaling tutoring was over. 

“That wasn’t half-bad, right?” Jake asked with a wide grin.

You felt so tired, you could probably pass out right then and there, but Jake looked so proud of himself after you had been able to complete an exercise correctly on your own that you didn’t have the heart to tell him the truth. “Right,” you replied, mirroring his grin. “You’re an okay teacher, I guess.”

He jokingly glared and tutted at you, but you both laughed right after. “I need to walk Layla, so I can walk you home, if you want?” he offered as you started packing your things. His words had an uncertain tone to them, as if he wasn’t sure you’d still want to spend time with him after this - but it only took you a second of thinking to realize you’d rather continue hanging out with him than going home on your own.

“Sure! I need to walk Kiwi too, actually.”

“Your dog’s name is Kiwi?!”

“Yes,” you said, chuckling at his fascinated tone.

“That’s an adorable name.”

“Thanks, I chose it.”

“Oh, then I take it back. Worst name I’ve ever heard for a dog.”

“Hey!” you exclaimed, lightly hitting him on the head with your math notebook, making him raise a hand in self-defense as he laughed.

“Sorry, sorry. Does your cat also have a fruit name?” 

A pause. “Mango,” you mumbled, and he immediately burst into laughter again. You side-eyed him as you zipped up your bag.

“Wow, you have amazing taste in pet names, Y/N.”

“Shut up,” you said, laughing along. Then you realized something, and you suddenly stopped laughing, looking up at Jake with wide eyes that made him slightly start to panic. “Oh my God, Jake, are our dogs going to meet?”

“Our dogs are going to meet,” he echoed in a sort of fascinated whisper. You both understood the other - dogs becoming friends was the cutest thing ever.

“Let’s go,” you whispered back excitedly.

When you reached the living room downstairs, you bid Mrs Sim goodbye, then went to the entrance to put your shoes back on. “You two sure get along well,” you heard her say to her son with a suggestive tone. Even though she had dropped the volume of her voice, the door was wide open and there were only a few meters between you, so you’d heard her loud and clear. 

“Geez, Mom,” Jake groaned, seemingly irked by his mom’s insinuation.

“It’s just you’ve never brought a girl home, Jakey-”

“Okay, we’re leaving now! Layla, come!”

You hadn’t even realized how wide you were grinning until Jake saw you tying your shoelaces and grumbled “What are you smiling so hard for.”

“Nothing,” you giggled, and your smile grew as you watched a grin break through his pretend-upset expression.

You sighed contentedly as you stepped outside, letting the crisp early April air hit your face. You tightened your scarf around your neck and buried your hands in your pocket and you and Jake started walking side by side, Layla happily leading the way. The streets were fairly quiet at this time of day, save for the yells of children still playing in their backyards before dinner and a few cars of people coming home late from work.

Only the first five seconds of the walk were silent, until you couldn’t contain yourself anymore. “So, never brought a girl home, huh?” you asked with a teasing smirk.

Jake let out an offended scoff and looked up to the sky as if God could help him out of this one. Sadly, He didn’t, so Jake had to find an answer himself. “I’m not talking about this with you.”

“Why not?”

Pouting, Jake spared you a sideway glance. “Because you’re a girl,” he replied, voice lowered to a mumble.

You chuckled at this. “Very astute observation, Jake.”

“No, I- Ugh,” he groaned before laughing along with you. “I don’t need a girl to know how bad I am with- well, with girls.”

“I can help with that,” you said before you really thought about it. “I mean, I’m not a love expert by any means, but I can maybe give, I don’t know, pointers or something if there’s someone you like-”

“There’s no one I like,” Jake quickly cut in. “Um, not right now, at least.”

“O-okay,” you replied, nodding. “That’s fine.” 

“What about you? Do you like anyone?”

As Jake asked the question, he realized he already knew the answer - you liked Sunghoon. How could he forget?! Half of his plan had been to make you get closer to his friend, but he hadn’t even started thinking about that yet. In his defense, he’d come up with that plan three days ago.

Your answer surprised him. “Um, no, me neither. Not right now, at least,” you said, repeating his words with a smile on your face. You locked eyes for a second before looking away at the same time, chuckling.

“Right,” he said. He knew what he had read in your diary, so maybe you were just too shy to admit you had a crush on his friend of all people.

An unexpected awkwardness settled between the two of you, and you more than anything wanted it to go away. Even though it’d only been a few days since you and Jake had started getting to know each other, you already felt comfortable enough to be yourself around him, and it usually took you weeks before reaching that level with anyone. This hadn’t happened since you met Yena and Hyewon at the beginning of high school - they had been friends since middle school, and so had you and Chaewon, and when the four of you met, you had instant chemistry. But maybe it was slightly too early to start talking about crushes with Jake.

For once, you were the one to break the silence - you asked him whether he knew what he wanted to do after school. Basic question, but you were genuinely curious. 

Looking a little bashful, he confessed his dream had always been to be a math teacher and soccer coach at a middle or high school. You told him he already had the talent for it, and when he blushed at your words, you made sure to tease him for it.  

“I’m not sure yet,” you said when he returned the question. “I know I wanna go to college and continue doing English Lit and theater there, but that’s about it.”

“That’s already good enough,” Jake said with a smile. “Still got time to figure out what comes after, right?”

You naturally mirrored his smile - there was something contagious about Jake’s puppyish grin that made it hard not to smile yourself. “Right.”

The three of you reached your house quickly after that. Your mom still hadn’t come home from work, so Kiwi was even more excited than usual for your arrival home. You and Jake watched fondly as your dogs sniffed each other for a few seconds before starting to run around together. The fact that they got along made you really happy, perhaps unreasonably so, and you started bouncing up and down on the balls of your feet as you watched them play. “Our dogs are friends!” you exclaimed excitedly. 

When you turned to look at Jake, he wasn’t watching the dogs like you had been - he was gazing straight at you, eyes soft with something that made your heart skip a beat. You couldn’t look away, and it was only after a few seconds that he seemed to snap out of the sort of daze he was in. He cleared his throat and you finally tore your eyes away from him.

“Let me just- Kiwi! I need to put his leash around him,” you said, speaking quickly to dissipate the weird atmosphere as best as you could. You led Jake down the path you usually took with Kiwi that led to a park in your neighborhood, and you were relieved when normal conversation started again.

Jake insisted on walking you back to your house even though he had left his earlier. He made a whole show of not going until you’d walked inside and closed the door, so you’d rushed to your window to shout his name and wave goodbye at him, which made him laugh.

You turned back to Kiwi when Jake and Layla had turned a corner and you couldn’t watch them anymore. “Are you happy you made a new friend, Kiwi?”

The Corgi barked happily at you in response - probably more at hearing his name than because he understood your question, but still, you liked to think you could communicate with your dog on such a level. You chuckled and took him in your arms. “Me too.”

—

Apparently, you couldn’t even wave to someone in the hallway without being interrogated about it anymore.

“Y/N, did you just say hi to Jake Sim?” Chaewon asked like you’d just insulted her whole family.

It was 10 a.m. on a simple Tuesday morning, the day after Jake and you had studied together for the first time, and you’d just walked past the boy - so of course, you said hi to him. Maybe, your heart started beating slightly faster when you’d noticed him approaching. Maybe, it was nice to be on the receiving end of his friendly grin.

“Yes?” you replied, sentence coming out more like a question.

“Since when do you say hi to Jake Sim?!” 

“Since today, I guess.”

“But why?!” She’d raised her voice so much, you’d gotten strange looks from other students in the hallway. 

“I told you!”

She shook her head slowly at you as if to say, No you didn’t!

You rolled your eyes and sighed. Chaewon and her early onset short-term memory loss. “The backpack thing? And agreeing to tutoring each other? I wrote to the group chat about this!”

“Oh, that! Of course I remember that,” she said, even though you knew she had forgotten about it and remembered it just now. “So, has that started already?”

You reached the classroom for your next class and sat down in your usual seats next to each other, waiting for the teacher to arrive. Busy hallways like these were the perfect place for gossip, because they were loud and nobody paid attention to others’ conversations. “Yeah, yesterday afternoon.”

Chaewon gasped. “And you didn’t tell us?!”

“Will you quiet down? I was going to see and tell you guys today anyway.”

“Okay, so, tell me about it.”

“But-”

“Tell. Me.”

You wouldn’t see Yena and Hyewon until lunch in two hours, and you knew Chaewon didn’t have the patience to wait until then. So you sighed again and obliged, telling her about your afternoon with Jake in every detail you could remember, because she would ask about insignificant things anyway. 

To your surprise, the first thing she said when you were done talking was this: “Y/N, do you like Jake?”

Your mouth opened slightly in shock at the question, but before you could even retort, you started giggling. “No, I don’t,” you said in a way that sounded like you very much did.

“Oh my God! You so do!” Chaewon said, giggling along with you. “You whore, you’ve only talked to him, like, twice,” she joked.

You gasped fake-dramatically and slapped her arm. “Oh please, look at Hyewon and Jaemin, they started dating after a week of talking.”

“Yes, and they’ve been going one year strong, so clearly, you need to ask Jake out and get this over with. You’ll get a boyfriend and a math tutor all-in-one, it’s a perfect deal!”

“Don’t get too carried away, okay? Jake and I are friends. Like you said, we barely know each other right now.”

You meant this - sure, you had had a really good time with Jake both times you saw him, and you were looking forward to your next tutoring session, but you chalked it up to the excitement of making a new friend. Plus, barely last week you felt some sort of way towards his best friend - wouldn’t it be weird to practically transfer your feelings from Sunghoon to Jake?

“Whatever. Yena and Hyewon are gonna freak when I tell them,” Chaewon said excitedly.

You shook your head at your friend but couldn’t keep down the amused grin on your face. “You guys are insane.”

“Oh please, like you’re not the president of our Park Sunghoon fanclub. I can’t believe you’re leaving us for his best friend!”

“Hey, if anything, less competition for you, right?”

Chaewon opened her mouth to say something, but the teacher arrived, starting the lesson before having even put her bag down - Mrs Lee always arrived late but never wasted a second of class when she was in the room. Your friend resorted to sticking her tongue out at you instead, and you chuckled at her childishness as you opened your History notebook. 

—

Jake was a complete, total, utter idiot. His plan had consisted of two things only, and he’d somehow managed to forget one of them, even after talking about it with you, albeit vaguely. It had taken him two weeks and one Park Sunghoon to even remember it.

Between Jake’s soccer practice, Sunghoon’s ice skating practice and Jay’s being away at boarding school, the three friends only had one night every week on which they were all free - Friday night. So, every Friday, they planned some sort of hang out at one of their houses and gamed or watched movies all night.

Kinda like date night, but for bros.

This was one of those bro nights; namely, the one in the second week of you and Jake tutoring each other. The boys had decided to go to the burger joint they like that night and were in the middle of a french fry fight when Sunghoon mentioned your and Jake’s new friendship.

“So, Jake… what’s up with you and Y/N?”

Jake halted in his motions, redirecting to his mouth the fry he was about to throw at Jay. “Nothing’s up with me and Y/N. What makes you say that?”

“Just, you know, you seem like you’ve become actual friends. Talking in the hallways and walking your dogs together and whatnot.”

“Y/N as in Y/N? Sunghoon’s Y/N?” Jay said, halfway through a bite of his cheeseburger.

“She’s not my Y/N-”

“Yes, Y/N as in Y/N, you idiot,” Jake cut in. “And like you said, we’re friends.”

“Is she the girl you posted some BeReals with?” Jay asked, and Jake nodded. “She’s pretty! No wonder Sunghoon likes her so much.”

Sunghoon sighed as he let his head hang low. “God forbid I find a girl cute, because I’ll mention it once, two years ago and you guys make me out to be in love with her.”

“Sunghoon, you act like girls don’t exist, so of course when you not only mention a girl, but describe her as cute, that means you’re in love with her!”

“But I’m not! We were literally having a whole conversation about girls, I happened to see Y/N and her friends from far away, I said she was cute, and now you guys won’t let me live it down. Jay, you weren’t even there!”

“Yeah, but the way Jake told me about the whole thing, it really sounded like you liked her.”

“Why would you trust Jake to relay something like this correctly?!”

Jay paused and tilted his head. “You have a point there.”

“Hey!”

“So you don’t, like… like her, or something?” Sunghoon asked, looking at his friend as he sipped on his Pepsi.

This made Jake stop. Did he like you? Wasn’t the fact that he was considering it sign enough? Surely, if there was nothing there, he would have answered no right away.

But there was no use thinking about it. You liked Sunghoon. And as much as he liked to deny it, Jake knew Sunghoon liked you, too. After two years, there was finally an opportunity for the two of you to get closer - Jake wasn’t about to get in the middle of that. If anything, he should help his friends out. Then, when you and Sunghoon eventually got married, Jake would have the honor of saying it was all thanks to him in his best man’s speech. 

“No, I don’t. Don’t worry, Hoon, I’m not gonna steal your girl away from you.”

“Again, she’s not my girl-”

“Whatever you say. I’ll introduce you guys.”

Even if Sunghoon didn’t think he liked you yet, Jake knew it was just a matter of time - his friend just needed to spend a few hours with you to realize he did. You were pretty, smart, funny, nice, had the sweetest laugh he’d ever heard, got along with dogs, and even though you sometimes had weird opinions, it was always fun, talking to you. It was easy and comfortable. Anyone with taste would fall for you.

Anyone, except for Jake, of course.

—

For the past three weeks, you and Jake had gotten along perfectly, but today, on this bright Tuesday afternoon, you really wanted to strangle him. 

When he’d invited you to come and watch him at soccer practice, you’d been surprised, but happy - usually, you invited people to watch an actual game, not just practice. But you were just glad for the opportunity to spend more time with him. 

Without realizing it, you were giddy with excitement the whole day, counting down the minutes until classes were over and Jake’s practice started. Jake had told you to just head to the bleachers while the players got ready in the locker room, but when you reached said bleachers, someone was already sitting there, looking at something on their phone. You recognized him immediately as Sunghoon. He didn’t notice you right away, so you had time to wipe the surprise off of your face - you hadn’t thought anyone came to watch practice, but Sunghoon was probably here for Jake, just like you. 

“Hey,” you said quietly as you sat down next to him. Even though you were technically still on school property, this was the first time you saw Sunghoon outside of somewhere like a classroom, a hallway or the cafeteria. You weren’t as nervous as you thought you’d be, seeing him unexpectedly like this. 

You chuckled when Sunghoon started at your sudden arrival. “Oh, hey, Y/N,” he said, chuckling too, albeit somewhat awkwardly. “Sorry, didn’t hear you coming.”

“It’s fine,” you said with a smile as you sat down next to him on the bleachers. You didn’t know what sort of distance was appropriate between you two, if you should sit close or far, but you stopped yourself before you could overthink something as trivial as that. Neither of you said anything for a few seconds and you wished practice had started before you got here, so that you’d have something to look at other than an empty field.

You broke the silence before it became too uncomfortable. “So, do you come watch Jake often?”

You’d been fiddling with your hands as you spoke, only turning your head to look at Sunghoon as you awaited his answer. Your eyes didn’t even meet for a fraction of a second before he whipped his head to look at the field, as if unable to look at you and talk at the same time. At least he had a nice side profile for you to look at.

“Um, just on Tuesdays. I have ice skating practice after this, so I come here first, then he comes with me to the rink,” he replied. He glanced at you, lips pressed into a thin line that somewhat resembled a smile and that pushed dimples into his cheeks. You simply hummed in response. 

“What about you, how come you’re here?”

“Jake asked me,” you replied. Sunghoon let out a long “oh” as he nodded, turning his head back towards the field again. You didn’t think you’d ever had such a slow conversation. It was like you and Sunghoon both repeated your words ten times over in your heads before saying them out loud.

“Are you coming to my practice, too?” he asked after another pause.

The question took you aback slightly as you hadn’t even considered it, but it could be fun, seeing Sunghoon practice ice skating. It’d also be fun to hang out with Jake. “If it’s fine with you, then yeah, why not,” you replied, smiling at Sunghoon. He glanced at you again before looking away with a smile, an actual one this time that showed his teeth and made his eyes crinkle.

“Yeah, sure. People usually only come to actual shows, so I like it when someone’s there to watch practice.” Before you could find something to say, the players arrived jogging onto the field, immediately starting their warm-up laps. Some were serious about it and stayed focused as they ran, while others goofed around, running backwards and slapping other players on their butts before sprinting away. Jake, of course, was part of the latter group.

Now that something was actually happening on the field, you and Sunghoon had an excuse not to make conversation anymore. You tried to ignore it, but it was so awkward you wanted to die. You realized now why you were so attracted to people like Jake and Chaewon - without even being aware of it, they brought you out of your shell and made you feel at ease. You wished you could do that on your own, but you were always too scared, so you needed that person who was confident enough showing themselves to you first to make you feel comfortable doing the same. You and Sunghoon, unfortunately, were too similar in that sense to do that for each other. So you just sat there in silence, observing Jake and waving back at him when he caught your gazes.

The ninety minutes of practice didn’t go by in total silence - you asked Sunghoon about some soccer rules you didn’t get, and he shared some anecdotes from his and Jake’s earlier teenage years, including a very entertaining story about a tantrum 9-year-old Jake had thrown when he hadn’t agreed with the red card the referee had given him. You weren’t sure how the topic came up, but at some point, you even shared pictures of your pets. Sunghoon had one of those small crusty white dogs, but you kept your laughter in and cooed over how cute she was. 

But still, most of the time, you were watching Jake. You had never been interested in soccer or any sort of sport that involved balls until now. Somehow, he managed to make flushed cheeks, a heaving chest and hairline beaded with sweat look glorious. In total honesty, you were paying more attention to the player himself than to the sport, to the point that you barely noticed when he scored a goal during their practice match. It was only when Jake started cheering and high-fiving his teammates that you realized what had happened, and you gave him two thumbs up and a wide grin when he looked your and Sunghoon’s way, proudly shouting “Did you see that?!”

The realization hit you like a ton of bricks right there and then. The way your heart swelled as you watched his excited, puppyish grin take over his features was undeniable - you liked Jake. You like liked him. Your gaze continued to follow him as he finished his celebratory lap. If you could’ve seen yourself right then, you’d probably have been embarrassed by your awestruck expression and slightly agape mouth, but you couldn’t help yourself.

Much to your dismay, you realized that Chaewon had seen right through you. You hadn’t wanted to read too much into your feelings, but they had become too obvious to ignore. You hadn’t experienced them yourself since middle school (Choi Soobin had really been a heartbreaker back then), but you’d heard about the telltale signs of a crush too many times not to know about them. It was now clear that the way you felt about Jake and the way you had felt about Sunghoon were worlds apart. Feeling nervous around him and your heart skipping a beat when you made eye contact; wanting to see him smile; laughing at all his jokes, even the bad ones; missing him even though it’d been seconds since you said goodbye, and counting down the days until you saw him again. And, yes, looking at his pictures on social media over and over again. You did all those things, so you knew there was no point in lying to yourself anymore - you liked Jake Sim. 

It didn’t help that he was always kind to you, never making you feel stupid for not understanding something in your tutoring sessions and being patient enough to explain the same thing over and over again. He always paid attention to small things, which never failed to make your heart race, like asking after your aging cat’s condition after you’d told him he had a health check-up over the weekend or stocking up on your favorite snack the week after you’d told him about it. He’d also immediately picked up on your habit of teasing the people you felt comfortable with and you loved how he returned it tenfold. It was as much fun debating with him over nothing and making him shut up with your senseless arguments as it was being rendered speechless when he came up with the perfect retort. 

And of course, there was no denying that Jake was ridiculously attractive. There were times you got so caught up in the way his lips moved as he spoke or the way his fingers looked as he pointed at numbers on the page that your mind completely blanked out and you stopped listening to his words for a few seconds. You didn’t know what to make of his small chuckle and smirk when he noticed your gaze fixated on him, but you knew it wasn’t good for your heart. And let’s not even get started on the fact that sitting so close to him meant you could smell the lingering scent of his cologne every single time.

Even now, with flushed cheeks and hair slicked back with sweat, you want to run onto the field and give him a big smooch on his cheek, telling him you were proud of him for scoring that goal.

But even though you were getting closer and he had offered for you to come watch his practice, you squashed down as best as you could any hope that he might feel the same way about you. Even if he insisted he was bad with girls, Jake was popular at school, and you were sure there were many other girls who had a crush on him - so why would he like you of all people?

Sunghoon’s voice snapped you out of your thoughts. “Every time he scores, he acts like it’s the first time he’s ever done it,” he said, chuckling and shaking his head at his friend’s over-dramatic antics. The coach was trying to get Jake to calm down so that the game could resume.

“He’s so cute,” you said, voice quiet, before you could stop yourself. But as soon as the words were out, you realized what you’d done, and your eyes doubled in size as you turned to look at Sunghoon. He had whipped his head to look at you, too, and his eyes were just as big as yours. Then, he burst into laughter, and you hoped the Earth would suddenly open beneath your feet and swallow you whole. 

When his surprise had subsided, Sunghoon turned to you again, an incredulous but amused glint in his eyes. “Did you just call Jake cute?”

You crossed your arms over your chest, slightly frowning as you avoided Sunghoon’s gaze. “I just meant, you know, it’s cute how excited he got. I didn’t say he was cute,” you mumbled, knowing you were doing a poor job of defending yourself.

“That’s exactly what you said, though. You said, and I quote, He’s so cute.” You glared at Sunghoon. Who knew he would only become talkative once it came to teasing you about Jake? 

His expression softened slightly when he realized you might actually be upset about this, and he turned his attention back towards the field, smile growing when he found his friend. “Don’t worry, I won’t say anything.”

“There’s nothing to be said anyway.”

“Oh? So you don’t mind if I tell Jake that you have the biggest, fattest crush on- hmph!”

You’d cut Sunghoon off by pressing your palm to his mouth, mustering the most menacing look you could to scare him off. “I do not,” you said firmly as you moved your hand away from him.

“Sure, you don’t,” he replied, chuckling. Clearly, your most menacing look wasn’t so menacing.

“I get why Jake’s so annoying now, it’s because he’s friends with you.”

Sunghoon raised an amused eyebrow at this. “He might be annoying, but he’s also cute, right?”

“Shut up!” you shrieked immediately, but you couldn’t stop the grin forcing its way onto your lips.

“Just saying,” Sunghoon said, and you laughed together. Maybe you should’ve been more worried about Jake’s literal best friend finding out you had a crush on him, but you somehow trusted Sunghoon not to blabber about it. Whether because he was nice or because he wanted to watch you struggle with your feelings, you weren’t sure, but at least you felt your secret was safe with him.

You looked back at the field, and just as your eyes found Jake, you saw him turn his head away. Had you seen him just seconds prior, you might have noticed the crease in his eyebrows as he watched you and Sunghoon laugh together. Sunghoon isn’t that funny, he thought, what could you be laughing so hard about?

He didn’t understand the sudden weight in his heart at the sight of you and his friend getting along so well. This was his whole plan after all - force some proximity between you and Sunghoon so that you could talk and hopefully make your feelings clear to each other after some time. Clearly, it was working. So why was it bothering him so much? 

He had to turn his attention back to the game, so he could only ruminate over it for five seconds, but for the remaining thirty minutes, he could barely focus on anything. Whenever he glanced back at you and Sunghoon, you were both looking at him and not talking to each other, and that somehow bothered him even more. 

He used his time in the lockers to get out of the weird mood he was in - whatever was going on between you and Sunghoon, he didn’t want to ruin it by being grumpy. So when he came back out and found the two of you waiting for him at the bus stop, he put on his best smile. 

Having you around made his usual Tuesday afternoon with Sunghoon more fun - after years of friendship, Sunghoon ignored most of his jokes and could tune the sound of his voice out, but you still laughed at everything he said, and his heart swelled with pride every time he made you laugh.

It was only a ten-minute bus ride from the school to the ice rink so you still had twenty minutes to spare before Sunghoon’s lesson started. As always after soccer practice, Jake was famished, so you stopped by a convenience store and got more snacks than you really needed.

You sat next to Sunghoon and across from Jake at a picnic table in front of the ice rink, watching the boy in front of you with fascination as he gorged himself on banana milk and chocolate snacks.

“God, how long has it been since you last ate?” you asked with genuine concern in your voice. Sunghoon followed your gaze towards Jake, only then noticing his friend’s feral behavior as if this was a normal occurrence for them.

“Like three hours,” Jake answered. “I’m starving. So hungry I could eat Sunghoon.”

When he looked up, you were both peering at him with furrowed eyebrows and bewildered expressions on your faces. “What? Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Do you mean that Sunghoon is a horse?” you asked.

Jake mirrored your confused expressions. “What? No, why would I say that?”

“The saying goes, so hungry I could eat a horse, dumbass,” Sunghoon chimed in.

“Why would I eat a horse?” Jake replied, shaking his head and chuckling at you and Sunghoon like you were the ones who had gotten a basic idiom wrong.

“Why would you eat me?” Sunghoon bit back, sounding almost offended.

“It’s just a saying, dude.”

Half-an-hour and two whole packets of biscuits later, you and Jake sat side-by-side on the benches, watching Sunghoon as he did his warm-ups on the ice. This was your first time seeing a professional ice skater and you were transfixed, to say the least. He was just skating across the rink and rolling his arms and neck to get the muscles moving, but it all seemed so effortless and elegant that you couldn’t help but watch with your mouth slightly open, eyes eager to keep up with Sunghoon’s figure.

You were so mesmerized that you had no idea Jake was practically burning holes into the side of your face. Eyes narrowed and nose scrunched in disgust, he couldn’t believe you were enjoying the show in front of you that much. “He’s not even doing anything special right now, you know,” he said, but it only made him realize that when Sunghoon did start doing cool stuff, you’d like it even more.

Your head barely budged in Jake’s direction as you answered him, and your eyes certainly didn’t leave Sunghoon. “Really? It already looks so cool, though.” Jake scoffed, but that still didn’t get your attention, which made him scoff again. He crossed his arms over his chest and frowned like a child whose parent wasn’t paying attention to their drawing. 

“Cooler than me?”

Finally, you look at me, Jake thought, and his frown immediately dissipated into a grin when your eyes met. But judging by the teasing way your lips curled up, he already knew he wasn’t going to like your answer.

“Cooler than you,” you replied before turning your attention back to the rink.

Jake leans back with a pout, opting to glare at his friend instead of you. He tried to put himself in your shoes and figure out what it was about Sunghoon you liked so much that Jake didn’t also have. Devastatingly good looks? Check. Charming smile? Check. Cute dog? Check - Jake more so than Sunghoon. Brains? Okay, both of them lacked this. Good personality? Check - however, you needed months before Sunghoon revealed himself to you, whereas Jake was outgoing and was comfortable even with people he’d just met. 

So why was the bearer of your affection Sunghoon and not Jake?

And why did Jake even care that you liked his friend over him in the first place?

It wasn’t like Jake liked you - he couldn’t like a girl that his best friend liked - so why did this at all matter to him? If anything, the fact that you liked Sunghoon back should’ve been something to rejoice over. It had been, up until now, and Jake couldn’t figure out why. He couldn’t figure out this weird sensation that had plagued him in the soccer field and followed him to the ice rink as he watched you watch Sunghoon with amazement.

Jake was so lost in his own thoughts that he didn’t even notice when you detached your eyes from Sunghoon, who was talking to his coach, and tilted your head at him. “Jake?” 

The boy only let out a low hum, still too upset to look at you.

An amused grin made your lips quirk up. “Are you pouting because I said Sunghoon was cooler than you?”

Jake scoffed, turning his head away from you. “No.”

A pause. “So you don’t mind if I go on and on about how elegant and beautiful ice skating is, while running after a ball and kicking it is the basis of the stupidest sport in the world?”

Jake glared at you, but it only made you smile more. “It’s not stupid.”

Despite himself, his pretend angry facade broke apart at the sound of your airy giggles. Jake didn’t think his ears had ever been graced with such a pretty sound before - he slapped himself mentally as soon as that thought crossed his mind. 

His heart did jumps and spins more impressive than Sunghoon’s when you reached a hand out to ruffle his hair, shaking your head at his behavior. For once, he was glad that you turned back to Sunghoon so that you wouldn’t see the bright blush spreading all over his face.

For the next hour, Jake put his weird feelings to the side and watched his friend practice his routine for his upcoming competition. Even he had to admit that Sunghoon looked pretty cool doing what he loved.

You told him you found it all the more impressive because you’d never skated before, so it looked unachievable to you, and an idea immediately formed in Jake’s mind. As soon as Sunghoon’s practice was over, he rushed over to his friend and asked if the two of you could join him on the ice. Sunghoon turned to his coach, who simply shrugged.

“I trust you to look after them,” she said. “Just make sure to be out when the hockey team gets here.”

Before you knew it, Jake was helping you tie up your ice skates (the sight of which made you faint-hearted) and both boys helped you onto the ice rink, each holding onto one of your hands as you tried not to freak out at the feeling of your knees being so wobbly. Sunghoon demonstrated how to move around the ice, and soon enough, you’d gotten the hang of it - but you still made sure to keep Jake at an arm’s length so you could grab onto him every time you lost your balance. Jake stayed by your side, smiling fondly at how excited you looked and cheering you on every time you took a step of your own. Sunghoon, on the other hand, seemed to find it funny to watch from afar and point and laugh every time you stumbled.

After some time, Sunghoon announced he was feeling hungry and decided to go eat some snacks, leaving you and Jake alone in the rink. The wink Sunghoon threw your way when Jake wasn’t looking let you know what his true intentions were, and you couldn’t believe Jake’s best friend had just become your wingman.

“Feeling ready to skate around the rink?” Jake asked. His boyish grin was contagious, and you found yourself matching it even though you were still nervous about moving around too much.

“If you help me,” you answered tentatively, looking at him worriedly as you held out your hand for him to take. The softness of his gaze as he smiled down at you made you want to melt into a puddle on the floor.

“Of course,” he said, taking your hand in his warm one. Your fingers intertwined as if out of second nature and you thought you finally understood why people said their hands were meant to hold someone else’s.

Being friends with an ice skater for such a long time meant Jake had acquired some skill, too, which is why he could so easily show you how to turn or pick up speed. Whenever you lost your balance, he was always quick enough to make sure you didn’t actually fall, picking you up before your backside could touch the ice. He found your frightened expression every time you thought you would fall absolutely adorable, but your pout and slight frown whenever he teased you were somehow even cuter.

He only let go of your hand after some ten minutes (neither of you had even begun to question Sunghoon’s whereabouts by then) when he came to stand in front of you, a serious expression on his face.

“I think you’re ready, Y/N,” he declared solemnly.

“Ready for…?” you asked, scared of whatever he had in mind.

He leaned in slightly and the sudden proximity took you aback, but he didn’t seem to realize. A mischievous smirk broke through his handsome features. “A race,” he whispered, then skated to one edge of the rink and motioned for you to follow him. Reluctantly, you did.

“First to the other edge has to…” he thought for a second, gazing at the ceiling. You wanted to be mad at him for proposing a race when you’d literally just learned how to skate, but how could you when he looked so cute and giddy, searching for the loser’s penalty? “Buy the other ice cream!”

Your eyes were probably the image of tenderness as you looked at him. “Deal,” you said, wanting to sound as playful as him but voice coming out soft. Since when had you fallen so hard for him?

You held each other’s gazes for a couple more seconds before both turning in front of you, getting ready for your race. Jake counted down from three, and your skating wasn’t so bad at first - until you got too cocky for your own good, trying to go at a pace you clearly couldn’t handle. Before you knew it, your knees betrayed you and you found yourself tripping over, your butt making a loud thump sound as it came into contact with the ice.

On your way down, you’d shrieked Jake’s name, and he was at your side in the blink of an eye, holding your shoulder and looking at you worriedly. The pain was immediate, and for a few seconds, you couldn’t answer him and reassure him that you were fine.

“Oh God, I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t have asked to race, God Y/N I’m so stupid I’m so sorry are you okay I didn’t want you to get hurt-”

“Jake,” you squeaked.

“Yeah?”

“I’m okay, calm down,” you said when the pain subsided, managing a smile. “I’ll just have a sore butt tomorrow.” He chuckled at the word ‘butt,’ but you didn’t have it in you to roll his eyes at his childishness.

“Are you sure you’re okay? There’s an infirmary here-”

“I’m sure, Jakey-poo,” you teased, making him lose the concerned expression as he bore an unimpressed one instead.

“I guess you are fine if you can think to call me that. Come on, up!” he said as he stood up, reaching his hands out for you to take. Just as he helped you up, Sunghoon came sprinting and stood at the entrance to the rink.

“Is everything okay? I heard a yell,” he said, slightly out-of-breath with half a biscuit in his mouth. Guess he really was eating this whole time.

You and Jake laughed and shook your head at him, and you reassured him that everything was fine. 

“Good, ‘cause the hockey team’s here and we have to go anyway.”

There was a bus that took Sunghoon directly from the ice rink to his house, but you and Jake had to go back to the school to catch the one you usually took, which meant you had a forty-minute journey in front of you. And yet, Jake’s company made those forty minutes feel like five, and you found yourself disappointed when the bus neared your stop.

“If you want, we can still go walk Kiwi and Layla,” he offered shyly a few minutes before your stop, as if he’d read your mind. 

“I’d love to.” You watched as his small smile bloomed into a wider one.

“I’m glad,” he chuckled, relieved. “I was scared you’d be tired of me after spending the whole afternoon together,” he admitted, looking down at his lap with a bashful expression on his face. It wasn’t often that Jake looked timid like this, but whenever he did, your heart tripled in size.

“I don’t think I could get tired of you.” You were too shy to look him in the eye while you said this, but in your peripheral, you saw his grin get impossibly wider and his eyebrows raise. He bumped your shoulder with his, making the both of you burst into giggles.

You were still smiling long after you’d come home from your walk.

—

Unfortunately for Jake, forcing you and Sunghoon to sit together for ninety minutes hadn’t resulted in the two of you confessing your undying love for the other and getting together - clearly, his plan hadn’t worked very well. But Jake, instead of coming up with another strategy, decided he should just basically do the same thing again and hope it went better this time. 

Bro night had been a tradition for the past three years that the boys only very rarely broke, in cases of illness, filial obligations or important competitions the following day. This wasn’t any one of those cases, but Jake decided bro night must be slightly sacrificed that night - for your and Sunghoon’s sake. Years down the line, he knew you’d thank him.

This was why he tricked you into thinking you had been invited to bro night (you’d heard a lot about it and considered it an honor to be included) when really, he made Jay promise not to show at the cinema so that you and Sunghoon could be alone. The two of them would make up an excuse about not being able to make it on time and show up later at the diner (“If you want to set them up, shouldn’t we also leave them alone after the movie?” Jay had asked Jake over the phone, and Jake had been unable to explain why he didn’t want you to spend the whole night alone with Sunghoon).

“They ditched us,” Sunghoon had said in lieu of a greeting when you found him at the entrance of the cinema. He turned his phone screen towards you, showing you their group chat - Jay had had some sort of meeting at his school that had run late and Jake had to go to the vet suddenly because Layla kept making weird noises.

“Oh no, I hope she’ll be okay,” you said, voice laced with genuine worry.

Sunghoon just sighed. “I’m sure she will.” He knew what his friends were up to - it almost never happened that one of them was unable to make it to bro night, so two at once? They were clearly lying. He would make sure to tell Jake how worried sick you were about his dog’s fake illness later on just so his friend would feel extra guilty.

You had been looking forward to hanging out with Jake and his friends all day, so you were disappointed to know he wouldn’t make it until later. It wasn’t much comfort that the movie they had picked, some recent Marvel release, was one you were not at all interested in, and you couldn’t even obsess over Jake’s presence next to you instead of the movie because he wasn’t there. You’d have to sit with awkward, quiet Sunghoon for God knows how long - at least the cinema wasn’t much of a talking place. 

You declined his kind offer of sharing a big popcorn tub - you didn’t want to risk a cliché reaching-for-popcorn-at-the-same-time moment with Sunghoon, although you’d daydreamed and giggled about it happening with Jake earlier that day. Instead, you sipped grumpily on your Cherry Coke, watching the trailers for upcoming movies and discussing them with Sunghoon. (“I’m so excited for the Barbie movie,” he’d surprised you by saying. Maybe he wasn’t so bad.)

As the lights dimmed, announcing the imminent start of the movie, Sunghoon whispered something that completely changed your mind about Marvel. “It’s so stupid that Jake isn’t here, seriously. He’s been going on and on about going to see this movie since the trailer came out.” Suddenly, you’d never felt the need to pay attention to something more than this. 

Well, in your humble opinion, the film wasn’t anything to write home about. It was a lot of loud action scenes with some funny one-liners that, okay, you chuckled at. And the actors were hot. You could sort of see why Jake would enjoy Marvel movies, although you yourself liked films with more social commentary, such as Mean Girls or Bee Movie. You’d need to make Jake watch Twilight one of these days - you were sure he’d like the soundtrack, if nothing else.

At least, you and Sunghoon have something to talk about during your short walk to the diner. As you enter the restaurant, a familiar voice calling out your name catches you off-guard.

“Chaewon? I thought you didn’t work on Friday nights!” you exclaimed, letting your friend bring you into a hug. You gave her a once-over - she always looked so pretty in her work uniform, white t-shirt dress draping her body perfectly, apron cinching at her waist, and short pigtails under her 50’s style diner hat. If the blush spreading on Sunghoon’s cheeks at her sudden appearance was anything to go by, his thoughts might not have been too far from yours.

She pouted, taking your hands in hers and swaying them between the two of you. “I usually don’t, but Yunjin asked me to trade shifts and she always says yes when I ask her, so I felt bad saying no.” You nodded and she turned to Sunghoon.

“Hi, Sunghoon!”

“H-hi, Chaewon.”

“Where’s Jay and Jake?” she asked, looking behind the two of you. You’d told the group chat about your evening plans and a lot of freaking out had taken place. 

“Should be here any minute,” you sighed, and when she looked at you questioningly, you told her you’d explain later.

She sat you at a four-person booth by the window and brought you drinks (“On the house,” she’d said with a wink, but you weren’t sure this had been allowed by any of her superiors) for you to sip on while you waited for the others. Every time she was free, she came over to your table and gossiped about the customers. You did not miss the way Sunghoon’s face lit up whenever she approached you.

Jake and Jay see you before you see them. Jay, the only one with a driver’s license out of the three, had picked Jake up, and he was parking his car when Jake gasped loudly, making Jay jump. “I’m trying to park, man, can you be calm?”

“What’s she doing here?” Jake exclaimed, completely ignoring his friend.

Jay followed Jake’s gaze, but he wasn’t sure what his friend was going on about. All he saw was you, whom he recognized from pictures only, Sunghoon, and a waitress that seemed overly-friendly. “Who?” he asked.

“Chaewon,” Jake hissed, like her name was a curse. “She’s ruining our plan!”

Jay sighed. “First of all, this is your plan. Second of all, it was ruined from the beginning. And by that, I mean that your plan sucks, Jake.”

Jake clicked his teeth. “Whatever. Let’s just go,” he said, getting out of the car and heading straight for you. He made sure to give Chaewon a pointed look as he sat next to you in the booth, but she just seemed happy that more people had arrived. 

You bumped your knee into his to get his attention. “Hi,” you said with a smile.

He looked at you dumbly for a few seconds before Jay cleared his throat awkwardly. “Hi. This is Jay,” he said, tilting his head towards the boy but not taking his eyes off of you. You and Jay exchanged hey’s before Chaewon took your order, quickly giving it to the kitchen and scanning the room to make sure every table had what they needed, then headed back to your table. 

“Is Layla okay?” you asked Jake, worry making your brows furrow.

“Huh?” The sudden mention of his dog took him aback. Why wouldn’t she be okay?

“Layla?” you repeated, tilting your head. “Is she okay? You said you had to go to the vet.”

His eyes widened as he remembered his lie from earlier, and he started nodding frantically. “Oh yeah, yeah, she’s fine, we panicked over nothing,” he said with a nervous giggle. Jake was the worst liar Jay and Sunghoon had ever seen, but you were none the wiser.

“What about you, Jay? How was your school thing?” Sunghoon asked, turning to his friend with a glare and making him choke on his Coke.

“Oh, that was fine too, I guess,” Jay mumbled.

As expected, Jake and Chaewon were experts at leading the conversation, and Jay himself was pretty talkative. They all bounced off of each other naturally, and even Sunghoon knew how to throw in witty remarks now and there. You also participated, but you were more than happy just listening to them and laughing along. You tried not to think too much about how your knee would bump into Jake’s once in a while, or how he seemed to look at you every time he made a joke.

At some point, Chaewon had rushed over to your table, looking right at you with wide eyes and beaming. “Oh my God Oh my God Oh my God, Y/N, hat guy is here!” 

You instantly mirrored her expression. “Where where where?” you asked, lifting your body up to scan around the restaurant.

“Over there in the corner, but be discreet!”

You were not at all discreet as your eyes found said hat guy, noting with satisfaction that he was characteristically hatless, and you burst into laughter. “I can’t believe he’s here!”

“Right? Probably has the munchies or something,” Chaewon said, laughing along.

You only noticed then the perplexed looks all three boys were sending your way. “Who the heck is hat guy?” Jake asked, which only made you and Chaewon laugh harder.

“You wouldn’t get it,” she replied airily, waving Jake off as she made her way to a customer who had called for her. 

The boys turned to you and you shrunk in your seat at their attention. “Just a guy the girls and I find funny,” you explained, shrugging and glancing quickly at Sunghoon. If only he knew about all the times you and the girls had gossiped about him, even though he’d done nothing of importance.

When her shift was over, the first thing Chaewon did was take off her apron, then dragged you to the bathroom, where she drilled you for details about your cinema “date” with Sunghoon. 

“It was not a date, it just ended up being the two of us because the others couldn’t make it,” you insisted, but she wasn’t having it. “There’s nothing to say anyway. We got there, talked a bit, watched the movie, walked here, and that’s it.”

Chaewon sighed, shaking her head as she reapplied her lip gloss. A small smile made its way onto your lips. “I think he’s into someone else anyway.” 

You noticed how her hand faltered for a split second. “Oh yeah? Who?” she asked, trying to appear nonchalant, but you knew your friend too well. 

“I’m sure you’ll figure it out.” 

Unbeknownst to either of you, the discussion between the boys back at the table was not too different from yours.

“Bro, I’m literally going to kill you,” Sunghoon whisper-yelled even though you were way out of earshot already. “Do you know how awkward that was?”

“Just so you know, I had nothing to do with this,” Jay said. “I told him that putting two socially constipated idiots like you wouldn’t end well, but he wouldn’t listen.”

“Y/N’s not an idiot!” Jake immediately reacted.

“And I am?!” Sunghoon retorted.

Jay just rolled his eyes.

“You are, because this is the second time you’re alone together with the girl you like and you can barely make conversation with her.”

“For the last time, I don’t like her, I just called her cute once in freshman year-”

“Same thing!”

“Jake, I don’t know how many times I can tell you the same thing before you get it. I’ve been around Y/N enough to know I don’t like her like that, okay? We’ve had two classes where we sat together for a whole semester, and we’ve worked with other people in group projects. Not to mention, you’ve made me sit through one of your practices with her. She’s nice. She sends me the homework when I miss class. She even laughs at my jokes sometimes. And her dog is super cute. I’m sure we’d be better friends if we both didn’t have crippling shyness, but I don’t like her like that. I just don’t.”

“But how?!”

“What do you mean how? This sorta thing doesn’t have any sort of reasonable answer, you just do or you don’t. I don’t. Clearly, you do.”

Jake heard the last part of Sunghoon’s words, and promptly decided to ignore them. He had to understand this first - he’d figure out his feelings later. “This whole time, I thought you were just downplaying your feelings, ‘cause you’re an awkward asshole who doesn’t do emotions,” he said, eyes tightly shut and holding his head, the confusion making his brain hurt.

“Okay, ouch. But no, I wasn’t. I really don’t know what got into your head.”

“I know what got into his head,” Jay said. Both of his friends looked at him questioningly, so he went on. “When Sunghoon mentioned Y/N, you probably thought she was super cute too, Jake. But because of bro code and whatnot, you didn’t wanna show any interest. And then as you saw her around more, you probably liked her more, but you thought Sunghoon liked her, so you sort of gave him your crush on her instead of dealing with it. You lived vicariously through him, basically. Except you’re an idiot because he doesn’t even like her like that, so you could’ve shot your shot a long time ago already. I don’t know why you didn’t just listen to him, to be honest,” Jay finished, shrugging.

“You also thought he liked her!” Jake retorted.

“That’s besides the point. The point is that you’re stupid.”

“But- but, what about all those times you talked about her? I didn’t make those up!” 

Sunghoon rolled his eyes. “The most I ever said about her was something like, Y/N and I both forgot our textbook today, or Y/N brought cookies for the class because it’s her birthday. You were always the one to notice her everywhere and go, There’s your crush, or something.”

Jake sighed, defeated. He could admit Sunghoon was right about something, and he was wrong - but he hated that Jay was also right. Had he really managed to bury his feelings for you all these years just for what he thought was Sunghoon’s sake? Sure, he was a loyal friend, but that felt a little much.

“Whatever,” he mumbled, recoiling from his friends’ expectant gazes and taking a sad bite of his cheeseburger. “It’s not like she likes me back, or anything.” 

He watched in confusion as Sunghoon let out a loud groan, screwing his eyes shut and taking his head in his hands as if it hurt. “This is so frustrating, I’m going to kill myself.”

Jake turned to Jay for some sort of explanation to their friend’s sudden suicidal thoughts, but Jay just looked back at Jake with disgust. “When did you become so dumb? I swear you didn’t use to be like this,” he said, shaking his head in disappointment.

Jake’s eyes flickered between his two friends in utter dismay. “What?”

“Jake,” Jay started. “Do you really, honestly, genuinely think Y/N doesn’t like you?”

The boy leaned back in his seat with a pout. “Yeah,” he mumbled.

Sunghoon’s head whipped up at this. Jake gulped at the intense glare his friend fixed him with - he’d never looked so angry with him, and it made Jake wonder what on Earth he could have said or done that made Sunghoon so upset. “Why?” he asked simply, but the frustration was evident in his voice.

Your diary popped up in Jake’s head. What he had read was clear. Of course, the entry dated from over a month ago now, but why would your feelings have changed since then? Jake sighs deeply, getting ready to reveal to his friends what he’d seen, but then he sees you and Chaewon emerging from the bathroom. “They’re coming back,” he mumbled.

It was Sunghoon and Jay’s turn to sigh. “Just pay attention to her, Jake, okay?” Jay instructed, giving his friend an intent look.

“I already do,” Jake replied, frowning.

“No, really pay attention to her. Then use your pea-sized brain for once in your life, and maybe you’ll realize something.”

A strongly-worded reply was on the tip of Jake’s tongue, but all thoughts of violence and murdering his friend were replaced by images of rainbows and pretty flowers when you smiled at him. He felt like the biggest of idiots for liking you so much and only realizing it now.

“Hi,” he said dumbly as you found your seat next to him again, then stole a french fry from you even though he had many left himself. When you gasped at his audacity, he just giggled.

“Hey!” you exclaimed in protest before stealing a fry back. 

If you hadn’t been so caught up in your little world, you’d have noticed the knowing look your three friends exchanged and their simultaneous eye roll. 

—

The following Monday, you decided to have your tutoring session at your house instead of Jake’s. His mom was away at a convention for the week, so you’d have to take the bus anyway - since your house was two stops earlier, you offered to switch it up for once. Jake had never actually been inside your house and was curious to see what it was like, so he eagerly agreed. 

Kiwi was happy to see him and followed the two of you around the house as you gave Jake a quick tour before going up to your room. When you reached the top landing, you realized that Kiwi was still at the bottom of the stairs and was looking up at you expectantly. “Is she not allowed upstairs?” Jake asked.

“Usually not, but I let her come up when my mom’s not here. Come on Kiwi! It’s okay!”

Kiwi didn’t need to be told twice - she trudged her little body up the stairs, and you couldn’t help but giggle at her adorableness. “She’s so cute,” you cooed, looking at your dog with a huge smile on your face.

“She really is,” Jake agreed, but when you turned your head to face him, he wasn’t looking at Kiwi - he was looking straight at you, a softness in his eyes that made your stomach turn. He snapped out of it when he noticed your round, surprised eyes, and cleared his throat. “So, where’s your room?” he asked, looking around the hallway and avoiding your gaze.

“Over there,” you replied, fighting the smile that tried to make its way to your lips as you headed towards your room, Jake and Kiwi following right behind. 

You told Jake to wait for a second as you went to get a second chair. When you came back, he was standing in front of your shelves, upper body slightly bent forwards to observe all the decorations and framed pictures closer. You placed the chair next to your desk then joined him, answering all the questions he had about the items on your shelves. Who’s this? When was this? Where did you get this? In his defense, you really did have a lot of things - you were trying to get rid of your hoarding habits, but you got attached to every small thing that held some sort of significance. You went to sit at the edge of your bed and just watched him, his eyes glinting with curiosity.

It reminded you of the first time you’d been to his house, how upset he’d seemed when you talked about his baby pictures and how you hadn’t wanted to risk looking at all the stuff in his room. You were also curious about things like that, and you wondered once again what had bothered him so much. The question was burning your tongue - although you were nervous to ask it, not wanting to upset Jake once more, you now knew him well enough to know he wasn’t the type to stay mad for long. 

“Can I ask you something?”

“Sure,” Jake replied, fingers toying with your favorite Littlest Pet Shop figurine you had kept from when you were eight.

“Why didn’t you want me to look at your baby photos that one time?”

Jake paused at your words. He stood up straight and set the figurine back on the shelf. He glanced at you before walking over to your bed and taking a seat next to you, leaning back on his palms while you rested your hands underneath your thighs. 

“You probably noticed I don’t mention my dad, right? Or the fact that he’s never home?” 

You nodded in response. You had noticed it, but you’d never brought the topic up in case it might be sensitive. Jake sighed. “He passed away when I was six.”

You turned your head towards him. To your surprise, his face remained expressionless - you couldn’t detect any sort of sadness or anger in his features, as if he was just reciting a fact. His uncharacteristic numbness upset you even more than any tears could have. 

He met your gaze and gave you a small smile. “I was so young that I only have very vague memories of him, like playing soccer together in the backyard or a trip to the beach with my parents and my brother. I only remember his face and his voice from the photos and videos my mom has shown me.” He sighed again, shifting forwards and resting his hands in his lap, fiddling with his fingers. “So when I see these pictures, they sort of just remind me of what I’ve lost? I really don’t like lingering on them. I sort of just ignore them every time I walk up or down the stairs.”

“I’m sorry, I wouldn’t have mentioned them if I’d known-”

Jake is quick to shake his head. “No, no, don’t be sorry. You couldn’t have guessed.” You want to comfort Jake in some way, thank him for telling you something so personal, but you’re not sure what words to use - so, instead, you take one of his hands in yours and bring it to your lap, then cover it with your other one. Your eyes meet for a second - he looks slightly taken aback at first, but then, his eyes drift down to your joined hands, and a small blush spreads on his cheeks.

“I’m- I’m okay, really. Like I said, it happened so long ago that I’m used to not having a dad now. It almost feels like it’s always been that way, which makes it even weirder to think it wasn’t. It’s just… It feels weird to miss someone I barely remember so much, you know?”

You nodded and let out a low hum. “I do know.” Jake tilted his head at you, silently asking you to go on. “It’s different, but I get that feeling of missing something you barely remember. I have these blurry memories of my parents being happy together and the three of us being a happy family, and then all of a sudden it’s hearing arguments from my room and my dad moving out, and they’re asking me, Do you wanna live with mom or dad?”

You watched as Jake moved his hand slightly, intertwining your fingers together and squeezing your hand. “I was older than you were when they divorced, so I guess I have more memories to hold onto, but they hurt more than anything.” You let out a deep sigh. “My dad cheated, so it’s not like I wished my mom had stayed with him, but I was too young to understand what was happening. I just wanted my parents together again.” 

When you lifted your head to look at him, he met your gaze, and his eyes were so soft yet so intense, like he was seeing right into you. Then he chuckled. “Do you ever get jealous of other people’s parents?” he asks, a shy smile playing on his lips.

“All the time,” you admitted with a chuckle, relieved to find out you weren’t the only one. “Yena has been blessed with these like, practically perfect parents that are still in love after twenty years, never argue and have a healthy relationship with all of their kids. I’m so in awe every time I see them.”

“Sunghoon’s parents are like that. I feel terrible, but every time they come to cheer him on at his competitions, I just get so jealous, wishing I also had three people coming to see my games and not just two. And I always feel so silly for feeling that way.”

“You’re not silly for that, Jake,” you said, and the honesty in your voice seemed to take him aback slightly. A grin spread on your lips. “You may be silly for other things, but not for that,” you teased, making him chuckle. “I can be your third person, if you want,” you said softly, lightly bumping your shoulder against his.

His eyes seemed to light up at your words, and your smile couldn’t help but get wider at his reaction - that was, until he raised an eyebrow, almost defiantly. “Yeah? I thought you found soccer boring,” he said with a playful smirk.

“It’s not boring if you’re the one playing,” you replied. A small noise of surprise escaped his throat before he could help it, not expecting you to be so forward, and you both burst into giggles. 

He cleared his throat when you both calmed down and stood up straighter, trying to put on a cool front. “Of course it isn’t.” He turned his head to look out the window, and the sight of the sunlight perfectly hitting his features and turning his dark brown eyes a hazel color almost took your breath away. “It’s really nice out,” he suddenly said. He turned back to you, a mischievous glint in his eyes. “How about we ditch the tutoring for today and go out?”

His eyes drifted down to your lips, watching as a smile tugged at the corners of your own. “I’m in.”

That was how you found yourselves sitting at a bench in the park close to your house, eating ice cream and watching Kiwi and Layla play together. You tried each other’s ice cream, and you regretted your choice of simple vanilla and strawberry as soon as Jake’s mango ice cream touched your tongue. Your eyes widened at the amazing taste - it felt like you had bit into an actual mango. 

“Good, right?” Jake asked, chuckling at your reaction.

“What the heck, yours is so much better than mine,” you mumbled, pouting at the ice cream in your cup like it had personally hurt you.

Jake thought for a second, looking back and forth between your upset expression and his own cup. “Wanna switch?”

Your heart was screaming yes, but your brain was screaming no. You tried your best to appear genuine when you smiled at him. “No, don’t worry about it. I still like mine.” You looked at him as you scooped another spoonful into your mouth as if to prove to him you were happy with your choice, even going so far as to hum in delight.

Jake just chuckled and shook his head at you, taking your cup and giving you his anyway. You were about to protest until he started eating your ice cream, imitating your previous hum. You quietly accepted the exchange, smiling as you tasted the mango ice cream again and trying to ignore the fact that Jake hadn’t switched the spoons with the cups, so you were using his and he was using yours. 

As you ate in silence, occasionally chuckling at your dogs’ antics, Jake stole some glances at you. He wasn’t sure why you looked so much prettier today than all the times he’d seen you before. Or maybe you were just as pretty as you’d always been, and he was just finally letting himself admit it. 

He may have had many friends, but there weren’t many people Jake was truly himself around. He always felt the need to be this friendly, outgoing guy that made it seem like everything was going well in his life, but with you, he felt like it was okay to stop pretending. He felt like it was okay to ask for help, like it was okay to reveal the darker parts of his life.

Now that Jay and Sunghoon had practically forced him to see the truth, Jake didn’t know what to do about his feelings for you. He finally understood why he always looked forward to your tutoring sessions, why he was so excited whenever he walked past you in the hallways, and why he was so bothered about you and Sunghoon getting along.

Sunghoon. Because even if Jake now knew that he liked you, he also knew that you liked someone else. And what was the point of letting himself fall for you even more when there was no happy ending in sight for him? He’d only get hurt in the end.

Just as the thought hit him, you turned to look at him and meet his gaze, a soft smile on your lips. Every time you smiled at him like that, Jake felt like he was watching a movie. Everything happened in slow-motion, with flowers falling around you and violins playing in the background. Jake almost felt sick, knowing he was only the second lead in your romance movie. He was the stupid werewolf and Sunghoon was the vampire that glistened in the sun and got the girl. (You had convinced him to watch Twilight, saying it was a mandatory watch to understand who you were as a person. Of course, Jake had streamed it that same night. The soundtrack was surprisingly good.)

Your voice snapped him out of his downward-spiraling thoughts. “You know, I almost got scared that Sunghoon would appear out of thin air and start hanging out with us.”

Jake tried not to sneer at the mention of his best-friend-turned-number-one-nemesis. “Why? Wouldn’t you like that?” he mumbled, clearly doing a poor job of seeming unaffected.

You frowned, then lowered your head, focusing your gaze on your almost-finished ice cream. “No, I’d rather if it was just the two of us.” Jake’s eyes widened, unsure if he’d heard that correctly or not. But before he could say anything in response, you spoke again. “It’s just, he was there when I came to watch your practice and when I thought we were all going to see a movie together, it was just him and me. You would’ve liked that movie, by the way,” you said, looking up at Jake with a smile.

Jake’s heart swelled. He wasn’t sure what what you were saying all meant, but unconsciously, his lips mirrored yours and he smiled back at you. Until he remembered you didn’t like him, and his smile fell immediately. Obviously, you had no idea what he was thinking, so his sudden stony expression sent alarms ringing through your head.

“It’s not that I don’t like him, or anything,” you said, panicked, and Jake had to keep himself from scoffing, “it’s just that- you know. It’s nice to hang out with you outside of tutoring sessions,” you finished, mumbling. 

Jake had no idea what you were saying, so he stayed quiet, watching as Kiwi and Layla ran around in circles. You liked Sunghoon, so why would you rather hang out with Jake and not him? You weren’t making any sense. 

You, on the other hand, were not liking Jake’s uncharacteristic silence. In hopes of getting his attention, you crossed one leg over the other, shifting on the bench to face him. “Plus, don’t you think he and Chaewon really hit it off the other night? I think that was the most I’ve ever heard him talk,” you said, trying to lighten the atmosphere. To your dismay, it didn’t work. You didn’t know whether he was sulking or genuinely upset - all you knew was you desperately wanted to see a smile on his pretty face again.

“Jakey?” you called out, and your voice sounded so small it hurt his heart. He hummed in response, only glancing at you for a fraction of a second. “Is everything okay?”

“Yeah, why wouldn’t it be?” he replied, scooping the last of the ice cream in his mouth. As he tasted the strawberry and vanilla flavors, he couldn’t believe he had given his precious mango ice cream up all for a girl who didn’t even like him back. What a fool.

“I don’t know, you’re all- weird, all of a sudden, for lack of a better word.” You searched for some sort of an answer in his eyes, but he supplied you with none. 

Jake sighed deeply. He could feel the ugly mix of emotions in his belly turning into anger - anger at what exactly, he wasn’t sure, but he didn’t want to lay it on you. “It’s just the heat, it’s making me tired,” he said. Sure, it was warm for a May afternoon, but it wasn’t that hot. But you didn’t want to push it.

“Should we go home?“ you offered, and the worry in your voice made him feel even worse. He just couldn’t understand why you were being so nice to him. He knew you probably just thought you were looking after a friend, but he'd rather you not care about his well-being and leave him be. He didn’t need one more reason to like you - he already had plenty of those. 

He nodded, mustering as convincing a smile as he could. “Sure.” 

The walk home was much quieter than usual. You could feel that Jake was keeping something to himself, and it was killing you; but whatever it was, you wanted him to tell you when he felt ready and not feel forced to. Your hand was aching, desperate to reach out and grab his as you had done before, but you were afraid that would only push him away even further. So you stayed silent most of the time, only commenting on the things around you or speaking a thought out loud when you thought it might make Jake smile. Every time his lips curled up, even ever so slightly, your heart swelled with relief.

Unbeknownst to you, Jake was making up his mind. He knew he needed time away from you to gather his feelings before he could see you as a friend again. 

When you reached your house, Jake waited outside with the dogs as you grabbed his bag he’d left upstairs. You hugged goodbye as always, but this one was different - it lasted a few seconds longer than usual, and you could swear Jake held you tighter than he normally would. It felt like he was saying goodbye for more than just a couple days.

You didn’t understand why it made your heart ache so much.

—

The next day, when you walked past Jake and Sunghoon in the hallway, Jake barely glanced at you and only tilted his head in your general direction instead of his usual wide grin and wave. You were so shocked by his sudden snubbing that you halted in your steps right away, looking behind you at his retreating figure. You locked eyes with Sunghoon, who seemed just as confused as you felt. He shrugged at you before returning to his friend and nudging his arm.

On Wednesday morning, you got a text from Jake that he couldn’t make it to your tutoring session that afternoon because of an extra soccer practice to prepare for their game that weekend, something he had never mentioned before.

Thursday and Friday weren’t very different, and your heart became heavier with every time you walked past each other and he acted like you weren’t even there. You desperately wanted to know what you’d done wrong, why he’d started to reply in one-word sentences instead of his usual voice messages and tons of emojis, but no matter how much you cogitated, you couldn’t figure it out. Even when you asked him how his game had gone, a dry Good stared back at you from your phone screen.

That Saturday, your girlfriends came over. Yena had brought beads and strings to make accessories out of, and the mere sight of them had brought fond memories back to all four of you - during your first sleepover in freshman year, this was the exact activity that had kept you occupied for hours. 

You got started on them immediately, each finding a comfortable spot in your room as soft music played in the background. You lay on your bed while Chaewon and Yena took over the floor and Hyewon sat at your desk.

“I’m gonna make one of those phone accessories,” Yena said excitedly, reaching for the biggest, most colorful beads.

“I’m gonna make couple bracelets for Jaemin and I,” Hyewon said somewhat shyly but beaming. Yena and Chaewon groaned at her words, but they gave you an idea.

“You guys are vomit-inducing,” Yena replied, and if you didn’t know your friend any better, just going off the tone of her voice, you’d have thought she was being serious. Hyewon just rolled her eyes, used to this daily slander she received simply for being in a relationship.

“I’ll make something for my little sister,” Chaewon butted in, and you and Yena simultaneously ‘aww’ed. 

“So it’s aww when Chaewon does it for her sister, and it’s vomit-inducing when I do it for my boyfriend?” Hyewon exclaimed, appalled.

“Little sisters are cute. Boyfriends are gross,” Yena replied matter-of-factly, making you giggle.

“Whatever. You guys are just jealous that you’re dying alone and I’m not. What are you making, Y/N?” she asked before Yena could retort again. The two exchanged a glare as you thought over your answer.

“I’m not saying,” you replied with a giggle. 

“She’s making one for Jake, that evil wench,” Chaewon immediately said, making your eyes widen. Yena gasped dramatically while Hyewon smiled at you.

“How did you know?” you asked Chaewon.

“Just your face. You’re so obvious,” she snickered. 

“You’re a traitor, Y/N!” Yena exclaimed, pointing an accusing finger at you, and you hid your face in your hands, muttering an apology. “Wasting time and energy on a boy.”

“Don’t listen to her, Y/N. Whatever it is you make, he’ll be super happy you thought of him. Then he’ll finally ask you out and you’ll live happily ever after, just like me and Jaemin,” Hyewon said with a serene smile on her face. Chaewon and Yena exchanged a look, then faked a gagging sound. “So bitter,” Hyewon muttered, shaking her head at your friends.

“I’m not sure about that,” you sighed. “I just want to be friends again. He’s been ignoring me all week.”

All three snapped their heads up at you. “He’s been ignoring you?” Yena echoed, and you meekly nodded. “Give me his phone number. No, give me his address. I’m going there right now,” she said, already sitting up.

“Gosh, Yena, it’s fine,” you said, gesturing at her to sit back down, laughing at your friend’s seriousness. “I’ll see him on Monday anyway, I can just see how he behaves then.”

Yena didn’t look convinced, but she yielded anyway. “If he hurts you, I swear I’ll give him a stern talking to. And a broken nose.” You laughed as you thanked your friend. 

Hyewon asked for more details about this Jake situation, so you filled your friends in about his mysterious behavior that week. Chaewon had been the only one to see it firsthand, when you’d walked to a class together and Jake had walked past you without saying anything. You told them about his sparse answers to your texts, his lack of response to the TikToks you sent him. He wasn’t even reacting to your BeReals anymore. It was just such a complete switch-up in attitude that you had no idea what to make of it. They tried to come up with reasons for it, but it really didn’t make much sense. It just felt like he suddenly decided to hate you - or maybe you had been interpreting everything wrong, and the two of you had never been friends in the first place. 

“This is so confusing,” Chaewon suddenly said, seeming lost in thought. “I thought for sure that he liked you.”

“Liked… me?” you echoed.

“Yeah. Just the way he was when we were at the diner. He kept looking at you and was always smiling and blushing whenever you talked to him. Also the way Jay and Sunghoon were behaving. Boys are so obvious when their friend likes someone, it’s like they’re trying to fumble it for him. And I mean, anyone with functioning eyes can see that you like him too, so I don’t know why he’s doing this all of a sudden.”

Yena sighed. “Boys are stupid.”

“That, they are,” you agreed, sighing as well and returning your attention to your craft. Maybe a simple gift like this wouldn’t fix what was going on between you and Jake, but you had to at least try. You couldn’t let go of your friendship so easily.

Even though it seemed as though he could.

Nothing changed the next week. On Monday, you woke up to a text that pulled your heart down into your stomach.

jakey-poo i think we should stop tutoring each other for now

For an hour as you ate breakfast and got ready for school, you ruminated over your answer, only to ask him a simple why? in the end.

jakey-poo i’m to busy w soccer practice and other stuff we can start again when exams are near

you oh okay

You felt pathetic, but you had no idea what to say. You couldn’t force him into this, and you definitely couldn’t show up at his house and demand a better explanation. If you were Yena or Chaewon, maybe you could - but you weren’t. You couldn’t even bring yourself to ask him if the two of you could still hang out outside of that, so scared you were for his inevitable rejection.

During the week, you tried to find a time when you could give him your small handmade gift, but Jake wasn’t even looking you in the eyes anymore. The only time you made eye contact with him over those five days was on Wednesday at lunch - as you walked into the cafeteria, you scanned the whole room, unconsciously searching for him. When you did, he was already looking at you - he was close enough for you to see the slight frown in his eyebrows, the lack of the usual glint in his eyes. But as soon as he’d seen you’d found him, he turned away. You only looked away when Chaewon called out your name.

In the few classes you had together, he always slipped away before you could get to him. Him walking past you like he couldn’t even see you broke your heart a little bit more every time, and by Friday, you had completely given up. Your friendship with Jake was over, and you had no idea why, no idea who or what to blame.

Monday and Wednesday afternoons felt empty now that you had gotten used to spending them with him, and you couldn’t even walk Kiwi without missing him. He seemed to miss Jake and Layla too - he’d sometimes tilt his head at you as if asking where your new friends were, and when you got to the park, he’d gloomily stick to you instead of running around like he usually would, especially when Layla was there.

The worst part was at night, when your thoughts kept you up. You’d reread your and Jake’s text conversations, wondering what went so wrong so quickly, warm tears spilling from your eyes out of sadness and tiredness. On those nights, you’d sneak Kiwi up to your room and let him cuddle up to you in your bed. You’d comfort each other that way.

You had no idea that a couple kilometers away, Jake lay in bed sleepless as well, Layla at the edge of his bed and whining in her sleep. You had no idea that missing you had carved a deep hole in his chest.

—

Enough was enough.

It had been days since Layla had last seen Kiwi, and to a young pup like her, that felt like eternity. Lately, Jake hadn’t seemed happy to go on walks with her like he used to, and he barely had any energy to play with her. She also hadn’t seen you in days, and she wondered if that had anything to do with Jake’s recent despondency. 

But thankfully, Layla was a smart girl, so she knew exactly what to do to fix this dire situation. On Friday, she waited for Jake to come back from soccer practice and take her on a walk. As soon as they reached the sidewalk outside of their house, she pulled on her leash in the opposite direction of their usual route. Jake tried pulling her the other way, but she wouldn’t budge.

“We’re going that way, Layla,” Jake said, amused by his dog’s sudden stubbornness. Layla barked back. “Come on!” 

She was really not moving. “We never go that way,” Jake said, sighing. “That way’s the-”

That’s when he realized. Layla wanted to go to the park you went to with Kiwi. “But what if we ran into them?” Jake asked. 

Layla barked again. She wanted to say, That’s exactly why I want to go there, but of course Jake didn’t understand. He sighed again and obliged, letting Layla lead the way. She had a good feeling that she’d finally see her friends again today. 

Jake’s heart started beating faster with every step he took, knowing that you might be out right now, too. When he’d seen you at school, you’d seemed as sad as he was, and he felt terrible for perhaps being the reason behind it - but he didn’t know what else to do. He could either spare your feelings or his. If this was hurting you, he knew you’d move on quickly enough anyway - and when he came to terms with being just friends with you, he’d come back, and everything would be perfect like it used to be. Foolproof plan.

If there was one thing Jake had learned from the tutoring sessions with you, it was that the weather always reflected the protagonist’s inner thoughts. If they were upset, it would be gray and rainy - if they were happy, it would be warm and sunny. Jake glared at the sun, just another reminder that he wasn’t the main character in this story. If he was, it would be thundering and lightning would be striking.

As if his life was a joke, two minutes after Jake and Layla had walked into the park, he saw you. At least you were facing the other direction, so you couldn’t see him, and he could redirect his route to avoid you. But he let himself indulge in the moment for a few seconds. You had laid out a picnic blanket for you and Kiwi and rested on your stomach with your elbows propping you up, reading a book. Kiwi slept peacefully next to you - this dog was the furthest thing from a guard dog Jake had ever seen. You kicked your feet up in the air, flip flops discarded to the side of the blanket. Jake was happy to see you like this, enjoying the warmth of this sunny May afternoon. 

He was about to walk away, but a sudden movement caught his eye. Two school kids started running to you, and before you could even register their presence, one of them snatched your flip flops and they both sprinted away, shrieking with laughter like two little devils. Where the hell were their parents?!

Without thinking, Jake started running after them, and so did Kiwi and Layla. 

“Hey! Come back here!” Jake yelled, hoping in vain that these kids would listen to someone older than them. Kiwi did his best, but his tiny legs didn’t allow for such a chase - Layla, barking loudly at the thieves, was the first to reach them, and she managed to scare them so much, they tripped over their feet. But unlike them, she was well-behaved, so she sat once her job was done and waited for Jake to arrive. 

“What are you two doing? You can’t just steal other people’s things!” he admonished, holding onto his knees as he tried to catch his breath.

Both kids were already teary-eyed. “We just wanted to play a prank, we’re sorry!” one of them quickly said, voice shaky.

“It’s not to me you should apologize, but to her,” Jake said, turning around to point in your direction. That’s when he noticed you sitting on your knees, hands covering your face as your shoulders trembled. “You made her cry!” Jake exclaimed, tone much angrier than seconds prior. “Let’s go,” he said, grabbing the kids by their shoulders and forcing them to keep up with his quick steps.

You didn’t notice their presence in front of you until Jake prompted them. At the sound of the all too familiar voice, you whipped your head up. Jake swore he heard his heart breaking when he saw your red eyes and tear-streaked cheeks. You barely heard the kids’ apology, so amazed you were at suddenly seeing Jake.

“We’re sorry for stealing your flip-flops and making you cry,” the first one said.

“Sorry,” repeated the other one, handing you your shoes.

“Oh, right. Thanks, just don’t do it again,” you replied, sniffing as you took back your shoes.

“We won’t!” they replied in unison before running away once more.

Jake stood there awkwardly for a few seconds, unsure what to say. He watched you stare at your flip flops like you’d never seen them before in your life. “You’re not going to thank me for catching those delinquents?” he asked after a small while, chuckling slightly.

This made you look up at him. He gulped as your eyes met. Then, you burst into sobs again, and Jake started panicking. He crouched down to your level, first holding you by the shoulders then forcing your head out of your hands so he could wipe away your tears with the pads of his thumbs.

“No no no, why are you crying, Y/N?” he asked softly, pulling you into a hug.

You continued crying into his shoulder, ignoring Kiwi and Layla’s confused stares. “You- you- I haven’t seen you in ages!” you exclaimed.

Jake sighed. He didn’t understand why you were crying like this for him, all he knew was that he’d never felt so awful. “I’m sorry, Y/N,” he whispered into your hair, pulling your shaking body closer to him. “I’m sorry.”

You leaned back to glare at Jake, your bottom lip jutting out in discontent. “Do you even know how much I missed you?”

Jake held your head in his hands like it was the most precious thing in the world. Mouth agape in surprise, he looked at you with sad eyes. “You… you did?”

Your eyebrows creased. “Of course I did!” Another sob rippled through your body, and Jake took you back in his arms, wrapping them around your shoulders and resting his cheek against your hair. 

“I missed you too.”

“Then why did you do this?” you asked, voice breaking.

“Because I didn’t want to get hurt,” Jake whispered back. “But I didn’t think I’d hurt you. I’m so sorry, Y/N.”

You leaned back again, but this time, you looked confused rather than angry. His eyes were soft as they scanned your face and as he brushed strands of your hair back behind your ears. “Why would you get hurt?” you asked again, bringing your voice to the same volume as his.

Jake sighed and squeezed his eyes shut for a second, as if in pain, before opening them again and boring them into yours. “I like you so, so much Y/N. So much so that I don’t know what to do with myself. But I know that you don’t feel the same way, and I was scared that by staying by your side, I’d just fall in love with you even more and get hurt in the end. So I pushed you away because I didn’t know what else to do, but I’m so sorry I- You’re crying again?”

Your fists grabbed at the front of Jake’s t-shirt as sobs raked through your body once more. It was official - Jake was the stupidest person you’d ever met. And you were in love with him.

“Why are you crying?”

“Because I like you too, you idiot!” you yelled back. Your tears were probably staining his t-shirt, but you couldn’t care less. He liked you. Jake liked you.

You were too busy crying to see Jake’s eyes slowly widening in disbelief. “You what?!”

Gently, Jake pushed your shoulders back so he could look at you. Even with puffy eyes and a runny nose, you were the prettiest girl he’d ever seen. Pretty like an angel that had graced the Earth with her presence. “You what?” he repeated, just to hear you say it again.

“I like you, Jake. I’m so in love with you it's actually pathetic,” you said with a chuckle, looking down out of shyness. But when you looked back up, Jake’s eyes were going back and forth between yours, the expression on his face like he couldn’t believe what he’d just heard but desperately hoped it was true.

As you locked eyes, both of your faces lit up with grins. You burst into laughter together, finding each other’s hands and intertwining your fingers together. Then Jake brought you back into his arms, holding tightly, as if he was scared you might disappear any second. Kiwi and Layla had long walked away to give the two of you some needed privacy.

In each other’s arms, you rocked side to side gently and laughed for no reason other than the incredible fact your feelings were reciprocated. “You stink, you know,” you suddenly said in-between giggles. “You sweat while you ran after those kids.”

“I sweat? You mean I swote, right?” Jake asked a pause.

You leaned back to look at Jake. “Swote?” you echoed, and he nodded. Your umpteenth smile made your cheeks lift. “You have to be kidding-”

“I am,” Jake cut off, mirroring your smile. “I just wanted to make you laugh.”

You gasped and lightly punched his chest before letting your body fall against his again. “You’re so silly,” you said, sighing in bliss at the sound of his giggles.

Then all of a sudden, Jake pulled away and looked at you, almost frightened. “What about Sunghoon?” 

“What about him?” you asked back, confused by Jake’s question.

“I thought you- Didn’t you- you know…”

You tilted your head at Jake, a small grin spreading on your lips again. “I don’t know.”

“I thought you liked him…” Jake mumbled, looking away with a pout.

Before you could stop it, a noise of confusion left your throat. You looked at Jake like he was insane. “I can barely have a conversation with Sunghoon, what made you think I liked him?”

Jake pursed his lips and let a resigned puff of air out of his nose. “I, um- Remember when we mixed our backpacks up?” he asked and you nodded, smiling at the fun memory. “I may have, um, I may have read… your… diary,” he admitted, voice getting quieter with each word. He dared a glance at you - you looked horrified, eyes wide and mouth agape. “And you wrote that you liked Sunghoon,” he finished with a whisper.

It was silent for a few seconds, and Jake was bracing himself for a slap to the face or your screams, until you did the last thing Jake expected you to do - you laughed. You laughed so hard and for so long that he got scared you had gone insane and this was the first part of your mental breakdown before you murdered him in cold blood for having invaded your privacy. He would’ve deserved it, he thought.

“I don’t- oh my God, Jake, I don’t- I don’t like Sunghoon. I never really have, or not in the way you think, I can’t- oh my God,” you explained in between giggles, trying to catch your breath but starting to laugh again every time you managed to compose yourself. Jake tried to laugh along, but he was too confused to do so properly.

“You’re not mad?” Jake asked, eyebrows furrowed with worry.

“No,” you replied, shaking your head and the last giggles out of your throat. “You read it ages ago, and we didn’t even know each other back then, there’s no point in being mad now. It’s just funny - I know exactly why you think I liked Sunghoon, but I didn’t. Not really. And even if I did, those feelings are nothing compared to the ones I have for you now,” you said, beaming. A blush spread on Jake’s cheeks, and you could tell he was trying (and failing) to contain a proud grin.

You explained to Jake the ‘character’ thing you and your friends had going on and that Sunghoon (and hat guy) just happened to be one of them - you watched as Jake narrowed his eyes and slowly nodded, trying to understand this concept that was so foreign to him. 

“You know, it all makes a lot more sense now,” Jake said when you were explaining. “It would’ve been weird for you to like Sunghoon when I was right there.” He smirked down at you as you playfully rolled your eyes. 

“Oh my God!” you suddenly exclaimed, startling Jake in the process. Dramatic as always, he put a hand over his heart and exhaled loudly. “I have something for you. For us, actually.” You reached into your bag and got out the two accessories you’d made for you and Jake. “These are for us to put on our backpacks, so that we don’t confuse them again. They also match.”

Jake’s eyes were fixated on the string of beads as you placed into his palm. “I tried to give it to you over the week, but…” 

A teardrop fell into Jake’s palms, and when you looked at him, you realized he’d started crying. “Jake?” you cooed softly, and he sniffled, wiping away the tears from his eyes.

As a response, he wrapped his arms around your shoulders and buried his face in your hair. “Thank you. And I’m sorry. I promise you’ll never go a second without my undivided attention from now on,” he said, voice shaking with emotion, and you hummed happily.

“I wouldn’t expect anything else.”

He leaned back, and you were relieved to find the familiar puppyish grin on his lips. You gazed into each other’s eyes for a few seconds, and before he could stop himself, he grabbed your head in his hands and pressed a delicate kiss to your forehead. You raised your eyebrows in surprise, but when his face was back in front of yours, your eyes immediately drifted to his lips. They looked soft and plump and pink, and were utterly inviting. Every time you’d started daydreaming about kissing Jake, you’d stopped yourself, not wanting to over-indulge in your fantasies. But was this finally, really happening?

“Y/N?” Jake said quietly. You could swear his face was getting closer.

“Hm?”

“Will you be my girlfriend?”

Your face broke out into a grin. Without warning, you pressed your lips against Jake’s - initially just for a peck, but as soon as you started pulling away, Jake chased after your lips and trapped them into a kiss, a proper one this time. You’d never done this before, so it was naturally somewhat clumsy, but you and Jake were so giddy with excitement that you couldn’t care less. So what if you were smiling so hard, your teeth clashed against his, or you kept bumping noses? You were kissing Jake Sim. 

The second time around, he let you pull away to catch your breath, and you wished you could photograph the sight in front of you - Jake with flushed cheeks, closed eyes and a serene smile on his face. He was so pretty, and now, he was all yours.

When he opens his eyes and finds you looking at him, his smile widens. “I’ll take that as a yes?”

“Yes,” you echoed, laughing. You pressed your lips to his cheek before burying your face in the crook of his neck.

He hugged you to him and the sweet sound of his giggles filled your ears and your heart. “My girl,” he whispered, before leaning his head back, face to the sky, and screaming it loud enough for the whole park to hear. You tried to shush him, but you couldn’t stop laughing yourself out of sheer excitement. Layla and Kiwi came running back to you, barking happily and trying to lick your faces. 

“I cried so much today, my eyes are gonna be puffy tomorrow morning,” you said between giggles. 

Jake pressed his lips to yours in a chaste kiss. “I’ll make sure you never cry again, Y/N,” he said, and he sounded so genuine, you almost wanted to cry again right then and there.

The rest of the afternoon went by in a blur - while you and Jake kissed, laughed, talked, and hugged, hours that felt like minutes passed you by. Jake kept on looking at the accessory you made him, poking fun at you for knowing his favorite color even though he’d never mentioned it.

“It was a lucky guess,” you grumbled. “Your room’s walls are that color,” you said, pointing to a particular dark blue bead.

“I love it,” he replied with a kiss to your forehead.

As always, he walks you home - and this time, you can take his hand without any hesitation. Your mom had come home from work while you and Jake were out, and you found her in the kitchen, prepping some veggies for dinner. 

As soon as Jake introduced himself, a flash of revelation struck her and she shot you a knowing smirk. “So you’re Jake,” she said, and the boy glanced at you with amused confusion. “That one over there has been badgering me about you these past few weeks.”

Apparently, you agreeing to be his girlfriend had already gone to his head, because instead of looking surprised at your mom’s words, he slowly turned to you with an arrogant smirk gracing his lips. “Has she?”

Your mom nodded slowly. “Oh, yes.” Then her expression slowly morphed into something else as she remembered your red, puffy eyes from the other evening when you’d told her about what was going on with Jake. She raised her kitchen knife and pointed it straight to him, eyes narrowed. “If you ever hurt my daughter again, I’m putting you in the lasagna, young man.”

Jake gulped, smirk completely wiped off of his face. You just watched in amusement. “I- I won’t,” he stuttered, eyes fixed on the blade of the knife.

A wide grin reappeared on your mom’s face as she went back to cutting the vegetables. “Good!” 

Jake looked at you for some sort of explanation, but you simply shrugged. He’d just have to get used to your mom’s crazy. 

“You know, you’re just as handsome as she described,” your mom told Jake with a wink.

“Mom, please!” you exclaimed, cheeks burning with heat. You liked it better when she was threatening your boyfriend with a knife, but he was relieved by the new turn this conversation had taken.

“What else has she said?”

“Oh, you know, just your typical he’s so smart, he’s so cute, he’s so funny-”

“Okay, that’s it!” you cut in before your mom could spill more on you. You ignored Jake’s noises of complaint as you grabbed him by the shoulders and led him towards the door. “I think it’s time for you to go home, no?” 

“Y/N, come on!” Jake whined, giggling. 

“Why don’t you stay for dinner, Jake?” your mom offered, making you stop in your tracks. You stared wide-eyed at her but she just looked at Jake, wearing an inviting smile.

“Sure!” Jake beamed. “I just need to call my mom.”

“Oh, invite her along! I always make enough to feed an army, anyway.”

“Really?” Jake asked, incredulous. Since his brother had left for university, it had always been just he and his mom at the dinner table. The thought of sharing a meal with you and your mom filled his heart with warmth. 

“Yeah!”

Jake smiled giddily as he got his phone out. “Thanks, she’ll be stoked.”

Although you both wanted to help your mom, she urged you to stay outside with the dogs and enjoy the last rays of sunshine of the day, insisting she didn’t need any help. So you and Jake spent some time throwing sticks for Kiwi and Layla and giggling at their cuteness. Kiwi quickly got exhausted and came to lie down at your feet, but Layla was tireless. “Your dog, your responsibility,” you said as you sat down next to Kiwi, rubbing his tummy and watching Jake throw the stick over and over again for Layla.

Jake was as relentless as Layla, and every time she ran after the stick, he ran to you and pressed a kiss to another part of your face, making you giggle every time. Once on your forehead, once on your nose, once on your cheek, then the other, and once on your lips.

Then his mom rang the bell, and as your mom opened the door for her, the oddest thing happened - they called out each other’s name and hugged as if they were old friends. You and Jake exchanged a confused look before turning your attention back to them.

“What a coincidence!”

“Right! Such a small world, I can’t believe you’re my daughter’s boyfriend’s mom.”

“Boyfriend? Gosh, has he finally asked her out? I was going crazy seeing him moping around in his room!”

“Mom!” Jake yelled, face already reddening as you burst into laughter.

You joined them inside the house and set the table while your mom finished up dinner. Jake’s mom had brought a bottle of red wine as a gift, so she poured two glasses for her and your mom, but you and Jake stuck to Sprite. 

Apparently, they knew each other from some yoga class they both went to every Sunday - you found out this was the woman your mom often went out for lunch or drinks with. They were so excited to meet each other like this that they talked most of the time, leaving you and Jake to eat your food quietly and giggling every time you made eye contact or your feet touched under the table. 

Just as you were about to take your last bite of lasagna, your phone pinged with a message. Curiously, so did Jake’s. Chaewon had sent a message into the group chat, asking to meet her at work when her shift was done because she was craving an Oreo milkshake.

chae bae y/n u better come ik ur not doing anything better tonight anyway

You scoffed. You were doing something better.

“Shit, today’s Friday! The boys are waiting for me at the diner, I completely forgot,” Jake exclaimed as he read the messages on his phone.

“Language, Jake,” his mom scolded.

“At the diner?” you repeated.

“Yeah, that one we went to last time. Why?” Jake asked when he noticed your surprised expression.

“That’s where Chaewon wants to meet.”

You both turned to your respective moms, silently asking for permission to leave the dinner table.

“Just go,” your mother said with a smile.

“I’ll take Layla home later,” Jake’s mom added.

You thanked them before rushing to get a bag and heading to the bus stop, hoping a bus would come by soon. Twenty minutes later, you were opening the doors of the diner and looking around for your friends, who were nowhere to be found. You were fishing your phone out of your pocket to call Chaewon when a familiar voice caught your and Jake’s attention.

“What are they doing together?” you heard Jay say, followed by loud shushes. You turned your head to find all five of your friends (plus Jaemin) crammed in a booth in the corner that was somewhat hidden from the rest of the restaurant. But they were trying so hard to be discreet that it made their presence even more obvious - they hid their faces with their hands as if that would make them disappear from your view. You and Jake shared a look before chuckling, shaking your head at your friends.

“Whatever, they’ve clearly found us,” Jay sighed and exited the booth, walking towards the two of you.

“Were you guys trying to get us to make up or something?” Jake asked with an amused smile.

“Yeah, we grouped up and planned this whole thing. It was a real team effort.”

“It might’ve worked better if you hadn’t all stayed here, you guys were so obvious,” you chided.

“Tell that to your friends over there! They insisted on watching it unfold,” Jay grumbled, and you looked behind him to see your friends frantically waving at you.

You switched to a bigger booth that could accommodate all seven of you, and as soon as you’d placed your orders, Yena practically pounced on you, demanding an explanation as to how the two of you were already made up.

You turned to look at Jake and smiled at him before answering. “It’s all thanks to Kiwi, really,” you told Yena.

“Kiwi? As in your dog Kiwi?” Chaewon asked with furrowed eyebrows.

“Mh-hm.” In your peripheral, you noticed Jake tilting his head at you.

“You mean Layla, right?”

You imitated his head movement. “No, I mean Kiwi.”

“But Layla made me go to the park today. I wouldn’t have gone there if it wasn’t for her,” Jake insisted, giving you an are you being serious look that you mirrored.

“I wasn’t going to go outside at all but Kiwi kept bugging me to take him on a walk, that’s why I was in the park in the first place. It’s thanks to Kiwi,” you repeated.

“It’s thanks to Layla,” Jake retorted, playfully narrowing his eyes at you.

“Trouble in paradise,” Jaemin whispered, and Hyewon slapped his arm.

The whole table was silent as you and Jake stared each other down, waiting to see who would cave first. It was like everyone could breathe again when Jake’s face broke out into a grin and he rested his arm behind your shoulders. “Okay, it’s thanks to Kiwi,” he conceded, making you hum in satisfaction. You rested your head on his shoulder and ignored Yena’s groan of disgust at the PDA.

But Jake, as always, wasn’t letting you off the hook so easily. “And Layla.”

—

02.06.202X - 12:18

rodrigo hater y/n i can see you being gross from across the courtyard can u guys not feed each other ur still on school grounds and ur ruining my day have some decency

sweet hyewon you guys are super cute <3  jaemin and i only have the same lunch period once a week i miss him

rodrigo hater ugh wheres chaewon she’d have my back

you hyewon love u yena frigg off you’re not going to like this… i think she’s with sunghoon rodrigo hater WHAT

sweet hyewon omg hahahaha saw it coming cuuuuute

rodrigo hater i hate you all so much you’re all kicked out of my celibacy club

chae bae we weren’t part of it in the first place

rodrigo hater GO AWAY YOU TRAITOR

03.06.202X - 09:15

you jake wake up  wake up wake up please

jake ??? R U okay?

you kiwi keeps whining i think he wants to see layla come over?

jake . did u just wake me up before 10 am on a sunday morning for this

you i made pancakes?

jake i’m going back to sleep

you but i miss you :(

jake running

07.06.202X - 16:39

stink #1 hey

jake no

stink #1 wtf man

jake im busy

stink #1 smooching ur girl?

jake yeah stay mad bro

stink #1 where’s hoon

stink #2 he’s at ice skating practice with me <3 this is chaewon btw

jake AYO????

stink #1 HE GAVE YOU ACCESS TO HIS PHONE???

stink #2 hehehe bye losers

stink #1 oh my god jake this is huge

jake right… our little boy he’s grown so much

stink #1 i’m getting teary eyed anyway i wanted to say i think we should invite the girls to bro night more often it’s always fun with them

jake oh? if u wanna see yena just say so bro

stink #1 fuck u man

jake ur literally so obvious you get 100% more obnoxious when she’s around

stink #1 idc she laughs at my jokes

jake which is proof that there’s something wrong w her anyway i’ll ask my girl about it

stink #1 ew and thx ^^

09.06.202X - 17:03

jakey-poo y/nnnnnn y/n hellloooooo y/n y/n y/n baby :(((( where are u what r u doing i miss you hello y/n my baby darling angel pls answer me layla misses you

you jake sim

jakey-poo HIIIIII

you jay is a genius i’m anime pomodoroing the hell out of this essay it’s working so well i’m almost done with it already

jakey-poo don’t compliment another man ever again i’m going to cry

you but jay’s your friend

jakey-poo i’ll kill him if i have to

you gosh okay jay’s an idiot

jakey-poo hahaha he is ice cream after dinner ???

you duh

31.07.202X - 21:03

jakey-poo i’m waiting for you outside the theater baby we have a lot of talking to do. i can’t believe you kissed someone else in front of me

you jake baby it was just acting <3 you know you’re the only one i really kiss

jakey-poo i know i am so come here and kiss me quick you did so well and you were so pretty on stage and i love you so much  COME QUICK I WANNA KISS YOU

you i’m hurrying i promise but a lot of people are trying to talk to me :(

jakey-poo ofc they are you killed it my baby’s already famous <3

you hehe love you my jakey-poo

jakey-poo STOP IT WITH THAT

permanent taglist: @zreamy @sunghoonmybeloved @lalalalawon @sd211 @w3bqrl @raikea10 @wntrnghts @moonlighthoon @4imhry @rikisly @loves0ft @iamliacamila @theboingsuckerasseater9000 @chaechae-23 (ask to be removed/added!)

© asahicore on Tumblr, 2023. please do not repost, translate, or plagiarize my works. feedback and reblogs always appreciated!

[bloomzone]

GLOW UP DIARY : #1.MINDSET IS EVERYTHING

Life is beautiful galaxy be a writer, genre is fantasy what opens up to me tomorrow is a big, big stage so that is who I am

- ive (song : i am )

Hey heeey sparkles...today is the first part of glow up diary "mindset"..so grab ur notebook and let's guaaaar !

by: 𖧷´ bloomzone 𝅄 ׂׅ

#1 MINDSET

First of all bbg ur mindset is more than just a mindset it's a guiding force that influences how you perceive the world, respond to challenges, and ultimately create the life you envision.

THE IDGAF MINDSET IS THE KEY !

﹙ ✿ ﹚they don't like you..they don't like ur style,hair,music taste, interests ? I DON'T CARE YOU ARE YOU I'M ME ! the idgaf mindset is the solution.. everytime someone say something bad about u think and answer like ok and ? Who the fvck care ?. Stop caring about what ppl think about you IT'S YOU VS YOU stop caring about what other say about u . For example if one of ur friends come up to you and say "____ talk sh* about u" don't ask about what that person said abt u it doesn't matter cuz ur life revolve around u and only u. Life become easier once you stop reacting to negativity and that the GOAL cut off friends who bring don't bring u happiness and only bad mood but surround yourself with friends who bring u positivity and motivate you.

TIPS AND HOW TO START BUILDING YOUR OWN MINDSET:

𝜗𝜚 ⊹ ‧ start with listening to podcasts (click here) watch thewizardliz (click here) it will help u so much.💞

𝜗𝜚 ⊹ ‧ break up with friends who hurted you before if they are from ur family distance urself ;)

𝜗𝜚 ⊹ ‧ stop and STOP creating bad scenario on your mind cuz it will effect on ur mood , be positive 🎀

𝜗𝜚 ⊹ ‧ make yourself a propriety act like the person u want to become and always be grateful of what u have rn don't say "why ___ is more popular than me" "why I'm not this pretty?" Cuz this will effect u and u will start overthinking..so be grateful of what u have cuz god have always a better plan for u honey !💌

𝜗𝜚 ⊹ ‧ stay private don't tell ppl ur goal and ur future plan !

𝜗𝜚 ⊹ ‧ don't listen to ppl who will bring u down they choose to hate u let them sit with that feeling it's not ur fault to focus on your self girlie 🎀

𝜗𝜚 ⊹ ‧ start to don't give a sht about what ppl say behind your back stop oversharing ur personal life (this is the big fault ..u should avoid this and trust me pretty that oversharing=problems)

𝜗𝜚 ⊹ ‧just be yourself but with a better mindset cuz u are the only one who know your worth never let anyone costume u or disrespect you "you changed" always say yes for my worth for my future self what do you think u are ? .. if they don't call u, don't respond to ur text put ur phone away go have a good day set boundaries make ppl respect you like if u walk in a room ppl will say "she an unbothered queen fr".You live for yourself sweetie everyone else is second. 💌

ıllı ⠀ : 🎀 i believe in you and you should believe in yourself to make it happen..take care xoxo .

by: 𖧷´ bloomzone 𝅄 ׂׅ ׂׅ ⠀ ♡ ⠀ !!

[pinkmoontaco]

It all started with a song || Lee Jihoon

Pairing: Producer-Idol Jihoon x Producer-Solo Idol Reader

Genre: Fluff, Idol romance

Summary: Jihoon, the reserved genius of SEVENTEEN, unexpectedly finds himself drawn to Y/N, a rising junior idol from HYBE, after collaborating on a duet. What starts as a professional partnership blossom into a heartfelt romance, captured in their respective songs

Author's note: This is my first time writing a story, and I truly appreciate you giving it a chance. Please forgive me if there are any mistakes—I’m still learning and growing as a writer. Thank you so much for taking the time to read and support my work. It means the world to me, and I hope you enjoy the journey I’ve created.

If you have any requests for any member or any other groups feel free to do so

Jihoon was preparing to release his solo album, which included a heartfelt duet about two lovers. After finishing his own parts, his next challenge was to find the perfect female lead for the song. With Bumzu’s help, he sifted through several demos of the female section.

After an exhaustive search, one demo finally stood out to him—it was exactly what he was looking for. When Bumzu visited him the next day, he asked, “Did any of the lyrics catch your attention?”

Jihoon nodded and showed him the demo.

“Oh, so you liked Y/N’s lyrics,” Bumzu said with a knowing smile. That’s when Jihoon learned that the lyrics had been written by Y/N, a junior solo idol from HYBE.

“You’ve never met her, have you?” Bumzu asked.

Jihoon shook his head. It was no surprise—everyone knew Jihoon wasn’t one to socialize much.

“I’ll bring her to the studio tomorrow,” Bumzu said confidently before heading out, leaving Jihoon to ponder the upcoming meeting.

The next day, Jihoon arrived at the studio earlier than usual, his mind a mix of anticipation and curiosity. He wasn’t sure what to expect. He knew Y/N by name, but meeting her in person would be different.

As he set up his equipment, the door swung open, and Bumzu walked in with a bright grin. Behind him was Y/N, her presence soft yet commanding. She wore a simple outfit, but her confidence and aura made it clear why she was a rising star.

“Jihoon, meet Y/N,” Bumzu introduced.

Jihoon stood, his usual calm demeanor masking his nerves. “Hi,” he greeted simply, bowing slightly.

“Hi! It’s so great to finally meet you Sunbae-nim" Y/N said with a warm smile. Her voice was light and melodic, just as he’d imagined. “I’ve heard so much about you and your music.”

“Likewise, but please don't call me sunbae-nim, you can call me by my name,” Jihoon replied, his words brief but sincere.

Bumzu clapped his hands together, breaking the silence. “Alright, let’s get to work! You two have a duet to perfect.”

Jihoon gestured toward the recording booth, silently inviting Y/N to take her place. As they started working through the song, Jihoon found himself impressed—not just by her vocal ability but by her understanding of the emotions behind the lyrics.

They went over the harmonies and phrasing, fine-tuning every detail. By the end of the session, Jihoon was pleasantly surprised at how smoothly everything had gone. Y/N wasn’t just talented; she was professional and insightful, bringing a depth to the song that exceeded his expectations.

“You’re really good,” Jihoon said as they wrapped up, his tone earnest.

Y/N beamed. “Thank you! Your composition is amazing—it makes it easy to connect with the song.”

For the first time in a while, Jihoon felt a genuine sense of excitement about the project. Maybe working with others wasn’t so bad after all.

After their first session, Jihoon couldn’t stop thinking about how seamlessly Y/N had brought the song to life. It was rare for him to feel this level of connection with another artist, especially so quickly.

The next day, Bumzu texted Jihoon. "How was it working with Y/N? She said she had a great time."

Jihoon hesitated for a moment before typing back. "She’s talented. The song’s coming together well."

Bumzu responded with a teasing emoji. "That’s high praise from you! Maybe you should tell her that in person."

Jihoon frowned slightly but didn’t reply. Compliments weren’t exactly his strong suit.

Their second studio session was scheduled later that week. Y/N arrived on time, as cheerful and prepared as before. Jihoon noticed how her energy seemed to brighten the room, even when she was just warming up.

“Good morning!” she greeted with a bright smile.

Jihoon nodded. “Morning. Ready to dive in?”

“Always,” she said confidently.

As they worked through the song again, Jihoon found himself more at ease. Y/N’s suggestions were thoughtful, and she wasn’t afraid to ask questions or offer input, which he appreciated. Somewhere in between harmonizing and tweaking lines, they started to find a rhythm—not just in the music, but in their conversations.

During a short break, Y/N leaned back in her chair. “You know, Jihoon, this is one of the most beautiful songs I’ve ever worked on. It feels so raw and real.”

Jihoon glanced at her, caught off guard by her sincerity. “Thanks. That means a lot,” he said quietly.

“Is it based on a personal experience?” she asked cautiously, as if afraid to overstep.

He hesitated for a moment before replying. “Kind of. It’s… inspired by the idea of love. Not necessarily mine, though.”

Y/N tilted her head, studying him. “I get it. Sometimes it’s easier to write about emotions from a distance.”

Jihoon nodded, appreciating her understanding. Their conversation drifted to other topics—music, inspirations, and even random stories about life as idols. For someone he’d only met recently, Y/N was surprisingly easy to talk to.

By the end of the session, the song was nearly complete. As they packed up, Y/N turned to Jihoon.

“I think this duet is going to be really special,” she said. “Thank you for letting me be part of it.”

Jihoon looked at her, feeling a rare warmth in her words. “You brought the song to life. I should be thanking you.”

Her eyes lit up at his unexpected praise. “Well, I guess we make a pretty good team,” she said with a grin.

Jihoon allowed himself a small smile. “Yeah, we do.”

As Y/N left the studio that day, Jihoon couldn’t help but think that meeting her had been one of the best things to happen during this project.

In the weeks that followed, Jihoon and Y/N spent more time together polishing their duet. Each session seemed to bring them closer, not just as collaborators but as individuals. Y/N’s infectious laughter and unfiltered enthusiasm often pulled Jihoon out of his shell, while Jihoon’s quiet determination and thoughtful approach inspired Y/N to push herself even further.

One day, as they wrapped up the final recording, Bumzu entered the studio with a wide grin. “So, how does it feel to be done?”

Y/N clapped her hands together excitedly. “It feels amazing! I can’t wait for people to hear it.”

Jihoon nodded in agreement, his usual stoicism giving way to a subtle but genuine smile. “It’s better than I imagined.”

Bumzu raised an eyebrow, clearly impressed. “Wow, Jihoon actually giving compliments? I need to write this down.”

Y/N laughed. “He’s not that bad. He’s just… selective with his words.”

Jihoon shot her a mock glare, but there was no malice behind it. Instead, he found himself smiling along with her—a rare occurrence that didn’t go unnoticed by Bumzu.

As they packed up, Bumzu pulled Jihoon aside. “You know, you’ve changed a bit since working with her,” he said casually.

Jihoon frowned. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, you seem… lighter. Happier, even,” Bumzu said with a knowing grin. “It’s a good look on you.”

Jihoon didn’t respond immediately. Instead, he glanced over at Y/N, who was chatting animatedly with a staff member. There was something about her—something that made him feel less burdened, more open to the world around him.

The song’s release day arrived, and the response was overwhelming. Fans praised the emotional depth of the duet, calling it one of Jihoon’s best works yet. Many were also captivated by the chemistry between Jihoon and Y/N, evident not just in their vocals but in the behind-the-scenes clips shared online.

As they stood backstage during a live performance, Y/N turned to Jihoon. “Are you nervous?” she asked, noticing his unusually quiet demeanor.

“A little,” he admitted. “Not about the song, though. I just hope people feel what we tried to convey.”

Y/N placed a reassuring hand on his arm. “They will. This song has so much heart in it. You’ve poured yourself into it, and I’ve never been prouder to be part of something.”

Her words struck a chord with Jihoon. For the first time in a long while, he didn’t feel alone in his creative journey. “Thank you,” he said softly.

When they stepped on stage and began to sing, Jihoon realized something unexpected. The song, which he’d once viewed as merely a project, had become something far more personal. And in that moment, as their voices blended and the audience’s applause filled the air, Jihoon understood just how much Y/N had changed his perspective—not just on music, but on life itself.

After the performance, Y/N grinned at him. “See? We nailed it.”

Jihoon met her gaze, his expression warm. “We really did.”

And as they walked off stage together, Jihoon couldn’t help but think that this was only the beginning of a story far greater than either of them had anticipated.

In the days following the song's release, the hype only grew. The other members of SEVENTEEN were quick to congratulate Jihoon. Mingyu, with his ever-present energy, was the first to bring it up during one of their group practice sessions.

“Hyung! That duet is insane! Everyone’s talking about you and Y/N,” Mingyu said, clapping him on the back.

Joshua added with a smile, “Yeah, the fans are loving the chemistry. You two sounded amazing together.”

Jihoon felt a rare flush of embarrassment rise to his cheeks. “Thanks, guys. It was a lot of work, but she made it easier.”

“Oh-ho!” Seungkwan chimed in, eyes sparkling with mischief. “Hyung admitting someone made his life easier? This must be a first!”

The room erupted into laughter. Even Jeonghan, who always had a teasing comment up his sleeve, smirked. “So when do we get to meet this famous Y/N?”

Before Jihoon could respond, the studio door creaked open and in walked Bumzu—with Y/N beside him. The sudden appearance of their guest caught everyone’s attention.

“Speak of the devil!” Vernon said, raising an eyebrow.

Y/N waved nervously, a bit overwhelmed by being surrounded by the full force of SEVENTEEN. “Hi, everyone. It’s nice to finally meet all of you.”

Dino bounded over with enthusiasm. “You’re the one with that amazing voice! Your part in the song gave me chills.”

“Thanks!” Y/N said, her smile growing as she relaxed.

Hoshi, never one to miss a moment, stepped forward and grinned. “Are you ready to dance with us too? Because in SEVENTEEN, we don’t just sing—we dance.”

Jihoon rolled his eyes but couldn’t hide a small smirk. “Don’t scare her off, Hoshi.”

Y/N laughed, feeling at ease now. “I’d love to try sometime, but I don’t think I could keep up with you guys. I’m more of a singer than a dancer.”

Jun nudged Jihoon playfully. “Looks like you’re not the only one who’s found a great collaborator.”

Over the next hour, SEVENTEEN welcomed Y/N into their world, joking and sharing stories. The room was filled with laughter, the group’s usual dynamic enriched by a new presence. Jihoon found himself observing the way Y/N blended in so effortlessly, as if she’d been part of their chaotic family all along.

As the evening went on, Minghao approached Jihoon with a knowing smile. “You look happy,” he said simply.

Jihoon glanced at Y/N, who was now in an animated conversation with DK and Woozi, sharing anecdotes about their vocal warm-ups. A small, content smile played on his lips. “I guess I am.”

A few weeks later, SEVENTEEN was preparing for a group livestream, and Y/N was invited to join as a surprise guest. Jihoon wasn’t thrilled about the idea at first—he preferred to keep things professional—but the rest of the members were insistent.

“Come on, Jihoon,” Seungkwan pleaded. “The fans already love you two together. This will be fun!”

“It’s a great way to promote the song even more,” Mingyu added. “Plus, we want to see how she handles being in one of our chaotic lives.”

Reluctantly, Jihoon agreed, and Y/N arrived at the dorm just as the livestream was about to begin.

“Is this what it’s like before you go live?” Y/N asked, watching the members scramble to adjust cameras, lights, and snacks.

“Always,” Jeonghan said with a smirk. “It’s controlled chaos.”

As the livestream began, fans flooded the chat with comments. The members introduced Y/N, and the reaction was overwhelmingly positive.

“Y/N’s here! OMG!”

“She and Jihoon look so good together!”

“The duet is my favorite song right now!”

Jihoon, who was reading the comments on his phone, shifted uncomfortably but managed a small smile. “The fans seem happy,” he said quietly to Y/N.

“They’re so sweet,” Y/N replied, her eyes scanning the messages.

The members took turns asking her questions, each one more playful than the last.

“Hoshi,” Y/N said, laughing, “why are you asking if I’d join the Performance Team? I just told you I’m not much of a dancer!”

“Because we can teach you,” Hoshi replied with a dramatic flourish.

DK chimed in, “Or you can join the Vocal Team! We need more people who can hit those high notes.”

“Don’t listen to them,” Minghao said. “You’re a solo artist. Stay in your lane before they rope you into our madness.”

The banter continued until Seungkwan leaned into the camera and asked the question everyone wanted to know.

“So, Y/N, how’s it working with Jihoon?”

The chat exploded with reactions.

Y/N glanced at Jihoon, who was clearly caught off guard but tried to mask it. She smiled. “Honestly? It’s been amazing. He’s a perfectionist, but in the best way. I’ve learned so much from him.”

Jihoon cleared his throat, his ears tinged pink. “She’s talented, so it wasn’t hard to work with her,” he said simply, earning exaggerated “oohs” from the members.

As the livestream continued, Y/N fit right in with SEVENTEEN’s dynamic, laughing and joking with them like she’d known them for years. Fans in the chat began calling her an “honorary 14th member,” a title that made her laugh but also secretly warmed Jihoon’s heart.

After the livestream ended, the members sprawled across the couch, tired but happy.

“You handled that like a pro,” Mingyu said, tossing a cushion at Y/N.

“Thanks,” Y/N replied, catching the cushion. “You guys are a lot of fun. I can see why your fans love you so much.”

As the group began to disperse, Jihoon found himself alone with Y/N for the first time that evening.

“You were great today,” he said, his voice softer than usual.

“Thanks. I was a little nervous, but you all made it easy,” Y/N said, leaning against the back of the couch. “Your members are like family, huh?”

Jihoon nodded. “They are. It’s chaotic, but it’s… home.”

Y/N smiled. “I can tell. You’re lucky to have that.”

There was a comfortable silence between them before Y/N added, “And thanks for letting me be part of all this. I didn’t expect to be welcomed so warmly.”

Jihoon met her gaze, his usual stoicism softening. “You’re part of it now. Whether you like it or not.”

Her laughter filled the room, light and genuine. “I think I like it.”

And for the first time in a long while, Jihoon felt like the walls he’d built around himself were no longer as important.

Over the next few weeks, Y/N continued to bond with SEVENTEEN. She found herself invited to more studio sessions, group meals, and even impromptu dance practices. Despite her initial hesitation about being in the spotlight alongside such a well-known group, their warmth made her feel at home.

Jihoon, on the other hand, started noticing the subtle ways Y/N was changing the dynamic around him. She wasn’t just a collaborator anymore; she was becoming a friend. Someone who could pull him out of his creative tunnel and remind him to enjoy the little moments.

One day, after a long recording session, the group decided to hang out at their dorm. Y/N hesitated when Seungkwan invited her along.

“Are you sure? I don’t want to intrude,” she said.

“You? Intruding?” Seungkwan scoffed. “You’re practically one of us now. Come on!”

When they arrived at the dorm, chaos quickly ensued. Mingyu was in the kitchen, trying to cook something “special,” while Hoshi and Dino argued over which choreography to show Y/N.

Jihoon sat on the couch, quietly observing the scene. Y/N was laughing with Jeonghan, who was undoubtedly up to some mischief. He couldn’t help but smile to himself.

“You like her, don’t you?” Minghao’s voice pulled Jihoon from his thoughts.

Jihoon turned to him, his expression unreadable. “What are you talking about?”

Minghao smirked. “You’re not as subtle as you think. The way you look at her—it’s different.”

Jihoon sighed, leaning back against the couch. “She’s… easy to be around. That’s all.”

“Sure,” Minghao said, clearly unconvinced. “Just don’t wait too long to figure it out.”

Later that evening, as everyone settled in for a movie, Jihoon found himself sitting next to Y/N. The room was dimly lit, and the sound of laughter and popcorn crunching filled the air.

Y/N leaned closer to whisper, “Thanks for letting me hang out with you guys. I didn’t expect this when we started working on the song.”

Jihoon glanced at her, the soft glow of the TV reflecting in her eyes. “You’re not just here because of the song anymore. They like you. I… like having you around.”

Her eyes widened slightly at his admission, a soft smile forming on her lips. “I like being around you too, Jihoon.”

For a moment, the noise of the room faded, and it was just the two of them, sitting closer than either realized.

“Jihoon! Pass the popcorn!” DK’s voice broke the moment, and Jihoon blinked, quickly grabbing the bowl to hand over.

Y/N chuckled softly, leaning back into the couch. The warmth between them lingered, unspoken but undeniable.

As the weeks turned into months, their bond deepened. Whether it was through shared late-night studio sessions, casual dinners with the group, or quiet moments away from the chaos, Jihoon and Y/N found themselves drawn closer together.

And while neither of them said it out loud, they both knew that what had started as a simple duet had grown into something far more meaningful.

As time passed, Jihoon and Y/N’s bond became increasingly apparent to everyone around them. The other members of SEVENTEEN had a field day teasing Jihoon about it, though they were careful not to push him too far. Y/N, on the other hand, took it all in stride, her easygoing nature making her a natural fit within the group’s chaotic but loving dynamic.

One day, they found themselves in the studio late at night, working on a new song. The other members had already gone home, leaving just the two of them.

Y/N leaned over the desk, scrolling through the playlist Jihoon had prepared for inspiration. “This one’s good,” she said, pointing to a track.

Jihoon nodded, playing it without hesitation. The soft melody filled the room, and they both sat in comfortable silence, letting the music wash over them.

After a while, Y/N broke the quiet. “Do you ever think about what this all means? The music, the fans, everything we do?”

Jihoon looked at her, surprised by the sudden introspection. “All the time,” he admitted. “It’s why I work so hard. I want it to mean something—to leave something behind that matters.”

She smiled softly. “You already do. Your music touches so many people, Jihoon. Including me.”

He felt a warmth spread through him at her words. “What about you? What does it mean to you?”

Y/N took a moment to think before answering. “It’s about connection. Every lyric, every note… it’s a way to reach people, to let them know they’re not alone. I think that’s why I love working with you. You get that.”

For a moment, Jihoon was at a loss for words. Her sincerity, her openness—it was something he wasn’t used to but found himself drawn to.

“Y/N,” he said, his voice quieter than usual. “I don’t say this often, but… you’ve changed the way I look at things. Working with you—it’s made me realize how much more music can be when it’s shared.”

She looked at him, her eyes shining with gratitude. “You don’t know how much that means to me, coming from you.”

They held each other’s gaze for a moment, the weight of unspoken emotions filling the room. But before either of them could say more, Jihoon’s phone buzzed, breaking the moment.

The next morning, as they arrived at the practice room, the other members were already there. Hoshi immediately noticed the way Jihoon and Y/N seemed closer than usual.

“Did something happen last night?” he asked, his eyes darting between the two.

“Nothing happened,” Jihoon replied quickly, his ears turning pink.

Y/N, however, laughed. “We were just working on music. Don’t let your imagination run wild.”

The members didn’t buy it, but they let it go—for now.

Later that week, the group had a fan meeting, and Y/N was invited as a special guest to perform their duet live for the first time since its release. The fans erupted into cheers as Jihoon and Y/N took the stage together, their voices blending seamlessly as they sang.

During the performance, Jihoon couldn’t help but glance at Y/N, her presence radiating warmth and confidence. He realized that what had started as a professional partnership had grown into something far more personal.

After the performance, as they stood backstage, Y/N turned to Jihoon, her eyes sparkling. “That was incredible. Thank you for sharing this with me.”

Jihoon hesitated for a moment before replying. “Thank you… for everything.”

Y/N smiled, her hand lightly brushing his arm. And in that moment, Jihoon knew that whatever this was between them—friendship, partnership, or something more—he wasn’t ready to let it go.

A few days after their fan meeting, the duet performance went viral. Clips of Jihoon and Y/N on stage, their undeniable chemistry and harmonies, flooded social media. Fans couldn’t stop talking about how perfectly their voices blended and how natural their interactions seemed.

The buzz didn’t go unnoticed by SEVENTEEN.

“Have you seen the comments?” Seungkwan said, shoving his phone in front of Jihoon’s face during a break in practice.

Jihoon glanced at the screen, where fans had flooded the comments section with messages like:

“They’re perfect together!”

“Jihoon and Y/N need to release a whole album together!”

“Am I the only one who feels like there’s more to their story?”

Jihoon sighed, pushing the phone away. “It’s just the fans. They like to speculate.”

“But they’re not wrong,” Mingyu chimed in with a sly grin.

“Not you too,” Jihoon groaned.

That evening, Y/N visited the dorm for what was supposed to be a casual hangout. As usual, the members couldn’t help but stir the pot.

“So, Y/N,” Jeonghan started, leaning casually against the couch, “what’s it like being the most shipped person with Jihoon right now?”

Y/N nearly choked on her drink. “Excuse me?”

“Oh, you didn’t know?” Hoshi said, joining in. “The fans are calling you the ‘power duo.’ Some are even saying you’re a better fit than us!”

“Don’t listen to them,” Jihoon muttered, his ears turning pink.

Y/N, recovering from her initial shock, laughed. “Well, I guess it’s a compliment? I mean, Jihoon is an incredible artist, so I’m honored.”

The room erupted in exaggerated “oohs,” with Seungkwan dramatically fanning Jihoon. “Did you hear that? She called you incredible!”

Jihoon buried his face in his hands, muttering, “Why do I even let you all talk?”

Despite the teasing, Jihoon couldn’t help but feel a sense of pride at Y/N’s words. She always had a way of making him feel seen—not just as an artist but as a person.

Later that night, after everyone had settled down, Y/N and Jihoon found themselves alone on the dorm balcony, overlooking the city lights.

“It’s been a wild night, huh?” Y/N said, leaning against the railing.

Jihoon nodded, his gaze fixed on the skyline. “Yeah. I didn’t expect any of this when we started working together.”

“Me neither,” she admitted. “But I’m glad it happened. I’ve learned so much—not just about music but about myself.”

Jihoon glanced at her, his expression softening. “You’ve changed a lot of things for me, too. I didn’t realize how much I needed someone to remind me why I love what I do.”

Y/N looked at him, her heart skipping a beat at the vulnerability in his voice. “Jihoon… I—”

Before she could finish, the balcony door slid open, and Mingyu stuck his head out. “Hey, are you two having a moment? Because we’ve got snacks inside.”

Y/N burst out laughing, while Jihoon groaned. “You have the worst timing, Mingyu.”

Mingyu grinned. “That’s what I’m here for.”

As the night went on, the teasing and camaraderie continued, but something had shifted between Jihoon and Y/N. Though unspoken, there was an understanding growing between them—one that neither was ready to confront just yet but couldn’t deny any longer.

And as Jihoon watched Y/N laughing with his members, he couldn’t help but think that maybe, just maybe, this was the start of something he’d been searching for without even realizing it.

The weeks passed, and Jihoon found himself unable to shake the feeling that had been slowly growing inside him. Every time Y/N smiled, every time their eyes met during a quiet moment, something in his chest fluttered. He had always been someone who let his music speak for him, but this time, it wasn’t enough just to express himself through lyrics. He needed to tell her, to be vulnerable in a way he hadn’t been with anyone before.

But how?

It was during a late-night studio session, after everyone else had left for the day, that Jihoon decided to do something about it. He had spent hours working on the song, tweaking the melody, perfecting the lyrics, and now it was ready.

The track wasn’t like anything he had made before. It was softer, more personal, and every note seemed to come straight from his heart. He had poured his feelings into it, capturing the emotions that he couldn’t say out loud. It was a love song. And the subject of it? None other than Y/N.

The next day, Jihoon invited Y/N to the studio under the guise of working on new material. She arrived, always eager to help or collaborate, but there was something different about Jihoon’s demeanor that caught her attention.

“What’s going on?” she asked as she walked into the studio. “You’ve been acting a little… off lately.”

Jihoon avoided her gaze, fiddling with the soundboard for a moment. “I… I have something I want to play for you.”

Y/N raised an eyebrow, curious. “A new song?”

He nodded, his throat tightening slightly. “Yeah. But it’s… different.”

Y/N walked over to him and sat down, her eyes fixed on him. “I’m all ears, Jihoon.”

Jihoon hesitated for a moment longer before hitting play. The soft, melodic intro filled the room, and Y/N was immediately drawn into the haunting beauty of the song. As the lyrics began, she felt a stirring in her chest. The song felt… personal. Deeply personal.

She listened intently, her heart racing as the chorus hit, and Jihoon’s voice filled the space:

“I didn’t know how to say it, but now I know it’s true, Every moment with you feels like I’ve found something new. In the silence, in the music, in the things I never said, I’m falling for you, I’m falling for you, And I can’t take it back.”

The song went on, each lyric pulling Y/N deeper into the emotions Jihoon had poured into it. By the end, the room was thick with the unspoken words hanging in the air. The music faded, and for a few moments, there was silence.

Y/N slowly turned to look at Jihoon, her eyes wide with realization. “Jihoon… that song…”

He swallowed hard, his voice barely above a whisper. “It’s for you.”

Y/N’s breath caught in her throat. She had known there was something between them, something that had grown over time, but hearing him express it so clearly, through music, felt like a confession she hadn’t expected.

“Jihoon…” she whispered, her voice trembling.

He finally met her gaze, his eyes vulnerable in a way she had never seen before. “I’ve been trying to ignore it, trying to tell myself I was just… overthinking. But every time you’re near, every time you smile, it feels like something more. I think… I think I’ve fallen for you, Y/N. And I couldn’t hide it anymore. Not after writing this song for you.”

Y/N’s heart raced as she processed his words, her own emotions swirling within her. She had felt it too—the connection, the way everything felt more meaningful when they were together. But hearing him say it out loud made it all so real.

She took a step closer, her voice soft but steady. “I’ve been feeling the same way, Jihoon.”

His eyes widened, and he took a step toward her as well. “Really?”

She nodded, a smile tugging at her lips. “I’ve been too afraid to admit it, but… I’ve been falling for you, too. Maybe I didn’t want to admit it because I didn’t know if you felt the same, but… I’ve never been more sure of anything.”

The tension that had built between them in the past few months suddenly lifted. Jihoon, overcome with relief and happiness, took her hand gently.

“Then… do you think we can figure this out together?” he asked softly.

Y/N smiled, her heart swelling. “I’d like that very much.”

For a moment, neither of them said anything else. The weight of the confession hung in the air, but the silence felt comfortable, like a shared understanding.

Jihoon squeezed her hand gently. “I don’t know what comes next, but I want to find out with you.”

Y/N nodded, her eyes shining. “Me too.”

And as they stood there, hand in hand, Jihoon knew that this song, the one that had started as a way to express his feelings, was just the beginning of a new chapter for them both.

For a few weeks, Jihoon and Y/N managed to keep their budding relationship under wraps. They weren’t intentionally hiding it, but neither of them was ready to face the whirlwind of teasing that would inevitably come from SEVENTEEN.

However, secrets rarely lasted long in a group as close-knit and nosy as SEVENTEEN.

It all started during a practice session. Jihoon had left his phone on the bench while the group worked through choreography, and a text from Y/N popped up on the screen:

Y/N: Can’t wait to see you tonight ❤️

Seungkwan, ever the observant one, noticed the notification first. “Oh? Hyung, care to explain this?” he asked, holding up the phone with a mischievous grin.

Jihoon froze mid-step, his face instantly turning crimson. “Give me that!” he snapped, rushing over to grab the phone.

But it was too late. Seungkwan had already shared the discovery with Hoshi and Jeonghan, who were now looking at Jihoon with matching expressions of glee.

“‘Can’t wait to see you tonight?’” Jeonghan teased, his tone dripping with mock innocence. “Jihoon, do you have plans we should know about?”

The rest of the group quickly caught on, gathering around as Jihoon struggled to come up with an excuse.

“It’s nothing,” he muttered, shoving his phone into his pocket.

“Nothing?” Hoshi said, raising an eyebrow. “Sounds like something to me.”

“It’s Y/N, isn’t it?” Mingyu blurted out. The room went silent for a moment as everyone processed the possibility.

Jihoon sighed, realizing there was no escape. “Fine. Yes. It’s Y/N. We’re… dating.”

The room erupted into chaos.

“What?!” Seungkwan exclaimed, looking both shocked and delighted. “When did this happen?”

“Jihoon, you sly fox!” Jeonghan said, clapping him on the back.

“You’re dating Y/N, and you didn’t tell us?” Dino pouted. “I thought we were close!”

Jihoon groaned, running a hand through his hair. “I didn’t want to make a big deal out of it, okay? It’s still new, and we didn’t want any unnecessary attention.”

Joshua, ever the voice of reason, stepped in. “Guys, let’s not overwhelm him. It’s Jihoon, after all. This must’ve taken a lot for him to admit.”

“Yeah,” DK added, grinning. “But seriously, Hyung, we’re happy for you. Y/N’s great.”

“She’s not just great,” Minghao said thoughtfully. “She fits in with us, and most importantly, she brings out a side of you we don’t see often. It’s nice.”

Jihoon looked around at his members, their teasing replaced with genuine support, and felt a wave of relief. “Thanks, guys. Just… keep it low-key, okay? We’re not ready for everyone to know yet.”

The group collectively agreed, though Jihoon wasn’t sure he trusted their definition of “low-key.”

That evening, Jihoon met Y/N at their usual spot in the studio. She could tell something was different as soon as he walked in.

“What happened?” she asked, tilting her head.

“They know,” Jihoon said, sitting beside her.

“Who knows?”

“SEVENTEEN,” he admitted, rubbing the back of his neck.

Y/N’s eyes widened. “Oh no. How bad was it?”

Jihoon chuckled despite himself. “About as chaotic as you’d expect. But… they’re happy for us. They promised to keep it a secret, though I don’t know how long that’ll last.”

Y/N smiled, reaching over to take his hand. “Well, I guess it was bound to happen. They’re your family, Jihoon. And honestly, I don’t mind if they know. I like being part of your world.”

Jihoon squeezed her hand, his heart swelling at her words. “You’re more than just part of it, Y/N. You’ve made it better.”

The next day, when Y/N visited the dorm for dinner, the teasing resumed, but it was all in good fun.

“So, Y/N,” Jeonghan said with a sly smile, “what’s it like dating our Jihoon? Is he as romantic as he is in his songs?”

Y/N laughed, glancing at Jihoon, who looked like he wanted to disappear. “He’s perfect,” she said simply, her sincerity making Jihoon’s face flush even more.

The room erupted into cheers and playful jabs, but beneath the chaos, there was a palpable warmth. SEVENTEEN was more than a group—they were a family. And now, Y/N was part of that family, too.

As the night wore on, Jihoon couldn’t help but feel grateful. For his members, for their unwavering support, and most of all, for Y/N, who had somehow become the piece he hadn’t realized was missing from his life.

A few weeks after SEVENTEEN’s comeback promotions wrapped up, Jihoon surprised fans with the announcement of a solo track, titled “Only for You.” The anticipation was palpable, especially after fans connected the dots between the mysterious teasers and Jihoon’s recent duet with Y/N.

When the song finally dropped, it was an instant hit. A tender and emotional ballad, the lyrics told the story of someone realizing they’ve found the one person who completes them. Jihoon’s heartfelt delivery struck a chord with listeners, but eagle-eyed fans noticed something peculiar.

The release coincided with a few subtle interactions between Jihoon and Y/N on social media. Comments like:

“This song feels so personal… is it inspired by someone special?”

“The vibe reminds me of Jihoon and Y/N’s duet. Are we missing something?”

“Wait a second… some of these lyrics feel like they match things Y/N said in interviews!”

The speculation ramped up a notch when, only a few days later, Y/N teased her own solo track, “Echo of You.”

When Y/N’s song dropped, fans were quick to notice that it felt like a reply to Jihoon’s. While Jihoon’s track spoke of falling for someone who brought light into his life, Y/N’s lyrics told the story of being seen and loved for who she truly was.

Lines like:

“I thought I was just a shadow, but your light made me shine.”

“Every melody you wrote felt like a message just for me.”

Fans flooded social media with theories.

“Wait, these songs feel connected. Are they… about each other?”

“Woozi's ‘Only for You’ and Y/N’s ‘Echo of You’ are like two sides of the same love story.”

“If this is real, I’ll cry. They’re perfect together!”

The speculation reached its peak when a fan-made mashup of the two songs went viral, seamlessly blending the tracks into a duet that felt like it was meant to be.

Back at SEVENTEEN’s dorm, the members couldn’t help but join the buzz.

“So,” Seungkwan started, holding up his phone, “the fans are catching on.”

Jihoon groaned, slumping onto the couch. “I knew this would happen.”

“I mean, they’re not wrong,” Jeonghan said, smirking. “The songs do sound like they’re talking to each other.”

Y/N, who had been invited over for dinner, sat beside Jihoon, trying (and failing) to suppress her laughter. “It’s kind of impressive how quickly they picked up on it.”

Joshua leaned forward, grinning. “Are you two going to say anything? Or just let the fans go wild with their theories?”

Jihoon glanced at Y/N, his expression thoughtful. “What do you think?” he asked her.

Y/N smiled softly. “I don’t mind letting them wonder for now. I like that the songs are just ours, even if people are curious.”

The members all groaned in mock frustration.

“You’re both too private for your own good,” Mingyu teased. “Just admit it already and save us the headache!”

“Admit what?” Jihoon shot back, feigning innocence.

“That you two are the main characters in the greatest musical love story ever told,” Hoshi declared dramatically, earning laughter from the group.

Despite the teasing, Jihoon and Y/N decided to keep quiet, letting their music speak for them. The buzz around their songs only grew, with both tracks climbing the charts and becoming fan favorites.

During a live Q&A, Jihoon was inevitably asked about the inspiration for “Only for You.”

“It’s about someone who changed the way I see the world,” he said simply, his expression soft.

When Y/N was asked a similar question about “Echo of You,” she smiled knowingly. “It’s a song about gratitude and love—for someone who helped me realize my worth.”

The fans didn’t need anything more. To them, the connection between the songs—and their creators—was obvious.

One evening, as they sat together in Jihoon’s studio, Y/N turned to him with a playful smile. “So, do you think they’ve figured it out yet?”

Jihoon chuckled, shaking his head. “I think they know. They’re just waiting for us to say it out loud.”

“And when do you think we should?” she asked, tilting her head.

Jihoon thought for a moment before replying, his voice warm. “Maybe someday. But for now, I like that the songs tell our story. It feels… special.”

Y/N leaned closer, her hand resting on his. “I like that too.”

The weeks following the dual song releases were a whirlwind. Both tracks dominated the charts, and the fan theories only grew more elaborate. Mashups, fan edits, and endless analysis filled the internet, with fans piecing together subtle interactions and shared moments.

Despite their best efforts to stay under the radar, the buzz became too loud to ignore. SEVENTEEN’s members didn’t make it any easier, constantly dropping playful hints during interviews and live streams.

One day, Jihoon and Y/N found themselves at a joint event where multiple HYBE artists were present. It was a casual, live-streamed Q&A session, and the energy in the room was lively. Fans flooded the chat with questions about collaborations, their music, and, of course, the connection between Jihoon’s and Y/N’s songs.

The host, clearly aware of the buzz, decided to address the elephant in the room.

“So, Woozi-shi and Y/N-shi,” they began, a mischievous glint in their eye. “The fans have been talking nonstop about how your songs seem… connected. Care to comment?”

Jihoon, caught off guard, glanced at Y/N. She met his gaze with a small, encouraging smile, her eyes silently asking, Are you ready?

He hesitated for a moment before leaning into the mic. “Well,” he started, his voice calm but tinged with nervousness, “the fans aren’t wrong. The songs are connected.”

The room fell silent for a moment, everyone—including the other artists—hanging on his every word.

Y/N chimed in, her tone light but honest. “We didn’t plan for it to be a big mystery. We just wrote from our hearts. And, well… our hearts were in the same place.”

The host’s eyes widened in realization. “Wait, are you saying—”

Jihoon nodded, cutting them off gently. “Y/N and I… we’re together. And the songs were our way of telling that story without saying it outright.”

The room erupted into applause, cheers, and a few playful whistles from SEVENTEEN and the other HYBE artists. The fans watching the live stream went wild, the chat filling with messages like:

“I KNEW IT!”

“This is the best plot twist ever!”

“Our musical power couple!”

Later that evening, Jihoon and Y/N sat together backstage, scrolling through the flood of messages on social media.

“Looks like the fans are taking it well,” Y/N said, laughing as she read a particularly enthusiastic comment.

Jihoon smiled, his shoulders relaxing for the first time in weeks. “I guess I shouldn’t have worried so much. They seem… happy for us.”

Y/N leaned her head on his shoulder. “Of course they are. We’ve been honest in the best way we know how—through our music.”

Jihoon wrapped an arm around her, his voice soft. “I’m glad we finally said it. It feels good not to hide anymore.”

She looked up at him, her eyes shining. “Me too.”

As the weeks passed, their relationship became a beloved story among fans. Jihoon and Y/N didn’t share much beyond their music and occasional glimpses of their dynamic, but their authenticity resonated with everyone.

Their next collaboration—a duet explicitly written as a continuation of their story—became one of the most anticipated releases of the year, cementing their status as not just two incredible artists but as a couple who had found love in the heart of their shared passion.

And as Jihoon often said in interviews, with a small, knowing smile: “It all started with a song.”

The announcement of Jihoon and Y/N’s relationship didn’t just excite fans; it gave SEVENTEEN endless new material to tease their usually reserved member. And, of course, they weren’t going to let the opportunity go to waste during their next content shoot.

The group was filming an episode of their popular variety show, “GOING SEVENTEEN,” and the theme for the day was a mock courtroom trial where members had to defend themselves against outrageous (and often ridiculous) accusations.

As the camera rolled, Jeonghan smirked, ready to unleash chaos. “Today, I bring a serious accusation against Jihoon,” he began, standing dramatically as the self-appointed prosecutor.

Jihoon, sitting at the “defendant’s” table, raised an eyebrow. “What now?”

Jeonghan held up an imaginary piece of paper, squinting at it for effect. “Jihoon, you’ve been accused of… secretly writing love songs instead of working on group projects. How do you plead?”

The room erupted in laughter, with Seungkwan clapping his hands. “Guilty! We all know it’s true!”

Jihoon sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Is this really necessary?”

“Yes!” Hoshi chimed in, his grin practically splitting his face. “We’ve all noticed you humming random melodies lately. Are those for us, or… someone else?”

The teasing didn’t stop there. As the trial continued, the members took turns “presenting evidence.”

Mingyu dramatically placed a notebook on the table. “Exhibit A: Jihoon’s lyric book. Do we need to open it to find the word ‘Y/N’ written a hundred times?”

Dino jumped in, mimicking an investigator. “Exhibit B: The way Jihoon smiles at his phone during breaks. Suspicious behavior if you ask me.”

Even the usually quiet Wonwoo joined in. “Exhibit C: The recent duet with Y/N. We all heard it. It’s basically a confession set to music.”

By this point, Jihoon’s face was a deep shade of red, though he couldn’t help but chuckle.

During a break in filming, Joshua leaned over to Jihoon. “You know, they’re only teasing because they’re happy for you, right?”

“I know,” Jihoon replied, a small smile tugging at his lips. “But they’re relentless.”

“Hey, it’s good content,” Joshua said with a wink. “The fans will love it.”

Later in the shoot, the tables turned when it was Jihoon’s chance to act as the judge. He banged the gavel dramatically. “I have an accusation of my own,” he announced, his tone firm but playful.

The members gasped in mock horror.

“I accuse SEVENTEEN of being the nosiest group in the industry,” Jihoon declared, pointing at them one by one. “Always prying, always teasing. How do you plead?”

“Guilty!” Seungkwan shouted, raising his hands in surrender. “But we do it out of love!”

Hoshi stood up, grinning. “Your Honor, I’d like to counter-accuse. Jihoon is guilty of smiling more these days. We all know the reason why.”

The room burst into laughter once again, and Jihoon couldn’t help but shake his head, a reluctant smile on his face.

As the shoot wrapped up, the director praised the group for their energy and humor. The episode, once edited, was full of golden moments that had fans laughing and cooing over SEVENTEEN’s antics.

And while Jihoon might have been the butt of the jokes, the camaraderie and genuine affection from his members shone through.

In the comments section of the uploaded episode, fans were quick to notice the playful dynamic:

“SEVENTEEN teasing Jihoon about Y/N is peak family energy!”

“Jihoon trying to act annoyed but secretly loving it is so cute.”

“The way they all support him in their own chaotic way makes me emotional.”

That evening, as Jihoon returned to his studio, his phone buzzed with a message from Y/N:

Y/N: Saw the episode preview. They’re so obvious, lol.

Jihoon smiled, typing back:

Jihoon: They’re impossible. But at least they’re on our side.

Y/N: Always. And so am I.

As he leaned back in his chair, Jihoon couldn’t help but feel grateful—not just for Y/N, but for the family he’d found in SEVENTEEN.

Even if they never let him live it down.

[digitalsymbiote]

Hello! I have a question. I want to start writing about mech pilots, but my only real exposure to the genre is Armored Core and some Gundam stuff. Do you have any recommendations for written fiction involving such themes? Preferably short stories and the like as I intended to keep my own writing in the shortform.

Thanks!

-Mina.

Hello! Welcome to being normal about mechs :3

So if you're looking for short-form content, one of your best bets is probably checking out the #mechposting tag on here, since AC6 came out there have been a number of folks writing fun little stories about mechs and how they work and how people interface with them.

Here's some reccomendations, aside from my own writing:

@catgirlredux has written a number of very cool and interesting short stories about its "HAKs".

@ross-hollander has been writing a ton of little blurb posts about mechs for the past couple months, with some very fun ideas in them.

@abalidoth has written a couple things, its story "Replanting" is phenomenal.

@super-ion has written some really good stuff, check out xer stories "Valiant" and "The Engineer"(which was inspired by my writing and I'm very flattered about it)

"Kintsugi" from @k1nky-r0b0t-g1rl-wr1t1ng is another phenomanl story, as well as "Convergence" from @foxgirlbytes (both of these are NSFW)

My good friend @shiftertech has written a couple fun pieces, and my GF @frostfangalphabitch has written a few things more directly inspired by AC6 that are very good.

@dreamofhircine has also written some phenomenal stuff that was certainly formative to a lot of writers in the space.

I'd also recommend checking out stuff inspired by and/or in the setting of Lancer, it creates a pretty nice backdrop for mechposting stories and has a lot of fun lore to play with.

@autumnalwalker 's "Kindly Basilisk" is one of my favorite mechposting stories ever.

I'd also recommend checking out the Empty Spaces tag. While it's not really mechposting, Empty Spaces tends to have a lot of similar vibes, and a number of folks writing in the mechposting space got started in Empty Spaces.

[the-cypress-grove]

So, You Want To Write Vampires...

Here's a basic list of things to do/consider when approaching this creature.

Source Material

Go back to the origins. Almost every culture around the world has a story or myth containing cannibalism / blood drinking. You may want to base your origin story for vampires on one of these. This can also give you some ideas about what traits and abilities you might want to include that have been written out of modern fiction. It could help you add a unique twist.

2. Vampire Fiction

Vampires have been popping up in fiction for a very long time. Read The Vampyre by John Polidori (thought to be one of the first books written on vampires). Check out Carmilla by Sheridan Le Fanu (the lesbian vampire story that came out before Dracula). Speaking of, Dracula is a classic.

Look at modern fiction. Vampire Academy, Twilight, Vampire Diaries, True Blood, A Dowery of Blood, Crave. Read the good and the bad. Learn what qualities you like and which you will not use.

Make a list of things you like and things you don't.

3. Themes

Writing vampires brings a lot of themes surrounding mortality, immortality, morality, and at what point do we draw the line between what is human and what is other. These themes are integral to a vampire story whether you're writing a gothic horror, a paranormal romance, or a YA. There are a lot of links between cannibalism / blood drinking and love, vampires and LGBTQIA+ characters / coding.

4.Pick your traits

Vampires tend to be unique to the writer. The vampires in Twilight work differently to the vampires in The Vampire Diaries to the vampires in Dracula.

By this point you should have a list of possible traits and abilities you might want to give your vampires. My advice: tailor it to your genre. If you're writing a horror go with the traditional vampire abilities, give them the things that scare you. Think Nosferatu. If you're writing romance, then you might want to soften the traditional vampire traits in the way you find frequently in modern vampire media.

What you choose is up to you.

5. Origins

This is often overlooked in vampire stories but how did your vampires come into being? Who was the first vampire? Is this vampire still alive? How far back do vampires go as a species?

This could affect your vampires in terms of relationships with others of their kind, their powers, their strength.

This might not impact on your plot but, in terms of worldbuilding, if you intend to turn your book into a series then this could be very important going forward.

6. Society

Unless you're writing about the first ever vampire you're probably going to be writing about an established vampire population who will have their own laws, their own history, their own leadership, their own customs. This is an important piece of worldbuilding. It will affect your characters relationships, add conflict to the plot, create established enemies and can be used to raise the stakes.

7. Nocturnal Life

If you're following a traditional burn-in-the-sun vampire and they haven't found a way around this then you need to determine the night life of your setting. What is there for your vampires to do at night?

8. Feeding, Hunting, and Bloodlust

This will affect the level of gore in your story as a lot of the bloody parts in your story will take place through feeding and hunting. This will also determine your vampire population.

You need to decide how much your vampires need to feed, how often they need to do so, and what they can feed on. Do they drink animal blood? Is that possible? Do they drink human blood? Can they drink from blood bags? Do they need the blood fresh? If they need human blood do they need all of it?

The less a vampire feeds, the larger a population you can have in one area as it attracts less attention.

What happens when your vampires are hungry? What does their bloodlust look like? How does it affect a vampire? Is the amount of bloodlust a vampire experiences determined by how old the vampire is?

9. Threats

Unless your vampires are well and truly endless there will be ways to kill them and they will have enemies. Do these enemies take the shape of humans, of other vampires, or another species entirely? How can your vampires be killed? What other species are out there?

[sabrecrane]

Battling Writer's Block

Believe it or not there are people out there who believe that writer's block isn't a thing. Nope, I'm not kidding, that is what my lecturer said last year and I just want to assure anyone that may believe it doesn't exist/ or are thinking of giving up on their work, don't. It is a very real thing and is very common to experience especially if you've written so much that you've managed to burn yourself out. Also, nobody in my class liked that lecturer for the rest of the year after making that comment so if you don't believe it's real...I wish you luck is all I'm gonna say lol.

So how do you prevent this?

Well first of all, you can't, but you can decrease how likely it is to happen.

Organisation

First thing is first, get your notes and your characters down somewhere you can look at them. Organisation will help a ton. Personally I have notes scattered all over the place both physical and on a folder on my laptop. Ideas come at random so I jot them down and then always forgot to put the physical notes somewhere. This meant I got stressed because I knew I had a good idea but couldn't remember exactly what it was. I did end up finding the notes and have now bought a folder to store my papers in. But this disorganisation meant I spent a lot of time overthinking my skills as a writer which then affected my confidence and ultimately resulted in writer's block.

Create

The next thing you can do is relax and create. Plots will come in time, focus on creating -- that's the fun bit especially if you're working in the fantasy or sci-fi genre! Don't create your plots first because as soon as you create your characters you might realise those plots won't work with those characters anymore. While this may not directly contribute to writer's block it definitely could affect your confidence so if you already have a good plot idea but find your characters don't fit then store away the idea for later to use with characters that will work for it.

Also I know I only focused on the writing aspect of creation but if you want to create other things then do that, too! Draw, make models, maybe a small mistake you make might give you inspiration!

Take a walk

This is common advice I see and that is taking a walk. If you can't find the inspiration to work on your current project but want to write something, grab your laptop or notebook and just wander around in a park and focus on your senses. What can you hear? What are the conversations people are having? What can you see? Try and show it instead of telling. Is there wind, can you feel it?

Create Your Own Definition For Your Favourite Words

If you don't want to write something too complicated and can feel your motivation disappearing but want to try and regain it, search for words and show your meanings for it instead of what the official definition is. For example the word 'love', the official definition is generalised and always straight to the point but the word means different things for different people. So what is love to you?

Poetry

Adding onto the previous paragraph, maybe try poetry! Last year I was dreading my poetry module but I have actually enjoyed it so far. I never thought I would but at 3am I find myself drafting up a poem to work on the next day. I do have old notes somewhere so when I find them I'll post them here so you have a sort of visual for how some poetry forms work. My favourite type of poetry is freeverse so if you're wanting to create a story without necessarily rhyming but keeping within the poetry theme, that would be a great way to start!

Relax

Finally, read. Sit down somewhere with a cup of hot chocolate or your favourite drink and read. Take some time for yourself, your writing isn't going anywhere and either way it takes time. Writing is a skill to develop not something to rush. Rushing will result in confusion and you may miss out some minor plot points you wanted to add. Reading helps you learn so pick out pieces that you enjoy from the book and see if you can incorporate it into your own work somehow.

To all my fellow writers out there, take a breath. Everything will come to you in time.

[littlemissmasokitten]

Welcome To The After Show Part 1

Pairing: Christian Yu x Fem!Reader

Genre: Smut (Minors DNI), Exclusive Situationship, Light Conflict w/ Healthy Communication

Synopsis: Christian Yu, or better known as the workaholic DPR IAN, and you are in a situationship only prevented from being more due to his heavy workload, otherwise, you two absolutely adore each other. Now with the first portion of his tour handled, he's more than ready to give you the attention you've both been needing.

Content Warning: Smut, pet names (Darling, Princess, Baby), LOTS of preface, L-bomb (More on the sweet side, curse my Asexuality), light fingering, nibbling, marking, nipples (lightly mentioned), open-ended.

Ngl, was supposed to have more smut but I got writer's block bad and I just want to throw this out into the world already. BE FREE!

Networks: @othersideoutlawsnetwork Part 2 Continued: Here

It had been a short while since the last time Christian had toured, and yet, so much has changed since then. Even though you hadn’t the chance to be by his side back then, you were proud to be here for him now.

Your relationship had been kept a secret and held a bit ambiguous for some time but everyone on the team knew something was going on between you two. All the times you left his recording studio looking more disheveled than the last, but the rumors still held true. The only thing Christian loved more than your body under his was the art he was creating day in and day out.

Even while you’d wished for your relationship to become something more, you continued to sit back, silently admiring his sleepless nights. You lived for the odd hours he’d wake you with a gentle caress of your face, happily presenting the 4-5 samples he’d created over the last hour you’d been asleep. Being woken by him was always a treat in itself though his diligence not only shone in his work but in the way he’d treated you as well. He was always certain to reward you for your patience and that was more than enough for you. 

The coming days of the Seoul concert were busier than ever. You’d honestly expected he’d disappear off into his own world so you were surprised when he brought over matching luggage cases and invited you along to South Korea with him. Even though you’d only be able to stay in his Seoul apartment while he worked, it was a refreshing change of scenery and felt like a good use of your vacation time. You cozied up in his bed with a book or two and a bit of tea, staying up a little late into the nights just to see him back safe and sound. 

Everyone knew the first day of the concert would be hectic and you stayed behind then as well. Despite the way he returned, stumbling into the apartment worn and exhausted, his eyes lit up telling you every little detail, and how much it warmed his heart getting to see "the lovely Dreamers" once again. In a moment, he clutched your hands in his and he begged you ever-so sweetly to tag along for his second performance the following day. Despite your initial hesitance toward the potential of being spotted, you agreed under the condition of staying in a secluded backstage waiting room.

Now here you are, as you promised you would be. A silent room with a few snacks and beverages, a couch, a chair, and the greyest walls imaginable. It was moments like this that made you wonder if it was really okay to continue living this way. You opened your phone for the Nth time, only to see fancam after fancam of his performances taking over your social feeds. A lighthearted sigh leaves your lips when you see him tying a bow on his head. “He’s so precious, of course this was all worth it”.

As the words leave your lips, you hear a light knock on the door. You eagerly sit up, a twinkle in your eyes. “Yeah?~” The door creaks open with Christian peeking in before sneaking in and closing the door shut behind him. You make your way up and both run into each other's arms once again. “Darling, it must get tiring to always be waiting on me like this but I can promise you…” he leans in, tucking your hair behind your ear to softly whisper against it “I’ve been waiting to get to you just as much as you’ve waited on me”. As each word gently falls upon you, your senses become enveloped by him. 

The softness of his words tickling your ears.

The way his body fits perfectly against yours.

The scent of his sweat infused with the woody cologne he’d put on before the performance.

The sight of his stage makeup drying after running down his face.

By all means, he should be exhausted like any other day but the twinkle in his eyes as he looks down at you says everything you’d needed to hear.

In a moment, your lips are on his, your fingertips tracing up his shoulders to the dampened back of his neck. He gently caresses the small of your back as you exchange feelings for each other with actions alone. Between the heavenly plush of his lips, the delicateness of your tongues just barely swiping between desperate kisses, and warmth of your breaths colliding, what was meant to be a moment of understanding was rapidly spiraling into a deep, familiar desire. 

A breathy moan escapes your lips and he takes it as an opportunity to graze your tongue with his. As quickly as you get a taste, his mouth leave yours and relocates to the base of your neck, one hand reaching up, tangling into your hair as he ever so softly marks you. “You taste delicious, Darling. I'm so lucky to have all this right here, waiting just for me". He guides you back against the arm of the couch and mumbles against your skin "Now, let me show you proper just how I appreciate you".

With a small whine of acceptance leaving your lips, he guides you to lean back, his hand giving your thigh a squeeze, thumb rubbing at the soft plush. He presses kisses down your chest, only stopping to mouth over the peak of your nipple clearly protruding beneath your thin t-shirt.

You loved the way it felt how he touched you, the butterflies in your stomach when he'd give in and spoil you with endless affection. But as his hand crept up your thigh, so had the worries deep in the pit of your stomach. "Christian..." you held his hand in place, causing him to look up to you once again. "What is it, Darling? Is something wrong?"

You swallowed hard and stayed quiet a moment before responding, averting his gaze. "I don't love the way things are ambiguous between us. Sometimes... I wish..." your words trail off.

"I love you, y/n. No doubt about that in my heart" he softly caresses your face. "You've stayed beside me through my best and worst days, you've held on through my busiest months and have been the anchor and breath of fresh air I needed in the times between. If 'official' is what you want, I'm more than ready to give it to you."

Your eyes widened, "Do... do you really mean it?" you say in a near to hushed whisper. He kisses you softly, slowly deepening the kiss, one arm snaking around you before leaning back to whisper against your lips. "More than anything, Princess. If it helps..." his free hand rides the rest of the way up your thigh, rubbing your heat through your leggings, a finger slipping between your folds "you can be as loud as you'd like now and we'll explain it all later."

Your breath hikes in a damn near squeak, only needing to see you eagerly nodding before he returns to ravaging your mouth once again. A second finger slipping between and you'd swear on your life the next day if asked that his fingers had never felt thicker. He nibbles your lip as his finger teases your entrance through the leggings. You give a small yelp, to which he kisses your lip all better.

"Don't get shy on me now, Baby. Lets lay you down this couch and I'll give you good reason to be loud."

The lingering time between then and the couch is spent up in a blind tango, your lips endlessly caressing each other's. Even as he sits you down and leans you back, his body only casts over yours the whole while. You pull him down closer by the loose hanging fabric of his shirt, yearning for him more desperately.

"Is my pretty girl already so needy? Well Darling, I'm more than happy to oblige." He props himself up on one arm, looking deep into your impatient doe eyes. His free hand brushes between your thighs, taking in the sight of you trembling with your breathy, half-lidded gaze. His fingers brush past your clothed core before snaking their way down your waistband and teasing your dampened folds. Your hips buck up for more but he raises his fingers away, kissing you deeply as he settles your hips back down.

"ah ah~, no moving for you, Darling..." he leans and whispers deeply "I've got you."

Part 2 Continued: Here

[novlr]

How do I strengthen my writing? I tend to fall back on bad habits because I can't find good habits to replace them.

Building sustainable writing habits that really help you improve can be really difficult. Especially if you don't know where to look. So, here are 10 tips for building good writing habits that can help strengthen your writing!

1. Clear out your creative faucets

Step away from your project and do something else! Write something different. Let yourself write badly. Or just plain old take a break. Your writing will suffer if you're constantly forcing yourself to work on something that isn't bringing you joy.

2. Read voraciously

In the immortal words of Stephen King: “If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have time to write.” 

Read widely in your own genre and outside of it. Take inspiration from other authors, and read critically to see what they do well and what they could do better.

3. Read some bad writing, too

Breaking down exactly why a piece of writing doesn't work for you can be super helpful for understanding what to avoid in your own work. 

4. Try on different writing styles

Try out different approaches to storytelling to find the voice that feels most like yours. You might find yourself attracted to descriptive, sensory prose, or more to austere and pointed prose. Your writing will be strongest when you're the most authentic self you can be.

5. Explore characterisation 

People are messy. Accurately and compellingly conveying this innate messiness is essential to creating a powerful story. Explore your characters and who they are, and if it's a character-driven story, don't be afraid to let them drive.

6. Make friends with your thesaurus 

A great way to make a piece of prose shine even brighter is to expand your vocabulary. There are a lot of words in the English language that mean similar things but have slightly different moods and tones. Finding the exact right word to convey what you’re trying to say will help your writing land more emphatically with your reader. 

7. Banish filtering words

Filtering is one of the most common mistakes new writers make. It involves describing a character’s sensations or feelings with filtering words like felt, saw, heard, knew, watched, or realised. This holds the reader at a distance and makes them feel like they’re hearing a story, rather than living it.

An example of filtering would be, “She watched the sun rise majestically over the mountains”. It would feel more immediate to simply say, “The sun rose majestically over the mountains”. The reader already knows your point-of-view character is watching; now, the reader can watch it with them. 

8. Glare disapprovingly at the passive voice

Passive voice isn’t necessarily wrong all the time, but nine times out of ten, it will slow down the pace of your story and encourage the reader to lose interest in your characters. Passive voice means having something done to a character — “John was punched in the face by Nick” — instead of a character actively doing something: “Nick punched John in the face”.

9. Familiarise yourself with story structure

The best stories follow an established plot structure, and follow it so smoothly that the reader doesn’t even realise there’s an ancient storytelling template behind it. These structures are designed to introduce just the right amount of tension and suspense and to give the reader the ideal payoff by the end. Rather than being formulaic, they help with pacing and plot development.

10. Get peer feedback

Finally, the best way to make your work as strong as it can be is to get some feedback from other writers. This can be from a professional editor, a beta reader, or a collaborative writing group. Getting a second pair of eyes can help you catch plot holes or inconsistencies before you send your story out into the world.

Want to know more? Read the full post at the link below!

[literaryvein-reblogs]

What are your thoughts on names in general? Be it names of a place, a character, a thing, etc....

How would you name a character?

How to Name Your Characters

Some authors have an easy time concocting a new character for their stories, but they have a harder time generating new names to give such a character. Here are some writing tips to get your creative juices flowing, help you source different names, and make sure each name fits with the character you’ve created:

Consult the phone book. Grab a random name from the phone book to get yourself started. Then feel free to tweak the real name you find to make it better match your character’s personality. Did you pull up the name Vickie Malone? If you’re developing a character proud of her social status, why not change the name to Vivien Malone?

Grab a baby name book. Baby name books can be found in bookstores, libraries, and online. If they’re good enough for naming a real-life family member, surely they can be good enough for fiction writers seeking the perfect male or female names.

Use a random name generator. The internet is full of character name generator websites. A simple search will bring up a slew of these and get you on your way to choosing a useful list of names to pick from. You can even use a specialized name generator, like a fantasy name generator, to help you pick a genre-appropriate unusual name.

Pay homage to famous names from a book or movie. Imitation is the most sincere form of flattery, so if you want to pay your respect to a bestselling author or screenwriter, find a way to incorporate part of one of their best character names into your own work. This particularly works if you’re writing in the same genre—such as science fiction or superhero comics—as the author to whom you’re paying homage. You can even name a character after an author.

Make use of root meanings. A name meaning can derive from its cultural roots—including Latin, Greek, Sanskrit, or any cultural background. If you research the ancient meanings of certain names, you might be able to seed ideas about your characters in readers’ heads. For instance, the Welsh god of the sea is named Dylan, so this might be a good character name for a mariner. The word linda means “beautiful” in Spanish, so it may be apt to name a gorgeous female character Linda.

Don’t get hung up on finding the perfect name. Ultimately, audiences care far more about a character’s arc and three-dimensionality than their specific name. If you audition different names but find you’re unable to find one you truly like, insert a placeholder and keep writing. You can come back later and brainstorm similar names, or you can just let the placeholder become the final name for your character. At the end of the day, that name choice will not save or sink your manuscript; it will be a small part of a cohesive whole product.

Characteristics of a Good Character Name

There is no fixed formula for giving your characters a great name, but a memorable and interesting name will tend to have the following qualities:

It makes sense in context. A good character name is appropriate for the location and time period of your novel, short story, play, movie, or TV show.

It fits with the genre of your piece. For instance, the name Darth Vader might be the perfect name for a sci-fi villain, but would not fit a real-life drama set in rural Nebraska.

It is unique. Try to avoid evoking popular names from other works of fiction. Note, however, that some authors select similar names for effect, the way that George R.R. Martin’s Samwell Tarley seems to intentionally evoke the fantasy name Samwise Gamgee from J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. Even Martin’s own name, with its double initials, seems to pay homage to Tolkien.

It is appropriate for a character’s role in the narrative. The audience may be able to surmise a certain type of character by simply reading or hearing their name. Shakespeare was a master of this, assigning whimsical sounding names to jesters (i.e. Sir Toby Belch in Twelfth Night), unique singular names for a main character (i.e. Hamlet, Othello, and Prospero), and common names to common characters (i.e. John Bottom and Francis Flute in A Midsummer Night’s Dream).

It’s memorable without being distracting. Readers of Vladimir Nabakov’s Lolita could behold the unusual name of Humbert Humbert and know that they were dealing with a less-than-trustworthy character, yet Mr. Humbert’s odd name does not provide such distraction that a reader cannot focus on plot, backstory, and character development.

The Importance of Character Names

Character name meaning varies from text to text.

Some novelists imbue a name with symbolic meaning that indicates a particular type of character.

The 19th century American writer Nathaniel Hawthorne was known to use names to foreshadow character traits.

Examples: the foolish, hypocritical Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale in The Scarlet Letter and the titular character from the short story Young Goodman Brown, who represents a Puritanical mindset emblematic of a particular time period.

Other authors give less heed to symbolism when selecting the right name, but they nonetheless use names to offer clues about a character’s social status, nationality, and family heritage.

In his epic novel War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy used character naming to differentiate between different classes of people within Russia’s complicated semi-caste system, from simple peasants to the aristocracy to military leaders.

Source ⚜ More: Writing Notes & References ⚜ Writing Resources PDFs

Found this article that put it into words better than I can. Choosing the right names of places, characters, and even things in your story serve so many important purposes for worldbuilding, development of plot & characters... Ideally, we want something that would stick with the readers, and fits well with the story as a whole. You could look back on classic literature/films, or your favourite pieces of media, and you'll likely find that names of characters and places are well chosen, and usually are memorable or even "catchy". We could always learn a lot from the classics and our favourite authors. Also, some writers find using templates helpful, here's one you could try: Naming your Character Worksheet

[writers-potion]

Idea Generation Exercises for the Writer

"Right now it's a notion, but I think I can get money to turn it into a concept..and later turn it into an idea."

Take a Good Look Inside Yourself Before Your Start

Your story comes from you. Evaluate your ideas and modify them using a "personality filter". Does it hit a nerve in your soul? Do you resonate, personally, with what the story is aimed at?

What do you care most about in the world?

If you were to write your own obituary, how would you want it to read?

What is your physical appearance? How do you feel about it? How does it affect you?

What do you fear the most?

What are our major strengths? What do youwish you were good at?

What are your major faults?

If you could do one thing and know that you would be successful, what would you do?

What are three events from your childhood that helped shape you into the person you are today?

What are some of your annoying habits?

What secret in your life do you hope is never revealed?

Some Rules:

Schedule a regular idea time. At least once a week, for more than 30 minutes

Select an idea-generation exercise below

Let your imagination run wilde

Record everything without cutting anything. Do NOT xensor yourself in any way

After 2-3 sessions, assess you ideas

Repeat.

The What-If Game: read the newspaper/watch TV, asking "What If" at the end of each article.

Titles: come up with a good title, then craft a story that would go with it

The List: Make a list of nouns that bring back some memory to you with one- or two- word reminders. (e.g. the hill: that I accidentally set fire to when I was 5)

Issues: make a list of this world's problems that push your buttons. What make you angry? (e.g. abortion, gun control, talk shows)

See It: Sit down and close your eyes. List the first three things that comes to your mind, picking the ones that get your juices flowing the most. Sit back and "watch" as the random story unspools in your mind.

Hear It: Listen to music that moves you. Close your eyes and see what pictures, scenes or characters develop.

Character First: Develop a dynamic character, then see where he leads. Recreating characters from popular TV/books/movies or going through obituaries can be helpful.

Stealing From the Best: Take the germ of another plot, then add your own twist to it. Originality is the key to plagiarism.

Flipping a Genre: Turn genre/trope expectations upside down and see what happens.

Predict a Trend: Novels can be "hot" because of the subject matter alone. Read the news and see what people are killing each other over nowadays - and hop on the topical wave!

Noodling the Newspaper: Scan the newspaper for interesting stories, something you can use later. Capture interesting pieces of info and store it away for later.

Research: Choose a nonfiction book on some subject you wanted to know about. Skim the book for an overview, then jot down the ideas that come to you. Read the book in more detail, and flesh out the ideas you have.

"What I Really Want to Write About Is...": Get up in the morning and start typing on a blank document: what i reallt want to write about is.... Just write for ten minutes without stopping to loosen up your senses.

Obsession: Create a character and give her an obsession. By its nature, an obsession controls the deepest emotions of a character and thus prompts her to action. Ego? Lust? Looks? Careers? Revenge?

Opening Lines: Write just the opening lines. Then, write a story that goes with it.

Write a Prologue: Gripping openings are farily easy to write. The trick is putting a book after it. The ideas you generate with a good proglogue may lead to a full story.

The Mind Map: (1) choose a word or concept. (2) allow you mind to jot down connections to the word. Fill the paper. (3) Look for a pattern. Can you link these items into a story?

Socko Ending: Ending often make or break a story. Visualize a climactic scene in the theater of your mind. Play around with the characters, heighten the conflict and emotion until something unforgettable happens. Then ask: (1) who are the characters? (2) what circumstance brought them there? (3) how can I trace back the story to its logical starting point?

Occupations: What we do is inherent to our ways of thinking, the kind of culture we live in, etc. Refer to the Dictionary of Occupational Titles and see which occupations spark an idea.

Desperation: You're sitting before a blank screen and there's nothing in your head. You're down to your last two brain cells and slowly losing one of them. Good. You are a desperate writer. The answer:

JUST WRITE.

If you like my blog, buy me a coffee! ☕

Reference: <Write Great Fiction: Plot and Structure (techniques and exercises for craftin a plot that grips readers from start to finish)> by James Scott Bell

[chocolatepot]

Saw a post about how you need to read original fiction and not just fic to write books, and I had some thoughts but they're not so much a direct response so I figured I'd make my own post ...

You do need to be conversant with original fiction to write it, but also - that doesn't mean that your fiction diet as you write needs to be primarily original fiction. If you want to write a book, you've probably spent a lot of your life reading original fiction even if you're in fandom now. That all counts. (Assuming what you want to write bears at least some resemblance to what you've read.)

Fanfiction really doesn't teach you to develop characters and settings on your own, it's true. It particularly lets you be lazy about not describing them physically, and not having to do any work for walk-on characters who exist in canon. You also can get used to writing romantic short stories that would be completely unmarketable if they were not fic.

However, fanfiction still can teach you a lot of transferable skills, if you want it to. You can write novels to stretch your ability to plot a longform story and follow through on 60k+ words. You can consciously work to improve your prose, your pacing, and/or your physical/emotional descriptions no matter what your subject matter. You can write a story that focuses on how a character changes and develops, and you can focus on a minor character from canon and do the work to make them three-dimensional. If you're into AUs, you can also work on worldbuilding or writing a believable historical setting. Literally the only thing you don't really have the opportunity to do is create your own main characters from scratch.

And I feel like that's actually the easiest part of writing. Sitting down and writing a story that lasts over 80k words or so, is compelling all the way through, has defined character arcs, etc. is way harder than making up the initial concept. If you're in fandom, you clearly Do Stories whether they're on the paper or onscreen, and so you probably have a lot of character types in your head already to start messing around with.

There was also a point in the post about how if you don't read you're not going to understand where your story fits genre-wise, and you're probably going to think that it's new and genre-breaking when it isn't - and that leads me to two thoughts. One is that not feeling able to place your own story if it crosses genres might be more common to writers than you think: it just came up in a Bestseller Experiment podcast ep I listened to the other day as a normal thing due to the writer being too close to their story. I have good comps for my novel (there's a T. Kingfisher that is incredibly similar in concept and key characters) and I still feel like "oooh ... is it more fantasy or more historical ..."

The other is that fic makes it so you're more likely to actually write something that genuinely doesn't quite fit in the boxes. That's something I've been thinking about since Winter's Orbit. That book, if you don't know, was originally written on fail_fandomanon's spinoff writing meme and posted on AO3. It was always original fiction, but it has a fic-like sensibility: there's a strong political intrigue plot alongside a strong queer romance plot between a playboy who's not really a playboy and a smol bean with trauma. If you read the GoodReads reviews from when it was published, you can find many sf fans complaining that the romance takes up too much space and romance fans complaining that there's too much plot outside the romance. I think now with the rise of "romantasy" there's more tolerance for that, but that label feels like it's getting less useful as it broadens to mean "fiction written by a woman that includes a romance" (and it feels very m/f to me but we don't have time for that now). Because so much of ficwriting fandom focuses on stories that heavily foreground romance but don't hit the traditional romance beats and also writing the characters figuring out who's committing industrial espionage or whatever. In a romance novel, the romance is absolutely the A plot and the whatever is very much B plot (if not somehow C). In sf/f and thrillers, the whatever is the A plot and the romance is around the edges. Fic teaches us to do them both equally, because the point of the story is to see the characters getting together (often not like canon, when it comes to m/m and f/f) while having a plot to deal with (like they have in canon). Also, in a lot of cases of genre-mixing, determining which one it "counts as" is really determining which one it will sell better under, and that's not something a person outside of the industry can generally tell, regardless of what they're reading on their own.

[blushcoloreddreams]

Why should women read books

It is important that everyone works on their cultural formation. Our imagination needs to be educated to better understand life. Literature plays a fundamental role in this training. Romance especially. Do you want to know how important reading good romance novels is for a woman?

The novel combines narrative and drama. Through narrative, someone tells a story. Events are thought about and reported. The drama happens in the relationships between the characters, in how they act. This is the combination also present in our lives.

Our actions reveal aspects of our inner life and vice versa. When we act, we dramatically accomplish what we think. When we try to report actions, we choose (even unconsciously) a point of view, a perspective. Both our actions and the way we report them take shape over a period of time.

The structure of the novel is close to everyday life. By knowing the characters’ thoughts and actions, we can evaluate their successes, limitations, possibilities and weaknesses. We can see how identities are cultivated or destroyed by ordered or disordered desires and actions. Novels allow us to see our own lives as narrative.

Women are more attentive to everyday details. We are more attentive to what, day after day, builds the family's history. Part of its vocation is differentiating the essential from the accessory. The genre of romance echoes in the female heart.

Each narrative attempts to reveal aspects of eternity embodied in time. A good novel manages to capture the human being’s desire for permanence. The manifestation of this longing is shown in everyday life. In cultivating the home, a woman struggles to preserve what is permanent amidst the transitory.

For women, the identification of romance with the structure of life is immediate. When reading a good novel, she recognizes the latent possibilities in her own life. It is in the course of ordinary days that great things are created.

Good romance helps a woman organize her affection. The characters' mistakes and successes are monitored. The lesson, positive or negative, of a novel is within the story. The woman's contemplative spirit realizes that her development, and that of those she loves, also happen within a story.

Reading good novels allows women to narrate their own lives. Your imagination will be prepared by cultivating Hope. She will be able to imaginatively anticipate the person she wants to become.

The popularity of the novel literary genre, especially from the 19th century onwards, was largely due to the large number of female readers who subscribed to magazines and participated in correspondence reading clubs. Women writers were not neglected, but read with pleasure.

It is no coincidence that women have identified so much with the novelistic literary genre. The objective of this genre is to tell everyday stories, episodes of human life that happen to the characters over a certain period of time. This objective reverberates directly in the feminine heart, contemplative and called to cultivation, that is, called to care for those who develop over time.

The aim of romance can be successful or unsuccessful. It will be successful when, through the pleasure of reading, we are transported back to our own lives. It will be unsuccessful when, in a sentimental romance, for example, our heart is drawn into emotional disorder. Hence the importance of reading good novels, and not just any works in this popular genre. We need to know how to choose what will truly form us. Helping with this choice is one of my goals since I created this blog .

[gacha-incels]

regarding character design in gacha games- if you haven’t played many, I will show examples from some popular ones here. This is for reference regarding confusion as to why incels often play these games. This isn’t to cover everything in these games either, there are games with much more absurd designs and I’m not even going to get into the “sexy little girl” designs a lot of them have. In the future I plan to research more and intend to make a concise post regarding the incel relationship with these games. These character designs and tropes exist across societies and are enforced through many types of media - it’s not just gacha games alone perpetuating them. I think they are however hypervisual in this specific genre mostly due to the huge amounts of money being spent by players in “purchasing” them. again this is just for reference, if you already are familiar with female character gacha design feel free to skip this. I’ll put it under a cut.

gacha games are infamous for typically having extremely sexualized female characters who will usually flatter the assumed male player. Again there are some that designers and writers will dress more chaste or have them give the player shit, but by “winning” these characters they are now “yours” anyway, they are not real women and therefore can’t walk away. I believe a big part of this appeal is due to incel men wanting to control a woman designed for an audience of people like him. The hypersexualization serves both to flatter his idea of a woman’s true place (his consumption) and to create a very rigid and obvious differentiation between men and women during a time when women are fighting tooth and nail for their dignity and equal rights.

Nostalgia and rigid character design dichotomy can be seen in the extremely popular gacha game Fate/Grand Order, I believe a good piece of its success can be attributed to this. There are thousands of Japanese gacha games that take already popular anime franchises and create a money pit gacha with them, it’s been happening for over a decade now. These games usually make bank taking already popular characters and giving them hypersexualized alts and costumes. FGO is an interesting phenomenon to me because it seems like for a lot of fans, the Fate franchise’s cultural touchstone is now this actual gacha game. The game adds popular existing Fate characters of course, so you can see how different the gacha character designs are from the VN/animes:

When you can only watch them/read their stories, the characters are dressed like the above examples. When they are added to the game and you can buy and own them, they look like the bottom examples.

The (rare) depiction of darker skinned female characters in these gacha games is pretty uniform across the board- they are somehow, consistently, sexualized even more than the other female characters, they are often exoticized and sometimes have a “wild” or rebellious looking aspect incorporated. I would consider this something the intended audience expects to see, regardless of the truth, and the gacha game reflects this back to their customers, therefore enshrining this damaging stereotype to its audience. These examples don’t account for everything of course.

As to not offend the delicate male viewer, these games also typically design furry/animal characters by having the female retain the most human-like features (like a small and delicate face) while the male is allowed to actually look like the animal. When a female character has armor that conceals her sex, there is of course a version of her you can “upgrade” where she takes off her armor to reveal a very delicate girl in revealing clothing.

Typically, the consumer will see powerful, sturdy looking male designs that attempt to not alienate the straight male viewer first before adding “sexy” elements. In contrast, female characters are almost always very thin (often with exaggerated tits and ass) and her pose is chosen to show off her body first, before her power. This is an Arknights dual banner that displays this design philosophy well:

some of the biggest incel shitfits come from male designs they see as being sexualized and objectified as the typical female design. these are 3 characters Korean incels have lost their minds over:

In their world, the rigid sex dichotomy is breaking down and the hierarchal system of gender where men are on top is being threatened. they don’t feel powerful seeing lithe and skimpily dressed men, and they aren’t the hentai “femboy” fetish these guys seem ok with either. incels see these games as their playground. when designs like these are included, they see it as their job to rectify this. Lyney’s costume and demeanor is too “sexy” and “gay” for Korean incels, they mass dislike his character trailer and write hateful comments across SNS. Sinclair is shirtless and wearing a collar - Korean incels are furious he’s wearing less than the female summer character and see the collar as meaning he’s a “slave” for the female customer. This snowballs into them targeting a female artist on staff, Vellmori, and getting her fired even though it was a male artist who illustrated the cards. I’ve posted Korean incels comments on the Honkai Star Rail character- similar to Lyney, they are angry he looks “slutty” and/or “gay” since he has a boob window and detached sleeves. This is too similar to how the female characters are made “sexy” and it means women have prominent roles creating for these games, something incels of course hate. Regarding the role women should have in creating these games, a Korean incel wrote (after seeing photos that include many female staff members at Mihoyo) that they should just be there working at the cafe to serve coffee to male employees and look pretty for them.

In regards to how some of these games are marketed, we can again look to the article written by a Korean woman who was a victim of feminist ideological verification.

character designs for NIKKE and Destiny Child:

what the gameplay for NIKKE looks like:

[hayatheauthor]

How To Get Away With Murder Part Two: Writing Murder Mysteries

Murder mysteries are possibly one of the most complicated genres in fiction. Unlike other genres, authors need to create a very comprehensive backstory and worldbuilding that seamlessly ties into the present story while also creating intriguing characters that move the plot forward. As an author, you need to weave a complex web of clues, red herrings, and twists that ultimately lead to the big reveal, all while maintaining the integrity of the story.

Writing a good murder mystery is a daunting task, but with the right tools and techniques, you can create a gripping tale that keeps your readers on the edge of their seats. In this blog post, I'll be sharing my personal tips and insights on how to craft a compelling murder mystery that will leave your readers guessing until the very end.

Establish The Rules 

Before you jump into your murder mystery it’s important to first set the scene and establish the ‘rules’ for your murder mystery. Your readers need to know what’s at stake here. Who was murdered? What is the most likely reason for their murder? Why is this particular character investigating their murder? You need to set up a clear foundation for your story. 

Authors should also attempt to establish some semblance of a ‘stage’ for where the story will take place. If a character was murdered in their hotel room the hotel itself would likely be the ‘stage’ for your book’s murder mystery. This is where the detective will live and uncover clues until the end of the book. 

Once you have a clear story and setting, move on to the characters and their role in the murder. Who is the investigative figure? Do they have to face any obstacles or follow certain rules while investigating? A great example of this would be Pip’s legal restrictions in A Good Girl’s Guide To Murder. Her position as a teenager significantly limited her investigative methods. 

Plant The Seeds 

Foreshadowing is the key to a good murder mystery. You need to start foreshadowing as soon as possible. As a writer, you need to plant subtle clues throughout your narrative that will keep your readers engaged and guessing.

But it's important to strike a balance between too much foreshadowing, which can make the plot predictable, and too little, which can make the conclusion feel like it came out of nowhere. Start foreshadowing early on in your story, and use a mix of subtle hints and more overt clues to keep your readers engaged without giving away the ending. Remember, the best foreshadowing is often invisible until the reader looks back on the story as a whole.

The Repitition Rule 

Writers are often advised to repeat foreshadowing at least three times to help readers remember it. While this can be a helpful guideline, it's important to use your own judgment and avoid overdoing it. After all, if you repeat the same clues too often, you risk telegraphing the ending and ruining the suspense. 

Instead, aim for a mix of subtle and overt foreshadowing that will keep readers engaged without giving too much away. Remember, the goal is to keep readers guessing until the very end.

Misdirect The Reader 

In order to keep readers engaged and invested in the mystery, it's important to misdirect them from time to time. This means leading them down one path only to reveal that it was a dead end, or presenting a red herring that turns out to be unrelated to the actual crime. 

There are many ways to accomplish this, from introducing false suspects and motives to using clever misdirection to steer readers away from the truth. One effective technique is to present conflicting evidence that suggests multiple possible solutions, forcing readers to constantly reassess their theories and stay engaged with the story. 

However, it's important to avoid overdoing it or making the misdirection too obvious. You want readers to feel challenged and intrigued, not frustrated or misled. Ultimately, the goal is to keep readers guessing until the very end, when all is revealed and the pieces fall into place.

Add Depth To Your Characters 

Developing your characters is crucial in murder mysteries. Not only does it make them more interesting and relatable, but it also helps to create a sense of connection and investment in the story. Make sure each character, even minor ones, have a distinct personality and backstory that ties into the plot.

When it comes to suspects, be sure to give each one a clear motive and opportunity to commit the crime. Think about their relationships with the victim and other characters, and how those dynamics could have played a role in the murder. Consider adding red herrings, false leads, and hidden secrets to make the investigation more complex and engaging.

Adding depth to your characters also helps create an emotional connection. This is especially important for the victim, you need to show your readers why they should care about this character’s death. 

In A Good Girl’s Guide To Murder everyone’s illtreatment towards Sal’s family made the readers empathetic and had us rooting for Pip. It is important to establish some semblance of this empathy, or any other emotion such as anger, for your victims. 

Use The Setting To Your Advantage 

In a murder mystery, the setting can play a crucial role in providing clues and red herrings. Think about the location where the murder took place, and how it could provide hints about the killer's identity or motives. Perhaps there's a hidden object or a peculiar feature of the setting that only the killer would know about. 

On the other hand, you can also use the setting to throw off the reader's suspicion, by including false clues or misdirections. For example, a character may have a motive to commit the murder in a particular location, but it turns out that they were actually somewhere else at the time. Overall, the setting is a powerful tool that can enhance the suspense and intrigue of a murder mystery, so make sure to use it to your advantage.

In addition to using the setting to provide clues and red herrings, it's also important to use it to create a mood and atmosphere that supports the murder mystery genre. Consider using a dark and moody setting, like a creepy old mansion or a foggy alleyway, to create tension and suspense. 

You can also use the setting to create obstacles for your characters to overcome, like a hidden trapdoor. By making the setting a key part of your story, you can enhance the overall experience for your readers and make your murder mystery even more memorable.

Tie Up Loose Ends 

Tying up loose ends is an essential part of writing a murder mystery. The reader expects a satisfying conclusion, and that can only happen when all loose ends are resolved. It's important to address any unanswered questions and resolve any plot holes.

Plot holes can be frustrating for readers and can ruin the entire reading experience. As a writer, it's your responsibility to make sure that there are no unresolved issues in your story. If there are any inconsistencies or plot holes, they need to be addressed and resolved.

To ensure that all loose ends are tied up, it's helpful to create a list of all the questions that need to be answered by the end of the story. Go through your manuscript multiple times, checking to make sure that each question is answered and that all loose ends are resolved.

By taking the time to tie up loose ends and address any plot holes, you can create a satisfying conclusion that will leave your readers feeling impressed with your attention to detail.

Practice Makes Perfect 

To write a good murder mystery, you need to practice. Writing a successful mystery requires a skill and experience, and you can't expect to get it right the first time. Practice by reading other murder mysteries and taking note of how other authors structure their stories, how they use clues and foreshadowing, and how they misdirect the reader.

When you're writing your own murder mystery, don't be afraid to make mistakes. It's common for writers to encounter plot holes or inconsistencies in their story. The important thing is to recognize these mistakes and fix them as soon as possible. One way to do this is to get feedback from other writers or beta readers.

Remember, the more you practice, the better you'll become. Don't get discouraged if your first attempts aren't perfect. Keep writing, keep learning, and keep honing your craft. Eventually, you'll be able to write a murder mystery that will keep your readers guessing until the very end.

I hope this blog on how to get away with murder and write a murder mystery will help you in your writing journey. Be sure to comment any tips of your own to help your fellow authors prosper, and follow my blog for new blog updates every Monday and Thursday.  

Looking For More Writing Tips And Tricks? 

Are you an author looking for writing tips and tricks to better your manuscript? Or do you want to learn about how to get a literary agent, get published and properly market your book? Consider checking out the rest of Haya’s book blog where I post writing and marketing tools for authors every Monday and Thursday

[luna-azzurra]

Tips for creative writers who want to write about fantasy:

1. Build a rich and immersive world: Create a detailed and imaginative fantasy world with its own history, geography, cultures, and magical systems. Consider the rules and limitations of your world's magic to ensure consistency.

2. Develop unique and compelling characters: Craft memorable characters with distinct personalities, strengths, flaws, and goals. Explore how their backgrounds and abilities shape their experiences and interactions within the fantasy realm.

3. Weave in elements of magic and mythology: Introduce mythical creatures, mystical artifacts, and ancient legends into your storytelling. Use them to add depth, mystery, and wonder to your fantasy world.

4. Embrace world-building details: Pay attention to small but significant details in your world-building, such as food, clothing, customs, and languages. These details will enhance the believability and richness of your fantasy setting.

5. Create a compelling conflict: Develop an engaging conflict or quest that drives your story forward. This conflict could involve a battle between good and evil, a personal journey of self-discovery, or a struggle for power and redemption.

6. Blend familiar and unique elements: Combine familiar fantasy tropes with fresh and inventive ideas to create a unique reading experience. Balance the comfort of the familiar with the excitement of the unknown.

7. Use vivid and descriptive language: Paint a vivid picture with your words, using descriptive language to transport readers into your fantastical world. Engage all the senses to bring your settings, creatures, and magic to life.

8. Establish consistent rules and logic: While fantasy allows for imagination and magic, it's important to establish rules and logic within your world. This will ensure that readers can follow and invest in the story without feeling confused or disconnected.

9. Include themes and depth: Explore deeper themes and messages within your fantasy story. Address topics such as power, identity, morality, and the human condition to add layers of depth and resonance to your narrative.

10. Read widely in the fantasy genre: Immerse yourself in a variety of fantasy novels to familiarize yourself with different styles, world-building techniques, and storytelling approaches. Analyze what works and doesn't work for you as a reader and apply those insights to your own writing.

Remember, fantasy writing is an opportunity to unleash your imagination and transport readers to extraordinary realms. Have fun, be creative, and let your passion for the genre shine through in your storytelling.

Happy writing and happy adventures in the realm of fantasy!