#I could do the writing itself! somehow! I could fake that! just pretend!

[running-in-the-dark]

god I'm literally just so stupid. I can't think the way you have to think to write a scientific paper. I can't. I try and I try and it just does not work. I can't do this.

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

AITA for pretending my original fictional characters are my "friends" for the purpose of asking questions online?

Alright, so hear me out: I'm a writing hobbyist, I run a long-term D&D campaign, I like writing characters a lot and sometimes do it even outside of any stories, you could even say that it's my passion. Whenever I create a character that would have experience with something that I don't, I try to experience that thing myself, or if I can't, I ask others online about their experiences to make sure I can write my character accurately.

Here's the problem: back when I used to ask questions online from a writing/creative perspective, I felt like a lot of them concerning more controversial topics were getting dismissed and I got a lot of unsolicited writing advice unrelated to the original question. The most infuriating were always "You shouldn't write a character like that." or "You should change this integral part of the character to remove the issue that you're having."

Now, you can have whatever opinions you want about writing certain aspects of characters, but I would kindly ask you to shove them up your ass. I firmly believe that you can't judge a character accurately merely by their character traits written down in a vacuum, the execution is what really matters. One trait that could be seen as problematic when written badly can really enhance the character, story and it's themes if incorporated correctly. I'm not going to remove integral story-relevant characteristics of my OCs, and I sure as hell am not gonna delete them entirely just because an internet rando didn't believe that I could do them justice. Literally the entire reason why I'm asking these questions in the first place is because I'm trying to be as respectful/accurate to your culture/ethnicity/sexuality/gender/religion/disability/anything else. I GENUINELY want to learn and understand, so why don't you at least try to give me the benefit of the doubt instead of assuming it'll be done terribly?

Anyway, to give some examples of the questions that I've asked that were met with this kind of response:

"How would you write an autistic character who uses ASL but doesn't like to emote with their face?" (Was told to simply "make" the character like using their face even though it would go against how their other symptoms interact with each other, plus it would change how other characters view them and thus the story itself)

"What kind of slang would a black character raised in Brooklyn use?" (Was told to not write a black character using slang as a white person.)

"How would a Muslim character go about leaving their religion after losing their faith?" (Was told that the mere idea of an ex-muslim person was offensive)

I don't know if other writers also struggle with this, or if I'm just the unluckiest and always attract those kinds of people somehow, but after having to deal with it way too much I simply started lying and pretending that my characters are real so people would stop questioning my writing choices and just focus on answering my actual questions. For example, instead of the three questions above nowadays I would ask:

"Me and my Autistic friend are learning ASL together, but she doesn't like making expressions for sensory reasons. Is there anything else she can do?"

"What are some examples of actual slang used by black people in Brooklyn? My friend is from there but he likes to mess with me by coming up with fake words and pretending like they're slang, at this point idk what to believe."

"My friend lost their faith and is planning on leaving Islam. They don't have access to internet due to their parents so they wanted me to ask about what could be the possible consequences and how go about the process, or even where to start."

Also, obviously, I do way more research than just these questions, but I also really want to know the opinion of people in these communities about these topics and the discussion that develops from it. That's not something that simply reading a book or an article on a topic can give you and I believe that interacting with the community itself is an important part of properly portraying characters that belong to them as well. Still, a few of my friends told me that it's kinda shitty of me to lie in this way, especially when the end goal is to be respectful about certain traits yet me lying to these people is a sign of disrespect in their opinion. Personally I don't see it that way, I simply want people answering my questions to treat them seriously and if presenting them as real scenarios is what gets them to do it I feel like I have no choice, it has nothing to do with the respect I have for the communities in question.

Also, if this matters at all: 90% of my writing is entirely personal and will never be published in any way at all, the other 10% being the writing that I do for my D&D campaign which only my players get to witness.

So, with all of that out of the way, AITA?

What are these acronyms?

[saurongorthaur9]

ROP S2E7 Spoilers

So...the stupid kiss did indeed happen, and as promised yesterday, I need to vent and get it out of my system. It was every bit as stupid and unnecessary as I feared it would be; somehow, I was hoping if that was what happened, that somehow it wouldn't be as bad as it sounded? But yeah...it was. This is probably going to be a pretty long post, as I've been thinking a lot about what bothers me so much about it as a concept and I have a lot of Thoughts.

A disclaimer to begin with: yeah, part of me is disappointed that it wasn't the kiss I hoped it would be, but I knew from the start that a Sauron kiss would be very, very unlikely. If it had happened, it would have been less about a ship for me, and more about the validation for me of getting an onscreen Sauron kiss in a huge, professional production as I've written about in other posts. I would have loved a Sauron kiss, but that's not what is really bothering me on more than a surface level. So with that disclaimer aside...

I think I can break what bothers me down into two basic categories.

The first is more straightforward: it was SO unnecessary. Yes, there needed to be some way for Galadriel to get free, but there are so many ways it could have been set up without a weird, incredibly uncomfortable kiss that came out of absolute nowhere being necessary. He could have gently stroked her hair and slipped it behind her ear or into her hair itself (I used to have very long hair, and a pin like that would definitely get stuck if you tucked it in.) If they wanted to go the humorous, cliché route, they could have had him sneak it to her in a pie (that's a joke, I'm also glad they didn't do that, but my point is, they had options).

They could have set up the scene with a different tone and gone the Frodo-and-Sam-as-orcs route and had them fake a fight. I actually would have loved this. It could have been a culmination of the resentment and tension that's been building between the two of them all season to let off some steam at each other. It could have been one of those "we're fake fighting, but we're also real fighting at the same time" sort of scenes (which are delicious when pulled off right) where we could have gotten some real interesting character development and relationship development between the two of them before the orcs pulled them apart (but not before Elrond slipped the pin into her hand or tunic while pretending to push her or something).

The kiss however did nothing. Per my last two paragraphs, it being a kiss wasn't necessary for the plot. It didn't do anything to reveal anything about Elrond and Galadriel's relationship or develop it in any way. It didn't develop either Elrond or Galadriel's character in any way. It was purely and utterly for shock value.

And that's the first big thing: I really hate things used for shock value. It's a personal pet peeve of mine. And to make it clear, there's a different between using something for shock value and doing something shocking. Mirdania's death was pretty shocking, but it served the purposes of both showing how utterly ruthless Sauron is and solidified the elven soldiers' doubt in Celebrimbor's sanity. But using something for mere cheap shock value is so disappointing of the show. The writing had been SO good, everything had been so deliberate and intentional, that it made the sudden breach of that even more jarring and unpleasant.

And it makes me super worried for the future of the show. This show isn't Game of Thrones; it doesn't need shock value. But now they've set the precedent that adding pure shock value is okay for this show. It makes me afraid what else down the road will be thrown in the audience faces just to illicit an unpleasant reaction.

The second major thing that is bugging me about that scene is a little more insidious and subtle. I've seen people saying "it wasn't romantic", but the thing is, whether or not it was intended, romantic tension has now been introduced to Elrond and Galadriel's dynamic. Let me explain.

That scene was a pretty clear example of the Forced Proximity Trope. For anyone who doesn't know what that means, it's the trope of forcing two characters into a circumstance where they share space or physical intimacy that they wouldn't otherwise share. The most infamous version of it is the There Was Only One Bed trope. And the thing is, it's an incredibly romantic-coded trope. It's almost always used between two characters who have suppressed feelings for one another as a way to force them to confront said suppressed feelings. Even if it's used in a not explicitly romantic way, it still sends a subconscious message of romantic tension because that is what that trope is almost exclusively used for.

So yes, there is now romantic tension between Elrond and Galadriel, and I have a feeling they don't plan on doing anything about it.

At this point, I'd almost feel better if they went all the way and went ahead with the subconscious romantic tension. Like, putting Elrond and Galadriel in a romantic relationship wouldn't be my thing personally, but at least it would provide a sense that the writers had a purpose for the scene and for creating that tension. Dropping that and then not going anywhere else with it, and letting that tension fester for the rest of the series without acknowledging it or doing anything about it would be so disappointing and insulting to the audience.

But again, I'll be very surprised if they ever bring it up again.

And I'm sure the writers knew what they were doing. The only two options are that they were oblivious to the connotations of using that trope or that they knew full well, and used it anyway. And I suspect it's the latter. As good as the overall writing for this season has been, I just can't imagine the writers aren't aware of what they were doing in using that trope. I mean, they've deliberately used a number of romantic-coded tropes to build up the Galadriel/Sauron tension. They aren't oblivious, which means they used the Forced Proximity Trope deliberately and fully aware of it's implications.

It just really seriously damaged my faith in the writing of the show, just when I'd been building it up after some big disappointments from Season 1. Again, they've set a precedent, and I'm really worried this isn't the last time they'll pull something ridiculous like this.

Maybe somehow they'll turn it around. Maybe they'll have Galadriel and Elrond bring it up again and deal with the tension, maybe they do plan to have a romantic subplot between the two of them, or maybe they have something planned down the road that will put that moment in a light that shows it as something other than shock value. But I'm currently pretty pessimistic about that happening.

And it's extra disappointing, because the rest of that episode was absolutely amazing. That one bad moment stands out like a wine stain on a white dress because the rest of the episode was so good.

Anyway, that's my rant. I just had to vent and get my thoughts out of my head where they've been swirling. If anyone is feeling the same way and wants to vent with me, my inbox and messages are open.

[creative-caramel-coffee]

The Sickness Excuse

Pairings: Weems x Thornhill x Reader (platonic)

Word count: 1.2K

Summary: You used the excuse you were sick one too many times with Principle weems so what happens now your actually sick and can't leave class?

TW: Vomit (I think that’s it idk)

A/n do I ever write fics without someone throwing up?

PART 2

It was the middle of outcast history, the most boring of all your classes and you still were feeling awful. Your stomach had been unsettled for what felt like far too long. It would knot and then go loose before tying itself up again. With each knot the nausea would build but weems already had her eye on you for the amount of history classes you had skipped, and you were running out of excuses. You knew if you skipped and got caught you were in for it. Especially when you used the sick excuse last week and you had no proof of actually being sick. No fever. Yet. Just that uncomfortable pain in your stomach.

The teacher was an old wolf named Terrbine Fleetsted who honestly looked like he was napping and based off the way his little white musta he was moving with the slow rise and fall of his chest you looked to be right. Trying to be as subtle as possible you rested your head on the desk somehow feeling worse. Enid was sat next to you pretending to be working but really, she was writing down some gossip for her blog she had heard in the quad on the way to class. She was rambling about something, and you had honestly stopped listening or paying attention. Your eyes were closed which was probably why when she jabbed you with her pen you jumped a mile.

“Jesus tap dancing Christ enid!” You almost yelled and enid shot you an odd look.

“Dude, have you listened to anything I’ve been saying?” She said with a fake huff. You knew she wasn’t mad the way her eyebrows were twitching she was merely concerned.

“‘M fine ‘nid” you mumbled going to rest your head back on your arm.

“You don’t look too great, maybe you should go lie down.”

“Gee thanks. And i can't weems would probably go dark ages on my ass and burn me at the stake if i miss anymore of this boring ass class.” You said into your elbow.

“Weems can’t be mad for you being sick?” She said sounding confused.

“She won’t believe me. Used the old sickness excuse one too many times.”

“What excuse?” Enid said and before you could answer your stomach knotted painfully and you knew you were going to be sick. Spit pooled in your mouth and you knew exactly what was coming. You jumped up from your chair drawing eyes around the room, yet the teacher stayed asleep. Like a bullet you shot from the room and raced through the halls. Sprinting into the nearest bathroom you could find you dropped to your knees and locked the door before pouring out the contents of your stomach into the toilet. Had you been further than a mere inch from death (as you put it) you may have noticed Enid’s panting breathing coming from behind the door. She knocked rapidly and you barely made out the sound of her yelling something.

“Y/N LET ME IN RIGHT NOW.” She yelled and after a minute you heard nothing. Maybe she gave up? After the small reprieve you rested your back against the stall hearing the door open again. Dammit who was it this time. You heard the distinct clicking of heels and you automatically straightened your spine. Your stomach however revolted at this action and sent you pitching forward into the porcelain again. You gagged and tears stung your eyes as you brought up more of your stomach acid. It burned and you hated every last second of it.

“Honey whats going on in there? can you let us in please?” A voice asked which you faintly recognised as Ms Thornhill. What was she doing here? You simply whimpered and then heard the heels again and watched exhaustedly as the lock on the door turned from the outside. Two faces peered into the stall, and you simply looked at them and blinked, too tired for words. Principle weems and Ms Thornhill stood looking at you for a second before Thornhill quickly came over to you. She gently grabbed your cheek and laid her other hand on your brow to check for a fever.

“Darling are you ok? What prompted this?” Weems asked from where she was observing at the door. Enid had seemingly gone back to class, and you mentally thanked her for not seeing you like this.

You simply sighed and lent over to flush the toilet.

“Honey did you throw up?” Thornhill asked and you nodded weakly.

“Oh darling.” Weems said softly. “Why didn’t you leave class earlier.” She said and you shrugged not wanting to admit you felt you couldn’t. The principle frowned and you closed your eyes and rested your head against the wall.

“Bring her to my office, the nurse went home sick and i have some training in this kind of thing.” Principle weems said and Ms Thornhill nodded. The head mistress swapped spots with Ms Thornhill inside the stall, and she gently scooped you up from the ground and into her arms. You weakly rested your head against her collar bone and closed your eyes.

“Do you feel you may be sick again?” Principle weems asked and sighed softly as she felt you nod into her neck. She motioned for Ms Thornhill to follow, and she grabbed the small black bin from under the sink before trailing after the principle out of the bathroom. You thanked the high heavens nobody saw you being carried like a baby by your principle through the halls but overall, you were too exhausted to care.

You must have been dozing lightly because you felt weems adjusted you and open the door to her office and soon you were being gently lowered to the couch. Ms Thornhill set down the bin beside the bed which was luckily empty. Weems tucked a blanket around you and slipped a thermometer under your tongue. You were too tired to protest and simply hummed and closed your eyes.

You felt a hand brushing the hair from your eyes and back away from your face.

“Ms L/n how do you feel now?” Weems asked and you nodded which was met with a chuckle.

“Honey that doesn’t tell me much.” The principle said and Ms Thornhill smiled sadly down at you. You let out a low dejected hum and Weems frowned.

“Bad huh?” She said and you nodded again, and she removed the thermometer.

“101.2 did you eat something odd?” She asked frowning at the stick.

“No i don’t think so. Just…”

“Just what?” Ms Thornhill prompted.

“Just a coffee from the weathervane and something from the new bakery in Jericho. I dunno it tasted slightly odd I guess.” You mumbled and the principle looked at you sadly.

“Oh darling.” She said. “I’ll be sure to follow up on that. But right now, get some rest and I’ll wake you up a bit later for some medicine when you’ve settled some more.” She said and gently drew circles on your stomach. You hummed in agreement and shuffled around a bit to get comfy which made both teacher's chuckle. Once you had deemed yourself safe and comfy enough to fall asleep your breathing evened out and you knew you would be well looked after.

MASTERLIST

[tamelee]

Helloo tamelee! 💚 Are you doing good? I hope you do

There’s one thing that I think is unfair is that Sakura fans entirely blame Sai for "guilt-tripping and gaslighting her" in Kage Summit Arc, to explain why she lied to Naruto and tried to kill Sasuke. But Sai says himself he doesn’t understand the situation. Also, even Shizune, who isn’t particularly close to Naruto, managed to understand that Naruto doesn’t care about the promise in itself… It seems they’re blaming Sai so they don’t have to acknowledge that Sakura doesn’t make effort to understand Naruto

Hi Nonee! 🧡 I’m doing alright, thank you ^^ Hope you are good also!

“It seems they’re blaming Sai so they don’t have to acknowledge that Sakura doesn’t make effort to understand Naruto”

Well, you said it yourself. I would add something though; 

“It seems they’re blaming Sai so they don’t have to acknowledge that Sakura doesn’t make effort to understand Naruto AND Sasuke.”

Lmao, Sai doesn’t even have the emotional nor social intelligence to intentionally guilt-trip and gaslight anyone even if he wanted to. All he has as ammunition is a fake smile to fool someone (which often fails) and questionable advice from self-help books. He was forced to learn to not feel or empathize while growing up, hence his behavior causing friction with others and him being on a journey to start over, being allowed to observe and learn. And with that, make mistakes in these observations also, which is alright. (I’ll talk about him in another post.)

Blaming Sai for Sakura’s actions sounds even more funny now xD 

Is it also his fault that she lies to her ‘comrades’? Did Sai lie to everyone or did Sakura? Did he tell her to knock them (including himself LOL) out even if they were only trying to help her and then left them to get killed in the middle of the road where enemies walk around? Is it Sai's fault that she never cared to understand the real Sasuke and talks over him or cuts him off for selfish reasons and make it about herself when he did try to say something even before she knew Sai? Did Sai force her to dip her kunai in useless poison she prepared by herself for this self-proclaimed mission to kill Sasuke? Did Sai also tell Sakura to lie to Sasuke and abandon everyone so she could feel a little less irrelevant and have her last hope being to hold onto this ideal version of him and follow him around? So that, what?She could change his mind even though she already acknowledged she couldn't and that she was different from Naruto? To mock his or Naruto's loneliness again? Did Sai tell her it was a good idea to sneak up on him after deeming Sasuke’s reasons for doing what he does not worthy or important enough to hear out? Not once but TWICE!? Did Sai and Sakura keep in touch through a communication device while he was knocked out somehow? Did he tell her to scream at Sasuke who was seriously going through it, that she doesn’t care? Can you make it anymore clear? That she doesn’t care about his clan’s massacre enough to think Sasuke is allowed to be angry? Did Sai force Sakura to see Sasuke as a criminal like everyone else (except Naruto) and pretend he was some sort of “burden” to take upon herself without any reason or logic other than her not being able to bear seeing a Sasuke that wasn’t her ideal version of him? That giving up on a fantasy meant she’d had to get rid of it all for everyone? To completely abandon Naruto in darkness and never telling him anything? To go behind his back unless he’s useful to her in regard to Sasuke or her life? Because if she can’t get what she wants then I dunno die ig? Did Sai manipulate her into thinking that the real Sasuke isn’t worthy of life or understanding because it hurt HER to be so damn irrelevant to his life and accepting otherwise just wasn't an option even for Sasuke's sake? Did Sai write her a letter to say her pain regarding his trauma she knew nothing about is more important than anything else to make her selfish behavior suddenly makes sense? To who exactly? The people who call that love?

Did Sai tell her to go and manipulate Naruto’s feelings and lie to him also? To use the promise Naruto made as a tool (several times) to get him to do whatever she wants because he’d do anything for her yeah? (No.) If they really thought Naruto had a crush on her then don’t you think that makes it 10000x worse? Did he step forward in the snow to whisper in her ear and command that she'd yell and scream at Naruto when he got mad about it, because he looked right through the damn act? Did Sai push her to be childish about her failing such a dumb idea?

I mean, wow how dare he!! Sai is terrible >.<!!!! 

This was all sarcasm of course. 

Not only is it unfair to blame Sai, it makes no damn sense.

And even if she was guilt tripped??!?! What does that say about her when Naruto literally would’ve gone to war or give up his life for Sasuke, aye? Just sayin'.

[anhed-nia]

BLOGTOBER 10/30/2023: TALK TO ME (2022)

When I was 9 or 10 years old, I went to a slumber party with a lot of other girls who started a game of choking each other for the rush. I didn't participate, but watched in fascination as they took turns making each other pass out for several hours. Early on, it devolved into a lot of girls faking it so they could then pretend to say outrageous things "in their sleep", so this wasn't as extreme a scenario as it may sound. However, there's something deeply perverse about it, at least relative to the (bullshit, often harmful) "innocence" society projects onto children, and I wasn't sure if I should even write this all down. I had a feeling that probably lots of little kids have done this, but I couldn't be sure. I tried looking it up on the internet, and found a pretty upsetting article about it from just a few years ago. So, I suppose it's probably pretty common, and has been so, though it's not always the casual thing I remember from childhood. I thought about this for the first time in decades when I recently saw TALK TO ME, a strange and original Australian horror movie that I'm really sorry I missed in theaters.

Mia (Sophie Wilde), an alienated teenager struggling with her mother's suicide and her father's subsequent withdrawal from her, finds a bizarre form of comfort in a disturbing game she learns at a house party. Local delinquents have somehow procured an embalmed, severed hand that causes anyone who holds it to become possessed by ghosts. This is safe when done for short periods of time, beyond which there lie untold perils. Inevitably, Mia breaks the rules in order to reunite with her late mother--a foolish mistake that sets off a gruesome chain of events, threatening to destroy her along with all of her loved ones.

For a movie with such a fun and stylish veneer, TALK TO ME is surprisingly sad and grim, and also unpredictable. Things about it didn't quite add up for me: Where does this object come from? Why do the kids accept its extraordinary supernatural effects so readily and fearlessly? What effect does it exactly have on them, that cause them to behave like addicts, endlessly going back for more even when many of them are humiliated by the behavior of the possessing spirits? At that, why do kids play games like Bloody Mary, where the expectation is that a demoness will spring out of your mirror and murder you? Why are Ouija Boards all the more attractive because of the rumored dangers? These questions dredged up my ancient memories of the choking game, something that may not have made sense to most adults, because it was a little scary, and because it broke the rules around what society assumes about innocent young children. At that, there may be something to the fact that TALK TO ME was made by first-time filmmakers Michael and Danny Philippou, whose relative inexperience may have given them the freedom to ignore the usual expectations. This produces a rather uncertain viewing experience that sometimes results in a breech of contract with the audience, who may not expect something as intense as this movie becomes.

Obviously this is a commercial graphic related to where to stream TALK TO ME, but it so represents my feelings about being a film lover in the modern world that I'm including it anyway.

Of course, I had to look up who the filmmakers were, which was sort of an unpredictable journey in and of itself. First it was like...oh no, they're YouTubers. I really don't want anything to do with that whole entire culture. Then further down their Wikipedia page there's the Controversies section, and I was like, Oh no, half the time I am forced to hear about a YouTuber, it's because someone has been outed as a gross predator, I don't know if I even wanna look... And then I read what was in there. Twice. And I was OK with it:

The End.

[perfectpaperbluebirds]

Sicktember #11

Prompt: Beginner’s Guide to Faking Sick

Fandom/OCs: Knives Out (post canon-AU, Ransom and Marta)

Words: 580

Sicknario inspo: Being kissed by someone who’s sick when asked to share their cold from this post. 

Author’s comments/background: Another one where the prompt basically wrote itself, just needed some extra words. In my AU for this fandom, Ransom only has a short prison sentence if any and he and Marta have a traditional enemies-to-lovers plotline as he helps her navigate the realm of the wealthy and she helps him turn over a new leaf as a decent person. 

~~~***~~~

Ransom had just woken up from his latest sick nap and was enjoying a cup of tea at the kitchen table when Marta burst into the room. 

"I need your help. I need to get sick before this weekend."

Ransom cocked an eyebrow. "What could possibly be so horrible that a goody-goody like you is trying to get out of it?" he asked, the husky rasp of an upper respiratory infection making his voice somehow more attractive, if that were possible. 

"Ugh, my cousin is getting married for the third time and each man she's chosen is more horrible than the last. This one is an alcoholic and so are all his friends. And my other cousins will end up in a screaming fight one way or another. I refuse to go to another miserable wedding."

"So why don't you just fake sick instead of going the whole way? Even a princess like you can fake a few coughs over the phone I'm sure. I can give you a full course on creative ways to get out of social events. I've been doing it my whole life. Playing hooky 101. I should write a book… "The Beginners Guide to Faking Sick". It'd be an instant hit." He forced out the last few words just in time before breaking into a nasty coughing fit. "See?" he croaked after a few sips of tea. "Trust me, you want no part of this in real life. Just pretend."

Marta shook her head. "Someone would come check on me. They'll send my mother or one of my aunties to make sure I’m telling the truth. My cousins don't allow anyone to miss their weddings. But this cousin is also deathly afraid of being sick. It has to be the real thing. I need you to give me your cold." She eyed his contagion-ridden mug, but Ransom didn't follow her train of thought. 

"If you insist," he said with a smirk that at first she couldn't decipher. He stood and was at her side in two long strides. Before she knew what he was doing, he was tilting her head back and pressing his hot lips to hers. His tongue was in her mouth before she could blink.

"Ransom! What the hell?" She shoved him away. "I wanted you to let me drink from your mug, not suck my face off!"

"Hey, you said you wanted my cold. I was just taking the most direct route," he said, smiling wickedly. "Plus I kinda thought you were flirting." He held out his mug. “But if you want to try it your way too, be my guest.”

She took the mug from him, trying to hide a smile as she took a few sips. "You're impossible. I would never."

"Hmm. Well now you'll get your cold one way or another. Just wait and see," he laughed.

~~~

Two days later, Marta appeared for breakfast with red, watery eyes and nose, looking pleased, though she was also pale and shaky.

"Your cold worked. Just in time for the wedding, exactly like I hoped. Thank you."

Ransom, his cold much improved, grinned wolfishly. "No thanks necessary. That just goes to show how good of a kisser I am too, to give you my cold in one go after just a few seconds of tongue."

"You're impossible, as usual," she said, rolling her eyes, though with unmistakable fondness, at her rescuer.

[flydotnet]

Bad Things Happen Bingo! The event where you send me requests according to this marvelous card! (Red cross is the completed prompt, character headshots are prompts I’ve already filled).

Papa’s a liar.

New fandom, new bazillion questions I ask myself about whether or not this is even worth finishing - and thenI do anyway because I'm stubborn and my card looks prettier with one more character on it. I'm not sure how I can still stress myself out over my characterization being at least serviceable when - and I counted - this is the fourth time I'm writing a new fandom with this card alone*. At this point, it's just to cause myself issues. Anyway! I love Twilight/Loid. He's the best spy of Westalis but he's also the dumbest idiot I've ever seen. My man buys his daughter a dog first because she wants it and then because something something Operation Strix. It was also funny to remove like 70% of his agency but that's because I'm a horrible person. And also it's fun. The prompt itself wasn't very fun up until I realized I could use "Crutches" as in both the actual item and emotional crutches - aka Anya and Yor, who are absolute units at disarming a spy, apparently! Have I mentioned I love this manga yet? I hope I don't regret this fic man

----

Break a Leg, See If It Brings You Luck

Summary: It’s a good thing the only bullet he took was in the leg. It’s an easy thing to take care of and hide for the most part – far easier than on the chest or back, at the very least – as long as one finds a way to justify the slight limp it may carry with it, they’ll find themselves doing just fine.

Except this just had not to be an ordinary gunshot wound. No, the bullet just had to strike in right the perfect way to fracture the femur.

This is going to be a very long month.

Fandom: Spy x Family Characters: Loid, Anya and Yor Forget, the whole fam’s here (with a cameo from Bond too!) Ship: The eternally mutually pining TwiYor, you know how it is

Wordcount: 2.5K words

Event hosted by @badthingshappenbingo

AO3 version.

------

Getting shot at is nothing new. It comes with the job, one could say: dismantle a smuggling network, or fight off human traffickers and you have a good 90% chance to get attacked with firearms in retaliation. In fact, it’s an exception when you’re not – which has also happened to him, of course – so you must be prepared to patch up a gunshot wound in case thing take a turn for the sour.

He’s not above admitting, at least to himself, that he’s sometimes not been able to avoid bullets as well as he should’ve. Most of those times are so long ago that the details of it are starting to lose their edge (kind of like him, at the moment, and he still has to take care of that issue too…), but they’ve all reminded him that, in the end, they’re simply bigger flesh wounds: they merely require a bit more tending to than your regular scratch or cut.

A bullet fracturing the femur is a new one, though, even to him.

 What’s also new to him is the dependency that comes with such a fracture. Despite his best efforts, he didn’t manage to pretend like it didn’t exist in front of his fake family. He should’ve seen it coming, in retrospect, considering how much of his edge he keeps losing in front of both fake wife and fake daughter – but to Anya’s credit, she seemed to have realized on her own even before he could lie to her about this not being a big deal.

Sometimes, he wonders about the sharpness of this little girl’s instincts. For a child whose grades in school are nothing to write home about, she’s able to get through most of his smokes and mirrors, as if she could read what he meant to hide behind them. It’s… surely just his edge getting dull, though. What else could it be, huh? Surely this child who he found in some dump-like orphanage that barely deserves the name of one doesn’t read minds.

(If she somehow does, then Twilight must apologize, because exposing such a young girl to spy affairs could be considered child cruelty, he’s certain).

 At least, it’s perhaps the easiest gunshot wound in the world to explain. After all, breaking a leg can happen for a wide variety of reasons and he doesn’t have to blame a crazed patient to get away with it. It made him look somewhat stupid when he had to tell both Anya and Yor that he had tripped in the stairs because they had just been washed and he had conveniently forgotten about that, slipping on a step and tumbling down the stairs. (As long as neither of them sees the bullet-shaped hole under the cast, it’s fine).

On the flipside, it’s handicapping him more than a regular bullet hole in that area. A bone takes longer to heal back to usable capacity than flesh and skin. That’s not even getting into the fact it’s his right leg that he can’t walk with: it means he’s even limited in his movements. A broken arm, as bad as it is, at least doesn’t prevent him from running and shooting; a broken leg, on the other hand, severely limits his options for walking and, by virtue of doing so, also prevents him from using his arms when moving around.

Crutches are a pain. How did he even forget?

 Having to use both arms to move an immobile leg means he can’t even take care of chores at home, despite those being the only thing he has to worry about at the moment, aside from Operation Strix: WISE, for once, gave him time off from his usual missions, albeit only because he physically can’t handle them, he’s sure). He can’t cook dinner, he can’t walk Anya to school, he can’t walk the dog—

 “Papa, can I walk Bond today?”

He jumps – he really needs to stop losing himself in thoughts, this is smoothing his edge – and faces a concerned-looking Anya.

“We should wait until your mother is home, Anya. You’ll get carried away by his strength.”

“Mama said she’d come back super late from work today,” Anya replies.

That’s true, yes. Yor proposed to stay home and take care of housework for him, but he refused. His broken leg shouldn’t impede on her professional life. Still, this is an issue, and the fate of his undercover operation relies on Bond being happy… Right!

“I could ask Franky to take care of Bond.”

“Yay, Uncle Scruffy to the rescue!” Then Anya freezes. “But, Papa, how are you gonna use the phone? You can’t stand up and use the phone at the same time!”

Dammit, she’s right… Well, partially, at least. He’s not that powerless, is he now?

“I assure you, Anya, I can maintain my balance on one foot and use the phone with my available hand.”

“That sounds dange’ous, Papa.”

Well, it’s not like he didn’t portray himself as a klutz no later than yesterday, he supposes.

“It’ll be fine.” She looks around for a moment, then walks to the phone. “What’re you doing, Anya?”

“I’m calling Uncle Scruffy!”

“What did I just—”

 Anya, ever the free soul, grabs a chair and, with every single fibre of strength in her tiny body, puts it next to the phone.

“Papa?”

He sighs as he grabs the crutches at the foot of the couch.

“How do you use a phone again?”

With an annoyance he can’t even bring himself to hide (he doubts Anya would be convinced he doesn’t hate having to rely on sticks to walk around anyway), he gets up, sighing. Walking on those things is more tiring than it should be allowed to be.

“Let me at least input the number before you try calling at random, Anya.”

 This is going to be a very tedious month, he can already tell – and it’s only been two days.

  If you put it in a certain way, this entire fiasco benefits Operation Strix. Sure, it’s at the detriment of every other mission WISE is on, which means it’s detrimental to the peace between East and West because he’s stuck on pretending to be a psychiatrist (driven to work by his wife, of all things) and paperwork duties; but it means he can decipher documentation that may’ve taken longer to getting understood and he can watch over Bond. After all, the dog is part of the family, so taking care of him and making sure he’s well-fed and happy is of primordial importance.

(Maybe less so than Anya’s grades or his cover as a psychiatrist with patients so violent one has to wonder how it’s even possible, but important nonetheless).

Anya seems happy that “Bond has a friend”, at least, and to be fair, at least, the dog doesn’t ask about if he should be moving around the place, unlike Anya and Yor and every single one of his fake and real workmates. Maybe, if he could talk, Bond would ask to; but as it stands, Twilight doesn’t speak dog and Bond doesn’t speak human, so it’s fine.

 In that way, it makes interacting in woofs a much better thing than constantly telling Yor that, no, he’s fine, just moving slowly compared to usual (and not having his hands free for most of it).

 Do crutches really make you look that much like an invalid? When he listens to her, Twilight can’t help but think he’s actually lost his damn leg when, no, Anya just keeps asking if she can draw on his cast –he keeps telling her no, but each time comes out with less strength than the previous one, it’s a war of attrition and the child is winning – and it’ll be fixed. He’s not even tried walking on the damn thing (from experience, it only works when you’ve got enough adrenaline to cover up most of the pain).

Since coming back home with that gunshot wound (which, he’ll admit, he did underestimate quite a lot), Yor has been more insistent than ever on handling any chore that isn’t cooking, insisting she must get the groceries and see Anya off every day to school, among a shopping list of things Twilight isn’t even sure they’ve actually done at (Loid Forger’s) home like dusting bedsheets outside.

Yor’s help at home, as excessive as it is at the moment, is good for Operation Strix: it makes their fake marriage seem this much more realistic to outsiders, as Yor is regularly seen shopping for groceries with or without Anya, while giving him more time to gather intel for other WISE agents. These past few days, he’s been able to crack about a dozen ciphers that had been bothering the agency, catch three secret correspondences between Ostalian pro-war factions and repair very exactly fifteen tears in Yor’s and Anya’s clothes.

This is less of a net negative than expected; Twilight’s sure of it.

 Still, he should set things straight with her again, and he has the perfect opportunity: Anya is sleeping at Becky Blackbell’s mansion today, which she referred to as “a mission for Papa’s peace” (she really must love spy cartoons), so it’s only Yor and him at home tonight. He was supposed to have a side-mission, but it got cancelled due to those same unforeseen circumstances that have been biting at him all week – and no matter how much he tried to insist, Handler refused to let him take care of it. Training to be able to conduct an operation while having one leg amputated really had no use, it seems.

Yor is also available, which is very convenient, in this case. They decided, like most of the time these days, to order something and eat it at home. To his misfortune, and almost as a bad omen, as soon as he goes to grab his crutches from the side of the couch, Yor picks him up like a glass statue of some kind and sits him to the table, going as far as to slide the other side to put his leg on another chair.

This really isn’t starting the right way.

 They both pick at their dish until, finally, he decides enough is enough. He won’t be dependant on human crutches, be it a young girl or a strong woman who can absolutely bench-press over twice his weight.

“You don’t need to concern yourself with doing everything around home, Yor,” he tells her in almost a clinical tone.

She, however, stares right back to him like it wasn’t obvious.

“But you’re…”

“Partially incapacitated, I know. I wish to assure you, this isn’t as cumbersome as it looks.”

She looks down, eyes fluttering and cheeks reddening.

“But, Loid… I’ve seen how frustrated it’s made you to… have to compose with this.”

“It’s nothing I can’t manage, I assure you.”

A heavy silence settles between the two of them, only broken by bites of food and sips of water. It’s a deeply uncomfortable one – which Twilight rationalizes as silence never being a good sign for spies. Something about calm itself being a sign a threat is hiding beneath the surface. Yes, something like this, not about how he seems to have let Yor down or made her feel uneasy… (Uncertainty is also a lethal enemy).

 In the end, she breaks the silence, fiddling with the hem of her red sweater (which matches her eyes oh so well – no time to think about that, Loid).

“I don’t mind, you know… In fact, I really like it! I’ve always liked helping people, I suppose, but it feels… different, when it’s you.” Her cheeks grow red as a poppy. “U-unless you really mind, of course! Then I can just let you be or wait until you really need something from me!”

Loid sighs. How is he supposed to say no to this, really? This is going against everything he’s ever learned, and yet he finds himself walking headfirst into it. Dangerous business, really. (The blur of mask and reality should worry him much more than that).

“I’d usually prefer handling myself, but if you say it doesn’t bother you, then I don’t think I can quite go against it.” He clears his throat to regain some seriousness. “Albeit, I don’t want it to be a burden on you. Think of yourself first.”

“Oh, of course! You’ll probably still have to at least help with dinner, but don’t worry, I’ll take care of everything else!”

She didn’t quite get what he meant, he’s pretty sure, but she’s got the spirit.

 Crutches really are a spy���s worst hurdle to overcome.

  There’s this one sentence that keeps getting on his nerves, no matter how he thinks about it.

Oh, no, let me take care of this for you!

And there’s this other sentence that triggers… something within him that he doesn’t quite get, but which doesn’t feel bad per say.

Oh, no, Loid, let me take care of this for you!

 …wait. They sound the same.

 Yor is nothing if not well-meaning (and a special brand of impossible not to stare at) but having to rely on her has felt horrible all week and he’s not sure of how much longer he can last with her insisting to do anything for him, from cooking to taking care of Anya, without forgetting driving him up to work (and that still stings). The feeling grows worse with each day passing too: like a poison, it sinks into every last cell it touches, no matter how unrelated, and it makes hard to focus on ciphers and intel gathering.

Loid Forger’s a lucky man, Twilight supposes, to have such a caring spouse ready to help him with so much for something as little as a broken leg and what it causes. Loid Forger, in fact, must absolutely relish in being able to take a break from violent patients and working graveyard shifts every single night of the week. Twilight? Not so much.

He thinks.

Maybe.

 Okay, truth be told, he needed the break from the late-night, about-to-get-shot-multiple-times missions. He had already thought about it even before getting shot in the femur, but this has only confirmed his need for a breather, no matter how short. This, of course, comes at the price of his peace of mind, because he shouldn’t be taking it easy while WISE is going through such an intense staff shortage, but it does come with the main perk of not wavering on his feet so frequently.

Relying on civilians still doesn’t sit right with him but considering he too can’t sit properly at the moment, it may sound hypocritical of him (who is he kidding? He’s always a hypocrite, it comes with being an undercover agent and like a second nature to him). Some part of him doesn’t even hate it, per say; being able to spend time with Anya and Yor, not having to manage everything, taking his time… It doesn’t sound so bad. It goes against everything he’s ever known, but it feels… maybe not quite right, but quite agreeable. Or, at least, less uncomfortable than anticipated.

He’s even sure letting Anya draw on the cast was a good thing for Operation Strix. It makes him look like a good family man, which he needs for the sake of the mission.

 This… might not just be about Operation Strix, though.

Just might.

[yuriswitch]

it really shouldn't be controversial at all, especially in nominally leftist spaces, but setting that aside there's a lot that polyamory can bring to the conversation. It's one of those things that require you to think in ways that you otherwise would not, which is very interesting in fiction, but also reveals an entire aspect of romance that everyone is affected by to some degree but usually without really noticing. At least, it doesn't seem to be talked about that much. We're in a whole bunch of relationships already, and what really stands out a lot is just how much variation there is to what a romantic relationship is and how it works. And in most stories made by monogamous people you don't really see that explored, outside of one specific topic that boils down to "oh no my partner can't give me everything I want/need what do I do" where the conversation just ignores the existence of polyamory entirely despite it being often a solution to issues like that.

It's this idea that love is a singular and monolithic thing, that always feels the same and never differs from person to person and partner to partner, a form of "there is only one thing" belief that seeks to cover up multiplicity for the sake of milking comfort from familiarity. So you see stories insisting that you just love your partner like everyone else loves theirs, and you give your partner stuff like everyone else gives theirs, and everything is the same one experience with minor differences only because god forbid something else exists in any meaningful way. But when you end up in a polycule, you quickly realize that even though the feelings you have for all of your partners are romantic, there's a lot more variety to how you react to them exactly and what dynamic you have.

So you might have intense yearning for one of them 24/7, but be more relaxed when close with another, or excited every time you see or talk with yet another partner. You could have a much more grounded relationship with some people, and more wild and kinky one with others. And that's not everything, because sharing partners is a whole new thing that just doesn't have any equivalent in monogamous relationships. Just imagine how many unique moments you could write into a story just by having two people bond over their shared feelings for another third person, while also having feelings for each other.

And all of that can be achieved while simultaneously highlighting issues with monogamy culture and the various misconceptions about love that it created (like the idea that you can only love one person at a time, which leads to storytellers pretending that one of the love interests in a love triangle is somehow fake and doesn't count). There's a lot to uncover and counter, but also a lot more fun to be had too. Most importantly however, I think it's crucial to inform people that this is an option, because while not everyone can be polyamorous, it's still a relatively new concept even though the phenomenon itself is ancient. Monogamy culture tends to act like an invasive species in a sense, so we have to put a lot of work towards familiarizing the general public with the idea, that it's not the only valid thing ever. What seems like a normal and omnipresent thing to some can be outright poisonous to others

/Oneesama

This may be controversial but I think polyamory should be in tv shows and video games. I think there’s so many unexplored dynamics for romcom relationships and we simply deserve these kinds of stories.

[ahungeringknife]

365: April 25

Shin and Savant's friendship is so excellent I'm so glad they're friends even if Shin would rather eat glass than admit it aloud where Savant could hear

---

Shin had his eyes closed while he sat in his cockpit. He wasn't sleeping he just had nothing better to do between Gambit games sometimes. His Ghost was playing some music in the back of the ship, entertaining itself more than anything. He was going over the last game in his mind, bickering with that stupid ass EXO Savant, and Wolf yelling at them both to shut up and shoot the Invader. The music got louder and he opened one eye to see his Ghost float over. "What?" he asked.

His Ghost said nothing, just popped open. "Shin!" Savant's cheerful voice came out of his Ghost.

"I have told you not to call me," Shin said aggravated.

He was completely ignored. "Did you know you have a fanclub?"

Shin rolled his eyes. As if this was a topic of conversation. Also yes he was very aware of both his creepy Crucible fanclub full of Guardians and his creepy in a different way fanclub of Lightless. "If you're just now realizing I have-

"No no! I mean like... Skinner has a fanclub."

Shin blinked at his Ghost who looked at him with the same expression he was giving his Ghost: what the fuck? Skinner wasn't even a real person. A lazy alias to play Gambit to keep an eye on Drifter. Shin was also one of the only paper Dredgens who's name was also their Dredgen title. How the fuck did his fake bullshit keep attracting fans? He wasn't even nice! He still didn't know how he'd accumulated followers as Dredgen Vale sometimes. Shin was not a super charismatic person and Vale was just him pretending to be like Jaren to the point of parody. Skinner was even less likable. On purpose!

"What?" he asked, incredulous, almost insulted that somehow Skinner had a fanclub. That somehow Shin had accumulated a fanclub for another alias.

"Yeah!"

"And you're telling me this why? Also why the fuck do you know this?"

"Dredgen Hunter has a fan club too," Savant prattled on. "Which I thought was really cool so I engage with them. Lightless are kinda crazy but they're all pretty excited I interact with them. Also since I've been playing with you and Wolf there's been some overlap with Wolf's crazy ass fanclub." Yeah, Shin had seen that only on the periphery of his engagements on Crucible apps or some newsletters he was subscribed to. But every time they brushed up against his sphere of giving a shit he was a little terrified of how absolutely wild the Young Wolf's main fanclub was. "They ask me about her all the time and I just play dumb about a lot. Not hard. But most of it really isn't any of my business," Savant was still talking. "There's only been some overlap recently and when I saw what was happening I laughed so hard I nearly reset myself."

"Considering how stupid you are that doesn't shock me," Shin growled.

Savant never took Shin's heat to heart. Which annoyed him honestly. Shin had absolutely made lesser men shrivel up with a well placed biting word. It just pinged off Savant. "And I had to share," and suddenly Shin's pockit started vibrating like crazy. He fished it out of the pouch he kept it in and opened it up. He'd just gotten eight private messages from a fireteam member.

"What the fuck did you send me?"

"Just look!"

Grumbling Shin opened the link in the first message. He was aware of Lightless writing fictional prose about their favorite Guardians. Hell almost every biography published about him was fictional. But there was stuff on the net too, unpublished. And he did his best not to interact with it. He'd been friends? Acquaintances? Crucible partners? With someone who got invested in their own fanclub's bullshit. It'd been so fucking weird and completely ruined their relationship. Also like three quarters of it was fans writing weird relationship stuff that just... baffled him.

This message was to a site he'd never been to but recognized it for what it was. A hub for collecting fan written stories about their favorite Guardians, specifically Gambit players by all the green and snake icons. Shin was regretting even looking as he scanned the meta tags about the story in question.

"I'm going to fucking. Kill you," Shin snapped at Savant through his Ghost. On the other end Savant howled with laughter. "Don't show me this fucking garbage!" Savant just kept laughing. This particular story was about a sexual (or romantic, he didn't read that far) relationship between Dredgen Hunter and Dredgen Skinner.

"Isn't it fucking amazing?" Savant asked around his laughter.

"No!"

"It's so stupid I had to share! And there's more," Savant giggled foolishly, his voice box hiccuping in a way that would be endearing if Shin wasn't fucking furious.

"Don't fucking tell me that," Shin growled. "You fucking piss me off."

"Not according to your fangirls," Savant teased him.

"Are you on your ship or the Derelict?"

"Derelict," Savant said smugly. Shin growled wordlessly. Savant knew Shin wouldn't transmat directly onto the Derelict to beat his ass like he would if he was on ship.

"You are letting me invade the rest of the day for assaulting my eyes with this bullshit," Shin growled.

"Okay okay okay," Savant said snickering. His pockit vibrated a few times. "Those aren't about us," he told Shin.

"I don't want any of these!" Shin all but shouted.

"They're about Skinner and Wolf," Savant said coyly.

"Who they're about doesn't matter. Fuck you. Ghost, end the call," he snapped, done with this bullshit. His Ghost closed to the sound of Savant's giggling.

"Huh," his Ghost said.

"Fucking hate that guy," Shin growled and slouched in his chair, arms folded.

"Want me to disconnect from the fireteam?"

"No," he still wanted to play with Wolf and if he did he'd have to suffer playing with Savant too.

"He is very annoying," his Ghost agreed with him. Just about the only thing he and his Ghost did agree on. He floated away and once more started playing music to entertain himself in the ship cabin.

Shin sat there for a few minutes before pulling his pockit out again and going to Savant's messages. He ignored the original messages but... fuck who was he kidding? He was super interested in seeing what the Wolf Skinner ones were like. He might have been in denial but he wasn't a fucking fool either. Making sure his Ghost wasn't paying attention to him he opened one of the DredgenWolf/DredgenSkinner links. It was pretty self indulgent but fuck it he could be a bit self indulgent now and then. Right?

[we-all-have-magic-inside-us]

Hi, this is very random but I'm actually writing a dissertation on Harry Potter Fanfiction and I'm looking for the 'big' fics, i.e. fics that lots of people in the fandom read - the most popular/famous ones that might even have their own sub-fandom (All The Young Dudes for example). Do you know of any Drarry ones like this? Thanks in advance!

What a wonderful topic for a dissertation @realistic-but-optimistic - I would LOVE to read it if you ever publish/want to share. And I definitely have some recs for fics that have their own mini fandom and/or are ‘The Drarry Classics’

What We Pretend We Can't See by @gyzym [131k words]

Seven years out from the war, Harry learns the hard truth of old history: it’s never quite as far behind you as you thought

This is THE fandom classic almost everyone has read and talks about. It features a redeemed, slightly obsessive, charming Draco. Grimmauld Place plays a huge role in the fic and Ron/Hermione are wonderful. Overall 10/10.

Running on Air by @tinyhistory [75k]

Draco Malfoy has been missing for three years. Harry is assigned the cold case and finds himself slowly falling in love with the memories he collects.

I genuinely do not know if any fic rec can do justice to this masterpiece. It’s so beautiful and poignant and somehow nostalgic. The language, the plot, the pining and the mystery are all breathtaking. You have to read this one yourself to believe me. This is definitely a major fandom classic.

Tea and No Sympathy [70k] by who_la_hoop

It's Potter's fault, of course, that Draco finds himself trapped in the same twenty-four-hour period, repeating itself over and over again. It's been nearly a year since the unpleasant business at Hogwarts, and Draco's getting on with his life quite nicely, thank you, until Harry sodding Potter steps in and ruins it all, just like always. At first, though, the time loop seems liberating. For the first time in his life, he can do anything, say anything, be anything, without consequence. But the more Draco repeats the day, the more he realises the uncomfortable truth: he's falling head over heels for the speccy git. And suddenly, the time loop feels like a trap. For how can he ever get Harry to love him back when time is, quite literally, against him?

If you like Groundhog Day style fics, this is the winner! It has over 32k kudos on AO3 which is INSANE! It’s super well written and keeps you hooked until the very end. And it’s not just this one, every fic by this author is a classic in its own right. Especially ‘written on the heart.’

Right Hand Red [73k] by @lqtraintracks​

Harry felt Malfoy's breath on his lips as they came together over the bottle, hands firmly planted on the floor as though they each needed their familiar soil, refusing to cross into enemy territory.

Except that Malfoy no longer felt like his enemy.

Malfoy felt inevitable.

No rec list can be complete without an eighth year fic. The fandom is FULL of eighth year fics and they’re perfect for anyone craving a Harry Potter continuation but with Drarry. This is one of my absolute favourite ones. It features a lot of party games and it’s really nice to see Harry and Draco have a chance at a normal school year for once, something they’ve been robbed of for so many years. There’s a lot of pining and healing in this one and I felt all the feels when I read it. 

Away Childish Things [151k] by @letteredlettered

Harry gets de-aged. Malfoy has to help him.

This one. This one. THERE ARE NO WORDS BUT I WILL VALIANTLY ATTEMPT. I love it. It explores Harry’s childhood in a way very few fics have managed to and it really really tugs at the heartstrings. It’s gorgeously written and evokes so many emotions. Please read this one.

Stop All the Clocks (This Is the Last Time I’m Leaving Without You) [44k] by @firethesound

Living with Draco was difficult; living without him is unbearable. But if there’s one thing Harry learned from the war, it’s that even when one life ends, the rest of the world goes right on living.

Full disclosure- I haven’t read this and I don’t know if I ever can. It features MCD (main character death) and I really struggle with reading fics that don’t have a happy ending. Having said that, it is a fandom classic and everyone who has read it, RAVES about it. They say it’s gorgeous and beautiful and devastating. What I can confirm is that firethesound is an amazing author and I have read several other fics by them which could also be considered fandom classics. Especially ‘All Our Secrets Laid Bare’ which is the ultimate Auror partners fic and ‘A Convenient Impracticality’ which is the ultimate fake dating/friends-with-benefits fic. 

Dwelling [83k] by aideomai

Curses, James and Lily Potter ride again, several Ministry balls, a teenage Summer of Love, a grim young adult dystopian winter, a few different Draco Malfoys, secrets and the problems re: not having any, alternate lives, impossible lives, real lives, allusions to Dirty Dancing, and just because it's not called the Mirror of Erised doesn't mean you shouldn't know better.

Oh my goodness, this fic ruined me. In the best possible way. If you want a glimpse into how Harry’s life could have been if his parents had been alive and if Harry and Draco had been friends from the start, this is the one. There's a huge twist which makes the fic EVEN better. I don’t want to spoil too much but this one is worth a read. Another fic by the same author, ‘Far From The Tree’ is also gorgeous. It’s a newer fic so I wouldn’t say it’s a classic yet but the plot is SO unique. It features Harry’s grown up kids coming back into the past and how that could affect Harry/Draco’s relationship. All the characters are super well written and it’s one of my personal favourites!

Other notes:

I made a Drarry rec list when I first got into the fandom. I would say almost all the fics on this list are also classics/very well liked. 

Another great way to find classics are through this link. They are Drarry fics on Ao3 (30k+ words) sorted by the number of kudos they’ve received. I would say all fics on the first five pages can be considered classics. 

Here are three other SUPER adored authors in the Ao3 fandom: Bixgirl, Saras_Girl and GallaPlacidia

All works by Bix and Saras_Girl are considered classics. GallaPlacidia started writing for the fandom only a couple of years back but she has such a knack for writing both these boys, it’s absolutely insane. I’m 100% confident her fics will be considered classics in a few years! Especially ‘The Bucket List’ and ‘Ship of Theseus.’

Enjoy and hope this helps!!

[garyandash-trash]

WIP Wednesday

It's WIP Wednesday again!!!!! This is from one of my fave wips right now, a Palletshipping fake dating scenario (AU) that is basically writing itself at the moment!!!! Hope you all enjoy!!

--------

“Say, um, Ash–” Professor Oak called, the invitation suddenly in his hands. “Did you read the whole invitation?”

“Well, I uh– I read most of it,” Ash replied, a guilty look on his face. “Enough to know I’d need to borrow a suit from Gary.” 

“Well, it looks like… you registered to have a plus one.” 

“Ah, so little Ashy is bringing a date?” Gary joked, a false smile on his face as his heart shattered at the thought. Clearly, it wasn’t him, and it made sense, why would it be, but it was still hard to endure. 

“N-no!” Ash stammered, rushing over to look at the invitation, a shocked expression on his face. “I-I kind of just assumed they added that as an option so I could bring Pikachu.” 

Both Gary and his grandfather exchanged glances, before breaking out into laughter. 

“Only you would sign up a Pokémon as a plus one,” Gary joked, another series of laughs escaping him. “I guess I should’ve expected as much. You get invited to a formal event with the elite four and you were gonna bring Pikachu as your date.” 

“It’s not funny, Gary!” Ash replied, a flustered look forming on his face. “Everyone’s gonna laugh at me. I’ll be shown the door before I even have a chance to be interviewed.”

“I can’t mess this up,” Ash continued, a desperate look in his eyes. “These people  might end up being my peers, my co-workers, and they’re all gonna think I’m some kind of airhead trainer who isn’t good enough to be part of the elite four.”  

“Well, they wouldn’t be entirely wrong about the airhead part,” Gary commented, unable to resist the obvious joke. Ash fixed him with an angry look and elbowed him in the stomach. He supposed he deserved that. 

“Alright, alright, stop arguing, you two,” Professor Oak interrupted, a hand resting on his chin as he tried to think of a solution. “This is in two days, yes?” 

“Yeah, I have to leave tomorrow,” Ash said with a groan, walking over to the couch and collapsing onto it with a defeated expression. 

“Can you ask any of the girls you used to travel with?” Gary suggested, trying to help, even if it hurt to do so. 

“With only two days' notice?” Ash replied, a sigh falling from his lips. “This isn’t just something I can spring on one of my old friends. You know how the elite four are, Gary. They can be pretty.. intimidating.” 

Suddenly, Professor Oak spoke up. “I have an idea, if you’ll both hear me out.” 

“What?” Ash asked, hope returning to his voice. 

“Why don’t you just bring Gary?” He said, a smirk on his face as he looked over at his grandson, who now found himself the center of attention.

“Gramps,” Gary interrupted, beyond embarrassed at the idea that his grandfather was now effectively setting them up on a date. “I don’t think–” 

“That’s a great idea, Professor!” Ash exclaimed, face lighting up at the thought. “C’mon, Gary, please? It’s only one night – and besides, you’re good at stuff like this. You can help me make a good impression!” 

“Ash, you realize this means we have to pretend that we’re a couple, right?”

“So what?” Ash asked, a surprised look on his face that quickly shifted into one of mild irritation. “It’s only one night.” 

Gary sighed, a furious blush rising on his cheeks. He tried to think of something, anything, that would get him out of this situation, but nothing came to mind. 

“Fine. I’ll come with.” Gary relented, mirroring Ash’s earlier reaction and collapsing on the couch. 

“Yes! Thank you Gary, I owe you one!” Ash exclaimed, leaping up from the couch and rushing up the stairs. “Should I take the suit home with me?”

“I’ll pack it.” Gary called, knowing that Ash would be able to hear him. “You’ll end up wrinkling it, somehow,” he muttered to himself, before glancing up at his grandfather, who was sitting across from him, observing him with a smug look on his face. 

Gary shot him a dirty look, before rolling his eyes and standing up from the couch to head back upstairs. 

“Y’know, Gramps, I’d appreciate it if you’d stop trying to interfere in my love life.”

“I don’t know what you mean, Gary,” he responded innocently, before reaching for the book he had set aside earlier.

[kimvvantae]

the misadventures list; 1 (m)

➜ the night shift can be very wild at times. you’ve witnessed so many strange, concerning and absurd situations happen inside the tiny convenience store that you could make a long list with everything that got you stunned - and the situation that takes the prize of being the weirdest of your list is the night a desperate millionaire, for the sake of saving his fortune, asks you to pretend to be his girlfriend.

pairing: playboy!jimin x (f) reader

genre: smut, comedy (?), fluff • fake dating au

warnings: explicit sexual content in future chapters. coarse language. me trying to be funny i guess

rating: 18+

word count: 6k

A/N: so excited to finally share this one with you guys!! i really needed to write something lighthearted after so much angst (even tho yall know me so there's definitely gonna be a lil bit of angst in the future). feedback is always much appreciated!

let me know if you want to be added to the taglist!

➜  Chapters: check out masterlist in bio!

« playlist »

Working in a 24h convenience store is quite the experience.

Despair leads humans to take drastic decisions. Living alone as a college student in a big city is in itself a situation of despair - especially if you have no family to help you out with the bills and not enough professional experience to get a decent job. So, when you saw the rent coming just around the corner and you had a spectacular amount of $15 in your bank account, you accepted the first job offer that appeared in front of you.

Yes. You accepted the night shift.

Does it mean that you barely sleep these days and you feel that your brain is going to actually melt? Yes. But at least the salary is a little higher than your last job and the store is two blocks away from your apartment.

Also, sometimes you end up witnessing interesting things.

The store is pretty empty most of the time - which means that you just sit behind the cashier counter for hours straight trying not to die of boredom. You can study a lot, which is good, but sometimes, when you already did everything you had to do - from organizing items on shelves back and forth to wiping the floor twice or feeding the dog that always passes by around 2AM -, you have no choice but sit there and question your life choices.

When customers do come, though, it's usually the same type of people. You have already memorized the pattern of customers: sad college students that come to buy dinner (usually noodles. Delicious, cheap and unhealthy. What else could a broke young adult want?), or drunk college students that come after leaving clubs to buy some snacks, or drunk and sad college students that don't have that many friends to go out with, so they buy beer, eat noodles and cry alone in their respective apartments/dorms. You somehow relate to all of them.

From time to time, some people out of the pattern show up, though. There was that homeless man that once came in to simply buy Oreo but you ended up discussing the consequences of the 2008 financial crisis for about forty minutes (a really smart man, that one). There was also that time when a woman walked in wearing nothing but lingerie and bunny ears; she bought some condensed milk, called you pretty and left (you never blushed so hard in your life). Or that time you had to chase a 12 year old down the street holding a baseball bat because he tried to steal a vodka bottle (fortunately, you didn't need to actually beat him up. The little devil threw the bottle and ran away while people stared at you like you were crazy). Oh, let's not forget that time a group of people with questionable fashion sense tried to lure you into becoming a part of their cult (something about aliens and illuminati. That time you got actually scared).

After three months of working here, you got convinced that this small convenience store is actually an anomaly in space-time. A place where dimensions merge. Universal rules don't apply here. One day a talking polar bear might just walk in to buy Coca-Cola and you'll be like oh, that's neat.

And tonight is one of those nights when the matrix seems to fail and a weird ass dude shows up.

It's true that you heard the front door open a few minutes ago; you simply lifted your head from behind the counter, trying to peek at them, but the person disappeared behind the shelves quickly. Because you were too focused on highlighting your textbook, you didn't really pay mind to whoever it was. After around ten minutes, you felt your body itching and your vision blurring after so much reading (tax law is one of your least favorite subjects) and decided to reorganize the items on the snacks section once again.

That's kind of how it went for around four minutes.

Then you notice that there is an actual person sitting on the floor behind the refrigerators.

You gasp.

The person turns his head to look at you.

The first thing you notice is the unusual silver hair. The second thing is the fact that he's holding two phones in his hands. The third thing is the Rolex on his right wrist.

The fourth thing is the smile he opens as he sees you - an actual smile, so big that his eyes almost completely close.

"Hi!" he says in a happy voice. As if it's completely normal of him to be sitting on the floor of a store, knees close to his chest, for almost twenty minutes.

You immediately step back, ready to run the fuck out if you need to, your heart still beating rapidly from the scare.

"May I help you, sir?" you ask, unable to not scowl at him.

He's still smiling. He shakes his head. His hair and earrings sway as he does. "No, thank you! I'm fine. Just… sitting here." he laughs. "Oh, I know what you're thinking. I'm definitely not a weirdo. I'm just…" one of the phones in his hand starts ringing. He clicks his tongue and frowns. "Wait a second."

He slams it on the floor.

Like. Literally fucking slams it.

And steps on it a couple of times with the back of his foot until you hear the noise of glass shattering. When the screen doesn't turn on anymore, he sighs in relief.

"Anyways, as I was saying… I'm not a weirdo." he smiles again. You step back. "It's just that I had a fight with my brother and all… you know how siblings are, right?"

You don't reply. He doesn't seem to notice how you look at him as if he's indeed the weirdest dude in the world - or he's simply too good at ignoring it.

"Oh, so you're an only child, I guess? Well, lucky you." He laughs again. It also seems that he's talking to the voices in his head. "I'm actually hiding here for a while. So don't mind me! Really, I'm just gonna sit here for thirty more minutes until it's safe to go outside again."

And he smiles prettily once more.

You just stand there, staring at him like he's got a second head, for long seconds. His smile doesn't falter. His cheeks might be hurting at this point.

"Your brother isn't a gang leader or something, right?" is the first thing you ask. His eyes widen and he quickly waves his hands dismissively.

"No! Gosh, of course not," he laughs again. "He's just… kinda tall."

You stare at him for a few more moments.

Well, it's not as if he's committing a crime anyway. It also looks like he's being honest. So you just shrug.

(After seeing so many strange people during the night shift, very little things surprise you anymore).

Before you can say anything, though, you see him widening his eyes as he spots something behind you.

"Shit!" he exclaims before, once again, disappearing behind the refrigerator - he comes so close to the wall and hugs his legs so tightly against his chest that he might as well become a ball.

Confused, you look back to the glass front door - just in time to see a man walk in.

It honestly looks like one of those stupid drama scenes.

He's tall. Really tall. Wears a black long coat that looks very expensive, has pitch black hair styled to the side and a suit that also looks very expensive.

You can almost imagine the slow-mo camera, the pink filter and the romantic drama OST playing in your head.

To say that you're starstruck is an understatement.

The only thing that kind of kills the moment is his expression of pure fury.

The man looks around, tip-toeing to have a better view of the entire store (not that he needed to tip toe to have a better view). He walks to the cleaning products aisle with heavy steps, seemingly in search of someone.

Then, it hits you.

He's just… kinda tall.

If he turns the corner, he'll definitely see the weirdo sitting on the floor behind the fridge.

Maybe it's compassion. Maybe it's the fact that the man is indeed very tall and looks like he could break the other guy in two. Maybe it is God whispering in your ears, saying, my child, if you don't intervene, that poor weirdo will probably show up on the news as a murder victim.

You don't know what it is, but you end up quickly following him to the other corridor.

"Excuse me, may I help you?" you say, forcing a smile.

He stops and turns around - just before turning the corner and coming face-to-face with his prey.

"Oh." Gosh. He's even better from up close. "No, thank you. I'm just…" He tilts his head and caresses the back of his neck, stepping closer to you. "Actually, have you seen a stupid-looking guy with bleached hair walking around here?"

You have to swallow a laugh.

"No." You say, sounding apologetic. "I guess I would have remembered someone like that."

The man sighs, seeming slightly disappointed.

"Alright. Thank you anyway. Good night."

He walks away slowly.

The store goes back to silence for many seconds, the only audible sound being the buzz of the refrigerators.

Then, the bleach-haired weirdo shows up from behind the aisle. You've honestly never seen someone look so relieved in your life.

"Thank you so, so much!" he says excitedly, putting his hand over his chest. "Oh my God, I thought he was going to kill me. You saved my life. My heroine!"

Now that he's standing close to you under proper light, you can't help but disagree with his brother.

This man right here is anything but stupid-looking.

Albeit shorter than the other, you notice that he has… well… nice body proportions. His skin is so ridiculously clear that it reminds you of fine chinese porcelain (it makes you feel self aware of your own oily skin and you quietly regret not exfoliating your face those last few weeks). When he smiles, his eyes almost completely close, which makes him look somehow cute. However, the thing that most draws your attention is his lips. They're just so… plump. And healthy. You can notice the subtle gloss of lip balm.

His clothes are quite simple - white buttoned shirt with the sleeves rolled up and black pants -, but you see the little Prada written on his belt and yet again you see the huge golden Rolex on his wrist - like his brother, everything about him screams I am rich.

On top of that, he smells good.

You're conflicted.

You don't know if you're feeling attracted to him or if you're just plain jealous.

Quirking your eyebrow up, you cross your arms. "Well, I also felt that he was going to kill you. You must've done something really bad."

"Oh, no. My brother hates me for simply existing in the same space as him." He says it so light-heartedly that you don't know if he's serious or not. He lifts the shattered phone in his hand. "Also, I stole his phone, so… I think his reaction was fair this time."

Oh.

"I would have wanted to kill you, too." you blurt out in pure honesty.

He laughs again, covering his mouth with his fist and slightly throwing his head back. He's the type that laughs with his entire body. Does this man know how to fake laughter very well or does he genuinely think everything is funny?

"Don't bother! This is one of his phones. I just gained some time before he can call my parents." You can't help but frown. Did he seriously destroy his brother's phone just so he couldn't call his parents? "Anyway, I'm sure he left. I think I should, too."

"Yeah. Hm… Good night. And good luck with your psycho brother." You say awkwardly, starting to feel a little weirded out by him - because when he looks at people, he actually looks at them. Like. For real.

"Thank you. Good night!"

He opens the front door and only leaves after peeking his head outside to check if his brother isn’t sneakily waiting for him, waving at you cutely.

You stand there for some moments, putting your hands on your waist.

Well.

This is one more situation that will make you say "you won't guess what happened to me this time" to your friends; now, two handsome rich guys were playing mortal hide and seek during your shift. And you think it'll be just it - another strange story to your list about people you're never seeing again.

This time, though, you're wrong.

It's around the same time at night when, once again, your eye catches silver hair walking into the store.

You feel forced to put your textbook down this time.

He smiles and waves excitedly. Today, he wears a red turtleneck under a long black coat, black pants and leather black shoes that look very expensive. He takes off his sunglasses as he walks in (sunglasses at 1AM? Really?). "Hello!"

You stare at him, straight-faced, for long moments.

"May I help you?" You can't hide your suspiciousness.

"I just decided to drop by and say hello to my heroine!"

Oh no. He really is a weirdo.

"Okay." You're speaking and moving slowly as if you're facing a dangerous and angry dog. "Hello."

He nods, still smiling.

You watch as the silver-haired man puts his hands on the pockets of his coat, trying to fake a nonchalant act, and slowly walks around the store, humming quietly. He looks at every shelf and refrigerator but it's obvious that he's not searching for anything in particular.

It goes on for a few minutes.

It's painful to watch.

Finally, he comes to the cashier holding a can of Pringles and a Coke, making you get up from your chair. He pays for the items with a black card that feels heavy when you take it on your fingers.

"Do you want a plastic bag?" You ask, as usual.

He takes around two seconds to reply.

"No. I'm… I'm eating it here."

You stare at each other in silence.

"Are you hiding from your brother again?"

"Yes." His shoulders drop as he says this, finally letting go of his façade. "Can I just stay for some time? I know he won't search for me here again. I won't bother you, I promise!"

He sounds whiny. Like a little kid begging for more cookies.

This grown ass man is literally pouting at you.

You exhale heavily. "Alright. No problem, I guess." You still eye him suspiciously as he sighs and smiles, relieved. He does have a pretty smile. "Are you sure your brother isn't a gang leader?"

"No. He's just unbearable." He taps his fingers on the counter. "Do you… have a stool or something?"

You blink. "A stool?"

He tilts his head awkwardly. "Yes. I don't wanna sit on the floor again."

Oh. Sure.

There is actually a tiny stool hidden under the counter. You give it to him and he puts it on the other side of the cashier counter, happily sitting on it and opening the Pringles can.

You sit back, still moving slowly. This situation is awkward.

“Do you want some?” He offers you, his cheeks full and his eyes round. You shake your head.

“No, thank you.”

He just keeps eating in silence for a few moments, humming happily as he chews.

Your eyes slowly fall back over the textbook.

“Oh! I didn’t even tell you my name! That’s so rude,” he says out of sudden with - once again - a type of excitement similar to a child’s. You don’t know if it’s cute or creepy at this point. “I’m Jimin. What’s your name?”

“Y/N.” He repeats your name under his breath, nodding.

Silence.

You lay your eyes on the textbook once more. Everything you hear is the quiet sound of him chewing his crunchy chips.

“What are you reading?”

When you lift your head again, he’s kinda closer than he was a second ago. His eyes are gleaming with curiosity, stretching his neck to try to see a glimpse of it.

Awkwardly, you close it to show him the cover. “Hm… I’m just studying.”

He scowls. “Tax law? God, that's awful. What’s your major, by the way?”

“Economics.”

He chuckles.

You cross your arms slowly, frowning. “What’s funny about it?”

“Nothing.” He licks his fingertips. “It’s just that… I think of old bald men with huge goggles when I hear the word accountant. I don’t imagine someone like you.”

“Is this a compliment?” You quirk one eyebrow up.

“Half and half. This kinda makes you boring.”

You stare at him in silence.

Is this dude you just met calling you boring?

“Well, I’m sorry if my attempt at having a better life sounds boring to you.”

“Don’t get me wrong!” He’s quick to say, waving his hands. “It’s just that… all the math… and sitting behind a desk your whole life, reading papers, analyzing numbers… it sounds terrible.” He scowls as if he has a lemon inside of his mouth.

“It doesn’t sound terrible to me.” You defend yourself. “I like when things are organized and working the way they should.”

He licks his lips. That was a little bit distracting.

“I have a different mindset.” He explains. “I’m a free spirit, you know? I don’t like feeling tied like that. The idea of being just a gear inside of a big company that gives two shits about you is suffocating.”

“Really? And what’s your profession?” Honestly, you don’t even think he went to college.

“International Relations.”

You snort. “And doesn’t it mean that you have to be a gear inside of a big company to work with something like that?”

“I know.” He nods vehemently, lifting his eyebrows. “And I hate it.”

“Why did you major it, then?”

“It wasn’t really my choice.” He taps his fingers over the counter. “My family wants me to be in their business, you know.”

You watch him in silence.

As curious as you are to know why the hell does this man keep hiding from his brother, you kind of feel that he’s even more eager to tell you what’s going on.

“That’s why you’re hiding?” You bet. Jimin clicks his tongue.

“Kinda. If they find me, they’ll definitely force me into a position.” He sighs tiredly. “They don’t understand that I’m not like my older brother! He wants to be CEO or whatever. Why don't they just let him carry the family business if he wants it so bad? I was never interested in the first place!” He pouts a lot as he talks. It's stupid - everything about this guy feels a little bit over the top; definitely not the type you'd normally be into -, but you have to control yourself not to stare at his lips all the time.

You shake your head incredulously and rest your back on the chair.

“Why do I feel that you’re judging me?” Jimin asks, narrowing his eyes suspiciously.

“Because I am.” You say. “I would love to be forced into an important position in a big company. What’s your family’s business, by the way?”

“The Aurum Steel Company. I don’t know if you’ve heard of it.” He says nonchalantly.

You gasp.

“Aurum Steel Company?! Are you kidding me?” You stare at him, jaw dropped. Sure, it was obvious since the beginning that Jimin was rich… but being the heir of one of the biggest steel companies in the world?! “You know what? I wouldn’t just love to be forced into a position. I would actually kill to be in any position.”

“It’s a freaking steel company! Do you know how boring it is?!” Jimin says as if you’re the crazy one.

“Oh my God. Rich people problems have never been so real.” You shake your head, staring at him wide-eyed. “That’s offensive, even”

“You’re saying this because you don’t know how those people live.” Jimin gesticulates a lot as he speaks. “Being honest, they don’t even have lives at all. They just work, work, work and work. I would honestly rather die.”

"So you don't like to work, basically."

"I never said that." he crosses his arms. "I don't wanna work with that."

"Then, what do you want to work with? Maybe you could convince your parents to leave you alone if you give them enough of an excuse."

He leans his elbow on the counter and rests his face on his palm, thoughtful. "I don't think they'll accept any excuse at all. You see, they kinda let me do whatever I wanted to do for the past few years. My dad was like, 'it's okay if you want to enjoy life for now, but some time you'll have to assume your responsibilities.'" He deepens his voice, mimicking his father's voice, which makes you want to laugh. "I've been living overseas and all. But… now that I turned 25, they decided to corner me from all sides. They said that if I didn't come back, they would block all of my bank accounts."

"And did they?"

"Yes." he nods. "But I came back, talked to the bank manager and they unblocked it."

"So that's why your parents and brother are mad at you?" you quirk your eyebrow up.

"Yes. They've been hunting me around the city. But I don't want to go see them." Jimin whimpers, dramatically pretending to cry. "Hyungsik found out in which hotel I was, so I had to escape. And that's why I'm here."

You stare at him in silence while he pouts at you.

"Wow. What a tragic life of yours." Jimin nods, closing his eyes. It’s hard to guess if he didn’t get the dripping sarcasm in your tone or if he simply ignored it.

"I know. I don't even have a place to sleep!"

You stare at the Coke he bought resting near his elbow. "Well, I think if you want to escape, you'll have to figure out a place to sleep and leave real soon."

He frowns. "Why? Are you kicking me out?"

"No. It's just that you used a credit card to buy those things. If they're really hunting you down, they must probably already know that you bought something here."

Jimin freezes.

His eyes widen.

"Shit!" he swears under his breath and gets up in a jump. "I'm so fucking stupid!"

"Do you want me to agree or…?"

"Don't." He takes the Pringles can and - believe it or not - manages to smile once again. "Thank you for letting me stay again, Y/N!"

He waves goodbye and runs out of the store.

Again, the only noise to fill your ears is the buzz of the refrigerators. You sigh and open the Coke he left behind, drinking a little bit.

Whiny millionaire man complains about having responsibilities and runs away.

One more goes to your list.

It’s not like you totally weren’t expecting it at this point.

Just like he simply entered the store and acted as if his presence was 100% normal - and even acted as if he had some sort of intimacy with you, spilling his whole life in the span of ten minutes -, he took a place in the back of your thoughts and stayed there throughout the day. The strange, dramatic, spoiled yet charming man.

After spending some years of your life in a private school as a scholarship holder, you unceremoniously learned to hate rich people. Most of your colleagues were spoiled, selfish and arrogant, with only a few exceptions. Sure, being rich doesn’t mean someone is inherently bad. But, as you noticed after years of watching teens cry because their parents won’t take them to Paris this vacation, growing up with so much money makes someone be so self-centered and so unaware of real life problems that it makes them unbearable. As Rousseau said: humans are born just fine, society (capitalism) fucks them up.

Yes, seeing Jimin whine about not wanting to work at his family’s billionaire company sure offended you somehow. Yet… there was something different about him. Some type of naivety and honesty that refrained you from hating his guts.

The fact that he’s stupidly handsome and has the prettiest lips you’ve ever seen in your life helps? Of course.

So… Yeah. You kind of were expecting him to show up again.

It made you feel stupid. What, do you think you’re in a cliche drama now?, you scolded yourself as you sat behind the counter, ready to start the long shift. Hot millionaire falls for poor hardworking girl?

You probably shouldn’t get your hopes high.

So, as you go about your nightly routine - wipe the floor, feed the dog, restock the refrigerators, throw expired food away, serve two customers in the span of three hours -, you sometimes peek at the front door, expecting to see silver hair walking in.

At around 2AM, he indeed shows up.

This time, you fully drop your textbook, a deep frown covering your features.

Jimin looks… different.

First of all - his hair is a mess. Not perfectly styled at all. He wears a pink oversized hoodie, blue patterned pajama pants that do not match in any way, socks and flip flops. No earrings, no rings, no watch on his wrist.

On top of that, it looks like he either discovered all of the world’s dirtiest secrets or was chased by Satan himself.

He’s pale. His eyes are widened by default.

You watch, frozen, as Jimin opens the first refrigerator he sees, takes a water bottle, walks on a bee line to the cashier, slams some money over the counter and sits on the stool.

He literally gulps the whole water bottle in, like, five seconds - then stares blankly at nothing.

You don’t move for a few moments.

“Are you okay?” you finally ask hesitantly. “It looks like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“My parents want me to get married.” He blurts out.

You almost choke.

“What?!”

“They found a candidate.” He holds the empty pet bottle so tightly that it smashes. “My brother told me that they want to arrange everything as fast as they can.”

You simply stare at him, jaw-dropped, for more time than you can process.

“This can’t be serious.” You say, tilting your head slowly. “Maybe your brother was messing with you.”

“Hyungsik is not the type that messes around with people.” Jimin says, shaking his head.

“They can’t force you into marrying someone. What, are we in the XIX century?” You cross your arms. It sounds so fucking surreal.

“Their minds are stuck in the XIX century. And this type of thing is much more common than you think.” Jimin exhales and rests his head on his hands. “I’m so fucked up!”

“Well, you… you can not agree with them.” You weakly try to elaborate. “You can say no.”

For the first time, Jimin lifts his head and looks at you as if you just said the stupidest thing in the world.

“Yeah, I could say no and have my name erased from the testament. Actually, they’ll block all of my accounts for real the moment I say no.”

“But you have some savings of your own, right? I mean, your own money, right?”

Jimin goes silent.

It hits you… Jimin is so rich that he never even considered not having money. Why would someone with “endless” money save money?

“Wow. You really are fucked up.”

“I have a little money saved!” He tries to defend himself. “But I think what I have is enough to pay my apartment’s rent...”

“You could, I don’t know… be like 99% of the world’s population and find a job to sustain yourself.” You shrug.

He, once again, stares at you as if you just said something very stupid.

“Aw, come one. You’re making things harder.” You whine.

“They’re making things harder!” He grabs his own hair as if he wants to rip it out. “I either chain myself to a company I hate or to some random woman for the rest of my life!”

You, once again, fall silent as Jimin whimpers as if in physical pain. You can see his side of things - it’s easy to tell someone to live independently and find a job, but honestly, if you’re a stupidly rich person going through the risk of losing all of your fortune, would it really be an easy decision?

Hesitantly, you lean closer to him. Why are you even caring to give advice to a man you barely know anyway?

“Have you ever tried talking things out with them, Jimin?” You ask in a quieter voice. “Have you ever been honest to them?”

He crosses his arms over the counter and rests his chin on them. Although his hair looks like a bird nest, he still somehow manages to look cute. “They would never listen to me or accept me. They’re so… ugh.” He rolls his eyes. “They’ll never understand that I don’t want to work in an office for the rest of my life. They won’t understand that I would never marry someone because of business. I know many people that are in fake marriages like that and all of them have affairs. I’m sure my parents would say, it’s not even real! Why are you hesitating so much?, but, look, call me old-fashioned, but I kinda wanna marry someone someday because I like them, you know?” Once again, he ruffles his own hair. “And what if I want to marry a guy? My parents would try to fucking exorcise me! That’s how backwards they are!”

You gulp, starting to feel honestly sorry for him.

“Well… I don’t know what to say.” you shrug. He sighs, pouting, and looks at you.

“You don’t have to say anything, really. Just the fact that you’re listening to me already helps.”

You frown a little bit. “Why did you come here again, anyway?”

“Because any of my ‘friends’ would say I’m being dramatic and that a fake marriage isn’t a big deal.” He’s pouting so much that his voice comes out a bit muffled. “I had a feeling that someone normal like you wouldn’t think like that.”

You lift your eyebrows. “Someone normal. I don’t know if I should feel offended.”

“I just don’t know what to do!” He completely ignores your last sentence, ruffling his hair violently and tapping his feet on the floor like a kid throwing a tantrum. “If there was anything I could do to at least delay their plans!”

“You’re saying as if they’ll make a surprise wedding tomorrow.”

“That’s kinda it! Hyungsik said that they want to introduce me to this random girl at their wedding anniversary next week!”

“Wow.” You rest on the chair back once again, silently thanking the Heavens for not being in his shoes. “With all due respect, your parents really suck.”

“I know!” He growls painfully and rests his cheek on the counter. You think of a sad puppy as you watch him. “If I could at least convince them a little bit… make them believe that I’m a responsible adult…” at least he recognizes he isn’t. “If I did something that would make them give up introducing me to this girl, at least for now…”

Jimin mumbles his own pain quietly for a few seconds.

Then, you see the exact moment an idea crosses his mind.

He freezes.

His eyes widen.

Then, he looks at you.

Really looks at you.

Slowly, Jimin straightens his back.

“If I showed up to their wedding anniversary with someone… someone that looks like a decent, nice person, someone that put me on the right path… if I seemed to be so in love with this decent and nice person that they would feel embarrassed to introduce me to the girl…”

You feel the corners of your lips going down as you nod accordingly. “Do you think it would make them give up?”

“Yes. At least for some time.” He says quietly and slowly.

“It still sounds pretty fucked up, but if it’s the best solution you would have for now…” You shrug, nodding.

“Mh-hmm.” Jimin nods.

Silence.

He’s still staring at you.

You frown. “What?”

Jimin keeps silent.

You finally notice it.

The tiniest ghost of a smile in his lips. His eyes gleaming with mischief.

It hits you.

“No.” You shake your head vehemently. “No fucking way.”

“Aw, come on, Y/N!” He brings the stool closer to you, so much that now he sits right in front of you. “Do you have a boyfriend? A girlfriend?”

"No."

"Then why not?"

“Because- no!” You’re borderline hyperventilating. “It’s just absurd!”

“But you agreed that it’s a good idea!”

“Well, not with me included!” You cross your arms, as if protecting yourself from this crazy man. “Why me anyway?! I just don’t fit this role!”

“Why not?” He asks again, tilting his head. “You’re perfect for the role!”

“Well, first of all, I’m fucking broke. Do you think your parents would approve of you dating someone that owns anything but unpaid bills and a goldfish?!”

“Y/N, listen.” He puts his opened palms over the counter. His eyes are gleaming way too much. He’s excited. “My father has a heart of stone, but my mother… well, she also has a heart of stone, but let’s say that, hm, it’s eroded? Like, if you press really hard, she kinda gives in.” Okay. His metaphor was a little bit impressive. “She wouldn’t like to see me dating a poor girl, but if said poor girl is actually a dream girl that knocks some sense into her son’s reckless head, she would soften! My mom likes rom-coms, I know what I’m saying!”

“Dream girl?” You snort. “I’m anything but a dream girl.”

“I’m 100% sure that you’re on summer break and yet there you are, reading a freaking textbook about tax law. What’s more perfect than the image of a humble, hardworking person? Sure, at first mom will say you’re a gold digger, but after she gets to know you…”

“Oh my God- stop. Just stop. I’m not doing this.” You wave your hands. If you still had any doubts that Jimin is crazy, now you have none.

He tilts his head, quirking one eyebrow. “Don’t tell me you don’t wanna do this because you’re the low self-esteem type? Come on, you’re pretty. Basic, but pretty.”

Your jaw automatically drops. If looks could kill, he would be dead.

“Did you just call me basic?!”

Jimin sends you an apologetic look. “I’m sorry, but I can’t see an ounce of style in you. This ponytail is especially awful.”

“I fucking work in a convenience store! Of course I won’t get all dressed up!”

“Really?” You hate the way he quirks that damn eyebrow. “What about the split ends of your hair?”

You immediately feel yourself holding your own hair, as if hiding it from him. Your body heats up in anger. “Who are you to talk about my split ends?! Your hair is so dry that it looks like fucking hay. I can see the black roots from miles away!”

“Look, I’m having a pretty stressful week. It’s not like I had a lot of time to take care of myself.” Jimin crosses his arms defensively. “Besides, I’m going to the hair salon tomorrow morning.”

“Oh, yeah? You’re having a stressful week, I have a stressful life.” You pat your feet on the floor impatiently. “And no, I’m not ‘the low self-esteem’ type. I’m fucking pretty.”

“I know.”

There’s something about the way he agrees with you so quickly that makes your stomach drop for a second.

Just for a second.

“Anyway.” You clean your throat, adjusting your position on the chair. “You said yourself that you’re against fake relationships, didn’t you?”

“I said I’m against fake marriage. A life-long thing. We’ll pretend to be dating for a weekend.”

“And you think your parents will believe this theatrical act in a weekend?”

“I see them once a year. Sometimes twice. They don’t spend enough time with me to know me that well at all.” He presses his palms together and puts them in front of his face as if praying, looking at you with round, begging eyes. “Please, Y/N! All of my other girl friends are too well-known, no one would believe in me. It’s just three days! Besides, it’ll be fun, I promise! My parents booked a resort in Hawaii this year-”

You choke on thin air.

“Hawaii?!”

“I know, right? Last year it was in the Alps. Personally I prefer a tropical place much more-”

“Wait, wait.” You raise your hands, making him finally stop. “Are you seriously talking about a resort in Hawaii?!”

Jimin nods. He is serious. “See? A weekend in Hawaii! It’ll be great, right?”

“No.”

He throws his hands up and groans. “Sweet Jesus, what do I have to do to convince you?!”

“First- I don’t even have a passport.”

“I can get it in time for you. We still have a week.”

“Second- my job. If you don’t know how jobs work, you can’t simply tell your boss ‘hey, I’m spending three days in Hawaii’ out of sudden!”

“I can also-”

He stops as if choking on his own words.

Once again, you see his eyes gleaming - and you shiver as you realize that he had another (probably awful) idea.

Jimin leans his arm on the counter, a determined smirk on his lips.

“Yesterday you told me that you’d kill to have a position in my family’s company, isn’t it? Alright, then. If you go on this trip with me, I’ll give you a job in the company.”

Silence.

You think of your egg-sized apartment. You think of eating noodles constantly because it's what you can afford on a daily basis and the gastritis you’ll probably develop because of it. You think of the same old tennis shoes you wear everyday because you either buy your noodles or you save it to buy new ones. You think of working on this night shift that gave you an awful sleeping routine and purple bags around your eyes.

And, for the first time, you seriously consider doing this.

“Are you serious?” You ask with suspicion.

“Of course.” Seeing your sudden interest, he gets excited. “The company has a lot of those trainee programs. I’m sure I can put you in the financial department easily.”

“But… but if we’re going to pretend that we’re dating, won’t it be weird that your girlfriend will join the company as a trainee?”

“Do you know how many people work there? My family doesn’t even bother to know who works for them, except for the higher positions. You don’t have to work at the headquarters, either. They’ll never know.”

More tense silence.

You bounce your leg nervously, passing your hand on the back of your neck. I can’t believe I’m considering this. I don’t even know this guy at all. He might just be a freaking psychopath.

Jimin stares at you expectantly. Damn, this guy really likes to stare at people.

You should take your own morals in consideration. Are you seriously selling yourself to this spoiled manchild? Is it that easy to take things from you? Weren’t you the type to hate rich people and capitalism overall and-

Fuck it.

“A weekend, right?”

“Right.” He nods.

“Three days, right?”

“Right.”

“We impress your parents, convince them that you’re a changed guy, then you find me a job and leave me alone.”

“I’m not so sure about the leaving you alone part, but yeah, exactly.” You frown.

“And why wouldn’t you leave me alone?”

“Well, you might fall in love with me. Who knows?” He wiggles his eyebrows.

You roll your eyes, making him giggle.

I can’t believe I’m doing this.

Before you can fully comprehend the consequences of your actions, you sigh heavily and nod.

“Alright. I’m in.”

Jimin claps his hands excitedly, opening the biggest smile you’ve ever seen.

“You really are my heroine, Y/N!” He extends his arm over the counter. “We have a deal!”

You gulp and shake his hand firmly.

Your friends will definitely get shocked when you tell them the newest strange thing happening in your life:

You accept to fake date whiny millionaire man mentioned previously.

The list is increasing rapidly.

“You better do what you promised, otherwise I’m killing you.” You threaten very seriously.

Jimin laughs and - once again - quirks that damn eyebrow up.

“Of course. I wouldn’t let my girlfriend down.”

He fucking bites his bottom lip.

A heat creeps the back of your neck.

God.

You’re in trouble.

tags: @shrimpmsg @hesmyphenominiall @turquoiseandplaidinautumn @vantxx95 @sweettaeguk @moonchild1 @jikooksgirl19 @yesalexus

[wincore]

atlas | kim dongyoung

pairing: doyoung x reader

words: 15.4k

summary: kim doyoung has a lot of titles. student body president, music club president, favourite student of every professor who’s blessed enough to have him. in other words, he’s not your type and never will be. at least he’s a good kisser.

or, you feel the weight of the world on your shoulders and you do not know how to hold things as delicate as glass.

genre: college au, fwb au, hurt/comfort, angst, some fluff 

warnings: very suggestive content, making out, language, smoking, alcohol, mentions of sex under influence, me being pretentious,,

prompt: anonymous said: slippery + doyoung + "you can rely on me, you know." from the first dialogue link! LOVE YOU ❤️

song rec(s): playlist here !

a/n: yes it’s me experimenting out of my comfort zone again. yes you are required by law to listen to keshi while reading this hahahaha anyway writing this was painful. <3 (aka today i tried writing very complex human emotions and failed again. classic.)

In the beginning, there was no beginning. Ergo, this isn’t really a thing.

You shouldn’t be thinking of summer in Introduction to Latin. You are a good (perhaps great, if your ego allows) student after all. Here you are, though, listening to the ticking of the clock and wondering if you sigh loud enough, you won’t have to construct another sentence with the word for ‘death’. You pause to tell yourself that you shouldn’t be thinking of summer out of class either. Unremarkable; that's what it was and you don’t like unremarkable things.

When two people end up alone together, there’s not much to make of. 

“You know,” he had said, locking eyes. “We should get out of here.”

“And then what?”

“Fuck.”

So here’s the thing: this isn’t and won’t be a thing.

Doyoung has never been subtle when drunk, you found out, and he’s not as gentle as he looks. You flip the page of your notebook absentmindedly. You don’t like where your thoughts are going; the clinking of ice against glass rings in your ears again. It’s been far too long (one whole month) and you’re craving a bit of fun. You may forget yourself but you’re reaching your fingertips a little too far to call him again. More excuses pop up. See, in your world of perfection, there’s a hierarchy of things; men rank rather low. 

(Fun doesn’t.)

Here’s another thing: you forget yourself quite often. You know very well that you’re the one who continued this not-thing and now you’re daydreaming of Kim Doyoung in class hours. 

And under grey bed sheets with a tired smile, Doyoung is hard to forget. 

It was a party, it always is. That time, however, was the first party of the year Doyoung and you happened to be attending at the same time. You can’t remember who hosted it—the frat probably—but it was at a bar called the ‘The Meeting Place’ which had too many people you didn’t care about. Doyoung was there, in his laid-back glory, and you were drawn in far too easily. Being single did not help your case—and the alcohol certainly didn’t. You’re not sure if it was the gentle touches against your wrist or quick words that left his mouth or the attractive all-black get-up. All you know is that it was your mouth against his by the end of the night in a small booth, hot and impatient. Once, twice, thrice and you didn’t even need parties anymore. 

It’s not like you weren’t aware of what you were doing; it’s just that you were quick to give in—like you didn’t want to resist in the first place. And now, summer smells like Doyoung’s perfume. 

The first night had given Mr. Student Body President a near-stroke. You weren’t the type to sleep with strange (semi-acquainted) men at parties either so the morning had been full of awkward explanations to each other till you’d kissed him to shut him up (much like in a disgusting romantic comedy, minus the feelings) and somehow, it worked. He didn’t refuse and if you recall, he’d eventually pulled you closer by the waist.

You huff, twirling your pen. He’d never admit it.

You didn’t kiss so sloppily after that, unless it was to make out against a wall or while fumbling with the keys to your apartment. The lack of alcohol can bring wonders. You were a little surprised that he’d agreed—he is the Doyoung you’ve known since freshman year after all; blunt, rude, cares more for his grades than he’d ever for you. How laughable. He’s almost the same as you.

Here’s one last thing: Kim Doyoung is not and cannot be your type. 

You had the same part-time job in your second semester at a local fast food joint, and to summarize, your interactions were less than friendly. You can’t possibly count the number of times he yelled at you for trivial mistakes, and the number of times you sent angry, clipped sentences his way. So, yes, neither of you have told anyone—just acting friendly got you enough eyebrow raises.  If there’s anything worse than contradicting yourself almost directly, it’s having to explain that to your friends. So, you kept it a secret and so did he, for his own reasons.

You massage your forehead. If you think any more of this during class hours, you’re going to have to classify this as a terrible, terrible problem; like you don’t have enough already. You tune in to the lecture again, hoping it drowns out the rest of your thoughts. 

You tap your pen against the desk till you’re asked to stop by the professor. There goes your last resort. It isn’t the first time, but you breathe a sigh of relief at the hands of the clock. Casual means casual—you know it better than anyone. Maybe it would be easier if you could be more open about it. But you can’t. Your own problems aside, Doyoung would kill you if his reputation went down, even a nick. Men like that are so difficult, you curse to yourself. 

You run into Ten in the hallways, brightening at his absurdly wide grin. In fact, you haven’t seen him remotely upset since freshman year, when he couldn’t join the dance club, not because he failed the audition but because he mixed up the dates and missed it entirely. (It’s okay; he got in the next year.)

“Guess what!” he yells before you’re even in conversation range.

“What?” you yell back.

“No, guess,” he says, when you’re close enough.

You roll your eyes. “You scored a date?”

Ten deadpans. “No. I don’t even want one.”

“Loser.”

“No, you.”

“How clever.”

Ten flicks your forehead with no provocation whatsoever, making you yelp in pain. After a minute of cursing on your part, he squishes your cheeks to bring you back to reality—like he wasn’t the cause. You bite your lip to keep yourself from scowling. His hair is still light brown from the bleach, and you fix his bangs out of habit; your dumb friends are all you have at the end of the day. You sigh. They all lean on you unwittingly.

“Anyway, the news? I’m not guessing anything else,” you warn, taking a sip of your coffee.

“Well,” he draws out the syllable. “I heard- know you’re into the smart type. You know, student council kinda guys? So…”

You choke, the coffee leaving your mouth just as quick as it entered.

“Who told you that?” The laugh that leaves your mouth is forced and certainly fake but it’s the best you can do.

Ten rolls her eyes, still smiling. “I was thinking if you would be interested in a certain Park Hyungmin.”

Oh. Student body vice-president. He’s most definitely your type, with a gifted body and equally strong academic prowess—not to mention perfectly maintained tan skin and the most radiant smile you’ve ever seen in your life. 

“Oh, yeah, he’s hot,” you nod in agreement. “What do you want me to do with him?”

“He likes you. Like, totally has the hots for you. And I owe him so please help me out here.”

You furrow your brows, heaving a deep sigh.

“You...want me to go on a date with him?” you ask. 

You can oblige. Park Hyungmin is the hottest dude on campus (probably). It’s a win-win situation—in fact, it’s even better. A certain bitter taste finds itself in your mouth. It must be the coffee. You swallow it. 

“Yeah.”

And the deal’s done.

It was casual commitment, like most things you do for fun. You don’t think much of it, and the thought takes its final bow when you run into Doyoung himself.

Well, sort of.

You turn heel when he appears in your line of sight, pretending to fix your hair against a damn wall. You aren’t quite ready to face him yet, considering the coffee hasn’t kicked in—it’s not healthy how much you depend on it. Dependence is different, however, from consciously drowning yourself in it. 

See, Doyoung is anything but tolerable without a few shots of vodka. Or after sex. Or when he’s mumbling in his sleep. And you can’t erase any of those scenes. This is you trying to save yourself (and Doyoung) from embarrassment and a whole lot of explanation.

His coat looks expensive and you’d rather he had it on instead of on his arm. The tucked-in sweater and pants combo accentuates the line of his waist and the colour—you wonder where he found a teal so fitting—looks serene in the crowd. He’s wearing his glasses though, looking a little less put together than usual. Still, no one seems to notice and he continues to explain something to his group of friends.

God forbid you find Doyoung attractive during daytime.

His lips are chapped but pink as ever, the hair messed up by either the wind or his friends—you should stop staring by now. You give in. You’ll text him to book a hotel room tonight.

Sometimes you wonder how he has that large a friend circle, and always, the question answers itself. Eloquence, wit and regrettably, good looks—what does he lack? Maybe if he lost the habit to nag people around fifty-six times a day, he’d be the perfect man.  

An arm slings over your shoulder, punting the soul right out of your body.

“Fuck, Johnny, don’t do that,” you hiss, placing your hand over your chest involuntarily. 

The head of the photography club apparently spends his time terrorizing everyone he remotely knows. You make a foul expression but iIt’s not like he ever minds your scowling. He says he’s had enough practice from teasing Doyoung (and you’ll admit, it’s the only time you feel sorry for him). You were certain Doyoung would have filed him for harassment sometime in sophomore year. 

“What are you even looking at?” Johnny asks, raising an eyebrow at the plain offwhite expanse of the wall in front of you.

You feel hot at the neck. “I was fixing my hair.”

“In front of a wall?”

You click your tongue. “Do you not have class?”

“Oh, don’t be so quick to send me off.” He places a hand over his chest in mock hurt, fingers stretched delicately. 

To your dismay, the rest of his friends gather around giving you happy greetings—greetings only carefree college boys are capable of delivering. To your further dismay, Kim Doyoung arches an eyebrow at you, the same way he does on nights you’re doing things less than appropriate to think of in broad daylight.

“Hey, Doyoung, don’t you have anything to say? Or were you too drunk to remember?”

You bite down on your lip a little too hard. Doyoung, on the other hand, looks like he’s just seen God, stammering out a “what?” nevertheless.

“Weren’t you supposed to buy (name) a drink for driving you home that night?”

“Right,” he says, clearing his throat.

Oh, he’s bought you a drink enough times. Summer has waned but whatever thread you tied around your wrists hasn’t. Right now, your guess is that Doyoung has been ensnared in the common ritual for college boys to walk around campus and declare their friend is single just to embarrass him (or by some miracle, score him a date).

Everything, apart from the way you look at Doyoung, feels like a charade. You shake your head with a quick laugh, smacking Johnny in the arm and pay your condolences to Doyoung—keep it light. You’re good at it, or pretending you’re good at it, at the very least.

Doyoung’s gaze on you lingers for a moment and then you breathe. You’re going to be late for class—you offer the classic excuse and you’re out of there. In a way, it’s exciting. You’ve always wanted to have a secret relationship, even if this isn’t a real one. 

Doyoung is like the summer breeze, and you’d like for him to stay that way.

The next time you grace each other’s presence is when Doyoung’s tongue is in your mouth and his hands are running up under your shirt. 

He’s quite a pretty sight—messy hair, red lips and rosy cheeks. He moans into the kiss as he has quite a few times now and there’s the lovers’ high running through either of your minds. When he presses his lips to your neck, a soft restrained sound escapes you, not quite prepared for the sting of electricity through your skin. He moves to your collarbone and shoulders and then even lower, hands gripping your waist tight. The walls do not have ears here; these hotels are cheap but they’re built for privacy and maybe you’ll let yourself believe for once that you can belong to someone.

“Why did you text me in the middle of the goddamn night?” he mutters against the base of your neck.

“You want reasons now?” you whisper, hands running through his hair.

Doyoung has pretty fingers, pressing at the right places and prettier eyes that look at you with something akin to, dare you say it, love. He kisses you like he hasn’t had enough; and it makes you feel important.

He’s even better when he’s annoyed.

You wake up at around five in the morning. Propping yourself up on one arm, you take a moment to look at your partner. It’s easy to make out the line of his nose against the pillow, and if you focus, you can see his lashes against his cheek and his dark mop of hair clinging to his forehead. However gentle the moonlight is, it is kindest on a lover. 

Funny.

Too tired to sneak out, you go back to sleep.

“All I’m saying is that you have too much coffee,” Doyoung complains, slipping on his loose black sweatshirt. “It can’t be good for your health.”

You shake your head, scrolling through your phone as you lay on your belly. You’ve seen this view enough times—his back to you and sitting at the opposite edge of the bed, his incessant complaints and opinions about something that happened recently, running his hand through his hair when he sighs. You press on the calendar app and type in a note labeled ‘x’. Keeping tabs isn’t a bad thing; especially if you like order. Spending too many nights with someone is going to land you in trouble. That said, if you could trap love in a bottle, you would.

“You taste like coffee,” Doyoung adds with reddening ears.

Sometimes, it’s easy to ignore what he says if you listen to the sound of his voice instead. You sit up, scooting closer as Doyoung shoots you an alarmed look. He’s so cute like this; something about all the painted fences he puts up around him makes you want to lean in closer.

“So,” you poke his side. “How many relationships have you been in? Proper ones.”

“Three,” he answers, to your surprise.

Your eyebrows shoot up. “That’s more than I’ve been in!”

Doyoung furrows his. “How many have you been in?”

“One.”

He seems equally surprised but doesn’t probe further. After all, the price sticker that spells ‘youth’ clings to his forehead just as it clings to yours. 

“How many people have you fucked?” you ask suddenly, enjoying the visible flush across his neck.

“You’re doing this on purpose,” he notes, flicking your forehead.

“Ow!” You place your palm against your forehead. “Okay, I get it, you have nothing to brag about.”

He shakes his head, an exasperated sigh leaving him. “I just don’t think you have to know. I like privacy.”

“Wait.” You gasp. “Don’t tell me- That night- don’t tell me you were a virgin—”

Doyoung squishes your cheeks between his thumb and forefinger, a laugh erupting from your mouth. 

“Who’s a virgin?”

Nothing about this, you find yourself realizing, is complicated. It’s easy, gentle, natural, like a breath of fresh air—everything but complicated. Even under dim lights and within the depths of night, Doyoung is warm and uncomplicated. His chest, his hands, his lips—they are warm, as are his words. 

But Doyoung is a fucking fairytale.  

Even after these few months, all you know about him, in the definitive format, is that he plays the keys for more hours than he sleeps. What he does for fun, what his classes are, how he became student body president—you could play guessing games all night.

“Do your friends know where you spend your nights?” you ask, leaning back against the pillows.

“They know what I’m doing, not who I’m with,” he responds, running his fingers through his hair.

You purse your lips. It’s nothing hurtful but you don’t like the hush-hush in his tone.

“Why not?”

“Because this is a secret,” he responds as if it’s the most natural thing in the world. “Do you want them to know?”

He’s right.

“Ah, whatever,” you mutter, a stream of curses following when your elbow collides hard with the edge of the bedside table. 

“Your mouth is filthy.” He looks away to his phone. “I don’t swear as much.”

“Well, of course it is. I had your—”

Doyoung presses his palm against your lips with a tired sigh. “Please. Don’t speak. For the sake of my sanity.”

You smile under his hand and he returns it; and the November morning warms up.

“Where were you last night?”

You were expecting the question. Areum is the worst possible candidate for a roommate if you want some privacy. You don’t think she ever sleeps; sometimes, you wonder if she even showers because all she does is stare at her laptop screen and adjust her designs. Her lips are always chapped and her hair is always in a simple low ponytail but somehow still messy. You’ve never met someone so exhausted yet so full of life at the same time.

“Who were you with last night?” Eunji yells from the bathroom, before the two of them laugh.

You knew you shouldn’t have stayed the morning. You have the nosiest roommates anyone could (not) ask for. But they’re still your friends, you tell yourself begrudgingly. You would tell them about Doyoung if it weren’t for Eunji’s big mouth and Areum’s lack of common sense. And if it weren’t for the inherent comfort of privacy.

(Some part of you wants to keep him to yourself. You don’t care about student council president Doyoung or his friend group’s everything-regulator Doyoung or always-has-his-shit-together Doyoung. The one in your bed is the most loving.)

Areum adjusts her glasses, narrowing her eyes at you. “So? Any answer?”

You break out of your daydream at her voice, feeling a flush creep up your neck.

“I don’t have to explain anything,” you retort, snatching the coffee she brewed from the tabletop. “It was a Friday night and the two of you like Netflix more than me.”

“That’s mine,” Areum mumbles out a weak complaint.

“But don’t go out alone,” Eunji whines. “It can’t be safe.”

You laugh. “You know me. I don’t do anything too dangerous. Besides, you guys have that tracker app.”

They shrug, offering you a thin smile. A part of you is happy that they trust you but another part wonders what it would be like to be worried over. Maybe getting nagged isn’t so bad. 

You take a sip of Areum’s coffee and almost spit it out right back. 

“Did you add salt?” you ask, wiping at your mouth and hoping the taste disappears.

“Uh.” A reply so intelligent, you wonder if she ever pays attention to anything she's doing. 

You take a moment (a few), sigh (several times) and make your way to the shelves. Grumbling, you make her a proper cup of coffee before you leave.

Classes don’t wait for you (even if you think they should) and the world doesn’t wait for you (again, you think it should wait for people) so you’ve made it a point to understand the whole deal about rules. If everyone followed the rules, it would be quite a pretty scene; messing up is only valid if it’s done prettily. You laugh at the thought. That’s near impossible. The bus ride to the campus consists of music and thoughts of bleak tomorrows—an average commute for college kids, you think. You sure hope you aren’t alone in this.

Doyoung smiles at you in the hallway today, and despite your best efforts, it makes your day smell a little fresher.

Your day: classes, coffee break, classes, complaining with Ten, assignments, ‘me’ time. For someone who pretends to be laid back, you use your planner as though for survival. There’s no sticky notes or colourful sketches (except on occasion); just good old fashioned to-do lists and a calendar marked with time you’ve spent on productivity. Every day is a list to be completed. If people call routine a man-made cage, instinct is the biological cage. You’d rather be in control of the cage you’re in. You’d rather be in control of yourself. It’s scary otherwise.

So you know how to get the job done—it’s ingrained into you the same way you would place your hands over your ears at loud sounds, or the way you would run to your bed in the dark after switching off the lights.

It never occurs to you that the reason your world is so perfect is a sad one.

Sometime next month, it’s going to snow. Not yet though, and it’s still too cold.

The inside of the cafe helps the slightest, the heaters situated far back from where you sit. Christmas decorations are up already and the combination of red and green meshes delightfully into the form of an aching headache. The wood paneling on the walls are worn at the corners, the garlands hardly covering them, and the barista behind the counter seems as gloomy as the decorations are bright. You wouldn’t be noticing all of this if you weren’t stuck in one position.

You lean your cheek further into your palm and sigh, only this time Ten asks you to, quote, ‘shut the fuck up’.

He pulls up his sleeve and reaches for another pencil. His cryptic process continues, as it has been for the past half an hour and you feel yourself getting impatient, trying to not bounce your leg and get another bout of quibbling from your half-mad artist friend. You don’t usually run low on patience; but Ten has a special pass to test drive it.

“How much lon—”

“Shh!” He hushes you quickly. You can’t remember why you agreed to being his portrait study subject but you sure as hell regret it.

Around fifteen minutes later, you take a (permitted) breath. You have neither the energy nor the neck strength to glare at Ten but you make sure to show your displeasure by snatching the cookies from the table with a particularly sour look. He gets up and pushes you to the side of the small worn-out couch offered by the equally small booth.

“God, that chair was uncomfortable. My butt is frozen solid,” he lets you know, and you roll your eyes.

“You know, if we weren’t friends in high school, I would never be friends with you,” you state.

Ten tilts his head to the side, a mocking pout over his lips. “I would die without you, (name). Really.”

You smack his arm and he yelps, smacking your arm right back. The sound attracts some attention and giggles, and you make a gagging gesture to let them know you are in way or form in a relationship. The low-volume music changes to something with a more distinguishable beat, the sound of doors opening and closing almost every two minutes accompanying. Arriving on time is an accomplishment, especially arriving before rush hour on Fridays at the only decent cafe on campus, but both of your classes end early and there is no way you aren’t taking advantage of that. Leaving, however, is mostly done when you’re being glared at by the waiters and waitresses.

“Doyoung asked about you,” Ten says, all of a sudden. “Kim Doyoung.”

You try to not show concern, but raise an eyebrow. “What? So? He’s not my type or anything.”

You bite your tongue. That was too quick a response, too obvious. Your cheeks grow hot. Ten doesn't say anything, however, and for a moment, you think you’re in safe waters. 

“Are you guys… into each other or not?”

You cough, trying to show your surprise at something so outrageous. “Why would you think that? Does he look like someone who dates around?”

“Actually, he’s been on quite a few dates.”

“No way.”

You know that. He’s told you about it before, in vague references, but you know about them nonetheless.

“Isn’t one student council guy enough?” you mumble. “Why are we talking about Doyoung?”

He shrugs, a familiar feline smile on his face. “Just asking. He talks about you sometimes. Actually, we forced it out of him but whatever.”

You shake your head. “You’re all terrible.”

“You seem to like him though.”

“Who said that?”

Ten sighs, ignoring your question. “If you guys are dating—”

“We’re not.”

“—or fucking—”

“Ten.”

“—you should learn a thing or two about him. The guy’s not as annoying as he looks. Or stuck-up. He’s really nice but don’t tell him I said that.”

“I know that,” you snap, feeling warm at the neck all of a sudden. “I know him.”

“Oh, you do? Tell me what his hobbies are then. Or his major. Or the clubs he’s in, apart from the student council.”

“He- He likes to sing and he’s- he’s—god, what is this? An interrogation? I’m not going to meet his mom for dinner.”

Ten gives you an ‘I knew it’ look before leaning his elbow onto the table. “You’re sleeping with a guy you don’t know anything about. Serial killers would love you.”

You massage your forehead. “Look, I know he’s a good guy, okay? And he’s sweet- and- and—wait a minute. Oh my god, you tricked me.”

Ten lets out a snort. “Hey. Okay, look, the other guys might be dumb as shit but I have, you know, a working set of eyes. I can tell. It’s not that hard.”

You grumble but the cat’s out of the bag anyway. You should’ve known Ten would figure it out—he’s a nosy little shit, and he’s been that way since high school.

“Whatever. As long as Doyoung doesn’t start panicking about his tarnished reputation or whatever.”

“Oh, I think he’s desperate to let everyone know.”

“To you, Ten, everything seems obvious. It’s annoying.” You mess up his hair.

“No, I mean, I thought you were dating.”

“Well, we’re not.”

Ten shrugs. 

“And I don’t like him,” you add. “I like the- the thing that’s going on because there’s no feelings attached.”

He looks somewhat pained, eyebrows furrowed and lips pursed, but doesn’t respond to your explanation. “Can I ask for a favour?”

“No.”

Ten sighs. “Come on. You didn’t even hear me out.”

“You’re going to say something stupid. Or insulting.”

“It’s neither, promise.”

You run your hand through your hair, breathing shallow. “Fine. I don’t have to agree though.”

Ten purses his lips. “It’d be better if you did.”

You hum in response, biting into the cookie and trying to ignore the glare from the nearby waitress. It’s about time you left anyway.

“Get to know him, dude. Don’t break his heart.”

“What?”

“Just kidding. There’s a party tonight. Hosted by yours truly. Finally moved out of that stinky dorm room. Bring over some friends but not more than three. And lend me some money for a juicebox.”

“That’s a lot,” you mutter. “You ask for a lot of favours.”

“Oh, speaking of which, Hyungmin—”

“He already asked me out on a date. Am I supposed to say no? You never mentioned he has such an attractive voice.”

“Oh, I’m not telling you to not go on that date. You have to, actually. I’m going to be in a lot of trouble otherwise.”

“That sounds good to me.”

“Shut up. I’m not done speaking.”

You roll your eyes.

“But if you didn’t, I could draw some conclusions.”

“What am I, your chemistry experiment now?”

“Well, you and Doyoung seem to be—”

“Don’t complete that sentence.”

“I was going to say something funny.” 

Ten flashes you a blinding smile and you sigh. By now, you’re about to get kicked out of here so you stand up discreetly while he packs up his stuff. You hug your jacket close to you as soon as you leave, shivering at the evening breeze. The sky is inky, but with a faint sort of ink—deep blue and light, all at once. From the crowd, you can tell classes just got over for quite a few people, eclectic chatter filling up the street.

“Fine. I’ll bring Eunji,” you tell Ten after some contemplation. “And whoever else responds to my text first. Areum never leaves the room. You know that.”

“Thanks, (name)!” he messes up your hair. “I would give you a kiss but someone will end up punching my pretty face.”

You furrow your brows. “Well, you’re not my type anyway.”

“I’m too good for you,” he responds in a sing-song manner, waving at you before running off and disappearing into the university crowd.

There’s always a sort of buzz in the air you can’t quite describe at college parties.

Even if this is a relatively small one, you feel an oncoming headache the moment you enter Ten’s new apartment, which you’re sure had a ‘no parties’ rule in the rental contract. You spot Kun, Ten’s roommate from the dorms and he flashes you a quick smile in greeting before he’s swept up by a doting crowd. Apparently, a cute guy in animal sciences is rare and it makes him rather popular.

Eunji disappears from your side the moment she spots Johnny, and the number of eye rolls you’ve given her haven’t warned her off him yet. You suppose it takes heartbreak to change a person. Sighing, you make your way to the kitchen only to be greeted with the strange sight of Yuta trying to balance Jaehyun on his back so they can imitate some anime formation and back out immediately. Living room, it is, despite its populous space. (You don’t really want to think of bedrooms right now.)

The apartment is quite big for what Ten told you the rent was. The hallway to the two bedrooms is narrow but you suppose something has to be sacrificed for space. You furrow your eyebrows at the two bedroom doors. Ten never said he was getting a roommate. You shrug it off, sitting down on the rather stiff couch. The lack of furniture, apart from the couch and a coffee table, makes the place look even larger and people sparse. You like the beige walls; Ten’s always loved warmer colours but something makes you think he’s going to be ruining them in a few days with garish green paint before he comes crying about that to you.

“Hey.”

You look up to the familiar voice, heart rising to your throat.

“You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” Doyoung remarks before sitting down beside you and offering you a cup of god-knows-what.

“I don’t take drinks from strange men,” you say, biting down your smile and crossing your arms.

“If you didn’t take drinks from strange men, we wouldn’t be fu—”

“Doyoung!” you hiss before looking at him with careful suspicion. “Are you drunk?”

“No. A little bit. Not enough.”

You sigh. “How will you get home now?”

“I live here, idiot.”

“You’re- You’re Ten’s roommate?” you sputter.

“Yeah. New one,” he responds. “He used to live across our room in the dorms, I can’t believe I actually agreed to this.”

“I can’t believe it either. I’ve seen cats and dogs friendlier with each other than the two of you.”

Doyoung laughs. “He’s surprisingly one of the better people to room with. I’d rather eat my own blanket than room with Yuta again.”

You laugh at his irked expression, eyebrows furrowed so cutely. The line of his brow bone to nose to lips, it seems a little too perfect to belong to someone. He relaxes his shoulders a little, leaning back on the couch as he looks somewhat lost in thought. (“You think too much,” you’d told him once. “And you think too little.”) If only that were true, you smile to yourself.

“Are you sure you can hold parties here?” you as when the music suddenly rises in volume.

“Well, it said student-friendly,” Doyoung responds, looking visibly disturbed. “Not sure if I want to test the limits of that so early.”

There’s a pause, filled in with loud pop music. You don’t think Ten, your dear introvert, would have agreed to such a party but there’s a chance Johnny or Jaehyun had something to do with this. You don’t know who to suspect when it comes to their group of friends.

“I still can’t believe you’re rooming with Ten.” You look at Doyoung.

“Well, that makes, what, eleven of us, I guess?”

You laugh, feeling conscious all of sudden. Maybe you should listen to Ten’s advice.

“Doyoung,” you call, looking at the cup in your hands a little too passionately. “What’s your major?”

He looks at you with eyes widened ever so slightly, and a pause over his lips.

“Linguistics,” he answers.

“Oh. You said something about it once,” you mumble, recalling something vague about an assignment of his. “You know mine?”

“Yeah,” he answers, eyes cast on his watch.

“Well, that makes me feel a little guilty,” you mumble as softly as you can.

“You should be,” he says. “You never listen to anything I say.”

You scoff. “You just complain most of the time.”

“Really now?”

“Yes,” you snap, looking away.

You look back again when you hear the sound of Doyoung’s laugh, a distinct brightness in it. Sometimes, you wonder if you really are as awful as you’ve made yourself be.

“You’re cute,” he says. “No wonder everyone is so in love with you.”

For a moment, you think he’s going to kiss you.

“Everyone?” you laugh. You don’t care about everyone. It’s burdensome.

“Everyone. They hate you too, by the way.” He smiles to himself. “Heard you’re going on a date with that dimwit. Hyungmin.”

You feel a sudden discomfort in your being. Taking a sip of the drink, you try to shake it off as best as you can. 

“Yeah, I- I don’t think I’ll go,” you say, waving it off. 

Why are you lying? You left it hanging on a maybe. Part of you wants to tell Doyoung; he is your friend after all and you tell friends stuff like this. The other part tells you this is cheating; lying and pretending everything is okay—it feels like cheating. 

“Oh.” He looks lost before he focuses on you. “Why not?”

“Why do you care?” you ask, trying desperately to calm the uprising in your chest.

He stays quiet for a few seconds and then shrugs, looking away from you. It makes you feel a little guilty to dismiss the situation so quickly, another item to add to your troubles. You sigh.

“Sorry,” you say. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

“No, it’s okay. You’re right.” You can see his Adam's apple bob up and down.

“I’m not,” you say. “I’m wrong. I really didn’t mean it.”

He looks at you all at once, his gaze so gentle that it makes you think he wants to kiss you, or do something equally affectionate. Instead he sighs, downing whatever’s left of his drink before a wash of sudden looseness does away with the tension in his body.

“You have any more questions for me?” he asks, smiling. “What's it like to be student body president—or, or what instruments can I play? My favourite animal? Colour?”

You smile back. “What is your favourite animal?”

“I don’t have one. Don’t like them. Unless it’s a soft toy.”

“No way. You’re lying.”

“Now, I answer your questions and you call me a liar? Makes me a little hesitant to answer the next.”

You roll your eyes. “Okay, next then. Why didn’t you join the frat? All your friends are in it.”

“Hurts my ego.”

You laugh. He’s still probably an honorary member. There is no way he’s apart from friends for too long with all those feelings of fraternity he has, no matter what he says. It’s the same as you. Affection leads nowhere though; just to short-lived moments of comfort.

You realize, through the course of the night, that you never asked. How he got into the student council, what his classes are, what he does for fun—you never asked. It’s almost like you didn’t want to know. 

How sad, you muse to yourself, to be this way. To be so wrapped up in your own problems that you fail to see people around you. Pity, however, isn’t something to feel at a party. You talk with Doyoung for the rest of the night till the sound of his voice makes you feel certain ghosts of butterflies, and till you have to take Eunji home before she does something she regrets. This is what it really means to have the price tag of ‘youth’ strung across you perhaps—when you feel old and immature all at once, and in between, when you feel nothing at all.

Doyoung is too old to mistake love. Or too young. 

Labels don’t define anything, especially when it comes to relationships—so even if he calls it love, whispers it to himself at midnight when he’s sitting alone on his bed while his friends are passed out drunk on the floor, it is empty. And then there’s you. The heat of your skin, the curse of your smile and that cheeky laugh you do to get on his nerves. He wants all of it and he’s not ashamed—but he’d be a liar to say he can shout it to the whole world. He’s not that kind of man, and what is his can remain his without the rest of the world prying its damn fingers in. The first night, no, the second—third? He can’t remember which night it was but something pent up in him exploded and he didn’t try to control it for once.

“Ow,” he mutters.

His throat burns from the whiskey. He hates drinking alone but you’re either asleep or with friends and he can’t think of anyone else but you. He tugs at the turtleneck collar, getting uncomfortable by the minute, and then proceeds to take off his coat.

For a moment, he considers getting back to the living room. There were more than enough people with lingering touches against his shoulder and longing gazes—they’re not you. He leans back onto his bed. Another hour and everyone will be gone; why did he even let them hold a party in the first place? Parties just remind him of you—he takes a whiff and smells summer and lemon vodka all of a sudden. A deep sigh leaves his lips.

You might not seem to find yourself especially sad, but Doyoung finds something oddly touching about you. Maybe it’s the way you say his name, he muses, like you’re desperately trying to fill the gaps. But it can’t be him in particular, of course—it’s a lover, any lover.

He hates long nights, just as he hates winter but lately, they haven’t been feeling too cold. Isn’t it ridiculous the way he’s running after you? Doyoung was never meant for this. It’s fucking pathetic and it makes him want to tear all his hair out but there he is, still and quiet in the same place. A certain agony makes its way through him. His hands are freezing and yet his insides are burning—nothing makes sense and right now, he doesn’t want it to. He presses his cold hands to the warmth of his cheeks and a laugh erupts from his mouth.

He must be going crazy to laugh like this in an empty room. The car lights from the window travel slowly from wall to ceiling, the only thing moving in the stagnant of his room.

Inevitably, he thinks of the end. It should come quick; in fact, he’s never been one to do this. He’s always been someone to get attached to people. He doesn’t know how the end will come because this shouldn’t have begun in the first place.

Doyoung’s out of breath.

“Crazy bastard,” he mumbles to himself, followed by a groan when he lifts his head up. As if on cue, the door opens and shuts with a bang. Ten walks in looking drowsy, running his hand through his hair with a disgruntled face.

“I hate to say this,” he slurs. “But you’re right. We can’t have extra furniture and parties. Gotta choose one.”

Ten lays down flat on the bed. “I vote out that ugly ass clock you bought. Why do we need it? We have phones and laptops.”

“It was a gift,” Doyoung mutters.

“Oh. Uh. Actually, someone already, uh—”

“Leave it. We’ll talk about that in the morning.” 

Doyoung massages his forehead, groaning at the pain when Ten suddenly decides he’s all up for cuddling. 

“Ew,” he says, scooting away from Ten. “Get away from me.”

“You don’t mean that,” Ten whines, trying very hard to pull Doyoung into a hug. Of course, his attempts are blocked by Doyoung’s palm against his forehead.

After a few more seconds of trying, Ten huffs and turns away, crossing his arms. “I don’t like you anyway.”

“I know,” Doyoung mutters.

Ten erupts into laughter, sounding more like a psychopath than a close friend of his.

“You do that every time you like someone?” he asks in between fits.

Doyoung raises an eyebrow. “I just said—okay, yeah. Whatever.”

There’s a much needed silence and Doyoung wonders if he can just fall asleep without kicking Ten out.

“You should tell (name),” Ten says all of a sudden, Doyoung’s heart stopping at your name.

“What?” he whispers.

Ten looks at him as though he’s talking to a particularly stupid child. It makes Doyoung scowl but there’s too much alcohol in his system to know if he really means it.

“You don’t- you’re- everyone in this goddamn building knows,” Ten explains, exasperated. “Jaehyun knows, and he’s the densest kid I’ve ever met. God, if you like (name), go for it.”

Doyoung blushes so deep, he considers pressing his palms to his cheeks again. He thinks for the next few moments. Ah well, if they had to find out, he’s glad he didn’t have to declare it himself.

“Whatever, just ask (name) out. It can’t be that complicated.”

Except it is. You don’t have to spell it out for him—he knows the way you feel. The two of you only ever wanted one thing out of this. But if there’s something Doyoung isn’t good at, it’s keeping his mouth shut. He wonders how many times he let it slip, wonders if you even care enough to notice. God, it’s starting to sound pitiful for him.

“Ten. How much did you drink?” Doyoung asks, raising his head.

“Nothing. None. I’m not drunk.” Ten shrugs. “Just sleepy.”

A ‘wow’ is all Doyoung can respond with. He still isn’t quite finished figuring out what sort of horrific planet Ten stumbled from. A notification ding distracts him from kicking Ten off his bed and he has half a mind to toss it onto the bedside table but it’s still half. He softens almost immediately.

It’s a text from you: a ‘u’ followed by a smiley face and then a meme he can’t quite read through hazy eyes. He finds himself smiling anyway and sends a barrage of emojis, whatever he finds because he likes the way you get annoyed at them. Sighing, he decides that’s enough. He’s not in the right state of mind for conversation.

Doyoung shuts his phone off, attempts to push Ten off the bed one last time before closing his eyes and dozing off.

Not every day is meant to be fun—you know that in your twenties—but it’s still somewhat disappointing to have bad days. Like youth is meant to give you some sort of happiness daily. That’s what they make it sound like.

You groan, rubbing at your back. Sitting at your study desk for so long does not have good long term effects. At least, your temporary, meaningless assignments are done. You scowl at the text on your laptop screen; the more you look at it, the more you hate it and so, you shut it off. It’s not like your pissy professor is going to be impressed by anything you do. However, you like the orderly certainty of schoolwork.

Break time consists of guilt and sugary snacks. You’re done with most everything and you suppose leaving the final review of things to a later date can’t hurt. In fact, it sounds rather appeasing. A few more moments pass in making a decision.

You get dressed. The apartment feels eerie all alone, and you’re sure as hell not going to spend the rest of your evening here. You shiver, quickly striding out the front door and locking it before taking out your phone.

People misunderstand winter. Winter is only the end of things; and sometimes, the beginning. It isn’t cruel or crushing, it’s just taking its course. However, you have a tendency to blame seasons for all that happen in it. For instance, you shouldn’t be missing summer when you really miss the first night with Doyoung. 

He picks up after calling thrice. You wonder what he’s even up to, if Saturday evenings are also booked full for such a guy.

“Why do you take so long to pick up?” you complain. “Do you not get days off?”

“I’m busy,” he hisses. 

Something’s wrong.

You pause, unsure what to do. It’s not his voice but the one in the background that catches your attention. 

Inviting him somewhere. 

Rather sensually.

Your ears feel hot and you drop the call. Of course. Of fucking course. You’re the idiot thinking it was a thing. This whole thing is casual—feeling sorry wasn’t in the contract. Fucking around was.

It’s not like you’ll be heartbroken by something like this. Of course not. Of course. Doyoung and you never had a beginning so there isn’t an end, really. It’s fine. It’s fine. You take a deep breath and browse through your phone. With the onset of Christmas holidays, you have around three options left. Ten (yikes), Jaehyun (no way) or the latest addition, Hyungmin.

Well, you’re dressed. You have to go somewhere. And your statement about Hyungmin being the hottest guy on campus still stands.

You send two texts to the boy before deciding that’s apparently enough time waiting. He picks up after a few rings, voice groggy from what you assume to be a late afternoon nap.

“You up for a drink?” You cut to the point.

“Uh? Oh, uh, now? I am, of course- I just need—”

“Twenty minutes. I’ll text you the address.”

Nothing cheers you up like your favourite bar. Or friends. Or people who respond to calls.

Hongdae is as busy as ever. You knew the bar would be packed but not this packed. Still, you managed to grab a seat at the bar table. With the oncoming night, the smell is just going to get worse—so there’s nothing wrong with treating yourself to some lemon vodka (and its refreshing scent).

Hyungmin arrives exactly four minutes early, and the mussed up hair makes you think he must have been in a hurry. For what, you can’t be sure. 

You can still see the inklings of Hongdae nightlights on his hair right before he enters, and in the fallacy of that moment, you think it’s going to be Doyoung. You sigh. This isn’t the time for that.

“Sorry,” you say, gesturing to the bar table. “All the tables were booked.”

“No, no,” he responds quickly. “I actually prefer it here.”

He’s tall, not that it’s the first time you’re noticing, but even when he’s sitting, he’s at least two heads taller than you are. His shoulders are accentuated by the mocha coat, no doubt part of the latest trend this winter. As a fashion student, he hits the mark and more. 

For a moment, you feel bad for knowing his major. Ten let it slip about him and yet still, you feel guilty for remembering it. You’re not supposed to go into unnecessary detail about people that don’t matter. Does he matter? 

“Surprised you could make it,” you joke half-heartedly. “Aren’t you lot always busy with something?”

He laughs. “The student council? Oh, we’re busy alright.”

Busy. Right.

“What about you? Aren’t you part of like three different clubs?”

“So what kind of busy?” you ask, ignoring his question. You’re part of two, now that you left the music club last semester. It’s not like small talk matters though.

“Uh,” he hesitates. “You know- attend meetings and events, coordinate committee work, supervise stuff, etcetera etcetera. So busy, yeah.”

“Busy on Saturdays too?” you ask, before thanking the bartender for the drinks.

“Yeah, I guess. Doyoung has it worse than me honestly. Even now, he has to take care of stuff because of me. Hah…”

You gulp down your drink making Hyungmin raise an eyebrow in concern. “Stuff? Because of you?”

“Yeah.” Hyungmin scratches the back of his head. “He’s with the girls.”

“Girls?” you ask, playing with the glass. You’re starting to feel annoyed, red lining your vision.

“Yeah.” He makes no notion of clarifying his statement.  

“Must be quite the president,” you say, resting your cheek against your palm.

“Oh, he’s a nightmare.” Hyungmin laughs. “He has to control everything.”

You try to mask your scoff. You know what he can be like when you’re working beside him. 

“Oh, and the guy has no sense of humour,” Hyungmin laughs, the sound easy on the ears.

You blink.

“I think he’s funny,” you say quickly. You swear you have no idea why you sound so defensive.

He hums in response and you consider biting your tongue, telling him you’re only here for one thing and forgetting the uncomfortable churning of feelings inside your chest.

“Forget I- I’m a little confused today.” 

Is that an acceptable explanation? You can’t think straight enough to decide. The silence on Hyungmin’s part, however, worries you. The crowd around you fills in for the next few moments as your companion seems to debate something with himself.

“Look, I know you and Doyoung are… I don’t know, something.”

You huff in irked amusement. “God, does everyone seem to know?”

“Not until late actually.” Hyungmin takes a gulp. “He’s been acting weird. Doyoung.” 

You look away, breathing shallow. You don’t like it, the way things seem to be getting out of hand. All this time, the world seemed to be in the palm of your hand and now, it’s spilling everywhere; the sand in the hourglass is already up to your knees and you don’t know what happens when it fills.

“Do you actually like him?” he asks, leaning back just a little. You know where this is going. “Are you guys dating?”

“No,” you respond, checking your watch.

“Oh.”

There’s a moment’s hesitation in him but you’ve seen that look before. You know that look.

“Then we can- uh- we can—”

“Fuck?” you ask.

He gulps. “I mean, you can say no any time—”

You pull him by the collar and kiss him, hard enough to melt away your hovering thoughts. He kisses like you expect him to, not how you want him to. You know this sort, and somehow, that makes you feel comfortable. Knowing what you’re getting into is easing but it doesn’t lessen the weight of it.

It’s sickening. The way you’re pretending it’s Doyoung.

Hyungmin pulls apart, panting heavily. “Oh, okay.”

“Tell me you drove here.” 

He holds up his car keys in response.

You’re not the type to sleep with strange (semi-acquainted) men, but it’s better than falling in love with them.

So you follow a lover to a hotel room and try to feel something. Some time, when he’s kissing you against the hotel room walls, he pulls apart and asks, “You’re thinking of someone else, aren’t you?”

You know the answer; it just won’t leave your lips.

“It’s okay,” he says with a weak smile, “Let’s just have fun.”

And every time his mouth was on yours, every time you saw stars, you felt the ghost of Doyoung and his haunting touches. It was strange and unfair and unlike you—or at least, unlike the you that you built over the past few years. You feel as though you’ve misplaced something—like something was supposed to be there when you reached out but instead, it was empty space.

The night ends as it should and you leave right before dawn with an apology text you couldn’t put half your heart into.

Most winter nights, you wake up with pain so profound, it’s seeping into your bones.

It never made sense. You never tried to make sense of it. So you let the aches push you down by the shoulders, lodge itself into your neck and back; and you tell yourself, it must be what you deserve. It’s cold and you’re walking barefoot on frozen ground.

You gasp. The weight of who you are and who you have to be—it has its knee on the back of your neck, shoving you into the damp earth. There’s no particular reason to it; it makes it seem as though it’s insignificant. Unimportant. Irrelevant. But that’s the problem—the weight of the world on your shoulders makes no sense. Whose world are you even carrying? Whose approval are you trying to win? You scramble to get up, messing up your bedsheets in the process, and pull your blanket around you. Your own warmth surrounds you and it makes no difference. You frown.

You remember your phone call with your mom, and your lips tremble. You shouldn’t have told her about how crappy your finals went but it slipped. You tried to explain that you did work for them, that you gave it your best but sometimes things don’t work out. She didn’t have to say it out loud for you to hear her thoughts. 

You’re disappointing. 

You wipe at your eyes, feeling annoyed at the emotion. If you could let the ground swallow you whole, you would. In a heartbeat. You don’t even know what you’re doing most of the days despite that pretty planner of yours.

You get out of bed, pull on your cardigan beside the bed and grab your lighter and pack. The tiny balcony makes for a great smoking spot and while you would scold any of your friends for committing to this, you do it yourself. Hypocrite.

For all you try to shove into yourself—hobbies, student clubs, actual clubbing, friends—the more you feel less than enough, as if everything just vanishes into thin air inside you. As if you aren’t enough and never will be. You play by the rules and you lose, you break the rules and you lose. 

Maybe it’s because you let yourself be filled by the intricacies of other people that they like you. And thus, you cannot stop for fear of loneliness.

Just as you’re feeling crushed again, you picture Doyoung against your back, placing his nose in the crook of your neck—something he has never done—and you wonder why it helps. 

Sucking in air too fast, you cough. You shouldn’t have let it go on for so long.

It was fun—harmless fun. You shouldn’t even be thinking of taking a step in some other direction. You’re friends, barely, but you like where you are. If Doyoung was that important, you wouldn’t be going about this all backwards. You sigh, though it comes out jagged. The room is quiet and that’s the way it should be at four a.m, of course, but you crave music all of a sudden. Doyoung and you are just a temporary fix; and you let that thought relax you.

When you think of his chin on your shoulder, however, it feels feather light.

“Why are we doing this?” you ask. 

The atmosphere is warm and toasty, just like you expect it to be in a bakery with light pink doors and a collection of plastic potted plants on display. The decorations aren’t an eyesore here and somehow, it makes you feel better. It’s a little far but you decide it’s worth it.

Doyoung shrugs, sipping his hot chocolate. “It’s Christmas, and we’re both here.”

Your eyes follow the hanging lights over the counter, wrapped in pine tree stickers and eventually to the neat display of a ‘Season’s Greetings’ menu, the contents of which are currently at your table. A Christmas song by some singer who’s been popular lately plays, tunes light and dancing. You hate the end of the year solely because of the extra pressure January brings. Nothing you can’t handle, of course. Nothing you can’t handle.

You sigh. It’s been a little difficult lately.

“Doyoung, really, why are we doing this?” you ask, genuinely curious.

“Are you- uh- are you not enjoying this? I could—”

“No! No, it’s not that. I feel better, actually.” You bite your tongue almost immediately after. It’s not like he’s supposed to know the sort of hell week you’re having. A poorly received term paper, finals that weren’t up to your expectations, crippling loneliness without friends and, oh, the self-doubt—you are at the lowest you can be in college. The only sweetener right now is in the hot chocolate and the way Doyoung’s looking at you. 

You feel something close to guilt.

“Good.” He smiles. “You seemed… You seemed a little down.”

The sliver of warmth between your ribs makes you think this is unreal. It feels uneasy to be so affected by someone but you let it slide, turning back to your hot chocolate.

“Why didn’t you go home this time?” you ask, sipping your drink.

“Oh, I didn't really want to face my parents,” he says before leaning. “Didn’t do too well this semester. And my brother’s going to be there with all his achievements.”

You chuckle in disbelief. “You don’t like your brother?”

“I love him to bits. Just can’t stand my mom’s nagging when he’s around.”

“That’s rich coming from you.” You cross your arms, smiling triumphantly. You feel like children squabbling but it’s so lighthearted, you want to laugh.

Doyoung raises a pointed finger, about to retort but nothing comes out. He puts his hand down.

“I guess you’re right.”

You shake your head. “I’m sure she’s proud of you too.”

“I know that,” he says, laughing. “Of course she is. I don’t keep myself busy for nothing.”

You gulp, a sudden sourness rising at the base of your tongue. 

“Busy, huh? Didn’t know spending saturday evenings with girls also counted as busy,” you mutter against the cup, half-hoping he doesn’t hear you.

“What?” There’s a perplexed look across his face.

You wave your hand in dismissal. “Oh don’t mind me.”

“Are you talking about me giving a tour to the fresher girls?” Doyoung leans forward, resting his elbows on his thighs. “Hyungmin does that usually but Mr Man was sore from soccer practice and Friday fucking.” 

You blink. “Fresher… girls?”

“What, did you think I was at a brothel?” Doyoung laughs in amusement.

You feel your cheeks heat up in embarrassment. “No! No, of course not.”

You wave your hands about for a few more seconds, trying to come up with an explanation. This makes things rather embarrassing.

“Sorry,” you say finally. “I jumped to conclusions.”

Doyoung laughs, rather deep and heartily, and you wonder if your apology really did sound as stupid to him as it did to you. 

“You do that a lot,” he notes.

“Thanks,” you quip, cutting the pastry with your fork a little too forcefully. His laugh follows. (You hate it so much. It sounds like pure adoration.)

The next few moments consist of scrolling through your phones (because Doyoung says his ‘mouth hurts from talking to you’) and you would’ve been in a better state of mind if everyone wasn’t posting pre-Christmas photos with their families. 

“You know they’re opening that park. What’s it called- Winter Wonderland or something. You said you wanted to visit.”

You look up at Doyoung amused.

“Let’s be honest. You want to be in bed, Doyoung,” you say. “Why are you doing this?”

“Because I care,” he answers, looking at you with his doe eyes. “About you. You sulk when you’re upset.”

“I don’t sulk,” you reply but your smile is obvious when you exit the cafe. 

It’s like a date. The more you think of it that way, the more it makes you smile.

The evening is perfect—orange and pink and loving and happy. Doyoung trails behind you as you tread over the sidewalk with cheeky remarks about his speed.

“I’m in the track club, you know?” he huffs, finally tired of your jabs.

“As what, the start point?”

A fake, sarcastic laugh leaves him. “I wouldn’t get to see you if I walked ahead.”

You feel warmth creep up your face. You mumble, “that’s cheesy.” It’s too weak though, and it goes unheard. 

For the first time, you notice his eyes are a little like yours in what they reflect. You love them. 

So this is where the crowd went. The amusement park, or whatever you call it, is buzzing with a faint sort of excitement, mostly in the children that didn’t get to go on a vacation elsewhere. It’s quite the wonderland though so you can’t see them complaining.

“Do you think they’ll kick us out if we make out on the Ferris wheel?” you ask, smiling at Doyoung.

“I’m not making out with you on the Ferris wheel,” he replies, making a face.

You do end up making out on the Ferris wheel, and you get butterflies from it. It’s like a teenage dream but Doyoung looks even better. You pass on the cotton candy because frankly, you’ve had enough of sweet things. You sit at the frozen wooden seat, hoping it warms up while Doyoung brings the two of you some fries.

Your phone buzzes with a notification. Your eyes light up at the mail from your professor. You had turned in the term paper three days ago, weeks ahead of schedule and were particularly proud of the way it turned out. 

You look at the email and zero in on the word ‘redo’.

Your shoulders sag immediately. You spent four weeks on that—and it’s not good enough? You search frantically for how it could have gone wrong and come up with none. That’s not supposed to happen. Something’s wrong. Something’s very wrong. The week’s exhaustion swallows you up again.

When Doyoung returns, he looks at you concerned before quickly setting the fries on the table.

“(name). Is something wrong?”

“Huh?” Your voice sounds so weak and squeaky, you feel embarrassed. It’s embarrassing that after all these years, you still don’t know how to handle failure. 

Because it’s not supposed to happen. You tell yourself that over and over and it makes things worse.

You feel dirty, underneath all that dust and crumbled rock dangling in your hair. Whatever rests on your shoulders is cracking and collapsing, and you’re pushing in the wrong direction to make sure it all stays up. 

He reaches out his hand but you avoid it.

“No,” you mutter, weakly shaking your head.

You rub at your nose and eyes, hoping you can hide behind your forearms. Doyoung shouldn’t be seeing you like this, he doesn’t deserve to see you like this. You turn away from him, your palm gently pushing against the soft material of his shirt. 

Doyoung doesn’t move. Instead, he gently tugs on your wrist so you have no choice but to face him with your red-rimmed eyes. You’re not sure if it’s embarrassment or pity, but the concern in his eyes makes you cry harder. 

“You don’t have to do that,” he whispers. “You don’t have to find a place to cry.”

For the first time in adulthood, you learn what it’s like to lean your forehead against someone’s chest this way. Doyoung wraps his arms around you and the sound of his breathing soothes your near-erratic heart. 

“I worked really hard on it, you know?” you mumble against his chest. “My term paper.”

“I know,” he whispers.

Doyoung strokes your head delicately, fingers running through your hair with airy touches. Eventually, you let go of a final sigh and look up to his lips.

He seems surprised at the kiss but it’s all you can think of now. It’s gentler than usual and Doyoung moves cautiously though he seems to like it all the same. His arms feel comfortable around you. When he pulls apart, he looks at you yet still with careful concern.

“We can- we should stop if you want,” he says, and he means it. 

You shake your head. Night is creeping in overhead, deep and quiet and slow.

“I like you, Doyoung,” you say finally. “I really, really like you.”

Doyoung’s eyes widen, as though a rabbit wary of the traps it might set foot on but he eases into your touch almost immediately.

“I like… I like you too.” His lips waver but he looks away and takes a deep breath. “I like you so much.”

You smile and think that maybe everything is set right now, with his chin against your shoulder and your arms around him. 

Doyoung discards the jacket once you’re in your apartment, kissing you fuller now. Every other thought leaves you; you beg him to make you forget the rest of the world. The walls are comforting now that he’s here, and it’s warmer, hotter.

“Can we- Can we go a little slower?” you mumble, his arms still gentle when they wrap around your waist. He parts his lips from your neck to look at you momentarily before nodding.

You suddenly understand why he always makes you feel so good. There’s a certain fondness to his touch and warmth to his kisses. There’s no one quite like him, really.

“I love digging graves, especially if it’s my own,” you mutter against the pillow.

Doyoung laughs. “What did you do this time?”

“This time? Excuse me? Do you think I’m some sort of trouble child?”

“Hm. Let’s see. Yes.”

You pause. Why do you hesitate to tell him you slept with Hyungmin? It’s not like you were cheating—you weren’t dating Doyoung. Besides, that night with Hyungmin didn’t mean anything. A horrid feeling snakes around your throat, heavy and piercing. You resort to changing the topic.

“I’m… I took another course beyond my understanding.”

“That’s it?” he asks.

You nod.

No, no, no; it’s all backwards now and you don’t know how to reverse it.

Doyoung takes your hand in his, delicately and yet firm. His chest is against your back, bare and warm. When he presses his lips against your knuckles, the warmth that flushes through you makes you want to believe in something else entirely. You feel weak. 

A part of you argues that you feel honest—in a moment of clarity you don’t think you deserve. Neither vodka nor whiskey can make you this clear in the head; you struggle to breathe straight. How awful it is to feel warmth and not believe in it at the same time.  

“You can rely on me, you know?” he whispers.

The knot in your chest makes you want to cry.

You feel lonely and the opposite of it all at once. Doyoung is too much for you—too kind, too pretty and too true. He makes you realize too many things at once.

There are a few things in the world that can stifle loneliness. Like the notes Doyoung plays on the piano, like the songs he hums in the morning till you place open-mouthed kisses against his neck.

You realize, all of a sudden, that Doyoung really is your dearest friend.

And yet, you don’t think you deserve it. You’ve never loved, you believe, but you have. You don’t remember it well enough. The lovers’ touches you kept searching for led to this. Hypocrite. You wanted a lover’s touch and you rejected the love that came with it. What a complicated bundle of emotions. You weren’t always this way.

You loved your first cat when you were six, all the way till it died a warm death in your bed. You loved your mother even when she yelled at you for skipping your chores. You loved your middle school friends when you talked about comics and movies you saw for the first time. 

It’s hard to love the same way now.

You suppose sympathy needs a little backstory. Nothing is unconditional. 

It had all started when your heart had broken into two clean pieces. You put a bandaid on it and called it a day. No one taught you to ask for help.

Your friends know someone broke your heart; you tell them everything. Friends, friends—you wanted them so bad and yet, you keep them as far from you as you can. You pretend to be paper-thin and so shallow, sometimes you wonder if that’s all there is to you. But for all they know, they know next to nothing. It wasn’t just the aftermath of reckless puppy love. 

The first time your heart broke, it was watching your mother cry in the living room for a reason you didn’t understand. You wondered who committed the crime, who should be charged—and you found no one. A loveless marriage is cruel, yes, but you cannot point fingers. It isn’t just cruel; it’s infuriating.

The second time, the two pieces of your heart broke into a few more. It was a boy with an inviting smile and flags whose colour you couldn’t quite discern. They must have been red, but everything else was too—hearts, cheeks, lips, and the threads around your wrists. And eventually, he guided you to the conclusion that you are undeserving, unworthy, unloved. 

You were strong, however. It was easy to collapse on the bed and feel the weight of the world settling in, but you stood up again on shaking knees and you told yourself to have fun; you can have fun without feelings. You know better than to attach meaning to fun—you might hate insignificant things but it’s only fun if it’s pointless. You’re not letting go of this place you’ve worked so hard to arrive at, with all the shattered pieces in your hands.

It’s better to offer nothing at all than offer broken pieces.

“Can we stay like this?” Doyoung’s arms tighten around your waist, his breath shallow against your shoulder. “Just for a little bit.”

His voice is beautiful as always, but for a moment, it strikes you as sad.

Everything’s twisting up into knots and you are frantically running your fingers over them to straighten it all out. You know what it’s like to let things rot; and you are tired of it. Why can’t everything disappear for one moment? Why can’t you just let it be the two of you?

You sigh in response, nodding. 

“I might not know what’s happening in there,” he starts, drawing circles on your chest with his finger, touch comfortably light. “But…”

I’m here and I get it.

Is that what he wants to say? You don’t think you’ll get to know. You’re not exactly voicing yourself either. 

Stay the night. You want to say it but your lips are frozen.

Instead, you rub your thumb over the back of his hand, fitting into each other as perfect as a lie. You would tell him, you try to convince yourself, if you could say it with enough conviction. There’s no point to saying things that are half-meant, that are true but only just enough. You’re a coward.

And now, this has gotten complicated.

An end.

Tapping his pen against the desk, Doyoung grows increasingly annoyed. The council's next  meeting agenda isn’t going to finish writing itself but he can’t bring himself to either. Besides, Ten’s pacing outside his room is starting to get on his nerves.

“Ten!” he yells. “Can you quit it? You’re making too much noise.”

His disapproval is met with silence. For a moment, he spaces out and reflexively thinks of you, only to feel a confusing sort of emotion. It’s normal, he tells himself, and that it’ll sort itself out.

Doyoung feels like a glass box more often than not. If he breaks, who picks up the pieces? Who gets cuts all over their fingers?

‘Whoever breaks him’ should be the answer. But that’s wishful thinking. It’s not that simple. 

He’s so see-through that it’s painful. He used to tell Taeyong he’s wrong but he’s never been able to prove it. He is easy. It’s embarrassing.

But then again, part of him likes it when it comes to you. He likes it when you kiss him after a particularly heated disagreement, he likes when you get on his nerves just so he’d fuck you and most of all, he loves the push and pull. Fun is just that. He doesn’t know what he’d do if that heart of his he placed so gingerly into your palms falls and shatters.

The line between hate and love is thin; and he’s enjoying walking it too much.

He has nothing to offer but himself. He laughs at the thought and shakes his head. It’s somewhat dirty, and not just in the sexual sense.

“Ten!” he yells again. “Stop pacing!”

Getting up from his seat, he strides over to his door, swings it open and finds Ten scratching his head and glancing at his phone in repeated action. 

“Ten?”

He’s so in a trance that he hasn’t noticed Doyoung. He is the lovable sort of idiot if he ever chooses to be so. Most of the time though, he’s just a smartass.

“Oh, oh no, I’m a bad friend,” Ten mutters to himself, his pacing growing more restless. He scratches the back of his head, eyebrows furrowed and too inside his head to notice Doyoung. He wants to ask but something tells him he shouldn’t. 

Turns out, his apprehension isn’t strong enough these days. 

“Whose date did you crash?” Doyoung asks, more than annoyed already.

When Ten looks at him, Doyoung feels rather shriveled and freezes on the spot. Call it instinct but Doyoung respects fear and pain. Ten has a mixture of the two, amplified when he looks at Doyoung.

“Doyoung. Hey,” he says, trying to tone down the distress in his voice.

Doyoung still hasn’t recovered from the initial surprise of Ten looking that way.

“Did you fuck up? Did someone fuck up? Why do you look like that?”

Ten sits down on the small couch. “Long story… I guess. Too many details, you- you know? Just—”

“What the fuck happened?”

Ten still can’t look him in the eye. “The group chat’s a little…”

“Ten,” Doyoung snaps. “Cut the crap.”

“No, that’s- that’s what I’m- You’re going to be upset.”

Doyoung straightens, furrowing his brows. “I think I can fucking handle it.”

“You know that date I set up for (name) and Hyungmin?”

“You set that up?”

“(name) slept with Hyungmin.” 

Doyoung quietens. The silence seems to make Ten uncomfortable as he shifts in his seat, getting up when Doyoung speaks.

“So?”

Ten blinks. “You’re not upset?”

“Just what kind of loser do you think I am?” Doyoung mutters.

Glass shatters just that easily. Maybe he wanted you to shatter him. Maybe he was already cracking at the edges.

“Doyoung, you don’t have to—”

“Stop,” he exclaims a little louder than he intended. “Stop looking at me like that. I’m a grown man, I can handle shit like this.”

It still hurts though. You lied to him and he let you in. You lied to him. Doyoung sighs, returning to his room with a realization he should have had long ago. His night ends with more deleted drafts than he’s supposed to have and eventually, with increased discomfort, he delegates the job to Park Hyungmin himself with the excuse of sickness.

Doyoung does feel sick. He felt this way once, in highschool, but it had turned to red, hot anger ready to lash at anyone and everyone, spilling from his lips as easy as it was to breathe. And Doyoung can never feel that way towards you. He was different back then too, of course, but you—you’re unlike anyone he’s ever met. He loves the comfort of you, and something like that is hard to come by. 

He feels like laughing again but instead he finds tears on his cheeks. Silly boy, he can hear his mother tell him. You don’t give your heart to heartbreakers. 

So Doyoung falls asleep to the sound of upbeat music in his earphones, music he hates even just to pass the night. Morning will come and he will have to become stronger. Comfort is fleeting, after all.

With everything said and done, you know very well that if you were to tell someone you love them—genuinely, truly, from the heart—it would be Doyoung. It’s not a sudden realization, like the sky falling apart or a tidal wave crashing against the shore and sweeping away the city. It is like the gentle lapping of water, though, or the way the clouds change shape—natural and anything but alarming. You want to stare at it forever, and you want to believe that’s how it will be forever. 

“You told everyone we had sex?” Your voice is boiled to a shout. 

Hyungmin looks torn, lips moving but no explanation making its way out. “I- I told my friends, not everyone.”

“And you forgot that your friends talk? Everybody talks, Hyungmin, what were you thinking?”

He sighs before taking a step towards you. “Why are you so angry about it? As far as I remember, you had no trouble talking about whose pants you got into.”

You scoff. “With friends, not the whole campus.”

“That’s exactly what I did!” 

You cross your arms, feeling so upset you might cry and unsure as to why. You’re usually good at dealing with stuff like this, keeping things in the right place.

“It’s because of Doyoung, isn’t it?” 

You snap your head to Hyungmin. There’s a serene sort of look to him despite his unkempt appearance, and a look of understanding.

“I’m sorry. Really. But if you were so into him, you shouldn’t have called me that evening. It might not matter to me but…”

You broke his heart. All that devotion he had towards you led to this. 

“You’re right.” You choke on your words, leaning against the wall. “Fuck… Fucking…”

You turn around, making your way out of the hallway and hope the tears on your cheeks dry faster if you run.

You can’t remember the last time you ran. Your world didn’t need running from, it was right in the palm of your hands. Now that you look back, the world was always on your shoulders and heavy as it can be. Maybe you liked it—the weight. You could’ve shrugged it off any time; you didn’t need all those caging schedules or careful, elegant steps.

No. Atlas couldn’t shrug because his punishment was his existence. To have weight is to have meaning; and that is how you intended to live out your life.

Doyoung makes you see it differently. To love so fully even if it seems cautious—you, who has never loved at all, couldn’t comprehend it. And because he makes you see it differently, the box is now open and all hell is loose. 

For once, you don’t want to live in the world you crafted. You want more love, more hurt and you want to open the doors. You don’t mind hell if it’s for him.

You ring the bell to Doyoung and Ten’s apartment and pray the news hasn’t reached him yet. He said he was busy this weekend; maybe he was detached enough from his phone for once. You just want to be the person to tell him. It’s not a perfect apology otherwise.

Doyoung opens the door with pursed lips and cold eyes. There’s a sense of ease over his shoulders and arms but he won’t look at you and panic rises to your throat.

“We’re not fucking tonight, (name),” he says.

“That’s not- That’s not why I’m here.” Your voice is so meek, you wonder what happened.

Doyoung steps back, crossing his arms. He’s still looking at his feet and you feel the urge to reach for his face.

“I wanted to tell you- I… I just—”

“That you’re fucking other people?”

“God, Doyoung, stop with the fucking. I don’t care about that right now.”

“Really?” His voice is so sharp, it digs into your skin. “You were just in it for that. That’s the fun part in your stupid life, isn’t it?”

You feel a sharp pain in your nose and forehead. “You’re- Now that’s- Doyoung. I’m sorry. That’s what I wanted to say.”

“After—” His voice chokes up. “After everything is done? Stop with the excuses and face it for fuck’s sake. You aren’t made to fall in love. That’s why you dance around it all the time.”

Although he says that, he doesn’t sound angry. He sounds defeated.

“It’s not like you aren’t cautious,” you retort, throat feeling heavy. “You said it yourself- you don’t want to care too much.”

“I was wrong,” he says, voice hoarse. “I care about everything more than I’d like to admit. I care about you more than I’d like to admit.”

“The Hyungmin thing didn’t mean anything, okay? You were busy and—”

“So why did you lie?” He strains to not raise his voice. “Of course I knew our little thing didn’t mean shit to you. Why did you pretend it did? Last week, you said- you said—”

“Doyoung, last week- last week I- I wasn’t pretending, I swear.”

“You could’ve just saved yourself the trouble and the dignity.” A short, humorless laugh leaves him.

You feel your lips tremble, the explanation not quite made its way out yet. He looks so innocent like this, rabbit-like eyes watery and full of pain, pure the way they have always been. This is your mistake, isn’t it?

“Doyoung, please,” you manage to say. “That was wrong. I couldn’t clear up my head. Please don’t—”

“No. I was an idiot. Or you see me as one.” He frowns deeper, lips trembling. “I shouldn’t- I shouldn’t have. We shouldn’t have been at the same fucking party and I shouldn’t have drank so much. You’re- I’m not that kind of person.”

You bite down your lip. “What kind?”

Doyoung laughs, the sound raspy and empty. “The kind to not fall in love with you.”

It damn near breaks your heart to look at him. You have to say something, it shouldn’t end like this. You’re desperate and all you think is that you don’t want it to end at all.

“Please, I thought of you as a friend, that’s why—”

“And this is what you call being a friend?” he cuts you off.

You feel the sting in your eyes and nose, making you turn sharply to the side. You wish he’d just make you cry. It makes you feel the rancid guilt all the more.

“Make Hyungmin your friend for all I care. Let’s stop this.”

You stare at your feet, unable to respond. 

“You can have every boy in the world, (name). Don’t come to me.”

“Can you just stop talking about everyone else?” you yell, desperate. “Do I talk about your exes? Seungjae or- or what’s-her-name—” 

“That’s different!” He looks distraught, breathing heavily and with a painful red flush over his nose and cheeks. He runs his hand through his hair, tousling it further. “You lied to me, (name). You lied.”

Your cheeks are wet and the look that flashes over Doyoung makes you think he wants to step right out to you. He stays frozen in place, however, looking away to the side.

“Did you notice?” he asks softly. “Even once? How much I cared?”

You can’t answer, letting the tears drip down your face. It’s getting colder and colder. 

Doyoung bites down his lip before parting them. “All we did was have sex anyway. So please just- just leave.”

You take a long few moments but nod, hugging your coat closer and stepping out of his apartment. You think you hear Ten’s footsteps but it’s followed by the bang of a door—this is how it ends then.

The line between hate and love is thin; and you are deserving of neither.

You perfect your next semester’s academics, and the next. It still feels empty. You go out to drink with friends and return to a messy bed you sleep in alone. You smile as always and you laugh as always. No one asks you how you are as always. You never needed anyone to ask you how you are.

Ten tries but you push him away. You don’t need to drag in other people into a mess you made. He feels sorry for the whole thing but you tell him it was you that spilled the paint, Ten just handed a dash of it to you.

You were right. You don’t deserve Doyoung. At least, you made it so that you don’t deserve him. 

‘It’s better to have loved and lost than to not have loved at all’—it still hurts.

Every day is part of a list again. You doodled in some of the pages, when you thought you were starting to fall in love. There’s only a skeleton of it left now. Soon, you’ll let it crumble to dust too. 

You tear apart the planner sometime after graduation and cry and curse at yourself for doing that. No one’s good at parting with things they care about. You’re no exception.

It’s December again. 

This place is a little strange to visit right after graduating, especially with the memories flashing you by. Johnny said he booked one of the private booths (“A senior’s treat!”) but you feel your steps growing hesitant when you reach the neon signs by the stairs. It spells ‘The Meeting Place’ and smells of cigarettes just like it did the first time.

You stop midway up the stairs. For a moment, you think of Doyoung sitting there and wonder if you’ll ever be able to talk to him again. If you had the chance now, would you take it?

Of course, you wouldn’t. There’s too much to be set right and you can’t do it.

There’s supposed to be the six of you. Johnny mentioned Ten and you know Eunji’s invited too. You saw Jaehyun on the way here, still a student. You sigh. It must be him, the one they failed to mention to you. Kim Doyoung. There’s no one quite like him.

You spot him first. Looking a little forlorn as he gazes absentmindedly to the side, he faces away from you and you get the inevitable urge to run away. It’s a funny feeling. 

Your stomach is churning. You don’t want him to see you. Ten babbles on about something to Johnny, smiling like he found candy while clearing his drawers. Eunji looks tired, leaning against Johnny’s shoulder and you wonder if she already drank more than enough shots.

“(name).”

You jump at Jaehyun’s voice from behind you. 

“Hey,” you respond, giving him a wide smile.

He hesitates. “Are you okay? Not that you don’t look okay- you look really good actually. I mean, are you and… you know okay?”

“I don’t think so, Jaehyun,” you say and make your way to the booth.

It’s a little cramped for the six of you and Doyoung gets up before you can even greet him. It’s not like you deserve it anyway but it tugs at the wound.

“I’m going to go take a drag,” he mutters.

“You don’t smoke,” you say, looking up.

He stares at you momentarily and you look away. You think Ten and Johnny glance at you with pity but you don’t really care. 

 “Can I come with you?” you ask, barely a whisper.

“Sure,” he says, to your surprise.

The smoking area is so small, you’re surprised it’s even there. A glass structure overlooking the neighbourhood, there’s barely any light within. The only thing nice is how warm it’s in there. 

Doyoung lights his cigarette and then offers to light yours. It’s quiet, the music from inside numbed to the cold doors. You really can’t take it. You stub the barely consumed cigarette and throw it into the bin.

You’d rather just stay quietly in his presence.

“You’re not smoking,” he notes.

“It’s a bad habit.” You look out through the glass.

Doyoung chuckles. “You were a collection of bad habits.”

“And good ones too,” you quip. “I was a perfect student. I was perfect in most everything actually.”

Doyoung’s smile widens. “You were. You certainly were.”

A few more moments pass in silence, your eyes traveling over the outside scenery which seems to be growing duller by the second. City lights have never felt fainter.

“It was an accident, right?” You say suddenly. “The whole thing? Us?”

Doyoung hums. “Yeah. I fell in love by accident.”

You smile weakly. “Right. I never got to apologize.”

“I loved you on purpose.”

You look up at him. There’s not a lot of people who say what they mean. He looks the same as he used to under your grey blankets, with a warm blush over his cheeks and kind, wide eyes. 

“You’re so damn pretty,” he murmurs, “even now.”

You scan his face for signs of lying.

“You’re drunk, aren’t you?” you ask finally. 

Doyoung blinks before easing into laughter. “You- You’re- You’re the same as ever.”

You let yourself crack a smile.

“Doyoung I- I really am sorry,” you say quietly. “And I did- do care for you.”

Doyoung stubs out his cigarette and discards it before looking you in the eye. You notice he’s wearing his favourite black turtleneck in the proximity, the grey plaid coat covering most of it. You really liked that look on him.

“I’m sorry,” you say once again. “I want you to know that. I didn’t want to hurt you and I promise I won’t ever do it again.”

You mean it. You’re never going to hold glass again. He doesn’t deserve it.

“That’s a problem,” he responds, breath mingling with yours. “I want you… I want you to hurt me. If you really do love me, I’ll take it.”

“Doyoung,” you whisper, turning away despite your whole body screaming at you to give in. “I meant it. I can’t hurt you.”

Doyoung cups your cheek with one hand, glancing at your lips for a moment.

“You’re warm,” he says.

He’s warmer.

“I want to kiss you,” he says.

You want to kiss him too.

“We went about this all wrong, didn’t we?” he asks.

“We did,” you answer, voice barely above a whisper. “I did.”

Doyoung pulls back. “Then let’s start again. I’m Kim Doyoung, I majored in linguistics. I was student council president and I made a mistake.”

You smile. “We don’t have to do that.”

Doyoung raises an eyebrow. “After all the trouble I went through to make a good introduction?”

The two of you laugh, and it gets warmer. 

“I’m (name),” you say. “I was a top student and I made a bigger mistake, Kim Doyoung.”

“Oh? I wonder what it was.”

“Kind of a long story.”

“I’ve got all the time for you.”

You smile and start. He responds with gentle kisses. You’re piecing your world back together again; but this time it’s feather-light and fits right in the palm of your hand. 

[mamitomoesyandereblog]

First time doing one of these, how about some yandere mami tomoe x reader headcanons?

Of course! You can certainly tell by the whole aesthetic of the blog; but Mami is my favourite character from the series. That being said; I'll try to do my best. Hope you like it; dear anon. ^^

Tw;

Yandere stuff, unusual behaviours, unhealthy relationships, mentions of kidnapping/Stockholm syndrome , mentions of suicide

I don't support this kind of actions or behaviour in any way; this is just fiction and should stay fiction.

(Spoilers For Puella Magi Madoka Magica ahead)

💛Yandere! Mami Tomoe Headcannons💛

First things first; how you two met. The request didn't specify whether they wanted the headcannons to be romantic or platonic so I'll try to keep it somewhere in between.

It was just another normal school day and you were walking home on your own; since your friends were all busy today. But then, as you're walking, you suddenly feel dizzy. It's as if everything around you is deforming in some sort of way. Whispers of "Were your friends really busy?" and "Maybe you're too pathetic for them, you would be better off dead" were ringing in your ear. Before you know it you're in a witch labyrinth.

Long story short; a certain blonde magical girl came to your rescue.

After saving you she introduced herself and made you promise to keep it a secret. She insists to walk you home and on your way there she shares with you more about magical girls and her experience as one in general. And then you reach your house and the two of you never speak again. Or so you thought.

The next day something unexpected happen. You find her and talk with her again after school. And the two of you become friends.

🍵 After meeting you Mami feels like she's finally not alone anymore. Maybe you're not a magical girl but you're still someone she can talk to, share her problems with. You're the only one she has at the moment, the only thing she looks forward to besides her magical girl duties. So it's only natural that she's a bit clingy, often texting you multiple times and passing by your class at school (if you're not in the same class or you go to the same school)

🍵 She tries her best to put a brave act in front of you, she wants you to look up to her and feel safe with her. She wants you to see her as someone you can always rely on. She feels comfortable enough to vent to you though. You've seen her cry at least once, you've comforted her multiple times. You understand, you're the only one who understands. In her eyes at least.

🍵 She's definitely the type to be touchy but not full on like giving hugs. Maybe if you guys were official she would but as friends she just does small gestures. Such as putting her hand on your shoulder or holding your hands from time to time; often pulling you closer to her without even realising. It makes her feel safer in a way. It reminds her of how close you are; it reminds her that the most important person in her life is here with her.

🍵 If you ever started spending less time with her, especially because of other people, she'd definitely get emotional. As we've seen in the anime; Mami isn't really emotionally stable. So if something like this were to happen she'd instantly go into panic mode. She wouldn't get jealous, she'd get scared. Scared that you're going to leave her, just like an old "friend" of hers did in the past. So she'd ask you to talk about it. At first she seems calm and has a smile on her face but the more she goes on the more emotional she gets, even starts crying.

🍵 What would happen if you decided to leave her out of your life immediately though? Maybe you start avoiding her on purpose or you outright announce to her. Either way; it ends the same. If you avoid her she'd come up to you, maybe in an alleyway near your house or somewhere you can't back away easily. If you announce it to her what's to come would happen then and there. She's silent for a few seconds. Then she starts sobbing, panicking more than she's ever panicked before. You then attempt to walk away and for the first time in her life as a magical girl she uses her magic out of the battle.

🍵 Most of her magic is based on ribbons, so expect to wake up with a bunch of em' tied around you, keeping you in place. She's a magical girl and you're just...a normal girl/boy/person. There's nothing you can do against magic ribbons. If even Homura couldn't get out of the ribbons then there's no way you would. She'd probably try to act as if those ribbons don't exist though. As if you're just a friend, or even something more, staying over for the night. Although it's going to be a lot longer than just the night.

🍵 Keeping in mind that you're tied with a bunch of magical ribbons that get tighter the more you struggle there aren't really many ways you could misbehave. Yelling at her would be the only thing you'd be capable of doing and she could either ignore it or have a ribbon cover your mouth as well. She's trying to convince herself that what caused her to do this never happened, trying to pretend all this is normal.

🍵 Once you gain her trust she'd let you out of the ribbons. It would be quite easy, to be honest. Her entire mental stability depends on you at this point since you're the only one she has. Good luck with trying to get out of her apartment. Everything is locked and it's too high for you to jump off. If you somehow did manage to go out though... It's you against a veteran unstable teenage girl with the power to summon hundreds of rifles at once. So once again; good luck.

🍵 If you did really learn to love her she'd be so so happy, crying tears of joy even. She'd get a lot more physical as well when you're in her apartment so you'd get a lot of hugs. And free desserts. Unlike some yanderes she'd let you get out of the house; on your own as well. As long as you came back in time. You'd also be able to go to school again, although you'd spend all of your time by her side. She'd even force Kyubey to help you telepathically talk to eachother during class as well.

🍵 If anyone ever made a move on you she'd probably get between the two of you, literally, and threaten them. She'd somehow make herself seem intimidating while still sounding pretty calm and wearing a smile. If someone decided to hurt you though... Well; if they were to insult you they'd get the same treatment as making a move with you. If they actually hurt you physically...oh boy. At first it's just a playful threat. Once you leave that fake smile on her face would be gone though, replaced by a glare instead. She'd threaten the person again, this time sounding more determinated than before. She wouldn't use her magic though, she still has to keep the whole Magical Girl thing a secret after all.

🍵 When and if she learnt the truth about witches... It'd be tough. Learning that she's going to either die fighting or become what she's been fighting all this time messes her up by itself, but realising that she's never going to be with you no matter what makes it one trillion times worse. She would still do the same she did in the series. What if one day she turned into a witch and ended up hurting you? No. She'd rather end it all sooner, it was for the better. If she somehow learnt it without the Sayaka fiasco happening and the circumstances were ideal she'd send you a voicemail before ending it all. Her last goodbye.

🍵 I'd imagine her witch form to be the same but with some changes. For example; her familiars would give the people who entered the labyrinth a missing poster that read "Vidisti amica mea?" before walking them to the tea party. I can even imagine the witch taking people in hopes of finding someone one day. She can't remember anything about who it was exactly but she's just desperate to find them; maybe they'd make the tea party more fun, whoever they were.

Aaand that's everything! I apologize if it wasn't exactly to your liking dear reader, it's my first time writing yandere headcannons.

(Also don't worry about the reader not being a magical girl/boy, I'm saving that for the future 👀)

With all that being said; I hope you liked the headcannons! Or some of them, at least. Requests are still open of course. Have a lovely day/night! 💕

[writingtoforgetreality]

Faking To Pretend (Steve Rogers x Reader)

Request: cathy cathy cathy here i am with another request *sigh* i cant help myself your writing is just too good

i was wondering if i might request a steve rogers x reader fic where maybe reader and steve are paired up for a mission and have to pretend to be married (undercover) and some thing happen to kind of force them to admit their feelings for each other (maybe one of them gets injured? or kidnapped idk you do what you want to 😂) anyways LOVE YOU SO MUCH ❤️❤️ (by @msmarvelsmain), [Marvel-Masterlist]

Summary: Fake engagements, wedding plans & an undercover mission that jeopardized your well-being in the blink of an eye. Throughout it all, you somehow had to hide the fact that your feelings for Steve were just friendly, nothing more.

Words: 8,610

Warnings: language, angst, fluff, humor, argument, brief mentions of drugs, undercover mission (engagement & wedding plans), female pronouns used, that's pretty much it

[Mimi…this happens when our ideas get mixed up. LOVE YOU TOO!]

If you like my work & wanna support me: a coffee would be highly appreciated ❤

The familiar sound of a notification emanated from your phone. You deposited the book you had been immersed in onto the mattress & replaced it with the device. It confused you for a second when you noticed Tony being the one to message you. After all, you were literally in the same building.

Stark: meeting in 5.

(Y/N): you do know that you could tell me in person, right? just knock or something.

Stark: you’re too far away.

(Y/N): two doors, stark. TWO!

Stark: meeting in 4.

(Y/N): i hate you.

A loud sigh escaped through your lips. Typical Tony. Two could play that game. You planned on arriving right in time, not earlier. Maybe a few seconds too late. Anything to mess with him. At least he could get a taste of his own medicine that way.

“You’re a minute late.” Tony commented when he watched you walk inside the room. Your arms crossed over your chest as you leaned your shoulder against the door frame.

“You’re lucky I came in the first place.” you remarked. “Besides, I’m the first one here. Mission alone?” you questioned, raising your eyebrows while expectantly waiting for his answer. It was not usual for you to go alone. Except if the mission concerned grabbing pizza from the place down the block. You hoped for him that he did not pull that card, though.

“No but I wanted to discuss it with you before the others- oh, never mind.” Tony stopped talking when three more figures entered the room, brushing past your frame without paying too much attention to you. Sam. Bucky. Steve. What a damn combination. That was your team? Well, good luck. Everyone got seated on the chairs circling the big table but you stood your ground in the doorway. Steve patted the free chair next to his side, eyes flickering up to yours. A silent invitation you politely declined by shaking your head but you made sure that he could detect your small smile. Tony did not seem to mind & went straight ahead into explaining the mission you four had to perform. Most of the time, you zoned off though you really did try your hardest to stay focused. But when you glanced between the men in the room, you already knew the chaos that would come with them.

Basically, the team came across a signal emitting from the back of a small shop. From what you knew so far, it was some sort of a database that saved a whole lot of criminals. Some of them who you had fought in the past & some of them who you had never heard of but they sounded incredibly dangerous nevertheless.

“Question.” one of your hands raised & you waited for them to look at you.

“Go for it.” Tony pointed over to you, letting out a low breath because you were behaving as if you were in class & needed permission before speaking up.

“Why do Steve & I have to be the ones engaged?” normally, you would not care about undercover missions. But when said mission had you teamed up & fake-engaged to Steve? Well, you had a hard time separating work from personal feelings. Not that anything was going on between you guys but you would not lie if you said that you wanted to change it.

“What, do you want Sam & Bucky to be the couple in question?” Stark, in return, asked another question & you rolled your eyes.

“No, of course not.” that earned you disagreements from both, Sam & Bucky. Steve simply sat by, chuckling quietly while observing your conversation quietly.

“And Steve & you are close. It’ll be easier for you guys to pretend.” Tony casually stated & you had to fight the urge to avert your gaze. If you did, they sure as hell would realize something being wrong with you. And you were not about to be embarrassed in front of them. Maybe you already were but at least they did not know about it. After all, you were a fucking great actor.

“Uh-huh.” so you played it cool. As cool as the situation allowed you to be. “But why do we need Laurel & Hardy with us then?”

“Because I said so.” Tony used your most hated phrase & he damn well knew it. After a short pause, he turned a bit more serious again. “They’ll be Steve’s best men.”

“Wait.” your hand raised & you closed your eyes for a second. “Steve has two best men & I’m not allowed a maid of honor?” now everyone inside the meeting room was chuckling. Everyone but you.

“Pretty much, yeah.” Stark shrugged, brushing it off as nothing though he was aware that you were annoyed by his plan already.

“How is that fair?” you could not stop asking questions, somehow hoping that if you continued, you could get out of this successfully. Deep down, it was clear that the mission had been planned & you could not do anything to change it. Not even a single thing.

“It isn’t.” Tony admitted with a brief nod of his head. “But you’ll need Sam & Bucky on this one. So stop bitching around.”

“These are gonna be some long ass days…” you mumbled, putting your face in your hands in frustration.

“Enjoy!” & with that, Tony dismissed you, leaving you behind dumbfounded.

Sam & Bucky exited the room soon after. Steve & you were the only ones left.

“(Y/N)?” Steve’s voice snapped you out of your thoughts. Immediately, the frown was replaced by a genuine grin. You found yourself in this state whenever he looked at you like that. Whenever he talked to you, actually. “Everything okay?” his eyes showed concern. They usually did when he noticed you zoning off.

“Huh?” you asked before the words had processed. “Oh, yeah. Of course.”

“I’m sorry about.” his hands gestured wildly, searching for the most suitable words. “The mission being uncomfortable for you.”

“No, it’s not uncomfortable.” you tried to explain yourself. “Just, sometimes I feel like Stark just wants to mess with me.”

“Well, if it helps cheering you up…I’ll behave.” he winked at you playfully & you hated how your body reacted to such simple movements.

“I’m sure you will.” you snickered. “My true worries are your best men.” a sly smirk spread onto your face & Steve could not hold back a chuckle.

“Yeah, I can’t control them.” he agreed with you. “I’ll see you around.” he walked past you, turning around one last time. You simply nodded at him, not trusting your own voice. While you handled the situation as best as you could, you wanted to avoid an awkward goodbye. Besides, you would set out first thing in the morning. You needed some alone time before shit started going down. Not that you expected this mission to fail. The exact opposite, actually. The four of you worked incredibly well together. Compensating other’s mistakes & improvising fast if needed. Mostly, though, you ended up straying from the actual plan & that was what had you worried. Because if you did not stick to it, things could turn real uncomfortable real quick.

As if the mission itself was not demanding enough, the car ride to even arrive at your destination was ten times worse. Steve was behind the wheel & you were lucky that you occupied the passenger’s seat & did not have to sit in the back with either Sam or Bucky. They were children, really. Right now, it felt like Steve & you were the parents of two incredibly challenging kids who could not shut their mouths. Not even for a second. Steve succeeded with ignoring them & he was concentrating on the road so that gave him another thing to do. You, on the other hand, were stuck without any distractions except for the bickering that was currently going on in the backseat. But you knew better than to interrupt them because if you did, it would only turn worse. So you took a few deep breaths & settled further into your seat, closing your eyes to maybe rest a bit before your arrival. What you did not notice was Steve glancing over to your figure, a smile playing at the corners of his lips as he recognized you attempting to sleep during the stress inside the car.

At least the hotel Tony checked you in was worth it. Fake-engagements had their perks. Especially if a luxurious suite was a part of it. Sam & Bucky were somewhere in another room but Steve & you, the two of you pretty much occupied an entire floor. That was how huge your room was. You did not even have to carry your own suitcases. There was an employee who helped you with that. What a nice way of living that was. If only you were not pretending. But why were you even thinking that way? You had a mission to perform & more importantly, you could not fail. And you would not if you solely focused on your task. It could not be that hard, right? You had done something similar multiple times before. It should be an easy one for you. But it was not. And the main reason was Steve. It was wrong of you to put the blame on him but how could you not if you literally had to pretend to be his fiancée? It felt like a secret wish you did not dare to voice. And yet he was here right in front of you, in the same room. A place you were supposed to share for the next few days. And you somehow had to play it cool. There was only one outcome. Burying your feelings deep down in order to not jeopardize the mission or your team. No matter how much your heart protested.

“(Y/N)?” you heard Steve’s voice as you were stepping out of the shower. Only a towel was covering your still wet body but you feared that, if you did not open the door right away, you were in danger somehow. That was your mind’s conclusion. Which really did not make any sense if you gave it a second thought. You opened the door a crack, risking a glance outside & eased when you only saw Steve on the other end. It was a natural reaction for you to push the door open wider. But you kind of forgot that you were not wearing any clothes except for that poor excuse of a hotel towel which was way too small for your liking. Steve’s eyes widened & he could not stop from letting them flicker up & down your body. You squirmed under his stare, arms coming to cross over your chest in order to keep the fabric in place. A few moments of awkward silence ticked by & you wanted it to end. So you coughed & gained his attention once more. His eyes were locking with yours & while you usually lost yourself in them, you were way more comfortable than having him eyeing your every part in great detail.

“You needed anything?” you stuttered out, hoping your voice did not sound all too weak but even to yourself, you were aware that you were failing.

“Um, yeah…” his cheeks turned rosy. One of his hands came up to scratch the back of his neck. “But I probably should’ve waited a couple minutes longer.” he should have but it was too late now anyway.

“If it’s nothing too important then I’ll go get dressed real quick, alright? I’ll take like two minutes.” you attempted an honest smile but it was underlined with a hint of embarrassment that was definitely detectable. Steve simply nodded, stepping back a bit so you could close the door once more. Your back rested against the wooden surface & you quietly sighed out with closed eyes. That was not what you expected. Fingers crossed nothing between you two would turn awkward from now on. But then again, he was your best friend & it was not like you were completely naked. Just barely dressed but covered enough so he did not see anything. You would be just fine.

With a decent outfit & regained confidence, you exited the bathroom & found Steve sitting at the edge of the bed, looking down at his hands where he shifted a small package between his fingers. His head snapped up when he heard your footsteps. You two exchanged a smile & it was then when you knew that your shamefaced encounter would not change the bond you shared. It was as if everything was the same old. And it was probably for the better.

“Was that why you needed something from me?” you gestured to the little box & Steve was brought back to reality. Right, there was a reason why he wanted to talk to you in the first place.

“Tony gave it to me right before we left.” he stood up & approached you with long steps. “Said it’d be more believable if you wore one.” Steve stretched out his hand so you could take the black package from him. With curious eyes & delicate fingers, you took it from him. Your eyebrows raised as your eyes met his but he only shrugged at you without giving you an actual explanation. Carefully, you uncapped the box & were shocked when you noticed the small, sparkling ring inside. The colors of the rainbow reflected in the diamond adorning the silver jewelry. It looked way too expensive for it to be a fake one.

“Tony wants me to wear an engagement ring?” you asked even though it was more than obvious. Maybe you just needed reassurance.

“Makes it more believable.” Steve repeated.

“It probably cost more than what I’ll earn in a lifetime.” you chuckled & closed the lid again.

“So you’re not gonna wear it?” he questioned cautiously. For a flicker, he turned insecure because maybe the reason why you refused to wear it was because you did not want people to believe he was your fiancé.

“Of course I’m gonna wear it! It’s stunning. Just…” you paused briefly & bit your bottom lip to contemplate your next words. “It’s expensive. I can’t risk losing it. I’ll put it on whenever we’re outta this room, though. I won’t be the one blowing our cover.” you assured & laughed because you were indirectly blaming Sam or Bucky to mess up. Steve silently agreed with you but did not say anything else as you situated the ring on the nightstand right next to the large bed. It was late, the moon already doing its job with providing a pleasant light that shone through the blinds & illuminated the gloomy suite. For tomorrow’s mission, you needed to be well-rested to fully function.

Steve insisted that you should occupy the bed on your own. He would be perfectly fine on the couch. The cushions of it were incredibly soft, Tony had paid a fortune after all, you still felt poorly for sleeping in the bed alone. Tomorrow would most likely bring him back pain. He was not the youngest soul, after all. Not that you would ever tell him. It was not meant as offending, though. If you were the one on the couch, your back would kill you as well. But you were too much of a coward to suggest that there was enough space for two people. That & you were scared that he did not even want to share in the first place. That could be an intelligible possibility. Your overthinking consumed quite a bit of time because when you heard Steve’s soft & even breaths, you knew that you were too late already. Maybe tomorrow? Maybe you could gain enough courage to ask him tomorrow. Why were you even so eager to have him beside you? What kind of question was that? You were very well aware why. The conversation you held with yourself in your mind came to an abrupt stop as exhaustion overcame & lulled you into a dreamless night.

Constant knocking stirred you awake. You groaned into your pillow because you were still tired but someone decided to shorten your rest. Assuming Steve was already up, you peeked over the blankets covering your body. You were right, he was opening the door. Appearing like he had not just got out of bed. Or off of the couch, in his case. Steve tried to be as quiet as possible, thinking that you were still passed out on the bed.

“G’morning.” you mumbled out & wiped your eyes with the back of your hands. Steve smiled at you. Right now, you looked cute. Pissed off because it was too early but that did not matter when you were all wrapped up in the blankets.

“Coffee?” he suggested & you immediately got into a sitting position at the mention of it. He had his answer then.

“Wait. What is this?” you gestured to the serving trolley Steve was pushing over to the bed. It was obvious what it was but you were bewildered because you did not expect him to order breakfast.

“Tony took our undercover mission very serious.” he shrugged, leaving the food next to you & wanting to grab a few things to eat by the table.

“No.” you shook your head & halted his movements. “I mean, come on. When was the last time you had breakfast in bed?” you patted the spot next to you. Steve paused for a second but after a short while of contemplation, he agreed & got seated on the mattress. Breakfast in bed. That itself would have been amazing but with Steve? It was almost as if a dream of yours got fulfilled. You needed to stop thinking that way. Undercover missions meant faking, pretending. Why were you struggling so much this time?

“I look like a bitch.” you commented once you got into your undercover outfit. Sam & Bucky were already in your suite & they complained about what a poor excuse their room was compared to yours.

“So what’s different?” Sam joked & earned a slap from you.

“First of all, if we don’t wear what Tony prepared for us, people will notice. And (Y/N)? You don’t look like a bitch, you’re good.” Steve commented & even though his words were not necessarily cute, they still did things to you.

“Woah, Steve. Nice ring you picked out there, pal.” Bucky spotted the diamond on your finger & could not help himself but tease you two about it.

“Could we all just focus on the mission?” funny thing that you were the one saying that. Considering that you probably struggled the most out of the four of you.

“Okay, got it. (Y/N) doesn’t look like a bitch but she acts like one.” Sam smirked & started sprinting through the suite when you took off to catch him. Steve & Bucky shook their heads & chuckled at your childish behavior. None of this was new, though. Things usually went that way when you were sent on a mission together.

“The signal comes from the back of this shop.” Steve whispered, all of you trying to stay undetected for the time being so you could discuss the plan further.

“It’s a pastry shop?” you pointed out & suddenly, three men were rolling their eyes at you. “What?”

“You expected something that sold knives?” Sam teased.

“Maybe, I don’t know.” you whisper-yelled.

“Sam, Bucky. You two enter the back while (Y/N) & I distract the guy.” Steve described your plan once more & you all nodded, each understanding their task. While you did not exactly know what you would do to grab the clerk’s attention, you were certain that you could think of something. Improvising was something you were skilled at, you simply hoped that Steve would not stand in the way.

“Welcome! What can I help y’all with?” the almost sweet voice of the man behind the counter was not what you would expect when you looked him up & down. At the same time, he really appeared out of place in a shop like that.

“Yes!” your enthusiasm, well fake-enthusiasm, was more than obvious & you wrapped your arms around Steve’s torso to get into character. “My fiancé & I are looking for some pies for our upcoming wedding.” Steve let you do the talking, his only response being a nod, underlined with a genuine smile.

“Ah, young love.” the guy clicked his tongue & shook his head slightly. “We have a variety of our best wedding cakes right here.” he pointed to a selection behind a class cabinet.

“No, no, no.” you contradicted. “We’d love to have pie at our wedding. I saw you have some delicious looking options over there.” you gestured to the other side of the shop.

“Pie at a wedding? Isn’t that a little unconventional?” the seller raised his eyebrows, seemingly suspicious & it looked like Steve noticed that as well.

“I think we’ll do fine with cak-“ but before he had the chance to finish, you nudged him with your elbow & shot him a look. “I’m sure your cake is great but pie reflects us better.” Steve corrected himself quickly once he realized what you were planning to do.

“Alrighty, then please follow me over there.” the place behind the counter was now free so Sam & Bucky had a clear path to enter. “Any preferences?”

“Anything, really.” you encouraged the man who opened the showcase. He was so busy with his task, Sam & Bucky had it easy to break in. The corners of your eyes spotted their figures. Now they just needed more time to successfully get the information you all needed.

“Can I ask y’all something?” the clerk spoke up after handing you yet another sample of pie. Truthfully, it was a dream come true. Spending time with Steve while eating pie after pie? If only you did not have to pretend. Did you pretend? Or did you fake to pretend? Your brain did not make sense anymore.

“Go for it.” Steve encouraged.

“You’re the first couple to ask for pie samples. What’s up with that?” the man asked curiously, no longer looking at you like you were suspicious but genuinely interested.

“Well.” Steve chuckled & you could not help but let your gaze flicker up to his face. “We are a very unusual couple. Pie at a wedding is unusual. It’s perfect.” while he spoke those last words, his eyes locked with yours & you could have sworn that time halted right then & there. But you had to snap out of it. For the sake of this mission. A look over the shop owner’s shoulder confirmed that you did not have to pretend too much longer. Sam & Bucky were already on their way out again, turning their heads in your direction to silently confirm that they were done. Successful? That you could not tell just yet.

A few minutes & another pie later, you looked at your watch on your wrist & gasped exaggeratingly.

“What is it, sweetheart?” Steve asked & you almost gasped again, though this time, it would have been for an entirely different reason.

“Um, it’s late, we need to head to the thing.” you were doing so well & now, at the end, you managed to slip.

“The thing?” Steve inquired & by the look on your face he could tell that you were overwhelmed & could not think of a proper excuse. “Oh, the fitting.” he quickly added, hoping nobody would ask which kind of fitting. Seemed like you two were lucky today.

“In that case…I’ll let y’all go. Do you want me to put the rest of the samples in a box for you to take home? That way you have more time to figure out which one to choose.” he reasoned & Steve & you nodded gratefully. Behind the counter, he worked quickly & handed you a paper bag in no time.

“Thanks, man. We’ll get back to you.” Steve waved, putting an arm over your shoulder as you exited the shop. The moment you were out, you could finally breathe again. Missions made you extremely nervous. Undercover missions such as this one, actually. During the others you were perfectly fine.

“Thanks for helping me out back in there.” you chuckled once you were out of sight.

“Pie? Really? Wouldn’t have surprised me if he just saw through us right away.” Steve said with a smile on his face. Good, so he was not mad at you.

“In my defense…The pies were at the other end of the shop so I helped Sam & Bucky.” you finished your sentence but it sounded as if you wanted to add something.

“And you love pie?” Steve did not even have to ask, he knew you well enough.

“And I love pie.” you repeated & laughed. Steve still had not let go of you, hugging you to the side of his body. You did not seem to mind so he kept continuing to hold you close.

Steve placed the paper bag on the small table right in the entrance area. Immediately, you went to the bathroom to rid yourself of that stupid outfit you had to wear & threw on something more comfortable. Once you exited, Sam was already in your suite. The four of you decided to have the meeting in your room because it was bigger & the others kind of wanted to move in with you.

“What’s in there?” Sam asked, pointing to the brown paper bag.

“Pie.” you simply answered without much thought. Sam hummed but did not say anything else. Steve & you were in the living room area, waiting for Bucky to show up so you could start discussing more about this mission. Specifically what they found out during their inspection. The creak of the door gained your attention & you looked up only to find Bucky entering. Your gaze then flickered to Sam who was hiding behind the door, pie in one hand, his free hand came to his mouth, telling you to be quiet. It all happened too fast, Bucky was in Sam’s sight & in an instant, there was a pie right in the super soldier’s face. Steve came right in time to watch the scene, his previous intention to greet his best friend completely forgotten now.

“Sam.” Bucky growled, way too quiet for your liking. But you could not focus on his warning right now. You glanced over your shoulder & noticed Steve’s almost sad expression. The only one who could not control his laughter was Sam. He was practically on the floor because he was laughing so hard. The only emotion running through you was anger.

“I. WANTED. TO. EAT. THAT.” you were seething & all three men turned their heads at your tone.

“Sorry?” Sam tried but you were having none of it.

“NO YOU’RE NOT!” you pretty much yelled.

“I’m gonna kill you.” Bucky whispered & Sam took that as his cue to run away, through that labyrinth of your suite. Bucky sprinted after him, leaving Steve to shake his head at their childish behavior.

“(Y/N)?” Steve’s voice was soft & yet it did nothing to calm you down. You really did love pie & you had been excited to eat the rest of it in bed tonight ever since you left that shop.

“WHAT?” you snapped back, only now realizing that it was not Steve’s fault. “I’m sorry.” you added almost inaudible.

“It’s fine.” he raised his eyebrows & opened his arms. You were not sure why but Steve wanted to hug you & you never declined one of his hugs. So you fell into his embrace, both of you silently knowing that this action was not because of a stupid pie. Though you had to admit that you were mad at Sam that you could not eat the rest anymore. This hug held a deeper meaning & for a few seconds, you let yourself enjoy it. Until a loud screech from the other room snapped you back into the present. Steve & you parted unwillingly. You had to, before Sam & Bucky ended up killing each other.

The four of you sat around the coffee table, you occupying the floor while the others each took a seat on the oversized couch. A pout was still very much present on your face. Yes, you were mad at Sam but you had other things, more important things, to deal with right now. Revenge could come later.

“So?” Steve was the one to speak up after nobody else made a move to do so.

“Sam & I managed to break in.” Bucky casually said as if you did not see that to begin with. That was the plan after all.

“But?” your tone was still harsh but you tried your hardest to push that aside.

“We couldn’t hack the system.” Sam finished. “That’s your specialty.”

“Okay, wait.” you closed your eyes briefly. “You wanna tell me that it took you what felt like an eternity to check out the back room only to sit here now & tell us that you couldn’t get the information?” you concluded with a loud sigh.

“In our defense…We know that we’re definitely looking at the right place.” Bucky commented, careful to not anger you any further.

“So what do you suggest?” Steve asked the two men.

“We’ll go there again tonight. All of us. (Y/N) here hacks the system & we’ll see what we can do after that.” Sam established the new plan & you nodded in understanding.

“I still hate you for wasting the pie on Bucky.” you crossed your arms over your chest.

“I promise I’ll make it up to you.” Sam chuckled though you knew he was not planning on keeping his promise.

“Alright, please go back to your room before I do something I might regret later.” you motioned for Sam & Bucky to leave & they did after arranging a time to meet again.

Since you had the brains in this group, it was an easy one for you to deactivate the security cameras without being seen. After that, you went on to the alarm system & turned it off as well. Which meant that you were free to go. It was the dead of the night, nobody was around. You could enter without a single soul watching you. Steve pushed his body weight against the back door. Once, twice. Until it opened.

“You do know that I could’ve picked the lock, right?” your voice made him spin around. It looked like he only now thought of that but he brushed it off, pretending that this was his plan & it worked out the way he wanted to. The room appeared rather normal. Nothing that caught your eye, nothing that was out of place. An office like you had seen multiple times. The computer was turned off so you changed that real quick, waiting for the screens to light up.

“Earlier today, it wasn’t protected by a password.” Sam furrowed his eyebrows.

“Yeah, dumbass. Because the computer was on already. Give me a second.” you opened various drawers to look for a sign as to what the password could possibly be. The others let you do your work, not daring to speak up to interrupt you. “There we go.” you found a small paper in between some notebooks. Not necessarily the safest place to keep secret things but you would not judge. The home screen showed up. Again, nothing special. Simply a picture of flowers. Weird for the guy who worked here but that was none of your concerns.

“And?” Steve broke the silence.

“There are some decrypted files…” you mumbled, sitting down on the office chair. This would take a bit longer, you assumed.

“Can you get access?” another question from Steve. At least the children were quiet for now.

“Of course I can.” you smiled triumphantly. “Give me a few minutes, though.” you were so focused on the screen, you did not see the others nodding. It was tough, you were not going to lie, but it was you who hacked into the system. You never failed with that.

“Huh.” you breathed out. Truthfully, you were overwhelmed with all the information you were receiving with one look only. Steve, Sam & Bucky each took a place behind you, staring at the screen curiously. “Guys? That’s…scary.” you chuckled uncomfortably.

“What is this?” Bucky mumbled quietly but since it was so silent in this room, everyone heard. This was way bigger than you initially thought. Once you made it back to your hotel, you needed to call Tony.

“(Y/N).” Steve shoved you away gently, taking the mouse in his hand to enlarge what caught his attention. You had to gulp at what you saw. What the hell were you doing on there? Steve’s muscles tensed, you could tell by one single look at him. It took a few deep breaths from your side until you started the process of transferring the information on your little flash drive. ”(Y/N).” Steve tried again, this time a bit louder.

“Yeah, I know.” you answered, ignoring your fast beating heart as much as it was possible. “I got everything, let’s head back.” it was clear that you wanted to leave this place behind & you were the first who made it out into the cool night air. Breathing worked easier out here.

“Hey, Tony.” by now, you were back in your hotel room, picking up your phone to call Tony once Steve went into the bathroom.

“(Y/N)! Successful?” he asked, already thinking that you finished this mission & started heading home.

“Not yet. Seems like this is bigger than we thought…” you trailed off at the end, not really wanting to explain what you found out.

“Bigger how? (Y/L/N), come on.” Tony urged & heard you sigh over the phone.

“It was at the back of the shop, that was correct. I hacked into the system & …it looks like it’s some sort of website where people can pay beforehand, assigning criminals for certain acts. It’s huge, Tony. Tons of people have an account & there are so many new assignments every minute…I’ll send you the data in a second, okay? We’ll check out the coordinates we found tomorrow. We think it could lead us to a very important member of this website. And maybe the guy from the shop has something to do with it, though I’m not sure which part he plays in all of that.” you left out a very significant detail & hoped he would not ask more questions.

“There’s something else.” he stated, knowing you better even though he could not read your body language like he usually did.

“That’s all. I promise we’ll finish this missi-“ your phone was taken from you but before you could complain about it, Steve continued the call with Tony.

“Someone instructed to eliminate (Y/N) because, & I quote, “She’s too pretty to be part of the Avengers”. That assignment was where we got the coordinates from. Means the guy from the shop probably manages all of that but he isn’t the one we’re looking for.” silence enveloped you two & you figured that Tony was talking on the other end. “Yeah, sure. That’s the top priority. We’ll work on that & you start looking into the website.” Steve ended the call & threw your phone on the mattress next to where you were sitting.

“What the hell, Steve?” you were furious because he acted differently. And not in a good way. The only response from him was a cold look. He then moved out to the balcony that was attached to your suite. It was unusual for him to be so distanced, especially when it came to you. And you were hesitant to follow him. Considering his body language, he was mad at you. Why? You had no idea. Did you do anything to piss him off? Your gaze fell to your hands in your lap. The diamond on your ring finger sparkled beautifully. You recalled how it felt to be next to Steve, in that small pastry shop where you ate pie after pie to pick the perfect one for your wedding. This was something that could never be. It was all pretending but why did it feel so real to you? Steve probably was not struggling as much as you were & you hated yourself for it.

A hand on his shoulder startled him. Steve eased when he found you standing next to him. The sun would begin rising soon but the both of you were not tired at all. Though the reasons were different. Steve’s mind was still occupied with the information that there was someone out there who paid an awful lot of money to have you eliminated. You, on the other hand, struggled with keeping your feelings buried. Your hands held onto the railing. The movement made Steve look down where the engagement ring was still adorning your hand. You had not taken it off yet. In fact, he only realized that now, you even wore it during your mission of breaking into the shop. Sam & Bucky did not comment on it & to Steve, it was almost…normal. But you did say you would not keep it on you unless you were outside, pretending to be engaged to him.

“What did I do?” your voice interrupted his racing thoughts.

“What?” Steve was confused that you believed you did something wrong.

“Ever since we got outta that shop, you’ve been distant & cold. Was it something I did?” you kept looking straight forward, not wanting to hold eye contact because you feared the worst. That you managed to mess up somehow & Steve was angry at you.

“You didn’t do anything.” his body faced yours & you could practically feel his eyes on you. His intense stare made your breath hitch up.

“You sure about that?” finally, you turned around. Your bodies were almost touching, you underestimated the distance between you two.

“You act as if you don’t care.” his statement had you furrow your eyebrows. He rolled his eyes but continued anyway. “Someone paid a huge amount of money. To have you killed. And here you are, pretending that it doesn’t matter. It’s something you’re really good at, huh? Pretending.”

“The hell is that supposed to mean?” your voice raised slightly but you still wanted to keep it down, you were outside, everyone could hear your conversation.

“See? You’re doing it again.” Steve called you out. “We found that piece of information by accident.”

“I’m aware.” you arms went to hug yourself. A distraction that barely did its job.

“So your life means nothing to you.” his words were harsh. And if you were honest, they hurt. A lot.

“I never said that.” you hated how your voice wavered. How you could not appear to be the strong woman right now.

“You act like it, though.” with each word he said, your heart broke a little more. If only he knew. “I understand. This whole pretending thing is something you’re good at. This mission showed that much. But this is real, (Y/N). So, for a second, stop pretending & act like you care!”

“STOP!” you yelled out of breath. Instinctively, Steve took a step back, eyes wide by your sudden outburst. “Just stop.” this time, you spoke it much softer. Your gaze flickered to the ground, head hanging low.

“I’m sorr-“ Steve was interrupted.

“I said stop.” you repeated. “Steve, we’re on a mission. We’re supposed to put a stop to this shit. None of this has anything to do with me pretending to be your fiancée or me pretending that I don’t give a damn about my life.”

“Are you sure about that?” he emphasized. One hand went to the diamond on your finger & slipped it off. You made a fist around it, though it was not with a lot of pressure. You did not intend to damage the ring.

“I might be good at pretending but I’m no professional.” you admitted. Steve grew more & more confused. He did not know you were talking about the fact that you were not pretending to be engaged to him. To you, it felt natural, it felt good. Right now, though, you did pretend that none of this faced you. But Steve could not tell the difference.

“Can I be honest with you?” he waited until your eyes met his.

“Go ahead.” you waved your hand for him to continue.

“I was cold towards you because once we found out about that, you didn’t say anything about it. And I can’t believe that you just don’t care about it. About your life. I can’t. You don’t have to pretend when you’re with me, you know that. We’re not engaged right now. No undercover mission. You & me. So please be honest with me.” he took your hands into his & you did not flinch back. The touch grounded you but it was no lie that you were having a hard time to be completely honest with him.

“Why do you care so much?” maybe not the smartest thing to ask. Steve’s reaction was proof enough. He let go of your hands, turned his back towards you & let out a breathless laugh. His hands raised to his hair, messing it up in the slightest. Seconds ticked by but it felt like hours until he spun around once more.

“BECAUSE I LOVE YOU!” it seemed like that confession made the both of you stop dead in your tracks. It was not the first time Steve said those words but his tone differed from the previous ones. Still, chances were high he addressed your friendship with that. Because you were friends. Simple friends. “Say something.” he grew desperate when you did not reply.

“I-I don’t know what you want me to say. That I love you, too? You know that, Steve.” your words were steady, calculated. It was too soon to get your hopes up.

“How far do I have to go for you to realize that I want you?” he approached you, hesitancy in his steps. “Didn’t it feel natural to you when we acted like a couple? Because, I can’t keep that up anymore, I can’t. Tell me you don’t feel the same & I’ll back off. We can forget this right now, we don’t have to talk about it anymore. But if you-“ his speech was cute but you had to be close to him now that he finally confessed that there was more between you two. You cupped his cheeks & pulled him in to kiss him. Steve was shocked at first but it did not take him too long until his hands rested on your waist, tightening his grip on you. After parting, Steve kept his forehead against yours. Both of you had your eyes closed, breathing the same air. You imagined this exact moment more than once. But never before had it played out like that. Not that you were complaining, your feelings were finally out there.

“You were wrong, you know?” as much as you enjoyed the silence, there was still something you wanted him to know.

“Wrong about what?” he opened his eyes to look at every feature of you. Because it was no longer forbidden, he was allowed to do that now.

“I didn’t pretend while we were in the shop pie tasting.” you admitted, a small smile playing at the corner of your lips. “I faked pretending, if that makes sense…But, after I saw the bounty on my head, I started pretending.” he nodded at you, squeezing your waist once to encourage you to keep talking. “Steve? I’m scared.”

“It’s okay.” Steve’s arms went around your shoulders, pulling you close once again. His chin on your head. If only that could dispose of all of your worries. The only thing he could do was letting you hold onto him.

Steve did not sleep on the couch that night. Not because he did not want to but because you insisted to have him close. It was not the first time you two shared a bed. Sometimes, when missions did not allow you anything else, you ended up next to each other. Tonight felt different, better. Because there was no longer a weight on your heart. Were you two in a relationship already? Maybe you had been for some time but the two of you were too oblivious to notice. There was enough time to label whatever this was as soon as this mission was over. Your focus should solely be on this mission. Tons of lives depended on it. Yours included.

“You’re stubborn. Do you know that?” the next morning came sooner than you would have liked. No time for cuddling in bed, no time for breakfast. Two hours of sleep was all you got. But you had never felt this rested in your entire life. The reason was a certain super soldier. Not that you would ever admit that.

“Would I have chickened out if I didn’t know they were after me? No. I can handle myself.” Steve suggested for you to stay behind because they were looking for you. It could bring on unnecessary danger & he obviously needed you to be safe.

“But we know now.” Steve tried reasoning but it was useless, you already made your decision.

“Right. So it’s time to put a stop to it. Come on, Sam & Bucky are waiting for us.” you were out of the door before Steve found enough time to argue with you.

The drive to the coordinates was tense. Not even the kids in the back were joking around. Possibly because this mission turned into something way more hazardous. The situation between Steve & you was the same. Hence why nobody commented on it. After all, you pretty much confessed before there was an actual confession. Therefore, it was the same old. The only difference was your gut feeling that did not give you a hard time anymore. That was not entirely true. You had a bad gut feeling but for another reason.

“That’s the house?” you gestured to the building after the car came to a stop.

“This is it.” Steve confirmed.

“I don’t know why I expected some sort of villa.” Bucky commented while glancing out of the window.

“Maybe that would be too obvious. I mean, we do know that they receive the money beforehand, right? And I’m sure that the order to eliminate me wasn’t his first one.” you spotted Steve tensing up when you talked about that assignment. Your hand squeezed his shoulder & you hoped that your smile was convincing enough. You were alright & you would be after this mission. With Steve, Sam & Bucky on your side, you had nothing to fear. If push came to shove, they would go out of their ways to keep you safe.

“Steve?” Sam spoke up. “You know we need him alive, right?”

“Of course.” Steve nodded though his mind was contemplating going further than that. Unfortunately, you still had to figure out who was the one to assign this to the criminal. Tony was onto that, checking if there was more to find out about that anonymous account who paid the money. “A few punches won’t kill him.”

It was the break of dawn & the neighborhood was completely empty. The silence inside the car was interrupted by Steve’s sign to make a move. All of you stayed close together, you were not about to make the same mistake people did in horror movies. Besides, you felt safer with them around. A noise made you spin around. It was coming from down the hallway. Steve took the lead, you right behind him. Sam & Bucky trailing behind after you. A gun was clutched in your hand but you were not intending to use it today. Hopefully there was no need to. Steve shot you a look over his shoulder, silently telling you to be prepared. When he pushed the door open with his body weight this time, you did not tease him about it like you did when you broke into the back of the pastry shop the other night. The sight you were met with was…unexpected. There was a man sitting behind his computer. The room smelled like drugs. A mixture of multiple things you could not identify & did not even want to.

“Woah, you’re the Avengers.” he slurred his words. So he was drunk as well. “Hey, I’m supposed to kill you.” he pointed at your figure & instinctively, Steve stepped in front of you. Shielding your body with his.

“You sure that’s our guy?” Sam leaned closer to you & whispered. Your shoulders shrugged & you pointed over to the desk where a name tag was proudly displayed. Seemed like he was not the smartest guy if he used the same name for his account on that website. Your heartrate slowed down because you knew you were not in danger. Not right now. Steve approached the man, coming to a halt mere inches away from him. His hand balled into a fist & after one punch in the guy’s face, he was on the floor, unconscious.

“Huh.” you breathed out. “That was almost too easy.”

“Yeah, if we forget about the website where thousands of people assign offenders every single day.” Bucky was right, of course. You stumbled across something way bigger. Hopefully Tony had good news once you returned.

The police was called. They inspected the room & that guy really was everything but intelligent. He horded a file full of his assignments. He would not see the sunlight again, that much was sure. Steve & you waited outside, leaning on the hood of the car. Sam & Bucky were busy talking to the officers.

“Hey.” you started & nudged Steve with your elbow. “Is it appropriate to thank that asshole?”

“What for? For wanting to kill you?” he answered with furrowed eyebrows.

“No.” you chuckled. “But…if it were not for him, we wouldn’t have confessed.”

“There was a possibility that he was dangerous. Maybe we just caught him at a bad time.” Steve mumbled the last part.

“Let’s not worry about that, alright? I’m fine. See?” you gestured to your body, a big smile adorning your features.

“I know.” he nodded but it was obvious that he was still careful about this entire situation.

“I love you.” that seemed to do the job. His eyes met yours, his expression less tense & softer.

“I know that, too.” he smirked when you playfully slapped his chest.

“Steve, you ruined a very roman-“ his lips were on yours before you could finish your complaint. Steve was aware what he was doing, because he smiled into the kiss which caused you to giggle.

“I love you, too.” his lips still ghosted over yours. You could feel as his words left them. “Romantic enough?”

“I’m sure you can do better.” you pulled away & winked at him, moving away to join Sam & Bucky. Steve’s eyes followed your body & he shook his head at you. Yes, he did love you. A lot. And he was already planning how to make his next move even more romantic.

Published (05/18/2021) by Cathy

✨MY Ko-fi PAGE✨

Tags: @zestyemby, @captainxholmes, @met4no1a, @bibliophilewednesday, @weareironmanbitches, @n3ssm0nique, @2bornot2b, @iaalien, @bibliophilewednesday (thanks for your support <3)