#LIKE I AM ACTUALLY GOING TO BE IN CHARGE OF A WHOLE FUCKING DEPARTMENT.

[indynerdgirl]

Hello, my lovely followers! I hope you're all having a good Monday so far. 😊

I just wanted to let you all know that starting tomorrow, I won't be as active on here during the day as I currently am because I'm starting a new job tomorrow that has much stricter internet use policies on work computers than my current job. Because of that, I expect my active Tumblr hours will shift to the last afternoon/evening (I'm in EST if that helps!).

While I'm super excited for this new chapter in my life to start, I am kinda disappointed that I won't be able to use Tumblr as my daily brain breaks like I currently do and I'll also miss being able to chat via messages.

Anyways, wish me luck and say some prayers for me because I still feel like an imposter. 🙃😆

[yandere-fics]

♡ Selene Mommy Kink ♡

(Tumblr deleted it the first time i wrote this but I am determined to keep trying.)

You had always dreamed of having a soulmate since you were young, perhaps a cute elf who would obey your every command or a dumb as rocks werewolf who would be loyal to you and only you from day one, so needless to say, when you met your soulmate for the first time, who had just been flirting with another girl until you saw you and completely lost interest in the other girl, you were extremely disappointed, soulmates were supposed to be a wonderful thing to have, their presence would only add to your life, they couldn't make you miserable or fail you in anyways right? Turns out that was a sack of crap because you'd gotten stuck with the wolf god herself, a notorious womanizer who couldn't stop thinking with her dick for two seconds, it almost felt like the universe was laughing at you and so you would have to make Selene pay by being the opposite of what she was probably expecting as well, werewolves were usually in charge when it came to their mates so instead you would force her to take the submissive role in your relationship and let all your rage out on her.

"Dove, I'm very pleased you invited me back to your hotel, I'm glad you forgave me for that little... indiscretion earlier tonight." The longer she talked, the more you felt like your blood was going to boil, gods she was so frustrating, you were just so angry you'd gotten stuck with this disobedient overgrown child of a mate, sure she was a goddess and one of the strongest werewolves so technically the gods would view you as having been extremely lucky in the mate department but at the same time, her personality was shit and she'd fucked possible every unmarried human in your whole town so no you really didn't see how you could possibly be considered lucky here. Loyalty was the whole benefit to having a soulmate, they would be overbearing and sometime murderous but at the end of the day they were truly loyal only to you, meanwhile you were left with the one supernatural who likely had ever been with someone who wasn't their mate. She sat down on the bed with a smirk on her face which just made you want to punch her, under other circumstances you might have been blushing and thinking about how lucky you were to have such an attractive mate but currently all you wanted was to reduce her to a pathetic sobbing mess.

"Shut up, I haven't forgiven anything yet. You need to earn my forgiveness. To start with, I want you to call me mommy." You started to strip where you stood, you'd make her kneel and worship the very ground you stood on for the rest of eternity just to make up for how horrible it had felt when you learned your soulmate was nothing more than a filthy mutt, even then it still wouldn't be enough to quell your anger fully, though this did actually satisfy you in a way, sure everyone had gotten to see her intimately but you highly doubted anyone had ever been able to see her act submissive, it would be a sight for you alone, maybe you'd record her begging her mommy for forgiveness once you got her well trained enough for now. "Maybe if you cry for forgiveness from your mommy convincingly enough I'll let you have me tonight."

She paused for a moment trying to gauge if you were serious before she finally realized you were and got on her knees before you, her hands holding onto your ankles, trying to show you how desperate she was to even be allowed to touch this much of you, it would be cute if you weren't still plagued with the memory of that girl from earlier. "Please mommy, I'll do anything for you to understand I only want you, it was just so lonely waiting for you-" You kicked her hands away, you didn't need to hear her stupid excuses, if demons could wait centuries then so could she.

"Shut up, from now on you're not allowed to touch me until I give you permission, you will sleep on the floor next to our bed and you will only be allowed to hold me at night once you've learned to obey me. Now, do you want to cum?" She looked up at you, hers eyes tearing up when she realized she couldn't just ask for forgiveness and everything would be fine, the weight of her mistake was beginning to dawn on her, perhaps it wouldn't be so hard to train her, you just needed to make her desperate for even a crumb of your approval before taking it from her. "Then go ahead and jerk off to me, I'm not letting you touch me tonight, maybe in a week from now." She whined but despite that she still wrapped her hand around her cock and began to move up and down furiously, little whimpers leaving her mouth as she did, you doubt she did this very often, she most likely just went out whenever she felt horny, thinking about that again made you angry and you almost felt like stopping her but you decided you'd let her have this for tonight, it would be her last orgasm for awhile until you felt she had repented enough.

"Clean up when you're done, I need rest, maybe if you serve me well enough tomorrow I'll allow you to eat me out." You walked past her as she sat on the floor with her brows furrowed, clearly struggling to get herself off.

"Yes, I'll do anything for my dove, I mean m-mommy to forgive me." You clicked the light off, she could see well enough in the dark, she didn't deserve to have light when you weren't around anyways.

[cels-not-so-secret-love-affair]

falling to the music pt. 3 (jily)

a/n: it’s been a slow sort of week, but we’re making a comeback with another instalment of my silly little jily band au. yay!

previous | next

Mr Nice, sensibly, waits for Lily to text him before attempting to call her. She’s calmer when she does so, and about to cook dinner for herself and her roommates in her student flat. It’s something to do with her hands other than holding her phone, or potentially throwing it at a wall if he says anything either too irritating or too attractive. A preventative measure. After explaining the situation to James, she pops him on speakerphone, and props him up on the counter.

‘Hello?’ His voice is slightly tinnier over the line, but it still makes Lily shiver a little. It’s got a richness to it that feels comforting.

‘Good evening, James,’ she calls, slicing her chicken into strips.

‘Lily! Lily Evans, how are you?’ The full name should not have the effect it does. Nor should it send flashing images of the words Lily Potter through her mind. Christ, there’s something wrong with me.

‘I’m okay. Still recovering from the bashing my ego took after being ghosted for almost a full business week, but I’m breathing.’

‘I really am very sorry about that,’ he repeats earnestly.

‘Yeah, well. Just don’t go lobbing your new phone at gaggles of seagulls or whatever, and I’ll let you off.’

‘Duly noted.’ She can hear his smile again. It bleeds into the shapes of the vowels. Diabolical.

‘Enjoy your Saturday?’ she asks, moving to wash her hands.

‘Yes, actually. We had practice in the morning, trying out some new songs. Then I got some work done for school, went on a run, came home. Now I’m talking to you, which is, naturally, the highlight of my day.’

‘You’re a flirt, Mr Potter. What degree do you do?’ Lily’s switched to chopping vegetables now and, against her will entirely, has found herself smiling down at her red peppers.

‘Architecture! It sounds poncey, I know, but I swear on my life it’s interesting.’

‘I’ll believe you. Although I have to say it doesn’t match up very well with the whole lead guitarist thing.’

‘No matter how many cool points those showy riffs might earn me, I am, at heart, a bit of a nerd. Sorry to disappoint you.’

‘I’m not disappointed.’

‘I’ve lucked out then. How about you, what degree do you do?’

‘Hmm. You know what - have a guess. If you’re right I’ll chuck a bit of carrot at my screen as a reward.’ James laughs at that, and Lily feels a sense of accomplishment blooming in her chest. The sound is very easy to listen to.

‘Alright, I love a challenge. Let’s see… something to do with English?’

‘Bloody hell. How’d you figure that one out?’

‘I’m right, then?’

‘Yeah. English Language and Literature.’

‘Score! It was a bit of a guess really. You had a pin on the strap of your bag when you came to talk to me after the show. A proper enamel one, shaped like a stack of books. I remember wondering where you got it from.’ Lily is momentarily baffled at how this man can forget to charge his fucking phone and remember this seemingly innocuous detail about her all in the same day. It’s sweet, though, that he takes an interest. It almost makes her forget the four days spent sans text message.

‘That’s observant of you.’

‘Yeah, I suppose. Where did you actually get it from, the pin?’

‘Oh, it was just a gift from a friend.’

‘The one that came with you to the concert? Or someone else?’

‘No, not Mary, though she is basically unbeatable in the gift giving department. It was from one of my flatmates, Alice.’

‘Mary isn’t a flatmate then?’

‘No, she grew up here, so she’s living with her parents whilst she does her degree.’

‘Nice.’ A short quiet falls then. With any other of her previous interests, it probably would have been awkward, but not with James. It’s just nice. He’s nice.

‘What are you cooking?’ he pipes up after a few minutes.

‘Something simple. Chicken stir fry.’

‘I bet that’ll be great.’

‘Hopefully, yeah. Have you eaten yet, James?’ Lily is surprised at how soft the question sounds when it comes out of her mouth. The bastard’s endeared himself to me, she thinks.

‘Not yet. I’ll message Sirius in a bit, see what he fancies. He’s a shit cook, so it’s either I cook for the both of us or we go out for dinner.’

‘You guys are really close then.’

‘Yeah,’ James says, and he sounds like he’s properly proud of it. ‘He’s basically my brother. We grew up together, you know? And then he lived with us for a few years until the two of us were eighteen, and then we came to the same uni together and everything. We just get each other.’

‘That’s lovely.’

‘Yeah. He’s like, the best thing in my life right now. Him, and the band, and big Tesco’s.’ Lily laughs at that last addition.

‘A respectable top three, to be sure. How did it come about, the band?’

‘We all went to school together. But like, school’s boring, right? Or at least secondary is. So we needed something to make it more bearable, and there were two typical teenage things we came up with in the end. Pranks - aimed at teachers and cocky year sevens and generally just creating chaos - and starting a band. God, I don’t know how McGonagall put up with us. We’d run round the place like dickheads setting traps for whoever was unlucky enough to be in the Maths department that day, and then spend all our lessons planning stuff to do with the band. What songs we were going to play, what outrageous outfits Sirius could wear next, what we’d call ourselves. And then that never really stopped.’ James has a way of speaking that just puts you at ease, Lily finds. It’s almost like magic.

‘Sounds a lot more eventful than my experience at school.’

‘Yeah. Eleven to fifteen was pretty insane. We calmed down a bit after that - A Levels to think about and all.’

They keep talking for a while, on their cosy little cooking call. The conversation just seems to flow, moving from topic to topic like embroidery thread dipping into silk until Lily is somehow already plating up, five neat portions of food ready to be served. She tells James this, and he congratulates her on a job well done. Then, they say their goodbyes and he leaves her to the rest of her night. There’s a strange sort of emptiness after he hangs up the phone. She didn’t realise just how much she’d gotten used to having his voice chatting away in the background.

[serendertothesquad]

Seren's Studies: Odd Squad UK -- "Part of the Furniture" Episode Followup, Part 1

Surprisingly, this will not be an 11-minute furniture store commercial under the guise of an Odd Squad episode. This is, in fact, a British phase meaning "a person or thing that has been somewhere so long as to seem a permanent, unquestioned, or invisible feature of the landscape."

So in other words...maybe they won't treat Orli as new despite only be- ah fuck it who am I kidding. They will. I've seen the synopsis. They will.

Below the break.

They're staring into my soul.

I Don't Like That™.

Oh, a Gemma episode!

...Oh, a Gemma episode.

Okay, well...I'm fairly neutral on her, so I'm going to very much approach this with caution. Though given the complaints I've seen lodged against Opie, something tells me I won't like this episode if she's a prominent spearhead in it.

Did...did she say "Timekeep Terry" or am I tripping???

Again, I am forced to bring up how we've already gotten lore of the Odd Squad Timekeepers and how we're just yo'ing that right out the window.

...No, actually, lemme set that aside to ask why we have some random-ass dude watching the bullpen from what has to be his home and say that if that's not Timekeep Terry then we've reached "FUCK NO" levels of creepiness.

Look, I'm a fan of the show. I'm not hackin' into webcams to watch children in suits go about their day at work. That's a hell and a no.

"Well, she's definitely part of the furniture now."

Sigh...not even past the opening credits and we're already getting a title drop taken literally. Like it's taunting non-British people who don't know what the phrase means.

But the Internet exists. All I had to do was type in "part of the furniture meaning" and get an (non-AI-generated! human!) answer. Millions of people will do the same thing.

So to you I say: piss off. And I'm not talking about peeing.

(Yes, I know Orli then asks what it means. Point still applies.)

Okay...so we have Bunny Society, Kitten Society...can we get a Puppy Society to complete the trifecta?

hanggliding society

odd squad has hanggliders

Skill issue, charged by jealousy.

"...and the Odd Squad Band. I play trombone."

Somewhere, Olympia is biting the fuck out of a handkerchief and crying waterfalls. (Hey, if her dream of joining the Odd Squad Chorus was shot down and later revived...)

"Sounds like you have trouble saying 'no' to things."

Oh. Joy. "Olympia's Day" without the wild and crazy hallucinations and the sanity slippage and the mathness. So you sucked all the damn fun outta it because that was the cherry on top of a fantastic episode.

*slow clapping while I melt into a puddle*

New headcanon: since Alexander, and by extension Orwell, have limps, he uses his shared ability as a way to get around easier, scaring people be damned.

Headcanon accepted.

Oh, that is Timekeep...er...Time-Beat Terry!

Okay, good. Thank God. For a second there I thought I was gonna have to yo Gemma aside and give her a smack or two.

"Nice agent, not-nice agent" is like PBS Kids execs noticing Otto and Olive namedropping "good cop, bad cop" and saying "GOD no, not in your ass's lifetime" and preschool-fying it.

It's not quirky. It's not funny. It's not cute. Just say it normally. No one will care.

"It's when one of us acts like the villain's best friend, and the other one's really grumpy."

Okay, she's in the Department of Help so I can give her a pass on not knowing what it means, but this is very clearly explaining something to the audience that can watch a Season 1 episode and get the gist of without having it explained to them.

DeWitt, Schmid, and everyone else...what are you DOING.

"Yes, except it doesn't work with just one agent!"

Okay, but...there are other tactics. May I point to Otto in "By the Book" for more information?

Ah, so we have the UK's answer to the US's and Canada's cantaloupe.

I mean...would have been nice if they stuck with the cantaloupe, but we got a whole episode about that and the rehash line has to be drawn somewhere.

And speaking of cantaloupes...exactly how big is Orli's Headquarters, made of two agents, that it needs a cantaloupe to power it? It's a dark cave behind a waterfall. You're better off with flashlights!

Sev- I'm sorry, several times a day? The fuck are they doing to the thing that it needs replacing several times a day???

God, the power bill would choke half of America.

Hehe finale foreshadowing hehe you're not slick hehe bite my ass.

...wait waIT WAIT I MENTIONED "BY THE BOOK" HALFHEARTEDLY I DIDN'T THINK THE MATH MORAL WOULD ACTUALLY RIP FROM IT WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAI-

"Did you forget?"

"Like I have memory loss?"

"...Look, I've had that happen to friends. Children who-"

"No, I didn't forget, Orwell. Go to your appointment."

Ahhh, so it's Time Thief Terry. Okay, that makes sense.

Doesn't excuse the fact that they won't mesh him in with current lore...but it makes sense.

*long deep sigh as seren unzips her chest, takes out her heart, and slams it on the table*

I can't keep doing this. Between Wonderful Precure and Odd Squad UK, I'M GONNA DIE.

"And thanks again for volunteering to bring the juice boxes this week."

Oh, if these were alcoholic, there would be so many comments I could make here.

Ah, and there's the Big Ben mention. Honestly, like the Doctor Who reference, it had to happen eventually.

Honestly, I actually thought for a half-second Ozzie would play bad cop. But then I realized he likes helping people and he's too nice for bad cop.

Orli, on the other hand, will snap Terry like a twig and tear right into him like a Nintendo 64 on Crimmis. And there's about a 20/80 chance of that happening.

Bringing "nice agent, not-nice agent" up once was irritating.

Bringing it up twice makes me want to strangle...a tree.

Bringing it up any more will cause me to go after fences next. And my ass can shred a fence.

Say it properly, Gemma. Stop PBS-Kids-fying it.

Hearing the word "roleplay" in any piece of Odd Squad media is some kind of sin, right next to "cosplay".

A piece of me just died.

Don't be stupid. Don't be stu- ah FUCK they're gonna make her stupid, aren't they.

FUCK your culinary biology. All my homes HATE your culinary biology.

All the videos of people putting rubber bands around watermelons and then them exploding? LOL FAKE NO. IT'S SUPPOSED TO DEFLATE HEHEHE.

See, the more I think about it, the more I have to wonder...haven't we already seen Orli say "no" in the show before? She and Olympia are vastly different and one has a clearly-defined goal in life while the other one's just...flat as a wooden board with no motive at all. If Orli had an actual motive like Olympia, this episode would be a lot better, but she doesn't, so...she doesn't.

(On to Part 2!)

[fierceawakening]

Yeah no, people are just on a hair-trigger on the internet and are probably incorrectly pattern-matching you to the kind of a-holes who say "if you can't provide a logical reason for your traditions (that dont hurt anyone) they're unnecessary so we aren't gonna accommodate them". And anyhow they are being way too narrow about what being Jewish is, I'm secular Jewish and I only follow the traditions that are meaningful and valuable to me, I don't do or want to do All The Things right now

Thank you! That makes sense to me. Like the actual Jews I know, including the ones I follow on here, seem when they tell me what they’re actually DOING to be picking and choosing like I am. But then they make these broad info posts that make it sound like the only people in the world who question tradition are ex Christian atheists, and that we’re only doing it because we’ve experienced religious abuse. And it just feels super rude to me?

Like yes, part of why I vehemently defend anyone’s right to depart from tradition if they want to is that I’ve been in coercive groups! Sure. Guilty as charged your Honor.

But! That’s also had a positive side. Looking at traditions with a critical eye isn’t always about being upset! Sometimes it’s about noticing something is meaningful to you and thinking in depth about why, and realizing neat things about yourself along the way.

Like, I never thought that I’d go back to Christianity. But when I really thought about what religious practice HAD felt good to me, I realized that actually, for myself personally, I want spirituality to be about believing everyone is redeemable. Religion gives me a place to put that, as a higher value, without it being my personal duty to forgive when I find I can’t or feel unsafe.

Which led me to the idea that what I wanted was modified Christianity actually. I already understood and knew the traditions of a religion that did that, and the only thingsstopping me were 1) worry people would find out I don’t literally believe in god and 2) feeling like I’d be giving in to the man.

With 1, I realized that actually a lot of practicing Christians ARE functionally atheist. People don’t say it too loud, but if you look into a lot of art and writing, you’ll find “if there is a God, I pray that…” I realized this is super common! You can find people in Ancient Greece saying things in this way! If it’s common, then… people know about it already, and they only avoid saying they’re agnostic out of neurotypical social conventions. Which I’m not good at, so I say it openly.

Which means there are a whole lot more me's out there than a lot of people think, and that was ultimately enough for me to decide I was True Scotsman enough.

With 2, I realized that I’d become hugely invested in finding something cooler, but that I really didn’t have a concept of what this was. So I was posturing, when I already knew there was a community I would like and fit well into. So, you know? It was 2016 and I was scared and fuck it, I wanted to feel better and I didn’t care anymore.

But is that “I dunno I’m Christian because I just am lol?” It could be said, yes! Likely the reason I went back to how I was raised is in part that it’s how I was raised.

But I would not answer the question that way.

Instead, i would say that I spent a long time suspicious of religion in general, and ultimately thought about what purpose I wanted it to have in my life, so while “practicing Christian “ PROBABLY describes it, I mean something very personal and not generalizable about what I decided religion should be for.

I would be really surprised if some people’s relationship to their Judaism isn’t similar! But the narrative Tumblr has latched onto for dear life is “only Christians are like that. If you think it’s common for adolescents to have concerns around religious identity you don’t know what an ethnoreligion is.”

Which is ESPECIALLY galling to me. Yes I know what an ethnoreligion is, many of my relatives are Greek Orthodox.

Greek, the ethno, is right there in the name!

[thessalian]

So, for the record: James Cleverly is our Home Secretary. He's in charge of things like national security, immigration policy, and law enforcement. So the day his own department announces a plan to crack down on that whole "spiking people's drinks" bullshit, this jackass is wandering around a party talking about "a bit of Rohypnol in her drink every night" is "not really illegal if it's only a little bit" and "the secret to a happy marriage is to keep your wife mildly sedated so she doesn't realise there's better men out there".

Now he's pulling the "It was just a jooooooooooke!" crap. "It was clearly intended to be ironic", was Number 10's official statement on the matter.

But the Sunday Mirror decided it was important enough to break the usual "off the record" nature of those kinds of events. The Mirror is one of the most right-wing Tory-supporting rags out there, and if they thought it deserved to be news, when it condemned the Home Secretary so much? Either they're being racist, it clearly wasn't ironic, or both.

Anyway, even "ironic" jokes about this kind of crap need to stop. I mean, honestly, nothing a politician says should be off the record anyway, because I want to know what the politicians who are supposed to be guiding the country I have to fucking live in actually believe and will do behind closed doors, not just eat whatever shit-sandwich soundbytes they want to throw at me. But the fact that he made these kinds of comments the day his own department issued a crack-down on that kind of behaviour is ... kind of telling. If he's fine to talk about spiking someone's drink in a positive way, even "as a joke", what faith do we have that he's actually going to enforce his own fucking policy? Our cops are as much bastards as cops anywhere else; we just don't see as many people die of ACAB as Americans do because not even most of our police carry guns. I am forever grateful for the handgun ban running across the board.

Anyway, this plus ... okay, I know a lot of really good people who are into Warhammer 40K. But I watch this self-confessed WH40K nerd and his immigration and national security policies and I wonder how much the "Purge the Heretics", "For the Emperor", and "Forever War" nature of that whole thing are things he looked at and went, "That's a great idea". Because given the above, he clearly doesn't understand how irony works.

[bylightofdawn]

Oh my god today has been the least restful day off I've had in months. I had to wake up and go to Walmart to get new tires put on my car and then my mom and I went to Verizon to look for a new phone for her because her phone is old and falling apart. Her new boyfriend was going to buy it for her. And thus starts the three-four hours spent in this shitty Cellular Sales.

The rep was terrible. Very high-strung and flightly. We kept trying to find a good special to take advantage of since her phone was useless for trade-in offers. We finally found a 400 dollars off a pixel 8 which was actually a pretty good deal. She gets it comp'd over 36 months and her boyfriend just paid the remaining bal on the device so it's not charging the contract to my brother's verizon account.

Problem was the boyfriend did NOT like the sales rep one bit. Kept getting grumpier and grumpier about him to the point I could see a confrontation was inevitable so I made the suggestion that they go get some food, I would stay there and get everything taken care of.

And like I said, the sales rep was bad. He couldn't figure out how to move her things from her old phone to the new phone. Then he built the entire order but forgot we were going to pay for the remaining balance. So he had to cancel the contract and redo it but didn't know which department he needed to go through and he was steadily getting more and more frustrated about the whole thing.

Then her phone could not activate. I ended up calling verizon activation support because I know who to call due to my job in fraud prevention. Figured out the physical sim didn't activate so we activated the esim which is when my mom and her boyfriend came back. The sales rep went to throw away her physical sim and mom being the hoarder she is wanted to take it with her. He made some comment about it just being trash (cause it was but I personally would have just handed it over without needing to say a peep) and then the boyfriend got riled up saying he wasn't treating us respectfully and things just fucking exploded from there. The boyfriend said something along the lines of "This is bullshit you don't treat people like this" and the rep LOST HIS FUCKING MIND.

Kicked him out of the store, and threatened to call the fucking cops on him just.... a complete crazy fucking meltdown out of nowhere. I mean, I get he's stressed, it's the holidays and we're taking up a lot of his time but y i k e s. Yeah the boyfriend was being a dick by calling him out for how he was acting but NGL I definitely think the rep super overreacted.

And then I had to go over to mom's house to actually figure out how to transfer her stuff. (It was legit the adapter that came with her phone which is what I kinda thought it might be that let me transfer it)

Annnnnd it's now 9:30. I started running at like 10:00.

I'm soooooooooooo tired. I didn't even take the buspar yesterday but I am still tired and exhausted. The only other change I've made is I started taking the iron supplement but I cannot imagine that would affect me like this.

I'm going to try and work on this Spones fic tonight but my brain is like...mush.

[amoret32]

The Departure

A night before everything was in its place. Even the morning went eventful. The bad news came in the night. Not exactly bad news. Come on its not bad news at all. My Boyfriend was just going on a business trip. Not a big deal at all, Right?

"Why you though?" I whined. Of course, I was sad that my boyfriend would be away from me for an entire week. Clearly not good news for me. I hate to be away from him. Now you can call me attention needy, but this is a fact.

"Cause' office people believe that best employees should be chosen for business deals and partnership pitches." He sarcastically chuckled. And of course, he had to make fun of me.

While laying in bed I couldn't help but wonder how the whole week would be passed without him?

The next day when he started packing the bags claiming the flight will be departing tonight, everything became too real. While carefully folding every piece of cloth and putting it in the suitcase, I was pouting at him.

He would look at me and place the clothes in the suitcase. In the end, he came to me and hugged me. Going for my weaknesses, aren't you?

"Come on its only one week! There's no need to be pouting. I'll always call you and keep updating you."

Of course, you will!

"And I will get you from Paris whatever you want!"

Of course, you will.

"And after coming I will make up for the time I missed with you? We will visit our favorite restaurant, We will go to the fair that will be there on the outskirts of the city when I will come!"

I would rather not talk with him.

"And the silent treatment will work, wouldn't it?"

"How did you know that I was saying that in my mind?"

"You are my girlfriend!"

"And you are my boyfriend! You should not leave me like this."

"Baby you are not being any help here. I am also going to miss you there baby! Do you think it is easy for me to stay away from you?"

Fuck he is right? I am not being any help here. I just look at his beautiful which were looking at me already.

"Sorry!"

"I don't need your sorry. Pout all you want but don't stop talking with me. I would seriously hurt me. I can kiss your pout away but i cannot anything with your silent treatment. And you know if you don't say bye bye to me I will not be able-"

Without thinking I kiss him before he finishes. Oh how much I adore this man.

Firstly he gasps and grabs my waist. But then he takes the control and kisses rather hungrily. I don't even when i gave up the control and when he lifted me up before placing me on his lap sitting down on the bed.

But when he entered his tongue in my mouth, i lost my mind and moaned out loud. The wet sounds probably filling up the room now. Along with my moans.

"I told you to pout. Not to kiss me till I forget my flight and fuck you into next week!"

"Did you everything you needed? Every important file and document. Is you laptop charged? Is you phone charged? Did pack enough suits?"

After a long makeout session (Very long if I must highlight), we decided to not argue anymore. I decided to calm down and warned him he doesn't call me after every 12 hours I will personally visit Paris to murder him (not actually).

Helping him pack everything, I made lunch so that doesn't go hungry on the flight. What if the airplane food is too spicy or too tasteless for him. Don't wanna take that risk!

"Don't worry baby, I took everything with me. You are asking me like you didn't tell me these things 80 times before leaving the house."

I gonna miss him. I gonna miss nagging him! Even if it is for one week.

"I gonna miss you and your nagging too!"

"How in the world-"

Now this time he was the one who didn't let me finish and pecked my lips instead.

"Don't miss me too much. I love you! Bye!"

And by saying that he left for the immigration process!

bye :p

[crazy-pages]

The thing which really baffles me is that everybody in tech knows that market incentives are corrosive to research. Even the most die hard capitalists in research are aware that research needs to be long term in a way market relationships can't sustain and it's a constant push and pull between those incentives and the people you put in charge of research funding to invest in anything in industry beyond the investment event horizon. Not just because sometimes you need to invest in long-term things or you get screwed in the long term but because if you turn all of your research into stuff which has to have short-term returns, your research department starts morphing into a development department, starts morphing into production. And then you aren't doing research and when did we get twenty times by the new kid on the block???

Seriously, you can basically define the health of an industry research division in a single parameter: what fraction of research is long term and "non-profitable" (meaning it can't be tied to a fixed known profit value, not that you won't make money from it in the end). This is so well known.

Except we haven't just tied generative machine learning to profit incentives. We have tied it to fucking speculative profit incentives.

This is something that's often done with short-term research in a way that is mostly reasonable, though it also may just be that the semiconductor industry keeps gambling on this and hasn't been burned yet but will be one day. If the industry feels confident that with enough investment it will be able to produce new semiconductor chips with a smaller feature size in 10 years, then companies can land contracts based on that premise, so long as they are contributing to the research. This is in fact basically how the entire tech industry functions, trying to accurately predict what short-term research will enable and chasing that. And it has allowed rapid advancement, though I am still a little bit worried about what happens on the day when what feels like a sure bet gets promised and doesn't get delivered on. (And actually it wouldn't surprise me if this is part of the pressure to develop AI, because we are really scraping the bottom of potential semiconductor feature size improvements. I don't think the industry has any idea how to make money without a next big sure thing that is going to be necessary to invest into remain competitive.)

The thing is that people haven't historically really feel the pressure to fudge results in this research because this research is typically ultra short-term with stuff we know for close to a fact can be accomplished. For one thing, people are going to find out you lied in like, 3 months when they try to implement your system on the factory line. But with AI?

The thing is that AI is basically the definition of ultra long-term speculative research. Even the current stuff that exists with LLMs is part of ultra long-term speculative research, because it is not currently profitable in proportion to the money which has been shoved in. It cannot be profitable in proportion to the money which has been dumped in. And this kind of profit incentive, while it works for ultra short-term research, is corrosive to anything long-term.

Because there is simply so much incentive to lie. If your share price has to be maintained for the next decade purely based on hype about this speculative research you have banked the company on, it's impossible to be honest about difficulties you run into. Even internally, companies have to lie to themselves to maintain the lie to investors. And you just can't do research in that environment!

The whole premise of science as a field is predicated on disconnecting researchers from incentives to lie, not just to others but to themselves as much as possible, and then creating layers of third parties with no incentive to lie on their behalf who have to double check their work. You can't replace all of that with nothing but corporate financing riding a speculative bubble and make everyone involved dependent on hype to get their paycheck for the next decade. And more than just hype, but degree of hype relative to other companies!

That's not an environment anyone can admit setbacks or dead ends in, let alone that the research is straight up not going to provide what was promised.

so like I said, I work in the tech industry, and it's been kind of fascinating watching whole new taboos develop at work around this genAI stuff. All we do is talk about genAI, everything is genAI now, "we have to win the AI race," blah blah blah, but nobody asks - you can't ask -

What's it for?

What's it for?

Why would anyone want this?

I sit in so many meetings and listen to genuinely very intelligent people talk until steam is rising off their skulls about genAI, and wonder how fast I'd get fired if I asked: do real people actually want this product, or are the only people excited about this technology the shareholders who want to see lines go up?

like you realize this is a bubble, right, guys? because nobody actually needs this? because it's not actually very good? normal people are excited by the novelty of it, and finance bro capitalists are wetting their shorts about it because they want to get rich quick off of the Next Big Thing In Tech, but the novelty will wear off and the bros will move on to something else and we'll just be left with billions and billions of dollars invested in technology that nobody wants.

and I don't say it, because I need my job. And I wonder how many other people sitting at the same table, in the same meeting, are also not saying it, because they need their jobs.

idk man it's just become a really weird environment.

[thetangibleghost]

okay im ready to talk about my day now. (which started eight hours ago at 1:30.)

work over all was good, I got moved out of the training area. I was in charge if loading three vans (at the same time) and uhhhhhh. I sucked. But i've sucked at my job this whole time so its okay <3

I didn't really get to sit down, maybe once for a few seconds. I'm just still really bad at time management and I care way to much about making sure the van is organized.

anyways so i had to leave early because I THOUGHT i had a psych appointment. on my way put one of the drivers asked me if i loaded his van and I was like 'no, sorry. or congratulations?' and he laughed and said i did a good job yesterday. he did not see how backed up I got and like three people had to help me. But thats okay.

so i get in the car and reba starts blasting and i have to turn it down to call my psych and i call the number they left the last voice mail from (this voice mail was to tell me if i missed another appointment i would be banned from using their office) but it wasn't the same number as usual?? not actually that important but weird... like what department was I talking to?

So im like "hi what ever bitch alter answered the phone and made the appointment the other day didn't write it down so i need to know what time to come in"

I didn't say that it was more bland and i didn't mention alters because they don't know that yet haha. anyways.

so the front desk person is like "your appointment doesn't exist."

and i was like "that's funny because i need to see a psychiatrist like. Asap." but i didn't say that she just was like lemme transfer you to him (the nurse im gonna see) and then hung up. there was a lot inbetween those things mostly like her talking and me like 'mhmm. yes. i understand. no appointment.'

so i call the actual number this time (im driving during this by the way dont be me) and the front desk person there says my appointment was a week ago and I missed it.

I genuinely had to be like, wait. Did i lose time or something?? but i was so brave and stuck to my guns and was like 'I made an appointment a few days ago tho' and she was like 'oh yeah i see that now thats actually September 15th.' and i was like 'oh that's cool. see u then i guess' <- is out of mood stabilizers and you guys won't refill them with out another appointment even though its fucking lamictal like what am i gonna do? sell it? "yeah you gotta wait a month for them to kick in but once they do... oh boy you'll feel a normal range of human emotions. thats for sure"

So. essentially the next month should be SO fun lets hope I start manic till then because i have school and if my bi-polar makes me fail again im going to sue someone <3

[sadisticwoof-dcmk]

the light we see in each other (it's a whole symphony)

Here is my @shinranweek entry for Day 3 (And there was only one...)

Summary: Mouri Ran accidentally barges into an occupied music room. Too bad it's the only room that has the piano she desperately needs to practice on for her upcoming recital.

Rating: Teen and up (for swearing)

Word Count: 16,139

Read the whole thing on AO3

THURSDAY  

Mouri Ran pushes open the door to the music room.  

From the darkness, the smell of Chinese takeout hits her in the face, and she rolls her eyes. Of course, whoever was in here last would not have aired out the place. That would be too courteous.  

Stepping inside, she carefully feels up the wall for the light switch, holding her breath when the light flickers uselessly for a few seconds before the room finally becomes visible.  

She slumps against the closed door and closes her eyes.  

What a harrowing day it had been.  

First, it had been her neighbour's alarm clock shrieking at her through the wall at five in the morning. Then, when she was finally falling back asleep, her upstairs neighbours decided to start their morning routine of yoga and burpees. Frustrated, she had rolled out of bed, washed her face, fixed herself to some breakfast (only left with the crust of the loaf), gotten dressed, left the house, realised she had forgotten her bus card, went back, caught the second bus, and arrived just in time for her lunch time class. It was also around that time she noticed that her phone had not been charging, so she had to relocate to the library instead of going to the café she had been thinking about.  

And oh yeah.  

It started raining.  

(She can only thank the fates that she keeps a spare umbrella in her bag for emergencies like this)  

While in the library, she had gotten the email reminder about her upcoming piano recital, which sent her anxiety back through the roof, because oh god- She had a recital to do in a few weeks’ time, which would generally be fine, if everything in her life was also on the same wavelength as her.  

But of course, life can't be that easy.  

(She tries not to let her mind wander to the collapsed form back at her apartment)  

Once she deemed her phone to not be on the brink of death, she had packed up her things and bolted for the music department, on her desperate quest to find a room with a piano.  

So caught up in her stress that was her day, she doesn’t expect the empty room to talk to her. “Um... can I help you?”  

Mouri Ran lets out an ear-splitting screech.  

Eyes flying open, she grabs the nearest object (the folded umbrella still in her hand) and yeets it across the room to the source of the voice.  

Her best friend had always lamented about how she must cheat at carnival games, because “those are rigged, Ran” and “there’s no way you can knock the pins down”, but look at her now Sonoko - her aim is solid and true.  

“Ow! What the fuck? ” the man shouts (oh god, that is a man in the room).  

Heart pounding in her throat, she stares, horrified, “H-How what? How did you get in here?”  

“Through the door? How else would I get in here-” he groans, massaging his nose. “What the actual fuck?”  

She takes in the groaning man’s appearance; a crumpled dark brown jumper, flailing jean-clad legs with yellow Minon socks acting as a beacon, messiest case of bed hair she’s seen on campus (and she’s met engineering students), and reddening nose on a vaguely familiar face.  

She’s quite sure she’s seen this person before, maybe a year or so ago, in one of her classes – except she’s very much certain none of the classes she had taken involved music.  

Halfway through her assessment, it suddenly dawns on her that she had just assaulted her poor fellow student with her grey umbrella (it is decorated with various versions of Hello Kitty, a joke gift from her dad which she claims to be her one prized possession), and a tiny squeak escapes past her lips.  

“Oh my goodness, I am so sorry- Are you okay?” Ran asks, dropping her bag to the floor and scampers towards him. “That’s a silly question, that would have hurt- Um, is anything broken?”  

“I’m fine- ” he cuts himself off with a grunt, “I’ve surprisingly had worse.”  

She winces. “Well, I’m glad that it’s not broken, and nothing seems to be bleeding...”  

He waves her off, grabbing a water bottle from his bag and pressing it against his nose. “Honestly don’t worry about it. I needed to wake up anyway.”  

Ran can’t help the snort that falls from her lips, “You were taking a nap?”  

“I had to stay up last night helping the police with a case- didn't get much sleep.”  

And that is what does it for Ran. The explanation answers all of her questions.  

Cases. Police. Familiar face.  

Kudou Shinichi – Saviour of the police, honour student, the one that accidentally set off the fire alarm that time in her first year. The three things that he is famous for.  

(Sonoko had told her that prior to the Fire Alarm Incident, he had been famous because he was the cool student from the States. Ran had witnessed him drink coffee through a straw that morning, so she wasn’t sure how reliable Sonoko’s claim actually was, but since she was a lovely person, she gave him the benefit of the doubt)  

Oh. She had hit Kudou with her umbrella.  

“I too would take a nap in this room. It’s smart,” she says faintly.  

“Thanks,” he hums. “So why are you here? This doesn’t seem like your usual crowd,” Kudou asks, readjusting himself in the stained beanbag (she is pretty sure that had been relocated from the campus library) and plugging in his laptop at the wall.  

Ran gestures at the keyboard at the other end of the cramped room, “I have to practice, and all of the other rooms were taken.”  

“The piano?” he blinks, “Mouri-chan, I thought you were in Ed?”  

She wants to gape at his words, because how on EARTH does he remember that. “I have to know how to play the piano if I want to be work with Kindergartners.”  

Kudou pulls a face, “I forgot about the singing we were forced to do...” He looks up at her, awkwardly hovering, and he startles. “Oh my god- You've just been standing there.”  

She laughs at the absurdity of it all. “I hit you with an umbrella. I think we’re fine.”  

He shakes his head, pointing at the bench by the piano. “Please sit! I- Uh- Listen, you need the piano?”  

“Yeah...” Ran carefully lowers herself onto the seat, “The exam is in three weeks, and the keyboard I had been using broke.” Broke is nice way of putting it. She had come home one day to find the stand had collapsed on itself, the keyboard finally having given up on life. And she had just used her savings to buy herself a better laptop (the old one moments away from overheating and burning holes through her bag).  

Kudou cocks his head, his finger tapping against the water bottle. “I had to get out of my apartment for a while, so I booked this room, since no one was using it, and everywhere else was full.”  

Ran can relate. She had spent the past month and a half alone in her apartment, trying simultaneously type out her assignments while practicing for her recital. She’s a little sick of staring at the same four walls. “I get it. It can get a bit overwhelming.”  

She glances at her watch, shoulders slumping. “I should get going. I need to find another piano in the area and hope that there isn’t anyone else using the room.” She mimes throwing something, “Otherwise it could get messy again-”  

“Stay!”  

...What?  

Ran raises an eyebrow and fixes him with a bewildered stare.  

Kudou flushes (actually flushes ) and stammers out the rest of his words. “I- I’m not using the piano. You can use it, as long as you don’t mind me being here?”  

“Kudou-san.” She wonders if the umbrella knocked some of his braincells out of alignment, because what is he saying? Who in their right mind would offer someone to use their room, especially if that person assaulted them with a household item. “You have no reason to offer that- You were here first! I’ll look somewhere else-”  

“There isn’t any room left- I checked,” Kudou presses his lips together. “I really need a room- I don’t like being in the open, like in the library, so this was the next best thing. But obviously you need to actually use the piano here.”  

Oh. That makes sense.  

“So if you don’t care that I’m here, you’re more than welcome to use it.”  

Now, she has a choice.  

She could either politely refuse and refer Kudou to the nurse (the idea becoming more and more ideal) and try to find another piano on campus, even if the thought of leaving the room to find something else is becoming more and more unappealing.  

Or-  

“If... if you’re sure. I would be grateful if I could use this practice room with you.” And maybe this way, she won’t flunk her piano exam coming up. Hopefully.  

He clears his throat. “That’s fine by me.” Now that the ball is back in his court, he seems to have lost some of that nervous energy. “I’ve booked the space from five in the afternoon. On the weekend, I have it from three, if you wanted to come in as well.”  

She runs through her calendar in her head. Monday and Tuesday she has her receptionist job at the medical practice until five-thirty; Wednesday and Thursday she finishes classes at four; Friday she has classes in the morning, and then has to go train her kids at the Karate Dojo in Beika, which doesn’t finish up until seven; Saturday she spends her day studying and typing out her assignments; and Sunday she has to go teach the kids again in the morning, followed by her piano lessons with her teacher in the afternoon.  

Ran feels the panic in her chest slowly dissolve. “I wouldn’t be able to get here until the evening for most nights during the week- How long did you have the room booked for?”  

“Doesn’t matter. The department is always open. I would probably leave before eleven, considering it’s the last bus, but it’s up to you. If you catch the train, you could stay until you’re ready to go.” Kudou shrugs, “Although I suggest leaving before six in the morning, since someone else has it booked at that time.”  

“Thank you so much, Kudou-san.”  

The other student nods, “No problem. Feel free to get set up- I think everything is there for you to use.”  

Ran relaxes in the chair. She has no idea how she managed to get lucky, a keyboard and someone who is kind enough to let her use it. She powers on the keyboard, playing an arpeggio as she adjusts the volume. She lowers it enough so that it wouldn’t distract Kudou (or worse, embarrass herself in front of him with the many mistakes she knows she will make).  

Once she is satisfied, she pulls out her music from her bag, setting it on the stand and flicking to the correct page. “I uh-” she says, flustered, “Let me know if I’m being too loud- I don’t want you to- I wouldn’t want you to have to hear my playing-”  

He waves her off with the same kind of indifference he held when he had let her stay in the room, “It’s fine, Mouri-chan.” Letting out a yawn, he opens up his laptop and makes himself comfortable in his beanbag.  

Ran swallows. She supposes there’s no harm in it, especially if he doens’t care.  

She runs her fingers across the keys, playing through her warm ups.  

What an interesting few weeks it will be. 

FRIDAY  

“Not going to throw your umbrella at me this time?” Kudou asks drily the moment she closes the door behind her.  

She startles, whirling around, “Oh don’t scare me like that, Kudou-kun!” She should not have lowered her guard down just because she couldn’t see him from the window in the door. Holding up her insulated water bottle, she adds threateningly, “I could have clocked you with this.”  

He shifts in the ratty beanbag and grimaces at the imagined pain, “Yeah, please refrain from doing that. You would have a murder scene on your hands.”  

“Are you not a detective?” She places the water bottle on the floor next to the keyboard and sits in the uncomfortable plastic chair, hauling her bag into her lap. What the hell does she have in her bag- oh the book that Tashiro-chan lent her. Right.  

“I refuse to solve my own death.”  

Ran looks over to him and grins, pulling out the red music folder and placing it on the stand, “A real shame.”  

His lips twitch into a small smile before averting his gaze. Stretching out in the beanbag, he uses his foot to snag the strap of his bag, deposited haphazardly a little while away, and drags it across the floor back towards him, almost knocking over his iced coffee in the process.  

She laughs quietly. The floor has a brown stain near the full-length mirror that she assumes is from a similar accident, so what’s one more stain to add to the collection?  

Kudou hums victoriously as he fishes out a pair of sturdy-looking headphones from his bag, sleek black with silver detailing which catches in the light, and jams it onto his head.  

Ran opens her mouth to ask him, to double check that it is okay for her to practice playing the piano, but considering he had seemingly ended the conversation, she prays that she hadn’t misinterpreted his words from yesterday.  

Oh well.  

He could tell her if he wanted her to stop.  

With that, she powers on the keyboard and left hand splayed across the keys while the right dances across the control panel, adjusting the volume and turning the plastic sleeves of her folder to the correct page. If he had his headphones on, she could probably afford to have it a little louder than yesterday, considering she could hardly hear herself, feeling far too self-conscious with him listening.  

She shoots one last look at Kudou, curled up in the corner of the room, brows furrowing at whatever was on his screen, and begins to play her warm ups. 

SATURDAY

She arrives earlier today.

Glancing at her watch, a gift from her parents for her twentieth birthday, she purses her lips. Surely going into the practice room at four o’clock, a whopping two and a half hours earlier than the previous times, would be fine. Kudou had told her that he had booked the rooms from three in the afternoon after all.

There would be nothing wrong with her showing up early – she wants to take full advantage of the allocated time she can spend in there.

She wants to be there early so she can use the piano.

Exactly.

Ran pivots on the spot and walks quickly away from the music department.

She just needs tea. She remembers seeing a tea shop on the way, and Sonoko had raved on about a new type of flavour that had dropped which she “needed to try or else life is meaningless Ran!” or so she claims. Her best friend tends to be on the dramatic side, so she takes every Suzuki Statement TM with a grain of salt.

With a goal in mind, she marches down the beaten path, a crow squawking at her in what she can only assume as judgement hidden in the trees above her, and finds herself standing in line inside the small shop.

It’s a cute little thing, with cream painted walls and pale pink accents, gold trimming around the windows and displays, white tables and mint green booths along the edges of the shop. She admires the cloud-like light fixtures while she waits for the couple in front of her to finish ordering.

She notices a few students crammed into the seats, a drink in one hand, pen in the other, eyes glued to the screen of their laptops. The place is definitely somewhere she would gravitate towards if she needed a space to study outside of her house.

But she also has a strange attachment towards the music room on campus, with its washed-out yellow walls flaking in places, the air-conditioning unit that is slightly too noisy, the beanbag that was stolen from the library (Kudou seemed far too pleased with admitting to the theft when considering that he himself was a detective).

---

Fifteen minutes later, she finds herself back at the music department with a drink in hand, the sweet flavour bursting in her mouth with every sip. She shakes the purple-tinted tea with a thoughtful nod. She will have to pass on the glowing review to her friend.

Shuffling through the building, she taps her student ID at the security points, making her way down the staircase, the natural light disappearing as she delves deeper into the building, replaced by the fluorescent bulbs in the ceiling.

She walks around the corner and blinks at the sight of Kudou pacing the hallway in front of the bathrooms, phone in hand, talking in hushed tones.

He catches her eyes and he pauses, murmuring something to the phone before lowering the device from his ear, “Hey Mouri-chan. I have to finish this call- feel free to get set up inside. I shouldn’t take too much longer.”

“No problem,” she nods, passing by him with a small wave. She unlocks the door to the room, careful not to spill her drink, and dumps her belongings by the keyboard.

He hadn’t said anything about her being early, nor did he seem upset by it. She could work with that. It’s nice to know that he hadn’t been kidding when he said it was okay for her to be here, in his space that he had procured for himself.

Ran places her drink on the small wooden box someone had left in the room, the perfect size for her to keep her phone and cup within easy reaching distance. Pulling out her folder from her bag, she gives one last look out the door, half curious as to what the phone call could be about.

Maybe a case? A classmate? A friend? A partner?

(She pretends that the last one doesn’t send her stomach into knots)

Time to start practicing.

---

(Half an hour later, the door opens, and she immediately stops playing, head turning.

Ran watches as Kudou pads inside, settling into his corner. Cautiously, she asks, “Everything okay?”

He startles at being addressed, but he quickly meets her gaze. “I’m okay, Mouri-chan. Just a friend needing help with something.”

“You got it sorted?”

“We figured it out in the first five minutes. They just proceeded to talk my ear off for the next hour.”

She laughs at his miffed expression. “Sounds like a wonderful friend.”

“Not when you’re trying to study, but what can you do.” Contrary to his words, he looks pleased.)

Read More

[drarrily-we-row-along]

Veritaserum Prompt Fic (Part 10)

(Okay- I'm not going to lie, I took a little bit of sadistic joy at everyone's outrage and devastation over the previous chapter. But only because I know what's coming. I promise we'll have a happy ending. Anyway. Start with part 1 on tumblr or jump over to AO3 to read the whole thing, if you like.)

-----------------

Harry woke up smiling.

This was not something that had ever happened to him prior to the last week, but now the bed smelled like Draco, and the sun was slipping in through the curtains and warming his face, and Harry was free.

He'd never been this happy in his life.

Rolling over, he reached out, patting the bed and trying to find his lover's body so he could drag him over and kiss him awake.

When his searching turned up empty, Harry opened one eye to look at the empty space next to him. He frowned and cast a wandless tempus: 10:37. Harry blinked and summoned his wand and recast: 10:37.

That was strange, he never slept that late. Although, he supposed it explained why Draco was already up and out of bed, probably already out in his workshop working on whatever potion he'd been brewing the past week or so.

After a good stretch and pulling his hair up into a messy bun on top of his head, Harry made his way to the kitchen and over to the coffee pot. He frowned again when he found it empty and turned to head outside and make sure Draco was alright.

Before he'd gotten more than a few steps, his eyes caught on a piece of parchment and a familiar hawthorn wand laying on top of the island. "No," he whispered, heart freezing in his chest.

(Read more below the cut)

He picked up the letter off the island with a trembling hand and read

Dearest Harry, How can I even begin to tell you all that you mean to me? A less cowardly man than I would have found a way to say it to your face, but we both know that bravery is more your department. You've given me so much, Harry. I could never have imagined falling in love, never imagined that someone might love me in return. But that's why I had to do this, you see that don't you? Not because I don't love you but because I do. I love you with every fiber of my being, with all that I am, and you are mine, Harry. And I couldn't let you pay the price for my sins. I couldn't let you give up everything for me. Granger helped me draw up a contract with the Minister himself, you three certainly have a lot of friends in high places. In exchange for me, they're clearing you of all charges. Don't be angry with her; she just wants what is best for you, as well you must know by this point in your friendship. I know you're hurting right now, love. I know that this is breaking your big, perfect, beautiful heart; it's breaking the pathetic, shriveled excuse of a heart that I have, too. But it will pass, my darling, if you let it. So please, for me, let it go. Let me go. Be happy, be in love, live whatever life you want. Travel. Go to the States and do whatever muggle thing you wanted to do. You deserve the best life. Please know that I will spend the rest of my life grateful for you. And I will never forget the time when you were mine. You are, without exception, the best thing that has ever happened to me. Forever yours, Draco

Harry stared at the parchment in his hand, trailing trembling fingers over Draco's elegant script as his eyes blurred and his breathing came too fast. He clenched the letter to his chest, gasping against the ache of his heart expanding to accommodate the sadness and the sense of loss.

Without another thought he apparated straight into Ron and Hermione's kitchen.

"We thought you might show up at some point," Ron's voice said behind him.

Harry whipped around to see them both sitting at the table, "What the fuck did you do?" he asked, voice low and dangerous.

Hermione sighed, "What he asked us to."

"Why?" he asked before the enormity of this situation hit him all over, the realization that he'd never see Draco again stealing the air from his lungs. He bent forward, putting his hands on his knees, "I can't breathe," he managed, trying to suck breath into his lungs and failing.

Ron was at his side in an instant, easing him onto the floor as Hermione appeared in front of him, "let your head drop between your knees. Focus on a slow inhale, slow exhale," she said and Harry tried to sync up his breathing with hers until his heart stopped racing.

He leaned his head back against the wall and scrubbed his hands over his face. "He's gone," he whispered. Then he opened his eyes and looked at them, "How could you let this happen?"

Hermione looked down at her hands, "Draco reached out to me the day after the trial. He said he couldn't trap you, couldn't force you to live a life on the run again."

"And that he couldn't bear the thought of you getting caught," Ron added.

"We wouldn't have gotten caught," he said derisively.

Hermione shook her head, "Maybe not but what about every other person in your life, Harry? You would have spent the rest of your life separated from them."

"We miss you, mate," Ron added.

He shook his head and swiped angrily at the tears in his eyes, "Then we could have figured something out. It had only been a week!" he protested. "Just one week, we could have-" he broke off and covered his mouth. After a heart beat, he stood up, "I can't be here right now. I can't-" he shook his head, "I can't do this."

"Harry-" Hermione started.

"He asked me not to be mad at you," he said, "but I'm-" he broke off, his hands trembling as he tried to open the door. "I need-" he tried again before simply giving up and walking out the door. He needed Draco.

"Harry!" Ron called behind him but he just kept walking.

He'd come back. He'd forgive them. He knew he would, he just needed a little time.

-------------

However, leaving was actually a seemingly bad idea.

In the 30 minutes after he left the house, he learned that part of the "deal" that Draco had struck with Kingsley involved the Ministry being able to tell whatever lies they wanted to about Draco. Some papers claimed that it had been a love potion, some claimed it was a cursed object, some claimed he'd been imperiused.

Harry stood in front of a newsstand, seething as he read the headlines. How could they have let this happen? How could Draco have signed a contract that allowed for this?

And then he saw it: The Quibbler. Draco and Harry were on the front page, just like every other newspaper, but the article was titled, "From the Wrinkspurts: They're in Love". The world tilted, righting itself slightly as a plan started to form in the back of his mind.

He looked up at the man running the stand who'd been just staring at him, "I need one of everything," he said. "I don't have any money but I'll bring-"

"They're yours," the man interrupted, grabbing papers from all the different piles. He even tossed on one for gardening and one for cooking.

"Err," Harry, "Not those ones," he said, nudging the two irrelevant ones away. "Just the ones about me," he added, "At the risk of sounding self centered."

"Whatever you want, mate," the man said. "They're yours."

"Thanks," Harry said, grabbing the stack of them and concentrating so he could apparate through the Ministry's wards because he simply didn't give a fuck anymore.

There was a sound vaguely like glass shattering as Harry popped up in front of the secretary's desk outside of Kingsley's office. She shrieked and a coffee cup went flying, breaking when it hit the ground.

"I'm here to see Kingsley," he said simply.

A hand fluttered up to cover her heart, "I'm terribly sorry, Mr. Potter, but he's in a meeting."

"Interrupt it," he said. "I guarantee what I have to say is more important."

"I can't just-"

"Look," Harry interrupted. "Just go and ask him. If he tells you to send me away, that's fine, I'll go."

She appeared to consider this for a moment, then she stood up and made her way to the door, knocking and slipping in.

A moment later she reappeared, "Would you mind waiting for just one moment?" she asked, gesturing to the chairs across from her desk. "He'll be right with you."

It was barely two minutes before three people came hurrying out of the room, avoiding Harry's gaze.

Kingsley followed, "Harry," he greeted, "Please come in."

Harry stood up and followed Kingsley in, not allowing himself to feel inferior because of the sweatpants and t-shirt he was still wearing.

"What can I do for you?" he asked.

"Let Draco Malfoy go," he replied.

Kingsley raised an eyebrow, "You know as well as I do that we're not going to do that. It's not possible."

"I thought you might say that," he replied as he started tossing magazines one by one onto the man's desk. "But you really ought to have told them all the same story."

"What?" the man asked with a laugh, "Why? Why should that matter?"

"Because it's going to make the Ministry look even more incompetent when I tell all of them the truth."

He shrugged, "It's of little concern, it won't matter."

"See, that's where you're wrong," Harry replied. "Because I'm not just going to tell them the truth about Draco Malfoy and his heinous treatment by Ministry officials prior to his trial. I am going to tell them everything and I'm going to watch the Ministry burn."

"Harry, be reasonable," he said. "So you tell everyone your story about finding Malfoy in the Department of Mysteries, garner a little sympathy because he was a teenager and now you're in love," he continued. "But it doesn't take much to drag his name through the mud again. To remind people that he tried to kill Dumbledore, to remind them of the cabinet that let death eaters into Hogwarts, to remind people of the lives that were lost because of him."

Harry's veins burned with rage and it was all he could do to keep himself from lashing out.

Kingsley shook his head, "Do what you must, but your story will never be enough."

He let out a humorless chuckle and leaned forward, bracing his fist on the desk, "I got into the Department of Mysteries within a matter of months. Do you really believe that the only information I got was about Draco Malfoy?"

"You'll be prosecuted, if you disclose any information you obtained illegally" he replied steadily.

"I am Harry fucking Potter," he said with a growl. "If you try to prosecute me, you will have an uprising on your hands. Especially after everything I'm going to expose. So good luck with that, I'll enjoy watching this burn even faster," he said, gesturing to the space around them.

"Harry," he said, "You must know that what you're asking of me simply isn't possible," a hint of desperation creeping into his voice.

The corner of Harry's mouth ticked up, "I'm going to win," he said. "And we both know it." He turned, leaving the magazines spread across his desk. "The only question is how much do you want to see burn before it happens." When he reached the door he called over his shoulder, "I'm holding a press conference tomorrow at six." He looked back at the other man, "You have until then to get him released."

On his way out he cast a patronus that he was sending to Azkaban with a simple message. I'm getting you out.

-----------------------

Okay, friends. There will be at least one more part of this fic (maybe two) but this is getting too long. <3

Part 9 | Part 11

[catilinas]

ok now that it's not 3am hopefully i can be more coherent. but also please bear in mind that i have watched through the whole show a whole: once. extremely recently. and also haven't read oedipus rex for approx one million years, and have Also only actually Studied seneca's oedipus, which is fucked up in a slightly different direction. and also departs from sophocles' oedipus in having tireisias literally summon laius' ghost to ask who killed him. so that's a fun parallel to think about!

anyway. the point i only made about two thirds of last night probably ends up in the vicinity of: yes it does turn out that oedipus / JGY did do those things! but how are the internal audience of The Wider Community, and the external audience of You The Viewer made to be convinced of this? in both cases narrative devices (the external audience already knowing the oedipus myth / fate being real in greek tragedy probably / prophecy real / Focalisation Via Ghost / also i am thinking about how sisi's story is revealed by narration and flashback simultaneously. does that happen Anywhere else? would it be as believable if it was just her narration, without the seeming veracity lent by the narrative device of visual flashback? i think about this often) privilege the revelation of a particular angle of a story, And give that revelation a level of certainty/authority that you wouldn't get from A Character Just Saying The Same Thing In An Argument.

i think also girard (hi girard) would think it important to say that Which angle of a story the narrative is made to privilege is. arbitrary is the best word i can think of. not in that an author is making arbitary decisions about the direction of the narrative (+ sophocles Isn't really able to Change the narrative, only to arrange how it happens), but in that: in the moment of mimetic crisis, Anyone could be scapegoated / sacrificed to/by the narrative like this. but the act of sacrifice (including the creation of the Guilt Narrative, the truth of which Does Not Matter to the violence being enacted) functions to obscure the arbitrary nature of the sacrifice.

which! (i'm about to ignore oedipus completely rip) a) explains why JGY doesn't die for reasons to do with his actual crimes ('The attribution of guilt that henceforth passes for “true” differs in no way from those attributions that will henceforth be regarded as “false,” except that in the case of the “true” guilt no voice is raised to protest any aspect of the charge.') ('sacrifice is primarily an act of violence without risk of vengeance.'). not getting into the depths of legal / judicial systems as sacrificial but it's like. 'guilt' / 'justice needing to be done' is more about designating certain targets of violence as acceptable and then carrying out that violence in a way that leaves no risk / possibility of vengeance on their behalf than anything else.

and b) literally that is JGY's whole point to WWX in the convo in ep48 that made me the most insane out of everything in the entire show because. he just kept tweeting out the mimetic theory thesis statements. something along the lines of 'peace' (whose peace?) relying on the existence of conflict against acceptable targets of violence (/someone/ is going to get scapegoated. what does it take to redirect that?). and again. until the violence actually kicks in, the direction is arbitrary. but then because JGY is saying all this after the violence has occurred, Of Course the target was inevitably going to be WWX ('A particular version of events succeeds in imposing itself; it loses its polemical nature in becoming the acknowledged basis of the myth, in becoming the myth itself.') ('The old pattern of each against another gives way to the unified antagonism of all against one.').

(and ok uh. i'm still midway through the novel but got to wwx losing his shit at nightless city literally yesterday and went Absolutely Nuts over the narrative refusing to describe events basically as soon as jyl dies—like no, you the reader Do Not get to know what actually happened! you only get to see the polemical version of events already having succeeded in becoming the acknowledged myth! augh.)

so what if JGY's list of reasons for WWX inevitably being scapegoated sounds equally applicable to himself. that's the crisis of differentiation babes. but anyway. when the fact that 'guilty' and 'requiring justice' and 'being (made) an acceptable target of violence' are related concepts and can flow into one another but are very extremely not Equivalent. and! are attributed to a person less by being True than by a particular narrative internal to the story managing to Stick. when that fact is emphasised via the Main Narrative being very visible about also doing the exact same thing.

wrt 2) honestly who is to say creon Wasn't trying to overthrow him. that is kind of a vibe in oedipus at colonus tbh. am i only going With that vibe because the existence of that narrative of potential guilt is making creon seem very scapegoatable. is it because creon is oedipus' brother-in-law and Of Course hashtag Enemy Brothers would have that conflict. Of Course that conflict will continue in eteokles and polyneikes. who can say. also was it in antigone the musical where there's this suggestion that creon totallyyyyyy was doing fucked up shit and maybe causing their civil war. that was fun.

and 3) i would soooooo read that but also i NEED to know who the equivalent to antigone would be in this situation! + the theban civil war <3

#this play isn't even really about the incest! it's about the nature of fate and the cost of truth!!#<- prev YEAH. and now im thinking about that one bit of uhhhhhh violence and the sacred#'If we eliminate the testimony brought against Oedipus in the second half of the tragedy then the conclusion of the myth#far from seeming a sudden lightning flash of the truth striking down the guilty party and illuminating all the mortal participants#seems nothing more than the camouflaged victory of one version of the story over the other#the polemical version over its rival—the community’s formal acceptance of Tiresias’s and Creon’s version of the story#thereafter held to be the true and universal version the verity behind the myth itself'#rip i realise i am a) pasting literally a paragraph in the tags and b) thinking abt jgy as oedipus instead#(he Did have a patricide moment though. like that is notably a thing that did also happen if under very different circumstances)#but mostly i am thinking about how the revelations of jgy's crimes are consistently Focalised Through Other Stuff#like are you seeing the actual thing or like. someone else talking about a letter written about someone else knowing about etc etc etc#and there is a limit to how much of that is just because the protagonist isn't able to see it Directly#but the result is like. im not going to paste another girard paragraph but there IS one about how all the accusations against oedipus Are#Just An Argument with tiresias (and creon?) and it's only the injection via prophecy etc of what an audience Knows is in the myth that#breaks the stalemate of This Is Just An Argument by Revealing the crimes the audience already knows were fated#i think the way the narrative (can it count as a narrative if it's a play) of oedipus rex relies on an audience knowing and trusting a myth#is v similar to how the narrative of mdzs/cql uses focalisation to allow The Victory Of One Version Of The Story Over The Other etc

@catilinas I am reading this tag analysis on the Oedipus post like 👀👀👀 and wANT TO HEAR MORE because

1.) The discrepancies between the version of events in CQL that we see unfold as viewers in real time and the version we get from NMJ during the Empathy sequence are a constant subject of rumination for me, and they're yet another example of seeing JGY through not one but two sets of filters, and NMJ's version of events is the last we see, and thus forms our lasting impression, but it's so far removed from the originals you don't even realize how much they've omitted unless you watch them back-to-back. Meanwhile, Tiresias's account is one of the first things we hear, but it colors everything that comes after it because We All Know The Story, the characters themselves fixate on it, and everything unfolds more or less in real time so we the viewers don't have time to forget anything and never got to see Oedipus or Jocasta or Laius outside of this moment.

2.) something something JGY claims that someone tried/ is trying to harm him every time he's confronted, and Oedipus accuses Creon of plotting to overthrow him

3.) what if "JGY lives" AU in the style of Oedipus at Colonus

[moonctzeny]

baby, we're two strangers

pairing: jeong jaehyun x fem!reader

genre: smut

word count: 2,255

summary: "When you attend your company's black mask party, you expect free booze and boring small talk with your co-workers. What you don't expect is to meet a cute stranger, who's more than willing to take you out of your misery. You don't know anything about him, not even his name, only the two deep dimples adorning his cheeks"

warnings:  alcohol consumption, fingering, cunnilingus, smut in public (what else did you expect from me), jaehyun is a little on the subbier side at some point(??) but not really

a/n: happy birthday to our precious jaehyun! hope you like this anon, sorry it took so long :(

You always thought those business parties were a pain in the ass. You barely managed to go through 5 days a week with your co-workers without committing first degree murder, now you had to see them during your precious weekends too? The thought of you starting small talk with the lady at the front desk, or having to laugh with your boss’s terrible humour all night made you sick to your stomach. But alas, you know how much your supervisor loved those kinds of parties, and your wallet needed that promotion. He’d lecture you about how they cultivate group spirit and strengthen the company’s teamwork. You just saw it as an excuse to get drunk free of charge.

Catching your reflection in the mirror, you spot a stray hair that escaped the adhesion of your new hairspray, and you quickly brush it to place with your fingers. Your favourite black dress hugged your body, simple jewellery decorated your skin. You don’t even know why you bothered with eye makeup, the obligatory black mask for tonight’s dress code hiding most of your face already, with the exception of your red lipstick. You wonder whether the people who just quickly rushed by you in the hallways, too focused on their own deadlines and to-do lists would even recognize you.

The party was boring, just like you predicted. You’d given up long ago in trying to keep the conversation going with Matt from the IT department (who proved to be the most boring man on earth, apparently) and planted yourself right next to the booze table. You had your own little wine tasting party in the past hour, trying aged drinks from 10 years ago up to vins ordinaires. The alcohol relaxed your muscles and left a pleasant buzz in your head, effectively drowning out the dj’s playlist that only had hit songs from 2016. You were content in your solitude, satisfied with just staring at your co-workers interacting with each other, noticing who disliked who, who were the funny ones, who needed help with social interactions. But your comfortable loneliness wouldn’t last for long. 

“Mind if I join you?”

Ugh. Just what you needed. Matt from the IT department probably told his buddy, Ben - who keeps rudely staring at your skirts at work - that you’re here and informed him about your location. Maybe if you ignored him he would go away. Or maybe you’d just tell him that you suddenly need to go to the bathroom. Had he ever heard you speak? You wonder if he’d believe you if you told him you were deaf, actually.

You turned around to face the man, hoping that he didn’t know sign language when you finally made eye contact with him. This definitely wasn’t Ben. He was the most beautiful man you’d ever seen in your life.

He was tall, with loose curls adorning the top of his head. His porcelain skin seemed to absorb all the light in the room, then send it out three times as bright. He looked fit, his small waist cinched in with the buttons of his suit, filled in fully in all the right places. You could only manage a deranged hum that barely sounded human. 

Through the small holes of the black mask he was also wearing, you can tell he was staring at you. You tried to keep the eye contact but failed miserably, your heart picking up a pace that sure can’t be healthy.

“I don’t think I’ve seen you around. Do you work in the IT department on the bottom floor, maybe?”

You clear your throat, begging the wine in your system not to mess this up for you by making a fool of yourself. “I also work on the top floor. Maybe you just didn’t notice me before.”

“No no”, he insists, taking a sip from his drink as well while raking up and down at you with his eyes, “I would definitely remember”.

Your cheeks are burning up at this point and you leave your drink at the table, not trusting your clammy hands to not drop the 2017 Merlot all over the floor. You were done acting like boo boo the fool. You weren’t gonna let this one slip away.

“It’s weird, I don’t remember you either. And you seem like such nice company”

He smiles at your reciprocation and you almost gasp at the appearance of two deep dimples on his cheeks, framing his lovely smile. He looks like a mixture of a prince and what you pictured Edward Cullen to look like when you were reading The Twilight Saga as a teenager.

“What department do you work at, then?”

You have to roll your eyes. The wine has made you a little impatient, and the heat of your body was getting hard to ignore.

“Here’s the thing Dimples, one thing I really fucking hate is small talk. So how about you really entertain me out of this boring party?”

He seems taken aback by your sudden confidence, yet amused either way. He doesn’t miss the fact that you’re the one checking him out now, your whole body leaning against him.

“I figured I should be a gentleman first”

“I don’t want a gentleman. I need a distraction”

He flashes you those dimples again and you get the sudden urge to tackle him.

“I see. Wanna get out of here?”

You didn’t need to hear more. Taking his hand, you lead the mysterious stranger outside the hall area the party was held at, finding an empty bathroom. You felt naughty dragging a man - a stranger at that - to a place like this, reminding you of your days as a teenager. A cold breeze sneaking through the little window spread goosebumps all over the skin of your legs that was uncovered by your short dress, yet you were hyper aware of the heat emitted from the man’s body.

The moment your hands left the rotating lock, you felt his body towering over yours, then the pressure of his soft lips. He tasted sweet, like the liquor he had enjoyed earlier, his hands snaking around your waist to bring you even closer against him. You kissed with vigor and a passion that was burning in your belly, and you suck on his tongue to show him a sneak peek of your talents. He moans in your mouth, a deep rumble that you gladly swallow up, your fingers tugging on his locks in hope you get another one out of him.

You do, and he’s had enough, wrapping his hands around your legs and lifting you up on the counter. He’s sitting right between your legs, right where you want him most, and your dress has now well ridden up, only one layer between you. He seems to be thinking the same thing as his teeth are breaking the skin of your neck, one hand behind you on the mirror, staining the glass.

“Can I make you feel good?”, he asks with a voice filled with arousal and the want to please. In that moment, you wanted to moan out his name, followed by a ‘yes, please’ but you realised you never asked for it, and it didn’t really matter at this point. 

You nod back pleadingly, your eyes watery with how much you’re desperate for any sort of friction. He lifts the hand that had been kneading the soft skin of your hips, and places his thumb right over your lips. Like a reflex, your tongue peeks out from between your teeth, tasting the saltines of his finger. He moves it further inside, satisfied with the feeling and your tongue dancing around it, and when he has finally pushed half of it in you start to suckle the digit. 

The stranger’s eyes haven’t left your lips for a second, completely mesmerized by your mouth’s work and he messes up your red lipstick a bit, dragging his finger down your chin, leaving a red line behind. Dipping his thumb back in your mouth again, he lets you suck a little more until you have coated it with a satisfying amount of spit, then brings it right over your panties.

They are cotton, dampened from the moisture of his fingers and your own arousal. He applies pressure right over your clit, just enough to see you squirm on that counter, then continues to draw figure eights over the fabric. His finger dips in your opening on the lower curve of the number and you feel yourself get wetter, holding on tightly to the man’s broad shoulders and moaning in satisfaction.

He shuts you up with a kiss, nibbling on your lower lip as he pushes you panties aside, and you’re a little embarrassed with the printed watermelons they have on them. He toys with you a little, spreading your wetness around before finally dipping in, smirking at the way your head falls back. 

The heels of your feet are sitting stubbornly on the marble surface of the counter, knees next to your shoulders to give your new friend as much access as he needed. There was no time for you to be ashamed for showing him all of you, the pleasure was overflowing and ripping out your seams. He starts a trail of kisses from the junction of your next, sucking and licking his way to your chest, and frees one of your boobs with his other hand. The cold and arousal has your nipple stay erect and he seems to enjoy the view, sucking lightly and then harshly, while following the same pace petting your pussy. 

“Am I a good company?”, he asks you then, and you’d expect his tone to be teasing but it’s anything but. He’s looking back at you with wide eyes, expecting your feedback and you pet his hair, lowering his head down with the tiniest bit of pressure so that his mouth reconnects with your chest.

“You’re doing so good, baby. Are you going to make me cum?”

He nods eagerly and you lift him up with the collar of his shirt, and you know his expensive cologne will dwell on your fingers after you’re done. You bring him into a kiss, tasting his lips before you whisper over them.

“Then you have to try a little harder”

You could practically see the determination in his eyes, and he wastes no time as he immediately gets on his knees. His breath is cool over your hot core, the feeling sending tingles down your spine. The anticipation is so high that when his tongue finally comes in contact with your sensitivity you almost yelp. 

His talent isn’t limited to his fingers, you think as he leaves kitten licks over your clit, giving the bundle of nerves a gentle suck periodically. Just as you’re getting used to the soothing circles of his tongue he dips one more finger in, successfully stretching you open and you bite your hand to stifle your moans. You’re worried that your wetness will drip down to the floor but then you’re reminded of your panties, the friction of the fabric stimulating you even more. 

“I’m gonna cum”, you moan in a high pitched tone, bracing both you and the man feasting over you on his knees. One last suck and you’re thrown over the edge, legs shaking as you’re desperately trying to hold yourself in place, before you fall or crush his head with your thighs. He lets you ride out your high, still dipping his fingers in and out slowly, prolonging your pleasure as much as possible. When you both feel like you’re done he gets up again, drying up his chin that is wet with your come. The tent in his slacks is painfully visible, and you rub over it seductively as you also rub your still exposed nipple.

“How about I pay you back”

The stranger doesn’t have time to answer, a loud knock making you both jump in shock and you quickly get decent again.

“Is someone still in there? I really need to use the bathroom”

“Coming!”

“Yes!”

You facepalm at the dumb mistake, exposing yourselves so easily at the man on the other side of the door. He lets out a rumbling laugh, and if there was really such a thing as ‘the end of the world’ you wish to any god out there that it happens right now.

“Ahh, I get what’s going on. You keep at it kids, another bathroom became available just now. And use protection!”

You bury your face in the stranger’s shoulder, and you feel him laugh silently at the ridiculousness of the situation. He opens the door just a slither, and when he makes sure no one is waiting for you outside the bathroom, he leads you back to the main hallway.

“So that was…”

“...hot”, he finishes your sentence with a naughty smile and you swear those dimples are gonna kill you.

“My name is y/n”, you say and firmly shake his hand, the gesture too formal compared to the things you’ve just finished doing together, “I still want to thank you for that, if you do too, of course”

“Jaehyun”, he says right back, then rubs the skin right under your lips with his thumb, and his fingertip comes back red. “Sorry for that, I got a bit carried away. You have nice lips.”

“Thank you, Jaehyun”

[radiorenjun]

drama love || qian kun

¤ pairing: qian kun x reader

¤ genre: comedy, slight angst, drama, college!au, drama club!au, president of the drama club!kun x star of the drama club! reader, enemies to lovers-ish, frenemies to lovers, friends to lovers, fashion major! reader, business major!kun, tsundere!kun.

¤ synopsis: You and Kun always have this weird relationship where you’re not necessarily enemies but not exactly friends. Most of the time, you would be seen scolding by Kun for skipping club meetings to hang out with the other seniors despite the fact that you were one of the main lead actresses of the club. And as time goes on, watch as you and your senior’s relationship blossom into something more than a simple friendship between two college students.

¤ warnings: tsundere kun! swearing, probably some innuendos but nothing too bad, kun is a year older than the reader, height discrimination against Ten and Kun (I’m sorry), kun a bit more chaotic here than in real life. Lots and lots of teasing and insults, slight mentions of burdening someone, arguments, genz humor, probably a plot hole or two, bullying kun supremacy

¤ wordcount : 23.5 k words

¤ playlist: double take by dhruv,  free love by g, if i could write a bike by chevy, lovely night by ryan gosling and emma stone, kataomoi by aimer

¤ a/n: featuring a few of my moots!

“Oh,Y/n, good to see you here,” your underclassmen greeted with a polite bowl as you shot them a smile. 

“Hey Chenle, Furou,” you waved, adjusting the beret on your head as you tugged on the saddle of your back to adjust it on your shoulder. “Y/n, meet Sungchan. He just transferred from the Business Department,” Chenle introduced, putting a hand on the taller boy beside him as Furou let out a soft chuckle. You smiled at the tall boy, looking up at what you assume to be a 180 cm giant standing in front of you. “Wow, you’re pretty tall. You know you could be one of the main leads of the drama club,” you raised your brow with a light laugh, shaking the younger boy’s hand.

“Jisung is almost taller than me,” Sungchan chuckled bashfully, looking down at his feet as he retracted his arm. “Oh hush, you’re still taller than our male lead. He’s literally 170 centimeters, I don’t even know how he’s able to get the part. Curse his pretty privileges,” you grumbled under your breath, remembering how your co-partner on the stage was constantly flirting with his girlfriend during practice instead of actually helping with painting the props like the rest of the club members. 

“You also have pretty privileges too, though,” Furou raised her brow, a smile tugging at her lips as you huffed. “Flattery will get you nowhere, honey,” you joked, a sinister smile playing at your lips as you watched a deadpan expression flash over your underclassman’s features. “What are you three up to?” you asked, putting your hands on your hips. “We’re just going to go to a nearby cafe, they say they’re having a huge discount on their infamous cheesecake,” Chenle explained, pointing his thumb behind him as Furou nodded in agreement. 

“I don’t want to be the third wheel, so I’m off studying and catching up with my major,” Sungchan informed with a nervous chuckle, a distressed expression making its way onto his face afterwards as he rubbed the back of his neck. “I see. Well, I hope you all have fun,” you chuckled, pulling the sleeve of your sweater back to reveal the watch on your wrist, your eyes widening slightly at the time. “Oh dear God, would you look at the time,” you blurted out loud, a panicked smile forming at your lips. 

Furou laughed at the sight of your terrified expression. “I suggest you should really get going, too,” Furou added, stretching her head to look behind you to spot a certain someone. “Yeah, if you don’t hurry, your escort will get here,” Chenle snickered, nudging his girlfriend’s sides as they both shared knowing looks. “Escort?” Sungchan furrowed his brows in confusion, watching you gulp heavily as the two continued to tease and snicker at you mischievously. “Y/n’s pretty notorious for skipping her drama club,” Chenle explained, his sinister grin never leaving his face. 

“Therefore, everyday, the club president comes down to pick her up. The drama club escort is pretty scary,” Furou added with a small snort, making you let out a scoff as you crossed your arms against your chest with a roll of your eyes. “I skip club meetings because I love interacting with all my seniors and underclassmen, duh,” you said, lifting your brow as if it was the most obvious thing ever. “Sure, whatever you say then, Y/n,” Furou and Chenle nodded with a roll of their eyes. 

Now, you would probably imagine said club president would arrive in some sort of carriage. Probably the same pumpkin carriage Cinderella used back in her fairytale story. You would probably expect said escort would at least show up in a white or black suit, a button up shirt and beautiful slicked back hair. You would expect an escort to say ‘my lady’ and gently hold your hand as you step into the carriage and take you away as two horses pull the carriage away to your desired destination.

At least that’s what Sungchan thought.

Of course, it’s not a usual sight to see some random guy sprint down the halls shamelessly yelling your name at the top of his lungs with anger flaring his pupils, his fluffy blond hair thrown back against the wind as he ran as fast as his legs could take him as if he was running for the Olympics. He looked exactly like that running emoji except this guy had blonde hair and was wearing a baggy hoodie over his form, some black jeans and a pair of Nike shoes to accent his whole look. 

“Y/N! WHAT HAVE I TOLD YOU ABOUT BEING LATE TO THE CLUB MEETINGS?!”

“That’s my signal to leave, I’ll see you guys arou-” before you could sprint the other way or finish your sentence, you felt someone grab the back of your sweater tightly to keep you from going anywhere. “I have been looking for you for the past thirty five minutes! And now you’re going to fucking run away?” Kun gave you a bittersweet smile, his eyes screaming bloody murder as you paused in fear. You gulped, looking back with a nervous toothy smile, giving your senior a small thumbs up. 

“Good afternoon, Kun, how may I help you?” you asked in the sweetest voice you could muster, sweat dripping down your forehead as you watched Kun’s stare grow even more murderous with your words. “I’m sorry for the interruption,” Kun said in a genuinely nice tone, turning to your underclassmen with an angelic smile before glaring daggers at you before tugging you back to the direction of the school theater room with all his might. You stumbled over your own feet, gripping the saddle of your bag as Kun continued to practically drag you against the floor to the theater room. 

“W-Wait, Kun! I can walk myself,” you grunted, an awkwardly nervous laugh elicited from your lips as you used one hand to grip on your bag and used the other to keep your beret to your head as Kun continued to pull you by the back of your sweater. Kun sighed heavily, grabbing your arms and pulling you up to your feet before turning you around and wrapping his fingers against your shoulder blades and began to push you to the direction he came from. “I swear, one of these days I will fling you to the theater room,” Kun grumbled under his breath as you both walked through the crowded halls filled with eyes boring into the back of your skulls. 

“Kinky,” you snickered, waving at the people you recognized as you and Kun speed walked to the theater room together. You felt him squeeze your shoulder as a type of indicator that you should keep your mouth shut before he actually flings you to the sun like a frisbee. “Shut up, you horny creature. I am not going to be provoked by your unholy perverted thoughts. This should be counted as harassment,” he hissed as you finally stopped once you opened the door to the theater room. 

“Why do you even skip practice, you’re the main lead for pete's sake,” Kun groaned, releasing his grip from your shoulders to wrap his fingers against your wrist and head to the stage where the rest of the actors had gathered around. 

“It’s about time you showed up,” Brooke snickered as Kun let you take a seat right beside her, huffing as you cupped your cheeks in your palms and propped your elbows up on your legs. “Yeah, yeah. Do kiss my ass more, would you, Brooke?” you giggled, shaking your head as Kun started talking about repainting the old props as the paints were chipping off because Angie and Renjun forgot to buy more primer for the last play you had over two weeks ago. “Y/n, please do try to not fuck anything up while we paint,” Kai joked, wrapping an arm around your shoulder.

“It’s in my blood to fuck things up, Kai,” you shrugged nonchalantly, a mischievous grin taking place on your lips. “Where were you off to, though? It took Kun half an hour to find you this time,” Haechan, Kai’s boyfriend, whispered from beside her in curiosity. “That’s like a new record, you had a great hiding place this time,” he gave you a supportive thumbs up, earning a smack from Kai afterwards for tolerating your irresponsible behavior. “The other side of the building,” you grinned, giving the boy an innocent peace sign. 

“That’s our lead actress right there,” Brooke shook her head profusely, chuckling softly at you.

------------------------

“Wait, Kun, since you’re in charge of the sets and props. Does that mean you aren’t in the plays?” Shotaro asked, dipping his brush in the can of pain before splattering dots on the surface of the wooden board by brushing his fingers against it to resemble stars. Shotaro was the newest member of the drama club, therefore Kun, being the president of the club, had the responsibility of guiding him a lot on what to do and what not to do. Which was a fairly simple job considering all he had to say was ‘never follow in Y/n or Ten or Kai or Angie’s footsteps and you’ll be just fine.’

Kun hummed, running a hand through his hair as he sat down in front of the younger boy with crossed legs. “I used to be in the plays but I think I like this a bit more,” Kun said with a charming smile, waving the large brush around as he helped Shotaro paint the skies. “I see,” Shotaro nodded in response, flinching when he felt your hand on his shoulder as you came barging in their conversation. “No, no, Shotaro, you got it all wrong,” you shook your head at him, earning a pout from Kun.

“Kun wanted to win the male lead and grow taller to fit the role of the prince of the stage, but alas,” you leaned over to sling your arm over your senior’s shoulders, earning a death glare from said man as he furrowed his brows and frowned at you. “Our Kun here suffered from malnutrition, therefore he stopped growing completely and now he isn’t tall enough to make it to the male lead,” you grinned, over-exaggerating your words just a tad bit as Kun raised the can of paint by the metallic handle. “I am this close to throwing this can of paint at you,” Kun deadpanned. 

Shotaro hummed, raising his brow at the two of you. “Isn’t Ten shorter than Kun, though?” Shotaro asked, his eyes wandering to the boy in question who was currently chatting up his girlfriend as they painted over their own set of props. “Yes, thank you! Finally, someone who looks at things through my eyes!” Kun groaned, grabbing Shotaro’s hand and shaking it rather vigorously in his grip. “Shotaro, you are an angel,” he complimented, causing you to frown at this. 

“Ah yes, all it takes to get on Kun’s side is to tell him that he’s taller than Mister Chittaphon. Of course,” you huffed, sitting back in between them as you placed your cheek against your fist, looking back down at the prop. “Again, this close to throwing you this can of paint,” Kun repeated with a roll of his eyes. “Don’t worry, I’ll sue you, Kun,” you sent him a cheeky grin, patting your senior’s shoulder in mock pity as he rubbed his temples in frustration, causing you and Shotaro to giggle.

You weren’t quite sure if it was obvious, but you’ve always admired Kun. You didn’t know if your feelings were in the romance department or the mentor department, but you couldn’t help but admire your lovely senior. He was at the top of his major, studying hard everyday and managing his own things while keeping the club in good shape despite the fact that he has three hooligans (consisting of you, Ten, Kai and Angie but mostly you) to handle on a daily basis. 

You knew he was an explendid cook, too. Considering he brought a whole buffet for the whole club that he cooked all by himself to celebrate the new anniversary of this club. Kun was talented and good looking, you couldn’t deny it even if you tried.(and thankfully, you don’t need to because no one ever asked about your thoughts on your handsome senior) He was caring, despite the fact that he was always yelling at your ear everyday, but nonetheless you knew he actually cared about you deep down. 

Kun was the reason why you had joined the drama club in the first place. You weren’t much of a theater kid, but you were pretty good at acting back in highschool. Just as when you promised yourself not to get involved with the art of theater, you saw Kun acting as a prince in a play at a fair your college hosted back when you were in your first year of college and you couldn’t help but sign up immediately so you could get a closer look at his acting. And as time went on, your playful nature was the reason why he was always by your side. 

You refused to think deeper about your feelings on the boy, but you knew they were crossing the line of friendship. Considering the true reason you always skipped classes was (partially to socialise and chat up your seniors and underclassmen to catch up with them) the fact that Kun would always be there to bring some entertainment into your day whenever you even attempt to skip the club meetings. Pushing aside the fact that you almost lost your life over it countless times, you didn’t mind facing the wrath of Kun everyday just to get a few laughs out. 

 Infuriating and teasing him was always a fun activity.

Quite ridiculous, you gotta agree. 

Though, you gotta admit that sometimes his words hurt. You knew he was probably joking most of the time but you couldn’t help but feel saddened sometimes whenever he would grumble on and on about how you shouldn’t have joined the club if all you’re going to do is annoy him all the time. But you didn’t let his words linger in your mind for too long and chose to focus on annoying him either way. 

“Damn, Kun. You should stop getting angry so much before your veins pop out, I don’t think any of us are mentally stable enough to call the ambulance for you,” Kai joked as she stood next to said man who was currently trying his best not to beat the living crap out of you right next to you. “Agreed. You’re old enough, Kun, you don’t need any more wrinkles than you already have, you know?” you teased, poking Kun with the wooden hand of his paint brush with a smug expression on your face. 

“This is age discrimination,” Kun mumbled under his breath after a big sigh of exhaustion, rubbing his forehead with his fingers. “Okay, I discussed this with Ten early and I figured I should have informed you too so I’m telling you now about the new story we’re going with for the next play,” Kun ran a hair through his hair, adjusting the glasses on his face as you cocked your head to the side in confusion. “Wait, what’s wrong with the story I suggested?” you furrowed your brows, offended at his sudden decision to change the story. 

Kun narrowed his eyes, brows furrowing at you as if he was trying to decipher if you were joking or not. “Are you mental?” Kun asked, crossing his arms against his chest as his eyes went wide, a smile of disbelief on his lips. “How the hell did you think a made up story between the dragon and the donkey from Shrek was ever going to be a good plot for a theatrical play?” he exclaimed in disbelief, causing you to scoff as he waved his arms around in confusion. “You just don’t know what a real beautiful story is, Qian Kun,” you scoffed, crossing your arms against your chest. 

Kun groaned, closing his eyes as he pinched the bridge of his nose to keep himself from exploding right in front of you. “I get how you want to make people around you laugh, but I don’t want this club to be the laughing stock of campus, Y/n,” he groaned, hunching his back as he massaged the space in between his eyes to try to reason with you. However, seeing the older boy in distress was like seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, you couldn’t help but get on his nerves and push on his buttons even more than you should. 

“People need some laughter, Kun. What are you planning, anyways? Some boring Romeo and Juliet type of shit? Twist it up a bit, if you don’t like the donkey and dragon trope I can give you a new one on the spot,” you waved him off before gasping loudly as an idea popped into your head like a lightbulb turning on. “What about Romeo but make it a furry Rapunzel? Romeo, Romeo! Let down your hair! Or tail, whichever works. Be original, Kun!” you nudge your friend with an encouraging wide smile. 

Kun opened his mouth to speak as his brows furrowed in confusion before closing it after a small pause. “Dear god, you’re even worse than Yangyang when he asked if he could put crocs on Louis,” he hissed, sighing heavily when he made a note to himself to never come to you for plot ideas for the play. “You should be in the Writing major instead of the fashion major, it suits you,” he commented with a sarcastic thumbs up. “Nice try, Kun. Flattery is no way to get me to change,” you winked, earning a small chuckle from Kun himself. 

“Anyways, I was talking over story inspirations with Brooke and Angie. They had some really good suggestions and we ended up choosing this movie called La La Land-” he frowned when he saw you slowly lay down against the wooden floor boards with a loud annoyed groan. “Dear God, Kun. Couldn’t you at least go with something original? My Furry Romeo concept was way better than this,” you swung an arm over your eyes as Shotaro let out a loud alarming yelp when he saw your arm almost knock over a can of blue paint over the props. 

Kun rolled his eyes once again, taking a loud exhale as he met your eyes that practically screamed ‘please don’t yell at me, it was an accident. I cry easily’. 

“As I was saying, it’s about a pianist and an actress falling in love while attempting to reconcile their aspirations for the future. It’s an enemies to lovers-ish type of story,” he ignored how you kept groaning and complaining in the middle of his words. “And I’m supposed to be playing this actress?” you asked, removing your arm from your eyes to lay it on your stomach as you turn your head to look at Kun with a raised brow. “No shit, you’re our lead actress,” Kun leaned over to smack his hand on your knee with a small chuckle. 

“You know if you still want the lead role so badly, Kun. You can take my place in this play, just this once,” you grinned, raising your index finger at him and twirling it in front of his face in circular motions as you sat up. Kun frowned, rolling his eyes as he gently pushed your finger away from his face. “No thanks, princess,” he teased, standing up after ruffling your hair with his hand to go check on the other members on their painting progress so far. “Hey, watch the beret! It’s new, you know!” you hissed before pausing when words that slipped out of Kun’s mouth had finally sunk into your brain, feeling your heart skip a beat at his soft tone.

Kun has never used nicknames or pet names on you. It was always the regular ‘dumbass’, ‘y/n’, ‘l/n, ‘the bane of my existence’ or the occasional ‘the reason why I wished murder was legal’. But it was never ‘princess’. It felt weird being called that, a good kind of weird. You didn’t know if you liked it. The sound of the pet name rolling off of his tongue did something to you and you didn’t know whether to find it ominous or exhilarating. 

“Did he just call you ‘princess’?” Brooke gaped, her jaw dropping to the floor as she ran over to your shocked state. Your eyes widened slightly at her sudden appearance, playing it off casually afterwards as you shrugged nonchalantly at her. “I think so? Why?” you asked, leaning back a bit to relax your posture as Brooke gave you a knowing smirk. “That literally has never happened before,” she grinned, sitting down beside you with a half beta-read script. “Really? Then you must’ve never watched his acting performances before,” you snickered, your mind having flashbacks to Kun’s face always flushing beet-red back when he was the male lead of the play. 

You always teased him for not being able to say ‘my love’ without being a tomato on stage during practice before he stopped auditioning for roles half way through your first year of college. “God, I missed his acting days. Back then, I would be the one making fun of him off stage,” you sighed, chuckling sinisterly when you remembered how Kun had to hop off the stage unceremoniously in his prince costumes to chase you down the school halls whenever you made fun of a certain gesture he made when rehearsing his lines with the previous lead actress. (who had graduated early to pursue a career in music,  if you recalled properly)

“Ah yes, Lunatic Prince Kun chasing down one of the well known clowns this school had ever seen. I still remembered laughing my ass off when Kun dropped his crown midway and had to hold it to his head as he ran down the halls to catch you,” Brooke snickered, shaking her head at the vivid memory, remembering how Kun had cursed out loud when he dropped the (quite expensive) fake crown onto the tiled floor of the halls. “Damn, someone should’ve taken a picture. I didn’t look bad that day considering I was wearing my latest designer shoes back then,” you pouted, putting your chin under your palm as you let out a huff of breath.

“You know,” Ten, Brooke’s boyfriend, spoke up behind the two of you as he came up to sling an arm around his girlfriend’s shoulders with a smug expression. “You and Kun have been getting a lot closer than usual. He’s picking you up for practice everyday, right?” he asked, a smirk adorning his lips as he wiggled his eyebrows at you suggestively. You snorted, waving your hand off. “The man almost ripped my sweater off because he was practically dragging me against the floor. We’re close, alright,” you nodded in agreement, patting the beret on your head afterwards.

“Sounds like Kun has some kind of crush on you to me, though,” Ten added, a mischievous smile spreading across his lips, attracting attention from another one of the club members, Angie. “Kun? We’re talking about Qian Kun, right?” she jumped into the conversation shamelessly, wrapping her arms around your neck to engulf you in a small back hug. You were taken aback by this sudden statement, gently pulling her arms away from you as you shook your head aggressively. “Where the fuck did that come from, Ten Lee?” you spluttered, a flustered expression making its way onto your face. 

Angie laughed. “Are you shitting me, right now? Kun? The Qian Kun? Having a crush? On the Y/n L/n? I knew you were on crack but I didn’t know you were that high, Lee,” she snorted, doubling over laughing at the thought of Kun having a crush on you with Brooke joining in on the ridiculous conclusion her boyfriend has come to. “Yeah, no, that’s not happening,” she shook her head at you, wiping an invisible tear from her face as Angie leaned her arm on your shoulder.

You furrowed your brows as you leaned back with an offended expression. “What’s that supposed to mean?” you exclaimed, looking at your two friends who were bawling their eyes out laughing with a confused expression. “No offense, Y/n. But with the reputation you and Kun have the past two years and people occasionally shipping the two of you for your chaotic interactions, once they truly walk into this theater, thoughts on you being a couple would be thrown out of the window without any hesitation,” Brooke shook her head, giggling behind the back of her hand. 

“Don’t get us wrong. I personally think you two would be cute together once you stop getting at each other’s throats. But right now? I think Kun is more interested in his own toenails than you,” Angie jokes, slinging an arm around your shoulder. “The other day, the man was about to throw a bag out of the window at you when he spotted you running away from the third floor,” she added, wheezing out afterwards as she and Brooke continued to giggle. “She isn’t wrong, perse,” Brooke shrugged.

You couldn’t help but shrug in defeat, a small laugh eliciting from your lips afterwards. “I guess you’re kind of right.”

----------------------------------

You didn’t know what’s wrong with you lately but you couldn’t get Brooke and Angie’s words out of your head since last week’s practice for some odd reason. You would find yourself thinking them over as you were embroidering on one of your clothes for a school project that was due in a couple of days, your brows furrowing as you got lost in your own thoughts as you sat next to your classmate in the fashion department room.

What the hell did they even mean by ‘Kun was more interested in his own toenails than you’? Clearly he’s more interested in you than you would think considering he always picked you up everyday after your morning classes are over for the afternoon club meetings. They clearly don’t know what they’re talking about. Just because you’re always facing the wrath of Qian Kun doesn’t mean he despised you, right? He knows you just like to joke around and push on his buttons, you overheard him laughing it off and calling your silly antics ‘amusing’ once when you were passing by his side of the building.

You cursed incoherently when the needle you were using suddenly broke in half from how hard you were gripping it, grumbling as you realised you have to continue with a new one. You tied the string into a knot against the fabric, cutting the string off as you stood up to walk over to the trash can near the entrance door to throw away the broken needle. A sharp click of the door caught your attention, figuring that it was probably your professor, you turned around only to face none other than Qian Kun, the man of the hour.

“Kun?” 

Kun looked up from his papers, his doe eyes gazing up at you before widening slightly. “Oh, Y/n, hey,” he gave you a kind smile, removing one of his hands from his papers to give you a small wave. “What are you doing here? Have you finally decided to accept my offer of throwing away all of your clothes in exchange for my masterpieces?” you couldn’t help but tease, raising your brow at him as you placed the back of your hand on your hips, inevitably causing the older boy to frown.

“One day I’m going to really fling you to the sun,” he deadpanned, eliciting a small giggle from you. “Sure thing, old man. For real, though, what are you doing here? Came to see your favorite underclassman?” you wiggled your brows, laying your fingers on your chest jokingly as Kun rolled his eyes with a small chuckle. “As a matter of fact, I did come here to see my favorite underclassman,” he nodded, a genuine smile settling upon his facial features as he waved the back of his papers in front of your face. 

Taken aback, you waved him off with a hand, laughing lightly as you felt your heart increasing it’s pace. “Stop, I feel honored to be the infamous Qian Kun’s favorite underclassman. I always knew deep down you liked me-,” you avoided his eyes, chuckling nervously at his word before you were suddenly cut off by one of your classmates who called out Kun’s name behind you from the other side of the room. “There he is! My favorite underclassman,” Kun raised a hand to wave at the boy who called out his name with a smile. 

You furrowed your brows, turning around to see the charming Jung Jaehyun jogging up to the two of you with a smile on his face. “Hey hyung,” Jaehyun greeted giving Kun the typical weird bro-hug the male college students in your school often did. “Hey, y/n,” Jaehyun greeted, giving you a polite smile and a small bow despite the fact that you were bugging him a couple minutes ago while he was finishing a new sketch while calling with his friend, Doyoung, who was in the culinary department. 

“Hey Jaehyun,” you eyed the boy suspiciously. “Jaehyun’s your favorite underclassman? And all this time I thought you and I had something, ‘hyung’,” you mocked the same tone Jaehyun used, crossing your arms against your chest as you huffed, eliciting a few laughs from the two boys. “I’m sorry that you’re too delusional,” Kun grinned mischievously with a wave of his papers, patting your head with the small stack of papers in his hand before walking off with Jaehyun to the desk he was using.

You gave him the stink eye, earning the finger from Kun, himself. Scoffing as you walked back to your desk where your friend,Abhie, was making no effort to hide the fact that she was laughing at your little misunderstanding. “Stop laughing, it’s embarrassing enough as it is,” you huffed, sitting down on your chair with a sour expression as you reached over the desk to grab a new needle to use to finish the design on your old shirt. “Let me take in on how embarrassing that was first,” she laughed, watching as you try your best to cover your flustered expression. 

“Kun and Jaehyun have been spending time with each other a lot more than usual, don’t you think?” you asked as you grabbed a new embroidery thread from the bundle in front of you, measuring the thread as you unwind the bundle. “They’re in different majors but they look quite busy, I don’t think Jaehyun’s even in the drama club. I’m pretty sure he has to deal with his own writing club so I’m sure he isn’t joining the drama club,” you analysed under your breath, your brows furrowing in concentration.

“Guess someone got sad that her senior didn’t see her as their number one underclassman,” Abhie raised her brow, crossing her arms over her chest as she placed her finished embroidery on the table you were both sharing. “What are you talking about? I may not be his favorite underclassmen, but I know I’m definitely his number one,” you lied, huffing dramatically to make your friend laugh even more. You knew very well that you’re definitely not Kun’s number one, but seeing your friend laugh was amusing. And you felt the urge to push on Kun’s buttons as payback for deceiving you. (sort of)

Abhie scoffed, rolling her eyes. “Believe what you want,” she laughed, an amused smile taking over both of your faces as you stood back up and placed your needle back on the table beside your embroidery hoop. “Observe,” you snickered, turning around to walk towards said senior with a loud call of his name, ignoring how most of your classmates instantly gave you death glares from every corner of the room for disrupting the quiet atmosphere you all had developed over the past couple of hours. 

“Kun! Qian Kun!” you exclaimed, jogging up to him as he continued his talk with Jaehyun. 

“I sense an incoming dissatisfaction,” Kun deadpan, sighing heavily as he felt your presence grew closer with every step, causing Jaehyun to snicker at the older’s half annoyed and half embarrassed expression. “Who’s cuter? Me or Jaehyun?” you asked, putting an arm over his shoulder and tugging him towards you. “Jaehyun,” he stated almost immediately with a monotone, his gaze never tearing away from the papers in his hands.

You frowned, causing Jaehyun to laugh even more than he already has. “You didn’t even hesitate to think,” you frowned, retracting your hand to put your hands on your hips as you narrowed your eyes at your senior. “Didn’t need to,” Kun grinned sinisterly, shooting you a small glance before looking back down at his papers with a poker face. “Ouch, my heart hurts now,” you winced dramatically, laying a hand on your heart as you took a step back and swung the back of your free hand against your forehead. 

“My heart’s been broken so many times-”

“Don’t you have your embroidery assignment to finish?” Jaehyun asked, an amused smile on his face as Kun gave you a perplexed expression, his brows furrowed and his mouth gaped open as he tried to find the words to speak. “Oh shit, right, nevermind,” you lowered your hand with wide eyes, closing your mouth shut at the reminder. “I’ll see the two of you later,” you waved, waddling back to your desk when you remembered that you had two days left to finish said assignment and you were barely halfway done. 

“As you should!” Kun exclaimed.

“So?” Abhie raised her brow at you with a small hum. “I’m definitely his number one,” you popped up, giving her an enthusiastic thumbs up and a wide smile. “I am not believing that,” she giggled, shaking her head as you scoffed and went back to finishing your design on your shirt. “Why do you and Kun fight 24/7, though? I swear, you two are infamous for arguing on a daily basis. You’re not even in the same year or major, it’s hilarious,” Abhie laughed in disbelief, running a hand through her long hair. 

“Tough love,” you exclaimed with another enthusiastic thumbs up. “Unrequited tough love,” she added with a soft snort, causing you to laugh as well. “He’ll learn to love me soon enough, just you wait,” you waved her off, sticking your tongue out as you tried to slip the thread into the tiny hole in your needle. 

-

“What if we do a musical for the next play?”

“Kun, stop flexing. We know you just want to sing.”

Kun frowned upon the sound of your voice, turning his head to glare at you as you laid down on the wooden floorboards of the stage. “I swear, if violence weren't against my morals, I would’ve kicked her to the moon. God give me strength, I don’t have enough cash for bail money,” Kun groaned, rubbing his hands against his face in distress as you and a few other club members laugh at his reaction. “I admire the amount of patience God has given you, Kun,” Gwen patted his back sympathetically. 

“Gender equality at it’s finest,” you cheered, raising your hands up enthusiastically before they flopped down almost painfully against the floor of the stage. Kun rolled his eyes, walking over to the other side of the room to discuss the play with the other members of the club. “You really like Kun, huh?” Brooke raised her brow at you, wiggling them afterwards when you met her eyes with an enthusiastic nod. “Of course, I do! He’s my senior after all,” you sat up, stretching your arms over your head with a yawn.

“The smile on your face makes your words seem so passive aggressive,” Kai chuckled, shaking her head profusely. “Oh hush, it may seem like I’m pushing his buttons on purpose but I actually really admire Kun. He’s the reason why I got into this club in the first place,” you exclaimed with a genuine smile, turning your head to watch the older boy flip through the script with Ten and Renjun from the other side of the theater room. “Wait, what?” Kai’s eyes widened at your sudden statement. 

“Yeah, I actually got into this club because of Kun! I remember it like it was yesterday, I was just walking around campus and I passed by the theater. He was practicing for a play and I was like ‘damn, mans got skills.’ And at one point he gave me a flyer to join this club and encouraged me to join, which is why I’m here now,” you explained, shrugging casually as you leaned back against your hands behind you with a soft smile. “And if it weren’t for him, I wouldn’t have met you guys,” you added on. 

“Cool, but I was asking about the part when you said you weren’t pushing his buttons on purpose,” Kai chuckled, earning a soft smack to the arm from you as Brooke let out a loud laugh in response. “Same, same. I can’t believe you’re not annoying him on purpose, I mean, I’m not complaining. It creates more romantic tension that I could use for my literature essays,” she shrugged, slinging her arm over your shoulder with an enthusiastic grin. “Of course I’m annoying him on purpose,” you rolled your eyes. “I’m not that big of an airhead, you know,” you scoffed as you pushed Brooke’s arm off of your shoulders.

“You know, there’s a chance that Kun would replace Ten in the play this time?” Haechan asked, plopping himself down beside his girlfriend while chewing a mouthful of bread. “Excuse me?” your eyes widened, straightening your back up as you and the girls lean over to hear Haechan more clearly. “Ten got an opportunity to go to an Art Gallery in Busan, he’s not sure if he’s going though but if he does, he can’t be back in time for next month’s play,” Haechan informed, pulling out a cupcake from his bag and handing it to Kai. 

Brooke’s eyes lit up at this. “Oh yeah, he told me about that! It’s a great opportunity for Ten, I doubt he’s going to deny the offer for some play,” Brooke chuckled, shaking her head at her own boyfriend. “So, you’re telling me that there’s a chance I’ll be doing the play with Kun?” you asked, eyes wide as a wide smile spread across your face. “Oh god, I’ve never actually acted in a play with Kun before. He stopped acting by the time I joined the club,” you exclaimed excitedly, your hands balled up into balls at the thought of acting side by side with your senior on stage. 

“More opportunities for you to bully our Kun,” Kai giggled, nudging your sides with her elbow as you nodded eagerly. “That too!” you agreed with an enthusiastic nod, raising your hands up in the air at the thought of finally seeing Kun act on stage once again. “Honestly, I thought I’d see myself on Mars sooner than seeing myself and Kun on the stage together performing,” you scratched the back of your neck with a nervous chuckle as Kun began walking over with stacks of paper in his hands. 

“Here’s your script for the next play, rehearsals are going to start tomorrow so y/n,” Kun gave you a knowing look, eyes boring holes into your head as you gave him an innocent smile and a peace sign as you take the paper away from his hand, your fingertips grazing his own. “Don’t be late,” he sighed heavily, smacking the stack of papers on the top of your head softly before distributing the actors their own scripts. 

You purse your lips, rolling your eyes. “‘Don’t be late’,” you mocked his tone, shaking your head at the elder. “As if you don’t pick me up every morning class before I even have the chance to be late,” you mumbled under your breath, earning a smack upside the back of your head from your friends, letting out a yelp in response. “What was that for?” you rubbed the spot where your friend hit, turning your head around to see Furou with a cocky grin. “Come on, we actually have a pretty strict deadline this time,” Furou sat beside you, patting your back. 

“They say the school is holding some sort of event next month and Kun’s taking this pretty seriously considering the money we earn from this play will be donated to charity,” Furou explained, kicking her feet as she looked around the theater. “So you’re going to be dragged around Kun a lot during rehearsals,” Furou chuckled, giving you a look of mock sympathy, causing you to groan loudly and lay back down on the wooden floor of the stage. 

“Oh well, at least I get to see our lord and savior, Qian Kun, act on stage again,” you gave her a sarcastic thumbs up, smiling at her as you turned your head around to look at the boy in question who was furrowing his brows as he read over Kai’s script with an intense expression, a hand pushing back a part of his dyed hair that was covering part of his eyes, his parted lips mouthing the words printed on the paper. 

Your friend chuckled at how intently you were staring at the older boy, shaking her head profusely. “Does this mean you’re going to stop being annoying momentarily?”

“Keep dreaming.”

-

“As you may have heard from our precious club members, I will be replacing Ten as your supposed love interest on stage,” Kun said, popping out of nowhere as he pulled the chair in front of you to sit right across the table. You furrowed your brows, “are you stalking me?” you frowned, looking up from your phone as you carefully sipped your beverage. You swore that this man was psychic, he can sense where you are whenever and wherever and it was almost not funny. 

Kun rolled his eyes at you, crossing his arms against his chest as he let out a heavy sigh. “We have practice in two hours, I just happened to be in the library the same time as you do. Except I don’t come here for free coffee and free wifi,” he smacked his bag filled with a stack of books on accounting right on the table with a click of his tongue, taking you by surprise at the sudden sound. “I figured we could chat for a bit and walk to the theater room together since you’re oh-so-busy,” he grinned cheekily, causing you to roll your eyes. 

“Excuse you, you’re not my babysitter. I can go to the theater room myself, thank you very much,” you huffed, frowning deeply at the unusual sight of his cheeky grin. You couldn’t help but admire how his eyes crinkled slightly as his lips stretched across his face, thus revealing his cute dimples that made you suppress the urge to poke them. Kun’s smile always had that weird effect on you and you didn’t know why. And you didn’t know if you liked it either. 

Which was probably the main reasons why you liked pissing him off all the damn time. 

“Sure, as if I don’t have to run like Sonic the Hedgehog all around campus to ensure that you’re not skipping,” Kun chuckled, shaking his head at you in amusement. “I’m just helping you, Kun. You always go on and on about losing weight even though you’re literally one of the fittest guys I’ve seen on campus. I’m helping you by making you exercise by disappearing every five seconds,” you went on dramatically, waving your hand around in circular motions as you spoke, sipping your drink with your free hand. 

“You never fail to blow me away with your weird respon- did you just call me hot?” he raised his brows when he took a small pause at your words, causing you to stop sipping your cup. You paused, your eyes grew wide as they scattered to look everywhere but him, replaying your words in your head to figure out where he got that idea from. “I just called you fit, there’s a difference,” you slowly pulled your drink away from your mouth, trying to appear as casual as you could. 

‘Keep calm, Y/n. Qian Kun can sense your fear.’ as you would often say.

“So you’re basically saying I look good?” Kun cocks his head to the side, a smirk playing on his lips as he raised his brow at you, taking you aback at his sudden cockyness. You paused, gulping as you stared into his eyes for a brief moment, sipping your drink loudly as you desperately tried to think of a good comeback. “What did you say our next play was about?” you spluttered, coughing when your voice cracked, putting a hand on your throat out of habit as you looked down at your feet. 

Kun chuckled, looking down at his own hands when you changed the topic. “Since we did La La Land for the last play, I figured we’d do something old timey. A classic. Brooke and Xingyi managed to come up with a few plots and we came up with this story of a princess having a secret affair with her musketeer bodyguard,” Kun explained, choosing to let your words slide momentarily as you revert back to your casual self. “Oh god, Brooke and Xingyi came up with the plot?” you groaned, putting a hand on your face as you rubbed your forehead. 

“Don’t tell me. It’s going to end in despair, isn’t it? Dammit, they know full well I despise getting all emotional on stage, I swear, they’re doing this on purpose,” you grumbled under your breath, plopping your now empty cup on the table with a scowl on your lips as Kun let out an amused laugh. “Oh shut up, they’re taking this chance to see me cry too, you know,” he raised his brow at you, leaning back and relaxing against his chair. You paused, taking his words in before clicking your tongue.

“You’re going to cry on stage?” you blurted out, your eyes going wide at the thought of seeing your senior cry in front of hundreds of people. “Can I rent a camera crew to take HD pictures of you in tears in front of me? I think that would be one hell of a sexy cinematic piece to go with my photography portfolio,” you asked, wiggling your eyebrows at the older boy with a teasing smile on your face. 

Kun chuckled, tutting as he waved his finger at you rather sassily. “Look who’s being a stalker now?”

You leaned back, a frown settling upon your lips at his words as you huffed at him. “I’m doing this for humor purposes, it’s for the good of the world. And my own amusement, of course. Don’t you think a lovely picture of our dear president bawling his eyes out on stage would be a perfect decoration for our stage?” you asked, putting your hand up in the air as if you were caressing an invisible wall. Kun pressed his lips together to stifle a laugh, a hand on his chin and his fingers covering his lips. 

“I think I’ll have to reconsider changing the plot to whatever donkey dragon furry type of fanfiction you came up with in your head back when we were doing La La Land.”

-

“You know, I thought you were gay,” you mumbled, drawing circles on the smooth surface of the piano as you continued to listen to Kun practice on the piano the music department had been using to practice for their own music show for the event. Kun let out a soft chuckle, “is this about the Jaehyun question you asked a couple of weeks ago?” he asked with a staggering breath, flipping through his music sheets as you continued to hum in confirmation. 

Nothing had changed after Ten left for his trip to Busan. Other than the fact that Kun has been rehearsing his lines with you 24/7 considering you were his partner on stage after all. Though, he wouldn’t be as aggressive and you don’t have to sacrifice your perfectly good sweaters getting ruined as these days his ‘aggressive dragging by the back of whatever top you were wearing on that day’ technique had morphed into ‘pulling you by the wrist like a rag doll’ with a script in his hand.

You could see from a mile away that Kun was more than excited to finally be on stage again. And you couldn’t help but let a smile stretch across your lips whenever you sat beside him when you were reciting your lines together, watching the passion glimmer in his eyes as his face contorted with emotions as words spewed out of his mouth like a song bird chirping on a tree branch on a bright morning. 

Kun had called you over after your class to try on the costumes that just arrived and to check on any imperfections and minor details. You were always his go-to fashion kid whenever he needs help with anything that involves fabric and accessories. The moment you opened the door, you were immediately greeted with melodious piano music and a rather handsome senior behind said piano with his brows furrowed in concentration. It was a rare sight to see for you.

“You said I needed to try on some outfits and inspect the costumes?” you put a hand on your hip, walking around the stage as Kun closed the piano lid while he got up on his feet. “As always,” Kun rolled his eyes, grabbing the saddle of his bag and slinging it over his shoulder as he walked over to you. “I told the others to place the costumes near the changing room, come on,” Kun placed a hand on your shoulder as you walked side by side to the changing room, his sudden touch sending shivers down your spine. 

“You okay?” Kun asked all of a sudden, pausing in your steps. 

You hummed, looking up at him in surprise, your eyes going wide. “You just shivered, is the ac too cold or something?” Kun asked, retracting his hand to slip it in his pocket as he looked around the theater room, extending his other hand to feel the cold atmosphere. “Yeah, I’m kind of chilly, I guess,” you mumbled with a slight nod, rubbing your arms to cover up your lie. You weren’t going to lie, you kind of liked the comforting way his hand felt on your skin. 

“I’ll be fine, Kun. Let’s just go back to what we’re doing,” you scurried off to the changing rooms, spotting the opened box filled with plastic wrapped costumes and their props. Trying to shake the thought of holding Kun’s hand in yours out of your mind as you sat down on the wooden floor and began opening a few of the costumes to examine the details to look for odd spots or ripped fabric, hearing Kun’s footsteps catching up to you a few seconds later. 

After a while of sitting side by side, focused on spotting any minor mistakes with the stitching and the quality of the costumes, it was finally time for you to test your own individual costumes. “So, which one do you think I should try first? The pretty princess gown or the Belle from Beauty and The Beast before she developed Stockholm syndrome?” you asked, nodding your head at the two dresses hanging by their clothing hangers in each of your hands. Kun laughed lightly at your small joke as you turned to the mirror, humming as you furrowed your brows.

“Try the peasant one first, the fabric looks pretty low quality compared to the dress,” Kun hummed, pointing at the brown dress in your left hand. You huffed, rolling your eyes as you placed the princess dress on the empty space on the chair beside Kun. “No shit, it is a peasant dress after all. Look at those improper cross stitches, they could’ve done a better ladder stitch on the waist,” you mumbled to yourself as you walked into the changing room and began to change into your new costume. 

“This dress is kind of tight, though,” you commented as you tugged on the ribbon around your waist with one hand and unlocked the door with the other, seeing an unbothered Kun looking through his phone with his brows furrowed. “What do you think? See anything wrong with it?” you did a slow 360 twirl in front of him, tugging the edge of the dress down when you spotted a few wrinkles. “Could use some ironing,” Kun joked, putting a hand on his chin as he looked up at you admiring yourself at the mirror nearby.

“It’s a peasant dress, Kun. They purposely didn’t iron this to fit the aesthetic,” you turned around to your senior with your hands on your hips before outstretching your hand for Kun to give you your princess dress. “Princess dress, please! This is the one I’ve been looking forward to the most,” you grinned, causing Kun to chuckle as he grabbed the clothing hanger with the dress clinging onto it beside him and handing it to you. “Thank you, old man,” you snickered as you hopped in the dressing room again, dismissing the loud offended ‘hey!’ Kun had let out behind you.

Once you walked out of the dressing room, you were tugging on the gloves you were supposed to wear, adjusting the fake plastic tiara on your head. “Okay, Kun, round two. How do I look?” you asked, patting your sparkly dress to remove any dust sticking to the fabric. Kun looked up from the costume he was examining himself with unbothered eyes, which grew wide slightly at the sight before him. 

To say you were astonishing to his eyes was nothing but an understatement. The way the dress defined the shape of your body, the way the crown had accented your face, the way the gloves covering your hands made you look so elegant and delicate. His heart raced as he watched you scratch your hair while examining yourself in the mirror to look for any rips in between the fabric and the designs. He had to keep himself from letting his jaw drop to the floor as his eyes scanned you from the cute little hello kitty socks you were wearing to the beautiful red crown placed on your head. 

“Are you smiling at me, Qian Kun?” 

He blinked, his eyes lowering down from your crown to your eyes, gulping silently as he realised you had caught him checking you out. He kissed his teeth nervously, leaning back against the chair as he looked down at his hands. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he mumbled under his breath, shaking his head abruptly as he felt you take a few steps closer towards him with a smug expression on your face. 

“You think I look good, don’t you?” you pointed an accusatory finger at the boy, who shook his head vigorously at you. “I was looking at the realistic tiara,” Kun coughed, clearing his throat as he stood up suddenly, taking you aback by how close the proximity between the two of you have become once he got to his feet. He resisted the urge to boop your nose as his hands went up to gently lift the tiara from your head, careful to not get any of your hair as he examined it in front of you with a sheepish smile. 

‘God, what am I even doing?’ Kun thought to himself as he used his superb acting skills and squinted his eyes at the tiara in between his fingertips. Though, his attempt to cover up the fact that he was internally flustered was futile for your next words had thrown him into a state of shock for a few seconds. “You know you have a pretty smile,” you commented, your eyes boring into his casually as you watched Kun examine the tiara with a small smile. 

His eyes grew wide at you, his body froze as his smile became crooked at the sound of your words escaping your lips. “Excuse me?” he said after a pregnant pause, your words echoing in the back of his skull over and over again like a broken record player, sending jolts of electricity into his own heart. “You have a very pretty prince smile,” you couldn’t help but reach up and poke the dimples protruding from his cheeks with your gloved finger, grinning mischievously when you saw how Kun’s nervous expression melted into one filled with embarrassment. 

“Thanks,” he muttered, gulping as he plucked up the courage to carefully place your tiara on top of your head again, his fingers caressing your hair slightly. You felt your heart raced as he gently placed the tiara back where it was as if he was crowning you princess himself. “You should smile more,” you mumbled, feeling yourself grow sheepish as Kun’s hands carefully pulled away from you. “Yeah?” he hummed back, almost inaudibly as he looked down at your feet with a soft smile on his face. 

“Can you smile more so you don’t exactly look like a body that just got pulled out of the river?” 

Kun’s head shot up in alarm at your words, all of the bashful and giddy feeling bubbling up in his stomach evaporated instantly as he could feel his vein pop under his skin. Watching as your own flustered expression morphed into a smug one, adjusting your tiara with your gloved hand as you broke the intimate aura that had crawled its way between you two merely seconds ago. 

“Just when I thought you were going to say something normal for once.” 

-

“Oh, five minutes late! That’s the earliest you’ve ever been,” Lin exclaimed, putting the back of her hands on her hips as she watched Kun drag you across the floor into the theater room by the wrist as if he was dragging a body from the fiery pits of the underworld. “I wasn’t fast enough,” you groaned, standing up straight as your back was starting to hurt from your terrible posture. “You are not the Lightning McQueen you think you are, y/n,” Lin chuckled, shaking her head at you as Kun shut the door behind you and released his hold on your wrist. 

“Exactly my thoughts,” Kun nodded in agreement, giving you an amused smile. “I like to believe I’m Sonic the Hedgehog or the Flash, but you do you,” you huffed, crossing your arms against your chest as you walked over to the other members of the club, who were all currently helping the others with their costume as you were all finally starting rehearsals considering the play was  in less than two months. 

“She’s coming in earlier than usual. Usually it would take you about fifteen minutes to half an hour to find her and another ten minutes to drag her here,” Lin commented, taking a step closer to Kun as she examined your figure socializing with the other club members, who were looking at you as if you had grown two heads. (no one could blame them for being shocked to see you on time, usually you would take centuries to get to the theater) 

The boy beside her hummed as he shrugged. His hands dug through his bag for his phone and his script, oblivious to the smug expression Lin was giving beside him. “Mostly because we meet up before rehearsals start in the library to go over our lines,” Kun shrugged, pulling out the crumpled stapled papers from his bag pockets. “We might as well normalize seeing her arrive on time now,” he chuckled, flipping through the pages as he read through the sentences he highlighted a couple of weeks ago. 

Lin raised her brow suspiciously, crossing her arms as Doyoung walked up to Kun with a confused expression. “Did something finally happen between you and y/n?” he asked, putting a hand on his chin as he stood in between Lin and Kun, squinting his eyes at you as he and the girl watched you revise your lines with your brows furrowed with the other members of the club. A tiara was placed on your head as you helped your fellow actors with their lines, your free hand making grand motions as you read your lines aloud. 

Kun furrowed his brows at Doyoung’s statement. “What do you mean ‘finally’?” he asked with an incredulous expression, his head shooting up from his papers as he furrowed his brows at his friend. “I don’t know, there’s something suspicious with you and her arriving together. There’s something even more suspicious with the fact that you’re both arriving on time!” Doyoung exclaimed, crossing his arms against his chest, narrowing his eyes at his friend who gave him a confused expression. 

“Apparently they’ve been having library dates everyday before rehearsals so they’re only a teensy bit late now,” Lin informed, a mischievous grin spreading across her face, causing Kun’s frown to deepen even more. “They’re not library dates, we’re just discussing and reading over our lines together,” Kun retorted, feeling his heart race in his chest at the thought of being on a date with you. He felt flustered at the mere thought of hanging out together as more than friends, but yet again, your little meetups felt more than just a casual hang out. 

Though he was probably overthinking it again.

“Oh, so it’s definitely a date,” Doyoung confirmed. 

“Agreed,” Lin nodded with a hum. 

“It’s not, I’m just there to keep her from escaping campus before rehearsals start. I mean, we are having our big assignments coming up so I guess she doesn’t have that many people to talk to as a reason to ditch practice. “They’re just friendly meet-ups. How can it be a date if all she does is infuriate me and make my college life a living hell even more than Yangyang has. And that’s saying something considering I live in the same dorm,” Kun rambled on, his hands moving around and making dramatic gestures as words of complaint continued to spill out of his mouth like a leaking tap.

“Yet that doesn’t stop you from having a crush on her for the past two years, does it?” Doyoung smirked, raising his brow at his friend who had stopped talking upon hearing his question. Lin giggled, pressing the back of her hand against her mouth as Kun’s expression became flustered. You could practically hear ‘kun.exe.hasstoppedworking’ from the boy’s thick skull as Kun froze in place, trying to come up with some random reason to deny his friend’s words.

Alas, Kun was not much of a liar. 

“Yeah,” Kun chuckled, looking down as he flushed, a giggly smile spreading across his features as his gaze shot up from his shoes to you. Okay, maybe he wasn’t much of a big liar but he was too whipped to deny it. 

The soft, innocent smile on your face as you made a few of the club members laugh with your witty jokes and silly antics, watching them cackle and hold their stomachs to contain their laughter. That was Kun’s favorite smile. “It doesn’t,” Kun sighed rather dreamily, relaxing his figure as he leaned his head to the side to get a better look of your smile.

Truth be told, it really was no secret. Literally everyone in the club knew about Kun’s obvious crush on you ever since he ‘retired’ from being the male lead. Ever since the day he met you when you were just in your first year, looking for new friends and new hobbies to do. Ever since the first day he saw you audition for the main role back when the drama club was doing ‘Romeo and Juliet’ for the annual event your campus always hosts. 

Watching you act on stage as part of the audience made Kun feel as if he was looking up at a sky scattered with stars. The way your personality completely morphs into the character you were portraying and the way you conveyed whatever message your character was trying to send out to the audience had made you find your way into his heart throughout all these years. The way your beauty sparkled under the lights, the way your expressions captured his heart on stage. The way your voice sends butterflies into his stomach as if you were ordering them to fetch his heart like an ominous siren. 

He didn’t mind being teased by you every single day if it meant that he was getting your attention, he didn’t mind dragging you to the theater room everyday if it meant he got to get close to you. He didn’t mind being the target of your jokes if it meant that you two could get a tiny bit of interaction during practice, despite the fact that you two get nothing done together if so. After all, those were the original reasons why his liking for you grew ever so stronger. It was almost laughable.

Hell, it was making him crazy.

“KUN! Y/N IS RUNNING AWAY AGAIN!”

“DAMMIT, Y/N.”

Quite literally.

-

“Oh, how I longed to be in your arms after all these years, Abdul!” you cried out, clutching the dress with both of your hands as Kun wiped the invisible sweat off of his brow, dropping the sword he was clutching to the wooden floor of the stage as a look of despair stretched across your face. 

You only had less than three weeks left of rehearsal, therefore, everyone had to be focused. You had been practicing for the past two hours now without breaks, your throat was sore from delivering lines and dehydration. One of the air conditioners wasn’t working very well this morning and maintenance was coming the next morning, leaving you and the rest of the club members under scorching heat. It was the middle of June, after all. And the god forsaken dress you were wearing was no help whatsoever.

“Princess Putri, my love, my little songbird! Oh how all of these years of holding myself back, all these years of fighting and hoping to reunite with thou,” Kun recited, his face scrunched up as if he had really been fighting a dozen of thieves to protect the princess. The expression on your face did nothing to show how awed you are at the sight of Kun’s acting. It’s been so long since you’ve seen Kun shine on stage again and quite frankly, you missed it. 

You were seeing Kun’s superb acting performance right in front of you. He wasn’t even taking this as seriously as he should in the actual performance. You couldn’t imagine how magnificent his aura would be once the lights shine down upon him on stage once the day arrives. And you couldn’t help but admit that you couldn’t wait. 

Though as much as you would stand on the stage to admire your senior’s acting performance, you were on the brink of being one with the sun itself. You watched with a sorrowful expression as Kun walked over to you, his boots making soft noises with every step he took, his hand on his chest as he came closer to you. You smiled slowly, focusing on staying in character as Kun recited the words written on your scripts.

Reciting the words as he perfectly brought the message his character, Abdul, was conveying to your character, Princess Putri, to life. It was like music to your ears. 

You and Kun were standing in front of each other now, proximities close as the room grew dim save for the two stage lights shining down upon the two of you. The theater was almost as silent as a mouse except for the soft piano music Chenle was playing below the stage. The atmosphere felt seren, it made you feel as if it was just the two of you on stage, stuck in your own little world. 

Eyes gazing into each other, your hands placed gently against his chest. Your fingers fiddling with the tassels on his shoulders, his hands coming around you only to land on your hips as he pulled your body towards his own, his face oh-so-close to your own. “May I indulge in the feeling of finally having your lips pressed on mine, my love?” Kun whispered, his soft voice booming across the speaker, half lidded eyes gazing down your lips before glancing back up to your eyes. 

With glossy eyes, you looked up at him, sniffling into the mic softly before slowly nodding. A sad smile stretched across both of your lips as Kun leaned his head towards your face and leaned it to the side, thus covering both of your faces with his hat, giving the audience the illusion of the characters actually kissing. Upon hearing the club members clap for you, a few whistles from all around the theater room as the lights finally turned back on, you pulled away, making sure to add distance in between the two of you as you coughed awkwardly. 

You couldn’t even stop your heart from beating so loudly in your ears as you clasped your hands behind your back, squeezing your hand into tight fists to calm yourself down. You’d like to think that it was the heat affecting you but you knew very well that there was no point in lying to yourself considering Kun was also avoiding your eyes for a brief moment. For a short moment, you couldn’t get the thought of Kun’s face being so close to yours out of your head. You couldn’t get the feeling of your heart which was on the brink of bursting out of your chest.

This never happened whenever you were acting with Ten on stage before, or any of your partners. It was odd to say the least. But your thoughts were cut short when your co-director spoke up to break the tension in the whole theater room. 

“As expected of the president and our star,” Doyoung clapped unceremoniously, looking down at the clipboard he was holding in his arms as he flipped through the pages. “Okay, so, the play is in less than three weeks. We just need to adjust a few things then we’re good to go,” he announced with a loud clap, putting the clipboard in between his arms. “You all did good, we’re going to cut rehearsals short today, you all deserve it!” he added with a wide smile, earning enthusiastic cheers from the people around you. 

You let out an exasperated groan, rubbing your face with your hands as you internally thank the gods that you decided to use your waterproof make up set today. “Dear god, I am literally being roasted alive,” you groaned, wiping the sweat off of your brows as you pulled the tiara off of your head and placed it on the props where the rest of the other crowns were being placed. Kun walked to your side, pulling his hat off of his head, being careful as to not get the feather on it. “I could tell how much you were practically dying out there,” he chuckled as you both made your way backstage. 

“Why are our costumes so damn hot, too? The fabric is literally acting as an aluminum foil for baking us alive, the maintenance better be here before we arrive tomorrow or else I’m going to fling myself to the sun,” you tugged the bow off of your collar, fanning yourself with your hand as Kun pulled his gloves off of his hands. “Don’t worry, I’ll always be here to help you fling yourself to the sun,” Kun joked, running his hand through his hair to mess it up a bit. 

“That’s so romantic of you, Kun.” You placed your hands on your hips, grinning mischievously at him. “Nice try, you’re never going to get rid of me until you graduate,” you stuck your tongue out teasingly at him, walking over to your bag filled with your clothes and heading off to the changing room. 

As soon as you left your stall, you were immediately pulled by your friends into a group huddle. “Dude, you were amazing out there. God I can’t wait until the big day comes,” Kai exclaimed, slinging her arm around yours as you watched Angie grab your costume out of your arms and placed it in your opened locker. “Agreed, the chemistry between you and Kun are just-,” Gwen gave a chef’s kiss with her fingers at the end of her sentence as she walked beside her. 

You smiled, laughing lightly. “Thanks! Damn, I wish I was one of the audience. It’s been a while since I actually watched a play and not act in it,” you hummed, slinging your free arm around Ren’s shoulders. “Oh my god, I remembered seeing you in the audience two years ago. Look at you now, acting on stage with Qian Kun!” your friend exclaimed, putting her free arm in the air to emphasize her words. 

“More like ‘being the reason why Kun is taking anger management classes’,” Angie snickered, earning a pout from you as you huffed at her. “As he should,” you joked, shaking your head profusely before they began to speak up again. “Are you sure you aren’t into Kun? That scene looked pretty intense and I’m 100% sure the theater hasn’t been this intense since that day you tripped over a can of paint and fell off the stage,” she added with a raise of her brow, her lips quirking up into a small grin. 

You grimaced at the embarrassing memory of tripping over a few cans of pain, thus falling off of the stage and twisting your ankle. You remembered how Kun had to carry you with a disappointing shake of his head to the nurse’s office. However, thanks to your shamelessly bubbly personality, the tension in the atmosphere was cut like a knife when you patted Kun’s back with one arm and raised your uninjured leg up the air, pointing your free hand to the entrance as you yelled “onwards, donkey!”

“I remembered that! Did you really have to call Kun ‘slower than a snail who didn’t study their Math test because they overslept’? We could’ve lost another club member, you know? And what if Kun goes to jail for attempted murder? We’re all too broke to bail him out.  Who am I going to ask Yangyang to sneak into their room for pictures of their elegant notes to?” Kai smacked your arm with her own, a joking frown on her lips as you let out an amused laugh. “Chill out, you’re never going to get rid of me,” you waved your hand off, rolling your eyes at your friends. 

“Also, I don’t like Kun like that,” you deadpanned, sending a glare to your friend, who grinned even more. “Are you sure? The chemistry was hella spicy back on stage, and that kissing scene? Oh god, I was so close to pushing both of your heads together so you can actually kiss!” Gwen gushed, groaning as the other girls agreed with affirming nods and light laughter. “She’s not wrong,” Brooke added with a simple shrug, crossing her arms over her chest when she saw you looking at her to back you up. 

You rolled your eyes. “That just means that Kun and I have superb acting skills, thank you very much!” you exclaimed with a bright smile, earning more smirks and grins from your friends as you all walked down the campus hall to head to the nearby cafe across the street. “Come on, you two looked like lovers who have actually been longing to be with each other for years!” Kai exclaimed, her tone becoming slightly whiny. 

“Again, superb acting skills,” you stated with a silly grin.  

“I swear, you’re so oblivious to your own feelings. Dude, no one looks at their co-star like that!” Gwen groaned, smacking you upside the head gently, causing you to let out a surprised yelp in response. “You’re making a big deal out of this, I swear to god,” you rolled your eyes at your friends, rubbing the back of your head. “As much as I hate to say it, they’re not wrong. You two were all googly-eyeing each other up there,” Ren chuckled, shaking her head at you.

You groaned once again, scratching the back of your head. 

“For fucks sakes, I don’t like Kun!” 

-

“Is that literature?”

You glanced up from your paper, not surprised to see your senior, Kun, sitting down on the empty chair across the table from yours. “Yeah, I was absent last week so I had to catch up on some assignments,” you nodded, tapping the highlighter against your lips as you gazed into your laptop screen filled with nothing but long paragraphs of letters and random words. “Though the professor refused to fill me in on anything and my friends who are in that same class are too busy right now to help,” you groaned, leaning your head on the highlighted literature book on your desk. 

Kun chuckled, sipping his coffee before placing it on the table. “Mind if I take a look? I’ll see if I can be any help,” he asked, putting his forearms on the table as he gave you an amused smile. “Go ahead,” you waved your hand off, your voice muffled by the thick pages of your book as you let out an exasperated sigh. Kun smiled sweetly, leaning over to pull your laptop and turn it so that he could see the screen better. 

“Oh, I did this one a couple weeks ago,” he hummed, scrolling down through the questions your professor had given, furrowing his brows as he read over your answers. “As a drama kid, you’re not much of a literature fan, huh?” Kun chuckled, raising his eyebrows at you as you leaned your head up, placing your chin on your book as you shrugged casually. “It’s just not my cup of tea,” you confessed truthfully, knowing full well that you have no idea what you’ve been writing for the past thirty minutes. 

“When is this due, exactly?” he asked once again, scrolling down your google docs. “Saturday?” you sat up straight, groaning as you looked down at your book with a hopeless expression. Kun let out a small ‘ah’, looking down at your barely finished assignment, thinking so hard you could probably hear the gears in his head turn. “Tell you what, I think I still have my old notes. You can revise and find the answers there instead of working your ass off all night for this,” Kun suggested, giving you a tightlipped smile, sliding the laptop over to you.

Your eyes widened at his sudden statement. “Wait what? Kun, no, you’re going to need it too once the exams starts,” you frowned, shaking your head at him as you gripped the sides of your laptop to slide it over right in front of you. “It’s fine, Hendery borrowed it the other day, too. I don’t mind if you borrow it for a day or too as well,” he shook his head at you, his charming smile never leaving his face. 

“Kun, no. Dude, it’s fine, really. It’s just forty numbers, I’m sure I’ll get it finished before the deadline,” you shook your head vigorously, a firm frown placed on your lips as you gazed up at your senior. “You know you want to,” Kun taunted, his teasing tone sending sparks into your chest as he leaned his cheek against his knuckles, a loopy smile spread across his face. Oh how the turns have tabled. You always found it immensely attractive whenever Kun became cocky.

His usual cranky, mature, responsible self was an admirable feature of his, you weren’t going to lie. But there was something attractive and endearing when Kun’s cocky side popped out, you couldn’t help but admit to yourself that his loopy smile was the definition of ‘hot’. Of course, you weren’t going to admit it to his face. Not today, at least. 

You stared into his eyes, watching as one of his eyebrows turned upwards as he waited for you to accept his offer, his loopy smile gradually turning into a smirk as the seconds went by. At this point, you were just having a pointless staring contest. “No,” you deadpanned, huffing as you shut your laptop and carefully placing it in your bag. “I refuse to accept your help, good sir,” you gave him a cheeky grin of your own. 

“Are you sure?” Kun asked, his smirk never leaving his face as he leaned back in his chair to run a hand through his slightly disheveled blonde hair, pulling his glasses off of his face. “Why are you so persistent in helping me over something so small? It’s just an assignment, Kun,” you placed your hands on your hips as you squinted your eyes at him suspiciously, pondering if he wanted something from you to get him so persistent on letting him help you. 

This was not the usual Kun you knew. Usually, Kun would smack you with whatever papers he had on hand whenever you even joke about asking him for help with your assignments. And now, he was suddenly offering to let him help you? It was enough to convince you that Kun was possibly replaced by an alien. Or even worse, brainwashed by those aliens Renjun had always ranted about. Oh god, you regretted ever doubting and snoozing off during his annoying explanations. 

“Who are you and what have you done with Kun?” you asked, shakily holding up your pen at him as if you were ready to strike at him at any given moment. Kun furrowed his brows, smiling softly at you as he pulled his face away from his knuckles. “Why are you acting as if I’ve been possessed by a ghost or replaced by some sort of imposter, this isn’t among us,” Kun exclaimed incredulously, biting his lips to keep himself from laughing. 

You pulled your bag closer towards you, tightening your grip on the pretty yellow gel pen in your hand. “How do I know if you’re actually Kun and not some kind of alien? Last time I checked, you nearly banished Yangyang from your dorm when he asked you for help on his homework,” you furrowed your brows at him, waving your pen in circular motions as Kun balled one of his hands up into a fist, pressing it into his mouth. 

“Yangyang and Hendery had to perform a whole ass satanic ritual to get you to help them with their studies, it only makes sense for me to be suspicious if you’ve been abducted and brainwashed by those aliens Renjun always talks about,” you slowly got up from your seat, pursing your lips as you began to add on to whatever evidence you have in mind to prove that Kun was probably not himself at the moment. “I’ve watched Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and The Maze Runner: Scorch Trials before, I know how this alien shit works,” you hissed. 

Kun’s body began to shake as he tried his best to conceal his laughter as his eyes scrunched up into cute little moon shapes, his dimples protruding from his cheeks, pressing the back of his hand to his mouth to keep himself from doubling over laughing and disrupting the other students or teachers in the library. “And then? Go on, I’m listening,” Kun managed to gasp out as he took his glasses off to rub the space in between his eyes as he laughed silently. 

You couldn’t help but grin, watching as Kun patiently waited for you to go on despite the fact that he was probably on the brink of laughing himself to death. You then pouted, crossing your arms over your chest as you turned your head away from the older boy, tapping your feet against the carpeted floor. “You’re really being suspicious, you know,” you grumbled under your breath as Kun let out another wheeze of laughter. 

“Alright fine, how about this? You do something for me in return if I give you my notes,” Kun asked, a wide smile stretched across his face as he leaned over against the table, raising a brow at you as he placed his glasses back on. You lit up at this, turning your head at him in curiosity. “Yeah sure, name your price. As long as it’s not anything weird,” you nodded, earning another laugh from Kun at your sudden change of reaction. 

“Alright in exchange for my literature notes, you let me treat you out a day before the big day of our spectacular performance. I heard there was a carnival near the park, we could just meet up there,” Kun raised his brow, letting out a small hum as he looked at you with a glint of hope in his eyes. Your eyes widened at his sudden proposal, uncrossing your arms from your chest you leaned your head to the side in confusion. “Like, just the two of us?” you asked rather hesitantly, feeling your heartbeat increase slightly. 

Kun chuckled once again, nervously scratching the back of his head in an attempt to hide how flustered he felt at that moment as he stood up, grabbing his cup of coffee with him with one hand and snucking the other inside his pocket. “Why not?” he shrugged casually, a shy smile stretched across his face as he spoke, looking up at you with a soft expression on his face. Oh how fast your heart was racing at that exact moment.

You bit your lip, looking down at your shoes for a brief moment before gulping slightly. “Is Qian Kun asking me out on a date?” you teased, a cheeky grin forming on your lips despite the fact that your heart was practically ramming against your ribcage. Kun let out another chuckle, his soft smile sending a swarm of butterflies fluttering around and about in your tummy. 

“You can think of it whatever you like.”

You smiled at his words, giggling lightly. 

“Well, better be prepared to be penniless after the charity event ends then, Kun.”

Yeah, you definitely take back what you said about not liking Kun.

-

“Y/n! Truth or dare!” 

“Excuse me?” you cocked your head to the side, dropping your bag at the side of the stage as you walked up to your group of club members who were all huddled up into a huge circle. “We’re playing truth or dare, join us, won’t you?” Ren asked, grabbing your hand and pulling you to sit on the empty spot next to her and Shotaro. “Truth or dare? What are we? Elementary schoolers? I’m definitely in,” you chuckled, scooting over as you rubbed your hands together sinisterly. 

Brooke laughed, shaking her head at you. “I love how we’re just here playing truth or dare while the fossils are over there doing business,” she snickered loudly, looking over the only three responsible members of the club. More infamously known as ‘The Fossils’ which consists of one of the oldest members of the club, aka, Gwen, Doyoung and Kun. Pushing aside the fact that Gwen is only in her second year of college. 

“We can hear you!” Gwen exclaimed from a mile away, furrowing her brows as she flipped through the schedules of the events with the other two seniors. “We know!” Brooke yelled back, a cheeky grin spread across her face as you let out a light giggle. “Okay, so, who’s next?” Haechan asked, spinning the empty wine bottle in the middle of the group circle. “Wait where did you guys even find an empty wine bottle? Isn’t heavy alcohol not allowed on campu-”

“Shotaro, hush! It’s stopping!” you gently pushed the younger boy’s face away with a palm to the side of his face to hush him as you all watched in anticipation as the bottle slowly came to a stop, the empty tip pointing at Renjun, who groaned in annoyance as the others cheered for joy. “Oh fuck,” Renjun cursed, a frustrated smile stretched across his face as you rubbed your two hands together. 

“Dare,” Renjun chuckled. 

“I got a good one!” you exclaimed raising your hand, receiving mischievous grins from your friends as Renjun’s smile turned into an abrupt frown. “I dare you,” you looked around, spotting a small empty plastic doritos bag and placing it in the boy’s hands with a cheeky grin. “To throw this out of the window to aim it at the security guard,” you grinned, your eyes glimmering with mischief as you laughed sinisterly. 

“What did the security ever do to you to make you dare someone else to litter from the third floor?” Haechan asked, laughing along as you all watched the colour fade away from Renjun’s face. “He scolded me for accidentally dropping my juice box to the ground,” you rolled your eyes, patting Renjun’s back and pushing him to get up on his feet. “I swear my juice box didn’t even touch the ground and the old man had to go ham on me,” you grumbled under your breath as Renjun got up to his feet with the plastic bag in his hand. 

Renjun looked back at you, placing his hands on his hips. “You’re making me a victim of your revenge here,” he deadpan, furrowing his brows as you handed him the finger. “It’s a dare, Huang,” you wiggled your eyebrows suggestively. “Either that or you put that maid dress costume we bought earlier on with cat ears for the next hour,” you placed your hands on your hips. “Renjun, put the maid dress on,” his girlfriend barked, pulling out her phone and opening the camera app, eliciting laughs around you as you all watched her serious expression in contrast to Renjun’s terrified one. 

“I rather not embarrass myself publicly like this, thank you very much,” Renjun shook his head, glaring at everyone who was hoping for him to choose the maid dress instead of knocking on death’s door. “Well? Off to it, we don’t have all day,” you grinned, waving your hand at the boy as if to shoo him away from you. “I swear, I’m going to pull an uno reverse on you someday,” Renjun grumbled as he opened one of the windows of the theater room, peeking down to spot the unsuspecting security guard along with the other innocent bystanders. 

You all cheered unceremoniously as you watched Renjun ball up the plastic bag and throw it down to the security guard before quickly shutting the window close so as to not get caught by said grumpy security guard. “Great, who’s next?” you exclaimed with an enthusiastic clap of your hand, ignoring the death glare Renjun was sending you from across the room as he walked back to the circle. “Oh god, I hope we get someone good,” Kai mumbled under her breath as she spun the bottle.

You all waited in anticipation, sucking on your bottom lip as the bottle slowly comes to a stop, the tip pointing right at you. ”Shit,” you exclaimed with a sarcastic smile, looking around your friend group who gave you all evil glares as if to say they were finally going to have revenge for all the stupid dares you made them do the past two years you’ve been here considering the bottle rarely goes to you. 

“Truth or dare?” Brooke asked with a sinister smile, rubbing her hands together as they all scooted closer to look at you in anticipation. Watching as you gave your friends a tight lipped smile, gulping inaudibly as you nervously blurted out a small “truth?” almost questioningly. 

“Do you have a crush?”

“Hah?”

You furrowed your brows, confused. “What are we? Middle schoolers?” you raised your brow, scratching the back of your head. “Just answer the stupid question, y/n,” Kai deadpanned, her sinister smile never leaving her face as you continued to stare at your friends with a confused expression. ‘Well this isn’t as bad as I thought,’ you thought to yourself with a small shrug. “Yes, I do,” you admitted shamelessly as if it was an everyday question, giving them an innocent smile. 

“Who?” Shotaro asked, squinting his eyes at you. You raised your brow, crossing your arms firmly as you giggled. “One question per truth, suck it,” you teased, sticking your tongue out at your friends. Someone else spun the bottle quickly, causing it to stop right in front of you, causing your jaw to drop, eliciting a round of applause and laughter from your friends. “Okay, now spill, who?” Brooke repeated Shotaro’s question, tapping her nail against the wooden floor in anticipation. 

“But I haven’t chosen whether I wanted truth or dare, yet,” you shot back, raising your brow as your friends shared knowing looks. “Still,” they replied shortly, tight-lipped smiles stretching across their faces as you frowned abruptly. “This isn’t fair, I can’t get asked twice!” you retorted, feeling your anxiety creep up as you saw Kun’s figure discussing the events with Gwen and Doyoung at the corner of your eye, hoping to god that he wasn’t listening to any of this. 

Haechan shook his head, tutting at you softly. “The bottle landed on you fair and square, therefore you have to answer the damn question,” he grinned, laughing sinisterly as you purse your lips at how you’re literally cornered by your friends right now. “Fine, I’ll say who it is,” you grumbled, adjusting your sitting position on the floor. “He’s someone who hates me,” you stated, half jokingly, giggling as their reactions dimmed down only to realise that you have pulled an uno reverse card. 

“What? That’s not fair, you have to say their name!” Angie exclaimed, pointing an exclamatory finger at you as you stuck your tongue out at your friends with a cheshire grin. “Suck it, you didn’t say I have to specifically say his name!” you giggled, giving them enthusiastic jazz hands. “Anyways, I’m not playing anymore to save whatever's left of my dignity,” you scooted backwards, giving them two peace signs, your wide grin never leaving your face. 

“Wait, she said ‘he’. And she said that he hates her, which only leads to one suspect,” Kai explained, looking at the rest of your friends with brows furrowed with concentration. They all gasped in unison, looking at you with wide eyes before looking back at your precious club president (aka the poor unsuspecting victim slash bystander) with an equally shocked expression. 

“KUN! DO YOU HATE Y/N?” Angie shouted at the top of her lungs, cupping her mouth to attract the three Fossil’s attention. 

“What?” Kun shouted back, turning around with his brows furrowed, papers in his hands as he used the heel of his palm to push his glasses up to his head. Oh how you felt your heart dropping to your stomach. The fact that you had found out you had developed a small crush on your lovely senior merely less than three days ago wasn’t helping the fact that he looked immensely attractive in his attire. 

With his glasses pushed up to the top of his head, causing the bangs in front of his forehead to mess around a bit. His platinum blonde hair was a little bit messy and disheveled, probably the result of his hands running through them too much in distress. Considering Kun had a morning class today he was wearing a baggy white t-shirt over his tall, built figure. The sleeves were short and wide enough to reveal his muscular forearms. His black ripped jeans giving him that edgy, sort of ulzzang boyfriend look that you would see on pinterest. 

“DO. YOU. HATE. Y/N?” Angie repeated.

“Stop yelling, you’re going to make us all deaf!” Gwen shouted back. 

“Do I hate Y/n?” Kun repeated, pointing a finger at himself before looking at you, his adorably confused expression sending butterflies in your stomach. When the hell did he have that big of an effect on you? You swallowed down your nerves and used your superb acting skills to shoot him a loopy wide smile, giving him a sarcastic thumbs up, earning a soft smile from your lovely senior.

He chuckled briefly, putting the back of his hands on his hips. “Yeah, I do!” He teased, his cute dimples appearing on his cheeks as he grinned cockily at you, causing you to frown abruptly. “It’s scientifically proven by Qian Kun, our lord and saviour himself!” Kai exclaimed, raising her arms up in the air as if she had just received an invitation to the Grammy awards. “Y/n, you like Kun?!” Angie gasped dramatically, shaking Lin’s shoulders aggressively as if she had just found a priceless artifact. 

You laughed, trying to conceal how flustered you felt knowing full well that Kun was joking considering what happened approximately three days ago at the library. You know damn well that he was definitely lying. “You all have a huge misunderstanding,” you exclaimed, standing up to your feet as you jogged on over to stand beside Kun, wrapping an arm around his neck and pulling his head towards you as if you were putting him in a headlock. 

“You can’t see it but he is in love with me!” you joked, giggling lightly as Kun began to start smacking the papers he was holding against your back gently as a sign to let him go. “Get your filthy hands off me,” he joked, his body shaking as he laughed. “You aren’t the draco malfoy you think you are, Kun,” you grinned, looking down at the guy whose neck was stuck in between your right elbow. 

“This is harassment, I should sue,” Kun laughed as you released him from your grasp, smacking his papers gently on your head. 

“See, guys? Kun is infatuated and lovesick.”

Oh how you didn’t know how true your words are. 

-

Today wasn’t one of Kun’s greatest days. 

He didn’t know why he was so upset that day but it was one of the rare times when he would wake up on the wrong side of the bed. The fact that the moment he got out of his room only to see Yangyang’s stuff all over the couch angered him even more, despite the fact that the younger was probably already off to class. Kun had an afternoon class that day as his professor had postponed the classes due to personal reasons, which left him to go to the theater room early to practice his lines before the other club members arrived. 

He wasn’t in the mood to take anyone’s bull crap today and the fact that the event is coming up in a week wasn’t helping his terrible mood. All he wanted was to crawl back to bed and sleep until his emotions weren't bubbling up inside of him, waiting to burst. Though, thankfully for him and everyone else, the club members were able to tell that Kun wasn’t in a very happy mood at that moment. 

So they were pretty cool with Kun using whatever patience he has left and replying with short one worded answers unless needed. Funnily enough, today is the last day of rehearsals so Doyoung decided that you should all just retouch the props and backgrounds with paint and mod podge to be sure that the paints don’t chip off if something happens during the big day. Though, unfortunately for you, you were too high on serotonin (in other words: caffeine) to acknowledge the scary aura Kun was radiating. 

“Qian Kun!” you exclaimed, jumping on him and wrapping an arm around his shoulders. “Lovely morning we’re having, don’t you think?” you grinned, cocking your head to the side to have a better look at Kun’s face, your mood wavering in the slightest bit when your eyes came in contact with his cold, exhausted ones. “Yeah, sure. Have you done your part of the props, yet? We have to make sure everything’s good by the end of the day,” Kun asked, gently pulling your arm away from his shoulder as he tried his best to keep his temper. 

You frowned slightly, putting your hands on your hips. “Of course not, I just got here,” you informed, shaking your head at him firmly. “Well then, get to it. We don’t have much time today and I really want to go home,” Kun waved you off, his tone strict as he looked down at the clipboard in his right hand, using the left to rub his eyes. 

His strict tone caught you off guard. He wasn’t usually this strict to you, he sounded like your 80 year old science professor after the man lost his glasses and refused to find them because there was 20 minutes of class left. Those aren’t really good memories to reminisce at that moment. But nonetheless, Kun wasn’t in a good mood and you didn’t know if you should keep cracking jokes or shut up. 

“Kun’s being unusually not himself today,” you commented under your breath as you walked over to Renjun and Angie, who were repainting the tree barks for the play while you were carrying a can of paint for them. “He’s been like that since he came here, man’s probably having a shitty day, don’t bother him,” Renjun shrugged casually, dipping his paintbrush into the paint can you had set on the floor beside you along with the other cans of paints, earning an hum of agreement from his girlfriend. 

“I agree. Kun rarely gets this pissed off and from what I’ve heard from past club members, an angry Kun isn’t a good thing,” Angie added with a nod, pointing her wet paintbrush at you with a suspicious glint in her eyes. “So try not to anger him, most of us are trying our best to just get shit done and go home, too,” she told you, her tone slow as if she was gently telling off a small, stubborn, bratty five year old who’s prone to mess things up with every step they take. 

In this case, you were that five year old. 

“What if he just needs some cheering up, though?” you asked, sitting down on one of the crates filled with props, careful as to not accidentally knock over the paint cans around you. “He might be in a terrible mood but maybe he needs some cheering up or something,” you mumbled, drawing patterns on the wooden crate with your finger as your eyes glanced from the wood to Kun’s distressed figure. Leaning your chin on your palm as you watched Kun walk around with an emotionless expression on his face.  

Renjun clicked his tongue, bending down to open another can of paint to add more details to the leaves. “Y/n, no. Please don’t, just help us with the props. Angie’s almost done with colouring each individual wooden bush, you should help and actually do something,” Renjun shook his head firmly, narrowing his eyes at you as you gave him a frown, looking down idly at the can of paints surrounding you as Angie carefully dipped her paintbrush in one of the paints, her tongue stuck out at the corner of her lips as her shaky hand carefully added more details to the wooden board. 

Before you could open your mouth, you heard the senior in question call out your name with a heavy sigh following after it. “Y/n, get down from there before you break something. Help the others with the prop won’t you?” Kun sighed heavily, furrowing his brows as he placed the hand that was holding his clipboard to his hip and raised the other to pinch the bridge of his nose as he felt his blood boil in annoyance. “Relax Kun, I’m simply observing,” you grinned, giving him an enthusiastic wave which only happens to make his frown deepen. 

“Observing isn’t going to get anything done around here, why can’t you help out for once other than laze around?” Kun glared daggers into your skull, but alas, you didn’t appear to be as fazed as you were on the inside. “Who took a shit in your cornflakes today, Qian Kun?” you asked, crossing your arms across your shoulders as you grinned gingerly at him, earning a soft groan of annoyance from the older boy. 

He took a deep breath as if to keep his composure and hold himself back from doing anything he’s going to regret. But alas, was murdering you on the spot really that big of a crime if all you’ve been doing the past hour was chat around and push his buttons by simply breathing? 

 “Y/n, I don’t have the patience to deal with your shenanigans today. Just get off the damn crate box and help out for once,” Kun was beginning to grow restless. He didn’t know why he was getting so worked up over your daily nonsensical antics, he didn’t know why seeing your pretty smile was making his patience run out like sand in a tiny hourglass. The way you responded with a quick “nope!” with an eager shake your head wasn’t helping him tame the flaming fury inside of him. 

“Y/n, I swear to God. You’re so ludicrous and infuriating, I don’t even know why we haven’t kicked you out yet,” he hissed, his eyes darkening as he felt his mind grow numb, oblivious as to how your bright smile had faltered at the anger lacing in his voice. “Hey, you don’t need to be so mean!” you exclaimed, furrowing your brows as Kun’s eyes shot up to look at you. “Oh, I’m sorry,” Kun said sarcastically with a roll of his eyes. 

“I think I have the right to express my frustrations if all you’re going to do is mope around. It’s literally the last day of rehearsals, you should be taking things seriously,” he laughed in disbelief, running a hand through his hair. 

You opened your mouth to say something before closing it when you realised you had run out of comebacks considering Kun was ‘kind of’ right in a way. But you believed that you should all have a good break before the actual performance considering you’ve been practicing so hard for the past few weeks. You all deserve a good rest and you were sure you were going to get it if it weren’t for the fact that Kun was currently in a shitty mood and none of you were brave enough to ask for one. 

“Just get down from there and help Angie paint before my brain explodes into smithereens,” Kun sighed once again, furrowing his brows as he waved his hand off. You huffed, mumbling small curses under your breath as you blindly hopped off of the crate you were sitting on before your feet accidentally knocked over a few cans filled to the brim with paint, causing them to spill to the wooden floor. “Shit,” your eyes widened as you quickly bent down to pick the cans up, earning a few frustrated calls of your name from your club members. 

“Shit, I’m so so sorry I wasn’t looking!” you stammered as you saw Renjun hopping off his stool to look at the mess you had accidentally made. “I’ll get the mop, we can still wipe it off before the paint fully dries,” Renjun exclaimed, running his hands through his hair in distress. “I’ll come with you,” his girlfriend patted his shoulder with a heavy sigh. “Y/n, what the hell?” Kun exclaimed, walking up to you as his eyes grew wide, fury glossing over his pupils as you fumbled with your bag to find the wet tissues as your friends ran off to the nearby janitor’s closet. 

You pulled out a box of wet wipes as you knelt down, trying to wipe off as much as you could as you looked up at Kun in a panic. “I didn’t mean to knock it over, I swear! It was an accident, I didn’t-” you were cut off with a frustrated groan from Kun, watching as he rubbed his face with his palms as if he finally had enough of your nonsense. “Shut up, just shut up, y/n. Oh my god, see this wouldn’t have happened if you just fucking listened to me!” Kun scolded, the anger in his tone holding no mercy as everyone stood still in the room in awkward silence. 

Your jaw dropped in surprise, needles slowly piercing your heart as you watched Kun’s face get even angrier as the seconds went by and at this point you ran out of tissues to wipe the paint off. “Kun, I said I was sorry. It’s not like I purposely kicked the paints, I was just getting off the crate like you told me to,” you shot back defensively, careful as to not grip the tissues in your hand as they were dripping everywhere on the floor. 

Kun rolled his eyes, a deep frown on his face as his expression darkened at your words. “I told you to get off of the crates, not walk around like a drunk blind bat. Did you get hit in the head or something? I swear I still don’t understand why we haven’t kicked you out of the club. You’re lazy, reckless, clumsy, you never help around. All you do is cause trouble for everyone, you’re late all the time that you need me to babysit you 24/7,” Kun began ranting, oblivious to how every word was like a dagger shooting through your heart. 

“It’s so annoying and sometimes I just wished I never asked you to join this damn club if all you’re going to do is pile up more work onto not just me but the other members of the club. We were suppose to finish early if it weren’t for your clumsy ass fucking up once again!”

It was pretty rare to see Kun curse. And when he did, it’s usually a sign that you have gone too far or you’ve pushed his limits. You’ve never seen Kun this angry at you before in your two years of knowing him, you’ve never seen him this livid even if you pushed his buttons way more than you should. But the way he looked at you was the one that hurt the most. The way he laughed sarcastically in disbelief as he continued to rant on and on how he’s so close to kicking you out of the club.

The way his expression was telling you to leave his sight for good. The way his dark eyes held nothing but hatred and anger. 

It hurt you. 

His cold angered stare did nothing but pierce your heart as you blinked back the tears that started to gather in your eyes. A lump began to gather in your throat, begging for you to let it out as your eyes burned. You looked down sadly to avoid Kun’s angered eyes, gripping the half dried tissues as the paint stained your hand and dripped down in between your fingers and back to the floor. 

“Look, Kun, I’m sorry okay. Just let me clean it up I swear I-”

“Why did you even join this club if all you’re going to do is burden me and the other members?” Kun snapped. 

“Kun, that’s enough,” Doyoung spoke up upon entering the theater room with a bucket filled with water in hand, putting the bucket down in front of you before placing a hand on Kun’s shoulder to stop him from saying anything else. “Y/n, calm down. It’s not a big deal, you didn’t even spill that much, you can just go home for today,” Doyoung gave you a comforting smile, reaching over to pat your head as you took in a deep exhale to keep your tears in as you felt eyes boring into the back of your skull. 

“What? No, she needs to clean this up and face the consequences of her clumsiness,” Kun’s eyes went wide at his older friend, shaking his head as you bit your lip to keep yourself together. “It’s no big deal, Doyoung. Really, I’ll just clean it up myself,” you shook your head, leaning down to lift the bucket up towards you. “No, you two can go home early. Kun, you’re clearly in a terrible mood so I suggest you just go home and take some rest. Y/n, it’s okay, I’ll clean up. I haven’t been doing much these days anyway,” Doyoung shook his head profusely, grabbing the bucket from your hands. 

“Doyoung, you can’t just-”

“Doyoung, it’s fine I can-”

“Just go home before I dump paint on the both of you,” Doyoung hissed, shaking his head at both of your stubbornness. ‘They really are perfect for each other,’ he thought to himself as Kun clicked his tongue in frustration, walking back stage to grab his stuff to cool off. You stood there in silence, you didn’t know what to say and honestly you were scared that if you were to take one more step, you would fuck something up again and make Kun get even more angrier at you. 

Doyoung chuckled, shaking his head at you as he walked over and placed a hand on your shoulder. “Hey,” he spoke up, attracting your attention. “Go home already. Don’t take Kun’s words to heart, you know very well he didn’t mean them. He’s just having a bad day, he’ll be back to his nice self tomorrow,” Doyoung gave you an encouraging smile, causing you to muster up whatever strength you had left in you to smile back at him. You gave him a small nod, despite the fact that you weren’t so convinced. 

“Thanks, Doyoung.”

-

You were an idiot. It was no surprise to anyone. 

After three days of no interaction with Kun whatsoever, you still decided to go to your little hangout? Date? Friend date? (You don’t even know anymore.) That you both had arranged two weeks ago at the library. You remembered the excitement you had suppressed all week at the thought of finally going out on a date with Kun but that was before the fight that happened at the theater club three days ago. Could you even call it a fight if you were the one who was apologizing and Kun was the one uncharacteristically yelling at you?

You didn’t know anymore. 

You were also hoping to patch things up with Kun when this date finally came up considering you couldn’t find him anywhere on campus. Hell, you even had to ask Yangyang for Kun’s whereabouts which wasn’t much help considering all he told you was ‘he comes and goes like the wind’ but you were desperate to talk it out and apologize to your senior. 

Was this the effect your crush on him had? Usually you would just wait it out until things get better between the two of you but you knew that this wasn’t a minor fight. You actually pissed Kun off to his limits and you knew you had to apologize if you wanted him to continue to like you. That is if he actually does like you and wasn’t flirting and messing with you in the library for laughs and payback for all the mischief you had caused during your two years of knowing each other. 

However, to your dismay, you had been waiting at the park right across the carnival for three hours. And you were getting quite chilly (curse your past self for wanting to look good and had decided to wear you newest short sleeved shirt) and the wound in your heart was slowly opening up again the longer you waited. You’ve sent around five to seven texts by now and you were starting to wonder if he was just busy or if he was purposely ignoring you. 

Y/n: Yuh Kunners   16:49

Y/n: are you coming anytime soon?? Remember we were gonna hang out today right?????    16:50

One missed call from y/n

Y/n: I’m waiting in the park like we planned. Are you on the way lol   17:10

Y/n: kun im getting cold lmfao get over here before i turn into a living ice cube   17:37

Two missed calls from y/n

Y/n: dude i spent an hour choosing my clothes pls come ive been waiting for hours  18:49

Y/n: kun???? Cmon i know u were mad but u cant just stand me up here lmfao :,}   19:00

Two missed calls from y/n

Y/n: i guess ur not coming, huh  19:45

You sighed heavily, feeling your eyes burn as you watch people coming in and out of the carnival, gripping tightly onto the saddle of your bag as you begin to walk to the exit of the park. You pressed the back of your hand to one of your eyes when you realised you couldn’t hold back a tear, blinking rapidly when you started to feel them begging to leak out of your eyes like a broken tap. But you knew you couldn’t just cry like a loser in public just because someone stood you up. 

Your thoughts begin to wander as you make your way down the sidewalk and towards the bus station, feeling your heavy heart slowly sink down to the bottom of your stomach with every step you take. You could admit that you did go a little too far back at the theater room considering so many people had warned you to lay off the joking around for just one day so as to not make Kun’s temper go off the charts. You should’ve listened to them, you could admit that. 

But you also knew that you didn’t deserve to be stood up like this.

And it sucked. 

How could he just yell at you, storm off, proceeded to ignore you like the plague at school, then ghost your text and stand you up just like that without an apology or an explanation? Hell, he didn’t even read your texts. 

“Y/n?” 

You looked up from the ground with wide eyes, recognizing that melodious voice you’ve been longing to hear for the past three days. “Kun,” you mumbled almost inaudibly, your eyes widened slightly to see Qian Kun in his casual attire that could easily send your heart into a heart attack. “What are you doing here?” he asked, coughing awkwardly as he took in your whole look, feeling his breath being taken away by the mere sight of you being more dressed up than you usually are. 

“Waiting for you,” you deadpanned as if it wasn’t obvious enough, feeling your tears dissipate when you finally made eye contact with the boy in front of you, whose eyes grew wide at your words. “Me?” Kun’s eyebrows were raised in surprise, confusion glossing over his facial expression as he pointed a finger to himself. “Remember we planned a carnival date two weeks ago? Or are you just still mad at me for what happened in the theater room?” you asked, giving him a sad smile. 

Kun’s face turned pale at the reminder, your words hitting him like a brick when he realised he had stood you up for who knows how long considering the bus stop you two were standing on was quite the long walk from the carnival. “Oh fuck,” he blurted out when your words finally sink into him, an apologetic expression washing over him as you crossed your arms in front of your chest. “Are you that mad that you just had to stand me up?” you furrowed your brows, taking a step towards him. 

“Y/n, I’m so so sorry,” he started but you cut him off to give him a piece of your mind. “Look I admit, what happened at the theater was my fault and I should’ve listened to you instead of pushing your buttons and causing trouble. But was it really that bad that you had to keep me waiting here for not two- but three hours? I know I was- I am immensely annoying and I’m truly sorry for that,” you took a deep breath to keep yourself from getting too emotional in front of him as Kun stared guiltily at you.

“That was completely on me but that doesn’t give you a valid excuse or reason to stand me up for three hours, Kun,” your gaze hardened as you stared teary eyed inot Kun’s sad ones. He gazed up at down at your hopeless figure, swallowing at what he’s about to do as he leaned towards you to grab your hands in his, giving them a tight squeeze as he lifted them up to his chest. Your eyes widened at the sudden contact, despite the fact that you’ve literally hugged him on stage before. But there was something in his actions that made it seem more intimate in a way.

 “I don’t know what to do or say to make you feel better but all I can say is that I’m sorry, I'm so so sorry,” he started, running his thumbs over your knuckles. 

“I swear, I know it isn’t an excuse but I’ve been so stressed the past couple of days with the play, the big assignments at the end of every semester and I recently got this internship deal and I just started today. I completely forgot about today, I’m so so sorry. I promise I’ll make it up to you, and about the theater-” he swallowed down the guilt bubbling up inside of him as the memory of your hurt expression resurfaced in his mind once again. (which sort of brought him to the point of avoiding you all around campus)

“I had my phone on mute during the internship and I must’ve missed your texts. I’m assuming you sent me some because I know for a fact your impatient ass would probably bombard my phone with calls and texts,” he joked, laughing lightly when he realised now isn’t the most appropriate time to joke around considering you two were in a very tight situation. He gave you a small smile, his eyes filled with a small glint of hope as he took a step and tugged your hands so that he could enclose whatever proximity you two had left in between you.

“I’m so sorry. I know you might not forgive me but I hope you can give me a chance to make it up to you. Right here, right now. The carnival isn’t closing until midnight after all,” he suggested with a small shrug, looking down at his wrist watch before gazing back up to your eyes with a soft expression. You bit your lip, gazing down at your hands being held delicately in his, his thumb caressing your knuckles softly as you gave it a small thought. 

You gave him a genuine smile, your heart lightening as you came to find that you couldn’t refuse anything when Kun was giving you a look as if you were the only thing valuable to him in the world at that moment. 

“Sure, Kunt.”

“Can we just have one day without you pushing my buttons?”

“I have the right to call you day considering you’ve been an absolute Kunt this week, get over it.”

-

“Okay, ladies. I have a confession to make,” you took a deep exhale as you walked over to the food table where your friends were sitting in before the actual performance. “You like Kun?” Brooke raised her brow, opening her mouth as Ten leaned over the table to give her a spoonful of the sweet dessert he was having. Your jaw dropped when you realised she beat you to your own confession but however you weren’t backing down from an opportunity to mess around with your friends. 

“No, I don’t.”

“Yes, you do.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“Nope.”

“Yep.”

“I really really like Kun,” you confessed all of a sudden, causing Kai to choke on her ice cream at the sudden news. “That’s so sudden,” she exclaimed with a hoarse cough, leaning over to steal Hyuck’s cup of coffee as she chugged it down while patting her chest. “Cat’s out of the bag, I like Qian Kun. But are you all really surprised?” you sighed, sitting down beside Lin as you sipped on your own drink with a nonchalant shrug.

“Excuse me?” a sudden voice spoke up. 

You stopped sipping loudly at the familiar voice, turning your head around slowly to come in eye contact with none other than Qian Kun himself who was in the middle of eating his fruit salad. His brows furrowed in confusion as your eyes grew wide, embarrassment creeping up your cheeks as your jaw dropped open, your thoughts messy as you try to find the words to speak. “You didn’t tell me Kun was here,” you hissed at your friends, choosing the option to act as if Kun wasn’t sitting right beside you this whole time. 

“Dude you’re literally blind, he was here the whole time,” Kai deadpanned, giving you a look that completely expressed how she was fed up with your idiocy for the day. “Can I speak now?” Kun pipped up, a smirk stretched on his lips as he watched your flustered figure retaliate against your friend’s words for calling you blind despite the fact that you kind of are in a way. “Nope, nevermind!” you shook your head abruptly, standing up as you gripped your handbag and slung it over your shoulder. 

“You didn’t hear me say shit! Obliviate!” you used the straw the cashier gave you as a wand, waving it in front of Kun before you ran for dear life to the one place where he can’t get in: also known as the women’s dressing room. “Oh no you’re not! You can’t just Harry Potter reference you’re way out of this confession,” you could hear the chair grinding against the tile floor, signalling that Kun had got up to follow after you as you both laughed loudly.

“Go away, Kun!” 

You knew that confessing that you like Kun wasn’t that big of a deal considering you did almost cry in front of him when he stood you up a couple of days ago on your carnival date. And you were definitely more than sure that he had reciprocated your feelings considering how he was smiling nonstop (Plus the fact that the apples of his cheeks and ears were tinted pink) after you pressed a small peck on his cheek at the end of the date right as he dropped you off at the bus stop. 

But it wouldn’t be fun if you continued to act as bashful as you did back at the carnival date, would it? 

You and Kun let out small lighthearted giggles as you shut the door of your dressing room to his face, provoking him even more as you jokingly told him to ‘fuck off’ considering you two have about thirty minutes left until you have to get on stage. Yes, you were using this as a delightful excuse to do your make up and dress up fifteen minutes earlier than the rest of the cast considering it was quite a long play and you wanted to reread your script and calm your nerves before show time.

-

“Princess Putri, my love, my little songbird! Oh how all of these years of holding myself back, all these years of fighting and hoping to reunite with you once again and hold you in my arms,” Kun recited as you ran towards him, into his arms which were stretched open wide, waiting to wrap around you in a tight and loving embrace. With a single, meaty tear, you jumped into his arms. Letting him spin you around like the princess you were portraying as the piano music became loud and almost deafening, almost letting you believe that you were in your own world.

Going against the script, you wrapped your arms around Kun’s neck, leaning your head towards his to nuzzle his nose against yours lovingly, eliciting a laugh from said boy as he placed you back on your two feet. “Oh how I’ve been longing to feel your lips against mine,” he leaned his forehead against yours, his words going against the script as he wrapped his arm around your waist to pull you closer to him. Placing his free gloved hand on your chin, his thumb caressing your lips as the camera zoomed in on your expressions. 

Your raw emotions being captured on the camera as you gaze back at Kun lovingly, a loopy smile stretched across your face as you scanned his features. His blonde hair poking out of the hat he was wearing, his front bangs messy and slightly wet with sweat with the sword fighting scene he had with Haechan earlier on stage moments prior. Your heart was beating rapidly against your chest, your breathing hitched as Kun slowly leaned his head towards yours, closer than he should be as the piano music in the background began to slow down. 

His eyes gazed up and down from your eyes to your lips, his tongue darting out to wet his own as his dark pupils sparkled under the theater light, the audience as silent as mice as they waited in anticipation for the long awaited kiss scene. “May I?” he whispered almost breathily, his melodious soft voice sending shivers down your spine, the microphone attached to his cheek picking up on his almost inaudible words. His eyes gazed up at yours for your consent as your lips parted into a wide grin.

You leaned forward, nodding softly with a wide smile on your face. He let out a soft chuckle, lips inching closer to yours as your free hand tugged on the tips of his hat to tease the audience by blocking the kiss scene completely from them as his lips pressed against yours. His hand that was on your chin moved up to your cheek as he leaned his head to the side slightly for a better angle, hearing the audience break out into a loud applause as you gripped onto his hat tighter to cover up the fact that the two of you were practically making out in front of a hundred people. 

Your eyes shut tight as you basked into the feeling of Kun’s soft, slightly chapped lips against yours, the cherry lipstick probably making a mark on his lips as you moved yours against his in sync as Kun’s hand that was on your cheek moved to turn off your mic and his own as he refused to pull away from you. He leaned his face so that he could deepen the kiss, not caring about the lipstick you were wearing that was currently smearing and staining his lips a rosey pink. 

“Holy shit, are they actually making out?” Haechan whispered aloud backstage, leaning his head forward slightly so as to not accidentally get caught by the applauding audience as Lin and Doyoung pulled on the rope to close the curtains. “Did anyone get that on camera?” Kai hissed, looking at the other club members in hopes of finding someone with their camera phone up, smiling widely when she saw Ten and Brooke holding up their phones up with big grins on their faces. 

“YOU MORONS, STOP RECORDING AND CLOSE THE CURTAINS!” Doyoung exclaimed from the other side of the stage. 

-

“Are we just going to ignore the fact that you two just made out in front of a couple hundred people?” Ten chuckled, replaying the video of you and Kun kissing in front of the whole campus and probably their parents, siblings and grandparents. “Plus the owner of the school and the theater majors,” Brooke added with a soft snicker as Ten pulled her close to him in a tight embrace as they and a few other club members gathered around to watch the video. “Priceless, who knew our favorite dynamic duo would end up making out in front of the whole campus?” Kai teased, wiggling her eyebrows at you. 

“Shut up,” you grumbled, leaning your head down on the table to avoid the knowing smirks of your club members. “I didn’t know you were all suppose to bully me today, I would’ve brought a pan to smack you all into tomorrow if I knew this was going to happen,” you added, mumbling small curses incoherently as your friends considered to snicker at your uncharacteristically flustered and bashful state. 

You remembered immediately running off from the stage once your club members started applauding and whistling at you as soon as you pulled away from the deep kiss. You and Kun both had flustered expressions stretched across your faces when you saw the smudged lipstick stains on both of your lips, panting for air as you stared wide eyed at each other. You were also sure Kun had run off to his own dressing room to save himself from any more teasing. (especially from Ten)

As soon as you locked the door to your dressing room, you couldn’t stop your heart from beating rapidly against your chest. The butterflies in your stomach swarming as if there was an earthquake, a giddy feeling bubbling up in your chest. You swore it took everything inside of you to not scream your emotions out into the bag you brought today, but you survived after drinking lots of water to calm yourself down (despite the fact that you could feel a giddy smile stretch across your lips whenever your mind wanders back to the soft makeout session you and Kun had merely moments ago. 

“Hey, can we talk?” Kun’s voice snapped you out of your thoughts, causing your head to shoot up from your leaning position on the table. Eyes wide as you both stared in awe at each other, feeling your hearts race when Kun coughed awkwardly to break the awkward tension settling in between the two of you. “I-” you were soon cut off by Kai, who popped out of nowhere to push you up to your feet with a mischievous grin stretched across her face. 

“Of course, go ahead. Take your time, after all you are done here, right?” Kai gripped your shoulders tightly when you opened your mouth to speak, realising that for once in your life you didn’t know what to say in situations like this. “Right! Now, off you go!” She exclaimed with a soft giggle, shoving your bag in your hands before pushing you towards Kun, ignoring the death glare you were sending her as you followed Kun out of the theater room. 

Kun shoved his hand in his pockets, racking through his brain to think of something to say to break the awkward tension. “So,” he started, wincing at how awkward he sounded before proceeding with his words. “Are we going to talk about what happened back there or?” Kun raised his brow at you, finally turning his head to make eye contact. You bit your lip nervously, looking down at your feet before gulping and looking back up at him. 

“Not until you- you uh-,” you coughed, pointing a finger at the corner of his mouth. “You got a little- a little lipstick there, bro,” you quietly pointed out, internally cringing at how awkward you two were despite the fact that you were fine with shamelessly running away from him after confessing your crush on him with laughs and giggles in between. Kun’s eyes widened at your statement, wiping the corner of his lips with the back of his hand as he mumbled small apologies under his breath. 

Kun paused when you finally told him that the lipstick was finally wiped off. “Did you just call me ‘bro’?” he deadpanned, furrowing his brows in confusion. The atmosphere slowly returning to normal upon his obvious question as your eyes widened in a panic. “I don’t know! I panicked! We’ve never had a post make out conversation before. Or a conversation that doesn’t involve you glaring daggers into my head, I swear if looks could kill,” you shot back, waving your hands around as Kun let out a light chuckle.

“So, do you like Messi?” you asked after a pregnant pause, clasping your hands behind your back with a small smile. Kun raised his brow at you, chuckling softly at your words. “Is that supposed to be a Weightlifting Fairy Kim Bok Joo reference?” he asked, letting out a soft giggle when you nodded shamelessly in response, wide smiles stretching on both of your lips as you looked down at your slightly dirty shoes. 

“Can we talk now?” he asked, leaning his body against the wall as you both stared at each other in silence. Except, this time the silence was no longer awkward. Hell, it was almost comforting. 

“Of course, yeah. Sure,” you nodded, trying to keep your cool as Kun took a step towards you. “Well, for starters, I really enjoyed- I mean- fuck,” Kun started, scrunching his face when he realised he was stumbling over his words, rubbing his face in frustration. “What I meant to say was I really liked kissing you,” he looked down nervously, eliciting a small smile from you as you had never seen the calm and collected Qian Kun this flustered in front of you. And you couldn’t even believe the fact that you were the one who was the main reason why he was like this. 

“I don’t know if you meant what you said when you said you liked me before the performance, but fuck it. I really really like you and I really do want to be more than friends or club members,” Kun chuckled, swallowing his nerves down as he fiddled with his fingers in front of you, his dimples protruding on his cheeks as he gave you a cute, toothy smile. You couldn’t help but push your own nerves back to tease him, raising your brow as you gave him a cheeky grin. 

“Is Qian Kun simping for me, right now?” you teased. 

Kun let out a light laugh, shaking his head at you profusely at the sight of your own light expression. “I guess I am,” he shrugged with a staggering laugh, joining you in your small fit of giggles. “Well in that case, I’m just here waiting for you to pop the question,” you placed the back of your hands on your hips, giving him an encouraging smile despite the fact that your heart was beating oh-so-loudly in your ears. 

At this point his eyes had turned into small moon shapes from how wide he was smiling and his cheeks were starting to hurt. “Pop the question? What is this? A marriage proposal?” he teased, raising his brow at you suggestively. Now it was his turn to tease you. 

“Shut up, you know what I mean,” you smacked his arm jokingly, giggling along with him bashfully. 

He took another step towards you, leaning towards you to grab your hand in his, intertwining his fingers with yours tightly. Giving your hand a loving squeeze, he took a deep breath as he looked down at your intertwined hands. “May I be your boyfriend, then?” he asked, a soft, boyish smile on his face. The happy glint in his eyes never leaving him as he stared lovingly into yours, taking in your features slowly as you giggled lightly. 

“Whipped Kun hitting different,” you commented, eliciting a laugh from your senior as he squeezed your hand in his gingerly once again. 

“Just say yes so I can kiss you again,” he rolled his eyes at you, his soft smile never leaving his face. 

You puckered your lips gingerly, answering him with your actions as you waited for him to press his lips against yours. “I’m waiting, Kun,” you said with puckered lips, giggling softly. Kun let out a light hearted laugh (which was sure to add ten years to your life span the more you listen to it) as he commented on how uncharacteristically adorable you were being at that exact moment, earning a loud complaint from you as you frowned at him. “I guess you don’t want me to say yes,” you sighed heavily, sniffing for dramatics as you raised your free hand to your eyes to let out a fake cry. 

“You’re so dramatic, I’m so close to taking it back,” Kun muttered under his breath before reaching over to cup your cheek with his free hand to turn your face back to face his. Pressing his lips against yours in a soft, passionate kiss, he smiled when he heard you giggle against his lips while squeezing his hand that was intertwined against yours at your sides. 

¤ tagging: @kunrengui @chiffonymark @lebrookestore @leetaeyonglover @oifelixcmerebrou @fruityutas @vera-liscious @c-sanshine @thats-a-jen-no-no @coco-riki @stayzenniesstuff @stayctday @yunntext @qianinterprises @dreamyyang @channoticedmeuwu​ @caratinylyfe​

[dameronology]

love in the time of p.t.a meetings {marcus moreno} - 2/5

summary: your kid has taken a liking to marcus moreno - and frankly, so have you {series masterlist}

warnings: swearing, mentions of divorce & very brief mentions of his wife’s death 

i don’t normally update series this quickly but this was originally one imagine that reached about 11k words lmao so it’s all written, just being split up. i’ve also decided it’s gonna be 5 parts instead of 3, cos i reread the ending and realised i was not done by a longshot. enjoy!

- jazz

Mondays. You hated ‘em.

Everything just seemed so...amplified. The peace and relaxation of the weekend was over and everyone had to go back on the grind. The traffic always seemed worst, the clock seemed to tick backwards and you just wanted to be at home, in bed. After an incident involving the dog, a toaster and a small pan fire, you were already running twenty minutes late and you knew in your soul that your child’s shoes weren’t on the right feet. That, and also he was wearing a Chewbacca onesie to school. It had been a compromise. As in, he was refusing to go to school unless you let him wear the damn thing. It was a compromise. You’d lost. 

On the bright side, the past weekend had been the best you’d had in a long time. Jack had spent all of Saturday afternoon at the Heroics headquarters and he was so worn out, he’d slept through all of Sunday. Marcus Moreno must have a been a fucking wizard, because you’d been trying to tire the kid out for five years. You made a mental note to do something in return, though you sensed there was nothing on God’s green earth that could possibly amount to babysitting the world’s most exhausting child for six hours. You were allowed to say that, because Jack was your world’s most exhausting child and you wouldn’t have changed him for anything. 

‘New week, huh buddy?’ You glanced at Jack in your rear view mirror. He was sat on his booster seat, legs dangling back and forth and a power ranger action figure in his hand. ‘A fresh start.’

‘Can we listen to the song from Cars?’ Jack ignored your comment.

‘You gotta try and behave yourself this week. You’ve seen what happens to people who do follow the rules, right? They get to go work at the Heroics-’

‘- I wanna listen to the song from Cars!’

You wanted to have a deep conversation. Jack wanted to listen to Life Is A Highway. That was...actually, it was exactly how you’d expected that to go. It wasn’t that off of the time you were trying to explain your divorce to him and he’d interrupted you to demand that you put Toy Story on. 

‘Sure thing, kid.’ You rolled your eyes, reaching across to hand him on your phone. ‘D’you know how to spell it-’

Your sentence was cut off by the sound of guitars blaring from the speakers. At least he could work out Spotify.

By some miracle, you managed to make it the school with a few minutes to spare. Because most people had dropped their kids off earlier (see: on time), the lot was pretty empty. That meant you could once again dump your car without regard for the painted white lines -- who had time to park properly on a Monday morning? That was for people who had their shit together.

Leaping out the car, you almost cursed when you tripped over your heels. You didn’t have to wear them, but since you’d started working in a managerial role at your office, you figured it made you look a little more professional. And what was the harm in being a few inches taller? It made you feel powerful.

‘C’mon, J.’ You pulled open the back door, helping Jack leap out the car. 

‘You know, I’m starting to think you can’t park your car at all.’

‘Marcus!’ Jack practically flew out the car, his tiny body suddenly jolting with excitement. 

‘Morning, buddy.’ He replied; he then moved his brown eyes to gaze at you, offering a smile. ‘Hey.’

‘Hey, how you doing?’ You greeted him. ‘I don’t normally see you here in the mornings.’

‘Yeah, I normally drop Missy off at the front but it was one of those mornings, you know? She was taking a little more convincing than usual to go in.’

‘My kid is in a Wookiee onesie and backwards Thomas the Tank Engine shoes and you have the audacity to ask me if I know those mornings? I am those mornings.’ You replied.

Marcus chuckled. ‘I think it’s a look. I especially like the Lightning McQueen sunglasses.’

‘Do you have a super suit?’ Jack asked. ‘Can I try it on?’

‘C’mon, Jack. You’ve already managed to get a tour of the HQ.’ You ruffled his hair. ‘And we gotta get going to school.’

‘But I wanna ask more questions.’ He muttered. ‘I have over a hundred.’

‘Don’t I know it.’ You murmured under your breath. ‘But school is more important.’

‘I don’t wanna go anymore.’

‘I let you wear the onesie. That was our agreement, remember?’

‘All good superheroes have to get an education.’ Marcus reasoned. ‘And if you go in, maybe I can show you my suit at some point?’

'Okay!’ Jack grinned. He wrapped his arms around your waist in a quick hug, before peering up at you with a toothy smile. ‘See ya later!’

He turned on his heel and ripped his backpack from your hand, suddenly speeding up the path and towards school. Had...had that just happened? For once in your life, had you not had to wrench him from the car and wrestle him through the school gates? Move aside, Harry Potter, because Marcus Moreno was the new wizard in town. You might have been a little jealous that he was so good with your son but at the same time, it made you like him even more. He was the first parent at the school that had leant into Jack’s wild tendencies. And, whilst you tried not to think too much about it, even his own dad had struggled to do that. It made your heart warm a little. 

‘You are seriously my favourite person.’ You chimed, leaning back against your car. 

‘Kids with character are way more fun than kids who are well-behaved.’ Marcus replied.

‘I spent forty-five minutes scraping string cheese out the USB port of my computer yesterday, but sure.’ 

He chuckled. ‘No, I’m serious. I don’t encourage Missy to misbehave but she does get herself into some situations. I choose to see it as a testament to her intelligence rather than disobedience.’

‘I refuse to believe for a second that Missy ever misbehaves.’ You shot back back. ‘She seems so well-behaved.’

‘What you see in the parking lot is not a reflection of our whole lives.’ He reminded you.

‘Right, because despite appearances, I’m actually a very put together parent.’ You snorted. ‘But I get what you mean.’

‘I gotta get to work now, but it was good to see you.’ Marcus pulled his car keys out his pocket. ‘I was serious about that suit thing, by the way. He saw my katanas on Saturday.’

‘Katanas?’ You spluttered. ‘My kid managed to start a fire last week out of nothing and you want to give him katanas?!’

‘Maybe I can show you how to use them.’ He flashed you a smile. ‘And then you can pass on the knowledge.’ 

‘That’s probably an even worse idea.’ You shook your head with a laugh, pulling open your car door. ‘I’ll see you around.’

‘You as well. Have a good day, pretty lady.’

--

Did you stop thinking about your exchange at any point during the day? Absolutely not. In fact, you’d already written an email to the local deed poll office to change your legal name to Pretty Lady. 

No, but in all seriousness, you’d been a little giddy about it. Had he been flirting? That didn’t seem like a long shot. You got on well, you’d hung out a bit over the weekend and not to toot your own horn, but you were by no means bad looking. Tired and a little frazzled, sometimes? Yeah. But anyone would have been lucky to have you and you were doing a better job at recognising that, especially since your divorce. 

You were almost ecstatic when it got to 4PM and you hadn’t received a single call from Jack’s teachers. That meant that he had behaved, and what Marcus had said had worked. Because you worked past his finishing time, he usually went to the after-school club till you could come to collect him - it had been a lifesaver, especially since you couldn’t always leave early. He usually came home with some kind of weird arts and crafts. Last week, it had been an unidentifiable item made of dried macaroni and glitter. He’d placed it pridefully on the old fireplace in your lounge. 

After saying goodbye to your co-workers, you headed out the building. Your office was right in the city centre and not too far out from the school. It was a nice place to be; your lunch hour, when you could head out to a street cart and eat your food in the local park, was usually the highlight of your day. It was when you could exist just as you. When you were at work, you were in charge on your entire department. When you were home, you were a parent 24/7. That time to yourself was vital.

As you were heading to your car, your phone began to ring. Your heart almost jumped out your chest when you saw Marcus’ name - he hadn’t called you before, only texted to sort out the previous weekend’s plans with Jack. You quickly organised yourself (he couldn’t see you, dumb ass) and cleared your throat.

‘Hey, everything alright?’ You brightly greeted him.

‘Hey! Are you out of work now?’

‘Yeah, I’m literally just leaving. What’s up?’

‘Look, I hate to do this but I’ve had an emergency at work - superhero related, you don’t wanna know - and I’m not gonna be out for hours.’ Marcus sounded stressed. Yeah, I feel that you thought. ‘Would you be able to pick up Missy and possibly have her for a few hours? If not, that’s totally-’

‘- I’d be glad too!’ You interrupted him. ‘I owe you one anyways for the weekend. And this morning, actually.’

‘You don’t owe me anything.’ He sounded surprised that you’d even imply it. ‘But I will definitely owe you for having Missy.’

‘Hey, it’s cool!’ You insisted. ‘Do you want me to drop her off at yours later?’

‘I can come and collect her if you text me your address?’

‘Perfect.’ You smiled. ‘I’ll see you later then?’

‘You’re a lifesaver.’ Marcus said. ‘I’ll text Missy to let her know to find your car instead of mine. I would ask for your plate number, but your car is...’

‘...bright red, covered in dents and hard to miss?’ You finished his sentence.

‘Exactly.’

You’d been in the same situation before; pulled between work and parenting, with Jack stuck at school and an important meeting that felt like it was never ending. It was hard to get a sitter on such short notice - or afford one, sometimes - and it was just another one of the million, stressful situations that single parenting could get you into. If you could help Marcus even a little bit, of course you were going to. You knew he’d do the same for you. Heck, he had done the same for you.

Jack and Missy were both chatty on the way home. Given that she was a little older than him, her conversational skills were strikingly better. It was nice to ask someone about their day and not get where are my Cheetos? as an answer. From what you gathered, she hated science class, enjoyed gym, and her favourite subject was lunch. That didn’t come as a surprise to you - her dad was a literal superhero and probably encouraged physical activity.

(You’d seen his arms, okay? They were more than enough to go on. I digress).

The only thing that made you wish you’d had a little more notice on having her for the evening was the state of your apartment. The place wasn’t bad; you’d lived there for the better part of eight years, and it was crammed with soft furniture and millions of blankets, as well as photos of you and Jack and his questionable art projects. It was just that you hadn’t done the dishes that morning, there was a mountain of shoes by the door and the pancakes from the previous night were still stuck on the roof.

Missy barely blinked an eye; the minute she saw your dog, she’d abandoned her bag and was playing with him. 

‘Hey buddy!’ She grinned. ‘What’s he called?’

‘That’s Oppy.’ You replied, hanging your jacket up. She didn’t need to know that it was short for Optimus Prime. No guesses on whose idea that had been. 

‘He’s so cute!’ Missy continued. ‘I’ve been asking dad for a dog for ages but he won’t budge.’

For some reason, that surprised you a little. Marcus might have been the leader of a super-hero team and a public figure, but you could tell he would do anything for his daughter. You knew because it was the same for you with Jack. He might have ruled your whole life but you would have hung the damn stars in the sky for him if he asked 

‘They’re a lot of work.’ You reasoned. ‘I have to wake up every morning at 6AM to make sure he gets a walk. Then there’s the matter of-’

‘- mum! Optimus Prime pooped in the bathroom!’

‘The matter of that.’ You murmured under your breath.

The rest of the evening went pretty smoothly. You fed the kids some leftover takeaway and between the dog and Netflix, they were easily entertained. Jack seemed to take a liking to Missy, which was good because it meant he wanted to sit with her the entire time instead of bouncing off the walls. She had the same patience as her dad, especially when he asked her a million questions about superheroes. It took her twenty minutes to convince him that Batman wasn’t her uncle, and a further fifteen to make him believe that she hadn’t met Captain America. 

Jack had asked you a few times about whether or not he would get siblings. Of course, it would be different to any interactions with Missy because he would have been the oldest, but it did get you thinking. You were finally in a place where you were moving past your former relationship and healing from the wounds. Time wasn’t much of an issue either - you’d had Jack when you were young and barely out of college. You couldn’t possibly imagine having any more kids right now, not when it was just the two of you, but in the future? You’d never rule out meeting somebody new. If anything, you were hopeful. Your first relationship had been your only one, and it had ended badly. You wanted to experience love for what it actually was, and not what you thought it was supposed to be. 

Not long after 7PM, there was a knock on your door. By that point, both Missy and Jack had passed out on the sofa with Star Wars playing quietly in the background. It had been her idea to watch it - she had good taste. Marcus had clearly done a good job.

‘Hey!’ You greeted him as you pulled open the front door. ‘Come in quick, it’s fucking freezing out there.’

‘Thank you.’ Marcus came inside, dusting a few snow flakes out his hair. ‘Seriously, I can’t say it enough-’

‘- it’s fine!’ You shook your head, offering him a smile. ‘Missy’s been great. She’s really chatty and it was nice to have a coherent conversation with someone that isn’t about Paw Patrol. But was everything at the office okay?’

He was quiet for a minute. ‘Yeah. We uh, we lost someone. A hero.’

‘Shit, man. I’m sorry.’ Your voice fell quiet. ‘You wanna come in? You look like you could probably take a moment.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Of course! Missy and Jack are both asleep on the couch anyways.’ You pointed through to the living room. Marcus leant over to have a look, smiling slightly at the sight. 

‘Thank you. I’d appreciate that.’

He took a seat at the kitchen counter. Your old bar stools were a little old and wobbly, but Marcus didn’t seem to notice. If anything, he admired the place. It was cluttered as hell and filled with useless, old items - cook books you didn’t use, random magnets, assorted toys - but it was nice. His house always felt a little cold and clinical. He’d moved a lot over the course of Missy’s life and now that he was retired from the field, he’d sworn to her that their current house was going to be permanent. Whether or not it felt like home was another question entirely. 

‘I would offer you a drink but all I have is..’ you paused, opening the fridge. ‘Nesquik, vodka or apple juice.’

‘You know what? A Nesquik doesn’t sound too bad.’

‘I like your thinking, Moreno.’

After quickly fixing up the two drinks, you slid into the seat beside him and handed him one. You had never in a million years imagined a situation where Marcus Moreno would be in your kitchen drinking chocolate milk, but here we were. It had clearly been a long day for him and you had enough of those to last a lifetime, so you knew how it felt. Coming home after a day that had beat your ass into the ground and having to put on a brave face for your kids was difficult at best. 

‘Are you sure you’re okay?’ You gently asked.

‘Yeah, I’ll be okay - it just always fucks me up a bit.’ Marcus murmured quietly. ‘Hits a little too close to home.’

He wasn’t an idiot. He knew that you knew what had happened to his wife. You knew why he’d retired, and why he and Missy had moved away from their original city six years ago.

‘Sorry, that was too deep-’

‘- it wasn’t!’ You quickly cut him off. ‘I’ve had random women come up to me at pick up time and say they’re sorry to hear about my divorce. People I don’t even know. So really, after that, nothing is too much.’ 

He smiled slightly. ‘They always say they’re sorry but why would you bring up a subject if you have to apologise for it?’

‘Exactly!’ You replied. ‘Especially when I’ve moved on. It’s been a year.’

‘It’s the same with me. Missy and I miss her everyday but we don’t mope about it. We just...we look back with fondness on the good memories we have. You can’t move forward if you’re stuck in the past, no matter how much it sucks.’

‘That’s...that’s wise.’ You blinked in surprise. ‘S’pose that means I should take down the dartboard I have with my ex’s face on.’

‘From what I’ve heard, he seems like he should have more than a dart board.’ Marcus snorted - then he froze. ‘Wait, not that I’ve heard stuff, I mean...I don’t listen-’

‘- Marcus!’ You whacked his arm. ‘It’s fine. One of the other kid’s mums started telling me about the terrible divorce someone was going through but she realised she was gossiping to the one who was going through it.’

‘I don’t know how much of what I’ve been told is true, but it sounds like it was bad.’ His hand hovered over where yours was rested on the counter. 

‘The rumours pretty much get the gist of it.’ You replied. ‘But we were talking about your thing, so I don’t wanna take away from that.’

‘Hey, it’s okay.’ He finally moved his hand, fingers gently curling underneath yours to intertwine them. ‘If even half of the whispers are true, he sounds like an asshole. You and Jack both deserve better than that.’

Whatever people had said, it had sort of covered the gist of it. You’d married too young and had a kid too young - your ex had been a terrible husband and an even worst husband. He’d chastised Jack for being...well, being Jack. He’d stay out late with his friends, spend money on things neither of you needed and tried to make you take the blame for it all. After giving him a few too many chances, you’d finally reached breaking point and kicked him out. Filing for divorce and taking on being a single parent was single-handedly the hardest and bravest thing you’d ever had to do. In a way, you were glad you’d done it when Jack was still so young - he didn’t really understand any of it, even when you’d try to explain it in child friendly terms.

‘I think people judge me for it a little sometimes.’ You confessed. ‘They see me struggling but they know I made the choice to separate from him, like I brought it all on myself.’

‘That’s bullshit.’ Marcus plainly stated. ‘Parenthood isn’t a dependent thing based on whether or not you’re still married to the other parent. It’s unconditional and permanent.’

‘I should tell him that, but I also don’t want him back in our lives.’

‘I know it’s none of my business, but he doesn’t deserve Jack. He’s one of the best and brightest kids I’ve ever met.’

‘Thank you. I’m glad he doesn’t seem like a complete lunatic.’

‘He doesn’t deserve you either.’ Marcus continued. ‘Again, I might be out of place saying this but you are...you’re amazing. I was a wreck when I was suddenly on my own and you’re still holding everything together and working your ass off.’ 

‘You’ve noticed?’ You quirked an eyebrow.

‘Yeah, in passing.’ He admitted. ‘I remember I once saw you carrying three separate science projects at once and then Carol made a passing comment that you were on your own and...I just kinda admired you from afar.’

‘You, Marcus Moreno, admired me?’ You blinked at him in disbelief. ‘I find that hard to believe.’

‘I wish I’d had my shit together half as much as you did when I lost Missy’s mum.’ 

‘But the difference is you didn’t have a choice in your situation. I chose to boot his dad out-’

‘- you gotta stop discrediting yourself.’ He shook his head. ‘And stop blaming yourself. You did what was right for your kid and that is the most admirable thing of all.’

‘You really think so?’

‘I know so.’

The conversation slowly drizzled away, leaving you two to just look at each other. It was hard to tear yourself away from his brown eyes - there was a lot going on behind them. Fear, pain, anguish, admiration. He was one of the most mind-blowingly impressive people you’d ever met; single dad, superhero, electric car owner. He probably didn’t have a mortgage too and that was kinda hot. You were none of those things and yet, here he was, with you, managing to connect on a level that you never had with anyone. Both of your situations were tough, but they’d brought you together. 

Marcus Moreno was pretty fucking fearless (came with the job, you figured), and he wasn’t afraid to make the first move. He slowly inched his head forward and in return, you gravitated towards him. Your lips met halfway in a soft kiss, his hands moving to firmly hold your waist as he pulled you closer.

You almost stumbled out your chair with the movement, but his grip on your hips meant you didn’t slip. Instead, he placed you up on the counter, standing up as he did. It took you a moment to adjust to the position, but with your legs resting on either side of his, you could reach forward and lean on him. You had one hand tangled in his hair and the other on the back of his neck -  you’d surprised yourself with that. It had been months since you’d kissed anyone, but you weren’t as rusty as you thought. 

‘Oh my god, is the superhero gonna be my new dad?!’

Marcus suddenly jumped backwards at the sound of Jack’s voice. He was stood in the doorway, post-nap hair covered by a lopsided Chewbacca hood. His eyes were like dinner plates, even though he was grinning from ear to ear. 

‘Uh...’ you glanced between him and Marcus. ‘We were just...we were...’

‘I had something in my eye.’

‘He had something in his eye.’ You quickly agreed. ‘But now it’s out, so Marcus is gonna go home.’

He knew you didn’t mean it rudely - it was more of a desperation thing. The longer he stayed, the more questions Jack would come out with. Missy could have overheard too and that would have been twice as much to explain. So really, the sooner he got out, the better.

‘Yeah. I’ll uh, I’ll grab Missy.’ Marcus said, scratching the back of his head. ‘Thank you again for looking after her.’

‘You don’t need to keep thanking me.’ You shot back. 

He disappeared into the living room for a moment, reemerging with a sleeping Missy in his arms a moment later. Your eyes met again, and he gave you a soft smile.

‘I’ll call you.’

‘Yeah, sure.’  You nodded. ‘See you, Marcus.’

--

True to character, the next hour was spent being pelted with questions from your over-curious son. He didn’t shut up once when you were bathing him and he got even louder when you were reading him his best time story. On the bright side, you’d managed to get him to change out of his slightly manky Wookiee onesie and into a clean Buzz Lightyear one. Normally, you would have argued that he couldn’t live in pyjamas, but if it kept him quiet? It was a price you were willing to pay. 

‘Night, kiddo.’ You pressed a kiss to his forehead, switching on his nightlight. ‘Remember our deal, yeah? If I buy you a Happy Meal tomorrow, you won’t mention what you saw to any of your friends?’

‘You said library was bad.’

‘No, it’s bribery.’ You corrected him. ‘And do as I say, not as I do.’

‘Sounds bad, but okay.’ He sleepily murmured. ‘Night.’

‘Night.’ You stood up, flicking out his bedroom lights.

‘Wait, mum!’ Jack suddenly sat up, as though he’d remembered something. ‘You never said no.’

‘No to what, buddy?’

‘When I asked if the superhero was my new dad.’

Well, fuck. 

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