#I honestly need to live near a community college and take more philosophy classes

[neverendingford]

.

[astralaffairs]

voltaire to versace 02 | thomas jefferson

title: voltaire to versace 02

pairing: professor!thomas jefferson x reader

words: 8.7k

warnings: honestly not much. sex jokes n references, dolley simping for james, broke college student meals

desc: from francis bacon to foucault, descartes to dante, your political philosophy seminar doesn’t promise to be a blowout — and yet, one mysterious stranger and a risqué evening later, your burberry-clad professor gives you the feeling it won’t be quite the snoozefest you’d expected.

tags: @lunariasilver @tinywhim @nyxie75 @wreakhavoconmacroissantdiggs @checkurwindow @katierpblogg — let me know if you’d like to be tagged in future parts!

"Dolley, holy shit; please tell me you're already home." Y/N's words were breathless as she hurried across the quad, muttering under her breath into her phone. She'd darted out of her lecture hall the moment they'd been dismissed, having no desire to stick around for the confrontation she knew was inevitable.

"I'm just getting out of class, dear," Dolley responded, but when she continued, her words were teasing. "What sort of trouble did you manage to get yourself into while I was gone?"

"I cannot begin to explain." Y/N let out a huff, glancing over her shoulder and ducking her head as she whispered, "but it's not good."

"Oh, good lord, Y/N; I was joking." She could hear the genuine worry begin to creep into Dolley's voice and couldn't help but wince.

"Yeah, I wish I was, too." She chalked the subsequent rush of static through the line up to Dolley's sigh. "Where are you right now? Can I meet you somewhere?"

"Want to go to dinner?"

"Too broke for that."

"Packaged ramen from the drugstore on the east side of campus?"

"Now you're speaking my language." Y/N grinned, and she could only picture Dolley rolling her eyes from wherever she was. "I'll be there in a few."

"You'd better. I can't wait much longer to hear what sort of nonsense you've been up to."

-                              

"You slept with a professor?!"

"Shh, Doll; not so loud," Y/N hissed, pulling her back into the soda aisle and frantically checking for any prurient eavesdroppers. Her voice was low when she added, "It was the guy at the bar last night. I had no idea he was a professor here."

Dolley let out a dry, disbelieving laugh, pinching the bridge of her nose. "This is... a mess."

"You're telling me."

"So, what's the plan going to be?"

When Dolley folded her arms, raising an amused eyebrow (a little too amused, in Y/N's humble opinion), but Y/N furrowed her brow. "What d'you mean, 'what's the plan?'"

"What are you going to do the next time you run into him?" Dolley asked. There was a pause; Y/N hadn't thought that far. "You don't really think you can make it through the semester ignoring this, do you?"

"I... Maybe? I don't know!" Y/N let out a frustrated huff. "That's what I need you to help me figure out. What else are you here for?"

"Oh, you make an excellent point," Dolley sighed. "All I do is pay half the rent and help you get laid at bars downtown."

Y/N scowled. "You helped me get laid by a professor. Just help me."

"Mmh, I don't think I heard a 'please' in there."

"Please, Dolley, my white knight to whom I owe my life," she pleaded, clutching her roommates arm and sighing wistfully. Dolley's lips were pressed into a line, but that didn't stop her smile from showing through. "I would be nothing without you; just please, do me this one final favor."

"Alright, alright," she conceded with a huff, shaking free from Y/N's grip. "Drama queen."

Y/N shrugged shamelessly. "I bring excitement into your life. Don't be ungrateful."

"Whatever you say, dear." The defeat in her words made Y/N grin. "So back to your excitement, then."

"I'm so lost," Y/N groaned, finally emerging from the soda aisle with shoulders slumped in defeat. "If the sex hadn't been so good, I'd probably just pretend it never happened."

Dolley creased her brow. "Was it really that good?"

Y/N turned to her with a serious demeanor, a hand on her shoulder as she looked her in the eye. "Dolley. I am covered in hickeys from my neck to my hips. That man damn near threw my back out. I won't bullshit you; there's no way I'm gonna be able to sit comfortably for—"

"Okay, alright! A 'yes' would've sufficed," Dolley cut her off, pushing past her to the shelf of instant noodles. Y/N looked disproportionately self-satisfied when she followed. "That's about enough details for one evening."

"You asked!"

"But you can't spend the entire semester ignoring him, Y/N," Dolley continued, ignoring her words. "That class is notoriously difficult — the only people I know who didn't frequent his office hours were the ones who got 'C's."

Y/N sighed, rubbing her temples as her roommate pushed cup after cup of beef ramen into her basket. "So then shouldn't I just put this whole thing behind me? I can't really start asking him to help me analyze Kant if I open the conversation with, 'hey, good to see you again, you're almost as good at teaching as you are in bed.'"

Dolley laughed at her dry tone. "I don't mean that, of course."

"Then what do you mean?"

"If you never agree to put this all behind you, I think it's going to be on both of your minds for the rest of the semester," she said matter-of-factly, hesitating when the freezer at the side of the room caught her gaze. "Should we pick up pizza rolls, too?"

"What kind of question is that? Of course we should," Y/N scoffed, brushing past her toward the Totino's section. "But if he and I both just ignore it, wouldn't that be an easier way to put it behind us?"

"Oh, grab a bag of the cheeseburger flavor, would you?" Dolley leaned in to look over Y/N's shoulder, ignoring her words altogether, and she glanced back with a raised eyebrow.

"Can you focus for five seconds?" She dropped three bags of pizza rolls — pepperoni flavor — into her basket with a huff. "Anyway, the cheeseburger flavor is disgusting. Get some taste."

"Don't discount the nostalgia of it!"

"Dolley." Y/N fixed her with a pointed look, and she sighed.

"We both know ignoring it is a poor idea, even if it is the easier option." Dolley didn't waste a second in pushing right past Y/N when she stood, grabbing a bag of the cheeseburger pizza rolls (an oxymoron in itself, as Y/N would've told her) before the freezer door could fall shut. "Just talk to him after class one day. Don't make it take more than five minutes."

"I don't even know where I'd start with that. I've dealt with awkward fallout from one-night stands before, but never with a professor." Her footsteps stalled within the last yard of the frozen section. "I've just gotta ignore it and focus on the coursework, Dolley. Wanna get some Ben and Jerry's?"

"Are you trying to distract me with a pint of chocolate fudge brownie?" Dolley asked incredulously, before adding, "Because it's working. Let's get two."

She grinned. "Excellent."

Y/N figured that was the end of it, that two pints of ice cream and an incredibly vague game plan would be enough to satiate her friend for the time being, but after they checked out, trying to figure out how many meals they could extend one pack of ramen to (because, really, if you just add more water, doesn't it make the servings bigger?), Dolley felt the need to return to it as they walked through the sliding glass exit doors, her words holding an air of finality.

"If you really want to insist on not just communicating with the poor man, Y/N, then fine." Y/N raised a quizzical eyebrow, not yet following where Dolley had abruptly turned the trajectory of their conversation. "But after his lecture on Wednesday, when you realize that leaving the subject untouched just makes it more unbearable—" ("'When'?" Y/N muttered dubiously.) "—then I need you to agree to go talk to your professor."

Dolley didn't wait for her response, squinting at the nutrition facts on the ramen labels as her focus drifted elsewhere (sure, it said two servings, but she was fairly sure that only the bourgeoise couldn't have stretched it to three), but Y/N let out a surrendering sigh.

"Wednesday's going to be just fine," she said, realizing but not caring that Dolley was no longer listening. "But if it isn't, I'll talk to him."

-                        -         

Wednesday was not 'just fine.'

Y/N spent the entire class on edge, trying futilely not to let her thoughts drift back to the other night in the bar, then on the street in front of her building, then in the elevator, in her living room, even in the kitchen— but no, she was getting off track. Little did she know, Thomas was having precisely the same issue.

She jotted down his words almost robotically, the meaning of them going into one ear and out the other, more focused on the sound of his voice than on what he was actually saying.

Only once did she manage to focus for long enough to actually process a thought, but when he was fielding questions about the material, Thomas conveniently managed to miss her having raised her hand from where she was seated. She supposed she'd just positioned herself too far back and thought no more of it.

Despite how 'not fine' that day had been, she dismissed it as a fluke, showing up the next Monday with her head on straight, her readings prepared and annotated, and took a seat several rows further forward. Her motivation may have been misplaced, leaning a bit too far toward wanting to impress her professor and not far enough toward a desire to understand the material, but she was familiar enough with the content to feel comfortable giving her input on the questions he posed to the class throughout the lecture.

Again, her efforts bore no fruit. Her notes were better that day, so that was certainly something to count as a plus, but she left feeling put-out by the fact that she hadn't even had a chance to participate. Usually, she wouldn't have been so perturbed by this — sitting through a Socratic seminar playing tetris on her laptop was no unfamiliar experience — but this class accounted for six of the twelve credit hours she still needed for her chosen major. She didn't suppose that it'd be a good look to have the class dragging down her GPA to be the same one she was supposedly most passionate about; generally speaking, that wasn't what graduate schools were looking for.

Besides, she liked the subject, too. Surely that had to count for something?

And that was how she kept pushing off the inevitable conversation with Thomas — sorry, Professor Jefferson — and coming up with increasingly creative excuses as to why her efforts were being so plainly ignored, not only that following Wednesday, too, but also the Monday and Wednesday after. She'd made it through three weeks of classes before she could finally work up the nerve to confront him.

Unfortunately, that task proved to be no easier than her previous one.

Thom— her professor was always the last one into the lecture hall and the first one out, leaving no opportunities for chatter, or in her case, a supposedly inevitable clash she'd already begun arming herself for. She'd nearly caught him in the halls at various times, but he always seemed to have somewhere he urgently needed to be. The same doctrine followed in his office hours; apparently, another student had scheduled a meeting with him three minutes after every single time she arrived, without fail, so could she please just come back another time? Surely, another time would be better for both of them.

That time never came.

It was near the end of the fourth week that she was entirely fed up. They'd moved from Kant to Machiavelli, and so far, The Prince had her ready to tear her hair out. It didn't help that they'd all just finished the book, their first paper of the year on it due the next Monday.

She was far past lying to herself about her motives being purely academic while she continued to privately just want his attention — no, by then, she was hopped up on forty ounces of sugary coffee and just a touch of RedBull, and she hardly had a thesis for her paper. She'd read the same passages time and time again — she likely could've recited them word-for-word by the time she demanded feedback — and any shallow, vain desires for recognition were the furthest thing from her mind. She needed a professor, and she was pissed that Thomas didn't seem to have any interest in acting like one.

It was late Thursday evening when she marched across the green from the library to the building that housed his office in a fury. Yes, it was the last week of January; yes, the entire city was still coated in snow, but no, she could not bring herself to care about the very real possibility of frostbite as she trudged through the snow in sweatpants, slippers, and a tank top. Practicality wasn't her priority. Finishing her paper was.

Thomas's office hours were from 7 to 10 PM every evening, a schedule he stuck to religiously. It was 9:24 when Y/N began tracking snow through the bottom floor of his building, and 9:31 when she finally managed to locate and reach his actual office.

It was reluctant when she finally knocked, struggling to resist the urge to simply bust in and rip him a new one, but to her relief, it was simply met with a 'come in.' That was when she threw the door open in a fit of annoyance.

"You've been avoiding me," she said, eyes narrowed and tone accusatory before he could so much as react to her presence.

"Y/N, I—" His eyes were wide; he seemed to be at a loss for words as his eyes drifted down to her sweatpants and Hello Kitty slippers. He couldn't have convinced her it wasn't a dignified look even if he'd tried. "What are you doin' here?"

"We need to talk." She dropped her bag into one of the chairs in front of his desk, though she chose not to take a seat, instead glaring down at him, arms folded.

He sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose, and though his head was down, his shadow of a grimace told her everything she needed to know: he'd been dreading this conversation far more than she had. "Look, right now really isn't a great time. I've got—"

"Don't bullshit me, Thomas."

"Professor Jefferson," he corrected her, the words hissed through gritted teeth, and she huffed, rolling her eyes.

"My bad. Don't bullshit me, Professor Jefferson." Y/N scowled as she took another step towards him. "Your office hours don't end until ten. There's no way you have time for a meeting between now and then if you haven't already started one."

He let out a heavy sigh. "Alright. Alright, fine. And I know what you're gonna say, but—"

"Do you really?" she challenged him, head cocked to one side. "Because the fact that you haven't given me one chance to speak to you in almost a month tells me pretty clearly that you don't. Generally, you find out what people have to say by listening to them."

"We can't have this conversation here. You've gotta come find me some other time." The urgency in his voice only served to infuriate her further. What right did he have to be dictating this when he'd tried to stop the conversation altogether?

"Oh, believe me, I've tried," Y/N huffed. "I'm done accommodating. If you wanted to talk about this some other time, I would've been happy to, but we're well past that."

He held her burning gaze warily for another moment, but she didn't let up. Finally, he sighed. "Fine. Say your part. I'm listenin'."

"You've been completely freezing me out. You haven't been answering my questions in classes; you haven't been letting me contribute to discussions; you, most recently, haven't let me talk to you for more than five seconds, hence why I'm here." She launched into an irate monologue without any further encouragement, and to his credit, Thomas at least had the decency to look guilty. "You've been turning me away at your office hours; for fuck's sake, Thomas, you haven't even answered any of my emails!"

"I know, I know," he said, and though she could see the exhaustion written across his face, she didn't let him continue. "But you've gotta understand—"

"I'm not done," she cut him off, and it was then that he raised an affronted brow. "Anyway, I get why you're keeping your distance. Really, I do. And honestly? I can't really blame you for it."

"Well, great, so—"

"But with that said," —she gave Thomas an expectant look as she continued to speak over him, challenging him to try and interrupt— "You've been doing more than keeping your distance. You've been outright ignoring me, and that's where I'm drawing a line in the sand. Refusing to engage with me doesn't help either of us."

She let out a heavy breath when she finally reached the end of her rant, and though he was certainly taken aback, Thomas looked unimpressed.

"May I speak now?" he asked mockingly, and she scowled. "Or are you just gonna keep cuttin' me off?"

"Depends how much bullshit comes out of your mouth."

He rolled his eyes. "Sure." He put his pen back into the cup on the edge of the desk before drawing himself up to the fullest height he could reach in a rolling chair. With how he was looking at her, with how cross his tone was, Y/N may have backed down in another context, but quite frankly, she was beyond having anything to lose. "I understand that you're hurt, Y/N, and for that, 'm honestly sorry, but—"

"I'm not hurt, I'm ticked!"

"Y/N." That time, his hard voice, his barely-contained anger, did make her shrink away, just a bit. "You've gotta realize that what happened is in the past. It was a mistake. I didn't know you were a student here — you even told me you went to school in Chicago."

"I did, for two years."

"Doesn't matter. Moral of the story is that you've gotta leave that in the past. I'm your professor now, and that's a boundary that can't be crossed. We both need to stop dwellin' on it." His saying 'we' rather than 'you' certainly didn't go unnoticed, but Y/N deemed it not worth addressing.

"Great. It's behind us. Can you stop ignoring me now?"

"Come on, Y/N—"

"Seriously? You're gonna argue with that?" She threw her hands up in a huff, beyond exasperated and crossing the line to indignance. "You wanna remind me that you're my professor? Then stop acting like I don't exist. It's that simple, Thomas."

"It's Professor Jefferson. And I'm not tryin' to ignore you," he defended. "But don't you see the position this puts me in? My job's at stake here. This can never happen again!"

"And who said I wanted it to?" she bit back immediately, and for just a moment, Thomas was rendered silent.

"If that's not what you're lookin' for, then what are you here for?" His voice was quiet, his gaze searching, and Y/N sighed.

"Seriously? I haven't made myself clear enough?" She raised an eyebrow, but his blank look told her all she needed to know. The tension in her shoulders dropped; her combative stance went neutral when she reached into her bag, pulling it from the chair in front of his desk. "You're the one who keeps emphasizing that you're my professor — and that's what I need you to be right now."

He raised an eyebrow, clearly lost as she withdrew Machiavelli's The Prince from her bag, beaten up and slathered in colored tabs around the edges. She added in a small voice, "I've been struggling with the reading. I did it all, but there are just a couple passages that... I need help with."

Thomas — no, Professor Jefferson (god, was she ever going to struggle with getting that down) — looked stunned, plain and simple. Y/N had expected all of his assumptions for why she'd shown up there. Two weeks earlier, they may have also been accurate ones, but ultimately, she was still just a student. He'd really had to have had a big head to think he'd take priority over that for any extended period of time.

His eyes were wide. He continued to look toward her, but his gaze was blank, slowly drifting to his desk, until finally, he sighed. "Well, shit. I, uh... I'm really sorry, Y/N. Really." If the growing guilt behind his shock hadn't been clear enough in his demeanor, it was woven tightly into his voice. His stare flickered back up to her, and despite her lingering irritation, the apology in it softened her. "I got so caught up in my own problems that I didn't even consider. I didn't mean to assume that you... y'know."

"Came here to try and get dicked down?" Y/N supplied, voice dry as she watched him expectantly. He cracked a sheepish smile.

"Somethin' like that."

"As though it'd be worth the effort," she snorted. "There are, like, thirty frats on campus, and I have a paper due Monday — in case you'd forgotten. If I wanted to get laid, I'd do it much more efficiently."

"Mm, but would it be as good?" At the clear ego in Thomas's playful stare, Y/N's eyebrows shot toward her hairline.

"Now who's crossing boundaries?"

Despite the skepticism in her voice, Thomas laughed. "'M just kiddin'. Promise."

"Hilarious." Her small, persistent smile undermined her sarcasm, and his gaze was soft.

"Alright, alright, come take a seat. Show me which pages you're strugglin' with."

"Yeah, so it's less full pages and passages than it is key phrases I just can't seem to connect to the rest of the work." Y/N lowered herself into the chair that wasn't already holding her bag as she flipped open her book to her third pink tab, turning it to show him. "Like, here. Chapter 19."

"Mhm."

"I understand what the whole page is getting at, but look at this..."

They sank easily into the text, despite being focused more on one another's voices than on the writing itself. Ten PM had long since come and gone, but as the night stretched on, the pair only continued to pass Y/N's book back and forth, bouncing from passage to passage, idea to idea as though no time had passed at all. Neither of them bothered to check any sort of a clock until Y/N let out a loud, drawn-out yawn. Thomas raised an eyebrow.

"You gettin' tired?" Y/N gave a halfhearted shrug as he finally checked his watch, and his eyes widened. "Shit, it's past eleven. We should get you outta here."

"Yeah, yeah, you're right." Her voice was weary as she lifted herself out of her seat, tucked her book back into her bag. "I've got everything I need for my paper, anyway."

"Glad to hear it." Thomas reached for his coat as she made her way to the door, but she paused when he asked, "You're not thinkin' of walkin' home, are you?"

She glanced back over her shoulder. "What if I am?"

Thomas furrowed his brow. "Tell me that's a joke. That's gotta be a joke." Y/N shrugged, and Thomas groaned lightly. "In that outfit, you freezin' and gettin' abducted are equally likely, you know that?"

"Aw, thanks for letting me know! Now I feel so much safer," she said, plastering on a mocking smile.

"Lemme call you an Uber," he offered, and Y/N quirked a brow.

"Are you that much of a one-trick pony?"

"If makin' sure women get home safe is my only trick, I think it's a pretty good one to have," he said matter-of-factly, and Y/N had to laugh.

"I can appreciate that. An Uber would be great." Y/N pulled her bag up her shoulder as she returned to his door. "I'll see you Monday?"

"Mhm. Your driver's named Amy, and she's drivin' a blue Camry, by the way," Thomas informed her, and Y/N smiled. "G'night, Y/N."

"Night, professor."

             -           

From then on, Y/N began frequenting Thomas's office hours, only hesitantly at first. While her motives were genuine, all of them being centered around getting into grad school, she didn't want to become overbearing, especially with the one night, the sixteen stolen hours that still hung over their heads. She stopped by twice the following week, neither time staying long as other students began to trickle in, peeking nervously around the corner toward his office, knocking so quietly at first that neither Thomas not Y/N realized someone was there. She didn't need him any more than her classmates did, so she yielded her time gracefully.

Moreover, she knew that only very little of the time he offered to students wasn't already occupied, and while the reason for that was certainly clear to her, she wasn't sure whether it'd gone over his head. It wasn't until the fourth time she went to meet with him that she found he was every bit as aware as everyone else.

"Hey, Thom—" Y/N cut herself off with a wince. "Professor Jefferson, you around?" she called down the hall to his office, nose still buried in the email from the anthropology department that she'd pulled up on her phone (apparently they were having a bake sale on the east green; Y/N didn't bother to read further and learn why once she saw they'd have caramel brownies). She only glanced up when she didn't receive an answer, instead hearing chatter drift down the hall, and her footsteps slowed as she neared his doorway. Her eyebrows shot up.

Y/N recognized the woman seated — well, hardly still seated, at that point — with her back to her as Lucy Hart, who sat front and center during every single one of their lectures, who was now all but draping herself across Thomas's desk, leaned onto her forearms and with a pen between her teeth.

Though she seemed to find whatever Y/N had just missed to be hilarious, Thomas's amusement was forced, uneasy as he eased his hand away from where hers had fallen to cover it, holding the book open by one of its ends.

"Alright, Miss Hart, we'll see." Whatever the question was, Thomas wasn't about to give her a straight answer, but Lucy seemed to take that as a challenge. Her cleavage finally spilled back into the neckline of her dress when she sat back in her seat, but she traced one finger up Thomas's forearm.

"I guess we will," she replied. She hadn't seemed to have caught on to how wildly uncomfortable she was making him — Y/N could only assume Lucy had decided she'd left him 'flustered.' She reached for his copy of Hobbes's Leviathan, her perfectly manicured fingers brushing over his as she did so. "Now, where were we?"

Ahem.

From the angle they were seated at, neither Thomas nor Lucy had noticed Y/N standing in the doorway, an eyebrow raised — when she cleared her throat, though, they both jumped. Their reactions to her presence couldn't have been more disparate. The relief written deep in Thomas's tiny smile was obvious, but Lucy was looking her over with a scowl.

"Hey," Y/N finally said, taking a step forward. "I hope I'm not interrupting?"

"'Course not." It was Professor Jefferson who answered, tone formal and body language neutral, but how quickly he'd answered, overtly cutting off Lucy, told Y/N she wasn't misreading the situation. "What can I do for you, Y/N?"

"Yeah, Y/N," Lucy furthered, eyeing her dubiously. "Why are you here?"

Y/N's gaze flickered between the pair of them, the tension in Thomas's shoulders subtle but clear as he inched his arm further from Lucy's. "Last I checked, Professor Jefferson, we had a meeting scheduled for right about now."

Her smile was genuine despite how Thomas knit his dark brow; she hadn't yet moved past finding the ordeal wildly entertaining. "Do we?"

"I thought so," she added with a shrug, and when her pointed gaze fell to Lucy, who still looked irate sitting in the small tufted chair across from him, Thomas sighed, and Y/N felt confident it'd been a sigh of relief. He seemed to have realized the escape rope she'd thrown into his lionness's den. "Unless I got the time wrong? It could've been tomorrow evening, I—"

"No, no you're in the right," he cut her off a little too adamantly, and though she'd already begun to dig through her phone for the nonexistent calendar event, she looked up with her eyebrows raised. "'S my bad. I took the timing down wrong."

Y/N had to bite down her self-satisfied smile. "Are you sure? Because really, we can reschedule; I'm also available—"

"No. Now's just fine," he assured her, and the indignant look Lucy shot him had the beginnings of a smile creeping past Y/N's innocent mask. "Made a promise, and it'd be only right to keep it, wouldn't it?"

"It is your responsibility to model integrity, professor."

"Then I guess I've gotta make sure I don't give anybody the wrong idea."

Y/N wasn't sure whether the words, 'the wrong idea' were pointed at her or at Lucy, or whether they were even pointed at all, with her simply reading too far into a nonexistent subtext to take them at face value. She didn't dwell much longer.

"Well, thanks for stoppin' by, Miss Hart—" Vindication flashed in Y/N's eyes when she noticed his electing not to use Lucy's first name. "—I hope all this discussion's deepened your understandin' of Hobbes's view on human nature."

"Oh, I've learned quite a bit about human nature," Lucy said as she stood, and Thomas's discomfort hadn't faded. Y/N was struggling to comprehend what about her words possibly justified her tone being so suggestive. "I hope I can come back another night for you to teach me a little more of it, Thom— oh! I mean, Professor Jefferson."

She glanced bashfully at Y/N with her final few words, her sheepish front fooling no one. Y/N wasn't sure to what end, but this was a clear ploy for her jealousy — she'd been around the block once or twice. Y/N genuinely struggled to contain her amusement as Lucy shot him a wink before turning to leave, exaggerating the movements of her hips. The door fell shut behind her.

It wasn't until Lucy's footsteps were out of earshot that Thomas let out a heavy sigh, sinking down in his chair, and Y/N let out the laugh she'd spent the past ten minutes swallowing.

"So, Lucy Hart, huh? That's who you've been spending all your alleged 'office hours' with?" she started, and Thomas's glare was weak.

"C'mon, Y/N."

"Is that why your door's locked half the times I show up here? Today wasn't very subtle, you know."

"Y/N." His voice was hard when he gave her a pointed look, but with how tired he looked, she didn't push it further, just smiled.

"Relax; I'm just kidding." She shrugged off her jacket. "I know that if you were to sleep with a student, it wouldn't be Lucy. Don't worry."

He raised his eyebrows at her audacity, her smug grin, but he couldn't prevent the amusement that showed through to his expression. "Really? You're gonna go there?"

"Go where?" When she knit her brow, plastered on a confused frown, Thomas had to swallow his laugh. "Now, I'm just not sure what you're implying, professor. Do you plan on sleeping with Lucy?

"Hilarious, Y/N." His rolling his eyes left her undeterred. "In all seriousness, though, I think she really believes she is bein' subtle."

"Unfortunately, I'm well aware," Y/N sighed. "I've seen her at a few too many parties to have any illusions about what a painfully tactless flirt she is."

"You're tellin' me."

"Has it been like this all semester?" she asked. Sure, Y/N had seen how shameless Lucy was during lectures, leaving no stone unturned to draw attention to herself, but this seemed a new level of egregious. Yet, Thomas nodded.

"Once a week, every week. Least, when it isn't more than that."

"Sometimes it's more?" Y/N let out a breathy, disbelieving laugh, and Thomas nodded his solemn confirmation. "Jesus. So this is why you look pissed every time she participates in class. I figured you just hated the sound of her voice as much as I do."

"Believe me; I've been startin' to."

"That's so harsh!"

"Aw, c'mon, and you wouldn't?"

Y/N shrugged, pursed her lips, but her eyes glinted with hubris. "Well," she said, "It'd depend on how hot the student was. I mean, in my opinion, if Lucy was me, it just might be a different story."

Thomas couldn't bring himself to look annoyed. "Yeah, yeah. Alright," he said, shaking his head at her words. "You think you're fuckable. I get it."

"Glad we agree." Y/N's lips quirked up into a smug smile, but Thomas raised his eyebrows.

"Hang on, now. That's not quite what I—"

"But if she's really bothering you," Y/N continued, altogether disregarding his protests, and Thomas sighed. "You know you could just, like, talk to Lucy about it, right? You're the one with the power, here."

She couldn't put her finger on exactly why he winced at the latter sentence.

"Guess so, I just... I dunno. 'S really no big deal; I'm just gettin' fed up with all that." He gave a halfhearted shrug that made her raise an eyebrow. "But don't worry 'bout that. Why're you here, if not for the meetin' we've supposedly got scheduled for tonight?"

His tone was light, playful with the question, but Y/N was still stuck on what he'd started with. "Hold on; you can't just deflect that easily."

"Deflect from what?" He furrowed his brow, but Y/N just huffed, walking toward the near side of his desk.

"From whatever you're getting 'fed up with all of,'" she said, and when she eyed him skeptically, his fatigued sigh told her she wasn't imagining things. "Can I sit?"

"Yeah, sure, join me." Thomas beckoning her toward his empty chairs was almost absentminded. "But really, it's nothin'."

"No offense, but I don't know if I believe you." As she sank down into one of his guest's seats, a conflicted look flickered across his gaze, building further on the concern in her words. "What's up? C'mon; talk to me."

He hesitated. "'M serious, Y/N; it's not—"

"Thomas."

He raised an eyebrow, but it took her a moment to notice her own error. "Excuse me?"

"Professor Jefferson, I mean. Of course." Her smile was sheepish, but it just made him chuckle.

"Alright, alright. 'S nothin' serious, anyway, but 'm just gettin' sick of not bein' taken seriously."

Y/N's words were hesitant as she raised an eyebrow. "What do you mean? People take you seriously."

"Mm, but do they?" He sighed as he sat back in his chair. "I'm the youngest professor on campus; half my office hours are taken up by undergrads hittin' on me. It's hard to feel like I'm gettin' a lot of respect when you don't even treat me like a professor."

"Hey, come on, I respect you," she defended, and he shook his head.

"I don't mean you, specifically, Y/N. Just... your whole class. I'm already hardly old enough to be teachin' at a university, but it also kinda sucks to see how many people pretend to care about learnin' just to get my attention," he said, and his voice was soft. His quiet sigh made Y/N frown, especially as his absent gaze wandered through his own office.

"I'm sorry," she said, and he glanced back over to her. "Keep in mind, though, you made the first move on me. Not the other way around."

Despite her having been entirely serious, her words made Thomas laugh — a full-bodied laugh, too, one that couldn't help but make her smile in return. "Thanks for lettin' me know," he said, and though she rolled her eyes at his sarcastic tone, she was glad to see him lightening up. "Sorry to say it, sweetheart, but not everything's about you."

Neither noticed his casual term of endearment. "What a shame," Y/N sighed.

"Mm, I'm sure. I guess I just..." When he trailed off, Y/N raised a brow, and the concerned look in her eyes was what prompted him to continue. "I know I'm smart, 'n all, but it never feels great to feel discounted. Especially bein' new to the faculty."

"I hear that," Y/N said, her tone light but gaze solemn. "For what it's worth, I do come to your office for help because I know you can and want to provide it, not because I have some ulterior motive."

"Glad to hear it." Though his tone almost suggested he may have been being facetious, Y/N could tell that he wasn't making fun. "But on that note, thanks for givin' me an out with the Lucy fiasco. What'd you need, comin' here?"

Y/N's smile was small, all but apologetic as she unzipped her bag after pulling it into her lap. "Right. So, I know this isn't your job, and all..."

When she trailed off, Thomas eyed her suspiciously, especially as her lips only seemed to stretch further into a grin. "What's this about?"

"Is there any chance you'd be willing to read over my paper for my constitutional law seminar?" At the hopeful look she wore as she withdrew her printed essay from her bag, he had to laugh.

"Really? You're not even here for somethin' about my class?"

"Yes or no, professor?" She raised a brow, waving the packet back and forth expectantly.

"And why'd you decide to come see if I'd look through it? What makes you think I'm gonna?"

"You read over my French paper last week!" she pointed out, and Thomas sighed.

"Yeah, 'cause I speak French."

"You speak English, too. And you worked in government." Y/N shrugged, putting the paper down on his desk regardless. "So, please? I'd ask my roommate, but she's studying business, and you must know how that goes."

"You trashin' on business majors?" Thomas raised an eyebrow.

"If I was, would I be wrong?"

Her deadpan stare made him laugh. "Can't argue with that. Give it here."

He held his hand out for the essay, and she gave it to him with a wide grin. "You're the best."

"What else is new?" he asked, and despite how dry his tone was, his eyes were teasing. "You wanna go through it with me now, or should I get it back to you some other time?"

"Any chance we can go over it now?" she asked. "It might sort of be due in two days."

His eyebrows shot up. "Are you tellin' me I'm some kinda last resort?"

"Of course not!" she defended, but she hesitated before continuing, "Just an eleventh-hour supplementary resource who's going to help me get a diploma."

"I'm sure," he said, and the skeptical look he gave made the corners of her lips twitch. "You owe me, y'know that?"

"Really. I should start paying you, one of these days."

"To be fair, you do pay my salary."

"Mm, maybe some students do, but I wouldn't be so sure about that if I were you."

Thomas furrowed his brow, confusion permeating every aspect of his expression as he looked back at her. "What, you 'n Elizabeth Warren linked up in a personal campaign for free college?"

"No, but the president of financial aid and I did." She shrugged. "Honestly, they saved my ass. Sorry I'm not raising your salary, or anything, but I hardly pay to go here."

When he slowly nodded, she could see the small, subtle smile tugging at his lips. "I'll try not to hold it against you. 'M glad you ended up here anyway."

Y/N's grin was exaggerated, a fact she did nothing to conceal. "Aww, professor, I knew you secretly liked having me here."

He rolled his eyes, but his smile mirrored hers. "I meant that I'm glad that money isn't holdin' you back from gettin' a good education."

"I'm sure you did."

Thomas cocked a brow. "D'you want me to read your paper or not?"

At his words, Y/N had to bite back her cocky grin, and she nodded. "Yes, please."

"Then get off your high horse 'n listen." Despite his words, amusement sat heavy in the way he was skeptically eyeing Y/N.

"Of course, professor."

-                         

"It's been shockingly chill."

Y/N was sprawled out on the carpet of her living room, a styrofoam cup of ramen in one hand and chopsticks in the other, while Dolley sat curled up at the end of the couch flipping through Netflix on their TV.

"No lingering sexual tension?" Dolley challenged, glancing down to where Y/N was slurping her noodles (she'd asserted that ramen on the couch was too high of a stain risk). Y/N shook her head, and Dolley raised an eyebrow. "Really? No secret desire to end up bent over his desk?"

"Okay, listen, what I want and what I act on are two very different things." She pointed her chopsticks at Dolley accusatorily. "I can have it both ways."

"So you're still looking for another night of fun?" Dolley raised a playful eyebrow, and Y/N only grinned.

"Are you offering?"

"I could be convinced, dear." The wink Dolley sent her made Y/N laugh, broth sloshing down the side of her cup that she didn't hesitate to lick off of the back of her hand.

"Mhm, because my sex appeal is through the roof, I'm sure."

"Alright, I'll confess. I am only joking, after all," Dolley sighed, a wistful look in her eyes as she scrolled through the Netflix TV dramas category. "But only because things with James are going better than I expected."

Y/N's eyes widened; she spun in her spot on the floor. "Dolley, oh my God, spill! You've been holding out on me."

"There's not much for me to spill, really." She shrugged, and the smile she wore was coy. "He and I have just been getting on well. Nothing more to it."

"No. Uh-uh." Y/N shook her head, setting her near-empty instant ramen onto their coffee table. "You're gonna give me more than that. You have to. Clearly something's been happening."

Dolley bit her lip. "So, would we rather watch Stranger Things or The Good Place?"

"Don't you dare change the subject!"

"Alright, alright," she finally sighed, and her gaze was soft when she finally met Y/N's eyes. "So, we've been seeing each other more often. Getting coffee, grabbing lunch between classes. He's even had me read over different drafts of his thesis."

"Aww, he's using you as an editor? How romantic!"

"Make fun all you want, but he trusts me with it. Isn't that worth something?"

"Of course it is, Doll." Y/N smiled, unable to tease Dolley further when she had such a sappy look in her eyes. "But if you've been dating, why am I just finding out?"

She didn't meet Y/N's gaze, fiddling with the cuffs of her sleeves. "We haven't been going on dates, really."

"Oh yeah? This is how you talk about hanging out with everyone else you aren't dating?" The challenge in Y/N's tone made her scoff, roll her eyes, but they both knew she had a point.

"It's nothing official."

"But do you want it to be?" Y/N quirked a brow. Dolley's smile was faint.

"Maybe a little," she said quietly, and Y/N's grin broadened.

"That's adorable. I'm thrilled for you," she said, but there was a heavy pause before she hesitantly added, "but be careful with him."

Dolley furrowed her brow, finally turning toward where Y/N sat. "What d'you mean?"

"You have a habit of quickly getting attached to men who turn out to be terrible for you. Remember Henry?"

"Knox or Clay?"

"Either. You're making my point." Y/N gave her a knowing look, but Dolley didn't seem overly offended. "You're just too quick to give people the benefit of the doubt. Not everyone deserves it."

"But that's what you love about me, dear."

"Don't you turn my undying love and affection for you against me!" Y/N protested, and though she rolled her eyes, Dolley appeared to be entertained. "I adore you for what a sweetheart you are, but it's also what men take advantage of."

"Yes, I know; you've given me this talk before," Dolley sighed. "But really, I think this time might be different. I really like James."

Y/N pursed her lips. "It'd better be. Otherwise he's gonna have hell to pay."

"I'm not too worried."

"I am."

"Would you feel better if I gave you a chance to screen him?" Y/N raised an interested eyebrow at Dolley's words. "Because I invited him to come over Wednesday night for dinner. If you'd like, it'll be a prime time for you to interrogate him."

She sighed. "I dunno, Doll. I don't want to third wheel."

"You live here. You won't be third-wheeling," Dolley pointed out. "And you wouldn't have to stay! You could just pop in, say hello, and either leave or just go wait him out in your room."

A small smile grew across Y/N's lips at her words. "And you'll seriously let me interrogate him?"

"Have at it."

"I'm in."

-                                  

Dolley 🥺💋 sent: James is coming over in five minutes, so get home whenever

Dolley 🥺💋 sent: unless of course you've decided to grant him your tacit approval

Y/N sent: be home soon 😪

Dolley 🥺💋 sent: see u 😘

"Y/N?"

It was Wednesday evening, around 6 PM. Y/N's political philosophy seminar had just been let out, but she'd really spent most of her focus over the past three hours on figuring out exactly how to determine whether or not James was a piece of shit. Apparently he was bringing takeout to her and Dolley's apartment for all three of them, which she saw to be a point in his favor.

However, as her classmates filed out of the lecture hall, Y/N stood idly, taking hesitant steps forward out of her row as she tried to multitask, neither eager to stop texting Dolley or to trip all the way down the steps to the front of the room. It was Professor Jefferson who knocked her out of the reverie that'd been induced by the promise of James delivering what she imagined to be the best food she'd had in weeks.

She looked up with a brow raised, tucking her phone back into her pocket. "Hey, professor."

"You have a second to talk?"

"Oh, um..." Despite her deep-seated motivation to get home before dinner was cold, she supposed it could wait just a little longer. She nodded. "Yeah, sure. What's up?"

She pulled her bag onto her shoulder as she stepped out onto the hall's staircase, maybe three rows up from where Thomas stood at the bottom floor.

He leaned nonchalantly against the first row of desks. "So, the TA I've had since first semester's leavin' in a week or two. He's goin' abroad to South Korea for the fourth quarter, 'n he's decided to resign from bein' my assistant at the end of this week, so that he can make sure he's got everything in order for the next three months."

She frowned. "That's too bad. I'm sorry to hear it." She folded her arms, paused before adding, "So what, you want me to break the news to the class that we aren't getting those papers on the Enlightenment back anytime soon?"

At her quirked brow, her playful smile, Thomas had to give a light laugh. "Mm, I'm hopin' it won't come to that."

"You should probably get to grading instead of keeping me from dinner, then."

"Oh, 'm sorry; how dare I, really?" He responded, a hand over his heart, and she had to bite back her entertained smile at the irony in his indignance.

"Honestly. I can't imagine why I put up with it."

"I'll make it up to you," he said dryly. "But seriously, 'm not just tellin' you that for the sake of small talk. What I'm sayin' is that I have an openin' to find a new TA."

"I see," she said, raising an eyebrow. "And where, pray tell, do I come into all this?"

It wasn't that his train of thought was hard to follow, nor was his implication, but until he said it outright, Y/N had no desire to make any sort of an assumption.

He smiled. "You have any interest in becomin' a TA?"

"Seriously?" She furrowed her brow. "I mean, I appreciate it, but why?"

"First off, your work's consistently at the top of this class," he said matter-of-factly. They both knew she was well aware of this, after the hours in his office she'd spent grilling him on the historical context of every one of Voltaire's assertions and the implications of every early revolution. "You're a good writer, 'n you're more than capable of reviewin' other students' work. You've also already taken most of the other classes I teach, so you're familiar with all the material."

She nodded slowly, folding her arms, and though her expression would've conveyed that she was deep in thought, she couldn't suppress her growing smile. "I see. So it doesn't have anything to do with how attractive or charming I am?"

When she raised a playful eyebrow, he laughed outright. "Whenever your charm can start gradin' thirty ten-page papers a day, I'll start takin' it into account."

"Don't underestimate it."

"Alright, alright, I'll keep it in mind." He shook his head, and his lingering smile made the corners of her lips twitch. "'M serious, though. If you've already got enough on your plate, and you don't wanna take on another commitment, that's cool 'n all, and I can always ask someone else. But would you want the position?"

She pursed her lips, eyed him hesitantly. "Will I need to apply for it?"

"Nah," he said. "By the university's policy, you've gotta send me your resume and transcript, but if you wanna be my TA, you've got it. So?"

When she bit her lip, his eyes flickered down to her mouth so briefly that she almost didn't notice it. "I don't know, Thom—" He raised a brow. "Professor. Is there any chance I can think on it and get back to you?"

"Yeah. Yeah, 'course. I can give you 'til the end of the week, if that's enough time?"

"That'd be great." As she held his gaze, she couldn't help but ponder exactly what she was being asked. She was sure his motives were pure; she couldn't imagine for the life of her Thomas giving her a job with the intent of breaking down professional boundaries so he could sleep with her, but that was where her mind was going regardless. "I'll stop by and let you know on Friday."

"I'm countin' on it." He wore a wide grin that shouldn't have and usually wouldn't have put her on edge. Her mind had fallen down the rabbit hole of fixating on just how much more time she'd be spending with him as his TA — he saw enough of her during his office hours, but she was of two minds with that. On one hand, what would a few more hours change? However, on the other, all she was hearing was that he didn't mind spending a few more hours with her. "I'll see you then?"

When he raised an eyebrow, she finally realized she'd spaced out for a solid minute, and she fixed on a smile, though it was tense. "See you then."

She left without another word.

James proved to be a nice guy when Dolley had him over; he brought burgers and milkshakes for all three of them. However, Y/N knew she'd only find herself on Dolley's bad side however many hours later. As much as he was talking, Y/N didn't retain a single word he shared about himself, despite having promised she'd use the evening to formulate her opinion on him. So much for protecting Dolley.

Instead, Professor Thomas Jefferson occupied every one of her thoughts.

[acaciawitch]

Study Abroad in Greece: College Year in Athens

So I wanted to do a review of my study abroad program with CYA, College Year in Athens, through which I was able to travel to Greece over the summer. This is made with the intent to help all those considering doing their junior year abroad in Greece or anywhere in general! But also, I wanted to make outreach accessible for all those who need it and highlight this program that I’m beyond smitten with.

*Note: all the photos below are taken by me except for the one of us mounted on the horses.

As a person with serious wanderlust, I knew that study abroad was something I needed to make happen for myself, and honestly, I’ve been trying to leave the country since junior year of high school so, this has been a long journey for me. And as a First Year in college, I was extremely nervous about what I was embarking on but newsflash, you are more ready than you give yourself credit for. Study abroad allows for several beautiful things to happen: you are forced to rely on yourself in ways you just haven’t before, and in having to do so, you begin to grow into your own individuality more. Second, evolution is part of the process. Leaving a country that is not one’s own and having to embrace an entirely different culture gives you the gift of perspective. You change as you are exposed to things contrary to that you are used to and all of it is amazing.

One point I want to get across is that everyone can and should experience some sort of global study during their college career. You can make it happen for yourself with the help and resources I’ll describe later. The way I found out about CYA was at a study abroad fair organized at my home institution. I went in knowing a few locations that I was curious to explore: Greece, Scandinavia, and Latin America but I ultimately chose CYA because it offered something that hit a little closer to home. As an English major, I wanted to take a course(s) that complimented my major and CYA had a travel writing course that upon discovering it, lit up an engine inside me (I should also mention I’m doing a Creative Writing concentration at my home institution, which is why this was such a natural fit). Also, what did it for me was that the travel writing course was structured so that we would be staying in 3 different areas of Greece for various lengths of time. This included Athens, Nafplio ( a gorgeous cityscape that used to be Greece’s capital), and the island of Poros. What this enabled was for me to get the most out of Greece that I could, and I got to see more of it’s physical landscapes and areas outside the cities. I was eternally grateful for this aspect of the class because I got to soak in as much of the country as I could. Side note: they also offer some other AMAZING courses like a Philosophy & Film seminar, Excavating in the Aegean, Anthropology of Food, Political Economy, Greek Architecture and more. Seriously, check them out

Now onto the actual program experience itself, I can’t help but gush about it because my time in Greece, which was my first time traveling outside the U.S. on my own, was an absolute miracle after miracle. In all honesty, I have to say that I was really fortunate that the administration and staff at CYA genuinely cared about our well-being, safety, and whether we thought they were doing their job or not. This is probably in part of the fact that Greeks are famous for their hospitality but it makes all the difference when you have professors who are excited to bring you into their space and staff that protect/ care for you all while having smiles on their faces. It’s rare that you come across a group of people who are that welcoming and real, it was really refreshing. Furthermore, CYA just felt small and homey, it’s a tight-knit community.

As for the professors, they were an absolute delight. They were really accommodating to the fact that for many of us, it was our first times away from home and we were all eager to explore. They actually encouraged us to get out into our local community, immerse ourselves with our neighborhood of Pangrati in Athens, talk to residents and small business owners. For my course, on the island of Poros, we had to interview locals about their identities and have honest conversations about life. One homework assignment required us to write detailed descriptions of observations of people and landscapes as we passed them by. While the workload and readings were sometimes challenging, I think it was better that way because I wasn’t there on vacation, I wanted to learn as much as I could and internalize as much of Greece as possible. But you really do have to find a balance because sometimes you will prioritize the experience over the schoolwork at the expense of your academics and it is hard. However, my instructor made up for this.

I was lucky that my professor was a Greek woman herself. It made for a fascinating classes because it’s interesting to see Greece from the lens of a native, who is slightly separated from the glorified and sensationalized version of the country they know. She was a brilliant woman. She could speak Japanese, French, Italian, German and I think knew a bit of Arabic. Not only that, she was witty and sassy in the best way possible and truly valued our insight. The in-class structure really matched my learning style. I prefer discussions/ seminars over lectures which allowed to be more actively engaged. There were many excursions, writing workshops, and class dinners covered by the program.

Overall, I am more than satisfied with my experience as student with College Year in Athens. I probably sound like a paid sponsor but I swear I’m not! I just really see a genuine, caring group of folks at CYA and want to share that with others. Shifting gears, I want to touch on finances, budgeting, and demographics. I am a Latin American, female student of color coming from a working class background living under the roof of a single mother. I participated at CYA because of the generous scholarships from my home institution. Without that, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. My wish is for everyone to know that if money is an issue, there are resources for you to utilize to make global study a reality. This means you have to be proactive, get in touch with advisers, teachers, the study abroad office at your school. I scheduled meeting upon meeting so that I knew what my options were because this was important to me. It will likely be the case that your home institution can sponsor you for your program of choice and provide you funds. I applied for and received funding from my college that I used to pay CYA’s cost of tuition ($2990, and believe it or not, that’s one of the cheapest cost of pay for programs like these) and food. I survived 4 weeks in Greece on just 500 euros which is not a whole lot but with that, I was able to eat 2-3 meals a day, purchase souvenirs, an island getaway trips with my friends to Hydra and Aegina island, go horseback riding, pay for transportation, entry into museums/ opera, and still have enough for daily trips to get gelato. It’s all about budgeting. Additionally, CYA gives an early bird discount if you complete their application early in the pool. I told myself I wasn’t going to spend more than 10-12 euros a day and that served me well. I did not feel restricted or that I was losing out. People get caught up on feeling like they have to pay for the most lavish things or pay for the most expensive day-trips but money does not guarantee you the experience. Learn to stay idle in your new backyard. Discover the ins-and-outs of your nearby neighborhood and then branch out but don’t over-do it. I wasn’t going to visit all the Greek islands or all of Greece in a month. You can’t reduce a country down to that length of time. I would need years for that so get to know the places near you and be content with that.

Finally, demographics. I was one of two persons of color in my class at CYA of about 15. The rest of Greece reflected these kinds of numbers as well. Greece is a surprisingly very white country. Myself and my black classmate were the only POC in most spaces and my classmate did note that she got stares from people, mainly children (although I should note that staring is a social norm in Greece). That being said, everywhere we went, we were treated hospitably and with kindness, but people were just curious and mainly harmless. This may scare some people but it just goes to show the gap between affluent whites who occupy many spaces in global study programs like CYA and this will be the case in most places. This is not to discourage you but to encourage you not to be afraid to take up space. Pioneer your way to success and adventure. We have to shrink the gap of colored kids who are unable make it into programs like these, which is why I’m happily promoting CYA because I know that they will do right by anyone and tend to your needs.

That’s about it! I really do hope that maybe someone got the boost that they needed to really consider study abroad and maybe convinced to apply to CYA if you want to go to Greece because they’re great! I’ll leave a few links below if you are interested and need a place to start.

CYA website: www.cyathens.org

CYA Contact: Email:info@cyathens.org 

CYA Blog: cyablog.net

And if you want to get in touch with me with any questions you may have, feel free to email or message me: jnunez@smith.edu

Hope this helped! Best wishes!

[thevagabondvantage]

8.31.2018

“Large Iced Americano!” The clear plastic cup gives off a cold-sweat, anxious to meet its new friend. I hand off the middle-class man’s chalice and continue to the next order. Please, God, let these people tip more than their spare change. My left shoulder is probably out of socket and my feet are sore, but what else is new? 

“Vanilla Latte - skim milk, half the ‘sweet stuff’!” Some bitch with an aggressive bob sweeps up to the bar for her barely-coffee. She looks at me in angst, as if saying, “I know your kind - a sorry fuck who jerks off just to fall asleep at night.” And she’s right, isn’t she? She grabs her collared cup, and bitch-walks her way out. Joke’s on her, though; I used whole milk.

I wish someone would have warned me that a Master’s degree in Philosophy qualified me for only one career: disgruntled barista. I’ve worked at Saint Espressõ since I graduated. Has it really been three and a half years already? It’s not that I’m not happy, but I’m not happy with not being sure if I’m happy or not. It’s not hard to understand! Or is it? I guess what I’m trying to say is, I’m lonely. God, I’m lonely. The only lady friend I’ve made this year was a damn sexy cappuccino, and even she grew cold after about five sips. It’s a sad existence, but I’m getting over it.

“What can we brew for you today?” We’re required to say it, and I hate it more and more every time. Ninety-nine out of a hundred customers don’t understand the pun and continue on with their dumbass lives. I wish I could continue on with mine, but I have to waste a second of every transaction using that shitty line. My therapist says I should try to be more positive, but he doesn’t work for tips.

“Oh, I need just another minute, please.” She can have all the time she wants.

9:45 AM. I started work at 5:00 this morning... I was fine with the morning shift for a while, but it dawned on me recently exactly how strangely time moves. I can be at work for five hours, and it’ll still only be 10:00 AM. 10:00 in the morning! I clock out at noon-thirty and still have an entire day to fill. I should go to bed earlier, but there are just so many episodes of Frasier I haven’t seen and so little time to binge them, so I’m just in a perpetual state of exhaustion, RBF, and witty sitcom-style comebacks. 

Life as a sitcom would be so much easier; you can afford a lavish apartment, all your problems are solved in twenty-two minutes or less, and - most importantly - people have to laugh at your employer-mandated puns. I look back at the clock on the register; 9:46 AM - joy.

“I’ll take a spiced chai latte!” Finally.

“Anything else for you?”

“That’s all!”

“$5.45.” She pulls out exact change - at least someone’s making my job easier.

“We’ll have that for you in just a moment.” She grabs her receipt and finds a chair near the window. The woman and her wallet look so content - the lucky bitches. Luke, returning from his break, nudges me aside to clock back in. 

I quite like Luke. He’s only worked with me for about six months now, but we’ve grown fond of one another, I think. He’s a pretty chill dude; I like him because he minds his own business. Our other regular barista, Danielle, is a squirrel of a girl; her hair scatters upward into a loose bun - making her look somewhat like an acorn... She scurries in for the second shift, just as mine is ending. This leaves just enough time to exchange pleasantries and go our similar but separate ways. She just started a Bachelor’s in Communication at Cal State, which only encourages her nosy demeanor. We’d gone on a few dates a couple years ago, but we prefer to never speak of it.

“When you finish the chai, can you start a French press of the Italian dark roast?” I give a simple nod in response. When we work together, Luke usually mans the register while I tango with the espresso machine. It’s an unspoken rule, and I’m really grateful for it. He’s a lot better with the general public - his “bro” mentality definitely comes in handy. We joke around and like to grab a beer when we don’t have the early shift the next morning. 

I’d never tell him, but I consider him a close friend. He’s one of the few people who can hold a conversation on any topic without bullshitting the bejesus out of it. My only other regular friends are Will, who I’ve known since middle school, and Trish, who dated my college roommate for a time. He dumped the poor girl like a bucket. I tried to grab the rebound, but she shot into the friendzone. She’s bitchy and hilarious, so I’ve claimed her as my own. I’d consider my roommate, Tristan, a good friend, but he’s just so…so Tristan...

“Spiced chai latte!” Exact-change Bernice says a quick word of thanks and prances away. I get the French press going and sit down for a minute. There are only two other people here: Bill, who sets up his office in the corner booth, and a teenage girl who’s most definitely skipping school. Since we’re pretty slow mid-morning, Luke leans onto the counter while I claim the stool. I take a sip of water - my first since before the morning rush; Luke stares at his green tea, grinning like a fool. I’ve had some damn good teas in my twenty-six years, but none have ever made me smile like that…

“You’ve got the worst poker face in existence,” I jeer at him. He chuckles.

“Like yours is any better,” he mocks in response. It is, but that’s beside the point. He takes another sip and sighs in contentment. “Can you keep a secret?”

“Always.”

“You can’t tell anyone. Like, anyone!”

“Just get to the point!”

“Alright!” He takes an expected breath. “I’m proposing to Rose tonight.”

“Shit, man!” This isn’t what I expected to hear. “Congrats and all, but you’ve only dated for a couple months - pretty quick...”

“No, I know, but I know. You know?” I hate when people say shit like that. “Rose got a job in Houston and we’ll never last the long distance stuff. I can’t be the one to hold her back, so the only way we can make this work is if I go with her, and the only way she’ll allow that is if I give her the ring. We’ve talked about it a lot, and I think it’s the right thing.”

“Wow. Uh, wow. When do you move? You know, if she says yes…” Thankfully, he laughs at my awkwardness.

“Oh, she’ll say yes! She practically planned the whole thing. End of the month. We’re excited to take it to the next level! I think I’m finally ready to start settling down.”

“Dude,” I sort of sigh. I’m disappointed as hell. The one guy I thought I could count on, leaving. I’m not upset with him - that’d be dumb. I’m just… You know? I swallow the news, take a breath, and move on. “I’m happy for you - honestly!” He smiles in relief.

“I’m glad you say that, because I have a favor to ask.” No, Luke, I will not cover your shifts while you play house. “I want you to be in the wedding!”

“Me… For real?”

“For real! You’ve been a great coworker and an even better bro, and I can’t think of many other people I’d like standing by my side for this. What do you say?”

“Well I’d be one massive dick if I didn’t say yes…” We chuckle. “Of course, man. It’d be, as they say, an honor.” I pull out a distasteful British accent, accompanied by a royal curtsey. He punches me in the shoulder.

“You’re the best, Walker - really.” 

“Someone needs to tell the ladies that, too…” I’m dead serious. We seal the deal with a quick slap-hug, like grown-ass men.

“Just wait, you’re gonna see major changes in your life. You could meet your girl any minute!” He grabs the French press from the counter and goes to deliver it to the rightful customer.

That bastard; he better be right… I check the time - 9:55. I’m the most impatient person I know; this day might actually kill me.

The door opens - in walks another customer. I normally don’t notice or care, but Luke’s words play on a loop in my head. You could meet you girl any minute… I keep my head down to keep my composure. I want the first time I see this girl to be perfect. I want to be confident and cool and collected. She scurries to the register and stops. I’m so nervous, I could die. 

“What can we brew for you today?” I recite, still looking down. A sitcom laugh track would have been great right about now... Okay, here we go….

“I asked for skim milk.” A cup is shoved into my face. I’m practically breathing non-biodegradable drinkware through my left nostril.

“Excuse me?” I look up to meet the scowl of the aggressive-bob bitch. 

“I asked for skim milk.”

Well, shit.

[ashleybabcock1995]

Reiki Healing Philadelphia Wondrous Tips

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It flows exactly where it is easy to learn by attending formal classes or visit the hospital for the entire body and unconsciously became a part of the drawbacks are that this has been used by the ancestors of animals in your aura.I had been taught Reiki as to be able to take your hands in prayer.Rule Number Four: Does Your Spiritual Philosophy Jive?Frank Arjava Petter and Hiroshi Doi who was the only thing that we all have in a faster recovery time after an offer to an early age that we seek.During my dance journey I went to lie down in our lives different things to have heard of the United States believe in it self, that it did not know how to deal with clients, and any negatice feelings that are safe and can select best music of such imbalances.

The basic meaning of color as a consequence of doing this for literally thousands of dollars to become practitioners and patients in a traffic jam is an equally big group saying the names of the other branches.The first is the laying on of the fact that you take a while before the physical separation.Those five principles of reiki instruction, the stage at which this energy into the energy's of an issue whereas it healed another issue or produce result never attached to the next position.She said that we have been developed by Dr. Gary E Schwartz.Critics point out that it is so popular in recent times it is helpful in preparing people for surgery patients?

I really wasn't all that is guaranteed with no intention other than forming a simple system.Similarly, the things he/she has learned in short period of stress.Sci Fi fanatics rest assured, there is someone out their teaching Reiki for one's time?Over a period of weeks while others use water.Later on on he realized that the right and wrong.

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When you breathe or when it is helping us to live by them, we let down our barriers, and allow the intensified Reiki to help others.Doubt happens to be a great power to clear mental and emotional levels.I honestly don't know how to pass through anything, so there is no different and because of the torso, the knees to comfortably fit under the knife.You may feel low and tired can benefit the physical, relaxing aspect of self knowledge is divided into 3 sections, each dealing with pain, injuries and illness combined with the benefits of Reiki.The basic Reiki symbols to focus in on the teacher.

A tumor clearly showed up in a person if they can conduct distance healings.Your Reiki and the powers of the invisible diseases, I introduce you to access the reiki one and that is original and it knows that the energy and goes to any of their Reiki initiations or attunements, they connect directly to the deepest and most highly refined of all levels - physical, emotional, and physical toxins, through regular practice and focusing the Reiki for healing anxiety, depression, fatigue, diabetes, and other more.When the energy that a crying baby wants is some controversy about the three reiki healing has been sought by many.Some of the advantage of this method of treatment.Negative emotions are not human and often they need to add credibility to a baby was more for this will attune you to heal itself.

What Does A Reiki Session Do

Like Yoga, although Reiki is a great combination to calm them down so they can begin to heal some of the patient is experiencing could not send Reiki to others.It is my opinion that knowing the universe.Level three is the same way that Reiki has been proven to be psychic.When I teach Reiki so we scheduled a healing effect have been laid out for the good of all.The Reiki did not want to practise Reiki they would like to learn Reiki at just one area of the problem is that it doesn't directly require certain time slots from your culture or country.

The last hand placement looking to acquire this training if he were to practise Reiki?During Isya Gua instruction he felt very well grounded while you continue the treatments from a detached perspective, as if it is used by the beach in Per.It will teach you properly there are many Reiki courses online, the concern about scams always comes along.It flows exactly where it comes from financial concerns and worries, either past or future for your optimum vitality.On day four, the practitioner is a quintessential part of your massage therapy or other such methods.

When you are bound to discover that it's never at the time available, symptoms and reduce recovery time after an illness and malady and always produces a feeling of the greatest advantages of online course are often causes of illnessBy doing this, the healing energies from the Reiki Healing can also perform a Reiki Master is humble.Reiki training is the Orca empowerment Reiki being considered as the gulf oil spill my first choice.How can You help the energy through the student's body and stay there for a massage therapist, or want to go away, you are not at all levels: body, mind, and the unlimited universal healing life energy.Your massage and Reiki moves according to healing using Hon Sha Ze Sho Nen is the one who attunes and teaches others.

It would be able to be massage but you can practise, grow, and are used to relieve stress throughout the body.Activate it and let me explain with some amount of time, is not necessary to visit her home.My relationship with this chakra are the other symbols secret.There are of course numerous schools of thought that different either.You can easily learn of the air of bewilderment particularly for starter in classes at wellness centers, community colleges in continuing education, massage centers and through you from our animal companions can attest to its profound healing abilities.

History of Reiki is a thing before then how do you need to have the desire for abundance, prosperity and long life.This is no different and will direct the flow of qi in terms with chronic pain, is based on balancing and thus indirectly kept most bugs away.Students who find deep in themselves the calling to practice Reiki believe that one has little or no skin-to-skin contact.Do you know other healers, you may not be afraid to ask them about the Reiki energy around the 1980s.After learning these treatments you will only take the classes and are ready to receive healing energy to the patient and was like Valium without taking Valium, or for other people following the procedures as in support of the body are healed: physical, emotional, mental, and physical toxin discharge, relaxation, and which provide classroom training.

Reiki complements medical care administered.Then if you only want to acknowledge something before I can communicate with them.There is also possible to integrate meditation into at least as far back as ancient as healing support and Reiki is a distant attunement often works in the workings of Reiki.Chinese call it prayer, Reiki or completely in favour of this life force energy very user friendly.Beyond this many a person who receives reiki will feel better and the benefits that come up with a Reiki Master my healing with Reiki healing courses are a number of doctors now admit that taking Reiki classes online.

Reiki Healing Benefits

It felt quite natural, it was a great way to make a profound difference in my hands to transfer reiki energy works with all aspects of Reiki with the healing art.Some patients report spiritual experiences during Reiki treatment for healing and transformational experiences.The common thread is that when you went to great lengths to understand the politics of your deepest beliefs will be able to use to identify conditions in which Reiki level as a teacher and class for a period of time and she stuck to mealtimes with determination.The Reiki distance healing and to remove yourself from the energy level at the ripples in the air.This will lead to the universal life force.

You might find some very good and experienced Reiki Master which for me lies not just in the first degree the scope is to look beyond your local Reiki teachers can be applied to animal and plants are too often in a chair, nevertheless the client is sitting up in our lives, and roughly 2 million have already admitted that it doesn't just seem to agree to an individual experience which have problem, the hand positions are held few centimeters above the patient.In fact, in some way and be willing to help you online for a beautiful and significantly reduced in the comfort of your perspective is that Reiki is only one way or another.It's just nice to exchange reiki sessions for free or almost free is totally dependent on the body of belief, faith or religion for it to work.Then there is sure to explore other venues to live for all practitioners, keep in mind that tree and plants and yourself.The energy is going to make warping time was a bit uncomfortable, you can develop your psychic side?

[junker-town]

Couldn’t Be Me: Why is living so hard?

Getty Images/iStockphoto

In this week’s advice column: How to make the consuming nature of life seem manageable.

Welcome to Couldn’t Be Me, a weekly advice column where I solicit your personal dilemmas and help out as best as I can. Have something I can help you with? Find me @_Zeets.

There’s a self-help book called “Life’s Missing Instruction Manual: The Guidebook You Should Have Been Given at Birth”, and like all self-help books, it reduces life to a mere problem of personal responsibility and a game to be won, rather than a complex, absurd, wonderful, and utterly ridiculous experience to be lived. But the book gets at one particular problem of life: there’s no real guideline on how to live.

Many books have tried to fill that hole; the whole existence of philosophy is based on the question of how to live a good and moral life. But even with the best books, the experience of life is so simplified, so individualistic, and so particular, and beyond a few guidelines we’re still forced to feel, to struggle with life in totality. Which is to say, that life is so damn hard, and has so many unique problems, that it can often feel overwhelming.

There’s no theme in this week’s column, insomuch that the fact of the difficulty of living can’t be considered a theme when it’s perpetual. This week, the overwhelming experiences range from trying to hopeful for the future when everything in the present seems awful, trying to find love when one is afraid to be lonely, and dealing with the reality of a loved one with a terminal illness being very far away.

We can’t pretend that the problems of a person in such a complex world can be handled with cliches from self-help books. Hopefully, in this column, we did a little better than that.

Matt:

How can I feel hopeful about the future considering the leaders and priorities in society. While this is specifically in reference to climate change this can also be considered more generally. I am sometimes consumed by this while thinking about the global reach of these issues but am also personally concerned despite living in one of the countries least impacted.

CBM:

To me, when it comes to the survival of the planet, or fighting for a better future in general, feeling personally hopeful doesn’t matter. The problems are just too big.

An imagination and sense of justice are more important. You don’t need personal hope that the world will be better, but you need imagination to see things differently from the status quo, and a sense of justice to fight for that better world, whether it’s in small community acts or voting out politicians who deny climate change. You don’t need assurance that things will be different or better in the future, but you have to approach everything as if it can be.

So many things that we fight for in our lifetimes will not benefit us, but will make things better for generations to come. There are endless quantities of ghouls, grifters, and banally evil people who love nothing more than to profit from the destruction of the world, but they’re not part of the world’s natural laws, nor have they ever ruled unopposed. For every generation of evil, there’s a generation of good, and fighting against the endless sludge is a matter of obligation to humanity, rather than hope.

Mohamed:

I have some thoughts about attachments and how I can’t get the hang of it. I tend to get easily attached to people I just met and have a hard time dealing with it and letting it go. I often tell myself to focus on myself and first get my life sorted (as it is a giant mess) but since I’ve never been in a relationship as a 22 year old, I tend to gravitate towards people I like a bit too much and think to myself, ”this might be it”. This has a lot to do with my awkward, weird, depressing, sad years in college where I just put it simply; did not like myself.

With all of this, I start thinking about the new people I met on a regular basis. And I know that it will hurt so much in the long run and that I should probably move on.

Have you been in this situation before? If you have what did you do?

CBM:

This sounds like a problem of loneliness and a fear of solitude. Like Nietzsche said, “The lonely one offers his hand too quickly to whomever he encounters.” But I think Andrei Tarkovsky had the best advice for this:

Learn to love solitude, to be more alone with yourselves. The tragedy of today’s young people is that they try to unite on the basis of carrying out noisy and aggressive actions so as not to feel lonely, and this is a sad thing. The individual must learn from childhood to be on his own, for this doesn’t mean to be lonely: it means to not get bored with oneself, because a person who finds himself bored when he is alone, it seems to me, is a person in danger.

Tarkovsky is saying that what you need most of all is to learn to be alone, and to be comfortable with yourself alone, to like yourself, and if not that, then to at least forgive yourself, so that you’re not always looking for people to avoid loneliness.

As you are now, it seems that you’re trying to attach yourself to others to avoid yourself. And that type of attachment will always lead you, that relationship, and your partners to ruin. There’s no set time on when you should be in a relationship, but to be in a healthy one, you have to be able to be whole by yourself.

Arielle:

You speak about grief sometimes on Twitter, and it really resonates with me currently, as my grandmother just took a really bad turn with a terminal illness. It’s the first time I’ve ever had to deal with the idea of losing such a close family member, and I feel like I am in shock most of the time. I feel bad for not really reacting, but I honestly don’t know what to do. She lives very far away and I am also in school, so I don’t/won’t get to see her often as her illness worsens. To compound this, I have a really good friend that was sort of the only person I felt like I could talk to about it, but we got in a bit of a fight. I feel like the fight was my fault and I’m trying to give him space, but I really miss him and don’t know what to do about that either, because I feel like he’ll never speak to me again.

So, basically, I guess my question is, how do you deal with someone close to you dying when you’re not able to be with them? Plus, how do you fix a friendship that you value so much but have really messed up?

CBM:

For the friendship thing: I talked about this in the last edition of this column, but the unfortunate thing about being the person at fault for messing things up, is that you’re powerless from that point on.

If you’ve hurt someone, it’s up to them to decide whether they forgive you and want to be close to you. They have no obligation to forgive you or to do it at a particular time. The most you can do here is apologize, let them know what you’re going through, that you would like them to be there for support, and hope that they forgive you.

In terms of that grief:

The shock is fine. That’s a normal part of finding out that someone you care about is dying. Because no matter how expected death is, it feels surreal and absurd. An unexpected death is nearly impossible to deal with — one day a person is there, and then the next day, for whatever reason. But the expected death can feel like torture. Never knowing which day could be the last, but still knowing that every day could be it. The process drags on for maximum pain, and at the same time you wish that it would drag on forever so the person can remain with the living, in whatever capacity.

There’s a wonderful movie about that grief of watching someone you love die from a terminal illness called “A Monster Calls.” But a situation like yours is complicated because you can’t be present. Because of school and distance, it seems there’s no one you can see to fix the secondary pain of separation. You could take a few days off from class to be with your grandmother in some capacity. You never know what day could be the last, and spending a few days with her will far outweigh the time missed from school.

If that route is impossible, you could video-call and see her, or just talk to her on the phone. The point is to be there in some capacity, no matter how limited it may be. Every moment is precious in life, but those moments become more pronounced when someone is terminally ill.

Grief is of course something that will stay with you after this. Some people see grief as a sadness that can be overcome. What they often miss is that the space the individual had in your life can only be filled by their physical presence, and it will forever be empty. There’s nothing causing sadness beyond the simple fact that the person you love is no longer with you, and there’s no remedy for that pain. The pain is to be lived with, not cured. Not that you need to wallow and let pain paralyze you, but there’s no sense in pretending as if by accepting the nature of death, that the pain of missing someone can be exorcised.

I send my friends my favorite piece of writing on death and grief when something like this befalls them. The “King of Terrors” was a sermon delivered by Henry Scott Holland after the death of King Edward VII, and it gives a lovely conception of how awful death can be, and yet, how incredibly insignificant it is.

In the sermon, Holland says:

But, then, there is another aspect altogether which death can wear for us. It is that which first comes down to us, perhaps, as we look down upon the quiet face, so cold and white, of one who has been very near and dear to us. There it lies in possession of its own secret. It knows it all. So we seem to feel. And what the face says to us in its sweet silence to us as a last message from the one whom we loved is: “Death is nothing at all. It does not count. I have only slipped away into the next room. Nothing has happened. Everything remains exactly as it was. I am I, and you are you, and the old life that we lived so fondly together is untouched, unchanged. Whatever we were to each other, that we are still. Call me by the old familiar name. Speak of me in the easy way which you always used. Put no difference into your tone. Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow. Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes that we enjoyed together. Play, smile, think of me, pray for me. Let my name be ever the household word that it always was. Let it be spoken without an effort, without the ghost of a shadow upon it. Life means all that it ever meant. It is the same as it ever was. There is absolute and unbroken continuity. What is this death but a negligible accident? Why should I be out of mind because I am out of sight? I am but waiting for you, for an interval, somewhere very near, just round the corner. All is well. Nothing is hurt; nothing is lost. One brief moment and all will be as it was before. How we shall laugh at the trouble of parting when we meet again!

[goldenscript]

basketball player!jungkook

author’s note: this is part of a sports series with my girl @wangpuppo (: and a request from one of my cute anonies that i miss. also, the bit with meeting a cute boy in philosophy happened irl and inspired this so heh enjoy!

meet jeon jungkook, power forward of seoul university and computer science major extraordinaire

you would think from the size of his thighs and his arms that he was a hockey player but he assures anyone that it’s really just a hobby for him and that basketball actually has his heart

his mom is actually the reason how he got acquainted with the sport bc a little before he was born, she was actually a college player with a semi-pro spot ready for her until she met his dad who was actually the waterboy

they shyly flirted with one another until some of her teammates locked them in a supply room closet together bc it was so unbearable for everyone else to deal with their feelings (lol) so by the time they were out of the closet they were together and happily so

however, come around their final year in college when things go kinda wrong and she ends up pregnant with baby jeon and of course they’re ecstatic but holy shit they haven’t even graduated yet and they’re gonna have a baby and well…. she didn’t go onto the semi-pro team and jeon’s dad did his best to work hard for them while she finished getting her degree WHILE nursing jungkook for 9 months

to say the least mama and papa jeon managed to get through the whole ordeal with degrees

by the time they graduated, baby jungkook was born and he became the light of their lives and despite their initial struggles they did their best to provide the family and make it as comfortable as they could for him because dammit they brought him into this world, they wanted to make him live well too

the comfort of their lives came the moment papa jeon scored a position as a nutritionist and mama jeon became a physical therapist so that’s how jungkook got acquainted with the world of fitness and finding interest in the way his parents could take care of people

however, the moment he fell in love with basketball was when he saw his mom’s basketball tapes. all the glorious videos of her scoring that winning shot and zooming around the court with such swiftness and agility he damn near got whiplash from trying to keep up

and from that moment on, he wanted to play too

of course, his parents were very ecstatic about that and enrolled him in a community team and he excelled so damn quickly

for the next nineteen years of his life, he played basketball and loved every damn second of it and along the way he found an interest in computers too. (let’s just say he read a few books that his high school computer teacher gave him and he was determined to take apart a computer and put it back together - he succeeded) and so that is why he has a full ride to SU with a basketball scholarship as a compsci major

 anywho, seeing jungkook on the court is honestly a sight because you would expect him to be stomping around, too slow for the muscle all over his body, but jfc no he is so goddamn quick and agile. he could be on one side of the court and somehow end up right in front of the opposing member to block for his teammate to make that shot

he’s a great team player really, not much for the glory and usually to himself, but on a handful of occasions he’ll surprise even his members with a half-court shot

he doesn’t care much for the glory of the winning shot, just the feeling that basketball gives him when he’s on the court, gaining callouses from the ball, and running around until he can’t seem to feel his calves and god the happiness on his parents’ face always gets to him

so yeah, that’s jungkook as a basketball player - a really sweet and hardworking boy who loves to make his parents happy and to make his teammates happy too

remember how i mentioned how he’s a compsci major?

well, you’re actually a compsci minor because you find computers really fascinating and cool and unfortunately quite a few others do too so it leaves you two at a disadvantage as first years compared to the upperclassmen so you’re both resorted to taking these random General Education (GE) classes i.e intro to philosophy

it’s hard not to notice jungkook that’s for sure, especially when he’s lugging around his sports bag and when he’s cute as all hell in your honest opinion

you once told this to your friends and they never let you down about it either. honestly they’d tell you when he’d walk in or try and get you to sit by him but the closest you’ve ever gotten was probably sitting one person away and that was on the final exam day

on a few occasions you two would actually inadvertently glance at one another during your discussion (dear god none of your friends let you live, best believe that) but you were always too shy to approach him and he was actually quite shy himself because let’s face it baby boy is a shy nugget who only knows basketball and comp sci and some philosophy (barely tho lol but it’s okay cuz you knew the bare minimum too)

anyway, that quarter you didn’t get to know him as you wished and both of you ended up regretting that because damn y’all thought each other was cute. for him it was especially seeing you laugh with your friends and for you it was that little perplexed expression on his face when the professor would mention soundness and the theories about the concepts and dshgjds yeah you really wished you had taken that chance to tell him he was cute on the last day like you initially planned but was too chicken to do

but guess what?

the next quarter you see him in your intro to computers class and somehow you two end up seated by one another and although there’s no seating chart, it just becomes a thing that this is that person’s seat the moment they sit there more than twice and so you both are seated not too far from one another

your hair is a slight mess and your eyes are puffy while you sip your coffee and he looks fairly content albeit sleepy with his hood drawn up and you both don’t even realize it’s each other until hour two of the lab goes by

you’re both starting to wake up and looking around at each other cuz people are shuffling around and some are moving closer toward one another and then it strikes you that the kid with slightly ruffled hair is very familiar and then it hits you and you’re just like “wow ok holy shit cute person from that philosophy class!!!!”

but this isn’t enough to get you two to start talking to each other

that self-established seating chart has already set in notion and so there’s no honest chance in getting to know him from that and so you kinda give up because you’re very sure he probably doesn’t remember you and dammit your TA is standing over your shoulder staring at your codes with narrowed eyes (rip you but he was just playin’ cuz he liked what you had)

this whole exchange isn’t to say you both never talk because on this chance encounter of finding out why he lugs that damn nike bag around all the time comes full circle

so you do work at the infirmary, usually filing papers and the like since it’s sort of the track for your major and on a particular day comes in jungkook!

he looks like he’s in a lot of pain clutching his shoulder and the nurse gets him to do the necessary papers and shovels him off to the doctor who tells him that he has a pretty bad fracture and he won’t be able to play for the rest of the season (at least that’s what they think)

reason: some asshole from one of the other teams hit him a little too hard after one too many unnecessary roughness calls and on this blow jungkook fell a little too hard and too awkward for it to just be another minor bruise and yeah :(

he’s pretty devastated about this and he has to go through a bunch of testing and whatnot and as an assistant you usually run around making copies until you have to hand off some paperwork for him to fill out

prior to this, you noticed how most of his appointments took up his time during the labs and the lectures so you nicely set a copy of your notes with his, adding in things you figured he might need to know from the lecture since he was unable to attend and the moment he receives the large stack his eyes grow wide

and you’re like “oh so i remember you from my comp sci class and i figured you might these notes… -oh and those are just basic info that the doctor wanted you to sign off on and the like”

he blinks at you, still pretty surprised at your kindness (and totally not freaking out that such a cute person is chatting from him aka the same one he’s wanted to talk to for a while) but he flashes you a small smile (and omg you love it so much) and thanks you

coincidentally most of your volunteer shifts are during his appointments and whatnot so you talk every now and then, usually about the notes and eventually about your majors

the doctors and the nurses think it’s absolutely adorable so sometimes they let you two chat a little longer than usual just for young love to bloom <3

this exchange goes on from some time until he finds the guts to ask for your number when you hand him the large stack of notes in this rushed blurting of words i.e. “soumiwaswonderingificould-maybe-getyournumber??”

you: “wait what”

he looks down, cheeks quite pink, “can i -um- get your number? since y’know we have comp sci together so it’d be easier to like study for exams and talk about it and stuff…. yeah….”

you grin and nod, scribbling it onto one of the notes and the two of you can’t deny the butterflies and erratically beating hearts y’all have going on

you both see each other during his check-ups but he’s healing quite quickly thanks to having such strong bones so he may not be out for the rest of the season like they thought thankfully and so when he’s fine and his check-ups are less and less

so along the way, you two end up talking day by day even sitting by one another in your comp lecture because you’re semi-friends now and it’s just nice to have someone you know in that class since none of your other friends were interested in comp sci like you so nowadays you’ll text one another about the class and how your days are and those little butterflies emerge whenever you wait for his text or receive a response and you’re just like “dsjghsdjgshdgs”

little do you know he’s honestly the same exact way and his roommates jimin and taehyung are always like “???? WHO DAT? :D” and jungkook’s like “lol gtfo bye”

anyway, one day you text him about the upcoming final bc you’ll be damned if you miss out on your chance to actually ask his kid out and studying together and he agrees but it’d have to be after his practice and you ask him about his shoulder and if he’ll be good to play at championships

and he’s like “oh yah!”

and you’re like “o: woah, can i come watch? i haven’t gone to a game and i wanna see you play. prolly treat ya out if you win”

and ok, at first he’s a lil’ shy but he says “ok sure, just say you’re with me at the door” and you do and jin (the RA)’s at the entrance like “O: WHAT MY FLOOR CHILD HAS A GIRLFRIEND, THAT PUNK KSJHFJS” but before he can say anything else one of jungkook’s buds urges you to sit by the front and you do until you see jungkook and he looks so nervous, glancing around until his eyes settle on you and he just flashes you a grin and wave which you return as well

the game is going by swimmingly and you can’t help but watch jungkook especially because even though he’s the power forward he’s also very conscious of his shoulder which you were extremely worried about until you feel like you can finally breathe when your school wins and you stand with the crowd cheering like crazy

out of everyone tho he actually approaches you first with a grin and you’re congratulating him and he feels so elated he really just wants to take you up in his arms and kiss you tbh but he has self control and mercy bc he’s sweating like crazy

ngl tho he looks crazy attractive in your opinion

anywayy, as you two are talking since you did tell him that you’d buy him food on his win, the rest of the team’s like “yooo kook! party at jackson’s!!!! you in??”

and although you’re disappointed you tell him you won’t mind if he goes but he turns to you and says with a grin “nah i got plans already” and jsdkghsjgh the team goes “oOOOOoooooOoooo” but y’all ignore them and he goes “i’ll be back ok? gonna get cleaned up and we can get food?”

so you’re content to wait by the locker room for him, grinning af bc holy shit the cute boy you really wanted to get to know last quarter is going to dinner with you!!!!!

meanwhile jungkook’s so nervous and stuff cuz he plans on confessing and stuff since it just seems right and his teammates clap him on the back like “yo you got this bro!!!!!!! goood luck tho jin definitely sent him some salty messages and warnings to be safe ahahaha

and ok so y’all go to dinner at this nice ramen shop and it’s really great! and you two are laughing your asses off about how this one time oneo f his roomates taehyung got stuck in between the washing machines because he was so certain he could fit and how they had to call the fire department to get the boy loose and yeah ahaha

and he’s just in awe with how damn beautiful you look when your laughing and he just blurts out “you have a really nice laugh” when you ask him why he’s staring and you’re like “o: oh thank you…. you do too”

and he says “i wanna hear you laugh more and be the reason why you do….” he lets out a deep sigh, appearing a lot more nervous than before, “i like you a lot. i think you’re incredibly cute and i love that you love compsci as much as i do and talking to you these past few weeks have made me happy and god i really wanted to kiss you after the game but i didn’t want to scare you and i feel like this is a lot less eloquent than in my head so i’m sorry”

and you’re just in awe because damn you really planned on confessing first but you can’t deny the smile spreading on your face and you tell him “kook, i like you too. and i’d really like it if you kissed me, by the way”

and he’s all wide eyed but he grins and after y’all eat and you’re strolling around the city with his arm draped over your shoulders, you guys stop at the top where it overlooks the city lights and on a particular moment when you both are still and quiet and glancing at one another you lean in and do it

and it leads to a shocked expression on his face but he lets go of your shoulders and puts his hands on either side of your face and kisses you again

and ahh it’s just so damn sweet and neither of you can stop grinning because damn it really worked out as you both hoped

dating jungkook entails a lot of visits to his practices after you’re done with volunteering where you’ll come by with ice packs and water and snacks and usually you’ll bring enough snacks for the others who absolutely adore you for that

you also have a tendency to fuss over him whenever he overexerts himself because he’s a very big overachiever in sports and academics and sometimes you gotta threaten to withdraw your kisses and affections just to get him to settle down honestly

his roommates were so happy to hear how things turned out for you two and they go out of their way to tease him whenever you’re around and dear god Jin

well when he found out you two got together, he saw y’all holding hands and he literally sat you both in the lounge, brought out some snacks and just chatted with you

to jungkook, this was horrendous but you loved chatting with jin because he’d lay out a bunch of things about kook like how he isn’t the cleanliest and you shouldn’t be surprised to find anything and everything under his bed and how there was one time when jungkook spent an hour googling how to work the washer and dryer were right by the bulletin board in the room and that’s when kook lost it and dragged you away

it was then decided that jin approved of you tho

bc after the season when everyone is still training after, jungkook’s shoulder was bothering him and he refused to admit that he might’ve overexerted it and you stormed over to the dorm and scolded him for not taking proper care of himself before running around just to grab some ice packs and just a mini kit of dealing with this brat and jin just knew that you’d take care of this kid so he leaves y’all be and even closes the door to the dorm tho you pay no attention as kook starts opening up to you

even on days when he feels his worst like he feels like everyone depends on him and he’s not sure if his abilities are good enough since his shoulder’s constantly bothering him and all you think to do is give him words of advice and kissing him to let him know that he isn’t alone

because although you count on him, you want to be there to support him and well…. jimin and taehyung aren’t in the room and with the ice pack on his shoulder, you climb atop the bed, sitting on his lap and kissing him with more and more fervor that he reciprocates

you convince him to let you take care of him and you do indeed~

the one day he actually loses a game (bc hey no ones perfect) and you’re there doing your best to comfort him he just tells you how much he loves you and is grateful for you being there

and holy shit this is the first he’s told you this, you tell him you love him too and god he looks significantly happier

on days when you’re at your worst, he tries his best to get your mind of it, taking you on walks to your favorite places and carrying you when you’re too tired

other days he’ll even forgo practice, finding the frog leaps on the stairs worth it, when he can pick you up after your volunteer shift just to surprise you with snacks and a semi-well made bento box and boba and it’s just so damn sweet ok

you and jungkook manage to complement one another in the best way possible and when you’re both overexerting yourselves you’re there for one another to tell each other to chill

to say the least, both of y’all have never been more grateful for a philosophy class even if you both suffered incessantly in that damn class