#I seem to have had a lot to say about this one
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qqueenofhades · 1 day ago
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I don’t have any words right now for what’s happened. Where in the fuck do we go from here?
I don't know. I really, truly don't know. We can't sugarcoat how bad things are going to get, and we can't pre-emptively give into it anyway. This is going to be an unprecedented time in American history (if, sadly, not world history) and the forces conspiring to make you obey will gain much of their power from you doing so in advance, without a struggle. It seems fair to say that America as it has always been historically constituted is over, and may not return in our lifetimes, but we also do not know that for a fact. If nothing else, the fascists will find it very hard to cancel competitive elections, and we cannot sit back, throw up our hands, conclude that voting is clearly meaningless, and let them do that. There are a lot of other things that we need to do, but that's one.
There are various postmortems to be written and nits to pick, but Harris was thrown into an impossible situation and did the best she could in 100 days. Even her critics agree she ran a pretty much flawless campaign. But this country simply decided that a well-qualified black woman could not be preferred over the most manifestly and flagrantly unfit degenerate to ever occupy the office. They decided this for many reasons, not least because large swathes of the country now live in curated misinformation bubbles that, under Government Czar Musk, will only get much, much worse. They were helped by the cowardice and complicity of the "mainstream media" that could have ended Trump's career exactly like they did to Biden after the first debate, but chose to preserve the profits of their billionaire oligarch owners and did not do so, giving Trump the benefit of the doubt and normalization at every turn. They also hounded Biden relentlessly over the four years of his presidency, never reported on the good things he did, and drove him to the historically bad approval ratings lows for a president who was by any metric, quite successful (and will quite possibly be our last ordinary American president for a very long time). Along with the searingly ingrained racism and misogyny and misinformation, Harris could not overcome that.
Democrats clearly had a messaging problem, but it's also true that the country, quite simply, does not care about "democracy" when the economy is perceived to be at stake. Not to over-egg the Hitler parallels, but yeah. This is how Hitler returned to power in 1933 -- on the backs of widespread economic collapse of the Weimar Republic; voters decided they just didn't care about the overtly fascist stuff, which he then proceeded to you know, do with genocidal vigor. Except the American economy in this case was actually doing well, which makes it even more baffling and indefensible. Enough people simply memory-holed Trump's crimes (aided at every turn by SCOTUS, Mitch McConnell not convicting him after January 6, Merrick Garland being far too slow and timid, the corporate media), liked the racist fascist behavior or felt that it wasn't a dealbreaker, and decided that in this election, he was the "change" candidate. It's insane by any metric, but that's what happened.
The country is deeply sick. We do not know what will happen. It's going to get bad. Barring a miracle, we will not have federalized abortion rights again in my lifetime, and there will be widespread attacks on public health, women's rights, immigrants, transgender people, and other vulnerable people. Even and especially the ones who voted for Trump. Never Thought Leopard Would Eat My Face, etc. Alito and Thomas will swiftly step down and allow their seats to be replaced by 40-year old wingnuts hand-selected from the worst the Federalist Society has to offer. SCOTUS is gone for the next generation at least. There is very little prospect of it being ever fixed in the foreseeable future.
Trump will never face a scintilla of consequences for his previous crimes; all the open federal cases will be closed as soon as he takes office and fires Jack Smith. The best we can hope for is that he dies in office, but then we get Vance and the cadre of alt-right techno billionaires ruled directly from the Kremlin. Putin is celebrating this morning and with good reason; he's gotten everything he wants. Trump will egg on Netanyahu in Gaza and abandon Ukraine. Democracy across the world will remain even more fragile and badly under threat. Authoritarians will be empowered and American withdrawal from international systems will percolate in very dangerous ways that cannot and will not be fixed in the short run. I really hope all the leftists who celebrate this as the "defeat of the genocide candidate" will enjoy all the genocide and suffering that's about to come. And yes, I do think the Israel-Palestine war fucked us in a large way. Jewish voters perceived the Democrats as insufficiently pro-Israel due to the presence of far-left antisemitism, even as the far left attacked the Democrats relentlessly and never targeted the Republicans. Arab voters abandoned them, possibly deservedly. What would have happened without the war? We don't know. You get the historical period that you get. Netanyahu and Trump can now do anything they want. Hope it was worth it.
As I said, I can't sugarcoat it. We are going to be paying for this in some form for the next decade, and probably longer. I'm not as absolutely shattered as I was in 2016, but I am much, much angrier. We all thought, we all hoped, America was better than this. It isn't. That, however, is something that has also happened before. What we decide to do next will shape how the next chapter unfolds.
This would be a great time to stock up on needed medicines, renew your passport online, and anything else you need to do in preparation for next year. Many of us simply do not have the wherewithal, whether financial or otherwise, to leave the country. I don't know what will happen with me. I don't know what will happen to any of us. This was utterly avoidable and yet, America didn't want to avoid it. At some point, there's nothing else you can do. You can point to media cronyism, Russian influence, etc etc., but the fact that two of the most qualified presidential candidates who happened to be women have now lost to Trump twice makes it unavoidable. The virulent rightward shift of young men (of all races) in particular paints a grim picture as to how the reactionary misogyny of the 21st century is going to essentially undo most of the progress for social and gender equality in the 20th. The patriarchy has been a problem for most of human history. Doesn't really seem like it's going to change.
The end result of this, however grim: we're still here. We are still living within our communities. If (and this is a big if) Democrats can retake the House, they can put some checks on the process for the next two years. At this point, we are in full-out buying-time, trying-to-prevent-the worst mode. We could have continued fixing things, but we won't be doing that. We will only be trying to preserve ourselves and our friends and our smaller spheres of influence. It sounds very trite to say that we have to have courage, but we do. There's not much else.
It's going to be an awful winter. We have two and a half months to see this coming and know how bad it's going to be, and... yeah. I don't know how soon the buyer's remorse will inevitably set in, but it will. Tough luck, people. You voted for him. You get the country that you decide to have. But the rest of us are also here, and what Gandalf says is still true. We wish the Ring had never come to us, we wish none of this had happened, but we still have to decide what to do with the time that is given to us.
I don't have a lot more. I'll probably be logging off for a while. I don't need to look at the internet for.... yeah, a long time. (Will I do it anyway? Probably.) I don't know what else to leave you with, aside from again:
Do not obey in advance. Do not act as if everything is foreordained and set in stone. Fascist regimes end. They always do. We are going to have to figure out how, and it will suck shit, but the alternative is worse.
Take care of yourselves. I love you.
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fatuismooches · 2 days ago
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Dottore and his segments get a taste of their own medicine after giving you a job of your own. (In other words, you ignore their need for attention in favor of your work, they get pouty, just like you did.)
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As of late, a peculiar sight had made its way into the lab. Actually, peculiar wasn't even strong enough of a word for the agents to use. They had nearly tripped over their feet once they saw the new area of their working quarters in the lab.
In addition to their Lord Harbinger's desk (that was shared amongst the segments depending on the day), there was now another desk on the opposite side of the room, and the cute decorations on it were quite noticeable. Photo frames and stationery. A comfortable and plush chair with a blanket that dropped over it.
... A plushie version of the Harbinger that laid on Dottore's desk, commissioned by you to motivate him.
(A side thought - the number of desks the Doctor had was something to wonder about. One in the lab, one in the office, one in the bedroom - no wonder things were always scattered around the place. But that was something for another day...)
And most importantly, you, Dottore's spouse, standing next to their Lord, rocking back on your heels nervously as he introduced you as their new co-worker.
It all began when you approached your husband with a very simple request.
"Dottie, I want a job!" You said with enthusiasm, smile as wide and proud as ever. The scientist paused his work and turned to look at you with a blank expression.
"... A job, you say?" You only puffed your chest out more at his confirmation.
"Yes, a job. I mean, being your lover is already a lot of work for my poor back, but I want to actually work with you! With your research and stuff, like the old days!" Your excitement was completely serious and were it not for your health, it would have been infectious for the scholar. Rarely did he ever meet anyone who was truly interested in his work. But of course, certain restrictions have held you back for a long time now.
"We've already been over this. My work is too dangerous for you," the Doctor sighed as he turned back around to continue whatever he was doing.
"I know, I know, but I meant other kinds of stuff. I've been thinking like... a desk job! It doesn't have to be anything dangerous! I could... sort papers for you? Oh, and you have one of those fancy stamps, right? I could stamp them too! I could rewrite your notes... ah, and the best part - I could help you write reports too! You always liked my essays, didn't you?" You were doing your best to provide Dottore with a convincing case, snuggling up against his firm back. Only another sigh escaped your husband, not really that convinced.
"Come on..." you inhaled his familiar scent, tinged with that laboratory smell that never seemed to go away, but somehow brought comfort to you. "I've been so bored lately... and lonely," you muttered the last part pointedly. "I just want some work to take my mind off things!"
Indeed, there was always limited entertainment and pastimes to occupy yourself with. It was especially boring on days you couldn't get out of bed, or when no segment could afford you attention...
"And you know what, I could give those agents of yours some writing tips, too!"
Yes, there had been many times his employees were not up to his standards, despite how many of them fawned over him (for some odd reason)...
"And I'll be helping you too! It's good for everyone."
Of course, you always felt rather good about yourself if you managed to help him, being the Second Harbinger and all...
"I suppose I shall give it some thought-" Before the man could finish his sentence you started squeezing him tightly while hopping in delight.
"Oh, thank you! So, when do I start? Do I get one of your huge desks too?"
"I didn't say yes yet, darling."
"Shh... we both know what you mean!"
And that was how you now clocked in at "work" every day with the agents (later than normal, but you had special privileges.) It was daunting at first for the poor souls, even the ones who secretly admired you from afar (being in the fan club and all.) Even though initially you were merely sorting papers, you were the most important person in that room.
However, soon enough, going to work in this dreary lab became a lot more cheery thanks to your sweet demeanor. Somehow, the atmosphere had become a lot less tense since the last time the segments visited.
The agents had little to no problem speaking to you like a normal person, after you had graciously given them tips on impressing the Harbinger.
"Psst..." you were hovering behind an unsuspecting agent, reading the report she had for Dottore, who jumped at your whisper. "You know, he might click his tongue if you give him that." Although her mask covered her face, you could see that half surprised at how you popped out of nowhere, and half agreeing with your words. Perhaps she felt comfortable enough to spill the situation to you.
"I-I am well aware of that," she deeply sighed, "but no matter what I write, my Lord always seems to be unsatisfied..." You patted her shoulder in sympathy. Having worked with Dottore since the Akademiya days, you knew very well of his distaste for certain things.
"Well, that's why I was hired, friend! To make his and your life easier! See, look here, that's a no-no, he wouldn't appreciate those details, mhm, but this needs to be elaborated on more, uh huh..." Of course, being the good spouse and employee you were, the report was converted into the best one that had ever landed on the Doctor's desk.
On your lunch break, they provided you with some juicy gossip about anything they could get their hands on (the fan club had long reaches, apparently.) Frequently you had to debunk things about Dottore... (the handbook was swiftly revised.)
Needless to say, things seemed to be going well. You looked happier. Motivated. Having new "friends" as your company (that still watched their mouth around you after a single glance from the segments.)
However... an issue arose after a while. One that seemed entirely stupid and impossible.
Now that you were so caught up in your work, when the segments finally had some spare time to come to you, they were... rejected. Yes, they had come to you, fully expecting your devoted attention and kisses that you always gave them without hesitation, but now turned away. (Even more embarrassing, sometimes in front of the agents who kept their eyes glued to their strange chemicals.)
It was Omega, of all segments, who was turned away first. The most confident and charming of the bunch left uncharacteristically silent. He had come up behind you and traced his hands against your neck, always being the one who had no shame in touching you. You only softly giggled at the sensation and caught his hand in yours.
"It seems you've been busy for a while, dear." In truth, it was mostly you seeking him out and not vice versa, but the segment hadn't seen you invading his office in a while. The space had gotten too quiet without you.
"Mhm! But I can't imagine how much work you do. My desk is nowhere as cluttered as yours," you smiled as you felt the segment kiss your lashes.
"What do you say to a break with me?" Omega offered, already knowing what your eager response would be.
"Nah, I can't right now."
...
Your words took a few seconds to process through his head.
"Pardon?"
"I have all this work, 'Mega, and other people need my help," you shrugged your shoulders as you swung your legs. "But don't worry. I'm sure we can spend some time later!" You kissed him on the cheek and pulled your chair in before continuing your work.
Omega, the greatest segment, was reduced to a blankly staring man who had been deprived of his lover's attention for the first time.
He was irritable for the rest of the day.
Beta was next, the poor thing.
You were always the one he blew off steam to, always willing to listen about his gripes and complaints, offering him consolation in the form of kisses and soft words.
However, you hadn't come to visit in so long, the segment was all pent up and now the agents were beginning to fall victim to him.
Fine then - he'd seek you out. Not because he needed you or missed you or anything of the sort. You were just... halting his progress with the lack of your presence. Yes, that was it.
And so the scientist, donning his grand pink bow tie, swung by your desk.
"So this is where you've been? How boring." Beta was not a segment that you'd want to do paperwork. He much preferred to be hands-on.
"Ah, Beta!" You brightened in delight at seeing one of your lovers. "I missed you!" At least you were always honest about your feelings.
... But to cut a long story short, Beta faced the same conundrum that Omega did.
Someone got turned into a floating Ruin Machine that day.
By now all the segments had experienced being turned away from work. Alpha's signature scowl had become permanent. Zandy was pouting the whole day as he missed his parent. Foxttore kept to himself with a pathetic sopping wet eye. His segments were fighting with each other inside his mind, a great nuisance.
All because you were too absorbed with your work to pay them any attention.
... The Doctor was now realizing that it sounded like a very familiar tune sung by you. So this was what you felt for days on end? Now, it was easier for him to understand why you were always upset if you were ignored too much.
Still, it was mortifyingly embarrassing that his segments were reduced to this pitiful state just because you rejected cuddles a few times. Regardless, it was up to him to solve the issue. After all... he missed you too. He wanted you to be around him more often again.
And so the Doctor made his way to his beloved.
There you were, all cozy on your seat as you sorted through some papers. Really, he had no clue you'd be this productive, to be honest. At least it was proof that your health hadn't gotten worse, considering how well you were handling this.
"Aren't you the one who kept saying to take breaks?" His voice made you jump a bit, having not heard him walk up.
"It's you, Dottie! I was wondering when you'd come around. And of course, I take breaks, Dottore. I have lunch with the other agents!" Ah, another party that's been hogging your attention.
"You know, this job has been pretty fun, Dottore! Everyone's real nice, we make jokes, I get to write about interesting things..." You continued to go on about the research and while usually he'd be intrigued by your findings, this time he had enough.
Dottore picked you up like a long cat as you squealed from the sudden grasping.
"What are you doing?!"
"You're coming with me," was his cut and dry response as he lifted you into his arms.
"B-But I have to work on the big report for Pantalone!" Dottore's eye twitched at the mention of the banker.
"Someone else can."
"But I-"
"I'm not listening to anything you say further," he plainly said as he walked with you cuddled into his chest as you gawked at him.
Could he be... jealous? A wee bit lonely? You kept your guesses to yourself as he eventually bought you back to his room and laid you on his bed, not even saying anything to you before sitting at his desk.
Did he simply miss your presence that much? You felt a bit bad neglecting your lovers that much. But to be fair, they kinda did the same... sometimes. You got up to console your silly husband, who was just a man in your hands.
"Hey... I missed you too, dear husband... but I had to make sure no one stole the title of best assistant from me!" Dottore only sighed at your foolishness.
Of course no one could ever replace you.
"I know you'd rather die than admit it... but don't worry. You're lucky I'm sensitive to your feelings," you teased as you kissed the top of his mask. "I'll pay more attention to you and the segments, before they cause another headache for you, love. You'll give me some vacation time off, right?"
You laughed at your own joke before Dottore pulled you into his lap, biting down hard on your neck.
"Beloved, would you care to join me in discussing your work?"
"You fool, they're obviously coming to my lab to activate a new Ruin Machine."
"But [Name] is supposed to play with me today!!"
"As if, they're far too busy to join you all with your silly games."
"You all will stress them out with this arguing. Now, why don't you join me instead for a cup of coffee instead?"
"Grr, gr gr, grr!"
It was good to be loved so deeply.
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ruyakasunshine · 2 days ago
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F1 drivers rated on how likely they are to know what ao3 is
note : this is just for entertainment. I will also use this to make a general reminder not to get anything fanfic/rpf related outside of sites such as tumblr, ao3, or wattpad. Enjoy!
This is just the current grid, because if I had to do it with every driver that raced this season, I'd get a surprisingly high amount of drivers to talk about.
20. Fernando
Grandpa. Need I to say more?
19. Checo
In a recent GQ Sport interview, he revealed that he didn't even have social media on his phone. I'd be surprised to hear he has any ao3 tab open up there.
18. K-mag
I don't feel like I need to explain this one. But I also believe that if Haas got him to read a chapter of a wattpad fanfic out loud where he has to replace Y/N with his own name after every penalty point he gets, he would have stopped causing so much ruckus. Or he might even cause more, who knows what goes on inside his mind.
17. Nico Hulk
Hear me out, he doesn't know what a fanfic is, but if he were more popular with the writer, he'd read the shit out of those.
16. Valterri
I could pay actual money to hear him read a 'kidnapped by one direction' self insert story out loud. If there is any Sauber intern lurking here, please consider. Wattpad as a sponsor would bring you a lot of money, think about it. I promise you will see a rise in your fandom if the name of the team was "wattpad kick sauber". I would buy merch. You need the money the way the constructors are going. Think about it.
15. Lance
I don't know too much about him, but I will assume he doesn't spend too much time on social media, or googling himself with all the hate he gets. But maybe if he were to read a strollonso fanfic, we might get to see him have actual expressions on his face. Granted, that would be a look of horror, but I will take what I can.
14. Carlos
I think he might combust if he read any ABO fanfic. I might want to see that.
13. Max
He is too busy sim racing to care. Good for him, I wish I could say the same about myself but alas I am too busy reading the same fanfic for the 23th time.
12. Yuki
I believe if you pronounced the term "Y/N" next to him he might assume that's a car brand. Or, like, hello in a foreign language. Again, good for him.
11. Zhou
Hear me out, fanfics seem to be quite popular in China, and he has a sister, there is no way he hasn't heard of the existences of it. I don't think he has read any though, which is for the better.
10. Franco
Our dear Franquito hasn't been on the grid for long enough to discover the amazing word that fanfics have to offer, but let me tell you that if he hasn't found out stuff yet, he'll find some soon enough. Let the writers have time to write a little bit more about him, and soon we'll get an instagram live of him reacting to those.
9. Liam
I think he is young enough to have googled himself (he had to find something to do since he's been a reserve driver since like the year 2010), but he also hasn't been a permanent member, so he might not have enough material to accidentally stumble upon.
8. Esteban
He googles himself. He knows there are fanfics. And he fucking likes that. If there is a rise of pierresteban fics on ao3 after Brazil 2024, he will be the first one to know let me tell you that much.
7. Lewis
Okay you might be wondering why this senior citizen is up here, and the answer is simple : he is too famous not to know. Like COME ON. He's been here since 2007 (which is longer than some people who'll see this post have been alive for— that's a scary thought for another day), he has been in famous and televised rivalry, and he has to live with the existence of the quote "everything but a lover" about nico and him.
There is no way he hasn't READ a fucking brocedes fanfic. If he is willing, I will teach him how to use ao3 so he can look-up some "fix-it" fics. He might use some inspiration, and who is better for that than tired college students writing about their sad ass in between lectures?
6. George
He seems like the type to lurk a lot around the internet, so the chances of him finding the link to a fic on the third page of google isn't impossible to me.
If you find any comment of someone correcting your spelling, you know who did it.
5. Pierre
He probably googles his name too often not to have stumbled upon a "Reader x Pierre Gasly" wattpad fanfic. sigh.
4. Alex
Alex, I know that you are the second most likely to have tumblr (right after george who actually has an account). The chances of you knowing what a "lemon" is is way too high for my liking.
3. Charles
The C in Charles stands for Chronically Online. My boy was known for liking tweets about himself, and we know that fans talk about fanfics on twitter. He clicked on a link of a lestappen or sebchal fanfic at least once out of curiosity let me tell you this much.
2. Lando
Too chronically online not to have read fanfics about himself. I just know he typed in "lando norris fanfiction" straight in google at least once. Jail.
1. Oscar
Here me out : his sister is a K-pop fan. If you believe that she never yapped about a fanfic she read to her brother, you are strongly unfamiliar with sibling relationships. But the chances of him not listening to her are also very high, so maybe he shouldn't be so high up my list. But oh well.
He is also good at hiding his game, but he is as online as Charles (you thought you were sneaky but we caught you clicking on that link of Max playing air-hocket dear Osc.)
For my own mental health though, I will assume he hasn't read about his own self yet.
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kitzenvoncatzen · 4 hours ago
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It was very obviously not meant to be a shrine. It just happened to be mostly symmetrical and with an offering of one Chicken Strip Combo Meal from the chicken place.
I should describe the actual requirements for the shrine that I made.
It needs 2 crystals, one on either side of the offering, and a collection of glass pillars behind the offering, and a bunch of other tiny less important things that I happened to have a bunch of. Like bottle caps and wrappers that just happened to fit the requirements.
I was sitting down at my computer with a good meal I just bought with my own money and I was about to watch the newest episode of the stupid game show.
The rest of my floor isn't actually better than the table that only had room for the "offering".
The "crystals" were literally just rocks that I thought looked cool and stole them because I like having rocks for some reason. They apparently have crystals inside of them. Both of them. The glass pillars are empty soda bottles. (I like glass bottled soda a lot more.)
There are other gods that might answer to their own offering rituals, but this one was the only one that would actually answer to a Chicken Strip Combo Meal. The rest want much more to actually be contacted.
I'm a full 5 minutes into the show before I actually reach for my food. Which is gone.
I look around and immediately find some guy in full bright face paint and cool jagged symbols in my room, standing behind me, watching the show with me.
My first instinct is to punch him in the face. (I definitely would have recognized any of the other gods.)
It feels like hitting a rock wall.
"So I assume this wasn't intentional. About what I expected, actually." He speaks, the voice doesn't really match the figure standing before me.
"WHAT??" I shout. I look at my hand. Punching was actually a horrible idea because of the small scrape on my finger that got slightly more scraped.
"I can explain more later but right now I need your help. There are some things only mortals can do." He grabs my arm, and light surrounds us. A similar thing happens when other gods return to wherever they come from, but I was experiencing it from inside, in person, and it was slightly different. I couldn't tell if that's just how it is when you're inside it, or if the shade of the light was actually slightly different to the videos I've seen, but it seemed a bit weird compared to them.
"WHAT? WHERE ARE WE?" I shout again. He immediately covers my mouth with his equally cold, stony hands. (Which isn't actually as good at muffling speech as flesh is. I think. I can't bite through it like flesh though.)
"Gods fight all the time, but only mortals can actually kill gods." He whispers. The trees around us are completely still, and even the strong wind does not move a single leaf on them. They all appear to be made of some kind of stone, like he was.
"What does this have to do with me?" I whisper, still muffled by the hand. I had already accepted my most likely fate, death, which is usually the fate of people who get this involved with the gods without any good preparation. "No, wait, you're not saying..."
"I need you to kill a god."
[ Yeah
I did another one.
It's been a while. ]
{Check out my other things at this site please I need feedback.}
You are a person who covers your counter space in clutter and inadvertently makes a shrine to a long forgotten god who shows up to thank you.
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hesperocyon-lesbian · 24 hours ago
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Ok fuck it, here’s another US election take, cause this result was really a long time coming and there’s frankly a lot that I anticipated about it.
It seems like more than anything else, public perception of the economy was a major driving force behind Kamala’s loss. There’s a cost of living crisis that, while nothing compared to the state of the imperial periphery, is nonetheless noticeable and tangible to voters here. The price of food and rent have both outpaced inflation, while wages are lagging decades behind.
The democrats failed in this regard in two key ways:
1. They spent several years acting like the economy was fine. They were touting stats about how there definitely wasn’t a recession, and while I can’t know their intent, my suspicion is that they assumed admitting there was a cost of living crisis would result in voters blaming them. However true their fear on that front might’ve been, their response seems to have backfired. By acting as if the economy had improved, they came across as deeply out of touch, uncaring, and dishonest to anyone actually affected by increase food and rent costs
2. They failed to even make token commitments to a sufficient minimum wage. In order to keep pace with inflation, the minimum wage should be somewhere around the $25 mark now. Say what you want about how much that might scare away right wing voters, but if this election made one thing clear it’s that they never would’ve voted for Kamala regardless. A promise of a minimum wage between $20-25 would have been a direct means of addressing the day to day concerns of voters, and they never even considered it
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libraryspectre · 1 day ago
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After the 2016 election, I was alone on a college campus in Texas. The only queer person I knew in real life was my girlfriend, and she lived across the country. I had very few friends on campus and my entire family had voted for trump.
The next morning I got up and went to the student queer center for the first time. Before, I had been too afraid of been seen as a queer person to be in queer spaces. It took an existential threat to get there, but I'm forever grateful that threat drove me toward community rather than scaring me away from it. It was such a relief to be around other queer people that I ended up joining two queer student groups. I wasn't outgoing or comfortable enough with myself yet to make the most of those connections, but they were truly one of the major factors that kept me from collapsing in on myself.
I wanted to say this because I'm seeing a lot of good posts about how you need to get involved in your local community, but if you're exhausted and scared that can seem really daunting. But I want you to know that as much as they need you, YOU need THEM. You need to survive, and even live if possible. Do not underestimate the healing and motivating power of being with your people. If it can't be other queer people, build connections with anyone sympathetic, and with other people who are having to batten the hatches right now. We should all be building ties with those people anyway.
And this is really important - allow yourself community with those you don't totally agree with. Now is not the time to let infighting and ideological purity get in the way of growth. Be safe. I love you.
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ariestrxsh · 2 days ago
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𓍊𓋼𓍊𓋼𓍊 content warning: smut, some fluff, some angst, mommy kink, edging, handjob, sub!virgin!matt, experienced!pervy!reader
𓍊𓋼𓍊𓋼𓍊 author's note: here are parts one, two, and three to me & u. 💖 thanks for being patient with me while i took so long to get this out, and there will be a part five to this story in the near future.
𓍊𓋼𓍊𓋼𓍊 summary: while spending time with matt, you start to find out more about his past, which leads to your first disagreement with one another.
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me & u part four
"What if I came and cleaned it up for you with my mouth?" You said in a sultry tone through the phone. You smirked at Matt through the window after you watched him finish using his new sex toy, but he'd already grabbed an old t-shirt and was wiping up the mess he made.
"I'll tell you what. You can clean up the next one," he said in a breathy voice on the other end of the line. "I'd be honored," you replied, squeezing your thighs together to relieve some of the tension you were feeling.
"I'd love it if you came over, though. My dad's gone," Matt bit his lip. "What are we gonna do?" You asked him. "Anything you want," he responded. "Anything?" You wondered in a flirtatious tone. "Within reason," Matt chuckled at how dirty-minded you were.
"I'll be over soon," you replied, hanging up the phone and hurrying over to the neighbor boy's house. You let yourself in through Matt's front door, taking in all of the changes that had taken place since you'd last been over.
There were actually kitchen appliances on the counters and portraits on the wall of Matt in his younger years. You smiled, running your fingers along the frames and the glass before making your way up the staircase.
You turned the door knob to Matt's room, and as you swung open the door, he was pulling his zipper closed and still trying to catch his breath. He looked up at you and smiled. "So, what do you think of your new fleshlight?" You teased Matt.
"I think you know what I think," Matt playfully rolled his eyes. "I'm glad you like it," you leaned up against his door frame and looked him up and down. "Like is an understatement," he said, taking his toy to his bathroom to rinse it out. "Your house is coming together nicely," you called to him from his bedroom as your eyes glossed over the new additions to his space.
"Thanks. My dad and I had a lot of time to unpack today," Matt called back to you. You sifted through a few vinyls Matt had stored on a shelf beneath his record player. "I didn't know you were a music fan," you told him. "I mean, who doesn't love music?" Matt asked, coming back into the room and studying the way you ran your dainty fingers across his music collection.
"Yeah, but you listen to really good music," you replied, taking a Led Zeppelin album off of the shelf and slipping the record into the player. Traveling Riverside Blues came through clearly on the speaker. "What can I say? I have my dad's taste," he shrugged. You picked up Matt's journal off his desk and started flitting through the pages.
"May I?" You asked, glancing up at him. "I mean, I just came on the phone with you. I don't see why you can't read my journal," Matt chuckled and reached around to rub the back of his neck like he always did when he was nervous.
There was nothing written for the day the two of you had met, but there was an entry written for the day after. "I met my new neighbor yesterday. She's kind of a slut," your jaw dropped as you read the words on the page and peered up to look at Matt.
"Look, I know that wasn't the nicest way to put it," Matt said, walking towards you, prepared to de-escalate your anger. "Don't worry. It turns me on to be called that," your shocked expression turned to a smirk, and you continued reading the next sentence.
"She's really hot, and she seems to know what she wants. I like that about her. She's nothing like May. Who's May?" You wondered, glancing up from the leather book again. "My ex-girlfriend," Matt timidly told you.
"I didn't know you had dated anyone before," you relayed in a surprised tone. "We dated for about three years, but she's the only girlfriend I've ever had," Matt admitted to you. "Three years? Why'd you guys break up?" You wondered aloud.
There was a moment of silence before Matt answered you. "We ended things because I moved away," Matt said with a somber tone in his voice. Your stomach dropped. "So you guys broke up recently," you replied, fiddling with the leather cover. "Yeah, fairly recently," Matt said.
"So, you're not over her yet? I mean, it would be crazy if you were. It was a three-year long relationship that ended recently," You insinuated, trying to hold back the tears that were beginning to form in your eyes.
"I mean, I don't even know what it means to get over someone. I've never had to do it before," Matt said defensively. "Why didn't you tell me about her?" You narrowed your gaze at him.
"It didn't come up, and I was waiting until the right time to tell you," he answered you. "Do you still love her?" You wondered with a hurt look on your face, and Matt stood silently, staring at you for a moment.
You shut off the record player. "It's a simple question, Matthew. Are you still in love with her?" You interrogated him with a bit of anger in your tone now, crossing your arms over your chest.
"We ended things a couple weeks ago. How am I supposed to say no?" Matt asked, raising the volume of voice. "Do you guys still talk?" You wondered, taking a step closer to him.
"She texted me last night and asked me how I liked my new house. I was too high to answer her, but I texted her back this morning," Matt hesitantly admitted, shrugging his shoulder and sticking his hands in his pockets.
You didn't want Matt to see you cry, so you spun around without saying another word, bounded down the stairs, and ran out the front door. You headed for your backyard to be alone and collect your thoughts, climbing up the ladder to your treehouse as hot tears started falling from your eyes.
You knew that Matt and May weren't together anymore, but it was the fact that he still had leftover feelings for a girl he'd probably still be dating if he lived in the same state as her. Not only was he still in love with another girl, but a girl that, in his words, was very different from you.
On top of it all, you had always struggled with jealousy in relationships. Your mind raced through the worst-case scenarios. What would happen if Matt went back to visit May, or what if she traveled here to visit him? You wondered if it would change the way he felt about you.
You were wiping your tears with the back of your hand and sniffling when Matt poked his head up from under the treehouse as he followed you up the ladder. "I didn't mean to make you cry," he timidly said, looking at you with his big, blue eyes. "Did I say the wrong thing?"
You wanted to shout at him and tell him to leave you alone. You wanted to say anything to hurt him to make him feel what you were feeling. You wanted to hide behind your tough facade, secretly afraid to be vulnerable with him, but you couldn't look at him and imagine being mean to him or raising your voice at him.
"I don't want you to be in love with May," you blurted out as you started to sob again. Matt climbed into the shelter with you, his journal in hand, placing it in his lap as he sat beside you, wiping away your tears.
"It's just still fresh. That's all. It was three years, and the reason we broke up was beyond our control, but it doesn't make sense for us to be together, and now that I've met you.." Matt trailed off, rubbing your back.
"Since you met me, what?" You asked softly, lifting your head. "Well, you didn't even finish the journal entry, silly." Matt handed you his leather notebook, and despite your hesitancy to read on and hurt your own feelings worse, you opened it back up to the page you left off on.
"She's nothing like May. The more time I spend around her, the more I realize things I didn't really like about May and my relationship with her. Like how passive she was, how she always kept me guessing about how she felt about me, and the way she never disagreed with anything I said or challenged any of my beliefs," you read aloud.
"Wait, you actually like that I'm disagreeable and direct?" You asked, peering up at him, surprised because those were usually the qualities people criticized you for. "Yeah, those are my favorite things about you. It's refreshing to meet someone like you," Matt told you, looking into your eyes.
"I'm sorry I stormed off," you apologized. "I'm not upset," Matt assured you. "I just wasn't sure whether I was supposed to follow you or not."
You two sat silently for a few moments, just staring into each other's eyes, and the magnetic force between you and Matt pulled you each closer to one another until your lips were locked. The chemistry between you both when you'd kiss was undeniable, and you could each confirm that you felt it through your body language in the way your hands would wander, never being able to pull each other close enough.
"Do you wanna get high and go lay on your floor and Iisten to your records?" You asked him, looking into his blue eyes and caressing his face once you pulled back from the kiss. "Sure, but I'm only taking one hit," Matt looked at you, wide-eyed and smiling.
"That's really all you need," you smiled back at him, reaching for your stash and pulling a pre-rolled joint out of a plastic bag. You lit it up, exhaling smoke and watching it dissipate into the air.
"Do you wanna shotgun kiss again?" You asked Matt. "Shotgun kiss?" He reiterated in a confused tone. "Yeah, it's where I take a hit, and then we kiss, and I blow it into your mouth," you smirked at him. He nodded at you, leaning in as you took a drag, the cherry end of the joint glowing and crackling as you gently pulled from it.
Your lips softly brushed up against Matt's, blowing out the weed smoke as he breathed in and gave him a couple of pecks before pulling away. He exhaled, expelling the wispy, grey smoke from his lungs. "I don't think I'll ever get used to that," Matt laughed in between coughs.
You took a few more hits while you silently stared at the cute boy beside you. You watched as his eyelids grew heavy and the whites of his eyes turned a bit red. "Let's go check out your record collection," you suggested to Matt, nudging him in the arm and putting out the joint.
The two of you descended the ladder as the sun sank lower below the horizon, leaving behind a bright orange sky in its wake. You followed Matt's silhouette out your gate and back over the path that led to his house.
You found yourself lying on Matt's giant rug in the middle of his room while he laid his head next to yours but had his feet pointed in the opposite direction. You both stared up at the ceiling as Riders on the Storm by The Doors came through over the speaker of the record player, sounding textured and crisp.
"Can I stay the night here?" You asked Matt, peering over at him and his glazed over expression. "I don't see why not," Matt shrugged, looking at you wide-eyed. He did want you to stay the night, but he was afraid that you had certain sexual expectations about how the night would go.
"I'm not ready to have sex with you yet," Matt blurted out, searching your expression for a reaction and wondering if he was being too presumptuous by saying that. "That's okay. I understand. Could we maybe do other stuff?" You nibbled on your lip, looking at him hungrily. "I think I'd be okay with that," Matt nervously replied, nodding at you timidly.
The two of you enjoyed your highs a bit longer as The Doors' L.A. Woman album played through its track list until you were both too tired to keep your eyes open. Matt switched off the light, and you, the record player.
The two of you climbed into Matt's bed, stripping down into your underwear, nestling under the covers, and cuddling. Matt couldn't help but to get hard with your half-naked body curled up so closely to his with your nose nuzzled into his neck.
You guys heard Matt's dad pull up in his loud, rust-colored pickup truck, casting shadows across the bedroom as the headlights danced through the window. It's not that Matt wasn't allowed to have girls sleep over, but he certainly didn't think his father would approve of it, so the two of you silently decided to keep your staying the night a secret.
A couple hours later, you woke up to some movement in the bed. You figured Matt must have been tossing and turning, trying to get comfortable. You listened a little more closely, and you heard soft noises and labored breathing coming from him.
It wasn't long after Matt's dad came in through the door that he trudged up the stairs and made his way into his bathroom, turning on the shower and getting ready for bed. You and Matt laid in the dark, the only bit of light pouring into the room from a nearby street lamp, and you fell asleep shortly after in each other's arms.
𓍊𓋼𓍊𓋼𓍊𓋼𓍊𓋼𓍊𓋼𓍊𓋼𓍊𓋼𓍊𓋼𓍊𓋼𓍊𓋼𓍊𓋼𓍊𓋼𓍊𓋼𓍊𓋼𓍊
As your eyes adjusted to the low lighting, you caught a glimpse of desire on his face while he grinded against his pillow, desperate for relief. You watched quietly for a few minutes as he rutted into his blankets and listened as your name faintly fell from his lips. You smirked at how needy he was being.
"Need some help?" Your voice broke through his breathy whimpers. "What?" He asked, immediately stopping and acting like he'd just woken up. "Help me with what? I don't know what you mean."
"Oh, you naughty boy. Are you lying to me right now?" You moved closer to him, speaking in a low whisper while you tenderly grabbed him by his jaw. "Wanna try that again, hmm? You gonna tell me you weren't just humping your pillow?" You asked in a quiet voice.
"I'm sorry, mommy. It's so hard. It hurts," he whined in a bratty tone. You started slowly kissing Matt's neck, and you felt his body tighten against you. "I'm gonna make it feel all better," you moaned against his ear.
"My dad's asleep in the next room," Matt said quietly before letting out a stifled moan. "Makes it more hot that way, doesn't it? When it's a secret? When you have to keep your volume low? When it's risky and you could be caught if you're too loud?" You cooed, gently brushing your fingers over the fabric of his underwear, exciting him even further.
"Mmm. I dont know," he softly purred as you caressed his member. "I'll stop if you want me to. You know, so your dad doesn't hear us," you teased, whispering into his ear and delicately touching your lips to his ear lobe before kissing it. "No. Please. Keep going," he moaned quietly.
You slipped your hand into the waistband of his boxers and started running your fingers along his length while your lips moved back down to his neck. You could feel each of his veins as you lightly grazed him, testing how much teasing he could take.
He kept anticipating you wrapping your fingers around his thickness and sighing every time you didn't. "Why are you teasing so much?" He softly whimpered. You gave him a gentle squeeze, quietly chuckling at his neediness.
Finally, with his cock in your grip, you started to move your hand up and down, stroking his length while soft, delicate whimpers poured from his lips. "How do you like that, baby?" You asked in a voice just barely louder than a whisper.
"I love it, mommy. Please don't stop," he begged in a hushed volume. "Good boy," you cooed back as you started to pick up the pace a bit. "You can't finish until I tell you to," you added at the end.
He let out a long sigh. "But mommy. I'm already so close," he quietly cried. "Then you'd better get ahold of yourself," you responded in a sultry moan. He nodded at you obediently.
You couldn't tell how big he was because it was dark in the room, and you were jerking him off under his blanket, but it felt bigger than average. You noted that your fingers struggled to wrap around his girth, and your strokes felt long as you pumped his length back and forth. You couldn't wait until the day you'd get to see it.
You felt a wet warmth between your legs as you listened to the boy whimper beneath you while you continued sucking on his neck. "Mommy, please," he whispered. "Please, what?" You softly cooed against his hot skin.
"Please let me cum," he said in a strangled moan. "Not yet, baby." You smirked as you brushed your thumb over the tip, spreading around his pre-cum and eliciting more clear liquid from his sensitive slit.
"Mommy," he desperately whined, struggling to keep his volume down. "Sh, sh, sh," you whispered back into his ear while you stroked him mercilessly, admiring his facial expression that was saturated with pleasure in the dim, cool light offered by the street lamp.
His eyebrows were brought together, causing a little wrinkle between them, and his eyes were tightly closed. He caught his lip between his teeth in an attempt to muffle his pleasured sounds, which he did poorly.
You slowed down, taunting him some more. "No more teasing," Matt said in a breathy voice. "Oh. Please, mommy. Mmm. Need to - oh - need to cum so bad," Matt managed to get out in a series of broken moans and stifled whimpers.
You sped the pace back up for him, covering every inch of his cock, sending ripples of satisfaction through his body. "Please," he said once more. "Wait," you told him in a quiet, stern voice. He nodded at you with a submissive expression on his face.
You slowed down again, drawing out the process, really making him beg for it. He huffed in response. "If you wanna get an attitude with me, I'll stop and leave you unfinished," you replied, slowing the pace of your strokes.
"Mommy, please. I'm sorry. I won't get an attitude," he weakly answered, gripping your wrist to keep you from removing your hand from his dick. "Then be a good boy for mommy, okay?" You whispered, taking your free hand and tilting Matt's chin so that he was looking at you. He nodded, releasing his grasp on you.
You pumped back and forth again, fisting his cock while he started writhing under your control. "Good boy. You're doing such a good job," you cooed. Your name passed through his lips a few more times along with a few oohs and aahs.
"Mommy, please," Matt sobbed. You ignored his pleas, continuing your strokes, paying special attention to the head every time you brushed against it.
You felt him twitch against your palm, his dick begging for sweet release. Matt was so close to the edge, graciously trying to hold out just for you, but he wasn't used to waiting to cum or asking for permission to finish, but he was discovering how much he liked it.
He was so grateful when these next words left your mouth because he didn't know how much more he could take.
"You've been such a good boy. Why don't you cum for mommy?" You whispered into his ear before you went back to kissing his neck. "Yes, mommy," he pathetically whined. He'd been waiting.
You saw the muscles in his face tighten in the dim light as his cock pulsated in your hand, blowing his load into your palm. His orgasm lasted several seconds due to how much you'd edged him, and he emitted a few guttural groans before a smile overcame his expression.
"Good boy," you whispered once more, kissing his forehead. He looked up at you breathlessly with his big, blue eyes and a satisfied grin on his face.
You got up and wandered into Matt's bathroom to clean the evidence off your hands, and once you got back into Matt's bed, the two of you wrapped yourselves up in each other.
You woke up early on Wednesday to the sound of the birds chirping and the morning sun peeking in through Matt's window as it came up over the hills.
You drifted back off to sleep, your legs intertwined with his and your head buried into his chest while you listened to the sound of his slowing heartbeat as his vitals returned to normal after his climax. Soon, you and Matt were both soundly asleep again.
𓍊𓋼𓍊𓋼𓍊𓋼𓍊𓋼𓍊𓋼𓍊𓋼𓍊𓋼𓍊𓋼𓍊𓋼𓍊𓋼𓍊𓋼𓍊𓋼𓍊𓋼𓍊𓋼𓍊
You let out a big yawn, and you heard the cute boy beside you begin to stir. His eyes fluttered open, and your image became clearer as he adjusted to the change in lighting.
"Good morning, pretty boy," you said in a soft murmur. "Good morning, baby. You're up early," he mumbled back in his sexy morning voice. "I know. I have to work today," you told him, climbing out of bed and putting back on the clothes you'd wandered out of last night.
Matt reached for you with a pouty look on his face when he realized he wasn't going to get to see you until after your shift. You leaned in and kissed him. "How do you usually get to work?" Matt wondered out loud.
"I usually just walk. It's only a few blocks," you shrugged. "If you get back in this bed and cuddle with me for ten more minutes, I'll take you to work in the truck," Matt smiled up at you. "Deal," you replied, climbing back into bed and wrapping your arms around Matt for a few minutes longer.
"If you want to go run over to your place and get dressed for work, I'll go start up the truck," Matt offered, grinning at you. "That would be really sweet of you," you softly replied. The two of you left Matt's room, tiptoeing down the stairs and trying to stay as quiet as possible to keep from waking Matt's dad and blowing your little secret.
All your efforts were for naught when you and Matt made your way into the kitchen, realizing Matt's dad was already awake. He was sitting at the kitchen table, reading his Bible, and drinking a cup of coffee.
"Oh, good morning. I didn't realize you stayed over last night," his dad said, peering up at you both from the page, his gaze dancing between you and Matt. "Morning, Mr. Sturniolo," you timidly said, avoiding addressing the sleepover.
"Uh, hi Dad," Matt responded, reaching behind his head and rubbing the back of his neck nervously. "I'm gonna take the truck to go drop my friend off at work really quick," Matt said, picking the keys up off the counter.
"Why don't I come with you guys? So I can learn a little more about your friend here?" Matt's dad asked, getting up from his seat at the table and extending his arm for Matt to hand over the keys.
Matt gulped, knowing that on top of figuring out you had stayed the night, now he was also going to know what you did for work. He reluctantly forked over the keys. "I'll meet you guys at the truck in about a half hour," you said, giving Matt a quick, awkward side hug.
You couldn't get out of the situation quickly enough.
The whole time you were showering, changing into clean clothes, and brushing your hair and your teeth, you were dreading how awkward the drive over was going to be. You resented that this was only your second interaction with Matt's dad, who you really wanted to like you and approve of you.
You were afraid it would go how any other relationship you'd had went. Their parents would either outwardly not like you, judging you based on all the most scandalous things about your personality and not bothering to get to know the other aspects of you better.
Or worse, the parents would pretend to like you to your face and then would badmouth you to your partner in private, telling them how much better they could be doing and how bad of an influence you are.
You braced yourself for it all as you sauntered out the door and headed for the orange truck.
"You ready?" Matt asked as he opened the door for you. You nodded and nestled in between the two men as Matt climbed into the truck behind you.
"So, what do you do for work?" Matt's dad asked you, pulling out of the driveway. "I work in retail. It's this way," you said, trying to avoid giving too much detail about your job and pointing in the direction of the road he needed to take.
"What do your parents do for work?" His dad wondered. "My mom is a flight attendant, and my dad was a pilot, but now he works in air traffic," you responded.
"Ah, so they work in similar fields," Matt's dad nodded. "Yeah, they met at work. Fun fact, I was actually conceived on a plane," you told them both. "Shit. Sorry. That was an overshare," you said, putting your palm over your mouth once you realized you'd just sworn in front of Matt's very Christian dad.
He didn't laugh or find your quirkiness charming. Matt looked at you wide-eyed, knowing your humor wasn't going to land well with his father.
You continued giving him directions to your retail job, which wasn't totally a lie, and he cleared his throat and gave Matt a look when the three of you pulled into the parking lot of a sex shop. Matt stepped out of the truck to let you out.
"Well, this has been fun," you said sarcastically, feeling the thick tension in the air as your feet hit the pavement. "Thank you for the ride, Mr. Sturniolo. Matt, I'll call you on my lunch break," you told him, leaning in and giving him a tender peck on the lips.
You could feel how warm and red your face was as you turned around and headed for the front door of your job. Your coworker, Carly was at the register, giving you an inquisitive look and watching the scene play out.
"Did your cute neighbor boy take you to work?" She asked, giving Matt a little subtle wave, and he waved back, giving Carly a shy smile.
"Yeah, and his very Christian father after he caught me sleeping over. Oh, and he didn't know I worked in the adult entertainment industry until about a minute ago," you added, looking at Carly with a deer in headlights look.
"Oh. That sounds like a very awkward morning," she said, trying to contain her laugher. "It's fine. You can laugh. It is comical, really. I just hope he's not in the truck, telling Matt that I'm a harlot and trying to convince him to stop hanging out with me," you expressed to Carly, tears forming in your eyes.
Her face softened, and she took on an expression of pity. "I'm so sorry. Come here. You know, no matter what his dad says about you, I'm sure Matt's still gonna like you," she said, pulling you into a hug and rubbing your back while she comforted you. You wiped a tear out of the corner of your eye before it had a chance to fall. "Thank you for saying that."
Meanwhile, in the rusty-colored Dodge Dakota, your worst fears were unfolding. "Matt, what on earth are you thinking? Running around with a girl like that?" He asked angrily as he pulled out of the parking lot.
"Dad-" Matt started to say, but the older man cut him off. "She works at a place called Temptations. You don't see anything wrong with that? You think God wants you canoodling with a girl like that," he replied, giving Matt a somber look.
"A girl like that? What does that even mean? There's so much more to her than that," Matt defended you, raising his voice a bit. "Son, just be careful. Girls like that are trouble. I don't know if this is some kind of overcorrection because you're upset about May-" Matt's dad started.
"How dare you bring up May?" Matt glared at his father. "I'm just saying, son. You and May made sense together," his dad replied, shrugging. "Actually, dad. We didn't. May and I stayed together for so long because neither one of us wanted to admit we were incompatible," Matt scoffed. "What?" Matt's dad asked, completely taken aback by his kid's comment.
Matt and May's relationship was picture perfect on the outside. They didn't argue, they didn't complain about one another to their friends and families, and everyone envied what they had. Everyone thought they'd be together forever, including the two of them.
"I know this new girl is completely different from May. She's not a Christian. She's loud and domineering. She's aggressive, and she's overbearing. And she's honest. Maybe even too honest. She always says what's on her mind even if other people aren't going to like it. And I don't love her despite those qualities. I love her because of those qualities," Matt huffed, silencing his dad.
The two men sat quietly beside each other in the truck, mulling over what the other had said. Matt's dad was a lot of things, but unsupportive wasn't one of them.
A few more moments passed before his father finally spoke up. "Fine. Invite her over for dinner. I want to get to know the girl you love."
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rhythmic-idealist · 1 day ago
Text
I’ve found some of the most genuine care around me from my coworkers.
Maybe it’s that this is how I’ve always conducted friendships, that I never knew how to hang out outside of high school lunches either. But standing around after work is where we talk about our brains and childhoods and philosophy and hypothetical economic systems and fucking mortality and whatever else. There was a moment in time when I thought the first time I was gonna meet a coworkers kids was gonna be babysitting them for free because he was at the doctor a lot because maybe he had cancer. I’m just commenting bc I know the coworker relationship is sometimes talked about online as a universally annoying one - and there are some coworkers I do not enjoy the company of - but that’s where I’ve found some of the most warmth in my day to day outside of my partners. It’s also where I’ve found people who have made me feel miserable, don’t get me wrong, but it’s where some of my most meaningful relationships are. Nothing is WRONG with that.
There’s awkwardness. I’m very loud and some people are very quiet, and so I always feel unwanted, like an intrusion on their quiet. But I gave union advice to a coworker once and now he comes to me and asks me sometimes, and when he noticed I was taking Lyft home some days he offered to drive me home when I needed it. Are we still able to chat? Not much. One time I asked him “what artist is this [playing rn?]” as if particularly niche, and you could see the light die behind his eyes as he had to say “Kendrick” and I’m still recovering. But if one of us needs something I know we got us.
Recently we were worried one of us was going to be unfairly fired. Several of us were talking to each other and trying to strategize before the coworker who was at risk even had another shift scheduled.
And I had a coworker who seemed to hate my guts for months, and it’s not like he seeks me out to hang out now, but he’ll start an occasional respectful conversation with me because at a meeting with our union rep I said his name several times in a list of people I knew were being denied an earned promotions. (Context: People were doing all of the job duties of those promotions, without being acknowledge with the appropriate title and pay.) I didn’t say it because I liked him, I said it because we’re a union and because I did care about the guy’s livelihood.
This isn’t saying do what I do or enjoy what I enjoy socially or tick how I tick, this is just. Storytelling. Vague, anonymous storytelling.
Work is a place where I know when my coworker is expecting a new baby, and I know when my coworker took time off to attend a funeral, and I know when my coworker’s last name changes because they’ve gotten married, and I know when they’re out sick. We are so in each other’s lives. Corporate “we are a family” is in service of loyalty to the company and is bs. But being in community and solidarity with my coworkers as huge. I don’t know my next door neighbors very well. But my coworkers have me. I’ve got them.
i need everyone to know that community is what will save us all in every single way imaginable. you forming a bond with your neighbour or coworker might help them move house or feel less alone or have the courage to leave an unhealthy living environment. you helping a stranger might provide them with hope. in turn, being able to lean on your community in times of need will save you. your broader bonds with your community are the revolution we need. our society seeks to divide and separate us in so many ways but we are all so much more united in our struggles and joys than you are made to believe. we need to hold onto each other very tightly.
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wonderjanga · 2 days ago
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Sharing Can in Fact Lead to Caring
Sometimes Billy doesn’t need Solomon. Sometimes, Billy just says whatever that comes off the top of his head, it can be surprisingly helpful at times. (Billy doesn’t realize most of them are just coming to their dad figure for advice)
Such as the time Wonder Woman came to him concerned about time dilation. When Solomon explained what that meant, he had a pretty good idea of what she was talking about. Basically, she was worried about the afterword of the Justice League and her friends and how she would outlive them all. He brought her ice cream and they talked it out. In a way, he supposed he understood her. Billy couldn’t remember his mom or dad’s faces or personalities. He only had Captain Marvel to go off of and he guesses Mary, but she looks more like a young version of their mom. In the end, after much talking and trying to show he understands her worries, she seemed to be doing better.
Then, there was a talk with J’onn. The Martian had confided in not feeling at home with the humans. Not that he blamed him. J’onn had lost his home. So, Billy talked with him. Again, sort of relating. The way the Martian described missing his planet, reminded Billy of how he’d missed his parents. By the end of the talk, the Martian seemed to feel a little lighter after it.
Then, there was this kid.
Little Girl: *sitting on a bench alone*
Marvel: “Hey there, miss. Where are your parents?”
Little Girl: *stares* “There not here.”
Marvel: “Why’s that?” *sits down next to her*
Little Girl: *shrugs*
Marvel: “Well, then do you have any guardians?”
Little Girl: “I think so, but I don’t really like her. She’s mean. I don’t think she likes me or my foster siblings.”
Marvel: “Oh? You’re from foster care?”
Little Girl: *hesitantly nods head*
Marvel: “And I’m guessing you ran away?”
Little Girl: *nods again* “Are you going to tell on me?”
Marvel: “No. I ran away from my foster homes all the time.” *shrugs, doesn’t know why he’s saying this but might as well go with it*
Little Girl: “You did?”
Marvel: “Yeah. They were all terrible. And the ones that weren’t terrible were just neglectful.”
Little Girl: “What does neglectful mean?”
Marvel: “It means not paying attention to something. Like for example, I had this foster parent who would go days without coming home, leaving me and the other kids to have to feed ourselves. She wasn’t paying attention to us or our needs.”
Little Girl: “That’s sad.”
Marvel: “Yeah, it is. So, why did you run away from your foster home?”
Little Girl: “The lady who adopted me throws stuff when she gets mad. She’s mad a lot.”
Marvel: “That sucks. I had a foster home like that too. He would throw a bottles, forks, books, whatever he could get his hands on.”
Little Girl: “You did? Did you think it was scary?”
Marvel: “Yeah.”
*silence*
Marvel: “You know, a friend of mine got adopted recently.”
Little Girl: “Really?”
Marvel: “Yeah, he’s been with them for about half a year now. He says they’re great. They’ve been fostering kids for a while apparently too.”
Little Girl: “That sounds nice.”
Marvel: “It is. Do you want me to ask about it?”
Little Girl: “Huh?”
Marvel: “Do you want me to ask him if there’s any spots open?”
Little Girl: *stares for a bit* “Yeah.” *stomach growls*
Marvel: “Alright, then I will. Now, how long have you been on the streets?”
Little Girl: “Oh uhm… a couple days.”
Marvel: “Come on, let’s get you something to eat.” *stands up*
Little Girl: “Really?” *hops off the bench*
Marvel: “Yeah. You feeling chili dogs or tacos? Those are the only two vendors I know that’ll give me something free.”
Little Girl: “Tacos, please.”
Marvel: “Alright then- uh, my bad. I never asked your name?”
Little Girl: “Oh uhm it’s Darla.”
Marvel: “Darla? Alright then Darla.” *fatherly ahh smile* “Let’s go get you some food, ‘kay?”
So ya. He met Darla. She’s a sweet kid. He would need to ask Freddy more about the Vazquez situation. Hopefully, just hopefully, they could squeeze the little girl into their family.
Also, uh… I guess in this AU, Freddy met the Vazquez and got adopted because he went back into foster care for a bit for whatever reason. There, he got adopted into the family. Darla joins after him for this post to work.
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saphronethaleph · 3 days ago
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Fluid, Dynamics
“So, uh…” Anakin said, looking around him. “This is weird.”
“Is there something wrong, Master Jedi?” the Kaminoan asked, concerned. “I was going to welcome you to Tipoca City.”
“Oh, I’m actually not a Master,” Anakin replied. “My Master’s busy, I’m just…”
He shook his head. “Sorry about that, it’s very unprofessional of me. I know I’m supposed to be professional, but being around this much water is very odd for me.”
“Being around water is odd for you?” the Kaminoan repeated. “...is there an alternative? I know Kamino is an unusually wet planet, but I did not think the difference was that stark.”
“I’m from a world where there just… isn’t water,” Anakin explained. “The only way we got water to drink was to pull it out of the air, and there wasn’t enough to go around.”
Then he frowned slightly. “Actually, uh… come to think of it, it isn’t all that far from here to my homeworld… do you think I could ship some water over there?”
“That is an… odd request,” the Kaminoan admitted. “But I must admit, we do have more water than we know what to do with. Perhaps we could discuss something like that after our main business is completed.”
“Sure,” Anakin agreed. “So, where do we get started?”
“I will take you to Lama Su,” the Kaminoan decided. “He will show you the current state of progress.”
Anakin nodded, absently, mostly thinking about showing up at Tatooine with a freighter full of water.
“How often does Anakin go on missions without you?” Padme asked, curious.
“It happens, sometimes,” Obi-Wan replied. “Increasingly often these days, actually. Anakin is approaching the point where he will have the chance to become a Jedi Knight, and… I worry about him a little.”
“Is that something a Jedi does?” Padme said.
“All the time,” Obi-Wan replied. “But right now, Senator, your safety is the highest priority.”
He frowned. “Though I must admit, I was expecting there to have been some kind of assassination attempt by this point.”
“You almost sound disappointed,” Padme suggested.
“No, no, it’s pattern recognition,” Obi-Wan replied, firmly. “You see, my missions with Anakin so rarely go smoothly. And if this mission is going smoothly, where the biggest danger we’ve had to deal with is mosquitos, then I dread to think about what is going on with Anakin.”
There was a beep.
“...like that, for example,” Obi-Wan added, taking his comlink out of his pocket. “What is it, Anakin?”
“So, first I want to say, I didn’t set out to do this, Master,” Anakin said.
“...oh dear,” Obi-Wan sighed. “That’s never a good sign. So, what is it that you didn’t set out to do?”
“So it turns out that Kamino was building an army for the Jedi,” Anakin said. “Also, it’s a really wet, flooded planet, they actually have too much water, I didn’t know that was possible! But I said that Tatooine had too little water, and since they had all those giant ships anyway I thought some of them could be used for transporting lots of water…”
“Sorry, Anakin, Kamino was building an army for the Jedi?” Obi-Wan repeated, a little incredulously. “That seems like the most important part of the situation.”
“No, no, the most important part is that some guy called Darth Tyrannus hired this bounty hunter called Jango Fett to be the clone template,” Anakin said. “And get this, he’s the one who killed that bounty hunter we chased, and things got a bit complicated… anyway, I went over the technical details and the clones have this weird chip in them and I think Chancellor Valorum might have been trying to assassinate the Jedi because the chip would have let the Chancellor tell the clones to kill the Jedi… obviously I told the Kaminoans to take that bit out because we didn’t need it and it’s way too much like slavery if you ask me. Anyway, uh, I’ve got the clones shipping water from Kamino to Tatooine for now, the Kaminoans are actually totally okay with it because they’ve got too much water, and I rescued my mother, too! I told you she was in danger!”
Obi-Wan took several seconds to process that particular bit of Skywalkerness.
Then he processed it a second time.
“…you have the clones… shipping water to Tatooine,” he repeated.
“Yeah, it’s going to break the Hutt control over water production and transportation for anything above the subsistence level,” Anakin said. “And it’s going to make Tatooine a way better place-”
“I have to interrupt you there, Anakin,” Obi-Wan said. “You said you rescued your mother? That’s very impressive, but you didn’t tell me she was in danger.”
“I did!” Anakin objected.
“You said you were dreaming about her,” Obi-Wan pointed out. “That does not mean you were dreaming about her being in danger. That’s quite different, Anakin, you must remember to use the right words if you want me to know something.”
“...oh,” Anakin said, and Obi-Wan could hear the shrug. “Well, anyway, I think there might be some kind of Sith plot involved too because of the whole Darth thing. Do you think Chancellor Valorum was a Sith?”
“I see what you mean,” Padme admitted.
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bumblingbeezzz · 1 day ago
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I think somebody out there wants me to kill myself lmao. I keep seeing things on here that could all potentially ruin my mood, and now I see holes getting shot through one of my lifelines amidst the sinking sands of depression. I knew Goku was never entirely a righteous hero, but in fact got a lot of thrill from fighting, which is why he would sometimes leave a worthy opponent alive so he can fight him again, even if they were an extremely dangerous individual to let roam free. But this says that it's literally all he cares about? Some of the claims OP made are, at the very least, not backed up in the source provided by the other poster. It doesn't say here that he only feels companionship not love, and that he would only care for a second if his family and friends died.***
It's pretty messed up. The same article makes both Goku and Toriyama not look so great all at once. In it, he also admits that his motivation for writing DBZ was nothing more than money, and doesn't say that he learned to love it or have any connection to his fans (in fact, he mentions intentionally messing with them and being contrary to their wishes), just seems to imply that it was an easier job than most. I'm tempted to share this with the person who got me into DBZ but also I don't want to ruin anything for them. Then again, they're the type to say "I prefer the brutal truth" so...
Ah fuck but what about all my followers who like DBZ? Goddammit...I wanted to say my piece but I guess it's selfish of me to ruin it for others. But, well, actually there may be some consolation for those who already saw this, because Toriyama also states that he forgets some of the things he writes. He also says he doesn't take care of his illustrations after he finishes them. Which is really weird and kind of disheartening to hear that he had so little passion for the story he built and shared with so many fans worldwide. But the point is, it seems that many fans are closer to the material than even he is, and as I've said before about the Harry Potter series, you can separate the content from the creator by acknowledging that 1) it is fiction and 2) there is a difference between who the author is, how the author interprets their own work, and what enjoyers make of it. These characters live in our consciousness as we built them too. We put our own heart into it just by immersing ourselves in it. Yeah, sure, Toriyama had a different vision of Goku than maybe a lot of fans did, but that doesn't make those interpretations we acquired and stored less valid. We all used our own imaginations to interact with what we watched or read. The version of the character that you see, and which makes the most sense to you is "real," because it's all unreal anyway.
And honestly? A more complex Goku who loves fighting for the thrill of it AND fighting for his friends makes the most sense anyway. We've seen it, we've seen his genuine care and concern. He's proven himself to be "pure of heart."
***Edit: They do actually include more sources that I didn't initially see which does confirm this, at least the part about seeing his family more as companions, though that doesn't change my final statement.
I just really find the fact that the creator of dragonball has stated that Goku canonically cannot feel any kind of love, just ‘companionship’, to be a extremely interesting fact. Like, if his family died he’d be like ‘No!’ and then he’d get over it fairly quickly as if they were only just acquaintances. Same goes with the rest of his friends.
The series creator apparently doesn’t like the anime’s portrayal of Goku. They always cast Goku as a hero, when in the manga he’s really only ‘saving people’ as a side bonus that comes with fighting a stronger opponent. He doesn’t purposefully go in to save anyone unless there is a fight happening at the scene.
So, If Goku hadn’t hit his head, he would’ve just been another Raditz. And it also explains why he’s rather cruel towards Gohan and neglectful towards Chichi.
Apparently Vegeta is the actual exception to his own species. He actually genuinely loves his family, -a rare trait only Goku’s mother was proven to have- whereas Goku is apparently literally unable to have those feelings. It’s kind of ironic; Vegeta is probably the one that would be the most ashamed and resentful to admit he has those kinds of feelings.
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kaleidohscopic · 1 day ago
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TRY AGAIN — JJH
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PAIRING: jaehyun x female reader SUMMARY: if you could have it your way, you'd never have to see, hear, or even think about jeong jaehyun ever again. a fortuitous blind date, and that same dimpled smile after all those years, is somehow enough to make you reconsider. maybe he was always meant to be by your side. GENRE: exes to lovers! au, slight coworkers! au, romance, angst, slow burn, humour, some pining, a touch of smut WARNINGS: swearing, alcohol consumption, too many descriptions of coffee and wine, mentions of sex, general mature content and themes, reader is not good at talking about her feelings, joy x doyoung, i try to write about the complexity of relationships and personal growth (i fail miserably) WORD COUNT: 32.4k NOTE: oh. my god. it's finally here! there's certainly something different about writing for your ult. office scenes inspired by the internship i did at a big 4 firm that ended up rejecting everyone from my department (yes i'm still bitter). i actually wanted to get this out back in august to celebrate jolo but alas, Life. i guess this is a parting gift? (jaehyun i am nothing and nobody without you.) i poured a lot of heart into this fic and posting it feels like letting my child go out into the world alone... be safe my darling xx
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You should’ve brought an umbrella. 
The early evening sky was darkening faster than usual, ominous grey clouds hovering between the skyscrapers like an unspoken but imminent threat. Though the ground was still dry, you had a feeling it wouldn’t be for long. Your haste to leave your apartment this morning had robbed you of the good sense to check the weather forecast, mind too preoccupied with tonight’s agenda to spare a thought for the possible torrential downpour that summer seemed to be so fond of. 
A glance down at your feet sent a twinge of annoyance through you. Of course you picked the black pumps to wear today. They were pretty, which was why you had slipped them on in the first place, wanting to make a good impression even if you told yourself you didn’t really care that much, but they were also expensive, and you did not want to get them wet. You said a silent prayer. Hopefully the impending rain would be kind to the leather.
“You better not be flaking,” Joy warned, voice crackling through your phone speaker. “I don’t really care what he thinks of you for not showing up, but it’ll reflect badly on me, and I can’t have that.”
You suppressed a smile. Ever the drama queen.
“I am literally walking out of the station right now. The Italian place, right?” you asked, pausing for a moment at the top of the stairs to gather your surroundings. The restaurant she had picked out wasn’t exactly an unknown location to you, but it had been a while since you last visited, and the buildings seemed to look back at you with a dazed unfamiliarity.
She gave an affirmative hum. “Two streets down from the exit. The reservation is under my name, but I think he might be there already.”
“Yippee. How exciting.”
There was a loud sigh from the other end of the line, and you could almost hear her rolling her eyes at you. “You do know I set this up with your best interests at heart, right?”
“Are you sure it’s not because you were bored and needed to use some poor soul for your own entertainment?”
“Hey, I’m not the one who put three packets of salt in Jungwoo’s coffee,” she fired back. 
Okay, maybe that one was on you. But it had been pretty funny seeing him spit it out all over the office kitchen counter and then meticulously clean up the mess with paper towels, all the while eyeing everyone on your floor with suspicion.
“I’m just saying,” she continued, “give him a chance. I think you guys could really like each other.” There was a pause. “Plus, he’s super fucking hot. Like if I wasn’t happily taken I would be climbing him like a tree.”
“Gross. I’m filing a complaint with HR.”
“Reporting me to my own department? I’ll make sure that file never even makes it through the portal,” she cackled at your empty threat, and you joined in with her. “Seriously though, just give him a chance. At least stay until the mains come out.”
“Fine,” you acquiesced, though you made sure she heard the huff that accompanied it. “But if he starts talking about cryptocurrency I am leaving.” 
Joy only laughed, assuring you he probably wouldn’t, and bid you goodbye with a parting command for you to enjoy yourself. 
On days like these, you couldn’t decide whether you were grateful or unlucky to have been placed on a team with her for your first project at the company. Technically speaking, Joy was your senior by almost two years, but even at that first daily stand-up half a year ago, filled with nervous smiles and clumsy introductions, you had the feeling the two of you would gel. By the time that first project wrapped up, the two of you had long progressed past mere co-workers, having bonded over 8-hour days of Powerpoint formatting and your mutual dislike of olives. You had never been more thankful for someone so vivacious to show you the ropes, and help you settle into the new environment with such ease.
However, Joy was a meddler.
Her meddling was what had you currently navigating the crumbly asphalt in your nicest shoes to meet the apparent hunk she had set you up with. You didn’t know much about the guy since she refused to give you his name, afraid you’d search him up on social media and then make up some excuse to back out once you had seen his face — like you had done with the previous two that she’d picked out for you.
Apparently, this one was from the Digital department, and had been at the company for a little over a year. Those were two out of the three pieces of information that she had deigned to bestow upon you, the third being that he had dimples, which she thought you’d appreciate.
Oh, and now the fourth one being that he was ‘super fucking hot’.
Who knew? Maybe you would enjoy yourself. Getting back into the dating scene was pretty low on your priorities, with your career and trying to stick to a consistent gym routine taking up the majority of your time, but you were never opposed to a bit of fun. 
Maybe Mr Super-Fucking-Hot could be a bit of fun. 
Just take it easy, you thought to yourself, spotting the glass windows of the restaurant as you rounded the corner. Il Giardino, read the sign that hung above the door. Cute.
Hastily, you shifted your bag and cardigan to the other arm and smoothed out the creases in your black trousers. You had tried for something a little dressy, but also office-appropriate since you were coming straight from work, and not like you had tried too hard and spent an unnecessary number of hours thinking about what to wear on this stupid blind date. Another quick glance at your reflection in the window, just to make sure there was no food or lipstick in your teeth, and you pushed past the door.
Soft jazz filtered through your ears as you stepped inside. The restaurant was nicely decorated, a few vintage Italian posters hanging on the exposed brick walls, and an overall rustic feel that paired well with the warm, earthy ambience. Judging by the patrons already seated, this place was a popular date night location, with all but one table occupied by couples sharing soft touches and flirty smiles over half-filled glasses of red wine.
Joy certainly knew how to pick a spot.
You gave the smiling hostess Joy’s name for the reservation, managing a weak smile of your own when she informed you that the other half of your party had already arrived, and followed her through the tables further into the restaurant. Outside, the first few raindrops had begun to splatter against the asphalt, slowly darkening the road with wet patches that were sure to grow into puddles. It seemed you had arrived just in time to escape the rain.
The hostess stopped at a more private table towards the back, and gestured towards the empty seat with that same welcoming smile. Mystery man, aka Mr Super-Fucking-Hot, was sat with his back to you, leafing through what you assumed to be the drinks menu. His silhouette from behind was alright-looking, you supposed, if you really had to put a label to it, but there was something vaguely familiar about the shape of his head. Perhaps you had crossed paths in the office lobby before?
You approached the table, trying to sneak a peek of him out of the corner of your eye, just to see if he lived up to Joy’s oh-so-generous description, without being so painfully obvious—
And froze.
“Is everything alright?” the hostess asked, still beaming at you. 
You barely heard her through the cotton wool that seemed to suddenly fill your ears, hands instantly clamming up as you took in the man in front of you. His warm eyes widened a fraction of a millimetre with recognition, quickly followed by something else you couldn’t place.
This was not happening.
“Is everything okay?” the hostess tried again. The corners of her mouth were beginning to slip, and she cast you a mildly concerned glance.
How strange you must have looked, standing stock-still beside your reserved table like a statue. The only things that could dispel the notion you had suddenly turned into stone were the light flush to your cheeks, and the deafening pounding of your own heart that you were sure the whole restaurant could hear.
“Everything’s fine, just give us a minute please,” Jaehyun finally said, flashing the hostess a kind smile. She took her cue to leave, but not without another curious look between the two of you, hurriedly brushing away the waiter who was approaching the table and preparing to rattle off the specials. 
Hearing his voice seemed to break the spell that had rendered you so immobile. You straightened, shifting your bag higher up your shoulder, and turned to leave. Whatever this was, you were not entertaining it.
Chair legs screeched abruptly against the floor. 
“Wait,” he pleaded. 
Your eyes landed on his hand latched around your wrist first, before they moved to his face again. Slowly, his fingers loosened, but he kept you in his hold. 
“Will you sit, please?” he asked softly. 
You looked at him. Really looked at him, taking in his full, straight brows, the slope of his nose, the pinkness of his lips. His cheeks had slimmed since you had last seen him, allowing the sharpness of his jaw to really come through. Breathtakingly handsome as he always had been. A little older, a little more masculine, and yet somehow still the same.
And maybe because you still saw him, the boy that you loved, the first and likely only boy you had ever truly loved, you did sit, sliding into your chair like it was made of ice.
“It’s been a while,” he began, lowering back into his seat. You gave no indication that you had heard him at all, eyes focused on the flickering tealight candle at the centre of the table. The wax was a pinkish red colour, and the light scent coming from it was sweet, with a touch of tartness. Pomegranate, maybe. At your silence, he cleared his throat and tried again. “How have you—”
“Did you plan this?”
He pulled back a bit, as if in genuine shock. “No, I swear, I had no idea it was you. Joy only told me it was someone from her department, and that you were pretty, and she thought you’d be my type.” A pause. “Did you?”
Your reply was icy. “Why would I plan to see you?”
He looked away at that, sucking in a breath through his teeth. You were probably mistaken, but something akin to hurt flashed in those eyes as he gave a short nod at your words. Likely a trick of the light. It was a little too dim in here. What reason would he have to be hurt? Why would he be bleeding when you were the one with cuts all over your hands from picking up the glass shards of your own broken heart?
An uncomfortable beat passed. “Well, I’d say it was nice to see you, but you know I’m not good at lying,” you said. Shouldn’t have sat down in the first place.
Grabbing your bag and cardigan, you made to stand up again, regretting your decision to come here, regretting giving in to Joy so easily, regretting leaving the house this morning without a stupid fucking umbrella. The drizzle outside had turned into a downpour in no time, and the street drains were definitely going to clog up tonight. 
Seoul and its fucking summer monsoon season.
“Can we just—please, can you—fuck. Can we have dinner and just talk? As friends?” His hand shot out across the table, as if itching to grab yours again, but thought better of it, letting his fingertips rest against the edges of the linen napkin you hadn’t even bothered to unfold. 
A refraction of light from his sleeve caught your eye. His cufflinks. He was wearing the cufflinks you had gotten him for your high school graduation all those years ago. 
They had been expensive. Four months of pay from your part-time job at the ice-cream parlour was just enough for the pale pearls set in sterling silver. You supposed it would have been silly of him to throw them away when they were so valuable. It wasn’t like you had thrown away the gold pendant he had given you either. That necklace hadn’t hung around your neck for a long time, but it still sat somewhere in the depths of your jewellery box, underneath all the newer ones you had bought for yourself or received from friends over the years.
“Fine,” you found yourself saying. “Sure. As friends. Why not?” 
Sinking back into your seat, you reached for the wine menu immediately. Enduring the next hour in the company of your ex-boyfriend without a drink? Unbearable. As much as you liked to convince yourself you were over him, from your behaviour tonight it was clear you most certainly were not, and only alcohol could soothe that blow to your pride.
Your eyes flitted down the page of reds, then the whites, then the sparklings. Christ, the prices in this place were not pretty. Joy would have to be in a completely separate tax bracket from you if these were the kinds of establishments she frequented. 
For a brief moment, you thought about ordering the most expensive bottle on the list — a Penfold’s 2018 Shiraz — just to be spiteful, but decided against it. If you were really going to be sharing a meal ‘as friends’, he would not be footing the entire bill. You wouldn’t let him.
The waiter, under the impression that things had somewhat cooled down, finally approached your table, albeit a bit cautiously. Hearing but not really listening, you let him sing praises about the wild mushroom ravioli, ordering it just to save yourself the effort of reading through the rest of the menu. When he reached the beverages portion of his spiel, you settled for a more reasonable bottle, a 2021 merlot.
It was only once he had left to put your orders in that you realised that you had not even checked if Jaehyun was driving tonight.
“I’ll pay for the wine, if you’re not drinking,” you said, fiddling with your napkin. You could probably finish the whole bottle yourself anyway. Maybe that would make it easier to look him in the eye.
“You really don’t need to do that,” he replied, voice soft but firm. The weight of his eyes on you was almost a tangible thing. “I’ll have a glass.”
Your waiter returned, making a show of uncorking the bottle before pouring it out into both your glasses. You couldn’t down the first one fast enough, draining half the contents in one long mouthful like it was your first taste of water after finishing a marathon. Jaehyun was more deliberate with his glass, taking only a few small sips before he set it down on the table again. If he noticed the speed at which you emptied yours, which it was pretty hard not to with the way you were gulping the wine down, he said nothing.
God, this was fucking awkward.
“So,” he began, trying to mask the crack of his voice with a cough, “what made you agree to this thing?”
You reached for the bottle. “Felt like I owed it to Joy,” you said, pouring yourself another glass. “I flaked out of the last two she organised.” 
Maybe you should have just gone on that first one with Taehyung, or Taehyun, or whatever his name was. Then you could have avoided this situation altogether. 
“So you do this kind of thing a lot, then?” came his careful question.
You were curt. “No.” 
He blinked a few times, the movements slow with confusion at the abruptness of your answer. You knew you were being difficult. You wanted to be. Five years could heal most things, but unspoken words could linger like splinters under your fingernails, festering below the surface. Calluses had hardened over the splinters of your breakup, tough and protective, but now it was as if they were pushing through to the surface again, your fingers newly tender at the sight of him after all those years. 
A small part of you wanted to give him a taste of your hurt, wanted him to feel the prick of tiny wood chips in the flesh behind his nail beds. The larger part, however, knew malice would do no good for you. You had survived the pain. There was no reason to survive poison as well.
“No, I don’t,” you tried again, a little softer, a little less jagged around the edges. “I think she just likes to set them up for fun. This is my first time on one of these blind uh…” The word date sat heavy on the tip of your tongue but refused to budge. “One of these things.” Maybe another mouthful of wine would wash it down.
“Her definition of fun can be rather interesting,” he said, politely filling the silence.
You hummed in agreement, raising the freshly filled wine glass to your mouth again as you scrambled around in your head for something, anything to say. It had been a while since you had last been out on the dating scene, and you were well aware of it, but good grief, it was like your conversational skills had evaporated into thin air.
“How do you know Joy?” was what you decided on after a deliberately slow sip.
Thankfully, Jaehyun seemed to still know how to carry a conversation. “She’s one of the HR reps for Digital, so we’ve spoken a few times before. And her boyfriend is a friend from university.” He paused to take a sip of his wine. “Have you met him?”
You shook your head lightly. “No, not yet. Hoping to, soon.” 
“You’ll like him. Doyoung’s a great guy. Patience of a saint.”
“He’d have to be to keep up with her,” you said, hints of a chuckle sprinkled in your voice. 
Something about the fact that he was already privy to more of Joy’s personal life than you were had a sliver of jealousy wriggling in your stomach. She was supposed to be your friend, and yet you knew very little about Doyoung besides his name, while your ex-boyfriend across from you had been buddy-buddy with him for probably years and years. Not that it was a competition to see who held more information about their coworker outside the office, but the feeling that you were somewhat losing didn’t sit well.
“It’s actually my first time on a blind date as well,” he said, allowing himself a tentative smile. “You know how convincing she can be. I mean, I don’t think I’d ever go on one if she hadn’t roped me in. It feels a bit silly meeting up with a complete stranger, you know?” He turned his smile to you, still tentative but coloured with a tinge of hopefulness, like he wanted you to understand, like he knew you would. 
How could you not? There had once been a time where you believed that you and Jaehyun had been two halves of the same soul, carved into existence from the same stone. There had once been a time where you knew him almost better than he knew himself. 
A time rather distant from now.
You kept your answer non-committal. “Sure,” you murmured, wishing his pretty face wouldn’t fall so quickly at your nonchalance, wishing you hadn’t caught the slightest droop to the curve of his mouth. Everything about him was still too familiar. “I’m just a bit surprised to hear that, I guess. You were so desperate to meet new people back then.”
Three seconds passed in silence. 
His eyes dropped to his lap, as did yours to your own. This previously reasonable bottle of merlot was loosening your lips rather unreasonably.
“Sorry, that was—” Unnecessary? Mean? 
True? 
“I didn’t mean to say that,” you finally managed, the words spilling out of your mouth in a tumbled rush. 
Or maybe you had. 
Jaehyun could only flash you a weak smile. “It’s fine,” he said, though you both knew it wasn’t really.
Frigidity returned to the air between you, stopped just short of freezing over by the reappearance of your waiter, along with a plate of goat’s cheese arancini. Jaehyun politely gestured for you to eat first, watching as you speared the crusty surface with your fork and moved it over to your own plate. For a few seconds, the only noises that could be heard from the table were the clinks and clanks of stainless steel utensils against ceramic plates. The arancini could not have come at a better time, affording both of you the opportunity to hide behind the guise of eating, and put off the need to make strained conversation, even if the time it bought you was fleeting.
Meet new people. Those were the exact words he had said to you all those years ago. Han River on a Tuesday night, cherry blossom petals fluttering through the balmy April air, the iciness of winter finally melting away into a distant memory to reveal fresh green carpets and vivid blooms — few things could have been more romantic. Spring is the season of love, they said. 
But for you, spring was the season of loss. It was the season when love ended, when love could be taken back and snatched away in the blink of an eye. On a Tuesday night in April, you learned that your love was not just not enough, but that it was a burden, an obstacle between Jaehyun and living his life to the fullest. That time spent with you was time squandered. That you were robbing him of the complete university experience, and to an extent, his youth.
Jaehyun had always been a wanter. He wanted boldly and he wanted freely, never dwelling too long on how his wanting could appear in the eyes of others, never shy about his desires. When he was ten years old, he wanted a dog, despite the reddening of his nose and the watering of his eyes whenever he’d get within arm’s distance of the bichon frisé. In tenth grade, he wanted you, with cans of peach soda and sweet little notes in your locker until you finally said yes to being his girlfriend after three days of public pursuit. 
(You had arguably wanted him more, and for longer, though nobody had been none the wiser — you were rather good at hiding your feelings.)
Two months into your first year at university, his wants changed. He wanted more space and more freedom to meet new people. He wanted to be able to attend club social outings, and get to know his seniors, and play drinking games with his new roommates, instead of trekking to the other side of Seoul every week to see you, his girlfriend, who had now become his obligation.
It would have been a lie to say you hadn’t noticed a shift in his behaviour in the months leading up to that fateful night. Smiles had become a little wearier. Texts had become sparser. You had chalked it up to the challenges of settling into the new routine and rigorous coursework, and the distance between your schools that occupied opposite sides of the city. Sure, the hour-long subway ride from his campus to yours wasn’t the greatest asset to your relationship, but 18-year-old you had remained optimistic it would endure whatever curveballs your first year of university and the beginnings of real adulthood would throw at you. 
You had survived the CSAT together and emerged in one piece. What else could be harder than that?
“You’re right though,” he said quietly, eyes fixed on his own piece of fried goat’s cheese. “I guess I was.”
You let your fork drop with a soft clang. “Let’s not, uh—we don’t have to talk about that.” Pink petals were swimming at the edges of your vision. 
Please, let’s not talk about that.
A flicker of something behind his eyes could almost convince you he wanted exactly the opposite of your unspoken plea. Maybe this was a conversation he didn’t actually want to avoid the way you so desperately did. 
And maybe he would have said something too, if not for the waiter who returned at that precise moment. 
“The mushroom ravioli,” the waiter announced, setting the plate down in front of you, “and the amatriciana spaghetti. Enjoy.” 
Four pieces of pasta covered in sage butter looked back up at you. 
You made a mental note to never order ravioli at an Italian restaurant ever again. 
The sound of scraping utensils returned to your table, lightly blanketing the stilted pause in conversation with idle noise. Without much enthusiasm, you sliced at one of the four pieces of your ravioli, throwing what you hoped were sneaky glances at the full plate of spaghetti sitting in an appetising red sauce laid out before your ex-boyfriend. 
“Do you want to try mine?”
Sneakiness had never been your forte.
Your polite refusal came quickly, even if it was rather weak to your own ears, but Jaehyun was already twirling a portion out onto the share plate the waiter had kindly provided a few minutes earlier. He made sure to scoop some sauce and pancetta bits on top as well, before gently pushing the plate towards you. 
“Thanks,” you mumbled, though you made no move to dig in.
Everything wasn’t supposed to feel this familiar. You weren’t supposed to soften so easily at the sight of his dimpled smile. You weren’t supposed to feel that strange tug in your chest at his thoughtfulness, at the way he could still pick up the slightest change in your expression. And maybe the bar was too low, and here you were fawning over nothing more than the bare minimum, because what guy would see his date enviously looking at his food instead of her own and blatantly ignore it?
But with Jaehyun, it was different. You knew it was. Within every action, there was familiarity and practice, there was thought and care, there were years of history that were unerasable, even with the passage of time. You weren’t the same wide-eyed teenagers now as you had been then, and yet scenes from the rest of that excruciating first semester flickered in your mind. 
A silent breakdown during a business administration lecture. Your roommate’s concerned expression when you decided to skip dinner again.
The tug in your chest was leading you back into dangerous territory. 
For the third time tonight, you debated grabbing your things and walking straight out. You had only promised Joy that you would stay until the mains came out. If you were going to leave now, technically, you would still have fulfilled your end of the promise. Arguably, this wasn’t the best time to make an exit — fifteen minutes earlier would have been much better so that the kitchen would have time to cancel your stupid ravioli before they started preparing it. Leaving now wouldn’t be the most optimal, but it was still an option. A tad heavy on the dramatics, but you could live with that. You’d just never be able to step foot in this establishment again.
A shame. The spaghetti looked good. You’d have to search up if this place did delivery.
“You can go if you really want to, I won’t hold it against you,” Jaehyun said quietly. His eyes were fixed on the fork he was twirling through his dish. You supposed you should’ve been surprised at the way he could read your mind without even looking at you, but you couldn’t find the energy in you to pretend.
“But,” he continued at your silence, “if you’re willing to stay, I’d really like it if we could just catch up?” At this, he finally met your eyes and offered a small smile. “It has been a while, after all.”
Maybe it was the sincerity contained in those soft brown eyes. Maybe it was because you really did want to try the amatriciana spaghetti while it was hot and fresh off the stove. Whatever it was, you found yourself resolving to stay, despite all the reasons not to, despite the sound of them loud and clear in your head, ready at your disposal. Allowing yourself to indulge in nostalgia once in a while couldn’t be that bad for you. Right? 
So you stayed. And you ate (his spicy amatriciana scored a landslide victory over your mushroom ravioli). And you talked. As two friends would do, catching each other up on the things that had shaped your lives since you had gone on your separate ways. 
Conversation was clunky at first, that was to be expected. Even the closest of friendships would encounter some choppy waters when reconnecting for the first time after five years. But conversation with Jaehyun gave way to smooth sailing much quicker than you would have expected. He still wore the face of the boy who would sneak an extra serving of fried sweet potato from the cafeteria because he knew you liked them, but he wasn’t quite the same. Older, certainly. Maturity wasn’t something that went hand-in-hand with age like you had thought when you were younger, but he was more mature too. Surer of himself, and his place in the world.
You heard of the summer he spent in the UK after graduation, visiting his uncle and their family, appreciating classical architecture and the leisure inherent to rolling green hills that he hadn’t been able to find in the metropolis he had grown up in. (The food, however, was an entirely different story. He had never been so overjoyed to see a bowl of rice that wasn’t covered in mushy peas or sitting in a puddle of questionable-looking curry.)
He learned of your semester exchange in Amsterdam, including the unfortunate incident involving you, a runaway bicycle, and the freezing water of the Dutch canals. Fortunately, a nasty cold and two weeks in bed over the Christmas break were the worst things that came of it. Those few months had been eye-opening, to say the least. Stepping outside of your own bubble had made you realise how much more there was to the world, and how little you knew of it.
Yes, Jaehyun had changed, but then again so had you. The realisation dawned halfway through dessert, slowly settling over you as you spooned at the tiramisu in the centre of the table. Perhaps it hadn’t been fair to him that you had been harbouring this seed of antagonism towards him for all these years. He, so afflicted by youth, as you both had been back then, was only doing what he thought was right and necessary. Could you really fault him for that? You had seen enough of life now to know that sometimes, nobody was to blame.
There was a comfortable lull in the conversation before he spoke again. The sound of his voice drew you away from the window, where you could see that the rain had slowed from the earlier dramatic downpour to a lighter shower. 
“I know I probably wasn’t who you were expecting today,” he said, a little hesitant and gauging your expression.
“You definitely were not.” You gave him an amused half-smile over the rim of your barely-filled glass, which he returned. The bottle of merlot sat tall and empty on the table.
“I just wanted to say,” he began, taking in a breath, “I’m glad it was you. It was really nice to see you again. And I’m sorry if you were disappointed that it was me.” 
There was something sad in the curve of his mouth, you thought. It tempered the warmth in his eyes.
“I’m not disappointed,” you heard yourself say. “Really.”
It was the truth. You knew he could see it written across your face. Dishonesty and insincere flattery were not familiar weapons you wielded. He knew that. He knew you.
Jaehyun sat back, bringing his own glass to his lips and draining the lingering contents. Perhaps to hide the private smile that broke out across his handsome face, which you pretended not to see, turning your attention back to the raindrops pattering against the window. 
The evening air was cool on your bare arms when you stepped out, taking shelter under the awning in front of the restaurant. You weren’t the only one who had forgone a weather app consultation today. Jaehyun stood beside you, hands tucked neatly in the pockets of his slacks, a not unwelcome companion while you waited for your taxi to arrive. He’d call one later, after he made sure you had gotten in the car and were on the way home.
“I guess I’ll see you around?” he asked, tone light. 
You cast a sidelong glance at him. His profile was backlit by the warm light emanating from inside the restaurant, carving out the straight bridge of his nose, a soft shadow cupping the fullness of his bottom lip. Would there ever be a time the sight of him wouldn’t take your breath away?
“Maybe,” you breathed. Letting him back into your life wasn’t a decision you felt ready to make yet, and you had no intention of promising him anything you couldn’t be sure you’d be able to deliver. Even if you would only be promising him friendship.
He didn’t push it further and hummed in understanding. Then your taxi was pulling up in front of the restaurant, the splash from the tyres just missing the hem of your trousers, and you were bidding him goodbye, staring a second too long at the dimples that appeared, and trying not to step in a pothole puddle as you clambered rather ungracefully into the car. 
But because realisation was never punctual, it was only when you arrived home, carefully kicking off the black pumps and patting them dry with a microfibre cloth, that you realised two things. 
First, you had left your cardigan at the Italian restaurant.
And second, Jaehyun had footed the whole bill.
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There was a reason the seventh floor was your favourite floor in the building.
It wasn’t because of the little in-office cafe with the cute but ridiculously overpriced pastries that tasted even better than they looked, or the deceptively comfortable bean bag chairs by the far window that would always tempt you with a mid-afternoon nap every time you sank into one of them.
No. The seventh floor was your favourite because it had a Nespresso machine. Free use. Company-funded.
A seventh floor coffee was one of the only things that could get you to leave the comfort of your desk and willingly walk up two flights of stairs. (The elevators always took too long.) On Monday afternoons like these, after an entire morning swimming through attendance and sick leave reports from the last quarter, the promise of a smooth and velvety cappuccino felt like your only hope for humanity. Unfortunately for you, it seemed like everybody else had the same idea, if the line in front of the coffee machine was anything to judge by. 
“You should have told me!”
You gave Joy an incredulous look. “Right. Because I definitely knew exactly who he was.”
“Well, you could have worked it out. You’re a smart girl.”
“You said a total of three sentences about him.”
She paused, fixing you with a contemplative stare. Her eyebrows were doing that weird lifting thing when she was running something through her head. “Five sentences,” she finally managed, tapping around the rim of her empty mug. 
Why she came up with you at all when she wasn’t a coffee person, would probably take two sips of the espresso, and then complain it was too bitter, was beyond you. Sometimes you wondered if she was really that good at her job, or if her workload was just so non-existent that she could take five coffee breaks a day. It couldn’t be the latter, because you had seen that her calendar was full for the entire morning.
“Let’s not spend the next fifteen minutes talking about last Friday,” you sighed, already pushing thoughts of dimpled smiles and warm eyes to the far corner of your mind. Hopefully not to be revisited for a while. “I want my head outrageously blank while I enjoy this cappuccino. Swear to god Junmyeon is trying to drown me with those leave reports.”
“You know he only assigns them to you because you’ve never told him you hate doing it.”
“He assigns them to me because I’m the only one available who can get it done properly. You’re always blocked out, and Jungwoo has that weekly coaching session. Jisung tried to help me do it this morning, and he didn’t even separate paid from unpaid leave. The numbers looked like we were bleeding PTO.”
She gave you a sly smile. “You know you can block yourself out too,” she said off-handedly. 
“You can what?”
This was new information.
“You’re telling me someone else could be sifting through that 70-page file if I just schedule in a random meeting with myself?” you asked again, to which she nodded.
“Has yet to fail me. But make sure you name it something that makes sense, and don’t do it all the time, otherwise it’ll look suspicious.”
Corporate bullshitting was a fine art, and you were beginning to realise you were still but a novice at it. 
“And lay off the intern,” she added. “He’s just a child.” “He’s taller than Junmyeon.”
“A child in spirit, then. You know what I mean. He sort of reminds me of a cute little mouse,” she mused, trailing off. If her apartment complex didn’t have a pet ban, you had a feeling she would be taking in every stray animal off the street.
However, she was right. Jisung had been a bigger help than you had expected of a second-year commerce student. Even if it was just skimming through a finished presentation pack to fix up any typos and align text boxes, you couldn’t deny that having an extra pair of eyes and hands had made your life a little bit easier. Maybe you would even miss him once his summer placement came to an end and the semester rolled back around. As long as there weren’t too many more incidents like the one from this morning.
Speaking of this morning…
“Hey, does that mean you’ve been making yourself unavailable so you don’t have to read the—”
“Oh look! The line’s getting shorter. You should move up before someone cuts in.”
You shuffled forward, but not without throwing her a displeased look along with a grumble or two. Next time the quarterly attendance analysis rolled around, you were definitely making use of the trick she had just told you about. A quick glance up ahead. There were now three people in front of you in the line, but only one green capsule left on the rack. 
Please, caffeine gods be willing, let that last one be yours.  
“I can’t believe I told you that I thought your ex-boyfriend was super fucking hot. I feel so icky, like I’ve betrayed you somehow,” Joy said, making a face. The dimpled smile fought its way back into your consciousness, and you suppressed the twist in your stomach that seemed to accompany every recollection of it. 
“It’s honestly fine. There’s no way you could have known.” You shrugged, partly to reassure her it wasn’t a big deal, and partly to shake off that funny feeling in the pit of your stomach.
The better part of your weekend had been spent trying to make sense of the night, after battling a merlot-induced migraine for most of Saturday morning and early afternoon. Three glasses had been a necessity to get through dinner, but it was ultimately overkill. You were no longer the girl from two years ago who took advantage of her afternoon class the next day by destroying a few soju bottles with your roommates. On a weeknight, too.
Joy gave your arm a soft squeeze. “Still, I’m sorry I put you through that. Hopefully it wasn’t completely awful?”
Completely awful, it was not. Awful at some parts? Maybe. 
Truthfully, you hadn’t been prepared to see Jaehyun again. Not to say that you had never thought about it — you definitely had, running simulations through your head about how you would run into him on the street, ignore his greeting and walk past him like he didn’t even exist. But those were the musings of a heart-broken teenager, turning to spite and cheap endeavours at revenge to cope with the loss of her first love. Last Friday did have spite rearing its ugly head, but that spite was short-lived, and only one aspect that made up the whirlwind of emotions that came with seeing him again after all those years. 
“No, it wasn’t all bad,” you were about to say, when your eye was suddenly caught by a movement up ahead. 
A slender, veiny hand reached out to grab the last green pod from the coffee rack. You watched as the thief’s fingers closed around the capsule and slotted it into the machine. He pressed the lever down — because of course, it was a man. Not only was he on the better side of the gender wage gap, but he also had to be ahead of you in the caffeine race as well.
The sound of the capsule being punctured was the final blow. 
“My coffee,” you lamented under your breath.
“Have some patience,” Joy chided. “We’re nearly there. You’re like a zombie when you don’t have your little cup of bean juice.”
You shook your head glumly. “The last Peruvian. I waited for so long. It was supposed to be mine, and he took it.” 
“Who did?”
“The guy at the front.” 
Your eyes were still glued on the hand as it wrapped around the mug filled with your favourite blend, completely unaware that it had just robbed you of the only small pocket of joy you had been looking forward to all afternoon. Peering around the two people still ahead, your gaze travelled up his exposed forearm and the sleeve of the white dress shirt cuffed there. If only you could catch a glimpse of the face that had stomped all over your hopes and dreams… 
The lady in front of you shuffled closer to the coffee machine and finally cleared your line of sight. Coffee stealer’s ear came into view before his face did, and he was—
“Jaehyun?”
His name fell out of Joy’s mouth before you could even get your own to start working again and beg her not to call out to him. For a moment you were afraid you had conjured him out of thin air from the uninvited thoughts of him circling the outskirts of your mind. At least now you knew he wasn’t a hallucination.
Jaehyun’s eyebrows pinched in confusion first, then surprise, before finally smoothing over with recognition. He offered a small wave, eyes flitting from Joy over to you, and then he was walking over, and you were fighting for your life trying to mask the panic that was bubbling away inside your chest.
You shot Joy a frantic look. Why did you do that?
I don’t know! Sorry, said her returning one. The corners of her mouth were turned down in an apologetic frown, but she quickly schooled it into a smile at Jaehyun’s approach.
“I’ve never seen you on seven before,” Joy said, the spitting image of friendliness, nevermind that you were beside her and desperately looking for an exit out of the incoming conversation. “You’re always holed up somewhere on ten.”
You supposed you should have known this would happen sooner or later. Six months without running into each other when you worked at the same company, in the same building, was the exception, not the rule. You were just grateful Joy didn’t try to bring up her clever little dinner setup that had been plaguing you the entire weekend, or try and rope the two of you into awkward and unnecessary introductions.
“Someone told me I should come down and try the Nespresso machine. Apparently it’s really good,” he said, gesturing at the mug you had been staring at for the past three minutes.
“It is,” were the first two words you managed. Both pairs of eyes shifted towards you, waiting for the rest of your comment to come, but you could only disappoint, the syllables hanging thick and dumb in the air. 
There appeared to be some sort of blockage in your mouth-to-brain pipeline.
Joy cleared her throat lightly, throwing you a sideways glance. “Which one did you try? They all taste the same to me, but she only drinks the green ones,” she said, ignoring the panicked twitch of your mouth. She knew full well that he was the one you’d been staring daggers into ever since he grabbed that stupid capsule. Your stupid capsule.
Jaehyun’s eyes flicked between your face and the steaming drink in his hand a few times.
“Do you want mine? I think I might have taken the last green one.” He offered the mug to you. “I didn’t really know what to press, so it’s just a cappuccino. Regular milk. I haven’t had any yet.”
“It’s fine, you should have yours. I’ll get another one,” you politely declined. No matter how much you liked the Peruvian blend, it was not worth the charity from your ex-boyfriend. Even if it was the only thing that could get you through the rest of the afternoon. Even if he was holding the exact thing that you had been planning on getting. 
Hopefully the kitchen staff would restock those capsules by tomorrow.
The look he gave you was not a convinced one, but he didn’t push further. With your dismissal of his offer, the three of you lapsed into a sticky silence. Even Joy, who was so adept at making topics of conversation out of nothing, had little to add, passing up the challenge of pulling meaningful sentences out of your mouth. The stifling tension between you and Jaehyun must have been more powerful than you thought. 
“Shoot, I think I’m getting a Teams call,” Joy suddenly said, making a show of pulling her phone out and tapping the screen. 
Liar. She didn’t even have the app notifications turned on. 
“I should probably take this, but I’ll see the both of you later.” She flashed a contrite smile, and then she was off, almost speed-walking her way down the stairs you had come up together, all the while pressing her phone to her ear with a little too much urgency for a mid-afternoon cold call. By the look on Jaehyun’s face, he hadn’t been all that impressed by her impromptu theatrics either.
“Are you still in the line?”
“Sorry, yes,” you muttered at the woman behind you. Clearly, you were not the only one impatient for their caffeine fix. 
Finally, you were at the counter. You stared blankly at the rack of capsules. The empty space where the green ones were usually stored was glaringly obvious, jumping out at you while you skimmed through the other blends for a passable alternative. After many more seconds than would have been necessary to pick one flavour out of the remaining three, your fingers closed around a gold one. It would have to do for today. 
Jaehyun watched as you dropped the capsule into its slot and made your selections. Why he was still here with you was somewhat of a mystery. You would’ve thought that Joy’s hasty exit would have prompted him to do the same, saving the both of you from having to make bumbling small talk about the weather, or the weekend, or whatever else that two people working at the same company, with no other relational history, could talk about to fill in the silence.
Maybe he wanted to talk about the dinner bill. The fact that he had settled it, without you even noticing, had been weighing on your mind. It was less of a money thing — though you were pretty sure the total hadn’t been a modest number — than a pride thing. Being indebted to others always left a smear on your conscience. 
Being indebted to your ex-boyfriend was like someone had shit all over it.
Whatever. If he didn’t bring it up first, you would. This was the 21st century. You were both financially independent adults. Splitting the bill on a first date didn’t have to be such a contentious thing. 
Although technically, it was far from your first. And it wasn’t a date either, because you had refused to label it as such in your head.
The last few drops of milk and espresso trickled into the mug, before the machine stopped whirring altogether. You knew he was still there. You could feel his presence behind you. He had probably been waiting for the noise to stop so that you’d be able to hear him speak. Taking your mug off the stand, you turned to face him. 
“Your cardigan,” he said.
“Huh?”
Confusion splashed over you. You weren’t even wearing one today.
“I have your cardigan,” he amended. “From Friday. You left it inside the restaurant. One of the waiters brought it out, but you had left already, so I took it with me.” He scratched the back of his neck. “I have it now, if you want it back.”
“You do?” 
“I mean, it’s at my desk. I brought it in today,” he added quickly, seeing the way you were looking about his person like you were expecting it to materialise into his hands.
You blinked a few times, trying to clear the brain fog that had decided now was the perfect time to strike. “Yes, I—thank you, um, for that. I can take it off you…?” 
Had you meant to have it sound so much like a question? It seemed like your capacity for human speech was always afflicted by some sort of malfunction in his presence.
“Okay, uh, do you want to come up to my desk? I’ve got it there.”
The elevator ride up to the tenth floor was a short one. You could have taken the stairs just to get the extra steps in, but with both of you holding uncovered drinks, three flights of stairs combined with your clumsy fingers were a slip hazard just waiting to happen. Still, despite the short journey, the seconds inside the elevator seemed to drag on for much longer.
Before you could lose your nerve, you opened your mouth to crack the silence. 
“Let me pay you back for dinner.” 
Good. It sounded good. Firm, but not overbearing. Hell yeah, you were getting the hang of this conversation-with-your-ex-boyfriend thing. 
Jaehyun seemed a bit taken aback by that, turning to you slightly with surprise woven into the crease of his brow. “You really don’t need to do that,” he said after a beat.
The elevator dinged, and he stepped out through the sliding doors before you could form a coherent response. It took a second for you to follow, the coffee inside your mug almost making a dangerous appearance all over the elevator floor as you caught up with his strides. 
“Think of it as me taking care of a junior colleague. I am your senior, you know,” he said over his shoulder, a smile gracing his features at the latter part.
“Only by half a year,” you grumbled. “That doesn’t even count.” The light shake of his broad shoulders let you know he had heard your gripes over his attempts at enforcing seniority. His accompanying laugh was a soft one. You barely caught it above the noise of the tenth floor office.
The mellowed cosiness of the fifth floor HR department was hard to be found here. You were used to some chatter, with the occasional high-pitched laugh from Joy punctuating the air. On days he was feeling particularly jovial, Junmyeon could be heard humming from whichever desk he had decided to park at for the day (such was the beauty of hot-desking and hotelling). The few occasions you shared a table with him had allowed you to recognise the melody of The Beatles’ Strawberry Fields Forever — always the same song, and he hummed everything except for the words ‘strawberry fields’, which he insisted on singing, albeit softly.
Nothing about Digital was soft or cosy. Except maybe the sofa in one of the open creative spaces. The floor buzzed with activity, from the influx of incoming call ringtones to agenda-packed meetings in conference rooms. A group of people were clustered around a floor-to-ceiling whiteboard covered in diagrams that were undecipherable to you, engaged in animated conversation while pointing at various parts of the board. Some of them greeted Jaehyun as he walked past with you in tow.
“I had no idea Digital was this busy,” you mused out loud, following him as he weaved through the desks.
He chuckled lightly. “We like to talk a lot. And some of us can get a bit loud,” he said. The joking undercurrent to his voice had you thinking that the second part was said with someone in mind. “But it’s more hectic than usual. We’ve just won a really big bid and Johnny’s excited about his first time leading one of the streams.” He paused to wave and give a thumbs-up at the man standing at the very front of the whiteboard group (you assumed this was Johnny), who returned the greetings with just as much enthusiasm. 
Jaehyun had always been a people person. That was one thing that would likely never change.
The two of you arrived at his desk, a quieter one next to the windows offering an almost unobstructed view of the city. He dug around his workspace, pulling out a Jo Malone gift bag. 
“Ignore the bag,” he said, catching your wary expression. “I didn’t want to stuff it in my duffel with the rest of my gym stuff.” 
You took it from his outstretched hand, with a quick glance to check that it was in fact your cardigan. The ribbed black fabric sat inside, folded neatly over itself. 
“It got rained on quite a bit, so I washed it. I hope that’s okay.”
“Of course, that’s kind of you, Jaehyun. You didn’t have to.” For a moment, you wondered if he still used the same pine-scented laundry detergent. The smell of it used to cling to his school uniform, a burst of freshness you always sought during the muggy summer days.
“Thank you,” you said, giving him a grateful smile. “I thought I lost it for good.” In your mind, you had already made peace with the fact that you would probably see the thing ever again. Yet all weekend, it had been taking up space in Jaehyun’s hamper, uncertain as to when it would finally be able to reunite with your closet.
You gave him a careful look. 
“Did you plan on seeing me today?” you asked. 
“No. Yes. I mean—” The tips of his ears took on the faintest hint of a pink flush. “I didn’t know if I would run into you, so I’m glad I did. But otherwise, I was just going to give it to Joy and get her to pass it along to you,” he trailed off, gaze shifting sideways to the cityscape posted on the other side of the glass windows. 
Neither of you had bothered with exchanging contact details after dinner, an oversight that was more deliberate than not on your part. His re-entry into your life was something you hadn’t felt quite ready for. And yet—
“Do you want my number?”
Stupid mouth. The words were out before you even registered that you had spoken. You prayed he wouldn’t pick up on the unintended suggestion of the question, though judging by the quick raise of his left eyebrow, you weren’t the only one who realised the other possible interpretations of your words. 
“I mean, just in case something like this happens again. So you can contact me directly,” you added quickly. Heat slowly crept its way up to your cheeks. You hoped he wouldn’t notice.
“Sure,” he said, lips curling into a smile. “If that’s okay with you.” 
Considering you were the one who had said it out loud in the first place, it would have been strange if you suddenly decided it was not okay with you.
There was some fumbling with each other’s phones, before you were typing your number to add into his contacts, and he was doing the same to yours. Would he realise yours was still the same string of digits as it had been five years ago?
“Well, I’d better get going,” you said, handing back his phone. Now was as good a time to make an easy exit as any. You had planned on gossiping with Joy in the level seven kitchen for the rest of the hour, but back to your desk appeared to be the more likely destination this afternoon. 70-page files didn’t read themselves. “Thanks for the cardigan. I’ll see you later, then?”
Jaehyun looked like he had more to say, but you were already turning around, ready to leave the hubbub of the tenth floor. Ready to leave the presence of your ex-boyfriend-turned-friend? Acquaintance? You shook your head lightly. A drink was needed to unpack that box of worms.
A call of your name had you pausing mid-step.
“Your coffee,” Jaehyun said, tapping you on the shoulder to hand you your mug. 
“Thanks,” you mumbled, taking it from his grasp. You hadn’t even bothered to take a sip of the non-Peruvian cappuccino, the surface still untouched. It was probably cold now. Maybe you’d pass it off to Jungwoo, this time sans the salt.
“You know, if the dinner bill thing bothers you that much, you can just make it up to me later.”
You blinked at him a few times. “Make it up to you how?”
“Ah, that’s for me to decide,” he replied, a boyish glint to his smiling eyes. Both his dimples popped out, and you found yourself unable to choose which one to focus on. 
Then he was moving, and you were left staring at the broad expanse of his back as he walked away. Head full of thoughts wondering what the hell kind of favour he would now hold over your head, you almost walked straight into Jungwoo as you came out of the elevator.
“Hey, I got a Nespresso from seven. You want it?” you asked, offering him the coffee you stopped yourself from spilling all over him. He eyed the mug apprehensively.
“You put salt in it again, didn’t you?”
“No? Where did you even get that from? Hang on, how do you know it was me?”
Jungwoo sucked in a breath through his teeth. “So it was you! I knew it! You know, you really are a scary woman,” he grumbled. “Who ever would have thought an evil spirit lurked behind such a kind face?”
“So that’s a no to the coffee?”
“I don’t trust you anymore, so no.”
“Suit yourself,” you shrugged, making your way back to your desk. The attendance reports stared back at you as you logged into the monitor, drawing a sigh out of you. You took a sip of the coffee.
And frowned.
You brought the mug to your mouth again. Like the first sip, the second was also lukewarm. But like the first sip, the second also tasted exactly the same as your usual Peruvian blend. Maybe there really was no difference between all the different coloured capsules, you thought, skimming through page 33 of the file.
That thing about realisation never being on time? Still true.
On the subway ride home, gripping the handle with all your might while sandwiched between two middle-aged men in stuffy suits, it dawned on you.
Jaehyun had given you his coffee instead.
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“Thanks everyone for dialling in today. We’ll chat soon.”
The screen reverted back to its default background as the call ended, and you let out a sound somewhere in between a groan and a whimper. Junmyeon did not look to be faring any better, head in his hands while his elbows rested on the meeting room table.
“Can somebody please tell Jackson and the rest of the Marketing heads that Summer Fridays doesn’t mean they can just take Fridays completely off?” he groaned, the sounds escaping through the gaps in his fingers. “Our absenteeism looks like it’s at an all time high. Nayeon, you’re friendly with him, aren’t you?”
The girl pressed at her temples. “I mean, we were in the same advertising and PR club back in university, if that counts for anything. But yeah, I’ll schedule some time with him and go over it.”
“Great, thank you,” Junmyeon sighed, throwing his head back. “Alright, I’ll send around a debrief email later this afternoon. Thanks everyone for your time.”
You didn’t have to be told twice. A second later and you were out of the eighth floor Marketing meeting room, already on your way to the Nespresso machine downstairs. Another coffee at 4pm was slightly pushing it, but you needed a pick-me-up urgently to wash away the gruelling two hours spent going through company policy with Marketing.
The buzz of your phone was a momentary distraction from your mission. 
It was a message from Jaehyun. Something silly in response to a text you had sent earlier in the day. 
jaehyun [04:07 pm]: in dire need of a fake mango right now jaehyun [04:07 pm]: mmm fake mango milkshake
The smile that crept up onto your face was almost like a reflex in the way it couldn’t be helped.
Now that you were acquainted again, it was like you saw him everywhere. How you had managed to completely avoid each other for the last half a year or so was a fascinating mystery. Some mornings you’d run into him in the building lobby. He’d hold the elevator doors open for you, and you’d exchange pleasantries on the ride up to the fifth floor, where you’d get off and bid him goodbye, or see you later. And see him later you did. Whether it was at the seventh floor coffee machine, or in line at the cafeteria on twelve, the sight of his face had become a nice interruption to the hours spent at a monitor, or in a call like the one you had just escaped.
He would come down to the fifth floor sometimes, stopping by Joy’s desk or yours to say hello and have a chat if you weren’t busy. You found yourself wishing he would spend less time with Joy than he did with you — not because you wanted to see him more (because that was absolutely not the reason at all), but because he was steadily gaining a lead over you in the Joy friendship competition. The three of you had spent a few lunch breaks at the cafeteria together, granted that your schedules matched, with an odd appearance from Jungwoo every now and again.
You saw more of Johnny (loud) and Mark (louder), Jaehyun’s friends from Digital who you’d normally hear before you’d see them. Johnny was his “beloved coffee mate” (Jaehyun’s exact words) and possibly the only other person in the building who cared about the green Peruvian capsules as much as you did. Mark was… Mark, for lack of a better description. There was nobody the boy couldn’t strike a conversation with. If he really needed to, you suspected he could probably get along with a wet paper towel. 
You had been offered an invitation to join the three of them for one of their weekly lunches outside the company building. Johnny was more than happy to let you know he was somewhat of an expert at finding the hottest eats in the area, having put half his floor onto the cold noodle place he had sought out at the start of the month. And laugh as you had when he proudly told you about it, Johnny’s influence was no joke. News of the restaurant had somehow trickled its way down to HR, with Junmyeon just the other day asking around the team if anyone had tried the place before. 
Perhaps you’d join them next week. It was always nice to be ahead of the trend. 
You arrived at the seventh floor kitchen and sighed. The rack was out of green capsules again. Although, maybe that was to be expected. It was nearing the end of the day, and the gold capsules were finished too. So much for a 4pm pick-me-up, you thought, though it might have been for the better — too much caffeine in one day always made you a bit antsy and had your resting heart rate up in the high 80s. 
With empty hands and a pout on your lips, you made your way back to the fifth floor. 
Joy’s eyes were glued to her screen when you walked past her. “Jaehyun stopped by while you were in that Marketing call,” she said without looking at you, squinting at a spreadsheet. 
“Did he?” you replied, trying your best at nonchalance despite the little flip of your stomach. 
“Are you talking about her handsome friend from Digital?” Jungwoo peered around the table with a playful grin on his face. 
You were back on good terms now, thanks to your promise to pay for his lunch from the cafeteria for a whole week to make up for the coffee incident. The look in his eyes right now had you thinking life was better that week where he had been afraid of you.
“Yeah, that’s the one,” Joy said distractedly in between clicks of her keyboard. “Jisung, can you just double check these numbers for me? I’m in the second tab of the Excel file.” 
The intern was quick to comply. You had a feeling she was his favourite senior. 
“Anyways, I think he left you something.”
You made your way over to your desk, ignoring Jungwoo’s oohs and ahs. Sure enough, there was something sitting next to your diary and the three empty glasses you hadn’t had the chance to rinse out yet.
It was a coffee capsule. Specifically, it was a green coffee capsule. 
There was a sticky note stuck to the back of it, which you turned around to read. His handwriting was still identical to that of the silly little notes he used to leave in the margins of your home economics workbook. 
saved this last one from johnny’s clutches. enjoy ^.^
Despite the jitters from the end-of-day caffeine fix, you smiled the whole way home.
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“I’ve found a way you can make it up to me.”
You pulled the phone away from your ear to check the screen. 9:34 am. The Saturday morning still had you in its clutches, and it took a few seconds to process the sounds you were hearing. 
“Who is this?” you croaked, sleep lacing your voice. 
“It’s Jaehyun.” 
You sat up a little straighter against the pillows. “Jaehyun?” you echoed. 
“Yes, it’s me. Do you not check the caller ID before you answer?”
You grumbled something about it being too early on the weekend to have your head screwed on properly, to which he laughed, a vivid sound even through the phone. 
“Do you have plans later today?”
You hesitated. Technically, no, unless a hot date with Netflix and whatever leftover snacks you could find in your pantry counted as plans. You were due for a grocery trip soon. The three eggs and single sprig of spring onion in your fridge would not last for long. Cooking had never been something you enjoyed, especially not after a full work day, and yet living alone required so much of it. You didn’t want to make up a non-existent dinner reservation, partly because you knew he’d be able to tell the untruth just by listening to your voice, and partly because something unpleasant niggled at your insides at the thought of lying just to avoid him.  
“Why, what’s up?” you asked instead.
“Well, you know that jazz festival?” You gave an affirmative hum. “I have tickets for today. Mark and I were supposed to go together, but he just called me saying he can’t make it. Something about a leak in his apartment from all the rain. So…”
You stifled a yawn. “So?” Your brain was still trying to catch up with the land of the awake and living. 
“Come with me?”
The words took a while and a few blinks to register. When they did, your first instinct was to say no. Jaehyun was fine in small doses. A quick chat over coffee, sporadic texts throughout the day, conversation within the safety of a group setting — these were all fine. Manageable. Nice, even. But Jaehyun in the flesh, outside of the office, with nobody else around to buffer the strange sort of tension that seemed to always thrum between the two of you — that was an entirely different ball game altogether. Sometimes, a mere run-in was enough to have your heart going a little faster than usual, nerves lighting up at the unexpected sight of his face. 
“I am not above begging. Please don’t make me go to this thing by myself.”
And yet, there was a flicker of something pleasant and sweet, something akin to excitement that curbed the nervous flutter in your gut. You were fifteen again, waiting outside the movie theatre, a little too giddy at the thought of spending time with the boy whose sweet smile had become the cause of your stomach somersaults. And that was before you had even admitted to yourself that you liked him, as more than a friend. 
“What time is it?” you found yourself asking.
So maybe you were seriously considering it. You had been meaning to put that new film camera to use. The thing had been collecting dust in one of your drawers ever since you bought it on a whim one night scrolling through Pinterest. Somehow, the rows of tables and monitors in the office didn’t seem like the most interesting camera subjects compared to the scenes of concerts and beach bonfires that had driven your impulsive purchase. 
“Well, the doors open at 11, but the first performer is at 12. And Lauv’s set isn’t until later in the evening.”
“Lauv is performing?” Your voice had gone up almost an octave, but you couldn’t care enough to be embarrassed. This was a crucial piece of information. Now you had to be there. 
He laughed. “So is that a yes?”
“Yes. Yes, it’s a yes.” The covers were flipped off your legs in an instant.
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It wasn’t that Jaehyun looked bad in slacks and a dress shirt. That was not the case at all. But you had grown used to them on him over the last few weeks, and the sight of his long legs in a pair of well-fitting trousers no longer caused a spike in your heart rate. 
Jaehyun in casual clothes outside the office was uncharted territory. 
The midday sun was strong outside the subway station. Clad in a black graphic tee over a pair of baggy green cargos, Jaehyun stood idly at the entrance, face hidden by the brown baseball cap on his head and eyes trained on his phone. How someone could look so gorgeous in something so ordinary was a secret only he knew the truth of. He caught sight of you from across the road, waiting for the pedestrian light, and raised his hand in a wave. 
“It’s different seeing you out of your work clothes,” he said. 
“Different good or different bad?”
A soft smile grazed his lips. “Just different. You look younger.”
“So do you,” you replied. 
You look like the boy I was in love with all those years ago. 
“Did you taxi?”
“No, I took the bus. There’s one that goes straight from my building. I didn’t know you lived around here,” you mused to yourself.
“My place is really close.” He pointed somewhere behind him. “Five minutes that way, tops. You should come over sometime.”
A slight pause. Jaehyun’s eyes flitted down to the pavement. You weren’t sure if the heat in your cheeks was from the sun or something else entirely. 
“Anyway,” he cleared his throat, “we should probably go. It takes 40 minutes to get there, so if we leave now we should be able to catch the 1pm.”
The subway on the weekend was nowhere near as awful as it usually was during the weekday rush hours, but packed nonetheless. You definitely preferred being stuck in a carriage full of bright-eyed and chattering teenagers than the usual crowd of solemn-faced office workers. When a seat finally freed up, Jaehyun was quick to offer it to you, manoeuvring himself so that he could stand in front of you as you sat down. Toe to toe, the tips of his shoes grazed yours, and you were suddenly reminded of study periods at the library. The two of you could never agree on who first started the game of footsie under the desk.
“See those girls over there?” you asked quietly, nodding towards a group of likely high schoolers down the other end of the carriage. Jaehyun turned his head to follow your gaze, catching sight of the girls who immediately erupted in whispers and giggles upon making eye contact with him. “They’ve been staring at you for the last two stops.”
He was quick to turn back towards you, nose scrunching and slightly embarrassed. “Kids these days are so weird,” he said with a soft groan. “Why are they doing that?”
“You know they’re only staring because you’re handsome.” 
Despite the pinkness of his ears, he was smiling wide. “You think I’m handsome?”
You blinked up at him. “I didn’t say that.” Did I? “I meant they probably think you’re handsome. Which is why they’re staring. You know. It’s nice to look at good-looking people.” 
The rushed explanations did nothing to shake the feeling that you had slipped-up somehow, and he had caught it. Jaehyun’s dimples only deepened at your backtracking.
“You know what I mean,” you finally huffed, biting back a smile at the deep sound of his responding laugh. “Whatever. I think this is our stop.”
The festival couldn’t have picked a better day to be held. The skies were clear and blue, and the air carried a light breeze that provided a welcome relief from the heavy stickiness of midsummer. It was a nice change from the sporadic rainstorms that had plagued the city over the last two weeks or so. Mark’s leaking apartment was proof of the temperamental weather. If you had one bone to pick, the sun was a tad strong, but that was to be expected. You had come prepared, tugging the bucket hat down further to cover your face. 
Alaina Castillo’s set was well underway by the time you and Jaehyun made your way into the venue grounds. A decent amount of people had already arrived, trickling in to fill up the gated area in front of the main stage. The two of you filed in with the rest, finding a place towards the back of the growing crowd where there was ample room to breathe without inhaling someone else’s breath. 
You had never been one for being stuck in a swarm of people. A harsh reminder of why that was the case appeared when, out of nowhere, a stranger’s elbow dug into your arm, knocking you sideways in their determined path towards the barricade. 
The steadying hand around your shoulder was instantaneous. 
“Are you okay?” Jaehyun asked, and you mumbled something affirmative in reply, trying not to dwell too much on the warmth of his skin on your bare arm. His eyes followed the stranger who was still pushing on through the crowd in front. “People really need to watch where they’re going,” he muttered, brows drawn together in a frown.
The rest of the afternoon proceeded more smoothly. It was a little unsettling how normal and nice everything felt. Jaehyun kept close to you for the sets that followed, the distance between the two of you gradually shrinking as the crowd grew in size. The occasional brush of your forearms as you moved to the music was no longer something to jump at like you had the first time it had happened. You managed to snap a few pictures on your almost-new film camera, mostly of the artist performing, but there was one of you in there somewhere amidst the stage shots, taken by an insistent and smiley Jaehyun during one of the set breaks. 
“So this is why you wanted someone to come with you,” you said, sliding onto the bench and passing him one of the burgers from the food truck.
“It’s so much more efficient when you can line up for two things at once. If I was by myself, I’d either wait for the beer and let my burger get soggy, or wait for the burger and let my beer get warm and flat. This way the food is fresh, and our drinks are ice cold out of the fridge.”
You cracked a smile. “And here I thought you called me because you enjoyed my company.”
“I do enjoy your company,” he said without missing a beat. “The other stuff is just an added plus.”
You took a sip of the cold beer, hoping it would stave off the quick flush of your cheeks. Jaehyun said things so easily. Too easily. It was harder and harder to adhere to that invisible boundary you had been so adamant on protecting. 
Why were you so reluctant to let him back in? Why all the walls? He made it too easy for thoughts like that to creep in and loiter in the back of your mind. 
Evening had begun to settle, the brightness of the midday sky fading away to a twinkling twilight blue over your heads. The music was quieter at the picnic tables by the tents, where festival-goers sought respite from the main stage crowds with a cold beverage and something greasy. Between mouthfuls of an early makeshift dinner, you and Jaehyun sat in your own bubble, comfortably falling into conversation about the performances throughout the day, or whatever else happened to be on your minds.  
“Your mouth opens so wide,” you said, watching as he all but inhaled half the burger in one go. His nose scrunched up as he tried to take the massive bite, and the sight of it was such a far cry from his usual cool guy image that you couldn’t pass up the opportunity to snap a picture of it. The click of the shutter had him looking up at you mid-chew with a dismayed expression.
“That’s not fair. You attacked when I wasn’t ready!”
“I’d hardly call that an attack,” you said, not without a smile. “I was just getting a candid.”
He wiped his fingers on the napkin. “Okay, my turn then,” he said, gesturing for you to hand the camera over. You obliged, letting him point the lens at you and fiddle with the knobs along the top. His slender fingers navigated the controls with a practised ease.
“Relax,” he added softly, noticing your fidgeting. Twenty-something years, and you had made little progress in mastering the art of posing for photos. “Pretend the camera’s not here, and it’s just you and me.”
Right. Like that was supposed to make you loosen up.
“I actually used to be really into photography. Got pretty good at it too,” he said.
“Really? I don’t remember that.”
“Picked it up in uni,” he explained. “Had all this free time on my hands and didn’t know what to do with it. Besides drinking.” A pause. “Honestly, first year second semester was pretty rough after… you know.”
The last part caught you somewhat off-guard. After that fateful April night, you had always assumed Jaehyun was off living his best life, blowing through society events with the new friends he had made, maybe even letting a few of them warm his bed now that you weren’t around. It wouldn’t have been the biggest surprise. Even at nineteen, Jaehyun’s good looks were uncontested. His sweet and attentive personality was the cherry on top of an already delectable cake. Whatever he got up to when the sun set, you were none the wiser, having completely wiped his existence from your phone by the time your first semester exam period rolled around. 
Though you didn’t go as far as to block his number, he never reached out, and so Jeong Jaehyun became a relic of the past, embracing his newfound freedom now that he had shed himself of you, his unwanted baggage.
Or so you thought.
“But yeah,” he continued, “I started getting into photography. Burnt a hole in my wallet trying out a bunch of different cameras,” he said with a chuckle. “I liked film the most though, I think. It’s the only one I still use now.” 
“What do you like about it?”
He took a moment, pausing in thought. “The colours, mostly. How it’s a bit muted, it has that vintage feeling.” You hummed in agreement. “Selfies on a film camera are fun as well.”
“You must really like looking at yourself,” you teased, enjoying the sight of his ears flushing with colour from where they poked out above the camera.
“Not like that,” he said in reply to the raise of your eyebrows. “It’s more like… when you take a selfie on film, you can’t see yourself, right? Whether the focus is focusing, or if the angle is right.
“Or if your whole face is actually in the shot, not just your right eye.”
“Exactly. But then taking the picture anyway. That’s what I like.” He pulled away from the camera to flash you a small smile. “Isn’t it funny, the way we try so hard to capture moments of time?”
Jaehyun’s attention returned to the viewfinder, leaving you to quietly dwell on his words. How else could one keep a piece of time stored away if not through photos? And yet, photography would never be able to capture the entirety of a moment the way a memory could. The sound of the band’s bass guitar from the side stage in the adjacent garden. The smell of summer carried by the evening breeze as it ruffled through his hair.
The warm feeling in your chest as you sat across from him at this wooden picnic bench, surrounded by people, sharing wistful conversation and a basket of fries. 
The feeling of coming home.
The shutter clicked.
“Got it. That last one is going to turn out so nice.” Jaehyun smiled triumphantly, cheeks dimpling. “If you make this your profile picture you have to add the ‘photo by’. I need my credits.”
You blinked away the precarious thoughts. “Alright, mister photographer man, give it back now. Don’t use up all my film before Lauv.”
He handed the camera back to you, looking very pleased with himself. The light from the nearby tents cast a dusky glow over his face. Jaehyun from Digital was sharp and polished. The Jaehyun before you now, with his hair dishevelled from taking off the cap earlier, was softer, more open, and more subtle in the way he had slipped under your defences and picked the locks chained around your heart. 
The question now was whether you’d let him in further than you already had.
He tugged at his collar. “God, it’s still muggy at night, isn’t it?” 
“You stay here, I’ll get us some more beers,” you said, already standing up.
If anything, you were grateful for the errand, a welcome distraction from the tumultuous battle between your heart and your head that always forged on at any thought of him. The line for the bar was no shorter than it had been half an hour ago, to nobody’s surprise (this was a festival in Seoul, of course the queues would be severe) and it was a while before the two cold plastic cups were in your hands. 
The short time away from him had given you the space to steer your mindset back onto the charted platonic course. A little voice in the back of your mind objected, and was making a damn convincing argument about why you should be more inclined to go beyond plain friendship with Jaehyun, but you chose to ignore it, suppressing the nagging with a deep breath and a smile that you hoped looked less conflicted than how you felt. Beers in hand, you carefully made your way back to the picnic table — only to be met with a rather interesting sight.
Jaehyun was still where you had left him, thankfully. But the two girls that now stood around him were a new addition. 
“Hey,” you greeted, tapping him on the shoulder to pass him one of the beers. The taller girl visibly deflated when he flashed you a grateful smile, taking the plastic cup from your hand. The shorter one, however, ran her eyes up and down your figure with an almost calculating gaze.
“Is this your friend?” the shorter one asked, question directed at Jaehyun.
“Uh, yeah, um—hi,” you answered very eloquently, introducing yourself. You tossed a glance between Jaehyun and the two girls. “Do you um—are you guys friends?”
“Well, no, not really. Minjeong and Jimin just came—”
“We were actually going to ask if you guys wanted to join us up closer to the main stage?” the shorter one (Minjeong perhaps?) asked, flashing a sweet smile you suspected was more for Jaehyun’s benefit than yours. “We have a blanket and a few chairs set up, so you can sit and watch the closing set. It’s much more comfortable than standing inside the barricade.”
“Jaehyun looked a little lonely by himself,” the taller one added.
Lonely because you left him for ten minutes to go get some cold drinks? These girls were unbelievable.
“What do you say? Want to join us?”
Maybe you should’ve taken the group of highschoolers on the subway earlier more seriously as a forewarning. Not that you had any say in what Jaehyun could and could not do — he was his own person, and the closest thing you had to a claim on him had disintegrated years ago. If he wanted to go hang out with pretty strangers, he could go and do exactly that, and you didn’t have to follow him either. The invitation had clearly been meant for him more than it had been for you.
So what if you had been looking forward to enjoying the last set together? You were a big girl. You could brave the main stage crowds by yourself if you had to.
Jaehyun glanced at you, searching your eyes while you tried your best to keep your face neutral and devoid of the uneasy thoughts bubbling away beneath your skin. He was his own person. He could make his own choices. 
After a second or two, he seemed to find what he was looking for, and turned back to the two expectant girls with a polite smile. “We’ll take our chances with the pit,” he answered. “But thank you for the offer. That’s kind of you guys.”
The two girls made their exit shortly afterwards, but not without a final look at him, and a decidedly less enthusiastic one at you. It was quiet for a few moments, the two of you sipping on your beers without a word, waiting for the other to speak.
“You could have gone with them if you wanted to,” you finally mumbled, eyes fixed on the contents of your cup.
To your surprise, Jaehyun let out a soft chuckle. “I don’t know if you noticed, but I’m pretty sure Minjeong had an engagement ring on her finger.”
“Oh, what?” 
You definitely had not noticed, too occupied by the saccharine looks she was throwing his way.
“Yeah. It was a pretty big diamond too. I think she must have forgotten to take it off today.”
You turned to look at him then. Jaehyun already had his eyes on you, sporting a lazy grin. “Come on, you can’t think I’m the type to mess around with married women?”
“That’s not what I—I didn’t know—”
“Don’t worry,” he interjected. “You’re still cute when you’re jealous.”
The quick heat rising to your face dispelled any of the remaining nonchalance in your expression. “I wasn’t—I’m not jealous,” you spluttered. “I was just worried—I mean, not worried,” you paused, sighing. “I thought you’d leave me.”
His eyes sought out yours, keeping them captive once they grabbed a hold. 
“I wouldn’t leave you.”
The teasing brevity to his voice had disappeared. Somehow, you had the feeling he wasn’t simply talking about the jazz festival. The sincerity in his gaze made it hard to look away, but you had to, in the name of self preservation. Too long staring into those brown eyes was an unnecessary test of the upper limits of your heart rate. 
“Maybe she came with her husband. He could be up there on that picnic mat, waiting for her.”
He laughed, throwing his head back. “Trust me, if her husband was here, she would not have been looking at me like that.”
To their credit though, finding a spot to watch the main stage proved to be rather difficult now that everyone had arrived to catch the final act. For a moment you considered leaving the pit to take the two girls up on their offer. But with Jaehyun by your side, you were able to navigate the crowds with a bit more peace of mind, his presence a solid and comforting anchor within the sea of people. A few rogue pushes here and there had you stumbling — and perhaps the two beers on a rather empty stomach were coming on faster than you had expected — but he was there, steadying you with a gentle hand around your arm, or the light press of his firm chest against your back.
And maybe you leaned into him for longer than necessary to regain your balance, but was that really a crime? To enjoy the touch of a friend? Was it a crime for warmth to pool in the pit of your stomach at the sight of him swaying along to Lauv’s Enemies?
No, the little voice in your head denied forcefully. Jaehyun grooving to the music had always been one of your weaknesses. 
As the closing chords of Paris in the Rain sounded out across the venue, you pulled out your film camera.
“Walking down an empty street.”
A gentle nudge of Jaehyun’s shoulder had him turning towards you, nose scrunched in a happy half-laugh from watching the performance. You moved to face the back of the crowd and raised the camera high, pointing it towards the two of you. 
Was the stage in the shot? Was Lauv? 
Were you?
“Puddles underneath our feet.”
Call it courage, or liquid courage, or just plain recklessness on your part. Rising up on your tiptoes, you pressed your cheek to his, and clicked the shutter button. 
The final chord of the song struck, softly, like an afterthought, and the crowd burst into appreciative hoots and applause, marking the end of the performance.
You were beaming as you turned back towards him. “Do you think I got that one?”
Jaehyun simply stared at you, lips parted and turned up slightly at the corners. He looked more caught off-guard than he had when you had told him you thought all the Cigarettes After Sex songs sounded the same. You felt the glowing smile on your face slip, little by little, as you let his eyes roam your features, gaze indecipherable. They flitted to your lips, and for a second you were sure you stopped breathing.
Just do it! Just fucking do it! screamed that little voice in the back of your mind.
And perhaps you would’ve done it too, whatever it was, if it weren’t for the shove from behind that sent you almost face-planting into his chest.
“What the hell?” you yelped, whipping your head around. 
What was with the people here today? You never thought jazz lovers could be so aggressive and insensitive to others’ personal space. Trying to find the perpetrator was a futile task, since the crowd had started to disperse following the end of the performance, moving in all directions.
Jaehyun looked over you with concern, the earlier expression on his face now gone. 
“Come on,” he finally said, fingers gently circling around your wrist. “Let’s get out of here before we get trampled by the crowd.”
Overhead, the blue-black sky that had been so cooperative for the whole day emitted a low rumble, as if to emphasise Jaehyun’s words. Sure enough, by the time the two of you arrived at the station, it had started to sprinkle. Perhaps the clouds had been holding back the rain until the very end of the festival. How considerate of them, you thought.
The ride back into the city felt shorter than the one to the venue, though it couldn’t have been. Saturday nights were even busier than the weekday rush hour, with people young and old out and about, ready to tame the weekend with sheer determination and a bottle of soju in the stomach. This time, there were no free seats in your carriage, but you didn’t mind. Standing with Jaehyun, your heads pressed together to go through the videos in his camera roll, made the time pass faster. There was something to his photos, you decided. Something in the angle, or the light, or the composition, that made them look nicer than the ones on your phone. Maybe you ought to take a photography course too.
The clouds may have been considerate enough for the festival to hold off dumping their contents during the day, but they certainly were not for the two of you tonight. Standing under cover at the subway station exit, you watched as the torrential deluge only seemed to worsen. Thunder cracked angrily through the air. It wasn’t July without the threat of flash flooding. 
“Any drivers around?” Jaehyun asked.
You gave a sad shake of your head. “Nobody’s picking up my request. Must be because of the rain,” you muttered. Overhead, the sky split open with a strike of lightning, startling you, and you jumped back a bit, further into the covered area of the exit.
“How about the bus?”
“I think I just missed one,” you answered, checking the timetable on your phone. “It says the next isn’t for another twenty minutes. But with the rain, it might be delayed even longer.”
You flicked through the taxi app, then the bus timetable app, and then finally back to the weather app, which you always seemed to forget to check on days like this. Three consecutive 100% signs stared back at you, and you let out a sigh. The sky would not be clearing up anytime soon.
“My apartment is only two streets down, if you want somewhere to wait out the rain,” he said.
You looked up at him. The smile on his face was guileless, but at the same time, there was something guarded about it, like he was expecting your rejection. Perhaps you had studied his face for too long, because then he was shifting his weight from one foot to the other, and averting his eyes to the ground.
“Or you don’t have to, we could just—”
“Okay,” you said.
His head shot back up. “Okay?”
You shrugged, a smile finding its way to your lips. “I’d rather not be soaking wet on the bus.”
“Okay,” he repeated, corners of his mouth turning upwards to mirror yours. “To my place, then.”
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The usual five minute walk to Jaehyun’s apartment from the subway station turned into a two-and-a-half minute mad dash under the downpour. Despite your attempts at keeping to storefront shelters and ducking under the cover of big trees, the short trip had ended up with the both of you drenched to the bone, teeth chattering as you dripped rainwater all over his lobby.
You said a silent apology to the building cleaners. 
It was a relief to be dry again. Jaehyun’s sweats swamped you, the French terry fabric pooling around your feet as you sat on the couch in his living room. The top was no better, reaching almost to your knees, with the sleeves completely covering your fingertips. His clothes weren’t always this big on you. At least he still used the same pine-scented laundry detergent. 
The sound of the running shower blended smoothly with the raindrops pelting violently against the balcony window. You wrung your hands, unsure of what to do while you waited for him to come out of the bathroom. It was easy to feel out of place in a home foreign to you. The sleek furniture and minimalist colour palette of the apartment looked nothing like Jaehyun’s childhood bedroom. 
Maybe you shouldn’t have agreed to come to his place. While you were pretty sure he hadn’t invited you up with any ulterior motives in mind, there was still something ambiguous about being in your ex-boyfriend’s home and wearing his clothes. And only his clothes. 
You would have liked to keep your undergarments on, but they had also been soaked through. Going bare in these too-big sweats had seemed the less questionable option, compared to sitting with a wet patch around your butt and crotch. Heat flooded your face as you thought about your underwear and bra hanging on the heated towel rack in the bathroom. 
Whatever. It wasn’t like they were things he’d never seen before. And as for his clothes, of course you’d wash them before giving them back to him. 
It was then that you decided that you had enough of sitting around in a puddle of fabric and your own thoughts. Jaehyun’s living room wasn’t all that big, even if it felt roomier than your own, with enough space to fit a decently-sized couch and small coffee table. The tv on the far wall sat atop a rather large entertainment unit that, upon further inspection, also housed a record player and an impressive collection of vinyls. 
You padded over, eyes flicking through the various titles printed on the covers. One of them had been taken out from the shelf and sat splayed on top of the cabinet. Maybe he had meant to play it, or just forgotten to put it away. Slowly, you let a finger trace around the edge of the jacket and over the black lettering of the title. You’d recognise that white album cover anywhere.
Only you knew how much effort it had taken to source the thing, scouring auction sites and dodgy online stores until you finally bit the bullet and ordered it from a reasonable-looking seller with a 4.7 star rating. But it had all been worth it. The unadulterated joy on Jaehyun’s face as he undid the wrapping paper to reveal Frank Ocean’s Blonde was not something you could easily forget. Later, you found out that it had probably been a bootleg, since the official Blonde vinyls were a limited release, but he had hardly batted an eye when you broke the news.
“Still my favourite birthday present that anyone’s gotten me,” Jaehyun said. 
Dressed in a plain white tee and a pair of grey sweatpants, he leant against the bathroom door, surveying you with an easy smile. You must not have heard the shower turn off, the noise drowned out by the storm raging outside. His hair, still damp from the shower, hung over his eyes, and you watched as he brushed it back with his right hand, arm flexing with the movement.
The sudden flare in your lower belly was something you’d rather not feel, alone in these four walls with him, with nobody else around to witness or put a stop to whatever might follow. You’d like to think self control was something you had a firm grip on, but it seemed Jaehyun was made to put you to the test.
“Actually think it might be my favourite present ever,” he added, pushing off the door frame. He reached you in a few strides, maintaining a polite distance between your bodies.
“I didn’t even realise you still had this,” you murmured, letting him take the record from your hands. You tried not to flinch at the brush of his fingers against yours. “You didn’t even have one of these back then,” you said, lightly tapping the case of the record player.
“I changed my mind, actually. The turntable is my favourite present.”
An unfamiliar twinge of dread zipped through you. “Who gave it to you?” 
Could it be an ex-lover’s gift sitting on display in his living room? That did not sit nicely in your stomach.
“Myself.” 
He was holding back a laugh, eyes squeezed into crescent moons and too busy appreciating his own joke to catch the quick roll of your eyes. Instantly, your chest felt a little lighter, and the dread vanished as quickly as it had come on.
“Here, let me put it on,” he said, shuffling over towards you to lift up the case on the record player. With gentle fingers and a delicateness you didn’t see often, he unsleeved the record and carefully placed it on the turntable. A few fiddles with the side knobs and a precise adjustment of the needle arm later, the opening bars of Frank Ocean’s Pink and White filled the air of his living room.
For a minute, there were no words exchanged, the two of you simply content to enjoy the music as it filtered through the speakers. There was a quiet smile on Jaehyun’s face. You wondered if he, like you, was thinking of the last time you had listened to this album together.
The image of the two of you, sprawled out on his bed, sharing a pair of wired earphones, was hard to shake. It had been early evening, or nearly twilight. Sometime before sunset. The reflection on the ceiling of his childhood bedroom had changed along with the sky, until the only light left in the room was the dim blue glow from the laptop on his desk. At his mother’s call for dinner, he had gently shaken you awake, fingers light on your shoulder and against your cheek. 
Jaehyun was undoubtedly handsome in the light. But there was something about dusk and the softness of the shadows on his face that made him all the more compelling. You usually weren’t one to initiate, so the kiss you pressed to his mouth in the barely-lit room had surprised you both. 
Even now, the thought strangely sent a flood of heat to your cheeks.
“Sorry, did you want something to eat? I haven’t been a very good host.”
The grumble of your stomach answered before you could. You bit back an embarrassed smile, but Jaehyun was not so frugal with his amusement, letting out a short chuckle. Your feet followed him as he made his way to the kitchen. Perched on the marble countertop, you watched as he rummaged through the fridge.
“I have eggs, yesterday’s leftovers, and a shit ton of beer cans,” he announced. 
You exchanged a glance.
“Let’s do ramen, actually. That sounds better.” He bent down to dig through the pantry, pulling out two red packets, before moving back to the fridge and getting two eggs. “I can crack these in too, and—why are you looking at me like that?”
It was your turn to laugh, the wide grin on your face a contrast to the cautious smile on his.
“Are we having ramen?”
His brow creased a little. “I thought you liked ramen?” The innocent tilt of his head made him all the more endearing to look at.
“I do, but… did you really invite me back to your place… to have ramen?”
It took a few seconds for the ball to drop. You held back giggles as his ears flushed hotly, as they always seemed to do on the occasions you decided to indulge yourself and tease him.
“Come on, that’s not—you’re doing it on purpose,” he said, bottom lip jutting out with the suggestion of a pout. Despite his grumbles, the shape of his mouth slowly settled into a defeated smile at your visible glee of having flustered him. 
Jaehyun, soft-spoken and easy-going, was not the type to be easily ruffled. You excelled and enjoyed the challenge of it more than most.
“No,” he said once your laughter had somewhat subsided, voice low and velvety. “But I wouldn’t be opposed.”
And suddenly it wasn’t so funny anymore.
The silence that followed was a loud one. It was hard to ignore the way your mouth dried up at his words. Something warm and tingly spread from your stomach all the way down to your toes as you stood there under his level gaze, eyes drawn to his like magnets. He had to know. The effect his words had on you were surely plastered all over your face, obvious in the tight grip of your fingers against the countertop and the shortening of your breaths.
Jaehyun leaned in a little closer and you felt the inhale stick in the back of your throat. Then he cracked a crooked smile, pretty teeth all on display. 
“Don’t dish it out if you can’t take it.”
He moved away then, busying himself with pouring water into a pot and bringing it to a boil while you tried to blink yourself out of the daze. “Ramen okay?” he asked over his shoulder.
You cleared your dry throat, somehow finding your voice again. “Ramen is fine. Thank you,” you added after a beat. You took a deep breath, waiting for the rush of blood to drain from your face. 
Something sour settled in your chest — something akin to disappointment, though surely it couldn’t be. Disappointed that what? Jaehyun wasn’t actually sexually attracted to you? When you were obviously still attracted to him, despite all your attempts at convincing yourself you weren’t?
You scoffed to yourself. As if.
A quick shake of your head was almost enough to clear your mind, save for the remnants of that sour feeling that lingered. You asked if there was anything you could do to help, not wanting to simply sit around on your thumbs and wait to be fed. He had insisted you do exactly that, warning you there was only enough space in the kitchen for one, and assuring that there was nothing he needed from you besides patience and faith in his cooking. 
Patience you could give him. Faith was a little harder to muster, given your memories of the kitchen disaster from when he had tried to make okonomiyaki. 
The questionable, half-burnt half-uncooked taste was one thing. You finding random pieces of cabbage on the tiled floor for days afterwards was another thing entirely.
However, it seemed Jaehyun had improved from his old ways. The steaming pot he brought over to the coffee table not only smelled delicious, but looked the part too. You helped carry over the small bowls and chopsticks, along with two cans of beer, despite his requests for you to just sit and be ready to eat.
You took the first bite, blowing on the noodles to cool them down before slurping them into your mouth. All the while, he watched you, an expectant expression painting his face. 
“Wow. You’ve grown up, Jeong Jaehyun. Who would’ve guessed you’d become such a whiz in the kitchen?” 
He smiled, a bashful one at your compliment. “Being able to cook ramen is nothing impressive,” he said, digging in with his own chopsticks.
“There was no way you could have made this for me when we were 17. Look at this egg!” The centre was perfectly soft, not too runny, but not rock hard either. Just the way you liked them. 
You took another mouthful. “You’re a changed man,” you said. “Honestly, your place is a lot cleaner than I expected it to be.”
“That’s what living with four other guys will do to you. I had to learn how to clean out of pure survival,” he chuckled. 
“Was it really that bad?”
He grimaced. “You should’ve seen my dorm room. Basically a biological hazard.”
“They didn’t let non-students into the building. Your building RA was crazy scary, remember?” Even now you could remember the perpetual scowl of the law major when Jaehyun brought you into the dorm lobby.
“It was probably for the best. You would’ve broken up with me on the spot the second you walked through the door.”
You shared a laugh. Strangely, jokes about your break-up were light-hearted in their landing, the words leaving much less of a prickly uncomfortableness than you had been expecting. Perhaps it was still an event of importance in your life, but that cloudy unpleasantness you had come to associate it with had dissipated. It was a turning point, certainly. But so was graduation, and moving out, and travelling overseas for the first time. 
Your feelings about those things weren’t all bad. As you shared the pot of ramen and sipped on your beers, you realised, neither were your feelings about Jaehyun.
“I’m telling you, I was drinking Taeyong under the table. And I do mean that literally. He was passed out and laid across the stools.” He grinned, proud at the memory of beating his senior even five years later. You couldn’t help but grin too, amused by the sincerity of his expression and the way his shoulders set in accomplishment.
“Okay, okay. So now you’re a better drinker, you’ve gotten good at cooking, and you’re cleaner too.”
“And funnier,” he added.
“That one is still up for debate,” you joked, and his eyebrows furrowed together in mock offence. Digs at his sense of humour were not taken lightly. 
“Just because you don’t get my high quality gags,” he sighed, shaking his head. “You’re missing out.”
You nodded, making a noise of agreement if only to appease him. 
“What about me? How am I different?” you asked, voice curious. 
Jaehyun didn’t miss a beat. “Hmm, I think you got older?”
“Come on, I’m being serious!”
His laughter subdued then, surveying you thoughtfully. A quiet smile tugged at his lips when he spoke again. 
“You’re more outspoken than you used to be.” He paused, taking a sip from his can while trying to find the right words, all the while keeping his eyes on you. “You prioritise yourself more. And you’re more sure of who you are. You shine brighter, I think.”
Strange, how a person’s gaze could strip you down and make you feel so naked. There was nothing but earnestness in his eyes, plain and absolute, and the intensity of it was almost too much for you to bear. After all your time apart, Jaehyun could still see you, and see through you. 
I think you still know me inside out, and that scares me, you wanted to tell him.
Instead, you looked away first, tearing your eyes away from his with considerable effort. The pot of ramen on the coffee table, lukewarm now, was almost finished. The music had also stopped playing a while ago. Neither you or Jaehyun had bothered to get up and flip the vinyl to the other side, too busy eating. All that was left was the rain, and even that had faded to a soft pattering against the glass, following its own rhythm. 
Hastily, you stuffed a piece of kimchi into your mouth, for lack of anything better to do. The crunch of it in your mouth was loud, and you fought back a cringe.
“Did your mother make this?” you asked, hoping your attempt at diverting the conversation wasn’t so obvious.
If Jaehyun noticed, he didn’t show it, only nodding in confirmation. 
“She dropped some off last month,” he replied. “Remember how you told me her’s was better than your own mother’s?”
You let out a scandalised gasp. “As if I would ever say such a thing! Don’t let my mother ever hear something so blasphemous about her favourite daughter.”
“You’re her only daughter.”
“And you care too much about technicalities. Just because I’m the only one doesn’t mean I can’t still be the favourite.”
The crisp crunch of another piece of kimchi punctuated the end of your sentence. There was certainly something different about Mama Jeong’s recipes. If there was one thing you missed besides Jaehyun himself, it would have been his mother’s cooking. The woman knew her way around a stovetop better than a Michelin chef, at least in your eyes. 
You thought of her warm smile, and her even warmer embrace. Jaehyun had inherited many things from her, kindness being the greatest of them. Back then, she had been so sure of your future place in their family, welcoming you into her home as if you were her own daughter. You wondered where she stood on that now.
Still clinging onto that idea, perhaps, or were her sights now set on someone else?
“You’ve got something…”  Jaehyun murmured.
He reached across the table, over the pot and the small bowls, the movement quick and almost instinctive. Soft fingers found purchase on your left cheek. His thumb was gentle as it brushed away the stray chilli flake from the corner of your mouth.
Just the lightest touch against your bottom lip. And the warmth of his hand cradling your face.
Then he froze, as if to catch himself, but the damage was already done.
Jaehyun pulled his hand back with a start, an inscrutable expression across his face. He spilled a quick apology that you smiled away, putting on a composed front. At least, you assumed it was an apology. It was hard to hear anything above the buzzing chaos of your mind. The air filled with idle noise as the two of you shuffled in your seats.
“I should um—I should probably get going,” you mumbled, avoiding his eyes. The meal had long been finished. Your hands were already beginning to gather up the bowls and utensils into a stack for easy carrying. 
Jaehyun hummed, something akin to resignation in the noise. “Yeah, uh… I guess so.”
“Let me help you clean up first, and then I’ll be on my way.”
Despite his protests against you assisting with any kind of housework, there you were at the sink, helping him scrub everything nice and clean within the small space of his kitchen. Maybe he was right about there only being enough space for one person behind the counter. The aluminium beer cans went into their designated bins, and you made sure to wipe down the coffee table too.
This time, your half-damp, half-dried clothes found their way into a Byredo shopping bag — Jaehyun would rather die than not smell good — though your shoes still squelched rather uncomfortably when you slipped your bare feet in. By luck, you were able to book a taxi and could pass on the wet walk to the bus stop.
You thanked him again for bringing you along, noting that you probably got more out of the alleged ‘favour’ than he did. 
“Trust me, going with you made the whole thing so much better,” he said, both cheeks dimpling in your favourite smile of his. “And let me know if you need to get the film on your camera developed. I know a place.”
The ride home was flavoured by a sudden loneliness. Maybe it was the view of the city at night, or the absence of people out on the rainy streets, that had an empty feeling settle in your chest. 
Perhaps you should have delayed leaving his apartment. Perhaps you shouldn’t have left at all, and instead weathered the night away with Jaehyun on the couch, some slasher flick playing on the television while you shook under the blankets and tried not to scream at the jumpscares, like you used to. You never did understand why he liked horror films as much as he did.
Perhaps he’d slot his fingers between your own and give them a reassuring squeeze, and gaze at you with the kind of amused fondness he only ever reserved for you.
Heat flooded your face. As if you were entertaining the thought of spending the night at your ex-boyfriend’s place. And getting butterflies at the thought of holding hands? 
How embarrassing.
One thing was for certain. The walls you had put up were cracking, and there seemed to be little hope of patching them up.
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“Will you stop messing with that thing?”
Jungwoo clicked his tongue against his teeth, fingers still fiddling with the ribbon on the gift bag. 
“It’s not straight,” he grumbled, pulling at the bow.
“You’re so pedantic.”
“It’s called being detail-oriented,” he fired back, leaning against the backseat of the taxi with a sigh.
You raised an eyebrow. “You say that like I’m not.”
“Well,” he trailed off, shrugging his shoulders. His mouth formed the shape of a smirk. 
You flicked a glance towards the rearview mirror, checking to see if the driver was paying attention to the two of you in the back. After verifying he was not, you landed a few (soft…ish) punches on Jungwoo’s upper arm, revelling in the shocked little noises he made, along with a few mumbles of ‘that actually hurts’ and ‘crazy woman’. 
How nice it was to let your hands fly without the threat of some other fifth floor witness reporting you for physical harassment. 
“I’m telling Joy the present is entirely from me,” you warned, turning around to face the front again.
“Right, except the card inside says my name too. So that’s not going to work.”
You reached into the gift bag, pulling out said card before rolling down the window. “Let me just throw this out.”
It was Jungwoo’s turn to deliver a light smack to your wrist. You dropped the envelope back in the bag, not without tossing an eye-roll his way. He knew just as well as you did that there was no real substance behind the threats — banter with Jungwoo was more for amusement than anything else. Deep down, you were quite fond of him, even if your actions tended to say otherwise, and you’d like to wager he quite enjoyed your company too. 
You couldn’t wait to get a few shots in him later tonight. Word had it he was a notorious lightweight. 
“Hopefully nobody vomits. I’d hate to be cleaning that up in my own house.” He shuddered at the thought. 
“Oh, don’t you worry about that,” you smiled sweetly, patting him on the shoulder. “You just focus on sticking to your limit, okay? I heard what happened at last year’s wrap up event.”
He bristled. “Nothing happened! It honestly wasn’t even that bad. I’m getting unfairly slandered,” he sulked. “I think you should stop hanging out with Joy so much.”
“Yeah, alright. Should we just skip her birthday party and turn the car around then?”
“Shut up.”
The taxi pulled up in front of Joy’s apartment complex, a tall modern thing with much bigger windows than your own building. And so much more glass, too. After splitting the taxi fare with Jungwoo, the two of you stood at the entrance, waiting for the intercom to connect. 
“Are you sure you pressed the right buttons?” Jungwoo asked, peering over your shoulder.
“Yes, of course. Apartment 814.”
“Maybe you should let me try.”
You let out a sigh. “It’s three numbers, Jungwoo. How is it going to be any different if it’s you pressing them instead of me? Do you think the keypad is going to magically—”
“Hello?” 
An unfamiliar male voice crackled through the intercom. “Are you here for Joy?” 
“Yes,” you and Jungwoo answered in unison. 
“Great, I’ll come down to get you guys now. Will only be a minute!” and then the line disconnected.
You and Jungwoo exchanged a glance. “Is he going to let us in?” you asked. 
“He literally said he’d come down to get us,” he answered flatly. “Do you not listen?”
“It was hard to hear him clearly with all the noise in the background,” you grumbled in defence. Hopefully Joy’s walls were thicker than your own, and her neighbours would not lodge a complaint halfway through the night.
The elevator doors slid open to reveal the face of the intercom answerer. It wasn’t detective work to match up the real thing to the pictures Joy would sometimes show you, though he looked taller in real life than he did in the photos from their weekend Jeju trip.
“Sorry about the wait, it was a bit hard to hear the doorbell,” he greeted, ushering you both inside with a warm smile. “I’m Doyoung, by the way.”
You and Jungwoo both introduced yourselves as you stepped into the elevator after him, to which he responded with a hum in recognition, and a knowing grin.
“Are you on door duty for the night?” Jungwoo asked.
Doyoung nodded, pressing on the button for the eighth floor. “It appears I am. She has her hands full with guests to entertain, so,” he trailed off, eyes glazing over for a split second, “you’ll see what I mean when we get up there.”
You had never imagined that a 2-bedroom apartment could fit so many people. Granted, it was nothing compared to the kind of parties you frequented during your university days where cheap spirits and green soju bottles lined the counter, but it was quite a distant cry from the gathering you thought it would be. Judging by the look on Jungwoo’s face, he had not been expecting this either. 
There had to be at least forty people. It almost made you wonder why she didn’t just book out a space instead of letting everyone invade her and her boyfriend’s shared home.
Doyoung made his exit rather quickly after letting you in, probably off to tend to one of his many other duties as unofficial host — poor guy was likely in for a very busy night — leaving you and Jungwoo to fend for yourselves in the entryway of the apartment. There was barely any room left in the tiled space for you to put your shoes.
How did Joy even know this many people? was the thought at the forefront of your mind as you helped Jungwoo stack his sneakers next to yours on a rack further down the hallway. Her present was left on a table near the entry piled with gift bags and wrapped boxes that you assumed was the designated drop-off area. 
Speaking of the birthday girl, you spotted her mingling in the living room and pointed her out to Jungwoo, though it was no easy feat finding her. The number of people, coupled with the dim ambient lighting, made it a challenge to recognise familiar faces. Joy, champagne glass in hand, was swept away in conversation with one of the most beautiful women you had ever laid eyes on. The gorgeous lady held a matching champagne flute in one hand, while the other was wrapped around the arm of—
“Junmyeon? What the hell is he doing here with that beautiful woman?” 
Jungwoo took the words right out of your mouth, a somewhat displeased noise making its way past his lips. You couldn’t help but echo the sentiment.
“Can’t believe this turned into a work function the moment we stepped through the door,” you all but groaned. “And here I thought having you around was bad enough already.”
You expertly dodged the elbow he jabbed into your side.
Joy spotted the two of you then, lingering by the kitchen, and quickly excused herself from the conversation to rush over. The champagne wobbled precariously in her glass as she approached, engulfing the two of you in a sweet-smelling hug.
“My little children! I’m so glad you could make it!” she cried, resting her chin in the space between your shoulder and Jungwoo’s. You exchanged a glance with the boy amidst the chorus of ‘happy birthday’s. 
There was a 77% chance she was drunk already.
“Had a little too much fun tonight?” you asked, helping to prop her upright again.
Joy only beamed in response. “All the more fun now that you two are here. My favourite fifth floor prisoners.” She gave your cheek a soft pinch.
“Quick question,” Jungwoo began, “why is our manager in your house?”
“With his arm around a beautiful woman way out of his league?” you added, swatting her fingers away from your face.
“That’s my sister Irene,” she said, like it was common knowledge. 
You raised an eyebrow. “Since when did you have a sister?”
“Okay, well not my real sister,” she amended, hurriedly waving off your words. “She was a senior in my department. I was really close with her back in university, so, basically my sister. I think we look pretty alike, honestly.”
“And her relation to Junmyeon is…?”
Joy threw a conspiratorial glance around before leaning in, beckoning the two of you closer. This time, a few drops of the champagne did manage to escape via the side of her glass, narrowly missing Jungwoo’s white socks.
“I set them up. On a date!” she whispered, eyes glinting with pride. Why she chose to whisper when it was already hard enough to hear her above the noise at her normal speaking level was beyond you.
You blinked at her a few times. “You set up a goddess like that… with our manager?”
Joy waved another hand dismissively. “Oh, please. Like Junmyeon’s not handsome too. You only think that because you’re too used to seeing him frown and squint at a monitor.” 
You cast a glance in his direction. Maybe she was right. Junmyeon did look somewhat more like a human without his glasses and the semi-permanent lines etched into his forehead. He even looked (dare you say it) quite nice. But maybe it was the poor lighting that made it seem that way.
“Anyways, it’s been about… two months now? I think they look pretty good together,” she mused, following your gaze. 
Junmyeon must have said something funny — a rather loose use of the word by your standards — because Irene had her lovely face scrunched up in a laugh, the pitched sound of it ringing out clearly above the noise of the apartment. In her amusement, she even threw a hand out to slap him lightly on the arm, which he appeared very pleased by.
Sure, you laughed at his jokes too, but it was more out of corporate self-preservation than actual amusement. 
“He kind of has been in a better mood recently,” Jungwoo said thoughtfully.
Joy grabbed his hand with fervour. “Yes, exactly! See? Thanks to my sacrifice, we can all enjoy a nicer, much more pleasant office environment.”
“I’d hardly call that a sacrifice,” you chuckled. “You take too much pleasure in playing matchmaker.” Joy’s response was nothing more than a guilty smile, followed by her emptying the rest of the glass.
It was then that you heard it — the deep, reverberating laugh that always bordered a little bit on breathlessness. It was slightly unnerving how quickly you could pinpoint the sound of his voice without even seeing him, or knowing that he had entered the room. 
You turned around first, eyes drawn to the entry hallway in search of the face to which the laugh belonged. Of course he was going to be here. You knew that. He had said as much two days ago, bidding you farewell across the cafeteria table with a promise to ‘see you on the weekend at Joy’s’.
Lunch with Jaehyun had recently become a rarer occurrence. From what he told you, and the bits of information you gleaned from Joy about Digital, Johnny had pulled Jaehyun onto his team to try and get a firmer grip on the reins not even two weeks ago. Already, the intensity of the new workload was obvious.
You certainly saw him less, much to your disappointment — you could admit that to yourself now.
Jaehyun emerged from the hallway then, midway through another laugh with an arm slung around Doyoung’s shoulders. Funny, how all the other faces were so murky and hard to identify under the dim lighting. And yet, the shape of his dimpled smile was unmistakable to you, as bright as the beacon of a lighthouse on the midnight sea. 
Doyoung scanned the room, catching sight of Joy with you and Jungwoo. He gestured at his girlfriend, and Jaehyun obediently turned in your direction, likely wanting to give his greetings to the birthday girl.
Your eyes locked, and your heart gave a woeful little squeeze in your chest.
“I’m just going to do a quick check on the drink inventory,” Doyoung said as they approached, “I’ll be right back. And please take care of my favourite guest.” With a final friendly pat on Jaehyun’s shoulder, he was off, ducking into the kitchen. 
“Happy birthday!” Jaehyun beamed, arms circling around Joy in a hug which she enthusiastically returned. He grabbed Jungwoo’s hand, pulling him in for one of those man greetings. (Since when were they close?) Their apparent friendship was an unexpected development. 
And then it was your turn. You wondered if it was as easy for others to find solace in a mere gaze as you did with Jaehyun. His eyes did not stray far, wandering around your face, something tender and comforting in his appraisal of your features. A hand came up to brush against your lower back, a gentle and quiet greeting against the excitement of the previous two. His lips pulled into a soft smile as he called your name in greeting. 
“You two are ridiculous,” Joy scoffed.
You inhaled sharply. Was it really that easy to tell? The depth of your attachment?
“You planned this, right? I mean seriously, matching outfits?” she asked, gesturing at you and Jaehyun.
You blinked a few times, looking down blankly at yourself. The dark wash denim and white silk that you had picked out yesterday looked back at you familiarly. Then you glanced at Jaehyun, taking in his white t-shirt, half tucked into a pair of jeans that were exactly the same wash as yours. 
The coordination was completely unintentional — you had no idea what you were going to wear tonight the last time you had spoken to him — but the look on Joy’s face told you there was no use in trying to convince her of the truth. 
(You would’ve argued that the cowl neck of your white silk top elevated your outfit above Jaehyun’s plain white tee, but you digressed.)
“Okay. I’m done with this,” Jungwoo said, throwing his hands up in defeat. “I’m going to do what single people do, and that is to get a goddamn drink.”
“Me too, another bubbly,” Joy chimed, grasping onto Jungwoo’s arm as he turned to leave for the kitchen. “See my success rate? Let me set you up with someone. My hairdresser’s daughter went to Korea University Business School and graduated not too long ago.” 
The rest of her appeal to play matchmaker for Jungwoo was swallowed up by the music and chatter of her guests. And then it was just you, and Jaehyun, and the thirty other people filling up the living room. 
The two of you shared a glance before dissolving into a few light giggles. 
“I do think I pull it off better,” you teased, giving Jaehyun another once-over. He was as handsome as always, the white cotton draped picturesquely across his lean frame while the dark jeans made his mile-long legs look even longer. He could wear a garbage bag and make it look couture. 
“I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” he said with a crooked smile. 
He raised his arm to reveal the denim jacket draped across his arm that you hadn’t noticed before, too busy making sad little googly eyes at him that you hoped other people couldn’t see. The jacket was coloured in the same wash as his jeans, and your own. 
You gave a scandalised gasp. “No, a matching set? How am I supposed to beat that?”
“You can’t. You can only admit defeat to the double denim. I out-Justin-Timberlaked you.”
“Justin Timberlake is not a verb.”
He only grinned in response, teeth pearly and eyes sparkling as he took in the slight pout of your mouth. 
“Whatever,” you conceded with a wave of your hand, though a smile crept its way onto your face. “You win. Let’s get something to drink.”
Jungwoo and Joy were nowhere to be found when the two of you made your way to the kitchen. What you did find was an impressive selection of bottles atop the marble counter, a selection that easily outdid the ones from your university days in both quality and variety. 
At least one thing was the same. Green soju bottles were always a dependable presence. 
“Shall we go for your favourite?” Jaehyun asked, holding up what looked to be a bottle of wine. You moved a little closer, peering at the label through his fingers.
“I do enjoy a good red,” you replied, accepting the glass he offered you with a quiet ‘thank you’. You took a small sip — because tonight, you felt no need to gulp down alcohol like a camel to ease your nerves — before adding, “Merlot is far from my favourite though.”
“Really?’ He raised an eyebrow. “I do seem to remember how you pretty much finished a whole bottle by yourself. At dinner, that time at the Italian place.”
You held back a wince at the recollection of that fated blind date. Of course he’d remember that. It would be hard to forget the way you all but sculled down three full glasses in the time it took him to finish one. A quick sideways glance revealed the slight upturn to the corners of his mouth, paired with a telling glint in his eyes. Jaehyun was teasing.
“It was honestly quite impressive,” he said, lips curling into a full-blown smile now.
“That was different,” you said. The next sip went down a little faster than you would have liked. “That was out of necessity.” 
There was no way I could’ve made it through that night without alcohol in my system, you almost said, but caught yourself just in time. 
A few seconds passed before either of you spoke again.
“Were you really upset to see me?”
Gone was the playful lilt to his voice. This question was asked softly, carefully, the sound of it so delicate you were afraid it would shatter in the air at your clumsy reply. Slowly, you turned to look at him, seeking the reassurance you were sure you could find in his eyes, but they had moved to the contents of his own glass. You followed their path, watching as he gave the liquid a few absent-minded swirls.
“Maybe. A little, I think,” you admitted. “I don’t know. There was a lot going on in my head that day. When I realised it was you.”
A pair of giggling women — Joy’s guests who you didn’t know — approached the counter, one of them tentatively reaching for something in front of you. Noticing her struggle, you shuffled slightly towards Jaehyun, trying to make some space around the counter. The one with her hand outstretched flashed you a grateful smile, which you politely returned, although with far less vigour. 
Perhaps the bustling kitchen in the centre of all the foot traffic wasn’t the best place for a conversation like this.
There was some fussing with the bottle cap, or whatever it was that they couldn’t quite get to work, followed by a considerably clean pour for two people who were clearly not quite sober. Then they were gone, giggling the entire way out of the kitchen and freeing up the space around you.
If you wanted to, you could have stepped back and returned to your original spot before their arrival. Put some more distance between you and Jaehyun again. Not that you were seriously encroaching on his personal space, but it was enough for you to recognise the proximity.
Instead, you took the smallest of steps closer and placed a hand on his forearm. His eyes flitted down at the touch, taking in the way your fingers lay feather-light on his skin, just above the ridge of his wrist. 
“I’m glad it was you,” you said. The words were true, but the honesty of them still tasted odd on your tongue, and you fought back a cringe. Jaehyun finally turned to meet your eyes, some semblance of hope, or maybe it was relief that coloured his expression. “And I’m glad we’re here, now,” you added.
You hoped he knew you weren’t talking about the far right corner of Joy’s kitchen.
Jaehyun smiled, and it was like the sun had finally risen up over the stark mountain peak, bathing everything in a warm, golden glow. It was the kind of warmth you didn’t realise you craved until the full force of it spilled over you, washing away the blue and the cold. 
“Me too,” he said softly.
Even if you hadn’t fallen victim to Joy’s schemes, you would like to think the two of you would still end up here, only via longer and slightly different routes. Perhaps an unexpected run-in in the lobby on a Tuesday morning, or the eventual and excruciatingly awkward introduction through Joy. Whatever it may have been, you’d like to think you would’ve found your way to each other again eventually. 
Curiosity tickled your mind. “What about you?”
“Hmm?”
He was still smiling, the lines by his nose just visible, and he had his eyes on you, though there was a faraway look about them. Something about his gaze reminded you of the way you’d regard a painting, framed and hung up on a wall in some art museum — carefully examining the details of the brushstrokes against the canvas, yet all the while trying to hold the whole piece in your mind’s eye, and let it touch the surface of that primal emotion somewhere inside of you. The depth of his gaze was enough to make you self-conscious, and you quickly averted your eyes, taking another sip from your glass. It was a good excuse to school your features before you spoke again.
“How did you feel when you saw me? Were you upset?”
Jaehyun regarded his own glass wistfully. “Not exactly upset, no,” he began, though a movement in his peripheral had him trailing off. 
Another of Joy’s guests had appeared, hovering beside the two of you with his eyes set on the bottle of whiskey directly in front of you. Politely, Jaehyun side-stepped away from the counter and wrapped a gentle hand around the bend of your elbow, guiding you out of the hectic buzz of the kitchen. It stayed there, warm and comforting, until you found your way back to the open space of the living room, and even then he was slow to let you go, fingertips lingering a just second too long before they retreated back to his side. 
“I think I was surprised, more than anything,” he continued. “Didn’t really know what to expect, not that I was expecting much. I never even thought I’d get to see you again after university. Thought you were gone for good.”
He paused, one side of his mouth quirking up slightly. The movement was small, and you wondered if you were supposed to have caught it at all.
“You stood there, with your bag in one hand and your cardigan in the other, looking like you were waiting for me to spontaneously combust—”
“Okay, I’m sure it wasn’t that bad.”
“—and all I could think about was how you were even prettier than I remembered. And back then I already thought you were the most beautiful girl I had ever seen.”
At that, you were quiet. Whatever silly rebuttal or attempt to defend yourself died quickly on your tongue as you let his confession settle beneath your skin, warming it from the inside out. Jaehyun was not even one bit fazed, looking like he had just said something trivial about the weather, or stated some objective fact like ‘grass is green’. For him, honesty had never been the heavy, cumbersome challenge it was for you. Judging by the resigned smile on his face, he wasn’t expecting some grand response from you either, which was all the better, because god, what were you supposed to say to something like that?
“Oh, there you are,” came a voice from behind you, followed by a hand on your shoulder. 
Joy’s timing was impeccable, as always.
“Sorry, this one is coming with me,” she said to Jaehyun, looping her arm around yours with half-drunken determination. “Us fifth-floors have some business to settle. With darts.”
Your eyes followed the direction of her outstretched arm, where sure enough, there was a dartboard hanging on the wall by the balcony. Jungwoo was there, standing obediently with his hands crossed in front of his stomach as he politely nodded along to whatever Junmyeon was animatedly saying. The beer bottle Jungwoo cradled, now forgotten, seemed more like an accessory than an actual beverage. He caught your eye and sent you a frantic look.
You whipped your head back to Jaehyun. “Please don’t let her take me.” 
Surely, he could see the pleading, the desperation in your eyes.
Jaehyun, having witnessed the whole exchange between you and Jungwoo, only grinned. “It does sound like some serious business,” he said, cheeks dimpling. Joy made a noise of agreement and gave your arm a little tug.
“You’re more than welcome to come and spectate, Jaehyun,” she called out over her shoulder as she herded you towards her destination. His only response was a hearty laugh. You stared at him in despair as you were towed away by the birthday girl. Next time you’d invite his boss to the function.
The game of darts (or seven games, if you were being precise) was decidedly less awful than you had expected. Junmyeon had promised not to speak about work and by some miracle, actually stuck to his word. Maybe you even got to know the guy a little better, outside of his office habits like the specific order in which he drank his three teas everyday (yuja, then chamomile, and lastly peppermint). Like you, he was somewhat of a wine enthusiast, though his knowledge of French vineyards was far superior to yours. 
By the third round, the game had clearly left your little work circle. Jaehyun joined in at one point, competitiveness getting the better of him. Doyoung tried his hand too, and he was honestly abysmal, but smiled the whole time and seemed to be enjoying himself, even if he had to pick the darts off the floor on every turn. Out of all the players over the course of the seven games, Junmyeon’s date Irene had been the most unexpected hidden card, scoring three bullseyes in a row. 
Oh, to be a goddess and have perfect hand-eye coordination. 
“You feeling okay?” you asked a rather blank-looking Jungwoo. His eyes were beginning to droop, and so was the rest of his body, long limbs sprawled out against the leather. You could swear he only had his initial bottle of beer and the two celebratory soju shots Joy had forced him to take (from which you were not exempt either), and yet here he was, half-asleep on the couch.
“Hmm,” was his eloquent reply.
The party was slowly drawing to a close, the living room much emptier now than it had been when you first walked in. Junmyeon and Irene had made their departure some twenty minutes ago, and there were only a handful of guests left, most of them getting ready to leave as well. Grown adults didn’t gamble with their sleep schedules. 
Doyoung emerged from the hallway, running a hand through the mess of hair on top of his head, already tousled from the fifty or so times he had repeated the action throughout the night.
“Okay, she’s knocked out,” he sighed. On his face, you glimpsed the first sign of relief you had seen all night. “I don’t think she’s going to puke, but I left a bucket by the bed just in case.”
You flashed him a grateful smile. “Thank you for tonight. I can’t imagine it was easy having to wrangle all these people for so long.”
“Oh, it’s no big deal. As long as Joy’s happy and had a good time.” 
Even though he was clearly exhausted, Doyoung smiled, and the fondness held within it felt like a private thing you shouldn’t have witnessed. Your mind went, now as it always did, to a certain dimpled smile.
“I’d better get this one home,” you said instead, gesturing at Jungwoo slumped on the couch. You turned towards the boy, patting his shoulder gently. “Come on, time to go.”
“Mmffh.” 
Another brilliant and enlightening response.
The owner of your favourite dimpled smile stepped out from the bathroom to the sight of you struggling to get Jungwoo upright enough to loop an arm around your shoulders. The half-asleep boy was lean, but definitely heavier than he looked, or perhaps the few glasses of wine over the course of the night had sapped some of the strength from your body. Jaehyun was at your side in an instant, shouldering most of Jungwoo’s weight as the two of you dragged him to a standing position.
“I’ll come with you,” he said, no room for discussion in his tone. You had no mind to protest anyway. 
Doyoung was already busying himself with clearing plates and glasses from the living area when Jaehyun bid him farewell. The guy seemed to have formulated a detailed plan of attack to get his apartment back to the no-doubt spotless state it had been prior to tonight.
“I sorted out most of the empty bottles so you should be able to just throw them out in the morning,” Jaehyun said over his shoulder. He crouched on the ground, guiding Jungwoo’s disobedient left foot into the correct shoe, carefully doing up the laces once both feet were inside their corresponding sneakers. 
You tossed a glance back at Doyoung whizzing around the place like a Roomba, feeling a pang of guilt for not having done much to help him clean up. Even though you had been a much more gracious and tidy guest than other people in Joy’s company, you couldn’t help but feel like there was more you could’ve done, apart from babysitting a very not-sober Jungwoo and making sure he didn’t crack his head open on the corner of the coffee table. 
“It’s fine,” Jaehyun said softly. You turned to look at him, half-surprised, and he only flashed you a small smile. “Doyoung likes to clean. I think he finds comfort in it.”
He was fluent as ever in your micro-expressions. Maybe one day you’d learn to stop being surprised by it. 
The taxi back to Jungwoo’s place was shorter than you had expected. His head lolled between your shoulder and Jaehyun’s in the backseat, before finally finding a home in Jaehyun’s lap. Even when you finally tucked the younger boy safely into his own bed — after going to great lengths to extract his building code which involved a series of profuse apologies to his neighbours who you had mistakenly rung in the middle of the night — there was an impressive imprint on his right cheek that exactly matched the side seam on Jaehyun’s jeans. You could’ve sworn there was a small, wet patch of drool left behind on the denim, and you were sure Jaehyun himself had noticed it too, but he gave no indication of complaint.
“Are you far from here?” Jaehyun asked once the elevator had brought the both of you back down to Jungwoo’s lobby.
“I’m actually just a fifteen minute walk away,” you answered.
The invitation in your voice was silent, and you knew he would’ve accompanied you home even if you lived on the other side of the city. Still, some achingly pleasant emotion settled over you when you heard his footsteps fall in with yours against the pavement. He took his place between you and the open street, shielding you from the bustle of late night delivery bikes and club bound taxis.
Though the days still resembled summer, nights were when the beginnings of autumn could reveal itself. The slight chill in the air was not unbearable, but still noticeable against your bare arms, and just enough for goosebumps to spring up on the skin there. Before you could even bring your hands up to wrap them around yourself, Jaehyun shrugged off his jacket and wordlessly draped it over your shoulders. 
“Thanks,” you mumbled, drawing the collar close around your neck. The stiff denim was a little rough, but warm from his body heat all the same, with faint traces of his woody scent lingering on the fabric.
Jaehyun thrust his hands in his pockets and grinned. “Now you out-Justin-Timberlake me.”
“Still not a real word.”
You supposed there was something about night-time that made it feel all the more forgiving to the emotional afflictions of the human condition. Perhaps it was only against the muted palette of the midnight blue sky and the dimly lit city streets that you felt brave enough to face the truth of your feelings, without agonising over the consequences of acknowledging them. Even so, you found yourself wishing the night would stretch on for just a little longer. Honesty always seemed to wear off faster than it came on.
“You’ve been crazy busy lately.”
Jaehyun’s responding laugh contained little amusement. “Crazy busy is one way to put it. I can’t believe Johnny has had to deal with all of this the whole time. This client is so,” he paused, trying to find the right word, before finally settling on “demanding.” The look in his eyes gave you the feeling there were many other more colourful adjectives he wanted to use instead.
The two of you passed the convenience store corner of your street. Your place was not too far up ahead, the glass building doors almost visible if you squinted. The night was coming to an end, and something cold and heavy settled in your chest to accompany the realisation.
“They want us in New York working on the new client site as soon as possible, so we’ve been running around trying to get visas and everything sorted,” he sighed. 
Your footsteps faltered. 
“You’re going to New York?” you asked. 
He nodded. 
“When?”
“Within the next week, if everything comes back approved.”
You hadn’t even noticed that you had come to a standstill until Jaehyun’s footsteps also slowed to a stop. The both of you stood like that, under the dim glow from the streetlights, in the middle of the sidewalk. 
“We’ll probably be there until the end of the year, at least until the design piece is done,” he said. 
Did your face betray the sudden drop of your stomach? Did the sound of a fissure cracking through your chest escape through the slight parting of your lips?
It was silly, really. That one small piece of information could turn your entire world on its head. International travel on a project wasn’t a rare occurrence. And you supposed you would’ve found out sooner or later, even if he hadn’t told you, because he had no obligation to update you about every development in his life, even if they involved crossing continents. Even if you wanted to know every little detail. 
Jaehyun’s eyes moved from his shoes to your face. The shadows cast by the streetlights made it hard to decipher his expression, but you thought there was a pleading look to his handsome face. What he was pleading for, you weren’t entirely sure. 
You cleared your throat and finally found your voice again. “That’s really exciting, Jaehyun,” you managed, trying to keep your tone light. “I hear New York is gorgeous this time of year.”
The smile you pasted on your face was a flimsy one, and you could feel your top lip begin to tremble when he didn’t quite return it. Before it could turn into a grimace, you let the corners of your mouth fall. There had never been any use in putting on an act in front of him. Unsure what else to say without sounding insincere — though you were excited for him, truly, this little fit of sadness was a silly thing that would pass surely and quickly — you turned and resumed your steps towards your apartment. 
Another few minutes and you’d be in the safety of your own home. Free to let your top lip tremble and quiver, and let the inexplicable lump in your throat force its way out, rather than try to swallow it down.
It only took a few steps for you to realise that Jaehyun had not followed. You looked over your shoulder to find him standing there by the streetlight, eyes fixed on the ground again. 
“I don’t want to go,” he said, toeing at a crack in the concrete. “If I didn’t have to, I wouldn’t. I don’t want to leave…”
You.
He may not have said that last word, but you heard it all the same. Your chest squeezed with emotion you couldn’t quite place.
“But you have to,” you said softly. A gentle breeze blew through the early autumn air and you briefly wondered if your words had been carried adrift.
He looked up at you then, eyes burning into yours with unspoken sentiments. A thousand words were conveyed with that one look, those few seconds in which you understood everything he wanted to say, and nothing he wanted to say, because he hadn’t said much at all. Just like how he could read your emotions with a simple glance at your face, you saw his reluctance. You saw the irresolution in his resolve, and how it wavered as he turned over in his mind the things he wanted to say to you, and how much of his heart he was willing to risk. 
“But I have to,” he agreed. 
Jaehyun still knew you inside out, yes, but you knew him too.
Your feet dragged over the last few hundred metres to your apartment complex, until you finally reached the door and there was nothing left you could do to delay the inevitable.
“Here,” you said, handing his jacket back to him. “Thank you for walking me home.”
He took it from your outstretched hand, fingers just brushing your knuckles. “Of course.”
And maybe Jaehyun was just as unwilling to let you go. His feet stayed firmly planted on the concrete pavement in front of your building, even though you were pretty sure no harm would befall you across the five steps into the lobby. The two of you stood there for a while, neither quite knowing what to say, or how to ward off the odd melancholy you knew he felt too.
There were so few guarantees of forever in life. You knew that. And even if you had never really gotten him back in the first place, you couldn’t shake the feeling that you were losing him again. Except this time, he wouldn’t just be a 67-minute subway ride away. This time, he’d be a 14-hour flight away, on the other side of not the city but the world, with 7,000 miles and the entire Pacific Ocean separating you. 
And yes, he’d come back eventually, but who could promise that the feelings between the two of you now would be the same upon his return? You knew that you were in no position to demand he refrain from exploring other romantic pursuits, to deter him from making new connections in the diverse metropolis that was New York City, and all the excitement and energy that came with it. 
You had unknowingly gotten in the way of that once.
“Well, I’d better get inside,” you said quietly, gesturing at the building behind you. Jaehyun only nodded.
This was it. All things must come to an end, you thought as you walked up to the lobby door. Even if they never really started. Perhaps you and your hesitance to let him in had played the biggest part of all, and whatever it was between you and Jaehyun wouldn’t be ending before it began if you had only been more forgiving at the start. Less pointy and disagreeable. Perhaps then you would be parting now on more certain terms, and you’d carry some peace of mind knowing he’d be coming back to you, instead of the crushing weight of disappointment currently lodged underneath your sternum.
And yet, what difference did it make? You’d be losing him anyway, no matter what you did. In two weeks’ time, he’d be sitting in a conference room on a different continent, regardless of whether you said nothing or cussed him out to his face right now.
Your hand froze on the steel handle for only a second before you turned around to face him again. Three determined strides was all it took to close the distance between you. 
“What is it?” he asked.
There had been few occasions where you had seen Jaehyun drunk, or at least not sober, in the years you had known him. Your split early on in university had not afforded you many chances to witness his supposedly high tolerance in action at weekend benders. Nothing more than a few underage sips snuck from his dad’s glass at the dinner table. You took a second now to look at him, really look at him, taking in all the details of the face you knew almost as well as your own. 
Pink. Everything about him was so pink, from the slight tinge around the whites of his eyes, to the lingering flush in the apples of his cheeks.
To the pretty colour of his soft, full lips. 
They parted with confusion when you approached. Carefully, you reached out a hand and placed it against his cheek, feeling the way he leaned into your touch almost immediately. His eyes fluttered shut for the briefest of moments before they were searching your face again, almost fervently. 
“I just…” you whispered, trying to commit this picture of him to memory. 
What difference did it make?
It was hard to tell who moved first. You’d like to believe it didn’t matter.
The rhythm of your lips against his was unfamiliar at first, clumsy from years of disuse. Through slow and careful movements, you reacquainted yourself with the shape of Jaehyun’s mouth, the pillowy swell of his bottom lip as it gently slid in between your own. It fit there perfectly, like it always did. His hands came up to graze the curve of your waist, resting lightly on your skin as if he was afraid you’d crumble like sand in his grasp. 
You tilted your head, parting your mouth ever so slightly to let the tip of your tongue brush against the underside of his top lip. The kiss changed immediately. You felt his surprise in the small puff of air that escaped through his nose and landed softly against your cheek. His fingers gripped at you with a newfound strength, pulling you flush against him. Even through the fabric of your shirts, the outline of his toned chest was unmistakable. Your hands found their home in the softness of hair at the nape of his neck, revelling in the throaty sound that left him as you ran your hands through it. 
How had you denied yourself of this for so long?
Jaehyun must have pulled away first, because suddenly you could breathe again, shaky gasps coming in and out through your mouth. He fared no better, pressing his forehead gently against yours while he tried to catch his breath.
You couldn’t think. You felt electrified, as if every nerve ending in your body was simultaneously firing, as if your blood was laced with dynamite. Hell, you had half a mind to invite him up to your room and finish off what you had so brazenly started.
“It’s late,” he finally managed, voice rough. “You should head in.” His hands, however, stayed firmly in place around your waist. You watched as his Adam’s apple bobbed up and down with each swallow.
Right. Perhaps it was best to let the night end here, before you could do anything else that you might regret. 
“Yeah, I should probably,” you murmured, catching the way his eyes followed each movement of your mouth as you spoke. The sound of your voice seemed to break the daze he was in, and you felt his grip on you loosen, slowly and reluctantly. The arms you had looped around his neck made their way back to your sides. You were released from his warmth far too quickly.
Impulsive decisions (like inviting your ex-boyfriend to spend the night in your one-bedroom apartment with nowhere to sleep except in your bed) seldom ended well. You should’ve known better than to make those rookie mistakes.
You had barely turned around to walk up to your building doors when Jaehyun wrapped a warm hand around your wrist and pulled you back into him. He pressed his lips to yours, swallowing the small noise of surprise that left your mouth. This time, his kiss was softer, surer, and in it you tasted the sweetness of unspoken promises he was determined to keep. 
“I’ll see you when I get back,” he said, dark eyes fixed on you with conviction. Your lip colour had smudged by the side of his mouth, leaving behind a faint pink stain that only added to the pretty hue of his now kiss-swollen lips. 
He was still the most gorgeous person you had ever seen. 
“See you when you’re back, then,” you echoed. 
Some odd emotion, neither happy nor sad, settled in your chest as you pushed open the door to the emptiness of your home. You had rushed to the window, hoping to catch a glimpse of Jaehyun before he left, only to find he had gone already, and the sidewalk outside your building was as vacant as to be expected for this hour of the night.
No matter. You’d wait for him to come back. 
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“One more prosecco before he disappears to the bathroom for the rest of the night.”
You cast a glance at the catering table and clicked your tongue against your teeth.
“Half a prosecco,” you concluded, taking a sip from your own glass. 
Joy raised a shapely eyebrow at you. “You know it doesn’t hit until at least twenty minutes after he gets the munchies.”
“True, but he specifically told me he skipped lunch today so it would hit earlier, and he’d have the energy to mingle.”
“Well,” she shrugged, “I guess that’d do it.”
The two of you turned your gazes back to the catering table, where Jungwoo was doing some serious damage to the salmon ceviche tostadas. The glass in his hand was empty, and you watched as he asked for a refill from one of the waitstaff.
“Someone should really stop him,” Joy sighed. “Before we get a repeat of last year.”
“Someone should,” you agreed.
Neither of you made a move.
As far as year-end wrap-up events went, this one wasn’t too bad, even if it was your first at the company. This year, HR had managed to book one of the smaller function rooms at an upscale hotel, with an open bar and hors d’oeuvres menu to match. It was a nice chance to celebrate the year’s achievements, and get to know the other people in the department a little better. Already a year in this place, and you’d be lying if you said you knew the name of every person on your floor.
September to November had flown by in a blur. Recruitment for the company’s graduate program next year had been an intensive few months of screening, interviewing, reviewing, and then interviewing again. As hectic as it had been, the fruits of your team’s efforts had been warmly recognised with smiles and praises from the senior managers and higher-ups you’d had the chance to speak with tonight. 
Traditionally, each department hosted their own event, though from what you gathered, HR and Marketing were the only ones that put in any real effort. While HR liked to keep things classy, Marketing liked to go all out.
“Do you think it’s true that Marketing rented out a yacht this year?” you asked. Surely their budget wasn’t that excessive.
Joy made a face. “God, I hope not. It’s the middle of December. I’d be surprised if the Han River wasn’t all frozen over.”
Winter had come early this year, sinking its cold fingers into November and staking its claim. Yet, there had been no snow, even though it was only a few days out from the holidays. Though it was nice that your clothes stayed relatively dry all day from the lack of precipitation, you couldn’t help but miss the sight of the city covered in a blanket of white softness. 
“There he goes,” Joy said, nudging your arm. You turned to see Jungwoo excuse himself from the conversation, setting down a barely-touched glass on the tablecloth. He made a beeline for the men’s restrooms, or as close to a beeline as he could manage in his current state, face flushed and a little queasy.
It was a good thing the company’s holiday closure started tomorrow.
“Okay, you win. Want to come and get a refill with me?” she asked. “We can say hi to a few of the directors over there.”
The thought of having to network with more seniors, when you had already spent the last hour and a half donning bright smiles and laughing politely at their lacklustre jokes, was not a pleasant one. You knew it would be a good thing for you to go and introduce yourself, but your battery for social interaction had long since been depleted. Perhaps you should’ve taken a page out of Jungwoo’s book.
Still, you flashed Joy a grateful smile. “You go ahead. I might grab some air, actually.”
“Okay,” she replied, eyes warm with understanding. “But make sure you put your coat on. It’s freezing out there.”
She was right, of course. The toasty interior of the function room was a completely different world from the frigid gust of wind that greeted you as soon as you pulled the sliding door open. An upscale hotel needed to have a matching upscale view of the city. You leaned against the balcony railing, blocking out the icy sting of the metal against your hands, and took in the sight of the not-quite-frozen Han River below, and the sparkling Seoul Tower further away on the skyline.
You’d only be out here for a little bit, you told yourself. Just a few minutes, and then you’d head home.
Truthfully, you could have left half an hour ago when your reserves for socialising had just run out, and be within the warm and familiar confines of your own bed right now, doom-scrolling to your heart’s content. But these days, the solitude of your apartment that you had once found comforting had evolved into a loneliness that you’d rather avoid. 
The empty echoes of your own footsteps across the tiled floors didn’t bounce against the walls like deep laughter did.
Absent-mindedly, you thumbed at the pendant sitting at the hollow of your throat. You had turned your jewellery box inside out, almost fully convinced that you had lost the thing entirely until you finally spotted the milky pearl set in white gold, underneath all the other chains. It was gorgeous when you had first opened the velvet box all those years ago, and it still was now, even if you hadn’t seen it for quite some time. Jaehyun always had an eye for beautiful things.
You weren’t the only one who endured a few packed and chaotic months. Johnny’s team had flown out of the country the Wednesday after Joy’s birthday and had been sequestered in New York ever since. Between your swamped schedules and the 14 hour time difference, conversations with Jaehyun were intermittent at best, and sparse and uncoordinated at worst. Sometimes he’d message with silly little things, like the time he sent you a picture of a doll sitting in the window of an antique shop.
this reminded me of you, the accompanying text had said.
He was due back soon, and there was still much left to be said, but above all, you only hoped that he was well, and that the New York winter was much more forgiving than it was here at home.
The cloudy wisps of air formed by your breath floated upwards before they dissipated into the night sky. No wonder the balcony was empty — who would want to be out here when there were mozzarella stuffed mushrooms and central heating on the other side of the glass?
You heard the doors slide open behind you as someone else equally as crazy decided to step out into the cold. Just as well. It was time for you to head back anyways. You turned to make your way inside, only to freeze in your tracks.
“They told me I’d find you out here. You really know how to pick a spot, huh?”
A soft gasp left your mouth.
“Jaehyun?”
He gave you a smile, your favourite smile, where his dimples were only just visible, and there was the hint of a pout to the shape of his lips. He was here, and he was in front of you, looking at you like you were the most wonderful thing in the world that he would ever have the good fortune of knowing. Your chest swelled almost painfully at the sight of him.
“When did you get back? How did you even get in here?”
“We landed in Incheon earlier this afternoon. I had to pay the door guy outside a hundred bucks for him to let me in.”
Your eyes widened. “He can’t make you do that!”
“Just kidding,” Jaehyun chuckled. “I only had to show him my company ID.”
He walked over to where you stood by the railing and rested his arms against the metal. His profile was sharp against the darkness of the night sky, and you took a moment to study the details while he took in the view. 
“Are you tired?” you asked. “It can’t be easy adjusting to the time difference.”
“A little,” he admitted. The bags under his eyes were dark and purple now that you could see his face up close. He must have been exhausted. Nobody ever slept well on long haul flights. “You should see Johnny though. He would have come tonight, but jet lag is seriously kicking his ass.”
You shared a laugh, traces of your breaths mingling in the air. Beside him, you settled back into your original spot, mirroring the way he leaned against the metal railing. Jaehyun was close, but not too close, your elbows only a few centimetres apart. A mellow silence settled over the balcony as you gazed out at the river, watching the never-ending stream of cars as they circled the waterfront. 
With even this, you were content. His mere presence next to you was a remedy in itself, regardless of the words shared or touches exchanged. You felt more at home in this moment now than you had in over 3 months.
“I’ve missed you,” he said, still gazing out into the distance. The gravity in his voice hinted at circumstances beyond the recent season he had spent on the other side of the world. And yet, he had said it so simply, as if the words were an immovable truth that would withstand the corrosion of time.
“I’ve missed you too,” you replied.
Maybe it was just that simple, because it was the truth. The nights weathered away in your own apartment were only lonely because there had been an absence of him, an absence that was known to you, even if you had not felt it for many years.
He turned to you, taking in a shaky breath. “I should never have let you go.”
“Oh, Jaehyun—”
“I was young, and foolish, and I thought I knew what I wanted. And I had you, but I thought I wanted more, because I wanted everything. I wanted the whole damn world.”
Something sharp pricked behind your eyes as you listened to the honesty pouring out of him.
“And then I lost you, and it was—god, it was… like someone had sucked all the colour out of my life. And I had no one to blame, because I was the one who did that to myself. To us.”
It was so hard to not notice the pain etched into his beautiful features. The tight set of his jaw. The redness that rimmed his eyes. Your fingers ached to reach over and smooth out the crease between his brows.
“There were so many things I could have done to make things right between us again. Even if you wouldn’t have me back. But my pride, and my ego… I did nothing—”
“You can’t pin it all on yourself, Jaehyun,” you said, shaking your head. “I had no idea what I wanted. And even when I did, I never acted—I never stood up for myself. I could’ve fought for us, but I didn’t. I just accepted everything. Hell, I never even told you how I felt.”
You flashed him a watery smile. “We needed the time away from each other, don’t you think?” 
There was a moment where the two of you simply stared at each other. A hurricane of repressed emotions swirled in your chest, finally breaking the surface five years on. Jaehyun must have felt the same, reliving all those memories now. You could see it on his face.
Youth was so beautiful, and precious — even the heartbreak, and all the other foolish things that came along with it. 
“I let you go once, and maybe that was meant to happen.” He took a step closer. “But we’re not dumb teenagers anymore. I’m not… I won’t make the same mistake twice.”
His eyes locked on yours as he gazed at you with reverence. “Don’t you still feel the same? Even after all these years?”
I do, you wanted to say. 
You would have too, if it weren’t for the small speck of white that landed in Jaehyun’s dark hair. It was visible for only a few seconds before melting away. You looked up and sure enough, the night sky was dotted with white.
“First snow,” you breathed, watching as the snowflakes fell from the sky. “Do you know what that means?”
Jaehyun gave you a small shake of his head. Of course. He never believed in superstitions.
You reached for his hand, feeling his fingers respond to yours immediately. He was so warm, and his touch breathed life back into your frozen body.
“If you see the first snow with someone you love, it means that your love will be true and long-lasting.”
A few seconds passed as he took in your words, trying to make sense of them.
“You… love me?”
“I do,” you admitted. A teardrop finally spilled out from your waterline, leaving behind a wet track on your cheek that stung in the cold. “Even when I thought I hated you, deep down, I think I still loved you.”
One of his hands came up to wipe away the trail of moisture from the escaped tear. The action sent a shiver through your entire body.
“I never stopped loving you,” he confessed softly, stroking your cheek. You felt it then, that deep, aching feeling that had threaded itself into the very marrow of your bones. 
Longing. You longed for his presence, his smile, his touch. You longed to hold his heart in your hands again, and give him yours in exchange. You had missed him more than you could bear, and here he was, telling you his heart was where it had always been, sitting in the centre of your palm. 
Perfect moments didn’t exist, but damn did this one come close.
“Come here,” Jaehyun whispered, pulling you into him. 
His mouth was just as sweet as you remembered. His lips were a little rougher, slightly chapped from the cold. His kiss was slow and patient, taking his time to explore the shape of your mouth and mould to it again. You felt his smile, the slight tension in his bottom lip giving him away, and you couldn’t help but reciprocate, a quiet giggle bubbling in your chest before escaping through your lips. 
“I really fucking missed you,” you mumbled against his mouth, another giggle accompanying the words. “You kissed me and then you were on a plane to the other side of the world.” 
“I told you I’d see you when I was back, didn’t I?” he reminded, giving your waist a small squeeze. “And for the record, you kissed me. Not that it matters.”
You swatted a hand against his chest. “I see you still care too much about technicalities.”
Jaehyun only laughed, that deep and familiar sound you had craved to hear for the last 3 months. He pulled your hands into his warm ones, and pressed his lips to your knuckles. 
“Your hands are cold,” he murmured, wrapping his fingers around yours. 
“Well, I was about to head back inside when you found me. It’s nice and toasty in there.”
“Do you want to go in now?”
You looped your arms around his neck and buried your head into the crook of it. “Let’s just stay out here for a little bit longer,” you said, words muffled by the fabric of his coat. “You always run hot in the colder months anyways. Enough to keep me warm.”
He hummed in agreement, holding you flush against him as the snow fell around you. In his arms, you were the most at ease you had been in years, and the thought was almost enough to bring a fresh new wave of moisture to your eyes. 
“What is that—something’s digging in,” he suddenly said, pulling away from you. His eyes landed on the pendant that had slipped out from underneath the lapels of your coat. Wordlessly, he reached for it, running his thumb across the pale pearl that hung from your neck. 
“You kept this?” 
“Of course,” you answered. “You kept yours.”
He smiled, a big one, dimples marking his cheeks. “Of course,” he repeated. 
“We’re lucky, aren’t we? To have found each other again after all this time?”
Jaehyun’s reply took the form of another sweet and unhurried kiss. It warmed you from the inside out, all the way down to the tips of your toes.
“So we’re really doing this, right?” he asked. “We’re giving us a second chance?”
You raised an eyebrow. “Are you telling me you said all that earlier just for shits and giggles?”
“Of course not,” he chuckled, squeezing your sides again. “I just wanted to make sure. I think I might lose faith in the world if you tell me you don’t want to be with me.”
“You have nothing to worry about,” you reassured. The snow was sticking to his hair, and you took a second to run your hands through it, brushing off the half-melted pieces. His eyes fondly followed your every movement.
“Good, because I plan on keeping you for a long time.”
You returned inside shortly after. The snow had picked up and it was clear that you couldn’t stay out for much longer (unless you wanted hypothermia, which neither of you did). The function hall was much emptier now than it had been when you stepped out, and of the remaining faces, none of them were familiar. 
A quick glance at your phone showed a few unread messages from Joy. 
joy [08:32 pm]: hey, had to leave, doyoung’s still working tomorrow so it’s an early night for me joy [08:33 pm]: hope you and jaehyun work things out joy [08:33 pm]: i’m rooting for you guys!!
joy [08:37 pm]: also can you see if jungwoo is okay joy [08:38 pm]: i don’t think he’s come out yet
“Can I ask a favour, just before we go?”
Jaehyun smiled back at you sweetly, devotion written in his eyes. “Anything.”
“Pop into the men’s room and check if Jungwoo’s still alive?”
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Life was a funny thing. 
“There are so few things in life that are guaranteed. Death, for one, and taxes, for another. Sorry if that was a bit dark and killed the mood. You can laugh, by the way. But I think everyone here would agree, neither of those two are all that conducive to happiness.”
Roundabout. 
“So when the girl you’ve been chasing, for what feels like an eternity, finally gives you a second chance, you absolutely cannot take it for granted. You grab onto that chance with both hands, and even your teeth if you have to. It’s no guarantee for happiness, but it’s your best bet.”
Unpredictable. 
“I’m not a God-fearing man, but I’m a God-believing man. I thank God everyday for bringing such a magnificent woman into my life.”
He raised his glass. 
“Joy, you make me the happiest person in the world, and I can’t wait to be married to you.”
The crowd broke into warm applause as Doyoung finished off his impromptu speech by planting a kiss on his bride-to-be.
“He’s so good at talking,” you mused, wrapping your arm around Jaehyun’s. “If that’s his toast for this, I wonder what his vows will be like.”
A year ago, you would never have believed that you’d be attending your co-worker’s engagement party, much less with your ex-boyfriend who you hadn’t seen in 5 years. Spring had well and truly arrived, and with it came promises of love and new beginnings. The last rays of the April afternoon sunlight filtered through the windows of the riverside art centre. The venue was gorgeous, floating on the edge of the river with unobstructed views of the skyline and where it met the water — as always, Joy knew how to pick a spot.
“I didn’t know she rejected him before they got together. He must have really liked her.”
Jaehyun gave you a crooked smile. “Four years of university, and he never gave up. Even when she started dating that blockhead from liberal arts.”
“I bet he would’ve felt like the luckiest guy in the world when she finally said yes to a date,” you said, watching as the happy couple shared a moment, giggling about something nobody else was privy to. Jaehyun followed your gaze and made a small noise of agreement.
“Not as lucky as I am to have found you again.”
He ran his thumb across your knuckles. You could’ve sworn there was stardust sprinkled into those pretty brown eyes of his.
Life was a funny thing, for sure. It had a funny way of bringing back things you once thought you had lost forever. You knew now that you had to seize them before they passed by. Who knew if they’d ever turn up again?
“Okay, that’s enough.”
Jungwoo set his glass down on the table with a loud thunk, lightly startling you.
“I’m right here. You guys know that, right? I am right in front of you.”
A sheepish smile was thrown his way. “Sorry.” You patted his hand once, softly. “Your time will come, I’m sure of it,” you reassured. “How did the date with the KU Business girl go?”
“I flaked,” Jungwoo said simply.
“No! Why?”
He sighed. “Blind dates are really not my thing. It’s too awkward. And it feels so superficial. Like, what if you have nothing in common, or there’s no physical attraction, or—” 
Jungwoo paused, cutting himself off. “Actually, I’m not talking about this with you people. I’m going to get another drink.” With that, he turned and headed straight for the cocktail bar. You and Jaehyun gazed at him from behind as he walked off.
“I’m gonna be babysitting him again tonight, aren’t I?” Jaehyun asked, the question directed at nobody in particular.
“People are going to start wondering if you’re dating me or him.”
His mouth curled into a smirk. “Should I give them a reminder?”
“My boss is standing right over there, so no.”
Junmyeon and Irene were still going steady, to your surprise. You’d probably be seeing more and more of him, since Joy and the rest of the Parks genuinely treated Irene like one of their own. The thought wasn’t exactly a pleasant one, but not awful either. Maybe you were warming up to him.
“Also, you should probably be careful about who you call blockhead,” you said to Jaehyun, holding back a smile.
He fixed you with a suspicious stare. “And what’s that supposed to mean?”
“You know,” you trailed off, gesturing vaguely at his head. The smile broke through, your cheeks lifting as you tried to keep the laughter from coming out. He, on the other hand, was thoroughly unimpressed.
“You should really watch your mouth,” he said lowly, though he was smiling. There was a look in his eyes that sent a jolt straight to the pit of your stomach.
“Or what?”
His hands were all over you before you even made it through the door.
“My beautiful, gorgeous, sexy girlfriend,” he mumbled, peppering your neck with kisses between each adjective. The keypad finally beeped and you pushed down on the handle, letting the door swing open as you pulled him in by the collar.
“Stop talking and just kiss me,” you sighed, dragging his face back up to yours. He was all too eager to comply, mouth slotting over yours with practised ease. His tongue brushed along yours in the way he knew you liked, pulling your bottom lip into his mouth with just the right amount of pressure. Fire licked at your insides as he drew a light moan from you.
Four months in, the second time around, and everything with Jaehyun was still electrifying.  
Your hands fumbled with the buttons on his shirt, finally succeeding with undoing the top one after a few tries. Hands came up around the back of your thighs, lifting you up onto his kitchen countertop. The marble was cool to the touch, and you felt it through the silk of your dress, a soft gasp of surprise flying from your mouth into his awaiting one.
“Been wanting to do this all day, ever since you put this thing on,” Jaehyun rasped. The heat of his body radiated into you from where he stood between your parted legs. He was so warm up against you, and he smelled so good, you were positively light-headed with desire.
His mouth ghosted over the shell of your ear, sending a shiver through you. “You look so fucking good,” he said, teeth gently grazing the skin of your neck. “My pretty girl.” The quick press of his hips into yours pulled another moan out of you, and you braced a hand against the marble countertop.
Your fingers knocked against the edge of something sharp and sent it tumbling to the floor, where it landed with a heavier thud than you were expecting.
“What was that?” you forced out in between gasps. Jaehyun’s teeth nipped at your collarbone, showing no signs of letting up. “Wait, Jae, something fell on the floor.”
You had smashed a mug in your apartment in the midst of it once. Better safe than sorry.
Reluctantly, Jaehyun detached himself from you and bent down to retrieve the fallen item. He was breathing hard as he picked up a thick, padded envelope, and flipped it over to read the details.
“Photos,” he finally managed, tossing the package back onto the counter. “We can look at them later.”
His mouth was on you again, working at the spot between your neck and shoulder that always had your knees weak and toes curling. 
“Wait,” you giggled, “my film photos? I want to see.” He had sent the camera off almost two weeks ago, and you had been (im)patiently waiting for the developed pictures to be sent back. 
Jaehyun looked up at you with hooded eyes. “Really? You want to look at them now?”
You nodded. 
A beat passed before his face broke into a lazy smile. 
“Okay,” he chuckled softly, reaching for the envelope again. 
There was a good stack in there. The ones on top were more recent, with a few shots from his birthday that had recently passed. You had taken him ice skating at the outdoor rink atop Namsan Mountain. The twinkling lights that hung from the trees surrounding the rink were still beautiful, even through photos. Jaehyun was good at so many things that it was unfair — how could he be so talented and have a face like that? — but on that day, you discovered that ice skating was not one of his strengths, and the bruises on his tailbone could attest to that. 
“The colouring on these is really nice,” you murmured, flicking through the photos.
He hummed. “They are. This place doesn’t over-saturate the images, which is why I like them.”
A few more pictures from Christmas, where the two of you had set up a pillow fort — it had always been a childhood dream of yours — and stayed in watching movies for three whole days because it was too cold to do anything that required leaving the house. Funnily enough though, you had spent New Year’s Eve out in the cold with a few thousand others, waiting for the annual fireworks. There were a few shots of those as well. 
You neared the bottom of the stack, recognising the blur of colours that formed the crowd of the jazz festival from last year.
“All of these are out of focus,” you complained, a pout adorning your lips. The shots of the stage, of the artists, even the one of Jaehyun and the cute face he made trying to fit the burger in his mouth. Only the two pictures of you were crisply defined, because he had taken them. 
You flipped to the last photo. It was the one you took at the end of the show, during the closing bars of Lauv’s set. Miraculously, this one was in focus. You could see the press of your cheek against Jaehyun’s, and the slight surprise in his eyes as you had clicked the shutter. Lauv was nowhere to be seen, but maybe a clear shot of him as well would have been asking for too much. 
“Can I say something cheesy?” Jaehyun asked softly. 
“You’ll say it anyway.”
“I really wanted to kiss you. On this day.”
Strange, that it was these words which brought heat to your cheeks. Surely there were other things that would be more appropriate to blush about, instead of a months-late admission that was degrees more innocent than your current situation, where Jaehyun’s shirt was half undone, and the fabric of your dress was bunched up around your hips. 
“I wanted to kiss you right there, in the crowd. And then I wanted to kiss you again, here, when you made that stupid ramen joke. And when you had that chilli flake stuck on the corner of your mouth.”
You set the last photo down on the counter and turned back to Jaehyun, who was still standing between your knees. 
“And how about now?” you asked, the corners of your mouth lifting in a teasing smile. 
He cradled your chin, tilting your face towards his, and let the pad of his thumb brush over the swell of your bottom lip. 
“I think you already know the answer to that.”
The crescent moon was high and luminescent in the sky when you caught your breath again, the last few waves of euphoria ebbing away through your body. Jaehyun always indulged you.
Maybe a little too much. 
You turned to him, nestling your face into the crook of his neck and breathing in the scent of soap and his skin. A finger lazily traced over the ridges of his stomach. 
“That tickles,” he mumbled into your hair. It must’ve still been damp from the shower, but he didn’t seem to mind. Fatigue was already tugging away at him. 
“Do you want me to stop?” you asked softly, looking up at him. 
He shook his head, just slightly. “I like knowing you’re there.”
You resumed your movements, but it was only a few seconds before Jaehyun was shifting, soft laughs filling the intimate space of his bedroom.  
“That really does tickle,” he said, smile threaded into his voice. One of his hands reached for yours, pulling it up to rest against his chest. The gentle press of his lips on your forehead was a delicate thing. 
You fell asleep like that, feeling the steady beat of his heart, quiet and sure beneath your fingertips. It was warm in his hold, and safe. There was no other home you needed to know.
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ataleofcrowns · 1 day ago
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Chapter Progress [NOV/06]
Hey all, it's been a while since I've written one of these 🍂
I've been posting regular previews on my Patreon, but a proper update was long overdue! As a refresher, my last update was this one, and I've got lots more to update you on now that I'm further along!
I've struggled a lot with this chapter and have been trying to wrangle it into shape as best I can, and I'm happy (and relieved) to say that I can finally give you an estimated release date: you can expect CH12 to be uploaded in December this year.
I won't be putting a specific date on it yet, since it could be anywhere from early December to late December depending on how much progress I make in November, but I'll let you know! Now, onto specifics.
The Main Plot
I'm currently balancing out LI specific content in the main plot! Regardless of what you chose in regards to Kham and the peri trader, players will be spending some time with D and X to make up for their absence in CH10 at the beginning of this chapter, and I've really missed writing their dynamic with each other as well as the Crown.
I genuinely can't decide which branch is my favorite. Meeting with Kham directly gives so much juicy verbal sparring and tension between not only her and the Crown but her and D and X as well. But meeting directly with the peri trader let me dig more into the worldbuilding, explore the city a bit, and have some more lighthearted shenanigans with D and X too.
I'll add some previews here for both routes that I've also already shared for people on the Patreon. Here's a little excerpt for people meeting with Kham:
“There is one thing I have been wondering, princess,” you say as you stare back into her eyes, watching the way the orange orbs of light flicker like flames. “When you first arrived here, you were accompanied by a retinue of guards. Whatever happened to them?” Kham does not raise her brows at you, exactly, but something similar to the motion as the wood above her eyes arches upwards with a stiff creaking sound. “They are not merely my guards, they are my servants first and foremost. Naturally, they run errands for me.” “What kinds of errands?” “Surely you do not think I would fetch all I require by myself?” She appears amused by the line of questioning rather than offended. “They trade with the peri merchants in your city on my behalf. Although, calling it trade is perhaps not accurate, as I hold the right to lay claim on their supplies whenever I please. They are representatives of my mother, after all.” You consider the explanation, but nothing about it seems notable or inconsistent so far. “So you have never dealt with this peri trader I wish to meet with yourself?” “Of course not.” She smiles, her wooden mouth briefly pressing together. “That would be beneath me.” “A shame,” $xname muses casually from beside you, contrasting the sharp look in their eyes. “We had hoped you might have some insight to share.” “As much insight as you are willing to offer me regarding this flower you seek,” Kham returns, her smile still in place. “The blue siren, yes? A rather strange fixation…” You feel the urge to tense, but withhold yourself from it by taking a slow, relaxed breath. All the rigorous physical training you have underwent over the course of the past month is already showing its benefits: you feel more aware and in control over your body, able to maintain your composure. A necessary skill when dealing with someone like Kham, as conversing with her feels like a dance of sorts. The two of you are watching each other’s steps, waiting for the other to slip.
And here's the excerpt for if you choose to meet with the peri trader:
You manage to make it through the marketplace, finally arriving at a large building with an open front, wrapping around the corner of the street. Tables and shelves are lined with various flowers and plants, perused by a few passing customers. This appears to be the peri trader’s shop, signaled by the sign at the front that reads Eshkar’s Garden. Eshkar being the name of the peri trader in question. Most of the flora on display you recognize, if not by the labeled names then by sight alone, but several look entirely new to you. Pale white flowers whose hanging bulbs pulse with light when a customer brushes against its leaves; bleeding vines wrapped around a miniature roofed trellis atop a tall table, its crimson flowers slowly dripping down pink juice caught by bowls below; a tall flower with only two black petals, large and pointed, that nearly startle you when they snap together several times in sharp, cracking sounds, almost as if the flower were clapping. IF CROWN IS INTELLIGENT Momentarily forgetting about your intended purpose in being here, you approach the clapping flower with curiosity, wondering what set it off. Sure enough, you see dead and decomposing flies of various sorts collected at the center of its bulb as you lean over to peer inside, taking care to avoid leaning in too close lest your nose get caught between the aggressive petals. Does it catch and eat small insects? How fascinating. You glance at the labeling of the flower, its name fittingly given as ‘black ovation’. IF CROWN IS INTUITIVE Eyes drawn by the visual spectacle of the white flowers, you find yourself wandering over to its shelf, glancing at the labeling that reads ‘stardrops’. The bulbs look ordinary at first glance, but sure enough, when you reach out to touch its petals, the flower begins to glow like you saw before. A ring of light travels up its stem, through the petals to the very ends, where it erupts into tiny little golden sparks. Hence the name, you suppose. Unable to stop yourself, you touch the flower again, mesmerized by the light show, until you notice a shop attendee frowning at you from nearby. Feeling scolded, you quickly pull your hand away and offer an apologetic smile.
Lots of fun going on in both routes! I don't envy you for having to make this choice lol.
Aside from this big branch, the main plot will converge for everyone again in the latter half of the chapter, where the Crown gets do to some more typical Crown things: hearing public petitions! They'll contain 2 smaller scenes where your character will hear out some citizen concerns, which will let you rack up reputation points with either the public or the nobility, and 1 major scene that affects a future plot point.
Not gonna spoil these since I've already talked so much about everything else regarding this chapter, so this will have to remain a surprise ✨
The Romances and Friendships
While the start of the chapter is X and D focused, if you have a specific (platonic) LI you want to spend more time with as buddies and perhaps get a little relationship advice, you'll have that opportunity at the start of CH12! I've had to write 12 variations in total for each friendship scene, which was a lot of work, but completely worth it.
Some LI routes also have big additional differences depending on if you have a low or high romance (such as A and R), while it matters a little bit less for the others for the time being (such as D and X). So if you screwed up on D or X's romances and have a low status, you're mostly in the clear from immediate consequences… for now.
Here's a little excerpt, taken from a playthrough of a Crown who has a high romance with A and chooses R's friendship scene:
Something like mischief gleams in $rname’s eyes as $rthey looks at you. “I’ve noticed you and $aname seem especially close nowadays.” You shift a little on the couch, averting your gaze to avoid $rname’s eyes as you strike a casual tone. “Do we?” “Mhm.” When you do glance over at $rname, you find $rthem studying $rtheir nails, and you begin to relax as you think it was just an idle remark. Until $rthey adds, “All the hand-holding underneath the table is endearing, I must admit. Especially since the two of you seem to think you’re being subtle about it.” IF CROWN IS RESERVED Heat flushes up your neck at being seen through so easily, remembering breakfast earlier that morning where $aname’s fingers hooked around yours beneath the table. “We were just… we’re not…” $rname looks up from $rtheir nails to grin at you. “There’s no need to look so embarrassed! I’m happy for you. The two of you seem well-suited for each other.” Trying to move past your flustered state, you clear your throat. “You think so?” “I’ve never seen $aname so at ease as when you’re around,” $rname considers, eyes narrowing with teasing and fondness both. “You look more unburdened with $athem near, as well.” IF CROWN IS FLIRTATIOUS You almost laugh at the remark and give it away completely, only managing to keep it in at the last moment and grinning back at $rname instead. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” $rname looks up from $rtheir nails with a sly smile. “No? What a shame. I was going to say how well-suited the two of you are for each other.” That catches your attention, your playfulness easing into something more sincere. “Really?” “I’ve never seen $aname so at ease as when you’re around,” $rname considers, eyes narrowing with teasing and fondness both. “You look more unburdened with $athem near, as well.”
This scene aside, CH12 will also contain another dedicated romance scene with your LI, dealing with some of the fallout from last chapter whether good or bad. If your romance is high, you'll be coasting- except maybe for D romancers, who are in Pining Hell either way haha.
If your romance is low, though, prepare for some delicious angst 🙏🏼
That's all I've got for now! Thank you all so much for your patience and support as always, especially for how long I've been making you all wait. You're the best 💖
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ram-bles · 2 days ago
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a crumb of nsfw daisuke?
daisuke x reader | headcanons
requests/inbox: open
[ 🔞 minors dni ]
woah. from sweet to spicy. ill give this a try!
wrote this on mobile, sorry for the fuckass formatting.
gender neutral reader. sillies. lots of sillies. weed mention (like once).
🌺 sillies, even when it comes to sex!
🌺 c'mon, he somehow sneaked in some of his secret stash'a magazines. he's still a guy after all.
"Dai?"
"Yeah?" He's busy on his Gameboy, but he acknowledges you, tilting his body to show his face but his eyes were glued to the screen.
"Did you steal these porn mags from Jimmy or someth—"
A pink blur suddenly pushes you away, using his feet to kick it back under his bed.
"DUDE. PRIVACY. C'MON NOW."
🌺 You've probably caught him once or twice even before you two were a thing. It wasn't hard to, after all, you both shared a room.
Too lost in the sauce to even notice you, so you had to clear your throat. You've never seen someone so shocked to the point he doesn't know whether to shove his dick back in his pants, hide under the blankets, or try to do both at the same time but completely failing. He's stuttering your name out along with strings of apologies. Don't get your dick caught in your zipper now, Daisuke.
"I didn't know you were there! Shitshitshit- I'm so so sorry- Aghhhh." He felt pathetic, whining in embarrassment. Daisuke ends up just pulling the blanket over the entirety of him.
"You could've just asked me for help, y'know." He stares at you, scandalized as if he wasn't rubbing one off just moments ago.
"How the fuck was I s'posed to know?!"
You shrug, amused. "Dunno."
"Man, fuck youuuu."
"Happily."
"Get over here already, please!"
🌺 Outside internship though? Weed before sex seems like something he'd do. I can't explain why.
🌺 Feeling his rings on you... in many ways.
🌺 Pretty sure we all agree that he's into praising. Both giving and receiving.
🌺 You know he's having lots of fun when the pitch of his voice goes high. Squeaking, voice cracking, whining.
🌺 Speaking of how vocal he is, he's probably loud too. But, since you're in the ship now, he'll try his best to keep it down, either on the pillow or you. He'll also be rambling about random things just so he doesn't finish early.
🌺 Dirty talking? ❌ He'll be cringing like there's no tomorrow. He'll make a discord (or whatever equivalent) kitten joke about it if he does.
🌺 Unintentional dirty talking though... That's another story. Or should I rephrase, more-so leaning towards cussing.
"Fuck— you're sosososo pretty..." His hands were pressing the back of your knees, folding and spreading your legs for him. He whines your name out, resting his length on your abdomen while he impatiently waits for your permission. "C'mon, pretty. I'll be this deep inside you."
-
"Feels good. Feels so good." He's panting and rutting into you like a dog. "You should- nh- loosen up a little- shit- if you get any tighter I think I'll cum..."
🌺 Quickies galore. Sure, it's less risky, but with his libido? Anyways, he's pretty easy to please anyways. A round or two would probably be enough for him.
🌺 Wearing his clothes while at it? Mega turn on for him.
🌺 Well, yes his libido is high, but you still need to be straightforward with him. He can't take hints...
"Want head?"
"?!? Who's head?!"
"YOUR DICK."
"YOU'RE CUTTING IT OFF?"
"WHAT? NO, I MEANT SUCKING YOUR—"
"Good morning to you both too."
"CAPTAIN?"
🌺 He loves giving and receiving hickeys. You would have to remind him everytime not to mark too high on your neck.
🌺 His aftercare involves lots of cuddling and lots of smooching.
🌺 Ending with a silly note. The first time you've done it with him, he ended up saying thank you since he didn't know what to do.
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cazort · 1 day ago
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I think you've hit some of the big factors but not all of them.
I think a major factor driving people to Trump is reaction to left-wing extremism during the 2010's, so-called "cancel culture". My one friend who is a Trump supporter is like this. He had a bunch of people gang up on him and totally demonize him. Some of their criticisms were fair criticisms of bad things he had done, but that he had apologized for and he thought they had been resolved. He lost his entire social circle minus a few isolated friends like me who did not cut him off. It was traumatizing for him.
My neighbor, who is very liberal, has a son who is also a Trump supporter and he also became such a supporter because he got "cancelled". In his case, he made a single problematic comment about race publicly on social media. He was a freelance photographer. A whole bunch of people ganged up on him almost instantly and destroyed his professional reputation almost overnight. Again, he was traumatized. He moved back home with his parents.
Both of these people ended up going deep down right-wing rabbit holes. The right-wingers spoke to these people and empathized with their pain and listened to their concerns while the left bullied, condemned, and cut them off. It seems totally understandable to me that these people fell into right-wing circles based on how they were treated.
The thing is, each of these people did something wrong. But the mob's reaction to them was disproportionate, and it was condemning not supportive. Completely ruining someone's professional reputation and destroying their source of livelihood is not a proportionate reaction to making a single comment that people perceived as racist. And bringing up bad things a person has done in their past, that they had fully apologized for and thought were resolved, is not even remotely healthy in terms of ways to communicate and act. Even if the original action was quite bad. Neither of these reactions helped the person in any way shape or form to learn or grow.
For every extreme case like this, there are hundreds if not thousands of minor cases.
One thing that I think has driven people away from the left is identity politics, specifically, the way the left does not embrace principles of "treat people equally regardless of their identity" but rather, has embraced ideas where certain groups are labeled "privileged" and others "oppressed" or "marginalized", and the left's general ethic is to give the marginalized groups more of a voice. Special treatment, so to speak. The worst is when people start feeling license to insult or talk down to people in the privileged group. I've been saying for years that targeting privileged groups with hate always ends up hurting marginalized groups the most.
I wrote that post 8 years ago. Not enough people have read it. It only has 24 reblogs. Seriously. You want to figure out why Trump won and prevent this sort of thing from happening again? Read that post. Reflect. Internalize it. Reblog it. Make new material that communicates the same ideas in your own voice. I'm wordy and make these long text posts that don't reach everyone...find new ways to communicate it that will reach others.
Seriously, people, we have a lot of work to do. The nation is hurting and it's not just the people who voted for Harris. The whole Trump movement is a big giant ball of hurt and if we can't see that and can't work to heal those people we will never get ourselves out of this mess.
If Harris loses, please try blaming real issues (Republican-driven voter suppression and intimidation tactics; billionaire-funded Trump-PAC’s and propaganda machines; a broken electoral system that hinges presidential elections on a dozen or so states instead of a simple popular vote; or the Democratic Party’s fumbled opportunities to respond to things like the corporate greed driven cost of living crisis, the housing shortage, the medical debt and healthcare accessibility crisis, the ongoing climate disaster, and the ongoing genocide in Palestine) instead of doing the Right’s job for them by blaming folks like climate protestors, Antizionist and pro-Palestine activists, Black and Brown people, jaded millennials living paycheck to paycheck, and tumblr users with an audience ⅛ the size of the average Christofascist MegaChurch Congregation.
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mlyscha · 20 hours ago
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↳ DRESS TO IMPRESS? ⭑
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𝓼ynopsis. in which you convince your boyfriend to play dress to impress with you, will they slay the runway? 𝓹airing. enha!member x female!reader 𝓰enre. fluff, crack, trendy. 𝔀arnings. curse words, not proofread, riki is that annoying player and almost all the members are bad at this game ㅠㅠ, english is not my 1st language. 𝔀𝓬. 1k+ 𝓶asterlist.
♡ 𝓪melie's 𝓷ote: oh gosh i had so much fun writing this, especially because i am addicted to this game lol anyway, do you guys have any headcanon request? i am curious...
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― 𝓱eeseung: gets upset but doesn't quit playing.
you might be wondering why heeseung changed his mood like that, and that's because placing on the podium in dress to impress is hard ― for him. in the beginning, and sometimes unfair. when you told him you wanted to play with him ― your boyfriend was feeling very happy and giddy, creating his account the same second, not knowing how he would feel a few rounds later...
"BRO?! HOW DID SHE PLACED?!" he screamed after standing up from bed while his hands rested against his head, indignant. "LOOK AT ME, I LOOK MUCH PRETTIER!" and heeseung turned his ipad screen at you after laying back on his stomach on bed. "hee, baby... your skin is literally blue, that's not what coquette means..." you replied. "nonsense, even my fit is better! and you placed second you can't say shit! i am not playing this game anymore." he argued, throwing his ipad away from him. "don't quit, continue playing with me," you pouted, waiting for a new round to start. "i'm sorry, baby, but this game is absolutely dog shi- a new round has begun?" when the sound of a new round starting echoed, his mind seemed to have changed. "... yeah?" "okay, maybe one more round won't hurt..."
― 𝓳ongseong: gets into arguments with 8 year olds.
jongseong is a good, caring, handsome and mature boyfriend, however, immatureness possesses him when playing dress to impress. just to clear things up you had asked him to play the game with you before, so nothing was new to him ― neither to you: hearing him raging about a girl talking shit about his fashion sense. i can't forget to mention that he takes this game very serious ― especially when his girlfriend has an awesome ranking.
"look at me, i look so good," "yeah... you do..." you couldn't ignore how terribly your boyfriend's makeup was done. "give me five stars, okay?" "'kay..." "baby, if this girl tells me i look terrible one more time i'll do something really bad." "babe-" " 'you look ugly'...?" he read the chat. open his microphone: "SHUT UP, YOUR FIT LOOKS LIKE A TRASH BAG AND A PIECE OF SHIT JUST HAD A BABY," "JAY! she's a kid!" "and i am eating with this outfit- tha-that's how you guys say right? eat and all...?" "yes, you ate that outfit up babe."
― 𝓳aeyun: you have to be patient.
don't get me wrong, jaeyun is good at games, however, not in this one specifically. it took him about two days just to learn how to walk on roblox's games and how to jump, etc. imagine when you introduced this fashion game which you have time to dress yourself up, oh boy, he was confused. if learning the basics from controlling your avatar on roblox took him days, it took jaeyun a week to understand how to put on items, take them off, where you choose your hair and face... well, it was a pain, but he was able to get through it and play it almost normally.
"babe, why you're skin is grey?" "i didn't know where to change it," shrugs then tries to pose. "oh my god, babe, i showed you where a minute ago!" "okay, chill...! where do i pose though?" "oh my god, jaeyun..."
― 𝓼unghoon: has lots of difficulties but doesn't give up.
sunghoon is like a mix of heeseung and jake, which means he gets addicted, angry but can't stop playing and still has to be handled with patience and love. with that being said, be prepared to hear a bunch of questions and him leaving and then joining your server a few many times. also! can't forget that sunghoon is still a english learner, so the themes might be misunderstood by him sometimes heh... (ᵕ—ᴗ—)
"y/n~" he whines. "i'm done with this game!" leaves "babe, the theme was baggy and you literally dresses up as a trash bag..." "baggy means... bag? what did i do wrong?" "baggy is a style, not a trash bag," "should've told me earlier, y/n!" "hoonie-" "now everyone on the server thinks i am stupid! let's change server, join me now."
― 𝓼unoo: is the one who places first.
sunoo is undeniably the best dressed on the game among the members, usually winning against you. he has almost all the poses, knows how to layer and is always creative, even reaching top model before you.
"baby, can we play dress to impress together? i'm so close to reach top model." "yeah, su- WAIT! TOP MODEL?!" ― ooohhh, i might have forgotten to mention... sunoo plays dress to impress without you sometimes. "baby, just join me 'kay?" "sunshine, explain me how'd you reach top model before me? i play more than you do," "uh... i surely play more than you do, but okay," "wait, wha-" "babyyyy just join my server, i want you to celebrate this with me, alright?" "okay..." your heart softened when you realised he wanted you to be part of his reaching. "can we duo?" you asked. "we can, but just once; i would much rather vote you five (5) stars."
― 𝓳ungwon: jungwon.exe stopped working.
jungwon is like jake and oh gosh why i feel like every single one of them is a bit like him?!?! anyway, jungwon would be more than happy to join you, but has already told you that his skills might not really show up in this dressing game ― discreetly admitting that he doesn't know how to play it. he actually heard about the game because the other members seem to enjoy it. still, it's just not his cup of tea. however, since you were so excited about him playing with you, sigh, he might make this sacrifice ― in which he slowly gets very excited as well.
"wonnie, baby, why are you posing? you have to dress up before the times is up!" you warned him after spotting him on the game. "huh? it doesn't make sense, we have to dress up? where?" "there, baby," you gently took the ipad out of his hands and guided him to the changing booth. "oh... but is too far away from my spawn and why do i walk slower than that girl?" "because she bought a walk faster pack, now dress up wonnie, hurry up...!" "i want to buy that, how do i buy her pack?" "jungwon, dress up now, you have literally one minute." you spoke between your teeth. "okay, okay... y/n, where do i get the items though?" "jungwon..."
― 𝓻iki: it's that annoying giggly kid who doesn't follow the theme.
if you ever played dress to impress you probably came across to one of those annoying players who never follows the theme, with that, you might refuse to believe riki is this type of player; but trust me, he surely is. and why? because he doesn't take the game that seriously, doing whatever he wants and trolling people ― making them believe he's gonna gift them vip or one of the other packs.
"RIKI? HOW'D YOU PLACED FIRST?" "i'm just too good, i guess," your boyfriend shrugged, but you couldn't believe him. "you're lying." "are you saying i am not good at this game?" "..." "y/n," he would call you after suddenly bursting out of laughter. "what?" your annoyed tone of voice echoed and it sounded like his favourite music to his ears. "wanna know how i placed first?" riki looks up at you, hiding just half of his face with his ipad. "mhm..." you hummed, confirming. "i tricked a few girls saying that i would gift them vip if they voted me five (5) stars," he giggled, knowing you were about to get angry at him. "RIKI! you can't do that, imagine if that was me..." you pouted. "oh, yeah? i should've done worse then." "RIKI!" "OKAY! SORRY, enough of riki now, okay? i am baby, not riki..."
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© 𝓪𝐦𝐞𝐥𝐢𝓮, 𝗺𝗹𝘆𝘀𝗰𝗵𝗮 𝗌𝓽𝓾𝖽𝗂𝗈𝓼. ⋆
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