#My bff who’s very good at packing would be very disappointed and would make much fun of me if she saw.
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my packing style is like
if it fits, it sits
#My bff who’s very good at packing would be very disappointed and would make much fun of me if she saw.#Roommate looked at my stuff and looked at me and went like “hmm interesting”#I’m waiting til my mother gets here#Ahhh so close#So much nervous tension I feel sick to my stomach#Or it might be the two cups of cold brew to combat the migraine I had this morning#Also hi pray for me so I don’t kill me and mother I’m driving for the first time in 3 months and s t r e s s e d is an understatement#I like driving when I know what I’m doing and mom doesn’t freak out over every lil thing#BRB-life#Check out is in 20 minutes and there’s still so much to doooo
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the green day concert last night was absolutely everything i wanted it to be. i went with 3 childhood friends, the core group who got terrifyingly obsessed with them in 7th-8th grade in the way that only 13-year-old girls can. and it was pretty much perfect. (long reflection/ramble below the cut)
the band played all of dookie (30th anniversary) and american idiot (20th anniversary, fucking how. that album came out a few months after we all got into green day and now it's two decades old??) and a handful of songs from other albums.
the show went on for 3 hours and it was so satisfying and exhausting that i was actually ok when it ended instead of disappointed like i was at the mcr show (though of course i also would've been perfectly happy if it had gone another hour). it was a blur of singing and dancing and moments of re-realizing that this was actually happening. i was actually grateful there were a handful of newer songs i don't know as well so i could step back and just observe and soak it all in again.
the weather forecast had been very concerning, up until late morning it had showed that there would be thunderstorms until at least 6pm and that it would be pretty much constantly raining the whole time. my friend who's hosting ordered ponchos for all of us. but it ended up almost entirely dry (if cloudy, which. not a bad thing).
during the dookie set it actually did rain for several songs, but it was mostly a heavy mist? so it was basically just enough to be memorable, fun, refreshing, and then just as i was starting to regret not throwing on my poncho it stopped. and prompted a 'philly, you made me wet' from billie joe which. sometimes low-hanging fruit is the best kind.
the band's energy was fantastic. mike was running around, billie joe did a lot of the freddie mercury style 'eyy-ohs' and revving the crowd. he is such a Performer, it genuinely seemed like he was having so much fun and getting into the Very Dramatic Faces. tre came out in a fluffy jaguar-print bathrobe to perform 'all by myself' (sidebar i was wondering the whole rest of the album if they'd include the hidden track and got way too excited that they did) and was doing the hammiest 'who, me?' striptease. their little solo moments throughout the show really showed off how good they are at what they do, even when the composition is relatively simple.
the crowd was singing and dancing through all of it and i actually ended up headbanging at one point, but i couldn't tell you which song. also my knee is sore, but i expected something to be sore after that.
they had a goofy little 'bad year' blimp balloon walk around the floor (did i mention my friend scored us floor tickets??) during sassafrass roots. phone lights came out in force for give me novocaine (not as sure why this one) and a lot of people put them up for a 'tribute to loved ones' version for wake me up when september ends, which yes did make me teary.
they also invited their first opener, the linda lindas, to play a song. apparently their set was canceled (presumably because storm forecast? i'm not sure). and wow they were very good and i'm definitely chasing down all their stuff. it was cool too because while i'm sure it sucks that their set got canceled, they ended up playing for a packed stadium instead of whoever showed up early or specifically to see them.
one of the things i love about going to shows for groups that have been around for awhile is the age range of the crowd. at this show, at the mcr show, at the backstreet boys show my bff and i went to in 2011, you get middle aged fans who were full adults when the band started, plenty of people our age who were kids or teens when they took off (or in green day's case continued apace i guess), and kids who are just getting into them now. it's just really really cool.
whatsername is always bittersweet for me, so it was even moreso last night. it reminds me of the girl who i had the disastrous homoerotic friendship with, because she was part of this little circle too. one could argue from a certain light that she was the ringleader of the levels of obsession we got to. and the nature of the falling out and then later drama in our early 20s with my bff means she wasn't there with us. and the bff situation means i don't want to mention it to her, because that girl caused her a lot of pain. but that song did make me cry a little, just a moment to grieve the fact that if things had been different (and frankly, if i'd made some different choices when i was 15) she would've been there with us too. it was maybe the only thing about the night that wasn't as close to perfect as one could expect, that weird hole that we've all quietly healed around but is sometimes still very present.
anyway i'm glad they didn't end the show on whatsername. (they played bobby sox off their new album and then good riddance, which was our class song at sixth grade 'graduation' and kicked off all of this). and then we sat down until they kicked us out so the crowd could thin out a little, and took the septa back, and on the walk to my friend's house some guys porch-sitting across the street asked us if we'd been at the green day concert and cheered when we said yes.
#these are the things i could pull out of the blur#it was so much fun#i'm so tired and so happy#shara talks
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moonlit
title: moonlit
characters: fem!reader x lee minho (lee know) of stray kids feat. bang chan, kim seungmin, hwang hyunjin, kid!yang jeongin
genres: exes to lovers au, romance, angst, based on eternal sunshine of the spotless mind, chan’s one sided love if you squint real hard, bff!seungjin.
warnings: cursing, mentions of drinking and food, mentions of insecurity/emptiness, minho is lowkey a flirt (and smooth af), this one is WORDY, sometimes nonlinear (flashbacks marked in italics, phase 2 completely happens in the past), lots of inner conflicts, watch me repeat the same words again and again.
word count: 14k
synopsis: after a nasty breakup, you have lee minho clinically erased from your mind... only to be reminded that while memories can be erased and forgotten, feelings will always demand to be felt.
Phase 1: Awakening
You clamp your shaking legs together, desperately trying to look like you’ve got it all together. The carton box on your lap feels heavier with each passing second as you wait for your name to be called. When the receptionist finally tells you to enter the consulting room, your head is full of him. His laugh, his voice, his touches, his smile, his empty promises, his lies, his last words…
This is why you’re doing this. You want him gone.
“Miss Y/N, please have a seat.” The doctor, Seo Changbin, motions at you to sit at the back of the room. A nurse places a tripod in front of you, setting the camera so it will capture your whole body. “Your sessions will be recorded, and we will keep all the recordings as archive. These recordings are confidential unless they’re needed for national security purposes. And, of course, if you wish to get your memories back in the future.”
Dr. Seo smiles, the calming tone in his voice doesn’t match the weight of his words. “You… you can restore the memories back?”
“I can’t,” he answers. “Patients are usually able to remember some past memories when triggered. And at least you will be reminded of why you want to do the erasure procedure in the first place. There are a lot of patients who regret doing this, and the last thing we want is to get sued because people make the wrong choices for themselves. I’m sure you have already read that part on the consent form.”
Great, you’re going to stop him from messing with your head by letting strangers literally damaging your brain.
“I won’t sue you. Let’s get this over with.”
“Sure.” Dr. Seo points at the camera. “Now, tell us everything, starting with who you want to erase.”
You grip your box tighter, as if to check if all the things inside still cause you pain no matter how many times you’ve seen them. You could have done this the normal way—crying, cutting your hair, even turning to God for help.
The thing is, one of these days the pain is going to swallow you up, and then you’ll be left with nothing. Nothing but an empty shell.
You should have been able to do this the normal way, but you’re too weak. Can’t you be weak for once? You can, right?
Clearing your throat, you stare at the lens. “Lee Minho.”
“Lee Minho,” you repeat. Louder. Clearer. “I’d like to erase Lee Minho.”
Chan finishes his beer in one gulp while you’re still struggling to open yours. It’s a shame, really—you drink almost every week, he drinks twice a year. He tosses the now empty can to the trashcan before opening another with ease, handing it to you. Mumbling a quiet thank you, you take a sip and watch him tear a pack of dried squids open.
“You’ll never go to those parties again,” he says. “I didn’t know my parents invited you because of that.”
You shake your head. “It’s fine. They meant well.”
He pulls his hair in frustration. “I can’t believe they said that in front of everyone! You must’ve been so shocked. I’m sorry.”
You grimace, the unwanted attention was indeed quite embarrassing. Enough to make you politely reject the next time Chan’s parents invite you to another gala. Mr. and Mrs. Bang have always been supportive of their eldest son, letting Chan started his own business instead of taking over the family business. Chan’s mother had called you a few days prior, asking you to accompany her son since it would be a good opportunity to “build connection and expand your business.”
You and Chan did exactly that, so it wasn’t like they were lying. But Chan’s parents also used the opportunity to try to convince the two of you that you’re match made in heaven.
“Can we drop this?” You glance at your watch, stretching your limbs before rising from your seat. The traffic light turns red and you signal at your best friend to walk faster. “I keep getting flashbacks of CEO Kang’s son laughing at us.
Chan follows suit, placing his hand at the small of your back before crossing the street. You let out a relieved sigh when you reach the warm subway station. “Kang Younghyun has more embarrassing incidents than ours combined,” he scoffs. “This is nothing compared high school. No worries.”
“You sure you don’t want me to take you home?” he asks as you train is arriving. “I should’ve brought the car instead of letting my parents drive us to the party.”
You click your tongue at him. “Then you’ll miss the last train.”
“I can take a cab home. You always fall sleep on the train it’s giving me headache!”
“Bang Chan.”
The train stops and opens its doors. “Fine,” he mumbles. “Just don’t fall asleep.”
“No promises!” you tease, stepping into the train a second before it closes. You wave at Chan until he disappears into a small dot before choosing the seat beside the door. The train is almost empty; standing near the door is a high school student listening to an online lecture and sitting across you is…. the most attractive man you’ve ever seen in your life. He meets your eyes for a second before shifting his attention back to his phone again, leaving you slightly disappointed.
You despise socializing at parties but you want the Hottest Man Alive to talk to you? Y/N you’re so pathetic.
The sight of a bundle of name cards inside your purse is what gives you a reality check, various names and faces are popping up in your mind. Only now you feel how exhausted you are, parties and talking to a bunch of strangers have never been your thing. You take your platform heels off just as the train makes its stop, one of them almost hitting Hottest Man Alive as a result.
Apparently God has decided to make you the embarrassment icon of the day.
“I’m so sorry!” you panic, about to reach your flying heel when he stands up and picks it up. He silently places it in front of you before pulling out a card out of his pocket.
“It’s okay, just check out our café when you have time.” Hottest Man Alive slips the card into your palm, rendering you speechless with his bashful smile.
Oh, you’re not going to fall asleep at all tonight.
You run your eyes over the black embossed letters once more, trying to calm your erratic heartbeat as you mentally convince yourself that he does want you to pay his café a visit. Your whole life has always been normal, so alarmingly calm and peaceful it makes you question your whole existence. Sometimes it feels like you’re living in someone else’s dream, foreign and temporary. Uncertain and insecure.
Last night was… weird, to say the least. You’ve never felt that attracted to someone before, not even your ex-boyfriends. In that moment, you felt unstoppable, carefree, happy… everything that wasn’t you.
Sadly, that moment didn’t last long and now you’re back to your overthinking self. What if he was just playing with you? Will he find you desperate or, God forbid, easy if you actually show up at his café? But what café owners don’t want a new customer? Besides, you’re bringing Chan, so Hottest Man Alive (or Lee Minho, according to his name card) is getting two new customers. If anything, he will be thanking you and hoping you will come again, just like any normal business owner.
“Hey,” Chan calls out to you, knocking on the car window. “We’re here, daydreamer.”
You shove the card back into your wallet, met with Chan’s confused eyes when you finally open the door. “You okay?” He cocks an eyebrow. “You look so out of it.”
Chan knows nothing about your encounter with Hottest Man Alive; he would’ve freaked out if he knew you wanted to visit a café because a random (handsome) stranger told you so. “Just thirsty. It’s so hot,” you mumble.
Eat Here Café gives off the homey atmosphere that immediately calms your nerves. You quickly scan the whole building, looking for any sign of Hottest Man Alive. You feel lighter yet bummed that he’s not there, except for some photos of him with a group of children pinned on the wall.
You choose a table near the cashier. “I’ll order. What do you want?”
Chan shrugs. “Any kind of cake.”
The puppy-like part timer greets you with a smile when you reach the counter. “Good afternoon, what would you like to order?”
“Injeolmi bingsu and Coke, please. Oh, and a vanilla cake!”
He repeats your order politely and you decide that you like the boy, taking a glance at his nametag that says Kim Seungmin. You never really pay attention to part timers before, but this one is remarkably efficient, polite, and very very cute (in a “I’d like to adopt him!” way).
You drop some cash into the tipping jar, the twinkle in Seungmin’s eyes feels so rewarding that you’re ready to put it into your “little things that made my day” on your journal later. He hands you the buzzer with a bright smile. “Please wait for your order!”
“Your stingy ass never gives such a generous tip. Did he flirt with you or something?” Chan marvels—loud enough to get Seungmin’s attention—when you return to your table. There are times when you regret being Chan’s business partner, but you realize that you’ve invested so much of your time and energy into building the company. That, and Chan is actually a dependable friend when he’s not trying to ruin your image.
Chan gets your order after the buzzer vibrates, digging into his cake right away. “Whoa this is good!” he exclaims. “How did you find this place?”
“…Instagram.”
“Do you think they hired a branding consultant already?”
You shake your head. “They post pretty regularly but I don’t think so.”
Chan’s eyes sparkle. “Do you think we should ask to meet the owner or something?”
“Hey Seungmin, iced Americano please! And remind me to pay your bonus later.”
The faintly familiar voice stops you from answering, your eyes wildly searching for the source. And there he is… the one you’ve been dreading to meet and also the one you’ve been yearning to meet. Lee Minho saunters into the café with his charming bunny smile and soft eyes, earning everyone’s attention except for Seungmin who’s still taking orders.
Seungmin only replies with a short hum, not taking his eyes off the cash register. You glance at Minho, mentally surprised by the way he doesn’t seem to be bothered with how Seungmin treats him.
“Quit staring before you start embarrassing yourself,” Chan warns you in the most boring tone. “I think he’s the owner.”
You almost spit out your drink. “I’m not staring!”
Minho exchanges some words with Seungmin before focusing his attention to all the customers. Your bingsu is melting, but you still follow his every move through your peripheral vision, not knowing whether you want him to recognize you.
“You really came!”
Chan points at himself, then at you. “Us?”
Minho shifts his gaze to Chan like he didn’t even notice the dimpled man was there whole time.
“Ah… y-yes,” you stutter. “This is very a nice café.”
One look at Chan and you know there’s no way for you to hide anymore. “He invited me!” you quip. “I mean, us.”
“Do you have anyone handling your social media accounts? Planning the digital marketing? Creating ads?” You have bombarded Minho with questions before Chan says anything, skipping the whole small talk step in “how to smoothly intrigue clients” manual.
Seungmin arrives with Minho’s iced Americano, putting the tall glass in front of him with no words before smiling at you and Chan. “Does any of you want anything else?”
“Yes, please,” Minho interrupts before you can refuse. “Please order whatever you want, it’s on the house.”
“Pulling the boss card, huh?” Chan jokes. “Then I’ll have orange juice.”
“Y/N?”
You didn’t have a chance to try the vanilla cake Chan ordered because he inhales food instead of digesting them, but the chocolate ice cream looks beyond tempting—
Minho chuckles. “How about our vanilla and chocolate ice cream?”
“Did I say that out loud?” you mumble to yourself, but proceed to thank Minho for his suggestions and tell Seungmin you’d like to have those. Minho flashes you a soft smile, almost making you melt on the spot if it weren’t for Chan’s leg kicking yours.
The conversation continues without any embarrassing incident. Chan lets you do all the talking, only adding further details when necessary while Minho asks you challenging but intriguing questions you answer passionately.
The so-called meeting ends with Minho promising to sign the contract by next week and Chan shaking your hand under the table, both confused and impressed.
“Is that why your employees are so relaxed around you? Because you just want everyone to eat and live well? I swear Seungmin didn’t even try to curse discreetly when you told him to wipe the counter for the 5th time,” you ask.
Minho laughs as the said boy exits his station, backpack slung across his shoulder. “Yes I’ll transfer your money after our guests leave. Don’t you dare remind me again!” the former yells playfully before the part timer opens his mouth. Seungmin bows to you and Chan before scowling at his boss. “You’re the one who told me to—nevermind. See you tomorrow, hyung.”
“I really like that boy,” you coo when Seungmin closes the door.
“I treat them as my friends,” Minho says. “I decided to do this because I just want to help everyone, including my employees. I don’t want Eat Here to be one of those expensive, pretentious cafes. I just want everyone to eat what they want, that’s why we have all sorts of things here. Combination of Eastern and Western, stuff like that. But this is still business, I have to do things to keep it running, right?”
You’ve met a lot of people with beautiful visions, but you’ve never met someone who wants something so simple yet complicated like Minho. It’s been quite a long time since you’re genuinely excited for a project, and now you know why Chan didn’t freak out upon knowing that you met Minho on the train.
“You guys can do whatever you want,” Minho adds, waving to a pair of part timers clocking in. “Are you going back to the office?”
Chan stretches his limbs. “Yeah,” he groans. “Gotta make sure our intern doesn’t jam the printer again.”
Your phone rings the moment Chan finishes his sentence. ”You jinxed it! Hyunjin is calling.”
“Whatever it is, wait until we’re back!” you whisper-yell at your intern.
“But noona, the printer—”
You give Hyunjin no chance to blabber about one specific printer and end the call. Minho giggles at your antiques, and you don’t have the energy to stop yourself from admiring his pretty features in the most obvious ways possible.
Chan pats your back before grabbing his phone and stands up. “I guess that’s our cue to leave.”
“Take these.” Minho writes your name on one of the paper bags, handing them to you with a big smile. “For everyone at your office. Thanks for reaching out to us.”
You peek inside the bag that has your name scribbled on it, not surprised to see both vanilla and chocolate ice cream inside—it’s the clear bottle that you’re curious about.
“Bye! I’ll send you the gym’s contact later!” Your best friend slash business partner waves at your new client slash crush from the driver’s seat. You take out the bottle, it’s filled with sikhye.
Your favorite drink, but Minho isn’t supposed to know that.
“Everyone deserves a fresh start. Don’t let anyone from your past haunt you. Start Erasure now.”
Minho mutes the television, heaving a sigh as he recounts his fateful meeting with you yesterday. The world has always been rather weird, he would say, but nothing defeats meeting his ex-girlfriend—his first love—who has no recollection of your time together. He heard from his former classmates that you sent them a message a few years ago, informing them that you would undergo the erasure procedure. According to his friends, you specifically told them to “never ever mention Lee Minho’s name or ask you about the procedure.”
You’re back in his life now, happy as ever, and the last thing Minho wants is breaking your heart all over again. He no longer owns that special spot in your heart, you owe him nothing. He left you insecure, disappointed and soulless, and now it’s his turn to be haunted by all the questions and what ifs in his mind.
His phone vibrates as soon as he flips the signage open, your name flashing on his screen. “Hey Y/N what’s up?”
“Minho I can’t multitask so please give me quick and accurate answer. I’m at the traffic light in front of Lotte now—”
“You need to turn left.”
“Okay… didn’t know my non-existent sense of direction is that obvious — damn, let me change lanes.”
Minho suppresses a chuckle. You’ve always been bad with directions.
“Turn left once more, and you’ll find us. We’re right across the first G25 store on the street.”
He steps out the café to welcome you when he spots a white Kia arriving. In contrast to his horrifying memories of teaching you to drive, you manage to parallel-park your car smoothly in 10 seconds, stopping Minho from offering to help you park your car.
“Sorry,” you grimace. “I suck at directions. Last week was the first time I went here and Chan was the one driving so I wasn’t really paying attention… and before you ask, no I can’t use GPS while driving. I barely managed to dial your number.”
Minho lifts his hands. “I was just going to say hello.”
“Oh, good! People always judge me for that!”
You don’t let him respond as you point at the photos on the wall. “Tell me about them!” you request. “Our photographer Hyunjin is going to be here any minute, and we’ll give this corner a special attention. Your customers need to know this.”
Minho scratches his head bashfully, the glint of admiration in your eyes is making him a bit dizzy. It’s been a long time since you looked at him like that. “Uhh, okay. These are the kids I’m supporting, they live in Africa,” he starts. “I hope I can visit them someday, but they’ve been sending me letters, saying thank you... telling me about their days and all.”
“Wow!” you marvel. “How does it feel? To receive such lovely letters?”
“Honestly, it kinda makes me feel like a parent,” he replies. “It feels wonderful.”
Moving onto the next set of photos, his smile grows wider. “I teach these kids dancing, sometimes taekwondo. They’re all very sweet, especially the maknae, Yang Jeongin.” Minho points at a boy with contagious smile. “He can be a brat sometimes, but everyone loves him.”
“Is this an orphanage? Can I meet them?” you blurt out.
“Of course! You’ll love them to bits.”
“You have to come back with Y/N noona!”
A few weeks later, Minho took you to the orphanage. You played with the kids all day and watched him teach them dance. You thought the kids wouldn’t like you as much, but now they’re trying to persuade you to stay the night.
“Aww, of course I’ll come back. Be a good boy, and we’ll be back sooner than you thought!”
Yang Jeongin, the youngest boy in the orphanage, has done everything to make you stay. If it weren’t for your “adult responsibilities,” you would have caved in because nothing could beat his puppy eyes and hopeful smile.
“Alright, go back inside, everyone. All of you need to sleep.”
The kids grumble at Minho’s command, slowly walking back to the main hall. After making sure no one sneaks out to follow you, the two of you make a stop at a nearby park that Minho claims to be the perfect place to admire the moon.
“Okay, you’re not lying. The moon does look pretty from here.”
The man sitting beside you smirks in satisfaction. “I never stay too long but I always like spending time here. Now that I think about it, you kinda resemble the moonlight.”
The switch of the mood has you cackling. “Aren’t everything about the moon associated with werewolves and murders? You’re expecting me to fall for such a lame pickup line?”
“That’s not how I see it.” Minho disagrees. “I think you’re radiant, bright but not blinding. Take it as a compliment.”
The word radiant strikes you light a lightning, forces you to face the harsh reality that you’re doing a really good job in hiding the hollowness inside—all the lingering questions and uneasiness. You’re far from being the light Minho admires.
“Trust me, I’m not radiant whatsoever.”
Minho stiffens, observing you carefully until you feel brave enough to look at him. At first, you see pity in his eyes, but it morphs into something that feels too good to be true. You find tranquil in his gaze, so serene that you nearly let your tears fall.
He reaches for your hand, interlocking your fingers together before pulling you up from your seat. “I’ll tell you whenever you’re being the moonlight that you are,” he promises, his voice is a perfect mix between sincerity and mischief. “Prepared to get sick of me because I’ll remind you everyday.”
Just because most people often cross the line doesn’t mean that being able to exert self-control when needed is something to be proud about, but Minho has always thought of it as his positive trait.
He’s going to cross it out of the list today.
His hand is still holding yours tightly, chatting away with a lopsided smile on his face. And yours. This wasn’t what he intended to do, but life loves to play God and tests him the moment he thinks he knows what he’s doing. Giving you his name card on the train has spiraled into taking you home hand-in-hand, peppering kisses on your temple when you become too cute to handle (which is almost all the damn time) and falling in love with you all over again. What happened in the subway impulsive and dumb, but he couldn’t control himself. He wanted to see you again, he longed to talk to you.
Minho just wanted a second chance to be good to you, but will things ever be enough? How will he make things right again? Providing you free coffee and say thank you for your visit? It was a selfish wish he shouldn’t have acted upon.
“We must’ve crossed paths somehow. There’s no way that we’ve never met before!” you say, swinging your intertwined hands happily.
It’s too late. History repeats itself, but Minho’s too far gone to stop. He’s trying to feel it, the need to exert self-control—he can’t.
“I didn’t come home often,” he lies, every word feels like knife stabbing his heart. You hum in response, a yawn escaping from your mouth as both of you are nearing your unit. Minho watches you enter the door password, mouthing the numbers silently, 2 3 0 9. Your grandma’s birthday. It’s always been your password for everything—phone, laptop, even Minho’s old apartment since you were the one who set it for him. It stays with him until this very day although he no longer lives in the same apartment.
You tug at his sleeve. “Come on in.”
Your stuffs are pretty much the same, if not exactly the same as a few years ago. The only things missing were those related to him. Polaroid photos of you together, the umbrella he left at your place, the mug he…. wait.
The purple mug Minho bought for you is sitting on the kitchen counter, causing him to nearly trip over his own feet. Did you forget to get rid of it before the procedure?
“Let me go change first,” you tell him. “Feel free to grab any snack. There’s cold water and beer in the fridge.”
He can barely answer as you disappear into your room. Memories start flooding his mind, it feels as if he finally finds all the folders with your name on them that he tried so hard to bury, stashed in the deepest part of his heart.
Those memories were so painfully beautiful he has to bite his lip to prevent his tears from falling.
“Oh that’s my favorite mug!”
You’re back, dressed in the black loose T-shirt you always wear during summers. Minho’s eyes automatically dart to your left shoulder, spotting the hole on the shirt that exposes a part of your shoulder.
Another thing that hasn’t changed. Another thing that makes you the you he knew. Another thing that diminishes his self-control into nothing because you have no idea how much he loved to—
“Minho?”
You cradle this face softly, wiping the tears he didn’t know he shed. Confusion and panic reflected in your irises. “Is everything okay?”
“Huh?” He touches his cheek before attempting to laugh. “Something probably went into my eyes...”
“Let me see.” Before he refuses, you’ve taken a step closer, gently blowing into his eyes. “Better? Want some eye drop?”
Minho shakes his head, removing your hands from his face and plants a kiss on your forehead. Another mistake that feels so right. “I guess I’m just tired. Is it okay if we chat some other time?”
You mumble an okay, following him to the front door. When he turns the door knob, you reach for his hand. “Hey,” you murmur, slowly examining his face. Minho tries to read yours in return, sensing your hesitation. He waits for a good minute patiently, letting you form words in your head.
“What are we? These things we’ve been doing… what do they mean to you? Does this mean we’re…”
You let out a frustrated sigh, more directed to yourself than him, and Minho understands what you’re talking about. He tightens his grip on the knob, desperately begging himself to stop all of this. You don’t deserve another heartbreak when you’ve done everything to continue living.
You’re a whole new person, yet you remain the one he adored. How can you be so different yet familiar? How can you be so… dearly you?
“Minho, does this mean that we’re—”
Minho throws his arms around you, burying his head into the crook your neck before slowly trailing his lips towards the exposed part of your shoulder. You have no idea how much he loves leaving kisses there, on that particular spot. As strange as it sounds, it gives him the strength and hope he needs. Minho never told you this; you’ll never be able to imagine how happy and relieved he currently feels when he plants one, two, three, countless kisses that set his whole being on fire.
“We are,” he whispers, dropping one last kiss before pulling you even closer, enveloping your body in his embrace.
There’s only one thing in Minho’s head now: love. He can only think about loving you better than before, and in this moment nothing can stop him from doing so because whether he likes the old you or the new you doesn’t matter anymore.
Minho just loves you, and he doesn’t want to think about anything else. Not even his selfishness. And especially not your future heartbreak.
“You’re so precious, Y/N. You’re so precious to me.”
Hyunjin is the only one at the office when you arrive. He’s busy with his camera, changing its setting every now and then before capturing random things on his desk. You and Chan were on the fence about hiring him at first since you’re just a small company and he’s a student with high expectations. However, Hyunjin turns out to be the one of the most eager apprentices ever, and you’re going to bawl your eyes out when his internship ends next month.
“What are you doing?” you ask him, only earning a distracted “Huh?” as an answer.
“Hyunjin, don’t forget to go over the photoshoot details with me before we leave later, okay?”
He lifts his head a little this time. “Okay. Let me just finish trying out this new technique Seungmin taught me.”
You chuckle, snapping a photo of your intern yelling at his camera when he messes up. Sending it to Chan, you write, “We should give him a raise.”
Your phone rings a few seconds later, frowning when Chan’s urgent voice greets you. “I’m inside my car. Can we talk?”
“Whoa, relax. What happened?”
“Y/N, please. Just come out for a sec.”
No one wants to start a fight with Chan when he’s talking in that tone, so you inform Hyunjin you’re stepping out for a bit. Chan’s sedan is parked right in front of the building, his conflicted face prompts you to enter the car right away.
“You told me there’s something weird about Minho but now you’re dating him? And you’re hiding it from me?” he deadpans without waiting for you to close the door.
“I didn’t mean to hide it from you,” you murmur. “I just don’t know how to explain it.”
Chan sighs in exasperation. “Why do you think you owe me an explanation? I’m your best friend, not your mother. How is Minho different from any other guy you’ve dated that you really tried to keep it a secret from me?”
You gulp. “Things between Minho and I… it’s different. I thought I knew what liking someone felt like, but after meeting him I realized I knew nothing about it. Everything feels so overwhelmingly wonderful and insanely intense I think I may fall apart if I start talking about it.”
Your best friend gives you a knowing look, but says nothing as he stares at a random stranger walking down the street. “And I know you’re not really fond of him so I was trying to look for the perfect timing to tell you. Sorry.”
“I just want to keep you safe. This guy knows small details about you that even I didn’t know. Are you sure you never met him before?”
He pauses, taking a deep breath before adding, “Did you do that erasure procedure?”
“How am I supposed to know?” you snap. “Isn’t forgetting about the whole thing the point of the procedure?”
“You love him, don’t you?” Chan’s voice is soft this time, but his words hit you right in the gut you have to stop yourself from flinching. Hearing someone say that they love you is scary, admitting that you are in love is a hundred times scarier.
Taking your silence as a yes, Chan turns on the engine. “Look, the last thing I want is seeing you sad. It breaks me, more than you know. So please consider trying to find out the truth. How are you going to love him if you don’t trust him? How is he going to love you if he keeps you in the dark?”
You lean your head against the window, watching your best friend dialing Hyunjin’s number to tell him that both of you will be back after lunch.
“We better be quick,” Chan says. “Hyunjin’s terrified he will have to answer Mr. Song’s call again.”
“We should definitely give him a raise.”
“Oh we will,” he snickers. “If he survives Mr. Song’s call.”
“You’re cruel.”
For the first time in your life, you feel like a ruling queen inside your island instead of a trapped princess. You know every nook, every secret passage, every hidden treasure that nobody else has ever explored. Everything feels real for once, you’re in control and you want to stay here forever.
Eat Here has gained more regular customers since you and Chan started handling its social media accounts, and the face-splitting grin on Minho’s face whenever a new customer pushes the door open makes you feel proud and giddy at the same time.
You weren’t able to witness your Hottest Man Alive greeting his customers happily today, but you promised to pay him a visit at the café. It’s a few minutes past 10, meaning the café has closed for the day, so you were prepared to see everyone cleaning up. To you surprise, there’s nobody inside when you arrive.
“Minho?”
Your boyfriend waves from inside the pantry. “Coming!”
Moments later, he comes out with a tray of food. Gesturing at you to take a seat, he places a bowl of potato salad, a pot of kimchi jjigae and some side dishes. “Wait, let me get some more.”
You recall your phone conversation 2 hours ago, vaguely remembering telling Minho that you haven’t had dinner. When he serves the last batch of side dishes and a bottle of sikhye, you tease him for being so sweet.
“I’m not being sweet though?” He pulls out a chair for himself, watching you eat with content eyes. “You said you were starving, so I prepared you some food.”
You shrug, letting him pour sikhye into your glass. “I just never expected that you’re someone who…”
“… cooks?” he finishes for you. “I just did the bare minimum. Do you really want to see me being sweet?”
“Is that a challenge?”
Minho clears his throat, the way he stares at you makes you fidget in your seat. Only God knows what’s inside this man’s mind. One second he’s nonchalant and cool, then he’s Mr. Flirty and makes you all swoony.
Patting his thigh, he smiles at you. “Come here baby.”
You shake your head in fear of completely losing your sanity. “No. What are you trying to do?”
“Being the most romantic boyfriend ever. Come on.”
Minho tries his best to suppress his laugh as you finally settle yourself on his lap, not sure whether you should rest your head on his shoulder or peck his lips or marvel at how firm his thighs are... damn it Y/N, what are you? 17?
Although you’re just sitting there like a log, Minho looks unbothered and reaches for the chocolate cake. He slices it into smaller bites, taking a piece of it with the fork before telling you to open your mouth. “If you still want ice cream then we can get some on the way home.”
“I’ve had enough ice cream for today. I went to this cute ice cream parlor with Chan.”
You take the plate from him, stuffing yourself with the rest of the cake. Minho’s soft pats on your shoulder and the sweet taste of chocolate seem to flush all the initial awkwardness from your system.
Another hour passes with you curling up on Minho’s lap, the latter listening to your little speech about how grateful you are for vending machines as if you’re talking about world peace. Your back hurts and his thighs ache but the way your head nestles in the crook of his neck and the way he pecks your cheek every few minutes are enough of a spell to trap both of you in this exact moment, where lies, doubts and regrets cease to exist.
You wake up with a jolt, reaching for your water bottle on the bedside table. It’s surreal for a dream to feel that real—it almost felt like a memory, something distant but present nonetheless. You’re sure that was the younger Minho you saw in the dream instead of the one you know, and before you come to a realization that it’s currently 2AM, you’re already dialing his number.
He picks up on the fifth ring. “Hmmm my moonlight, missed me?”
His sleepy voice causes you to blush, definitely not seeing that coming. “Nothing.” You wince at your parched voice. “I just had a dream.”
Minho lets out a low laugh, you can hear him sitting up on his bed. “About me?”
“Well… yeah.”
“Tell me about it.”
You sink into your bed, heaving a sigh you forget to hide. “It’s complicated.”
“Was it a bad dream?” Minho’s voice is firm but oh so calming that you start recounting every detail you can remember. He listens to you attentively, humming once in a while, and your muscles are all relaxed now. Minho is here, listening to your bullshit in the wee hours of the morning. Minho is here, calling you his moonlight with the most caring tone ever.
“I miss you,” he declares the moment you finish talking. “Can I come over?”
“All of sudden? Minho, it’s 2AM.” You glance at the clock. “Wait, it’s 2:18 now.”
“Then I’ll be there at 3AM.”
“But—”
He hangs up, and you just sit there until Minho enters your room at 3AM sharp, taking in your dumfounded state before plopping himself onto the bed and pulling you close. “I’m here,” he sweetly says and you can only nod, eyes boring into his as he runs his thumbs along your cheekbones. “I like you, exactly the way you like me. I like you more.”
You shake your head, burying your head in the crook of his neck to hide your red cheeks. “It was just a dream,” he adds, enunciating each word like a mantra. Closing your eyes, you repeat his words again and again inside your head, traces of pain from the dream still crawling up your skin as Minho’s sweet praises lull you to sleep.
“I’m sorry but that’s classified information. We cannot mention anything about our patients.”
“But she did the procedure because of me! I’m the one she erased!”
“That only gives us more reasons to forbid you from obtaining any information. It’s our policy to protect our patients, especially after the procedure is done.”
Minho wonders how this sullen kid managed to land the job, but bites his tongue before he really gets kicked out. He takes one deep breath before pleading at so-called receptionist (his name is Kim Seungmin but he could care less) once again. “May I at least know whether she was in so much pain?”
Seungmin fixes his glasses. “People her age mostly spend their money on traveling or whatever cool things they want to do, but she chose to have her memories manipulated so she wouldn’t have to remember you. I think that’s enough of an explanation.”
It’s no big deal, Minho tells himself. It’s normal for people to have the Erasure procedure thesedays. In fact, it’s become so normal that no one bothers to talk about it anymore. Erasure is simply another way to move on, just like Love Alarm is another way to detect love. If you decided that your memories together weren’t precious enough to keep in your heart, so be it. If he hurt you that much but you chose to erase him instead of confronting him, then it’s your loss.
Exactly. Was he that bad? Did he hurt you that much?
“Excuse me, Sir?” Seungmin is already standing by the door. “I think it’s better for you to leave.”
“Alright.” Minho lifts his hands in defeat, starting to feel bad for the poor boy who’s just trying to keep his job. “Hang in there, kid.”
“Congratulations, you just earned a VIP pass to Hell.”
Eat Here is doing well, the kids he’s supporting are starting school soon and he finally gets to return the feelings of the girl he loves the most but yes, Seungmin is right. The gates of Hell are open for Minho.
“Right,” he scoffs. “As if you didn’t greet people with a smile and convinced them that erasure was the best solution for all their problems.”
Seungmin grits his teeth; talks about Dr. Seo Changbin’s Erasure Centre are never easy for both of them. For Seungmin, it reminds him of all the pain, rage and guilt he thought he was used to seeing. For Minho, it reminds him of his selfishness and failure to make you happy.
“The erasure did help a lot of people though,” the puppy-eyed boy trails off. “It’s been years yet I’m still torn between wanting the procedure to perish and thanking it for saving lives.”
“Maybe it does save people. But then there’s Y/N.”
“And you,” Seungmin adds.
Minho chuckles. “And you.”
“Are you just gonna wait until she realizes that those dreams actually happened?”
A long silence looms over them until Seungmin slides a clear CD case along the counter. “I guess it’s time to reveal how I risked my life for you the day I quit my job there.”
A label with your name is plastered on it along with the logo of the centre. It’s the answer to all his questions when he first met Seungmin. The sole proof that everything between the two of you happened.
“I can get sued anytime,” the part-timer warns jokingly. “So use it well, and don’t cry. She said some hurtful things, but you deserved it anyways.”
“Do you think it could last another hour?”
Hyunjin snaps one last photo and tells the models to get a 5-minute break. “Do you want an honest answer or an intern-can-make-anything-happen answer?” he whispers at you while checking his shots.
You’re currently at a photoshoot in Gyeongju with a client you desperately need to impress, but your clumsiness just had to choose today to get in action. Chan was almost furious when you told him you left all the cameras’ charging cables at Minho’s apartment.
“So we’re fucked up,” you conclude. “How many outfits are left?”
“Including this one… three.”
“We’re so fucked up,” you correct yourself, approaching Chan to relay the expected bad news when a familiar car arrives at the villa. You barely hear Hyunjin muttering, “God is a male… for today…” before rushing to take the black duffel bag from Minho’s hand. He only smiles when you tell him he’s getting all the hugs and kisses later.
The photoshoot continues smoothly; allowing you, Chan and Hyunjin actually breathe after 5 hours trying to make the cameras’ batteries last as long as possible.
“I’m so sorry Chan,” you sigh.
He lets out a weak chuckle. “It’s fine. The problem’s solved anyways.”
“No thanks to me.”
“Thanks to you.” Chan glances at your boyfriend who’s leaning on his car, watching you from afar. “Minho brought the chargers, but you were the one who made him drive all the way here. You need to stop underestimating his feelings for you.”
You let Chan’s words sink in, eyes meeting Minho’s in the process. For a split second you forget about everything’s that’s been bugging you, wanting nothing but to lose yourself in his affection for you.
“Do you trust Minho now?”
Chan puts his hand inside his pocket, exhaling softly. “I know he’s crazy for you Y/N, I’m not dense. But does that mean he’s being honest with you?”
Hyunjin snaps one last photo that marks the end of the shoot, giving you a reason not to respond to Chan, jogging towards the models instead. “Thank you, everyone!” You bow to them. “There are some snacks left inside so please eat before you go, or you may take them home.”
You can still feel Minho’s eyes on you, following you wherever you run with the sweetest kind of fondness that makes it hard for you to question him. He’s like a prince who comes from another kingdom after crossing the long bridge and fighting in the wild forest. He stands there in front of your castle, waiting for you to deem him worthy of your love, of you.
How do you say no to that?
But how do you know if he sees you the way you feel he does?
After that night, you’ve had other dreams—the ones you never told him—each dream etched itself into your mind, filling in the empty spaces slowly but surely. They become a part of you so naturally that you’re convinced you somehow lived them.
“What are you thinking about?”
Minho has just finished loading the last box of props into Chan’s car trunk, now waiting for you to break your train of thoughts with an amused smile. You barely hear Chan and Hyunjin saying goodbye before they enter the car, leaving the two of you alone.
“Y/N?”
“Yeah?”
Minho’s smile is long gone, his expression mirroring yours: confused, lost, a bit scared. “Are you okay?”
Even your 18 year-old self knew what to do then. A bit late, but she did it. The thought of embracing her as a part of you is making you nauseous, the acknowledgement of having a past you don’t remember is disturbingly scary.
“Those dreams... they were real, right? Those are my memories.”
Your stomach churns when Minho nods, surprisingly calmer than you expected. He pulls out a CD out of his bag, carefully slipping it into your hand. The thin plastic feels heavy in your hold, the world as you know it crumbling at the realization that this Lee Minho was the same boy who had your heart in his palm and broke it.
“I tried to picture this situation in my head every single day, but never had the courage to actually tell you. I’m so sorry Y/N. For everything, then and now.”
Lee Minho, the one who sees you as his moonlight, was also the one whose heart could never be yours.
“I’m Lee Minho. We’re both from Gimpo, and we met at high school. We were best friends, then sometime during 11th grade we started dating. You were this amazing, lovely girl who wore your heart on your sleeves, and I was the asshole who failed to realize how blessed I was to have you.”
Minho pauses to look into your eyes, the sorrow in his orbs triggers the tears you refuse to shed. “I became your boyfriend because I didn’t want to lose you,” he continues. “I was stupid, wasn’t I? Stupid and inconsiderate. All I had to do was tell you how I felt…”
"B-but why?” you sob. “Y-you l-lied to me, Minho. Again.”
“I did. Fuck. I did,” he admits. “You have every right to never ever forgive me. But Y/N, I never meant to play with your feelings. I was too late, but I loved you then. I love you now, and I don’t think I’ll be able to love anyone else even if I try.”
Phase 2: Forgotten Days
“A mug?”
Minho hums as an answer while copying your English homework in a speed of light, failing to answer your questions about why, out of all things he could buy in Japan, he decided to gift you a mug. You let out a huff when he leaves your next question hang in the air (“How did you know that I needed a new mug?”), but lets him be since the bell will ring in 15 minutes.
The purple mug is quite heavy and somehow that makes your heart flutter. Minho gave all the other classmates green tea Kit Kats and keychains, but he was willing to fit the bulky mug into his tiny suitcase for you.
You don’t know what’s going on inside his head most of the time, for all you know he could’ve bought the mug because he forgot to buy something for you and decided to grab the first thing in sight. It’s just a little gift, something you should just appreciate without thinking too much about it, but you can’t help but wonder. Sometimes you feel sorry for yourself for overanalyzing Minho’s every little gesture, trying to guess how much he likes you.
“I’m done!” Minho exclaims, returning your book before grabbing his wallet. He finally looks into your eyes, smiling at you as he ruffles your hair. “Gotta grab some snacks. You want anything? Strawberry milk? Chips?”
When he comes back with both although you told him you only wanted chips, Minho argues that he knows you’ll get hungry in the middle of lessons. Again, it shouldn’t feel so special, but he’s looking at you now, you and no one else. Lee Minho is like an enigma, but at times like this, you bask in his bright smile and everything is forgotten.
Summer is the enemy you’ve managed to beat every single year, but combine the scorching heat with excruciating cramps and you don’t stand a chance. You peek into the practice room once again, but Minho is still practicing his dance routines, his phone laid neglected at the corner of the room. The supposed-to-be 30 minutes practice turns into an hour, and you decide to just wait outside since you don’t have energy to go home on your own.
The door opens when you’re on the verge of passing out, luckily someone has caught you before you collapse on the floor. “Y/N,” Minho’s voice forces you to open your eyes. “What happened?”
“… cramps…”
He lifts you and dashes to the infirmary without saying anything else, yelling at some other students to “fucking move!” while trying not to trip over his undone shoelaces. You try to tell him that you’re alright, just a little tired from enduring the pain but he gives you no chance to talk.
Minho finally stays still after kicking the infirmary’s door to no avail. He makes no other attempt to open the door, slowly making eye contact with your drowsy eyes. You love seeing fire in Minho’s eyes, especially when he dances or plays with his friends. This is the first time Minho sees you with such intensity, but this is not the passionate flame you’ve been craving to see. This fire is destructive, painful. It breaks your heart that he’s looking at you like this, like you’re the source of all unfortunate events that happens in his life.
You feel like you’re the unfortunate event in his life, and the thought is enough to make you break free from his bruising grip, pushing the door open yourself.
“Go back to practice,” you tell him, sitting on one of the beds. “I’ll lie down for a bit then go home.”
Minho rummages through the medicine cupboard, taking a painkiller pill and fills an empty glass with warm water. “Drink this, I’ll take you home.”
“I’m fine, Minho…”
He shakes his head. “You’re sick and I’m taking you home.”
Too weak to argue, you swallow the pill and let him walk you home. Minho keeps his hand around your shoulder the whole time, not even bothering to check his ringing phone. He doesn’t talk to you either, and at this rate the silence is more concerning than your cramps.
“Can you go up on your own?” he murmurs when you reach your apartment building. “I have to go back to school, but I’ll stop by later.”
You only nod, about to wave him goodbye when he reaches for your arm. “Wait.”
Minho cups your face, pressing his lips on yours and stealing your breath away. Soon, he starts kissing you harder, but his lips still feel cold against yours and he still feels so faraway even when he’s gripping your waist like his life depends on it.
“Minho,” you manage to rasp, cradling his face to stop him from planting another kiss on your lips. He opens his eyes, staring at you with those beautiful eyes that, sadly, never really shine for you. “Your friends are waiting.”
Still panting, Minho gives you a nod before pulling away. The fire you saw in his eyes earlier has died out.
As you watch him walk away, you finally realize that you’ve been asking yourself the wrong question. It’s not about how much Minho likes you, it’s about whether he likes you at all.
If Minho could choose only one person to be with for the rest of his life, he would choose you. He enjoyed watching movies with you, he loved sending his silly selfies to you, he always wanted to end a tiring day by talking to you all night long.
He can still do that, you’re still his friend. The only difference is that he can hug and kiss you and tell other people that he’s yours. Minho doesn’t know why he lets the words “boyfriend and girlfriend” change the dynamics between the two of you, but it’s too late to undo everything.
“Can we just be friends again?” he repeats the question in his head over and over, yet he can never voice it out. The look in your eyes will be too devastating for him to bear, and he will you lose you forever.
“I’m outside,” he tells you over the phone, trying not to flinch at your excited “Oh!”
A few minutes later, you step out of the elevator, walking towards him with big steps.
“Feeling better?” he asks, noting the way your eyes light up at the question.
“Hmm. I took a short nap and it’s gone.”
Minho sighs. “Don’t wait for me next time. If I take too long, you can just go home. I’m sorry that I let you wait around like that.”
The last sentence causes you to lower your gaze, seemingly self-conscious with the fact that he forgot you were waiting for him. “Bought you some ice cream,” Minho says, trying to distract you from your thoughts. “Chocolate, vanilla, mint choco, it’s all there.”
“As an apology?” you half-tease, the tinge of sadness in your voice causes Minho’s heart to clench a little.
He quickly pulls you into his arms, resting his chin on the top of your head. “Yes and no,” he murmurs into your hair. Part of him is relieved when you don’t question his answer, only humming against his chest before wrapping your arms around him. It’s so easy to make you happy and it angers him. You’re too kind. Too patient. Too loyal. You’re too in love with him, and it hurts not being able to feel the same.
But as the warmth of your body starts to comfort his senses, Minho realizes this is where he wants to be. He wants to be with you, no matter what the labels are. “If you miss the last bus you’re gonna have to walk all the way home,” you remind him, voice muffled since neither of you wants to let go.
“One more minute,” he replies, fingers playing with the hole on your shirt. He places one feathery kiss there, a silent promise that he’s going to try his best loving you. The one promise that could have made you stay, but it remained unsaid until the day you left him.
“Surprise!”
Minho lets out a yelp, coughing up confetti that you pop right in front of face. His parents, standing a few steps behind you, are giggling at their son’s reaction. “I thought you had to go somewhere with your mom!” he exclaims, the surprise in his eyes is now replaced by confusion and… annoyance?
You quietly step aside, letting him shake off the confetti as you’re trying to find your voice. Minho’s parents don’t seem to notice the tension, laughing and explaining that they invited you over for the family birthday dinner.
His mother ushers both of you to the dining room where the feast awaits. “After all this time you still haven’t introduced Y/N to Soonie!” she protests jokingly while the said cat is purring at you. Coming over to Minho’s house without his knowledge sounded like a terrible idea right from the start, but now you really wish you had turned the offer down. The birthday boy only pats you on the back before telling you to sit down, and you spend the rest of the dinner conversing without ever looking at each other in the eyes. That’s no surprise, what surprises you is the fact that you don’t even bother trying to get him look at you.
After 2 years, you’re finally tired of waiting for Minho to love you.
“Soonie doesn’t usually like strangers,” Minho says as you’re walking to the bus stop. “But he really likes you.”
“Do you?”
“What?”
“Like me. Do you like me?”
Minho chuckles. “What kind of question is that?”
Words are bubbling inside your head, all emotions threatening to spill out you have to literally swallow them down. It feels like the world has come to a stop—the realization that your world has been revolving around Minho all this time makes you feel queasy.
“Y/N?”
You want to explode. You wish you can explode. There’s nothing you want more than taking out every piece of your broken heart, count all of them and show him how much you’ve been hurting. You thought your love was enough for both of you, but the bigger your love grew, the farther the distance between the two of you became.
Minho keeps his gaze on you as you’re mustering up courage to ask the most heartbreaking question. “Why?” you quiver. “Why do you pretend that you like me? Why do you bother doing that for 2 years?”
“I-I like you. So much,” he stutters. “Just not in the same way you like me…”
Blinking your tears away, you return his tormented gaze. “Then why did you let me like you alone? Every fucking day you let me wonder how much you like me, if I mean anything to you… I wait for you, convincing myself that you must’ve liked me if you chose to be my boyfriend. But it’s just a game to you, isn’t it?”
Lee Minho has always had his own way to love. You’ve seen him showering those around him with love in ways that seem so ordinary that people often take it for granted. But you see and feel everything, including hints that your feelings have always been one sided. You bury all those hints, telling yourself that he only needs time.
That time never comes, and you have run out of lies and excuses and hope to cover up for both of you.
Phase 3: Chasing Moonlight
The Queen lived under a spell all this time, believing that the foreign kingdom was her whole world while she didn’t even have a home to begin with.
But the ruins of her castle—the only thing that’s left of the kingdom she tried to understand her whole life—will become one. She’s going to build herself a new kingdom, one that she knows by heart, and call it home.
“Noona!!! I’m going home!!! Don’t stay there too long!!! You’ll get sick!!!”
You tear your gaze from the cloudy sky as Hyunjin shouts at you from the ground. You dismiss him with a little wave, forcing a small smile so that the boy will leave instead of going back to the rooftop.
“He’s right,” Chan adds. “You’ve been here for hours.”
After showing up at work with puffy eyes and hoarse voice, Chan attempted to send you home, but you insisted to complete some of your tasks before breaking down during lunch after Hyunjin accidentally revealed that he would meet Seungmin at Eat Here.
So here you are, finally sated after crying all the tears you had left at the rooftop during the remaining working hours.
“I’m fine,” you croak, cringing at your own voice. “You can leave.”
“And let you stay here until you’re all stiff and frozen?”
“Just let me be pathetic for one more day.”
He furrows his brows. “You’re not being pathetic. After what he’s done to you, weeping is the least you should do.”
You let out your first laugh of the day. “I surely wept.”
Looking incredibly relieved that you haven’t lost the ability to feel other emotions than sadness, Chan continues, “Wanna talk about it?”
“Do you know what hurts the most?”
He takes the longest time to think, but shakes his head at the end.
“The fact that I’ll probably never see him again.”
“That’s supposed to be a good thing, but go on.”
“Should I give him one last chance? Or should I just hate him until I die? What’s the right thing to do? What should I do to heal? What should he do to heal? All these questions are driving me insane.”
Those questions are the easiest to answer, so you expect Chan to sigh and tell you to snap out of it, but he just smiles at you. “What do you want to do?”
“Huh?”
“Have you tried answering your own questions? What you want to do is what you’re supposed to do. It’s easy, my dear friend.”
“I want to…”
Your mind wanders to last night, recalling that agony on Minho’s face that mirrors your own. A small part of you wants him to suffer for the rest of his life, consumed by guilt and the sheer horror of being erased from someone else’s memories.
“I want to curse him out.”
Chan playfully smacks your head. “You didn’t do that?”
“My mind went blank, then I started crying. That wasn’t cool at all, I know,” you huff. “I should’ve told him to go to hell or something.”
“After that? What do you want to do?”
You bury your face into your palms, ignoring the teasing tone in Chan’s questions. “The last time we talked, you were Lee Minho’s #1 hater. What happened?”
“I just wanted him to be honest with you. I never hated him,” he tells you softly. “Do you?”
You may never get all of your memories back, but the ones you can remember are enough to know that being with Minho used to be a silent torture. He was a thorny rose, beautiful yet unattainable. You wanted him so much you refused to look down and see your bloody fingers. The thorns were stuck there for the longest time, eventually infecting your soul until you were too weak to heal yourself.
But he’s not that boy anymore. He’s just Minho who listens to all of your rambles and actually keeps all those details in his mind. He gives you the warmest hugs and the most sincere kisses. He stays by your side, and you will always want him to stay.
When you finally lift your head to answer Chan, he gives you his reassuring smile that never fails to make you feel better. It’s the first time he’s talking about Minho without a frown, and you hope it’s a good sign. “Like I said,” he sing-songs. “Do what you want to do.”
The sound of footsteps approaching prompts you to curl yourself into a ball, trying to make yourself as invisible as possible under the dining the table. Jeongin manages to push the heavy door open after a few tries, mumbling that you’re not going to take the “king of hide and seek” title from him. You can’t help but giggle at his determination, waiting for him to find you while he’s scanning the whole room.
“Minho hyung!”
You stay still, not wanting to fall into the 5 year-old’s tricks so easily… until you hear Minho’s voice calling the little boy’s name. “What are you guys playing? Where’s Y/N?”
“We’re playing hide and seek,” Jeongin answers, his eyes still as sharp as a hawk. “I’ve found everyone, only Y/N noona is left!”
Minho hums. “Want me to help you find her?”
You don’t hear Jeongin responding, but the next thing you see is a pair of pretty eyes staring into yours. “Found her,” Minho murmurs.
Jeongin pulls you out with a huge grin on his face. “I knew you were there! Thanks for helping me, hyung.”
Minho ruffles the boy’s head before gazing back at you. “If you’re thankful, can I borrow her for a second? We just need to talk, then she’s all yours.”
You can’t find the strength to say no, hoping Jeongin will somehow be clingy this time. “Are you guys fighting?” he asks instead.
“Do you think we’re fighting?”
Jeongin nods, his sparkly eyes turn gloomy. “If I let you talk, will you make up?”
Minho glances at you. “I don’t know… I made a huge mistake.”
“Did you make her cry?”
“Yeah,” Minho confirms, voice thick with remorse and you’re not sure how long you can pretend to be okay in front of Jeongin.“I’m a bad person, aren’t I?”
You crouch down, pinching the boy’s pout with an endearing smile. “I promise nothing bad will happen. Can we go outside now? I’m sure everyone is waiting for you.”
Still a bit sullen, he links his hand with yours and lets you lead him out, Minho trailing behind the two of you. Once you’re back at the garden, Jeongin whispers into your ear, “I’ll always be your friend, noona. I won’t hurt you.”
“Of course you won’t,” you laugh. “I’ll join you soon, okay?”
Minho turns to you as soon as Jeongin goes back to his friends, studying your expressions carefully. You want to tell him so many things, yet the only words you can produce are, “Fuck you, Lee Minho.”
You feel slightly lighter when Minho says nothing to defend himself, sitting on the grass before gesturing at you to do the same. It fuels your need to let out the pain you previously sealed inside your heart, ironically basking in his comforting presence as you do so.
“The whole time I felt like something was missing. You knew that, then went on hiding the rest of the puzzle pieces and left me there, incomplete. Just like that.”
This isn’t your first time baring your heart to Minho, the last time you did it you were left with such immeasurable pain that erasing a part of your brain—your soul—sounded like a better choice. You wait for the sadness and rage to take over your mind, but the storm never comes. You wonder what makes it different until Minho shifts to look at you in the eye.
Minho is looking at you with those pretty eyes like you’re the only one he can see. It’s not just a sweet dream you tried to dream of every night when you were 17. You’re no longer the only one who’s wearing your heart on your sleeves.
“Am I doing this because I feel guilty or because I genuinely want to be with you?” he begins. “Believe me Y/N, I spent months trying to find the answer and justify what I did, but I guess you can never exactly separate those two feelings.”
His confession is bittersweet; you know it won’t end all your personal battles. You still have to fight them, help yourself to understand why you are thinking and acting the way you are. The gaps have been filled, and now you have to be the one who define yourself.
“I thought I could just treat you better for the rest of our lives. I was sure my love would be enough to heal you. That was very stupid and selfish of me, and I’m sorry. You’re free to hate me, push me away, ruin my life… the decision is yours. But I don’t wanna hide how I feel anymore. Not from you.”
You’re still pondering his words when Jeongin comes to check on you, making sure Minho isn’t making you cry again.
“No, Jeongin, I’m fine. Look? I’m not crying!” you reassure the pouty kid.
He beams at you with his toothy smile. “Really?! Did you make up? Friends have to forgive each other!”
“I know, sweetheart,” you coo. “And yes, we made up. Friends forgive each other.”
Minho shoots you a surprised look, but you ignore him until you convince Jeongin that he can continue playing. “I don’t know whether we can go back to what we were,” you tell him, gazing at the clear sky. “I still need time to process everything, but I was afraid that I wouldn’t ever see you again. So we can be friends, if you want.”
He chuckles, eyes sparkling and hopeful. “Hi. I’m Lee Minho.”
“I’m Y/N,” you reply. “Anyways, Lee Minho my new friend, how did you know that I’m here?”
“Your scary friend Bang Chan told me you’d be here.”
“So you think Chan is scary.”
Minho does something that’s between a shrug and a shudder. “He’s always shooting daggers at me how do you not notice?!”
As you and Minho spend the rest of the day laughing and enjoying the sun, you rediscover the magic of following your heart.
It’s heavenly.
To Minho, there are only okay days and good days. Bad days almost never happen, but today is a bad day. Everything started from Eat Here’s fruit supplier sending them the wrong strawberries, then Seungmin called in sick minutes before his shift started, and now he has to deal with a couple whose order hasn’t been processed since 40 minutes ago.
“I apologize for the inconvenience. We’re processing your order now and it will be on us. Jisung, we need another 2 glasses of lemonade—”
“We need our food, not—”
Minho’s lips stretch into a thin smile, the kind of smile he hates because you once said you could sense that he was faking it. His business smile is the only that can save him now, so he ignores the fact that you’re watching the whole chaos and says, “It will be on us. You’re going to need more drinks while waiting.”
After making sure that he’s appeased the angry customers, Minho goes back to the small table at the corner where you’re waiting for him. He can no longer mask his fatigue and annoyance when you lay your eyes on him, all he wants now is to hold you in his arms and sleep everything away. He knows he can’t ask you for more, he’s already getting more than he deserves since you agreed to be friends with him again.
He’s undeniably the luckiest man in the whole galaxy, but it’s human instincts to always want more. There are days when his longing for you is too much to handle, and today is one of those days.
His train of thoughts is interrupted when a cold glass is pressed against his cheek. “Minho?”
“Huh?”
Your eyes crinkle knowingly when he focuses his eyes on you again. “I want to listen to you ranting but I really need to go now. Chan needs me back at the office.”
“Okay,” he answers rather brashly. “Thanks for stopping by.”
Minho almost pouts the way Jeongin does (that pout always gets him) whenever the two of you are going home, luckily he stops himself just in time, opting to wonder what will happen if he tells you that he wants you to stay just a minute longer instead.
You make your way to the door, but not without stopping to give him one last advice, “You better not complain that everything is annoying every 5 seconds if you want that new guy to last more than a day. He’s been looking like a lost quokka!”
Your “warning” came out a bit too loud than you expected. Of course, it reaches Han “that new guy” Jisung’s ears and Minho hopes he remembers to give the poor kid a slice of cheesecake for free after his shift ends. You flash him an apologetic smile, turning to Jisung to convince him that his boss isn’t as bad as he seems before your phone rings.
“He’s harmless, Jisung, just make him iced Americano everyday, praise his cats, and you’re good. Okay, I have to go now or I’ll be jobless in an hour! Byeee!”
Minho’s mouth has curled into a lovesick smile at your antics, waving at you until you close the door of your car. The way you naturally calm him down surprises him everytime, it’s like you’re unaware of how much power you have over him.
God, you really own every inch of his heart, don’t you?
Second chances are overrated.
People change, but once you pay attention to them a just a liiiitle more, you realize that they’re still the same. Lee Minho believes he doesn’t deserve any second chance from you, yet he finds himself seeking forgiveness the moment he looked into your eyes again. As selfish as it sounds, Minho wants your love. Nobody else’s, just yours.
He tried to fill in the empty space you left with other people, but none of them fit. It was always too much or too little, punching him right in his gut for ever thinking that what you two had was too much, that you were too much.
Seeing you fast asleep in his living room with Soonie, Doongie and Dori is another reminder that you were never too much.
You were, and still are, his everything.
Dori opens her eyes before jumping out of your arms, making you stir. Minho quietly strokes your hair to lull you back to sleep, but soon your eyes flutter open as well. “Hmmm look who’s here… the hottest man alive,” you mumble.
Minho points at himself. “Not that I’m surprised, but thank you.”
Your sleepy smile and the breathy chuckle that comes after make his stomach flip. It’s just a simple reaction, something you probably didn’t realize doing, but it feels breathtakingly intimate and loving to Minho. A small part of you that only him can see, something that will cross his mind sometime during work, making him wish time to pass quickly so he can rush back home. To you.
Damn, he promised himself not to let him picture a life with you as the love of his life, but look at his defense crumbling right in front of you because of a mere smile.
You seem to notice his dilemma, lips forming another smile. Opening your arms, you whisper, “Come here.”
The voices in his head are drowned by your request, it’s echoing inside his head like a deathly spell. You have him in your embrace nanoseconds later, curling your hands around his neck as he completely succumbs to his longing.
Minho’s head buzzes with the need to tell you that he loves you, wants you, and misses you to the point that he almost asks you to please please please please forgive him and take him back.
“Okay.”
He lifts his head from the crook of your neck, eyes flickering to yours. You chuckle at his reaction, cupping his cheeks with your warm hands. “Say that again.”
“Say… what again?”
Minho blinks up at you, tiny groans of regret escaping his lips when he realizes that he just spilled everything out loud. “I’m sorry,” he sighs. “I wasn’t supposed to say that. I know this isn’t about me, but—”
“Did you mean it, though?”
“Of course I did,” Minho says. “But I want to go according to your pace.”
“If I didn’t want the same thing I wouldn’t be here, Minho.” Your voice is as sweet as honey, hypnotizing him into dropping his hopeless pretense. “I’ve built a new home that truly feels like home. It’s probably just a small house, filled with everything that makes me me. But it feels like a beautiful kingdom, and it’s not complete without you in it.”
You don’t have to say it; the way you hold his gaze with such a raw, pure sincerity and the way you asked him to be with you as if he’s the best person in the whole world are enough to let Minho know that he’s all forgiven.
Feeling a tug at his shirt, he meets your expectant eyes once again. “Are you going to continue staring at me like that until we fall asleep?”
The last traces his fear for disappointing you melts away as you start stroking his hair. “I love you,” he rasps, unconsciously leaning in until his lips brush over yours. “My precious moonlight, I’ll do my best so you won’t ever have to erase me again. I love you, Y/N, please don’t leave me.”
You barely manage to nod before Minho finally crashes his lips against yours, not giving you any chance to steal a breath as he lets his feelings overtake himself. He explores every part of your lips like a madman and you accept whatever he gives you, trying to keep up with his feverish kisses and letting him know that he doesn’t need to hold back.
The sudden urge to see you encourages him to pull away. Minho says nothing for a while, only looking into your eyes with silent adoration. Still breathless, you prop yourself up to reward him with a chaste kiss on the tip of his nose, the sweet gesture causing Minho to attack you with a series of playful smooches.
“How long do you think this will last?” you ask in between kisses, giggling when Minho switches your positions, you’re now lying on top of him.
“This?”
You pinch his cheek. “I gotta admit it feels kinda nice to hear you saying please so many times.”
Minho arches an eyebrow at your cheeky remark. “Is that so? Wait until you find out how much I like hearing you beg.”
“Minho!” you exclaim, dropping your head on his chest to hide your flushed cheeks. He wraps his arms around you, ready to make you even more flustered before accidentally locking eyes with his cats. You lift your head when you feel his body stills, following his gaze.
“Oh no,” you murmur. “The kids saw that, didn’t they?”
He smiles sheepishly at each of them, somehow feeling like he’s gotten caught by his parents. “This kind of thing happens when you love someone,” he attempts to joke. “So get used to it, okay kiddos?”
You nudge his chest with your chin. “God, you’re shameless.”
“They’re cats!”
“Then why are your ears so red?!”
Minho tuts. “That’s it. We need to do this more often so they’ll get used to it.”
As he silences you with another searing kiss, Minho almost malfunctions at how addicting and comforting it is to have you as his again. It’s impossible to fathom all of his feelings for you into words, yet he still hopes you’ll feel every single one of them.
And you do, because Minho is yours. Entirely yours.
“How did you pass your driving test? Did you bribe them or something?”
Hyunjin doesn’t bother to answer Seungmin’s accusation, eyes glued to the road.
“Watch it,” Minho warns monotonously while you’re gripping his hand, too scared to witness the younger trying to drive. Seungmin shrieks in horror when Hyunjin hits the break almost too late. He glares at the passenger seats where you and Minho are seated. “Hyung can you just take over? Or at least switch seats with me?”
“I can’t.” He points at you. “Y/N is scared as hell and I’m not gonna let you hold her hand.”
Hyunjin curses under his breath when several other cars pass him. “Give me a break! This is my first time driving at the highway,” he argues. “And I was supposed to borrow Chan hyung’s car! Driving your car makes it even ten times scarier!”
“Hey, what’s wrong with my car?!” your boyfriend protests.
The three men continue talking over each other, causing you to roar, “SHUT UP!! Hwang Hyunjin, if you take your hands off the wheels you’re gonna die before you even scratch the car!”
Twenty painful minutes later, Hyunjin succeeds in parallel parking the car with the help of a very frustrated Seungmin. The two boys are heading to the orphanage right away, leaving you and Minho alone for your little date.
Minho opens the trunk, setting it up quickly before pulling you to sit beside him, handing you one of the toasts he packed this morning. “Whoa, the moony park is even more beautiful during the day,” you muse, leaning your head on his shoulder.
“Yeah,” Minho agrees. “Should we come here more often at this hour?”
“It doesn’t matter, as long as you’re with me.”
Minho snorts at your cheesy answer, but you still sense his wary from the way he keeps glancing at you from time to time. “Is this about the erasure recording you found in my room yesterday? Is that why you took me here?”
“I’m just wondering why you’re still keeping it. I thought we agreed to destroy it,” he says, doing his best to conceal his uneasiness. You initially thought it was a great idea to forget it ever happened, but no, you’re not running away. You want to accept all the consequences of the decisions you have made, especially this one.
“We did, but then I realized I didn’t want to. I don’t want to erase anything anymore, Minho. I want to live life as it is. It’s a memento from the most important period of my life, and while it hurts, it’s a part of me.” You throw your arms around him, squeezing his body until he turns to you and return your hug. “It’s also a reminder that what we have is stronger than anything, don’t you think? I erased you and I still fell in love with you again. Like an idiot.”
Relief washes over you when Minho chuckles, carefree and amused. “You’re not an idiot,” he teases. “You just have an exceptional taste, and I’m way too irresistible. Let’s face it, you were already crazy for me even before I gave you my card.”
“No I wasn’t! I just thought you were attractive!”
“I am the hottest man alive.”
You sigh. “You’ll never let me live it down.”
“No,” he affirms. “Because you’re right. It’s time to stop trying to forget our past. I’ll never forget the fact that you’re calling me the hottest man alive, just like I’ll never forget how much I’ve hurt you. And how much I’ll always try to make it up to you.”
You laugh at his comparison. “I honestly can’t tell whether we’re having a serious conversation or just trolling each other.”
“It’s my talent, baby. Life is always fun with me.”
Although the park has become more crowded and your boyfriend is never big on PDA, you have no choice but giving him a kiss on his cheek. “You don’t have to do anything for me,” you whisper. “Just love me.”
“Hmm.” His lips stretch into a loving smile, the one smile reserved for your eyes only. “That I do.”
Minho isn’t a prince charming who sweeps you off your feet. He is your wandering prince and you’re his moonlight, illuminating his gloomy world. You show him that he doesn’t have to wander for the rest of his life, that he can call you home and stay.
And Minho will always be with you, showering you with the love you deserve. He’ll be the one who fight the demons for you and with you, he’ll be the one who reminds you over and over again how strong and precious you are whenever you lose faith in yourself. Together, you are moonlit. Together, you are complete.
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welcome aboard, clementine martinez, student #2. we are excited to set sail with you ! has anyone told you that you look like alexa demie? according to our records, you hail from florida, usa, prefer she / her pronouns, are a cis woman, and are here to study creative writing. we also see you received a spot on the ss university because of your online lottery win — we won’t tell anyone. during your first few weeks here, other students said you were + charming, + free-spirited, but also - restive. it sounds like you spend most of your time at the billiards room. upon checking your luggage, we noticed you packed a casino chip carried around for luck from home. hopefully your roommates don’t steal it!
hi friends! i’m very excited to be here. i’m jay (est, she/her) n i used to play astrid nyland a few months ago if anyone remembers bt i had to leave for personal reasons. i’m so glad to be back now that i hve life sorted and some free time for summer break <3 read on for some details abt this new muse of mine, clementine.
01. biography !
so ! clementine was born in florida. & yes, her real name is clementine. her mom thot it was the cutest name idea ever. clementine mostly goes by clem. she comes from the town [redacted] in florida bcoz i am too lazy to look up a specific town <3 but alas ! it was swampy and humid and she lived in a trailer park.
her parents got knocked up at nineteen. clem was born nine months after a particularly wild 1999 fourth of july. her birthday is march 26th and she’s an aries.
(TW: addiction, child injury) clem’s dad was a gambling addict and petty criminal—he wld steal credit cards n whatnot. he wld gamble away diaper money n it would cause constant fighting until her dad finally left. her mom took this very hard n began drinking a bit too often, leaving clem to to make cereal for dinner n fend for herself. once clem tried to make hot dogs on the stove and spilled boiling water on herself. got a p bad burn on her arm/shoulder and still has a big scar.
the soundtrack of her childhood was cicadas buzzing and stray dogs barking. the sizzle and pop of natty light cans. turning up her ipod to max volume to drown out the sounds of her mother fighting with her new boyfriend.
throughout her upbringing, clem’s dad was always in and out of the picture. he’d blow into town when he hit it big. he’d take her on these little “adventures” like staying in a motel 6 n renting movies at block buster n ordering good pizza nt the dominos shit she ate with her mom lol. ofc he was charging it all to someone’s stolen credit card. he’d always promise to, like, take clem away. n clem was a daddy’s girl so she believed him. the last time it happened was her h.s. graduation. her mom didn’t show ( "overslept” after a bender ) but her dad did and surprised her n said everything wld be different. bt then he bailed on their plans for the next day n when she called his cell, the number was disconnected. tht was the defining “i’m done” moment. clem promised to never be disappointed by her father again.
(TW: racism) her mother has mexican ancestry and clem’s always been called her twin. but clem was raised in a predominately white area and honestly ?? it was really hard without her even realizing it. she’s still unpacking a lot of things today abt her youth that jst weren’t okay bt she thought were normal. like microaggressions, stereotypes, being fetishized by boys in high school. gross shit.
as a kid, clem was rumored to be really poor bc she wore tattered clothes n got free lunch at school. once she invited a friend to her house & the next day they told everyone it’s in a trailer park. that reputation—the “trailer park girl”—was really hard to shake. and clem got almost desperate to shake it. she was endlessly trying to set her old self on fire and emerge from the ashes like a phoenix.
eventually clem became more “popular”. in school she was, like, a straight b student. very average although super creative and quick-thinking. she always had street smarts. problem solving skills. independence. more of, like, practical intelligence as opposed to book smarts because academia bores her tbh. she was like why am i reading these overrated boring books by dead white men or learning abt polynomials when i know nothing abt how to pay a mortage or do taxes. like...she saw the american education system as bullshit and put in modest effort because she didn’t believe it deserved her sweat and tears.
however, she entered the online lottery for the seas program on a whim and got in. so she’s studying creative writing now.
02. personality !
first thing you shld know abt clem is that she’s a compulsive liar essentially—she tells various stories to make her life seem better than what it was. to one person, she’s an heiress to a real estate company and grew up wealthy. to the next she was raised by nomadic hippies. some of her lies are small fibs while others are grandiose tales. she rarely talks about her actual upbringing. she hates talking abt her family or the v real trauma of growing up in a household where both parents struggled w/ addiction; the uncertainty, the broken promises, the fact that she had to grow up so soon and deal w/ so much. it wasn’t fair, and if she thinks about it too much, she feels this anger. anger at the universe. anger at her circumstances. she doesn’t know where to put this anger. she doesn’t know how to shrink it. so she avoids it.
despite her rough upbringing, though, clem is actually really sweet and kind. she’s adventurous, fun-loving, free-spirited, and bold.
bt ! she can also be closed-off, competitive and restive.
she’s seemingly tight with everyone? like she’s jst that girl who can get along with anyone tbh.
in her spare time you can catch her tanning by the pool, hanging at the bar, playing pool ( which she learned from her dad ), and socializing. she’ll never say no to hanging out with people.
she learned a lot from her little “adventures” with her dad, who was very good at conning others and often involved her in his dumb little scams. clem is suuuper good at pulling the ‘im baby 🥺’ card to get what she wants.
she can be a little selfish, because she grew up looking out for herself.
stubborn and dogmatic as hell !!!
she doesn’t do too many relationships but when she does fall, i imagine she falls hard and fast. she refuses to be made a fool of, tho. when she gets vulnerable she flashes back to being a kid, waiting all day for her dad to show up only to have him bail on her. again. she hates that feeling. so if she, like, senses a shift in someone’s energy she’ll b like, “i’ll break up with u before u can do it to me” and the person wasn’t even tryna dump her lmao.
has a lot of sex. too much ?? sex?? mayb. but she’s v sex positive.
her personal style is v late 90s. hair clips, big scrunchies, neon, fur trim, crop and tube tops, hoop earrings, chokers, patterns, platform shoes, biodegradable glitter cuz it’s good fr the earth *winks*. clothes from o-mighty.......actually jst google o mighty, pull up the images and That is clem. she dresses like a bratz doll. she’s dedicated to the aesthetic.
03. headcanons !
her item brought from home is a hot pink poker chip from a casino. her dad gave it to her. he said it reminded him of her because of the color; he got it during one of his winning streaks and said it was lucky. she has a complicated relationship w/ her dad n doesn’t even speak to him anymore, bt she will never go anywhere without it.
she’s a smol bean—only 5′4
an astrology girl and she reads palms ! she absolutely makes astrology tik toks that people only watch because she’s hot. her flirting technique is to ask you to read your palm.
she doesn’t typically drink to get drunk. but she does love a good sugary cocktail. to her, a drink is like an accessory. a blue fishbowl by the pool, a jack and coke as she stands around a bar. usually she'll nurse the same beverage for a while. if you see her wasted it usually means she’s going thru it emotionally lol. the one thing she does do is drugs tho
pretty much listens to exclusively female artists.
a bit of an activist. environmentalism, feminism and the like, she’s v outspoken. vegan for ethical reasons (TW: drugs) bt still does cocaine. she wears shirts with ‘my pussy my choice’ bedazzled on the front.
loves to rollerblade ! back home she didn’t have a car so she’d bike or rollerblade. now she still has her blades and she’ll use them when the ship docks.
03. wanted connections !
Friends, bffs, ride or dies, friends who are like siblings to her, maybe a friend with an unrequited crush on either side ??
an ex she dumped/cheated on/otherwise self sabotaged their relationship because she was afraid of vulnerability.
an ex friend who realized she lies a lot abt herself n felt betrayed. OH ! ESP if they opened up to her on many occasions abt intimate, personal stuff. imagine the betrayal they felt when they found that everything they thought they knew abt clem is a lie.
someone who she actually opens up to. a confidant. or, maybe, like, a stranger she drunkenly spilled her soul to and now she avoids them like the plague.
a rival. clem can be competitive.
her drug dealer
someone she knows she shouldn’t hook up with and… does it anyways. like a friend’s ex or smthing. spicy <3
i welcome anything !
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harrington fam doodles 🌿🌟🌻 big headcanon dump below | ko-fi
jett phoenix harrington, air & metal att
thief player and very good at it (becomes captain eventually)
not so academic but get's good enough grades (beckett still pushes him a lot)
loves to travel (one year he suddenly hates it)
him and selene are T R O U B L E M A K E R S
mischevious and playful
knows the deans office like the palm of his hand
popular at school
takes every opportunity to show off like his mom
sunday's clumsy twin
cry baby
runs hot and biggest cuddler
loves animals. he would always bring an injured animal home to nurse them back to health
sporty and energetic, can't sit still for very long
kind and open minded
has sunday’s chaoticness with none of becketts caution lol
wears his heart on his sleave
beckett was the only one that could calm him as a baby
he starts to thrive academically at penderghast after picking his major (there was a lot of comotion surrounding this because beckett wanted him to choose the right path and be involved but the friction in their relationship made it seem beckett was disappointed and frustrated with jett instead)
selene maeve harrington, air & wood att
daddy's girl tm
can do no wrong in becketts eyes
very good at school with not much effort
teachers love her. sunday taught her all the tricks
her favorite subject is natural studies, anything with herbology and potions
butterflies are her motif
veeeery michisvious and is never caught. atlas taught her a few tricks to get past professors/beckett (she cant fool sunday though)
appears to be unapproachable but is very loving
atlas is her favorite person
loves to garden & animals (bugs especially)
bff with shreya's daughter (shreya and atlas may or may not be married in my headcanon)
she likes to travel and meet new people/species
keeps a journal that is spelled to leave you smelling like farts for 48h if you (jett) try to read it
has sunday's chaoticness with becketts caution/awareness
morning person, loves to watch the sunrise
loveees to dance and beckett is more than eager to be her teacher and dance partner
has beckett's snobby/expensive taste
pro at skiing
she hates how often dad pulls out his philosophy major card to scold them for using their powers on each other (they all do tbh)
she names her plants
very curious bub
marlow archie harrington, water & metal att
the baby tm
a bit of a wallflower compared to his siblings
beckett sees a lot of himself in marlow
loovees water related books
enjoys being near the water a lot
has very specific interests, like we'll just spit out random facts at the dinner table and beck and sunday look at each other like ??
he takes long ass baths (very particular with his bath bombs too)
he can be a bit blunt and rude if he's flustered and with strangers
atlas taught him how to breathe underwater and he spends a lot of time exploring
the merpeople love him, he brings them snacks
mister know it all, the smarty pants
beckett doesn't seem to be as hard on him as he is with jett
lowkey hates to travel
he enjoys routine and being in familiar places
observant and forgetful
big video game fan
he's better at metal than jett but jett has a better grasp of other attunements than he does
loves to sleep with his parents and it was a habit hard to kill
asked for a fish tank for xmas but felt bad for the fish so he released them in the middle of the night
he's the one that figures out the triplets together can make sun magick
sunday & beckett's grocery shopping buddy
loves to cook
vegetarian
he doesn’t have freckles like his siblings, just a bunch of moles
sunday & beckett as parents
not sure what their jobs would be (i would love to hear your thoughts on magickal jobs?) beckett maybe would have a job that he could do anywhere since his major is magick philosophy? sunday i think could go on to do thief professionally for a while but quits after getting pregnant. i don't think she'd want to go back afterwards. i wish we had more info what could be done post uni or an idea of the majors we could take. i could see both of them teaching later in life though.
in my mind, they travel aaaaa lottt. like maybe twice a year would be least they travel. sunday wants to see the attunned world and beckett is more than happy to give her that. they both love exploring and gives them opportunity to be espontaneous and nerdy at the same time. beckett loves teaching sunday about things he always knew growing up but she's only now discovering. it started when sunday was asked to join a pro thief team and beckett was studying away for his masters. they'd take mini trips almost every 2 months to escape their lives and have these unforgetable memories. they got the bug and never stopped since.
sunday after getting pregnant - which i think they were parents quite young at 25 - she wants to stay with her kids, beckett too, and they both find this need to be home all the time. they want to be there 24/7 and not leave the kids with nannies or babysitters. do not get me wrong, they ask the pend pals and the family to watch them frequently for sanity and date nights. beckett officially went back to work after 1 year of staying home, he started working properly after 8 months of the triplets being born though. sunday didn't mind being at home with them. she found motherhood to be the greatest code she could ever crack.
around 6 months of the babies being born, beckett and sunday tried to travel for a few days to a nearby lake town. there, they discovered marlow's affinity to water. they had a hunch, the kid loved bath time but being in untamed water sparked something in him. after that, they decided to keep travelling, to take their kids exploring. they went on a trip almost every 2 months after that. beckett went back to work and it was time to adjust a little and slow down.
sunday became an avid photographer. they had filled out 3 albums in a year. "they grow so fast!!" she would say when beckett made fun of her after pulling out the camera.
as you can tell, they travel a lot. after the kids get a big bigger, they try to stay places a bit longer, so they can really explore. they do settle when the kids reach school-age, but keep travelling during weekends, school breaks, etc. i think they'd make big moves every 3 years, until officially settling in in their forever home, before the kids join penderghast. (this could change, depending on their jobs. but yeah u get the gist)
sunday cant cook for shit when she becomes a mom. beckett is much better at that. she becomes better bc she cant lose to her husband, of course. the kids will say they prefer her food now over his.
WHEN DO THEY GET MARRIED? who knows folks jdsngk (secretly eloping after graduating penderghast?)
surprisingly, sunday is the one with an iron fist. she sets rules like cleaning up, curfew, no using their powers to hit or fight each other, etc and she’s the one the kids don't want to defy the most. beckett gets annoyed easily but settles down fast and lets them go do everything in the end. sunday doesn't disapprove of them exploring and doing kid stuff but she has a bit of fear given what atlas has been through.
sunday is the ultimate soccer mom. the kid's biggest cheerleader
beckett teaches the kids yoga super early, marlow and selene find it very relaxing
beckett makes the triplets wear penderghast's uniform
sunday packs them regular clothes so they can wear wtv they want when they aren’t visiting (beckett made a surprise visit once so now they have a backup uniform in their bags at all times)
every sunday of the month is tuneless food day. (get it) they usually also make trips to tuneless cities during weekends to get even more in the mood.
sunday and beckett collect postcards from wherever they go. they have a big wall full of mementos and family photos.
(i haven't decided on familiars for the kids and i kinda want a new type for selene *coughs* butterfly *coughs*)
sunday starts some homeschooling with the kids. being attuned to every element has its perks and she enjoys teaching them spells. they’re quite advanced for kids their age, magick wise
#grab a cup of tea u guys lmao#beckett x mc#the elementalists#beckett harrington#sunday olsen#te fanart#the elementalists fanart#te mc#harrington triplets#selene harrington#jett harrington#marlow harrington#fanart#my draws#choices#choices fanart#IGNORE TYPOS PLEASE
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Harry Styles - Birthday Surprises
Harry’s POV:
It’s been 3 months since I’ve seen her. 3 months since I’ve felt her lips on mine. 3 months since I’ve held her in my arms. 3 months since we’d watch movies until we’d fall asleep and wake up the next morning with the television still on. Yeah, we would FaceTime and call every day and text before, after and even during every show but it wasn’t the same. I wish she could be here with me on tour but she can’t. I can’t continue to ask her to come since she loves her job, so I have to suck it up until we’re done in 2 more months.
Y/n’s POV:
I can’t believe it’s only been 3 months since Harry left with the boys for their world tour. It’s felt like years. I knew Harry’s birthday was coming up so I’ve been chatting with Liam, Louis, Niall and Zayn about coming to LA which is where they will be performing on his birthday. I packed my bags and headed to the airport when I got an incoming call from Harry.
*Incoming Call from Baby 😘🥰😍😘*
Baby 😘🥰😍😘 - Hey Beautiful
Princess 👑 - Hey Hazza, how did the last concert go?
Baby 😘🥰😍😘 - It went great, afterwards at the meet and greet a group of fans gave me a bunch of cool presents which was amazing. They said to have a great birthday tomorrow.
Princess 👑 - Yeah, I wish I could be there with you but I sent a gift which the boys have helped with which I think you’re going to love.
Baby 😘🥰😍😘 - As long as I get a good long call from you that will be the best birthday present ever.
Princess 👑 - Of course but I think your present is a close second or even better than a call.
Baby 😘🥰😍😘 - Nothing is better than hearing your voice.
Princess 👑 - Yeah yeah, anyway, I have to get to work so I’ll call you tomorrow since you’ll be in the air by the time I get back.
Baby 😘🥰😍😘 - Ok, love you
Princess 👑 - Love you too 😘
*Call Ended*
Once the call was finished we arrived at the airport. I said goodbye to y/BFF/n who had offered to drop me off and headed in to get to your flight.
Time Skip to after plane ride
I hoped off the plane and went to baggage. After I collected my things I went out to meet Paul who came to pick me up. After a long car ride we arrived at the hotel. The boys made sure Harry was out of the hotel all day so he wouldn’t catch me.
Harry’s POV:
"Happy Birthday!" the boys screamed waking me up while jumping all over my bed. I laughed as they all eventually sat down.
"Thanks guys," I said with a fake smile on my face. I know I should be happy since its my birthday but I really wish I could see Y/n today.
"Come on, we've got a lot planned before the show tonight so lets get up and get moving," Niall screamed as he started running around and out the door.
"Okay okay, let me get dressed and I'll meet you guys in the lobby in 5,” I said as the other boys left the room. This is going to be a looooong day.
After breakfast the boys took me out for a day full of fun and excitement always trying to cheer me up. I continuously looked at my phone though to see if there was a call or message from Y/n, but every time I checked I was always disappointed. Did she forget? She should have rung by now. What if she rings during the concert?
“Hey, you okay Haz?” Louis asked as we were sat in the car on the way to the concert that afternoon.
“Not really, y/n should have rung by now. What if I miss her call because I’m on stage or...” I started ranting.
“You won’t miss her call Haz, and even if you do, just call her back. She’ll answer. I promise. Plus, she might just be busy if not asleep at the moment. You know how she loves to sleep in,” Louis said trying to calm me down. Well, it worked.
“You’re right, she probably is just asleep. If she still hasn’t called after the concert I’ll call her,” I said finally putting my phone in my pocket as the car came to a halt outside the stadium we were performing at.
“Okay, well let’s get this concert going,” Louis said as he got out of the car after the other boys.
Y/n’s POV:
After a few hours at my hotel unpacking and having a rest from the jet lag it was finally time to go to the boys concert. I packed my purse with my phone and other necessities as well as grabbed the bag with Harry’s Present in it then went out to the car that was going to take me to the stadium.
Once I arrived I quickly went back stage into a room that everyone knew Harry wouldn’t go to. As I entered I saw Zayn, Liam, Niall and Louis waiting in there.
“Y/N, you’re finally here,” Niall kind of shouted.
“Shhh you d*ckhead, do you want Harry to hear us?” Louis whisper-shouted at Niall hitting him lightly on the back of the head. I let out a giggle by how stupid they were.
“He’s on the other side of the stadium for his mic check. I think we’re good since they know y/n’s here now so they are keeping him there longer so we can talk!” Niall said normally.
“Well, that solves that. How’ve you been Y/n?” Liam asked ending the fight between Louis and Niall.
“I’m great thanks, how’s Harry been today?” I asked with a smile on my face thinking of my boyfriend who has not left my mind all day.
“He’s really sad since you haven’t called him yet. Louis had to lie and say you were probably still in bed,” Zayn said nudging Louis in the side.
“It’s past midday in London, why would I be still asleep?!?!” I asked sounding offended by their words.
“Well you sleep in very late!” Louis said in a way of being a joke.
“Well I don’t sleep in THAT late,” I said trying to defend myself even though I know he’s telling the truth and that I do sleep in that late.
“Whatever makes you sleep at night. And I guess in the day too,” Louis said laughing at me as me and the other boys joined in. Suddenly their stylist Lou rushed into the room.
“Boys, Harry’s just finished mic check so if you don’t want him to see Y/n til the show you better get back to the dressing room or be quiet,” Lou whispered quickly. The boys and I said goodbye until the show since it would look suspicious if they came back and forth to see me. Another stylist came in and did my hair and makeup so I would be stage presentable. They also gave me a short dark blue dress which matched the dark blue smoky eye makeup.
After a while Lou came back in saying the boys were just about to go on stage so I could come out to watch the concert until half way through when I would make my entrance. As soon as I saw Harry on the screen showing the stage I saw that he didn’t look like his regular self. He looked upset. I felt so bad since the boys told me he was sad because I hadn’t called him yet but by the third song he was jumping and having fun. After they sang ‘What makes you beautiful I was just out of sight off stage ready to enter as the boys started talking to the audience.
Harry’s POV:
As the concert was going I started to enjoy myself and just have fun. As I looked around the audience I saw lots of birthday signs and lots of cards and boxes were thrown on stage towards me for my birthday. Halfway through the concert we started talking to the fans.
“Vas Happening Everybody, how you doin tonight!!!” Zayn yelled out to the crowd which replied with a chorus of goods, greats and other yelling.
“That’s great to hear, now before we do anything else it’s a certain curly haired blokes birthday today, ain’t that right, Harry!” Liam said putting his arm around me laughing as I started blushing. I may be famous but I don’t always like the attention. It’s embarrassing sometimes. The crowd was cheering even louder than before with most people yelling happy birthday.
“Thanks Li,” I said finally looking up.
“Come on everyone let’s sing happy birthday to this cutie,” Louis said as he pinched my cheek. I lightly punched him in the stomach so he would stop. They then started to sing.
“HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU, HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU, HAPPY BIRTHDAY DEAR HAZZA/HARRY/HAZ HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU!!!” The crowd sang as I blushed harder at their love and support.
“Hip Hip” Niall started
“Hurray,” the audience responded.
“Hip Hip” Liam then said.
“Hurray,” the audience responded again
“Hip Hip” Zayn shouted.
“Hurray,” the audience responded a third time.
“Hip Hip” Louis finished
“Hurray,” the audience answered a final time. After that their were lots of cheers and claps until the other boys quietened down the audience. It became very quiet. More quiet then at any concert before.
“Us boys actually have a surprise present for Harry, come over here Haz,” Liam said as he and the other boys were in the middle of the stage. I curiously walked over to them not sure if I should be excited or scared about this ‘surprise’ as I know these boys will do anything to humiliate me.
“So, we know today has been kinda hard for you being away from your family but we know you also happen to miss your girlfriend y/n very much,” Louis started explaining as the audience awwwed at the word of me being sad. I had no idea where this would lead to.
“We have seen you continuously looking at your phone to see if you’ve had a call or text from her but there has been nothing all day,” Louis continued as I raised my eyebrow as to why they were bringing this up.
“And the reason behind that is that SHE HAS BEEN HERE ALL DAY WAITING TO SEE YOU, SO... Y/N COME ON OUT HERE....” Niall suddenly shouted as I turned around.
Y/N’s POV:
“And the reason behind that is that SHE HAS BEEN HERE ALL DAY WAITING TO SEE YOU, SO... Y/N COME ON OUT HERE....” Niall suddenly shouted as I stepped onto the stage the crowd screamed at the top of their lungs. Harry suddenly turned around and his mouth dropped. I ran towards him and jumped into his arms. He caught me and spun me in circles as he buried his head into my neck after a minute I pulled away from him and realised he was crying.
“OH MY GOD, HARRY I’M SO SORRY, I DIDN’T MEAN TO MAKE YOU CRY, IT’S OKAY,” I said drying his tears with my thumb.
“Nononono, I’m just crying because I’m so happy and excited you’re here. I can’t believe you’re actually here. How are you here?” He bombarded me with questions.
“You really think I would have missed you’re birthday?!?!” I said with my hands on my hips smiling up at him. He put his hands on my waist and pulled me into kiss him.
Harry’s POV:
As soon as I turned and saw her my mouth dropped open. She was in the most beautiful dress, she looked gorgeous. But all I could see was her beautiful y/e/c (your eye colour) eyes glistening under the stage lights. Suddenly I realised she was jumping into my arms. I buried my head it her neck as I spun her around eventually placing her on the ground. Even though she had heels on she was still shorter than me.I didn’t even realise I was crying until she pulled away to look at me.
“OH MY GOD, HARRY I’M SO SORRY, I DIDN’T MEAN TO MAKE YOU CRY, IT’S OKAY,” she said drying my tears with her thumb.
“Nononono, I’m just crying because I’m so happy and excited you’re here. I can’t believe you’re actually here. How are you here?” I bombarded her with questions.
“You really think I would have missed you’re birthday?!?!” She said with her hands on her hips smiling up at me. I quickly put my hands on her waist and pulled her into kiss me. The crowd went wild but I didn’t care because I had the one thing that was most important to me in the world. HER.
“I guess not?” I said after I pulled away. After another couple minutes she went backstage again so we could finish the concert but the whole time I was looking off to the side to her. I can’t believe she’s here. And she’s mine.
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chocolate [peter parker x f!reader]
summary: Ned’s idea turns out to be not that bad after all. (Or, a story in which you and Peter play the Pocky Challenge.)
wc: 4000ish.
themes: teenagers being teenagers, asian snacks, fluff (to be very honest this is the very first story of mine to only have. like. a teaspoon of angst haha), mj’s bffs w reader, ned is the best wing-man we never knew we needed, peter’s adorable as usual
a/n: title is a song by bbolbalgan4 which i think perfectly describes reader & peter’s sweet ass relationship. this idea came to mind when i was eating pocky lmao. also! i imagined reader as asian cause i am too and i kinda ended up putting irl things about me (being an immigrant, a nerd, and having strict but loving parents) into her story, so if you want to imagine her as such, please feel free to do so! i don’t think that it really matters much in the end tho haha
“I’m gonna get some snacks,” You announce as you stand up from the sofa, popping your neck and letting out a satisfied sigh as you hear it crack. “You guys want anythin’? Mom and I stopped by the Asian store last night.”
“Ooh!” Ned breaks his stare from the TV screen, lowering his controller onto his lap and looking up at you with a grin. “Did you guys get some Shrimp Chips? It’s been a while since I’ve had some of those.”
You let out a snort, “Duh! One pack of Shrimp Chips comin’ right up.” You say as you open the kitchen cabinet in which your family kept the snacks; a colourful array of different chips and biscuits staring back at you in greeting. You ruffle through them to find the familiar pink and white plastic packaging. “What about you— Pete, MJ? You guys cravin’ anything?”
“I’ll have some Hello Panda, if there’s any!” MJ calls back, and you didn’t have to look up from your position to know that her face is still buried in her true crime novel. You hum back in response at her request.
“Pete, what about you?” You say, as you finally find two packets of Shrimp Chips hidden in the corner of the cabinet; you take one in your arm as you proceed to look for MJ’s snack.
“I’ll um— I’ll just have whatever you have, Y/N! Thanks!” Peter answers back just as you find the familiar diamond shaped, pink box containing the strawberry filled cookies. You place it in your arm, right next to Ned’s snack.
“You sure you don’t want anythin’ specific, Pete?” You reply back, as you dig through to find the snack that you’ve been craving for ever since coming home from school with them three.
It had become an unspoken tradition between you four to hang out at your house every Friday after school; you really don’t remember when it had first happened exactly, but you had never once complained about it. It’s, and had always been, fun spending time with them— and the fact that your parents always have their ‘date nights’ (Which, to be fair, you think that they deserve to have as a tradition considering how hard they work to give you a good life.) on Fridays means that you four have the entire apartment to yourselves, which is pretty nice.
Surprisingly, your parents— as strict as they are with their upbringing of you sometimes— are pretty lenient with them staying over every single time. You assume that it’s only due to the fact that they’re all nerds (No hate, you’re one too.) who actually get good grades and focus in school, but it could also be that your parents just want to make sure that you aren’t hanging out with the ‘wrong’ crowd.
Hah, you laugh to yourself. If only they knew the truth.
Not that they’re a ‘bad’ crowd per se, but you don’t really think that they’d react nicely to finding out that you’re actually hanging out with your friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man and his ‘posé’ every Friday afternoon… nor the fact that you’re harbouring a secret crush on him. Nope, nope. You’d get your ass whooped.
“Yeah, just pick whatever you want, Y/N!” Peter responds just as soon as you find the thin, red rectangular boxes behind the packets of dried mangoes. You hum back in reply to Peter’s answer, grabbing two packs, licking in your lips in anticipation. To top off the pile, you add a few random packets of candies and a few bottles of Yakults, Milkis and Banana Milk. They didn’t ask for any drinks, but you figured that it would only be appropriate to get some while you’re at it.
Trudging back to the living space, you let all the snacks fall from your arms once you reach the sofa, hearing Ned whoop and MJ set her book down on the floor as she rummaged through the pile for her own snack.
Within a blink of your eye, only the two boxes of Pocky and a bottle of Banana Milk and Milkis are left. You let out a laugh as you see MJ and Ned promptly stuffing their faces with their respective requests.
You plop down next to Peter on the carpet, desperately ignoring the rising heart-beat in your chest. God, keep it together, Y/N! You tell yourself.
Peter didn’t notice you nor react, much to your disappointment; his head’s still buried in his textbook, right hand scribbling away on a piece of scratch paper beside it. His brows are furrowed, lips set in a tight line as a bit of his tongue poked out in concentration— Christ, who the hell gave him the right to be this cute?
MJ suddenly speaks up to Peter, breaking your gaze from his form onto hers. “Dude,” She says, lips popping off of the Milkis can. One of her eyebrows rises up as her hand lays down her book onto the sofa. “It’s Friday, can’t you like— do your homework some other time?” She pauses to pop a Hello Panda in her mouth. “You have the whole weekend for that.”
“Yeah, Pete,” You agree, siding with her. You pop open the other can of Milkis as you slide the Banana Milk over onto Peter’s side. “Come on, I know that we’re all nerds and all, but still…”
Peter looks up at you, and that’s when you notice how his cheeks are tinted with colour. His brown eyes pass over yours and then onto the drink that you had slid over to him. Letting out a sigh, he rakes his hand in his hair, effectively messing it up even more and making your heartbeat rise faster against your wishes. What the fuck, how can such a simple move get you so bothered?
“Fine,” He breathes out, dropping his pen onto the table, taking the drink and ripping open the plastic in which the straw for it was enclosed in. Peter stabs it in, Adam’s apple bobbing up and down at each gulp he took. After a few sips, he gives you a small, grateful smile as butterflies subsequently flew into your stomach. “Thanks, Y/N.”
You grin back, feeling heat creep up into your cheeks. “No prob Pete, anytime.”
As he looks back onto the table to inspect the other snacks that you had brought, consequently ending your eye contact with him, you see MJ looking at you with a huge smirk on her face as her eyebrows wiggled up and down.
You scrunch your nose at her, annoyed and embarrassed at her teasing; though you can still feel your cheeks flaring. You had discovered your feelings for Peter just a few weeks ago, and you had only confessed about it to MJ just last week— but she definitely made sure that she knew of the fact every chance that she got.
“Come on, Y/N!” She had hissed— a few days after you had told her. You had been in front of your locker, desperately trying to ignore her words as you focused on getting the stuff you needed for your next class. “Peter likes you too, I’m a hundred percent sure of it.”
You had closed your locker in a huff, the metal door slamming with a pretty loud bang. You ignored the eyes that had turned towards you in consequence as you stared down MJ, whose arms were crossed as she leaned to the locker adjacent to yours. “First off, how can you be that sure, and two, why do you want me to confess so badly anyways?” You had asked, annoyed. She only meant well, you knew that, but you were tired of her constant and incessant teasing.
“Because one, my observation skills are pretty damn great— I didn’t figure out who the web-slinging neighbourhood hero was for nothing,” She had replied, voice lowering into a whisper as she reminded you of how she found out Peter’s secret.
“And two, because I’m tired of you guys waltzing around one another like some kind of five year olds in kindergarten!” She had replied back, and before you could’ve retaliated, the first warning bell rang; telling you that you only had five minutes left to get to your class.
So you had left it at that, her words ringing in your ear as you stared down the mathematical formula on your notebook.
“Ooh… What are these?” Peter breaks the memory that had suddenly resurfaced in your mind, his hands holding up the slim, red, rectangular box. ‘Pocky?’” He asks as he reads the English words on the packaging.
“Yep,” You say, grabbing the snack from him as you ignore the brush of your hands on his. Keep it cool, Y/N. “You’ve never had some before?”
Peter shakes his head. “No— at least I don’t think so?”
“Well then, you’re in for a treat,” You say with a smile as you open the box nonchalantly, taking out the plastic packaging in which the sticks were in and ripping it open; making sure that you open it non-coated part up so that he wouldn’t get chocolate all over his fingers. “Here.”
“I— um, thanks.” He says as he grabs one of the biscuits and promptly takes a bite of it, eyes widening in delight as the chocolate coated his tongue.
You let out a small giggle, amused at his adorable expression. Holy fuck, my heart can’t take more of this shit.
“Did you guys just say Pocky?” Ned suddenly intervenes, concentration breaking from the TV and onto your outstretched hand. “I didn’t know you had some, Y/N!”
You let out a snort as Ned promptly takes one for himself. “Well, you didn’t ask, so.” You shrug, laughing at the look of betrayal on his face.
He just shakes his head and takes another bite of the chocolate dipped snack. “Ah,” He muses, one hand on his chest while the other holds up the Pocky as if it was a buried treasure that he had just uncovered. “This reminds me of that one time me and Betty did the Pocky challenge… What a pleasant memory.”
“Oh, really?” You laugh at his antics, grinning up at his dork-like stance. Ned never failed to bring up his summer fling with Betty; and you don’t think he’s ever really going to bring that down. Ever since they broke up, citing that they’re better off as friends, he had started acting like he knew the ins and outs of teenage love.
“Uh-huh.” He replies, a wistful smile on his face, effectively making you snicker. “It was nice…”
He suddenly drops the hand on his chest, lips forming into an ‘o’. You raise an eyebrow at his unexpected change of demeanour. “What’s up?” You ask, taking a gulp of your Milkis.
“I have a great idea,” Ned answers. You just raise an eyebrow up in response, urging him to go on as you continue drinking.
He claps his hands together. “Let’s do the Pocky challenge!”
You almost snort out your drink; making you cough excessively.
Peter quickly looks up at you in concern. “You okay?” He asks, hand instinctively going to your back and giving you a couple of soft pats. If it weren’t for the fact that you had almost inhaled a handful of liquid into your lungs, you would’ve spluttered like a teenage girl in love (Which, honestly, you think you would end up being if Peter keeps acting like such a sweet fucking gentleman.) at his action, but instead you just tried your best to breathe; chest heaving at the sudden intrusion.
“Yeah— yeah— no, I’m fine,” You wheeze, letting out an embarrassed chuckle at your little accident. You try your best to ignore the fact that his warm hand’s still laying on your back, still patting it softly. “Just got surprised— that’s all.”
Peter sends you a nod, a smile on his lips as he retracts his hand back to his lap. (You try not to let your disappointment about it show too much— MJ would never live it down.) He looks back at Ned, and asks, “What’s the Pocky challenge, anyways?”
You also look back at Ned, who gives you an eyebrow raise in concern— it isn’t really his fault that your mind had immediately supplied you with the image of you and Peter doing the challenge, promptly almost making you choke in response. Well— technically he did bring it up, so maybe it is kind of his fault… but seriously, who can get angry at Ned?
“Yeah, Ned,” You try to play it cool, clearing your throat. “What is it, anyways?” You add, as if you don’t already know. Come on! Anyone who has had a Tumblr or has watched anime knows what that is.
Ned claps his hands once again. “Okay, so basically,” He starts, taking another Pocky stick out from the pack, showing it off as a diagram. “Two people each bite the end of the Pocky as much as they can, and the one who pulls away first, loses!”
You feel Peter flinch from beside you. “Oh—“ was the only response that he had for Ned’s explanation. You didn’t even try to reply; your imagination seemingly deeming it the best time to go full on creative mode, much to your dismay.
Ned continues, “Well, you know most people just stop after a few bites— but me and Betty…” He trails off, the wistful look from before appearing on his face once more.
You let out a snort, ignoring the way your cheeks feel like they’re on fire. “Okay, okay— we get it, Ned,” You say, shaking your head. “You and Betty did food play, TMI, but— okay.” You joke, trying your best to steer the conversation away from the topic.
Ned breaks his recollection with an offended gasp at your words, whilst you hear MJ cackle from behind you and Peter.
“Y/N!” He says, scandalized. “I can’t believe— we’re children!”
You roll your eyes. “Ned, we’re literally going to college next year,” You reply, popping another Pocky in your mouth. “Plus, Tumblr and Twitter exist, dude. I bet I know way more than you do.” You laugh.
You feel Peter straighten beside you, and you inwardly take a 180. Christ, was that too much?
Sure, you’ve been friends for two years— but now that you think about it, you’ve never really discussed anything about… things in the bedroom before. Sure, you’ve talked about crushes and people that you find attractive, (You always made sure to keep your feelings a secret, though.) but nothing more than that.
You were about to take back what you had said, but before you can even do so Peter clears his throat. “Well— are we—” He says to no one in particular as he shrugs his shoulders.
Raising an eyebrow at him, confused, you ask, “Are we… what, Pete?”
Peter looks at you completely. You force your heart to beat at a normal rhythm. His face is tinted pink as he answers, “Doing— the… challenge?”
Your breath hitches in your throat.
Damn you, thalamus.
Ned answers, much to your disagreement. “I mean yeah, why not? Not like we’ve got anythin’ else interesting to do.” He says as he shrugs his shoulders.
After a beat, his face morphs into a look of disagreement. “But like— don’t do it with me, though. As much as I love you, dude, I don’t think I’d be able to do that.”
“Yeah, no—” Peter scrunches his nose up at the same thought. “Love you too, bro, but same.”
Ned’s face quickly lights up, however, and suddenly you have a gut feeling that you aren’t going to like whatever it is that he’s going to say next.
“You can do it with MJ, though—” Ned doesn’t even finish his sentence as a throw cushion goes hurling at him.
“Yeah, I’mma have to stop you right there, chief—“ MJ says, disgust evident in her voice. “My lips are not going near anyone else’s tonight. Thank you.”
Ned just grips the pillow in his lap and looks over at you. Oh no.
“Well, Y/N, how ‘bout you?” He raises an eyebrow, and you try your best not to show the fact that your heart is leaping out of your chest.
Play it cool, Y/N. Play it cool.
The correct answer is probably “Yeah, thanks but no thanks.” but God, this is probably the first and only time that you’ll ever be able to get this chance.
So you muster up some courage, acting nonchalant.
“I mean...” You clear your throat as you look at MJ, who’s already staring at you with a sly grin on her face. She nods, urging you to say yes.
Fuck it.
“I’m not… opposed to it?” You answer, shrugging.
Peter’s breath hitches— and before you even know it Ned has opened the other box of Pocky as he forces you and Peter to sit properly in front of one another.
“Okay, you guys know the rules,” Ned says all seriously, acting as if he’s a game keeper. You let out a laugh to get your jitters out. “First one to pull away loses!”
“Didn’t think I’d be doing this on this fine Friday evenin’.” You joke, doing a horrible southern accent and trying your best to keep the butterflies in your stomach at bay. Peter— thankfully— laughs back, putting you at ease somewhat. You grab a Pocky, taking the non-coated end and wrapping your lips around it.
“You may begin!”
Peter lets out a breath and goes in.
You can hear MJ cheering you on whilst Ned cheers for Peter.
As you continue biting down on the biscuit, Peter does the same.
Neither of you are slowing down.
Once your mouth reaches the chocolate part, you smirk as an idea pops in your head. You really don’t know how this will end; but one thing’s for sure, you aren’t going to lose.
You look up at Peter and make eye contact; trying to be clever by intimidating him.
Being this close to him allows you to gaze right through his eyes; and your smirk immediately falls from your face as you realize…
His pupils are dilated.
Fuck.
The heat crept higher up your cheeks— but no, you are not backing down.
You quickly break the eye contact as you continue nibbling on the biscuit, choosing instead to focus them on his nose.
Shit.
You had never realized that he had freckles before.
Peter doesn’t stop biting down— and so you don’t either.
You hear MJ whoop louder, as Ned resorts to full on squealing.
By now there’s only a few centimetres between you two, and you can’t help but look at his eyes once more.
You notice the faint indents of lines around them, the slight bags under his eyes, the flutter of his black eyelashes as he stares right back into yours.
The beat of your heart rises, making you break your gaze and dropping them onto his lips.
Pink, pillow-y, soft…
Before you know it, your concentration breaks as Peter suddenly retracts himself— leaving you with the last bit of Pocky in your mouth.
MJ cheers and laughs louder, whilst Ned groans in defeat.
You won.
The living room’s filled with noise as MJ teases Peter relentlessly and congratulates you. Ned promptly disses Peter and gives you a reluctant, but still somehow proud, pat on the back.
You know that you should be happy too— you won, just like what you had told yourself that you’ll do; but the sound of your heart dropping in disappointment by Peter pulling back from you is deafening.
Looks like MJ’s observation was wrong.
After the impromptu ‘celebration’, you four decide to binge watch a new series on Netflix.
Ned then sits himself next to MJ, both of them sprawling out on the sofa whilst Peter sits on the floor.
Usually, you would sit right next to him, you two sharing a throw blanket and almost cuddling beneath it; but this time you choose to sit far from Peter— sitting by yourself on an armchair.
You just don’t think that you can handle being in close proximity with him for the time being.
It’s dumb, you know that. It isn’t his fault that he doesn’t like you— but damn, did it still hurt.
If you’re telling the truth now, before the game had started, you had hoped that it would end in a kiss; but now that you think about it more, you just feel like an idiot for even thinking of that as a possibility.
You feel a pair of eyes on you, but you shake it off and try your best to focus on the show in front of you.
After a few episodes, you hear the front door open and close. Your parents must be back.
MJ must have noticed, too, as she brings her arm up and pauses the show with the remote. She stands up, cracking her back and letting out a sigh. “Well, that must be our cue to go home.”
You tear your eyes away from the screen, looking over at the clock. It struck 10 just a few minutes ago.
Ned stands up too, letting out a yawn. “Yeah, I’m dead.” He groans.
You let out a snort, forcing your body to stand up too. “Fine, fine,” You say, popping your neck. “Go home, you invaders.”
Peter stands up as well, but he doesn’t say anything.
You follow them three towards the front door, passing your mom and dad on the way. They both give you a peck on the cheek as a greeting, giving MJ, Ned and Peter a nod as well. They seem tired, but the huge smiles on their face are enough for you to know for sure that they enjoyed their night out.
You see Ned out first, who gives you the handshake that you both had come up with two days before as a goodbye. MJ scoffs and Peter’s eyes widen, but it’s evident that they’re both impressed.
“Bye, Ned!.” You chuckle, ending the routine with a fist-bump.
MJ’s next and she gives you a hug; her perfume wafting in your nose and instantly calming you down. Her arms seem to last longer around you than usual, but you don’t say anything about it.
“Goodbye, my lil’ nugget.” She says, and you laugh upon hearing the nickname, your head resting on her chest.
They both left first as they took the same path home. You’re then left alone with Peter as usual, who still hasn’t said anything since you got up with them three to say goodbye.
It’s always been like this, Peter being the last one to leave; but it doesn’t feel the same anymore. The awkwardness and tension residing in the air due to the game that you both had played.
So there, in front of him, you had stood; hands playing with one another, eyes cast down on the floor, as your heart felt hollow in your chest.
You sigh.
Best to get it over with.
As you open up your mouth to say goodbye, Peter beats you to it.
“Y/N I—“ He starts, and your eyes immediately rise up to make contact against his.
Your breath gets caught in your throat.
With the glow of the moon and street lamp, he looks… wonderful: his brown eyes glowing with the faint light, the freckles on his cheek now visible to your eyes upon your discovery of them a while ago, his brown hair tousled and messy…
You muster up some courage, and you open your mouth once more—
Except you’re cut off with a kiss.
When Peter pulls away, you’re greeted with the sight of him flushed; cheeks, ears and lips tinted red.
You don’t say anything for a while, still needing to process the unexpected yet welcomed surprise in your mind… and also the delightful sight in front of you.
However, Peter’s face quickly morphs into a look of distress, promptly breaking your silence. “Shit! I’m sorry Y/N! I didn’t—“ He fumbles with his words. “I didn’t ask—“
You shut him up with another kiss, your arms wrapping around his neck and pushing him closer to you.
Peter melts like chocolate in your arms.
He tastes like it, too.
When you pull away, you smile at him; your eyes crinkling and your heart hammering in your chest.
“We should’ve done that earlier.”
thanks for reading! as always, requests are open! & pls don’t forget to like and reblog, thank you! c:
#lily’s lil’ stories#peter parker#spiderman#peter parker x reader#peter parker x you#spiderman x reader#spiderman x you#peter parker x y/n#spiderman x y/n#tom holland#tom holland x reader#tom holland x you#tom holland x y/n#mcu#pocky challenge#fluff#one shot
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My Review of BNA: Brand New Animal (2020)
I was thinking I might as well review this while it’s fairly fresh and people are still talking about it. Me and my friends found this show and decided to give it a shot after we all watched the other Netflix furry anime, Beastars. BNA: Brand New Animal is the newest release by Studio Trigger (most known for Kill La Kill) and I’m gonna be honest, it did not live up to my high expectations. I’ve seen some very conflicting reviews while I was researching this show, ranging from the coolest show ever to being kinda decent to being a major disappointment. And I guess my thoughts on the show are just as conflicting.
BNA sets us in a world with humans and beastmen. Beastmen are some kind of hybrid thing where they can be human looking sometimes and anthro looking other times and the beastmen are horribly oppressed by the humans. Then there’s this city called Anima City where beastmen are allowed to live as beastmen with no oppression. Neat, ok. Just from hearing this you’d think, ah yes another Zootopia. Talking about racism and oppression through the use of animals. Well yes but no. Though BNA really emphasized over and over how much humans hate beastmen, this show does not deal with the racism (specisim?) at all. The show even opens with our main character, Michiru Kagemori, getting chased down by a gang of humans wanting to kill her because she looks like a beastman. But that’s like...it. It’s odd that they would set up the story like its human vs beastman but then kinda throw it all out.
The story is actually about Michiru Kagemori, a human high school girl turned beastman over night. She comes to Anima City so she can live freely as a beatman. During a festival she runs into Shirou Ogami, who is a hot detective social worker demi-god wolf guy who is extremely racist towards humans. Theres also a human guy (who isn’t actually human, there are no significant humans in this show i guess) named Alan Sylvasta who is experimenting on beastmen to make them go berserk or some shit. I can’t summarize this too well because half the damn show was filler and it shoved plot into the last two or three episodes. For context, this show is 12 episodes, and if you’re going to have a 12 episode show, then you need to kinda get to the fucking point because you don’t have time for goofy bear baseball teams and some bird guy with no real purpose. There was also a cult going on for a few episodes and a dolphin girl, oh and don’t forget Michiru’s BFF Nezuna who I did not like at all.
The story would’ve been so much better if the writers didn’t stretch themselves out so thin. There was too much going on without enough depth to justify anything. I think there could’ve been two solutions for this: focus on Michiru and the cult and the government’s fuck shit and take out all of the “world building” episodes that don’t contribute to the plot. Or, the better option, make the show longer than 12 episodes. I was legitimately interested in all of the aspects of this show. I rag on the baseball episode, but it actually gives us good insight into beastmen society, what with the class difference and the shaky morals. And the bird guy taught us about the tension between humans and beastmen, his friends were shot down by humans while they were flying over human territory. All of these things are legitimately interesting but none of it was really explored further.
The one thing I really loved about this show was the presentation. The colors are breathtaking and the action scenes were so fun. the character designs were clear and concise and the environments were *chef’s kiss.* Anytime I didn’t give a shit about what was going on in the show I would just focus on how pretty and cool everything looked. Studio Trigger never fails to make things look pristine. Unfortunately though, the art cannot save the weak plot.
Luckily the plot is pretty easy to follow and nothing is too convoluted. It’s just a simple little coming of age story with some science fiction aspects lurking around the main character. I liked this concept so much that I didn’t want it to be so simple. I wanted it to go deeper. I wanted to discover this world with Michiru, have some laughs and get serious when things needed to get serious. But It was all too packed in, it was as wide as an ocean and as deep as a puddle.
I haven’t heard word of a second season, but maybe another season could redeem this one? I’m not sure but I think i’m okay with just leaving the show where it is. I’m not even sure I’d watch a second season if they released one just because the first season didn’t really do it for me. Overall I’d rate this show a 5/10. It had some good parts but it was just weak. Watch it for the visuals and if you like Studio Trigger, but other than that I’d say you could skip this show.
Did you love this show? Tell me why! I love to hear people’s opinions and have discussions about shows. And of course, thank you for reading.
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Dark Crystal Age of Resistance ep 10 liveblog
“A Single Piece Was Lost”
I don’t have a ramble about the title this time. I’m pretty excited to see how this all wraps up though. Or slightly wraps up while leaving things open. Whatever.
Just a stream of thoughts.
Hi Deet!
Hi Rian!
I quite like this low energy opening showing them waiting for the battle in the morning-
NOPE SOMETHING JUST EXPLODED
Deet, what did you explode?
Rian: “Deet… have you been making bombs?”
Deet: “Well, smoke bombs, so yes?”
Just when I thought Deet couldn’t be better.
Rian reflecting that they’ll need a lot of smoke bombs, probably to run away, if no other Gelfling show up.
Rian: “I was just thinking, I never got to properly see the Caves of Grottan. We should go back together when this is all over.”
Awww.
Oh shit Deet’s arms are secretly glowing with evil energies. I have a bad feeling about things.
Emperor: “Do you sleep?”
General: “??? Yes, sire”
Emperor: “Do you dream?”
General: “No my Emperor”
Emperor: “Neither did I, until I began my experiments with the Darkening. Now my nights are riddled with nightmares.”
And now he’s asking the General if he remembers how things were before they were sundered. The Emperor is philosophical today.
Then he gathers a bunch of Darkening.
The Gruenaks run into the Chamberlain and they want to be freed and Chamberlain is like not yet my dudes, things are going great for me and thats what matters.
Ice cold, SkekSil
Aww the Scientist build some new armor and he wants to join the other Skeksis and prove that he’s a rough and tumble strong boy like the rest but the General and the Emperor just laugh at him and tell him to stay behind and do the nerd stuff.
Poor guy. Poor evil guy.
The other Skeksis have no respect for him but he’s the only one still doing what the UrSkeks were about.
OH HEY ITS BREA hi Brea. Last episode, everyone gathering up again.
Maudra Fara: ‘Hey Rian we cool? Sorry I called you a traitor’
Oh no, Brea and Seladon have to tell Rian and Deet that Aughra died.
Yeah, the Dual Glaive is pretty cool. Appearance wise.
Rian: -stares wonderously at Dual Glaive for a while-
Ok no disrespect but you’re bringing the Ornamentalist to war and think the Scientist is too big a nerd??
Chamberlain: -waving sword around- “WARRRRRRRRRRRR”
Most of the Skeksis preparing for war sequence seems to be them psyching themselves up by screaming war at each other.
The Gelfling preparation sequence has them like training and getting outfitted.
Just saying, one group is taking this more seriously.
Scientist: “I am incontrovertibly the most abused creature in all of Thra”
Gruenaks: =|
The irony is, of course, lost on SkekTek.
Scientist: -pokes frakensteined spiders corpse with random electricity- ‘Well thats not working’
-Proto-Garthim goosplodes all over the Scientist for like a minute straight-
Scientist: “There is only so much callous disrespect a Lord of the Crystal can endure! I have earned a bit of genuine frivolity!”
Turns out that he hid some extra essence in his animal cages so he can hit the goofy juice in times of stress.
The Gruenaks pick up the scalpel. Whoops. Wonder what they’re up to.
Over at the circle of the sun, the Archer is lingering between life and death because of the Aughra essence effect on the Hunter.
Apparently the Scientist’s idea of genuine frivolity is to sit on the Emperor’s throne and pretend to be the Emperor and have podlings play him music and bring him food and call himself Emperor.
Thats. Sure an idea.
OH HI SKEKMAL IS ALIVE AGAIN
And he tears himself free of the strings holding him up, probably confused at all of this, and asks where Rian is.
When Scientist tells him that Rian is at Stone-in-the-Wood and that the Skeksis went to quell the uprising, Hunter calls Scientist an useless coward.
Scientist: “The Emperor commanded me to stay behind. I wanted to fight! I’m not a coward!”
Poor evil guy. This is why he wanted to prove he was a rough boy. Now the Hunter is going to be looking down on him.
Archer bolts up and mummer shouts SKEKMAL and then collapses.
Heretic: “Well…”
Wanderer: “That was… exciting…”
Heretic: “Yes!”
I love these nerds.
So the Skeksis bring: giant swords, nothing else.
They’re not really prepared for anything other than lumbering towards something and killing lots of stuff.
If only the Gelfling had a strong archer class. Instead of being all melee.
Even Kira in the movie knew how to pack a sling.
Emperor sees the small amount of Gelflings that have shown up.
Emperor: “This… is the mighty rebellion I was promised?”
He actually sounds disappointed. Hes had to leave the castle for the first time in a long time and its for this.
Rian: ‘The rest are coming! Really!’
Also Rian: ‘Hey how about single combat?’
Chamberlain: ‘Hey uh Emperor this is beneath you? Let General do it’
General: ‘If my bff Chamberlian thinks its a good idea, I’m in.’
The General hits but also maneuvers like a freight train. But Rian really sucks. He’s just getting tossed around and almost having his puppet junk- Oh there he goes. He stabbed the General.
The Dual Glaive starts absorbing. The General’s…. Something?
General: “Be done with it! Kill me!”
Rian: “I’m no killer!”
HOW DO YOU THINK THIS IS GOING TO GO?
The Skeksis are literally trying to wipe out your entire race and you’re playing the high very high road??
Then the Emperor tells General to gtfo because he’s a failure and the other Skeksis mock mock him as he limps away because the Skeksis love to see each other fail.
Oh, this is some actual cool strategy.
The lady gelfling vault off the male gelfling’s backs and fly around dropping bombs to disorient while the swords gelflings jump in and start poking ankles.
Oh I guess the Skeksis did bring more than swords. They’ve got… boomerang launchers? On their backs? Boomerang catapults?
Its pretty unwieldy but Scroll-Keeper still manages to hit Maudra Fara when she shoves Seladon out of the way to protect the All-Maudra who she acknowledges now that shes not being a dingus.
And then sheee dies.
But on her own time because a fizzgig steals Scroll-Keeper’s sword and hides it in a hole.
I’m overall getting the impression that the Skeksis are dangerous because they’re big and strong but they’re not very good at this.
Greunaks cutting their own mouths open with the scalpel they found. Annnd Scientist finds them.
Greunak: “No! No slave!”
Scientist: “How dare you threaten me? I am SkekTek the Scientist! I am a master of llfe and death! I am a genius! I am a Lord of the Crystal! I… AM… SKEKSIS! -incoherent yelling-”
He grabs them so they shock him with the electrical wires which I think shorts out his eye.
And. Geez. Rebellion doesn’t work too well when you’re a third of the size.
He just picks up one of the Gruenaks and hucks him down the fire hole.
Oops and he just hacked the other one to death.
Put upon and bullied he may be but he’s as bad as the rest of the Skeksis really.
Scientist: -maniacal laughter-
I think he’s going to use the Gruenak corpse to help finish the Garthim.
So the battle is still… going.
ANd I can’t help but think that what would really help here is a shield wall or something.
Gourmet: -flailing and panicking as a Gelfling climbs on his back and punches him in the head or something-
Chamberlain has found where the General has crawled off to.
General: “Friend SkekSil, help me”
Chamberlain: “Mmmm no. -stabs- You…. took… my…. Seat!”
Wow, SkekSil can hold a grudge.
Oh and General crumbles as soon as he dies. So I guess SkekMal really wasn’t dead.
Speaking of SkekMal he just showed up and and captured Rian and broke the Dual Glaive. I say broke but this is why weapons that have to be assembled aren’t as reliable. They’re made to fall apart and fall apart they will. It’s possibly a metaphor.
Speaking of a metaphor, the Archer has regained consciousness and has gone for a walk.
Archer: “I had a dream that I was one that became two. The hunt must end.”
And the walk that he’s taking is off the circle of the sun which is a very tall place.
Hunter: “I have conquered death! I have become more powerful! More powerful than Thra itself! Nothing can stop the hunt!”
Archer: “Now we shall see what lies at the dream’s end” -jumps off circle of the sun-
Hunter: -crumbles to dust-
Archer hasn’t even hit bottom yet. He just knows that he’s gonna die so he starts turning into sparkles midfall.
OH HEY!
Aughra reformed from the Hunter!
Scroll-Keeper: “Oh no, not her again!”
Rian: “Aughra are you alright?”
Aughra: “Of course not, I just returned from the dead!”
Aughra tells the Skeksis that they better retreat to the castle or she’ll mess them up. Emperor is like I’ll call that bluff.
And then…. ARROWS! The gelfling learned archery!
OH HEY ALL THE CLANS! ALSO THE ARATHIM!
Emperor: I WILL NOT LOSE, NO MATTER THE COST! BEHOLD THE POWER OF THE DARKENING!”
And his staff burns with an awesome power and then everything starts exploding. Wow look at the gelfling popping into the air
DEET!
She’s absorbing all of the Darkening!
Skeksis: -laughing at whats happening-
Emperor: ‘ffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff’
Deet: “Get away from my FRIENDS!”
And then she explodes into force lightning like Darth Deet
Mostly hitting the Collector
Collector: “That wasn’t so bad!” -explodes-
Skeksis: ‘RUN AWAY RUN AWAYYYY’
Chamberlain has to shake the Emperor out of his stupor to get him to run and for this earns Most Trusted Advisor role again.
All the gelflings are congratulating each other which I find funny because they didn’t do anything mostly except show up. But Rian and me are like hey wheres Deet.
Seladon throws herself at Aughra
Aughra: “Guess you want a hug? Alright.”
And Gurjin is like hey I’ll hug whoever. Free hugs.
And an Arathim takes him up on it.
Gurjin: “!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!???? Well, why not”
More Gelflings want hugs
Aughra: “Give me some space. I may be newborn but I’m still old!”
THE CRYSTAL SHARD WAS HERE ALL ALONG? IN THE DUAL GLAIVE?? That was a double ‘was here all along’ pull! Wow!
Aughra: “Gelfling, the shard calls to you. You fought well. And tomorrow, tomorrow three suns rise on a new world. And nothing will ever be the same. We have made new enemies. And lost old friends. But the fallen are not truly gone. They have joined the song of Thra once more. Listen… and you will hear them on the wind. For the song has changed. It sounds like hope. But take care. Hope is fragile. Hope is delicate, like a crystal shard. Once lost… now found. And easily stolen.”
HEY UM DEET WHATS GOING ON WITH YOU
She just wandered off looking sithly sickly and making the plants die. Whats happening to good ol Deet??
Aughra: “This victory does not belong to a single gelfling or a single clan! It belongs to all of us! All of Thra, united! This day, the many become one!”
Brea: -holds up crystal shard to transition into the movie theme-
Scientist: ‘HEY WHATS UP JUST CREATING THE GARTHIM AND SIGNALING THE DOOM OF THE AGE OF RESISTANCE IS WHATS UP I’LL SHOW THEM FOR CALLING ME A NERD’
Other Skeksis limp back to crystal chamber.
Chamberlain: “Well look on the bright side, we still live!”
Other Skeksis: -whine sob-
Scroll-Keeper: “Poor Collector! SkekLach never harmed anyone who did not deserve it!”
Hell of a qualifier.
Chamberlain spins the General’s last moments to make himself seem like a cool guy.
Oh. So Garthim is Gruenak plus Arathim.
And so the first Garthim is born. Which will ultimately net SkekTek no respect judging by the Garthim-Master, the guy who made his reputation on SkekTek’s creations, treats him in the movie.
Poor, poor Scientist.
So that was Age of Resistance season 1. I quite enjoyed it overall. I have some overall thoughts and quibbles that I might do another post for. But overall I quite enjoyed it.
My primary thought is “rude to not have a second season announced yet.”
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cafes and pinky promises
summary: bff! felix → idol! felix ,,, like i said , i suck at summaries
words: 2.8k
a/n: yall im on a roll, i really don't know why im writing so much these past few days but enjoy,, i hope
not edited, per usual
as you entered your favorite cafe, you never expected to come face to face with the boy who filled up every second of your thoughts
in fact, it was the very boy that has created so many memories with you in this same exact place
you wanted to go up to him, to see how he was doing, ask him how idol life been treating him but you found yourself glued to the floor, unable to move
every single memory with him suddenly flashing in mind
-
the two of you met back in middle school
it was the typical story
you were the new kid in school,
didn't have any friends,,
sat alone at lunch,,,
then one day he came up to you wearing his brightest smile, the freckles upon his cheeks shining up like the stars in the sky
“hi, im felix”
(❁´◡`❁)
and the rest was history
you guys became the best of friends, practically glued to the hip
but let’s skip all that friendship fluff and fast forward to second year of high school
you guys have been best friends for a good four years now
one of the things that you guys love doing is going to the cafe a little out of town
the cafe had free wifi and barely any people so it became a routine to just go there after school and goof around
dont get me wrong, you guys do homework too
#getyoureducationkids
also like #fuckthesystem
anyways,,,,
since you guys were the smartest in your class, it never really took that long to finish homework and instead you guys would just have fun listening to music, telling bad jokes, watching a show on netflix, and sometimes even just playing rock paper and scissors
there’s never a dull moment between the two of you
honestly if it wasn’t for you and felix, the cafe would probably be out of business
even the owner knew you two
she was the sweetest old lady, always giving you guys extra cookies and letting you stay for as long as you can
she would also always joke around about how you two would make the cutest couple, comparing the two of you to her and her husband who were high school sweethearts
being young, the thought first made you wanna vomit
like ew,,, boys are gross
but as you grew older, you started seeing the boy in a different light
the small touches and the hand holding suddenly started to have meaning
everytime he laughed, it was music to your ears
his freckles became the most beautiful thing in the world, and you loved tracing each one of them
sure, you guys have had your own share of petty fights but at the end of the day it did nothing but strengthen the friendship that you two share
there were never any secrets
(((besides of course these feelings that were growing but shh we dont speak of that)))
you knew felix like the back of your hand and vice versa
and you could just see yourself spending every moment with him in the upcoming future
until of course one day,
“y/n, i need to tell you something but pinky promise you won’t get mad?”
“felix every time someone says that, people tend to be mad”
“y/n just pinky promise me you wont”
“ok, i pinky promise, now what is it??”
felix was absolutely terrified
he’s been meaning to tell you this for a while but every time he tried he just couldn't find the words to do so
and god, how he has let time pass him by
“im moving to korea”
you bursted out laughing and felix is confused as heck like?????
whats??
so ???
funny????
“seriously lix, you made me pinky promise not to be mad over a joke??”
you see, pinky promises may seem like a childish thing but it was sacred between the two of you
so when he used it over a joke, you just couldn’t help but let out a few couple giggles
however, as you turned to face him and saw the serious expression written on his face you found yourself at loss for words
“wait, are you serious?”
“yeah”
“wh-when are you leaving?”
“in a month”
“h-how long have you known???”
“ummmm” (´・_・`)
“felix.”
“Since we went to the park”
the park
you remembered that day, it was probably one of the happiest days of your life
you passed your math test with a perfect score and has just become the student body president of your class
on top of that, felix decided he wanted to treat you out for ice cream as he was proud of his best friend
what you didnt know was that this was the day that would change everything
this was the day he was scouted
the day he received the news that he was accepted as a trainee
and hes been finding a way to tell you
but he just couldn't
you were completely over the moon
as you guys were sitting on the swings, your hands occupied with your own ice cream cones
felix started talking about his dance team and choir class
you always knew how much he enjoyed those classes
yet as he talked about his passion, his eyes twinkling and his mouth curving into the softest smile, you truly got a grasp on how much your best friend loved music and performing
you can't help but think back to a few days ago, when your friend brought up how much your eyes sparkled talking about felix
you wondered if you looked the same as how felix looked now, talking about the things that he loved to do
and then it hit you
you were in love with your best friend
god reader, how cliche could you be (●'◡'●)ノ♥
“felix, that was two months ago.”
to say you were mad was an understatement,, you were filled with rage
anger and disappointment all just combining into one
suddenly the future that you clearly saw vanished because every single one of those versions had the boy by your side
“im sorry”
not knowing how to respond, you started packing up your things in your backpack
felix just watching you do so, thinking of things to say to make the situation at hand better
once you stood up, he snapped out of his thoughts, worry completely washing over his eyes
“where are you going?”
“im going home.” you say emotionlessly
“let me walk you”
“no”
and that was the last of it
he tried calling you several times after that yet all he was left with was your voicemail
every time he approached you at school, you would walk the other way
every day he would show up at the cafe hoping to see your face, yet that day never came because you stopped going
you figured it’d be easier to let him go if you just stayed mad at him
you figured that your feelings would automatically go away if you replaced them with hate
but reader, you were so wrong
the day came when he finally had to go
that day was painfully hard for you
your whole class was bidding him goodbye, and all you could do was watch from the sidelines, your pride way too high to forgive him now
no one really knew about your guys’ fall out as you found it was better to keep things to yourself than become the schools new gossip
and so when everyone started asking you how you felt, you responded with the most generic answers
“whatever makes him happy, im happy”
oh reader, you are such a liar
it wasn't until a year after, that you truly forgave him
and that was because a classmate of yours barged into the room, waving her phone around
“Guys remember felix!, well he’s an idol now!!”
as soon as you got home that day, you searched up his name, and there he was
Lee Felix
Stray Kids
and you realized how stupid you’ve been
you never even bothered asking him why he was leaving
you cried yourself to sleep that night as you look back on the wasted friendship that you threw down the drain
but you figured that there was no point in being sad over it anymore
you were done holding grudges
so the next day you went back to the cafe and binged the survival show that your best friend, well ex best friend, was in
the sweet old day was overjoyed when she saw your familiar face
she asked you where your partner in crime was and with a genuine smile you responded with “he’s out there doing bigger and greater things”
ever since then, you made the cafe a weekly trip
it hurt you to know that you spent your time resenting him so you made a pinky promise to yourself, that even if he didnt know, you would support him no matter what
you ended up buying all their albums
watching their vlives
staying up late for their debuts
hell, you've even gon to the point of making a stan account just to be be updated
-
which brings you to now
you knew that felix was in australia, they were having a concert here
you even got a ticket for yourself, not close enough where he could see you of course
you were still ashamed of your actions even though it’s been almost two years
so when you walked in the cafe and saw him with his 8 buds seated in your guys’ usual spot, you definitely didn't know how to react
seeming as they haven't spotted you yet, you quickly made your way out the door
however, Elise, the sweet old lady, had other plans
“y/n, honey, leaving so quickly?”
and that was when 9 heads turned to the door
all 18 eyes just looking at you
‘fuck y/n okay just act cool’
‘youre fine’
‘maybe they don't even notice you’
‘omg speak’
“y/n?” felix says, his deep voice breaking you out of your thoughts
“felix?? Hi!!!” you say, giving him the biggest fake smile ever
it’s not that you wanted to okay, it was just a very awkward situation and you have no idea how to act
‘smooth y/n, so smooth’
I swear if you could facepalm yourself, you’d be doing so with both of your hands + the hands of the 7 billion people on this earth
“uhm hi?,” he replies, obviously confused as to why you suddenly acknowledged his existence
truth to be told, he was expecting you to ignore him just like all the other times before
“well, won't you look at that, my two musketeers are back together,” Elise butts in,
“ah, it's just like the old days, would you guys like some cookies???” she says, a soft smile on her face
“no that's okay El, im heading out soon anyways, can i just have the usual caramel macchiato?” you say quickly, ignoring the awkward tension in the air
“sure thing hon”
and as she goes to the back to make your order, you were left with the 9 boys
welp
its now or never
“uhm, when did you get back?”
you ask, your hands automatically playing with the hem of your shirt, a clear sign that you were nervous
“im just here for the week”
“oh,,, nice”
“Yeah”
(>_<)
the other boys just sitting in silence, going back and forth between the two of you
they know exactly who you are, and trust me, they arent your biggest fans
which is exactly why they chose to not break the awkward tension in the air
and you swear, you wish you can just have the earth open up and swallow you whole
“hon, heres your order!”
oh thank god,,
Elise is your savior
even though you wouldnt even be in this situation if it wasnt for her
you quickly grab your drink and make your way out,,, but not before saying
“uhm, it was nice seeing you again lix,” you say, this time, a genuine smile on your face
◐ˍ◑
when felix heard the nickname that you've once given him, he couldn't believe his ears
great job reader, you’ve left him stunned
taking his silence as a response, cause youre kinda a dumbass, you nodded to him and the other boys and left the cafe
however as you made your way to your car
something clicked inside of you
,,,,
fuck it
,,,,
you ran back to the cafe, grabbing the door wide open at the same exact time that felix pushed it open
which caused him to stumble right on top of you, your coffee being thrown a whole meter away
at least it wasn't on your shirt
“omygod im so sorry! are you okay?” he asks, picking you up and checking you for bruises
and youve realized that he hasnt changed one bit
he’s still your best friend felix
the same felix that treats you with so much love and care
the same felix you fell in love with all those years ago
and you couldnt help but let out a tear
this worried felix even more
“what is it?? whats wrong???”
you were blown out sobbing at this point
“Im ๑•́ㅿ•̀๑) ᔆᵒʳʳᵞ ”
“huh??”
“im so sorry felix, i-”
your emotions not allowing you to create a single coherent sentence
but because felix still knew you like the back of his hand, he knew exactly what you were talking about
“lets go inside okay”
all you could do was nod and let him guide you to your usual spot that was now empty
grabbing a couple napkins, he wipes your tears away for you before you finally became conscious of what was happening and took control
“I didnt know you still came to this cafe?” he says, finally breaking the silence
“yeah uhm, i started coming back,”
“why?”
“I-i guess i just missed you”
“I thought you hated me”
“No,” you say quickly, that was the last thing you wanted him to think
“i didnt hate you, i was just angry and sad and i acted upon those emotions. I was stupid, im sorry”
“its okay, i understand, youre not stupid y/n”
god damn it,,
why is this guy so nice,,
“no felix, it's not okay. we were best friends, i should have talked to you. I-i shouldnt have cut you off like that especially when i didnt even give you a chance to explain yourself”
damn okay reader, admitting to your mistakes, im p r o u d
“Its all in the past now y/n”
“can you forgive me for being a bitch?” 👉👈
This got a chuckle from felix
“as long as you can forgive me for keeping a secret from you” he replies, shooting you a smile
you smile back at him
“ive forgiven you a long time ago lix”
,,,,
,,,,
felix has stopped malfunctioning
“ive missed you,” he says grabbing your hand from across the table and holding it the way he used to
“ive missed you too,,, so much,,, im so proud of you,”
“proud of me?”
“yeah, youve finally done what youve always dreamt of”
“you know?”
“of course i know lix, youre everywhere!”
“it kinda sucks how you know whats been going on in my life and i dont know a single clue about yours”
“I can always catch you up!” you say excitedly, but as you see the sad smile that began to etch his way onto his face, you see that that’s not the case
“busy schedule?” you question
“yeah” he replies, the grip on your hand becoming tighter, almost like he doesnt want to let go
“thats okay, im sure we’ll find some time,” you say maintaining the positive energy
right on cue, chan peeps his head in the door
“Felix we have to go now, i tried convincing them to give you more time but were already running behind schedule”
“aish” felix replies as his tears suddenly made his way down
he gets up and pulls you into a bone crushing hug as you breathe in his scent, taking it all in
“im sorry i have to go so soon”
“thats okay felix, ill always be here”
“i hope i can see you again before I leave,”
“oh dont worry, you will” you say, a big smile on your face
“what do you mean?”
“just watch out for me at the concert, yeah?”
“youre coming???!!!!??”
“yep, already got my ticket!”
and you swear youve never seen felix smile so brightly before
“you pinky promise?”
“I pinky promise.”
#lee felix#lee felix imagine#lee felix au#lee felix blurb#stray kids felix#lee felix x reader#stray kids imagines#stray kids blurb#stray kids au#stray kids fluff#stray kids angst#lee felix fluff#lee felix angst#stray kids lee felix#stray kids soft#stray kids scenario#stray kids ships#stray kids
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So I finally did decide to watch The Woman Who Fell to Earth and... wow. I know I’m way late on the train but I just wanted to share some of my thoughts just from this first episode because why the heck not
First of all, just all the clear fuck you’s to Moffat (intentional or not). The fact that this single episode already has better representation than Moffats entire run, each of those characters have more development already in just their pinky fingers than pretty much is seen in Moffats entire run, the simple plot, the deep care and not asshole-ness of the Doctor. Just like top notch stuff
Still missing that extra mmmph of just pure weirdness I loved from RTD, but also new showrunner new rules and I can live with that
I felt like there were a lot of parallels to RTD era stuff, maybe just in my head maybe meant to be. But none of it copying yay! idk I just got the vibes of something I haven’t seen or felt in a while. Also got some 10 vibes from 13 which I love
I sooo want to believe that 13s appearance is a tribute to Rose, although maybe that’s just my Doctorxrose shipper coming out. But also... come on... that blonde with brown roots thing 13 has got going... when was the last time we saw that? I’m not asking for it to be addressed or talked about or acknowledged in any way (don’t get me wrong I’m always a slut for rose references but this is 13s time to shine) but I just hope it’s even a little true
I do still really miss the soundtrack from RTDs and even some of Moffats run. Just those dramatic moments with that wonderful score still gives me chills. And I’m always a slut for a good theme. Don’t know if that‘ll change as the series goes on cuz I was starting to get that music towards the end of the episode but we’ll see (I hope Murray gold is still composing... I should look that up.
“I matter, I am valuable...” just a bit of a clue I loved showing us were back in for that theme in Doctor Who that you don’t have to be “special” to matter (which I think the character the alien is hunting and just this story itself encapsulates very well just in general)
I honestly almost cried after the security guard got killed after that call with his granddaughter... I honestly don’t think I cried at anything in Moffats run so to come back to Doctor Who and feel actual emotion is just... I have no words I’m so happy
Wilfred and Graham would be bickering BFFs you can fight me on that
Another thing I do still miss is the noise from from RTDs era. I can’t think of exactly how to put it but there’s just that hustle and bustle of the world you feel in those first few seasons and it stil feels very secluded and... idk quiet here? Again though it’s only the first episode and the setting didn’t really call for large crowds so we’ll see how that transforms over time
Also on the subject of things I miss... just that slightly softer, warmer, lighter feel of the world you see in RTDs era. But also I don’t know how much of that has changed just due to technology evolving and getting better? Maybe that’s just more of a nostalgia thing.
13S LITTLE SPEECH BEFORE JUMPING! AND THE JUMP ITSELF! FUCK YES!
Love love love the fact that 13 is treated the same as any other Doctor in this episode. She doesn’t need to prove herself to any of her team at any point (other than she is in fact an alien which is just a Doctor thing in general), she lifts herself onto the platform after hanging on (can you imagine the upper body strength? 11 could never), and the fact that she never comments on how her abilities are different because she’s a woman now. I almost thought there was gonna be a boob joke when she couldn’t run after the alien after first finding it, but then it was just a comment on how her regeneration was affecting her!! The Doctor knows how strong women are, after all ze’s seen their strength first hand on MANY occasions traveling with them so why would she think negatively on being a woman. Although I do hope we get to maybe acknowledge new struggles she might feel from society looking at her as a woman and working to prove them wrong at some point. Thank you Chibnall for giving us something Moffat never would (and never could!)
I loved 13s reaction after the guy who was being hunted pushed the alien off the bridge. “You didn’t have to do that” and so disappointed. All I could think was the Doctor’s finally back.
I really did cry by the ending when the Doctor was facing the alien. At first it was just because I was feeling like Doctor Who back which made me so happy I couldn’t help but crying. But then Grace died and it really made me sad. But then the thought that something in DW actually gave me enough of an emotional reaction to cry again just made me start to cry for happiness all over again.
Also people are dying again! There’s seriousness and consequences again!! Not that I want people to die and suffer in every episode, but again that return to the core of Doctor Who is making me happy.
13 talking about how she keeps her family with her in her heart and as reminders of who to be. So beautiful (and just fuels my belief that her look is a reminder/whisper of Rose). I really hope this new era might be able to include an old companion or two from RTD era even (I know Jack is back? Kinda? And maybe he’s coming back again? But can you imagine the powerhouse of Mickey and Martha returning and working with 13??? I would DIE)
That outfit? ICONIC!!!
I think I still need to get used to the Doctor traveling with a pack. I’m happy for all the real characters were getting considering it’s pretty much just been the Doctor/half-baked Companion show since Moffat took over. But also it’s a different group feel than from RTD just cuz even then there was the Companion and their family that were more supporting characters. And even with Jack, he only popped up after we already knew the Doctors/Rose relationship. But I’m excited to see how this team of companions works!
All in all... still don’t know if I’m quite ready to believe 13 will top 9/10 for me, but as far as I’m concerned it’s already better than 11/12. And at the end of the day, I’m just happy to feel like I can love Doctor Who again.
So... after watching into skyfall not sure my original predictions on how this series/era went have stayed true. While I still love the 13th Doctor and Jodie.... I am already feeling let down by what’s to come. And it’s weird cuz there are certain parts I love, but the ones I hate are just far outweighing the positives. Why does every writer now need to alter the entire doctors life in a way that ruins RTD and, hell, even Moffat’s plots. I hated Moffat but Jesus. Even I’m beginning to think I’d rather watch 11-12 over this.
#dw#original#im so sorry RTD#you gave them the stars#and they burned it all down to the ground#this show deserves better
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eight’s a crowd pt. 3 ~ bts
pairing: ot7 x reader
rating: nsfw because bangtan can’t stop talking about sex lmao
word count: 5.4k
summary: you’re a bighit staff member in charge of stage set-up when you find yourself inexplicably drawn to the very seven men you’re setting stage for. soulmate au!
a/n: i can’t even begin to say how grateful i am for y’alls patience and understanding! it’s been a long time coming but here’s pt. 3. there will definitely be a pt. 4, which i’ll hopefully have quicker than i had this chapter, lmao. happy reading!
part 01 02 03 04 05
“(Y/N). (Y/N). (Y/N)? (Y/N)!”
You startled and jerked your head. Jae stood next to you, and he dramatically waved his hand in front of your face. “Earth to (Y/N).”
“I’m busy, Jae,” you said, focusing on your task. You could feel your bad mood festering underneath your skin. You didn’t want to talk, but Jae had already acknowledged you and no amount of shoulder shrugging was going to make him leave.
“Oh, you’re busy,” he replied. “I guess you’ve been pretty busy lately, y’know, hanging out with Kim Taehyung all day—,”
“Shut up!” you hissed, trying to keep your voice low. You glanced around the stage, making sure no one was listening. Brain and Wonpil were together in the pit, and you could see Sungjin and Dowoon across the stage, adjusting lighting. Everyone was immersed in their own work, but if there was anything Jae was good at, it was grabbing attention.
“How was it?” he whispered. “Where’d you eat? Did you go out? Did you meet the rest of Bangtan? And why didn’t you text me when you got back? For all I knew, you could have been murdered.”
“The only person who’s going to get murdered is you, if you don’t quit talking about this at work.”
Jae sighed loudly. “No one’s even paying attention.”
You let out your own sigh, abandoning your work to give him an annoyed look. “I met the rest of the boys.” Jae interrupted with a gasp, but you held up your hand to silence him. “We went sightseeing and then came back to the hotel. That was it.”
Of course, you were leaving out everything that mattered—Bangtan staying the night, the way just a single look from one of them made butterflies erupt in your stomach. How watching them flex and goof around on the beach had left you ridiculously hot and bothered in a way that had nothing to do with the summer heat.
The mental image of Jimin emerging from the ocean, soaking wet with his clothes sticking to every surface of his body, was gloriously and permanently imprinted in your brain.
“What were they like?”
“Human,” you replied. Jae shot you a look. “I’m serious! They were very normal. Nice, very courteous. They paid for my food.”
Jae nodded, as if paying for your food was an incredible mark of character. “They were a lot of fun. They’re just as close as they seem on camera.” It had been a huge relief, seeing how friendly they were with one another. Friendship like that couldn’t be faked. “We went to the beach afterward.”
“That’s so exiting, oh, my God,” Jae breathed.
“Don’t tell anyone else about it,” you threatened, wagging your finger at him. “I want to respect their privacy. I mean it, Jae. You can’t even tell Wonpil.”
He pushed out his bottom lip in a pout, but then realized how serious you were. “Don’t worry, I wouldn’t do that.”
You almost sagged in relief. The last thing you wanted was for it to get around the staff that you’d gone out with Bangtan. You weren’t exactly sure what they would say, but you knew at least half of it would be less than savory.
“So how was it?” Jae finally asked. “Was it everything you thought it would be?”
“It was better,” you admitted, voice low. “It was the best time I’ve had since the start of the tour.” You looked down, bringing your hand up to palm at the camera stand absent-mindedly. You went back to work. “It’s never gonna happen again.”
Jae made a confused noise in the back of his throat as you finally got to the root of your bad mood. “What do you mean?”
You looked up and saw his furrowed brow, creased with concern. “I’m just a set-up crewmember, Jae. I’m sure they’re not actually interested in hanging out with me. They just wanted to show a random staff member a good time and I just happened to be the prettiest.”
Even that was debatable—you may have been the only girl in the set-up crew, but Brain and Wonpil could be radiant if they took the time to put on make-up.
Jae scoffed and hit you on the shoulder. “That’s not true.” You shot him a look and he gulped. “The hanging out part, not the prettiest part! They wouldn’t have taken you out if they weren’t interested in you.”
You snorted. “Interested how? Romantically? I went out with all seven of them, and no one showed interest. They probably just wanted to take me out as a charity case, once they found out I wanted to go sightseeing.”
That was the only way you could rationalize what had happened yesterday in your mind. After they’d left in the morning, they’d given you no way to contact them. They probably didn’t even know your last name. Cold reality had set in, and you realized that they had probably seen you as an underprivileged staff member. It had been random, even spur of the moment—once they’d heard you wanted to explore the city, they decided to show you a good time.
It was almost flattering. A lot of other celebrities wouldn’t have taken the time to hang out with an unimportant staff member, but Bangtan was generous. That didn’t stop the pang of insecurity in your chest, a feeling that bordered on rejection. You had such a good time hanging out with them, and they had only done it out of moral obligation. Yesterday probably hadn’t mean half as much to them as it had to you.
“But it’s fine,” you continued, before Jae could reply. “I still had a great time. I just don’t expect it to happen again.”
You tried to keep dejection out of your voice, but Jae heard it anyway. He cooed, wrapping you in a hug and letting you rest your forehead against his collarbone. “It’s okay, (Y/N). You still had a one in a million experience.”
“They were so nice,” you muttered, almost incoherently. “They smelled good.”
“I’m sure they did,” Jae snorted, amused.
“Namjoon found like, six crabs on the beach. He named them all. How sweet is that?”
Jae nodded and let you mumble to yourself. “It’s very sweet.”
“I can’t believe I got to hang out with them.”
“Neither can I,” Jae admitted, and you pulled away to smack him on the shoulder. “Ow!”
“No more pity party,” you declared. “Get back to work. We still have half the tour to suffer through.”
He groaned at the reminder, but then shot you a mischievous look. “Hey, now that you and Bangtan are BFF’s, do you think you could bribe them to—?” Whatever he was about to say withered underneath your harsh glare. “Never mind.”
Jae finally left, leaving you in peace. You sighed in relief with only minor guilt. You appreciated Jae and how supportive he could be, but for right now, you just wanted some quality alone-time.
You tried to focus on your work, but it was hard. The closer the concert loomed, the more your concentration veered. You remembered everything—the subtle way Jimin touched you, Hoseok’s bright smile, Yoongi’s soft glances, Jeongguk and Taehyung’s lighthearted bickering, Seokjin’s contagious laughter, Namjoon’s comforting voice.
See you tonight, baby.
It hadn’t been until after they left that you realized you wouldn’t even be able to see them after the concert, considering the set-up crew left early.
You almost felt guilty, but Namjoon’s parting comment was probably just him being courteous. In a way it would be easier, leaving early—although it was disappointing that you wouldn’t be able to see them, it was a relief to know you wouldn’t have to worry about the awkward moment when they started pulling away from you. If you held on, gripped them too tightly in your grasp, it would do nothing but prompt them to struggle until they were free. They were probably worried you’d be waiting on the edge of the stage for them, ready to pounce the second the concert ended.
No, you wouldn’t do that. You weren’t a desperate and inconsiderate fan. You had your fun with them, and now it was over; it would be better to appreciate it for what it was, instead of mourning what you thought it could have been.
Once everything was set up and the crowd started to pour in, you cooled down in the bathroom and went back to your hotel room. You packed your bag early and went back inside the venue. Spotting Sungjin with the rest of the crew loitering by the stage, you wiped the sweat from your brow and walked over. “I think I’m gonna go ahead and get in the van.”
Brian gave you a strange look. “Are you okay? Usually you’re the last person on.”
“I’m just really tired. I’ll see you soon,” you replied, trying to shrug casually. Jae gave you a concerned look but didn’t say anything as you left, sensing you still needed your own space.
You ambled onto the van and got comfortable, glad to see it was still empty. You knew you would only have a moment to yourself before people started loading their stuff, so you rested your head back and sighed, enjoying the silence for as long as you could. You were already looking forward to sleeping during the upcoming drive, while Bangtan and their concert fell further and further into the distance.
~~~
“Hand me that wire?”
You paused your work, handing Sungjin the wire he was gesturing for. He thanked you and kept working, already used to your silence. Unluckily for you, your bad mood was carrying further than you ever thought possible.
It’d been a week since you’d seen Bangtan.
Not that you were surprised, but it still stung. After their concert on Friday, Bangtan had ended up lingering in the previous city. There was a week between their last concert and their next, and with you and the rest of the set-up crew already in the next city, there wasn’t any contact to be made. Even the break-down crew had travelled ahead, to enjoy their small break with the rest of the crew.
You wanted to be unbothered. You wanted to not care, but for some reason you couldn’t get over Bangtan and the time you’d spent together. It awed you that you were able to get attached so quickly. Maybe it was because the only constant you had in your life was your meager bag of clothes and necessities, while everything else was a fleeting factor set to change. Hanging out with Bangtan hadn’t feel fleeting—it had felt permanent, which was probably why the sudden absence of them weighed heavy on your chest.
But now Bangtan had arrived—their next concert was tomorrow, and they needed to be ready. The stage was already set, and you and the set-up crew were smoothing over the finalities of the set-up. You were piddling with the sound system when the door to the arena burst open, startling everyone out of their work. Wonpil let out a shrill shriek in surprise.
“(Y/N)!” someone called, and you turned to see Hoseok striding toward you. Namjoon was right behind him with his phone in hand, as if the two of them had been looking for you.
Next to you, Wonpil gasped. Sungjin muttered a shocked curse.
“Hey,” you said, trying very, very hard to be casual, and failing very, very miserably at it. You abandoned the speaker you’d been fiddling with and turned toward them.
Seeing them in front of you again was just as jarring as the first time. In the short stretch that had passed after meeting them, you’d managed to convince yourself that your brief encounter was a dream. And if not a dream, then a moment happening in passing, never to happen again.
“Where were you after the concert Friday?” Hoseok asked. Whenever he and Namjoon reached you, Hoseok curled his hand around your arm, caressing the sensitive skin of your inner wrist with his thumb. He did it without a second thought, like the motion came naturally to him. “We were looking for you.”
A thrill shot up your spine. Unlike Taehyung last week, they didn’t waste time trying to remain inconspicuous. The entire set-up crew was staring. You tried to ignore them and focused on the two men in front of you.
“We leave early,” you replied, gesturing to your crew behind you. “To prepare the next venue. We stay until about mid-way through the concert before we head out.”
“Really?” Namjoon asked.
“Yeah,” you replied, apologetically. You were about to apologize in full until the door to the hallway burst open again, revealing the rest of Bangtan. They glanced around frantically until they caught sight of you and immediately relaxed. Sungjin muttered another curse, and Wonpil double-tapped your shoulder. He might have said something, but you were too distracted to hear it.
Jimin greeted you first, bypassing Hoseok and catching you in a brief hug. You had enough forethought to return it, but your mind blanked when he whispered, lips dangerously close to your ear, “We missed you.”
He backed away. Jeongguk and Taehyung swooped in, each wrapping themselves around you, your body trapped between them. The oldest four kept their distance, eyeing the rest of the set-up crew. Seokjin was standing slightly behind you with Yoongi next to him, and it felt like a barrier. Just like when you’d gone sightseeing together, Bangtan seemed to form a natural circle around you, tight-knit and heartening. The rest of the crew was still staring at you like you’d grown a second head.
“We didn’t realize that you and your crew left early,” Namjoon continued. “I’m sorry, we were just worried.”
“I’m the one who should be apologizing,” you replied, embarrassingly breathless. “I should have told you beforehand.”
“When do you get off?” Seokjin asked.
“We can hang out later today, if you want,” Yoongi said.
“I feel like we haven’t seen you in forever,” Jeongguk pouted. He was still standing too close, although he and Taehyung had already released you.
You huffed in amusement, “It’s been a week.”
“A week too long,” Taehyung declared.
Sungjin cleared his throat. You whipped around, embarrassed, because you’d forgotten he was there. You couldn’t help yourself, being completely enamored by the seven men surrounding you. They were completely enamoring. When Sungjin saw he had your attention, he said, “Why don’t you take your lunch? I can finish up here.”
“Thank you,” you exhaled, almost ready to kiss his feet. Wonpil looked like he wanted to say something, but he kept silent. “I’ll text you when I’m on my way back.”
You handed him your headset and bowed quickly, saying goodbye. You waved vaguely to your fellow crew, who were still watching you with avid interest. Bangtan followed you, also bidding goodbye to the crew.
Once you were outside, the seven of them formed a semi-circle around you as you walked. Namjoon was on one side and Yoongi on the other, the rest of them falling behind as Namjoon said, “I wish you didn’t have to leave early. We really wanted to see you.”
“Think of it this way,” you told them. “Wherever the seven of you go, you’ll know I’ll already be there waiting for you.”
Your face flushed at your own declaration. It sounded more intimate out loud. You hadn’t meant you’d be waiting for them, just—well, except you did. That seemed to be your life, now that Bangtan had wormed their way into it. You thought about them obsessively. You thrashed restlessly in your sleep, dreaming vaguely in the shape of them, the dusky dawn stealing your memories and leaving you disoriented in the morning.
It had been a week, and already they’d ensnarled you.
Someone snagged you around the waist, pressing their chest against your back. You could tell by the height that it was Jimin—his chin fit perfectly in the dip of your shoulder.
“I like the sound of that,” he murmured, mouth pressed against your skin. His sudden hug made you skid to a halt, and Bangtan surrounded you, lips curling fondly at the interaction. Heat flooded your face, but you didn’t pull away. Usually public skinship made you squirm, but skinship in front of Bangtan didn’t make you feel uncomfortable; it just felt natural.
“It’s nice to see you guys again,” you admitted, voice low. Seeing them in person brought that day rushing back, from the beach to the hotel room and everything in-between. You’d convinced yourself that it had meant nothing to them, but if that were true, then why were they here?
Jeongguk beamed, taking one of your hands. “We missed you, too.”
“Come back to our bus and we’ll eat lunch,” Namjoon said. “Does that sound okay?”
You nodded, and the eight of you made small talk on the walk back. You were relieved to notice that the conversation seemed to pick up right were it left off, with no awkward pause in-between.
Bangtan had ample leftovers that they heated up. Seokjin insisted on making your plate, and the eight of you were scattered across the living area, sitting on countertops, the floor, the couch. You ate, but in the midst of the conversation you went quiet, still questioning yourself. Namjoon noticed immediately.
“Are you okay?” he asked. “You look uncomfortable.”
“I’m not uncomfortable,” you denied, toying with the food on your plate. It wasn’t a lie—Bangtan didn’t make you uncomfortable, but that didn’t stop you from shifting back and forth nervously on your feet. You just weren’t used to them, and you didn’t understand their intentions. You shoveled more food into your mouth, already feeling yourself getting full.
“You didn’t look happy to see us,” Hoseok observed, as if he’d been waiting for Namjoon to bring it up. “And you stopped talking to us after we hung out.”
“We were nervous you didn’t like us,” Yoongi continued, scratching nervously behind his ear.
“No!” you cried. You couldn’t believe that they were somehow under the impression that you didn’t like them—if you were being honest, you liked them too much. You were almost addicted to the way they made you feel. “I was just really, really surprised. I didn’t expect to see you.”
Jimin crinkled his nose. “Why? We wanted to see you after the concert, but you weren’t there.”
You toed anxiously at the floor, embarrassment coloring your face. You weren’t sure why, but you were compelled to be honest with them. You set your plate on the kitchen counter and pushed it to the side. “I didn’t think the seven of you would be all that interested in seeing me again.”
“Why?” Jeongguk asked, almost hurt.
“I’m boring,” you admitted. “I’m just a staff member. I don’t have much to offer—,”
“We think you’re fantastic,” Namjoon interrupted.
“We’d hang out with you every day, if we could,” Taehyung said.
“We wouldn’t hang out with you unless we wanted to,” Yoongi pointed out.
“Really?” you breathed, still unsure. They had no reason to lie, but you couldn’t understand why they were so interested in you. You were nothing special, nothing distinct or extraordinary. Surely they could get anything they wanted from you out of somebody else.
The eight of you sat in silence until Jimin blurted out, “Do you wanna move to mid-crew?” Bangtan threw him a scathing look. Obviously, he wasn’t supposed to say that part.
“Mid-crew?” you asked, surprised. Mid-crew were the people who handled set-up emergencies during the concert. It was a highly coveted position because it paid the best and allowed the most celebrity exposure, which also meant it was very, very hard to get.
“We talked to the mid-crew manager,” Namjoon explained, turning his attention back to you. “She said they were short on people and we mentioned your name. It’s a lot easier to move a current crewmember to a new position than interview and background check a new employee.”
“We already know you’re good at your job,” Seokjin said. “Your manager bragged when we asked about you.”
They’d talked to your manager? You pulled your bottom lip through your teeth. “I don’t know. It’s very sudden.”
“You don’t have to take it if you don’t want it,” Hoseok said. “But it’d be nice to see you more often.”
Taking the job would be your best option. It paid better, it was work similar to what you already did. You wouldn’t get to see Jae and the rest of the set-up crew as often, but you’d still see them during every break and before every concert.
If you took the job, you’d get to stay and watch every concert. No more leaving early wishing you could stay. No more sitting in the van staring longingly out of the back window.
And it paid better.
“Let me talk to my manager first,” you told them. “If it’s convenient, then yeah, I’d love to switch to mid-crew.”
They seemed greatly pleased by your decision. The eight of you finished eating, and Namjoon gathered the dirty dishes to put them in the sink for another unlucky member to clean later. Seokjin glanced at his phone and frowned.
“We don’t have long,” he said, sadly. “Want to watch a movie?”
You glanced nervously at your own phone. “I should really get back to work.”
“Please?” Jeongguk asked, staring at you pitifully. You couldn’t imagine how Bangtan stopped Jeongguk from getting away with everything with a look like that. He’d get off scotch-free for murder if he turned that wide-eyed gaze on the judge.
“Fine,” you relented. “I just don’t want to interrupt your schedule.”
“You won’t!” Jimin chirped, happily. “Sit next to me.”
He dragged you to the couch and sat down on the far end of it, pulling you next to him. He immediately cuddled against your side, barely noticing the way you stiffened. It wasn’t that you were uncomfortable—but you were just one woman, you only had so much self-control. Cuddling on the couch with Jimin was awakening something within you that you’d rather keep buried until you were in the privacy of your bed or shower.
If you were being honest, you liked it. You liked the way they made you feel. But all seven were making you feel that way—if even just one of them wanted you in return, how could you choose between them?
“I’m sorry,” Jimin apologized, sheepishly. He pulled away slightly. “We’re just so used to being close with each other—,”
“It’s okay,” you were quick to interrupt, face flushing. “I don’t mind. I like it.”
Was it your imagination, or did Jimin’s smile turn into a smirk? “Really?”
You nodded your head and tried to shrug casually. “I mean, yeah. It’s nice.”
He sunk further into the couch. Jimin was pressed against you from shoulder to knee, and he brought his arm up and around the ledge of the couch, making you sink further toward his chest. “That’s good, baby.”
That damn pet name again. You pulled your bottom lip through your teeth, unconsciously leaning forward. Jimin’s mouth just looked so soft, and you wanted him to replace your teeth with his own as you bit almost painfully at the abused flesh.
Taehyung clapped so suddenly it startled you out of your trance, jerking in Jimin’s hold. You didn’t see it, but Jimin shot Taehyung a quick glare as the other man sat down at your other side. Jeongguk squeezed in next to him, and the four of you sat close on the couch while hyung line sat on the floor in front of you.
Seokjin leaned back against the couch, wedging your thighs open to fit his shoulders between them. A bolt of heat shot down your spine and you tried to ignore it, but all you could focus on was the heat of Jin’s body and the way your thighs were pressed obscenely tight against Taehyung and Jimin’s. Taehyung’s hand came down hot on your knee, and you felt Jeongguk’s fingers brush the back of your neck as he draped his arm over Taehyung’s shoulders, overlapping with Jimin’s.
“What do you want to watch?” Yoongi asked, and it took you a second to realize he was speaking to you.
“Um,” you said, breathless. “Anything’s fine, really.”
Yoongi and Namjoon argued good-naturedly over what movie to watch until they put on a nameless comedy that you could barely focus on. You were hyperaware of Bangtan’s every shift, how their every move seemed to be them pressing closer to you.
The eight of you watched Netflix until Bangtan’s manager knocked on their door to remind them they had a sound check in thirty minutes. Bangtan stood up and watched you leave reluctantly, already texting Sungjin to tell him you were on your way back. They each hugged you goodbye, holding you tighter and tighter until Jeongguk was practically trapping you against his chest.
“I’ll talk to my manager tonight,” you assured them. “I won’t be able to stay after tonight’s concert, but maybe I can make the switch afterward.”
“What’s your phone number?” Hoseok asked, taking out his phone. “Just so we can stay in touch.”
You gave it to them, giggling as they all texted you, so you had their number in return. You were tempted to linger even longer until Bangtan’s manager knocked again, and you nodded sadly before finally leaving.
~~~
“How could she think we didn’t like her?” Jimin exclaimed after you left, throwing himself down on his bunk. He snuggled sulkily into his pillow.
“We came on too strong,” Namjoon said, getting a glass of water from the kitchen. “She thought it was too good to be true.”
Jeongguk snorted. “Don’t be arrogant. Maybe we should shower her in more affection? Just to get the point across.”
“Should we buy her something? Clothes? Jewelry?” Taehyung contemplated. “Oh, I know—a car.”
“We don’t even know if she can drive,” Yoongi said, falling heavily onto the couch. “She didn’t even want us to pay for dinner, and you want to buy her a car?”
The seven of them sat in sulky silence, each contemplating what they could do to show you their affection was genuine.
“I thought this would be easier,” Hoseok admitted, toying with the end of his shirt. “We know she’s attracted to us. We know she’s interested. But she’s holding herself back.”
“It’s probably very overwhelming,” Namjoon said. “There’s seven of us and one of her. She can’t be expected to just magically fall for all of us. That’s just not how normal people do it.”
“But she’s not normal, she’s ours,” Jeongguk groaned.
Yoongi said, “Maybe we should make our intentions known early. Let her know we all want to be with her. Then she won’t be as confused.”
Jimin scoffed. “She’d run for the door. How would you feel if you found out you’re fated to love seven people? She probably doesn’t even know what a soulmate is.”
Soulmates were a very rare thing in the world, and usually happened between two or three people. Never eight. Most people didn’t even believe soulmates existed, but because the connection was usually passed down by generations, each of Bangtan’s parents were soulmates. They’d had a grasp of the concept young and had been told from an early age that they’d have a soulmate of their own one day.
Sometimes soulmates weren’t sexual, but like a complete meeting of minds. That was how it manifested with Bangtan—they were so close, they were practically telepathic. Despite this, they’d always felt like something was missing. They didn’t know what until they’d met you, and realized you were the missing piece to their puzzle.
The connection they felt with you was different than the connection that had with each other. They wanted to be with each other, but they wanted to be with you. Which was why they were so desperate to grab your attention.
The eight of you were meant to be together.
Perhaps your parents weren’t soulmates? Most people who came from families without soulmates didn’t even know soulmates were possible. Is that why you were so nervous to fall for them?
“We need to be delicate,” Seokjin said. “Be her friend first and confess once she realizes she can trust us.” He grimaced. “However long that might take.”
The following silence was heavy. Taehyung sighed and climbed into his own bunk, mirroring Jimin’s position.
“I suggest sex,” Hoseok said, and someone threw their shoe at him. “Ow! What? As if the rest of you weren’t thinking it. Jimin almost creamed himself touching her thigh in the van.”
“Shut up,” Jimin snapped, glaring at him. “You got a boner just sleeping in the same room as her. She wasn’t even in your bed.”
Hoseok’s face colored. “Whatever. It was just a suggestion.”
“We’re not having sex with (Y/N),” Namjoon said, and God help him, his dick was hard just saying your name and sex in the same sentence.
“Hyung,” Jeongguk whined.
“Namjoon’s right,” Seokjin said. “We have to ease her into it. We can’t just stick her in the middle of an orgy.”
“She’d like it,” Jeongguk replied, and his tongue ran over his bottom lip. “We’d make her like it.”
“Bad thoughts!” Seokjin cried. “I’m going to get a spray bottle if you don’t stop thinking like that.”
“Like what?” Yoongi asked. “She’s our soulmate. She was made to fit under, over, and between the seven of us, at the same time, in a variety of positions—,”
“Hyung,” Namjoon hissed, mind steadily filling with the image of you spread out for them, writhing in pleasure.
“Moaning,” Taehyung added, shifting restlessly in his bed. “She’d sound so hot.”
“Cut it out,” Jimin whined. “Now I’m hard.”
“You’re all degenerates,” Seokjin said. “We shouldn’t be thinking about her like that.”
“Don’t be a hypocrite,” Jeongguk replied. “You’ve thought about her, too.”
“Her pretty little face slack with pleasure,” Yoongi continued, staring off into the distance, see it, seeing you, what you would look like underneath him. “Begging.”
“Do you think she’d moan, or gasp?” Hoseok asked.
Namjoon scoffed. “We’d make her scream, obviously.”
Taehyung let out a tortured groan, rolling out of his bunk. There was a visible and angry bulge in his sweatpants, and he gestured to it. “I can’t go to sound check like this. I call the shower.”
“No fair!” Jimin cried, hitting him with a pillow. “You always get the shower. Just masturbate in your bunk like the rest of us.”
“Don’t blame me, blame him,” Taehyung replied, pointing his finger at Yoongi. “He did this.”
Yoongi shrugged remorselessly, an almost unnoticeable flush working up his pale neck. “I was just thinking out loud.”
“I don’t care who does what where,” Namjoon hissed, annoyed by his own predicament. “As long as everyone’s problem is solved by sound check.”
Namjoon’s statement was interrupted by Jeongguk slamming the door to the back room of the travel bus, the only room other than the bathroom that had a door. Taehyung immediately rushed to the bathroom. Namjoon would have laughed if he wasn’t too busy eyeing the rest of the group, each member willing to argue over where each of them got enough privacy to touch themselves.
“I’m already in my bunk,” Jimin said, fighting the urge to palm himself through his jeans while everyone was still around.
Seokjin let out a pained sigh. “There’s a locker room in the venue I could use.”
“Driver’s seat!” Hoseok cried, exiting the bus to access the passenger seat from the outside. Like an attached trailer, the tour bus was sectioned-off from the front seat where the driver sat.
Seokjin left, and Yoongi and Namjoon stared each other down.
“You did this,” Namjoon accused, narrowing his eyes.
“I’m your hyung,” Yoongi pointed out.
Namjoon groaned. “Please don’t make me masturbate in the van again.”
Yoongi shrugged from his position on the couch. “I’m already sitting down.”
“You’re the worst,” Namjoon said. “The complete worst.”
Yoongi gave him an unimpressed look. “Lock the door behind you.”
Namjoon did so and trudged to the van. All seven of them were sweaty but slightly more satisfied when they regrouped by the stage fifteen minutes later.
#bts#bangtan#bangtan boys#bangtan sonyeondan#networkbangtan#bangtanbookclub#ot7 x reader#ot7 smut#bts smut#bts x reader#park jimin#jeon jeongguk#jeon jungkook#kim taehyung#kim namjoon#kim seokjin#jung hoseok#min yoongi#Kwriter#kwritersnet#kwriters#jungkook#jimin#taehyung#v#namjoon#rm#hobi#hoseok#jhope
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Maka and Soul are best friends and have been since they were infants, but they both have huge crushes on each other and have for a while. Neither one of them knows, but senior prom is coming around and both are looking for dates. More like each other
another late prompt! kinda flubbed it on the “best friends” bit and turned it into more of a “best hatefriends” type of thing - in any case, this is a bit experimental - hope yall enjoy lmao
(also available on ao3)
–
“Broooo,” Starleers, and his teeth glitter too brightly under the lights, “you got a date tothe prom yet?”
Jealousy, irrational and sudden, starts buzzing in ahigh-pitched whine by his ear before he squashes it flat with a snort. “Spend afuckload of money to get trapped in some hotel ballroom with a bunch of peopleI hate for three hours? C’mon, dude, there are way better ways to spend yourtime.”
“Okay, but, consider: Tsubaki Nakatsukasa.” He shoots a grinand a wink over Soul’s shoulder. The girl in question smiles and waves backsheepishly. She’s standing a ways down the hall with Liz Thompson and – oh God.Soul’s heart skips a beat. He swivels his head back frontways, cool as can be.
“She actually said yes?”
“Of course! It’s not like I thought she wouldn’t or anything,I mean have you seen these guns?”
Throbbing, gently glistening muscles are thrust under hisnose. “Should make you a sandwich with all that jelly you got there,” Star sayswith a smirk.
Soul makes a show of rolling his eyes and shoves him away.“Bro, c’mon.”
“No bro, you c’mon.It’s our senior year. Think of all the people we can make fun of!”
“Like we don’t do that every day.”
“But they’ll be thinking they’re even hotter shit thanthey’re usually not so it’ll be twice as funny.”
“Still no.”
“Brah. Whatever, let’s hit the gym. Not much time left tofit in those gains, ya dig?”
“Unbelievable,” Soul grumbles. He grabs his bag and slamshis locker shut.
Across the hall, Maka grabs her bag and slams her lockershut. “Who, Evans?”
“Yeah!” says Liz, smacking her gum. “Tsu’s already goingwith Blockhead over there, might as well go along for moral support. ‘Sides,didn’t you two used to be like BFFs up till like middle school?”
She very determinedly doesn’t look back. She can feel herears heating up. “Okay, one, that was a long time ago and we don’t really talkanymore because he turned into a jerk, and two, Tsu, really?!”
“Black Star has such nice deltoids, Maka,” Tsubaki saysmournfully. “They’re sculpted. Andhe’s actually not all that bad, once you get to know him.”
“You’re too nice for your own good.”
“Maybe so. But you know, he’s kind of charming, in his ownspecial way.”
“Oh my God.”
Liz cackles. “Look, I’d ask Evans myself cause mmm, grungerocker boy with a sexy-ass glare? I’d be all over that, baby, but Kid alreadyasked me, so my hands are kinda tied.”
Maka huffs. Her ears must be totally red by now, ugh, shereally hopes Liz isn’t in an observant mood. It’s not like she expressly needsa date to go to the prom; going stag is very much a thing. Having one wouldn’tnecessarily make the undoubtedly agonizing experience any better, much lessSoul Evans of all people. She imagines, though, for a brief, blinding instant,what he’d look like in a suit – oh no, Liz is looking at her and she doesn’t likethe glint in her eye. Maka clears her throat and fumbles at the threads ofconversation. “That rich boy transfer student? No way.”
“Yes way,” Liz says, smugness creeping into her voice, “andif – “
“ – you don’t go I will be fuckin’ hurt.”
Soul rolls his eyes. “Would you quit it already, it’s beenlike a week now. Th’ fuck you even need me there for anyway, dumbass, you’vefinally got a date with the chick you’ve been talking about nonstop for likethis entire semester.”
“Uh, yeah, and I need my most loyal follower and favoritewingman there to bask in the combined force of our blinding hotness.”
“Jesus, you’re so weird,why do I even talk to you?”
“The words I speaketh are ambrosia on thine ears, my goodbro. Hey, why don’t you ask out Tsubaki’s friend? That short flat-chested onewith the pigtails, I forgot her name. That way you don’t have to worry aboutthird-wheeling us.”
Soul chokes on his protein shake. Black Star pounds himvigorously on the back. “Breathe, brother. I know, I know. But take one for theteam, yeah?”
“Fuck you,” Soul gasps. “You’re the worst.”
“Shh. No tears, only dreams now.”
“Maka Albarn,” Soul begins, “is the nerdiest, most uptight –“
“ – idiotic slacker in the entire school!” Her ears aresteaming, she’s sure of it. “I can’t be seenwith a guy like that, the act alone will drop my GPA by a full lettergrade!”
“GPA-shmeePA,” Liz says with a dismissive wave of herfreshly-painted nails. “Listen, you won’t flunk out of college or whatever justbecause you go party for one night. Besides, what if things go south withBlockhead and Tsu needs backup? Who’ll look after our girl?”
“I know taekwondo, you know,” Tsu says from on top of herbed.
“Not the point. C’mon, Maka!”
“A triangle has three sides,” Tsu says. “Senior prom wouldn’tbe right without you. You don’t even have to ask anyone if you don’t want to.”
I do, though, mumblesa little voice in the back of her head, and an image of Soul surfaces in herbrain. She bites her lip. “Well…”
“Uh,” says Soul.
In front of him, Maka puts a hand on her hip. “Uhhh,” she mimics. “Are you just goingto stare at me like an idiot all day or was there something you had to say?”
His stomach’s doing backflips and it’s making it very hardto concentrate. The bell just rang, they’re huddled awkwardly against the walljust outside the classroom to avoid getting swept up in the crowd, and herealizes, belatedly, that he doesn’t have to do this. He could just go byhimself, and be the awkward third wheel, but. Ugh. This is stupid – why’s he sonervous? (He knows exactly why.) He plays it off as lofty annoyance. “Do you,”he begins.
“Do I.”
“Do you. Wanna go to prom?”
Maka gapes. She was thinking he’d be asking to copy hercalculus homework for the billionth time, or maybe help on a biology problem –they have entirely too many classes together and it’s bullshit, it really is –but not this. She’d been agonizing ona dignified way to ask him for the past three days, and then this just dropsinto her lap –
“Hello in there,” Soul says. “Wow, am I really thatoffensive? I’m hurt.”
Her heart’s beating too fast, ugh, God, she can’t think – wait,he asked her, does this mean – could it be that –
“Yes,” she blurts.
Disappointment skewers his stomach mid-somersault. “Well,that settles that, I guess.”
Mortification consumes her as she realizes what she justsaid. “No!” she cries, too passionately. Soul turns around and quirks aneyebrow. Her ears are flaming. “Imean, yes! I mean, you’re – palatable! I’ll go to prom with you!”
“Oh. Oh. Hella.Rad. Guess I’ll uh. See you then. You have my number already, right?”
“Y-yeah!”
Fuck me, Soulthinks as he escapes, hoping she didn’t catch him blushing like a motherfucker,hella rad –
- you’re palatable – Maka wants to die –
REALLY?!
“Really?” Maka asks.
They made it intact to the dance floor. Some sappy countrysong is playing. The floor is packed with sweaty, inept teenage dancers; itreeks accordingly. He’s wearing a rental and she’s got on this knee-lengthpurple number that really highlights her lack of any womanly curves whatsoever.Her hair’s half-down half bizarre corkscrew pigtails. Liz and Tsubaki must havedone her makeup, there’s no way she could get it to look that polished on herown. She looks gawky. She looks ridiculous. There’s something funny happeningin his chest at the sight of her.
She feels the light, hesitant pressure of his hand in hersand on her hip like nothing she’s ever felt. His palm’s a little clammy. He’sso tall. When did he get so tall? Her heart’s beating a million miles an hour.She wants – she wants – she takes a deep breath. “Do you even know how todance?”
“Nope.”
“Ugh, figures.”
“Hey, you were theone who wanted to get out here, not me. Don’t you dare complain.”
She steps on his toe and feels gratified at the little yelpof pain he gives. “Ugh, you’re so…it’s a freaking dance, dummy, not a sit-at-the-table-like-a-weirdo!” Her heartleaps into her throat as a terrible thought occurs to her. “If you didn’t wannacome,” she says, a shade quieter, “why’d you even ask me?”
Soul swallows. “I, uh. Star, he.”
Oh no. Oh no, she’s a world-class idiot. “Don’t,” she says thickly,beginning to pull away. “Ha ha, very funny, ask the ugly one out for shits and giggles – “
“No!” Soul’s grip tightens. “It wasn’t – I wouldn’t – do youactually think I’d – “
“Yes!” she says,trying to escape in earnest now, and Soul flinches, stung. He doesn’t let go,though.
“Listen to me, itwasn’t a dare, okay, I – “
“Then why!”
“Because – it’s uncool to go to prom without a date and – “
“Oh, so it’s about your image, is it! God, men, you’re all so – “
“Let me finish!” hegrowls, and tries to pull her back to him, but he pulls too hard and of courseshe fucking trips and suddenly it is taking all of Soul’s considerablebalancing skills, honed from years spent studying the ways of the skateboard,to keep them from eating shit like a couple of goddamn morons. They performseveral very silly and energetic twirls instead, earning them some dirty looksfrom neighboring couples.
“Holy shit,” says Black Star from their table, elbowingTsubaki. “This is going way better than we thought.”
“It’s beautiful,” she sighs, smiling a little.
“Jesus,” Soulsays. He’s dipped her. This final move was necessary to prevent them fromfalling, and also to make everything look totally awesome and intentional.Their faces are very close together. She’s got really, really pretty eyes, henotes, a little dazedly. “Because I wantedto,” he blurts out.
Her throat bobs as she swallows. Her mouth is suddenly verydry. “You…what?”
“I mean, like, Star was like, ask Maka, because she’s Tsu’sfriend and all and it would just make sense and I wouldn’t go otherwise but I actuallywanted to, also, I mean, ask you.”
“Oh,” she says. She’s dizzy from all the spinning they justdid and kinda breathless. This close she can smell his cologne. The lights aretoo dim to properly tell but – her heart stops – is that a blush on his face? Oh. Oh.
Oh. She’s looking at him with something very much likedisgust, or shock, or something – fucking hell, he blew it, this is it, shereally does hate him now. He straights back up. The song is still fuckingplaying. He knew this was a bad idea, the entire night, all of it – this danceis just the rotten cherry on the shit sundae of the entire liquid fart of hisentire high school career. He swallows hard, and wonders how much more she’dhate him if he bolted right here and now –
Her brain has short-circuited, as it tends to do around thisstupid, stupid boy. “Are you even going to college?” she blurts nonsensically.
He looks visibly startled. “What? No. No. Fuck the police,”he mumbles.
One beat. Two. Then she busts out laughing. Okay, now he’sdefinitely blushing, she can see it, it’s confirmed. Silly, silly coolguys.
“Fuck you,” he mumbles. “I hate you.”
She’s feeling very brave, or maybe very stupid. Maybethey’re the same thing. She tightens her grip on his shoulder and steps incloser. “Do you?” she asks him. “Well I hate you more. I’ve always hated you.”
“Oh, sick. Even when we were kids?”
“Especially then.”
His eyes get a strange, blazing look. It makes butterfliesexplode in the pit of her stomach. He jerks her through a turn round thecorner. “Well I’ve hated you since I first saw your stupid face,” he growls.“Every time you smile I get so fuckin’ pissed, I wanna just, just kiss it right off you.”
“Holy shit,” Maka blurts, and now her whole face is probablythe color of a fire engine, “son of a,” and she goes for it, loops her armsround his neck and presses close like she’s wanted to all night.
“You’re awful,” Soul rumbles, and hugs her tighter, “fuckingterrible – “
“Uncouth, moronic – “
“Why don’t we cut the crap,” he says suddenly, “and blowthis joint. Let’s go to The Creek and stargaze, like we used to.”
“The Creek?”
“Oh yeah. Our one. Bet our fort’s still there andeverything.”
“Bet.”
“You’re on. Loser’s gotta pay up with – ” and she feels hisbreathing hitch “ – a kiss.”
She pulls away and looks at him. There are spots of color inhis cheeks, and when he meets her eyes they deepen and he looks away. Ice cold,yeah right. She takes a deep breath. They have a lot of catching up to do.
“Deal,” she says, and smiles.
#soma#soulxmaka#soul/maka#soul eater#ask fic#se by z#zxanthe writes sometimes#i wrote this after watching scott pilgrim vs the world for the first time#kms#Anonymous
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introduction.
- ̗̀ –– ( charlie heaton, twenty three, cismale, he/him. ) hey, is that elijah carrol over there? rumor has it, they’re one of those summer birds, originally from ruston, louisiana. i’ve heard they’re pretty downbeat, it’s just too bad they’re also hare-brained. they remind me of cigarette buds fallen into the passanger seat, ripped tie-dye shirts, music drowning out the chatter of an overly crowded van. ̖́ -
hey all! it’s fran here & i’m more than excited about finally kicking things off here & introducing you to my laid-back, larger than life, wanderlust driven son! i’ll leave some potential connections below for you to take a peek at & maybe spark some inspiration for plotting as well as go over the basics. i’m always available through ims or discord for those who ask for it!
elijah was the youngest of three siblings born to a well - off middle class family in ruston, louisiana, with his older brothers having seniority over him by a few years.
being the youngest, a lot was expected of elijah. his parents had hoped he’d follow in his brothers footsteps, with one moving on to be a lawyer & another finding success elsewhere & a new family of his own to show for it.
with the constant pressure to conform to his parents idea of ‘a son they could be proud of’ elijah strayed further & further from their expectations. now, their relationship wasn’t bad-- in fact, despite the growing distance caused by disappointment & polar opposite perspectives, they did love their son. & he loved them too. they wanted what was best for him, but they had a very strict opinion of what that was.
by nature, he was nothing like his brothers. while they thrived on success, elijah focused on the bigger picture. he could never see himself working an office job or spending every hour of every day listening to an old man who lost all his potential in his own youth telling him what, where & when to be. no, that wasn’t elijah.
his relationship with his brothers weren’t strained either. of course, he never appreciated the constant comparisons & ‘why can’t you be more like your brother?’ remarks his mother would make over coffee every morning, but they were a good family. they understood how their parents could be & while they wanted to see elijah succeed, they wanted him to succeed in what he wanted to do. or at least the eldest did. & he wasn’t shy of making that known. when he was told to follow what he wanted to, that was the day elijah knew his brother had been destined to be a father, just as much as he’d been meant for other things.
his first year out of high school was tough. he’d managed to graduate, got his diploma & made his parents proud. however, things became much more real to him when his days of smoking behind the bleachers, playing trombone in the school band every pep rally & barely escaping trouble were over. his parents were furious when they discovered he’d not applied for any colleges-- not even the ones they recommended as second, third or fifth choice. he was intelligent, he could get accepted anywhere if he tried. his teachers always said he could be brilliant if he just made the effort. his mother wept & cried about how he’d never get anywhere if he kept doing what he was.
that night elijah carrol left the town of ruston for good. a few beers & a handful of joints after their fight had led him to having the epiphany that he should just leave. go wherever he wanted, do whatever he wanted, be whoever he wanted. he packed what he could, left a note for his family, traded in his car for a new set of wheels & left. he was nineteen. & he’s been on the road every since.
personality wise, elijah is very laid-back! he’s a big people person. he loves talking, opening up to people, hearing their stories, being someone they can confide in regardless of who they are. he’s been known to pick up hitchhikers here & there.
because he wants to live his life to the fullest, he can be brash with his decisions sometimes! he can fail to think things through entirely before he does them. which is partially how he ended up with a van full of people he travels with.
he just wants to experience everything! good, bad & ugly. he does believe life is truly beautiful & in his own opinion, he’s seen enough of it to attest to that. he’s a firm believer that people shouldn’t to live up to anyone’s expectations or standards. he wants people to be true to themselves, what they want & helping them go for it. because of this, he’s obviously very open-minded & accepting of a lot. he gets very enthusiastic about people & the things they’re passionate about. he’s the biggest hype man.
he’s definitely a stoner. he smokes a lot, occasionally drinks, won’t turn down much. he lives by the ‘i’ll try anything once’ mantra-- with the exception of a few things. think of travis from clueless when it comes to elijah’s overall vibe!
unlike most summer birds, elijah discovered erith springs by chance. he was just passing through when he found the town & saw so much potential that he decided to prolong his stay. he stays in his van & can be found parked up on the lot of the beach homes, keeping close to the beach.
CHARACTER ARCHETYPES.
43% the caregiver –– friendly, sincere, & compassionate, the caregiver finds their reward in helping others. no one could ask for a better best friend.
the teacher. confident as they are curious, archetypal teachers are excellent listeners who are also willing to admit when they don’t know something. seldom shy or at a loss for words, many succeed at teaching because they are charismatic.
the rescuer. rescuers are courageous & selfless, throwing themselves into dangerous situations because they genuinely want and need to help, not for fame or glory.
the bff. bffs are the people you know you can turn to at the worst & best of times. they are there when the going gets tough & ready for fun when the living is easy.
the mentor. unselfishly open to those hungry to learn, great mentors give confidence to those who need it.
43% the visionary –– leave it to others to live by the status quo. the visionary is interested in new ways of seeing, solutions not yet imagined, products not yet built.
the detective. you see & sense extremely fine details that may ordinarily be missed. you can also be a snoop & very intrusive.
the futurist. futurists have incredible minds & are tenacious about achieving their goals.
14% the rebel –– the rebel is comfortable throwing caution to the wind, & bucking the system, if that means getting their point across.
the saboteur. like their archetypal cousin, the jokester, rebels live to upend anything that smacks of banality or conservatism.
the wild man. wild men & wild women are the most outrageous of rebels. these are the people who are in touch with the side of themselves that doesn’t want to settle or be forced into any box.
the hedonist. hedonists are wonderful hosts & guests. they bring added pleasure to any pleasurable occasion by noticing and appreciating the details & savoring each element.
CONNECTIONS.
smoking buddies! he smokes so much it’d be impossible for him not to have a few. but it could be fun if he had someone he introduced a little sweet mary jane to, if you catch my drift.
a boss! except, not really-- at all. instead, someone elijah has done a few odd jobs for ( landscaping, gardening, things like that ) & although he made it clear he didn’t need or want any money from them, they insist anyway. just a soft dynamic.
occasional hook-up. someone he’s been seeing while he’s been in erith. no strings attached, casual hang outs, all of that good stuff!
friends, friends, friends! he can never be short on them.
enemies. someone that, despite elijah’s knack for befriending almost anyone, ruffles his feathers. someone that gets under his skin someway or another. someone he doesn’t find agreeable at all.
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Taking a Sick Day
Deep in the never-ending vastness of space, Hat Kid’s spaceship was floating rather close to a colorful planet down below. Inside the spaceship, Hat Kid was spinning in her captain's chair, bored out of her mind. She spun around, and around, and around again while trying to think of what to do today.
She had just been to Mafia Town yesterday and the Conductor and DJ Grooves were currently way too busy producing their latest movies. She didn’t really feel like going to Alpine Skylines today and… woah. Was the room spinning all by itself now?
Hat Kid stopped the spinning of the chair with her right foot and slowly adjusted her vision. After everything stopped moving she sighed and jumped out of her chair. She now started to pace back and forth on the giant pink rug that was in the middle of the room. Was there anywhere else she could go? There wasn’t really any more areas she go to on that planet except-
“Ow! My circuit-board!” a robotic voice interrupted her thoughts. Oh great she thought to herself. What now?
She stopped pacing to stare at Rumbi (her little cleaning robot) who was currently banging itself on the door to...
She grinned a wide and mischievous grin. Subcon Forest. Why didn’t she ever think of that?
It had been forever since she had last been with her (contractually obligated) BFF! She had mostly spent this past week collecting hidden treasures and getting rid of all those time rifts that had suddenly appeared in random locations. And yes, technically he did tell her to stay out of his forest or else he would be “disappointed”. But come on, who would be disappointed to hang out with their best friend?
She quickly ran through the door that led to her bedroom and headed toward the telescope that allowed her to teleport to the Subcon Forest.
Time for some quality time with her BFF!
***
To be perfectly honest, today couldn’t have been any worse.
Snatcher felt light-headed and overall the most dreadful he had ever felt waking up. He coughed for what seemed like the fifth time in a row and slowly got up out of his armchair. His head started to ache as soon as he stood up causing him to groan in pain. This morning was not going well for him.
What was this? A curse of some sort? No, no… that didn’t seem right. A curse would feel much more painful (although his head felt like something was constantly drilling into it). Of course, there was the possibility that he could actually be…
Ha! No way. He couldn’t be sick. An all powerful spirit? With the flu? What a laugh! He made people beg on their knees for mercy! He controlled every inch of the forest! He had devoured the souls of thousands! He laughed to himself thinking of all of these horrible things with joyful glee. He quickly regretted that decision as he began to cough loudly, his throat felt extremely sore after doing so.
Okay. So maybe he was a little bit sick.
Who cared though? He was still his old terrifying self and a simple cold wouldn’t stop him from doing what he did best! Even if this headache was quite bothersome, it was nothing that a delicious soul couldn’t fix!
Just then he heard a cry from within the forest. Someone had stepped into one of his traps. What impeccable timing! He quickly straightened himself up, cleared his throat, and teleported to the trap that was set off just a few seconds ago.
***
“AHAHAHAHAAA! FOOOOooo... wait a second.” Snatcher sighed and finished with “It’s just you again.” before glaring back down at the person who had been caught in his trap. Of course, that person was none other than Hat Kid who was now looking back at him with an apologetic expression on her face. “Well that’s just perfect.” he mumbled under his breath. He really wasn’t in the mood to deal with this today.
Hat Kid looked back at him, puzzled. She had expected Snatcher to be a little bit more excited to see her after she had been gone for so long. Actually, now that she looked at him closer... he didn’t seem too healthy. Bags were under his eyes and his voice sounded raspy. He had started to rub his forehead and he scrunched up his face as if he was in pain. She started to get worried.
“Are you okay?” she said while observing his movements very closely.
“I’m FINE.” he growled back, annoyed at her question.
He’s lying Hat Kid thought as she could see right through his behavior. He was sick, he just didn’t want to admit it.
“More over...” Snatcher spoke up after clearing his throat. “I thought I told you to never come back here a-” he stopped halfway through his sentence. He felt like he was about to sneeze.
Uh oh Hat Kid thought as she pulled out her umbrella and opened it. Whatever he was about to get out of his system, she did not need to be covered in it. She crouched down and shielded herself as Snatcher finally got the words out.
“Ah. Ah. ACHOO!” Snatcher sneezed while a bolt of purple lightening struck awfully close near Hat Kid. Hat Kid almost jumped out of her skin. So that’s what happens when a ghost sneezes... she thought while looking horrified at the blackened spot on the ground. There were not words to describe how thankful she was that she hadn’t been fried by spectral lighting just then. She looked back up at Snatcher who was sniffling and honestly looked even more miserable than before.
Okay, that settled it. She knew what she was doing today.
***
How did he manage to get into this situation?
As of this moment, Hat Kid had taken his hand and was now dragging him all the way back to his tree-home with no explanation as to why. He thought about retaliating and showing the kid who’s boss, but that sneeze from earlier really drained him of his strength. Not to mention that the coughing wasn’t exactly helping him get his point across.
“I’m fine, kid. Now let go of me!” Snatcher spoke in between coughs, his voice had gotten progressively worse now.
“No.” Hat Kid said firmly. “You’re going to rest now.” she stated, with a hint of authority in her voice. He opened his mouth to scream at her, but all that came out was groans of agony. His headache had also gotten worse and now felt like someone was driving a nail into his head. Once they had gotten inside his home, Hat Kid pointed at his armchair.
“I’m not sitting down kid.” Snatcher decided that if this kid wanted him to rest so badly he was certainly going to make this harder for her.
“Now.” Hat Kid snapped back at him and gave him a shove. Before he could even protest, Snatcher found himself falling back into the armchair. He shot her a look full of hatred but Hat Kid just smiled back at him. She took the large book sitting atop the table across from the armchair and placed it in his hands. “I’ll be right back!” Hat Kid then began to walk out of his home and teleport back to her ship.
Did she really expect him to stay here and read until she came back? Ha! As if he would even consider listening to her. To be fair though, he did feel a bit more comfortable now that he was sitting down. And he already had a good book in front of him that he could read while she was gone…
Ah, peck it. Besides, he was rather curious as to what she was going to come back with.
***
He was about halfway into his book when Hat Kid came rushing through the entrance of his home with a backpack and large, brown paper bag in her arms. “About time you came back.” Snatcher muttered, his throat still feeling sore. “What took you so long anyways?” he asked as Hat Kid placed the backpack aside and the paper bag down onto the floor.
First she pulled out a colorful quilt that had many patterns sewn into the front of it. She ran over to him and threw the blanket onto him without any warning.
“Wha- hey!” Snatcher said in surprise but Hat Kid was too busy pulling more things out of the bag to even notice. He just simply mumbled under his breath and tucked the quilt more snugly around him. Hat Kid then pulled out a small glass bottle and a spoon from inside the bag. She stepped onto the ottoman, and jumped onto the arm of the armchair so she was now face to face with him.
“Kid… what are you doing?” he asked, confused by her strange actions. She then uncorked the bottle she was holding and poured a strange liquid into the spoon in her other hand. The substance, whatever it was, was a deep purple and had a very unpleasant smell to it. Hat Kid then moved the spoon in his direction.
He looked down at the spoon and then back at her, not amused in the slightest. “I am not letting you put that spoon in my mouth.” he said while crossing his arms.
“Why not?” Hat Kid frowned and tilted her head in a curious manner.
“Why not?! Do you have any idea what that stuff could do to m-” before he could react, Hat Kid shoved the spoon into his now open mouth. Snatcher’s screams were muffled as she put her hands over his mouth, forcing him to swallow. After swallowing the foul smelling liquid, he soon found out that it tasted just as good as it smelled. He gagged and stuck his tongue out, hoping to get rid of the awful taste.
“What the HECK kid?! Are you trying to poison me?!” Snatcher kept gagging, convinced that he was dying. Hat Kid just laughed and pointed at the label on the bottle. He stopped overreacting to read the words on the label. It read Science Owl’s Patented Grape-flavored Medicine! (good for curing coughs, headaches, and runny noses!).
Hat Kid jumped off the armchair and ran back to the paper bag. She pulled out the last two items that laid at the bottom of the bag, a plush of a corgi and a pink box of tissues. She handed Snatcher the plush and set the box on the right arm of the arm chair. She then went back to the backpack that was laying on the floor still and pulled out a notepad and a pack full of crayons.
Snatcher watched as she sat on the ottoman and began to draw. He simply sighed and went back to reading the rest of his book. He expected her to leave in about a couple hours, only to find her still sitting there. There were multiple drawings that she had made lying on the floor. Doodles of the fire spirits, some dwellers, a couples of his minions, and even doodles of himself.
“Why are you still here kid?” Snatcher asked, going back to looking at his book.
“To look after my BFF! Why else, silly?” Hat Kid replied with a giggle in her voice. As much as he hated it when she called him her “BFF”, he was starting to get used to it.
“Don’t tell anyone about this kiddo. Ever.” he said to her in threatening tone.
“I won’t, I promise.” she said in tone that assured him that he didn’t need to nag her about it.
It was around nightfall by the time Snatcher finished his book and while he closed it and placed it aside he and to admit, he was feeling a lot better now. Guess the medicine did help after all.
He looked back at the ottoman expecting the kid to still be drawing to instead find her asleep, curled up in a fluffy blanket. He assumed that she must have brought it with her inside the backpack. He went over to where she was sleeping and placed the corgi plush in her arms. She smiled and mumbled something unintelligible in her sleep. With that, he smiled and when back to sitting in his armchair with the quilt wrapped around him.
You know… maybe this kid wasn't so bad after all. Sure she was annoying, and mischievous, and stepped into his traps, and wouldn’t stop harassing him no matter how many times he threatened her. But other than that, the kid was alright (though he would never admit this to her face).
His eyes grew heavy and he slowly drifted to sleep along with Hat Kid. In the morning he would be well rested and feel nice and energized, all thanks to his BFF.
The End
#ahit#a hat in time#ahit fanfiction#a hat in time fanfiction#ahit fanfic#a hat in time fanfic#ahit fic#a hat in time fic#ahit snatcher#a hat in time snatcher#ahit hat kid#a hat in time hat kid#ahit hk#a hat in time hk#snatcher#the snatcher#hat kid#hk#snatcher week#day 6#bffs#poor snatcher#why do i keep torturing him?#lol it's cute though#he's such a tsundere#frickfrack fic
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sometimes you write a 4500 word crossover between your naruto au and someone else’s. that’s just how life goes.
so here’s my 4500 word crossover between my naruto au shionverse (minato/oc, fix-it fic with gratuitous amounts of dimensional travel side-stories) and @crescentmoonrider‘s turtle au (kakashi dies; obito and rin say “fuck the system” and end up helping out at least two separate revolutions; meanwhile, in konoha, minato and orochimaru are science bffs)
“Being Shion’s apprentice will be fun,” he thought. “Space-time shenanigans are the most hilarious shenanigans,” he told Kakashi sagely. “I’ll be fine,” he assured Rin.
Obito would like to go back into the past and punch himself for being so fucking stupid.
“This is the third time this month!” he whisper-yells, tugging at his hair in despair. “Why am I so bad at sealwork?! /Why?!/”
Shion is peering at his quick rendering of his beautiful, dysfunctional seal, because sealwork is never kind enough to just follow them into another dimension. At least this time they’re in the same spot as they were before, in their own dimension, but that’s a questionable blessing, considering it’s Tobirama’s backyard. He had barely been born when Shion brought Hashirama and Tobirama back; he has no idea if the house looming behind them is actually Tobirama’s or if he appropriated it from another Senju Clan member.
/These/ things are what he has to concern himself with, now. Gods. Kakashi’s going to laugh at him as soon as they get back.
Tobirama had been /watching them/, too, from the safety of his kitchen. Obito bets that he’s going to finish his breakfast before meandering over to the Hokage Tower to tell Minato that his /spouse and almost-child/ have landed themselves in an entirely different universe.
Shion finally leans back onto their haunches, their forearms resettling on their thighs, and look at Obito. “It’s a very nice design,” they begin, because they /always/ begin with the compliments. “Incorporating the shape of your Mangekyo into the design, while remaining conscious of the Uzumaki spirals—it’s inspired. If you can make it work, it’s going to be a pretty piece of sealwork. However…”
Obito tries very hard not to sigh as he crouches down next to them to see the flaws that they’re pointing out.
Maybe he should have asked to shadow Minato during his Hokageship. That’d probably be easier than /this/.
- - -
After Obito has copied out the corrections onto his Correction Scroll, which documents his many failures, they wander out of the Senju Clan compound. It’s been half an hour, or nearly, and no one has come to investigate the presence of two people who should definitely not be here; it’s sort of disappointing.
Though, he thinks, eyeing the overgrowth on the path that in their dimension is kept tidy, maybe that has less to do with shitty security and more to do with an empty compound.
He makes a mental note to talk to Minato about it, just in case it really /is/ shitty security. With all the time they spend criticizing alternate universe Konohas, they really need to make sure that they have room to talk.
The landscape of every Konoha is a little different, even the Hokage Mountain: most of the time, it’s the four that he is familiar with—Hashirama, Tobirama, Hiruzen, and Minato—but sometimes there are additions, like Jiraiya as the Godaime, or substitutions, like Orochimaru as the Yondaime.
(No one talks about those dimensions, much. After hearing about how /their/ Orochimaru cut open Shion’s resurrections to see how close they are to real, alive people, Obito thinks that he understands. There are some things that you don’t want your mind to dwell on—things that you thought you knew would never happen, but did.)
In this dimension, there are no surprises on the Hokage Mountain. As they walk through the streets, passing from residential to commercial, Obito can pick out the familiar structures: there’s the convenience store with Saki’s favorite pudding cups; there’s the Mokuton-flush park that Kakashi’s pack loves so much; there’s the bakery that sells Yondaime cheesecakes.
He wonders if they still sell them, here. The current Hokage might not be the Yondaime.
As if sensing his thoughts, Shion nudges his ribs with an elbow and nods their head at a mysticism shop. “They bought the property from candlemakers two months ago.”
So Minato made it past his usual time of death. Obito perks up, at that: it’s always kind of fun to see Minato a decade into his Hokageship. It was alarming, the first time, to see him so overworked and /old/, and it’s still kind of sad to look at him if he’s a widower, but the dimensions where Minato is Hokage are usually better than dimensions where Hiruzen is.
That’s not really that hard to do, though, when compared to the guy who lets someone experimenting on Konoha’s clanless orphans go and who allows his old friend to continue recruiting children into an army sealed into obedience to someone other than the military leader of Konoha.
Honestly. Minato would actually have to /try/ to be worse.
- - -
He just /had/ to jinx it, didn’t he?
They’ve entered some weird dimensions, but this one is by far the most unsettling: Minato is Hokage, and that doesn’t actually seem to be a good thing.
As per their usual protocol, Shion and Obito snooped around a bit to check on the status of Konoha before deciding whether or not to approach the current Hokage. Konoha didn’t appear terribly beleaguered, in spite of several important missing chakra signatures (Obito isn’t here, and neither are Rin or Kakashi) and in spite of Orochimaru apparently being a jounin-sensei, so they went, “Eh, looks good enough,” and went and booked a meeting with the Hokage.
Obito is really, really regretting it.
It’s not that Minato thinks they’re actually very terrible spies instead of dimensional travelers. It’s that Minato’s grief is—weird. In most dimensions, where Minato’s ability to demolish an entire army by himself only happens once and only then during a war, Minato carries his grief with him like a smothering shroud, weighing him down. This dimension’s Minato has tapped into the more active side of grief, like it’s a path that he’s digging with other people’s graves.
Minato looks at him like a ghost, like he’s something lost, like he would kill the Shinigami to bring him back. It’s the sort of expression that’s at home on Shion’s face, during their darkest moments, but Obito has only ever seen Minato wear it once, during the Third War and speaking to a gore-covered Shion.
He doesn’t know how to feel about this look being leveled at him now.
“You saved him,” Minato says, to Shion, without taking his eyes off of Obito. “How?”
Obito sneaks a glance at his shishou. It’s a difficult question to answer without sounding callous—/I went back for him/ is tough to swallow when nearly every Minato they’ve met hadn’t.
Shion’s eyes shutter, for a moment, in the barely-longer-than-a-blink way of closing their eyes that Minato does, but it’s the only real sign of their discomfort. “You want to know if there was something you could’ve done,” they say, their voice even, measured. “There wasn’t. You do the same thing, every time.”
Minato’s face does a funny thing, like he wants to make an expression but doesn’t know which, and he rubs his cheek with his palm, finally looking away from Obito. Obito lets out a breath that he didn’t know that he was holding. “And the others?” Minato asks. “Kakashi, Rin—they’re safe, in your timeline?”
“Our timelines diverged much earlier than Kannabi Bridge,” Shion replies after a small pause. “Certain events may remain constant, but the players and outcomes vary.”
Obito has never been in a dimension where all three of Minato’s students die. It’s far more likely that this dimension’s Obito is out there somewhere, plotting the end of the world under the early guidance of Madara, but when he opens his mouth to tell Minato so, something stops him. It’s not that he doesn’t trust Minato—even if this isn’t /his/ Minato, it’s still /a/ Minato—but…
But he has the feeling that if he tells Minato that his dimension’s Obito is still alive, it will be tantamount to signing that Obito’s death warrant.
Minato would never hurt him. He /knows/ that. That doesn’t stop his skin from crawling, and it doesn’t stop his danger-sense from going haywire.
He is a shinobi before he is Minato’s student. He listens to his instincts. So he shuts his mouth and lets Shion keep the lead on this one, because if anyone’s an expert on Minato, even a Minato that lets Orochimaru have a genin team, it’s them.
(He still can’t shake off his anxiety until they are allowed to leave his office.
There is something /wrong/ here, and he is afraid to name it.)
- - -
They’re not slammed into the T&I cells. They’re let go after Minato is done interrogating them, with the implicit knowledge that they will be supervised for the duration of their stay. It’s reasonably lenient; Obito tries to pretend that it isn’t a hidden noose.
In their hotel room, after clearing it to make sure there are no bugs of any variety and slapping down a silencing seal, Shion sinks onto the corner of their bed and puts their face in their hands. Very quietly, they say, “We should have remembered that anyone can be an enemy.”
Obito’s nerves, already frazzled, leap straight to fraying. “But it’s /Minato-sensei/,” he insists, pushing off the chair at the desk to pace. “He can’t—he wouldn’t—”
“Minato does not always arrive on time,” Shion reminds him, “and anyone outside of our timeline is not an ally just because our version of them is.” They run their hands through their hair, fingers meeting at the nape of their neck, and let out a breath before sitting up, hands dropping to their lap. “We’ve gotten complacent. We need to be more thorough about information-gathering. If all three of you are presumed dead in this world…”
Generally, when people are assumed dead, they /are/ dead. Madara and Obito are the only consistent exceptions to that rule. Obito doesn't know how to feel about the idea that Rin or Kakashi might be playing dead, too. "I'll find their files," he says, feeling out their game plan. "It would've had to have been when Rin became a jinchuuriki, so... find out if their bodies were recovered." He pauses, then, with a kind of perverse cheer: "Oh, man, do you think Bakashi joined the Akatsuki with me?" Shion's mouth tugs at the corner. "It's gotta happen /sometime/. Maybe we'll get lucky and that'll be all this is." "Or maybe," Obito continues, "it's Rin who survived and turned me off the track of evildom, and we're, like, wandering monks who help people wherever we go! And we just avoid Konoha because we… didn't have you to get the compulsion seals off our hearts." His enthusiasm dampens, at that, and he sags against the wall. "Oh, man. Alternate versions of myself are so fucked."
“I would assume that an Akatsuki Kakashi and a wandering monk Rin would also be fucked,” Shion remarks, gently teasing. They crook their fingers at him in invitation, and he goes, lying across their lap with a gusty sigh. Shion makes a soft noise of amusement and begins to card their fingers through his hair. “Who knows? Maybe in this dimension, /you’re/ the good guy.”
Obito closes his eyes, tilting his head toward their hand. Kakashi would make fun of him for seeking positive touch, probably, if Kakashi didn’t do the exact same thing when stressed. “Guess I’m a wandering monk with Rin, then. Bakashi would never be able to convince me to be a good person. He /litters/.”
“I don’t think not picking up dog poop is littering.”
“He doesn’t find trash cans for his water bottles.”
“Oh, is /that/ who it is? Saki’s been complaining about the trash in Senju Park. Kakashi’s going to get himself banned if Saki catches him at it.”
Obito lets out a breath and relaxes. They’re going to figure out what to do and get out of Konoha before any traps are sprung. Everything will be fine.
- - -
In this, at least, he isn’t wrong. Over the course of the next few days, he flicks through a bunch of files in several different offices, committing the contents to memory, and all it takes to escape is a Kamui portal opening into a Uchiha safehouse thirty miles outside of Konoha.
He is never going to be able to thank his long-dead ancestors enough for their relentless paranoia. Uchiha safehouses are a /godsend/.
“Bakashi’s body was the only one recovered,” Obito explains. “He was missing his Sharingan, which points to either a very opportunistic thief or, uh, you know, me taking my eye back. It was definitely me, though, ‘cause…” He grimaces. “There’s, uh, research? On Madara’s body? Which was recovered from his super secret cave after it exploded?”
Shion stares at him for a long, uncomprehending moment. “They… Orochimaru has Madara’s body?”
“It’s all sanctioned, too, as far as I can tell,” Obito affirms. “I got the idea that they’re investigating, uh, death? And how to… delay it? Or stop it altogether?”
Shion’s mouth opens, as if to say something, but they close it without speaking. Their brow creases, and they turn to Konoha’s direction.
“Orochimaru took Team Seven to the Land of Waves,” Obito adds, quieter. “They signed out of Konoha the same day we got there.”
That’s a good thing: if Minato is endorsing Orochimaru’s death-defying research, Obito wants Shion to be as far from Orochimaru as possible. Even in other dimensions, where no one would have reason to know of Shion’s kekkai genkai, it worries him that one day someone /will/. The ability to raise the dead and to mold them into any shape they like—it’s a powerful kekkai genkai, and it’s not one that he wants Orochimaru to know of.
Maybe it’s silly, to be anxious about Orochimaru and Shion in the same place, but—their own Orochimaru played with Shion’s kekkai genkai when Shion was a chuunin, younger than Obito is now, and Obito would really like it if that never happened again.
The line of Shion’s shoulders is tense. They press their lips together, hard, before turning their head away from Konoha. “We should go farther before we stop,” they say after a moment.
Obito nods, accepting the unspoken request to move on from this subject, and opens another portal.
- - -
Moving on from Konoha and Orochimaru means that they’re on to this universe’s Obito and Rin, which is—well. Getting information on them would be easy, if they could figure out where to /go/. Neither Obito nor Rin have Shion’s Hiraishin seals inked on their bodies or Minato’s Hiraishin kunai on their bodies, and they have both been outside of Konoha for over a decade.
“This would be so much easier if our Kamuis led to the same dimension,” Obito complains. “We could’ve just hopped in there and waited til he needed something.”
Shion snorts. “Because /that/ sounds like a good idea that wouldn’t get us mauled by his jinchuuriki teammate.”
“I never said it was a good idea,” Obito points out. “I just said it’d be easier.”
“For a given definition of ‘easier’, sure.” Shion rolls their shoulders back and turns back to the map laid out in front of them, the set of their mouth falling into a grimace. “If you were going to avoid Konoha, where would you go?”
“The Dead Wastes,” Obito replies promptly. As a desert and as an oasis, people can go into the Dead Wastes and never come out. It’s pretty much the best spot for a villain lair, though alternate dimension Obitos never seem to think of it. “Failing that… probably Kiri, or I guess one of the smaller nations. Ame is pretty good at taking in fleeing shinobi, isn’t it?”
Shion hums thoughtfully. “It’s known for taking in refugees, yes. Why Kiri?”
Obito can’t say that it’s because the Mizukage is apparently very susceptible to genjutsu, if the various dimensions they’ve traveled to is any indication, which would be incredibly helpful if he ever wanted to make someone of extreme political import his pawn, so he instead says, “Um, obviously if I was a villain I’d want to have a great first appearance. You met a baby Naruto on a mission to Wave, right? And people almost died?” He doesn’t trip over the name of the Land of Waves, but he does frown, a little, remembering that that’s where Orochimaru is. Still: “That’d be such a great scene for villain-me to orchestrate. It’d really hammer home the kind of life a shinobi has. They’d probably cry.”
Shion lifts their head partway through his explanation to level him with an unimpressed look. "What? You /asked/," Obito defends. "I did," Shion agrees dryly, “though I wasn’t expecting such an /effervescent/ response.”
Obito rolls his eyes. “It’s not /my/ fault that I’d make a fantastic villain.”
- - -
It /is/ his fault that they go to Wave.
They travel most of the way through warp, but they make several stops to bury a Hiraishin tag. It provides a sense of security, Shion says, and Obito gets it, sort of: in order to warp using the Hiraishin, an anchor is needed.
After having Minato as his jounin-sensei, and now a few years into his apprenticeship under Shion, Obito is mostly used to them setting down tags like they think they’ll need to warp to a remote village in the Land of Hot Springs.
Mostly.
“It’s like a trail of breadcrumbs,” Obito groans once they hit the edge of Wave and Shion, predictably, puts down another tag. “All anyone has to do to find us is follow the trail of tags.”
“Are you /sure/ you got your tracking certification?” Shion wants to know. “I don’t think putting down a tag every few villages in a vague diagonal really counts as a trail.”
“A vague diagonal is still a diagonal. It’s a pattern. It’s a trail.”
“You seem very concerned that people are going to discover a dozen tags scattered across the Land of Hot Water and immediately realize that we have gone into Wave. We are going to be out of this dimension altogether by the end of the week.”
“We could also be /dead/ by the end of the week because you /put down a trail/.”
“Maybe if /this/ universe’s Obito ever learned to appreciate trails, we wouldn’t be hoping that he will be enough of a twelve-year-old villain to want to make his grand entrance on Zabuza’s coattails.”
Obito throws his hands into the air with a frustrated /augh!/ “Fine! Whatever! I give up! Leave as many trails as you want! Twelve-year-old villain Obito will be alive because he /didn’t/!”
“That is not necessarily a point in his favor, you realize,” Shion says, amused.
Obito jabs a finger at them. “You say that now, but just wait. We’re gonna be trampling everywhere, leaving Hiraishin tags, and he’s gonna sneak up on us and then we’ll be /dead/ because he’ll assume that Orochimaru made, like, test tube clone babies of him or something! /Just wait!/”
- - -
What actually happens is this:
After ten minutes of inspecting the impoverished village, Obito and Shion come to the conclusion that killing the rich and corrupt is a fully acceptable course of action, and after three days of observation of Gato’s men, they make their move—at the same time as this dimension’s Obito and Rin.
All four of them stop several feet from the entrance of Gato’s hideout and stare at each other in surprise.
The adrenaline has to go /somewhere/, so Obito blurts out, without thinking, “Holy shit, you really /are/ wandering monks!” and claps his hands over his mouth.
He is a little horrified at himself, but he’s not /wrong/. This universe’s Obito has /two/ eyes and one of those monk staffs. This universe’s Rin has a sidecut! Some part of his brain makes a note to bring that up to his Rin when they get home, just in case that’s something she’d be into. It looks good on, like, thirty-year-old her, anyway.
“What,” two-eyed Obito says.
“Oh my god,” sidecut Rin whispers, “he’s, like, sixteen.”
“I’m /seventeen/,” Obito corrects automatically. Kakashi and Rin’s birthdays are months before his, so he endures every winter stoically weathering their teasing about being a year younger than them. He /really/ does not want /alternate selves/ to do the same. “Uh—wow. Are you /avenging/ wandering monks? Are you here to kill Gato for being a corrupt piece of shit?”
Hesitantly, sidecut Rin nods. She is wearing one red glove, and pulls at the end of it, yanking it tighter against her fingers. “I assume you were going to do the same?”
“Oh, yeah, for sure,” Obito confirms. “Cool. Now /this/ is an Obito I can get behind.” He doesn’t /look/ like a villain who wants to destroy the world with the moon. He’s more like the vengeance of the night, sneaking into rich people’s homes to slit their throats while they sleep. Or, he guesses, bludgeoning them with his monk staff.
Shion makes a vague annoyed noise. “I could have sworn I told you not to assume everyone is an ally less than a week ago,” they say, tugging Obito’s sleeve so that he falls back behind them.
He complies, but he huffs about it. “He’s /me/! If I can’t trust myself, who /can/ I trust?”
“Your shishou?” Shion says dryly, which, okay, point.
“Was I ever that peppy in my /life/?” two-eyed Obito whispers to sidecut Rin.
Sidecut Rin leans a little towards him to reply, bemused, “Oh, you /were/. You were /absolutely/ this peppy. Maybe even /worse/.”
“You’re lying,” he accuses her. “I was never that bad. Right? … Right?”
Instead of responding to him, she straightens and, with a clearing of her throat, redirects her attention to Shion and Obito. “We wouldn’t mind your help with Gato, if you’re still interested. Afterwards, we can…” She pauses delicately, sweeping her gaze over Shion (who probably didn’t become a shinobi in this universe) and Obito (who is very recognizably Obito, if a decade younger). “... talk.”
Shion gives them a long look before nodding. “That sounds reasonable.”
Obito sends two-eyed Obito and sidecut Rin a double thumbs-up. Being an avenging wandering monk is a dream that he didn’t even know he had until today, and now he’s /fulfilling it/.
Rin is going to be /so/ jealous when she hears about this.
- - -
Three hours and two dozen dead bodies later, they relocate to two-eyed Obito and sidecut Rin’s camp. It is not especially remarkable, except for how it has a barrier seal and a silencing seal. Sidecut Rin activates both with an ease of familiarity that their Rin lacks; although she wears tags on the strings connecting her overskirt, it still comes as a surprise. Two-eyed Obito nudges the pile of wood in the center of camp with his foot and adds another few branches before blowing fire onto it.
“I /told/ you that looks cool,” Obito tells Shion, feeling strangely satisfied.
Shion rolls their eyes. “I’ll try to be more impressed with your dragon-fire.”
Sidecut Rin smiles briefly, like that exchange is something nostalgic, and gestures for them to take a seat around the fire. “So,” she says, “you look like Obito, you talk like Obito, but this never happened in our past.”
Obito glances at Shion, who shrugs a go-ahead because apparently killing twenty-odd people without turning on each other is enough of a sign that they can be trusted with this much, and shrugs back. “Yeah, our timelines diverged, like, ten years before I was born or something. Tobirama tried to narrow it down to an exact timeframe, but I think he got fed up with the variables and quit.”
“He doesn’t /quit/, he delegates,” Shion corrects. “I think Saki’s cousin is figuring it out now.”
“Right, my mistake.”
“I’m sorry,” Rin says after a pause, “did you say Tobirama?”
“Yep.” Obito nods. They’ve moved easily into Obito’s favorite part of the explanation: the other party’s incredulity, growing until they hit a stage of suspended disbelief. “Senju Tobirama, you know, the Niidaime? Wears the funky faceplate? Looks like he’d sunburn in a second?”
Sidecut Rin and two-eyed Obito exchange a /look/.
“Did… did he not die in your timeline?” two-eyed Obito asks, sounding like he’s regretting the question even as he’s saying it.
“Oh, no, he did,” Obito assures them. “We just brought him back.”
“You what now,” two-eyed Obito says.
He and sidecut Rin exchange another look, longer this time. It’s an entire conversation with only facial expressions: two-eyed Obito’s eyes demand /what the fuck is happening/ and sidecut Rin’s equally agitated stare says /I have no idea, don’t ask me, ask your sixteen-year-old self/. This is, apparently, not what two-eyed Obito wants to hear, because he lets out a breath and runs a gloved hand through his hair.
“Okay, say that we believe you,” two-eyed Obito says, even though it’s obvious that they kind of do. “Why are you /here/? Are you avenging wandering dimension-travelers?”
Obito’s eyes widen. He turns to look hopefully at Shion.
“No,” Shion denies immediately, then amends, “Not until you’re a jounin. /I’m/ not going to be an avenging dimension-traveler, but you can take Tobirama along with you when you’re a jounin.”
Obito pumps his fist into the air. ���Yesss. He’s gonna /love/ kicking Madara’s ass again.”
“So you travel dimensions… regularly?” two-eyed Obito tries to clarify.
Obito pulls a card out of his pouch and hands it over. On one side it says KONOHA’S TIME-SPACE DIVISION, with the members’ names below, and on the other side it lists major events that may make it differ from other dimensions.
“No Kyuubi Attack, no Naruto,” sidecut Rin reads aloud from over two-eyed Obito’s shoulder. “All members of Team Minato are…” Her voice trails off, and she reads the rest of the card in silence.
Two-eyed Obito’s eyes flash red, for a moment, possibly checking for genjutsu but maybe memorizing the contents of the card. He looks over at Obito and Shion, mouth pulling downward in a frown. “So you’re… Iekami Shion? I’ve never heard of you.”
Shion lifts a shoulder in a shrug. “I’m usually a civilian or a member of ROOT.”
“Of… what?” sidecut Rin asks.
Obito breathes out an “oh, /man/” and laughs. “Wow. It feels really weird, now, to talk to someone from Konoha who doesn’t know about ROOT. It’s, like, Shimura Danzo’s underground army? He steals kids from orphanages and from their clan grounds and, like, brainwashes them.”
“What,” two-eyed Obito says flatly.
Obito looks at Shion. “You explain. You’re better at it than I am.”
Shion elbows him in the ribs. “You won’t get better if you keep passing it off to me.”
“I’m still your apprentice! You’re /obligated/ to take over when I’m in over my head!”
“/Itachi/ could do this, and he’s /eight/. Do you really want to be outdone by an eight-year-old?”
“That doesn’t count! He’d be a genin if he was allowed to graduate!”
“Am I supposed to agree that a genin should be better at giving reports than a jounin hopeful?”
“Well, when you put it like /that/…” Obito groans. “Okay, jeez. Turning on serious mode.” He takes in a breath and composes his expression into what he has termed his Serious Face, which looks a lot like Minato when Minato has his hands folded in front of his mouth and his elbows on his desk. “Shion-shishou was supervising my sealwork, since I was fiddling with dimensions—I’ve been trying to translate Kamui into sealwork, which is /so hard/, you have /no idea/—and, like usual, I fucked up and we landed in this dimension…”
#noriwritey#shionverse#turtle au#naruto#obito makes the 'konoha's time-space division' cards himself. sometimes he looks at all the shit he has to put on the back and just goes#'wow. life's really fucked up huh.'#kakashi (who has had to sit thru yrs of minato & shion's space-time shenanigans & now has to deal w obito's too): *sighs* it sure is#shion and obito are apparently physically incapable of not bickering or bantering with each other#it's even worse with kakashi in the mix#but . yeah. turtle au obito and rin listen to obito's entire long and embellished tale#(which includes a tangent abt the evils of man- and alienkind. turtle au obito nods along like yes u are so right#plant monsters are in fact the devil)#and if they end it without even once being like 'wow i want to adopt you plz be an avenging wandering monk w us' i will eat my hat#this also assumes that root is uh. a konoha secret? so people who left konoha wldnt know abt it if they didnt know before they left#what good is a secret underground army if its not actually secret ya kno#plz ask us about our aus we love them#i left this open-ended because. well. obito wld absolutely love to be an avenging wandering monk.#shion: we ? need to go back ? to our own universe ????#obito: then we just need to make sure we can come back *starts working on a seal to pin down this singular dimension*
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