#Pressure World EP | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

revasserium · 10 months ago

Note

hiii i'm a new follower and i love your writing so much

ik u said no requests in ur bio but i just finished reading ur sanji fic.. so even if ur still not taking requests i'd just like to throw in an idea that u may or may not feel like using in the future, up to you (i'm requesting this with opla sanji in mind but if u wanna use it for zoro that's cool too)

k so imagine reader being invited to a friend's wedding, & being excited to go until they find out their ex is coming too (with their partner of some amt of yrs). so now reader is pressured to bring someone w/ them & ends up asking their best friend sanji bc they don't want others thinking they're still hung up on the past.

wedding dress

opla!sanji; 6,544 words, pining with a happy ending, fluff and a tad of angst, flirting, lovesick!sanji, whipped!!!!sanji, no "y/n", zeff is a whole mood, confessions, sanji-appropriate nickname usage, modern!au?

summary: you invite sanji to be your plus 1 at a wedding

a/n: im so sorry this took so long. but. better late than? never? also, there is a tiny bit of rehashing for ep 6 of the live action for sanji and zeff's relationship so... spoilers?

It’s a chilly, overcast kind of day when the call comes in. And in retrospect, Sanji thinks he should’ve known better when he’d seen your name on the caller ID. He’d hesitated, because by god if it wasn’t his New Year's Resolution to get the hell over you this year, but it’s almost December again and he still can’t help the way his heart races at the sound of your voice.

“Hey sweetheart — long time no talk!” he answers after a brief moment of contemplating his entire life, dusting his flour-covered hands on his apron.

“Hey! Sorry for calling so… out of the blue…” your voice is still as sweet as ever, and the way his stomach twists at the tinkle of your nervous laughter makes him want to kick himself. Still, he forces himself to stay calm, clearing his throat as he checks the oven — it’s almost done pre-heating.

“Now you know what I said about actin’ a stranger — just because you moved halfway across the entire world doesn’t mean we ain’t best friends anymore, right?”

It’s what you’d said when he’d been standing at the airport, three seconds from dropping to his knees and begging you not to go. But he hadn’t, because he knew how hard you’d worked for this — for this opportunity abroad, to study art in the birthplace of the Renaissance itself, in the heart of Italy.

“And… you might be able to come visit me, right?” you’d said, rocking on the balls of your feet, your eyes full of what Sanji could only call false hope — which is always, always the worst and most painful kind.

Sanji had swallowed and nodded and said something or other about Europe and fine dining, but there’s a terrible, prickling heat eating up the back of his neck and a voice that’s screaming at him to pull you to him and kiss you. He doesn’t. And he regrets it to this day.

“Ah — right… I’m actually calling because… I’ll be in the area in about a week and…”

Your voice pulls him out of his reverie and he clears his throat, hitches a smile to his face that he knows you can’t see but he’s sure you can hear.

“Oh! That’s great, darling! You’ve gotta come for a drink, I’ll whip up all your favorites — we can make a night —”

“It’s actually for a wedding.”

There are a few moments in everyone’s lives when they learn the true meaning of a thing for the very first time — elation, pride, stomach-twisting guilt, and… fear. True fear, the kind of fear that shakes the muscle from your bones and sends them tingling, threatens to overwhelm you with numbness. Fear, that pushes adrenaline through you like a drug, forces the world into a terrifying, all-consuming focus.

Sanji feels the fear coursing through him, wild and contentious at your words.

A wedding.

Your wedding? Perhaps?

He can’t bear to think of it; he’s so terrified he can barely breathe.

Then comes the moment after, the wave of everything else that the fear had washed away — confusion, anger, guilt (always guilt, for some reason), because isn’t he supposed to be happy for you? For you, the person he loves most in this entire world, to find love, to know happiness. He should. He should.

“Oh.”

Sanji sags back against the hard, metal counter. Almost mindlessly, he reaches into his pockets with shaking hands, digging around for a smoke.

Your breath is soft in his ear, too far across the phone line and a thousand miles of ocean.

“I originally wasn’t even planning on going — she’s not a very close friend — we had like one class together but —”

And within the span of a minute, Sanji also learns relief. The kind that melts the world around you into sizzling butter and champagne bubbles. The kind that makes you want to lie down on the ground and scream.

“— it was so close to your restaurant so I said yes but I didn’t know he was gonna be there and —”

You’re still talking, rambling like you do. And it takes nearly everything inside Sanji to pull himself back to the conversation.

“Sorry, love, who did you say was gonna be there?”

“My ex — you know the one —”

Sanji grimaces, flicking on his lighter with still-shaking fingers.

“Mm, yeah I do. The tall, dark-haired bastard who —”

“Yeah well — he’s gonna be there too and I just —” he hears you swallow hard and take a long, steadying breath. An unnameable something is calcifying in the depths of his stomach as he waits for you to collect yourself.

Curiosity? Why had you called like this, so suddenly, about a wedding where your ex was going to be? Concern? Were you thinking of going back to him?

But slowly, as you stutter through your next few words, the unnameable thing obtains a name — dread.

“— I just don’t think I could do it myself, y’know? And — and you were the one who got me out of it wh-when I decided to break it off with him so…”

Sanji takes a long drag of his cigarette and casts his eyes up at the high, white-slabbed ceiling of the kitchen, scored with long strips of bright, fluorescent lighting that floods the entire room in a direct, unforgiving glow.

He closes his eyes and counts to three.

“Course I’ll come with you, darlin’. It —” he wets his lips, taps off a bit of ash from his cigarette, and sucks in through his nose, clearing his throat of the words still lodged there, “— it’d be my honor.”

Relief — he hears it in your voice, and by gods he can almost see it — the way your whole face would light up, washed as if by the setting sun, your eyes wide and dark, your cheeks flushing his favorite fucking shade of pink and —

“Thank you, thank you, thank you! I really owe you for this one —”

Sanji makes a valiant effort at a nonchalant chuckle; it comes out sounding like a dog with a bit of bone stuck in its throat instead.

“Nonsense — what are best friends for, anyway?”

There’s a tiny pause where Sanji can feel the words best friend scraping along the insides of his mouth, barbed and harsh, leaving his tongue feeling raw and metallic.

“You really are the best friend anyone could ask for,” your voice is soft and honest and Sanji wants nothing more than to chuck his phone into the industrial blender.

You tell him that you’ll send him the details, that you can’t wait to see him soon, that you’ve got a world and a half of catching up to do, that you’ll buy him so, so many drinks, and that you’ll come bearing presents. He laughs at the right times, makes soft noises of consent and agreement, and when finally, finally you tell him goodbye, he clicks off the phone and takes another long drag of his smoke.

And then, he whips his hand back and throws the cigarette butt into the large sink, where it tinks against the metal and sizzles sadly in the murky dishwater.

“Real sucker for punishment, aren’tcha, lil’ eggplant?”

Sanji groans, turning around to find Zeff with his arms folded, the hip to his bad leg propped against a counter.

“Will you fuck kindly off — can’t you see I’m going through a thing here?”

Zeff snorts, clunking unevenly towards him.

“You been going through that thing for the last year and a half since you chickened outta askin’ her to stay so —”

“I didn’t chicken out — I — it was her dream to go to Florence and study —”

“And what was your dream then, ey?”

Sanji bangs his palm against the counter and sighs, “It’s not like I could leave you here with —”

“With what? A thriving restaurant business that I started? A guest list out the door and round the corner —”

“I — I helped!”

Zeff rolls his eyes, “Ah sure ya did, but I never asked you to, did I?”

Sanji huffs, pressing his tongue to the roof of his mouth to stop the torrent of horrible, sad, acrid things he could say and could never mean, so he swallows them back down. When he looks up next, Zeff is still standing there, but there’s a softness around his eyes.

He opens his mouth a few times, but eventually, all he says is, “The oven’s over heatin’.”

Sanji swears and jumps up to tug open the oven door. A wave of hot air whooshes out and nearly catches him in the face. Behind him, he can hear Zeff’s dark, gravelly chuckle, and the dull clunk of his wooden leg.

“You burn the kitchen down, you pay for it.”

And then he’s gone again, leaving the door swinging behind him, and Sanji very much alone with the too-hot oven and a counter full of things he can’t really remember the recipes for anymore.

Nearly a week later, Sanji finds himself standing at the airport, rocking on the balls of his feet, nearly in the exact same place as he’d been a year and a half prior. Except this time, you’re not walking away from him. You’re walking back towards him. He wonders if there’s a name for deja-vu in reverse and comes to the realization that that’s just called… a memory.

And memory seems to work in strange ways now, images superimposing themselves on top of one another — the flicker of a film lens, the bat of an eyelash, the shadow of a smile crimping the corner of your lips. All of this, he sees in the here and now, but he sees it in the air around you too, shimmering and mirage-like — all his memories and dreams of you layered over the shape of you. Your memory like a ghost of itself, trailing behind you as you walk towards him, a shy smile on your face, your cheeks flushed from travel and the cold and —

He doesn’t let himself hope. Not this time.

“Hey!” your voice is just as bell-like as he remembers it, pitched a little higher than it usually is, probably out of nervousness. But it still feels like a kick to the guts. Sanji forces himself to smile.

“Hi, love,” he says, leaning down as you reach him, but the motion aborts halfway because — is it still appropriate to hug you like he’d always done? To press his lips to your cheek or your hairline and revel in the bright citrus of your shampoo, to soak in the butter and cream of your skin like he used to?

There’s an awkward half-second pause before you’re standing up on tip-toe and Sanji’s heart nearly drops out of his ass as you lean in. But then — your lips skim by his cheek and your arms are around him, and stupid, stupid, stupid heart — thundering in his chest like horses or hooves or fists or thumping rabbit’s feet — leaping into his throat and pattering against the base of his tongue as he wraps his arms around you and holds you close. But it’s not close enough. It’s never close enough.

He breathes and distantly, a part of him notes that you still use the same shampoo.

“Hi…” your voice is warm by his ear, a bit muffled, but he can’t help the way it makes him shiver, “It’s… so good to see you.”

He nods, not trusting his own voice to do the normal thing and, oh, you know — work.

“I’ve — I’ve missed you.”

He makes a noise somewhere between a laugh and a cough as he nods again. He feels your arms slackening around him and a fierce, terrifying thing is flapping its wings in his stomach, screeching at him not to let you go. But he does — like he did before.

“I — I missed you too,” he says, though his voice sounds flat and scratchy and he clears his throat again.

A dozen different expressions flicker across the lovely planes of your face and finally, it settles on endeared exasperation.

“Please don’t tell me you still work through like three packs of smokes a day.”

Sanji laughs then, shaking his head as he reaches over for your luggage, “Nah — well, maybe not three but —”

You whack him softly on the arm.

“I actually tried to quit right after you left.”

“You did?”

Sanji shrugs as the pair of you start to make for the exit. He feels your gaze go slanted and shrewd.

“How long’d that last?”

He smirks, “Few hours.”

You whack him again and this time, he dodges out of the way just to bask in the bright spark of your laughter as you chase after him.

“Seriously though, you know how terrible they are for you!”

“Sure do,” he says, tugging one out of his pocket as soon as he clears the airport doors, pivoting left towards the parking garage. You have to jog to keep up with his longer strides, your breaths misting the air between you in silvery puffs.

He makes no move to light it as he helps toss your luggage into the trunk of his car, sliding into the driver’s seat. You huff as you wiggle into the passenger’s side.

“Then why —”

Sanji waits patiently for you to buckle your seatbelt before pulling out of the parking space, one hand on the steering wheel, the other resting soft against the middle console. He slates you a glance.

“Cause,” he says, fixing his eyes back on the road, an easy smirk twisting his lips, “it’s a metaphor.”

You groan, sinking into the seat, “Just because you read John Green one time —”

“Oi, I’ll have you know I read his entire bibliography after you showed him to me.”

“Ugh, whatever you manic-pixie-dreamgirl-loving ass.”

“Yeah, whatever — you actual manic pixie dreamgirl.”

You smile and Sanji allows himself the brief and aching delusion that the past year and a half didn’t happen, that you never left, and that you’d never leave. That you’d always be here, warm and laughing and just within reach.

The rest of the car ride is spent in mundane conversation, in how was your flight and tell me about Florence and how’s Zeff doing these days and I wanna know about your latest dish. It’s light and easy, and Sanji lets it warm the air around him. By the time he pulls into the front of your hotel, all the unsaid words from the past year and a half have soaked through his socks and into his shoes. It sloshes out onto the pale pavement as he opens the car door.

He helps you roll your luggage up into the lobby and tells you he’ll be here at 3PM to pick you up tomorrow. The venue’s just three blocks away.

“Yeah, I’ll see you then,” you say, pursing your lips, waving as he backpedals towards the automatic doors.

“You’ve still gotta send me pictures of the dress you’re wearing — I gotta find a matching tie.”

You laugh, a bit embarrassed, “Right — and here I thought I might surprise you.”

Sanji freezes, eyes wide.

“O-oh! Er — well, you can just — just tell me what color or —” he waves vaguely, “send a picture of a corner of the dress — just so I have something to color match against —”

You nod, eyes glittering, eager once more, “Oh! That’s a good idea — I’ll do that.”

“Great,” Sanji says.

“Great!” you echo, perhaps a bit too chipper.

He gives you one last smile before turning and striding from the hotel, firing up the engine as calmly as he can, forcing himself not to turn and check if you’re still watching him through the brightly lit, sliding glass doors. He allows himself a glance through the rear-view mirror as he pulls away from the drive and his heart skips a beat when he realizes you’re still standing there, right in the middle of the lobby, fingers wrapped around the handle of your suitcase, your eyes fixed on the shadow of his retreating car.

He lights the smoke the second he turns the corner, your shadow no longer in his rear-view mirror.

That night, Sanji dreams in fits and leaps, flashing images and long, sticky streams of could-have-beens —

He dreams of your laughter in a white-tiled kitchen, of powdered sugar and eggshells cracked and leaking on an exposed wood counter, chopsticks clinking against a thick glass mixing bowl. He dreams of your voice echoing off the shower tiles as you sing off-key, the way you used to when you’d sneak into his college dorm for movie night and a midnight snack. He dreams of coffee mugs and errant rose petals and dandelion seeds blowing in the wind. He dreams of dancing with you in his arms in a darkened dorm room that morphs into a bigger room with a softer carpet, one that he’d never seen before but he knows implicitly (like bodies know) is his home — it has pictures on the walls, trinkets lining the far bookshelf, your favorite scarf draped over the back of the well-worn sofa.

In the dream, you pull your head back from where it's pillowed against his shoulder and smile up at him. He leans down to kiss you, his lips hovering half an inch from yours.

Sanji jerks awake to the sound of his alarm, fingers fumbling for his phone, groaning as he smashes the orange snooze button and flips over to bury his face back into his lumpy pillow.

“Ah… fuck.”

It’s not the first time he’s had that dream, and he knows it won’t be the last. But it’d been so real that night, real enough to make him wonder if it just might come true.

He rubs at his sleep-crusted eyes and peers blearily at all the notifications on his screen. There’s a text from you with a picture attached. He clicks it open to find a short message attached to the picture — I really did want to surprise you…

He blinks for three seconds at what looks like a blurry picture of studded black silk before he remembers —

“Send me a picture of a corner of the dress — just so I have something to color match against.”

He allows himself a laugh, swinging his feet out of bed even as he types back — you coulda just told me it was black…

He watches the three little dots appear and disappear a few times, chewing on his bottom lip, before the text appears — well there are different shades of black, right???

Sanji laughs, shaking his head.

sure there are.

A string of tongue-out emojis, followed by an equally long string of middle-finger emojis.

He spends the rest of the morning fussing over which specific black tie to wear before settling on one that he’s quite sure is the exact same shade of black as your dress (and yes, he does have quite the collection of black ties), before tugging his best suit out to press.

It shouldn’t feel so easy, slipping back into the rhythm of things, of texting and smiling and hearing your voice in his head when he reads your texts. It shouldn’t feel so easy to forget the months of radio silence and guilt, the oppressive, resonant weight of what might have been if either of you had done a single thing different that day at the airport — he wonders if he should’ve reached for your hand, he wonders if you’d ever looked back.

He hadn’t. He couldn’t let himself.

He is waiting for you in the lobby at 2:45, wearing a hole into the plush Persian carpet, collecting strained looks from the concierge who had assured him three times in the last four minutes that he’d already rung up to your room and that you’d said you were on your way.

“Wow, you’re early — sorry I took a while — I couldn’t figure out what to do with my hair and —“

Sanji lifts his head and thinks distantly that all those rom-com cliches of a guy looking up, time itself slackening, the room smearing sideways around him, the music going slow, the lighting soft — all of it is painfully, startlingly true after all.

Because there you are, walking towards him, still saying something, but he can’t make out the words anymore because time isn’t really a thing anymore, is it? He can’t focus on that and also the dark glimmer of your dress, the way the neckline skates just beneath your collarbones, barely skimming the skin there before it slips down along the slope of your shoulders in a way that makes his breath unspool inside his chest like loose threads.

And in the slanted, ethereal light of the winter afternoon, your dress looks like it’s cut from a swath of darkest midnight, moonless and scattered with stars.

You blush as Sanji attempts to pick his jaw up off the floor and hitch his lips into something resembling a smile.

“W-wow… you look…”

Your smile is shy as you press your palms against the dress, looking down, “Thanks… you don’t think it’s… too much?”

Sanji shakes his head, feeling dazed.

“No! I mean — it’s —“ his mouth is dry, drier than he ever remembers it being, and suddenly it’s very hard to swallow and Sanji isn’t even sure the muscles in his neck know how to perform the action, let alone force words out alongside it. He struggles for another few seconds, his jaw working furiously as his eyes skitter down and back up the shape of you.

“You look… perfect,” he says, finally, because the word has been ricocheting around his chest like a stray bullet and he had to let it out somehow.

“Thanks — you don’t look so bad yourself,” you say, your voice breathy in a way that makes Sanji’s stomach squeeze.

He offers you his arm, and you glide forward to take it.

He drives the three blocks to the wedding venue in a daze, his mind spinning slow and off-axis, tilted so by the gentle waft of your perfume, the lullaby of your voice as you chatter nervously about this and that and the weather, I mean, can you believe it’s gonna be an outdoor wedding in the winter? He wonders briefly why you’re so nervous, and then he’s reminded of the reason he’s even here at all — your ex will be here. Ah. Right.

“Ready?” he asks, offering you his arm again as the both of you follow the meandering stream of arriving guests toward the paved outdoor garden area where the ceremony is due to take place.

“No, but… you’re here so…” you let out a breath and for a second, Sanji almost thinks he hears the hint of an ache in your voice. An ache like an old scab picked at too many times, like unrequited love, perhaps. It’s an ache with which Sanji is so intimately familiar that he immediately tamps it down and vows not to think about it again for the rest of the night.

There are stiff-backed waiters wandering around with plates of hors d’oeuvres and thin flutes of bubbling pink champagne.

Sanji grabs two glasses and hands you one.

“Cheers, then.”

“Bottoms up,” you say, tossing back the entire flute in one.

Sanji cocks his eyebrows, grinning as he follows suit, smacking his lips.

“Alright then, I guess if that’s how you’re playin’ —”

Your laughter is light, if a little strained, but he remembers how quickly bubbly drinks tend to go to your head and makes a concerted effort to slow down. You make it all the way through the actual ceremony without bumping into your ex, though you do lean over and grab Sanji’s hand as the bride and groom exchange vows — something about love being a choice, one that they promise to make every morning of every day for the rest of their lives — and he looks over to find you misty-eyed, bottom lip caught beneath your teeth.

“Sap,” he whispers, leaning over. It earns him a choked laugh and a half-hearted elbow in the ribs, but it’s worth it to see the tension melt from your shoulders.

Sanji turns back towards the bride and groom, exchanging rings now, and unbidden comes the images of you and him standing where they are — you in a dazzling white gown, him still in a dark suit, but one perhaps of more expensive material and much better tailoring. He thinks about all the things he might promise you, wonders at what you might promise him in return —

“I promise to love and cherish you —” you might say.

“I promise to make all your favorite foods,” he might say.

“I promise not to touch your emotional support le creuset pans.”

“I promise not to make you taste all my experimental dishes —”

“Okay, but what if I want to —”

He imagines the way the crowd would titter, how the officiator would affectionately clear his throat. He imagines Zeff’s warm, well-worn laughter, rough and a little torn at the edges because he’s just as sentimental as the next guy behind all the beard and gruffness. He imagines the crowd smiling up at the pair of you, the way you’d squeeze his hands to get the both of you back on track —

He jerks out of his reverie as you tug your hand away from his to clap, and it takes him a beat to realize that everyone else is clapping and cheering too. He blinks — the bride and groom are kissing, pulling apart as the music swells around them and they link hands to walk back down the aisle.

Sanji clears his throat and hurriedly gets up to clap as well, his eyes trailing the radiant smiles on both the newlyweds’ faces. Another sharp ache sings through him but he feels your hand in his again and he can’t tell if he wants to grip you tighter or pull away. They’d both hurt just as much, wouldn’t they?

“C’mon, let’s get inside — I wanna judge the catering with you,” you whisper, your breath tickling his cheek, and he knows without having to look that you’re standing on your tiptoes, your chin almost propped on his shoulder.

He fights down a bout of shivers and smiles, “My favorite part of any formal event, honestly.”

You laugh, “I know — me too.”

So you spend the entire dinner service whispering to each other about the food —

“God, this steak is so well done I think it just might dislocate my jaw —”

“What’s in this sauce?”

Sanji chews thoughtfully before making a face, “Dunno, but it’s got oregano.”

“Oh the cake looks good though.”

“Yeah, but we both know how much sugar and butter goes into that right?”

You nudge him with an elbow, “Weird, cause I’m pretty sure happiness is also made of sugar and butter.”

“Well for me, it’s always been…” but Sanji trails off, biting his tongue. No. He can’t say that — not now. Not here.

Because for him, happiness has always just been you.

So instead, he swallows passed his own mouthful of regrets and attempts a lopsided grin. And thankfully, your attention is drawn elsewhere by a loud peal of laughter before he has to make a shitty joke about happiness being a well-lit kitchen and a gas-lit stove.

You’re both at least a bottle of champagne deep when it finally happens, inevitable as a summer storm — your ex saunters up to you on the dance floor, sporting a grease-slick grin, eyeing you up and down like a piece of well-cut meat. Sanji is at the bar, grabbing more drinks and you’re catching a breath of fresh air just outside the dance hall.

“Well, well, well — look who it is.”

Sanji turns sharply at the sound of the voice, his eyes narrowing — Asshat. Fantastic. The bartender is putting the finishing touches on two custom cocktails but blinks, confused, as Sanji swipes both drinks out from the bar and casts him a hurried grin.

“Thanks mate, these look great,” Sanji raises the cocktail glasses at the bewildered bartender before hurrying off, slowing ever so slightly as he reaches you, straightening his spine and smoothing out his shoulders.

“Here, got them special-made for you,” he says, pressing the cocktail into your hand, cutting into something that Asshat is saying.

“Oh! Thanks — oh wow, this looks so good!” you beam up at him, taking a sip.

“Oh wow, didn’t know you were still hangin’ out with this guy,” Asshat says, hooking his thumbs into his belt-hoops and jutting out his chin.

You frown, pressing your lips, “Excuse me?”

Asshat scoffs, posturing, “I mean, when we broke up, it was cause o’him right? So I just thought you might’ve realized what a mistake that was and —”

Sanji barely has the time to feel offended before Asshat is gasping and stumbling back. You’d tossed the remainder of your drink straight into his face.

“What the —” Asshat sputters, his fists clenching, but quick as anything, Sanji swipes out a leg that catches him right in the shins and makes him stumble. In one fluid movement, Sanji pushes his own drink into your hand before reaching out the other arm to steady the now flailing Asshat, catching him around the shoulders.

“Whoa there! Seems like you’ve had a bit too much to drink, my friend!” he says, loud enough for the people around you to hear. He thumps Asshat on the back in a would-be kind gesture before tugging him close, still coughing, and hissing in his ear —

“Listen here, you asswipe — you’re gonna turn around and walk away and stay the fuck away from us for the rest of this wedding, you understand? I’ve got plenty more o’this for ya if you don’t, got it?”

Sanji scuffs his foot along the gravel-covered ground in a motion that could easily be mistaken as fidgeting, but you know better. And so, it seems, does Asshat, who scoffs and shoves Sanji off him with a glare, but after another second, straightens his drink-soaked jacket, turns, and stalks away.

You let out a long breath, swallowing hard.

“Hey darlin’… you alright?” Sanji turns and bends down to level his eyes with yours.

“Y-yeah — thanks — you didn’t need to —”

“Nah. Course I did — it’s why you invited me, right?” he allows himself a lopsided grin that borders on self-deprecating and you look up, eyes wide.

“No! I — that’s not —”

“It’s okay, love — I promise I’m not offended —” Sanji’s babbling, he knows he is — but he has to, because the alternative of letting you speak, of letting you confirm what he already knows to be true (that you’ve only ever seen him as a best friend, that you love him in all the ways except for the one way he wants you to, in the one way he loves you) is too much. He tucks his hands in his pockets and shrugs up his shoulders, pulling them up towards his ears like armor.

And then you lean in and kiss him, and every single word he’s ever thought of saying just to fill the silence turns to mist and mornings on his tongue. His mind turns blissfully blank and when he regains consciousness (or has he? Because isn’t this the dream he’s dreamt every waking moment of his life for the past… however many years?), he thanks every god he can name that he feels his fingers in your hair, his other hand cupping the soft curve of your jaw. He tastes your uncertainty against his lips and presses in, hoping, praying that if he just kissed you hard enough you might understand.

When you pull away, he can’t help the satisfied purr that curls up his chest at the pinkness in your cheeks and the slightly glazed-over look in your eyes.

“O-oh — sorry I —”

Sanji shakes his head, leaning in to push his forehead against yours.

“Nah, nah, nah — if you tell me that was a mistake now I might just turn around and never speak to you ever again — because don’t you dare —”

You let out a helpless laugh, shaking your head as you reach up to cover his hands with yours. It’s only then that he realizes they’d been shaking. He swallows and he thinks he can taste every single morning after for the rest of his goddamn life in the whisper of your breath.

“It — it’s not, I wasn’t —” you close your eyes and Sanji holds you still, foreheads still pressed. Distantly, Sanji is aware that people are cheering, that more drinks are being poured, that the dance floor is probably a mess. But he doesn’t care. He doesn’t think he’ll care about anything else ever again — why would he? Now that he’s got you.

“Shh… take your time, love… we’ve got all the time in the world.”

He feels the relief take you, and then you’re falling into him, burying your face in the lapel of his suit jacket, probably smearing it with your foundation. Vaguely, Sanji considers framing it when he gets home.

“I’m… I’m sorry it took so long — I’m sorry I didn’t — that I wasn’t…” you curl your fist into the material of his shirt and thump him lightly on the chest, even as he laughs and wraps his arms around you.

“I know, darlin’… I know.” Sanji presses his lips into your hair and can’t help a smile.

Finally. Finally.

Your hair smells like citrus shampoo.

Finally.

“I thought about you every single day,” you admit, your voice small when you finally pull back to look at him again. He thinks there might be tears in your eyes, or maybe it’s just the starlight caught in the thick night sky of your lashes.

“Did you now?” he asks, fumbling for some semblance of normalcy amidst this night of revelations.

You nod, fervently, and god he wants to kiss you again. Briefly, he wonders if he should, if he’s allowed to now. Instead, he smiles and cocks his head.

“So? What changed?” and he can’t help the tiny note of hurt out of his voice, the slightest shiver of disbelief. After all, cynicism is a hard habit to break.

Especially after so many years of practice.

You shrug, sighing, “Nothing — everything. I mean — I’d always… but then I thought — you had your career as a chef and I didn’t even know what I wanted to do with my life. But it —” you lick your lips, and Sanji nearly breaks when you tear your eyes away from his. He wants to force you back, to soak in the dark and bright of your gaze till he can see the world exactly as you see it.

“It’s always been you…” you say.

At this, Sanji does break. He tips your face towards him with a thumb and a forefinger and leans in, waiting for you to pull back, bracing for it. But you don’t — instead, you press in and close the space between you again, and again, and then again.

He wants to tell you — he needs to tell you that it’s always been you too, that there’s never been anyone else. From the moment he first laid eyes on you, he’s known, even though both of you were children back then, and neither of you had any idea what “love” actually meant. He knew then, too.

“Love…” his voice trails off, but you smile, and he knows you know, knows that you can hear it in the rawness behind his voice, in the softness of his breath, in the way it shakes.

You make to kiss him again. But your lips hover half an inch from his and you stop. Sanji sighs.

“What — why’d you stop?”

Your smile is sweet and sharp, honey glinting on a razor’s edge, and he knows that he has you. And maybe that he’s always had you and was just too blind, too terrified, to see it.

“Haven’t you heard? It’s a metaphor.”

Sanji groans, “Fuck your metaphors.”

You bat your lashes, pulling an expression of mock affront onto your face.

“Well at least wine me and dine me first —”

Sanji licks his lips, “What’dyou think I’ve been trying to do for the last ten years?”

Your breath catches.

“Oh.”

Sanji smirks and kisses you again, slowly this time, languid and deep. Unhurried. He luxuriates in the way you go soft in his arms, in the way he can feel the gentle hitch of your breath as he runs his tongue along the edges of your teeth, coaxing you towards him, closer and closer and closer.

The hardest, angriest part of him wants to swallow you whole, bite down just to hear you hiss, to taste your blood on his tongue. To make you feel even a sliver of the pain he’d felt. He tamps it back down — there’s time for that later.

Instead, he forces himself to pull back and allows himself the satisfaction of watching you chase him, pursing your own lips with a bashful look away, your cheeks dark.

“So,” Sanji takes half a step back, puffing out his chest in the best imitation of a fuckboy at a wedding party, “wanna get outta here?”

You let out a helpless laugh, falling into his side. He lets the sound ring through him like so many silver bells.

“Yeah, I’d love that.”

He chuckles, looping an arm around your middle and leaning towards your ear.

“Your place, or mine?”

You roll your eyes, “I’m pretty sure I still have a toothbrush at your place.”

Sanji hums, “You still have a whole drawer at my place.”

You smile up at him, open and happy and sincere, “Then… I guess that’s your answer then.”

#opla #one piece x you #one piece x reader #one piece live action #opla sanji #one piece netflix #one piece fluff #sanji opla #sanji x reader #sanji x you #vinsmoke sanji #vinsmoke sanji x reader #vinsmoke sanji x you #opla x reader #opla x you #opla fluff #x reader #floofy floof floof #scheduled post

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theonottsbxtch · 1 month ago

Note

HEAR ME OUT 🙂 charles x pianist!reader where he’s like writing/composing a new ep and his producer is like “omg you should totally do a duet with (reader) 🥰” and uh yeah just anything related to that

i can already envision a scene where charles spends most of his time in the dark alone in the studio with his piano but reader is ofc there…

go for any trope you want 🙈

MY MUSE | CL16

an: im sorry this is so long istart writing and then i can't stop. btw i want everyone to know that i was listening to that's not me by skepta and jme while writing this. completely different vibes. SEND MORE REQUESTS IM BORED HOUSESITTING FOR THREE WEEKS

wc: 7.8k

dedicated to @iamred-iamyellow & @iimplicitt

The studio was thick with the scent of aged leather and dust, the faint glow of a single, dimmed lamp casting long shadows across the hardwood floors. Charles sat hunched over the grand piano, its black lacquer surface reflecting the soft light in fractured shards. His fingers hovered above the ivory keys, trembling with a kind of frustrated anticipation, but no sound came. The room seemed to echo with a deafening silence, broken only by the faint ticking of the clock on the far wall—an incessant reminder of time slipping away.

He had been here for days, isolated from the outside world during the off season. The once-comforting walls, lined with shelves of dog-eared books and musical scores, now felt like the confines of a cage. His last piece had been a masterpiece—a soaring composition that had flowed from him like water, effortless and pure. It was the kind of music that haunted you long after it ended, the kind that etched itself into the soul of anyone who heard it. But now, the notes eluded him.

Charles ran his fingers through his dark, curly hair and let out a low sigh. There was a pressure building in his chest, like a wound slowly tightening, pulling him apart. For the past week, he had been locked in this room, trying to capture the essence of something even greater than the last, but all he had managed to conjure was noise—fragments of half-formed melodies that crumbled before they could take shape.

He stood abruptly, the sudden movement causing the papers on top of his piano to rustle, brittle with neglect. The room was stifling; the air was thick with the remnants of burnt-out candles and sleepless nights. He paced to the window, pulling the curtains aside to reveal the darkened Maranello streets below, slick with the remnants of a recent rain. The city outside moved on, indifferent to his struggle, its distant hum a reminder that time had no patience for his creative paralysis.

He pressed his forehead against the cold glass, his breath fogging it up in shallow bursts. What was missing? What had he lost in the months since his last piece? It felt like chasing shadows, reaching for something just out of grasp. Every melody he tried to shape slipped through his fingers like grains of sand, and the harder he tried to hold onto it, the faster it dissolved.

The clock struck three in the morning, the chime echoing through the stillness of the room. Another night wasted. Another night consumed by the weight of his own expectations. He turned back to the piano, his eyes heavy with fatigue but burning with a quiet, desperate need. He couldn’t leave. Not yet. Not without something to show for the hours he’d lost.

With a sigh that felt like surrender, Charles sat back down at the piano, his fingers hovering over the keys once more. He could feel the cold beneath his skin, the way the silence seemed to press in around him. His hands shook, not with nervousness, but with exhaustion.

And then, in the quiet, a single note broke the silence.

It wasn’t beautiful. It wasn’t the haunting, ethereal sound he had been searching for. But it was something.

His gaze fell to the pile of sheet music he had scribbled on throughout the night. Inked lines of failed ideas, crossed out again and again. With a final resigned sigh, he stood up, the bench scraping the floor, the sound too loud in the empty space. He began to gather his things, shoving crumpled papers into his bag alongside notebooks, headphones, and his laptop. The familiar weight of them didn’t bring comfort; instead, they felt like reminders of the failure he was starting to carry with him. This was meant to be a hobby but it was haunting his every move.

As he turned to leave, keys jangling in his hand, a soft sound reached his ears—a distant, faint melody. He paused, his hand hovering over the light switch, ears straining to catch it. It was coming from down the hallway, barely perceptible at first, but unmistakable—a piano, its notes drifting through the quiet night like a whisper.

Charles hesitated for a moment, then slipped into the hallway, drawn toward the sound. He moved slowly, the dark corridor seeming endless, the music growing clearer with every step. It was beautiful—achingly so. Each note was delicate yet certain, as though whoever was playing knew exactly what they wanted to say. The melody swirled and climbed, creating something ethereal, something that made his chest tighten in a way he hadn’t felt in weeks.

He stopped outside one of the smaller practice rooms, the door slightly ajar, a soft glow of light spilling from within. The music filled the narrow hallway, surrounding him, pulling him in. He stood there for a long moment, his heart beating a little faster, a strange mix of awe and envy twisting inside him. This was what he had been trying to create—the same kind of raw emotion, the beauty that lingered long after the sound faded.

But it wasn’t his.

Charles leaned against the wall, just out of sight, listening as the music flowed through the cracks in the door. The player inside didn’t falter, didn’t stop to wrestle with the notes. It was effortless, pure. He didn’t dare move, didn’t dare interrupt, afraid the spell would be broken if the other person realised they had an audience.

The melody soared, and for a brief moment, Charles closed his eyes, letting himself be swept up in it. It reminded him of why he had started this in the first place—of the nights when music had been his refuge, when it had felt like an escape, not a burden. He could feel the heaviness in his chest easing, just slightly, as the music wound its way through the silence.

But as beautiful as it was, it also stung. Whoever was playing had found what he had been searching for all this time—something he had lost.

The music came to a soft, gentle end, the final notes lingering in the air like a breath held too long. Charles stood there for a moment longer, still leaning against the doorframe, waiting for something—he didn’t know what.

When the quiet finally settled again, he stepped away from the door, not daring to break the fragile stillness with the creak of the floorboards. He glanced back one last time, his fingers curling tight around the strap of his bag. For a moment, he considered knocking, stepping inside to see the person who had played with such grace. But something held him back.

Instead, he turned and walked down the hallway, the echo of that haunting melody still playing in his head long after the door to the studio clicked shut behind him.

His following morning came in fragments—a bleary haze of sunlight filtering through half-closed blinds, the distant hum of traffic muffled by the walls of his apartment. Charles stirred, his body sluggish and heavy with the weight of too little sleep. He lay there for a long moment, eyes closed, trying to hold onto the remnants of the dream he couldn’t quite remember. But it wasn’t a dream that lingered in his mind.

It was the melody.

That same haunting, angelic piano from last night, curling through his thoughts like a whisper. He could still hear it—those delicate notes weaving together, the way the melody had seemed so effortless, so perfect. It had been circling his mind from the moment he left the studio. Now, it played softly in the background of his thoughts, no matter how hard he tried to push it away.

Charles groaned, rolling out of bed and dragging himself into the shower. The hot water did little to shake the fatigue that clung to him, nor did it drown out the persistent tune echoing in his head. His mind kept returning to the small, dimly lit room where the mystery pianist had been, to the way her fingers had danced across the keys as though they had always belonged there.

He towel-dried his hair, staring at his reflection in the foggy mirror. Dark circles under his eyes, a face hollowed by days of restless nights and creative frustration. He had some sort of media training today—something important. A meeting he couldn’t afford to drift through half-awake. But even as he dressed, pulling on his usual team shirt and straightening the collar, his thoughts were elsewhere.

The city outside was awake, the streets buzzing with life as he made his way through the crisp morning air to the Ferrari HQ. His coffee sat untouched in his hand, the steam rising in lazy spirals, but he barely noticed. The melody from last night played on an endless loop in his head, the memory of it clinging to him like a ghost he couldn’t shake.

The office was a blur of familiar faces, bright smiles, and too much energy for this early in the day. Charles moved through it all, barely fully acknowledging Carlos, the world around him dull and muffled. The media manager was already waiting when he arrived, tapping impatiently on the table as Charles sat down for their first meeting.

But even as they discussed plans, upcoming shoots, and expectations for both his and Carlos’ media presence, Charles wasn’t fully there. He nodded in the right places, offered half-hearted responses, but his mind kept wandering back to that melody. The notes haunted him, pulling his focus away from everything else, as though they held the answer to something he was desperate to grasp.

“Charles, are you listening?” Carlos’ voice snapped him back to the present.

“Yeah, yeah,” he mumbled, though his eyes betrayed him. He scribbled something on the notepad in front of him, though the lines didn’t form words—just scattered shapes, like the music notes he couldn’t get out of his head.

The meetings dragged on. Through every discussion, every pitch and presentation, Charles felt the same distraction pulling him away. He couldn’t let it go. The melody. It had stirred something in him—a frustration, yes, but also a strange kind of inspiration. There was something there, something unfinished, and it gnawed at him.

By the time the last meeting ended, Charles felt hollowed out. He hadn’t contributed anything meaningful to the discussions, not really. His mind had been elsewhere the entire day, replaying those fleeting notes over and over again. It was maddening.

He needed to know. Needed to find out who had played it, and why that music—the music he hadn’t written—felt so much like it belonged to him.

Without thinking, Charles pulled out his phone and dialled his producer’s number, pacing back and forth in the hallway outside the conference room as it rang. It was late afternoon now, the sky outside tinged with fading light. He knew he should be focusing on his own work, or on getting back to the studio, but the compulsion to solve this mystery was stronger than his exhaustion.

The line clicked, and his producer’s voice crackled on the other end. “Charles, hey. What’s up?”

Charles leaned against the window, his forehead pressed to the cool glass. “I need to ask you something,” he said, his voice low, edged with impatience. “Last night, around 3 a.m., there was someone in one of the smaller studios, playing piano. Do you know who it was?”

There was a pause on the other end, the faint sound of papers shuffling. “3 a.m.? You sure?”

“I’m sure,” Charles replied, closing his eyes. The melody drifted back into his mind, as clear as if he were still sitting outside the door, listening. “It was… incredible. I couldn’t stop listening. I need to know who it was.”

Another pause, then a small chuckle from his producer. “Ah, that must’ve been the student. Yeah, she’s been coming in late at night to practise. Studies music at the university downtown. Doesn’t perform much, though—mostly keeps to herself.”

Charles’s heart skipped a beat. The name felt unfamiliar, but it already held a weight to it, like it was connected to something he hadn’t yet fully understood.

“She doesn’t perform?” he asked, brow furrowing. It seemed impossible—someone with that much talent, hiding in the shadows.

“Nah,” his producer continued, “she’s a bit under the radar. Not really into publishing or performing her work, but, man, she’s got something special. I didn’t realise you’d heard her.”

Charles was silent for a moment, processing the information. The melody. He could see it now—something just out of reach, like the missing piece of a puzzle he hadn’t realised he was trying to solve.

“You know,” his producer said, his tone shifting slightly, “you’ve been stuck for a while, Charles. Maybe you should try working with her. See what happens. It might help you find what you’re looking for.”

Charles swallowed, his throat suddenly dry. The thought of it—composing with someone else, with her—made something stir inside him. Could it be the answer to breaking through this creative silence he’d been drowning in?

“I’ll think about it,” he muttered, though the decision was already forming in his mind.

As he hung up the phone, the melody returned, softer this time, but still persistent. And now, it wasn’t just haunting him—it was pulling him forward.

_________________

The studio felt different tonight, as though it had shifted in his absence. The air was cooler, the lights dimmer, casting long, quiet shadows over the floorboards. Charles stood in the hallway again, just as he had the night before, but this time his heart beat with something more than exhaustion or frustration. There was an anticipation simmering in his chest, a tension just beneath the surface.

He hadn’t come to compose tonight. Not really. He had come for the music. Her music.

The name felt strange on his lips, unfamiliar, yet full of significance. He didn’t know her, had never spoken to her, but her music had already gotten under his skin. It haunted him still, drifting through his mind in fragments even after the long day of meetings, pulling him back here.

He moved quietly down the hallway, the same path he had taken last night, his shoes barely making a sound against the worn floor. As he neared the smaller practice room, the faint sound of the piano floated toward him, delicate and clear, weaving through the quiet.

There it was again—the same effortless, angelic melody that had captivated him before. But now, listening to it a second time, Charles felt something deeper stirring. The way she played was different tonight, more intimate somehow, as if the music had softened, becoming something even more personal. He stopped outside the door, just as he had before, leaning against the wall and closing his eyes.

For a long moment, he simply listened. The notes seemed to dance in the air, spinning and intertwining, building toward something both beautiful and fragile. It was mesmerising.

But then, the music stopped. Abruptly.

Charles’s eyes snapped open, his pulse quickening in the sudden silence. Before he could move, a voice broke through the quiet, soft but teasing.

“Mama always said it’s not nice to lurk.”

His breath caught in his throat. For a second, he didn’t move, caught off guard. The door was still ajar, the light spilling into the hallway, and from inside, he could make out the silhouette of someone sitting at the piano, her back turned to him. She hadn’t looked up, but she knew. She had known he was there the whole time.

Heat crept up his neck, but before he could stammer out an apology, she spoke again.

“You coming in, or are you planning to stay out there all night?”

Her tone was light, amused even, but it was an invitation all the same. Charles hesitated for a heartbeat longer, his hand tightening around the strap of his bag. Then, without thinking, he stepped forward, pushing the door open a little wider.

The room was small and softly lit, just as he remembered, the grand piano dominating the space. She sat at it, her posture relaxed, fingers still resting lightly on the keys. She turned her head slightly as he entered, giving him the faintest glimpse of a smile.

“Sorry,” he said quietly, feeling a bit ridiculous for standing outside like that. “I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

“You didn’t.” She shifted on the bench, making space beside her. “Come on, sit.”

Charles’s throat tightened, but he nodded and moved toward the piano, his steps feeling oddly tentative. He hesitated for a second when he reached her, unsure if he should really be sitting so close. The bench was narrow, and he could already feel the warmth of her presence.

She looked up at him with raised eyebrows. “I don’t bite.”

With a small chuckle, he slid onto the stool beside her, the space between them barely a few inches. It was strange, this closeness—to sit here with someone he didn’t know, yet felt connected to through the music that had haunted him for days. Their shoulders brushed lightly as he settled in, and for a moment, the silence between them felt heavy, loaded with expectation.

She glanced at him, her eyes glinting with something unreadable. Then, without a word, she placed her hands back on the piano, her fingers moving over the keys with an effortless grace. The melody returned, soft and slow, and Charles felt his breath catch in his chest again. It was different this time—gentler, more deliberate, as though she was playing just for him.

The room seemed to shrink around them, the air thick with the quiet intimacy of the music. He watched her hands move, the way her fingers danced across the keys with the kind of fluidity that only came from years of dedication. The melody wound its way through the air, filling the small space between them, and Charles found himself leaning in, just slightly, drawn to the sound and to her.

“You play like it’s the easiest thing in the world,” he murmured, the words slipping out before he could stop them.

She smiled, a soft, almost secretive smile. “It’s never easy,” she said, her voice low, her eyes still on the piano. “It just looks that way.”

She played a few more notes, then paused, glancing at him out of the corner of her eye. “What about you? You’ve been in the studio night after night. What’s haunting you?”

Charles let out a breath he didn’t realise he had been holding. “I’ve been stuck,” he admitted, his voice quieter than he intended. “It feels like everything I try to create falls apart. Nothing compares to what I’ve done before.”

She didn’t respond right away. Instead, she played another soft chord, the sound hanging in the air between them.

“Music’s strange like that,” she said after a moment, her tone thoughtful. “It comes and goes. Sometimes it’s easy, other times… it slips through your fingers.”

Charles nodded, feeling the weight of her words. He had been trying so hard to force the music out, to create something that could match his last piece, but all it had done was elude him.

The girl beside him shifted slightly, her shoulder brushing his. “Here,” she said, moving her hands off the keys. “Play something.”

“What?”

“Anything,” she replied, her eyes meeting his for the first time fully. There was a challenge in them, but also an understanding. “Show me what you’ve got.”

Charles swallowed, feeling a sudden surge of nerves. But her gaze was steady, encouraging, and without thinking too much about it, he let his hands find their way to the keys. The notes that came out weren’t perfect—they were hesitant, half-formed. But they were honest. He played softly, the melody faltering at times, but it was real.

She listened, her head slightly tilted as she watched his fingers move. Then, without warning, she joined him, her hands moving gracefully beside his, adding harmonies to the melody he had started. The sound shifted, growing fuller, more complete. The music filled the room, and for the first time in what felt like forever, Charles didn’t feel the weight of his failure pressing down on him.

Together, they played, their hands moving across the keys in tandem, creating something new. Something neither of them could have done alone.

When the last note finally faded into the quiet, Charles sat back, his heart pounding. She turned to him, her eyes soft and knowing.

“See?” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. “It’s easier when you’re not alone.”

For a moment, they sat in the quiet, the echo of their shared melody lingering in the air like the last breath of a long-forgotten song. Charles stared at the keys, feeling the warmth of the music still buzzing in his fingertips. He hadn’t felt like this in weeks—maybe longer. There was something about the way she played, the way her music had melded so effortlessly with his, that made the creative block he’d been wrestling with seem almost insignificant.

He turned to look at her, realising for the first time how close they were, their shoulders still brushing lightly. Her eyes were fixed on the piano, her fingers resting gently on the keys, as though she was waiting for the next melody to arrive. Her presence, though quiet and composed, carried an intensity that matched the music she played—an unspoken understanding of the way music could consume you, take you apart, and put you back together.

“That was…” Charles began, but the words caught in his throat.

“Different?” she offered, a slight smile tugging at the corner of her lips.

“Yeah.” He let out another breath he hadn’t realised he was holding. “It felt… easier. Like it wasn’t something I had to force.”

She tilted her head slightly, her gaze thoughtful. “Music isn’t something you’re supposed to wrestle with. It’s like water—it flows when you stop trying to hold onto it so tightly.” She shifted her hands off the keys and folded them in her lap, her eyes now fully on him. “You’ve been pushing too hard. I could hear it.”

Her words were soft, but they carried something that made Charles pause. He had been pushing—straining against the silence, desperate to capture a piece of the magic he’d once had. Every night in the studio had been a battle, and he hadn’t realised until now that the real fight was with himself.

“You’re right,” he admitted, running a hand through his hair. “I’ve been trying so hard to top what I did last time that I forgot why I was doing it in the first place.”

She leaned back slightly, still watching him, her expression unreadable. “What was your last piece?” she asked, her voice curious but not probing.

Charles hesitated. The memory of his last composition—an orchestral piece that had been his most successful work to date—felt distant now, like it belonged to someone else. It had been raw, emotional, inspired by something deeply personal, but the success that followed had overshadowed the joy he’d felt when he created it. Ever since then, he’d been chasing that same feeling, trying to recreate the magic, only to fall short.

“It was…” He trailed off, searching for the right words. “Something personal. It came easily back then. But now it feels like I’m trying to catch lightning in a bottle, and I’m just… stuck.”

She nodded, her fingers idly tracing patterns on the piano’s surface. “I get that. Sometimes the more you want something, the harder it is to find. That’s why I don’t perform much.” She smiled faintly, almost to herself. “There’s less pressure when no one’s watching.”

Charles studied her for a moment, sensing the layers beneath her calm demeanour. She spoke with such ease about the creative process, but there was an edge of vulnerability there too, a reluctance to expose too much of herself to the world.

“Why don’t you perform?” he asked, curious now. “I mean, with the way you play, you could easily—”

“Because I don’t need to,” she interrupted, her tone gentle but firm. “The music is for me. It’s not about the audience. It’s about…” She hesitated, searching for the right words. “It’s about connecting with something deeper, something that doesn’t care about applause or recognition.”

Her words hung in the air between them, and Charles found himself nodding slowly, understanding exactly what she meant. In a way, she had found a kind of freedom he had lost along the way.

“That’s why you play at night,” he said, more a statement than a question. “When no one’s around. It’s like…” He trailed off, trying to find the right analogy, “…the world doesn’t exist.”

She smiled at that, a real one this time, her eyes brightening just a little. “Exactly. It’s easier to lose yourself when there’s no one expecting anything from you.”

Charles sat back, processing her words. For so long, he had been weighed down by expectations—his own, his producer’s, the fans—and it had drained him. Maybe that was the problem. He had been writing for others, forgetting that the music had always been something he did for himself first. Something he loved.

She nudged him lightly with her shoulder, breaking his thoughts. “You know,” she said, a playful lilt in her voice, “you could try playing like no one’s watching. Even if they are.”

He turned to her, raising an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”

“I mean,” she said, leaning in just a bit, “you’re too worried about what people think of your music. But here”—she motioned to the piano in front of them—“there’s no audience. Just us. So why not stop thinking so much and just… play?”

Charles blinked, the simplicity of her suggestion hitting him harder than it should have. She made it sound so easy, but maybe that was the point. Maybe it was supposed to be easy.

Before he could respond, she slid her fingers back onto the keys, playing a few soft chords that hummed through the air like the beginning of something new. Then she glanced sideways at him, a small, teasing smile tugging at her lips. “Come on. Share the bench again. Let’s make something together.”

A spark of excitement flared in his chest. Without another word, Charles moved closer, their knees brushing as they both settled into position, fingers poised over the keys. This time, he wasn’t overthinking it. He wasn’t wrestling with the music. He was just… there.

She started first, her melody soft and fluid, and Charles followed, instinctively matching her rhythm, letting their sounds merge and flow together. The music wasn’t perfect—it stuttered at times, shifted unexpectedly—but it was alive. It had a pulse. It breathed with them.

And for the first time in what felt like forever, Charles wasn’t haunted by the silence. He wasn’t weighed down by the pressure of creating something great. He was just… playing. Creating. Feeling the music as it moved through him, through them both.

As their hands danced over the keys, weaving together something raw and beautiful, he realised something that felt both terrifying and thrilling: maybe this was what he had been missing. Not perfection. Not even recognition. Just the simple, undeniable joy of creating with someone who understood. Someone who could make the music feel real again.

When the last note faded into the quiet, Charles turned to her, his heart still racing.

“I think,” he said softly, his voice barely above a whisper, “I need to stop chasing what I’ve already done and start finding something new.”

She nodded, her eyes bright and knowing. “And maybe,” she said, her voice equally quiet, “we can find it together.”

The last note lingered in the air between them, and Charles felt something warm and alive settle in his chest. The music they had made together had been unlike anything he’d played in so long—imperfect, yes, but honest. Real. The creative block that had suffocated him for weeks was finally gone, or at least, it felt that way in this fleeting moment of clarity.

She glanced at him, her smile soft but distant. She seemed different now, as though the music had taken something from her as well. Before Charles could say anything, she pushed herself up from the piano bench, her fingers lingering on the edge of the keys for just a second longer than necessary.

"I've got to go."

Her words were quiet, almost an afterthought, and they hit him with an unexpected force. She didn’t give him time to respond, to ask anything, to even say goodbye. She simply gathered her bag and moved toward the door, her steps quick and purposeful.

“Wait—” Charles started, rising halfway from the bench, but it was too late.

She turned to him for a brief moment, a smile that was part mystery, part something he couldn’t quite read crossing her lips. “Don’t stop playing, tesoro (treasure)” she said softly. “You’re closer than you think.”

And then, before he could find his voice, she was gone, the door clicking shut behind her with an eerie finality.

Charles stood frozen for a few long moments, staring at the door. His mind raced. He didn’t have her number. He didn’t know where she lived, where she studied, or how to reach her. She had slipped away like a melody in the night, as effortlessly as she’d come into his life.

With a sigh, he sank back onto the piano bench, running his hands through his hair. The room felt strangely empty without her, the space they had shared now echoing with the silence she left behind. But something inside him had shifted. The music they’d created still hummed in his veins, and the weight of doubt that had plagued him for so long felt lighter. Almost like it was dissolving, piece by piece.

He placed his hands on the keys, the cool touch of ivory grounding him, and began to play.

At first, the melody was slow, almost tentative. It mirrored the notes they’d played together, but now it began to morph into something new, something entirely his own. As his fingers moved, the music unfolded naturally, effortlessly. It was as though every piece of frustration, every sleepless night, every failed attempt to capture the right sound was now fueling something greater. Something real.

The notes swelled and cascaded, filling the room with a rich, haunting melody that seemed to flow directly from his soul. It was raw, brimming with emotion—a reflection of everything he had felt, everything he had fought against. But now, there was no more fighting. The music came freely, weaving together in ways that felt effortless and inevitable.

For the first time in what felt like an eternity, Charles wasn’t thinking. He wasn’t chasing perfection or wrestling with expectations. He was simply… playing. The music poured out of him like a long-held breath, each note sharper, more vivid than the last. The emotions he had buried—frustration, longing, even joy—flooded into the sound, and it consumed him.

His hands moved faster now, the melody becoming more urgent, more intense. He didn’t know where it was going, but he didn’t care. It wasn’t about the destination. It was about this—this pure, unfiltered moment of creation.

And then, without warning, a tear slipped down his cheek.

Charles barely noticed it at first, too wrapped up in the music, but soon another tear followed. And another. He wasn’t sobbing—there was no sadness in it. Instead, it was an overwhelming sense of release, of joy, of finally breaking through. The music swelled, the room vibrating with sound, and Charles felt it wash over him. A catharsis he hadn’t known he needed.

When he hit the final chord, it echoed through the room, ringing out long after his fingers had stilled. The silence that followed was profound, heavy with the weight of everything he had just poured into the keys.

Charles sat there, hands trembling slightly, staring at the piano in disbelief. A shaky laugh escaped his throat, followed by a deep, breathless exhale. He had done it. He had finally played something worth keeping.

No—it was more than that. He had played one of the best pieces of his life.

For a long while, he just sat there, his hands resting in his lap, feeling the weight of what he had just created. Tears still clung to his lashes, but his chest felt light—lighter than it had in months. Maybe years.

He wasn’t just crying because of the music. He was crying because, for the first time in a long time, he was truly happy.

Charles leaned forward, resting his forehead against the cool wood of the piano, letting the last remnants of tension drain from him. His breath was steady now, calm. The room was bathed in a kind of quiet peace he hadn’t known in so long. He had no idea where the girl had gone, or if he’d ever see her again. But somehow, it didn’t matter.

The music was enough.

What he didn’t know—what he couldn’t have known—was that she hadn’t really left. Not entirely.

Outside the door, hidden in the shadows of the hallway, she stood, her back pressed against the wall. She had stopped as soon as she’d heard the first notes drift through the air, her hand hovering over the door handle but never turning it.

She had listened. Every note, every chord, every emotion Charles had poured into the piano, she had felt it too. Her heart had raced with his, her breath had caught in her throat when she’d heard the moment he broke through the wall he had been fighting against.

She smiled softly to herself, her hand finally dropping to her side as the last note of Charles’s masterpiece echoed through the studio. She had heard something in his playing tonight that she hadn’t expected. Something raw and powerful.

She turned to leave, her steps soft on the floor, leaving the sound of his triumph behind. Maybe she would come back one day, maybe not. But she knew this much—he didn’t need her anymore.

He had found his music again. And that, in itself, was enough.

As she disappeared into the night, Charles remained at the piano, still catching his breath, unaware of the quiet presence that had stayed with him until the very end.

The following days felt surreal, like a dream Charles was reluctant to wake from. After that night in the studio with the girl, his life had been interrupted by a trip to Silverstone to try out the tyres for the new season. The track buzzed with its usual energy, but no matter where he wandered, Charles’s thoughts always drifted back to her and the music they’d played together.

He had left the studio that night haunted by the memory of her delicate touch on the keys, the way their melodies had intertwined as though they’d been waiting for each other all along. He carried it with him over to England, through busy track meets and silent hotel rooms. Late at night, when sleep wouldn’t come, he would close his eyes and hear her music, as if it had lodged itself permanently in his mind.

It wasn’t just the music, though. It was her—the quiet way she had smiled at him, the lightness in her voice when she teased him, the sense of understanding that had passed between them without needing to be spoken.

Now, as Charles stepped back into the familiar silence of the studio late at night right off the plane, he felt a quiet anticipation coiled tightly in his chest. The lights were dim, the air cool and still, and for a moment, it felt like time had paused. The room was empty, and there was no trace of her—no soft melody floating through the air, no sound of delicate fingers dancing across the keys.

Disappointment stirred, settling somewhere deep. He’d been hoping, perhaps foolishly, that she’d be here. That they could pick up where they’d left off. He made his way to the piano, where the polished surface glinted in the low light, as inviting as ever.

And then he saw it—a small note left on the piano bench. His pulse quickened as he unfolded it, her handwriting instantly recognizable, though scrawled in that same casual, hurried way:

"Play with your heart, tesoro."

A soft smile tugged at his lips. The simplicity of the message was so very her. It was a whisper, a reminder of what mattered. A push, gentle but certain.

Charles set the note aside and sat down on the bench, the studio eerily quiet around him. For a moment, he just sat there, the weight of the piano keys beneath his fingers, the faint memory of their music hovering in the air. Then, without thinking too much, he began to play.

The melody started slow, almost hesitant, each note like a thought he hadn’t quite formed yet. But as he played, the music unfolded into something deeper, something more intimate. It wasn’t complicated or grand—it didn’t need to be. It was soft, heartfelt, like a quiet conversation spoken in a language only they understood.

He let go of the pressure, the constant need to craft something perfect, and instead just let the music be what it was—a reflection of what he felt, of what had been buried deep inside him since he’d met her. The music filled the room, curling into the corners like a secret. And for the first time in what felt like months, he felt at peace.

As the last notes lingered in the air, a soft sound broke the quiet. Applause—light, slow, and warm.

Charles turned, startled, and there she was, standing in the doorway, her silhouette framed by the dim light from the hallway. She was watching him, her hands clasped softly in front of her, a small, knowing smile playing on her lips. Her eyes sparkled with something tender, something familiar. She’d been listening, perhaps the whole time.

“I didn’t hear you come in,” Charles murmured, his voice softer than the room itself.

She took a few quiet steps toward him, her gaze never leaving his. “I didn’t want to interrupt,” she said gently, her smile deepening. “It was beautiful.”

For a moment, neither of them spoke. The room felt suspended in a kind of stillness, the last remnants of his melody hanging between them, but no words were needed to fill the quiet. She came closer, and Charles shifted slightly on the bench, instinctively making space for her. She sat beside him, their shoulders brushing softly in the small space, the warmth of her presence settling something inside him.

“Play it again,” she whispered, her voice low, like a secret shared just between them.

He hesitated for a second, but then his fingers found their way back to the keys, this time slower, more deliberate. The music that spilled out was softer now, more intimate, as if shaped by the quiet weight of her sitting beside him. She watched as his hands moved, her gaze gentle, and as he played, the world outside seemed to melt away, leaving just the two of them and the music between them.

After a few moments, her fingers joined his, their hands moving together over the keys with a quiet ease. Her touch was so light, so effortless, and the sound they created was simple yet achingly beautiful—a melody that spoke of longing and connection, of words unspoken but deeply felt. There was no rush, no urgency in the way they played, only a slow unfolding of something real and fragile.

Charles stole a glance at her, his heart tightening. There was something unspoken in the air, something that went beyond the music they shared. He could feel it in the way she leaned in ever so slightly, the way her breath seemed to sync with his, the soft, steady rhythm of their playing.

When the last note faded into the stillness, neither of them moved. They sat there, shoulders barely touching, the silence around them thick with the weight of everything unsaid. Slowly, she turned her head toward him, her eyes soft, her smile quiet but full of meaning.

“You played with your heart,” she whispered, her words echoing the note she had left for him.

Charles’s throat tightened, the room suddenly feeling too small, too full of everything he hadn’t yet said. He turned toward her, his voice catching in his chest as he whispered back, “You make it easier.”

Her smile deepened, and for a moment, there was only the soft rise and fall of their breathing, the music they had created still lingering in the air around them. It felt like something had shifted between them, like a door had been opened that couldn’t easily be closed again.

And as they sat there, side by side on the piano bench, Charles realised that the silence no longer felt heavy. It felt full—of possibility, of something quiet and beautiful, waiting patiently to be discovered.

Together.

Charles’s heart raced, the air between them thick with anticipation. They sat in a charged stillness, so close their breaths seemed to mingle. The soft light of the studio flickered gently against her face, casting shadows that made her seem almost otherworldly. Her lips parted, just slightly, as if waiting for something—an unspoken invitation.

Before he could think too much about it, before doubt could creep in, Charles leaned in.

At first, it was tentative—a brush of lips so light it felt like it might disappear if he wasn’t careful. He kissed her softly, testing the moment, unsure if he was crossing some unseen line. But then she responded, her lips pressing back against his with the same quiet hunger he hadn’t realised was burning between them all along.

The kiss deepened, their soft breaths mingling in the quiet. A slow, intoxicating warmth spread through Charles’s chest, pulling him further in. He cupped her face gently with his hand, his thumb brushing against her cheek as their lips moved together, tentative but growing bolder with each passing second. Her hand found his, her fingers slipping between his, and she pulled him closer, as though the space between them had become unbearable.

Suddenly, the kiss wasn’t soft anymore—it became something more urgent, more passionate, the weight of everything they hadn’t said spilling over into the kiss. Charles felt his pulse quicken, his mind lost in the warmth and closeness of her. He slid his hand to the back of her neck, pulling her in deeper, their lips moving together in a rhythm that felt as natural as the music they had created moments ago.

She shifted slightly on the bench, her body pressing closer to his, and the heat between them grew. The world outside seemed to vanish, leaving only the two of them in the dim, quiet studio, the echoes of their kiss the only sound. The softness of her touch, the taste of her lips—it was all intoxicating, a crescendo building within him.

Charles could feel his heart pounding in his chest, and he didn’t want it to stop. He could have stayed in that moment forever, lost in the intensity of her kiss, in the way her hands tangled in his hair, in the way she fit so perfectly against him.

But then, as though sensing they were both on the edge of something overwhelming, Charles pulled back just slightly, his lips still lingering close to hers, their breaths mingling in the stillness. They were both breathing harder, and for a moment, neither spoke.

Her eyes fluttered open, her gaze locking with his, wide and full of something unspoken. Her cheeks were flushed, her lips slightly swollen, and Charles had to fight the urge to pull her back into another kiss.

“Tesoro” she whispered, her voice soft and a little breathless, as though she couldn’t quite find the words.

He smiled gently, his thumb brushing over her lips before he let his hand fall away, resting on the piano between them. His heart still raced, but there was something peaceful now, something right. He hadn’t felt this in so long—this connection, this ease.

“I need to thank you, angioletto ” Charles murmured, his voice low and full of emotion.

“For what?” she asked, her eyes searching his, a quiet vulnerability in her gaze.

“For inspiring this,” he said, his words soft but heavy with meaning. “For inspiring me.” He gestured toward the piano, where the notes of their shared music still seemed to hover in the air between them. “That song we played together… I never would have found it without you.”

Her lips parted, a soft smile tugging at the corners of her mouth, but her eyes shimmered with something deeper, something that mirrored what Charles was feeling.

“You’ve helped me more than you know,” he continued, his voice barely above a whisper. “Before you, I was stuck. I couldn’t write, couldn’t feel the music anymore. But playing with you—it’s like something clicked. You brought it back.”

She looked at him for a long moment, her smile growing, but there was a quiet tenderness in her expression, as if she understood all the things he wasn’t saying. Slowly, she leaned in, resting her forehead gently against his, and they stayed like that, breathing each other in, the world softening around them.

“I’m glad I could help,” she whispered, her voice a soft caress against his skin.

Charles closed his eyes, letting the moment settle between them, the weight of her words sinking in. He had been searching for something—chasing it endlessly, driving himself to exhaustion in its pursuit. But sitting here, with her, with the music they had created still vibrating in the air, he realised he had already found it.

It wasn’t just the music. It was her. She had become his muse in more ways than one.

He pulled back slightly to meet her gaze once more, his eyes searching hers for a long moment. And then, without another word, he kissed her again—slowly, tenderly this time. It was a kiss filled not with urgency, but with gratitude and something deeper, something unspoken but undeniable.

And in that kiss, Charles knew he wasn’t just thanking her for the music. He was thanking her for being the spark that had reignited something inside him, for being the light in a place that had felt dark for so long.

When their lips finally parted, he rested his forehead against hers once more, the two of them still breathing each other in, their hearts in sync. The studio was quiet now, but it wasn’t empty. The music they had shared—the connection they had formed—lingered in the air like a promise.

And for the first time in what felt like a lifetime, Charles felt whole.

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daisyblog · 8 months ago

Text

Zane Lowe

Our Story Masterlist Summary: YN is mentioned in Harry’s interview with Zane Lowe.

Based on this request.

“Nice nails” Zane compliments Harry who’s sitting in the seat opposite.

“Thanks” Harry politely replies as he glances down at his turquoise nails sitting on his lap. “Thanks for having me”.

After discussing Pleasing and he loved the idea of It, Zane asked “What made you want to do that?”.

“I think for me like…a big part of it is…like I really like making stuff and I really like..kind of coming up with ideas and collaborating with other…especially YN who again is very creative…I feel like I’m really lucky with people around me both personally and professionally that I get to work with are really fun to work with and…you know working’s like my favourite thing to do so..based on the fact that I think obviously it begins as a hobby so then like getting to make stuff for work I feel like is a real gift. I think if I didn’t think about it too much I would be making music and putting out music constantly…but I’m also aware that I’m a total control freak and I want everything to be perfect..so the idea of like oh I made these four songs I’m just going to put out an EP…It’s just not how I think of it”.

---

“You're faced with a time when you can’t do that…and the great leveller of like it doesn’t matter how much money you have, doesn’t matter where you live, doesn’t matter this doesn’t matter that…you can’t travel you can’t do this, you can’t go outside your house..It’s like suddenly you’re forced to not be this musician guy, you’re forced to be like a boyfriend, brother and a son…and all of those things..and actually I feel like I..you know kind of had a little bit of a chance to focus on that at least for a moment..umm and just stop and kind of take in a lot of stuff and…remember things, you’re kind of gifted this stolen time” Harry explained his view on the world pandemic.

“You mentioned being all these roles…you mentioned being a boyfriend, what was it like during these times?” Zane quizzed. “Because I imagine you got a taste of what it’s like being a “normal” couple”.

Twisting and playing with his rings on his fingers, Harry explains “Umm…YN has always been my comfort you know and I’d like to think I’m hers too…she’s been a big part of my life and…we’ve been through so much tougher…that it was kind of nice to just stop and take that in.” Zane nodded, an indication for Harry to continue “So when the pandemic hit..we isolated in LA for a while..I saw it as a time for us to be just us…but YN did find it hard because she has such a big family…and umm she just wanted to be closer to them…especially her grandparents and siblings”.

“Yeah I can imagine that being hard..being so far away” Zane sympathised “I don’t mean to pry into your personal life but what do you mean by time for just you two?”

“Like..we’ve never known anything other than travelling..or just being surrounded by other people and just having to plan everything in so much detail..to like not be seen you know…so we kind of got to see what a normal like would be like, whatever a normal life is..if that makes sense?”.

“Yeah it makes total sense”. Zane agreed and could see that Harry craved a little normality in his personal life.

“I suppose..I’m just like really lucky..because YN just gets it. She got put into the limelight the same as us..you know..so yeah she just gets it and I’m just so lucky” Harry continued with a slight giggle as he repeated how lucky he was. “I think what I’m trying to say is…I hit gold when it came to YN…she really is my best friend too and yeah…it was nice to be just a couple without the added pressures.”.

---

“We have to acknowledge this because..you know we at one point we were going to this in the United Kingdom”. Harry nodded in agreement “But there’s something wonderful about being in this afterglow of Palm Springs..which is I'm sure is how you feel a little bit after these two amazing headline shows…you seem so chilled you know” Zane laughed but continue “There must have been a relief that you did it?”.

“I just..you know I knew I was going to put something out…whether it’s a show or an album or a song I want it to be perfect..and umm…I think like that’s why I take so much stress on I think around something like Coachella..cause I feel like I want it to be good..like if it’s not going to be good I’d rather not do it..so you know in that kind of setting, no matter what it is kind of…you know the dust or the wind or however many things, it's like so many things can go wrong in that situation..and it's not your show and it's my first festival so…you know I’m kind of going out to the crowd and I like knowing what I’m stepping out to” Harry rambled with a nervous chuckle at the end.

Harry continued “and that was really terrifying”.

“What was your instinct when they asked you to do it?” Zane interrupted.

“That’s too scary and I’m gonna say no” Harry laughed “But..uh YN was like you need to say yes and was just so encouraging and supportive..you know…plus she’s like my biggest fan so of course she wanted me to do it!”.

“So..would you say YN helps with the nerves?” Zane asked curiously.

“I was so nervous..like so nervous..and I remember YN being on facetime to Louis before the show..and them both saying just to be myself and to enjoy…and when I was out there I just focused on being me and nothing else”. Harry spoke freely. “Their advice definitely helped…’cause I had the best time!”.

“Late Night Talking?” Zane stated.

Harry let out a shy chuckle “Uhh…yeah” Harry leans his head on his hand to try and hide is cheeky smile “It’s about YN…well I don’t think it’s a shock to anyone”.

“So…would you say the whole album is about YN?” Zane asked confidently.

“Uhh..most of it..yeah pretty much” Harry smiled “She’s just been a constant in my life..since like we were what..sixteen or seventeen..you know..she’s my life..and I don’t have to pretend to be anyone other than myself around her you know…it’s just easy and I love that about our relationship.” Harry explained.

---

“Matilda really shows emotional intelligence and how you were thinking about someone at that time.”. Zane begins to talk about the middle song on Harry’s album.

“Uh…yeah…I actually didn’t write Matilda”. Harry revealed, causing Zane to looked shocked. “YN had this conversation with someone…and she was getting to know them…and they opened up to her and she was like that’s not normal…so she was almost like writing down what she wanted to say to them…and I was like how many people could relate to this you know…and we agreed that it would make a beautiful song for those who needed to hear it”.

“Waw! It holds a real powerful message and I think even if people don’t feel those things…I think it definitely makes them feel something.”. Zane spoke with passion in his voice.

“It definitely does….and it was just about saying I was listening….that was YN’s purpose to it”.

---

“Boyfriends” Zane began “It is a great song..It’s from a male perspective, it’s a very knowing song..and It’s a very self-aware song..you have to have some self-awareness to write from that perspective surely”.

Harry answered immediately “Yeah for sure…Boyfriends was written right at the end of Fine Line” Harry explained “Boyfriends is about like…we’re all flawed you know..and I think pretending like we’re not, I just don’t get it..It’s acknowledging my own behaviour, it’s looking at the behaviour I’ve witnessed..I grew up with a sister so it’s like watching her date people and watching friends…but at the same time admitting I’ve not been a perfect boyfriend either”.

---

“Love of My Life..I’d always wanted to write a song about like home and loving England…and all of that kind of stuff..and it’s kind of hard to do that you know”

“So Love of Love My Life is about home and England?” Zane asked with a slight smirk on his face.

“As I started making them album…I realised it wasn’t about the kind of geographical location…it was more of an internal thing” Harry tried to hide his bashful smile by rubbing his finger under his nose.

“Do I see Harry Styles blushing?” Zane began to tease Harry.

Harry lets out a loud chuckle and tries to hide his face in his hands “You know..I’ll admit that I blush sometimes…especially when it comes to YN!”.

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misty-caligula · 1 year ago

Text

Okay this is gonna be long, but I’ve got a lot of ground to cover so please bear with me. In a real way, this is my series thesis.

I’ve said before, many times now (like a cycle) that for me the most important scene is ep 1 act 1 scene 1. There’s something There that I have been struggling to see clearly, struggling to articulate, and s2e9 really finally gave me the last pieces for it.

I think that Pit Girl is the point of the entire story. But not in the way that I thought going in. I feel like I’m rambling, so I’m going to try to structure my thoughts.

Imagine you’re a new viewer. You haven’t watched yj start to finish 30 times, you’ve never even buzzed before. You turn on the tv and the FIRST thing that happens is you see ... brutality. A half dressed girl chased through the freezing woods, murdered without a chance. They drag her through the snow, string her up, pour her blood on the ground. Hack her into unrecognisable chunks. Sit around in scary outfits and rip at her, with a huge focus on the teeth, as horror music plays. Then, Misty takes off her mask, puts on her glasses, and does the worst possible thing. She smiles. Directly at you.

Again, forget everything you know and go on vibes. You’re seeing the teens pre-crash, and you’re seeing them in the third timeline, fully formed, with horror motifs and covered in fur. You’d be mistaken for thinking that you were seeing start and end. Except that... we know, and you know, that Pit Girl is the middle. These monsters somehow came back from this. How? When they’re so so so far gone?

Hence the show. I know I’m not breaking new ground here, but bear with me. I’m going somewhere.

(Edit: Readmore added because honestly, LONG post)

You’d be forgiven, fresh-faced new viewer, for thinking you were watching some kind of gross-out slasher. But what happens in S1? Restraint. Laura Lee, the first non-crash victim dies at the end of episode eight. Jackie end of ep 10. (For the sake of this thesis we’re going to be almost exclusively focused on the teens.)

And yet there’s this tonal shift, It’s like ... inevitability. Like watching a crack in a window that’s very slowly spreading. Everything is steadily Getting Worse. The weather is slowly getting colder, the days are getting darker, food’s getting scarcer, life is getting harder. But so much of this difficulty is coming from external events and pressure. Yes, cracks start to show in the internal relationship dynamics, of course, but if food was plentiful, if shrooms were less so, if the weather were better, then they could probably work out a very long term stable situation. Sadly for them, things are not stable, and the pressure is building.

Then Jackie dies and the glass gets a really big break.

It’s worth mentioning at this moment that Jackie at any time could’ve come the fuck inside. Safety and warmth and even love were available to her. All it would’ve required was for her not to be the centre of the world. To make actual goddamn concessions and join the team. Which is why she couldn’t possibly make that choice, because she had to be invited, she had to be apologised to, she had to be accommodated. She couldn’t see the rest of the ‘jackets as being people who just like her were in a really shitty situation. She saw them as being external, as being in cahoots against her, as being part of some Thing that she wasn’t in on. She couldn’t let go of the society they’d left, and she preferred to die. Which sure is a choice...

Keep all of that in mind though. We’re taught to blame Shauna for Jackie’s choices. Let’s stop with that. Jackie chose not to assimilate, she looked around the cabin at the team eating the bear and praying to the wilderness and instead of just paying lip service to fit in, like Tai, she decided to put her foot down and make a Thing of it. She decided that being Right was more important than being Included.

Seriously, keep that in mind, we’re coming back to it. Cycles, you know...

Season 2, everyone’s hungry and hey we have this spare Jackie lying around. And we joke like “ha, you gonna eat that?” Only...

No. They WEREN’T going to eat her.

Really think about that for a second. They put her in the meat shed. With the bear. Think about what that does, psychologically. Linguistically. The meat shed is made to store food. The bear has a word: carcass. Day after day after week after month they carve progressively more pathetic chunks from it, subsisting on what little it offers. In the EXACT same room, sitting right there is Jackie. Her body has a different name. Corpse. With many different connotations. At NO point does ANY of them raise the fact that they’ve taken their friend and added her to their meat stockpile.

Because they haven’t. Instead, they’ve added a new sub-room. The meat shed is now also a morgue. And nobody ever once had to say it. They got it. We got it. You got it. And while they starved and their bodies BEGGED for food, Jackie’s corpse lay there, frozen and fresh, and stubbornly refused to become a carcass, because they wouldn’t let it. They knew that there were more important things than meat, even when they were starving.

The bacchanal was a mistake. A literal error. It simply wasn’t planned, wasn’t meant to go down that way. Maybe if they HAD considered that route earlier and had a discussion about it they’d have been prepared, psychologically, maybe if they weren’t so starved. Who knows. But in the middle of the night they were offered a way out, and they took it.

But Shauna took it first.

Even in their state, even faced with an ideal roasted feast infront of them, they waited until Shauna said it was okay. Because Jackie was Shauna’s friend, and they knew that she was still a person. That this was still a corpse first. It was Shauna who was able to give them permission to survive. To turn a friend into a meal. It was not their place to take that step. To shoulder that guilt. So Shauna did it for them.

The next day they’re devastated. The heavy reality sets in, now the hunger is settled. And Jackie’s carcass is far too real, they can’t change her back into a corpse. Nat tries, bless her heart. But Tai’s screaming reaction at having eaten Jackie’s face is only an externalisation of the grief and horror and agony they’re all going through.

And after Jackie they starve again. Hope and heat and light dwindles further. Every single day they all take another step towards death. That’s what starvation is, it’s the same thing as dying, you die a little bit every day until you can’t die anymore.

Kristen falls. Misty doesn’t even consider that she might bring her back as meat. If she had’ve, she might think, maybe she’d be considered like ... heroic. It doesn’t even occur to her. She’s not going to LET those bitches eat her one and only friend, and she goes out of her way to protect her.

Shauna has her horror show birth. And, no matter WHAT the context is, she produces.... meat. In the most awful, brutal way. And while the fandom made so many jokes and stuff, the reality is that yes... at least to an extent there was real nutrients there. And it was never once even brought up as an option, by these desperate, starving girls.

When Coach tries to kill himself, here’s a ready source of willing meat. And Misty uses it as a threat to stop him. But it’s hollow, she’s just putting on fake fangs to try to keep him safe. She’s not actually that vicious thing that she’s pretending to be, just like she’s not actually homophobic.

When Lottie tells Misty to eat her if she dies, Misty fights her on it. Lottie has to insist. Then when she tells the rest of the team, they are so overwhelmed with the selflessness of the gesture that it inspires them to twist it into their first hunt. That’s what it takes. The hunt is an act of self-sacrifice and love.

And so we get to the hunt. The proto-pit-girl, we’ve come full circle and we start to learn all these answers to questions posed in act 1 scene 1. And they’re not the answers that were assumed.

How do they get to the point of eating each other? They sacrifice themselves willingly, for the sake of each other’s survival.

Why do they hunt the way they do? Because Shauna just can’t stand to murder a friend in cold blood, a friend she cares for and has no reason to hate.

Why the spike pit? Because it keeps the blood off their hands. Because it lets them blame It and preserve a tiny fragment of their innocence.

Why the weird symbols? The ritual itself? Because they need SOMETHING to hold onto, to make it all make sense.

Why so brutal? Is it? We THINK it’s brutal. It’s certainly bloody. But Pit Girl dies almost instantly. Her pain is over fast. She doesn’t have a good time going into it, obviously, none of them want to die. But she chose to run, she could’ve taken the knife instead. And the spike trap was efficient. Yes they drag her through the snow and string her up, but it’s mechanical and just part of the process and she’s dead already. Her pain is over fast, it’s not sadistic.

Why do they chop her up into chunks like that? Because nobody wants to eat her face. Because nobody wants to struggle with her humanity, they want her to look just like any other meat. So that they might be having deer or bear or ... friend. They’re eating because they are biological machines that need to eat, that NEED death to survive. They didn’t ask to be made the way they are, and they’re doing their best to cope. Shauna, probably blindly, takes on that responsibility, to transform their friend into unrecognisable meat to change a corpse into a carcass. She takes that pain for them, holds that sin for them, out of love. So they can eat, so they can survive.

What’s with the creepy horror masks? During the ritual they can’t handle being themselves. They create alternate versions of themselves to hold what must be done. The masks aren’t there to scare anyone, because there IS NO AUDIENCE. The masks are there to hide behind. That’s why Misty takes hers off at the end of the scene. The ritual is over and they can go back to being people again.

Why is Misty fucking Quigley in charge? Because she CAN be. Because she’s strong enough. If Lott/Nat/The AQ is the goddess/queen, Misty is the priestess/handmaiden, tasked with actually carrying out her orders. She interprets the queens words when she’s too weak, she provides counsel when she needs it, she tells the team what they need to hear in the moment, she gives out the micromanagement. Misty’s the power behind the throne, because when she says she’ll do something she fucking follows through. No matter the cost. And what the team NEEDS, whether they choose to admit it or not, is a backbone.

So...

They bring home Javi. The music uses a reference that’s never been done before. It uses the spiritual powerballad that was playing when Laura Lee tried to fly away. It builds the expectation of Great Things, of big, potent ...

And then it just stops. As the girls are faced with the reality of what’s laying on the table. The cold, blue corpse of a soft child who never hurt anyone. No matter what they do, no matter how hard they try they just cannot make him a carcass. But they have made the choice already, and if they turn back now it’s not like it’ll bring him back. They’ll just be starving and regretful as he rots.

So Shauna, blind and shaking, does the best she can. And when she brings in the meat, she - of all people - understands EXACTLY what Travis is going through. She knows what he needs. Because she’s been here. With Jackie. So she brings him Javi’s heart. His core. His love. His soul.

(She doesn’t bring him Javi’s head. She cuts that off and puts it aside so nobody has to eat his face... Some things are worth more than pure nutritional survival.)

And Travis, god bless him, does the only thing he can do left to respect Javi. He takes his heart, and he bites it, raw and bloody.

It hurts him to do so. It disgusts him so much, but he manages not to throw up. It disgusts the girls too, but they watch on, horrified. And that’s the POINT. Travis makes sure that before they do this, before they do what they have to... that they all remember this is Javi, this is human, this is a person. And he preserves the horror. For all their sakes. And only then, after he’s given his blessing, after he’s done his human acts, do these starving, ravenous girls allow themselves to reach for their food.

S1E1. Act 1, scene 1. We do not know who Pit Girl is. We do not know the exact circumstances that get us there. But we do know where we started now. What the original meaning is behind each of these little things. And it’s not brutality, not barbarism. It’s love. It’s not lord of the flies, a bunch of monstrous human-shaped creatures giving in to their primal nature and predating on each other. It’s a team of terrified people desperately clutching at their own humanity as hard as they can. Trying SO hard not to let that glass break, to not become the thing that the framing of act 1 scene 1 tried so VERY hard to convince us they were. Context changes everything.

And the proof is in the pudding. After they eat Jackie the shock explodes throughout the cabin. The atmosphere is thick, and horrific. Now with Javi, reduced to simple meat, carefully and lovingly seperated from what made him human, so they can grieve him while they sate their natural needs, the mood post-eating is calm and soft and warm and loving. For once they’re all together, with grateful full stomachs and in a time of peace and plenty. They’ve done the impossible and maintained their humanity and love for each other and their respect for Javi in a nearly impossible situation.

*takes a deep breath*

Which brings us to THIS asshole.

Right from the start, Jackie is only kind of part of the team. She’s the team captain, put up there by Coach Martinez, but not because she’s the best of them but because she can maybe wrangle them into doing better. And they KNOW that she’s not really one of them. They plot around her, and just don’t bring her in on it. They put up with her, more than loving her, she’s just kind of forced upon them. But she does her best, to try to maintain some semblance of order, giving pep talks and the like.

Wait, Jackie? I mean coach. My bad.

Anyway, so Jackie has one friend, Shauna. She SEEMS popular, and everyone talks to her, but Shauna’s the only one who actually likes her. And Shauna’s her connection point to the team. She’s got one foot on each side, and is torn as to where her real loyalties lie.

Sorry I’m talking about Jackie again.... weird.

In S1E9/10 Shauna finally chooses the team, for real. And Jackie tries to pull her back away, but Shauna puts her foot down. No way, she counters, I’m ON the team, you’re the odd one out. Why don’t YOU leave, Jackie? Jackie looks around at the burgeoning cult, she thinks “Look at these evil monstrous bitches, and now Shauna’s one of them TOO?” And instead of finding a compromise, instead of doing introspection, instead of anything like that, Jackie goes and freezes to death because it turns out that sheer rage won’t keep you warm in sub zero temperatures. Because no matter what happens, Jackie’s Right and it’s more important to her to be Right than Included. If she’s not in charge than why is she even THERE?

Hold on, I see my mistake. Let me backtrack.

Right from the start, Coach is only kind of part of the team. He’s trying to hide from his real life, from Paul and the complexities of being genuine in society by taking on the job of coaching the ‘jackets. And they KNOW that he’s not really one of them. He’s just the guy they have to listen to, because society put him there. But he tries his best, giving pep talks and the like.

So Coach has one friend, Natalie. He SEEMS popular, and everyone talks to him, but Nat’s the only one who actually likes him. (Ignore Misty, a schoolgirl comphet crush is not the same thing). And Nat’s his connection point to the team. She’s got one foot on each side, and is torn to where her real loyalties lie. Sometimes she’s on the bench with Coach, complaining about the state of things. Sometimes she’s in the thick of it with them all, and Coach is nowhere to be found.

In S2E9, Nat finally chooses the team, for real. And Coach tries to pull her back, but Nat puts her foot down. No way, she counters, I’m ON the team, I’m worse than them, you’re the odd one out. Go, save yourself, you don’t belong in this place. Coach looks at a table covered in blood and gore, at Nat’s face, at the rest of the team pledging fealty to her. And instead of looking for context, or looking for compromise, or even remotely trying to understand what he’s looking at he thinks

Look at these evil monstrous bitches. They’re eating each other. They’ve all gone mad. They’ve even gotten Nat now. There’s no hope for them, there’s no hope for anyone out here.

And he decides that they’re corrupt. That the way you deal with that is fire. And he’s wrong.

(I have a theory that he’s gone and jumped off the cliff, that he set the fire to clear the corruption, and now like Jackie, unable to live in this situation any longer, he’s decided to die himself. I’d not be surprised to find him in s3e1 that way)

Jackie was a frustrating, difficult person. Because no matter how things went she just COULDN’T let go of the fact that she was trying to fit a mold that just didn’t suit her. She was raised with super high expectations, when she was really just kind of mid. And that’s fine, honestly, most people ARE mid, that’s why it’s mid. But she refused to see that those around her were shedding their social pressures, were adapting to the wilderness. They weren’t having a good time, they weren’t hunting and foraging because they were out there, camping for fun. Nobody wanted to be there. They were just trying not to complain about it, because they were all in the same boat.

Coach is similar. He simply won’t adapt. Refuses to. I mean this is a guy who’s STILL trying to live in the closet when there’s open lesbians making out in public around him. Who thinks of others as inherently monstrous when he himself, as a gay man, should know better. Because that’s what trying to fit your society-assigned role does to you.

It’s no accident that he and Jackie both spend a long time in the woods and neither of them can do something as basic as start a fucking campfire. Javi, a little kid, survived for MONTHS on his own in that cave. Coach couldn’t make it a day alone. Jackie couldn’t get through a night. They both rely so heavily on the team without ever once recognising it. Because SOMEONE was keeping the fires going. They both just ... refused to engage.

And just like Jackie can’t see that they’re not having fun out there in the woods, on the knifes edge of survival, Coach can’t see that they’re not having fun when they are so desperate they feel it’s warranted to sacrifice one of their own. He always thought of them as monsters, and he just sees what he expects to: a bunch of stupid useless teenage girls, finally doing what he always expected they would.

At any point... At ANY point he could’ve come in from the cold. He could’ve just accepted reality as they have. He could’ve taken some meat and accepted the price, as they have, joined them in their GRIEF about it, shared their humanity, and survived. Just as Jackie could’ve come in from the cold, and become part of the whole. But instead, they sit in the cold, consumed by their bitter hate, and decide that no, it’s everyone ELSE who’s wrong.

And who emerges from the burning cabin? A bunch of scared kids. Shauna, the FIRST cannibal, who saves Jackie’s prom dress before anything else. Travis, who grabs Javi’s wolf. Nat who grabs the ammunition - that they NEVER use on each other - because if they lost that they’d get SERIOUSLY desperate. And they protect each other, they make sure everyone makes it out. These supposed monsters who are so far gone they don’t even care about eating each other go out of their way to save each other, not just themselves.

Because Coach is wrong. Just like Jackie was wrong. Just like WE were wrong, in s1e1. Which brings me to my actual point.

This question is asked so many times in S1 it’s almost a mantra. And the ‘jackets’ oath of silence really builds up that it must’ve been something REALLY bad, right? But S2E9 has really made me recognise that fundamentally... Act 1 Scene 1 is entirely what everyone who asks this question is expecting.

Imagine they DID know what really happened out there. With that bloodthirsty fucking look in their eyes...

They’re not looking for an answer. They’re looking for a story. For an exciting spooky nightmare they didn’t take part in, so they can get a shiver and a thrill they didn’t earn.

They’re not looking for a love story. They’re not looking to hear how HARD these scared, tragic, broken people fought to hold onto their morals and their humanity and their sanity even against their own survival. They’re not interested in Shauna blinding herself just to try to stop her hands from shaking. They’re not looking to hear about Travis choking down the blood of his brother just to make sure that he can really FEEL it. So he can share the guilt, and never ever pretend like it’s Just Meat. The look in his eye when he can’t think of any good response to Van’s arguments that he needs to let Javi save him. What they want is...

They don’t want the context. And if the ‘jackets ever did try to tell anybody what actually DID happen out there, all they would see is ... Episode 1, Act 1, Scene 1. A bunch of monsters. Eating each other. Just like Jackie. Just like Coach. Just like we did, on first glance.

I’ve been saying this whole time that Yellowjackets is doing something really special. That it’s letting us see behind the curtain, that while everyone’s asking this big question, “what really happened?”, we’re the ones who get to know. Because it can’t be told. It can’t be spoken. It can only be seen. Experienced. I think that S2 has finally finished the first major arc in the teen timeline, that we now have the context to understand what comes next. And I do believe that it will get messy, it will devolve. Into fighting and screaming and battles. It’s tragic, but it looks like that’s the downward spiral, spiraling. As Travis and Nat deal with the guilt of what they did with Javi for each other. As Shauna and Nat butt heads and people pick sides. As Misty Mistys. As resources get even more desperate now their shelter is gone. As potentially new people (hikers? other cabin people?) get brought into conflict with them (I believe the cabin is a smoke signal, personally).

But don’t ever forget that we got here with love. Expect that the downward spiral will be lubricated with toxic, broken, codependant, self-destructive love as well. Watch them love each other to death... they’ve already begun.

#yellowjackets #spoilers #theories #Long post #no really long post

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coquelicoq · 1 year ago

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[Image description: Still from the episode. Natori is sitting across a table from an offscreen Natsume, with his shiki Urihime and Sasago on either side of him. /end ID]

Rewatch: S1Ep9 Ayakashi Exorcism

The 1st Horrible Exorcists Rewatch Post What is the horrible exorcists rewatch?

🌹 Summary Natsume meets Natori, an actor by day and exorcist by night.

🌹 Canon Notes +the episode corresponds to the manga volume 2 chapter 7 +natori wears…something that is called a hat, for the lack of a better term. good going with the bucket hat, natori, four for you natori +not everyone can see the lizard youkai on his body (even those with the sight might not necessarily see it), since natori makes a comment to natsume “you can see this too?” after he is already aware of natsume’s powers +natori speculates that the lizard youkai might “eat his lifespan…” or something +shiki can be made transportable by transforming into a version of a paper doll (the giant paper doll that initially chases natsume turns into sasago)– although it is not clear if only natori has this ability, or if this is something that other exorcists can also do +hiiragi recognizes that natsume has met natori, because she recognizes natori by scent +natori’s mother had passed when he was young. the rest of his family believes that he brings bad luck to them because of he has the sight +hiiragi becomes one of natori’s shiki

🌹 Comments Natori is, undeniably, a pretty big jerk in his first appearance, what with testing natsume’s power instead of asking him about it, following him around town when natsume is annoyed by it, and reacting only with mild amusement when urihime attacks natsume for insulting natori when they were both in a cafe. He smiles and laughs often, even if it does come off as insincere. His viewpoint on youkai is made clear as well: “They’re always irrational, and such an annoyance” and “Youkai hurt people,” he says, like those are the only things that youkai do.

Nyanko-sensei does not…seem to blame natori for this view and almost, just almost, sounds a little sympathetic for him: “I could feel his hatred for youkai when he touched me. Despite what he says, he must’ve gone through a lot with them.”

Natori, without hearing much about natsume’s life, also inevitably sees (or can infer) the parallels between them: “When I look at you, it reminds me of my old self.” Whether this comment is more about their powers or about the kindness (you’re just a nice kid) that natori thinks of when he thinks of his old self is not spelled out. Likewise, the “these glasses are fake” comment also hints? teases? at certain layers in natori’s personality; the glasses are fake, but it helps him do his other job–his exorcist job–better. How much of natori’s current personality and mannerisms are due to his own internal emotions, and how much of it is shaped by the demands of his jobs (a movie star is charming–so he gets used to smiling, can summon sparkles on command; an exorcist needs to act quickly against youkai that could possibly hurt humans, regardless of the youkai’s intention–so he strikes first, seals away any weaknesses in himself, any outward signs of kindness).

Natori’s past, even if it only shows up for less than 3 minutes of the episode, adds another painful note to his character: “The old man says I call forth bad luck because I can see weird things. But if so, someone should’ve just gotten rid of me before it happened.” The early death of his mother, his hatred of youkai tied to his own self-loathing and his family’s belief that shuuichi’s very existence hurts others…and still, he worries about hiiragi, a youkai he doesn’t know, because he sees that she is bleeding. We don’t get a whole picture of natori’s character yet, just from his first appearance, but we get enough pieces to wonder about; charm and cynicism and a buried core of compassion somewhere in between all those elements (a 50/50 chance he could free hiiragi, a 50/50 chance whether he would be natsume’s ally or antagonist).

Feel free to reblog with your own comments or to link and type a separate response post :DDD More exorcists meta can be read here. Other rewatch posts will be tagged with ‘horrible exorcists rewatch’

#what kills me is when natori says to natsume (what i think is?) VERBATIM the thing hiiragi said to him as a child #(even though he's forgotten hiiragi and this is before he meets her again)#'you're a nice child. you're just a nice child.' and pats him on the head just like hiiragi did to him!#he doesn't remember her but he's mirroring her and the kindness she showed him #he sees his child self in natsume and this is how he reacts. just. UGH #i just rewatched the nanase backstory ep so it's striking to me that with both nanase and natori we meet them first as #jaded adult exorcists with more or less ruthless views on ayakashi #and then we see flashbacks to formative positive interactions they had with ayakashi as children. but we know what #they grow up to do. as if the pressures of the exorcist world into which they were born were just too strong #whereas with natsume we see a lot of flashblacks of negative interactions with ayakashi #but he's not born into the exorcist world and he doesn't grow up to be ruthless #he was alone & isolated & no one understood him. but that also meant he was free from that toxic influence & worldview #much 2 think about...as always #natsume's book of friends #natori shuuichi #natsuyuu meta #thank you so much for this series of rewatch posts op it is SO helpful !

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kanmom51 · 3 months ago

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Please help 😅 I think there is something or some conversation l have missed in JIKOOK’s timeline. Something about our Jimin getting so upset that he left the members and went home to heal from some trauma caused by V & Jk ?? The next we heard about him was when he was hospitalised suffering from covid?? Please fill in the blanks for me if you know any deets.. l would be grateful. No pressure though😂🫶🏽

Idk what fan fiction this is from, but WOW.

JM healing from trauma caused by V and JK?

The next was when he was hospitalized with covid?

Bull bloody shit is what I can tell you.

But let's look at the timeline why don't we?

At least what we know of it.

JM was hospitalized end of January 2022. Not because of covid but because of his appendix, and when in hospital tested positive for covid.

This followed the group going on a break after their 4 concerts in LA in November 2021.

Last time we had all three together was in their live on 28 November 2021. That was a chaotic super happy live. Only bullying I can think of, jokingly, would be Tae constantly mentioning brand names he wasn't supposed to, lol.

You can find many links to posts I wrote about that live here:

Then JK and JM returned to Korea with Jin. Just the three of them. They were supposed to go into quarantine as they returned, separately, as the government rules stated, and yet JK waited for JM at the airport upon their arrival thinking that they will be sharing a car only for the two to be separated.

There is absolutely, and I repeat absolutely NOTHING to show that there was anything wrong between JM and JK at that place and time!!!

JM and JK were fine, and there was no bullying going on from Tae and JK. What AO3 fanfic is that even?

As for the stupidity I've been hearing of since Ep. 3 of Are you sure? JK and V bullying JM, like wtf is wrong with people?

Every time I think people have reached the limit of being the worst they just prove that they can surpass themselves.

I think people lack basic ideas of human interactions if they claim that the playfulness we saw in that episode can be called bullying. If that's bullying then every single time those three played throughout the years would also be. These are 3 young men who grew up together and at times roughhouse. Like men do.

I've kind of lost hope in trying to explain to these people, who love to see JM as a victim, and therefore think they are his knights in shining armour, that JM is a grown ass man who knows exactly how to put both JK and Tae in their places if he wanted to!!! He's got the physical strength to do so, not to mention the personality too. He's known to have done both, when he wanted. And here's the news flash. Maybe he didn't want to! JM knows how to be assertive. Being such a nice human being doesn't make him a weak human being. I think that many of those that claim to love him and want to protect him either don't know him at all or want him to be weak so they can show up as his great protectors against the big bad JK, whom they would love to get rid of, cause he's just not good enough for JM, in their warped reality. Perhaps because they want JM for themselves.

JK is the person that JM loves most in this world.

The person that stood by JM's side and supported him when he was going through the turmoil he was experiencing during the pandemic.

The person that JM wanted to go on these trips with and came up with the idea to create this show so that they can go on these trips together.

The person that he flew from Korea to NY to be with for his solo debut.

The person that he can't stop talking about and bringing up in conversations that have really nothing to do with him, like during the Minimoni album exchange.

The man he chose to write a song for and write these lines to:

Baby, don't leave Just stay by my side, yeah To you, who see me bigger than what my little self is (to you) So that I can give as much as I’ve received (oh-oh) So that I can keep my word (oh-oh) Don't worry, just stay by my side, yeah (Yeah) We don’t know what the future holds (holds, yeah) And that’s scary and makes us afraid (oh-oh) But don’t forget that we’re always together (don't forget)

The person he chose to enlist with and be with for the 18 months of their military service, even though it meant a more difficult placement, even though it would raise eyebrows and questions marks seeing that the two are the first ever idols, both in their late 20s to do this!!

I've said this once I've said this a thousand times. People need to go live their lives and stop looking for drama where it doesn't exist in JM and JK's life.

They are together.

They are good.

Even if they are idols and public figures.

Even if they are two gorgeous young men who happen to love each other and are, god forbid, in a queer relationship.

Even if being in a queer relationship in their industry and society is frowned upon.

All those don't mean that their relationship isn't just a normal stable long term relationship with everything that such a loving relationship entails, including the struggles.

Enough with trying to insert drama where there is none.

#ask #Jikook #Kookmin #Minkook #Jungkook #JM #Jimin #JK

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piratekane · 22 days ago

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A post-ep piece from ep. 7 of Agatha All Along, Death's Hand In Mine (aired October 23, 2024) below the cut!

Death comes for Lilia, softened at the edges.

No, not Death. Rio. Rio, face rounded in sympathy, so unlike the vision in the tunnels. She smiles and it’s warm, caring. In all the dreams Lilia had about Death, it was never a face she recognized, never a face so open and kind. But as reality leaks away, she thinks: maybe this is a face I’ve seen before. Maybe I’ve been seeing this face my whole life.

“Did you take Alice?”

Alice. Her coven sister. Protector. The Knight of Wands. Lilia hopes she was held, helped. And Rio, that softness still etched across her face, nods silently. Lilia exhales, some of the pressure in her chest easing away.

“And Jen? Teen?” She pauses. “Agatha?”

She doesn’t imagine the slight flinch on Rio’s face. She can see now. Everything. All threads. All motes in the air. All flecks of want in Death’s eyes.

“They will face the road,” Rio finally says. “I will be there if they are ready.”

Lilia hopes—if, if they fail, if the road swallows them whole—that Death is kind to them. That Death comes in a soft green shawl like the one she’s wearing now, a flower in her hand and a warmth in her eyes. They deserve that. Jen. Teen. Even Agatha deserves a moment where the world stops pushing at her. If only she would stop pushing back.

But they are her coven. They are her family. She sacrificed for them, gave them a way forward and stayed behind to seal the path from the danger she could control. And she would do it again. It’s probably why Death comes to her as Rio, a kindness for a kindness. The choice she was always destined to make. All roads led to this Road, led to these people, and for the first time in centuries, she had something worth losing.

They are her coven. Death will not take that away from her.

“I’m ready.” She declares it with a strength that she thinks has always been there, just dampened for so long.

Rio smiles, a slight sharpness in the corners before it’s gone, and offers her hand. “Then let’s walk, witch.”

Witch. She loves the sound of that.

Lilia takes her hand and the world shifts into muted colors that stretch as far as she can see. At the end, something sparkles. She knows that place, the face at the end of the tunnel. Hope blooms in her chest as the picture takes shape. She feels herself running, body shifting as she goes, and it becomes easier. The air tastes sweeter. The sun is shining.

Rio’s hand slips from hers and she feels weightless, but tethered to a moment in time—a first in a long while.

She doesn’t hear the goodbye. Death whispers it still.

#agatha all along #lilia calderu #not me returning from the grave to post a piece of flash fiction and then disappearing again #i just have feelings and my wife continues her perfect record of never watching the same shows as me #listen i've been quietly on the marvel train for YEARS with my brother and AAA has exceeded all my wildest dreams #i may need another round of mental health folks #okay byeeeee

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bitterbutblue · 2 months ago

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What if i request Robin x Fem!Reader where Robin felt a bit pressured from the media and as her beloved girlfriend you help her relief stress :33

It can be fluff or smut, i dont rlly care i just want more Robinnn content :333

Thank you in advance!!!

Also can i be 🍷 anon? :3

you're not bad, but rather good ☆ robin x fem!reader

~ omg hi!!!! ur my first anon this is so exciting.... i don't do smut but i can totally do fluff.. anything 4 u <3

gonna start naming out the song lyrics i've been using as titles

loveable ~ jo yuri <3 ~

── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ──── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ──── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ──── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ────

Robin's recent comeback- a miserable failure.

Robin's new EP 'Welcome To My World' has been nothing but a colossal failure. With each new album, Robin continues to disappoint- fans are sick of her low effort songs and lack of stage presence. Her comeback stage shows her clearly lack of passion. Just because she has made a name for herself does not mean she can now slack off on stage when fans pay thousands to see her-

You closed the article before you finished reading it. If you continued, you probably would've ended up throwing your phone across the room or do something along the lines of that sort of stupidity that you would end up regretting later. That article was like a knife through the heart for Robin but for you it was a knife through the author's decaying and bleeding out body as you stab that fucker over and over again. Okay, maybe that was too violent but fuck you can't stand to see people say such bullshit about your girlfriend. She called you at work, crying and saying she couldn't do it anymore. You could barely make out her words through her sobs and the bad signal (which led you to believe she was hiding in the bathroom).

"I worked so hard, I don't know what they want from me. I can't-"

"Robin, baby, deep breaths- okay? I'm right here, it's okay."

It infuriates you, how people can run their mouths and say whatever bullshit that comes to their mind just because they're not satisfied with their own miserable lives. Just because they feel like dragging someone down would perhaps make themselves feel better about the fact that someone half their age is more successful than they will ever be. You want to tell her that you'll fucking find them and make their life a living hell but that's definitely not what she wants to hear right now.

"What do they want from me? I'm so tired, I don't wanna do this anymore."

All you really could do was continue to comfort her, hoping that she can pick up what you're saying through the static and cut offs due to bad internet. You just stayed with her until her cries became sniffles and she stated that she has to go before they suspect anything. You swallowed back your worry and just nodded.

"Okay. I love you, Robin.

You can feel her smile from across the phone.

"I love you."

That night you spent the entire evening in the kitchen, prancing around and trying not to burn the eight things you have going on the stove as you flip through your phone to find that recipe for the thing in the oven that looks horrifically bad.

"Ah fuck..."

You check the time- 8:03, she should be back soon. You finally find the recipe page and you feel your heart drop. Fuck, you were supposed to bake it for 30 minutes- not 50! No wonder that shit looked so wrong! You scramble to pull it out of the oven, the timer with 5 minutes left. You groan when you see how it looks- first it looked wrong and now it was probably burnt too. So much for making your girlfriend's favourite dessert.

"Love?"

The soft voice startles you, yelping as you dropped the cake pan.

"Shit!"

Robin stands there in all her glory. She looks exhausted, eye bags worse than before and shoulders sagged but to you she was still the most beautiful woman you have ever laid your eyes on.

"Everything okay?"

She tries to smile at you but it looks so forced. You feel your heart clenching in your chest as you pick up the cake pan from the ground, moving it back onto the counter.

"Baby, just let me take care of you tonight?"

You pull her in close, hugging her tight. She freezes at first, before completely melting in your grasp. She lets out a shaky sigh as she buries her head in the crook of your neck.

"I missed you."

Her voice is muffled against your shoulder but you just smile as you tiptoe to press a kiss to her forehead.

"I missed you so much, baby." You pull away, cupping her face with your hands as you brush your thumb against her cheek. "You look beautiful."

"Don't lie."

She gets flustered so easily, face turning pink as she looks away but she can't stop the small smile from forming on her face.

"I'm not. You look beautiful."

She sighs as she looks back at you, and the tired expression on your usual warm and happy girlfriend really does hurt you. The way the media can tear people down into nothing but the most insecure parts of themselves has always rubbed the wrong way with you but watching it happen to the one you love most is absolutely heartbreaking.

"I made you dinner?"

"I saw."

Her smile is not as forced now as she looks around the kitchen, a soft giggle escaping her lips.

"Quite a mess you made."

You just shoot an embarrassed grin at her as you tried to hide the cake pan behind your back.

"Well, I'm not a good cook."

"I think you did amazing."

She steps forward, caging you between the counter and herself.

"You make the worst days brighter, you know?"

"You make each of my days better. It's only fair I do the same to you."

Robin looks down, playing with her hands.

"I don't deserve you."

"Oh shut up."

The kiss was soft, gentle and loving. She cups your cheeks as she steps closer, bodies pressed against each other as you pour all the love you can convey through a simple act.

"I love you. I really love you so much, Robin." You say breathlessly to her when you pull away. She doesn't say much, only resting her head on your shoulder as she takes your hand into her own, lacing your fingers together.

"And I'm so proud of you for your new comeback. You've worked so hard and it paid off. You keep outdoing yourself and the people who don't see that can fuck off and die."

She sighs.

"No need for the violence, yeah?"

"Violence is always the answer."

You feel your heart flutter when she lets out a soft laugh, like a songbird's first melody of a new spring.

"You do whatever you want." She says, resting a hand on your chest as she leans in to press a quick but soft kiss to your lips. "Thank you- for this."

"Always."

The food you cooked was mostly inedible- resorting to the two of you ordering takeout together but you couldn't care less about the burnt cakes or undercooked mac and cheese. Robin is smiling again, and that's all you wanted to achieve for the night.

Response to: Robin's recent comeback- a miserable failure.

Robinsdog: op do u not have a life

servallandau_official: No one thinks this.

⤷ talesofthewinterlandsfan222: serval spitting facts but also what r u diong here

⤷ servallandau_official: Do I know you?

⤷ talesofthewinterlandsfan222: ENEVRMIND

march4robin: im giong to find u my entire crew is oing to find u we will run out train into u

galaticstelleballer: i am also going to run my train into u. and my bat. both at the same time.

⤷ dh: Guys please.

Sunday_Oakfamily: We are taking this post and the writer off the platform.

The article you are searching for no longer exists.

#honkai star rail #hsr #hsr x reader #honkai star rail x reader #hsr fic #robin hsr #hsr robin #robin x reader #hsr robin x reader #honkai sr #honkai star rail robin #penacony #hsr fluff #hope this is good anon!!#love u bbg

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kazumist · 11 days ago

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EPISODE 23 ✦ PLEASE DONT SAY YOU LOVE ME

LOVE, MAYBE — A CHILDE SMAU

masterlist / prev ep / next ep / wc: 838.

with an ice cream already consumed, ajax is walking you home now. it was a silent walk; only the sounds of the leaves slightly rustling around you as well as both of your footsteps can be heard in the area.

you liked childe—it took you long enough to realize that. but it’s still a lot for you to process. you think it’s mutual, but how can you be so sure? maybe childe is just like that to the people he cares about, right? but god, it surely makes your heart drop to your stomach at the thought of someone else also receiving this treatment from him.

is this an effect of an eldest daughter who’s also a hopeless romantic? perhaps. romantic love was an unfamiliar concept to you, after all. no matter how much you read or consume media that consists of the theme of romance, it will never be enough to give you the understanding that you wish to grasp with the concept. before you knew it, you had already let your words slip.

"why are you doing this?"

"why shouldn't i be doing this?" he asks back, slightly tilting his head to the side.

"i don't get it, childe. why are you doing this?"

childe pauses for a moment, realizing that you are actually serious with your question. he doesn't reply immediately, finding the right words to say first.

"it's because... i love you," he says, only realizing it now as well. he had always liked you, of course, but ajax had only realized that he loved you. he had loved you for a while now.

"what?" you asked him in disbelief.

"i love you, (name)."

"but... why?"

"is a reason necessary?"

your breath hitched at his words. "i—of course it's necessary! i don't get it. i'm a difficult person. i refuse to communicate. i push people away even though deep inside i know i need help because, even as a child, i never got any sort of assistance to begin with. i pressure myself to the point it's way too overwhelming. i fear that one day i'll end up being useless in my own life. i can hardly even understand myself so what more if others would try? i... i find that i'm undeserving of love because there are others who need it more than me."

"so please, ajax. there's no use in loving me. you'll just get tired in the end. there's someone out there who's more deserving of the love you have to give."

please don't say you love me, because i might not say it back.

"no."

"what? didn't you hear what i just said? i'm difficult to love, ajax—"

"i heard it, but that doesn't change the fact that i still love you nonetheless," he replies, taking a step closer.

"(name), i love you with everything i am, everything i've been, and everything i hope to be, and i'll continue to love you even when you push me away. i will always find my way home to you. i'll be there to pull you back up before you sink any further under the pressure you give yourself. you'll never be useless—i'll make sure that you never feel that way. i will understand you no matter whatever it is that needs to be understood with you."

"you are not undeserving of love, because if there's one person in the world that i'd choose to pour my love on, it would be you," he finishes.

“i… no.”

“what?”

“no—i.. i can’t. i’m sorry, tartaglia.” the use of his last name stung for him a bit. “it’s fine if you can’t right now; i’m willing to wai—” you cut him off before he could finish the word. “don’t!” he flinches at the sudden raise of your voice and is taken aback. “why?”

“please… just don’t. there’s others who are better and more deserving of you than me. why me? you’ll just be wasting your time if you wait for me. i probably wouldn’t be able to give you a proper answer. i.. how are you so sure that you love me?”

“that’s fine with me, (name). it’s okay for me to go through all of that because i know i would be doing it for you.”

stop it. please.

“my answer is still no.”

i’d rather not risk it. i don’t want to take someone for granted, especially if that someone is you.

“but—”

this is for the better.

“go away, ajax.”

he could feel the weakness in your voice when you said those three words. he tried to get closer by taking a step further, but you took a step back. that was when ajax realized that you were sure of your words. “let me still walk you home, just for tonight—this will be the last one,” he says. as you were about to decline, he spoke again first. “i don’t want you to walk home alone when it’s dark.”

even if this might be the last time i’ll get to do this.

extra notes.

wow double update ?!?! watch me ghost this app again for 2 months ... kidding !

had this episode sitting my drafts for MONTHS. im pretty sure this episode has been written ever since i was still uploading ep 5 maybe? somewhere during the making of the early episodes LAWLZ

smau playlist linked here !! pls give it a listen it gives u the extra feels 😋 this episode is highly inspired by please don't say you love me by gabrielle aplin <3

taglist (open): @xianyoon @mitsvriii @kizakiss @kissingkzuha @aethion @phtogravi @ell1e2010 @esthelily @b4tm4nn @hcmay @ivvieene @morganadorodo @kaitfae @kentply @scaranthropy @kyon-cherri @kookiibun @kochothehoe @mekiiiii @ibyobi @iuspired @tetsuskei @kunikuzushis-darling @morgyyyyyyy @chluuvr @scaradooche @kissmiere @a1-ic3 @bubblegum-angelquartz @tiredjxnna @levlucs-kiru @angeilix @cerisescherries @saeskiss @a-talkative-corn @briluvspnk @kamisatoyato @bbysatoruuu @viviixoxosblog @bambisz @chemiru @eternal-dokja @bflyprincess @jamieexistss @monocerosei @enjisthings @jangyung @hahalame @cupid-spams @snzhrchy @ukinya @luciledreamz @bisatanica @bananasquash @almond-t0fu @thegalaxyisunfolding @jaguarthecat [1/2]

#( smau — love maybe ! )#genshin x reader #genshin impact x reader #genshin impact #genshin imagines #childe x reader #childe genshin impact #childe smau #ajax x reader #ajax #childe #x reader

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absolutebl · 8 months ago

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This Week in BL - Japan is Winning on Kisses & Other Alternate Realities

Organized, in each category, with ones I'm enjoying most at the top.

March 2024 Wk 4

Ongoing Series - Thai

Two Worlds (Thurs IQIYI) ep 3 of 10 - It would be great if we got the alternative romance with dead Kram from Tai’s perspective (JBL style.) Still I like this show. It’s a little bit like I Feel You Linger in the Air only with a love triangle. And while I'm not a fan of triangles as a general rule, I don’t mind it here because the set up is clever. Wayu and ao are fun sides too. It sure is moving very quickly, which I like. I’m not entirely sure what’s going on. But that’s normal for me with this kind of Thai drama.

Deep Night (Thurs iQiyi) ep 4 of 8 - They are extremely sappy boyfriends. I love that mom has a secret gf. Could we please have more of them? The love triangle sides are ridiculous, but I do like that it’s all out in the open. I also like they are actually addressing the complicated parental dynamics of owning a sex club. Honestly, I think Khem should have to be a host too. Learn him the right way, girl!

City of Stars (Fri iQIYI) ep 9 of 12 - It’s good, I like the fallout and them actually having to deal with crazy fans and past relationships. They’re so good at communicating it’s kind of a pleasure to watch them suffer through external pressures, because I have faith that they can make it through.

To Be Continued (Thai C3 Thailand grey) ep 6 of 8 - They are such cute puppy dads and so clearly meant to be together, the fact that they aren’t is just frustrating. The fight thing was stupid. And not a whole lot happened... plus singing. I’m getting fatigued with this one.

1000 Years Old ep 7 of 12 - Did I miss something happening, or did nothing happen?

Kiseki Chapter 2 (Sun iQIYI) ep 2 of 6 - It’s so boring, there’s so much guitar playing, and it got weirdly voyeuristic (in a very much not sexy way). I’m totally out. DNF

Close Friend Season 3: Soju Bomb! (Weds iQIYI) ep 3 of 6 - I can’t tell if this is trying to be a BL Romancing the Stone, or a BL Hangover, or both. The problem with situational comedy is it must be both situational and comedic, not just option one. The problem with calling something BL, is that it must be BL. This show got 1 of 3 claims correct. 33% is not a passing grade. DNF

Honestly, it's the HANDS with these two. They do beautiful beautiful things with their hands. If you're one of those hands-obsessed BLabies you should be watching LIBTSTA!

Ongoing Series - Not Thai

Unknown (Taiwan Tues Youku YouTube & Viki) ep 6 of 11 - So the worst finally happened. The mountain of pain has fallen down upon us. And now, hopefully in the second half things get better for our boys. But what a rough ride. Normally, this is not my style of BL, but everyone is doing such a gorgeous job with it, I can’t fault it… except that it hurts. The red thread symbolism was elegantly done. I’d like to hope we get a reunion in the next one, but knowing this style of series they’re gonna draw it out. There's gonna be a more pain first.

Love is Better the Second Time Around AKA Koi wo Suru nara Nidome ga Joto (Japan Weds Gaga) ep 4 of 6 - Those fuck me puppy dog eyes were perfectly executed. I would not have been able to resist either. Gosh they are so damn cute. This is a great show.

Jazz for Two (Korea Gaga/grey) eps 1-2 of 8 - This comes from the Shoulder to Cry On team so I'm scared, but this one is all actors* not idols so maybe they'll be braver. Boy howdy does it have a fantastic opening sequence. Also the lead is fucking adorable. Mr Broody McBroodypants is cute too. Korea sure loves “pretty but broken.” On the JBL end of the spectrum, is everyone in love with their siblings? That’s weird. The dining room scene was painful. All in all, it's good, I'm intrigued. Let's see how you go little show.

I stand absolutely corrected the lead is a member of NEWKIDD (in my defense I'd never heard of them until Build Up last month). I did recognize him from To My Star because at the time I thought he was too pretty to be only a side character.

AntiReset (Taiwan Fri Viki/Gaga) ep 10 fin - Again there was overuse of previous footage and maudlin navel-gazing grief over something we knew was going to happen. So I didn’t really feel much emotional connection to the drama. 7 year time gap.? t was a cute reunion but the moral quandary never really got resolved. I don’t know how to rate this, I’m not sure I will ever watch it again, so that is a big mark against it.

There’s nothing objectively wrong with this BL except how upsetting it is because of the foundational pygmalion story - grown man falls in love with an android who is basically both his slave and, by maturity level, a child. Yet that premise is crystal clear from the get go, so we watch it eyes open. The actors are cute, the romance sweet, the physical chemistry on point (of course, it’s Taiwan) and yet I was left ultimately unsettled by the concept, content, and plot. 7/10

My Strawberry Film (Japan Thurs Gaga) ep 7 of 8 - I'm so ready for this to be over, and for Gaga to have something good on. Soon please?

It's done, ready to binge, but I suck

What Did You Eat Yesterday Season 2 AKA Kinou Nani Tabeta? Season 2 (Japan Gaga) 10 eps

It's airing but...

Graduation Countdown (Taiwan YouTube) - It's too much to ask me to keep up with 2 minute verticals, I don't have that kind of TikTok endurance training. Waiting to binge.

A Secretly Love (Thai Sat WeTV grey) 10 eps - I watched the first ep but grey is too much work for this inferior of a show. I may pick up and binge if it gets distribution but for now, it gets a DNF from me. KimCop might have held this crap together but Kim without Cop? No thank you.

Lady Boy Friends (Thai WeTV grey) 16 eps - reminds me a bit too much of Diary of Tootsies only high school. Not my thing. DNF unless it turns a corner and is truly amazing.

Tangential to the genre

There has been the occasional discussion on this topic here in this little corner of tumblr so I thought there might be a few intersted in this podcast: AmericanThaiGuy Ron Weaver on the Complicated Issue of Racism in Thailand (The Bangkok Podcast)

Thailand passed its Marriage Equality bill through the lower house. It's expected to pass the high house and get signed by the King, but that hasn't quite happened yet.

And MaxTul dropped a photo shoot.

Next Week Looks Like This:

Starting Soon

3/31 Only Boo! (Thai GMMTV YouTube) 12 eps - New main couple for GMMTV in an idol romance about a boy who dances good and a food stand vendor. Other side of the tracks grumpy/sunshine pair who fall deeply in love but, of course, baby boy idol can't date. Boyband but from GMMTV? Control your singing and I'm game.

3/31 The Next Prince (Thai ????) 12 eps - trailer. ZeeNew in a fantasy/historical set in a palace where Zee plays a knight and Nu a prince - YES PLEASE. (Apparently this is just the pilot, not the start of the actual show, see comments.)

4/1 Love is like a Cat (Korea ????) 12 eps - This completed filming Aug 2022(!) which means there have been serious problems with post-production. This is another of Silkwood's Korean+Thai colab projects. Mew Suppasit plays a rookie film star, called the Cat Prince (for his cold arrogance) who goes up against a charismatic puppyish animal daycare director (JM of JUST B). There is a side romance (love triangle?) with a veterinarian. Geonu of JUST B is also in the cast. Dual languages.

Hum, trash-watch-a-licious?

4/3 We Are (Thai GMMTV YouTube iQIYI) 12 eps - University ensemble BL featuring PondPhuwin, WinnySatang, AouBoom, MarcPawinPoon - basically the good kind of messy gay friendship group (so more My Engineer and less Only Friends). Looks a bit like the Kiss series but everyone is queer. I'm IN!

4/11 Living With Him AKA Kare no Iru Seikatsu (Japan ????) 10 eps - Kindly Ryota goes off to uni only to find his new roommate is his childhood bestie, Kazuhito. Kazuhito doesn’t have a girlfriend and Ryota tries to help him figure out why, they fall in love along the way. Same director as Old Fashion Cupcake.

4/11 Gray Shelter AKA Gray Currents (Korea ????) 4 eps - SooHyuk is only just surviving and reunites with YoonDae, an old friend. They end up living together. One of the leads is played by Choco of Choco Milk Shake.

4/18 At 25:00, in Alaska AKA 25 Ji, Akasaka de (Japan Gaga - may not be global) 10 eps - Yuki lands his first starring role in a BL drama alongside superstar Asami (previously his senior at uni). Said superstar suggests they form a sham relationship until filming concludes. As they actually begin to fall in love, the spotlight begins to burn.

Seriously? You're killing me with these titles, boys.

4/26 My Stand-In (Thai iQIYI) 12 eps - adaptation of Chinese novel "Professional Body Double" by Shui Qiang Cheng. Stars Up (Lovely Writer) and Poom (Bake Me Please) directed by the same team as KP (not a recommendation IMHO - my biggest criticism of that show was the clashing directing styles). This one looks well complicated, lemme try: Joe is a stuntman for famous actor Tong. Joe falls in love with Ming but Ming sees Joe as nothing more than a Tong-replacement. After learning this horrible truth, Joe dies. Joe then wakes up in the body of another man also named Joe. He manages to rebuild the same life as before—with the same people eventually re-meeting Ming. Ming wants Joe back but Joe doesn't understand why. But Ming seems to know what's going on and wants to give him some kind of explanation.

I'm exhausted just trying to describe the plot.

Knock-Knock Boys (Thai WeTV) - 4 college friends conspire to help their friend lose his virginity. Familiar faces like Seng (yes, Billy's previous partner) and Best, news here.

Upcoming BLs for 2024 are listed here. This list is not kept updated, so please leave a comment if you know something new or RP with additions.

NOTE: It looks like one of my personal favorites of last year Unintentional Love Story is getting a spin off!

THIS WEEK’S BEST MOMENT

Just these two, in my head, rent free. Thanks Japan!

(Last week)

Streaming services are listed by how I (usually) watch, which is with a USA based IP, and often offset by a day because time zones are too much work.

The tag BLigade: @doorajar @solitaryandwandering @my-rose-tinted-glasses @babymbbatinygirl @babymbbatinygirl @isisanna-blog @mmastertheone @pickletrip @aliceisathome @urikawa-miyuki @tokillamonger @rocketturtle4

If ya wanna be tagged each week leave a comment and I will add you to the template. Easy peesy. (With so many tags when does a weekly tumblr post become a newsletter? That is this week's philosophical question...)

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hannyoontify · 1 year ago

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an interview with an angel - hong joshua

member | news reporter!joshua x fencer!reader

genre | meet cute, fluff

word count | 2.5k

synopsis | for some people, when they’re in a dire situation, god sends them an angel. for you, he sent you an attractive young man who goes by the name of ‘Joshua’

warnings | cursing, reader has a slight(?) panic attack but shua is an absolute sweetheart, poor flirting bc yours truly doesn’t know how to flirt

notes | inspired by that one scene in ep 6 of twenty five twenty one, not proofread

If you had to explain your current situation in two words, it would be royally fucked.

You’re a newbie, basically a nobody in the fencing world (according to Yu-rim’s kind words) that somehow managed to climb their way into the national fencing team and become a finalist in the Asian Games. No one knows how you did it, but when you first stepped onto the piste for your first match, you had managed to grab the attention of every person in the arena.

You’re a rising star, you realized. As you sit in your train seat and twiddle your thumbs impatiently, you notice more and more people stealing glances towards your direction. You don’t know when you transitioned from a nobody to a rising star, but something told you that qualifying for the national team played a big role in familiarizing your name with the general public. You found yourself slowly sinking into your seat, trying to hide yourself from the prying eyes of passersby, but your bright red fencing bag and your obvious national team jacket didn’t do a good job of keeping you low-profile.

You were a newbie, now a rising star, a rising star that is now royally fucked. After mixing up your fencing bag with another athlete from Singapore, you caught the first train to the station where the athlete and her couch were waiting, swapped bags, and you were now on your way back to Gyeongju. The scheduled arrival time was 1:05 pm, leaving you with plenty of time to go back, warm up, and maybe squeeze in a short interview.

It was now almost 2 pm and you were nowhere near Gyeongju. The train had inched forward maybeonly a few yards and that was an hour ago. You’re usually a calm person, the type to remain calm and composed under any amount of pressure, but today was different. This was your first international competition and you worked so hard to get to where you were now, you were not about to lose your chance to become Yu-rim’s rival because of a stupid delayed train.

You had been contemplating what to do for the past 30 minutes, and just as you finally made up your mind to try and talk to a staff member, the train lurched forward, chugging down the tracks as it picked up momentum.

“We apologize for the inconvenience, we will arrive at Gyeongju Station at 2:10 pm.”

Hearing this made you release a breath you didn’t know you were holding, and you could feel some tension leaving your shoulders. You glanced down at your watch. Your match was supposed to start at 3:00.

You could make it. There was no way in hell you were going to forfeit.

Joshua poked his head out the window and let out a loud groan when he saw the traffic in front of him. There was no way he could stop by SBS’s temporary office and get back to the arena in time. Most roads were closed off for the safety of the athletes participating in the Asian Games, meaning that everyone in the area had to use the same road to get to their destinations. Joshua isn’t usually an impatient person, but he was in a bit of a rush. He was supposed to submit his report for athlete Go Yu-Rim and return to the arena shortly after for his interview with athlete [Name].

He drummed his fingers against the wheel impatiently, checking his watch every 30 seconds out of pure annoyance. And as luck would have it, Joshua saw an incoming call from his fellow reporter, Yoon Jeonghan. Nothing good usually came out of calling with that sly man. Behind every word was a double meaning, and you would find yourself agreeing to anything that he said before you could even process what he was saying.

“SBS News, Joshua Hong speaki-”

“Of course I know it’s you, Hong Jisoo,” the voice on the other line sounded frantic. Panicked. This sent a wave of dread through Joshua’s body. Jeonghan was never frantic. Never. “Seungcheol’s waiting at the train station right now. His train was supposed to arrive an hour ago and I was supposed to pick him up since you were in the middle of a match. But his train got delayed by almost an hour and my event’s about to start- Do you think you can pick him up? He has an event at the same time as you and it won’t start for another hour, right?”

Joshua was at a loss for words. Almost nothing had gone right for him today, from the coffee spill on his work shirt this morning to the traffic mess in front of him and now this. He had to pick up Seungcheol, meaning that he wouldn’t be able to submit his report in time.

No matter. His friend was more important than a dingy old report.

“Sure, I can pick him up,” Joshua replied, already switching the gear of his car to take a left instead of continuing forward.

“Thank the great heavens above, you’re a godsend, Hong Jisoo,” Jeonghan rambled, his voice now sounding more distant as he presumably fumbled through his messenger bag to find his notepad and pen. “I’ll call you after your event is over, we deserve to get a drink after all the shit we went through today.”

“You got that right,” Joshua mumbled under his breath, his cellphone tucked between his ear and shoulder as he tried to maneuver through the cars to get to Gyeongju Station as fast as he could without breaking any traffic laws. “I’m hanging up now.”

“Bye, Shuji! Talk to you later.”

Once he grunted out a farewell, Joshua turned his attention back to the road as he pressed on the gas. Ten minutes passed quickly, and Joshua found himself running around the train station, looking for his blonde friend. Seungcheol had gotten in a lot of trouble from the company when he had first bleached his hair, saying that it made him look unprofessional and gave him a bad image. Fortunately for Seungcheol, he had two friends who had the best persuasive skills in probably the entire country. Joshua and Jeonghan had vouched for Seungcheol, convincing the head of the sports news that not only was Seungcheol a great reporter who was very thorough when he fact checks but he was also breaking stereotypes about dyed hair and the public’s perception of dyed hair.

Joshua searched the different boarding and disembarking platforms, looking for a familiar head of blonde hair, but it was nowhere to be found. He rested his hands on hips to catch his breath. He was more out of shape than he thought he was. Joshua made a mental note to start working out again regularly when he spotted a blur of bright red that zig-zagged around the big crowds of people.

Joshua almost immediately recognized that red bag. It belonged to you, a rising fencing star that he had been keeping an eye since the qualifiers for the national team. He sensed something from you. Perhaps it was potential, maybe stardom. He didn’t know yet, but he knew from the moment he saw you step onto the piste that you were going to do well.

But what the fuck you were doing here, 50 minutes before your first international game?

The moment you stepped off the train, you bolted through the station, not even sure of where you were going. You just knew you had to get back as soon as possible.

So when a strong hand grabbed your wrist, stopping you, you almost threw a flying kick out of pure frustration. The last thing you needed right now was a fan who wanted an autograph or some stranger who wanted to know why you carried a big red bag on your shoulders. (Yes you’ve gotten that question quite a bit since you were in middle school)

“Excuse me, but I really need to-” You turned around, ready to lash out on whoever was clueless enough to stop you. But instead, you were met with intense, sparkling doe eyes that peered into yours.

“Athlete [Name]? Why are you- Your game starts in less than 50 minutes, follow me!” Joshua grabbed your hand and began pulling you through the train station with amazing speed. If you hadn’t done that training with Coach Yang, you were pretty sure you wouldn’t be able to keep up right now.

Joshua wordlessly grabbed your fencing bag and threw it over his shoulder as he weaved through the big crowd, his hand never losing grip of your wrist. “Excuse me! Please make way! National athlete coming through! Future gold medalist right here, please make way!”

You felt your cheeks warming up at those words. Future gold medalist. You didn’t know who this man was, but did he really think you were good enough to become a gold medalist?

Joshua spotted a blonde head up ahead, but he had far more pressing matters now. Seungcheol raised his hand and greeted the familiar face with a smile. “Shua! You came to pick me up?”

Joshua ran straight past Seungcheol without sparing him a single glance.

Seungcheol pouted, upset that his friend had just completely ignored him until he noticed who Joshua had in tow. The rising fencing star, [Name]. He wasn’t sure what was going on, but Seungcheol decided to let it slide with a quiet chuckle.

Adrenaline coursed through your veins as you and the mysterious– and frankly attractive–young man ran into the bustling parking lot. Joshua reached into his pocket and fumbled for his car keys and pointed it to a blue, expensive looking car. It beeped back in response to its owner.

“Get in,” Joshua set down your fencing bag in the backseat as you climbed into the passenger seat. You closed your eyes and tried to catch your breath, but your breath came in short gasps.

Joshua busied himself with starting the car engine and was about to tell you to fasten your seatbelt when he noticed that you were shaking. He reached out and held one of your trembling hands in his own.

“Hey, hey. Look at me,” When you opened your eyes, you found the same doe eyes from earlier peering into your eyes. Except this time, they weren’t intense and in its place was a certain tenderness in his dark brown eyes that brought you a sense of comfort. “We’re going to get to the arena in 15 minutes, you’re going to warm up for 30 minutes, and you’re going to compete and win, okay? There’s nothing to worry about. You’ll be okay.”

You let out a shaky exhale and nodded slightly. “We stopped for almost an hour and I was so- so scared that I would have to forfeit from my first international game and-”

“Breathe, [Name]. Breathe in,” Joshua also took a deep breath in with you so you would feel less embarrassed. “And out. See? You’re okay. You’ll do great today,” He squeezed your hand reassuringly and you gave him a weak smile.

“You think so?”

Joshua smiled back at you. “I know so. Now buckle up, this is going to be a rough ride.”

He wasn’t kidding when he said that it was going to be a rough ride. Your escort was a reckless driver who was also a bit of a dare-devil. You lost count of how many times he almost ran a red light, but considering your dire situation, you didn’t really mind.

“By the way, I never caught your name.”

Joshua glanced over at you and smiled. “Open up the glove compartment. There should be a stack of business cards tied together with a rubber band. That’s my business card.”

You did as he told you to, and pulled out a card amongst the (messy) stack. “Hong Jisoo.. from SBS?”

Joshua flashed you his signature smile. “At your service. Although, I do prefer Joshua over Jisoo.”

“Did you study abroad? I’ve never met a Korean person who goes by an English name,” You said, a skeptical brow raised at the stranger.

“For a while, yes. I studied in America for a couple years and came back 3 years ago when things got a little financially difficult for my family.”

“And SBS? I’ve never heard of SBS before, are you guys new?”

Joshua nodded enthusiastically. “Yes! SBS is a new broadcasting station and my friends and I are here to cover the Asian Games this year.”

“I see…. What sector are you covering?” You asked.

Joshua couldn’t help but laugh at the current situation he was in. “Sorry but, I’m the reporter here but why does it feel like I’m the one getting interviewed?”

“Oh..” You felt heat rising up to your face, your cheeks and the tips of your ears burning a bright shade of red, similar to your fencing bag. His laugh sounded so pretty, you wanted to hear it again. “Would you like to interview me then?”

This made Joshua laugh again, and you smiled at the sound. “Of course,” He lifted a hand up to your face in the shape of a fist, pretending to hold a mic in front of you. “I have two questions for you, Athlete [Name]. This is your first international competition and you’ve made your way to the final. How are you feeling? Did you expect to make it this far?”

You grinned. “I feel honored to be here. I’m still recovering from the shock I was in when I first qualified for the national team. I genuinely can’t believe I’m competing in the finals round of the Asian Games, I still occasionally pinch myself to remind myself that everything is real. It’s been a huge honor competing with every athlete I’ve sparred with and I’m so grateful for all the love and support I’ve been receiving, especially my coaches. I hope to not disappoint them and return the love by winning the gold medal.”

Joshua listened to you intently, occasionally glancing at you whenever he could. He would be lying if he said that he didn’t feel attracted to you. The natural blush on your cheeks from running, the wind blowing past your hair, and the gentle smile that graced your lips as you talked about how grateful you were to be at such an esteemed competition.

At one point, Joshua was so engrossed in your words and your voice and your face that he almost missed a red light.

“I know I’m attractive but you gotta keep your eyes on the road, buddy,” you joked. When you said that, the last thing you were expecting was for the reporter to agree with you.

“You’re right, that’s my bad,” Joshua grinned at you with that cheshire grin of his. You looked away, a warm glow rising up into your face. “Time for the second question.

“If I asked you out on a date after this, what would your response be?”

You answered almost immediately, your heart in your throat. “My answer would be yes.”

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