#The Popularity of Luna Tiny Home

[shutterbulky]

Exploring the Spacious and Stunning Interior of a Luna Tiny Home

As time progresses, an increasing number of construction companies are striving to design compact yet fully functional living spaces. Tiny home/Mini houses, characterized by their modest footprint ranging from 11.5 to 50 square meters, offer a seamless blend of space efficiency and aesthetic appeal. In order to optimize space utilization, each room within the mini house serves multiple…

[fairy-verse]

I don't know if my inbox just straight up ate this ask, or if I accidentally deleted it, but luckily I'm smart and save all the questions in a word document when I answer them, so hah! I still got it.

If you want more in-depth descriptions of the different races, then please send individual asks for them.

evethepoptwist asked:

What do season fairies work for like what do they harvesting for, what do they make for their own little inventions and crafts, or how do they take care of animals by their own ways, depending on each seasons other than singing, dancing, laughter, etc. And can you tell us more about trolls, flower people, and mushroom people, and what do they do for the living? Since we barely know these guys other than talking so much about season fairies and the big folks

It is important to remember that the fairies mostly just create and work for the fun of it. Once they’ve made anything they require to survive for the seasons they do not belong to, then they’re free to just craft and create things that they love. They will harvest whatever food they can find within their respective season, and oftentimes trade with each other should they desire anything that belongs to the other seasons.

The animals care for themselves, but some fairies will take extra care in aiding them through life to ensure their survival, though it all depends on how much they love said animal. Most of the time, they will simply flutter around them and bring them as much luck as possible. Fairies possess an extra amount of luck compared to other beings, after all!

The trolls are night-dwelling creatures that hide in caves, holes, and makeshift homes that they create out of fallen trees, moss, sticks, and mud. Sunlight will turn them to stone, which is a painful process that cannot be undone. They prefer deer, moose, and rabbits as food, but have acquired a taste for humans, too. Fairies are mostly seen as tasty sweets to them. They have been known to create clothes and weapons, and they can speak to each other, though this is through grunts and growls. Most of the time, they fight amongst themselves and prefer solitude to companionship.

The flower people were born from the magic of the Luna tree on the Isle of Luna, and from said tree, they are granted immortality. They rarely leave the island, as what often happens to those that do so, is that they fall in love and will inevitably be cursed with heartache for eternity. They are the same size as fairies, and legend has it that they’re all blessed with the ability to communicate and manipulate the nature around them. No one fully knows what they do on the island, as no one has been able to cross the mist surrounding it.

The mushroom people are essentially just mushrooms with stumpy legs and arms that wander the forest floors. They will squeak, though no one yet knows if this is a form of communication or not. Sometimes, they may sit for hours and days without doing anything. They are popular pets among the fairies, especially the spring and autumn fairies.

There are also:

The Stonemen will appear as boulders, rubble, and mountains when asleep. The sleeping sisters are believed to be Stonemen who fell into a deep slumber many hundred years ago, and some think they will cause havoc once they awake again. This theory hasn’t yet been confirmed. Stonemen in general are peaceful and stationary, though when awake, they have been observed to find pleasure in watching fairies play together.

The small people/monsters look just like the big folk, only the size of fairies. They live in holed out trees and tiny houses on the forest floor. There are not that many of them on Fairy Island, as they’re not native there. They’ll live simple lives, preparing for winter, sewing clothes, creating fun projects they can play with, and sometimes even trading with fairies.

Gnomes are odd winter creatures that have their eyes hidden by pointy hats in the colour of either, red, blue, or green. They live in holes in the ground, though said homes look very cozy, often with a fireplace, a place for a kitchen, a big bed for the whole family, and such. They only come out once the snow lays thickly on the ground, and then they’ll collect sticks, frozen berries, and other trinkets they can find on the ground. Very little is known about them, though they’ll sometimes trade with the winter fairies.

Monster fairies can often be found close to Big Folk villages, and sometimes even in them. They like to settle within their attics for warmth, though there are still those who prefer to live in the forest away from them. Most can be found in Willoway Forest, though there are those who live in the Singing and Kval hills. They often steal food and clothes from the Big Folk. These fairies are the ones that look like variants of Papyrus, Toriel, Asgore, Temmie, esc…

Human fairies/Fae are in small numbers and can only be found within Ink’s domain, as he is the father of their race. They have blacked-out eyes and silvery blue wings, and they should never, under any circumstance, be trusted to make a deal with. Luckily, it’s difficult and extremely rare to ever meet with any of them.

[spvdermansgirl]

6:25 PM

“what the hell is that?”

“a cat, her name’s luna.” a tiny meow made its way from the cat you were holding in your arms.

“i can see that,” tony stark, your partner, said as he lowered his shades. “why is it here?”

“i found her on the streets, all cold.” you pouted, flashing your eyes. luna must have sensed this as she purred and looked at tony. “can we keep her?”

tony was exasperated. this was the fifth cat you brought home and sure, he loves how you love these animals so much but he could only do with so much cat hair. but, he wasn’t about to be the asshole and say no. contrary to popular belief, he kinda likes animals, maybe more so, because of you. (but don’t tell him i told you that)

he bit back a smile and pat your hair before saying, “f.r.i.d.a.y., remind me to get more stuff for luna. maybe a few extras just in case y/n could help themselves and bring home an entire litter.”

you laughed, kissing tony on the cheek. “thank you! i promise to take care of them! i love you!”

“you love me because i pay for your cats’ needs.”

“our cats, tony, and don’t you dare question my love for you.” you looked at him pointedly. “anyway, want to go and get coffee first before buying stuff for the cats?”

“got it, sweetheart. of course, i'll go, you had me at coffee.” tony kissed your temple as you helped luna to the mini place tony has designated for the first four cats you brought home: cheddar, colby jack, roni (short for macaroni obviously), and sunny. luna would fit in just well, you know it.

[phanfictioncatalogue]

Non Youtuber AU (5) Masterlist

part one, part two, part three, part four

Anything for a taste (ao3) - jestbee

Summary: Phil has been a TA for the last few years while completing his PhD, which has mostly consisted of paperwork and covering the occasional seminar, but in all that time he can't remember taking notice of any student in particular.

That is, until Daniel Howell walks into the second class of term wearing a ripped shirt that hangs off one shoulder, the delicate curve of his collarbone exposed to the hush of the room.

Then Phil is a goner.

Caller Unknown (ao3) - Marranje

Summary: “Well, can I scam you?”

Dan blinked.

What.

“Did you… did you just ask if you could scam me?”

“Yes. Can I scam you?” he repeated.

“… sure, you can try,” Dan replied, baffled.

or, that scam caller au nobody asked for

Change Will Come (ao3) - rainbowchristy

Summary: Dan’s a depressed university student. Phil’s just a cute coffee shop barista who writes notes on Dan’s hot chocolates.

Don't need to know your name. (ao3) - Septic84

Summary: A Thursday tradition changes much to Phil's surprise and it leads to wonderful things down the road.

fade to black (ao3) - sierraadeux

Summary: That’s the thing about Phil. He’s a tease.

or

films, flirting, and other things that start with f.

Falling In Love With The Enemy - dxnhowell

Summary: punk!phil gets dared by Chris to ask rich!dan out. They hate each other and Phil doesn’t want to do the dare but he loves challenges. He only has two weeks until the deadline to make Dan fall in love with him.

Flore Luna (ao3) - strawberrysunflower

Summary: It’s been eighteen months since Dan returned to the Wizarding world, and he’s making real strides. He’s living in his own tiny studio flat. He has a job in a failing bookshop. He’s relearning spells that kids as young as eleven have already mastered.

And he’s developed an unhealthy grudge on the irritating, black-haired florist across the alley.

Gathering Threads - lestericalphan

Summary: Miloria is changing: Louise is now finding herself in charge of a kingdom, Dan has been having strange dreams about a boy who later shows up on his doorstep along with the King of the East Crest, and Jack is now having to look after both Darcy and her Mother.

But magic is stirring again after centuries asleep and the Gods seem to be contently watching as power shifts from head to head.

give this thing a try (ao3) - pasteldanhowells

Summary: Dan is a cashier at a grocery store, and Phil is his supervisor. One evening at work, Phil surprises Dan by asking him out on a date, and of course Dan, who's had a crush on Phil since forever, says yes. Cue, the freaking out and comfort ensues.

Home - placingglaciers

Summary: What do you get when you cross a troubled runaway with a lost photographer? A mess, that's what.

i want the life i never had (ao3) - bugselfs

Summary: “I’m nervous,” she admits. “But it’ll be okay, right?”

Dan smiles at her. “Of course it will,” he promises. “And if everyone hates you and you have no friends because your old ones have all left you for the popular kids, you’ll still have me. And Miss Margaret.”

“Oh, great,” Sophia says dryly, cutting into her breakfast. “Good to know my only friends will be my geeky dad and the crazy cat lady that lives next door.”

“We don’t say crazy, Sophia. She’s eccentric.”

POV: Your 11 year old daughter wants to see the penguins but you just want to stare at the guy feeding them.

it comes in waves (ao3) - sadlybunny

Summary: Dan trembles in his seat. “And- and what shall I call you?”

He moves his thumb to grip at Dan’s chin roughly. “Captain.” His face inches closer. “Or on very special occasions, Captain Lester, sir.”

It’s 1728 in Port Royal, Jamaica. Daniel Howell, the son of Governor Howell, is engaged to be married to a woman he has never met. The night of their betrothal, Daniel is kidnapped by swashbuckling pirate captain, Philip Lester. As Dan learns about pirate life on the Liberty Galley, he discovers things about himself that he never knew before. Maybe he doesn’t want to return to his father, after all.

Midnight Garden (ao3) - silentdescant

Summary: He who plants a garden plants happiness.

In which Phil is a gardener at the palace and Dan is a reclusive prince.

No Man Is An Island (ao3) - strawberrysunflower

Summary: While drunk and desperate to get away from the creatively-stifling hubbub of London, Dan rents a farmhouse on the Isle of Man for four weeks to finish writing his latest book. All he wants is silence. Peace. Solitude.

Then he meets Phil, the farm owners’ dorky, clumsy, stupidly handsome son.

No One Less Than Perfect (ao3) - CanDanAndPhilNot (enbycalhoun)

Summary: Dan doesn't mind being a single father to his four-year-old Elizabeth, but sometimes he gets lonely. The problem is, he won't settle for anyone who is less than perfect. So maybe, he might just ask Elizabeth's (and maybe his) favorite Daycare worker, Phil on a date.

Of Paparazzi and Succulents - botanistlester

Summary: Actor!Dan is running away from a mob of fans when he runs into a flower shop. There, he meets a quirky florist who has an absurd liking towards succulents, seeming to think they have

Our House (ao3) - sierraadeux

Summary: Enemy is a harsh word. Rival sounds so immature, like Dan’s the star of some teen drama on Netflix. Competition is close, but not quite there.

In simple terms, Dan has a distaste for Phil Lester. Otherwise known as AmazingPhil in their line of business, for some reason that’s beyond Dan. What makes him so amazing anyway?

There’s a reason the network wanted Daniel Howell and Phil Lester for this specific series, and Dan guesses there’s really only one way to find out that answer.

or

And they were co-hosts. Oh my god they were co-hosts.

Sail Away With Me (ao3) - Yiffandquiff (paradisobound)

Summary: It was a fluke. Dan shouldn’t have ever gone with Sam to a party on a yacht. He shouldn’t have trusted her to go. But in a chance encounter, he ends up in bed with Phil Lester, a billionaire CEO of a luxury clothing company. When he thinks he’s screwed up enough, he realizes he’s in way too deep. Because Phil Lester has fallen in love with him. The catch: Dan gave Phil a fake name and all Phil has to remember Dan by is the tattoo on his hip and the necklace he left behind.

scratch bark bite (oh, love me, i lied) (ao3) - Tarredion

Summary: Music & Drama teacher Dan Howell has a well-known rivalry with his coworker, English teacher Phil Lester.

An unforeseen event flips everything Dan thought he knew about Phil and himself on its head. Slowly but surely, the grudge withers, and the two of them cross the line between enemy and friend. But what will happen when their true intents and feelings get revealed? And was what they had ever really a rivalry? Was it even mutual?

"Seriously?" (ao3) - Tarredion

Summary: Dan and Phil meet while candle shopping and one of them can't help but comment on how obnoxious/boring/etc the scents the other one is picking out are

-

the time Phil met a totally-not-handsome stranger and only sort-of wished they'd never meet again. Tough luck?

Song Stuck In My Head - xinyanhowell

Summary: Phil’s best friend is getting married. How can one song change so many lives forever?

Stardust - brerediddy

Summary: HS AU. Dan is not a writer. Dan just likes to look at the stars and listen to the river move and hang out with his best friend Phil. He’s not a writer, but somehow, writing changes everything.

The Other Side Of The Counter (ao3) - CanDanAndPhilNot (enbycalhoun)

Summary: Dan needs to stop pining after his bartender, Phil. Maybe another Tinder date will help. Probably not, but he can hope.

The River (ao3) - Portia331

Summary: Dan arrived in Melbourne two weeks ago with just one suitcase crammed with running gear, psychology textbooks, and a mere fraction of his wardrobe especially curated to fit both his aesthetic and the Melbourne weather.

He's about to start in the role of a lifetime on a 12 month contract, but he's barely ready for the Australian summer heat, let alone what the world is about to throw at him.

[catbreedstips]

The Unique Sokoke Cat Breed: Affectionate and Low Maintenance

Introduction to the Sokoke Cat Breed

The Sokoke cat breed, originating from the lush coastal regions of Kenya, is a rare feline gem that has been captivating cat enthusiasts since its discovery in the late 1970s. Named after the enchanting Arabuko Sokoke Forest, where they were first encountered, these cats boast a distinctive appearance reminiscent of their African ancestors. Their ticked coat, strikingly large ears, and alluring almond-shaped eyes contribute to their exotic allure. Beyond their aesthetics, Sokoke cats are known for their intelligence and deep bonds with their human companions.

Key Characteristics:

Medium-sized and muscular build

Short-haired coat with a distinctive ticked pattern

Noteworthy large, alert ears and captivating almond-shaped eyes

Agile and active, with remarkable jumping prowess

Highly intelligent and emotionally sensitive

Devoted bonds with their families

A lifespan ranging from 10 to 15 years

Coat colors include silver, brown, blue, and dove-gray

Originated naturally in the coastal forests of Kenya, free from recent foreign breed mixes

The Sokoke cat breed is a genuine landrace, believed to trace its ancestry back to the African Wildcat, with no recent foreign breed mixtures.

Caring for Your Sokoke Cat

Nutrition:

Opt for high-quality dry cat food for daily nutrition

Supplement their diet with occasional wet food for added hydration

A meat-rich diet supports their skin and coat health

Environment:

Provide vertical spaces for climbing and perching

Engage their natural intelligence with puzzle toys

Ensure access to sunny windows for basking

Grooming:

Weekly brushing to remove loose hair

Trim their nails every 2-3 weeks

Regularly check their ears and teeth

Enrichment: Offer daily playtime and environmental exploration to engage their active minds

Acquiring a Sokoke Cat

Popularity:

Found primarily in Britain, North America, and Scandinavian countries

Average Price: Typically ranges from $600 to $800 USD

Adoption/Rescue: Consider adoption through organizations like The International Cat Association Rescue Committee (TICA) or region-specific Sokoke rescue groups

Pre-Adoption Checklist:

Ensure general health, including an active demeanor and a healthy coat

Verify vaccination records, covering FVRCP, rabies, and feline leukemia

Inquire about any previous illnesses or injuries in their medical history

Preparing for Your Sokoke Cat

Before bringing your Sokoke cat home, take these essential steps:

Advice:

Cat-proof your home

Set up essentials such as food stations and a litter box

Invest in climbing perches and interactive toys

Care Tasks:

Provide premium nutrition

Offer ample playtime

Schedule annual vet exams and vaccinations

Implement flea, tick, and parasite prevention measures

Essential Gear:

Food bowls

Litter boxes

Scratching posts

Grooming tools

Cat furniture

Interactive cat toys

Common Illnesses: Keep an eye out for potential health issues such as heart disease, patellar luxation, and hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM)

Essential Vaccines: Ensure your Sokoke cat is vaccinated against panleukopenia, calicivirus, rhinotracheitis, and rabies

Popular Sokoke Cat Names

Choose a name that reflects their African heritage or highlights their coat colors:

Examples: Jelani, Penda, Teshi, Mosi, Tiny, Luna

Discover the charm and unique qualities of the Sokoke cat breed, a delightful addition to any cat lover's family.

[chocolatebananapancake]

San Pedro de Atacama

San Pedro is a tiny Chilean town surrounded by the Atacama desert and is another place tourists use as a base for various tours you can take into the wider region. It's also quite high up in terms of altitude, it's 2438m which was the highest we'd reached so far. At these altitudes you can suffer altitude sickness and it's recommended to spend a couple of days acclimatising before doing anything strenuous. We didn't really have time for that, we were just nipping back into Chile for the weekend.

When planning our route at home we decided on the bus as we were trying to keep the amount of internal flights we took down but on reflecting back that was an error. But it's a lot harder to plan your route when you're at home. You live and learn. We expected our journey to San Pedro de Atacama to be the worst day of the trip, and it was. A ten hour bus ride turned into twelve and an incredibly thorough and tedious border crossing back into Chile. I also felt a bit ill which isn't the ideal state for a long bus journey. Around when we reached the border is when the altitude started to rise which made me feel worse than I already did. The first half of the bus journey had been fine but from the border onwards it was a real slow slog on an increasingly hot bus. When we finally arrived we both had headaches due to the altitude. The locals deal with any sickness by either chewing coca leaves or making coca tea. Luckily the nice hostel we were staying in had some coca tea available so after a cup each and some paracetamol we started to feel better and start adjusting to the place. We had a chat with the hostel about tours and decided not to overdo it.

You could probably squeeze in four to five tours in a weekend but we went for three, the two most popular tours Valle de la Luna and Geysers del Tatio and also an astronomy tour as the Atacama desert is considered one of the best places in the world due to the lack of light pollution. We arranged Valle de la Luna (Moon Valley) for the late afternoon the next day so enjoyed a chill morning wandering around town and recovering some more. On the moon valley tour you are taken out of town to visit huge sand dunes and rocky mountains and craters. It really does make you think you're on the moon. The tours runs until sunset and you get to see some greats views of the mountain range as the sun sets and turns them all different colours.

The following day we did two tours, one very early and one late. We were picked up at 4:30am to travel the 90 minutes it takes to get to the geothermal fields which contains the geysers. It was freezing cold, around minus 4° but the geysers gave off some extra heat which was nice when you were in the firing line of the vapours. It's also much higher up at 4320m but luckily we weren't affected by the altitude. This was a really cool tour getting up close with the geysers which was something we'd never seen before. The journey back took us through some wetlands where we saw some native birds and alpacas. We were pretty tired by this point so had a chill afternoon in town before our astronomy tour in the evening.

We got picked up after sunset and were driven 15 minutes out of town to a field where the guides had set up some telescopes. Even without the telescopes you could see loads of stars, well more than we'd ever seen with the naked eyes. This was a good tour as well. Through the telescopes we saw constellations, galaxies and black holes. We don't remember the name of them all but some were called the Hat Galaxy, the Carina Nebula, and the tarantula nebula. We even saw Mars but that was less exciting to view even though it's very close comparitively. We had the dreaded return journey back to Salta the next day. Fingers crossed for a better journey.

[petnews2day]

Top puppy and kitten names 2022 revealed by Pets at Home with Luna topping both the lists for both dogs and cats

New Post has been published on https://petn.ws/XVUXa

Top puppy and kitten names 2022 revealed by Pets at Home with Luna topping both the lists for both dogs and cats

The most popular kitten and puppy names of 2022 have been revealed. In the same way that statisticians pour over birth records to find the most popular baby names, animal lovers have been scouring the lists of tiny furry friends given their moniker in the last year. Luna was again the most popular name for […]

See full article at https://petn.ws/XVUXa #CatsNews #Newbury

[whyeverr]

Dela Luna Estate | 4 bed, 2 bath

Tucked away under a freeway overpass, far from the glitz and glamour of the city, sits this crumbling Second Empire manor—a forgotten piece of a bygone era of Del Sol Valley history.

Originally constructed as the home of George Alano Dela Luna—a debonair oil baron and noted antiquarian—the manor has stayed in the family over the last century, though the inherited fame and fortune have long since passed. It came as a surprise to the highway administration, then, when the owners turned down a succession of increasingly generous offers to purchase the land in order to build a freeway off-ramp in Mirage Park.

Today, the home appears to sit empty, with the front gate completely closed off from visitors, and only an eccentric housekeeper seen coming and going from its grounds. Naturally, rumors abound, with whispers of vampires particularly popular among kids living in the neighborhood...

But, c’mon, vampires? In Del Sol Valley?

Lot details:

Lot Type: Residential (4 bed, 2 bath — though one bedroom is technically a teeny tiny tower fit only for a vampire’s human familiar)

Price: §286,800

Size: 30x20

Location: Inner Circle, Del Sol Valley

I’ve used from all packs freely here—in particular, lots of Discover University and Vampires

Please enable bb.moveobjects on when downloading to ensure proper placement of the lot!

Created in celebration of Simblreen 2020! @simblreenofficial

Download via the Sims 4 Gallery here or the tray files via Sim File Share here. Please don’t re-upload or share without credit. Thank you!

[rosaetae]

no sweetness

☇ “It’s funny because you remind me exactly of this drink I made last night. Yeah, yeah, it was the black tea with boba. Bitter, with tiny balls.”

➣  pairing: reader x jungkook

➣  genre: fluff, comedy, bobarista!reader, lacrosseplayer!jungkook, e2l!au

➣  word count: 23k (of pure disgusting e2l fluff) 

➣  warning!: slight implicit smut 

➣  a/n: header title credit to the loveliest @yehdayums​ !!! a sweetheart for making this cute header hehe <3 also support small businesses! 

➣  summary: jungkook has a thing for pretty girls who work with tiny balls, especially the new fiery bobarista at his favorite boba shop, whom he finds absolutely adorable, but finds out later that she’s just as sweet as she made his milk tea order— not sweet.

Jeon Jungkook is absolutely whipped as cream.

Why, you may ask?

His favorite boba shop at the very edge of the outskirt of town hired a new bobarista, and her name—supposedly— being ___. Jungkook made it a mental note to ask for it when he goes into Pleasantea with his friends, but word goes around and it out of the many words there are in the world, it's her name that catches his ear.

It is no doubt that Jeon Jungkook comes off as a flirt to every living species he encounters, but seeing that the new bobarista wasn't as happily taking it in as most people would, he was shocked that someone didn't have much interest into him. Sure, call him egotistical, but he was captain of the lacrosse team and he was pretty damn good at almost— well, everything.

The first time he goes into Pleasantea after hearing the news of a new duckling in training was after another win that Friday night. He's there with his group of friends, raiding the popular boba place with cheers while greeting the familiar workers behind the bar.

On Friday nights, it's Luna, Dahlia, and Jihyo working the closing shift, making the drinks and providing impeccable service, especially to the rowdy group of college students that come in almost every Friday to hangout or just to celebrate. Luna's pretty good with taming them down, especially when other customers are there. Dahlia likes to yell at them— she likes to yell at people in general. And Jihyo nurtures them like babies.  

They've gotten close to Jungkook as Luna happened to be in his communications class first semester. He recognized her first, but Luna, being oblivious in all ranges of settings, faked a recognization of his name and face, and gave him a discount anyways. Because of this tiny occurrence, Jungkook came back, then with friends, and eventually with his whole lacrosse team to support the business.

"I'm guessing another win, Team Captain?" Jihyo rhetorically yelled over the cheering voices towards Jungkook who followed behind the group with a smirk. Her doe eyes peeks over the bar where her height was significant from the taller men on the other side, eyebrows raised and awaiting for the cocky response Jungkook can muster.

"What can I say?" Jungkook laughed sonorously, followed by a few encouraging and prideful pats on the shoulder from his teammates. "Wouldn't show up tonight with the boys if I didn't make that winning shot."

Rolling her eyes at the sound of the booming, testosterone-filled voices of his teammates and his vibrant ego, Jihyo scoffed away to work on other orders that Luna and Dahlia were speedily making before Jungkook's teammates and good friends come up to him, ready to order their drinks.

"What should I get?" Yoongi asked Jungkook, eyes scanning the menu of different drinks.

"Dunno. Get the usual," Jungkook advised, crossing his arms over his chest as he pondered what he should get too. "Your matcha milk tea with boba."

"Aight," Yoongi nods before he paused. The pause wasn't obvious enough for Jungkook to look his way, until Yoongi went ahead and nudged Jungkook, taking his complete attention away from the menu. "New worker."

"Hi, welcome!" That odd cheery voice didn't seem to come from the usual cashier he knew as Luna, nor Dahlia, throwing him off a bit. He does a double take behind the counter, finding a girl hurriedly filling a cup up with boba before she's running to the cashier, doe-like eyes widening in surprise at how many people she has to take orders of.

Her eyes catch Jungkook's, and it immediately clicked in his head that the word circling about the new Pleasantea worker were true. Pretty much all of them were aware, but it didn't seem to catch their attention as much as it caught his. Maybe it's the unfamiliarity of having someone foreign in a place he likes to call a second home. Maybe it's the odd satisfaction of meeting the so-called bobarista who's name somehow runs laps around his brain. Really, he was merely curious.

"What can I get you guys?" She asked with a warm smile. Jungkook's worked at a retail shop before, and he can tell good customer service apart from just a single sentence.

Jungkook peered over at the boys, watching Yoongi motioning at the others to go order, but seeing that they were also too busy eye-goggling the new girl behind the counter out of curiosity, Yoongi let out a sigh and ordered first. A smile bursted on the new girl's face when she's nodding to Yoongi's order. Her eyebrows furrowed as she works the register all before Yoongi whipped out his trusty credit card and does the procedural routine of inserting the card, tipping, signing, and saying "no thanks" to the receipt, dropping in a spare dollar or two into their "college funds" tip jar.

The boys filed in line after they've decided on what they wanted that night all while Jungkook started to overthink what he wanted to get.

Jungkook likes to change up his drink from time to time. After practices, he'd like something more refreshing to quickly chug down. After later practices, he'd get something more caffeinated to keep him awake for a night full of assignments. After games, it depends on the outcome of the prior— losing, he wouldn't order anything. Winning, however, he likes Pleasantea bobaristas to choose for him.

It's a good thing they won tonight.

When the line of his teammates dispersed and they all maneuvered into the back where their usual spot was,  Jungkook realized it was his turn already. He didn't notice that he let all the boys go in front of him  on purpose and he was the last of the group to order. However, he does take mental note of how New Girl keeps up a good face after each customer, something that Dahlia lacks because each customer removes a layer of her niceness as they come and go.

Jungkook slides closer to the register, his eyes never leaving hers as her own form into crescents— a silent, but welcoming greeting.

"Hi, what can I get for you?"

His lips forms a smile to hear her voice clear as day. "Do you think you can surprise me?"

The favor evidently takes her by surprise before she lets out a laugh, nodding. "Yeah, I can. Is there anything you're craving specifically?"

"Nope," he shakes his head. "You new?"

She smiles in return. "Yeah. Yesterday was my first day. Still getting a hang of it."

"You got a favorite drink..." Jungkook dragged out his sentence to look at her name badge, realizing that her name really was what he has been told. "___?"

The bobarista hums in thought before she lazily shrugs. "I haven't had many drinks, yet, but I really like the plain milk tea."

"I'll just get that then. Large, boba, light ice."

She nods as she puts it into the register as Jungkook patted his black jeans, searching his pockets for his wallet. In his head, he's pondering about the amount of tips to tip her.

"Sweetness level?"

Jungkook, without even processing he's said it, goes, "you." It takes him by surprise just as much as it took her, but he decides to roll with it. He even mentally pats himself, because damn, that was pretty smooth of him. He noticed that her fingers paused in tapping on the pad, just before meeting his expression consisting of a (douchebag) smirk and kind eyes. She raised her eyebrows before letting out a light chuckle, shaking her head.

"Cute," is all she said before placing the order and directing him to insert his card. As Jungkook mentally fist bumps himself, he decided to tip her the ten dollar bill laying in his wallet into the tip jar, before she glanced up at him with crescent eyes once more. "Your order will be ready at the other end of the counter."

As Jungkook thanked her, he lingered for a bit as she disappeared behind the bar where she met the three other girls shuffling around to finish the end of the night shift with dozens of customers waiting inside and outside. He shoved his wallet into the back of his pocket as he met up with the boys who took up the entire back of the shop where a long table basically welcomed them with open arms.  

"What you get this time, Captain?" Jaehyun made a single nod towards Jungkook.

"Just their milk tea," Jungkook responded.

Jungkook has had the plain milk tea before. It's what Pleasantea was known for. It's their signature drink. A roasted flavor with just the right amount of sweetness with just 75% sugar. However, responding with reference to her as a sweetness, it might be a bit sweeter with just 100%. But it doesn't matter. He managed to get a "cute" from the new bobarista at Pleasantea and he intends to share it with his lacrosse team.

"New worker called me cute."

Jaehyun let out a snort, while Yoongi excitedly leaned in to add onto the list of other cringe-worthy pickup lines Jungkook says to girls. "Did you make another boba pick-up line? Remember when you tried to flirt with Dahlia but ended up only getting roasted by her?"

"Yeah, well, ___ called me cute. She just asked how sweet I wanted my drink to be," he explained. "I answered back with, 'you'."

It's the shove and nudge coming from both directions and the bursted balloon that held crazy laughter coming from not only Jaehyun, but Yoongi and Jaemin who listened to the terrible conversation they were most grateful to not have witnessed first hand. Jungkook grinned widely, pushing off his teammates who were disgusted by such a revolting experience.

"God, you are terrible," Yoongi covered his face with his hands, hiding from sheer embarrassment as Jungkook chuckled broadly. "I hope she spits in your drink because that was god awful."

"She thought it was cute, actually," Jungkook tooted his own horn— something he loved doing. Cocky isn't a pleasant trait on him, but he somehow makes it work.

Jaemin shook his head in mild distaste. "Man, get the fuck out of here."

"Boys!"

The familiar sound of Jihyo calling out a broad name as an endearment to the only boys that she has a love and hate relationship with catches the lacrosse teams' ears, having them get up in excitement. Half of the table decides to go while the other half stays and saves the spot, wanting to spend about half an hour there to settle.

It takes them a minute or two to have all of them come back with max two drinks in hand and while half of the boys passed out the variety of drinks to the others who saved their spot, Jungkook scrolls through his phone as Jaemin places his drink in front of him, a straw on top. Like second nature, Jungkook grabs the straw and stabs the plastic wrap, his jaw preparing to chew the sweet goodness of tapioca pearls.

However, it's not that that he was anticipating prior that made him furrow his eyebrows at the taste. It was the odd flavor that came before the pearls that made him retract the drink from his mouth to look at the label of what type of drink he got.

At first, he furrowed his eyebrows because he thought he had received the wrong drink. But it's in the middle of wanting to ask Jaemin if the drink he got actually belong to him, that he realized where he fucked up. Jaemin was curious as well, arching an eyebrow and turning the cup to its side to see if Jaemin actually grabbed the wrong drink.

It's the hysterical laughter coming from Jaemin's mouth ringing in the air that made Jungkook's lips part, but in all honestly, Jungkook wasn't as surprised. He watches his teammate share the cup around, laughter suddenly becoming louder at what has been witnessed— a rise and downfall of their own team captain.

The mocking sniggering that dispersed into air echoed throughout the boba shop's walls and inevitably, the new bobarista girl must be hearing it crystal clear, probably a playful smile on her lips as she heard the laughter grow at her own doing.

Eventually, Jungkook snatched the drink back and chugs it down anyways, shaking his head. Each time he took a sip, he looks at the side of his cup and wrinkles his nose in disdain.

MLK TEA. LESS ICE. 0% SWEET.  

two days later.

The unfamiliarity of the road just near the outskirt of the town heading towards your new part-time job grows familiar each shift you are scheduled to work. The swerve and crooks of the road, the uneven pavements, the tiny dip as you enter the plaza— your mind becomes used to it, no longer using your GPS to know your way around the roads.

You arrive to your shift about a minute late, hurrying out of your car into the shop where Dahlia only greets you with a welcoming smile behind the bar. You take the marble colored hair clip you had in hand and clip your damp hair no thanks to your last minute morning shower you had to take after skipping your nightly routine. In theory, you had to blame the overwhelming paperwork you just had to wait last minute on for your lack of sleep and lack of hygiene.

"Hi, sorry, I'm late," you apologize, clocking in. Dahlia waves you off, passing by you into the back room where the sink was running. As you met her gaze, her lips portray a warm smile.

"You're all good. Sunny went to Orange Valley, so it's just you and me for awhile."

"Orange Valley?" You raise an eyebrow. "Why did she go to Orange Valley?"

"To restock. That's where our supplier of lavender and fresh fruits are. She usually has me or Jihyo pick it up, but thank god she had me just watch over you," Dahlia explains, turning the faucet off and pouring what you assumed was freshly rinsed boba in a large strainer into a bin of sugary water. "How was your morning? Did you sleep at all last night?"

"Nope, not at all," you respond, washing your hands in the sink just behind the bar.

"I can tell," Dahlia laughs, her voice more apparent as she appears from the back, two hands carefully holding the boba bin of where tiny black spheres float in sweet water that is only about to get sweeter once Dahlia pours the honey in. "Load up on some of the coffee and you'll be fully recharged."

"What type of coffee do you suggest?"

Dahlia pauses, looks up excitingly, and says from the top of her head, "Cold brew. Two pumps of the white chocolate, shake it, and add oat milk. That's my go-to for my 8 am's."

Wrinkling your nose, you go ahead and grab one of the metal shakers and take it apart in front of you, grabbing the ounce cap and the bottle for the white chocolate syrup. "You take 8 am's?"

"I like to get out early. Like 11 am early so that I can sleep for lunch," she says as she stirs the boba in continuous loops. "Plus, I can fit more shifts into my schedule."

"You're so brave," you sarcastically state, filling the cap with the syrup twice and pouring it into the shaker.

You'd like to say you're getting the hang of it. It's only been your third shift, but the register has been pretty good to you in terms of taking people's orders. The drinks were slowly getting there, but at least you can make the flavored teas without freezing and having to look at the ratios placed on the fridge. That only occurs with the more complicated drinks. Even then, you'd rather ask Dahlia or Luna or Jihyo for help.

Dahlia asks you if you had any questions or any difficulty with memorizing. And while you honestly tell her that some drinks are hard to remember, she agrees wholeheartedly and encourages that you'll eventually get it. She also throws in with her encouragement while in preparation of the shop opening that she has some sort of quizlet for the drinks and that she'll send it to you to help you memorize.

As you thank her, you decide to make that cold brew drink she recommended, repeating her instructions in your head like a mantra. Dahlia curves around the bar to flip the sign to open as well as bringing out a stand that promotes a a buy three get one free drink deal just a few feet away from the door.

She comes back in and checks up on your drink that you were currently just shaking together, only then that the particular movement of the glass door swinging open captures your attention from the coffee machine, your mind immediately registering that a new customer has entered the shop, causing you to pause on your current doings. Sauntering over to the register of where the point of sale system sits, you immediately make eye contact with the customer.

And once that you realize that that customer just happens to be Jeon Jungkook, the dumbass that thought you were worth a coy, yet terribly executed coquetry dripping from his mouth, you internally groan.

He makes the same eye contact with you, eyebrows shooting up as if he didn't expect to see you, especially after the 'first' encounter with each other that one night, working. You hope that he saw the way your face falls into sheer distaste while he makes it plan to order because as he opens his mouth, you immediately halt him in his tracks, putting a finger up and shaking your head.

"Give me one second."

Without a second glance thrown into his direction again, you take the time to run behind the counter, unseen, tapping Dahlia's arm, tutting your tongue and nodding towards the register in which Dahlia could only laugh to herself at how easy it was for you to do that. She drops the shaker she was making of the mango black tea for the customer waiting by the bar and silently motions you to take over, in which you pleasantly do so, so long as you don't ever get to interact with Jungkook.

Trust, it isn't the confrontation of that night where you made his drink revoltingly plain, but it is more of the initiation of cutting any type of contact attached to him, as that night of the winning lacrosse team isn't the 'first' encounter with him.

Jeon Jungkook is the acquiring taste of dark chocolate. Like the bitter yet sweet taste, you know of the infamous Jeon Jungkook from your own past experiences, having to have encountered him multiple times along the road of lengthy university years up until now. He's introduced himself to you multiple times, but guessing he was completely shit-faced drunk each occurrence, your name and face has probably went over his head as he wakes up with another name and face beside him in bed.

The first time was during your first year, a visit to a Kappa Sugma Ligma frat party where the face of second year Jeon Jungkook was pretty prominent. (And by that, he was shit faced drunk and kept insisting to dance with you. But as a prude first year, you stuck with babying your friends instead). The second time was at a more mellow kickback the summer prior to second year, introducing himself again right after getting kegged. He stole your friend away from your group to dance, but you didn't really notice that you've already met him until the tiny revelation hits one afternoon when that so- called friend announces that her and Jungkook are supposedly fuck buddies. The third time he's introduced himself to you again was when he was smashingly drunk. The other times were just as sublime, but this one was what kicked you off your rocker because not only did he end things with your friend who grew an emotional attachment, he managed to introduce himself to you by puking all over your new pants.

Jungkook is the exquisite taste of dark chocolate; while he may be known for his good looks and "long-stick shots" and his supposed 'kind' demeanor, a lot of people do happen to like him. However, you aren't those lot of people who enjoy the taste of dark chocolate, hence why he leaves a strong dreadful taste on your tongue.

There's a mild surprise sparking from Jungkook when he realizes that Dahlia takes over, but nevertheless he orders his drink of a passion fruit green tea with light sugar and light ice. And with his whole chest, he loudly enough goes, just for you to hear behind the bar, "Can you tell her to actually add sugar this time?"

And a light scoff at his indirect, you roll your eyes as you pour the previous drink into the large cup with boba for the other customer, a response coming out of your mouth channeling the same energy as his.

"Don't worry, I will."

It's not long until you've rejuvenated through the suggested cold brew drink and began washing dishes that Dahlia comes in with a devious laugh escaping her throat. She leans against one of the fridges of where the basic teas of ranged from black to green sat in, her head shaking as she marvels at you with glimmering eyes. You raise an eyebrow at her in curiosity, confused as to why she was giggling.

"How many ounces of syrup do you put in the flavored teas?"

Her laughter kind of dies down, but she bites her lip to suppress another giggle making its way up. Drying your hands with the green dry rag hanging to the side of the sink, you turn your body to face her and answer swiftly, "3 for larges, 2 for regulars."

And then her smile grows to the point where it reaches her eyes. "And how many ounces of passion fruit did you put in Jungkook's tea?"

The question takes you back in time just about 10 minutes ago when you finished making Jungkook's desired passion fruit green tea with light sugar and light ice, only after he decided to throw in with such ambition to "actually add sugar this time". You debate on telling Dahlia the truth, only because you haven't worked with her for awhile to trust her just yet, but seeing how she was very amused as she asked the question, you shrug.

"Why?"

Dahlia giggles once more. "Jungkook complained about it and asked me to make him a new one." You roll your lips inward, stifling a laugh. "It's okay, you can tell me. I won't snitch. Seeing him ticked off was pretty funny."

And that was enough for you to trust your sweet co-worker. "Six. And a half."

It's then that she bursts all of her laughter out, both of you basking in light laughter about your own doing. "Brilliant."

"Why, he didn't like it? I added sugar."

The light laughs coming from her mouth ultimately leads into tears as she wipes under her eyes. Shaking her head, she points a finger at you. "You are terrible. Absolutely terrible. First the milk tea— which was a pretty genius comeback— and now the passion fruit? Gold."

To that, you shrug. "Thanks. Sorry you had to remake his drink, though."

"Girl, you're fine. To see him all annoyed about it was worth it," she smirks. "Are you guys like... I don't know... archenemies? Frenemies?"

"I'm not exactly fond of him," you answer truthfully. "I'm guessing he's never met me before— or at least, he doesn't remember we've met before, but I've met him plenty of times. One of which is when he puked all over my new lilac pants."

Dahlia's mouth flies open, a hand slapped over her mouth in complete shock at what she was hearing. Maybe you are tampering with the impression of a well adored guy that everyone at Pleasantea (hell, the whole town) seems to love, but hell, Jungkook was not handmade by the gods to be loved by everyone.

"Jungkook puked on you?"

You nod your head in response. "Third time in meeting him and each impression does not progressively get better."

"Now I see why you put no sugar in his milk tea the other night," Dahlia laughs. "Jihyo was a little mad at the move, but she admits his flirting tactic was dreadful."

"I'm sure he's tried flirting with you guys? I'm not the only one who experiences it?"

"Oh yeah," Dahlia nods, letting out an amused puff of air. "Flirted with Luna first because they were in the same class. She's never interacted with him in school, so once he found out she worked here, he suddenly became all flirty, but you know Luna, she's blunt and she told him that she has a girlfriend."

You nod, staying quiet as Dahlia goes on to continue. "Then it was Jihyo, once he started bringing all of the lacrosse team here. But Jihyo's like... basically engaged. Promise ring and everything. Then it was Ryujin, but Jungkook realized he made her uncomfortable." To that, I snort. "Then me, but personally, I've been eyeing Yoongi and he backed off when he found that out. So yeah, he's a very flirty man with a taste in boba girls. It's your turn now!"

"Does he have some sort of boba fetish? Does he need help?"

"Probably," Dahlia shrugs, smiling amusedly. "But you're not exactly helping him with that."

You let out a chuckle. "Well, it's a no from me."

"Figured as much," she nods in agreement. "He's nice when he's not trying to get your number."

"You mean when his ego isn't eating him up and he suddenly thinks that every girl is going to fall for him at first sight?"

Dahlia rolls her lips inwards before nodding once more. "Precisely. But hey, hella tips."

Jungkook comes in again while you're working a week later, but this time with his friends, Yoongi and Jaehyun following after him, strutting inside the minimalistic shop with what you assumed to be their practice attire just by the sweat and glow on their facial structures caused by the aftermath of exercise.

You're guessing that Jungkook's been avoiding you, and he has been pretty good with it if you can recall that the last time you've seen him in the shop was a week prior. When Jungkook peers up from his phone after you greet the group a, "hello, welcome" loudly and scurry behind the register to take their order, he couldn't help but to groan obnoxiously.

"Great," he mutters in hopes that only his friends would hear, but due to the lack of distance and your exceptional hearing, your eyebrows shot up.  

"Woah," you put your hands up in mock defense. "No need to get all irked. I won't tamper with your drink again."

"Right. Annoying brat," Jungkook mutters to himself half-heartedly as you smirk. As his eyes look up to the menu to give it a few sweeps despite how often he comes here, you think about how much he dreads having you work here and to be taking his order, and while it's not exactly the best customer service, it was very amusing.

"Just don't mess up while ordering, and we'll see what happens," you tell him bluntly. His eyes glued onto the menu above you flickers down to meet yours, a false vendetta of your eyes disappearing into crescents as his your lips turn upwards to greet him, his head shaking in response. Audibly, his friends snicker behind him.

"Go, Jungkook. Tell her that you want your milk tea as sweet as her again."

"Or that you'd want your drink to actually have sugar in it."

The taunts eliciting out of his own friends' mouth set Jungkook into straight annoyance, his eyes snapping behind them to throw presumable death glares at them over his shoulder while you patiently wait for him to hit you with a brand new drink that you can practice on making under 30 seconds thanks to your competitive mindset.

The teases make you chuckle as you shake your head. You notice Jaehyun take a step forward to rest his hands on the tense Jungkook, attempting to give him a friendly pat before Jungkook nudges him off.

"Fuck off," Jungkook scoffs, Jaehyun cackling beside him in response before he turns his direction towards you and gives a single acknowledging head nod.

"How's a going, Shortstack?" Jaehyun asks, pulling out his wallet beside Jungkook whose eyes are roaming the menu up and down, top to bottom.

"Doin' alright, Jaehyun," you smile, politely. "How's anatomy for ya?"

Jaehyun lets out a sarcastic, nervous laugh— one that takes the attention of Jungkook and you're unsure if it's because of his own friends' laughter or because he is surprised to know that you and Jaehyun know each other from your guys' microbiology lab class last semester. "Kicking my ass, but I've been using your notes as guidance. Hey, thanks for those by the way."

"No worries. Hopefully that'll do some work and help you pass," you encouragingly say, a smile on your face as he gives a single thumbs up. You know Jaehyung as the sarcastic ass when he fucked around in microbiology and always picked fights with your lab professor. But even then, he was nice to you, other than the fact that he made fun of your height. "Decided on what you want?"

"Yeah, can I get that lavender milk tea? Extra boba, please."

"Got it. Regular ice and sugar?"

"Yes and yes," he nods, pulling out his wallet. Once he finishes the transaction and Ryujin, your other coworker whom you barely work with, comes out from the back to start on the drinks, Yoongi steps up as you take a glance at the wandering-eyed Jungkook.

Facing your attention back to Yoongi, he carefully orders an iced green tea with light sugar and regular ice, emphasizing that he wants no toppings with that order as he wants something to chug down. From his energy, you take that he's very easy-going, not someone hard to talk to by how aware he was when he sounded annoying emphasizing that he didn't want any boba in his drink that he apologized. He drops in a two dollar tip into the box and as you thank him, he gives an easy smile.

As it was Jungkook's turn, he lets out a long "um" before dragging his eyes down to you from the menu. His friends wander to their usual spot in the back, leaving Jungkook behind to finish up with his order that he seemed to be taking centuries making up his mind with. He quirks his lip a bit as you stare expectingly. "Swear you won't mess with the drink?"

"Not the one making it," you point towards Ryujin behind you before smirking. "None of that flirty business and you'll get your drink in perfect condition."

This time, Jungkook laughs, and it's warm. It's like a light scoff, but there was something velvet about the way it rolled out of his throat, followed by a shake of his head. "Was it that bad?"

"Pretty bad," you agree, honestly. "If you wanted my number, you could have asked."

"Really?"

"Not that I'd actually give you my number," you warn, teasingly. He lets out another laugh and this time it was more audible and clear. Something that makes you want to hear again. "But, tacky pick-up lines don't really tickle my peach."

"Then what does?"

Jungkook holds your gaze for a moment, expecting an answer that could help him in the near future. Maybe if the register wasn't the only thing separating you two, it would be mistaken for an intimate moment, but because you know your place as the bobarista talking to a customer and this is strictly a professional environment, you decide to go with, "Ordering your drink. Have you figured out what you'd like?"

It takes a second for him to realize his standing point as well, shaking his head as he realizes your answer, one that he is impressed by because not only did you not cower away with an awkward response, you weren't that easy to give him what he wanted. The response you gave him was nothing short of clever, and he realizes that each encounter with you reinforces his idea of you that is solely based off of the sly, clever, and beautiful boba worker of Pleasantea.

"I'll have the regular guava green tea. Light ice, light sugar," he says, his hand digging into his back pocket, fishing for his wallet.

As he slides his card and finishes up everything with his transaction swiftly, you go and hurry over to Ryujin who has finished all the other drinks of Yoongi and Jaehyun's, expectantly looking at you to finish Jungkook's drink.

Ryujin quirks her lips as she leans back against the ice dispenser, nodding in confirmation as I point at the receipt of Jungkook's order staring flatly at you. "It's your boyfriend's drink. You should make it."

"Not my boyfriend," you tell her as her lips twitch up more. Taking the shakers and preparing to make his drink, you focus on pouring the syrup into the shaker before speaking up towards her. "Didn't he flirt with you too? He's yours, isn't he?"

Ryujin crinkles her nose, shaking her head vigorously in disgust that her hair bun shook on top of her head with her. You start chuckling to yourself at her reaction, the look on her face was filled with distaste, as if she associated Jungkook with a bad memory. "Nope, never. He's all yours, babycakes."

"Nuh-uh. I don't go for guys who have a fetish for boba workers."

"He just has great taste," Ryujin half-heartedly defends him with a wink, throwing an imaginary hair strand over her shoulder before taking a cap for the cups and popping it on to finish it. "Can't blame him. I mean, we're all pretty hot."

To that, you let out a snort, shaking your head. Ryujin takes the cup and calls out for Jungkook's name, the sound of the echoing shuffling of his footsteps fading in closer as he comes to the counter. Instinctively, you beat Ryujin to the dirty shakers used for the drink and go into the back to wash them, avoiding any more interaction with Jungkook for that day.

"Oh, so sorry to do this."

Jungkook wasn't really sorry, but he feigns innocence in his attitude a couple days later while you work an opening shift with your boss. It doesn't help that you woke up on the wrong side of the bed, annoyed that you didn't wake up as early as you hoped to, and ended up being a couple of minutes late to your shift, with Sunny raising an eyebrow at your delayed presence.

She wasn't all that disturbed by it, but it made you annoyed for the first hour of opening as few customer came trickling in. To make matters worst as you were just dying down from your self-annoyance, Jungkook comes in.

It wasn't his order or the way he ordered that ticked your rocker off, but it was a good 30 seconds right after you'd finish making his drink order that he gives off an innocent customer façade as if you weren't the barista that he flirted with before.

"But I asked for light sugar?"

Blinking at him, you felt your eyebrow medially twitch. For a moment, you don't know what to do, and of course, Sunny's behind you, watching your every move carefully. An apology slips through your mouth as you take the drink and nod, feigning a smile at him as he replicates one of his own. "Oh, was it too sweet for you? I'll fix that for you."

Sunny is silent from the other side of the bar as she observes you remake the drink, being careful with the sweetness and your mind mentally shooting daggers at Jungkook's doe-like eyes while you perfect the drink. As you hand over the refurbished tea to Jungkook, he had the audacity to try it again in front of you, as if he was some critic for the Boba Review. Pausing to see if the taste was enough to be satisfied, he shakes his head and lays it in front of you, nudging it with the knuckle of his finger. "It's still a little too sweet."

Biting your tongue, you feel your eye twitch as Jungkook smirks at you, taunting you with the customer service you're forced to veil. And it's within the third drink you made for him, only for him to taste it and shake his head again as if you were in servitude to him. But knowing Sunny and how she is strict on Pleasantea's saying of, 'making the customer satisfied', you smile through the annoyance and the mental stabbing, Jungkook probably amused at how your right eye was twitching after he taunts you with purpose.

And on the fifth drink, you purse your lips as he finally take a sip of it— one that was dramatic and off the top— before he gives a satisfied nod, showing off his pearly whites to you as he takes the drink half-heartedly. "Thank you, it's just right."

Should've spit in that one, you thought.

"Sorry about that. Thank you for being patient," you grit through your teeth as he smirks winningly before trotting off outside into his damn red Jeep that makes you consider keying.

Unexpectedly, once the door shuts, Sunny starts to laugh at the other end of the bar, shaking her head as you turn towards her with two dirty shakers in hand. Concerned, you scrunch your eyebrows, "what's wrong?"

"You both are..." The way that Sunny scrunches her nose as she thinks makes you pause in your stance, wondering what she could say about you and Jungkook to be in the same category. "Something else," she observes, walking away with her head down to her iPad.

With Jungkook, it became banter here and there.

Most of the times, it's just silent banter, one of which he gives you a side eye, you simply taking it in every time he orders, but at least his friends don't feel the same way. You only familiarize yourself with Jaehyun the most out of Jungkooks' friend group, but even then, the entire group weren't strangers. Dahlia tells you about how they come here all the time and she can breezily list off their usual orders from the top of her head and eventually, it didn't become hard for you to befriend them.

Jungkook takes note on how your voice drops about the 5th time he's came in when you were working. It was more prominent after having dealt with a customer before his group of friends and him. He notices that you've taken a comfortability with them to be given the privilege to talk to them in your casual voice rather than the higher pitched voice that exudes customer service.

After the incident that you falsely laughed to him the next time you saw him at the shop of which he used Pleasantea's promise of making the customer satisfied against you and had you remake his drink five times, there were a lot of promising moments between the two of you. Dahlia witnessing one too many times that she keeps a stick note near the register and tally marks under "Jungkook and ___ Pleasantea tension". It made Sunny amused enough that she even tally-marked for the time he made you remake his drink.

There was this one favorable moment that Dahlia deemed deserves two tally marks because Jungkook just happened to come in and order a drink right before your shift ended. And while you assume he was going to pick a fight with you again, you notice as you're about to clock out, he was flirting with a girl. You don't think too much of it, until you notice the girl looking uncomfortable.

The dark-haired girl presses her lips into a fine line, almost forced as she tries to politely back away and silently hope that Jungkook would leave her alone. It isn't until she's laughing nervously and Jungkook following in her fleeing steps that you take the situation into your own hands and quietly wave goodbye to Dahlia who was in the midst of taking another customer's order.

Sweeping past around the bar, you approach the girl, politely laying your hand on her arm with a smile on your face.

"Hi! Thank you for waiting for me! You didn't have to meet me at work, I could have just picked you up!"

Jungkook, in the corner of your eye, furrows his eyebrows at the seeming connection between you two. The girl's face morphs from being startled to understanding your motives before she nods and follows in suit. "Oh, no worries. I wanted to get a drink anyways."

"Here, I'll walk you to your car and we can figure out where to eat," you kindly urge as she responds with an agreeing nod. When you peer over at Jungkook, he could only arch an eyebrow at the situation he was standing in front of.

"Jungkook," you acknowledge, a single nod heading his direction.

"___," he says your name with the same intent, watching as you and the girl he was unknowingly making uncomfortable slide past him, leaving him to grab his drink that was waiting at the other end of the counter, dumbfounded.

After that day, you made a new friend, her name being Jisoo. She gives her thanks as you walk her back to her car for saving her from that uncomfortable situation and you, in turn, having to explain that Jungkook is a little airheaded at times. You gave her a comforting hug and announce that you hope to see her soon in different circumstances in which she wholeheartedly agrees and while not only did you make a new friend that day, you also gained two new brooding tally marks on the pale yellow sticky note that stared back at you at your next shift.

Along with tension, Jungkook remains reluctant when he orders.

A roll of your eyes and a reassurance that tampering his drink was a one time deal— until he opened his mouth again, and it wasn't so much a one time deal— would be in check. But even after that second time you messed with him, you didn't bother with the third time, although he makes it very tempting to. "It's not like I'm going to continuously ruin your drink every time you come in here. I heard you're the reason why this place picked up business."

"Am I?"

"Yeah. Star of the lacrosse team, well-known in the town, bringing your teammates— that's what Dahlia tells me."

"Give Dahlia my thanks for her appraisal," he smirks and you snort at how quickly his ego has sky-rocketed by your simple statement.

"How can Sunny tell me that you're the most humble person on earth, yet you proceed to continue with cocky, yet cunning statements?"

"All apart of the charm, baby," he winks and clicks his tongue.

The "charm" makes you internally want to vomit. "Watch it, baby. I heard you're allergic to almonds. I'm not afraid to put almond milk in your milk tea."

He sucks in a deep breath at your threat, raising an eyebrow in challenge. The way you were so quick to use one of his weakness against him has him merely impressed, but nonetheless intimidated. "You wouldn't."

"Tempting," you hum to scare him off, but you shake your head. "But you're right, I wouldn't. However, you call me "baby" one more time, your next drink will have a little surprise with a side of an ambulance, just in case."

A handsome smile conquers his face, before shaking his head. "I'll just keep my mouth shut and hope you accept my tip."

"Tip accepted. Will that be all for you?"

"If I ask for my receipt, can I have your number on top?"

"Jungkook—"

And just then Jungkook cuts you off by hitting "print" on his screen, causing the long receipt to print from your end, an amused smirk on his face while you take his receipt and glare at him. Letting out a defeated sigh, you take the pen right next to the cashier and begin to write numbers on the top. "Just because you asked."

Jungkook raises his eyebrows at your notion and immediately acts calm when you look up to hand him his receipt. Internally, he was shocked that you actually put your number on it, followed by a heart and a comforting smile from your end as he didn't think it'd work. Jaehyun and Yoongi were just as surprised as well, but they shrug it off, thinking that you'd actually fall for his flirty tactics one way.

That was, until he calls the number that night when he gets home. He waits specifically until 9:23 PM and calls your number, hoping that you weren't asleep so that he could whip up a random and cheesy statement in the heat of the moment when you'd answer. However, when he hears the line pick up, he is first met with surprise, then confusion, then absolute hysterics as even he couldn't help but laugh to hear that you had given him a fake number, one so intricate that it led him to hear a man's voice saying, "so sorry, man. But they're not interested. But plenty of fish in the sea, right?" and then the voice mail message immediately ending.

Jungkook laughs in his kitchen, staring at his phone with an amused smile like an idiot. Even his roommate who walks into the kitchen to grab something from the fridge asks Jungkook why he's staring at his phone like a psychopath. Jungkook could only shake his head in realization that something as simple as to asking for your number wouldn't be that easy.  

"I didn't think I'd see you here," Jungkook approaches you with ease, giving a head nod towards his lacrosse mates that he'd catch up with them later as he pauses to stop in front of you. Just then, he points at the drink you were holding. "You brought boba?"

"Came from work," you shrug. You didn't think you'd show up to this party last minute after getting a text from Chaeyoung that she'll pick you up at your house after you get home from your shift, but in an odd spin of events, you're at the party and sponsoring your job's signature milk tea. "It's my chaser."

He lets out a sonorous laugh, one in which he gives you a look as if you were pure genius. It slowly disappears when he gives a subtle nod of his chin to prep his next topic change. "Hey, just wanted to let you know that if you were jealous of me talking to your friend the other day—"

Widening your eyes, you retract your mouth from your boba straw and attempt to swallow down the sweet taste before you choke on it. "Slow your roll, cockface. I interrupted because she was evidently uncomfortable with your presence."

He hums in denial, making you roll your eyes at his obliviousness.

"Trust me, Jungkook, your flirting isn't all that great," you scoff, putting him in his place. "Just because you're Mister "Long Stick Shot", doesn't mean you're Mister "Long Dick"."

Jungkook lets out a laugh, evidently amused by your rhetoric. "As if you've seen one for good measure."

"Do you really want me to respond to that?"

And just as he snorts in response, you couldn't help but let a smile creep onto your face at the sound of his amusement. Unsure why, but you just want to continue hearing it and be satisfied that you're the reason for the laugh that elicits out of his mouth.

The small appreciation is well buried the minute you freeze for a single moment when you see a figure you've done so well to avoid.

A 61-day streak of not running into him, but who's counting.

A groan pasts your lips, followed by a scrunch of your nose that makes you want to chug down a bottle of Fireball rather than make the slightest interaction with your ex-boyfriend of two years, Kim Taehyung.

Admittedly, you were doing so well as to not running into him after that one incident at the grocery store. While you were with your roommates, they advised you to hide behind the apples and then covered you when you went into the tampon aisle.

Though it's been four months since Taehyung and you have called it a quits— more so on his end because he claims he had 'lost feelings overtime', it still bothers you to be in the same place breathing the same air as him. He wasn't the most revolting character in your mind, but if he were the last person on earth and there was only a bucket of water left, you would not share the basic human necessity with him.

Jungkook shoots an eyebrow at your irked presence, pondering if his existence standing only a foot away from you was that disgusting to you that you had to groan the minute he lets out a single breath. However, he notices the way your eyes flicker from the bottle of Jameson to your right to a certain person in the crowd a couple times, taking it into his mind of his own to look past his shoulder, trying to dictate which person is making you want to chug down a bottle of Jameson so badly.

"Who are you—?" As he turns his head back to your taciturn behavior, he was expecting you to have disappeared, but he did not think that he would see you, a cup of boba in one hand and the other, a bottle of Jameson being directed down your throat as your neck evidently takes in multiple chugs. Widening his eyes, he immediately brings his hands to the bottom of the bottle and retrieves it back from you while you take in every last drop before the bottle of the wretched liquid is retracted from your every grasp. "Are you insane? Slow down, babe."

You bring your boba straw into your mouth, driving off the pungent taste of what will come up again later on the night with your well thought out chaser, a few boba balls to chew in between your teeth before wiping your mouth with the back of your hand.

Jungkook stares at you as if you grew two heads, placing the bottle down before someone else takes it with a glare shot at you for drinking nearly half the bottle in one go.

"Don't call me that," you let out a burp, one that makes Jungkook chuckle, shaking his head at how sporadic you can be. "I need to forget someone's presence tonight."

Jungkook wasn't dumb, he knew it had to be someone that's making you want to regret a fun night altogether. "Ex-boyfriend?"

You nod your head in the direction of where you previously stared at before doing something reckless in confirmation. Letting out a giggle, you wait until he scrunches his eyebrows his confusion for your clarification. "Of two wasteful years, the award for best douchebag is Kim Taehyung!"

He hums in response. "Ah. You know chugging down Jameson is only going to make you forget your name, not his."

Shrugging, your lips form into a smile. "That's alright, I'm not a lightweight. Don't worry. It'll take awhile for it to do its job."

"Not the job you want—"

"Shush," you stop him for a moment before taking one last sip of your boba and place it down onto the countertop, giving it a silent goodbye as you know better not to pick it up again after it has been set down. "You up for dancing, Long Stick?"

"What?" He chuckles, before he realizes that you've taken his wrist into your own fingers, tugging it as the loud speaker plays another Mac Dre song that has the crowd repeating, 'get stupid!' over and over again with the beat.

Jungkook wasn't dumb. He knew that you pulled him to dance with you in subtle hopes that Kim Taehyung would notice that you're cozying up to someone that wasn't him. He knew you could care less if it were either him or another guy in the party, but to Jungkook, in his mind, better him than any other blood thirsty, testosterone-filled guy that would take advantage of you and your badly drunken state from the wrath of Jameson.

He knows he may not be the best option to have you rub up against him as you slur the lyrics of Mac Dre's Thizzle Dance with his hands holding onto your hips, but as annoying as he can be with his coquetry, he knows that morally he cannot and will not take advantage of you after witnessing you chug down dark liquor that even he has bad memories tied along with it.

It doesn't take long before you're closing your eyes from the dizziness you were feeling from each sway and bump of your hips. It doesn't take long before everything becomes a blur and you're having to blink multiple times to keep your gaze in focus. You think you stumble over your feet a couple of times, but you can't tell if you're standing upright anymore. It doesn't take long before you feel yourself against someone, eyes closed as you find odd solitude in a stranger who holds you carefully in their arms. It doesn't take long that you indeed forget your own name, trying to steady your breathing. It doesn't take long before it's become black, and there is nothing for you to remember all through the night.

"Oh fucking hell."

There's something frightening about the first time you wake up and you register that you are somewhere that is nowhere near recognizable. It's not your own bed, maybe your own sofa, or even your friend's sofa— it's somewhere completely foreign. The realization after blinking the drowsiness away is what gets to you, and your heart races when the blood has gone cold as ice throughout your body.

That is exactly how you felt when the ceiling had a dark wood fan hung from it, when you felt that the bed was springy than your usual tempurpedic mattress, when you saw that the walls were not your room's decorative green, but a boring beige, when you realized that your bed was not only empty, but Jeon Jungkook sleeps soundly with his body turned towards you.

The worst part is realizing where you don't know where your things are. You distinctively remember you brought nothing but your phone and keys to the party right before you recall chugging down the devil's water.

As you sit up on the bed quietly to roam down your pockets of your jeans, you realize something that also makes you want to freak out as your breath has halted. You were also missing your jeans.

Peeking under the sheets, you must have gone pale to see nothing but your bare legs and your cherry printed underwear just below your waist. Thankfully your shirt and bra was on, but the night was too hazy to even tell what could have happened and that was enough to make you feel a vitriolic taste climb up your throat.

You turn your head in hopes to find something of your belongings, realizing with each sweep of the foreign room, you find your black jeans on the floor just at the foot of the bed. Gulping, you carefully and silently flip the sheets off of you, noticing that Jungkook didn't have one inch of the sheets around him and you wonder if you hogged it all last night. As you swing your legs off the bed, you make a queasy face each second as you stand up, the sound of the springs not helping you sneak off without waking up Jungkook.

Tiptoeing to your jeans, you snatch them and hope to find your phone in the back pocket, only to feel a bit of relief to find your keys, but not your phone. Closing your eyes at the fact that you might have to roam around the house to find your phone, you take your jeans and carefully, one by one, slide your feet into them.

And just then, as you take a peek at Jungkook, he shifts and stirs in his bed, a slight moan coming out of his mouth before you realize that he is just waking up. You watch in silence as his arm slings over to where you lied, as if searching for you, and after a few unsatisfying pats, he drowsily opens his eyes to where they trace up to you.

Both of your gazes meet and with your heart completely stopping, you let out a meek, "Hi."

In that moment as your pants are midway being pulled up along your legs, you suddenly forget how to move. Every inch of your muscles head to toe has completely frozen over and without even being punched in the gut, the wind was taken right out of you.  

Jungkook notices how you freeze so much so resembling a dog, he stifles a laugh, a tired chuckle emanating out of his lips as he sits up with one elbow propping him up. He rubs his eye with a curved index finger before sliding the pad of his thumb under the tip of his nose. You can't help but notice how good he looks just arising from his slumber, while you were in the midst of taking a walk of shame. You cringe when you realize your makeup is probably smudged under your eyes. "Hi. You alright there?"

"Uhm..." You blink, mouth becoming dry. "In all honesty, I really don't know how this usually works because I don't usually do one night stands—"

Jungkook lightly scoffs at that, shaking his head. "___."

"Can we forget this happened? Like can we just totally forget that I woke up next to you and that we—"

"___," he cuts you off, a laugh following after. He's amused by your panic, your immediate assumption making you run off in sentences that were flying off the walls this early in the morning. "We didn't do anything."

You blink again, your already dizzy mind running circles all over again. "We didn't?"

"You were pretty piss ass drunk, babe. I asked around for your friend... Chaeyoung, was it? to take you home, but I'm guessing she went home with Jaemin." The look on your face was probably amusing because there's a quirk of his lip evident. "I was also asking you where you live to drop you off, but little miss "I'm not a lightweight" could not form proper sentences by the end of the night, so the safest bet? I asked Yoongi to lend me the guest bedroom for you." He pauses to see your reaction, but seeing that you were more anxious to hear why the hell your pants were off, he lets out a sigh and continues. "You removed your pants because you said it was hot. Not because I removed it, or because I or you were insinuating anything. You basically threatened to use your "one week free trial of Muay Thai" on me if I laid a finger on you."

That made you cringe. "Good to know that drunk me can still defend herself."

"Yeah, if that means verbally threatening someone to break their arm and then blacking out mid-threat is considered defending yourself."

His little add on was responded with a glare from your end. "I'll break your arm right now, Jungkook."

"Funny. You said that last night before you pulled me into bed with you."

And your eyes widen again. "What?"

"Mhm," he says nonchalantly before letting out a dragging yawn. As he scratches his head, he continues, "you apologized for being mean and then asked me to stay with you. Didn't even plan on leaving, babe."

"Okay. That's enough embarrassing me today. I don't want to know the rest."

"You sure? Because you also said—"

"Piss off."

Jungkook, hysterically laughing at your quick annoyance to his own tease, contemplates in his head if he should tell you that you both had just happened to share a kiss that night. But seeing that a coral color was formulating along your cheeks and you were biting down on your lip, he mentally decided against it.

The embarrassment would grow immensely if he told you that though drunk you can defend yourself, drunk you also revealed to him that his lips looked, quote on quote, "soft and kissable". And just when he was in the middle of explaining to you to use the code word "boba" to indicate to him that you needed to throw up, you took him by surprise and kissed him. Would he be a fool to kiss back? Yes. To kiss back gently and memorizing your lips? A thousand times yes— a complete idiot, at its finest form.

Too bad that you just happened to be fool's gold— and Jungkook just happened to like shiny things.

Of course, Jungkook had no intention of taking advantage of you that night, especially when you were piss ass drunk and in any continuing second, you might've had to use the code word "boba" without any warning. So, he pulled back, and while he was worried that you might've realized what you've done, there was a smile on your lips, your eyes slightly opened in a daze. When he says your name in caution, you hiccup and tell him, "your lips are soft and kissable".

Would he be a jerk to just casually throw it in there while you are nearly freaking out and slightly disturbed by the whole scenario of waking up next to him pants-less at that moment? Yes, a big one. To maybe keep it in silence for awhile so that he may use it against you one day? Oh yeah, definitely. Ultra Platinum Jerk 3000.

But if he was going to fall for fool's gold, he might as well be the Ultra Platinum Jerk 3000.

"Why'd you even stay?"

Jungkook snaps out of his thoughts, realizing that his eyes had somehow wandered down to your legs without much notice. You didn't mind, mostly because it didn't seem like he was checking you out, but more so in deep thought. Plus, your legs are pretty killer.

"What?" He asks, causing you to lightly scoff.

"Why'd you stay?"

His nose crinkles as if that question was a terrible question to ask. "To watch over you? I'm not that terrible of a guy to just leave a very vulnerable girl alone in a bedroom in a house she doesn't know."

You purse your lips, a bit surprised at that considering that this is cocky "long stick shot" Jungkook. "Well... now great, that just make this super awkward."

"No sweat," he waves you off easily, hopping off the bed and running a hand through his tousled bed hair. "Here. I can take you home."

You pause, blinking. Your now still movements caught his attention, an eyebrow raising in question to your reaction to his gesture. "Are you sure?"

"You'd like to walk home instead, babe?"

Rolling your eyes at his question to answer your question, Jungkook smirks. "Thought so. Put your pants on and let's go."

When you get out of the room, you follow him downstairs, only for him to stop at the midsection where the stairs turn the other direction. You halt in your footsteps as well before he dives into his pocket and reaches out a phone with your familiar blue phone case on it. "Here. Saw it sticking out of your pocket and I knew you were going to lose it somehow."

As you take it in your hands, you felt a big wave of relief flood over you as you realize you had obtained everything important that you almost had a heart attack about losing. You and Jungkook share a small smile, him acknowledging that that was your way of thanking him, but not being able to say it, but if you allowed yourself to, you'd throw your arms around him for caring just a bit. However, the thought disappears when he continues on going down the stairs, a moment delay in your head to process before you continue following him.

There's shuffling down the hall when you reach the floor, and while you can barely make out what was happening because you managed to remove your contacts and discard them somewhere, all you hear is a very recognizable voice.

"Holy shit, you fucked boba girl?"

Jaehyun.

"Jaehyun—"

You groan and throw an annoyed middle finger at Jaehyun, cutting off Jungkook who seemed just as irked by Jaehyun's blunt question. "Fuck off. No, we didn't. As if I'd ever let him." You roll your eyes at the Jaehyung's assumption, but Jungkook could only quirk his eyebrow at your add-on. "How about you? Were you fucking Yoongi?"

A snort is heard next to you, Jungkook looking the other way to stifle his laughter.

"Woah there, Shortstack," Jaehyun bemusedly smirks, throwing a towel he was holding over his shoulder and crossing his arms over his chest. "And if I did?"

"I might have blacked out, but it's not hard to miss your screams for Yoongi's name down the hall," you announce, sarcastically. No, you were too blacked out to remember anything. Another snort coming from next to you as you let out an irritated sigh, your head just now pounding in indication of your hangover, is heard, but you were too drained to mentally high five yourself.

"Well, good fucking morning to the lot of you, assholes. I leave for one second and I'm suddenly dragged into a conversation about how I was getting fucked in the asshole by Jaehyun?"

"It's okay, Yoongi," Jaehyun turns to Yoongi, taking a step closer to him as he coos, "we don't have to deny it."

Yoongi rolls his eyes in annoyance and swats his friend away. "You guys are making my hangover worst."

"I've always known you were a bottom," Jungkook chimes in, making you, in turn, laugh. You mentally fist bumped him for that one.

"Yeah, and I could say the same for you," Yoongi throws back as it was your turn to snort.

You nod in counterfeit confirmation. "Oh, he's definitely a bottom."

In a breaking moment, Jungkook rolls his eyes and reaches down to grab your wrist hastily. "Would love to continue this wonderful conversation, but I have to take her hungover ass home." It catches you off guard when you realize after being tugged at the arm that it was Jungkook at the origin of the other end, making purposeful contact with you.

You let out a fake gasp, a bemused smirk playing your lips. "Ah, little Jungkookie is a bottom, huh?"

"Wouldn't you like to find out?" He challenges as you shake your head, laughing.

You pat his shoulder that was lifted while his hand extends to the back of your head seat as he reverses out of the driveway. "You see, it'd be an interesting experience, but two bottoms don't make a top."

He opens his mouth to say something— probably in regards to the open sentence that you just threw out there that confirmed you were— at least, preferably— a bottom. Knowing him, he would've said a snarky reply or a very sexual joke, but instead, there's a small smile on his face that you don't miss. It's out of amusement and while you've seen plenty of smiles like that in response to your own misfit of reactions coming from him, you don't miss the way his lips just curl with ease and how his eyes form crescents even from that minuscule facial muscle movement. Before he gets too suspicious of your staring, you look away, glad that your blind eyesight focused on his facial expressions, a fine resolution of a simple Jungkook smile arising on his face imprinted in your brain.

Jungkook comes in a couple days later. This time, he's accompanied with a backpack. You notice that he was intentionally staying at Pleasantea to study, making use of the bar and bar stools placed by the window.

You work with Dahlia that shift, her tapping the sticky note near the register in translation that she is predicting another iconic tension moment between you two, but it doesn't happen when admittedly, waking up to Jungkook beside you and him showing an ounce of care has made you warm up to him by a smidge. There was no walk of shame and he was good at making sure you had everything before you left his car. Not only that, he stayed in front of your home until you were inside safely.

It's the bare minimum, but truthfully, it's not something you expected from him.

When Jungkook usually comes in, he normally only waves to the other workers who wave back, and today was a bit of a groundbreaking moment when he first waves to Dahlia, flickers his eyes over to you and waves. A wave directed towards you and you only responded with a mere smile.

He orders something new. A peach green tea and when he went to pick it up at the other counter, he raises his eyebrows and silently smiles at you. In hindsight, it'd be a weird moment for Dahlia or for anyone who didn't know what happened a couple nights ago, and even to you, it's kind of different, but it was also refreshing.  

Everything goes swell and dandy until you notice the door swing open from the back, the words "hi, welcome" becoming lost in throat when you notice who walks in. Similar to a storm nearing a field of daisies. A dream turned nightmare instantaneously. Instantly, you tap Dahlia's arm without a single word, swiping your hand back and forth near your neck in signal of who it was. Dahlia immediately taking note of it, nods and gestures you to hide in the back.

It's an odd feeling. You know that you're over him and you've been over him, but you can't help but wonder why your body is in fight or flight mode and why your breathing has become ragged. The air has suddenly become heavy and the walls seem to be caving in.

At a mental cross roads, you feel yourself heave breaths, simple tumbles of calm affirmations to stagnate your heartbeat runs circles around your mind. Few reminders of breathing in and breathing out, a mere countdown from 10 to 1, fingers tapping each other. You are trying so very hard not to struggle in the ocean as you had just been caught in the riptide. Out of the blue, completely unheard of, not a single sign, an abrupt happening— there is nothing to do but to not be scared. An evident showcase of fear, the water just knows without a doubt that you're struggling. It'll pull you in if you go against it.

Just then, in your moments of self-assurance, Jungkook's form magically shows up in the back room. Eyes widening at his presence, you're taken aback at how breezily he walks in an employee restricted part of the store.

"Hey."

You suck in a deep breath, feeling your chest rise and lower as you roll your lower lip inwards. "What are you doing here?"

"I saw who walked in," he simply explains, taking a step closer to you. "Dahlia said I can come in here. I wanted to check up on you."

"Oh," you breathe, not really comprehending his motive behind his actions and not really finding the effort to. "I'm fine, just... hiding."

Jungkook glances down to meet your eyes as you immediately avert your attention to your knees, tapping your fingers on them in a rhythmic fashion to settle your nerves. "You alright? I can ask Dahlia for a cup of water."

"That's okay," you shake your head. "Uhm— thanks for checking up on me."

"No need to thank me," he shrugs and in a blink of an eye, he sits in front of you, arms resting at his knees as he runs a hand through his hair.

"You don't have to do that."

"I'll wait until he leaves. I'm not leaving you alone."

You stare at him for a moment. At first, you find it wholly odd that he connected two dots when he saw Taehyung coming into the store and found it, to his own discretion, to accompany you, the person who is most affected by the presence of someone no more than a stranger to Jungkook. It's peculiar to think that there's just this smidge of care for you within him, but your past experiences and encounters with him thinks quite otherwise. And while he makes himself comfortable, meeting you eye-to-eye in an attempt of support, you let out a defeated sigh.

"So, how's work? You know, before he came in?"

You inhale sharply at his way of starting small talk. "Fine. Can't wait to get off, though."

"You got plans after your shift?"

Shrugging, you pull your knees closer. "I wanted to catch up on sleep."

He arches his eyebrow, taking note of how you built your walls higher and stronger. "You haven't been sleeping?"

In an honest gesture, your shake your head, shrugging. "Midterms."

"Hm, gotcha," he nods understandingly, letting it drag out into silence.

In all honesty, (and you won't admit it) his presence just happened to comfort you. He didn't have to say a word and just him being there— Jungkook taking the thought to care and stay with you was a matter of solace you didn't think you'd appreciate as greatly.  

"You know what I'm craving?"

You lift your head up to meet his eyes, the pair that glistened with slight amusement to keep the spirits high. Wordlessly, you arch an eyebrow as he quirked his lip, answering his own rhetorical question.

"A big ol' hearty bowl of tomato soup and grilled cheese," he says with great yearning. He closes his eyes for a second as if to imagine the flavors just fulfilling his cravings. "And a nice slice of peach cobbler for dessert? Vanilla ice cream on top and everything."

Jungkook says it with such a dreamy voice that it makes you snort, a laugh coming from his end as he nods.

"Is that so?" You ask in between your tiny fits of chuckles.

"Yeah," he gushes in an obvious tone. "Does that not sound mouth-watering to you?"

Shaking your head, you couldn't help but let out one more chuckle before rolling your lips inward. "I'm craving gyozas. I could eat fifty of those in one sitting."

"That's a bet I'm willing to make, sweetheart," he raises his eyebrows, impressed.

Lips curling, a sudden gasp escapes your lips as your mind reawakens a craving you haven't had in awhile. "Ooo, and tiramisu gelato," you mull, shoulders falling as you think about the creamy texture of the heavenly goodness. "When I went to Italy a couple of years ago with my mom, I would always make her stop by every gelato shop we passed by so I could get tiramisu gelato."

Jungkook smiles. "Just tiramisu?"

"I mean, I dabbled in other flavors, but tiramisu—"

"He's gone now."

Your sentence is cut off when Dahlia's sweet presence briefly peeps from outside into the back room, Jungkook turning his head over his shoulder as Dahlia glances between you and him amidst your conversation on the ground. As Jungkook turns back and begins to stand, you don't miss the growing grin on Dahlia's feature as you know very well that she was going to add another tally mark.

Glaring at he, your eyes flicker from her and then to Jungkook who has his hand in front of you. Mindlessly, you grab it as you pull yourself up with a bit of a tug coming from him, a mere "thanks" coming from out of your mouth as he gives you a single nod.

"You alright?" He inquires as you give him one last nod, a smile growing on your face as a silent reassurance just right before he exits out of the back room and proceeds to finish studying.

20 minutes later, he makes his leave and waves goodbye at both Dahlia and you.

"Hola."

"Why are you still outside?"

It is 9:06 PM, Pleasantea closing at 9 PMs on the weekdays and Jungkook just happened to come in at 8:51 PM on Wednesday to teasingly spite you. However, as he left once he saw you turn the 'open' sign to 'closed', you realize while you are sweeping the lobby that his car is parked out in front of the shop. The red jeep with the top on sitting in front staring back at you, as well as his form sitting in the driver's seat, his face illuminated by his phone screen in his lap.

Confused as to why he was still outside, you call him from your phone. You happened to have his number after Dahlia just happened to slide it to him one day while you were off the clock, a random text notification sparking curiosity in you as you realized that the only person who would text— hey babe, didn't see you at work today—  to you, would be Jungkook.

You watch the way the white light morphed into a dimmer light counteracting his face before he brings his phone to his ear. Doing so, he looks up and sees you through the window, the broom you were sweeping with standing right against you as you raise an eyebrow in question.

"I'm waiting for you to finish closing," he answers, his pearly whites coming to show even from afar. "By the way, loved the dancing to Blondie."

Your cheeks grow red in your realization that as it hit 9 PM, you blasted Blondie in the store speaker, and danced while cleaning all the tea tubs and sweeping the back to Long Time and The Tide Is High. "Piss off."

"You didn't say, 'please'."

Scrunching your nose, you stare at him as he is amused by your annoyance of him. "Jungkook, you don't have to wait for me."

"I know I don't. But I want to," he tells you, his voice sounding caring and concerned as he doesn't let his gaze off of you while he keeps you on the line. You let out a sigh before his lips curl upwards. "___, do you realize what happens to people at night when they're alone? Bad things happen. And while I'm still upset that you forgot to put boba in my drink—"

"I gave it to you in an extra cup!"

"I called Jihyo and apparently, you're the only person available to close tonight and I'm just purely making sure nothing happens to you while you finish closing."

"Jungkook—"

"Better hurry up, babe. At this rate, you won't be able to leave early."

There's a groan when you glance over at the clock, and Jungkook takes the time to smile at the way you stare back at him through the glass window, a middle finger adorned with a gold ring on your finger sent his direction before you let out another defeated sigh. "Fine, but come inside. Don't just sit in your car and watch me like a stalker."

"Aw, you want me to keep you company?"

"No, I just need a dance partner when Heart of Glass plays."

"You ask me to dance with you once, and suddenly I'm your dance partner."

"Precisely. Should've seen what you were getting into after I asked you to dance at the party," you say, a smile on your lips as you hear his laugh through the other end, his mouth open in amusement. "Now come inside. Maria's almost over."

You could not believe you were here.

In fact, you could not believe that you let a stinkin' pearly toothed and politely asking Jungkook convince you in the first place, and now you're sitting on your bed, realizing that the knot in your stomach is a reminder that you are not only lost, but also very anxious in the upcoming setting you put yourself in.

Last minute plans were never your thing. Sure, some spontaneity can be refreshing, but this was a prime example of reasons why you should not allow yourself to agree with such sporadic decisions without even a basis to work off with. Now you're sitting at the edge of your bed, staring at your closet, jaw slacked and mind running in circles, wondering if you're overthinking an outfit to wear amongst a bunch of people.

Besides, it's not like Jungkook's going to care. Not like you would expect him to— or want him to.

Recalling the last time you went to a game, you wore a plain white shirt and jeans, but you remember being cold that night— but those were autumn nights. Your mind tries to think of wanting to wear something, but the possibilities clashes and you result into groaning at your flavorless closet, knowing very well that there's gotta be at least something, but your mind was not coming up with anything.

Throwing your body back to be cushioned by your mattress, you close your eyes and cringe, retracing your idiotic steps earlier today on how you brought yourself into this mess.

"Hey, ___, wait up!"

Jungkook calls after you as you bid your farewells to your co-workers, pacing up to your form as you stop in your tracks, waiting for him to reach up to you. As his face comes into view, you pull your lips up into a small smile, eyebrows furrowing as to why he called for your name. He smiles back, a small peep of his bright smile before he places his elbow against the counter next to you.

"Come to the game tonight. We're going against UFenesy."

Hearing the invitation roll out of his mouth, you were slightly taken aback, but nevertheless practical when you shake your head. "I'm good, thanks."

He pulls his eyebrows together, though his inviting smile never leaves his features. "Why not?"

You shrug, unsure yourself as you pull your falling bag over your shoulder. Jungkook nearly reaches over to catch it for you, but seeing that you beat him to it, he flickers his eyes back onto yours.

Jungkook narrows his eyes in plain suspicion. "You haven't been to one, have you?"

"No, I've been to a game," you defend, eyes wandering as you finish your sentence honestly. "Just not a lacrosse game."

"Great," he grins, eyes sparkling. "This'll be your first."

Helplessly, you let out a laugh. It sounded more like a scoff, if anything— one that was in disbelief. "No, Jungkook. I have to finish an assignment and I have an exam on—"

"Is it tomorrow?"

"No, but it's on—"

"Come on, babe," he pokes at your side, making you take a step back as you narrow your eyes at him for his sudden poke. "I need my number one boba worker there."

You nod your head over your shoulder. "Then go ask Jihyo, not me."

He laughs in a way where his eyes crinkle, shaking his head. "No, come on. I asked you for a reason. Listen, I'll give you cash and you get yourself a hearty corn dog with extra ketchup and ranch, and you'll stand at a perfect view—"

"Jungkook, why does it sound like you're treating me as your trophy girlfriend?"

Jungkook frowns. "I'm not. I just want you to be there, okay? Even if that means buying you a corn dog and keeping the best spot in the stadium open for you."

Pursing your lips, you cross your arms. "I don't even know how lacrosse works. I'll probably end up cheering for the other team."

"Unless the other team has a teammate named Jeon Jungkook, then don't let out a peep. Just cheer me on specifically and you'll be fine."

"Self-absorbed," you inform him as he pokes at your cheek, making you look at him with an arched eyebrow. He smile reaches his eyes once more, hoping that you'd agree to go to the social outing just for him.

"Is that a yes?"

You pause, weighing your options. To stay home and procrastinate or to drag yourself into a social setting and experience a college game. "Will you give me a ride home?"

In hindsight, the former was probably a better option for your nerves, but admittedly, it was more so the most comfortable option.

And as if the universe has heard your regretful decision, your friend, Jisoo texts you in perfect timing if you wanted to go to the game with her tonight. First, you feel elated because now you have someone to go with, but you feel yourself groan for agreeing to something you regret. As you text her in agreement, you continue to have an internal battle with your thoughts for an outfit.

"There goes Jeon again with the long-stick shot!"

Jisoo picks you up when you tell her that you were already having a ride home— only if Jungkook remembers— and she was gladly to take you to the game. Though just only having to have met her, she explains how her friends don't really go to games and she usually goes alone. While you nod and reassure her that she has you now, you mentally thank the universe for her keeping your nerves at bay.  

Right before the game started, a random person comes up to you while you were discussing with Jisoo about the classes you were planning to take next semester. "Are you ___?"

"Yes?" You answer, raising an eyebrow at the girl with hair in braids. "Who's asking?"

"I'm Essie," she smiles. "I'm one of the water girls for the team. Jungkook wanted me to give you this—" Essie pulls something from her back pocket and it's a twenty dollar bill. Before you could even let out a word of protest, she grabs your hand and places the bill in yours, retracting hers swiftly before she lets out a chuckle. "Jungkook said to do that because you would refuse. Also, he wants me to show you your seats."

"Wait, wait," you shake your head, eyebrows knitting closely together as you glance at Jisoo who tries to refrain from laughing. "Jungkook asked you...?"

"Yeah, he asked me to give you cash for a hot dog and to show you your spots because he said he promised you the best seat in the stadium. There's an extra seat for your friend, too," Essie glimmers a quick eye smile before giving a single nod, turning around and leading the way past the crowd of people to get to the so-called "best seat in the stadium".

Essie leaves you and Jisoo with a happy farewell after leading you to a seat where two other girls move after Essie waves at them for saving the spot.

"Enjoy the game!" The girls who were sitting at the spot smile at you and Jisoo before taking their spot that they were supposedly saving for you.

As the girls have left and left you and your friend dumbfounded, Jisoo was the first to laugh.

"Was Jungkook your boyfriend this whole time?" Jisoo inquires beside you, more so amused rather than angry as she sees your reaction to her question. Your mouth gapes open as you vigorously shake your head.

"He was never my boyfriend from the start," you scoff and she nods, laughing.

"Oh? And he promised you a seat at his game?" She curls her lips upwards curiously, jumping on the immediate implication that Jungkook and you have something stirring.

"He promised me a good seat if I went tonight.... And a hot dog. You want one?"

Jisoo lets out an amused giggle before shaking her head. "Maybe later. Game is about to start."

She explains which team is which and that UFenesy were called "Phoenixes", chiiming in that she's never seen the opponent play, but she heard they were a pretty good team that made it to championships the prior year. You nod as you try to figure out how to analyze the game just by listening on and off to the commentary from the echoing speakers to Jisoo's added explanations thrown in sporadically here and there.

It takes a couple of minutes, but you finally spot Jungkook, broad letters of "Jeon" imprinted on his jersey above the number "3". Finding comfortability of finding him on the field, you watch the whole first quarter solely on him and his moves. His stature was built and tall along his teammates, his speed and stamina was endless, and the way he would shoot and score each time was impressive— it was no wonder why the girls next to you screamed out his name every time a shot was made.

Home: 5

Visitors: 4

You watch attentively as his teammates all roughly gather up to Jungkook after making his second signature long-stick shot of the night, all of them hastily patting his helmet and shoulder while their testosterone-filled cheers were accompanied by the crowd's.

"Are you guys a thing?"

Nearly snapping your neck at the question, Jisoo doesn't tear her eyes apart from the field in front of her, her dark eyes looking around before she felt your gaze on her was when she meets your eyes. Innocently, she smiles.

"No, we're not," you answer honestly, a nervous chuckle coming out of your throat.

"Oh, so he just likes you," Jisoo turns her head back onto the field, nodding in thought. "That's cute. He had the water girls find you and save you a spot."

Scoffing, you shake your head. "Please, he's probably done that to a lot of girls. I'm not anyone special."

"I'd beg to differ," she hums to herself, amusement glinting her eyes.

As intermission at halftime arrives, Jisoo volunteers to stay at the seats while you go on and buy two hot dogs. One with ketchup and mustard, and another with extra ketchup and extra ranch. Thinking about it, you weren't sure as to how Jungkook knew you liked hotdogs with ketchup and ranch, but you ignore it as you take the hotdogs in both of your hands and walk down the steps to find Jisoo.

And when halftime ends and the third quarter speeds on by, you're in awe at how Jungkook talks to his teammates when they huddle. It's nothing that you can hear from where you and Jisoo stand, but from his stature and hand gestures, a pat on one of his teammate's helmet, you can see how much he cares about his teammates and how easy it was to motivate and inspire them. A true team captain at work. They release a mini cheer amongst each other before heading off to the last quarter of the game.

"Jungkook likes you and you can't convince me otherwise," Jisoo states out of the blue about ten minutes into the last quarter, making you turn your head at her once more. "Oh, come on, don't give me that look. He gave you money for a hot dog and saved you the best seats in the stadium."

"You don't think he'd do this for anyone else? If you gave him your number that day, he'd probably do the same for you, too."

"Maybe," she sings, not denying how flirtatious Jungkook was being to her that day. "But it proves that you may like him, too. Why else did you come?"

"For the—"

"The hotdogs are not that great, honey. Don't say it's because of the hotdog."

It was true, the hotdogs were so and so. Pursing your lips, you shrug. "Well, he just convinced me."

"Because you like him."

Jisoo was being stubborn about it, but so were you. "I don't like him. He doesn't like me."

"Oh, he definitely likes you," she laughs, shaking her head at your denial.  

Wondering why she was so convinced about Jungkook liking you or vice versa, your mind drifts off to the time at the party when you asked him to dance. It wasn't meant to insinuate anything other than try to remove your mind off of a dreadful presence at that party, but you wonder why did he stick with you that night? Was it odd to think that that a simple expectation of sticking with someone under the influence— let alone a woman— should be common sense for him?

You'd think of him as a friend now— someone who is not consistently trying to badly flirt with you who causes your eye to twitch every time he comes in.

Admittedly, he's been pleasant to you. And undeniably, you're aware of such "tension" between you two, but you thought of it nothing more than just you being annoyed by his tactics. Did he actually have intentions of liking you? Sure, he's attempted to flirt with you, but overtime you didn't take it seriously? Why are you suddenly getting so affected by this? It's not like—

"North Stars and Phoenixes are tied."

The commentary snaps you back into present time, a quirk of an eyebrow while you flick your eyes to the scoreboard makes you realize that the commentary was correct.

Home: 10

Visitors: 10

"30 seconds on the clock— and there's Jeon with the ball."

Fixated on the man with the number 3 on his back, you watch as he zips through the opposing team like flying colors, flashing through like lighting as he keeps the stick right at his shoulder. He picks up the pace when he feels someone cutting through from his left, dodging and leaving them at the hands of one of his teammates to slow them down.

The clock ticks downwards with every anticipating bones of the crowd shaking, leaning in, clenching. Hushed whispers of, 'come on, come on' are heard from behind as you subconsciously clench your fists tightly until they were white.

It's not until he's close to the opposing side's goal, the opposing defensemen running towards him like moths surrounding a beacon of light— your hands intertwine with each other almost in prayer, heart rate speeding up as you watch his feet kick behind him and in an instant—

"Here comes Jeon—"

The ball hits the net.

"There it is! Ladies and gentlemen, Jeon again with the winning shot for the North Stars!" The sports commentary becomes overpowered by the loud screaming of the crowd, Jisoo included when sue stands next to you jumping up and down with raised fists and clapping hands. For you, you didn't realize how anxious you were feeling when you let out a sharp breath of relief, a laugh eliciting from your throat as you watch Jungkook run through the field haphazardly, his teammates scurrying over to him to engulf him in hugs and pats.

What set your heart off the rocker was that when his helmet is pried off from his head, his eyes go off on a flurry search onto the crowd, immediately stopping when they meet your eyes from the screaming and wild crowd. It's like he instantaneously ignores his teammates shoving and sharing loving pats around him when he meets your gaze, an ethereal moment of how time just completely stops around you both as you share that gaze with him.

A smile so handsome and pearly stretches along his face before the god gifted moment was pulled away too soon, and he is pulled away by being lifted into the air by his teammates, sonorous chants being audible enough to hear from the stadium.

"Cannot convince me otherwise," Jisoo nudges you with her elbow, causing you to roll your eyes despite your coral pigmented cheeks growing dangerously evident.

As people began to trickle out as the game was officially over, the parking lot becoming filled with cars leaving, Jisoo waits with you voluntarily for Jungkook. When you try to convince her to go on and go home, she rolls her eyes and announces all of the "what if's" ranging from being abandoned to someone kidnapping you. Sighing defeatedly, you both wait for Jungkook who takes awhile, but you don't mind— you loved Jisoo's warm presence.

Jungkook spots you first before you spot him, calling your name from a distance before his teammates— you recognizing Jaehyung and Yoongi behind him— run up and jump on him, sharing fits of laughter before you smile and look at Jisoo.

"Alright, I'm gonna head out now. Give Jungkook a winning kiss for me. And make sure he gets you home safely. Text me, alright?" Jisoo gives you a hug before you roll your eyes and squeeze back lovingly, her parting away and heading towards her parked car in the lot.

As you head over to the sweaty Jungkook in his casual attire, his friends shove his arm and laugh.

"See you at the after party, Jungkook?"

"Maybe," he nods towards Yoongi who asked the question. "Gotta take her home tonight."

"Whaaa?" Jaehyun nods his head towards me, placing both hands on his team captain's shoulders. "Not comin', Shortstack?"

"Opening tomorrow," you reason before grinning at him. "If you want hangover boba, just pop right in."

"Sweet," Jaehyun cheers, giving Jungkook one last shoulder pat before heading off a different direction with Yoongi. "Take her home safely then, Kook. You comin' afterwards?"

Jungkook pauses, a slight glance given your way as you obliviously quirk an eyebrow at him. He gives an outward point of a chin before letting his teammate know his answer. "We'll see."

Eyebrows raised, you purse your lips at his answer.

"What?" He asks when he notices your facial expression.

"You're not gonna go? I live only like 10 minutes away from campus with driving. You can still make it."

He laughs, shaking his head. "Nah."

"If you think I'm letting you into my apartment—"

"No, I was not thinking that at all," he lets out a chuckle at your wary assumption. "It's just—" he pauses and he lets out a sigh. "Do you need to be home now? Can you spare an hour or two?"

His question makes you narrow your eyes in suspicion. "Why?"

"You said were craving tiramisu gelato, right?"

"Yeah, a couple days ago," you furrow your eyebrows, recalling the moment when you disclosed your craving in the odd circumstances that was when you were mildly panicking, eyes nearly watering, and to save your sanity, you began talking to him about what was going through your head all thanks to his calm approach of making small talk.

Tiramisu gelato circled your mind.

"I know a place with the best gelato. Closes at midnight. You up for a little gelato action?" He smirks, you walking beside him towards his car.

You let out a small chuckle, a bit flattered that he remembered that you were craving gelato. "Sure. But I'm paying for yours."

"Why?"

"Because you're driving."

"Psh. That's nothing."

"Jungkook—"

"Keep your money in your purse or else I will take it and never give it back to you."

"But— Jungkook!" In a wrapped up instant, he hastily grabs your bag from your shoulder, dashing as fast as he could resembling his previous run across the field to make the winning shot. Seeing how he was gone in a blink of an eye, you run after him, calling his name.  "Jungkook!"

And just like how he started running, he halts, causing you to bump into him when your momentum was too fast to stop a second early. All at once, he collects your force, a hand at the small of your back to keep you from knocking both of you guys over. The physical contact makes you shiver under the night, and the realization that you were close to him as he was close to you makes everything ini your mind stop.

He looks down at you amusedly, his chuckles fading out as he realizes that you were staring up at him, the level of proximity you two were at with no one around you guys but you two suddenly becoming well aware in his mind like headlights. He didn't want to let you go, he stops and it's this moment where you two are close and you kind of stare at him and sigh. "Fine. I won't pay, but can I have my bag back?"

"You may." He gladly gives it back under your touch, taking a step back to amusedly make the previous proximity obvious. Once your bag was back in your grasp, you narrow your eyes at him before you take a step forward and give him a jab at the arm.

"Ouch," he laughs, rubbing his bicep of where you punched him. "I gave you your bag back."

"That was for making me chase after you," you huff, sending him daggers through your eyes. "You know I hate exercise."

He throws his head back in complete bemusement before leading you to his signature red Jeep.

When reaching to the gelato place that took awhile to travel to as it was near the beach, located next to a small theater and a pizza place, you furrow your eyebrows at how unfamiliar the place seemed to you.

As you gather your bag, you realize that Jungkook had disappeared from the driver's seat to reach the other end of your door to open it, his chivalry exuding from the gesture. Surprised by this, you give him one small acknowledging nod and thank him, a laugh eliciting from your throat as you tell him that he didn't have to that. But before you even finished that sentence, he opens the door to the gelato shop for you, a teasing, toothy smile on his face as he awaits for you to go inside.

You take a moment to scan through the flavors, all of them sounding appetizing before your heart is set on the tiramisu flavor just sitting at the very end beneath pistachio. You don't hesitate to ask for a scoop of tiramisu in a cup, an excited childish smile on your face as Jungkook keeps you close.

He goes ahead and orders the double chocolate gelato after looking at the flavors, you taking the cup the worker already scooped for you in your hand and taking a small spoonful to taste. Your mouth instantly waters.

Peering up at Jungkook as he watches you attentively fulfill your craving, you purse your lips. "Don't you usually go to Pleasantea after winning a game?"

"Yeah," he nods, shrugging. "The team and I deserve winning drinks."

"Then why are we here getting gelato?"

"I mean," he clears his throat, plucking a blue spoon from the jar of blue, red, and purple spoons. "I got the winning girl with me, it trumps a winning anything."

His statement makes you snort. "An excuse to break tradition?"

"An excuse to spend time with you," he nods with affirmation, bringing his spoon to his mouth. Rolling your eyes to that, he gives off his winning smile all while biting his gelato spoon. It was such a picture perfect moment, you mentally snapshot him before his attention is torn from you to grab his scoop of gelato. "Besides, I begged you to come to the game anyways. It'd be a dick move to just abandon you afterwards."

"True," you agree, before you stop in surprise at how Jungkook smoothly takes out his wallet and pays the worker with a ten dollar bill, putting the rest into the tip jar as you both leave your grateful thanks to him and leave. Jungkook goes again and opens the door for you, stepping beside it to let you out. You narrow your eyes at him once more and murmur a thank you in which he gives a chivalrous nod.

Instead of walking to the car, he leads the way to somewhere, you following suit beside him. You don't question it, mostly because you were distracted with your tiramisu gelato and the fact that you've grown so accustomed to Jungkook that you let your feet match up this pace.

"Good job out there, Long-Stick. Now I know why all the girls swoon over you," you tell him once you both settle over the rails that overlooked the beach. It was a vast opening, the ocean was almost as ebony as the night sky, but the moon was the glimmer that differentiated what was the sea and what was the sky. It was romantic itself, but you don't let the venue label your current experience with him. While it was beautiful, you don't let it get to your head.

Your appraisal makes him laugh lowly. "That was nothing."

"Against UFenesy? I'm pretty sure that's something," you recall what Jisoo told you. "Plus that last shot had everyone on the edge of their seat. Including me, and I didn't know what was going on for the half of it."

He lets out a fit of chuckles at your honesty. It makes you feel warm and appreciated that you're able to make him laugh. For some odd reason, you feel like his laugh is as rare as diamonds, and it is so beautiful once found. It's contagious and just as pleasing as yawning and you just want to hear it more and more.

However, once his laughter dies down, you chew on the inside of your cheek. "Don't you want to go to the party tonight?"

"Why?"

"I don't know. You made the winning shot, Long Stick," you shrug. "Don't you want to celebrate by getting drunk or high?"

Jungkook, shamelessly, stares at you closely as if you were hiding something. "You sound like you want to go home really badly. Just tell me up front and I'll take you."

"No, it's not that. I just don't want to be holding you back from anything or changing up your plans for the night."

"___," he laughs hearing this, shaking his head. "Relax. You're not holding me back from anything. I'm a big boy, I can change my plans as they go." You give him a nudge, one that follows with a laughter coming out of his mouth. "Besides, I'm with my winning gelato and my winning girl with a Blondie obsession at the beach. I don't need to go to a party to feel this high."

"Is that so?"

"I'm on top of the world, babe. You wanna try my gelato?"

He brings a spoonful of his gelato towards you and usually you'd hesitate from trying a shared portion of anything from someone, but there was a level of comfort that exuded safety, one where you allow yourself bring your mouth to his spoon and taste the rich flavor of milk chocolate gelato along with with biting down onto a dark chocolate bit.

Returning the gesture, you bring a spoonful of your tiramisu to his mouth, one where he happily eats it off the spoon and nods approvingly of the flavor that you were craving a couple days ago.

As you let his gelato flavor melt in your mouth and you bite down on the bit, something floods your thoughts— dark chocolate wasn't too bad.

Jungkook's mind is engulfed by you.

When he dropped you off that night, he felt the luckiest he's ever felt— somehow his lead to multiple victories have all been trumped by simple quality time with you. It wasn't at all romantic, but he somehow can't unwrap his mind around you. You are tattoo ink, your name written all over his mind and his brain as a constant reminder that you are very much alive— a living, breathing form he has grown to be submerged into. An addiction, an obsession.

He likes the way your eyes form crescents every time you are introduced to a new customer. He's convinced it's no longer your customer service persona, but your general nice appearance that is sweet and approachable. And while you may argue that you aren't as sweet as you may be given by the first encounter with the dull milk tea, he knows that you are as sweet as the tiramisu gelato you are so very fond of.

He won't tell you, but he remembers every drunken spill you unraveled to him that night when you thought it was a good idea to drown your mind out of a certain someone.

When Jungkook first brought you inside the guest bedroom and helped you sit on the bed, you let out a slurred threats of using your muay thai free trial if he ever touched you, but only giggled afterwards when you expose yourself of quitting because people made fun of the way you jump-roped— "princess jump-rope", as you liked to call it.

You like fun, printed underwear over the lacy see-through ones, and while he didn't catch a glimpse of the ones you wore that night, you made it an announcement and proof that you were wearing cherry printed ones. You were craving a hot dog that night, almost bursting to tears because you wanted a hot dog with extra ranch and extra ketchup so badly, but sucked it up when you started staring at him. You have a lip tattoo— an impulsive and drunk decision walking by a tattoo parlor with your friends at 2 AM— that says, 'ur mom'. You also admitted that you didn't want him to leave you— not that he was, he was only going to lock the door to prevent people from coming in— and that you like his presence no matter how annoyed you may seem by him.

And while you were drifting off to sleep, you let out spills about Taehyung.

"When Taehyung and I broke up, it was because he lost feelings. I mean, I guess it was also mutual because I felt the same way, but, uhm... I was so convinced that we would last. I think I'm more mad at the fact that I didn't end it first. He stopped making me feel loved about a year in. Honeymoon phase was over, I guess, and I don't know— I guess I just lost that security and love with him. I should be relieved that he ended it, but I'm just mad that I wasted two years of my life being with him when I should've just ended it first."

He didn't say anything in response to that— it's not because he didn't want to, it's because his mind could formulate such words that would console your drunk mindset. And before he could even let out a peep, he hears a light snore.

He doesn't forget everything you said that night though. He couldn't. Not when it's the most you have ever disclosed to him.

As if you weren't occupying his mind enough, you somehow show up at times he merely forgets about you.

One time, you were working a closing shift and you decided it would be nice to surprise Jungkook with a drink, remembering he would be staying up that night to finish an assignment. You went out of your way to ask Jaehyun for his address to drop it off, Jungkook very confused to see a text message with "come outside" and to see you with one of your crafted drinks in hand and your hair flowing down your shoulders as you released it from your work bun.

"A bit stalkerish, isn't it?"

"Hey, you asked Dahlia for my number. This is merely an innocent act of giving you a drink because I know you're staying up," you defend with a smirk. "It's a strawberry and guava green tea. It's not heavily caffeinated, but it'll keep you up for a bit because you should also get some sleep while you can."

Jungkook, to your misfortune, couldn't sleep that night, and it wasn't because of the strawberry and guava green tea or the amount of homework he had to finish, but it was because you had swarmed his mind the whole night. The overall surprise from you in which you went out of your way to ask his friend where he lived, to remember he was staying up to finish an assignment, to handcraft a drink that wasn't on Pleasantea's menu, the text of "come outside"— it is all small gestures that accumulate and create a supernova in his mind. All the vibrant colors and specks of stardust trail to you that it was impossible to sleep. And even when slumber did come to him after dragging hours, you were in his dream.  

Another time he likes to recall was when he came in while you were working and that day, you were particularly happy, and he'll never forget it because you went, "Welco— Jungkook! Hi!" in the most sweetest tone he didn't think you could ever muster, but the way that you smiled and how your features were accentuated with a bit of makeup made his heart skip a beat.

He was going to order something that same day, but you shook your head and stopped him. "Here, I made this drink the other day and I think you might like it. It's on me."

And gratefully, he liked it. Even if he didn't like it, he would've pretended to just for you. And when he asks what it was, you wouldn't tell him what you made it with, but what really caught him off guard and made his insides turn to gooey liquid was that you called it the "Jungkookie Tea."

Jungkook doesn't miss the way Dahlia overhears what you named your drink for him, meeting Jungkook's eyes with an entertained smirk as she hides away to the back room, trying to stifle a giggle.

"Hi, I left a surprise for you on front door," you called him one night. Jungkook just came home from his lacrosse practice and as he arrives home, there is a large paper bag that has his name written on it in neat, cursive lettering that makes him question who his secret admirer is before he felt his phone vibrate in his back pocket. He answered it immediately when he saw your name on it, an immediate announcement that you were the one that left him that surprise on his doorstep.

"You're scaring me here, babe."

"I just like keeping you on your toes," you smirk, as you laugh into the phone. Jungkook opens his front door and kicks off his shoes, walking into the kitchen and flickering on the lights excitingly to open your gift to him. "Just open it, you'll like it."

"No way."

"Way," you laugh into the phone. "I baked it this morning after I came home from the farmer's market. I bought some peaches and remembered that you were craving peach cobbler a couple weeks ago. There should be a pint of vanilla ice cream in there, too. Do you have roommates? You can share with them, too."

"Hell no, I am not sharing your god sent dessert with my roommate."

"You haven't even tried it yet, idiot! Be nice."

"Nuh-uh. It smells too good. I'll probably end up finishing all of this up tonight. Thank you so much, babe."

"Anytime, baby," you coo, his mind stopping immediately when he hears you call him 'baby'. "I'd like to keep you on the phone, but I'd rather listen to Blondie on the road."

"Okay, drive safe."

"Share!"

"No promises."

"Jungkook—"

"Bye," he sings before hanging up. And as much love you put into it, he ate it with all the love he had for you.

Small moments with you fills his mind up to the rim and he is as elated as ever. Jungkook prides himself for being able to be at a level where you sort of expose him of your previous past introductions with each other, all of those in which he couldn't remember. You tell him of all the times from the first encounter at the frat party, to the embarrassing moment of when he threw up on your new pants. It made him groan as you cackle beside him in his red Jeep in front of your house.

Obviously, it flew past you, but you tell him that truthfully you weren't very fond of him during the whole distasteful plain milk tea with no sweetness ordeal, and anytime after that, but he lets out a laugh with a simple apology flying out of his mouth for the past encounters that really did not work on his first impression with you.

However, there was this one moment that irked him a lot. So much so that he couldn't really hide it from you.

Sunny asked you to go to Orange Valley to restock and while you would've happily obliged, your car wouldn't make it very far if you were to drive, so she offered asking Jungkook to drive. Jungkook, at first, was ecstatic that you asked him as an alternative to drive you there— a road trip with you probably wanting to change the songs multiple times until you were satisfied or you snoring away in his passenger seat until you both get there.

However, he was silent while on the freeway, unsure of what to really say. And you weren't dumb, so you caught onto his aura when you sat in his car.

You try to make a joke to lighten up the mood about this one customer who wanted a fruit tea without the fruit in hopes you could witness a laugh from him, but only a light scoff was the result of your efforts gone to shit. Knowing that there was no good on having a grumpy Jungkook driving you for the rest of the day, you let out a laugh. A veiled laugh, one that makes him question you silently.

"It's funny because you remind me exactly of this drink I made last night." He glances at you as you nod. "Yeah, yeah, it was the black tea with boba. Bitter, with tiny balls." Your laughter dies along with your analogy you throw in the air. Your arms sternly cross over your torso, an arched eyebrow awaiting him when he gives you a glance. "Mhm, yeah. What's wrong?"

"Nothing."

His lackadaisical answer was too quick for your taste, anticipating very well that he was going to dodge it the minute you bug him about it. However, you were too stubborn enough to not let it go. "No, I want to know."

Jungkook sucks in a sharp breath, shifting his previous position of two hands at three and nine of the wheel, to move one arm to prop against his window, leaning his head on it. "___, it's nothing—"

"Then why are you being like this?"

"Like what?"

Scoffing, you shake your head at his purposeful obliviousness. "Distant. Cold. Bitter. I don't know, but it's giving me bad vibes."

Jungkook signals to merge onto the carpool lane, you noticing that his speed rising on the speedometer with haste that it makes you shift in your seat. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Jungkook, stop acting like that," you state in a softer tone. It sounded more like a beg if you listened carefully, but you straighten your shoulders against the seat to not come off that way. "Did I do something wrong?"

He immediately takes notice as to how you immediately take blame onto yourself, making his previously tense body soften at the way your voice had gone soft and how you were no longer staring ahead at the road, but at your knees that were pressed together. He wonders if this was the result of your past relationship where you were convinced that you were always the one to blame. He adjusts his position again behind the wheel, one where he returns his free hand back onto the wheel, more relaxed as he releases his foot from the gas slightly to keep a steady speed along the road. Jungkook now felt bad.

He stays quiet before you try one more time, poking at his arm in which he gives you one more sideways glance and lets out a sigh. "You called Jaehyun to pick you up instead of me."

Jungkook notices how your eyebrows knit together. "What?"

"Last night, at the party you went to. You called Jaehyun to pick you up and take you home."

"Oh," you nod slowly. "If you're upset, just know that him and I didn't hook up or anything—"

"No." Jungkook cringes. It's first the thought of you, someone he has began to feel things for, being with one of his best friends and teammate in a sexual way that made him want to gag. It's then the realization that that was your first immediate thought as to why he was upset that made him realize he's explaining it all wrong. "No, it's not that. It's more because you called him, but you didn't call me that upset me."

"Oh," you nod once more. "Oh..."

"It's not a big deal—"

"But you were busy last night—"

"I know," he says, tapping his finger against the wheel. "I can't get mad because I told you I was busy, but..."

He notices that you turned your attention to him, which caused him to sweat a bit. "But?"

"I would've dropped everything if you called me to pick you up. I know, you didn't want to bother me, but I want you to know that you can depend on me, too. If that means dropping a late night lacrosse practice with the defensemen for you to be home safe, then I do not mind."

Hearing this created pangs in your heart, your cheeks ultimately flushing before you couldn't help but smile up at him. "Is that the only reason why you're so Mr. Grumpy today?"

"Not a big deal, ___—"

"I'll call you next time," you cut him off before he takes back everything he says. "I thought you were getting annoyed driving me everywhere."

"No, just the opposite," he smirks. "I just want you to know you can depend on me. Calling Jaehyung wasn't bad, but call me next time."

"Okay, I will," you promise, a smile never breaking from your face. "Thank you. Very sweet, very thoughtful," you muse, bringing a hand to teasingly comb your fingers through his fluffy raven hair. "Now will you stop being a Debby Downer? I'll put you as my personal chauffeur in my contacts so you can stop being so sad for the whole trip."

"Fine, sorry." Jungkook, without thinking about it, grabs your hand and adjusts it so he can intertwine his fingers with yours, kissing the back of your hand that left butterflies in your stomach. He lets out a laugh before meeting your eyes for a spare second and then back onto the road. "Am I still the black tea you made?"

"Not at all."  

To you, Jungkook was anything but bitter from what you have learned about him in the past few times you've shared moments. He makes you laugh and makes you feel appreciated that you can't help but want to do the same for him.

"Woah, hey. What are you doing here?"

Jungkook's bewildered, but it comes off as just subtly surprised to you. After a good day of practice, with his last game tomorrow, he wasn't expecting to get a text from you telling him that you're pulling up in 5 minutes in front of his house. And here you are, climbing out of your car as he takes in your form, a quick sweep up and down of the 12 AM you in nothing but your Gryffindor t-shirt just barely covering your pajama shorts that exposed your legs that he had to consciously remind himself not to glance over at too frequently. Still, he couldn't help himself with a few stolen looks.

You're panting, and not because you're exhausted or you're that out of shape that getting out of your car took out all the energy from you, but somehow standing in front of him in nothing but your thrifted tee and pajama shorts has made you feel more vulnerable than ever and more nervous than you'd let yourself believe.

"I was just..." your voice trails off, but you taking in one big breath as he studies you carefully. "I was just wondering if this thing I did was just completely stupid or—"

"What?" He asks immediately. "What did you do? Was it that stupid that you decided to come over in your pajamas?"

His questions make you laugh. It's breathy. Airy.

It's your nerves wracking together as you try to figure out a way to formulate words, but it's hard when he's wearing sweats and a t-shirt that hugs him nicely when his arms are crossed over his chest.

"I'm fine. It's just that— uhm," your eyes flicker to his where his eyebrows furrow in concern, making your heart stop when you realize that he's actually listening. "I think I let myself catch feelings for you."

There's this grace period that happens. It's surprisingly excruciating and long. It's like you're watching your own heart get ripped out of your chest before you realize that what has just happened. Jungkook could only pause, and you could only handle silence for so long.

He gives off a single nod, one that makes you blink as you realize that could be his only answer. Nodding, you suck in a deep breath. "Alright, nice, cool. Yeah, good to know that it actually was stupid, uh—"

"No, no, no," he stops you mid-rant as you pause yourself from whipping around to walk back to your car in utter embarrassment. But even as you pause, you hope you aren't completely making a fool out of yourself before you can back out. "Come here."

"You know, it's fine. I don't know what I'm saying and I don't think—"

"___, please shut up for one second and come closer." He watches as you poke your tongue into your cheek before taking a step towards him with your gaze trained on the ground. "Can you look at me please?"

Letting out a preparing sigh, you bring your gaze to look at him, his expression all bland and emotionless.

"There's a few things I want to ask."

"Oh. Uh, okay? Shoot."

"Are you sober?"

The question throws you off for a moment. "I mean I drove here—"

"Are you sober?"

"Yes, I don't condone drinking and driving, idiot."

"Okay," he heavily breathes.

"Is this, by chance, a prank?" This question makes you furrow your eyebrows, not only throwing you off, but making you speechless. "Like, is there a camera somewhere and I'm being punk'd?"

"What?" You ask, astounded by his question just before you're shaking your head and beginning to walk away. "No— okay, you know what? Forget it. I knew this was a dumb idea to be here and actually confess that—"

He grabs your arm, his hand grasping your forearm and giving a slight tug in hopes you'd stay grounded. "I'm not done. Are your feelings real? Or are they just a figment of your imagination to compensate for your break-up?"

Hearing his blunt words, you feel your eyes widen at how easy he can let those words roll off his tongue. You scoff in sheer astonishment, yanking your arm back in attempt to get away from his grasp but he holds a firm grip on you. "God, this was stupid."

"___, answer the question."

Sparing a glance at him, you notice at how his face was not at all hard— not one formed out of pure jealousy, but a refined look of compassion. One that was willing to listen, one that was sparked from curiosity, one that was forged from general empathy and care. Seeing at how his eyes don't hold a single ounce of defense nor offense, you let yourself relax under his touch, a movement that caused him to loosen his grip that wasn't at all squeezing you uncomfortably in the first place.

"Honestly?"

There's a twinkle of light that you don't miss in his eyes, a subtle hint from him to you in hopes you'd continue instead of turning the other cheek.

"I don't know," you breathe out, feeling his hand drop from your arm completely to his side. "But what I do know is that I haven't stopped thinking about you these past few days. And all I know is that every time someone comes into the shop at around closing time, I'm expecting to see you. Either with your friends, or your teammates— I don't know, my eyes are just trained to find yours, I guess? And no, I don't think I'm completely healed from the break-up, but that doesn't mean I never will. And if it's worth anything, when I'm with you, talking to you, or even when you're just... there— I don't feel hurt or, or scared. I feel safe." And happy, and excited. And I might just love dark chocolate now.

"You make me feel safe," you securely tell him with a full heart, knowing very well that it's out in the open and there's no going back. "And you make me not want to leave your side. I just want to be with you, for as long as you'll let me."

Jungkook's head is spinning. There is no way, the girl who claims to not be sweet as his milk tea you made him during the night of his winning shot against Renall University, his number one boba worker, his Blondie fanatic, his winning girl was reenacting a dream that he so wanted to give to you. He imagined he would be the one to pull up to your home outside after having to realize his feelings were too much to contain— too much to endure— right before he lets out words that he probably would regret putting it out there into existence.

This isn't confusion, this is elation.

While he processes each word, digests every sentence, consumes the ever-so subtle nervous smiles and chuckles you elicited within your wholehearted confession, he forgets that he's a physical form of a human, standing right in front of you with nothing short of a blank expression. It makes you let out a nervous clear of your throat.

"I answer your question and you're not going to say anything...?"

The observation you announce aloud snaps his mind back into the realm of what is of you and him in nothing but in both of your pajamas, the night sky shedding light on your vulnerable hearts in the open.

He lets out a speechless breath of air, before he rolls in his bottom lip inside, tongue gliding along the inner lower part from his right cheek to his left. You would be lying if his silence wasn't making your heart beat fast and your cheeks stain red.

Jungkook eventually shrugs. "I knew that my charm would reach you eventually."

The straight vanity dripping from his response causes your eyebrows to shoot up, then a scoff to leave your mouth, and your third instinct to turn around towards your car. However, you are stopped midway when he grasps your wrist and tugs you back to him, his honey laughter ringing in your ears.

"Alright, okay. Bad move," he acknowledges while you scowl. He drags his hands down to yours as he smirks once more. "Just don't make my drink with no sugar again." The entertainment he was gaining from this rather than really responding to your excessive pouring of emotions was irking you to the point that you raise your fist to punch his arm, only for him to avoid that by wrapping his arms around your waist.

Unfortunately, his hugs just happened to make you feel safe enough and your liquids turn into absolute goo that you relax under his touch.

"You're not stupid," he tells you into your hair. "Though it is kind of surprising to see you in front of my house all vulnerable like this."

"Shut up, Jeon."

"Don't worry, I thought about doing the same thing to you," he confesses, watching carefully at how your scowl softens just when he says that. "Mhm. Except it'd probably be more embarrassing. More of begging rather than confessing."

To that, you let out a snort, one of which he cuts you off short as he tugs you closer to his chest.

"However, if you really want to give us a chance," he begins before he pulls his signature smirk. "I'm not opposed to it." You peer up at him and purse your lips. "Does that mean I get a boyfriend discount?"

As you scoff, he laughs along with you, tucking a hair behind your ear as he holds onto the smalls of your back. "Endless boba supply?"

"You're getting a drink with spit in it."

"And baby, I'll be happy to drink it."

Just then, your jaw drops, your immediate reaction to slap his arm lightly. And he laughs, pulling you closer (if that was even possible). "Don't worry, you get a perfect seat at my games and a flying kiss from me before each game."

"Very cute," you muse at the idea.

He stares at you for a long moment, and while you think it's him trying to memorize every bit of your face, his eyes kept flickering down to your lips back to your eyes. In an instant, you realize that he just didn't know what to do next, but he sure as hell was thinking about kissing you, it makes you burst out into a tiny fit of laughter. "You're not so much of a kisser, are you?"

Jungkook scoffs lightly. "Do I come off as an expert in kissing, babe?"

"No, but you're lucky I have some experience."

Groaning, Jungkook lolls his head back while his nose cringes at your sly comment. "I don't want to see an image of the girl I really like making out with her son of a bitch ex-boyfriend."

"Oh, so I went from Annoying Brat to a girl you really like?"

"Yeah, yeah, you leveled up. Did you want a kiss as a reward or what?"

"Yes, please," you smirk as you bring all of your weight to your toes, lifting your heels to give yourself enough height to press your lips onto Jungkook's, slowly and easily. He's taken aback by how much time you dragged along with it, nothing of a sort of the fiery and urgent kiss you first had with him.

He pulls away and he laughs remembering that you have no absolute recollection of the first time you placed your lips on his. Ultra Platinum Jerk 3000 underway. "Not bad for our second kiss."

"Second?" You furrow your eyebrows in complete confusion. "When did we—?" Realization hits you in the face as your jaw goes slack, staring up at him in plain shock. "No, we didn't."

"For the record, you did. I pulled away."

Your arms still wrapped around his neck, you pull back to gape at him. "And you didn't want to tell me about this?"

"I was saving you a lifetime's worth of embarrassment."

You cringe, mentally face palming yourself that you let yourself slip so easily under the influence. "It's embarrassing because you pulled away!"

"Hey, hey, you caught me off guard. I wanted to kiss you back, but not in that current state you were in. You said my lips were "soft and kissable"."

Adamantly, you shake your head. "No, I didn't."

"Mhm," he smirks, bring his hand to tuck a hair behind your ear, his fingertips purposefully dragging down the skin of your neck to create evident goosebumps. "So what do you think now? Still soft and kissable?"

"Jungkook, I'm literally going to make sure your drinks are a living hell," you threaten, scowling at him.

He gives another amused laugh, pulling you closer from the smalls of your back before peppering kisses onto your cheeks, causing you to squeal at his immediate affection. "Alright, alright. Points for Gryffindor, no need to get all feisty."

"Dickwad," you call him, making him smirk. "I'm leaving now."

When Jungkook feels a slight slip of you from his fingers, he grasps onto you quickly to press his lips onto yours once more. Undeniably, you couldn't ignore the way your smile pulls at your cheeks with each peck he places onto your lips, laughter being shared into the air by both of you as you try to wiggle out of his strong grip.

"Jungkook, I have to go," you beg in between fits of light-hearted giggles. "Jungkook!"

"Fine, fine," he sighs in defeat before pressing one more kiss onto your forehead. "See you tomorrow night? At the game?"

"Will my spot be saved?"

"I'll have your name engraved on it," he nods making you smile like a fool. "Gelato right after?"

Eyebrows pulling together, you pat his chest with your palms. "You don't want to get boba with the boys?"

"Nah," Jungkook firmly shakes his head. "Besides, I'd rather break tradition to spend time with you."

[wxniesrxse]

Dreams Come True:Chapter2:Eunha

Pairing: You x JAYJAY

Genre: fluff, real life issues?

Warning: none! Or maybe some scenes could trigger someone?

School started two weeks ago. Now it's Monday and it's time for you to wake up! Your mom tired of shaking you to wake up decided to have the greatest idea of putting ice and cold water in big cup and to splash it on your face.

Yeah she did that.

"MOOOOOOOOM" you shriek feeling the coldness hit your face,neck,and chest. "Whyyy did you do that! How rude...." You  narrowed your eyebrows together obviously showing her your mad. "I try waking you up but you have such deep sleep, worst than your father....you left me no choice and it worked! Now hurry, go to school ! I do not want you staying home and be all lazy, quick!"  Your mom rambled and left your room.

"Ahhhrg!" You threw a pillow on your wall just to release some anger. Immediately you did your morning routine which was...

1. Wash your face with only water.

2. Brush teeth.

3. Change into dark clothes because the darkness seems to fit you best!

4. Do NOT interact with your adorable puppy she for sure will make you miss the bus...and lastly......eat breakfast.....an apple....because there's no cereal and milk today.

"I hate this morning.....". You mumbled quietly closing the fridge. Then you heard the sounds of tiny footsteps of your puppy Luna. You quickly covered your eyes trying to avoid. You passed by her. "No no, do not follow me Luna! I'll be late because of your fault!". The tiny white fluffy puppy follow you from behind making small whiny noises.

"Y/n! The buss is here! What are you doing?" Your father yelled as he looked through the window. "I'm going...." You whined. You grab your backpack and didn't wave a goodbye to Luna.

You sat in last seat of the bus. You took out your phone and AirPods. You face the window while listening to music regretting not saying hello or a see you later to your precious puppy. She's the only living thing you care the most.

From far away you didn't notice that someone watched you leave from your house to the bus.

♫♫♫♫♫♫♫

You were on your own world listening to music. Your eyes only focusing on whatever was going on in front of you; boys fighting over a skateboard, boys doing Rock Paper Scissors over who's gonna be the one paying their next meal, girls gossiping about the "ugly duckling" of the school who's in a relationship with one of the popular boys .......well that teaches you that in life ugly girls can also beat the pretty ones when in comes to dating the handsome guy in school. Then a girl run from the restroom screaming "My hair is falling!" She cried holding the piece of hair between her fingers. Why would she even say that out loud? Actually the real question is why did she brought a iron curlier in school?

Whatever was going on in your daily chaotic mornings you didn't care.....you were focusing on going to your reading classroom.

But it seems that you won't be able to make it there early.

"Hey loser!......did you brought my snacks?...." The girl who was in the gossip group looked at you with an eyebrow raised up. Her arms crossed over her chest, the waves of her dark hair spread all over her broad feminine shoulders. She nudge on your back. You rolled your eyes but didn't look at her. You breath out.

The tall girl walked in front of you trying to intimidate you....which she wasn't honestly. "Sooooo....I gave you two days......my snacks!" She fake smiled sweetly her hand in front of your face wanting her precious snacks. Last Friday she told you to buy her certain type of snacks in order for you not get bully by her. If you remember well a month ago you did stole her "man" and that got her furious.....well more like Jihoon was the one who wanted to be with you and no longer with her, but you broke up with him because you seriously did not want to deal with all the harassments of that girl. I know it was pretty weak of you to let him go but you soon got over him.

It seem wasn't easy for him to let you.

" look Eunha, Jihoon and I broke up a month ago, why are you still so mad about it?......is it because he prefer over the loser than the pretty popular girl with a bratty personality?" You chuckled at the last sentence. " get over it! And no I didn't brought your stupid snacks!" You were about to walk away but that Eunha clutched onto your forearm stopping you.

"Who do you even think you are to talk down to me like that you ugly fly-"

"Eunha, you still ask me why I don't want to go out with you again?.....you told me you would change....yet you keep treating people like this....." A boy said. He was next to them almost between them. He looked at Eunha with a disgusted look. Then his dark eyes landed on you. He didn't show no expression just a blank one. He looks away from her and walks forward.

"W-wait Jihoon! She provoked me! She started this fight!....Hoonie wait!....". Eunha whined as she followed behind him. "Tch.....". You shook your head and chuckled at that ridiculous girl.

There wasn't no distraction this time. You turn on the volume up to your favorite song and made your way to your class. Soon you walk inside the classroom and sat in your assigned seat. It was in the middle row next to a window. You sat there alone for a few minutes until the bell ring. Kids walked inside the classroom filling up the seats. After a while the teacher walked in the class followed by a boy.

And you knew that boy. Jay.

"Hello class, we have a new student, please introduce yourself". Mrs. Kim said with a smile. "Hello my name is Takagi Justin Jay and I hope we can all get along". He smiled at everyone. He wore the school's uniform: dark navy blue jacket, white dress shirt with a red and white tie, and beige pants. Jay's once long hair was cut short. He looked like a really rich kid.

You bit your bottom lip trying to hide your face away from him. "Why do I keep hiding from him? This is so not you! You didn't do anything wrong so why are you hiding.....stop it and look at him!" You thought and quickly you sat up with confidence.

"He looks handsome.....very handsome...."

" you look foreign". A girl said.

"I'm half Japanese and half American...." Jay answered her with an easy going smile.

"Yeah your name is unique, how did you learn Korean?" Another girl ask curios.

" I've lived in Korea for 2 years then went back to Japan and now I'm back here....." he replied.

"Yeah and my man knows how to sing, dance, skate, and play games on computer! He's great!" James said while counting his fingers. Jay did small jumps excited to see his friend.

"Alright sit in any empty seat......class, in four days we are having a quick quiz" the teacher started teaching. The blond boy sat next to James, both of them sharing a friendship handshake and laughed about it. Jay looked around the class passing to look at you but his eyes retrieve back at you. He stop smiling trying to figure out if it was really you.

His curiosity was answered when you look back at him with a smile. You slightly bowed your head. Jay smiled again as he looked away from you with pink cheeks.

"It's her.....we have the same class,same teacher, and same friends.....this is going to be a good year...." That happy boy thought.

♡︎♡︎♡︎♡︎♡︎♡︎♡︎♡︎♡︎♡︎♡︎♡︎♡︎♡︎♡︎♡︎♡︎♡︎♡︎♡︎♡︎♡︎♡︎♡︎♡︎

Thank You For Reading!

Remember don't be a silent reader シ

@enhacolor @justamochi @neyrensazii

[mieohmy]

𝖥𝗋𝗈𝗆 𝖬𝗒 𝖬𝗈𝗈𝗇 𝗍𝗈 𝖸𝗈𝗎𝗋𝗌 | 𝖪𝗂𝗆 𝖲𝗎𝗇𝗐𝗈𝗈

PAIRING: kim sunwoo x fem reader

GENRE: fluff, humor, angst, hotel del luna! au, head manager! sunwoo, hotel owner! reader

WC: 1.9k

NOTES: mentions of ghosts, murders, heavily hotel del luna inspired

↳ "What if my greatest pain was not being able to stay by your side?"

update: part two !

✵

You slump back in your chair, drained. You spent the whole day filing taxes and guest requests. Looking outside, you realize it was still bright out, the sun filtering through the window. You didn't particularly care for it. Craving for a drink, you requested a staff member. They bow before politely asking, “What is it, Boss y/l/n?” You tap your freshly painted nails on your chin before ordering a bottle of champagne and a shrimp cocktail. That would put you in a good mood. 

Imagining the taste of the bubbly concoction, you let out a content sigh before looking at the next case file. -A loose spirit, but this one was tricky. Liked to scare victims with their greatest fear or loss. You make a note in your head to warn the manager. 

You’re interrupted by one of the maids wheeling in your order. Squealing in delight, you dismiss her with a wave. You easily pop open the bottle of luxurious champagne, indulging in the sound of the fizz. Pouring a glass, you hear a familiar voice echoing, getting closer. Your face automatically darkens. 

“Miss y/l/n, what are you doing?” You scowl, raising the glass to your ruby lips. After taking a sip, you let out a satisfied exhale. Slowly turning to face the person who was the bane of your existence, you let out a small tch! “I was enjoying myself before you interrupted, Kim Sunwoo.” He automatically frowns in disapproval. “It’s Manager Kim, you know. You’re the one who hired me for the job. Actually, more like forced me.” You roll your eyes, muttering, “against my will...” 

Sunwoo claps his hands. “So, what kind of ghost are we seeing today?” You gulp the rest of the drink down. “Wandering spirit. But I warn you, this one’s a little feisty.” 

He looks at you curiously, “What is it this time? Revenge, lost lover?” You sigh again, standing up and stopping in front of Sunwoo. Leaning in, you whisper into his ear, “They'll show you what causes you your greatest pain. I’ll tell you now, I'd be careful. It would be the fastest record for a new manager if you don’t watch out... ” Stepping back, you notice him shiver. You walk to the doors, grabbing your latest purse that you bought behind his back. "Don't forget the keys to my new Ferrari, I want to take it for a test drive!"

  ✵ 

Once you arrive at the abandoned church, you shut the car door close, lowering your thirty-five thousand dollar sunglasses to get a better look at the place. Sunwoo stands next to you, taking it all in. He turns to you. “Should I go first? Or?” His face seems relaxed, but you know him well enough to tell that he’s scared. “No,” you reply, curt. “I’ll go.” 

You push the doors open with a bang, eyes scanning over the old place. It was dusty, cold, dark. Sunwoo follows in after you, voice echoing, “What kind of place was this?” You examine a rotten bench, dust floating in the air as you hum softly. “Old church. Used to be very popular until the rumors of a ghost spread and it was abandoned.” 

Sunwoo walks down the path before turning around to you so his back was facing the altar. “Do you think-“ but you don’t pay attention to the rest of his sentence as you zero in on who’s behind him. Specifically, what. It was the spirit you were looking for. To anyone else, it would be a horrifying, monstrous demon girl, but to you, it’s just an annoyance. She stares at Sunwoo’s back, a chilling smirk appearing on her face. You glance back at him as you see her change into a horrifying picture in the corner of your eyes. 

Sunwoo’s staring at you, confused at what you’re looking at and beginning to turn his head. You immediately call out his name, desperate. He can’t look at the image behind him. You effectively get his attention, his attention moving back to you again. He’s saying something, but you ignore it and rush forward. 

Wrapping your arms around him, you place a hand behind his head, keeping it from turning. His arms instinctively hover above your waist. “Y/n- what-“ but you tighten your grip on him. “Whatever you do, do not turn around,” you softly murmur into his ear. 

Your eyes are still focused on the spirit, the monstrous image. You think it's Sunwoo’s parents. Murdered, brutally. Their bodies floating midair and the look of pure terror present on their faces. You had no idea if this was what actually happened or not, but you keep your grip on him tight. 

You remember the words said years ago. Sunwoo’s parents were gone from a young age. That’s what your former manager and Sunwoo’s grandfather told you. It was only him and his grandparents from a young age. You would never admit it, but you always held a soft spot in your locked away heart (if you even still had one) for the former Manager Kim. So when he asked, no-begged, for you to take his grandson as your next manager when he was old enough, you had to accept. You warned him about the repercussions, but he only let out a small smile and assured you Sunwoo was strong and especially stubborn enough. 

✵

"That boy will take care of you well." You scoff, twirling a piece of your hair. "And how old did you say he was?" Manager Kim only smiles. "Of no matter, the age. After all, it is just a number. You would know that best, wouldn't you, Miss y/l/n?" You turn your head aside, suddenly staring at a painting of interest. He continues. "I think you two will get along quite fine." Your eyes flick back to him. "But he has a soft heart, so I beg you to be a little less harsh on him. He's already lost so much from a young age.."

✵

The words echo in your head. That’s why you couldn’t let Sunwoo turn around. You didn’t know the details -it was a sensitive topic- but you were sure this might break him. You feel him shaking. “Is it the spirit?” he asks quietly. “Yes,” you reply, “Don’t you dare look.” You feel him bury his face in your neck as you focus your attention on the spirit, mouthing commands and chants. 

She hisses a horrible screeching sound before you’re finally able to control her, and the image collapses, something dropping on the ground. You carefully loosen your grip, leaning back to look at Sunwoo. 

You don’t know what it is, maybe the vulnerable expression on his face that makes you want to protect him forever or the way his dark eyes bore into yours, but you slowly lean in, softly placing your lips on his forehead between his styled hair. Sunwoo blinks, staring at you with a dazed expression. You're not sure how long you look at him until you come to your senses. It's a moment before you step back, walking over to pick up the tiny keychain that fell. 

When you turn around to Sunwoo, he clears his throat. “Well.. I guess we’re done here,” Your eyes follow him walking to the exit, knowing he’s slightly shaken.  

  It’s in the car, when he asks, “Can I know, what it was?” “Nope,” you reply as you examine the keychain. He frowns, turning on the engine. “But-“ “Unless you want to be sent to a mental hospital and never work for me again, then no. But that would’ve actually been pretty nice for me..” you say, pouting slightly.  

Sunwoo looks at you, annoyed. “Hey! But, how come the spirit didn’t show you your greatest fear or anything ?” You scoff. “Cause you’re just a weak human who has emotions, and I’m a dead person who doesn’t feel things, idiot.” He turns to look at you, indignant. “What do you mean you don't feel things? Doesn't this make you feel something?” He suddenly leans in, face less than an inch away from yours. You freeze. You catch his eyes glancing down at your lips. Why does it suddenly feel so hot?

You immediately snap out of it, smacking his chest. "Ah, idiot! Just drive, just drive!" you yell angrily, trying to hide the fact that you were flustered. He immediately laughs, a grin appearing on his face as he turns the car on.  The two of you continue to bicker as Sunwoo drives on. 

✵

You two were in your office later that night, organizing a giant stack of papers you neglected. You told Sunwoo to go home and get sleep since he was still a human and needed the rest, but he firmly insisted on helping you, stating, “I know you’re gonna just give up after five minutes and leave it messier than before.” 

It’s silent. The only thing heard was the sound of papers shuffling. You’re examining a document, Was this really 50 years ago? when Sunwoo calls your name. 

You look up. “What?” you demand.  He puts some papers down, before sitting on your plush, fancy couch, and looking at you. You can't read the expression on his face. “What’ll happen when I die? Or even, you move on to the afterlife?” 

You stare at him. Why was he suddenly asking if he already knew the answer? Clearing your throat, you move to sit beside him. “Well, I’ll have to get a new manager. Life continues. And... if I leave, you’ll return back to your normal life, like all other humans.” Sunwoo fiddles with his tie, and you notice. He never liked wearing ties, but you forced him to for the job. “That’s it?” he says, “you’ll just get a new manager?” 

You frown. What’s going on with him? Sunwoo was mischievous, witty, stubborn. So why was he acting so fidgety and shy? “Yeah, why? That’s how it is.” You pause, adding, “Unless I go first. But who knows when fate will relieve me of my duty.” 

Sunwoo mumbles something you can’t hear. You move closer to him. “Hmm??” He clears his throat before saying softly, “So you won’t ever think of me when I’m gone? Remember me?” Your eyes widen. Huh? His ears are red, and he isn't looking you in the eye. “I-I mean, I know one day I’ll be gone, you’ll be gone..." You interrupt him, turning his body so he's facing you. "Sunwoo, what's going on? Why are you suddenly saying this? Was it because of what happened earlier?" You look deep into his eyes as if you'll find an answer in there.  

He swallows, looking down at your feet. Hesitating, he finally speaks. "What if my greatest pain was not being able to stay by your side?" 

Your body stills, heart skipping a beat. Slowly turning to face him, you realize how close the two of you are. “You.. you shouldn't worry about losing me. But if I ever make you feel that way, find the moon.” Sunwoo furrows his eyebrows, speaking softly. “Why the moon?” 

You look out the window, staring at the moon outside which was partly covered by clouds. His eyes follow yours to the sky. “Even if my moon is in a different world from yours, even if my moon is a thousand years away from yours, it’s always there.” You turn to him once more.

 “Just like how I'll always be there too.”

[shintorikhazumi]

Kazoo Conductor

She never thought this day would come. The day that Shiny Akko would take the stage. Shiny Akko and her Shiny Kazoo taking the world by storm, lighting up the stage with the passionate fires of their tunes.

It had barely been two years since she'd graduated from the Luna Nova conservatory, and already, she had been on multiple national tours, as well as her current world tour, popularity sky-rocketing after her collaboration with the Philharmonic with a piece she had created herself, arranged years later after it had been first created in a tiny corner of her dorm room, in front of the girl she loved.

And today. Today was the day they would be playing that piece for the WORLD to hear. The piece that had sold her music. The piece that essentially made her career into what it was today. The piece where it all began. Her life, as well as love story with the woman stood at the head of all this, conductor's baton in hand.

Just as the emcee was about to announce the beginning of the piece, like a jolt of lightning, Akko remembered something. Of course! How could she ever forget in the first place?!

Thinking back to the time when she'd first performed and created this song, it wasn't on the instrument that all people now long to see- the shiniest kazoo in history.

Back then, she was just a normal Akko. A normal, ridiculed idiot in the music department, without a proper kazoo- much less, a proper instrument. She'd come to Luna Nova as she was, with her minimal luggage and equal amounts of dignity. All that and a comb tucked in paper, hidden in her coat pocket.

That comb kazoo.

Where everything had actually begun.

In her home, before they'd escaped the claws of poverty. Just her parents and her, and her little comb kazoo.

If she would show to the world her roots today, then why shouldn't she start with the very seed everything had grown from?

The single tutorial from the legendary Shiny Chariot, that gave all children the dream and the chance to play the most wonderful instrument in the world, the Kazoo.

"G-give me a moment!" She exclaimed, interrupting the emcee's narration and running off stage to rummage through her belongings, the curious murmurs of the audience heard all the way there. Finding what she needed, she walked back into the light, everyone's attention on her.

She saw Diana's eyes look at her curiously, finding their way to her hands and the contents within them, understanding, amusement, and fondness now swirling in them.

Akko smiled at her before turning to the audience.

"Okay. Since this final concert is entitled 'back to the start', I'd like to take you as far back as possible! To where I started as a musician, a performer, and a kazoo player."

A breath.

"Here is the comb Kazoo! And this song is-

"MIND CONDUCTOR!”

A/N: you’ve seen me post the thing already so just click the link to know wtf my mind made it sound like lmao.

~Shintori Khazumi

[mylutteoheart]

Fic day 4: Should I Love You Or Hate You?

Another day, another simbar fic, this will be the last one of the week. I didn’t plan for this ending but I wrote it anyway. Anyway, enjoy some lovestruck Ámbar.

Prompt:  “Right now, I don’t know if I want to kiss you or shove you off a bridge.” –“Can I pick?”

find my other fics here

Ámbar woke up excited today. Today is the day that her and Simón started dating 5 years ago and she couldn’t wait to celebrate the anniversary with her boyfriend. It’s weird how Simón made her feel. He made her feel loved and special and because of him, she wanted to do the right thing. It’s was different but refreshing.

She never thought she could be happy like this but she had no complaints. She’s been in relationships before but none of them felt like this, none of them made her feel like she wanted to be a better person. She looked forward to what the future has in store of her but that was a worry for later, she needed to get ready for the day.

She was curious about what he had planned and he seemed to have big plans, he had to stop himself every time from saying anything about it. His excitement was contagious, she never really cared about this stuff before. She loved getting gifts but the anniversaries didn’t seem all that important at the time, all that mattered was that she was dating the most popular guy.

In other words, Simón turned her world upside down and her priorities had changed. She no longer wanted to be the best in everything, all that mattered was that she had people who love her by her side, who support her.

She had a hard time finding the right outfit, nothing seemed right to her. She looked at every  outfit she owned and none of them were good enough. She looked and looked until she found a pastel colored dress at the back of her closet. The skirt was made out of lace and the top was strapless. She picked out a pair of white pumps, it was her favorite pair and put on some make-up. She didn’t want to overdo it because she still had no idea what they were going to do.

Simón still had to work today so she decided to pay him a visit at the Jam & Roller, she couldn’t wait until tonight. She had missed him and all she really wanted to is hold him. It always brought her comfort.

When she walked into the cafeteria, it was pretty crowded. Nico and Pedro were running around, there seemed to be a lot of customers today. That wasn’t the thing that was so unusual, the fact that Simón was nowhere to be seen was unusual. He told her he had to work today, he had an early shift. Why did he tell her that when it wasn’t true? It left an unsettling feeling inside of her. She didn’t like all the reasons she came up with. But she knew she couldn’t jump to conclusions. Simón loved her and he wouldn’t just lie to her like that. He would never do something like that to her.

So she decided to wait it out and see if he may be late today. She sat down at the table and ordered a drink. She tried to hide the anxiousness she felt and she seemed to do a good job at it since no one came to question her.

As the hours slowly passed by, the unsettling feeling inside of her started to grow bigger and she started to fidget with her clothes and hair. She tried to call and text him a few times but she got no answer.

This was definitely not like Simón and she started to get scared. What could be so important that he didn’t even answer a text.

To try and get rid of the negative feelings growing inside of her, she decided to go skate for a while at the rink, it always made her feel better and she hoped it would do the trick this time as well.

What she didn’t know was that Simón was just as anxious as her but not for the same reasons. He wanted his surprise to be perfect and he needed all day to get everything right. Luna was helping him and tried to calm him down because he was so stressed about it all.

He wanted to do everything he could to make her happy because he knew she never felt loved in her life and now he did everything in his power to show her how much he loved her. He didn’t mind showering her with affection, he loved doing it as much as she loved receiving it and it just worked for them.

After a whole day worth of work, he took out his phone to check his messages and was surprised to see that his girlfriend tried to reach him several times. He felt guilty for not thinking of her trying to contact him. He was too focused on getting everything right. He tried to call her back but it went to voicemail and he hoped she wasn’t mad at him for ignoring her all day once she saw what he did for her.

It was time for their date and he called Pedro to see if he knew where she was since she still wasn’t answering any of his calls. It seemed that she was still at the rink skating and he decided to go to her in person and give her his surprise.

It was near closing time for Roller so the cafeteria wasn’t nearly crowded as before and she was relieved. She couldn’t handle a big crowd right now.

“Ámbar, how are you?” asked Pedro once he spotted her.

“I’m fine” she simply answered, not feeling like talking.

“How was skating?” he tried to keep up conversation to keep her here so his best friend didn’t have to look for her.

“Great” she kept up with the short answers, feeling dejected about how the day turned out.

That’s when Simón crept up behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist. She gasped when he kissed her on the cheek, not expecting the sudden contact. But as soon as she felt the arms around her, she knew who it was.

She didn’t return his embrace because she was a little mad about how the day turned out and she kind of blamed him for it.

“Hey, bonita” he greeted her warmly with a loving smile on his face.

She didn’t respond and he knew she was mad.

“I’m sorry for today, Ámbar but I have a perfectly good excuse for doing what I did” he waited for her response and when he didn’t get any, he continued, “Would you please give me the chance to show you why I didn’t go to see you today. I promise you that it’s worth it.”

“Right now, I don’t know if I want to kiss you or shove you off a bridge” she couldn’t resist saying since she was so conflicted about what to do.

“Can I pick?” he heard the teasing tone in her voice and decided to tease her right back.

She felt her resolve weaken when he said that and gave him a short but mind blowing kiss. It left him dazed, this was definitely unexpected.

“Now, what are you waiting for?” she continued teasing him, trying to get him out of his daze. She loved the effect she had on him still.

This was enough for Simón to smile again and he took her hand and pulled her with him to the exit. She couldn’t help but let a giggle escape, his excitement really was contagious.

Soon enough, they were at the garden of the mansion and she was surprised she didn’t notice anyone walking around carrying stuff for the set up that stood there. There was a big screen in the middle of the garden with a blanket laid out in front of it. It seemed they were all kinds of home cooked meals that laid on plates around the blanket. There were Mexican specials but Argentinian specials as well. Rose petals were scattered around on the grass. Her breath got stuck in her throat, it was a beautiful sight in front of her and she couldn’t believe he did all this.

“What’s all this?” she asked and looked up at him and saw that he was looking at her to gauge her reaction.

“Happy anniversary, bonita” he smiled at her.

“This is amazing, Simón” her eyes watered, this was the most beautiful thing anybody’s ever done for her.

“After you” he gestured for her to sit down and she sat down, Simón following closely after.

As soon as they got settled, he started up the big screen and a video started to play. In the video, there were all kinds of pictures and videos of them together as a couple. She looked at all of them with a big smile on her face.

After the video ended, she turned to him and saw him holding a tiny, square box in front of him and she held her hand in front of her mouth in surprise.

When he opened the box and she saw the ring inside of her, her eyes started to water again. “I know I was a bad boyfriend today, bonita but I want to know that I didn’t mean to do what I did today but this moment, right here, had to be perfect. I was so focused on getting it right that I forgot how you must feel and I’m sorry but I love you so much and I want to show you just how much. I want to show it to you for the rest of my life so Ámbar Smith, will you marry me?” he said.

She was speechless so she ended up kissing him and taking the breath right out of him. It didn’t last long, but it still left them both a little lightheaded. “Is that an answer for you?” she said after the kiss and all he could do was smile.

He put the ring on her finger and they spent the rest of the night eating the homecooked meals and laughing together. This definitely was one of the best anniversaries they both had.

[petnews2day]

Top puppy and kitten names 2022 revealed by Pets at Home with Luna topping both the lists for both dogs and cats

New Post has been published on https://petn.ws/GklsL

Top puppy and kitten names 2022 revealed by Pets at Home with Luna topping both the lists for both dogs and cats

The most popular kitten and puppy names of 2022 have been revealed. In the same way that statisticians pour over birth records to find the most popular baby names, animal lovers have been scouring the lists of tiny furry friends given their moniker in the last year. Luna was again the most popular name for […]

See full article at https://petn.ws/GklsL #CatsNews #Lifestyle

[snkpolls]

SnK 131 Chapter Poll Results

The chapter poll closed with  2,192 responses. This month’s poll results were brought to you by @momtaku​, /u/staraves, Crunchwrap, u/_Puppet_, Luna.  Thanks as always for your support.

  RATE THE CHAPTER 2,118 responses

This was a standout chapter for the fandom, garnering a positive rating from over 90% of respondents and an average score of 4.68 which makes it the highest rated chapter since 122 - and in the top 5 in the history of the poll! Many of you were eager to express your enjoyment of it, with this question getting the most responses it has since chapter 102 (over two years ago!). As we go deeper into the endgame, it’s good to know enthusiasm is going strong.

Yams is a damn genius. This is one chapter I have not been able to stop thinking about or rereading. It's just... its so fucked up and SO. WELL. DONE.

I really, really loved this chapter. My favourite so far probably.

This is the first time I cried after a chapter. It hit me so hard.

Almost made me quit the manga. We finally got a confession from Armin, but right in the middle of all that grief, I couldn't enjoy it. Poor Ramzi and Halill, and all other innocent people beyond and within the Walls.

This chapter has had a ripple effect on how I’m seeing the series now in retrospect. I’ve been re-reading the manga , & I’ve become very melancholic after the Rumbling , knowing  everything was leading to this.

This was a phenomenal chapter. Thank you Isayama for everything.

WHICH OF THE FOLLOWING WAS YOUR FAVORITE MOMENT?

2,137 responses

Finding a favorite moment in a tragic chapter isn’t easy but we managed. “Child Eren’s moment of happiness” tops the list with an impressive 30% of respondents. “Seeing the reality of the rumbling” (18.8%), “Eren’s tearful apology to Ramzi” (15.9%) and “Getting Eren’s thoughts on the Rumbling while in Marley” (13.8%) round out the top four.

Very cool to finally see the destruction caused by the rumbling and some more insight into Eren's character

I like that this chapter showed perspectives from both the initiator of the rumbling (Eren) and the victims of his choice. It makes you sympathize with Eren, but at the same time, terrifies you with the price humanity has to pay.

Definitely one of the most depressing, if not the most depressing chapter thus far. Isayama brilliantly handled the transition between Eren's despair and the result of Eren's despair (Rumbling). Beautiful artwork. Great cliffhanger. Definitely a 9/10.

Tragic, Terrifying, Heartbreaking also Awesome because atleast AruAni became somewhat cannon

beautiful art as usual

The freedom scene with kid eren is the most beautiful/horrifying scene of the manga.

I also loved the Annie and Armin talk, anyone who says it's shipping cringe is a child, this was a long time coming and it was executed beautifully. (I also love how Hitch was mentioned twice, she would be proud of Armin this chapter.)

Ramzi and Halil deaths were the saddest part of this chapter, and I don't know about Ymir, but I guess she's helping Eren.

The panel showing the wall titans faces, especially the one shown on the right with empty eye sockets, gave me the chills. Can't wait to see how things will go down between the gang and Eren.

  WHO WAS THIS CHAPTER’S MVP? 2,144 responses

This month giving us the most harrowing chapter in a while made it feel wrong to be looking for an MVP amidst all this despair, and almost half of you agree (47.5%). Just over a quarter of you believe the Eren focus earned him the spot (28.9%), with 9.4% choosing Armin and 9.1% selecting best bros Ramzi and Halil. A distant minority of you chose Annie and Birb, the former of which coming dead last. Poor Annie, you’ll be more popular than a bird one day.

the true mvp was the depression we got along the way

Eren needs a hug

Eren needs to be put down.

I really admire the way Isayama deeply makes you care for a character in a few panels, like he did for those two - relatively unknown - boys.

Annie is the best girl

birbs are the rreak mvp since chap 1

  EIGHT MONTHS AFTER FIRST APPEARING IN THE MEMORY SHARDS, WE GET FEZ-KUN’S STORY.  DID IT LIVE UP TO YOUR EXPECTATIONS? 2,121 responses

Only a month ago, the fandom had no idea what to make of the mysterious Fez-Kun. The plucky pickpocket had a simple but effective story, and knew more secrets than he could possibly have understood. A perfect half of respondents were pleasantly surprised with Fez kid’s part in the story. 41.2% were content as it was about what they expected. 6.2% wanted to see a more in-depth picture but alas, that chance has been crushed mercilessly along with Ramzi’s hopes and dreams (and… the rest of him). 2.5% just weren’t into anything that let Eren lean into some morally black territory. Don’t worry, there are still plenty of grey shades here. Very dark shades of grey.

I didn't expect Ramzy's story to be expanded on, but it's so brutal to see the man he's been talking to killing him, his brother, his family and his hopes.

I know Ramzi and Halil were plot devices, but damn their death hit hard.

I think Eren saving Ramzi is foreshadowing. He knew Ramzi was gonna die in rumbling, yet he saved him. Same will happen, after someone reaching him and reminding him who he is, Eren will stop this madness and die. Or I wanna be hopeful.

even if i'm satisfied with Ramzi's story, I wish there would have been more to it because it is a tiny bit dissapointing but it's more or less what I expected.

Ramzi and Halil didn’t deserve death

i think everybody who dies in this rumbling will get back alive same will happen to halil and ramzi they will come back alive

Ramzi and Halil's deaths were so horrible but so good to see, because this is what it means when you destroy the world. You don't get to pluck out the nice ones and enjoy killing the bad ones. It's the height of cruel selfishness. And no amount of apologies changes that.

Ramzi and Halil deserved so much better

  WHY WAS EREN DISAPPOINTED THAT HUMANITY EXISTED OUTSIDE THE WALLS? 2,117 responses

There’s been disagreement over exactly what Eren meant when he said he was disappointed that humanity existed outside the walls and our poll reflects that. Just over a third of the fandom (34.2%) take Eren’s words literally and believe that his disappointment was with any existence of humanity since it marred his pristine childhood vision. The second most popular option is that he was disappointed in the attitudes, selecting “he was disappointed to discover all of humanity was filled with violence and oppression” (29.5%). We deliberately left off an “All of the above” option but that didn’t stop more than 50 people from writing it in.

He is disappointed at the fact that he has to fight humans with homes, families, pasts and futures and not mindless titans.

It's also a clear contrast between the outside world Armin envisioned and the one Eren wanted. Armin genuinely wanted to know more about it, Eren wanted his worldwide natural park to walk on. When it was full of civilization, he wanted to get rid of it. Like any typical villain wanting to purify the Earth of all the worms infesting it.

When he discovered that humans are just as cruel within the walls as without, it put his entire journey into perspective. He could not be Eren the hero or Eren the explorer and ultimately meant that the sacrifices made by his comrades were negligible in comparison to the big, cruel world , at least in his own mind.

He thought of all the beautiful landscapes and stuff that Armin showed him. Too bad there's these stupid humans in the way. Makes sense to eliminate the entire human population ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Everyone's fight against titans was pointless and the people who caged them could enjoy the things that Eren will never experience. The world is not a uninhabited landscape open to explore it, the world didn't need them and their freedom wasn't a possibility to enjoy it like the others civilizations do.

The world was out there and yet they did NOTHING to help Eldia

yes, eren is disappointed because there are now more enemies. but more than that, he's disappointed that they're not the monsters he's imagined them to be. that he can't kill them without feeling guilt and remorse.

he would never be able to enjoy the freedom he wanted because the clock is ticking and he will have to keep on resisting the whole world till the end without ever having time to properly realize his dream

I think he's disappointed in the fact that he's feeling sorry for humanity outside the walls just like Reiner used to feel sorry about people inside the walls. When he discovered Reiner was a traitor, he especially hated that part of his behavior, and how he realizes they're not that different, and in any case he's worse because at least Reiner had his child soldier brainwashing as an excuse

His disappointment is as bad as it sounds, having to deal with humans outside the walls was too bothersome for him and when the option to wipe them out was available to him, he was more inclined to take it, instead of fight for another resolution.

Typical privileged White boy outraged by prejudice and hatred OUTSIDE the walls, as if that didn't exist in Paradis already.

Any hopeful expectation Eren had of the outside world were completely decimated. Not only did he discover that humanity hadn't perished, but they actively contributed to or blissfully ignored Paradis' hell. In addition, the outside world is exploiting one other for resources. Paradis’ synthetically concocted hell is just part of a game to the outside world (there’s some uncomfortable real-world allusions here and I think it’s important that it’s being explored). Eren thought he was the saviour of humanity only to discover everything's he's done was for naught, humanity's the problem in his eyes.

  WHAT DO YOU THINK OF EREN’S CONTRADICTORY NATURE? 2,106 responses

Deciding to crush the vast majority of the world and its citizens kind of takes a mental toll on people. Who knew? 48% of respondents think Eren’s emotional breakdown side by side with determination to reach freedom at any cost is simply him deciding the results will be worth his immense guilt. 23.2% think it’s a very human case of cognitive dissonance, and that Eren’s just trying to juggle his conflicting values. 19.2% believe his mental state is fraying at the seams reminiscent of the way Reiner’s did. 6.8% don’t buy that there’s any contradiction being shown here.

He was willing to throw away his humanity to become the monster that brings change

He's being a hypocrite. His guilt doesn't hold any value because it's entirely his choice. He's apologizing because there's no greater good, just his selfish dream.

He's never been okay, it's just that we're finally seeing him for who he is without the "protagonist illusion".

I don't think it's contradictory though. He's grieving sure, but he's also going along with his plan. Because he wants to be free.

He's not mentally stable and it shows

He's to some extent influenced by the Shingeki and/or its previous holders

He's trying to convince himself that humanity is evil sl he won't feel guilty about what he's doing

Hes a fully grown adult who knows better, no matter how bad he feels he doesnt deserve sympathy

The future cannot be changed and Eren is a slave to the attack titan's objective to push foreward

This chapter shows a lot of parallel between Eren and Reiner, he even said himself that he's worse than Reiner in the genocide that he's created. says himself that

What a fucking asshole

When Eren saw the future he knew the rumbling was inevitable so he is the one having to carry to burden of being ‘humanity’s enemy’ whether or not it was Eren to fulfill the rumbling it would’ve happened either way so he isn’t immediately a devil

Erens nature isn’t contradictory. He’s just now becoming self aware of the impact of his violent nature

He feels guilty about his actions and feels sorry for people who are going to be killed, but on the other hand - he is selfish and will do everything to reach his perfect reality.

Humans are an amalgamation of their actions. They sometimes arrive at destinations they did not fully intend. They may also realize too late that the path that they’ve set down is leading them in a direction they are not happy with, but eren is too far gone. He’s sane, understands he is objectively evil, but cannot turn back.

He totally snapped and turned into the psychopath that was sleeping inside of him for a long time. It was indeed very dangerous to entrust him with more power than he can handle.

Isayama did the same thing with Zeke. I think he likes the idea of the cool, mysterious guy, but it falls flat when the motivation doesn’t line up & the characters turn out to be crying & weak to fit the narrative once it’s revealed.

I don't know how to word this, but he is caged in his own vision to the point where any human decency and the ability to think is killed. Only a selfish, hateful and childish shell remained that is throwing a tantrum over his childbook fairytale not being true. It's not the same as Reiner, because Eren chose this. He wanted this, it is his fault. He had the power to stop this, but didn't. He can apologize as much as he wants, but he isn't feeling sorry at all.

He feels guilty, which is why he is having a mental breakdown like Reiner.

He’s having a mental breakdown but it's worse than Reiner's

painfully obvious this chapter was just Eren trying by all means to justify the Rumbling. Not because of some noble intention or cornering them into the inevitable, but just because he wanted to erase the world.

the eren reiner parallels man.. they never stop

  IN HIS FINAL MOMENTS, RAMZI SEES AN APPARITION OF YMIR. WHAT DOES THIS MEAN? 2,104 responses

Ymir has finally appeared since we last saw her in chapter 122, and her presence as well as motivations are seemingly shrouded in mystery. Over a third believe she is watching everything but not necessarily feeling good or bad about it (32.1%), and some of you think she may be questioning her decision (16.2%). A minority of you opted to choose that her appearance means she is enjoying seeing it unfold (9.6%), or that we are witnessing a phenomenon related to titan deaths that have occurred all this time (7.5%). The most popular choice, however, (34.6%) is simply expressing bewilderment at the Evangelion-esque shenanigans we’re seeing.

Ymir could be the one doing all the actions of destruction since Eren let her free.

i really think after ymir appeared again even tho eren freed her that she's regretting giving him the founder's power and will have a role is taking him down

the presence of Ymir intrigues me and I hope that in the next chapter we will have her point of view.

I think Ymir is the one who's been pulling the ropes for a long time. Whenever Eren thinks there might be another way (especially throught he disappearance of the Eldian race) he compulsively thinks that he just CAN'T accept that, like there's a force driving him towards seeking freedom.

I hope that Ymir appearance means that she is counting and seeing Eren victims so she can create them Again without Eldian hate

Ymir being outside, and Kid Eren appearing in the paths might have a connection. Ymir was a grownup when she was killed but inside the paths she was shown a kid. Same as Eren being shown in the paths. This might signifies Eren is not in control of the situation but Ymir is.

I have had theories for a while about Ymir possibly turning on Eren, whether this is to save the world to show she is better than Eren, or to bring Paradis to destruction as well to show she is just as bad.

WHAT IN THE EVA?

Loved the Evangelion reference. YAMS YOU MADLAD!

Ymir might be the true enemy

WHAT THE FUCK IS YMIR AYANAMI DOING THERE?  

  WHAT IS KID EREN DOING HERE? 2,099 responses

Child Eren appears in one of the most stunning panels of the chapter, but what does it mean?  Two options came out on top, with the idea that Eren is mentally regressing to a child (37.9%) edging out that it’s symbolism comparing child Eren to current Eren (36.1%).

I think we are going to see different Eren during the rumble, the past with Eren as a child, the future perhaps with a more mature or elderly Eren and the Eren of the present.

Adult Eren is incapacitated and Kid eren took his place through paths, will wake up for the "see you later, Eren"

Adult Eren unknowingly brought kid Eren’s consciousness to the present while he was sleeping under the tree. This is part of his “dream” that he had at the beginning of the story.

It is symbolises Erens mentality as a kid and how his flawed ideology doesn't hold up to the real world he faced outside of the walls. Also to cope.

Eren is the only character who cannot overcome the cycle of violence, so he will die.As you know, only without people can you become absolutely free, so he enjoys it when he realizes that nothing else binds him.

He has taken over paths from ymir, but since he is not bound by anything, he can do whatever the hell he wants, and is the reason he connected to armin while speaking to him.

It shows that Eren is not fully in control of the PATHS. For example in this scene, he remembers Armin because of his memory as a child talking about freedom with Armin then Armin suddenly appears although Eren himself didn't wish for something like that to happen thus it's just to show that PATHS connecting all Subjects of Ymir even in different timeline.

This links in with Floch... Eren loves Floch.

He was dreaming about the past and accidentally used the power of the Founder to show his younger self a vision of the Attack Titan's current point of view.

He's a sociopathic freak

It is symbolic of his old dream that he will have to give up on soon.

Can I say all of the above again? I saw it as a representation of Eren in his most pure, idealistic state which is then contrasted by the realistic horror of the destruction he is causing.

Brought into the present by adult Eren to give his younger self a taste of freedom without all the guilt. This is the beginning of the long dream kid Eren awakes from in Chapter 1.

Child Eren's Evangelion/Devilman(Crybaby)-esque "elation" seems like a metaphorical emotional release (and P A T H S shenanigans).

Something about the kid-Eren “freedom” scene is just so incredible and impactful; fully restored my faith that Isayama will deliver an amazing finale for this masterpiece.

THE MORE I LOOK AT THIS PANEL THE MORE MY HEART HURTS. ITS SO BEAUTIFUL YET SO DAMN FUCKED UP. GOD. FRICK. FRIIIICKKKKKK

  KID EREN FINALLY WITNESSES “THAT SIGHT”, BUT WHAT DID HE ACTUALLY SEE? 2,113 responses

The world-shattering reveal almost a year ago of Eren gaining an important glimpse into the future, characterised as “that sight”, was finally answered in this chapter -- or was it? The majority of you believe kid Eren was merely enjoying the view from above that filled him with freedom, blissfully ignorant to the carnage of the rumbling (50.8%). Close to a quarter (23.8%) think he was able to see the rumbling but was enjoying the freedom in spite of it, with a small portion (5%) believing all the death was a part of his glee. Some aren’t yet sold on the idea that this is “that sight”, perhaps believing we will see it later (20.4%).

I don't think that his inner child is aware of the rumbling. He is only focused on the scenery and wants Armin to see that too.

A world without any walls is what kid eren always wanted to see. Through paths, kid eren achieved this (without seeing the death)

  HOW WILL ARMIN BEING ABLE TO SEE KID EREN THROUGH PATHS AFFECT THE PLOT? 2,114 responses

Child Eren showing up was confusing enough, but he had to see Armin through paths too!?  What does it mean!?  A majority, at 55.5% think it foreshadows Armin’s coming importance in whatever the endgame turns out to be. Almost a third, at 28.6% think that it also opens up the possibility for other characters to connect with Eren through paths.

Armin was the person Eren has been sharing his dreams with. He is mentally showing his friend that the realisation of their dreams is finally at hand.

Eren can call forth anyone he wants, but if he doesn't want to see them I'm not sure if they could get to him

It foreshadows Armin and Eren clashing on a deeper level. I don't think anyone can actually stop Eren at this point.

Eren is so suped up with in this final form and with Ymir's "support" that when he thought about Armin it created a link through the paths.

Armin gets to briefly see the old "idealistic" Eren again. The one he can somewhat see eye-to-eye with and incidentally "created".

I think it might be just a visual metaphor on how Armin and Eren never really understood each other while sharing the same dream and that Armin is realizing that (I mean that the dream of "seeing the outside world" didn't mean the same thing to them). Or it might be that Eren is in a comatose sort of state and that since he technically is in control of paths, his thoughts are "sent" to Armin since he's reflecting on their shared dream

It shows Eren and Armin both want the same end goal. Though they disagree on the means of getting to it

The world is not like the one he saw in Armin's book. Hence why he contacted him, this is his way of reaching for his vision of freedom that he was denied because of the trauma of the wall.

Reference to the ocean scene where Eren was depressed and Armin excited, now its reversed

  WHAT DO YOU THINK OF ARMIN AND ANNIE’S TALK ON THE SHIP? 2,124 responses

While this tiny moment of apparent romance was a delight for the 20% of the fandom who expressed “Whoo hoo Aruani is canon!!”, the remaining 80% were slightly more subdued in their reaction. The largest percentage (35.3%) was happy that the build up between their characters had some payoff. The second most popular selection had nothing to do with Armin or Annie at all with “I just wanna know what’s up with the birds” garnering 26% of the vote. Lastly, 11.2% felt like this moment was completely out of place, selecting “Now’s not the time for love drama Isayama.”

We better see Armin and Annie kiss next chapter

The Armin/Annie was not that necessary, I’d loved way more a more "group" discussion with Mikasa, Jean n Reiner in it. Old 104th days style

Besides the shipping moment, Annie just came to terms with that she’s still not alone, which is huge for her character

I'm not sure if Isayama knows how unnatural aruani is. These two had a grand total of 3 interactions, and sparing each other still isn't prone to romantic feelings blooming on either side.

a bad fking attempt by isayama at romance, should have stuck with eren historia love child

The aruani was unexpected but nice xD I don't exactly ship them but they are cute in this chapter(I can't help but feel one of them is getting a death flag because of this though💀)

What about them talking about all the shit she did or has been through? I wanted to see that.

SHE'S NOT TAKING MY MAN ISTG SHE'S NOT ON MY WATCH

Ship and let ship, this is actually a very intresting pairing and I think the scene flowed very naturally. But I still hope that in the future manga focuses more in the plot and not in the ships. I'd hope the same from fandom, but of course that's too much to ask...

This was a nice moment away from death and destruction

They’re definitely gonna die soon

am i the only one who don’t ship annie and armin? like bro... she squashed your little friends like bugs

Yoo bitch AruAni is canon LETSS FUCKING GOOO Love this cinnamon couple..More canon couple please Yams!

CANT BELIEVE ARMIN IS TRYING TO GET A GF WHEN MILLIONS R DYING HES FR A HOE🤦🏽‍♀️🤦🏽‍♀️

I only saw Bertolt there.

Maybe it's just me but i dont see anything romantic about the scene to me i prefer the weird friendship they have

While it seemed slightly out of place I’m glad Isayama touched on their “therapy sessions”.

Oh God no please don’t do this, Annie isn’t they type of character that needs any sort of romance in her story to be happy

Both aruani is canon 🥳 and wtf Isayama not the time…

c'mon falling for an enemy uncounscious girl with whom you have wangsty once-sided talks, a girl you manipulated to capture and used as a bait against enemies, really ???

They’re finally talking, I’ve been waiting so long for them to talk things out, also I really like Annie’s character development! And finally CANON, I’ve been waiting for sooooo long!!!!!!

I selected the bird because I feel threatened by it but also WOO HOO ARUANI IS CANON

I really enjoyed the scene between Annie and Armin. I think it further cements AOT as a very human narrative. They both know there are bigger things going on, but that doesn't allow them to turn off their very human emotions, which come out in a moment of rest. I don't believe this will necessarily lead to more romantic scenes between them, unless the ending of the story is far more hopeful than I expect it to be.

  WHY DO YOU THINK EREN APPEARS TO BE IN A SLEEP-LIKE STATE? 2,088 responses

Not long after his grand arrival on the shore, Eren seems to be having a little nap. 45.3% of respondents think he’s relying on his base instincts for his walk around the world. 15.8% think he’s wide awake but just trying to ignore the squishy things he’s stepping on. Turns out it’s actually pretty tiring to declare war on the world, or so say 14.2% of you. 12.1% think it’s no coincidence his apparently sleepy face was shown right after the intense stare of birb, and 8.8% think that the image hints at a secret puppet master pulling Eren’s strings. We received a lot of comments suggesting Ymir might be the big bad after all - now how is Eren gonna earn that sweet sweet freedom if he’s not willing to bust a few billion skulls, eh?

He left the Attack Titan on auto-mode

i just wish to know that....now that Eren has a long ass neck.....will he come back as a human or....he will be like this forever

Symbolic of the fact that he isn’t really seeing the sight. It’s a fools errand like Eren’s goal.

I think it is symbolic. The 'adult' in him is sleeping while the 'child' in him is taking the reigns.

His consciousness has been transferred to his titan's brain. He's essentially an Attack Titan battery .

He is dreaming, ignorant to the destruction below and seeing the freedom he envisioned as a kid.

his consciousness is in PATHS dimension and he's controlling things from there

How the fuck is he sleeping when the wall titans are executing complex commands, like diving under ships and surrounding the city?

I don't think he is sleeping. He rather looks beaten and devastated and just numb to what he is doing in order to cope.

I figure that bc he's so big, he kind of has to be like this. Normally when he's in his titan with his eyes open, he's being active. I think that although he's set the titans in motion, he's in a more passive role now. He also can't be all that active when he's that huge, right?

I honestly don't know. I can speculate its connection to Ymir's apparition and child Eren's lucid dream?

He's irrevocably fucked thanks to good old Gabi and her rifle.

He's losing his will to live.  Also leaves an opening for Armin to wake him up like he did in Trost.

HE'S THE SLAVE NOW

Maybe he is actively controlling / managing something else at the time? Maybe something crucial we don't know about yet, I don't believe that he is just exhausted.

His adult self is asleep now because his child self is having fun in his perfect world. Eren is mentally weak as adult but his inner child is strong and is reaching everything Eren always wanted - freedom and happiness.

He’s unable to regenerate due to controlling all the colossal titans, or just won’t because he wasn’t in Titan form when his head was blown off, meaning he will eventually die

i feel as if having eren not be in control would be mildly disappointing because the manga has done so much to set up erens decent into madness and how his actions became so extreme, i would be disappointed if all of that went to waste.

I would guess that Eren might be sifting through future memories at the moment. Looking at the "unknown world"/"the scenery" that made him smile wistfully instead of being horrified/the thing "beyond hell" Eren mentioned to Falco.  

His adult self is sleeping now, while his young self is having fun.

I think hes not fully in control (maybe ymir calling the shots)

I'm kinda torn between him operating on base instincts and him being controlled by someone (Ymir?) so I'm gonna go with both as the possibility.

Maybe he really doesn't want this? I think Ymir's the one in control

Ymir is controlling him

He is not the one driving this titan, Ymir is.

Really? You talk about his eyes being closed and not the fact that he has the neck structure of a turkey!?

  THE FINAL PAGE ENDS ON ARMIN’S HOPEFUL WISH FOR THE EXISTENCE OF THE OUTSIDE WORLD HE ENVISIONED AS A CHILD, BUT WHAT DO YOU THINK? 2,101 responses

Despite the darkness this chapter brought to the story, Armin ends on a hopeful note. The top two options were 36.8% thinking there’s a possibility Armin will in fact be able to stop Eren. and 33.7% believe Armin to be too optimistic, and that it won’t pan out the way he wishes.

Armin's recalling of his childhood dream with Eren in the last page made me think there's still a hidden solution to resolve the dilemma.  

This chapter also shown Armin not wanting to give up with reconciling the Eren he wanted to see and the actual Eren. He hears no evil.

Tragic ending, yes, but I don't think Armin's hope is misplaced all the same. I think Eren cannot be stopped without death, but I also don't think the entire world will be destroyed, and I don't think it will end hopelessly.

Either Armin’s gonna save humanity or everybody just dies the end 😹

That one bird that was perched on the ship might be the symbol of peace. But I'm not sure how that peace is going to be achieved if the option's still on the table.

I hope the alliance is able to save Eren from doing this unthinkable sin.

Probably a blossoming hope through Armin breaking Eren from Ymir's plan uwu

I think Armin could join/support Eren

  THIS CHAPTER CONTINUED THE BIRD MOTIF, THIS TIME HAVING A FOCUS ON SCENES ENDING WITH A BIRD STARING DIRECTLY AT A CHARACTER. WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN?! 2,067 responses

The Spy Birds theory seemed a bit nutty last month, but I don’t trust that seagull one bit. And it looks like many of you agree because that nutty theory has gone mainstream! The majority of respondents (54.1%) think that the birds are under the influence of a higher power, mainly that of Eren (27.4%) or Ymir (26.7%). 26.6% don’t think the birds are suspicious, they’re just free, man. 13% just reckon Isayama has moved on from his love of drawing thicc horses, and birds are the cool new animal. No complaints here. But I still don’t trust that seagull.

The birds are up to something

Animals sense danger coming from nature before humans do.

bird is symbol for freedom, but some bird like crow and raven in some culture are symbol for death.

I think that pigeons are watching me through P A T H S

Black birds symbolize the people's doom , white bird that flew to armin symbolises hope

black birds: death ; seagul: garbage :))) I dunno, the seagul was so random. It means they are approaching the shore?

EREN IS BRAN STARK IN AOT UNIVERSE LET'S GOO

I dont sure its eren or ymir. But i hope there is something about bird. I hope there are a huge plot twist

Might be another Odin parallel if Eren is using them, but I don't really see why he'd bother. I don't think he needs to do recon.

FREEEEEEEDOOOOOM

Last time I thought that the bird theory was a little far-fetched but now I think that's 100% the deal. That seagul is just somehow way too focused on to be just a random animal.

I commented in the previous poll that the birds are surveillance cameras and i’m even more convinced now. And isn’t it poetic that the Wings of Freedom logo is made up of a pair of black and white wings, representing the different interpretations of freedom pursued by Eren and Armin.

This is all just a Genjutsu by Itachi

my personal favorite theory, it’s zeke seeing everything transpire through the power of the beast titan

Pure!Boy Armin gets the seagull because he still has DREAMS and Eren gets crows because he wants to feast on human flesh.

WHAT'S UPP WITH THE BIRDS AAAAAAHHH TELL ME

I don't know but is really cool if you see it as a symbol of hope/freedom. Birds are the only kind who will not going to be tumble over the rumbling.

I think it's about the colors, black is dark, just like the destruction Eren is causing to the world (including Ramzi and Halil) and white is bright, just like the peace that Armin wished for and is aiming to achieve with the alliance

  HOW DID THIS CHAPTER AFFECT YOUR VIEWS ON THE RUMBLING? 2,100 responses

If we thought seeing the reality of the rumbling would be a game changer when it comes to our view of it, we were wrong. Only 5% of people who formerly supported it no longer do. For the rest of us 44% do not support the rumbling and 30% do. Most curiously, 21% claim to have no opinion. More on that below when we mirrored this question about our views on Eren.

I still don't support The Rumbling, I just want it to stop. It doesn't do anything good for anyone, even Eren himself, and this awfully awesome chapter proves it. I totally expect that via P A T H S.FM Armin and Mikasa could stop him (and save him, physical or psychologically, idk) . It's the only plausible way.

I think the rumbling is justified but I don’t think the civilians who had nothing against Erin don’t deserve to die.

I don’t think there is any other solution, and that’s the point… His outburst at Hange tells me that he was desperate for something. This is coming from Eren who can essentially see everything and inherited multiple people’s memories. If he couldn’t come up with it, I don’t think anyone else can (aside from Armin? But I’m not holding my breath). The 50-year plan was a delusional fantasy at best, technology would evolve rapidly and nullify any threat the Rumbling poses.

I was still kind of hoping Eren had something up his sleeve that wasn't mass slaughter, but I guess we're going there

I believe the full rumbling is a morally grey decision, but I’ll concede and say it’s on the darker end of the spectrum. ultimately eren will have to answer for what he’s done, necessary or not killing millions of innocent people is a horrible thing to do.

The world was never peaceful, and never will be. The Rumbling was inevitable, nothing could stop that.

  ON A SCALE FROM “IT’S JUST A FLESH WOUND” TO “HOLY SHIT THIS IS AWFUL”, HOW DID YOU FEEL ABOUT THE PORTRAYAL OF THE RUMBLING?   2,110 responses

This probably didn’t need to be asked but we did it anyway. For the vast majority of us, the portrayal of the rumbling was overwhelming in terms of sheer horror. “It’s awful! I love it!” seems to be a common reaction.

Whelp... we wanted to see the rumbling. I guess be careful what we wish for.

I am once again reminded how gory SnK can be.

No holds barred. This is the sad, traumatic truth that we asked for.

RIP in pieces Clown-kun

At this point, it makes me sick to read pro-rumbling posts. Normally, when you like a villain or a morally grey character (Eren went past this point long ago) you enjoy seeing how their mentality works. And this is fully respectable, but not the "uuuh my baby did nothing wrong". If we did the same with our kings Floch and Zeke, it would be crazy, wouldn't it?

I’m glad the Rumbiling was shown in its full glory. It didn’t hide anything about the situation and was very gory. I’m glad we were shown what happened to the people during it, and not just after.

I can't feel engaged in the rumbling when it has been the default scenario since the sea, but more specifically 123. The boy had a death flag the size of Marley and now he's dead. Thanks for the shock, Yams. I'm interested in the potential of everything else. I hope I didn't follow this story for the final conflict to be whether to save more people or less people

It was great to see the Rumbling in its full gore. Isayama showed it masterfully and rly put emphasis on how terrifying and disturbing it is. I was never anti or pro of it before, bc I'm just enjoying the view as the reader, that didn't change, and I still like Eren bc he is a very entertaining character.

I loved seeing how awful everything was. Ofc in real life I wouldn't support it, but narratively? Wow!

  WHICH OF THE FOLLOWING BEST DESCRIBE YOUR FEELINGS ABOUT THE RUMBLING? (MULTISELECT) 2,109 responses

This chapter didn’t hold back in its brutal display of the rumbling, and it may be difficult to find the words to describe it, so we gave you twelve. A clear majority are able to agree on it being both tragic and terrifying, closely followed by those who would describe it as unavoidable, distressing or immoral. The choices in the minority included describing the rumbling as awesome, justified or heroic. Fun fact, over a third of the people who chose “heroic” also described it as some combination of “excessive”, “immoral” and “indefensible”. Talk about mixed feelings.

  HOW DID THIS CHAPTER AFFECT YOUR VIEWS ON EREN? 2,093 responses

If we thought seeing the horrors of the rumbling would be a game changer when it comes to our view of the person who unleashed it, we were wrong. This chapter did nothing to change the minds of the 40% who support Eren and the 30% who do not. Only a minority (8.3%) said this chapter made their support for Eren wane.

We were most curious about the 20% who selected “I have no opinion.” When we’ve waited so eagerly for Eren’s POV, how could a quarter of the fandom be neutral on how it affected them? Was this a failure on Isayama’s part or were our poll options poorly worded? We decided that rather than having no opinion,  “I don’t know what to think yet” might have been the better cop out...err I mean *neutral* option :P

I was one of those that was convinced that there had to be something more to the Rumbling, and this chapter shocked me to my core by revealing that there really isn't. Eren is just that disturbed. We wanted Eren POV but we weren't ready for it. Now I just want to see how Armin and Mikasa end this.

i love eren so much nothing can make me hate him but he is insane... all this and for what. THEY COULDNT HAVE TALKED IT OUT??? i feel so bad for eren he clearly does not want to kill all those people man...

We finally have Eren's pov now; I still don't know how to feel about it, but I'll always support him.

Eren is a character who really disgusts me because of his fucked up delusion of fReEdoM but I love him at the same time because he's really well written, this boy is a fascinating mess.

This chapter seems to have made things pretty straightforward. Eren is a lot of things but he’s not one to go back on his word. He said he was gonna rumble and now he’s doing it.  Not sure why people are having a hard issue saying he wouldn’t have done it. Uhhhh hello he’s nuts

i get eren's side but i just wish that there was another way to bring freedom and justice without genocide

I support eren as a character, however if his actions were translated to real life I would disagree with them. At the end of the day, genocide is not ok. He could’ve wiped out military bases, but civilian deaths is not ok. HOWEVER, for the sake of fiction, & the fact that there’s no decent alternative, it’s team Yeager.

Deep down his choice is selfish and this is why he is ashamed of it, the rest are just justifications. And he is not the only character who has selfish objectives hidden over good intentions, Erwin fought for humanity, but deep down he wanted to prove his father right, and Reiner on his quest to "Save Humanity" was just a mask to become a hero.

Really I want to see Eren fufill his dream, I’m still supporting him.

Ymir might have a role to play in his mental state.

Not to support the rumbling or anything, but I do feel sorry for Eren. He's like a cornered animal that attacked in panic and that attack's freaking deadly.

Even though the rumbling is tragic, this is Eren truly getting his way, no matter what. It's a rare thing to see in any literary work, and although I'm curious as to what the downfall/tragedy of his character will end up being after this, I love it all because for what feels like the first time, a character with bad intent is using the god power to accomplish their goal, and I can't get enough of it.

  WHAT BEST DESCRIBES YOUR THOUGHTS ABOUT EREN THIS CHAPTER 2,111 responses

Empathy for Eren is the theme for nearly 70% of the fandom with “I feel for him. He’s in a tough position” (43.7%) and “my heart aches for him” (22.1%) being the top two selections. On the opposite and more extreme ends of the spectrum, those who think he’s the greatest (15.1%) and those who think he’s the worst (14.9%) are nearly evenly matched. Interestingly only 4.2% expressed “I have no opinion” on this question compared to more than 20% on the question above.

Eren is my favorite character but I also don't support his actions.

I was disstressed for a few days after it.  How did it go to this? I kept reading this far just because I wanted Eren to be happy and have his happy ending, and what do we have now?..

I feel bad for eren, he's in a position no one would want to be, and he hates what hes doing no matter how much he needs to

This chapter could possibly stablish once and for all Eren as a unchangable character since he has reached a point of no return.

Eren is GOAT, the rumbling is wrong but I still love eren

This entire chapter just reaffirms the fact that Eren has always been a self absorbed, self-pitying child from the very beginning

I don't get how people can still support Eren just because he cried a little.

To think that all the shit that has happened since RTS (Sasha killed, Liberio attacked, Tybur murdered, Zackley assassinated, Nile and Pixis titanised, Levi forced to decimate his own titanised squad and then nearly dying, Jaegerist coup, Shadis beat up, Historia pregnant AND ANYTHING ELSE I'VE FORGOTTEN) is all because of some long, convoluted plan for one single boy's childish, problematically simplistic, black-and-white dream for "Freedom" is. I can't. I'm tired. Eren's pov is so outrageously outlandish that I can't relate. At all.

I cant feel bad for Eren, he is the only person responsible on his guilt and sadness. Also genocide is the worst option and even Eren says it.

He was sheltered his whole life; he has no proper context or framework for concepts like racism and war between humans. He “optimistically” thought his fight was that of human vs titan. That's why I don't blame him for coming to the Rumbling conclusion after the basement reveal. I give him a lot of credit for empathizing with "the other side" and I do believe Eren tried his best to come up with alternative solutions.

I feel for Eren, he was sold the idea of a perfect, peaceful, untouched world, ripe for discovery, filled with the beauty and awe of nature, but in reality it was full of cruel xenophobia people who hated his very existance. I don't support the rumbling but i understand why Eren did it.

Eren is obsessed with his perfect vision of "Freedom" where there are no limits to his will, but sadly for him, he lives on a reality where others exist and as long he has to interact with them, there are going to be limitations he is going to be bound. So even if he kills everyone outside the island, there is going to be another "wall" he needs to overcome.  

Seeing Eren cry and hear his doubts actually made me just more angry with him: "If you are so sad about the fate of the outside world then fucking change the future, don't just give up!!!!!!!" He seems to be very clung in the idea that the future is set and there is nothing he can do to change it.

Okay but look at Eren's centipedal Hell's creation's TINY BUTT. It's so funny seeing that little boney ass on this gigantic thing

  EREN SEEMS TO HAVE MANY MOTIVATIONS. HOW WOULD YOU RANK THEM?

This one was interesting. With this chapter’s iconic imagery of kid Eren spreading his arms declaring “this is freedom”, it’s unsurprising that most of us agree with that as a very important motivation for him. His friends were also chosen as a very important motivation, though not as much as his love for freedom. Historia and her child just edged out the motivation of the people of Paradis, though interestingly it has less “somewhat important” votes and more “not important at all votes”, making it clearly divisive even if it has more “very important” votes.. But the motivation with an even more divisive perception is revenge, with nearly an even split between those who view it as very, somewhat and not important at all.  

Everything Eren is doing is for the sake of his friends and Historia, there was no other choice to protect the island.

I think that the only thing what matters to Eren is freedom and reaching the perfect world he saw in his dreams after reading Armin's book. The dream of his inner child is playing the most important role in his life. Eren is ready to sacrifice his friends, his mentors and people on Paradis - just to see the special scenery and finally feel FREE.

Feel sad to see eren need to do all of this, but i know its for his friend and paradis

I hope that Eren doesn’t harm the alliance

  REGARDLESS OF WHETHER YOU FEEL POSITIVELY OR NEGATIVELY ABOUT EREN, DO YOU THINK HE IS BEING PORTRAYED AS A VILLAIN AT THIS POINT IN THE STORY? 2,098 responses

It’s truly a testament to Isayama’s strength as a writer when a character’s deliberate annihilation of billions is met with a majority response of “there are no villains or heroes here.” 57.1% think that as tragic as the situation now may be, nobody in this manga really qualifies as villainous. Or at least, not when our feisty protagonist is involved. 33.7% think the manga is a tale of a hopeful boy slowly turning to the dark side. 5.6% see this all as part of a hero’s tumultuous journey. Finally, 3.5% think it’s unfair to cast Eren as a villain since he’s not the one in control. Gotta say, if Eren is not the one destroying the world he really shouldn’t have said he was going to destroy the world.

This chapter just proves that Eren ISN'T a complete villain. I disagree with the rumbling, but what Eren's going through is something that I empathize with.This chapter just made it easier for me to keep rooting for everyone, even though a completely happy ending is not an option anymore.

I really hope Eren's in for a change of heart soon. I hate the idea of him being the final villain. He's definitely redeemable. Even he is eligible to have a dark foil and rival. Maybe we'll get that later on in Zeke who I feel is also redeemable.

More and more of the story is unveiled, I really like how this is going. Ever since knowing the outside world I have decided that Eren is no longer a hero but then he is not a villain either so does everyone in the story. I like Eren a lot but I'd say that I just like to observe, to see, never to support or to oppose. So this chapter is really amazing to me as I managed to see more about Eren.

eren is a villian whether you like it or not

I feel Walter white Vibe from Eren.

Eren is evil period!!!! There is no justification for mass murder. If he wants to savr his ppl then just wipe out the army, navy, air force, warriors and the leaders period not everyone including INNOCENT ppl....

EREN IS GOAT. He is portrayed as a hero who makes tough choices that no other shitty shonen character even can do.

Eren needs to stop the rumbling. It maybe justified his needs but the people outside the walls didn't deserved it. They're both each other's enemies. He used to say people outside the walls are monsters but he became one himself. He desired freedom but in the end he was a slave to his own desire.

Isayama could chose to make him some what of a villainous character, or he could chose to set it up as if eren is more of an anti hero doing then wrong things for the right reasons

  DESCRIBE THE CHAPTER IN ONE WORD 1,543 responses

No superlatives to describe how great or awesome this chapter was this month. The Rumbling hurt us all (well done, Yams, mission accomplished). That being said, it looks like we’re all masochists, considering this chapter is in the top 5 highest rated chapters since chapter 91.

Tragic [169; 4.69]

Sad [89; 4.73]

Pain [77; 4.86]

Depressing [69; 4.75]

Heartbreaking [48; 4.77]

  WHAT ARE YOU MOST HOPING TO SEE NEXT CHAPTER? 2,089 responses

With what we want next chapter we find it especially surprising that the majority are ready to give Eren’s perspective a break. Since google sometimes fails us in displaying the data, we’ll just list it all out. Of the options we provided, our wishes for next chapter from most to least popular are: Let’s keep it with the Eren POV (23.4%), The alliance reaching Odiha (22.4%), WHERE TF IS LEVI??? (10.6%), I could go for a few more mental breakdowns (10.1%), More Ymir being mysterious (7.9%), WHERE TF IS LEVI??? (10.6%), SAVE US ZEKE (8.9%), Oh god go back to Historia please (8.5%), Finality for Floch (6%) and More birbs ovo (2.2%)

Yo where tf is Rico

I want to see levi

fuck yeah more mental break down, I'm ready to be depressed

I really want to see more of Armin and kid Eren in Paths next chapter. That one panel was super interesting and I would love to go back to it.

hurt me more isayama

Please yams I want to see Flochad kill Hange, that’s all I ask for.

Zeke returns next chapter pleaseeeee

HOPE WE GET TO SEE HOW THE ISLAND IS DOING NEXT CHAPTER

It's getting to the final and I don't like that

as only 3-4 chapters are left, I dont think we are going to get another eren POV, I am still dying to see the conditions of the other main characters, whereas zeke and floch are unfinished mysteries.

someone from alliance is dying soon

I've gotta see more Historia. What is she doing and thinking right now? What is her role moving forward?

Just shut up with historia in this survey. She's irrelevant. Now I hate answering your polls.Never again!

i literally don't know what to expect next chapter like yams is just THAT good

  WHERE DO YOU PRIMARILY DISCUSS THE SERIES? 2,025 responses

The platforms where we discuss the series remain relatively unchanged with Reddit providing the plurality of responses. Thank you Reddit! We appreciate it. That said, we’d love to see this chart balance out a little more so please feel free to share the poll wherever you discuss the series. That includes the 5 of you degenerates on Snapchat.

  ADDITIONAL THOUGHTS ON THE CHAPTER? 553 responses

Uhhh *disappears*

ZEKE-KUN PLEASE BE A GOOD ONII-CHAN AND SAVE THE WORLD FROM YOUR TROUBLED LITTLE OTOTO

listen, birds are pretty cool ok

Beautifully tragic, exactly what I wanted to see from Eren after being shown in a villainous light for 30+ chapters. Being introduced to a new character, in particular an innocent child and then finally revealing his name and story was a perfect way to show the true horrors of an indiscriminate near-omnicide, it definitely brought tears to my eyes.

(😢) SIE SIND DAS ESSEN UND WIR SIND DIE JAEGER (😢)

As expected of Isayama-sensei, it's exactly right.

Annie being revealed as aromantic is the unexpected happy development in this tragedy.

Kiddos, the "it's just fiction" argument refers to the fact that you are allowed to *enjoy* watching fucked up things in fiction because people, in general, can distinguish between fiction and reality. It does not mean writing essays to *justify* said fucked-up things that happen in fiction, because you almost certainly start bringing your own real-life logic to fictional events. Aka, mixing up reality and fiction. Showing your true colors. Allowing your beliefs to slip into discussion. Whatever you call that.

THE BIRDS HAVE PATHS, I CALLED IT LAST CHAPTER!

Annie has always had a hard time expressing her feelings and that she has had complexes for a long time. I'm glad Armin was able to tell her what he was thinking because it will give Annie more confidence. Plus, Annie has always been introverted and I love that Isayama tells us more about her character.

The ravens are a reference to Odin’s, a mythology character. He has two ravens, they symbolise memory and mind/thought.

What a manga.

what eren did is right you can come up with any other solution

What in the everliving fuck is going on? Can we go back to factory reset and knock some sense into Eren before he starts having wild ideas like this one? Please

BEST SHIP FINALLY HAPPENING PROPERLY AHHHHH MY BOY ARMIN IS FINALLY TALKING ABOUT HIS FEELINGS EVEN IF IT'S SUBTLE

If Eren is the bird he really is Armins WINGman.

I KNEW ARMIN LIKED ANNIE! But seeing Annie blush was a nice surprise. I thought she was the ice queen in terms of romance.

This poll is bias toward historia. I wish if y’all stop the shipping b.s

birds are supposed to symbolize freedom in most cultures, innit?

This chapter was so important to me. It showed the reality of the rumbling, and that scenery, and most importantly, Eren's true feelings on the genocide, including his now split younger self. He feels guilty about it, he knows it's bad yet he has to do it because he has no other option if he wants Paradis and everyone he loves to survive. During my life I have had a lot of instances where I had to sacrifice a lot  in order to survive, including disociating and splitting my personality in two, crushing my own feelings to do what had to be done, so characters like Eren are very relatable in that sense to me. In a kill-or-be-killed situation, there is no place nor time for doubts nor mercy and you have to do what you have to do.

Very interesting, trágico and raw, but also  liked the comparison between different concepts of the world and freedom between Armin and Eren. Also loved all the AruAni moments, they were not only adorable but also helped those two characters talk about things they needed to open up about since a long time ago lol.

I want to get off Mr. Isayama's Wild Ride

Am I the only one who can't take the alliance seriously?

Wasn't really feeling the AruAni moment, but other than that top tier chapter can't wait for more.

Armin possibly realizes Eren isn't in the right state of mind. If Eren is projecting himself as a child, then Armin might be able to come up with a plan to stop what he is doing.

Fantastic, worth the wait.

Fav chapter yet. Fall of Wall Maria got overthrown as the most depressing event in the series for me.

Favourite line in AOT :"SIT DOWN"

I don't want it to end, but I am very happy about the direction the manga is going.

I felt for eren

This chapter was legendary, it hit all the right notes for finally giving Eren's POV. The shot of child Eren above the clouds will go down as one of the best panels ever... also Eren's line about "disappointment"... fantastic it gave me chills.

I find ‘the cycle of revenge’ storyline tiring. I’ve seen it so many times before and there isn’t anything new being covered here. I just feel tired and sad honestly. My last (and probably unfulfilled) hope for the series would be for Levi to make it through this, work things out with Zeke without violence and be able to move on in his life. He could help the survivors of the rumbling and reestablish civilization, maybe open his tea shop, see the world, maybe fall in love. I don’t really care. I just want to see my boy alive and doing okay for himself. A ridiculous thought for this series, I know. With 3-4 chapters left I feel we will most likely just be left in a misery marinara. I’m soaking in it right now.

I have too many thoughts on this chapter, I wouldn't know where to begin

i wanted him to save ramzi, but i didnt at the same time?? i was glad he didnt spare him, but im sad he didnt?? i dont know why

I just want everything to end already

i just want the best ending for all characters, esp Eren.

I like how Isayama is pushing the cognitive dissonance that i have of what side i should choose.....he is really fuckin with me at this point. All the thinking has now made me kinda numb

I like Isayama drawing birds and see the art improvement through the chapters :D I announce August is the Eek Appreciation Month dedicated to the Wings of Freedom! EEEEEEEEEEEK

I like that it pretty much ended the discussion of Eren having other plans. He's been totally honest the entire time. If he had other plans, why'd he put his friend in danger by having them fight against him?

for real had to pause for a bit at many points in this chapter lmao

Maybe this is why he never talked to his friends- he didn't care about discussing what's right for them, he just wanted his FrEeDoM and would walk over children to get it.

Glad to see Armin and Annie being cute, they deserve a few moments of happiness.

Glad to see Eren’s thoughts and feelings about the rumbling. There are a lot of loose ends that I was hoping to have some answers for in this chapter but it didn’t happen in this chapter, which just made me more intrigued.

Glad to see that Eren's uncaring exterior was finally dispelled this chapter

God I can't see this ending good and I just really want this to be over soon. Never rooted as much for an MC to die as now.

Which of the following best describe how you feel about the rumbling?  Pointless, it won't achieve anything.

while i find aruani cute i still find it weird since she literally was crying the previous chapter. i was disappointed that we didn't get to see all the alliance

Why tf is Ymir in the realworld!?

WHENS MAHVEL

SS ARUANI GONNA RUMBLE THE SHIP HARDER THEN EREN RUMBLED THOSE POOR CHILDREN, TAKE THAT NONBELIEVERS no really, this was built up from s1, and they have wonderfully complementing personalities. Sad that half the fandom gets triggered from any het ship (and vice versa)

Crack theory: Eren has two personalities which is why he acts in contradictory ways. The "evil" nature is in kid Eren and the "good" nature is in the bird. There is no consciousness in his actual body anymore.

Genocide route best route

Way better than the last chapter. 130 was just good art and shipping bait which felt like it was forced for the sake of the end of a volume. This chapter was amazing and balanced its multiple purposes effortlessly, as opposed to the clunky nature of the previous chapters. Probably the best chapter since Ymir's backstory. I love how Armin tied into it, we haven't seen he and Eren's shared dream brought up for a while, as it had faded into background despite being such a driving force for both characters before the timeskip.

I was sure that the dichotomy between Eren's motivations was clearly between his friends/the people he wants freedom for, and his own quest to soothe the anger he has in his heart. Essentially is he doing this for love or hate. Yet we get a third motivation introduced this chapter, of him achieving his child self's dream of freedom in a wall-less world, and what do you know it's tied into "that scenery/that sight", Isayama you genius. What does this mean about those other motivations, though? Is everything false and it's just what Eren is telling himself? What's the lie? What's the truth? What to believe…

It might just be because Eren subconsciously called to Armin. So if more memories surface, more characters can talk with him potentially.

Time loop theory!

Timey Wimey P A T H S shenanigans.

Even if I'm not surprised, it's disappointing to see how Eren is the worst Jaeger after all. He used to make bad decisions trying to help "humanity", but now he just thinks he's right, when not even half of Paradis agrees with his ideas.

I hate Eren from the bottom of my heart. He's disgusting, a total piece of shit. And I love Isayama for giving me all these feelings. He's the real GOAT here.

Really made me wish Isayama hadn't gone for the ~mystery~ of Eren becoming the villain and had instead at least given us the flashbacks in chronological order. The way this long-awaited PoV reveal has been done has felt so clunky and awkward.

I honestly don't understand those who used to support the Rumbling but no longer do after this chapter; maybe they are the same kind of people that romanticized Omnicide and kept defending it as the  "morally correct thing to do"  and that they "would most certainly do it"  if they were in Eren's shoes... Until the reality hit them and all of their posturing like a bag of bricks - i.e. the typical edgy keyboard warrior.

As a pro-Rumbling fan, I always knew this was the expected outcome; if anything this chapter was everything I hoped that Isayama would show to us because it once and for all disproved the idea that Eren has a plan beyond the Rumbling. A Lelouch ending (which I hope doesn't happen) can still be pulled, but its not something that Eren is actively working torwards, but the end result if the alliance somehow stops him.

rumbling go brrrrrrrr

Zeke is controlling the bird with his beast Titan ability that he learnt from the paths realm

"what will my mother think of me?" Ashamed of you, eren, duh.

I really can't feel sorry for eren when this is ultimately the choice he made. There were always other choices up until the point where he killed many world leaders in his attack on Marley.

A bit sappy but understandable. From a egoist point of view Eren is justified in his actions, but of course this just reaffirms the Eldians "monstrous" nature to them. The Eldians dont have a realistic out unless the titans are truly gone forever if Eren loses. Curious about the birds.

A freckled girl appeared. That's progress.

BRUTAL.

Also what about the Eldians living outside of Paradis Island? IMO they are the ones suffering the most

Can he even be stopped?

Can people stop saying that because you enjoy the direction of the story that you’re a genocide supporter? I like shooter games too but I’m obviously not going to go kill anyone, everyone needs to chill out with the moral policing, you sound like the Tipper Gore crowd. Is the rumbling justified? No, but it’s a great direction for the story and it was inevitable once it was established what was in the walls. Chekhov’s gun had to go off sometime, I’m actually surprised how many people seem to be agonizing over this.

Can't put it into words how amazing AOT has become and is just stepping over each level taking one step at a time !!!

Can't wait till next one

Changed the opinion of many people on eren's genocide

Chapter confirmed Eren is NOT the father

Cruel just like the world

This chapter re-assured me that that first scene of Mikasa is the moment she says goodbye to a dying Eren.

Damn bro it’s great

Dang. When this is animated, I guarantee a lot of youtubers and just the anime fandom in general will think this is the best series of all time.

Eren is one of the best MCs of all time.

Eren is one of the most tragic characters on manga

Eren is the best protagonist

Eren is the GOAT but is also wrong and needs to die real soon

EREN IS THE GOATTTT. AOT IS THE GOATTTT. ISAYAMA IS THE GOATTTT.

Eren is truly the best developed main character from any shonen series, this chapter made my mind.

Eren loses it, again

great job Isayama. well done you madman

Great painfull chapter, Eren having a breakdown Made me so sad and depressed,  I wish him to achieve freedom

Greatest manga of all time

greatest piece of fiction of our generation

Hange is right, this is not an acceptable solution

I cried while reading it no joke

I don't even know what to say about Eren. Sure, this chapter is showing his guilt, but that definitely does NOT justify his actions. EXPLAIN YOURSELVES, YEAGERISTS, EREN STANS!!!!!! (sorry I'm just angry about him)

I still think there needs to be a twist, because for me the character development still doesn't work. Eren and Historia have both forgotten common sense and do awful stupid things for stupid, hollow (plot) reasons, and the 104th this entire arc have both become somewhat useless and self-righteous at the convenience of the author. I don't care if the whole arc happened this way just because clearly Isayama wants to have the rumbling as the last arc, but if this was his objective he should have been more focused on character consistency and less on the mystery of it all. It still all feels less like the choices of actual characters than plot convenience, and it gives me the same sensation of the Serumbowl, which I thought was the nadir of the series.

If truly there's won't be some last minute twist it's just bad character writing in service of a plot decided in advance. Same with Historia and the 104th. Who cares about character consistence? Not Isayama, apparently

For some reason Eren wants Armin to the what his is doing.

Honestly, of all the characters Armin is the last I'd want succeding in stopping Eren. Let Mikasa have the spotlight, damn it.

Beautiful pain

Beautifully drawn but very gory

a person can gladly become a devil or a god if he has to, for justice.

A truly sad and terrifying chapter. I never understood how anyone could support this. Don't get me wrong. I understand plotwise why it had to happen. I knew Isayama would show us this. This part was unavoidable for the story he's trying to tell. Doesn't mean I have ever supported it, or that I ever will. But hey at least Aruannie is cannon, so that's a silver linning to this absolutely horrible chapter.

PS. I never wanted to punch a fictional character in the face as much as I want to punch Eren's. Alas, he's not real and I will never get the satisfaction of doing that.

Adding onto child eren's freedom panel, i believe it represents the idea of freedom he had wished for before he was betrayed by the world itself.

All hail the mad king

All that suffering, for what. You won but at what cost

IT MAKES MY HEAD SPIN AND THE FORSHADOWING BUILD UP TO THIS CHAPTER IS JUST *chefs kiss*

It really shows that Attack On Titan isn’t an ordinary story. It is a storyline filled with emotions, tragedies and somehow the cruel reality that this world possesses.

It shifted through a lot of POVs, it was pretty good.

It showed the rumbling and Eren in much more impartial way.

It was crazy to finally see in Eren's Head but all it did was confirm the things I was thinking for awhile and put me more on his side.At this point I'm ride or Die Eren Yaeger just so I can see how this all ends.

It was good, but I wish we would've gotten more with the rest of the crew going to Marley.

Listen, I really love Eren, I have deeply felt for him. I still do, I relate too much with his own traumas but since the timeskip. I have distanced myself from him and I don't and have never supported on his stance for genocide because he set this up with Zeke and pushed Marley to go into war while they didn't want it in the first place. However I have too much of a strong emotional connection to him so I understand him and I admit, it made me doubt a little bit on some of my stances. Since Eren is so different from who he was back before the timeskip, I have always assumed and the manga has not proved me wrong, that he's being influenced by something or someone which is feeling on his traumas, anger, depression and dissapointments. So I am still extremely optimistic about him.

Jesus Fucking Christ

its funny how the dream dies with reality

Its great to finally get some of Erens thoughts but it’s just made me think he’s not acc the one in control

My tears create a whole new ocean.

no opinion really, chapter felt kinda flat and repetitive in parts

Alliance supporters learning that Eren is suffering with all this shit and isn't trash and pitiful like their hypocrite babies who were genociding their own people in the last 32 volumes.

Amazing. The way Eren developed from this angsty little child to someone who's willing to kill everyone to achieve his childhood dream and save his pals is truly wonderful.

Rumbling go wee

I found it tragically ironic that Eren just has a passing thought of what his mom would think of his actions, and it reminds me of how he wouldn’t listen to her when he was younger. Do you think this is a subtle indication that Eren hasn’t matured from the thought processes of a selfish boy, or does he truly hold weight and more consideration to what his mother (and other people) would think? Personally, I think he is more aware of outside views, but just refuses to accept that reality because he is so stuck on his own desires.

It's one of the pivotal scenes because atleast I know that within Eren he still at somepoint have consicience and shows that at somepoint he can be stopped.

Rumbling goes rumble

Eremin <3

Yams makes me confused! I dunno!

Collosal Titans go brr

CONFUSING IN WAY TOO MANY PARTS!!! where to start or stop... from ymir to bird to child eren is all confusing af but nice :)

Depression and depression

Did we really need to spend that many pages on that AruAni BS? So much for fucking 5% being left.

Dis gon be good

Let's get the final confrontation underway!

Welp, there is absolutely no defying it: Eren is the big bad and there is no secret plan to make it up.

Let’s get ready to RUUUUUUUUMBLE!

LETS FUCKING GOOO

Levi and Hange convo when? Armin and Annie end of the world sex when? Jean confessing to Mikasa when? Floch suprise killing Connie or Jean when? Floch getting thrown over board to die at sea rather than being shot when?

LOLZ at anyone still defending the rumbling after this chapter portraying it as something heroic or justifiable

Make me feel. Make me feel more.

Man, this is rough.

Overall well rounded chapter. Time to get back to alliance and Historia after this though.

Poor Eren. But I kind of understand.

Ppl who are calling Eren GOAT or saying they were only sad in this chapter bc Eren cried are legit psychopaths.

Seeing Eren’s POV and reasoning behind pursuing the rumbling makes me feel for him. We know he cares about his friends, paradis, etc. I am at a loss of words for this chapter. However I will say this, Armin in paths with Eren is not a coincidence. I think isayama is foreshadowing of a conversation THEY’VE ALREADY HAD, and what’s to come..

Isayama is being stingy about letting his characters talk to each other properly. I mean really how many scenes do we have left on this boat while the rumbling goes on? When there’s still so much to be said. Wasted chapter imo, a lot more could’ve been said and done.

E+H=Y

Eren confirmed that he will kill everyone. The rumbling cannot be stopped.

Even though we have gotten some insight on Eren's pov, it has created more questions than answers. His motives are still very confusing and we are still being kept in the dark

Every chapter update makes me sad :( the story has gotten so tragic and i love it but oof. I didnt think it could get sadder but Isayama proves me wrong every month

Every new released chapter is better than the last one. I love these series. Props to mr. Hajime Isayama 💪🏆

Exactly what we needed, have more faith now.

Exceeded my expectations. The last two chapters were mindblowing after a slow mini Arc at the port. Isayama can really pull ar your heartstrings with flashbacks and Eren's pov.

Thanks Isayama for the microscopic eremin crumbs

that kid eren scene though... easily the best scene the series so far

That was damn perfect

That was f***ing amazing and awful at the same time. I want this series to end, but actually no. Keep going Isayama. You crazy motherf***er.

the "beyond the walls" talk between armin and eren is being brought up again and im emotional now thx

The ending's gonna disappoint people, no matter how well/badly it's executed. Chapter was cool, but overhyped imo

The pacing seems slow, but then again, it was recently nodded to that the manga won't end at Chapter 134 or 135 but 136. And Isayama does have everything planned out for a long time. I don't think he'll disappoint.

the significance of many things in the story are too epic, carla and mikasa look alike, grisha and eren look alike, historia and dina even look alike, the repeating actions, along with the intricate history formed, give us a lot to speculate but nothing to confirm.

I am somewhat sad for eren, to see the point that he has reached by having that freedom that he longed for so much but that I hardly think exists is sad, I don't know how the hell this is going to end but hey I don't know

I can't even begin to imagine how this is going to look in the anime. Definitely not for the faint of heart.

I can't imagine how the manga will end in a few chapters

I can't wait for 132.

I can’t believe this

I can’t wait to see this chapter voice acted, holy shit.

I loved the context that Eren's apology provides, really gives some much needed insight on his thoughts about the future during the timeskip

I need him to talk to mikasa and armin!

On this poll, I noticed that there's nothing about Mikasa haha. I want her to have a moment for the next chapter, or appear on Eren's memories. We know she's gonna be playing a big role for this arc.

I like where the story is going and I can’t wait for the anime so I can show AOT to everyone.

I think Eren is going somewhere. If he wanted to rumble the world, he can control the titans even from the safety of Paradis. I think he is going to that tree under which Ymir fell.

I think it focuses on Eren a bit too much. Maybe show us some Levi? Thank you.

i think reiner is gay

I am currently not taking a side. Not with Eren or with the Yeagerists or with our heroes. I'm just here to see how it all goes down and how Isayama wants to play it out. I've been enjoying every single chapter and being so moved it's insane. F the ship wars and the bs, this story is much more than that. And tragedy is written all over it. Ok brb getting my tissues prepared for next chapter.... 👍

I don't know how many more issues we're going to have but I worry that the story is going to come to a screeching halt and leave too many questions unanswered. Isayama has got so many plates spinning, narratively speaking, I have no idea how he is going to finish them or if he'll finish them at all.

Just a series of gut-punches one after the other after every panel, oof this chapter affected me more than any other. It also made me wonder about how the planet in general would be affected.  Like how would ecosystems change?  Will Eren only go after the civilized countries and then stop?  Or will he not let a single person survive outside the island and just actually steamroll the whole planet?  If he does, wouldn't that change climates and stuff?  What's about the animals and plants? Am I thinking too much about this? How will the drastic changes affect the Paradisians? All this assuming the alliance doesn't manage to stop him (which is likely)

although initially him and reiner seemed to pursue the same path, eren initial motive was to wipe them all and he said it multiple times, I don't believe he has guilt nor remorse because "it was all set from the very start"

We also got a seamless reintegration of the theme of what it means to be a "good person", something both Armin and Annie have grappled with as far back as Female Titan arc, and it's great to see it re-emerge in the context of the rumbling. Annie is an underrated character. Isayama could have had her come back with some bullshit royal blood or daughter-of-Kruger twist, but instead he decides to integrate her into the conflict as her own person and make her a more interesting character than Reiner (sorry Soul).

Eren is allowed to have emotions, he should be able to feel terrible about himself for having to wipe out most of humanity. But he also believes that this is the only way. He begged Hange if there was another way, he WANTED an option that didn't end with the world being rumbled. When Hange had no ideas, and no else had a plan that would keep Paradis safe, he felt like he had to move forward, towards freedom.

Eren is neither right or wrong in his decision. Killing innocents, destroying entire ecosystems and ending human civilization is morally bankrupt. In many ways his plan is short sighted, but when I say this, my stance comes from a logical standpoint rather than a moral one(the political instability of the island, the precedent it sets, the danger he put his friends in). The *most* moral thing to do was a partial rumbling(there are still some issues both logistical and moral) and while 2 wrongs don’t make a right, I hold Marley and many other nations equally at fault for not being willing to end this diplomatically. Their scorched earth policy brought this on. It’s unfortunate that their citizens are paying the price for their governments crimes. But you can’t threaten to wipe out an entire civilization with no negotiation and not expect a desperate response like a full rumbling. This doesn’t absolve eren of responsibility of his actions, but the rumbling is an extremely unfortunate even that was 100% avoidable if diplomacy had been an option.

Eren, no! That’s all I can say at this point! Armin please, I’m begging you, stop your mans.

Eren, what the fuck?

Eren's self pity doesn't change the fact that he's killing millions of innocents and he's not going to stop despite it.

Eren’s guilt over his actions doesn’t mean a thing considering he’s still doing it. The fact that he saw the future and did nothing to stop it (and actively made it happen) makes him even worse. I don’t feel sorry for him in the slightest.

Even though Eren has the skeletal structure as an (I don't even know.. turkey/bird.. eh...) people are still going to simp the shit out of him on twitter, like jfc-

Eren wanted to destroy all life outside paradis not because he wanted outside world to be just a wonderland of blazing fire , grasslands etc. but because the people outside are making it impossible enough for him to realise his dream of total freedom

I would like to add that AruAni scene was, in my opinion, really important for both armin and Annie character development, since they're having a romance scene with the theoretically enemy (armin is from paradis and Annie is from Marley). I think this represent well that people from Marley and people from Eldia can live together, without violence. (I wish I could write more, but English is not my first language)

I'm glad we're finally getting things more thoroughly from Eren's perspective. Up until now, his motivations and thoughts have mostly been discussed by other characters, but we finally get to hear from him directly. This chapter mostly confirmed what I suspected, that Eren isn't heartless, but he was also a tragic character that was perfectly aware of the destruction he was about to bring upon so many people. Overall really good, can't wait for the next chapter, whatever it may be.

I'm happy that Isayama made clear what an egoist and violent nature  Eren always had, since he was a child: he's not an hero, not an avenger and surely not the "chad goat" some teen edgelords think.

I'm literally shaking so hard rn

The wall titans were always an obvious metaphor for "what if Japan had WMDs", but in this chapter this is made even more obvious when there is nothing left from migrant children but two dark kid-shaped splatters on the ground, which is a pretty clear visual reference to citizens of Hiroshima leaving nothing but scorched silhouettes behind when the atomic bombing happened.

Ironically, there was a popular twitter thread this week about the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and despite not being very familiar with the topic itself, I was somewhat amused to find the arguments in the comments to be very familiar. It's payback, it's to prevent future war, it was justified because of Japanese government's war crimes, Japanese citizens were indoctrinated and racist and would NEVER give up fighting foreigners so bombings were a mercy, it's collateral damage, etc etc.

The warriors deserve much better than being used as props.

There's 99% chance this series is getting a downer ending

They had it coming. The world was warned yet they still provoked him so much. I feel for Eren..

What is the most disappointing thing is how selfish and unreasonable mankind can be. So much hatred between so many people and nations, the world of Attack on Titan is a cursed one. So much blood spilled everywhere, and why? Is it because it's justice? Or is it because it's mother nature? Or is it because mankind is known for bloodshed and selfishness? So much hatred has blinded people, they no longer care to listen for the reason. Nothing matters to them, just their goals. All of this pointless conflict when people can simply try to speak up, try to understand each other, simply make bonds. If people could only live with a bit more empathy... All we can do is hope that so many deaths will have any meaning. Or perhaps Genocide/omnicide never had any meaning... Perhaps all of this was pointless strife.

This chapter confirmed Uri's predictions during his conversation with Kenny by the river. It remains to be seen now whether the alliance will be able to stop eren. I am sad for the world and for Ramzi and his brother. The pictures were horrible to watch (Isayama is very good at drawing emotions).

i'm...so very tired

I’m freakin cryin i need someone to hold me

Slowly, everything is coming back in its place. I am super dedicated at this point to the manga and I just hope Isayama is gonna be able to reach the perfect conclusion for such all these years of construction.

So Eren is a fish Titan...?

Still pro-rumble

Such a tragedy this whole story is. Really heartbreaking to witness. But so meticulously done and masterfully written.

Somebody said, maybe Eren and Zeke were actually fighting or going on memory journey schmuck in the Paths currently, that's why Eren is sleeping and automatically runs the titan on the outside.

If zeke didn’t pull this shit up in the first place none of this wouldn’t happen

Starting to reconsider the time-loop theory being wrong. Everything is literally coming full circle.

Isayama youre a genius but you love seeing us hurt and confused dont you 😭😭😭

It bothered me how surprised people were that Eren did the rumbling and it was sad.  He's been saying he was gonna do it for ages, and now he is.  What's with the surprised pikachu fandom?

Jesus Christ everyone needs therapy

Please end this story with happy ending!

[rosaetae]

no sweetness | preview

☇ “It’s funny because you remind me exactly of this drink I made last night. Yeah, yeah, it was the black tea with boba. Bitter, with tiny balls.” 

➣  pairing: reader x jungkook

➣  genre: fluff, comedy, bobarista!reader, lacrosseplayer!jungkook, e2l!au lmaosooo 

➣  word count: 2.1k

➣  a/n: just poppin’ in here as your reminder to support small businesses and also if anyone would like to make my design title header graphic thing for this story, that’d be greatly appreciated bc i’m lazy lmao 

➣  summary: jungkook has a thing for pretty girls who work with tiny balls, especially the new fiery bobarista at his favorite boba shop, whom he finds absolutely adorable, but finds out later that she’s just as sweet as she made his milk tea order— not sweet. 

Jeon Jungkook is absolutely whipped as cream.

Why, you may ask?

His favorite boba shop at the very edge of the outskirt of town hired a new bobarista, and her name—supposedly— being ___. Jungkook made it a mental note to ask for it when he goes into Pleasantea with his friends, but word goes around and it out of the many words there are in the world, it's her name that catches his ear.

It is no doubt that Jeon Jungkook comes off as a flirt to every living species he encounters, but seeing that the new bobarista wasn't as happily taking it in as most people would, he was shocked that someone didn't have much interest into him. Sure, call him egotistical, but he was captain of the lacrosse team and he was pretty damn good at almost— well, everything.

The first time he goes into Pleasantea after hearing the news of a new duckling in training was after another win that Friday night. He's there with his group of friends, raiding the popular boba place with cheers while greeting the familiar workers behind the bar.

On Friday nights, it's Luna, Dahlia, and Jihyo working the closing shift, making the drinks and providing impeccable service, especially to the rowdy group of college students that come in almost every Friday to hangout or just to celebrate. Luna's pretty good with taming them down, especially when other customers are there. Dahlia likes to yell at them— she likes to yell at people in general. And Jihyo nurtures them like babies.  

They've gotten close to Jungkook as Luna happened to be in his communications class first semester. He recognized her first, but Luna, being oblivious in all ranges of settings, faked a recognization of his name and face, and gave him a discount anyways. Because of this tiny occurrence, Jungkook came back, then with friends, and eventually with his whole lacrosse team to support the business.

"I'm guessing another win, Team Captain?" Jihyo rhetorically yelled over the cheering voices towards Jungkook who followed behind the group with a smirk. Her doe eyes peeks over the bar where her height was significant from the taller men on the other side, eyebrows raised and awaiting for the cocky response Jungkook can muster.

"What can I say?" Jungkook laughed sonorously, followed by a few encouraging and prideful pats on the shoulder from his teammates. "Wouldn't show up tonight with the boys if I didn't make that winning shot."

Rolling her eyes at the sound of the booming, testosterone-filled voices of his teammates and his vibrant ego, Jihyo scoffed away to work on other orders that Luna and Dahlia were speedily making before Jungkook's teammates and good friends come up to him, ready to order their drinks.

"What should I get?" Yoongi asked Jungkook, eyes scanning the menu of different drinks.

"Dunno. Get the usual," Jungkook advised, crossing his arms over his chest as he pondered what he should get too. "Your matcha milk tea with boba."

"Aight," Yoongi nods before he paused. The pause wasn't obvious enough for Jungkook to look his way, until Yoongi went ahead and nudged Jungkook, taking his complete attention away from the menu. "New worker."

"Hi, welcome!" That odd cheery voice didn't seem to come from the usual cashier he knew as Luna, nor Dahlia, throwing him off a bit. He does a double take behind the counter, finding a girl hurriedly filling a cup up with boba before she's running to the cashier, doe-like eyes widening in surprise at how many people she has to take orders of.

Her eyes catch Jungkook's, and it immediately clicked in his head that the word circling about the new Pleasantea worker were true. Pretty much all of them were aware, but it didn't seem to catch their attention as much as it caught his. Maybe it's the unfamiliarity of having someone foreign in a place he likes to call a second home. Maybe it's the odd satisfaction of meeting the so-called bobarista who's name somehow runs laps around his brain. Really, he was merely curious.

"What can I get you guys?" She asked with a warm smile. Jungkook's worked at a retail shop before, and he can tell good customer service apart from just a single sentence.

Jungkook peered over at the boys, watching Yoongi motioning at the others to go order, but seeing that they were also too busy eye-goggling the new girl behind the counter out of curiosity, Yoongi let out a sigh and ordered first. A smile bursted on the new girl's face when she's nodding to Yoongi's order. Her eyebrows furrowed as she works the register all before Yoongi whipped out his trusty credit card and does the procedural routine of inserting the card, tipping, signing, and saying "no thanks" to the receipt, dropping in a spare dollar or two into their "college funds" tip jar.

The boys filed in line after they've decided on what they wanted that night all while Jungkook started to overthink what he wanted to get.

Jungkook likes to change up his drink from time to time. After practices, he'd like something more refreshing to quickly chug down. After later practices, he'd get something more caffeinated to keep him awake for a night full of assignments. After games, it depends on the outcome of the prior— losing, he wouldn't order anything. Winning, however, he likes Pleasantea bobaristas to choose for him.

It's a good thing they won tonight.

When the line of his teammates dispersed and they all maneuvered into the back where their usual spot was,  Jungkook realized it was his turn already. He didn't notice that he let all the boys go in front of him  on purpose and he was the last of the group to order. However, he does take mental note of how New Girl keeps up a good face after each customer, something that Dahlia lacks because each customer removes a layer of her niceness as they come and go.

Jungkook slides closer to the register, his eyes never leaving hers as her own form into crescents— a silent, but welcoming greeting.

"Hi, what can I get for you?"

His lips forms a smile to hear her voice clear as day. "Do you think you can surprise me?"

The favor evidently takes her by surprise before she lets out a laugh, nodding. "Yeah, I can. Is there anything you're craving specifically?"

"Nope," he shakes his head. "You new?"

She smiles in return. "Yeah. Yesterday was my first day. Still getting a hang of it."

"You got a favorite drink..." Jungkook dragged out his sentence to look at her name badge, realizing that her name really was what he has been told. "___?"

The bobarista hums in thought before she lazily shrugs. "I haven't had many drinks, yet, but I really like the plain milk tea."

"I'll just get that then. Large, boba, light ice."

She nods as she puts it into the register as Jungkook patted his black jeans, searching his pockets for his wallet. In his head, he's pondering about the amount of tips to tip her.

"Sweetness level?"

Jungkook, without even processing he's said it, goes, "you." It takes him by surprise just as much as it took her, but he decides to roll with it. He even mentally pats himself, because damn, that was pretty smooth of him. He noticed that her fingers paused in tapping on the pad, just before meeting his expression consisting of a (douchebag) smirk and kind eyes. She raised her eyebrows before letting out a light chuckle, shaking her head.

"Cute," is all she said before placing the order and directing him to insert his card. As Jungkook mentally fist bumps himself, he decided to tip her the ten dollar bill laying in his wallet into the tip jar, before she glanced up at him with crescent eyes once more. "Your order will be ready at the other end of the counter."

As Jungkook thanked her, he lingered for a bit as she disappeared behind the bar where she met the three other girls shuffling around to finish the end of the night shift with dozens of customers waiting inside and outside. He shoved his wallet into the back of his pocket as he met up with the boys who took up the entire back of the shop where a long table basically welcomed them with open arms.  

"What you get this time, Captain?" Jaehyun made a single nod towards Jungkook.

"Just their milk tea," Jungkook responded.

Jungkook has had the plain milk tea before. It's what Pleasantea was known for. It's their signature drink. A roasted flavor with just the right amount of sweetness with just 75% sugar. However, responding with reference to her as a sweetness, it might be a bit sweeter with just 100%. But it doesn't matter. He managed to get a "cute" from the new bobarista at Pleasantea and he intends to share it with his lacrosse team.

"New worker called me cute."

Jaehyun let out a snort, while Yoongi excitedly leaned in to add onto the list of other cringe-worthy pickup lines Jungkook says to girls. "Did you make another boba pick-up line? Remember when you tried to flirt with Dahlia but ended up only getting roasted by her?"

"Yeah, well, ___ called me cute. She just asked how sweet I wanted my drink to be," he explained. "I answered back with, 'you'."

It's the shove and nudge coming from both directions and the bursted balloon that held crazy laughter coming from not only Jaehyung, but Yoongi and Jaemin who listened to the terrible conversation they were most grateful to not have witnessed first hand. Jungkook grinned widely, pushing off his teammates who were disgusted by such a revolting experience.

"God, you are terrible," Yoongi covered his face with his hands, hiding from sheer embarrassment as Jungkook chuckled broadly. "I hope she spits in your drink because that was god awful."

"She thought it was cute, actually," Jungkook tooted his own horn— something he loved doing. Cocky isn't a pleasant trait on him, but he somehow makes it work.

Jaemin shook his head in mild distaste. "Man, get the fuck out of here."

."Boys!"

The familiar sound of Jihyo calling out a broad name as an endearment to the only boys that she has a love and hate relationship with catches the lacrosse teams' ears, having them get up in excitement. Half of the table decides to go while the other half stays and saves the spot, wanting to spend about half an hour there to settle.

It takes them a minute or two to have all of them come back with max two drinks in hand and while half of the boys passed out the variety of drinks to the others who saved their spot, Jungkook scrolls through his phone as Jaemin places his drink in front of him, a straw on top. Like second nature, Jungkook grabs the straw and stabs the plastic wrap, his jaw preparing to chew the sweet goodness of tapioca pearls.

However, it's not that that he was anticipating prior that made him furrow his eyebrows at the taste. It was the odd flavor that came before the pearls that made him retract the drink from his mouth to look at the label of what type of drink he got.

At first, he furrowed his eyebrows because he thought he had received the wrong drink. But it's in the middle of wanting to ask Jaemin if the drink he got actually belong to him, that he realized where he fucked up. Jaemin was curious as well, arching an eyebrow and turning the cup to its side to see if Jaemin actually grabbed the wrong drink.

It's the hysterical laughter coming from Jaemin's mouth ringing in the air that made Jungkook's lips part, but in all honestly, Jungkook wasn't as surprised. He watches his teammate share the cup around, laughter suddenly becoming louder at what has been witnessed— a rise and downfall of their own team captain.

The mocking sniggering that dispersed into air echoed throughout the boba shop's walls and inevitably, the new bobarista girl must be hearing it crystal clear, probably a playful smile on her lips as she heard the laughter grow at her own doing.

Eventually, Jungkook snatched the drink back and chugs it down anyways, shaking his head. Each time he took a sip, he looks at the side of his cup and wrinkles his nose in disdain.

MLK TEA. LESS ICE. 0% SWEET.